Hypatia: The Movie

Later this year comes a major motion picture depicting the life and death of Hypatia of Alexandria. It's called Agora and you can watch a teaser trailer below (the film looks quite stunning in its recreation of the ancient world!)

Hypatia preserved the legacy of Plato and Aristotle until she was attacked and murdered by Christians that mobbed Alexandria in 415 CE.

Lest you think that the Christians were mindless thugs bent on destroying philosophy, everyone should be reminded that the patron saint of philosophy is also a woman: St. Catherine (also from Alexandria, though she preceded Hypatia by more than 60 years).

Alexandria must have been quite the interesting city to unite both pagans and Christians around women philosophers.

Sexist Jokes Promote Violence Toward Women

As readers know, I've been interested for a while in the use of humor (particularly satire) for social justice work, as well as understanding what makes racist and sexist jokes morally problematic (check out the philosophy of humor tag). Now Spanish researchers have done a study that suggests that young men who listen to sexist jokes somehow become desensitized to statements that justify aggression and violence toward women.

Surprising?

"Men Live Better Where Women Are in Charge"

Not surprising really.


Ricardo Coler went to live among the Mosuo, a matriarchal ethnic minority in China. He talks about his experience in this Der Spiegel interview.

It would be interesting to get a more ethnographic account of this society (to flesh out what "living better" really means, how "work" is distributed and what the women think about the whole situation). But from Coler's description, it sounds as if the Mosuo live like the bonobos.

CEDAW Update for International Women's Day: Will this be the Year?

Nancy Pelosi has urged passage of the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in the U.S. Senate as soon as possible. CEDAW was drafted almost thirty years ago but the U.S. has never signed on. It joins an exclusive club of about 8 nations, including notorious human rights violators, such as Sudan, Somalia, and Iran, in avoiding the treaty.

Even though the Senate is Democrat controlled and Obama favors the treaty, it looks like it will be a hard fight toward ratification. Conservatives argue that ratification means the U.S. will give up national sovereignty and be forced to recognize a right to abortion and legalized prostitution. They are unlikely to vote for ratification without provisos that exempt the U.S. from certain portions of the treaty. These exemptions anger liberals who may not want to vote for a watered down CEDAW.

Here is a list of the Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee. You can contact them with the following talking points and urge passage of CEDAW:

I urge you to support the Treaty for the Rights of Women and work toward full Senate ratification.

The Treaty for the Rights of Women addresses basic human rights of women. It can be an effective tool in reducing violence and discrimination against women and girls, ensuring girls and women receive the same access as boys and men to education and health care, and securing basic legal recourse to women and girls against violations and abuses of their human rights.

As the leading superpower, U.S. ratification would lend weight to the Treaty and provide valuable support to women seeking reforms in countries around the world. Without the United States as a party to the Treaty, repressive governments can easily discount the Treaty?s provisions.

The United States played an important role in drafting this Treaty, which 185 nations have ratified. But our country is now 1 of 8 that have yet to ratify the Treaty, alongside Sudan, Somalia, Qatar, Iran, Nauru, Palau and Tonga.

(Cross Posted at the OSU Philosophy Department's Ideas Matter 2009 Blog)

Dolores Huerta Becomes a Cultural Icon (Finally!)

Glamour magazine recently did a photo layout of young actresses and singers portraying "women in history" (even though some of the women depicted are cultural icons or fictional characters and not actual persons).

But among them was America Ferrera (of Ugly Betty fame) as Dolores Huerta, co founder (with Cesar Chavez) of the United Farm Workers union.



Its about time this woman got the icon status she deserves.

I recently was excited to get a copy of the A Dolores Huerta Reader by Mario Garcia. Hopefully, this work can start to attract scholarly attention to Huerta's role as a nonviolent activist in U.S. history.

Are Romantic Comedies Dangerous to Our Emotional Life?

According to a new study, this woman might be one of the most dangerous people in the world:



Researchers have found that people who are fans of romantic-comedies, such as Sleepless in Seattle, tend to hold attitudes about relationships that likely to lead to disfunctionality because they are so unrealistic. For instance, "rom-com" fans are more likely to believe that 'sex should always be perfect', and that people should hold out for 'soul mates' who will understand their needs without ever having to ask or be told about them.

This genre of films is also commonly referred to as "chick-flicks", suggesting that they appeal to young women in particular. There is a quite a bit of feminist research on how certain kinds of media, such as Disney films, present damaging ideals of femininity to young girls. Are romantic comedies similarly damaging by perpetuating warped notions of relationship and emotional expression?

Carnival of Feminists # 71

The carnival of feminists #71 is now on line, with some of the best of feminist blogging on the web. Check out the Engage entry!

The Ethics of Polyamory and Relationship Diversity: The Complete Series

The final webisode of the interview with Christian Matheis is finally up. You can now listen to all four webisodes:

Webisode One: "What is Polyamory?" Definitions of Relationship Diversity

Webisode Two: "What is Polyamory?" Fairness and Jealousy in Polyamorous Relationships

Webisode Three: "What is Polyamory?" Polyamory and Patriarchy

Webisode Four: "What is Polyamory?" Final Thoughts--Caution and Human Potential in Relationship Diversity

The theme of relationship diversity has arisen in the popular press recently with the new book Opening Up (2008) by former Village Voice columnist Tristan Taormino.

And perhaps more than anything, polyamory is a movement that is spread over the internet. There are numerous sites and blogs devoted to the subject. For an interesting insight into the dynamics of such relationships, one can look to: The Journal of a Polyamorous Triad, (two men and woman sharing a house and raising children together) or for updates about polyamory worldwide, Polyamory in the News (which includes an interesting post as to whether we ought to read Sartre's No Exit as a fable about polyamory!)

Polyamory and Patriarchy

In this third installment of the series, "What is Polyamory?" with Christian Matheis, we discuss how patriarchal culture affects the practice of polyamory.

There are many feminist criticisms of polygamy that are well known. Martha Nussbaum rehearses some of the issues in this piece. However, she asks, what exactly is wrong with plural marriage among consenting adults? Not much, she concludes. Some of the commentors suggest that what she is actually talking about is polyamory.

My colleague, Lani Roberts, has shared with me the following piece that offers a radical feminist critique of polyamory. The general lines of the argument follow the ideas of Catherine MacKinnon:

In a patriarchal culture, gender inequality is pervasive. Women are subordinated economically, politically, and socially to men. In such conditions, we cannot talk about women having the absolute freedom, the capacity, to choose how they want their lives to be. This is especially true in the case of sexual consent. MacKinnon makes the point in this 2006 interview:

"The assumption is that women can be unequal to men economically, socially, culturally, politically, and in religion, but the moment they have sexual interactions, they are free and equal. That's the assumption - and I think it ought to be thought about, and in particular what consent then means. It means acquiescence. It means passivity."

The critique in regard to polyamory (at least, heterosexual polyamory) is that, under conditions of patriarchy, women may seem agree to polyamorous relationships, but they have been conditioned all their lives to think of themselves as sexually available to men. A polyamorous set up is really to allow men to have sexual access to more and more women.

Christian does not deny the effects of patriarchy in all our relationships, but holds out polyamory as one possible way to chip away at patriarchy through its insistence on mutuality, communication, and autonomy. Is his position persuasive?

This is Your Brain on Love

Researcher Helen Fisher argues that the feeling of romantic love creates changes in the brain that are similar to those undergone by someone with narcotic addiction.

This does seem to describe very well the kind of obsession that many people talk about with eros.

One hesitation I have about her discussion is her description of romantic love as a feeling, distinct from sexual attraction, that singles out one person as worthy of exclusive attention for the purpose of mating. This seems to essentialize heterosexual monogamy into biology.

Distinguished Woman Philosopher Award for 2008: Nancy Tuana

From the Society for Women in Philosophy:


The Society for Women in Philosophy is pleased to announce that Nancy Tuana has been named the Distinguished Woman Philosopher of 2008.

Biography:
Nancy Tuana is DuPont/Class of 1949 Professor of Philosophy, Science, Technology, Society, and Women's Studies at Pennsylvania State University and Founding Director of the Rock Ethics Institute (http://rockethics.psu.edu ). Her contributions to feminist philosophy include: Series Editor of ReReading the Canon (Pennnsylvania State University Press), co-editor with Laurie Shrage of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Editor of the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy, co-editor (with Sally Haslanger and Jenny Saul) of the Stanford Encyclopedia's entries on feminist philosophy, director of two NEH Summer Seminars on Feminist Epistemologies, and numerous publications in the field of feminist philosophy. With Joan Callahan she is working on an in-depth oral history project Feminist Philosophers: In Their Own Words. Her most recent project is an investigation of the intersections of feminist philosophy and climate ethics.


Recipients of the Distinguished Woman Philosopher Award:
Nancy Tuana (2008)
Joan Callahan (2007)
Ruth Millikan (2006)
Linda Martín Alcoff (2005)
Susan Sherwin (2004)
Eva Feder Kittay (2003)
Sara Ruddick (2002)
Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (2001)
Marilyn Frye (1999)
Linda Lopez McAlister (1998)
Claudia Card (1997)
Gertrude Ezorsky (1996)
Alison Jaggar (1995)
Iris Marion Young (1994)
Kathryn Pyne Addelson (1993)
Virginia Held (1992)
Jane Roland Martin (1991)
Sandra Harding (1990)
Hazel Barnes (1989)
Leigh Cauman (1988)
Elizabeth Flowers (1987)
Mary Mothersill (1986)
Marjorie Greene (1985)
Elizabeth Beardsley (1984)
(no recipient was honored in 2000)

Behind the Veil and the Pole: Transgressive Feminism and Democratic Citizens?

In this commentary, Naomi Wolf makes the point that the veiled Muslim woman is not necessarily a repressed victim of patriarchy. Many in the West, Wolf writes, take the veil as a sign of oppression, the mark of a culture that thinks that women are sources of sensual sin that need to be hidden under layers of clothes, away from the eyes of men. But this is not necessarily so, she argues. For many Muslim women, the veil can be a liberating shield, allowing women to have a sense of release from objectification by men in public settings. Wolf talks about her own experience covering up in Morocco and says she felt free not being glared at by men for her body.

In her book, The Rights of Others, Seyla Benhabib makes a related point: we should not be so quick to dismiss women who veil themselves in European countries as simply brainwashed individuals in the thrall of patriarchy. For some immigrant women, the veil is not so much a sign of fidelity to patriarchal norms, but a badge of honor that represents the women's pride in her cultural specificity. Benhabib thinks we ought to see some of these women as engaging in projects of democratic rejuvenation, trying to transform the liberal notion of citizenship to encompass recognition of difference against governments that wish to maintain the homogeneity of subjects under the law.

There is something to these ideas, and yet...how easy, or effective, is it for individuals to confront and change patriarchal or cultural norms through transgressive dress and behavior? After all, these norms are built on beliefs held by the community. Just because a woman puts on a veil and says she does it to challenge the French understanding of religious worship does not mean that she is not taken by others as a woman submissive to patriarchy.

This point seems clearer when we think of a different phenomena in the U.S.: women who think they are doing something feminist by learning to pole dance like strippers. Some of these women think that they are learning to tap into some kind of sensuality by learning this set of skill and "empowering" themselves as strong women.

There is a very interesting satire of this done on the Colbert Report:



The joke, of course, is that they are just learning to act like strippers. Can putting on the veil, as a transgressive and transformative gesture, be different?

Is Your City Male or Female?

One of my favorite theorists of modern life is Jane Jacobs, author of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". Jacobs is famous for her critique of urban renewal projects that essentially eviscerated inner city areas in the United States post WWII. Her view is that mixed use neighborhoods, those that combine rather than separate residential, commercial, and industrial uses, are more vibrant, safe, and amenable to democratic social life than suburban or exurban neighborhoods.

A new study by Cambridge University adds another interesting dimension to this critique. The study found that urban renewal projects tend to cater to the urban needs and interests of men more so than to women.

For instance, public transportation (which is used by more women than men) is usually arranged alone straight routes from point to point. Women usually are making various trips for different purposes when they go out; men usually go from work to home. Public transport tend to favor masculine habits.

Another: urban renewal tends to focus on creating as many open green spaces as possible, usually with big playing fields. Again, the study found this caters more to men who want to play sports than it does to women, who want smaller areas, closer to home, with mixed use potential.

Finally, the lack of public toilets is something that separates men and women's needs, according to the study. The folks at Cambridge suggest that urban projects should follow a more mixed use model if they want to include the needs and interests of women.

When I think of the civic architecture of Corvallis, I have to conclude, using the variables of this study, that it is a city that caters to masculine needs. In what other ways might our public spaces--neighborhoods, workplaces, etc.--be gendered?

Will the Future be Gay?

In this article in the UK Guardian, Peter Tachell argues that there won't be gay people in the future. For that matter, there won't be straight people either. Instead, human sexual orientation will be much more fluid and shifting, and people will be attracted to individual persons of either gender. He points to sex surveys today that indicate growing numbers of men and women are having experiences with others of the same gender. As prejudice and bigotry against homosexuals break down, we can expect that more and more people will feel free to express themselves in a variety of ways.

The interesting point he makes is that as the walls of homophobia come apart, so will gay identity. In his view, gay identity has developed in contrast to straight culture, that is, as a reaction in opposition to being marginalized and discriminated against by heterosexuals. As we move toward a more accepting and tolerant society, individuals will be less interested in identifying with gay culture, even though they will be having sex with people of the same sex.

The idea that we might be able to live lives outside of the narrow boundaries imposed by a gay/straight dicotomy is very appealing. Such stark opposites rarely capture the full complexity of how we live our lives and express our uniqueness.

But this book review offers a more troubling vision. The Joy of Sex is now 35 years old! What Julie Szego finds fascinating is how dated parts of it are, but also, what it says about our contemporary attitudes toward sexuality.

She focuses on the question of body hair, particularly pubic hair on women. Some thirty five years ago, it was quite the rage for the famous sex manual to contain drawings of quite hairy women. Nowadays, Szego point out, this would not be considered sexy. The trend now is toward Brazillian waxes and total shaving.

Where did this trend in hair (or lack of) for women come from? Porn.

What Szego finds most troubling is that today so much of our imagery of sexuality comes from pornography (usually through the internet). She cites Robert Jensen's work to show that these stories are starting to influence how many people understand what is sexy, erotic, fun, and fashionable. So while today people may be engaging in more "wild sex", it is not something that expresses intimacy or, more importantly, play and experimentation (exactly what the authors of The Joy of Sex were trying to get us to appreciate more). Instead, influenced by porn, a lot of sexual expression is about power, dominance, and control. As Szego writes:"If you could somehow measure today's bedroom antics against those of, say, 20 years ago, it might in fact reveal that we're more squeamish, more conformist, more self-conscious, more self-loathing and less adventurous now than we were then."

Maybe the future doesn't looks so free and liberated after all.

Should Your Love be like a Red, Red Rose?

Just in time for Valentine's Day! An article in the newest issue of The Atlantic advises women in their 30s to stop looking for Mr. Right and just settle down and have kids with the next guy that is nice to them. Mr. Good Enough might not be the love of your life, and the sex might not be so great, but marriage is not about living an excited life and sex and intense connection with your partner really isn't that important to a good life. Here's a telling quote:

"The couples my friend and I saw at the park that summer were enviable but not because they seemed so in love—they were enviable because the husbands played with the kids for 20 minutes so their wives could eat lunch. In practice, my married friends with kids don’t spend that much time with their husbands anyway (between work and child care), and in many cases, their biggest complaint seems to be that they never see each other. So if you rarely see your husband—but he’s a decent guy who takes out the trash and sets up the baby gear, and he provides a second income that allows you to spend time with your child instead of working 60 hours a week to support a family on your own—how much does it matter whether the guy you marry is The One?"

In a way, I sympathize with the sentiment driving this article (though I think the author makes some very suspicious assumptions about what all women want out of their lives). I do believe that much of our anxieties about love and relationships are based on expectations about what love can do for our lives that are simply false. For instance, I think the model of the soul mate offered by Aristophanes sets us up for co-dependency. So maybe its good to try to be realistic about what we can get out of a relationship.

This reminds me of some of Stendhal's reflections on different types of love. Stendhal believed there were four types of romantic love. The first is "sympathy love". This is love based on common tastes, ideas, and outlooks ("We can talk for hours--we have so much in common and we want the same things in life!"). For Stendhal, most relationships are based on this ideal, but he found nothing particular interesting about it.

The next types are "vanity love" and "sensual love". Vanity love is essentially wanting someone because of how they make you look to others; Trophy spouses, in other words. Sensual love is pretty much what it sounds like--love of the sensual pleasure someone gives you. Stendhal thought there was nothing particular admirable about these types.

For Stendhal, what was most interesting was "passion-love". This is a kind of attraction to someone that inspires imagination, fantasy, and even painful thoughts. This kind of feeling brings out vibracy, euphoria, and creativity. But, as with all good things, there is a dark side to this as well.

Tied to this kind of love is the phenomena of what Stendhal called "crystallization": "I call 'crystallization' that action of the mind that discovers fresh perfections in its beloved at every turn of events" The story behind this concept is quite lyrical, but the main idea is that when one starts to fall in love with someone, the lover's imagination begins to take over the powers of perception, so that he sees the beloved as the most beautiful they can be. The lover can see only the admirable qualities of the beloved and starts to "see" the world in terms of the beloved. Every small gesture by the beloved is a message and this can bring great joy or despair, depending on whether the message is about mutual feeling or rejected love.

There is now a clinical term for this: limerence. This is the idea of "falling in love" with someone. All the feelings of joy, expectation, hope, passion, and excitement are part of the limerant stage. But this is different than "being in love" with someone, which usually involves having some kind of relationship with the person in which concerns are shared and people work for one another's well being and feelings.

It is "being in love" that takes effort. People in limerence are usually self-absorbed on their own needs and are unable to attend to the needs of others, especially the beloved, whom they have crystalized into someone different than what the real person is. Its even worse if the love is unrequited, because then the lover feels inadequate and depressed that someone so great would not even notice them or want them.

So perhaps there is some wisdom in the pop psychology of The Atlantic. Perhaps we do need to attend to the difference between the feelings of falling in love with someone (which are great) and the reality that being in love means having to think beyond yourself and attend to the well-being of others, respecting them as having a full range of emotions like oneself, and wanting to be with them despite the set-backs and the difficulties of being an "ordinary person".

I'm not sure this is the same thing as "settling". Settling seems too much like resignation. As Robert Burns suggests in the poem, being in love is a real struggle, not a passive acceptance, but it is journey worth taking:

"Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun :
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only love,
And fare thee weel a while !
And I will come again, my love,
Thou’ it were ten thousand mile."

"Red, Red Rose" Robert Burns (1794)

Are We Havin a Laugh? Sexist Jokes and Just Sexism

In this piece, philosopher Roger Scruton bemoans the fact (at least in his mind) that our modern society is beset with Politically Correct censors who go around looking for people telling racist and sexist jokes in order to make them feel bad. We have become a society that can't take a joke.

For Scruton, laughter is something distinctly human. It is a way that human beings can create bonds of fellow feeling. A good joke and the resulting spontaneous laughter brings out a shared world between people.

Thus, ethnic jokes can be a good thing. In Scruton's view, even a crude ethnic joke can be a way to combat racism. By telling a racist joke, you can laugh and demonstrate that the differences between people don't really matter. They're funny; not worth being serious about.

The same goes for sexist jokes. As Scruton sees it, everyone knows that there are differences between genders. Feminists are not funny because they are so serious about equality and blurring gender lines:

"Even more sinful than the ethnic joke in the eyes of our moral guardians is the old comedy of the sexes. Despite all the ingenious labor of the feminists, ordinary people notice the very real differences between the sexes, and the very great need to accommodate those differences and to defuse the conflicts to which they might give rise. Humor has been the traditional recourse of humanity in this predicament, as men jokingly defer to their "better half," and women submit to the edicts of "his nibs." ... For the feminist the failings of men are no laughing matter. Not surprisingly, therefore, the literature of feminism is devoid of humor — and advisedly so, for if it ever were to employ this resource it would die laughing at itself."

Both Plato and Aristotle were wary about laughter, but not because they were puritans. They believed that laughter often represented a form of derision. Scruton thinks that ethnic and sexist jokes are about "laughing with you" when we also know that laughter can be a malicious way of "laughting at you". For Aristotle, laughter is a sign that you find something ridiculous, worthy of derision. In the Poetics, he even suggests that laughter can be used as a social learning tool. Wise playwrights can portray ridiculous subjects and teach audiences what is base, stupid, and ugly to laught at.

A new study seems to support some of this thinking. The findings suggest that when men are shown sexist comedy routines they are more likely to approve of actions that disciminate against women's interests. The researchers suggest the reason for this is that the sexist humor creates the impression of a shared world of discrimination, a world in which it is just obvious that women can be discriminated against. It gives the perception to some people that others see the world the way they do, so its perfectly alright to continue thinking the way they do.

I can say this makes sense to me based on some very limited data. I can't tell you how many people have told me "I'm not prejudiced against black people, but I gotta agree with Chris Rock, some people just are ni***rs".

Can Watching Movies Reduce Violence?

For centuries, our understanding of art has been influenced by the idea of mimesis, or representation. Plato, for instance, said we should distrust the poets and playwrights because they built images of the world that were not always based in the truth. Only philosophers could be trusted to tell us how the world really is and we should be wary of the way non-philosophers represent the world to us.

Aristotle was not so harsh to the artists. Great art, he thought, flourished through mimesis. The way a great piece of art works is by representing a world that is so lifelike that it draws the audience in. We come to identify with the characters, they seem so real, so much like us, that by the end of the experience of the art piece, we have come to the cathartic moment that teaches us about ourselves. Art should be like a mirror to our own lives (this metaphor of the mirror is a favorite of Aristotle's--he thinks that a real friend is like a mirror to us. In looking at our friend, we have an insight into what our own character is like).

This notion of the influence of art, and images in particular, informs political work, too. Indeed, Plato thought that the power of art to sway people's political decisions was so great, he wanted to prohibit artists from his Republic. Today, we are concerned with the power of all sorts of images. Some are concerned with the way pornography warps our sense of sexuallity, so that only by re-enacting the images and performances in porn are we thought to be really having sex. This is similar to Freud's argument against masturbation. He thought that someone who lived in a fantasy life of self-pleasuring would become overwhelmed with the images in their own head and this would handicap them from actually being able to have a normal sex life with another person. Fantasy could never live up to the reality of another person, and thus, masturbation had the capacity to render us unhappy. Similar arguments have been made about violent and gory movies. And there are movements to limit or prohibit these kinds of images from filtering around societies.

But a new study, done by some economists, tries to push us away from this framework of mimesis. It claims that violent movies may actually reduce the amount of violence there is in society! Why? Because the kind of people that would be doing violent things are instead spending their time watching these violent movies. Much of violent crime in this country is done by young men. They are also the demographic that tends to see violent action films. So, if they are spending time going to the cinema, there is less time to go about causing mayhem in the streets.

The authors of the study say they don't know whether violent images induce violent behavior. And they don't condone those kinds of films, either. What's interesting is that they say that instead of trying to prohibit violent films, we should just produce films that young men also like to see in order to keep them occupied. In other world, more Adam Sandler films will do the same trick to keep violence down.

I'm curious what people make of this study and its "distraction" theory. It reminds me of arguments made in favor of keeping prostitiution, or, of pornography. The idea being that if men are allowed to visit brothels, or to watch porn, then they will have an outlet that will keep them from raping women, or feeling dissatisfied in their "normal" lives. Should we abandon our worries about the power of images to represent violence and concentrate on how to fill up people's lives so that they won't have time to hurt others?

Racism and Patriarchy Linked?

A new study suggests that the practice of ethnic discrimination may be linked to the level of a person's identification with patriarchal social dominance. Feminism and anti-racist work go hand in hand?

The Best Black Women are White

From Feminist Philosophers: Another interesting portrayal of race from over the pond. The Independent (UK) did a special issue on Africa recently. Its cover? A black woman. Nothing untoward about that. Except that the black woman is supermodel Kate Moss. In blackface.

Read Hanna Pool's discussion from the above link, but here is a really good excerpt (and something that directly relates to my previous discussion about the Dutch Sony ads):

"Why has it become OK for people to black up? "People feel free to play with this stuff because they are operating in an environment where the criticisim of being politcally correct allows you to do what you want," says academic Paul Gilroy. "The threat of being labelled politically correct creates an environment where we are scared to voice our objections." Given the context, the Kate Moss picture is "empty nihilism," he says.

Blacking up has become acceptable in the same way that pole dancing is now sold to women as an empowering thing to do. Both assume that the thing they are poking fun at no longer exists - ie discrimination, racism and sexism. But of course they are wrong. If blacking up existed in a society where racism was not an issue, then it would not be such a problem. But then it would also lose its power to shock. After all, what is so shocking about a white person being made to look black if black and white are equal?"

"Fag talk" and Feminism

C.J. Pascoe investigates the way straight young men enforce the rules of masculinity with what she calls "fag discourse"--using the term "fag" to label behavior that is out of the norm for young male expectations. As she points out, a lot of "fag talk" has nothing to do with gay men, but is a pervasive way for young men to exert dominance and control over one another. In the end, she points out that several states have taken legislative action to prohibit this kind of language in high schools. But she thinks what is needed are not disciplinary measures that will just pull another power play over the young men (after all, "fag talk" is about power and pulling rank over others), but finding a way to show them the dynamics that are involved in this kind of behavior.

This excerpt from Robert Jensen's new book, Getting Off: The Pornography of Masculinity, reveals the dangers of letting "fag talk" go unaddressed. He provides three very chilling examples from his real life about the way grown men continue to exert dominance over one another in a variety of social settings. Jensen says he feels trapped by the masculine roles that he himself partakes of, and then realizes there is a way out: feminism. Its a fascinating read and tries to outline the remedies called for by Pascoe.