Mannish Boy
by droogie6655321, SheKos guest contributor
Before we get started, here's some theme music for today's diary. And I'm posting the video because frankly, it's one of the best things I've ever seen.
Back to it:
I want to explore this not to play "Who's More Oppressed." That is my least favorite game. It is incredibly hard for women to "live up" to what people expect from them. Maybe harder -- but that's not what I want to talk about here. (and hell, this doesn't even touch upon gay men, gay women, and the transgendered, which is a whole other universe of complexity)
What men are supposed to be like, to me, has always been difficult to define. It's nebulous, but you're supposed to know. If you don't, then someone steps up to you and tells you to "man up," which is an expression that I hate, and which has a lot of variations: "Be a man," "sack up," "don't be a pussy," "grow a pair."
I've heard a lot of people say there are dozens of different ways to call a woman a bitch, and that is true. But there are also a lot of ways to verbally challenge a man's masculinity. And while you can call a man a bitch, and you can tell a woman to sack up, these words and phrases still have a strong gender element. Being manly means being brave, rising to the occasion, taking charge of things.
Now for me, these kinds of comments always cut pretty deep. My personality doesn't seem to match someone who is especially competitive, assertive or stubborn (classic male traits, right?)
Still, situations arise where you have to play the part. Fake it a little. I have heard the discussions before about whether it's morally wrong, unfair or "unfeminist" for a woman to, say, use her physical charms to flirt out of getting a speeding ticket. Well, how fair is it of me to use my "maleness" (such as it is) to bluster or threaten my way to a positive solution to a problem I'm having?
Take this scenario for an example. My wife was having a problem with a car insurance agent. He was having problems getting a dealership to pay for the repairs to her car. She called several times, and was apparently not being taken seriously.
I talked to my wife, and she said maybe it was time for me to get all "Angry Man on the Phone" with this guy so we could put this problem behind us. We both agreed that (to this jerk at least) an angry dude on the phone might get his attention more than my wife could. This isn't to say that my wife isn't assertive or confident -- she definitely is. But we felt like we could use my maleness to solve a problem.
So that is what I did. I played a gender role to a T, and the problem was solved.
Still, this is not something that comes naturally to me. I think it would be easier for me to put on a lobster suit and pretend to be a crustacean as it would be for me to play the part of the domineering, always-confident male specimen.
I'm not comfortable with it, and I don't think I should have to be. I am a man, and some parts of my personality fit the "male profile" while others don't. I can operate a chainsaw, but I also like planting flowers. I can shoot whiskey straight, but I don't know shit about fixing cars. I'm a pretty good shot with a revolver, but I also enjoy cooking and baking.
When you bring parenting into it, a whole new dimension of the debate is opened up. And truthfully, whether it has been there or not, I've felt even more societal pressure on my shoulders now that I've become a father.
I read to my child, I change his diapers, I fix him meals, I give him baths, I tell him not to hit or kick people, I teach him new words and how to count -- and I resent any implication that I should be doing any less of this, or my wife any more, simply because I'm the one who provided the sperm part of the transaction, and she the egg.
My wife and I were talking about how we divide up the work (as we often do). She said, "You know, I think you do more diaper changing than me." I said, "That's funny. I thought you did it more. I guess that means we're even!"
In the house, we both vacuum, clean, scour, scrub, disinfect, straighten, pick up, dust, wipe, and everything else there is to do. We split up the cooking duties. For all practical intents and purposes, our house is a pretty gender-role-free zone.
Is this the ideal? I don't know. But we play to our individual skills. Despite the idea that men are supposed to be better at math, my wife pays the bills and does the taxes. Despite the idea that women are supposed to be the house's chef, I'm the one who really enjoys cooking.
Does it really make sense to do it any other way? Not to me. Not to us. We've always felt this way about running a house and parenting, even before we had a house to clean and pay for or a kid to raise and teach.
Then there's the whole "breadwinner" concept. The man should bring home the bacon. The man should be the primary (if not sole) provider. Particularly if there are children, the idea goes, the couple should strive to have the woman stay at home and raise the children.
There have been times when my wife made more money than me. I didn't think anything of it -- it was just great to have the money! And it doesn't bother my wife that I currently make more. We're not in competition, and why would we be? It's the same pot, and we both know we need it for our son, our plans and our future.
As for being a stay-at-home mom, my wife has no immediate plans for it. If it were financially possible, she might be interested, but she's able to juggle work and family just fine. In fact, if there were a way for her to make as much money as the two of us combined, I wouldn't mind being a stay-at-home dad. And neither would she.
However, I don't want to make things seem as though it's always so harmonious. Hard as we both try, problems arise, and sometimes we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Inequalities do happen, and when they do, hell, sometimes we don't react the way we should!
As understanding and as supportive as she is, my wife forgets sometimes that I have feelings too. Sometimes I feel slighted by something she may not have noticed. Sometimes she just kind of expects me to have the energy to deal with the bad mood she's in after her workday. Sometimes I miss a "signal" (you know the kind I mean) and her feelings get hurt. Hell, sometimes I even feel unattractive -- women don't own that particular feeling.
But we know relationships take work. They require some discomfort, and a willingness to put forth a little extra effort when it's needed by your partner. So when I do something dumb like spend too much money, or forget to do some housework we agreed should be done, or ask her for a favor in a way that seems rude, or make a plan without consulting her about it, hopefully she remembers the times that I didn't screw up and allows me to make up for it in some other way.
The strength of our family doesn't come from my "maleness." Our family's unity and togetherness isn't because of my wife's natural caring and nurturing "feminine" side. We both have strengths and weaknesses that we discovered in each other before we even thought about marriage. Our skills complement one another. We each have strengths that make up for the other's shortcomings.
For example, my wife is an anxious person. Perhaps this fits a gender role? But she says I am cool and calm during a crisis. So that makes up for it. One of my weaknesses is a lack of confidence. Most "un-male." But I find encouragement in the reassurance and personal strength of my wife. That doesn't seem right, according to stereotypes.
I guess my biggest problem when it comes to the question of "what is a man supposed to be and what he isn't" is caring about it too much. After all, I have a family that is provided for, a comfortable home that is a happy place to come back to, and a family that loves one another. Isn't this the sort of thing the classic male figure is supposed to be able to provide? Even as we struggled in the past, I simply worked harder. Ain't that a man?
Anyway, I don't know if this tirade shed any light on anything, but I think it was personally honest.
I think the solution to it is that we stop being concerned with whether we're being good men or good women, and just start working to be good people.
Stop thinking of people as men and women (or gay, straight, trans or otherwise) and start thinking of them as people.
What do you expect people to do? Work hard. Take care of their children, if any. Try to learn more than you did yesterday. Take care of the people you love. Help people who aren't in a position to help you back.
The thing I can confidently say about all men and women is that we all want the ability to determine our own destinies. Women and men need to make their own choices. Romantically, personally and in every other sense, people need people, and we need to be the best people we can be, regardless of what our "parts" look like.
Someone described this way of thinking as "hearts vs. parts." I think that's a pretty good conclusion.
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THIS WEEK IN WOMEN'S HISTORY: The Courage of Pioneers
by joedemocrat
- This week in 1839, Sybil Ludington passed away. She is also known as the female Paul Revere, for her ride through New York's Putnam and Dutchess Counties to warn militia that British troops were ransacking Danbury, Connecticut. Sybil was just 16 years old at the time of her heroic ride. On the night of April 26, 1777, her father received word that British troops had begun burning the city of Danbury, 25 miles away. She convinced her father to allow her to ride and warn local militia. She rode 40 miles--twice the distance of Paul Revere--into a dark, rainy night. Sybil was later congratulated for her heroism by the General George Washington.
- This week in 1843, Inez Haynes Irwin was born. She was a feminist author and a member of the National Women's Party.
- This week in 1887, Anne Sullivan Macy arrived at the home of Helen Keller, who was both deaf and mute, to teach her to communicate. Helen Keller later said, "The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me." Here is a moving video of Anne Sullivan with Helen Keller, made in 1930, explaining how she taught Helen to communicate.
- This week in 1913, women's suffrage advocates marched in Washington and interfered with the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson. The march was organized by suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. In this parade, several thousand suffragists marched from the U.S Capitol past the White House. The crowd attacked the marchers, and the end result was public sympathy that did increase support for women's suffrage.
- This week in 1942 Charlayne Hunter Gault was born. She was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Georgia. She went on to become a journalist for the PBS program The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.
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WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE: Self-promotion
by pat of butter in a sea of grits
Internet tech writer Clay Shirky published A Rant About Women in January that focused on women's failure to behave like arrogant jerks in the workplace. According to Shirky, women aren't very good at over-promoting ourselves, or at least, not to the same degree as men, and that's holding us back.
Until women have role models who are willing to risk incarceration to get ahead, they’ll miss out on channelling smaller amounts of self-promoting con artistry to get what they want, and if they can’t do that, they’ll get less of what they want than they want. There is no upper limit to the risks men are willing to take in order to succeed, and if there is an upper limit for women, they will succeed less.
Shirky attributes women's lesser success in the workforce, at least partly, to our failure to take these kinds of risks.
It looks to me like women in general, and the women whose educations I am responsible for in particular, are often lousy at those kinds of behaviors, even when the situation calls for it. They aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so...
This is Shirky's perception, but is it true that women are less likely to engage in these kinds of behaviors? And if so, do we lose out in the workplace as a result? There have been several responses to this post, such as this post by Meredith Farkas, who did not disagree with the underlying point, writing, "I’m not willing to compromise my values to get ahead. And if that makes me weak, if that holds me back, so be it. I’d rather go to bed at night feeling good about myself and knowing that the people I like like me too." In the March American Prospect, Ann Friedman wrote:
Women who are loud and proud about their abilities and experience will be declared uppity bitches - or at least privately thought of that way... there are cultural, structural reasons why men are typically more assertive, more self-promotional, and more successful everywhere from the boardroom to the op-ed pages to the halls of Congress. This is much bigger than women's individual behavior.
We're in a Catch-22 situation here. Women who do promote themselves in a stereotypically masculine way are perceived negatively, while those who are sweet and modest don't receive the workplace benefits that men do of assertive behavior. As Friedman states, "It's high time we all work to change the system itself."
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GLBT NEWS THE KAT DRAGGED IN: Short Cuts
by KentuckyKat
Last week I discussed the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the objections that the right has been making to it. This week, I want to talk about the assault that the right has launched on the National Day of Silence.
The National Day of Silence brings attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. Each year the event has grown, now with hundreds of thousands of students coming together to encourage schools and classmates to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior.
A lovely group of "ex-gays", however, feels that the Day of Silence should be challenged and counteracted. They will be participating in what they call the Day of Truth. Basically, these students piggy-back on the Day of Truth to harass and bully GLBT students and to advocate that such students not be included in anti-discrimination policies. See here for lots more info on this day of hate.
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In happier news, the Supreme Court refused to block same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia. Couples can register to be married this week (starting yesterday).
Chief Justice Roberts wrote (and, no I do not take this as a good sign of how he will vote on any constitutional challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act):
It has been the practice of the court to defer to the decisions of the courts of the District of Columbia on matters of exclusively local concern.
Link
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Oh, the AP...what can I say? The AP recently, correctly, noted that blacks were crucial to the DC marriage equality debate. While the measure was not subjected to public vote, there appears to have still been a fairly extensive public campaign from both sides, so I went in to this article excited to see whether I could identify differences in the tactics used in DC versus California or Maine. What I found instead was a repeat of the discredited meme that blacks voted 70% for Proposition 8-taking away the right of same-sex couples to marry in California. I also found facile descriptions about the strides made by the pro-marriage-equality side by using reference to Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. Because no one thought of that before? Really? So, I find myself feeling less clear on the differences between the campaigns than I had hoped. Perhaps one of our readers from the DC area could give me some idea...
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
by Oke
- In Just Love: pushing back against ex-gay movement (conference), I T draws the connection between attitudes about the source of "gayness" and support for gay rights, and spells out how the "conversion therapy" groups are flexing their political muscles in an effort to oppose gay rights.
- In Understanding Comes With Initial Discomfort and Eventual Unity, cabaretic finds insight and understanding by taking part in feminist group discussions in which he learns what it's like to be an "outsider" and to have his contributions scrutinized as the "Official Male Response." In the process, he has something to share with us all about making the uncomfortable transition to understanding others and how it can lead us to unity and effective action.
- As Afghanistan makes the transition to a democratic society, WashingtonPeaceCenter highlights, in Malalai Joya - The bravest woman in Afghanistan, a woman who attempted to take part directly in the new Afghan government, only to be denied her rightful place, but who still continues to campaign for her home country and for women's rights.
- Women are the givers of life, yet historically, Indigenous women have suffered intense degrees of abuse. In Forced Sterilizations of Indigenous Women, WinterRabbit documents the genocide and abuse perpetrated on Indigenous women for hundreds of years.
And from outside the Orange:
- Hearing Held on NE Anti-Choice Bill
A public hearing was held late last week before the judiciary committee of the Nebraska state legislature on a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in the state. According to ABC News, the committee heard testimony from nineteen doctors, lawyers, and Nebraskans during the nearly four-hour hearing and will decide whether the bill will continue to move through the Nebraska legislature.
- Kunin Q and A on sexism, power and the impact government can have on people’s lives
In 1985, Madeleine Kunin became the first female governor in Vermont and the fourth woman elected to a gubernatorial post in the United States. She served for three terms.
On Tuesday, the University of Vermont will hold the first symposium in honor of the 25th anniversary of her inauguration. The symposium, "What Is the Role of Government? Then and Now" will be held at the Dudley H. Davis Center. The event is free and open to the public.
- Half the Sky: Coming to a Theater Near You
If you've read Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, you know that its authors, Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas D. Kristof, make a powerful case that improving conditions for women is the most effective way to combat global poverty and extremism. The duo, who shared a Pulitzer Prize for their New York Times coverage of China, set an ambitious agenda; their website describes the plan as "unlocking women's power as economic catalysts." This coming Thursday, March 4, WuDunn and Kristof will appear in a video celebration showing at theaters around the country. The event is billed as a lead-in to International Women's Day (next Monday).
- Why Men’s Health Is a Feminist Issue
Jorge (not his real name) feared his girlfriend would dump him. He’d been diagnosed with genital warts before meeting her, and hadn’t yet told her about his infection. Jorge was being careful—no skin-to-skin sexual contact—but the disclosure was looming. So he’d done some research and learned what caused genital warts. Armed with that knowledge, he hoped that his girlfriend wouldn’t reject him, especially since he knew she could be protected from contracting warts "because of the Gardasil vaccine."
It never occurred to Jorge that Gardasil, made by the pharmaceutical company Merck, could also have protected him. But that’s probably because it was only last October that the Food and Drug Administration approved a "male" Gardasil for preventing genital warts. And the FDA has yet to put its stamp on another promising usage of the vaccine for men: preventing cancer, especially highly prevalent oral cancers.
- "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fattest one of all?"
If you can relate to the above saying, you are not alone. Thousands of women and an increasing number of men look in the mirror everyday and hate what they see. I chose to use the phrase "Mirror, mirror on the wall" because I first heard it used in a fairy tale. Fairy tales are not real, just like the image you see staring back at you in that mirror is not real. When you look in the mirror, you are seeing what your eating disorder wants you to see, you are not seeing the true picture.
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RECOMMENDED READING
by dirkster42
The book Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, edited by Vicki Ruiz and Ellen Carol DuBois, surveys a range of topics in U.S. History, from Seneca agriculture to Ladies opposed to HUAC. It's a bit weak on the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods, but has lots of insights on nineteenth- and twentieth-century history. It's a very thick book, but the essay format means you can work through it at whatever pace you like without losing a sense of where it's going.