Hurricane Bill Sunday Linkfest!

[jhameia]

I'm awake! I got out of bed officially at noon. Still not quite awake.

So onto the linkfest!

At Hoyden about Town, attention was brought to the question of "where are all the women political bloggers?" This was followed by an interesting discussion on just what "politics" mean, how many women are actually talking about it, and how much men don't understand that MSM does not cover the same politics women bloggers are invested in. Fuck Politeness responds, too. I give FP many servings of kudos for it. Here's another hilarious thread in the same vein.

This was followed by an observation on unexamined privilege and unconscious behaviours. People with privilege are not evil merely for having said privilege.

kiwi_grrl has a link to something else White People Do, which is miss their America. She responds.

h/t to pecunium on an awful article about America's awful healthcare. This on the heels of conservatives dissing Britain's NHS.

Also found an article on a pro-gay Muslim delegate. Saqib Ali sits in the Maryland House of Delegates and represents Montgomery County.

At Racialicious, a discussion: a public library has put away some TinTin comics into the back room because of racist depictions of Africans. The question: How Do We Deal With Racist Materials?

Cycads is back! Among the very interesting articles is one on the British police force wearing burqas to "learn what it's like to be Muslim"...pretty fucked up shit!

In local news, about sex work in Halifax. I'm so glad this made it into mainstream discussion, and that the few comments have been pretty respectful so far with the exception of a couple of futzes. The lovely Stepping Stone, Rene Ross and Jeff Liberatore are featured, as well as the voices of several Haligonian sex workers.

h/t to abyss2hope, a news article of a Philadelphian community rising up to chase down a suspect in a sexual assault, led by the victim herself. In a world where victims are so often disbelieved, I could almost start to believe the world is changing. Also, a fascinating paper draft on how culture affects one's cognition of consent. The abstract:

This paper uses the theory of cultural cognition to examine the debate over rape-law reform. Cultural cognition refers to the tendency of individuals to conform their perceptions of legally consequential facts to their defining group commitments. Results of an original experimental study (N = 1,500) confirmed the impact of cultural cognition on perceptions of fact in a controversial acquaintance-rape case. The major finding was that a hierarchical worldview, as opposed to an egalitarian one, inclined individuals to perceive that the defendant reasonably understood the complainant as consenting to sex despite her repeated verbal objections. The effect of hierarchy in inclining subjects to favor acquittal was greatest among women; this finding was consistent with the hypothesis that hierarchical women have a distinctive interest in stigmatizing rape complainants whose behavior deviates from hierarchical gender norms. The study also found that cultural predispositions have a much larger impact on outcome judgments than do legal definitions, variations in which had either no or a small impact on the likelihood subjects would support or oppose conviction. The paper links date-rape reform to a class of controversies in law that reflect symbolic status competition between opposing cultural groups, and addresses the normative implications of this conclusion.

FInally, an amusing steampunk comic on Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage teaming up to fight crime! Utterly and totally made of win!

Comments

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

At Racialicious, a discussion: a public library has put away some TinTin comics into the back room because of racist depictions of Africans. The question: How Do We Deal With Racist Materials?

Not this way, unless libraries want to have restricted sections larger than the actual branch if they carry enough fiction. The Tintin comic in question - there's only the one mentioned - is bad enough that even the creator was embarrassed about it afterwards, but I don't think "it's not for the public" is ever something a public library has the right to say with regards to anything other than archival material with accession conditions.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

I confess to have just finished reading the Lad Tintin in the Congo.

We talked about when it was made, what the world was like, how Herge feels about the comic now. I pointed out a couple of things to start with, the Lad became spontaneously incensed that Tintin gave Coco orders without saying "please". Further through the book we discussed the problematic nature of the game hunting, and the horrors of slavery and institutionalised racism and the colonialist Great White Saviour narrative. We still managed to have a little bit of fun repeatedly saying "Things do not look GOOD for our friend Tin-Tin!" when mortal danger impended every page or two.

[nova-one.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad this made it into mainstream discussion, and that the few comments have been pretty respectful so far with the exception of a couple of futzes.

"Pay taxes like everyone else. Be able to tell your daughter or son. "I am so proud that you are choosing to sell your body for sex! Wait until I tell the family about your accomplishments"! No don't kill sex worker’s, no don't be violent...but not legalization...if so PAY TAXES like any other WORKING Canadian!"

Ha-ha. I dunno, faced with the choice of paying taxes versus being held at knifepoint in some boondock suburb... actually, there isn't really a choice, and that's the problem.

There'll always be some idiot naysayers, but at least this discussion is getting out there. I've read about sex work in other cities, but nothing about Halifax until now.

Just to play Devil's Advocate, I don't know if I could call The Coast fully mainstream (mainstream-liberal, yes, but mainstream-mainstream?), but it's certainly a step in the right direction.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

Well, it's still some form of mainstream, and it's pretty freely available and somewhat widely read. I'm just glad that the disucssion is out there in public.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall the Herald actually spending a couple of weeks on sex workers in Nova Scotia with a recurring feature, but I don't remember fully; I might have still been in Ontario at the time. That was a pleasant surprise, given how "safe" a lot of the Herald's content tends to be.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

I read about that in the book I was reading. MSM generally does a bad job about putting the focus on sex workers themselves though, from what I understand.