Goodness, gender roles and how to fix a broken gender system

Stemming from a facebook conversation with a friend, about this sentence:

“To be a good man, one must surround himself with good women.” – Steve Lund

I want to capture here on my blog what I wrote in response to this on Facebook, because there are themes in what I wrote that run through the fiction that I’m writing. I’m going to paraphrase some of the comments because it was rather lengthy. If I do so in a way that doesn’t honor their meaning, I apologize. I challenged the idea of that Lund quote with this:

Here’s why that’s problematic – it’s not the responsibility of women to make men good. It’s the responsibility of men to make themselves good, whether they’re surrounded by good women or not.

To be fair, I didn’t stop to look up Steve Lund or what the context of this statement is. Perhaps I should, and I will at the end of this post, but for the most part, we were parsing this one sentence in our discussion.

David countered my challenge with some thoughtful discussion about male and female role models and what we are taught:

Steph and Sherry, I believe the intent of this statement is that as boys grow into men, they should seek out female role models as well as male role models.

Girls are encouraged to have male heroes and role models from infancy. To the contrary, boys are told never to model behavior after anything female, ever – that female heroes are notable exceptions and are only role models for girls, not boys. Boys are encouraged to surround themselves with men of qualities they would like to emulate. I believe Mr. Lund is saying that amid this pressure, males need to actively seek out and surround themselves with good female influences, too.

That’s an interesting thought, but I still think it’s focusing on the wrong thing. Tracy added this…

Well, lets see if the opposite makes sense or insulting, “To be a good woman, one must surround herself with good men.” Hummm…

I think she was on the right track there, because it started to try to flip the perspective. It didn’t quite help David out of his focus on the current state of affairs between men and women. He wrote a whole series of thoughtful comments about our how children are taught male primacy and how that can damage both boys and girls as they learn how to live in our society:

But, acknowledging that the world is broken, I see no harm in reminding guys that women matter and even though we boys were told otherwise while growing up – men should include women and women’s opinions as equal – and men should include those equal women among the folks they choose as friends, role models .. and heroes.

Am I wrong in thinking this damage to the American male worldview is something that needs corrected, that men need to be challenged and reminded to think differently in regard to women?

So, to more thoughtfully answer Tracey’s query, I think reminding girls and women to include men in their worldview is deeply offensive; reminding boys and men to include women in their worldview is a necessary course correction until the world is no longer broken in regard to gender disparity.

I was really thinking out loud during most of this – trying to mull things over and acknowledge my own limitations as a man who has no idea what women experience while simultaneously noting the bizarre anti-women gender-based indoctrination I experienced as a child growing up in Northern Indiana.

I think in asking those questions he’s going far beyond where Lund was going, but also not quite far enough to get us where we need to go. I can actually see some harm in reminding guys that women matter in the way that Lund is doing, because it still reinforces gendered thinking, and doesn’t demand people step outside their role. So I tried a different way to jar perspective, coupled with stepping back several large steps to contemplate what we’re even talking about:

I appreciate you thinking the whole thing through this thoroughly, because I knew you would. Definitely the damage to the male’s world view needs to be corrected, but I don’t know that Lund’s solution is the proper one, or enough to fix things, or specific enough for it to be clear what he actually means.

Let’s take out the genders altogether, as a game. “To be a good person, one must surround oneself with good people.” That makes a lot more sense, except that – must one? Practically, yes – anyone that doesn’t grow up being taught to behave well will probably not spontaneously grow a conscience without examples.

We make systems in society to move people that way. Outside of parental teaching, education and the school system are in place to provide that. And socially this is what we use religion for, because it’s easy and lazy and it’s a “do what I say because I said so and I’m bigger than you are” way of controlling people.

But in theory, should we expect people to be “good” without something propping that up? Are the “role models” in Lund’s example just crutches the way that religion is? Ideally, we do have some expectation as a society that people find their own way to a moral compass, somehow. Education and religion are guardrails to get us there, (although I think we’d agree that religion guardrail is pretty damned rickety) but Lund’s own sentence seems to suggest that the responsibility is on the individual to school themselves: “one must surround oneself.”

So if ideally we expect people to school themselves on good behavior, but practically we have social systems to get them there… what happens when we add gender back in?

“To be a good man” – doesn’t that suddenly sound jarring? We were talking earlier about “goodness” as a concept, but suddenly it seems we may not be talking about goodness at all, but about what being a man means. Are we talking about morality, or about gender performance? Do those two things have anything to do with one another? What does gender add to this conversation?

I don’t know enough about Lund to know whether the problem he was fixating on was actually about creating a better society, or about fixing the broken world view about gender, or about performing a male gender role properly. Obviously fixing the second would make better the first, but was his sentence actually concentrating on the first or the second or the third?

For the sake of kindness I’m going to throw out the third – that he was talking about whether he was performing “man” properly – and posit that he was talking about being a better human being.

I do agree that we have a broken societal system when it comes to gender. But the is way to fix that to double-down on gender roles and expectations, or is it to remove gender from the equation and ask that we observe and have empathy with people as human beings first and gendered individuals second?

Could a good man, surrounded by other good men, fix the male world view without good women being in the mix? If we are relying on the individual to take some responsibility as Lund is, then yes, we should expect that.

What is the responsibility of good women here? Well obviously to school ourselves, but is being available to good men as role models our only task? And is there a difference between being a good man and a good woman? What is that difference? Is there some expectation of women here that we don’t have of men?

It should be apparent now, that Tracy’s gender flip is really important, and actually does work to call Lund’s thought into question “To be a good woman, one must surround herself with good men.”

Regardless of our immersion in a broken world view about gender, we still need to think of ourselves as humans first and gendered creatures second if we are going to break free of that broken world view at all.

I’m sure that there will be more to this conversation, but I wanted to capture at least what I wrote here, because these are themes that run throughout my fiction and I want to return to them again as I’m writing.

Lund’s quote seems to come from this interview: The Man Sphere – Men We Admire: Steve Lund.

Do I wear blue because I'm a boy, or am I a boy because I wear blue?

Continue ReadingGoodness, gender roles and how to fix a broken gender system

A Brief History of Indiana’s Marriage Discrimination Amendment

I try to follow and post about the Indiana’s Marriage Discrimination Amendment every time it’s come up in the Indiana State Legislature, and here is a short history that I’ve been able to cobble together from past posts. This is mainly a testimony to my sketchy blogging more than anything else, as I seem to have often failed to follow up on posting about the outcomes of various bills. I’ll attempt to update this page with more research on bilerico.com and the Indiana legislative archives when I we are not in the middle of a legislative fight and when my internet is a lot more reliable than it is today.

In January of 2014, HJR-6 was re-named HJR-3 and introduced to the House Judiciary Committee. It got stuck in committee because it didn’t have the votes to move, so Brian Bosma moved it to the Elections Committee where it passed.

In January of 2013, HJR-6 (which is now the current bill HJR-3) was filed but never made it out of the House Judiciary Committee. Lawmakers indicated that they preferred to wait until the Supreme Court rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act were announced.

In March 2011, HJR-6 (which is now the current bill HJR-3) was being pushed through the state legislature for the first time. The LGBT Community held a rally to protest it.

In February of 2008, SJR-7 died after Rep. Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City refused to hear the legislation in the House.

In January of 2008, Representative Eric Turner, ranking Republican on the House Rules and Legislative Policy Committee, tried to amend a property tax bill to add SJR-7 after it looked like it would never make it out of committee to be heard.

On April 3rd, 2007, SJR-7 died in committee, unable to make it out of the Indiana House of Representative’s Rules and Legislative Procedures Committee.

On March 29th, SJR-7 testimony to the House Committee for SJR-7 revealed that the language in it had been rejected for the federal version of this amendment by Robert Bork because it was too ambiguous.

In the spring of 2007, SJR-7 became was being pushed through a house committee.

On February 8th of 2007, SJR-7 passed the Indiana Senate and was sent to a House committee to be heard.

On January of 2007, SJR-7, an Indiana Marriage Discrimination Amendment was re-introduced to the State Lesgislature.

On March 8th of 2005, we held a rally to oppose SJR-7, the first wave of an attempt to pass the Indiana Marriage Discrimination Amendment. This was the language of SJR-7:

DIGEST OF INTRODUCED BILL
Definition of marriage. Provides that marriage in Indiana consists only of the union of one man and one woman. Provides that Indiana law may not be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

Notice the second sentence of that bill – at time, we noted how flawed the language of the second sentence (different language than today’s HJR3, but still really flawed and problematic) was.

Prior to SJR-7 in 2005: There was a great deal of awareness in Indiana that a Marriage Discrimination Amendment was probably coming. There was an attempt to pass one on a federal level in 2003-2004 before the plan was blocked in Senate and the failure of Massachusetts ban on same-sex marriage and subsequent marriages triggered a flurry of activity in red states like our when opponents of same-sex marriage rights realized their days were numbered.

I really think there was a prior attempt at an amendment in the late 1990s or early 2000s, because I recall when I was more politically active in LGBT Fairness that we covered the issue and when we were fighting the state statute. I don’t have specific bill numbers or information about those attempts yet.

Continue ReadingA Brief History of Indiana’s Marriage Discrimination Amendment

How Marriage Equality Opponents’ Three National Strategies All Contradict Each Other

From Think Progress: How Marriage Equality Opponents’ Three National Strategies All Contradict Each Other.

At the federal level, opponents currently have three proposed strategies for rolling back some of the recognition that same-sex couples now have. Particularly in the wake of the Utah and Oklahoma decisions, groups like the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and Family Research Council (FRC) have been emphasizing two talking points: that states should have the right to establish their own definition of marriage and that the religious views of people who oppose marriage equality should be protected. Each of the three proposed strategies would limit same-sex marriage to a certain extent according to these talking points, but the principles that inform each strategy are in conflict with each other.

Good read for understanding the strategy. Or lack thereof.

Continue ReadingHow Marriage Equality Opponents’ Three National Strategies All Contradict Each Other

HJR-3 to be heard in the Indiana House Monday at 1:30 p.m.

After some committee shenanigans, (in which Brian Bosma moved the bill from House Judiciary committee to the Elections and Apportionment committee when it became clear that it wouldn’t pass the first one) HJR-3 passed out of committee on Wednesday, and will be heard on the floor of the Indiana House on Monday at 1:30 p.m.

If you want to hear a recording of the very moving testimony in the committee, there is a recording of the 4+ hour proceeding here.

Please contact your state representative, and ask them to reject HJR-3.

Here is some information on packing the State House. Stephanie and I will be there to join other Indiana citizens asking legislators to vote no on the bill, and we would love it if you came with us.

If you’d like to contact all of the state legislators in the house and not just your own, here is a cut and paste list of house email addresses. TIP: put addresses in the bcc box – that way, each recipient sees only their email address, not all 100.
h1@iga.in.gov, h2@iga.in.gov, h3@iga.in.gov, h4@iga.in.gov, h5@iga.in.gov, h6@iga.in.gov, h7@iga.in.gov, h8@iga.in.gov, h9@iga.in.gov, h10@iga.in.gov, h11@iga.in.gov, h12@iga.in.gov, h13@iga.in.gov, h14@iga.in.gov, h15@iga.in.gov, h16@iga.in.gov, h17@iga.in.gov, h18@iga.in.gov, h19@iga.in.gov, h20@iga.in.gov, h21@iga.in.gov, h22@iga.in.gov, h23@iga.in.gov, h24@iga.in.gov, h25@iga.in.gov, h26@iga.in.gov, h27@iga.in.gov, h28@iga.in.gov, h29@iga.in.gov, h30@iga.in.gov, h31@iga.in.gov, h32@iga.in.gov, h33@iga.in.gov, h34@iga.in.gov, h35@iga.in.gov, h36@iga.in.gov, h37@iga.in.gov, h38@iga.in.gov, h39@iga.in.gov, h40@iga.in.gov, h41@iga.in.gov, h42@iga.in.gov, h43@iga.in.gov, h44@iga.in.gov, h45@iga.in.gov, h46@iga.in.gov, h47@iga.in.gov, h48@iga.in.gov, h49@iga.in.gov, h50@iga.in.gov, h51@iga.in.gov, h52@iga.in.gov, h53@iga.in.gov, h54@iga.in.gov, h55@iga.in.gov, h56@iga.in.gov, h57@iga.in.gov, h58@iga.in.gov, h59@iga.in.gov, h60@iga.in.gov, h61@iga.in.gov, h62@iga.in.gov, h63@iga.in.gov, h64@iga.in.gov, h65@iga.in.gov, h66@iga.in.gov, h67@iga.in.gov, h68@iga.in.gov, h69@iga.in.gov, h70@iga.in.gov, h71@iga.in.gov, h72@iga.in.gov, h73@iga.in.gov, h74@iga.in.gov, h75@iga.in.gov, h76@iga.in.gov, h77@iga.in.gov, h78@iga.in.gov, h79@iga.in.gov, h80@iga.in.gov, h81@iga.in.gov, h82@iga.in.gov, h83@iga.in.gov, h84@iga.in.gov, h85@iga.in.gov, h86@iga.in.gov, h87@iga.in.gov, h88@iga.in.gov, h89@iga.in.gov, h90@iga.in.gov, h91@iga.in.gov, h92@iga.in.gov, h93@iga.in.gov, h94@iga.in.gov, h95@iga.in.gov, h96@iga.in.gov, h97@iga.in.gov, h98@iga.in.gov, h99@iga.in.gov, h100@iga.in.gov

Carol Trexler testifying
Carol is undergoing chemo for cancer and came to the Statehouse after going through chemo that morning. She testified about having to have her healthcare paperwork with her at all times because hospital workers don’t recognize her wife as a health care representative.
Staff Sgt. Scott Spychala Removed from Hearing
Staff Sgt. Scott Spychala, a 20-year veteran of the US armed forces, was removed from the hearing for giving a silent “thumbs down” signal at the lies being told during testimony from the proponents of HJR-3

A fine way to thank someone for serving his country
More info on Staff Sgt. Scott Spychala and his silent protest.

HPI Analysis: Bosma defends 2d sentence, McNamara opposes
NASHVILLE, Ind. – The second sentence of the constitutional marriage amendment has been endorsed by House Speaker Brian Bosma, while State Rep. Wendy McNamara is saying she won’t vote for the resolution if it remains. “If an amendment were to be brought up to remove the second sentence I will fully support this resolution,” said McNamara, R-Mount Vernon, in a prepared statement. “If the second sentence remains, I will not support the resolution.”

How Indiana’s Proposed Marriage Referendum Would Devastate The Gay Community
Psychologists have studied the emotional impact of marriage referendums like our on same-sex couples and their families and determined that the level of stress in inflicts is terrible.

To celebrate the hate, Governor Mike Pence threw a special luncheon for the supporters of HJR-3 to congratulate them.

Brian Bosma and the Marriage Amendment

How a Bill Shouldn’t Become a Law – Sheila Kennedy
Regarding HJR3 – “Even more incredibly, the Speaker has scheduled the new committee’s vote for tomorrow. The vote will be taken without the benefit of evidence or testimony–but then, as we’ve seen, the Speaker considers evidence and testimony irrelevant. The only thing committee members need to to know is what the Speaker wants them to do. Usually, the power plays and the wheeling/dealing is done behind the scenes. This time, that wasn’t possible. This time, everyone got to see what is seldom on public display: the House leadership’s absolute contempt for democracy and the rules of fair play.”

Continue ReadingHJR-3 to be heard in the Indiana House Monday at 1:30 p.m.

Writing off Jennifer Weiner

I don’t know how it’s possible, but after reading this New Yorker profile “Written Off” by Rebecca Mead, I love Jennifer Weiner more than I did before reading it, although it’s widely being described as “a take-down” piece. The profile starts out fine, but about half-way through, the paragraph that starts “Weiner has also taken literary inspiration from her mother…” is the point where the whole thing just skates off the rails (Mead’s suggestion that Weiner’s lesbian characters are somehow anti-gay is bogus, small and unworthy of that publication) and Mead begins just coloring on the walls rather than finishing her work. I’m not sure whether I respect Mead’s audacity more for just saying “aw fuck it, I’m writing myself into a corner” in the middle of an article for The New Yorker, or The New Yorker’s for publishing it without fixing it, or apparently, even realizing it needs to be fixed.

This paragraph is so funny I had to get up and go to the bathroom and pee before I could finish:

A novel that tells of the coming of age of a young woman can command as much respect from the literary establishment as any other story. In 2013, Rachel Kushner was nominated for a National Book Award for her hard-edged exploration of this theme, “The Flamethrowers,” and the previous year Sheila Heti won accolades for her book “How Should a Person Be?,” even though it included both shopping and fucking. The novel, and the critical consensus around what is valued in a novel, has never excluded the emotional lives of women as proper subject matter. It could be argued that the exploration of the emotional lives of women has been the novel’s prime subject. Some of the most admired novels in the canon center on a plain, marginalized girl who achieves happiness through the discovery of romantic love and a realization of her worth. “My bride is here,” Mr. Rochester tells Jane Eyre, “because my equal is here, and my likeness.”

Emphasis very much mine. I can’t even with the Jane Eyre in a discussion of women in contemporary literature.

The thing that is almost entirely missing from this article is any detailed analysis of Jennifer Weiner’s case for re-thinking what is and what should be considered “literary merit.” Her critique is a serious (and valid) one, and not to be dismissed, but Mead attempts to ignore it almost completely, falling back on George Eliot’s 1856 essay to bolster the blinders she keeps, while ignoring the very points she lightly quotes about Weiner’s thoughts early on in the piece.

A loose paraphrasing of Weiner’s ideas:

  • that the two great contemporary literary themes “white men doing great things or failing in the attempt” and “oppressed peoples struggling against a harsh society” leave some serious gaps of examination of human experience
  • that white middle-class modern women’s life experiences (one of those missing pieces) are not just fluff (shopping and fucking? really?), and to dismiss them as such is fundamentally sexist
  • that regular, ordinary people really do, actually, often achieve happy endings, and this is valid literary subject matter
  • that literature doesn’t have to be painful to have great affect on us
  • and that taking comfort in things that are uplifting can actually lift us up, and that has value

If you change the lens on the microscope by which you analyze writing, both commercial and literary, with many of these ideas in mind, you realize quickly that contemporary literary criticism leaves a lot of worthy writing behind, especially the writing of women.

Mead dissects and dismisses several of Weiner’s books in this piece by refusing to think of them in this proposed new context, instead shoving them under the traditional lens of “The Old-Tymey Rules of What is Good Literature” while willfully ignoring that more and more women are successfully challenging the notion that these long accepted “Rules” have some serious bias in the way of both sexism and snobbishness. That Mead has to reach as far back as George Eliot and Charlotte Brontë to make her case in discussing a contemporary author and her place in contemporary literature says a great deal about how weak her case is.

I can’t imagine how Mead interviewed Weiner, read large sections of the woman’s twitter account, and listened to her speak about women, commercial fiction and the place of both in contemporary literature and yet got Weiner’s voice so very wrong. The woman is not exactly smoke and mirrors; there isn’t a facade there. Weiner’s pretty straight-forward, and it’s impossible to follow her on twitter for any length of time and not come to think of her as self-reflective and open. I can’t imagine how Mead spoke to her and didn’t come away seeing her as genuine, but she didn’t.

Mead also bolsters a wide-spread belief that “Jennifer Weiner has two audiences. One consists of the devoted consumers of her books, which have sold more than four and a half million copies…. Her other audience is made up of writers, editors, and critics.” Even Weiner apparently believes that to be true, and I guess she would know her own audience(s), but I find it hard to believe those two audiences are entirely separate. I definitely bridge that gap.

In the end, Mead decides that Weiner is just whining; that her work doesn’t deserve critical recognition, not because it’s viewed through a sexist and snobbish literary lens, but because of:

the perfunctory quality of some descriptive passages, or of the brittle mean-spiritedness that colors some character sketches. (Readers looking for fairness and kindness will not always find those attributes displayed by Weiner’s fictional creations.)

That was a jaw-dropping statement for me; that same statement could be could be made about sections of work from many contemporary male “literary giants” including Roth, Franzen, Eugenides, Chabon, David Foster Wallace, men who clearly receive great critical recognition, some of it deserved and sometimes not so much.

Mead goes out of her way at the end of the piece to tie Weiner back into her place as “chick lit” by describing in detail the women who come to have their books signed, and how they measure her books against what Mead clearly considers the irrelevant minutia of their own lives, an ending I found as lazy as most of the article.

Continue ReadingWriting off Jennifer Weiner

Hoppin’ John

There are many versions of Hoppin’ John, but this is mine.

4 cups of chicken broth
1/2 cups of brown rice

4 pork chops thawed & uncooked, cut in square chunks
1 can of black-eyed peas
1 can of seasoned black beans
1/2 of a large onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 tablespoons of brown sugar
1/3 cup chipotle lime marinade or cajun seasoning to taste

Put brown rice and 2 cups of chicken broth in the slow cooker, cook on low for 1 hour.

Put all the rest of the ingredients into the crockpot, turn on high for 2 hours, then low for five.

20140101-121651.jpg

Continue ReadingHoppin’ John