Stephen Colbert, You Own My Heart

In a frenzy of personal, emotional, and academic happenings, I have been sorely neglecting this blog.  Now, at the beginning of the Triduum, I don't quite have time to catch up, though I can promise (or threaten) another feminist manifesto coming shortly.  To keep you entertained in the meantime, here is a recent discovery of mine.  Stephen Colbert + Oprah.  Check out the interview in all its 4-minutes-at-a-time glory here.  He drops character and talks about his life, his joys, his tragedies, and his family.  One of them includes his wife.  Shelly and I both fell a little more in love with him after seeing Colbert and his wife interact.    That struck me (I want that after 19 years of marriage!) as well as his great humility, which is astounding for someone with such a cocky on-screen personality and so much cultural influence.

All in all, this is my Holy Thursday treat to you.  Watch it today, go to Mass tonight, and your day will be complete.

GetReligion on Abortion Case

I normally poke around my (dying) Google reader at breakfast time, catching up on friends' blogs and the happenings of the world.  One of my feeds comes from GetReligion, a blog that critiques the media's coverage of religion.  And it's not much trouble -- easy morning reading.

Today, however, I stumbled across an article that made my stomach turn so much I couldn't click the link to the story being critiqued.  It is about Dr. Kermit Grosnell, who is on trial for murder due to horrendous practices at his abortion clinic.  While I understand pro-choice people who might say, "This isn't what all clinics are like," the sympathy with his practices -- including the murder of children born alive -- is almost as horrific as the facts of the case.

I'm posting it in hopes that my three faithful readers will read the GetReligion piece and take note especially of the lack of media coverage of the story and pass it on.

Habemus Papam!

I know I am late as far as news goes, but this event occurred during spring break, and I was taking off to make times for family and school work.  However, I am posting this on the day of his installation, so maybe I still win.

Happy Feast of St. Joseph!  (A day when Lenten resolutions don't count.)

Gendered Thoughts, Part IV

Here's the fourth & final part.  I hope you enjoy the ending... There's another series coming soon with more about vulnerability and gender!

I am not yet willing to shift from the world of “is” to the world of “ought.”  I do want to note a scene the vulnerability-dynamic can draw.  A man and a woman stand face to face.  As a female body before a male body, she has a vulnerability that she cannot help and he cannot have.  However, he has just told her that he finds her fun and charming (not to mention pretty) and would love to take her out to dinner.  He has a vulnerability before her that she does not have – he has no idea what she thinks of him.  If she accepts him, both will have made an implicit agreement to accept and guard – at least to a limited extent – the vulnerability of the other.  He is guarding her physical vulnerability and she his emotional vulnerability.  This dynamic, though by no means the only one at play here, sets the stage in an interesting manner for “traditional” gender roles in marriage, where the husband provides materially for the family and the wife acts as emotional caretaker.  Often times, behavior that seems to fall to the other gender is constructed to fit the acting gender’s norm, a tendency that fascinated my sociologist self in undergrad.

Again, I do not wish to move from the realm of “is” to “ought” or to insist that any particular gendered interaction fits this perfectly, especially since it relies on purity of intention.  I also do not mean to imply that a marriage with “traditional” gender roles necessarily follows from the date scenario described before it.  I merely wish to explore these as interesting gender dynamics that are largely ignored, or, when discussed, inextricably conflated with other ideology.  

Thoughts on Gender, Part III

(To make sense of this, be sure to read parts one and two first.)

I’m not sure how to transition here from female vulnerability to male vulnerability.  Part of the trouble is that up till now I have been concerned with physical differences, and now I need to turn to social norms.

Social norms are always difficult to deal with, not the least because they tend to be amorphous and variable.  However, again simply based on my recent life, let me offer two norms in our society: malefold ask out femalefolk; malefolk propose to femalefolk.  I propose merely that this is the way, by and large, that things are done – not the way things have to be done or should be done.

Now I not something interesting: asking another person to go on a date with or to marry you puts you in a position of vulnerability.  (This assertion assumes that the other person is reasonably free to answer in the negative.  If refusal is not a viable option, this, of course, changes the power dynamic.)  In asking a woman out, a man says, “See?  I am an interesting person.  Please consider investing some time in me.”  Rejection can’t help but be personal – it is, in a small way a rejection of his person.  A marriage proposal all the more so.  I heard a young man describe his proposal as offering “everything” of himself and, on one knee, waiting to find out if it was enough. 

(Incidentally, this scenario illustrates why I dislike the pre-engagement decision that “we should get engaged.”  It’s like showing someone his Christmas gift and proceeding to wrap it anyway.  You don’t half-give gifts or commitments.  Either you are committed to marrying each other (engaged) or you are discerning (dating).  If you are both done discerning,  you need to be either engaged or broken up.)

This scenario (before my parenthetical aside) assumes that the man is seeking an actual relationship and not just a hook-up.  A relationship says, “I want to give myself to you.”  A hook-up says, “You will be fun for me.”  It is also complicated by the idea of the “waiting woman” – a common complaint that women are trapped sitting around waiting desperately to get asked out.  Doesn’t this change the dynamic?  Only if we assume that women need men to be complete – and I offer as a counterpart men who ask out dozens of women in a short span of time, yet do not find that any of them stick it out beyond a second or third date.  

Simply a Pilgrim

I interrupt my regularly scheduled Gender Series to bring a brief Catholic sidebar.  As of yesterday, non habemus Papam.  Here is Papa Benedicto's farewell:



On a related note, I know the title is "Pope Emeritus," but that sounds too formal.  My vote is for "Grand Papa," and I intend upon calling him "Grand Papa Benedict."

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.