A List for All People

I am still thinking about all those lists (see previous post): things men and women need to master by a certain age. So I reflected on what I would like to be more proficient in, and what I think all people could benefit from knowing.

For now I only came up with 10 things that I would like to be able to do and that I think could apply to others as well, by no age in particular:

1. Ask your boss for a raise, at whatever job, if you think you deserve it
2. Gracefully call out discriminatory slurs (i.e., "that's so gay," "that's retarded," "you're such a girl")
3. Do simple math calculations (i.e., count change, figure out tip) fast and accurately without a calculator
4. Know a bit about child development, and know what to expect from children at different ages
5. Wash your clothes such that they don't all come out with blotchy stains of various colors
6. Feed yourself effectively (i.e., know how to grocery shop and make simple meals)
7. Be less reserved in group meetings and speak up
8. Know very well what pleases you sexually, expect it from partners, and be able to ask for it
9. Manage your time such that you can relax without feeling guilty or stressed out
10. Know about and use the (often free) resources in your community (i.e., public library, pool, parks, shuttles, local events)

What things do you think are useful skills for adults to have?

5 Misconceptions About Feminists

I'll be honest, this article upset me. I understand that this is a personal opinion post, but it is part of a larger discourse: can feminism and motherhood, or feminism and womanhood, exist simultaneously? Modern women all over the place seem to be asking themselves this question (to be fair, the author of this article also wrote this response), and to my dismay, many decide that the answer is "no." I have no idea where this answer comes from... is it from the misconceptions, the stereotypes, the backlash, the patriarchy that is so scared of women's voices and power? It's not even any particular person that I am upset about, but rather the general pattern of these discussions (many of which seems to be happening among mothers, I think?). 

In any case, that original post alludes to some popular stereotypes about feminism that simply are not true but are still widely held. I would like to discuss some of them here, in the style of this piece, which by the way I thought was pretty great.

I don't know, is what I am about to say pretty basic? But if so, why do we still hear and perpetuate all these myths? Anyway, here we go:

1. Feminism is an antiquated movement that is no longer relevant to modern women.

In short, feminism is about understanding and pointing out the systemic inequalities between men, as a group, and women, as a group. These inequalities still exit today; sexism still exists today, even if it may be hard to see sometimes. Check out this report for some statistics on gender disparities worldwide.

And actually, in my experience, feminism is the most flexible of the human rights movements. Generally, feminists listen to the critiques of others and attempt to include different perspectives. When the movement mostly included White women and focused only on their concerns, African-American women said: Hey, that isn't relevant to us, but this is! And the goals of the movement shifted to look at the interplay between sexism and racism. Later, lesbian women said: Wait, and what about us? In addition to those issues, we are also facing these ones! This started a conversation about the interplay between sexism and homophobia. And so on.

So if there is something that feels irrelevant or if something feels unaddressed, please speak up! Do not disavow yourself from the movement, but let us know how we can better address your needs. I think we are all in this together.

2. Feminists hate men.

Feminism is not about individual men and women, but about systems of oppression. And guess what? Men can be feminists, too! And also, you know, if a woman is heterosexual, chances are, she still loves men, but that's not really the point, is it?

bell hooks says that patriarchy (defined as a system in which women have a subordinate status to men, i.e. everywhere in the world) has no gender. This means that oppression is perpetuated by both men and woman onto both men and women. In the end, it actually disadvantages everyone! Some common examples include: a boy is scared/not allowed to take a ballet class despite his superb dancing and musical abilities, a group of male staff fail to take their female boss seriously, a female college student is scared to walk home alone from the library after dark, a mother tells her daughter to watch what she eats specifically because prom is coming up and doesn't the daughter want to look thin for her boyfriend? These are all examples of sexism that limit opportunities for all people and restrict our chances of self-actualizing.

Beautiful campaign and photography here

3. Feminist women want to be like men, which they are not.

Feminists don't want to "be like men," but they want access to the same opportunities as men. This means having equal access to education, health care, employment, etc. I don't think any feminist will care if a woman chooses not to work outside the home. By all means, do what works for you and your family! But every feminist will care if a woman chooses to get a job outside the home (because hey, this is what works for her and her family!) but is denied employment because she is seen erroneously as less profitable or gets paid less for doing the same job as a man. You see the pattern here? Expanding opportunities and fighting discrimination = good for everyone.

Source

4. Feminism is anti-motherhood.

Have you seen the awesome feminist mothers of the internet? Again, feminist motherhood (and feminist fatherhood, for that matter) is about expanding the opportunities for what our boys and girls can do and be. Here is an example of a mother fighting for her son's right to play with dolls and be "mommy." Here is an example of a mother teaching her daughter not to define herself only through her appearance. Feminist parenting is essential for the raising of a socially-conscious and inclusive next generation.

5. Shouldn't it be called "humanism"?
Humanism as a belief in the equal integrity of all people is good in spirit. Of course, we all want to be treated equally and with respect. But, in my opinion, it fails to recognize and address the patriarchy in which we all exist. Feminism goes on to explain why it is that we don't currently have equality and lays out some steps to remedy that situation.

Any other questions about feminism?

And now I will leave you with this wonderful quote from Pat Robertson, given at the 1992 Republican National Convention:

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."

Apparently

Women can be assertive and competitive, as long as they are young and sexy (and White)...

La Femme Fatale

Women can be athletic and determined, as long as they are young and sexy (and White)...

Anna Kournikova

Women can be seekers of justice, as long as they are young and sexy (and White)...

Alias

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Women won't be so popular when they are groundbreaking political leaders, but not young and sexy (still White though) {don't worry, Hillary, I still think you're sexy}...

Hillary Clinton

(Seriously, google-image the key words "hillary clinton" and see for yourself what type of pictures come up. Also, notice the related searches: "young hillary clinton", "hillary clinton old", "hillary clinton portrait", and "hillary clinton pantsuit". All focused on her appearance and none focused on her skill.)

I mean, yes, I'm exaggerating a little. Athletic or a$$-kicking men can also be objectified, but I would argue that it still isn't nearly as detrimental or even as common.

This morning, while commuting to work, I happened to listen in on an NPR segment discussing a new police-based TV show in Afghanistan. All was fine and well, until I heard this:

There's Kamran, the hardened veteran, Baktash, the handsome but impulsive rookie, Ludmilla, the beautiful young officer with the tough exterior, and Summayah, whose computer skills can track seemingly anyone, anywhere.

Did you see it? Let me direct you:

There's Kamran, the hardened veteran, Baktash, the handsome but impulsive rookie, Ludmilla, the beautiful young officer with the tough exterior, and Summayah, whose computer skills can track seemingly anyone, anywhere.

Yup, the two men ahead (ha!) of Ludmilla are described for their personality characteristics, while Ludmilla is 1) sexy beautiful, 2) young, and 3) has a tough exterior... which begs the question, what does she have inside? (Sure, there's also Summayah, but she's the last kid on the playground to get picked (computers aren't very popular associations with women?), and my mind didn't even get to her because I was so overwhelmed with fury (or sexy images of Ludmilla, if I were a heterosexual male listener).)

You might notice that Baktash was also described by his looks, but I would say that a handsome man has a much different quality in our minds than a beautiful&young woman. A handsome man can lead a country, head a business, and save the planet. Beautiful&young women usually stand on the sidelines of handsome men like eye candy. Yes, we are an appearance-focused society in general, but we still tend to expect something of substance from handsome men, but beautiful&young women exist for our pleasure only. Respect the calm authority of the handsome man and do as you wish with the beautiful&young sidekick.

Similarly, I'd say that "veteran" and "rookie" are skill-based age adjectives, whereas "young" has more to do with appearance. Describing someone as young tells us nothing about how good they are at their job, and it actually doesn't tell us much at all, but the veteran and the rookie in our minds begin collaborating in some professional apprenticeship.

(And I'm sure the writers/radio host who presented this description didn't mean anything by it. It's way too common to seem abnormal. And I bet many people went right on listening and didn't even notice anything out of the ordinary... because it isn't. It's now part of who we are and how we define ourselves.)

So just google-image "woman" (how many young, sexy, White, blonde, otherwise appearance-based pictures do you see?) vs. "man" (in contrast to some appearance-based, but then also bold, courageous, fighting, musically talented, working... and sometimes dominating the aforementioned sexy women pictures here).

Hopefully it's obvious how these perpetual and not-so-subtle depictions and expectations of women affect our body image, self-esteem, relationships, etc. And then men roll their eyes when their girlfriends spend all this time in front of the mirror or ordering salads when they just want take-out pizza. But we all know the stats: non-emergency cosmetic surgeries (breasts, face, labia) are on the rise, eating disorders are out of control, violence against women is maybe more incriminated but not disappearing. So actually, this might be a very pertinent public health issue.

And in any case, this is something we should all be trying to change, men and women alike. We will all benefit from valuing each other for who we really are, which hopefully relates to something inside of our souls, with no "young" and "sexy" attached to it. But then again, this could be my hardened exterior speaking.

Caretakers, let's take care of this

There is one thing that became particularly clear in my own research (and believe me, I would love to cite myself here, but that time has not yet come) on femininity, womanhood, and the meaning that women attribute to being women, and that is that we are caretakers. We take care of everything and everyone around us. We are often sacrificial, we are often patient and sensitive to the needs of others, and we are often not encouraged to develop our own interests or paths in life, but to act in the interests of others. Women in my study (and they were of a particular cultural background and demographic, but I see this anecdotally across the spectrum) had a hard time defining themselves as autonomous, internally-stable beings. Their ideas and feelings about their selves were overwhelmingly defined through the well-being of others, and their sense of worth depended not on personal achievements, but on the successes of the people in their lives.

Since I've decoded these findings, I have struggled to make sense of them and to understand if being caretakers is really such a bad thing. Sure, having no personal sense of self does not seem so great, psychologically-speaking. But many of these women will say that they truly find meaning in taking care of those around them. They see this as their special skill and even as something that sets them apart from men. So why, in our efforts to equalize gender roles, would we want to take this away from women by demanding that men also contribute to the caretaking of others?

My answer came in this UN Commission on the Status of Women report from 2009. It explained that women across the globe are overburdened with the task of caretaking. In impoverished areas, women are left to care for the sick, those with HIV, the ailing, the dying. As men leave home for different cities or countries in search for work, women are left to run whole communities, yet this work is unrecognized in the rights and the amount of power that these women receive in those communities. In industrialized societies, women are also forced to choose between career and family, when affordable and accessible childcare, as well as adequate maternity/paternity leave, are still largely uncommon.

It seems then that women truly hold the weight of the world on their womanly shoulders and this weight of our world is perhaps only getting heavier. The problems or successes of men, children, the elderly, and other women become a personal responsibility and a judgment of character for many women and this fact just seems unfair and overwhelming. Men must step in to help women manage all this exhausting caretaking. They are equally as capable of carrying the weight of others, and with us working together on egalitarian terms, we can perhaps take care of each other, succeed at our own skills, and feel as the equal, productive and self-actualized beings we all can be.

I may be too emotional about this

True or false: On ne naît pas femme, on le devient (Simone de Beauvoir)?

I can hardly express how much I am irked by various claims about genetic/natural/innate differences between the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of men and women. Like, the infamous Female Brain, for example, written incidentally by a woman. And an Ivy League-educated neuroscientist, at that. Which just goes to show that even the most prestigiously groomed academic can be incredibly biased and well, sexist, in her own quest and research.

From what I understand the author states all sorts of outrageous and untrue things: that women's brains are more emotional than men's, that women seek security in relationships while men seek only sex, and that ultimately, there is no hope to change men's nature, so we women better abandon our unrealistic hopes for an egalitarian lifestyle and leave those burly hunks of testosterone to high-five each other over boobs on TV.

Of course, there are some physiological differences between men and women. And there are also (sexist) values that we, while living in a patriarchic world, assign to certain potentially gender-based characteristics (e.g. forcefulness is superior to nurturance). These values may lead to thoughts and behaviors that are consistent with and perpetuate those values, that then affect our relationships and socialization, are internalized into our identities and ultimately show up in brain functioning. I tend to believe that these gender differences are a result of an interplay of neurological, sociological, developmental, existential, statistical factors.

And yes, when it comes to pondering the nature of people, I tend to blame look toward social influences, too, rather than purely genetic ones. This is my bias, and so I'd put myself on this side of the debate, one that dislikes the rigid claims that women are good at compromising and men are good at math. I just can't see how such a deterministic view could ever bring us closer to an equal and equally respecting world.