Don't stereotype, yo! Just don't!

Yes, that woman in her drop-neck, low-back halter dress doesn't need you to undress her with your eyes, or be told how horny she's made you feel.

Yes, her showing skin doesn't mean she's out to have "good time" with your scruffy hands, nor does she want your money.

Yes, that Malay person is not mathematically-challenged, ze's also doesn't own a guitar nor want to rock out with you.

Yes, that woman doesn't believe her 'yes' or 'I do' at the altar means a 'yes' and 'I do' everytime her husband wants to have sex with her.

Yes, that Indian woman doesn't speak Tamil, Hindi or whatever limited knowledge of Indian languages you have.

Yes, that Indian guy who's really interested in you isn't going to be a drunkard deadbeat who plummets you when he returns home late at night.

Yes, this Chinese guy doesn't speak no Chinese not because he's an elitist bastard, but because he's just not very good at languages.

Yes, that Chinese guy who speaks Chinese doesn't mean he's wrapped up in his own world and doesn't really want to connect to other people.

Yes, just because they're Filipino and Mainlanders, it doesn't mean they're not going to be able to do their jobs well as service staff.

Yes, just because they don't speak much English doesn't mean that they can't do their jobs!

Yes, that pious Christian friend isn't a homosexual-hating, pro-life fundamentalist.

Yes, that Muslim man isn't out to marry multiple wives to save sex workers and single women from some elusive plight.

Yes, this fat people isn't an indolent creature who lacks resolve and self-esteem to look like everyone else.

Yes, fat people are quite aware of their being fat.

Yes, that gay person isn't seeking the next quick-fuck or out to turn your kids gay.

Yes, this effeminate man isn't gay.

Yes, that effeminate gay man isn't seeking a guy who'd make him feel like a natural woman.

Yes, that bisexual person isn't sitting on the fence because ze wants an easy out of ostracisation.

Yes, this feminist has a 2.1-kids-two-heterosexually-married-couple home.

Yes, that feminist is not looking for something to get angry about.

Yes, that gay person doesn't actually have liberal opinions.

Yes, your big fat dick isn't something people all want to worship.

Yes, my sub-par intellect doesn't mean that I'm an empty vase.

Yes, ze's really good looking, but it doesn't mean ze doesn't have anything interesting to tell you.

Yes, her speaking lousy English doesn't mean that the content of her message isn't itself good.

Yes, that single person doesn't actually care to hook up with your cousin's cousin, friend's friend, mother's friend's or colleague's neighbour's loin-fruit.

Yes, that single person has quite a full and happy life because ze's single.

The reality is that no stereotype can be considered light-hearted and humorous. A stereotype is defined as “an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group.” Stereotypes are negative. Even “positive” stereotypes are ultimately detrimental to the groups that struggle to find a sense of self within the narrow parameters of society’s vision. (Latoya Peterson from Racialicious).

Resolution for 2010: don't stereotype, yo! Just don't!

Happy 2010!

ETA:
Commenters have chimed in with their stereotypes (thanks!). Everyone's encouraged to add zie's in our comments section! :)

You never know who's listening!

Singapore transgender writer and activist, Leona Lo, picked up a letter we'd published earlier on Velvet Underground's apparent blanket ban of transgender women. (Lo's commenter, Nurra Mahat, corroborates that "Velvet has NEVER been a TG friendly place, unless your IC says you’re female AND (the big AND) passable.") Shortly after that, we learn that just shortly before Christmas, another transwoman was barred from Zouk, further corroborating that something shitty is happening at that place.

I very much want to recommend Lo's "quick response tips" for transwomen to seek trans-friendly venues, document places that discriminate, and report the latter accordingly. In short:

(1) Check beforehand on their policy for a fuss-free night;

(2) Use your mobile phone's video camera to document mistreatment;

(3) Share with the media.

We at the barn are particularly aware of the paucity of getting minority people to come out to openly share their stories about offending people and organisations, often as Lo points out, "for fear of attracting “trouble”". So I encourage Point 4:

(4) Tell anyone who'd listen! Write in to the papers, write in to the management, write in to Leona Lo, one of the social media websites, or one of the LGBTQ blogs, or even to us so that we can air the experience. The more fodder we receive, the more people read about it, the stronger it is for us to build a case of holding people accountable.

Don't be too quick to discount the power that your voice will provide, and what bad press circulating about can drive people to salvage.

When The Online Citizen did a feature on the abject state of migrant worker housing, the effort was made by individuals and groups to air the issue and write in to relevant bodies, seeking accountability. What came out of these efforts is this:



Even when we at our small barn wrote about the racy 'APEC' event, our reader wrote in and it became a racy APPEC event.

Pressure works! Companies are in it for the money, and bad publicity, or worse, health, environmental and manpower incursions are definitely not good for business. Clients and developers can be encouraged to award tender to companies that boast better housing amenities that do not bring the projects into disrepute, which eventually affects sales. Patrons can askew clubs that discriminate for clubs that don't.

I hate to tie the worth of minority rights to economics, but it seems when faced with the wall of The Bottomline, appealing to people's money minds might be a helpful, additional strategy.

Also, I want to agree with Mark that perhaps firms are not always as heartless or as aware as they seem. While I have my suspicion that they will take the easy out by providing the minimal or ignoring the problem, I think there's very little harm in approaching them in good faith.

Besides, it saves us all more heartburn, and you never know who's listening!

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If you haven't signed this petition: Petition to Improve Foreign Workers' Housing.

Short Answer: Yes, Long Answer: No.

A very wise man who I constantly regret having lost contact with once cautioned me that if I ever felt like I completely understood something, I assuredly did not. He said to visualize the knowledge you have as the area of a circle. Circumscribing that circle is everything you are aware of not knowing and beyond that are things you know so little about that they may as well be non-existent (to you, anyways). The larger your area of knowledge, then, the deeper your understanding of what is left to understand.

Adding to the idea that a narrow worldview gives one a sense of having all the answers is a recent study (aptly titled "Unskilled and Unaware of it" [link]) documents how those who are more unskilled, concurrently lack the skills to properly evaluate themselves. From the abstract:

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it[...]Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

In other words, this problem is not insurmountable. The more you know, the more you know you don't and the less of an idiot you will appear in the process.

So the point I'm trying to make (and I will admit it has taken me some time to get here) is that if you feel like you have some prescriptive advice that will completely revolutionize a movement or if you think you have an overarching theory of something (see: xkcd:Revolutionary) you probably don't and it would be worth hanging around a little more to educate yourself by listening to the people who have been at it longer than you have. Yes, occassionally it's true that it takes a fresh perspective...but incredibly rarely and it's the height of hubris to just assume that you've struck upon it.

This is particularly important as it applies to being an activist and an ally. Having your consciousness raised is typically such a mind-blowing experience that it is tempting to think that you now understand all about oppression and how it works in the world, afterall if you understand systemic racism/sexism/ableism/enter-ism-here, then you understand systemic everything right? Now that you can spot misogynist tropes in adverstising you can also see how racial stereotypes are used as shorthand for all manner of unflattering things and how transphobia is used to police the gender binary and and and and and and...

...and how could you possibly if you've just heard about all these issues? Let's not forget that we were all raised in this world, this kyriarchy, that up until we were made aware of these issues in the first place we accepted the status quo as right and true. That undoing that will take much more than a single a-ha moment. Don't forget that we live in a world where this bullshit is largely accepted at face value despite the frankly towering absurdity of it being even remotely true.

I want to stop for a moment and explicitly state that I do not think I know everything or that I am in some hallowed position where I can see all that I do not know about and am therefore the perfect activist and ally. All I want, really is for all of us (often me included) to try and be better allies by listening and participating in the communities we are vested in supporting. To de-centre ourselves, to remove ourselves from the James Cameron's Avatar version of activism (where it is you, the privileged who should lead the poor oppressed people to victory). Tami (from What Tami Said) has an excellent post up about how to be a good ally which is very worth reading and essentially boils down to the point I'm trying to make - it's not all about you, listening and being still is vital, and if you think you have something just absolutely revolutionary to say, by all means share it (afterall, that's what participating in a community means) but have the wherewithal to be gracious when you aren't well received, with the attitude that you may not know best.

I think sometimes, even the best of us, with the most noble of intentions, needs reminding.

Addenda and Clarifications

[Ed - This post may be read in conjunction with "BREAKING: More women say: I deserve justice by my own terms, I'm worth it." and "Investigating and prosecuting sexual offences".]

Having done some holiday pondering and mental pontification, this turkey feels that perhaps some clarifications are in order to better understand the posts below on accusations of sexual offences and the procedures which are subsequently followed (particularly in light of the comments on the posts below).

What the ST article does not make clear (and these are woeful omissions) is that:

(1) an accusation per se is not tantamount to a conviction;

(2) an accusation does not inexorably lead to prosecution;

(3) in the context of a nightclub (i.e. dark, all-round diminished faculties due to inebriation, two total strangers etc) does not provide conducive conditions for fact-finding and evidence-gathering.

In relation to (3), what the article glaringly fails to point out is the potential for abuse by both parties - both the alleged offender as well as the alleged victim. The article's primary failure is its angle - that there is a "trend" of evil, wanton, trollopy women whose sole motivation in accusing men of molest/OM is to recover some form of compensation.

In mainly interviewing lawyers who have represented these alleged offenders, the article ends up painting these men as wholly innocent. But what has been omitted is this: there possibly has been no fact-finding; no completed investigations. At this stage, one cannot decide guilt or innocence. There simply is no proof, which is the problem of nightclubs, and other situations where the evidence boils down to Him vs. Her.

(And more importantly, the cardinal principle of legal ethics: a lawyer must always act in his/her client's best interests. That is to say, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, a lawyer will assume and profess the innocence of his/her client.)

And therein lies the conundrum (as contained in the soundbite from Prof. Hor appended at the end of the article). The fact that the men coughed up money proves nothing - it sheds no light on their actual motivations. At the end of the day, I do feel that the likelihood that the composition was to avoid prosecution is at least equal to the likelihood of the victims not wishing to re-live the incident.

But perhaps, what could (and perhaps would?) tilt the balance is that at the end of the day, character evidence against the female victim is admissible, and will be duly considered.

Investigating and prosecuting sexual offences.

[Ed - This post may be read in conjunction with "BREAKING: More women say: I deserve justice by my own terms, I'm worth it." and "Addenda and Clarifications".]

Following the barn's porcine lash-out at Straits Time's festive helping of victim-blaming, our resident spectral turkey has risen from her resting place to grace us with her netherworldly visions of the difficulties in the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences, including molest: (I channel The Poultrygeist's spirit to reproduce this in full)

Let me tell you what happens when a woman accuses a guy of molest:
 
1. Woman makes police report.
 
2. Police investigate
 
3. In deciding whether to charge him with an offence, they produce their findings and evidence procured in the course of investigation to a prosecutor at the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC).
 
4. The prosecutor looks through all the evidence and again interviews the victim.  This interview involves detailed questions including some which are very personal.  This is to assess the relative strength of the evidence and the veracity of the victim's version of the story.
 
5. The prosecutor will also inform the victim the sort of questions she will face from the Defence Counsel (i.e. the accused person's counsel) at trial.  These can include questions which throw suspicions on the victim's morals (i.e. past sexual history, conduct at the time of the alleged offence - whether skanky clothes were worn so as to "tempt" the dude - etc). 
 
6. Based on the victim's answers and any corroboration with all other relevant evidence, the police will then charge the offender.
 
7. Only then will this matter go to Court.
 
So really, I think it is quite apparent that there is no question of "easy money".  If the evidence is not strong, there is no way this matter can proceed to conviction.  The victim in the case of molest has to answer several detailed questions on exactly how the incident occurred several times: to the police, the prosecutor and eventually the defence counsel.
 
If the claim is frivolous on the evidence, the matter cannot proceed.
 
I also don't believe that victims "demand" compensation.  Usually, the alleged offender will offer compensation for their own reasons.  This is in my mind immaterial.
 
As someone who has faced drunken molestation and heckling in clubs and other public places several times, I can tell you that it's demeaning, embarrassing and offensive.  It's not something I would wish to re-live over and over again.  Actually much rather than prosecute, I would prefer to resoundingly bitch slap the mofo there and then.  How a victim chooses to proceed should be up to her. 
 
That's my two cents.

Oh and I must add: it is open to the defence to ask any question and make any statement that can cause aspersions on the victim's moral character.  There is nothing to stop them from doing so.  This is more true in cases of rape.

[/End channeling.]

Adding to this, Oh My Goat says, "Character evidence is admissible though, I'm quite certain of that - no "rape shield" or an equivalent that I know of in Singapore. Any wonder why composition seems to be a much less traumatising alternative?"

Quit selling us vengeful wives and entrapment schemes, you hear now, fear-mongering media honchos?

BREAKING: More women say: I deserve justice by my own terms, I'm worth it.

[Ed - This post may be read in conjunction with "Investigating and prosecuting sexual offences" and "Addenda and Clarifications".]

No, that's not really what was said. Instead, what we have today is "More women say: touch me, pay me".


(Image scanned from Straits Times, 24 December 2009, P A10.
Hover for ST Online image tag.)
Indeed, in its neverending quest to introduce insightful and/or exciting journalism and opinion FAIL to readers, The New Paper The Straits Times decides to play the wildly popular Womenz Iz Hysterically Wily, Money-Grubbing card. This Christmas Eve Special Edition comes complete with resplendent trimmings of a mood picture; spanning half a broadsheet, it really conveys our humanity's eternal battle of the sexes--men dodging women scorned, rational reason vs irrational emotion, advancing dude vs his coy mistress.

You can read the whole art-icle after the cut, but here's my male, unfeminist, pigheaded summary in pointed fashion:

• Opening hook: Honorable Professional (engineer) claims to have paid 8K out-of-court settlement to 23 year-old woman who accused him of molesting her in a club.
  
  
• Lawyers claim that more cases of molestation have come up and are settled out of court, and -gasp- defendants are paying "more cash" as well.
  
  
• Worries that milking men with molestation claims has become a full-time occupation by Wily Womenz. (I kid, though not really.)
  
  
• Not one, not two, but SIXXXXXX lawyers corroborate that drunk men are being accused by women in their early 20s (because early 20s need money, yo, for erm.... Their Louis Vuitton up-keeping?!?) of molestation!
  
  
• Men claim to settle "to avoid the saga", even though they're drunk and don't actually remember manhandling the plaintiffs.
  
  
• Accusations normally happen in the wee hours of the morning, and accused are normally alone.
  
  
• Local lawyer-cum-clairvoyant Subhas Anandan "believes that there are so-called 'victims' out there trying to make easy money".
  
  
• Local arbiter of modesty-to-cash exchange rates cum lawyer, Radakrishnan said some compensatory sums are "extortionate sums of between $20,000 and $50,000".
  
  
• All examples accused are of Nice Guys™, decent, high-profile/ paying Honorable Profession, like engineer, CEO of listed company, dentist, OBGY, etc.
  
  
• Lawyers want a registry of victims to be set up, so that "it's not the same people who make these claims" as gatekeeper and local Batman-of-molestation-crimes-cum-lawyer Ravinderpal Singh will ensure that women who get molested once will be personally protected from ever being sexually assaulted again.
  
  
• Divination Masters cum lawyers opine that The Real Victims are usually those who [a] don't want money, [b] demand public apology, and/or [c] "insist on their day in court, no matter what".

The world in which Straits Times resides, is sadly empty of barnyard realities of women such as: women in their early 20s being an immensely big demographic of club-goers; the key demographic of club-goers (not to mention, young women) may naturally receive the most inappropriate attention from people; they may not take your being abused without a fight because they know better or want to stand up for themselves; they may naturally be the most reported victims of abuse; young (or old) women may possess the right to determine for themselves what is appropriate or inappropriate social contact, bodily or otherwise, from anyone; they may also possess the spirit of confidence, self-esteem, sense of justice and self-worth, to decide *she* deserves high reparations for her outraged modesty; she can decide for herself whether or not she wants to bring her perpetrator to court or seek compensatory justice equivocal to her sense of self-worth; a compensated victim of molest, sexual assault, abuse, violence is not impervious to repeated attacks.

In the world in which Straits Times resides, drunk men who don't remember if they behaved badly are given the benefit of the doubt because they're estimable men of great professions (freed any child rapists lately, yo?), and were just reduced to boys behaving as boys. (Drunk women, on the other hand, are obviously just asking for it.) And any woman who would put a high price to her abuse because she highly values her personhood is... erm... a victim of her own self-esteem, worth, and sense of justice.

In this very sad world outside of the barn, women remain the sex class whose bodily ownership must always be within reach of men's favour.

In this wo... Ah, FUCK YOU LA STRAITS TIMES!

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ur chewren iz belongz 2 us!!11!!!1ONE!

Leading member of the local chapter for the preservation and promotion of gayism, Jewish Goose, has sent the following video as a must-watch-otherwise-(...), tagged with a urgent message appended below:

I couldn't find no Jewish, howling gays, and anti-family feminists to dance to good, old Hanukkah tunes, so this clip of twelve delectable, merry men flaunting and spreading their gayism in song and dance shall do. Watch and learn, people, for this shall be how your children (girls, boys and others) are going to turn out when we've accomplished everything on our feminist-aided homosexual agenda: THEY WILL BE CUTE & FANTABULOUS!

Meanwhile, merry Hanukkah, happy Christmas, and a delightful 2010 to all readers and animals at Barnyard Chorus!