The school has an alternative assignment policy, and if you're so offended, you can drop the course without penalty. That's really great of them.

I dislike it when people try to force their ideas on me. If they think it is objectionable, the school has provided them a way to not read it, and other students who are interested in it should be allowed the right to read it.

Alison is great. Getting something censored would be awesome. :)

You know what other literature also has a hell of a lot of pornography* in it? The Bible. Just sayin'.

*By this, I mean explicit descriptions/depictions of sexual activities.

right wingers defining porn as “any material that portrays sexuality in a way that I don’t approve of�, and most everyone else in liberal land defining it as, “sexually explicit materials designed to sexually arouse the reader/viewer�

Did she get this mixed around? Most anti-porn conservaitves I know would embrace the latter view--they don't like straight porn any more than gay porn.
Or is it just that I'm stuck in the Bible belt?

As a non-practicing Mormon, I am not the least bit surprised. There are some (very few) open minded Mormons who prefer to think for themselves, but for the most part, Mormon's consider ANY nudity as pornographic, but never think about WHY it is offensive. Two examples involving my mom. My mom!!! My mom told me about a movie she and my dad were watching in which the main character (a woman) was brutally beaten for suggesting that another character leave her husband. My mom said that she and my dad kept watching it, giving the excuse that they were already so involved in the movie and that they wanted to find out what happened. Later in the movie the woman who had been beaten was stepping out of the shower and one of her breasts was visible. Mom told me she jumped in front of the TV, so my dad couldn't see it, and turned the movie off. Nice. Beating up a woman=acceptable. A breast=pornography. Just this week my mom sent me a "funny" picture of four nuns sitting on stools that had sexy women's legs instead of regular chair legs. It basically made the nuns look like they were wearing micro-skirts, or no pants/skirts at all.
Degrading to women=OK.
No nudity=not porn=OK.

I think this book would still have been banned if it wasn't a homo-sexual depiction, any visual depiction of sex, or genitals in anything other than a medical book would be considered pornographic. Oh, and if you think that is just the general population of Utah, non the Mormon church, that is pushing to ban this book, google LDS + ERA, or google Sonia Johnson.

Feminist don't have much room to talk about Censorship when they don't have a problem censoring something the disagree with.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/AshleyHerzog/2008/03/13/will_feminists_again_attempt_to_censor_science

Feminist don't have much room to talk about Censorship when they don't have a problem censoring something they disagree with.

Will Feminists Again Attempt To Censor Science?

Sometimes it amazes me how feminist can be so hypocritical.

I greatly appreciate your picture choice, Miriam!

Also, long live Fran D!

Hey "real" woman can you give me the names of the feminists who are trying to suppress science? Because I find it very amusing you posting an article critiquing feminists from a CONSERVATIVE website, because you know, conservatives NEVER try and suppress science.

And you know not all "studies" are to be taken as fact, you need something that has been peer reviewed and tested several times to be even considered close to verifiable fact. You know like how abstinence education doesn't work, or the theory of evolution, or the fact that the earth is older than 2,000 years. But I don't expect you to consider any of that fact, because, well, you know...

I mean, what a bunch of BS; "feminists are adverse to science". Pshh. No offense, personally, but do you realize how what you said sounds like? *chuckles*

We're going to be reading Fun Home in my lesbian literature class within the next few weeks. This just makes the book more exciting.

I think Bechdel's reaction is great.

"Hell, we’re stuck in definitional hell, with the right wingers defining porn as 'any material that portrays sexuality in a way that I don’t approve of', and most everyone else in liberal land defining it as, 'sexually explicit materials designed to sexually arouse the reader/viewer', and radical feminists defining it as 'photos and videos where the humiliation and pain of the woman is considered an essential part of the erotic experience for the viewer'."

Definitional hell indeed. I'm reminded of how some people claim all porn hurts women and how some people claim a photo of two fully clothed people merely almost kissing is porn...

Meanwhile, here's another take on the definitions:

Erotica is what turns me on.
Porn is what turns you on.
Smut is what turns them on.

My first post...

Real Woman, what evidence do you have that feminists are "censoring" science(the article you provided is too biased and full of speculation)?

What utter silliness. Thanks for posting this. BTW, I am a huge fan of Alison's work and especially "Fun Home" which is very moving.

It's a sign that you have stepped out of moderation when you get censored. Not a bad thing at all. Without original thoughts, life would get bland. I hope I get censored some day.

Yay! I love Alison Bechdel! I also figure that if the mormon community is opposed to something, that probably means that that something is something really cool. Which Bechdel's work is.

And that reminds me, I bet DTWOF has updated since I've been over to her site...

heller: "My mom told me about a movie she and my dad were watching in which the main character (a woman) was brutally beaten for suggesting that another character leave her husband. My mom said that she and my dad kept watching it, giving the excuse that they were already so involved in the movie and that they wanted to find out what happened. Later in the movie the woman who had been beaten was stepping out of the shower and one of her breasts was visible. Mom told me she jumped in front of the TV, so my dad couldn't see it, and turned the movie off."

I have an equally disturbing yet opposite situation to describe. I was watching Eastern Promises with two guys and one other girl. I cringed and had to cover my head with a blanket during a rape scene, where a man forces his friend to have sex with a female prostitute to prove he wasn't gay. (That's sick enough.) However, the other people watching kept doing so without flinching. Later in the movie was a fight scene, with violence and blood and all that good stuff, they were cringing and crying out and looking away (I had to cover my head with a blanket again). Here, it the equation was

forced sex scene=acceptable
fighting scene=unacceptable

Later in the movie was a fight scene, with violence and blood and all that good stuff, they were cringing and crying out and looking away (I had to cover my head with a blanket again). Here, it the equation was

forced sex scene=acceptable
fighting scene=unacceptable

Janelle,

But was it the fight scene in the shower, where Viggo Mortenson was fully nude? If it was then their cringing might have been more because of the sight of Teh Penis, rather than the violence. I know a lot of people, men especially, who cannot take the mere sight of a flaccid penis because it might make them (the men) gay or something.

But it's not to under estimate the nonchalance of watching the rape scene.

People make decision everyday about what is and is not acceptable for them. Since there is not a definition of obscene that everyone accepts, we will continue to debate this issue. Any exposure that numbs a person's humanity is something I wish to avoid myself.

Re the article "Real Woman" posted: Ashley Herzog was an undergraduate at the university at which I attended graduate school (while I was there).
Her op-eds topics ran from "Why do feminists hate men and babies?" to "I can't WAIT to be a trophy wife!!1!" to "Women don't deserve to be in college" to "The Iraq war is awesome! Let's torture and murder some A-Rabs!" to "Homosexuals eat babies and worship Hitler."
So, basically, quoting her is like quoting Ann Coulter.
Nice try.

The Herzog article doesn't actually cite any cases of feminists censoring anything. She has several accounts of them getting angry at brain-science claims, then speculates they're going to censor people--but no actual cases.

As for Summers, the standard right-wing cant is that he was "floating possibilities" as Herzog put it, but his speech (I read the transcript) makes it quite clear he believes men are hardwired to surpass women in science so any attempt to recruit more women will lower the quality of work.

Alison Bechdel is so smart and funny. I love the way she handled this!

NerdAlert, do you have any links to the op-ed pieces you are citing? How about a name of the university you allegedly attended with Ashley Herzog?

Do feminists censor??? I think that this is a very difficult question for two reasons, and the answer is determined by whom you ask. First, many feminist organizations claim to be for gender equality and ending racism, sexism, classism... I think that most feminist organizations do that, but I also think that the focus is almost always on the issues that women are facing and not the ones that men face. That is totally ok with me because feminism is a women’s movement. The problem is that feminism now seems to be doing and influencing all of the equality related work. What this means is that men I feel do not think they have strong advocates for their issues and feel like their issues are getting censored. I will say that they are passively censored out because they are not the focus, but they are definitely not actively censored out, the proof of this is that when you ask a feminist about the issue, they will be upset by it too.

Realwomen mentioned censoring and was asked to provide an example, seeing that no example was provided, I will provide one.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/assist/nvaa2002/chapter9.html

This comes from a report by the National Victim Assistance Academy. I would like to draw your attention to four or five parts. The first ones are in the statistical overview section-the first, sixth and tenth bullet points. All of these stats fall within stereotypical numbers. Notice that they are pointing out the rate of intimate partner violence and show that women are the predominate victims. Now, go to the next section "Prevalence Estimates: Intimate Partner and Domestic Violence". Read the first paragraph. Now read the second to last paragraph of the section “Emotional and Psychological abuse� (the paragraph is after all the bullet points in this section and is about violence in college). Both of these paragraphs are well sited and seem to be accurate. But, did you look up all the reports that were sited. I looked up 11 of them and all 11 concluded that men and women both suffer and perpetrate intimate partner violence at more or less equal rates (often times the women were perpetrators at a higher rate). These paragraphs are not at all supported by the works that they site.

Also, most TBTN websites mention a lot about women being the victims/survivors of violence. They should do this, because women are, but they often neglect that men are twice as likely to be a victim of violence, and if you look at the links found on their cite, one of them linked to the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault website that has report listed that male and female high school students report being the victims of relationship violence at an equal rate (within 53% female vs. 47% male, of those who reported). http://www.nycagainstrape.org/research_measuring_1.html

So, if we are talking about censoring. The first article I sited came to conclusions that women suffer intimate violence at a rate of 5:1 while more than half the reports they site do not come to this conclusion. I feel like this is active censorship and spinning of facts. I feel this happens a lot and that issues facing men are neglected. Is this censorship, you tell me?

Tiny (possibly worthless) nitpick: you might want to clarify that the block quote is from Amanda, not Alison. It looked to me like a continuation of the "awesome" comment, rather than the beginning of a new quote from Amanda.

Blurpleberry: I'm not particularly interested in posting personal information in here, but if you google Ashley Herzog, most of the main hits come from the newspaper she wrote for in college, so go and read a few of them that were under the "editorial" category. I attended grad school from '05 to '07, so the articles should be dated around then.

i am a male that respects true feminism and would love to see women reach the goal of social equalitie yet has a serious question: what statements are being made to the feminists issues and in what fashion are they being made? now, please anyone that responds do not take offense that i am a male asking this question because i am being serious and would like an answer from a serious feminist not an extremist

thank you
p.s. it also annoys me that women are taking part in humiliating acts to their gender in pornography although i will give benefit of the doubt to men due to evolutionary carnal desire,not an excuse,but men are perverts...good luck girls reply to anthonygreene65@yahoo.com