Today is My Last Tuesday (plus Sex Ed for Preschoolers)

You turned the page!

So now I have something less than four workdays left. And then I will be unemployed. (Says Greg: A student!) Income-free. Whatever.

Of course, when you are the mother of a technically-preschooler-even-though-she-goes-to-kindergarten, education doesn't just happen in the school between the hours of 9 and 3:30. For instance, when we were driving up to Ann's cottage for our second annual mommyblogging cottage weekend (Ann, Marla and Josephine were also there), I got to explain bedrock.

You don't have to drive far to find yourself on the Canadian Shield around here, and when you do, the roads have been blasted straight through the bedrock, which rises up steeply on either side of the car like rust-coloured mountains covered with a thin green fuzz of shrubbery and evergreens. All the rock, Mummy! she said. Wow.

It's fun trying to explain bedrock in a way that a four-and-a-half year old will understand--that bedrock is everywhere and if you dig down far enough you'll find it no matter where you are, but here it's a lot closer to the ground so you can see it all over.

Or stars, which I got to tell her are actually much bigger than the earth, only they are very very far away. (But I'm going to let her keep believing that fairytaleland is on Jupiter, and when she is old enough we will buy a spaceship and go there together.)

Or that rivers have currents and only go in one direction, whereas oceans have tides and the water goes both ways. And lakes are still.

Or that sometimes babies are born when doctors cut their mummy's bellies open, but most of the time babies are born when they come out of their mother's vaginas. And most of the time babies drink milk that their mummies make out of their nipples, but sometimes babies drink milk out of bottles. And that sea turtles don't make milk for their babies.

And that girls have vulvas and boys have penises and that's what makes them different, not clothes or hair or toys or size; and that girls also have lots and lots of little eggs in their tummies, and girls can grow up and decided to turn some of their eggs into babies. That they don't have to, some grown-up ladies decide not to, but a lot do. That you don't have to be married to a boy if you want to have a baby, that sometimes two men marry each other or two women, and sometimes a lady decides she doesn't want to get married and turns her egg into a baby on her own. Because families can come lots of different ways, and they're all great. But, yes, boys are important too, because they make the seeds that the eggs need to grow (only not until they are almost grown up), and most of the time what happens is that a grown-up man and woman decide they want to turn an egg into a baby and so the man puts his penis into the woman's vagina and that's how the seeds get out, and then one of the seeds finds one of the eggs and it turns into a baby and starts growing, and isn't that cool? But it's something you can really only do when you are a grown-up.

But it doesn't work that way for snakes or birds or fish, because they put the eggs on the outside of their bodies and then they turn into babies on the outside. But we turn them into babies on the inside, and so do cats and dogs and guinea pigs and cows and horses and deer and I've lost track of how many other animals we've had this chat for.

She knows about umbilical cords and belly buttons and, thanks to her habit of walking into the bathroom and my bedroom without knocking first, a fair bit about puberty and menstruation.

If you're wondering if this doesn't make me tremendously squeamish, you bet. But I figure it's my job to wrestle my squirms down so that Frances can get factual, accurate information that she can understand without getting all of my own childhood programming into the mix, just like it's my job to swallow down my body insecurities so she doesn't grow up paranoid about getting fat.

I wonder where we got this idea that we need to protect children's innocence re: sex from? It wasn't so long ago that most kids grew up on farms or at any rate in the country where mating animals would not have been an unusual sight. It doesn't seem to have traumatized all previous generations to grow up understanding the biological role of males and females and the nature of sex, though they might not prefer to think about their parents doing it. Frankly I very much prefer not to think about my precious, beautiful little girl growing up and becoming sexual one day, but it's going to happen, and when it does I want her to have the tools to communicate about sex factually and calmly. I don't want her to be hampered by my own squeamishness and get all flustered the first time some boy she likes wants to go farther than she does.

Plus, the research I've seen indicates that kids are more comfortable with transgressing gender norms and stereotypes when they understand that sex is biological and that only genitilia can really distinguish between boys/men and girls/women. This is an important goal to me.

If you're wondering if this doesn't make Frances tremendously squeamish, not a bit. She finds the whole thing fascinating. When she has questions, I answer them. I don't answer more than she asked for. I ask her to tell me what she thinks I said so I can clarify if she's confused or if I didn't explain it as well as I should. I bought her a person puzzle and a body book that show, besides muscles and bones and organs and blood vessels, anatomically correct reproductive organs and some information about reproduction (in the book) that is age appropriate and, apparently, lots of fun to play with. (Plug: The Human Body by Owl publications is GREAT for this age group and probably a few years older. I can review it if anyone is interested.) She has already decided that when she grows up she is going to turn one of the eggs into her tummy into a baby and become a Mummy, and she will also have pets and a garden.

All of the explicit, messy, sometimes icky, squirmish, detailed and factual information so far has only stoked the impassioned pre-Mummy flames. She'll be five in December. So far as I can tell, she understands and remembers all of it. And when she doesn't, we talk about it. Again.

Before Frances was born I really hadn't expected to have so many discussions about genitals with my three-year-old (this started last year for us, beginning I think when she got the ideas that a) girls had weenies on the inside, and b) babies were born from belly buttons from the kids at her daycare. So that tells you just how early these peer conversations start up). But she had the interest and was asking questions, and I decided pretty quickly that I wanted two things: When she gets information from friends and from school about sex, I want her to: a) know that her mom has reliable information and that she can be relied on to share it, and b) be innoculated against the misinformation of her less-well-informed peers. Yes, even at eight. Even at six. I can still remember the time in grade one when my giggly classmates put our teacher on the spot by asking her what a girl's private parts were called. Or my classmates in grades two and three who used to draw their interpretations of penises on the backs of their school notebooks.

If this doesn't convince you not to turn the page, Dear Readers, what will?

Don't you know that there's a Monster at the End of this Blog?

Posted by Andrea at 9:54 AM | Comments (13)

The Lenses in the Pink-Coloured Glasses

At my nephew's recent first birthday party--who, by the way, is enormous; at one year he is already several pounds heavier than Frances is at four-and-a-half, and is almost as tall--he and Frances were playing with his trucks and cars and balls and the rocket-ship we gave him (complete with astronauts, space dog, alien, moonbuggy and crater).

"Look at them," said someone whose anonymity I have decided to preserve: "Frances is such a little girl, and Lukas is such a boy!"

They were playing together with the same toys. Those toys were mostly "boy" toys. It's true they were playing with them differently. Frances formed her trucks into tribes of friends and families and had them rolling across the floor and talking to each other, whereas Lukas was mostly banging them into the hardwood while crowing "duh!" because he's only one.

But Frances was wearing a pink dress and her long hair was left down, whereas Lukas wore a set of blue overalls and his hair--such as it exists to this point--is short.

Not that either of them chose their hair or outfits. I chose Frances's pink dress and I decide how long her hair grows; ditto with Lukas.

Several adults nodded approvingly at the anonymous adult's comment.

I remembered the hour we had spent that morning before the party playing with red Spiderman and black Spiderman, how she had delighted in showing me the way that red Spiderman can shoot webs from his hands to catch bad guys. I remembered her current best friend at daycare--a boy--and the many times I'd watched them play with the big bucket full of dinosaurs. I remembered every time she had pointed out a Ninja Turtle or Transformer in the toystore. I remembered her many complaints that she does not have enough plates to make a fence or a house with her toolset; her delight at catching frogs; her comfort in dirty jeans and t-shirts; her love of lego and other building toys; the way her Barbie lies neglected in the bottom of the toy basket.

And, yes, how she loves to nurture Baby Eloise and turn all of her toys into families sometimes. But, on the whole, I'd hardly characterize Frances as a girly-girl.

Unless you are bound and determined to see her that way.

Based, I repeat, on a pink dress and a haircut.

Why do we put so much time and energy into determining the conformism of each child with gender stereotypes, to the point of seeing it when it isn't there?

At this point, I'd say Frances is a child with an impressive diversity of interests. She likes colouring and painting and craft projects using cut-and-paste and buttons and pipe cleaners and sparkly glue and mummy's scrapbooking leftovers. She likes to take photographs. She likes jumping in mud-puddles. She likes superheroes and picture books, trucks and dolls, naptimes for her Little People and building them houses out of lego and turning her Wedgits into cakes (by the way, Wedgits are a fabulous toy, my new favourite). She likes playing with her Calico Critters in their dollhouse; she likes her long-neck dinosaurs and all their little friends; she likes flowers and stars and planets and mud and frogs and fairies and fantasy stories and knights and horses and castles and amusement parks. I can't categorize her as girly/boyish/tomboy/whatever, and I don't see the point in trying. She's herself. She's Frances.

Why does anybody else care? Why does anyone ever put any time or interest into determining the degree of any child's adherence to gender stereotypes? How does it help us better parent or teach or befriend a child, ever? In what way does it ever benefit them not to simply see them as themselves, as full and complex little people who are still figuring out what they like and who they want to be?

Posted by Andrea at 9:23 AM | Comments (7)

What Women Want

"When Mr. Ramsay expects Lily to reincarnate feminine influence and 'sympathy,' she feels the rage of the childish Maggie or thoroughly modern Isa. 'That man took. She, on the other hand, would be forced to give. Mrs. Ramsay had given. Giving, giving, giving, she had died.'" ~ analysis of George Eliot's Middlemarch

I'm going to be arrogant and generalize my post last week (and the one last year)--because it's not just me, is it? Wanting is fraught territory for women, period. If it weren't, we wouldn't need umpteen gazillion pounds of paper each month on the newsstand devoted to telling us what we are supposed to want, how much, when, and under what circumstances. Even the best of mainstream women's magazines are little more than catalogues, inculcating socially appropriate desires based on class, relationship status, employment and age. Which leads me to think that Freud's famous question:

The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is "What does a woman want?"

likely has no answer. Not because women are mysterious, impenetrable creatures whom no reasonable person (aka man) could possibly be expected to fathom, but because women themselves have been so trained into wanting what they don't want that in many cases we don't know ourselves what it is we do want. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go out and scan the covers on the newsstands. What kinds of shoes are you supposed to want this year, and why? What kinds of skirts, lipstick and jackets? What kinds of relationships with what kinds of men (and it always is men on the newsstands)? What are you supposed to want for dinner? How much? Are you allowed to want desert right now?

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours. ~Grover Cleveland, 1905

It's easy to mock such sentiments, but the situation has not changed all that much. Yes, we're allowed to want to vote now (but sensible and responsible women do not want to run for office; it's not a good environment for women). But there are still a lot of people out there, many of them not-women, perfectly happy to inform women about what sensible and responsible women do want. Unsurprisingly, it still mostly revolves around other people: We want to look attractive in current ways to impress friends and colleagues and attract mates. We want to eat certain things and do certain kinds of exercises for the same reasons. We want to read the books that other people are reading and watch the shows that other people are watching so we can converse with those other people. We want books and quizzes and articles that will help us save our relationships (funny how men are never supposed to want that). We want recipes to feed the perfect meals, however defined, to our families. Everything that women are sanctioned to want is meant to allow us to perform our societal role--service.

Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, a good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed, well-groomed, and unaggressive. ~Marya Mannes

Rephrased: What women are supposed to want for themselves is to be more help to other people. Or:

Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her. Mohandas Gandhi

I'll bet you didn't know it was biological. Don't you want to give nature a big wet thank-you kiss for endowing you with the spirit of selfless service?

Consider that most women still carry the burden not only of the obvious caring work (housework, feeding, cooking, shopping for food, laundry, bathing, etc.) within their families, but also the less-obvious caring work (gifts, cards, invitations, thank-you notes, meal planning, reading about childrearing and nutrition and relationship advice and marriage manuals, keeping track of what housework needs to be done, purchasing clothing and keeping track of kids' sizes and what needs to be replaced, remembering birthdays, etc.). Consider that many women's hobbies even today revolve largely around one of those fields of caring work--knitting, embroidery, scrapbooking, cardmaking, sewing, and so on--so that even when women are having fun it is in the "spirit of selfless service." Consider that the work of service that women still normally perform is still mostly unpaid or underpaid, and that when it is paid women have difficulty asking for money for it or being clear about their expectations of payment. Consider the different emotional reactions of widows and widowers two years after bereavement:

Late life widowhood, selfishness and new partnership choices: a gendered perspective

KATE DAVIDSON Centre for Research on Ageing and Gender, University of Surrey.

Abstract

Little sociological attention has been paid to the repartnering of older people after widowhood, and how age, gender and the meanings of marriage influence choices about new cross-gender relationships. This paper reports on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 25 widows and 26 widowers over the age of 65, widowed for at least two years and who had not remarried. Respondents were asked about their current lifestyle and relationships and whether they had ever considered remarriage. The words 'selfish' and 'freedom' were often used by the widows when describing their present existence, which was associated with not having to look after someone all the time. Few of the widowers mentioned selfishness and this was more likely to be associated with feelings of anger at the loss of their spouse; none of the men associated widowhood with a sense of freedom. The paper argues that the desire for repartnering after widowhood is gender-specific: widows are more likely to choose to remain without a partner for intrinsic factors: the reluctance to relinquish a new-found freedom; while for widowers, extrinsic factors of older age and poor health are more salient issues in new partnership formation choices and constraints.

Consider that women who know what they want and ask for it are often penalized:

Women and Salary Negotiation: The Costs of Self-Advocacy Mary E. Wade Manhattan College Abstract Introducing the concepts of self- and other-advocacy should prove useful as a means of understanding the different contexts in which women and men can effectively and comfortably exert power and influence when making requests. In this conceptual paper, social psychological research is reviewed demonstrating that women can advocate effectively on behalf of others without incurring costs, but gender-linked stereotypes, roles, and norms constrain them from advocating as freely and effectively for themselves. It is argued that women do not frequently make requests for themselves, because they have learned that they may ultimately lose more than they gain. This gendered difference has implications for ongoing pay and promotion inequities.

Poor Freud: toiling away for thirty years trying to ask a question of women which by its very nature undermined their femininity. Women and girls aren't supposed to want for themselves, period. Any mother of a daughter can say without hesitation that this is not biological or essential, that little girls come into the world with a full measure of personal entitlement. They want what they want and they say so, sometimes loudly. And then, sometime between girlhood and womanhood, it's lost.

Selflessness

Women tend to put others first. This is a very attractive quality to a man. Sometimes a man gets caught in his ego and pride. In the short term there is nothing wrong with this. However in the long term this can create a selfish man. This is why it's very refreshing for a man to be around a woman who is compassionate and cares about others [sic] needs.

I'll bet it's refreshing. I'll bet it's convenient, too.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that I am an extreme case for a host of unbloggable reasons. But I don't think I'm unique in this. What do you want? If you strip away the audience for your appearance and the clientele for your service work so that clothing, body size or shape, and service wants are eliminated, what's left? What do you want for you, when there is no one else to want things for, or want to be different for? If you had a wife for the next month, someone who would take care of the house for you, do the meals and the cleaning up, take care of the kids, grease the relationships, and everything would run like a well-oiled machine; and moreover, if you were entitled to be oblivious to that work so that you do not have to notice it or be grateful for it--what would you do with that month? What would you want for yourself if, for a month, no one else wanted anything from you?

Margaret Oliphant was a writer of fiction and non-fiction who had three kids of her own and three kids of her brothers to raise on a writing income without a spouse (her husband died). This is what she had to say about writing:

"The writing ran through everything. But then it was subordinate to everything, to be pushed aside for any little necessity. I had no table even to myself, much less a room to work in, but sat at a corner of the family-table with my writing-book, with everything going on as if I were making a shirt instead of writing a book .... And I don't think I have ever had two hours undisturbed (except at night when everyone is in bed) in my whole literary life."

It's that biologically-ordained spirit of selfless service. Again. Contrast with Joseph Conrad:

"For twenty months I wrestled with the Lord for my creation ... mind and will and conscience engaged to the full, hour after hour, day after day ... a lonely struggle in great isolation from the world. I suppose I slept and ate the food put before me and talked connectedly on suitable occasions, but I was never aware of the even flow of daily life, made easy and noiseless for me by a silent, watchful, tireless affection."

What do you suppose his wife (aka "tireless affection") might have preferred to be doing for those twenty months?

This is all disjointed and confusing, I know, but (as I sit typing this with two young girls playing a Shrek adaptation on the floor beside me with Little People, having stolen minutes here and there for all the rest of it between loads of laundry, bouts of dishes, fixing snacks and fetching drinks and calling the super's office to get a toilet fixed) I think one of the things holding back women's progress at this stage of the game is the relentless way in which women are trained in what to want and who to want it for (it's never ourselves, even when it's marketed that way) in order to continue a model of the "spirit of selfless service" and keep the status quo largely unchanged.

None of which is to argue that no one should ever put their own wants aside in order to help someone else instead; but that maybe, when we do this, it would be healthier to do it within a context of at least knowing what we want to begin with.

I wouldn't mind being Margaret Oliphant, and that quote makes Joseph Conrad look like an arrogant, entitled, ignorant ass, so I don't mind not being him; Frances hasn't only expanded my horizons about writing itself and what I want to write about but has increased my time management skills by a thousandfold. I sincerely cannot fathom what I used to do with all the spare time I used to have. It's the expectation that women are so naturally selfless that they don't have wants for themselves at all that needs to change.

Posted by Andrea at 10:33 AM | Comments (5)

Bitch

I've tried now three times to write something for Julie's Hmm topic for the week: assertiveness, girls, and gendered expectations. Don't I have a thousand things to say about it? Yes, unfortunately, it's all a big muddle.

I turned to the dictionary for clarification:

as·ser·tive –adjective 1. confidently aggressive or self-assured; positive: aggressive; dogmatic: He is too assertive as a salesman. 2. having a distinctive or pronounced taste or aroma.

No help there. Isn't assertive supposed to be good? Isn't aggressive supposed to be bad? Aren't we supposed to be walking the fine line between them? Do I want to have a distinctive or pronounced taste or aroma?

ag·gres·sive adj. Characterized by aggression: aggressive behavior. Inclined to behave in an actively hostile fashion: an aggressive regime. Assertive, bold, and energetic: an aggressive sales campaign. Of or relating to an investment or approach to investing that seeks above-average returns by taking above-average risks. Fast growing; tending to spread quickly and invade: an aggressive tumor. Characterized by or inclined toward vigorous or intensive medical treatment: an aggressive approach to treating the infection. Intense or harsh, as in color.

No, this just isn't helping at all. So aggressive is hostile? Or bold and energetic? Or vigorous? Is it possible that aggression is getting a bad rap here--that it's not all bad or all good anymore than conciliation is?

Is it possible to be assertive without being aggressive? Is it possible to be assertive in such a way that no one could ever perceive you as being aggressive? Is that why, once upon a time, someone who cares about me a great deal pleaded with me before we went to a social gathering together, "Just please say something and act normal, I know you can, when you sit there and don't say anything and stare at the floor you come off like a bitch."

Let's ask Psychology Today, that bastion of forward thinking on gender roles:

"The real first step toward assertiveness is self-confidence. You develop self-confidence only one way—through the experience of effectiveness in the world. You have to rack up some successes all your own, in specific domains of experience."

All right, but how do girls do this? Doesn't that depend on living in a social environment where girls are expected to succeed and not punished for doing so? No, no help there. Let's try this: Management Issues.

"A huge difference can exist between claiming a right and being actively hostile."

Really? Doesn't that depend on whether or not observers agree that it is a right you are asserting, not a privilege? Isn't the ground between what is considered a man's right or a woman's right still highly contested, where a man's right is often a privilege for a woman and hardly ever the other way around? What public woman has the right to be unattractive and not care about it? What woman has the right not to apologize for being obviously more intelligent than the men around her? What woman has the right to be as sexual as we assume men are? What woman has the right to assert her own sexuality over what her sexuality has been culturally defined as--as it relates to the desires and fantasies of men? What woman has the right not to consider herself first and foremost in a service capacity? I don't know about you, but most days I don't even feel I have the right not to smile in a public place (as I am sometimes reminded by passing men who greet my not-unhappy face with "whatever it is, it can't be that bad").

If you believe you are asserting a human right and the person you are asserting it to does not believe that you are entitled to that right, won't they perceive the act as hostile? How exactly are you supposed to control that? Is there any way, in that situation, not to be perceived as hostile that doesn't amount to acceding your human rights?

Is that why, when I was younger and I couldn't cross two street corners in a skirt without someone propositioning me, my honest and immediate responses ("No") were met with hostility, anger and incredulity? ("No, really, I want to fuck you sometime. When are you at home alone?")

Is that why when I was younger and I would go out all hours of the night to walk deserted bikepaths to calm my mind down on my own, the response I would get from other people was rarely fear or concern for my safety, and more often, again, hostility and incredulity?

"Aggressive conduct: Glares or stares at others Assertive conduct: Makes friendly, considerate eye contact"

But how can I possibly control how my eye contact will be perceived? Is this why so many women go around with those idiot grins plastered on their faces all the time?

"Aggressive conduct: Values one's self more than others Assertive conduct: Values self as an equal to others"

Does this mean I need to preface my assertive statements with "I value myself as an equal to you"? Wouldn't that sound kind of funny?

I remember a study where highschool teachers were instructed to call on boy and girl students equally in class that day--time interactions and the number of interactions to achieve this. There was an insurrection in those classes because the male students accused the teachers of favouring the girls--imagine--girls getting precisely their fair share was perceived by the boys as girls getting favoured treatment!

Is it even possible for a woman to claim her fair share without being perceived as trying to claim more than her fair share? Don't just jump and say yes. Really think about this. If mathematically precise equal interactions in a classroom are perceived as being biased in girls' favour, how do you really think a woman who is being "assertive" as in "valuing herself equally with others" will be perceived by those around her, especially men? My guess is that she will be perceived as someone who "values herself more than others," or aggressive.

Is this why a boy once told me, "I don't think I could date a girl smarter than me"?

The problem with contrasting aggression and assertiveness is that in the great grey muddle between the extremes, it is all too easy to view any particular action either way. When I went out dancing that night in Quebec after the boy I'd been dating there was kicked out for speaking too much English, and I danced close to that cute guy who had a crush on my friend but she didn't like him back so it was ok--and I was hoping he'd ask me home, because it was summer and home was far away and I was enjoying myself--and he did--was I being assertive, aggressive, or neither? Doesn't that depend on what your sexual morals are, specifically your beliefs about moral female sexuality? Doesn't that depend on what you think girls are supposed to want?

Enough of that. Let's ask the experts:

J Pers Soc Psychol. 2001 Jul;81(1):133-45. Changes in women's assertiveness in response to status and roles: a cross-temporal meta-analysis, 1931-1993. Twenge JM.

Across two meta-analyses, American women's assertiveness rose and fell with their social status from 1931 to 1993. College women and high school girls' self-reports on assertiveness and dominance scales increased from 1931 to 1945, decreased from 1946 to 1967, and increased from 1968 to 1993, explaining about 14% of the variance in the trait. Women's scores have increased enough that many recent samples show no sex differences in assertiveness. Correlations with social indicators (e.g., women's educational attainment, women's median age at first marriage) confirm that women's assertiveness varies with their status and roles. Social change is thus internalized in the form of a personality trait. Men's scores do not demonstrate a significant birth cohort effect overall. The results suggest that the changing sociocultural environment for women affected their personalities, most likely beginning in childhood.

That's good news. That also blows a nice big hole in all the "testosterone" theories of the innate differences between men and women. Put women in a social context where they believe they have a reasonable chance at success and, hey presto, they'll develop an innately assertive personality just as well as boys do.

Mind you, this specifically does not state that their assertiveness gets them anywhere.

This book preview was great, and then it cut off just when it was getting to the good stuff:

"In support of these predictions, several studies have shown that when women in mixed-sex groups present their ideas in an assertive or self-directed style, they are disliked or perceived as untrustworthy and achieve less influence over men...."

Don't you wish you knew what came next? Still, that snippet is good on its own. Page 648, if you're scrolling through. What do you want to bet that if those men were asked why they disliked the assertive women, they'd say it was because they were too aggressive?

Women and Salary Negotiation: The Costs of Self-Advocacy

Mary E. Wade
Manhattan College

Abstract

Introducing the concepts of self- and other-advocacy should prove useful as a means of understanding the different contexts in which women and men can effectively and comfortably exert power and influence when making requests. In this conceptual paper, social psychological research is reviewed demonstrating that women can advocate effectively on behalf of others without incurring costs, but gender-linked stereotypes, roles, and norms constrain them from advocating as freely and effectively for themselves. It is argued that women do not frequently make requests for themselves, because they have learned that they may ultimately lose more than they gain. This gendered difference has implications for ongoing pay and promotion inequities.

No wonder it's so much easier for a woman to advocate for her kids than for herself.

There's a lot more, and it's all pretty depressing. Let's leave the experts alone.

I don't know about you, but I still don't know what assertiveness is exactly, or how it differs from aggressiveness in any sphere but that of physical violence. I still don't know how I can behave so that anyone will perceive that I am being assertive, and not aggressive, regardless of whether they are religious fundamentalists who think I ought to stay in the home or female athletes with a shelf full of trophies or hormonally-adled boys who have been brought up on visions of women based mostly on MTV and Maxim or doctors who think patients who consult the internet are being uppity.

You know what? I can't.

There is no formula for behaviour that will be viewed as assertive and not-aggressive in all situations and by all people. If I act from what I believe is a healthy interest in protecting my own innate human rights, someone will inevitably believe that I am asking for too much and getting above myself. What is seen by one as a polite and firm voice will be seen by someone else as cold; what is seen by one as a warm and friendly voice will be seen by someone else as overly emotional and inappropriate. I can't dance around stereotypes of female behaviour for the rest of my life, of what I am supposed to want and have and how I am supposed to go after it. I'm not even going to try.

You can call me a bitch if you want to.

Posted by Andrea at 1:38 PM | Comments (9)

Because it's not the stuff you know you're doing that you need to worry about.

I don't remember ever playing with dolls. I must have, I had dolls, but I don't remember playing with them. It didn't register in the long-term memory ganglia or whatever neural part it is they reside in.

I had a cabbage patch doll. My Mom bought me one for Christmas the year they were all the rage--remember that? Parents trampling each other to buy one for their kids for Christmas?--and she bought it just before they took off, when there were plenty on the shelves, and watched in amazement as it became the It Toy of the year. Her name was Frederica and she had two fat brown braids, and my Mom made her an entire little wardrobe of Cabbage Patch Clothes so she would have outfits.

She made me another doll, too, that I named after the Little Matchstick Girl because we learned about her in school that year. She was long and thin and had long, straw-coloured yarn hair and a long blue print dress.

I had a little puppet baby doll that had a blanket sewn to her so that when you put your hand inside you could wrap the blanket around her and it would look like a baby, sleeping.

I had a dollhouse that my father made; the second floor was removable and it was vaguely patterned after my childhood home. It had doors and windows and white stucco paint on the outside, black sandpaper shingles; when I was a teenager I took to redecorating it as a hobby and it has a few nice pieces in it now. The house itself, though, is a shambles, because in my early twenties my pet ferret took up residence in it and could not be evicted.

I had Barbies. I know this because I have found their headless, limbless torsos, blond plastic hair knotted and ratty, at the bottom of toy bins.

I must have played with them in the regular fashion at some point; but the only games I remember playing with the Barbies were the ones where I paired them up with my brother's GI Joes and sent them off to battle evil and save the world.

I remember lego. I remember my brother's construx and his transformers. I remember constructing elaborate role-playing games complete with hand-drawn currency, rulebooks and manuals that centred, again, on battling evil and saving the world. I do not remember playing with dolls. My parents tell me I did, and treasured them. They have no reason to lie. But the doll-playing wasn't formative.

I didn't grow up believing that I had to be a mother.

I did grow up believing that I had to save the world.

~~~~~

My bedroom in the new house was blue, sky-blue, and it had one of those wallpaper murals on one wall. I think it was a rainbow. Girly, but not pink. My brother's room was painted grey and black and his mural was a moonscape. Cool, but I had the same aversion to black as a decorating scheme at that age as I do now.

I had a microscope somewhere in there. It came with glass slides and solutions and tweezers and a little black scalpel.

My parents signed me up for jazz dance when I was little, I can't remember the age. I can remember wearing leotards and dance shoes, and learning to sashay. I took it until I was allowed to quit, sometime late in elementary school.

My parents signed my brother up for football. I can't remember the age. I can remember his yellow and black uniform. He took it until he was allowed to quit.

I can remember lots and lots of crafty projects from a young age. I had a toy singer sewing machine that really sewed, and knitting tubes that I used to make little round rugs for my dollhouse, and a sewing kit with a pattern for a tiny tiny felt teddy bear smaller than my thumb. I had an easybake oven and used up all the little mixes quick. I had books, of course; reams and reams of books. Narnia and Anne and tons ordered from Scholastic through the school.

I love making things, and I love knowing how to do things, now as then; this applies equally well to hanging shelves with a cordless drill, stripping and refinishing furniture, painting, as well as baking, sewing, knitting, etc. But I'll let you guess which were sitting under the tree at Christmas.

I'm not saying I didn't ask for these things (except the dance lessons). Maybe I did. But who (knowing the adult I turned into) could argue this was innate?

~~~~~

I remember having two favourite colours in elementary school: red and blue.

I remember loving Anne and Narnia and all the rest of my childhood library, until I discovered my father's science fiction and fantasy books in senior public school. And even though The Coming of the Quantum Cats opened up a whole other universe to me, I dropped science after grade 10 and I don't remember anyone complaining.

Now I read astrophysics for fun.

Now, according to my job classification, I am a professional scientist.

~~~~~

When I visited my parents over the holidays the conversation turned to one of our favourite topics of conversation: Frances. How adorable, how sweet, how loving, how kind, how active, how bright, how thoughtful, how funny. How generally perfect.

Also--how girly.

How she loves to play with dolls (this is brought out as evidence of girlishness, but her love of lego is not).

How caring and nurturing she is of all her little toys.

How she loves pink. How she adores to be beautiful in her party clothes. How she thrives on being admired in her party shoes.

Not how she loves to try to scare people with tales of the bloodthirsty T Rex.

Not how she, too, structures so much of her roleplaying games around saving people or animals.

But there it was, that conversation. Frances is such a little girl.

"Just like you," said my Dad.

(I'll let those of you who've fainted wake up before I continue. Take your time.)

"We tried to raise you gender-neutrally, but you just always wanted dolls and your brother wanted trucks."

All I could do was stare.

~~~~~

It's not the stuff you know you're doing that you need to watch out for.

It's the stuff you don't know you're doing, the stuff you would swear you weren't doing but are doing anyway, because you can't help it, it's unconscious.

I don't think my dad is unusually clueless. I think he's normal. Most of you probably have similar tales about your own parents.

Our kids will have the same stories to tell about us one day. One day, Frances will be telling her friends how I practically programmed her to love pink and baking and never take the driver's seat when she can avoid it.

I hope, when it happens, that I'm not sitting around telling my friends about how hard I tried to be gender-neutral in parenting Frances, but she loved dolls and pink anyway, I guess that stuff is just innate.

Posted by Andrea at 7:10 AM | Comments (6)

Born to Accommodate

Julie's Hump Day Hmm this week is about speaking up vs. staying silent--and it's something I have strong feelings about. No surprise. Only I can't come up with anything that relates to her scenarios, except:

It would depend almost entirely on what I ate for breakfast.

Yeah. That's it. Am I full, or hungry, or hot, or cold, and how much sleep did Frances let me have the night before? In other words, am I cranky? If I'm cranky, I might say something, or at the least might direct a very pointed look at the offender. I keep my pointed looks sharp with the use of a dedicated whetstone, so you know, these aren't your garden-variety pointed looks.

If I'm not cranky, I probably won't say anything. At all. Nice or otherwise.

And then people tell me that I'm brave here, only I've always been brave in print, and I still can't speak.

In part this is because I think by writing. I know the usual thing is to think by thinking, which leaves one open to the use of any medium at all to express the resulting thoughts. Not me. The best I am likely to do in public when confronted with a new question or issue is a thoughtful, concise and coherent, "Huh."

In part, this is because I introject, and if you had seen me last night, Dear Readers, watching the episode of Battlestar Galactica where the new Sharon has to slit her hand open to plug herself into the computer before a cylon virus destroys the ship--sitting on the couch with my eyes clenched shut and my wrists pressed into my stomach because it fucking hurt just to watch it, and yes, I know it's not real--you might understand why I'm meeker in person than I am online. Imagining someone's reaction is quite enough, thank you; actually seeing it often puts me out of commission altogether.

Sometimes, even when I know exactly what I want to say, I open my mouth and the words turn to stones in my throat. It's not at that point a conscious decision to keep peace by keeping quiet so much as an internal hijacking by some part of my mind that has decided my words are a kamikaze mission. But why? Is it fear, and if so, of what? It's not what I believe to be right, or good; if you asked me what I believed, I'd say this again, as I have many times before:

"In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light, and what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else's words. ...I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?" (Audre Lourde)

That is what I would say; but what would I do, if someone made plans in front of me that didn't include me? Excluded someone from a playgroup because of their sex? Repaid good money with shit service? Such small things, shouldn't it be easy? For the monetary transaction conducted at one remove it probably would be, but the others?

Stew, ponder, swallow some bile, crease my forehead. Then come home and blog about it.

~~~~~

"Youth Decay" (Sleater Kinney)

Acid tooth
It's got nothing to do with you
but if you wanna watch me chew
my teeth are cutting you out
Stomachache

Well it must be in your head
It must be something that you did
Food just doesn't seem to work out
Am I rotting out?

Daddy says I got my mama's mouth
I'm all about
a forked tongue and a dirty house
Mom has said
yes this happened to me long ago
But no one would believe me when i said:

Close my mouth
Was I born to accommodate
I'm so good at playing dead
words just don't seem to come out
Should I eat something sweet instead
wash away all those things we said
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
how many doctors will it take
Oooh Oooh before i disintegrate

Posted by Andrea at 10:53 AM | Comments (9)

Moral Dilemmas II: where I answer my own rhetorical questions, or start to

Him: What do you think about dating more than one person at a time?

Me: I think it's fine, so long as everyone is being honest and knows what is going on.

Thinking: And even then...

When do you owe someone that honesty?

While before the first date is too much too soon, and after marriage is too little too late, there is a wide grey area in between where potential misunderstandings, hurt feelings and awkward conversations abound. This is probably why most people either a) avoid dating more than one person at a time or b) avoid having the conversations, thereby cheating by default.

But: is it the expectations that lie at the root of those misunderstandings and hurt feelings--that is, that people date one person at a time, and therefore only exceptions to this rule require communication--or the lack of honesty? If we expected people to be dating more than one person until hearing otherwise directly from them, how would that change?

~~~~~

Last week I read a column in the Globe and Mail titled The Other Woman, all about those poor sad dupes who believe the married guy loves them because he buys them lingerie.

Before I get to the part where I choked, I'd like to point out that any woman in any relationship who believes that a guy loves her because he buys her stuff, regardless of their official relationship status, is a poor sad dupe. This is not an affliction that holds only for The Other Woman. All of us are in the position of attempting to judge someone else's intentions and honesty based on a combination of gifts, actions, words, looks, consistency, and so on; none of us will ever fully penetrate or understand the heart of another.

Here are the choking hazards:

It's true there are women who profess not to care if their man leaves his wife.

...aha, but they are miserable, self-deluded wretches, engaged in a pathetic pretense. Deep down all women want the diamond ring and the white-picket fence. We have chosen to disregard what the women have to say about themselves, and will shortly share with you instead the musings of a group of self-proclaimed 'experts' who have not a shred of evidence among them.

But I would suggest that's an unhealthy display of defensiveness and self-degradation, and it points to the problem that many psychologists say underlies the reason single women settle for a part-time man. It's that old bugaboo: low self-esteem.

...because there's no such thing as a psychologically healthy woman who doesn't want to be married or partnered, would rather have several casual relationships over one serious one, enjoys being single or has tried marriage and didn't like it. Since we can't find a mental illness common to all women sleeping with married men which can be treated pharmaceutically (pity, it's so much more profitable), we'll just shame them all into silence or compliance by telling them it's their low self-esteem.

Here's one way to see things clearly. Think of yourself as a Ferrari in a garage that you are offering to him to use any time he wants. You fill it up with gas. You keep it clean, finely detailed for his pleasure.

...because clear thinking in relationships always involves objectifying yourself and seeing yourself primarily as a man's ticket to orgasm. This, by the way, also defines high self-esteem (see above).

The best advice, however, is the pre-emptive kind. Channel Barbara Amiel: When she was between husband No. 3 (David Graham) and husband No. 4 (Conrad Black), she was in London, moving among the great and the good. There were plenty of men, but she knew what she wanted and what she deserved.

...because Conrad Black may be a felon, but he's a rich felon and he was all hers. Good thinking, Barbara!

Ready for more? Let's read a few comments.

On second thought, I'll let you read the comments. Except for this one: "Here's one thing I know to be true: Cheaters cheat. It's what they do."

Too true. Scientifically proven. DNA studies have in fact found that these types are a separate sub-species, the Homo Sapiens Infidelus.

I have been both the jezebel and the frigid bitch. I was the same person both times. Wasn't I?

My self-esteem was not sky-high the one time and rock-bottom the other. Being the jezebel, if anything, reduced my sense of myself because what the hell was I doing? Why was I doing this? A scenario that strikes me as more likely (if you believe women are people) than a wilting wallflower waiting for a married man to make her feel complete. My ethics and morals were not substantially different. I was the same person--not, in either case, wholly innocent; not, in either case, wholly to blame; in both cases the same mix of insecurities and strengths, blind spots and clear thinking, wishes and fears, smarts and stupids that I am on most other days. I was me.

Anyone can become at any time the person they are sure they will never be, doing the thing they are sure they will never do. What sort of hubris allows one to think they are exempt from human failings? At the very least any woman who's ever been through the first year of motherhood, when all of our precious notions of what sort of mothers we can be and will be crumble into a haze of sleep-deprivation and expert-laden guilt, ought to know better. She ought to know that all of us are capable of failing those we love most on earth simply because we are sometimes not the people we thought we were or wanted to be.

Most of the science I've read on the issue of infidelity concludes that both men and women are not lifelong monogamous pair-bonders, but opportunistic adulterers. That is, we will remain faithful so long as we are convinced that this is our best deal (in a modern society, factoring in the cost of divorce, the impact on children, and so on); but once we are presented with something we think is a better deal, we'll take what we can get, for as long as we can get away with it.

It's not a flattering portrait of human nature; but then, science can also explain most of our altruistic and nurturing behaviours including within our immediate families through mathematical formulas based on ratios of genetic relatedness. It feels noble, spiritual, pure, high-minded, and it's not.

From the gutters of humanity's primate nature (ask any female chimp how many males she fucked per offspring and, if she were human, she'd give you a wicked little laugh) to the heights of romantic idealism in the next installment, since this one is getting long enough, don't you think?

Posted by Andrea at 9:03 AM | Comments (4)

Four Pounds

Dr. S: So how do you think you've been doing with blood sugar control lately?

Andrea: Good. Not as well as before, I know my control has been slipping, but I think that's just an adjustment period issue.

Dr. S: Makes sense. Yes, it looks like your A1c might be closer to 7 now. Still, that's pretty good. And you've gained four pounds. You'd lost a significant bit last time, though, so that's to be expected.

Andrea: Right.

Dr. S: Here's a new blood test requisition. See you in six months.

~~~~~

Vanity: Four Pounds!

Sanity: Relax.

Vanity: Four pounds! Four pounds! Six months!

Sanity: (sighs)

Vanity: At this rate, I'm going to be 200lbs by the time I'm 40.

Sanity: Has that ever happened before?

Vanity: I will die alone!

Sanity: Are you listening to yourself? Are you crazy? You weighed more than this when you got married.

Vanity: I'm fat! Four pounds!

Sanity: You can stand barefoot with your feet together and your legs don't touch. You are not fat.

Vanity: Four! Pounds!

Sanity: It's January: the holidays JUST ended and you JUST had a cookie decorating party for your daughter. It's four freaking pounds. Breathe.

Vanity: I liked being slim. It was fun while it lasted.

Sanity: Did it make your life any better?

Vanity: I could always just cut back on my insulin. That would work.

Sanity: Full stop. I don't think so. That could kill you. Four pounds won't.

Vanity: Oh no, it'll just end all of my chances for earthly happiness. Maybe I need to get another cold....

Sanity: You are nuts. Didn't you go through all this when you were 22? And decide that as long as you were eating reasonably healthy and getting some exercise that whatever weight you ended up at was obviously the right one?

Vanity: (sobs)

Sanity: (drums fingers on the metaphorical table)

Vanity: Four pounds.

Sanity: So now that the festivities are over, cut back on the junk food a bit and see what happens.

Vanity: No. How many leftover shortbread cookies do we have?

Sanity: Lots. Wait--hold on a second--slow down!

Vanity: Four pounds.

Sanity: Well, that'll fix it, eh?

Vanity: Where's the chocolate?

Sanity: You have got to be kidding me.... You're not kidding.

Vanity: By next Wednesday you'll have to roll me out of the apartment on a dolly.

Sanity: Here's an idea: STOP EATING.

Vanity: Are you making fun of me?

Vanity: I am absolutely making fun of you.

Vanity: Four pounds!

Vanity: You have a beautiful daughter, a good job, great friends, you're writing a novel, you manage to keep the house clean and cook fresh meals even though you're single, you work out nearly every day--and you are going crazy over four pounds.

Vanity: Are you calling me stupid?

SAnity: YES. Check your blood sugar, take your freaking insulin, put down the cookies, and stop freaking out. You are NOT going to ruin our lives over four pounds!

Vanity: (sulks)

Sanity: Don't make me tie you up and lock you in the basement again.

Posted by Andrea at 8:59 AM | Comments (11)

Frances Friday: Differing Approaches to the Raising of Girl-Children

(I wrote this last May, but am publishing it now so I don't have to come up with a Frances Friday post while battling a cold. Eerily, it could have been written this week. A bit more judgmental than my usual, but I hope you enjoy it.)

I took Frances to the doctor about her cough, at the insistence of the daycare workers, who were freaked out when she couldn't sleep for coughing. I knew it was just a cold, this happens every time she gets a cold, it settles into her lungs and takes a month to be coughed out, and I was right. In any case, there I was, and the woman beside me struck up a conversation with my favourite opening gambit:

"How old is she?"

"How old are you Frances?" I asked.

"Three!" said Frances.

"Was she premature?" asked my seatmate.

Ah, yes. "Only a little," I replied.

After fidgeting for a few moments, she decided I wasn't going to engage her in conversation, and so blessed the woman on her right with her powers of observation instead:

"Your daughter has her ears pierced! I had my daughter's ears pierced, too. Well, you have to do it when they're babies! Or wait until they're old enough to ask, I guess." (Derisive laugh.) "When I had my daughter's ears done, she spat up that night and the milk dribbled onto her ear and gave her piercing an infection. Just one little dribble straight from her mouth to her ear. What bad luck! It swelled up all purple and the size of a nickel. So of course I had to take it out right away. And then I had to get it repierced a few months later. Well, I only took out the one, you know. What would be the point of taking out both? The other one was fine. So I took out the infected one. Then she wasn't balanced, so I had to repierce it. Only she didn't want to by then, so I had to pin her down so the lady could pierce her ears. I know! But she looks so cute! I love having a girl. It's so much fun to dress them up. And they're so much easier than boys, you know. Boys don't listen. And they would never stand for all the frilly clothes. So thank goodness I have a girl."

Meanwhile, Frances played with the pediatrician's dump truck in her stripey blue yoga pants and blue clown t-shirt, her long blond hair a bit wild and tangled. I remembered pinning her down when the nurses had to draw blood from her arm for the genetics test. I remember how she screamed, how her face turned scarlet and tears soaked the bed she was pinned to, how it seemed to take years, how I buried my face in her neck and cried along with her. I could not wrap my mind around pinning her down so an aesthetician could drill a decorative metal stick into her ears.

I'm sure she's a perfectly lovely human being. I am also sure that we would never be friends.

Posted by Andrea at 10:54 AM | Comments (10)

See and Be Seen

This will come as a surprise, after my post about colour, but I am a person who cherishes a certain level of invisibility. I enjoy settling in at a table in a crowded place by myself, and watching people, observing their interactions, listening to their conversations, figuring them out, constructing stories about why the pretty girl in the green puffer jacket looks so sad, if that smile on the face of the man in grey dress pants sitting beside the blond woman with the long red nails means what I think it does. It's easier to watch people and turn them into stories when no one really notices you.

On the other hand, I regularly wear outfits that make me look like a walking artist's colour wheel. And I see no contradiction in this. Because on the rare occasions when it brings comment, the comment is on my clothing, not on me. It's possible the commenter doesn't draw this distinction, but I do; I don't feel like I'm being seen, at all. No one looks at me walking around in teal patent-leather flats, blue jeans and an orange sweater and thinks, wow, there's a girl who loves to read and write and who enjoys intelligent pop music, science fiction, and reading about psychology in her spare time. They don't see me. They see my clothes, or my face. Sometimes, when I've misjudged the bra/neckline equation, they see my underwear. That's still not me. ("Huh," says Andrea, walking into the shopping centre, suddenly aware that the top centimetre of her bra is showing; "I should fix that. Oh well, too late now." This reminds me of the time I went out dancing in a lilac jersey dress; it was very pretty, and the black lights rendered it translucent, so I ended up dancing in my underwear, for all intents and purposes, for some time without knowing it. Finally someone told me. I looked around, figured everyone in the place had already seen it if they were going to, and thus there was no point in hiding, and kept dancing.)

So someone who sees me and judges me based on what I'm wearing is probably going to jump to the wrong conclusion. They won't see Intellectual Bookworm Girl, or Eco Defender Girl, or whichever other persona I'm wearing that day; but that's fine. I don't see it as my problem to dress in such a way as to match my personality to their preconceptions. Their preconceptions are their problem, and I wash my hands of them. I wear what I want to wear to make myself happy.

Parts of this discussion have made me very sad, and I'll tell you why:

Surely, as feminists, if anything, we should draw pride and a sense of satisfaction in the distance we are able to claim between ourselves and the anorexic faux-blonde white pneumatic model/actress ideal that we are taught to emulate. Surely. Isn't the point of feminism to claim for women a place in public, and therefore in the public eye? Isn't the point of feminism to point out the ridiculousness, the inherent impossibility, the misogyny and hatred embedded in the feminine ideal, and free ourselves of the shackles of trying to conform to it?

I fully realize I am writing this from a different position than most women, coming a bit closer to that ideal, physically speaking, than most women do. I'm relatively tall, I'm fairly slim, I'm curvy, I have long legs, and my hair can become blonde without too much effort and it won't look fake (though I don't do so and in fact am letting the greys come in). I don't put a lot of stock in this. No one ever thought I was pretty until I hit highschool, and it hasn't made life easy or perfect, so whatever. But it makes a difference in my subjective experience, and I'm trying to be sensitive to that. I know, or sense, that because I do come closer to that ideal, it is easier for me to get away with certain clothing options. Although, to be perfectly honest, it leads to different and more difficult assumptions too, when it does draw notice. There are portions of the male population that perceive a certain body type as an invitation, and when they've noticed me, the most common reaction I've received has been, "What do you mean, 'no'?"

(I meant no. I'm not public property, you know.)

But still: being thin and young and pretty (sometimes, to some people--no one is pretty to everyone all the time) doesn't actually solve this problem. The lie that it does is part of what keeps us in our place: don't draw attention to yourself until you're good enough. But it's not so simple as never being good enough, because once you are, the message changes: who do you think you are? Do you think you're prettier than everyone? Why would you wear that if you didn't want attention? (Never mind that you can put the exact same outfit on someone else and it won't send the same message because the body underneath is different. Trust me on this one: I have seen it in action.) If you're going to wear that, then you deserve whatever you get. The hatred remains and it still takes courage and a certain flagrant disregard for the opinions of other people to dress in a way that makes you happy.

(When I was in senior public school, way before anyone thought I was cute enough to be dated ever, my Mom passed down to me two brown suede miniskirts she'd worn to highschool in the 60s. They were short. Short short short. Obviously a few decades out of style. But so great, I loved those skirts. I wore them all the time, even though I didn't have the "right" body for them then, either, being too skinny. One day a 'friend' asked me, "don't you think that skirt is a little too slutty?' Uh, no? It's just a skirt. Skirts don't have sexual morals, people do; and you can't tell what someone's values are from measuring their skirt length. Because, again, when you have long legs, everything looks shorter on you than it does on most other people.)

You all already know that women are conditioned from birth not to take up space. Speak quietly. Be nice. Accommodate other people. Physically shrink. Keep your knees together on the bus and never use more than half of a shared armrest. Is this any different? It's one thing if what you enjoy wearing and what brings you genuine pleasure just happens to be taupe. But if it's not, and you're wearing taupe anyway because you think you have to be someone else before you can earn the right to wear red, is it any different?

I would suggest that it is your very unwillingness to enslave yourself to the pornalicious sexbot ideal of modern femininity that precisely earns you the right to take up visual space and wear red (or purple, yellow, orange, green, chartreuse, what have you). It is your very inability to match that hideous and misogynistic ideal that makes you an authentic and interesting person with integrity and values. No one is ever going to give you permission to dress the way you want (except me). No matter how young or thin or pretty you are. It has to be a right that you claim for yourself, not because you think you are pretty enough to earn the right to be looked at, but because you are smart and strong and good and interesting enough to earn the right to be yourself in every way. And truthfully, no one else is going to care as much as you imagine they might.

Don't cede the visual landscape to the stereotypes. Stake your claim to it too. When people look at you, they're not going to see what you are afraid they will see. They will see an interesting person with self-confidence and a sense of style. That's attractive on anyone.

Posted by Andrea at 7:49 AM | Comments (13)

See, I knew I was a good catch

Dear Readers, I rest my case. Feminists, far from being ugly man-hating bitches who are only angry because they can't get laid, not only report better relationship satisfaction than their non-feminist counterparts, but a better sex life, too:

Abstract Past research suggests that women and men alike perceive feminism and romance to be in conflict (Rudman and Fairchild, Psychol Women Q, 31:125–136, 2007). A survey of US undergraduates (N = 242) and an online survey of older US adults (N = 289) examined the accuracy of this perception. Using self-reported feminism and perceived partners’ feminism as predictors of relationship health, results revealed that having a feminist partner was linked to healthier relationships for women. Additionally, men with feminist partners reported greater relationship stability and sexual satisfaction in the online survey. Finally, there was no support for negative feminist stereotypes (i.e., that feminists are single, lesbians, or unattractive). In concert, the findings reveal that beliefs regarding the incompatibility of feminism and romance are inaccurate.

As reported at The Globe and Mail.

Isn't it great to be right? Look at that sea of nodding heads. Of course people in feminist relationships are happier and have better sex. Let's count the many reasons why:

1. Because feminists believe in equality, they are more likely to work at and achieve partnerships that are satisfying for both people.

2. They are less likely to fall into those stereotyped gendered behaviours that are the source of so much sitcom relationship angst.

3. They are more likely to see their partners are individuals and people first, rather than as representatives of a type.

4. Because feminists have by and large discarded the tired old stereotypes about what women and men are supposed to want, they are freer to explore what it is they actually do want. For example, most feminists believe that women like sex just as much as men do, and for the same range of messy, sometimes glorious, sometimes selfish, sometimes ignoble reasons. Feminists, by and large, do not believe that all women only like sex as part of a committed relationship within which they can explore intimacy with a beloved partner, and without which they can't be bothered (and don't label any woman who doesn't fit the stereotype a "slut"). It is a lot easier to have a lot more fun having sex with someone who is not lying back and thinking of England.

(Just because this popular feminist magazine has a porn feature in every issue doesn't mean anything. It's all part of an elaborate ruse to disarm the North American population. Then, once we've finally convinced everyone we're not anti-sex, we'll strike! Victory shall be ours!)

"What are you talking about, Andrea?" Sorry. I assumed you knew that until the 20th century, it was considered psychologically pathological for a woman to enjoy sex at all, to the point where a woman who conceived out of wedlock was considered mentally ill by default and committed to an asylum; and where women who showed evidence of libido were subjected to psychiatric "treatments" revolving around the application of caustic liquids to their genitals. Those of you who are female are surely well aware of the stock-in-trade in the women's magazine industry and most self-help books relying on the same tired old stereotypes, now slightly updated to allow women to enjoy sex so long as it is with their One True Love (trademarked by deBoers), and a path of true intimacy, enlightenment, and deep emotional sharing. Women, after all, are still the Angels in the House, and as such are not permitted to have an animal nature.

Except that the feminists I know have thrown all that out like the garbage it is.

5. Feminists by definition do not believe that men are innately more intelligent, more interesting, or more important than women. Study after study has shown that despite whatever gains we think we've made, when an objective observer watches men and women interact, most women still serve men, unconsciously and reflexively, and most men act as if they still expect it. It ought to go without saying that any relationship in which only the happiness of one partner really counts is a relationship that ultimately will make no one happy. It ought to really go without saying that any sexually intimate relationship in which sex is still defined as "male partner has orgasm during penetration" (the traditional definition), which by default makes male experience central to the relationship and relegates female experience to the margin, will eventually suck for both parties.

What do you say, Dear Readers? Any reasons I have overlooked?

But wait! There is a outcry from the peanut gallery!*

Josh Taylor from St. John's, Canada writes: Every woman and man should be into equality. All the self proclaimed 'feminists' I met in college were just plain bitter. They are taking years of abuse that they didn't suffer out on the one man who is nice enough to tolerate them. Nuff said.

Uh huh. Well, Josh, speaking from my own experience, all of the men I've met who had problems with feminists were misogynistic pea-brained twerps, deeply threatened by any woman not willing to assume the doormat position.

Mr. Justice from Canada writes: Most women ARE feminists. Men who want to know what women really think of them should watch THE LIFETIME CHANNEL or THE VIEW, or . . . simply eavesdrop on women-only conversations at restaurants (and other places, obviously). Turns out 'the news' for men isn't good, but it's important for men to know what most women really think of them.

Yes! Because the women on The View are the secret heads of a worldwide feminist organization that coordinates our daily activities through seemingly mindless entertainment, all to achieve the eventual goal of the coming Matriarchy!

James Cyr from Balmertown, Ontario, Canada writes: joanne dewey: that 'traditional' definition is based on my meetings with so-called feminists and thus is well based in fact. They came across as belligerent, agressive, rude and rather obnoxious. They came across as having a chip on their shoulder and having something to prove.

What are you saying exactly, James? Are you calling me belligerent? Are you? Come over here and let me show you belligerence, you .... I mean, aww sweetie, I'm so sorry you've had such a rough time with girls not seeing your obvious charms and your inborn natural need to dominate. Come over here and let me bake you a pie. I can't imagine what about your personality might provoke a belligerent, rude or obnoxious response in feminist women.

Does it count as having "something to prove" if I insist on hanging my own shelves but then cover them with crafty stuff?

Vladimir Kolcza from Toronto, Canada writes: I think that many people harbour stereotypes about 'feminists' because so many such stereotypes populate government offices and service counters. Surely I am NOT the only one to have noticed (along with my wife) that the 'feminazi' stereotype is fulfilled daily by LEGIONS of women emplyed in the provincial (Ontario) and federal public sectors. The manly short hairstyles, 'outfits' that would identify tham as 'crossdressers' were the genders reversed, absolutely glamourless, no make-up, surly attitudes and manly behaviours PRETTY MUCH ADD UP to fulfill the stereotypes. A friend who works in the Ontario Public Service (a woman) has long maintained that no woman is too stupid, too fat, too unmotivated, or too manly to NOT be hired by female public service 'manager', since so many of the latter are over-employed for their skills levels and threatened by any and all women who do NOT fulfill the 'feminazi' stereotype. The problem with 'stereotypes' is that - just when you've made a convincing case that a stereotype is JUST a stereotype - a stereotype walks into the room. FACT: The 'feminazi' profile is MORE than fulfilled by a significant proportion of female public servants. The truth sometimes is not very pretty, but that does not make it any less true.

Vladimir, on behalf of female civil servants throughout Ontario, I can only offer our deepest, most heartfelt apologies on the lack of glamour in our professional wardrobes. What can I say? We don't get paid much. And our manly behaviours! No excuses about income could possibly cover for our obvious lack of femininity on the job. Why I can't recall the last time I made anyone coffee or ordered in sandwiches for meetings, or giggled at some tired joke. What is this world coming to?

joe cormorant from Canada writes: I don't think an arrogant self-absorbed bitc& is sexy. Sorry, I just don't.

Fortunately, Joe, this arrogant self-absorbed bitch doesn't think you're so hot either.

Gogh Forit from Canada writes: Let me get this straight. The authors of the study are feminists and they concluded that feminists are sexy. No bias there. Pure scientific study at work here. I mean why would anyone question the credibility of this life altering piece of science. And just what is a "feminist" man. Is that a guy who has no testicles or simply that he's not allowed exhibit any male behaviour whatsoever.

Well, Gogh, speaking only for myself, yes, that is exactly what I require of feminist men. Castration. No male behaviour whatsoever. In fact, let me just hand you this padded bra and we'll make the transformation complete. (I'm just pretending to be straight, you see.) It gets complicated when the man I've just castrated has to wear a dildo ... never mind.

Harbinger from Out West from Prince George, Canada writes: And all this time I thought God created feminists to give ugly women jobs. Boy! Was I wrong.

Boy! Were you.

Pete Flint from Andover, MA, United States writes: Feminists are always ugly man-hating dykes. Possibly the most physically unattractive group on the planet. Most dogs have more appealing features. Plus, they are usually fat and braless, which makes normal humans puke at the sight of them.

Pete, thank you for this clarification. This certainly explains why I have that odd aroma following me everywhere I go. I thought it was just the subway that stank, but now I know: it's because normal people puke at the sight of me. It's a good thing I work in the civil service, where I am surrounded all day by other unglamorous, manly, stupid, bitter, fat feminists.

This is what a feminist looks like.

And hanging off my right arm in both pictures is the direct and incontrovertible proof that, at least once about five years ago, I had sex with a man.

~~~~~

*The peanut gallery is the on-line discussion on the Globe and Mail site. I haven't seen such a collection of feminist stereotyping since the days I used to post regularly on the BUST boards. And I haven't had so much fun mocking people in I don't know how long. Far as I'm concerned, if you're going to go on the public record with such outlandish sentiments, then you deserve every bit of flak you get.

Posted by Andrea at 7:25 AM | Comments (18)

This is what you call "laziness"

Plus being strapped for time.

But I saw this article linked to on Making Light and thought that many of you would enjoy it, too:

"How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly? I have spent a good part of my life trying to do that math, and I’m no closer to a viable equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn’t buy into it. Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.

"I try to think how we got here. The theory I developed in college (shared by many I’m sure) is one I have yet to beat: Womb Envy. Biology: women are generally smaller and weaker than men. But they’re also much tougher. Put simply, men are strong enough to overpower a woman and propagate. Women are tough enough to have and nurture children, with or without the aid of a man. Oh, and they’ve also got the equipment to do that, to be part of the life cycle, to create and bond in a way no man ever really will. Somewhere a long time ago a bunch of men got together and said, “If all we do is hunt and gather, let’s make hunting and gathering the awesomest achievement, and let’s make childbirth kinda weak and shameful.” It’s a rather silly simplification, but I believe on a mass, unconscious level, it’s entirely true. How else to explain the fact that cultures who would die to eradicate each other have always agreed on one issue? That every popular religion puts restrictions on women’s behavior that are practically untenable? That the act of being a free, attractive, self-assertive woman is punishable by torture and death? In the case of this upcoming torture-porn, fictional. In the case of Dua Khalil, mundanely, unthinkably real. And both available for your viewing pleasure."

Unlike most of my friends, I've never been a fan of Buffy or Whedon's other projects. But I can see why so many of my fellow feminists are.

Posted by Andrea at 6:09 AM | Comments (9)

Control

My mother was an aerobics instructor before I was born and until I was nine years old. You might think that this would make you healthy; you'd be wrong.

When she was twelve years old, her doctor told her that if she didn't lose weight, she'd end up with diabetes. I've seen photos of my mom at that age. She was a beautiful girl, not a smidgen overweight; but she believed that doctor and she has spent the last forty-plus years of her life with that echo bouncing in her head. At times, this has led to behaviour that is only bizarre. At other times, she was anorexic.

When she was an aerobics instructor, she was at 5'4" approximately 135 lbs, and believed she needed to lose weight for her health. So, in addition to teaching two daily aerobics classes, working out with weights, and running a few miles every day, she restricted her calories as follows:

Sunday: no food.
Monday: 200 calories
Tuesday: 400 calories
Wednesday: 800 calories (aka pig-out day)
Thursday: 600 calories
Friday: 400 calories
Saturday: 200 calories

Following this program faithfully--to the point of double-checking garbage cans in the morning in case she had binged in her sleep and refusing to buy or use toothpaste containing sugar--she got down to 120 lbs. Slim, but not skinny. You'd never have guessed looking at her that she was anorexic.

But she was.

The body cannot be controlled. It is not a wild creature which can be brought to an arena and broken. You can break yourself, trying.

~~~~~

I am a diabetic. As you all know. Type 1. This means that my pancreas is a broken, hollow shell, producing nothing; it means that without constant injections of insulin, I can die.

The dominant message of type 1 diabetes treatment is control. Control your diet. Control your medications. Control your exercise. If you waver, you will get sick. You will die. And you will deserve it, because you can control your body, and you should.

I count my carbohydrates--most of the time. I count my units of insulin and I watch the daily totals for substantial fluctuations or trends. I measure my blood sugars. I report for mandated doctor's appointments and medical tests.

This I can do, within reason--there are days when the mountain of diabetes maintenance is too steep to climb. But my body? An incipient cold kicks the blood sugar higher even when I don't eat. Monthly fluctuations in progesterone levels change the amount of insulin I need for a given unit of food. Control? The best I can hope for is influence. A focus on control would keep me in a never-ending depression as the futility of every effort would confront me at every turn.

~~~~~

I've written before of my eating disorder, of how my desperate need to control my body and my blood sugars created a never-ending spiral of starving and bingeing, that was broken only when I admitted that my body cannot be controlled.

I remember resisting that message. I remember walking into therapy with my talking points arrayed in my mind: "I can't keep getting bigger. If I do, I'll need new clothes, and I'm a student. I can't afford new clothes. It isn't good for me. I'm diabetic." And so on. But in the end, the body cannot be negotiated with. It does not listen to reason. It listens to hormones, electrochemical pulses, appetites, neurotransmitters, a thousand careening actors that have evolved over millions of years expressly to keep us alive. Reason itself is a creation of those same actors; our consciousness is a product of our animal selves. Mind and body cannot be separated. Mind cannot control the body. They can only dance together. Sometimes awkwardly, sometimes beautifully.

Once I let my body go, once I stopped trying to control it, stopped treating it as a separate and antagonistic entity that was destroying my chances for earthly happiness, the bingeing disappeared overnight. I did not gain one pound.

~~~~~

Does this strike you as completely out of character?

It's true that control over myself takes up a fair chunk of my mental processing space--keep the anger on a tight leash, pummel the fear into the ground, refuse to cry where people can see, keep my voice even. It's also true that I work to recognize those areas where control is inappropriate or harmful, and let it go. Granted, my choice of such areas may seem unorthodox, and when it comes to emotions is more punitive than it should be.

I can control my behaviour; I cannot control what results from my behaviour. I can work out six days a week and count my carbohydrates and measure my insulin doses carefully and get a few servings of vegetables each day. I cannot make myself 135 lbs again; I cannot make my blood sugar a perfect 4-6 mmol before every meal. It is tempting to try, sometimes, when some other aspect of my life is spinning out of control and I feel a need to reestablish my own agency. But it is always an impulse best resisted.

I am revolted whenever someone says that parents need to control their children.

Have you ever been in a relationship where you were controlled? What did it take? What did someone else have to do to you, to control you? Is that what parents should be doing to their children? We can control the way we treat our children (most of the time), but we cannot control what our children do with this, the people they become. Or: we can control our behaviour, but not theirs.

Control results from pain and fear, whether imposed externally or internally. Our kids don't deserve it.

And neither do we.

Posted by Andrea at 7:05 AM | Comments (18)

Privacy: The Cost of Free Speech

I meant to post this last week for International Women's Day, but got distracted by my similarities to a fictional TV character. Priorities, I know.

Chances are you've heard Audre Lorde's quote, "My silence did not protect me. Your silence will not protect you." But have you read the speech it came from? It's called "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action," and I think it's a particularly pithy and apt conclusion to all those posts about honesty, privacy and the public sphere from the last month:

"In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light, and what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quickly now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else's words....

What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?...

And that visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength. Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak. We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is poisoned; we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we will still be no less afraid."

(off-topic language-geek aside: mute as bottles! What a beautiful metaphor.)

Free Speech has never been and will never be free. Whether or not you choose to exercise that right, there is a cost.

Posted by Andrea at 6:46 AM | Comments (10)

Mad Notes Part II: Anger Management

People are frequently surprised when I tell them how I'm feeling. Actually, they are most often disbelieving. I have one hell of a poker face. I know there is more than one reader who can atest to this, having interacted with me either in person or electronically without a clue that anything was amiss, only to find out later that in fact I was deeply depressed or furious about something. I'm not defending or (gods forbid) applauding this; simply noting that the experience of emotion says nothing of its expression. How an emotion translates into an action (or whether or not it translates into an action) is a choice.

Yet people pathologize negative emotions--especially anger, and especially anger for women. Anger is an involuntary response to something in the environment, like pain; like pain, it can't make you do anything, it can't tell you what the problem is, it can't tell you what you should do. All it can do is say, "There's something going on here that you don't like."

And I would suggest that if the correct response to anger is almost never "I'm going to beat the shit out of you" then it is also almost never "anger is destructive; I shouldn't feel this way."

If the first response is associated with men and men's anger, the second is associated with women. The pressure to be nice begins at birth and never ends. "You catch more flies with honey then vinegar" is only one of the sayings routinely presented to women (and almost never to men); that it is often true does not mean it isn't sexist, because why does it work? Is it because people expect women to behave politely and sweetly, to smile and ask rather than frown and demand, and so reward women for complying?

Despite promised rewards, this pattern of behaviour has costs--costs which are more visible in some circumstances than others, as this story from Chewing the Fat (found via the Disability Carnival) makes clear. Not only is vinegar sometimes healthy and productive--sometimes you need industrial-grade battery acid. Not because it works. Not because other people like it. Not because it meets with approval. But because it respects the integrity of our own persons. Because we deserve it.

~~~~~

You're wondering if I have any idea what I'm talking about.

Indeed I do. I was born with one hell of a temper--to the point where my parents threatened to give me up to a foster family when I was ten years old if I didn't get it under control. I do know rage--the swelling pressure in the chest and the head, the clamping down of the senses, the heat, the brain turning in on itself as if inverting the human and prehuman portions, the thundering heart, the drawn shoulders, the black at the edges of one's vision, the stomach clenched tight, forcing bile back up the esophagus. Many people assume that the reason I have my emotions on such a short leash is because they are the psychological equivalent of toy terriers--all bark, no bite, and about five pounds apiece. But my anger is more like a rottweiler--strong, vicious, with large jaws.

So I hope you will trust and believe me when I say this: Your anger is your friend. It is a guardian and a protector. It is not a monster that will devour you or those you love whole if you give it a chance. It is not a creature so loathsome that it must be left in the basement when you leave the house. It is a strong dog with good hunting instincts. It can save your life, and it can save your soul. But only if it is kept in a good leash at your right hand and well-trained.

And you can do this. You can train it. Learn how to let the anger snap and bark and bite and growl inside while your reason--the leash-holder--sits down to think it over. Is there something dangerous lurking in the bushes? Is the smiling stranger less kindly than he appears? Is his offer less than advertised? Are you being threatened? When its hackles rise and the growl begins deep in the back of its throat--it's trying to tell you something. Maybe it's wrong, but you won't know if you don't listen. Maybe it's right but there's nothing you can do--but at least then you've respected yourself and your needs. It's ok to be angry about something that's out of your control, something you can't change. You would not ask someone living in a totalitarian regime that they alone cannot overthrow to learn how not to be angry about the daily intrusions upon their basic human rights.

Rage is terrifying and learning how to control it is hard work; it might seem easier to chuck the whole business and pretend it isn't there. But sometimes honey brings more flies than you can handle. Sometimes vinegar isn't enough. Sometimes you need a nuclear warhead. Don't amputate the only part of yourself that can provide it.

Posted by Andrea at 7:11 AM | Comments (10)

Interpretation

According to the BBC's gender test and the Bem Sex Role Inventory, I am a man.*

Those of you who have met me will vigorously protest this: after all, I've gestated and born a child, not to mention the long hair, high voice, and larger-than-average bra size. I scrapbook, and bake, and make presents for people, and sew. I present as female; indeed, there has never been a time in my life when I felt myself to be male, or wished to lose the breasts and grow a penis. But for as long as I've been aware of the possibility, I have always experienced myself as masculine.

I'll hammer an opponent into the ground during a debate, if I can. I can't talk about feelings. I suck at small talk. I spend many hours playing computer strategy games.

Here is the odd thing:

No one else ever agrees with me.

I should qualify that: no one else I meet in real life, who gets to see the long hair and frontal assets and scrapbooks and cross-stitched pieces on the wall and home-made chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen, ever agrees with me. Instead, my motivations and feelings are reinterpreted in a feminine way.

This is an important distinction. My interests are largely feminine, though by no means exclusively--my guess is just over fifty per cent. But my motivations are not. I like crafts because I was introduced to them by adult women, and I was good at them. I avoided sports because I was bad at them. I liked fishing and hiking and camping because I didn't mind missing a bath or shower for a few days and enjoyed getting away from the city. It was a point of pride that I always speared my own worm with the hook. I sent my Barbie dolls off with my brother's G.I. Joes on world-saving adventures on other planets. The first novel I ever wrote--at age seven--was about a trio of girls in an orphanage who were thrust out into the cold world after the orphanage burned to the ground, and needed to find their way to a new home. On the surface, there is little to marr the girliness--the purse, the heels, the nights spent cropping with friends, the collection of cookbooks, and so on. Because the motivations were invisible, they didn't count--and thus I've been aware now for several decades of having impulses and drives projected on to me by reason of my sex that I have never felt. For instance, when I was a teenager, and every bit as reticent and taciturn as I currently am, boyfriends would accuse me of being "coy." Whereupon I would vomit.

I even manifest depression in a masculine way. Weepy? Sad? Emotional? Not so much. Irritable? Lashes out? Loses sleep? Bingo!

(And although this post isn't about children and gender-typing, I have seen adults--parents included--re-interpret the behaviour of children in more conformist and acceptable ways; for instance, a young girl running amok and breaking things will be considered girly as long as she's wearing a pink dress, a boy who doesn't like frogs and worms will be considered fastidious instead of squeamish, and so on. So that even when a child isn't behaving according to type, their behaviour is re-interpreted as being typical as long as they *look* like a girl or a boy.)

And I ask you: what is the point of having these experiences if I can't use them to support a pet political issue?

Having my behaviour consistently misinterpreted because of my sex has convinced me that the words "masculine" and "feminine" are, at best, unnecessary; and at worst, harmful. The set of traits considered typical of an adult woman would tell you absolutely nothing useful about me (unnecessary). Worse, it would lead a medical pracitioner to assume that I'm not depressed when I actually am because the symptoms I show are not typical for my sex (harmful).** Of what use are the words "masculine" and "feminine"? Does it tell you anything about any particular person that you couldn't learn or describe more accurately some other way?

"Masculine" and "feminine" are no more than pass/fail grades assigned to a human being based on their ability to conform. For some people, passing is easy, and they never question this system because it never occurs to them that failure is possible. What does "feminine" mean? It means "a woman who is behaving the way she is supposed to." That's it. That's all it adds.

I use neither word to describe myself. I am a woman; therefore, everything I do is done the way a woman does things, by definition. I throw like a girl, run like a girl, fight like a girl, read like a girl, write like a girl, shop like a girl, play like a girl, talk like a girl, and so on, even though out of all of the previous examples the only thing I do the way people expect girls to do things is "throw." I'd rather we learned to do without them. Any person you meet could land at any point on any given spectrum; and the only thing that the expectations encoded in "masculine" and "feminine" will do is get in the way of your ability to see them for who they really are.

~~~~~

*I can't cut and paste them here, but I got a 50 on the masculine side on the BBC test--solidly, averagely male--and a 5.7 on the masculine portion of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (opposed to 4.5 for feminine and 4.55 for androgynous, with 4.9 being considered the threshold for scoring positive).

**My head explodes whenever I read an article describing how new symptoms, tests or treatments for particular syndromes or illnesses based on sex will reduce or eliminate problems with diagnosis or treatment. Actually, it will only redefine which people will fall through the cracks.

General Caveat: This post is not in response to anyone else's. IT's one of those bizarre alchemical processes of the blogosphere where something from one place mixed with something from another place combines and becomes something quite different. Please don't take it personally.

Posted by Andrea at 6:34 AM | Comments (16)

The Nuclear Family: Or, if nuclear's bad for the environment, why is it good for people?

In general, you can assume that whenever society declares some state or institution to be "natural," not only is it completely artificial but harmful as well, both in its assumed universality as well as in the particulars of its implementation. So, for instance: gender is not only not "natural" as currently understood (what is considered masculine in one culture is often considered feminine in another) but the assumption that certain traits are "naturally" masculine or feminine does tremendous damage to whoever does not or cannot meet the mold. You're a girl and you like to study, do math, achieve? We'll attack your fertility and femininity and call you vicious names, maybe rape you. You're a boy and you like to knit or wear tutus? We'll call you a sissy and beat you up.

Of course, if it were actually "natural"--the policing wouldn't be necessary, as no one would transgress the norm. Think about it. Breathing is natural; thus, almost everyone breathes with no reminders or punishments necessary, except for a few unfortunate persons with biological illnesses, on whom reminders and punishments would be utterly ineffective.

Thus, marriage and the nuclear family.

You knew it was coming.

~~~~~

In 2001, there were 8,371,020 families in Canada. Of them, 3,469,700 were families with married parents and children at home. That's approximately forty-one per cent.

One might expect that something natural might be somewhat closer to universal. Like breathing. Canvas your friends, and I'm pretty sure all of them will be breathing at this very moment. And that is without any laws or governance whatsoever. Imagine. There is a distressingly large gap between our society's participation in breathing and its participation in the nuclear family, and that is without any effort whatsoever at encouraging our participation in breathing and extensive, one might say breathless, encouragement to marry and procreate.

Could it be that the marriage and the nuclear family are not natural?

Sadly, anthropology would support that position as, despite the best efforts of legions of (mostly male) anthropologists to define the nuclear family as near-universal among human cultures, one sees time and time again how there is so much more variation than similarity. For instance, in some cultures the role of father is taken by the mother's brother--the person who inseminates the mother has no particular role at all--and in others, while pair-bonding between a man and woman who reproduce takes place, it takes place within an extended family network that is as important as the pair-bond, or the pair-bond is assumed to be temporary.

In order to avoid repeating myself more than is strictly necessary, I did write about marriage before, and here are the links:

Mom & Pop: Sex differences and parenting.

Mom & Pop, Part II: Patriarchy: THE BIG P-WORD and parenting. Mastadon-hunters vs. rabbit-baggers and the role of grandmothers in human evolution.

Mom & Pop, Part III: Isolation: The role of the modern economy in the creation of the nuclear family and the isolation of SAHMs.

My favourite alternative is partible paternity, in which every man who might conceivably have impregnated a woman is considered to be the resulting child's father, the theory apparently being that many inadequate fathers are better than one. Imagine the possibilities. I can't be the only straight woman who finds the concept of a society in which a mature and responsible mother ensures that she has as many sexual partners as possible to be ... well ... interesting?

I did a smidgen of research and found some quotes that I'll, uh, share with you. Because sharing is what friends do and it sounds much nicer than what I am probably doing:

"Nuclear family organization is widespread, but it is not universal. In certain societies, the nuclear family is rare or nonexistent and in other cultures the nuclear family has no special role in social life. In these societies other social groups such as descent groups and extended families assume the functions associated with the nuclear family. Interestingly, groups that rely on the organization of the nuclear family tend to be highly mobile. This includes modern industrial societies and forager societies.* Increasingly, the nuclear family household, which might traditionally include two parents and children, is rare in the Unites States. In 1998, non-nuclear family arrangements outnumbered the "traditional" American household three to one."

And:

"The nuclear family has evolved, according to the Functionalist perspective because it is best suited to an industrial society, its smallness of scale makes for ease of geographical and social mobility, and it provides a haven for its members. It fits the needs of an advanced industrial society, in the same way that larger extended families fitted the needs of an agricultural society.

William J. Goode added to the Functionalist view in a study of family trends throughout the world entitled World Revolution and Family Patterns, 1963. His basic thesis was that there is a worldwide trend towards a monogamous nuclear family structure. In response to claims that there is a diversity of family forms including polygamy, clan and extended families, social rather than biological fatherhood’s. Goode argued that there was a universal trend towards the Western model of the nuclear family because like Parsons, he saw this an integral part of the global expansion of industrialization."

I haven't done a poll, so I can't and won't say how common this perspective is--though the knowledge appears to be widespread not only among anthropologists but also among economists that a modern industrialized economy is antithetical to extended kin networks--but let it stew in your craw a bit.

We have adopted a family form that is restrictive and tremendously costly particularly to the women who now must single-handedly perform what a whole extended family network would have helped us do even a hundred years ago, not because of romantic love, not because it is natural, not because it is good for us and not even because it is good for our kids, but because it is good for the economy.

Does it shift, even a millimetre, the way in which you view the so-called modern dissolution of the family?

~~~~~

Just because something isn't natural doesn't mean it isn't good, of course. My insulin pump is arguably not natural, but it keeps me alive and I like it.

(Though Margaret Sommerville argues in her book The Ethical Imagination both that the nuclear family is natural and that we ought to have a "shared ethical presumption in favour of the natural," which she appears to define as "stuff that I'm used to." And if you're looking for someone to blame for this post, try her.)

If a person (or a group of persons) can happily live within a nuclear family or a facsimile thereof for the duration, then good. In no way would I want any of this construed to mean that those who enjoy that lifestyle should be prevented from doing so. However, the presumption that this is "the" natural family structure does a lot of damage to those who can't or don't live in one.

Unhappily married couples are the first to come to mind, for obvious reasons. I've always found it odd that so many people seem to believe that for two people to endure twenty years of misery in the pursuit of "working things out" and "staying together" in order to achieve five years of happiness at the end is in any way rational. I read the other day a divorce lawyer advising that people who are married for two years ought to stay together another two before divorcing, and people married for four years ought to stay together another four before calling it quits, and so on. I reacted with horror--you're married for two, you give it another two, then you're at four and you have to give it another four, so when does it actually end? Similarly, I find it odd that nearly half of all married people admit to having affairs--mind, that's only the ones who admit to it--and yet monogamy remains a universally shared value. Certainly the reasonable thing to do would be to modify the nuclear family concept to be more ... well, honest?

But let's examine what I think are the real victims of the nuclear family myth: kids.

Every day you hear another study about how kids need two-parent opposite-sex families in order to develop healthfully and appropriately. Every one of them makes me want to gouge out my eyeballs with a knitting needle. Here's why:

1. If nuclear families were absolutely required for healthy human development, they would indeed be 'natural' in the sense of inevitable. All human societies would practice this, or go extinct. That healthy human beings reach adulthood in societies with no nuclear families whatsoever would indicate that nuclear families are not required.

2. The studies from the hypothesis to the conclusions are absolutely riddled with an unexamined bias for the nuclear family.

For instance, a study that compares educational attainment between children living with their mother only vs. children living with both parents, and finds that children of single mothers do slightly less well at school. They will control for the obvious variables (income, time spent with parent, quality of parenting) but have never, to my knowledge, considered the impact of the stigma of being the child of a 'broken home.' (At least, not as the studies are reported in the newspapers, which opens up a whole other kettle of fish re: competent scientific reporting.) Whereas a study about the different educational attainments of, say, boys vs. girls would at least consider the impact of sexism or different expectations on achievement, whenever children of divorce are studied any effects are considered to be entirely the result of the lack of a second parent, even though children of widows or widowers do not experience those negative impacts, and even though the negative impacts of divorce on children are lessening over time--that is, the impacts of divorce have been steadily decreasing since divorce was made more accessible in the 1960s.

Go figure.

So: we have a "natural" institution of nuclear families which are absolutely required for achieving real intimacy for adults and for rearing healthy and well-adjusted children, yet it is inexplicably vulnerable to attacks by malcontents. Although the institution is relatively recent, prior family forms are considered inadequate and unnatural and the concurrent rise of advanced industrial economies and the nuclear family in its current form is merely coincidental, even though industrial economies could never function without small and highly mobile family units with built-in free domestic labour. Although the nuclear family is essential to happiness for both adult men and women, women become angrier with the addition of each child to their family. Despite increasing evidence that the entire work of a nuclear family unit cannot be healthfully performed by a single isolated woman in a suburban house, the party line continues to be that nuclear families are "natural." I suppose, then, that would mean the psychological and physical needs of women are "unnatural." The penultimate evidence of this is the increased mental functioning and happiness of children in two-parent families, despite the contradictory evidence of published research to date, the continued existence of other family forms worldwide, and the tendency of divorce's negative effects on children to be lessened as divorce becomes more common and less stigmatized.

?

Or: Nuclear families and the nuclear family form, while conducive to happiness for a significant number of people, are not "natural," are in fact recent inventions created predominantly to serve the needs of modern industrial economies for a globally mobile workforce, and imprison large numbers of people (not all, not even most, just a lot) both within unsatisfying nuclear family relationships and within the expectations of happiness that these relationships were intended to fulfill. They grind mothers to smithereens by either isolating them within large suburban houses that require constant maintenance along with the childrearing responsibilities that are all theirs without any assistance because the modern industrial economy has isolated them from their extended kin, or by requiring them to both work full-time in the industrial economy while also maintaining the large suburban house and undertaking primary childrearing responsibilities. Because the modern industrial economy requires a flexible, adaptable and creative employee, the related tasks of parenthood have also increased dramatically while the time available to complete them has decreased to almost nothing, requiring parents to hire expensive assistance to develop their children appropriately. The pressure to remain in these relationships is immense, and consists not only of the appearance of either failing or succeeding at being an adult human being (since all adult human beings will naturally wish to be in and will succeed at such a "natural" human relationship) but also of failing or succeeding at being a parent, because healthy children need to grow up in a nuclear family. Thus being a successful parent is dependent on being a successful wife or husband, even though it is quite possibly that very expectation that creates the negative impacts of marriage dissolution on kids in the first place.

All so that Coca Cola can decide next Tuesday to relocate its headquarters to a low-tax environment.

And I wonder, actually, if feminism doesn't get the blame not because it encourages women to consider their own happiness and leave an abusive asshole before he kills her, but because by creating two-earner nuclear families the portability of the unit as a whole has been compromised. The 1950s nuclear family ideal was perfect for industrial economies precisely because the wife's primary loyalty was to her husband, and his primary loyalty was to his employer, and thus the entire family could pick up and move whenever the husband's job did.

Nuclear families serve individual children, women and men very well--much as its alternatives serve other individual children, women and men very well--but the primary beneficiaries of the insitution aren't the children, the women or even the men. The primary beneficiaries are GM and Exxon-Mobil. The aim of the modern nuclear family isn't the happiness of its members; the goal of the tremendous propaganda (Valentine's Day, bridal magazines, sitcoms, movies, fairy-tales, magazines and advice columnists) hasn't a whit to do with our individual happiness. Nuclear families are primarily economic units, producing goods and services, consuming goods and services, and producing future workers and consumers. The loss of those tasty bits of consumer/producer goodness would be excruciating for the economy--and that the desire of each individual company to maximize its own access to those economic units both as producers and consumers directly conflicts with each company's desire not to pay for the creation of those economic units itself (either through adequate salaries and benefits, childcare assistance, flexible family leave, health care, education, taxes or what-have-you) more than it can be forced to is causing the spontaneous combustion of the nuclear family society-wide ... well, it's very interesting.

But somehow, "Stay together for the sake of the shareholders" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

~~~~~

*I hope that it goes without saying that the nuclear family organization--two adults of opposite sex who are involved sexually, with limits on sexual activity defined by the relationship, for both economic production and reproduction--is separate from the particular assumptions and expectations that revolve around the division of labour within those nuclear families; therefore, even when nuclear families exist within another culture, it is a mistake to assume that it would follow the western male breadwinner/female homemaker model. The nuclear family as practiced by some forager societies does not have much in common with the Leave it to Beaver model that pops into most of our heads.

Posted by Andrea at 6:43 AM | Comments