Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Our friends across the pond are having a little bit of a spat over whether equality really does mean equality, when such a literal, dogmatic interpretation might possibly benefit men:
Many charities have been told that they must extend their counselling and outreach services to men because of new equality laws which require local authorities to ensure that services do not discriminate on grounds of sex.
Fiona Mactaggart, the former Home Office minister, said an “unintended consequence” of the law has meant some domestic violence services have lost grants or contracts for refusing to do so.
:
She said: “There are some local authorities who interpret equalities to mean that a refuge has to provide for men, not only for women.“There are some stupidnesses developing in the system that nobody intended.”
:
The new Gender Equality Duty, created under The Equality Act 2006, requires that “public bodies must promote and take action to bring about gender equality, which involves: looking at issues for men and women.”
There we go again. “Everybody” intended this to be a one-sided thing. Well, everybody whose opinion Mactaggart thinks is worth something, thought that way.
As we’ve noted in these parts, many times: The word “everyone” (“nobody,” in this case) very seldom is deployed to describe what it has classically meant.
Nicola Harwin, chief executive of Women’s Aid, which counts the Prime Minister’s wife Sarah Brown among its patrons, said the charity is still allowed to exclude men from refuges.
However, when council contracts came up for tender, many branches are being told that they must provide services such as advice and counselling to men or lose their funding.
Miss Harwin said: “Women do appreciate being engaged in women-only organisations. When you have been disempowered and had no control of your life it’s important for a lot of women to see that this is an organisation run by women for women.”
My sympathy for this point of view is running out by the second. I’d like to know more about this process of healing, during which time some mindset is maintained that men are not, and cannot be, contributing toward anything good. How debilitating that must be! Do these abused women eventually learn to re-assimilate with a society that has some men in it? Or is that object lesson saved for much further down the road, after some scars have healed?
Because it sounds, to me, like a man-basher’s club. And I don’t see what that has to do with getting past something. Think, for example, about a man who loses his life’s savings in a short, bad marriage. How would you react to someone saying “when you have been disempowered and had no control of your life it’s important for a lot of men to see that this is an organization run by men for men.” That isn’t how we typically respond to a situation like that, I’ve noticed; instead it’s the ineffectual and irrelevant “All Women Aren’t Like That” defense, repeated ad nauseum. Great importance, in other words, is placed on stopping that wounded male from forming an unflattering stereotype in his individual noggin…for the benefit of the opportunities of the women he may meet later, after he has accumulated some more assets.
Fair enough. How come that doesn’t work on this side of the fence, Ms. Harwin? In fact, from what pocket of the universe do you ladies arrive, in which you fully expect phrases like “gender equality” to be tossed around like pudding and refried beans at a food fight…and then it comes as such a surprise to you when it’s interpreted bidirectionally? How could that be unexpected? To whom would it be unexpected? What kind of mindset does it take?
FARK commenter lewismarktwo speaks for me:
Yeah, cause all men are the same and those men (all 12 of them) who were abused just can’t wait to pay the abuse forward to the first women they come across.
Or maybe it’s a good idea to expose abused women to non abusive men who might understand what they were going through so, you know, the abused women realize that all men aren’t scum?
The harpies in this article have some knowledge, or else an agenda, that stands in contradiction to this. I’m really not entirely sure which it is…but I’m leaning away from knowledge, and toward an agenda. Leanin’ hard.
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Yeah, you got it. There’s something I’ve never been able to clearly express regarding how “Women’s Liberation” has always been dependent upon the support of men, emotionally or even financially. This was immediately apparent around 1970 or so, and yet generations of men have continued to enable this behavior. Women are so spoiled now that they can’t even understand why men intuitively trust Sarah Palin, and not their girlfriends.
“You have the responsibility of supporting me in my effort to prove I don’t need you,” or something like that. Insanity personified.
If you can do better (I bet you can) at characterizing this, have at it. You’re certainly the best at it so far.
- rob | 04/05/2009 @ 13:37