Why was Baby Jesus so ugly?

I’m sure you’ve seen it. A meme, or an image in a textbook, featuring the Madonna and Child. Mary, the mother of Christ, doesn’t look exactly pleased to have given virgin birth. And as you get a really good look at the baby Jesus, you think it might have something to do with just how ugly and grotesque the infant Jesus is.

Didn’t artists in the past know what a baby looks like? Did babies of the past all look like tiny old men, and not in a metaphoric way? Why does that baby have so many abdominal muscles?

Fun fact: the baby Jesus was more than likely drawn and painted that way intentionally.

The thing about Jesus is that he’s kind of a big deal to Christians, and has been for some time. The Catholic church, which was much more prominent in daily life pre-Protestants, was responsible not only for the spiritual health of its parishioners, but also for commissioning the art that would depict to a largely illiterate populace the important highlights of the Bible.

They wanted to get across the large sweeping themes found in the text of the Bible, which was often written in Latin and which wasn’t a common language of the people. (The Bible of the Roman Catholic Church wasn’t always exclusively written in Latin, but various Popes and authority figures were known to ban Biblical texts that had been translated to common languages.)

Of course, Jesus isn’t explicitly described as an old, bald man in the Bible. But he is the son of God, so it was assumed that he wouldn’t be like most other babies—that he would have been born with more wisdom and knowledge and holy insight than your run-of-the-mill ungodly baby.

So how does one show in imagery that the Son of God is smarter than his baby body would imply? Give him a weird mix of adult and baby features, of course.

Age has long been associated with wisdom (Romans intentionally aged their patriarch subjects for portraits). If you’ve reached middle age, it’s fair to assume that you’ve gained some knowledge and experience that you can impart on others.

And that’s what Jesus represented: the wisdom and guidance of God Himself. But also a baby. Innocence and wisdom in one tiny, wizened package.

Medieval and pre-Renaissance art emphasized intangible ideas like holiness and spirit, and de-emphasized worldly concerns like form and beauty. What things looked like mattered less than what things represented.

A combination of religious orthodoxy, a prohibition on idolatry, and a desire to portray the spirit of a subject rather than its physical form all lead to the nearly infinite number of ugly baby Jesus’s found in medieval and early Renaissance art (a period of time from about the 5th century to the early 14th century). It wasn’t until ideas about God’s beauty being present in this physical world crept into the zeitgeist that Jesus was painted in a manner that was more recognizably a baby. Though, to be fair, there are no known paintings of Jesus with that just-born scowl that’s commonly found on real babies.

Resources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations (this has some cool images of illuminated manuscript pages, which is not relevant to this topic, but is relevant to my life)
• https://www.vox.com/2015/7/8/8908825/ugly-medieval-babies (an interview with an actual scholar about ugly babies in art. way more informative than what i wrote, and honestly i won’t blame you if you skip to this link) 
• https://www.stufftoblowyourmind.com/blogs/medieval-christ-child-art.htm 
• https://uglyrenaissancebabies.tumblr.com/ (i pulled my images from this tumblr)

Managing the Sickness

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Gay Marriage Problem

Gay marriage is often used as a marker of how accepted LGBTQ people are in the US. As marriage rights are expanded state by state, as the media focuses more and more on queer couples being allowed to participate in the larger society much as straight couples have been able to all along, it’s easy to think that queer acceptance is on the rise. The issue of gay marriage is highly visible; it’s easy to count the states where it’s legal for (some) queer people to marry. The largest gay rights organizations trumpet each state which at last extends legal marriage for same-sex partners. It’s easy to point to gay marriage and say, “See, queer people are like us now, they can marry in many states.”

I understand, to a large degree, why the focus has been on gay marriage over the past decade or so. It’s shiny, it’s flashy, it’s sexy--and it is one of many important issues relevant to many queer people. When the state legally recognizes your partnership, you’re allowed to more fully participate in the greater society; you’re afforded more legal rights. It’s a certain kind of validation of your relationship, when the state allows you to create a legally binding contract with another person. And when you love that person, and when marriage is understood to be an expression of that love, it’s important to be able to marry.

The problem with gay marriage is that it’s not a marker for attitudes towards queer people among the general population. Whether a state allows for same-sex partnerships says nothing about whether queer people are at a greater risk for bullying, harassment, or other more subtle bigotries. Being able to marry someone with the same legal gender as myself will never be a protection from bigotry. Being able to marry someone with the same legal gender as myself doesn’t mean that I won’t ever be fired for being queer.

According to Wikipedia: “Twenty-one states, the District of Columbia, and over 140 cities and counties have enacted bans [on public sector employment discrimination based on sexual orientation] of one sort or another.” Keep in mind, too, that legal prohibition on discrimination isn’t a guarantee that employment discrimination doesn’t happen. As with gay marriage, it isn’t a preventative for other discriminations. The now infamous story about a bakery refusing to sell a cake to a same-sex couple occured in Oregon, which legalized gay marriage in 2014 and has prohibited employment discrimination on sexual orientation since 2008.

Queer people face discrimination in all aspects of their life. Some queer people are more susceptible to certain types of discrimination than others. Gay marriage is an issue that is of concern primarily to middle-aged, affluent, and white queer people. If you’re queer, poor, and not white, you face a completely different set of discriminations; and you’re probably more vulnerable to the consequences of these discriminations than someone who has more social privilege than you.

If you care about queer people, you need to support organizations which do more than push gay marriage. Queer kids often lack adequate access to basic mental health resources, yet are the most likely to need help. Queer kids often face housing discrimination, especially if they're openly queer, and especially if their parents are homophobic.

Legalizing gay marriage will not solve these problems. Legalizing gay marriage will not magically better the lives of queer kids living with bigoted parents; allowing gays to marry will not end the murder of trans women; being able to marry someone with the same legal gender as myself does not make it easier to accept that my actual gender isn’t even generally recognized, let alone legally recognized.

If you actually care about queer rights, find an organization with promotes more than itself and gay marriage. Find an organization which provides legal and mental health resources to queer people; find an organization which focuses on outreach. Find a local organization, one that will help queer people who have pressing and immediate problems, problems such as being evicted from their homes, being fired from their jobs, or being attacked in the streets. Don’t fall for the symbolic feel-goodness of gay marriage.

Non-consensual Labeling

There's a trend amongst liberal types where they like to guess at the sexuality of people they don't like--usually GOP senators or Christian fundamentalist preachers. I call this sort of thing non-consensual labeling (a term I may have picked up from Julia Serano's Excluded). It's a fancy-sounding term for "attributing to a person an identity label they wouldn't use to describe themselves." Senator Bigot McFuckface is caught in a consensual sexual act with someone of the same gender? He's clearly a closeted homosexual. (It's inevitably a "he", though whether this is due to the gender imbalance present in US politics or because we forget that men aren't the only ones who have sex, I'm not sure.)

On the surface of it, this doesn't sound all that bad. One could argue that it's merely applying a descriptor to a person based on a set of behaviors they exhibit. Person A performs Actions X, Y, and Z, therefore Person A is part of Category 1. It seems rather logical, after all, to describe people based on how they act; how else are we supposed to understand other people, if we don't attempt to describe them?

The logic, such that it is, falls apart when you pick apart at it, though. For one thing, sexual orientation is not primarily understood to be a set of behaviors. That is to say, you can be a gay man without ever having sex with men. You can be a lesbian even if you've had sex with men. You can be asexual even if you've had sex. You can even be straight if you've had sex with people of your own gender.

Sexual orientation is understood to be, for the majority of us, self-defined. Each of us examines our own desires and emotions, and settle on a descriptor to help facilitate social situations--after all, just because two people call themselves "gay" doesn't mean their sexual history or desires are identical; we use such labels as shorthand for conversations with people who we feel don't require an intimate knowledge of our wants and desires.

Well, you might be saying, if sexual orientation can't be deduced based on a person's behaviors (engaging in same-sex hanky-panky, for instance), how should one go about figuring out the sexual orientation of others? That's usually easy enough--assuming you have a sufficiently close relationship with the person (or are hoping to begin a close relationship with this person), it's customary to ask a person what their sexual orientation is instead of trying to apply a label to someone without their consent. Telling someone they're [insert sexual orientation here] without bothering to ask that person is much like assuming everyone you meet is named Bob. Depending on where you live, there very well may be a lot of Bob's, but it's generally understood that calling everyone you meet "Bob" is rude.

In addition to the rudeness implicit in calling people names that aren't theirs, applying descriptors to a person based on a behaviors you observe in them can also be called stereotyping. When one person comes up with a descriptor for another person, they are basing their description on a limited set of data, and run the risk of misapplying a descriptor. Stereotypes are often based on faulty observations and are generalizations our brains make in order to survive in a complex world; we can't help but make generalizations, but we can help how we use this information.

To go back momentarily to Bob, perhaps you've observed in your life that people with hair are often called "Bob", and every Bob you've met has had hair. Naturally, with every Bob you've met, your generalization ("people with hair are Bob") has been reinforced. But perhaps everyone you've met with hair has been too shy or intimidated to correct you when you call them "Bob"; maybe some of the people you've met and called "Bob" are, in fact, "Mary." You can't know until you bother to ask their name, of course.

There is a difference between self-identifying as, for instance, gay, and having someone tell you that you are gay. There is a feeling of loss of agency when someone tells you what you are--they are forcing you into a box, often without consulting you about the box. When someone tells you what you are, when they call you Bob without making the effort to find out if you're a Mary, or a Fred, or an Anne, they are denying you the chance to define yourself. They are asserting that they know you better than you know yourself.

When it comes to the sexual orientation of public figures such as Senator Bigot McFuckface, it's easy to overlook their basic humanity, as they are quite often publicly hostile to queer people. They aren't nice people. There's no reason to treat them with the same politeness you'd give people who aren't pile of horseshit masquerading as human. It may not seem like that big of a deal to speculate about the orientation of such people.

However, when we speculate about the orientation of people we don't like, there is implicit the idea that because they aren't good people, it's okay to non-consensually label them. This isn't as overt a homophobia as punching someone in the face because they're queer, but it's still troubling. Non-consensually labeling a person "gay" who is publicly vocal about their bigotry towards queers relies on the idea that being queer is something they should feel bad about. If we are actually concerned with making the world a safer place to be queer in, laughing at Senator Bigot McFuckface because he got caught having consensual sex is counterproductive to this end.

Deciding that someone is gay based on one sexual act, and using that act to trumpet their hypocrisy, actually works to foster a hostile environment for those who are still in the closet. Many queer people have engaged in sexual acts in their past, before they were out, that would seem counter to how they presently describe their sexual orientation. Sometimes the reason a lesbian has sexual relations with a man isn't because she's confused, but because she lives in a heteronormative society which doesn't allow her to honestly examine her own desires. And sometimes a person avoids using non-heteronormative labels because of the high social stigma associated with them (Roy Cohn, for example, was emphatically not a homosexual, despite the sex he had with men).

A response

The following is a rant made in real time while I was reading Sam Harris' "I'm Not The Sexist Pig You're Looking For". I was originally going to post it as a Facebook comment, but then decided that it would be impolite to post such a long comment. So I made it a blog post, because why the hell not.

It isn't particularly coherent or cohesive, but it's certainly passionate. If I cared to, I could probably cobble it into a decent rebuttal, but I'm disinclined to do so. I'll let my "work" stand on its own, because I have already spent more than enough time on this piece of crap that Harris unleashed on the internet.

All punctuation and lack of decent structure are a testament to my not bothering to edit it, so just pretend that the capitals and periods are there, people.

Oh, he's talking about *active* atheists. *rolls eyes*

So, atheist activism is "intrinsically" more male, because Harris sees more men at the conferences he attends, therefore women must not be that into activism. Sorry, suffragettes, you ladies just weren't that into activism.

"more 'nurturing'" Jesus. H. Christ. STOP IT WITH THIS GENDER STEREOTYPING BULLSHIT YOU IGNORANT FOOL. Does he really not get that *this* bullshit is what makes him sexist? *Assuming* that women don't like the angry, in-your-face atheism? HAS HE MET ANY WOMEN? LIKE, EVER?

"if you think testosterone has no psychological effects on human minds in general" This is actually a common misconception, testosterone actually isn't that strongly linked with aggression, and if it is, women are more sensitive to its effects. I googled it recently, because I finally got tired of people trotting out the "but men are aggressive bc testosterone"/biological essentialism bullshit. This is a pretty good, if slightly old, summation of the problems with the "testosterone make men aggressive" hypothesis: http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/cognoculture/testosterone_and_human_aggression_or_180520 (Google "testosterone aggression" for more fun reading; you'll get quite a few articles that do put forward the claim that testosterone is the only reason men are aggressive, but you'll also discover that it's actually kind of way more complicated than that.)

"I was raised by a single mother." Oh god, not this bullshit.

"I respect women more than men, therefore I am immune to the cultural biases present in everyday life, and because I know I'm not sexist, I don't have to worry about when people point out problematic things I say!!!!" Good rationalization, bro.

"Anyone who thinks disparities of this kind must be entirely a product of sexism hasn’t thought about these issues very deeply." What. Like, actually, what. There are academics who spend their whole lives researching this, talking about this, and thinking about this. But because Harris doesn't think that sexism is the leading cause of women being kept out of business, it isn't. Never mind that he accepts that there is a majority Christian population in the US, and he likely also recognizes (unless he's completely bonkers) that Christianity is a *fundamentally* patriarchal religion. Like. This is easier than two and two. Most people are Christian + Christianity is a patriarchal (eg, inherently sexist against women) religion = SEXISM IS WHY WOMEN CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS. IT ISN'T THAT HARD, SAM.

"Most of these differences can be explained by general disparities in size, strength, and aggressiveness between the sexes." No. The can be explained in general attitudes towards women as things to possess + a "might makes right" attitude (a seeming staple of American culture, at least).

"slavishly follow the liberal line on gun control" fuck you. Did you know that women in an abusive relationship are way more likely to die at the hands of their partner than the other way around? Do you think having a gun in the house is going to be particularly reassuring to a woman who doesn't know when her husband/boyfriend is going to have a rage-fit? If you'd bothered to know what the fuck you were talking about, Harris, you'd know that women who need protection from their abusive partners don't actually benefit from having a thing in the house that will easily kill them should they happen to be in the area when their partner decides to go off on them for something.

"women are slightly better at this than men." We are constantly on guard, and don't have the privilege of being unaware of our surroundings. I, personally, as a 5'8" large woman don't tend to be bothered by things like walking alone down a street at night; I have a sort of "privilege by association," because I'm rather masculine in appearance, and at first glance might seem to be a guy. So I don't have to worry as much. So I'm not constantly on guard. It's not an inherent woman thing, Sam, it's a "women have been trained since birth" sort of thing.

"My criticism of Islam ... largely inspired by my concern for women" Wow. That's rather patronizing. And sexist. WHAT ABOUT THE MEN WHO ARE AFFECTED BY ISLAM, HUH? DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT THEM?

Ugh, that last paragraph just drips awful.

Peer Sexual Harassment

Peer sexual harassment is sexual harassment which occurs happens between people who know each other. Sexual harassment is any non-consensual touching or comment that is of a sexual nature. This may seem to be a subjective definition, but for the inclusion of the word “non-consensual”. Consent is a very important idea when you’re talking about any sexual matter--from actual sex, to flirting and playful banter. When you’re attempting to engage someone, whether it’s a conversation or a hug, you should get that person’s consent before continuing. That doesn’t mean you need to explicitly ask everyone every time you want to talk to them; consent includes watching for non-verbal indicators that the other party is okay with your engaging them. As an example, I’ve had numerous people engage me in both harmless and sexual conversation on public transportation--the most memorable, to me, was the one guy who kept trying to talk to me even though I kept going back to my book and answering him (if I did) monosyllabically. It’s easy to say “You should have just told the guy to go away”--I wonder myself what kept me from doing so. Social situations are a two-party system, though, and to any reasonable viewer, I was not consenting to that guy’s attempt to engage me.

I would consider any form of unwanted touching to be sexual harassment. If someone doesn’t want it, they aren’t consenting to it. It is, of course, difficult to know what other people are thinking, but that’s why you have to be proactive in determining whether or not someone is okay with your actions. Don’t assume that if they aren’t speaking up, that they’re okay with it. Don’t be an accidental harasser--even good, well intentioned people can accidentally overstep boundaries. People are human, they make mistakes. That’s not the problem. The problem is when you don’t care enough to establish personal boundaries with other people. It’s hard; I know how hard it is, as someone who’s had to speak up countless times to establish my own boundaries, which seem to be more restricted than is common (I’m not a hugger, for instance, and am uncomfortable with hugging people I’m not in an established friendship with, but this seems to be uncommon in my peers, and I’ve had to have the “please ask before hugging me” conversation a lot). But it’s important to know what other people are comfortable with, especially if you’re trying to improve your communication with them. Having a five minute conversation about what the other person is comfortable with (“Hey, I know I’m a real touchy kind of person, are you okay with that? y/n”) can greatly improve a relationship--it tells the other person that you care about them; and if you respect their boundaries, it shows them that they can trust you.

Gender Communication in the Workplace

This post is in response to this video.

The first issue that jumped out at me was the way in which the project manager, Terry, seemed to demand things from her employees. Regardless of the cultural and gender differences between her and her employees, it’s a generally bad idea to be demanding of the people you’re working with. It’s good to expect things from your employees, but to expect that the people you’re working with are responsible for everything that goes wrong is going to breed in your co-workers an inability to trust you. They won’t want to come to you for help because they’ll expect that you’re going to just blame them for the problems, instead of supporting and empowering them to find the solution themselves.

Terry also seemed uninterested in the actual reasons there were problems. She asked what the problems were, but didn’t allow her employees room to explain the issues. Had Carlos been allowed to explain the system of compadres that were in place, the problem with the equipment would have been avoided. Instead, Terry ignored the advice that Carlos gave--clearly not caring about his opinion or experience. There is nothing so demoralizing as thinking that the person you’re working for doesn’t respect your opinions--they don’t have to agree with you, but they should at least be interested and explore what issues come up.

In a gender communications context, women and men are often socialized to communicate differently; when Miguel spoke about how his culture uses a lot of body language and other nonverbal communication, I was reminded of the section in our text which went over how men and women often utilize different communication styles. Obviously, if two people are “speaking two different languages” (communicating differently), there will be roadblocks to effective communication. If one party is unable or unwilling to adapt to the communication style of the person they’re engaging in communication with, communication will break down, and problems like what we saw in the video will occur.

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I'm including my response to a student's response to the video here because it's so short:
I agree that the video focuses primarily on cultural differences, but I think if you think of men and women as coming from different cultures, this video becomes applicable to gender communications. Of course, the analogy isn't airtight, as men and women from the same culture tend to share more in common with each other than they do with men and women from other cultures. However, as we've read about in our textbook, men and women often approach problems in communication as though they have been raised in separate cultures--much like cross-cultural communication, cross-gender is possible. I would argue that cross-gender communication is easier than cross-cultural communication; as I said, men and women from the same culture tend to have shared experiences that they can build on. When we speak to someone else, we are very much aware of their gender (gender is one of the first things we notice about someone, in fact), and as such we adapt our communication style to match what we think they expect and what we expect they will best respond to. How you communicate with people changes depending on context, and context includes things like what gender you perceive the other party to be. Men and women from the same culture will know, if only intuitively, how to communicate in a gendered context. Problems arise when these communication patterns are based on stereotypes, rather than being responsive to the individual you're communicating with--much as we saw in the cross-cultural video.

Ways to Hurt in a Close Relationship

I really can’t generalize from my own experiences to speak to both genders in this regard, but going on what I have observed in my own relationships, and the relationships in those around me, it seems as though men are more likely to use physical violence to hurt their partners. Women are more likely to use emotional violence, or psychological violence, against their partners. Female-on-male physical violence is probably less rare than people tend to think, and it’s usually shrugged off because women tend to be the less physically strong partner. Physical violence, though, often comes packaged with psychological violence, because the receiver of the violence will often feel self-doubt as a result of their partner’s attack--they’ll question what they did to provoke the attack, they’ll convince themselves that it wasn’t that big of a deal. If it’s woman-on-man violence, I can imagine that most men would feel too ashamed to speak up about the violence, given the ridicule the idea of a woman battering a man often garners; men aren’t supposed to be physically inferior to women, so getting “bested” in a physical fight with your female partner is bound to create all kind of self-shame and feel emasculating. Men’s identities are often tied up in how physically strong they are, so having that questioned is going to cause them distress. Domestic violence is often framed as something that only women have to deal with, as well, and that creates a sort of vacuum in which men don’t feel they can speak up in.

I also think that emotional abuse is brushed off as some sort of unserious problem. I’ve had friends who have been in manipulative and emotionally difficult relationships, where their partner made them feel as though my friends were at fault for whatever problems were happening. I’ve seen what that sort of abuse can do to someone, and don’t feel like it gets talked about often enough. It usually involves making the victim feel as though they can’t trust their own feelings, that the victim is just ‘over-reacting’ to something, or just ‘crazy’ and making up stuff. While over-reactions and misinterpretations happen (humans are flawed beings, and mistakes get made), often abusers will deflect any responsibility for the problems that come up. I noticed that in the text, in the sections regarding the two ways abuse affects the abused, and why they stay (Ivy 295-297)--the Blaming Oneself and Blaming External Factors sections didn’t explicitly say it, but what happens in these situations is that the victim isn’t able to attach responsibility to the abuser; from what I’ve seen and experienced, the abuser is complicit in this thinking, refusing to accept that their actions have actually caused harm or refusing to engage their partner in discussion about how they’re harming their partner. It’s easy to point to a bruise and tell someone, “You’ve really hurt me,” but it’s another thing to point to a feeling and tell someone, “You’re why I’m feeling this [sadness, guilt, anger].”

Conflict and Gender Communication in Romantic Relationships

Conflict, in my experience, arises as a combination of conflicting needs, desires, or wants and poor communication between partners. Even if the partners aren’t experiencing a conflict of needs, if they aren’t communicating with their partner, this will lead to conflict. Poorly communicating to your partner can be just as bad, too--if you aren’t speaking up for yourself, if you aren’t being honest with your partner, or if you aren’t willing to listen to your partner, all of these can lead to conflict within a relationship.

The demand-withdraw pattern seems to me to arise from one or both partners being unwilling or unable to view their relationship as a sum of the parts, rather as being as they want it to be. A relationship isn’t just what one partner wants it to be, it’s got to be a mutual thing, where both partners are defining the parameters of the relationship. In a demand-withdraw pattern, it seems more like one partner is imposing their own desires on the relationship, and doesn’t seem to care about the other partner; this might be for a variety of reasons--maybe their partner has a history of ignoring their desires, maybe their partner doesn’t assert any desires and so they feel the need to fill a vacuum, or maybe they demand things because they haven’t matured to the point where they feel comfortable accommodating the other person. The partner who tends to withdraw might do so for a variety of reasons, as well--perhaps they feel hounded, perhaps they don’t know how to express their own desires, perhaps they aren’t willing to risk the relationship over what they view as a single instance of disagreement.

I think the best way to avoid the demand-withdraw pattern in a relationship is to not avoid conflict, as hard as that can be, and to confront differences in wants, needs, and desires directly. Being honest with your partner about how comfortable you are with certain activities, having boundaries regarding “couple time” and “me time”, and genuinely wanting to be in a relationship with the other person--not to view them as a necessity, or a chore, but genuinely want to build a life with that person (maybe for the rest of your life, or maybe just for six months)--seem like the best ways to avoid demand-withdraw.

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My response to another student (it's short so I'm not going to put it in a separate post):
I think you're spot on when you say "Neither of the parties really have to take any responsibility for issues they share [in the demand-withdraw pattern]." The demander gets to put the onus of responsibility for a problem on the other party, and the withdrawer gets to shirk all responsibility by avoiding dealing with the conflict. The problem, meanwhile, is still present in the relationship; ignoring or making someone else deal with the problem isn't going to make it go away. It's also easy, after a while, for the withdrawer to frame their partner as a 'nag' or simply over-sensitive, rather than admit that they have a part to play in maintain the relationship. The demander can frame their partner as indifferent or insensitive to their needs, which will likely only fuel their flaw-finding.

I agree that conflict is often synonymous with fighting, while there are definitely differences between them. I think it's reasonable to expect conflict in a relationship, and I think it's natural to fear fighting with someone you care about. Having an argument with someone you care about is difficult. You don't want to be angry with someone you have deep feelings for. I don't think it's as easy as "not fearing" conflict, but being able to push through the fear, if that makes any sense.

"How to Win an Argument", Pt 2

Note: For this post, I'm posting the content of the person I'm responding to, as it is important context to have when reading my response. As per usual, all names have been redacted.

Student:

In my opinion, the best tactic is the first one because once a man acknowledges his girlfriend, she will be calm down and tend to not say anything. The more you complain, the more girlfriend complains. Actually, girls complain more than boys, so that men should give up as soon as possible. And also, men should say "I understand you and love you". I think that strategy is the best for keeping relationship. For me, I do not like having a problem and continuing conflict because I am lazy. I will forget conflicts after I walk three steps. However, some girls continue conflicts for long time. That is why I give up conflicts as soon as possible. For the strategy #2, I do not think it is good idea because the talking will be long time. Because I am lazy, I do not listen for long time. I like #3 too because once I acknowledge I am wrong, girls can notice the boyfriend could understand. This strategy relates to #1. To avoid continuing the conflicts, boys should give up as soon as possible. I think only #1 and #3 is the best tactic to win because to compromise first is winning. If men complain a lot, it is not cool and they are childish. Men should be quiet and compromise as soon as possible. So, I think using two tactics, we can build good relationship and friendship. For the other tactics, you probably make girls angry, so I do not think they work.

Your opinion is certainly interesting, [Student]. I definitely don’t agree that one partner should ever “give up” when trying to communicate with the other partner. I also find your use of the word “complain” curious, given that we were exploring conflict and arguing with members of other sexes. I think if you view your partner as just “complaining” about something, you’re building a barrier in your communication with them. The word “complain”, to me at least, implies that you don’t consider your partner’s experience as important as they seem to. Complaints, outside of the realm of customer service, are typically treated with less respect than just plain opinions. If someone is a “complainer”, they’re viewed as someone who’s never happy, who isn’t easy to please, someone who’s opinions can be discounted because all they’re doing is “just complaining.”

I think giving up on conflicts, instead of trying to understand why you and the other person have the conflict, is a bad strategy if you’re interested in building strong relationships. The biggest part of any relationship, be it friendship or romance or being coworkers, is empathy--empathy requires that you make the attempt to understand the other person in the relationship. Without empathy, a friendship is hollow, and a romance is doomed. Relationships are complicated, even when they’re just two people. Conflicts don’t have to be negative--I’ve had near-shouting matches with one of my closest friends, and our friendship is one of the strongest I have. Refusing to engage in an argument with someone you’re in a relationship with isn’t about avoiding conflict, it’s about ignoring the perspective of the person you’re in the relationship with.

"How to Win an Argument", Pt 1

Note: This is in response to 'How to Finally Win an Argument with Your Woman' by Laura Snyder. The link I have for this is a deadlink, but I will include the text of the "article" at the end. It's worth reading, if only for the realization that people actually think like that. Like, seriously.

I was recently talking about this with a friend of mine, and she showed me this really compelling video regarding “winning arguments”, and how most people think of arguments as tiny wars to be fought. The argument that the speaker was making was best summed up, I think, as “arguments are more productive if you think of them as learning opportunities.” I definitely find this to be a much more healthy attitude than “trying to win” arguments. When arguments are a battle, there is a winner and a loser, and you can’t gain anything if you’ve lost an argument. Communication should be about the exchange of ideas, and if there’s a loser (who hasn’t gained any knowledge by virtue of having lost the ‘battle’), then the communication is skewed and, in my opinion, failed. I also think that if you’re viewing your relationship as a war, rather than as a partnership to build a life with someone, you might reconsider your approach. Are there conflicts in relationships? Absolutely--two (or more) people who each have their own individual wants, needs, and desires will inevitably find that they have conflicting wants, needs, or desires. That doesn’t mean that one party should “win” at the expensive of the other.

As for the article, I find the tone and outlook rather sexist. “Women love arguments”? Really? And men “hate conflict”? These are statements founded on extremely frustrating and sexist gender stereotypes. They also aren’t consistent with what little I do know about men and women--if men “hate conflict” so much, then why do they play any type of sport? If men are wary of conflict with their significant other (assumed, of course, to be a female partner), is it because they don’t like conflict, or maybe because they’ve been conditioned to handle conflict in a certain manner (through violent means) and have also been conditioned to treat women a certain way (besides the whole “don’t hit girls” mandate, there’s the idea that men need to treat women with kid gloves, because they’re so fragile)? Additionally, the “tactics” to “win” an argument seem like pandering and not about actually communicating with the person you’re attempting to have a life with. Instead of “winning” an argument, maybe you could, I don’t know, try to understand why your partner is upset? I’m not directing this exclusively at men in a heterosexual relationship--I mean that everyone who is in a relationship (romantic or otherwise) should avoid trying to “win” arguments, and instead focus on understanding what their partner is saying, and why they’re saying it. Actually communicate with your partner, don’t try to just score points off of them.

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Text of "How to Win an Argument with Your Woman"

Women love arguments. It gives us a chance to talk (or yell) about our feelings, understand each other better, explain to you how you can be a better boyfriend. We're the ones that tell you that conflicts are good for relationships. Men, on the other hand, hate arguments. Maybe because you hate conflict. Or because you just don't want to get into it before the fourth quarter starts. Or maybe it's because we almost always find a way to spank you in a spat, even if your position is seemingly invincible.

If you're going to do battle, boys, you might as well be armed. Here's how to beat her at her own game.

Battle Tactic #1: Evasive Maneuvers
The fastest way to win a fight is to avoid it completely. And there's an almost foolproof way of doing that... it's called "acknowledging her feelings." In most cases, that's all she wants when she picks a fight anyway. Just restate her complaint so she sees you're listening and then hit her sympathy. (Key words: I, understand, you, that, must, feel)

Battle Tactic #2: Actually Listen
Might not sound all that devious, but one of the reasons she consistently kicks your butt in battle is because while you're talking, she's cataloging all the inconsistencies in your story. Listen to what you're saying first, and pay careful attention to what she's saying and when you reply, address her points. At the very least, she'll take you more seriously.

Battle Tactic #3: Admit You're Wrong.
One of guys' biggest mistake is overvaluing being right. Any woman can tell you that being right doesn't matter in an argument; admitting you're wrong and winning an argument are not the same thing (Consider the difference between "I was wrong to buy a motorcycle without consulting you" and "I will return the motorcycle.") In fact, by admitting you were wrong up front, you rob her of ammunition and there's nothing left to fight about.

Battle Tactic #4: Don't Be Distracted
Resist the temptation to pounce on her false premises, unsound deductions and blatant falsehoods of her reasoning. Again, this isn't about being right... and she's just firing those shots to find your weaknesses. Other sneaky woman tricks to ignore: false apologies, wildly unreasonable ultimatums, tears and withholding sex. Oh, and don't try to use any of them yourself. You'll never pull it off.

Battle Tactic #5: Know When It's Over
Ideally, you'll end your fight with a sense of closure, usually with a statement along the lines of "I need you to do X" or "I see Minor Problem A as being a symptom of Much Bigger Problem B." >From that point, it should be fairly easy to come to a mutually agreeable compromise. Watch her melt when you say "Can we work on this together?".

Battle Tactic #6: Know When It's Really Over
Before you get ready for the make-up sex, though, make sure it's really over. Watch her body language. Is she nodding her head in agreement, or sitting there wearing a scowl with her arms crossed? If she looks angry, it ain't over, even if she says it is. Proceed to sexual overtures with extreme caution.

Dove Real Beauty Sketches, Pt 2

I think [Student] makes an excellent point with regards to how men can be insecure about their body image; however, it is interesting to me to note that women are far and away more likely to be diagnosed with an eating disorder than men. I do think that American culture places an unhealthy emphasis on looks, and do think that men and women face their own separate issues when it comes to body image. It seems to me, however, that men are more likely to be forgiven for bucking the trend when it comes to how they look. That is to say, if a man chooses not to put hours into the gym, chooses not to diet in order to keep a trim figure, and chooses not to always wear stylish clothes, he isn’t judged as harshly as a woman who does the same. Having never experienced being male, I can’t speak authoritatively on this, but I do have experience living as a woman who doesn’t conform to American beauty standards. I have felt immense pressure to conform to these beauty standards, both internal and external.

As I mentioned in my first response, I do think that marketers have caught on to the idea that they’ve been neglecting approximately half the population. Magazines, beauty products, and clothing manufacturers seem to be more and more emphasizing a certain male beauty standard, which I find wholly unfortunate and frustrating. The trend is towards an equality between the sexes, but it is an equality that leads to mental health issues, physical health issues, and encouraging all the wrong things. Men falling prey to the same body image problems that have plagued women for quite a long time now is far from the feminist ideal of equality.

Dove Real Beauty Sketches, Pt 1

Watching the Dove Real Beauty Sketches video, I was struck by how critical the women shown were of themselves. I’ve struggled with the same kind of thing, always being more critical of myself than others. It’s startling to me that even conventionally attractive women (which most of the women featured were) can be so pessimistic of their looks. I think it shows how easily and how thoroughly we internalize messages of beauty in our culture. We’re bombarded with Photoshopped images of flawless creations that bear a passing resemblance to what humans look like in the wild, and we begin to think that’s how women should look, instead of realizing that women don’t look like that at all. I know that men as well as women have to put up with idealized beauty standards in the media, but the male friends I’ve discussed this with don’t seem to have the same level of problem regarding not meeting the ideal as my female friends. Body image problems seem to be something that women primarily deal with, which makes me think that women especially feel the pressure to conform to beauty standards. The way to deal with this double standard isn’t to make men feel more poorly about their bodies, of course, but to have more realistic models in the media. I feel like I’ve read something in the recent past about how with the rise of heavily Photoshopped male models, there has been a corresponding drop in positive body image among young men, but I can’t recall where I read it.

The second video, which was an obvious parody of the Real Beauty Sketches, was pretty funny. I think, though, having an inflated sense of your own self isn’t something that most men have. Are men more confident in their looks on average when compared to women? Without having done any actual research, I would say that men don’t think about their own beauty in the same way that women do. Most beauty products are targeted at women, whereas most male hygienic products are simply soap or deodorant. I have noticed that there seem to be more body care products aimed at men that aren’t just soap or deodorant, though, and I find that pretty troubling. The message with most beauty products seems to be, “You aren’t perfect, and that’s wrong, so here’s this thing that will help make you perfect.” Body care products seem less about actually caring for your body and more about creating in real life what we see in Photoshopped magazines. I understand grooming, and wanting to look your best, but there seems to be something more sinister underlying beauty care products that I can’t like.

Informational Communication & Relational Communication, Pt 2

[Student] helped me understand something that I think I find problematic with the difference between “informational” and “relational” communications--what, exactly, is the difference between your male friends reaching out to you to share things they’re excited about, and your female friends reaching out to you in order to catch up? It seems to me that the only difference is content of the conversation, not reason for the conversation. The reason for the conversation seems to be the same regardless of the gender of the friend who is conversing with you--they are reaching out to you, in order to maintain a relationship with you. It seems that your friends have differing strategies for achieving that goal--your male friends tend towards sharing common interests, while your female friends tend towards asking about your life (which, in a certain light, could be considered a common interest--assuming you’re interested in your own life, of course).

One thing I think is key from the text is the clarification that “every message carries content and relational meanings” (169). I think I missed that in my first reading of the passage, which led to my confusion. I still think focusing on how different men and women communicate buries the lede--that is to say, I think we have much more in common with regards to how we communicate and what we communicate about than we give ourselves credit for. And especially if we let gender stereotypes guide our interactions with other people, we will tend towards having problems when we’re communicating with other people. Your example of approaching your friend after his loss highlights this, and is similar to my own experience with grief and my friends’ support--I tend towards not wanting to discuss emotional experiences. When I lost an aunt I was close with, I didn’t want to talk about how I felt, but hanging out with my best friend and getting on with normal life was very helpful in dealing with my grief. Had my friend pushed me to focus on how I felt, I don’t think it would have been as helpful.

Sources:
Ivy, Diana K. GenderSpeak (5th Edition).

Informational Communication & Relational Communication, Pt 1

I don’t think that I communicate like women are supposed to; at the very least, I don’t feel like I primarily engage in conversation in order to maintain relationships. I’m pretty notoriously bad at communicating for the primary goal of maintaining relationships (just ask my mom). I tend to consider conversations as a means to exchange information between people--information can be anything from what the weather is like to finding out how the other person is feeling. I think you have to do things in order to have something to talk about, and the media image of women who sit around and gossip and talk about their feelings doesn’t appeal to me. I do think the media image of how women communicate is an exaggeration, however, and wouldn’t like to base my ideas of how women communicate on that image.

In my experience with communicating with men and women, there is a blending of these two conversational styles. I think some men and some women tend towards the extremes regarding communication styles, but I strongly disagree with the idea that differences between how the sexes communicate is a fundamental sex difference. I think how men and women communicate is dictated largely by social factors. This means that communicating for information or in order to maintain relationships isn’t inherent in being a man or a woman; all genders exhibit these qualities to some degree, and all genders are capable of learning how to communicate either for informational purposes or in order to maintain relationships. I find the idea that “women are inherently better at interpersonal conversation” deeply sexist, in that it implies the converse: that women are inherently bad at informational communication.

Confusing Attitudes, Pt 2

I often have the same problem as [Student]--I don’t find speaking with new people very easy, and am often very conscious of my body when speaking to strangers. In a work setting, where I know the expectations of the customers and my co-workers, I’m more comfortable speaking with people. I don’t find that I have any more or less difficulty speaking with men or women, perhaps because I don’t have any romantic expectations from the people I’m speaking to. I do get a bit tongue-tied speaking with a woman I find attractive, but I suspect this is a universal trait between genders. Talking to someone you find attractive is stressful--you don’t want to appear to be a gibbering idiot in front of them, and your brain is furiously working to figure out things to say to them to impress them. It’s all very tiring.

I think communication hiccups between genders are more likely when both or either party are relying too heavily on gender stereotypes in how they’re communicating. For instance, if while in a conversation with a woman, a man tries to be the stereotypical assertive, dominating male in the conversation, he’s likely to communicate poorly with the person he’s trying to talk to. Or if he considers the woman he’s talking to to be a stereotypical woman (that is, soft-spoken, indirect, and emotional), he’s likely to communicate poorly and make some sort of faux pas. I don’t think someone has to be aware that they’re applying stereotypes to another person for this to happen, either; we’re all of us plagued by unconscious biases that guide our decision-making.

Confusing Attitudes, Pt 1

Note: For this question, I ended up with two answers to the question, because I initially misread the question. I present both to you here.

In many of the studies concerning how the media affects our perception of gender cited in the book, I keep wondering how strong the causal link between media and our attitudes about gender are. There seems to be significant correlation between attitudes about sex and gender in the media we consume, but just because the correlation exists doesn’t mean that the media is responsible for these societal attitudes. Or, to put it another way, which came first: the societal stereotypes regarding gender roles and sexual behavior, or the media depiction of these stereotypes?

Another concern I have regarding the studies mentioned are whether the effects which were reported were short-term or long-term. That is to say, if you watch a movie depicting traditional gender and sex roles, how long will those depictions stay with you? Additionally, are these studies showing that media can outright change how we perceive gender, and how we communicate with people of different genders, or do they perhaps show how the media can reinforce the biases we already hold regarding ideas about gender and sex? My initial opinion is that media reinforces biases which already exist in people and in our society; to relate it to the pornography exploration in GenderSpeak (pg 113-120), simply cleansing media of pornographic images won’t change or eradicate the sexist or degrading treatment of women. Sexist attitudes exist independent of pornography, but can be reinforced by their portrayal in media. And to quote a cliche, the answer to bad free speech is more free speech, not less (a rather simplistic view on the issue, but I could probably write a couple of pages on the use and misuse of the idea of free speech, and that’s slightly off-topic).

A third concern I have about studies regarding gender communication are how heteronormative they seem to be. When discussing how the genders communicate, it seems to me that there is an underlying assumption that the communication that is happening between heterosexual men and heterosexual women. The author of GenderSpeak, at least, seems to be somewhat aware of this heteronormative bias, but when the text relates a study, there doesn’t seem to be sufficient critique of the heteronormative biases that might have crept into the formation of the study or in how the results were interpreted. I don’t know whether this bias would actually change the studies or their results, but it seems to me that there should be more value placed in seeking out LGBT perspectives regarding gender communication. How a gay man experiences communicating with other men (gay, transgender or straight) may differ from how a straight, cisgendered man experiences communicating with other men (gay, transgender or straight), and that would be valuable information regarding communication overall. I feel I might be more interested in the hetero bias regarding the gender communication studies we’ve been reading about than some of my hetero peers, and that I might pick up on them more than my hetero peers.

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I feel that I hold a less traditional view of gender roles than many of my peers. I find stereotypical depictions of men and women in the media as grating and abrasive, and can’t easily watch or consume any media which relies heavily on gender stereotypes. This means that I genuinely don’t watch reality TV, and have to leave the room when my roommates decide to watch it. My peers are often surprised when I mention my disinclination to have children--as a woman, it seems to be the assumption that my uterus will eventually override my disinterest in having children and I’ll be as baby-crazy as the next woman. I’ve actually had conversations where the phrase “that will change once you’ve had children” was used (by my mom, who does not push me on the issue of children or relationships).

I’ve noticed a preoccupation in my peers with finding a romantic partner--it’s certainly something that I’m interested in, but many of my peers seem to think of their relationships with other people in primarily romantic ways. What I mean is that I’ve noticed a shortage, in the media and in my own life, of men and women who aim to create meaningful relationships with the other sex outside of romantic framing. Of course, I do know men and women who are friends, but with the proliferation of dating sites (such as OKCupid), there seems to be a lot of pressure to find someone dateable rather than someone friendable. I’ve seen the term “friend-zoning” often thrown at women, meaning that when a man’s romantic interests (which are deemed more important in these contexts) in a woman aren’t reciprocated, the woman has “friend-zoned” the man. As far as I can determine, being “friend-zoned” is supposed to be a form of emasculation, because men apparently aren’t supposed to have meaningful relationships with women without sex. Using the term “friend-zoning” elevates one party’s feelings in a situation over another party’s--a man who accuses a woman of “friend-zoning” him is telling her that her feelings (or lack of certain feelings, such as attraction) aren’t as important as his attraction to her.

Very recently, I’ve been seeing the term “girlfriend-zoned” as a response to the idea of “friend-zoned”; the idea is that women feel undue pressure from some of the men in their life to enter into a romantic or sexual relationship with these men, and that there is an unfair expectation by some men that all women should be interested in dating men who show an interest in these women. I think this exposes how absurd it is for men to seek primarily sexual or romantic relationships with women; the idea that being “merely” friends with a member of the opposite sex seems like a dangerous and harmful attitude. Men and women should strive to be friends more often, and men shouldn’t be afraid of being friend-zoned.