tinn le gaol

Effect of Armed Conflict on Life Expectancy - Plümper and Neumayer 2006 In this study, armed conflict was demonstrated to have a statistically significant and adverse effect on women as measured by the decline in the ratio of female to male life expectancy (Plümper and Neumayer 2006). Normally women live longer than men in almost all societies, so a decrease in the gender gap is interpreted as suggesting that the direct and indirect consequences of conflict combined either kill more women or that the killed women are younger on average than the men killed. The authors therefore concluded that wars negatively affected women more than men when taking into account the entire conflict cycle.

So the takeaway is that yes, more men than women die in combat, but this is because in the vast majority of combat zones, even in recent history, women were specifically barred from being considered active combat, making them more likely to be counted among civilian casualties than military casualties. (Civilian casualties comprise approximately 90% of all war time deaths.)

Therefore the graph should look more like this (assuming the highest ratio of military:civilian ratio and extrapolating it onto every single conflict ever AND accepting the numbers given above as accurate):

(please note that the gray above would be mostly female in most conflicts)

2- custody is not contested in a majority of all cases (link to another tumblr post enumerating the stats)  Men who seek custody are more likely to receive it  and abusive fathers are the most likely to seek custody. From source #2 in this bullet point:

Fathers who actively seek custody obtain either primary or joint physical custody over 70% of the time.

Therefore the graph would look more like this:

3- Child abusers are numerically more likely to be female, but when you consider that 90% of the time, child caregivers are female and only 10% of the time child caregivers are male, the likelihood of an individual female or male to abuse children is tipped in the favor of men: see here for a breakdown of the probabilities. It is p=0.77 for men and p=0.23 for women, making men nearly four times as likely to abuse children they have access to than women. Here is the graph:

4- Homicide: Homicides are also most likely to be perpetrated by men. Men commit approximately 88.7% of US homicides. So let’s make it fair:

5- Homelessness: single men are more likely than single women to become homeless. That’s where that statistic comes from. However, the stat ignores that 34% of the homeless are families, and that 84% of those families are female-headed. Homeless women are far more likely to be responsible for the care of a child under the age of 18 than homeless men (US stats only)

Women and families are also the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. 

6- Suicides. Women attempt suicide more often than men and have higher rates of mental illness. Suicide by definition is self-inflicted harm. To blame women for the actions of men (as many of these graphs actually do) is dishonest. 

7- College graduates: Until the mid-20th century most higher education was barred to women. The fact that men earned more college degrees was framed as a justification for how much more intelligent men were than women. Now, of course, that women have more of a chance to earn the same degrees, it is being painted as female privilege. Interesting how it wasn’t male privilege that keeps faculty overwhelmingly white and male. In fact let’s take a look at that: 

Bonus: breakdown of faculty by race from the same source

The Alaskan Native and Native American representation in higher learning is so low that it rounds to zero percent. In all my years of lab work, research, symposia, and interviews, I have only met one phd holder in my life who was a Native American. 

To get back to the matter at hand, however, it’s interesting how those privileged women are still primarily learning from male faculty. Also interesting is to see how many professors have successfully climbed the tenure track to reach full professor (It is in the link above; I am simply showing the breakdown of all collegiate instructors.)

8- Work place deaths. The professions with the highest workplace death incidence are also the professions where women are either officially or unofficially barred from entry. Logging, working on the oil fields, even being a female truck driver can leave women vulnerable to attack at truck stops from other truck drivers or stopping motorists. However, I will concede that more men die in the workplace than women, so long as those workplaces are legal and aboveboard. 

Women still make up the vast majority of trafficking victims, sweatshop workers, and prostitutes in the world. All of those professions, were they cataloged, would certainly rival some of the deadliest US professions. 

Bonus, for TS: Forcible rape is perpetrated by men 99.1% of the time and by women 0.9% of the time.

The john should, in theory, have every reason to worry right now. He is, for the first time, at the center of discussion. Legislators are increasingly targeting the sex buyer, or “demand” as NGOs call it. The Nordic model has been praised by the EU parliament as the most efficient legislation to curb trafficking, and the survivors’ movement is growing all around the world. Women are speaking out, as in the recently published book, Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade, about what johns really do to them. It is the first time in history that so many women are collectively revealing what goes on in the world of prostitution — a world where a man, up until now, could do almost anything with a woman and no one would find out. Those times are over — the sex buyer is becoming visible. Tension is mounting. Have we reached the point in history where a man actually has to be liked by a woman in order to get inside her pants?

Despite all this, the john remains, for the most part, silent. He does not need to speak. As always, when a man is threatened, a woman comes along to help him out. At the forefront of international “sex work” discourse, we generally do not find a sex buyer, but a female academic. In any magazine, at any conference, at any event where the john is to be even remotely criticized — a pro-prostitution female academic is there to defend him.

Who is she? Well, she calls herself “subversive,” “revolutionary,” even “feminist.” That is exactly why the john needs her as his ambassador. A defense of prostitution coming from this woman makes prostitution look queer, LGBT-friendly, modern, fair trade, socialist — the very epitome of female liberation. But most importantly, when she speaks, we forget that the sex buyer exists.

The tacit agreement between the john and the pro-prostitution female academic is that she will do anything to defend his acts, while ensuring that he stays in the shadows. She will speak incessantly about prostitution, but never mention him. Her task is to make sure prostitution seems like an all-female affair. The queer academic will use the prostituted woman as a shield, blocking the john from the limelight. She will use the prostituted woman any way she can — analyzing her, re- and deconstructing her, holding her up as a role model, and using her as a microphone (i.e. a career booster), thereby positioning her as “good” vs. the “evil” feminist.

This move perfectly mimics prostitution itself: the prostitute is visible, standing on the street or in a bar, while the buyer only visits and leaves — there is no shame attached to him, and no myths surrounding him. The function of the queer academic is to ensure things stay that way.

What we are dealing with here is a defense of prostitution constructed of a double shield. Anyone wanting to debate prostitution will have a hard time getting to the john, since the female pro-prostitution academic and the “sex worker” are standing in between. Any attempt to speak to what the john does, says, or thinks will bounce back into discussions of female identities and become a cat-fight in an alley of mirrors.

This academic has her own definition of intellectual debate. When she speaks, she calls it “listening.” According to her, she doesn’t actually speak in favor of prostitution, she merely “listens to sex workers.” The louder she speaks, the more proof that she “listens.” When someone opposed to prostitution speaks, however, she calls it “silencing.”

The emergence of the survivors’ movement has, however, shown that this “listening” is anything but unconditional. When survivors of prostitution speak out against prostitution, the queer academic either does not listen, or actively debates against them. Here it is revealed that the person she really defends is not “sex workers” at all, but the john.

She is the type who will start a Twitter storm if a man is caught “mansplaining” or “manspreading,” if someone calls her “sweetie,” or states that women get pregnant instead of “people.” One must wonder how her outrage at details can co-exist with her complete callousness towards an industry which is, according to studies, the most deadly one women could be in.

We must not forget that for her, just like for the john, a woman in prostitution is and remains an “other” type of woman. Sure, she’ll adopt a tone of admiration where the john has a tone of contempt, but the meaning is the same.

Here is the truth: the function of this academic is not that of a revolutionary or a feminist — she is not trying to defend women — rather, she is the sex buyer’s nanny. One of the oldest patriarchal functions that exists. She soothes him when he is worried and takes on his enemies. She makes sure nobody will take away his toys, whatever he does to them.

Remember, the live-in nanny of yesteryear always treated the son of the house as simultaneously master and child — obeying him, cleaning up after him, and letting him cry on her lap. The nanny, more than any other character in patriarchy, is the understanding woman. She cannot stand to see her young master hungry — he will always eat before she eats — but she does not treat him as a man with responsibilities. No matter his age, he will always remain a boy who can’t help what he does. This function has allowed men of the upper classes to be bosses and reckless children all at once. One cannot understand patriarchy without understanding how the nanny has shaped the upper echelons of masculinity.

The john embodies exactly this type. He is the man who will command and expect his every whim to be catered to, but will not take responsibility for what he does. If he ruins other people’s lives, spreads STDs to women in prostitution and to his wife, contributes to the organized slave trade — so what? Not his problem.

Today’s john might not have a literal nanny anymore, but what he has found in the female pro-prostitution academic is akin to it: A “queer” nanny who soothes his worries, takes care of his needs, and defends him against the outside world.

The john can go on bragging about his business trips and all the “whores” he’s going to fuck, though he would never accept his daughter becoming one (nor would he, for that matter, marry one). He can watch porn but forbid his girlfriend to “act slutty,” and never will his nanny hold him accountable. She will never enter the online forums where sex buyers discuss and “review” the women and girls they pay to inform these johns that, “Actually the term is ‘sex worker,’ not hooker.” She will never scold him for stigmatizing or having double standards. Men are men, after all…

Well, if that’s the case, let them grow up and speak for themselves. If buying sex is such a great thing, let the men come forth and say what they do and why — in their own words, the same words they use when they go to brothels. And when survivors call johns out, step aside. Don’t let these men cling to your skirt for protection. Queer nannies of the world, are you even paid to act as sex buyers’ ambassadors? Or are you volunteering for them — protecting them from accountability, responsibility, and maturity — as women have always done?

Queer nanny, it’s time to resign — you too deserve a better fate.

—

Isadora Duncan

“It involves cutting off much of the female genitalia when the little girl is 5 or 6 years old in order to prevent her from experiencing sexual pleasure… Activist and FGM survivor Aayan Hirsi Ali (one of my personal heroes) explains here the five different variations of female genital mutilation.”

1. The ‘nick’: The girl is held down, her legs pushed apart and a needle is used to prick her clitoris. The incision is similar to a finger prick test for diabetes, blood comes out and the girl is considered ‘cleansed’. Often there is a ritual with a little party to celebrate the procedure.

2. ‘Female circumcision’: The second method in terms of severity is often compared to male circumcision. The hood of the clitoris is cut off, in some cases the tip of the clitoris is cut off, known as clitoridectomy. In this form, an otherwise normally functioning body part is sliced off and thrown out. Disfiguring a little girl’s genitals in this way cannot rationally be considered anything but mutilation.

3. Intermediate infibulation: In the third form of FGM, as much of the clitoris as possible is dug out and removed. The inner labia are cut off and the outer labia are sewn together leaving two small holes for urination and menstruation. In places where this is done without ‘medical intervention’ girls have been known to bleed to death. After infibulation is done it is imperceptible what has taken place when the girl stands up with her legs together, but in the obstetrician’s position it is clearly visible that parts of her genitals have been removed and sewn up.

4. Total infibulation: In the fourth type of FGM the clitoris and inner labia are cut off and the outer labia are cut or scraped off too, then sewn up. When the girl stands, even with her legs closed, her genitals clearly look different.  

5. Vaginal fusing: In the fifth type of FGM, which is rarely discussed, all of the fourth type is done and then the inner walls of the vagina are scratched to cause bleeding and the sewing is again done. The girl’s feet are tied together in an effort to fuse the two sides of the vagina with scar tissue to close it up. Children can die undergoing this.

David and Venus de Milo Art earrings