I found myself contemplating mental health last night as I was trying to sleep. I often think about mental health, both in the general and in my specific case. I have no official diagnosis for any of the mental illnesses or conditions I deal with, but when I have a cold I don't have to go to a doctor to tell that I'm sick. There are symptoms that present themselves, things I can point to and say, "I know I'm sick because my body temperature really should be this hot", or "Coughing really isn't something that my lungs just do for no reason."
Last night it occurred to me that I don't actually get sick very often—I don't get colds regularly, or the flu hardly ever. My immune system is robust and healthy; even when I do catch an illness and get sick, it isn't for an extended period of time.
And then I found myself wishing there was a mechanism like that for the brain. Obviously the immune system works to keep infection out of the brain in healthy individuals, but it's incredibly ill-equipped to deal with illnesses like depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, or insomnia. There are no antibodies for my depression.
As I said, I'm currently without an official diagnosis for any mental illness. But I know I'm sick. I've got the equivalent of fever, chills, and a runny nose.
What I learned growing up, both about mental and infectious diseases, is that I have to pretend that I'm okay. I have to work through the sickness, keep going despite the aches in my joints and the fever-sweat on my brow; keep going even when I can't clearly see the next week, let alone the next year.
I don't know why it's so important to not let others see that I'm sick. I don't know if it's a bravado thing; if it's an American exceptionalism thing; if it's a pride thing; it might be a fear of showing weakness to others, or just to myself. It might be a lack of vocabulary to talk about these things. It might be the belief that others don't go have similar experiences.
I do know that I've had to work long and hard not to feel like it's a personal failing of mine any time I do get sick. I still have days where I'm sure that if I were a better person, I wouldn't have these feelings or thoughts.
I've grown up in a culture where everyone is supremely responsible for the goings-on in their own mind—which means that if something goes wrong in there, it's the fault of whoever owns the mind. There are no acceptable external factors that contribute to mental illness.
Everyday is a struggle. I don't mean in the sense that I'm constantly flailing at life; I mean that every day that I wake up, I have to fight my own mind in order to keep it healthy.
Left to its own devices, my brain would engage in ultimately self-destructive behaviors because it's really only interested in the short-term. It's learned, somewhere, that long-term plans never pay off, so cling to things that feel good right now.
I, on the other hand, know that I have to engage in long-term thinking if I want to keep my mind from getting sick. I have to plan my day, as much as I can, in order to make sure that I'm doing things that support myself. For the longest time, I didn't understand that I had to do this. I looked around and saw fully functional human adults and thought they had access to powers beyond my capability. They just were able to do things and be productive and build a life for themselves, while all I seemed to do was keep my head above slowly-rising water.
It is important for me to remember that, metaphorically speaking, my mind's immune system is compromised. I am more prone to mental illness than the (apparently) functional humans I see all around me. It isn't a moral failing. It isn't something I've earned because of my misdeeds. It's simply a truth about my biology. I probably won't ever be cured (lots of diseases have no cures), but I can learn to manage it.
I can probably learn to manage it.
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Friday, January 29, 2016
What's in a misandry?
"What power do misogynists have that misandrists don't?"
This seems to be a question that many people unfamiliar with the history of feminism find themselves asking when confronted by the possibility that something they aren't personally aware of (misogyny) exists. (For context, the above quote is a nearly verbatim quote from some lovely person I encountered on a mutual friend's wall on the popular social media platform Facebook.)
On the surface, this question seems pretty straightforward and innocent. It doesn't seem unreasonable to wonder why feminists are so upset about misogynists (or, more accurately, about misogynistic actions and behaviors), but seem to completely ignore the equally frightening proposition of man-hating (known popularly today as "misandry"). Isn't sexism against both sexes equally bad?
Ignoring the implication (for now) that there are only two sexes (spoiler alert: there aren't), there is a pretty darn good reason that feminists focus primarily on issues of sexism faced by women. There are a myriad of issues that women face. Not all women face the same issues, and not all issues that women face are exclusive to women. For instance: issues of bodily autonomy, abortion, and access to health care in the form of birth control and care during pregnancy are issues important to women, some non-binary/genderqueer people, and some trans men. No one of those groups of people have a special claim on how impacted they are by conservative efforts to curb access to these basic services.
Aside from the current battles being waged for access to basic health services, in order to understand why a feminist might be less than sympathetic to the idea that sexism against men is just as bad, one needs a basic lesson in history; and an understanding of systems of power get established and tend to favor the status quo. You also need to understand what misogyny is rooted in. History, systems of power, and the roots of misogyny are intertwined in pretty complex ways, so I can only offer a short(ish) overview (as I currently understand things).
Misogyny is based in the idea of the inferiority of the feminine; there are thousands of years of tradition and social teachings which convince many people to treat anything coded as 'feminine' as weak and inferior. Women have traditionally been denied political power because of the supposed innate weakness of their gender. Women, as a social group, in most parts of the world have historically held little to no power; this is especially true if you hail from a country with a history of strong patriarchal religious tradition (such as Christianity).
There has been no such historical repression of people who are coded masculine. Masculinity is held to be the opposite, opposing force of femininity. Masculinity is strong where femininity is weak. Masculinity is superior where femininity is inferior. Men, as a social group, have held political and social power for quite some time.
The last few decades of feminism have hardly put a dent into how women and femininity is viewed, given that women and others who can bear children (who are thrust into the role of 'the feminine', usually against their will) are denied bodily autonomy specifically when it comes to making decisions about pregnancy and sexuality (when, how, and with whom they can have sex).
"Misandrists", those man-haters of yesteryear who have come back to haunt us, simply don't have the power, in any sense of the word, to actually and literally oppress men and masculine-coded people the same way that misogyny has served the purpose of oppressing women and feminine-coded people.
This seems to be a question that many people unfamiliar with the history of feminism find themselves asking when confronted by the possibility that something they aren't personally aware of (misogyny) exists. (For context, the above quote is a nearly verbatim quote from some lovely person I encountered on a mutual friend's wall on the popular social media platform Facebook.)
On the surface, this question seems pretty straightforward and innocent. It doesn't seem unreasonable to wonder why feminists are so upset about misogynists (or, more accurately, about misogynistic actions and behaviors), but seem to completely ignore the equally frightening proposition of man-hating (known popularly today as "misandry"). Isn't sexism against both sexes equally bad?
Ignoring the implication (for now) that there are only two sexes (spoiler alert: there aren't), there is a pretty darn good reason that feminists focus primarily on issues of sexism faced by women. There are a myriad of issues that women face. Not all women face the same issues, and not all issues that women face are exclusive to women. For instance: issues of bodily autonomy, abortion, and access to health care in the form of birth control and care during pregnancy are issues important to women, some non-binary/genderqueer people, and some trans men. No one of those groups of people have a special claim on how impacted they are by conservative efforts to curb access to these basic services.
Aside from the current battles being waged for access to basic health services, in order to understand why a feminist might be less than sympathetic to the idea that sexism against men is just as bad, one needs a basic lesson in history; and an understanding of systems of power get established and tend to favor the status quo. You also need to understand what misogyny is rooted in. History, systems of power, and the roots of misogyny are intertwined in pretty complex ways, so I can only offer a short(ish) overview (as I currently understand things).
Misogyny is based in the idea of the inferiority of the feminine; there are thousands of years of tradition and social teachings which convince many people to treat anything coded as 'feminine' as weak and inferior. Women have traditionally been denied political power because of the supposed innate weakness of their gender. Women, as a social group, in most parts of the world have historically held little to no power; this is especially true if you hail from a country with a history of strong patriarchal religious tradition (such as Christianity).
There has been no such historical repression of people who are coded masculine. Masculinity is held to be the opposite, opposing force of femininity. Masculinity is strong where femininity is weak. Masculinity is superior where femininity is inferior. Men, as a social group, have held political and social power for quite some time.
The last few decades of feminism have hardly put a dent into how women and femininity is viewed, given that women and others who can bear children (who are thrust into the role of 'the feminine', usually against their will) are denied bodily autonomy specifically when it comes to making decisions about pregnancy and sexuality (when, how, and with whom they can have sex).
"Misandrists", those man-haters of yesteryear who have come back to haunt us, simply don't have the power, in any sense of the word, to actually and literally oppress men and masculine-coded people the same way that misogyny has served the purpose of oppressing women and feminine-coded people.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
What Are Actors Allowed?
It's happened again. Hollywood has cast a white person to portray a person of color. Which, if you pay attention to this sort of thing, really shouldn't surprise you. It should perhaps, at the very least, exasperate you.
Hollywood's history is the history of white actors taking roles of non-white characters. There's something a little extra insidious when the character they've been cast to play is based on a person of color. It's quite literally erasing an aspect of that character that likely played a key role in shaping who they are as a person.
You might be tempted to ask a question like, "Aren't actors pretending to be someone they aren't all the time?" or "So should actors only be allowed to act as their own race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation?" Focusing on what an actor does for a living, or what they should be allowed to do isn't really the right way to think about criticisms of casting in Hollywood. Criticizing a particular movie for casting white actors in roles that could have easily gone to actors of color, or Hollywood in general for whitewashing movies in a misguided attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator (otherwise known as the status quo), isn't an attempt to tell actors what roles they should go out for. It's also not the point.
The point of the discussions happening around issues of racism and racial bias in Hollywood are an attempt to point out what seems to be a fundamental assumption in casting directors' minds: if you're a white actor, you can play literally anything. It doesn't matter the background of the character you're playing if you're white—your whiteness isn't seen as a distraction for audiences, it won't make the character less believable, or unrelatable.
If you're a white actor, you are a blank canvas for audiences to paint their imaginations upon. You afforded enough agency and humanity that it seems natural to see you play characters from all arenas of life—you're found in positions of power, and at the lowest stations of life.
If you're a white actor, you are allowed and encouraged to play literally every character.
It's not so for actors of color. Actors of color are restricted in the roles they are allowed to take on. Actors of color are often given roles which are stereotypes of a specific race, and usually they're restricted to playing characters of their own race (though not always the same ethnicity; especially in the United States, race is primarily determined by skin color, not country of origin).
The issue isn't "white actors can't play a non-white person", the issue is "white actors are afforded more opportunities and bigger roles than actors of color".
Not coincidentally, the same holds for straight actors, cis actors, male actors—those qualities open up more desirable acting roles, and it you're not straight, cis, or male, the opportunities available to you are basically shit.
Criticizing Hollywood for casting yet another white actor to place a character of color is another way to point out how normalized being White is. Michael B. Jordan can't be Johnny Storm because Johnny Storm is the brother of a white woman. Idris Elba can't be Heimdall (another comic book character) without moviegoers raising a stink. But very few of the people criticizing these casting choices bat an eye when a white actor is cast as a character of color (or if a man is cast as a trans woman).
The bottom line is that there are different standards for white people in Hollywood. This shouldn't surprise anyone, but it shouldn't prevent them from speaking up about it.
Hollywood's history is the history of white actors taking roles of non-white characters. There's something a little extra insidious when the character they've been cast to play is based on a person of color. It's quite literally erasing an aspect of that character that likely played a key role in shaping who they are as a person.
You might be tempted to ask a question like, "Aren't actors pretending to be someone they aren't all the time?" or "So should actors only be allowed to act as their own race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation?" Focusing on what an actor does for a living, or what they should be allowed to do isn't really the right way to think about criticisms of casting in Hollywood. Criticizing a particular movie for casting white actors in roles that could have easily gone to actors of color, or Hollywood in general for whitewashing movies in a misguided attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator (otherwise known as the status quo), isn't an attempt to tell actors what roles they should go out for. It's also not the point.
The point of the discussions happening around issues of racism and racial bias in Hollywood are an attempt to point out what seems to be a fundamental assumption in casting directors' minds: if you're a white actor, you can play literally anything. It doesn't matter the background of the character you're playing if you're white—your whiteness isn't seen as a distraction for audiences, it won't make the character less believable, or unrelatable.
If you're a white actor, you are a blank canvas for audiences to paint their imaginations upon. You afforded enough agency and humanity that it seems natural to see you play characters from all arenas of life—you're found in positions of power, and at the lowest stations of life.
If you're a white actor, you are allowed and encouraged to play literally every character.
It's not so for actors of color. Actors of color are restricted in the roles they are allowed to take on. Actors of color are often given roles which are stereotypes of a specific race, and usually they're restricted to playing characters of their own race (though not always the same ethnicity; especially in the United States, race is primarily determined by skin color, not country of origin).
The issue isn't "white actors can't play a non-white person", the issue is "white actors are afforded more opportunities and bigger roles than actors of color".
Not coincidentally, the same holds for straight actors, cis actors, male actors—those qualities open up more desirable acting roles, and it you're not straight, cis, or male, the opportunities available to you are basically shit.
Criticizing Hollywood for casting yet another white actor to place a character of color is another way to point out how normalized being White is. Michael B. Jordan can't be Johnny Storm because Johnny Storm is the brother of a white woman. Idris Elba can't be Heimdall (another comic book character) without moviegoers raising a stink. But very few of the people criticizing these casting choices bat an eye when a white actor is cast as a character of color (or if a man is cast as a trans woman).
The bottom line is that there are different standards for white people in Hollywood. This shouldn't surprise anyone, but it shouldn't prevent them from speaking up about it.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
David Bowie
A brief note about the content for this piece of writing: I discuss a sexual assault of a minor.
Growing up, images of the strangeness a human being could imagine for themselves was essentially unknown to me. I tended towards weird fiction from an early age, loving stories with protagonists who didn’t fit the norms imposed upon them from outside. Once I was allowed to buy my own music (after a period of exploring the popular options of the 90s), I gravitated towards the artists who had ‘weirdness’ and ‘outsider’ emblazoned across their bodies in neon and black glitter—Nirvana, Queen, Marilyn Manson, Tool, NIN. The Cure, Bjork, Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins. David Bowie.
A couple of things stand out from the music I listened to when I was younger: Those bands and artists are primarily white and primarily male. I’ve made strides to correct this in recent years. That isn’t what I want to talk about right now, however. (And probably not something I’d write about to a general audience; I’m white, and don’t have any original or important insights into racism. I’ll leave that to better and more important writers.)
What might not be so obvious upon first glance is that amongst their number lie men who have done evil things. Bad, morally reprehensible things. Often, these things were done to women. These men were products of their culture, thoroughly, regardless of how Other and Weird and Queer (not necessarily a reference to their sexuality) they may have seemed to Young Me.
Recently, one of these artists has died. He was one of the artists who did morally reprehensible and morally questionable things, from the racism present in his body of work to the advantage he took of a young girl who put her trust in him. By “took advantage of”, I don’t mean that he made her do unpleasant chores for him, or that he took money for her. It’s a very mild euphemism for statutory rape. In her own words, David Bowie “took [her] virginity” when she was barely into her teens. Her name is Lori Maddox.
You can imagine that my feelings when I heard of Bowie’s death were perhaps on the strong side. Statutory rape is undeniably a capital-B Bad Thing, given the power dynamic at play between a young girl and an older man. The young girl in question, when she was older and an adult woman, doesn’t claim to have been harmed by Bowie’s actions. That’s good for her; not all of us are able to claim no harm in these situations.
Regardless of the lack of harm done to Maddox, Bowie’s actions were not consistent with morality as I understand it. “With great power comes great responsibility.” Yes, I’m quoting a comic book character in reference to morality. It’s an important idea, though. Bowie was clearly the one with all of the power--he had the glam, the money, the drugs, the fame. He was older than Maddox. He had the power in the situation; he did not handle it with any sort of responsibility.
I was never that into Bowie. I enjoyed his music. I enjoyed his movies. I enjoyed his weirdness, and I enjoyed seeing his image when I happened upon it. I didn’t go out of my way to find his music, though I know I had meant to at some point. I perhaps wasn’t what you’d call a fan. But his art touched my life. His weirdness let me know that there was a space for me. His art told me that being queer and strange wasn’t a hindrance to my art, that it was a boon.
Was David Bowie a good man? That’s not really the question. Is there such a thing as ‘good people’? I don’t believe there are. There are good actions, actions which are moral, which follow from ethical principles. There are bad (evil, even) actions, actions which may be performed with moral intent but which result in bad ends, which follow from flawed ethical principles.
There can be grey areas when trying to determine what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are. That’s okay, I think. We’re all just trying to figure out how to be good people, as impossible as that goal may be.
David Bowie did terrible things. David Bowie had a positive influence on my life, and many other lives. These aren’t contradictory ideas. I likely won’t ever be able to listen to my Best of Bowie 2-CD set without remembering that Bowie slept with a barely-teenager. My feelings when I learned of David Bowie’s were quite strong. They were also incredibly complicated.
Was David Bowie a good man? No. Does his goodness matter? I don’t know.
Growing up, images of the strangeness a human being could imagine for themselves was essentially unknown to me. I tended towards weird fiction from an early age, loving stories with protagonists who didn’t fit the norms imposed upon them from outside. Once I was allowed to buy my own music (after a period of exploring the popular options of the 90s), I gravitated towards the artists who had ‘weirdness’ and ‘outsider’ emblazoned across their bodies in neon and black glitter—Nirvana, Queen, Marilyn Manson, Tool, NIN. The Cure, Bjork, Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins. David Bowie.
A couple of things stand out from the music I listened to when I was younger: Those bands and artists are primarily white and primarily male. I’ve made strides to correct this in recent years. That isn’t what I want to talk about right now, however. (And probably not something I’d write about to a general audience; I’m white, and don’t have any original or important insights into racism. I’ll leave that to better and more important writers.)
What might not be so obvious upon first glance is that amongst their number lie men who have done evil things. Bad, morally reprehensible things. Often, these things were done to women. These men were products of their culture, thoroughly, regardless of how Other and Weird and Queer (not necessarily a reference to their sexuality) they may have seemed to Young Me.
Recently, one of these artists has died. He was one of the artists who did morally reprehensible and morally questionable things, from the racism present in his body of work to the advantage he took of a young girl who put her trust in him. By “took advantage of”, I don’t mean that he made her do unpleasant chores for him, or that he took money for her. It’s a very mild euphemism for statutory rape. In her own words, David Bowie “took [her] virginity” when she was barely into her teens. Her name is Lori Maddox.
You can imagine that my feelings when I heard of Bowie’s death were perhaps on the strong side. Statutory rape is undeniably a capital-B Bad Thing, given the power dynamic at play between a young girl and an older man. The young girl in question, when she was older and an adult woman, doesn’t claim to have been harmed by Bowie’s actions. That’s good for her; not all of us are able to claim no harm in these situations.
Regardless of the lack of harm done to Maddox, Bowie’s actions were not consistent with morality as I understand it. “With great power comes great responsibility.” Yes, I’m quoting a comic book character in reference to morality. It’s an important idea, though. Bowie was clearly the one with all of the power--he had the glam, the money, the drugs, the fame. He was older than Maddox. He had the power in the situation; he did not handle it with any sort of responsibility.
I was never that into Bowie. I enjoyed his music. I enjoyed his movies. I enjoyed his weirdness, and I enjoyed seeing his image when I happened upon it. I didn’t go out of my way to find his music, though I know I had meant to at some point. I perhaps wasn’t what you’d call a fan. But his art touched my life. His weirdness let me know that there was a space for me. His art told me that being queer and strange wasn’t a hindrance to my art, that it was a boon.
Was David Bowie a good man? That’s not really the question. Is there such a thing as ‘good people’? I don’t believe there are. There are good actions, actions which are moral, which follow from ethical principles. There are bad (evil, even) actions, actions which may be performed with moral intent but which result in bad ends, which follow from flawed ethical principles.
There can be grey areas when trying to determine what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are. That’s okay, I think. We’re all just trying to figure out how to be good people, as impossible as that goal may be.
David Bowie did terrible things. David Bowie had a positive influence on my life, and many other lives. These aren’t contradictory ideas. I likely won’t ever be able to listen to my Best of Bowie 2-CD set without remembering that Bowie slept with a barely-teenager. My feelings when I learned of David Bowie’s were quite strong. They were also incredibly complicated.
Was David Bowie a good man? No. Does his goodness matter? I don’t know.
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