Monthly Archives: January 2005

Chinchilla links

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In response to a number of requests, I’ve put up links to some of my favorite websites about chinchillas.  Scroll down and look to your right.

One of the goals of those who own chinchillas as pets is to see the end of pelting (breeding chins and slaughtering them for fur) in this country.  Britain, happily, has already banned the practice, but America lags behind.  One important project is the Change by Choice initiative, which seeks to help fur ranchers transition out of the fur industry.  (While of course, we long for the day pelting is made illegal, it is important to work with the ranchers in the meantime to offer them alternatives to the unnecessary and cruel killing of chinchillas.

I’ll be donating to the PHFR project: Pet Homes for Ranchies.  The goal is to save one animal at a time by buying them from the pelters, and then placing the rescued chins in safe home situations.  Donations can be made through PayPal or by mail, instructions here.

To my friends who own dogs and cats:  imagine if in America, pets such as yours were being bred for coats.  On the great list of the world’s injustices, this may not rank high in the minds of others, but in this household, saving these most exceptional of creatures is among our serious priorities.

Matilde thanks you!

“Not a real degree”: reflections on an academic autobiography and gender studies

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Note:  I’ve been a bit stunned by the criticism (see the comments towards the bottom here) that this blog has too much of my own personal opinion.  Um, folks, it’s a blog.  With my name on it.  And I pay to put it up, you read it for free.  What on earth else could be more personal?

Okay, on we go.

I confess, I did spend some time last week reading through the various Men’s Rights forums that were reacting to my appearance on the Glenn Sacks show.   Obviously, there was much written that was hurtful, much that was venomous, and a little that was genuinely interesting.  Dear Ampersand of Alas, a Blog, ventured into the Stand Your Ground forum, and more than held his own.  What I wanted to focus on today was this page of the thread from that forum, on the validity of degrees in women’s studies.  A couple of samples:

He is an archtypical Women’s Studies professor,
which is to say, a person endowed with an academic title that for most
part seems completely undeserved. I work at a major research university
so I have contact with all kinds of professionals, and I’m here to tell
you that among faculty who are honest about the subject, women’s
studies departments and the people who work in them are not considered
legitimate from an academic perspective. Women’s studies wonks may do a
lot of things, but legitimate scholarship ain’t one of them.

Someone else added on:


I don’t want to get started on that – and it’s probably a topic for a
different thread – but the amount of work that you have to do for a
doctoral degree in molecular biology, or physics, or any of a number of
other "real" degrees absolutely dwarfs "writing about your feelings"
and the like in some areas.

I guess if you get a doctoral degree in electrical engineering, you
earn a salary at a company and really produce something computer-wise
for society.

But if you get a "doctoral degree" in interdisciplinary studies
with a major in sex and gay relations, you go on Oprah, write a book
that nitwits read, and earn far more.

The quoted remarks are typical of the tired old canards that have benn thrown for decades at those who work in Gender Studies.  I’m not interested in refuting all of the groundless charges in these comments — it would take too long.  First quick point:  at most colleges and universities in the USA, professors who teach gender studies also teach in other disciplines, like history, psychology, sociology,and literature.  (Here’s a list of many of the programs.)   Relatively few universities have "free-standing" departments of Women’s Studies staffed by faculty who do not teach outside that department.   Second quick point:  dissertations in gender studies are never about how one "feels".  If you want to find out what most dissertations in the field are written about, I suggest you go here and type in women’s studies or gender studies.  Not a lot of fluff will come up — but a lot of world-class scholarship will!

Of course, I don’t have a doctoral degree in gender studies.  Indeed, my Ph.D. is in English Medieval History, with an emphasis on ecclesiastical and political affairs.  Here’s the link to the abstract of my doctoral dissertation at UCLA: Arms and the Bishop: the Anglo-Scottish War and the Northeastern Episcopate, 1296-1357.  Hint, folks: it’s not a page turner.  But if you like lengthy footnotes in Latin and Norman French, you’re in luck.  (I’m not sure I can read Norman French anymore, but in the early to mid-90s, I sure had to learn how.  Anyhow, the first 24 pages are online — read away!)

As early as my sophomore year of college, I had become interested in doing a degree in Women’s Studies.  I had come into Berkeley as a history major, but once I took my first class on gender, I was hooked.  I’ll confess, however, that I allowed myself to be talked out of having women’s studies be anything more than a pastime.  Family and friends, knowing of my desire to teach, told me that a degree in Women’s Studies wouldn’t be taken seriously, using some of the same criticisms that the Stand Your Ground fellows used.   I argued with them, knowing from my own experience that courses in gender studies were often more demanding in terms of work load than those in more conservative and conventional fields.  (This is true in my own classes: ask any of my students who take my Women’s History course,and they’ll tell you it’s much more work than my Western Civ surveys.)

Like most college students, I did want to be taken seriously as a scholar.  And though I knew damned well  that gender studies was just as demanding as the courses I was taking in church history, I decided to make medieval religious history my primary area of undergraduate interest.  (In honor of my father’s heritage, I also picked up a minor in German literature.  Nothing like stumbling through Schiller in the original, right?)

When I started grad school at UCLA in 1989, I was still fascinated with contemporary gender studies.  To the bewilderment of my advisers, I took some women’s studies courses along with my classes in paleography, medieval Latin, and the like.  I initially hoped to have women’s studies be one of my minor fields for my doctorate; at UCLA, one needed expertise in three "minor fields" outside of one dissertation area.  My adviser, however, recommended against any formal association with women’s studies at all; "It doesn’t relate to your real work", he said.  I listened to him, I’m sorry to say, and thus completed my three minor fields in:

1. Early Modern European Economic History.  (Ask me about proto-industrialization in 17th century Flanders!)
2.  The early medieval German church (I’ve forgotten all those bloody Ottos, but I can still get through the investiture conflict in my sleep.)
3. Medieval English philosophy, particularly Ockham and Duns Scotus.  (My adviser in this area was one of the first women ordained to the Anglican priesthood,the marvelous Marilyn Adams,now at Yale.  Often, say after a surprisingly interesting discussion of the views of Duns Scotus on the conception of Mary, we turned to contemporary gender issues and the church.  She always had great cookies in her office).

Bottom line:  the "public face" of my grad work had damn all to do with contemporary gender issues.  And yet, even as I was researching that exhausting dissertation, I was doing most of my outside reading in women’s studies.  The gap between my real interests and my actual work was tremendous, and it was largely a consequence of my own lack of courage.  I didn’t stand up to those who dismissed my interest in women’s studies until it was far too late to change the course of my graduate career.  (On a side note, I wonder how much my own sex had to do with the lack of encouragement that I received. If I had been a woman, I might have had more support in doing gender work.  Or perhaps not.  Many of my female colleagues who teach Women’s Studies have reported hearing remarks similar to the ones I heard in my student days).

As a result, today I make a special effort to encourage some of my best and brightest students of both sexes to consider pursuing a Women’s or Gender Studies major.  My workload makes it clear to them that it’s not a discipline for the lazy or the self-indulgent!  Sometimes, I tell them of my own years as a reluctant medievalist, secretly more interested in reading Ana Castillo than Hildegard of Bingen, more interested in Anzaldua than Anselm.  I’d like to think that times have changed.  But there remains little question that for far too many people outside the academic world (and for a few old reprobates within it), Gender Studies work is still dismissed with contempt. 

 

Monday morning notes

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Monday morning notes:

First off, I am so grateful for all the commenters who have come here to conduct a vigorous and civil discourse below some of my more recent posts.  I have had to ban two folks, however, who regularly used profanity or used slurs to refer to others in the thread.  While all viewpoints are welcome, ad hominem attacks on individual commenters are not.

Speaking of thoughtful comments, go here for some interesting and insightful criticism of my Friday post by Keri and others.   More for me upon which to reflect!

We had a busy weekend. Yesterday, I got on the bike for the first time in well over a month, and am happy to report I managed to make it up and down through the nearby Verdugos just fine.  My fiancee and I have our first century ride of the year coming up in just six weeks, in Solvang. My current plan is to do long runs on Fridays and Saturdays, and long rides on Sundays after church.

Speaking of the Solvang area, we saw Sideways on Saturday night.  (Like many folks, we are frantically trying to see all of the Oscar nominees before the awards are handed out; we also saw "Ray" last night and "Million Dollar Baby" a week ago).  "Sideways" is superb, though not untroubling.  For obvious reasons, I’m a huge fan of films that focus on men’s friendships with one another, and the authenticity of the dialogue between the two lead characters in the film was breathtakingly good.  Good enough that I may allow extra-credit papers on the film in this spring’s "Men, Masculinities, and the American Tradition" class I’ll be teaching!

And yesterday morning, at church, one of those marvelous "amen" moments.  All Saints Pasadena is a big church; at our 11:15 service, we average about 750-800 in attendance.  In between the sermon and the beginning of the eucharistic rite, our rector, Ed Bacon, made his customary announcements.  For the past six weeks, like so many churches, we’ve been praying for and collecting money for tsunami victims.  But every time we mention it in public (see this prayer), we always refer to the disaster as afflicting Southeast Asia.  Yesterday, as Ed was thanking the congregation for its generosity, an elderly black woman stood up in the rear of the church, and in a firm voice called out "Ed, Ed."  Ed was silent.  "Yes", he asked "what is it?"  "Ed", the woman said, "the tsunami hit Africa too.  Everyone only talks about Asia, but Africa suffered too."  You could feel the shock of recognition — and yes, of shame, throughout the congregation.   A pause.  "Yes", Ed replied, "you are absolutely right. Africa too."  The old woman sat down, and all around, I could see nodding heads.  Our congregation is perhaps 20% African-American, one of our priests is black — and yet, we had never referred to the tsunami’s impact on Africa before. 

How easily we forget Africa, where far more people die every month of preventable causes than were killed in the earthquake and tsunami on Boxing Day!  I’ve had that woman’s voice in my head since yesterday.  Africa, too.

More soon.

The flattery of false autonomy, Highlander, and more on older men, younger women again

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A reader named Justin sent me an interesting query yesterday.  I’ll post most of it verbatim, and then try and take a public stab at a reply:

The other day, I was watching episodes of Highlander, the
Series, on DVD with a friend, and one episode we watched was “Rite of
Passage,” in which a young woman dies and becomes Immortal and Duncan
MacLeod, the hero, must see that she learns what she needs to know in order to
stay alive in the coming centuries, such as how to use a sword to defend
herself.  Most of that is only relevant if you are familiar with
Highlander mythology.

The part I’d like your opinion on is this: throughout
the episode, the young woman (just turned 18) is continually pushing for “equality”
as demonstrated by an adult man’s willingness to sleep with her.
She tries to seduce MacLeod, and he nobly declines on the grounds that it would
be inappropriate in a student-teacher relationship.  The bad guy of the
week, on the other hand, is all too happy to make kissy-face with her while at
the same time denying that she needs to learn to protect herself.

Repeatedly, the young woman insists that it is the bad guy
who is treating her like an equal – everyone else is treating her like a
child.  Abruptly, I was reminded of myself at 17 and the subconscious
belief I had that it was sexual activity that proved my adulthood: that someone
willing to have sex with me saw me as an equal, and someone who didn’t
see me sexually obviously saw me as a child.  A little later, I contrasted
this with what I’ve seen you say: that young women need to encounter safe
adult men who do not see them as sex objects.  I agree with you, but I
wonder how many young women misconstrue this treatment? 

Any thoughts?  How should a good man react to a woman
in that situation?  Do you believe there is a way to show a woman she is
equal while refusing to do the one thing she believes will prove it, or will
only time teach that lesson?

Well, I’ve never seen the Highlander series.  I remember a movie from the 1980s with that same title, and assume I am correct that the TV series is based upon that earlier film?  Anyhow, it’s a great question about feminist agency and male responsibility.  If the show is as Justin described it, it sounds as if it dealt very well with this difficult and multi-layered issue.

First off, one of the standard "tricks" of male predators is to flatter young women by inflating their sense of autonomy.  In almost all cultures, teens in late adolescence are eager to transition into adulthood.  They are tired of being seen as children, and are anxious to sample the freedom (and concomitant danger) that they are sure lies on the other side of eighteen.  As Justin points out from his own experience, we live in a culture that sees sexual activity as one of the central rites of admission to adulthood.  Therefore, an older man who wishes to seduce a girl in late adolescence can emphasize that he, almost alone among adults, sees her as a woman rather than a child.   He may stress that he is awed by her, perhaps uncontrollably so.  His hope is that she will connect sexual activity with him with her own sense of becoming an adult woman.   His goal is to make her feel like an active,, empowered subject — when in fact, he is almost certainly viewing her as an object.  It’s a truth she’ll learn eventually, and almost certainly not without great pain.

There’s a terrific book out there: New Versions of Victims: Feminists Struggle with the Concept, edited by Sharon Lamb.  Inside of it, there’s a terrific article by Lynn M. Phillips (who wrote the marvelous and important Flirting with Danger, a must-read on this subject.)  In her article, Phillips compares and contrasts two groups:  teenage girls currently in relationships with older men, and adult women who, as teens, had sexual relationships with much older men.  The results of her study are an important warning to those who dismiss the negative consequences of such relationships.  Phillips found that almost all of the teens currently involved with older men felt more "grown-up", more "powerful" than their peers who dated boys their own age.  They liked the fact that an adult man saw them as an "equal."  But the older women who had been in such relationships years earlier had a far more negative view of what had happened to them:  "I didn’t know what I was in for."  "He made me believe I was ready for things I wasn’t."   Virtually none of these adult women viewed their youthful experiences with older, more powerful men, in a positive light. 

Justin’s closing question is an interesting and important one.  He asked:

How should a good man react to a woman
in that situation?  Do you believe there is a way to show a woman she is
equal while refusing to do the one thing she believes will prove it, or will
only time teach that lesson?

Equality is a complex concept, isn’t it?  As an adult man who works with high school and college students, I’ve given it some thought.  In one sense, these young people are my equal:  they are precious human beings, children of God, as valuable and worthy and as possessed of human dignity as any other person, regardless of age.  They deserve to be heard, to be listened to, to have their feelings and their desires and hopes and fears acknowledged.  But that kind of equality, the equality of human worth, does not mean that they are equally equipped to enter into a sexual relationship with a much older, more experienced man!  It would be cruel and unbelievably self-serving of me to pretend otherwise.

With the young women with whom I work in youth group and at the college, I do everything I can to make it clear that I am interested in their thoughts, their feelings, their ideas.  At the same time, I do everything I can to make it absolutely clear that I have no romantic or sexual interest in them at all.  I believe that is exactly how adult men who work with young women should operate.  Is it possible that some young women long for sexual validation and attention from older men?  Of course. Is it possible that some of these young women feel infantilized by the rigid boundaries that any wise and decent male authority figure will have in place?  It’s possible, I suppose, but I hardly consider it a major problem.  The frustration of being treated like a child when you’d like to be seen as an adult will pass a hell of a lot quicker than the memories of being treated like an adult when you were, in some sense, still just a conflicted and uncertain adolescent!

One of the problems in our culture is that we see turning eighteen as this moment in which a person suddenly becomes equipped to make all sorts of decisions for themselves.  When it comes to sexual matters, the law cares little whether one is 18 or 38.  But we who work with the young must do more than honor the law — though of course, honoring the law is the sine qua non of good youth work! We must honor the fact that sexual, emotional, physical and intellectual development is a long process, one that endures well past the legal age of consent. 

Though I haven’t seen Highlander, there’s no question that the MacLeod character "gets it".  And though the young woman may have felt put out by his self-restraint and his protectiveness, in the years to come, she will surely see the wisdom behind his choice.

New Matilde pics, and a Thursday query

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First off, I’ve got five new photos of Matilde up in her album on the right.  This one is my favorite.  That’s far more important than anything I could be blogging about.

Second off, I asked a question in the comments to one post here (I can’t find it now), and I think it matters. It’s a question for all of us on all sides of the gender movements.  What are you — personally — doing to mentor youth of your same gender?

In case you haven’t noticed, I like to opine in the blogosphere.  But as much as I like the ‘net, my real work is in the classroom and at church with my youth group.  I informally mentor a number of young men at PCC (several of whom, foolish lads, want to be history profs.)  To be fair, I also mentor a few female students as well.

In my capacity as a volunteer youth leader at All Saints Pasadena, I spend my Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons with many high school youth.  I’ve led "boys-only" workshops at church, and on a few of our overnight retreats, talking about everything from girls to sports to parental pressure to God to "what it means to be a man". 

As I mentioned briefly today, I’ve also done a little volunteer assistant coaching with a local high school boys’ cross-country team. (Go Apaches!)

I’m sure the idea of me as a youth leader mentoring teenage boys must frighten some of the men’s rights activists!   I have a suggestion, fellas:  get out there and join me!  Come to the churches, the boys clubs, the synagogues,the YMCAs.  You don’t want to leave the next generation alone in the hands of the pro-feminists, do ya?

I’m not holding myself up as some paragon of pro-feminist, men’s movement virtue.  I am saying I do more than pontificate in the blogosphere.  So, let’s hear it, folks:  how, in the real world, are you mentoring the young folks of your gender?  How are you putting your principles into critical action?

When running was my religion

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Today’s short poem, from Grace Butcher, touches on running, an activity that has played a leading role in my life for years, but about which I haven’t blogged often enough.

I shudder to think where I would be today if I hadn’t discovered running when I did.  Though  I briefly ran JV cross-country in high school, I didn’t take it up seriously until 1997, just eight years ago.

In early ’97, I was 29 years-old.  I had just gone through a very bitter and painful second divorce that followed a strange and deeply unhappy marriage.  I was living in one of those god-awful pre-furnished apartments, in a run-down complex in East Pasadena that was filled with men and women whose lives had just been turned upside down, as mine had.  (Oh hell, let’s be honest.  I had just turned my own life upside down.  No victim I.)   It was a very confusing time.  I was teaching, of course, and lecturing and interacting with students was a welcome solace.  But I only taught for so many hours of the day. I woke up alone in this dreary, pet-less, partner-less bachelor pad.  I went to bed in the same condition.  It was a sad and difficult time.

And so, in the mornings, before school, I began to run.  I remembered that I had done it a bit in my younger years, and that it had given me an outlet for all of the energy coursing through me.  My first running experiences this time ’round were painful and slow.  My knees hurt.  My hips hurt.  I had been smoking cigarettes regularly throughout the divorce process (Marlboro Reds, thanks), and my lungs burned after just a few minutes of slow jogging.  But I kept at it.  I kept at it because I felt, frankly, like a failure in the aftermath of my divorce.  I wanted to succeed at something, something that I could control, something tangible that didn’t involve relying on someone else.  Running seemed to be that thing.

In January 1997, my runs averaged 40 minutes.  By April, I was running two hours.  I never ran for distance in those days; I ran for time.  I hadn’t yet discovered the trails of the mountains near Pasadena, so I ran on city streets.  I ran through the rougher parts of Glassell Park and Altadena; I ran past mansions in San Marino; I ran around the famed horse track in Arcadia.   I bought whatever shoes were on sale at sporting goods stores, paying no attention to what was the right "fit" for me.

In my running, I found peace.  I found structure.  I kept a running log, and recorded every mile and every route taken.  It provided a rhythm to my existence.  And it was something that in the midst of the chaos and upheaval of my personal life in those years (I can only hint at how wrenching it was), gave me the sense of worth I needed.  I saw my body grow leaner.  I saw my calves and quadriceps begin to harden and grow.  I liked my body better, and I liked myself.  Running, in a very real sense, was the vehicle for Hugo’s physical and spiritual transfomation.  It was also, perhaps, my religion.

I ran my first marathon in 1998, using this book.  I was hooked, and decided to a. hire a coach and b. try and qualify for the Boston Marathon, which would require a sub 3:10 marathon.  For the second half of ’98 and all of ’99, I was devoted to this one goal.  In addition to countless 5 and 10Ks, I ran three marathons in a year, each time struggling to get that elusive qualifying time.  In preparation, I did agonizing speedwork on the track, ran endless hill repeats, and did long, slow distance runs alone.  And though I gave everyting I knew how to give, I fell short all three times.  The closest I came was in Pittsburgh, where I ran a 3:13:51 on an unseasonably warm spring day.  Close, yes, but no cigar and no Boston entry.

By 2000, I had decided that running was taking over my life. I let my coach go.  I started lifting weights and taking "spin" classes instead of just running.  I began volunteering with the youth at church, and took on more responsibilities at the college.  I still ran, but not with that same single-mindedness.  By the end of that year, I had also found the same group of buddies I run with to this day.  Through them, I learned that running could be fun as well as cathartic, that it could be a group bonding experience instead of a time to be alone with my thoughts.  And through them, I discovered the mountains and the trails where I now do as much of my training as possible.

"Working out" remains a central part of my life today.  My fiancee, an accomplished triathlete, has introduced me to cycling.  (Swimming, on the other hand, has yet to be explored.) We’ve done one century ride together, and plan more for this year.  I still try to run 5 days a week, and lift weights on 4.  But though I periodically fantasize about going back to that single-minded training phase, I don’t suspect it will happen.  I have too many other interests and responsibilities; too many interesting people (and chinchillas) with whom to interact.  Heck, I’ve got too much blogging to do!   The weeks of two-a-day training runs and obsessive heart-rate monitoring are, I think, over.

I’m so grateful that running came into my life when it did.  It gave me structure, it gave me control, it gave me peace at a time when I had none of those things.  Today, it gives me a release from tension, keeps me fit, and has given me a community of dear friends whom I trust and adore.  I’ve been blessed with a body that can withstand the pounding of high mileage — at least for now.  And so, for now, running is a joy.  But it was once far more than that, and for its crucial  role in transforming my life in a dark time, I remain grateful.

Sturdy Oaks and many sides to consider

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A big thank-you to all of those who e-mailed messages of support to me.  I’ll try and respond to each one personally as soon as I can.

One of the rules of masculinity I grew up with, was, to borrow from the sociologists Brannon and David, to be a "sturdy oak."  A sturdy oak doesn’t show pain, a sturdy oak doesn’t complain, a sturdy oak endures in silence.  To say that a picture, posted on the web with comments that insinuated an unnatural attachment to children (pedophilia was suggested in the Stand Your Ground forum), was hurtful –that’s not being a sturdy oak.  The sturdy oak ignores the insults, sloughs them off, and if he does respond, he ought to respond in anger — because for all too many American men, anger is the only acceptable emotional reaction to injury.

I didn’t feel like being a sturdy oak yesterday. It needed to be okay that I was hurt, even if the provocation seemed slight to some.

In the great scheme of things, it was a small injury indeed.  In order to enter into any kind of public debate, one has to have a bit of a thick skin.   I’m used to nasty things appearing on websites like Rate my Professors or in in-class student evaluations.  Mind you, like so many folks, I tend to pay less attention to the effusive and complimentary majority than to the angry and hostile minority!  In a class of forty students, three negative reviews occupy my mind more than thirty-seven glowing ones.  That’s a human failing, and one I need to work on.  The world doesn’t revolve around me,or the ultimately petty injustices I encounter.

Yesterday, my skin wasn’t thick enough and I didn’t feel like pretending that it was.

More will come on men’s issues. I’m looking forward to writing more, reading more, and listening more.  Though I’ve encountered a lot of ugliness, I’ve also seen another side of the men’s rights movement this week. I’ve "met" men in cyberspace who disagreed with me, but were willing to engage in civil discussion.   That’s been gratifying and enlightening.  I look forward to spirited but ultimately polite exchanges with men and women on all sides of contemporary gender issues.

On Sunday, after Glenn’s radio show, he and I agreed on something: we both succumb, from time to time, to the temptation to pretend that there are only two sides to these issues.  (Hence the title of Glenn’s show!)  But in reality, most of us know that on  issues as complex and multi-faceted as those surrounding sexuality and gender, there are more like 30, or 80, "sides".  AM talk radio is not a medium given to exploring subtle nuances and differences.  But blogging ought to be such a medium, and I am resolving to work harder to escape the dualistic thinking that has characterized some  of my writing on this issue of late.

Thursday short poem: Grace Butcher’s “Do we Need an Ambulance”

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Two of my running buddies are co-coaches of the boys’ cross-country team at a nearby high school here in the San Gabriel Valley.  Over the past three summers and falls, I’ve done some training with the team, and developed a real interest in helping out as a volunteer assistant.  (I’d love to do some more serious coaching — it’s been offered — but when I’d find the time, I don’t know.)  I’ve loved my  runs with the boys — though they are almost all faster than I am (I can still hang with the "B" team from time to time). 

It goes without saying that I am a lover of cross-country at all levels.  Somehow, to me, it remains the purest and simplest of sports.  And it’s no surprise that a runner and a youth leader would love this poem by Grace Butcher, which mixes that most sublime of sports with an intense devotion to those agile, fragile bones of the young.


Do We Need an Ambulance for Cross-Country?

question from the audience at a sports medicine seminar for coaches

And the scene comes unbidden into my mind:
the runners at the far turn of the course,
behind the roughest field and into the woods,
among the deepest trees left leaning
after last year’s storm.

The alien colors trickle down the path:
the red & black, the purple & gold, the green & white.
We strain to see the first brilliant flashes
through the dying leaves, but must wait,
murmuring to ourselves, "Where are they?
Where are they?"

I know where they are.
I sent them there.
I know every stone, every rut and hole,
every toot waiting to trap the delicate foot,
the feet of my slender animals,
claws scratching the dirt, striking sparks
from the flat rock on that sharp turn.
And I see one try to pass,
try to take the lead,
see the root reaching for him
with a thin gray arching arm
that will not let go.

I hear the snap of something else,
the scream drifts down the hill
through the golden leaves,
feel my face go white with fear.

I sent them there, sent all of them.
They go for glory
and because I told them to,
knowing all the while
how fragile the bones,
how fixed ahead the eyes are,
forgetting to look down, forgetting
in the beauty of the run
that anything can end in a second,
even when you are young,
and protected by the names of fierce animals.

I hear the answer.  It is yes.
My head swims. The auditorium
is too hot.  I leave abruptly,
walk into the cool darkness,
look up, find the first star, make my wish.

Ouch and double ouch

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Wow.  The ugliness is stinging.  Both Men’s News Daily and something
called CoolTools4Men now have linked to this picture from my photo
albums. It was taken, folks, in Exeter on New Year’s Day.  My niece and
my nephew were playing nearby.  What the implication is, I don’t know.  The caption at MND reads: 

Worth a Thousand Words: Photo of Hugo Schwyzer at Play.

Yup, I am the kind of uncle who gets on a fish to amuse his seven year-old nephew and three year-old niece.  For exactly the reasons that MND’s posting  makes clear, I don’t put pics of the children in my family on the internet.   Everything I needed to know about the character of the MND folks has been made clear to me now.

I have pics in my albums of a chinchilla on my head.  I have a pic of me running a race shirtless.  I have a pic of me with my beloved brother wearing paper crowns.  I’m not trying to hide from anyone.  But in my naivete, I didn’t think my pictures would be used against me this way.

Am I overreacting?  What is Men’s News Daily implying?  Is this a standard tactic with your opponents, fellows? 

You wanted to hurt me, you succeeded.  Rejoice, boys.

UPDATE:  Men’s News Daily has taken down the pic and the link, though I am told it remains present at other forums.  A sincere thank you to whomever it was at MND who decided that posting it in the first place was beyond the pale.

And I am so done with this topic.  On to cross-country running tomorrow.

Men’s Rights and a call to self-restraint

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Oh for crying out loud, I can’t help wading back in to this men’s rights festiveness.  And here, I am as likely to offend my erstwhile allies as my opponents, I’m afraid!

What’s got me worked up this morning is the notion, advanced by several folks in the comments below yesterday’s post, that sexually irresponsible male behavior is excusable in light of women’s behavior.  For example:

Obstetor wrote:

…our young men are taught not to be loyal to women today because women find overt male loyalty to be a hostile, oppressive act.

Anne wrote:

Oh if only women would STOP posing for all those "pin-ups" then men would have nothing to exploit

Ambrose wrote:

Men objectify women because there have always been women who let them.

One subtext here seems to be the old "myth of male weakness."  Bad male sexual behavior is a consequence of the irresistible temptation that women provide.  The myth tells us that we men can’t really control our eyes, our speech, our thoughts, or our actions.  Male sexual purity, this theory says, is only possible when women remain covered and chaste.  This is offensive to both men and women in that it burdens women with responsibility for male behavior and infantilizes men as creatures unable to exercise self-control.  The myth of uncontrollable male sex drive manages to be both misogynistic and misandrist at the same time –  a pretty neat trick if you think about it!

The other subtext here is that it is feminism that has rendered marriage unattractive to men.  Men’s Rights Activists are fond of suggesting that unfair court decisions in divorce and child custody cases make marriage a no-win situation for men.  (Here’s one charming,and from what I can tell, typical MRA argument against marriage).  Many MRAs seem convinced that men who marry risk ending up the victims of domestic violence, the victims of family court judges, and the victims of (as the previous link suggests) female obesity!  Therefore, the reasoning seems to go, men ought to "take what they can get" from women without marrying them.  Of course, men need to guard against being trapped into unwanted fatherhood, hence the formation of groups like Choice 4 Men.

I may have socialist tendencies, but I’ve made it fairly evident that on a number of issues, I take socially conservative positions.  I break from most of my secular feminist friends in my opposition to abortion, though I’m on a self-imposed hiatus from blogging on the subject.  I’ve made clear my staunch opposition to legalized prostitution and pornography.  I don’t think much of our current casual sex culture of hooking up, either.  Here, to be honest, my faith does inform my feminism, though my opposition to these evils is not based solely on faith.  Rather, I see abortion, prostitution, promiscuity and pornography as the consequence of our collective inability to honor the extraordinary worth of the individual human person.  They are evidence of our inability to truly see each other as wonderful, magnificent subjects and agents rather than as objects for our own pleasure and our subsequent disposal. 

Valuing other human beings is not conditional.  The fact that for whatever reason, some woman has chosen to take her clothes off in order to be photographed does not justify my lusting for her.  The fact that some woman is willing to sell me visual access to her body in a strip club does not excuse my going in the door and paying money to stare at her flesh.  The fact that I can get sex without commitment does not mean that making that commitment has any less ultimate value and worth.  Self-restraint and fidelity are still timeless virtues even in a culture that doesn’t place much value upon either.

I’ll confess, I have a tenacious Puritanical streak.  Please, don’t act so shocked!  (Some of my best friends are Five Point Calvinists.)  That censoriousness at times rests uneasily alongside my pro-feminism.  But I remain convinced that a key task for all of us, especially for my brothers, is to work towards living lives of gentleness, interpersonal justice, and radical self-restraint.  And in my work with men of all ages, I call them to account for their actions, their words, and their very thoughts.  And with a humble awareness of my own brokenness, I ask them to do the same with me. 

Okay, who haven’t I offended now?