Does anyone have any good links to accounts of the lived experience of gender dysphoria? That's the part about being trans that I have the most trouble understanding and empathising with - as a cis person, I've never felt "right" or that my genitalia and body fits my self-conception, I've just sort of bumbled along and dealt with things like the development of secondary sexual characteristics as they arose. I'd say that my physical body is pretty orthogonal to my... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 9:46 AM on February 27, 2013

I am just not sure what kind of "harassment" we're envisioning here.

1. I was harassed by girls in the girls' bathroom when I was a bullied child.

2. If a boy is going into the bathroom claiming that he identifies as a girl specifically in order to push his way into a stall with a girl, grab her, name call her, etc etc...those are things that should be stopped because of behavior, not gender. They are things that should be stopped if a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 10:48 AM on February 27, 2013

a) "The whole idea of 'gender' is a social construct and completely meaningless/damaging, especially to gay men and all women"

b) "My child is VERY firm in being a male/female and must be treated by these same norms as he/she wishes regardless of the wishes of the cisgendered majority"

This is actually an interesting question!

I feel like it's sort of a trick question, though,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 1:02 PM on February 27, 2013

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for allowing people who have gender-reassignment surgery switch the bathroom they use. These people have made significant sacrifices to change their lifestyle, so I'm willing to assume good faith on their part."

Until I started actually learning about this stuff, both for myself and because of my milieu, I had a lot of wrong ideas about how easy it is to access and afford gender-reassignment surgery,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 2:08 PM on February 27, 2013

I actually would like all the biological details. I know that surgery is expensive, and I have friends who can't afford it and have fundraisers and such, but I do not have any trans friends who do not want the surgery on anything but financial grounds. In fact, that has been raised a lot in the thread - that you have body parts that are wrong and don't belong there. I know if I woke up tomorrow with a penis I would freak out and try like hell to get it fixed. I cannot imagine, as a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 2:20 PM on February 27, 2013

end up with a working

Okay, that was a hugely bad way to phrase that. "Working" genitals are the ones that do what you want them to do. I was trying to get at "some folks would prefer not to have a surgically created penis that does not function in the way that a non-surgically-created one does in terms of getting hard and getting not-hard, etc".

I want to state clearly that everyone gets to pick!... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 2:27 PM on February 27, 2013

We always used to call them crusties or gutter punks around here until a few years ago - but I have been told that "crusty" actually used to be a specific music subculture ("crustcore"?) and "gutter punk" was an aesthetic, where as "oogle" is about the whole drunk/dirty/patched/fucked-up thing.

I've met a lot of oogles from volunteering in radical and anarchist spaces. I used to know a traveller kid/para-oogle pretty well. (It was... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 12:43 PM on February 27, 2013

I wrote a big post but then decided that I'd simply observe that I was a fat kid who rode my bike a lot. It's worth remembering that biking has lots of health benefits (and regular exercise mitigates a LOT of health problems that come along with being significantly fat so it is absolutely worth it and a good idea) but it doesn't mean that if you bike you will be thin, and it doesn't mean that if you're fat you aren't biking.

In fact, I am fairly fat... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 7:10 AM on February 27, 2013

I've never, never understood why helmet laws were such an issue. I cycle a fair amount (although that's gone down a bit since I got a motorcycle), grew up where helmets were mandatory until the age of 18 and wearing one just seems normal. The cheapest helmets run for $15, and some very well-rated and reviewed ones are still between $60 and $100. Not a huge investment in the long run. I could have stopped wearing on when I turned 18, but that would be ridiculous. And, as I did manage to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 7:58 AM on February 27, 2013

This is a bigger problem than helmets. Why should safety suffer because your cops are racist?

If the public safety benefit is marginal (which it obviously is, or the research would not be so equivocal), and there's no way to reign in the cops, it's foolish to give the cops more power to harass and assault. If we do not now have a police force that can be trusted to implement public policy so that it actually helps the public (and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:03 AM on February 27, 2013

I assumed they meant Rainer Werner Fassbender there for a minute, and I was thinking "a quart low on reliability, yes, but mystery?"
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:04 AM on February 24, 2013

....and guess what gender and race good old S. Asma belongs to? And his general physiognomy? Short, swarthy and chubby or blond, blue-eyed and thin? And his social class? Is he one of the few proles teaching at Columbia? A short look at Wikipedia is revealing.

My contention, speaking as a whitey of northern European descent, is that folks like me tend to feel that it's too much of a drag to be worrying about "fairness" and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:06 AM on February 22, 2013

Oh wait, he's at Columbia Chicago, not real Columbia.
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:07 AM on February 22, 2013

Besides the impracticalities of such redistribution, the problems here are also conceptual. Say I bought a fancy pair of shoes for my son. In light of the one-tribe calculus of interests, I should probably give these shoes to someone who doesn’t have any. I do research and find a child in a poor part of Chicago who needs shoes to walk to school every day. So, I take them off my son (replacing them with Walmart tennis shoes) and head off to the impoverished Westside. On the way, I see a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:14 AM on February 22, 2013

or jsturgill's tl;dr version
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:14 AM on February 22, 2013

I mean, the whole problem is that it is just so blindly selfish and privilege-y to frame the whole "what do we do about human suffering" matter in this way - it's the "have you stopped beating your wife yet" of philosophy questions.
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:16 AM on February 22, 2013

Nowhere, at all, does he suggest that we should not care about or attempt to alleviate the sufferings of people in other countries.

See, what I was trying to get at is this is the wrong way to frame things - the idea that "we" (implicitly white, educated, secure, privileged - arbiters, philosophers, masters) pick and choose how we allot our feelings (as we might develop an investment portfolio) among those closest to us and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:45 AM on February 22, 2013

These days middle class liberals seems far more concerned with equity than equality; with ending discrimination on the basis of irrelevant characteristics like gender and sexuality rather than ending poverty.

It's certainly worth reading the other linked posts, by the way - they show you precisely who you're dealing with.

In another post, someone was wondering who our Chesterton was....I'd almost nominate... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:50 AM on February 22, 2013

Zizek and Badiou, who are both communist philosophers

I'm assuming that "who are both communist philosophers" is not meant to be some kind of "see, see, left wing philosophers take a similar tack to Asma" (who I keep wanting to write Asda or Asbo) as some kind of "if you're objecting to Asma on political grounds you can't because Zizek"...even if you accept that "loving all" versus "loving some" is a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 1:34 PM on February 22, 2013

Frowner, that was meant to be an argument for left-wing misanthropy, which can have more beneficial impacts on humanity than all the pious sentimental pity in the world. Another problem: Asma's idea that the civil rights movement and feminism are a kind of tribalism also has something in common with anarcho-communist philosophy of Jacques Ranciere, where this would be solidarity with the oppressed.

I always wonder what the fuck Zizek has done for the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 2:41 PM on February 23, 2013

Er, are these really all that weird? Or were pre-Nevermind major labels going through a very conservative phase?

Yes, actually.

That's why all these "weird" albums are so male and/or straight, why a lot of them hinge on the "scandal" of talking about assholes or shit, why they are simultaneously so self-serious and so non-intellectual. That doesn't mean they're all awful or... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 10:03 AM on February 22, 2013

And K Records! I had a lot of K records releases. And Kill Rock Stars. A lot of it is nauseatingly twee now.
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 10:06 AM on February 22, 2013

I wonder what responsibility David Foster Wallace bears for all this? Everyone is name-checking Sedaris, but when I read all this "I am behaving badly just as anyone would" worm's eye view of humanity, it seems like a lazy person's Wallace, a way of making a vaguely Wallace-esque observation but then totally letting oneself off the hook.
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 8:26 AM on February 22, 2013

Honestly, the actual articles make it sound like women are gaining power and choices and there's a lot of cultural pushback, but the power and choices are nonetheless real. I suspect that a lot of government rhetoric about leftover women is rooted in fear that women will be happy being "leftover", or will accept marrying later and making atypical choices about partners or children, or will marry foreign men.

I suspect that this is very... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 8:49 AM on February 21, 2013

China has a long, long way to go before they can have an anti-establisment movement that empowers individuals.

I guess I want to add that China has had all kinds of mass movements that empower individuals, from the awful and scary (the Cultural Revolution, which really did diffuse a lot of power in many ways) to labor organizing, women's rights movements, literary and cultural movements and mass uprisings like the Boxer Rebellion and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 9:31 AM on February 21, 2013

China has a long, long way to go before they can have an anti-establisment movement that empowers individuals.

And there's a lot of labor organizing and environmental stuff going on in China, or so I hear. Plus, of course, let's remember back to Tian An Men - that was not just Beijing, it was in cities all over. (Shanghai actually was not violently repressed - so I heard from a Shanghainese friend - because Beijing is always just a little bit afraid... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 9:34 AM on February 21, 2013

China has a long, long history of being occasionally nouveau riche and authoritarian with some ajustments at the top in the name of "reform",

See, I think this is a description that could apply to pretty much any "modern" state - it could certainly characterize the Harding administration or the first Roosevelt administration if you simply take it as a generality.

I mean, I speak as a white Westerner, so I'm... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 10:05 AM on February 21, 2013

"The most common racist behavior is white liberals lecturing everyone else on racism during Black History month.

I mean, I think there's some truth to this - that when white folks talk about racism, we need to be pretty careful and thoughtful, and even if we're doing absolutely our best possible, we're still going to hit some wrong notes, say some dumb stuff, etc. I think that when other white folks use this fact to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 7:07 AM on February 20, 2013

(I think that people of good will keep their eye on the ball - recognizing that organizers (especially white ones) are going to be flawed sometimes and fools sometimes, and that not being foolish isn't an option, but that it's still possible to come together at times to make things happen. - I don't mean "oh, don't criticize white people...I realized after reading corb's comment that this could sound like "don't say negative things when white people do dumb... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 7:16 AM on February 20, 2013

The [white] folks I know from the UK have talked about needing to leave London because it's so expensive and social policies are in place that make London more welcoming to global financial elites than ordinary people - London, like New York, is becoming more and more of an elite playground with a disenfranchised service staff. The people who they see as "replacing" them are the global wealthy - and since white people are, globally, a minority, it's no surprise than an influx of rich... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 6:45 AM on February 20, 2013

Huh.

Tumblr as I know it is about varying forms of social and racial justice and the accompanying drama, hatred, "that is not your image to reblog, culturally appropriative person!" stuff, etc etc. I'd say I have learned more from tumblr politically speaking than from any other platform, despite some of the drama.

It's a little disconcerting and very postmodern in a Fred "Ric" Jameson way to go from a post... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 9:03 AM on February 19, 2013

Can someone explain what is meant by the fuss/controversy about reblogging?

I suspect that there are many controversies over reblogging. Some include:

1. Reblogging while stripping away a key portion - ie, someone has written a comment about an image and you just reblog the image while still showing that it's a "reblog" - giving the impression that the person didn't make any comments
2.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 9:28 AM on February 19, 2013

For some reason, this article/study makes me really uncomfortable. Maybe because it comes off as sort of slut-shaming? I think maybe my reaction here is a little knee-jerk, but I'll be interested in the other responses people have to this one.

Well,obviously one does not know why these things correlate - but if you want a totally speculative potential explanation that does not slut-shame, what about... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 6:09 AM on February 15, 2013

I am somewhat confused about why you'd hire Card to write Superman anyway - I mean, none of Card's work that I can think of is about Superman figures (Ender isn't superman; the kid in the proto-Mormons-plus-magic isn't Superman...maybe the closest figure to Superman is the heroine of Wyrms, and she's really more of a mopey, embittered Batman figure.)

Although in a way it makes sense - there's a lot more pressure... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 10:20 AM on February 14, 2013

This sort of mass event ... is more about feeling good about yourself than anything constructive.


I'm all activist-y and I didn't hear about this until yesterday. That tells me that it's organized by people outside the usual channels (at least around here) and it'sfor people outside the usual channels - people who might not go to some other type of rally or event, especially one that had maybe more... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 7:24 AM on February 14, 2013

I know this specific campaign is new, but Eve Ensler's been doing Valentine's Day (V-Day) performances of her Vagina Monologues (usually with proceeds donated to charities supporting women's interests) for a long time now. I wouldn't say that it's outside the usual channels.

See, to me the Vagina Monologues stuff is so far outside the usual channels of activism, whether non-profit-led or grassroots, as to barely count as activism or draw activists -... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 9:08 AM on February 14, 2013

You know, I don't actually have a real problem with women rating men by whatever standards they like. Warning labels are not particularly monstrous, despite all this drummed-up outrage.

See, I do have a problem with this, and I am definitely on the froth-at-the-mouth, "I hate cis dudes", "we-live-under-white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy" end of the spectrum.

On one hand, I think that the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 6:25 AM on February 13, 2013

I don't know that I disagree, but it's not as simple as just playing reverse-the-sexes, because men doing this to women would be doing so with the full force of thousands of years of patriarchy behind them.

See, here is a thing: it's true that woman have been "rated" in horrible, inhuman ways by men in most feudal/capitalist/proto-capitalist societies for much of written history - and I can't help but think, honestly, of the hideous... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 8:19 AM on February 13, 2013

The funny thing is, I know a lot of people who have met Prince in various social situations. An ex's dad ran into him out shopping one time, they got to chatting and hung out a couple of times, but my ex's dad had some problems with alcohol around then and just couldn't hold together much of a social life. A friend of a friend was picked up by Prince (or so she said, and I have no reason to disbelieve her - she was a lovely girl and got around a lot) at his nightclub in the late eighties under... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 8:25 AM on February 11, 2013

I mean, I have no opinion one way or the other about Prince's music; I'm just glad that he seems to have stayed merely local and eccentric rather than leaving and messing up his whole life the way Courtney Love did. (Now there was a girl - or at least, I know people who knew her back in the day - there was a girl who should have stayed here, been in some big-small local bands and been locally famous for her crazy antics and drunken hijinks, ended up working as a hairstylist at one of the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 8:27 AM on February 11, 2013

How much of the creepy tone of this article (two mentions of "Slut Olympics" right at the start, the transphobia, the "ooh, hippies are often dirty") was about selling this piece to GQ? And will it work? Will a meaningful quantity of the GQ audience try to go to Burning Man, anticipating and misunderstanding ready access to "sluts"? And will this hasten the shark-jumped quality?
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 12:49 PM on February 9, 2013

I think that, for pretty much anyone who hasn't grown up in the US, PETA will probably always seem like a bunch of nutters. They perfectly encapsulate how Americans will often take an ostensibly sensible idea (not being cruel to other animals) and turn it into a kind of weird and embarrassing circus. See also US politics.

I always wonder who PETA's American constituency actually is, because I have literally never ever met anyone who likes them, and I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 8:48 AM on February 8, 2013

How have we not already accepted that slave owners were rich money-grubbing assholes, that cared absolutely nothing at all for people who weren't part of his family. Why is this a thing all of a sudden? Did these people not take history classes in the third grade and are just now finding out about this?

I suspect that there's something weird going on here about the conservative narrative of slavery and race. Maybe it's that the right needs some... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 9:16 PM on February 6, 2013

I find the NYT a fairly conservative paper, honestly. It does not spout Tea Party talking points, but its basic outlook is rightwing. Bear in mind, by the way, that just because something is endorsed by a Democrat does not make it progressive, left or even centrist. (Drones, welfare "reform", killing "terrorists" without trial, et patati et patata.)

Shifts in the discourse are more complex than "calling up a paper and telling people to print... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 10:07 PM on February 6, 2013

It's worth noting that the guy apparently had quit Zoloft shortly before all this happened.

I don't know, honestly.

I had a friend who did a moderately bad thing (no violence or sexual assault, no racial aspect, not related to a romantic relationship; it was property crime) and yeah, I think it's hard to talk or think about what happens when a friend does something out-of-the-common bad. In fact, maybe we could approach this piece charitably... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:55 AM on February 4, 2013

I add that the "moderately bad thing" was bad enough that it broke up our friend group. The friend who did it vanished for a couple of years, then suddenly started sending money for restitution to the injured parties. And now we're friends again, and it's all okay. But it was wrenching when it happened.
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:57 AM on February 4, 2013

People in this thread might find the interestingly-named British academic Nina Power's book One-Dimensional Woman of interest.

She observes, "Objectification implies that there is something left over in the subject that resists such a capture, that we might protest if we thought someone was trying to deny such interiority, but it’s not clear that contemporary work allows anyone to have an inner life in the way that we might once have understood it," which... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 2:42 PM on February 1, 2013

"They can just choose to try to form a union"....

It just so happens that I am friends with a bunch of people who tried goddamn hard to unionize the local Jimmy John's restaurants. (And I never eat at any JJs-like place now because I know only too well that people are working with strep and working with the flu as they make my food.)

It's really hard to organize because your population is two kinds: kids who expect to work there for a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 5:39 PM on February 1, 2013

But who is going to work all these delivery jobs, boxing up our razor blades for same day delivery and so on? They are going to be making shit wages under very precarious conditions with probably almost no ability to predict which days they'll be working - or else it will stop being cheaper than physical stores. These jobs will almost certainly be worse than working fast food. Oh, it won't be a "worse" experience for anyone who can afford a subscription clothes... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 2:05 PM on January 31, 2013

But the point is that no one is really a hipster. The hipster is a symbol.
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:44 AM on January 31, 2013