Feminisme i dag

Jinan Younis besluttede at starte en feministisk klub på sin skole i England. Så kom reaktionen. Dette er 2013, and still we get this.

What I hadn’t anticipated on setting up the feminist society was a massive backlash from the boys in my wider peer circle. They took to Twitter and started a campaign of abuse against me. I was called a “feminist bitch”, accused of “feeding [girls] bullshit”, and in a particularly racist comment was told “all this feminism bull won’t stop uncle Sanjit from marrying you when you leave school”.

Our feminist society was derided with retorts such as, “FemSoc, is that for real? #DPMO” [don’t piss me off] and every attempt we made to start a serious debate was met with responses such as “feminism and rape are both ridiculously tiring”.

The more girls started to voice their opinions about gender issues, the more vitriolic the boys’ abuse became. One boy declared that “bitches should keep their bitchiness to their bitch-selves #BITCH” and another smugly quipped, “feminism doesn’t mean they don’t like the D, they just haven’t found one to satisfy them yet.” Any attempt we made to stick up for each other was aggressively shot down with “get in your lane before I par [ridicule] you too”, or belittled with remarks like “cute, they got offended”.

The situation recently reached a crescendo when our feminist society decided to take part in a national project called Who Needs Feminism. We took photos of girls standing with a whiteboard on which they completed the sentence “I need feminism because…”, often delving into painful personal experiences to articulate why feminism was important to them.

When we posted these pictures online we were subject to a torrent of degrading and explicitly sexual comments.

We were told that our “militant vaginas” were “as dry as the Sahara desert”, girls who complained of sexual objectification in their photos were given ratings out of 10, details of the sex lives of some of the girls were posted beside their photos, and others were sent threatening messages warning them that things would soon “get personal”.

We, a group of 16-, 17- and 18-year-old girls, have made ourselves vulnerable by talking about our experiences of sexual and gender oppression only to elicit the wrath of our male peer group. Instead of our school taking action against such intimidating behaviour, it insisted that we remove the pictures.

Unge kvinder, der insisterer på deres ligeværd, udsættes for chikane og hån – og omgivelsernes (i dette tilfælde skolens) bud på en reaktion er at bede dem lade være med sådan at provokere. Er det virkelig 2013, vi skriver?

Link: What happened when I started a feminist society at school

Ud af landet – du kan myrde udlændinge i stedet..

Den danske hverdagsracisme er nu så integreret i vores mentalitet at den sjældent bliver noteret. Se fx en aktuel tragisk sag om en 16 årig der har voldtaget flere mindreårige piger. En ubeskrivelig tragedie for pigerne og deres familier og naturligvis noget der bør straffes.
Men ikke alene skal den unge fyr straffes, nu kræver flere at fyren skal sendes tilbage til Somalia hvor hans familie holder til. Tilbage til et endnu værre sted, uden familie, hvor sandsynligheden for at nogle unge somaliske piger bliver udsat for noget lignende er markant høj.

Men dem er vi ligeglade med – monstret skal sendes hjem, og hvis han så går helt amok dernede, så hører vi jo ikke om det alligevel.
Det er grimt. Og den 16 årige er ikke det eneste monster i denne historie.

Forsørgerpligt for kæresten er skattepligtig

Hvis du er i den sitation, at du får kontanthjælp og bor sammen med din kæreste, vil du nu ikke længere kunne få kontanthjælp, fordi din kæreste har forsørgerpligt (eller omvendt). Hvad du nok ikke havde regnet med er, at du også skal betale skat af din kærestes forsørgelse af dig.

Som man hører i DR P1:

Kommunerne skal i fremtiden ikke skele til, om kontanthjælpsmodtagere er gift eller bare bor sammen som par. Fremover får også ugifte pligt til at forsørge kæresten, hvis han eller hun bliver arbejdsløs. Det skal ikke længere være kommunens opgave.

Beskæftigelsesminister Mette Frederiksen skriver på ministeriets hjemmeside, at “samlevende par (…) hermed ligestilles med ægtepar”. Men det viser sig nu slet ikke at passe.

Tværtimod stiller kontanthjælpsreformen fremover ugifte par langt ringere økonomisk end ægtefolk, der bor sammen. Ifølge skattereglerne, skal den ugifte mand eller kvinde, der bliver arbejdsløs nemlig betale skat af de penge, som vedkommende fremover skal ha’ af kæresten i stedet for kontanthjælp. Det skal ægtefolk ikke.

Og samtidig kan kæresten IKKE overtage den arbejdsløses bundfradrag, men skal også selv betale fuld skat af sin indkomst, som om han eller hun var enlig.

Det er en borger i Valby, Palle Jensen, der har gjort Folketinget opmærksom på disse øjensynlig uforudsete konsekvenser af kontanthjælpsreformen. Og en lektor i skatteret Inge Langhave Jeppesen fra Syddansk Universitet giver ham fuldstændig ret i, at kontanthjælpsreformen dermed ikke ligestiller samlevende par med ægtepar – sådan som ministereren siger. Tværtimod.

Ja, det manglede vel næsten bare.

Via Denmark Online.

Dagpenge

Nej det er ikke en optimal løsning, ja – finanseringen er helt hul i hovedet – men lad os her på bloggen give regeringen en klapsalve for at løse et kæmpe, aktuelt problem for en masse arbejdsløse. Det er dælme godt, og viser at højrefløjen er gået helt i selvsving i anarkokapitalistiske, minimalstatsløsninger uden rod i virkeligheden.

flot

Dagens citat: Århus, 1. maj

Peter Hegner Bonfils skriver på sin blog på Modkraft:

Århus har gennem de sidste 100 år først og fremmest været en socialdemokratisk by; en by hvor den politiske spillebane VAR socialdemokratiet.

Så når en socialdemokratisk formand og statsminister bliver spillet ud af den bane af titusinder af fremmødte århusianere, så er det en begivenhed, der meget vel kan gå over i historien og blive et sindbillede på socialdemokratiets kollaps og tab af magt.

Apropos.

Recessionspakken gennemført

Så har de danske politikere endnu engang skåret i velfærden for at give gaver til virksomhedsejerne. Denne nedskæringsrunde gik ud over dem der har allermindst – SU-modtagere og folk på kontanthjælp. Til gengæld blev der til billige øl og sodavand, og mindre skat på indkomst på firmaers overskud.

Det er flot. Vi klapper regeringen helt ud på historiens losseplads. Thatcher ville have været stolt.

Nu venter vi så på næste runde med nedskæringer – topchefernes krævementalitet kan ikke stoppes

Det er skadeligt at følge med i medierne, og du burde holde op med det

Rolf Dobelli skriver i The Guardian om, hvordan nyhedsformidling er en slags kognitionenens fast food, der fylder dig med en lind strøm af trivielle kendsgerninger og sidste-minuts-opdateringer, der stjæler din opmærksomhed, forhindrer dig i at se det store billede og forvirrer mere end godt er.

Jeg har ikke selv set TV-avis i årevis og åbner meget sjældent en avis, så selv om man altid kan diskutere det enkelte argument, har han nogle særdeles vigtige pointer:

News has no explanatory power. News items are bubbles popping on the surface of a deeper world. Will accumulating facts help you understand the world? Sadly, no. The relationship is inverted. The important stories are non-stories: slow, powerful movements that develop below journalists’ radar but have a transforming effect. The more “news factoids” you digest, the less of the big picture you will understand. If more information leads to higher economic success, we’d expect journalists to be at the top of the pyramid. That’s not the case.

News is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation.

News increases cognitive errors. News feeds the mother of all cognitive errors: confirmation bias. In the words of Warren Buffett: “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.” News exacerbates this flaw. We become prone to overconfidence, take stupid risks and misjudge opportunities. It also exacerbates another cognitive error: the story bias. Our brains crave stories that “make sense” – even if they don’t correspond to reality. Any journalist who writes, “The market moved because of X” or “the company went bankrupt because of Y” is an idiot. I am fed up with this cheap way of “explaining” the world.

News inhibits thinking. Thinking requires concentration. Concentration requires uninterrupted time. News pieces are specifically engineered to interrupt you. They are like viruses that steal attention for their own purposes. News makes us shallow thinkers. But it’s worse than that. News severely affects memory. There are two types of memory. Long-range memory’s capacity is nearly infinite, but working memory is limited to a certain amount of slippery data. The path from short-term to long-term memory is a choke-point in the brain, but anything you want to understand must pass through it. If this passageway is disrupted, nothing gets through. Because news disrupts concentration, it weakens comprehension. Online news has an even worse impact. In a 2001 study two scholars in Canada showed that comprehension declines as the number of hyperlinks in a document increases. Why? Because whenever a link appears, your brain has to at least make the choice not to click, which in itself is distracting. News is an intentional interruption system.

Link: News is bad for you – and giving it up will make you happier

Lock af, Corydon!

Bjarne Corydon

Gymnasieskolernes lærerforening har i dag denne kommentar til Bjarne Corydons retorik i skolekonflikten i en annonce, der bringes i diverse dagblade.

Adventures and Japes har et langt og som sædvanlig fremragende indlæg om, hvorfor skolelockouten er et overgreb og et brud på samfundets spilleregler:

There is a social contract here and it is being broken. I pay taxes so that they can send the kids to school. Instead, they are with grandma and hanging around shopping centres. The government is pocketing the millions meant for our salaries and spending it on.. what? Our union support payments are taxed as if they were an income *and* we have to pay them back. So, the government gets to keep half our “wages” when we don’t even. The government gets to skip out on paying a month’s salary with no accountability but still gets the same in taxes from us. You see this in dodgy dictatorships, not Scandy socialist paradises.

I am also angry because of the lack of fair play. The model of negotiations is that if both parties cannot reach a compromise, then a lockout hurts both parties until negotiations re-start. The KL is not being hurt by this. They are about the only party to this mess that is not being injured by the lockout. I am furious that they were able to threaten a lockout on day one, I am angry they had nothing in the way of compromise, it is outrageous that the politicians claim THIS is the Danish Model and refuse to consider re-starting negotiations.

The incompetence is also horrifying. Apparently, every time the teacher union man, Bondo, says “Oh for heaven’s sake, just do a political intervention already, stop the lockout out!” it pushes the political intervention back two days, so the precious Danish Model is not called into question. The politicians did not expect this much popular support, they thought people would turn against ‘lazy, spoiled teachers’ in much greater numbers. The politicians thought they could starve the unions out in two weeks, they have money for a month. The politicians thought they could run things like this and no one would notice the loss of a system that Danish people value. The politicians are possibly going to wait until after May Day (a celebration of the labour movement), before they do an intervention because they do not want to look like hypocrites as they praise the Danish Model.

I am angry that there is now no political movement in Denmark that supports me. There are the blue who hate me because I am unashamedly foreign and the red who mistreat me because they don’t think they can afford me. I expect the blue team will win next election and where does that leave people like me?

But most of my outrage is for the students. They deserve better than this. Some countries have longer holidays but the trade off is longer school days or there are activity camps. Having an indefinite time off of school means you cannot use the time for good. I don’t know how many of my readers have taught children with special needs or unsupportive families? After the summer holidays, you have to teach them things you already taught them. You need to make sure they can still read. You need to lay the ground rules again. It takes about a month to get up and going again. Those students will be especially ill-served by this government. And then there are disabled children who really need routine and certainty. Facing them with “I don’t know when school will start again,” is cruelty. And then there are students in their final year who have been preparing for exams. The government solution is “Well, we’ll just give you your average grade.” Why not do that every year then, if the exams are not important?

All the students of Denmark are being held hostage by incompetent politicians.

Som sædvanlig: Læs endelig det hele