rape
mikethemadbiologist | July 11, 2011There's a lot heat that has been shed over the last week based on what struck me as a brief comment by Rebecca Watson about getting hit on in an elevator at 4am, as part of a much longer vlog:
Um, just a word to wise here, guys, uh, don't do that. You know, I don't really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I'll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4:00 am, in a hotel elevator, with you, just you, and -- don't invite me back to your hotel room right after I finish talking about how it creeps me out and makes…
gregladen | July 7, 2011Behaviors are not caused by genes. There is not a gene that causes you to be good, or to be bad, or to be smart, or good at accounting, or to like bananas. There are, however, drives. "Drives" is a nicely vague term that we can all understand the meaning of. Thirst and hunger are drives we can all relate to. In fact, these drives are so basic, consistent and powerful that almost everyone has them, we share almost exact experiences in relation to them, and they can drive (as drives are wont to do) us to do extreme things when they are not met for long periods of time. While eating…
mikethemadbiologist | June 16, 2011By way of Atrios, we come across this hideous display of victim blaming:
Many of the tragedies mentioned about spring from what I see as a naïve faith in the power of the modern sexual revolution. Women today are technically free to do all sorts of things that were forbidden to their grandmothers, which is all well and good. But in practice, rape and the notion of sexual conquest persist for the same reason that warfare persists: because the human animal-- especially the male animal-- craves drama as much as food, shelter and clothing. Conquering an unwilling sex partner is about as much…
mikethemadbiologist | May 8, 2011We read about "the dumbest-ass things that any state could possibly do" according to one retired New Orleans judge to prevent prostitution:
In their neighborhoods, they are sometimes taunted with dirty looks and jeers. Their pictures hang on the walls of local community centers where their children and grandchildren play. And their names and addresses are listed in newspapers and mailed out on postcards to everyone in the neighborhood.
Landing a job or even finding a landlord willing to give them a place to stay is a challenge.
These women wear a scarlet letter -- rather, 11 letters --…
mikethemadbiologist | March 13, 2011Last week, I described how the Texas Republican party proposed legislation that would require a woman who wants to have an abortion to receive a vaginal exam (two actually). Well, the Texas Democrats at least fought back (which is more than the national Dems ever do):
Houston state representative Harold Dutton got the most coverage for repeatedly making the point that "pro-lifers" drop all pretense of caring about life the second it can't be used to punish sexually active women. In rapid order, he introduced three amendments that were tabled by the majority, who really didn't want to…
mikethemadbiologist | March 7, 2011Movement conservative Grover Norquist is famous (or infamous) for his slogan, "Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub." (There are different versions of this saying). In response, some on the left will quip, when discussing the theopolitical right, that the theopolitical right wants to shrink government to the size where it will fit in the bedroom--or a woman's vagina. Sadly, by way of Digby, we find that this does appear to be the guiding principle for the Texas Republican Party (italics mine):
Women seeking an abortion would have to first get an…
mikethemadbiologist | February 16, 2011For those who haven't heard, CBS news reporter Lara Logan suffered a "suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers." Just last week, conservative pundit Ann Coulter uttered the following while at the Conservative Political Action conference:
...conservative commentator Ann Coulter was asked what is more important to America's values: maintaining a strong relationship with Israel or "knowing there are jailed dissidents and journalists."
"What do you mean, 'knowing that there are jailed journalists?'"…
gregladen | January 26, 2011There are human universals. There, I said it. Now give me about a half hour to explain why this is both correct and a Falsehood. But first, some background and definition.
Most simply defined, a human universal is a trait, behavior or cultural feature that we find in all human societies. Men are always on average larger than women. All humans see the same exact range of colors because our eyes are the same. The range of emotions experienced by people is the same, and appears in facial expressions and other outward affect, in the same way across all humans.
The term "Human Universal"…
sastyk | January 25, 2011There's quite a bustle among my colleagues about the deficiencies of recent studies about whether X female thingie evolved as a strategy to prevent rape. My favorite such study is one that seems to think that the only critical thing that happens when women ovulate is that they might get raped. The (probably bullshit) increase in strength, for example, one study showed couldn't be part, say of making sex more fun, could it?
Mike the Mad Biologist as always makes a cogent analysis of the general limits on that study while Greg Laden critiques speculation about tears being used to limpify…
gregladen | January 21, 2011This came up a while ago and I assumed the idea would die the usual quick and painless death, but the idea seems to be either so fascinating or so irritating to people (mainly in various blog comment sections) that it still twitches and still has a heartbeat, but only as a result of the repeated flogging it is getting.
The research was reported in Science and quickly popularized in a post by Brian Alexander. Please read this review of the tear research and a critique of Alexander's post by Christie Wilcox. The idea that tears are a mechanism to avoid rape is mainly proffered in comments in…
mikethemadbiologist | January 20, 2011That's not very civil of me, but it is honest. Having said that, behavior is obviously based in biology, and it does stand to reason that some behaviors will have been influenced by natural selection. Admittedly, I'm biased against evolutionary psychology: I think, in general, the claims made are far too strong and the confounding variables inadequately controlled (in my really snarky moments, I think evol psych is a justification for middle-aged faculty to sleep with their younger graduate students). A recent Slate article which asks "Have women evolved to protect themselves from…
gregladen | January 1, 2011Almost Diamonds has two interesting posts on the Julian Assange sexual assault/rape accusation/charges. I want to make a comment on part of the second post, but this may not make a lot of sense to you until you read both of them. They are concise and compelling so you will not regret the time you spend on them:
Assange and the Presumption of Innocence
Assange and the Victim Conspiracy
The issue is that of jealousy or resentment. Some Assange defenders, for some reason, seem to feel the need to point out suspicious or negative aspects of the women, their actions, reactions, decisions, etc…
mikethemadbiologist | December 26, 2010Because that's how Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was able to kill a provision that would have helped the State Department prevent child rape. No, really:
Non-governmental organizations, women's rights advocates, and lawmakers from both parties spent years developing and lobbying for the "International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010," which the House failed to pass in a vote Thursday....
Even still, supporters in both parties fully expected the bill to garner the 290 votes needed -- right up until the bill failed. After all, it passed the Senate…
mikethemadbiologist | December 15, 2010No doubt they hate us for our freedoms (or something), but if I were an Afghan, this might just push me over the edge:
Prime among Atmar's concerns was a party partially thrown by DynCorp for Afghan police recruits in Kunduz Province.
...according to the leaked cable, that money was flowing to drug dealers and pimps. Pimps of children, to be more precise. (The exact type of drug was never specified.)
Since this is Afghanistan, you probably already knew this wasn't a kegger. Instead, this DynCorp soiree was a bacha bazi ("boy-play") party, much like the ones uncovered earlier this year by…
gregladen | December 6, 2010Is this thing on? Hello? Hello? ....
Ah, thats better. Comcast, which every day seems to do something to piss me off, had a major sub-regional outage for the last several hours, it would seem. So, we've been floating free of the Internet and a few things have accumulated.
First, this: Remember the rape charges brought against WikiLeak's Julian Assange? It would seem that with the latest Wikileaks leaks, the nature of and the stakes related to these accusations are taking on a new form, and we are starting to see conspiracy theories with a misogynist slant emerging to excuse Mr. Assange…
mikethemadbiologist | October 21, 2010So my first thought upon reading that a fraternity pledge ritual involved chanting in a public place "No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal" was "Frat boys are still assholes. Nice to see that some things remain constant." Then I read that this happened at Yale, and my next thought was, "I wonder which of these assholes, when he graduates, will be hired by J.P. Morgan." ("You're one of the anal rape guys? Congratulations, you're hired!")
Then, upon further reflection (such as it is for the Mad Biologist), I stumbled across the following question:
Why haven't they been suspended, or, preferably,…
mikethemadbiologist | October 19, 2010Terrance at the Republic of T describes what should be obvious about conservative opposition to Social Security, but is not thanks to gormless Democrats and an incompetent political journalist caste (italics original; boldface mine):
Maybe that's why they fought so hard to protect bonuses and compensation for Wall Street banksters. They will likely fight as hard to reduce your paycheck and mine as they did to protect Wall Steet's excesses.
It's not hard to figure out why.
It's not just that conservatives are opposed to minimum wage. It's like with Social Security. It's not that conservatives…
gregladen | October 6, 2010Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
John Barrasso (R-WY)
Kit Bond (R-MO)
Sam Brownback (R-KS)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Richard Burr (R-NC)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Bob Corker (R-TN)
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Jim DeMint (R-SC)
John Ensign (R-NV)
Mike Enzi (R-WY)
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Mike Johanns (R-NE)
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
John McCain (R-AZ)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
James Risch (R-ID)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Richard Shelby (R-AL)
John Thune (R-SD)
David Vitter (R-LA)
Roger Wicker (R-MS)