Just as we have come to acknowledge the gifts that women bring to the work place, we too should acknowledge the gifts that men bring back home. While we have this discussion, we must be careful not to accept women's or men's talents as inherent. We do not know how much of these traits are inherent and how much of these traits are learned because the overwhelming societal pressures put on us from infancy through until the day that we die. However, by acknowledging gender traits (be they nature, nurture or more likely a combination of both), we can have a discussion about which gender traits are a benefit for care giving and housekeeping. After all, the most important thing we will ever do in our lives is raise a child, and housekeeping is a part of all of our lives.
Since I became a father, I have noticed that some traits that I have associated with masculinity have helped me be a better caregiver. While, traditional masculinity often keeps men alienated from their role as a father, by examining masculinity and masculinization, I have been able to break from the harmful parts of masculinity, while attempting to keep those parts of masculinity that are helpful to care giving. The next few blogs will include discussions of some of those traits that are traditionally associated with masculinity, how they can help dads become better dads, and how they can hurt dads deeply by alienating them from their children if they go unexamined.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Who is We The People?
Lately, I have been trying not to let this blog become party political. However, I will comment here on a Tee-Shirt that I witnessed several Tea Party Members wearing because it is the kind of thing that might go unnoticed if you didn't think particularly on the gender and race implications, and that is what this blog is for.
The shirt said, "I Am, We the People." This is one of two possible kinds of claims. It could be an historical claim. As such, it is accurate, but not exactly surprising. Clearly our founders meant older wealthy white males. According to a New York Times poll recently taken, the Tea Party is mostly exactly that. Note that if this were a woman of color making the claim that she was "we the people," it could also be seen as historical, but as recognition of how far the U.S. has come since 1982.
The shirt could also be a political statement. This is more likely what the wearers meant, because it is a more assertive and less obvious meaning. However, it has an equally racist and sexist meaning. The wearer is saying "I am, we the people" as opposed to you or they whoever you or they are. This divisive statement seems to reflect the position of Glen Beck that those who disagree with him are socialist, which is a scary and strange foreign political philosophy and therefore unAmerican. This defines the tee shirt wearer as a real American in exactly the same way as the historical meaning does, by holding as a positive example a political system that deliberately excluded those who were foreign and strange, namely black Americans, and those who were drawn to philosophies that resembled modern socialism, namely the Mechanics and the Guilds of New England. Those people were deliberately excluded in 1782 because to include them would be to diminish the power of the rich white male almost completely, a fear clearly expressed by the tee-shirt wearers even today. The insidious racial and sex question that lies below the surface is "Who then is a real American." I think we know what the wearers answer would be.
The shirt said, "I Am, We the People." This is one of two possible kinds of claims. It could be an historical claim. As such, it is accurate, but not exactly surprising. Clearly our founders meant older wealthy white males. According to a New York Times poll recently taken, the Tea Party is mostly exactly that. Note that if this were a woman of color making the claim that she was "we the people," it could also be seen as historical, but as recognition of how far the U.S. has come since 1982.
The shirt could also be a political statement. This is more likely what the wearers meant, because it is a more assertive and less obvious meaning. However, it has an equally racist and sexist meaning. The wearer is saying "I am, we the people" as opposed to you or they whoever you or they are. This divisive statement seems to reflect the position of Glen Beck that those who disagree with him are socialist, which is a scary and strange foreign political philosophy and therefore unAmerican. This defines the tee shirt wearer as a real American in exactly the same way as the historical meaning does, by holding as a positive example a political system that deliberately excluded those who were foreign and strange, namely black Americans, and those who were drawn to philosophies that resembled modern socialism, namely the Mechanics and the Guilds of New England. Those people were deliberately excluded in 1782 because to include them would be to diminish the power of the rich white male almost completely, a fear clearly expressed by the tee-shirt wearers even today. The insidious racial and sex question that lies below the surface is "Who then is a real American." I think we know what the wearers answer would be.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Plague of Individualism
Sometimes, despite my better efforts, I somehow manage to explain some of this blog successfully to someone. Their answer usually is, "I just try to treat everyone like an individual." As though I were trying to treat people like 6 headed hydras or something. "I'm sorry..." they seem to be saying, "I can't tell whether you are a boy or a girl, and if I could, I would ignore it." Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but when I meet a man, I treat him differently than when I meet a woman. For one thing, I don't speak to men at the urinal. To be fair, I've never tried speaking to a woman at the urinal. Also, I don't look men in the eyes until I am introduced. If you women (or people who identify as women) out there don't beleive me, try walking through Harlem or South East DC dressed as a man and looking everybody you walk past in the eye. I promise you will be beat up, or worse. I make decisions about people before I even meet them. We all do, it's how we survive.
We can't see individuals. All we can see are balls of social shit that we call individualism. So just get used to it. You will never be color-blind, you will never be gender-blind, you will never be able to see the "individual," and you will never be able to float like a butterfly to the rainbow land above the clouds. Jews have been trying to get rid of the badges of slavery for 6000 years. How are we able to overcome race and gender in less than 40? Hint: we're not.
We can't see individuals. All we can see are balls of social shit that we call individualism. So just get used to it. You will never be color-blind, you will never be gender-blind, you will never be able to see the "individual," and you will never be able to float like a butterfly to the rainbow land above the clouds. Jews have been trying to get rid of the badges of slavery for 6000 years. How are we able to overcome race and gender in less than 40? Hint: we're not.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Pro Male Hall of Fame
Thank you to Dove for Men for commercials that make men look sexy, attractive, and fulfilled while highlighting their relationships with their children. The new Dove for Men ads are not pinpointing fatherhood as the point behind the ad, or trying to pigeon hole men as fathers, but just showing men as whole beings, and including in that whole being a portrayal of these men as kind and loving, even affectionate fathers. When I watch these ads, I am more confident than ever that the movement of which I write is already underway, and I am optimistic for my own sons future in this society.
Hall of Shame? All of the super bowl ads, and the Olympics Tide ads that could easily say "To their parents, they are all champions." but instead decides to say, "To their moms..." thereby leaving me to wonder, and what about me..? Do I have a place in this process?
Hall of Shame? All of the super bowl ads, and the Olympics Tide ads that could easily say "To their parents, they are all champions." but instead decides to say, "To their moms..." thereby leaving me to wonder, and what about me..? Do I have a place in this process?
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Red Tent or Speak Easy?
Over the past several months, I have joined my wife on perhaps the most magnificent and meaningful activity of human life. Week after week, I have watched her grow my child. During that time, I have attended 9 appointments to her midwives, and witnessed her give birth. I have witnessed and felt more than I knew I could or was welcome to witness and feel. Most of the time, I was the only dad in the waiting room. I attended and helped to plan a baby shower where only one man showed up (thank you Damian). Throughout the entire process, women and men alike were astounded when it was made evident that I had done my research and that I had opinions on how Luca would start his life. Like the Tide commercial that ran during these last Olympics ("To their mom's, they're always kids"), the entire process was aimed at moms, and the word dad never even came up.
However, I was welcomed by the midwives and doulas, and the women in my life who wanted to talk about the baby. If I felt uncomfortable, it was only because there was a bouncer to the door of my masculinity asking, "Are guys really supposed to be here? Oh yeah? What's the password?" At my wife's first appointment, the midwife proceeded with the gynocological exam without asking me to leave the room, and casually offered to show me the cervix. It was clear at that moment that the flap to the door of the "Red Tent" was wide open, and it was only my self-oppression, my inner-masculinity-bouncer, that kept me from going in. But I went in. What was the pass word? A simple, "Thank you, yes."
However, I was welcomed by the midwives and doulas, and the women in my life who wanted to talk about the baby. If I felt uncomfortable, it was only because there was a bouncer to the door of my masculinity asking, "Are guys really supposed to be here? Oh yeah? What's the password?" At my wife's first appointment, the midwife proceeded with the gynocological exam without asking me to leave the room, and casually offered to show me the cervix. It was clear at that moment that the flap to the door of the "Red Tent" was wide open, and it was only my self-oppression, my inner-masculinity-bouncer, that kept me from going in. But I went in. What was the pass word? A simple, "Thank you, yes."
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Sadness/Madness of Groping
Sexual assault and sex work has long been considered linked to sexism against women, but part of the point of this blog is that all oppression of women is at the same time self-oppression. Groping (a.k.a. sexual assault) is one obvious example.
A woman who is sexually assaulted is ashamed by the attack and also deeply hurt, and we should not downplay that fact, but we should also consider how it is always true that men are the ones who are overwhelmingly the sexual assaulters. What is it about maleness and masculinity that leads men to such unhealthy sexual relationships with the people around them that they are driven to, or aroused by, forceful and violent interactions with strangers whom they are victimizing? While there are some who say that groping is inherently male, I disagree. Groping is inherently masculine, but not male. Men are not bad people somehow evolutionarily driven to sexual deviance any more than women are evolutionarily unable to handle themselves in the work place, or driven to "hysteria" by over-exercise. But men are trapped in the self-oppression of masculinity, and one of the rules of our self-confinement is that our relationships cannot be overly healthy or loving. We must remain aloof, the bread winner, the cowboy with no ties to our families or our lovers who inevitably make us weak or (horror of horrors) "pussies." But we are still sexual animals and have a need for affection. When healthy love and sex are not available to us, we will fulfill our needs through unhealthy desperate means. How better to remain aloof and unhealthy, while satisfying our sexual desires than to make our victims into the objects of our affections ? No movement for women's equality will be complete until men are free of their self-oppression, because as long as men need victims, women will have to be those victims.
A woman who is sexually assaulted is ashamed by the attack and also deeply hurt, and we should not downplay that fact, but we should also consider how it is always true that men are the ones who are overwhelmingly the sexual assaulters. What is it about maleness and masculinity that leads men to such unhealthy sexual relationships with the people around them that they are driven to, or aroused by, forceful and violent interactions with strangers whom they are victimizing? While there are some who say that groping is inherently male, I disagree. Groping is inherently masculine, but not male. Men are not bad people somehow evolutionarily driven to sexual deviance any more than women are evolutionarily unable to handle themselves in the work place, or driven to "hysteria" by over-exercise. But men are trapped in the self-oppression of masculinity, and one of the rules of our self-confinement is that our relationships cannot be overly healthy or loving. We must remain aloof, the bread winner, the cowboy with no ties to our families or our lovers who inevitably make us weak or (horror of horrors) "pussies." But we are still sexual animals and have a need for affection. When healthy love and sex are not available to us, we will fulfill our needs through unhealthy desperate means. How better to remain aloof and unhealthy, while satisfying our sexual desires than to make our victims into the objects of our affections ? No movement for women's equality will be complete until men are free of their self-oppression, because as long as men need victims, women will have to be those victims.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Formal Equality= Global Warming Skeptics
For some reason, global warming skeptics seem to believe that a snow storm, or a cold snap disproves the basic and easily proven fact that the global temperature is, in fact, rising. No matter how many times reasonable people try to explain to them that warmer air means moister air and therefore large storms become more likely, or that single weather anomalies are not particularly relevant to the global climate, they will not believe any data unless it is easy and straight forward. What does this have to do with formal equality?
When people say that equality under the law is enough, they point to successful women and black men, rather than looking at the larger statistical picture which shows that schools are more segregated than before Brown v. Board, that neighborhoods are more segregated than before 1968, and that the unemployment gap continues to grow with almost 40% of black men in the District of Columbia unemployed. They would like to point to Barrack Obama and say, "see, there is no more racism because a black man is president."
Occum's razor applies to scientific theories, not the data being collected to prove those theories. Occum's razor does not support using only one datum. That's not how one simplifies a test. In order to be valid, we must collect as much data as possible and then find the most simple explanation for all of that data. When we collect all the data, we see that despite a cold winter here, or several big snowstorms there, the global temperature is actually rising, and despite a black man being president and a woman appointed to secretary of state, the senate is still mostly older white men. To ignore these facts is stupid, ignorant, or part of a deliberate attempt to undermine America and the world.
When people say that equality under the law is enough, they point to successful women and black men, rather than looking at the larger statistical picture which shows that schools are more segregated than before Brown v. Board, that neighborhoods are more segregated than before 1968, and that the unemployment gap continues to grow with almost 40% of black men in the District of Columbia unemployed. They would like to point to Barrack Obama and say, "see, there is no more racism because a black man is president."
Occum's razor applies to scientific theories, not the data being collected to prove those theories. Occum's razor does not support using only one datum. That's not how one simplifies a test. In order to be valid, we must collect as much data as possible and then find the most simple explanation for all of that data. When we collect all the data, we see that despite a cold winter here, or several big snowstorms there, the global temperature is actually rising, and despite a black man being president and a woman appointed to secretary of state, the senate is still mostly older white men. To ignore these facts is stupid, ignorant, or part of a deliberate attempt to undermine America and the world.
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