Archive for December, 2004

Former students and faulty recall

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 15, 2004
in Teaching
. 11 Comments

Finals week chaos continues.  Again, I have little time to post — I am hoping to have more time by Friday.

My mother and I were talking on the phone last night; she recently retired after many years of teaching philosophy at a community college in Central California.  We spoke about a phenomenon we both know well, especially around this time of year: encountering former students who are eager to share with us what they still remember from our classes.  It’s both a flattering and disconcerting experience — flattering because it’s nice to think one has had an impact, disconcerting because what the students remember is often nothing like what one recalls having taught!

Yesterday afternoon, I was in the gym for a quick workout.  A young man with vaguely recognizable features came up to me.  "Professor Schwyzer?", he asked.  I agreed that that was who I was (less recognizable in a t-shirt and shorts and three days of beard), and we shook hands. The young man was very nice, telling me that he had just graduated from Cal State Los Angeles, and was thinking of going into teaching high school.  He told me he had always remembered something I had said in my History 1A class a few years back:  that the major theme of Western Civilization is the triumph of individual ambition, and "we can do anything we want if we only set our minds to it."  He said that had been very inspiring.  I nodded and thanked him, wished him well, and returned to my lat pulldowns.

Except I never, ever, said anything like that.  At least, I don’t think I did.  The last thing I would do is teach "great man" history, and I certainly would not use Alexander or Caesar Augustus as role models for how I would like my students to behave!    (I’m not one of those profs who believes that Julius Caesar’s tactics in conquering Gaul can translate well into the modern corporate world.)  So one of us was mistaken yesterday — either he has forgotten what I said, or I am completely in the dark as to what my students hear me say!

I can’t tell you how often this happens.  My beloved and I will be dining out in Pasadena, and our server will be a former student.  (This has its perks, mind you — I have gratefully accepted many a free dessert, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.  Free creme brulee is hard to pass up.)  The server will tell my fiancee things that he or she learned in my class, usually facts or details that bear only a passing resemblance to anything I remember saying.  I never correct these former students, both because it would be rude and because I think it plausible that that was in fact what they heard me say.

I’ve noticed that many of my students tend to project things on to their professors.  Christian students often tend to think that I share their own particular theology.  (I was once told, by an earnest parishioner of the infamous John MacArthur, that taking my class had made him much more certain of the "total depravity" of humanity.  It remains the best back-handed compliment of my career.  How else do you think I was asked to be adviser to Campus Crusade for Christ?)  Gay students often think I’m in the closet.  The "students for social justice" types are convinced I’m one of them.  Of course, depending on my mood, I am sympathetic at times to everything from Five Point Calvinism to Frantz Fanon.  It’s a character flaw, I’m sure, but I think it makes for good teaching.

Look, I’m immensely flattered to be remembered.  Indeed, the high I get off getting visits and emails (or even chance encounters on the street) from former students is almost embarrassing!  I am just bewildered, sometimes, by what it is that they are so happy to tell me that they learned in my classes.

Top Five Posts

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 13, 2004
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006
. 5 Comments

Bob Carlton at The Corner had an excellent idea:  get bloggers to create a list of their "five best posts" of the year.   What a marvelous exercise in self-absorption!  I’ve been doing some thinking, and here are the five posts I’m proudest of for 2004, in ascending order:

5.  Men  Key section:

Through high school, college, and graduate school, I prided myself on the large number of women who were close to me, with whom I had mutually supportive, generally non-physical relationships. Of course, the real truth was that I was absolutely terrified of intimacy with men. Men were colleagues and rivals, but never friends. I made all sorts of excuses as to why I didn’t have more male friends; the most frequent one was that "most American men are sexist pigs, and I can’t relate to that." (That was a lie on several levels!)

4.  Sailboats, Thanksgiving, and Growing Up Loving Lesbians  (This may be my favorite title).  Key section:

And even now, when I hear words like "unnatural" or "immoral", I think about real people whom I loved and who I believe loved me. I think about sailboats, Thanksgiving dinners, and chocolate. And when folks start condemning or pathologizing women and men who lived and loved like Jane and Carla, Christine and Rachel, I get very, very, very angry.

3.  Boys, Girls, Hugs  Key line:

But a place where every gesture of physical affection is seen as dangerous is an inherently unsafe environment! Our young women need to be reminded, over and over again, that they are loved and cared for non-sexually; in that effort, a hug is worth ten thousand words. Our young men need to be reminded, over and over again, that here, at least one night a week during youth group, they don’t have to be "tough guys." They need men in their lives who will love them without judging them or assessing their fragile masculinities.

2.  Porn, Hiv, Freedom, Responsibility  Key section:

As a man, I am called to do the hard but essential work of looking beneath the hyper-sexualized surface image that young women so often adopt in our society today. I owe it to myself, to the woman with whom I share my bed and my life, and to these young women themselves. The fact that many young girls and women choose to make themselves objects of desire does not lessen for one second my obligation to look past that veneer and see them as my younger sisters whom I need to honor, love, and care for.

1. Obesity, Poverty, and Choice:

I don’t make healthy choices because I am virtuous. I make them because I am fortunate.

There are other posts I could have picked, I suppose — but those were the ones that came to mind.  Come on, bloggers, go through your archives and share your top five!

Assorted reflections on magazines and vacuity

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 13, 2004
in Feminism and Mass media
. 47 Comments

Thomas Reeves has his own blog at the History News Network.  Saturday, my fellow Cliopatriarch Jonathan Dresner drew my attention to this Reeves post entitled "The Joys of Jane".  It’s about Jane the magazine in particular, and contemporary women’s magazines in general:

Articles display such titles as “My Boyfriend Used to Be My Girlfriend,” “When I Smoke Pot, I Turn Into Ms. Satan,” “How to Date Eight Guys at Once,” “’I Want Her Babies.’ What’s With Guys All Of a Sudden?” and “Yet another great reason to keep on smoking!” In the November issue, an article gives eight tips guaranteed to help the reader pick up guys. (If you try all eight tips and the you fail to pick up at least eight guys, Jane Pratt will refund the $3.50 price of the magazine.) In a monthly column called “It Happened To Me,” there is a horror story by a woman who dated a Libertarian who did not believe in premarital sex. The author also reveals having had a brief affair “with someone who has flown in Air Force One with Dubya. And when we talked politics, it always degenerated into a pretty amazing sexual romp.” Information abounds in Jane, including how to train your brain to have dreams of sex with celebrities, and which SUVs are the most comfortable for having sex.

Reeves decries the intellectual vacuity that such magazines feed and inspire, wondering:

Where are the women crying out for higher moral and intellectual standards in the popular literature designed for their consumption? We hear enough about the right to abort, glass ceilings, and sexual harassment. Why not speak out about the literary pollution that damages and destroys the mind and soul? The voices of informed and concerned women might do much to reverse the cultural slide that degrades our civilization.

I have not read the particular issue to which Reeves refers.  Knowing, however, that Jane tends to have its tongue planted firmly in its cheek, I am not as certain as Mr. Reeves that its contents are truly damaging and destroying mind and soul.  Fewer young women use these magazines as instruction manuals than conservatives fear or advertisers might like!  Rather, I suspect most young women who are flipping through Jane and its competitors are looking for momentary distraction and amusement.  Yes, the content of these magazines is vacuous — but after a hard day at the office, or in the lab, or the classroom, or the board room, sometimes folks like to unwind with a little vacuity!

Of course, there’s a bit more to these magazines’ popularity than escapism!

I know I’m posting with quotations, something I don’t normally do, but reading Reeves’ piece, I immediately remembered the following passage from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which I assign each semester in my women’s studies classes.  Offred, the title character, is given an old copy of Vogue, a magazine now banned in her dystopic world of Gilead:

Staring at the magazine, as he dangled it before me like fish bait, I wanted it.  I wanted it with a force that made the ends of my fingers ache.  At the same time I saw this longing of mine as trivial and absurd, because I’d taken such magazines lightly enough once…  After I’d leafed through them I would throw them away, for they were infinitely discardable and a day or two later I wouldn’t be able to remember what had been in them.

Though I remembered now.  What was in them was promise.  They dealt in transformations; they suggested an endless series of possibilities, extending like the reflections in two mirrors set facing one another, stretching on, replica after replica, to the vanishing point.  They suggested one wardrobe after another, one improvement after another, one man after another.  They suggested rejuvenation, pain overcome, and transcended, endless love.  The real promise in them was immortality.

The more I read these magazines and work with those who consume them, the more Atwood’s words seem apt.  I’m not defending their content, but I am defending their readers.  A woman can read with amusement about dating eight men at once, or about embarrassing sexual episodes in the lives of others, without compromising her right to be taken seriously in "real" life.  Indeed, the more responsibility we carry, the greater the longing to escape!

I like to unwind reading about college football.  Now, there’s an intellectually vacant activity!  After a day of teaching and grading, I come home and curl up with any number of sports magazines.  I lose myself in average yard-per-carry statistics for running backs in the SEC, or speculation about where the hottest high school players in Texas will sign.  (And national letter-of-intent day is less than two months away!  Oh, the excitement!)  It’s trivial, empty stuff — and it amuses and relaxes me.  I don’t blog about it because most folks don’t care, but gosh, I enjoy it.  I know that big-time college football is corrupt.  I know that its players are immersed in a culture of violence that encourages and condones sexual assault.  And though these realities are never far from my mind, I continue to find great and simple pleasure in reading the magazines that cover the game I love in glorious and numbing detail!  Am I "dumber" as a consequence?  I would like to think not.  Rather, I’m indulging in remarkably harmless escapism, allowing my brain to rest.

I suspect that with different magazines, millions of my brilliant and interesting and ambitious sisters are doing exactly the same thing.

Pain and the misprescribed cure

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 13, 2004
in Blogging, Chinchillas, Links, Men and Masculinity, Men's Movement and Photos
. 23 Comments

Yes, sharp-eyed readers, there are new pictures of Matilde in her photo album!  This one is my absolute favorite. 

Not much time for blogging at the moment; finals week has begun and I have grading to do, exams to write, and lots of anxious students to meet with.  (I also have a host of emails to return from those same students; some are a bit miffed that I don’t return emails on Sundays.  Some things must be sacred, however!)

I should have known better than to link to Manpower in my Friday afternoon post.  The result was predictable:  an avalanche of invective (much of it tinged with homophobia) headed this way.  Feminist bloggers like Sofia and Trish Wilson have been dealing with this far longer than I, and they have endured some stunningly vitriolic attacks.  Perhaps it was just my turn to wade into the fray!

It’s tempting to want to respond to personal attacks.  To do so, however, invites more of the same, as my fellow bloggers know all too well.  The last thing I want to do, of course, is bring more attention to the "men’s rights movement".  What I did want to do was shift the focus towards the other wings of the movement, particularly those led by pro-feminist men.

Here’s a link that may be helpful: Responding to Men’s Rights Groups at Xyonline.  Michael Flood, the brave Australian pro-feminist, summarizes the men’s rights groups thus:

Men’s rights men focus on the costs and destructiveness to men of masculine roles. They dispute the feminist idea that men (or some men) gain power and privilege in society, claiming that both women and men are equally oppressed or limited or even that men are oppressed by women. Men are "success objects" (like women are "sex objects") and burdened as providers, violence against men (through war, work and by women) is endemic and socially tolerated, and men are discriminated against in divorce and child custody proceedings. As far as "men’s rights" are concerned, these men believe that men’s right to a fair trial in domestic violence cases, to a fair negotiation in custody settlements, and to fair treatment in the media have all been lost.

The men in men’s rights groups are typically in their forties and fifties, often divorced or separated, and nearly always heterosexual. In both general men’s rights groups and fathers’ rights groups, participants often are very angry, bitter and hurting (with good reason, they would say), and they often have gone through deeply painful marriage breakups and custody battles.

Men’s rights arguments correctly identify areas of male pain, but misdiagnose their prevalence and their source and thus misprescribe the cure.

The bold section is mine.  I like that. I suspect Flood is right about the near-universal heterosexuality of these fellows, though I also gather that some are considerably younger than forty.  Still, "angry, bitter, and hurting" seems apt.

Flood inspired me to take on Manpower with this:

We need to show that anti-feminist men do not speak for all men.

We also need to defend women’s organisations, services and feminism in general from attacks by men’s rights forces. Men have an important role to play as allies of feminist organisations, putting ourselves between them and men’s rights groups, taking the heat and limiting the extent to which women’s energies are used up in responding to these attacks.

Amen.  But Flood also reminded me of my obligation to listen to the real pain that underlies the bitterness and the vitriol, and to acknowledge that as a pro-feminist man committed to male consciousness raising, I have a moral obligation to hear the stories of hurt my brothers are sharing:

We will be better able to respond to men’s rights agendas if we have a proper idea of the experiences, needs and fears of the men who support them. This was brought home to me in a confrontation with a very angry and hostile man, a men’s rights activist from Melbourne. After two hours of talking, he told me of the effect on him of having being sexually abused as a child by his mother and another woman. I’ve also heard some men’s stories of their ex-wives acting maliciously or dishonestly and of an unsupportive legal system. I did not accept the wider conclusions that such men drew from their experiences, and I assume too that for any one incident (like a custody battle) there will be multiple versions of what happened. But if I want to reach such men at all, I do have to accept that what they describe is their reality for the moment and I have to show that I have heard them.

I believe that it is politically more effective, and ethically appropriate, for us to act with integrity, to be prepared to listen and to deal respectfully with conflict.

So, friends, I’m willing to engage in thoughtful discussion on men’s issues.  I’d like it if personal slurs can be avoided (though I am still chuckling over being referred to as a "feminist butt monkey" — even if it is hetero white male privilege that allows me to dismiss bigotry with a grin).  I’d like it if instead of making blank generalizations, folks grounded their statements in their own histories.  In gender work, sharing one’s story honestly and without hatefulness is the admission price to the discussion.

Let me get through some work today, and I’ll have more to post.  In the meantime, let’s keep the comments section civil.  And anyone posting any unpleasant comments about Matilde the chinchilla will be banned posthaste!

Manpower

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 10, 2004
in Feminism, Men and Masculinity and Men's Movement
. 198 Comments

One of the problems with being a man involved with the pro-feminist men’s movement is that we often get mixed up with the men’s rights activists who are virulently anti-feminist.  Thisgirl notes the appearance  of the new ManPower blog, and it is not an arrival to be welcomed.  It is a joint blog with many contributors.  Here’s a sample from a fellow named Kurt:

It is about time that we take the men’s movement from
virtual reality into real reality and this is the first step in that
direction. By working to make men more masculine we will be paving the
way for a change.

By working to install masculinity in men we will work towards
making men self-reliant, proud and independent. A man who is
selfreliant with a good selfesteem doesn’t have to rely on women or
others to support him and he can thus set his terms for any engagement
with women.

If women don’t like these terms then it’s just too bad.

What we want from women is that they are nurturing, supporting and responsible.
That women have other qualities is not interesting to men because we don’t need them!

Femininity will be the price women pay for enjoying Masculinity in men!

This should the personal viewpoint of every man. By holding this point
of view you will be helping other men and, more important, you will be
helping boys grow up to become men.

The bold emphasis is mine.

It’s puerile and angry stuff, like most of what comes out of the men’s rights movement.  It’s annoying, because those of us who are trying to do authentic, pro-feminist men’s work tend to get lumped in with these fellows. 

Interested in the "real" men’s movement?  Check out these links:

NOMAS (National Organization of Men against Sexism)
Men Can Stop Rape
XYOnline

NOMAS’  statement of principles includes these ringing words:

We affirm that working to make this nation’s ideals of equality a reality is the finest expression of what it means to be men.

We
believe that the new opportunities becoming available to women and men
through the feminist movement will be beneficial to both. Men can
become happier and more fulfilled human beings by challenging the
old-fashioned rules of masculinity that embody the assumption of male
superiority.

Traditional masculinity includes many positive
characteristics in which we take pride and find strength, but it also
contains qualities that have limited and harmed us. We are deeply
supportive of men who are struggling with the issues of traditional
masculinity. As an organization dedicated to changing men, we care
about men and are especially concerned with men’s problems, as well as
the difficult issues in most men’s lives.

That’s the men’s movement I belong to; that’s the men’s movement I teach.  I note that the fellows at Manpower want many of the same things that the pro-feminist men’s movement wants: greater seff-esteem and self-reliance.  It’s not as if women benefit from being in relationships with men who are emotionally stunted and dependent!  The feminist movement is eager for male transformation — but feminists don’t wait around, hoping that "we boys get our acts together."  Helping boys grown into confident, responsible, loving, nurturing, responsible MEN is at the core of the pro-feminist men’s movement. 

While the men’s rights movement sees organized feminism as its adversary, pro-feminist men see feminist women as our allies.  Pro-feminist men don’t ask women to do for us what we can do for ourselves (such as tell us how to feel, or motivate us to transform); nor are we interested in taking leadership roles in the women’s movement.  Rather, we work in solidarity with each other, honoring our differences as well as our common goal.

I got involved in the men’s movement out of a sense of frustration with the superficial nature of most of my relationships with men. (See my "popular posts" sidebar for earlier posts on men.)  I also came to the men’s movement out of a sense of righteous pro-feminist anger.  I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t like other men when I was younger.  But doing men’s work led me to love and cherish other men — without becoming hostile towards women.  It is my hope that a similar journey may lie ahead for these fellows in Manpower.

Friday notes

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 10, 2004
in Athletics and Fitness and Politics
. 7 Comments

Some assorted Friday notes:

The results are on-line for the Saddleback Marathon, and I’m disappointed that I did not end up finishing in the top half, as I had hoped.  Yes, it was a competitive field, but  more folks dropped out than I had realized.  I came in 57th out of 107 (43rd of 77 men).  Note:  107 runners finished, but only two in the entire field were under 30 years of age, both men!  The youngest female finisher was 32, and though the forty-somethings were the largest age-group,  there were as many marathoners over 50 than under 40. (The overall winner was 44, the second place fellow 50.)

I didn’t run my first marathon until I was 30.  Most of my friends are far fitter in their 30s, 40s, and 50s than they were in the teens and 20s.  Few younger people have the discipline, the financial resources, the motivation,and above all, the time to train regularly for long-distance events.  I will say, it’s quite heartening to be 37 and among the younger competitors anywhere.  Gives one a sense of much to look forward to!

Today’s Los Angeles Times reports that many progressives in this country are seriously considering a move to Canada in the aftermath of the Great Disappointment:

In the last week, more than 300 people in L.A., Seattle and San Francisco paid
$25 each to attend how-to seminars put on by a Canadian immigration law firm.
And traffic on a variety of Canadian websites is higher than normal.

In
the capital of Canada (50 points if you can name it), immigration officials
dubbed the huge increase in visits to their official website "the November
spike." Traffic grew from an average number of around 50,000 hits a day to
180,000 on Nov. 3. A majority of the hits — 64% — came from south of the border.
Traffic on the site did not return to normal for 10 days, then shot up again and
is still running above average.

What do I get with Ottawa and my 50 points?

The Times article summarizes the reasons why liberals might consider the North a friendlier locale:

For disappointed blue-state types, the list of reasons to consider Canada are
featured succinctly on a portal website called CanadianAlternative.com: The
country has universal health care, no troops in Iraq, has signed the Kyoto
Protocol, and its Senate has recommended legalizing marijuana.

"We are
certainly promoting a certain vision of Canada," said the site’s creator, Jason
Mogus, 31, CEO of a communications firm that works for progressive nonprofit
groups. "We love the fact that Canada is a more tolerant and open
society."

On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the
government can redefine marriage to include gay couples. Public opinion in the
country is about evenly split on the matter, but six out of the country’s 10
provinces have already legalized such unions.

When they were first married, my parents lived in Canada, where my father taught at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.  My mother — a native Californian — hasn’t forgotten those winters, and her horror stories about the cold have put me off. 

Lots of grading to do today.  I’m off to Peet’s Coffee soon with a stack of papers; I’ll sit in the sun and mark and drink coffee.  This time of year, I’m usually one of several "grading types" at this particular coffee shop (which is close to Cal Tech).  On my way over, I’ll listen to my new favorite CD  and if I have time, spend a few minutes with a new novel.

Where the money will go

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 9, 2004
in Animal Rights, Environmentalism and Stuff
. 13 Comments

At this time of year, I start to make decisions about which charities to support in 2005.  I’ll state my goal:  in 2005, I want to return to giving at least 10% of gross income away.   Our Kind of People generally don’t talk about money, and I’m not naming actual dollar amounts — but it is important, I think, to talk in this Christmas season about which organizations we choose to support.

I do believe God is calling me to tithe.  I suspect (with some fear and trembling) that He might actually want me to give well above that 10% barrier.  But I am not sure I am called to give all of that tithe directly to one church.   Particularly at All Saints Pasadena,  there is a widespread belief that the parish ought to be the primary recipient of one’s giving, but not the only one.

I’ve made my pledge to All Saints for 2005.  But next year, I am committed to supporting the following with regular, planned giving in various amounts; in different ways, these organizations reflect my passions and priorities:

Mennonite Mission Network (two friends from PMC are missionaries in China)

D.E.L.T.A. Rescue (Dedication and Everlasting Love to Animals; the world’s largest no-kill shelter, located in nearby Glendale)

The Bunny Bunch (An Orange County-based organization that primarily rescues rabbits, but does rescue and place chinnies.  Check out chinnies to adopt here.)

The Mary Magdalene Project (Los Angeles-based organization working to turn around the lives of women who have been trapped in the sex industry)

KPCC FM (The local NPR affiliate, and what is usually on when I listen to radio)

World Vision (Presumably, no explanation required)

Sierra Club (Still, in my mind,  the premier environmental organization in America; as a sixth-generation Californian and a trail runner, how can I not?)

Is the Bunny Bunch as worthy as World Vision and the Sierra Club?  Is saving chinchillas as important as saving street prostitutes and old-growth forests?  Is public radio as important as helping to ameliorate the crisis in Sudan? Is sending missionaries to unreached folks in China really a cause a good progressive Christian should even support?  I’ve wrestled with all these questions.  Next year, I may make different decisions and choose different priorities.  But for ‘05, I am choosing these.

Regardless of amounts, what will you be supporting in ‘05?  What causes have a grip on your heart?

Nominations, please…

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 9, 2004
in Aggression and violence, Men and Masculinity, Men's Movement and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 4 Comments

One of my favorite pro-feminist outfits is Washington D.C.’s  Men Can Stop Rape.  I spent three days in early 2002 at one of their famous trainings — it was some of the best men’s work I’ve ever done.  In any event, the fellas at MCSR are asking for submissions of "positive counterstories":

In our Men of Strength Clubs, we help young men first become more aware of the dominant stories of masculinity that are acted out in the entertainment industry, schoolyards, homes, and the world of work. These stories represent traditional masculinity, which consists of social pressure on men to play typecast roles representing aggression, toughness, and various other characteristics typically associated with the desire to dominate.

But it’s not enough to help the young men we work with explore and better understand the dominant stories of masculinity. We have to offer them positive alternatives. And that’s what counterstories are about. Men Can Stop Rape defines counterstory as a personal story or a story in popular culture that represents a healthier, nonviolent masculinity…

We believe there are many, many men and boys whose everyday lives represent the spirit of the counterstory. We’d like to learn who they are. And we’re certain everyone else would too. So send us their names and some information about them today, and we’ll post it on our website and include it in our newsletter. Let’s all make this THE YEAR OF THE COUNTERSTORY.

You can nominate someone here.  (And no, this is not an unsubtle way of asking to be nominated; the MCSR guys know more than enough about ol’ Hugo.)

You can read about those already nominated here.  It’s really quite inspiring.  I’ve got a man or two in mind to write about.

The “boy crush”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 9, 2004
in GLBTQ, Men and Masculinity, Youth and Youth ministry
. 17 Comments

Last night, as they usually do, the teens at All Saints’ Wednesday night youth group taught me something new.

We had 21 rambunctious ones, wired on sugar (we had had brownies), hormones, schoolwork and Advent exhaustion.   We always begin by going around the room, having each teen introduce himself or herself, usually with an answer to a silly question thrown in.  Since our church’s main youth pastor is expecting, we asked the kids to throw out name suggestions.  The suggestions ranged from the traditional (John, Susan) to the once-again trendy (Micah, Jacob) to the wince-inducing (Travis — for a girl, Paris — for Hilton).  But one fellow, whom I’ll call Mike, said he liked the name Josh, as that is the name of our group’s sturdiest and most likeable "alpha male."  Here is the exchange:

Mike:  "If you have a son, name him Josh.  Josh is the best name for a boy."

Josh:  "Dude, that’s so cool.  I’ve got such a boy-crush on you right now!"

Mike: "Right on."

And I, who thought he had "heard it all", learned of the "boy-crush" last night.  Josh and Mike aren’t gay.  (One can’t always know for certain the complexities of teenage sexuality, but I’ve worked with these two for years — trust me, they’re flamingly hetero.)  But even as they laughed about the term "boy-crush", they made it clear that at least within their circle of friends, straight guys are using that term regularly. 

Het adolescent girls often get crushes on each other which they make public knowledge.  (For that matter, some adult women I know admit to the same thing.)  These crushes rarely seem to involve sexual attraction — they seem to be more about intense admiration and genuine affection than anything else. I’ve heard the term "girl crush" used quite a bit in recent years, but I never thought I’d hear "boy crush" used except in jest.   A couple of the boys assured me that it was still used rarely, but was gaining currency.

When Josh used the term last night, there was some laughter and some grinning, but it was clear that this was not just another example of a young alpha male pretending to be effeminate.  (You know, the sort of impulse that leads the captain of the high school football team to put on a girl’s cheerleading outfit and squeal — the message is "I"m so unassailably masculine that only I can get away with this.")  Though the young men I know at All Saints still struggle with a cultural message that calls them to rigid masculinity, I can see that many of them are, in some small but significant ways, living far more comfortably in their own skin than my generation of fellas did.  It’s heartening.

To those who are hipper than I — is there some sort of pop-culture origin of the term "boy crush" that I’ve missed?  Or "girl crush"?  It sounds like the sort of thing that might have started on "Seinfeld" (a show I can say I watched once and then cheerfully ignored), or "Friends" (which I didn’t watch more often.)

All I know is, I’m going to start using the term boy-crush.  Watch out, guys.

Thursday Short Poem — Rilke’s Prayer

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 9, 2004
in Poetry
. 1 Comment

I found this one several years ago in Sojourners Magazine.  When I was getting my minor in German literature at Cal, I had to read Rainer Maria Rilke in the original.  I didn’t like him much then (I was obsesssed with the likes of Paul Celan).  I certainly didn’t read this — it doesn’t have the feel (to me) of most of his other poems; I don’t even know who the translator is.  A few months ago, I think, I stuck it in the comments in a post at Jen Lemen’s, but haven’t got around to making it the poem of the week until now.

Do I have to explain why I like it?  That ought to be obvious. Along with Auden’s The Runner, it’s one of those poems that makes me say "yes, yes, that’s me."

PRAYER FOR THE ROAD

I am praying again, Awesome One.

You hear me again, as words
from the depths of me
rush toward you in the wind.

I’ve been scattered in pieces,
torn by conflict,
mocked by laughter,
washed down in drink.

In alleyways I sweep myself up
out of garbage and broken glass.
With my half-mouth I stammer you,
who are eternal in your symmetry.
I lift to you my half-hands
in wordless beseeching, that I may find again
the eyes with which I once beheld you.

I am a house gutted by fire
where only the guilty sometimes sleep
before the punishment that devours them
hounds them out into the open.

I am a city by the sea
sinking in toxic tide.
I am strange to myself, as though some unknown
had poisoned my mother as she carried me.

It’s here in all the pieces of my shame
that I now find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart -
oh let them take me now.
Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God - spend them however you want.


Classroom chemistry

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 8, 2004
in Teaching
. 17 Comments

One of the things that 11 years of full-time teaching has not helped me figure out is the mystery of classroom chemistry.  As I’ve mentioned before, like most of my colleagues I teach a heavy load of seven sections.  I’ve got four different courses this semester:  Western Civ; Modern Europe; Women in American Society; Men and Masculinity.  I’ve got three sections of Western Civ and two of Women in American Society.

The mystery to which I refer is this:  one of my Western Civ classes, for example, is filled with students who seem tired, uninterested and virtually lifeless.  The other is filled with students who laugh at my poor jokes, ask constant questions, and seem to relish being around each other.  Both classes are in similar time slots, they get the same lecture, they read the same book, they take similar exams.  I leave one class feeling exhausted, and the other walking on air.  To a less extreme degree, the same is true with my two Women’s History classes.

Classroom chemistry has little to do with student performance.  At times, my most enjoyable classes were filled with C students while my quietest and most exasperatingly passive classes were filled with those who did unusually good written work. 

The chemistry also seems unrelated to my own effort level.  Indeed, sometimes I think I try harder with my "dead" classes, hoping against hope to inspire something beyond blank stares.  With the more animated classes, I can relax and enjoy myself more thoroughly, and indeed relax quite a bit.

It also seems unrelated to the weather, the season of the year, the time of day, or whether I am wearing jeans or khakis.

Anyone have any theories about classroom chemistry?

I’ve taught a lot in 2004.  I taught three classes in the January intersession.  I taught seven in the spring, two more in the summer, and seven more this fall.  That gives me 19 classes for the calendar year, which is almost as many as some of my friends in the university system teach in a decade.  I love my job, I truly do — I get positively high on being in the classroom.  But I am tired, and looking forward to taking this coming winter session off.  I won’t be back in the classroom until February 14.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that I am addicted to teaching.  When I take more than a few weeks away from the classroom, I feel restless and agitated.  I often start to impose my lectures on friends and relatives, and that tends not to go over well (though I suspect Matilde the chinchilla might enjoy more lectures on the rise of the suffragists.)  Some of this restlessness comes from not being able to hear the sound of my own voice, honestly!  But most of it comes from not being connected to so many amazing, interesting young people.   Though I may complain about the quiet class, and bemoan my workload, the truth is I am paid reasonably well to do something that in all honesty, I would do for free. 

New Zealand comes along — UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 8, 2004
in GLBTQ, Marriage and Politics
. 7 Comments

Sometime today (which is apparently tomorrow Down Under), the New Zealand Parliament is expected to pass a landmark Civil Unions bill.  (The New Zealand Herald has a round-up of recent stories on the issue here.)

UPDATE:  The bill has passed.  Civil Unions as of April 26, 2005.

In an email, my NZ friend John (along with Annika, he’s my "oldest" commenter, going back to my debut in August 2003) quotes the Prime Minister as saying that the bill will "make marriage have no effect", and will, for all intents and purposes abolish distinctions between civil unions and heterosexual marriage.  John has been working actively against the bill with the Maxim Institute.  At their site, they have loads of information about the struggle against same-sex marriage.

The debate in Parliament has been heated.  An excerpt:

Yesterday, MPs again clashed angrily in the debating chamber.

National’s Nick Smith called the bill "gay marriage in drag" and told the Government to stop trying to pull off a fraud.

His colleague Brian Connell said the Government had no mandate to pass it, and if it was an election issue Labour would lose power.

Labour’s transsexual MP Georgina Beyer led the charge against them, saying arguments against the bill were based on "pious moral grounds with a very strong religious overtone".

"While much of our tradition may be based on the Christianity ethic, in the modern world there are a number of other beliefs," she said.

"Should we all live under the tyranny of the majority of the so-called Christian believers in this country?"

Other Labour MPs said it was a human rights issue, no one was being forced into civil unions, and the new law would have no effect at all on marriage.

I’ll post an update once more is known about the final vote.

Of course, I rejoice in what I see as progress.  But whenever triumphs come (and they haven’t come often in recent weeks in this country), I try and temper my exuberance with compassion for those whose faith and world view leads them to see things differently.   Facing near-certain defeat for "his side", John sent me one of his typically eloquent e-mails today, and I’ll just quote this section, as it is characteristic of his passion and his grace:

I’m telling you what to you will be irrelevant trivia to tell you I understand what it must be like for you to have Kerry lose. Of course, we shall carry on
whatever happens, and while I am slightly (OK, a lot) depressed at the level of political debate and discussion (Non-existent) and even more depressed about the role of the Church, I am not despairing. Sad, yes. Despairing, no.

When I contemplate the contemporary American political climate, I too am sad, but not despairing.  We do well to remember the humanity and decency of our opponents when we are victorious.  John was among several conservative commenters who were gracious and sympathetic in the aftermath of the Great Disappointment of November 3.  I’d like to extend the same courtesy to those in New Zealand today who do not see this bill as the giant leap forward that I perceive it to be.

Engagement ring reflections

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 7, 2004
in Class, Feminism, Marriage and Men and Masculinity
. 34 Comments

I don’t know many bloggers who post with the frequency and intensity of Amanda at Mousewords.  Since discovering her blog in the midst of the Amy Richards controversy, I’ve been a fan — albeit a fan in frequent disagreement.

Yesterday, inspired by this post at Feministing, Amanda posted on engagement rings.  Some excerpts:

While I understand that it’s maddening for some men to have women demand entirely too expensive rings as a symbol of engagement, it’s time to take a breath and remember that the engagement ring is not a symbol of male oppression, but of female oppression.

And:

Gaudy engagement rings have two functions–to demonstrate a man’s wealth and to demonstrate that a woman is taken. Men do not wear engagement rings. They do not function as display cases for wealth or as territory that is staked out.

Well, I don’t think there are many out there in the blogosphere who have purchased as many engagement rings as I have (four, thank you), so past experience alone gives me the right to say something on the matter.

I’ll admit my own bias:  since the 1980s, I have been a sucker for the DeBeers "A Diamond is Forever" campaign.  Honestly, I can’t think of a better, slicker, longer-running set of advertisements than their famous black-and-white television ads.  Perhaps I’m sentimental, but I tend to tear up whenever those ads come on television.

It would be tasteless for me to disclose the size and cost — even the style — of my fiancee’s ring.  (Suffice it to say, in my family we don’t do "gaudy".  That’s so Not Our Kind of People.) But I will say this: I did not resent the expense.  I do not consider the purchase of an engagement ring to be some wretched burden that men are forced to bear in the contemporary world.  I’m not discounting the feelings of other men who regard the issue differently, simply saying that I approached the purchase with nervous excitement rather than dread and hostility.

On the subject of oppression, it’s important to remember that the origins of our traditions do not dictate their contemporary meaning.  There is little doubt that the practice of having a father walk his daughter down the aisle to her groom (rather than having both parents escort her) is rooted in notions of the marriage as property transfer.  But in the modern world, we are free to take older traditions and remake them, transforming their meaning as we please.  What was once oppressive need no longer be so.  I’ve known some strong women who walked down the aisle on Dad’s arm dressed in white — and they weren’t property (and they sure as hell weren’t virgins).  At some point, oppression is entirely in the eye of the beholder, and these women didn’t feel oppressed by the ritual itself.

It is absolutely true that folks will make judgments about a man’s wealth and status based upon the size and perceived expense of his fiancee’s engagement ring.  But again, their perceptions do not determine the exclusive meaning!  For me, the engagement ring does not symbolize wealth or ownership; rather, it symbolizes sacrifice and enduring commitment.  In many traditions, it is customary for a man to say to his bride "with all my worldly goods I thee endow".  In the modern world, that means he is surrendering his financial (as well as his sexual) autonomy in order to build a blended life with his partner.  That’s no small sacrifice when it is genuinely meant!  The engagement ring symbolizes his commitment to share all that he has with her.  (I suppose she could wear his 401K plan as a doily, but that wouldn’t be nearly as appealing.)

And lastly, I’m wearing an engagement ring on my right ring finger.  It’s gorgeous, my fiancee picked it out, and I love it.  I’m a great believer in restrained jewelry for men (rings, piercings, bracelets).  I’m also a great believer in carrying on our bodies public signs of private commitments (hence my fondness for tattoos).   I wear my engagement ring with pride and happiness; my students have noted that I tend to play with it while lecturing, just delighting in its feel beneath my fingertips.

Scandal, harassment, and opportunity

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 6, 2004
in Christianity, People and Sexual harassment
. 14 Comments

Thanks to Ralph at Cliopatria, I learned today of Millard Fuller’s resignation as president of Habitat for Humanity.

The allegations are depressingly familiar:

In a characteristic act of frugality, Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller hitched a ride to the Atlanta airport with a female staff member to save the organization a $75 shuttle ride. That ride ended up costing him — and Habitat — a great deal more.

Allegations of "inappropriate conduct" during that drive last year led to Fuller’s temporary banishment from the headquarters of the Christian home-building organization he and his wife, Linda, founded 28 years ago.

The allegations themselves are, by some standards, mild but still serious:

Habitat would not divulge details of the allegations, but Fuller told The Associated Press recently that Victoria Cross accused him of touching her on the neck, shoulder and thigh, and of telling her she had "smooth skin."

I am sad because Fuller is one of my heroes, has been for years — along with folks like Tony Campolo, Ron Sider, Jim Wallis, Millard Fuller was a "practical evangelical" with a passion for God and justice.   Like others in leadership, sexual misconduct has brought him down — but compared to the misconduct of his Christian brethren on the pentecostal right (Bakker, Swaggart, Crouch), Fuller’s misdeeds are quite tame.

Sexual harassment has long been one of my passions.  Hah, did that get your attention?  No, I don’t mean harassing itself — I mean working to help men avoid behavior that can get them in heaps of trouble.  At times, I’ve thought seriously about trying to get a consulting business going, one that would work with businesses and non-profits to help create safer, more congenial working environments.  I know that there are others who do that consulting, but most of them are focused heavily on litigation prevention.  I’d like to go deeper, helping men explore their own anxieties and misconceptions about our contemporary cultural attitudes towards sexuality and appropriate behavior and language in the school and workplace.

I’ve done a few of these workshops already.  Two years ago, a good friend of mine who is a newly ordained Presbyterian minister (PCUSA) asked me to develop and co-lead a seminar on sexual harassment at Fuller Seminary (which is not named for Millard, of course.) The local presbytery (San Fernando? I can never remember how Presbys organize themselves) insisted that all PCUSA seminarians at Fuller complete a sexual harassment training.  My friend, who is a woman, wanted a man to co-lead the seminar.  We spent a few weeks developing a little curriculum and implementing it.

We spent most of a Saturday two springs ago in a large classroom at Fuller.  I gave them the legal definition of sexual harassment with all the buzzwords ("persistent", "unwelcome", "quid pro quo", "hostile environment"); my colleague gave them the PCUSA position.  After this dry beginning,  we looked at Scriptural images of healthy and unhealthy sexuality and boundaries.  (Lots of time on David.)  We prayed, drank coffee, asked questions.  We also had folks share their fears and their stories.   Many of the women shared stories of abuse at the hands of youth ministers and other clergy, many of the men shared their own discomfort at being trapped in what they saw as ambiguous situations.

After lunch, I spent some time with the guys, while my colleague took the women off into another classroom.  We had just an hour together to debrief the morning session, laugh and sigh and share some more.  What we talked most about were the gray areas — the compliments, the emotional intimacies, the time alone with folks of the opposite sex.  We talked about accountability,which I think is the key principle here — always having another man to whom you are accountable for your actions.  We talked about how difficult it was to set up accountability partners, especially for those of us who are teachers and pastors and accustomed to "being in charge" in our work settings.  We talked about lust; we talked about giving compliments; we talked about porn; we talked about what "realistic holiness" looked like.  It was very moving.  The day finished with each group sharing some of the highlights of their discussion with the other-sex people. 

It was a great experience; alas, my Fuller Seminary colleague has moved on, and I hear that no one has offered a similar seminar since.  Since I’m not a Presbyterian (I know it’s hard to believe, reading this blog, but Calvinism has little appeal for Hugo), I can’t lead that same seminar without pastoral oversight and participation.

In any event, I know that my own credibility in my field hinges on my reputation.  if that is true for me, it is even more true for my brothers and sisters in ministry, who face special temptations.   And I do think God may be calling me to do some more work in this area.  I’m putting this out there because it has been a dream of mine for a couple of years now, and I’ve been procrastinating about getting anything done in terms of putting together a real plan for a consulting operation.  I know I’d be in it primarily as an act of service (though money would be nice), and I’d be especially interested in targeting non-profits, schools, and churches.   

I’ve got some free time in January.  Maybe I can take a few days and bang something out on the computer, and see if I can’t get the ball rolling a bit.

A personal note on experience

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 6, 2004
in Vanity and Youth
. 14 Comments

I’ve been thinking about my own life, about mentoring adolescents, and about the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc ("after this, therefore on account of this".)

I was talking this past week to a 17 year-old fellow who has become quite dear to me.  Like many of the young people in my life, he knows some of the details of my past.  He knows I’ve been married and divorced more than once, and he knows that when it comes to the sort of things with which the young experiment, I was quite an expert in my day.  I’ve got the scars, the tattoos, and the stories.   When I was younger, I shared my life indiscriminately: everyone within earshot knew what Hugo had done and with whom he had done it.  As I’ve grown older, I’ve become far more restrained in what I share, both out of respect for those closest to me and out of a desire to build a healthy boundary between the public and the private.

Still, my past can be useful in establishing credibility with troubled kids.   Kids like scars, it seems, and they like the stories behind them.  It is often meaningful to them that an adult knows first-hand what it is that they have been through, has felt what they have felt, has known the shame they know.  I’m grateful that my experience gives me that "in" with them.

But I am aware (and was especially aware with this 17 year-old recently), that kids are vulnerable to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.  I have a comfortable life, a doctorate, tenure, a townhouse, a wonderful fiancee, and a magical chinchilla.  I’m also pretty damned comfortable in my own skin.  This young man knows all this, and when we were having lunch last week, he said, "I know I’ve got to go through a lot to get what you (Hugo) have.  Don’t you think all that stuff (the chaos and the wreckage) has made you a better person?"

Uh, no.  Whatever success I’ve had in life has been despite my own poor choices, not because of them!  When I was younger, I believed (as so many of the kids in my life believe) that "experience is the best teacher."   My own experience, if you will, taught me otherwise.  When it came to drugs, alcohol, sex, relationships — the most "experienced" people I knew kept making the same damned mistakes over and over again.    Rather than learning from their experiences, they became stuck in self-destructive, self-defeating patterns.  Lord knows, I was stuck there as well.

I firmly believe it was God’s grace, not my own decision-making, that "lifted me out of the pit."  Whatever evangelicalism I still cling to is rooted in that "born-again" experience of being transformed by grace  Why I "got it" — when others whom I know (some of whom are dead now) didn’t, I don’t know.  I am clear, however, that I didn’t "merit" it, nor did my own experiences teach me how to extricate myself from a fairly wretched existence.

The longer I stay in youth ministry, the more ambivalent I become about sharing my past with kids.  The fact that I have the joys that I do today may make the truly terrible decisions I made in my youth seem less consequential.   There is no guarantee that those who do as I did will be as fortunate as I.  More troublingly, many of the kids do believe that these experiences were absolutely necessary components of my own growth, and that without them, I would not have come so far.

One of my dearest male friends in the world is a man a few years older than I.  He and I share a passion for trail running (heck, he took me on my first long trail runs.)  He’s been married to one woman for more than 20 years (since he was in college);  he has never "been with" anyone else.  He and I have talked at great length about our lives and our pasts (one does tend to talk a lot on the mountain.)  If the kids were right, my friend would have less compassion and less wisdom than I.  On the contrary, my running buddy is one of the kindest, most insightful, and most remarkable men I’ve ever known.  While he is mildly curious about some aspects of my colorful past, there is little doubt that I am far more envious of his life.   

I know that some of my students read this blog, as do a few of the kids in youth group.  (And no, I’m not going to give you more details than I do here!)  Please know that I am not ashamed of my past.  But please, as you contemplate decisions about sex and drugs and so many other things, know that experience is not the best teacher!

In a different context, Yeats remarked that "too much suffering makes a stone of the heart."  He was right.  It has taken so much work for me to heal the literal and figurative scar tissue from unnecessary injuries I inflicted on myself.  The more I "did", the less I cared about those around me. Whatever little compassion or tenderness you see in me was and is a gift from God, not the consequence of living too much and too hard.