I really don't understand the problem with news referring to the victim as a young woman. I fail to see how this in any way mitigates the magnitude of the crime... are we as a culture just accepting that it's less horrible to rape a woman than a teen? "Young Woman" doesn't strike me as a particularly inappropriate description of a 14-year-old. At what point does it become alright to call her a woman? When she's 18? Does that mean that her rape would be less heinous at that point?

Yes, I would say 18. I could even see 16. But the point is that "woman" and "girl" do not mean the same thing. It's the same reason we don't call 35-year-olds "girls." It's inaccurate, and it's sexist to imply that there is no difference.

I think the sexism you're locating is in the misappellation, not in feministing's anger with it. Why would the AP call a fourteen-year-old a woman? Well, we live in a sexist society wherein many people think a woman who's been raped was "asking for it." This is obviously a misogynist and unacceptable point of view, but to pretend that it's not out there is silly. It is a point of view that is harder, though unfortunately not impossible to maintain when one is brought face to face with the fact that the victim was not an adult.

Off-topic: has anybody else seen today's Doonesbury? Lacey Davenport shows up in a dream and tells Joanie Caucus that the reason "young women" don't identify as "feminists" (those things are quotation marks because judging from this site, plenty of young women do identify as feminists) is because feminism is over! All its issues have been successfully resolved, and there's no longer a need for it! Well, thanks, Mr. Trudeau. I guess I can just go home and stop worrying about my reproductive rights and safety from sexual violence.

While I realize that characters can express views that are not necessarily the writer/artist's, these particular characters are two of Trudeau's most consistently sympathetic and definitely the most historically feminist, so I don't sense a huge author-character distance here.

Personally, I'd be interested to see a comparative survey: are fewer young women identifying as feminists now as compared to thirty years ago? Really? Or is just fewer than the number of young women who don't, in which case, no surprises there; radical movements that fight against social norms tend not to achieve the same mass popularity as, say, American Idol.

Anywhere else, I would've said, "Yea, those urinals look like a woman's mouth." But at McDonalds? No, that's Ronald bouche that they're whizzing into.

Yup, and I was about to say the same thing. They were in fact fashioned to resemble Ronald's mug.

Another thing that makes me sad is that these urinal's at least LOOK DIFFERANT and not sterile like the majority of public urinal's.

Anything is better than white porceline with a big chrome pipe sticking out of the top.

And I think the snarky sense of humor inherent in shaping a urinal like a woman's mouth is still pretty humorous...the same way that I'm sure some ladies would find a toilet shaped like a mans gaping mouth/head funny.

EG, yeah I saw Doonsbury too. I was surprised. There is so much going on, and they think that it's all over? Especially after they're out there today in Mississippi tearing down the last remaining medical facility that will offer abortions? I also agree with your assessment of the 14 year old "woman" story. It's a no brainer, and need not be explained to any thinking person. A 14 yr old in the USA would never be called a woman, or a young woman, but foreigners somehow are exempt from that distinction. Especially foreigners we're "liberating."

Eshew, all I have to say about your post is that your name is appropriate for some of the stuff you write. You have every right to think that pissing into a replication of a woman's mouth is humorous, but I'd rather you say it somewhere else.

What about how I said that it would be funny to defecate in a replication of a male's head, is that equally offensive?

You failed to mention that aspect of the sentence.

If you think it's offensive IN GENERAL to defecate or urinate into a replication of a HUMAN mouth, than why specifically say that it is the Female Mouth and not the Male Head that you found offensive?

I sense a double standard!

"I sense a double standard!"
Posted by: Eshew Obfuscation

lol! what?! No, you're right, I wouldn't want my toilet in the shape of a man's head, or anyone's head. But there's a different between men and women, and the male pulling out his dick and pissing in a woman's mouth has a different connotation.

Hey, check out the website name, it's called Feminist-ing, not Sexist-isting.

Hey, check out the website name, it's called Feminist-ing, not Sexist-isting.

....but feminism is supposed to be about equal rights. By its very definition it concerns both sexes.

There's another article about the age thing of the girl in Iraq: Some Papers Keep Calling Rape/Murder Victim a 'Woman'- But Here's a Reason

The last two paragraphs:

Paul was open in his views concerning the matter, saying, “If I were editing the story, I would refer to her as a girl....I see the difference between [saying] ’14-year-old’ and ‘woman’, one softens the impact a little bit....

“If we were talking about her in a different context, [for example] a precocious 14-year-old young woman who was being admitted to Harvard because she was a genius student, you might expect in that context to refer to her as a young woman.�

I don't think it's a bad thing that it softens the impact. Rape is a truly heinous crime, but rape + child abuse is even worse, just because it's two crimes rolled up into one disgusting, nauseating package.

To bitch about something else: the mikvah thing really annoys me. Feminists (Jewish and otherwise) have spent plenty of time blasting religious Jewish women for observing laws of family purity. The so-called feminists just couldn't accept that women might be making religious choices for themselves.

NOW you want the mikvah back? Now it's empowering? So maybe you shouldn't have been telling religious women that their ancient customs were demeaning? No, there's no mention of any apology or wrongdoing. No, "gee, it's a good thing that SOMEBODY was using the mikvah all this time, or we'd have no freaking clue what the damn thing was for ."

This really bothers me.

I thought that the Mass. legislature had already rejected a constitutional ammendment to persecute gays? Is this the same thing offered again through a different procedure?

Ms Jane,

In what way is it different for a female to go doody in a male mouth, than it is for a male to go pee pee in a female mouth?

How does the fact that the man urinates out of his johnson make a difference?

What's the different connotation? I'm pretty dense...but the two situations are entirely hilarious (and absurd) for exactly the same reason!

I really wish it had been Princess Superstar and not Peaches who had become famous as the white female new york hip hopper.

Princess Superstar>Peaches

EO:

I think MsJane's point is that the female rendition of such a toilet is a reinforcement of a problematical and widespread social attitude that considers women to be freely (ab)usable by men. This is an attitude that this site specializes in pointing out.

While a male version of such a toilet would be no less disgusting, it wouldn't represent a specific social problem -- and frankly, would never have become visible, because the same social pressures would relegate it to such a far fringe that airlines and fast food joints would never have even considered it.

That is fundamentally the distinction that highlights the problem: the female version got considered, and nearly implemented until sufficient public outrage was shown.

Zed,

I think it's supposed to be Ronald McDonalds mouth.

As opposed to a reinforcement of the idea, couldn't it also be considered a critique of the idea?

It all depends on perspective.

Yes, it is supposed to be Ronald McDonald's mouth (at the McDonald's). I wonder if it talks to you when you're under the influence of psychotropic mushrooms.

xyz, EO:

It's not intended to be Ronald McDonald, and I'm not sure where you got that impression. The lips are curved in a manner consistent only with depictions of women's lips, despite the manufacturer's last-minute protests to the contrary (I note that the opening flash banner on their site seems proud of the controversy).

The urinals specifically are a model called "Kisses" by Bathroom Mania, a company in the Netherlands that has nothing whatsoever to do with McDonalds, other than being a potential supplier. They've claimed that the urinals are supposed to be generic cartoon representations of lips, but with a design like that and a name like "Kisses", I find it completely unbelievable.

Also note that these were also planned to be installed by Virgin Airlines, which also has nothing to do with McDonalds, though they've got other even more serious sexism problems.

EO:

If you honestly believe that arranging a restroom so that men piss into a women's mouth is a rejection of the use of women as abusable objects, you are so far detached from reality as I perceive it that there's no point in continuing to respond to you. This is doubly true in the context of your having pushed the unsupported and contrary-to-established-fact notion that the Kisses urinals were modeled on Ronald McDonald.

In short, congratulations, you've just convinced me that you're a troll -- and I give far more leeway on such things than most.

Here we go again...

The timeless argument "I disagree with you-So, you are a troll".

I may not be a troll, but at the same time, at least I'm not a fascist.

Off the topic of the urinals, I want to take a contrary position, myself, relating to the firing of the part-time DAs.

Having read the article, unless there's additional information that wasn't presented at all, I absolutely 100% agree with the DAs decision. This is the EC pharmacist issue in reverse -- the people in those positions aren't doing what the job requires. Those slots count as full time slots with respect to personnel management, and the DA has pointed out specific reasons why full time workers are needed in those positions.

The underlying social problem (that it is difficult for many women to get their husbands to stay home to care for the kids so the women can pursue their careers) is not the DAs responsibility, and her record shows that she has been fixing the gender imbalance issue below her as fast as anyone could reasonably be expected to do -- and certainly doing a hell of a lot better at it than her predecessor.

She's not justifying her decision with her record, either -- she's justifying it by pointing out that her office can't support part time workers in those roles, and that those workers are causing problems. She's responding to allegations of sexism by pointing out her record.

Zed,

I got that impression because they look almost exacty like Ronald McDonalds lips. OK, I accept the original design is not based on Ronald.

I really don't think this has a lot to do with legitimising abusing women. I may be wrong but I don't think most men would find weeing in a ladies mouth particularly erotic or empowering, either in reality or symbolically in a McDonalds toilet.

xyz:

It doesn't have to be erotic or empowering to represent the issue. It just has to be considered acceptable -- particularly when it's one-sided.

An argument could be made, for instance, that there would be nothing sexist if the women's toilets were men's mouths as well (though how you'd depict that recognizably, I'm not entirely sure -- a necktie on the front lip?). It could then be aregued that the management was merely depraved, but at least equal-opportunity perverse.

That's not what happened, though. Enough people thought that it was acceptable to treat women as urine receptacles in effigy that these things almost got adopted by two highly visible companies -- and if they had been adopted, that would in fact have been legitimising the attitude as acceptable.

zed,

...but isnt't this the difference between fact and fiction. Lots of things are depicted in books and films that people readily watch without thinking they are acceptable in reality.

I take your point, and more and more I realize that people are very easily influenced by society and percieved authority a la the Milgram experiment. That said, aren't we tackling the problem from the wrong angle. Shouldn't we be encouraging people to take responsibility for themselves rather than sweeping things under the carpet.

xyz:

Could you please expand upon that last sentence? What exactly are you proposing?

What I mean is, shouldn't people be taught to think for themselves, rather than closing their eyes to things in case they get the wrong idea.

In this case, shouldn't people be able to see a urinal like this without thinking it legitimises any kind of abuse.

Shouldn't we destroy group mentality. Why does somebody think something is legitimate because somebody else is doing it ? Why do people listen to the person with the loudest voice ? I don't know exactly how it should be done, but it would involve a huge shift in attitudes. Abolition of the nanny state, stopping people looking to others/the government to solve their problems and tell them how to act. Stop everybody suing each other and taking offence at every minutiae of life at the drop of a hat.

Shouldn't morality come from individuals rather than society and just have people drift along with it?

xyz:

You've got a bundle of different things in there, and I'm not sure how they relate to the topic at hand, but I'll see if I can answer a few.

Re: people thinking for themselves:

Sure. Independent thought is a good thing. It's also hard work, which means that many if not most people avoid it.

Re: shouldn't people be able to see these urinals without legitimization

Sure, but that's currently a hypothetical contrary to fact. "Wouldn't it be nice if people were this way" is not the basis for sane policy decisions. You work with how people are. And there are enough sexists left in the world that they'll find validation.

Re: destroying group mentality

No, this doesn't work. The reason has to do with the need for communities and the difficulty in spending that much time re-inventing the wheel, socially speaking. A group trust of common social rules is a requirement for a functioning society, because there simply isn't enough time for a personal proof of every detail. You can't have a codified system of laws without this assumption, for instance, and I hope you'll agree that anarchy makes for a very poor quality of life. On the other hand, where a detail seems to be both important and wrong, you want independent thinkers to be able to stand up, demonstrate that, and change that rule. That's actually what's going on in the case of the urinals -- the group mentality with the loudest voice is that women are objects for the use of men, and enough people find this objectionable that they've been able to force another rule -- that a corporation at least can't be excruciatingly obvious about it in public.

Re: nanny states and suing

You're using a lot of hyperbole here, so I'm not sure what kind of answer you want. If it's not hyperbole, I have to say that it contradicts the world as I know it. It's not an extreme thing, generally. And as per the above, it's actually required to a certain extent for a society to function. While it may be too easy in the U.S. to file frivolous lawsuits, this doesn't mean that you do away with the judiciary.

Re: morality and society

Society is comprised of individuals, and their morality is passed along from member to member. Would it be nice if more people stopped to think about what they condemn or support and why? Sure. I have no idea what you're proposing as a solution, though.

The only thing I can come up with is that you seem to be proposing that women turn a blind eye to widespread sexism on the ground that doing so will suddenly cause the majority of the population to think more about their beliefs.

I can't agree with that, and I don't think you'll find many people here who do, either.

In any case, a general discussion of utopias and social construction is moving very far afield of the original topics, so unless it is brought back on point, I'm afraid I must respectfully decline to continue the discussion.

"It's not intended to be Ronald McDonald,....The urinals specifically are a model called "Kisses" by Bathroom Mania, a company in the Netherlands that has nothing whatsoever to do with McDonalds."
Posted by: Zed

It's exhausting, isn't it Zed? Doing the legwork, lining up the facts, and it's all for nothing, really. Whatever the subject matter is, the response seems to be: (take your pick:) a) There is no problem b) You're over-reacting to the problem, or c) You're not inclusive or seeing all sides to the problem.

Good effort though. I certainly appreciated reading it. And yes, btw, trolling is not characterized as being exclusively hostile. It also consists of asking irrelevent questions, making unsupported claims, presenting contrary arguments for the sake of being contrary, and consistantly expressing a viewpoint which is the exact opposite of 99 percent of members of a particular message board or blog for the purpose of distracting and creating a reaction.

Jane, I'm not going to get into this debate, but I don't think that it's honest to characterize support of the urinals as against 99% of the people here. Based on response to this thread I'd guess a small majority of Feministing readers who care about the issue think the urinals are sexist.

Alon:

It wasn't support of the urinals that made up my mind (note that xyz also supported them, and I didn't accuse him of trolling). It was the claim that pissing into a woman's mouth in effigy is a rejection of the principle of women as objects. You can't get much more opposite-to-reality than that, and I sincerely hope that at least 99% of the people here also disagree.

"It's exhausting, isn't it Zed? Doing the legwork, lining up the facts, and it's all for nothing, really. Whatever the subject matter is, the response seems to be: (take your pick:) a) There is no problem b) You're over-reacting to the problem, or c) You're not inclusive or seeing all sides to the problem."

I think this is funny coming from MsJane. From what I've read of hers, everything she writes is close minded and one sided. Any debate against her opinion is considered a troll or misinformed.

Brilliant.

Zed, I don't agree with that. I'm not sure I disagree, either. I've never seen a urinal shaped like a woman's mouth, so I really don't know how I consider that. There's a reason I stick to the boring stuff like pay equity and domestic violence and choice and daycare.