The Sunday cat celebrates the inventors of peaceful resistance. July 23, 2011

She knows that there have been some very great human beings who have brought peaceful resistance to other human beings.  They have worked to make it into a very effective tool for important political and social change.  But the thing is, passive resistance has needed these great people just because it is not natural to human beings. 

Cats are an entirely different matter. 

Do note:  Cats are very good at indicating the distinction between not cooperating and suffering.  I don’t see any reason to think these cats are more than just passively resisting.

and

I’ve been reading some of the comments on youtube, and I’m concerned that some viewers may be troubled by these clips.  I do honestly think one shouldn’t judge these cats behaviors until you have taken a cat to the vets, and so have a good idea of what a cat is like when it doesn’t want something done to it.  Still, if people are offended, it can come down.

Announcement from SWIP UK

SWIP UK regrets to announce that concerns have come to light which have caused it to reconsider the granting of Women-Friendly Department and Initiatives Recognition. Our procedure has been to send an email to an administrator at nominated departments, asking them to forward it to all students (undergrad and graduate), faculty and staff at nominated departments.  The email asks for feedback of any kind on the nomination and guarantees confidentiality. We now have reason to doubt the efficacy of this procedure, and as a result may end the recognition programme. We will issue another update once we have completed the review of the recognition programme.

Uttar Pradesh – extreme violence against women

Uttar Pradesh – a state in Northern India – is seeing an increasing number of extremely brutal attacks on women. In the latest case, a sixteen year-old woman was assaulted with knives and axes before being gang raped. The woman and her family are too scared to stay in their village. They have abandoned their home and land to stay with relatives. This is just one of hundreds of rapes and attempted rapes that have happened this year in Uttar Pradesh. The attacks are a tragic example of the intersection between gender, class, and poverty. Women are accorded very low status in the region. Moreover, many of those attacked are Dalits – members of India’s lowest caste, which used to be known as ‘untouchables’. An analysis of rape figures carried out by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties in Uttar Pradesh found that 90% of the victims were Dalits. Poverty makes things worse, as people are unable to afford sanitation in their homes, forcing them to go out into their fields at night to go to the toilet. Many women are attacked whilst performing their ablutions. Campaigners say that most of the rapists are people with money and political power. Roop Rekha Verma of Sajhi Duniya (Shared World), an organisation based in Lucknow that works with women says, ‘It’s a very difficult situation here… There is a lot of violence: Crimes are escalating; gender problems are increasing; girls are being attacked, both in rural and urban areas… These cases are so brutal that we wouldn’t have believed that they could happen – we thought such things could happen only in novels and films’. You can read more here.

Openly gay? You can now be a US soldier

That’s right, folks. Now even more people can join the US military – Obama has announced that from the 20th September, the ban on openly gay people joining the army will be lifted. You can read more here.

Pluralists’ Guide recommends department with ongoing harassment scandal

As a member of one of the “SPEP departments” which is valorized for its “women-friendly climate”, I feel compelled to relate a little detail of how considerations such as this work out locally.

Our department was recently involved in a major scandal concerning a male professor who repeatedly made sexual advances towards undergraduate students and even groped a young freshman in his office during his office hours. The department response to these offenses came not from the departmental faculty, or Affirmative Action, but from the graduate students (including myself), who were appalled by such conduct as well as the seeming lack of concern from the departmental and university administration. This disconnect prompted us to compose an open letter effectively forcing the issue and listing our remedial demands.

For more, go here.