I apologize for my lack of a post last week — I was visiting Emily in New York, and the disruption of all my usual routines caused me to forget many of my responsibilities. This week, I’m right in the middle of my finals, strapped both for time and for brainpower. Nonetheless, I have prepared short rumination for you.

I’m thinking today of the mythical Amazons. I say “mythical” not to make any statement about their actuality, but because I’m thinking specifically of the mythology. That is, what does this mythic idea mean?

The idea is of a woman warrior, but she’s more than that. She is a person who occupies the space between sexes. She cuts off one breast, the better to shoot arrows, but leaves the other: a combatant who can nurse children. All her life is dimorphic. Women are her friends and comrades, men her enemies; her daughters are treasured children, her sons left out to die.

I am being somewhat ahistorical here. I’m interpreting this idea from my vantage point as a 21st century dyke, wondering what the symbol means today — I find its simple endurance as an idea noteworthy — and, to a lesser (and less informed) extent, what it might have meant once, what purpose this idea serves.

So. The Amazon is, I think, the visceral reaction to the gendering of violence. We code violence as male and tenderness as female and, therefore, men as dangerous and women as nurturing. Trapped in such a system, people respond in many ways — most frequently by performing these roles and behaving as if they are natural and inevitable. But I don’t think of any of us is truly comfortable with this incredibly reductive picture of human nature. The life of the Amazon is a life of both protest against this system and capitulation to it: a rejection of the system on the system’s own terms. The Amazon is following an older, crueler Golden Rule — treat others as they treat you. In a world where men, and only men, are brutal, and women, and only women, are kind,* the Amazon, in an imperfect stand against cruelty, becomes callous to men and considerate to women.

This is a profound assent to the premises of the gender system — she accepts that women are one way and men another. But it also, inevitably, gets her kicked out of that same institution. As soon as she practices both violence and tenderness, even in her sexist way, she is no longer qualified for membership in the group “woman.” This contradiction embodies the essence of life under this regime: we are trapped and re-trapped in the system even as we are constantly kicked out of it, constantly deemed unworthy of our assigned class. And that’s the real cruelty of it.

Even in exile there is no escape.

* This is not the real world. It is the world the gender system tells us we live in, though.

Cross-posted at Our Descent Into Madness.

Posted under Culture

This is the final section of my series about school. Part I, Part II.

It seems to me that the foundational assumptions of traditional school are: that children, left to their own devices, cannot and will not learn; that children are basically helpless and stupid and deficient in curiosity; that children must therefore be taught, by a competent authority, or they will fail to grasp concepts and gain skills.

I think anyone who has ever spent any time with a child can attest that all of these ideas are patently false. Anyone who was ever spent time around a child who is learning to talk can attest as much with even greater confidence — tiny babies, unable even to feed themselves, crack the code of language with a speed and an enthusiasm most adults could envy. The reality, as far as I can tell, could not be farther from those assumptions.

And I do believe those are the underlying ideas. We would have to believe that children must be forced to learn in order to ask ourselves, “Is our children learning?”

That is an insane question. I know it’s also a much-mocked one, but no one would have laughed at it if our Ivy Leagued-educated* soon-to-be-former President had managed to formulate it correctly. And that’s absurd. There is no such thing as a child who isn’t learning. The only questions is, “Are our children learning things in the arbitrary order and at the arbitrary pace the school system requires?” If that’s more important to us than whether children are happy, healthy, curious, and engaged — and it certainly seems to be — we have our priorities precisely backward. Read More…

Posted under Culture

(Picking up where I left off. This is Part II of III, or possibly even IV.)

When I was in 10th grade, Emily and I started going to the bookstore during our free periods. We’d get coffee, and then just wander, reading title after title, picking up anything that interested us. We often read whole books in a single sitting, crouched on the carpet at the back of one aisle or another, sometimes reading silently to ourselves and sometimes out loud to one another. We read novels, collections of poetry, nonfiction volumes about science and history and feminism. This was fun — it was great, unadulterated fun, and the things we learned are immeasurable. I would learn more in ninety minutes, exploring an interesting topic with my best friend, than I did in an entire semester in any of my classes. Overall I’m sure I’ve learned significantly more reading with Emily — in bookstores, bedrooms and the blogosphere — than I did in my three* years of high school combined.

Being forced back into class every day after this was incredibly demoralizing. I’ve always been an A student and liked school more than most, but this exposed the great hypocrisy of what I was being forced to do. I was learning, passionately — and it felt nothing like sitting in those classrooms. That framework of school was actively hostile to my education, actively preventing me from learning, by forcing me to sit in my plastic chair as an often pathetic teacher tried and failed to gain control of the classroom, and as the other kids joked and flirted in their stupidly transparent ways.

(Emily simply sat silently reading through every single class, managing to get some value of that wasted time.)

To add insult to injury, those school officials would regularly force me into discussions and activities about “learning how to learn.” Learning how to learn! As if they new the first thing about it! As if learning is some trick children must be trained, like dogs, to perform!

Needless to say, there is something profoundly wrong with the school system when it inhibits learning. There is something profoundly wrong with the school system when the bookish, academic kids hate it.

So what are we doing here?

We’re treating children and teenagers like they aren’t people. People — human beings — are sensitive, curious, self-aware, self-motivating, cooperative creatures. We treat children like they’re numb, stupid, belligerent, apathetic animals, and then we complain when they act that way.

And what happened to Emily and me?

We figured out that we were people. We discovered we were smart, caring, inquisitive and enthusiastic. We discovered we were human beings.

Once the kid knows she’s a person, you can’t expect her to sit back down and shut back up again.

(Thanks to Dave at How to Save The World for reminding me of this a few weeks ago.)

In the next installment, more about the fundamental assumptions of school, plus a suggestion for further reading. Finally, in Part III if it fits or IV if it doesn’t, some ideas about what school should do and be.

* At the end of junior year I started attending college under an arrangement in which both schools agreed to let me count college credits toward my high school graduation.

Posted under Culture

First of all, yes we did, everybody!

I’m sort of confused about what this means. It’s a site launched by the office of President-Elect Barack Obama (!), where you can read about our soon-to-be administration’s agenda and policies, share your experience of the election and campaign, and, most startlingly, submit your ideas about how we should deal with the myriad challenges we face.

I feel dizzy, almost giddy. It’s starting to sink in. I live in a republic! The US government is my government! Oh my God!

And I know it’s trivial, but I was so grateful that Obama mentioned gay people in is speech — included us in the list along with people of different races and people with and without disabilities, where we damn well belong.* Included us with respect, and without being asked to. That was an amazing moment for me.

If you missed the speech, you can watch it here.

(Look, I know Obama is a moderate. I’m sure there will be disappointments in addition to joys. But for now, I want to revel in this. I was eleven when George W. Bush took office — I cannot remember having a government of which I was consciously aware that was not utterly abhorrent to me, that was not overtly hostile to my rights, my very existence. So if Obama’s administration can even manage to be decent, I’m likely to be very glad, at least until the shock of it wears off.)

* And where many other folks who weren’t mentioned damn well belong, too.

Cross-posted at Our Descent Into Madness.

Posted under Politics

(Part I of a two or three part series on formal education.)

I’m at my high school, sitting in the gathering space — the hall where we had our weekly, school-wide assemblies. All my friends are there, and all my teachers. Guest speakers have come in. They are talking and talking, lecturing us about some subject, passing a microphone back and forth. They are saying something that infuriates me — some lie, some bigoted untruth that the teachers and administrators are nodding along to. I’m exchanging glances with my friends, my classmates, uneasy sideways glances as we slowly realize how wrong these lecturers are. They talk on and on and it gets only worse, I get angrier and angrier. I raise my hand to speak but they ignore it. My hand is up for what feels like hours, until my arm is shaking and exhausted and my face contorted. I start to yell, begging to be allowed to speak. I need to speak. I know that no one will correct these liars if I don’t and I can’t let them talk like that to my friends, to all these kids. I love these kids and I can’t let them do this. But they ignore me. I start screaming, and I’m crying, choking around my sentences, my pathetic little points that I need to make so badly. I need only to say them, to be heard. Read More…

Posted under Culture

This is a rather meandering post, about a few different things.

First of all, Lisa Harney of Questioning Transphobia is a vital voice in the blogosphere. If you’re not reading her work, you should be. She’s in a very tight spot right now, so if you have a few dollars to spare, I urge you to consider donating via the Paypal button on her site. (You can read more about her situation here.)

I want to jump now away from Lisa to the broader phenomenon of folks rallying around a fellow blogger to offer assistance in a time of need, something I’ve seen happen quite a few times. It is, in my observation, starting to become standard practice for bloggers to receive some support from the blogosphere when the going gets tough, which I find pretty fascinating.

In my last post, I talked about our need, as humans, for love and support from more than one person — in essence, our need for community. Community performs a lot of different functions; in the last post, I focused mainly on our social and emotional needs, which are of course very important. At an even more basic level, though, community meets our daily physical needs for food and shelter. What does it say about the state of community today that the blogosphere, of all things, steps in to support people?

(Once again, I’m talking about big-picture phenomena here, not the specifics of the life of any person but myself.)

To me it says that, for a lot of people, the blogosphere, and other non-geographic communities, are the new neighborhood. Instead of having a neighbor to bring over a casserole during a hard month, many of us have, instead, a wide circle allies and readers to click on a Paypal button. (Or, if we’re lucky, maybe we have both.)

It’s great that people have that support. That kind of network is critically necessary; I’m very glad to see the blogosphere step up to meet that need where necessary. What’s interesting to me is that it is necessary — that, for many people, the networks that are presumably more immediate than blogland are either nonexistent or, more likely, just inadequate.

This does make some good sense. Neighborhoods (and, before, villages and even towns) used to be collections of people who shared a culture, complete with shared values, worldview, lifestyle and experiences. Today, many neighborhoods* and other Earth-bound populations in industrialized countries are basically random assortments of people who have nothing more in common than the fact that they live on the same street. (This is not always true — there are still some thriving, supportive neighborhoods around. I’ve never set foot in one, though, and I don’t think my experience is particularly unusual for a middle class US-American.) These neighbors are often, but not always, in roughly the same economic strata. But the real glue of communities is usually totally absent: shared principles, priorities and worldview, shared identity and experience, shared culture and history. It makes perfect sense that my neighbors are basically strangers to me — we have very little in common.

Contrast this to a grouping like any given subset of the blogosphere — the queer blogosphere, for example, or the circle of progressive Jewish blog(er)s, or the online community of women of color feminists. Here we have, instead, a group of individuals who have self-selected for very similar interests, goals, opinions and values. Amongst the group there are typically many people who share an identity and/or similar experiences, not to mention language. The glue of community is there. Read More…

Posted under Culture

This post almost made me lose faith in humanity.

I don’t want to be too harsh — it’s a thoughtful post and I agree with its conclusions, and I have a good deal in common with its author — but my heart was half-broken by just the title.

Can I Be a Feminist and a Bottom in Bed?

Uh oh.

Now, let me make this clear, in case I didn’t already: I agree with the conclusions of this post. I’m just really, really sad that we’re still asking this question.

The post continues:

One unfortunate consequence of feminism’s emphasis on the personal as political is that it becomes too easy to discriminate against people for not being “feminist enough.”

This is the opposite of what “the personal is political” is supposed to mean. “The personal is political” is not an excuse to bash other women or take away someone’s feminist membership card. It’s the idea that our ostensibly “personal” problems — like rape, domestic violence, and sexual harassment — are actually part of large-scale systems of oppression. Many personal hardships are the result of political injustices.

Now, of course individuals should be held accountable for their own unfair or bigoted actions. But wearing lipstick — for example — is not an act of bigotry, even though it’s caused by a bigoted system. The fact that women wear lipstick is a function of the gender system, but the fact that women wear lipstick doesn’t itself cause sexism. We could have an egalitarian world with lipstick; we couldn’t have an egalitarian world with a wage gap.

I try to be comfortable with my naughty subservience, but as a feminist and a fiercely independent person, it’s an awkward thing to feel and admit to. I get this niggling sense that I should be large and in charge all the time, like my personal politics should be carrying over into my sexual preferences. I’m trying to overthrow gender roles, here. Being submissive in bed is a stereotypically feminine thing. Bad feminist!

I happen to be not at all stereotypically feminine, but nonetheless, I totally disagree that “stereotypically feminine” = “bad/worse feminist.”*

My best friend is a heterosexual with long hair, and I’m a dyke with a buzz cut. She can’t help liking men any more than I can help liking women, and she might feel as uncomfortable with very short hair as I would with a ponytail. Am I therefore a better feminist?

My girlfriend wears lots of dresses, jewelry and girly shoes, while I prefer to wear pants, t-shirts and motorcycle boots. We both wear the clothes we like, feel comfortable in, and look best in, and our choices are both, inevitably, influenced by the gender system. Am I a better feminist?

Of course I’m not.

So getting back to the original question:

Can I Be a Feminist and a Bottom in Bed?

I don’t know, can you?

Do you like being tied up because you think women are inherently inferior? While your partner is telling exactly you what to do, are you secretly thinking that the state should outlaw contraception? While you’re being spanked, are you thinking that boys shouldn’t cry and girls shouldn’t learn math? Are you thinking that everyone should be in a heterosexual marriage in which the man is the head of the household? Are you thinking that women who are date-raped and men who are raped prison deserve what they get? Are you think that sexism is permissible? That equal pay for equal work is a bad idea? While you’re having sex, what are you thoughts on suffrage? How about your thoughts on the ERA? Are you having on ideas about whether women should be allowed to own property?

Our actions are undoubtedly influenced by the gender system. People’s sexual proclivities may be influenced by the gender system — I honestly don’t know, and I really don’t care. At the end of the day, if you’re opposed to sexism — if you believe men and women should be equal, that the gender system in unjust, that our freedoms, both legal and cultural, should not be dependent on our genitals, chromosomes, or our gender presentation, that every person has a sovereign right to reproductive justice — then you’re a feminist in my book, regardless of how you choose to use or not use make-up and handcuffs.

* The author of the original post explains that she disagrees with this, too — this post is not a take-down of her post, really, just of the ideas that caused her to write it in the first place.

Posted under Politics, Sexuality

As Aviva’s post at Bi-Furious just reminded me, yesterday was National Coming Out Day. So, in the spirit of that (and apologies to Aviva for stealing her question!), what’s your coming out story?

If you came out as any stripe of queer, please do share that. Alternatively, feel free to share any other coming story, i.e. the story of someone else coming out to you (without revealing private information, of course), or of yourself coming out as anything else that’s important to you: as an atheist or as someone with other beliefs, as a liberal, as a vegetarian, with a diagnosis that you have, as an ally to any group, etc. Any part of your identity that you’ve had to reveal to people will do.

Here is the coming out story I left in my comment on Aviva’s afore-linked post:

I had a dear boyfriend for a year or so in middle school, S. We got together both identifying as straight, then both came out to each other as bi. A few moths after we broke up (we remained good friends), the two of us and our female, then-straight-identified best friend, J, decided it would be a good idea to try to form a three-way relationship. We tried very sincerely but couldn’t make it work; J and I kept trying to make out but, despite mutual desire, couldn’t bring ourselves too. (We’re all fifteen at this point.) Anyway, a few weeks later, S the ex-boyfriend comes out to me as gay: I was the first person he told, and our would-be girlfriend was the second. Fast-forward about six months and another boyfriend: I come out as a lesbian to J — she’s the very first person I tell — and then call S, making him the second. Fast-forward another year and a half; J and I start kissing and holding hands and eventually sleeping together, at which point she (belatedly…) realizes she’s bi, telling me first, of course, and then, for tradition’s sake, calling S to tell him second. So it’s a perfect, three-way circle of coming out!

I really like that story.

Posted under Discussion Question, Sexuality

Okay, so the title is a little misleading — there’s no problem at all with the narrow practice of having one sexual partner at a time. I’m monogamous because that’s what works for me (and my girlfriend); it’s what works for lots of other folks, too. That’s great.

What is problematic is the massive culture conceptualization of monogamy, which, in my estimation, goes way beyond how many people one is sleeping with. It is, rather, the cultural construction of love itself, which seems to amount to the idea that each person should get (and give) all her love from (and to) just one person. It is the idea that we should have all our emotional needs met by a sole other person, and meet 100% of that person’s needs in turn. It’s the idea that adults should have only one really important adult relationship — that the (sole) person one is sleeping with should become the single most important person in one’s life, that one’s spouse should exist on this sacred plane of total devotion, while our friendships should be basically casual, basically unimportant, or, at best, less important.

I think this causes a lot of heartbreak, both in the form of the strange disappointment of discovering that one’s lover is not, as one had been taught to expect, a perfect carbon copy of oneself, but a complex human being, and in the form of the loneliness, anxiety and frustration of trying to get all one’s emotional needs met by one person and trying to singlehandedly meet all of another person’s needs. And I seriously think that many of our common ailments are the result of the pervasive lack of strong social support systems, the grievous lack of real community. So it’s a doomed mission and we would do well to abandon it, whether we practice sexual monogamy or any of the various forms of polyamory.

(By the way, I first put this idea into words in a comment over at Dave Pollard’s excellent blog How To Save The World some months ago, on this post. This post is largely an elaboration of what I said there.)

So, I don’t know how many sex partners humans are supposed to have — I suspect it varies widely, and I also suspect that that’s not really the point, in terms of what I’m talking about here.

Some people are much happier with polyamorous relationships, and that’s great; others do best with monogamy, and, as I said earlier, that’s great, too. I’m very glad for everyone who’s found what makes her happy. Those are important issues. They’re also, I think, personal issues. I don’t think it’s a matter for political consideration, really, how many sex partners each person has, beyond the obvious statement that we should respect and recognize each person’s choices.* What is a social and political issue, though, is how many people each of us loves — or, more to the point, how many people we are permitted to love, and what love means in our society.

That is the problem with monogamy: that we are expected to love only one person. Family relationships are recognized, but they’re also marginalized — we’re expected to see our parents, siblings, still-living grandparents and grown children only a few times a year (and what of our aunts, uncles, cousins?); they’re not set up as vital relationships in our daily lives.

What a bereft existence! I think it’s absolutely clear that no one is meant to love and be loved by just one person, and that we slowly kill ourselves when try to make this happen. No one can meet all of another person’s needs, and there is no reason to expect anyone to do so. People are complicated, multifaceted creatures; those of us who are waiting for someone who is totally compatible with every facet of our being are going to be waiting a long, long time.

A much better solution is to encourage everyone to have many important relationships (and again, this has no bearing on one’s sex life) — diverse, fulfilling, important relationships with many people, so that some parts of oneself get exercised and appreciated with some people, and other parts with other people. This both assures that our various needs actually get met, and takes the pressure off of other relationships — I suspect it’s much easier to forge a good romantic partnership, for example, if you’re not expecting your partner to be perfect or trying make the relationship as big as your whole life.

Having major relationships is, of course, work. It can be hard work. It is also some of the most fulfilling work a person can do. It is worth it. And the natural outcropping of this, when we do it daily — when we form many diverse loving relationships, as many as will grow, and treat their maintenance as important work — is community.

*And beyond discussions of legal arrangements and recognition, but that’s a whole other thing.

Posted under Culture, Sexuality

In the upcoming US Presidential election, who should undecided voters support, and, most importantly, why? What’s the critical issue that sets your favored candidate apart, and why should uncommitted voters care?

I wanted to throw this out for people to think about; I’ll give my answer in comments later today. I think this question is important because it can seem so damn obvious to politically active folks that we can’t even articulate it to those who are less involved. So what would you say to the thoughtful, undecided voter to win her over to your side?

Posted under Discussion Question, Politics