19 posts tagged “feminism”

So, I have recently become aware that there are a lot of people out on the internet wasting a lot of time and type on obnoxious and overly serious criticisms of the Twilight series.  Many of these people claim that these books are horrible--but horrible!--because Edward is some kind of creepy stalker guy, and it's going to teach impressionable young girls the wrong thing about love. 

But let's say that young girls are just that impressionable, and let's also say that reading Twilight in such a way does not make you a small-minded ass of a person, and then I'll throw my hat in the Twilight-crit ring.

Sure, sure.  Edward can be a little creepy, and, let's face it, kind of a dick at the beginning.  But, you know what?  He's a vampire.  He could be a lot worse than creepy and dickish.  Not only that, he's a vampire who has to keep repeating high school, over and over, for a hundred-plus years.  That would make anyone dickish.

I don't think, though, that that is the only possible message our hypothetical impressionable young girls get from the tale of Edward and Bella.  Maybe they also learn that a guy worth having is not trying to get into your pants (your jugular, maybe) from the moment he lays eyes on you, and that is not a bad lesson to learn.  Guys worth your time really should want to get to know you and should ask intrusive questions in a quest to understand you because they can't read your mind.

Maybe they also learn that guys who love you should also want to protect you from those who would harm you.  It is an unfortunate fact that most mortal men will not be as equipped to do so as Edward is, but they should at least want to protect you.  They should not be the sort who will, say, send naked pictures of you to all of their friends.  Edward would never do such a thing, although Edward would probably also not want Bella to send a naked picture of herself, and that is also not a bad lesson for young girls to take away.

Really, I think if you want to go looking for lessons in Twilight, well, first off I think you're kind of a silly person, but also, I think there are a lot of ways you could read it.  Hell, you could even read it as some kind of "accepting people for who they are" tale, since Bella unfailingly accepts people as they are, whether they be werewolves or vampires or what have you.

Perhaps, there is an inconvenient truth here:  perhaps it is the case that young girls are so attracted to Edward and the Twilight series because girls long ago learned, for evolutionary purposes, to be attracted to strong, protective men, men who could and would fight on their behalf.  Perhaps, despite the advances of feminism, girls' basic needs in a relationship haven't changed all that much, and Edward--like most other men in fantasies and fairy tales--fills those needs, albeit in a sometimes creepy way.  Perhaps there is a reason that these types--knights in shining armor, princes on white horses, vegetarian vampires--endure and continue to speak to girls, because they certainly do.  And perhaps it is rather the myth that girls shouldn't want that kind of guy that makes so many girls so incredibly unhappy with their marriages later in life. 

It's things like this that make me hate women, especially the ones who think they're "feminists."  Oh, not the column itself--the comments.

Stay-at-home moms are "cute."  They're obviously intellectually inferior to working women, too, because, DUH, obviously being at home with kids and chores offers nothing in the way of intellectual stimulation (and, DUH, obviously that's all stay-at-home moms do with their days!).  It follows that stay-at-home moms are women without goals, without a life, obsequious and socially retarded.  It is equally obvious that women who become stay-at-home moms are "rich" (not moms who, as the column itself makes reference to literally can't "afford" to go back to work, even if they wanted to, due to the exorbitant prices of childcare and so forth--for some of us in more rural areas, the cost of transportation is itself prohibitive, and not everyone [yet] has the luxury of working online, as I do--my job effectively makes me a working-stay-at-home mom, which is really ideal for me). 

Oh, and I love the woman who writes that none of the well-educated women she knows don't work.  Where the hell does this woman live? 

God, women like this just do so much to advance opportunity and freedom for all women.  There is nothing that makes me, as a woman, feel more liberated and empowered than being told that I'm "cute" or intellectually inferior and poorly educated because I decided to be a stay-at-home mom. 

The ironic thing about it is that I was just helping a student, right before I read this, with his essay on The Awakening.  I've read that book about 5 times, and personally I've always thought it was stupid.  I don't think Edna Pontellier is notably oppressed by anything other than her own uselessness and incompetence (I understand that is not the generally accepted reading of the novel, and believe me, I caught hell in lit classes more than once for my opinion about it--in general, though, whining about how hard it is to break society's rules doesn't get anyone much mileage with me, although it does make me think of Devo...), but let's say she is.  Let's say Edna's real problem is being held down by all the sexist bastard men in her society.  She, because of her (flighty and weak) personality might be better off today, being told what to do by the female commenters of the International Herald-Tribune, but are we really to pretend that she would have fewer choices?  Or that the prescriptions and judgments laid down by today's society are actually less harsh and confining than what poor old Edna faced?  There is no real difference between being told you're intellectually inferior just because you're a woman and being told you're intellectually infererior because you're a woman who has decided, after surveying all your options, to stay home and take care of your kids.

I think, actually, the thing that infuriates me most about this (because in reality I am reasonably confident in both my intellectual abilities and my education) is that I still hear so many women talk about how "men" and/or the "patriarchal society" judge women's choices.  It's true that they do sometimes.  But no man of my acquaintance has ever believed that I suddenly became illiterate when I decided to stop working for pay.  Of course, no man of my acquaintance would dare.

And why, pray tell, does receiving pay make something worth doing?  I mean, if I was doing a boring, repetitive job that I hated for pay, these women would be so OK with that.  If I'm doing a sometimes boring and repetitive but oftentimes amazing and quite stimulating job that I love for no pay, then I'm like something they have to scrape off their shoe.   This just doesn't make sense to me, except by some standard societal notion that people are only worth their salaries, but I utterly reject that notion and always have. 

Feh.  I've had the satellite TV shut off, so that I don't watch the news anymore, and usually the IHT just doesn't upset me all that much, so things in my life have been relatively calm and happy.  I watch the chard grow.  I read, especially because I'm trying to get as much reading in as possible before the new baby interrupts that.  I walk down to the river--a river that will be dry in just a few weeks since it only has water in it during the runoff.  You know.  That kind of thing.  A nice, peaceable life, in which I get along with people.  And then this.  Damn. 

I will now go back to sticking my head in the sand and teaching my son about evolution, our current lessons revolving around his obsession with prehistoric life.  I take a great deal of pride in the fact that today, when two Mormon missionaries came to visit us, my son offered them each a piece of his Easter chocolate--the last two pieces of it.  I thought that was pretty cool for a 4-year-old.  He loves people and is so generous and kind to people.  The bloody remarkable thing about it is that somehow, despite my own misanthropy, I've taught him that.  I guess other stay-at-home moms, being braindead, don't teach their kids anything at all.  I guess it's just by virtue of the fact that I do work for pay, albeit very part-time, that I'm able to teach him these things.  Stupid people.  I'm done.

I'm having a hard time understanding how supporters of Barack Obama criticize Sarah Palin on grounds of inexperience.  I don't entirely think "experience" is a sound basis, at least not on its own, to choose a President, anyway, and I understand that Obama at least has more federal experience than she does, but really they're both pretty wet behind the ears as far as that goes.  If what we're looking for is experience, McCain would be the obvious choice, no?  No one needs to be a Senator in order to have an informed, valid, and substantial opinion about the Israel-Palestine situation or any other aspect of foreign or domestic policy, except possibly those kept obscure from the public at large.  Anyone--whether they are or are not a member of government or civil service at any level--can be informed and formulate serious opinions.  Obama relies on us to recognize this, that despite the fact that he is very inexperienced compared to many of our former Presidents, he is knowledgeable and capable of informing himself and making sound judgments.  Silly me, but I expect the same respect be granted those on the other side of the ideological divide (though she isn't entirely on the other side of the ideological divide from me:  she supports planned troop withdrawal from Iraq, for example).

I also don't understand how supporters of Obama feel justified making fun of her Christian beliefs.  Unless you are prepared to argue that Obama is a secret Muslim, as Colbert has been telling us all along, he's got many of the same beliefs.  Or at the very least, he pretends to and publicly espouses such beliefs.

And what's with the unending hand-wringing about her in feminist circles?  Women who were fully prepared to vote for Hillary Clinton despite her numerous flaws are not at all pleased that this particular woman might (might) be the first to break that storied glass ceiling--but if, as many women argued during Hillary's campaign, any breakthrough of this sort is a huge step forward for women, then why aren't they more happy about this?  What really bugs me about the women writing about her, though, is how much of their resentment against her seems so petty.  Much of it seems motivated by the less than mature sentiment of envy:  how does she stay so attractive, how does she manage 5 kids and a job and do her own cooking and still stay so damned attractive, how does she manage to not put her kids in daycare and also do all the other stuff she does and still remain so bloody attractive?  Too much of the writing takes the whining tone, "I only have one kid and a job, and I still need federally-subsidized daycare and Chef Boy-ar-dee, so how does she do it, damn her.  She makes me feel lousy about myself, so I hate her.  Also, she's a Republican."

Let's not even get started on the question of whether Sarah Palin is or is not a feminist.  Feminists, left-wing feminists anyway, asserting that Sarah Palin is not a feminist, despite the fact that she is a strong, independent working mother reminds me so much of Communists and Marxists and some religions--the little petty bickering over what makes a good party member.  It reminds me that Elvis Costello song, "Night Rally."  It reminds me, in short, of tyranny.  Why, for example, must one support universal health care in order to be granted the title "feminist?"  No dissent in the ranks!  Meanwhile, since Palin is totally not a feminist, we who complained so loudly about the sexist remarks about Hillary are just going to sit here and smirk quietly when the DailyKos makes a mock Playboy cover with Palin's face.  It's totally not sexist if she's a Republican, not to mention a former beauty pageant contestant.  I like how feminism was supposed to be about opening doors for women and working towards equality and all that...but...um, maybe not if the wimminz are going to choose to be Republican. 

I also really hate the way these same writers talk about Bristol Palin's pregnancy.  I have read several women, allegedly feminist writers call Sarah Palin's mothering into question because of Bristol Palin's pregnancy.  And yet, if a Republican blamed mothers for every teenage pregnancy, they would be sexist assholes.  I guess it's OK, as long as the woman in question is a Republican and we're all good Democrats over here, smugly asserting that we wouldn't let such a thing happen to our daughters because we believe in sex education.  Nyah nyah nyah.  I guess Democrat kids never do things that their parents taught them not to do or just do stupid things and fuck up sort of in general.  Good to know!

Even William Saletan is throwing in his two cents.  He has a piece about Sarah Palin's support for parental-consent laws regarding abortion.  He refers to Bristol Palin as transitioning to adulthood or something like that (with a baby on the way, she sure the hell better be...with a quickness), and he is obviously against all forms of obligatory parental consent.  Yet when he wrote earlier about age of consent laws, he stated pretty clearly that the consensus is that 17-year-olds are not emotionally mature enough to comprehend all the ramifications of sexual activity and sexual relationships, though they inevitably think they are, and he supports age of consent laws in the end.  So, if 17-year-olds are not emotionally mature, and if their sexual activity should be regulated (creepy!), then why are they emotionally mature enough to make a decision about an abortion?  He goes on to argue that, just like blacks and women, 17-year-olds are being oppressed.  Yeah, I can totally see how this situation is exactly like slavery.  I mean, gawd, she probably had to complete the sexual act with her boyfriend before curfew.

Gah, all the discourse about Sarah Palin just stinks.  It stinks of hypocrisy.  There are plenty of reasons to criticize her, from her environmental policies to that whole book-banning thing, and I don't want to vote for her or for McCain.  But neither do I want to vote for a bunch of hypocritical whingers who are just jealous that she's totally got that sexy librarian thing going.** 

*Oui, I am secretly French! 

**Yes, the Republicans are also hypocritical in so many ways, although McCain somewhat less so than most members of his party.  But we all already know this, no?  We all already know that they dismissed accusations of sexism when it was Hillary and now cry sexism every chance they get, now that it's their girl.  I know, and it's ugly.  The fact that the Republicans are an ugly bunch does not, however, make the Democrats lovely just by contrast.  Why can't we have a political party that doesn't suck?  Just for a change.

I've documented my issues with Jezebel in the past, at some length and with a great deal of spastic vitriol if memory serves. 

I want to take this opportunity and provide this link to say:  Jezebel, I am so glad I had already stopped taking you seriously, because otherwise I think this would have really bothered me.

Oh, it doesn't bother me that she's a slut or that both of the Jezebels are drunk.  And I might have been able to see past the fact that they're making jokes about rape and date-rape, although if you keep telling the same joke over and over, then people will start to think that you actually believe that, for example, only stupid girls get raped.  Because of course smart girls would never let it happen to them!

But here is the thing that would have upset me if I still found Jezebel to be relevant and interesting:  The sycophantic commenters lined up to support Moe and Tracie by attacking the moderator, Lizz Winstead.  Instead of questioning the wisdom of telling girls who've been raped that they could have avoided it by being more clever and witty, the commenters appear to care solely about the fact that when Moe confesses that she couldn't be bothered by the process of turning in her date-rapist (um, because she needed to "drink more") and confesses that she actually even still trusted her date rapist and felt safe with him and whatever else, Lizz said that you aren't safe with someone who has raped you.  And then she goes on to say that you can't tell that this guy over here will be a rapist, but this guy who seems so hip and totally listens to all the sensitive music, he's not a rapist, even if he raped me once. 

Lizz was trying to get at a conversation about how girls and women can have sexual freedom and still protect themselves and still be responsible about not contracting diseases or becoming pregnant when they don't want children and so forth.  How do women balance these two things?  And all the Jezebel can offer up is...nothing. 

A few thoughts:  Tracie aka Slut Machine is not the person to talk to about this because she has herpes, has admitted it, and has written about it like, "herpes--what is everyone so worried about?  It's no big deal!"  And it is at least somewhat likely that the reason she has "never met a rapist" is because she is not a girl who says no.  If you always consent, then you don't get raped. 

Final thoughts:  I was raped.  It was not a date, but he wasn't quite a stranger, either.  I didn't report it, and if I had to go back and do it over again, I can't say that I would report it.  I was 17, and like a lot of girls, I didn't feel very sure that what happened to me was rape.  It's not always very clear, whatever some people say; "no means no!" is a nice enough slogan, simple and catchy, but I think we all know that it's not absolutely true in the real world.  Sometimes "no" means "persuade me" or "maybe after South Park."  I went on, later, to develop, um, what's the word? A robust and confident sexuality?  Something like that, although that sounds creepy.  And when you do, as a very independent, intelligent, and even liberated woman, the issue comes up:  How do you do the things you want to do while making sure that you're safe and that you don't get herpes or pregnant or killed by some psycho you met online?

I want to be clear that I think women have a responsibility to take reasonable measures to protect themselves from all unintended consequences of their behavior.  I did.  In my case, I can see exactly what I could have done and should have done to protect myself.  He committed a wrong, but I was also like a tourist walking down Bourbon Street with a giant wad of cash sticking out of my back pocket saying, "Hey, take it!"  No, I wasn't dressed provcatively, since I almost never am (seriously--I was wearing blue jeans, sneakers, and a Denver Broncos T-shirt, no makeup, hair in a ponytail that was probably held back with the incredibly uncool "scrunchie" device), but I took no measures to protect myself.  And I should have.  No, I'm not "blaming" myself.  I'm taking responsibility for my actions and decisions. 

I wish the Jezebelles would as well.  I wish they would step up and treat the question of how young women ought to navigate the sexual waters of our time as a serious question, because it is. 

But, "I don't get raped because I live in Williamsburg, and all the guys there are pussies" is, wow, funny stuff.  Party on, Jezebel. 

Grr.  Twice tonight.  Twice in one night I have, showing my characteristic lack of luck and poor work ethic (I'm supposed to be working, not trolling the archives of the Atlantic Monthly, but anyhow), stumbled upon an article that has outraged me. 

The first one was a review of The Omnivore's Dilemma written by some Atlantic editor who is clearly a vegetarian, although he failed to come right out and say that, and is the sort of vegetarian who is never going to accept for any reason under any circumstance that anyone might have a decent reason for eating meat.  His decision that, in the facile words of The Smiths, "meat is murder" puts him on a higher plane than the rest of us, those of us who are clearly in denial about what it means to take a life in order to sustain our own, those of us too ignorant and immoral to follow him.  Well, you know what, buddy?  Fuck off, alright? 

Yeah, I know, that's not a good argument, but the minds of people like this (which by no means includes all vegetarians, thank heavens) are closed already.  There is no argument that I can make, no amount of elegant prose I can assemble, no moral justification I can muster to convince someone like this that eating meat is not the original sin.  I do want to point out, though, that Michael Pollan (and others--most hunters will tell you this) says that killing for your food puts you in a different relationship with death, makes you face the inevitability of it and the cycle of life in ways that can be disquieting, humbling, and profound.  Vegetarians never seem to believe this, probably because you don't get quite the same shock of our fragility and the eternal cycling of nature by uprooting carrots, but it's true.  Anyway, the fuckwit reviewer says that actually (because he is so much smarter and well read than Pollan, of course!) psychologists tell us otherwise (since when do psychologists know shit?):  As Otto Rank put it, "the death fear of the ego is lessened by the killing, the sacrifice, of the other."  Our reviewer does not see, apparently, that this is not the opposite of what Pollan said.  The death fear of the fucking ego (sorry for the cursing--if I don't do that, seriously, the pomposity here will make my head explode) comes from our belief that we are separate from nature, that we are above and outside of the circle of life that makes life possible.  Our fear of death is based largely on the fact that we are in denial of it.  When you face the inevitability and even elegance of it, you lose the fear, certainly.  Am I totally wrong here or is this not one of the teachings of Buddhism?  We fear death because in our self-consciousness we see ourselves from outside as if we were outside of the systems and cycles of nature that, honestly, bring death to all--without exception.  We think, in our great big fucking narcissism, that we are so great that we are the exceptions, that our "souls" are so special that they cannot possibly perish.  Whatever you think about the immortality of the soul, though, the bare, ugly fact is that your carbon-based ass is doomed. 

The person who kills her food already admits this and thus, either gradually or suddenly, loses the fear of death and admits, as Heidegger would say, death into her home.  Are people better off when they fear death or when they accept it as natural and right?  You be the judge. 

The second article made me draw one primary conclusion:  Maybe we should just elect Hillary Clinton so that feminists will shut the fuck up.  Good Christ.  If you're a man and you dislike Hillary Clinton, then you are a misogynist because a bunch of youngish women say so.  Period.  If a woman *feels* like your remarks are sexist, then you are a woman-hater.  I love how the author marshalled this evidence primarily from among her friends and none of them can *quite* put their finger on where the sexism is in the remarks of their male, Obamaniac friends--they just kind of feel it's there.  She admits that Hillary's actual policies and positions are sometimes objectionable--the more you look at Hillary's record, the more like a freakin warmonger she seems--but there is a certain rabidity, maybe, that these incredibly sensitive young women are picking up on that just has to be rooted in misogyny.  Not that they have any evidence!  Just their hunches!  Not that their male friends who hate Hillary treat actual women in their lives with any hint of misogyny.  But, obviously, the standard line is that men fear and hate powerful women, so that must be what's going on here.  Right.  Case closed.  Brilliantly reasoned.

Listen, there have been very real cases of sexism directed at Hillary throughout her career in politics.  But not everything is.  Some people have strong dislike of Hillary because they don't feel she's honest, and that is going to draw moral fervor out of some people.  Some people retain intense dislike of Bill that gets transferred onto Hillary, not least because the prospect of Bill back in the White House is unsettling as hell for a lot of us (yes, "us"--ever since NAFTA and welfare reform, I have not been a fan--that's right, I don't support NAFTA).  A lot of people believe that the Clinton White House will again be plagued by scandal and meet resistance from Congress that will hurt their chances of getting anything done--not an unreasonable fear--and this also causes some of the strong anti-Hillary sentiment.  Some of us who were against the war at the start and never believed in the "intelligence" and wept a little at watching poor old Colin Powell prostitute himself by delivering it as fact have a very strong distaste for her because she was apparently too willing to go along and believe--that isn't who I want answering the phone at 3:00 a.m.  So, there's actually quite a lot going on here. 

The problem is that the first serious bid for presidency by a woman is Hillary Clinton, one of the most divisive figures in the current political scene who happens to be married to one of the other most divisive figures.  The problem is that *some* feminists are using Hillary's run as a test case against which to judge how sexist America still is as a nation.  But not all Hillary-hatred has anything to do with her vagina, and indeed much of it has to do with her husband and his Wandering Penis, the investigation of which thoroughly distracted the nation for so long.  This isn't a fair test case, because she isn't some abstract Platonic form WOMAN--she's Hillary Clinton.  It is fair to dislike, even hate, her and still not be a misogynist.  (Yes, again, I do realize there have been sexist comments directed at her, just as there have been racist or at least racist-ish comments directed at Barack.  The question here is really whether those represent the views of a majority, and I think the overwhelming answer is that they do not.  If McCain wins in November, it is not going to be because the Dems had a woman or a black candidate--it's going to be because the Democrats will take whatever advantage they have and piss it away.  I have a silly notion that being fingered as a sexist, not for anything you said but just kinda for the way you said it maybe?, is not going to win over the white male vote.  Call me crazy.)

Finally, I have to take up with this particular sentence for a minute, or many minutes:

"Especially white and well-educated women, who are catching up to their male counterparts, if not in terms of equal pay or domestic expectations or secure reproductive options, at least in their ability to pursue the education and vocation they desire."

Let's take a minute and reflect on those three things she mentions as places where women have not "caught up" to their male counterparts.  Equal pay?  Well, first, a lot of economists don't agree that it exists, once all variables are accounted for.  Variables includes things like the age of the workers (since the Census data includes all workers, and most senior ladies did not build up a career steadily over time, they make less money than men of the same age who put in more work years), time off for parenting (you could argue that gender inequity still exists there, sure, and I will argue that it is going to remain the case that women will more often take/need time off for parenting than men do until such time as we are either all hermaphrodites [which could happen in this great age of plastics] or that we get a kind of Handmaid's Tale society going, where some women do the reproducing and child care for other women so that they don't have to--the more nannies and surrogate moms we get, the closer we come to Margaret Atwood's fantastic utopian novel!  Wait--it is utopian, right?  Only, in our nanny version, the women aren't literally forced to do it, it's just that they have no other options due to the severe economic stratification that has resulted, let's face it, in large part from the lifestyle of the white privileged overclass, women and men alike), career choices (with more women choosing careers in lesser-paid fields and men typically doing more dangerous and rat-racey type work), and so forth.  If you look at the youngest workers in the Census data, the gap is 5 cents, i.e., women make 95 cents for every dollar a man makes, and considering some of those women are most certainly nonworking women and/or mothers, well, it's probably not as big a deal as we're meant to believe it is.  Five cents won't even buy a damned Atomic Fireball anymore.

The other issue here is another kind of economic disparity.  Men still earn most of the money, but women still do most of the spending, possibly as much as 80% of the discretionary spending.  So...so...well, I'll leave it up to you to decide what that means, because I'm once again on the verge of one of my "so, if I was a man, I would be drunk every night and would totally get hookers!" proclamations.  

OK, so the second claim about "domestic expectations."  Well, we've already pretty thoroughly hashed out the division of household chores bit, no?  I think I beat that one into the ground already.  Is there something else that is included in "domestic expectations?"  I don't know--I think it's a bit vague.  Women are expected to be more prettified and take more time with appearances, true, although men are doing it now too, and these days a lot of women are *choosing* this, so...well, so...

And finally--reproductive options.  Right!  Women are so far behind men on this one!  Let's see here:  Men have abstinence and condoms as methods of birth control--ah, and the vasectomy, let's not forget.  If pregnancy happens anyway, they have no choice about what happens to the fetus but will be legally obliged to pay child support, and if you live where I do, will be morally obliged to marry the mother.  And women have--well, it must be fewer options than that, right?  That's the implication.  Yet women also have available to them abstinence and condoms...and also pills and injections of various sorts, IUDs, tubal ligations, sponges and foams, the biorhythm method, the diaphragm, that new vaginal ring thingy, and heaven knows what else.  If unwanted pregnancy occurs, she can choose abortion, she can choose to keep the baby, or she can choose adoption.  Am I wrong?  Am I missing something here?  I think we're way ahead of men in terms of having reproductive options--we're just not necessarily any better than men are at using them.  Oh, right--she does say "secure" reproductive options.  And birth control is not securely available to every woman equally, admittedly, but with Planned Parenthood and public health clinics, it comes pretty close.  We need to close that gap, but women, it should be noted, do still have abstinence and condoms just as securely as men have them.  Available even at Wal-Mart!

So.  I know and understand that there is still sexism (and racism).  But a) her argument admits of no rebuttal--she knows you're going to say that it's just Hillary you're opposed to, not a woman president in general, and she just says that that's just the sort of thing feminism has been trying to fight, because if you really like women in power then I guess you have to accept any woman in power, right?  That seems to be the end of her story, even though she says otherwise earlier in the piece.  And b) these arguments are Simple Simon(e).  When the pay gap is diminishing rapidly, when women are attending college at the same rate as men and getting better grades, when women now share something like an equal amount of the domestic obligations with their husbands, when women no longer *have to* get married and have kids, when most women have a banquet of reproductive options open to them, maybe it's time to reassess what we talk about when we talk about sexism and misogyny.  I would have thought by now that Democrats would have fucking realized that the constant complaints at this very facile, very (let's say it) bitchy level is incredibly alienating to, wow, a lot of people. 

To some of us it seems whiny, elitist, way too feely, and essentially untrue in its major points.  There is nothing like listening to privileged white chicks gripe about the pay gap and their reproductive options to make my blood boil.  Just shutup already.  It is especially irksome to me given the fact that American feminism has little or nothing to offer to women who don't work and almost nothing for working-class women.  I didn't really notice this (I did notice the extreme elitism in most feminist writing, but not the ignoring of mothers) until I became a mother and faced the feminist wrath.  American feminism is not interested in mothers, and some strains of it are extremely hostile to mothers, unless they also work for pay.  Unfortunately, women were mothers long before money was even conceived of, and there is a fundamental bio-logic going on here that you're not going to convince most women to abandon.  That some feminists have become haters of mothers and children only serves to point up how very un-feminine American feminism often is--that you would not only deny but hate that part of who we are as women is misogyny of a far more disturbing sort than a Hillary nutcracker.  The Hillary nutcracker, at least, is meant as a joke--it is crass and unfunny, yes, but the women (and occasionally men) who loathe mothers and children are not even joking.  That's the sexism I worry about. 

This is why I should never, ever come online. 

So, there's this article rehashing the old complaint that women do sooooo much more housework than men do and so this is proof that women are ...well, whatever.  You know, because it gets said all the time.

I have a lot of problems with this.  Let's examine just this little blurb, a little blurb on which I'm sure much blood of men is going to be spilled.

1. The graph doesn't match the data in the lede.  The graph indicates that single men in 2005 do considerably less housework than married men, yet the accompanying text says that marriage saves men an hour of housework a week.  Then the text later goes on to say that married men do more housework than single men.  So, I'm guessing the graph is the correct version, in which case the opening of the article is just false and unfortunately reinforces the impression that, again, women have it so bad while men have it so good.
2. They say it's based on a time diary, yet they also did one of those fiercely unreliable surveys asking people to recall how much time they spent in the previous week doing whatever activity.  People's memories on this front are crazy unreliable.  Most Americans, for example, underestimate the amount of TV they watch per week by at least a couple of hours per day, and we know that from time diaries. 
3. If you look at the graph, assuming it is the correct representation of the data, the amount of housework done by married women and married men is getting pretty close to equal--that is NOT a 7-hour difference on the graph.  Time diary data I've seen before--as opposed to the surveys from memory--suggest this is true.  Bear in mind that this sample probably also included some people, most likely women, who do not work outside the home and it seems natural that they would do more housework than their spouses, no?
4. Why isn't gardening, lawn care, vehicle maintenance, and home repair counted?  Is that not housework, of a sort?  I know my husband does most of the vehicle maintenance and home repair, and I count that.  It's as integral to the running of our household as doing the dishes, possibly more so (If the furnace is on the fritz, we're fucked--if all the dishes are dirty, which is unlikely, we can always use paper, ya know?).  In my experience, most women do not count these activities as housework, and so when I hear them bitch about how their husband doesn't do the dishes, I'm all, "Oh, do you split the wood?  Do you fix the drippy faucets?"  Yah, some women do (I do, if I have to) but most don't.  Most seem to want their husbands to do all that work and an equal amount as they do of what they consider housework and also be sensitive and romantic and not watch football and also take them out to dinner because they are so oppressed by their housework.  God almighty.  It's a wonder more men don't crack.  And of course most men are still the primary breadwinners and expected, by society yes, but also very often by their wives, to put in long hours to make a brilliant career and pay for that goddamned mortgage.  It would drive me to drink.  (I am suddenly so reminded of some men I met in Japan, mostly Aussies but also Japanese and other nationalities who asserted boldly that marrying an American woman is akin to death.  It's not just that we have goals.  It's that we will slowly kill you with sudsy liquids.)
5. And finally, why is no attention paid to the fact that while the amount of time women, single or married, spend on housework has greatly decreased (by 10 hours a week or so for married women--and I would wager they fill almost all those hours watching Oprah), the amount of housework done by married men has increased by almost the same amount.  What sort of tragedy will befall the nation if we are forced to admit that men are actually stepping up and doing housework?  If we totted up the amount of time spent doing household repairs and lawn maintenance and so forth, I would hazard a guess there would be absolute parity here.  I also hazard a guess, though, that this survey was done at least in part with the old received wisdom that women do much more housework, even today, than men informing the survey--I am guessing, from what I've seen, that the theory drove the collection of the data, and I know for a fact it drove the way that reporter wrote the story up.  NEVER LET YOUR THEORY DRIVE YOUR DATA; IT SHOULD ALWAYS BE THE OTHER WAY AROUND.  ALWAYS.

I know I used to take it as truth that women today still do much more housework than their husbands.  I took that as fact, without any evidence to back up my belief, until I took a seminar called The Philosophy of Daily Life.  It was inexpertly named, but expertly conceived and taught.  Albert Borgmann wanted us to think about daily life in philosophical terms, to use philosophy as a way of thinking about quotidian and pedestrian things, to talk about the Good Life and what it meant and how to get there in terms of actual life.  He was distressed that philosophers tend to ignore the philosophical meanings, for example, of central heating (without a hearth, the focal point of the home has become the television, and the television tends to discourage familial interaction, while the hearth encouraged it) and the absolute state of disrepair that the family meal has fallen into.  One of the books we read was a survey of how Americans actually spend their time, and it was based entirely on time diaries.  That means that for every, say, half-hour segment of every day, as they were doing it, people wrote down what they were doing.  One thing they found was that, by and large, women are not doing nearly as much housework as they fancy they are, and in general, everybody has vastly more leisure time than they think they do.  They also, naturally, found that most people spend most of that time watching TV but think that they do not.  It's an interesting book and, no, sadly, I cannot find it anymore and cannot remember the name.  But I was shocked.  A theory I had held forever had been undermined by data.  I found myself forced to give up my belief.  If only others would follow suit.

No, ladies, I think it's time we moved on from this and found some new drum to beat.  This one is old and stinks really badly.  Unfortunately, articles like this one just perpetuate myths that we apparently desperately need to believe in.

You people have no idea.  This kind of thing suffocates me.  That's why I started the Vox, that's why I come across with so much vitriol sometimes, because when I read things that I know from data and from checking out the world around me to be totally untrue and ultimately harmful, the rage smothers me.  If I don't get it out, I can't breathe, until all of a sudden out will come a huge, explosive breath of anger, probably at T, and he doesn't need that.  He's certainly not responsible for this shit. 

I admit to also being greatly frustrated by the fact that when you actually try to converse with quotidian people about their pedestrian lives in philosophical terms, they typically become bewildered and hostile.  No one cares, no one wants to talk about it.  The only thing they can offer up is the accusation that you hate modernity and want to turn back the clock.  When you assert that actually what you want is for humanity to find new ways to keep what is valuable and adapt both modern life and tradition to each other so that we can retain the good things from both, eyes glass over.  Seriously.  It's frustrating and kind of soul-deadening.

Actually, since I'm here and roughly on the topic, I'm going to write about Heat by Bill Buford.  Why is this topical?  Hang on.  I just finished that book today, and I enjoyed it, although frankly it did nothing to ameliorate my opinion that Mario Batali is a bit of a prick (a prick who constantly mispronounces 'piquant' which irritates me).  But it's a good book, and I heartily recommend it.  Stephens, I believe I will be sending it your way.

Anyway, at the end, after his apprenticeship in meat with the butcher of Tuscany, Buford finds himself lamenting what has become of food in our modern times.  He laments the demise of the great Tuscan beef, the disappearance of great handmade pasta, the disappearance of certain traditions and foodways.  He also keeps asserting that the romantic Tuscans are somewhat insane, living without electricity and so forth, to pursue these nutty ideals.  He also goes on to say that he is totally not against global capitalism and blah blah blah.  It's just the food that worries him, how few people will know in succeeding generations how great food is supposed to taste, how it is supposed to connect us with ancestors and landscapes, how it is meant to communicate stories, legends, great epics of life to the eater.  It is not just dinner, and he seems like he's starting to get that...but then he doesn't really.  He doesn't seem to get that it's all connected.  No, you don't have to give up all the trappings and conveniences of modern life, but certainly the global economy and the constant striving for money above all other things of value are major forces in the undoing of food.  He's right that you can't simply blame the supermarkets--it's much more complicated than that.  But he is misguided in judging that people who care more about the culture of food (what Borgmann always calls the Culture of the Table) than they do about money are insane or deluded.  The pursuit of money above all other things means food--and other things, like family--take a backseat.  In the American case, it's not just a backseat; it's been dumped out onto the highway.  Oh, sure, we worship our celebrity chefs, but this is just a symptom of the problem.  We worship them because food has become mysterious to us, handed over to professionals whether they work for Kraft or Babbo or the school cafeteria.  It is only one of the many things we no longer seem to know how to do for ourselves, but it is among the greatest of losses, perhaps the greatest.  We can't get it back by visiting and deifying a great butcher in Tuscany but simultaneously saying that we still want everything else to be the same, with the McMansions and the cheap Chinese imports and the commitment to television.  That is unrealistic and fundamentally misses the point.  If food is culture, then this culture is getting the food it deserves, which is "convenient" and processed and generally pretty cheap (contrasted to the very expensive food in great restaurants) and disconnected from culture and landscape and reality and overall kind of disappointing, if you know how really great food can be.

That's why I don't think that becoming a proficient home cook is merely a matter of cooking being one pasttime among many and those who enjoy cooking should do it and those who don't shouldn't.  It's more important than that.  More is being rejected by those who don't cook and more is being lost--the stakes are much higher here than they are if someone doesn't like football, say, or parades.  That's one place, too, where I agree with Tony Bourdain:  To say up front that you will never eat meat is to reject a vast array of cultures and their traditions and their soul, often including your own--in many cases it is to reject your own family, though it is perhaps not surprising given that we are already often disconnected from our families in profound ways.  It is to assert yourself, as an individual, over the social (except in cases, such as in India and among Buddhist monks, where the society is overwhelmingly vegetarian).  Imagine someone going to stay in monasteries in Japan and refusing to eat vegetables--it would be offensive, an outrage. 

I know.  I'm hyperbolic, I'm judgmental, I'm no doubt making too much of it all.  I'm the one standing on the deck of the Titanic asking why people don't care about saving this incredibly beautiful heirloom deck chair.  I know.  But you know, in my little corner of the world, I'm going to keep that deck chair.  Hopefully, it floats.

This is one of the saddest things I have ever read.  I cannot believe this is from a children's book:

The dinosaur children are offered simple, straightforward advice on what to do about the divorce. On custody decisions: "When parents can't agree, lawyers and judges decide. Try to be honest if they ask you questions; it will help them make better decisions." On selling the house: "If you move, you may have to say good-bye to friends and familiar places. But soon your new home will feel like the place you really belong." On the economic impact of divorce: "Living with one parent almost always means there will be less money. Be prepared to give up some things." On holidays: "Divorce may mean twice as much celebrating at holiday times, but you may feel pulled apart." On parents' new lovers: "You may sometimes feel jealous and want your parent to yourself. Be polite to your parents' new friends, even if you don't like them at first." On parents' remarriage: "Not everyone loves his or her stepparents, but showing them respect is important."

These cards and books point to an uncomfortable and generally unacknowledged fact: what contributes to a parent's happiness may detract from a child's happiness. All too often the adult quest for freedom, independence, and choice in family relationships conflicts with a child's developmental needs for stability, constancy, harmony, and permanence in family life. In short, family disruption creates a deep division between parents' interests and the interests of children.

One of the worst consequences of these divided interests is a withdrawal of parental investment in children's well-being. As the Stanford economist Victor Fuchs has pointed out, the main source of social investment in children is private. The investment comes from the children's parents. But parents in disrupted families have less time, attention, and money to devote to their children. The single most important source of disinvestment has been the widespread withdrawal of financial support and involvement by fathers. Maternal investment, too, has declined, as women try to raise families on their own and work outside the home. Moreover, both mothers and fathers commonly respond to family breakup by investing more heavily in themselves and in their own personal and romantic lives.

Sometimes the tables are completely turned. Children are called upon to invest in the emotional well-being of their parents. Indeed, this seems to be the larger message of many of the children's books on divorce and remarriage. Dinosaurs Divorce asks children to be sympathetic, understanding, respectful, and polite to confused, unhappy parents. The sacrifice comes from the children: "Be prepared to give up some things." In the world of divorcing dinosaurs, the children rather than the grown-ups are the exemplars of patience, restraint, and good sense.

Source article.

Unfortunately, the dinosaur advice is fairly accurate.  Children are expected to accommodate the whims and irresponsibilities of their parents.  It is assumed that they will bounce back, that children are so great at adapting, they'll be fine.  I've said before that it depends a lot on what we mean by "fine."  It is unfortunate that children are not evolving fast enough to keep pace with the growing inability of adults to act like adults or our changing set of mores.  But they aren't.  Human children still need parents who are fully committed to the well-being of their children, who put the needs of their children before their own ephemeral "happiness." 

Or, you know, a set of Hallmark cards that express dad's regret that he never actually sees them.  Whatever.  It's all good, right?

Actually, I recently read an interview with Tina Fey in which she was talking about being a working mom and how she basically gets home just in time to give her daughter a bath and put her to bed and then she works with the writers while her daughter sleeps.  She mentioned that her daughter was so sad that the writers' strike was over and begged her mom not to go back to work.  She says that broke her heart, but she went to work anyway.  My heart breaks for this kid that I don't even know.  Whatever other amazing accomplishments Tina Fey racks up in life, she has a daughter, a daughter who needs something from her mother that she isn't getting (time), a daughter who is going to grow up basically as a stranger to her mother, because you don't get to know a person by putting them to bed.  It's Tina Fey's choice, of course, but it's not her daughter's choice--in fact, it's the opposite for her daughter. 

Oh, but kids don't have rights anyway.  What was I thinking?  What matters is that Tina Fey is happy.  Her daughter will survive.

So, I was a lit major for quite a while, until I discovered linguistics.  I was always chronically irritated by my lit classes because, for the most part, there was no rigor there.  People would stroll into lit classes and just sort of say whatever they wanted to say and, by and large, as long as what they were saying reflected the accepted "politically correct" view, they skated by with it, no matter how stupid or unrelated to the text.  In short, it was everything I hate, except that I like to read novels.

In the course of my literature career, I had to read Kate Chopin's The Awakening several times.  It's an alright novel, though I am of the opinion that it is famous mostly because its writer was a woman.  It's certainly not a bad book, but I'd rather read Carson McCullers any day.

But what really irritated during all those tedious class discussions is that people consider this a "feminist" book and the main character--I hesitate to say "protagonist" because I find her not very sympathetic--a sort of heroine.  I don't see it.  The woman isn't oppressed; she's bored.  There's a difference.

It's been a while since I read it, but let me see if I recall the details.  She is married to a reasonably wealthy man.  She has "octoroon" nannies for her kids--weren't they octoroon, or maybe quadroon?  (What a great word!  I want to be an octoroon!)  She doesn't have to work at anything, really, since she doesn't have to make money, take care of her kids, do her own housework, cook their meals or any of it.  Her husband even goes so far as to permit her an affair.  Sooooo, she's oppressed how exactly?  Oppressed by ennui, no doubt, but there is a good reason why that is a reflexive verb in French--she is boring herself. 

I was just reading something, maybe on Salon, that again referred to this damn novel as a feminist novel.  Feck!  If that is a feminist novel, making some huge statement about bored upper-class women, then little wonder I never seem to find myself having anything in common with "feminism."  Meh.  I'm crying a river for bored ladies everywhere.

Incidentally, since we're talking about my infamous career as a literature major, there are two things worth pointing out.  The first is that in a heated discussion about WEB DuBois I was, in fact, labeled a "racist" by my (very white) professor and the majority of the class, virtually none of whom had read the text.  I would later be labeled a "racist" by all the white people in my Harlem Renaissance class but NOT the African-American professor who actually knew what I was talking about and saw my point, even if she didn't 100% agree.  Besides, WEB DuBois was totally a tool of the Japanese imperalists.  Booker T Washington FTW!

The second is that I did finally find some rigorous lit classes.  Freudian interpretation was *extremely* rigorous and I worked my ass off for that class, and then the Literature of American Imperialism seminar was also very good and rigorous although my viewpoint that I really didn't care whether every novel had serious female characters and was fully comfortable with some novels being focused on men--we were talking about Heart of Darkness at the time--was scoffed at because I guess every story needs great female characters even if it would be a detriment to the plot line or realism or whatever.  Are there enough good female characters in the canon?  No.  Does Heart of Darkness need one or more?  No.  Does it offend me to read novels that are all about men doing manly things?  No.  Better than reading novels that have nothing to say except that rich housewives are bored.

Anyway, by the time I found a couple of professors who did not accept this kind of laziness and made students actually consider what they were saying, I was already lost to linguistics.  Oddly, my linguistics professors could talk about literature more competently than some of my literature professors.  The clear difference was that in linguistics, if you hadn't read the text, you couldn't really bullshit your way through it (although some people certainly tried) and we talked about data and evidence and syntagms.  It was awesome.  And we managed to get through entire semesters without anyone being labeled a racist or a misogynist, which I found admirable. 

I think I mentioned once before here that I gave a paper at a conference that the audience entirely failed to understand.  It was the paper I wrote for Literature of American Imperialism, and it wouldn't have been so difficult if the audience--mostly lit majors with a few creative writing majors just to throw everyone's game off--were accustomed to rigorous thinking.  What I was saying was definitely not the approved perspective on the politics of The Other, but I could have been talking about why monkeys like potato chips for all they knew. 

Rigor, people!  I want more rigor!  Not stories about upper-class ladies who are bored!  I prefer the women who, like, do stuff.  Stories about bored people are usually, prima facie, not very interesting.  Stories about chicks who kick ass, now that is a different kettle of fish altogether.  But most of all, if you're going to claim something as "feminist" at least make that claim reasonably defensible.  OK?

OOOOH, Emily Yoffe has brought the noise! 

Yeah, she made the outrageous claim that kids do better in a household with two married parents, preferably their natural ones (but, sure, adopted ones can stand in just fine and so can responsible and caring stepparents--that's my commentary, I guess, since I don't think she really addresses it, but given the fact that her article is so focused on the economic benefits of two-parent households, it would make sense).  I know, I know!  She's so utterly Victorian!  To even suggest that women might oughtn't (Too much time in Arkansas.  Just deal with the double modal.) conceive of children with someone who ain't going to be around come time to buy diapers!  It's so oppressive!

Or, I guess, that's what Broadsheet thinks.  But, meh.  They get a big meh and even a snort of contempt because they (where "they" equals Tracy Clark-Flory) present no actual evidence or data to counter anything Yoffe wrote.  Nothing.

The thing that bothered me most about Yoffe's piece wasn't the thesis of it or her focus on the economic indicators, because those are important.  But I thought she ignored one of the most brutal problems with kids born out of wedlock:  Not only are these kids almost certainly going to grow up poorer and with less parental involvement (duh), they are vastly more likely to be victims of child abuse.  Kids raised by two parents other than their own natural or adoptive parents are at increased risk of being abused, but that number increases higher for kids who have no father figure around at all, except maybe (and possibly worst of all) a string of boyfriends.

There are a lot of possible reasons for this, and you can peruse the Internet at your leisure to find hypotheses galore, although a lot of them have to do with economic stress and are thus related to the poverty argument, but there are other possibilities as well.  It is a fact that most fatal child abuse is perpetrated by the biological mother and most sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by a male who is not the biological father. 

There are a host of other worrisome statistics.  Kids who grow up without their fathers are more likely--in some cases, vastly more likely--to engage in all kinds of risky behavior, end up dropping out of school, end up on drugs, in prison, etc.  Most rapists grew up in fatherless households.

I have seen some research suggesting that two adoptive, committed parents of the same sex (yeah, I'm talking about the gays.  Yesterday I mentioned the Latins.  Today it's the gays.) are equally effective at preventing most of these bad outcomes (I'd say becoming a rapist is a bad outcome, wouldn't you?), leading some to suggest that perhaps it is the mere presence of two loving people who are absolutely committed to the child's best interests.  However, the research is somewhat limited due to a) that type of family being relatively rare and b) the fact that most of the gay couples who adopt/give birth are well educated and of above-average income, confounding comparison with most children born out of wedlock.  That being said, I will continue my support for gay adoptive parents--I don't know, but I have a gut feeling that the more loving and stable adoptive homes that exist for kids, the better off we all are.

It is of grave concern to me that feminism seems to care very little about what is good for kids (or men) because they are so focused on what is "good" for women.  Feminism will continue to ignore the data that kids do much better in a stable home with two parents because it suggests that women should, oh, at least consider how their choices are going to affect others.  And we can't have that.  Or at least Tracy Clark-Flory can't.  The commenters on that piece are a bit more reasonable about it.  No one--not even me or Emily Yoffe--is suggesting that women should marry men who are clearly unable to act responsibly toward both the mother and child and obviously not abusive men or men who have violent rages and make the house feel unsafe and constantly stressful.  Yoffe and I would venture to suggest, though, that perhaps women should GET ON THE FUCKING PILL before they allow themselves to get knocked up by these guys.  But, of course, we shouldn't get all judgey and preachy at women (and men, sure) who are totally fucking their kids over because it's, like, a woman's right to do what she pleases.

Every time some new report comes out that links some behavior in the mother with some outcome in the kid, every damn feminist website screams, "OH MY GOD, THEY ALWAYS BLAME THE MOM."  Well, sometimes, maybe it's the mom's fault, eh?  It's less about blaming the woman, I think, than about finding out what's best for kids, but the constant focus on the woman, the woman, always the woman, means that we can't find out what risk factors there might be for childhood obesity, for example.  Because if it's linked to working mothers, as it has been, the feminists will fucking shriek.  Similarly, there will be a shrill outcry if it is suggested that wymmins are animals and share any qualities with other female animals, including, of course, the dreaded maternal instinct.  We don't have instincts!  We went to college! 

I know, I know.  I'm hopelessly conservative and out of date.  But I warned you:  I care fuck-all about "progress" if progress means throwing kids under the bus.  I also famously hate the type of diseased individualism we have taken to celebrating in this country--hey, man, whatever you want to do as long as it makes you happy.  Feh.  As Kant said, doing your duty first makes you worthy of happiness and 'duty' implies the existence of some type of relationship.

Now, maybe I'm just engaging in pointless handwringing.  God knows, that's what Tracy Clark-Flory would say, right?  Maybe all of those differences between single-parent households and two-parent households can be explained simply by the poverty.  I don't really see how you can ferret out the differences between differences caused solely by poverty and those related to the presence of parents, because in so many cases it is precisely the loss of the one parent that causes the poverty.  So, is the loss of the parent causing the poverty, and then the poverty causes the other problems?  Or is the absence of the parent causing all of it, proximally?  And what are we to make of the fact that biological fathers who live with their children are, compared to single mothers and unrelated men, less likely to abuse their children?  And, by the way, comparisons to Scandi-fuckin-navia don't really hold up; there are so many cultural differences between the US and Sweden that it's way too hard to control for all the variables.  It is certainly possible that with their system that has come close, or so I hear, to eliminating child poverty in their countries also eliminate or nearly eliminate the social difficulties of single-parent households.  Anyway, eliminating child poverty is a worthy goal even if it doesn't, but it's too hard to say. 

Furthermore, comparisons with the animal world are not helpful here since there are no other animals that I can think of who require several years of care before they become independent of their parents.  Also, no other animal young are expected to learn language, to learn to be civilized and ethical, etc.  Human children take much more effort and care and time than any other animal young, so far as I know.  Correct me if I'm wrong--is there some rare bird in the Upper Orinoco that has young who now require 12 years of schooling before they are ready to the leave the nest?

I'm going to go ahead, since it's late and I'm tired, and go way out on a limb here.  I have, as some of you know, a special interest in sociopathy.  Of the sociopaths I have personally known, all of them came from fatherless homes (and some of them from motherless homes, too, i.e., they had been abandoned by both parents).  It makes a certain amount of sense since, while there is probably a biological component for the antisocial personality disorders, it is thought that they can be prevented in early childhood through certain parenting techniques--parenting techniques that are often more doable in a two-parent household.  I would suggest--and some others have, too--that single-parent households are more likely to push kids who already have the biological component to become sociopaths and that two-parent households have a higher likelihood of preventing it.  Incidentally, the rapists mentioned above are more likely to be psychopaths than sociopaths, though they both lie at various places on the antisocial spectrum.

I was just thinking about this the other day, how in this country we put children in their own beds as soon as we can get them to sleep there.  We have a host of experts telling us how to fight the baby's natural instinct to cry like hell when they are left to sleep by themselves; we have to send the message, of course, that in this life, kiddo, you're on your own.  I think attachment parenting gets some stuff wrong, too, but how can we expect kids to grow up feeling part of a deeply loving relationship, feeling that other people's feelings matter, feeling connected to other people when we ignore the kid's needs from infancy.  Not all the kid's needs, yeah, just the need to feel safe with his parents while he sleeps.  I figure that as human emotions and relationships have evolved, sleeping was probably a dangerous time.  A lot of predators are nocturnal, and a baby left alone in a crib all night would have been easy prey.  It seems at least plausible to me that we evolved to prefer sleeping with our loved ones (and this is still how it's done in many places) because it was safer.  (We had our kid sleep in his own bed in our room--our bed when he was very young was too damned fluffy to be safe for an infant--but we got up with him every time he cried.  He now sleeps in his own bed in his own room without any trouble, but if he wakes up in the middle of the night and needs us, we let him sleep with us.  To me it is more important that he know that we are always there with him and for him than to promote a very false independence.  He's 3, man, he is not independent, although he does go potty all by himself.  woot!)  It isn't just the sleeping thing.  I know parents who don't think twice about keeping their baby essentially confined all day long--in cribs, playpens, high chairs, car seats--forcing the baby to conform to the adult's schedule and needs and utterly ignoring the need the baby has to play, move, rest, eat when hungry, etc.  Not to mention that the kid is basically alone most of these times, experiencing the world without the touch, voice, smell of a loved one.  Working parents have come out and admitted in national magazines that they don't enjoy and cannot force themselves to enjoy playing with their kids, so they work instead and hire out the play, as if the kids won't get the message.  But to kids, "love" isn't a word or a feeling--it's an action.  They don't think you love them because you say it, because the word itself doesn't mean much to a 2-year-old.  They learn what it means by associating it with actions and with time spent (the currency of love is time).  A child whose parents are there, making that child their first (not only, but first) time and energy commitment, obviously enjoying the time spent and actively joining the child in their engagement with the world--that child knows it is loved and is lovable, and that child conversely learns to do love to others.  "Do love" is an odd construction, I know, but we adults have come to think of "love" as just a feeling, not an action.  I accepted that without thinking about it until I met T who doesn't like to say "I love you" but is always sure to act in such a way that he doesn't need to; he gives me the time and energy that are love.  We give that to each other, and we give that to our son. 

Love is an action.  The currency of love is time.  Do your duty by your spouse and kids.  Take responsibility--yeah, of course, fathers that goes for you, too, but fathers have less reproductive choice here, having no birth control pill and no say in the abortion question--for the life you create. 

I'm too tired to proofread this now, and tomorrow is my darling son's birthday, not to mention the community Easter egg hunt, and I have a ladybug-shaped cake to frost (coconut cake, and man, it is some fabulous cake--Martha Stewart's recipe, even!) and presents to wrap and gather and blah blah.  Ha.  It's 4:00 a.m.  Awesome.  So, if there are places I should have edited, grant me a modicum of latitude, I beg of you. 

Oh, finally, don't get all up in my face with cohabitation being as good as marriage.  In America, at least, cohabitations are much more likely to break up than marriages are.  In their first 5 years, 20% of marriages will break up, but 40% of cohabitations will; in the next 5 years, the numbers jump to 40% for marriages and 60% for cohabitations.  So, in terms of commitment and stability, they aren't equivalent to marriage. 

Today I noticed that both Broadsheet and Jezebel are bitching mightily about Caitlin Flanagan again.  I know neither of them ever likes her, but I think this is particularly silly today.  The column they're bitching about is this one.  Both of them imply that Flanagan is arguing for a return to Victorian morality and sheltering girls from sexual knowledge, sexual activity, and the consequences (primarily pregnancy) of that activity.

But, um, she's not exactly.  She may have in other places--god knows I'm not quite as obsessed with Flanagan as they are--but she's not here. 

Whether or not Juno is a "fairy tale" is probably open to some interpretation (and I haven't seen it), but I hardly think Flanagan's characterization of pregnancy, for any woman but particularly for a teenager, is unrealistic.  I am quite sure that not every single woman who gives her baby up for adoption--or aborts it, or miscarries it, etc.--goes on to have lifelong negative feelings about it.  Jezebel commenters are proof of that--of course they are also given to making comments about how they think kids are virulent little parasites, how they had 3 or 4 abortions and are completely happy about it, and about the heavy drinking/Adderall popping they do, so I'm not sure Jezebel is the best source of information on this topic, since that is hardly the experience of most women I know.

It doesn't matter that some women suffer no negative consequences or emotional and physical burden from unwanted pregnancy--what matters is that most of us who find ourselves with an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy suffer unexpected and sometimes unpredictable consequences.  Some of the outcomes of unwanted pregnancy are happy; quite a few more are painful and heart-wrenching; some are postively ruinous; a few are somewhat neutral (there is a miscarriage, followed by relief, e.g.).  It is wrong of Flanagan to assert categorically that all teenage girls (or all women) feel the same way about adoption or abortion or raising a kid before you're really ready, because the reaction is mixed, usually even mixed in the same person.  But it is similarly wrong of others to assert that, hey, that abortion didn't bother me a bit, so it's not that big of a deal.

Flanagan's point isn't that teenage girls should absolutely never be sexually active, or at least I don't think that's the necessary reading of her column.  It's that sex for girls, and women, will always carry the potential for pregnancy--a potential for suffering and complete changes to their lives--that boys simply do not and will never carry.  Given that, she asks two questions:  Does full enfranchisement of girls necessarily entail their absolute, on-par-with-males sexual liberation?  And if so, is there any way we can protect girls from suffering these particular consequences?

I think these are reasonable questions, questions worth examining.  The odd thing, to me, about the Jezebel post is that they don't think teenage girls should be protected from the consequences of their sexual activity, beyond, say, the Pill or condoms.  Ummmm, OK.  Because they think that part of teaching girls to grow up and make informed, adult choices is to let them make them.  If this were any other topic we were talking about, I might agree--say, making informed, adult choices with their money, or with the use of a car, something like that.  But pregnancy isn't some test case where if you fuck up this once, mom's just going to take the keys away for a few weeks, or your allowance is going to get cut.  It's kind of a bigger deal than that.

Now, those of you who know me well already understand that I am resolutely not anti-sex.  I have *ahem* hardly confined myself to long-term, monogamous sorts of affairs.  *cough*  I love sex, and I think sex should be enjoyed by all people, regardless of race, creed, socioeconomic class, and certainly gender.  But I've also understood for a long damn time (thanks Mom!  to hell with you, American public education, you taught me nothing of use here, except that sex would almost inevitably lead to some type of STD) that my decision to start being sexually active potentially meant a lot more than a boy's decision did.  For some of my friends in high school (we had a fairly high teen pregnancy rate--go figure, stupid small town) it meant the difference between going to college or not going--in one case, it even meant not finishing high school.  The very same act of sex meant quite different things for the fathers.

To me, and I know I'm at risk of sounding like one of the much-loathed Victorians, the full enfranchisement of girls kind of entails some limits on their sexual activity and some protection from the consequences of sex when they do have it.  Ideally, I think those limits need to be self-imposed, i.e., girls who are not ready for the potential consequences of sex should themselves refrain from sex because they are fully aware and informed and ready to act like an adult by imposing restraint and control on themselves, like adults often do.  But girls aren't fully enfranchised when they're knocked up before they're ready to handle it.  Look at the dropout rates for such girls; look at the economic indicators for such girls and women. 

This particular question is never going to be gender-equal either.  While I fully intend to instruct my son on what his responsibilities will be if he accidentally impregnates someone in high school, the fact is that it will not be the same for him as it will be for her.  So, yeah, if I had a daughter would I try to protect her from this?  Fucking believe it, man.  I would try to protect her mainly through intensely embarrassing sessions of sex ed (helloooo banana), the same way my mom protected me from it.  If she decided to go for it anyway, would I give her anything I could to protect her from pregnancy?  Oh, yes, short of getting her tubes tied.  If she got pregnant anyway, as sometimes happens?  Whatever she decides I'd be there holding her hand--and if she decided she wanted to raise it and still go off to college, I'm her free babysitter.  I don't think there is any other way to fully enfranchise girls, to give them the best shot at equality.

In other words, I don't really believe that women can achieve full equality and be as sexually liberated as men.  I can imagine changes to society that might come in another hundred generations that would enable such a thing, sure, but not in foreseeable future.  And, yes, I guess I do think girls need whatever combination of education and protection from unwanted pregnancy we can give them.  If that means I'm a fucking Victorian, then whatever.  I'd rather be a Victorian then watch more girls get pregnant and drop out of high school and/or get stuck in the lowest rungs of our economy just so they can screw anyone and anytime they want.