March 2005 – Page 12

Home Sick

Ethan is at home sick with a nasty fever. If you know of any good, not-too-corporate kid sites, send them our way via comment.

Hair

Much feminist writing has been done on the subject of hair, but I feel like talking about myself today, so we won’t be discussing that.

As a little girl I had fairly long hair. My mother convinced me to cut my hair when I was five and I agreed, not completely understanding that it wouldn’t immediately grow back. I ended up with a pageboy, a recurring cut through my adult life. The pageboy was dyed a billion colors as I got older, almost always settling for a lighter blonde than my natural blonde.

For a period of about a year, I bleached my hair twice monthly. This ended after an unfortunate incident in which I put some red on top of the yellow fry and it began to fall out. Clumps of hair fell out of my head. I told my mother who tried to salvage the mess but to no avail. We went to the salon and they cut it off one inch from the scalp, leaving me with an orange and white spotted helmet of hair. I was fifteen. My peers immediately assumed that my new haircut was a “coming out” statement and I was judged accordingly. In fact, I still answer questions about my sexuality every now and then when I run into old classmates.

And here is where I update the masses on the weirdness surrounding my current hairstyle.

The haircut I have now has brought the most confounding experiences, especially with older men. I once had plain, long blonde hair (natural, thank you) and about six months ago cut very short bangs. The reactions that I get to the bangs, which are now even shorter than in the picture, are absolutely astounding. Apparently short bangs communicate some sort of “sluttiness” or “easiness” that I never before encountered.

Before, with the plain blonde hair, I was almost always at first considered to fit the stereotypical “blonde” personality until I opened my mouth. I was often told I was high-maintenance and not well-liked by those who are keen on judging hypothetical books by their hypothetical covers. Now I’m seen as some sort of S/M sex symbol. Here is one such example of harassment. And here is another. Both are completely true. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

More recently, I had a younger man approach me and tell me “how great it is” to see “hot goth chicks” in town. You know, because I’m so freaking goth.

And just last night, a comedian at the comedy night I attend asked two of my friends about me and my haircut. He inquired to one of my friends before the show as to who I was, complimenting the bangs. In the middle of his set, I got a phone call and left the room out of courtesy. I took the phone call in the adjoining room, and in the meantime, he sat down at our front row table, held the microphone away from his mouth, and asked my tablemates where I had gone, complimenting the hair again. He kept saying that I looked like someone out of the 1940s, continuously complimenting the hair, but never approached me before or after the show. I’m absolutely floored that he stopped the show to remark on my hair.

I don’t know if I should be grateful he didn’t approach me or just grow out the bangs already.

Having done as much reading as I have on beauty culture and feminism, I always considered hair to be an offshoot of the more primary cultural norms like body shape and weight. I previously thought that there was inherently more weight placed on the cultural significance of hair in the African-American circles than in others (and still think this discourse is necessary), but am beginning to think I ignored the significance of hair in the overall culture of beauty, especially how it can remind of beauty cultures of different eras. Can hair be read as a text?

Frankly I still don’t know what to think. Maybe I’ll knit myself a hat.

Feminist Blog Plugging

“Emma Goldman” is a name that gets me excited for several reasons, but lately it is because her blogging namesake has put together a fantastic blog called War on Error. The new Emma has been frequenting the feminist cul de sac with pithy commentary and insight, and so it is with great pleasure that I found her blog is just as exciting as her commentary.

Emma’s most recent post deals with the framing of “personal” and “political.” In part:

1. The rules that determine what counts as “real” politics are not objective.
This is NOT to say that the rules are arbitrary, or irrelevant, or even inherently unfair, only that the rules themselves are a product of our own activities, that the rules are themselves a social/political/economic construction, rather than something set in stone. Those who believe that human life and activity are governed by discoverable, immutable rules that were handed to us (on stone tablets, for example) will take some issue with this… Contrary to the caricatures of those who are more certain of the Truth than I am, I do believe that just because we adapt and change does not mean that it’s all always up for grabs willy-nilly…

…we don’t see the assumptions embedded in the rules. Think, for example, of the implicit message sent by separate sections in a newspaper. If the sections are labeled “news,” “sports,” “business,” “comics,” and “women’s” or “society” pages–which was not uncommon not that long ago–what does that tell you? One might assume, for example, that “women’s concerns”–typically articles having to do with cooking, children, the household–aren’t “news.” One might assume that (Real) men wouldn’t be interested in the content of the women’s section. One might assume that the rest of the newspaper implicitly belongs to men. One might assume that the economic conerns of “business” are relevant in ways that the concerns of “labor” are not. Or, most likely, one reads the newspaper and doesn’t think much about those divisions, even as they shape our own notions of the categories of our world.

3. Demands to change the rules aren’t special pleading.
If you’re with me so far, then you can see that arguments that the rules should be changed because of a bias embedded in them or embedded in the enactment of them are not necessarily some kind of special pleading.

…it is not special pleading to insist that matters like household economics, or childcare, or other matters frequently assigned to women–and designated as “personal”–are, in fact, political. Instead, it’s saying that the things that have made the front pages of the newspapers as “serious” stories are not, in fact, the only “serious” stories out there. The demand for rule changes is neither special pleading nor a matter of getting men to take women’s issues seriously–it’s an attempt to reconceptualize what counts as an issue for all people, and this reconceptualization is not an uncommon part of life.

This post is excellent and is difficult to excerpt – read the whole thing. And welcome, Emma.

Politics With a Big Ol’ “P”

These nightly reads are about the kinds of politics the penisphere generally loathes discussing.

Via the hellcat, I found this post. Being Black and Female = Being Passed Over:

Black women have been speaking about racism in the work place, institutions of education, the health service etc – in team meetings every damm week, at local authority meetings, parents and teachers associations, at police stations when their sons are arrested and criminalised, in Black women’s group, living rooms and so it goes on. Now all of a sudden some “named” organisation comes up with a report and its published and discussed all over the place. The Fawcett Society has been around since 1953. How many reports on Black women have they brought out since then? They have got the PC thing going with nice pictures of Black women on the website, probably some Black women workers too. . But ahh, this is what happens when you are “powerless, poor and passed-over” and 29% out of a population of 8% of you are in prison.

And Bitch Ph. D. is fairly certain that Scalia = Stupid when he dissented on the recent juvenile execution ruling by comparing teen abortion rulings to teen murder cases. I agree. The man is not only a flaming idiot, but he is also misconstruing a rather conservative ruling.

there is a pretty big difference between the state deciding to impose death on someone, and a person making decisions about their own medical care. It behooves the state, I think, to hold a high standard when it comes to killing people. Let me explain why the context is different for Scalia, who is apparently kinda stupid: the issue at hand is not the moral agency of children; it is on the power of the state. Not whether children can or cannot make moral decisions, but whether or not the state should kill people who may not be capable of making informed moral decisions. Hence, as Kennedy writes, “When a juvenile offender commits a heinous crime, the state can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the state cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity.” Hence, the decision is a conservative one: before the state can kill someone, it needs to be certain that the person is a mature moral agent. Since mature moral agency is hard to measure, let us err on the side of caution.

The way Scalia frames his argument suggests that anyone who has had an abortion should herself be executed. Brilliant, dude.

In other news, I have been named the Minister of Education because I “will corrupt the minds of our youth with liberalism and compassion, damn her.”

Left, Right, Whatever

Still no computer monitor. Typing on this laptop is hurting my wrists.

Nonetheless, I was startled to read this article on a study that shows many Americans don’t know their left from their right:

The Harris polling agency last week released the results of an interesting study. In a survey of 2,209 adults, they discovered that most Americans only have the vaguest idea of the meaning of two important pairs of words that play crucial roles in the national political discourse: conservative and liberal, and left and right.

Some of the numbers are surprising. According to the survey, 37 percent of Americans think liberals oppose gun control, or else they are not sure if liberals oppose gun control. Likewise, 27 percent of respondents thought a right-winger was someone who supported affirmative action. Furthermore, the survey showed that respondents generally viewed the paired concepts liberals and left-wingers and conservatives and right-wingers as possessing, respectively, generally similar political beliefs – with one caveat. In both cases, respondents were roughly 10 percent more clueless about left-wingers and right-wingers than they were about liberals and conservatives.

But this segment is far more telling of the spin machine:

Respondents were asked to define the labels according to what their positions were on seven “political issues”: abortion rights, gun control, cutting taxes, gay rights, same-sex marriage, affirmative action and moral values. This list of issues is preposterous in itself as a symbolic reflection of the political landscape, but that’s a discussion for another time. To me the most instructive category was “moral values.” According to the survey, 78 percent of respondents believe conservatives support moral values, while only 40 percent said the same about left-wingers. In fact, 29 percent said they believed left-wingers actually opposed moral values.

Our mission to change the social meanings of these political terms is necessary unless we want “moral values” to by synonymous with “torture” and “war.”

Onward leftist soldiers.

Drive-By Mothering and Parent As Outsider

Chez Miscarriage has a wonderful series of posts on “drive-by mothering,” when other parents uninvitedly correct your parenting. Excellent related threads are here and here and especially here.

Reading through the 300+ hilarious and mind-bending comments readers have given in response to these posts unfortunately reminds me of a different sort of commentary I get daily: silence.

I’ve written before about my experiences with the other parents in Ethan’s school and during our daily jaunts, and I think none are more hurtful than the feeling that I personally am unwanted or don’t exist. Ethan is a delightful child (if you ask me) and no one I am aware of have ever penalized him for being the son of incredibly young, unmarried parents (yet), but I and E’s dad have experienced social isolation and distancing for our family situation. As of yet, the only parent friends I have made (but for one who recently moved away) are of strikingly different economic situations (which usually means we have different schedules and little common time and funds to spend together, making the friendships short but pleasurable) or are parents I read on parenting blogs. This does not make for a tangible parenting culture for me to draw from, something I rely on for my parental skills.

I try to relate to other parents with whom we have contact every day. Ethan is always invited to his peers’ birthdays. I tag along, as parents are usually expected to stick around and help supervise. Though I try to start up conversations with other parents, they tend to be short. I find myself wandering about alone or playing with the children, which sometimes seems to amplify my youth. The only time a considerable conversation was raised was when I prepared for a lonely afternoon at a birthday party by bringing my knitting along and several of the mothers commented on my hobby. They then wandered off dicussing crafts amongst themselves and I was left literally mid-sentence to myself. It was a lonely and disappointing day. At least E had fun.

In talking to others, I have had several reasons posed as to why this might be. It might be the high socio-economic class culture of the school. It might be plain prejudice. It might be fear that premarital compulsions are contagious. It might be the lingering discomfort after being asked by several at the school whether or not I was Ethan’s nanny and my rather irritated responses. Relations have improved since these first painful months, but I am always aware of my difference.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me and some sort of over-sensitized self-flagellation, but that doesn’t erase the silence.

The most reasonable explanation I have been given so far is that the other parents simply assume that because of my youth we will have nothing in common. My first response to this is that we have one binding thing in common: our kids spend 5-8 hours a day together every single day. Surely there is some talking point.

The most painful afternoon took place last summer. We live right around the corner from a great BBQ joint and walked over one afternoon for some lemonade and sweet potato pie. A little girl from Ethan’s school was sitting at the outdoor cafe with her parents after their lunch, chatting away while they enjoyed the sun. She has always been friendly with the two of us, but her parents never seemed quite comfortable with my presence. When Ethan ran over to say hello, he was greeted warmly. I walked to the table with a smile and a greeting, and held out my hand to formally introduce myself. Her parents just looked at me and didn’t say much of anything. I retracted my empty hand after several excruciating seconds and we said good-bye, leaving with our lemonade and pie.

I don’t anticipate as much of this kind of silence when Ethan begins public school next year. I don’t expect it to cease either. I don’t expect the assumptions about our lifestyle or values or efficency to taper off until I become a less visible presence in Ethan’s public life. It isn’t hard to pick me out of a crowd when my parental peers look old enough to be their children’s grandparents. Over time I’ve learned to care a bit less and focus on making sure Ethan is getting the education that he deserves, but I wonder if his educational experience could be brightened if I felt comfortable enough to participate in the school’s culture to my capacity, if I felt like our family, warts and all, was valued in the school community.

Do me a favor. If there is another parent in your child’s school who appears markedly different, strain your comfort zone and say hello. Think of me.

via Alas and Stone Court

Linking Etiquette and Discovery Credit

If you get a story from another blogger, do you cite that blogger?

On “Link Propagation and ‘Discovery Credit’“:

I agree with Blaze that this is an instance of a general problem, and this connects to recent discussions of fairness in weblogs. For instance, as he points out, within the “political economy of linking” there can be incentives not to point to one’s sources. While there’s a general norm of bloggers linking to sources, the practice is not universal and few chains of credit go all the way, with the unfortunate consequence that promising sources can remain obscure for longer than they would otherwise.

Not crediting your peers takes the “we” out of weblogging, doesn’t it?