Archive for May, 2006

Garamendi over Speier: a response to Kyle

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 31, 2006
in Feminism and Politics
. 13 Comments

I just got an interesting comment below my post on primary endorsements for next week’s California election.  "Kyle" writes:

How can you call yourself a feminist and vote for Garamendi? No one in that race has done more for women than Jackie Speier. She created the Office of Women’s Health in the Department of Health Services, she authored the Contraceptive Equity Act, and even carried the resolution adopting the ERA in California. Her list of accomplishments in this area goes on and on, unlike those of her competitor.

(For those folks not following California politics, John Garamendi, Jackie Speier, and Liz Figueroa are all three solid Democrats seeking our party’s nomination for Lieutenant Governor.)

I don’t know if Kyle is a campaign worker for Speier, but his comment exasperates me.  I have never felt that holding feminist principles required that one always vote for female candidates.  There’s no question that Speier (and state senator Figueroa, who represents the area in Northern California where my family has a ranch) both have solid progressive credentials.  On women’s issues, Garamendi has been rock solid throughout his public career.  Indeed,  I know of no substantive women’s issue where any of the three candidates differ from each other.

If the three were applying for a position as a women’s studies professor, I’d likely vote to hire Speier based on her longer track record in feminist legislation.  But it’s possible to be a strong and committed feminist and also NOT a single-issue voter!  I’m pro-feminist, yes — but I’m also a long-time Sierra Club member and a fairly ardent environmentalist.  Garamendi has the Sierra Club endorsement and the best track record of the three on environmental issues.  From a broad progressive perspective, it ends up being a wash.

Feminism makes some serious political and personal claims on my life.  That’s as it should be.  But I don’t think that feminists must automatically vote for female candidates when they are running against equally qualified men.    Yes, I recognize that men still hold most elected offices.  We can and should do more to encourage women to run.  But that shouldn’t mean that a progressive woman has an automatic claim on feminist support when she runs against an equally progressive male candidate.

If you think about it, it sure puts women of color in a difficult position!  If you’re a feminist Latina, does that mean you must vote for Liz Figueroa?  Once we start playing identity politics, things get nasty fast.

I ought not to have been so flip as to imply that I had chosen Garamendi out of three qualified candidates merely because he was a former star Cal football player.  Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum was a magnificent running back at Cal, but a far-right Republican, and I certainly was relieved when he was replaced by Gloria Molina, a Latina Democrat.  I would never, ever vote for a candidate based merely on his or her athletic history, especially if that meant overlooking serious problems with that candidate’s record.

Ultimately, it was a close call. I went with Garamendi for his superior environmental record, and because I’ve followed his career for years. He was a good insurance commissioner, and I’m confident he would make a fine Lieutenant Governor; I suspect Speier or Figueroa would do well in this rather unimportant office as well.  But I resent the hell out of the notion that feminism requires that all else being equal, one always must vote for a woman. 

Six questions, six answers on feminist men

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 31, 2006
in Feminism, Men and Masculinity and Men's Movement
. 30 Comments

Someone named the "Questioner" (perhaps a troll, perhaps not) wrote me a couple of weeks ago, asking me to comment on this post from Janice at Girlbomb: Feminist Men: Oxymorons or Simply Morons?  The post begins:

… most of the men I’ve personally known who have made a huge hairy point of identifying as feminists have been either date rapists, mom fetishists, porn addicts, or bear daddies inflicting their frustrated pseudopaternal tendencies on women. They are some of the most passive-aggressive, patronizing, out-dishing without it-taking twerps on the planet, and they are poisoning the women’s movement from the inside by sapping the hell out of everyone’s goddamn energy.

She then goes on to provide several examples. Questioner asks six questions of me about Janice’s post, and because they touch on several important issues, I’m going to respond to them.

1. Do you think that Janice’s post transgresses the bounds of reasonableness at all? Why or why not? Should we take her words seriously, or should we react with a good-natured chuckle and say that she didn’t mean what she said?

Well, not all blog posts are meant to be "reasonable."  Janice — who is a well-known blogger in the feminist ‘sphere — makes it clear that she’s reacting with a certain amount of frustration.  Note that she doesn’t say "all male feminists are bad" — she refers only to the ones she’s personally known.  I’ve known a few guys who are very much like the sort she identifies in her (often funny) post; I hope that she does meet a broader array of pro-feminist men.

2. Do you think having opinions like these damages Janice’s feminist credentials or does it enhance them? Can you explain why?

No one issues feminist credentials. In fact, I’m asking everyone to join me in forgoing the use of the phrase "feminist credentials."

3. If you were to make a post on your blog in which you said that all the female feminists you know are morons and bitches, would that get a warm reception? Would you get agreement and encouraging words from your feminist friends? Would it be considered a cute joke which would be greeted with a good-natured chuckle? Or do you think your reputation would be damaged somewhat?

Oh, I’m sure I’d get a very negative response, and deservedly so.  But it’s not the same thing!  A woman calling a man a bitch is a very different thing than a man calling a woman a bitch; the latter is part of a long history of misogyny; the former is a relatively recent phenomenon.  We have to judge words by their power to hurt. 

4. Do you think that it’s possible for the feminist movement to make any progress if it’s OK– applauded, even– to call male feminists nasty names? Why or why not? How many male feminists do you think would feel welcome when they are confronted with opinions like Janice’s?

Well, I responded to Janice’s post — which I only just now read — with a sense of frustration. No, I don’t like some of the language she chooses to use.  No, I don’t agree that all male feminists are frauds or narcissists or predators.  But an authentic pro-feminist man doesn’t demand to be treated as "innocent until proven guilty."  Given the state of sexual relations in this country, pro-feminist men ought to be willing to be considered "guilty until proven innocent."  I wrote here and here on this topic almost two years ago. Let me quote myself:

"I can rail against the "unfairness" of judging me by the poor behavior of other men, but in this culture, that’s fruitless. As men, we do have to accept the fact that collectively, we have given good reason why it is that we ought not to be trusted — above all in the sexual realm. We can bemoan the injustice of paying for the sins of others, or we can shoulder the burden that our brothers have created for us (and that perhaps, in our own lives, we have helped to create). What that means practically is that I am committed to meeting suspicion with patience, openness, and accountability. I’m no longer hurt when folks don’t trust me just because I’m a man — I accept now that they have every reason not to."

5. Can you see why some people would get the impression that there’s a double-standard existing within feminism? Do you feel that their perceptions are delusional or do you feel that their opinions might have a factual basis to them?

Of course, I’m sympathetic to those who do see a double-standard. And yes, there are some feminist voices out there that are, in fact, unreasonable and unkind.  Contrary to what my MRA critics believe, I don’t believe that every single feminist blogger is always right and reasonable.  After all, if we’re going to acknowledge that feminism is about the radical notion that women are human beings, then we have to acknowledge that even the best feminists will, at times, say some intemperate and hurtful things.  But what happens, all too often, is that folks focus in on a few angry or sarcastic voices and ignore the vast majority of thoughtful, articulate, and open-minded writers in the feminist blogosphere.

6. Can feminism realistically expect to widen its appeal if outsiders see double-standards? Do you see this as a stumbling block to the feminist movement’s effectiveness as an agent of social change?

Every movement for social justice is accused of having double standards and of not doing enough to broaden its appeal.  Look, in the feminist world there are many different people doing many different things.  Some folks do theory; some folks do outreach; some folks do biting social commentary. Some of what is written is written for "insiders" — and some is written in the spirit of evangelism.  I suspect that the Girlbomb piece was the former.

What bugs me about a few pro-feminist men I’ve known is that they sometimes expect to be showered with praise merely for not being stereotypical sexist jerks.  Newsflash, my brothers:  we earn trust through the good we do, not just the bad things we don’t.  I’ve had male students in my women’s studies class who expected gold stars merely for showing up.  I’ve had men say "I’m a feminist man because I don’t use porn or hit my girlfriend — that’s enough isn’t it?"  Uh, no.   A great many women in the feminist movement have personal experiences of frustration and betrayal with men who appeared to be sympathetic allies, but whose "walk" didn’t match the "talk."  Being an authentic pro-feminist man means doing more than whining about "lack of trust", and it means doing more than just showing up in feminist spaces. It means committing oneself to surrendering privilege, it means doing a lot of listening, and it certainly means challenging other men.

Do I recognize myself in Janice’s piece?  No, I don’t.  And I don’t think I recognize most of the men who have inspired me in my pro-feminist work. But are there guys out there who are the walking embodiment of what she finds so exasperating and hypocritical?  You betcha.

A long post on pro-feminist men and the “fear of faggotry”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 30, 2006
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Feminism, GLBTQ, Men and Masculinity and Teens
. 70 Comments

My post last Thursday on men and feminist anger has drawn more than 130 comments, the highest total for any post so far this year.  It’s been discussed elsewhere, like at Pandagon, as well as at a couple of the infamous men’s rights advocate discussion boards.

At the MRA sites, some of the comments turn to the inevitable questioning of my sexuality.  I’ve written before, here and here, about the typical strategies used by anti-feminists against pro-feminist men.  Though pro-feminist men get hit by many slurs, by far the most consistent tactic is to question our heterosexuality.  The "if he thinks that way, he must be gay" is a line with which virtually every pro-feminist man is well familiar.

A couple of weeks ago, a male student of mine in my women’s history class asked me about this.  "Hugo, how do you handle so many people thinking you’re gay?"   He was asking as much for himself as for me; though  he is straight, he reported that since he signed up for a women’s studies class, he’s been the target of mild but consistent anti-gay slurs.  I gave him a quick answer, ruefully conceding that "being called gay" is something that every man who does this work — even by taking a class in feminist studies — is going to have to endure.

In my elementary school days, the words "faggot" and "queer" were the two most potent insults that boys used on each other.  Long before I understood what they meant, I knew that they were "fighting words."  I remember getting into a scrap with Ricky De La Rosa in third grade because he called me a faggot; I had no idea what the term meant but I knew it was something I had to deny. I also learned — quickly — that verbal denials were insufficient.  The only effective way to fight back against this particular label was to hit.  Though I didn’t understand what the word meant at age eight or nine, I did grasp that it was closely correlated with weakness; hitting back "proved" (at least temporarily) that the charge was a false one.

By the time I hit junior high, I did understand what homosexuality was.  As we transitioned into puberty, the obsession with rooting out "queerness" and "faggotry" only grew.   In my memory, girls rarely called boys "faggots", but they did say "Omigod, that’s so gay!" to refer to anything that they disliked.   It was clear that homosexuality correlated with everything weak, bad, "less than"; it was the one charge that had to be denied and the one charge most difficult to disprove.

I probably got called "gay" more than most of my peers. In my childhood and early adolescence, I wasn’t athletic.  I was a "drama nerd", and was active in a community theater company.  At that age, most of my good friends were either girls or other boys who, like me, were seen as softer, more intellectual, less masculine, and, definitely, "queer."  Mind you, I had figured out early on that I wasn’t sexually attracted to men.   Though many things in my life were complicated when I was young, I never went through a "crisis" of sexual identity.  By the time I was thirteen, every fiber of my being was interested in girls.  I may have been too shy at that age to do anything about it, but I was never personally in doubt of my own flagrant heterosexuality.  (When I read Phillip Roth in college, I’m somewhat embarrassed to say I winced in recognition!)

But as anyone who remembers this time surely knows, when a group of boys calls you "gay", it’s rather hopeless to reply hotly, "But I like girls, I really do!"  One particular embarrassing episode in eighth grade stands out to me.  Three of the "popular boys" kept asking me, not very nicely, if I was gay.  "Come on, Hugo, you can tell us", they proclaimed.  "Just admit it", they urged, like detectives questioning a guilty suspect.  I protested that I liked girls, and my tormentors inquired, "Which ones?" I then let slip the name of the one girl — Frances — on whom I did have a huge crush.  (Of course, Frances was a bright, outgoing girl who was the best basketball player of either sex in the whole eighth grade.   Young and clumsy Hugo always fell for the "jocks", who were utterly unattainable.)  The trio smiled, and spread my secret through all of York School.  Frances, who had been friendly, stopped speaking to me altogether.  It was not a happy time.

That was more than a quarter century ago.  Long before I ever took a women’s studies class, I was called a "faggot".  Long before I cared about how I dressed, I was called "queer."  In junior high school, my clothes came from the Sears catalog. (Tuffskin jeans, anyone?)  I may pay attention to fashion these days, but I didn’t when I was a kid, and I can assure you that I heard anti-gay epithets just as often back then.  Long before I began to publicly challenge men to change their lives and reconsider what it means to be masculine, I was a target of a tremendous amount of invective.  I know full well that I wasn’t alone. I’ve sat in countless groups with other adult men, straight and gay and bi, and listened to their stories about growing up with what has often been called the "fear of faggotry."

Fear of faggotry is the earliest form of social control that young men use on each other.  Even before they understand what homosexuality is, they use the fear of being labeled "gay" or "queer" to hold other males in line.  Fear of faggotry sets limits and boundaries.  Young men learn very, very quickly that certain behaviors (crying in public, being too friendly with girls, not showing an interest in violence) get called "gay" and hence unmasculine.  By the time most American boys hit puberty, they’ve been well-conditioned to take often frantic measures to avoid this most common — and most feared — of charges.   What they learn is that public displays of compassion, of thoughtfulness, of gentleness, of verbal or artistic dexterity will all earn the epithet "faggot."   Fear of faggotry thus renders young men inarticulate; it causes them to obscure and "closet" the softer and more human sides of their nature.

As an adult, heterosexual, pro-feminist man, I don’t spend time trying to disprove the charge of homosexuality.   After all, to do so would suggest that I thought there was something fundamentally wrong with being homosexual.   Young men who aspire to do pro-feminist work had better get over any internalized homophobia lickety-split!  Running around saying "Look at me, I"M NOT GAY!!!" is not only unlikely to impress anyone, it also indicates a profound discomfort with the whole notion of diverse sexualities.  If being called "fag" or "gay" makes you quake in your boots, my friend, you still have a considerable amount of work to do.  I don’t say that to be unkind or insensitive, but to be brutally honest.  One of the litmus tests for whether or not a man is ready and willing to live as a pro-feminist is how he responds to the nearly-certain anti-gay slurs that will be thrown his way.  If he reacts with frantic defensiveness (as I did in eighth grade), then it’s evidence he’s got a ways to go on his journey.

Several of my colleagues and a huge number of my students are convinced I’m closeted.  "Married four times, eh?  Likes to wear tight jeans, Versace loafers and Paul Frank watches?  Teaches women’s studies?  Something must be going on there…"  I’ve heard it throughout my career and I’ll likely hear it for as long as I continue to teach this subject.  Yes, some of my personal aesthetic choices go against a masculine stereotype.  (Then again, I’m obsessed with college football.) But those who are most likely to question my sexuality do so less because of how I dress or how I walk and more because of my public commitment to feminism.  This is by no means unique to me; as I tell my male students, if they decide to live out a pro-feminist life they will have to endure plenty of slings and arrows — the charge of homosexuality chief among them.   "You do this work", I tell them, "and men and women will question your sexuality for the rest of your life.  Are you strong enough to endure that?"  It’s a direct challenge, and, in a not very subtle or ironic way, an appeal to the traditionally masculine virtue of courage.

Please understand, I don’t think I — or any other pro-feminist man — is "heroic" for putting up with a lifetime of anti-gay slurs.  Yes, the "fear of faggotry" is real and powerful.  But men who do pro-feminist work still have countless privileges that their sisters do not.  Though we must put up with endless cries of "faggot" and snarky remarks behind our backs, we still get to walk through our lives in male bodies with all the entitlement that entails.  Anytime we want, we can abandon our pro-feminism and reassert our male privilege, something our sisters, wives, daughters and mothers cannot do.  Compared to the threats and burdens women face, the charge of "faggot!" — as frightening as it may be to young men — is small potatoes indeed.

Sports update

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 30, 2006
in Sports
. 10 Comments

Back in the office after a nice Memorial Day weekend break, one which included three consecutive nights of eight hours of sleep.  That hasn’t happened since I don’t know when.

Though many other things occupied my mind these past few days, sport is always a happy distraction.  I was able to catch some softball this weekend, and was disappointed that my Cal Golden Bears failed to advance to the World Series.  I was happy that Virginia (Wahoo-Wah!)brought home the men’s lacrosse title, and happier still that Cal won the NCAA women’s crew title.  For the first time ever, a Cal player won the women’s single tennis championship. Though I do care about college football, I also care about the so-called "minor sports" a great deal.

One of the famed local races is the Mt. Wilson Trail Race; two of my best friends, Sharon Pevsner and Jannifer Heiner, finished first and third respectively on Saturday.  I’m very proud of them!  I didn’t run this year myself — my next race is tentatively scheduled to be this one.

And of course, I’m looking forward to the World Cup, which starts in less than two weeks.  I’ve followed every World Cup avidly since 1982.  I’ll be rooting for England and all the African countries, of course; my wife will be rooting for Croatia.  And naturally, we’ll be madly rooting AGAINST Brazil and Germany, the two countries I would least like to see win another championship.

2006 California primary endorsements

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 26, 2006
in Politics
. 16 Comments

I’ll be taking the long Memorial Day weekend off from posting, though I will be checking in on comment threads from time to time.  After several light weeks, I’ve posted a lot the past ten days, and am happy to note that my unique "hits" have gone back up.  For a while, after we came back from Colombia, I was barely getting 1200 per day; now we’re back at the 3500-4000 mark. I’m grateful to all who visit, link, and comment.  Thanks!  I know that there’s more to blogging than checking one’s hits, but it is nice to see the number surge.  I know that there are plenty of bloggers who get more hits, and many who get fewer, and still others who never check their stats.  I’d probably be a better person if I were in the third category!

In any event, for those who live in the Golden State with me, here are my California Democratic primary endorsements in the contested races:

Governor: Phil Angelides, with a total lack of enthusiasm.

Lieutenant Governor:  John Garamendi.  Three good Democrats running, so I’m going with the ex-Golden Bear football star.

Secretary of State:  Debra versus Deborah, I’m voting for Debra.

Controller:  John Chiang

Attorney General:  Jerry Brown, of whom I’ve generally been a fan for thirty-plus years.

State Board of Equalization:  Judy Chu

State Assembly, California 44th district:  Adam Murray, who seems to be a terrific young progressive.

State measures:

Yes on 81, tepidly.  Don’t think much of bond financing.

Yes on 82, enthusiastically.  I vastly prefer directly raising taxes to issuing bonds. It’s much more honest.

I keep flirting with the idea of changing my registration back to Green.  I was a Green from about 1996-2000, and returned to the Democrats in order to repent for having voted for Nader in 2000… something to consider.

Or maybe I should just start the California Christian Socialist Party.

Friday Random Ten: Beneath the Valley of the Random

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 26, 2006
in Friday Random Ten
. 3 Comments

Almost all of these are mine;  #2 is a new favorite, #7 is definitely my wife’s, and #10 is one of my favoritest songs ever…

1.  "Streets of Love", Rolling Stones
2.  "Dani California", Red Hot Chili Peppers
3.  "You May Be Right", Billy Joel
4.  "The Gunner’s Dream", Pink Floyd
5.  "The Last Resort", The Eagles
6.   "Come on Eileen", Dexy’s Midnight Runners
7.   "Rock Wit’cha", Bobby Brown
8.   "Diamond in the Rough", Jennifer Knapp
9.   "Oh Freedom", Pete Seeger
10.  "My Old Friend the Blues", Steve Earle

Words are not fists: some thoughts on how men work to defuse feminist anger

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 25, 2006
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Feminism, Feminist Pedagogy, Men and Masculinity, Pasadena City College and Teaching
. 192 Comments

This is, I think, an important post.

I’ve been thinking about men in women’s studies classes, and jokes about "male-bashing."

This semester’s women’s studies class is like most: overwhelmingly female.  I’ve got 32 women and 6 men in the class.  I met individually last Thursday with the women for "all-female day"; I met with my guys on Tuesday for "all-male day."  This morning, we all got back together in the classroom for the first time as a full group in nine days.

Most of the guys hadn’t spoken in class all semester; today, all did.  A number of the women in class were eager to ask questions and create dialogue; up until this week, mine has been the only consistent male voice in the classroom.  The guys did a great job of sharing about many topics (we spent a lot of time on the "myth of male weakness")  But two of the guys did something that I see over and over again from men in women’s studies classes.  They prefaced their remarks by joking "I know I’m going to get killed for saying this, but…"  One of them, even pretended to rise from his desk to position himself by the door, saying that "Once I say this, I know I’m going to have to make a run for it."   Most of the women laughed indulgently, and I even found myself grinning along.

When men find themselves in feminist settings (like a women’s studies class) they are almost always in the minority.  When I was taking women’s studies classes at Berkeley in the 1980s, I was usually one of only two or three men in the room.  In my women’s history classes over the past decade, men average 10-20% of the students, never more.  Even when they make up as much as a fifth of the class, they generally do less than a tenth of the talking. That isn’t surprising, given the subject matter — I was often fairly quiet in my own undergraduate days.

But one thing I remember from my own college days that I see played out over and over again is this male habit of making nervous jokes about being attacked by feminists.  In my undergrad days, I often prefaced a comment by saying "I know I’ll catch hell for this".  I’ve seen male students do as they did today and pretend to run; I’ve seen them deliberately sit near the door, and I once had one young man make an elaborate show (I kid you not) of putting on a football helmet before speaking up!

All of this behavior reflects two things: men’s genuine fear of being challenged and confronted, and the persistence of the stereotype of feminists as being aggressive "man-bashers."  The painful thing about all this, of course, is that no man is in any real physical danger in the classroom — or even outside of it — from feminists.  Name one incident where an irate women’s studies major physically assaulted a male classmate for something he said?  Women are regularly beaten and raped — even on college campuses — but I know of no instance where a man found himself a victim of violence for making a sexist remark in a college feminist setting!  "Male-bashing" doesn’t literally happen, in other words, at least not on campus.   But that doesn’t stop men from using (usually half in jest) their own exaggerated fear of physical violence to make a subtle point about feminists.

There’s a conscious purpose to this sort of behavior.  Joking about getting beaten up (or putting on the football helmet) sends a message to young women in the classroom: "Tone it down.  Take care of the men and their feelings.  Don’t scare them off, because too much impassioned feminism is scary for guys."  And you know, as silly as it is, the joking about man-bashing almost always works! Time and again, I’ve seen it work to silence women in the classroom, or at least cause them to worry about how to phrase things "just right" so as to protect the guys and their feelings.  It’s a key anti-feminist strategy, even if that isn’t the actual intent of the young man doing it — it forces women students to become conscious caretakers of their male peers by subduing their own frustration and anger.   It reminds young women that they should strive to avoid being one of those "angry feminists" who (literally) scares men off and drives them away.

Here’s where I need to issue a big ol’ mea culpa.  Until today, I don’t think I fully realized how common this strategy of joking about male-bashing really is.  I didn’t realize how I, as a teacher, permit and thus encourage it.  Too often, I’ve been so eager to make sure that my small minority of men feels "safe" in the classroom that I’ve allowed their insecurities to function to silence the female majority — in what is supposed to be a feminist setting!  Though I haven’t made such remarks myself, I’ve laughed indulgently at them without stopping to consider their function.

Part of being a pro-feminist man, I’ve come to realize in recent years, is being willing to face the real anger of real women.  Far too many men spend a great deal of time trying to talk women out of their anger, or by creating social pressures that remind women of the consequences of expressing that anger.  Many men, frankly, are profoundly frightened by women who will directly challenge them.  In a classroom, they don’t really fear being struck or hit.  But by comparing a verbal attack on their own sexist attitudes towards physical violence, they hope to defuse the verbal expression of very real female pain and frustration.   I know that it’s hard to be a young man in a feminist setting for the first time, and I know, (oh, how I know) how difficult it is to sit and listen to someone challenge you on your most basic beliefs about your identity, your sexuality, your behavior, and your beliefs about gender.  It’s difficult to take the risk to speak up and push back a bit, and it’s scary to realize just how infuriating your views really are to other people, especially women.

The first task of the pro-feminist male in this situation is to accept the reality and the legitimacy of the frustration and disappointment and anger that so many women have with men, and to accept it without making light of it or trying to defuse it or trying to soothe it.  Pro-feminist men must work to confront their own fears about being the target of those feelings.  Above all, we cannot ever compare — even in jest — verbal expressions of strong emotion to actual physical violence or man-bashing.

After all, one of the pernicious aspects of the "myth of male weakness" is that men can’t handle being confronted with women’s anger.  We either run away literally or figuratively, disconnecting with the television, the bottle, the computer screen.  But we’re not little boys who will physically lash out in rage when challenged, nor can we be so fearful that we dodge and defuse and check out.  That’s not what an adult does in the face of the very real emotion of another human being.

I’ve allowed this kind of joking and defusing to go on too long in my classes. It’s going to stop now.

UPDATE:

Please don’t get into thread drift here.  This is not a forum to question the basic tenets of feminism, or issues of domestic violence and abuse, or why I’ve banned anyone in the past.  I’m going to be much more careful about monitoring what is posted here.  This is not a free speech zone, nor need it be.  It’s my blog, and y’all have other forums for discussing gender issues.

Saying goodbye to the All Saints seniors

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 25, 2006
in All Saints Pasadena, Christianity, Faith, Sexuality, Teens and Youth ministry
. 12 Comments

There’s a lot of hubbub in the Anglican-Episcopalian blogosphere these days.  Those in the know always read Kendall Harmon’s Titusonenine and dear Susan Russell’s Inch at a Time for the latest on the ongoing conflict in the Anglican Communion over sexuality, Scripture, ecclesiology and how it is that those of us who disagree on these and other matters can stay in the same church.  Or not.

I spent a lot of my college years reading and studying theology.  In grad school, I did a "minor field" in medieval scholasticism with Marilyn Adams, and as an undergrad at Cal, went through a brief but intense period where I was convinced that God was calling me to be a Dominican.  (The story of the time I thought I had a vocation — when I was 19 and 20 — ought to be a post as well one of these days).  But for all of those experiences, I find I’m really not as attentive as I ought to be to the current battles being waged in the Episcopal Church over issues of sexuality and faith.  It’s not that I don’t care — I do.  It’s that as with so many other issues, I find that my sympathies lie on both sides of the fence.   I miss being younger, when I was so filled with certainties!  Wasn’t it Francis Bacon who said, "If a man begins with certainties, he will end in doubts"? That seems to be my fate these days.

But I’m not in doubt about everything.  One of the reasons I went into youth ministry was because I knew that I was passionate about teenagers.  These last several years working as a volunteer with the high school group at All Saints Pasadena have been joyous.  Last night, we held our farewell banquet for our graduating seniors — the seventh such banquet I’ve been part of since coming to All Saints.

Our seniors are heading off to various universities — USC, Michigan, Drexel, Fresno State.  They are all clearly eager for the next phase of their lives, though some are also a bit wistful about leaving behind everything they’ve ever known.  And last night, as we hugged them goodbye and wished them well, I wondered to myself what tools we at All Saints had given them to face the broader world.

Our kids are leaving a very progressive church.   If they spent all of their high school years at All Saints, they went through our "sex ed" curriculum four times, but never once got an abstinence lecture.  They never signed purity pledges or were told by anyone that "true love waits."  Many of them, on the other hand, did march in the West Hollywood Gay Pride parade last year, or the year before, or the year before.  As far as I know, all of our graduating seniors are straight, though some may yet discover new and surprising things about their sexual identity in the years to come.

Our kids never "nailed their sins to the cross", as kids in countless more conservative youth groups do.  Our kids never participated in an "altar call", and were never asked to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.  Most of our seniors have never heard of Switchfoot, or Third Day, or Jars of Clay, or any other Christian band — though I did play some Jennifer Knapp for them on a car ride once or twice.

On the other hand, our kids can — mostly — distinguish a thurifer from a crucifer.  They know what a paten is, and that in our church, a piscina is not the Spanish word for swimming pool.  They also know what it’s like to spend a lot of time serving the homeless, both in downtown Los Angeles and in Pasadena.  They’ve been on countless service projects.  Most have marched in at least one anti-war demonstration.  Unless I’m very mistaken, all of them (now old enough to vote) are well to the left of the political center, just like most of their parents and pastors. They’ve learned that living as a Christian is less about either an intellectual assent to theological propositions or an intense emotional response to Jesus, and more about living out lives of justice and sharing.  Watching the kids who were graduating last night, and remembering what they were like as squirrely eighth-graders, I teared up in pride; they have all become such fundamentally good and loving people!

The evangelical small voice inside of me says "But Hugo, shouldn’t you have pushed them harder?  Shouldn’t you have witnessed a bit more about Jesus?  Instead of giving eloquent but waffling defenses of individual sexual choices, shouldn’t you have risked more and articulated something more biblical?"  I don’t know.  I know I did a lot of affirming, and I (with my fellow youth leaders) talked a lot about living lives of love.  Last night, I found myself hoping and praying it was enough.  I wrote in February about these same kids:

And in my heart, I believe that by trying my best to love everyone of these kids as much as I can, as intensely as I can, with as much openness and freedom from conditions as I can, I am feeding them just as Jesus wants me to.

I still believe that. 

I’m praying this morning for Aidan and Elaine, Corin and Megan, Ronnie and Zak, Billy and Juan, Tom and Katherine and Joe and all the other seniors who are leaving what I hope was a safe nest for them.  My conservative friends might say that it was "too safe".  But looking at these gorgeous, creative, talented, tremendously kind young people, I am convinced that we in the progressive church also have the capacity to raise up good and decent human beings who are committed, in their own way, to living for Christ.  There’s more to being a Christian teen than a purity pledge and a silver cross around the neck.  Maybe our kids didn’t get as much talk about redemption as they should have — but we sure as heck gave them a commitment to justice, gentleness, and radical compassion. 

On some final day when I have to answer for my small part in raising up these lambs of His, I hope and pray I will be able to tell my Savior that I fed them as He asked me too.  Looking at "my kids" last night, I felt more confident than ever that that is what I, and the rest of the folks at All Saints Pasadena, have been doing.

Thursday Short Poem: Maginnes’ “Airport Chapels”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 25, 2006
in Poetry
. 5 Comments

I’ve been lucky these last few years to do a lot of traveling.  I love traveling — and in the past year six months alone, have been blessed to be on five different continents — but no matter what the class of service, I don’t like the actual experience of flying.

I do like airports, however.  I like exploring, always hunting for the unique in places that are deliberately designed to be anything but.  I always try and pop my head into airport chapels, too.  This week’s poem, from Al Maginnes, is perfect.

Airport Chapels

Mostly they are filled by the waiting we hope occupies
            the relatives and lovers
at the flight’s other end. Plain, vaguely Christian in design,
            tiny churches
professing no denomination, offer nothing to frighten off
            a skittish Catholic
or stubborn back-row Baptist. I can never resist
            looking in
the same way my eyes always rake Playboy’s cover,
            hoping in both cases
to spy what is usually hidden. The nervous might invest
            a moment there
in the same spirit they might once have purchased
            the flight insurance
you could buy in airports. While the skycap wrestled
            your luggage, you could write
a check and drop it in a steel box, so that if your plane exploded
            your survivors would be
taken care of.  I’ve never taken haven in those rooms,
            never gone in
to offer even a quick prayer to the gods of light while
            my hand makes
the sign of the cross, “a slow four" my jazz friend calls it.
            His wife told me
about praying for him in the chapel of a hospital,
            another building
filled with souls in transit, while he murmured words
            out of a language
he barely speaks. He came back to his body,
            saying nothing
of where he’d been, cursing the suddenly resistant
            doors and staircases
of the world. The task of airports is not resistance
            but absorption,
so that we are swallowed by the time between flights.
            We can eat
half a dozen bad versions of regional cuisine
            or buy
the unnecessary in an assortment of stores or drink
             in a fake Irish pub.
Or we can yield to the claim churches make
             to owning
some corner of the eternal and find refuge from
             the shuffle
of the terminal, the endless loop of CNN, the garble
             of arrival and departure,
and hide in the cul-de-sac of a room with a plain altar,
             fake stained glass,
a rail where one might kneel to imagine communion.
             The cross,
if there is a cross, will not be adorned by a body.
             Nothing here will
remind us how quickly flesh turns to mortal ruin
             or that in an hour
someone standing on the ground will look up
             to trace
the small cross-shape of the plane burning
             across the vast
desert of sky, tiny spark that, for the length
             of the flight, holds
my faith and the faith of everyone on board,
             a hope
as clear as the silver cross nestled against the throat
             of the ticket agent
who took my bag and wished me a safe flight, the small
             blessing all travelers pray for.

Lesbians, basketball, and the fear of the “lavender menace”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 24, 2006
in Christianity, Faith, GLBTQ, Sexuality, Sports and Teens
. 14 Comments

I got an email this week from a reader named Carol, who was curious about the issue of women’s basketball, sexuality, and faith.  She wrote:

There are a lot of Christian parents out there who have daughters who aspire to play basketball at the college or professional levels. The publicity over Sheryl Swoopes’ coming out and the allegations against Rene Portland at Penn State have drawn attention to the fact that the presence of lesbians in basketball is real, not just a myth. No doubt this causes some parents concern, who are worried about having their daughters having teammates or coaches who are lesbians. What would you say to them?

Their daughters might be anxious about it, too. Some of those girls will have grown up learning that homosexuality is an abomination, and one day they may learn that one or more of their teammates is a lesbian. What would you say to them? If you were talking to a youth group that included girls who play basketball and the question came up, what would you say to them?

And then there are the young women who have been raised as Christians and begin to grapple with issues of sexual orientation themselves, perhaps for the first time. Some of those young women will wonder, realize or decide that they are lesbians. What would you say to them?  To their friends? To their parents?

First off, for more on Sheryl Swoopes (arguably the greatest player of the last decade), read here.  For more on the Penn State case (and famously homophobic coach Rene Portland), start here.

Some of my secular progressive readers may tense up at Carol’s questions.  What’s wrong with lesbians in women’s sports, they might ask?  Of course there have always been lesbians playing basketball, but what’s wrong with that?  Well, as far as I’m concerned, there isn’t anything "wrong" with it either.  As someone who is both a huge fan of women’s basketball (more at the collegiate than the professional level) and devoted to gay and lesbian rights, I was pleased that Swoopes felt safe to come out — and shocked that Rene Portland kept her job despite her well-documented bigotry.

I’ve heard countless stories from both lesbians and straight women about homophobia in women’s sports.  The connection between lesbianism and women’s athletics is, in the popular imagination, decades old.  As a result, many straight coaches (like Rene Portland) have conducted quiet or overt "purges" of their teams.  Even now in the 21st century, some "old school" male and female coaches in women’s basketball worry that "allegations of lesbianism" will tarnish the reputation of women’s sports and turn off prospective players — and their parents.  If this anxiety over the "lavender menace" is found even now at some public institutions, like Penn State University, it is even more common at conservative Christian high schools, colleges, and universities. 

I’ve got a lot of friends associated with a variety of local Christian colleges (like Vanguard and Biola) and Christian high schools.  I have at least a nodding acquaintance with a fair number of coaches in the area as well, largely because I do care so much about so many different sports and I often show up to support my youth group kids or my college students in their athletic endeavors.  And I’ve heard the topic of lesbianism come up many times, almost always more often in association with basketball than with any other sport.  There’s often a racial tinge to these discussions as well; basketball is one of the few women’s sports (along with track) where blacks frequently outnumber whites.  For whatever reasons, in the coaching circles I hang out in, I hear much less about the "problem" of lesbians on the (usually white) women’s swim or soccer teams than I do in regards to basketball.

All of this is anecdotal, of course.  Let me try and answer Carol’s questions.

What would I say to Christian parents — or young Christian women athletes — who are concerned about the apparent "connection" between lesbians and basketball?  I’d walk a thin line, being careful not to reinforce their prejudices nor to dismiss their concerns as indefensible bigotry.  I’m used to living in two worlds (the progressive/secular and the evangelical/conservative), and if I’ve learned one thing it’s to have enormous respect for the core values of the folks with whom I’m interacting, even when I think they’re wrong.

I’d tell these young women and their parents that of course, not every woman who plays basketball is a lesbian.  Whether they see homosexuality as a sin or not, I’ll be insistent that no one’s sexual identity is determined by what sport they play!  Sexuality is not so malleable, even in adolescents, that it can be shaped by one’s athletic pursuits.  I’ll point out that historically, many women who already were drawn to other women have found that sports offered a refuge from a judgmental world.  But no young woman (or young man) is going to have her sexual identity transformed by her coach or her teammates.  On the other hand, a young woman may have her worldview challenged by other women whose sexual identity is different from her own.  But that sort of challenge is developmentally a healthy thing, I’d say to parents, even for the most conservative of Christians.

When it comes to racial prejudice, few cultural institutions have done more to overcome hatred than organized sports.  Playing on integrated teams in high school, college, and the pros has done wonders for countless Americans.  Watching integrated teams, and rooting for black athletes, has done as much to overcome bigotry as anything else over the past forty years. It’s hard to sweat and bleed and cry and celebrate and shower and endure endless bus rides and practices with other men and women, boys and girls, and not grow to see them as human beings. It’s hard to maintain hatred and misunderstanding in the face of so much mutual sacrifice, teamwork, and camaraderie.

The same, of course, can be true for sexuality.  I think about my former student "Margot", a conservative Christian woman who played basketball here at Pasadena City College a few years back.  She was my student in my women’s studies class, and often challenged the more liberal views of her classmates.  Margot had come to PCC from a Christian high school, where she’d been a solid guard (great perimeter shooter, but a bit tentative on defense).  She wrote in her journal for my class that a couple of her teammates here at the college were lesbians, and this had shocked her.  She had never met a lesbian (that she knew of) until she came to PCC and started playing for our top-ranked team.  She admitted that she still considered homosexuality to be a sin, but was wrestling with the fact that she really liked her teammates "Dana" and "Kanita".  Margot hastened to make clear that she didn’t "like them that way", but she had learned that lesbianism was not some sort of disease that was catching. She’d learned that she could be friends with women who loved other women, even when doing so caused her to re-evaluate some of her prejudices.  Margot’s theology didn’t change — but her Christian compassion was broadened and deepened.

Though it may well be true that there are a higher percentage of lesbians on women’s basketball teams than in society at large, I’ll say here — and to Christian parents of prospective players — that there’s nothing about the sport itself that "turns women gay."  Perhaps more than some straight women, many lesbians are hungry for an opportunity to be part of a community of women striving for a common goal.  Lesbians, after all, are generally less concerned with seeking out sexualized validation and approval from men and boys.  As a result, young women who know that they are drawn to other women may feel more comfortable focusing on their own passions and their own interests rather than those of their male peers.  But it doesn’t follow that every young woman who would rather shoot hoops and bang elbows is sexually uninterested in boys — it simply means that she isn’t willing to give up her athletic pursuits in order to spend more time with the guys.  All things considered, I’d say to parents, that’s a very healthy sign. 

I’d rather have my hypothetical fifteen year-old daughter working on her rebounding and her "blocking out" than working on making herself more attractive to boys.  I think most parents — conservative Christian or secular feminist or somewhere in between — would agree wholeheartedly.  Basketball, like other sports, offers girls and women the chance to use their bodies for the good of a team full of other women — not in the service of a man.  That’s a goal we all can and should applaud.

The Adventures of Carrie Giver

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 24, 2006
in Feminism and Politics
. 2 Comments

About a week ago, a company called TR Rose Associates sent me something I’d never gotten in the mail before: a comic book.  It’s called The Adventures of Carrie Giver and it’s a fun, informative, magnificently illustrated piece of political advocacy.  Carrie Giver = "caregiver", and the comic book campaign is a remarkably clever tool for drawing attention to the vital issue of uncompensated care-giving in this country.  Here’s the blurb:

TR Rose Associates, Inc. is unveiling America’s first true female super-hero since Wonder Woman. Conceived for the Caregiver Credit Campaign, the new heroine will set the nation abuzz, challenging ideas about mothers and other caregivers in our political, social, and economic life. Our feminist career heroine will have politicians and hairdressers, women and girls, hardhats and female executives, right along with caregivers re-thinking personal and social policy, including Social Security. Carrie Giver will be kicking butt in the name of hundreds of millions of people, especially mothers, who give care to the young and old alike each and every day.

The goal of the Caregiver Credit Campaign is simple — to get the already extant Child Tax Credit converted to a" Caregiver Tax Credit to cover care of adults and children: anyone who gives care to everyone who needs it in families of blood or choice."  It’s an admirable goal, and in a world where women are the primary uncompensated caregivers, it’s a vital — if oft-overlooked — feminist issue.  More on the strategy here.

You can buy the comic book for only $3.95 here.  I learned more about care-giving and public policy in fifteen minutes reading the Adventures of Carrie Giver than I thought possible.  The artwork is compelling, the "adventures" entertaining, the policy information provocative, challenging, and easily digestible.  And lord knows, this issue matters more than the virtually any other, and it receives far too little attention.

Please consider buying the comic, visiting the Caregiver Credit Campaign website, and getting involved!

Tuesday night notes and links: three fun photos, some good art, and a poem that made me cry

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 23, 2006
in Chinchillas, Links, Photos, Poetry and Sports
. 4 Comments

It’s a quiet Tuesday night here on the home front; a rare night for me to relax at home and putter.  I’ve got some serious posts coming up later this week on everything from lesbians in women’s sports to encouraging young men to challenge sexism amongst their peers, but I’m not in the mood for anything serious tonight.

Some notes and links:

I’ve got three new, very special photos of Matilde up in this album.  Check out this one of her in full descent or this one of her in full dust bath flip.  And, since yesterday was my birthday and the second anniversary of Matilde’s near-death experience, consider making a tax-deductible donation to her charity.   Exciting news about our work coming soon!

Lynn has a good post up about women, visuality, beefcake, and porn.  It touches on many issues I’ve been dealing with, and asks some interesting questions.  Please be civil when commenting over there.

Slate magazine linked to my post this morning on politics and virtue.  Both evil_fizz and Glenn Sacks sent me notes to let me know about it, and I’m grateful to both of them.

One of my most memorable and talented students in recent years, Courtney Raney, is an artist, and I’ve been meaning to link to her website.  Check out some of what she’s done here and here; it’s terrific.

If there’s a male blogger in the blogosphere on whom I have the famous massive blog crush, it’s surely Chris Clarke.  He shares with me a passion for justice and a love for the hills of the East Bay Area in Northern California.  He’s ten times the writer I’ll ever be. He put up a poem this past weekend about a baby squirrel he found. It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking piece about the choice between sentimental interference with nature on behalf of one little creature, and respect for the harsh but wise choices of the natural ecosystem.  At the end of the poem, Chris does what I would not have done.  When I first read it, I wept, and I cursed him.  When I read it a second time, I nodded my head and honored him for his courage, his humanity and his humble recognition of our rightful powerlessness. 

Enough for tonight.  I’m going to watch some WNBA (Storm vs. Comets) on ESPN2 and try and figure out who the heck to vote for in the California Democratic primary for secretary of state and lieutenant governor.  I welcome suggestions from those who know more about these things than I.

Some thoughts on politics and virtue

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 23, 2006
in Faith and Politics
. 37 Comments

At Feministe, I find three links this morning.  The first is to a New York Times article about the Clintons and the state of their extraordinarily public marriage.  The second is from the very popular progressive blogger Atrios, who is irked that the press is not delving in to the private lives of prospective Republican candidates for president in 2008.  Atrios offers a fantasy version of a New York Times article on the likes of Rudy Giulani and Sen. George Allen.  A third bit of snark comes from Matt at MyDD, and it deals with the rumors surrounding the marriage of Jeb Bush.

I agree with Jill, Atrios, and Matt about this: the amount of attention devoted to the Clintons and the details of their marriage has been grotesquely disproportionate.  Since 1992, the media has asked, in ways subtle and overt, whether theirs is truly a marriage of love, convenience, or some strange combination of the two.  I’ve had plenty of moments where I’ve felt exasperation with both Bill and Hillary, but I’ve never ceased to feel that they are both, to paraphrase Lear, far "more sinned against than sinning."  The Times article, even though it is fairly friendly to the former First Couple, continues this now fourteen year-old practice of obsessively analyzing what is, in the end, a deeply private relationship.

Though I understand (or hope) that Atrios and Matt are being facetious with their pieces on George Allen and Jeb Bush, I wince whenever rumors about the private lives of public figures are circulated.  Yes, I understand that it’s frustrating to see the Clintons dissected while others get an apparently free pass; I remember that my disappointment in Bill’s behavior during the Monica Lewinsky scandal was matched by my exasperation at the hypocrisy of many of those who criticized him.  But the fact that the media is unfair doesn’t mean that we need to even the score by exposing the shortcomings, betrayals and embarrassments of other public figures, even those on the far right of the political spectrum.

I am adamant that we should all strive to match our public pronouncements with our public behavior.  I’m big on having coherence between language and life; I’m big on the importance of living ethically in all aspects of one’s existence.  Integrity is important in the bedroom and the boardroom.  I’m someone who in the past fell woefully short of the standard; for years my private life was chaotic, my actions selfish, my words deceitful.  I live very differently today, and I know how hard — and yet how essential — it is to transform one’s life.

My faith tells me that we are all called to live lives of justice and integrity.  But my experience tells me that at one time or another, most of us will fall well short of our own ideals.  People cheat, people take drugs, people lie and steal.    This includes politicians, who after all, are merely reflections of the people who elect them.  While I hope that everyone continues to strive for integrity, I’m not horrified to discover that folks I like, admire, and voted for fall short of that mark.  When I vote for president, I’m voting to elect a new Caesar, a new leader of the things of this fallen world.  He or she is not, in my mind, supposed to be a moral exemplar.  I’d rather my politicians be faithful spouses, but their sexual behavior is not my concern, and it shouldn’t be the concern of the broader culture.

Though living with integrity is vital, failing to live with integrity in one area of one’s life doesn’t mean that one will fail in every other area.  It’s possible to be deceitful in one’s marriage but yet honest in one’s business dealings; it’s possible to be a rotten husband but a kind and inspiring teacher.  We are complicated creatures, we humans, and we are almost all paragons of inconsistency! This doesn’t excuse infidelity or hypocrisy — but I think we need to accept that a certain degree of contradictoriness and complexity is part and parcel of our broken human condition.

In 2008, I won’t vote for the candidate who has the best marriage.  I won’t be automatically voting for the candidate who has the fewest personal faults.  I’ll be voting for the candidate who shows the greatest commitment to the communal values I believe in, and I’m wise enough to know it’s possible to be committed to values in one area of one’s life while falling tragically short in another.   For those of us who are on a journey of faith and transformation, we should all be working towards radical integrity in every area of our lives.  But while we are hard on ourselves, we must be gentle with others — even our elected leaders.  We are all works in progress, we all have our skeletons in the closet (or dancing on the front lawn).  America doesn’t need paragons of private virtue as much as it needs skilled architects of public policy. It would be swell if we could have both in one man or one woman, but if we can’t, I’ll pick the latter.

More on men, women, hazing, and why we should avert our gaze

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 22, 2006
in Feminism, Men and Masculinity, Men's Movement, Porn, Sexuality, Sports and Teens
. 16 Comments

Third post of this birthday day.

I’ve posted both here and at Inside Higher Ed on the brouhaha over women’s sports teams and hazing. I’d like to revisit two other aspects of the issue.

On Friday, Jill linked to this dreadful Kathryn Jean Lopez essay at National Review Online.  Lopez reacts to the news that Catholic University of America’s women’s lacrosse team has also had its hazing rituals revealed in online photos:

Young men shouldn’t be getting sloppy drunk and doing childish things and paying for a stripper. But young women really shouldn’t. There is something more disconcerting about the latter—and it is even more disturbing that we won’t all have that reaction. It’s not beyond the call of duty for women to encourage men to be gentlemen. It’s women’s work.   (Bold is mine)

Jill takes that apart very well, but I’m going to add my two cents.

The notion that women ought to hold themselves to a higher standard than men is a profoundly upsetting one to those of us who care deeply about issues of faith, feminism, and gender.  Jill, and other articulate feminists, rightly point out that making young women responsible for civilizing men is a cruel burden to impose on women.  But of course, what’s also so infuriating is the implication that men can’t be civilized and restrained without the active intervention of women.

A key thrust of the pro-feminist men’s movement (a movement to which I happily belong) is to empower men to escape the "myth of male weakness" (the notion that at their core, men are sex-crazed brutes who need women to soothe, nurture, and restrain us.)  In my life, one of the most liberating discoveries of all was the discovery that I could control my actions, and I could challenge other men in all-male settings to hold themselves accountable.  It’s a fine thing indeed to discover that possessing a penis (even an erect one) does not vitiate the ability to reason, nor does a rush of testosterone automatically override compassion and common sense!

The CUA lacrosse team hired a male stripper (photos are on the internet to prove it).  So too did the Duke men’s lacrosse team, with infamous results.  But the two actions aren’t comparable, largely because of the enormously reduced threat to a male stripper as opposed to his female coutnerpart.  Zuzu writes below Jill’s post:

The dynamic is very different than when you have a bunch of men hiring a female stripper. There’s no expectation of sexual acts with the stripper for a little extra cash, for example, and the fun is in being naughty with your friends and letting loose for once, with no men around but the bouncers and the stripper. There’s no real menace, because no matter how much they’re whooping and hollering and drinking, women aren’t going to, say, gang-rape a male stripper. Even if he does a little lap-dance type of thing for you, the goal is not for you to get off; the goal is for you to have fun (and for your friends to have fun watching you).

That’s exactly right. I don’t want anyone hiring strippers, period.  But I’m not going to pretend that what the CUA women’s lacrosse team did is remotely equivalent to what the Duke men’s team.  Zuzu’s right: women don’t rape male strippers.  The man may take off his clothes for money, but he can be reasonably certain he won’t be forcibly violated.  And though some women may respond sexually to his gyrations, the real pleasure for most young women in hiring a man to strip is in the role reversal.   Look at the faces of men watching a woman strip — the men look hungry.  Look at the faces of women watching a man strip — they’re contorted with often hysterical laughter.  There’s often a sordid, deadly seriousness beneath the raucousness when a group of men watch a naked woman dance for them; there’s usually a kind of embarrassed silliness among the women when a man in a thong cavorts in front of them.

Lopez has it exactly backwards.  While I don’t want any college team stripping or hiring strippers as part of an initiation ritual or celebration, I think that it’s far worse when men do so. It’s not that I hold men to a higher standard — it’s that the threat of potential violence and violation is infinitely greater to a female stripper with a male audience than with a male stripper in front of a female audience.  Young men worthy of carrying the name of their university on their chests or backs ought to know this well enough, and college administrators — and conservative pundits — would do well to keep this in mind.

I also want to reiterate my strong feeling that we shouldn’t be looking at the photos circulating on the internet from these parties.  Inside Higher Ed (as well as most other websites and many national papers) already linked to the site, and thus I mentioned it in the version of the post I wrote for that webpage.  But I’m not linking to any of the pictures here.  I’ve seen a few of them — once. And there are numerous photos available on the web and linked to by major publications that I have avoided viewing.  And I am adamant that I think we should all avert our gaze from these photos.  The people who snapped these pictures of young people in various states of undress and intoxication did upload them to various photo-sharing communities.  But they never intended the photos to be discussed, analyzed, and quite possibly drooled over by millions of folks across the country.

Of course the young people involved should have known better.  Yet I suspect that many of the young women involved in the most noteworthy of the hazing incidents,that of the Northwestern soccer team, had no way of stopping the photos from being taken.  (When you’re being hazed, how do you tell the juniors and seniors who are running the show not to take a picture of you drunk and in your underwear?)  But even if they put the photos up there deliberately and intentionally, even if they want us to look, we still shouldn’t.

I wrote in February that I gave up my Myspace account for many reasons, not the least of which that I thought it was inappropriate that I be exposed to the (frequently) revealing and embarrassing photos that teenagers post of themselves on that site.   I understand the temptation that young people feel to share their amusing, silly, and mildly shocking pictures with their friends and the broader world.  But I know full well that what one considers funny and daring when one is 18 and smashed may be humiliating and painful at 28 — or heck, even the next day when sobriety arrives with a brutal reality check.  Those of us who ARE old enough to know better must do more than simply shake our heads and bemoan the poor judgment of "kids these days."  Yes, we need to mentor and counsel and supervise.  But we also need to avert our eyes, both out of a healthy and loving respect for the young people involved as well as out of a sense of what is healthy and good for us to see. I don’t need to see a photo of some eighteen year-old soccer player giving a drunken lap dance in her bra and panties — and I’m pretty damn sure that given the time to reflect on it, she doesn’t want the likes of me to see that picture either.  Out of respect for both of us, I’m not going there.

And yeah, I don’t think of any of you should be going there either.

Harvey’s birthday too

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 22, 2006
in GLBTQ, Movies, People and Politics
. 5 Comments

May 22 is my birthday, but of course I share it with plenty of famous folks (Lawrence Olivier, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and so forth).  But one person with whom I am particularly proud to share it is the late San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in America.   Had he not been assassinated in 1978, Harvey would be 76 today.

Next to Star Wars (which I saw countless times as a kid), the film I have seen more often than any other (at least thirty times) is The Times of Harvey Milk, which won the 1984 Academy Award for Best Documentary.  I always show it in my gay and lesbian history class, and of course, I showed the first part of it this afternoon — the first time I’ve managed to do so on Milk’s birthday. 

Only three students in the class had even heard of Harvey Milk before my lecture on him last week and the showing of the documentary today.  Every movement has its martyrs, but while almost all students know the names Malcolm and Martin, far too few young queer students even know the name (much less the story) of this extraordinarily important figure. The Time magazine profile is here. 

Movements need heroes, and kids need to know the names of their heroes.  This is why I am so strongly supportive of SB 1437, currently in the California state assembly, to require the mention of gay and lesbian history in the public schools and in state textbooks.   All of us need to know who Martin was, who Malcolm was, who Cesar Chavez was; all of us need to learn about Susan B. Anthony.  But we also need to learn about Harvey.   Gay and lesbian students need heroes, and the rest of us need to understand that Queer History is a vital part of the American story. 

Names like Karl Ulrichs, Henry Gerber, Donald Webster Cory, Harry Hay, Phyllis Lyon, Barbara Gittings, Del Martin, Evelyn Hooker, Frank Kameny, Elaine Nobel are entirely ignored by our textbooks.   How many readers know even three of these names?   Even one of them? All are vital figures in gay and lesbian history, and their stories are virtually unknown.

I may have seen the Times of Harvey Milk thirty-plus times, but showing it today, I teared up again as I always do.  For Harvey’s sake, let’s get this bill through.