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Maybe have a look at this: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/04/03/hip-hop-is-for-lovers/

Specifically:

>...LB: I find that as a hip hop fan who also keeps some mainstream feminist company, I find myself defending the very existence of the genre among other feminists. Uche, I know you’ve addressed this before in prior interviews more generally, but what do the HH4L ladies have to say to feminists who accuse hip hop at large of too much sexual bravado and objectification of women?

>Uche: When I first began discussing the concept of HH4L, I got mixed responses. People said everything from there is not enough music to support that to Hip Hop doesn’t talk about love and even expecting us to not deal with certain subjects or play certain songs. Sexual bravado and objectification of women happens in every culture. Hip Hop is not the only one. If you are not attuned to the culture of Hip Hop or anything remotely related to the experience of those that make or enjoy this varied and layered music, I would suggest you do some real investigation into it before labeling it as such. All hip hop music does not have sexual bravado and objectify women just like all feminists aren’t white man hating lesbians. Right?

>Lenée: I’m taking a deep breath as I type this, because I have so very much to say. First, Hip Hop culture and music are the result of a colonial history: the history of Black folks in the US. Hip Hop culture exists as a mirror of larger US culture and also as a filter of that culture. As an agent of the culture, the music speaks to an array of experiences and perspectives. Yes, the primary media makers in the culture are heterosexual cisgender men of color (mostly black-identified). Yes, there is sexual bravado, and yes there’s objectification of women. I think that the tendency of people I identify as outsiders — usually academics, often white people, and way too often white cisgender women who ID as feminists — is to be outraged first and ask questions later.

>LB: (Also, dear readers, there is about ten-plus years of womanist and feminist scholarship by women of color on hip hop, on women in hip hop, and hip hop feminism, so please google-fu if this is news.)

>Lenée: If a straight man makes a song about someone he’s attracted to, we know it sure as shit isn’t gonna be a song about one of his homeboys. So, objectification of women is gonna happen. It cannot be avoided. The extent to which it goes is my concern. As far as the sexual bravado goes, I’d like to direct any and everyone with this critique to study stereotypes about black men — namely the construct of the big black buck. Sometimes rappers reinforce the constructs, sometimes they build their own identities in the shadow of those constructs… And other times, nobody’s paying attention to what doesn’t fit what they’re looking for. Just so they can be outraged first and ask questions later. Also: Lady (“Yankin’”) is just as full of braggadocio as any song by a man that we’ve played on the show, if not more. I’m certain that different ideas apply because she’s a woman and the decency police feel differently about her. But that’s probably a blog post in and of itself.

>LB: No kidding. I was googling Lady out of curiosity and saw that she gets a lot of blowback about that song. (I can’t even begin to dissect the video.) Sure it’s sexually explicit, but it’s not meant to be a deep song. What it is is an affirmative, body-positive song about getting laid. The narrator has agency, she’s enjoying herself, it’s consensual. There’s a place for that and it’s a worthwhile narrative, so I think the real problem — and there is considerable scholarship on the “acceptable” roles for women in hip hop — is when the only available slots for women in the mainstream are the super-sexy Trinas or the crunchier Lauryn Hills.

>Uche: The song “Yankin’” and those like it have its place in Hip Hop. The whole social construct that it’s taboo for women to speak on their sexual prowess is really outdated (to me anyway).

>Lenée: I agree. It’s really simple to me: dudes rap about the presence of alcohol and/ or drugs in sexual encounters. They talk about being great in bed, good in bed, the king of cunnilingus or whatever. A lot. T.I. (he calls himself the pussy pumper!), for instance, talks about handing out bottles of Grey Goose and ecstasy pills as he has multiple partner sex. In more than one song. I’ve heard the most harsh criticism about Lady from “real Hip Hop heads,” people who actively and vocally ask for the return of Leaders of the New School, DAS Efx, and LL Cool J’s first nose. I think Lady’s song is epic. It’s fun. It’s got a good beat. And at the end of the day she’s not hurting anyone. Lots of folks seem to have gone out of their way in online spaces to decry “Yankin’” and act like it’s The Sole Reason Black People Can’t Have Nice Things. As if it isn’t R. Kelly. (Jokes.)...

Lauren Bruce interview with Uche and Lenée, hosts of Hip Hop is For Lovers (a multimedia web experience dedicated to looking at love, sex and intimacy through the lens of hip hop culture. Its centerpiece is a weekly woman-centered, queer-friendly and justice-heavy podcast that features discussions about a variety of relationship topics punctuated with the best in rap.)

It's nice to know that all these things on my 'SRS blown'-mind have a place to be heard. :)

Pretty much see the point of what you're saying about evolution, but I don't exactly see the evidence. Surely the Mbuti are more "evolved" than us in that sense? And it seems to me that the progress for women has been acquired characteristics, which fall on the "nurture" side of the "nature vs. nurture" debate. Although, because progress has been so thoroughly embedded in the social fabric, something inherited from our parents, it might be argued that nothing short of apocalypse would lead to significant regression of people's ideas. If Romney 2012 doesn't count.

I think human nature is definitely in need of qualification. Although, well, 'post-warp human society' probably doesn't have a place for "100% organic human-humans" at all, so the issue would be moot. Right now, I fall on the side that believes that our brain structures are profoundly genetically determined and usually develop along predictable lines due to, uh, living on Earth. (there's a website for people with Asperger's syndrome actually called "wrong planet," for evidence of that). This includes a desire for social identity/acceptance, desire for something greater than ourselves, and desire for patterns or sense in a sometimes senseless world.

The support for 1) (sorry, but I don't have studies) is basically, we like to simplify our world in order to understand it and communicate it and this leads to categorizing, creating an identity for oneself and for "others." Organized religion builds a sense of community and identity that, for many, is inherently valuable. I know that I suddenly became more interested in my racial and religious identity group-although sometimes it felt a bit restricting-once I entered college.

2) The desire for something omnipresent, something mysterious, does seem to have a basis in neurology. Undoubtedly though, it can't be that widespread or Norway would never be an atheist haven (heaven?).

And lastly, for 3), it was shown that superstition, in at least the case of baseball players and students has a function in reducing anxiety over uncertainty. I'm not sure where to go with this since the student study claimed that thinking about death reduces superstitious thoughts, but that's not really my experience. In fact, I believe that without death, the largest incentive for believing in God would be lost not entirely because of desire for eternal life, but because eternal life ties up everything that happens with everyone you know on Earth in a way that isn't senseless.

Re-reading this, I'm almost positive this all falls into the same trap I accuse those other Redditors of. Sorry I can't be more insightful :$

EDIT: I'm thinking about checking this book out: http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Trust-Evolutionary-Landscape-Evolution/dp/0195149300

>I didn't say they wouldn't have to work hard or take advantage of other opportunities (Kahn academy, online tutoring, supplementary materials), but you implying that they can't under any circumstances achieve an education?

This sounds dangerously like bootstrap nonsense. Yeah, sure, an inner city kid can get a good education by going to their run-down public library and watching 4 hours of Kahn academy videos a day. Without any academic support system. Without a reinforcing social environment. Without a stress-free suburban lifestyle. (You'd be surprised how easy it is to study when you don't have to worry where your next meal is coming from.)

I'm a college student. My family is pretty well off. I consider myself ridiculously privileged compared to a less well-off peer:

• I don't have to spend 20 hours a week working, so I have more time to study, and i'm not tired or stressed out when I do.
  
• I don't have to stress out about loans, or spend hours doing paperwork and arguing with student loan companies
  
• I can afford brand new laptops, the newest editions of the textbooks, plus any supplementary material I choose, without worrying about it.
  
• I can afford the best tutors, prep classes, prep books, etc
  
• I can freely take summer classes (where no financial aid is available), giving me a leg-up for the next year.
  
• I have a car, which allows me to do many simple tasks (grocieries, doctor's appointments, etc.) much faster than if I had to bike or take public transport. Again, more time to study or relax.
  
  Far from an exhaustive list. And that's just the privilege of being upper middle compared to regular middle class. Think about what you're saying.

Most literature I'm familiar with on global poverty shows that it is decreasing in relative and (over the last 30 years) absolute terms. If you have issues with income based methods, I'd suggest looking at the global literacy and infant mortality rates. As countries replicate the inclusive insititions (and hence, economic successes) of countries like South Korea this is likely to continue.

Regarding the reliability of Soviet statistics the easiest example is the 1937 census. This was the first census since 1926, and therefore the first that would follow the mass famines and purges of the early 1930s. When they accurately showed the population much lower than suited Stalin the statisticians were shot/gulaged. The 1939 census-makers got it right, and just reported that the predictions had been met exactly.

But referring to the Brezhnev years (1964-1982), or what Gorbachev called the "Era of Stagnation", there's a text called Brezhnev Reconsidered which is fantastic. (I'm afraid I'm having trouble finding more than the first chapter online, but there's always the Era of Stagnation wiki page.) That covers the economic difficulties of the period you've outlined as 'high-growth'.

By pointing out that their technological advances were constrained within certain sectors, I'm saying that the Bolsheviks built a state that was centralized enough to throw people at certain areas like Ancient Egypt did the pyramids. The most enduring innovation of the Soviet Union is the AK-47, designed, ironically by someone who'd rather have designed lawnmowers. Innovation happened not because of self-motivation, but because of central planning.

The relative power of the state vs its constituents is rather beside the point. The ability to vote, to choose your employer, to not be sold, to hold property even if you were black, or a woman, or a prisoner, are all liberties that weren't allowed back around 1850. Countries have implemented strong safety nets and universal access to healthcare and education.

For such speculative questions, it is often useful to turn to speculative fiction.

There is a very good recent Hugo Award winning science fiction novel out called Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie, it depicts a genderless, space faring society.

Unlike earlier feminist Sci-Fi, like for example Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness which depicts a biologically hermaphroditic society, in Leckie's universe, the people in this society still have the same range of physical bodies as the physical bodies that we see on Earth today, but their culture does not apply differentiated gender categories to them. There, however, still social categories. All citizens are citizens, all non-citizens are non-citizens. There are still rich and poor, powerful and powerless, there are still 'human' and 'sub-human'; but sex and romance are discretionary, a person wears whatever clothes are fashionable and pleasing to them, they can romance and have sex with whomever consents, their career paths are mostly determined by social rank, family lineage, personal contacts, and to some extent merit, but never gender.

What's interesting, also, about Leckie's universe, is that even though gender and gender oppression are completely absent from this society, it is still for other reasons horrendously dystopic (and trigger warning: it deals with issues of colonization, cultural subjugation and slavery in very graphic and harrowing ways).

nevertheless, I would highly recommend it.

Postcolonial ecocriticism is definitely a rapidly growing field, and you may find it more fruitful to go that route than ecofeminism, since that link seems to be clearer in Maathai's work. Rob Nixon has done some great work in the field, particularly on Ken Saro-Wiwa's life and work in Nigeria, but there have also been several books published in the last few years about postcolonial environmentalism - this book, for example. It's possible that that stuff might lead you back to her feminism, but it seems like a good avenue to start with since you're not totally clear on that connection yet.

Good luck!

I'm not familiar with that author, but this book by Bellah is a good one:
http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Human-Evolution-Paleolithic-Axial/dp/0674061438/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_3

Also The Robert Bellah Reader. As a 'romantic' scholar of religion who is also an atheist I really like his work.

Happy reading!

Edit, paragraphs. :)

I took a class on the OT and used this book. It doesn't actually have the OT word for word, but does a good job explaining how the text came together and what certain things mean If you combine it with the New Oxford OT, it's a pretty good combo (the Oxford OT has good footnotes to help understand wtf is going on). That is, if you want a more academic representation of the text.

What else are they interested in? Maybe you could send them a coffee table art book featuring concept pictures from their favorite video game?

You could also go with more of a troll gift, or not send anything at all, but I'm sure there is more to the person than just being a reddit stereotype. Like your comment history probably doesn't tell the full story of you, right? They could be a perfectly nice person offline - you never really know.

Sure. I would argue that those stereotypes of sexual prowess and masculinity are very clear examples of how these standards can hurt men. I don't believe there is such a thing as 'perfect privilege' either. There is only more or less in relation to others.

Just like female beauty standards can keep all women, regardless of appearance, from experiencing their true potential in different ways, standards of masculinity inhibit men the same way.

Men are often robbed of emotional support by these unreasonable standards of masculinity. Just like women, men often feel deep, deep shame for not measuring up to these standards. Conversely, the men who do live up to these standards often live in fear of losing that status. This manifests as the stereotypical jock beating up the weak kid. It's the male analog to the thin girl who is constantly afraid of becoming fat.

Personally I think that's why so many male Redditors feel so angered by being called out for dog-piling inappropriate jokes and catcalling women in Reddit threads. They are essentially screaming "Don't you see? This is the only emotional outlet I have!" And they feel that to be true in a profound way.

I don't say that to make excuses for the behavior, but I can see it as an explantation for why so many otherwise decent guys do this.

Have you ever heard of RW Connell's theory of Multiple Masculinities? Like I said above, I'm not an expert, and I've only begun my reading on the subject, but her concept of varying types of masculine ideals makes a lot of sense to me.

here is her book

a jstor article

this looks like a good basic introduction

How to win friends and influence people seems to be the gold standard of self help books.

I don't know if I would recommend The Game for it's positives, merely because when you're constantly surrounded by a certain mindset, you do tend to pick up on those characteristics, especially when a lot of it can seem to be true, PUA works because it treats women as different, women have to be tricked into sex etc, and in highschool the opposite sex can seem like a different species, so on the surface PUA looks to be the truth, evo psych also looks nice (alpha, beta males etc) but when you delve into it, that's when you see the flaws.

The word filtering on the xkcd forum makes the conversations hilarious.

>Well, yes, unfortunately, (for the most part) males are stronger than females. I had linked to another SRSD thread where /u/CotRA had cited a study that showed that "90% of females produced less force than 95% of males".

I would recommend you read the Gender and Science Reader, particularly the paper "In Pursuit of Difference" by Lynda Birke, which also cites a case in Bali where the strength difference between men and women is substantially reduced, to a point which she suggests is close to parity. What needs to be understood is that often these strength studies are situated in a sociological context, where relative strengths of individuals are influenced by that context. This is not to say that biology does not exist, but Quietuus is right to suggest that society has a powerful influence on what we consider to be an "essential" difference, and the fact that it is put in scientific language in the way you describe doesn't make it any more epistemologically valid. All such studies are able to state is that within the social context of western society, the assigned class of men are stronger than women, but this does not substantiate why this is. Again, this isn't to say biology don't real, but rather to say that a biocultural model is necessary in order to properly evaluate and come to accurate conclusions. At very least, I would say the bell curves are much closer than western-situated data would suggest.

If you're interested in this discussion of SWE and SBE, but from the perspective of a POC, I highly suggest checking out H. Samy Alim's book called Roc the Mic Right: The Language of Hip Hop Culture (www.amazon.com/Roc-Mic-Right-Language-ebook/dp/B000SIKYSM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344215840&sr=8-2&keywords=h+samy+alim).

He's a cultural/anthropologic linguist, and there's an entire chapter devoted to this and a study he did with kids who he considered to be essentially bilingual and to have stronger language skills because of their traversing of both linguistic universes.

It's an enlightening read.

I know I'm posting two links to the same author in this thread, but I promise they are both worth reading: Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane)

Ha, props for linking to a Unabomber article without mentioning it. Seriously, it's a good article, just gave me a laugh how you linked it.

Have you read Against the Megamachine, by David Watson, OP? I enjoyed it, I think it's right up your alley.

Douglas Massey's Categorically Unequal is a great study of similar areas which focuses on the deliberate maintenance of the labor underclass along racial/ethnic lines in the modern age.

EDIT: Oh, and thanks for the link. Here is a great interview with Sakai which breaks down his motivations and thesis for the book.

Honestly?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Alphabet-Of-Manliness-revised/dp/0806531444

It's a fun read, and it's tongue in cheek enough that even someone like said person could enjoy it.