No kidding. I can't wait for CBC to be sued for hate speech, just so that they stop encouraging Canadian bigotry. The NY Times doesn't have comments - there's no reason why any news agency should.
@ThaddeusKolibri: The Times does actually have comments for certain pieces (not all). But I agree with you that the level of discourse in most online news comment threads is less than generous, to put it mildly.
Here's an interview that helps illustrate her character and her perspective. She was 35. What a tragedy.
M: The narrator refers to women either as whores/"Smurfettes" or larvae (like her mother). Is this misogyny just a reflection of her self-hatred?
NA: Everything in the book is treated with the same disgust. Nothing escapes her hatred: desire, sexuality, women, men. She can’t see anything beautiful in life. She cannot accept how men and women relate to each other sexually, that her mother was living a kind of death because her husband stopped wanting her and so she became just like a larva, doing nothing. If I had held up femininity against the supposed power and virility of masculinity, then it would have been misogynist, but everything is destroyed. As for the term "Smurfette," in the cartoon, she’s the only female in the village. She’s pretty and blonde, wears high heels and a little white dress. Every other Smurf has personality traits, but Smurfette is characterized only by the fact that she is feminine, her life goal is to be feminine. And that’s what you see held up as ideal in women’s magazines, to live only for your femininity.
Sadness. I want to go read the full story on CBC, but am terrified as to what sort of fuckery is going on in the comments section. CBC online commenters are only slightly above Youtube on the internet food chain
It also says that they might not have wanted help.
The UK debate seems to be polarised by Laura Agustin ("it's all women with free agency, coming here to work by choice") and the Poppy Project ("they're all trafficked and abused"). Sex workers, and especially immigrant sex workers, just aren't a homogeneous population.
@sanibelly: That's not what I said. They're not ALL trafficked. Some of the women "liberated" by Operation Pentameter weren't trafficked. Some of them were.
I was presenting two sides of the UK debate. Here's a review of Agustin's book: [www.newstatesman.com]
There have been problems in the UK with campaigners claiming that most of the women in the UK sex trade are trafficked, when what they mean is that 75% of the women working in London are from overseas. Which doesn't necessarily mean trafficked. And it's just London, not the UK (countrywide, working girls are more likely to be British).
But the statistics are always problematic with sex work. And yes, women do get kidnapped and forced into sex work: [www.metro.co.uk]
Some of the women kidnapped and forced into sex work are even British.
@bowleserised: Thank you for the clarification. I know that's not what you said, which is why I asked that question. And thank you for admitting, however begrudgingly, that there are women who are forced into sex work. I know we like to think it's all those poor women who innocently chose sex work, but can we please put some urgency into locating and helping (and stopping, in the first place) women who are forced into this against their will? I can't think of anything more disgusting or horrifying and my heart goes out to those women who we shrug our shoulders at.
@sanibelly: I didn't admit it "begrudgingly" at all. That "slaughterhouse" case is horrific.
I've been working on and off for research on the subject for months now, using a variety of sources and talking to a lot of people involved. I just finished reading an account of one British woman's experience of being trafficked into Amsterdam...
BUT the police are also using things like Pentameter against women who have made the choice to do sex work: [www.prostitutescollective.net]
I wonder how the Repubs pundits will reply to this. Probably the opposite of how they responded to Wanda Sykes wish that Limbaugh's kidneys would fail.
"It's DIFFERENT because he is a socialist. And not American. And he's killing my grandma and unborn baby."
You should really note that those death threats toward Fathima Rifqa Bary on the part of her father (and parents, really) are, in fact, alleged. There has been no resolution or judicial decision made about this case, and it is very complicated - there have also been allegations that the "pastor" she met online is part of an Evangelical group that pressured Bary into making those accusations about her parents. Which could be entirely untrue, and it could be entirely true that her parents did threaten her - but neither has been proven in any way, and so it's irresponsible to state otherwise.
a) A hipster performance artist from Portland
b) Emasculated by the threatened removal of his white privilege mohair sweater
c) That weird teenager from your neighborhood clutching a spiral-bound notebook sitting on a see-saw by himself
d) Ann Coulter in drag
I would say the same for your Pastor Anderson but I was raised a Christian and we were taught not to hate like that or to wish death on anyone like that. Whatever you are practicing is not Christianity.
A new law passed in the UK will allow lesbians to register the names of both partners on their children's birth certificates. Previously, only one woman was allowed to register as the mother.
Hooray for this!! I have a friend from Wisconsin who married her British girlfriend in Wales last September. They couldn't get married in the States A): because of the douche-y, homophobic laws and B): because my friend's gf did not have American citizenship. Finally some good news. Now let's see some changes in laws here, plz.
@lilbobbytables is a la-di-da feminist: I just don't understand people like that. I mean, I really don't understand. I try and make sense of them, and the chain just comes off my brain. I was watching Louis Theroux's documentary on the Westboro Baptist Church this morning on YouTube, spewing the same kind of irrational hate and scattershot feculence, and I couldn't even begin to formulate an argument against them.
There's just no conversation to be had with these sort of people. None. I don't wish them harm, but damn, I wish they'd just disappear into the ether.
@lilbobbytables is a la-di-da feminist: He must think that because of his righteousness, he himself will be spared an end-of-life illness in his late seventies. As they so often are.
@lilbobbytables is a la-di-da feminist: True story: When my first husband left me for our pastor's daughter, I pretty much stopped going to that church. But after a few months, I decided to test the waters and go back. As I was leaving after the service, though, a group of women in the vestibule grabbed me, pulled me to them, and told me they were praying that my ex-husband would die so I could remarry.
I ran out and never returned, and that is one of the reasons I am now an agnostic.
@Harlot Brontë: I don't understand it either-- even more confusing is the congregation that gathers to hear him preach and allows their hard-earned dollars to pay his salary.
09/25/09
09/25/09
09/25/09
M: The narrator refers to women either as whores/"Smurfettes" or larvae (like her mother). Is this misogyny just a reflection of her self-hatred?
NA: Everything in the book is treated with the same disgust. Nothing escapes her hatred: desire, sexuality, women, men. She can’t see anything beautiful in life. She cannot accept how men and women relate to each other sexually, that her mother was living a kind of death because her husband stopped wanting her and so she became just like a larva, doing nothing. If I had held up femininity against the supposed power and virility of masculinity, then it would have been misogynist, but everything is destroyed. As for the term "Smurfette," in the cartoon, she’s the only female in the village. She’s pretty and blonde, wears high heels and a little white dress. Every other Smurf has personality traits, but Smurfette is characterized only by the fact that she is feminine, her life goal is to be feminine. And that’s what you see held up as ideal in women’s magazines, to live only for your femininity.
[www.montrealmirror.com]
09/25/09
09/25/09
09/25/09
09/16/09
The UK debate seems to be polarised by Laura Agustin ("it's all women with free agency, coming here to work by choice") and the Poppy Project ("they're all trafficked and abused"). Sex workers, and especially immigrant sex workers, just aren't a homogeneous population.
09/16/09
09/16/09
I was presenting two sides of the UK debate. Here's a review of Agustin's book: [www.newstatesman.com]
And here's the Poppy Project:
[www.eaves4women.co.uk]
There have been problems in the UK with campaigners claiming that most of the women in the UK sex trade are trafficked, when what they mean is that 75% of the women working in London are from overseas. Which doesn't necessarily mean trafficked. And it's just London, not the UK (countrywide, working girls are more likely to be British).
But the statistics are always problematic with sex work. And yes, women do get kidnapped and forced into sex work:
[www.metro.co.uk]
Some of the women kidnapped and forced into sex work are even British.
09/16/09
09/16/09
I've been working on and off for research on the subject for months now, using a variety of sources and talking to a lot of people involved. I just finished reading an account of one British woman's experience of being trafficked into Amsterdam...
BUT the police are also using things like Pentameter against women who have made the choice to do sex work: [www.prostitutescollective.net]
09/01/09
"It's DIFFERENT because he is a socialist. And not American. And he's killing my grandma and unborn baby."
08/31/09
08/31/09
what, you mean having an amazing political career as a champion of some great causes and having the high esteem of your peers, as well as the nation?
Steve Anderson himself would be so lucky as to die like Ted Kennedy.
08/31/09
Seriously. Dude loves his wiki.
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
Christianity? You're doing it wrong.
But I love you anyway. 'Cause that's doing it RIGHT.
Love,
Jesus
08/31/09
a) A hipster performance artist from Portland
b) Emasculated by the threatened removal of his white privilege mohair sweater
c) That weird teenager from your neighborhood clutching a spiral-bound notebook sitting on a see-saw by himself
d) Ann Coulter in drag
(Choose the most correct answer)
08/31/09
08/31/09
Hooray for this!! I have a friend from Wisconsin who married her British girlfriend in Wales last September. They couldn't get married in the States A): because of the douche-y, homophobic laws and B): because my friend's gf did not have American citizenship. Finally some good news. Now let's see some changes in laws here, plz.
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
There's just no conversation to be had with these sort of people. None. I don't wish them harm, but damn, I wish they'd just disappear into the ether.
08/31/09
08/31/09
I ran out and never returned, and that is one of the reasons I am now an agnostic.
08/31/09