In Christopher Hitchens' impassioned defense of the French veil ban, he claims that veils are, in practice, "a ban on the right of all citizens to look one another in the face." Where, oh where, have I heard this dubious "right" to the faces of others claimed before? Oh! Hitchens is channeling the Smile, Baby Guy!

Hitchens' essay posits some feminist arguments against the veil: In short, it's a cultural expectation made only of women, and it's not always worn freely, as some "mothers, wives, and daughters have been threatened with acid in the face, or honor-killing, or vicious beating, if they do not adopt the humiliating outer clothing." But Hitchens' central argument isn't that veils deny women equal rights. It's that the veil denies Hitchens his right—the "right to see your face":

So it's really quite simple. My right to see your face is the beginning of it, as is your right to see mine. Next but not least comes the right of women to show their faces, which easily trumps the right of their male relatives or their male imams to decide otherwise. The law must be decisively on the side of transparency. The French are striking a blow not just for liberty and equality and fraternity, but for sorority too.

In an essay condemning a cultural institution that prevents men from looking at the faces of women, Hitchens instead argues that men have an inalienable right to stare. Of course, Hitchens phrases this in gender-neutral terms—"My right to see your face is the beginning of it, as is your right to see mine"—that assumes social equivalence between the gazes of women and men. In fact, the gender-neutral approach fails to acknowledge the sexist cultural institutions that allow men to exert ownership over women's bodies through their gaze—like street harassment and sexual objectification. When a guy passes a woman on the street and tells her to "smile, baby," he's asserting authority over her face, her feelings, and how she chooses to express them—or not. Those who would declare their "right" to look at women should first note the social context in which women's faces are often examined.

Forcing a woman to wear the veil is one way to own women's bodies; declaring that it is your "right" to force her to take it off is just another tactic in the same vein.

Photo by fabbio, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* Christopher Hitchens: Ex-gay, kind of! In his forthcoming memoir, the writer who does not think this is very funny refers to his continued sexual relations with men—past his regular gay dalliances at boarding school—as a "relapse":

''Every now and then, even though I was by then fixed on the pursuit of young women, a mild and mildly enjoyable relapse would occur and I suppose that I can 'claim' this ... of two young men who later became members of Margaret Thatcher's government. For this very reason I can't really give any more names.''

* In related news: Noted ex-gay activist goes wild with male prostitute on European vacation; claims he hired the guy to "lift luggage." Indeed!

* Hey Epiphora on the bizarre world of masturbation infocenter HealthyStrokes.com:

I’ll give this guy a couple ounces of credit—he is generally okay with young people masturbating, and he didn’t laugh at a girl who said she gets turned on by the cries of babies. But his views on female masturbation (derived, clearly, from absolutely nothing legitimate) are so fucked up, so irritating, and so detrimental, that I want to punch him in the face.

* Geek feminists: check out Geek Feminism's recently-completed "Ask A Geek Feminist" Q-and-A series and find out how to be "an ally to an OMG hot girl!1!!!!" and address tokenism in everyday life.

*Andrea Grimes of Heartless Doll asks if you can forget how to have sex.

* Congratulate From Austin to A&M on graduating to a level of feminist blogging where assholes come onto her blog and accuse her of being sexist for calling out other people for being sexist. Every feminist blogger experiences this special milestone!

Photo via George Eastman House

From Fatimah, on "Why Are People Who Argue That Women Aren't Funny Not Funny?" comes this gem:

"I want to suck [Christopher] Hitchens’ slimy, fat, bigot cock, then bite it off and feed it to a mangy dog."

This comment made me say: "eew," "ouch," and "yes." In that order.

Anybody want to try beating that?

Photo via Wikipedia

Bored magazine columnists have debated for years as to why women are, or are not, funny.  Inspired by Tiger Beatdown's post yesterday on another drop in the unfunny girl barrel—a study that found that women do not immediately react to the sight of a unicycle with humor (I fucking wonder why)—I believe it's time to rephrase the question.

Why are those who argue that women are not funny so unfunny?

First, let us review:

Funny women are not sexy. According to a 2006 study by Eric Bressler and Sigal Balshine, women rated "funny" men as more sexually attractive than men they didn't find funny. The opposite was not true. "And women, don't start trying to tell jokes to attract men," writes Tom Siegfried of the study. "The study found that men rated 'funny' women as no more desirable than the others."

Women don't have enough testosterone to be funny, concluded Professor Sam Shuste, after riding around a lot on his unicycle and noting that only men made fun of him. "The sex difference was striking. 95% of adult women were praising, encouraging or showed concern. There were very few comic or snide remarks. In contrast, only 25% of adult men responded as did the women, for example, by praise or encouragement; instead 75% attempted comedy, often snide or combative as an intended put-down."

Women are too concerned with having babies to be funny, according to this classic Vanity Fair piece by Christopher Hitchens. "Those who risk agony and death to bring children into this fiasco simply can't afford to be too frivolous," he writes. "One tiny snuffle that turns into a wheeze, one little cut that goes septic, one pathetically small coffin, and the woman's universe is left in ashes and ruin. Try being funny about that, if you like."

Women are not funny because Germaine Greer needs to explain why she said women were not funny. Reasons include: They focus too much on bras and weight loss, cut down other women, are bad at improvisation, aren't competetive enough, would prefer to marry than work, and they're not desperate enough to be funny to get laid.

Those tasked with defending women in comedy have their own explanations for why women are not funny.

Women write their own stuff now. Alessandra Stanley begins her Vanity Fair response, "Who Says Women Aren't Funny?" strangely: "There are people who lament that no women now are as funny as Carole Lombard or Barbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedies of Lubitsch, Sturges, and Hawks. They are missing the point: today’s comediennes are on television, where they are often responsible for their own material." So, women aren't as funny as they were before, but at least they write their own material now, which is less funny than the male material they used to do.

The comedy environment is too hostile for women. In a response to Greer, Lynne Parker writes: "Moreover, there has been a common perception that comedy is a hostile environment for women. We are compliant in creating this image. The practicalities of life on the circuit are not for the faint-hearted—many hours on the road and antisocial hours do not engender a traditional home life. Many a promising female act has given up the juggling of career, marriage and motherhood, even temporarily, for the sake of an easier life."

Women are not socialized to be funny, as men are. On Broadsheet, Kate Harding responds to Greer: "Throughout the essay, Greer keeps offering great setups for an analysis of why women are culturally discouraged from developing and displaying robust senses of humor, then following them up with conclusions that amount to, 'We're from Venus — whaddaya gonna do?'"

Since all these arguements as to why women aren't funny—or why they're not allowed to be funny—are based on half-baked speculation and anecdotal evidence anyway, let's float a new theory: Why are people who argue that women aren't funny so unfunny?

The study by Bressler and Bashine showing that women are more attracted to funny men used the following statement as an example of humor: "Birthday cake is the only food you can blow on and spit on and everybody rushes to get a piece." The researchers themselves acknowledged that their funny statements were not very funny. "Given the sophomoric nature of some of our humorous statements, it is not surprising that participants did not ascribe 'intelligence' to our humorous individuals," they wrote. Perhaps women are actually more attracted to men who are not funny, and also stupid?

And those unicycle quips? "Equally striking [said Shuste] was the repetitive and predictable nature of the comments from men; two thirds of their 'comic' responses referred to the number of wheels—'Lost your wheel?,' for example." Hilarious.

Germaine Greer is humorless, but she gets a pass because she has a body that can produce children, and is without a good handle on the inherent comedy of the unicycle. (Christopher Hitchens, actually, is pretty funny).

So, we're not funny, the birthday cake and unicycle comedians of the world claim, because we're girls. What's their excuse?

Well, hello, there. Sorry if things have been sparse here as of late. I awoke yesterday with peculiarly large lymph nodes and  inner ears that seem to have gone scuba diving without my permission. But I'm hopping off to one ye olde urgent care center cold & flu mill this morning, where a medical doctor can hopefully inform me how I might go about not sounding like a classic movie nerd post-haste.

* Another guy claiming to be looking for a date to the inauguration is 52, loves "fresh seafood on the grill, roast chicken and fine wines," looking to take you to "one of the department stores to purchase a gown or gowns—if you would like to attend more than one Gala with me."

* Other Craigslisters, on the other hand, are advertising their interest in your inaugural gravy train, like this 40-year-old Kensington woman. She's a charmer:

I have been in the DC/MD area for three years, and up until recently I was completely unimpressed, ney, disappointed with the "energy" of the area. However, like so many others, I have experienced the verve, excitement, and yes, the hope that permeates the air these past few weeks. . . . Therefore, I am very interested in attending the Ball!

* Via Slate: Barack Obama's Presidency: kids ask, parents answer.

* Also in Slate, Christopher Hitchens completes his yearly curmudgeonly exercise of hating Christmas:

I have just flung aside my copy of the Weekly Standard, a magazine with a generally hardheaded and humorous approach to matters. It contains two seasonal articles that would probably not have made print were it not for the proximity to the said solstice. (To be fair, the same can be said of the article that you are reading, but I claim exemption under the terms of the "to hell with all that" amendment.)

* Evil Slutopia has a guide to how your holiday shopping can help women.

Photo via trialsanderrors.