Noli Irritare Leones

Someone in a list I’m on mentioned the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah.” I’ve wanted to learn this song for a while, so I’m saving links to the lyrics, and to Jeff Buckley singing it. (There’s also a Youtube of Leonard Cohen singing it, but for a couple of reasons, I have a harder time singing along with him. I think part of it is that he’s singing lower than Buckley, and part that he’s more acting it than singing it.)

More random Firefly stuff: one of my favorite Kayley scenes is where she’s at the ball, all dressed up in this grand ruffled ballroom dress, and is wowing a group of men by displaying her knowledge of engines. Go, Kayley!

More on It’s the Rage, the DVD I wrote about seeing last week. I suppose – spoiler alert! – that what really got to me about the movie was the way the Andre Braugher character’s doom came (do I spoiler it too much if I say the two timing lawyer is dead by the end of the movie? it has guns and several people die in it) – not so much that he died but the way it all came down. Broadway World, announcing that the play on which the film was based is soon to be showing, says that the film won seven awards at the Milan International Film Festival. But then, which character one identifies with makes a big difference in how one sees any film.

Also, Hamlet’s opening in Central Park on June 17th.

Eve on Marriage Debate linked this interesting piece by Dale Carpenter on whom the California same-sex marriage decision cited and why. Elsewhere, Dale Carpenter points out an interview with the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court about the decision.

Bitch!: Those of you who are following the political horse race sites on the Web have probably heard about the business where GOP consultant Alex Castellanos thinks it’s “accurate” to sometimes call a woman a “bitch.” Matt Yglesias takes on the bitch issue, in a rather abstract and academic (but on target) way, in a post on thick moral concepts.

To perhaps overanalyze, the trouble here is that “bitch” is what they call a “thick moral concept” in the philosophy game. A “thin” moral concept purely expresses a judgment — so you might say something was “good” or “bad” and that doesn’t carry any descriptive content apart from the ethical evaluation. But there are also thick moral concepts like “brave.” To call an act “brave” is to praise it, just like calling it “good” is, but it’s not merely to praise it — you might agree that someone has done something praiseworthy but still say “brave” is an inappropriate description because it didn’t involve risk in the right kind of way.

One of the ways in which sexism in our society works is that there are several highly-gendered thick moral concepts of which “bitch” and “slut” are probably the most salient….

And the thing that’s really weird is the way his commenters immediately jump on him, wondering where on earth he could get this pointy-headed academic out of touch idea that there could be anything sexist about calling a woman a “bitch.” Several argue that “asshole” is a gendered male equivalent, men, evidently, being called “asshole” for exactly the same sorts of things that get women called “bitch,” so that the words are like, say, actor/actress, mildly gendered terms for unpleasant people.

In real life, of course, here’s how I’ve actually heard the word “bitch” used: 1) any woman who turns down a man’s sexual overtures, whether she be blunt or tactful in doing so, 2) a woman who’s particularly aggressive and outspoken (it’s in this sense that it would be “accurate” to call Hillary Clinton a “bitch” – the more positive way of naming those same character traits of hers would be words like “tough” or “a fighter”), 3) “my bitch/your bitch” – subordinate, with connotations, when applied to a man, that the man is being emasculated, 4) a woman or gay man who is whiny, catty, or indirectly aggressive. So, you know, if you tell me that this is simply a word that can be “accurately” applied to a woman, with no sexist insinuations at all, I have to laugh at you. Some women do, indeed, reclaim “bitch” in sense 2), and you can find multiple feminist blogs with “bitch” in their names. But the normal usage of the word is pretty darn sexist.

Justice Clinton? the Economist speculates. Mori Dinauer at the Prospect argues that Obama promising Clinton a Supreme Court appointment would actually be illegal, and Jack Balkin argues that Supreme Court appointees need to be younger than Clinton, so that they can serve for a really long time.

David S. Cohen at Feminist Law Professors asks

I’ve seen a few articles over the past week in which Clinton supporters said they would not support Obama if he won the Democratic primary. And, I’ve had conversations with Obama supporters who said the same about Clinton. For both (and for full disclosure, I’m an Obama supporter), I am shocked. How could you not support the other if s/he won? If for no other reason than that Justice Stevens is 88 years old….

Ask a Working Woman Survey 2008.

THANK A SECOND WAVE (OLD) FEMINIST!

Care Talk Blog.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 8:09 am and is filed under Blogwatch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.