Pick a Gender

Today, two comics which embrace gendered stereotypes without actually keying in on gender. That is, they both struck me as sexist-ish, but then I recognized that gender, while invoked implicitly, was explicitly left out of the equation. Still embracing gendered stereotypes? Hmmm...

First, Mr. Boffo has a backseat driver:

I had to take a closer look at the person in the backseat to realize that there seems to be some (purposeful?) gender ambiguity there. It's interesting to note that women in Mr. Boffo tend to be variations on a theme of tall, pretty, skinny white women with ponytails, so it may even be more likely that the person in the backseat is meant to be a guy (I doubt Mr. Boffo understands that there are myriad genders, so I'm going binary in my discussion of it). My first reaction is now nixed by a mixed reaction. More importantly, this ain't one of the funniest strips I've seen.

Next up, one of my new-ish favorite strips, Savage Chickens, takes on the whole men-want-sex-women-want-love trope:
Thing is, these both seem to be hens, not roosters. So am I projecting the stereotypes? Maybe. Or perhaps, to give Savage Chickens more credit, Doug Savage, who writes and draws the strip, is defying the stereotype, and just commenting on how sometimes people (chickens) want different things than they profess to want. Or maybe he just doesn't know how to draw a rooster? Or maybe they're both roosters, and he can't draw hens? Or maybe he's a gender outlaw, and purposefully doesn't draw gender in at all...?

50 Bullets

Regarding the multiple tragedies of violence and injustice against Sean Bell, let's just all agree that feminists need to understand how important this is.

First of all, what Holly said:

The problem is that this disproportionately affects communities of color. The black men who are most often slaughtered by such violence, and all the women and children in their lives too, their loved ones, friends and relatives. A system that is all too eager to exonerate “the thin blue line” and continue business as usual. All of these are feminist issues. Racism must be a feminist issue, for any kind of feminism that counts. Police brutality must be; the biases of the criminal justice system must be.

Secondly, Amy Goodman at Democracy Now has a good interview with Sanford Rubinstein, the attorney representing Sean Bell’s fiancee Nicole Paultre-Bell, and with Jessica Sanclemente, the co-coordinator of People’s Justice regarding the injustice we're seeing.

Being An Ally -- How Hard Is It, Really?

Sudy has a great post that includes some words about how it really isn't that difficult to be a good ally (and why people should stop asking her how to be a good ally):

Being an ally is not as dramatic as people paint it lately. I mean, how difficult is it to decenter yourself and your own life and absorb someone else's for a few minutes of your day? Do you realize it's not just about you? It's not just about YOUR definitions of what is an ally. DO you know acknowledge the larger systematic boot of violence against womyn of color and the knife of economic violence that shoves womyn of color into corners of poverty, rape, and silence? (I mean, really acknowledge it.) Being an ally is not ripping the mic from someone else and thrusting it in the face of WOC. Because, in the end, fast forward 60 years from now, the only person who can answer if you led a life of transformation and solidarity is you. Why ask me?

I think she's right, but I think there are some good reasons why potential allies look to those we are trying to be allied with for some answers. If I sit around and talk about how to be a good feminist ally (for instance) with a bunch of feminist men, we're going to be missing out on some of the answers, just by virtue of blind spots of privilege that we may not be able to even know are there. This isn't to say that we can't come up with good, interesting, varied answers to our questions, or that we shouldn't try to, that we shouldn't do the work required to figure this stuff out. I don't want to make it Sudy's job to teach me how to be a better ally. And yet, I want her views on it, so what to do?

Well, that's where the above quote comes in. Decenter from my own life and soak up her views for a while. Read her, and not just what she has to say about allies. Shut up and listen more often. That's some of the advice I'm going to keep giving myself, even though she, and others, have given me the inspiration to do so.

Embracing the Enormity

One reason that I've stopped posting regularly was that the enormity of the various tasks at hand are sometimes overwhelming. Fighting sexism? Ongoing, huge battle. Fighting classicism? Ditto. Fighting racism? Yet another seemingly impossible task. All the while, finding a space to do this as a white, middle-class man? Sigh.

Add to that a growing understanding that communities of protest, communities that seek justice, often aren't very good allies, well, that makes one take a few steps back, reassess and rest.

But of course, 'resting' can be privilege-driven, can't it? I can stop posting, sure, but here I am, living in the US as a white, middle-class man...putting down my pen (so to speak) just means I get a break, to a large degree (though I would claim that men don't get a break from the hardships that patriarchy places on them, either). When BFP stops posting, and takes down her site, because she's understandably fed up, she still has to face a racist, sexist world.

So I'm starting to feel like my hiatus here, while fueled by understandable concerns for my own mental and physical health, is also a way of letting my white/male/able-bodied privilege win out. And, while I think that shutting up can be a lot of what an ally ought to be, I also think that there are ways that I can raise my voice without shouting down those-who-I-would-be-an-ally-of.

So, to start off, howabout a little checklist for myself, to combat the desire to take another break?

1. But it's hard to hear that one isn't being a good ally.
Yep. Sure is. Getting called out feels like shit, especially since people are much more likely to blame than praise in the world o' blogs. You work really hard on trying to bring social justice, and you get called out for what, to you, might seem like small things. But you know what? You don't get to judge what counts as a 'small thing'. These are communities we're talking about, and we're all in it together, so if enough people call you out and say it's important, then it is.

2. There's just too much work to do.
Also true. But keep in mind that you're not doing it alone, and you're not even facing the most daunting challenges--others are. You post about comics and men & feminism, for goodness' sake, not systematic rape in the congo. Maybe you should be posting about other, more important things, but to claim that posting about comics and gender is too daunting, as one of your tasks, is to embrace your privilege. Fight that.

3. But I'm Not Welcome.
Not in every community, not all of the time. That's why this space exists, in part. And there are those who value your voice, and who value what you say. Seek them out. Nurture them. And continue to understand that it's ok that you're not welcome some places. Keep the righteous indignation at a minimum, because it is so often a reflection of your privilege.

There's more, of course, but this is a start.

What to Say

One feels the need to respond to the controversy, but really, there isn't so much left to say that hasn't already been said, and said better than I could say. I guess I'll just say this:

Feminism and anti-racism ought to be inextricably intertwined. Lots of times, they aren't seen that way. That's something we ought to work to change.

Other than that:

First, just go see what BFP has to say abut the whole thing.

Then, take these words from Lauren to heart:

What I don’t get is how so many of us that were irritated by what often seemed like an intentional oversight are suddenly scandalized to be called out on our own biases, blindnesses, and lenses of privilege. Put your big girl panties on and take notice.

Update: Ok, go read what Twisty has to say as well:

You feel that, white feminists? That’s your obstreperal lobe telling you that feminism and good intentions do not a get-out-of-racism-free card make.

Restrained Amusement

In yet another example of one of my favorite comics annoying the crap out of me: XKCD Thinks Restraining Orders Are Funny...



Thing is, I get that this is funny, conceptually. At the risk of going Monty-Python-esque, the humor is found within pushing the boundaries (no pun intended) of the concept of a restraining order--normally, it's just meant to keep people away, so a restraining order as described in the comic is antithetical to what restraining orders are for. The cognitive dissonance provided by holding the original concept and the revised concept in one's head helps create the humor. And yet, for me, it can't help but conjure up the women (and men, and people of all genders) who have to get restraining orders, for various reasons, which helps the funny slip away quickly and quietly.

Post Feminism?

The next time somebody tells ya that we don't need feminism, we only need humanism, you may trot out this little ditty, from a United Nations commissioned report:

Women are discriminated against in almost every country around the world, a UN-commissioned report says. It says that this is despite the fact that 185 UN member states pledged to outlaw laws favouring men by 2005. It adds that 70% of the world's poor are women and they own just 1% of the world's titled land. The report, which was prepared for UN Human Right Commissioner Louise Arbour, says rape within marriage has still not been made a crime in 53 nations.

Love Among the Feminists

Jill's post at Feministe has started a great discussion about the various shapes that feminist romantic relationships take, focusing on, but not limited to, hetero versions. Among the comments comes this interesting point, from KellyS:

I guess I just never would’ve settled for any less. Maybe that is where we sell ourselves short as feminists–we assume that men can’t be this thing, this other half and that there are “guy” things and “girl” things. Yes, even as feminists. Many women fool themselves into gender roles, and by allowing the men in their lives who subscribe to them, they shouldn’t be surprised when things don’t magically change.

I think there's a book in there, somewhere, Jill.

Family or Prison?

Mr. Boffo:

I could be playing basketball right now. Y'know, instead of looking out the window ignoring my screaming wife while she screws up my dinner and doesn't keep my kids in line very well.

Also: Make some insights about gender roles, but make sure you bring it all back to body issues, because, you know, that's what women do:
For Better of For Worse:

Go Team Patriarchy

If you've never read Cat and Girl, you oughta.

Women Are Controlling. Also, They Love Shopping

Also:
Women need men to take them shopping and men play video games.

It Would Be Dark (Like This Blog Has Been for a While)

This is how I feel about feminism right now:
Not that feminism is dark, of course, just that it's very complex and can produce endless debate--and for right now, most of what I can come up with isn't much more than something like "It would be dark."

But I'm getting there. Hopefully back soon.

Men Matter: Boys Are People

I'm easing back into reading some feminist blogs, and one of my favorite feminist bloggers, Jill of Feministe, has a great post up today where she reflects on a new study that shows that (gasp!) adolescent boys think of adolescent girls as more than just sex objects. My favorite part of Jill's analysis:

And this is another “thank feminism” moment. The idea that boys just want sex (and girls don’t) is at its heart conservative and essentialist — and it’s a stereotype that lays the groundwork for requirements of “femininity” that inevitably involve refusing sex until a big fat diamond enters the picture, and bartering virginity for financial and social security. It’s not feminists who argue that boys are mindless animals only interested in sex; no, that argument comes from your anti-feminist social conservatives, who manage to inject it into abstinence-only sex education...

On Burnout, and Bigger Pictures

Warning: Personal Rantiness Ahead

I've been on a road trip for a week with limited internet access. For a few weeks before that, I found myself not wanting to blog about feminism. And now that I'm back, I'm trying to ease back into it, but I'm finding myself still feeling burned out on it all.

Immediately I feel the pull of privilege--when I think about taking an extended break, my first thoughts are about how I 'get' to do that more easily than some others do, in part because I'm a guy, in part because I'm middle-class, in part because I'm not a person of color. But then I realize that I haven't stopped thinking about feminism, about class, about race (and their intersections). I have stopped feeling like I'm contributing to something that helps the world. Instead of being inspired by others, instead of inspiring myself, instead of feeling part of a larger movement, all I seem to be able to focus on lately are the hurdles in front of us, the infighting that is so prevalent so as to seem inevitable, and the mountainous pile of work to do to just stay in one place as regards equality, not to mention trying to move ahead.

I know that a lot of these feelings come to anybody committed to social justice. This is what burnout does--it narrows your focus to the negatives, for a time. But I also know that, for a few years now that I've been reading and writing feminism online, I'm not feeling any progress. That includes progress (or lack thereof) on a macro level, but also includes the lack of progress in my own ideas about feminism, class and race. Mostly I feel like there's a lot of pointing to sexism, and not enough analysis of the whys of sexism's pervasiveness. As much as I think it's important to keep pointing out sexism--silence is permission to whatever degree--I've definitely found myself stuck in pointing-mode, without much analysis to make my pointing useful, or interesting. Also, I find myself parroting the 'talking points' of feminism, without incorporating more of feminism(s) into my larger world-view.

So, if anybody is still reading, I'm going to ease back into writing, probably with some posts on gender in the comics, but with an eye toward also analyzing why I think pop-culture stuff is central to understanding social inequalities. But I'm not ready quite yet. Hopefully I come up with enough interesting stuff that people will come back and read. If not, I'll still feel better that I'm not just reiterating what others are saying, but contributing something to (at least) my own world view.

Absence

I've been away. Not literally. Wait--can you be away literally from a blog? There are various reasons, not completely unlike Roy's reasons at No Cookie for Me and legions of other bloggers everywhere, I suppose. Issues of relevancy, of utility, and of being just plain burnt out. And then, of course, as a male feminist blogger, there are added issues of privilege--the idea that men can more easily take a break from understanding sexism does tend to pop into my head, though I know it's more complex than that.

And now I am going to be out of town for a week or so, back The second full week of February. So I'm going to let my road trip help me percolate up some of the ideas I have for change here at Feminist Allies into ideas worth writing about. Something clearly has to change so that I can feel not only like I'm creating some interesting ideas in people's heads, but also that I'm not setting myself up for another burnout.

My original conception of this blog was for 4 or 5 men (and women) to post middle-length posts about men, masculinity, and feminism. When the groupblog didn't work out, I resolved to do short little posts on a 5-a-day basis, with perhaps a long-ish post thrown in once or twice a week. This appears to be too much for me--I just haven't felt like I've had enough to say that often. So I'm working on some other ideas, which I'll hopefully start up when I get back from my trip.

Count me as down, but not out.

See you in a week or so!

Roe v. Wade

On this, the 35th Anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, I'm digging Courtney Martin's take on things, which includes complex analysis and inclusion of the opinions of many:

As we celebrate the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade this week, I hope we can remember a bit of the spirit at the Women's March for Choice in Washington, D.C. -- a gathering of over a million people according to some estimates -- back in 2004. Surrounded by men, women and children of all ages, I felt empowered to stand up for every woman's legal right to reproductive choice (not to mention health), but also free to disclose my complicated feelings over the issue. There was space for transformational dialogue as we lay in the grass, listening to the diverse speakers. There was time to look women of all ages in the eyes and say, "This is where I'm coming from. How about you?"

Gender in Comics: How Soft is Your World?

I was probably one of the last people to discover A Softer World, an interesting 'comic' that utilizes pictures of the real world, but sticks to a three-panel daily comic form. Usually the third panel has some sort of turn-around in thought. Mostly they are charming, funny, and full of bleak humor--and the bleakness is certainly part of the humor. One often finds oneself thinking, "Ouch!" while chuckling all the same. For a good example, check out this one. But sometimes, not so much. After reading through a bunch of their archives, I've found way too many references to violence against women than one would have expected from such a witty source.

As is par for the course with a lot of the comics I detail here, I actually really like this comic, generally. So, once again, this is tough love.

There Is Always More 'Humor' About Stalking, It Seems
Am I an old feminist curmudgeon? Perhaps. But this sort of thing still doesn't touch my funny bone at all:


I Said Peanuts
Poisoning Somebody? Not funny. Thinking About Poisoning Somebody? Funny...?


See What I Did There?
Another reference to domestic violence that's not really happening, so it can be funny, right?


The Cat's Out of the Bag, Hopefully
And finally, just out and out 'humorous' misogyny!
Because fantasizing about killing all of your ex-girlfriends and then playing video games is hilarious.

Gender in Comics: The Women As Objects Edition

I'm going to pick on F-Minus a bit this week, but that's not because I think it's more of a problem regarding gender stereotypes than any other comics. In fact, it's often better around gender and race. I love F-Minus. So think of this as tough love.

What Better Present Than a "Secretary"?
The root of this joke is pretty funny, actually--the idea that somebody would employ somebody around their home for writing daily emails or whatever (though how a secretary would do that with a steno pad isn't clear--I think the steno is there in lieu of a nametag that says "secretary", as an identifier). Thing is, as it stands, it's just creepy, what with the short-ish skirt and the fact that, by default, the secretary is a woman.

Even Creepier: A Womb as a View
Or is my title for this comic even creepier? Probably.
I think what bothers me most about this is that this represents at least a couple of things going on here that are only very slightly magnified for so-called comic effect--things that people do and experience daily. The sign isn't far from how some men talk and think about women. And the experience of having to walk by such a sign, as a woman, isn't far from the general harassment many women go through daily.

Dating Women as a Class of Things
There's an interesting storyline going on in Monty over the past few weeks, which I'll probably talk more about, because it's relatively nuanced for a comic. But some of the first strips are great examples of what men sometimes do: They attempt to date a gender, rather than a person:
Single? Check. Woman? Check. And that's all it takes, because they're interchangeable objects!

bell hooks Monday: God and Love and All That Good Stuff

Since I haven't responded yet in detail regarding a bunch of comments from my post Can God Be a Feminist?, I thought I would at least offer up a different point of view (than my own) from one of my favorite feminists on god and worship. For bell hooks, what is central to the necessity of a spiritual life is the need to keep our focus on love. It's interesting to note that she moved from being a Christian, to becoming interested in Buddhism and Islamic mysticism, to just keeping in mind that love is where we often find truth.

From Wounds of Passion:

"When I come to college, it does not take me long to realize that the really hip people do not believe in god, that no one talks about religion expect the boring born against. My relationship to god is the most private union. I learn not to speak of it. Although in classes it is always I who can name a scriptural reference. I konw the bible and am not ashamed of this knowing. In fact, it surprises me that everyone in my classes is so ignorant, mostly though they brag about being atheist. That's what is really cool--to not believe in the existence of god. I believe."(pp 152)

I had a moderately different experience in college. I did meet some self-professed atheists in college, but mostly I meet people who claim agnosticism, or a generalized 'spirituality' not unlike what hooks tells us she ends up with. Of course, the atheists I did run across there (some of whom became friends!) were relatively vocal in their atheism not unlike the people hooks seems to be talking about. Hooks, for her part, moves along from her Christianity to look around for other paths:

"Mack finds my devotion to religion strange. I have moved away from the conventional church but I have kept in me the love of the inner life, the need to be one with the divine. I search for the meaning of religious life everywhere. I study Buddhism and Islamic mysticism. In town there is a Sufi meeting. I go there to dance in the circle of love. And that I am learning about the mystical dimensions of religious faith takes me back to the heart, to loving. To be with god is to love. It is required and understood that a man be found faithful. The ethics of being that govern my life are grounded in spiritual life.(pp152-153)"

Who can argue with love, or paying attention to one's inner life? I find it interesting that hooks doesn't seem to explicitly talk about the misogynist aspects of various religions--though I haven't read everything she has written. She does, however, express various ways in which religion has left her wanting--the white Buddhists who say race doesn't matter because we all choose our race, those who try to force their beliefs on others, the difficulties of letting go of the things in this world in order to be more spiritual. In the end, she likes the seeking--seeking seems to be her religion:

"I contemplate my work. I pray for divine guidance. It comes between me and Mack that I am turning from poetry to writing critical essays, on subjects that are more political. He feels I am abandoning the aesthetics of the artists life for the mundane realm of social theory. I am trying to invent a world that can sustain me as a writer, as a woman dedicated to the life of the mind. I want to remain a seeker on the path."(pp160)

I sometimes feel this way about feminism itself, actually. The infighting just kills me sometimes. And, the need for the infighting--there are real problems that need to be addressed--kills me too. When I start feeling like abandoning feminism for, say, humanism or some such, one thing that helps me is to understand the ways in which my relationship to feminism has developed, and the ways in which feminism itself has changed and grown, is to look at it in a similar way to the way that hooks is looking at religion. Seeking a better and better feminism seems to be the way to go--still seeking, even while unhappy with the current path. (Of course, I feel this way about humanism, and anti-racism, and lots of other ways of framing the world.)

Shorter Gloria Steinem:

Systems of oppression involving gender and race can only be uprooted together, but gender is way more important than race.

Early on in her latest op-ed piece, she says:

Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House.

And then a bit later:

I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together.

Um, yeah, you know, you sort of are advocating a competition, what with claims of what is the most restricting force in American life. And then you offer 'evidence' for this view by noting that black men got the vote before any woman did, ignoring (just off the top of my head) lots of other facts, like the fact that white women weren't literally slaves as black men and women were. Just as a for-instance. Sheesh.

I'm disappointed in the extreme with Steinem's writing here, which feels for all the world to me like Steinem hasn't heard a word that has been said in the past three or so decades from those who have been rightly critical of feminism for being stupid about race.