Saturday 30 June 2018

"l'égalité devant la loi de tous les citoyens sans distinction de sexe, d'origine ou de religion"

While some nations seem to be obsessed with the "race" of their citizens creating, inventing, using pseudo-scientific categories in different forms and questionnaires, France approved a bill to remove the word "race" from law books in 2013 as this was a move forward on ideological and educational levels since "race" despite a lacking scientific validity has been "the basis for racist ideologies" (via).



Since this decision, the term "race" has only been mentioned in the French constitution when stating that France "guarantees the equality of all citizens before the law, regardless of their origin, race or religion" (via). Now, the President of France is changing this, too. President Macron says that the word "race" - due to its symbolic impact - should no longer be part of the constitution (via and via). Merci, Monsieur le Président!

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photograph of Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron via

Friday 29 June 2018

"Her world orbits around doctors. Psychic tension rules her universe."

"Drug addiction—particularly to prescription painkillers and tranquilizers—has long been a feminist issue. Women have been liberally fed pills for their anxiety, depression, and pain for over a century. At one point, the former First Lady of the United States, Betty Ford, undertook addiction treatment for, among other things, tranquilizer abuse. Librium and Valium “were unabashedly promoted as wonder drugs that could be used to help manage an enormous range of life problems, ranging from tension, nerves, and irritability to menopause, juvenile delinquency, family and marital difficulties, and problems at work.”"
Andrea Alessi



"This childless widow's interpersonal relationshps sociometrically diagrammed reveal the patterns of dominance, closeness, absence, and loss created by the principal people in her life.
Her mother's obvious preference for her older sister has always rankled this patient. The deaths of her father and husband accentuated her alienation and hostility. Hypochondriasis is the way she disowns her conflicts.
While you gradually turn her away from somatic concerns and guide her through old, hidden problem areas, you can ease her undue psychic tension with Valium* (diazepam)."

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image (1971) via

Wednesday 27 June 2018

"In this individual, domination by women has led to psychic tension."

The central figure's interpersonal relationshps, sociometrically diagrammed, reveal the patterns of dominance and closeness he has with the principal people in his life. In this individual, domination by women has led to psychic tension.



He doesn't understand the source of his psychic tension. But you do. He relates well to women with domineering traits. But not to men. Not even his own son.
Whenever psychic tension is a significant component in the clinical profil, consider the use of Valium (diazepam). On proper maintenance dosage, Valium can help reduce the psychoneurotic patient's tension - anxiety, apprehension, agitation, alone or with depressive symptoms - to more comfortable and adaptable levels. The most commonly reported side effects are drowsiness, fatigue and ataxia.
For your passive-dependent, tension-ridden patient dominated by women - and for countless other psychoneurotics - Valium may prove itself a helpful partner to your psychotherapeutic skills.

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image via

Tuesday 26 June 2018

Lady, your anxiety is showing

On the visible level, this middle-aged patient dresses to look too young, exhibits a tense, continuous smile, and may have bitten nails or overplucked eyebrows. Symptoms of anxiety are hard to miss. What doesn't show as clearly is the coexisting depression that often complicates treatment.



TRIAVIL offers effective tranquilizer-antidepressant therapy. TRIAVIL provides perphenazine to help allay anxiety and amitriptyline HCI to lift depressive mood and relieve the functional somatic complaints often encountered in patients of this age group.

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image (1970) via

Monday 25 June 2018

Address at the Annual Convention of the NAACP, by Pres. Ronald Reagan (1981)

(...) there is a great deal to be gained when we take time to share our views. And while our communication should always deal with current issues of importance, it must never stray far from our national commitment to battle against discrimination and increase our knowledge of each other.



A few isolated groups in the backwater of American life still hold perverted notions of what America is all about. Recently, in some places in the nation there's been a disturbing reoccurrence of bigotry and violence. If I may, from the platform of this organization, known for its tolerance, I would like to address a few remarks to those groups who still adhere to senseless racism and religious prejudice, to those individuals who persist in such hateful behavior.

If I were speaking to them instead of to you, I would say to them, "You are the ones who are out of step with our society. You are the ones who willfully violate the meaning of the dream that is America. And this country, because of what it stands for, will not stand for your conduct." My Administration will vigorously investigate and prosecute those who, by violation of -- or violence or intimidation, would attempt to deny Americans their constitutional rights.



(...) Our dialog must also include discussions on how we can best protect the rights and privileges of all our citizens. My Administration will root out any case of government discrimination against minorities and uphold and enforce the laws that protect them. I emphasize that we will not retreat on the nation's commitment to equal treatment of all citizens. Now, that, in my view, is the primary responsibility of national government. The Attorney General is now carefully studying the decennial redistricting plans being submitted under the current Voting Rights Act. As soon as we have all the information there will be a decision regarding extension of the Act.

(...) In the months ahead, our dialog also will include tough and realistic questions about the role of the federal government in the black community. I'm not satisfied with its results, and I don't think you are either. And the failures of the past have been particularly hard on the minority poor, because their hopes have failed as surely as the federal programs that built those hopes. But I must not *be the only one who has questions about* government policies.

Can the black teenager who faces a staggering unemployment rate feel that government policies are a success? Can the black wage earner who sees more and more of his take-home pay shrinking because of government taxes feel satisfied? Can black parents say, despite a massive influx of federal aid, that educational standards in our schools have improved appreciably? Can the woman I saw on television recently -- whose family had been on welfare for three generations, and who feared that her children might be the fourth -- can she believe that current government policies will save her children from such a fate?

We ask these tough questions because we share your concerns about the future of the black community. We ask these questions because the blacks of America should not be patronized as just one more voting bloc to be wooed and won. You are individuals as we all are. Some have special needs. I don't think the federal government has met those needs.

Now, I've been listening to the specific needs of many people -- blacks, farmers, refugees, union members, women, small business men and women, and other groups -- they're commonly referred to as "special-interest groups." Well, in reality they're all members of the interest group that I spoke of the day I took the oath of office. They are the people of America. And I am pleased to serve that special-interest group.

The people of the inner cities will be represented by this Administration every bit as much as the citizens of Flagstaff, Arizona, Ithaca, New York, or Dixon, Illinois, where I grew up. Anyone who becomes President realizes he must represent all the people of the land, not just those of a home State or a particular party; nor can he be just President of those who voted for him.



(...) The well-being of blacks, like the well-being of every other American, is linked directly to the health of the economy. For example, industries in which blacks have made sufficient gains in employment -- substantial gains, like autos and steel -- have been particularly hard hit. And "last hired, first fired" is a familiar refrain to too many black workers. And I don't need to tell this group what inflation has done to those who can least afford it. A declining economy is a poisonous gas that claims its first victims in poor neighborhoods, before floating out into the community at large.

(...) Rebuilding America's economy is an absolute moral imperative if we're to avoid splitting this society in two with class against class. I do not intend to let America drift further toward economic segregation. We must change the economic direction of this country to bring more blacks into the midstream -- and we must do it now.

In 1938, before we had the equality we know today, Langston Hughes wrote "Let America Be America Again." And he wrote:
Oh, yes, I see [say] it plain
America never was America to me.
And yet I swear this oath --
America will be!

America will be. That is the philosophy the people proclaimed in last November's election: America will be. And this time, she will be for everyone. Together, we can recreate for every citizen the same economic opportunities that we saw lift up a land of immigrant people, the kind of opportunities that have swept the hungry and the persecuted into the mainstream of our life since the American experiment began.

To a number of black Americans, the U.S. economy has been something of an underground railroad: It has spirited them away from poverty to middle-class prosperity and beyond, but too many blacks still remain behind. A glance at the statistics will show that a large proportion of the black people have not found economic freedom. Nationwide, for example, 43 percent of black families in 1979 had money incomes under 10,000 dollars.

Harriet Tubman, who was known as the "conductor" of that earlier underground railroad, said on her first escape from slavery, "When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything." Even after a century the beauty of her words is powerful. We can only imagine the soaring of her soul, what a feeling that must have been when she crossed into freedom and the physical and mental shackles fell from her person.

Harriet Tubman's glory was the glory of the American experience. It was a glory which had no color or religious preference or nationality. It was simply, eloquently, the universal thirst that all people have for freedom.



(...) The black leadership of this nation has shown tremendous courage, both physical and intellectual, and great creativity as it sought to bring equality to its people. You in this audience are the inheritors of that proud black heritage. You are the black leaders of today, and I believe you possess the very same courage and creativity. I ask you to use that courage and creativity to examine the challenges that are facing not just blacks but all of America.

I ask you to question the status quo as your predecessors did and look for new and imaginative ways to overcome minority problems. I'm talking about the kind of courage and questioning your chairman, Margaret Bush Wilson, showed in taking the heat for the NAACP's controversial 1978 energy statement -- a statement which shook the elitists of our country back into the real world, at least for a time. What I'm asking you to consider requires not so much a leap of faith, but a realization that the federal government alone is just not capable of doing the job we all want done for you or any other Americans.

(...) We plan to take a look, a comprehensive look, at the education of blacks from primary school upward and strengthen the base of black colleges, which are a sound educational investment. They are more than that. They're a proud tradition, a symbol of black determination and accomplishment, and I feel deeply they must be preserved. Now we've -- we've increased the share of Department of Education Title III funds sent -- spent on black colleges, and that trend will continue.

We have equal concern for the black business leaders of today. Minority business development, as I indicated earlier, is a key to black economic progress. Black-owned businesses are especially important in neighborhood economies where the dollars, as I said, spent have a beneficial multiplier effect.

(...) We will link hands to build an era where we can put fear behind us and hope in front of us. It can be an era in which programs are less important than opportunities. It can be an era where we all reach out in reconciliation instead of anger and dispute.

In the war in Vietnam several years ago, a live grenade fell among a group of American soldiers. They were frozen with horror knowing they were only seconds away from death. Then one young soldier, a black, threw himself on the grenade, covering it with his helmet and his body. He died to save his comrades. Greater glory hath no man. Congressional Medal of Honor winner, posthumously presented, Garfield Langhorn's last whispered words were, "You have to care."

Let us care. Let us work to build a nation that is free of racism, full of opportunity, and determined to loosen the creative energies of every person of every race, of every station, to make a better life. It will be my honor to stand alongside you to answer this call.

Thank you.

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- transcript via
- photographs via and via and via and via and via

Thursday 21 June 2018

The -ism Series (29): Gingerism

"Growing up as a redhead I was lucky enough to escape with just the occasional name-calling - having the surname Jaffa was no doubt a double-whammy. But attacking someone on the basis of their hair colour can be every bit as damaging as persecuting someone for their race (sic) or religion, and therefore, in some cases, needs to be taken just as seriously."
Sharon Jaffa, journalist



Ginger-baiting is discussed as a British phenomenon. At the same time, Britian is "the most red-headed part of the world" (via). Children are bullied at school because of the colour of their hair, women are stereotyped as fiery, sensuous, alluring, and emotionally instable, men suffer from more abuse (via and via). According to a study, nine out of ten ginger-haired men have been bullied (via).
In the US, red hair is not associated with teasing or bullying, it may even be considered as glamorous (via). In other European countries it is "celebrated and seen as something going back to the Vikings, representing strength and vigour" (via). Culture and gender play a role: Women with red hair in the U.S. are less anxious than men with red hair in the U.K. (O'Regan, 2014). Speculations about the reasons why there is gingerism in the U.K. range from Shakespeare's menacing characters having red hair, anti-Irish sentiment in the 19th century (via), redheads being accociated with sin and accused of being witches and burnt in the 15th century, to Ancient Egypt where the red-haired god Set who was believed to cause earthquakes and thunderstorms  and was calmed down by his worshippers by sacrifycing humans, i.e. redheads (via). "Just why this prejudice persists in 21st-century Britain is a mystery." (via)



A problem often mentioned is that nobody seems to feel responsible to protect those affected. It is not racism, not sexism, there are no marches, no education campaigns (via). The majority seems to think that it is acceptable to "slag off" people with red hair (Thorne, 2011).
"Red hair is an issue. Particularly in this country. Teachers often let it [bullying] happen because there isn’t a stigma around it in the way there is, quite rightly, about something like racism." Lily Cole
While some seem to think that treating gingerism like e.g. racism, sexism or homophobia could be a promising way to tackle the problem, others see discrepancies. Gingerism is tragic and wrong but not necessarily an -ism that can be compared to the core diversity dimensions and the discrimination mechanisms associated with them:

I'm a proud ginger and I've been abused, insulted and even, as a child, assaulted and bullied for it. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but I'm pretty sure I have never been denied a job or the lease on a flat because of my complexion. I haven't been stopped and searched by police 25 times within a year because I am ginger, or casually assumed to be a threat, a criminal or a terrorist. I am not confronted by political parties and movements, some with democratically elected representatives, which would like to see me deported from the country or granted second-class citizenship.
Likewise, no one has been putting up posters recently calling for me to be executed for gingerness. There are no respected religious leaders telling me that my very existence is sinful and that I'm heading for an eternity in hell. Nobody wishes to bar me from marrying my partner, wherever and however we choose, because she has (peculiarly, I will be the first to admit) fallen in love with a ginger.
For that matter, if we ever did get married, neither she nor I have grown up in a world where I could be raped with impunity as the effective property of the non-ginger party. Nobody would have ever denied me a mortgage under my own name, as happened during our parents' generation, or asked to talk to the non-ginger of the house about technical or mechanical matters. I haven't heard any politicians or newspaper headlines, this week or any other, assume that if one of us stays at home to look after the kids it will inevitably be the redhead.
Racism, sexism and homophobia are not just woven into the fabric of our history, they are living dynamics in our culture, even in our economy. They are, to greater or lesser extents, systematic and institutional in most aspects of life and the struggles to remove them are intrinsic to wider political battles over the very nature of our society, public policy and economic system. In that light, I would not hesitate to add disablism to the list of systematic oppressions.
After finally breaking free of the shackling language of "cripples" and "invalids" and securing the legal rights to access work and social participation, disabled people now face a twin-pronged, co-ordinated attack from politicians and press, who demonise them as scroungers and malingerers while snapping thread after thread of the safety net which keeps many out of abject poverty, squalor and indignity. That is institutional discrimination and oppression of the most shameful kind. To even suggest redhaired people face similar issues is insulting, verging on the obscene.
Anti-ginger prejudice and bullying is real and harmful, but the idea that it equates to these systems of oppression is fundamentally flawed. It assumes that all forms of prejudice and discrimination are equal and occurring in the same context when they really do not. It assumes that all forms of discrimination are the products of individual bigotry and irrational prejudice rather than structural and institutional divides.
Ally Fogg



"Certainly, working with young people, it is an issue that comes up again and again. We have had cases where they have gone to the extent of dying their hair jet black or another colour to escape the abuse. We have also had young girls coming in for group sessions in which they will not take off their hats the entire time. If you look at any school now in towns and cities across the country, the diversity will be huge. It is quite disturbing that despite that diversity, and the amazing work going on to celebrate it, there are still these issues. There is no logic to this. It is ingrained in some part of our folklore."
Claude Knights

"Childhood can fuzz into a set of fudged impressions, but I would be surprised if the colour of my hair wasn’t brought up almost every single day for great swathes of my younger years. I’d frequently be called Ginger or Carrot Top by other pupils and at some point during my journey through an all-boys school, Ginger evolved into an altogether more aggressive-sounding Ginga with a hard G. The most creative refrain was Duracell – a reference to a battery’s rusty top."
Matthew Stadlen

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- O'Regan, K. (2014). Red hair in popular culture and the relationship with anxiety and depression. Cork: B.A. Thesis
- Thorne, T. (2011). The 100 Words that Make the English. London: Abacus.
- photographs of Senta Berger via and via and via

Tuesday 19 June 2018

UFO! Survival (1971)

Straker: "(...). Now, whoever commands it has got one of the most responsible jobs in S.H.A.D.O. I'd like you to consider it, Mark."
Bradley: "Are you offering me the job, Sir?"
Straker: "Yes, does that surprise you?"
Bradley: "Not altogether. And does it surprise you if I say no?"
Straker: "It disappoints me."
Bradley: "Well, you've done your duty. You've asked. And I've given you the no you wanted."
Straker: "What do you mean, I've done my duty?"
Bradley: "Sure - after Foster, I'm the senior man. The obvious choice, if you like."



Straker: "So. I offer you the command of Moonbase, and you say no. Why?"
Pause
Straker: "I asked you why!"
Bradley: "Because of this." (Points to his skin)
Straker: "Don't give me that. Racial prejudice burned itself out five years ago."
Bradley: "How would you know? All right, on the surface, maybe. But deep down inside of people, it's still there. Maybe it will never show. And maybe it will - like some time I'm ordering a guy out on a mission? A time the chances are he won't be coming back?"
Straker: "Look. I'm not offering you some easy number. And I don't care if you are polka dot with red stripes. You're the best man for the job. Now, do you want it?"
Pause
Straker: "Do you want it?"
Bradley: "Yes, Sir. I would like it. But not like this."
Straker: "No one wanted it like this. Now, you get some rest, Commander."



The whole episode on YouTube: WATCH



images via and via and via

Monday 18 June 2018

UFO! The Responsibility Seat (1973)

Ealand: "Jo Fraser is in the reception."
Cmdr. Straker: "Who?"
Ealand: "The reporter from the press agency."
Cmdr. Straker: "Did I make an appointment?"
Ealand: "Yes, Sir. You agreed to the interview last week."
Cmdr. Straker: "All right, thank you Miss Ealand." (...)
Reporter enters.



Cmdr. Straker: "Before we start I must tell you that I'm a very busy man, Mr Fraser."
Fraser: I must apologise, my name is Josephine Fraser. I sometimes find that in a man's world, Jo is more convenient."
Cmdr. Straker: "Hm, well, is it a man's world?"
Fraser: "I think so. I hope you'll forgive me."



The whole episode on YouTube: WATCH



images via and via and via

Friday 15 June 2018

What do you know about it?

"Was wisst ihr denn eigentlich schon davon?" (German with English subtitles) is an awarded poetry clip on bias and prejudice based on a poetry slam text written by Anke Fuchs. Different people meet in different settings, see others, judge them.



What do you know about it? When you see the fat woman with the embarrassed face biting into her dripping burger and think, "No wonder".
What do you know about it? That she's already twenty pounds lighter than last year and that she couldn't say no to Tim, who's 11, and her favourite nephew? And that at home he only ever gets to eat wholemeal bread? Come on Aunt Lisa, just once a year, please. And it almost sticks in her throat but what can she tell the boy about points and calories? And it's not so easy being the favourite aunt when she can't go climbing with him. And Lisa chews on, revolted, and tries only to see a happy Tim and not you, because she knows that you're thinking "No wonder" and she thinks: "What do you know about it?"
And then she remembers the weighing in her group on Saturday and goes to the restroom to get rid of the burger and it tastes salty because she's swallowing tears. But what do you know about it?...

Thursday 14 June 2018

Freedom Schools

In 1964, Freedom Schools were established aiming to offer a culturally relevant curriculum to Black students and to empower them. Students studied "race" relations, inequality, African American history and literature, critically studied what it meant to be a black US-American during the Civil Rigths Movement. Providing critical information meant that students could realise that education was the door to greater political freedom as it was also required for voting rights (Watson, n.d.).



In Mississippi, per capita expenditure of school boards was four times higher for white children than for black children.Teachers did not cover controversial topics as they would have lost their jobs. Additional schools were needed, schools in which questioning was the vital tool, Freedom Schools.
Freedom Schools were popular, twice as many students took part than expected. Classes were usually held in churches or outdoor. Not only did they enhance critical thinking, other subjects (e.g. foreign languages) were supposed to help students transition to higher education after completing high school (via).


Photograph: The Freedom Summer, volunteers arrive in Hattiesburg, MS, the "Mecca of the Freedom School world" (via)


Photograph: The July 4th, 1964 picnic at Vernon Dahmer's farm welcomed Freedom Summer volunteers to Hattiesburg, Mississippi.


Photograph: Vernon Dahmer (1908-1966), pictured wearing a hat, is the Hattiesburg activist who hosted the July 4th picnic. He was murdered two years after the Freedom Summer by members of the Ku Klux Klan.


Photograph: Freedom School Mississippi Project, 1964, a volunteer teaching science class to students, photo credit: Matt Herron


Photograph: Freedom School student Cynthia Perteet (left) and volunteer Beth More (right) in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, during Freedom Summer, 1964. More was a teacher in the Freedom School hosted by Mt. Zion Baptist Church.


Photograph: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee field secretary Sandy Leigh (New York City), director of the Hattiesburg project, lectures Freedom School students in the sanctuary of True Light Baptist Church.


Photograph: Volunteer William D. Jones (native of Birmingham, Alabama, and New York public school teacher) who taught in the Freedom School at True Light Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, leans on the stair rail of St. John United Methodist Church in Palmers Crossing talking with local child Tilton Sullivan.

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- Watson, M. (n.d.). Freedom Schools Then and Now: A Transformative Approach to Learning, 170-190, link
- photographs and their descriptions via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via

Friday 8 June 2018

Quoting Anthony Bourdain

"Look, I never wanted to be part of bro culture. I was always embarrassed. If I ever found myself, and I mean going way back, with a group of guys and they started leering at women or making, “Hey, look at her. Nice rack,” I was always, I was so uncomfortable. It just felt, it wasn’t an ethical thing; it was that I felt uncomfortable and ashamed to be a man and I felt that everybody involved in this equation was demeaned by the experience. I was demeaned by standing there next to things like this. They were demeaned for behaving like this. It’s like sitting at a table with somebody who’s rude to a waiter. I don’t want to be with someone like that.
(...) People actually used the word macho around me. And this was such a mortifying accusation that I didn’t even understand it."
Anthony Bourdain (1956-2018)




::: Anthony Bourdain in Iran: WATCH
::: Anthony Bourdain in Rome: WATCH



"The fact that over 50 per cent of the residents of Toronto are not from Canada, that is always a good thing, creatively, and for food especially. That is easily a city's biggest strength, and it is Toronto's unique strength."
Anthony Bourdain



"More than half of my team is Hispanic, as are many of our guests. And, as a proud Spanish immigrant and recently naturalized American citizen myself, I believe that every human being deserves respect, regardless of immigration status."
Anthony Bourdain



photographs via and via and via and  via

Tuesday 5 June 2018

Dolly Parton Said No to Elvis Presley

"Mark was really passionate about championing this story as a tale of female confidence, and self-belief, as it must have taken so much strength for her to say no to 'The King' at that point in her career."
Heather Colbert



"The idea that the size of the puppets would denote their confidence and control in the situation came from my listening to the track over and over and finding where the shifts in power fell in the narrative of the song.
Once we had agreed on the metaphor – using size to denote confidence – it was very interesting to create these polar opposite characters and work out how to show the balance of power shifts through the track."
Heather Colbert

Animated and directed by Heather Colbert
Song by Mark Nevin

Monday 4 June 2018

Abnormal, Pathological, Deviant: Classifying Homosexuality As a Mental Disorder

In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) officially classified homosexuality as a "sociopathic personality disturbance"; in 1968, it was reclassified as a sexual deviation. Over the next decades, the fight for reversal of this diagnosis "became a focus of the gay rights movement", the fight to be accepted as normal, as the classifications had an enormous impact on society's view of homosexuality. Disputing negative views became difficult since the APA classification "was supposedly based on scientific findings". In 1970, gay rights activists disrupted an APA convention in San Francisco aiming to be heard. "Hard words" were exchanged between the protestors and the APA members who hired security. Nevertheless, the protests had some impact and gay rights activists had a gay-focused panel at a convention that took place in 1971. The panel wanted the diagnosis to be removed from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the APA), it remained. The activists returned in 1972 and asked again that homosexuality be not classified as a mental disorder, their request was denied again. Members of the panel were either homosexuals or psychiatrists, no speaker was both.


Photograph above: APA 1972 booth
The activists had difficulty finding a gay psychiatrist who was willing to be on the panel, risking stigma and career damage, but they were finally able to convince Dr. John Fryer to participate (Drescher & Merlino, 2007). However, Fryer was still reluctant to come out to his colleagues, so calling himself Dr. H. Anonymous, he wore a wig and a mask to disguise his face and used a microphone to distort his voice. Bauthey-Gill, 2011
Today, the APA has an award named after John E. Fryer (1937-2003), the masked gay, anonymous psychiatrist (see photograph below) (via).



At the 1973 convention, the APA's Nomenclature Committee pointed out that a mental disorder was defined as something causing subjective distress on a regular basis and that was associated with impairment in social effectiveness of functioning. The conclusion was that  homosexuality was not a disorder based on the definition of the term. The diagnosis was removed from the DSM in December 1973, newspapers ran headlines saying that "Twenty Million Homosexuals Gain Instant Cure". Not all APA members supported the decision, so the APA sent out a ballot in 1974 to vote on the removal and 58% voted to uphold the decision. Controversy continued but the APA stood behind the decision not to classify homosexuality as a disorder and in 1978, created  the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists and a gay and lesbian task force. The DSM II, published in 1974, compromised and defined homosexuality as a Sexual Orientation Disturbance only if the person was "disturbed by, in conflict with, or wished to change their sexual orientation". This was removed in 1987 (Baughey-Gill, 2011).
Despite this new controversy and a few others like it, the APA has helped make tremendous advances towards the recognition of homosexuality as normal since its 1973 decision. In part because of the APA’s decision, the United States will continue to see more research in the 21st century that includes subjects of all sexual and gender orientations as well as the increased acceptance of homosexuality by society as a whole. As for now, being gay is finally okay with the APA. Baughey-Gill, 2011
The ICD (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems published by the World Health Organisation) removed homosexuality from its classification only in 1992 but kept "ego-dystonic sexual orientation" (via) - which was introduced as a "part of the consensus-building process connected with the removal of homosexuality" by the APA. It was removed in 1987 (Cochran et al, 2014).
The APA recommended to the WHO that the sexual orientation diagnoses be deleted from its ICD-10 version saying:
Since ICD-9, positive changes have occurred in the perceptions and legal status of homosexuality in many societies worldwide. Nevertheless, persons with non-heterosexual sexual orientation identities and/or behavior are still subject to societal stigma and discrimination that harm their health. The psychological and behavioral disorders associated with sexual development and orientation in ICD-10 are historically rooted in and support continuing unscientific stigmatization of homosexuality by health professions. Because stigmatization continues, the diagnoses in category F66 are likely to be used to diagnose homosexuality despite its accompanying caution against that practice. Further, use of F66 codes may impede appropriate treatment of underlying disorders (e.g., Major Depression).
No scientifically accepted treatment method has been shown to effectively treat F66 diagnoses. A recent systematic review of the research literature found that insufficient evidence to support sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) in adults, no evidence that SOCE in children and adolescents affected adult sexual orientation, harm from SOCE, and the benefits that some reported from SOCE were related to non-SOCE aspects of treatment.
Health professionals in nations where the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is used have operated without ICD F66-like diagnoses for more than 20 years without difficulties emerging. In doing so, they have appropriately used diagnostic codes that reflected the nature of complaints from the standpoint of distressing symptoms.
APA
Its sixth revision, the ICD-6, published in 1948, classified homosexuality as a sexual deviation based on a personality disorder. The ICD-10 stated that sexual orientation per se was not the disorder but that there were mental disorders linked to sexual orientation (Cochran et al, 2014; Reed et al., 2017).
For its 11th revision, the ICD-11, published in 2017, the Working Group recommended the complete deletion of "Psychological and behavioural disorders associated with sexual development and orientation", as:
In this way, ICD-11 can address the needs of people with a same-sex orientation in a manner consistent with good clinical practice, existing human rights principles and the mission of WHO. Cochran et al., 2014
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Quotes from the Sid Davis (1916-2006) "safety" film Boys Beware (1961) below in which homosexuals are equated with pedophiles (colorised version: WATCH):

"What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick - a sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious - a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual: a person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex."

"One never knows when a homosexual is about. He may appear normal and it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill."


Sid Davis, who made over 150 films, receives particular mention for his excesses, exaggerations, and distortions, which went unchallenged because, unlike other filmmakers, he did not have a committee of educational advisors or a peer group overseeing his work. Davis's films focused on misery (...) and often ended in violent death, simply because a boy had driven too fast (The Bottle and the Throttle, 1968) or hitched a ride with a homosexual (Boys Beware, 1961) (Besley, 2002).
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- Baughey-Gill, S. (2011). When Gay Was Not Okay with the APA: A Historical Overview of Homosexuality and its Status as Mental Disorder. Ocean's Razor, 1(2), 4-16, via
- Besley, T. (2002). Counseling Youth. Foucault, Power, and the Ethics of Subjectivity. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
- Cochran, S. D., Drecker J., Kismödi, E., Giami, A., Garcia-Moreno, C., Atalla, E., Marais, A., Meloni Vieira, E., & Reed, G. M. (2014). Proposed declassification of disease categories related to sexual orientation in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11). Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 92, 672-679, via
- Reed, G. M., Drescher, J., Krueger, R. B., Atalla, E., Cochran, S. D., First, M. B., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Arrango-de Montis, I., Parish, S. J., Cottler, S., Briken, P., & Saxena, S. (2017). Disorders related to sexuality and gender identity in the ICD-11: revising the ICD-10 classification based on current scientific evidence, best clinical practices, and human rights considerations. World Psychiatry, 15(3), 205-221, via
- photographs via and via

Friday 1 June 2018

Hai Karate. Long Before the Axe Effect.

"Your girl, or even your own wife, can lose her head and get a passionate grip on you."

Hai Karate was a budget aftershave with "the Axe Effect". It was sold in the UK and the US from the 1960s to the 1980s and reintroduced in the UK in 2014 (via).



Hai Karate Weekend Link Pack:

::: Department Store: WATCH
::: Hospital: WATCH
::: Swimming Pool: WATCH
::: House Visitor: WATCH
::: Museum: WATCH
::: Food Hall: WATCH
::: Oriental Lime (1970): WATCH
::: Eastern Spice: WATCH
::: Commercial (1967): WATCH

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image via