Archive for May, 2007

More on being forty, and why I like Rihanna

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 22, 2007
in Age
. 9 Comments

It’s 7:30AM, and I am several hours into my fifth decade of life.

After teaching last night, I headed home to a quiet dinner with my wife. We got caught up with “Sopranos”, and we sat and talked and opened presents. (My favorite gift from my wife: awesome seats for an upcoming Sparks game at the Staples Center; my favorite gift from my chinnies: really good vegan marzipan. I love my marzipan — my Viennese ancestry comin’ through loud and clear.)

I got up this morning and my first thought was to thank God for getting me to this age. I’m not dead, I’m not locked up in a state mental hospital or in prison, I’m not homeless and mumbling to myself. If you’d asked my family and friends ten years ago — or even twenty years ago — they would have quietly, desperately admitted to being profoundly worried about my survival. No one worries about this anymore.

Last week, I applied for a nice big chunk of life insurance. I never thought I’d qualify for life insurance, you see. Who would insure someone with my track record? But as anyone who knows life insurance knows, the medical questions they ask you when you apply refer to what’s happened in the last seven years. And for the past nine years, I’ve had a very clean bill of health (other than a nasty bout of giardia, a bug I contracted in rural Colombia a few years back.) A nice man came over to our house last week, took my blood and my urine and my height and my weight. He even gave me an EKG. He seemed to think all was in order, and unless there’s some problem with my blood, I’m gettin’ insured. Hugo Schwyzer is worth underwriting these days.

In a comment below a post yesterday, Treifalicious writes:

What does “40″ mean? Most of all, what does “40″ feel like, look like?

I just turned 35 last week. People tell me I don’t look like a 35 year old. What does a 35 year old look like?

A friend of mine asked how old I was at a little birthday celebration I had. I didn’t tell him exactly how old but said I was slightly older than he was (He turned 34 in February - I told him how much older I was than him last year but he apparently forgot). He said he was old. I said that I was not.

Personally, I think these ideas of what 30, 35 and 40 (or any age save early childhood when there are clear developmental goals people have to meet) are supposed to look and act like are arbitrary and ultimately meaningless.

Still, it would be good if you could elaborate upon what it means to feel 40. Granted, you don’t have so much experience being 40 as of yet but it would be good to get your imnpressions so that I know what to look forward to in 5 years.

I agree that the “rules” about what we’re supposed to act like at any given age tend to be arbitrary and meaningless. There’s nothing magical about the number 21, for example, that instantly gives folks the good judgment to handle alcohol that they lacked a day or week before. Society has to draw arbitrary lines in order to function, however, and I suppose we generally draw them in the right places.

I wrote a bit about growing older and closing doors last year. In that post, I was gently chastising men in my age cohort for continuing to chase young women. I wrote last October:

One of the most important doors to close is the door marked “everlasting youth.” Part of growing up is learning to accept that our choices are finite, that our youth is temporary, that the sexual desirability we may have had (or wished we had had) at 25 is gone, or at the least, significantly changed. Another door we must learn to close is the one marked with the unwieldy phrase: “constantly in need of validation and reassurance.” This doesn’t mean we won’t always need affirmation from others, but the kinds of affirmation we need will change. Whether we have “It” can’t matter anymore; whether we are loving, kind, safe, generous, and reliable will. The world doesn’t need us to be sexy in middle age. The world doesn’t need us to be “on the prowl”. The world needs us to close softly the doors to our past, to embrace our aging and changing bodies, to embrace our families (in whatever form those families come) and to embrace the great adventure that only promises to get better and more glorious. But it will only get better if we close those doors.

That’s what I think of as I turn forty.

But I’m clear on something else. I may be a Puritan preaching the gospel of radical self-denial on the part of the consumer as a tool for liberating the consumed. But this is not a joyless life. Indeed, I’m more playful at 40 than ever before. Yesterday, my office mate’s assistant was playing a song I found catchy: Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” I don’t normally like that sort of music, but the track worked for me. So I downloaded it last night and composed a small dance to it. Only my wife and my chinchillas will see this very special dance, of course. But I had a wonderful time last night bouncing around exuberantly, like a hippopotamus responding to the choreography of Irene Cara.

If you’re gonna be what Tennessee Williams calls an “ass-achin’ Puritan”, you’re gonna be an insufferable person to be around if that puritanism isn’t mediated by a goofy, wacky, sense of humor. And I’m afraid that sense of humor doesn’t come across on this blog. But if you could see me singing Barry Manilow songs to my chinchillas in a basso profundo or inventing dance moves that are both kinetically unlikely and aesthetically disturbing, you’d know I’m having a pretty good time.

After 8 hours and 17 minutes, being forty rocks.

And that “Umbrella” song is still in my head.

Saying goodbye to Annika

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 21, 2007
in Blogging and Links
. 3 Comments

I first started blogging at a now-vanished blogspot blog back in August 2003. I first posted the day Arnold Schwarzenegger declared himself a candidate for governor in the recall election. The very first blog I commented on was Annika’s, and the next day, she became the first blogger to link to me.

Annika is a conservative Republican lawyer who likes guns and jet planes. Other than sharing an alma mater, we have nothing else in common. But we’ve commented every now and again at each other’s blogs for four years. I got the idea for “Thursday Short Poems” from her Wednesday Poetry series. And in 2005, she did an interview with me over IM.

Annika is leaving the blog world for now. I’ll miss my first blog friend very much.

For those of you who blog, who was your first commenter? Who first linked to you? To whom did you first link?

Eugen Weber

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 21, 2007
in People and Teaching
. 0 Comments

Eugen Weber has died at 82. Weber taught history at UCLA for decades, and won the university’s distinguished teaching award in 1992. I was a TA at the time, but not one of his graduate students. Many of my friends worked under him, and had a near-reverential tone when they spoke of him.

His 1989 public television series “The Western Tradition” was a godsend to me when I first started teaching. My first year of teaching, I was terrified that I would run out of things to say after twenty minutes. My mother gave me all of the video tapes of his series, which covered the period from the Bronze Age to the Cold War. I used segments of them in both my ancient and modern history classes. Yes, students, I once showed videos all the time! As the years passed, I grew more confident as a lecturer and I began to incorporate Weber’s material into my own talks. I showed fewer and fewer episodes of “The Western Tradition”; I would guess that I last popped in one of Weber’s tapes in, oh, late 1998 or early 1999.

Over the course of my first five or six years of teaching, I must have seen each of his 52 half-hour episodes two or three dozen times. I knew his heavy Central European voice by heart, and was accustomed to his litle jokes (most of which flew right over the heads of my students). All those tapes have long since gathered dust, but I can recite the script of many from memory. Eugen Weber was a wonderful popularizer of Western Civilization, a first-rate scholar who was also a marvelous generalist. He was one of UCLA’s finest, and I deeply regret not having served as his teaching assistant or having worked more closely with him.

On turning 40

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 21, 2007
in Age
. 11 Comments

Today is my last day of of my thirties. A farewell note to the decade is fitting.

On my thirtieth birthday, I drove to Santa Barbara to spend the day with my Dad. We took lots of walks together, and he reminded me — teasingly — of my grandfather’s old maxim: “Thirty is when a young man stops being promising.” Though I was going through a turbulent time in my life, I felt excited to be turning thirty. I remember looking at my face in the mirror, noting the beginning of the crow’s feet and the smile lines, and feeling a strange mix of anxiety and anticipation. I was anxious about getting older, anxious about losing what I thought was my fleeting attractiveness, anxious about not living up to the expectations of others.

My twenties, frankly, were an extended adolescence. My second divorce had become final one month before I turned thirty, but I still felt awkward calling myself a “man.” I was acutely uncomfortable being addressed as “Sir”, “Mr.”, or “Professor.” The son of two academics, I always joked that when I heard “Professor Schwyzer”, I wanted to turn around and see if my father or mother was in the room. I cultivated the image of a slightly older peer to my students. I wanted to inhabit an in-between space, neither fully adult nor fully adolescent. (Cue that Britney song about “not a girl, not yet a woman.”) At thirty, most of my friends were considerably younger than myself, and I felt uncomfortable around chronological peers.

I grew up in my thirties. Mind you, I don’t think my adolescence needed to be prolonged as long as it was. I made a conscious choice to stay stuck, and I know darned well that I could have chosen to extricate myself from that mess much earleir. But regardless, adulthood finally happened to me in my thirties — and what a happy (if at times agonizing) growing up it turned out to be.

I’m going to be 40 tomorrow, and people have been asking me if I feel 40. I do feel 40, and I think 40 feels amazing. I’m fitter than I’ve ever been, happier than I’ve ever been, pushing myself harder than ever. The wrinkles are getting deeper; my face is well on its way to being deeply lined. I like seeing the wrinkles come. No botox or face lifts for this fella; bring on the outward and visible signs of experience, of hard work, of endless miles logged in sun and chill and biting wind.

I never thought I’d make it to 40. Many people in my family never thought I’d make it to 40. But the darkness did abate, the “black dog” of depression ran away, though I remain vigilant against his return. I’ve loved my thirties, especially the truly glorious second half. My friends in their forties tell me it’s going to get even better, and I can’t wait.

I am a very, very lucky man.

Why I’m assigning Full Frontal Feminism: a follow-up

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 21, 2007
in Books and Feminism
. 46 Comments

Anyone who’s been reading the feminist blogs in the past week knows that we’ve come dangerously close to forming the proverbial circular firing squad. The issue this time is Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism.

For some background, see Jill here and here, and Piny here (both at Feministe). If you read Piny’s post, you’ll see that she has posted links to many of the most prominent negative reactions to the book. They’re worth a read.

I reviewed Jessica’s book two weeks ago, and gave it a enthusiastic endorsement. Indeed, I’ve made the decision to add FFF (as it is now widely abbreviated) to my women’s studies course syllabus beginning with the fall semester. I think it’s that good and that important.

The bulk of the negative reaction seems to focus on two things: some feminists are troubled by what they perceive as the “breeziness” of Jessica’s text. It seems too chatty, too informal, and too frequently punctuated by profanity. Others, more troublingly, accuse Jessica of ignoring or underplaying the important role of women of color in the feminist movement. FFF, it seems, comes across as too white. Blackamazon’s ringing denunciation came here, and I quote it because it seems typical of most of the criticisms I’ve seen:

As a 22 year old women reading this book , I felt disrespected. As a teacher of nearly 9 years especially of “at risk ” youth, I was appalled.

Young women do not need friends who reduce their problems with feminism to some issue with the coolness factor.

The definitely do not need it from people who would choose a very specific half naked torso and various approximations of Valley girl lingo .

I am a young woman who is NOT a feminist. I am a young woman who is one of many young women who has disagreed ,disengaged, delinked, and been disrespected by many of the feminist sisterhood.

I am part of a much longer line of women who has been caricatured, stolen from, and used.

So I reread much of FFF over the past couple of days. And frankly, I don’t think the criticism is warranted. Of course, I’m a moderately privileged heterosexual white man, so perhaps my ability to sense the “silencing” of women of color is inherently suspect. But Jessica has her numerous defenders among young women of color, not least among them her colleagues at Feministing like Samhita and Celina. Samhita has an anguished post up today, decrying the way in which some of Jessica’s critics have silenced her and other women of color who have embraced FFF.

I’m late to this battle, but I’ll weigh in once again with an emphatic defense of the book. I may be white and male and middle-aged and middle-class and married to a woman in blissful heterosexual privilege, but dang it all, I do know a thing or two about teaching young people of color. Community colleges are ladders into the middle class; they are intellectual reception centers for those who have no other gateway into academia. In my women’s history class, my students are overwhelmingly female (not surprising), and overwhelmingly women of color. The majority are first-generation college students. Few come to the class knowing much of anything about feminism, and what they have heard has left them suspicious and doubtful about its relevance to their own lives.

I do not expect my students to read Full Frontal Feminism and accept it as gospel. It has a colloqial, even confrontational style that invites debate and discussion. It’s feminist apologetics at its best, and as someone who is fond of good Christian apolegetics, I think there’s a lot to be said for a text that makes an impassioned (yet often humorous) appeal for folks to abandon their skepticism. I like to think of Jessica Valenti as the Max Lucado or Lee Strobel of contemporary feminism, and I can only hope that her work (both FFF and whatever she produces in the future) will have as powerful an impact on the cause of gender justice as the work of Lucado and Strobel has had in spreading the gospel. (I suspect I’m one of the few people out there who reads both Jessica Valenti and Max Lucado. All others, raise your hands.)

Why have FFF on the syllabus? My course in women’s history deals with both past and present; in the latter part of the class, we ask whether feminism continues to be relevant for young women. I don’t grade my students on their feminism; I do, however, expect them to be able to understand what feminism really is, distinguished from the distortions created by popular culture. The stereotype that feminism is a “white thing” is as much a misrepresentation as the notion that all feminists don’t wear bras. While it is true that the contributions and concerns of women of color have been marginalized in both academic and political feminism, we’ve collectively come along way towards integration. Feminism has never had so many powerful non-white, non-heterosexual, non-able bodied, non-middle-classes voices. Can we do better? Sure. Could Jessica’s book have done better? I don’t think so. It’s pretty darned inclusive as it is.

I gave a copy of FFF to a former student of mine last week. She’s 20, Latina, daughter of Mexican immigrants. English is her second language. She said she was a bit put off by the profanity, but otherwise loved the book. She’s getting a copy for her younger sister, still in high school. (And unlike me, she was utterly untroubled by the cover. While I wondered about objectification, she saw assertiveness and power.) She endorsed wholeheartedly my decision to assign the book to my future students. “It explains why feminism still matters for everyone”, she said. Good enough for me.

Part of being committed to social justice — particularly as a feminist and as a Christian — is learning to not only listen to criticism, but to really hear it. The left is famous for its internecine wars; in the feminist world, the most common accusations are of “privilege”, “insensitivity”, and “marginalization.” All of us who are committed to gender justice understand that an atmosphere of honest dialogue and accountability is important. As we build and expand a movement, it’s vital that no group gets left behind. But at times, as in any family, the criticism of our loved ones is harsher and uglier than the criticism of our actual opponents. This has been an ugly week in the feminist blogosphere, with many folks feeling exasperated, misrepresented and hurt.

Here’s hoping we can get our eyes back on the prize.

UPDATE: This thread is limited to feminist or pro-feminist commenters — or, at the least, those who are not generally hostile to feminism. When we’re having a family squabble, those who are generally our ideological opponents are unlikely to promote much healing.

A Matilde Mission Update

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 17, 2007
in Chinchillas
. 12 Comments

I lied, one more post before we go.

The Matilde Mission, our chinchilla charity, is undertaking a number of major projects. Through painstaking negotiation, we’re very close to “shutting down” one of the biggest chinchilla pelters in the upper Midwest, and were — just in the last few days — able to bring a significant sized herd off the ranch and into a safe house. Read the latest update here. Here are two babies, for example, enjoying soft bedding and hiding enclosures for the first time. Instead of ending up in a fur salon (it takes 100 chins to make a full-length coat), these little guys will watch cartoons (a chinchilla’s favorite pastime) and eat hay and play for the rest of their days.

Here’s “Nubs”, who survived having his ears chewed off when he was a kit. And here’s ‘96, just before she died; some chins come off the pelting ranches so traumatized that they aren’t long for the world. But when the Matilde Mission rescues, we make sure that the chins that can’t be saved die either at home in their adoptive parents’ arms or in an animal hospital, gently euthanized while loving fingers stroke their fur. On the ranches, they die alone and frightened — if not by having their necks broken (standard procedure for making a pelt), then of neglect.

I’ve cried a lot this week. My wife and I serve as president and treasurer of the Mission, and we are coordinating with rescuers in Arkansas and Michigan at the moment. We’ve saved dozens of lives this week; dozens of little happy, intelligent, kind, soft creatures will know joy and comfort they’ve never known before. But we’ve lost a few and had to put a few down, and though I’d love to authorize unlimited vet procedures to save the sick ones, vet money comes from the same fund that pays for acquiring, transporting, and rehoming the ones who can have long and happy lives. There’s been a lot of hard decision-making these past few days.

We’re going to ramp up for a major fundraising campaign this summer as we seek to take the Mission nationwide. In the meantime, I know money’s tight for most of my readers. But any donation, no matter how small, will do so much good. These girls are playing today instead of being turned into coats or dying of neglect, and you, our donors are the reason.

You can donate securely via credit card here. The Matilde Mission is an IRS-recognized, 501(c)3 tax-exempt charity. Checks and chinnie fan mail can be sent to:

“The Matilde Mission: Pet Homes for Ranch Chinchillas, Inc.”
PO Box 94521
Pasadena, CA 91109

The late Matilde Schwyzer thanks you.

Away for three days, and a note on “sink a scholar”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 17, 2007
in Memories and Pasadena City College
. 3 Comments

This will be my last post until Monday; my wife and I will be in the Bay Area over the weekend attending a memorial service for my uncle and celebrating a plethora of family birthdays (we have loved ones turning 16, 40, 50, and 70 within the next few weeks — lots of milestones).

I spent the better part of the lunch hour by the campus pool, doing a fund-raiser for our student honor society on campus. It’s called “sink a scholar”, and involves professors (in costume) leaping into the pool off the high dive board, all while being pelted with wet sponges. It’s a yearly event that goes back decades, and I’ve done it most years since I joined the faculty in ‘94.

This year’s theme was sports, so I wore my cycling kit (including the red and black jersey Lance wears in his Dasani water ads). I was quite demure. Exactly ten years ago in 1997, at the height of my inappropriateness, I leapt off the diving board during “sink a scholar” dressed in rubber and vinyl as a fetish submissive, complete with ball gag. I was pierced in several obvious places at the time (all have long since been removed). It was a mild scandal, but it attracted a huge audience and raised lots of money. I have long since gotten rid of the pictures.

Today I caused barely a ripple. My body stayed largely covered. I raised very little money, and very few eyebrows.

Thank God for the grace to grow up, and thank God for tenure.

Falwell, part two

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 17, 2007
in Christianity and People
. 11 Comments

So, Jerry Falwell is gone, and even in his passing, the fella stirs up contention.

There are countless obituaries out there for all to read, and I have no interest in adding to them. I also have no interest in revisiting some of the nasty exchanges in which I have taken part over how best to respond to the passing of this exceptionally influential figure.

Jerry Falwell was one of those relatively few individuals who becomes so iconic that he ceases to be real. He was the first television evangelist of whom I ever heard, back when I was a kid. His “Old Time Gospel Hour” (which aired regularly throughout the early 1980s on Sunday mornings) was one of the few religious programs I ever saw in my high school years. For most of the Reagan era, Jerry was the public face of activist Christian conservatism. His indefagitable energy, his willingness to go into hostile media environments, and his intuitive understanding of how to apply political pressure made him extraordinarily influential extraordinarily fast.

Falwell was alternately loathed and loved because he had a larger-than-life personality. One of the best things that can be said of him was that he “dreamed big”, founding Liberty Baptist College (later Liberty University) and the Moral Majority that played such a vital role in the conservative resurgence of the 1980s. Another bit of praise: he rejected the idea that Christians ought to be quietist, ignoring the rough and tumble world of politics. He insisted that Christians had not only the right, but the obligation to become involved in shaping the culture. His primary concern was the erosion of sexual morality, of course, and those of us who call ourselves left-wing Christians do not give that concern primacy of place. We are far more deeply grieved by the plight of the poor than the private use of the pelvis. But we share with Falwell a belief that as Christians, we ought to bring our passionate faith commitments into the voting booth.

Falwell, famously, stayed in dialogue with his opponents. But dialogue, while a virtue in and of itself, isn’t always enough. The goal is dialogue that leads to enduring change. The best tribute I’ve read comes from one of my heroes, Mel White of Soulfource. White worked for Falwell for years before coming out of the closet, and remained hopeful till the end that Jerry, who renounced the racism of his youth, might also someday renounce the anti-gay bigotry of his mature years. He writes in the Advocate:

I was in the dentist’s chair when I heard that Jerry Falwell passed away. I couldn’t believe that I started crying. I had to find an office and I just cried. I was trying to think, Why the heck am I crying? I think I was crying for his family. He was a great father and husband, and he was a really good pastor—I’ve been going to his church for years, so I know—and he was a really good president of a university. There are 20,000 students at Liberty University, which Falwell founded, and they all like him.

I knew there would be just a huge hole in Virginia and in Lynchburg, and I felt for those people. But at the same time I was feeling more strongly that now we’ll never have a chance for Jerry Falwell to say, “I was wrong. I did wrong, and I said wrong, and I’m sorry. God creates gay people and loves them just like she created them. I’m not going to say anything more against gay people because I was wrong.” Imagine the consequence that would have had for so many people. Falwell was the face of homophobia.

Falwell was the face of many things. He was no fraud; there were no secrets in his closet, he wasn’t in it for the money. He was a true believer, a fellow member of the body of Christ. He was also deeply and profoundly wrong, and he did a tremendous amount of damage. Like Mel White, I am sorry that Falwell never got the chance in this life to reconsider publicly his views.

I prayed a lot for Jerry Falwell over the years, largely because as his brother in Christ, I was so angry at him so much of the time. In my head, he was the one Christian I least wanted to be like. He ceased to be Jerry Falwell the man, and became Jerry Falwell the symbol of intolerance and hate. While there is some legitimacy to that view, I can’t forget that the Apostle warns us against division in the body of Christ. I wrote in 2005:

I know that part of me likes to poke fun at Falwell because frankly, he embarrasses me. As an evangelical surrounded by folks more liberal on theological and cultural issues than myself, I find myself constantly lumped together with him. (If I had a dollar for every time a non-believer has said, “Hugo, now you’re sounding like Falwell”, I could afford, well, a nice dinner out for my fiancee and myself.) I don’t like his style, I don’t like his politics, and I think he misreads Scripture and gives other evangelicals a bad name in the public sphere. But I also recognize that this embarrassment is, at least partially, my own sinful pride at work. I don’t want other folks to think I’m at all like Jerry Falwell because I think my views are subtler, more compassionate, more evolved, and frankly, more congruent with the spirit of Christ than his. That’s arrogance and hubris, and it’s something I need to cop to and for which I need to repent. Paul tells us that the body of Christ is a unit made up of many parts. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” And though it is hard for me to believe sometimes, progressive Christians cannot say to a Jerry Falwell, we don’t need you. Sometimes I have my own uncharitable suspicions as to which part of the body of Christ Falwell represents, but I know that he and I and our churches share the same God, often pray the same prayers, and are struggling to discern divine will in our lives.

Peace to Jerry Falwell, may God grant him rest and may eternal light shine upon him. Peace to his family and friends who mourn his loss. Peace to the millions whom he marginalized and judged, may they know that they are loved and accepted — just as they are — by the same God who brought Jerry home.

UPDATE: And I’m sorry that in the thread about Jerry Falwell at Feministe, I made the mistake of calling down “shame” on those who celebrated Falwell’s death. I ought to know better than to use that word in particular. There’s far too much shame in the world, far too much of it imposed by men who look like me (and believe in my God and make love as I make love) on those who aren’t men (and don’t look like me, worship another God or none at all, and make love differently.) My anger and my haste made me forget that. I’m not only sorry for having offended, I’m sorry I used words that would inevitably be offensive. It was stupid and wrong. No excuses.

I’m done posting about Jerry.

Thursday Short Poem: Justice’s “Men at Forty” (again)

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 17, 2007
in Poetry
. 0 Comments

I feel as if my birthday preparations have been going on for the better part of a month. My wife threw me a surprise party on May 5; my friends who follow the Hebrew calendar honored my birthday on the 12th of Iyar, which this year happened to be April 30. But I will indeed be forty in the eyes of most folks in the Gregorian tradition next Tuesday, May 22.

So of course, there is no other possible poem to put up this week but Donald Justice’s classic. My own father was alive at my last birthday. I reach my fortieth without him, and the grief that comes with that realization is powerful.

But as I’ve posted before, thank God above for the strength to close doors.

Men at Forty


Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.

At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it moving
Beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.

And deep in mirrors
They rediscover
The face of the boy as he practices tying
His father’s tie there in secret,

And the face of that father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Something is filling them, something

That is like the twilight sound
Of the crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
Behind their mortgaged houses.

Boys, girls, the fag discourse and compulsive heterosexuality: a review of CJ Pascoe’s book

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 16, 2007
in Aggression and violence, Books, GLBTQ, Men and Masculinity, Sexual harassment and Youth
. 25 Comments

I’m taking a day away from writing about Jerry Falwell. I will post my own reflection, including “the good, the bad, the ugly” tomorrow.

On a blessedly different subject than anything I’ve been writing about lately, I’ve just finished a wonderful new book that I’m considering for use in my “men and masculinity” course next year. Dude, You’re A Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School is from C.J. Pascoe, a Cal grad and a sociology professor at Puget Sound up in Washington state. It’s a remarkable, challenging, provocative and at times depressing study of the obsession with “proving masculinity” and the “fear of faggotry” among contemporary American high school students.

I picked the book up on Saturday afternoon, and read it all by Sunday night. Though like many social science texts, it’s jargon-laden (and the APA style of citation drives me bats), Pascoe’s work is fresh and exciting. While in grad school at Berkeley, Pascoe spent a year among students at the pseudonymous “River High School” in Riverton, California. (She’s very careful not to name the real school or real town, though from little references she drops, it sounds suspiciously like somewhere near Stockton.) She didn’t pull the Cameron Crowe trick of pretending to be a high school student; Pascoe made it quite clear to the administration, the teachers, and the students that she was there as a researcher writing a book about boys and masculinity.

Pascoe writes of what she calls the fag discourse. The discourse manifests itself in the almost incorrigible way in which young men label each other “fags” while seeking to avoid having that label applied to them. According to this discourse, fear of being called out publicly as a “fag” is the primary driving force behind what Pascoe cleverly calls the display of “compulsive heterosexulity.” Playing on Adrienne Rich’s classic notion that contemporary society functions with a discourse of compulsory heterosexuality, Pascoe notes that among young men desperate to establish their masculine bona fides with their peers, what we see in American high schools amounts to compulsive, almost frantic efforts by young men to prove their manhood.

Anyone who has worked with adolescent boys knows how much anxiety many of them feel about their own masculinity. It’s not news to say that our sons, like their fathers before them, often have to endure or participate in physical or at least verbal violence that we tragically and falsely believe is necessary to transition into manhood. It’s not news that boys torment each other with the “fag” epithet. And it’s not news that the real stigma in being labelled a “fag” doesn’t lie in the association with homosexuality, but with being seen as feminine. Pascoe correctly points out what has been clear for years — that what we often see as homophobia is really thinly disguised misogyny.

Pascoe’s most original insights are her most troubling. After a year of observing the kids at “Riverton”, she found that boys chronically used their access to girls’ bodies as a way of establishing masculine credentials and escaping the “fag” label. Pascoe describes what I’ve seen all too often (and what I always try and break up as quickly as I can when I’m with high schoolers): the tendency of many young men to touch and “playfully” harass young women as a way of proving their own manhood. Pascoe describes incident after incident, in cafeterias and gyms, in breezeways and even, sadly, in classrooms. Pascoe:

… other ‘touching’ episodes has a more explicitly violent tone. In this type of touching the boy and the girl ‘hurt’ each other by punching or slapping or pulling each other’s hair until in the end the girl lost with a squeal or a scream. Shane and Cathy spent a large part of each morning in government class beating up on each other in this sequence of domination. While it was certainly not unidirectional, the interactions always ended with Cathy giving up… while this sort of interaction disrupted Cathy’s work and actually looked exceedingly painful, she never seriously tried to stop it.

There are quite a few similar, heartbreaking anecdotes. Pascoe notes, not surprisingly, that this sort of aggressive behavior (which to an impartial observer regularly constituted assault) was only done in the presence of other men. Pascoe notes what I’ve often observed:

When not in groups — when in one-on-one interactions with boys or girls — boys were much less likely to engage in gendered and sexed domination practices. In this sense boys became masculine in groups… when with other boys, they postured and bragged. In one on one situations with me they often spoke touchingly about their feelings about and insecurities with girls.

Bold emphasis mine.

Many men in the men’s movement have lamented the “fag discourse” in American youth culture. Most adult men have their own scars and wounds that they received in adolescence as they struggled to establish their manhood in the eyes of their peers. Less often discussed, most adult men — when pushed in therapy or group discussions — will cop to the various ways in which they cruelly inflicted wounds on other boys. As Pascoe and others have pointed out, the only way to deflect the fag label is to slap it on to some other nearby man. Most adult men carry with them the wounds inflicted by the fag discourse in their youth — and many carry the guilt of the verbal and psychic violence they did to their peers.

But when men get together to lament the fag discourse and to talk about how difficult it is to grow up male in this culture, how painful it is to try over and over again to establish one’s manhood, we forget something that Pascoe, rightly, doesn’t. The fag discourse doesn’t just victimize men; indeed, men aren’t even it’s chief victims. Pascoe notes that time and time again, women’s bodies are used as yardsticks for men to measure their manliness. When boys brag about their sexual conquests, or pressure young women for sex in order to have a story to tell “the guys”, it is women who are the chief victims of the fag discourse. When boys, as Pascoe describes, snap bra straps and slap bottoms and pull hair in order to display their apparent “right of access” to girls’ bodies, they do this not out of authentic sexual desire but because of this compulsive need to perform, over and over again, as masculine. Women are harassed, assaulted, and taunted because we are raising generation after generation of young boys that sees no better way to establish their manhood than by demonstrating their ability to impose their will on the bodies of their female peers.

So much of the writing by pro-feminist and gay men about the “fear of faggotry” has focused primarily on the profound psychic (and occasionally, physical) injury young men inflict on each other. Pascoe doesn’t dispute the genuine pain and desperation that adolescent guys endure, but she convincingly makes the case that they are not the chief victims of the discourse they perpetuate and try, over and over again, to escape.

I recommend Dude, You’re a Fag with enthusiasm.

Falwell, part one

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 15, 2007
in Blogging and Faith
. 67 Comments

I’ll have more to say about Jerry Falwell tomorrow or Thursday, but I can’t not say this now:

I am deeply saddened that bloggers whom I like, admire, respect and even adore are rejoicing at the passing of this extraordinarily influential and deeply divisive figure. I’m not asking for grief that isn’t genuine, and I’m not asking folks to offer false paeans. I’m certainly not asking folks to refrain from thoughtful and deserved criticism. But the voices I’ve heard that speak cheerfully of Falwell being in hell — they make me ashamed. I don’t want Osama Bin Laden dead. I don’t want Charles Manson dead. I don’t want George Bush dead. I don’t want those who kill chinchillas dead. And I don’t want any of them in hell when they are called from this earth.

I realize that I frequently come across as sanctimonious and holier-than-thou. (At one blog today, when I shared this view a blogger whom I greatly admire called me a “simpering, sanctimonious little prick.”) But honestly, after prayer and reflection this afternoon, I still think it is always shameful to rejoice in the death of another human being, be it Jeffrey Dahmer or Adolf Hitler or al-Zarqawi or whoever is your personal villain.

Do I believe there’s a hell? Reluctantly, I do. I believe there’s a hell because Scripture and tradition says there is, and because I believe God gives us the free will to turn away from Him. But I also reserve the right to believe and pray that hell is absolutely empty. I pray that every last creature on this planet will live eternally in paradise. I pray that prayer every danged day.

I won’t ban you or delete your comments if you thrash me here, but whatever the provocation, do not use my comments section to launch personal attacks on other bloggers elsewhere, even those who today have indulged in the decidedly unfeminist sport of attacking the size of my genitalia!

Live Strong Day

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 15, 2007
in Animal Rights, Links and Science
. 4 Comments

Amanda Marcotte is helping coordinate the internet presence of the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The LAF, famous for their LiveStrong campaign that saw 40 million Americans don yellow wristbands, is annoucing that tomorrow, May 16, is LiveStrong Day. Lance and his supporters will be lobbying Congress for greater support for cancer survivors and their families.

The biggest priority of the LAF, I am happy to say, is expanding access to health care for millions of uninsured Americans. The Lance Arrmstrong Foundation is also eager to expand early screening, taking note that cancer deaths could be reduced by at least a third with early detection. And of course, the LAF wants to fund more research.

As a rule, my wife and I only support medical charities that receive the Humane Seal of approval, meaning that their research does not involve any use of animal subjects. Next to our own Matilde Mission, there is no charity nearer and dearer to our hearts than the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. They created the Humane Seal program.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation, I am sorry to say, still funds research that uses animal subjects. Yet I am happy to say that the LAF has a history of funding many of the projects of the PCRM. PCRM is eager to extoll the cancer-fighting benefits of a vegan diet; in recent years, their vegan nutrition classes have received direct support from the LAF. I am delighted that that support seems likely to continue.

Where the Lance Armstrong Foundation calls for early detection programs, for better support for those living with cancer, for immediate attention to the plight of the uninsured, I stand with them in full support. Where the LAF funds research on animal subjects, I withdraw that support. My adored father died of cancer last year, I held him in my arms on the day he passed. But if anything, his death only strengthened my opposition to animal research and testing. Even if it would have extended my Dad’s life, I remain steadfastly opposed to all forms of vivisection. I blogged that story here.

If you are considering donating to the LAF, please include a note with your donation asking that your money not be used for research programs except for those where animal subjects are never used. Lance Armstrong is a symbol of vibrant good health and radical commitment to personal transformation; I have long been in awe of his drive and his dedication. The LAF’s past support for PCRM programs is encouraging, and I don’t think it’s out of the question that the LAF could choose to fund research using non-animal subjects (a field growing by leaps and bounds). Your support for that shift may well help.

Whatever your views on animal testing, let’s applaud the commitment of the Lance Armstrong Foundation to helping people fight cancer and lead healthier, longer, happier lives. Let’s Live Strong indeed, and let’s Live Cruelty-Free to boot.

Virtue, desire, self-control: a long response to curiousgyrl

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 15, 2007
in Addiction and mental illness, Aggression and violence, Faith, Favorite posts 2007, Sexual ethics and transformation and Veganism
. 19 Comments

Blogging about feminism and veganism doesn’t seem to be winning me any friends. My feminist allies seem concerned that the way in which I write about veganism is likely to promote or trigger disordered eating. My vegan allies worry that I make veganism sound too much like a difficult challenge, and less of a celebration of diverse and exciting food choices. And those who are neither vegan nor feminist seem irked by the strong strain of self-righteous evangelism that seems to characterize most of my writing.

So I’ll admit I’m frustrated. I spend too much time, perhaps, trying to explain myself. I assume that folks don’t understand what it is that I believe and why, when the truth seems to be that they understand perfectly well what it is that I believe and why I believe it, and they think it’s wrong-headed and judgmental. At some point, does it stop being worth it to try and make the case for feminist/vegan/Christian living? Judging from most of the comments here and elsewhere, what I advocate sounds too joyless, too difficult, too Puritanical for most folks to stomach. (Even if I am, as I wrote in December, a Happy Puritan!) Priggishness is not seductive, and I’ll be clear — I am trying to be seductive on this blog. I want other folks to consider what I have considered, and to join me in making certain commitments. I clearly need to do some deep reflecting on how to make the case for this way of life in a way that is more light-hearted, more winsome, more attractive!

In the comments below last night’s post, curiousgyrl (who regularly participates at Alas) writes:

I’m a feminist and former vegan the main thing I dont get is why self-control is the central component, rather than conscious eating or ‘giving my self the gift of tasty, healthy, fair food.’

I also have to say that I hope your compassion for young women and feminism in general is not predicated on a similar foundation of self-denial and control–i haven;t read enough of your blog to know.

Oh, to be someone for whom justice came naturally! Oh, to never feel the pangs of longing for an older, more self-indulgent way of life!

Eating vegan is often a joy. I do eat a more diverse diet than I did before, and most of what I eat tastes yummy. I like it, and it makes me happy. (I’ve got the most amazing lentil soup for lunch today.) But sometimes, I still crave meat. Some vegans I’ve talked to never crave meat, some do all the time. For some, vegan living seems “natural”, while for others, it seems easy some days and hard on others.

This fits with my experience with other things. I loved alcohol. I loved pornography. I loved womanizing and taking drugs. I gave them all up in order to save my life and in order to live justly. None of these were easy surrenders. In my early days of sobriety, in my period of chosen celibacy and then later in my first truly monogamous relationships, I found the whole process of living “by the rules” to be absolutely exhausting. The cravings for alcohol, for illicit and exploitative sex, for drugs — all of these slowly, gradually abated. (Monogamy is not in the least bit difficult for me any longer.) But every once in a while, nine years sober, I look at a bottle of beer on a hot day and I feel the longing rise in me.

It is the same thing with meat and dairy. Most of the time, I am very happy with my vegan lifestyle. But every once in a while, I have a sudden overpowering urge to eat meat. Driving by the little taco stand on the corner of Fair Oaks and Villa this weekend, I smelled the grilled carne asada. Was I nauseated? No, I was turned on. I suddenly felt famished. I went home, had a vegan shake, and felt better very quickly. But for a few moments, the urge to eat meat was palpable and intense. It was pure self-discipline that held me back. For a few minutes, there was no joy in being vegan, only sacrifice.

When I went through my last divorce in 2002, I was devastated. My wife at the time — a fellow Christian — had decided she “wasn’t in love” with me, and wanted out. I had left my first two wives, but my third left me. We had done “everything right” (right down to waiting ’till the wedding night) according to my newfound evangelical faith, and wouldn’t you know it, the third marriage was even shorter than the first two. I was deeply and profoundly depressed, and one night in September ‘02, drove to the parking lot of a strip club in the San Fernando Valley. What I wanted, with every fiber of my being, was to go in, get hammered, and drool over naked women. I felt betrayed, because I had imagined that if I did everything “right”, and didn’t drink and didn’t use and didn’t cheat, then my marriage would naturally prosper. It didn’t turn out that way, and I was tempted, God was I tempted, to throw away what was at that time four hard years of therapy, sobriety, and self-control.

By the grace of God, I didn’t darken the doors of the club. I didn’t pick up a drink. I didn’t have a one-night stand. But God’s grace was manifest in my ability to squelch my own deep and driving desires to act out, to be selfish and self-indulgent and destructive. Self-control saved my sorry rear that night on Sepulveda Boulevard.

Curiousgyrl wants to know if my compassion for young women and my commitment to feminism is predicated on my own self-control. Well, my compassion is genuine. My spirit is committed, and has been committed most of my life, to living justly and kindly, to treating other human beings with respect and dignity. But where my spirit was willing, for years and years my flesh was very weak, as Paul so famously says. I did what I didn’t want to do over and over again, and I didn’t do what I wanted to do over and over again. There was a huge amount of wreckage created even as I longed to be a kind and gentle man.

But while my compassion isn’t rooted in my self-control, my ability to act compassionately is. That’s a vital distinction. My spiritual life, my relationship with God, gives me the strength to not do what I still periodically am tempted to do. I am happy to say that with the passage of time and my own spiritual growth (and perhaps my own ageing), the desire to do selfish, irresponsible, destructive things abates a little more each year. But I know in my heart that at my core, I am not inherently a kind and loving person. I am a narcissistic, self-involved person trying to become a gentle, devoted, empathetic husband, teacher, mentor, brother, son, family member (and someday, father.) I am not by nature a pacifist; I have a lot of violent rage within me, rage that with time and grace and prayer and self-discipline is being slowly dissipated.

I make no apologies for not being “naturally” good. Virtue is not the absence of temptation; indeed, if we were never ever tempted, how would we know what virtue is? Virtue is restriction and self-control in the face of temptation. Virtue lies in the conscious choice to practice what the Buddhists call lovingkindness with everyone (including the animals, including oneself) when one would rather hit them, steal from them, seduce them, use them, eat them.

Not everyone is like me. I am obviously an addictive personality. But there are a lot of folks out there who share this compulsive, driven character make-up. Shaming them for their desires won’t work. Neither, of course, will giving up on them and telling them that they can’t help themselves. I write for as wide an audience as possible, but my heart is with the addict, with the narcissist, with the violent, with the myopically self-absorbed. My real interest is in reaching those with the greatest capacity to do damage to women, to children, to men, to animals, to our planet — and in giving them a message, a message backed up by how I and others like me live — that change is possible. Saul the persecutor became Paul the apostle; had he not been so wickedly good at the former he might not have been so grace-filled as the latter. I am no St. Paul. But I am a man who knows what it is like to live ruled by impulse, and I know what it is like to live ruled by self-restraint and grace. And I know which man I like better, and I know which man my wife, family, students, friends, and chinchillas like better.

Veganism, feminism, eating disorders and guilt

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 14, 2007
in Animal Rights, Feminism, Food and Veganism
. 11 Comments

So the posts about veganism (and eating disorders) that dominated this blog last week are getting lots of hits, which is nice, and some fairly strong criticism. Maia at Alas, A Blog took issue today with what she sees as my obsession with self-control in this post of mine from one week ago.

Maia writes:

Eating disorders are not just about reasons, they’re not just about appearances, they’re often also about morality and control. Hugo doesn’t acknowledge that veganism can feed the food/control/morality connection, which is central to an eating disordered mindset. For someone with a tendency to trying to exert control through self-denial of food (which is rarely a small percentage of a female population), any language around veganism which emphasises self-control and morality is going to make things worse. I guess I’ve more experience of this than most; I’ve spent a lot of time in a scene where there are quite a few vegans and lots of young women. I’ve despaired every which way at the policing and limiting which young women do to each other can happen take on a radical hue, and still be just as damaging.

And in the comments, “batgirl” says:

Actually, a lot of people with EDs become vegan because it’s another way to control eating and because it’s more socially acceptable to be vegan than to be anorexic. If a person eats only salad during a social dinner, someone will nearly always ask, “Why are you eating only salad? Aren’t you still HUNGRY?” If the person says, “I’m vegan,” then questions usually relate only to veganism, but if the person gives any other answer, some rude asshole will accuse them of having an eating disorder and then everyone at the table will jump on the “omg you’re skinny you should eat blah blah!” bandwagon.

I see the problem. In my women’s history class, we talk about when “moral language” first became part of our food discourse. Though there are a few flashes of it in the nineteenth century (see the literature of the Seventh Day Adventists, Sylvester Graham, etcetera), it really only takes firm root in mainstream culture with the coming of the 1920s, when the first wave of the dieting craze hit American women. The 1920s is when we first see girls’ diary entries talking about “being good’ and “being bad” because of eating decisions. And of course, the goodness or the badness to which these women refer has nothing to do with the justice issues around how the food came to their table, but whether or not the food was fattening.

As a feminist deeply concerned with the self-image of the young women with whom I work, as a man who has battled his own eating disorder and exercise addiction, I am intensely aware of how destructive guilt over food choices can be. But as a vegan committed to animal rights, committed to saving animals from being slaughtered and eaten, I do think how we eat is sometimes a fundamentally moral decision. Most of my feminist colleagues agree that buying clothes made by women and children who are exploited in sweatshops has moral implications; why don’t we also concede that eating meat or poultry produced on factory farms raises similar moral questions?

The problem, of course, is that eating disorders and body dysmorphia are doing devastating damage to millions of women. There is a way in which what we eat — and what our bodies look like — is infinitely more personal than what we wear. Introducing a moral dimension to food or sex is different than injecting it into a discussion about what sort of cars we ought to drive or whether air travel is justifiable. Because feminists work so damned hard (as I blogged in my laudatory review last week of Courtney Martin’s book) to help women overcome their own self-loathing, it’s understandable that there’s huge resistance to the claims of veganism.

Even when vegans don’t explicitly challenge the eating habits of others, our very explanations of why we do what we do (or don’t eat what we don’t eat) often make other folks defensive. I’ve learned that no matter how polite my tone, when I tell some folks “No thanks, I’m vegan” they hear it as judgment directed at them. I don’t point accusingly at their burger, mind you, but when I am asked to explain why I became a vegan, I do mention a belief in preventing as much cruelty as possible undergirds the decision. And some folks argue with me, and others shrug, and some folks seem hurt. I don’t know how to set boundaries any more gently. I will not eat meat or dairy or eggs for the sake of people-pleasing, any more than I would accept an invitation to a bachelor party at a strip club for the sake of bonding with other men. And when I decline invitations to the latter (I’ve had a few in my day) and when I tell folks “I don’t eat anything that has a face or came from a creature that has a face”, they sometimes feel judged. And more often than not, I’m not trying to make them miserable — just trying to explain why it is I won’t join them in what they’re doing.

So Maia’s post has me convinced that there has to be a way for those of us who value both animal rights and feminism to advocate veganism without triggering those folks who have eating disorders. My pro-feminism wants a world where women live happily incarnate in their bodies, feeling healthy and happy at any size. My pro-feminism wants them to eat in response to the perceived needs and desires of the body, not to deny themselves because they believe that self-denial is, in and of itself, a fundamental virtue. I’ll say it again: self-control and self-denial are not prima facie goods. Where they become goods is when they help us not hurt other living things. My veganism does advocate self-restraint as a virtue when it comes to making food choices, not because I want women to be thin but because I want them to stop eating slaughtered flesh. (Yes, I would rather them eat free-range eggs than eggs from caged chickens; any step towards justice is in the right direction.)

I’ve called out the animal rights movement for its sexism before. Though I support the overall agenda of PETA, I called them out more than two years ago for their sexually exploitative advertising:


The problem with using sexuality to make a political point is that it reinforces the notion that the body is a commodity designed not for our own delight and for sharing pleasure with another, but for selling a product or an idea. When we commodify the bodies of living things — young women or animals — we see them as existing for our own use and we lose sight of their immense value as part of God’s complex and unique creation. Though the animal world is indeed violent, we humans do have the free will and the means to change our diet, change our habits, and change the way in which we interact with our fellow creatures. This means moving towards a cruelty-free life, and also, I think, towards a life where human and animal bodies are seen as precious and worthy of protection, not exploitation and commercialization.

My veganism and my feminism are both rooted in my understanding of Christ’s call to follow Him. They are both rooted in the prophet’s cry to “do justice and love mercy”. At times, the consistency between a commitment to women’s rights and animal rights is obvious; at other times, there is apparent dissonance. But with time and effort and a willingness to listen and explain, I am confident that the inconsistencies between the messages can be resolved.

Still more on the “myth of male weakness”: a longer explanation of what troubles me about Brad Wilcox

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 14, 2007
in Faith, Family, Marriage and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 16 Comments

Macht is worried that I am unfair to W. Bradford Wilcox, the UVA sociologist who has emerged as a leading defender of traditional marriage. I took issue with his Mother’s Day National Review article on Friday, and I wasn’t too happy with his stunning remark last month in First Things that Men’s comparatively fragile faith often depends on wifely encouragement to flower.

To be fair, I’ve said some nice things about Brad Wilcox before. In 2005, I reviewed his book, Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands. I found many interesting parts to it, and enjoyed that in this text, at least, Wilcox seemed less interested in reinforcing the “myth of male weakness.”

In his book (which I do recommend to “family scholars” types), Wilcox argues that religion — particularly Christianity, and particularly conservative evangelical and Catholic churches — does serve to “domesticate” men and make them more committed to family values. His thesis, which is apparently backed up by at least some evidence, is that men who are active in conservative churches are more likely to remain devoted to their children and their wives than men who are nominal believers or largely inactive in any religious community. I’m not going to contest that, primarily because in the book, Wilcox suggests that the primary “domesticating influence” is religion and spirituality. In other words, in his book, Wilcox doesn’t make the case that he made in both the National Review and the First Things articles: that wives are responsible for their husbands. In the FT piece, it is women who are responsible for helping their husbands’ faith flower; in the NRO piece, it is women who play the pivotal role in keeping a man invested in his children’s lives.

This is an old pattern with Wilcox. In a Touchstone article a few years ago, he writes of recent social history:

Between 1968 and 1993 the percentage of men 25 to 34 who were married with children fell from 66 percent to 40 percent. Accordingly, young men did not benefit from the domesticating influence of wives and children.

Instead, they could continue to hang out with their young male friends, and were thus more vulnerable to the drinking, partying, tomcatting, and worse that is associated with unsupervised groups of young men. Absent the domesticating influence of marriage and children, young men—especially men from working-class and poor families—were more likely to respond to the lure of the street.

Yes, he used the word “tomcatting.” Here, Wilcox mentions the domesticating influence of wives and children. He fails, as he repeatedly does, to note that the greatest brake on bad male behavior is the presence of strong male role models (something shown repeatedly by virtually all social science.) It is the absence of those strong male role models that is the real problem, not the “domesticating influence of wives.” Those men who fathered sons and then weren’t present in their lives were absent as the result of conscious choices to abandon their children, not as the result of female bad behavior. But in Touchstone, as elsewhere in his articles, Wilcox seems enchanted by the supernatural domesticating powers of wives. When those wives abandon their duty stations, it seems, everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Lord knows, men aren’t responsible.

I’m an active Christian, heavily involved in my church and in the world. There is no doubt in my mind that God actively intervened in my life years ago to turn me from a path of narcissistic self-destruction. That I didn’t kill myself, that I am not still addicted to drugs and alcohol, that I am a faithful, devoted husband and trusted mentor today — these are gifts of grace, gifts to which I had the good sense to respond. But my marriage today is not the cause of my “flowering faith”, my marriage is the consequence of having already made a commitment to God. In his repeated suggestion that wives play a pivotal role in bringing men into church, Wilcox reverses cause and effect. Men don’t become better Christians because of their wives, but they may darned sure become better husbands because of their faith. That’s not to say that a husband and wife don’t mutually support and encourage each other, because in the best marriages, they do — but that support and encouragement is not unidirectional, from woman to man. For authentic believers, the faith journey of either spouse is not contingent on the success or failure of their marriage.

Being married changes people, men and women alike. It happens in same-sex marriages as well as in other-sex marriages. Any time two people make an enduring commitment to one another, sharing beds and bathrooms and bank accounts, perhaps bringing in children as well, their lives will be transformed by the process. I’ve argued that marriage can be an excellent vehicle for personal transformation for those who participate in it, though (especially after a thorough chastening in recent weeks on this blog) I do acknowledge that folks can also grow and transform in a variety of different arrangements. Where I break with Brad Wilcox is not over our mutual conviction that marriage is often a very good thing. Where I break with Brad Wilcox is over his repeated implication (unless he is a sloppy writer, and I don’t think he is) that men need wives to help them flower as men of faith and as fathers. Given that he never applies the reverse to women, it seems clear that Wilcox buys into a myth of male weakness, and more troublingly, buys into the appalling notion that women are in some way responsible for the spiritual and parental development of their husbands. As a gender scholar, a Christian, a pro-feminist and a husband I reject that implication entirely.