Archive for January, 2006

Thursday Short Poem: Collins’ “Nostalgia”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 12, 2006
in Poetry
. 3 Comments

It’s not hard to see why a historian would love this fine offering from the man who has become America’s foremost popular poet, Billy Collins.  Who among those of us who have given our lives to Clio has not spent many an hour imagining what it would be to live in a dozen different periods, doing a dozen different dances?

Nostalgia

Remember the 1340’s? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow."
Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.

Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade sonnet
marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of
  stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent a badly broken code.

The 1790’s will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.

I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.

Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light
flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse
and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.

As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess.

New blog recommendation

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 11, 2006
in Blogging, Feminism, Links and Men and Masculinity
. 15 Comments

There’s a new blog that I can’t help but draw attention to, even if it seems a bit self-serving: The Liberal Heterodoxy.  Its anonymous author says he intends to spend most of my time scolding the right, but also a good bit of time asking hard questions to my fellow leftists, in hopes they’ll have an answer.

He starts with me, in this long and thoughtful piece, responding to my posts about "older men, and younger women."  He raises lots of questions for me to answer, and takes on a number of my stands on feminism, sexuality, faith, and agency.   My critics from the feminist left will be particularly pleased, I think, with some of his points.

The Liberal one finishes his first post with a provocative query:

Here’s the bottom-line. I agree with Hugo that our culture encodes a uni-dimensional sexuality on women’s bodies. I agree that this is bad, and that we ought to do something about it. However, I am not willing to impose celibacy on myself or others to do it. And so, I address this question to Hugo: How can a Feminist Man Get Laid?

Yikes.  That’s a tough one I’ll have to work on!

Pro-feminist responses to the “Queen for a Year” problem

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 11, 2006
in Class, Clothing and Fashion, Feminism, Men and Masculinity, Men's Movement, Modesty, Pasadena City College, Porn, Sexual ethics and transformation, Sexuality and War
. 50 Comments

Annika sent me a link to this NPR interview with Kayla Williams, author of "Love My Rifle More than You", about serving as a woman in the army during the current Iraq conflict.  As part of the interview, there’s a lengthy excerpt from the book in which Williams describes the "Queen for a Year" phenomenon:

A woman at war: you’re automatically a desirable commodity, and a scarce one at that. We call it "Queen for a Year." Even the unattractive girls start to act stuck-up. It’s impossible not to notice.

"Queen for a Year." You won’t find the phrase in the dictionary or any compilation of military terms. But say it among soldiers, and they’ll know immediately what you mean. That’s what we’ve called American women at war since nurses traveled to Vietnam in the sixties.

There’s also this "deployment scale" for hotness. Let me explain. On a scale of ten, say she’s a five. You know — average looks, maybe a little mousy, nothing special. But okay. Not a girl who gets second glances in civilian life. But in the Army, while we’re deployed? Easily an eight. One hot babe. On average every girl probably gets three extra points on a ten-point scale. Useful. After you’re in-country for a few months, all the girls begin to look good — or at least better. It changes — how should I say this? — the dynamics of being deployed.

Because there are relatively few women (compared to men) deployed in Iraq, these few can experience a significant rise in attention and status.  Resisting the urge to make use of that enhanced status was difficult for Williams, and impossible for others:

You could get things easier, and you could get out of things easier. For a girl there were lots of little things you could do to make your load while deployed a whole lot lighter. You could use your femaleness to great advantage. You could do less work, get more assistance, and receive more special favors. Getting supplies? Working on the trucks? It could be a cinch — if you wanted it to be. It didn’t take much. A little went a long way. Some of us worked it to the bone. Who says the life of the Army girl has to be cruel?

Lots of girls succumbed to temptation. The younger girls were the most susceptible. Many thrived and fed on the male attention they were getting for the first time in their lives.

I did my personal best to resist. So did my friends and the girls I respected. (That’s why I respected them.) But many girls became full-fledged Queens for a Year. We saw it. And the guys talked.

From a feminist standpoint, this is just a re-framing of the old question of whether or not women can ever be justified in using sexual desirability in order to gain professional or personal advancement. It’s all too easy to condemn those women who, as Williams describes, feed "on the male attention they were getting for the first time in their lives."  It’s too simplistic to insist to young women that they ought never use their sexuality, no matter what the potential rewards.

But as the excerpt makes clear, many young women feel profoundly dis-empowered in the traditionally male-dominated setting of the military.  Before she’s even opened her mouth or performed a single task, it’s likely that a young female soldier has already been judged and dismissed by many of her male peers who may remain deeply suspicious of women’s fitness for army service.  Even outside of the military, we live in a world where young women — particularly from the sort of economic background from which most enlisted women hail — are not taken seriously.

It’s axiomatic that the fewer educational and professional opportunities a young woman has, the more valuable her sexuality becomes as a marketable commodity.  (This is why, for the most part, most female sex workers come from working-class rather than affluent backgrounds.  One enduring fantasy in male-centered pornography is of "coeds" and "sorority sluts" — but the sad truth is that most of the young women who play those roles on screen will never get a chance to be in a sorority or experience the full richness of the undergraduate life.)   It’s also nearly as axiomatic that young women will be pulled in opposite directions on the subject of whether they ought to make use of that sexual desirability. 

Many middle-class feminists, and many irate men’s rights activists, find common ground in decrying young women’s use of sex in order to try and gain some small degree of power.  Of course, feminists and MRAs have different reasons for disliking the phenomenon!  Feminists are worried that by using their sexuality for career advancement (or merely the small perks that Williams describes), young women reinforce destructive stereotypes about female sexuality and power.  They are also concerned, and rightly so, that using sexuality tends to create rifts between individual women, particularly in male-dominated settings (like the army) where feminist solidarity could prove so invaluable.  On the other hand, MRAs are angry because they feel that men are being manipulated and "used" by "scheming women"; they are frustrated, I suspect, both by their own inability to gain access to women and by their own vulnerability to flirtation and arousal.  They become enraged by what they desire but generally cannot have.

I’ve pointed out before that there’s a consistent socio-economic element to young women’s dress here at the community college.  Generally speaking, the young women most likely to dress for school as if they are going to a nightclub come from working-class backgrounds. Those whose life experiences have made them uncertain about the likelihood of success through purely academic means (or who lack professional female role models) tend to be the ones most likely to want to "sexualize" the classroom.  Of course, countless women from disadvantaged backgrounds come to college and aren’t interesting in displaying their sexuality.  But there’s no question that a place like my own Pasadena City College is more likely to see female students "dressing to impress" than a more affluent four-year institution!

So, what’s the pro-feminist response?  Ultimately, we will only end the "queen for a year" problem by doing a much better job of making it clear to young women from all backgrounds that they do have other tools at their disposal besides their sexuality.  We have to continue to be aggressive about promoting women into positions of authority, and providing still more role models who can exemplify professional success achieved through hard work and intellectual ability rather than flirtation. 

Above all, men in positions of authority — superior officers, teachers, employers — have to hold themselves accountable for how they respond to sexually desirable subordinates.  Without shaming young women who do attempt to use their sexuality for advancement or perks, we must go out of our way to make it clear that we will give them our attention and mentoring irrespective of their appearance.   Every time we give extra attention or "perks" to a pretty student, or a flirtatious private, or an attractive intern, we do damage to her, to our institution, and to other women.  Yet every time we withdraw our attention from a woman merely because she is attractive, fearing our own response or the judgment of others, we also do damage.  The key to ending the entire problem is conditioning adult men to see beyond the surface appearance of the women around them. And once we’ve looked beneath the surface, we then have to have the courage to mentor fearlessly.  That’s not easy work, but it’s at the heart of the contemporary pro-feminist task.

A note on the “History of Violence”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 10, 2006
in Aggression and violence, Christianity and Movies
. 8 Comments

I’m feeling "blogged out" at the moment.  Most of the time, I’m not at a loss for topics — but sometimes, I feel utterly drained.

I will say that we went to see "A History of Violence" on Sunday night.  We’re doing our best to see all the Golden Globe nominees before the awards shows, and this was next on the list.  We approached the film with reluctance — neither my wife nor I are fans of graphically violent films.  But we both admire Viggo Mortensen, and the film’s inclusion on so many "best of 2005" lists helped us to overcome those reservations.

It’s a bloody, disturbing, thoughtful, and supremely entertaining film.  And as sometimes happens with well-crafted gore fests (like Quentin Tarantino’s pictures) I leave feeling aroused and ashamed of that arousal.  I don’t mean sexual excitement, mind you — I mean a different sort of excitement, the sort that comes from having seen images you haven’t seen before, or at least not in a very long time.

I don’t do well with explicit violence.  Oddly, the last time I walked out of a theater with a similar sense of nausea and excitement was after the Passion of the Christ.  I do my best to avoid films that will be profoundly gory, but I make exceptions for films that have generated sufficient acclaim.  Sometimes (as with "Natural Born Killers") I’m simply left empty and disgusted; other times, as with the "Passion" and "History of Violence", I’m left challenged and moved.  In an odd but compelling way, this was a deeply Christian picture — it’s a movie about marital devotion, redemption, rebirth, and the corrosive nature of violence.

(Warning, spoiler ahead) 

In the climactic scene of the film, the Viggo Mortensen character ("Joey",) kills his older brother Richie (a splendid William Hurt).  Right before he’s shot, Richie exclaims "Jesus, Joey" — and his brother replies, calmly, "Jesus, Richie."  In the context of the film, this is not our Lord’s name in vain, but rather a moment of sudden catharsis for both men.

Though "Brokeback Mountain" remains the best film I’ve seen all year, "A History of Violence" has been the most challenging to me spiritually.  Its violence is so graphic and unrelenting that it is difficult to recommend, and yet the underlying humanity and beauty of the film is undeniable.  I’m still haunted by it.

I will try and get up a "Top Ten films of 2005" list after I’ve finished seeing all of the nominees.

A note on immigration and women

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 10, 2006
in Class, Ethnicity, Family, Links, Politics and Race
. 2 Comments

Good article this morning in the New York Times: More and More, Women Risk All to Enter the United States.

Some women cross simply to keep their families together and join their husbands after long separations, a situation that has grown more pronounced since the Border Patrol agency began stepping up enforcement 10 years ago. With the border more secure in California and Texas, many people are now being funneled into the rugged territory of Arizona - an effort that virtually requires the help of an expensive coyote to cross successfully.

Yet a growing number of single women are coming not to join husbands, but to find jobs, send money home and escape a bleak future in Mexico. They come to find work in the booming underground economy, through a vast network of friends and relatives already employed here as maids, cooks, kitchen helpers, factory workers and baby sitters. In these jobs, they can earn double or triple their Mexican salaries.

"It remains a story about family reunification, but the proportion of women coming to the U.S. who are not married and working full time has gone up substantially," Professor Donato said. "So we see the single migrant woman motivated by economic reasons coming to the United States that we saw very little of 30 years ago."

It will be interesting to see how — and if — this changes the face of immigration policy.  In urban Los Angeles, we tend to think of undocumented workers as being overwhelmingly male — because it is exclusively male faces we see gathered around lumber yards and construction sites, soliciting work.  But those images clearly don’t tell the whole story.

I’ve had about a dozen students in recent years tell me that they were undocumented.  All but one was female; all but three were from Mexico (the others were from the Philippines, Armenia, and Guatemala.)  The key trick for them is getting financial aid.  Though undocumented students in California, Texas, and other states are eligible for lower "in-state" tuition, that doesn’t solve all financial problems.  In-state tuition, as well as books and housing, can be prohibitively expensive.  There are very few resources for undocumented students, but this MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund) site (in PDF format) has an excellent list of private scholarships for those without papers.

Shameless family plug: “Open to God, Open to the World”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 9, 2006
in Christianity, Family and People
. Closed

Let me make another shameless family plug.

My beloved and delightful aunt, Christa Pongratz-Lippitt, is the Austrian correspondent for the famous English Catholic paper The Tablet.  She has recently edited and published the essays (in both English and German) of her dear friend, the late Cardinal Franz Koenig: Open to God, Open to the World.  A review in the Jesuit journal America described the essays as filled "with candid and often delightful recollections that leave the reader breathless at the vision and energy of this remarkable man."

He would have made a great pope.

More on teaching and trying to do a better job

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 9, 2006
in Class, Race, Teaching and Vanity
. 8 Comments

In the comments below my previous post about grading disparities and race, La Lubu asks:

…what do you do, as a teacher, to reach out to students from disadvantaged/noncollegiate/struggling backgrounds? How do you communicate to them what it takes to get an "A" in your course, and is this being understood? I hope that doesn’t sound too presumptous, but some teachers simply assume that everyone "knows" what "A" work looks like—and hell, that can vary from teacher to teacher, anyway. Do you encourage students who come from struggling backgrounds to meet with you, discuss their work, and come up with solutions to possible problems that they are having with their assignments? In other words, do you make it clear to your students that you are an ally in their education, not an adversary?

Those are challenging questions.

Sometimes, I think of the job of a teacher as being analogous to that of a football coach.  And as many folks know, conventional wisdom divides good coaches into two categories: great strategists and great inspirers.  The former are often not particularly charismatic, but they have an extraordinary gift for designing the right play.  They are meticulous about planning, and they know the strengths and the weaknesses of their player personnel intimately.  On the other hand, the great inspirers are often not as strong on strategy — but they rely on their motivational skills.  They are skilled at using emotion to drive their athletes.

At the risk of hubris, I know I’m a good inspirer.  But I’m not nearly as good a teacher as I ought to be.  For years and years, I’ve worked on two key aspects of my profession: lecturing and one-on-one mentoring.  I think I’m fairly proficient at both.  I don’t use notes, and can — on command — deliver what I believe to be a compelling and interesting narrative lecture on the AIDS crisis, Bismarck’s alliance system, or the fall of the Roman Republic. I’ve had years and years of practice in the classroom, and years of drama classes before I ever came to the college.  My student evaluations may offer many criticisms, but "boring" and "inarticulate" aren’t two of them.

But I’ve still got so much to do when it comes to helping students, particularly those who are struggling with college work, to be more successful. I know how to give motivational speeches — I’m less clear on how to provide specific tools to help kids fulfill their goals.  Oh, I’ve been to literally dozens of workshops on learning styles, teaching English Language Learners, and so forth.   Though I often make fun of folks who get degrees in education degrees ("Lord, save us from the Ed.Ds"), I admit that some of that derision is misplaced.  Despite the heavy jargon of their professional journals, a lot of the ed people have devoted their lives to studying how students learn — something that I haven’t done.  Perhaps it’s time to give some of their ideas another try.  My bookshelf groans with teaching manuals I haven’t read in years.  (This widely-read classic is my favorite, and I admit it has helped.)

I love teaching and interacting with students.  But while I think I’m doing a good job on the motivational side of the ledger, I suppose I could be doing still more to help my underperforming students do better work.  I always stress that I’m available in office hours, but my experience has been that the students who tend to utilize office hours the most are the "best and the brightest".  They’ve already figured out that coming to talk to their profs is a good idea on many levels, and they are quick to ask questions as to how they can improve.  I’m eager to work with those who visit me, but in that sense I’m once again like the football coach, devoting the bulk of my time to working with the "first string" while spending less time with the back-ups and the bench-warmers.

I suppose I could, ala Luke 14:23, "compel them to come in".  I once tried to make visiting me in office hours mandatory for everyone — but with 280-320 students per semester spread over 7 classes, that proved impractical.  I’m thinking about getting folks to meet with me in groups of 3-4 once or twice a semester, but experience suggests that it will be the students who need help least who will be the first to seek it out, and the most likely to participate enthusiastically when they do come to office hours.

I daydream, often, of how much better a teacher I could be if I had a smaller teaching load.  If I had only three classes a semester, and no research load, I could meet individually with each student to talk about their strengths, weaknesses, fears, and expectations.   This is the great frustration of teaching, a frustration I know is shared by others in this profession.  Most of us, no matter how good we are, are keenly aware of the myriad ways in which we could be better, of the various ways we could do more — if we had fewer students, if we had more time, if we had more energy.  The wise teachers learn to accept that they won’t be able to rescue — or inspire — everyone.  But they don’t let the knowledge of certain failure in so many cases lead to despair or apathy.

I met three new classes today, and I was giddy with excitement.  I’m still so blessed and privileged to do what I do.  I know I’m pretty damn good at my craft, and yet I’m keenly aware I could be still better, still more approachable, still kinder, still more creative, still more committed to the emotional and intellectual growth of the people whom I teach.

A dilemma, and a request for input

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 9, 2006
in Class, Ethnicity, Race and Teaching
. 23 Comments

Well, here’s an ethical dilemma with which I’d like some help.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been quietly keeping track of the ethnic and gender breakdown of my students and the grades they receive.  I do this informally, mind you, and up until now I’ve kept the results entirely to myself.

But I’ve noticed some trends, trends that may speak to my teaching style and unconscious prejudices as well as to the varied levels of preparedness of my students.  But it’s such an explosive issue, that I am not sure I should put my own data out there.  I’m not worried for my job — I have tenure, and proving a bias case against me would be near impossible.  I’ve got data to back up all my grading decisions.  But there’s no question that while I consciously bend over backwards to grade fairly, some groups are more likely to receive As than others.

I’m aware that class and social background often has a racial or ethnic dimension.  I’m aware of the suggestion, widely discussed in recent months, that young men of all races are often less well-prepared for college work.  And my own grading patterns seem to back that up.  I’ve discussed my grading trends with other faculty members, who report similar results.  This helps me realize that if it is bias on my part (which I don’t think it is), I’m hardly alone — at least three of my colleagues report similar results from their students.

Here’s my question:

Given that I have students who read this blog, is it a bad idea to disclose the data?   While I think there’s some potential for fruitful discussion on this issue, especially when it comes to thinking up solutions, I’m worried about the impact on my current and future students.  I want each person who enters my class to be certain that he or she will be graded solely on his or her work, not on sex or race.  (And of course, I have A, B, C, and F students from every background — I am talking broad generalities rather than hard and fast rules.)  Is it possible that I could do real harm — emotional or legal — by mentioning that certain groups are statistically more likely to earn As?

I’d like to hear some thoughts, and I’ll talk about it with some colleagues before I go forward with a post about my findings.  Right now, I’m leaning against putting the statistics out there, but I’m not firmly decided yet.  Polite input is appreciated.

No time to digest — a quick thought on teaching intersession

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 9, 2006
in Feminism, Pasadena City College and Teaching
. 19 Comments

Something on my office computer seems to have broken, so I’m using one from the adjunct faculty lab for a quick post.  It worked fine when I was here last, but some little elf has caused my hard drive to make very frightening sounds when it tries to start Windows.

It’s the first morning of winter intersession at Pasadena City College, and my grades from last semester have only now just been turned in.  Lest you think I am a neglectful prof, the grades aren’t due until tomorrow — and I know one colleague who has only just now started his grading.

Enrollment is down college-wide, and I notice it in my classes.   The primary culprit is believed to be the high cost of housing — fewer and fewer folks who fall into the traditional community college "pool" can afford to live nearby.  Word from on high is that if the trend continues, we’re going to be able to offer fewer sections; some say we could be looking at layoffs. 

For the first time ever, I’m attempting to teach my women’s history course during an intersession.  For years and years, the only courses I taught during our brief, six-week intersessions were my Western Civ survey classes.  Though we went fast and covered a great deal, I often ended up getting further in these short-term courses than I do during the regular semester.  (I blogged about this habit of falling short last November).  With survey courses, I find that students often do better in the intersessions than during the regular semesters.  When we meet for almost two hours a day, four days a week, there’s less chance that a student will forget the material.  It’s a lot harder to forget what you learned two weeks ago than what you learned two months ago, after all!

But women’s history is different.  Yes, there are plenty of dates and names to learn, and less time in which to forget them in an intersession.  But a good women’s studies course isn’t just names and dates and interesting anecdotes — it’s an introduction to feminist thinking, to a brand-new way of seeing gender and sexuality and culture.  I’m not just asking my students to memorize information and write critical essays, I’m asking them to adopt a different paradigm for thinking about the world.  And paradigm shifts take time, to put it mildly!

A course that introduces students to feminist principles is asking students to reevaluate some of their most basic assumptions.  And that reevaluation process is rarely, if ever, instantaneous.  I’ve learned that when hit with a radical new idea, students often take a while to process what it is that they’re hearing or reading.  They need to mull it over for a while, sit with it.  Depending on the student, that "mulling time" can take days or weeks or longer.  With some students, I am lucky enough to witness an extraordinary intellectual transformation over the course of a semester as they wrestle with new material and a new way of thinking about the world.  But it takes weeks and weeks and weeks.

The winter intersession calls for 24 days of teaching.  (Mondays-Thursdays for six weeks).  We don’t have class on Martin Luther King day, and we don’t have lectures or discussions on the days of the midterm and the final.  The first day of class is just a broad outline of the course.  That leaves me with just 20 teaching days to introduce my students to not only the history of women in American society from the pre-Columbian period until the present, but also to give them some of the basics of feminist theory.  And while I am confident that many will be able to memorize well, I’m worried that I’ll be hitting them with too many big ideas too fast — and as a consequence, they won’t have time to digest and sift and evaluate.  And that may impact not only class discussions, but their long-term learning.  I know full well that for most of my students, this will be the only class on gender studies they will take in their college career.  And I’ve got just 20 days to challenge them to see the world differently — and that’s a scary thought indeed.

Yet it’s worth taking the risk — if it is possible to do this well in such a compressed time period, then it’s a splendid opportunity to reach more folks. 

I’ll report.

Three quick resolutions for ‘06

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 6, 2006
in Sexual ethics and transformation and Vanity
. 4 Comments

Not much time for a post this morning.  The car has to go in for service, and I’ve got some writing to get done on another project this afternoon.

In case you were wondering, here are my current New Year’s Resolutions:

1.  Work on being less fearful about money.  This means not just tithing on the gross, but tithing joyfully.   I don’t blog a lot about money, but then again, very few folks blog honestly about their relationship with money! I can say that money has been the greatest source of anxiety in my life for years and years. 

I learned a long time ago the economic truism that "expenditures invariably rise to meet increased incomes."  I also learned, way back in grad school when I was first self-supporting as a TA, that anxiety was a constant.  My income has increased a great deal since I first became independent, but for all of my spiritual and emotional growth, I find that my worry level remains about the same.   

I do believe all of my real needs will be met if I tithe.  I believe that biblically (some in my secular family would say I believe that superstitiously), but I don’t yet have the freedom from fear that I know ought to be part of radical faith in this area of life.  I still lie awake many a night fretting, and this is the year I want to confront that fear more directly.

2.  Find a way to stay fit without letting my athletic pursuits take too much time away from other obligations.  Too many Saturdays in recent years have seen me do very long runs in the morning that leave me drained and good for nothing but the couch the rest of the day.   Exercise is admirable, but I do use it addictively (frequently to cope with the very anxieties listed above!), and when I do that, it swallows up so much valuable time.  I have no intention of abandoning my workouts, but I may have to cut them down.   Fortunately, my wife shares my enthusiasm for exercise, and that helps.

Yet I’ve seen many men neglect wives and children for the gym.  I know a few "running widows" and "triathlete orphans", and it’s not a fate I want for my family.

3.  Be less of a "politician" and a "people-pleaser."  Too often in social situations, I prize tact and glibness over candor.  I’m increasingly uncomfortable with that.

Good news!

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 5, 2006
in Aggression and violence, Feminism and Politics
. 76 Comments

Well, in an increasingly rare bit of good news out of Washington, President Bush signed the extension of the Violence Against Women Act today.  Now we just have to continue to pressure Congress to fully fund VAWA each year.

There will be much gnashing of teeth by men’s rights advocates.

“But you’re pretty”: a pro-feminist musing on why compliments don’t help

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 5, 2006
in Body, Feminism, Men and Masculinity, Men's Movement, Sexual ethics and transformation, Vanity and Youth
. 83 Comments

The discussion sparked by Jill’s online experience with her fellow NYU law students continues.  Here’s my post, Amanda’s, and Lynn’s.  Amanda and Lynn both have excellent things to say about the difficult position women find themselves in on the Internet, and in the wider society, when it comes to their appearance.    I liked this bit from Amanda:

Calling feminists ugly is actually shorthand for a longer thought process that goes something like, "Women’s most important quality is their looks, so good-looking women have everything they could want. The only reason a woman could be dissatisfied is if she isn’t good-looking, and so feminism is the last resort of women in denial that they are failures as women." That argument falls apart if you show that conventionally attractive women also feel like second class citizens, and that being eligible for being a well-regarded sex object doesn’t mean that you aren’t still being treated just as a sex object.

Nicely put.

When the fellas at NYU called Jill "fat" and "ugly", many folks at Feministe rushed to reassure Jill that she was anything but.  There are several problems with responding to insults with compliments, as zuzu pointed out in the comments:

These guys are obviously assholes, but it bothers me that being called fat and/or hideous provokes such a strong, “But you’re not fat! You’re not ugly!” response. I could just be feeling marginalized by the idea that being fat is the worst thing a woman could be called.

I’m thinking this morning of what a male pro-feminist response to this issue might be.   

Most men are aware, to one degree or another, of how powerfully the women in their lives are affected by messages about beauty.   If we’ve been raised in this culture, we’ve grown up with mothers, sisters, cousins, classmates, girlfriends and wives who’ve suffered from the tremendous pressure to be thin and pretty.  We’ve witnessed that anxiety from an early age, and many of us have tried — with limited success at best — to offer comfort and reassurance to the women around us.  When I was younger, whenever any woman would worry out loud about her weight or her looks, I would rush to compliment her.  I figured dispensing kind compliments was part of my job as a man.

The subtext of this, of course, was that I was being raised to believe that women were emotionally dependent upon my praise and my judgment.  And just as I — or any man — had the power to comfort and reassure, I also had the power to hurt and wound.  As a "nice guy" in my youth, I knew that I ought never call a woman "fat" or "ugly", but the fact that I didn’t use those epithets didn’t mean that I wasn’t aware of their potential power.  And I’m convinced it’s fundamentally unhealthy for men to have this kind of power over women, even if we don’t use that power abusively.

When I first read Jill’s original post, I felt the old temptation to do as many did: to offer words of reassurance about her looks.  Compliments, especially in cyberspace, are awfully easy; a quick "Those guys are idiots, you’re very attractive" would have been effortless.  But I’m convinced it would have been wrong to write it.  Today, I am very careful with compliments and reassurance about physical appearance.  I save that sort of thing for my marriage. With my female friends, students, and especially with the girls in my youth group to whom I am close, I am quick with compliments about everything but physical appearance.

As a professor and a youth leader, I’m keenly aware of how many young women are desperate for praise and validation about their looks.  And I’m equally aware of how damaging it will be if I provide it.  Even when my "kids" ask for that sort of praise in subtle — and often not-so-subtle — ways, I won’t make comments about visual appearance.   But ask anyone who’s seen me with teens — I’m a hugger and a complimenter about everything else extraordinaire.  It’s easy to praise exteriors; harder to get to know a girl or a boy and find out his or her special gifts and talents that lie beneath the surface.  I’m intensely interested in finding the different intellectual, emotional, athletic, artistic and spiritual gifts that my students and youth group kids possess.  And about those qualities, I’m consistently effusive.

Obviously, this is a good rule for a thirty-eight year-old youth worker to use when dealing with teenagers.  But this "be very careful with physical comments and compliments rule" is applicable in the rest of the world, as well.  Pro-feminist men must recognize that men constantly use compliments to gain access to women, and that that is a fundamentally destructive dynamic.   How many bad pick-up lines start with overzealous praise of a woman’s appearance?  Men use these lines because as hackneyed as they are, they know sometimes they work.   By the time they reach college, most men recognize that a great many women are deeply and profoundly hungry for praise, and by offering that praise, guys will be able to gain an opening.  When men praise the beauty of women they barely know, they are employing an old patriarchal strategy that preys upon a serious vulnerability. 

Mind you, I regularly tell my wife she’s beautiful.  But she’s my wife, and my enthusiastic and sincere praise is not tied to an agenda; I’m not trying to get her into bed or gain some other power over her.   Indeed, I think we all should compliment our lovers and spouses, and in a different way, our sons and daughters.  Praise for physical attributes has its time and place, and all of us — men and women alike — need to hear it from time to time.  But for too long, men have recognized women’s socially-constructed need for body-centered praise, and they have used that need to their advantage.  So men can play a vital role in transforming culture for the better by being very careful  with the physical compliments towards women they don’t know well — and very generous with praise for women’s other attributes.  Let’s save the "you’re beautiful" remarks for those with whom we’ve already built a relationship.

I’m not accusing the guys who wrote complimentary words to Jill of having a hidden agenda, though some may have hopefully anticipated her gratitude, something that men tend to expect in return for that sort of praise.  But we need to recognize that when we do offer such compliments to those we barely know, even when we do so with sincerity and without expectation, we are helping to reinforce the destructive anti-feminist notion that women are dependent upon near-constant reassurance from lovers, acquaintances, and strangers alike.   Sometimes, the best thing we can do is check our desire to offer that praise, and choose a different strategy to express our admiration and our solidarity.

The morning after

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 5, 2006
in Marriage and Sports
. 8 Comments

I know that a large number of excellent bloggers call the marvelous city of Austin, Texas, home.  I like Austin.  My wife likes Austin.  But we aren’t at all happy about the outcome of last night’s football game.

We had decent seats at the Rose Bowl last night, surrounded mostly by USC fans but with a fair number of Longhorn rooters scattered around us.  We witnessed a thrilling game in an extraordinarily electric atmosphere.  I’ve been to a great many college football games in my day, including past Rose Bowl games, but I’ve never experienced anything like the energy and excitement of last night’s national championship.

As is now widely known, Texas beat USC on a last-minute touchdown, 41-38.  The Longhorns deserved the victory, but my wife was heartbroken.  I grew up in Northern California with a healthy disdain for all things Los Angeles; in my years at Cal, I developed an intense loathing of USC.  But last night, I stood alongside my Trojan spouse, sang "Fight On", and waved a red and gold pom-pom with genuine enthusiasm.  I may have been the only one in the stadium with a Cal BA and a UCLA Ph.D to do so, but I did it shamelessly.  (I regularly wear a Trojan cap.)   And I did it for love.

Did I really want USC to win?  Yes, but not out of any personal tie to that university.   What makes me happy is to see my wife happy, and USC victories make her happy.  What upsets me is to see her gutted by a loss, and last night’s defeat was a painful one indeed.  Fortunately, as of this morning, her sadness has turned to a vigorous anger, and she thunderously critiqued many of last night’s key coaching decisions over morning coffee and chinchilla play time.  Such is the nature of sports, and my wife (an athlete from her early childhood) understands that agonizing defeat is part and parcel of what it means to love games.  Still, I do hate seeing her disappointed.

May I add that the Longhorn fans were gracious winners,and that I saw nothing but civil exchanges between Texas and USC partisans at the Rose Bowl last night.  Perhaps it was because most folks there had paid too much for their tickets to risk being thrown out, but the general level of self-control was very high and quite commendable.

Thursday Short Poem: Gwynn’s “Untitled”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 5, 2006
in Poetry
. Closed

The first Thursday short poem of 2006 comes from R.S. Gwynn, a professor of English at Lamar University in Texas.  It may be officially "untitled" but it’s a nice summary of the sort of New Year’s reveries I have, filled with hope, optimism, and more than a little self-regard.  It’s quite fine.

Untitled

"In the morning light a line
Stretches forever. There my unlived life
Rises and I resist . . . "
–Louis Simpson

In which I rise untroubled by my dreams.
In which my unsung theories are upheld
By massive votes. In which my students’ themes
Move me. In which my name is not misspelled.

In which I enter strangers’ rooms to find,
Matched in unbroken sets, immaculate,
My great unwritten books. In which I sign
My name for girls outside a convent gate.

In which I run for daylight and my knee
Does not fold up. In which the home teams win.
In which my unwed wife steeps fragrant tea
In clean white cups. In which my days begin
With scenes in which, across unblemished sands,
Unborn, my children come to touch my hands.

Brokeback Mountain, Christianity Today, and an opening door

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 4, 2006
in Christianity, GLBTQ and Movies
. 26 Comments

I’m a long-time devoted reader of Christianity Today.  It’s indisputably the flagship journal of American evangelicalism, a tradition to which I in part do very much belong.  I’m well to the left of most of the editorial positions taken by CT, and well to the left of most of the magazine’s readership.  But the magazine "speaks my language" much of the time, and I enjoy keeping tabs on what going on. 

On December 16, Christianity Today published a review of Brokeback Mountain.  The film is already the Oscar front-runner, but its review in the nation’s leading evangelical publication is sparking heated debate.  CT gives the film three out of four stars, but the editors add this caveat at the beginning of the review:

The film is a hot topic of conversation around the nation, and we’d be remiss to simply ignore it. Part of our mission statement is "to inform and equip Christian moviegoers to make discerning choices" about what films you’ll watch—or won’t watch. And this review, just like all of our reviews, certainly accomplishes that. As for the 3-star rating, that is only in reference to the quality of the filmmaking, the acting, the cinematography, etc. It is not a "recommendation" to see the film, nor is it a rating of the "moral acceptability" of the subject matter.

The review, by a Lisa Ann Cockrel, is largely positive.  The direction and the acting are praised, though Cockrel (like other reviewers) is disappointed at the relatively small screen time given to other characters besides the two leads.  And she suggests to her largely conservative readership that the film is nuanced enough to allow moviegoers to approach the subject of homosexuality from a variety of worldviews:

Brokeback Mountain creates vast plains of space for the audience to interpret Jack and Ennis’ actions and the hopes and fears that motivate them. It’s quite possible that no matter what the viewer believes about homosexuality, he or she will be able to read their own stance on the issue into this story.

That’s a clever way of giving conservative folks "permission" to see the film, by stressing that Brokeback is not another Hollywood offering in the culture wars, designed to insult the values traditional evangelicals hold so dear.

Predictably, CT has come in for a firestorm of criticism for the Cockrel review.   They’ve published some of the responses they’ve gotten.  While a few readers praise the courage of the CT editorial staff in running such a positive review of a gay-themed film, the majority of respondents are outraged.  Some feel CT shouldn’t have reviewed the film at all, while others think that the review should have focused solely on the moral depravity of the protagonists.  Four samples:

Yes, you should review it, but it shouldn’t warrant anything close to 3 stars, because its content is despicable,and is a clear, ideologically inspired attempt to drag the culture down even further. CT readers want a different perspective.

We need an informed opinion about films, especially when they are controversial. So many times Christians react to movies with the jerk of the knee instead of the mind. Your reviews of such films help me at such times.

So, sodomites write reviews for you now? I had heard that cT (small case intended) had become a notoriously banal depiction of christian writing (small case intended). Your review probably broke the camel’s back for many. I expect that a Christian magazine would review movies considerably different than a local newspaper. Obviously it is no longer your intent to look at movies with a biblical frame of reference. You failed your target audience and perhaps your (G)god. Perhaps your god is the one who calls his people to slavishly impress the secular reviewers rather than those backwards evangelicals who are still looking for some help. Cowboys know how to chase women, and perverts need no encouragement. May God have mercy on you.

I think it is responsible and necessary for Christian publications to review all films—no matter what they depict. Christians are called to be light in the darkness. If we don’t know what we are fighting, we can’t effectively go to the places or speak logically/rationally about the darkness we are trying to overcome. If we speak out against something without understanding about what we are speaking of, we come off as brainwashed and unable to think for ourselves.

Now, I loved Brokeback Mountain.  I "bought" every minute of the film, and was deeply moved by it. (Oh, and whatever your politics, if you love "alt.country", you’ve got to get the soundtrack to the movie.  Emmylou Harris, Rufus Wainwright, Willie Nelson — sweet indeed.)  Obviously, I’ve reconciled my evangelical faith with a belief that homosexual activity is not inherently sinful, so I’m in a different category than most of my fellow Christianity Today readers.  But I’m heartened, deeply so, that such an influential voice in the evangelical world would subtly encourage its readers to see the film, even with a plethora of caveats.

As the responses to the review indicate, some Christians just aren’t ready to engage the culture.  Others are willing to do so, but will insist on interpreting what they see through a lens of what they believe to be reliable biblical teaching and tradition.  And a few others are, thankfully, interested in separating what Scripture actually says (and doesn’t say) about same-sex sexuality from centuries of accrued cultural biases.

As a progressive evangelical, I understand that changing the hearts and minds of my fellow Christians on this subject is not going to happen overnight.  It’s a slow, gradual process.  It involves a great deal of prayer.  My secular activist friends don’t understand my deep and abiding affection for my conservative Christian brothers and sisters; my evangelical companions don’t understand how I reconcile a personal relationship with Christ and a belief in limited biblical inerrancy with a enthusiastic response to the prospect of same-sex marriage.  But I’m convinced that I don’t have to choose between the cross and inclusion, and I’m eager to find new avenues for dialogue about this most controversial of subjects.  From that perspective, the CT review of Brokeback Mountain is an enormously positive step, and may indeed mark a watershed moment for this most influential of evangelical publications.