I know I haven't blogged for ages, but...

Amazon Rank

THIS is too fucked-up to ignore. Amazon is removing a number of books it considers 'adult' from its sales rankings and some aren't turning up in searches. What is the definition of 'adult'? Not (straight) porn, as you might expect. No, it's books about LGBTQ sexuality (including obviously non-'adult' gay romances), feminist books and books about disability and sexuality.

Meanwhile, actual porn remains untouched.

edit: a full list of books affected is here. (h/t Renee)

edit edit: there's theory that this could be the work of a group who've been complaining about books they find objectionable, resulting in Amazon flagging them as 'adult'.

and because I can't resist another edit: I don't think this theory holds up when you consider that it's books marked with certain tags that have had this treatment. For example, the paperback version of Stephen Fry's Moab is my Washpot, marked as 'gay', has been removed from the rankings, but the hardback version, marked as 'memoir', hasn't. Then again, if this hypothetical group exists, it could be targeting certain tags on Amazon -- which might explain why "GLBT" is untouched. If you were, for sake of argument, a Christian fundamentalist, how likely is that acronym to be in your vocabulary?

Amazon are claiming this is a glitch. What a coincidence that it's chiefly affected writings by activists for and members of several marginalised groups, eh?

What? Women in sci-fi?!

Sorry Dirk, we actually think of women as humans now. I know, it sucks =(

H/T

Some thoughts

Twelve hours from my last post, I've had a chance to collect my thoughts and read the blogs of other student occupations. There seems to be a huge, huge disparity between how our university reacted to the protest and how other universities reacted. As far as I can tell, no other universities got the police involved. At Birmingham, police threatened to arrest the protesters. There was a riot van parked outside the building. Police tried -- half-heartedly -- to prevent us from entering the Guild (students' union) bar.

Why did the University of Birmingham take such a hard-line stance? Can we use that against them? We'll see.

Birmingham Occupation in Solidarity with Gaza

Today I took part in a protest against Israel's military operation in Gaza. A group of students 'occupied' a lecture room in the Arts Building of the university, rescheduling all lectures that were to be in that room and talking to crowds of people from the balcony.

I hadn't heard about the event beforehand, and was in two minds about going in when I first saw the crowds (and police). I had a class with one of the organisers, though, and she convinced me to go and see what it was about. In the end, I was there for a couple of hours, talking with people about what they hoped to achieve. There was a speaker there from Gaza who was making a lot of sense -- he didn't like Hamas and, from what I heard, believed in peaceful protest but felt that violence was the inevitable result of the Israeli government acting unilaterally. A lot of people turned up during the day. I'm told there were about 40-50 at one point.

I was pretty excited by this point. There was a great atmosphere in the room and, as one of the organisers pointed out, it could be a huge turning point for student activism, which is pretty much non-existent in Birmingham. I left at six pm, wanting to go to the Women's Association meeting (I really caught the activist bug today -- watched a documentary about South African protest music in the early afternoon, which must have inspired me), grab something to eat, and get my sleeping bag and some warm clothes, as I'd decided to stay overnight.

When I returned at about 8:15, all the entrances to the Arts Building were locked and being guarded by police. Outside were a man with a video camera (I'll update with clips later if I can find them), a woman and two children, who told me that the remaining protesters were being denied water and access to a toilet until they agreed to leave the building. The argument made by the staff, security and police was that they had to leave for health and safety reasons. Did they deny people water and toilet facilities because of health and safety? The university registrar was offering a chance to meet with the Vice Chancellor if they left the room. This was nowhere close to satisfying the group's demands, so of course they refused. I believe threats of arrest were made, and eventually the protesters were told to vote on whether to stay or leave. Seven people voted to leave, against six to stay. A collective groan went round the group outside (more people had turned up hoping to get back in by this point) at this point. But I suppose we weren't thirsty, using a makeshift toilet or under threat of arrest.

The group came down at nine pm, having occupied the room for 12 hours. We decided to head to the bar at the student's union, passing a riot van full of police. I'm told -- although this is hearsay -- that the police had tear gas. A police van followed us to the Guild, telling us 'security aren't happy about you going in there'. I think everyone was pretty sick of being pushed around by this point, and luckily the police didn't try very hard to stop us going in.

So, mixed feelings about today, but I think overall I feel positive. The protest was not as successful as those at other universities. The eventual agreement to meet with the Vice Chancellor was, as someone put it, just 'a crumb off their table'. But it's something, and an achievement for Birmingham University students, who are normally horribly apathetic. I think perhaps the biggest achievement of the protest was getting people like me interested and involved. I've been interested in activism for a long time, but I've never really known where to start. Now, well, I'm excited for the future.

A blog of today's event is here.

Edit: Racist or anti-Semitic comments will be deleted.

For the last time, people

Bra burning. Never happened. Now shut up about it.

File under Patriarchy Hurts Men Too

This is interesting: a new survey finds that men have lower self-esteem than women. Annoyingly, the article doesn't link to the original study, and reading Bad Science has taught me to be wary of journalists' accounts of academic research. But I'm going to discuss the article anyway, since I bet the MRAs will be all over it in no time -- "we told you that life is tough now the wimminz are demanding equality! It's the end of men!" Think of this as pre-emption.

The study's findings seem to be less a case of Feminism Hurts Men and more a case of Patriarchy Hurts Men Too. Let me go through the article paragraph by paragraph:

The majority of almost 2,000 men aged 16 to 65 questioned by OnePoll, an independent market research company, admitted struggling to feel confident about their place in society. About half confessed to feeling most insecure when at work, while another 40 per cent also felt inadequate during nights out with friends.

Men feel insecure at work -- where attitudes of both men and women privilege masculinity, and the top levels of professions are dominated by men. And I'm assuming the author meant "nights out with other men", when pressure to perform masculinity is high.

All those questioned by the survey, commissioned by Braun, admitted to feeling increasingly emasculated by women and said their feelings of inadequacy soar when women are present.

Not just low in confidence, emasculated.

Most intimately, one in four men revealed they are racked by feelings of inadequacy during sex, saying that film and television programmes like Sex and the City had made them anxious about not having enough stamina and imagination in the bedroom.

This is telling. Try watching some porn and then telling me that dominant sexual attitudes don't over-emphasise masculine performance. Look at the positions of the actors -- men are active, women are passive. Look at the ways male genitalia are represented -- huge penises are more likely to hurt women than increase their sexual pleasure, but they definitely accentuate the male presence in the scene. Men are expected to be more dominant in sex than most actually feel comfortable being. This is most obvious in porn, but it's an attitude that's present elsewhere, too. This wasn't a problem back when women's sexual pleasure didn't matter to men, but now it does, and there are some silly ideas flying around about how best to pleasure women, it's understandable that some men might feel inadequate in the bedroom. (Note to MRAs: Sex and the City is not a feminist show.)

'Men are more likely than women to have fragile self-esteem, as they judge their status in society through success in a single sphere, such as their career, the size of their pay packet or the model of their car,' said David Sharpley, of the British Psychological Society. 'These are all subject to a high degree of ambiguity and risk. Because men are generally poor at introspection and communicating their emotions, this uncertainty can cause the collapse of their self-esteem.'

Hey look, all traditionally masculine attitudes: My worth depends on my wealth, my car, and my ability to hide my emotions.

Dr John Tomlinson, a former GP and trustee of the Sexual Dysfunction Association, said he was hearing from an 'enormous' number of 18- to 40-year-olds worried about sexual problems. 'Advertising - such as David Beckham's Armani underwear campaign - glamorises the well-toned male body, which men find daunting because they assume it is what women expect,' he said.

It doesn't surprise me that this is an increasing problem, since advertisers are starting to believe that 'equality' means 'men can be objectified too' (as long as it's in a very manly, if well-groomed, way). But it's hard to feel too much sympathy, since women have been being told that we need to have unattainable ultra-feminine, ultra-sexualised bodies for years.

More than half of those questioned confessed they had no constructive male role model - instead having to resort to fictional characters such as James Bond or Indiana Jones - and that they wished their 'self-image' was stronger, and more masculine and positive.

'More masculine' -- QED. But no male role models? When men dominate politics, religion, business and entertainment? Think how the rest of us feel.

My theory is that the form of masculinity we are teaching men and boys is damaging them. Masculinity was punitive even back when treating women as subordinates was an unquestioned norm, but now that women are, albeit slowly, starting to accrue some power for ourselves, it's becoming more and more difficult for men to achieve the masculine ideal -- since masculinity, or at least its most conventional manifestations, is all about male superiority and domination over women.

So the most prized identity is unattainable for men. Join the club, straight, cis guys -- the rest of us have been here for centuries.

Women's special in today's Observer

Go and read it. It's interesting, if a little depressing.