Archive for August, 2006

“Your wife is quarter nigerian? Nice.”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 31, 2006
in Colombia, Ethnicity, Family, Marriage and Race
. 14 Comments

Four posts in one day today…

On August 22, I put up some links, including one to this excellent post on interracial relationships and children at Alas, A Blog.  I wrote, almost as an aside:

Someone recently asked me what my wife and I would tell our children (when, deo volente, we have ‘em) about their ethnic heritage.  The long answer: Indigenous Colombian/Jewish/Nigerian/English/Croatian/German/Austrian/Scotch-Irish/Czech/Welsh/Spanish. Short answer: a beloved child of God and two adoring parents. 

It’s funny: my wife is only one-quarter African (what would, in a racist era, have been called a "quadroon"), but that’s the one-quarter that seems most fascinating to most folks.

As if to prove my latter point, Everchange wrote a comment this morning:

your wife is quarter nigerian? nice.

Now, as it turns out, Everchange is a Nigerian blogger, which helps me put the comment in context.  I admit, that before I clicked on the comment to find out who this person was, I was deeply annoyed.

My wife is one-quarter African.  I don’t post pictures of her as I wish to protect her privacy.  To most people, she appears to be of mixed race.  Folks often ask her (or me) about her ethnic heritage.  When I give a full answer, it’s amazing how often folks fixate on the African quarter.   I sometimes hear:

Wow, she doesn’t look black. 

or, alternatively:

Yeah, I can kind of see it in her.

Both are verbatim quotes from our acquaintances.  The last one was particularly infuriating. Is blackness an "it" to be seen?  My wife’s father was born in Montana into a family of Czech-Croatian ancestry (think Willa Cather novels), but hardly anyone focuses on that aspect of her heritage.  That strikes folks as dull by comparison!  Her mother’s mother is mestizo Colombian, which also seems less intriguing than her mother’s father’s Nigerian background.

Race and ethnicity is not my field of expertise.  But I’ve been amazed, over the year of our marriage and our several years of dating, how my wife’s perceived "blackness" and her African heritage are regularly singled out by my family and friends for unique scrutiny.  It’s certainly reminded me of why using the term "exotic" for human beings ought to be a misdemeanor! 

Even in multi-cultural greater Los Angeles, black-white marriages and romantic relationships seem to attract significantly more attention and fascination than Asian-white or Latino-white or Latino-Asian couplings.  It’s not surprising, of course, given that black-white relationships have a unique and special history, a history often charged with sexual stereotypes and horrific abuse.  But it’s still quite eye-opening to encounter it as part of one’s own life.

Children can look like both their biological parents, neither of their parents, or one of their parents.  Or they can closely resemble a grand- or great-grandparent.  It is with some curiosity — and trepidation — that I muse over how our future children’s visual appearance and skin color will affect how they are perceived in the wider world.

More on ratemyprofessors: following “Tearfree’s” example — UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 31, 2006
in Ratemyprofessors
. 49 Comments

I got an email from a reader this morning pointing me to this post at Reject the Koolaid.  It’s got a new twist on how those of us in the academy can respond to the ratemyprofessors phenomenon:

Just over a year ago when Tearfree’s daughter and a friend were discovering the wonders of Google and the Internet, they decided to look up their mothers on ratemyprofessors.com, a site they’d heard the adults heatedly discussing on more than one occasion.

Tearfree’s then 10-year-old daughter was, to say the least, distressed to discover some of the not-so-nice things written about her Mom there, and, like the loyal daughter she is, she took it upon herself to set the ratemyprofessors.com record straight. “I would love to have this prof as my BFF,” she gushed online as if she were at a slumber party. Tearfree’s daughter’s friend also added some equally kind words about her own mother.

The girls were so proud of the instant results of their handiwork that the next time they got together, they decided to boost their Moms’ ratings yet again. But this time their flattering postings were removed from the site. The girls had been unmasked as users making multiple posts about the same professor from the same IP address. They’d encountered just about the only barrier ratemyprofessors.com has.

We are not told, alas, where Tearfree teaches, or what her real name is.  But it certainly puts a new spin on how some of us may be getting our ratings.  It gets more intriguing:

Tearfree decided earlier this year that enough was enough.

She did not take the route of more diplomatic colleagues who have appealed successfully to the managers of ratemyprofessors.com to take the worst stuff down. Nor did she follow the example of valiant professors from the social sciences who have performed complex statistical analyses of ratemyprofessors.com’s data and drawn all sorts of conclusions, including the highly obvious one that students are inclined to give top ratings to attractive easy markers. No, instead Tearfree decided she was going to go up against ratemyprofessors.com using their own dubious tactics. Thus, since the beginning of 2006, whenever she finds herself with a free moment while sitting in front of someone else’s computer – be it at the library or at her aunt’s place of employment or at the gym – Tearfree just writes herself a glowing ratemyprofessors.com review and posts it.

The only unsuccessful part of this strategy is that for some reason all the chili peppers she’s given herself, to indicate a scalding hotness rating, have failed to show up. Yet despite that small flaw, Tearfree now has one of the best ratemyprofessors.com ratings in the entire university, making herself an off-the-charts statistical anomaly and a possible footnote in that study that concluded hot easy markers almost always come out on top.

Love it!  I think my project for the rest of the day will be rating all of my colleagues, giving all of them chili peppers for hotness.  I will give them plaudits merited or unmerited, praising their pedagogy and their personal style to the highest heavens.  Then I shall rate myself as well. If those pesky MRAs who have figured out how to disguise their IP addresses will show me how to do it, then I can do it every dang day.   I’m fairly certain a small number of people have given me most of my ratings anyway, so why not add to their number with glee?

By the time I’m done, the social sciences division of Pasadena City College will have nothing but hot, brilliant, kind, helpful, erudite, inspiring faculty.

UPDATE:  I may think better of my Tearfree-inspired plan. If there are students out there who have found RMP to be genuinely useful, and would rather that I not conduct a campaign of insidious civil disobedience to boost the self-esteem of my deserving and undeserving colleagues alike, let me know.

More on “don’t ask, don’t tell”, and male transformation

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 31, 2006
in Feminism, Men and Masculinity, Relationships, Sexual ethics and transformation and Sexuality
. 7 Comments

First off, I have a standing promise to link to any current or former student of mine who starts blogging.  (Note: this does not generally apply to Myspace blogs).  Connie Chung (young enough to have been named after the television news presenter) has waded into the ’sphere.  Welcome, Connie, and enjoy!

One of the immensely gratifying things about blogging is that every once in a while, it turns out that a post I wrote ended up being useful for someone.  I got an e-mail recently from a fellow named Thomas, and rather than summarize it, I’ll quote it in its entirety:

I would just like to thank you for your article -  Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the Right to a Private History found after conducting a Google Search.

Your quote - ‘We all have the right to have had a past, and to have that past without apology’ is sheer genius, many thanks.

Basically, I have been with a girl for 6 months now, who is a few years older than me, I’m 23. Now, I have had my share of sexual partners, and I’m sure that my ‘number’ would bother her. Although, we both declared that we didn’t want to have ‘that’ conversation, I think we both know that both of us have had a colourful sexual experience. However, this has been bothering me for a while.

After a few brief chats about previous partners and flings, I became increasingly frustrated with the fact she has got an experience. Don’t get me wrong, because the other half of me was thinking - ‘of course she has you fool, she’s 27 years of age’. The strangest part of my frustration was that ex-partners don’t bother me…that has an emotional attachment which I think is fair enough, it was the flings and brief relationships that bothered me…although I have been doing exactly the same thing.

I have become frustrated with my own damn frustration, so you can see how confusing this is!!

So, in an attempt to alleviate my annoyance, I tried to seek some text, maybe an article that may explain my frustration…your’s did exactly that. I agree that you shouldn’t ask and shouldn’t tell, I wasn’t going to go that far. Some of the articles I read talked about various medicines and psychological help…I don’t need that, I’m not a nutter. I just wanted to read something that would take the haze away from my ridiculous thoughts - your quote has done just that.

As soon as I read it - I said ‘that’s exactly what I needed’ out loud, catching a attention of a few work colleagues no less, whoops. I’m already thinking much more clearly about what the past, in terms of the ‘you’ and ‘me’ situation you talk about in your article…frankly, in terms of sex it means very little, if anything…and my sex life would probably not be as good as it currently is, if my girlfriend hadn’t taken the options she had available to her.

Only 20 minutes later I’m thinking much more positively about my thoughts, I don’t want to know where they came from, just wanted to see something to help me get rid of them…I struggle to come to terms with things I don’t understand. These thoughts I didn’t understand because I’m no virgin. My issue was that I know she deeply cares for me. She has difficulty expressing feelings of love in words, due to past experiences, however she says she loves me, and I love her back…I’ve been in love before, this is it again, but stronger. She also mentioned for the first time that she loved ‘making love’ to me, an absolutely massive step for her, so I had no doubts there, and trust isn’t really an issue. I need to clarify and get some information to back up the sheer affection we feel for each other, rather than having negative thoughts all the time.

So once again, thank you for your excellent words, I will keep a copy of your quote in my wallet and carry it with me as a reminder that often the past is not that important.

Well, it may be self-serving of me to quote Tom, but I’ve never been told someone carries around something I wrote in his wallet!  That’s very nice.

I get a lot of hits looking for that July 2005 post.  An extraordinary number of men and women struggle to overcome their own anxieties and jealousies and obsessive thinking in regards to their current partner’s sexual history.  Indeed, when I posted on the topic last summer, I don’t think I realized just how pervasive the problem was!  The many comments — and many, many e-mails — I got in response convinced me that this is a significant issue for an extraordinary number of people!

What I honor about Tom’s struggle in particular is that he was willing to cop to his own ugly double standard.  He was no virgin, and his girlfriend (though slightly older) hasn’t done anything with her past partners that he hadn’t with his.  Yet Tom, like countless men throughout the world, had been raised in a culture that conveys the message that women have a unique obligation to be virginal and virtuous.  To his great credit, he was at least as troubled by his own hypocrisy as he was by his girlfriend’s past.

I’ve worked with young men like Tom.  I’m so often impressed by their willingness to go to any length to overcome their own learned sexism.  In a sense, they too are victims of the vicious cultural double-standard.  It’s not much fun, really, to spend hours and hours consumed with dark thoughts about one’s partner’s past, not much fun to brood and obsess, not much fun to anxiously wonder how one "measures up."  Foolish and sexist men blame "experienced" women for "making them feel this way."  They preach a double-standard in order to spare themselves this sort of worry.

But a pro-feminist man (I don’t know if Tom would use the label or not), knows better. He knows that the jealousy and the judgment he feels are his problem, not his girlfriend’s.  And rather than berate her, or ask her endless, prying, nagging questions, or sulk quietly, he gets pro-active — and seeks help to overcome his programming.

I think pro-feminist men have a special role to play in helping younger men do this work.  Too often, the burden of helping younger men work to transform their sexism falls on women.  Girlfriends and wives and sisters end up spending a great deal of time helping men they love let go of their double standards, acknowledge their male privilege, and work to become more authentically egalitarian.  To say that can get tiring for the women is, well, the understatement of the week!

Feminist men have an obligation to young men like Tom.  Not all 23 year-olds are as willing to work to transform as he is.  A vital part of male feminist work is creating opportunities for men in his position to talk openly about their fears, their obsessiveness, their anxieties.  And once the space has been created where that discussion can happen, we can propose solutions grounded in our own experience.  I’m glad that every once in a while, that can happen in cyberspace.

The Return of the Thursday Short Poem: Dunn’s “John & Mary”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 31, 2006
in Poetry
. 6 Comments

All of us who teach have favorite examples of accidental student genius.  They are archived and collected (see here ) and treasured, passed around among countless teachers.  Some are surely apocryphal.  Some are simple malapropisms, others — as in this fine Stephen Dunn offering — are not only unintentionally hysterically funny, but oddly poignant as well.  With school underway this week, this is a fine choice for my first Thursday Short Poem since coming off hiatus.

John & Mary

"John & Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who also had never met."
– from a freshman’s short story.

They were like gazelles who occupied different
grassy plains, running in opposite directions
from different lions. They were like postal clerks
in different zip codes, with different vacation time,
their bosses adamant and clock-driven.
How could they get together?
They were like two people who couldn’t get together.
John was a Sufi with a love of the dervish,
Mary of course a Christian with a curfew.
They were like two dolphins in the immensity
of the Atlantic, one playful,
the other stuck in a tuna net—
two absolutely different childhoods!
There was simply no hope for them.
They would never speak in person.
When they ran across that windswept field
toward each other, they were like two freight trains,
one having left Seattle at 6:36 p.m.
at an unknown speed, the other delayed
in Topeka for repairs.
The math indicated that they’d embrace
in another world, if at all, like parallel lines.
Or merely appear kindred and close, like stars.

I heart Chris Clarke: some thoughts on the “blog crush” and giddy admiration

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 30, 2006
in Blogging
. 6 Comments

Yesterday, in my little "random notes" post, I mentioned having a serious "blog crush" on Chris Clarke, who publishes Creek Running North and edits Earth Island Journal.

Not unreasonably, John asked:

…what is a "blog crush"?

Am I right in saying you’ve never met the man?

A troll made a comment, since deleted, insinuating that my blog crush on Chris was evidence of latent homosexuality.  That’s not worth responding to, but John’s query is.

Lots of folks in the blogosphere use the phrase "blog crush."  (If someone can tell me with certainty who coined the term, I’d be happy to assign credit!)  As I understand it and use it, a "blog crush" refers to a profound degree of admiration, intellectual attraction, and a certain desire to emulate the writing style (or life habits) of the blogger on whom you are crushing.

In my post about student crushes, I wrote that in my experience, crushes on teachers are rarely about actual sexual desire.  I wrote:

we don’t just get crushes on people whom we want, we get crushes on people whom we want to be like!   Students don’t get crushes on me because they want to go to bed with me or be my girlfriend or boyfriend; they get crushes on me because I’ve got a quality that they want to bring out in themselves.

And that’s also what I mean by a "blog crush."   I may be months away from turning forty (a milestone I eagerly anticipate), but I still occasionally find myself idolizing, in a breathlessly adolescent way, certain inspirational people whom I encounter in person or in cyberspace.   I call that a "crush." While crushes can have a sexual or a romantic component to them, those qualities are not essential to a crush.  A crush is about idealization, even when that idealization is tempered (as it ought to be at my age) by a realistic understanding of human nature.

When I first met my old pastor at All Saint Church, Scott Richardson, I immediately "crushed" on him.  He’s now the dean of the cathedral at St. Paul’s in San Diego.  Did I — do I — want to sleep with Scott?  No.   At my age, with both men and women, I’m able to separate a "crush" from its sexual and romantic aspects.  But I loved listening to his sermons.  I wanted to know everything about his life, how he lived, how he thought, how his marriage worked, what his favorite sport was, who his own heroes were.  I wanted to be near him, and to meet with him as often as possible.  I didn’t want him sexually, but I saw in him qualities I was eager to bring out in myself.  I knew that like me, he was just another flawed human being — but even in his human brokenness, I could see something glorious shining through and I wanted to be near that as often as possible.  I call that "crushing."

I could call it hero-worship, except that I am leery of using the word "worship" for anything other than God.  I didn’t worship Scott, and I don’t worship Chris Clarke.  Worship implies a hierarchical relationship that I don’t think is present in the kind of crushes I’m talking about here.  "Crush" is a useful noun (and verb) because it captures the giddy admiration of the experience.

And I also use "crush", frankly, to play with people’s homophobic anxieties.   I am happily married to a wonderful, beautiful woman in whom I delight and who (mirabile dictu) delights in me.  My sexual energy is directed towards her, and is not available for any other woman — or any other man.  That said, I recognize we live in a world where there is an extraordinary amount of anxiety about male-male attraction.  Heterosexual men have a very hard time acknowledging their love for, or "crushes" (in the sense I use the term) on, other guys.  Part of pro-feminist work is creating a culture where men can speak more easily of their feelings for each other, and where acknowledging intense and profound admiration is not automatically construed as a reflection of sexual interest.

I have a "blog crush" on Chris Clarke because he writes beautifully.  He writes poetry and prose well, but there is a beauty in the grace with which he lives his life — and in the values he embodies — that I respond to instinctively.  Obviously, I have never met the man.  I suppose he could be a fraud, creating a false self on his blog page.  In that case, I have a "blog crush" on a phantom! But I suspect he is who he seems to be.  And his grace, his earthiness, his gift for language, his commitment to the environment are all things I deeply admire.  And as a consequence, I’m crushing on him, big-time.

Does anyone else get what I’m talkin’ about here?

UPDATE:  Thinking more about this, I wonder if it’s almost easier for some people to confess to a blog-crush on a same-sex blogger than on someone from another sex?  If I were to mention regularly blog-crushing on a female blogger (and there are many female bloggers for whom I have profound admiration), would that be interpreted differently?  I suspect so.

Random links and notes

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 29, 2006
in Blogging and Links
. 28 Comments

Third post of the day for the second day in a row…   I have missed blogging!

1.  Just a minute or two ago, I was eating lunch in the faculty "party room".  A colleague came in, looked at me curiously, and asked what I was having.  "A tofu-vegie burger on rice cakes", I replied enthusiastically.  She visibly shuddered and said in a firm voice "Out, Hugo, now.  Take it and all that it means away!"  I know she was joking.  But it’s not the first time this sort of thing has happened.  It’s interesting how publicly eating a restricted, healthy vegetarian diet tends to arouse hostility in folks — even when your mouth is full with food, and not full of sanctimonious preaching.

Should I wrap my tofu vegie-burgers in Burger King wrappers to give them the illusion of cheerful carnivorousness?  Should I put my little bag of organic fruit and nuts inside an M&Ms wrapper?

2.  I am pleased that yesterday’s post on marriage and Michael Noer has received many visitors.  It even got linked in a discussion forum at Forbes magazine.  How did the discussion begin?  With an anti-feminist linking to a picture of me in a mickey mouse costume, declaring, "this is your brain on feminism."  Sigh.  And dammit, the costume wasn’t even finished yet when that photo was taken!

3.  Typepad reveals who links here.  One young woman wrote a post early this morning that sent some hits my way: Hugo Schwyzer and his paternalistic views on feminism.  Despite the title, she seems to agree at least in part with my theses about older men, younger women and student crushes.  I’m wondering if I shouldn’t try and develop the latter post into an article.  But for what journal?

4.  Some of what I’ve read and enjoyed today:

Mermade on the BVM.

Chris Clarke lists the activities of his day last Friday.  I may have logged more miles, but he did far more work.  My blog crush on him just grows and grows.

5.  One of my students has started a company, Silver Jewelry, with an interesting twist: free stuff.  Visit them and check it out.  No kidding, really free. 

Schwarzenegger on our side, however briefly

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 29, 2006
in GLBTQ and Politics
. 8 Comments

Governor Schwarzenegger continues to mystify as he lurches from left to right and back again.  He upset some social conservatives today by signing Senate Bill 1441 into law.  In part the bill bans discrimination in state operated or funded programs on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

It instantly makes California the most progressive state in the country on the issue of sexual orientation discrimination — and it comes from the pen of a Republican governor!  The right is appalled.  Here’s the conservative Flash Report response, and the response from CNS.  The heart of the issue may revolve around whether Christian colleges that discriminate against "out" gays and lesbians can allow students to use state-based financial aid to help with tuition. 

I’m delighted the governor signed this bill.  Those who want Caesar’s money need to play by Caesar’s rules.  Sometimes Caesar uses his money the way you’d like to have him use it… sometimes not.  Either way, it ill-behooves a Christian institution to insist on a right to state support even as it flouts the will of that state’s elected representatives.  Freedom of worship and of conscience does not equal an entitlement to funding.

In a state like California, it makes good political sense to infuriate both left and right regularly.  It is a classic falsehood to suggest that the best and the wisest of our leaders occupy the moderate center, but in California, pretending to occupy that center wins you elections.  By oscillating across the political landscape, pleasing and maddening both liberals and conservatives, Schwarzenegger is positioning himself to win in a rout this fall.

Faith and feminism: another post on reconciling the two

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 29, 2006
in Faith and Feminism
. 19 Comments

I’ve been asked to post about a topic nearer and dearer to me than virtually any other: the compatibility of evangelical Christian faith with strong feminist commitments.  It’s one of the questions I regularly get from colleagues, students, friends, readers, and family members: "How, Hugo, do you reconcile these two seemingly contradictory commitments?"   So at the risk of repeating things I’ve written in various places in previous years, here goes.

Let me start by linking to two posts on the biblical concept of "ezers" (often translated as "helpmeet.")  Here’s my January 2006 post; here’s Shawna Atteberry’s wonderful piece from this past Sunday.

One of the great risks inherent in being a professor is pedantry.  (I once said that to a student, and she looked at me in horror, having confused "pedant" with "pedophile".)  And where my pedantry kicks in is when I insist on explaining to people that what they think the bible says about male and female roles is usually based on a few isolated passages quoted out of context.  Similarly, what most people think of when they think of "feminism" is often more of a media distortion than an accurate depiction of a movement committed to radical justice and equality for all.

In a way, evangelical Christians and feminists are both largely defined — at least in the public imagination — by their enemies.  It’s very easy to caricature either group.  The secular left tends to see all evangelical Christians as intolerant, homophobic, jingoistic Republicans; many on the right tend to see active feminists as shrill, angry, humorless, godless liberals.   The public pronouncements of leading figures in both movements are regularly quoted out of context in order to reinforce an image of extremism.  And of course, both "feminists" and the "religious right" are regularly invoked as dangerous spectres in fund-raising by both conservatives and progressives.

But caricatures contain at best only tiny slivers of truth.  Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell do not speak for all evangelicals (and as anyone who knows anything about these two knows, they frequently don’t agree with each other on major theological points.)  Andrea Dworkin is almost always misquoted and misconstrued.  And neither side — secular liberals or evangelicals — regularly bothers to take the time to listen seriously to their brothers and sisters whom they demonize.

Fine, so we should stop misrepresenting each other.  All well and good, but is it possible to be both an ardent feminist and a committed Christian?  With every fiber of my being, I believe so!

Sometimes, one still sees the old bumper sticker: Feminism is the radical idea that women are people.  As bumper sticker slogans go, it’s a good one, and not far from the mark.  I teach feminism as the notion that women are full and complete human beings, radically equal to men in every aspect of our existence.  Feminism argues that biological differences may be real, but they are never grounds for establishing worth or dignity.  Furthermore, in and of themselves, biological differences are not a suitable foundation for automatically excluding any human person from any particular pursuit in which he or she may have an interest.  Men have within them the capacity to nurture and love in the domestic sphere; women have within them the capacity to initiate and create and build in the public domain. Feminism is about offering both men and women the chance to become fully human and develop all of their gifts, unconstrained by rigid social conventions about gender roles.

And of course, no one embodies this radical egalitarianism better than Jesus Himself.  (Mind you, I am no reductionist.  I’m not going to suggest that Jesus was just a nice proto-feminist man.  He is my Lord, He is my Savior in the classical, theological sense of the terms.  His death on the Cross is the single Great Fact of my existence, and it is the source of my redemption.  This is not the place for me to "witness", but let me be clear that I am not offering a watered-down gospel here!)  What Jesus did, time and time again, was shatter conventional ideas about men and women.  In his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, when he heals the woman with an uncontrollable blood flow, when he asks Martha to stop doing traditional women’s work and just sit and be — in these instances and countless more He treats women with the same radical love, care and concern that He does men.  And famously, when He saves the woman caught in adultery from being stoned to death, he isn’t condoning that particular sin — rather, the best theological explanation of the story is that Jesus refuses to allow a crowd of executioners (all men) to punish a woman for the very same sin they have committed with impunity.  Jesus has no time or patience with sexual double standards.

Of course, folks who see feminism and Christianity as irreconcilable will quickly start pointing to passages throughout Scripture that make the case for women’s subordination.  Most of these passages will be quoted out of context.  (For example, quoting Ephesians 5:22 without quoting 5:21, its controlling purpose, first.)  But frankly, biblical exegesis is hard work.  No one does well to throw quotes about willy-nilly, "proof-texting" their way to an argument.  Many passages in Scripture that deal with women (particularly in the epistles) need a lot of study and a very good understanding of both koine Greek and the first-century context in which they were written.  This blog is not the place to do that.  The best place where this sort of work is being done is the Priscilla Papers, the quarterly scholarly journal of Christians for Biblical Equality.  CBE is the best resource for thoughtful, well-written and impeccably defended pro-feminist exegesis.

I know that many of my feminist sisters grew up in homes that were religiously abusive.  So many women who come to feminism as adolescents or adults come only after having had intensely problematic experience within the church.  One of the classic paths to secular feminism, after all, is a series of disheartening experiences within a male-dominated, patriarchal church community.  As a Christian, I grieve that so many of my sisters and brothers have been so poorly served in the wider church.  I grieve that they have heard the gospel misrepresented by pastors and parents. I grieve that they have learned that a faith in Jesus ought to lead one to submit to unjust, socially constructed gender roles — when our Lord Himself so explicitly overturned those very roles.  Too many people assume that Christianity preaches a message of liberation through sublimation and self-denial, a message that is antithetical to the feminist notion of autonomy and fulfillment.  But independence and agency can coexist with a commitment to Christ.   Scripture tells us that we are called to the Cross, it is true — but Scripture tells us also that God wants to give us what we deeply desire.   Learning to live with paradox is part of living as a mature Christian.

Truth be told, I do want every Christian to embrace feminism.  And truth be told, I believe that while salvation may come to all, and it may come by many names, it always comes through Christ. There’s no contradiction there for me, and though that may reflect my own inability to adequately think the issue through, I am convinced as a scholar, a believer, and as a man that a faith in Jesus as Savior of the world and a simultaneous belief in the basic tenets of secular feminism is not only possible, but highly desirable.

Some reflections — and questions — about the end of country radio in L.A.

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 28, 2006
in Music
. 32 Comments

A third post for my first day back.

While my wife and I were on vacation in Northern California eleven days ago, Los Angeles lost its one commercial country music station.  On August 17, KZLA suddenly switched from a country to a "rhythmic pop" format.  (No more Gretchen Wilson, but yet another outlet for the Black-Eyed Peas.) 

The Los Angeles Times had an editorial on this yesterday.  The reasoning behind the switch is summarized here:

The format change, as in other big cities that no longer have country stations, stems in large part from changing demographics. A top executive at Emmis Communications, which owns KZLA, told The Times that 60% of the local audience is Latino, Asian or African American, while "country fans are about 98% Caucasian." The top slots in Arbitron’s local radio rankings have been dominated in recent years by stations offering Spanish programming, hip-hop, R&B and pop hits, while KZLA’s ratings have been mired just outside the Top 20.

Now, I am not devastated by the loss of KZLA.   I love country music, mind you, but commercial radio rarely played the artists I like.  I have little time for Toby Keith, Keith Urban, or Faith Hill; I’m much more inclined to listen to old Merle Haggard, or new Tift Merritt.  More importantly, I have access to a computer with a broadband connection — and I own an Ipod.   Rather than endure the extraordinarily narrow range of choices (and the endless commercials) on broadcast radio, I can listen to the songs I want when I want them — at work, at home,  in the car.  Of course, I have to pay for them, but it’s worth it.

Black, Latino, and Asian teens — who seem to be the primary audience for this rhythmic pop format that took over the country station — have less disposable income.  They are less likely to have satellite radio subscriptions, less likely to have access to internet radio.  "Free" commercial radio is a far more important source of entertainment in their lives.  Perhaps this is why we have five or six stations in Los Angeles now that play that maddeningly awful Gnarls Barkley "Crazy" song, and none that will play the latest from Tim McGraw.

On the other hand, perhaps there are other factors at play.  Country music is often associated with working or lower-middle class whites.  Since the 1970s, the white working class in Los Angeles has been headed east — to the so-called Inland Empire of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.  They have lots of country stations out there, as well as a very popular site for NASCAR racing.   Perhaps KZLA simply couldn’t cope with a shrinking audience of white listeners.  The impact of satellite radio and the Ipod, combined with "white flight" to the eastern suburbs of the Inland Empire, made the market too small.

And there is still another question at hand.  Why are so many young people of all races attracted to rap and rhythmic pop,and so few kids of color drawn to country?  You’ll see many more young whites at a Peas concert than you will see young African-Americans or Latinos at a Brooks and Dunn show.  Country has failed miserably at attracting young people of color, particularly in urban areas.  Conversely, hip-hop has done famously well at drawing in many young whites, even in suburban and rural areas.  Is there still a legacy of racism around country music, forty years after the great Charlie Pride smashed the color line in Nashville?  Or do the sounds and melodies of country music (whatever the sub-genre) have little to attract young urbanites?   To flirt with a racist stereotype, is it because country is perceived as undanceable by many young people of color — an audience for whom music that is danceable is the sine qua non?

One of my favorite recent "pop" country songs is "Redneck Woman", a major hit for Gretchen Wilson a year or two ago.  It’s a humorous, boisterous, celebration of a particular kind of life: rural, unpretentious, candid, bawdy, hard-working.  I listened to it the same way I listened to the marvelous Don Williams track from a quarter century ago, Good Old Boys Like Me.  (Famously quoted in "Primary Colors", it features an homage to Thomas Wolfe and Tennessee Williams, indicating that "good ole boys" can have intellectual aspirations as well.) Both songs celebrate a kind of life that is familiar to me, albeit from a slight distance.

But I wonder, do these songs come across as having racist, unwelcoming undertones?  Are there still folks out there who confuse "redneck" and "good old boy" with "racist" and "intolerant"? Is that why my students (85% non-white) don’t listen to Gretchen Wilson, while white kids in West Texas enthusiastically download Snoop Dogg? 

I’ve got a CD playing on my office computer now — the heavenly voices of Ricky Skaggs and Emmylou Harris in bluegrass duets fill my office.  I can’t imagine many of my students would be much interested.

Marry someone who will push you: another reason Michael Noer gets it so very wrong

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 28, 2006
in Feminism, Marriage, Men and Masculinity and Relationships
. 30 Comments

I come late to this topic, but perhaps better late than not at all.

A short op-ed in Forbes Magazine last week aroused a justifiable storm of criticism across the blogosphere.  Written by editor Michael Noer, the piece was entitled Don’t Marry Career Women. Among Noer’s gems of wisdom:

Guys: A word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don’t marry a woman with a career.

For our purposes, a "career girl" has a university-level (or higher) education, works more than 35 hours a week outside the home and makes more than $30,000 a year.

If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill (American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research).

Amanda, Jill, and the Happy Feminist do a superb job of taking down Noer’s risible thesis from a variety of perspectives.  I won’t try and duplicate what they’ve done, and I recommend their posts with enthusiasm.  I am pleased that Forbes has added a rebuttal piece by its Silicon Valley bureau chief, Elizabeth Corcoran, entitled Don’t Marry a Lazy Man.

What annoyed me so much about Noer’s essay was his assumption that men ought to see marriage as a way to make their lives easier.   I haven’t read most of the research to which he refers, but for the sake of discussion, I’ll grant that it’s accurate.  (Others more willing to wade through sociological treatises can share their thoughts on this.)

As any responsible historian will tell you, marriage has meant different things at different periods in our history.  For educated, prosperous professionals, marriage has never been less "necessary" as a means of survival.  Never before have so many women been less economically dependent upon their potential husbands.  This is, from a feminist standpoint, good news.  For some, it heralds the end of marriage.  Social conservatives who long to preserve a traditional understanding of marriage worry about women’s increased autonomy; some feminists who are suspicious of the institution of marriage altogether long for what they hope will be its inevitable demise.

But I’m going to argue that marriage — particularly marriage between two individuals who have sufficient resources to make their union a choice rather than a necessity –  is a great and powerful vehicle for personal transformation and growth.  This is perhaps especially true for men.  Noer gets this magnificently wrong:

In classic economics, a marriage is, at least in part, an exercise in labor specialization. Traditionally men have tended to do "market" or paid work outside the home and women have tended to do "non-market" or household work, including raising children. All of the work must get done by somebody, and this pairing, regardless of who is in the home and who is outside the home, accomplishes that goal. Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker argued that when the labor specialization in a marriage decreases–if, for example, both spouses have careers–the overall value of the marriage is lower for both partners because less of the total needed work is getting done, making life harder for both partners and divorce more likely.

From a pro-feminist standpoint, there are few greater enemies of social progress than marital "labor specialization."  Relationships built on mutual dependency and need (wife needs financial support, husband needs dinner cooked and baby’s diaper changed) do little to challenge either party in the relationship to develop their full human potential.   The feminist ideal is one in which marriage becomes a supportive framework in which both men and women can become competent in a wide variety of arenas both in and out of the home.  A rigid belief in "labor specialization" robs both sexes of the chance to complete their own journey of transformation into the best people they can possibly become.

It’s not surprising that women who have careers and incomes of their own seek divorce more often.  After all, women who do rely largely on their husbands for financial support have far more incentive to stay in an unhappy, emotionally empty, or even abusive marriages than do their sisters who have independent resources!  And of course, the fewer financial and educational resources a woman has, the more power she cedes to her husband. Men who know their wives can afford to leave them have a potentially powerful incentive to continue to work at the marriage that their brethren who control their family finances do not.

All marriages experience some sort of labor specialization.  One spouse might do the dishes one night, while the other feeds and cares for the pets.   Things get done faster when the various day-to-day obligations of living are shared.  But the greatest potential for growth comes when those burdens are regularly switched.   

The goal of a marriage is not comfort, but growth. It might be more comfortable for some men to work outside the home but never do a load of laundry; some women might be more comfortable handling all the cooking but never pursuing a profession in the wider world.  But when we only do what is comfortable, we atrophy.  If we only lift the weights that are easy to lift, we will never build muscle. If we only run until we begin to sweat, and then stop, we will never finish a race. If we only do those tasks that our culture, parents, or peers suggest that those of our gender ought to do, we never become the complete human beings we have the chance of becoming.

My advice to men: marry a woman (or a man) who is going to push you.  Marry a partner who will accept your pushing in return.  Traditional gender roles are easy and comfortable (particularly, perhaps, for men.)   Marry someone with whom you can do things you’ve never done, so you can become what you’ve never been, and have things you never thought you could have.

School begins, hiatus ends

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 28, 2006
in Pasadena City College
. Closed

Calloo callay!  Bang the field piece!  The first day of school is upon us.  Today I begin my fourteenth year at Pasadena City College (the first as an adjunct, the last thirteen as a full-timer).  It scarcely seems possible that it has been so long.  Two years ago I posted about the first day of school and the "suspicion of one’s own fraudulence".

It is the end of my self-imposed hiatus from blogging as well.  I hope to have a couple of serious posts up this week — I’ve had some specific requests that I need to address as soon as possible.

Reprint: Porn, HIV, Freedom, Responsibility

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 25, 2006
in Porn
. 13 Comments

This will be my last reprint before resuming regular blogging on Monday, August 28.  I’m reprinting the post that first drew significant attention to this blog — this was, for better or worse, the "break-out" post that ended up quadrupling my number of visitors.  I’m grateful for that, and though the Lara Roxx story is now nearly two and a half years old, I stand by everything I wrote back on April 17, 2004.

Okay, folks, time for Hugo’s long Saturday night rant:

The adult entertainment industry in Los Angeles (the porn capital of the world, thank you) has been hard hit by news that two of its stars have recently tested positive for HIV. Some companies have shut down production entirely, others are continuing business as usual, some are shifting to a "safer-sex" format.

Some folks might respond to this story with schadenfreude, or at the least, with a certain lack of compassion for the people involved. "What else should they have expected?", a reasonable person might ask of those who perform in porn; "they are reaping the consequences of their actions",others might — with some justification — say.

The one woman known to be infected with HIV is an 18 year-old porn actress (who has only worked in the business three months) named Lara Roxx. She contracted HIV through unprotected anal sex with two men during the shooting of one particular film in March. What she was doing was perfectly legal, as it was in the workplace and she was over 18. No one — least of all the producers of the film — showed the slightest regard for this young woman who is still, for all psychological and spiritual purposes, very much in adolescence. (For obvious reasons, I’m not going to link to any porn sites — all my information about her has been gleaned from mainstream, non-x-rated media.) Brian Flemming, who apparently works close to the industry, put it best in his blog:

Lara Roxx had zero protection by government agencies. There was no cop on that set. No fire marshal. No doctor. Nobody had a license. And nobody broke the law by paying a teenager to accept the uncovered penises of two men into her anus.

Roxx showed poor judgment, yes. She isn’t blameless. But there are plenty of neophyte stunt performers in L.A. who would also be delighted to show some poor judgment and get themselves hurt or killed on a Hollywood movie set–but the government regulates those sets. I’ve auditioned plenty of eager young actors who would no doubt be willing to do their own dangerous stunts if it meant getting a good role and getting paid–but the LAPD, the LAFD and the Screen Actors Guild would all have something to say about that.

The 18-year-olds flooding into the porn industry have just about nobody. The porn companies label them "independent contractors," so the performers don’t even have the workplace safety protections that fry cooks at Burger King do.

Lara Roxx, who is too young to legally drink in a bar, has HIV not just because she participated in a dangerous sex act. She also has HIV because there was nobody to stop the producers from dangling money and other inducements in front of this young woman to get her to take that risk.

It’s important for porn to be legal. The government has no business outlawing sex or sexual fantasy. But this principle is not so sacred that we need to allow an industry to exploit and endanger its workers. There’s no fundamental right to express HIV. There’s no right to pay someone to play Russian roulette for your entertainment.

But we Californians have decided that the sex industry is the one industry that is allowed to lure young women and men and use them as it pleases. No politician speaks for these workers. No union imposes conditions on their employers.

The mainstream film industry, while making billions from distributing porn on the QT, doesn’t have any use for the dirty people who actually make it.

The porn industry has become increasingly mainstream, so much so that on the same day that the HIV story broke in LA, the New York Times did an "at home" feature in its House and Garden section on porn star Jenna Jameson’s 6700 square foot palace in Arizona. But this increasingly accepting attitude towards pornography is still another example of how our society is abandoning its responsibility to care for and protect all of its citizens.

(In the earlier version of this post, not all of the above paragraphs were correctly highlighted to indicate that they were Flemming’s).

I know firsthand how destructive porn can be. I cannot say I have not enjoyed looking at it; I can also say with confidence that exposure to it has invariably left me feeling ashamed, alienated, and sad. That may not be a universal experience, but it is certainly a very common response! Like in so many other areas (abortion, plastic surgery) we frame the debate about pornography in terms of choices. Women should have the choice to work in porn. Men should have the choice to work in porn. Women and men should have the choice to consume porn as well. As long as everyone (performer, producer, marketer, consumer) is over 18, where is the harm?

The harm is in my soul when I view it. The harm is in Lara Roxx’s body right now. Lara Roxx no doubt has another name, which we in the public don’t know. Porn stars, almost without exception, change their names when they work in the industry. "Lara Roxx" is not a person in the male porn consumer’s mind, she’s an object for fantasy and objectification. But beneath Lara’s violated and brutalized flesh is a young girl who has what I imagine is a far humbler name (a Nicole, a Jennifer, a Maria, an Elizabeth perhaps). I don’t know her, but I’m pretty damned confident that in 1996, when she was TEN, the little girl who would become Lara Roxx (HIV-infected porn actress) did not dream of becoming famous and wealthy for having anal sex with two men on camera. Her hopes for herself were, I suspect, simpler, warmer, and filled with infinitely more longing and promise.

The fact that Lara is 18 and consented to the making of this film means no crime was committed under California law. I’m not interested in ranting about the law. I’m grieving because Lara’s story reminds me of how much damage porn does to so very many lives. Lara’s very life is now in jeopardy. You can say she has some culpability, and I agree, she does. But the only reason the money is so good for young women in porn is because men are willing to pay quite a bit to see girls like Lara naked and exposed and penetrated. I confess that in the past I have been guilty of that very sin. My dollars have fed an industry of death, and I grieve that. And I know that I too — and countless other men — have been damaged. When men like me lust after girls like she who is called Lara Roxx (she’s 18, I’ll be damned if I’ll call her a grown woman), we scar our spirits and tarnish our relationships with all the other women in our lives as a consequence. I have worked hard to make certain that when I see teenage girls and young women (and I work with them daily), I see them as people worthy of my respect, friendship, and — yes — my protection.

I know there are women who work in the porn industry (the aforementioned Jameson chief among them) who are proud of what they do, who refuse to see themselves as exploited, who have reaped large financial rewards. While I accept their experience as valid, I am convinced that they are rare and over-hyped exceptions. I am convinced that the reality of the porn industry — for performers of both genders — is pyschically, physically, emotionally and morally far bleaker than its few superstars will ever admit.

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. The girl who is called Lara is sick today. I imagine that tonight she’s scared beyond words, filled with regret and fear. I’m praying for her, and I ask God for forgiveness because I know that in some small way, my money has in the past helped to fuel the industry that has done this to her.

Porn kills many things: innocence, hope, trust, health, bodies, spirits. I know it is hip today to proclaim it harmless, but the unfashionable fact is that this is an industry built on distorted fantasy, loneliness, and despair. And we on the left need to stop hiding behind the First Amendment issues and articulate this untrendy but vital truth.

Originally posted April 17, 2004

An Updated Reprint: No on 85, and some reasons why

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 24, 2006
in Abortion, Family, Feminism and Politics
. 9 Comments

With my hiatus fast coming to an end, I’m doing a second reprint today. 

This fall, for the second time in a year, Californians will be voting on a "parental notification inititative."  Last year, it was Proposition 73; this year, it’s Prop. 85.  I reluctantly voted "no" on 73 last year, and it was narrowly defeated.  My position has not changed, and so I’m reproducing my post from last fall here.  The links within it have been updated:

REPRINT: I’m about to surprise myself, disappoint some, and please others.

I’ve been reflecting on the various ballot propositions facing California voters in the November 8 special election.  Most of the initiatives don’t require much thought for me; what Arnold Schwarzenegger calls reform I call an attack on organized labor and the vulnerable whom we serve.  I’ll be voting "no" on every one of Arnold’s proposals, in keeping with my (often tepid) support for my union.

The only proposition that has caused me some agony is Proposition 85, which would mandate parental notification before a minor undergoes an abortion.   It’s important to note, of course, that the initiative, if passed, would not require parental consent — only notification.

Here’s the No on 85 site.

Here’s the Yes on 85 site.

I’m not yet a father.  But I am a volunteer youth worker who has spent half a dozen years mentoring teenagers, so it’s not as if I don’t have my own strong emotional response to the issue.  And if I go with my initial instinct, I’m inclined to support the initiative.  If I were a Dad, I would want my daughter to come to me.  I would, I imagine, be hurt and bewildered if she felt she couldn’t.   And my fear that my daughter might not come to me of her own volition makes me sympathetic to the idea that she ought to be compelled to do so by the state.

As I reflect more, however, I’m filled with sadness.  As someone who still struggles to embrace the consistent-life ethic, I grieve the tragedy of abortion.  I long for a world where underage teenage girls didn’t get pregnant, period — either because they chose not to have sex, or because in conjunction with their partners, they successfully used contraceptives.  I’m sure that almost everyone on both sides of the abortion divide shares that wish!  But we don’t live in such a world, not yet.  And in this world where teens are having sex and will continue to have sex, many without contraception, what are we to do?

When I was 17 and a high school senior, I got my girlfriend pregnant.  We were both underage; we were young and scared.  In the desperate days and weeks after we confirmed that she was pregnant, she and I talked of many things.  We briefly fantasized about getting married and having the child, but quickly abandoned that idea.  Both of us were eager for college, eager for independence, and knew enough to know that we were utterly unready for the awesome responsibilities of marriage and children.  More seriously, we reflected on whether or not my girlfriend should carry the pregnancy to term and then give the child up for adoption.  To be completely honest, that was my wish.  But it wasn’t my decision to make, nor should it have been.  After all, my body wasn’t pregnant.  I wouldn’t finish out high school "showing"; I wouldn’t have college delayed a year by carrying a baby.  I wouldn’t have to go through what must be the unspeakably difficult task of giving a child you’ve carried for nine months up for adoption.  And so, with many tears and much trembling, we decided on abortion.

I can tell you that we both told our parents.  We told them after we had made the decision, but before the procedure took place.  She and I were both blessed with parents who didn’t lecture us!  Neither of us got the "What were you thinking?" speech, nor the "I’m so disappointed in you" lecture.  I’m grateful for that.  My mother knew — and my ex-girlfriend’s mother knew — that we had already beat ourselves up far more than was necessary.  We didn’t need a guilt trip, we needed support, and we got it.

The abortion was done in a doctor’s office in Monterey on a warm spring Saturday morning I will never forget: June 22, 1985. I sat in the waiting room with my girlfriend’s mother, trying to read a magazine.  Afterwards, her mom took her home to sleep the day away.  I went for a walk on the beach, alternating between guilty tears and an extraordinary numbness.  Had things been different, the child that would have been born (the due date, we were told, was February 8, 1986) would be a sophomore in college this year — the same age as many of my students. 

But I know so well that she and I were lucky in our parents!  It would be absurd to assume that every teenager has a mother or father who will respond with reassurance, unconditional love, and support.  I wish that it were so.  Frankly, I think some teens might be surprised by the depths of understanding that their parents might display if they took the risk to tell them! I certainly feared recriminations before telling my parents; I was incredibly relieved that I didn’t get them. 

I do wonder what we would have done had we known that the law required us to inform our parents.  (Technically, this would only have applied to my girlfriend, but to my marginal credit, I was in complete solidarity with her in the whole process.)  We might have gone ahead and told them so that we could comply with the order.  Or we might have searched for someone willing to perform an abortion without the notification requirement.   Had we had different parents, had we had more reasonable fears of rage and rejection, we might well have looked for someone who could be convinced to terminate the pregnancy without involving moms and dads.  I am fairly certain that a great many young girls will seek out less-scrupulous abortion providers for exactly this reason.

Do I want to see an end to abortion in this country?  Yes.  Am I willing to advocate for laws to restrict access to abortion to adults or minors? No.    Despite my own history, I’ve flirted in the past with supporting anti-abortion regulation.  My faith informs me that all life is equally precious, including life in the womb.  But with great heaviness of heart, I’ve come to agree that it’s destructive and pointless to try and end abortion legislatively. When we were teenagers more than twenty years ago, my ex-girlfriend and I "weren’t thinking" when she got pregnant.  Frankly, whether or not abortion was legal and available had no impact on what we were doing together.  Hormones and infatuation are far more powerful than fear itself, at least for many teens.

When and if I have children, I want them to feel comfortable telling me anything.  If my daughter were pregnant, I would want to know.  Perhaps I would want her to keep the child, or choose adoption — though those would not be my decisions to make.  But even greater than my desire to know, I would want her to be safe.  Ultimately, it wouldn’t be about me, but about her and her needs.  And if for some reason she felt she couldn’t tell me or her mother, I would want her to be able to turn to medical professionals.

In my capacity as a youth leader, I’ve known of a couple of girls over the years who had abortions; at least one told me but did not tell her parents.  (This was years ago, folks — if you’re associated with All Saints, don’t speculate.)  I was not the only adult who was informed, but though I expressed my hope to the young woman involved that she would eventually bring her parents into the process, I respected her decision not to do so.   Until I’m told that that’s unacceptable behavior for a volunteer youth minister, I will continue to assume that I am free to offer the same advice should a similar situation arise in the future.

Originally published September 27, 2005

UPDATE: Men favor Prop. 85 53% to 40%, while women are opposed 51% to 36%.   According to this month’s (August 2006) Field Poll, public opinion in California is evenly split on Prop 85 less than three months out from the election.  But the pollsters note a big gender divide: Men favor Prop. 85 53% to 40%, while women are opposed 51% to 36%.

Reprint: “Incredibly Hot” — the Michael Gee case

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 24, 2006
in Student crushes and professor-student relationships
. Closed

I’m on hiatus — at least from substantive blogging — until August 28.  Until then, I’m reprinting favorite posts from 2004 and 2005.

I’ve followed with interest the case of Michael Gee, the non-tenured journalism professor fired from his teaching job at Boston University after posting on an internet blog site that one of his students was "incredibly hot."  A verbatim quote from Professor Gee on a public blog:

Of my six students, one (the smartest, wouldn’t you know it?) is incredibly hot. If you’ve ever been to Israel, she’s got the sloe eyes and bitchin’ bod of the true Sabra. It was all I could do to remember the other five students. I sense danger, Will Robinson.

I mean, there’s so much wrong there, where do we start?  And who still uses "bitchin’" anymore?  Didn’t that go out with the first Reagan Administration?  (I should probably just google it, but aren’t Sabras native-born Israelis, or am I confusing the term with something else?)

Gee was promptly fired (he had no tenure protection).   As one who normally defends even the most indefensible of academics (such as Jacques Pluss), I have no problem with Gee’s dismissal.  I can only imagine how the "bitchin’ bod Sabra" felt when she heard about it; the five other students whom Gee could barely remember can’t have been too happy about it either.

In the classroom, I am scrupulous about treating all of my students the same, regardless of gender or perceived attractiveness.  It’s much easier to do now than when I was first teaching, and frankly, it’s a lot easier to do now that I am fully and completely in love with one woman!   What makes Gee’s remarks indefensible is that he managed, in an instant, to make the classroom an unsafe place for every single student — both the woman whom he called "incredibly hot" and the other students whom he admitted to neglecting.  At least Jacques Pluss, the Nazi from Fairleigh Dickinson, kept his feelings about his actual students to himself!

Do I have favorites as a teacher?  I suppose from time to time, I do.  There’s always going to be a special student, male or female, young or old, who shows such enthusiasm and such promise that I can’t help but want to give him or her extra attention or encouragement.  These are the guys and gals who come to my office hours over and over again to argue, debate, and talk about life.  I mentor a few of them, I’m honored to say.  I suppose other students might notice that some of their classmates visit me more often than others, and as a result, may end up with more of my attention.  But these "favorites" are not selected because of their looks.  Indeed, one of my most important jobs is to make it clear to any student who comes to see me that my interest in him or her is purely professional. 

The lovely and the homely of both sexes have crosses to bear.  The former often fear that the attention they get is merely superficial; the latter fear being ignored altogether.   As teachers, our job is always, always, to look past the surface of our students.   Sexiness can be a distraction, but it’s completely unacceptable for those of us who teach to allow desirability to influence our attention, our grading, or our willingness to offer help to those who need it.

Several years ago, I had two students who were regular visitors to my office.  I’ll call them "Jack" and "Jill".  Jack was in my ancient history class.  He was an older fellow (mid-forties), usually unkempt.  He was a heavy smoker and infrequent bather.  When he came into my office to talk, he brought with him an odor of cigarettes and dirty clothes; sometimes, the awful stale stench of alcohol seemed to seep through his pores.  Jack was a bright man — very thoughtful (if argumentative). I liked him very much, but I confess that his odor was a distraction.  My office-mate at the time would leave whenever Jack came in, and finally asked me to meet with Jack outside, at the little coffee stand near our building.  Was it easy to work with Jack?  Not always.  His body odor was a test for me, but it was a test I overcame.  It wasn’t my place to comment on his grooming — it was my place to do what the rest of the world probably didn’t do, which was to pay close attention to him despite his truly unpleasant scent.  I’m happy to say he transferred to Cal State LA, and still keeps in touch.

Jill was the opposite, of course.  She was in my women’s history class.  She was young, quite attractive, and she tended to wear much more revealing clothes than her classmates.  She also came to my office regularly, as she was doing a scholar’s option research paper.   I don’t think she was flirtatious, but she was likely aware of the impact her body had on those around her.  Our conversations were always academic in nature, but at times, frankly, I found her a challenge in much the same way as Jack had been.   Both Jack and Jill had bodies that demanded attention!  With both Jack and Jill, my challenge was to be a thoughtful, attentive, loving mentor who saw them as human beings first and foremost. Jill’s exposed flesh and Jack’s stench both grabbed attention,and at times, in remarkably similar ways, I had to force myself to stay absolutely focused on what each was saying.   As with Jack, I had to give Jill what I imagine she didn’t often get from men: completely non-sexual attention.  I’m not in the business of telling young women how to dress, or telling older men to bathe. Good teaching means dealing professionally and compassionately with the sexy and the malodorous alike! 

Michael Gee didn’t see his "Incredibly hot" student as a person.   He could not do what we who are privileged to work as teachers must do , which is teach without being distracted by either the beauty or repulsiveness of student bodies.   And even when we are challenged by the "Jacks" and "Jills" and "bitchin’ bod Sabras" of the world, for heaven’s sakes, we ought to keep it to ourselves!

Originally published July 20, 2005

Reprint: The perils of advice, and professorial self-doubt

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 23, 2006
in Class and Teaching
. 12 Comments

I’m on hiatus — at least from substantive blogging — until August 28.  Until then, I’m reprinting favorite posts from 2004 and 2005.

This week’s Chronicle of Higher Education online edition has this rather sobering First Person essay by a Prof. Thomas Benton: An Adviser Without Advice. He writes of running into one of his brightest and best recent graduates working as a cashier at Target:

My former student scanned and bagged the objects as if she was running on a treadmill. She recognized me, and I tried to return her nervous smile. We each asked how the other was doing and said "good." I swiped my card, and she gave me a receipt. There were bored people all around, and the whole conversation was understood in a few embarrassed glances.

"Good to see you," I said, leaving. "Yeah, you too, professor," she said, flatly. I saw her feigned cheerfulness droop a little as she turned to the next customer.

Benton reflects on what he told her when she came to him, a few years earlier, for professional advice:

I should have been looking out for her. She came to me for advice. I told her something like this: "A liberal-arts degree is the best preparation for life in general, but it helps if you also have some specific, marketable skills." I had persuaded myself that I knew what I was talking about. I supported and reinforced her choices. And my vanity was gratified by the thought that I was helping her.

Okay, that is scary! I could have written that paragraph verbatim a thousand times over. I’ll quote his final section at length; bold emphases are mine:

All I have is an instinctive belief in the value of a liberal education without regard to its practical use. I am increasingly sure that it is wrong to encourage students (and indirectly ourselves) to justify the work and expense of education as a prelude to lucrative career opportunities. Yet I know that when so many students undertake so much debt to go to college, the link between education and future income becomes unavoidable.

It seems inevitable, though we are not yet willing to admit it, that a liberal education is becoming a practical impossibility for most young people. Or liberal education earns the justified reputation of something undertaken at one’s peril. Students know they have to make a living before they can appreciate Kierkegaard. They don’t have time to question their beliefs; they are too busy getting their academic tickets punched.

I understand that outlook, but students do not seem to know that even the practical choice is fraught with as much risk as following one’s heart. They seem unaware of how much their drive for "success" is a construction of consumerist pressures. Perhaps careerist choices carry even more risk, since you ultimately give up what you love for the sake of some opportunity that may not exist by the time you are ready to meet it. . I can remember all too vividly the fear of sinking into chronic underemployment and relative poverty, of feeling for the rest of my life the special scorn that socially mobile societies reserve for the people who haven’t "made it." You’re a loser and nobody cares how it happened.

Of course, this kind of pontification can only come from a position of privilege

But what can I offer to my students besides the general advice to follow their talents wherever they lead? "Follow your bliss" and "find your vocation." Those remarks seem as banal and unhelpful now as when they were uttered by the wiser advisers of my youth.

Most of my students at Pasadena City College are from working-class backgrounds. To put it bluntly, I am not. Most of my students are not white. I rather obviously am. Most of my students are first-generation college graduates, while I am the son of two Berkeley Ph.Ds. My kind and fortunate parents paid for my college education; I never had a nickel’s worth of student loans. I teach at a community college, but (and this is hard to admit) I would have been deeply ashamed if I had "had" to attend such an institution out of high school. Slowly, painfully, I am unlearning my snobbery, my elitism, and my privilege, but I confess that it is still a work in progress. (I can say I would not be crushed if a child of mine went to a JC for their first two years, but in all honesty, I would be a bit disappointed). With all that in mind, what from my own experience can I possibly offer to my students? As much as I want to be one, how can I be a satisfactory role model for them?

In the past decade, I have had maybe 70 or 80 students whom I have mentored. They have come to office hours and made special appointments, and they have come time and time again for career advice. Many want to become professors themselves someday. I offer the same sort of airy encouragements that Mr. Benton offered. Indeed, not a semester goes by that I don’t actually say: "Study what you love; the money will follow." Though it has all the depth of a Hallmark card, my students nod their heads appreciatively, confident perhaps that if Dr. Hugo believes it is true, than so it must be. As I do in my teaching, I substitute outer enthusiasm for inner certainty. I can always muster the former. It’s not that I lie to them about their abilities! Rather, I find that I deliberately misrepresent the difficulties of getting tenure-track jobs in higher education. It’s easier to be relentlessly optimistic.

I do have a few former students teaching now at the college level. All are adjuncts so far, waiting and hoping for the appearance of a miraculous tenure-track job. But I’ve run into my share of former students at Target and elsewhere; they’ve graduated from four-year institutions, often with history degrees. I love running into my former students and hearing their stories. But I’ve seen — or imagined that I have seen — embarrassment in the eyes of several of them, as if they worry that somehow they have let me down by working at Starbucks fulltime rather than taking out still more loans to go and get a Ph.D. And I wonder, as Benton wonders, whether all of that encouragement and advice does any good.

Year in and year out, I tell my students that their lives will be better and richer because they know about Alexander, about Antony, about Arius the Heretic. They will be better citizens of the world because they know about Luther, Leibniz, and Lloyd-George. But I went straight from high school to college, and never worked for money while in school. When my classes were over for the day at Cal, I could wander over to Strawberry Glade and read a book and think about life; I could sit in coffee shops and pontificate my day away. My students race off from my classes to their jobs and their families. And then they come to me, asking me to mentor them! I am honored and flattered; it satisfies both my vanity and my longing to help. I am so grateful for the genuine close friendships I have formed with many students over the years. But so often, so often, I wonder: What good am I, what good are we historians, if we don’t have more tangible, practible advice to offer?

Originally published July 19, 2004