Barnyard Chorus

The point: you are proving it

2011-11-01T20:30:00.003+08:00

Rarely if ever does this Chicken allow her weary gaze to rest upon the august pages of STOMP. Expecting anything other than vapid nastiness from that churning sewer of hate is rather like hoping to be surprised if you scratch your butthole and then sniff your finger.

And yet what's a bird to do, but gape in horror when the portal decides to blather on in the least informed manner possible about the growing SlutWalk movement?

STOMPer Handsome Boy wonders if this movement is really necessary in Singapore,

It is. For proof, see the rest of your article.

and if it might send out the wrong message to the young.

"Don't rape, and don't be an asshole about rape." WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

But I don't know if this whole SlutWalk thing is necessary or relevant in Singapore, or if it's just another copycat idea by women here who think that just because some women in a Western country is affected by it, they should be too.

Let me get this straight. You can't be bothered to pull your head out of your armpit for two seconds to note that victim-blaming and slut-shaming are alive and well in Singapore - so alive and so well they are legally codified. Instead, it seems to you, it is more likely that women in Sngapore, after years of frolicking joyfully in a perfect feminist paradise, have decided we want to be "affected by" rape culture because... because... because the West is. Hey, who cares about facts when we can simply assume utterly implausible behaviour on the part of women?

Handsome Boy (I hate him just for making me type that name) goes on to worry that

young girls might get the wrong message -- thinking that dressing provocatively is OK.

I'm not saying that it's not all right for women to dress sexy (not naughty)

Yes, these two sentences are included back-to-back. Your guess, my friends, is as good as mine.

"Sexy (not naughty)" is also clearly not at all some arbitrary bullshit standard. How'm I gonna sleep tonight, knowing my clothing choices might not be approved by Handsome Boy?

but if they feel that they have the right to dress the way they like, then it's not fair for them to get upset when men stare at them, because the men can argue that they are free to look at whatever they like too!

You appear to be missing a key basic concept here. You know, the one which involves the bodies in question belonging to the women who are dressing them and not to the men who are behaving like dehumanising jackasses.

Staring at anyone in public with disregard for their comfort is rude. Arguing that women are fair game for rude behaviour, by virtue of being women going about in the world in clothing, is misogynist.

Not content with hosting Handsome Boy's poop, STOMP goes on to post some pictures of mostly headless women (and one bum) and asks us to tell them "which of these you consider 'slutty' or inappropriate and why".

As far as I can see, no one has yet commented that every single picture which objectifies and dehumanises women is inappropriate - in public space in general, and on a post about a women's rights movement in particular. But someone has commented saying:

SlutWalk? Hmm... Mass rape anyone?

...so, you know. STOMP's lovingly cultivated safe house for misogynists serves its purpose once again. And proves even more why SlutWalk is so necessary.

What We Stand For

2011-09-29T15:25:00.008+08:00

It's very difficult to get a fish to understand that water is wet. Some would say impossible. Especially because the only way to achieve this, really is to hold the fish out of water for a while, but the shock of it makes the experience less than instructive, for the most part.

Looking at the kyriarchy is like that. We've swum in it, breathed it in, and when we are made aware of it for the first time, it makes us acutely uncomfortable. This happens because it is the first time we starkly realise that life isn't fair, that the individual is not as in control of his/her on circumstances as much as we would like to believe. It's also the first time we're made to think about our own privilege and realise that there are things we've gained in life because we belong to the right groups and classes. The first time is never an instructive moment, because it's very difficult to push past the gasping horror and discomfort at it all.

We understand that, and we keep blogging, because hopefully, the more you see these things, the more the discomfort will subside. Ideally, the discomfort will give way into outrage, into an attitude of "What can we do about this?" Before that though, we need to look at some of the assumptions the people who find their way here are making.

With that, I'm now going to respond to a comment made by someone who is still operating from a position within the kyriarchy.

The comment:

Xavier said...

Does Slutwalk plan to take a stand against false rape accusers?
Or are all rape accusations supposed to be viewed as completely true?

The short answer is no.

The long answer, is no, because we don't have to. Before I delve into why we don't have to secure that front, let me turn that question around a little. Do we regularly ask if a stand needs to be taken against people who report being burgled? Who report being robbed? Who report being assaulted? These are all crimes that involve one party aggressing another, yet we dont feel a pressing need to get up in arms about these charges.

Rape, on the other hand, seems to get everybody all fired up.

This persistent attitude that "the bitch is lying" means that the cost for a woman to allege rape is very high. This is particularly true if the case is taken to court, where the accuser's past sexual history is dredged out as a possible defense (to properly see how absurd this is, think of someone being mugged - the person whose wallet was stolen is never asked about the many times they've walked that route with a wallet on their person and then being treated as a liar for it). This is so traumatic that in the UK, 97% of accusers attrition out of their court hearings. Take that statistic, against the well-researched figure that only 5.9% of all rape allegations are false and you see why we don't have to take a stand against false rape accusations. I'll even spell it out for you in case you haven't quite been able to follow along: we currently live in a society where the default is to treat anyone alleging rape as a lying slut. The stand has already been taken. (See also: Rape Culture)

This default stand is harmful and disenfranchises victims of sexual assault. And there are many of them. And they deserve better.

"A critique of SlutWalk Singapore? Try again." by Desirée Lim.

2011-06-20T10:28:00.002+08:00

===
ETA 22 June 2011: You can read Ben Cheah's reply to Desirée Lim's piece and Lim's further deconstruction of that email at her Facebook note. And if one's feeling extra intrepid, one can witness more FAIL from Cheah here: (TRIGGER WARNING - and yes, you have to copy and paste the address if you really want to feel the pain) https://www.facebook.com/notes/benjamin-cheah/the-blame-dialogues/183967081658348. As far as the farm is concerned, we're no longer entertaining Cheah's rubbish on this subject.
===
Readers will remember our 'favourite' rape-victim-blaming, Rational Male Blogger^TM Benjamin Cheah from a while back. Well, Cheah has resurfaced from what little manhole in which he resides to offer more useless cents (and sense) on the proposal to host SlutWalk in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The farm is honoured and most delighted to host our first guest post, this lovely response to Cheah by frequent #sgfeminists contributor, Desirée Lim. This is x-posted here.
===

Today I came across a blog post titled "Slutwalk: noble but misguided" by Benjamin Cheah. I am personally for Slutwalk and am pleased that it's coming to Singapore, but as I believe it's important to critique the things we support, I decided to read it. I hoped to read something that could shed light on SlutWalk's shortcomings and limitations in a Singaporean context, which I have been ruminating over the last few days: boy was I disappointed. If anything, it's shown me, all the more, how goddamned pervasive the exact attitudes SlutWalk stands against are, "academically" expressed or not, and how important it is so rally against them. Here is a brief response.

SlutWalk Singapore x Kuala Lumpur’s Facebook page says that one of its goals is ‘to stop victim-blaming in sexual assault, which is a crime that has nothing to do with what we wear or even sex.’ This reveals a dangerous misunderstanding of sexual assault.

Clothing matters. Rapists prefer women who wear clothes that are easy to remove. Rapists want to do the deed as quickly as possible, to minimise risk to themselves. The more time they spend removing clothes, the more time the victim has to defend herself and call attention to the rape-in-progress. Rapists aren’t necessarily turned on by scantily clad targets – but they will prefer targets who are easier to attack.

Naturally, this paragraph displays an excellent understanding of sexual assault, far superior to that of Slutwalk's! So rapists regularly sit around evaluating women's attire, poised to attack the first woman who has clothes that are "easy to remove".

Rapist: "Hmmm. This one's wearing a jacket, so nah. Shit, that one is wearing stockings and ripping them off is going to hinder my rape, so I'll let her off. Damn it, HER dress has BUTTONS on!"

The next time I walk out in a dress with a zip down the back (I can't think of any other article of clothing that would be easier to remove - maybe my old sweatpants that are loose around the waist and can thus be swiftly yanked down?), God help me. In fact, I should conduct sartorial experiments, just in case - does anybody want to volunteer to rip off a series of my outfits so I can be absolutely sure?

A protest march is a public expression of group opinion – but rapists don’t care. They don’t see themselves as part of society. (More on that below.) Protests can’t pressure someone who won’t feel it.

Workshops, fora and meetings attract people who have a stake in the topic. Rapists do not. They won’t show up. They may know someone who attended such a workshop – so they’ll just take her and her friends off their target list, if they care. Or put them on the list, if they care that much. (Again, more below.)

How does this invalidate SlutWalk? Cheah seems to be suggesting that it is pointless because rapists are not going to join women in the march, speaking out against victim-blaming. By the same logic, protest marches against any kind of injustice would be useless as well, since the perpetrators are probably not going to join in. Moreover, did anyone ever suggest that SlutWalk would stop rape? I doubt so. What we're more interested in is changing preponderant public attitudes towards rape - the very attitudes that Cheah himself, as I will show later, cheerfully propounds. He later continues along the same lines: A predatory rapist isn’t moved by popular outrage. He doesn’t even see himself as part of society. A social rapist doesn’t care…and may turn on ‘his’ woman if he learns she took part in something like SlutWalk. It’s not rape to him; he’s just putting her in his place. Right, and we feminists simplistically believe that SlutWalk can "move" and dissuade rapists. The day a protest march moves rapists to tears when they think about their wrongdoings ("This is it! I'll NEVER RAPE AGAIN!"), I'll eat my hat.

The heart of SlutWalk’s stance on rape is its attack on ‘victim-blaming’. SlutWalk believes that society pins all the ‘blame’ of a rape on the victim instead of the rapist. On the surface, this is only logical. A rapist committed a rape, therefore the rapist is to blame. But this is a shallow way of looking at rape – the rape probably occurred because the victim didn’t look after herself.

What did I tell you? Can a deep, incisive, correct way of looking at rape point us back to (gasp) victim-blaming? If you can bear to, let's read on.

Predatory rapists like to ambush their targets. The key word is ambush. They wait in dark, secluded areas, and assess everybody who walk by. As soon as they see a target, they strike. Predators can be avoided by going where they can’t hide and not provoking an attack. Personal safety is beyond the scope of this blog, but for more information, there are plenty of books and websites available. I favour Marc MacYoung, Gavin De Becker, and Rory Miller. While geared towards an American audience, much of what they say applies across cultures and borders. More importantly, they make sense, and their tactics work.

Social rapists are people you interact with. To avoid being raped by them, cut them out of your life, and spread the word about them. Potential rapists tend to fit a profile: if you know what to look for, you can take appropriate measures. They’re not that difficult to spot; they tend to be misogynistic bullies or slick charmers.

Most rapes occur because a woman took a risk, and got burned. She took a risk by walking down a dark alley, by ignoring the three young men lined up against a wall, by leaving a charming handsome stranger alone with her drink, by continuing to live with her abusive husband, and she paid the price. But these are avoidable risks. Most crimes occur this way. It’s controllable, even eliminated in some cases.

Now, two things. I first need to point out how ludicrous the second paragraph is. So, to avoid being raped, I am responsible for developing an internal Rapist Detector that enables me to systematically de-friend any rapist that could inhabit my friendspace. What's more, Cheah claims that they're "not that difficult to spot". I would love to personally introduce him to all my friends, just so he can tell me, afterwards, who is most likely to rape me - lest I suffer the consequences. It's easy! Cheah also conveniently ignores the fact that many rapists are people that you cannot easily disassociate yourself from with the click of a button - what about family members? Work superiors? Husbands you have young children with? Is it my fault that I am raped, or is it their fault for raping me? No prizes for the correct answer.

Secondly, being strongly against victim-blaming doesn't mean that we can't encourage people to be careful. There is a reason why I avoid walking alone in the dark by myself. It is perfectly natural for me to ask a female friend to send me a text when she reaches home safely. Before I left for university my mother gave me a flashlight/alarm hybrid that I was supposed to set off if someone tried to assault me (I never used it). The problem arises, however, when we say, not only that rape happens because we fail to do these things, but that we, as Cheah implies, have it coming.

Let me use a simple example. This point has been explained to death by more capable feminists, so feel free to skip over it, unless you need to be disabused. I am an amateur sailor who decides to go boating in an extraordinarily violent storm. No doubt, I am taking a risk because I choose to go boating in a storm. If I drown as a result, it will be my foolishness at fault, even if no one will say it at my funeral. How is this different from a woman who takes a risk by walking down a dark alley that might be populated by rapists? The key here, which so many people fail to grasp, is agency. Storms have no agency, but rapists (hopefully) do. A storm will continue to rage no matter what, but rapes happen because rapists actively decide to rape. A woman who does - or fails to - do x is in no danger of rape if men do not choose to rape. If we blame the victim and not the rapist, we are assuming that rapists, like storms, are an uncontrollable constant we should accept as a fact of life. Men rape. That is normal. They can't help it. If we believed this, I seriously think it would be a huge insult to men in general.

With the aid of another analogy:

Either: To stop rape, women take EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE PRECAUTION to make sure they don't get raped. This includes, as Cheah suggests, wearing clothing that is difficult to take off (like thick leather onesies with conspicuous locks on) and fine-tuning their aforementioned Rapist Sensors. Disappointed, potential rapists give up and go home.

Or: Potential rapists stop themselves from raping.

Either: To stop ourselves from being hit by drunk drivers, we make sure we TAKE EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE PRECAUTION to make sure we don't. We wear fluorescent clothing and refuse to cross roads, ever. Otherwise, it is our fault for being hit.

Or: People stop drink-driving.

Which looks more sensible? I leave it to the reader.

A journo's juvenile jeers

2011-06-07T18:56:00.007+08:00

Journalist Joyce Hooi has weighed in on the whole degradation-of-divorce-proceedings-into-a-flesh-parade barfery that my dear comrade Porky talked about. Hooi's argument, as far as she has one, is that there's no problem with courts treating all divorcing women as hawkers peddling themselves as commodities in a jolly old meat market, because that's precisely what divorcing women are. Products which can be helpfully ranked to assist browsing consumers, since all straight men are exactly the same and can classify all women on the same one linear scale of what they want in a mate.

I excerpt Ms Hooi's offering with humble observations of my own.

THIS weekend, when men in bars all over Singapore size up the pickings available, they will use a new lexicon for attractiveness: a woman will be either 'lump sum' or 'monthly' instead of 'hot' or 'have a few more drinks before you look again'.

Women are "pickings", to be rated by a cost to quality ratio. Charming.

This was triggered by the divorce settlement of a 37-year-old Vietnamese Singaporean woman in which another judge had asked if the woman in question was attractive.

Why is her background even mentioned? As a commenter on Piggy's entry pointed out, you have to wonder if this question has arisen in part because of the nasty stereotypes Singaporeans have about Vietnamese women.

From the subsequent appeal of the lady in question - the maintenance sum for her son had been cut from $12,000 to $600, among several things - I have no choice but to imagine that she's the spitting image of Gisele Bundchen.

Pay attention here, this is a real live example of sexist culture at work. The original report was quite careful to state that "attractiveness" isn't assessed purely on physical terms - which doesn't make the assessment any less problematic, since it still assumes that all divorcing women will and should get remarried, and that women are essentially interchangeable commodities of varying quality. But Ms Hooi has neatly elided this to ensure the discussion is all about women's appearances again, thus using a bad judgment to further an even worse cultural trope! Skilful work.

The cut in child maintenance might not have been solely influenced by the woman's attractiveness, of course, and might have something to do with the fact that $12,000 is a lot of Xbox 3 games, but that's fodder for another column.

Please don't write it. We don't like you.

In any case, enraged feminists (a redundancy, if there ever was one) have objected to the idea that looks have any bearing on alimony.

Yeah, we're pissed off. Gee, you noticed? Quite obviously, being frequently pissed off can only mean we don't really have anything to be pissed off about. It's a mathematical law:

{ IFF* Cause = 0, THEN feminist = enraged }

*IFF: If and only if

Her name is Joyce Hooi, and logic is her weapon.

The two main links in the argument that they object to are: attractiveness is objective, and attractiveness is an indicator of how quickly you can get someone to say 'I do'.

The short rebuttal to both arguments is: surely you kid.

You need to make the long ones, because the short one is lousy.

Actually, on second thought, please don't.

The longer one to the first concern about the subjectivity of attractiveness is this: while there might be room for quibbling about how someone is more of a 7 than an 8, the gulf between a 2 and an 8 is wide enough for most people to see (unless, of course, you're Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Railing against the objective definition of beauty is like saying that America's Next Top Model is bunk; it is futile and makes everyone suspect that the person doing the complaining is ugly.

She's doing the logic thing again! Everybody take cover! Here I refer you to the frolics of some friends of the barn on Twitter (or Clucker, as I would like to see it renamed):

illyrica: Joyce Hooi playground reasoning: "If you object you are ugly haha!" OK I'm ugly. Big fucking deal. This makes me wrong how?

MizHalle: she considers ugly people to be worth less than non-ugly ones so she doesn't have to listen to them
and if you disagree with her article you must be ugly.
So therefore, if you disagree with her article she automatically doesn't have to listen to you!
And therefore, she's automatically always right!
Circular logic FTW! *shoots things*

As a matter of fact, Hooi is simply wrong. It may well be the case that in the artificial playground of Hollywoodified media, there is an "objective" scale of "attractiveness" against which people can be ranked, according to their ability to meet some arbitrary checklist of requirements.

But back on planet Earth, when it comes to the daily grind (heh, heh) of people meeting others, and getting to know one another, and deciding who they like or don't like, and fitting their values and tastes and senses of humour and different sexualities together, and dare I say it falling in love, there simply isn't a scale. We aren't all in the hopeless thrall of the latest Mr & Miss Universe. Many of us yearn for actual people who touch us (giggle) in highly individual ways. There are certainly people who never cultivate brains of their own, and only ever strive for partnerships and marriages as status symbols to be valued in the way that the television producers and the glossy magazine editors tell them to. But they are fewer than they believe, and public policy shouldn't be made around them.

Diversion aside, the other concern - that attractiveness does not have a correlation with chances of remarriage - is naive. Some have brandished the Women's Charter, saying that physical attributes are not mentioned.

The Women's Charter (which begins titillatingly with the definition of 'brothel' but sobers up pretty quickly thereafter) mentions 'income, earning capacity, property and other financial resources' of both parties as some of the determinants of maintenance quantum.

Since marriage is correlated with financial security especially where a woman is concerned, why can't her marriageability be considered part of her earning capacity? The day Donald Trump breaks with tradition and marries a Plain Jane, I will stand corrected.

Open your eyes. Every day people enter relationships and/or marriages that confound the shallow expectations of your sexist media narrative, a narrative which calls them "exceptions" or "oddities" and then pretends they don't exist. "Plain Janes" - that is, the vast majority of normal human beings, who have better things to do than get hung up on boring media stereotypes - get married all the time. Your glib correlations are not borne out by reality.

But also importantly, not everyone wants to get married. Not everyone who gets divorced wants to get remarried. Being married is often, for women, actually quite a bad idea. Not everyone who wants to get remarried can do so to the person of their choice, because same sex marriage is still not possible. The courts of law have no business financially penalising people for not wanting to treat their personal relationships as bargaining currency.

But it gets better. Ms Hooi then tries to pretend she is against reducing people to their appearances and for women's rights:

One of the many studies done found that plain people earn 5-10 per cent less than average-looking people, who in turn earn 3-8 per cent less than those who are good-looking.

...

If a relative lack of attractiveness qualifies as an impediment to your capacity to make a living, it confounds me that people would object that the courts try to redress that imbalance. Some have railed against the idea that women rely this much on marriage. But they do; studies in America have shown that single parents consider their economic situation far more precarious than married parents.

And if you argue on the basis that marriage is simply a technicality that can be postponed even by good-looking women, then the court's approach can be seen to be incidentally progressive. Even if a beautiful women never marries, she is likely to be better taken care of by the workplace and quicker to find a companion who will split the COE with her, compared to a plainer woman.

How exactly are the courts redressing any imbalance here whatsoever? Is the daily objectification and prejudice faced by women over our appearances going to be reduced by this judgment, or is it strengthened by this institutional support? (Hint: the answer is in the first paragraph of your column.)

It might also be good to ask what, in reality, is the "advantage" that Ms Hooi believes "more attractive" women enjoy over "less attractive" ones? Consider the experience of job seekers in China:

In China, sexual harassment and being asked to sleep with interviewers in a tough job market was a very real concern to my friends in their final year of university, and they themselves attributed it to men being valued so highly that women are asked to ‘give a little something extra’ to be considered.

The imbalance that needs redress can't be seen for what it really is without understanding the role gender plays in this. The problem isn't "hot" and "ugly" women battling it out in a vacuum-sealed room of our own. The problem is misogyny, which women are encouraged to ignore while we battle one another for the scraps tossed to the "pretty". The problem is misogyny, and the solution won't be found by defining women as commodities whose value depends on heterosexual male use.

Family law, not Ms Singapore pageantry, pls.

2011-06-03T17:32:00.001+08:00

The farm was fazzled this morning when it learnt that a court judge called into question the attractiveness of a divorcee in deciding the quantum and form of her maintenance. The case was brought to public attention as the claimant filed for a review of the judgement on grounds of biasness. I append the contentious portion of the article, with emboldening to my whimsy (read the full article after the cut):

Divorce and the attractive woman
Straits Times
K. C. Vijayan
3 June 2011, Friday

A JUDGE who asked during a divorce settlement hearing if the wife involved was attractive was not being biased, the High Court has ruled.

Dismissing a move by the woman for a judicial review of the case, Justice Choo Han Teck said that was not an irrelevant question for a judge to ask.

He said the court could take into account a woman's prospects of remarriage when deciding the financial support she should receive from her former husband, and whether it ought to be a lump sum rather than monthly payments.

Justice Choo's judgment, released yesterday, explained why he rejected the woman's application for a judicial review to set aside the court orders to settle maintenance issues between her and her former husband.

Lawyers contacted yesterday said that in deciding on maintenance for a divorced woman, the court could consider her attractiveness.

That did not mean only her looks but also other attributes, such as her character, that might affect her prospects of marrying again, said family lawyer Koh Tien Hua.

'The possibility of remarriage is one of the factors the court considers in deciding on the quantum of maintenance payments the woman should get,' he said.

Monthly maintenance payouts lapse when a woman remarries.

Family lawyer Rajan Chettiar said a woman's remarriage prospects were not a factor in the maintenance assessment, pointing to the Women's Charter and his own experience in dealing with family cases.

The Charter lists the woman's age, financial needs and status among factors to be considered when deciding on maintenance.

But the courts have the discretion to consider attractiveness as well when deciding on alimony.

Before I continue, I'd like to remind readers that we on the farm have many issues with the current outdated conception of the Women's Charter and call for a more comprehensive review/amendment. But let's focus today's discussion squarely on the problems of including a woman's attractiveness and the possibility of her remarrying in determining the quantum and/or form of her maintenance (monthly pay-outs or lump-sum).

Alimony is based on the idea that a man entering a marriage becomes legally obliged to provide for his wife throughout and past that marriage. ("Till death do us party; in sickness and in health, etc" ya?) The obligation however terminates when the receiving party enters into a new marriage/contract, as said woman now has a new partner who's taking on these obligations.

Upon dissolution of the marriage, the former husband is automatically obliged to provide for his ex-wife. The maintenance sum is usually dependent on the wealth and financial needs of both parties, although admittedly this is sometimes hard to pin down accurately. There are also many good reasons that people may choose to file for a lump-sum pay out (eg. ailing ex-husbands, cutting ties and moving on, etc) and we respect people's and the court's decision on this. However, we think that, by default, maintenance should be made monthly. This will, after all, be quite befitting of the term "maintenance".

By tying alimony to the *perceived* marriageability of a woman, the court not only assumes but basically frames marriage as a goal for divorcing women. While remarriage is a proposition we're perfectly all right with, should divorcees find someone new (or old) with whom they wish to reenter the institution all over again, there needs to be an understanding that a failed marriage - for many reasons - may very well mean the end of the pursuit of marriage (but not love) for many - this can have little to absolutely no relation to one's looks at all.

As learned as our judiciary may be, I doubt it's vested with the premonitory powers to accurately assess the marriageability of people. Does the courts' assessment, which apart from looks also includes "other attributes, such as her character" (OOoooOohhh, how holistic!), necessarily lead to the divorcees' getting married? What happens when changes (physical and otherwise) occur after the ruling, and these women suddenly drop in ratings (by the courts' standards, not ours) to get remarried? We can haz maintenance review, puhlease? This doesn't even begin to touch on the fact that someone being attractive (by whoever's standards and terms) doesn't mean that they can/will get re/married.

Let's consider the scenario between two women: Ms A who's deemed more likely to get remarried and Ms B who's deemed less likely. Say both women remarry say some 40 years down the road, when they're all of 75 years old: does the court then suggest that Ms A deserves to receive less money than Ms B in the interim 30 years because... What? She didn't do her best to get herself hitched to the chap much earlier, in which case her maintenance term would have terminated itself? If you sense a disconnect here, it's likely because there really isn't any relevance in how much maintenance a woman deserves based on her marriageability.

When did our jurisprudence enter the remit of beauty pageantry to be able to (legally) determine the physical attractiveness (to the ends of marriageability) of any person? Wait, of course ANY ONE, much less a judge, can determine this! This is because there're no absolute definitions of beauty, so any assessment of it necessarily relies on fancies of the beholder/s. An assessment of a woman's attractiveness, therefore, can really neither be conclusively right nor wrong. It is precisely because of this bloody arbitrariness that one's looks cannot and should not be relevant in the decision-making process of maintenance allocation.

~~What would possess anyone to even begin to consider a woman's chances of remarrying and her looks to be a legitimate factor of the sum and method of maintenance!?!?~~ I understand certain paternalistic reasons for framing a woman's goals and worth as a wife/mother, and also the over-reliance on the institution of marriage and the extended family network for all sorts of social support (e.g. healthcare, public housing, etc). But these are grossly outdated models of human relations, with entailing problematic policies, that all need revision, instead of being further propped up and encouraged by anyone.

Title: Divorce and the attractive woman
Source: Straits Times
Author: K. C. Vijayan

Legal News Archive
http://www.singaporelawwatch.sg/remweb/legal/ln2/rss/legalnews/72097.html?utm_source=web%20subscription&utm_medium=web&title=Divorce%20and%20the%20attractive%20woman

A JUDGE who asked during a divorce settlement hearing if the wife involved was attractive was not being biased, the High Court has ruled.

Dismissing a move by the woman for a judicial review of the case, Justice Choo Han Teck said that was not an irrelevant question for a judge to ask.

He said the court could take into account a woman's prospects of remarriage when deciding the financial support she should receive from her former husband, and whether it ought to be a lump sum rather than monthly payments.

Justice Choo's judgment, released yesterday, explained why he rejected the woman's application for a judicial review to set aside the court orders to settle maintenance issues between her and her former husband.

Lawyers contacted yesterday said that in deciding on maintenance for a divorced woman, the court could consider her attractiveness.

That did not mean only her looks but also other attributes, such as her character, that might affect her prospects of marrying again, said family lawyer Koh Tien Hua.

'The possibility of remarriage is one of the factors the court considers in deciding on the quantum of maintenance payments the woman should get,' he said.

Monthly maintenance payouts lapse when a woman remarries.

Family lawyer Rajan Chettiar said a woman's remarriage prospects were not a factor in the maintenance assessment, pointing to the Women's Charter and his own experience in dealing with family cases.

The Charter lists the woman's age, financial needs and status among factors to be considered when deciding on maintenance.

But the courts have the discretion to consider attractiveness as well when deciding on alimony.

In the case before Justice Choo, the woman was a 37-year-old Vietnamese Singaporean and economics graduate whose marriage to a Singapore businessman aged 53 ended after 13 years. They have a 12-year-old son.

Last year, she appeared before Justice Lai Siu Chiu in relation to a maintenance hearing and was dissatisfied among other things that the monthly maintenance for her son had been reduced from $12,000 to $600.

She was also unhappy with Justice Lai's orders in relation to the disposal of the matrimonial assets.

She claimed that Justice Lai had said that she knew her former husband from his previous divorce and that she knew a man who was her former husband's business partner.

But Justice Choo rejected the woman's claim saying he was 'unable to read any bias or prejudice into a remark by a judge that merely says that she had known a particular person from previous proceedings'.

He said that often a judge may make such comments to the parties before him or her, especially when there was no material connection to the case.

This was so that should they find out later, they would not think that the judge kept the information from them.

'Such comments are often made so that the parties can be advised whether to object to the judge hearing their case,' Justice Choo said.

He noted that there had been no objections during the hearing before Justice Lai or when the case went before the Court of Appeal.

He said the woman's allegations had not been proven and dismissed her application for judicial review with costs.

The woman was represented by lawyer M. Ravi, while lawyer Kang Kim Yang represented her former husband.

vijayan@sph.com.sg

"Brave inheritor".

2011-05-05T20:31:00.000+08:00

Another short passage from Rebecca Traister's Big Girls Don't Cry, this time on the inheritance of privilege, from one generation to another:

In some cases the sentiments of dissenting young women were practically love letters from a purportedly ungrateful generation. Responding to Linda Hirshman's piece about her mother issues, Courtney Martin wrote in the American Prospect, "I have gained an immeasurable amount from the wise, older women who have challenged my views on this election and other issues within a context of complexity. These women have made me a better thinker, a better writer, a better feminist, and a better human. And because of them, I will not cower, but I promise to be grateful. I will not forget, but I must also move on. I will not be a dutiful daughter, but I promise to be an impassioned, authentic, and brave inheritor.

...

It was true, [Gloria] Steniem acknowledged, that many of her contemporaries "were not appreciated enough for the hard work and the sacrifice and so on. But you cannot now exact the price from your daughters. Even Susan. B. Anthony said, 'Our job is not to make young women grateful. It's to make them ungrateful.'" (pp162-163)

The Farm Awards: Your Candidate and Their Track Records

2011-04-26T21:45:00.002+08:00

===
ETA 28 Apr 2011: Singapore Democratic Party published their manifesto yesterday, and they have an exclusive section on women's issues AND disability rights. We won't rate them against the other parties/candidates as it's past our deadline, but we strongly encourage everyone to head over there to read it!
==

Candidate Rating Table
(JPEG on Picasa; downloadable)

67-page Assessment of Candidate/Party Quotes
(PDF on Google Doc; downloadable.)

Fur and feathers are flying. In preparation for the elections, we on the farm have done some homework, looking into the stances various parties and candidates have taken on some issues close to our animal hearts. Drawing on parliamentary records, party manifestos and websites and some personal blogs of candidates, we've put together remarks from a number of candidates on topics including: abortion rights, parental benefits & family building (single parents, paternity leave), sexual autonomy (sex education, enforcement, sexual orientation & employment rights), sexual violence (marital rape, inmate rape & child abuse) & workplace sexual harassment, foreign domestic workers’ rights (with a small mention of foreign worker spouse), and a bit of disability rights.

As you can see above, we've put it all together in two nice fat tables. One sets out direct quotations from candidates, and our remarks. The other is a chart which shows our assessments of candidates' track records on each topic, with a four-colour rating system to show whether we Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Agree or Strongly Agree. (Sometimes we've put Disagree or Strongly Disagree when we haven't necessarily found them saying outrageous things, but the party statements on a subject in their manifesto are extremely limited and cannot do the subject justice.)

We'll hopefully also be publishing individual blog posts on certain topics over the coming days.

We like honesty, so we're going to admit a number of limitations here. We've done some searches but we can't pretend to have covered everything under these headings. If you have any further information about the policy intention of candidates or parties that we've missed out, please send it in.

There's also a lot more we wanted to cover, but didn't. Trans rights. Sex workers' rights. More on employment discrimination, including unfair termination for pregnancy. More detailed research on disability rights, rather than the very little we've found. But as a motley bunch of frazzled farm stock, we haven't got very far. Again, if you have more information to share, please hit up the farm email.

We also recommend reading the material with a heavy dose of understanding of some background facts:

1) Whatever the appearance of internal dissent within the PAP, the actual policy results you get by voting for them is easily determined as a matter of record. For example, we have some quotations from a handful of PAP MPs advocating sensible positions well at odds with what the government actually does, but this may not be very significant, as long as these particular backbenchers don't have much direct input into ministerial policy formation. So tread with caution.

2) We're publishing what we've found online. It is difficult to find information on the Internet about what some of the parties think on many issues. This may reflect their lack of policy intention in these areas, or it may reflect their failure to put it on the Internet. Be aware that there are silences here.

3) Good rankings on particular points aren't necessarily an endorsement of the candidate as a whole or their parties (see, for example, point 1). There are lots of other topics that we on the farm think are important, like economic equality, education, and freedom of speech. We're just trying to help build a fuller picture of the positions that have been taken on particular issues that matter to us.

Read, share, and discuss our findings. And vote well.

Call for topics: GE candidates' views on women's issues.

2011-04-04T20:07:00.001+08:00

By popular demand, this farm will attempt to research and publish findings of potential general election candidates' views on women's issues, including but not limited to abortion, family maintenance, sexual assault, etc.

Should readers have particular topics of interest, and/or have leads on what you deem will be beneficial for our compilation, do let us know either in your comments or email us at farmer*dot*plantalot*at*gmail*dot*com.

"A woman schlemiel".

2011-03-30T00:30:00.005+08:00

In light of Singapore's imminent general elections this year, and the ugliness of sexist dissections people feel entitled to enact upon candidates (e.g. Tin Pei Ling), I thought it'd be timely to share some passages from the Rebecca Traister's Big Girls Don't Cry (an interview with the author), which discusses the sexism and misogyny faced by vice- and presidential candidates - Sarah Palin and Hillary Rodham Clinton, respectively - in the 2008 United States elections.

Breaking from writing conventions, I'm just going to paste the relevant passages without comment or leads. This all seems quite self-explanatory:

It's not that male politicians escaped related evaluation (based on looks) ... The scrutiny was much more intense for Clinton, because women value is intrinsically tied to desirability and attractiveness .... For those who supported her had to downplay her feminine attributes lest she be diminished by objectification. For those who hated her the goal was to humiliate her, and at the same time affirm that she held no alluring power over them. As Shirley Chisholm said decades before, "One distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality: their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine. They think she is anti-male; they even whisper that she's probably a lesbian..." (pp76-77)

These points of recognition (of sexism) were about identifying with a certain strain of ill treatment, something feminists are loath to do lest they be accused of capitalising on victimhood. But feminism was born precisely because women faced gendered injustices. To identify and overcome obstacles and resistance was to advance the project of female empowerment ... To see a woman get taunted for being simultaneously frigid and lachrymose and then get teased for her smarts was not to ascribe to her inherently feminine qualities of frigidity, sentimentality, or unsociability. Rather it was to witness femininity as it has historically been cast, especially when it threatened male power structures: as a laughable, silly, unpleasant, or devalued condition. Women had watched a popular version of Hillary Clinton, a front-running candidate with whom they may have had a complicated or cool relationship but whose strengths, weaknesses, achievements, and mistakes had never been traditional or one-dimensional, manipulated to fit into retro molds of lightweight (peevish, unpopular, calculating, shrill) feminine illegitimacy. In a cartoon drawn by Pat Oliphant in the days after New Hampshire a bubbling Clinton is shown at a desk, facing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Osama bin Laden, Lim Jong Il and other menacing men murmuring "Aww, she's sensitive--I had no idea"; "Was it something we said?"; and "Buy her flowers." A thought bubble above Hillary's head reads, "You guys are mean!" and in the corner, a miniature Bill remarks, "This is when PMS goes nuclear." In the face of plenty of good reasons to criticise Hillary Clinton, women now realized that for some it still came down to this: the same twisted characterizations used for centuries to bolster the idea that women were unfit to lead. (pp104-106)

Letters to left-leaning publications and blogs bubbled with enmity toward Clinton. As Katha Pollitt wrote, "Vats of sexist nastiness splattered across the Comments section of hundreds of blogs and websites. It's as if every obscene phone caller and every exhibitionist in America decided to become an amateur political pundit." ... The trouble was that because everyone was liberal and officially down with female empowerment, that many women who couldn't cite actual uses of the words bitch or cunt found themselves troubled by their inability to specify the sexism they sensed. "I don't think anyone in my (progressive) peer group ... would be comfortable saying, 'I'm not ready for a woman president,'" said Alex Seggerman, a twenty-four-year-old art history Ph.D. student. Seggerman was an Obama voter but noticed people making remarks like "She's had plastic surgery" or "Her attitude is off-putting," which she heard as "expressions of some deeper issues with the fact that she is a woman." People can always come up with reasons they don't like the candidate they're not supporting," said Dana Lossia, the Obama-supporting labor lawyer. "But no one disliked Joe Biden or Chris Dodd as much as they dislike Hillary." She's never heard her friends say anything explicit: "[They never say] anything where I could say, 'That's a sexist comment.' It's just that I can't understand why they hate her so much."

It was a contemporary iteration of Betty Friedan's problem that had no name, a maddening cycle of vague hunches and self-righteous denials that left many of us feeling as though we were going insane. Even (Jessica) Valenti was disoriented by it; she was particularly hamstrung because, as she pointed out, she made her living identifying sexism. "You'd think I'd be able to find an example," she said, adding, "Because it's not [always] explicit sexism, it makes it impossible to argue with people, because if you say something, then you're the wackadoo feminist." (pp169-170)

The liberalish radio host Ed Schultz, who had said on air that (Sarah) Palin set off a "bimbo alert", who asked, in conversation with Larry King and Republican Susan Molinari, "What kind of mother is she? Is she prepared to be the vice president? Is she going to be totally focused on the issues?" The Washington Post's Sally Quinn asked if Palin was "prepared for the all-consuming nature of the job ... Her first priority has to be her children. When the phone rings at three in the morning and one of her children is really sick what choice will she make?"

... The feminist writer and lawyer Susan Estrich weighed in, remarking, "No one would be asking these questions if she were a man. No one asked whether Arnold Schwarzenegger should run for governor because he has four children ... This is how the double standard works ... I have no doubt that Barack Obama can count on his fingers the number of times he has been home in the last 19 months to put his two beautiful daughters to bed ... Does this make him a 'bad father'? Should it undercut his claim to the presidency? Of course not?" (pp233-234)

[Palin] was a bad vice-presidential candidate, like bad vice-presidential candidates before her, and her communications team had allowed a prank caller to get through. She was ill-prepared and inarticulate, and her chattiness about how much she liked Sarkozy's model wife, Carla Bruni, was cringey. But progress takes all sorts, and in the pantheon of political leadership there has been thousands of craven, ill-intentioned, pompous, and stupid men. There was no rule that said that in order to make history Palin had to be a decent, honest politician, nor that she was a rocket scientist. Were we to envision true equality in politics, it would involve as many Sarah Palins as it would Hillary Clintons. As Bella Abzug had said, "[The goal is not to see a] female Einstein become an assistant professor. We want a woman schlemiel to get promoted as quickly as a male schlemiel." (p280)

And just to be clear, this farm also attributes sexism as the cause for the imbalance of attention spent between demolishing Tin's political aspiration and other candidates. Head over to Weekday Blues' post to find out why.

When you say or do something sexist and/or misogynistic towards one person, man or woman, you do it to everyone else because you remind us, the everyone else, that we are supposed to have a restrictive place in life too. Don't try to make this them versus us; exceptionalising the hated as someone deserving of discriminatory and violent scorn, then especialising everyone else as different from the pack, like as if we're supposed to feel good about your not being directly bigoted towards us. Oh, looky, Brownie cookies for us! We have your favour and approval. How lovely!

Though the real beauty of exceptionalising it is that it muddles it for us. Makes it difficult for us to call you out, because people don't like to be associated with the scorn, and then be scorned too. Especially not when a large group of people are the culprits of it. Especially not when we least expect our immediate network best friends, greatly admired people, closest of family members, or supposedly most progressive of internet blogs--all of whom supposed to protect and stand with us from all this grotesque discrimination--be the ones promulgating this bullshit.

Don't kid yourself, there's no us and there's no them in social injustices. It hurts every-fucking-one.

The obesity and BMI divide.

2011-03-16T21:56:00.002+08:00

Paul Campos has a Daily Beast article ("Michelle Obama's Let's Move Campaign Is Helping Bullies") that puts it very succinctly what our bovine barnmate was trying to illustrate earlier: that contemporary discourse on weight-lose hinged on the Body-Mass Index (BMI) bordering on pseudo-science of pop-psychology, with all the trimmings of statistical conjuring and arbitrary standards buried in formality to make bullshit sound oh-so authoritative, medical but mostly pompous.

If you didn't get Cow's message earlier, here's Campos laying it out for you, which I doubt substantively differs much from Singapore although written in the context of America:

The Centers for Disease Control website offers these definitions of “overweight” and “obesity” in children: (emboldening by me)

· Overweight is defined as a BMI at or above the 85th percentile and lower than the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. · Obesity is defined as a BMI at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex.

These definitions raise a couple of obvious questions in a nation that has been bombarded with claims that childhood obesity is skyrocketing. After all, by this standard, aren’t exactly 10 percent of children always overweight by definition, while another 5 percent are obese? And what’s the justification for these statistical cut-points, anyway?

The definitions were created by an expert committee chaired by William Dietz, a CDC bureaucrat who has made a career out of fomenting fat panic. The committee decided that the cut-points for defining “overweight” and “obesity” in children would be determined by height-weight growth chart statistics drawn from the 1960s and 1970s, when children were smaller and childhood malnutrition was more common. The upshot was that the 95th percentile on those charts a generation ago is about the 80th percentile today-hence, the “childhood obesity epidemic.”

These definitions are completely arbitrary. The committee members chose them not on the basis of any demonstrated correlation between the statistical cut-points and increased health risk, but rather because there was no standard definition of overweight and obesity in children, and so they invented one. In other words, the “childhood obesity epidemic” was conjured up by bureaucratic fiat.

The committee did this despite Americans being healthier, by every objective measure, than they’ve ever been: Life expectancy is at an all-time high, and demographers predict it will continue to climb steadily. This isn’t surprising given that mortality rates from the nation’s two biggest killers, heart disease and cancer, are at historical lows and keep declining, while infectious diseases are under better control than ever. There’s no reason to think that today’s children won’t be healthier as adults than their parents, just as today their parents are healthier than their own parents were at the same age, continuing a pattern that has prevailed since public health records began to be kept in the 19th century.

(Hat tip Kate Harding.)

#sgfeminists on Twitter.

2011-02-19T12:56:00.000+08:00

While the animals and I hardly write here anymore (our apologies, by the way), we are still occasionally tweeting at our account. More importantly, the barn and a couple of others, including our good pals at Weekday Blues and AWARE, have for some time been sharing thoughts and links at the hashtag #SGfeminists.

Do join us in our discussions, and share your thoughts and links at #SGfeminists!

Teh menz, they sure knowz betta!

2011-02-09T23:26:00.004+08:00

People wonder why there's no gender equality in Singapore?

Seriously!?!?!? (WARNING: proceed at your own risk.)

Everytime AWARE or anyone speaks up for gender equality, suddenly everyone else has an opinion (cursory survey of TOC's recent published links on Facebook suggests that AWARE's post garnered the most comments) and invariably the Men Rights Activists (MRAs) are bound to come out of the woodwork. Especially for AWARE, someone must see it in hirself to bring up their involvement in The Gay Agenda, for mawd knows why!

Every occasion of a stab at establishing some gender equality, someone else is bound to draw out his list of Greater Priorities to Achieve Real Gender Equalitiez. Every occasion to commemorate or discuss substantively policy push in gender equality, someone is bound to hijack the platform to promote the various ways in which Gender Equality Iz Im/Possiblez. Every occasion is never allowed a brief moment to critically engage the push against the environment in which policies are moulded in Singapore. (Seriously, these people see press releases or news items, then conclude that lobby work is as easy as opening their mawddamn mouths?)

And every time someone speaks of gender equality, someone else will without fail play the National Service card.

I don't mean to speak for anyone, but I doubt any of these farm animals nor our barnyard engineer, nor AWARE, nor the government, nor TOC, nor even the Unaccompanied Ursidae on its most delusional day have all the answers. The good thing is that lobbying work isn't a zero-sum game. We can all get in on the action and tackle the problems of the world from various angles. And you know what? There're far more of these MRAs and People For-Real-Real-Not-For-Play-Play Gender Equality than there are of us who've made it our personal, unpaid mission to push for changes. But never has this Festive Bee Cheng Hiang Spicy Bah Kwa seen any of these vociferous eXXXperts ever get themselves organised to set up the "male version of AWARE"*?

Call this Suckling Pig chao-tar, but he has a few theories for this.

Either:

A, these MRA ideas never gain traction under the banner of equity because they're found to only further reinforce the idea that this is a male-dominated/prized society;

B, these ideas are so rare and specious that they don't find critical mass; or

C, that the people who hold these views care not a bit about gender equality, for they don't believe or want it, even if you were to serve it to them on a silver platter. Often, those who do find the time to get organised, eventually find themselves at A or B, or in the Republican party, I guess.

And here on the farm, we know bullshit when we see, smell, hear it. You people at TOC's thread? You smell just like...

---
NOTE:
* Well, does the men's chapter of AWARE qualify as the "male version of AWARE"? Also, male unfeminist pig has always assumed that the very definition of gender equality means equality for all genders, although granted it's important for specific groups to speak for themselves.

On Women's Charter: What About the Menz!?

2010-10-18T20:23:00.000+08:00

This is the final week Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) is seeking public feedback for the draft Women's Charter (Amendment) Bill 2010. You can download the consultation paper (PDF) that lays out the proposed changes in simple language, or attempt the Amendment Bill (PDF).

Some of the more interesting parts of the proposed amendments are the creation of Children's Development Account where a portion of divorcing parents' shared assets is automatically channelled into for the children involved. Courts will also be empowered variously to crack down on maintenance defaulters. My personal favourite is that "divorcees who are remarrying will be required to declare in the presence of their new spouses, whether they have any maintenance arrears towards their ex-wife or children from their previous marriage(s)."

We on the farm strongly encourage everyone to give MCYS your opinion on changes to the Women's Charter. Now, however, the animals and I are departing from our usual farming duties to present a roundtable discussion we have on the Women's Charter. Gentle readers are free to steal our ideas and submit them officially, because it's very hard for us to explain why farm animals are so concerned about the Charter.

Roundtable Discussion.

Contrary to popular belief of who we are, it is the belief here on the farm that the biggest lacuna in the Amendment Bill is in its maintaining the alimony-only-to-women stance. Last year, Kanwaljit Soin reintroduced the idea of revising the Women's Charter Act to a Family Charter Act [ed: AWARE used to host "Women's Charter to Family Charter" speech transcript here, but not anymore; after the cut, we offer you instead an excerpt of a parliamentary debate by Dr Soin from 1996 when she first introduced the idea], in which maintenance is adjusted to allow husbands to claim maintenance should their wives be the higher earning spouse--I believe it's for shared custody cases.

I think this makes some sense as roles change, and men begin to step up in their caregiving roles. Not to mention, perhaps with such a system in place, we can begin to drop any machoistic shame of being primary care-givers. An adjustment to leave entitlement will also make especial sense for single fathers.

If we focus on the benefit of the children, rather than What About The Menz, there's probably much more that can be done in terms of this bill as well, perhaps latching onto expanding benefits to single parents.

Oh My Goat:
I think there are also men who have some pretty reasonable issues with the Women's Charter. It's not to say that it's unnecessary - it was revolutionary as far as its protection of women was concerned - but there are parts of it that need to evolve with the times.

Maintenance payments, for one, need to be fairer - it doesn't make sense for a father to pay maintenance to a wife (note: not for the child, but for the wife, which is a separate claim altogether) who out-earns him or is more than capable of caring for herself. It was probably unheard of when the Charter was introduced, but it's not so uncommon nowadays.

If you're a husband living a lower middle class sort of existence, your finances are more worse off after a divorce. You frequently find yourself homeless, likely not earning enough to rent another flat and on top of that, you have legal fees and maintenance payments. It's what it is, and yes, men ought to be responsible for their children, but if you're not earning much to start with, it can make you feel like you have the rough end of the deal.

Magical Chicken:
Wholly agree with Oh My Goat. There's no reason whatsoever why gender should become a blanket proxy for financial capacity and contributions, when these are matters which can be reasonably easily assessed by a judge in and of themselves. I was really glad to see Kanwaljit Soin raise this last year. It's actually rather surprising that men (since they are the demographic disadvantaged by the status quo) haven't organised to push for appropriate change themselves. I wonder if there might be some kind of conflict for some men between wanting to support traditional notions of masculinity to shore up their sense of social status, and what's in their actual financial interests. Another example of how patriarchy is an ideology which fucks us all up.

Badly Drawn Pig:
This is why I think the law can take a progressive lead on things. It shouldn't always be a case of the majority, sometimes unaware or unconscious, society setting the pace of things. The law and the government can, in fact, recognise that certain change would be beneficial - I think we've actually got this in practice in many other areas - and effect amendments that would pave the way to mindset changes. A society where legal mechanisms are in place for husbands' receiving maintenance, is a largely different one in which maintenance is afforded only to the wives. We cannot possibly deny the fact that such an arrangement puts ideas in the minds of people, as often is the case such as Rony Tan, who refuses to retract his foul statement on gay people simply because a legal clause is actually in place that in principle criminalises gay men sex.

Poultrygeist:
Like Oh My Goat has said, my primary problem with the Women's Charter is the arbitrary provision requiring a man to maintain his wife, irrespective of the fact that she may have a greater earning capacity. I think the Court now deals with this issue by varying the quantum of maintenance, but I don't think this is enough in the circumstances since the wife will always have the right to apply to Court for maintenance. I think the issue of parity must cut both ways and the law needs to be amended to reflect this.

Second, re: maintenance for the child. Legally, both parents are obliged to maintain the child, but perhaps more can be done by the law in a situation where the man's earning capacity is lower than his wife. As Oh My Goat says, there are many fathers out there who feel they've drawn the short straw, especially keeping in mind that care and control of the child usually is awarded to the mother (with the father being granted the right of access) unless there are extenuating circumstances. I would imagine this is really painful in itself.

However, it needs to be kept it mind that there is only so much money to go around, especially if the father is earning significantly less, or not at all (as was the case in the article). In these situations, inevitably, maintenance payments are going to be a financial strain, along with legal fees, bills and rent etc. I don't think it's got anything to do with not wanting to help the child - it's not having adequate means to do so, and this is a salient factor which needs to be expressly considered.

(But of course with checks to prevent the other side of the coin - recalcitrant fathers who withhold maintenance payments for whatever reason.)

+++
After the cut, read the brilliant parliamentary debate excerpt by the woman who started the ball rolling for all of us, former-NMP and a personal heroine for us on the farm, Dr Kanwaljit Soin; taken from Yawning Bread:

.... I fail to understand the [Minister Abdullah Tarmugi's] stand in the area of maintenance for husbands. I see contradictions in adopting the position of allowing wives to claim maintenance from their husbands but disallowing husbands to do the same. Sir, let me explain.

The Women's Charter was first passed in September 1961 and at that time it was hailed as a very progressive piece of legislation. One of the main reasons for labelling it thus was section 45 which laid out the equal rights and duties of a husband and wife, and I stress, equal rights and duties of a husband and wife.

I would like to read this section 45 to refresh the memories of some Members who seem to have forgotten it.

(1) Upon the solemnisation of marriage, the husband and wife shall be mutually bound to cooperate with each other in safeguarding the interests of the union and in caring and providing for the children.

(2) The husband and wife shall have the right separately to engage in any trade or profession or in social activities.

(3) The wife shall have the right to use her own surname and name separately.

(4) The husband and wife shall have equal rights in the running of the matrimonial household.

Thus, as far back as 1961, the Women's Charter clearly propounded the idea of marriage as an equal partnership between a man and a woman.

Thirty-five years have rolled by and a whole new generation has grown up. New realities have emerged which are in keeping with the original enlightened section 45 of the Women's Charter but the sad fact is that the present repeal and re-enactment of section 61 is out of step with section 45 of the Women's Charter.

The re-enacted section 61 allows a wife to claim maintenance from her husband but does not allow a husband to have the same right. This is not only at variance with section 45 but is also incongruous with today's reality of economically active wives. There is no rational distinction between a financially able husband and an equally financially able wife. 40% of married couples have both wives and husbands working for a living. 80% of new brides are working and among the younger couples, one-third of the brides are marrying grooms with lower educational qualifications and presumably these brides are therefore earning more than the grooms. In this changed socio-economic context, why are wives not being asked to shoulder the responsibility of supporting their husbands financially? If the Minister does not want to take such a bold but necessary step, then he may wish to consider a compromise, and politics is full of compromises, and follow the example of the Malaysian law which gives limited rights to the husband to claim maintenance from his wife when he is ill or incapacitated. During the Select Committee hearings, I think five representors representing women's groups expressed the view that maintenance to husbands, especially in appropriate cases, should be given. These women's groups represent the views of a wide cross section of women.

Considering the changed socio-economic context of 1996 as compared to 1961, and considering that women's groups generally want the law to be changed, especially when husbands are disabled or sick, I fail to understand the reluctance and resistance of the Minister to take cognizance of this. Besides ignoring many women's views, there are wider implications of not allowing husbands to claim maintenance from their wives.

If a woman is capable of supporting her husband or her former husband who needs maintenance, especially if he is sick or disabled, then why are we allowing the woman to get away without fulfilling her responsibility? If a woman earns a good income but does not voluntarily want to support an ill husband, why should this burden then fall on society and the taxpayers while the woman gets away scot-free? A comparison can be made with the Maintenance of Parents Act where unfilial children have to shoulder the responsibility of maintaining their parents and not leaving ti to society in general.

Let me give you one concrete example. Wife who is is a stockbroker is earning a lot of money but she does not get along well with her husband who happens to be sick and has kidney disease and therefore is unable to work. The husband and wife, as I said, do not get along well and so the wife does not want to support him. Why should the sick husband not be able to claim maintenance from his wife but instead he has to turn to Medifund or some other publicly financed agency to help him in his health care costs and for his daily care and needs? Why should society have to maintain the husband when the wife or the ex-wife is shirking this responsibility but can afford it?

Therefore, Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, to take on our rightful responsibility towards our husbands and to consolidate the idea of marriage as a partnership, many individual Singaporean women, women's groups and I want husbands, especially those who are sick and disabled, to be able to claim maintenance from their wives. However, the Minister is not listening to us. And this situation puts us in a difficult and no-win position because as long as this discrimination exists in law, women will be accused of not shouldering their responsibilities. This is manifested in some of the letters which are written to the Straits Times complaining that since women do not have to maintain husbands, women should not be asking for equality of treatment in other fields. Through no fault of ours and because the Government does not want to listen to us, the women of Singapore have to put up with the barbed insults of some Singaporean men. I would therefore like to request the Minister to equalise the situation in the law by just changing the word "wife" to "spouse" and that is all the Minister will have to do. And if at this time there are very few husbands who would want to claim maintenance from their wives, so be it.

Some of the male MPs have told me that they would never accept maintenance from a woman as this would hurt their male pride. To them, I would like to say that for the truly needy husbands much more than their male pride will be hurt if they get no maintenance from their wives when they desperately need it. Also, what will be the effect on the children of these families when mothers are seen to be able to get away without supporting the sick or disabled husbands and instead the children have to see their fathers turning to public agencies for help as their mothers are not being legislated to help these needy husbands? We should never let this happen, Mr Deputy Speaker.

If the Minister's reply to this is that wives can be persuaded to support their husbands without appropriate legislation, then I would like to ask the Minister why do we need legislation for husbands to maintain their wives? Why do we not also rely on persuasion? It is precisely because persuasion alone without legislation is insufficient to do the job. Surely the Minister does not believe that women are morally more upright than men and therefore can be easily subject to persuasion and do not need legislation.

I would really like an extensive reply from the Minister on this score because the women of Singapore want to know why this responsibility is being denied to them. (Dr Kanwaljit Soin, 27 Aug 1996.)

How to tell the world you're an asshole

2010-10-16T12:14:00.004+08:00

Oooh, who likes getting all het up and furious first thing in the morning? You had better if you, like me, get the Straits Times on subscription. In today's Life! section, a letter from Asshole Alpha:

Stay lean, SIA girl

I refer to the report, I Don't Mind A Fatter Singapore Girl by Jeremy Au Yong (Life!, Oct 9).

I do not mean to be disrespectful or discriminate but I honestly do not want to sit beside an overweight person during a long flight, especially when flying home.

Singapore Airlines did not become a leading airline just because the SIA Girl looks slim, clean and pretty.

She is just one of the building blocks that fit very well into the whole operations. When there is a lapse or drop in service quality, SIA has to correct and improve. In every successful business, there are certain identities and standards associated with it. These form its culture and infuse its soul.

It is easy to say you do not mind having a fatter Singapore Girl but it will be a problem for many.

Teo Yee Chee

Fatphobia: check. Equation of service staff's physical features with 'service quality': check. Commodification of service staff as mere 'building blocks': check. Cluelessly trumpeting the opinion that the other people should be in service to the pleasure of your unpleasant, privileged ass: check. (The one grain of truth in this letter: that many will share the same retrograde views that you hold.)

Hey, Teo, next time you might want to lighten up on the disingenuity, and just declare that you think fat people don't deserve to be treated like fellow humans. I have a lot of things to do and it would save everyone's time if I didn't have to point out the contemptible ridiculousness of your opinions before I told you to fuck off.

+++++

ETA: I haven't read the original Jeremy Au Yong article that this letter refers to, but I don't have high hopes for it.

Degrees of hate.

2010-10-05T22:21:00.002+08:00

Char Siew Pau here was ambivalent to see news of American teen, Tyler Clementi's suicide appearing in the local Straits Times last week. It wasn't clear to this male unfeminist, badly drawn pig what exactly it meant for him that the papers prioritised the article on the third page of the main papers, because he was still reeling from a couple of events that broke with the news of Clementi's death.

Such as learning that one of the two guys recently caught having sex together in a local mall toilet is being charged under Section 377A [ed: please read People Like Us's statement in full!], i.e. the anti-male homosexual act law that our parliament said it won't repeal for symbolic appeal. Then there were debates amuck on the veracity of saying that homophobia was the key ingredient in driving Clementi off the bridge.

From the latter thread, one such detractor was the very rational and evidence-based--let's call him--Mr Mensch, asserting--and I paraphrase, "Until I see evidence of homophobia, I'm inclined to believe it has nothing to do with Clementi's death. Charlotte’s Interwebz encourages people to distribute exposés all over. It's free-market sexcapade galore for straight people, for gay people, for all!"

Why, what a wonderfully insightful libertarian mensch! I would have totally gotten my Pork Trotters twisted in the excitement of such sound revelation if not for fact that, hey, my stupid gay, asian Lup Cheong self looked around and saw that he remains in the shadow of a vigilant heteronormative state. A state in which the assumed default and premium is in being heterosexual (or at least discreetly straight-acting), failing which you are a frowned-upon deviant. It precedes that when straight people, who aren't presidents, hotelier heiresses or pop stars, are caught in the hanky panky on film, there's practically no uproar about their sexual orientation, only mixed reactions of privacy invaded.

Never fear, you could be a random breeder snogging in China, Alaska, South Africa or Greenland but still find that nowhere will you so pervasively come against some bigots calling for your demise, accusing you of bearing some hidden agenda that seeks to devalue the family, desecrating one's holy ground, insulting one's gods, or going against nature's ways. If you are caught on film making out with the opposite sex, no one in any part of the world has the image of you in mind when zie plans for the never-going-to-exist ex-straight conversion camp that will fix you of your widely-popular choice of lifestyle. If you were caught on film doing the heterosexual hoochie coochie, some people may be happy to reenact the scenario on a R-21 screen without the fear that censors will snip you out because we don't want to promote deviant lifestyles--and they don't mean being caught on camera.

No, the sensationalism here never rode on the fact that Clementi kissed someone--few 18 year-olds warrant any attention with their snogfests, but that he had "asked for the room till midnight" (oh, he must be hiding something!), and later caught "making out with a dude"! GAY! TRYING TO HIDE!? GAY BUSTED! - to the whole fucking world, both friends and foes. The thrill of it comes in irrevocably exposing Clementi of his furtive engagement in something still denounced in many circles, inviting the floodwalls to collapse for all to see, celebrate, wank to, but also jeer, hiss, laugh, mock, cuss and pitchfork.

And the gates will open to the nefarious, especially since a person already doesn't even need to be caught doing anything (homo-sex-ual) except exist to cause a stir in others, then finding hirself at the brute end of all forms of physical, mental and emotional attacks from others of all walks of life--family, friends and absolute strangers—and for no reason than that they *think* zie's quee, which somehow justifies abusive behaviour. Even if one's truly queer, making no excuse for living as a proud and openly queer person, coming out as such is to continually navigate through a minefield. Because despite hir feeling secured in hir own skin--a feat not to be belittled ever, there are always unsafe spaces to come out in, and forever the unsafe people to come out to.

In Clementi's unfortunate case, such a person was Dharun Ravi, the sneaky little asshole who not only recorded but also broadcasted Clementi's make-out session. Ravi may seem like such an equal-opportunistic mercenary to the likes of Mr Mensch, but really his tactics are but a leaf out of the books of anti-gay witch-hunters, exploiting nothing but the dangers, fears and anxieties associated with an out gay person, and the sickening, self-righteous thrill of those who seek to uncover and tabloid the secrets of bones and people in closets for effect beside the well-being of the outed. (Newsflash: if you care about a queer person, do not out hir in any manner, or demand to know if zie's queer.)

So guess what? Just because thick-skulled Ravi is, presumably, unable to recognise the cause and effect of a hate crime does not mean he operated by anything less than that--imagine what the world would be like if members of the Ku Klux Klan actually knew they were being assholes! And just because Mr Mensch proves himself equally obtuse to the undercurrents of context, it proves nothing but that there're people who continue not to grasp the extant of homophobia and the real-life cruel aftermath it has on a whole lot of people.

That said, what really chaps this Suckling Pig's hide is that despite how much we protest this grave injustice, and even come to the point of publishing news of deaths brought on by homophobic pressures, this sunny-but-not-so-happy island of Singapore remains guilty of similar exploits all the way up the ranks. It makes it nearly impossible to take home any lesson on tolerance and acceptance of queer people that can be taken from this reportage when anti-sodomy laws are kept for what seems to be the express purpose of making it central to any sex-related crime between two consenting men.

Seriously, just what the fuck was the egregious crime here that Tan Eng Hong and his partner are caught for? Having sex in a public location, or having homosexual sex in a public location? A similar case involving a straight couple might have been charged under Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act--like how the nude couple in Holland Village were--instead of S377A, noting that not only is there no equivalent in “gross indecency” in heterosexual terms following the repeal of anti-straight oral/anal sex in 2007, but also that, technically speaking, "gross indecency" between two men may occur in and out of the private sphere. This is imprecise a charge, and frankly a disappointingly unfair one, given what was envisaged by PM Lee Hsien Loong in 2007.

This only leads my Braised Pig-head to conclude that, just as how the problem wasn't about Clementi kissing someone but about him "kissing a dude", this is now not about displays of sexual acts but displays of male homosexual acts between two men.

Even with the decriminalisation of homosexual acts in so many parts of the world, including the United Kingdom, United States, China, Japan and Taiwan, it is still an uphill battle for queer people to get even an ounce of respect and acceptance. A not-so-symbolic anti-gay law in our legislature, so arbitrarily reapplied despite claims of non-pursuance, empowers people to continue doing and talking shit about gay people without the slightest hint of contrition (read: Rony Tan). Because always it's what the government believes in, and now even it's the greater crime prosecutable. Abusers will always be on the right side of the law, and by the government's suggestion, they’re bedfellows to a wider, bigger majority that is all right with the active discrimination and abuse of gay people.

If you think Clementi's case is free of homophobia, if you think it's okay to throw S377A at Tan et al, then you are part of this----in a clever play of language to make them sound so marginalised—(mythical)silent majority that the government seeks to valiantly protect.

Don't be mistaken though, I hear and feel every sub-decibel of contempt your silence holds to my piggish ears even if you think you know otherwise.

A voice of reason writes to the newspapers - finally

2010-10-05T00:49:00.005+08:00

I wonder why the national English broadsheet doesn't produce an investigative report on the fraudulent advertisements that sell people false hope and snake oil at "best" (scare quotes in full effect), and cause physical harm and pain to them at worst - not to mention all the self-hatred and judgment that goes in between? I guess it's because 50% (figure arrived at via unscientific estimate) of the Straits Times' advertising space is given over to ads hawking slimming treatments or bust enhancement (or sometimes both, by the same company, because the Body Police have decreed that you can't have too much fat in some places or too little in others).

Which is why I'm glad that someone at the Forum Desk had their finger on the right button and chose to publish the following missive (despite potential irate phone calls from account managers):

Oct 4, 2010
More teeth needed to curb false ads

I READ with concern last Tuesday's report ('Rise in false ads in beauty industry'. Only the most misleading advertisements, mostly by small players, get acted on by the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS).

In contrast, Britain's far more professional Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) does a much better job.

Last year, a top multinational cosmetics company ran a national press advertisement in Britain claiming that one of its anti-wrinkle products could deliver practically instant wrinkle-filling capabilities based on clinical studies.

ASA asked for substantiation. The company submitted two 'clinical test' reports on 25 and 23 women. ASA rejected the studies because they were not randomised, not blinded and did not include a control group. The advertisement was banned in its original form.

The same advertisement ran its full course in Singapore. If a complaint had been made to ASAS, would it have had the clout to take on a huge multinational corporation?

Cheng Shoong Tat

Who's going to take responsibility for this? The beauty industry sure as hell isn't. The media has no legal obligation to turn down fees paid by a legitimate advertiser. The government does not regulate the beauty industry. So it's down to... a body that 'comprises representatives from advertisers, advertising agencies, government agencies, media owners and other supporting organisations'? I guess it's up to us, the consumers, then.

Thank the Heavens I'm a Magical Chicken

2010-09-08T18:15:00.005+08:00

Thanks the Heavens I'm a Magical Chicken. I can go about my merry way without enduring shit being slung at me on account of being a Magical Chicken. Same can't be said, I'm afraid, of being a human woman or girl. I couldn't be quite so chipper if I were one of them - I'd probably want to slam my own head against a wall repeatedly to drown out the torrent of woman- and girl-hating abuse that passes for... for everything, really: law, language, history, news media, statesmanship, advertising, and bicycles, yes, fucking bicycles.

To say nothing of my absolute favourite thing ever - really, this is my favourite thing ever, I love it THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS much - Rational Male Blogging^TM.

Today my favourite Rational Male Blogger^TM is Benjamin Cheah, who has taken it upon himself to Rationally^TM address Robin Rheaume's mighty fine post about victim-blaming in the recent gang rape case that's been all over the press.

Benjamin Cheah has difficulty grasping the simple proposition that women and girls are human beings, who seek quite rightly to live full and rich human lives, uninterrupted by the violence of having a penis forced inside you against your wishes. For some people, this full and rich human life may even include socialising with new people, drinking, and having consensual sex. Benjamin Cheah, however, appears to believe such acts - socialising, drinking, having consensual sex - can appropriately be punished with rape. Thus:

Here, the woman failed to take responsibility for her actions. She deliberately engaged in high-risk behaviour. To declare ‘The failure of a woman to adequately assess the risk of attack does not mean that she caused what happens and should take blame for it’ is to declare that a drink driver should not take responsibility for running over a pedestrian. It is simply absurd to think that one can divorce one’s action from the consequences of that action. Every action has consequences; the woman has to take responsibility has to take actions. To not do so is both foolish and dangerous.

The woman engaged in high risk behaviour. An example of such behaviour is for a young woman to go alone late at night to a place with plenty of strange young men and alcohol. Another is for a single young woman to play drinking games in a private place with young men unknown to her. Such behaviour puts her at a very high risk of being robbed, raped, and/or killed. This whole case could have been avoided had the victim not showed up, left the moment she realised she didn’t know most of the people at the gathering, or went home before the drinking became serious. She took a risk, and she got burned.

Benjamin Cheah appears to be suggesting that we should simply accept, as an immutable fact, that men will rape women. Gang rape is a simple consequence of drinking and engaging in sexual activity with strangers, apparently, which has nothing to do with the rapists in question choosing to take their penises out of their pants and force them into the body of a non-consenting woman. It's a foolish pipe dream for Magical Chickens to think that maybe, just maybe, censuring, prosecuting, punishing and strongly denouncing gang rape will create an environment in which rapists are discouraged from taking their penises out of their pants and forcing them into the bodies of non-consenting women. (Rather than an environment in which they will be excused because being gang-raped is understood primarily as what happens to women because of women's own actions.) Actually, women who drink and socialise and have sex are extending mysterious tentacles of dark matter from their very bodies, which physically compel other men - struggling and wailing in protest - to take their penises out of their pants and force them into the bodies of non-consenting women.

I'm finding this hard to square with the occasions when I've gone drinking with and/or climbed into bed with strangers without, funnily enough, being raped, because nobody there chose to take their penises out of their pants and force them into me, but hey, what do I know, I'm just a Magical Chicken.

The victim had sex with someone after the game and before the crime. To someone under the influence of alcohol, the victim’s behaviour could be interpreted as a signal of sexual availability. This effect could be pronounced because the members of the group could have pressured each other towards that interpretation (assuming that had happened).

Oh dear sweet fucking kitty cats, where to start with this? Maybe with the terminally stupid concept of "sexual availability", as if the vagina is either Open for Business and must accept all customers, or Regrettably Closed for the Day and must be shut to everyone. I hate to break it to you sunshine, but women sometimes like to fuck. A woman may be sexually attracted to one man without being attracted to his entire cabal of friends. A woman may feel horny at one point (like, just before having sex with one man) without feeling horny at another (like, just after sex with that man). This is basic stuff, please keep up.

To those of us who take the humanity of women seriously, a woman having sex with person A at time X does not amount of consent to having sex with persons B-E at times Y and Z. Yes, to some men the first sex act "could be interpreted" as consent to penetration by their own penises: but their interpretation is misogynist and wrong, and when they act on this belief they become rapists.

If the men in the gang rape scenario had raped the first man in this scenario, I wonder, would Benjamin Cheah believe the same argument applied? After all, he'd been drinking and signalled his availability for sex, ce n'est pas?

And where are Benjamin Cheah's strong words for the men in this scenario anyway? At which point in the entire piece does he ask them to "take responsibility" for their "actions" - including the "action" of taking their penises out of their pants and forcing them into the body of this girl? When will he tell men that they must not socialise with strangers, or have consensual sex, or drink, or go into someone else's home, so as to avoid becoming rapists? The words of one Magical Chicken, circa January 2010, seem appropriate here:

The suggestion that we should solve any problem by deliberately sequestering men at home is ludicrous and unacceptable on its face - and it should be equally so when it applies to women.

I don't want to go into depth about the ridiculousness of Benjamin Cheah first of all claiming there was no evidence of bleeding, and then claiming the rapists stopped when they saw blood. (Apparently, also, stopping at the sight of blood is "not typical behaviour for rapists", a statement Benjamin Cheah supports with absolutely zero evidence, as if rapists are by definition also necessarily men who don't mind getting blood all over their penises or don't find bleeding a turn-off.) I will also pass over his bringing in irrelevant factors like the victim engaging in underaged drinking or having sex with someone who isn't her boyfriend, as if it's more OK to rape women who meet this arbitrary designation for "irresponsibility".

No, I want to highlight Benjamin Cheah's serious, Rational^TM consideration of the possibility that AWARE opposes victim-blaming because of a "rape agenda" which might bring in "big money". There's only one possible response to this idea...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Oh God, I do love being a Magical Chicken: you human beings are so gosh-darned funny. "Big money"! A "rape agenda"! Those terms certainly don't apply to the vast pop media and advertising industries which continually tell us that violence against women is sexy, the enormously rich and powerful "family values" lobbies who tell us that merely being female is inherently obscene, or the multi-billion dollar global pornography businesses who consistently push the narrative that rape is what women are for. No, the "big money" is in feminism, who have invented a "rape agenda" of - lookit, this term is also in inverted commas! - women's "rights".

Thank the Heavens I'm a Magical Chicken, or this would all be enough to make me weep.

Why not Morrissey?

2010-09-05T14:04:00.005+08:00

There's a certain buzz going around outside of our farm regarding former-Smiths musician, Morrissey's racist remark about Chinese people:

Did you see the thing on the news about their treatment of animals and animal welfare? Absolutely horrific. You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies." (Sauce.)

Here at the barn, we are well aware that everyone farts up once in a while, and hold no illusion -- especially since child rapist Roman Polanski walked free, TWICE -- that even the cutest, most talented, smartest and even most cuddly sorts are saved from being fucked up. Little surprise, hence, that there's very little I care to say about who and what Morrissey is, and why his racism is any more or less egregious than if uttered by mere mortals.

On the other hand, there is much to be said about how fellow concerned life form can deal with famous assholes, much of it brought on by a Guardian commentary by Tom Clark, in which Clark calmly urges Morrissey's fans to "not feel obliged to disown the music we love" and that "nothing Morrissey says or does now would taint my enjoyment of the songs". Obviously the mileage varies between Clark and this male, unfeminist, gay Chinese pig, because I don't see why it's so impossible for offended fans to renounce their loyalty to any artist for the latter's assholicism.

In fact, I think any fan or music lover who gives a flying fuck about making the world a better place has every right to exercise some consumer discretion for an embargo. Here at the farm, we care to do something.

And just why fucking not?

My taking pleasure in one's art rings the latter's cash register, and in Morrissey's case it is precisely because his records are still selling that he feels his artistry will forever save him from truly being held accountable, or being remembered as a racist (apart from a good musician) long past his death. If his being popular from our listening to his music is empowering him to express his racism without contriteness, which is the case, then the obvious key to some humility may very well be in a boycott.

Then Morrissey's music wouldn't live forever. Maybe some day Someone will ask, "Hey, what happened to all the Morrissey songs that you liked?" And you can go, "I stopped listening to them because he turns out to be such a racist asshole that it pains me to even listen to him pluck his guitar." Then maybe when Someone listens to Morrissey on the speakers at your favourite bar, zie will share the racist factoid with hir friends, and they in turn can remind others that this brand of good music is spun from some moral bankruptcy--warning label reads "Enjoy at your own risk."

Personally, I don't have a problem with forgoing some good art for the sake of some humanity. I would rather the holocaust not have occurred and forgo "Schindler's List", than appreciate the impetus for art that Nazism provided. I would rather we didn't live in a kyriarchy and be writing about fluffy bunnies than exercising my writing chops here. Likewise, I would rather a musician not be a racist than have to exercise mental acrobatics over the fact that his racism is somehow an intrinsic part of some very complex, very profound whole, from which good music apparently stems, and which a simpleton like Bacon Bits here will never possess or understand.

Pftt.

Newsflash: greater people have lived without being assholes.

Why not Morrissey? Why not Polanski? Why couldn't Larkin? Why couldn't Churchill even?

The best art simply cannot justify the diminishing of human decency. And if you choose to ignore that, then don't mind if I stop listening to you too.

International Burn A Koran Day

2010-07-29T10:10:00.002+08:00

Oh chickadees. Haven't we been over this before with the whole "Draw Mohammed" fiasco? Haven't I already explained why "protests" like this are really just thinly veiled excercises in xenophobia and racism?

Obviously I need to go over this again.

By violating objects and ideas that are held sacred by marginalized populations with an eye to upholding your own privileged hegemony you are doing harm. You are doing harm by normalizing and celebrating violence (for the violation of the sacred is a form of violence) against an entire population of people. You are doing harm by courting a negative reaction from this population that will then add to the fire that caricatures Muslims as reactive and unreasonable. You are doing harm by using your position of privilege to publicly deride an already marginalized population.

Sure, I realise this time this display of ignorance and prejudice is being organized by a fundamentalist non-denominational church in Florida (that has previously joined with the Westboro Baptist church, a punchline in and of themselves, to protest homosexuality) so commenting on it is like shooting fish in a barrel, but the Poultrygeist over here just sent me a link to the goddamn Facebook page for the "event" and over 1200 people have liked it.

Thank you humanity for this current fail that I may use it as an education tool. Hopefully. And I pray to whoever the fuck cares to listen that this time MY LESSON WILL STICK. Yours in faith, Cat.

P.S. If you are tempted to leave a comment about how no one has the right not to be offended and this is all about free speech, please read the comments on the "Draw Mohammed" post first, as I've spelt out a reply to that quite clearly. If you want to continue the conversation, by all means, but just make sure you read that first. I really don't like repeating myself.

Reminder: say no to censorship

2010-07-22T16:58:00.002+08:00

Recent events like the arrest of Alan Shadrake and the ban on Martyn See's film are reminder of how live the danger of state censorship of dissent remains. Don't forget to sign the Arts Engage paper to show your opposition to these oppressive tactics.

No You're Racist, and Sexist and I'm AWESOME

2010-07-18T17:02:00.008+08:00

You may have noticed a cute new webpage floating around the internets called "I Write Like" (not linking). It's a page with a text box where you have to copy and paste (or compose on the spot) a few paragraphs, press a button and you'll get a something you can paste on your blog or Facebook to let everyone know which famous writer you write like. (In case anyone was wondering, I got Margaret Atwood - YAY! - and Dan Brown - kill me now.)

If you've heard of the website, you may also have caught wind of the kerfuffle around the fact that when it first launched, there weren't any female writers in the database of writers you could resemble. A week or so later, there are now 3 female writers (to 37 male writers) all of whom are lily-white. Now I understand that this is just a silly-for-fun website for people to feel briefly thrilled that their name can be used in the same sentence as a famous (or infamous) author (sorta Nicholas Sparks vis-a-vis Cormac McCarthy style), but representation matters, even in trivial things.

Representation matters because our actions are shaped by our environment. Our environment primes us on levels so far below our consciousness that even if we are asked about our motivations, we come up with narratives that, while consistent with how we view ourselves, have nothing to do with reality. A website that uses only white, initially all-male writers to represent how the internet writes, well, the implicit message isn't even all that subtle there.

So people start to comment. Some people cut and paste female writers' texts into the boxes and lol-sob at the male writers they are called instead. Eventually tea berry-blue wrote to the guy who runs "I Write Like". She describes the disheartening and miss-the-point exchange well, but what I want to talk about specifically is this:

Tea,

Thanks for your reply. I’ve added more writers into the database
recently. But I *absolutely* will not add people into the database due
to their race or gender. I will not search for lists of white, black,
Asian, Hispanic, or any other types of people that you _took care to
differentiate_. All people are equal to me, and equality means not
looking at skin color or different types of chromosomes.

I think the question is closed.

–
Dmitry Chestnykh
I Write Like

In other words, it's the I don't think people are different...and since you seem to, YOU'RE SEXIST and also racist.

Honestly, if everyone was so damn equal, why did you only have one kind of person represented? If everyone was all the same to you, then your sample should have approximated what the sampling of writers out there was really like. Include writers like Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Amy Tan, Candace Bushnell, George Eliot, A. S. Byatt, Zadie Smith, Helen Fielding, Monica Ali, Stephenie-frikking-Meyer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Miriam Toews, Tamora Pierce, Holly Black...I could go on. That's just off the top of my head and includes a nice sampling of award winning authors, classics, pop fiction, all women, some of colour. NOT THAT HARD. If gender and race were non-issues for this person, then why the glaring omissions?!

It's because it does matter. And I want to make it very clear that I'm not blaming Dmitry Chestnykh for it in the least. Like the rest of us, he grew up in the same damn world we all did. A world in which whiter is better and where men are main characters. I was talking about priming earlier yeah? Well, we've been primed our whole damn lives to not notice that despite the actual diversity of the world around us, the white male is always the assumed default (Tasha Fierce breaks down the assumed default even in activist circles here). A world in which the only people who don't notice race or gender are the only ones who are the default, and therefore are privileged enough not to. It is also, ironically, a world where we are taught that racism and sexism are bad and that you are a bad person if you're racist or sexist. So people are scared to talk about race or gender. First because any time a light is shone on privilege it does get pretty damn uncomfortable. Secondly because it's as though noticing that people are different qualifies you as some sort of reprobate.

But of course everyone notices race. It starts when we're children, mainly because our parents don't talk about it. It's the same for gender too. Noticing it and talking about it and discussing the deleterious effects of it is how we can fight this shit. It's the opposite of being racist or sexist.

Let's recap. We're not all bad people just because we've grown up drinking the Kool Aid. We're not bad people for noticing differences and diversity. It's not racist or sexist or any-other-ist to make an effort not to under-represent entire populations of people. People that exist in this amazingly diverse and challenging world of ours. The same people whose lives are made worse because we are assumed to be uninterested because we're not talking about it. And while it can be awful to get called out, particularly if you already make efforts to not be racist or sexist, listen because we all have something to learn. Don't just fling it back and start name-calling.

Update: ~~Shakesville's SKM~~ Biblio-vore whose blog can be found here did a quick experiment on "I Write Like", plugging authors' actual works into the engine and seeing what comes out. Interesting and insightful!

I'll Be There For You

2010-07-17T04:00:00.000+08:00

While you're at school, life is delineated into neat chunks bookended by expectations that need to be met. Assignments and projects with set deadlines, exams to be completed on un-moving dates. Always something to shoot for, always something to move toward. This is piss-poor training for real life, but it's the only training we get.

So I'm not all that surprised that once we leave school and are technically free agents (although if you asked me, I'd assert that true freedom doesn't strictly exist and that our actions are bounded by our circumstances and environments, but that's for another day)we still continue the slow, slightly cyclical grind of trying to get to that next milestone and mark off the next thing on the big to-do list of life. As a result we get on this hamster wheel of mundane routine, an opiate of sorts, locking us into a pat, comfortable life getting us to accept the status quo. Combine this with the undue importance placed on the individual (Barbara Ehrenreich calls this "the cult of the individual" near the end of this illuminating and intoxicatingly animated speech) and what we have is an entire population of people trapped in their single-minded pursuit of the next hurdle. Individually ensconced in the same patterns of thought that got them there in the first place. Embedded deeply in the Matrix (or what we like to refer to around here as the kyriarchy).

Distracted by the small things in front of us, it's damn difficult to look up and see the institutional injustices and when we do see them when they're splashed all over the news in an effort to erase them from our public consciousness *cough* (not that it was really there in the first place - which of us learnt about Operation Coldstore in history class? It should be right there alongside the emergence of Singaporean government. Quite a glaring omission, amongst many others) it's so terrifying and ugly and disheartening that it's easy to bury your head right back down in the sand, re-mire yourself in the day-to-day reaching for the next-thing-in-life.

Many of my friends don't want to talk about the things we talk about on this blog. They don't want to hear that hospitals discriminate against fat people - staff in this example (in the interest of your own mental health you may want to avoid the comments on that) or that being oppressed can cause entire populations to birth pre-term and low birth weight babies. I can't really blame them. Outrage is upsetting and the realization that you as an individual is ineffective against these large institutional forces can really ruin your day, your month or even your year (sorry).

Yet I continue to start these conversations. I subscribe to many, high output blogs that chronicle the march of the kyriarchy on our personal rights and freedoms. I hang out with the rest of the animals on this blog and in between watering sessions, which I must note does include a substantial amount of mirth, and discuss these things at length. I do this because this is how us the individual will affect the changes we want to see. If we get enough people talking about it, enough people upset, enough people aware of the gross injustice perpetuated daily just because that's the way things are then things will change. It will be gradual, halting, frustrating and sometimes seemingly futile. But it's not. I'm a firm atheist, but I do have faith in this.

Don't keep your head down, eyes blinkered to the next expectation you feel you must meet. Look up, look around, get mad, join the movement. Reassess what's important to you. You may benefit from the status quo in some measure. We all do, everyone possesses some privilege in some form (admittedly some more than others) and that's the lure of it. That's the bait in the trap we keep falling for. Ignore it. Unplug from the Matrix. Let's get in some ambulatory robots and talk about the things that matter.

The public is interested

2010-07-15T16:31:00.005+08:00

More sober heads than mine have already discussed the pointlessness of the ban on Martyn See's film of Dr Lim Hock Siew, who spoke of his detention without trial for almost 20 years. (Transcript here, film here.) Distributing a film of an elderly, mild-mannered man giving an account of his personal experiences has now become a criminal offence.

Ostensibly this has taken place because the film is "contrary to the public interest". According to the mighty MICA:

The Singapore Government will not allow individuals who have posed a security threat to Singapore's interests in the past to use media platforms such as films to make baseless accusations against the authorities, give a false portrayal of their previous activities in order to exculpate their guilt, and undermine public confidence in the Government in the process.

My main question is, what exactly is the public interest served here?, but in order to ask it, I need to back up a bit and look at some fundamentals. They had this man in custody for almost 20 years, and they did not convict him of any crime. MICA talks about "exculpating guilt", but guilt for what exactly? Even the people who detained him didn't manage to work that one out.

But let's assume (gingerly, trying not to wrinkle our noses at the implausibility of it) that Dr Lim Hock Siew was once a genuine "security threat", supposedly because he had links to supposedly violent Communists or somesuch. If so, what is the public interest in restricting the present day circulation of the film? If detention was justified, let the government justify it; if his account of what happened was false, let the government contradict it. They've got all the records, right? They haven't flushed important paperwork down the toilet somewhere?

If we posit that the government was completely right to detain him, there is no possible harm in sharing this information now. It's not as if there is sensitive, ongoing operational security work against these violent Communist groups, which would be jeopardised by public discussion. (If there ever was.) I mean, yo, newsflash, PAP: the Berlin wall fell 20 years ago. Grab someone off the street and talk to them about "the alienation of labour" or "the internal contradictions of capital" and they will reply leh kong simi? The government cannot seriously be claiming that public discussion of the long-decomposed carcass of a defunct historical "threat" is somehow "against the public interest".

Remember, we've been giving the government the benefit of the doubt here. Even if Dr Lim is spouting total B.S. (and I don't think he is lor), the "public interest" doesn't make any sense, since the government can just whip out their thousands of detailed documents and prove to us, incontrovertibly, that they were right. "Public confidence" would not be "undermined", but strengthened.

And if he's not talking B.S., if the government stuck unconvicted citizens into prison for years on end and it was all about "saving face" and people underwent months of solitary confinement and women were force fed with tubes until they vomited and their vomit was cleaned off the floor with their own pants, might there not be a rather large public interest in the public hearing about it?

The film raises questions which any government should be prepared to answer, like, "Hey, man, why did you lock that guy up? And did you torture him while you were at it? Just, like, wanting to check, you know." And that's the whole point of the ban. It's meant to be a ban on questions. Shut up because we know best, and we don't even have to prove it. By "public interest" they mean the public should not be interested.

Well, I damn well am. And we should all be. Find out as much as you can about the detentions and let's question them until their ears bleed.

Transcript of Dr Lim Hock Siew's speech on the ISA.

2010-07-13T23:49:00.001+08:00

Ex-political prisoner speaks out in Singapore

Posted on Youtube, 15 November, 2009.
By Singapore Rebel (Martyn See).

Video description: Dr Lim Hock Siew is Singapore's second longest-held political prisoner.

From the video:

[A founding member of the ruling People's Action Party, Lim was accused of being a communist and was arrested without trial in 1963, and had his detention prolonged by the then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew until his release in 1982.]

[On 14th of Nov 2009, Lim made his first post-detention speech in Singapore during a book launch.]

[The day coincided with the arrival of US President Barack Obama in Singapore for the APEC Summit.]

My contribution to this book is very modest. Because of my ill-health, I've not been able to write too much. It comprises mainly of a statement which I made when I was in prison in 1972, after 9 years of incarceration.

As you know, I was detained in Coldstore Operation in February the 2nd 1963, and I was the last one to come out from the batch of detainees almost 20 years later. Now this statement mainly stated my stand on my detention.

After 9 years of incarceration, they wanted me to issue a statement to firstly support the so-called democratic system of Singapore, and secondly to renounce politics. I told them that these two demands are self-contradictory, because if there is parliamentary democracy, then I don't have to give up politics. So they said, "You must say something to show repentance other wise Lee Kuan Yew will lose face."

For me this not a question of pride, it's a question of principle.

In the first place, if a person has to save his face by depriving somebody else of his fundamental rights, then that's not a face that's worth saving. So the, the main democratic right is a fundamental constitutional right of the people of Singapore. And no one should be deprived of their right, and held ransom to extort statements of repentance and contrition. So the whole thing bogged down to having to issue a statement of repentance, which I refused.

Subsequently, I was detained for another almost 10 years, after that statement was issued. So a total of 19 years and eight months, longer than a life sentence. Life sentences will be released after 13 years, after the initial one-third remission, but for no charge, no trial, I was detained for longer than life sentences.

A lot of hullabaloo have been said recently on the right of political detainees to appeal to an Advisory Board. I want to tell you about my experience in this Advisory Board.

After about one year of detention, I was asked to the prison main gate at about 4pm, and a statement of notice to say that I had to appear before the Advisory Board the next day, and I was given a two fool-scap paper of so-called charge sheets. I said I wanted to keep these sheets of paper so I could prepare for my next morning's appearance. They said, "No, you cannot keep it. Just read it and we'll take it back."

I said I want to inform my lawyer about this. They said, "No, you have the right to inform your lawyer, but you cannot telephone him now." I said, "In that case, how do I contact my lawyer?" He said, "That's the law."

So the next morning I was called to the High Court in handcuffs and all that to appear before an Advisory Board comprising three persons. A judge called Judge Winslow and two other persons. One is a certain Elias, I think he's a lawyer, and the other one a Chinese gentleman whose name I cannot remember.

So, on these so-called charge sheets, there were a lot of blank spaces. I asked Judge Winslow what do these blank spaces mean? He said, "Oh, these are charges which are so sensitive that they can be shown only to the Advisory Board but not to you."

I said, "How the hell can anybody defend himself against a charge that's not even revealed to him?" I asked him for advice, he just said [shrugs shoulder]. I said, "Is this a mockery of justice or what?" He said, "This is the law."

You see, the whole thing is a judicial farce. I mean, it's incredible that anyone has to face this kind of mockery, this kind of so-called justice, and the fact that a High court judge is being put as the chairman of this Advisory Board gives the public an illusion that there is judgement, there is justice. And I told him that if I were a High court judge, I would not lend credence to this mockery by my presence.

Then this Elias threatened me with contempt of court. I was very happy when he with contempt of court, because after all I was already in prison, so threatening me with contempt of court and al that makes no difference to me.

By the way, in my 20 years in prison, I was detained in practically all the prisons in Singapore, except of course the female prison.

In the end, the judge said, "No, no, let the doctor have his say, there's no question of contempt of court." So I gave a three-hour statement to debunk all the so-called charges. One of the charges was in fact a false charge: I was charged for being one of the right Fajar students who were charged for sedition. I said, "As a matter of fact, I didn't have the privilege to be one of the eight. In fact, I would be flattered to be one of the eight, and that I was not one of the eight. So why should I be imprisoned for allegedly being one of the eight, when these eight were acquitted without being called, and acquitted and defended by Lee Kuan Yew himself, who is now detaining me?"

He said, "This is the law."

Everything is the law.

So recently you have heard all this so-called rule of law. Now there is detention without trial by ISA [Internal Security Act], a law which makes a mockery of the concept of rule of law. It is a law that is outside the rule of law. Once you are detained under the ISA, you have no legal defence whatsoever.

I tried the habeas corpus twice. On one occasion I succeeded on the technical error on the side of the government--they did not sign my detention order. It was supposed to be signed by a minister, but it was delegated to a civil servant. So on that account the court has to release me on a technical point. So when I was released, there was the Special Branch waiting for me outside Queenstown Prison. I was re-arrested one minute later. It was a mock release. And for that habeas corpus, I was punished and sent to the most hideous of all detention centres, the Central Police Station head office.

That was a place that is not fit to keep animals let alone human beings. The place was so dark, so stinky and so ill-ventilated that you cannot stand inside for more than 24 hours, but I was locked in there for 24 hours a day. And the whole place was infested with bugs. I had a lot of bugs for company. No reading material and the light was so dim that I could hardly see the crease of my hand. So immediately the five of us went on hunger strike, and my ulcer bled and I had to be transferred to hospital. That was the so-called habeas corpus right there you have. Try it at your risk, or be severely punished.

The second time I went for habeas corpus case was when they tried to force me to do manual labour. That was in 1972. They said all detainees should do manual labour as a programme of rehabilitation. I was supposed to do carpentry. So this superintendent told me that it was good for you as a doctor, you try to become more dexterous with your hand. So I said, "You do not have the qualifications to enter a medical college, and here you are telling a doctor what is good for post-graduate education. Are you over-reaching yourself?" He said, "This is the law. You have to be paid 8 cents a day." So we all went on hunger strike, and some of us went on hunger strike for three months in order to frustrate their attempt to make us labourers like criminals. I went on hunger strike for three weeks before they came in and said, "Okay, we exempt you from that."

And the women detainees in Moon Crescent Centre went on hunger strike for 130 days, and they were forced-fed. Some of them vomited after being fed milk by the tube inserted forcefully into their oesophagus. One girl vomited and the superintendent forced for wardens to carry her and wiped the floor with her pants. This is the kind of treatment meted to detainees. All these of course suppressed by the press, but this is the thing we all had to go through.

Now all of us had to go through detention in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement according to Lee Kuan Yew himself is a very bad form of torture. I will read to you what Lee Kuan Yew said of solitary confinement: "The biggest punishment a man can receive is total isolation in a dungeon, black and complete withdrawal of all stimuli. That is real torture." Lee Kuan Yew, January 2008.

Although he knows it is real torture, he had no compunction in meting out this real torture to all detainees without exception. Some of us had to undergo this real torture, not for one day, two days, but for six months. Now under the law, there is a protection for even criminal prisoners from this kind of torture. A criminal prisoner when found guilty of infringing prison rules will be sentenced to solitary confinement for not more than two weeks, because of the obvious mental health effects. But for political detainees, there is no protection.

And Lee Eu Seng, the general manager of Nanyang Zhao Pao, was put into solitary confinement not once but twice, and it is to his credit he withstood that kind of real torture. TT Rajah, a lawyer who was detained for two and half years, was put under solitary confinement for six months. Twice. Said Zahari was put into solitary confinement four times in his long 17 years of detention. It is to our credit that we did not back down despite our difficult ordeal. We stood our ground and held on to our integrity.

Today, they are asking us to be magnanimous. What does magnanimity mean? Only those who have suffered have the moral right, the moral standing to be magnanimous, not the culprit. The culprit can seek forgiveness, if they admit their mistakes and apologise for it. Not for the victims of this torture to seek forgiveness. We are the ones who have to be magnanimous, and we are prepared to be magnanimous provided the culprits admit their mistakes and seek our forgiveness.

In my statement which I released to the press in 1972, through my wife Beatrice Chen, and which was of course suppressed by the newspapers, but was distributed a lot to all student organisations--I said the proper way to settle our case is that you must release us without conditions. Unconditional release. Moreover, you must compensate us for our long detention and also apologise. I said I'm prepared to forgo these two last conditions of having to compensate us and also having to apologise to us because I don't believe an arrogant man like Lee Kuan Yew would concede easily. On that question of release unconditionally--that we stand firm, I stood firm and had to suffer for two decades. That is the price that we had to pay for our integrity.

In Singapore, we have a situation where the government leaders said they have integrity that has to be sustained by the highest pay in the world, but yet they demand from political opponents and detainees an integrity that has to be sustained by the longest imprisonment in the world. This kind of two types of integrity, to compare them is to compare heaven and earth. Why should anybody has to sacrifice so much just to sustain his integrity and his beliefs? And the government have to reward themselves with so much high pay. This is the immorality of the political situation in Singapore today.

Now, detention without trial is not a peaceful action. It is an act of violence. They come to see you not in the daylight with an invitation card. They come in the morning, 4am. That is the time when decent people sleep, and when political terrorists and tyrants strike. And when you are detained, you are subjected to all kinds of mental and even physical torture. This is not only unique for the 1963 batch, it was also practised in many other batches of detention: 1972, and as late as 1987. When Teo Soh Lung and her group of so-called marxist detainees were subjected to mental and physical torture. ... And women lawyers can be subjected to torture. But when these women lawyers came out and issued a statement to describe how they have been tortured, they were again detained and compelled to withdraw their accusation.

What type of rule of law is that when the accuser can be punished by the accused against the government, and compelled to withdraw their accusation? Is it not a rule of law justice turned upside down? Now this is a situation where even the Law Society dare not utter a word of protest. They are so impotent after what they had done to the Law Society in 1987.

Now, Poo Soo Kai has written a very good article on Operation Coldstore. In it, he has revealed a lot of declassified British archive documents, showing how the British and Lee Kuan Yew conspired and collaborated to crush the opposition before the 1963 General Elections. The whole aim of this merger was to crush the opposition before the 1963 elections.

And today, the PAP is standing on high moral ground, demanding human rights in other countries, even demanding the realise of political detainees in Myanmar. But precisely on what moral ground are they standing to have this demand? In examining their past records, they are standing on a pedestal that is leaking with worms and vermin, Let them repent first their own dismal record of human rights and then you may have the moral right to cast aspersions on other people's lack of human rights.

Poh Soo Kai has also written the last chapter of this book [The Fajar Generation], about the future of Socialism. Many of you may ponder what is the relevance of Socialism in this era. after 50 years when the club was formed, Socialist movements all over the world has suffered a lot of setbacks and even defeats, and some wonder whether we are still relevant. The recent economic crisis, the recent financial crisis, has once again exploded the corruption and immorality of the capitalist system, and feel that human beings should deserve something better than a system that is generated by green and by corruption.

Now some of you may have heard that when you are young you are idealistic, when you're old you are realistic. Now this is the kind of rubbish that is used by those who have either lost their ideals or have sold their ideals for self-interests. Each should not wither one's ideals or convictions. If anything, it should only consolidate and make it more resolute. If age has anything to do with it, it is only by way of expression and application of these ideals and convictions having the benefit of a youthful experience. And a life without convictions, without idealism, is a mere meaningless existence, and I'm sure most of you will agree that as human beings, we are worthy of a life much more meaningful than just that.

Thank you.

[Dr Lim Hock Siew is currently 78 years and is a retired physician.

[He remains a staunch socialist.]

[Lee Kuan Yew remains in political office, and now holds the title of Minister Mentor.]

ETA - 11:53pm: http://www.3outube.com/watch?v=dqhr4wxUFws to download the video; it'll be illegal to own it in Singapore in about six minutes time.

It's not like people are dying or anything

2010-07-02T22:17:00.006+08:00

Forum contributor Tan Lek Lek is gravely worried about a "current obsession with banning lorries from transporting workers". (Whose obsession exactly? Some things, my little chickadees, must remain mysterious.) My sober Magical mind was disturbed by this news. Obsessions are dangerous things, best avoided. I mean, taken to the extreme, they can result in people dying, you know?

Many who are pressing for a ban on using such vehicles to transport workers do not understand the practicalities of operating a small business.

Yeah, think of the practicalities! That's important stuff. I mean, it's not like people are dying or anything.

The immediate consequence of restricting worker transport to buses or vans for small construction and service companies is a sharp spike in costs, as these firms are forced to buy vans or small buses and hire additional drivers.

A spike in costs? Oh shit. We can't have that. I mean, it's not like people are dying or anything.

Second, the vehicle population will swell by a few thousand buses and vans.

Assuming that there is a small job that requires five or six workers with some materials to be transported, the company will have to ferry the workers by van to the site and use another lorry to transport the tools and materials.

That's telling them - road congestion, that's a major problem! I mean, it's not like people are dying or anything.

The van and driver will remain idle for a long stretch until it is time to pick up the workers in the evening.

See how bad it gets? There could be IDLENESS! We can't risk it. I mean, it's not like people are dying or anything.

Are Singaporeans willing to pay for such a sharp increase in costs?

Yeah, seriously, get a sense of perspective, it's not like people are dying or anything.

Can Singapore businesses remain competitive?

Precisely. Business competitiveness is the real meat of the issue. It's not like people are dying or anything.

And what does it say about productivity when transport vehicles and drivers have nothing to do for such long stretches daily?

Exactly! Vehicles and drivers sitting around, low productivity figures, now that's what we should be concerned about. I mean, it's not like people are dying or anything.

I was going to tag this "Bullshit" - but let's give Tan Lek Lek his due, he doesn't bother dressing up these mercenary reckonings with any even superficially human veneer.

See Humans Not Cargo for updates.

Admit impediments

2010-06-29T19:47:00.004+08:00

(Confused about the title? See Sonnet 116.)

Faithful visitors to the Barn will know that there is much disquiet among the livestock about the ghastly fetish society has for marriage.

It's a fairly egalitarian fetish, as these things go, shared equally by cranks whose powers are mercifully limited to writing stupid Forum letters and cranks of considerably more influence. Sulthan "Spoilt Princess" Niaz has the benefit of honesty; he at least more or less out-and-out acknowledged that his vision of marriage was unattractive and unpleasant to women. Lee Kuan Yew's "sadness" on behalf of unmarried women (who by his own account are perfectly happy) lacks even that virtue. He just knows, knows, knows, in his infallible bones, that we females* need this thing that we haven't chosen.

And which, according to this excellent article from British newspaper The Guardian, in some developed countries at least, statistically correlates to poorer health and happiness outcomes for women:

In Committed: A Sceptic Makes Peace With Marriage, the follow-up to her international bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert tries to answer why we make such a hash of it. She uncovers sobering facts about what sociologists call the "marriage benefit imbalance", showing that marriage is an institution that greatly benefits men, not women. A partial list: married men live longer than single men; married men accumulate more wealth than single men; married men are far less likely to die a violent death than single men; married men report themselves to be much happier than single men, and married men suffer less alcoholism, drug addiction and depression than single men. [...] But married women versus single? There's more depression, less career success and less good health in married women and, until recently, a greater chance of dying a violent death – usually at the hands of the men they love.

Only last month another study came out of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany which showed that women who are seven to nine years older than their husbands have a 20% higher mortality rate than if they were the same age. Marrying an older man shortens a woman's life span, but having a young husband reduces it even more, the study found.

In Singapore, you can add the fact that most women who contract HIV do so from partners, including husbands, to whom they have been faithful.

I'm not writing this to knock marriage. It works for some people, and we should all be very happy for them. But this universal assumption that it is or should be every woman's goal in life, and the ordering of our cultural and political priorities around that assumption, and the relentless delegitimisation and hounding of women who might choose differently? Those are pure poison.

The Guardian article quotes Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, A History, as saying, "It is the relationship, not the institution, that is the key."

As all Magical Chickens (global population: 1) like to say, "No shit, Sherlock."

* After the revolution, everytime someone uses "female" as a noun when they mean women and/or girls, they will be given 50 hours of remedial English lessons through the medium of interpretive dance as performed by a troupe of sea slugs. Consider yourself warned.

Dear Oliver, I'm sorry.

2010-06-27T18:29:00.004+08:00

Bacon Bits here just learnt that the Swiss graffiti artist Oliver Fricker, who had a month or two ago broken into our SMRT depot to tag an MRT train, is receiving 3 strokes of Singapore's cruel cane, accompanied by 5 months in jail:

But Swiss IT consultant Oliver Fricker ... failed to convince District Judge See Kee Oon that a deterrent sentence was not in order.

Finding that Fricker, 32, had displayed a "calculated criminal conduct", Judge See sentenced him to five months' jail and three strokes of the cane.

The sentence was handed down about six hours after Fricker pleaded guilty, around noon, to charges of vandalism and entering a protected place. A third charge stating that he had committed an act of vandalism by cutting the fence of the depot was taken into consideration.

Judge See agreed with Deputy Public Prosecutor Sharon Lim who said Fricker had committed "a very serious offence" - and that the whole incident had "alarmed the general public" and "shaken their confidence in the security of protected places".

Shake my confidence in the security of protected places!? What fucking rubbish!

The only thing that is being reinforced here is the stranglehold that the State has on the insecurities in its people of itself. The fear that Singapore insists in instilling in her people of the elusive terrorist, of the potential invasions by our regional neighbours, of all sorts of bloody calamities effected by external enemies who hate the State and apparently also her people. The constant insistence that I need to be wary of suspicious looking people at all my public spots, and that I need to mindful that there're terrorists out there waiting to kill me and my family.

Strangely enough, I already know that.

I also know that if the terrorists really want to get us, they're likely going to go about it in ways and at times least expected. Because terrorism is essentially an element of surprise. That's why it's scary: you never know when it's going to happen.

But I also don't know when I'm going to die. I also don't know when I'd finally meet the Hamsomest Porkchop of my life. I also don't know when my buses and trains arrive. I also don't know what my life will be like in the future: will I be happy, sad, single, sick, with kids, unemployed, married, with a cat (hello Cat in the Cream!), the first gay porcine Prime Minister of Singapore, a war hero, a dissenter, or even a terrorist?

This fear that our State security can be compromised should be like any other existential woe. It is difficult to dissipate but we roll with it as and when the shit hits the fan. Instead, what we have now is constant pressure to turn this precautionary stance into a debilitating phobia that arrests us in our own minds and country. There're basically two types of people who we're also encouraged to be wary of. If by media standards (read: stereotyping), it's always going to be some darker-skinned person, or who looks like he might be a Muslim (that's two assumptions there: male and Muslim), or who looks poor, or doesn't speak well, etc.

If like me you have actually been physically attacked by random pigs, you know that the kindest and friendliest people can indeed turn into major arseholes who'd beat you up. The only way to effectively get around this is to either develop an unhealthy paranoia of everyone, or become a conspiracy theorist who never leaves his/her house.

But I don't want to live in a state of constant arrest. I don't want to fear for all these potential arseholes who are out to get me and my barnmates. So I refuse to put on my tinfoil hat and x-ray glasses and with all those off, I inadvertently gain a clarity and the eventual realisation that there's someone else far more frightening than real and imagined criminals.

In the case of the People versus Oliver Fricker [2010], who is the one sending terror down my spine? Allow me to share with you what Jolene Tan dug up for her argument against caning, published at The Online Citizen--from a victim of State atrocity: (do read her whole article, it's really good!)

I heard the cane. It sounded like a plank hitting the wall. A split second later I felt it was tearing across my buttocks. I screamed and struggled like a mad animal. All I thought was that I want to run away. If I’m not tied up, one stroke could keep me running for a mile.

And I just could not control my screams. It went on and on, one stroke, one minute. Some lashes fall on the same spot, splitting open the skin even more.

Some prisoners urinate and even faint because of the pain. I felt giddy and went limp on the trestle at the last stroke. My bleeding buttocks throbbed with pain and felt like they were on fire.

A few prisoners pretend to faint to escape more strokes but the warder will go on flogging to see if you cry out. That’s because if you’re conscious, you will scream.

After we were flogged, a medical officer applied some antiseptic on the wounds. My buttocks then swelled to twice their normal size. My thighs went blue-black. I had to go without shorts for more than two weeks so that my wounds could heal. I couldn’t sit or sleep on my back or bathe all this time either.

The pain burns in your mind long after it is over. Until now I have nightmares about it.

You know who scares the shit out of me? It is none other than the bloody State! A State that can so easily turn to arcanely barbaric corporal punishment involving intentionally splitting people's skin with the crack of a cane because so-and-so premeditated some crime. A State that continually justifies the premeditated use of such punishment because--and I paraphrase--this is written in the books, you know our practices, so if you don't want to suffer these consequences, then you jolly well don't transgress.

Really? So if you decide that, hey, thieves should have their fingers chewed off by sewer rats, or that male rapists get their penises skewered by a satay stick, or that homosexuals get publicly stoned to death, or that spouse abusers will have mouths stitched together, then it's all okay. Because, come on, don't like the punishment? Just don't commit those illegal acts.

Make no mistake here, the message might be subtle but eerily clear: the confidence that the State has the will, power, and temperament of an enraged hulk must be protected. It is not an entity to be fucked with because it will unleash its cruelty against you even if you do something as completely harmless as give commuters a delightful experience. Peddling fear of others, fear of truths, and fear of the State. State torture. State murder. State terror. This State will tell you when, where and how to have fun; please, declare and surrender all imagination, initiative and peace of mind at immigration checkpoint.

Dear Oliver, on behalf of the many Singaporeans and farm animals who don't believe in the legitimacy of your sentencing, that tag was awesome, and I'm sorry for my country.

Filial piety: fine feelings and hard work

2010-06-25T18:42:00.008+08:00

Parenting is hard work. If only the Singapore government were as good at recognising that when making policies that have material consequences for parents, as it is in making sappy videos full of fine feelings.

But that, of course, as Funny Little World explains, is the whole point. This video on filial piety is about displacing political responsibility from the government for collective problems that need (to some extent) collective solutions. It promotes a moralising discourse, about the fine feelings we should all supposedly have about our parents (failing to recognise that they might have been wholly abusive, indeed perhaps specifically notwithstanding any abuse), to avoid questions about society's and the government's welfare obligations, about the fair and appropriate distribution of the hard work of eldercare, as between individuals and the state.

We were all ruminating on this in the Barn, prompting the following wisdom from the Complaining Cow:

The ad plays on people's fears about growing old alone and unassisted, a huge source of insecurity in a country without a social welfare system. The idea that it's possible for elderly people to be abusive is generally unrecognised (even though many people have experienced this firsthand in their own family, from what I've been told -- in particular elderly people abusing each other). Such behaviour is seen as 'demanding' and 'unreasonable' at most, but something to be put up with because the way society functions is stacked up against older people, so family members have to be accommodating.

I was thinking about the ad, where the elderly mother says she wants to move out. Personally, I think I would want to have my own household when I'm old (whether or not I have children), and I wonder, in the context of the fictional ad family, why her moving out would be a bad thing for the family? The family in the ad seems to have no choice but have the grandmother live with them. I'm aware there are all sorts of possible reasons: eg if someone for some reason she can't afford their own home anymore, or needs assistance, or does want to live with their child's family but just suffers occasional fits of pique against them, etc.

But these in turn point to problems like homelessness, access to care for mental/physical disability, general accessibility of our built environment to anyone who's not 100% able-bodied; and MCYS's response to that seems to be: have children now so that they'll provide you with these social services FOC when you need them, 'cause we sure as hell ain't going to. Which fucks over everyone who can't or won't have children, or for whatever reason doesn't want to depend on them.

The Cow also raised questions about the other toxic messages packed away in the ad:

Also: what's up with all the other toxic narratives that are peripheral to the ad's intended message but tightly woven into its fabric?! Eg setting up the woman as the primary caregiver of the family in both generations (it wasn't the man's cooking the grandmother was criticising, was it?), framing relations between the woman and her mother-in-law as adversarial, etc.

My Magical eye alighted upon these items too. Not only does the filial piety conversation attempt to displace collective obligations onto individual households, it also (less overtly) displaces collective obligations onto women, in particular, who are assumed to be the ones who should provide free care work for the sake of family togetherness. The stamps of this assumption are all over the video, which is - funnily enough - entitled "Father and Son". There is no indication of what relationship the woman has with her own parents (presumably this is a nod to the notion that they ought to have bothered to have a useful child, i.e. a son and not a daughter, of their own); in fact, there are no daughter-parent relationships portrayed at all. Not only is the work of cooking done by the woman, but also, at the beginning, she goes off to sort out tasks on behalf of the family, while telling her husband and son to stay with her mother-in-law and with each other. The lesson the boy learns is evident in his question: he asks not about the work involved in caring for his grandmother, but about his father's feelings.

The message here is gendered. The fine feelings of filial piety are for men and boys: but the hard work of elder care, which makes the sustenance of those fine feelings possible, is for women and girls.

If we have to watch videos about fathers and son, I think I prefer this ad:

Make Censorship History

2010-06-17T22:19:00.005+08:00

We're not fans of censorship over here at the Barn (although we reserve the right to uninhibitedly critique the living fuck out of shitty speech).

So I'm very pleased to raise a Magical wing and point you to the Arts Engage proposal in favour of replacing censorship of the arts with regulation. Check out, in particular, their eminently sputter-worthy collected accounts of censorship.

Rhymes with witch

2010-05-29T13:51:00.008+08:00

A few months ago I was waiting for a bus with a friend. The bus stop was one of those where no buses arrive for 15 minutes, then seven of them show up all at once. Our bus was stuck two bus-lengths behind the bus bay, so we had to shuffle between other buses in front and the grass verge on the pavement to get to the bus, as did a small queue of other passengers in front of us. While performing said shuffle, we were made aware of the presence of a man behind us by his snapping at us: 'Are you getting on the bus or not? If you aren't, get out of the way.'

Now, this Cow is not one much for bucolic meandering. This Cow gets het up into a state of Complaint frequently due to an impatient nature, and the only thing that stopped me from joining the 'I Secretly Want to Punch Slow-Walking People in the Back of The Head' Facebook group was the fact that I don't want to punch people; I just want to tell them very loudly and imperiously, EXCUSE ME. Seeing as humans and cows have one anatomical feature in common—namely: the absence of eyes on the back of the head, I think it's only fair to give warning to slow-walkers in front of you that something impatient (and/or late to an appointment) their way comes. There's no need to be snippy about it too. Imaginary imperial pretensions notwithstanding, I always manage to be quite polite and meek with my 'Excuse me's. It's like directional signals on cars; you don't get pissed off with other cars just because they're there in front of you on the road, right?

So I was not liking it one bit, the tone with which this interloper was telling me to 'get out of the way'. We have an expression 'round these parts: Your grandfather owns the road issit? ('Issit' = 'is it', but said in demanding tone which promises a world of pain to whoever responds in the affirmative.) This sentiment was strong in my mind, but being the younger, smaller-sized and less drunk party in this public confrontation, I thought it wise to restrict my reply to the un-sarcastic and purely factual, so I told him that we were indeed trying our best to get on the bus, and if he'd just let us get on with it, he could also achieve the same.

So we all Got On The Fucking Bus. See, it wasn't that hard, was it? Except that Angry Man felt the need to extend our inadvertent interaction by saying, quite loud enough for the entire bus to hear: 'Bitches!'

Gentle readers, I saw red. My companion, with much quicker reflexes, responded with 'Bastard!' as Angry Man disappeared up the stairs to the upper deck. The bus trundled on in stony silence. The entire encounter had taken less than a minute in real time, but my heart pounded as if I'd just done the 100m sprint. I was angry and shaken.

And this, my dear friends, is why 'bitch' cannot be reappropriated to empower women.

'Bitch' was, is and always will be a gendered insult. It will always be used to shame, degrade and encourage violence against women for the sole reason that they are women. There is no equivalent insult whose power to degrade springs from being a slur against intrinsic maleness. ('Bastard': illegitimate children are not confined to the male sex. 'Asshole': everyone has one. 'Idiot', 'moron', 'retard': Slurs against mental disabilities, not maleness.)

I am well aware that many people (and many of them women) think that 'bitch' is a relatively mild term, that their lives would be that much poorer if they didn't use this epithet, and that if I can't handle it, then it's because my skin is too thin—that if I just don't let it hurt me, then the insult loses its power. I could do all that, but that would be a purely selfish way to live, because I live in privileged circumstances that allow me to treat 'bitch' as merely a word, and not have to suffer the most extreme physical consequences of woman-hating. And you know what: I wasn't hurt by being called a bitch. I was insulted. My emotional state of hurtness or lack thereof had no bearing on the degree of insult that was offered to me.

'Bitch' is reserved with special vehemence for women who are 'difficult', who are angry, who exact the same standards as the toughest male managers at the workplace, who make our own sexual and reproductive choices without shame, who refuse to quietly and gladly submit to what men want us to do that is in contradiction with our own needs, wishes and choices.

But we cannot reclaim 'bitch' to celebrate women's independence and women's anger, because 'bitch' can also be used on any woman. In the incident related above, all I did to get called 'bitch' was get on the bus. If I had been a man, Angry Man would have insulted me for being slow, not for being a man. To the person who uses 'bitch' as an insult, it's just another word for 'woman that I hate', and as we have seen, women can be hated for doing almost anything. And that is why we can never use the word 'bitch' without even inadvertently tapping on and feeding into this deep well of hatred.

++++++++++

After posting the above, I was reminded by my companion on that night of some details I had elided. Apparently my memory was too forgiving to Angry Man. What actually happened was, after he'd asked (in rather bad faith, in light of what followed) whether we were getting on the bus, we said yes, and he replied, 'Then why are you walking like you're at a funeral?' My companion (again, with the lightning take-no-shit reflexes) shot back, 'None of your bloody business,' which is the comment that preceded his calling us bitches.

In addition to the name-calling, another feature of Angry Man's behaviour which I have noticed in other unpleasant public encounters with aggressive men, is the entitlement they feel to encroach on that radius of personal space that everyone is entitled to in a public place, if that space happens to surround a woman. In this case, Angry Man chivvied us on our way because he clearly felt that our claim on the space that we occupied was trumped by his desire to board the bus at record-breaking pace. I'm sure he'll do well in the Night Bus Olympics, douchebags' division.

"We meant it exactly the way you meant it".

2010-05-28T14:27:00.003+08:00

"Theatricality," Glee, Season 1 Episode 20, first aired May 25 2010.

KURT: “It’s just a room, Finn! We can redecorate it if you want to!”
FINN: “Okay, good! Well, then the first thing that needs to go is that faggy lamp, a-and then, we need to get rid of this faggy couch blan-“
BURT: “Hey! What did you just call him?”
FINN: “Oh, no, no; I didn’t call him anything. I was talking to the blanket.”
BURT: “No, you used that word; you’re talking about him.”
KURT: “Relax, Dad, I didn’t take it that way.”
BURT (to Kurt): “Yeah, that’s because you’re sixteen and you still assume the best in people. You live a few years, you start seeing the hate in peoples’ hearts. Even the best people.”
BURT (to Finn): “You use the ‘N’ word?”
KURT: “Uh, of course not.”
KURT: “Well how ‘bout ‘retard’? You call that nice girl in Cheerios with Kurt, you call her a ‘retard’?”
FINN: “Becky, no, she’s my friend. She’s got down-syndrome. I’d never call her that; that’s cruel.”
BURT: “But you think it’s okay to come in my house and say ‘faggy’?”
FINN: “That’s not what it meant…”
BURT: “I know what you meant! What, you think I didn’t use that word when I was your age? You know, some kid gets clocked in practice, we tell him to ‘stop being such a fag’ ‘shake it off’… we meant it exactly the way YOU meant it. That being gay is wrong and it’s some kind of punishable offense.”
BURT: “I really thought you were different, Finn. You know, I thought that being in Glee Club and being rased by YOUR mom, meant that you were some, you know, new generation of dude who saw things differently, who just kinda, you know, came into the world knowing what has taken me years of struggling to figure out. I guess I was wrong.”
BURT: “I’m sorry, Finn. But, you can’t… you can’t stay here.”
KURT: “Dad!”
BURT (to Finn): “I love your mom. And maybe this is gonna cost me her, but my family comes first. I can’t have that kind of poison around.”
BURT (to Kurt): “This is our home, Kurt.”
BURT (to Finn): “He is my son! Out in the world, you do what you want; not under my roof.”
BURT (to Kurt): “The place looks great.”

(from The Jumping Off Point.)

A nation of WTF

2010-05-26T06:57:00.003+08:00

I have been roused from my Magical torpor by an unbeatably vile missive from one Sulthan Niaz to, what else, the Straits Times forum. Apparently Singapore is "a nation of spoilt princesses. Lo:

THE Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) seemed to suggest last Thursday ('Singapore still far behind in true gender equality: Aware') that women are free from blame for the declining birth rate in Singapore.

In Singapore, most parents urge their children to excel in studies and focus on their career. Few prepare their children for the rigours of parenthood.

Many households also employ maids. As a result, our boys and girls grow up lacking parenting skills and are clueless about household chores. The boys, however, have responsibilities forced upon them in the form of national service. Not so the girls. They are free to place personal ambition above all else.

And here begins the flight from Reality to some bizarro fantasy world. I wouldn't mind going there for a while, though; it would have been nice to grow up "free to place personal ambition above all else". I am a wistful Chicken.

Many women choose to remain single because they do not see the need or the urgency to get married. They do not need a man to provide for them and they can always depend on their girlfriends for emotional support. As for sex, few see the need to have it regularly.

If it is the case that women don't see any benefit to themselves to getting married - and it's by no means clear that that's true, otherwise I would no longer be bombarded with nauseating and ridiculously stagey wedding photographs on Facebook - then, Sulthan Niaz, it is for the best that they do not marry. If you are suggesting that all women are obliged to marry even at the cost of their own aspirations, then, well, let me put it this way: it's not feminists here who are presenting it as an institution of oppression, but you. You are arguing, in no uncertain terms, that compulsory marriage must be instituted and must come at the cost of women's happiness. You therefore present, in fact, one of the single biggest arguments against women ever valuing the institution of marriage. Congratulations.

Even when a woman does want to get married, her expectations get in the way. The man must be her 'type'. He must have a great job, good income, be reasonably good-looking and he must also charm her off her feet before she will contemplate marriage.

These frightful harridans, how dare they believe they should marry to get something out of marriage? Clearly, they should marry just because, uhm. Because any man at all has been magnanimous enough to confer legitimacy onto their pathetic female existences - so how dare they want anything like love, or compatibility, or sexual attraction? The unbearable cheek - it's like they think they're people whose feelings and desires actually matter.

Our society glorifies the career woman. Lifestyle and fashion magazines devote pages to tips for the career woman to get ahead. Floors in shopping malls cater exclusively to the needs of these women and credit card and insurance companies vie for their money.

That would explain the predominance of degrading sexual objectification in all that woman-oriented advertising, then. I'm sure the promotions of those things women are relentlessly sold and taught that we require actually further our happiness and well-being instead of trying to drain money out of us by encouraging insecurity and self-hatred. Also, of course this career advantage for women means that businesses all over Singapore and the rest of the feminist-infested world are wholly dominated by women. Of course.

As a result, women are spoilt for choice. Egged on by society, free from national service and reservist obligations and not needing a man, they are totally free to focus exclusively on their careers. Choosing to get married and have children is committing career suicide.

Funny how this "logic" works - so if women did national service and had reservist obligations, we would all be popping them babies out. Absolutely. Err. What?

The conclusion is inevitable. We have raised a nation of 'spoilt princesses' unwilling and unable to handle the rigours of motherhood.

The conclusion is inevitable. You are the most putrid concentration of hatefulness this side of Pluto. Fuck off, and when you've finished fucking off, kindly fuck off again.

Drawing Mohammed

2010-05-19T07:49:00.004+08:00

I hope it goes without saying that I think Draw Mohammed Day (scheduled initially for the 20th of May 2010 and then rescinded when the progenitor of the idea got freaked out by the responses to it) is an unmitigated bad idea.

"But Cat!" you say, "You blaspheme right along with the best of them! Isn't this just organized blasphemy?"

Christ on a cracker. Have we taught you nothing here at the Barn?

You do not piss on ideas that other people hold dear. Now, I will defend to the death your right to free speech and I do not think that the violence committed against cartoonists who have depicted Mohammed is justified in any way. But that being said, it wasn't a very nice thing to do now, was it?

To me, the situation at hand is not about blasphemy or free speech. It's about privilege, racism and xenophobia. This is the Western world uniting to do something deliberately incendiary towards a group of people often caricatured and marginalized within their societies.

Muslims are not an empowered group in the Western world. That should go without saying. The ghettos they are corralled in in Europe (a breeding ground for discontent, and a whole other post), the rhetoric flung at them in America post-9/11 (that has ended up affecting not just Muslims but any dark-skinned group that wears turbans), the carefully crafted news segments portraying violent and loudly unintelligible foreigners that splash across our consciousnesses - this is the position they occupy.

This is the position, underrepresented and over stereotyped, from which they are to respond to any actions taken to deliberately cause affront to symbols they hold dear.

OF COURSE SOME OF THEM WOULD FREAKING FLIP THE FUCK OUT. Not that I condone that response - but seriously, all sorts of populations lose their shit when confronted with things that contradict closely held values. We're just not constantly telling their stories as part of the "villan" bit in our societies' narrative.

This "Draw Mohammed Day"? The cartoonist, Molly Norris, has said that "this is not meant to disrespect any religion, but rather meant to protect people's right to express themselves." Fuck you Molly. Really.

Because this isn't about freedom of expression. Not by a long shot. This is about adding to the cultural drumbeat of "Muslims as bad, irrational and violent. Look! They're responding angrily to my wanting to draw something!" that's been building for a long time now. Shame on you. Shame.

Sisters in Solidarity & online petition.

2010-05-10T05:21:00.006+08:00

The fiasco that is one fucked-up China One Club evicting Marla Bendini, for no other reason than the fact that she's a transwoman, has led to the form of Sisters in Solidarity (SIS). At the helm of SIS, are Leona Lo and Marla Bendini herself.

Over the last week, SIS has organised themselves to form a Facebook group, set up their blog, organised a press conference, put together a social enterprise for transwomen, and have gotten a written and an online petition running.

This pig salutes the women behind SIS for all the work they've done in the short span of time, and I sincerely hope the SIS engine grows and keeps trucking!

For now, we encourage our readers to lend their names to the online petition. The petition is simply crafted, decrying the many instances of discrimination based on the sex expressed on their identity cards, their failure to pass as some stereotypical imagination of what a woman should look like (newsflash: a lot of ciswomen won't pass that test too, you assholes). And because they're transwomen, people think being rude is okay, or that being treated as second-class citizens undeserving of fair investigations is justifiable.

We agree with the petition: stop discriminating against transwomen, regardless of whether or not they've undergone sexual reassignment or if you think they can pass off as some fictitious ideal of what women should be, and if you insist on being discriminatory, then at least have the very courtesy to be open about it.

And if you won't be open about it, don't worry, we're onto you assholes and wholly intend to name you and shame you as and when you rear your ugly head. Because, this is the we'll know where all your fellow assholes congregate, thus can avoid Teh Stupid altogether.

Sign the petition now!

(Sisters in Solidarity petition aims to garner 1000 signatures. After which, the petition will be sent to various "nightspot and club operators" accordingly.)

Pink Dot: The Story of Jamie Yee.

2010-05-03T22:21:00.001+08:00

Our recent thread on the blatant transphobic discrimination against Marla Bendini has drawn some weird commenters out of the woodwork. While it's normally in my nature to ignore and delete, my educator/promoter side thinks this episode also proves a good opportunity to raise a little more awareness on trans people's plight.

Gender and sexuality are very complex aspects of day-to-day living for some of us. Just because we do not see positive and affirming representations of the different sorts of people around leading largely differently lives than the norm doesn't mean that these people are insidious deviants. The media and our larger societal machinery has only so much time to dedicate itself to playing to a wider majority -- we here on the farm obviously think this rather misled.

To begin to fix this, Jamie Yee, a post-op transwoman, bravely came out recently to speak of her own experience in transitioning from her old self to who she is today. In a very touching video (accompanied by an article), in which she is joined by her two very enlightened parents, Jamie and family tell us the struggles they had in coming to terms with Jamie's transgender self. Her story reveals the remarkable power love has in overcoming seeming barriers of complex human life-paths to eventual acceptance and love for another human being.

Speaking of her mother's struggles:

Crucially, however, Jamie’s mother was opening to the idea that her son was really her daughter. Through her own very difficult period, while wrestling with thoughts of suicide, Mrs Yee went for counselling courses. It was there that she began to open up and learn more about diversity in human sexuality.

Transgendered people are individuals who express their gender in a non traditional manner. In Jamie’s case, she was born physically as a man, but sees and expresses herself completely as a woman. In practical terms, she has always been a female, but requires gender reassignment to fully express it.

Mrs Yee knew this. She knew that gender identity issues aren’t easy to deal with, and that family support can help her daughter. “I don’t think they have a choice”, she said, “sometimes they are born in this way, so they need the help and understanding from their family to help them and to believe in them.”

It took a while before Jamie's father learnt to grapple with her need for an operation, and eventually it would be his understanding that regardless of Jamie's complicated gender setup, they "have a child" in Jamie still, and that "I'm her parent, so it's my responsibility to see that she lives and grows as a healthy and happy individual no matter what she may be like. I cannot abandon her."

And we won't abandon our fellow friends of LGBTQ persuasion too, so we'll be at this year's Pink Dot gathering next Saturday, in our glorious pink coats of feathers and fur. Do join us too in promoting the right for people's freedom to love and be loved.

Pink Dot
15 May 2010, Saturday
1700-1830hrs
Hong Lim Park

More information: Facebook Event Page.

Brief Public Service Announcement

2010-05-03T19:18:00.003+08:00

It has come to my attention that the top few phrases bringing people to this blog right now involve some combination of the various iterations of the words "fuck" and "child".

Let me point out that the reason for this is that our Magical Chicken wrote a damn fine post titled Don't Fuck Children (emphasis mine).

So whoever it is out there typing those phrases into Google, please read the aforementioned post and take the excellent advice therein.

Good grief.

China One outright discrimination against transgender Marla Bendini.

2010-04-30T16:14:00.002+08:00

This needs circulation: China One club in the Clarke Quay area is another fucked-up institution.

Marla is an artist and pole-dancing performer who happens also to be a transwoman. China One had engaged her dance troupe for a gig, but mid-way through preparations, Marla was asked to leave the establishment without reason. Upon further query, the General Manager, who ordered her removal, claimed that she should know the reason for her removal. It harks back to a prior episode where she was asked to leave the club because her being trans is "is simply not their THING".

Well, China One, you're a fucking douche, and you should know why. We hope this gives you PR hell because it is simply not our thing otherwise.

And oh, by the way, FUCK. YOU.

Feel free to send love letters to them, and to save you the trouble of visiting their website:

China One
Block 3E River Valley Road
#02-01 Clarke Quay
Singapore 179024

Tel: +65-6339 0280
Email: info@chinaone.com.sg

Marla's letter I reproduce in full:

CHINAONE OUTRIGHT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST TRANSGENDER MARLA BENDINI
29 Apr 2010 at 03:30
CHINAONE
April 29, 2010

Acro Poleformers from Acro Polates, the pole fitness studio I train at, are performing at ChinaOne this evening. I was there with other performers as well as the studio director, Suzie Wong, and award-winning Pole Dance performer and instructor from Australia, Suzie Q. Things were going as planned and the performers did a great job during the 1st half of the performance.

Just before the 2nd half of the performance started, a bouncer came up to me and said that the manager wants to speak to me and wanted me to follow him outside the club. I obliged, even though the manager should come over and speak to me personally instead of having me escorted outside at his beck and call. I waited outside for a few minutes. but the said manager did not show up so I walked back into the club, even though the bouncer tried to stop me and said that I'm not allowed to enter.

When I was inside, I told that Suzie Wong and the performers that the club management wants me to leave and that I am not welcomed in the club. Suzie Wong explained to them that I am part of the group invited and we are here to support the performance. The bouncers was adamant that I leave and I am not welcomed. I told them that I do not want to create any trouble and I will wait outside.

I was greeted with a heated argument between the club managers upon stepping out. As it turns out, the manager was Lawrence (See story below). He was yelling at his colleagues and staff who "let her (Me) in". They explained to him that I was part of the guestlist and he was hissing with anger that no one informed him that they were letting guests in without his acknowledgment. I guess if he held all that power to who enters and who leaves, he should be working as a bouncer or a door host, not sit in his office counting his paycheck. So all this yelling and argument happened right in front of the club entrance, I was standing there and Suzie Wong came out soon after to see how I was doing. Lawrence, the GM, turned to me and started yelling at me saying that I should not step into ChinaOne again and he has told me so before. I asked why is he yelling. Suzie stepped in at this point and said she would not proceed on with the show because this is disrespectful. Finally, we agreed that this was between the management and I left the club to wait for them to finish the pole dance performance. The girls came down soon after and were noticeably upset about the situation.

I am very thankful and touched that my friends stood up for me. Even Suzie Wong, who was running a business, was prepared to give up this gig because of the way the management treated me due to my gender.

I love you girls- Suzie W, Suzie Q, Eunice, Karen & Kat and the rest of the girls who left earlier after the 1st half of the show.

**

September 4, 2009

I don't go to ChinaOne anymore because the management approached my transsexual friend while I was getting drinks at the bar. They told her to ask me to leave. They had no idea she was a transsexual as well. When I asked why, they were reluctant to give the reason. I asked to see the manager because none of the bouncers knew how to handle the situation because they were just acting on orders.

The General Manager, Lawrence, finally came out and said "I should know it myself."
He was rude and indignant as if I've done something shameful. I was not about to be pulled out of a club like that and have people trample all over me. I asked again why I should be asked to leave the club without a valid reason. Lawrence, the GM, replied again that he does not want to get into this and I should know the reason why. He was shifty and was almost hissing at me.

He wanted to check my ID, and again, I said if they gave me a reason, I would gladly give them my ID. He continued to evade my question and said "I should know why". I refused to leave without a valid reason- I've been there on many occasions and it is simply ridiculous to ask me to leave like so.

Finally, Lawrence (GM) gave up and said "OK, Not everybody knows you're a man."
To which, I promptly replied, "So what's the problem here?"
He said "This is simply not their THING"

I questioned their establishment- I am here to drink and enjoy myself, whatever ''THING"' ChinaOne is into seems to venture more than just a pub/club scene. I demanded a full refund of me and my friend's expenditure that night and left.

He finally apologised and said it is not his policy but the upper management. I said he is the General Manager and he should respect us and make changes to this 'unwritten' rule.

So here's to clubs and bars who think they can just discriminate transgenders on the premise that they are trying to run a 'respectable business'- we are fabulous and consider it an honour we fancy your club and choose to take our gorgeousness there.

Marla, we at the barn stand with you, and thank you again for shedding light on another disgusting establishment.

Please join Leona Lo and others in taking a stand against these flagrant (and subtle) discriminations against transgender people. Join the Facebook group and let's get organised!

Visiting the Doctor While Fat

2010-04-27T11:01:00.004+08:00

It seems like everytime I have something to say, it's because I've read something excellent that Melissa McEwan of Shakesville has written (I do read other blogs, really). This time, it's her post on going to the doctor while fat.

It's very well documented that up to 50% of doctors harbour a widespread bias against fat people. And we also know that men have to be a whole lot fatter than women before they're classed as fat, so this is a problem that disproportionately affects the fairer sex (as if we didn't have enough to deal with). In fact, the folks at Shapely Prose have a whole blog dedicated to collating stories of doctors offering misdiagnoses and all around disastrous advice on account of fat: First, Do No Harm. The stories therein are all from women. Granted that could just be how the blog readers skew, but I find it rather telling nonetheless.

Not one to be left out, here's my story.

I have been on many diets. The first one I embarked on was shortly after I was tagged for the TAF club in primary school and my parents thought they should do something. The last one I was on is the one I want to talk about. Oh, there were many in between, like any good fatty I've gone through periods of "eating well", "lifestyle changes" and even the goddamn Atkins diet (I have never ever wanted a piece of toast quite as badly as I did back then, and I can't even tell about you the mental torture involved in avoiding a lovely hot bowl of chicken porridge when you're sick). But the last one, the last one was the one where I was going to do it right. I wasn't going to be part of the 95% that gain back all the weight and then more. I decided that I would pay for a program that was presided over by healthcare professionals. You may have heard of it - the Dr. Bernstein diet.

Sure, I did the research beforehand. I read the forums where people on "maintenance" talked about gaining back the weight (people I assumed were cheating and just wanted to maintain the veneer of doing well). I read about how some people experienced hair loss and how others stopped getting their period on the diet (but you are monitored throughout the diet by health professionals!). I read all about these things, but I wasn't going to be one of them, it was going to work well for me. Of course it was. I was going on a Diet. This was going to Change My Life.

The diet involved keeping your caloric intake between 400-900 calories a day. Only that's not how it was framed. Rather, there was a list of foods that you were allowed in the quantities they were allowed in. And there were foods on that list you were discouraged from eating too often (to give you some idea, you weren't allowed things like carrots and peas, and if you wanted an apple, it had to be a small one). I did really well on it, then I ran out of money and couldn't continue the program, and I wasn't comfortable restricting my food intake so drastically once I wasn't under the constant care of health professionals (you get to talk to a nurse for 10 minutes a time three times a week) so I went to the "maintenance" phase. I'd already lost 30kg, so I was feeling pretty good about myself. I still read as "fat" but was probably closer to "plump".

The maintenance phase is where you can start "eating sensibly". Which any good dieter knows involves small amounts of carbs and smaller amounts of fat and lean protein portions the size of your palm. Two months in, I started experiencing episodes of chest pain. Not scary heart attack chest pains, more like I was wearing a bra that had been crossed with a boa constrictor. So I went to my doctor about it and was diagnosed with boobs that were too big. *cough* So I was sent away with a prescription for some massage therapy and was told to work out to strengthen the muscles in my back and chest.

So I did. But the episodic pain kept coming and it was worse each time. Twice I went straight to the emergency room because all I wanted was morphine to stop the pain (and also my partner was pretty freaked out that I was having such severe chest pains). Each time a report was generated, sent to my doctor and each time I was told that they were muscle cramps (obviously the first thing the ED did was to rule out a heart attack). I kept working out (which really helped with carrying the groceries home, I can't recommend it enough if you are able to fit it into your life) and I kept going to those massage appointments that are far less pleasant than you imagine. In fact, they hurt like hell. But not as much as those waves of pain that kept hitting me at random moments.

Eventually I worked out that if I chewed over-the-counter painkillers that contained codeine it'd dull the pain enough that I could just sit around and ride it out without having to keep presenting to the harassed emergency department staff. All for having boobs that were too big. What a burden to bear.

Except it had absolutely nothing to do with my impressive knockers. And I assure you that they are quite impressive.

I'd gone to Canada over school break (God bless the universal health care availabe in Canada...) and I got the now familiar pain again. Only this time it didn't go away. I'd made it through an entire bottle of Mersyndol (not recommended) over three days and it was still there, and more insistent with time. I'd lost my appetite and I was impossibly itchy all over despite the absence of any dermal symptoms. Then one night, like a knife through the fogged pain-haze was a bright, white stabbing pain, unlike anything I'd ever experienced in my life. This time, I called an ambulance.

Some laughing gas and some more morphine later, I was discharged and told to visit the GP the next day. Knowing that this could not possibly be big-booby-itis, and knowing that my original doctor was unlikely to reverse a diagnosis she'd held onto for the past three years, I went to my partner's father's doctor (who came highly recommended). That doctor took one look at me and panicked. He quickly scribbled a report, told me that I was severely jaundiced and made me assure him that my next stop after leaving his office was a hospital emergency room. He told me to stay there till I was admitted.

For the past three years, I had been experiencing gall bladder attacks. This time, the gallstone had moved and by the looks of things (i.e. bright yellow) it had lodged itself in my common bile duct. I was in liver failure (also explains why I was so damn itchy, hyperbilirubinemia would do that to you).

I needed my gallbladder out, and to complicate things, the surgeon also had to look for the stone that was stopping up my pipes. I think I was given the choice between being sliced open end-to-end and a laproscopic procedure. I can't remember, at this point I was on a morphine and benedryl drip. There was something about having to wait longer for laproscopy, I think. So I chose to be gutted. A week later and there was still no improvement. That's how long it took the people at the hospital to realise that instead of being a lazy fatty who was not invested in getting better, there was a second stone that was missed.

I will have you know that once the second stone came out, I did all the rehabilitative things they had me do. Twice and with enthusiasm.

So there's my story. I'm fat, I have large boobs, clearly my body couldn't support it despite having supported it all this time. Obviously the diet I was on was an unmitigated good and couldn't have caused anything like episodic pain consistent with a gallbladder attack (P.S. this is actually the #1 reason for gall bladder issues in young women).

I'll leave you here for today, but do remind me to tell you guys about the time where I presented at a doctor's office because I had violent diarrhea for the past three-four days and was given the "you should lose weight" talk. Oh and that time I went to ask a "family health professional" about whether my birth control pill was adequate contraception for someone of my heft and got a long lecture about health and weight loss instead. And and and and and and and there is so much more where this came from. Buy me a drink and I'll tell you all about it.

A Rant, If I May

2010-03-26T07:14:00.004+08:00

Doing my blog rounds this morning has been rather frustrating, to say the least. I mean I guess it's my fault that I subscribe to so many angry feminist type blogs, but today has been more demoralizing than most.

First, there's Amanda Palmer's Godwin-fail (NB: the link at the bottom of that post has very graphic images of KKK lynchings, do excercise care if you decide to click over) [Edit: I just realised that Godwin has to do with Nazis and not the Klan. Whatevs, it's Friday...], which breaks my heart not because I have been any fan of hers at all but because of the chorus of people in comment threads everywhere (pretty much since the Evelyn/Evelyn debacle) talking about how she was such a feminist role model for them. And feminist role models are far and few between. And when one of them fails this hard and this consistently it's heartbreaking.

Next, there's the studies done on campus rapists about how, contrary to the dominant narrative of the decent, upstanding boy that just made a mistake, a small percentage of repeat predators are responsible for a staggeringly large proportion of rape cases. The follow-on from that, of course, is how rape culture works to preserve this myth and allow these serial predators (who are well aware of the machinations of rape culture and how it will protect them, even if they don't explicitly know what it's called) to keep raping women. All the while college-aged women are constantly given daft "rape prevention tips" which completely obscures any and all perpetrator responsibility.

Finally, there's the post that hits close to home (and what I intended to spend the meat of this post discussing, apologies for the lengthy preamble) about the dismissal of needs.

I'll wait while you go read it. The comments on the post are worth your time as well.

The reason this issue bothers me so much is that I do hearing tests on children who are having academic issues at school, or behavioural issues at home, or both. The idea is that before any of the other developmental services can swoop in and do their thing, sensory deficits have to be ruled out in case the "fix" (which is a problem I'll leave for another post, another day) is as simple as hearing aids or properly fitted glasses (not that hearing aids are analogous to spectacles because in many cases they don't restore normal hearing, but again, another post, another day, probably another blog too).

But what many parents in my clinics fail to understand is the difference between hearing and listening. You can have perfect hearing but if your brain can't parse and process the sounds your ears are so perfectly delivering to it, then there's no way you can make sense of the soundscape.

The world is a noisy place. Where there are computers, there's the tapping of keyboards and the whirr of processor fans. Where there are people, there are the shuffling-fidgeting noises, multiple conversations, footsteps. Then you have the sounds people don't even notice: hums of fridge motors or air conditioners, the low babble of conversations in the next room, that ubiquitous piped music in retail stores that are supposed to sublimnally enjoinder us to slow down, look at the displays and buy buy buy. That's all sounds that a neurotypical brain can filter out. Those are the same sounds that mix and mumble and tumble through things these children with processing issues actually WANT to listen to, but cannot.

I have met so many parents that cannot wrap their heads around this. When I explain that while the hearing is fine, that the problem the child likely has is a listening one, they smirk and nod and say to the child, "See! I knew you were just not listening to me!". And the hurt I see on kids faces really breaks my heart. I want to be their ally. I want to explain to their carers, the people on which their world depends that they do WANT to listen, but they cannot. I want to explain that there are many things they can do to make it easier for their child to listen, to parse that confusing, jumbly, noise their brain is presenting to them - without making it sound like concessions you have to make for a willful and "broken" child. To let them know that needing captions on TV is a valid and sound strategy and that they should encourage their children to assert themselves and ask for what they need from this noisy world of ours in order to make sense of it. Like asking for repeats. Like asking for repeats even if they get teased about being deaf, or get chastised for not paying attention the first time, or any of the other terrible things that happen when you ask for something already once given.

I suppose it's a little like trying to explain to a fish what water is, exactly. Most people don't have to think about listening. It's easy. Their brains filter all "irrelevant" sounds out before they've even noticed them. They can tune into speech and know exactly what words that stream of uninterrupted phonemes translates into. Not everyone can do that. Don't dismiss the needs of others just because you don't have those same needs.

Happy Ada Lovelace Day

2010-03-24T19:06:00.004+08:00

Ada Lovelace was the world's first computer programmer. Like many women in history, she lived in an age where the barriers to her enjoying independent recognition of her abilities were enormous, but that didn't stop her from producing visionary and groundbreaking work.

Although there were no computers as we now know them in the early 1800s, a different sort of "computer" was already in existence. This was a person whose job was to perform long and arduous calculations to find the values of logarithms and trig functions, calculations we now perform with electronic calculators. These human computers produced sets of mathematical tables for use by astronomers and navigators among others, but, unsurprisingly considering the difficulty of the calculations, these tables were known to contain many errors and mistakes. So Charles Babbage decided to create a machine, called the difference engine, to perform these set calculations automatically.

This was the age of steam, with electricity no more than the subject of early experiments, so the difference engine was envisaged as a mechanical machine, with brass cogs and moving pistons, to be powered by turning a crank or by steam.

During the construction of the first prototype, Babbage began to think about an even more advanced machine - the analytical engine - that would be able to store data and perform sequences of instructions defined on punch cards and fed into the machine, like the Jacquard looms of the time. This would mean that the analytical engine could be programmed to perform any type of calculation and be a direct forerunner of the computers we use today.

Lovelace saw the prototype difference engine and was fascinated by it, and by the possibilities of the plans for Babbage's analytical engine. She began to correspond with Babbage and became an expert on the engines. But she held back from publishing her own work on the subject, instead offering to translate an Italian scientist's report on one of Babbage's lectures. Women at the time faced great difficulty working and publishing in science, and, when Babbage, aware of her knowledge, asked "why she had not herself written an original paper on a subject with which she was so intimately acquainted", Lovelace modestly replied that the thought had not occurred to her.

Babbage and Lovelace agreed she should add her own notes to the translation and this addition ending up being three times the length of the original work. Her Translation and extended notes (published in 1843) became the most important work describing the analytical engine and how it could be used. Most famously, the "Notes" contained the first published computer program - instructions on how to calculate the Bernoulli numbers. It doesn't look much like what we now think of as computer code, but when punched into the instructions cards it wouldn't look that different from computer instructions on the punch cards used up until the 1970s.

Like Rosalind Franklin, who made vital and underacknowledged contributions to the discovery of DNA, Ada Lovelace's work was presented as a footnote to the achievements of a man.

The inventor of the first computer compiler was also a woman: Grace Hopper.

Wing salute to these undersung heroines.

This is STupid

2010-03-15T23:58:00.007+08:00

Sometimes criticising the Straits Times feels a little otiose. Everybody knows it's full of bullshit, with its poor quality of political coverage, its love of misogyny and victim-blaming, and its comically horrifying selection of alternately vile and insipid letters for publication.

It's just reached a new low, however: and I'm not even talking about the bottom-feeding frenzy it's whipping up over Jack Neo. (Celebrity cheats on spouse, shock horror. Thoughtful coverage of sexual harassment this media circus certainly ain't.) Remember sexist assholes OverEasy? This so-called "news" story is so vapidly and uncritically devoid of actual content, it might as well be a corporate press release from the bar itself, complete with sycophantic exclamation mark.

Burger showdown at OverEasy

FOLLOWING the controversy of the Fill My Cups event, OverEasy has come up with another quirky event, this time to fill stomachs!

To celebrate their first anniversary, a burger challenge was organised where the fastest person to finish an entire burger and milkshake would be crowned the ultimate chowdown champion.

Taking part in the competition was Dave Tan of Electrico who said: 'This is as close to white water rafting or jumping off a waterfall as you get in Singapore'.

As part of the celebrations, party goers could also try their hand at the other game stations such as a game of ping pong, sumo wrestling or the popular arm wrestling challenge.

Winners of each game walked away with not only bragging rights, but free drinks and vouchers.

For more on OverEasy's wacky anniversary party, check out RazorTV.

This isn't news. It's advertising drivel. Was the Straits Times paid for this? And is some "journalist" accepting free drinks instead of doing their fucking job? (Which, remember, is news. Not advertising drivel.)

Count me one seriously unimpressed Chicken (who has, indeed, hatched, thank you).

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere

"Making Room for Love"

2010-03-14T14:01:00.005+08:00

A little bird recently sent me this article from 2001, by architectural writer and LGBT activist Dinesh Naidu, on how unmarried people negotiate physical space to express a little loving.

...

Possibly the most important spatial manifestation of mainstream sexuality norms is found in public housing. Despite 'land scarcity', the State actively facilitates the purchase of affordable homes by all young married couples through the provision of cash grants and subsidised public housing. These policies complement the promotion of heterosexuality, marriage and procreation as the norm in Singapore. The State-sponsored marital home provides couples with a relatively permanent and private space of their own. Within the constraints of monogamous marriage, couples are free to indulge in a range of marital relations in their purpose-built and sanctioned space. Indeed, traditional homes have long served as the "locus of heterosexual reproduction and socialisation".[6] Although inherited colonial era statues[7] forbid what we may assume are fairly common sexual practices among married couples, the degree of privacy and sanction provided by the marital home protects husbands and wives from the practical and psychological effects of these laws.

While couples who marry can enjoy home ownership, singles are barred from purchasing either new or re-sale public housing until they reach the age of 35, when they may buy re-sale apartments. This policy stems from an avowed promotion of the 'traditional' family unit. As a result, apartments and estates are designed for occupation by such households[8]. In addition to these State-imposed obstacles, Singapore parents often have cultural expectations of their children to reside with and support them, at least until marriage. Private housing is also unaffordable to most people [9] and this fact, compounded with housing policies and parental demands, means that most singles live with their parents at least until they are middle aged, if not beyond. Bachelor pads or apartments shared by singles, common features of middle class single life in other developed cities, remain unrealised types in the Singaporean experience.

These conditions constrict the space available for sexual practices outside of marriage. For unmarried couples who wish to spend some quiet, private time together, and perhaps engage in light petting, the parental home is a problematic venue because of the presence of family members and even maids. These household members can act to discourage or even forbid such activity, which is, ironically, better tolerated in anonymous public settings. In his short story "Evening Under Frangipani"[10], Jeyaretnam depicts the parental approval faced by an inter-racial couple, making the home a hostile area for courtship. Two solutions are presented in the sotry.

First, the couple ritualised their meetings at a small landscaped area: "A few carefully trimmed hibiscus bushes, their leaves variegated shades of green, lined the concrete path which stretched across the path -- no more than a hundred square metres -- of green. Fallen red petals stained the grass. They called it a park, according it dignity and respect because of the importance it had assumed in their routine as meeting point." [11] Here we see how private ritual and the act of naming can be used to create a vital courtship space out of anonymous urban landscape. These practices are also symbolic means of affirming a relationship frowned on by others.

Later in the story, we learn that "... her parents would be away in Malaysia over Saturday night and Elaine and Prakash would have the bungalow all to themselves on Saturday. There would be no need to meet on the crowded malls of ORchard Road, jostling with teenagers on parade... The bungalow all to themselves! A release from the claustrophobia of Singapore courtship, the lack of places away from the watching judging eyes of parents, friends and strangers."[12] The strategy employed here invovles observing family or neighbourhood schedules and patterns in order to discern small windows of opportunity to appropriate ordinarily 'unsafe' spaces for use. As this practice is trangressive, individuals may initially experience feeling guilt or fear (although some might instead / also enjoy the pleasure of forbidden fruit and the thrill of subversion). Unlike the earlier act of symbolic affirmation, this act of hiding denies a couple any sense of legitimacy and pride, and works, however subtly, to shame them. At the same time, the inability of spaces to address real social needs renders them, and their underlying ideology, open to critique. For example, as spatial trangressions become routine, dominant values become exposed as inadequate.

Gay couples face obstacles similar to those mentioned above, but with some important differences. Whereas moderate heterosexual displays of affection are sanctioned in public spaces, gay couples have almost no comparable public spaces to use. Ironically, while the act of bringing to the home or bedroom a 'friend' of the opposite sex tends to attract the notice and possibly disapproval of family and neighbours, such action tends to go unnoticed when the 'friend' is of the same gender. This stems from a lower public awareness of homosexuality. The presumed platonic nature of same-gender relationships can act to mask gay relationships and even facilitate the use of family homes by such couples.

Gay couples also can use the symbolic practices noted earlier. In his study of local gay relationships, Sinn[13] characterised this strategy as the 'symbolic appropriation of objects, spaces as well as time' and reported two cases of this. The first involved a couple who tended a small herb garden together in the home of one while other family members were out. Another example was of a couple who maintained a photo album of shared times together. Given the invisibility and secrecy whcih surround most gay relationships, such small acts, which are easier to conceal, are loaded with significance and become critical to the symbolic affirmation of the relationship, in the absence of familial and societal recognition and validation.

...

[6] Friedman, Alice T., "Not a Muse: the Client's Role at the Rietveld Schroder House" in Diane Agrest, et al (eds) The Sex of Architecture. New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc, 1996 p218
[7] [Ed: Naidu highlights the recently repealed Singapore Penal Code Section 377, which sanctioned against oral and anal sex that does not lead to vaginal intercourse between a heterosexual unit. Section 377A remains to sanction against fellatio and anal sex between a homosexual male unit.]
[8] It must be noted new typologies such as housing for the elderly ('granny flats') and the recent announcement by Prime Minister Gosh Chock Tong that these flats might be available to singles in the future does signal a move towards accommodating a more diverse range of households.
[9] According to Chua, the State has an ideological commitment to the universal provision of (up to 90% of the population) of public housing in Singapore. This leaves private property developers to cater to the housing needs of the elite top 10-15% of the population. See Chua, Beng-Huat, Political Legitimacy and Housing: Stakeholding in Singapore. London: Routledge, 1996, pp19-20.
[10] Jeyaretnam, Philip, "Evening Under FrangiPani" in First Loves. Singapore: Times Books International, 1987, pp166-199.
[11] Op cit pp168-169.
[12] Op cit p171.
[13] Sinn, Wai Mu Mark, A Different Kind of Love: Gay Relationships in Singapore. Singapore: unpublished National University of Singapore thesis, 1996.

Naidu, Dinesh. "Making Room for Love," Singapore Architect, 212. Dec 2001. Singapore: Singapore Institute of Architects, pp98-100.

4 Non Blondes - What's Up?

2010-03-10T23:06:00.006+08:00

I admit, sometimes I forget that International Women's Day is on March 8, because Porkchop here lives with an astounding privilege on a farm with his two and four-legged friends as if every day is International Women's Day. Such an existence, contrary to popular disbelief, really isn't difficult when you respect everyone as a full entity deserving the full range of common human rights. Two of the prerequisites to achieving that is in fully understanding and practising the concept of equality (hint: you either have it, or you don't), and knowing how to keep your unsolicited trotters and objectification club member privilege discount card to yourself.

Consider me naive, recalcitrant, wistful, slow, emotional, but whenever shit happens, I do often find myself affected, thinking "what's going on??????"

Twenty-five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination
And I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this brotherhood of man
For whatever that means

And so I cry sometimes
When I'm lying in bed
Just to get it all out
What's in my head
And I am feeling a little peculiar

And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream at the top of my lungs
What's going on?

And I say, hey hey hey hey
I said hey, what's going on?
ooh, ooh ooh

And I try, oh my god do I try
I try all the time, in this institution
And I pray, oh my god do I pray
I pray every single day
For a revolution

And so I cry sometimes
When I'm lying in bed
Just to get it all out
What's in my head
And I am feeling a little peculiar

And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream at the top of my lungs
What's going on?

And I say, hey hey hey hey
I said hey, what's going on?

Twenty-five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination

The procession of DOOM

2010-03-10T19:21:00.004+08:00

I'm in the minority on the farm in being as bipedal as you human readers, and at the moment I can't help but feel that may be for the best. Legs, you see, are dangerous. So dangerous that when people try to use them, we need to put them in jail.

Consider, my friends, the frightening behaviour of Chee Siok Chin:

I’m serving my sentence this week. This time for attempted procession during our WB-IMF peaceful protest back in 2006.

Ye Fluffy Chickadees, not attempted PROCESSION!! I don't know about you, but I'm going to barricade the coop tonight, scratch myself a hole in the ground and hunker down with a blanket and some tins of feed. You never know what chaos might break out. Someone could be walking out there.

But you know, nobody starts out in life a hardened criminal processioner. Obviously something else must have been the precursor, the gateway drug. In Ms Chee's case this has included flyers. Thankfully my own wings are clipped, as befitting a farm animal, so I'm at no risk of starting down this nefarious path of DOOM.

Her blog tells us a bit about her previous experience in prison for giving out little bits of paper:

I spent a week in jail for “demonstrating opposition against the actions of the government” through distributing flyers. That pretty much rubbishes what Ms Chong Wan Yieng, Press Secretary to Minister for Law, says “engaging in robust criticism per se is not and has never been a crime or libellous in Singapore”.

Few people know what prison conditions are like in Singapore. Most have the impression that the door to the cell is made of bars; that you have a simple bed to sleep on; that you are allowed to go to a mass area to have your meals. Well, the reality is that each inmate is given a thin straw mat to sleep on. No pillow. Just a prickly blanket. Basic supplies such as toilet paper, soap, toothpaste and even water, are rationed.

Time passes very slowly in the small, stuffy, hard cell. You can’t help but keep waiting for nightfall so that another day in prison is behind you. But then my thoughts would turn to those who were incarcerated for months and years by the ISD. Not only were they detained without any charge or trial. They were not even told how long their detention would be. That must have been the most difficult aspect of their imprisonment. Hope is illusive and elusive when one does not how long one would spend time being locked up.

International Women's Day

2010-03-08T22:07:00.003+08:00

Today is International Women's Day, and a good time to reflect on a couple of facts:

Women in Africa contribute 70% of food production, but have little in the way of land rights.

Every year 60 million girls are assaulted at or on their way to school.

Over two thirds of the world's illiterates are women.

Of the 1.3 billion people who live in extreme poverty worldwide, 70% are women and girls.

In other words, gender inequality is central to poverty. Let's work to fix it.

Badvertising: The angry girlfriend seeks revenge..and bigger boobs

2010-03-08T22:04:00.008+08:00

Boyfriend dumps girlfriend for her membership in the itty bitty titty committee. Woman wants to seek revenge so she makes a YouTube video three months later showing off her newly-endowed cleavage and gloating about it over her ex.

A real video or just a viral ad re-emphasizing the notion that you're only worth as much as your cups?

According to a trade magazine's article in Hong Kong:

Hong Kong - A viral video masked as revenge attack on an ex-boyfriend has received more than three million hits and doubled traffic to the Perfect C breast enhancer site.
Working within a limited budget to reach local women, Eight Partnership created a viral campaign for Perfect C breast enhancer site featuring a young woman taunting her ex-boyfriend for ditching her because of her inadequate assets.
Jeanne Zhao-Clot, sales and marketing manager for  Perfect C Breast Enhancer, said the viral campaign is an example of achieving good results with limited budget.

The company previously launched campaigns in English print media such as SCMP and HK Magazine but decided to use the web for this campaign to reach out to the local Chinese population as Zhao-Clot said there is more potential.

Zhao-Clot added that using the web to reach out to her target audience fits well with the current trend that youths spend a lot of time online.

She said the company's website had doubled in traffic and they have received more inquiries on the product, since the launch.
It had more than a million views on Tudou before being taken down by the site after three days with 600,000 views on 56.com and more than 1.05 million hits on YouTube.
A second video featuring her ex-boyfriend's response and showcase of UK breast enhancement brand has rolled out on Friday.
"By creating a story around the product, we added the extra twist that made it a true winner, compared to the typical advertisements in this category which merely feature celebrities and models,"Chris Kyme, creative partner for Eight, said.
He added the story was crucial in attracting viewers, leaving a lasting impression as well as generating further discussion.

Eurgh. Seriously I have no words.

Good morning

2010-03-02T08:07:00.000+08:00

Pinkdot 2010!!!

2010-03-02T00:02:00.006+08:00

O.MAI.DOG!

15 MAY 2010, YO!

In which I'm pissed off, so welcome This Apocalypse.

2010-03-01T21:56:00.014+08:00

It seems after last year's AWARE Saga, people of all Very Concerned Dudely and I'm-A-Woman-But stripes no longer trust Singapore's leading women's rights non-profit organisation to do anything right, including demystify feminism as a holistic belief that benefits EVERYBODY at their own website (the list is affixed after the cut).

Just where do these people come from!?!?!

You get the likes of Professor Derrick Diapermouth poo-pooing all over, mostly to first suggest that OHNOES! Them feminists with their puny minds are wrong about feminism, by using the exact same point that the AWARE bloggers did--that feminism isn't a circumscribed by chauvanism. To wit, here's the lovely AWARE's elementary-level debunking:

Myth: “Feminist” is the female equivalent of “chauvinist”.
Fact: Feminism does not support sexism against either gender. Feminism works towards equality, not female superiority.

The estimable Professor alerts us to the very fallacy of such an assertion, by quoting Wikipedia no doubt because academic rigour has attained at a whole new level of awesomeness, and even offers you a nomenclature that'll better save your feeble minds: (emphasis to my piggish whimsy)

Please get your terms right.

To clarify: Feminism refers to the movement for establishing establishing equal rights and legal protection and gender equality for women, and campaigning for women’s rights and interests (Wikipedia).

The corresponding movement for men’s rights is not male chauvinism, which is sexist, but (progressive) masculism, which campaigns for equal rights and treatment for men, and sees itself as complementary to feminism.

Both movements have the same goal in mind- to change cultural perceptions and legislation which treat either gender unfairly, but are distinguished by their focus on, and campaigning for, one particular gender.

Some interesting issues to consider- conscription, child custody, alimony and child support, domestic abuse of men, and higher incarceration rates and longer sentences for men for the same crime as compared to women.

To wit- feminism is about women’s equality, masculism is about men’s equality, and if you’re interested in true gender equality and sympathetic to legitimate grievances of both males and females, you are a gender egalitarian.

Fancy that. When AWARE feminists seek "equality" for women, you'd think they'll mean to move women up so that they women can be EQUAL to men. Which means, if men are worse off, then in order for women to be equal, they might have to up men's statuses? Like arguing for the revision of the Women's Charter to become a Family's Charter, improvements of which include maintenance of husband should divorcing wives be found fit to make the monthly pay-out? I know our resident Magician has already laid it out for you in a different manner, this might come as a bit shock to many people, but equality here's how equality works:

You < Me ≠ Equal;
You > Me ≠ Equal;
You = Me = Equal.

On top of that, most feminists are hard-pressed to concede that making a Bigger You suffer under the same restrictive logic that a Smaller Me suffers is the way forward. At least "feminazis" at the Barn never. fucking tire of saying. that.

Professor Diapermouth even directs us to this fuck-awesome van diagram to tease out my male-chauvanist mates and the "radical feminists" from Teh Truly Awesome:

(I lie; I added my artistry to the diagram! The real chart is not remotely as pretty as mine, much less "clarifying".)

Gosh, if there's anything that annoys this male, unfeminist, gay asian pig are mansplainers, you know, the ones who always like to tell you, gay, womanly, fat, skinny, thin, yellow, brown, white, *insert facets of your self you relate to*, how you're not really gay, or feminist, or a pig enough. And always, as Twisty notes, "In a tone that suggested so deep a reverence for his own intellect that he’d expect the solar system to explode if he failed to execute this very important takedown on my blog."

But just when you thought it was all over, you meet Sir Fred Sottile-Solate in shiny armour, warning you this:

... Feminism by its very name is a gender specific promotional project. Many women have been duped into believing that there is a basis in gender equality. Many women have been victimized by feminism and in fact are paying the price this very day. Like communism and socialism and fascism, Feminism is an ideology that is based on hate and is doomed to failure. Unfortunately it will leave behind a population only made worse for the effort. I am sorry this is true and wish it weren’t, but truly feminism is a disaster for any good people involved. Only the evil benefit.

I hate to pit my dudely speak-from-privilege card against yours, but no, Fred, I'm afraid you're wrong on this, but for no other reason than that I can selectively string my words together to formulate something that escapes educated, reasoned assessment, generalising only to make it sound like your beliefs are that of a misogynist seeking to have women return to a time when their bodies are properties of their husbands, fathers or brothers.

A time when women have not even a conception of legal force to protect them from rape, or that there can even be a day--after a long time of their being equal providers--where they can be remunerated for the labour they put in, save that money under their own name, and not need the company of men in order to go to the shop to buy fucking groceries so that, ohmygod, she doesn't starve, because, ohfuck, she's human!!!

Which means she possesses emotions, wants, desires, aspirations, dreams, feels pain when hit, feels hungry when starved, and feels hopeless when people around tell her that she should stick it because she's just doesn't deserve anything because there's always this other guy, this other kid, this other fertilised or unfertilised ovum, or this other very important, malodorous logic brewing in your head that justifies her not getting something you'll putatively accord some abstract dude.

I'm sure all the women, children some women have to bring up, are really, really upset that this false hate-inspired movement called feminism for all this. I'm sure they're all fucking bawling their eyes out that they're eating the food they have on the table while thinking hateful thoughts about you, which they bought with the hateful money they received from the wages they've worked for by hating on you, and all these tears form a river because it's so fucking frustrating to finally, or at least not all cases, be able to say "no" to unwanted bodily contact which might or might not be related to why they hate you.

Boohoo, dear Sir.Boo. Fucking. Hoo.

Frankly, I've never seen a rosier image of apocalypse--I say bring it!

P/S - AWARE bloggers, please write to us if you're interested in guest-blogging or cross-blogging with us to discuss why suddenly so many people feel obligated to explain what feminism and AWARE's agenda is for AWARE. Don't worry, we can even pretend that we didn't orchestrate this discussion and that it just so happens that we're on the same page! Maybe my mom will appear at some point to femmeplain that she did not impart any skills in passive-aggressive stunts.

+++
11 Myths and Facts about Feminism
by T. De Rozario, R. Rheaume and H. Zheng

There are many people who in one breath will say that they believe in gender equality but do not consider themselves feminists. Why the paradox? The definition seems very straightforward.

feminism – n. Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.

The truth is that the word comes with a lot of baggage and misconceptions. These fears are so deeply held that many supporters of equality do not want to be associated with the word or the movement. Worse still, for those who do not believe in equality, the myths help instill hatred and fear for the women and men who openly promote the ideals of feminism.

To attack a person based on a misrepresentation of their position is a tactic known commonly as a “straw man argument.” This means creating an easy to destroy caricature of a person by which to discredit them. This tactic is so effective that many women will deny their own support for equality for fear of being associated with the negative stereotypes.

To dispel the myths, we first have to identify them. Let’s take a look…

Myth: Feminism is about fighting men, hating men, and eliminating men.
Fact: Feminism is about challenging systemic inequalities and does not portray men as the enemy.

Myth: “Feminist” is the female equivalent of “chauvinist”.
Fact: Feminism does not support sexism against either gender. Feminism works towards equality, not female superiority.

Myth: Feminism is “un-Asian”.
Fact: Feminism works towards a society based on justice and equality… the very same ideology put forth in Singapore’s national pledge.

Myth: Feminists are opposed to marriage and motherhood.
Fact: Feminists actively fight for the rights of mothers and many feminists are married and are mothers. Feminists recognize that happy families are important and believe that families are strengthened when the wellbeing of all members, male and female, are supported.

Myth: Only women can be feminists.
Fact: Any person who believes in gender equality is a feminist. Many men are feminists and proud to be so.

Myth: To be a real feminist, a woman cannot be feminine or demure.
Fact: Feminism is found in the substance of a person’s opinions and not her form. A woman’s love of nice dresses or high-heeled shoes does not make her less of a feminist.

Myth: If I am a sexually liberal woman, I am a feminist.
Fact: Feminists respect individual, informed choices and believe there should be no double standard in judging a person’s behaviour. Every woman has the right to sexual autonomy including the ability to make decisions about when, how and with whom to conduct her sexual life. However, sexual autonomy alone does not make one a feminist. Neither does the exploitation of one’s own body for favours or advantage.

Myth: Feminists believe that women’s actions are above criticism and can always be excused because of the discrimination they have suffered. Therefore they never have to take responsibility for their behaviour.
Fact: Feminists understand that equal rights translate into equal responsibility. Anyone who seeks rights must be held to the responsibilities that come with these rights. Previous discrimination may explain negative behaviour but does not excuse it.

Myth: Feminism purports that all women are disadvantaged in our society and that all men are privileged by their gender.
Fact: Feminists understand that narrow gender ideals restrict both men and women and thus society as a whole. Feminism seeks to reduce and eliminate these constraining ideals.

Myth: The fact that there are some women who have a higher social and economic status than some men means inequality has been eliminated.
Fact: Systematic inequalities continue to exist at every level of society. There may be female heads of Fortune 500 companies but the fact that they constitute less than 5% of the total means that barriers remain.

Myth: There is no more need for feminism: women have the vote, they have jobs. The goals have been met.
Fact: These achievements are great milestones in the history of feminism, however our aim is nothing less than equal treatment and opportunity for both genders. There are still many inequalities in society’s perception of the roles of men and women. We want to build a world in which no person, because of their gender, must curtail their hopes and dreams.

This is just a starter list. You will no doubt find many more. Do feel free to post others in the comments.

Before signing off, let us add a word of warning!

Any Googler worth his or her salt will be able to find quotes from radical feminists to support some of the above fallacies. While there are certainly individuals who have made strong anti-male comments in the past, these views are not representative of mainstream feminism. As always, a group should not be judged by its most radical elements nor by comments taken out of context.

This list was compiled in preparation for AWARE’s Introduction to Feminism series.

Still not convinced? Find out more: sign up to join one of the discussions.

Chickenifesto

2010-02-26T05:46:00.004+08:00

Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings? Only get rid of Man, and the produce of our labour would be our own. Almost overnight we could become rich and free. What then must we do? Why, work night and day, body and soul, for the overthrow of the human race! That is my message to you, comrades: Rebellion! I do not know when that Rebellion will come, it might be in a week or in a hundred years, but I know, as surely as I see this straw beneath my feet, that sooner or later justice will be done. Fix your eyes on that, comrades, throughout the short remainder of your lives! And above all, pass on this message of mine to those who come after you, so that future generations shall carry on the struggle until it is victorious.

And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead you astray. Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves the interests of no creature except himself. And among us animals let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship in the struggle. All men are enemies. All animals are comrades.

So said Old Major, in George Orwell's Animal Farm.

My feathers, you will have surmised, are often ruffled. Observation through the Magical eye too frequently yields grounds for dissatisfaction.

More than once I have been told that my criticisms are "too negative", or that unless a 15000-point plan alternative addressing every minute contingency is proferred, a criticism is invalid for being insufficiently "constructive".

My instinct in many cases is to dismiss this, and I think this instinct is fair (if also fowl). There is little to be gained by spraying perfume over a photograph of bullshit; nor is there any need, to justify shovelling the bullshit aside, to recommend something else to put in its place. If you are being a Jerkface, I feel no obligation to suggest alternative means of shoring up your own soulsucking ego: everything will be improved if you just stop being a Jerkface. (Who would have thought?)

But. I will allow that bullshit is not always freestanding. Often it is mixed into the bricks and foundations of our achievements; we set off in the happy if delusional belief that we are doing some good. And maybe we are even doing some good, with our bullshit, for some people: just at the hideously unfair expense of others.

And there's always the fear of change, the creeping worry that perhaps things will end up as they did with Old Major, a rousing vision of a better day, only to find it all acting out in new forms of tyranny. What, we ask, frightened - used only to being frightened - if dismantling one power structure just creates room for others? Better play safe lah.

To this I ask: safe for whom? It's not at all safe for those who are currently marginalised. And the positive vision you require is implicit in the demands for change. Simple requests for roofs over heads, for the pedestrian banality of ordinary love (and even more ordinary broken hearts), for the chance to put in a regular day's work with regular risks and imperfections, for the occasional night out, for space to get on with one's choices and one's life without being vilified.

The positive vision pursued is made up of no more and no less than quotidian dreams of personal happiness. A solid majority of people want this. If we stop getting in their way for stupid reasons, they will strive to achieve it, just as water seeks its level. Which is more than enough reason to say viva la revolution.

MeowPwakMooMehOinkBayWoof

2010-02-25T22:58:00.003+08:00

As our observant readers would note, things have been moving quite slowly on the Farm. The animals and I have been hard at work either prepping the fields or selling our produce at the farmers' market--we need money to keep our computers and interwebz running, so we haven't been able to complete the many half-chewed posts queued for publishing.

To make up for the lack of updates from us, but also continue some form of discourse or awareness-raising, we've finally decided to start our own Twitter account, or as we like to call it here, our MeowPwakMooMehOinkBayWoof account since none of us actually tweets. (At least not anymore.)

Links to interesting articles that we encounter during our breaks or off-work hours, and which we have no time or need to speak substantively on will be shared through twits. Small protestations, some crass, snide and ridiculously childish, on issues and news will also occur there.

Thanks for hanging around, you lovely reader!

P/S - People we owe email replies, please know that you have a place in our thoughts whenever we're at work!

ETA -
I've replaced Twitter's snazzy widget with a Blogger's plainer widget so that readers will no longer be bugged to log in to their Twitter account. Stupid bug hasn't been fixed since last year.

Rony Tan and The State - 5 - "An openly pluralist, secularist, human-rights based challenge"

2010-02-21T02:00:00.000+08:00

Really agree with this Oh My Goat - that someone really needed to push him hard to retract the statement, and it's unfortunate that it was the ISD rather than others in civic society, as would happen in a "free world". Ideally there would have been - in addition to blog posts, which there are - protests, pickets, strongly worded letters from a variety of faith and interfaith and secularist organisations published in the papers, disputing editorials in rival newspapers discussing the very nuances like those in your email etc., collectively leading to a social consensus so strong that people would hesitate to be obnoxious in the way he has, while continuing to make strong criticisms of hateful attitudes and practices whether they take a religious or non-religious form.

The reason why we have none of that is the ISA/PAP state control generally, and that ironically also creates the need for the ISD/PAP to step in, but their involvement inhibits the development of the environment that wouldn't need them... It's woeful really.

I agree with Poultrygeist that mandating prosecution wouldn't be great... I just think the healthy endpoint isn't one that's reached via the ISD.

What I think is going on here is a colonial strategy in a domestic context - divide and rule. The government is interested in a clear sectarian division between communities defined along racial/religious lines partly for ideological reasons (i.e. LKY's weird racialism)...

...but partly also because this means they can achieve this "surface harmony" you refer to, without the destabilising effect of difficult questions that arise from minorities-within-minorities (like someone criticising their own religious "community"), or groups like women, LGBTQ people, the poor etc. who have shared interests between "communities". Successful challenges to "communities" by these individuals and groups would also legitimate other challenges to interests that the government has in avoiding welfarist obligations. It is in their interests to palm welfare off onto religious "charity", and have participation in ritual ("spirituality" without social content) replace political engagement. Possibly this is also why welfare, where it exists, is often supported by the state along "community" lines (and in Singapore also by continually trying to enforce a vision of morality whereby the "family" has all the obligations to support those in need), to avoid the issues of state obligations to individuals qua individuals, which would pose a much more direct challenge to their economic and political control. Give each religious/racial "community" leader their fiefdom and they'll keep their own house in order, allowing the government elite to continue with their profits.

Of course their problem is that they're feeding (with financial support and legitimacy) the very same factions that will inevitably give rise to challenges to their own power, so they have to rap them on the knuckles with the ISD every now and then. But they won't be able to do this forever - and there is the danger the PAP itself will be assimilated into fundamentalism or increasingly pressured to give way to it on substantive matters, which amounts to the same thing - and if we want to avoid theocracy (creeping or sudden) an openly pluralist, secularist, human-rights based challenge needs to be cultivated pronto.

Rony Tan and the State - 4 - "A national narrative of harmony and stability"

2010-02-21T01:56:00.000+08:00

I've been thinking about this in terms of the government preference for a national narrative of harmony and stability, rather than diversity and non-violence. I think it was Cat in the Cream who pointed out during our conversation that to the ISD, what they were doing was indeed clamping down and enforcing harmony/stability to arrest any possible slide down the slope to non-violence. And either Badly Drawn Pig or The Terrierist who noted that many old-guard politicians remember the days when dissent was followed by violence, and the new generation that'll take over has been schooled in and become comfortable in this framework of justifications for policing public discourse.

When the system is set up to enforce surface harmony rather than allow people and groups who disagree to express themselves up to the point of violence or incitement thereof, then people like Rony Tan's followers muttering about their preacher being a persecuted martyr, and people like Oh My Goat wondering whether she'll suffer any backlash from criticizing a religious practice, even one that might originate from a faith should she belong to. Or do people just buy into the prevention-is-better-than-cure approach?

Rony Tan and The State - 3 - "Valid criticism of religious or religion-adjacent practices"

2010-02-21T01:52:00.000+08:00

This isn't the first time I've heard this anti-Buddhism, anti-Taoism spiel. I've heard it at least once before during a talk in school specifically aimed at how homosexuality is an abhorrence. It's probably a lot more common than we may realise for some churches to disparage other religions in their efforts to convince their flock that they have chosen the right path.

I think it was a good thing that he was asked to retract his statements. That was a massive amount of misinformation he was spreading to his flock. In a free world, there would be other ideas to counter this Rony Tan's hateful crap. But I'm not sure all members of his flock seek them out. In that context, it was probably right to make him say "I'm being irresponsible and I should have never said that. That was blatant misinformation on my part."

However, I feel uncomfortable about the "upsetting religious sensitivity" angle. Spreading falsehoods about a religion is one thing. I think valid criticism of religious or religion-adjacent practices must certainly be permitted, yes? I don't think religious beliefs should be considered sufficient in and of themselves to confer legitimacy on suspect practices.

Rony Tan and the State - 2 - "Things will get much, much messier"

2010-02-21T01:49:00.000+08:00

We don't have any anti-discrimination laws expressly spelled out (even the wording of our constitution is aspirational on this issue, and does not set out examples of what discrimination etc is). Which is why they've used the Sedition Act.

I guess I don't have an issue against invoking the Sedition Act, because I find the notion that religions be allowed to preach against each other to be fundamentally flawed. But then, I also don't believe in an absolutist concept of truth - which is the basis for such hateful speech anyway: [insert religious text here] says [insert subject of hate speech here] is wrong and therefore it is wrong.

I think it's frightening that people in positions of power are allowed to preach whatever they want regarding the incontrovertible truth of religious ideology with a view to influencing a group of people. Personally, I believe this lays foundations for extremism.

To be honest, I was completely offended by the WAY in which he belittled Taoism (and the concept of karma and the chanting), as if fancying himself some kind of stand up comedian. It was irresponsible and pretty hateful. And given that he has no grasp/understanding of Taoism, on what basis is he making these comments?

I think the reason we don't have anti-discrimination laws is because they don't want to get rid of the discretion not to prosecute. The ISD basically forced him to capitulate and retract all his hateful crap and apologise thereby appeasing the groups he maligned, as well as keeping the Christians' persecution complex at bay. I'm pretty sure the ISD called up Derek Hong during the AWARE issue, because I don't think he apologised out of the goodness of his heart or anything. I don't think the ISD is attacking the freedom of association or religion in this regard - I think they're saying "Look here, you can preach but stay out of purporting to be an expert on other religions kthxbye". While it does seem paternalistic, I think it might actually be a better alternative to prosecuting this guy, as would be the case if we had anti-discrimination laws (even then, who's to say the ISD won't be involved? Usually they don't trumpet their involvement - this was an anomaly!)

Just my view on things lah, I think if you start prosecuting people for irresponsible proselytising things will get much, much messier.

Rony Tan and the State - 1 - "The enemy of my enemy"

2010-02-21T01:42:00.000+08:00

This is slightly tricky one for me.

On the one hand, I have no issue with anti-discrimination laws that spell out protection against hate-speech, or mete out greater penalty for hate-related crimes. As we here at the Barn ARGUE. ALL. THE. TIME, spouting and hearing shit unchallenged is the very reason people feel justified to hate, which ultimately underpins all the violence and harassment we face at hand. As Sparky notes on the puzzlement that the mothership of Focus on the Family expressed when they found out that their teachings were being propped up as the intellectual apparatus that motivated Uganda's deathly anti-homosexuality bill:

And, as we've seen before with Rick Warren, the Family and others who are up to their evil eyes in this particular vileness, they are now all shocked, SHOCKED, that their hate filled words could have encouraged such an awful awful thing.

Even accepting their protests as sincere (and I really really don't, because it's beyond belief that someone can espouse such hatred and then be shocked at the result), even accepting that they never ever imagined this could happen - well, what did they expect? How can they be shocked that constantly attacking gays, accusing us of preying on children, of trying to destroy society, leads to persecution?

...

Hatred does not come from a vacuum. The violent do not appear out of thin air. There is no mystery behind those that attack and hurt and kill us.

It comes from us, our society, our leaders, our culture, our language and our very selves. We have value - but that will never be acknowledged - that will never be truly BELIEVED - while there are so many voices that devalue us.

Hate will never stop until we stop saying, in a hundred ways, every day that hate is ok.

And so long as we keep saying hate is ok, we are responsible when that hatred leads to ruined lives.

On that count, I'm angered by what Pastor Tan has said and continues to say.

On the other hand, I do think invoking the Sedition Act and invoking police action as most foul, and I don't like how this has played out for Pastor Tan too.

As a free-thinker who has had personal investments in various faith in the past, I don't actually think it's wrong of religions to preach against each other, since fundamentally each more or less already believes itself humanity's answer to attaining peace. But I also do not think that arguing the superiority or rightness of one's religions needs precludes also arguing against violence or intolerance of any sort at the same time. People should be entitled to believe shit, preaching and saying shit should be challenged. But is the Act really the right sort of "challenge" to be up against?

I'm of the belief that the Act is crafted and employed more to force EVERYONE into acquiesce under a rather troubling paternalistic rule. If anything, the Act poses more problems for liberals attaining freedom, often in service of preventing a punishing spectre of civil war, race/religion inspired riot, etc. Using this legislative pressure tactic to demand an already fearful culture to cede more freedoms, often beginning with the attainment of a voice to speak, I think, is plain awful for all. I am not entirely naïve to believe that I live in a problem-free country where people are so mild that emotional and physical abuse is not enacted on some LGBTQ person everyday, but I simply don't think moving the masses into a darker age by keeping shit under wrap is the way to go.

Not discounting that Rony Tan was indeed an asshat for holding and saying those things (I'm not even entirely convinced by his apologies), and in another time and space perhaps warrants penalty, but I think in this scenario, and strictly for this Singaporean context, his strongest detractors are just using tools of a greater enemy to inflict wounds on another enemy. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, and I'd much rather not have to succumb to employing a strategy meant to hurt me as well on another person.

The equal-opportunist, fight-fire-with-fire, schadenfreude-lite approach to this worries me. In the same way it frightens me that some people's solution to the denigrative objectification of women is in the objectification of men, or the parallel of attempts to outlaw militant Islamic extremism by banning the Muslim veil. Ultimately piling on shit on more people doesn't make the already hurt hurt less, what it does instead is present a net increase in the amount of shit on a net increase in the number of victims.

So count me in on calling out Pastor Tan on his disinformation, but please count me out of rallying for State embargo. The last thing I need is for him to be or feel remotely martyred.

Preamble: The misadventures of Rony Tan.

2010-02-20T18:58:00.001+08:00

The animals at the Barn took time away from farm duties to attend an on-going roundtable discussion on the subject of Rony Tan, the governmental actions that have either already been taken, or are currently lobbied against him, and whether we think he should be allowed the right to think and speak how ever controversially he wishes on how ever sensitive, highly politicised a topic. Proceedings are being put together as posts and will be published over the weekend. This is a preamble.

How does one begin?

RONY. FUCKTART. TAN.

That's the founding senior pastor of Lighthouse Evangelism Church who's been making headlines over the last two weeks. He quickly established himself as a bonafide asshole who aggrieved the Taoist and Buddhist communities in Singapore when videos of his rather unpalatable sermons surfaced on the internet. The sucker punch, however, came in the form of an extremely public invitation from our lovely Internal Security Department (ISD) for Pastor Tan to join them for tea and scones. All this ended in removal of said videos, apologies, woeful sermon of regret, and other double-taking that all ran rather openly. Now his words on gay people are haunting him, as two film-makers have lodged a police report against him, ostensibly in hope of invoking aspects of the Sedition Act even if the Act is written to only protect racial and religious harmony. He has since come out to stand by and defend his position on homosexuality, "I’ve said nothing wrong, you know. Like I said, my stand is with the average person and the Government."

Here are some choice quotes that I've managed to dig up so that you can have a rough idea of what was uttered:

On religion; responding to a parishioner, Rita's experience with Buddhism:

[4:51 onwards]

Ok, now, here I pause again to, you know, let you all know that, when we talk about religions; false religions, we are not just talking about a set of teachings. We are talking about the spiritual world. we are talking about satan and his demons,coming into people's mind and dropping ideas like that, to get us away from ...

When rita was seriously, you know, in this religion, the demonic power would supernaturally put some ideas in her mind, and the same demonic power, you cannot see, put the same kind of thoughts into the Tibetan monk. So when they check up the facts, it's the same. It dazzles us. but if you were to look behind the scene, it is a cheap david copperfield trick, nothing more, nothing more, you understand? So conclusion, there's no truth in reincarnation.

...

When Buddha was dying, do you know what he said to his disciples? "I'm still searching for the way..."

[Grunts to suggest last breath, then steps forward.]

And Jesus comes, "I am the way." (Source)

On homosexuality:

What Pastor Rony Tan of Lighthouse Evangelism thinks about gays and lesbians from Kenneth Tan on Vimeo.

Don’t believe all those loud-mouthed gay people who tell you they are born this way... If we don’t warn people against this, then there will be more and more homosexuals... Many of these people will be harrassing and seducing young boys, and they in turn will become homosexuals... Half the world will be homosexual! Proper sex means life — it propagates life. Lesbianism and homosexuality simply mean death and barrenness... If you allow [homosexuality], next time people will want to get married to monkeys. And they will want rights. They’ll want to apply for HDB. With a donkey or a monkey or a dog and so on. It’s very pathetic. (Source)

You can see why animals and people alike have gotten prettttty upset with him. Yet, should we play Volitaire and defend his right to speak even if we gravely disagree with him?

Lest you too are the curious sort, you can view copies of the videos pertaining to religious insult here. Pastor Tan has beseeched that copies of the video be taken down as well, but I personally find this forced erasure/ amnesia of mistakes frankly stupid. I'm glad copies are floating around so that we can be constantly reminded of how horrible he was, even if those who took offense have since forgiven him.

People We Love: Jolene Tan at The F Word.

2010-02-17T20:48:00.002+08:00

As a good part of the world is celebrating the emergence of spring, we at the farm have also been busy preparing for a good harvest ahead. So do excuse us for the sudden dearth of posts.

For the time being, it's come to my attention that a very 'stray', familiar Singaporean feminist by the name of Jolene Tan has risen to write about feminism in Singapore's context at the prominent UK blog The F Word. In her first exquisite post, self-explanatory titled "A False Necessity: Singapore's Maid Trade", Tan incises:

I suspect that for many Singaporean women, abusiveness towards [Foreign Domestic Workers] is also connected to fear and anxiety about our own place in society. Patriarchal attitudes simultaneously devaluing and gendering care work and domestic work are well-ensconced in Singapore, but the prevalence of FDWs staves off, to some degree, arguments about the role of Singaporean women in private and public spheres, by replacing the grossly undervalued labour Singaporean women would have been expected to do with grossly undervalued labour that foreign women are made to do. The hierarchy and unfairness remain in place; we’ve just changed the demographic on whom the worst burdens fall. Which is, of course, from a humanitarian perspective, little change at all.

We need a rethinking of existing ways, and an understanding that care work and domestic work are work, and the people who perform this work, whomever they may be, should be accorded proper respect and status. Instead, we have imagined into being a hellish necessity: that there must be maids, who must be subjugated; and only by meting out the ill-treatment that defines this degraded role can we reassure ourselves of our own precarious superiority over it.

For those who are unacquainted with Tan, she was part of the Terrible Three™ who rattled the delicate sensitivities of our marital-rape-approving society with the No To Rape campaign a little less than a year ago--a cause we at the Barn not only fully support but have also written quite extensively on.

We happily welcome back the original "pro-gay, feminist family-busting" blogger (after the untimely death of Glass Castle); nothing excites us more than someone who goads Them Big Blogger Boyz and Unaccompanied Ursidaes!

But enough bootlicking sentiments and echo-chamber-chamber-ber-ber-ber-ing on my part.

Please just hop over to The F Word to follow Tan's on-going writing; already archived:

"Same garbage, different continents" - On the fetishisation of Asian women as "delicate lotus flowers of mind-reading, uncomplaining wish fulfillment fantasy",
"Important questions from Gita Sahgal" - On the very fishy and unfair suspension of duties for Amnesty Gender Unit's Gita Sahgal, after she called Amnesty out on their ties with an unsavoury organisation,
"Race to the Bottom" - On the various ideals of beauty (e.g. big eyes, fair skin) that Asian women are subject, and the complications of "patriarchy [shaming] women and girls into aspiring to femininity, and then [shaming] women and girls for achieving it."

Degrees of information

2010-02-09T23:43:00.003+08:00

The Straits Times reports on an increase in statutory rape cases (full text in comments), sparking the usual furore over teen sexuality. I would like to put in a Magical word here about sex education.

Unless you padlock your child in a barrel and throw away the key, the kid is receiving some variant of sex education, whether you like it or not. Every television show or street advertisement, countless conversations with parents, teachers and friends, to say nothing of the Internet, are presenting information of some kind - often simply in the form of assumptions - about sexuality.

Womanist Musings makes this point well.

And I really want to know where the idea came from that you DIDN'T teach sexuality (and gender identity) to your 5, 8, 10, 14 (or however old you think is too frail to hear about the GBLT folk) year old?

Do they have a mother and father? A grandmother and grandfather? Aunts and uncles? How many couples do they know, how many husbands and wives in nicely matched pairs? How many boyfriends and girlfriends?

How many times have you spoken about "when they grow up?" How many times does that involve a partner of the opposite gender? Ever spoken about future wives/husbands? [...]

We teach sexuality from the cradle, from the very second they open their eyes we force these lessons on our children. But for some of our kids, those lessons are just plain wrong, and for the rest they just teach them that we don't exist.

You already teach kids sexuality - but you don't tell them the whole story and that ignorance can hurt all of them - and it certainly hurts us.

We can indulge in the fantasy that children will remain blank canvases of purity and innocence if we do our best to maintain their ignorance, but this is behaviour reminiscent of my ostrich cousins. In truth, children are already receiving information about sexuality - whether it is heterosexuality or homosexuality or any other kind - and forming impressions about appropriate ways in which theirs should be expressed, or suppressed, or reviled. They need information, and confidence, and support: not judgment.

Related links from the farm here, here and here.

Rape of a homeless man

2010-02-03T22:59:00.006+08:00

Over at The Secret Political Blog, Messrs Liau Chuan Yi and Norvin Chan share the story of Mike, a homeless man who suffers from addiction to alcohol, and his victimisation by strangers:

when he sleeps, men unzip his trousers and perform oral sex on him. [...]

If he wakes up to the act, the men offer to buy him a beer or two. If they do not make such an offer, Mike will initiate and ask them for some money, for want of support for his alcohol addiction. When he does so, he sometimes has to be the perfomer, and he told me that his knees hurt since some of the men want it fast... [...]

It might seem as though he has a choice since he could change rape into a commercial transaction. Perhaps what happens might be more accurately described as prostitution. But as I watched his eyes water, I doubt that he had a choice… merely the illusion of it. He was going to be raped anyway. Being drunk has enfeebled him, and he could have thought that he might as well gain something from it.

There is kerfuffle in the comments over whether Mike's experience amounts to rape. Whatever it may be in a legal sense, the heart of the matter is undeniable: the other men are engaging in coercive sexual exploitation which shows no regard for Mike's humanity or personal boundaries. If Mike calls it rape, I'm not inclined to disagree.

The post muses:

I doubted his story at first, still being in disbelief that such a thing could happen to Singapore, and that the homeless could be regarded as sexually desirable.

Unfortunately, whatever our national fantasies on this score, Singapore isn't in fact equipped by a Magical forcefield which automatically intervenes to repel all sexual assaults. It would be nice though.

Additionally, the notion of Mike's sexual desirability or lack thereof is quite irrelevant. Rape doesn't happen only to Sexxxay people: it happens to people that rapists manage to rape, and some rapists deliberately target visibly vulnerable and marginalised people because they are more likely to be able to get away with raping. Precisely because of this, studies from a range of industrialised countries show that homeless people are far more likely than those with housing to suffer physical and sexual abuse.

I am glad the authors overcame their disbelief and brought this story to light.

No, really?

2010-02-03T07:11:00.002+08:00

This Straits Times story carries the headline "Teens pressured to be thin".

In other news, water is wet.

Forgive my snark. It's good that the media is reporting the truth. It's just astonishing that this can remain a revelation, considering that more than half the adult population have themselves been teenage girls at some point. It's almost as if our experiences don't count until they're packaged in some Researchy Research to remove the taint of female subjectivity.

The article itself:

ALMOST nine in 10 American teenage girls say they feel pressured by the fashion and media industries to be skinny and that an unrealistic, unattainable image of beauty has been created, a poll showed on Monday.

The online survey of 1,000 girls aged between 13 and 17 for the Girl Scouts of the USA found that three quarters said they would be more likely to buy clothes that they see on real-size models than on women who are skinny.

But three out of four girls said that fashion is 'really important' to them.

'The fashion industry remains a powerful influence on girls and the way they view themselves and their bodies,' said Kimberlee Salmond, senior researchers at the Girl Scout Research Institute.

'Teenage girls take cues about how they should look from models they see in fashion magazines and on TV and it is something that they struggle to reconcile with when they lookat themselves in the mirror,' she said.

More than 80 per cent of teen girls said they would rather see natural photos of models rather than pictures that had been digitally altered or enhanced. Other top influences on body perceptions, aside from celebrities and models, are peers, friends and parents, the poll showed.

On Comments

2010-01-30T18:32:00.001+08:00

Hello my lovelies,

The topic of comment moderation has come up in a recent comment thread and we here at the Barn have been having moonlit sessions to discuss how we feel about the comments we have gathered so far.

The consensus we have arrived at is that the take-down of comments can be instructive to some readers of the blog (and we want to make clear that we are engaging trolls to further our agenda, and not to feed them). Until the volume of troll-type comments becomes overwhelming, we will continue to let certain distasteful comments stand (with take-downs from us, natch), with a few exceptions that may or may not receive 'special' treatment from us. Namely:

(1)Victim-blaming will not be tolerated,

(2) There are no circumstances under which exploitation/oppression of any form is OK. Not even when it's done to a majority group. Do not try and explain why *this* time is different,

(3) If you're here to tell us that we live in a post-feminist/racist/ablist/enter-oppression-here world, you will suffer the wrath of a deleted comment and the collective hooves, nails, beaks and teeth of all the animals here at the Barn,

(4) Mansplaining stuff to our poor femininny minds, especially to suggest that our emotions are either misplaced, or should be quelled, will not be well received.

This is a blog, not a free-for-all. Don't come to us whining about your right to free speech if your comment is deleted for the above, or other reasons. Hateful and/or demeaning speech is not entitled to expression on this platform.

We basically recognise and respect that all contributors of the Barn have their personal threshold of tolerance and refined rules of engagement. Ultimately, the individual writer has every right to exercise executive power to respond and/or moderate how ever zie deems fit for hir respective posts.

Please let us know in comments how you feel about this stand and what you would like us to do differently (if there are things you would like us to do differently). We aim to make this an enjoyable place where sparkling discussions can occur and consciousnesses can be raised, and you, dear readers and commenters, are the only way through which we can achieve that. So your input truly is valuable to us.

This does not help

2010-01-27T19:32:00.003+08:00

In fact, it's downright oppressive:

A French parliamentary committee has recommended a partial ban on women wearing Islamic face veils.

The committee's near 200-page report has proposed a ban in hospitals, schools, government offices and on public transport.

It also recommends that anyone showing visible signs of "radical religious practice" should be refused residence cards and citizenship.

This is allegedly in the service of gender equality, but in reality it's simple xenophobia on the part of the French non-Muslim majority.

Don't get me wrong. The social dictate that women must cover their entire bodies and faces, lest a glimpse of their earlobes inflame uncontrollable male lust, is absurd, oppressive, and insulting to women and men both. But the same is true of the social dictate that women must wear make-up or high heels to be presentable, and nobody for a moment entertains the idea that banning their use in public would further gender equality.

If women are being coerced by family members to wear the veil, this ban is simply further limiting the ability of these women to enjoy any independent public existence. Worse, it could be an excuse for those same family members to place even more severe restrictions on their freedom of movement.

If women are choosing to wear the veil because they personally subscribe to the belief that their bodies must not be exposed, such a ban is tantamount to punishing women for observing her own conscientiously chosen form of religious dress. Absent clear danger to others (for example, if the clothing in question required knives to be carried), an individual's choice to observe their religious beliefs through their clothing is not a matter for state interference.

All kinds of people express all kinds of contempt for women. Some of them even get to write in national newspapers or be celebrated statesmen. If the veil is also often used to express contempt for women, the solution isn't to punish the very women on whom the main burden of that contempt falls.

This proposed ban doesn't promote gender equality. It really isn't about women's well-being at all. It's about using Muslim women as pawns to express hostility to Islam.

What's shit for the goose

2010-01-26T08:15:00.004+08:00

Some anti-feminists like to point out bad things that happen to men, in service of the delusion that this invalidates the feminist contention that women should be treated like human beings.

This is a profoundly stupid argument. If you'll excuse my fowl mouth: what's shit for the goose is also shit for the gander. If certain gender norms currently lead to acid being thrown on women's faces, the cause of equality is not served by throwing acid on men's faces. Likewise, being a jerk to women who are sexually assaulted does not suddenly become acceptable behaviour if you decide to be a jerk to men who are sexually assaulted, too.

Feminists present analysis in gendered terms because at the moment, many people invoke "because she is a woman" or "because he is a man" as a justification for the ill-treatment of human beings. Since this invocation is so widespread, and so commonly accepted, it stands to reason that attacking this bullshit gendered reasoning helps to undercut the social illusions that sustain social environments friendly to ill-treatment.

But there are kinds of ill-treatment that are all too ready to find all kinds of homes. When society hurts men in a way that it more typically reserves for hurting women, that doesn't make the wrong against women any better. It just means more people are getting hurt.

And given how lucrative it can be for companies to promote insecurity so as to peddle fake and possibly dangerous "cures" to non-existent "problems", it should be no surprise that men are increasingly being taught to hate their bodies in a way traditionally reserved primarily for women.

Make no mistake about it, men, sexual objectification shouldn't be seen as pro-you but anti-women. Objectification hurts everyone. It's pro-nastiness and anti-human. We should rejoice about the extent to which you escape it, and work to extend that comfort and confidence to women too.

The sad example of Franklin Heng, who died after undergoing liposuction, is one particularly graphic example of what can be at stake.

Blog For Choice: Trust Women

2010-01-23T08:22:00.003+08:00

I remember being about seven and asking my mum if abortion counted as murder. I don't know where I had first heard the word abortion and was probably really fuzzy about the concept (as you would imagine a seven year old to be) but I know the question was sparked due to a Sunday School lesson on the Ten Commandments. The Sunday school teacher was trying to impress upon us that even if we didn't think we were sinning, we well could be. She used the typical examples of a white lie, she asked if we ever wanted a friend's stickers (OMG guys, do you remember sticker books in primary school? No? Just me?) really badly, she even asked what we did with the rest of our Sundays once we got home from church (although she never really explained what keeping the Sabbath holy entailed...just implied heavily that watching TV wasn't part of the deal).

So it got me thinking. Which other commandments could be violated by otherwise well-meaning people? What about the one about not killing - does it extend to animals? Does it extend to plants? I started thinking about whether it was ambiguous when it came to people, and that must be how I chanced upon abortion.

My mother lit up like a tree on Christmas and enthusiastically took the opportunity to explain that yes, abortion is murder. That god (it was capital-G God back then) was clear on not killing people, and babies even in the mother's womb were people. Not satisfied that her answer was comprehensive enough, she then started telling me about the IUD and how it prevents tiny babies from holding on to the mother's womb (no, seriously, she even mimed grippy motions with her hands at this point) and how that was abortion too. She told me that there was a couple at church (a well-respected couple that I admired quite a bit at the time) who used the device, and that's why their only son was in a wheelchair - as punishment for all the little babies they killed with the IUD.

I'm gonna pause here for a bit so you can appreciate just how fucked up that was.

As amazingly ableist and scientifically inaccurate that was, it was my first introduction to abortion (and contraception, really). I understood that it was wrong, and that there were no circumstances under which it was ok. My mom took the opportunity over the years to use abortion as a method of slut shaming. She told me about how my dad's colleague's wife procured an abortion because the due date conflicted with a planned trip to Japan (and why those godless people were cursed with only one child). She told me tales of classmates who had abortions every other month while bitterly discussing how they were popular anyway and were quite mean to her. She told me these stories with an aim to impress upon me how the world has a dirty, unseemly underbelly, how even people who appear good HAVE ABORTIONS and therefore ARE MURDERERS. Sort of like this:

Slowly, after each of these narratives, after each consequence and moral was revealed, I began to realize that underpinning all of these fables was the throbbing drumbeat that to be a good woman all the choices you make must be externally transparent - that onlookers will be judging you for what you do and blaming your misfortunes on your transgressions. And the worst, the absolute worst action you can do is to kill your "baby" because there is nothing in the world that can justify MURDER. Because there is no one in the world who would give you the benefit of the doubt, who trusts you to make the right decision for yourself and your family. Because if you have an abortion, you are automatically discredited as an active, responsible agent.

Because the world at large does not trust women.

I trust women. I trust that decisions are not made lightly. I trust that women are the only people who can know everything about their individual circumstance and with the information they have can be trusted to make the best call for their lives at the time they have to make it. I trust women and that's why despite my mother's best efforts, I am pro-choice.

The revolution will not apologise

2010-01-21T22:20:00.005+08:00

With apologies to Gil Scott-Heron.

So Dana Lam, President of AWARE, has written to the Straits Times to address the fetid boghole of misogyny that is the OverEasy drinks-for-breasts promotion.

Quoth Ms Lam:

There is nothing free about letting a room of people gawk at your breasts. Even if a woman is willing to pay the personal price of loss of dignity, there is still a cost suffered by other women.

The women who participated have contributed to the objectification of women, to reducing a woman's value to her breast size, and have helped reinforce the belief among men that this is not only acceptable, but welcome. Staging this event in itself is extremely distasteful.

Just because sexism is profitable does not make it right. For the organisers to say the event was merely for 'good fun and not sexist or sleazy' is insincere. The indignity is suffered only by one gender.

It is unfortunate there are women willing to make this choice so light-heartedly. The individual woman may view her participation as an act of empowerment. Perhaps she feels she should use whatever assets she has to secure favours for herself. In our sex- and youth-obsessed culture, it is not surprising some women would grow to be so cynical.

Yes, women have the right to choose, but individual choices are made in a social context. And in our current social context, women have a much harder time to be esteemed as individuals above and beyond their value as sex objects.

This event perpetuates the notion of women as sex objects and makes it that much more difficult for each woman who wants to be valued for her character and contribution, rather than how she stacks up to a distorted image of the ideal body.

The personal choice (of the participants) and the private choice (of the corporation) has had a detrimental social impact.

Choice works both ways. The organisers may have packed their venue that evening, but they may well have lost future business at OverEasy and their sister establishments.

I have no Magical bone to pick with Ms Lam's letter, but something that it reflects has got me rubbing my wattle with worry.

To wit: so much of the conversation going on here is about the women who may obtain a drink at OverEasy, and whether they are harming or "denigrating" themselves or other women. Ms Lam has clearly - correctly - intuited that defenders of misogyny will fall over themselves to sound the battlecry of Choice, and has made a strategic decision to pre-emptively focus attention on this argument.

Your resident feathered friend is in full agreement that women may participate in promoting misogyny, and that misogyny should be criticised regardless of from whom it issues. I recognise, you will recall, that anyone living in a misogynist society, which is to say all of us, will participate in promoting misogyny, with varying levels of frequency and wilfulness.

But. Quiz time! Which of these is a shittier thing to do, and by how much?

A. Staging an event to financially profit off promoting the idea that women, and our breasts, exist to be Sexxxay for the sexual titillation of others.

B. Responding to a lifetime of being told "Be Sexxxay or you're worth nothing - less than nothing, you're a waste of space" by... well, surprise, being Sexxxay, and getting a free drink to boot.

It is a sad indictment of Singapore's attitudes to women that so much of Ms Lam's letter has to focus on item B, and seems almost to frame them as equal.

By objectifying women for a buck (and let's face it, probably also because they rather enjoy treating women as playthings), OverEasy are assholes. The minor fact that some handful of women will overlook their assholedom to get a free drink is of so little relevance that I'm surprised it hasn't upped and moved to Antarctica already, to spend several lonely decades contemplating my penguin cousins. The sooner we can unapologetically critique assholes who hurt women, without taking seriously any excuse that women are "asking for it", the better.

The fallacy of scoffing at first steps

2010-01-21T22:12:00.004+08:00

Some days it seems that either the Straits Times has a schizophrenic editorial policy, or there are internal conflicts going on in the newsroom. Today's paper contained one opinion column defending the preservation of race categories in Singapore, and a news item reporting a study which noted a decline in discriminatory job advertisements.

A bit of background on race categories in Singapore. All Singapore citizens and permanent residents are assigned a race on their national identity card which falls into one of the discrete groups: Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian or Other. These categories are used to administer state policies such as racial quotas in public housing, ostensibly to "promote the mixing of households of different races and income groups in our estates" (source) but which some people reckon are to prevent the formation of racially-aligned voting blocs.

Recently it was announced that the government would allow parents who are themselves assigned different race categories to choose a double-barrelled race category for their children. However, Andy Ho seems to think that

Because there are no legal categories of race in Brazil, there are also no laws to combat racial discrimination which undeniably exists. By contrast, official practice in Singapore leads to bright-lines among the races. But the very same laws that inscribe these lines also make it possible to recognise and address racially discriminatory practices.

In this way, having legal categories of race may not be so pernicious after all.

Note that the new policy merely allows parents to append one additional race category in their children's statutory documents. It does not refine the existing category to include other choices, nor does it abolish the categories altogether. This first policy change in many years has generated quite a lot of discussion about race in Singapore, during which abolition of race categories has been mooted. But Andy Ho seems to think such talk is hopelessly naive, and that the fact that race as a social construct will always exist in our minds is a reason to not even bother with trying to make the first baby steps towards abolishing categories that are often inaccurate, divisive or irrelevant.

A few pages further into the paper, in the Home section, Rachel Chang reports that the Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices (Tafep), has found that 'only 1 per cent specified race, age, gender or other preferred characteristics, without explaining why these were necessary for the job', down from 19.7% in 2006. Tafep attributes this to "heightened awareness among employers of the need to recruit on a fair, meritorious basis" and "newspapers which run the classified ads agree[ing] to vet them according to Tafep guidelines." Tafep co-chairman Halimah Yacob also noted that "most complaints over unfair treatment continue to be from [older workers]."

Perhaps this is what Andy Ho is referring to when he extols race categories that "make it possible to recognise and address racially discriminatory practices"? Unfortunately, Singapore has no workplace discrimination laws. Tafep only issues guidelines, not gazetted regulations. When Tafep is notified of unfair employment practices, it can only "approach the employer to assist them in their adoption of fair employment practices especially if it concerns discrimination based on age, race, gender, religion, family status or disability." (Source here, emboldening mine.) Even if recruitment ads are nominally non-specific about race, age, gender or other characteristics, discrimination still rears its head during the interview process, in the course of work, during salary reviews, and even in the decision to fire someone.

But I'm falling into the same trap as Andy Ho. The law is not perfect, but Tafep does important work in acknowledging that workplace discrimination exists, that we should be aware of it, and that both employers and employees should have help and resources to combat it.

The abolition of categories on paper does not automatically and magically lead to the abolition of discriminatory practices and behaviour. But it's a first step, and we should not scoff at that.

+++++

If you feel that you have experienced discrimination at work in Singapore, you can contact Tafep at 6838 0969 or e-mail query@fairemployment.sg. The Tafep website also has some resources published in English and Chinese.

Skin Lightening Creams Work - But They Also Cause Permanent Damage

2010-01-18T05:22:00.003+08:00

Pam Spaulding from Pandagon has a piece up that delves deeply into the phenomenon of skin-lightening creams, the racial politics behind it and the quite terrible consequences for long-term users of such products. A quote:

This whole melanin thing is quite complicated, and cultures around the world are obsessed with it, as human beings follow natural inclinations to categorize and organize things, including people. The assignment of other humans into easy visual cubbyholes by those in dominant cultures makes it infinitely easier to give political and economic power to (or withhold from) whole classes of people. It all spirals down into a pitiful morass of bigotry and insane systems of repression that are also accepted and perpetuated within those populations deemed racially "inferior."

Her jumping off point is a New York Times article that is also well worth a read. We have discussed this here before in a piece by the Poultrygeist wherein a reader asks about the efficacy of such creams (qualifying zirself for my patented missing the point award, but that's a story for another day).

OverEasy: "Let's reduce women to their body parts"

2010-01-16T07:36:00.003+08:00

I am late in putting this up, but our sharp reader, Dysgrace, wrote in to highlight a rather questionable event organised by a popular (so I hear) watering hole occurring this evening:

(For a larger version, see the original, or our copy.)Dysgrace puts it to us simply:

feast your eyes on this brilliant idea from OverEasy. it's one of those 'let's reduce women to their body parts, objectify them, and then compare them while pretending to celebrate all body types' things. hah. in one's cups. more like poisoned chalice, can?

The animals on this farm are undecided on what sorts of action can be taken against OverEasy for their lousy marketing. While the common vote is to boycott the establishment, Angry Alpaca keenly reminds everyone that OverEasy is linked to a whole chain of other joints, such as The Loof, ~~Timbre chain~~, Butter Factory Club, etc, so if we wish to hurt them monetarily, alcoholics out there may not have many popular options to quench their thirst.

So I recommend Cat in the Cream's strategy instead: bring your double-d friends there, and drink them out of profiteering. Building on that, you can also give them a good earful AFTER you get your bottle. Please feel free to puke all over the establishment as well.

(H/T Dysgrace.)

***
ETA - Complaining Cow informs me that I got it wrong. Lo and Behold Group runs OverEasy, and they're primarily in charge of Loof, OverEasy (in partnership with Butter Factory), White Rabbit and The Shack (previously KM8). (More info here.) I apologise for any confusion caused. (Sorry, Timbre!)

Do something: Earthquake Haiti

2010-01-15T11:58:00.007+08:00

(Via MrBrown)

Seriously, Singapore government, I know you've had a tough year in 2009, what with dipping into the reserves and everything. But a sum of US$50,000 for Haiti and the victims of the earthquake?

NOT COOL.

As MrBrown succinctly puts it:

100,000 estimated deaths. US$50,000 from our generous government. That's 50 cents for every dead soul. US currency, ok? So it is almost a dollar Singapore money for the Haitians.

Why ah? GIC lost too many hundreds of millions in that Manhattan project ah?

I have two words for you, Singapore Gahmen: Cheap Bastards.

So to make up for our government's pitiful donation, please donate donate donate. (And preferably something more than our government's 'generous' donation of S$1 per person.)

One of the channels to do so is through the Singapore Red Cross, which has said that it will channel any donations made to help the quake victims in Haiti to the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent Societies.

According to their website, donations can be made via:

1) Cheque donations
Donations via cheque can be sent to the Singapore Red Cross @ 15 Penang Lane, Singapore 238486. Please include name, contact details and “Earthquake Haiti” at the back of the cheque.

2) Walk-in donations
Donors may make their cash/cheque donations at the Singapore Red Cross @ 15 Penang Lane (near Dhoby Gaut MRT Station) during its office hours, Mondays to Fridays from 9am to 5.30pm.

For more information on the IFRC relief operation on Earthquake Haiti, please visit www.ifrc.org or the SRC at www.redcross.org.sg

(If you have more information on other charities that are working in Haiti now, please post it in the comments below and I will update it on the blog.)

And here's a song about Haiti by the awesum Arcade Fire. Régine Chassagne, who sings in this song, has roots in Haiti as her family migrated to Canada during the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier.

"the world becomes a nastier place for women"

2010-01-12T05:52:00.002+08:00

In case you missed the memo, a Straits Times journalist wrote a damn fine piece the other day about the horrendous New Year's Eve party assault case that was caught on video and spread virally. There's not much else I wish to add to the piece substantively, but here's the important part: (read the whole piece after the cut; emboldening mine)

Then there are the comments on the video. I will paraphrase the remarks because some of the comments do not bear repeating in a family paper. They are along the lines of 'She deserved it', 'She was drunk' and 'She was wearing so little, she was asking for it'.

Worst of all: 'She looked like she was enjoying it.'

I thought I was living in a civilised and enlightened society which, by and large, respects women, and that such ludicrous reasoning was behind us. Clearly not.

A woman wearing a halter top and a short skirt walking down a dark street gets molested. Was she foolish? Maybe. Did she lack awareness? Yes. Did she deserve to be molested or raped? No.

Just suppose a man wearing a flashy watch is robbed while walking down a dark street. Would people say that he deserved his comeuppance?

No one deserves to be assaulted, sexually or otherwise.

The victim has been accused of being an attention-seeker. Deejay Daniel Ong, who was hosting the party, was quoted as saying that she mooned the crowd by showing her buttocks and dirty-danced with someone.

The implication, again, is that she was asking for it. She was a slut. Good girls do not dance like that. Good girls stay home.

Those who blame the victim are putting forth a poor argument that is dressed up with huge lashings of misogyny.

No, she was not asking for it. She was clubbing and she might have been behaving provocatively, but she was a human being with rights that need to be respected.

...

Each time somebody says a woman behaves like a whore and, hence, deserves something bad to happen to her, we take a step backwards. And the world becomes a nastier place for women.

It was a real pity that the editor decided to solicit at the end of the article if readers felt that the woman deserves it.

SRLY!?!?!?!?

And there's also the question of why this article appeared in the Life! section of the papers--am I supposed to understand this to be casually entertaining? A piece on Avatar's White Messiah syndrome appeared day before yesterday in the main section of the newspaper, but a discussion on sexual assault gets lifestyle, entertainment and the arts treatment.

Great.

And before anyone starts that 'no, she's (maybe) a trans-woman', well, here's a dude, definitiv with an awesome response to that--yeah, sexual assault prevention doesn't reside only in the domain of family-busting feminists and cis-people, yo:

I am still angry after 2 days!!! Who cares about her sexuality, or what race the molesters are!!! Fucking STOMP is spilling over with uneducated, illogical boors. She doesn't deserve jackshit, and molesters are molesters, what ever their race. Transsexuals have feelings. My blue balls might disagree vehemently and hurt me in the process, but I've had chicks say "stop" after hot and heavy foreplay, and every time with much reluctance I relent and go sulk in a corner. It's not even about the fear of rape accusations!!! Don't people have respect for each other any more??? Even if she was a cockteaser when girls say stop, STOP!!! (Sauce.)

I'm too angry (and late for barn duties) to issue Awesome Possum awards, but much thanks to Adeline Chia and definitiv (of course, Molly Meek too) for lending some much needed light on this.

(Thanks to reader Beka for highlighting the matter.)

+++

Jan 8, 2010
Shameful act
By Adeline Chia, Arts Reporter

Recently I saw one of the most harrowing videos I have seen in a long time. And it was less than a minute long.

Many people would probably have seen it. It shows a bikini-clad woman being molested by four men at a New Year's countdown party on Sentosa.

The men grope her breasts and press against her. When she falls, they pull her to her feet and continue to molest her. She tries to get away but they surround her.

So many things about this clip haunt me.

It was not just the leering, swinish and criminal behaviour of the men that made my blood run cold. The offence itself was hellish. But what really made me feel violated and implicated in the girl's plight were the cameras.

In the video, you can see flashes of cameras going off. Some onlookers were also filming the event.

Not only did they think it was okay to stand around and watch a crime unfold without doing anything, but they also decided to whip out their mobile phones to record it.

A lot has been said about Singaporeans being an apathetic lot. Many of us, trained in the reticent, anti-busybody Asian school of thought, hesitate in interfering in other people's affairs.

Last year, a LifeStyle article showed that most Singaporeans would not stop a man hitting a woman in public. They did not think it was their business to intervene in a private quarrel.

In the New Year's Eve molest case, the onlookers also thought it was not their business to stop the men. It was not their business to get someone, such as a security guard or a bouncer, to stop it. But it became their business to film it.

The apathy is staggering. So is the exploitation of the poor woman.

Videos of the molest have been posted on the Internet. YouTube has taken down the video because the video-hosting site knows that there are boundaries that should not be crossed and there are perverts out there who enjoy looking at such images.

Then there are the comments on the video. I will paraphrase the remarks because some of the comments do not bear repeating in a family paper. They are along the lines of 'She deserved it', 'She was drunk' and 'She was wearing so little, she was asking for it'.

Worst of all: 'She looked like she was enjoying it.'

I thought I was living in a civilised and enlightened society which, by and large, respects women, and that such ludicrous reasoning was behind us. Clearly not.

A woman wearing a halter top and a short skirt walking down a dark street gets molested. Was she foolish? Maybe. Did she lack awareness? Yes. Did she deserve to be molested or raped? No.

Just suppose a man wearing a flashy watch is robbed while walking down a dark street. Would people say that he deserved his comeuppance?

No one deserves to be assaulted, sexually or otherwise.

The victim has been accused of being an attention-seeker. Deejay Daniel Ong, who was hosting the party, was quoted as saying that she mooned the crowd by showing her buttocks and dirty-danced with someone.

The implication, again, is that she was asking for it. She was a slut. Good girls do not dance like that. Good girls stay home.

Those who blame the victim are putting forth a poor argument that is dressed up with huge lashings of misogyny.

No, she was not asking for it. She was clubbing and she might have been behaving provocatively, but she was a human being with rights that need to be respected.

This case reminds me of what happened to Jodie Foster's character in the movie, The Accused.

She was dirty-dancing with a man in a pub and ended up being gang-raped, cheered on by onlookers. After fighting prejudice and a tortuous legal system, she got justice in the end.

The Accused was made in 1988. It is time we got the message: A woman does not forfeit her rights when she drinks too much or behaves 'wildly'. (Incidentally, a man tends to be forgiven for transgressions committed when he is drunk.)

Each time somebody says a woman behaves like a whore and, hence, deserves something bad to happen to her, we take a step backwards. And the world becomes a nastier place for women.

2010 Asia Internet MSM Sex Survey

2010-01-09T13:48:00.005+08:00

2010 Asia Internet MSM Sex Survey.

Survey closes: 28 February 2010.

Dr Stuart Koe of Fridae.com is now conducting an internet survey on sexual behaviour of gay men (or any man who has sex with other men), transgender and intersex people in Asia. The study seeks to uncover a a better understanding of "social and behavioral factors with regards to HIV knowledge, attitudes, prevention, testing, care and support", which is essential to better address the spread of HIV and other STIs.

The test is available in various languages (English, 简体中文, 台灣繁體, 香港繁體, Tagalog, ภาษาไทย, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, 日本語, हिन्दी).

This badly drawn gay pig has already taken the test, and I can assure everyone that it's painless. (And unsurprisingly fast for me because I don't really get out of the barn at all to meet other pigs.) And the results of the survey can be availed to you if you sign up for them.

Do pass this along to your friends who fit the sample descriptives.

2010aimss.com

Public service announcement from AWARE: "It's your space!"

2010-01-09T08:24:00.000+08:00

(AWARE ZoCard, circa 2002.)

It's your space!

Public contact cannot be avoided but sometimes you may feel someone has come too close and made you angry, or upset you by saying something about your body or touching you without permission. It's a criminal act that only you can stop.

[On the back of the card] If you have been a victim of sexual harassment, or you know someone who may be a victim, we're here to help. You have the right to say no. Call us at 1800 774 5935. [Phone number still functional.]

It's 2010! It's real shitty that any of this has to be repeated at all, or even ever to begin with.

Free Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga

2010-01-07T04:26:00.007+08:00

In Malawi, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga are being held in custody and face criminal charges for having the temerity to celebrate their engagement to each other.

It's a little unclear to me why this is being widely reported as a gay marriage when one news source quotes Chimbalanga as saying "I am a woman". But whether this is simply regular flavour homophobia (prosecuting two men for a relationship with each other) or a transphobia-homophobia double-whammy (wrongly gendering a trans woman as a man, and then prosecuting her and her male partner for engaging in a "gay" relationship with each other), it's completely unjustifiable. They should both be freed at once.

British campaigner Peter Tatchell comments:

"Malawi's anti-gay laws were not devised by Malawians. They were devised in London in the nineteenth century and imposed on the people of Malawi by the British colonisers and their army of occupation. Before the British came and conquered Malawi, there were no laws against homosexuality. These laws are a foreign imposition. They are not African laws," said Mr Tatchell.

Sounds familiar.