Two-Thirds Excited, One-Third Terrified

I've alluded to it a couple of times before, but I don't think I've come out expressly and said: we're having a baby!

(It's a boy, due in January)

When people ask me how I'm doing, I have a stock answer: "Two-thirds excited, one-third terrified." It's always good for a laugh. But it's more or less accurate.

There's so much I'm excited about. I'm excited to share my favorite books. I'm excited to get him into Calvin & Hobbes. I'm excited to take him to hockey games. I'm excited to tell him stories. I'm excited to see him sit up, crawl, and walk for the first time. I'm excited to learn his passions. I'm excited to find out who he's going to be. I'm excited to be a dad, and I'm excited to watch my wife become a mom. This is, of course, only a very partial list.

But I'm also, admittedly, a bit terrified. And I know that's normal -- everyone says the moment the hospital discharges you and just ... sends you home with a baby generates a feeling of incredulous disbelief ("Who, me? I'm in charge now? You're just letting this happen?"). But I want to talk about the fear side in a bit more in depth.

One overall salutary development we've seen in society recently is that we've moved towards allowing women -- including women who very much want to have children -- to have a more complicated relationship with pregnancy and childrearing beyond "it's the greatest thing ever and if you have any misgivings you're a failure as a woman." There is at least some more space to acknowledge that pregnancy is uncomfortable, and labor painful, and parenting is exhausting. It doesn't mean you're a bad mother. It's an acknowledgment of reality, and it makes for stronger, not weaker, parents.

Meanwhile, for men, there's been a cultural push in the other direction, because the gendered social dynamics began in a different place. For men acculturated into thinking of children as either "seen not heard", or a sort of doomsday event ("baby trap"), the emphasis has been on accentuating both the positives of fatherhood but also the responsibilities of being a good partner. Parenting is equal parts our job. It's not okay to just leave it all to the missus. In fact, the missus almost certainly has it a lot harder than you (you're not the one gestating and then expelling a whole human being inside your body).

This, too, is a salutary development. But it has I think left a bit of a gap in men being able to talk earnestly about their legitimate fears -- in part precisely because those fears in some ways need to be subordinated to the more pressing needs of one's partner.

For example: one thing I'm really scared about is the process of labor. Leaving aside catastrophizing about medical complications, it's a terrible thing to see my person, whom I love more than anyone in the world, in pain. Under normal circumstances, that fear and fright solicits resources of care and concern -- probably from my wife, who is my main source of care and concern when I'm feeling fear or fright. But of course, in the context of labor, that resource is unavailable, and more broadly my need for care resources is obviously of lower priority than my wife's -- what kind of self-absorbed jerk would I be if I made the pain of childbirth about supporting me? My job in the delivery room is to support my wife however I can, not to horde care resources for myself. I don't want to reenact this scene from Brooklyn Nine Nine.

I've spoken about this before as an "empathy drought": circumstances where our care resources are overtaxed and so need to be triaged. And so again, I want to emphasize that the prioritization here is absolutely, 100% proper. There is no injustice here. And the lack of injustice is, in its way, the injustice -- or at least the loneliness: what is one supposed to do when one's genuine needs (because I don't think, in the abstract, that the pain of seeing a loved one in pain is not the sort of thing where one might need emotional support) are rightfully subordinated? It's hard, and it generates a lacuna.

Childbirth represents an especially clear case. But there is some carry over to fatherhood as well -- it's hard to talk about one's genuine fears and concerns without sounding like one wants to reach back into the not-so-misty past of overgrown man-babying where mom-wife just took care of everything. And again, it's a good thing that we're rearticulating manhood and fatherhood. But that doesn't change the fact that, just as a more complex relationship to childrearing for women that speaks to both the joys and the fears doesn't make one out as a bad mother, so too for fathers as well.

Because while I'm two-thirds excited, there is plenty that sits in that third of terror. I'm scared of not getting enough sleep. I'm scared of freezing up when my kid throws a tantrum. I'm scared of not knowing how to balance between transmitting my values and letting him be his own person. I'm scared of my two-person life suddenly adding a third. I'm scared of not having time for my own hobbies. I'm scared of raising a Jewish child in today's world. Hell, I'm scared of bringing any child in today's world. Again, only a partial list, and not one I claim is unique to men. But it's a real list, and I don't think it's one that is unreasonable in soliciting support. 

I'm not a parent yet, so I don't have some deep words of wisdom to offer on this. But I do believe, and I've always believed, that letting oneself be vulnerable and honest encourages others to be as well. Talking about these things openly lets others do so too. We don't have to work through these fears alone. We should not and need not present these fears as the number one priority of parenthood. But the more people who come out and speak, the more this burden can be shared, and the more room we all have to also turn our attention to the essential task of being great fathers and great partners. So this is me doing my part: being open, and being vulnerable, and trying to make everyone a little less alone -- because there's so much to be excited about.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXI: Protests in Iran

A recurrent theme in this series is people "blaming the Jews" for activity that is, in all relevant respects, absolutely praiseworthy. Before the series even launched, for instance, I flagged instances where the dictator of Sudan "blamed" Jews for causing the world to pay attention to the Darfur genocide. I'm dubious we were behind that trend, but certainly it'd be nothing to be ashamed of. Jews helping support worthy causes is a good thing!*

But sometimes, we can't take credit even where credit is extended. And so it is in Iran, where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has finally spoken out about the roiling protests against gender apartheid that have torn through his nation. Does he know what's driving these demonstrations? You bet he does!

“I openly state that the recent riots and unrest in Iran were schemes designed by the U.S.; the usurping, fake Zionist regime; their mercenaries; and some treasonous Iranians abroad who helped them,” Khamenei said Monday in a speech to police cadets in Tehran, remarks which were later posted in English on his official Twitter account.

As much as I might want to tip my cap in thanks, I don't think there's any basis to assume the Zionists or their "mercenaries" are behind these protests. To say otherwise would disserve the brave Iranian women and girls who really have been taking the lead here.

But if we were involved, there'd be nothing but pride to report. All solidarity to the people of Iran demanding freedom from state repression.

* There is a somewhat serious point here, which is that an impact of antisemitic conspiracy theorizing is to constrain Jews from even valid political participation, as any tangible and/or successful intervention into the political sphere can and will be coded as validating the conspiracy. If there were widespread Jewish efforts to extend resources and support to the Iranian protesters, for instance, it probably would not be viewed as positive solidarity but rather would quickly be leveraged as proof that the protests were a Jewish plot and the protesters Zionist stooges. This can quickly become a double-bind: Jews who don't extend themselves politically are faulted for not being sufficiently solidaristic towards others, those who do are indicted for exerting undue political control and influence.

Employers Don't Make Passes ....

A new, very depressing study finds that women applying for jobs are penalized (compared to men) for getting good grades in college. Basically, employers value competence in men but likability in women, and so they reward men for getting better grades (associated with competence) while viewing high-achieving women with skepticism (assuming they're less likable). The effect is strongest among women majoring math, because of course it is.

Ugh, ugh, and ugh.

Honor Beatings in Portugal

A man beat his wife, allegedly after she had an affair. He was not sentenced to any prison time. Now, a Portuguese court has upheld that decision because the woman's affair "dishonored" her husband. The court cited the Bible as justification for its lenient sentence, noting that under biblical law adultery was punishable by death (so what's a little beating?).

"Now, the adultery of the woman is a very serious attack on the honor and dignity of the man," the ruling, signed by Judge Joaquim Neto de Moura, said. "It was the disloyalty and the sexual immorality of the plaintiff that made (the defendant) fall into a profound depression, and it was in this depressive state and clouded by the revolt that carried out the act of aggression, as was well considered in the judgment under appeal."

[...]

"This case is far from having the seriousness that, generally, is presented in cases of mistreatment in the context of domestic violence," the ruling says. "On the other hand, the conduct of the defendant took place in a context of adultery practiced by the plaintiff."

In addition to that, the court also cited a 19th century Portuguese law which recommended only symbolic penalties if a man kills his adulterous wife.

In conclusion, because the nation is European and predominantly Christian and the religious text cited is the Bible, we'll never hear about this case again.

Fortune Favors the (Not So) Bold

This week, we talked about intersectionality in my class (on "Just Political Participation"). I am a fan of intersectionality, which of course puts me squarely in the mainstream of the contemporary campus zeitgeist. Nonetheless, I suggested that intersectionality, far from being a good mechanism for securing collaboration and solidarity across diverse marginalized groups, actually has a deeply problematic relationship with "coalitional" organizing. I suggested that the understanding of intersectionality as the idea that "all oppressions are linked as one", such that they are best tackled by a universal front of "the oppressed" working in tandem elides important points of differentiation and tension among marginalized groups -- both "horizontally" (are the interests of gay Latinos necessarily harmonious with Black women?) and "vertically" (will addressing the marginalization of Black women necessarily redound to the benefit of Black men?). As my examples, I discussed:

1. Sexual violence on campus, and how it interacts with race. Programs and policies which make it easier for administrators to sanction persons accused of sexual misconduct may well be necessary for securing the equal educational status of women (including women of color) on campus. But given the central space "sexual misconduct" occupies as a tool of terrorizing black men, it is also likely that such reformations will exacerbate racist judgments against that community -- particularly when dealing with subpopulations (like black male athletes) who are already racialized as hypersexual and predatory.
2. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the particular salience of the Mizrahi Jewish community which does not fit neatly into standard accounts of either the "Jewish" (coded as Ashkenazi-European) or "Middle Eastern" (coded as Arab-Muslim) narratives. Mizrahi Jews are suspicious of the left (identified as European and associated with significant oppression and marginalization from Israel's establishment to the present), suspicious of Ashkenazi Jewry (identified as self-satisfied and monopolizing valid Jewish identity, dismissing the legitimacy of Mizrahi ways of being), and suspicious of the Arab world (associated with their marginalization and dispossession under anti-Zionist banners). Understanding that is critical to understanding the posture of Israel contemporaneously -- but it does not suggest and indeed undermines too-easy efforts at "solidarity" where Mizrahi Jews are assumed to be easily subsumable into dominant Ashkenazi (Israel is the place where all Jews are respected as Jews) or Middle Eastern (Israel is the colonial interloper that blocks the self-determination rights of Middle Easterners) narratives.

Based on what the popular press tells us about University of California-Berkeley students, I should be dead by now.

We know -- don't we? -- that it is impossible to disturb college shibboleths about the glories of intersectionality and the universal front of oppression we all share against the evil White man. And we know -- don't we? -- that one cannot suggest any potentially unfair or deleterious outcomes associated with reforming college practices vis-a-vis sexual violence. And we all know -- it goes without saying -- that even the slightest hint that Israel might not solely stand as a European colonial imposition that is the height of global imperial evil is enough to get you run out of this college town on rails. Right?

Well, as usual wrong. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Berkeley kids are alright. Deal with these issues with charity, thoughtfulness, nuance, and respect, and they'll respond in kind. Berkeley students, in my experience, continue to prove themselves to be exactly what you'd hope for from the student body of the greatest public university in the world. They are thoughtful, engaged, curious, and very eager to deal with the complexities and difficulties posed by the subjects put in front of them -- with no "safe harbor" for the supposed campus orthodoxies that shall-not-be-questioned. That was my experience this week, where I presented some very "hot" issues in ways that certainly did not perfectly map onto how they're commonly portrayed on campus ... and the result was nothing more than a good, solid, thought-provoking discussion. As class should be.

"Can You Be a Zionist Feminist?" Who Knows!

"Can You Be A Zionist Feminist? Linda Sarsour Says No." blares the headline of The Nation. The Jewish press dutifully followed their lead, writing "Pro-Palestinian activist: Support for Israel and feminism are incompatible." And so I thought "well apparently Sarsour's experiment with treating mainstream Jews respectfully has come to an end."

But dig a little deeper and ... well, it's confusing. Because if you actually read The Nation interview, Sarsour never actually takes the position ascribed to her in the title. Now to be clear, she doesn't disavow it either. It's just ... not what she was asked, and not what she answered. Indeed, just compare the title and the subtitle:

Can You Be a Zionist Feminist? Linda Sarsour Says No 

The prominent Palestinian-American feminist responds to claims that anti-Zionism has no place in the feminist movement.

You'll notice that these are two very different statements -- the first affirming that Zionists have no place in feminism, the second affirming that anti-Zionists do have a place in feminism. Now, they could be reconciled: One side says Zionists, but not anti-Zionists, can be feminists; the other side saying anti-Zionists, but not Zionists, can be feminists. But this of course obscures a median position, which is that both can be feminists -- or, more conditionally, both can be feminists if they meet certain qualifications regarding respect for all women (including those women whose rights and security are often thought to be undervalued by the movement in question).

So what position does Sarsour take? Is she saying that yes, anti-Zionists have a place in the feminist movement? Is she saying that no, Zionists have no such place? Is she restricting her critique to "right-wing Zionists" (Sarsour actually never speaks of "Zionists" simpliciter, only "right-wing Zionists")? Or is she saying something different entirely, namely that Israel is a country, which does things criticizable, and therefore a feminist movement has to be open to criticism of Israel?

It's entirely unclear, and that unclearness is I think primarily attributable to The Nation. I honestly don't know if The Nation understands there is a difference between saying Zionists are categorically barred, saying that anti-Zionists should not be excluded, and saying that a feminist movement will sometimes entail criticism of Israel. These clearly distinct concepts are so consistently run together that I really have no idea if The Nation grasps that they're not the same thing. And so while it's entirely plausible that Sarsour does hold to the hardline position ascribed to her in the title, The Nation ends up obscuring more than it illuminates because when it comes to matters like Zionism, anti-Zionism, and Jewish inclusion, it's really, really not good at its job.

None of this is to say that there aren't elements of what Sarsour does (clearly) say which can be critiqued. Take her statement that "anyone who wants to call themselves an activist cannot be selective. There is no country in this world that is immune to violating human rights." Perfectly defensible in the abstract, but it elides the reality that there is in fact there is in these movements in fact quite a bit of "selectiveness." The Women's Strike Platform's characterization of the "decolonization of Palestine" as "the beating heart of the movement" is the only international controversy to gain any mention anywhere in the document (the reference to Mexico is, in context, clearly about American actions, not Mexican ones). It's like Curtis Marez's famously blithe defense of singling out Israel for boycotts -- "one has to start somewhere." It's a far less effective retort when one seems to end there too.

Still, it is quite right in principle that a feminist must be an advocate for all women, and a critic of all policies (national or otherwise) which act to exclude women. And I'll go further: Zionism is a diverse movement with many streams, including ones which are liberal in the criticism of malign Israeli policies and insistent on securing Palestinian equality (this is one of the reasons why a flat exclusion of "Zionists" from the feminist pantheon is unjustifiable). Yet it is undeniable that, in its primary political manifestation (that is, as state policy), Zionism has frequently resulted in severe injustices to Palestinians (men and women alike), of which the continued denial of Palestinian self-determination is only the most severe. It is not fair to impute that to all Zionists. It is fair to ask that persons who call themselves Zionists grapple with this history and practice in a way that demonstrates serious commitment to rectifying it.

Yet critically, the same goes for anti-Zionists. They, too, cannot be "selective"; they, too, must be open to critiques about countries and movements and practices that have served to oppress. And in doing so, they too must stand for all women, including Jewish women, including Jewish Israeli women. Anti-Zionism, too, has its gendered oppressions; its moments and practices where it leverages the vulnerability of Jewish or Israeli women or explodes into grotesque violence. We remember, after all, the feminist lawyer in Egypt who reportedly endorsed rape as a tool of anti-Zionist resistance; extolling to the Israeli women across the border "leave the land so we won't rape you."  And today offered a particularly vicious illustration of the intersection, as Ahmed Daqamseh -- a former Jordanian soldier who massacred seven Israeli eighth-grade girls visiting his country on a field trip -- was released from prison. Upon his release, he told reporters that "The Israelis are the human waste of people, that the rest of the world has vomited up at our feet. We must eliminate them by fire or by burial." When deciding whether someone who helped blow up two more Jews in a supermarket should take on a leading role in this new feminist movement, this practice should matter.

The easy move here is to dismiss the above cases as aberrations or, supposedly more damningly, as disconnected from power. But here, too, we must note that, while anti-Zionism is a diverse and variegated movement in how it manifests in academia or social circles, in its primary political manifestation as state policy it has frequently resulted in severe injustices to Jews (men and women alike). Anti-Zionism as a political form claims as its most decisive political action not the liberation of Palestinians but the mass oppression and expulsions of Jews from Middle Eastern countries, undertaken explicitly under an anti-Zionist banner. If it seems like anti-Zionism-as-politics does not currently manifest in this form of direct, unmediated danger to Jewish lives, that's primarily because there are virtually no Jews left in the locations where anti-Zionism manifests as politically dominant. Again, this does not mean that all anti-Zionists endorse these acts. It does mean that persons who call themselves anti-Zionists must grapple with this history and practice in a way that demonstrates serious commitment to rectifying it. Because feminism really cannot be selective, it cannot be concerned with the fates of only the right sorts of women.

We all have our blind spots and things we need to work on. It is perhaps relevant, then, to mention the occasion where I first encountered Linda Sarsour. It was after she spoke at the First Annual Jews of Color conference, telling Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) Jews that "We will welcome you and embrace you in your full complexity. We’re waiting for you at the Arab American Association." JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa) promptly asked her if she would be willing to partner with them, a predominantly Zionist organization.

@lsarsour Does your “embrace” of Mizrahi Jews in “our full complexity” include Zionists? Interested in partnering? https://t.co/eT0U1dPEck

— JIMENA (@JIMENA_Voice) May 5, 2016

Sarsour proceeded to ignore them entirely. Some complexity. We weren't off to a good start.

Yet despite all of this and as cutting as I might seem here, it is important to emphasize also that there is a fair amount of rhetoric ginned up around Linda Sarsour that is -- without mincing words -- complete bullshit. The most grotesque is that which invokes her support of "Sharia law", using language that echoes in form and tone efforts to demonize observant Jews by reference to the most extreme iterations of Halacha (I can look favorably upon Jewish law and still find the Agunah doctrine execrable; likewise Sarsour can speak positively of Sharia while not endorsing crediting women half that of men. Only antisemites and Islamophobes think otherwise, or think it is fair to ascribe monolithic -- and reactionary -- uniformity to a pluralistic and contested legal tradition).

Likewise those who accuse her of opportunism when she helped raise funds to restore desecrated gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis. The raw fact is that she came through -- in deed, not just word -- when those Jews needed her, and I can be critical of problematic elements of her political profile without needing to look a gift horse in the mouth. Ditto her behavior as Women's March co-organizer, where in contrast to her flamethrower reputation she did not act in a way that would have functionally excluded the vast majority of Jews from participating (indeed, it was these steps that made what I initially took to be her statement to The Nation something disappointing, as opposed to predictable).

In any event.

Palestinian women are women. Israeli women are women. Muslim women are women. Jewish women are women. And, since we ought to be intersectional about it, Middle Eastern (Mizrahi) Jewish women are women. A feminism which does not stand with, protect, uphold, promote, elevate, and engage with all of these women is a feminism that fails. Because Linda Sarsour is absolutely right: feminism cannot be selective.

.... Can You Imagine a Class Just for MEN?

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is offering a workshop for male students to discuss issues of masculinity in American culture and their own lives. Wisconsin Republicans are unhappy about it. This comes on the heels of Wisconsin Republicans also being unhappy about a UW class on Whiteness. Clearly, we're moving out of the "college is about challenging young minds with uncomfortable ideas, not coddling them with safe spaces" phase of the GOP/academia cycle, and into the "it's outrageous for colleges to offer these ideas that I find outrageous" portion.

But I'm actually even more perplexed that this class is triggering the reaction. After all, isn't the ur-conservative retort to all these ethnic studies classes and "safe spaces" something like "can you imagine if someone proposed something like this for men/heterosexuals/whites"? And then Wisconsin goes and does exactly that, and the right still goes through the roof!

"Perplexed" is obviously the wrong word here, since that implies I thought there was any coherent ideology undergirding GOP objections, but it's still worth noting.

Could Misogyny, Of All Things, Finally Destroy Donald Trump?

In our latest spin of the "outrageous Trump remarks" wheel, we landed on misogyny. Specifically, comments Trump made during taping for Access Hollywood where he graphically talked about sexually assaulting women:

During the lewd conversation captured by a microphone Trump was wearing on his lapel, Trump recounts how he tried to "fuck" an unidentified married woman before bragging that he is "automatically attracted to beautiful (women)" and just starts "kissing them." The conversation came just months after Trump married his third and current wife, Melania.

He also said: "When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

How lovely. But this has stood out in that it has seemed to generate a particularly ferocious condemnation from Trump's fellow Republicans. Paul Ryan, set to campaign side-by-side with Trump for the first time, withdrew his invitation and declared himself "sickened". Reince Priebus was far more blunt than I've ever seen him: "no woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever." Jon Huntsman went from endorsing Trump to demanding that he drop out. Even Trump gave a non-apology-apology of the "I apologize if anyone was offended" variety (Jeb Bush: "no apology can excuse away Donald Trump's reprehensible comments degrading women.").

And while the comments themselves really cannot honestly surprise anyone, the reaction to them is a bit striking. Liberals have certainly noticed, and been quite wry -- "oh, it was okay to call Mexicans rapists, and to suggest banning all Muslims, and to fan a resurgent conservative anti-Semitism -- but this was the step too far?" Indeed, while there have been other moments where Trump has said outrageous things and political commentators have declared him dead, only for him to emerge stronger than before (think the John McCain "captured" comments), this feels different -- he is the Republican standard-bearer, there is no deluding oneself that by condemning Trump one can simply switch support to another conservative.

Honestly, it is hard to explain. And I'd be very curious to hear what someone like Kate Manne -- who has written very incisively on the role of misogyny in this election and in our society -- thinks of this development. Right now -- improbable as it may be -- it looks like Trump's misogyny might have finally closed the door on his candidacy. There's almost -- almost -- a sense in which it is heartening (though I won't pop any champagne until November 9).

Guys and Dolls

An ongoing linguistic dilemma I have is how to generically refer to females of my rough age. "Girl" is inappropriate because they're adults. "Woman" seems overly formal and like they're middle-aged. For men, "guy" works really well, and I'm generally a proponent of converting "guy" into a gender neutral term (e.g., "the guys in my law school class" referring to everyone in the law school class, not just men). But others object to this. "Gal" is the obvious feminine counterpart to "guy", but I can't take "gal" seriously -- I feel like I'm in a Western movie.

So my co-clerk and I decided to go on Thesaurus.com and look for synonyms. Here's what we got for "gal":

babe, bimbo, chick, dame, dish, doll, doxy, female, floozy, gal , girl, honey, lady, lassie, miss, moll, skirt, sweet thing, tootsie.

By contrast, here's "guy":

bird, bloke, boy, brother, bud, buddy, cat, chap, chum, dude, feller, fellow, gentleman, individual, male, person.

So a "guy" is a "person," but a "gal" is a "bimbo." Okay then.

An Israel Roundup

A smattering of Israel links sitting on my browser:

Left and right groups agree: Israel is freezing new settlement construction.

Norm Geras has a great article up in Fathom about Israel as an "alibi" for anti-Semitism.

In a similar vein, Eve Gerrard has her own piece about the "pleasures of anti-Semitism". She identifies three: "the pleasures of hatred," "the pleasures of tradition," and "the pleasures of moral purity". The last of these is the one that I see as the most important and most striking.

Stephen Hawking canceled an academic trip to Israel, in what was initially reported to be a boycott move, then a health decision, and now is back to being a boycott statement. Carlo Strenger pens an open letter in response, calling the boycott movement a "way to ventilate outrage about the world's injustices where the cost is low."

The Attorney General of Israel just issued a sweeping and sharp directive aimed at mandating gender equality in sectors of Israeli society where Haredi influence has long propogated segregation.

... and one more: leading Shas MK urges Bibi to accept the Arab Peace Plan. I keep on forgetting that Shas in the opposition right now.

The Social Script of Objectifying Men

I find the story of the Duke "fuck list" to be very interesting, in a perverse sort of way. I admit my first reaction was very similar to the one I had after the Larry Craig scandal broke -- that is, how many women are looking at the list and saying "been there!" I feel like this list shows up in every other issue of Maxim, no?

One of the things I've noticed about dominant social views on sexuality is that men really believe that a zone of sexual inviolability surrounds them and get really angry when it's penetrated. They want, at all times, to be in complete control of any sexual event or happenstance that involves them--but they don't seem to believe that women deserve the same courtesy. So when there is even the slightest risk of breaching a man's sexual perimeters (e.g., a gay man coming on to you in the bathroom), we erect all sorts of social and legal barriers to block it. Some jurisdictions seem to allow or at least condone violent assaults by heterosexual men being hit on by a gay man at a bar. And as Senator Craig's case shows, even something as tenuous as possibly signaling a sexual proposition of another man in a public place can get you arrested. Stacking that sort of treatment up against the yawning silence we give to the massive amount of street harassment women (especially urban women) face is mind-blowing.

These things seem to only become "problems" when the victims are men. What makes this list so shocking is that it makes men into women -- that is, casts them in the social script typically reserved for women. They stand passive and naked, judged solely on the amount of sexual pleasure they gave to this woman, and (horrors upon horrors!) some of them didn't make the grade. At the risk of hyperbole, that never happens in the American public sphere. And while I certainly understand why it would be disconcerting to be cast into that spotlight, once we get past the gender-inversion, it's hardly uncommon.

My second thought was that there is simply no winning position for women in this sort of scenario, whereas for guys there's at least something of a mixed bag. There are basically three roles one can play: the list writer, at the top of list, or at the bottom. If you're the guy whose at the bottom, well, yeah, that sucks pretty unambiguously. If you're a guy at the top, though, that's a little awkward, but also kind of a badge of pride. And if you're the guy who wrote the list -- well, you'll probably be seen as a cad. But you're also a stud who banged 13 ladies (hells to the yeah!). Again, at least a mixed blessing. By contrast, a female writer of this list is a slut, a woman who tops this list is a slut, and a woman who is at the nadir is either a frigid bitch or an untalented slut. Yeah, that's no-win.

Finally, I'm curious about the social meaning of this designation for the guys involved. As a society we have basically no experience with this sort of naked sexual objectification of the male body. It just doesn't happen. So if this list becomes a top 10 google hit for these guys in the future, what's the likely result? We don't know if we're supposed to be sympathetic, or high-five them, or shun them, or mock them, or what (for women in analogous situations of course, the answer is shame and shun). I think our collective confusion will result in it being effectively ignored.

This, I think, goes back to my old post, Second Thing We Do, Objectify All The Men. Because men aren't in a situation where, as a class, their moral subjectivity is unrecognized, recognition of their objectivity is considerably less threatening.

This doesn't mean that this list didn't cause a lot of pain and embarrassment, or that we shouldn't be attentive to it. But it does illuminate some deeper issues of sexual inequality that are clearly, I think, more intense (and more ignored) when the victims are women.

Martinez Takes On Violence Against Women

In the wake of the senseless murder of Jennifer Carolina Viera by her husband, former two-division champion Edwin Valero (who proceeded to commit suicide in prison), newly crowned middleweight champion Sergio Martinez has announced his intention to create a foundation aimed at stamping out violence against women:

"I love and respect women. Violence against women is simply unacceptable," Martinez said. "The great number of cases, too often involving athletes, requires action. I have always confided in my mother and consider myself to be a momma's boy. Women must be respected, not abused."
[...]
"Sergio is going to petition the different sanctioning bodies and the different boxing dignitaries to make them know he is serious in this effort," said Sampson Lewkowicz, Martinez's adviser. "We can create a foundation that makes a world of difference to women everywhere."

Promoter Lou DiBella said he will enlist the Boxing Promoters Association to help in the cause.

"I am proud of Sergio for attempting to use his newfound fame to help address a terrible problem, which must be eradicated," DiBella said.

Martinez, who is from Argentina but living in Oxnard, Calif., said besides creating a foundation and raising money to help the cause, he hopes his newfound status as middleweight world champion will give him a platform to help spread his message.

"My middleweight championship gives me a voice," he said. "I will use this voice in an effort to protect women from senseless violence and abuse."

Good for him. Count me in as a supporter.

You Can Be a Single Lady Too!

Ann Bartow calls it "gender construction right before your eyes".



I personally love the look the little girls give dad. It's all "you fucking idiot." He does, however, seem appropriately abashed.

Male Iranian Protesters Don Hijab

As part of their broader crackdown on student democracy activists, the Iranian government arrested Majid Tavakoli, then published a photo of him wearing a headscarf to try and insinuate he and his fellow protesters were unmanly.

Instead, it prompted dozens of male democracy activists to wear hijabs themselves. Cross-dressing, it is worth noting, is illegal in Iran.

Latino Evangelicals Challenge Macho Culture

One of the downfalls of being sick is that I haven't been able to write posts on links of interest. So I will regretfully simply have to give you this WaPo article, on how Latino churches are challenging "macho" norms in their community, without much comment. It's a good piece, but far too short for my liking.

It's a Guy Thing, Part II

Hilzoy's reaction to David Brooks being fondled by a Republican Senator, and bemoaning how this is a new breach in the "dignity code", reminds me a lot of the post that originally drew my attention to Esquiver. This horrible, terrible, shocking affront to your bodily autonomy? It happens to women all the time.

That doesn't make it okay, of course. It just makes it not new. Maybe if these things are problems, they should become problems before they become problems for men, no?

Being Gay is Just Too Natural

David Klinghoffer eagerly reprints an argument by Israeli biblical scholar Joshua Berman claiming that the main victims of allowing gay marriage are ... women! Even lesbian women, I wonder?* In any event, the thrust of the argument is of a form I've heard before -- albeit rarely because it clashes so severely with the dominant "homosexuality is unnatural" paradigm -- namely, that if we sanction gay relationships, men will suddenly flock to gayness, leaving women in a lurch. We know this to be true

Because of what you read in the the writers of imperial Rome. Some people are indeed homoerotic by nature. But others, as Aristotle noted, develop this as an acquired passion. Homoeroticism is, to a large degree, socially constructed. It turns out that where homoeroticism is granted full social sanction, as it was in Rome, it flourishes -- so much so, that one writer noted that the emperor Claudius exhibited an unusual trait: he was sexually interested in women alone!
[...]
The social history behind this piece is clear: once they've experienced sex with other men, Catullus tells us, men are unsatisfied with what their new wives provide them. Notice that the poet is unconcerned about the husband's dallying with other women -- it's the other men around that threaten the marital union.
[...]
The losers from all this will be the vast majority of women. With full social sanction given to homoerotic activity, the historical precedent suggests that tomorrow's women will have a harder time finding and holding on to suitable men. As women will suffer, so will the vitality and stability of the nuclear family.

Basically, it is the orientation equivalent of "once you go black, you never go back." (Once you try man, you're always a fan?).

These arguments always amuse me, because they seem of the sort that would only be persuasive to folks hard at work suppressing their own queer tendencies. Speaking as someone who would probably suffer few immediate social consequences to coming out as gay or bi, much less engaging in a little "experimentation", I can honestly say I've never really felt the urge to hook up with a fellow possessor of the Y chromosome. Go figure.

Klinghoffer says that "if you want to disagree with this analysis, you'll have to explain why the historical parallel doesn't apply." Okay, sure. If we're accepting that homoeroticism is socially constructed, then we have to accept the same thing to be true of heteroeroticism. It should not surprise us that in misogynist societies where a) women are constantly devalued as inferior and subordinate beings and b) same-sex relationships were a viable alternative, that male/male pairings would be seen as superior and normatively preferable. In other words, I Blame The Patriarchy. The way to keep gay marriage from being a threat to women, unsurprisingly, is by breaking down the mentalities that say women are inferior creatures (the same tactic, conveniently enough, for dispatching many other threats to female equality. Fancy that!). Where women are seen as equal, then I have full faith in their ability to compete in the market of relationships.

* Berman says that lesbianism did not increase, and writes "I leave it the reader's basic grasp of anatomy to figure out why in ancient Rome a man who found pleasure in a woman, could also find pleasure in a man, while the record shows that a heterosexual woman rarely found sexual satisfaction in the company of another woman." Well then I say, thank God for technology! And, you know, non-penetrative sex.

Secondary Objective

There is something quite unseemly about targeting a political opponent's spouse as a retaliatory measure when they vote for a bill you dislike. I'm not sure, however, if it is more or less distasteful when said spouse is a fellow elected official who took the "right" position on the bill you're complaining about.

Oral Argument Roundup

I did mock oral arguments today (the case was essentially: "Google books gets sued by authors for copyright infringement." I represented the authors.). It was quite the flashback to high school debate -- right down to the universal consensus that "you speak way too fast!" Oh, the memories. But it seemed like substance-wise, the judges liked what they heard, and I like to think that's what counts.

***

A grade school choir sings Eye of the Tiger.

My friend Julia, who tragically abandoned a respectable debater's path to become an astrophysicist (how embarrassing!), has signed on to write for the new blog A Scientist and a Woman. Her first post takes a look at a paper I sent her that examines how having female professors impacts female STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) students.

Former US ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad is set to take a high ranking position in that nation's government. Khalilzad was born in the US but as an Afghan citizen.

Meanwhile, with Bill Clinton being named UN special envoy to Haiti and Canadian-born Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-MI) floated as a SCOTUS candidate, folks are talking about the new "post-citizenship/post-sovereigntist age of governance and leadership."

Ha'aretz: Settlements a bigger problem for Netanyahu than two-state solution is.

Noting that we are on pace to see more women than men in the workforce, Melissa Murray & Darren Rosenblum argue that we should tailor our economic recovery plans to harness the some XX power.

Wanted Bodies

Through Amber, a couple of great posts on the objectivity of male bodies. The main one is from Hugo Schwyzer, and he in turn links to Figleaf. It's a topic I've explored before in my post "Second Thing We Do, Objectify All The Men", so this post will be more scatter-shot. It's also a topic I'd love to get the perspective of the Happy Bodies gals on.

Schwyzer relates his experience that the first time he ever was expressly cast as someone wanted, desired, was in the context of a same-sex relationship. In his relationships with women, the idea that someone might lust after him was utterly bizarre and foreign. This intrigued me, because my introduction to this whole line of thinking stemmed out of an article by Leslie Green, entitled "Pornographies" (J. Political Philosophy, Vol. 8.1, 27-52 (2002)). One of Green's major arguments was a defense of gay pornography precisely because it objectifies gay men: men who, in Green's estimation, are perpetually told that their sexuality is something deviant and disgusting, that nobody could ever want them or find them desirable or attractive, that they have no objective worth. Pornography shows them that, yes, your body is one that is something that someone might want -- and that sentiment is an important aspect of human personhood.

It may be that Schwyzer and Green's arguments are not irreconcilable -- the internal norms and culture in the gay community may differ from how broader society views homosexuality, and the affirmation that gay male sexuality is desirable may be of particular importance to closeted gay men, or those from more repressive and homophobic backgrounds who may still be laboring under beliefs which taught them that their very identity was disgusting.

But Schwyzer's post made me reflect about my own experiences as a straight man -- have I ever felt particularly desired? When I enrolled in college, I joked that I just assured myself four years of never getting a date. My best qualities (as I saw them) were that I was nice, polite, and intelligent. Enrolling at top five Liberal Arts school in Minnesota meant throwing away all my competitive advantages. It's not that I think of myself as ugly -- I don't -- but the joke rests on the idea that it is absurd to think anyone might want me for my body of all things. Looking back, prior to my current relationship (which is very body affirming -- as you'd hope dating a body positivity blogger!) I can think of precisely one moment where a woman complimented my body. I also remember being somewhat at a loss of how to react -- I was certainly pleased, but fairly baffled as well. Jill has a favorite body part of mine (no, not that one), and while I like that she likes it, it still is something I find a little puzzling.

The post Hugo links to talks about the unforeseen consequences of men not having a conception of themselves as objects of desire. One upshot is that men have only a weak grasp of what constitutes an attractive male. Apparently, some women think we are simply overcompensating the "no homo" bit when we aver that we can't say if a given guy is attractive. The fact is that, as the Fred Thompson debacle so conclusively demonstrated, no, we're really actually confused. Outside a few obvious poles ("Gilbert Gottfried or Brad Pitt"), the terrain of "attractive man" is foreign territory.

It's not that women don't talk amongst themselves about which guys are hot and why. It's that there are almost no public channels where it is permissible to discuss men in terms of their bodies. The public language of desire has men as the desiring, and women as the desirable. It is a one-way street.

Hugo writes that "The answer lies in creating a new vocabulary for desire, in empowering women as well as men to gaze, and in expanding our own sense of what is good and beautiful, aesthetically and erotically pleasing." This is a phrase fraught with peril, even as I endorse its particulars. "Gaze" is an important term in feminist discourse, and not generally one used in a positive sense. Women are under the male gaze because they are presented solely as objects for male desire. That is how they walk through the world -- they can't avoid it. So how is it that we can say that we want to "empower women as well as men to gaze"?

Both objective and subjective worth are critical to a full sense of personhood. That is Green's position, and that is mine as well. Women suffer from the male gaze because it is the near-totality of how their lives matter in a patriarchal society. For persons who are respected as subjects, there is no danger in being gazed upon, because we know there is the foundational acknowledgment of one's basic human dignity. Quite the opposite -- for persons accorded subject-status, it can be quite damaging to be deprived of a sense of desirability.

In my post, I argued that control (better: autonomy) is the critical element: we can put ourselves out as a desirable object when we know that we have the right to withdraw ourselves. Women, today, do not have that right -- stepping out onto the street is seen as an implied license to be morphed into a sexual object; and there is no safety net of acknowledged subjectivity lying beneath them. Empowerment to gaze comes from the dismantlement of this structure.