"The Rise of Enlightened Sexism" Book Review and Reflection

I really wanted to like Susan J. Douglas’s, THE RISE OF ENLIGHTENED SEXISM: HOW POP CULTURE TOOK US FROM GIRL POWER TO GIRLS GONE WILD (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010). I hoped the snarky tone would make the book a bridge between my feminist self and my daughter, who, at this point, considers feminism something only angry, man-hating women would promote, and thus wonders why on earth her mom would run around calling herself such a thing. (Alas, the myth perpetuates.) This article discusses some major weaknesses in ENLIGHTENED SEXISM because a critique can only make us argue better in the future. There are good points to take from the book. Right on page six, Douglas comments that the millennial generation of women (those born in the 1990s and early 2000’s) are being told by the consumer culture and advertising media “that true power comes from shopping, having the right logos, and being ‘hot.’” She is dead-on with this point about our Western culture.

The downfall comes shortly after that, as Douglas complains about the tongue-in-cheek, “we know this is sexist and so it is really not sexist, it’s funny” that claims irony yet is really what she calls “enlightened sexism.” Douglas’s writing style, dripping with sarcasm itself, left me wondering what is and what isn’t supposed to be funny. For example, the book is peppered with references to drinking. From page one through the epilogue, the author nudges us with her own knowing elbow about women needing a drink or having a hangover. If she’s kidding, then how come she can joke about alcoholism amongst mothers while being enraged about the “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” sexism MTV offers as teen programming? If my daughter, and hers, shouldn’t be watching the “crap” on television, then should they read about her descriptions of mothers with hangovers? If so, what is the difference?

About a hundred pages into the book, Douglas laments the female heroines popular culture offers us, those such as Xena (of Xena the Warrior Princess) and Buffy (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Sure, they may be strong women, regardless of how skimpy their outfits are. Douglas’s real beef is about how the powers these women possess are thrust upon them, how their “leadership came at a price” as these heroines needed to hide their true, powerful identities. Apparently, the author has spent too many shopping trips blasted by music in the stores in which she allows her daughter to shop and not enough accompanying a son (or daughter!) to a comic book shop. If she had stepped foot into one of these places, she’d see Buffy and Xena, as well as a cast of other female heroines. She’d also find that all of the male fantasy heroes suffer the same fate she bemoans, and in her writing, deems as unique to female heroines. What male super hero hasn’t had a destiny “imposed on them” or “had no choice but to use their extraordinary abilities?” Has Douglas ever heard of Superman, Batman, or Spiderman? Since scholars who study myth find the same stories told over and over, what would make a female fantasy/super heroine any different from a male fantasy/super hero, per se? While I’m not saying that as long as men suffer equally to women that suffering is o.k., when we’re talking fantasy stories, I don’t believe Douglas’s argument is a valid one since it is not exclusive to female fantasy/super heroines.

If all this was not bad enough, the last paragraph of the book (before the epilogue) is the most distressing. I can imagine Larry Summers using Douglas’s own words against the hiring of women professors and against offering future spots to women at Harvard’s schools.

SO ARE WOMEN TRULY ON TOP? NO. AND UNTIL POLICY MAKERS WAKE UP, MALE PUNDITS GET THEIR BOXERS UNTWISTED OVER REMOTELY COMPETENT WOMEN, THE BACHELOR GOES ON PERMANENT HIATUS, HOOTERS GOES OUT OF BUSINESS, THE NEWS MEDIA SHOWS US HOW UNEQUAL THINGS STILL ARE FOR MILLIONS OF GIRLS AND WOMEN, AND EVERY FORTUNE 500 COMPANY IN THE COUNTRY HAS DAY CARE AND PAID MATERNITY LEAVE INSTEAD OF $360 BILLION IN BONUSES FOR FIVE WHITE GUYS, THEY WON’T BE. BUT MOST WOMEN DON’T WANT TO BE ON TOP. THEY JUST WANT TO BE SIDE-BY-SIDE: WITH THEIR SISTERS, THEIR FRIENDS, THEIR DAUGHTERS, AND YES, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, WITH THEIR MEN (p. 296, emphasis  added).

Before screaming and waking up my husband who was sleeping beside me when I read this, I read it a few times. I could not believe what I was reading! What? WOMEN DON’T WANT TO BE ON TOP, THEY WANT TO…SIDE-BY-SIDE…? The entire point of the book is negated in the last two sentences. Lest I be accused of taking these last two sentences out of context, I will interject feminist development theory into this argument. I don’t want to denigrate a fellow woman, or feminist, who is trying to make inroads and reach the snarky generation. Feminist development theory explores the idea that women develop in concert with others, in relationship. Thus, women don’t want to be on top in the way Douglas claims those five white guys want to be on top. Sure. Feminist development and psychological theory would support the idea that women would rather govern through consensus, would rather put in the time for mutually beneficial outcomes and don’t wish to rule over anyone or anything, but rather crave and see as normal a shared power and authority through shared responsibility and credibility. However, shouldn’t we be more careful with language than this? Because feminist development theory is not typically covered in the elective psychology classes those five white guys might have taken freshman year at Harvard, we can’t assume that readers will close the last page with an “Amen, sister!” No, we must assume that the likes of Larry Summers will pick up the book and think, “See, little lady, you just made my point for me! You can be the wife of one of the five white guys with their $360 billion bonuses, just like you want to be. You will be beside him, and your children! Make way, little lady, because those five white guys DO want to be on top!”

I get the author’s point: our popular culture undermines feminism via the methodology of propaganda. Because we are supposed to know that the creators and producers of programs about vindictive, no-brained women realize that what they’re putting out there as entertainment is blatantly sexist, we’re supposed to be above it and beyond it as enlightened, feminist women and men ourselves. We can laugh at the throwback these shows and their characters represent, because we know better. At the same time, we see that women get airtime based on their physical attributes and for their vindictive, no-brained attitudes. When we’ve stepped away from the screen (is that Orwellian to anyone else reading this?), we might think a minute and consider that we are still being duped and that if power is via shopping and appearances, then we’re still the losers sitting on our sofas without a camera watching every move. Thus, the propaganda machine!

Douglas makes some important points in her book. The tone might engage younger women so that they have a seed of feminist thought planted in their minds, if not a penchant for alcohol consumption, as well. It might open the minds of older feminists (older women, which Douglas wants to call Vintage Females) to the struggles of the younger generation. Yet, somewhere between the glasses of white wine, the point is muddied. It definitely left me with a headache resembling what I might feel had I been the one drinking all that wine throughout the book.

First published: http://www.hercircleezine.com/2011/08/25/the-rise-of-enlightened-sexism-by-susan-j-douglas/

Lifelong Learning and Home Schooling

Disclosure: I am a bit of a grammarian. I am much more interested in English language arts than math. Oh, and I'm not perfect, either. I realize everyone has strengths and weaknesses, too.

Now that I've said all of the above, I'm going to pick on home schooling parents a little. I will reiterate that I am aware of strengths and weaknesses and that "math" people are not likely to worry so much about the things that make my skin crawl. That is fine with me as long as a) they have editors before they publish articles and b) they are not home schooling their children. My issue with home schoolers who cannot write using proper terms and spelling is that I find it inexcusable with the advent of spellchecks that are even available for e-mail! How do you send an email off with little red lines under words? With that analytical and mathematical mind, the red lines should be glaring off the page for you.

I always have to laugh and cringe at once when there are emails on the listservs to which I belong wherein people have hassles with a school in a town when they address their letters to the "superintendant" and my favorite was the one who wrote about issues with the "superattendent" (superintendent). There are other words that bug me, too: insure and ensure. Mostly, people don't "insure" anything about their kids other than provide health insurance for them. While a child-made necklace might complement your wardrobe, it is a compliment a stranger might give you when viewing the necklace. (I think of this as the fact that a compliment is nice and that nice and compliment both have "i" in them. I think of complement, or an addition, as making something complete, and both have "e" in them.) As for insure/ensure, well, insure is "in case" something happens and ensure might be equatable to enveloping something to ensure its safety/care. With regard to superintendent, stick with something like it has an "e" for education not an "a" or just use the spellchecker!

Again, I realize that oftentimes emails are typed at speed and sent quickly with little forethought. It's not like I haven't messed up and made a typo. And, I'm not only picking on parents here, as I've gotten more than one syllabus from my daughter's public school teachers with truly egregious errors and utterly maddening variations of fonts, underlines and bold lettering used to describe a teacher's demand for a single font and instructing students to write better rather than rely on italics or underlining. Considering that at the high school level this is the only communication from or representation of a teacher to parents, it is even more frustrating.

What I'm saying herein is that people who home school should not be surprised to receive requests for more information or inquiries into qualifications and that kind of thing when it is apparent to the person reading their letter of intention to home school that the parent is either careless with typos or lacks the ability to spell or construct coherent sentences. Both of these things are not what education systems and Departments of Education want to see in anyone providing education to the youth of our nation. Take the time to edit. Ask a friend to read your letter. Click "spell/grammar check" and look up words that are underlined in red before you print and mail your letter to the school system.

"Stiffed" and "Fight Club" - Book Reflections

Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Male, Part I 

STIFFED BY SUSAN FALUDI

Marina explored bell hooks’s FEMINISM IS FOR EVERYBODY: PASSIONATE POLITICS in her June 29, 2011 installment for inContext. Subsequent to her article, a male reader, Clay, responded with (what I assume was) a tongue-in-cheek reaction. Clay criticized feminists for what he sees as a continual attack on men, the pitting of men against women, and above all, the reality of his life wherein he feels no less downtrodden than his female contemporaries.

Susan Faludi addresses Clay at the point he finds himself. Published in 1999, STIFFED: THE BETRAYAL OF THE AMERICAN MANexplores how men are not individually “in control” nor are they better off than women. As male-dominated occupations were either replaced with machinery or cheap labor overseas, men found themselves redundant. They questioned their value and place in a society in which a paycheck was how manliness was defined. The way I describe STIFFED is to say it is the nonfiction version of Chuck Palahniuk’s FIGHT CLUB. (I’ll discuss that next week in part two.) Briefly, what I mean by this is that both texts explore masculinity as a social construct and determine that our culture is as oppressive to the average man as it is to women.

Men are expected to be as physically attractive as women. They are to keep their hair, sometimes also its original color, and a “six pack” set of abdominal muscles is all the rage. In addition to this, men are charged with not only bringing home the bacon (since that is also back in vogue in certain circles) but also being willing to shop for the pan in which they fry up that bacon. Men must be strong, yet gentle. They should be fashionable. The thought goes that if you are man enough, then pink just may be your color. After frying up the bacon, men are to express a desire, not mere wiliness, to watch the latest chick-flick after they’ve put the children to bed. Men are asked to be all that women were ever asked to be while at the same time providing the income that supports the entire family.

When that fails, men get no sympathy. Our American ethic is that of rugged individualism, so if you’ve failed, then you’ve got only yourself to blame. We live in the land of opportunity, and you only miss yours through individual incompetence, or so the rhetoric goes. As Clay asked, if patriarchy is running things, then men shouldn’t have any problem succeeding, right? Faludi claims the blame game over. While she doesn’t use this term, the way I’d describe the new paradigm, she hoped for in 1999, is egalitarianism. My sixteen-year-old daughter asked me the other day why I had to call myself a feminist. If I believed in true equality, wouldn’t I just be a humanist? Since that term already has connotations connected to religious beliefs, egalitarianism is the best way to describe what feminism has always been about: equality. It also explains and describes Faludi’s hope for the future for both men and women.

Faludi believes our consumerist culture causes the problems faced by both men and women. I would like to specifically call to the forefront the principles of capitalism, especially as it is practiced today. The approach to this, for the most part, is that capitalism means a free market and the phrase “free market” includes the word “free,” thus it is what democracy demands. How can we not have a “free market” and yet be a “free” people? If we have socialized schooling and then add socialized medicine to the mix, to keep at least those two things “out of the market,” then we’re sliding down that slippery slope to socialism, which in many American minds is equal to communism and dictatorship or totalitarian government.

Some writers blame “the media.” I believe “the media” is merely another example of corporate interests. Most media outlets are for-profit entities. Since profits are the way they please board members, investors, shareholders and owners, journalists for radio, television, newspapers (online or print) and magazines must walk a fine line so that they do not offend those who make their salaries possible. Magazines, newspapers and radios need the headline or sound bite to capture listeners. They do this by sensationalizing everything. With all the conflicting stories, we’re lost in confusion and paralyzed to do anything about our own situation, never mind that of others. We can’t care about others losing their jobs when we’re worried about losing our own. We don’t want our representatives passing any tax hikes to support the poor when we see the latest oil bill over the winter. We fear that we’re going to be “the poor” (a nameless, faceless group of people) shortly, so we do what we can to keep our own heads above water. In the past month, I’ve heard news stories, on NPR (an independent news outlet), about how women have fared better than men in the on-going recession and have lost fewer jobs than men. Then, a couple of weeks later, I heard men are gaining in fields traditionally female, such as nursing and retail. Men may be a minority in these fields, yet they are represented in ever-increasing numbers.

When I hear men gaining in areas such as nursing and retail, the first thing I think is how women must worry that they’ll be soon locked out of those arenas, as well. There will be backlash where men, the breadwinners, are given jobs over women, who are seen as “earning a second income for the family vacation.” It sounds like post-World War II all over again, right? For one thing, men’s gains in nursing and retail come at a time when men are losing, permanently, jobs that men do traditionally, such as manufacturing and construction. Should they merely remain unemployed? Or, should they seek training in another field, a growing field, so they might support themselves and possibly their families as well? The other thing these reports do is focus on the battle between men and women, and not the shared, universal struggle of a failing or stalled economy.

The headlines these stories make sell newspapers, magazines, increase listener time and viewer time. We wait out the boring commercials and segments of the news, we would otherwise skip, to get the story behind the enticing headline. That is the point of the network, of course. The point is not to share something insightful, per se, to shed light on an issue, or provide education. Besides, you can’t typically do that in a sixty-second or less timeframe.

Even if we saw through all of the INCITEful headlines and realized the stories behind them are not usually INSIGHTful at all, we’re still left in a society wherein the cure-all for everything is not just the pills they advertise, but also the very act of consuming. The “enemy wins” when we stem the tide of purchases, or so we were told by our last President. It is only through buying that we exert our power in the world. It is not a humanitarian cause, but more bags full of stuff we don’t really need that defines us. That men find this as stifling as women comes as no surprise.

This first section first published: http://www.hercircleezine.com/2011/08/11/stiffed-the-betrayal-of-the-american-male-part-i/

Stiffed (Part 2): Fight Club & the Plight of the Modern Man

STIFFED: BETRAYAL OF THE AMERICAN MAN (HARPER PERENNIAL, 2000) BY SUSAN FALUDI

Last week, I promised I’d compare FIGHT CLUB and STIFFED. While I did not own the film version of FIGHT CLUB until just a few years ago, I learned from the DVD booklet that I’m not the only person to compare these two books. Laura Ziskin, President of Production for Fox 2000 pictures for the film version of Fight Club, read STIFFED after optioning Palahniuk’s book. She, too, found that Faludi’s text addressed the same issues asFIGHT CLUB.

Both books explore the plight of the modern male. They both take a shot across the bow of consumer culture and the ways in which it undermines men and women. FIGHT CLUB and STIFFED explore the juxtaposition of qualities expected of the modern man, especially by advertising and marketing. Men, in our consumer culture, are asked to fit as stringent a set of physical traits as women ever were and continue to be. In STIFFED, we find men so lacking control over parts of their lives that they turn to violence. They do not commit violent acts to feel in control, but rather feel so out of control that they cannot stop their rage from spilling into physical aggression. (This refers to some men, not all men, of course.) While somewhat different, the formation of the fight club mimics the mindless actions of perpetrators of domestic violence. Men, like women, long to be a part of something larger than themselves and their individual lives. Faludi finds men who join religious organizations for this purpose. We see men join fight clubs and “project mayhem” in Palahniuk’s story.

STIFFED devotes an entire chapter to men in the porn industry and their treatment is exposed as worse than the women in the business. In fact, women are in control of who they will have sex with and how. Men have to actually perform in porn films, as well, while women can act and no one cares one bit. It seems the film studio owners and producers, male or female, are the only people who benefit in the industry since it eats up and spits out men and women performers, and is ultimately full of false promises and sets unrealistic expectations that can ruin what might otherwise be healthy, happy sex lives of ordinary people.

In FIGHT CLUB, the Tyler Durden character discusses growing up without a father. Faludi points to failed promises of fathers as part of the betrayal of the past two or more generations of men. Palahniuk’s men appear misogynist (at worst) yet are more likely merely dismissive of their “need” for another woman in their lives after being raised solely by mothers. It’s worse for men in Faludi’s book, wherein they find themselves spurred by women for their inability to produce an adequate paycheck—through no fault of their own. 

FIGHT CLUB (W.W. NORTON, 2005) BY CHUCK PALAHNIUK

Both texts examine gender roles and call them into question. Palahniuk gives us Tyler Durden, presenting him as virile, muscular, and in-control. At the same time, he dresses flashily, runs a cottage industry making soap by hand and even dons a woman’s bathrobe. Yet, for all this, we see him as distinctly male and manly. The narrator’s character dresses close to our image of a 1950s businessman (in the Western world). He wears suits, oxford shoes, flannel pajamas and a trench coat. For all his outerwear, there are times at which we question his manliness. In Faludi’s text, we find men who struggle with what defines manliness in much the same way.

To eek out a life, characters in FIGHT CLUB take on multiple jobs and find themselves unsatisfied with the nine to five grind. InSTIFFED, there are men who would give anything for any kind of job, so that they might provide for their families. In FIGHT CLUB, the men reject the status quo in favor of what is called “project mayhem,” wherein they commit acts of “consumer” disobedience and attack the incongruous aspects of society to make a statement. What they do is akin to what we know as eco-terrorism. In the end, these men find that violence and destruction leads merely to more of the same. They must overcome this in order to find something meaningful in their lives. Faludi’s cast of real characters must do the same. Men must find new ways to define manhood and manliness.

At the end of FIGHT CLUB, we see that the narrator, who suffered split personality disorder as the result of the pressures of consumer society, heals himself and finds solace in a relationship with the main female character in the text, herself a flawed heroine. Together, they are able to move forward into a new world, one in which the possibilities are only imagined as the book ends. Faludi, too, imagines such a future shared by men and women wherein they bond over their mutual betrayal at the hands of consumer society and find an egalitarian future. I hope for our sakes that Palahniuk and Faludi are prophets and not merely the warnings we do not heed.

This section first published: http://www.hercircleezine.com/2011/08/18/stiffed-part-2/

"Half of a Yellow Sun" Review and Reflection

HALF OF A YELLOW SUN

In HALF OF A YELLOW SUN, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells the story of the attempted succession of Biafra that took place in the late 1960s in Nigeria. Like any story of war, fiction or non-fiction, the tale is visceral when told from individual viewpoints and experiences. Adichie’s female characters are victimized in every conceivable manner. From the mildest sexual advances of an admirer, to a father’s disapproval of his daughter’s choices, to infidelity, and then starvation and gang rape, individual men, groups of men and governments—foreign and domestic—act out upon women’s bodies and minds throughout the book. It was a harrowing read.

All the while, the female characters, especially the major characters, are imperfect and thus, realistic women. It is not as if they are presented only as victims. Nor are they presented as caricatures of real women living the realities Igbo women faced during the civil war in Nigeria. Novels sometimes depict women living in intolerable conditions so that they are martyred, and consequently rendered incapable of receiving our empathy, even while we sympathize with them. The story of Biafra’s succession is told in a unique way. We do not just read about or see pictures or short films of nameless “starving children” but rather bear witness to a mother’s heartache as she watches her toddler daughter suffer the effects of starvation.

The men are not merely perpetrators of violence against women in this story, as well. We see the transformation of a young boy into a scared soldier who is then goaded into participating in the gang rape of an adolescent girl. What is most disturbing about this portrayal is that the character is likable before this incident. We cannot dismiss him as a monster, and are forced to realize the circumstances that contribute to otherwise sane, decent men who come to act as rapists in war. Even after the rape, the character warrants our sympathy, if not our empathy. As a young teen, isn’t he, too, a victim of the violence of war? He has a family, sisters, a mother, exhibits the fumbling behaviors and longings of romantic feelings as he falls in love with a young girl and is conflicted over his own behavior and of what he finds himself capable. How can we blame him for his actions in war?

I do not believe it is the author’s specific intention that we sympathize, empathize or excuse the violent episode of rape as a result of our appreciation of the circumstances in which a young man finds himself. Her depiction is not so trite as that, and her overall literary style is not such that she attempts to trick us into feeling sorry for a rapist. I believe she presents this episode so that we will see how war and genocide scar and cripple not only innocents in the situation, but also those who would perpetrate the violence against one another as combatants.

Even though Adichie’s female characters are strong women, this is not what remained with me from my reading of HALF OF A YELLOW SUN. Rather, I wonder what is to be done about situations like that which occurred in Nigeria, and which still continue in various parts of the world today? Are foreign governments responsible to act in parent-like roles to separate arguing siblings of different ethnicities and backgrounds? On the one hand, parents are responsible for teaching children about conflict resolution. Yet, are countries to be considered children? If we remove the parental role and view the situation as an argument between two people, in most functioning governments in the world, there are laws established that prescribe or prohibit violent behavior as a means to solve conflict. While it is clear within a country that the laws of the country bear upon its citizens, it is not clear how the accepted laws of particular countries interact with or apply to other countries.

More modern situations like the rape of women in Kosovo or in Darfur, for example, in addition to the starvation and mass killings that occur, are of feminist concern. These issues have an impact on women of all countries. When women anywhere are not safe in their homes, or in the streets where they live, men and women are concerned. Society is concerned, and I would say rightfully so. Books like Adichie’s HALF OF A YELLOW SUN provide a window into the lived experience of those who face these kinds of situations. I believe we move a step closer to understanding the issues in civil unrest at a personal level when we read novels or true accounts that provide a view of individual lives in such extraordinary circumstances. That the circumstances are not actually that extraordinary, but rather occur in our world every day, can be overwhelming to consider. I’m not sure what we might do as individuals to aid in these conflicts. I’m less sure about what foreign governments and groups can and should do. I do know that I’m thankful for women like Adichie, who give voice to those who have died or have been struck voiceless, so that we might all come together and move toward healing the conflicts in our world in more peaceful, productive ways. I believe this is the power and promise of feminism.

First published: http://www.hercircleezine.com/2011/08/04/half-of-a-yellow-sun/