Blimix

Here's a deeper framing of the "Bear or man" question.

In short, non-men have been asked whether they would prefer to encounter a bear or a man while hiking alone in the woods. Most choose the bear.

Some men understand. Some men are butthurt, challenging the answer.

The hidden undercurrent is this: These answers publicly highlight the fact that people view men as threatening. Men who are invested in the current, partriarchal power dynamic do not want this discussion to happen. Those men try to enforce taboos against speaking up about sexual assault, and against pointing out the bad behavior of people in power. All such taboos exist to reinforce existing power structures. (That goes for any too open discussion of money, race, religion, social status, etc.)

It's not that these men don't understand why women and nonbinary folks feel threatened by them. They just don't want people saying that they feel threatened. They know that their unearned patriarchal power must remain unexamined and unchallenged in order to remain at all, and so challenges must be silenced.

Of course, patriarchy hurts everybody, so these men are harming themselves along with others. But they're also showing their asses far more than they realize.

On this topic, I just helped my friend Amalia shoot a hilarious video:
https://www.tiktok.com/@thewildamalia/video/7366042053735681281
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6pYRZaxZLu/

Some months ago, Karen was in a public restroom where a cis woman looked like she was about to say something harsh to a trans woman. Karen spoke up first: "I like your skirt!" They exchanged pleasantries, and the other woman stifled herself.

I assist someone who had previously been told by store staff that they had to use the other changing room. When I learned this, I explained the meaning of my "#IllGoWithYou" pin. Recently, I had the opportunity to stand outside the women's changing room in that store, telling them things like, "Wow, the red really goes well with your skin tone! On the hangers, I liked the black dress more, but the red one really works well on you!" Staff and customers were right there, and nobody so much as looked askance at us.

#IllGoWithYou doesn't just mean, "I'll back you up if someone harasses you," but also, "I'll set an example, and make sure everyone else knows that you belong here." (Also, "I will use my cis privilege to keep other people from abusing theirs.")

(Aside: Karen doesn't remember her part of this. If I've misremembered, and given her credit for your story, please let me know.)

The Rainbow Staircase

L'esprit d'escalier is killing me. I'll get to that.

Capital Pride was easily the best festival that I've been to. Sleep deprivation and the distraction of a busy, anxious mind had not kept me from enjoying it. The people were happy, energetic, and friendly, recognizing each other as supportive and empowering allies. Parade watchers and participants alike stopped to pet my friends' reptiles: Three Argentine black and white tegus and one yellow rat snake. (Chameleons are too antisocial for parades, so they stayed home.) Organizations concerned with social justice, such as In Our Own Voices and the Satanists, alternated with shows of rainbow capitalism. Employees marched with pride flags and TD Bank shirts, so that the bank could pretend to care about people even while it stays invested in the Dakota Access Pipeline. I could tell the difference in the cheers, though the show of support was still loudly welcomed. I ran up to one of the women with a "Free Mom Hugs" sign, and got a mom hug.

The police cruiser, halfway through the parade, did not draw cheers, nor did it intend to. They did not so much as fly a rainbow ribbon. Pride started when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a haven where same-sex couples could dance together. Two transgender women of color, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, instigated the crowds inside and out to fight back. The Stonewall Riot, and subsequent Pride events, have encouraged LGBT+ folks to band together, to protest police brutality, and to protect each other from hate crimes. The police cruiser in the parade was a show of force, brazenly defiant of civil rights. Any officers who were genuine allies could have lent support by attending out of uniform. Indeed, a lone protester marched behind the cruiser with a sign reading, "Take Off Your Uniforms". I nearly blew out my lungs shouting my approval of her sign.

My wife and I walked toward the festival in the park to meet a couple: One trans woman and her nonbinary wife. They had together learned new ideas about gender and sexuality when the latter's husband had become their wife.

Off to the side, away from the main crowd, was the second or third topless woman we had seen that day. She was the only one who had not painted over her nipples, and was also the only person we had seen who was standing and talking with a police officer. I glanced away, not wanting to subject anyone to the Male Gaze on this day of all days. But then I looked back. Did she need help? Was the officer harassing her? This had happened to a friend of mine, even though toplessness has been legal in New York State since 1992. The tone of the conversation seemed reasonable, though I couldn't make out the words. She didn't seem to need help. She looked at me, and watched me watching her. Nobody is a mind reader, and I wouldn't want to be thought leering, so I looked away and kept up with my wife as we entered the park.

Near the fountain, we met some men clad in fetish gear. Somehow, the leather made me think, “bikers,” even though there was nothing even slightly protective about these garments. My wife made decent conversation. All I contributed was, “You know you’re getting sunburned, right?” Sometimes people don’t notice until it’s too late, but yes, he knew.

We found our friends, who were too hot for hugs. Another friend tackle-hugged me from the Mothers Demand Action table. Still another, whom I hadn't seen in years, found me and caught up for a few minutes. I marveled at the luck of seeing her there, before remembering that she had married her girlfriend a few years back, and of course she would be at Pride.

One of our friends told me that the "Free Mom Hugs" had been sadly reminiscent of their estranged, bigoted mother. I said, "We're your family now." I realized belatedly that the mom hugs had been meant to comfort people who had been rejected by their parents. The food truck lines were too long, so we walked until we found good, cheap food on Lark Street.

I posted later on social media, to briefly say that my first Pride event had been wonderful in all ways.

By morning, sleep had freshened my mind. I remembered the topless woman talking to the police officer. There was no way in hell that she had attended the Pride parade and festival to talk to the police. If she had been engrossed in conversation, she wouldn't have been looking at me. She had likely been stuck, seeking an out, and looking to me for help, since I had noticed. My overstimulated, overwrought, and sleep deprived brain had failed to process the situation correctly. It had followed a too-simple rule, "Don't stare," down the path to bystander apathy.

In the shower, I started thinking about what I could have done. That's where you replay every conversation the way it should have gone, right? The first thought was unwise: "Do you need help? Well, the officer who harassed my friend for being topless caused a protest and a huge embarrassment for the Troy police department a couple of years ago. I'm sure you don't want that, officer. We'll all be on our way now."

The next thought was more consistent with what I've read about stopping harassment. "Hon, wait, she needs help. Pretend to know her. Don't engage with the cop. Hey! It's great to see you here! How've you been? Brian and Steph are waiting for us at the food trucks. Do you want to come with us? They'd love to see you!" This became the scenario that I wanted to enact, after going back in time one day.

The French call it "l'esprit d'escalier". I call it the "spirit of the staircase," because my wife was horrified the one time I attempted to pronounce it. It's when you think of the perfect response too late, when you're already on the stairway out.

I so desperately want to fix my screwup, to be the person I know I could have been if I'd been thinking faster and more clearly, or if I'd had any practice at all. But we don't start out good at things. Any skill worth learning is built on a mountain of failures. Each time I kick myself for it can be a reminder, so that I can recognize the situation and act in time. Next time.

[Note: "Liberals" and "conservatives" refer here to the American left and right wings respectively. Other countries use these terms differently.]

The distinction between liberals and conservatives is at once simpler and more complex than people like to acknowledge. This is hugely important, because if liberals are to make long-lasting, significant gains, we have to understand why conservatives act the way they do. I don't just mean, "Stop vilifying them and try to reach across the divide," because that won't work: They're not offering handshakes to reach for, and they are happily supporting widespread oppression and murder while we hand-wring about getting them to like us. (However, I will make a point or two about reaching out, near the end.) We need to understand them so that we are better equipped to talk to them, to oppose them, and to more efficiently save the human lives that they threaten. (Thanks to their confirmation bias, I am not worried about similarly enabling conservatives to understand liberals, even though all the information they would need is right here.)

I promised simple and complex. The simple part is: Conservatives want to be on the side of the biggest bully. ( The rest is behind this cut. )

Some decades ago, during my college days (yes, I'm getting old), I accompanied a friend to his family gathering. I wound up engrossed in conversation with his stepsister J., age 15, whose knowledge and insight impressed me. At dinner, the three of us occupied a conversational niche at the middle of the table. The conversation at the table's end was the sort of speculation that often entertains dinner companions: The women of their parents' and grandparents' generations were taking turns sharing their explanations of some curious phenomenon. They took each other seriously, even though none of them had anything convincing to say on the subject. (My apologies: As much as these events have impressed themselves upon me, the intervening years have been more than sufficient to steal the subject itself from my memory.) A slightly heated debate ensued. At an appropriate gap in the adults' conversation, J., who was seated at their edge, made the usual gesture to draw attention. She began to submit a solution to the question under discussion, in the simple, explanatory tone of one who knows the answer. The adults avoided eye contact with J., and one of them immediately started talking over her (not to her; only to the others), so that they did not hear more than three words from her. It was smoothly done, as if J. had merely tried to interject during an insufficient pause. She politely waited for another pause, and was then interrupted in an identical manner. After the third time it happened, she gave up.

( The rest is behind a cut for the sake of your feed, but you know you want to read it. )

All right, I'm getting sidetracked. tl;dr: I like to show respect.

We finally saw "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" last night.

I'm going to discuss it, in ways that are moderately spoilery, ( behind a *SPOILERS* cut )

Gratuitous, irrelevant link: What if Harry Potter, the chosen one, had turned out to be a squib, how do you think history would have turned out differently? An alternate universe fanfic, in summary form. Still fairly long, but notably thoughtful and engaging. (Thanks, Sami and Tara!)

I was a teenager when my state passed a Hate Crimes Act. An older relative told me that she didn't think it was right to deal out extra punishment based on the motivation of the perpetrator: It smacked of policing people's thoughts. I had no opinion on the subject at the time, but I later came to realize that she was approaching the topic from the wrong direction.

The problem with hate crime (beyond the crime itself) isn't the intention of the criminal: It is that the victims of a single hate crime are legion. When Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson tortured and killed Matthew Shepard because he was gay, and when Stephen Andrew Moller killed Sean Kennedy because he was gay, their victims weren't only Shepard and Kennedy. Their victims were millions of young gay men who became afraid that some random asshole would murder them for being gay.

The act of terrorizing a population by committing crimes against some members of that population already has a name, so let's call it what it is: Terrorism.

In recent times, Internet trolls have been making graphic threats of violence (including rape, murder, and attacks upon families) against women in the gaming industry. These threats have lately been accompanied by doxxing, the tracing and revealing of personal information such as home addresses. This makes the threats extremely serious: At least two of the victims have had to leave their homes to ensure their safety. Some women are leaving the industry because of the threats. Others, who have not yet been targeted, fear that they might soon be.

So again, let us be perfectly clear on what this is: Terrorism.

The perpetrators of those acts do not care about the consequences of their actions on others; hence, they must be taught that there will be consequences for themselves. If you know someone who is harassing others online, please do not let them get away with it. Ostracising and exposing them is the absolute least you could do, and is not nearly commensurate with the harm that they are causing. And for the love of goodness, please do not give #GamerGate any sympathy. #GamerGate is a collection of already debunked excuses to attack women in the gaming industry. Its supporters' desperate attempts to come up with new excuses to legitimize their bloodthirsty misogyny is the same entrenchment you will find in any bigot who denies their bigotry. (You know them: They're the ones who start sentences with, "I'm not racist, but...")

An article I read a few years ago (Could anyone who recognizes this give me a link?) described the problem of silence thusly: Let's say you're hanging out with some friends, and one of them tells a racist joke. You all laugh. You know that racism isn't okay, but it's just a joke, and you're all friends and not really racists, so there's no need to call anyone out. Except that probably, one of the other four people in the room is a racist, and you just don't know it. That person sees four of their friends accepting racism as normal. That person sees you apparently condoning it, which affirms their racism. By your silence, you have given tacit approval to a form of bigotry that causes unimaginable strife. So instead, after you're done laughing, maybe you could say, with a non-challenging smile, "You know that's not okay, right?" If charisma isn't your dump stat, you can probably come up with a better response than I did. But you ought to say something, anything, because someone in that room may need to grow up, and they probably take more cues from you than you imagine.

So, to the males in my audience: If you're one of the many good ones, don't be silent. I'm not asking for a manifesto. A simple, public post on social media saying "#GamerGate is not okay" or "I do not support the harassment of women, inside or outside the gaming industry" would do. Elaborate if you want. You'll have my "like" or "+1".

Back when I read that Hollywood actively discourages film scripts from passing the Bechdel test, I was pretty pissed off.

Today, we watched "Maleficent". It was wonderful. Angelina Jolie (with the help of a great script) almost made me cry a couple of times. Go see it. Also, the movie is Bechdel heaven: Most of the screen time involves women (who often talk to each other, not about men). So see it in the theater, and let your money talk about whether audiences can deal with watching women interact.

Because fuck the patriarchy.

This is something that I've been meaning to write for a while. I finally got around to it today:

Fixing Nice Guys, "Nice Guys," and the Friend Zone: A view from the cross-fire.

In other news...

How to break a physicist fantasy gamer's brain: Tell them that they have encountered a quark elemental.