When I was visiting my family last week for the Fourth of July, my Northern California cousins (who tend to regard the southern part of the state as a parched wasteland populated by the vacuous, the self-absorbed, and the undocumented) teased me a bit about the news of L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s divorce and extramarital affair with a television reporter. My family knows I’ve been a big supporter of the mayor in the past, and they were interested in my current thoughts.
I’ve been a fan of Villaraigosa for many years. Over a decade ago, one of his oldest daughters was a student in my women’s history class. She was my student at the same time that Villaraigosa was making his name as a key feminist ally; as a state assemblyman in the mid-1990s, Villaraigosa sponsored the bill that legalized breast-feeding in public. Under Villaraigosa’s bill, signed by Gov. Wilson and now California law, restaurants and other businesses could not force women to leave if they began to breastfeed their children. A seemingly small bit of progress, but it mattered a lot to have a dynamic young pol like Villaraigosa shepherd the bill through the legislature. His daughter was very proud of her Dad.
It was from his daughter that I also learned years ago what most people learned far more recently: that the future mayor had been born Antonio Villar, and when he married Corina Raigosa (not the mother of my former student), they blended their names rather than hyphenate. It seemed an extraordinarily feminist act for a young man from East Los Angeles. I ws deeply impressed by what I saw — and still see — as a defiant rejection of machismo and its attendant mores. I became a big Villaraigosa fan, supporting him in his failed 2001 and successful 2005 mayoral bids. Though I haven’t lived in the city limits of Los Angeles for many years, I spend so much time in L.A. I consider myself one of his constituents.
News broke weeks ago of his separation from his wife, followed last week by revelations he had been conducting an ongoing affair with a Spanish-language television reporter (whose beat had included Los Angeles politics). The story has been all over the airwaves and the local papers this week. And though there had long been signs that Villaraigosa’s private life was, well, colorful to the point of chaotic, I’ll admit I’m still disappointed and angry.
I agree with those who say that a politician’s private betrayals do not automatically signal an inability to lead. History shows us that leaders can be unfaithful to their spouses and be deeply and profoundly loyal to their countries (or cities). Some people do manage to compartmentalize very well, even if that compartmentalization costs their families dear. I don’t have the sense that if Villaraigosa cheats on his wife, it means he will automatically cheat on Los Angeles. To suggest otherwise is cheap rhetorical theatrics.
What makes me angry about Villaraigosa is that he spent years and years positioning himself as a pro-feminist. His voting record in the state legislature established him as a devoted progressive; he didn’t merely sign on to the “right” bills, he publicly and bravely carried them. He was excoriated and ridiculed for his stance on breast-feeding, but he pushed ahead. He made a lot of enemies, and he also made a lot of friends. As a feminist professor who teaches on a plurality-Latino campus, I was excited to see a Mexican-American man, a former bad boy from the mean streets of East L.A., seem so publicly and openly committed to egalitarian principles.
You see, as a white male who grew up in Carmel, raised by liberal college professors as my parents, I’m of limited value as a role model to my Latino students. My background is fundamentally alien to most of the young men and women with whom I work at PCC. Villaraigosa grew up where they grew up, with the same values and the same cultural expectations. After a series of what we all hoped were merely youthful indiscretions, he pulled his life together, becoming a union organizer, a politician, and a pro-feminist husband. His very name symbolized that he was a kind of New Latin Man. And I’ll admit I pointed to his name, to his public support for women’s rights, and his very identity as evidence that pro-feminist principles could be publicly embraced by Latino men.
Having an extramarital affair doesn’t prove that Villaraigosa’s feminism is all a sham. He would have to be been both monstrously calculating and extraordinarily prescient to know, back when he married Corina Raigosa in the 1980s while a young labor organizer, that blending their names and building his career as a fighter for gender justice would be the key to long-term political success. I’ve only met the mayor very briefly, back when he was still in the Assembly, and I can’t pretend to know his heart (though I know many people who do claim to know him very well.) My sense is — my hope is — that Villaraigosa’s public feminist commitments are genuine and sincere, rooted in conviction rather than in expedient ambition.
But the legitimate good that he has done is tarnished now. And more troublingly, Villaraigosa’s now very public infidelities (his affar with the TV reporter is hardly the first) does huge damage to the pro-feminist movement. When a man who openly allies himself with the movement for gender justice treats the women in his private life as disposable, he sends a message that there are limits to the possibilities for male transformation. When an ostensible pro-feminist like Villaraigosa is chronicly unfaithful and develops a reputation as a reckless womanizer, he reinforces a stereotype not only for Latinos but for all men. One commentator I heard on the radio said what I know many others are thinking: “The lesson from the mayor is that, well, most men will cheat if given the chance. And if you’re in power like the mayor is, you’re going to have a lot of chances. We shouldn’t be surprised.” I winced when I heard that.
Villaraigosa campaigned for office as a progressive; he campaigned for office not merely as a Latino, but as a new kind of Hispanic politician. He campaigned on a platform of gender justice. And while he never claimed to match his public pronouncements to his private commitments, his willingness to blend his name with his wife’s sent a strong signal that that was what he intended to do. When it became painfully clear that he had repeatdly fallen short of the mark, and indeed (according to some who know him well) had a chronic problem with women, the disappointment some of us feel is genuine. And the anger is genuine as well.
Over and over again, I work to challenge what I call the “myth of male weakness.” Over and over again, I suggest that authentic male feminism lies in part in treating women in your life as equals and partners, in treating them with respect. Pro-feminist men are committed to the principle that women ought to have access to the same opportunities, the same power, as their husbands and fathers and brothers. But it’s hollow to be committed to justice in the abstract when you can’t practice it in your own home. Cheating on your spouse publicly with younger women (or women of any age, for that matter) is an act of contempt for her. It sends the message that a commitment to justice can be trumped by the hormones, or by what the mayor has the gall to call “an affair of the heart”.
In the end, those of us who are publicly committed to feminism are rightly held to a high standard. In a sense, it’s right to be more disappointed when an avowed progressive feminist man fails to practice his principles in his personal life than when, say, someone who doesn’t see women as equals falls short. Many social conservatives (not all) do believe that “men are weak”, at least weaker than women when it comes to the capacity to resist sexual temptation. Pro-feminist men need to make it clear through their private lives that male weakness is a myth, just as they make it clear in their public pronouncements that they see women as radically equal with men. So many folks out there already believe that men who espouse feminist principles are political or sexual opportunists; we’re told over and over again that our commitment to egalitarianism is a thinly disguised strategy for getting women into bed. When a man who has publicly worked for women’s equality is repeatedly unfaithful to his wife and behaves recklessly with other women, he reinforces the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” stereotype. He does tremendous damage to the movement for gender justice.
I didn’t need Antonio Villaraigosa to be my role model. My commitments to my marriage and to my feminism aren’t contingent on him or any other leader. But I know many young men and women who did look up to him, and many who saw him as modeling not just a new face for Latinos in politics, but a new kind of man. The cynicism they are experiencing now, the disillusionment they are feeling now, the renewed sense that many have that “underneath it all, all men are dogs” — all this breaks my heart. And it makes me angry, very angry, at a man I still like very much but in whom I am profoundly disappointed.
I was talking recently with a friend of mine about a similar subject. I imagine it’s like when you have a family where everyone looks up to Dad and he can do no wrong. Then you find out he is cheating on Mom and has been for years. One thing that goes through the mind of a daughter in this situation is that, “Well, all men, no matter how wonderful they seem on the outside, are all the same - a bunch of lying, cheating dogs.” Then the woman brings this either consciously or subconsiously into her relationships with men, setting off a cycle of distrust and dysfunction, leading to geerally low expectations of men across the board.
How a man would process his fathers infidelity is something I can only guess at, but I imagine it would be a combination of anger at having hurt Mom and possibly breaking up the family, but I can also imagine a young man watching this and believing that men are supposed to and entitled to cheat on their wives and girlfriends if they so choose - like fidelity in one’s relationship is a huge favor a man might or might not do for his wife/girlfriend depending on what opportunities are in front of him. I believe there’s a Chris Rock joke on the subject.
But human nature, being what it is, you can’t convince people with moral arguments as to why they should behave with upstading morals all the time when your hormones arecalling you to do otherwise. So one solution (and this from this particular woman’s perspective, but many others as well) is not not invest too much in any one man, and always keep one foot out the door so you can more easily move on and find someone else when the first man eventually steps out on you.
In my mind, this is feminism in a nutshell: women being self sufficient (financially, emotionally, etc.) so that they do not have to depend on men who are likely to be unreliable no matter how wonderful they seem in the beginning.
Treifalicious, I’m not going to argue with your cynicism. At the same time, my own life experience and the experience of many men I know suggests that fidelity and devotion and commitment can trump hormones, even among the young. Human nature is never “what it is”; we have choices, some hard, some easy, but always choices.
“this is feminism in a nutshell: women being self sufficient (financially, emotionally, etc.) so that they do not have to depend on men who are likely to be unreliable no matter how wonderful they seem in the beginning.”
I agree with half of your statement, Triefa. While basic feminism serves to encourage women to be financially and emotionally self-sufficient, saying men are “likely to be unreliable no matter how wonderful they seem in the beginning” is reinforcing what Hugo calls the “myth of male weakness.” That definition of feminism encourages distrust in men, and also reinforces the stereotype that “feminists hate men” or “feminists think they are better than men.” (I had a student come see me for tutoring today, and those were the first two questions he presented to me when I told him I was a feminist — he was doing a research paper on gender myths). I am a feminist not because I have lost faith in men. I am a feminist because I (as most feminists do) love men, and I would like to live in a world where both genders are equally encouraged to reach their full potential.
Mermade — dang, sister, you’re making me awful proud.
What does real damage to the pro-feminist movement is standing by people like Villar, especially after him betraying you. Imagine he was a Republican, or some other kind of conservative. Would you be as generous?
Good Lord, man. You’ve said it yourself - hell, Billy Shakespeare said it years ago in Antony’s eulogy of Ceasar, “The good that men do is oft interred with their bones, an d the evil they do lives on after…” Regardless of anything else, he’s no longer effective. He’s lost his moral authority. Hell, *HE* still has his job. SHE is suspended - I mean, jeez - her career is over. How fair is that? Even I think this a crock of dung.
This is what got me away from the damn Republicrat parties. Hell, it doesn’t matter what is done - it matters who is doing it. Show some principle, dammit. Treat him like a Bob Packwood, or a Newt Gingrich with they way they treated wives and women.
Who knows? People might think you really have a principle and mean it.
Gonz, I’ve excoriated the man for several paragraphs. What more would you like me to do? Calling for his resignation makes no sense — it just invites the politics of personal destruction to get ramped up a notch.
Packwood was a harasser. Gingrich is many things, but I’ve never shredded him here as I’m shredding Villaraigosa — indeed, I expect those who disavow feminist principles to treat women shabbily. I expect feminist men to do better.
I’m skeptical. I think a lot of male infidelity comes from a double standard, for sure. A lot of men cheat and treat women as disposable. But that isn’t necessarily what’s going on what a man cheats. Women cheat, a lot. And they’re hardly acting from privilege. It’s hard to say from the outside if a cheating man is one who’s acting like women are disposable or some person going through a non-gendered dissatisfaction with his relationship. Some people are probably not meant to be monogamous, either, and I think ours would be a better society of people who don’t feel monogamous didn’t inflict themselves on those of us who prefer it.
Amanda, it’s pretty clear to me that Connie Raigosa feels as if she’s been treated as if she’s disposable.
Women do cheat, but when they do we rarely excuse that behavior with the “all women are dogs” line. The privilege lies in the certainty that many men have that their behavior will be co-signed and excused.
Touching on what Mermade said, I’m somewhat halfway between. I think that human beings are much likelier to live up to higher standards if they are not in a position of power over each other. It’s not a matter of liking or disliking men, but knowing that men will be better if they don’t have power over women. Not perfect, but better on average. I don’t think infidelity will disappear by a long shot, but I do think that a lot of men who cheat flagrantly would probably reconsider if they were in marriages where women were not dependent on them financially or for social reasons.
But some still will. Some women cheat. I’ve kinda sorta cheated, and it was very situation-dependent, a reaction in fact to a head trip I was getting from a boyfriend who was lording male privilege over me. But I’m usually quite satisfied in monogamy. But the experience makes me sympathetic to the reasons that someone might cheat, because he/she lives in a society where ending a relationship is treated like failure, monogamy is prized, and addressing what makes you unhappy in a current relationship might not seem like an option at the time.
Women do cheat, but when they do we rarely excuse that behavior with the “all women are dogs” line. The privilege lies in the certainty that many men have that their behavior will be co-signed and excused.
100% agreed. Any man who hides behind that excuse deserves to be roundly condemned for his excuse-making.
I don’t doubt Connie Raigosa feels disposable, but again, I can’t say if it’s an interpersonal issue or not. It’s like the Clintons; Bill Clinton cheated, but I would deny outright that he treats his wife as disposable.
Amanda, I’m with you on your first paragraph completely. I’m not sure that there are ever justifiable reasons to cheat (and I say that as someone who was chronically unfaithful in my relationships for years). I certainly understand the temptation to cheat.
It’s true that someone who has the agency to leave a bad relationship has less excuse to cheat than someone who is trapped by financial or legal reasons. But that doesn’t mean that infidelity is an acceptable response to poor communication. I’m very anti-infidelity — and quite pro-divorce. If it really isn’t working, walk. Go. But don’t engage in subterfuge and dishonesty.
Creating marriages/monogamous partnerships where each partner has the resources to leave when and if they are mistreated or cheated on is a vital feminist task. I am confident we can agree on that.
As for the Clintons, I think the Compartmentalizer in Chief is capable of treating Hillary with stunning contempt in his sexual life while admiring and adoring her in other aspects of their marriage. I think their marriage is a genuine love match, but he’s also made the decision — and it is a decision — to be repeatedly unfaithful to her physically while remaining deeply emotionally attached to her. I’ve known more than a few men who pulled off that trick.
Oh definitely. Walk first. I learned that the hard way. I think that a lot of infidelity, though, does come back to the idea that people have an obligation to treat their primary relationship as a burden, and desire for others as something they have to be strong against. It sort of breeds a tendency to see your spouse as an obstacle. If you feel free to choose your partner every day, then other people are more an idle thought rather than a temptation.
Ah, Amanda, you’ve given me an idea for a future post with this:
…people have an obligation to treat their primary relationship as a burden, and desire for others as something they have to be strong against. It sort of breeds a tendency to see your spouse as an obstacle
Let me think about it.
Granted that SoCal is vacuous, Hugo, but why didn’t you throw Gavin Newsom rightbackatcha? The guy had a fling with his best friend’s wife.
Oh, I did, mythago, I did. Newsom burned all of his capital with that one. Another bad 1967er.
I have to admit, the womanizing Latino stereotype is one I actually hold. Of course, I also hold it of my own ethnic group (Greek-American). And of other Mediterranean countries. Not so much that I assume that they’re the only ethnicities where men cheat, as that I have the expectation that the sexual double standard is particularly strong in those cultures.
And then I remember all those regular old non-ethnic evangelical Christians going through the ritual of purity rings for their daughters only, and the various womanizing WASP politicians I’ve heard about, and I think that I could be wrong; maybe WASPs have just as many pockets of double standard as everyone else, just expressed a little differently.
Oh, believe me, OKOP men cheat. It’s just not talked about.
“At the same time, my own life experience and the experience of many men I know suggests that fidelity and devotion and commitment can trump hormones, even among the young” - Hugo Schwyzer
I realize that I sound cynical and I have been trying for the last few years to divest myself of this and really believe that fidelity and devotion and commitment can trump male hormones. I do really hope to find someone who can rise above his hormones over the long term (i.e., till death do we part) and not just for a few years. I also realize that what I did say reinforces teh myth of male weakness as you put it. But this myth exists because of the situations people observe and experience in real life. Moreover, I do believe that this myth of male weakness is basically a way to excuse bad behavior.
I read somewhere (I thought it was here but maybe it was elsewhere) that American culture essentially tells men that they are not suposed to like being married, and how it is a form of male bonding to refer to one’s wife as the “ball amd chain” and to conatantly complain about not being able to sleep with whoever they want. Men who do love their wives and can’t wait to get home to them are made to feel like thay are not as masculine as other men. This needs to change, but how?
What is OKOP?
Our Kind of People. Read here: http://hugoschwyzer.net/2006/06/02/okop-nokop-and-oscar-a-long-post-about-class-family-and-pride/
As for changing the image, that’s what we need to do one man at a time. It’s what I’m building my career (and a book, Lord willing) around.
One man at a time, effective as it may be in the long run, is simply not enough for the vast majority of women who have to deal with a culture unfriendly to committed monogamous relationships and the legions of unreformed men out there right now.
Most social justice movements begin slowly, in the face of hostility and cynicism…
I expect those who disavow feminist principles to treat women shabbily. I expect feminist men to do better.
And that’s a problem. Feminists grow up in the same sexist atmosphere as non-feminists, and internalize many of the same toxic messages. Perhaps if we instead assumed that feminists not only receive but put into practice the same “isms”, these behaviors can be more easily, more rapidly addressed, and thus unlearned.
Like Amanda, I’m not confident Villaraigosa’s infidelity has anything to do with how he views women in general. But if it does, perhaps it is more related to the madonna-whore syndrome—where a man has the ability to have a deep and abiding respect for women in general or in particular, but only if he does not sleep with them. And yes, it’s possible for an avowed feminist to have those issues. We see it among women feminists too—the “choice for me, but not for thee” as Amanda succinctly put it.
Also, isn’t it really bigoted to bring Villaraigosa’s ethnicity into it? What does that have to do with anything? His action hasn’t “reinforced” any stereotype; the stereotype is pre-existing and will continue to exist for as long as bigots keep espousing it. Methinks WASP men are every bit as likely as Latinos or us Mediterranean types to cheat; they just have better PR (which tends to come with political and social power).
La Lubu, I doubt anyone has better PR than Antonio Villaraigosa. I teach on a 40% Latino campus — the disappointment I report is one I hear voiced by Latinos in particular. See here:
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_6325195
Oh definitely. Walk first. I learned that the hard way. I think that a lot of infidelity, though, does come back to the idea that people have an obligation to treat their primary relationship as a burden, and desire for others as something they have to be strong against. It sort of breeds a tendency to see your spouse as an obstacle. If you feel free to choose your partner every day, then other people are more an idle thought rather than a temptation.
Absolutely. I think this is a big deal. I’m quite sure it was behind my betrothed’s eventual unfaithfulness. She quickly decided that having pledged anything to me made me a burden. Once that happened, it was an inevitable decline. I wish she had communicated, or at least walked, first — but what is what is.
This is disappointing but for politicians I think policy absolutely trumps their personal relationships as well as their rhetoric. For example: Republican anti-worker, anti-family pro-corporation policy compared with their “family values” rhetoric is a far worse form of hypocrisy than the infidelities and persistent divorces of Gingrich and his ilk.
Infidelity just makes a better story, a sexier one, an easier one to follow anyway, than a betrayal of principles or promises that actually effects the public in a tangible way.
Also, isn’t it really bigoted to bring Villaraigosa’s ethnicity into it?
I’m torn, there. It’s only natural that people will be glad to see a rising star from their group, and then disappointed if that rising star doesn’t, after all, have all the qualities you want to show up those other people who look down on you. So of course there are going to be some Latinos who are especially disappointed in Villaraigosa right now.
But I also remember when Agnew resigned, watching the TV cameras go into Greek neighborhoods to get a reaction, and feeling frustrated - I never liked the guy, never supported him, and didn’t feel he particularly had much to do with me just because we were both Greek-American. So why should the fact that he turned out to be corrupt reflect on me at all?
Methinks WASP men are every bit as likely as Latinos or us Mediterranean types to cheat; they just have better PR
You’re probably right.
the disappointment I report is one I hear voiced by Latinos in particular.
But the disappointment expressed in that article is different from the disappointment expressed in your post. The people quoted in that article weren’t thinking that Villaraigosa’s actions dealt a body blow to feminism; they seemed concerned that a man who would abandon his wife so willfully would not be altogether concerned about remaining faithful to his constituency, either. That his actions revealed a character they no longer felt willing to vote for. What I gathered from your post was an air of exceptionalism—that Villaraigosa is a disappointment because he was supposed to be the “different” one. Different from whom? Different from other Latino men, or different from men?
It’s only natural that people will be glad to see a rising star from their group, and then disappointed if that rising star doesn’t, after all, have all the qualities you want to show up those other people who look down on you.
Bingo!! It’s a self-defense mechanism against bigotry. But make no doubt—it’s a response to the pre-existing bigotry. (Remember, you’re talking to a woman whose very ethnicity is practically synonymous with organized crime.)
What I take issue with is the very notion of exceptionalism—that there are those of us who need to come up with “rising stars” in order to combat the undeserved negative imagery we have courtesy of prejudice. I don’t think it’s an effective tactic for dealing with bigotry, because the “rising stars” of exceptionalism either become fallen stars, or “exceptions to the rule.”
Excellent blog, Hugo. I fully understand your disappointment, and your statement: “When a man who openly allies himself with the movement for gender justice treats the women in his private life as disposable, he sends a message that there are limits to the possibilities for male transformation.”
It goes a long way to describe how I feel about “Mr. Sad Sack.” A man I felt I could count on to seek a woman in his life who was capable of being his full and equal partner–instead turned to the easy path of choosing a partner whose chief attributes are youth, attractiveness and worshipful naivete. At least that’s how I see it.
Also, this particular woman was compromising her journalistic principles by attempting to report on the man with whom she was having an affair. She was supposedly largely recused from his beat, but apparently not in entirety, or she wouldn’t be in trouble in that area. What I don’t understand is what ever made her think that becoming intimately involved with someone she reported on could ever be OK.
“… to seek a woman in his life who was capable of being his full and equal partner …”
—-
What does that mean exactly? Full and equal partner.
Take a look at a WHOLE lot of marriages, and you basically see a sex-for-money/status bargain.
He’s doing his job by providing status and money. Is she pulling her weight by being attractive?
Villaraigosa is a human being. What I care about is his voting record in the past, present and future. At the end of the day, it’s not his extramarital affairs that are going to help maintain women’s rights. It’s his voting record.
If he’s rattled on about the evils of infidelity, then he deserves to get canned for being a blatant hypocrite. If he hasn’t yammered about adultery, leave him be.
Just because someone is a feminist does not make them immune to cheating or making mistakes. It does not. Why should his record be tarnished now? That’s similar to people that would bring up infidelity in order to tarnish MLK’s record.
Americans’ obsession with monogamy and het. marriage is tiresome. I agree with Amand on that regard 100%.
Get rid of monogamy and get rid of this ridiculous obsession with politicians’ sex lives. I did monogamy and it sucks. Never again. I like the idea that I can play around if the urge strikes me. And it does once in a while. I see nothing wrong with that. The only person that it should concern is my life partner.
Just once I wish I could hear a politician say that monogamy sucks. Relationships should not be based on sex.
If monogamy sucks, it may have more to do with the relationship and not monogamy itself. In my experience and that of my friends, if one is really in love you just CANNOT tolerate the thought of your beloved sleeping with someone else. Likewise, if one is really in love, one will not WANT to sleep with someone else. Even if the thought crosses your mind, it will not be strong enough for you to actually do something about your temptation.
I like to think that ultimately this is the same for men as for women.
But Catty is right that it’s ultimately all about his voting record at the end of the day. That being said, I have heard that there are ordinary workplaces where if you are cheating on your spouse (and not necessarily with a coworker) and your coworkers know about it it can and will affect your career negatively.
I read this article about Villaraigosa losing Latina support over this affair: http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_6331068?nclick_check=1
I think Latinas are basically taking this personally, looking at Villaraigosa and seeing that man that maybe left them or their friend for a younger woman. Perhaps this is a consequence of peopel feeling connected to their elected officials as opposed to them being horses in a race or something. Moreover, it seems the Latino/a community thinks a lot like many other conservative Christians where one’s personal behavior is a reflection fo what their tethics would be in office.
Maybe, as liberal non-Latino/as (and I as a non-Californian), we are speaking from a certain amount of diatance and privilage in saying that people should focus on his record in office and not what he does in bed (no matter how right we believe we are) and how we are so sick of Americans obsesing about heterosexual marriage and monogamy.
We may think it’s bullshit but for them its very, very real and we should try to respect that.
Maybe it’s because most of my latino friends are neither religious or conservative- so they pretty much have the same outlook I do regarding politicians.
I’m not saying that people can’t or shouldn’t take it personally- but at the end of the day, I do think this hand-wringing is counterproductive and sets people up for failure.
In this day and age, Roosevelt or Kennedy would have neeeever gotten elected.