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Month: September 2009

The White Racist Meme

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(x-posted at Social Science Lite)

It would be an understatement to argue that the mass media has taken on racial analysis with unprecedented zeal since the election of Barack Obama. Unfortunately, in attempts to present fair and balanced news coverage, cable news programs have typically included panels with representatives from both sides of the Left-Right ideological spectrum.

The problem with this method, of course, is that subsequent analyses usually follow the same tired pattern: “That was racist!” vs. “That is ridiculous! Race was not a factor!” At best, this produces unproductive exchanges. At worst, it woefully simplifies complex social process and interactions, institutionalizing diametrically opposed ideological camps instead of offering nuanced analysis.

Luckily, the Washington Post has Eugene Robinson, who wrote an important op-ed last Friday:

“Of course it’s possible to reject Obama’s policies and philosophy without being racist. But there’s a particularly nasty edge to the most vitriolic attacks — a rejection not of Obama’s programs but of his legitimacy as president. This denial of legitimacy is more pernicious than the abuse heaped upon George W. Bush by his critics (including me), and I can’t find any explanation for it other than race.

I’m not talking about the majority of the citizens who went to town hall meetings to criticize Obama’s plans for health-care reform or the majority of the “tea bag” demonstrators who complain that Obama is ushering in an era of big government. Those are, of course, legitimate points of view. Protest is part of our system. It’s as American as apple pie.

I’m talking about the crazy “birthers.” I’m talking about the nitwits who arrive at protest rallies bearing racially offensive caricatures — Obama as a witch doctor, for example. I’m talking about the idiots who toss around words like “socialism” to make Obama seem alien and even dangerous — who deny the fact that he, too, is as American as apple pie.”

Not to be outdone, Frank Rich weighed in on Saturday:

“But there is a national conversation we must have right now — the one about what, in addition to race, is driving this anger and what can be done about it. We are kidding ourselves if we think it’s only about bigotry, or health care, or even Obama. The growing minority that feels disenfranchised by Washington can’t be so easily ghettoized and dismissed.”

Robinson and Rich hit the nail on the head. To argue one way or another that current debates over healthcare or other social policies are solely “about race” is to miss the point entirely.

Race is omnipresent in this country. Racial distinctions inform policy debates, delineate opportunity, and structure social interactions. But that doesn’t mean that all white people, or all white protestors, are uniformly “racist.” Nor can the omnipresence of race sufficiently and adequately capture the nuance of white racial identity. For different people, different social processes precipitate racial prejudice. Some learn from their parents, while others learn from conflict in the workplace. Some develop prejudices from economic competition with minorities, while others experience blind ignorance as a result of extreme social isolation. Among the so-labeled “racists,” some hold disdain for “welfare queens,” while others fear random violence from young black men. Some are overwhelmingly concerned with illegal immigration and “protecting our borders,” while others can’t even stand the thought of sitting next to a minority. Some believe in the racial profiling of Middle Eastern folks at airports, while others blame blacks for their own disadvantage. Some engage in recreational racism, while others use disdain for social policies like affirmative action as proxies for bigotry. Some whites hold a combination of these prejudices, while others hold none. Sometimes these prejudices are grounded in real life experiences, but sometimes they aren’t. At the very least, white racial identity and prejudice is complicated and takes innumerable, varied forms.

To discuss and analyze race is not to revert to an either/or, racist/not racist false dichotomy. Race matters as an everyday reality of inequality, yes, but it’s not as simple as the White Racist Meme suggests. Race matters because it’s always mattered. But racism matters in increasingly complex ways.

The question is not if race matters. The question is how.

Photo Essay: Factory Like A City

Run, don’t walk, to David Bacon’s photo essay, “Factory Like A City”, posted at Z magazine. It’s about Toyota’s announcement of the closing of the NUMMI plant in Fremont, California after General Motors announced it was withdrawing from the partnership. It’s a good illustration of the exponential effects of the demise of manufacturing in the United States. From the essay:

The plant employs 4,500 workers directly, and the jobs of another 30,000 throughout Northern California are dependent on its continued operation. Taking families into account, the threatened closure will eliminate the income of over 100,000 people.

Frankly, I think that’s a conservative estimate. It’s probably based on the immediate results. The long-term effects (absent a replacement plant of similar nature) would be greater—just ask someone from the Rust Belt.

Keep this, and other stories of other soon-to-be or already shuttered plants in mind when reading about corporate bailouts. Those bailouts are not for—and were not meant to be for—the workers. Keep this in mind when you hear the ludicrous phrase, “jobless recovery.”

There is no such thing as a jobless recovery. Not for working people.

“Jennifer’s Body” and the feminists who hate it

090917_Mov_BodyEX(cross-posted at Girldrive)

I went and saw Jennifer’s Body this weekend, not because I thought it was going to be a feminist masterpiece, but because writer Diablo Cody has been seeping through countless pubs and blogs in the last month, daring us to weigh in on her answer to the typical blood-n-tits horror flick. And, well, my curiosity gave into the hype. Since then, I’ve been seeing two types of pieces–those that actually review the film and those that review Diablo Cody and how feminist she is. Writers who do the latter seem to be doubly disappointed that the film didn’t remind them of Juno, or didn’t provide us with a justified, Buffy-like heroine, or didn’t subvert the genre enough, or blah blah blah. Alright. Time to put this movie–and this incredibly overexposed writer–in perspective.

In case you haven’t come across the scads of journalism on DC and JB, here’s the gist of the film, directed by “Girlfight”‘s Karen Kusama: Jennifer (Megan Fox) is a painfully, plastically hot and haughty high school cheerleader, who becomes possessed when members of a poser indie rock band sacrifice Jennifer to Satan after she pretends to be a virgin. Problem is, Jennifer’s not even a “back-door virgin,” so naturally their plan goes awry. Jennifer’s now a flesh-eating succubus, and Needy (Amanda Seyfried, who I love in “Big Love”), her moderately dorky BFF, is scared shitless. There’s a makeout sesh between the girls, a hilarious virginity-losing scene, a few good mental hospital/prison scenes, and a bunch of gory, vicious girl-demon attacks.

I didn’t fall in love with the movie, but I was entertained and certainly not offended by it. Truthfully, I’m having a hard time understanding why so many people are. I’m going to go ahead and take Diablo Cody’s subversive, feminist claims under consideration, and debunk some of the common and often lazy criticisms “Jennifer’s Body” has endured in this 3-day hailstorm:

Read More…Read More…

In memory of Patrick Swayze, some thoughts on “Dirty Dancing”

by Laura Smith-Gary

Dear Feministe community: this was written with two audiences in mind — you (a diverse group, generally well-informed about the issues facing American women), and college students who are largely upper- or upper-middle class, white, well-educated, and cover a spectrum of political perspectives and having widely varying degrees of knowledge about feminism and women’s issues. This means it’s more of an “introduction to intersectionality” post than I’d normally write for Feministe, but I don’t believe that has affected my tone or arguments in any significant ways. I welcome your comments and criticisms.

Earlier this week I re-watched Dirty Dancing in memory of Patrick Swayze. It’s a film that is near and dear to the hearts of many feminists, both for its treatment of serious themes like back-alley abortion, classism, and impending cultural revolution, and because even humorless “sexual Nazis”* like myself can appreciate shirtless Patrick Swayze. If you haven’t already, go read Melissa McEwan’s piece on the movie right now — she describes beautifully how the film has introduced young women like her to feminist themes.

Now, I love Dirty Dancing. I love Baby/Frances, who’s brave and intelligent and idealistic and unabashedly sexual. I love Johnny, who’s tough and vulnerable and willing to change his mind. I love that despite the restrictions and limitations on Baby and Johnny, they fight for each other fiercely and dance Kellerman’s stodgy camp into the ‘60s.

But my heart always goes back to Penny, Johnny’s professional dance partner. As a teenager, I envied Penny’s dance talent but vaguely despised her character — she was slim, beautiful, blond, and, I thought in all my seventeen-year-old arrogance, fundamentally weak. She clung to Johnny while Baby required no protection, she believed the lies of Robby the Creep while Baby rejected his copy of The Fountainhead and dumped a pitched of ice water on his pants, and she quickly sank into tears and panic — and again, dependence — when she hit an obstacle, while Baby reacted with determination and optimism. I sympathized with Penny’s plight, but I found myself wanting to bombard her with instructions. “Learn marketable skills for when you can’t dance any longer! Be optimistic! Don’t put up with men treating you badly! Stand up for yourself! Don’t have sex without contraception! Don’t be mean to Baby, she’s trying to help!” I was obnoxious and self-righteous when I was seventeen.**

When I watched Dirty Dancing from a (slightly!) more grown-up perspective, I saw a whole new narrative, grimly lurking below the optimistic central storyline — Penny’s story. Though part of her job is portraying a high-society image, glamorous and carefree and flirtatious, Penny comes from a much lower socioeconomic class than all the guests (and the “upper” staff, the Ivy League waiters like awful Robby). She exists at the intersection of gender and class oppression, and Dirty Dancing makes this painfully clear.

Penny and Baby both face discrimination as women, but because of her class Penny is fundamentally vulnerable. She has no safety net. Many of the things that I love about Baby — her idealism, her bravery, her assurance that life can always get better — are aspects of her personality, but are nurtured and allowed to flourish by her class privilege. She can go to Mount Holyoke. She can turn down boring, pompous Neil Kellerman without fear of reprisals. If she’s desperate — for any reason — she can ask her father for $250 and he’ll give it to her. I don’t mean to say her class privilege eliminates the fact that she is treated differently because she is female. Baby is condescended to and called by a diminutive nickname instead of Frances, she’s not allowed to go to an all-male university, her lifestyle does depend entirely upon her father, and her parents desperately want her to fit into an asexual “good girl” model.

Penny, however, has not had the opportunity to go to school or develop a variety of skills, since her mother threw her out of the house when she was sixteen and she’s been dancing for her supper ever since. She has no social or economic power, which makes her vulnerable to sexual pressure — would she be able to refuse Neil’s advances, or the advances of a guest, without losing her job? On the other side of the same coin, she could easily be fired if she did give into a guest’s advances and was found out. Despite Penny’s “glamorous” job that Baby wistfully says she envies, she spends every day and night catering to the desires of Kellerman’s guests. She can’t even take a short break without the management snarling — she must be constantly available for the guests’ enjoyment, and her badly needed salary is dependent on her body being constantly lithe and able and her sexy, feminine charm being constantly lavished on all comers.

Of course, because of his class status Johnny is subject to some of the same pressures. He too has no financial safety net and no apparent family support, and some of the female guests feel free to demand his sexual favors — and take revenge when he refuses. “I’m balancing on shit and as quick as that I could be back there again,” Johnny tells Baby, and it’s true for both him and Penny, as it is for so many of those who live paycheck to paycheck — or go without paychecks entirely.

However, Penny’s vulnerability has a gendered dimension. She’s balancing not only on the edge of hunger and unemployment, but also sexualized “ruin.” If Johnny lost his job he could probably pick one up in construction, moving, or other seasonal work that employs able-bodied men. Penny might be able to work in a factory or as a maid or waitress, or she could become a sex worker. While many sex workers enjoy what they do and have chosen their work, becoming a sex worker out of desperation is not something to wish on anyone. In addition, sex workers are stigmatized by huge swathes of society, and Penny’s obvious desire to be “respectable” would be shattered. And sadly, in any one of the jobs she could get as a poor, uneducated, pretty woman she could well be expected to make her body available to customers or coworkers.

Penny also has a significant liability Johnny has not — she can get pregnant. In 1963, it wasn’t even legal for married couples to use contraception (that Supreme Court decision came in 1965), and abortion wouldn’t be legal for another ten years. For Penny, sex or rape hold the constant risk of disaster (additional disaster, in the case of rape). And not only is Penny subject to sexual pressure because of her sex and class, she also does not have anything to fall back on if she does become pregnant. This circumstance becomes the central plot point of Dirty Dancing. When Penny does get pregnant, she has no resources — no power to demand anything of Robby, who impregnated her (and who sneers “Some people count, some people don’t”), no legal way to terminate the pregnancy, no money for an illegal abortion, no way to take time out of working to get an appointment, no legal or medical recourse when the “doctor” botches the abortion. No way to carry the pregnancy to term without losing her job and being labeled a “fallen woman.” No obvious way to support another person. No one to help her raise a baby, except perhaps her friend and dance partner. Little hope for the “respectable” marriage and family she seems to crave. While adoption could be an option, she would have to go without employment as a dancer for several months as well as paying medical expenses, which she can’t do. Penny can’t keep the pregnancy and she can’t end it. She’s utterly dependent on Robby, Johnny, Baby, the evil fake doctor, and Baby’s father Dr. Houseman, who saves her after the botched abortion. (If you are under the impression legalized abortion solved this problem, stay tuned — next week I’ll discuss how abortion is still a privilege in the United States.)

If I were in her position, I would be crying hysterically in the kitchen in about five seconds, and hoping against hope that a bathtub of hot water and gin actually works. Being a woman who is poor and “low-class” gives her next to no options and simultaneously makes her body one of her only resources and liability.***

After she is saved by Dr. Houseman and Baby and Johnny’s romance starts heating up, Penny fades quickly from the story. I can’t help but wonder if it is because the writer and director couldn’t see an optimistic, inspirational path for her — being alive and still fertile was the best they could do. As Dirty Dancing draws to a close, guests and staff at Kellerman’s are all dancing together, joyous and excited for the future. Baby is off to study Economics of Underdeveloped Countries, Johnny has found courage and purpose, and Awful Robby has been exposed and glared at by Dr. Houseman. Penny, displaced from her one shining, happy role as Johnny’s partner, has the fact that she’s alive, she’s pretty, she can dance, and she can still have children one day.

*I was so called, in the Equal Writes comment section this week! By a fellow who has also told me that due to the female “hive mind,” I speak for all Anglo-American feminists. I…win?

**I still am, but now I pause for upwards of three seconds before I start pelting people with advice.

***It’s important to mention that although Penny’s options are seriously limited by her gender and class status, she is privileged in a number of ways — she’s white, she speaks English as a first language, albeit with a slight “low-class” accent, she’s a documented citizen, she’s straight, she’s cissexual and cisgendered (she identifies with the sex and gender she was assigned at birth), she’s thin and conventionally attractive, and she’s temporarily able for most of the movie. Were she not to have even one of those privileges, her options would again dramatically contract. She certainly wouldn’t be a centerpiece at Kellerman’s.

Rest in peace, Patrick Swayze.

“Gendered” differences in the brain aren’t so clear-cut

by Brenda Jin

Have you ever heard the theory that men and women behave differently, because they simply think differently? Their biology is different, their brains are different, and their neurological hard-wiring can explain gendered behavioral differences.

However, in a recent article in Scientific American, Lise Eliot explores the surprising recent findings on social cognition and interpersonal judgment by a team of researchers at the University of Iowa. Interestingly, this group of researches has added two crucial elements to their study which throw into question the idea that our brains have been “biologically” set up to make females more sympathetic or understanding—age and a “psychological” gender test (in addition to the conventional standard of biological sex). They discovered that not only does the area of the brain responsible for social cognition and interpersonal judgment—known as the “SG” for “straight gyrus”—change during puberty; the section is larger in prepubescent boys than in prepubescent girls! Furthermore, the “SG” is correspondingly larger in individuals determined to be more “psychologically” female.

Therefore, although a common assumption associated as well with the so-called “evolutionary” reason that women have developed an ability to empathize and understand others better (because they have historically been care-givers of children), research reveals that it is actually unclear whether certain behavioral differences are hard-wired, given the extreme malleability of the brain, which also begs the question: are we asking the questions backwards? Does society simply associate “social cognition” with gender so strongly that those who are supposedly more socially aware are also determined to be more “psychologically feminine”?

One thing is for sure: experience changes the brain, and this research reveals that there is a huge grey area in determining which behaviors are socially learned and assigned by society versus those that have been with us from birth. A new understanding of nature vs. nurture as seen by how the brain changes before and after puberty and the relationship of brain function to social function might show us that nurture plays a larger role than previously though in defining so-called “gendered” behavior.

This Is Where White Guilt Comes From

(x-posted at Social Science Lite)

It’s funny, I never really thought too much about liberal white guilt until I came to graduate school at Harvard. Now that I’m here in Cambridge, it seems to be a reoccurring topic of conversation. I don’t know, maybe the election of Barack Obama has made us think more about racial privilege. Or maybe it was conservative pundits informing me that the only reason I voted for him was my liberal, white guilt. Apparently, I just can’t seem to make a rational decision, with all that guilt building up inside me. Nor am I able to think critically about race, of course. I can’t see straight because of my overwhelming racial guilt, you see. And I just want to give people of color a leg up, even if they are “unqualified.” Damn whiteness, screwing with my moral compass!

White guilt always struck me as an interesting concept. You know, it’s like, why shouldn’t we feel guilty about things like racism and sexism, and feel a certain personal obligation to work for greater equality? I guess it can often cloud our thoughts, and cause us well-meaning white liberals to act paternalistic or reckless in search of diversity or social justice. My mom is going to kill me for writing this…but I know firsthand what it’s like to be around a, shall we say, overzealous racial liberal. She means well, but sometimes I just had to shake my head growing up.

Just like I think it’s possible to put white privilege in check, and be cognizant of my own racial advantage, so too do I think that it’s possible to keep liberal white guilt at bay. Well, at least that’s what I thought. While visiting my girlfriend’s family in Cleveland a few weeks ago, I faced a situation that helped me understand the basis of white guilt.

It was Saturday night. My girlfriend and I went out to dinner at a local chain restaurant in a (predominantly Jewish) neighboring suburb of Cleveland. Being the aspiring social scientist I am, I made the observation that the restaurant was about 50% white and 50% black. Having now spent a couple of years with me, my girlfriend has picked up on my knack for observing racial dynamics everywhere I go. She replied that she also noticed the balanced proportions.

After dinner we went to her friend’s house to hang out for a bit. Including my girlfriend and me, there were seven (white) people at the house, all gathered around the TV watching a Chris Tucker movie. She made the casual comment to the group, “We went to X restaurant tonight. It was interesting; about half white, half black. I don’t remember it being that mixed when we went to high school.” One of her friend’s roommates, flipping through a GQ magazine (I’m not making this up), fixed his collared shirt and nonchalantly chimed in: “It’s been happening for years. It used to be a cool place to hangout. It would be cool, if it wasn’t for all the schvartzes.”

These are the moments that public intellectuals like Tim Wise thrive on. The kind of situation in which you put a bigot in his place, telling him that it’s not right to use Yiddish slurs for black folks. In White Like Me, Wise goes through strategies to put white privilege in check, particularly when racist “jokes” or slurs are made amongst white friends. But I didn’t use any of Wise’s strategies. I didn’t come up with any witty response. I didn’t say, “What are you afraid of? That you will catch some sort of black disease? That their blackness will rub off on you? That somehow, being in proximity to black people will hurt your good time? This isn’t the Jim Crow South—do you expect blacks to eat at different restaurants, and frequent different stores? Are you that ignorant?” I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t demand that he clarify his insult, noting that the blacks at the restaurant that night were by and large middle-aged, and middle class (though, it shouldn’t matter). I didn’t yell, I didn’t laugh it off, I didn’t do anything. I just sat there, mind running a million miles a minute, seething with anger.

The rage continued to build up, but I didn’t say a word. I was paralyzed, shocked, stunned. I sat there, silent, and silenced by my inability to articulate a powerful response. Chris Tucker made a joke on TV, and everyone laughed. My window of opportunity to say something, anything, passed. I wanted to say, “It’s cool to laugh at their jokes, but God forbid they want to go to the same restaurant as you.” But I didn’t.

It’s moments like this—moments when we are tested and fail to respond to racism—that leave a lasting imprint and a simmering rage in the very depths of our souls. I feel ashamed that I let his comment go unchecked, and personally responsible for similar situations that occur daily. I caught a glimpse of casual, recreational racism. And I did nothing. And it made me sick.

I realized, this is where white guilt comes from.

Maureen Dowd on happiness discrepancies

by Gracie Remington

I am not ordinarily a fan of Maureen Dowd, the New York Times’ opinion columnist most known for her flippant overviews of political developments, and her column this Sunday did little to change my mind, although it certainly made me think more than her previous pieces have succeeded in doing. Discussing the current disparity in happiness between men and women, Dowd does not fail to employ her trademark impertinence (opening her column with a back-and-forth between herself and a male friend, who explains away the happiness imbalance by saying that it’s ” ‘Because you care’ ” and because ” ‘you have feelings’ “), but brings up some interesting points along the way.

Results from the General Social Survey, which has studied Americans’ moods since 1972, and five other major studies from elsewhere in the world indicate that women’s happiness is lessening as men’s happiness is increasing. In her column, Dowd outlined various explanations for the happiness inequality, dismissing some in favor of others. The fact that women have more responsibilities in the home, or during the “second shift,” seems to be a poor indicator of increased female unhappiness, as men have moved into the domestic realm and the division of labor is becoming increasingly even between the sexes in regards to domestic work, minimizing the stress and unhappiness that would be disproportionately felt by women as a result of being overburdened by household obligations. Children are brought up as potential mood deflators, and Dowd quotes Betsey Stevenson, the co-author of a paper titled “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” who says, “Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children. It’s true whether you’re wealthy or poor, if you have kids late or kids early. Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they hadn’t had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness.” The global culture’s obsession with youth is brought up as well, along with various other lifestyle choices that seem to both liberate women while potentially making them sadder.

Dowd closes her column by saying, “Stevenson looks on the bright side of the dark trend, suggesting that happiness is beside the point. We’re happy to have our newfound abundance of choices, she said, even if those choices end up making us unhappier. A paradox, indeed.” How is it that this abundance of choices leaves women less satisfied and more unhappy than their male counterparts, who clearly share many of the same opportunities? How can we as women balance these “choices” in a healthy way that leaves us satisfied and happy? The column in and of itself is noteworthy in that it brings to light an intriguing subject; it does not even begin to answer these types of questions. But perhaps it is something worth thinking about, and talking about: given the choices that we now have, how can we use our newfound opportunities in a way that ultimately makes us happy? Why is that question so difficult to answer?
Any thoughts?

Hello, Class.

I would write, but I am tired and must sleep, so: A prompt, from Maureen Dowd.

But the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?

Discuss.

Dumb or Dishonest?

I just discovered that the teabagger contingent is protesting health reform by appropriating the old familiar feminist slogan, “Keep your laws off my body.” Except there is a big difference between the spirit of the original meaning and how it applies, or doesn’t, to health reform today:

Unlike the issue of abortion rights – wherein the same noisy faction that opposes healthcare for others also aggressively campaigns to prohibit women from controlling their own bodies, and to force them to undergo pregnancy and childbirth against their will – the proposed plan for universal healthcare access doesn’t impose any unwanted procedure on anyone’s body.

Exactly. Not to mention that the same folks who want to “keep America’s health care laws off their bodies” also oppose abortion funding under any health care plan that is passed, which serves the dual function of opposing reform for the sake of being contrary while also being remarkably hypocritical. Or just remarkably dumb. I can’t tell anymore.

[Via]