Gendered Thoughts, Part II

If you haven't read Part I yet, go back and do that first.  It's short & I'll wait for you.  Ready...
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...Okay.  Here's the next piece!


The gender-vulnerability-based fears that women have are heightened by two factors: negative masculine gender norms and instructions given to women. The “male” behavior associated with the patriarchy/ hegemonic masculinity/ rape culture (also, read this blog and links from this post; all these are distinct, yet present similar concepts of masculinity) teaches men to act in a way so as to objectify and degrade women. This lesson should not happen. Women are taught a different lesson: how not to place themselves in danger. While this lessons are not, in themselves, bad, they teach women an awareness of vulnerability – so that it is difficult to tell what fear is a response to male behavior and what fear is learned from these instructions. Either way, the fear is there and it is real.

Because of this dynamic, a healthy male-female relationship must include the communication, “I am not a threat to you.” My guess is that we have tons of social cues mean to communicate this message and that it happens subconsciously. Small things: tone of voice, word choice, posture, gestures, and physical proximity – along with things less subtle, from choice of meeting location to explicit words. I read an article recently wherein the author attributed this meaning to chivalry (read to the middle of the article; you are looking for Christina Hoff Sommers, but the whole thing is a good read). Thus, its gestures assure a woman that the man, who physically could harm her, has no intention to. Like a handshake, they guarantee that he comes in peace and respect.

(I can hear the protests now: “But men did not actually respect women more in the days of chivalry! Those were the days of misogyny and chauvinism!” Or those just the voices in my own head? Either way, I am toying with the hypothesis that this exact hypocrisy led to the eventual demise of chivalry. Women killed it because they recognized its lie. Perhaps – perhaps – if it actually communicated this reassurance, women would not mind it.)

I feel a need to interrupt myself to offer a disclaimer. Learned helplessness is, for a very good reason, a concern for feminists. I am starting to feel that I might sound like I am feeding into it. Let me be clear: women do not need to rely on men to “rescue” them and are capable, in a variety of ways, of protecting themselves without male cooperation. They just should not have to.

Gendered Thoughts, Part I

I recently started writing out a brief synthesis of gender-related thoughts that have been bouncing through my head lately.  Six pages later, I realized it would have to be more than one blog post.  Bits will appear in manageable chunks over the next few days.  I hope at least one of my faithful three readers enjoys reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I hope here to throw together into coherence some thoughts and ponderings I have had recently regarding gender relations and vulnerability. I will weave together several themes that have emerged in the past few months, in incidents, anecdotes, encounters, articles, and classes. It won’t be a fully developed system, but I hope it will be a consistent beginning of things. Please nitpick my assertions and my logic, so that I can see if this framework holds water and deserves to be developed.

Let me start with some initial premises, assumptions that will undergird my further thoughts.

1) First, I will be assuming that we all live gendered existences. I mean to leave out the question of which parts come from social constructs versus biological predispositions. No matter how gender is formed, we all live lives informed by how we do and experience gender. The vast majority of us live in the male-female/man-woman dichotomy and, although I recognize that exceptions exist, I will be working with a two gender system.

2) This gendered existence affects our daily lives and interpersonal interactions.

3) Women, based on their biological make-up, are physically more vulnerable in comparison to men and especially vis-à-vis men. This premise seems commonsensical to me, and I don’t have research to back it up, but if you want to challenge it, I will gladly go off questing for some. In other words, as a vast generalization, men pose more of a threat to women than women to men, physically.

4) Gender norms exist. I will be speaking about them in sweeping generalities. I realize that these generalities will have counter-examples; these examples do not prevent them from being norms. If I have misidentified or misrepresented a norm, please call me out on it. Just be sure you are certain of the definition of “norm” before you contest one. Then contest away.

Working with these basic ideas in mind, I propose: women, on a daily basis, experience a vulnerability that men do not. This particular experience informs how we live our lives and how we see the world. It colors our gendered interaction. This does not mean that women are, most of the time, in danger. (I leave that assessment to others to make.) It does mean that, as a rule, women experience a greater potentiality for being in danger than men do. Consider: a solitary female motorist stops to pick up a lone male hitch-hiker. For whom are you instinctively concerned? Why?

BXVI in Photos

The Washington Post has put together a lovely photo collection of Pope Benedict XVI's life.  If you ignore the editorializing in the captions, it is quite beautiful.  Have a look at our Papa.

A Short Story about Childbirth

Today I presented my research on the ethics of maternal elective cesarean deliveries to some other theology students.  I enjoy exchanging knowledge with other students (part of the reason I love school and hated distance learning classes).  My favorite part came outside the official presentation and Q&A.

One writer worried that as the number of c-sections rises women will stop exchanging stories of normal childbirth and only have surgical stories to tell, which will increase feelings of incompetence surrounding birth.  Tonight, people told birth stories.  Hard births, easy births, regular births, surgical births, heroic births.  ("The sonogram missed a baby!  She gave birth -- after a past c-section -- to surprise twins, breach, by the side of the road!")  We still have stories.  Beautiful, diverse, empowering stories that women share -- and, tonight, men too.

"It's Like My Grandfather Decided to Retire"

If I could pick anywhere in the world to be during this next month besides Rome, it would be Franciscan University of Steubenville.  Every other conversation I overhear on campus is about the Pope's decision to retire.  And every one is full of love for the soon-to-be former pontiff.  The classmate who spoke the title of this post into being had it right.  The head of our family, filled with love, wisdom, and grace, is stepping down.

In 2005, as I prepared to graduate high school, the only Holy Father I had ever known passed away, leaving the world mourning the loss of a deeply holy and unbelievably charismatic man.  When Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope, I had barely heard of him and was sure that I could love no one as much as my Polish pontiff.  A few years later, as I began my M.A. program, I started reading more of the new Pope's writings and changed my mind.  He impressed me as a scholar and a shepherd, a man of sharp intellect and great wisdom, whose love of Christ reached through him to his fellow man.  Now, as I prepare to leave graduate school, I find myself once again awaiting a new shepherd.

Papa Benedict, on February 28th, will join the ranks of retired popes -- making the third one in Church history.  Celestine V retired in 1294 after a five and a half month papacy.  He returned to his beloved ascetic life and, after his death, was canonized.  Gregory XII was one of three claimants to the pontificate in the early 1400s.  In order to reunite the Church, he agreed to retire after convening a council to elect a new pope.  (The two anti-popes were deposed.)  Neither of these stories end well for the retired pope, so we don't have a clear idea of the role of the former pope.

One thing is for certain, however.  He will continue to act under the guidance of the Spirit, as he has done for years. In the words of Timothy Cardinal Dolan:

The Holy Father brought the tender heart of a pastor, the incisive mind of a scholar and the confidence of a soul united with His God in all he did. His resignation is but another sign of his great care for the Church.

St. Peter, pray for us, for the Church, for Papa Benedict, and for our next Pope!

The 98%

With the HHS mandate making all kinds of news (and a compromise being proposed, though I don't have details on that at the moment), a number has been bandied around.  "98% of Catholic women use contraception."  I've spent much time being indignant about this line of argumentation and questioned the number; I even blogged a bit about it.

However, I didn't do one thing that a more serious Catholic blogger did: ask about these women.  No matter what the number, these women matter.  Jennifer Fulwiler writes about her interaction with the 98% and offers an analysis that startled me, although it probably should not have.  Many of these women are not setting out in blatant, pig-headed opposition to the Catholic Church.  They are misled in their thoughts and knowledge about the position and seriousness of the Church on this issue.  Which seems surprising to me, but I come from a very Catholic family in a very conservative diocese.  Other people do not.  As Fulwiler points out, no matter what the other fallout of this debate, at least it is making the Church very clear about her position and thus aiding her in guiding her sheep a little more closely.

Huggies Loves Babies

Every now and then, the pro-life attitude is just so common-sensical that it bursts out in unexpected places, from people who aren't pushing a pro-life message.  Such as the creators of this Huggies commercial.



On a less positive note, it highlights a fundamental discord in our society's view of pregnancy.  A wanted pregnancy is "a human being growing inside your stomach!"  An unwanted one is "a blob of tissue" that becomes "medical waste."

A History of Chocolate Chip Pancake Day

The time of year has come when Facebook, Pintrest, Walmart, and the Dollar Tree explode with red and pink vomit in honor of Valentine's Day, while single women everywhere express their bitterness about said vomit or said singlehood.  In honor of the occasion, I would like to offer an alternate route with this brief history of Chocolate Chip Pancakes for the Romantically Disadvantaged.

In 2006, the women of Nicholson 2nd Upper decided to honor Valentine's Day in all-girls-dorm style.  Chocolate chip pancakes seemed like a perfect way to go, and I led the way to the birth of Pancake Day.  The next year, 2007, a year dedicated to the Rusty Spoon of Vengeance, saw it christened "Chocolate Chip Pancakes for the Romantically Disadvantaged," a bitter, celebratory dig at my hard-won singlehood.  The next two years at the College solidified both my lone wolf status and the tradition, to the consolation of my single friends, both male and female.

When I left the College, I carried the tradition with me to St. Louis and I discovered that my friends carried the fond memories, as I received emails, Facebook posts, and G-chats wishing me, "Happy Pancake Day!"  So of course I continued to celebrate when I moved back to the 'burg, this time making the important discovery that having long-distance girlfriend* counts as a "romantic disadvantage," so that Asher could come to Pancake Day.

This February 14th will mark the 7th Annual Chocolate Chip Pancake Day and the second that Ohio has seen.  I am already getting excited for the occasion.  To those friends who have participated and find themselves far away: you are dearly missed.  To anyone sans Valentine this February 14th: consider Pancake Day as a DIY project to enjoy the best the holiday has to offer (i.e. chocolate and red wine.)



[*Full disclosure: I had to put in the bit about Asher to explain that I am not creating an exemption for myself this year, since I have a beau whose presence in my life does not count as a "romantic disadvantage."  Added advantage: he also does not like Valentine's Day.]

Crazy Love

Facebook led me to this TED Talk today.  I don't really have anything to say about it, other than that you should watch: