Monthly Archives: April 2004

Trail running, Chinchillas, Pat Tillman, and country music theology

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The weather in Southern California has been breathtaking the last two days. This morning, we did a thirteen-miler run up in the hills behind Monrovia, just east of Pasadena. My body is now well-recovered from the near-disaster of April 3′s 50K. No big races ahead on the schedule, just some easy running.

The fact that it is hot means the central air conditioner must be on full blast all day. Chinchillas do not do well when the temperature gets over 75, and can die rapidly once it climbs over 80. It will be a very expensive next few months, making certain that my little 1.5 pound Matilde is kept cool in the swelter of a Pasadena late spring and summer!

I passed 20,000 hits sometime early this morning; I know that doesn’t mean 20,000 unique visitors, but it still is a lot of folks coming here since mid-January. Thanks. I’ve decided to add a sidebar of a few of my most popular posts.

Okay, here’s Saturday’s rant which will no doubt infuriate one or two folks:

Annika had a touching post yesterday about the death of Pat Tillman (the NFL player killed in Afghanistan). I disagree with Annika’s politics, but I confess I was quite moved by what she wrote. But then, alas, the little pacifist theologian who lives in my head got mad. Annika quoted the song “American Soldier” by country singer Toby Keith, which included these lines:

Oh, and I don’t want to die for you,
But if dyin’s asked of me,
I’ll bear that cross with honor,
‘Cause freedom don’t come free.

One of the things that many Christians who believe in the efficacy of war have a tendency to do is to confuse “dying” with “killing”. This goes all the way back to Julia Ward Howe’s ringing final lines of the Battle Hymn of the Republic: “As He died to make men holy, we shall die to make men free.” Stirring it may be (I love that hymn, I weep whenever I sing it) but it’s poor theology.

Jesus himself died for us on a cross; last time I made my way through the Gospels, he didn’t kill for us. Soldiers have but one life to give for their country, but their real usefulness, alas, lies in their willingness to kill for their country. American forces, everyone agrees, have done most of the killing and relatively little of the dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have no desire to see American lives lost. I am sorry that Pat Tillman died; he seemed to be an unusually intelligent and thoughtful man. But it is troubling to me that those who grieve his death compare the sacrifice of an armed soldier to the non-violent sacrifice prescribed in the New Testament.

We are all called to the cross. Jesus says “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” The Christian life is not always one of joy and happiness; it can be and perhaps even should be one of pain and sacrifice. If suffering was all that soldiers did in war, then a Toby Keith could claim that they were truly taking up the cross. For those of us within the pacifist Anabaptist tradition, inflicting suffering — even upon one’s enemies — is antithetical to the spirit of the cross. Our soldiers may be good men engaged in a noble cause, but their methods are not those that Jesus or his disciples used. Jesus, Stephen, Peter, Paul; they and others after them went to their deaths willingly. But they darned sure never took anyone else’s life along the way. Though it may serve the songwriters to do so, connecting the martyrdom of the doves with the sacrifice of the hawks is bad history, bad politics, and bad theology.

In the countless talks and arguments I have with non-pacifist Christians, I am always keenly aware that there are indeed good men and women of sound theology who defend the compatibility of war and faith. I respect the “just war” tradition, even as the historian in me is convinced it is a 4th century construct designed to placate the Roman Empire. I need to say yet again that I grieve all of those who die in war, including those who die in combat. But I cannot equate the profession of soldiering with Jesus’ command to take up His cross, and even in a time of sadness, I am troubled — and angered — by the appropriation of that sacred image to honor men who die with blood on their hands.

Brief thoughts on a feminist classroom

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The hits keep on coming. I have had as many folks visit my blog in the past six days as I have had in the previous three months. Over 2600 now within the past day. That certainly says something about the prevalence of porn in cyberspace! All presumably still looking for this.

In the comments at History News Network on my post immediately below, Ophelia Benson wrote:

I’m a grizzled ol’ feminist myself, but I’ve grown increasingly dubious about that ‘the personal is political’ mantra in the last ten years or so – partly because I know all too many women who take it all too literally and apply it all too extensively – who, in short, seem to be completely incapable of talking or thinking about anything that’s not personal. That is unbelievably limiting, obviously. In many ways Second Wave Feminism seems to have pushed us back into a cage as well as letting us out.

So, in short, is the historical always the personal? Is that a sine qua non of gender studies? If so, why? And does that seem to result in a narrow, parochial view of what history is in students who buy into it?

And as for therapy – that’s the first thing I thought when starting to read the post. Frankly the whole subject sounds perilously close to therapy. And…I have a lot of problems with that. It seems so infantilizing, for one thing. And so (again) parochial, for another. I mean – it is an important subject (I’ve read the Brumberg book) but is it an academic one?

Ophelia asks some super questions, and I tried to answer them briefly at HNN. I’ve taught a series of courses that apply this brand of “feminist personal history”, including one last semester on Men and Masculinity. My pedagogy is one that proudly (perhaps blatantly) seeks to integrate personal experience with whatever subject matter we happen to be dealing with. Kathleen Weiler puts it nicely:

In terms of feminist pedagogy, the authority of the feminist teacher as intellectual and theorist finds expression in the goal of making students themselves theorists of their own lives by interrogating and analyzing their own experience.

With every fiber of my being as a teacher, I believe that one of my highest responsibilities is to make my students “theorists of their own lives”! To some degree, that is of course going to be therapeutic in both practice and intent. I am not a trained therapist (though in doing gender studies work, one is naturally exposed to a great deal of psychology!) But I also know that for most of my working-class community college students, long-term therapy is simply never going to be an option in their lives. It is cruel and unreasonable to assume that they should have any other forum for wrestling with and analyzing their own experiences! A feminist classroom should be a safe place for students to share these experiences. It should also be a challenging place, where students’ traditional assumptions about themselves (and in the case of my course, their bodies) are called into question.

Now what it means to have a male teacher try and employ feminist pedagogy, that’s another discussion altogether.

Teaching Anorexia

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I’m still getting 1000-1400 hits a day looking for Lara Roxx; the article is still here.

Part of this was also posted at HNN:

I’m teaching a class this semester on “Beauty, the Body, and the Euro-American Tradition”. It’s a brand new course, and it’s coming along well (we’re heading into the home stretch). One of our many topics is the history of disordered eating and anorexia, and we’re using Joan Brumberg’s magisterial Fasting Girls as our main text. We’ve been having some thoughtful, lively discussions around it.

The class of thirty students is largely female. At least half a dozen of the women have shared some of their own experiences with food and anxiety; as they do so, most of their peers nod their heads in vigorous agreement. Two women have told me (separately, and during my office hours) that they are currently struggling with fairly serious eating disorders. Both are in treatment of one form or another; both took the class because they were intensely curious about the historical and cultural roots of their affliction. The problem (and I had been warned about this) is that an intense focus on food and the body — even in an academic setting — seems to be fueling rather than diminishing the problem for at least these two students! Brumberg’s book is filled with descriptions of various extreme food-refusal techniques employed by women, past and present. One young woman told me recently that it “made (her) feel bad that (she) didn’t have the willpower that some of these girls had… but now (she’s) got some new ideas! She half-heartedly assured me that she was joking, but it has left me concerned.

Research has shown that attempts to discuss eating disorders (and other self-destructive behaviors, like cutting) often leads to an increase in the very behavior that the discussion was trying to prevent. In a body-obsessed culture, many students clearly find it liberating to hear about the historical origins of our contemporary body obsession. As part of that journey, it is natural and appropriate that they also share their own experiences and feelings. In gender studies, individual narratives, no matter how subjective, are intensely important! But for some of my students, I sense that there is a genuine danger in focusing so intently on the body. I am beginning to consider the possibility that the discussions that we are having and the texts that we are reading are “fueling the disease” for at least a few of my kids (yup, that’s what I call ‘em). I might well be “teaching anorexia” in more ways than one!

As a gender historian deeply concerned with the well-being of my students, I am convinced that a good course in body history needs to walk a fine line between the therapeutic and the academic. Too much of the former, and the class can degenerate into a talk-show. Too little of the former, and I am flagrantly disregarding the sine qua non of gender studies: that the historical is always personal.

UPDATE: Two historians at HNN take issue with my contention that “the historical is always personal” ought to be “the sine qua non of gender studies.” If there’s an issue I am willing to (as they say) “go to the mat for”, it is precisely that one. But that’s another post.

Photos and true confessions of a narcissist

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I’ve changed the photo on the right side of the blog for the first time in months. This was what was once there: view image.

Since lately I have been in the habit of making confessions and reflecting on accountability, I realize that an image of me running shirtless does not belong front and center in this space. Both professionally within my academic work and in casual blogging, I’ve been quite critical of our culture’s obsession with beauty, thinness, and athleticism. (Here and here, for example). I’d like to think most of those criticisms are valid, and if nothing else, they’ve started some good cyberconversations, for which I am immensely grateful.

It is difficult to separate my academic work on the body, gender, and beauty from my own recreational habits. I run almost daily; I lift weights several times a week. I do marathons and 50Ks with some regularity. Mostly, I love to run because it releases stress and tension; it takes me into the hills that I love and gives me a chance to see pieces of God’s wild creation that I would not otherwise ever get the chance to see. It’s given me a precious community of friends with whom I can sweat and eat and laugh and swap stories. But it has also made my body harder, leaner, and stronger. While far from possessing our culture’s idealized male frame, I am not ashamed to confess that I have come to take inordinate pride both in my body’s capabilities and in its appearance. I work with college students and high schoolers who are profoundly anxious about their bodies, and on one hand, I recognize that my own self-consciousness about my flesh enables me to empathize with their struggles. On the other hand, I realize that in order for me to teach effectively about the body, I have to make certain that my own body does not become a distraction! If my vanity (and of course, as most would suspect, vanity had a lot to do with that photo being on this blog) is so flagrantly obvious, it will inevitably undercut the positive work I am trying to do.

When I was a newer teacher, in my late 20s and early 30s, I spent a great deal of time and money on my clothing. I wore fashionable tight-fitting outfits (I was especially fond of Donna Karan and anything from French Connection); I had many folks convinced I was gay. It got me plenty of attention, most (but by no means all) of it quite positive. But though my body hasn’t changed much in the last few years, my need to gain validation from it has — at long last — begun to diminish. Let me assure you that that is a process, not an event!

I am at my best in the classroom and in my work when I present myself humbly. When neither my clothes nor my bearing are distractions to me or to those around me, then I can focus most completely on what it is that I am called to do. Even here in the blogosphere, I admit that I liked presenting one version of Hugo (the pic is from a 2003 half-marathon in Orange County) of which I was particularly proud. I’ve thought better of it, the pic is now down, and now, whether you wanted to or not, you know why.

Abortion, Humility, and the search for Common Ground

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In response to my post on the March for Women’s Lives, Jonathan Dresner (of HNN) wrote:

It has always struck me that the dominant image of pro-life held by pro-choice and the image of pro-choice held by pro-life is that of a single-issue essentializing position. Neither is really correct, but the rhetoric has so distorted communication and understanding that groups which agree on at least 80% of the problems and 50% of the solutions (The Foster quote which you highlighted could have come from either side, at least the either sides I know) can’t work together on them.

There have been fledgling attempts to work together. In the 1990s, the Common Ground Network for Life and Choice (I loved the name) flourished in many cities. In 1996, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the successful cooperation of pro-life and pro-choice activists in the battle-ground city of Buffalo. And in 1999, Naomi Wolf and Frederica Mathewes-Green (two women whose work I have assigned my students), shared this brief dialogue in Sojourners.

I like what Naomi Wolf wrote about her own experiences in dialogue with pro-lifers:

When you open yourself to the kinds of change that common ground creates, you lose aspects of your identity that you have been clinging to. I had parts of my ego stripped away from me. It’s very humbling. I had to face the fact that I might have been wrong all of this time, and that people I felt united with in solidarity might be wrong. The other painful thing I had to face was that I owed an apology. I needed to ask forgiveness of the wrong I had done.

This is where one more principle about common ground thinking can work. I don’t agree with Frederica about policy, but I’ll remember for the rest of my life what happened when I apologized to the pro-life people in the room at a common ground conference. I thought I would lose everything by asking forgiveness and, of course—no surprise to you, big surprise to me—I gained a sense of freedom. I felt truly liberated in a way that all that rigid us-them liberationist rhetoric I had labored under all my life had never freed me.

Naomi is still on the “other side”. But bless her heart, she gets it. She really gets it. As a pro-lifer in the overwhelmingly pro-choice academy, I have to remember to try and practice exactly the kind of humility and openness that Wolf talks about here. It’s danged hard. But if we all started by apologizing to the other side for the ways in which we stereotype them (and I am as guilty as anyone else, even though I have been on both sides), we’d be well on our way to common — and higher — ground.

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Pepperdine, Homosexuality, Freedom of Association

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Visitors still looking for Lara Roxx, the article is here. Slow down already — it’s my biggest day ever in the blogosphere!

XRLQ links to BoifromTroy’s piece on Pepperdine University’s decision to deny the petition to form a “Students Against Homophobia” group on campus. Boi asks us to do the following:

Contact Pepperdine President Andrew Benton at 310-506-4000…let him know that although his god may not approve of homosexuality, he does not condone homophobia either…and neither should Pepperdine.

Spread the word through email, your own blog or word-of-mouth to get Pepperdine University to end its pro-homophobia policies.

If you know this blog, you know that I am deeply committed to the full integration of GLBTQQ folks into society. I favor same-sex blessings within the church, and I believe that that position is not inconsistent with my evangelical Anabaptist theology. But like many of Boi’s critics (including XRLQ and the late Angry Clam), I do believe — passionately — that Christian universities like Pepperdine have a right to insist that their particular interpretation of faith be allowed to hold sway.

(BTW, Pepperdine is hardly a fundamentalist institution; it does not require a signed statement of faith. My good friends who go to far more conservative but excellent local schools like The Master’s College and Biola University barely consider Pepperdine to be Christian at all!)

The problem with a group like “Students Against Homophobia” is that many gay and lesbian folk (wrongly but understandably) fail to distinguish between hatred for and fear of gays on the one hand (real homophobia) and reasoned biblical arguments for viewing homosexual behavior as sinful. It is not hatred to remain faithful to millenia of tradition and to an exegetical standard that is accepted by the overwhelming majority of the world’s Christians. I have — after much prayer and study — come to the belief that homosexual behavior is, in some instances, blessed by God. But I have the highest respect for those who, as much as they might like to, cannot come to that same conclusion. They have the right not to be attacked as “homophobes” merely because they stand on basic intellectual and theological principles.

I long for the day when the larger body of Christ moves to a new position on same-sex sexuality; but until that day, I honor the right — and indeed the obligation — of Christian institutions to uphold biblical standards as best they can. Of course, as a heterosexual man, it doesn’t cost me anything to wait.

Misguided searches, a March for Women’s Lives, and Heaven

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I note that I am the #8 search result on Yahoo for Lara Roxx. 1100+ of them have come here in the last 12 hours. If that’s why you are visiting, here is the entry on the subject.

This Sunday, the 25th, is the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C. Its supporters describe it:

The time is right for a public demonstration of historic size in support of reproductive freedom and justice for all women.

Since so many of those who will be marching will be marching for an end to global violence against women, it’s hard for me not to want to support these good folks wholeheartedly. But a visit to the website makes it clear that this isn’t really about a broad panoply of gender-related issues; it’s about abortion rights, and abortion rights alone.

I’d rather let Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life, speak for me on this one; here’s part of her press release:

Feminists for Life will not join the upcoming “March for Women’s Lives” sponsored by a coalition of abortion advocates on April 25, announced FFL President Serrin Foster. “What organizers don’t seem to recognize is that too many women know the gut-wrenching truth about abortion,” Foster said. As many as 25 million to 30 million American women have had one or more abortions.

March co-sponsor and outgoing President of NARAL Pro-Choice America Kate Michelman asks, “Who decides?” She had an abortion after her husband left her pregnant with three children, no house, no car, no job, and no money. “Didn’t Kate deserve better than abortion?” asked Foster. “Women need to know there are perfect strangers who will help when those she counts on most let her down. The decision should not be left to those who would abandon pregnant women.”

Another March organizer, Planned Parenthood’s President Gloria Feldt, has said, “Roe v. Wade enabled women to participate in the social, financial and political life of this country.” Foster responded, “Abortion does not ‘enable’ women. Women need housing, childcare, health care that includes maternity benefits, maternity leave, the ability to telecommute, a living wage and a supportive family for themselves and their children. A woman needs and deserves support from the father of the child-both emotionally and financially. The lack of support and resources are what concern women the most. Addressing these unmet needs must become our priority-not abortion.”

“Abortion just masks the problem-and creates new ones,” says Foster. “This march is misdirected energy.” (Bold emphasis is Hugo’s).

Amen. One feminist event in which I will be participating is tomorrow’s: International Denim Day.

Oh, and in a fit of candor, I wrote this in a comment on Jenell Paris’ excellent blog:

In heaven, all the women in my life get along, and I am allowed as many Cadbury Creme eggs and Cinnabons as I want without getting sick. How’s that for narcissism?

For the record, before I get in loads of deserved trouble, it was a joke. But there is a tiny bit of masculine wishfulness in there that I suspect is not unique to me.

I have a twin…

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… and her name is Christy at Dry Bones Dance. Writing about Iraq. she describes herself thus today:

I’m a political independent who skews heavily Green. I’m a pacifist, “seamless garment” type pro-lifer, with a strong respect for grassroots action and a community’s right to self-determination. I believe power corrupts, or at least gives corruption the space to move around, so I believe that it is our responsibility as citizens of a democratic society to hold the politically, economically, and religiously powerful accountable for their actions and policies. I’m an ecumenically-minded evangelical who believes that all of us are created in the image of God, and our policies and methods of governance should respect the dignity innate in all of us. Just to clarify, I was not being sarcastic when I said that I genuinely hope I am wrong about my opinion of Bush’s actions in Iraq. If I were to hope for more death and bloodshed just so I could gloat over the downfalls of a President whom I don’t like very much, then I should hand in my pacifist credentials immediately.

Hear, hear, hear, hear, hear.

Too many anti-war lefties whom I know are positively gloating over the rising body count in Iraq, applauding anything (even loss of life) when it brings discredit to this administration. I confess I’ve had to struggle within myself to avoid the terrible sin of rejoicing in death; no greater evil could possibly lurk inside me! I would rather be proved wrong and have the president be re-elected (heavens forfend) than to lose any more lives on any side. I’d rather be thought a fool than to be proven right by rivers of blood.

Go give Christy some link love.

If the personal is political, than I need to be accountable

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Judging by the hits on Saturday night’s piece, folks like to read and write about porn. No big surprise there. What is more uncomfortable — especially in Christian circles — is to admit to using it. Even the phrase "using it" is euphemistic; what we generally mean is "viewing it and masturbating to it." Just typing those words in a blog that so many of my friends, parents, and students read is difficult! And yet as with so many things, our silence feeds our shame and our sin.

In order to research, teach, and lead on gender issues, I don’t need to be perfect or flawless. However, given that one of the basic tenets of feminism is that the "personal is political", I do have a moral obligation to seek to match my language and my life. I owe that to myself, my partner, my family, my students, my church, and (above all) to God. That means that on an issue such as pornography, I need to be clear that I have struggled with it — particularly since the advent of the Internet!

For those who might be interested, I use (and hereby endorse) two different bits of software that help me to honor my commitments while I work online. On my home computer, I have Hedgebuilders software installed; it’s a very effective server-based filter, reasonably priced. It allows me unlimited access to virtually everything legitimate I could want, while blocking porn completely. (It can also be configured to block gambling and white supremacist sites; I rarely have the urge to visit either). On my work computer (on which running Hedgebuilders is technically problematic) I have put up X3 software (a free program from the excellent guys at XXXChurch). X3 doesn’t block anything, but it reports my user history to a guy friend of mine who has agreed to be an accountability partner.

I recommend both with enthusiasm. They work. Like all humans, I am deeply flawed. Like Paul, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. But I do have a vision for the kind of work I feel I am called to do (vocationally and avocationally) around faith, sexuality, and masculinity. And in order to do that work, sometimes I need some help and some accountability. And (all thanks to God), I am not ashamed to publicly proclaim that I — like most men — need that help; I am also grateful that I have been given the strength to ask for it.

The Silence of the Clam and other Monday morning thoughts

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I think there’s a lot more to say about porn, choice, sin and responsibility than was said in my post immediately below. I’ve got a post about male accountability floating in my head at the moment, but it is not ready to go up.

The Angry Clam is no more. He and XRLQ were the two members of the conservative Bear Flag League of rightist California bloggers to whom I linked, now the unpronounceable one stands alone. In a comment on Patterico’s blog, the irate mollusk explained his reason for taking down his site, reasons that haunt me a bit: I was spending too much time blogging and not enough working.

Jeepers. I suppose the same could be said of many of us, including this blogger. Of course, there tends to be a heavy cross-over between what I blog about and what I teach, and I have found that is a useful excuse to employ to explain why one spends so much time writing, posting, and surfing.

Today, the midterms (that I graded over Spring Break) begin to be handed back. Even though I was uncharacteristically generous in my marking, I know there will be some upset students. I expect — very shortly — to be told that it is unfair and unreasonable for me to expect essays to be grammatically sound as well as historically accurate. One student told me last fall: “Only an English teacher should be able to grade my English”. This was after she had turned in a four-page essay in a blue book that consisted of two stream-of-consciousness paragraphs and such observations as the unforgettable “The Trojans were just about the same as the Greeks, except they weren’t really as Greek as the Miceandians (sic).”

Hoo boy.