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Roderick

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For student politics, in Canada at least, you usually have a student association that students vote for, and those associations have some representation with the administration of the university.

 

That's what I thought. It's interesting, cause we also elect representatives at a department and university level, who mostly have service oriented roles like helping students clear beaurocratic hurdles, but are also represented on the panels that decide which candidates are given tenure-track positions and such. But then beyond that we also vote directly on who should represent us at national level in our students union, which is a whole different landscape with political parties and everything. It doesn't have a whole lot of power and is consistently called into question because the turnout of elections is always abysmally low (like around 25%), but it's there, and pretty consistent about its political activism.

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I went to a school that had a greek system with frat houses on campus.  Even though it's not a party school at all (in fact quite the opposite) the greek part of it was still pretty gross.  As a naïve freshmen I considered trying to join one but it quickly became apparent they were disgusting so I joined an independent co-ed organization instead.  I remember one house had a pair of white lion statues in front of it that they would paint in various colors from time to time and supposedly when the lions were painted red it meant that someone in the house had taken a girl's virginity (not necessarily unwillingly but a terrible tradition nonetheless).  While I don't recall any rape cases, there were at least two frats during my time there that got themselves kicked off of campus for various infractions.  It wouldn't surprise me to learn that rape was one of them considering the extremely sexist attitude of my freshman roommate who later joined one of the frats.

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Given that many college-aged men admit to raping people as long as you don't term it rape, I would say the likelihood is high. 

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I don't want to interrupt any more intelligent conversation, so I'll try to keep this short. A brief return to Quiet that got under my (photosynthetic) skin this evening.

 

The Jimquisition video on the subject of Quiet:

 

 

A fairly well done video. I agree with the good majority of his points. It's very difficult not to. And so, considering that, the narrative of the anti-SJW, pro-objectification crowd has changed itself in the comments below. No longer is there a "Believe in Kojima, Quiet will be a great character like The Boss" or "authorial intent" line of debate. The new logic has become:

 

Kojima did it to just piss people off, and it worked and it is GLORIOUS. The amount of butthurt is hilarious.

 

Guys like boobs and hot girls.
 
Theres nothing wrong with that. 
 
When we can simply admit that and move on, things will be a lot better.
 
If girls can have their Twilights and Magic Mikes, than we can enjoy this.
 
Now can we please STFU and stop treating every issue like its a soapbox moment.
 
Many modern feminist are becoming exhausting with this shit.

 

The entire thread underneath

 (it's very difficult to clearly link a YouTube comment thread, but please try to look through it if you care) is just case in point.

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This comic about non-monogamy is making the rounds on Facebook for me this week, and it's got me really frustrated.  I actually wrote up a critique of it, but it's angry sounding (angrier than I would like, which is in part because I'm in a fucking grouchy ass mood from what has been an incredibly irritating day of work so far and it's just got me in an irritable frame of mind).  I don't really want to engage on Facebook about it, because I basically anticipate a dogpile if I criticize it in any way, given the people and groups it is coming from. But I wanted to post it here to maybe talk about it once I've chilled out a bit and see what other people have to say.  

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I would like to hear why it frustrates you. I found nothing offensive about it, though I wasn't aware that non-monogamous hetero cis couples not checking their non-monogamy privilege was a problem that needed addressing. But it might be? I dunno. 

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Non-monogamy is something I have zero experience with (or interest in), so I'm really curious to hear your, or anyone else's, take on it. Honestly, I wasn't even aware anything in that comic was an issue (I don't mean that in a dismissive way, I'm genuinely ignorant about this).

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Are you upset that it seems like the start is implying that cis hetero couples exploring alternative lifestyles are choosing them in order to be progressive and different? It seemed like an odd start to me but the actual point and representation of it is generally pretty good.

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I wasn't aware that non-monogamous hetero cis couples not checking their non-monogamy privilege was a problem that needed addressing. 

 

Yeah, that was the sum of my reaction. Its tone at the beginning and end are also very odd and aren't really that useful as a framing device (the majority of people reading this comic aren't non-monogamous in any way, so addressing it to a hypothetical non-monogamous couple that "learns something" in the process feels overly pointed in what is otherwise a comic about general awareness-raising).

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Okay, wow. I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand it's probably fair to note that on the spectrum of open relationships with clear primary partners to complex, interconnected webs of romantic and sexual connections, one end is closer to the hegemonic norm and, as always, getting more attention. On the other hand, the tone of the comic kind of suggests to me that personal life choices should be made focusing on disrupting the status quo rather than personal happiness, which is not a great thing to imply. Like, there's probably analogies to be made here to broader feminist discourse where you can sometimes kind of see inverted standards of appearance applied to people, i.e. wearing make-up makes you not progressive and a bad role model.

 

And this list is just tripping me up for all sorts of reasons.

 

For #1: It's great for these kind of queer, non-monogamous partnerships to get more visibility, but the notion that queer love, whatever that means exactly, needs to be centered, public and visible in order to push boundaries is kind of going in a direction of erasing bi/pan/etc identities and desires isn't it? A bisexual woman doesn't stop being bi when she's in a monogamous relationship with a man, and the same thing applies when she's in a nonmonogamous relationship with several men. If you make these kinds of assumptions about people's sexuality based on who you see them being with... aren't you kind of holding up these norms yourself?

 

For #2: I'm not sure why this is being brought up opposite nonmonogamous relationships to be honest since this seems entirely possible to do within a regular marriage? A stay-at-home Dad and tech-startup Mom are going against gender norms, kinda (and they still are if they open up that relationship). Maybe it's not as extreme as building a queer commune, but I'm not sure what kind of standards this comic is interested in setting here.

 

For #3: Isn't this kind of assuming that the people in these open relationship articles are actively repressing each other's desires, rather than them maybe just not wanting anything more than they got going on right now. Like, it's not evidence of policing if certain romantic or sexual stuff doesn't take place.

 

For #4: This one is actually legit rad.

 

For #5: This, again, seems to be assuming the absolute worst in the relationships that were talked about in articles. Clear communication is great, but I don't think it's fair to assume that when somebody (not even in the context of their relationship, but an internet article about it) doesn't say that they don't want to hold their partner back, that means that they will totes hold them back whenever they can.

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I'm not offended by the piece at all, frustrated that it's a bit of a mess and frames the originating couple as not enough, to begin with.  Not queer enough, not radical enough, not feminist enough, not oppressed enough.  The original couple is really a strawman, very few couples exactly fit what is being presented.  I'll try re-writing what I had already wrote to take the bite out of it, plus I need a break from work anyways.
 
It frames its styles as having "feminist principles" at their cores, which since the starting couple is presented as like a comparison point, it makes it feel (to me) that their relationship isn't feminist enough. Which hey, some non-monogamous couples aren't very feminist.  Some are.  But it's an odd point to make, since the vast majority of non-monogamous people I know trend towards being the most feminist in terms of their relationships, even the ones who look like the starting couple. 
 
I know a lot of non-monogamous people.  The vast majority (even the white, middle class, cis presenting ones) have bisexual, homosexual, or other queer elements to them, but in the context of that comic, the example they would most likely appear to be would be the starting couple.  The comic argues for recognizing diversity, while erasing the diversity of the starting couple, particularly the likelihood that the starting couple has at least one bisexual in it.  That they're not queer enough to count as being really queer or radical.  Edited to add:  Deadpan's point number one says this better than I did.

Several of the "styles" aren't actually styles of non-monogamy, they are approaches to relationships or life that exist regardless of relationship structure.  Style 2, challenging gender norms has nothing to do with non-monagamy.  Literally nothing. You can do that single, as part of a monogamous partnership, as part of a triad or as part of any relationship structure.  It's just there to try and make the following list look more diverse than the comparison starting couple.  Style 5, respecting partner autonomy and recognizing that even a committed relationship may one day end has nothing to do with non-monogamy.  Even a really healthy monogamous couple should be able to say that to one another.  There's nothing to indicate that original couple aren't already engaging in Style 3, the non-policing of each other's desires.  By contrasting them with it, the comic indicates that they are policing one another.  This is something that is really fucking hard, and pretty much everyone struggles with it in one way, shape, form, or another. 
 
It's frustrating that it frames the originating couple's structure as not being radical or challenging enough to the status quo.  Being non-monogamous in the midwest, that just ain't the case.  I know people who've been fired, who've lost custody of their kids, ended up in protracted legal battles over kids, lost friends and family.  And having just completely come out as non-monogamous to everyone in our lives this year, framing it as just a nudge, or not really that radical, just isn't the case for many, many people.  This is something that is context sensitive, and while being non-monogamous in Portland might not be a big deal, being non-monogamous in Sam Brownback's Kansas is.  Or being non-monogamous in Utah, or Oklahoma, or any number of other places in this country.  The comic presents the originiating couple, and the media who covers them, as having blind spots, while also having some pretty big blind spots of its own.
 
I'm frustrated that it prioritizes long term commitment in every single style.  Recognizing and embracing the value of short term relationships, that are handled in mature, loving and respectful ways, is a radical thing to me in our culture.  Long term or lifetime committed relationships are the expected goal that everyone thinks they should be pursuing, and most of the styles presented re-enforce that (every single style uses phrases like "be together forever", marriage, together for 7 years, raising kids together, homemaker, etc).  This is contrasted with what are presented as the casual relationships of the original couple.  If you're going to label things radical, there's an argument to be made here about what is and isn't radical in the context of our culture. 
 
I've also got a really complex series of thoughts about a kind of non-monogamy not presented here, and one that I suspect would never show up in this comic (this may be unfair to the author, I don't know them, but it feels tonally out of place for the argument they are making).  And that is the style of professional sex workers.  I have two close friends who are both professional sex workers, both partnered, both in open relationships (counting both their professional and personal lives).  You want to talk about challenging the status quo, about being disruptive to the old white people in power?  But they don't fit the images presented in the 5 "styles". 
 
All that said, I like the idea of the comic.  I don't disagree with the core message, that we should recognize the many different forms of non-monogamy, that it's frustrating that midddle/upper class cis white people tend to be the focus when non-monagamy shows up in media, and that even non-monogamous people can still have varying degrees of privilege.  I'm just really frustrated by some of the other messages in it and the execution. 
 
Edited to add:


For #1: It's great for these kind of queer, non-monogamous partnerships to get more visibility, but the notion that queer love, whatever that means exactly, needs to be centered, public and visible in order to push boundaries is kind of going in a direction of erasing bi/pan/etc identities and desires isn't it? A bisexual woman doesn't stop being bi when she's in a monogamous relationship with a man, and the same thing applies when she's in a nonmonogamous relationship with several men. If you make these kinds of assumptions about people's sexuality based on who you see them being with... aren't you kind of holding up these norms yourself?

 

Thank you, this is a better said version of what I was trying to say in one of my points.

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I think we kinda took issue with the same stuff there if that makes you feel better about your frustrations.

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I think we kinda took issue with the same stuff there if that makes you feel better about your frustrations.

 

Yeah, we definitely covered a lot of the same territory, I didn't see your post until I submitted mine.  It is nice to see someone else was seeing the same things I was. 

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It's incredibly unclear as the comic feels like it's addressing mainstream media but doesn't communicate that effectively enough. If they snipped the words about "feminist at the core" and "doesn't challenge the status-quo" and left it at "here's some other types of relationships that don't get enough play, if you have privilege along with a non-monogamous relationship, maybe acknowledge that!" it would be a much stronger statement. I get really edgy about identity being used as a stand-in for "radical politics." 

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Mallory Ortberg is taking over as Dear Prudence!  I am very, very excited about this.

 

I know this isn't really feminist related, but I figure the people who regularly read this thread will be the ones most likely to know and care about Ortberg's career moves. 

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Last week U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that women will now be allowed to serve in all combat positions.  Previously a number of positions were unavailable to women but now they can

 

"drive tanks, fire mortars, and lead infantry soldiers into combat. They'll be able to serve as Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALS, Marine Corps infantry, Air Force parajumpers and everything else that was previously open only to men"

 

They will be subject to the same rigors and standards as men in those positions.  One thing that hasn't been decided yet is should the draft be reactivated, would women also be required to register (the current answer is no).

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So Australia has different requirements for men and women in the defence force; their reasoning is that it's far more important to ensure diversity in the units than it is to ensure combat readiness, because generally if the Australian defence force is getting into a fight where combat readiness will decide the fight, someone has fucked up. (The army, in particular, aims to have an exact demographic match to wider Australia, which has meant they've had to tackle the question of why certain groups of people aren't willing to join the army.)

 

However, our defence force is a relatively small and well-trained force, as opposed to the US which is much larger but not as rigorous.

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I have a fair number of friends that are currently in or formerly served in the US military, and their reaction regarding the standards seems to suggest to me that the standards exist because someone decided they should.  When the two women recently passed the Army ranger course recently I spoke to a couple buddies of mine who are ex rangers about it, and their opinion was that their gender was just something the media focused on.  According to them, the fact that most of the women failed out wasn't really a big deal because the program is structured so that most people fail out, and the women's performance wasn't all that different from their class's.

 

On a larger note, there have been a number of changes to how the US military operates recently revolving around transgender people, sexuality, women, etc.  Since my circle of friends include a lot of service members, both men and women, The one constant I've found is that the only people who seem to have a problem with these things are those that have never served in the military.

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On a larger note, there have been a number of changes to how the US military operates recently revolving around transgender people, sexuality, women, etc.  Since my circle of friends include a lot of service members, both men and women, The one constant I've found is that the only people who seem to have a problem with these things are those that have never served in the military.

 

I've generally found that I quite enjoy chatting with former/current service members, and abhor chatting with people who need to wear their "pro-military" feelings on a t-shirt even though they never served. 

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I've generally found that I quite enjoy chatting with former/current service members, and abhor chatting with people who need to wear their "pro-military" feelings on a t-shirt even though they never served. 

To resurrect a thread....

I find the same thing. At the college I'm teaching at I often have one or two current or former military members in my class and they have always been great. Similarly, I have had tons of student athletes in my classes and only had one or two that didn't try. High school jocks who couldn't make it to college sports though? different story (and of course not all of them)

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I'm not sure which thread is most appropriate for this, but given it's Planned Parenthood which is very much an issue feminism is concerned with.

 

News is breaking out of Houston that the grand jury reviewing the video tapes in which Planned Parenthood supposedly sells fetal tissue has decided not to indict Planned Parenthood.

 

That enough would be good, but there's more. It's so much better than that.

 

The videographers of this 'evidence' are being indicted on charges of tampering with government record, and one of them is further being charged with trafficking human tissue (his attempts to get Planned Parenthood to buy/sell tissue). The whole thing is blowing up in the anti-abortion movement's face. I'm all for discussing moral issues, but if people can't do it honestly, they can't be a part of the discussion. Goddamn it this is so good. It reminds me of the Breitbart bullshit when they tried to frame up the ACLU (which sadly went under-reported).

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