YoungVoteTheYoungVoteTheYoungVoteTheYou

DO NOT blame sexist abuse on Feminism

Oh fuck no! As feministing.com reports, National Review Online editor is now claiming that feminism is the reason why pop superstar Rihanna got beaten up by her boyfriend Chris Brown. She writes:
 
According to an article in the Boston Globe, an informal poll taken among 200 teenagers has revealed that almost half of them blame the pop star Rihanna for her recent beating, allegedly by her boyfriend, Chris Brown.

It's just one survey. But it's very bad news. And feminists are to blame.

...What has happened -- and what Rihanna and Chris have to do with Gloria [Steinem] and us -- is that by inventing oppression where there is none and remaking woman in man's image, as the sexual and feminist revolutions have done, we've confused everyone. The reaction those kids had was unnatural. It's natural for us to expect men to protect women, and for women to expect some level of physical protection. But in post-modern America, those natural gender roles have been beaten by academics and political rhetoric and the occasional modern woman being offended by having a door opened for her. The result is confusion.

Let us deconstruct this idiocy. First of all, abuse and rape was not lacking "in olden timey days." Nor was abuse and rape of women discovered after the feminist movement. Gender abuse was weaved into the society of the pre-feminist West, though let us not pretend that it still isn't. Chivalric codes, which held that noble men ought to protect the docile maiden, did inhibit those men from abusing and raping women. If Lopez is interested in hearkening to the "good old days" when noble men protested women then I can direct her to Froissart's Chronicle of the Hundred Years' War, which depicts those chivalrous men raping chaste nuns and using their talents with the sword to slice up peasant women's bodies.
Second, Lopez is interested in having men reclaime their masculinity; biologically destined I'm sure, in order to protect women. However, who should women be protected from? Oh yeah, anxiously masculine men. Lapse in logic much?
Third, feminism, at least in my definition, does not insist that people, such as people with vaginas and those with penises, are not intrinsically or socially different from one another. Nor does it insist that all people should be exactly alike.  Feminism insists that gender differences should not be used to privilege one person at the disadvantage of another. Teaching men to be masculine and thus to arm themselves and develop their aggression while teaching women to be feminine and thus to be docile and not learn to protect themselves leaves women at a disadvantage when men decide to extend their privilege over women by kicking the shit out of them.
Now, I'd like to see Chris Brown try to touch Serena Williams and survive with his peen still attached.

CUNY reaches its monetary goals...and they're still gonna raise tuition on poor students

NY Times reports that CUNY has reached it's goal of raising $1.2 Billion in fund-raising from graduates. It did so 3 years earlier than scheduled. Regardless, they will still be raising tuition next year for CUNY students who are predominantly one, a mix, or all of these things: working-class, person of color, generally broke as hell.
I wonder what Chancellor Goldstein will do with all that money. Well, historically he has: raised his own pay and the pay of his adminsitration and given large chunks of money to the Macaulay Honors College, a college composed of a select group of CUNY students that gets pretty much everything they want.
Oh, the elite - hoarding our money as usual.

Play: A Day in the Life of Bob Kerrey

The New School in Exile, a group created by students at the New School in response to injustices by their administration, has vowed that they will be shutting down their school on April 1st unless their President, Bob Kerrey resigns. Well, they've created a play in two parts about the politics surrounding the issue. What an entertaining way to educate!

Police Brutality: Not over and still overtly racist and homophobic.

Via NowPublic:

In Feburary of this year police offers at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Memphis,TN were caught on camera beating a transgender woman by the name of Duanna Johnson. Johnson was hancuffed at the time and was severely beaten and called names while being detained by police. Duanna Johnson spoke to news stations inMemphis several times stating that the beating was a hate crime and that she had plans to sue the Memphis Police Department. It has been reported that just recently Ms. Johnson had gone forth with her plans to sue the city, but before her case could be heard she met her fate. Duanna Johnson was found dead November 9, 2008 a few blocks from her home. She was shot in the head execution style. Rumors of police affiliation with Ms. Johnson's murder are ripping through Memphis. Some believe that Ms. Johnson was sought out and killed due to her reporting of the beating and the fact that those reports cost two Memphis police officers their jobs. Ms. Johnson's lawyer, Murray Wells says that those accusations are just heresay, but the federal lawsuit against the Memphis Police Department will move forward.

This is so incredibly sickening. It is a culminated representation of the last eight years of the failure of the Bush administration to ensure GLBTQ and just anyone who doesn't conform to a gender to...well...live. I do hope their some sort of protest outside this hellhole of a jailhouse.

Protest Paterson's draconian budget and FOR THE FAIR SHARE TAX REFORM ACT

Come out today 4-6pm in front of the West Building at Hunter College, 695 Park Ave, to protest that David Paterson's ridunkulous idea of a budget that will award banking corporations and steal money from workers and students. But when they say cut back WE SAY FIGHT BACK.
link to the facebook invite here.

Student Occupy Universidad de Barcelona as police forcibly remove them

The ITS reports that yesterday, March 18th, students at the Universidad de Barcelona were violently evicted from a university building which they had occupied for 118 days.
Mo got this description of the event (Check the link for the video after the quote):

This morning the Mossos D'Esquadra (catalonian police) have entered the historical building in the University of Barcelona, the rectorate, to evict it violently. they have charged brutally against people that were peacefully concentrating in front of the building.
This morning, between 5:30 and 5:45 12 police vans have arrived, they have evicted the occupied rectorate by force and making use of violence.
Outside the building people have made a peaceful concentration, students, professors, workers in the university, media and citizens.
Police have charged brutally against all these people, turning the centre of Barcelona into a police state. It seems that there have been 17 people arrested and more than 100 people injured.
The assembly of the occupied rectorate has always had the will of dialogue and debate. The rectorate and political institutions have proved that this will is answered with repression and the most brutal physical violence. We are astonished, indignant and hurt. They hace entered by force in a space that was a place for resistance and critical thinking. the rector and politicians are the repressors that have applied to franquist politics.
Ramirez, Moreso, Palmada, Huguet, Saura: they are all to blame.
The rectors have decided to start repression.

There's a video link and, although I have no idea what anyone is saying, the video makes it clear just how brutal the police force was. I mean, SHIT, you're talking multiple officers swinging multiple clubs at individual protesters.

Vote for your favorite Teach For American project

Ralph Lauren (of all the companies in the world) is having some sort of a contest whereby a project chosen by vote from among other, somewhat comparable projects wins $25,000. By reading the summaries of each project I can tell that each is pretty revolutionary in their own right and that each have the expressed or implied goal of reclaiming power for young people from society.  I am partial to Transform America, which is being officially backed by Take Back NYU. their summary reads accordingly:

Through Transform America, Chester Asher (New York City Corps ’03) aims to empower youth to make significant change in their communities by getting them more engaged in advocacy and policy. Transform America’s approach is to create Youth Councils throughout New York City, made up of a group of middle and high school students who meet to identify issues of importance and directly affect change in their communities. Youth Councils are run out of city council members’ offices, enabling participants to witness the way political change is made. Youth Councils conduct research about issues that affect their communities and draft policy recommendations. These recommendations are made to the city council as well as to school administrations, providing a direct youth voice and allowing youth to have influence in decisions that affect their lives and communities.

Regardless of what I think, just click the link, choose what you will, and take the vote.

“Weekend Edition Saturday, NPR, According to a new Vatican study, Roman Catholic men and women sin differently. The study was based on confessions taken by Roberto Busa, a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar. The results were supported by the Catholic Church.” 

Father Jim Martin shares his thoughts about the study, explaining that for men, top sins were lust, gluttony and sloth. Women were most guilty of pride, envy and anger. He wraps it all up by saying, “This study actually makes sense, as much as we don’t want to generalize about the sexes, but, you know, I don’t want to argue with a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar.”

Why is this the least surprising thing I’ve heard all month? Because, like, DUH! WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS AND MEN ARE FROM MARS! Women, at their worst are gossipy, jealous little loose cannons! Men are inherently unfaithful and (especially around super bowl season) are prone to eating a ton of BBQ wings (gluttony) and then falling asleep before mowing the lawn (sloth!). Women are (naturally) jealous that their husbands are cheating on them, so they gossip about it all day on the phone.

But seriously. The Catholic church is obsessed with the gender dichotomy and insisting men and women are naturally different.

I could go on forever about this, but I wont. REAL studies have indicated again and again that very few “differences” exist between men and women. Instead, gender roles are created differently in different cultures according to different rules and ideas and scripts, etc etc etc. Women are not born jealous. Men are not born cheaters. The next time you see a 4 week old infant wearing a blue jumpsuit with a dump truck embroidered on the chest, ask yourself, is that 4 week old particularly fond of dump trucks? It shouldn’t be too shocking to know that parents dress their babies far before the babies can express an interest in dump trucks, or other stereotypically gendered items. Parents, caregivers, teachers, media, friends, and countless other sources reinforce and punish behavior and help keep gender roles in check—sometimes it is subtle, sometimes its not.

Studies on childhood development indicate that children go through several stages of categorizing things around them to make sense of the world. Gender schemas serve to make sense of "correct" and "incorrect" behavior for males and females. Little boys shouldn’t wear dresses, little girls shouldn’t have short hair and play with action figures. These schemas can be reinforced/taught by parents (“how silly! Boys don’t wear nail polish!”). Gender schemas can also be corrected by parents/caregivers (“of course girls can play with trucks!”). Studies on gender schemas and child development are endless

Sexual Education: "Our results are better"

Cross-posted on Amplify:

Wednesday morning in the Rayburn Congressional Office Building on Capitol Hill, hundreds of abstinence-only supporters gathered to prepare for their annual lobby day. With their programs exposed as failures by independent studies, a budget crisis, and new leadership in Washington, they know that their funding is in serious jeopardy.

So, what do you do when faced with this kind of dilemma?

Rebrand!

Sitting amongst their crowd Wednesday, the talking point repeatedly drilled into the young lobbyists’ heads was that their programs aren’t just about not having sex. Oh, no… they are actually “holistic approaches” to promote “healthy lifestyle choices”.

Really? Has the social conservative fringe gone New Age on us?

No. No they haven’t. But in the face of the devastating evidence that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs have been a failure with a $1.5 billion price tag, desperation is called for. The order of the day was to rebrand themselves, while fudging as many facts as they can.

After the morning round of Congressional meetings, The Heritage Foundation hosted a lunch with speakers, including some House members and staff. Longtime abstinence-only defender Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation spoke, giving the standard false talking points of the movement.



His most blatant falsehood is that “0%” of comprehensive sex education programs talk about abstinence. This stems from “research” done by the Administration of Children and Families under the Bush Administration in 2007. However, “research” and “science” are not exactly the strong suit of Rector or Bush, as Rector was off by roughly 100% on this one.

This study was thoroughly debunked by ETR Associates in 2007, as they found that ACF merely studied curricula by doing word counts of “abstinence” and “condom”. If they had looked a little deeper and actually “read the content” of the comprehensive sex education programs, they would have found that they are full of advise and strategies on how to delay sexual activity and choose not to have sex, stressing that this is the safest behavior. The limited use of the word “abstinence” stems from studies that have shown this word to turn off students and instead used language that produced better results. Yes, some programs actually care about “results” more than reinforcing their own social conservative ideology. And our results are better.

But why let the facts get in the way of a good smear, right?

Another falsehood he pushed was that “0%” of unintended pregnancies could have been prevented if they had access to or knowledge about contraceptives. Literally… zero. Why? Because they all wanted to have babies. One might say that he pulled this stat out of his “Rector”, so to speak.

Rector also railed against the liberal media “hiding” the facts from the public, as they will only share studies done by those non-partisan, egghead professional scientists pointing out that abstinence-only programs simply don’t work. Why? Because the media is “controlled by the promiscuity lobby”. This was a common theme among the speakers, that the liberal media and MTV are “telling you to have sex” and “think that pre-marital sex is OK… but it’s not!” The very fact that television would allow a Trojan condom ad to air that showed men who don’t wear condoms as pigs, was bemoaned - “is this what has come of our country? Is this America?” Yes, adults can actually engage in safe consensual sex… the horror.

Rector and his colleagues dismissing independent studies showing the failure of abstinence-only education is nothing new. When the damning Mathematica report was released in 2007, Rector let their true colors come out on an Abstinence Clearinghouse conference call to discuss damage control. He laid out a strategy to spin this report to the media, saying “The other spin I think is very important is not [program] effectiveness, but rather the values that are being taught”, further stating that whether or not these programs work is a “bogus issue”.

This lies at both the core of the abstinence-only movement, and their strategy as they move ahead. “Independent studies” by “non-partisan scientists” are to be ignored at all cost. Instead, they focus on the inherent “morality” of their cause, and the “deviant nature” of those who would dare give young people a comprehensive, realistic, science-based approach to sex ed. According to Rector:

“abstinence sex ed is in harmony with the human heart. Comprehensive sex ed is not in harmony with the human heart” And those comprehensive sex ed programs?
“It’s like Hugh Heffner and a school nurse got together and made a plan for your life” Former Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK) elaborated, dismissing the “scientists on the Hill” and saying that “folks at places like Planned Parenthood demean you for having values!” He revealed the main force behind these programs by saying that instead of asking God to bless America, “America should bless God”. Because God hates condoms, I presume.

Several spoke about the deeply traumatic experience of being taught in high school health class how to put a banana on a condom (horrors!), and comprehensive sex education was derided sarcastically for teaching that “sexuality is a natural part of life”.

However much faith that these folks have in their superior “values”, they at least were bright enough to know that stressing the “results” of their programs was now a total loser. That’s why everyone made sure to shift their talking points away from it, repeatedly saying that their programs are not just about telling young people not to have sex. No, instead they were now “holistic”. They were really about telling kids not to smoke, drink, do drugs or fight. So what if their programs don’t decrease teen births or STI rates, at least they’re telling kids not to do heroin, right? What, you want to take away our funding and turn the kids into junkies?

The “holistic” spin is of course laughable, but that didn’t stop them from trying to frame ab-only as the truly “comprehensive” sex ed. Kisa Smith of the Heritage Foundation claimed that comprehensive sex ed “treat kids like animals” and assumes that “they can’t think for themselves”. Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-PA) claimed that the ab-only movement is “fighting for young people’s rights.”

This is, of course, Orwellian rhetoric. It is the abstinence-only movement that insults the intelligence of young people, claiming that they can’t have all of the information they need about safe sex, because they’ll all go have wild crazy sex if they have it. It is the abstinence-only movement that is continually trying to deny young people the right to all of the information they need to protect themselves. In reality, kids are smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time, and if you respect them enough to give all the information they need, they’ll be much better off.

Following their next round of Congressional visits, they held a concert of sorts in front of the Russell Senate Building, full of raps and Christian rock songs about abstinence (including one speaker claiming that if a girl is not a virgin, she doesn’t deserve to have a nice engagement ring). As I was enjoying the concert, National Abstinence Education Association president Valerie Huber saw me and made a bee line to me. She recognized my face and wanted to tell me that my blogs are not “fair”.

I wasn’t going to mention it, but since she’s throwing darts about “fairness”, I feel obliged to mention that this is the same Valerie Huber who was suspended from her position as a supervisor of Ohio’s Department of Health abstinence-only program after being found guilty of ethics violations. She attempted to secure a state contract for a company that she was involved in, and was caught red-handed. So I won’t take any lectures from her about “fairness”, as I consider exposing the failures of the abstinence-only movement as totally “fair” to the taxpayers that have been subsidizing programs like hers’ over the past decade.

Wednesday, the progressive blogosphere and youth sexual health advocates stepped up to the plate and answered our call to flood Congress with thousands of letters, countering the abstinence-only lobbyists. It couldn’t hurt to end their work week with some more, so if you haven’t yet, please send your Congressperson this letter asking them to, at long last, defund these ineffective and harmful abstinence-only programs. We have them scared and on the ropes, so let’s not miss out on this great opportunity.

We Love You Eric Schneiderman

Cross-posted from CUNY DisOrientation Guide, March 3rd 2009:

On Tuesday, Eric Schneiderman introduced legislation in the New York State Senate which would raise more than $6 billion in new revenue by slightly increasing taxes on the wealthiest 5% of New Yorkers (those that make over $250,000).

"Over the last 30 years, New York has reduced income tax rates on the wealthiest New Yorkers by more than 50%, and has replaced this lost revenue by implementing more regressive taxes and fees that disproportionately impact low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. Currently, the richest 1% of New Yorkers pay 6.5% of their total income in state and local taxes, while the poorest 20% of New Yorkers pay 12.6% of their income."

The bill would increase and create new income tax brackets:
8.25% on incomes over $250,000.
8.97% on incomes over $500,000.
10.35 on incomes over $1 million.

Such a proposal would not only cut the state budget gap in half but take one small step towards reducing the extremely regressive income tax system that is rampant throughout the United States.

Additionally, such a tax program would mean that the proposed cuts to CUNY could be dramatically reduced.

Click here to watch a video of Eric discussing his legislation.