MeyerBros

How the hell can you argue with this list of courses and course textbooks for my fall semester? You can’t, so don’t try. It kicks ass.

Narrative Theology - Keith Graber Miller

Theologies of Whiteness - Dean Johnson

Love and Justice - Malinda E. Berry

Can you really argue with that? I’m lovin’ it…

I posted over at YAR before the bell tolled, but one of the main things I forgot to include was this: I hear over and over and over that the problem with Feminists is how much they hate men, and reverse discrimination and this and that, and beyond not buying that entire concept, it just isn’t my experience. Feminism, as I’ve always heard it articulated by feminists themselves, seems to me the most universally accepting and aware ideological system I’ve ever encountered. I was introduced to feminism in a memorable car ride by two women who put a lot of energy and compassion into correcting my somewhat naively sexist preconceptions of the world. Over the last year I’ve started reading a wide range of progressive blogs, and it is only the feminist bloggers who consistently

1. Will stand up for anyone against oppression or discrimination,
2. Will say exactly what they think without mincing words or apologizing,
3. Don’t bother navel gazing,
4. Can comprehend and explain complex and seemingly paradoxical effects of oppression on both the oppressor and the oppressed (without agreeing to disagree),
5. Are always on the side of the oppressed, and
6. Are humble enough to admit, accept and challenge inconsistencies.

And yet they seem to have the least support of the progressive blogging community - consistently fighting to even be understood by the supposedly aware and open minded community they are part of. Why are we so defensive? I have been. My friends are. It’s the first thing people say when you mention the naughty F****ist word. Why?

Almost makes you think patriarchy might be an issue.

I was just reminded at Ilyka’s that today is not only International Women’s Day, but also blog against sexism day. So I thought it would be a good time to take a break from our other recent conversations and, um, blog against sexism.

The gender-split commentary over on this post at Hugo Schwyzer’s got me thinking about how patriarchy hurts men (or, in gennimcmahon’s ever-so-much-more-eloquent version, “how the cultural view of men as irresponsible children whose backs hurt from the weight of following their dicks around, hovering in the air like a divining rod that’s found a ocean beneath their feet, is damaging and limiting”), and conversely how men so often love to divert conversation about patriarchy into “but women do bad things to men too!”, which is a technique for denial and minimization of male privilege.

I do think it’s important for privileged people to reflect on how privilege warps and damages our spirits, because until we do this internal work, any anti-privilege work we do is all about “helping out those poor oppressed women/people of color/queers” and not about a mutual struggle for liberation (cf the tagline quote over at AllyWork). It’s equally important for us to recognize that our privilege benefits us in lots of very concrete ways - recognizing our own hurts doesn’t make things “even”. And we’d better not think it gives us the right to take over a marginalized group’s conversation space with our tales of woe-is-me. That’s why I’m posting this here. And lastly, this can really verge on navel-gazing, so I’ll try to skim the edge of that cliff and (hopefully) keep this interesting or relevant to someone besides me.

Anyway, two personal stories come to mind. Not surprisingly, they both have to do with parents - hi Mom and Dad!

The first story I don’t remember myself, but Mom has told me several times. I guess at age three or so I had a pair of Raggedy Ann/Raggedy Andy dolls that I loved to pieces, including “nursing” them (Mom must have been breastfeeding Eric at that point). I told Mom that when I grew up I was going to be a Mommy, and she (very compassionately, I’m sure) informed me that I would never be a Mommy, but that she was sure I’d be a very good Daddy. Apparently this was crushing news to me, and I put those dolls away and never played with them again. (Mom makes it clear when she tells the story that she still regrets that, and given a do-over would just tell me “I’m sure you’ll be a great Mommy” and leave it at that).

What does that say about my images of mommy-ness and daddy-ness at that age? How much of this difference is due to the biological reality of mother-child attachment (maybe some, but I’d guess not the bulk of it), and how much is due to what I had already experienced from my parents (or observing other parents)? And what will I do to help my child, due next month, see both Mommy and Daddy as tender, attentive caregivers? (Given that I’m totally speaking out my rear end here, having never been a parent, I’d love some reflective - and patriarchy-aware - commentary on this from actual parents - including my own!). Also, if I so clearly understood Mommy to be the one responsible for tenderness towards children, and I was told early on that I couldn’t be one, how might that have impacted my later perception of myself as able to relate tenderly towards children?

The second story that comes to mind (I was reminded of it by gennimcmahon’s quote above), is the whole saga of parental reactions to my wife and I sharing a room in one context or another before we were married. Both her parents and mine reacted strongly to this at different points. In both cases, I initially thought it was just a generational issue of worry over “what others might think” - and to some degree it was. But the more we got into conversation about it, the more stunned I was how much of the resistance seemed (at some level) rooted in the idea that, essentially, men are unable to control sexual urges or make good choices about them.

Now, clearly men make awful (even evil) choices all the time, up to and including rape and sexual assault. I’ve made some pretty poor choices myself (though thankfully not to that point). But assuming that men are inherently unable to control themselves justifies rape and sexual assault. Instead of putting the onus firmly on men to take responsibility to stop being violent and dominating, the responsibility gets put back on women to “not put themselves in the wrong situation” — because the man can’t be responsible for something he apparently can’t control. Others have written more clearly about this whole issue - this post at Feministe is a good recent place to start.

The idea that men are incapable of self-control is also insulting and damaging to the spirit of men. It limits my vision of who I can become as a man, and even perhaps becomes self-fulfilling.

Anyone else have stories or thoughts to share? How has patriarchy/sexism impacted you?

I ran into this* today, while checking out feminist reviews of various movies. Then I started watching Match Point because Blockbuster had it and I thought it might be interesting. It wasn’t. It broke the third rule. I didn’t even make it a half hour in.

update: I fixed this link.

(This was originally a comment at YAR, thought it would make a good post here as well.)

Issues of patriarchy and sexism have become my central reading over the last week since Carl posted about sexism in the web design community, and someone sent me a link to I Blame The Patriarchy. It’s a great read, with interesting critiques of some more subtle and complex issues involved in patriarchy, and has become one of my favorite RSS feeds.

Be warned, though, that it can get a bit rough to read if you’re a sensitive man that takes things personally. This isn’t a sexism 101 site, so no one is going to pull their punches just because you’re new to the game. Follow their advice and read the FAQ before commenting.

There was a particularly good post yesterday calling out liberal male bloggers who responded to Ann Coulter’s most recent inflammatory comments (She called John Edwards a “faggot”) by throwing the exact same “insult” (and other, similar heterosexist and misogynist comments) back at her.

I also bought “The 51% Minority: How Women Still Are Not Equal and What You Can Do About It” by Lis Wiehl at Barnes and Noble last night. So far it’s a very interesting and enlightening read, laying out exactly how unequal women still are under the law, and how it’s getting worse, not better.