Wealthy White Male

Your Daily Dose of Caetano

2009-08-11T08:00:00.001-04:00

John Lennon: Smart

2009-08-09T10:12:00.009-04:00

"I've been baking bread and looking after the baby...everyone who has asked me that question over the last few years says, "But what else have you been doing?" To which I say, "Are you kidding?" Because bread and babies, as every housewife knows, is a full-time job. After I made the loaves I felt like I had conquered something. But as I watched the bread being eaten I thought, "Well, Jesus, don't I get a gold record or knighted or nothing?" -John Lennon

I don't have an elaborate thesis about it, but this quotation strikes me as pretty damn insightful. Lennon knows that you can't really gain an appreciation of women's work and its meager rewards until you actually do it. As I've mentioned before I'm continually amazed by how much work my mother does, and it's only because in recent years I've actually started to (minimally) help her do it. Somewhere in the moral reform universe there should be a volunteer all-male cleaning service. Which brings me to one of my favorite Ann Oakley quotations:

Housework is work directly opposed to the possibility of human self-actualization.

And at the end of the day we're all better off with a little soul-crushing.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and Zoo Days

2009-08-09T08:32:00.004-04:00

I saw 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days recently, and it was great. This movie has the best acting and writing of any film I've seen in years, and the Metacritic score bears that out. So see it. The direction in the abortion scene is brilliant, but my favorite scene comes a little later, during a dinner party at the protag's boyfriend's place. You can watch the whole thing online, the scene takes place over parts 12 and 13.

This portrait hits close to home; there's something so ignorant and obnoxious about his earnestness, I can't even really wrap my head around why it affected me so much. It's as if he doesn't trust her that there are more important things in the world than the state of their relationship. It carries through to when he won't leave her to wait for the elevator - he doesn't have the propriety to conceal his emotions for her sake, the same kind of performance she is engaged in for the entire film, with her abortion-seeking friend, with the abortionist, with the dinner guests. The cliché is that women have more latitude than men when it comes to affective expression, but it's all part of the same terrible spectacle.

As a side note, I usually like Variety's film reviews, but in this case Jay Weissberg takes Mungiu to task for actually showing the fetus, and it's apparent that his delicate moral (and not aesthetic) sensibilities were offended by the aforementioned shot:

So careful at focusing only on what's essential, Mungiu makes only one misstep when he lingers on a fetus -- it's a moment completely out of keeping with the rest of the film and serves only as wasted shock value.

Apparently the fetus itself is tangential to the plot and for the women signifies nothing more than "shock value."

And finally, I actually can wrap my head around why the boyfriend scene hits so close to home, but personal errata won't find an audience here.

I also saw ZOO. I couldn't relate to it in quite the same way, but it's also fabulous and raises questions about paraphilia, which I might work into a later post.

I Have Returned with Gusto

2009-08-09T08:08:00.010-04:00

And now, a talkie that brings me great joy, certainly the most facile of the alternate trailers. David Lynch's Dirty Dancing

How to Escape from Prison, Vol. 1

2008-11-01T20:56:00.010-04:00

Bocce partner Harbottle has a comment about my Blind Lookists post:

So where does female agency fit into this argument? The implication is that women are forced into these behaviors. But people inadvertently CHOOSE to be oppressed (by making active choices that may fit into conventional patriarchal ideologies). It is not just exerted from the "top down". Rather this system creates ideologies and a way for you to ENJOY your repression.

I think the best way to respond is with an analogy. Let's think of traditional (patriarchally-defined) femininity as a prison. The inmates were born into that prison and most will never leave. Some of the warden-approved recreation is actually fun (if it weren't there'd be riots), and there are tangible rewards for model behavior. During their stay, some prisoners discover the tools to escape and manage to pull it off. Others don't. Do the escaped prisoners look at the their former peers with derision for their lack of ingenuity or because they enjoy some of their time there? Of course not. The escapees remember the prison and its powerful sway. They smuggle in files and raincoats (Escape from Alcatraz is great), they organize for prison reform. But they do not blame the prisoners for their complacency, which is anything but.

Blind Lookists

2008-10-29T19:48:00.008-04:00

Sorry for the hiatus, folks. I've had what you might call my "lost weekend" - quite a bender! As is customary, I have now officially parted ways with my band, Jiminy and the Cricks. Up next: solo tour!

A long list of questions for radical men. A few of these have come up in recent conversation, namely

36. Do you find yourself only attracted to "Anarcho-Crusty Punk Barbie", Alterna-Grrrl Barbie," or "Hardcore-Grrrl Barbie?" (The idea here being that the only women you are attracted to fit mainstream beauty standards but just dress and do their hair alternatively and maybe have piercings and tattoos) Do you question and challenge your internalized ideals of mainstream beauty ideals for women?

and

38. Are you aware of the fact that ALL WOMEN, even women in radical communities, live under the CONSTANT PRESSURE and OPPRESSION of mainstream patriarchal beauty standards?

One of my male friends' taste in women trends decidedly to the mainstream, specifically to those physical, hygenic and sartorial qualities most prized by misogynist culture. He trots out the funfeminist argument: because these women are (in some sense) choosing to participate in misogynist norms there's no tension between his sexual standards and his feminism. I disagree. As to the hygiene and dress, he conflates the notion that women can't be blamed for their participation in omnipresent misogynist norms with the idea that this participation isn't a manifestation of patriarchy, and in his bid for expiation ignores the patriarchy-reinforcing effect of his personal taste.

While I don't think I have a particular fetish for the accoutrements of subordination I definitely do prize mainstream physical beauty. I find it hard to imagine ever being with someone overweight, or with someone my friends and family wouldn't find attractive. I know these preferences don't jibe well with any sort of radical feminism.

37. Have you ever heard of or discussed "sizeism" and do you think it is low on the oppression scale?

A few days ago I asked a female friend for her perspective on lookism. She swiftly repaired to the ramparts - "Why are you asking me this?" she demanded, as though the query had impugned her character. When pressed she offered a weak defense of lookism as a natural and therefore irresistible phenomenon. I seem to remember the same sentiment expressed about any number of dreadful ideologies.

40. Do you make fun of "model-types" or "mainstream" women for their appearance?

This is rampant among leftists and it annoys me to no end. Do we blame victims of other forms of oppression for "aw shucks"ing it to get by? Of course we don't.

Male Privilege, Codified

2008-07-29T14:02:00.010-04:00

A great list from Alas, a Blog, which I discovered in this coddling thread at I Blame the Patriarchy. Mostly common sense* but it's good to see it all in one place. While men are active participants in all of this stuff, I think there's a distinction that can be drawn between public and personal iterations of male privilege - it's much more difficult to rectify the earning gap than, say, the division of household chores and childcare.

Living with my folks for a while has really made me examine Heckenrose familial labor relations, I'll have a post about housework when I get my thoughts together.

* "common sense" may not actually be common

Long Lost Brothers?

2008-07-28T20:04:00.008-04:00

Wealthy white male and presidential candidate John McCain.

Wealthy white male and crypto-industrialist Elbow Heckenrose.

There's definitely a resemblance. From the wonderful Things Younger than McCain.

Dubya Trailer

2008-07-28T19:30:00.009-04:00

If it's taken down just google "W. trailer," because it's awesome.

It occurs to me that most movies are men talking to one another about other men because that's how the world works - that is, most every facet of our lives is shaped by overwhelmingly male decision making. We don't want to paper over male hegemony with movies featuring fictitiously powerful women*, we want movies that are critical of male-centered culture, and I imagine many of those (like W., although I doubt Stone's script says much about gender politics) would mostly feature men.

It also occurs to me that I need to learn how to embed videos.

Aliens!

2008-07-28T11:56:00.000-04:00

Craaaaaaazy.

Monogamy and the Church

2008-07-27T17:48:00.011-04:00

Jesse Prinz has probably the best critique of monogamy I've heard yet. You can think of every practice/ethic of the Catholic Church as a means to power - monogamy, the celibate priesthood (church's land stays in the church) the ban on birth control and abortion (younger sons and unmarried daughters work for the church), "meek shall inherit the earth" ("shut up, whiners").

I found Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel interesting, but the problem is that it ignores moral agency - his thesis is that Europeans have dominated the globe not because of any innate advantage, but simply because their geography allowed them to do so. Prinz's idea opens up a third possibility, that Europeans developed moral systems (not just technologies) which were particularly well-suited to global domination. I imagine it'd be a lot harder to tie these cultural developments to geography.

ed: bloggingheads link fixed

More Batman

2008-07-25T17:03:00.004-04:00

There's an interesting post about the politics of The Dark Knight at Cogitamus. While DymaxionWorldJohn isn't talking about the gender politics of the film, he makes a good point:

...we really shouldn't be arguing about politics through film. The simple arguments are rooted in bad films, and good films give you arguments whose conclusions might surprise you.

Of course, when it comes to gender it's not like there's some ambiguous message in the film - women just aren't there.

Towards an Ethical Heterosexuality

2008-07-25T00:24:00.007-04:00

Anonymous and I talked about PETA the other day - Feministing just had a post about them, along with their weeeeak response. Anonymous also wrote of principled lesbianism as a means of subverting misogyny:

So much of misogyny, and even self-hate or self-misogyny by women (you know what I mean?) is rooted in sexuality and the way men and women interact with each other sexually (or would like to), and if men are cut out of the equation, then maybe women can gain some sort of empowerment from that. But maybe I am being heteronormative in thinking that lesbian relationships are free of misogyny.

It seems there are a few ways of thinking about this:

1) Free from the rape-obsessed male libido, lesbian partners abandon the sexual roles and rhythms of patriarchy.
2) Patriarchy informs everything we do, including making love, even lesbian love, so efforts to escape it are useless.
3) Patriarchy informs everything we do, including making love, even lesbian love, so we must search for a remedy by continually working to understand how it taints our actions and intentions.

I think the third one is probably closest to the truth (coincidentally, it's the one that lets me get my rocks off and feel OK about it), and while my hunch is that there isn't a remedy - we'll always live with the specter of misogyny somewhere in the back of our heads - it doesn't mean we won't be better off for trying. That said, I think on the whole it would be a lot easier to deal with this stuff if a man wasn't involved.

But for many women there is a man involved! So what to do? Basically, we can imagine an Enlightened Heterosexual Relationship as a contract wherein both parties agree, for purportedly mutual benefit, to participate in patriarchal gender roles - there's just no avoiding it. The problem, of course, is the power differential inherent in these roles, and that this differential, even though explicitly stated and understood, will still be damaging to the psychosocial development of the lovers (see previous post about guilty pleasures).

One solution I've read is to literally reinvent the Lovemaking Experience (TM). The "ideal" romp is one which culminates in what is basically a shared penetrative male orgasm - that is, the woman's arousal is expected to perfectly mirror the man's in both intensity and duration. So, a sexuality in which penetration is pushed to the periphery would be essential.

Thoughts?

Cool Tools 4 Men

2008-07-14T23:27:00.006-04:00

So to continue with the MRA theme, their message boards are a hoot! The Cool Tools 4 Men forum seems pretty by-the-numbers at first, but fimiton's 15 page thread (far and away the longest) makes it all worthwhile. Basically, fimiton has taken it upon himself to come up with a "men's logo suggestion," or, translated from crazy, a slogan for the men's rights movement. His first koan-like gem:

For surpassing a man,
they should stop him first.
We should keep running,

Too true! But what's really remarkable is fimiton's range - he's crammed an entire spectrum of MRA lunatic vitriol into these little nonsensical nuggets. I don't mean to pettily call him out on his English skills, but the jumbled language is just such a perfect complement to the faulty thinking behind it. When I read better-educated MRAs I'm always struck by how carefully duplicitous they seem, obscuring their twisted logic with high-minded talk of equality and stability and tradition. Frankly I find it hard to believe educated people can peddle MRA putrescence and fail to grasp the fundamental dishonesty of it all.

But back to our glourious fimiton! He dabbles in mathematics,

Vagina Math:
90 degree angel is called right angel because of men oppressions.
Women should never do it in that way.

history,

feminists:
“Women died for their people and their countries.”
Men: Accidentally!!!

surrealism,

Feminists:
“Vagina is a Golden Gate”
Men:
It is petroleum and doesn’t have a gate!

and of course, some good old fashioned hate for his backstabbing bros:

No to the feminists,
Specially,
Those with the penis.

What's the Matter with Misandry?

2008-06-25T16:05:00.004-04:00

I'm not a misandrist. I like men - some of my best male friends are men. But I've seen many a Men's Rights Activist (henceforth MRA) throw the term around when hating on their brother Male Pro-Feminists (MPFs?), and since our whole history is basically an experiment in the social utility of misogyny I thought I'd explore the benefits of a hypothetical misandrist movement. I'm assuming that the the movement's influence is substantially subordinate to mainstream misogyny.* Off the top of my head:

-Occasional exposure to misandry would perhaps deepen some men's understanding/appreciation of women's experiences.
-A small increase in the preferential selection of women might close the wage gap more quickly and lead to a more equitable distribution of power.
-More generally, the movement would be a boon to women's social support structures, which would also help address inequities.
-And this is maybe my most out-there proposition, that a broad-based misandrist movement could elegantly (and maybe necessarily?) incorporate a serious critique of capitalism. Could the
aforementioned support structures be the basis for social transformation?

*This is, of course, where most MRAs are likely to object - that misandry isn't limited at all, that every day it threatens their manhood.

How to Succeed in Business

2008-06-24T22:29:00.010-04:00

For the past few months I've been working at a jobs program for people with disabilities. I'm a "Job Coach." Basically, we spend all day with the clients - we drive them to their job sites, we supervise their work, and then in the afternoon go to the park or the library etc. It's still fun for me, although many of my co-workers seem burned out. I can understand why - the job is incredibly easy and boring for 95% of the time and absolutely terrifying for the other 5%, when you're restraining someone or a client has bolted, that sort of thing. Anyway, there's a very obvious management-enforced staff hierarchy at this nonprofit. At the bottom are the black immigrants, who repeatedly get paired with the most difficult clients and the most labor-intensive job sites, and at the top are the white kids, who always get the easiest assignments. In the middle are the American-born people of color. This arrangement was clear to me very early on, and although I've never seen it discussed with or among management, I've talked about it with many staff members (not many of the white kids).

A few weeks ago I had the misfortune of spending a work day with a particularly unlikeable coach, Stephen. Stephen is black and one of the few staff members of color who deny that the hierarchy exists. But what we really got me was his misogyny - nothing unusual, really - whistles and hoots (to me, not the women) and riffs on past sexploits. It made me realize, though, that I had been hearing similar things from other coaches, mostly men of color with whom I have discussed the hierarchy in detail (the staff is mostly male and black). These discussions have spiraled off into RACE more generally, and through them I think I've earned a special regard from the nonwhite staff, both for my insight and for my mistrust of the white staff, some of whom are thought to be actively participating in the hierarchy, the rest ignorant of its workings.

So how could I have missed the misogyny for so long? To be honest, I didn't really "miss" it. I know I heard it - I can remember a few specific instances, but they didn't hit me with the same force as the racially discriminatory stuff has. A few hypotheses about why this is:

- Perhaps it's plain old homosociality - it's easier for me to relate to nonwhite males than women.

- I had become friends with many of the black staff, and felt as though I had "joined the club." I know this feeling is common among whites who grew up among whites. Was I worried that by calling out misogyny I would jeopardize these new and valued friendships? Or did my enthusiasm for the "Friends of Black People" club I had joined truly obscure their flaws? Both? Did Stephen's refusal to acknowledge the staff hierarchy create a distance between us from which I was able to appreciate his misogyny?

- Maybe I willed myself to focus on the racism because I judged it to be a viable social strategy. If the staff had been majority female, would I have instead detected institutional misogyny in order to sympathize with my co-workers? I should note that in the past few weeks I have heard a few more specifics - a young mother coworker told me of another woman who had been fired due to her pregnancy, and that there's no paid maternity leave. Are these issues somehow inherently less visible, or did I miss them because it wasn't really in my interest to notice?

- In this instance, the racism has economic repercussions (black staff get smaller bonuses than equally competent white staff) and is directly enforced by the institution, attributes which definitely fit neatly with my hippy-dippy-anarcho-commie world view. This actually brings up an aching tension, a tense ache, in my thinking - how do we grapple with issues that can't be solved by changing institutions? Even if, as is my hope, high energy prices force Americans to remunicipalize economies and governance, how will we deal with deep-seated misogyny, racism, and heteronormativity? This is particularly troublesome when you consider that recent improvements for many women were part and parcel of globalization. How do we retain and expand women's freedom in a post-globalized world of closing economies? Resolving this tension is in some ways the primary project of this blog, so there won't be a satisfying answer any time soon (sorry sportsfans).

Speaking of heteronormativity, I haven't mentioned homophobia at work. While I've certainly heard some, it's not nearly as common as the misogyny.

It's very possible that pointing out misogyny among my coworkers would make my job a lot harder. Due to the clientele it's very easy to get fired so a back-watching culture has developed among the staff, and there's a good chance I'd lose most of that. Moreover, I find the racial dialogue we've developed to be really eye-opening. Should I risk all that just to make myself feel better? Or is there a chance that speaking up could help begin a new discussion?

My gut says no, but maybe it's just another case of my judgement serving my interests.

And Inspired First Post

2008-06-24T21:00:00.008-04:00