Stop Blaming Testosterone

Today, we have some feminist critique of the viewpoint that men "can't help" oogling women. Inspired by the trendy article, "5 Ways Modern Men are Trained to Hate Women," and it's scathing response; "Mysogyny isn't caused by male horniness."

Even after reading this critique, which makes a great point that hey, maybe women and men don't act differently just because of biology, but because of what society teaches us, some guy still found the need to cry out (comment #265: mcguinty):

You’ll also notice that I never said the average male traits make the average male better than the average female. I just said it makes the average male different from the average female. Personally I would like to be able to have some of the average female traits: better social intelligence, better empathy, and so on. But I can’t because of my biology.

O. M. Gee.

Our response:
Dear @mcguinty. by assuming these male SOCIAL traits are biological, you just spit out a whole bunch of disabling sexism. " I would like to be able to have some of the average female traits: better social intelligence, better empathy, and so on. But I can’t because of my biology." What the hell? ANYONE can have better social intelligence and better empathy, all you have to do is make an effort and try to LEARN.

Women are told from day 1 that they must consider other's feelings in everything they do, and give up their own needs to support others. This is why women have these traits in wider abundance than men, not because it's "biological." You using biology as an excuse as to why you don't have them, is just making a lame excuse to justify your continued behavior as a selfish, offensive asshole. Biology is not an excuse to treat women badly, or act like an asshole in general. That is is the whole problem with this cracked article, and this why it DOES matter if men's different behavior is based in biology or not.

If it was really based in biology, then it could not be changed. (If that was actually true, then I think all men should be imprisoned and removed from all positions of power, since they "naturally" are inclined to hurt women.) But if macho, objectifying, tit-gazing behavior is LEARNED, then we can UNLEARN it, which would be a HUGE SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. We need to stop blaming biology and recognize the social conditioning that is all around us.

So. Why is this so hard to understand? Because I have heard men who claim to be "progressive" blame their biology all the time. You almost might think, that they don't want to understand it..

Religion Not Involved in Repeal of Prop 8!

In an amazing upset this week, Prop 8 was overturned, and the ruling judges never even mentioned religion in their decision! Right, I control+F-ed (searched) through 128 pages of statement and only civil marriage was mentioned, but never the word "religion," nor "discrimination," anywhere that I could find. How politically correct!

Yes, I'm really impressed by the court that recently declared Prop 8 unconstitutional. Yes! The way they worded the decision was so beauuuuuutiful;

Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, in requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted.

Interesting, right? It was only unfair because, there was no "legitimate reason" that Prop 8 should ever have been enacted. But if there was, then it would have been okay? I guess it's okay because our government can carry out the "passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently." Hmmmm. Are gay people even a class? I guess they are now a different class, because the court said so. I guess, the court could have recognized that gay people are just, you know, people, and not even a legitimately different social class, who should ever be separate from other people in the law's eyes, but, that would have been addressing a "broader issue," and;

Broader issues have been urged for our consideration, but we adhere to the principle of deciding constitutional questions only in the contest of the particular case before the Court.

So, they couldn't ever decide that gay people deserve all the same rights as non-gay people, UNLESS there was somehow a "particular case before the Court." What would that case look like? It would have to be about someone claiming it was unconstitutional to treat gays as a separate class of people, right? Maybe because they were unnecessarily denied something given to other people?

Hmmm, it's too bad we don't have any cases like that for them to give a decision on! Maybe, one day...

Freedoms are no Longer Free, AKA American Fiscal Theory

You thought your 1st Amendment freedom was free? Think again.

Scott Walker, governer of Wisconsin, already enacted a policy that charges protesters money to protest.

American government: Ohohoho, yes! We spent all this money on the military and corporate handouts, and then we tried to cut money from social programs to fund this, but then we got all these annoying protestors, so now if we can just charge the protesters money we can kill two birds with one stone! *evil cackle*

Gosh. I don't even have to try to make fun of the government anymore. They've made a caricature of themselves before I even got there..

American Military Politics

The US seems to be planning to deploy 20,000 troops for "defense" against protesters.

This group is supposed to "quell civil unrest."

American government: Hmmm, yes. We have too much civil unrest, because we are spending insane amounts of money on our military and corporate handouts, while the working class gets poorer every year and social programs keep getting cut. How should we solve this "civil unrest?" Oooooh, let's spend MORE money on the military so we can squash the protesters!

Great strategy..

Murder as Masculine

This post makes the very interesting point that men are more likely to be murder victims than women, except when those victims are a family member like spouse, parent, or child. But sibling victims are more likely to be male. What does that say about gender and murder?

Men also are more than 3x more likely than women to commit eldercide, and more likely to be the murderer when the victim is any family member or significant other. What does that say?