Beyond Binaries

WE NEED to find a different way of defining what it means to be a man. And while this would be a good start, perhaps we need to take it even further. Perhaps what is needed is the eradication of the binary gender system so that what is—or what isn’t—between our legs at birth is not a social signifier of what we should be or will become. Dichotomies like man/woman or feminine/masculine exclude those who do not conform. They also prevent alternative possibilities so that when a woman behaves aggressively, instead of re-defining female behaviour, she is labeled masculine or told she is “acting like a man.”

Perhaps there is an even better solution. Rather than re-conceptualizing what it means to be a man or a woman, let’s not define it at all, other than to say the possibilities of identity and behaviour are endless.

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The Radical History of Mother’s Day

There’s a good number of us who question holidays like Mother’s Day in which you spend more time feeding money into a system that exploits our love for our mothers than actually celebrating them.  It’s not unlike any other holiday in America in that its complete commercialization has stripped away so much of its genuine meaning, as well its history.  Mother’s Day is unique in its completely radical and totally feminist history, as much as it has been forgotten.

Mother’s Day began in America in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Written in response to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, her proclamation called on women to use their position as mothers to influence society in fighting for an end to all wars.

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Is Housework Work?

There is some quip along the lines of, “Think housework isn’t economically productive labor? Try running a business with a staff that isn’t toilet trained.”

Yeah, I couldn’t find the real quote. It’s actually a lot funnier.  Anywho,  I did find an essay in which Joseph de la Torre Dwyer argues that “Gender Equity Still Requires a Focus on the ‘Second Shift.’  By “second shift,” Dwyer refers to the domestic responsibilities that one partner–in an inegalitarian relationship–performs in addition to their “real” job. Often, in heterosexual relationships, the “second shift” is a burden borne by women due to the gendered division of domestic labor. Such labor, like raising children, is frequently based on caring for others. In this context, Dwyer emphasizes the economic and theoretical shortcomings of not recognizing care as work (emphasis added).

In our world today… no one pays the workers who produce the principal economic endowments that make all of us human: our bodies, our reason, and the gifts of language, culture, and the social organization of the world they give rise to.  We are living on a fantasy island of unremunerated care…

Feminists are understandably worried that by naming care as work, we might ignore human wellbeing and commodify one of the few spaces capital has seemingly not yet penetrated.  Yet, since we already recognize that care does not produce tradable commodities, the response should not be to pretend that care is not work—but to realize that any economic theory that can’t describe the work we value most is no economic theory at all.  It is precisely the idea of the second shift that allows us to see work outside the neoclassical system and inside a framework such as human wellbeing—itself a consciousness-raising frame with important practical policy consequences.

Meanwhile, Selma James, in an interview with Amy Goodman, explains how the gendered division of labor affects women and men.

Women are engaged in the work of making society, of making children—that is an enormous job—and … the separation [of domestic responsibilities] between women and men is harmful to all of us.

Now, I want to make it absolutely clear: we do this work, and we are civilized by this work, we women, and have a much greater understanding of human beings, because that’s what we’re dealing with all the time. But we don’t want to be the only ones to do it. Men need to do this work, because men need to be civilized by this work as we have been. Men don’t—we don’t want them to be doing this work for capitalism and not doing this work for ourselves, for each other, you know, for the society generally. Men have to start making society, along with women, not to help—I’m not talking about men helping. Sometimes we have to fight so that they give us a little help, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about that being the aim and purpose of our lives, to be with others, to care for others, and to, as I say, to make society with us.

Your thoughts? Partial to the “capitulation to capitalism” argument?  Got some other quotes or articles on the topic?

What is Rape Culture?

[Trigger warning]

From Melissa McEwan at Shakesville:

“Rape culture is encouraging men to use the language of rape to establish dominance over one another (“I’ll make you my bitch”)…

Rape culture is using the word “rape” to describe something that has been done to you other than a forced or coerced sex act. Rape culture is saying things like “That ATM raped me with a huge fee” or “The IRS raped me on my taxes.”

Rape culture is “nothing” being the most frequent answer to a question about what people have been formally taught about rape…

Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you’re carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you’re wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn’t follow all the rules it’s your fault…”

Rape culture is… JUST READ THE WHOLE ESSAY ALREADY, k? It’s so good

P.S. Thanks to Spencer Green for the suggestion!

No One Called Me a Slut

TWO weeks ago, a bomb went off outside a Wisconsin abortion center. In recent years, several states have passed or tried to pass laws requiring women seeking legal, constitutionally protected procedures to first undergo medical examinations. A young woman has been called a slut after testifying in favor of insurance coverage for contraceptive care. These are but a few of the stories about attacks on a woman’s right to choose.

It wasn’t always like this…

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Gender Apartheid Online

“My concern is that gender equality will only emerge when men are educated about women’s lives and when women stop being quarantined as ‘the other’.”

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Do Men Belong in the Women’s Movement?

When Dan Wald, 24, began his matriculation at Ithaca College, he wasn’t thinking much about women’s issues. But then the biochemistry major from greater Boston began to hear stories about sexual assault from friends and something clicked.

His big realization was that he should work with campus groups on sexual assault prevention not in spite of the fact that he is a guy, but precisely because he is one.

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