Yearly Archives: 2008

2008

2008 was my child’s first full calendar year on earth. In the United States of America, we elected our first non-white president, a black man with a white mother. We banned marriage equality in several states, including California, the birthplace of the modern gay-rights movement. We have so much to look forward to, and so much still to do. I’m not sure what my part in it will be, but I’ll be here.

As one of my favorite bumper stickers says, I’ll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy. 2008 wasn’t there yet; here’s hoping 2009 will move us closer.

Leave a comment | Posted on 31 December 2008 by Arwyn | Tags: patriarchy, year in review

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On feminism and male-bashing

Let’s start with the premise that feminism is the radical notion that women are people. Let’s posit the existence of the patriarchy, not as some shadowy conspiracy of Rich White Males, but as a social disease, a cultural construction pernicious and pervasive, that can be enforced willfully or upheld unknowingly. In this context, any social structure, belief, myth, meme, that promotes division and dissension between the sexes (such as the unfortunate phrase “opposite sex”) is a part of the patriarchy, is sexist, therefore unfeminist, and is contributing to keeping women down.

And here’s where it gets tricky, because I mean anything. I mean all those commercials with the bumbling, clueless dad and the perfect, put-together mom. I mean those children’s books with the playful, independence-promoting fathers and the gentle, nurturing mothers. I mean the t shirts that proclaim that girls rule and boys drool. I mean the assumption not just that women are helpless in the boardroom, but also that men are helpless in the kitchen. I could go on for many dissertations’ worth, but I think you get my point.

Now before you accuse me of defending the poor put-upon male, of bemoaning reverse sexism and encouraging men to join the Promise Keepers, let me explain. These things, these stereotypes and sex-biased portrayals, are sexist and morally wrong not because they put men in a bad light (though they mostly do), but because they’re bad for women.

Let me say that again. Male-bashing hurts women.

When men are portrayed as hopeless in the domestic sphere (indeed they are not only allowed but encouraged to be by our culture), it keeps women there, because someone has to do it. When men are portrayed as capable only of camaraderie and not comfort, to women falls the bulk of child rearing (and we are denied the blessings of physical playfulness). When boys are told they are hyperactive, bad at social skills, disorganized, and untrustworthy, who do you think is being told they must sit still, be the conciliator, peacemaker, and relationship healer, keep track of all assignments, and never, ever fail?

Ten points if you said girls — and the women they become.

Don’t misunderstand that I think all men would be perfect if WE would only change, thereby blaming the victim. It’s not that simple, and here’s the heresy to back it up; in the 1800s and 1950s, most women really weren’t suited for business or industry or public office. But it wasn’t because of an inherent defect in the gender: rather, it was because they lived in and were shaped by a society that proclaimed them unworthy, and denied them the education and opportunities required to be skilled at those ventures. We have worked, and to some extent succeeded, in dismantling those beliefs about women’s roles, but it has taken generations of effort and millions of women-hours. How can we write off men as fundamentally incompetent and incapable based on today’s examples when we are still raising our children in a sexist society, where one day old babies are dressed in either puppy dogs or princess dresses, depending on their external genitalia? We need to keep working, because we aren’t done yet. Our sons (my sweet son!) are at stake here, yes, but so are our daughters. One cannot be free unless all are free; we cannot proclaim victory over sexism while we are still being tied down by digs against men, separated and constrained by walls of our own construction.

Dismantle the patriarchy wherever you encounter it, please. Call men on their privilege and sexism — I’ll help. But don’t betray your daughters and sons by fostering the fallacies, no matter how funny you think those jokes are. Revenge is not worth perpetuating inequality for yet another generation.

4 Comments | Posted on 30 December 2008 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Parenting | Tags: fathering, Gender, misogyny, patriarchy

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iPhone and blogging

Well, the iPhone is not perfect (really!). I’m still looking for an app that will allow me, easily and cleanly and preferably with full features, to post from my iPhone (with no laptop, and an adamantly anti-’puter-room toddler, it’s the only access to the ‘net I have during the day) , and I’m not having much luck. Oh, I’ve found a few, but none that meet my requirements. The nicest so far added a tagline advert to the end of every post — sorry, if I’m not getting paid for it, no ads on my site.

Ah well. It’s good to know all things have weaknesses, even Achilles and iPhones.

(Told you I overuse parenthetical comments. I once wrote a story that was literally 80% parenthetical. [The teacher didn't get it. I thought it was funny.])

1 Comment | Posted on 29 December 2008 by Arwyn | Category: Life, the Universe, and Everything | Tags: Meta, punctuation, technology

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Is it still a meme when you make it up?

Bumper stickers I love but would never put on my car:

anything anti-Bush
Doing my part to piss off the religious right (I actually own this one)
Get a taste of religion: lick a witch.
Affordable health care begins at the breast
Tree-hugging hippie pinko leftist liberal — and I vote!
FSM (explanation, for the uninitiated)
Reality has a well-known liberal bias
Change how you see, not how you look (ok, this one I might actually use)

Bumper stickers I would put on my car without qualms:

Pro-child, pro-family, pro-choice
Support families, support children, support marriage equality
Coexist
International Breastfeeding Symbol

Of course it’s in a 2-1 proportion. There are always more I can laugh at than I can give bumper space. I’ve decided it pretty much comes down to whether it’s inherently offensive, or anti rather than pro. I have friends I adore who are part of the religious right, who had to use formula, who voted for Bush (really!). I’m perfectly happy to promote my values, but not attack others’.

I still snicker at Can we impeach for a blown job? though.

Leave a comment | Posted on 28 December 2008 by Arwyn | Category: Life, the Universe, and Everything | Tags: bumper stickers, meme, Meta

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Speaking of copied posts…

This is a post from MDC I thought worth saving. It was in a thread discussing an article titled “Even a little caffeine could harm fetus”, based on the finding (based on the always-accurate self-reporting) that “as little as” 100mg caffeine — a cup of coffee a day — was correlated with an average 7oz reduction in birth weight. My post is in response to several saying that those people poopooing the report were “justifying elective drug use in pregnancy”, and expressing surprise that people at MDC — known for our crunchy, natural ways, and explicitly promoting informed choice and natural birth — would not embrace a message of absolutism and abolition.

For the record, I have fixed a few things that were bugging me in the original: one semi-colon that should have been a colon, and an “8″ that should have been “Eight” since it came at the beginning of a sentence. Yes, I am anal like that.

Also for the record, it has been pointed out to that chocolate does not actually contain caffeine, but rather a “nearly identical” substance that is, in fact, not caffeine. Since the post is about what people say women “should/n’t” do in pregnancy, and the common misconception is that chocolate does contain caffeine, I’m not going to change it. But just to head off even-more-anal-than-I corrective comments: I know chocolate doesn’t have caffeine, and I’m using it as an example anyway, and it’s my blog so I can do that, so there.

Now on to the post…

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The reason I get worked up sometimes about “onoz caffeine will KILL YOUR BABY!!!” articles (which this is a minor example of) is the absolutism in them, and the idea that women have to be protected from themselves and can’t think for themselves. It is because I am in favor of weighing risk-benefit ratios that I dislike absolutism and dictatorialism — for some people, a glass of wine or a cup of coffee or a piece of chocolate is worth the infinitesimal risk it may pose to her fetus. Eight soda pops a day? That’s a problem, for about 50 reasons, although it’s still her choice. A half a cup of coffee weekday mornings, or a hot chocolate in the afternoons? Eh. Whatever. More power to you if you choose to abstain based on an informed opinion, or gut instinct, or just ’cause, and not on succumbing to fearmongering.

Each woman, when informed, is entirely capable of making choices for herself. Women do not like to add risk to their pregnancies, and given the choice will gladly make sacrifices (if they have the ability and the support needed) for the health of their babies. But they don’t like to be told they have to live like nuns — or like children! — and if they don’t they’re bad mothers, which is an insult on par with the n word in our society; especially when it is so absolutely clear both that it isn’t necessary to do all those things in order to bear a healthy child, and that society doesn’t really care about babies, or we wouldn’t allow thousands of pounds of mercury in to the air and water in the name of industry and profit, we wouldn’t allow lead in toys and paints and PVC, we wouldn’t blast rocket fuel and POPs and PCBs in to the atmosphere, we wouldn’t allow the marketing of formula, etc, etc…

When we continue to damage all our children with our environmental and industrial choices, but tell women they MUST give up every single pleasurable indulgence or “harm their babies”, it becomes clear to me that this is not just about protecting our future: it is about control of women, of our bodies, of our power to produce the next generation.

So yes, barring overwhelming evidence that a practice is definitely and irrefutably harmful (or highly risky) to her fetus — like, say, heroin use, or smoking, or a bottle of tequila a day — I’m going to maintain that a woman’s right to decide for herself what goes in her body is paramount, and people need to lay off the overly dramatic scolding on all the little things, like a cup of coffee or a piece of chocolate cake.

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In a later post, I explicated that yes, this IS about patriarchy and sexism, and no, I don’t think there’s some vast deliberate shadowy conspiracy to keep women down, and that statements and actions can be sexist (and racist and heterosexist for that matter) without the stater or actor intending them to be so, because -isms are pernicious that way. It seems to me that the fact that I have to explicate and explain that on a board full of basically intelligent, thoughtful women says something about the state of feminism today, and I don’t think it’s good news.