I am not going to close this site down right away, because I have some old, old entries I'll want to save, but I am leaving Xanga now.

If you want to find me, I'm on Multiply. You should be able to read my public posts at http://lunarechoes.multiply.com/, although you can only comment if you're a registered user there. I don't know whether anyone from here will want to find me there or not, but if you do, that's where I'll be.

Although I am disappointed with the culture of bullying here, and very disappointed in Xanga's decision to feature blogs that oppose human rights, without even learning about the issues themselves, I've met some very nice people here, and I'll miss a lot of you. I'm sorry I didn't have the time to get to know you better.

Tulips in Spring blogged today to say that she's leaving Xanga. She explains why quite well in a post called Done, so I won't attempt to repeat what she's said. I will say that many of the same reasons which have prompted her to leave are resulting in my leaving, too.

In addition to what she said, I am going to add that Xanga fosters an irresponsible, sort of dilettante, attitude, in which everything is open to debate.

Debate is good and healthy. It's part of intellectual life and moral life. It can foster intellectual honesty and can hone critical thinking skills. It can also foster a smoke-and-mirrors debating style, in which the person with the largest vocabulary and best verbal sleight-of-hand usually wins, regardless of the actual merits of what's being said. That kind of "debate" fosters intellectual laziness at a deep level and erodes critical thinking skills and judgment.

In the past two days, I have seen a blogger I originally respected but who has, over time, proven to me that he is all about being the cleverest boy in the room and winning debates--and cannot stand to let a woman have the last word--mock another blogger, openly by name and with a quote, in a post. The quote was used in a way which proved it had not been understood. I didn't stay to read comments or finish the entry at the time, though I went back today, finished the entry, and commented.

I have been told that, because I disagreed with another blogger, I didn't understand the topic at hand. News flash: People can understand and still not agree with you. The same blogger told me I had a "chip on my shoulder" and that that's why I don't understand (because naturally, not agreeing with him meant I didn't understand). Then, when I suggested that he needed more cultural context to understand the burqa question thoroughly, he accused me of attacking him. (It is, of course, possible that he could understand the burqa issue and the post we were discussing and still not agree with me, but it is clear that he does not understand the burqa issue and, therefore, could not understand the post fully.) When I directed him to Tulips in Spring's blog entry, the one I recommended yesterday, his response was that he had read it, and she had not supported her facts. Perhaps she didn't in every case, since it was a blog and not an academic paper, but the facts she presented were both correct and very easily verifiable.

They were also facts which are commonly known among people who have done any reading about human rights, women's right in particular, in countries where the burqa is worn. I didn't need citations because, like Tulips, I am master of those facts. I have acquired my knowledge through reading of multiple academic and mainstream sources over the years and through attendance in relevant college classes. I know that what she said is true, because it has been verified for me, as a reasonably educated, marginally well-read adult in America who takes an active interest in this topic, over and over, by multiple sources over many years. The person who has explained to both of us so many times that we just don't understand is neither prepared to accept them as true nor to make an attempt to learn the truth but is content to be guided by his limited understanding of the topic.

And that has been the defining the characteristic of the burqa debate here: Intellectual dilettantism divorced from a sense of responsibility.

Tulips and others who have said that the burqa is actually a tool of oppression are quite correct. It is. I used the analogy of a post that offers choice to African Americans but suggests that they wear chains--and was told my analogy was bad by a person who couldn't be bothered to explain, when questioned, why he thought so.

In fact, the analogy was good.

Yet, people (including John from Xanga) who do not all know burqa from hijab--including people who, laughably, thought the original poster's wife wears a burqa, when in fact she wears hijab (Note: I have just been informed that she wears a  tiechel, not a hijab--my thanks to Bohemian Lamb for the correct; I am not an expert on Islamic head coverings; I just know the difference between a burqa and head coverings. It's good to hav the correct terminology here, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to say--I was wrong about the terminology, I have been corrected and educated, and I yield to the greater knowledge someone else has on the topic; the issue was never that I am expert or the only knowledgeable person) have felt free to weigh in on the topic, mocking people with greater context and greater specific knowledge of the topic. Tulips and I have both had it explained, by people who do not understand what a burqa means, that we "just didn't understand" the post in question.

Because the original poster started off with an idiot disclaimer about how he favors "choice" for women, idiots believed him. Not everyone who believed him was an idiot. Some people who believed it were simply ignorant of the topic, chose not to become informed about the topic, and still felt qualified to weigh in. Some of those were the ones who could not tell the difference between a burqa and hijab. Tulips actually did provide photos illustrating that difference, on the blog where she allegedly offered "no support" for her facts.

The disclaimer about "choice" was disingenuous, of the "some of my best friends are black/gay/women/immigrants/Arabs/Christians/atheists" variety variety. Yet because it was there, the poster was magically protected from having to face the consequences of advocating that all women, not just his wife, don a garment so cumbersome it making performing the daily tasks of life difficult, which is widely used as a symbol of submission.

Because he pretended he thinks women should be allowed to wear whatever they chose, the intellectual dilettantes and dabblers-without-information chose to take that at face value. Tulips used the analogy of debating whether people should be forced to wear swastikas, which was ridiculed last night behind her back, using her screen name. It was not, in fact, a ridiculous argument, as both the swastika and the burqa are symbols of oppression. The difference, of course, is that the burqa is a tool of oppression as well as a symbol. Other good analogies would be if the original blogger had said "Some of my best friends are gay, and here's why I wouldn't mind if they all wore pink triangles" or "some of my best friends are Japanese Americans, and I wouldn't mind if they all identified themselves by numbers assigned to their families."

Make no mistake: Burqas are not really a matter of choice in places where they are worn. The reason you don't see a lot of women walking the streets of America and Canada in burqas is that they're not forced to wear them in those places, where they are recognized as fully human.

Did some women also mistake the man's disingenuous disclaimer as an actual investment in choice? You bet; women are not, alas, inherently smarter or better-informed than men. Did some of them, including his wife (who wears hijab but does not, herself, wear a burqa) stand up for him? Yes.

Is that evidence that his post was, in fact, pro-woman or favored choice? No. The great minds of Xanga, the people who weigh in on any topic, regardless of understanding, context, or level of knowledge, have said that it does, but they might want to read up on cultural hegemony, a phenomenon in which those who are oppressed and hold relatively less power come to identify with their oppressors, who hold more power. The man's wife, because she is actually in his power and clearly regarded as his sexual property (no one should see her body but him, because it is "his"), might fall somewhere between hegemony and Stockholm syndrome.

I have a great deal of difficulty believing that most of the people who have weighed in on this topic in favor of the man's great belief in choice for women understand what the burqa means worldwide, what hegemony is, what Stockholm syndrome is, or in fact, why you cannot divorce something with great symbolic meaning from that meaning and say "but I mean the Confederate flag/the swastika/the burqa in a good way." It is quite clear that some of them do not know the difference, as a I said, between a burqa and hijab. Further, I believe they were easily confused by his use of the word modesty, which has several different connotations. Almost uniformly, the response was as if he meant simply "not being an exhibitionist," when in fact, "modesty" means something different when it comes to the burqa: It means enforced chastity and quelling of a woman's sexuality and individuality, in order to preserve the property rights of the men who own her.

It just does. If you've spent years becoming better informed on this issue, you know that. If not, even a quick perusal of Wikipedia, lamentable as it is, will show that it is an extremist interpretation of hajib which is "enforced' and "required," not a freaking fashion choice. If you're seeking to become better educated on this topic, you might also read up on purdah.

The philosophical underpinnings of purdah, and the burqa, which is part of purdah (and again, note, a requirement, not some nifty option or some kind of private husband-wife thing) are that a woman is property. She is not fully human. She has no rights of her own. Her sexual "virtue" is enforceable by law. She cannot be raped by her husband, because he owns her. If she ventures forth alone and is raped by strangers, she must be punished for behaving like a whore and going out with a man to protect her: Her rape is the natural consequence of her "tempting" men by trying to live like a fully human person, to come and go as she pleases.

So when a man suggests that his wife (and other women) don the burqa in order to avoid unwanted attention from other men, the discussion of whether his post is offensive simply cannot be undertaken without that context. When the dilettante debaters of Xanga behave as if it can, they make intellectual fools of themselves, although they remain unable to see that that is true and, in some cases, actually point the finger at those who, having more knowledge of the subject, stand up and say that whether women are fully human, able to dress and come and go as they please without having to worry about negative consequences, is not debatable. The dilettantes and dabbers mock those who stand up for the humanity of women, because they are too uninformed to know that that is what is at stake.

But let's be clear: There is a direct threat of dire consequences to women who do not wear the burqa, or at least hijab, in that original post. The blogger threatens the livelihood, and therefore the ability to function independently of women, by suggesting that they will not be taken seriously in the workplace (and should not be) if they display their bodies to men by wearing traditional Western clothing to work. The onus is not placed on men to control their "lustful" natures; it is placed on women not to tempt men. The consequences do not descend on men, who would in fact be the offenders if they failed to take women seriously at work because they were preoccupied with their lustful feelings; they descend, according to burqa-man, on women, who are not, in fact, doing anything wrong by not wearing the burqa.

This is not the stand of a man who believes in free choice for women. This is the stand of a man who believes in one good choice for women, with all other choices to be punished. The fact that, in the most Western countries, women are not punished in the ways he indicates they should be does not make him more liberal-minded, more in favor of choice, or more excusable. For one thing, sexual harassment laws exist because sexual harassment exists. For another, in many parts of the world, women aren't even allowed into the workplace as equals. In many of those places, they wear the burqa.

Consequences for not doing so are dire.

All of this ought to put paid to the nonsense about how the original blogger was just a nice guy who really favors choice for women and how, since his property wife dare not disagree agrees with him, but it won't. Someone, if I left comments disabled, would be along to explain to me that I have a chip on my shoulder; that I did not understand the original blog; that he is for choice, darn it, choice; that he is pro-woman; that my analogies are faulty; and that I failed to provide citations.

Want citations? Too fucking bad. Educate yourself. The information that Tulips and I have provided is widely available. As I said, even the lamentable Wikipedia has it. I am sorry, but I am unable to recall the textbooks, news magazines, scholarly journals, and professors from who I have acquired this information over the course of about 20 years now.

As Tulips has said elsewhere, the original post is just kind of sad and stupid. By featuring it, Xanga called attention to it, and by defending it as "pro-woman" and in favor of "choice," without regard for the direct threat or implied threats to women and without a good working knowledge of the topic, Xanga put the seal of official Xangan approval on it.

By doing so, they have lent legitimacy to the "debate" going on, which should not be a debate at all. Whether those engaging in it realize it or not, it is a debate about whether women are fully human. About whether I am fully human, or whether I am my husband's property. About whether I have the right to go out without him without being punished by rape and then punished for being raped. About whether I have the right to be taken seriously as a professional if I choose to wear a skirt and blouse or a suit. If you're a woman, it's about you, too. If you're a man who cares about any woman, it's about her.

If you have stood up for the man who posted that original blog without understanding the full context, you made a bad mistake. If you have had the context explained to you repeatedly and/or had the over threat pointed out to you and you continued to behave as if the subject were somehow a controversy or open to debate, shame on you, whether you're male or female.

This is not a real controversy. It is a manufactured controversy, manufactured for the sake of traffic, at the expense of women, just as the controversy over Chris Brown was manufactured by the media for the sake of ratings, also at the expense of women.

It is not okay to beat women. It is not okay to oppress women. And those two truths are not negotiable, controversial, or open to debate.

By treating them as if they were, Xanga has spit on women everywhere and encouraged the kind of uniformed intellectual masturbation which passes for debate here, even among some of the smartest bloggers.

It's not all relative. All human beings are entitled to human rights--even women, even fat people. Those who speak and act against human rights are not always going to come right out and say "I favor oppressing people. I'm bad. I want to take away rights from humans." Most of them are going to try to seem sympathetic. They will be disingenuous. They will count on you to be uninformed and to take them at their word when they tell you "some of my best friends are (fill in the blank)" or "I am not a homophobe/racist/sexist/other kind of bigot" or "I think women/immigrants/people of color/gay people should be allowed to do whatever they want" before they go on to make their points.

It is the duty of all people of conscience to stand up for human rights. It is the duty of all people who love to debate to reserve what Jane Austen (who, incidentally, lived in a time and place where there was a debate raging about whether women had souls, and the church took part in that debate) called "the compliment of rational opposition" for things that are open to debate. It is the duty of people who can think to learn the difference between arguments opposing human rights and solid arguments, despite sleight-of-hand, misdirection, and claims of good will and open-mindedness.

By valuing debate over substance, some of the best minds at Xanga have placed themselves on the side of wrong and failed to stand up for human rights. By valuing traffic over responsibility, Xanga has placed itself on the side of wrong and encouraged that attitude in its bloggers.

Like Tulips, I blog elsewhere and will consider, over the next few days, how to get information about that to anyone of good will here who wants it--or whether to find another site, perhaps Blogger or Wordpress. I will leave this up for a few days, and then I'll be closing down my Xanga account. I don't expect it to make a damn bit of difference. It won't be even a ripple in the Xanga pond.

But whether anyone here cares whether I leave, whether the intellectual dilettantes reform, whether Xanga's management takes a pro-human rights stand--or, as will be the case, decidedly not, I will not stay where my basic humanity and that of others, including sexual minorities, overweight people, and women (and that's just in the past couple weeks) is questioned, and that questioning is given credibility by Xanga's management through the selection of featured blogs.

It's all well and good to say "neutrality" and "everything is open to discussion," but the humanity of no one is open to question. By staying here, I would be subscribing to the idea that it is.

No, thank you.

I just recommended Niikhita’s entry http://niikhita.xanga.com/700268313/response-to-quotbeing-fat-is-not-okayquot/ . The original blog entry, quoted in her entry, is based on the idea that people are fat because they're morally inferior--"weak-minded," lazy and greedy.

I am overweight precisely because of that mindset and the sad truth that there are doctors in the world who share that kind of small-minded bigotry. In my early thirties, I began gaining weight. I also became depressed and suffered from debilitating fatigue and a constellation of other symptoms. I literally begged a nurse practitioner, a physician's assistant, and two different doctors for help. In each case, I explained that I hadn't changed my eating habits and, since I was back in college and walking miles a day to get to various classes, was less sedentary than when I worked all day. Their answer? I was middle-aged, greedy, and lazy. I had changed my habits without noticing it. I needed to diet (I had dieted, was dieting, was a LIVING diet). I needed to learn about nutrition (I knew about nutrition and cooked and ate healthy meals). I needed to stop being so morally inferior, so weak-minded and self-indulgent and lazy and gluttonous and greedy and FAT and ICKY.

Of course, those weren't their words. But those were their messages, as they offered to place me in expensive weight-loss programs I couldn't afford, lectured me on how my habits clearly *had* changed, and told me I wouldn't be overweight, tired, OR depressed if I would just eat right and exercise. They offered me antidepressants (of the kind that that make you more tired), but they had no interest in any explanation for weight gain that did not involve moral turpitude on my part.

Eventually, when my hair was falling out in handfuls and the doctor assigned to me by my HMO was away on vacation, the doctor filling in for her got around to testing my thyroid. It was quite low. I have an autoimmune disorder in which the body attacks the thyroid gland. Since the thyroid regulates the metabolism, it affects weight and energy level, and can, in fact, affect every system in the body. It causes depression, hair less, and lowered mental acuity in addition to weight gain and fatigue. And those (along with sensitivity to cold) are just some of the most common symptoms.

Not one of the four healthcare providers I begged for help bothered to test my thyroid, though I had every one of the symptoms listed and many others. They were all bigots about weight.

Hypothyroidism typically goes undiagnosed for about three years. I was unlucky, and it was closer to four. During that time, I gained 80 pounds. It would be another ten years before my hypothyroidism was completely controlled and I could even begin losing weight.

One in five women will be hypothyroid by the time she is 50.

One in five. Lazy, greedy, weak-minded bitches!

Hypothyroidism is more common in women, but it certainly affects men, too.

Then there is Cushing’s Syndrome, in which the body makes too much cortisol. Cortisone is artificial cortisol, so those of you who know about the long-term effects of cortisol use won’t be surprised to hear that people with Cushing’s Syndrome gain a lot of weight, which they are literally unable to lose, and also have red faces and flattening of the features.

Goddamned lazy, greedy, weak-minded assholes!

Of course, people with certain other autoimmune disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, are treated with steroids, which cause massive weight gain and the inability to lose weight.

Freaking lazy, greedy, weak-minded fucking whiners!

And that’s just a small sampling of medical reasons that people may be overweight without doing anything to contribute to their weight gain and completely unable to lose weight. Greedy, lazy, weak-minded, disgusting fatties!

Here is an excerpt from Niikhita’s blog entry. The portion in bold is where she has quoted the original blog entry:

Why is there such a social stigma against making fat people feel bad? They should feel bad!

There is something fundamentally wrong with this whole argument. Most fat people already feel bad about themselves without having to be told by others.

Niikhita is absolutely right.

People who are overweight feel like shit.

I know. I am overweight, and I have been since the day my body turned on itself and destroyed my metabolism. I have dealt with denigration and prejudice from small-minded, mean-spirited, ill-educated boors like the original poster, some of whom went to medical school but were so unable or unwilling to overcome their own bigotry that they let this happen to me. They had no interest in doing their jobs because of their assumptions about the moral inferiority of fat people, even though, intellectually, they knew that one in five women will be hypothyroid by the time she is 50.

Let’s say that again: One in five women.

That’s roughly ten percent of the entire population, overweight due a single medical condition, because of factors out of their control.

And feeling like shit.

And feeling more like shit because of people like the person who thinks that fat people “should feel bad.”

I happen to think that bigots should feel bad, but in general, they don’t seem to. That seems odd and unfair, since they chose their bigotry, while I fought my weight gain every step of the way, with strength, determination, willpower, intelligence, and unyielding advocacy on my behalf in the face of doctors who were also bigots. It took all of that plus the luck to find a competent doctor who was able to do her job without letting prejudices get in her way to put me on the path back to help. Unfortunately, my assigned doctor returned from vacation and didn’t take the problem seriously. One endocrinologist, two GPs, and ten years later, I finally found a doctor who tests all aspects of thyroid function and realized that the medication I was taking wasn’t effective.  Now, I am able to lose weight.

I lost my thirties and half of my forties to this disease, between the time it took to get a diagnosis and the time it took to find the right dosage of the right medication, and I still have almost 80 pounds to lose.

Had my doctors not been bigots, I would have been diagnosed when I first asked for help, after inexplicably gaining 15 pounds.

So, the next time you look at a fat person with disgust and attribute your disgust to his or her moral inferiority and weak-minded, lazy greed, remember that you have no idea what made this person overweight or whether it’s in his or her control. If you just can’t overcome the idea that fat people deserve your derision or quell the impulse to mock “people who say they have glandular disorders” and want to see something really ugly and morally repugnant—look in the mirror!