I have nice boobs. Very, very nice boobs in fact. I also like to show my nice boobs and I like it when people look at them. Generally, my goal with showing my boobs is two-fold: 1) everyone in the world will fall madly in love with me and my boobs and 2) I will not look like an apple on sticks.
So surely this means I am whipping those sweater puppies out today for Boobquake right?
No. Boobquake bothers me. And not for the reasons many people think.
First, I hate empty protests. You can only raise awareness so much before you need to act. And raising awareness with people who are already aware is just preaching to the choir.
I had this argument with people about the “green screens for Iran” and the debate about calling for the arrest of the Pope. Talking about things all day long is great and can make you feel good and smart. But to accomplish anything in this world, you have to do work. And do you know why its called work? BECAUSE IT IS WORK!
Social justice movements are not fun. I wonder how fun it was for Rosa Parks to sit in the front of that bus, without even an iPod to block out the people screaming at her? I wonder if Malcolm X was just tempted to wear a t-shirt with a witty saying instead of standing up in front of people who wanted to kill him? Maybe Martin Luther King would have accomplished just as much with an Equality Ho Down in Alabama? Or maybe instead of collaborating with Theo Van Gogh on the film Submission (for which he was ultimately murdered) Ayan Hirsi Ali could have just gone to Cabo for Spring Break and convinced some of the Girls Gone Wild crew to help her write Koran verses on naked young white women? Not so powerful, is it?
Aside from the fact that it could be considered not only EXTREMELY culturally insensitive for American women to shove our freedom in the face of Iranian women, how many of the women who participated in Boobquake normally dress modestly? Based on comments, not many. Many of the women just seemed so excited to have a day to “show off the girls!”
And therein lies my second point. EVERY DAY should be a day when you feel comfortable expressing your sexuality and seeking sexual attention. Why has this event taken off like it did? Could it be that there is STILL shame in women expressing their sexuality? Of course there is!
But you don’t need a fake protest, catcalls from supportive men, alcohol, or the approval of your friends to be sexual. If you dress in a sexual manner, some people will think you are slutty. If you dress in a modest manner, some people will not give you the time of day. But the way we use Halloween, Girl’s Night Out, and now Boobquake as holidays in which “good girls” are given permission to be sexual pisses me off. You don’t NEED permission. You just need courage, and the willingness to take responsibility for your decisions. Part of that responsibility means being willing to give up the labels of good girls and bad girls, and just be.
Sexuality is a part of each of us, and people should feel comfortable expressing that in ways they find comfortable. Just don’t hide your need for sexual expression under the guise of the greater good. Because when you do so, you imply that sexual expression for its own sake is invalid. And to me, the greatest reason to be sexual is the pleasure of sexuality itself.
On ‘proper’ methods:
I wish it still shocked me that self-proclaimed skeptics could use this defense. It shows how cynical and jaded I’ve become when I just roll my eyes at it now rather than slam my head into the desk. :P
Whatever definition of ‘skepticism’ tickles your fancy, most of them amount to this: it’s a set of values or expectations that deals with evaluating information, claims, text etc. to determine how much confidence you should have in it. So when somebody who might subscribe to the skeptical philosophy uses either the scattergun defense (i.e., multiple approaches are needed, therefore all approaches have equal merit) or my other personal favourite, the mysterious middle approach (the best approach lies somewhere in between all methods), I find it interesting how somebody can suspend those values just to maintain their pet belief.
In targeting a diverse demographic, a differentiated approach is indeed required. No news there. However, by no means does that make all approaches equally valid, useful or efficient. Nor does it mean that any single approach should be shielded from criticism. In fact, the very opposite is true – all approaches should be evaluated and discussed in order to understand whether it conflicts with other approaches, or is perhaps a complete waste of resources that could be better spent elsewhere. For example, if so-called ‘asshole skeptics’ are impeding efforts to promote healthy thinking skills amongst the majority, the minority they may appeal to should be reexamined for a better outreach model.
First, the fact that Heidi is repelled by it should tell you something about what Boobquake is really about and what Heidi is really about. Sex-positive does not mean “use sex to get attention for things that have nothing to do with sex”.
Second, even if Heidi’s reaction was unexpected (it wasn’t to me at all), outliers are not relevant. If they were, we’d accept anecdotes as evidence.
There are no ‘conflicting results’. If you have seen mixed findings, I’d sure like to see them myself. This not a “your word against mine” situation.
There is little research into specific strategies for activism because it is a complex topic and scientific studies tend to be very specific in order to isolate variables. There IS literature which tells us a lot about what does NOT work and, in some cases, why. Research shows, for example, that the entertainment value of a science show is unrelated to its education value. The literature on impression formation alone says suggests that approaches like this are more detrimental than helpful if the goal is to promote science and scientific thinking. If the goal is to get attention, then it is obvious that this approach works.
If, however, you think that you can get their attention first and teach them later, you are sadly mistaken. Once people have learned that science is X, the job of teaching them that it really is Y is 200x harder. The confirmation bias is probably the strongest determinant of human behavior ever identified. People hang onto their beliefs, even in the face of counter evidence. If that is not clear in the comments on this blog, I don’t know what is.
As for “we are all individuals”, this is true for nearly everything we measure in psychology. It is precisely why we do not draw conclusions from samples of one. Individual differences in populations are not relevant; the process of determining whether variable A affects variable B uses individual differences in samples to determine if they can explain differences among groups (detect patterns highly likely to be seen in populations). People are LOT more alike than you might think.
Nobody is saying that there should not be different kinds of approaches. What I am saying – the cold, hard truth – is that some approaches are ineffective, some are even detrimental, and some are downright offensive. To expect people to simply accept any and every approach as simply “our way”, “our approach”, and “our brand” is unreasonable at best.
If everyone’s theories were equally valid, we wouldn’t need skepticism or science.
Oh, TS. We must be psychically connected. Even typing the same thing at the same time now, apparently. Shall we apply for ‘the challenge’? Or is it more probable that we’re saying the same thing because it’s the logical response?
hmmmm….
I’d like to put my vote in for
a) reason :)
and
b) I want to achieve whatever degrees you two have. :/
Podblack: *I* would like to achieve the degrees I have.
(bad ABD joke)
Boobquake was silliness. It didn’t have an agenda. It wasn’t really to prove anything. It was just supposed to be fun and it was. Why do you folks keep needing to read more into that was there. Freaking dead god on a pogostick, she made an offhand joke and it took off and everyone had fun. Don’t worry, I won’t bother you again. Followed a link thinking I had finally found a fat, feminist skeptic blogger with a sense of humor and this was going to be a joke.
I think the issue at hand is that it was incredibly Islamophobic, not that it was “bad science.”
(I was linked here by PodBlack Cat :))
I wrote something about it earlier:
http://switchintoglide.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/where-were-all-of-the-feminists-oh-right-busy-planning-a-boobquake/
@badrescher: FYI, Jen has more information discussing the science of Boobquake in her Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/29/boobquake-earthquake-immodest-dress-iran#
She discusses the ‘science’ of her ‘experiment’ as well as the flaws in the science. I don’t think she’s arguing that the experiment is flawed. I think the point was to bring this issue to light and to find an interesting and humorous way to DISCUSS the science that you could do to test this claim.
Sorry Gwenny! No sense of humor here! Just fat, feminist, and skeptic :)
Now where is that pack of ketchup for my squishy?
@Masala Skeptic, personally I loved the opportunity you took to debunk boob myths. It was a great way to celebrate and educate at the same time.
Something new: http://carnalnation.com/content/53861/486/feminist-defense-boobquake
Ooh boy, I’m EVER SO HONORED to have merited an “ETC.”
(sigh)
http://tokenskeptic.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=610629 –
For this episode, inspired by the ‘Placebo Protest’ post that is featured on the SheThought site – I interviewed both Michael McRae, a science communicator employed by Australia’s government body for science and technology.
It also features an interview with Desiree Schell, a community outreach worker who specialises in protests and rallies, of the radio show, Skeptically Speaking.com.
Enjoy! :)