Hugo Schwyzer

I’m not entirely done with regular posts yet; I’ll be back to posting normally tomorrow.

Last Friday, I posted the first half of my “Top Ten in ‘06″. Today, I offer the top half.

Were these the five best posts I wrote all year? I’m not sure, but they were picked because I’m proud of the writing or the insights within them; a couple were picked merely because they proved to be particularly popular or controversial. (I left out the OKOP, masturbation, and circumcision posts, though they attracted lots of attention.) Ranking them was not easy either, and if I were doing this in another month, I might well have a different order. But for now, these are my five favorites posts of 2006, in ascending order from fifth to first. (And why three of them ended up being from March, I have no idea. Perhaps my mind is more fertile at the onset of spring.)

5. Some Thoughts on Teaching and Student Crushes (March 24) Key excerpt:

There’s an old axiom in pop psychology: 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. They’re externalizing all of their hopes for themselves. And rather than encourage the crush to feed my ego, my job is to turn the focus back on to the student, encouraging him or her to take their new-found curiosity or enthusiasm or passion and use it, run with it, indulge it, let it take them places! That’s what student crushes mean to me.

4. Closing the Door: men, aging, younger women, and ego (October 26) Key excerpt:

I am absolutely convinced that many of my peers (and men older than myself) chase younger women for precisely this reason. It’s not that women our own age are less attractive, it’s that they lack the culturally-based power to reassure our fragile, aging egos that we are still “younger than our fathers”, still hot and hip and filled with potential. Inspiring romantic or erotic desire in women young enough to be our daughters becomes the most potent of all anti-aging remedies, particularly when we can display our much younger mates to our peers. By comparison, the famous little red sports car reveals only the size of our pocketbook; attracting a girl barely out of her teens reveals the enduring power of our youthful appeal. And for those men who are desperately afraid of losing out on possibilities, afraid of closing doors, afraid of the humble acceptance that things have changed forever — then there is nothing, nothing more compelling than significantly younger women.

3. Some lengthy thoughts on feminism, traditional families, contingent happiness and daring to disappoint (March 14) Key excerpt:

I can’t truly know what it’s like to be a first-generation female college student, carrying the hopes and dreams of my parents and my ancestors on my shoulders, on my heart –or on my hymen. Sure, I’m privileged in ways that I probably don’t even fully understand. But I do believe that at the heart of the feminist project is this: women ought to have the right to pursue happiness. That happiness will manifest differently in the lives of different women; some will find their most sublime joy in marriage and motherhood while others will find it in on an archaeological dig while others will find it in the arms of another woman. And if feminists can agree on one thing, it’s this: the collective sacrifices of your parents, ancestors, and culture do not trump your own personal right to be happy.

2. Words are not fists: some thoughts on how men work to defuse feminist anger (May 25) Key excerpt:

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

1. “My life doesn’t just revolve around you”: a note of gratitude for a feminist mom (March 20) Key excerpt:

So my belief in the importance of women’s autonomy and personal freedom — even as wives and mothers — came to me early in life. A first-born son growing up in a household without a father (amateur psychologists, have at it!), I was very close to my mother. I still am. And my adult feminism is linked in no small way to the lessons she taught me. Motherhood, I learned, is a role — but it need not be an all-consuming identity. The fact that my mother had a life outside of her children gave me the confidence to live out my life without fear that I would destroy her if I made mistakes or deviated from a planned path. Her commitment to her own happiness allowed me to make a similar commitment to my own — and for that, I will forever be tremendously grateful.