Valentine's Day is supposed to celebrate love. Love, while people say it is all around, is actually rooted in one other person. If you were decieved into thinking that you loved your friends and family, your country, your religion or Dancing With the Stars, then Valentine's Day is here to remind you that love is rooted in romance. One need only look to the commercials for jewlry, the advertisements for romantic dinners and even my gym has an offer to "bring your loved ONE for free" for Valentine's Day to see that instead of love Valentine's Day is celebrating romance.
It is fascinating to me that Valentine's Day focuses on romantic love-- perhaps the most fragile of all loving relationships. While people rarely quetion of their love of a cause or family, for some reason the love of a romantic partner does not hold the same power anymore. Of course there are people who love one another dearly, and have spent years in difficult circumstances to remain together and support one another. Yet, divorce, adultery, abandonment and other means of betraying romantic love run rampant in our society. Therefore, when we celebrate Valentine's Day it seems strange that we should force people to focus on the love of a romantic partner when it is the hardest love to face.
Would it not be a better statement to focus a day to celebrate love on the things that hold all of us together? The powerful emotion that makes us follow the elections with such passion, that commits us to God or humanity, and that makes us feel devoted to our family, friends and ourselves. Being single on Valentine's Day makes one feel loveless. By focusing on an aspect of love that excludes and depresses large portions of the population, Valentine's Day is breaking more than candy hearts. They are breaking the spirit of people that are blinded to the vast amount of love in their life by commercialized couples and diamond rings. It is hard to face a day that celebrates romantic love when you have none, but it is harder to feel like that means there is no love in your life at all.
Everyone has love for something in their lives, so celebrate that today. Whether it is family and friends or a political candidate or chocolate cake-- there is something we all look to when we need to love and the ability to do that is something worth celebrating. Even if it doesn't pay for dinner.
We're Just Not That Into You Lesson: Being alone on a day devoted to being together is not fun for anyone-- but it is important to remember that if you have one person you can cry to about it, or one phone call or email that you can send to vent, then you are not alone. Take this opportunity to celebrate more than romantic love, celebrate the power of devotion that we have to each other as a society, as friends and as family. There is so much love in this world that we need not waste its celebration on the need for one other person.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Breaking More than Candy Hearts
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
YOU, Me and Everyone Else is ON A DIET
While few of you admitted to subjecting yourselves to torture methods to lose weight, many people in America are already lining up for miracle cures. Weight loss products and surgeries that do everything from stapling your stomach to making you crap in your pants if you eat too much are selling like crazy. When looking at the voting on the poll it was hard to imagine there were people out there who were perfectly happy as they were. My friends, relatives and colleagues are costantly worrying about their weight, figure, and image in a way that not only borders obsessive, but makes me question what it means to have a healthy body image in a day when the only healthy mindset is on a diet.
There are people who struggle with their weight because they have to but there are even more who struggle with their weight because they want to. As someone who has recently joined the ranks of the image conscious weight loss obsessives, I have noticed that as soon as I mention my desire to lose weight every woman in the room echoes my statements. No longer do people act as if my weight loss proposal is ridiculous but become enthralled with my methods and plans for achieving my goals. Not too long ago it was taboo to talk to someone about how they need to lose weight, whereas now if you don't think you need to-- well what will you have to talk about?
Truthfully I have not met a woman who does not worry about her weight. Perhaps this issue is pertinent for men as well, but it is not pervasive. In my emails to friends and family, weight loss is a common subject that can relate to anyone. There is an entire social network in dieting. Do you do Weight Watchers? If so, can you make a pizza that is only three points, because I created one. I also created a way to make one point brownies, while my friend has created three point muffins and my mother can bake four point lemon squares. My aunt is on South Beach and relies on nuts for snacks, but frankly, they are too many points for me so we have trouble sharing ideas, but try anyway. We are all on a diet, but losing the diet would be losing a topic of conversastion as socially acceptable and common as the weather. Therefore, perhaps what we really need to lose is the weight of our diets.
I have gained a substantial amount of weight since I went abroad to study, and have found a million reasons to fixate on losing it. The real issue, though, is not how I gained the weight, but why. After a devastating break-up, adjusting to a new place, struggling to keep up with school, friends, etc. food was something that filled a void in my life. Now, I continue to postpone acknowleding my real struggles by obsessing with the struggles of my diet. Why do I keep gaining weight? Why can't I lose the pounds? I only ate three points today! My friends comfort me with statements like, have you tried olive oil? Dieting is a roller coaster? You exercise, it is muscle weight...don't worry. But the truth is, what we should really be saying to each other is, why do you care so much? Why do you take the time to worry so much about what you weigh? That is the real problem. I know how to lose weight, but I do not always know how to find myself.
I think that everyone can have a healthy concern about their body. Perhaps I do not look fat to others, but if I am unhappy with my body it is perfectly appropriate that I try to fix it. The problem is that we are so comfortable worrying about diets that we have stopped worrying about each other. While we all struggle to lose weight, we should also be working toward stronger emotional relationships and topics of converstaion that reflect positive aspects of their life instead of their struggles toward various levels of starvation. I'm not going to stop counting my points, setting personal goals or worrying about my appearance--but I am going to try to stop making my food decisions form my relationships. Thanks for the recipies, motivation and ideas, but lets not all be on diets when it comes to losing our burdens or our weight.
We're Just Not That Into You Lesson: It is important to support your friends and family in weight-loss efforts. I love hearing progress reports from friends and family who are successful and help those in need of a boost. The problem is that diets become consuming. We look skeptically at someone eating a candy bar or cake who we know is "on a diet" and we never wonder why people eat the way they do, or feel compelled to diet the way they do. Perhaps we can be better supporters of weight loss if we try to talk about other things a little more often.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Kicking Off Valentine's Day Week
As the poll says, it might be just a little too easy for the Gods and Goddesses of real love to make fun of Valentine's Day and all its vapid promises of candy box fulfillment. Does anyone outside of junior high seriously subscribe to its chocolate-coated expectations of gifts and fancy dinner anymore? (If you still do, and think I'm being slightly cynical, post away.)
I'm not a big believer in the VD, and that might be reflective of numerous less-than-stellar historical showing's from Cupid in my life. There was the Valentine's Day when my date made out with another girl at the college house party. The year I accidentally sunburned my entire body in a tanning bed and decided to end a moderately fulfilling but ultimately disappointing relationship with a good friend. One year, I spent the night fending off sad 40-something women at a bar called Nutty's as they drunkenly tried to embrace me, saying "I wish I had a boyfriend! I don't want to be single anymore!" A total downer.
You know what this means, my expectations are extremely high now that I'm celebrating Valentine's Day with a super-nice boyfriend by my side. (Just kidding.) In all seriousness, I think this holiday in particular gives us something to Not Be Into together. I'm going to kick it off, by opening some space for not being into expectations and stereotypes.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Super Tuesday
I would feel remiss if this blog didn't mention the fact that for the first time, a woman is running a serious presidential campaign in the United States. In one of the most exciting primary contests in recent history, both candidates are running on a platform of change and both have had to run a race that acknowledges the race/gender card without overplaying it. My female friends and acquaintances have pointedly not supported Hillary simply because she is a woman and almost no one I know (save Merle Haggard) has even spoken very much about what having a woman in charge might mean for the U.S.
Hillary's gender, however, does appear to be salient for older women, our mothers and grandmothers who remember what life was like when girl power was yet a gleam in Gwen Stefani's eye and before schools were pouring resources into improving boys' performances. Third wavers may not be making gender an issue in this race, but the very few young men who support Hillary's bid indicate to this feminist at least that it is affecting how people evaluate the candidates. Hillary's tears in New Hampshire melted an "ice queen." CNN has talked more about Hillary's laugh or hairdo than her detailed policy plans, and a major Clinton opponent started the 527 Citizens United Not Timid to funnel campaign funds into her opponents coffers. (Get the acronym? Can you imagine a similar one for any other candidate that would not provoke a major outcry? I can't. )
Is the elephant in the room race or gender in 2008? Or are both referenced enough for people to have it on their minds without meaningfully debated?
Monday, February 4, 2008
Young adults will be young adults
As a modern male, let me reiterate that we’re living in some crazy times. I mean beyond the gloom and doom of Facebook culture, climate change, and wars abroad, we’re in the midst of a cultural shift of inclusiveness unlike any in the modern age—namely the emergence of women. These days, it’s women’s turn to shine. Finally. After centuries of fighting for equal rights, or hell, even the ability to be considered a person, women are outperforming men in the classroom and in many cases, the office. I, for one, welcome our new overlords—not because all women deserve it, but because as a rational society, it’s pretty damn stupid to waste 50% of your talent and intelligence pool because of castration anxiety. Basically, I don’t give a shit if you have a penis, a vagina, or both, as long as you can do the job and not be an asshole about it.
That being said, I can’t help but be offended when females rehash the fallacious stereotype that men are the immature sex. Hymnowitz, whose article garnered a spot on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, anguishes over “Single Young Males’ (SYM)” modified adolescence and the problems it creates for the growing number of empowered females in society.
In the 1960s, as a male in my mid-20s, I would have been screwing on caps at the local toothpaste factory, making love to my high school sweetheart, and living with my parents so I could save up enough to feed my kids. Forty years later, the modern me is wasting away in a hellish apartment with some dudes and dumping money into Xbox, iTunes, and sex--or the pursuit of it anyway. My droogs and I, when we’re not at our 9-2-5, are wrecking young females’ lives and hearts with our hard-to-get routine and our general preference for shooting the shit instead of changing diapers. We choose to “hang out in a playground of drinking, hooking up, playing Halo 3 and, in many cases, underachieving.” In contrast, our female counterparts are “hyper-achieving in both school and an increasingly female-friendly workplace, while packing leisure hours with shopping, traveling and dining with friends.”
Excuse me? Why do shopping, traveling, and gossip hour fall into “leisure” while their equivalents of drinking and video games equate to underachievement? And if I’m not mistaken, we’re not hooking up with other guys (well, 90% of us aren’t anyway), so aren’t females also hanging out in these dens of iniquity? Or sorry, does the fact that they’re in a pair of fuck-me boots they bought three hours earlier and have a pair of Chinatown bus ticket stubs to NYC in a Coach bag mean that they’re still achieving the American dream? Men may be turning to Tucker Max and Maxim for advice, but women are doing the same; their sources have names like Carrie Bradshaw and Cosmopolitan.
Which brings me to my “beef” with Hymowitz: this is a generation clash, not a gender difference. She notes that 33% of 25 year old males are married these days, compared to 69% in 1970. Funny, but she forgot to mention that 40% of women in their 20s are unmarried, too. And trust me, the woman who grabbed my ass in the bar last night wasn’t looking for me to show the ring and pop the question. I’m not trying to absolve the mire of men; God knows we are a filthy creation. Instead, I believe that this pre-adult stage is a shared experience between both sexes.
Nevertheless, I don’t see our generation’s lack of popping out babies and buying up houses for families as a problem. We’re in the unique situation where we may be the first generation in America that does not earn more per capita than their parents. We’re competing with the explosion of American education, the emergence of women in the workforce and an educated foreign workforce. Furthermore, our generation has been taught by our society and public education system to “Be Something” rather than another cog in the machine (kids want to be doctors, lawyers, and astronauts—not office managers and electricians). Is it any wonder we’re not satisfied with our .ppt-creating, coffee-making, copier-troubleshooting work day?
Above all, family is an improper (and antiquated) metric for responsibility and adulthood when the individual is existentially searching for a way to contribute to society as a whole. With our bustling economy and entertainment-filled lives, who doesn’t want to be the next Bill Gates or Matt Damon? Our dreams are not our fathers’. And they are especially not our mothers’.
Is our generation somehow less responsible because we’re more interested in investing in stocks and high-interest bank accounts than locking ourselves into mortgages? Are we less capable of making decisions because we derive entertainment from parodies and immaturity rather than contrived “wholesome” TV? Is society going to collapse because 20 year olds are getting action on the side rather than making babies in an overpopulated world? I say no. Then again, maybe I just share the Burgessian vision that in the not-so-distant future, we’ll tire of our ultraviolence and yearn for unruly 20 year-olds of our own. Our generation is no more threatening to the American way of life than the immigrants of the 1920s, and the teenagers of the 1960s.
In the meantime, if you’re 20 and looking to get married, I have a few suggestions:
a) Stop trying to find your future spouse at a club (unless it’s a country club)
b) Don’t sleep with her/him on the first date
c) Move to Idaho
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Tracy Flick vs. Elle Woods
To illustrate the powerplayer/sex kitten divide, I've chosen two blonde prototypes of the female superpower archetype, both played by Reese Witherspoon. First, we have Tracey Flick from the film Election. She is, simply put, out to kill. This girl will win her bid for high school presidency at any cost.
Second, Elle Woods, equally successful in the end, but patronized and parodied, while generally acknowledged as beautiful.
Tracy seems almost asexual in her turtleneck sweaters and perpetual frown (although the viewers know this masks a recent affair with a married man.) Elle shamelessly plays up her physical gifts, sending law school admissions a video of herself in the pool wearing a bikini in lieu of an application. (She gets in, natch.)
What do the two sides of Reese tell us about powerful women in media culture? Frankly, ladies, we can't have it both ways. Either you're the cold, manipulative, competitive Tracy Flick or you're the perpetually sweet, slightly dumb, certainly inoffensive Elle Woods. Both get to be powerful, and both get what they want, but the trade-off, of course, is in popularity. The message: it's okay to be successful and maybe beautiful as long as you're also unfailingly nice and probably a little bit dumb, so as not to offend anyone, sweetie.
This delicate balance between class president and homecoming queen is rarely walked by men. They, of course, are sexy BECAUSE they are powerful, not despite being powerful; therefore, "masculine" elements of power, being assertive, decisive, even abrupt, are okay for men, but threatening when co-opted by women.
(To illustrate this point, how often have you witnessed the following conversation circles among groups of women: "What do you want to do?..... "I don't care. I mean, I sort of like movies, yeah movies are okay....I mean, I don't care. What do you want to do? I'll do whatever you want...") I know women who would rather talk circles for hours than risk seeming like they had an opinion contrary to any other member of their friend group.
When I lived in South Dakota, the number one adjective used to describe me was "intimidating." Even strangers at dive bars would level this claim at me (although it was sort of surprising they knew a five-syllable word.) As an assertive pro-choice feminist in an oppressively red state, I probably did seem sort of scary and maybe a little bit dangerous. It bothered me at the time, but I have a better perspective now on why they were mistaken. I think the double-Reese dichotomy is false. We've been trained to identify powerful, successful women as bitches, unless the success is tempered with a degree of sweetness, even to strangers, even when unwarranted.
We're Just Not That Into You Lesson: We don't need to be all things to all people. Embrace both your inner class president and class homecoming queen when appropriate. Don't hide in practice the very gifts that brought success in the first place. We're powerful because of the gifts that we embrace, not the attributes we shun.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Modern Man
Making men obsolete did not require scientific advances. While British headlines have boasting a scientific discovery that has led to the “death of the father,” the role of men in the modern world is facing important challenges outside the laboratory. Currently living in the UK, my conversations with men in pubs allows me to sympathize with British scientists wanting to populate the world without the need for sex with British men. Yet, while the scientific progress is wonderful for gay and lesbian couples who would want to reproduce, its role in changing male/female relationships is about ten years too late. Men have already been faced with the reality that their role in society is no longer clear.
I like to start my afternoons by watching Loose Women. For those of you who never had the pleasure, it is a similar show to The View but generally restricts conversations to issues facing the modern woman. On Loose Women, they were discussing this article on “Making Men Obsolete” when one of the women (typically the ‘we don’t need men’ strong single woman) said something that we do not hear enough, “I feel really sorry for them, they must just have no bloody clue what do with themselves.” She continued to explain that in a world of women achieving at high levels, succeeding in careers and demanding equality in treatment, men just do not know what they are expected to do anymore. I think she has a point. While we talk about the delicate balancing act we must play looking for romance and respect—men are also caught between wanting to be the prince and the damsel all at once.
While I am not opposed to the slowly collapsing good ole boy networks that dominated business, medicine, law and society for centuries, I do sympathize with men’s inability to gage their behavior in the new world of women. I, for one, do not mind when a man hold’s the door for me. Yet, many women are very much offended by the gesture, seeing it as an implication that she could not hold the door for herself. While the same man may open the door for me in the morning and receive a smile, he could do the same thing two hours later and receive a smack. This dichotomy of how to behave transcends into business demeanor. Where are the lines for friendship? For sex discussion? My girlfriends and I can talk freely about which men we would sleep with, who is cute, who is not, etc. Even in semi-professional environments it is socially acceptable for women to talk about potential hook-ups or past mistakes in the same department without worrying about offending the men in their office. Where I would find a comment that I looked nice as a compliment from a male colleague, another situation with a different woman could result in a sexual harassment claim. We want to be colleagues who are treated equally, but legally and socially we are still different. Yet, for men, it is understandably hard to know when it is time to be an equal and time to be a woman (the wording may offend many of you but it is true. The law protects women in a way that it does not for men and as a professional that understanding needs to exist). Demanding different treatment and equality is making men walk on eggshells in all the places they once felt safe. While Greg talks about men just not being that into you if he is not willing to approach you, or if he’s not calling you right away, Greg is forgetting that the modern man has to date us—women who might one day be his boss, who are also really busy and who can perceive advancements as insulting to our social roles.
Men are obsolete in many ways. Their role as the provider is gone. Their role as the source for sexual pleasure is gone (not that it was so overwhelming in the first place). Their role as a social necessity is gone. Their role as jar opener has even been undermined. Yet, they still have an important role in society and in the lives of women. My father is not the one who fixes the kitchen sink (his one attempt cost a lot more than his pride to repair) but it is because of him that I know that there are men in this world who feel unconditionally devoted to their wife and children. Professors, bosses, friends, and colleagues who were male gave me support and guidance in ways that allowed me to achieve things I never thought possible. Even my ex-boyfriend, for all the pain he brought me, supported me and cared for me unconditionally for years. Without these men in my life I would not be the woman I have become, so even if we do not need their sperm, we can want the substantive, caring people many of them are in our lives.
We’re Just Not That Into You Lesson: So for all they do and all they don’t know how to do, let’s give men a little understanding because they have a hard role to play too. They are having a hard time managing our changing role in society—just as we are. While we don’t know whether we want to be whisked away by Mr. Millionare or supported in our career and family choices by Mr. Stay-At-Home Dad or work side by side with Mr. We Met in Law School…they also don’t know how to treat us. Their role in society is changing slowly just as ours is and we need to be understanding of that as well. We cannot have our cake and hate it too. We cannot blame men for not knowing how they should behave at all times. Obviously there are examples of gratuitous, sexist behavior which is always unacceptable. But if he holds the door, maybe just tell him thank you, but you got it and move on—because maybe I still want him to hold it for me!
REFERENCE ARTICLE : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html
