3 posts tagged “why do i bother?”

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 even more sick of postelection election analysis than I was of the goddamned campaign. 

A majority of whites voted, as they have for a long time, Republican.  A majority of minorities voted Democrat, which, along with the white votes Obama did win, was enough for 52% of the popular vote.  Why is it that so many people comment on the Republican tilt of white voting with disfavor, like "Oh, those whites, they just can't see past the party line" but not when it's African-Americans or Hispanics (Hispanics as a group are not as solidly blue as African-Americans, of course, in part because there are so many complications to grouping all those nationalities and histories under one sorry label)?  African-Americans continue to vote Democrat despite the fact that there is evidence that they are more socially conservative as a group than whites (Hispanics, for what it's worth, generally are, too).  Democrats seem all excited by Democratic wins in the West, but Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana and Rep. Barney Frank have virtually nothing in common as far as I can tell.  If Obama gets too liberal, African-Americans may not cut him off, but Hispanics just might.  It's hard to say--possibly the generation that is born in the US and growing up here will turn out more liberal than their parents.  All I'm saying is, why do people comment on white voting patterns like it's horrible to vote more for one party than the other, but not say the same thing about other ethnic groups.  I mean, basically I know the answer, and it's twofold.  One, most of the people saying that are Democrats, so it worries them more when whites, who are for now still a majority, don't vote Democrat.  And two, it just isn't done, is it?

And another thing:  SHUTUP ABOUT SARAH PALIN'S CLOTHES.  For Christ's sake.  Let's talk about how much the Obamas spent on their clothes, hey--or just how much they spent, period.  That worries me far more than the vague and totally unproven notion that we might have been in danger of getting ourselves a Vice-President who likes to shop and look good.  And PLEASE you fucking hypocritical jackasses who have suggested that if she was running as a woman of the people, she should have just kept dressing the way she dressed in Alaska.  Right.  I can see how that would have made you snigger and snark daily, making fun of her clothes.  Instead, since the RNC dressed her up, you snark instead about how much the RNC spent to do it.  I actually read one piece that suggested that she could have made do with just a few pairs of pants, a couple of jackets.  Yeah, because she wasn't being photographed or appearing in public in contexts where appearance counts for a lot on an almost daily basis.  And of course the press would never have commented in snarky tones about how she just keeps wearing the same pants every day.  Sure.

Which brings me to another point:  We don't think you're sexist for questioning Palin's qualifications.  There were legitimate questions there.  We think you're sexist for harping on "how's she going to raise her kids and be president?"  Yeah, I don't hear you asking that about a man named Barack.  We think you're hypocrites for balking LOUDLY every time someone mentioned Hillary's pantsuits and then spending weeks--but WEEKS--talking about the RNC's budget for Palin's wardrobe.  Yes, absolutely it's also hypocritical of the Republicans to call you out on this one, since the Republicans denied it was sexist when it was done to Hillary (and I'm not so sure either case is sexist--politicians' clothes and styles get talked about.  Remember when Al Gore changed to "earth tone" suits in his 2000 campaign and how we had to hear about it for days?  Remember Edwards's haircut?), but for cryin out loud, take the high road for a change.  We also think you're sexist for repeatedly making comments, overtly sexual comments, about Palin.  Perhaps my favorite was when one writer called her an "ideological lap dancer."  Right.  I'm sure you couldn't find a less overtly sexual and dehumanizing way to put it.  Good job.  Now anyone who doesn't agree with you is a pole dancer.  Why not just call her a slut and get it over with?  I also liked all the people who referred to her as a "Stepford Wife" when, in fact, every indication is that she is far from it.  We think you're sexist because it was pretty clear from the first moment that she entered the campaign that you weren't going to be happy with any woman candidate who wasn't from the blue side.  That has been the clear implication of most of what has been written about her from the beginning.

(What I think now that so much dirt is coming out of those quarters is that McCain and Palin were badly advised by their campaign managers.  The country already knew who McCain was and many independents and moderates liked him a lot, so instead his managers decided to get him to appeal to the far right "base" and alienate the voters who already liked him.  Palin is more moderate on some issues than we were led to believe and is quite knowledgeable about others, especially energy policy, not that you would know it from the way she was handled.  Looking back on the Katie Couric interview now, for one thing, I wonder how much of that was that she didn't know what she was supposed to say.  I'm not saying that McCain and Palin don't share the blame for going along with what was clearly a losing scheme.  I just don't buy the crap that I'm supposed to believe about Palin--not at all.  She is neither as far right nor as stupid as we were led to believe.  Some of the blame also goes to media bias and sexism, too, in my mind.  And, no, I didn't vote for McCain.)

Also, can you let it go that Palin hunts?  A lot of us do.  The numbers of women hunters are actually increasing and will continue to increase as it gets harder to afford food for your family and especially to afford meat that one might consider safe.  The moose in Palin's chili had no antibiotics given to it at all, ever.  It had no growth hormones.  It lived free range for its entire life in its natural habitat and was responsible for no pollution.  More than that, it was probably killed within Palin's local foodshed, making her and most hunters, locavores (it's hard to be a locavore in Alaska--it would be totally impossible if you didn't eat meat or fish).  This is a big reason why white people don't vote for you, because of the obvious and extreme anti-hunting prejudice that is usually based on nothing related to fact.  Of course, the reality is that without hunters, Fish & Wildlife Departments would be hurting badly and there would be no money to save the boulder darter or whatever other endangered creature you want to save.  In a lot of the West, Hispanics hunt, too, so I'd be careful on that one if I were a Democrat.

I notice now that Californians are shifting blame for passing Prop 8 from African-Americans--because that is clearly very sensitive territory--to Mormons.  Apparently what the Mormons did wrong is contribute money to the Yes on 8 committee.  I mean, it's clear that Mormons as a group don't support gay marriage, but it's also clear to me that Mormons do not actually constitute a large enough voting bloc in California to be directly responsible for this.  Jeffrey Toobin rightly pointed out that some blacks are getting irritated that gays keep trying to make it seem as if the situations of these two minority groups is really comparable.  I'm white, and it's starting to bug me, too, frankly, because while there are some similarities, I would say that the differences are far greater.  The situations faced by the gay community and by Hispanics also aren't morally equivalent, and if I were Hispanic I'd also be getting a little annoyed at this comparison. 

Back to the Mormons.  So, what they did was donate money to run ads that gay activists then found objectionable because they were ads encouraging voters to vote for Prop 8.  I hate to be a dick here, but that's our democracy (such as it is) in action.  That's kind of how it works.  I can't see that they did anything wrong.  I don't agree with their beliefs, but, as they say, I would defend to the death their right to believe them and to speak them.  If you really want to tell me that the Mormon church somehow brainwashed voters into voting for something they didn't agree with, then you are way more cynical about people than even I am.

Now back to the gays.  I have heard two alarming things from gay-activist quarters (including but not limited to Dan Savage).  One is that you cannot be against gay marriage without also being homophobic.  This is presented as a tautology with no argumentation or evidence that I've ever seen.  But, in fact, as I have argued in the past and will continue to argue, there is substantial evidence that you can be against gay marriage without also being homophobic and/or a bigot or whatever.  For many people who voted for Prop 8, the crux of the matter was not whether or not gays should enjoy equal civil rights but the word "marriage" which, like it or not, is still tied to religion in the minds of very many people.  I read many interviews with people who said that it's just the word "marriage" that made their vote go that way.  The Court doesn't make a formal distinction between civil marriage and religious marriage, but voters do.  Eventually, particularly in California, religion will probably die out and there won't be that objection.  Until then, that would seem to be the major hangup here.

The second alarming thing I've heard is that passing Prop 8 represents a return to persecution and oppression of gays.  Uhhh...I don't know where they're getting this at all.  Domestic partnerships, which as far as I can tell allow for the same legal rights and responsibilities as heterosexual marriage, remain legal in California.  California did not go back in time to reinstate laws that forbid homosexual sex or, certainly, to allow discrimination in the workplace of gays.  Nothing like that.  As a group (and admittedly, this may have more to do with sample sizes than anything else), gays make more money than non-gays.  Nowhere except in the military (um, and maybe Idaho...and Arkansas...but I'm talking about California here) are gays asked or expected to hide their sexuality the way they once were expected to.  So, in California, despite the fact that for all intents and purposes, they enjoy the same legal status, rights, and benefits as anyone else, how the fuck are they persecuted and oppressed?  I understand that simply being a minority can lead to attempts to "normalize" oneself that can be psychologically difficult or even damaging, but I don't see that any act of law can change that.   

Me, I would have voted against Prop 8, but it gets under my skin when the essence of the complaint here--as far as legality goes and what was voted on--is that gays are prevented, formally, from using the word "marriage" to describe their relationship (informally, of course, everyone is free to use it).  If I'm reading the domestic partnership law correctly, then there are not any significant rights or benefits being withheld.  Just a word.  Yeah, I would have voted against it, but this is a far, far cry from being oppressed or persecuted or somehow akin to groups of people who weren't even allowed to use the same water fountains as white people do until 45 years ago.  It's a bit different.

And finally.  I just read something Obama said that really bothers me.  Apparently he said it a while ago, but I missed it.  He said, "As a general principle, I believe that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms.  But just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right."  This might seem OK to you when applied to the Second Amendment.  But think about the implications of this in terms of other amendments.  State and local governments used to constrain the exercise of the right to vote, for example, by instituting literacy tests and poll taxes and so forth.  That clearly wasn't OK.  Or how about the right of free speech?  How might state and local governments constrain the exercise of that in such a way that would be acceptable to Mr. Obama?  Or perhaps the right to due process?  I just cannot imagine that such a broad statement would be acceptable if we were talking about any Constitutional right other than the Second.  On the other hand, it's well known how Democrats in general feel about the Second Amendment, so I guess it's no surprise. 

Alright, I'm sure I've said way more than I ought to have and pissed everyone off.  My work is done here.  I obviously need to cut myself off from the news for a while.

So, yeah, I know I've hit this topic before.  But over on Jezebel, there has been a raging and entirely tiresome discussion about the so-called "Asian fetish" (in this case, apparently, the usage is being solely restricted to white guys who fetishize Asian women).  The comments are tiring me because unquestioned, implicit assumptions are being thrown around like candy at a parade, and also, importantly, there is a general failure to make a distinction between white guys who actually fetishize Asian women and those who just happen to have one (or even more) Asian girlfriends or just happen to live and teach in an Asian nation.  Not all guys who ever date a Japanese chick is doing it because he thinks she will totally be just like the girls in the tentacle rape comics. 

Anyway, so anytime a topic that remotely touches on racism comes up, there is a segment of the Jezzie commenter squad who goes apeshit about institutionalized racism and white privilege.  I don't think they have fully recovered from their grad school lit seminars.  One of them was kind enough recently to give an answer (finally!) as to what this "white privilege" is supposed to be. 

She says that "as white people in the US, we benefit from white privilege whether we personally discriminate or not."  And I'm thinking, "Hmm, I'm white, or mostly white, and so...when?  When do these benefits come to me?"

She says that the media display more images of white people and more types of white people than people of any other race.  My first response to that is, ummmm, maybe because whites are the majority?  And by quite a long shot, apparently, if you look at the racial makeup of the US as a whole.  My second response is so fucking what?  I have never felt that any of the white people portrayed on TV or in movies have anything at all to do with me personally, except possibly the cast of Roseanne.  Those were getting close to my kind of people.  Now, this is a class issue we're talking about and also a geographic one--the white people portrayed in the media tend to be coastal types (even those who allegedly live inland still seem to be written by coastal types) and overwhelmingly affluent.  So, who cares that their skin is similar to mine--I have nothing in common and no aspiration to have anything in common with those characters.

She says that our political leaders are also overwhelmingly white, and at the national level they certainly are and have always been.  It is a bit silly to point out that they always have been since women and non-white people have only had the vote for the latter portion of the nation's history, so, duh, they didn't hold office when they couldn't vote.  But whatever.  The more salient point is that, again, due to the class issues and geographic issues, our politicians have nothing in common with me or anyone I know either.  Not true, I suppose.  Bill Clinton received oral sex in his office, and I know other men (not all of whom are white) who have done so as well.  And Jimmy Carter was a farmer, and my people are agricultural as well, so I guess there's that.  But what exactly does the color of Ronald Reagan's skin have to do with anything?  I have always been one of the poor people he fucked over so badly, so I really can't see how his pallor privileged me.  I'd like to pull some voodoo economics on his grave, man.

She says teachers assume that we'll be "perform well and go to college."  Yeah, well, maybe some places, but not where I came from.  My first high school was approximately half-chicano and half-not-chicano.  It was a really small town in the middle of the forest in the ass-end of New Mexico.  I'm not sure anyone assumed we'd perform well or go to college.  When I went to the bigger high school my senior year, a pretty high-achieving high school as far as I could tell, it was assumed that anyone who wasn't in that loser group who always ate lunch on their pickup truck tailgates would go to college, regardless of color or creed.  Because not going to college = heating your lunch up on your idling truck engine for the rest of your life in the thinking of the penny loafer wearing, Benetton-ad yips at my second high school.

Anyway, it is probably true in some high schools, but maybe it's also because whites are more likely to go to college.  For one thing, they are more likely to have the family support for doing so.  For another thing, they are more likely to have a tradition in their families and/or great pressure from their families to do so.  Or, wait, let's back up, because we're not talking about all minorities anymore, although we were in the media and politics points, right?  Here, we're only talking about blacks and possibly Hispanics, but mainly blacks.  I mean, seriously, I have never heard anyone, anywhere suggest that Asians are being channeled out of the college-prep track.  If anything, that bias is quite opposite.  See an Asian around?  Automatically assume that he/she will both want to become and be capable of becoming a doctor, engineer, computer programmer, etc.  Everyone knows that Asians are both smarter than whites and have a better work ethic.  Also, I hear they like tentacle rape.

"White is thought of as the default race."  We whites have the great luxury of being the default.  We are not "other."  My first reaction to this is, again, so fucking what?  What great benefit is this?  But then, upon reflection, I think it's actually wrong.  These days we are the great other.  Look on a census form and you've got every possible racial and ethnic identification down there:  "Hawaiian or Pacific Islander," "Asian," "Hispanic," etc.  And then you've got "white."  We're the default, I guess, in that if you're not anything else, then you're white.  But that makes us the other.  You can be one of those specific things or you can be "None of the above" essentially.  And what is that if not alterity?  The default category is "other."  Further, in every grad lit seminar in the land, we are the ones whose voices do not deserve distinction.  It is true, absolutely, that English programs still feature more white writers than "other" writers, but it is also true that every fucking lit major in the country can tell you in pseudo-Derridean jargon how white people are a great lumpen mass, speaking with one hegemonic voice, while every writer of color (and especially ones from former colonies) has an individual, distinct voice that deserves respect, no matter how shitty their writing.  Sorry, I know.  Colored people and women are never shitty writers, I know.  I took enough lit classes to hang my head in shame at my opinion that The Awakening is a stupid novel and that woman in it is really and truly not oppressed.

Also, it seems like a mild contradiction to say that we gain benefit and privilege by skin-color association with people in power and also that we gain benefit and privilege from not even thinking about our skin color and seeing ourselves as a unified race.  If it's going to make a difference to me that all these lily-white fuckwads are running big corporations then I need to identify with them in some way, but the combination of class differences, my contrarian belief that "white" does not constitute a homogenous race, and my belief that the political and corporate worlds are immoral and counter to everything that I aspire to be and do.  Also, I grew up real fucking poor, so economic class means more to me than skin color, in case you hadn't noticed.

Finally, two things:  First, she asserts that we are not judged as a race when one of us does something illegal or immoral.  While it is generally true now that white people are not assumed to be always committing crimes just because most of us are, this was not always true of some types of whites (Italians were often thought to be outrageous criminals back in the day, and some people still feel that way about Russians).  And of course, it seems silly to point this out but, in fact, there are many people who blame all whites for, as they say, the sins of our fathers.  It doesn't matter that you've never held slaves, never colonized a dark land--you're still white, so it's guilt by association.  I don't know.  I don't think that's the approved thinking, but whatever.

And then she says whites have the definite advantage in the justice system, and to that I can only say: WORD.