Archive for September, 2007

Saturday Night Random Ten

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 29, 2007
in Friday Random Ten
. 0 Comments

After a very busy and topsy-turvy week that saw us in three countries on three continents, we had a very relaxing Saturday at home today. I treated myself, and watched eight straight hours of college football, something I doubt I’ll have the time to do again this autumn. I felt decadent doing so, and I felt overjoyed after my Golden Bears won for the first time in Eugene, Oregon since I was a twenty-year old junior at Cal.

In honor of this fine victory, a late Friday Random Ten. Not much explanation needed, save that #2 appears because I recently downloaded my favorite national anthems (the old Soviet one; Haydn’s original tune from the Emperor’s Quartet for Austria; France, Israel, South Africa.)

1. “Stupid Boy”, Sarah Buxton
2. “The Soviet National Anthem”, the Red Army Chorus
3. “Who Knew”, Pink
4. “Come to Bed”, Gretchen Wilson
5. “I’ve Always Loved You”, Third Day
6. “Windfall”, Son Volt
7. “Dimbran”, Catatonia
8. “Talk to Me of Mendocino”, Kate and Anna McGarrigle
9. “Anyway”, Martina McBride
10. “Holiday Inn”, Elton John

A long post on feminism, BDSM, consent, and constructive suffering

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 28, 2007
in BDSM, Feminism, Sexual ethics and transformation and Sexuality
. 24 Comments

Though most of the letters I get from readers revolve around the same few issues (older men/younger women; student crushes on teachers; chinchilla care), every once in a while I’ll get a spate of queries about another topic. And on my return from Israel, I found no fewer than three emails in my inbox on the topic of BDSM and feminism. This same week, a student obliquely raised the subject in my conference hours.

I don’t do this often, but let me suggest a quick perusal of the generally work-safe Wikipedia entry on BDSM. It’s a non-titillating, and inoffensive introduction to a world that makes many folks uncomfortable (in more than one sense, I suppose.)

Two of the three emails I received were from young women; one from a man in his thirties. All three are self-described feminists, and all three are involved — in one way or another — in the BDSM subculture. And their questions were all essentially the same. “Caitlin” (21) wrote:

I’m a women’s studies major at (mid-size university in Ohio)…The only sexual experiences I have ever had with another person that felt safe and pleasurable… were in situations where I was a submissive. I’m not into heavy pain, but I connect my own arousal to being dominated and controlled. I know it’s my “choice” to participate in this scene, but I feel as if I’m betraying a basic feminist principle by doing so.

How can I distinguish between what I really want and what society has acculturated me to want? If I can’t discern the difference, am I a bad feminist? Do feminists have to have vanilla (non-BDSM) sex?

I should add that I was raised in a liberal Catholic home, and though I don’t go to church anymore, I still believe in God. I’d be interested in a feminist Christian perspective on BDSM, because I haven’t seen anything like that.

The questions in Caitlin’s middle paragraph are essentially the same ones the other two emailers asked, and they jive with what my student was asking me this week.

I have no personal experience in the BDSM scene or the fetish world. Though I often allude to a colorful past, I confess that even in my wildest periods of youthful indiscretion and experimentation, I shied away from that subculture. I’ve long known — ever since I was a child — that I have, for lack of a better phrase, a mean streak. I’ve worked all my life to keep it in check; much of my passion for feminism and animal rights work is linked, on a not-very subconscious level, to my own awareness that my capacity for cruelty is very real. God and I have done some amazing work together; the gentleness that I think many others can see in me today is rooted entirely in my effort and His grace, not in my nature. Stepping into the world of BDSM would, for me, have been to tempt something that even at my most reckless I was not ready to tempt.

That said, I’ve had many colleagues and students and fellow feminist activists who were involved (to one degree or another) in the world of domination and submission. Indeed, when I think about it, it’s remarkable how many men and women I’ve known who spent time in that subculture. Going back to my years as an undergraduate, I can recall a series of conversations on the question of whether or not BDSM was compatible with feminist commitments. Twenty years ago — even ten years ago — I was certain that an authentic devotion to public equality couldn’t possibly coexist with a delight in private transactions in which sexual power is surrendered and taken. But I’ve met too many women whose public “feminist credentials” were impeccable and whose freely chosen delight in submission was equally sincere.

I got a note last year from a former student. I looked for it in preparation for this post but couldn’t find it. She’s worked as a submissive fetish model, and just finished her MA in women’s studies. She remembered that when she was my student, I had made some remark (long since forgotten by me) that she perceived as “closed-minded” about the BDSM world. It had taken her a while to get around to correcting me, but correct me she did. Part of what she said in her email I remember well, though I’m paraphrasing rather than quoting in the hope of conveying the gist of what she said:

Growing up as a teenage girl in my society, I felt my power taken away from me by everything and everyone: peers, parents, culture, men. No one ever asked me what I wanted. It was only in the ’scene’ that I found a voice. I’ve never known people as respectful, as caring, as concerned with my feelings and my own boundaries as the people I’ve found in BDSM. Because we find pleasure in pushing limits, we take greater care than anyone else does to make sure that we respect each other’s boundaries. Yes, as a submissive, I’ve found pleasure and I’ve found a voice. Of course it’s been cathartic to be involved in this world, but it’s not just about healing the damage done to me as a girl. It’s brought me healing and joy.

I remember she pointed out to me that as an endurance runner, I obviously was aware of the close relationship between suffering and pleasure. She even used a phrase I first heard used by one of my old running buddies: “constructive suffering.” Reflecting on her note, I admitted that taking my body to its often painful limits has not only been empowering for me, it has helped me to heal much of my own physical self-loathing. The greatest and most enduring payoff of endurance work hasn’t been the eradication of fat, because fat isn’t the enemy. The greatest payoff of marathoning hasn’t been the lowered resting heart rate or the endorphin high. The greatest payoff has been the end to the dualism that sees the body as separate, disconnected, and alien from me. Running — especially hard, painful running — has helped me understand what it means to be an incarnate spirit, a soul and a body joined together. And I’ve become convinced that for many men and women, participating enthusiastically in BDSM can bring about the same sort of epiphany.

I’m a great believer that we’re all called to work for public justice. I’m also convinced that a commitment to public justice needs to be built on a foundation of private virtue. I don’t think compartmentalization is healthy. And until relatively recently, I would have had a hard time believing that a “feminist submissive” wasn’t an oxymoron. But if, as my trusted sources tell me, real integrity and caring and concern for “voice” and boundaries not only exists in but is treasured by the BDSM community, then I think it’s possible to say that feminism is indeed compatible with this often misunderstood subculture.

Those who are better informed than I are welcome to weigh in.

Sowing seeds but never harvesting: a polemic about teaching and an attack on the educrats

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 27, 2007
in Pasadena City College and Teaching
. 12 Comments

The older I get and the more traveling we do, the longer it takes me to get over jet-lag. Some aspects of traveling have gotten easier with age (I have far fewer problems with my ears on landings, for example, than I did when I was young), but the jet-lag issue seems to get worse and worse. I’ve tried all the tricks and the remedies, and so far, no luck. We got back on Monday, and the last three nights I’ve had trouble getting through the night. I’m pretty beat this morning. Of course, I didn’t help my own cause by jumping back into a regular work-out regimen.

One advantage of being jet-lagged was that I woke up early enough to watch most of the women’s World Cup semi-final between Brazil and the USA. I’d been rooting for England in this tournament, of course, but once they were ousted I came back loyally to the Americans. Today’s game was a bit of a stunner; though the sending-off of Shannon Boxx was uncalled for, the USA was outplayed in virtually every aspect of the game by the creative Brazilians, whose women’s team is on the verge of being as dominant as the men’s. The decision to bench the wonderful American keeper, Hope Solo, for a frankly over-the-hill Briana Scurry was mystifying. Still, it was entertaining enough to watch.

On Tuesday, the college held its twice-yearly faculty “in-service education” day. The theme: “improving student learning outcomes” as part of the transition from a “teaching institution” to a “learning community.”

For the last decade, the administration has been eager to impress upon the faculty that we are not merely teachers but “learning facilitators.” Learning, we are told, is a collaborative process, more rich and democratic than the top-down method of traditional teaching. Few of us unblessed by graduate degrees from Schools of Education have any real idea what that means, and so the powers-that-be decree that we have these regular indoctrination sessions. The untenured faculty among us are advised to attend and feign earnestness, while the tenured folk hang around to see what sort of a free lunch will be put on. It’s rarely any good.

On Tuesday, I was handed a little yellow binder stuffed with handouts of articles from various education journals. I got a free pencil (alas, already sharpened) which had “PCC Flex Day 2007: The Passion for Learning” emblazoned upon it. In my folder was a little self-survey, so that I could discover my own unique learning style, and then share it with my colleagues during the stimulating “break-out sessions” that were sure to follow. After all, the educrats opine, we can’t really be effective “learning facilitators” until we become aware of our own learning styles — and how our own “ways of learning” may be obstacles to understanding the needs of students (sorry, “fellow learners”) who have different styles.

On the agenda for the day, the following:

Lunch (12:00-1:00)

Turn in your program assessment form at your food station to get your meal!

The Ed.Ds were on to us! They knew we came for free food, and so a crackdown had been implemented: no ticky, no lunchie. No self-assessment, no stir-fry over rice. Luckily enough, I had packed some trail mix, a nectarine, and a vegan protein bar, so the blackmail didn’t work on me.

Seriously, of course, the real reason for all of this wallowing in self-congratulatory edu-speak is that the community colleges, like most public institutions, are worried about accountability. Accountability is the buzzword of the decade; the taxpayers (and their duly elected representatives) want to know that they’re getting something in return for their billions. That’s not unreasonable; I’m no longer inherently opposed to being held accountable. (This is a new development in my life, as my parents, siblings, and ex-wives will tell you.) So the educrats have decided that the best way to prove accountability is to create measurable, testable, “student learning outcomes” (SLOs).

The longer I teach, the more convinced I become that worrying too much about assessing learning is one of the chief enemies of inspiring our students to want to learn. Look, I want all my students to pass their final exams, get good grades, and remember what it is that they’ve learned. But I’m teaching history, not providing a certificate in refrigerator maintenance. While my final exams assess what, on one given day, a student has managed to memorize, they don’t assess learning because real learning happens long after the student has left the class.

Especially in my gender studies courses, I know full well that it will take many of my students years and years to connect what they’ve learned in class to their own lives. Often, the epiphanies and break-throughs that matter will happen long after students have left this campus, long after they’ve moved out of reach of the educrats and their assessment tools. I always compare the job of a good teacher (I’m not a learning facilitator) to a gardener or a farmer. I know it sounds patriarchal, deeply Western, and unfashionably hierarchical, but there it is: I sow seeds in the soil of students’ hearts and minds. (Some of the time, my seed falls on rock, other times it ends up in the thistles, but some of it ends up in nice, loamy earth.) And here’s the thing: I don’t often get to see what blossoms and what doesn’t, because whatever flowers do bloom will generally do so months or years after the student has left my class.

So if the politicians and the educrats want to assess my skills as a teacher, they need to do more than look at my students’ test results. We all know that students can cram in information for a December final — and most of the facts they memorized will have vanished from their heads by Super Bowl Sunday. But a new way of seeing the world, of seeing, say, gender roles and relationships in a new light — that may well endure even though there are no reliable ways of assessing that sort of internal transformation. The most important things my students learn in my classes can’t possibly be measured by any government-provided instrument. I’ve been teaching long enough to have students come back years and years after taking a class; some just mouth platitudes such as “I really liked your class” but a few say wonderful, heartening, reassuring things; they tell me in detail how something I taught them helped change the direction of their lives. Most of the time, they’ll say something like “I didn’t realize it at the time, but when you said X, it started a whole new way of thinking about the world.”

There’s no SLO that can measure that.

Look, I know who pays my salary. If the state legislature and their Ed.D flacks want me to tweak my syllabi to emphasize the vocabulary of accountability, I’m happy to do it. But I’m still going to teach — primarily through lecture in an ancient, top-down, one-sided way. I’m going to pour out my enthusiasm and my passion, laboring in a field filled with rocky soil and pockets of rich earth. And for the most part, I won’t be around to see the harvest. That’s what it means to teach.

Thursday Short Poem: McEwan’s “Unrhyming Pop Song”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 27, 2007
in Poetry
. 1 Comment

I found this Ian McEwan (yes, that Ian McEwan) offering on the Guardian website last week. It made me happy. And in honor of the mistrial declared yesterday in the murder trial of the architect of some of the greatest pop songs of the last century, it seems a good choice.

Unrhyming Pop Song

What was that month we said we’ll always remember?
It was June.

And what was the bird we said stood for our love?
A pigeon.

We lay in a mown field under a full moon.
That was May.

Who was the one who said she’d always be true?
Actually, it was me.

I said, It will all work out fine, baby.
You said, Perhaps.

That day in June you decided we must part,
It broke my mind.

Nice how our names rhymed - now it’s Daniel
And Janice.

And since that time I’ve been profoundly blue
All because of us.

And it just won’t rhyme any more. Nothing rhymes.
Hard days!

The “expectation of desperation”: a response to Dave about women, time, dating, and the right to one’s own life

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 26, 2007
in Relationships
. 19 Comments

While we were away, a number of emails piled up in my inbox from various folks seeking input on gender issues (usually, of course, on the “older men, younger women” theme).

On a different note, “Dave” writes:

I’m three years out of a divorce, a good guy, a dad, sweet, generous, and back into dating.

Many, most, if not all of the women I’m interested in are so busy that they have a hard time shoehorning me into their schedules. They act like I’m a good catch, but they don’t carve out time for me. In the worst case, I spend time with them as they are doing other activities.

I just deferred a meeting with an online acquaintance because the only free time in her schedule for the next three weeks was this Saturday afternoon. I did meet a woman I liked who seems to have a good balance in her life of quiet and schedule, but she is 15 years older than me (I’m 45). Do I need to get more of a sample before I draw conclusions about this?

Yes, I was with a woman before who scheduled 100% of her time so that she wouldn’t have to pay attention to me except to tell me what to do. Am I subconsciously returning to my pattern, or is it just a fact of life that women overprogram themselves? Should I resign myself to being a slot on someone’s planner because no one is left who leaves the weekend open Just To Be?

Well, yes, Dave, you do need much more of a sample before drawing sweeping conclusions. I want to give Dave the benefit of the doubt, too, and assume he’s not expecting contemporary single women to leave their calendars wide open in the hopes a suitor will call. But the notion that the pursuit of a relationship ought to be someone’s chief priority, that a date is reason alone to cancel all other non-romantic plans, is rooted in a hopelessly outdated idea about how single women are supposed to live their lives. Call it the “expectation of desperation”; I’m a bit worried that Dave might expect the women he’s dating to be desperate enough (or grateful enough for his attention) to reschedule everything for him.

I don’t think Dave is coming from a place of pure male entitlement, but I’m afraid that’s how his note reads. He writes:

They act like I’m a good catch, but they don’t carve out time for me. In the worst case, I spend time with them as they are doing other activities.

Well, in the early stages of dating, that’s not necessarily such a bad thing. (I’m assuming that Dave’s first dates don’t involve accompanying the women he’s met online on their trips to the grocery store and the dry cleaners.) Dave is 45 and a divorced father; I’m assuming he’s dating women more or less around his own age in similar circumstances. It can’t be much of a newsflash to anyone that custodial single parents are generally very busy, with very little free time. “Carving out time” for a new relationship is something that any single parent generally does carefully and cautiously for obvious reasons.

And of course, a great many women are rightly wary of men who expect their girlfriends to “drop everything” to devote themselves to maintaining a relationship. We still live in a culture that, alas, defines a woman’s worth by her romantic status. We still live in a society that teaches women that to be single (”alone”) is in some sense to have failed in one’s obligation to be mated to a man. A great many women have had the bitter experience of sacrificing their friendships and their professional or academic goals for an ultimately unsuccessful romantic relationship. Most women have had female friends who “disappeared” every time they started dating someone new, throwing all of their energy into a romance with one man. And many of these women have been badly burned, not just because these love affairs often didn’t work out, but because the whole experience of “vanishing into a relationship” is so disheartening and discombobulating.

It thus ought not to be surprising, Dave, that so many women (and men too) who have a bit of life experience are wary of “losing themselves”! They’re also wary of controlling and possessive partners, and I must admit, Dave, that those were the two words that first popped into my head as I read your note. That doesn’t mean that that caution will be permanent. As you move from the “just getting to know you” stage to the “I really want to be with you long-term” stage, probably the amount of time that you’re willing to offer to the relationship will increase. If a woman you’re dating wants to move, say, towards marriage with you, wants to be in a monogamous relationship with you, and still only wants to see you one Saturday afternoon a month, then there’s a problem.

In a world filled with men who expect women to cater to them, it’s not unreasonable for sensible women to be interested in discovering one thing about a prospective male partner: is this guy going to be able to handle the reality that I have a life separate from his? Is he going to try and smother me, or is he going to honor the fact that I can be in love with and devoted to someone and at the same time have a rich life that has nothing to do with him?

The line often attributed to Rilke is relevant here:

A good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude.

It’s not rational or healthy to expect someone you’re dating to drop everything to be with you. It’s not rational or healthy to long for complete psychic fusion with someone else. One reason why the people you’re dating, Dave, are so sparing with their time is because they’re busy. That’s a good thing; it’s no fun dating someone who doesn’t have a life! But it’s also quite possible that they’re waiting to find out if you can be appreciative of the reality that they have a world that is separate, that is theirs alone, that will not be sacrificed on the altar of eros.

Or, to paraphrase the title of last year’s celebrated advice book for women, maybe she’s just not that into you. In any event, Dave, starting with one Saturday afternoon is probably a good idea for both of you.

Some Israel photos…

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 25, 2007
in Photos
. 0 Comments

… are up in my Flickr album.

Home again: some preliminary reflections on Israel

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 25, 2007
in Kabbalah and Traveling
. 7 Comments

It’s just before nine in the morning, and I’m back in the office on campus. Our flight from London left two hours late, and the baggage carousel was very slow at LAX yesterday afternoon — the upshot was that I just made it to PCC in time for my 6:00PM class wearing the same clothes I’d worn on the plane, unshowered, jet-lagged, and decidedly malodorous. I managed to teach for nearly three hours regardless, but I kept a greater-than-usual distance from my students.

I smell better this morning. Today is a “faculty FLEX” (inservice education) day. We’re given doughnuts, orange juice, and pep talks from the administration. Some glad-hander with the initials Ed.D after his or her name will address a plenary session of the faculty, offering us the latest pedagogical insights. Most of us, rude hypocrites that we are, will conduct ourselves all the while like the very students we dislike: we’ll doze, whisper, and play with our various electronic gadgets. Most of us will make disparaging remarks about those who pursue education degrees, or call themselves “educators” instead of “teachers” or “professors.”

I’d much rather be teaching today.

In any event, my wife and I had a fascinating time in Israel. As I’ve mentioned a few times before, we’ve both been affiliated with the Kabbalah Centre for many years. This year, the Centre chose to mark the High Holy Days in Israel, and we decided that represented the right time for us to make our first visit to that remarkable, challenging part of the world. Continue reading ‘Home again: some preliminary reflections on Israel’

Almost home

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 24, 2007
in Traveling
. 2 Comments

I’m sitting in a very familiar corner of terminal one at Heathrow, waiting for the long flight back home. We flew into London from Israel last night, spent a few hours in the uninspiring but thoroughly reliable Jurys Inn, and we’re now getting ready to hop on the 279 back to LAX.

I fully expect to be back in Pasadena in plenty of time to teach my night class tonight.

I haven’t shaved in over two weeks, haven’t been to the gym in longer, and have eaten more hummus than is decent. But we’ve had a marvelous and fascinating time in the Holy Land, and blogging will indeed return anon.

Even though we’re not home to the States yet, it’s nice to be back in a country where people speak with soft voices and stand obediently in queues. Israel was a bit shocking on both counts.

See you in twenty…

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 5, 2007
in Blogging and Holidays
. 7 Comments

This blog will be dark until Tuesday, September 25. I’ll be away from the computer, so many comments may languish in moderation for days; forewarned is forearmed and all that.

As I’ve hinted before, we’ll be in Israel for much of this time; we leave tomorrow. A full report will follow upon our return.

“Boys Adrift”: part two of a review

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 5, 2007
in Books, Men and Masculinity, Men's Movement and Youth
. 11 Comments

Last week I had some very critical things to say about Leonard Sax’s Boys Adrift.

But as critical as I am of Sax’s gender essentialism, there is much within his latest work that I think is insightful and encouraging. When it comes to the now-famous “failure to launch” phenomenon (in which young men live at home throughout their twenties, essentially relying on their parents to support them), Sax makes good sense:

I agree that the real world is very rough. What’s the best way to help young people face that reality? If your child is ten or fifteen years old, then by all means, shelter him or her from that harsh reality. But what if your child is twenty-one, or twenty-six, or twenty-nine? How long is a parent expected to shelter a child who is not mentally or physically handicapped?

My own belief… is that if parents continue to shelter their adult child after the age of twenty-one years, the parents may make it less likely that the adult child will ever be willing and able to meet the challenges of the real world.

Tell it, brother Sax. Preach the good word.

Dr. Sax also deserves credit for being willing to reject traditional models of masculinity. Indeed, given how reactionary his views are on single-sex education, it is surprising and refreshing to read the following attack on Harvey Mansfield’s ludicrous Manliness (which was a big hit with a lot of social cons last year).

Right off the bat, Mansfield asserted without any disclaimer that “John Wayne is still every American’s idea of manliness.” He then proceeded with a detailed analysis of what makes John Wayne the epitome of manliness.

When I read that sentence… I was startled. “Speak for yourself” was the first thought that came to my mind.

Anyone who can rip apart Mansfield is okay with me.

But perhaps my strongest and most enthusiastic point of agreement with Sax comes on what is perhaps the one principle which virtually all the disparate voices in the broader men’s movement affirm: the central importance of strong, loving, adult male role models. Most humans, growing up in our gendered culture, are more likely to “identify” with and seek to imitate adults of their same sex. Given that most teenagers go through at least a brief period of rebellion against their parents, it is good to have adult role models who are not family members.

Sax urges parents (and parents are the primary audience for this book) to seek out good adult men to mentor their sons:

Don’t wait for your son to make this choice. If he’s like most of the boys I work with, he may need a push. That’s OK. Just choose an activity in which he can interact with grown men, where he can have opportunities to see how they live, how they relax, how they serve their families and their communities. In most cases, even a not-quite-perfect choice, perhaps even the wrong choice, will be better — will be more likely to engage your son in the real world — than no choice at all.

Dr. Sax has been rightly lambasted by feminist critics for his suggestion that we ask too much of young boys when we insist that they be able to articulate empathy as well as their sisters. But when he calls for safe, strong, loving adult men to be more involved in the lives of young boys, he deserves an enthusiastic “heck, yes!” All children — boys and girls alike — need good, non-familial role models, and they need them from both sexes. But when the majority of adults modeling compassion, competence, courage and emotional availability are female, then our boys often grow up without ever developing their own ability to be reliable, strong, ambitious, and articulate. That’s not women’s fault — it’s men’s.

In my teaching and in my volunteering, I am committed to working with young men. I mentor quite a few of them. Those in the men’s rights community who reject my feminist commitments would be wise to step up and mentor at least as many lads as I do. After all, my MRA friends, do you want me to be the only adult man working with your sons? :-) Put your volunteer time where your mouths are, and raise up a generation of young men with the same capacity for love and boldness as their sisters.

Wealthy and embittered with a victim complex? Leave your money to the MRAs

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 4, 2007
in Men's Movement and Money
. 18 Comments

This from Vanessa at Feministing:

Apparently in all seriousness, the lads at Men’s News Daily are asking elderly men’s rights activists (MRAs) to leave their money to charities that will continue the struggle:

Let me talk directly to older wealthy American married males: give us other men a break. Don’t assume that your wife is as conservative as you. Don’t die and leave her all of your money.

In 2007, money is not only flowing into feminist organization coffers from dead widows and vindictive ex-wives like Heather Mills McCartney. The feminist groups are also getting big dollars from big politically correct corporations like Exxon-Mobil and, of course, an American Congress which is filled with blackmailed perverts like Senator Larry Craig who have clearly been doing almost everything the feminists wanted just to keep themselves in business at the local men’s restroom.

Therefore, you real men who might die in the next 10 years (you could be hit by a truck) have an obligation to leave serious funds to men’s rights organizations that can do battle with the above-mentioned juggernaut. Please go change your last will and testament today (tomorrow if it is after 5PM when you read this).

Larry Craig was a feminist? If so, he was pretty darn well, uh, closeted.

Of course, there aren’t a lot of legitimate men’s rights groups that have 501(c)3 status, but perhaps that will change. The article advises:

You can also start a 501c3 non-profit before you die. Ask a lawyer about getting one started sooner rather than later.

Remember, no matter how much you love her, please do NOT leave all your money to a woman (wife or daughter) who could knowingly or unknowingly turn your grandson and great-grandson into the slave of a system completely dominated by feminists.

It’s beyond risible, of course, but worth a visit for the laugh. There’s an interesting comment thread at Feministing.

For my own categorization of the various branches of the men’s movement, see here. For one of many critiques of the so-called MRAs, see here. Quoting myself from many years ago:

The problem with the men’s rights movement is that they confuse men’s unhappiness with oppression. They assume that if men were in control, they would be happy, because patriarchal oppressors ought to be happy. Therefore, if a man isn’t happy, he isn’t oppressing. Newsflash, folks: Just because you don’t know you’re privileged doesn’t mean you’re not. Just because there are aspects of your power and privilege that you find alienating and burdensome doesn’t mean that you are any less a beneficiary of an oppressive system! Both men and women do need liberation from rigid, traditional, gender roles. The difference is that collectively, men are the architects of the system while women are merely forced to live within it.

But here’s the serious question, since I seem to be in a question-asking mood: which charities would you be most inclined to leave your money to, assuming you die with plenty to leave?

You can scroll down on the right sidebar to find my favorites. Put yours in the comments section.

Anniversary

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 4, 2007
in Marriage
. 3 Comments

I had planned to be in my office early this morning, with time to write part two of my Boys Adrift review.

When I got into my car at 7:00, however, the battery was dead as could be. A thirty-minute wait for AAA to come, try and jump start the car (only to discover the battery was hopelessly corroded) and the installation of a new battery meant that I made it to my office late, with no time to write a long post.

But no irritation can detract from the happy reality that today is our second wedding anniversary. These have been two extraordinary, blessed, and transformative years. (And let it be noted quickly that none of my first three marriages ever made it this far.) To be married to my best friend, to be joined in a partnership that blends deep contentment with deep challenge, is better than I could have hoped for or imagined.

We’ll celebrate tonight with Pilates and pasta, with only a short interval between the two.

Cal-Tennessee, masculinity, and another post in praise of Joe Ehrmann

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 3, 2007
in Men and Masculinity and Sports
. 12 Comments

Like many a loyal Old Blue, I eagerly anticipated the Cal-Tennessee football game that was played on Saturday. Though I have little use for the NFL (and in many ways, would rather watch “soccer” than American football), I am a long-standing Golden Bear fan. After a disappointing and painful loss to Tennessee at the start of the 2006 campaign, Cal supporters were eager for redemption. We got it in splendid fashion two days ago, and to my wife’s great amusement, I offered several renditions of the happy dance over the course of the game.

Yesterday, I read half-a-dozen news accounts of the game. This one by Olin Buchanan, from the respected Rivals.com site, annoyed me immensely:

Last year Cal was branded soft and overrated after a 35-18 season-opening ambush in Knoxville, which wasn’t nearly that close. Then, before kickoff on Saturday night a propeller-powered plane circled high above the stadium towing a banner that read: SEC RULES, PAC-10 DROOLS.

Apparently, that perceived drooling was actually the 12th-ranked Bears’ mouths watering for a chance to prove they were more talented, more competitive and more masculine than they showed a year ago.

Thirty-five years after the advent of Title IX, and we’ve still got neanderthals like Buchanan associating toughness with masculinity? What’s the implication, Olin? That “soft and overrated” is somehow a particularly feminine quality?

For decades, sociologists of sport have had fun with the language of American football. The language of “scoring”, “penetrating the defense”, “getting in the end zone”, and even — Lord help us — the “tight end” is certainly suggestive. And a great many “old school” coaches (I’ve known one or fifty) played on the sexual anxieties of their young athletes by associating defeat with allowing oneself to be feminized by the opposing team.

When I was a student at Cal in the mid-80’s (the fun but mediocre Joe Kapp era), practices at Memorial Stadium were open to the public. I often went and sat in the bleachers, did my homework, and watched. I remember an assistant coach yelling at a group of linemen doing drills: “tighten it up or you’re gonna get fucked like a bunch of bitches come Saturday.” I was aghast. (Let me be clear, I never heard that language from dear Coach Kapp.) I hadn’t even started taking women’s studies classes yet, but I was still disheartened by the brutally sexist language I heard from this coach (and from many of the players.)

Some say that the violent game of American football is inherently misogynistic; the sport, for some, is beyond redemption. The cynics say that young men will only play with maximum passion and intensity when this language of sexual warfare is employed. But as a fan of this most popular of American games, I’m convinced otherwise. And fortunately, I can look to the likes of Joe Ehrmann, about whom I’ve written a couple of times — at greatest length here.

Ehrmann, a former star defensive lineman for the Baltimore Colts, now coaches the enormously successful Gilman (Maryland) high school football team. This is how he preps his team for a game:

“What is our job as coaches?” Ehrmann asks.

“To love us!” the Gilman boys yell back in unison.

“What is your job?” Ehrmann shouts back.

“To love each other!” the boys respond.

The words are spoken with the commitment of an oath, the enthusiasm of a pep rally.

This is football?

It is with Ehrmann. It is when the whole purpose of being here is to totally redefine what it means to be a man.

Joe Ehrmann knows what authentic masculinity is, and it has nothing, nothing to do with athletic prowess. His teams win state titles regularly (while he enforces his “no cut rule”, meaning everyone plays). For those of us who love competitive sports but who are often dismayed by the ugly cultural rules around those sports, men like Ehrmann are vital role models. (His biography is compelling.)

From the first day of practice through the last day of the season, Ehrmann and his best friend, Head Coach Biff Poggi, bombard their players with stories and lessons about being a man built for others.

They stress that Gilman football is all about living in a community. It is about fostering relationships. It is about learning the importance of serving others. While coaches elsewhere scream endlessly about being tough, Ehrmann and Poggi teach concepts such as empathy, inclusion and integrity. They emphasize Ehrmann’s code of conduct for manhood: accepting responsibility, leading courageously, enacting justice on behalf of others…

Olin Buchanan, take note. Go Bears.

Blog names

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 2, 2007
in Blogging
. 23 Comments

For those who blog: if your blog isn’t eponymous, how did you come up with its name? And for that small number of you whose blog, like mine, simply carries your name, what title would you pick if you had to change?

I’d call this blog “The Permanent Bottleneck of His Highmindedness” (or just “Permanent Bottleneck”), after the wonderful Louis Macneice poem that seems to fit me all too well.

Special Sunday Short Poem: Jarrell’s “Next Day”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 2, 2007
in Age and Poetry
. 0 Comments

It’s not Thursday, but there won’t be a Thursday Short Poem this coming week anyway, as this blog will be on hiatus from September 6-25.

Friday’s post about the “slide into invisibility” earned me a note from my mother, who reminded me of this fine 1960s-era Randall Jarrell poem. It’s a poem for my mother’s generation, a generation of Second Wave feminists heavily influenced by Betty Friedan and the poetry of Anne Sexton. It’s dated now, but it’s still absolutely on target. (It’s a bit longer, so it’s below the fold. ) It’s not a happy poem, mind, or an inspiring one — but it rang true for more than one woman of an earlier generation, and clearly for some it still rings painfully true today. Continue reading ‘Special Sunday Short Poem: Jarrell’s “Next Day”’