Boys Just Learn Faster?

After Hapkido class the other evening, I light-heartedly moaned to one of my senior-belted co-students about how there were some students in our class who had started after me who will, at the next belt test, overtake me.

I have no illusions about my own competence, and would not expect to ‘double test’ as the other students are, and my intention was really to mock my own plodding pace. Her response, however, surprised me.

She said that there are some things that ‘boys just learn faster’.

It had never occurred to me to pin my lack of progress, or the successes of the other students, on biology. I assumed that they simply came to class more or were more coordinated than I. Her comment, however, suggested that in her years in the school, she’d seen a lot of male students progress faster than the women.

Being in general the sort of person who revs up the social analysis anytime someone says something that smacks of gender determinism, I got to wondering – what could explain this, either socially or biologically?

The prevalence of women at various belt levels throughout the school, and the fact that our Saboumnim is a woman, (and the existence of accomplished professional female martial artists) quickly rubbishes the idea that men are somehow simply better at martial arts, but is it possible that in general men learn them faster?

In Hapkido at least, progress doesn’t have much to do with outright power, where men have the obvious edge of a bit more muscle mass and speed.

Hapkido is essentially learning choreographed movements (along with a philosophical side which I’ll leave for the moment).

From my limited experience in class, what you need to do well, at least in the early stages, is coordination, balance, a decent memory, focus, and a willingness to both toss people around and be tossed around.

None of these are obviously gendered traits.

I can’t speak for other women in my school, but the last of those is what I have the greatest difficulty with – although it improves with every class, I still get really rattled when people do some of the techniques on me at speed.

Despite expecting it, I still feel that in practice my opponents should be taking care not to do me harm, and pain and/or discomfort, however brief, and however instructional (or accidental), shakes my focus and makes me feel distressed. I am equally reluctant to throw myself into the techniques because I might cause pain to someone else.

It may be that for men (and I am speaking generally, obviously this is not true for all), being raised in a society where it is considered appropriate and character building for males to beat the crap out of each other throughout childhood and adolescence could preclude the mental block that I, at least, appear to have.

Years of both experience and social sanction have led them to be very comfortable both with fighting in a kind of friendly way, and with being a little beat up from time to time.

Inversely, there was never playful fist fighting between me and my female friends, and once adolescence set it, physical fights with boys, however ‘playful’ were a bit scary. Rather than getting a subconscious level of comfort with socially appropriate fisticuffs, I experience physical violence as something that girls did not do, and also as something malicious and dangerous; any physical pain deliberately caused by another person is seen as a threat. In the few self defense classes I have taken since the age of 13, the focus on ‘what to do if your rapist does this’ did nothing to mitigate that perception.

You can see how this could cause an issue in a martial arts class. My conscious mind can get behind the practice, but subconsciously, anyone who happens to be flinging me to the ground or bending my joints in the wrong direction is being mean and threatening, and it’s really difficult to fight the internal voice that’s screaming ‘get the hell out of here’.

So men, then, may have the advantage of a missing mental block, benefiting from experience that tells them men fight each other sometimes, which is ok, and fun, and it’s not anything to be scared of, whereas women are taught that fighting is mean and scary and violence is not the way etc.

There is another possible source of the male success, and it, too, is more mental than physical.

Saboumnim recently discussed in class this study, where sports performance was enhanced by the (erroneous) belief that the equipment used belonged to a professional. What this means is that one can be better if one can visualize oneself as somehow connected to someone talented in the task at hand.

Now quick, name 3 women martial artists. (Without Google).

Film and television are full of representations of male figures adept at various martial arts (like Bruce Lee) or just general butt-kicking (like Jason Bourne). As much as I enjoy martial arts films, the last time I came out of a cinema ki-yap-ing and generally playing at karate was after 3 ninjas.

After about 13, a girl absorbs that only boys get to be ninjas.

Is it possible that the men in my school also have the advantage of years of imagining themselves to be Jackie Chan, or Chuck Norris, or Jet Li?

I tend to seek out films with ladies kicking butt (Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, Jessica Alba in Dark Angel, Michelle Yeoh in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), but it’s not quite the same thing, is it? There’s a difference between being a martial artist and playing one on TV (in a sexy leather ensemble, no less).

There is by extension a possible effect on instructors; being within to the same social context as the students may result in a tendency to expect more of male students, and therefore push them further, faster. I don’t think this is the case in my class specifically, I certainly feel pushed plenty hard enough as it is, and I believe my instructor to be quite conscientious in this regard.

However I can see how in the same way that a dearth of female CEOs leads some people to think that women can’t be CEOs, a gender disparity at high belt levels could lead some to expect a difference in performance and act accordingly.

Any sport or physical discipline is largely mental, and it seems more than plausible that men might process faster and more confidently in Hapkido, and other martial arts, because they are surrounded by messages throughout their life that encourage them to think of themselves as fighters, and women may struggle more, as they fight against an experience of being female that excludes both the inclination and ability to fight.

Oh Male Privilege. You’re everywhere.

More seriously, and usefully, perhaps having made these observations, I can more consciously work around all of this social programming and start imagining myself as the heir to Bruce Lee?

Or like these ladies:

Do you hit like a girl?

Those who know me well – or rather, those who have heard me speak, ever – know that few things aggravate me more than gender-based truisms. ‘Girls are just more sensitive’, ‘boys just naturally love guns’, ‘women are just more talkative’. All of these are nonsense.

These statements, which I find so annoying, can either reflect what is considered to be a behavioral or physical truth: how people act, and how their bodies manifest. There are three problems with this kind of thinking. The first is the assumption that observed differences are genetic – due to biological sex (biological determinism), the second, that something generally true to the population on average universally applies to individuals (stereotype), and the third, that if one difference is scientifically verifiable then difference in all associated abilities or tendencies must also be true (halo effect/reverse halo effect).

In the first instance, many people assume anecdotal experience provides sufficient information for them to make assumptions about the general population. Being the parents/aunt/uncle/cousin/babysittter of a boy child and a girl child does not make you a geneticist, nor give you a representative sample. The appeal of biological determinism is that it makes things (like institutional sexism) simple. Girls just *want* to be nurses/mommies. Boys are just *made* for the cut-throat world of high-finance/hockey.

If things like difference in income or representation in government can be assumed to be a direct result of innate differences in talent and character, then there isn’t anything to be fixed. It’s just natural that women make less money and do more housework and stay at home to make babies and pies. It has nothing to do with the fact that there are social patterns that reinforce certain behaviours and punish others, nothing to do with pre-existing power structures where sexist people are in positions of power where they have the ability and inclination to empower other people who think and act like them. This holds true for racism, by the way. How many people just ‘believed’ that people of colour were ‘made’ for physical labour? How many people still do?

For things that appear to be simple physical distinctions it’s harder to notice how sexist thoughts and beliefs can be reinforced, as they masquerade as scientific truth. XX and XY chromosomes do impart physical differences, including hormonal ones. However, what often happens is that a simple physical reality, e.g. ‘adult women’s hormones fluctuate on a roughly 28 day cycle’ can be used to justify sexist beliefs which are unrelated to the physical truth through anything other than common association and connotation, e.g. ‘for 3-7 days out of the month, women are irrational/angry/hungry for chocolate’. Science is misused to reinforce a pre-existing idea about supposed behavioural distinctions between men and women.

One of the most commonly accepted facts of sex-based physical difference is that men are stronger than women. And it is true in that, on average, the distribution of muscle and fat on men makes them more powerful, pound for pound, than women. This does not mean, however, that all men are stronger than all women, or that strength goes beyond ability to lift heavy things. Recently an acquaintance made reference to the fact that men were stronger than women, and concluded that therefore he could easily knock me unconscious. Note that he immediately made the leap from physical strength to a physical contest.

I think people of any gender will agree that few things are more of an invitation to brawl than an accusation of physical weakness.

I did not, on this occasion, punch my collocutor in the face.

I did stress that in general, it was pretty difficult to knock someone out, and that, if he would but take a look around the room, he would see at least 10-15 men that I could in all likelihood easily defeat in combat by virtue of being about 20lbs heavier than they (any sex-based advantage of theirs being outweighed by the difference in size and the fact that I exercise and eat regular meals).

It is also worth pointing out that knowing how to fight confers a significant advantage above and beyond physical strength; while a 220lb male beefcake could probably bench more weight, a 150lb female with a 4th degree black belt could still, most probably, kick beefcake’s ass. Being stronger is not the same as being better in a fight; however, because there is a strong connotation between physical strength and prowess, the scientific ‘truth’ of average advantage in one is conferred to the other.

Most people don’t think they are sexist (or racist, or other kinds of bigot), but many don’t notice the ways in which their assumptions about difference justify inequality, writ large or in their smaller, everyday interactions. Any generalizations you subscribe to affect how you interact with the subjects of these assumptions as individuals.

If you think of women as physically weaker, this affects how you treat all women, in the same way that subscribing to the belief that women get irrationally angry on a regular basis means that when you encounter an angry woman, part of your thought process in response may include wondering ‘should the source of this woman’s anger be dismissed out of hand because this woman is over-reacting due to her uterus’.

Just like knowing someone’s race doesn’t give you a short cut to knowing what they like or what their strengths and weaknesses are, knowing someone’s sex is equally useless in allowing you to come to any conclusions about them. These generalizations are unhelpful stereotypes, and perpetuate social inequality by declaring it genetically inevitable.

Femininity/Masculinity is not Femaleness/Maleness

image from harpersbazaar.com

I Blame the Patriarchy has a really interesting post about how the performance of femininity is inherently problematic in that it isn’t really a choice, though perhaps the degree to which we participate is.

I don’t consider myself one who does much performing of femininity – beyond a bit of eyeliner and mascara (i.e. no heels, no uncomfortable clothes that restrict movement, etc) – though I don’t know how a video of my conversations with the world would hold up to scrutiny. I don’t think I do meek/giggly/etc, but I can’t be sure.

IBTP’s stated test for femininity is to imagine a member of the dominant class performing the action in question. If it seems asinine, then voila, we’re looking at a gendered behaviour.

Does the opposite would hold true? Would a performance of masculinity look foolish if done by a female? To some extent the female might seem tomboyish, but not mockable the same way a femininity-performing male would.

What would we say were masculine behaviours? Harassing women? Liking tools/sports/cars? Being unemotional? Being violent?

What would the world look like without gendered performance? Where people’s behaviours exclusively reflected personality and inclination rather than socially dictated roles?

Inarticulate Frustration

via urban_jungle (flickr)

Right now, there is a whole lot going on in the world that is scary and evil and makes me question the basic decency of humanity.

Muammar Gaddafi – he would be a perfect farcical caricature to mock the idea of fearless leader/glorious dictator into nonexistence if it weren’t actually horrifying that he’s been making life awful for Libyans for over 40 years and, like many other ‘leaders’ of North African countries, getting massive political benefits from powerful democratic countries eager to buy the areas natural resources without thought to the human cost.

There have been reports of violence towards the protesters in Egypt, who continue to fight for the kind of government they want.

In a stunning display of political tone-deafness, David Cameron, the UK PM, travelled to Egypt with reps from several companies that provide ‘defense services’. Arms dealers. Great timing. Those governments might be running low on ammunition. And this is on top of his entitled-posh-boy cuts to services in the UK that disproportionately affect women and not-rich people.

Similarly, budget cuts proposed in the US will disproportionately affect people of colour and the non-rich. Surprise.

Also in the US, there appears to be a war against those with wombs.
ETA: as Angry Black Bitch has just made clear, it ain’t just the ladies with all their equipment that legislators have a problem with – apologies for putting it like that. Straight up – the legislative attack is on all women, and attempts to restrict access to a variety of health care tests and treatments that have little or nothing to do with reproductive organs.

The House of Representatives passed legislation to defund Planned Parenthood.

In Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska, legislation was proposed that would essentially make killing abortion providers legal.

Slate’s William Saletan has spent several columns talking about the moral quandary of the right to abortion, in which he does that thing where he assumes fetuses have personhood and rights that supercede those of the woman it happens to be in. He also insults pro-choice activists by conflating their resistance to significant government oversight designed to limit services with a disregard for health and safety standards.

Continuing with the misogynist theme in the US, in Canada, the police comment about how the ladies should avoid dressing ‘like sluts’ to avoid rape has been followed by a judge not sentencing jail time for a convicted rapist because the rape victim was wearing heels and went into the woods with the rapist and two other people, and clearly the rapist was just ‘misreading’ signals. Yeah. Certain types of clothing obviously mean that the vagina is open to any and all comers. We’re not picky, boys, when we’ve got those red pumps on.

In other bad news the Republican legislature of Wisconsin is union busting in spite of massive protests.

Not to mention the stuff that isn’t always given attention in the media despite ongoing conflict and oppression and general nastiness.

And what do I feel capable of responding to?

This guy, another Slate.com writer who thinks that all ladies want to get married and have babies and all guys wants only sex, and that the statistical decrease in marriage rates, the existence of the pill, and some study where more men agreed to have no-strings-attached sex than women, means that men have the upper hand when it comes to relationships. And of course this is bad! And who needs to change things? The ladeez, of course, since it is their fault that they a) want marriage and babies and b) aren’t making those irresponsible man-boys grow up like they are supposed to.

The logical fallacies that abound in his article aren’t worth going through one by one, as it would take all day, but there is a lot of straw man arguing, and a lot of begging the question.

It is far easier to point out logical errors in one of a seemingly endless parade of ‘u r doing it rong ladeez’ articles designed to blame women for the supposed fall of the lifestyle that we supposedly all want, than it is to seriously contemplate the gallimaufry of circumstance, institutionalized bigotry, classism, racism, sexism, sense of entitlement, political corruption, imperialism, capitalism, and amorality leading to everything else.

Because all that bad news caused by humans doesn’t spring from rational and considered thought. There are men and a few women within various institutions which give them power over individuals, and yet where the power does not come from those individuals, but other large institutions. Those in power have a vested interest in maintaining it, usually at the expense of the individuals over who they have influence.

As the system has served they and their cronies, they assume that the underlying assumptions which guide the structure are inherently good and beneficial to all (or at least, all who matter). And depending on how much information they have access to, these beliefs are held with varying degrees of belligerent ignorance and genuine sociopathy and disregard for the people in general.

Humbug.

Rape: A Short Review

Sigh.

How many times do we have to go through this?

Let’s review:

1. There is only one cause of rape: rapists

2. The only way to prevent rape is to address the (would-be) attacker, not the victim.

3. Therefore, all statements suggesting that women should not dress like ‘sluts’ (dammit Toronto, first Rob Ford, now this), get drunk, be a journalist in a war zone, be a soldier, in or out of a war zone, etcetera, because they might get raped is illogical, offensive victim-blaming.

In summary, everyone stop looking for ‘reasons’ and ’causes’ in the victims clothing/behaviour/location/physical attributes/job description, and start looking at the individual who actually did the attacking.

(image via mencanstoprape.org)

The Politics of Sex

Happy Valentine’s Day.

In honour of this happy fertility celebration co-opted by Christians to celebrate a Saint who no one remembers anything about, I would like to relate a conversation I recently had with one of my coworkers about sex.

(Yes, a few glasses of wine after work leads to the most exciting conversations).

How this young whipper-snapper and I got on to the subject of nookie, I cannot quite remember, but I suspect it had largely to do with feminism, which often appears in my conversation.

This individual stated that he thought that, in hetero sexual relations, subjugation of the female to the male was inevitable.

I, naturally, argued that this suggested some rather awkward things about his own morality, as well as his opinion of his ladyfriend’s own agency and ownership of her own sexuality.

The main point being, if you genuinely believe that
a) there is an inevitable power imbalance and
b) it is always to your advantage and
c) we are using this dictionary definition of ‘subjugation’
- then what the hell are you doing having sex at all?

I mean that in all seriousness. To consider oneself a decent human being, how can one be in a relationship with someone believing that all of the sexual encounters create and maintain a kind of master/servant interaction? How can one believe both that one is a good person and that one is regularly lording over the person they ostensibly like/love/care for?

One of the dramatic differences in the way the sexes are treated arises from the cultural views of gendered sexual behaviour. What is important is to recognize the difference between a social construct and reality. Women have sexual feelings, and make choices about their sexual behaviours. The virgin/mother/whore thing is not real, as any stereotype is not real.

If a woman is choosing to sleep with you, it does not mean that you own her or her sexual pleasure, or that she is some kind of sexual incontinent.

The missionary position is not a metaphor for your position in life.

Healthy Marriage Improves Health

via jezebel

The Daily Mail reports that (happy) marriages keep you healthy. More so than long term relationships without the official title.

“Analysis of 148 studies of social relationships found their legal status and the amount of emotional support involved were linked to death rates, with marriage coming out on top. There is no evidence available to judge the health of people in civil partnerships,” said Dr Gallacher.
(…)
Exclusive and supportive relationships confer substantial mental and physical health benefits that grow over time.
(…)
Last year, a World Health Organisation study revealed marriage could reduce the risk of anxiety and depression and those who tied the knot were much less likely to suffer the blues than those who stayed single.

Therefore: marriage should be available to all, not just the straight folks, as it is unfairly denying potential physical and mental health advantages to a subset of the population.

Also worth noting, staying single is way better for your health than being in an unhappy relationship. (I’m looking at you Lori Gottlieb).

Blog for Choice Day

Yesterday was NARAL’s Blog for Choice Day.

I don’t currently live in the US. However, I have a lot of friends who happen to have uteruses who live there, and the right to abortion is not solely an issue for citizens and residents of the US.

As the owner and operator of a uterus myself, I think it’s important to review why abortion is important, and so contentious.

Roe v. Wade was 38 years ago. According to Wikipedia, the US Supreme Court concluded that the woman’s constitutional right to privacy covered pregnancy termination until the fetus is viable (viability tends to depend on size rather that strict developmental age, between 24 – 28 weeks), wherein the state’s right/obligation to protect the fetus’ life begins to supersede.

The philosophical difficulty is the question of when a fertilized egg becomes an individual with rights, rather than a part of the woman’s body.

This is not a person

The critical elements here are the woman’s autonomy over her person, and the medical condition or pregnancy. People opposed to abortion object to the termination of what they see as a human life, often assuming that abortion is being used as a form of birth control, and a reflection of extreme selfishness.

Let’s look at the facts, shall we?

Pregnancy takes nearly 10 months. In a healthy, normal pregnancy, one can expect several weeks of vomiting, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, mood swings, structural changes to the body (skin stretches, hips widen, etc), headaches, cramps, swelling in the legs and feet, and changes in eyesight.

Here are some possible complications of pregnancy:
- Anemia
- High blood pressure
- Pre-eclampsia (persistent headaches, flashing light, blurred vision and seeing spots, upper abdominal pain and sudden excessive lower leg swelling)
- Eclampsia (seizures and coma)
- Ectopic pregnancy (life-threatening)
- Fibroids

Here are some possible complications that can happen to the fetus:
- Downs syndrome
- Sickle cell anemia
- Tay-Sachs disease
- Phenylketonuria

(read more about these exciting conditions here)

Choosing to become pregnant is probably the biggest decision a woman can make. If a man chooses to get a woman pregnant, he may support the woman throughout the process, or be held legally responsible for some financial support, but it is physically impossible for a man to experience the same intense physical and emotional changes that result from pregnancy and birth.

A woman’s body is changed permanently, and she puts herself medically and psychologically at risk. Choosing to have children can make this process delightful and exciting. To have it forced upon you is torture.

The state has no right to force anyone to go through the process of pregnancy.

Here are some statistics on abortion rates from Guttmacher.org:

- Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.

- Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.

- 18% percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are teenagers

- Women aged 20–24 obtain 33% of all abortions, and women aged 25-29 obtain 24%.

- 54% percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant.

- About 61% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children.

The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.

Sexism and misogyny make life hard enough for women. It affects how we are educated, how we work, how much we’re paid, how we feel about ourselves, and how others treat us.

The idea that something as intimate and drastic as pregnancy has anything to do with the state is obscene. Laws that hinder and prevent abortion arise from a notion that the woman cannot be allowed complete autonomy over her body.

Such laws are inspired by a ‘morality’ that determines that a fetus has a right to life at the expense of the person carrying it. This kind of morality would not be possible in a world where women were perceived as equal to men in value and capability.

Insane Christian Proselytizers

A friend of mine recently posted this on her Facebook: a Guardian article discussing the recent revelation that Insane Clown Posse are Christians.

The only ICP I have listened to is their parody of Eminem’s Slim Shady, Slim Anus, which, as parodies go, is pretty good. I knew their lyrics were of the angry and lewd variety, but having no interest in the usual woman-hating, violent lyrics typical to gangster rap, I never bothered to listen.

Obviously, not all gangster rappers are condoning violence or hateful behavior – like any story-tellers, one should not assume all first-person narratives they create are autobiographical; however, as with poets, there is a close connection to personal experience. Gangster rap in particular reflects a particular urban American environment, and the anger, fear, and aggression that such an environment breeds. There are plenty of Christian rappers; religion, like gangs, offers a kind of security and love in a very insecure and loveless environment.

What makes this particular article worth response, I think, is how absolutely, offensively ignorant ICP reveal themselves to be.

The song in which they ‘come out’ as Christians, Miracle, has lyrics expounding the miracles of everyday life – like, apparently, giraffes, fog, and magnets. And rainbows – which, naturally, had me associating ICP with this guy.

I have no objection to thinking that stuff in the world is amazing. Lots of it is. But thinking that ‘motherfucking scientists’ stop the world from seeming amazing is just plain stupid. Emptv posted a thorough response to the lyrics and video for ‘Miracle’ back in April to this ignorance-peddling.

What the Guardian article uncovers is something just as troubling, if not more so, that ICP’s apparent terror of comprehension. Interviewer Jon Ronson asked about some of their violent lyrics and how that sits with their Christianity:

“‘I stuck her with my wang. She hit me in the balls. I grabbed her by her neck. And I bounced her off the walls. She said it was an accident and then apologised. But I still took my elbow and blackened both her eyes.’ That’s clearly a song about domestic violence. So your Christian message is… don’t be like that man?”

“Huh?” Violent J repeats, mystified.

There’s a silence.

“I Stuck Her With My Wang is funny,” Violent J says. “Jokes. Jokes, man. Jokes. Jokes. Jokes. It’s just a ridiculous scenario. Silly stories, man. Silly stories. What’s she doing kicking him in the balls? We find it funny.

Funny?

What could be more hilarious that bouncing someone off the walls?

Some relevant, and appalling, statistics. “Violence against women and girls is a problem of pandemic proportions. At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime”

Ha Ha Ha. Oh Violent J. The ladies getting their beatdowns is so fucking hilarious.

Not all Christians are woman-hating, science-hating nutjobs, of course (however much that view may be Biblically endorsed). Whether that is few, some, or most is too difficult to figure out at the moment. And plenty of other rappers have lyrics that portray or encourage similar violence; but as they haven’t taken to the press to proclaim how laughable it is, my absolute horror is saved for the benighted cretins who think that beating the crap out of a woman is a god damn joke.

Banning Burkas

“Mr. Sarkozy wants a bill that goes farther than initial proposals, including a ban on wearing the full veil — the niqab, which leaves only the eyes uncovered, and the burqa, which is almost unknown in France — from streets, markets and shops”

The proposed French (& Belgian) law banning burkas is troubling. The ‘public safety’ claim is disingenuous, and the women’s rights claim is specious – yes, some women are forced to dress in the burka and as such it is a tool of oppression, but banning it simply follows from the same first premise – to wit, someone else gets to decide what women wear.

In an article for Slate.com Christopher Hitchens addresses the law approvingly: “Society is being asked to abandon an immemorial tradition of equality and openness in order to gratify one faith, one faith that has a very questionable record in respect of females.” No, people wear all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons, and the government is now wondering if they shouldn’t intervene because they disagree with the principle they presume is behind it. Are they correct to disagree with the oppression of women? Of course. But unless they’ve acquired ESP, it’s impossible for them to know why every woman wears what she wears.

He says, “I would indignantly refuse to have any dealings with a nurse or doctor or teacher who hid his or her face, let alone a tax inspector or customs official.” Really? What about a surgeon? But the law isn’t specific to people in such positions, just as the rule he refers to for his building doesn’t apply to the rest of his city – the owners of private property can make whatever bizarre rules they like (jackets and ties must be worn, no outside food or drink, no women allowed…), just as hospitals and schools can have a particular professional dress code. That doesn’t mean that any rule should be extended into the public space.

He suggests that he has a right to see everyone’s face, as everyone has a right to see his. Um, no. Everyone has a right to reveal their face – but that decision is theirs, not the cost of the privilege of going out in public.

You might object to the rationale behind what I’m wearing, whether it’s a yarmulke, plastic mini-skirt, or a confederate flag tee shirt, but you don’t get to tell me that I’m not allowed to wear it. Hitchens invents some feeble reasons implying that veils and burkas are a threat to public safety – thugs wearing them as disguises (any voluminous clothing or hoodies would serve), limits on peripheral vision (um, so maybe ban driving while wearing anything that restricts vision?), and suggesting they hide evidence of abuse, which most clothing would anyway.

Hitchens claims the main point of his support is that “we have no assurance that Muslim women put on the burqa or don the veil as a matter of their own choice.” The problem is not with the clothes, but with the scary, oppressive fundamentalists threatening these women. Which, I agree, is horrifying and requires urgent and ceaseless attention – any violence against women should be investigated, punished, and prevented. But what is happening here is that women are being dictated to because of male behaviors, much like rape-prevention; there’s a lot telling women where they can’t go and what they shouldn’t wear, how much they can and can’t drink, how far they can go before giving tacit permission, etc – and virtually nothing telling men to not be rapists, or punishing them for it.

Guess what, Hitch – people; in this case women, get to be the boss of their bodies and how they present their bodies.

It falls into the same category as fat-acceptance and being pro-choice. Some people are fat and healthy, some people are fat and unhealthy. Same with the skinny folks. They are not obligated to base their food and exercise choices on what you like to look at.

If I become pregnant, carrying that to term is my choice, not anyone else’s – because it is my body that has to deal with the physical nature of it, and my mind, heart, and soul that has to deal with the emotional and lifestyle repercussions. You don’t get to make that decision for me. You might not agree with my choice, you might think I am a slut or irresponsible, and maybe I am, but it’s my life. You don’t get to impose your beliefs on my body.

This is about individuality and self-determination. Any one who tries to put limits on that is extending a personal opinion – a judgment – into the realm of objective truth. You not liking my looks or behavior is unfortunate, not a restriction of your rights. If I was drunk driving or doing drugs and endangering lives, by all means, lock me up, for the good of the community. But if you think that disagreeing with me sartorially, nutritionally, or morally gives you the right to enact laws to control my behavior, you are the one who is restricting my rights. I am not here for your benefit.

What it boils down to is that you don’t get to tell me, or any other woman, what to do. Unless my behavior or beliefs are negatively affecting the lives of others, I have the last word. Not you.