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aro-comics · 3 years ago

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Fashion Analysis (Part 5: Aromanticism & Fashion?)

[Note: This post is a part of a series analyzing self-expression, fashion, aromanticism, and how they interact with other parts of identity. For full context please read the whole thing!]

Aromanticism and Fashion?

Now that we have gone through LGBTQ+ History with fashion, and the importance of self expression - I think we’re in a good place with all this context to discuss how aromanticism and fashion can intersect. (and again, as a disclaimer, all of this is purely speculative!).

Personally, I think there may be a few philosophies on how Aromanticism and Fashion may interact. You can look at it a few different ways, either considering the influence amatonormativity may have on our methods of dress, but also the context in which Aromantic communities are forming (online).

On the influence of Amatonormativity

Up until this point I’ve been side-stepping the consideration of amatonormativity – but it does impact self-expression, I think, and it’s worth discussing it’s relation to aromanticism.

I had a discussion with one of my aroace friends about the idea of wanting to avoid “attention” in the romantic and/or sexual sense growing up. There is an inherent tie-in with wanting to appear desirable (as shown in the beginning of the comic, and also reinforced through many pieces of popular media), with romantic outcomes. In both of our experiences, I believe it made the idea of being seen as conforming to beauty norms an uncomfortable activity.

And looking back to lesbian fashion history too, we can see this subversion of heteronormative expectation is tied into a lot of their community’s means of dress. Which leads me to wonder - will we also see this with an emerging Aromantic sense of fashion? How could this impact clothing choice, and general expression as it relates to an amatonormative society?

I want to note that personally, outside of professional contexts, I like to dress femininely in a subversive and “alternative” way. I LOVE the idea of being hyperfeminine as a performance, being a living, breathing, work of art, while simultaneously creating an aesthetic that would not consider “attractive” in an amatonormative context. And another aroace friend has confirmed feeling this way with me too! She mentioned she likes to dress in a way that will make women go “wow, we love this outfit” but at the same time cause *conservative straight old men* go “what are you wearing” (to paraphrase our conversation).

I think some good examples of this from my personal experience would be the following:

1. I love aggressive, graphic liner - generally makeup is thought of as something that feminizes the face, something that softens. But I also like to use it to create the angles and shapes that adorn my face, something abstract for the sake of being beautiful. Like mentioned before, I don’t want to appear romantically attractive to anyone, and I think that for me, at least, this is a part of using femininity to subvert these expectations.

2. I love ethereal-looking, avant-garde sheer dresses, not in the sense that they could be romanticized, but in the way they again make me feel detached from the idea of beauty for the sake of appealing to anyone else. Instead, for me it feels like beauty as a wild, untameable form of nature and being.

But … maybe I should mention the unconventional tastes are partially tied to the fact I spend a lot of time in creative spaces because of my degree, and overall I am exposed to more diverse ranges of self-expression to begin with! Either way, though, I am curious what other aros have to say, so feel free to let me know your experiences with this. I’d love to provide an update with thoughts from other aros!

Forming Community Online and its Possible Impacts

The online nature of the development of Aro Culture leads me to wonder if this medium of interaction will influence the development of our fashion, much like how it influences the development of fashion overall. For example, with tiktok, the app is often credited for its major influence on modern fashion trends (and leading to the emergence of microtrends).

Most visual designs are being affected by the way social media algorithms work too. The “allegria style” created by facebook, otherwise known as the “flat gangly limbed drawing style beloved by tech companies”, has exploded in popularity. Regardless of how one might feel about the widespread adoption of this style of illustration, it’s clear that it has significant advantages that have led to its popularity, one of which is its ability to be “consumed” or visually understood at high speed due to its graphic nature and simple design. Basically, when people look at things on their phones, and they’re scrolling quickly, they’re more likely to understand what they see and interact with what they see if it’s easy to visually “read”. And I truly believe that this is influencing most forms of design, including fashion (which subsequently, will influence aro fashion). If you’d like to learn more about this subject, sources 14, 15, and 16 provide more insight into how social media algorithms have influenced design and visual culture at large.

I think another factor to consider here is the effect of seeing the whole world at once - having the influence of all different media, visuals, and pop culture at the same time has created a very unique environment for development. As one example, the wider aspec communities have developed with the existence of our flags (which are purple and green centered for ace and aro respectively). This would be knowledge that wouldn’t be so easily spread through the whole community in a pre-internet era, and I personally (THIS IS ONLY MY THEORY) feel this is part of the reason there is a far stronger connection to these colours within aspec culture. It’s something that unifies us and was one of our first introductions to the community (since most of us probably looked up the definition of aromantic, or asexual, online), and I think for this reason these colours hold special significance and are present in a lot of of our means of self expression and communication with other members of our community.

Obviously, the formation of symbols and ways of self-identification will occur anyway (many symbols exist for other members of the LGBTQ+ community too), but I do think being online has a particular influence on the ways community symbols are communicated, and create a different context in where these cultural symbols take shape.

[Note from Author: For Part 6, click here!]

#NotAComic #Fashion #FashionAnalysis

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wirewitchviolet · 4 years ago

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A Little Horrifying Primer on Transphobes

Some time ago, I put together a Little Fact Checking Primer on Trans People, as a basic resource for disabusing people of some of the many completely ridiculous yet absurdly widespread beliefs about trans people that simply have no basis whatsoever in reality. And wouldn’t you know it, every single lie exposed in that primer is not only still widely believed, but is presently being used as a basis to sign some absolutely horrific human rights abuses into law. So it’s high time I follow that up, in this case focused more on who keeps actively spreading these lies and why. I’m going to try and keep things as light as I can here, but we’re going to be looking at the most monstrous side of human nature, so apologies in advance if this is a dark read.

First, let me just note that there are two things I don’t plan to do in this piece. I’m not going to waste time debunking the arguments of the people I’m highlighting (much of this is already covered in my earlier primer, others have done the work in cases where I haven’t, and frankly these people’s claims should be self-evidently utter nonsense to begin with). I am also going to be very selective in what I link to, or even share related images of, as I would frankly not like to fill a post on a blog I generally try to keep safe for all audiences with media directly dealing with, for instance, child sexual assault, and much of the relevant information also involves stochastic terrorism against innocent people, and I would prefer not to throw more fuel onto such fires.

Transphobes lie constantly, about everything.

To some degree this is obvious. We’re talking about people who scaremonger about the possibilities of trans women dominating competitive sports and assaulting people in restrooms, despite the status quo already reflecting the conditions they insist would make these inevitibilities for decades and centuries respectively, and their grim visions never once having come to pass, and also constantly insisting that the woman in the photo below is actually a man, going further to say this is evident to anyone giving her the merest glance.

It goes beyond that though. There’s at least a little plausible deniablity in claims like this, or that “science is on their side” if they were simply uninformed about the world they live in, never actually looking into what laws exist, what science actually says, and never actually meeting a trans person or even seeing a picture of one of us. I’m talking really bold lies here. Like wholecloth fabricating a story that a convicted murder was trans, including anecdotes about wigs dresses and a planned name change, in a major newspaper. Or to cite an old favorite of mine, the time a pack of bigots walked up to a crowd of people peacefully picketing a transphobic legal proposal, started roughing them up and taking closeup photos of members of the crowd to stalk online when they got home, got sufficiently riled up for one to straight up assault an innocent person half her size, filmed the whole thing, uploaded it to youtube, and used stills of that assault as acomanying photos when they went home to write articles about the assailant being a “grandmother” attacked by rowdy trans women. And yes, they did monkey’s paw my wish to see that specific image on newspapers. Interesting side note, when it came to real public light that J.K. Rowling endorsed this sort of hatred, it was because she accidentally pasted some profanity laden rambling about how the imagined moral character of the other party in that incident, years after the fact, into a post praising a child’s fan art of her work.

To be a little less niche, transphobes can’t get enough of spreading the lie that the young fellow in this photo is a girl. Specifically a trans girl, providing proof that all their scaremongering about the dastardly threat of trans girls in competitive sports has finally come to pass.

To be fully clear, that’s a man (or a boy if you want to split hairs about him being 17 in that photo). Mack Beggs. A rather insidious choice for this sort of story, considering the actual context for that photo. See, Beggs attended high school in Texas, during a (still ongoing as I write this) period wherein that particular state had caved to this exact sort of propaganda, and in order to head off a wholly imagined wave of trans girls competing on girls’ sports teams, and enacted a law mandating that in all such competitions must compete under whatever gender is stated on their birth certificates. And as it happens, the first, and to my knowledge ONLY time this has come up was with Beggs here, who again, is a man, as no one with a grip on reality could argue against, has “female” on his birth certificate. Which is another way of saying he is a trans man. The guys in the same boat as trans women who we talk about a whole hell of a lot less because their existence is extremely inconvenient to the majority of transphobic propaganda. Case in point. And this is all information it is really impossible to come across if you’re coming across this photo in any sort of respectable source. Take this story, which is as unambiguous about this as you can get. And yet, in the very comments section of that story, there they are. Carrying on like this story about a trans guy, forced by a transphobic law to compete as a girl, which he absolutely did not want, and received horrific threats over, using phrases like “female to male” and bringing up that he was assigned female at birth and is on testosterone-based HRT, is about a trans woman cheating the system. Or to quote word for word, “Now also transgender female want to be male also compete in female sport. biological born“ That’s not “being confused,” that’s standing next to you in a white desert and complaining about being adrift in a black ocean, bald-faced, not even trying to be convincing just make a power play, lying through one’s teeth.

I could spend this whole article on just this point. Lying about who they are, various people’s falsified credentials, whole websites full of “anonymous parents of children who think they’re trans” turning out to be one single woman documenting the abuse of her very much trans son, or of course the people behind the whole “bathroom bill” panic candidly admitting it was all based on utter fiction. I do have other points to cover though.

Transphobes are firmly entrenched in the media.

It is extremely difficult to find oneself in a position of having to explain to people that a particular group of people is effectively in control of press outlets, as that is rather classically a claim conspiracy theorists absolutely love to toss around at various marginalized groups (including trans people hilariously enough, but of course the most common and lingering version of this is the antisemitic variant). I really can’t get around it here though. Specifically in the U.K., you honestly can say that transphobes control the media. I already touched on this with the assault case I mentioned above and the fabricated story about the murderer, but this is a pretty well-documented situation. I mean, even The Guardian calls out The Guardian on this, and that’s the outlet that gets the most attention because it’s the one with the most otherwise respected name, but every paper in the country has been running transphobic propaganda pieces on a weekly if not daily basis for years now, and while they do get reprimanded by watchdog groups and have mass walk-outs over the worst of it, it’s not like there’s some governing body with the authority to step in about it. Meanwhile the BBC is constantly inviting diehard zealots like Graham Linehan to news programs where he compares being trans to being a nazi, and hosting debates where someone just sits down and repeatedly chants the word “penis” at a trans woman.

Things are better in the rest of the world, but we still have right-wing creeps like Jesse Singal both writing horrific propaganda pieces (we’ll get back to that one) and blackballing trans writers out of covering trans issues ourselves (and personally stalking the hell out of those of us who try). We’ve got our Joe Rogans and Tucker Carlsons out there (no way in hell I’m linking videos here, have a real information link and a still).

The line between diehard transphobes and straight-up nazis basically does not exist.

What even is there to say here? You can easily poke around havens for nazi activity for yourself and compare the particular unique vocabulary used there to the primary bastion of anti-trans hate speech on the internet (the “feminism” section of what was originally a site for parenting tips before violent fascists took the forums over) or just peruse the follows of the thousands of people I’ve blocked on social media and see if you can sort out a clear division in the networks of channers with frog avatars and the accounts with names like GoodieXXrealwoman, or you can read up on Gab and Spinster, the two twitter alternatives that are just different portals to the same server, set up by the same guy. Maybe do some research into “the LGB Alliance,” or WoLF but any way you slice it the only real difference to be found is the general purpose nazis take a little time off now and then to watch borderline pedophilic anime and the really dedicated transphobes think to use language that sounds vaguely well-educated and left-leaning. I mean, this came from the “feminist” side of the fence:

And not to belabor the point here, but the ones claiming to be a bunch of “feminist mums” sure do let the mask slip any time they’re confronted with the fact that “women” includes black women, and oh just have a whole thread about all the weird conspiratory theories these people have about how trans people’s whole existence is some sort of Jewish plot for world domination. I swear a few months ago they were all passing around a story about some bank having an above average number of trans employees and they were all just “and we all know who controls the banks, right?” about it.

Transphobes endorse an awful lot of people who are openly pro-pedophila.

This is the part where I am really loath to link the many many specific examples I have on hand. Or to talk about this at all for reasons of good taste. Or, for that matter, to talk about this in a tumblr post when there’s an ongoing problem of people with backgrounds strongly tied to this site making baseless accusations of pedophilia against every queer person they can find, so let me be very clear just what I’m talking about while avoiding anything too graphic.

That’s James Cantor. Transphobes love him for being one of the closest things they have to a scientist on their side. And I am featuring him in a screenshot here showing that he is followed by current queen of the transphobes J.K. Rowling, while speaking to both another big name in transphobic circles, Debra Soh, and based on their names, what I’m guessing is at least one straight-up nazi. And in case you think “the P” he’s talking about adding to LGBT (or “GLBT” as weird anti-queer bigots who also have issues with women often write it) might stand for “poly” or “pan” he’s all too happy to clarify that.

This is the entire thrust of Cantor’s work and life. He is the world’s biggest pedophile rights advocate. He wants it declassified as a mental disorder, all stigma on it removed, and tirelessly pushes forward the idea that the majority of.. people who feel compelled to sexually assault children are good people who present no potential harm to anyone and should in fact be lauded.

I am not generally one to claim that someone with a PhD is spewing out questionable garbage with regard to their field, but the reason I am aware of Cantor at all is that other transphobes keep trying to hold up a particular post on his blog as "a study” (which it is not) that offers “proof” (in the form of a blurry jpeg of basically some random numbers) of some ridiculous quackery about how trans kids will “grow out of it” if exposed to conversion therapy (another way of saying torture), which Cantor himself seems to be pushing, so I am somewhat skeptical of his academic chops. And I am, of course, REALLY suspicious that all these other bigots gravitate to him purely because they’re that desperate to find anyone with a PhD in anything that backs them up against literally every scientist in a relative field, to the point that they merely forgive his particular advocacy they are plainly all aware of, particularly when such a common fig leaf used by transphobes is “keeping children safe from sexual deviants.”

And of course, Cantor is most often invoked when coming to the defense of Kenneth Zucker. This Kenneth Zucker.

Those are separate papers. Zucker isn’t controversial though for organizing panels to discuss how attractive people agree small children are (at least not exclusively). Mostly, he’s known for running a conversion therapy center which subjected gay and trans children to various sorts of torture in an effort to “fix” them, which at least for those trans "patients” I have spoken with involved a fair amount of having them strip completely naked and talking a lot about their genitals.

Zucker is something of a controversial figure with the transphobic scene, as they are extremely on board with his sexual torture of queer children, but he does actual work (for some value of the term) involving trans people and thus is not able to commit as fully as they would prefer to making life horrible for trans people, due to a professional obligation to acknowledge reality now and then. As an aside, the similarly positioned Ray Blanchard, while not to my knowledge particularly interested in the attractiveness of children, lives in a similar purgatory of trying to reconcile his career, bigotry, and sexual hangups, yielding compromises like this:

Of course, that’s just looking at the straws transphobes grasp at when looking for scientific credibility. Real leaders of the movement include Germaine Greer, author of The Beautiful Boy, which is about what you are afraid it might be, and features a very young child in a cover feature he did not consent to posing for. Or Julie Bindel, who among other things is rather infamous for writing whole articles on subjects like whether a teenage girl she came across maybe has a huge penis you can totally see if you really squint at her skirt. Again, I will not share a link to go along with that one.

Transphobes terrorize and attempt to defund charities and other unambiguously good organizations.

Graham Linehan, previously best known for cowriting some sitcoms and possibly spending a year angling to get into my pants so awkwardly I didn’t pick up on it is now best known for trying to pull the plug on a children’s charity, in a story that somehow also involves Donkey Kong. Well, and the interview about nazis. And possibly the other interview about “defending me from nazis” until it got into his head that I might not be as young and hot as he imagined. Rather not link to a far right extremist youtube channel though.

There’s also a current effort to replace Stonewall (an organization named after the location where a pair of trans women kicked off a riot which is generally agreed to be the start of the LGBT+ rights movement) as the UK’s primary LGBT+ rights organization with the “LGB Alliance.” The hate group mentioned above, with the skull face and the rifle. Closest I can find to an article on that effort on short notice that isn’t propaganda.

Transphobes paper areas in truly disgusting propaganda.

I don’t want to directly link to grown adults skulking around children’s playgrounds and bathrooms plastering surfaces with mass printed stickers of crudely drawn penises, but would encourage you to read this very long post, being sure to load all the images, to really understand how deeply strange this behavior gets.

Finally, I cannot stress this enough, this really extreme behavior I’m citing, and the specific people involved in the examples I’m giving, these aren’t random cranks on the fringe of things. The people going on televised panel discussions, writing up news stories, and testifying before lawmakers in efforts to pass horrifically discriminatory if not literally life-endangering laws (there is a major ongoing effort to legally end all medical care for trans people, and I don’t just mean care directly relating to being trans) are literally the same people involved in the sexualization of children, nazi collaborations, and roving gangs assaulting people in the street. At a bare minimum I urge people, when booking guests and handing out writing contracts, to do background checks and see if they’re platforming actual terrorists. If we could actually bring legal consequences to bear against the worst of this, that would be great too. As things stand though, the whole world is just consistently citing a bunch of racist, woman-hating, serial liars with no real credentials, and questionable attitudes towards the sexual abuse of children, as “trusted experts” and refusing to seat actual trans people or people who have legitimately committed lifetimes to academic and practical work with trans people any seats at the table.

#trans #transphobia #educational resources

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stardyng · 8 years ago

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Transphobia in the LGBT Community

To hear cisgendered lesbian and gay people say transphobic things is not as rare as we like to believe it is. It may not happen as concurrently as with heterosexuals, but it does happen way too much especially for a self-proclaimed accepting and inclusive community. That brings a certain sense of exclusion into our community, one that was haunting this community since it was created. This transphobia often exist in reason of their misunderstanding or lack of knowledge many have on trans folks and on trans people in general, in reason of their own extreme self-denial on the non-conformity they have on their gender which they take out on trans folks often by excluding or hating them, in reason of the newfound and rather widespread acceptance of privileged white gay men in North America that created a unity with heterosexuals that’s leading to them trying to distance themselves from trans people, in reason of the hate people feel on the fact that we include trans rights as one of the many sort of rights the LGBTQ community have to fight for especially since it’s more controversial than marriage equality per example and also because of the anonymity that many cisgendered women feel that are aimed at trans women.

So much that a substantial amount of discussions that include gays/bi/les about trans people often include a lot of muzzling, unrivaled venom, harassment and even in the worse case scenario death threats. All of these negative feelings and the ignorance that exist in the community about trans folks really intersect with trans folks when these trans folks happen to also be a sexual minority and are therefore enforced into regular social situations with ignorant cisgendered sexual minority folks and that leads to certain conflicts, to feelings being hurt and to the exclusion of transgender folks in general. Really, there’s a clear systematic problem that exist in the LGBTQ community when it comes to trans rights and trans folks in general that is created because of LGBTQ organisations, the queer media, from queer men and even more from queer women.

To be blunt, LGBTQ organisations typically ignore trans folks and their issues. Despite the fact that these people have always been in the front of the revolution for queer rights politically and socially, they have just as concurrently received wrong end of the stick, especially non-binary and agender ones. The thing is that often, they are lumped with the rest of the community so people assume that trans folks are rightfully catered in queer spaces but they have always been just an afterthought. Big organisations often just have a limited amount of trans folks who are mostly white to fit with the token system in order to earn more funding rather than actually focus of the needs of trans folks who are probably the more marginalized part of the queer community. This is to the point where the basic needs of these people are not even met by these organisations. Food and sanctuary for homeless trans folks, a rightful healthcare free of bigotry, protection in their workplaces, the public bathroom debate and security from different kinds of assaults are all things that are ignored by these organisations despite the fact that trans folks (and queer people of color) are the part of the community the most attacked and marginalized by our society.

On the other hand, when these organisations try to talk about trans issues, it’s mostly highly ignorant and apathetic cisgendered queer folks who do it and that have more negative affects than it has positive which leaves trans perspectives mostly absent from these organisations. This invisibility in these organisations (and in the media) leaves these people with no one there to represent them especially in these so called safe spaces. That’s not forgetting the constant invisibility that is present in the media with the exclusion of trans folks in LGBTQ history, and the atrocious and rare representation of trans folks on tv which creates a lot of misconceptions and perpetuates ignorance. In the end, there’s simply just so much to do in order for trans folks to truly feel safe and included in queer safe spaces and organisations and they should feel included and safe instead of constantly having to defend and advocating themselves in the community. By ignoring a major portion of our community, we are only undermining our vow for actual equality.

In the entire LGBTQ community, one of the biggest gaps that exist has to be the one between cisgendered lesbians and queer trans women. For starters, there is a troubling number of non-intentionally transphobic lesbians whom not only fear trans women but seem to also believe myths about trans women that they often openly perpetuate like how trans women fit into this very strained, old-dated way of being a woman which lesbians have fought extremely hard to dismantle in a political and social sense with media only contributing to this perpetuation as it also ignore all the range of gender presentations that trans women harbor and only focus on this tired stereotype. Of course, in comparison to other ways transphobia transpires in the lesbian community this is nothing and one of the ways which overshadows this one has to be the transphobia in the dating scene.

Often when lesbian trans woman are searching for a partner, they are rejected everywhere because of their gender state despite the fact that trans women do not harbor any physical trait that is consistent and common to every single trans woman despite the fact that they are trans. That’s because the reason for this rejection and their so called ‘’lack of attraction’’ of trans women only exist in reason of their perception of the concept of what it is to be a ��trans women which often stem from cultural perceptions and in reason of the stereotypes and myths that exist about trans folks. But many ignore or invalidate these claims since these claims which feel quite unfair and very accusatory don’t perceive themselves as transphobic. There’s also the fact that it’s not easy to tell the difference between honestly not being attracted to a trans individual and not being attracted to a trans individual in reason the repulsion and distress of the concept being with someone they see as being actually a man which is obviously a perspective smothered in our society transphobic constraints which are often mediated in a socio-culturally that only oppress, estrange and dehumanize trans women.

This very big gap that exists between both communities doesn’t particularly stem from the treatment trans women are subjected to in the lesbian dating scene as it mostly is present reason of TERFS who are a group of cisgendered lesbians who are radical feminists whom mainly focus their time on constantly perpetuating exaggerated myths and ideas about trans folks which are typically shared by conservatives christians. The term itself means trans-exclusionary radical feminists which while rejected by the group describes their ideologies perfectly as they believe that transwomen are not only men but their goal is to invade safe spaces that are inclusivity for women and also believe that these ‘’predatory men’’ simply appropriate femininity for gains, whether they be social or sexual. Thankfully, this group is small in number however they are also extremely visible and vocal enough to create a toxic gap between cisgendered lesbians and trans women.

They first and foremost spread many rumors about trans women such as the myth that trans women force other lesbians to date them by antagonizing them by saying that these women are transphobic by refusing to date them (It only is if it is because they are trans) which they perpetuate this specific myth in order to paint trans women as not only men, but also as rapists. It doesn’t really stop there as this gender-critical will use every method possible to dehumanize trans women and even more exclude and attack them. They often disallow these women from entering women only spaces and from certain LGBTQ inclusive events and certain organisations, they bully and harass trans men into not transitioning often with myths and stereotypes, they generally just mock and harass trans people, they out them to their family and friends, they expose personal info about them to the world, they dedicate sites into putting them down, they mock these women bodies and simply offer some of the most atrocious and disgusting manifestation of transphobia online and offline. They paint themselves as good people by saying that these actions validly embodies feminism and that they are only doing this to protect cisgendered women from trans women.

To a much lesser degree, the relationship between gay men and trans people is troubled as most gay men do not have any problem with the transgender community and do not try to take trans rights away from trans people and it’s generally not common nowadays as a big number of gay men are participating in the movement that’s created for trans acceptance and for trans people to have equal rights. However, an equal amount gay men simply have a unconcerned opinion on trans people which only turns into this belligerent hostility when gay men start to intersect with trans folks. The negativity of this intersection can come from both community as there are as many gay men who are transphobic as there are trans folks who are homophobic. However this transphobia which is established enough to be very hurtful is much more of a problem since discrimination tends to affects people who are lower on the social pyramid more. It’s definitely not as hurtful as the discrimination coming from cishets. Per example, even if in a LGBT space, some gay men constantly use the t-word, the space itself offers much more safety than the heterosexual one. That doesn’t change the problem itself which typically involve stereotypes.

Such stereotypes include the one that trans women are inherently attracted to men, and only transitioned into to be with heterosexual men which ultimately insinuate that the gay and trans communities cannot intersect. There’s the myth that trans men embodie this narrow-minded way of being masculine e which lead to gay men invalidating and questioning trans men when they do certain gay male traditions that are feminine in nature, the stereotype that trans men are actually just lesbians with body issues, that trans women are in some way or another into this reflection of themselves as women or the very misogynistic stereotype that gay trans men are straight women who are not adequate since they are so comfortable with gay men and wanted to be with a gay man so much that they become one. This stereotype ultimately paints femaleness as so inferior that women have to escape it and despite it’s ridiculousness, it’s so incredibly sexist that it also became a common belief since misogyny is so widespread that it can be attached to almost all the types of discrimination. Regardless, these get really problematic when they are shared.

The place where the biggest amount of problems takes place in the gay male community is in it’s exclusive dating scene which has cisgendered masculine muscular white gay men as its center. In fact, the community as a whole has this image as the forefront of the community and that definitely has a certain amount of effects on trans men. The first being that some gay men validate their sexualities by degrading women’s bodies and more specifically, their genitalia. Some trans men still haven’t done the surgery on their lower half which is why it’s not only hurtful but also why many gay men actively exclude the entire trans men community in very disgusting ways (It’s okay to not want to date a guy for having a vagina, it’s just the way you do it that makes it okay or not okay and not every trans men have vaginas). Generally, this attitude towards this type of genitalia is regressive since it ignores the diversity that exist when it comes to gender identities and sexual orientations. Regardless, this idealization of this specific body time which seems okay at first actually ends up being cissexist and misogynistic as it shames every queer men who are not gay, who are of color, who are slim or/and effeminate, who are either not in the back half of their 10s or not in their 20s and/or are transgendered.

Thing is not being attracted to everyone is perfectly fine and no one can be but grouping everyone of a specific race, sexuality or a gender state(cis, trans) and deeming every single one of them as inferior and inherently not dateable because of stereotypes and myths about that specific part of them is is not fine and rather discriminatory regardless of whether it be conscious action or not(which is why not being attracted to a certain gender does not quality as that isn’t inmate). In general, in order for there to be progression we need to let the trans voice be heard and respect the people voicing their thoughts on trans issues instead of portraying them as simply being bitter or even just jaded. Conversations about these issues help positively influence some people's mindsets on trans folks which is why as a community, we should start doing this. So start calling out transphobia and start including trans issues when it comes to discussion about LGBTQ rights whether they be bathroom laws which can be exclusive to trans folks and honestly, simply knowing that everyone deserves to individually treated with dignity and courtesy regardless of their presentation is a good start which can be done by confronting all the myths we hold, the biases we harbor and our sometimes exclusive viewpoints so that hopefully, one day, we’ll stop treating the movement for equality like the LG movement and more like the LGBT movement.

#lgbt movement #lgbtq #lgbt #transphobia #transgenderism #transgender #trans men #trans women #transgender men #transgender women #genderqueer #lgbt community #lgbtq community #problems in the lgbt community

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esprit-de-corps-magazine · 5 years ago

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ON TARGET: Women Have Come a Long Way in the Canadian Armed Forces

By Scott Taylor

Those readers old enough to remember may recall an advertising campaign from the late sixties promoting Virginia Slim cigarettes. The theme behind this series of television commercials and magazine ads was to illustrate just how far feminism had advanced throughout North American society.

The plotline was consistent wherein we were reminded of how, not so long ago women had to covertly enjoy a cigarette, and if discovered would be punished by an irate husband. This was then offset by images of very stylish women in the latest fashion, smoking an elegant looking Virginia Slim cigarette. The catch phrase was “You’ve come a long way baby.” Because now women not only had the right to vote, they also had cigarettes designed specifically for females that were slimmer and therefore easier to “slip into a purse.

While this sort of message may seem ludicrous by today’s standards, it only helps to illustrate how much further feminism has indeed advanced over the past half century.

I point this out because at present the Canadian Armed Forces are struggling to achieve a self-imposed goal of having 25% female representation by the year 2026. The current composition of the military stands at just 14.8% women.

Much scratching of heads and commissioning of studies has yet to produce a clear strategy as to how to find the magic formula to suddenly encourage the necessary waves of women to enlist

There have been an abundance of media reports – often based on internal analysis – of widespread sexual misconduct within the ranks, something which would run counter to enticing young women to make the military a career choice.

Personally, I am opposed to any sort of quota based recruiting policy based on gender. First of all, this would lead female recruits to question their own capabilities – were they selected based of their competency or were they simply let into the club to meet the 25% quota. Similarly such a quota could lead to resentment among their male colleagues who could believe the same thing.

This brings us back to the Virginia Slim’s marketing angle and how it might be a more successful tactic than an imposed quota. No, I’m not suggesting that the military promote smoking or refer to women collectively as ‘baby’.

However, women in the Canadian Armed Forces have indeed come a long way in a remarkably short period of time. It was not until the late 1980’s that women were allowed to serve in combat arms units, serve on warships and to pilot fighter planes.

Since those first pioneers broke down the barricades and proved themselves in a formerly male-only domain, women have steadily risen in rank and responsibility. To date we have had women hold the rank of Lieutenant-General, we currently have a female brigadier commanding a NATO mission in Iraq, we had a female commodore command the NATO squadron in the Mediterranean, female pilots have flown in combat, female soldiers were killed and wounded in Afghanistan, women command infantry battalions and currently serve as Regimental Sergeant Majors.

There may still be a lot of advancement to be made, but in spirit of our ‘brothers and sisters in arms’, it is true now to say “we’ve come a long way sister.

Here’s hoping that one day that statement too will be as outdated as the old Virginia Slim adverts.

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mehakvarun · 5 years ago

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I just need a chance!

Growing up as a woman in India is still no easy task. Woman, isn't she a human? She is made of the same flesh and bones like a man and if injured physically or mentally, she feels pain. The worth of a civilisation can be judged from the position that it gives to a woman. Still gender based discrimination against female is pervasive across the world.

This is the 21st century. Still, the fight for equality is mulling upon us. 'Gender equality is still the unfinished business of this century.' Social and legal discrimination against women remains a major obstacle to economic development in emerging and developing countries. Certain forms of discrimination against women remain widespread. Our India- known for its supreme values and traditions- has become a place of demons. Rape has become the forth most common crime against women in India. Despite having the world's largest democracy, famous examples of gang rape and hangings demonstrate what a perilous place India is becoming for women. Millions of cases gets registered of female foeticide. And in case, girl gets to survive, child marriage and high level of trafficking still cast a shadow over the safety of females.

We say 'BETI PADHAO, BETI BACHAO'. This is a nice initiative taken by hon'ble Prime Minister Sh. Narendra Modiji. But why Beti Bachao? Why are we even supposed to make girls weak? By raising such slogans, we are showing our girls how flimsy they are! Whenever there is a queue at the railways or bus stands, why do the hoarding says- for old-aged, handicapped and WOMEN. Why our own people are making girls imbecile? In fact, I firmly believe in 'BETA PADHAO, SAMAJ BACHAO'. They really need to be taught how to respect everyone.

Feminism- the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes. Is this feminism making women strong or more feeble? More buttress is required for the one who is inept. First we talk about equality of sexes, then we need support for everything- that's the misfortune! Most feminists have conflated equality and sameness. And that's a huge mistake; the sexes are equal but they are different.

In words of Mahatma Gandhi-

" To call woman the weaker sex is a libel;

It is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then,

Indeed, is woman less brute than man.

If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior."

The literacy rate among women is meagre as compared to men. This is because women are deprived of an equal access to education as males in the society. Proportion of women in highly paid jobs is very small. Women are exploited and harassed at the work place. It is the obstacle women faces in the workplace- not a lack of ambition that leads women opt out or lose interest in advancement. Why these obstacles don't hinder the males in the society? The preference of male child over female child has always been a sensitive issue leading to abortions. But, I ask, where are girls lacking behind? They are doing extremely well in every sphere. Why inheritance becomes an issue? Despite the fact that women in developing countries provide nearly 70 percent of the agricultural labour, they continue to account for over 60 percent of world's hunger. Rural women are backbone of their communities. They work in the land and support their families, ensure food security for their communities and feed their nation. However, they fare much worse than rural men. This level of inequality is significant in a world where rural women make up over a quarter of the world population.

'Birth is given to everyone by Almighty;

Then why some are good, some are bad,

Some criticise on colour, some on gender,

And some kill one another.

Alas, things don't change!

Does God teach all this?'

Do we actually enact what we say? We talk about equality- do we follow it? We talk about right and wrong- do we accept it? We talk so much and implement so little! 'Your preachings may not influence, but your examples will surely put an impact.'

When it comes to morality, there has always been one rule for woman and another for man. According to a survey by Ipsos Mori, a fifth of men and women globally say women are inferior to men or shouldn't aspire to work outside of the house. Nearly half of all men and women in India and Russia believe women are inferior. It clearly shows how people are adapted with this notion of women as 'the weaker sex', strangely, including women!

It is our blinkered attitude that has led us to this point- ' The weaker sex' . Every single day we have cases of sexual abuse and rape. Many don't even make it to the police complaint, as it is still considered as a stigma to even talk about it. That's what we do. Keep quiet. The horrors that go on in some homes go on and on because of this imposed bubble of 'don't talk about it'. Our silence is complicit.

In India, social attitudes are highly conservative. Sex education is left out of most school curriculums; legislators feel such topics could corrupt youth and offend traditional values. There is an expression in India- ' Raising a daughter is like watering your neighbour's garden' or even the worst - 'It is better to have a thousand sons than one daughter'. Bride burning has become an everyday issue. India is a home to one in every three child brides in the world. Families are still expected to pay a dowry of expensive gifts or money when a daughter gets married. Millions of girls are never sent to school because it is considered a waste of precious resources. If a family is poor, a son is the first to be fed and the 'less valuable' girl is given the leftover scraps to eat. India has an estimate of over million of child prostitutes. Indian widows are seen as a curse. Strange! The land of values and culture mistreat its own people.

This depicts that the core root of this problem is the very mentality of the uselessness of girls from within the Indian continent.

Bachendri Pal- she became the first Indian woman to conquer the highest summit in the world, Mount Everest in 1984.

Kiran Bedi- she joined Indian Police Service in 1972 and was first Indian woman to do so.

Neerja Bhanot- a young flight attendant who died while saving passengers from terrorists on board at a tender age of twenty two years.

Ninety percent of banks are headed by women as their CEO'S. In every field, women are showing their mark in the society except for one thing- their DIGNITY!

India has started with the spark of giving girls equal rights but this step has to be taken more seriously and with firm minds. Women have been fighting for equal rights for generations- the right to vote, the right to control our bodies and right to equality in the workplace. Still, we have a long way to go. We need to change our perspective- the way we look at the things. Let's lift each other up to become the law makers. The message has to be loud and clear- we are strong, we are self-sufficing, we can do much better in all fields, we are multitaskers, we are the future! Women have started creating the world they want to live in- not only changing the world but also changing the way world looks at us. Stop asking for things to change, let's make the change ourselves.

This is uplifting the exploited one. Men and women- stop underestimating each other. Hold hands and work together for a better tomorrow. Let everyone have their own mark in the world. Let little flowers blossom. "Have enough confidence, to stand with a head high. Have enough humility, not to look down on others".

In words of all the women in the world-

I just need a chance,

to grow, to explore, to understand,

to learn, to develop, to inspire,

I just need a chance;

To let the world know,

Who I am!

Mehak Gupta Grover

[email protected]

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melissawalker01 · 5 years ago

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Did Divorce Use To Be Illegal?

To say the least, Utah Divorce Law has really come a long way. Being the state with the highest divorce rates in the whole of US, it pays to know how this came to be. Among the many questions you may be having is this:

Was divorce illegal in the past?

As we get back down the memory lane, I have to admit that the subject of divorce has been sensitive through the years, and still is. This might be one of the reasons the laws regarding divorce have constantly evolved and are still being amended day after day.

Not only the law has changed, but also the attitude of the citizens towards divorce. Whereas it was once a forbidden practice, right now as we speak, divorce has become like the norm of the day.

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Statistics have it that marriages in America last an average of about 11 years. Also, 30 % of marriages have a likelihood of ending up in divorce. How did Utah get to such a point? Read on to gain further insight.

Colonial Divorce

The divorce stigma started way back before the United States became a self governing nation. Back in 1692, the Colony of Massachusetts Bay formed a commission to deal with divorces. The commissioners serving here were given the right to oversee divorces in the case of unbecoming behaviors such as adultery, bigamy and desertion.

Most of the Northern colonies formed their own systems on how to deal with divorce issues. On the other end, the Southern Colonies tried their best to prevent divorce. Legislation was still in place, only that they didn’t wholly buy the idea of couples parting for good.

Fast forward to 1776. Divorce laws were still a bit lenient by this time. The legislature seemed tired of hearing divorces cases. They claimed they needed to give more time to more important work. Thus divorce cases were handed over to the judiciary and it has been so up to this day.

The women then were greatly disadvantaged. Unlike the modern times, the women then were a legal non-entity. This meant that, in the event of a divorce, they could not claim ownership of property or any other financial assets in dispute.

The legislators made efforts to rectify this perception against women. In 1848, they enacted the Married Women’s Property Act. This addressed the women’s plight to some extent. It is however important to note that divorce cases were very scarce then. For any couple who chose to go that way, the woman was the more disadvantaged.

Early 20th Century

Towards the close of the 18th century, some states had been popularly designated Divorce Mills. These are those you could legally turn to if you needed divorce. Utah was surprisingly one these states. Others were Indiana and Dakotas.

Most of the towns in these states blossomed due to this trade. Restaurants were built, bars were opened, and events were organized, to entertain and accommodate visitors who had traveled from far away states seeking divorce.

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As civilization advanced, the Congress of 1887 desired to have facts and figures regarding divorce cases, just to measure the magnitude of this menace.

At the turn of the 20th Century, the religious entities joined forces to reduces the incidences of divorce in the US. the Inter-Church Conference on Marriage and Divorce was therefore convened in the year 1903. It is worth noting that, at this same junction of time, feminism was on a steep rise and the society in general had developed such a relaxed attitude towards divorce. Morals had degraded to some extent and divorce had become just another common practice.

It was in the 1920s that trial marriages were established. These allowed a given couple to try out marriage before being officially married. The couple were not allowed to have children during this trial, nor could they get into any lifelong commitments.

This meant the man and woman were just allowed to live and sleep together under the same roof. This marked the introduction of prenuptial contracts. The ills of divorces had also brought rise to pre-marital counselling, as well as marriage counselling, and many found these. Nobody could any longer deny that a problem existed.

Past the World Wars

The two world wars of 1918 and 1945, according to legislators, drove divorce issues to the back seat. The most serious matter at hand then was the war. After the second world war, around 1950, the Family Court system was initiated. This was a big step for the legislature and judiciary arms of the government. Couples were saved from the troubles associated with the traditional court system.

Couples who had divorced before these new laws were made were then able to seek ratification of their agreement to disagree. Previously, all divorce cases had to heard in a court of law. The family Court System did away with this awkward rule. Soon afterwards, the US saw a widespread mushrooming of law firms specialized in divorce cases.

The 1970s

From the middle ages up to 1970s, it was a must that either the husband or the wife was at fault in order for divorce to be granted. Divorce was granted only on the grounds that one of the parties wronged the other, through acts such adultery, or such like. Come 1970s, divorces were allowed even for couples of which none could accuse the other of some wrong done. States such as California and Utah readily adopted this law. This worked to lower the costs involved in divorces. Since there was no need to prove a fault, one could simply divorce without hiring lawyers and spending lots of money on court proceedings, which many a times did not work out for their good. The divorce lawyers milked the parting couples quite some amount of money.

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The no-fault divorce laws simply addressed the plight of the couples, with no much concern for the welfare of the children. Subsequent acts tried to address the welfare of children left after the divorce. This is likewise a contentious topic, and as such, no all-inclusive solution has been found.

Modern Day Utah

The evolving of the divorce laws has certainly been drastic. What we see now is miles different from what used to happen 100 or 500 years back. With every dawn of the day, we are presented with new divorce laws meant to tackle the minute details of divorce.

The no-fault divorce law introduced in the 1970s can be termed as one of the revolutionary laws that shaped the handling of divorce cases. That is what is practiced up to this present day in many areas across the US. Although the divorce laws have changed much, one fact still remains – divorce many a times destabilizes a child’s upbringing, something which contributes to many of the societal problems we witness in our state. The splitting of property and finances still remains a bone of contention in many divorce cases. The US legislators have up to now never been able to craft clear-cut laws on this issue. Different states have different laws regarding this.

I salute the US legislators for trying their best to grant divorce to couples without necessarily there being a fault, and at the same time catering for the needs of the child, both social, mental and physical.

Legal Grounds for divorce in Utah

In the present day Utah, in case you want to divorce, you must provide the court with a legal ground as to why you want your marriage terminated. This means you must give a specific reason that led you to pursue divorce. This is specifically for the fault divorces, where you claim that the behavior of your spouse caused you to terminate the marriage. For the no-fault divorces, you don’t have to give specific reasons for your desire to break up with your spouse.

No fault divorces favor those couples who wish to keep their marriage secrets and woes to themselves. Couples just have to explain to the court that their marriage has experienced irreconcilable differences and they can no longer move on together. The judges will normally not seek to know the details of these irreconcilable differences. They will require you to testify, under oath, that you and your spouse can no longer stay together, and you will be granted the divorce.

For the fault divorces, the following are the statutory grounds for divorce in Utah:

1. Irreconcilable differences between the husband and the wife – When these two find that they are constantly fighting and can seldom come to mutual agreement on anything, they can be granted divorce. The two beings might have completely different natures, such that they find it difficult to bond and agree on anything. Emotions might have led them to marriage, but time proves that they can’t stay together in love.

2. Impotence at the time of marriage – One need that must be fulfilled in marriage is sex. So what happens when the man cannot achieve an erection? The wife will have been denied a very basic need and might be forced to move on to some other guy who can satisfy her sexual needs.

3. Adultery committed by either the husband or the wife – Adultery can really turn the tables upside down in any stable marriage. Once the husband or the wife sleeps outside with another woman or man, the cheated spouse may not take it easy. He or she may call it quits with immediate effect.

4. Willingly deserting your spouse for more than one year – Let us say the husband leaves the wife home for one year. During this period, he does not care how the wife is surviving, or how the children are fairing on. He may or may not disclose his whereabouts. The wife may decide to file a divorce on the grounds of willful desertion, and she will be granted.

5. Failure by choice to provide for the family – Some men abscond their duties and cause real misery to their wife and kids. If the husband does not pay rent, does not buy food and clothing, does not pay fees for the kids’ education, and provide for other basic needs, the wife may find this unbearable and decide to bring an end to the marriage.

6. Excessive drinking – Alcohol abuse comes with myriads of negative effects, whether by the wife or the husband. Staying with alcoholics may prove difficult, especially if they cannot control themselves.

7. Conviction of a felony – Some jail terms after committing crime may be unbearable to the other spouse, and thus they may decide to move on to a free man or woman.

8. Physical, mental and psychological abuse of the wife or husband – Wives can only suffer in silence for only some period of time. Once they reach the limit, they can no longer pretend to be okay and yet they are not. Abuse in marriage may be either physical, emotional or psychological. The husband may be abusing his wife either willingly or unconsciously. When it gets unbearable, the court cannot refuse to grant you divorce.

9. The couples have not lived together under a decree of separate maintenance for a period of 3 years.

10. Permanent and incurable insanity – This is such a big blow because you cannot simply live with a mad man or woman. Such may not exhibit any sound reasoning to matters of life, and so separating from them may be the best solution.

Whether divorces were illegal or legal, it depends on which perspective you are looking at. The society in general used to find fault in divorces. It was a practice widely looked down upon in many states of the United States. Even so, the authorities could not turn a blind eye on those couples who had been pushed to the wall and needed to part in the way of divorce. They had to grant divorces despite the general perception of how evil it was. The advancement of the society through the 17th-20th centuries has seen great development in the laws of divorce. From the days women used to single handedly suffer after divorces, the system now grants equal rights to both the man and the woman.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need legal help with a divorce in Utah, please call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Will Divorce Make Me Happy?

Offer In Compromise Or Bankruptcy

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from Michael Anderson https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-use-to-be-illegal/ from Divorce Lawyer Nelson Farms Utah https://divorcelawyernelsonfarmsutah.tumblr.com/post/187248086095

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michaeljames1221 · 5 years ago

Text

Did Divorce Use To Be Illegal?

Was divorce illegal in the past?

Not only the law has changed, but also the attitude of the citizens towards divorce. Whereas it was once a forbidden practice, right now as we speak, divorce has become like the norm of the day.

youtube

Colonial Divorce

Early 20th Century

youtube

As civilization advanced, the Congress of 1887 desired to have facts and figures regarding divorce cases, just to measure the magnitude of this menace.

Past the World Wars

The 1970s

youtube

Modern Day Utah

Legal Grounds for divorce in Utah

For the fault divorces, the following are the statutory grounds for divorce in Utah:

7. Conviction of a felony – Some jail terms after committing crime may be unbearable to the other spouse, and thus they may decide to move on to a free man or woman.

9. The couples have not lived together under a decree of separate maintenance for a period of 3 years.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need legal help with a divorce in Utah, please call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Will Divorce Make Me Happy?

Offer In Compromise Or Bankruptcy

Unmarried Partners Medical Directives And The Durable Power Of Attorney For Finances

Paternity

Corporate Lawyer Park City Utah

Bankruptcy Fraud Legal Defense

from Michael Anderson https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-use-to-be-illegal/

from Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah https://criminaldefenselawyerwestjordanutah.wordpress.com/2019/08/25/did-divorce-use-to-be-illegal/

0 notes

aretia · 5 years ago

Text

Did Divorce Use To Be Illegal?

Was divorce illegal in the past?

Not only the law has changed, but also the attitude of the citizens towards divorce. Whereas it was once a forbidden practice, right now as we speak, divorce has become like the norm of the day.

youtube

Colonial Divorce

Early 20th Century

youtube

As civilization advanced, the Congress of 1887 desired to have facts and figures regarding divorce cases, just to measure the magnitude of this menace.

Past the World Wars

The 1970s

youtube

Modern Day Utah

Legal Grounds for divorce in Utah

For the fault divorces, the following are the statutory grounds for divorce in Utah:

7. Conviction of a felony – Some jail terms after committing crime may be unbearable to the other spouse, and thus they may decide to move on to a free man or woman.

9. The couples have not lived together under a decree of separate maintenance for a period of 3 years.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need legal help with a divorce in Utah, please call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Will Divorce Make Me Happy?

Offer In Compromise Or Bankruptcy

Unmarried Partners Medical Directives And The Durable Power Of Attorney For Finances

Paternity

Corporate Lawyer Park City Utah

Bankruptcy Fraud Legal Defense

Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-use-to-be-illegal/

0 notes

mayarosa47 · 5 years ago

Text

Did Divorce Use To Be Illegal?

Was divorce illegal in the past?

Not only the law has changed, but also the attitude of the citizens towards divorce. Whereas it was once a forbidden practice, right now as we speak, divorce has become like the norm of the day.

Colonial Divorce

Early 20th Century

As civilization advanced, the Congress of 1887 desired to have facts and figures regarding divorce cases, just to measure the magnitude of this menace.

Past the World Wars

The 1970s

Modern Day Utah

Legal Grounds for divorce in Utah

For the fault divorces, the following are the statutory grounds for divorce in Utah:

7. Conviction of a felony – Some jail terms after committing crime may be unbearable to the other spouse, and thus they may decide to move on to a free man or woman.

9. The couples have not lived together under a decree of separate maintenance for a period of 3 years.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need legal help with a divorce in Utah, please call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Will Divorce Make Me Happy?

Offer In Compromise Or Bankruptcy

Unmarried Partners Medical Directives And The Durable Power Of Attorney For Finances

Paternity

Corporate Lawyer Park City Utah

Bankruptcy Fraud Legal Defense

from https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-use-to-be-illegal/

from Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah - Blog http://criminaldefenselawyerwestjordanutah.weebly.com/blog/did-divorce-use-to-be-illegal

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advertphoto · 5 years ago

Text

Did Divorce Use To Be Illegal?

Was divorce illegal in the past?

Not only the law has changed, but also the attitude of the citizens towards divorce. Whereas it was once a forbidden practice, right now as we speak, divorce has become like the norm of the day.

youtube

Colonial Divorce

Early 20th Century

youtube

As civilization advanced, the Congress of 1887 desired to have facts and figures regarding divorce cases, just to measure the magnitude of this menace.

Past the World Wars

The 1970s

youtube

Modern Day Utah

Legal Grounds for divorce in Utah

For the fault divorces, the following are the statutory grounds for divorce in Utah:

7. Conviction of a felony – Some jail terms after committing crime may be unbearable to the other spouse, and thus they may decide to move on to a free man or woman.

9. The couples have not lived together under a decree of separate maintenance for a period of 3 years.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need legal help with a divorce in Utah, please call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Will Divorce Make Me Happy?

Offer In Compromise Or Bankruptcy

Unmarried Partners Medical Directives And The Durable Power Of Attorney For Finances

Paternity

Corporate Lawyer Park City Utah

Bankruptcy Fraud Legal Defense

Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-use-to-be-illegal/

0 notes

asafeatherwould · 5 years ago

Text

Did Divorce Use To Be Illegal?

Was divorce illegal in the past?

Not only the law has changed, but also the attitude of the citizens towards divorce. Whereas it was once a forbidden practice, right now as we speak, divorce has become like the norm of the day.

youtube

Colonial Divorce

Early 20th Century

youtube

As civilization advanced, the Congress of 1887 desired to have facts and figures regarding divorce cases, just to measure the magnitude of this menace.

Past the World Wars

The 1970s

youtube

Modern Day Utah

Legal Grounds for divorce in Utah

For the fault divorces, the following are the statutory grounds for divorce in Utah:

7. Conviction of a felony – Some jail terms after committing crime may be unbearable to the other spouse, and thus they may decide to move on to a free man or woman.

9. The couples have not lived together under a decree of separate maintenance for a period of 3 years.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need legal help with a divorce in Utah, please call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Will Divorce Make Me Happy?

Offer In Compromise Or Bankruptcy

Unmarried Partners Medical Directives And The Durable Power Of Attorney For Finances

Paternity

Corporate Lawyer Park City Utah

Bankruptcy Fraud Legal Defense

Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-use-to-be-illegal/

0 notes

divorcelawyergunnisonutah · 5 years ago

Text

Did Divorce Use To Be Illegal?

Was divorce illegal in the past?

Not only the law has changed, but also the attitude of the citizens towards divorce. Whereas it was once a forbidden practice, right now as we speak, divorce has become like the norm of the day.

youtube

Colonial Divorce

Early 20th Century

youtube

As civilization advanced, the Congress of 1887 desired to have facts and figures regarding divorce cases, just to measure the magnitude of this menace.

Past the World Wars

The 1970s

youtube

Modern Day Utah

Legal Grounds for divorce in Utah

For the fault divorces, the following are the statutory grounds for divorce in Utah:

7. Conviction of a felony – Some jail terms after committing crime may be unbearable to the other spouse, and thus they may decide to move on to a free man or woman.

9. The couples have not lived together under a decree of separate maintenance for a period of 3 years.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need legal help with a divorce in Utah, please call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Will Divorce Make Me Happy?

Offer In Compromise Or Bankruptcy

Unmarried Partners Medical Directives And The Durable Power Of Attorney For Finances

Paternity

Corporate Lawyer Park City Utah

Bankruptcy Fraud Legal Defense

from Michael Anderson https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-use-to-be-illegal/

0 notes

coming-from-hell · 5 years ago

Text

Did Divorce Use To Be Illegal?

Was divorce illegal in the past?

Not only the law has changed, but also the attitude of the citizens towards divorce. Whereas it was once a forbidden practice, right now as we speak, divorce has become like the norm of the day.

youtube

Colonial Divorce

Early 20th Century

youtube

As civilization advanced, the Congress of 1887 desired to have facts and figures regarding divorce cases, just to measure the magnitude of this menace.

Past the World Wars

The 1970s

youtube

Modern Day Utah

Legal Grounds for divorce in Utah

For the fault divorces, the following are the statutory grounds for divorce in Utah:

7. Conviction of a felony – Some jail terms after committing crime may be unbearable to the other spouse, and thus they may decide to move on to a free man or woman.

9. The couples have not lived together under a decree of separate maintenance for a period of 3 years.

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When you need legal help with a divorce in Utah, please call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

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gonnagoandrunwiththehorses · 5 years ago

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Did Divorce Use To Be Illegal?

Was divorce illegal in the past?

Not only the law has changed, but also the attitude of the citizens towards divorce. Whereas it was once a forbidden practice, right now as we speak, divorce has become like the norm of the day.

youtube

Colonial Divorce

Early 20th Century

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As civilization advanced, the Congress of 1887 desired to have facts and figures regarding divorce cases, just to measure the magnitude of this menace.

Past the World Wars

The 1970s

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Modern Day Utah

Legal Grounds for divorce in Utah

For the fault divorces, the following are the statutory grounds for divorce in Utah:

7. Conviction of a felony – Some jail terms after committing crime may be unbearable to the other spouse, and thus they may decide to move on to a free man or woman.

9. The couples have not lived together under a decree of separate maintenance for a period of 3 years.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need legal help with a divorce in Utah, please call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Will Divorce Make Me Happy?

Offer In Compromise Or Bankruptcy

Unmarried Partners Medical Directives And The Durable Power Of Attorney For Finances

Paternity

Corporate Lawyer Park City Utah

Bankruptcy Fraud Legal Defense

Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-use-to-be-illegal/

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fantasyofmemory-blog · 6 years ago

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The “Grievance Studies” hoax exposes postmodernist charlatans

On October 2, Helen Pluckrose, James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian published an article titled “Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship,” incorporating the results of a year-long effort to publish hoax articles, deliberately comprised of bunk facts and irrational and reactionary conclusions, in academic journals associated with gender, racial and identity studies.

The results expose the intellectual bankruptcy of identity politics and postmodernist philosophy. Their proponents, who dominate university humanities departments worldwide, are charlatans who have published or given favorable “revise and resubmit” comments to the most absurd and vulgar pseudo-scientific arguments.

These include: a purported 1,000-hour study of dog “humping” patterns at dog parks that concludes by calling for human males to be “trained” like dogs to prevent rape culture; a long-form poem produced through a teenage angst poetry generator about women holding spiritual-sexual “moon meetings” in a secret “womb room” and praying to a “vulva shrine;” a proposal to develop feminist robots, trained to think irrationally, to control humanity and subjugate white men; and additional articles relating to male masturbation. Another proposal, which was praised by reviewers in a paper that was ultimately rejected, encouraged teachers to place white students in chains to be shamed for their “white privilege.”

There is an element of humor in the fact that such drivel could win accolades from academics and journals. The “dog park” article was even selected as one of the most influential contributions in the history of the Gender, Place and Culture journal!

But the implications of the study are deadly serious. Pluckrose, Lindsay and Boghossian have confirmed the right-wing political essence of identity politics and postmodernist thought, based on anti-Marxism, irrationalism and the rejection of the Enlightenment and objective truth.

Most chillingly, the authors also submitted a re-write of a chapter from Hitler’s Mein Kampf, with language altered to reference female identity and feminism. The paper, titled “Our struggle is my struggle: solidarity feminism as an intersectional reply to neoliberal and choice feminism,” was accepted for publication and greeted with favorable reviews.

“I am extremely sympathetic to this article’s argument and its political positioning,” one academic wrote. Another said, “I am very sympathetic to the core arguments of the paper.”

In the wake of their public disclosure, Pluckrose, Lindsay and Boghossian have come under attack by the proponents of postmodernism and identity politics, who claim the hoax is a right-wing attack on “social justice” disciplines.

Typical is the argument of Daniel Engber, who wrote in Slate: “How timely, too, that this secret project should be published in the midst of the Kavanaugh imbroglio—a time when the anger and the horror of male anxiety is so resplendent in the news. ‘It’s a very scary time for young men,’ Trump told reporters on the very day that Pluckrose, Lindsay, and Boghossian went public with their hoax. Both express a fear of false attacks on men, whether levied by regretful sluts, lefty liberals, radical academics, or whoever else.”

In reality, the hoax has exposed the fact that it is the proponents of identity politics who are advancing views parallel to the far right. While they are enraged with those who voice concern about the elimination of due process and the presumption of innocence for the targets of the #MeToo campaign, they are unbothered by the fact that the writings of Adolf Hitler are published and praised in feminist academic circles.

Pluckrose, Lindsay and Boghossian are self-described liberals who are concerned that the present identity hysteria is “pushing the culture war to ever more toxic and existential polarization,” by fanning the flames of the far right. As a result, identitarians are “affecting activism on behalf of women and racial and sexual minorities in a way which is counterproductive to equality aims by feeding into right-wing reactionary opposition to those equality objectives.”

In contrast, the authors’ aim is to “give people—especially those who believe in liberalism, progress, modernity, open inquiry, and social justice—a clear reason to look at the identitarian madness coming out of the academic and activist left and say, ‘No, I will not go along with that. You do not speak for me.’”

The hoax’s authors are correct to link the identity politics proponents’ hostility to equality with their opposition to rationalism, scientific analysis and the progressive gains of the Enlightenment. But the roots of this right-wing, irrationalist, anti-egalitarian degeneration are to be found in the economic structure of capitalist society.

The academic architects of postmodernism and identity politics occupy well-paid positions in academia, often with salaries upwards of $100,000–$300,000 or more. As a social layer, the theoreticians of what the World Socialist Web Site refers to as the “pseudo-left” are in the wealthiest 10 percent of American society. Their political and philosophical views express their social interests.

The obsession with “privilege,” sex, and racial and gender identity is a mechanism by which members and groups within this layer fight among themselves for income, social status and positions of privilege, using degrees of “oppression” to one up each other in the fight for tenure track jobs, positions on corporate or non-profit boards, or election to public office. A chief purpose of the #MeToo campaign, for example, is to replace male executives and male politicians with women, while ignoring the social needs of the vast majority of working class women.

The weaponization of identity politics is directed down the social ladder as well. By advancing the lie that white workers benefit from “white privilege,” for example, the proponents of identity politics argue: the spoils of Wall Street should not go to meeting the social needs of the working class, including white workers, who face record rates of alcoholism, poverty, opioid addiction, police violence and other indices of social misery. Instead, the world’s resources should go to me. It is this visceral class hatred that serves as the basis for absurd and reactionary arguments like those advanced in the hoax papers.

Nor have the politics of racial identity improved the material conditions for the vast majority of minority workers. Inequality within racial minorities has increased alongside the introduction of affirmative action programs and the increasing dominance of identity politics in academia and bourgeois politics. In 2016, the top 1 percent of Latinos owned 45 percent of all Latino wealth, while the top 1 percent of African-Americans owned 40.5 percent and the richest whites owned 36.5 percent of white wealth.

The influence of postmodernism in academia exploded in the aftermath of the mass protests of the 1960s and early 1970s. Based explicitly on a rejection of the revolutionary role of the working class and opposition to the “meta narrative” of socialist revolution, it is not accidental that identity politics and postmodernism have now been adopted as official ideological mechanisms of bourgeois rule.

In recent decades, a massive identity politics industry has been erected, with billions of dollars available from corporate funds and trusts for journals, non-profits, publications, fellowships and political groups advancing racial or gender politics. Identity politics has come to form a central component of the Democratic Party’s electoral strategy. Imperialist wars are justified on the grounds that the US is intervening to protect women, LGBT people and other minorities.

The growing movement of the working class, broadening strikes across industries and widespread interest in socialism on college campuses pose an existential threat to the domination of postmodernism. Pluckrose, Lindsay and Boghossian have struck a well-timed blow against this reactionary obstacle to the development of scientific socialist consciousness.

Eric London via WSWS

#gender #race #identity #postmodernism #culture

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how2to18 · 7 years ago

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This piece will be appearing in the next issue of the Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly Journal: Comedy Issue, No. 17

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“Laughs exude from all our mouths.” — Hélène Cixous

“Comedy, you broke my heart.” — Lindy West

IN A BIT about sexual violence in his 2010 concert film Hilarious (recorded in 2009), the now-infamous Louis C.K. says: “I’m not condoning rape, obviously — you should never rape anyone. Unless you have a reason, like if you want to fuck somebody and they won’t let you.” I was delighted when I first encountered this joke on Jezebel in July 2012 in a post called “How to Make a Rape Joke.” Lindy West was responding to the social media controversy surrounding American comedian Daniel Tosh, who had recently taunted a female heckler with gang rape. West’s insightful essay later led to a 2013 TV debate with comedian Jim Norton as well as her best-selling memoir, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, where she describes the fallout of becoming one of the United States’s best-known feminist comedy commentators, including her subsequent, painful decision to stop going to comedy shows.

In “How to Make a Rape Joke,” West wondered whether it is ever okay to approach sexual violence with humor. She wrote that she understood and respected those, like the woman who called out Tosh, for whom it wasn’t, categorically. The sexual assault of women poses a special problem for comedy, she reasoned, because it is an expression of structural discrimination against women. That is, unlike misfortunes such as cancer and dead babies known to befall people at random, if you’re a woman, not only do you face a one in three chance of becoming a target of sexual violence, but you will also likely be held at least partly responsible for it. To illustrate the inappropriateness of jokes about this kind of a situation, she drew a comic analogy between patriarchal society and a place where people are regularly mangled by defective threshing machines and then blamed for their own deaths: “If you care […] about humans not getting threshed to death, then wouldn’t you rather just stick with, I don’t know, your new material on barley chaff (hey, learn to drive, barley chaff!)?” Compassion about a culturally loaded form of suffering would seem, automatically and intuitively, to preclude humor about it. Yet West’s own humorous reframing demonstrated what she ultimately decided: that you could be funny about sexual violence if you “DO NOT MAKE RAPE VICTIMS THE BUTT OF THE JOKE.” In particular, Louis C.K.’s rape joke then earned West’s stamp of approval because, in her words:

[It] is making fun of rapists — specifically the absurd and horrific sense of entitlement that accompanies taking over someone else’s body like you’re hungry and it’s a delicious hoagie. The point is, only a fucking psychopath would think like that, and the simplicity of the joke lays that bare.

Though her recent New York Times piece “Why Men Aren’t Funny” makes it clear that West now regards her defense of Louis C.K. as a relic, her sharp distinction between acceptable and unacceptable jokes in “How to Make a Rape Joke” set the standard for mainstream feminist discussions of comedy for a good five years.

While I find West compelling, in my own efforts to navigate the contemporary feminist ethics of humor throughout this period, I’ve been resisting the impulse to draw limits. Instead, I’ve been looking back to the debates over sexuality that were central to North American feminism in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During the so-called sex wars, feminists agreed that sexuality had always been held in a patriarchal stranglehold but disagreed about what to do about it. The Women Against Pornography saw explicit sexual representations as the very basest mechanisms of female sexual oppression and so focused their energy on educating the public about their harms and prosecuting pornographers. By contrast, sex-positive feminists, as they came to be known, claimed that trying to shut down or cordon off unacceptable expressions of sexuality only exacerbated the problem. They argued that the history of criminalization and widespread fear of any sex but the reproductive, romantic, married kind had not only led to the marginalization of sex workers, lesbians, gay men, trans people, and many other so-called sexual deviants, but also cast sexuality as such into the shadows. Targeting pornography was therefore counterproductive. As Susie Bright, vocal defender of the sex-positivity movement and founder of the first women-run erotic magazine, put it:

porn [can be] sexist. So are all commercial media. [Singling out porn for criticism is] like tasting several glasses of salt water and insisting only one of them is salty. The difference with porn is that it is people fucking, and we live in a world that cannot tolerate that image in public.

Sex-positive feminists actively chose not to contribute to this climate of moral panic, focusing instead on unearthing the deeply embedded mainstream prejudices around sexual practices and fantasies. Instead of turning away, they faced sexuality head on, acknowledging debts to the small minority of people — sexologists, fetishists, queers, sex workers, erotic performers, and indeed pornographers — who had already begun exploring human sexuality in all its complexity, often with little socioeconomic support and at the risk of criminal charges. By many accounts, it was this unabashed approach to sex that led to the development and popularization of safe-sex protocols and consent education later in the 1980s.

There are of course, limits to the comparison of sex and humor, especially given that the impact of hetero-patriarchy on sex is much more immediately visible. Nevertheless, I would suggest that sexuality and humor are not merely analogous, but are in fact overlapping categories of feminist experience. Both are understood to be culturally coded but with powerful bases in the body. Like sex, laughter has historically been considered an unruly instinct, even by the very philosophers who have most rigorously examined it. As scholars like Anca Parvulescu, John Morreall, and Linda Mizejewski have variously shown, the stigma of humor, like that of sex, has been intricately interwoven with its designation as an irrational impulse and with gendered and racialized notions of embodiment. Moreover, there is a shared double standard regarding both laughter and sex: both have been imagined, paradoxically, as things that men have to cajole “respectable” (implicitly white, cisgendered, pretty, heterosexual) women to do and, at the same time, as things that transgressive women instinctively want to do, in excess. The dangers of both sex and humor have been encapsulated in the figure of a woman open-mouthed and out of control. In the early ’80s, the influential sexuality scholar Gayle Rubin observed that the most common symptom of our culture’s general fear of sex, or “sex negativity” as she called it, is the very impulse “to draw and maintain an imaginary line between good and bad sex.” That is, while various mainstream discourses of sex differ from one another in terms of the value systems they deploy and their level of overt misogyny, their views of sex are, ultimately, remarkably uniform: “Most of the discourses on sex, be they religious, psychiatric, popular, or political, delimit a very small portion of human sexual capacity as sanctifiable, safe, healthy, mature, legal, or politically correct” and, once the lines are drawn, “[o]nly sex acts on the good side […] are accorded moral complexity.” Wary of simply rerouting sexual shame, sex-positive feminists instead actively cultivated a nonjudgmental stance.

This might seem the worst possible moment to advocate for an equivalent form of humor positivity, let alone with reference to a joke about sexual violence by Louis C.K. In the wake of the public exposure of numerous celebrity serial sexual abusers such as Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, the viral #MeToo campaign has uncovered thousands of male harassers and abusers, and pointed to millions of others as yet unnamed. Since C.K. confirmed reports of his nonconsensual exhibitionism, some of the feminist anger and despair that was already rippling across popular and social media is being directed specifically at the industry that gave him his power. Many mainstream feminists, not least West herself, feel more prepared now than ever to throw the bathwater of comedy out along with the many baby-men who have been cavorting in it. Yet, as I see it, it is precisely in the context of our well-justified outrage that humor positivity is most needed. Humor is a vital, elusive, and continually evolving aspect of human experience. Like sex, it has repeatedly served oppressive ends, but it is no more essentially or necessarily discriminatory an impulse than sexuality is. It is undoubtedly important that we probe and resist the misogynist culture of mainstream comedy. At the same time I propose a change in the way we personally and collectively engage with the material this industry trades in — that is, the jokes themselves.

How might we ensure compatibility between the jokes we hear or make and the tools and concepts that shape our responses? How can we prevent our resistance to certain jokes from reproducing the (historically patriarchal) marginalization and stigmatization of the desire to laugh? If we get used to approaching jokes with trepidation, expecting offense, how might that wariness affect our political movements? In the current feminist conversation, these questions have begun to be raised in, for instance, Cynthia Willett, Julie Willett, and Yael D. Sherman’s “The Seriously Erotic Politics of Feminist Laughter,” Jack Halberstam’s “You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma,” Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai’s “Comedy Has Issues,” and Berlant’s “The Predator and the Jokester.” My sense is that what we especially need now are some clear and concrete principles and practices for humor-positive feminism. Here are three lines of inquiry that I hope may help us to develop a richer set of responses to comedy going forward.

Can we develop a more complex and flexible view of humor’s power dynamics?

One of the major contributions of sex-positive feminism to our current understanding of sexuality was the recognition of seemingly counterintuitive forms of agency from below. Sex-positive feminists showed us the through line between the patriarchal suspicion of sexuality and certain feminist critiques of sexual exploitation. Though the fear of sex was originally and widely promulgated in medical, religious, and legal discourses, some of the alternative schemas of anti-porn feminists heightened the idea that most sex is inherently terrifying. For instance, Catharine MacKinnon’s view that “the social relation between the sexes is organized so that men may dominate and women must submit and this relation is sexual — in fact, is sex” — while it helpfully exposes sexual violence as a structural problem — also makes it impossible to distinguish consensual heterosexuality from rape. Sex-positive feminists turned to the less moralistic disciplinary frameworks of sexology, sociology, and anthropology. Inspired in part by the subversive theories of power of French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault, they insisted that saying yes or no to sexual contact, including sexual domination, was a fundamental form of sexual participation. Moreover, they saw that the patterns of giving, taking, and sharing power through sex are much more various and unpredictable than — and sometimes run counter to — the arrangements delimited by basic socioeconomic and patriarchal paradigms.

A first step for developing a similarly nuanced take on the power relations entailed in humor could be examining and loosening up our often-unconscious obsession with the cruelty of laughter. In the philosophy of humor there are at least three ways of characterizing laughter, which can help to parse the differences between various jokes, as well as modes of delivery and reception. Today humor philosophers are most convinced by the idea, first fully elaborated in the 18th century, that laughter is a response to incongruity: something familiar suddenly looks strange, and the resulting sense of surprise pleases us. Another branch of humor theory draws on psychoanalytic notions of the unconscious. Relief theorists, most famously Freud, have emphasized the way that jokes, like dreams, trick us into considering ideas that we normally repress: laughter specifically manifests the giddiness of released inhibitions. These two modern theories of humor are largely compatible. Amusement does not necessarily degrade its objects but may imaginatively reframe or transform them, circulating power between tellers, laughers, and their objects in any number of ways.

The oldest and still most popular notion of humor, however, is one that presupposes and depends on hierarchical and unidirectional power relations. Superiority theory perceives laughter as the expression of unexpected pleasure at discovering our own excellence relative to the things we laugh at. In Thomas Hobbes’s famous formulation, “Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others.” Superiority theory initially emerged alongside and is consistent with explicitly elitist political ideologies. It may be the only theory of humor children instinctively grasp: even at an early age, the phrase “That’s not funny!” is understood to mean not what it literally implies — “What you’ve said is not amusing to me and could never amuse anyone” — but rather “That hurts my feelings.” For kids, joking about the wrong thing is an ethical violation; it simply moots the possibility of laughing. These days, distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable jokes seem to put a modern, grown-up face on superiority theory. But jokes labeled as “offensive” or “inappropriate” are determined to be “not funny” in more or less the same way that kids mean it. The tropes that oppose “punching up” to “punching down,” coined in the early 1990s by the feminist satirist Molly Ivins, have been crucial in the popularization and liberalization of superiority theory. Those phrases also put a deceptively simple spatial spin on the relative socioeconomic power of laughers and objects. Reinforcing a David and Goliath moral code, the tropes imply that jokes are crucially aggressive in form, but that in some cases violence is justified. It’s okay — heroic even — to take on a bigger meaner guy, but undoubtedly a bad thing to pick on someone littler and weaker than you.

Of course, jokes can be hurtful, sometimes intentionally so. However, taking cues from sex-positive feminists, we might want to stop simply assuming that they are. Just as consensual sexual relations of domination and submission may look like abuse to those who don’t understand the rules, so might some apparently mean jokes. Think of insult comedy or a roast, where the target welcomes the jokes that really sting. But the larger and more important point is that, more than any other factor, our theories of humor will determine our perception of any joke and of the social and political arenas in which they are being made. Keeping our minds open to the possibility that surprise or relief rather than aggression may be the primary affect or intention will better equip us to see the various, potentially contradictory, facets of any comic provocation. Mainstream feminist critics have specific reasons for rejecting jokes about sexual violence: for some survivors suffering from post-traumatic stress, the power dynamics of humor and of assault can sometimes feel so painfully intertwined that certain jokes are experienced as violations akin to the initial trauma. Yet it is precisely because the very perception of aggression can recharge past suffering that it seems important to remember humor’s other impulses. Recently, artists like Emma Cooper, Heather Jordan Ross, Adrienne Truscott, and Vanessa Place are turning to humor expressly in an effort to destigmatize the experiences of sexual assault survivors and change the tone of our conversation. How might a more general focus on humor as incongruity or relief also help to reduce the frequency or intensity of fight-or-flight responses and open up new aesthetic, therapeutic, and political prospects?

Can we develop a more thoroughgoing and flexible view of the rhetorical and performative aspects of humor?

In recent years, I’ve often been surprised to hear irony or ambiguity denounced in feminist humor criticism, as though it would be possible, if people would just say what they really mean, to be assured of a perfectly direct transmission of ideas or a fully inclusive joke. For example, in her study of the dangers of rape jokes, Lara Cox reiterates the superiority theory view that the pleasure of irony depends on “the idea that there is someone out there who won’t ‘get’ the nonliteral nature of the utterance” — and these dupes are “the joke’s ‘butts’ or ‘targets.’” In his study of race humor, Simon Weaver distinguishes between polysemous jokes, which inadvertently reinforce racism, and clear jokes, whose antiracist message cannot be mistaken. I worry that such arguments seem to disavow the fundamental slipperiness of language. Contributing in their own way to North American sex positivity, Frenchpoststructuralist feminists such as Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous underscored that words have never been equipped for transparent representation. While many jokes do depend on linguistic play, comedians are not responsible for the essential arbitrariness of their medium. Words will always interact and impinge on one another; signification will always be subjectively, historically, and politically inflected, by both speakers and listeners, in myriad ways. Reminding ourselves of the basic wildness of language — and the range of meanings and identities that this wildness makes imaginable, especially in jokes — can temper our anxiety about the inevitability of misinterpretation.

At the same time, let’s attend more carefully to the theatricality of humor, including the jokes and quips that bubble up spontaneously as part of ordinary conversation. In particular, stand-up comedians are in character even when they speak as themselves, and many comedians regularly adopt multiple personas, some of whom channel views that they find especially awful or absurd. Very often these views are already in the air, and the comedian, by giving voice to popular perceptions, hopes to draw fresh attention to them. Moreover, comedians tend not to put on and take off these various personas like so many hats, but rather to alternate and layer them, turning some up and others down, as if each one was a different translucent projection on a dimmer switch. These uneven amplifications of characterization actually generate the dialogic structure of comic performance, as stand-up scholar Ian Brodie explains: “The audience is expected to try to determine what is true [that is, closest to what the comedian generally thinks] and what is play. The comedian[’s] […] aim is […] to deliver whatever will pay off with laughter.” Staying conscious of these shifts will help us to recognize that the most challenging moments — those moments when we don’t know quite where to locate a comedian’s values and commitments — are not incidental but central to the interpersonal dynamics of stand-up comedy.

How can we expand our theories of laughter’s social conditions and effects?

Our most definitive and intense experiences of laughter tend to be in groups of three or more. For most of us, sex and humor are different in this respect. And humor theorists have written very engagingly about the feelings of communion potentially generated through laughter. Ted Cohen writes, for example, that laughing together “is the satisfaction of a deep human longing, the realization of a desperate hope. It is the hope that we are enough like one another to sense one another, to be able to live together.” However, as Robert Provine and others argue, we have so much more to learn about humor’s social aspirations, from the vantage of evolutionary biology, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and many other disciplines besides. Feminists will have a lot to contribute to this inquiry, not least because we know to be skeptical of any account of collective social experience that neglects to factor in the uneven distribution of socioeconomic resources and respect and because we are acutely aware of the likelihood of exclusion and humiliation within any diverse group, and the likelihood that these bad feelings will remain invisible to the most entitled people in the room.

As we help to flesh out our understanding of the social benefits and costs of humor, however, I hope we will get better at waiting for the initial wash of feeling to pass before assigning political positions and moral values to jokes, their tellers, and our own and others’ responses. Drawing on the insights of cultural studies, some pro-porn feminists have recently been exploring the consumers’ prerogative in shaping their reception of any sexual representation, regardless of its intended public. In an essay called “Queer Feminist Pigs: A Spectator’s Manifesta,” Jane Ward contemplates her taste for mainstream porn and proposes that,

We need […] a means of “queering” porn that doesn’t rely on filmmakers to deliver to us imagery already stamped with the queer seal of approval, and that doesn’t automatically equate queer viewers with queer viewing. […] Can we watch sexist porn and still have feminist orgasms?

Many of the most successful comedians purposely write material that can reach very different audiences. What if we were to recognize that as listeners or consumers of jokes we have a comparable level of freedom in determining a joke’s meaning, of finding a place from which the joke can be funny to us? Adapting Ward’s question, we might consider: “Can we have a feminist laugh at a discriminatory joke?” Especially given the current state of US and world politics, some humor researchers have been perturbed to discover that certain satires appeal to both progressive and conservative viewers alike. But if humor, like sex, can make strange bedfellows, that capacity to bring people together may be something not — or not only — to fear, but also something to maximize strategically and even celebrate. Even when we’re laughing for different reasons, couldn’t the fact that we’re doing so across too-familiar divides be invigorating in unpredictable ways?

To consider how humor-positive feminism might differ from the censuring approach that is dominant now, let’s return to C.K.’s 2009 joke. It starts with a basic prohibition — “I’m not condoning rape, obviously — you should never rape anyone” — then follows with a rationalization of nonconsensual sex that completely overrides that prohibition: “Unless you have a reason, like if you want to fuck somebody and they won’t let you.” The statements contradict one another and the speaker’s casual diction suggests that he has made a habit of justifying acts of criminal violence. In 2012, West’s superiority theory of humor dictated that her central critical task was to work out who was most hurt by this crazy illogic and determine whether or not that hurt was deserved. She implicitly centered the shift in C.K.’s delivery from one statement to the next, reading these lines as a joke that mocked the perpetrator-persona’s twisted thinking. Feminists had permission to laugh, and in fact wanted to laugh, she argued then, because we felt confident that all of us, including C.K. himself, were not just much nicer but also much smarter than the asshole he was briefly inhabiting on stage. However, C.K.’s recent confirmed sexual misconduct has thoroughly destroyed this version of the joke by eroding the distinction between C.K.’s own voice and that of his perpetrator-persona. As playful distance has given way to painful alignment, the liberal superiority theory must seek a new target. From this vantage, the 2009 joke — insofar as it can still be construed as an utterance capable of eliciting laughter — has to be recognized for what it actually always was: a trivialization of rape.

When West was writing “How to Make a Rape Joke” in 2012, C.K. was appreciated by feminists for regularly raising difficult questions about white heterosexual male privilege. This status provided an important touchstone for West’s feeling that his rape joke, unlike many others, was critical of rape culture: “Louis CK has spent 20 years making it very publicly clear that he is on the side of making things better.” Already by the time she was writing her memoir, however, West had stopped actively defending this joke — “I should have been harder on Louis CK, whom I basically let off on a technicality.” In recent weeks, C.K. has been made a symbol of one of the most insidiously misogynist formal features of confessional stand-up comedy: the way the whole audience is made to share in the comedian’s personal shame. According to this revised binary feminist view, everyone who ever laughed at this joke bears some responsibility for pain it may have caused to assault survivors and for contributing to rape culture.

But is it necessary — or advisable — to turn against our desire to laugh, even as we shift our attention away from C.K. himself? A humor-positive feminist frame invites us to remember the other laughs that we have lost now that C.K. and his perpetrator-persona are not fully distinguishable. We can see that it was previously available as a relief joke that provocatively illustrated the kind of exceptionalism to which we are all capable of falling prey. And as an explicitly anti-sexist incongruity joke, about the tendency of oft-repeated prohibitions to become empty slogans, especially where endemic, shame-inducing patterns of sexual violence are concerned. Paradoxically, though C.K.’s long history of abuse has destroyed his credibility as a critic of the ineffectiveness of liberal platitudes, it also proves the urgent necessity of the kind of critique he was trying to offer.

In December 2017, as I write this, a humor-positive frame also allows us to turn C.K.’s lines into a dark feminist superiority joke that, instead of stressing our own pain and disappointment, capitalizes on the situational irony here. This once-celebrated self-exposer has been exposed as yet another man with a consent problem. That is, since his accusers bravely went public and Louis C.K. affirmed their reports, the coyness of the original lines may be unraveled through a revenge joke: like a deranged wooden puppet, the comedian punches up at himself much harder than he intends. Feminist humorist Jill Gutowitz effectively put this metajoke into circulation when she posted links to C.K. telling a variety of rape jokes over the years, including the one discussed here, below the Tweet: “Surprised about Louis CK? Here’s every time he told us, to our faces, that he was a creep.” Because righteousness isn’t my favorite flavor, I don’t find this new version of the joke as funny as the one I thought that C.K. was telling in 2009. But I do like knowing that it’s going around.

Danielle Bobker is associate professor in the English Department at Concordia University in Montreal, where she is also co-organizer of a working group on Feminism and Controversial Humor.

The post Toward a Humor-Positive Feminism: Lessons from the Sex Wars appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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