I just witnessed two middle-aged geezers refusing to let a young attractive woman carry some cartons of beer. Did they hasten to take these burdens from her and carry them for her in a possibly misguided yet well-intentioned bout of chivalry?

Oh, no. No, they did not.

No, they just told her where a cart was and argued forcefully every time she insisted she’d rather just carry her stuff than use the cart. They were so insistent that they created a situation in which it was impossible for her to refuse their instructions without being rude, so she went to get the cart. She then complained to me that now she had to haul her stuff conspicuously for a long distance in front of lots of people when she could’ve just carried the cartons a short distance. It took longer and made her task more annoying and embarrassing.

Those guys are most assuredly off somewhere now slapping themselves heartily on the back for being so gallant and saving the weak little female from having to carry something.

Behavior like this isn’t even about being chivalrous. This is about men making themselves feel better. They know they can’t get the time of day from this woman, so they’re forcing her to interact with them because it gets their motors going. And they may tell themselves they saved her trouble, but when adults tell you, “I’d rather do it this way”, they are speaking from experience and the only polite response is, “Oh, okay.” We’re not talking about a child who may genuinely need some instruction.

What they did was not an offer of help. It was an act of dominance, and it was repulsive and offensive. This is the sort of behavior that Nice Guys (TM) engage in, and then they get disgusted when women aren’t appreciative of being dominated in uncomfortable social situations.

Chivalry has a gendered past and is problematic, but if you remove the gendering it’s really just people trying to help each other. We are living in a century in which anyone might hold a door for anyone, or anyone might offer to help someone carry some stuff. Suggesting the cart (and then backing off when the suggestion was rejected) would have been perfectly acceptable. But forcing the cart on her against her wishes… well, you get the drift.

I believe pet rocks are alive and deserving of human rights. I have collected a lot of petition signatures from people agreeing with me. Now I demand the government must listen to me and pass laws protecting pet rocks. People who get rid of pet rocks they don’t want are criminals.

It sounds silly, but only because it’s not backed up by a relatively old and powerful religion. When you think about it, it’s exactly analogous to: I believe fetuses are alive and deserving of human rights. I have collected a lot of signatures on petitions agreeing with me. Now I demand the government must listen to me and pass laws protecting fetuses. People who get rid of fetuses they don’t want are criminals.

The reason it’s analogous is that you can’t empirically prove a fetus is alive anymore than I can empirically prove a pet rock is. That is, you cannot demonstrate this in a way everyone can agree on, such as scientifically. Not even all Christians agree that the Bible supports an anti-choice political platform:

They recognize that in our pluralistic society, politicians must not be allowed to impose laws about childbearing based on any particular belief about when life begins. The notion that life begins at the moment of conception is a belief held by some, but not all, religious groups.

In addition to all this religious disagreement, non-believers have a whole range of ideas about whether a fetus is alive or a person or what exactly, and guess what? Non-believers have as much right to choose public policy as believers.

What’s very clear is that the view of a fetus being as much of a citizen as a living woman or girl should strike us as pretty bizarre. When you argue that the woman’s right to use her body as she sees fit must bow to the fetus’ rights, you are actually arguing that a fetus is more deserving of basic, human, Constitutional rights than a woman or girl. So this position should strike us as not only bizarre, but deeply contrary to basic sense and logic, especially given the lack of empirical basis. You’re arguing that the chicken egg deserves more rights than the chicken.

Unfortunately, religion proceeded science in this country, and resistance to the very idea of science still rules the Republican party.

And that is the only reason why the anti-choice platform even has a voice in this country.

When you are pitting the rights of a group of sentient beings against another group of beings, you should not only have to prove the other group is alive, but also as sentient as the first. That cannot be done in the case of fetuses, so why do we even have this national conversation?

Public policy must be decided by hard facts and consensus, not one group’s beliefs trumping everyone else’s. Beliefs must be protected, of course, and that means anti-choicers can not only refrain from getting abortions themselves, but may also raise their kids to think that way and try to convince anyone and everyone who will listen that abortion is wrong.

It’s time everyone in this country – everyone who seriously respects the responsibilities and freedoms entailed in being an American, that is – acknowledge that facts are different from opinions, and only facts should be considered in determining public policy.

On Facebook, I recently saw George Takei saying “Goodness, I didn’t realize that I wasn’t permitted to have “first world problems.” We all do, and we shouldn’t pretend they don’t bother us. Not if we’re being honest, right?”

You may have heard the term “white people’s problems” or the less privileged “first world problems”, which refers to complaints – usually silly ones – made by people who could be much worse off than they are. While it’s entirely good to remind ourselves once in a while that struggling to decide which restaurant to go to is a wonderful problem compared to struggling to get enough to eat, it’s often an act of privilege to tell people to stop complaining because they are so privileged.

Huh? No, you read it right. Let me explain.

I have encountered gender discrimination because I’m a woman. If I hold that up as the worst thing that can befall a person, it is correct to remind me that I could have the additional problems associated with being a woman of color, or a woman starving in a third world country, or a woman in a war zone where rape and torture have become the norm, etc. But if I am merely pointing out that gender discrimination is wrong, and giving examples to show I know that firsthand, what sort of person seeks to silence me? One who wishes to preserve the status quo.

Complaints are not a bad thing by nature. If you come at discussions with the assumption that they are, that they are “just being negative”, or that the complainer is “just sitting around complaining instead of doing something about it”, you are part of the problem. You are closing your mind to the possibility that this world could be improved for everyone. Because that’s what complaining is about – identifying problems, which is the first step toward doing anything about them.

If only the most mistreated, disadvantaged people have the right to complain, imagine the problems we wouldn’t be able to solve.

Note: We have previously discussed this author in regard to content and themes. That is not the subject of this post; if you wish to discuss her writing, please comment here. The topic of this post is the arrogance of the Hollywood establishment coupled with its superstition about success – not the content of the particular movie/book in question. Thanks!

I recently caught the BBC World Book Club broadcast on satellite radio while travelling. The author who was being interviewed is massively successful with a devoted fan base and the book that was being discussed had been made into a movie, although I had not heard of her, her books, or the movie (apparently I’ve been living under a rock, also known as living my own life). Still the author spoke well and being the BBC, the questions were engaging. The author was Jodi Picoult and the book My Sister’s Keeper. The question that made the interview cross over from filling time while driving through rural Arkansas to making a post on Hathor had to do with the way the movie version of the book changed the ending of a book that was both controversial and, to fans, imperative. The author was asked if she took this experience in a cautionary way and was now going to be more careful what contracts she signed or what she approved for future film versions, and gave, to the uninitiated, a surprising response:

It’s not quite that simple. Most people do not realize how little control an author has when you sign the rights away to Hollywood…Most of the time, if you sell the rights to Hollywood, you have zero control over what happens, you are not consulted, nobody cares what you think. Hollywood believes really strongly that they know better, and that readers do not matter, really. They think that they can tell a better story and that you are only source material.¹

This attitude is easy to see. We have talked about the arrogance of the Hollywood establishment many times on Hathor and we’ve talked about how superstitious belief in whatever the hell they want to believe in keeps eyes closed to obvious facts.

In this case, with this author and this book, the author had a lot of access to powerful people who refused her advice summarily and condescendingly:

And then, one day I got an email from a fan at a casting agency in Hollywood and she said “We just got the script in for My Sister’s Keeper, did you know they changed the ending?” So I called Nick at home and he wouldn’t talk to me. So I went to the movie set in LA and he threw me off the movie set. So I went to go talk to the head of New Line Cinema, and I said “I think you’re making a really big mistake. The target demographic for your film are the millions of people who read this book and they’re waiting for that moment.” And he said, “No no, we know what we are doing.”²

Even with all of that access and influence, she was still persona non grata when her opinion was no longer wanted. So that’s the arrogance. We know better, you are stupid, go away now. Now comes the supersition:

Well, they lost a lot of money on that film. And, the interesting thing, is that I now look like a genius in Hollywood because I predicted this. Even more ironic, is that, because I was able to predict this, I have more control now, than I ever did the first time around, when it comes to saying I need to have the ability to look at the script before it goes into production that is something they never would have given me as an author when I was signing the contract to My Sister’s Keeper.³

What did the Hollywood Establishment learn from this experience? Humility? Listen to authors more? Keep book endings when the intended audience is the fans of the book? Or even stick to your guns if you think you are making a better story? Nope. They learned that this particular person is a genius and a psychic and you should listen to her. That’s probably the same reason why success in Hollywood is so convoluted, and success gives you power. In fact, that’s probably why the whole damn culture is like that – failure in one respect means nothing you have to say is worth listening to, and a big success means you are to be listened to about things that aren’t related, which is a really bad way to run a company or a country.

¹As I could not find a transcript of the interview on the BBC website, I did a transcript myself of the section involving the question about the film, which was about 5 minutes in length. This quotation is from timestamp 35:57-36:05 and 36:30-36:47. The entire interview is available currently at the link provided above and I have the transcript I did on my computer.
²38:02-38:33
³38:33-39:02

I heard about a cool store in Brooklyn on one of my favorite NPR shows recently. The host interviewed the owner of Lee Lee’s Valise, a plus size clothing boutique. Lisa Dolan is a plus size designer, and she is starring in a TLC reality TV show “Big Brooklyn Style”. I loved what Lisa Dolan had to say:

DOLAN: Right. What they do is they have a pattern made, let’s say it goes up to a size 12. They take the same pattern and they just extend it as if we grow and get bigger like that big plastic man you see by the used car lot…That’s not how we get bigger. You need to start a new pattern that accounts for curves. Not just a big boxy item that’s thrown over you, it’s something that actually flatters your figure.

Dolan was awesome and cool. She seemed really comfortable with herself and in her own skin. Although I love the host of the NPR show for her willingness to talk about race and women’s issues and push her guests to answer questions on these issues, she buys into the NPR party line on the “obesity epidemic” and I was disappointed with her on this interview; she really pushed the idea that having a plus sized boutique was somehow wrong or damaging because it might encourage people to feel okay about being plus sized. She asked the question three separate times during the interview, which was only 9 minutes long:

MARTIN: Yeah. I hear what you’re saying. It’s just there’s an argument that the fact that there are more services and businesses out there catering to the plus-sized customer is not necessarily a good thing. And I know that’s a hard thing to…

DOLAN: Listen, I’ve had people walk in off the street say that I was advocating obesity because I had clothes to fit them. That’s wrong. That is just wrong. Clothing is a necessity. Fashion is a necessity for a woman. So put them together and you have Lee Lee’s Valise.

On the one hand, I would never have heard this obviously generous and gracious woman speak about her store and her passion if Michel Martin hadn’t interviewed her (since I don’t watch TLC), but I could have definitely done without the fat shaming. At what point is it okay to suggest that we shouldn’t have decent clothing for people of all body types because we don’t approve of some body types? I would expect that on an MRA forum but not in responsible journalism.