(no subject)

[sebastienne]

From the BBC's American Election coverage:

"Unbeatable name recognition and unmatched fundraising ability make Hillary - no surname necessary - the clear front-runner for the Democrats."

Of course, the BBC consider men and women equally. This is evidenced by all their coverage of the departing president, George, his vice-president, Dick, and other Demoncrats who may be running, such as John, Al, and Barack. Oh wait... it's Mr Edwards, Mr Gore, Senator Obama. But, clearly, Senator Clinton is not deserving of that same courtesy.

Yeah, I know, they have to specificy "Hillary Clinton" in the same way they have to specifiy "George W Bush". But I still find the above irritating.

ETA: Does it make sense to stop calling it the "Gay Rights Movement", and start calling it the "Gay Equality Movement"? Because that's more explicit about what we expect, plays on "all men are created equal", and just generally doesn't invite the whole "their arsking for speshul rites!" thing.

Comments

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

To be honest I think that its just bad writing and the author didn't conciously have any prejudice against Ms. Clinton, however thats not to say that there isn't, well I don't know how to say it, but another level of thought in which he doesn't consider her as serious of a politician/candidate as the others you've mentioned.

On a personal level I think Hilary Clinton would, how to say it, do well for the country - hopefuly an intervention at the right moment can alter the course of America away from becoming a psycopathic religious pseudo-theocracy.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not really suggesting it was a conscious effort to belittle her.. more, "isn't it interesting what our language does when we aren't looking?"

I don't know much about this Obama dude.. or American politics in general, actually. Hence my reading this lovely little potted guide to presidential candidates. But it seems to me that all the Republican ones are terrifying.

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

There will be conscious efforts to belittle her but this isn't one. It;'s just interesting. But this campaign will get nasty. American politics can be so foul.

Equality makes sense to me in the way that you are claiming rights you always had which have been denied not that rights need to be created for you. But as a more accurate represenation of the state of affairs maybe equality is right.

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

I sympathise. She's a politician, not a model or actor who frequently trade on just one name. Senator Clinton is her title and the polite way to address her and show respect...grrrrr. It will only get worse if she gets the nomination and the Republicans unleash the full force of misogyny against her. I mean how could a woman be President when there's a war on? Just look at Nancy Pelosi and her foolish desire to withdraw troops for Iraq.

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

Re: Senator Clinton - why not call her that? AFAIK (though I could be horrifically wrong) her husband is not a Senator, therefore he's just Mr. Mr Bill and Senator Hilary Clinton. So, they could use the title.

Unless my knowledge is wrong.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

That's true, actually; it's only once she was elected that there would be a "President Clinton" problem. Right now, there's no excuse.

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

it's only once she was elected that there would be a "President Clinton" problem

Still preferable, IMHO, to the "President Bush" problem! :P

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

XD you = win!

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

He;s not a senator. And he wasn't before he became president. he was a governor. Of Arkansas. Quite different to Senator of New York.

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

There we go then. I'm not a complete ignoramus. That's pleasing :)

[queerpup.livejournal.com]

In a similar vein, the participants in tennis tournaments are referred to as "Miss Sharapova and Ms Hingis" compared to "Henman". Why do female players need a title before their surname?

[ex-leighwoos982.livejournal.com]

What does ETA stand for?

I just went through a Gender Equality at Work quiz that had defiantly little effort put into devising it. All the questions were Satisfaction In The Workplace(tm) questions with 'needs relating to gender equality ' cut&pasted onto the end.

"Please rate the level to which you feel employment at the University addresses your needs relating to gender equality for Employment contracts, e.g. fixed-term, part-time, etc.

Negative -1 0 1 Positive, Leave Blank"

How are you even supposed to address that issue with Negative or Positive? I am so cross that people can be so keen to do half a job on issues like this.

Anyway I would rather have Gender Neuter terms for all officials. Rank(Senator, Sergeant) or professional qualification (Dr) would be a good start

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

re: ETA

I think that maybe Sebastienne has joined a Basque terrorist group ;)

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

"Edited to add".

Please rate the level to which you feel employment at the University addresses your needs relating to gender equality in terms of bothering to put any effort into the issue at all?

Re: Rights / Equality

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

Humm, this is just my opinion of what the words mean to me;

Rights would be things that the government could give/grant you, equality would be more about ensuring equal treatment by agencies other than government.

So, for instance, Gender rights legislation would give both sexes the ability to vote on the same terms, whereas Gender equality legislation would attempt to ensure that men and women would recieve the same pay for the same work.

I don't know what the ambitions of the movement are right now, so I can't really comment on which seems more appropriate.

Re: Rights / Equality

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

see, i don't see the distinction in quite the same way you do. both the examples you cite, seem to me to be examples of equality. (ie all people being treated equally regardless of sexual orientation.) Equality in voting rights, equality in being allowed to marry (make legal comitments with tax benefits to) the person you love, equality in pay, equality in not-being-fired, equality in provision of goods and services...

and, as a consequence of how i see all the above as self-evident equality, not rights, i don't see how the government can "grant" any of it. then again, i might be trapped in a semantic trap here, as i now want to say "equality is a basic right" or something like that...

hmm, a tricky one.

i guess what i'm saying is that the goal of the gay rights movement is not anything more than having the same rights as straight people. ie, equality.

Re: Rights / Equality

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

Yes - its complicated; perhaps I was unclear as 'rights' can be about equality, but equality is more than just rights. [Argh! Brain hurt!] Also the government can grant you the right to equal treatment. Rights are a political thing, and equality is a philosophical thing.

By granting rights one is saying that the government will respect that and support them - it seems silly to have rights if they are not backed by an authority. You may claim that you have a right to vote but nevertheless if the government doesn't let you then it is somewhat a pointless 'right' to have. This does seem to conflict with the idea of human rights (rights that every human should be able to expect), but I see these as a set of principles with every government, and most people have agreed are fundamental and that they will respect.

Equality is a philosophical principle, and one which can mean different things to different people. Thinking about it, equality is actually really hard to comprehend - often we would consider it equal treatment / equality if men and women have seperate bathrooms, but we would consider the seperation of bathroom by race to be completely unacceptable.

So, erm in summary
rights = things the government and legal system will backup
equality = a wider philosophy which emphasises fair and equal treatment of people, regarless of race/gender/sex etc.

Re: Rights / Equality

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

right, i'm with you now. in which case "equal rights" is the proper moniker, i suppose - because it is government support for the philosophical principle that the movement's after.

but "the equal gay rights movement"? "the gay equal rights movement"? hmm. scans really badly.

i guess i'm just sick of people going "why should we give you special rights?", when i see it as being about equal rights. yes.

[and i'm all for unisex toilets but then i'm a pinko commie liberal ;) ]

[stronglight.livejournal.com]

Rights/Equality - depends what you're campaiging for. I think I'm pretty much in agreement with neoanjou, and as such, I would say you are part of a Gay Rights Movement if you are campaigning for things like changes in legislation or company policies, etc. You are part of the Gay Equality Movement if you are campaiging to be reduce prejudice in any area without intending to change some kind of rule (for instance, where rules may already provide you with technically equal rights, e.g. for promotion, etc. but prejudice on the part of, say, your employer or colleagues might mean that you are not treated the same way).

However, I also think probably GEM covers the rights stuff as well, so perhaps thats a better term to use? And I agree, it might get away from being accused of asking for special treatment.

[wildemoose.livejournal.com]

I made the exact same observation re: Hillary Clinton a couple of days ago--I can tell you, as someone who lives in the US, this practice (referring to Obama, Edwards, Bush, and Hillary) has been absolutely rampant in the news recently, and I think it's reprehensible.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

I hear ya (http://theferrett.livejournal.com/842601.html?thread=44360297#t44360297). But it's a little disappointing that the BBC is evidently aware of this thing that a lot of people are doing subconsciously, and not only are they carrying on doing it, they're advertising that they're doing it. Le sigh.

Also, I'm not really sure I agree with the assessment, but that's a separate question entirely.

[kobold2001.livejournal.com]

They only missed out the surname in order to make the point that he is so famous. It has nothing to do with her being a woman! If barack obama was married to a former president, I'm sure he'd get the same treatment. You're knee-jerk response, to assume the press is gender-biased, is a total misinterpretation

[kobold2001.livejournal.com]

I meant to say 'she is so famous', of course, lol

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

The BBC never referred to the husband of a former Prime Minister as 'Denis'.

[petrichor-fizz.livejournal.com]

I think the 'Gay Equality Movement' is probably a fairly good description of what we're aiming for, but then again, why pander to the ignoramuses? Personally, I don't understand how anybody could think we're looking for special treatment - I mean, can you cite one instance of that? - but obviously some people do. Even a gay girl I know said she's worried that some gay people might "take it too far". I was at a complete loss as to what she meant, but obviously some people do feel this way.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

I tend to think of it as 'women's rights' rather than 'gender equality', possibly because I am at heart something of an androphobe. But then, I think rights is the point. I think that equality is a bit wishy-washy and hard to define - "equal" does not mean the same as 'the same' and all that jazz - whereas there are certain rights which everybody has. If that makes any sense.
So, I'd go with gay (or more specifically queer) rights, rather than queer equality.

For eg, I think that people have the right to single-gender / queer-only safe spaces, which are legislated against under equality legislation...

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

Oh I much prefer `gender equality' to `women's right's' because it has more of a goes-both-ways emphasis. Not just `from now on women have the right to do what was formerly men's stuff' but also `and men should think about joining in on the responsibilities that were formerly considered women's' work.

(Like eg being more involved in childcare, just to wave the flag for my usual rant...)

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

Oh and re. your last point: you refer to these as `safe spaces' - so does it then follow that in a future utopian society these would be unnecessary (as arguable men do not need safe spaces away from women) or would you still see the need for separate private spaces in an context where there wasn't a safety issue?