Man Whisperer?

Sometimes I feel like I spend so much time on this blog attempting to figure out how to make feminism better that I forget to rant against the blatantly sexist ignorance coming from the right wing gender bigots.  Well, now's my chance.
 
Fox News' (that's a good place to start ranting right?) Pop Tarts (even the column's name is offensive) recently reviewed a book called "The Man Whisperer."  (The book title goes on attempting to sound pseudo intellectual by including a colon.)  The basic gist is that women can control men by remembering that men "want nothing more than to be 'the man' in the relationship, the one who provides for and protects his woman."

Pop Tarts makes a point of telling us that the person writing this quote is female because she understands that what they are saying is sexist, she just doesn't understand that it is sexist to both women AND MEN!!!

If men are unable to handle successful women, it is because they themselves are still trapped behind the expectation that they should be 'the man' in the relationship.  Liberated men love powerful women.  Masculinity is enforced partly through alienation.  A man who is insufficiently manly is uncool and undesirable.  Although some women have started to see generosity, kindness and other paternal qualities as attractive, many men and women are still incredibly hostile towards men who are "pussies," "wimps," "pussy whipped," or "weak."

A man who is entrapped is, of course, terrified that his partner will find him weak and feminine.  When a man's partner is more successful than he is, the threat is that he will die alone (although even saying it makes me sound weak and effeminate, which is why most men never admit it).

The answer, of course, is not to perpetuate that fear by playing the damsel in distress to the armor bedecked power lifting white knight.  It is not to "stroke his ego" as the authors of "The Man Whisperer" suggest.  The answer is to liberate your partner from the fear of alienation by exposing masculinity for what it is; a snare entrapping men into being oppressors with fragile egos who need to be broken like horses.

Prince Charming

Nothing could be more true than that women have been stereotyped in children's films.  For too long, women were weak and helpless, awaiting the savior in the form of Prince Charming who would not only protect them from their peril but also marry them therefore giving meaning to their lives.

However, the films often focused on the women.  Aaron Sorkin defended his treatment of women in his new film "A Social Network" recently by saying that the multiple sexy women were objectives for his main characters, not characters in the themselves.  These Prince Charmings acted the same way in old children's films from Snow White, to Cinderella, to Lady and the Tramp, and Beauty and the Beast.  The women were weak, it is true, but the men in classic children's films were only objectives for those women to reach, overcoming their weakness by, either through brains or beauty, attracting a suitable mate.

Under the ill conceived influence of Third Wave feminism, modern children's films have attempted to make their films less sexist by making the women beautiful, brainy, and kickass.  In Princess and the Frog, and now Tangled, the princess ends up saving the incompetent Prince Charming more than once.  Rather than recreating the medium, these films have simply reversed the roles while hanging on to the discriminating values of a society that is not getting any closer to gender equality.  Now women are expected to be both man and woman, the rescuer and the rescued, while men are now impotent paralyzed objectives.  Even in this, they are still objectives because any woman worth her salt is still not worth any salt without a man, even if that man is utterly incompetent.

If we have women who can do "man things" in these films, why is it still impossible to have men who do "woman things" without it being a moment to laugh at that man's ridiculous incompetence?  I do not blame the film makers.  Film makers are merely the architects of the neurotic dreams of our society.  The particular neurosis in these films is the inability to accept that traditional women's skill has any value for men.  Equality will never be achieved until we can overcome that inability.

Sarah Palin is Right!

Well, almost right at any rate. Here is a remarkably insightful quote from her new book which was released yesterday. “The women’s movement used to be about honoring for women the same God-given rights that our country honored for men. It used to be about dignity and hope. It used to be about respecting women by respecting their choices—whether it is to be a nuclear engineer or a stay-at-home mom—not denigrating them when they aren’t sufficiently like men.”

• She has correctly identified how second wave feminism has been portrayed in the popular consciousness, and why there is a backlash away from feminism today.
  

• However, she is wrong in so far as she thinks that feminism writ large has ever really been about “denigrating” women's choices. Even if some women in the movement were resistant to the “stay-at-home” mom ideal, many (if not most) feminists had children themselves, loved their children, and were willing to fend off Grizzly Bears to protect those children (regardless of whether or not those Grizzlies spoke with a Minnesota accent).

• Palin is ridiculous in so far as she accuses liberals of being bleeding heart soccer parents who spoil our kids, while at the same time accusing us of being cold hearted bastards who “denigrate” stay-at-home moms.

• Her answer to the problem of second wave feminism is to put the “girliness” back into the newly liberated women. She does not understand that “girliness” is a bribe to keep women from true equality.

• Lastly, her style of feminism is a direct result of the Pandora's box opened by the lipstick sex-positive third wave feminists who tried to liberate sex, fashion, and one night stands without reclaiming child rearing, housekeeping, and relationship building. It is a short walk from “Sex and the City” feminism to "Pit Bull in Lipstick" Feminism.

So how can feminists break free of the unfair portrait that Sarah Palin has had so much success selling to America? We must reclaim traditional women's knowledge by sharing it with men. When men realize what they are missing, society will no longer look to the likes of Palin for expertise on gender equality because they will realize how completely Sarah Palin has been lying to us all along.

Home Ec-quality 101

A massive home economics movement would help equality. Without knowing about work that has traditionally been the purview of women, men could not possibly understand the true value and skill involved in such work. The Kamahamaha Schools in Hawaii used to have cabins where their female boarding students lived with orphan infants and young children to learn the best practices of raising children. They were eliminated in the 1950's, but why? Why can't we start day care facilities, or classroom sharing that are set up in a similar way, of course under strict adult control. If we made these classes mandatory, the benefits would be significant.

• Everyone, including men, would have knowledge about basic child rearing, including appropriate divisions of labor.
• Fathers would be able to have at least some limited experience with babies under supervision before the were on their own.
• The entire society would benefit from basic parenting skills, which is the fundamental building block of any society.
• Free or low cost childcare would be built in, and both parents would be able to contribute financially as well as with real labor, creating more economic security for poor families and middle class families alike.
  
  Most importantly, by having class time to explore the actual science of household management, we would all value these skills that have been relegated to a lower status. In fact, this work is very important, if not the most important part of life, and should be recognized as such and taught in our schools once again, but without the division of sexual differences. We can never have true equality until we start to realize that traditionally feminine tasks, like child rearing and housekeeping, are critical to our society. We can never see these tasks as equally important as business skills unless men and women are equally knowledgeable in these tasks. Learned helplessness is in fact not learned, but a lack of learning that creates perceived valuelessness.
  

Men Not Liberated Enough for Sex Work

An interesting article interviewing Australian sex worker Zahra Stardust details how she came to embrace sex work, saying that "at [bachelor] parties, strippers would use measures of crowd control, humour and taunt to dominate, humiliate and ridicule their male subjects." In the past when I have criticized sex workers for reifying sex stereotypes, many women defended the role of the sex workers. Let me be clear, I am not willing to comment on whether the sex worker is liberated or successfully acting towards women's liberation, but I do know that sex work plays into the neuroses that ensnare and oppress men. Men are not able to be directly oppressed by women. It requires the intervening act of another man to oppress and reassert masculinity in men. Here's how it works when Zahra dominates her audience.

• Men at strip clubs are there for the purpose of proving their masculinity. Enjoying and objectifying women are merely means of proof. While the women are performing for them, men are able to convince themselves that, as one conservative blogger put it recently, God's law is still in order and women are still subordinate to men.
  
• Men who go to strip clubs alone are considered strange, at best. You're supposed to go with your buddies. Why? Because it does no good to prove masculinity to yourself. You have to prove it to somebody, because it isn't real unless it's recognized.
• As Zahra is dancing, her audience is commenting on her dancing in degrading ways in order to convince themselves that, despite the 1960's, they are still hyper masculine. In the world of traditional masculinity, if you are not hyper masculine you risk abuse (sometimes merely social alienation, but often physical violence is employed to prove your weakness while being ostracized). The traditional object of abuse is woman. If men are subjected to that abuse it is a way of saying, "you are like a woman."
• Lucky for all self-threatened masculine men, a strip club provides ample opportunities to act abusively towards women who are required to shut up and take it.

At the end of the article, Zahra admits to being an idealist. I think that might be the weakness of the many in the 3rd wave. They believe that men are not in need of liberation, that men are in on the joke when women use sex as a liberation tool. Unfortunately, as one who talks to a lot of men about liberation (in fact, as one who is obsessed with figuring out what it would mean to be a liberated man), I can confidently say that men are still frightened of the dynamic at play in sex work, even the most liberated of men. They may want to see the women in front of them as individuals and skilled entertainers doing the same thing with sex that great philosophers do with paradoxes, but to believe that, they'd truly have to be idealists.

Baby Shower

I have been dis-invited from a baby shower. At first I was furious, but now it just makes me sad.

I am sad because I am a primary care-giver for a baby. My experience seems relevant to the soon-to-be mom, and they disallowed me from coming simply because I am not the right gender.

I am sad because the ritual of a baby shower is a significant opportunity to sit in a circle of sages to discuss child raising, and though many mothers will be in the room to share that wisdom, it will be kept as a secret from the father's of their own children.

I am sad because children that are hurt when their fathers are not invited to share and hear these lessons.

I am sad because instead of using this opportunity to share traditional women's knowledge with men and therefore recognize its inherent value, the women at this shower are ritualizing that knowledge so that men cannot understand it, and therefore cannot acknowledge it.

I am sad because fathers already have disadvantages when their child is born because they were not invited to partake in child rearing in their own childhood, and those fathers will feel all the more lonely, abandoned, and frightened when their child is born. They will feel either frightened or they will simply leave the childcare to their partners.

I am sad because these same women will expect their partner to help out in the first weeks of the child's birth, but because their partner will have no idea how to help, a great percentage of these women will be disappointed with their partners and unable to initiate sexual contact with their clueless partner for up to three years (see the previous entry at the end of October).

I am sad because I love being a part of my child's life, and these women want me to stay in my "place" and it makes them uncomfortable that I would rather talk about my son than hit golf balls and chug beer.

Although it is inappropriate for a straight male to admit it, when I was dis-invited, it made me very sad.

Oh well.

Why Charter Schools are Sexist.

There are a lot of reasons to believe that we need school reform, but there are a lot more reasons to be resistant to charter schools. One of those reasons is that charter schools are sexist.

Charter schools are often pitted against the public schools because of the new-found belief that teachers are getting a sweet gig.

1. First of all "what?" Teachers used to be thought of, appropriately, as people who had way too much education to be making the pittances that they were making. These teachers aren't making a heck of a lot more than they were two decades ago, neither are their jobs more secure. They are simply public servants. Sure, they need to live, eat, and have health care, and even be rewarded for bringing their experience back to their school districts year after year as opposed to going off to a private school, but they aren't being paid nearly what private sector professionals with similar education, experience and skill are being paid. The only reason teachers do what they do is because they care. They are not out to get our kids. Teachers are spending everyday in the classrooms looking our children in the eye and telling them how to become better people.
2. If there is a reason that this particular union of professionals is being attacked, I suggest that it is because it is the most successful, and one of the earliest, jobs that women could do professionally. Even before women were entering the so-called 'worlds oldest profession,' women were staying home with the children from the tribe and teaching. Is it not a little suspect that at the same time that women are losing seats in the house of representatives for the first time since 1930 we are scape goating a union that is overwhelmingly women for the downturn of our education system, and therefore the downturn of our economy, our morality, and our status as a nation.
3. Similarly, we have trumpeted the successes of "Teaching for America," an organization that turns teaching into a therapeutic job, like working the cash register at Target or the grill at McDonalds. The fact that charter schools are hiring teachers that are not certified speaks to an ideology that believes that pedagogy is meaningless. Charter school advocates are essentially saying, "Teaching isn't a profession that takes years of training to know how to do well. Teaching is something that anyone with an education can do." The education that they are speaking about is an education in the traditionally male academic realm, as opposed to the traditionally female realm of pedagogy.
   

None of this would matter if charter schools were outperforming public schools, but the numbers repeatedly show that they are not. The results are mixed when looked at from the up and down numbers, but when one takes socioeconomic status into account, it is clear that charter schools are getting people with a higher SES and doing more poorly with them than public schools would have, and that more and more often, children in difficult SES are getting lost in the schools where the children of people who are too busy dealing with their own difficulties to advocate for their children go. The only reason that we ignore the facts that charter school are a complete and total failure is to perpetuate the myth to which all of us try so desperately to cling. Charter schools perpetuate the myth that traditional feminine knowledge, such as teaching, is unimportant, intuitive, and easily picked up along the way. By not valuing this knowledge, we condemn it to being left out of the public dialogue and the oeuvre of things that we value as a society.