Guyland
So I am watching the Today Show and they have this book by Michael Kimmel from SUNY-Stony Brook (my local Uni growing up) and it turned into that weird thing where men are supposedly "disadvantaged." I am tired of hearing how hard it is to be a man in America. I am sure it is hard, but being a man doesn't provide some special disadvantage. It provides all the advantages. Luckily Hoda Kotb pointed out that she looks around society and sees men everywhere in charge of everything which is completely true and isn't changing very rapidly at all despite the whining from men and their apologists.
They had a woman man-apologist on the show for the second go round of this issue and I think she might be that woman who wrote the book about poor neglected boys in school, an idea which is a ridiculous oversimplification. She complains that we have been rooting for girls too much in society. (And Kathie Lee Gifford made the silly remark that it is a pendulum that has swung too far to girls.... funny enough a pendulum implies that it was a cycle, but I challenge her to find in history where is swung back and forth because honestly it was slanted towards men for pretty much all of human history. It's not a cycle at all. The metaphor is faulty.) Well the funny thing about this is that they discussed about remembering our 'strong, protective, providing' father which of course is one of those stereotypes that also didn't reflect reality for the majority of families despite the myth. Don't believe me? Well look up statistics on marital abuse, child abuse etc from the 1950s and you'll find these were all higher than they are today, if less reported. This is the subtle strike back at feminism to roll back the clock to when women stayed home perhaps even 'barefoot and pregnant.' The problem with this woman is that since she is a woman her anti-feminist proclivities seem more legit. Boys are being neglected in schools she contends. Boys are being held back. blah blah blah. Certainly there are special problems with minority boys, but white boys still seem to be doing quite well even if their grades and test scores are lower than white girls. Spoken or not, this simplistic analysis is blaming women for men's problems again. The woman even said, "women have to take reponsibility for their low expectations of men." This is a valid point for sure and one which I complain, but it again lets those men off the hook. Men don't behave badly entirely because women let them though it reinforces their bad behavior, but because other men encourage them to behave badly, or they saw their fathers behave badly.
How about defining the problem as one of setting low expectations of fathers rather than mothers. Mothers are often the providers as much as men, which the woman argued is part of the problem, but it isn't. Women have often been the provider. If in ancient times men hunted wel then women gathered which is still "providing." This is even if such a division of labor really existed. I still don't know exactly how the man was ever the "protector" of the family when he worked 8 hours or more per day and even more hours before 1938. This is hardly time at home "protecting," but basically we are stuck with these sex role myths which obscure a lot of relevant discussion. We just retreat back to stereotypes when we starting to unpack our expectations and problems. If boys are being neglected by their mothers which they might be, it is the change from when moms neglected their daughters, but this all ignores the fact that no one has stood up and said fathers need to be there to do the role that mothers did, or that we've created teaching as a woman's job with all the control, complaints and dominance problems that women face in society. (By means of comparison, our economy is falling apart, but nobody is demanding higher standards and extra tests before we let someone become a business leader, or demanding that someone pass various subject tests to run for political office. Politicians are often ignorant of facts, lacking in basic theories of governance and economics and yet Teachers who are mostly women are treated like crap in our public discourse while politicians who are mostly men are allowed to give themselves pay raises and the most generous perks package of any career in America)
Two parents raising the family means two parents raising the kids, not this divided "protector, provider" BS for dad and "nurturer" for mom. In fact, if women are helping provide then men should be helping to raise and nurture. If men were involved as nurturing parents and we demanded this of them, then this men problem might very well go away because the mom could nurture and encourage her daughters to be strong, successful women, and fathers could encourage their sons to be strong successful nurturing men. Of course this is not necessarily just about mothers and fathers, but this is about two parent households regardless of gender. Of course though, this reading of the problem would blame today's adult men and Baby Boomer men for their numerous shortcomings but they run our society so nary a word, and never a real discussion of their bad parenting. It is easer to blame woman teachers in Elementary School, or absent Black men fathers (though there are plenty of absent white men fathers, absent even if physically there, who escape the societal scorn). There might be a point about neglected sons, but the neglect is not of their well-being or chances for success since the Country Club is still the seat of deal-making and power and so those "games" which we are told are keeping men from growing up are actually the means by which they will still find their way to power and wealth. It might not be deals on the Golf course, but it very likely could be deals on the latest MMORPG. "I met this Night Elf on World of Warcraft and his printing company is going to do our flyers." The true neglect of sons is in our unwillingness as a society to help them to recognize that strong confident women allow them to break out their prescribed roles as men and allow them to be more fulfilled themselves.
However the discussion seems to be about men's inability to live up to the stereotype of men rather than of men empowered to transcend the stereotype. This is the problem. Women are encouraged to transcend feminine stereotypes, but men are considered neglected because we are not encouraging them to simply fit into the stereotype as well as we used to do.
Labels: gender sex boys girls neglect Kimmel Guyland
Cautious Optimism on Biden
So I just saw one of these "national" news pieces about Biden and it is giving me cause for perhaps some optimism. It is also funny how finicky the stories can change which is why my optimism remains cautious (I say this because a story like I just saw while Biden was a candidate for President might have allowed him to do more than just drop out, but instead during those days the story was on his mouthy, folksy racist statement against Obama, which he didn't mean with hatred but with ignorance, but which nonetheless reminded African-Americans- I assume- of just what they struggle against every day in the US).
This story on "The Today Show" defined Joe Biden as a humble Irish Catholic of the working classes whose life was marred by tragedy. If his Irish Catholic roots compose a large part of the story then there might be a chance for him to pull in people who are suspicious or hostile towards Obama. Of course if Republicans have their way they will pull a page from the Kerry playbook and try to play up his support for women and women's health options as somehow anti-Catholic. My only hope is that Biden and Obama somehow manage to hold on to the Irish, Catholic, Working Class frame for Biden. If they do and the frame (and it is all about frames... just ask George Lakoff) holds there is a real chance to pull in voters in Western PA, Ohio etc, all the areas where people are aware enough to know that they are hurting, but not educated enough to recognize that voting for Republicans only exacerbates their economic pain and all the rippling extra consequences (broken homes, drug dependency, violence etc.). Here is the hoping. See even the Travellinguist can be optimistic at times.
Labels: Biden Working Class Irish Frame VP Obama
More Proof of how amazing Out-Of-Touch Republicans are.
I received a fundraising email today from Senator Orrin Hatch and the Republican Senatorial Committee which provided this quote from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board:
The nation has had prior almighty Senates, of course, and it hasn't been pretty. Free of the filibuster check, the world's greatest deliberative body tends to go on benders. It was a filibuster-proof Democratic majority (or near to it, in his first years) that allowed FDR to pass his New Deal. It was a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate that allowed Lyndon Johnson to pass his Great Society.
If ever more proof was needed of the amazingly distorted incredibly messed-up values which motivate the Republican Party this is it. Orrin Hatch is quoting me that collection of nutjobs at the Wall Street Journal who are denouncing two of the consensus better policies ever enacted in the United States. In fact the only legitimate criticism I have ever read of the New Deal was that it didn't go far enough and was primarily aimed at propping up the capitalist system, the one which was failing and which the Wall Street Journal board has a clear stake in maintaining. Perhaps if Roosevelt had failed we wouldn't have to worry about these sociopaths from the Wall Street Journal who think profit margin is more important than human life and human dignity. Alas it did and so alas we do. Similar things can be said for the Great Society though those programs are not quite as cut and dry good, though I still support most of those programs imperfect though they may be. Sadly, I expect this type of psychotic anti-social stuff from the Wall Street Journal but for a Senator from Utah home of the LDS Church's extensive religious "welfare state" (not legislative but church-based and extant nonetheless) to quote this article as a means for motivating us to give money, really shows us just what sort of scum these Republicans and their supporters are. This email tells us that Republicans are fully committed to a government which serves the highest and wealthiest classes in this country with no-holds-barred and serves up the rest of the citizenry on the barbecue pit of capitalism. If a bunch of little people get burned, or roasted or otherwise consumed by this class than so be it, they should have been born rich themselves. This email shows me too that "class warfare" is not the provenance of the working and other lower classes but quite fully the design and work of the upper classes who try actively to stomp and take as much as they can from the rest of us to feed their sociopathic greed and selfishness. Let us hope there is a hell so that they can feel the burning of the flame one day.
Labels: Orrin Hatch Senate WSJ sociopathy fundraising insanity
Obama just Lost.
So as we all know Barack Obama, bowing to the advice of "experts"- the same experts who've lost every election not featuring Bill Clinton since 1980, has selected Joe Biden as his running mate. A man who has attempted to show that he represents "change" has selected a man serving in the Senate since 1972 because his "experts" told him he needed someone with "foreign policy" experience. Stupid. American's don't give a rat's ass about foreign policy!! Only "experts" do. Didn't George H.W. Bush learn this when he was rejected by margins only slightly less than those rejecting Bill Clinton in 1992? (To remind you, he had great "foreign policy" credentials but was powerless or unwilling to clean up Reagan's economic mess) Well anyway despite the fact that Americans clearly wanted a woman and clearly wanted "change" in Washington, Obama has selected a man who is a long-time insider who loves to hear his own voice only slightly less than John McCain does- a man who screws up while running his mouth at least as much as McCain does too.
So this is my take. Gov. Bush got elected president; Gov. Clinton got elected; Gov. Reagan got elected; VP Bush got elected; Gov. Carter got elected; see a pattern. Well now we have another double senator ticket. Let's look back on those... Kerry-Edwards.... failure. VP-Senator Gore-Lieberman failure. Mondale-Ferraro (Sen-Rep). Dukakis-Bentsen (Gov.-Senator- with foreign policy experience) etc. These jackasses don't seem to understand that when the American people want change they want someone from outside of Washington like say Gov. Napolitano from Arizona or Gov. Sebelius from Kansas. What you might notice is that both these aforementioned Govs. are women. Hmm... you just narrowly defeated a woman in the primary. Women are supposedly "tough sells" for you and so just because of some Russian posturing and military action (bound to happen regardless of our candidates thanks to the "Foreign Policy experience" of VP Dick Cheney and his cohort of jackasses) you select a man who ripped you, who let his race-face show while calling you "attractive and well-spoken." You've just doomed your candidacy. With Napolitano or Sebelius you could have attracted women to your ticket, concerned women, you could have let the country know that you want serious change not the same old Washington BS which Sen. McCain represents. But no, you picked Biden and now you are going to lose.
There are positives though. There is a chance the election would have been stolen from you by corrupt (or corrupted/hacked) voting machines in states like Ohio and Florida and that could have harmed the chances of whomever you selected as your VP. So, now Sebelius will be free to run against Sen. McCain to promise the change we wanted this election cycle but were too stupid to vote for. From what I have heard Sebelius is quite competent and that is good because with four more years of profoundly stupid and corrupt Republican executive authority, and pathetic weak-willed Democratic toadying, this country is going to continue its slide down into the sewer for four more years and the mess will be even bigger and more wretched than before.
As an aside, if the US just defaulted on its debt the way Russia and Argentina did in the last ten years we'd be ready to grow as rapidly as those two nations are the moment.
Labels: Biden Obama Vice-President election losing president
Affirmative Action....... Necessary?
I will know that affirmative action is no longer necessary when I can go for a week without hearing an anti-Black slur or a conversation between whites when for no obvious contextual reason one person will ask when hearing a story of human interaction, "Was he/she Black?" People who ask that are looking for confirmation of their own prejudices- ALWAYS. It is amazing how the more miserable and pathetic a person is, the more they will forcibly inject race into a conversation to somehow insult African-Americans or Mexicans. With the economy in the crapper thanks to the actions of an overwhelmingly, disproportionately white political party (Republican) these sentiments manifest more vocally and frequently, which shows that too many whites don't understand who really is to blame.
I am not sure Affirmative Action is done fully right as there needs to be some way to balance the disadvantaged white Americans who've been held down by a legacy of discrimination. They weren't slaves that much is certain, but Appalachian Americans are definitely held down, for example. There is a reason they rallied to the Union side during the Civil War. The great-great-grandparents of the current southern Congressional delegations, who were of course Congressmen themselves since government runs in the family quite strongly in the South, treated them like crap like then and still do today. It would be great to have more mill worker's sons defeat mill owners in elections the way John Edwards defeated Lauch Faircloth, but without Affirmative Action that can bring in those couldn't-even-afford-slaves-back-then white people the only people who can dethrone the hereditary Southern elite are African-Americans which means the race strategy will remain live and well. However, the persistence of racial discrimination, and the reality that the largest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action are women tells me that more still needs to be done throughout the entire society not just the American South.
To extend my previous point. I will know Affirmative Action is no longer necessary when at least half of all our elected officials are women (since women are the numerical sex majority on Earth and in the United States) and I can go one DAY without hearing a remark objectifying a woman or telling her her place (with Howard Stern and other "shock jocks" still on the air this will not be a day soon).
Sadly there are some whites who oppose Affirmative Action on principle, but the conversations I mostly hear indicate that most whites opposed to Affirmative Action are simply racist and prejudiced. They do not even know that women benefit from the program because for them it is all about 'Blacks.'
To summarize their opinions, and forgive the use of the slur but this is being authentic, as I often hear whites complains about Blacks, their points can be summed up by me as "The problem with ni^%&ers is they are racist." Do you get it? Yes, that is exactly the point.
Every election cycle where Republicans are losing, Affirmative Action comes up, so expect McCain to make a big stink particularly as he becomes more and more desperate as the numbers poll against him and especially in states like Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio and maybe even Florida. I am not sure if he'd pull out that card in Georgia or not since it might backfire by rallying more minorities to Obama, while racist whites would split between him and Barr.
So expect it to all hit the fan, especially because Obama is without a doubt a successful product of Affirmative Action, an intelligent man who needed help because his background would have held him down. However, don't expect him to even HINT that that might be the case, because in America everyone "does it themselves, through their own efforts" even if they obviously inherited daddy's Senate seat the way Lisa Murkowski did in Alaska, or their daddy's Chicago political machine the way Richard Daley, Jr. did, the one which helped Obama in his day. Both parties are guilty of this, and clearly this means that those who have power pass it on to their own while those without have none to pass on, thus another reason to maintain affirmative action in its purest form, which requires that people consider qualified people of all colors and sexes and physical abilities (or disabilities) and veteran status. Quotas are for lazy Personnel Offices without a doubt. Alright enough on this for now.
Labels: affirmative action politics racism
