lihtox

I've been thinking a lot about gender in the past month (ok, I think about it constantly, but even more so lately). It started playing Second Life a month ago specifically to play a female character, because I wanted some sense of what it was like to socially interact from a female perspective. I had intended to play an adult, but ended up spending most of my time as a 10-year-old tomboy for some reason, which is actually pretty good cover because people think that my 35-year-old avatar is the real me. (At least I think they do.)

I'm probably not getting any sort of authentic experience, but it is interesting, and when I thought about it, I decided that I had zero interest in role-playing a male character, even if I wanted to start fresh. I spent a couple of weeks wondering if I was a deeply-closeted transsexual, but I've mostly dismissed that idea: I don't feel like I'm trapped in the wrong body, and I basically like who I am. What I don't like is other men. That's not to say I don't have male friends, because obviously I do (some of whom are reading this). But in general I have a negative attitude towards men I meet, and the men I do like, I usually like in spite of their maleness, and I become uncomfortable in situations where masculinity comes to the fore (e.g. bridge games at Bethans reunions). I have always had more female friends, and the people I admire the most tend to be female as well.

Clearly, to me, this started when I was a child. Boys tend to haze each other pretty badly, with a lot of put-downs and insults and mock combat or whatever. It's how they bond, but when I was a kid I hated it, because I wasn't very good at it and I tended to bear the brunt of it. Some boys in that situation try to tough it out, try to earn the respect of their peers. But I didn't. I decided I didn't want anything to do with them, with their disrespect for authority and each other and me, as I saw it, and I refused to play along (for the most part). When I was 8, I imagined that gender wasn't a binary but a spectrum, and I lay somewhere in the middle, at least partly a girl because (in my view) girls were quieter and better people. All through primary and secondary school, in general, other boys were not to be trusted. They were the ones who would ambush me on the school bus, or play pranks on me, or try to embarrass me in front of the class.

Somewhat ironically, I did develop a certain masculinist streak in school: I had an English teacher in 11th grade who loved to taunt the boys in the class with claims of female superiority, mostly in fun. I was always quick with a rebuttal, but mostly because I was embarrassed when my male classmates fell into the little logical traps she set up for them (or maybe they were just playing along, and I was too humorless to see it?) My real goal, I see now, was to say: hey, don't group me in with *them*.

And so it went. As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate male culture a little more, and I see how the mercilessness of boyhood evolves into the playful banter of men who have been through the same initiation. I even long to be a part of it, somehow, but feel that the ship has sailed; and I still have a lot of pent-up misandry that I have to deal with somehow. I mentioned this to Jen last night and she said of course I did; she says it's been part of my personality for a long time.

A lot of books and websites have been written about misandry, but unfortunately many of them want to blame it on feminism and "political correctness". It's true that feminism has made it a little harder for me to feel good about my sex, but it's only one stone in the wall, and anyway I have no desire in reimagining myself as a traditional head-of-the-household male. Googling "misandry" brings up a lot of anti-feminism screeds. (And did you know that the phrases "recovering misandrist" and "recovering from misandry", as phrases, don't appear in Google at all? :) so it's difficult to find other men in the same position as I am, who are dealing with the same issues. I'd think maybe geeks, but I don't see a lot of geeks talking about gender issues, and a lot of them seem pretty comfortable with their masculinity (in their own way).

So I don't know, and I gotta go. :)

I was reading a conservative editorial about Gay Pride events-- he thought it was illogical to be proud about something like homosexuality which is inborn (give him credit for acknowledging that bit): you can be proud of something you've written or something you've done or something you've said, but it seemed silly to him to express pride for something you had nothing to do with. And I have to admit that I had similar reactions myself to such events at Williams. But because the argument was coming from someone I wanted to disagree with, I finally figured it out: it's the wrong definition of pride. The "pride" in Gay Pride, I think, is not the pride of accomplishment so much as just the opposite of shame. When a group of people is told that they should feel ashamed for who they are or what they need, it is good to counter that shame with its opposite, and shout to the world that what I am is good. This puts an entirely new spin on this for me: for example, if I express pride in my skill as a teacher, I am suggesting that being a good teacher is better than being a bad teacher. But a Gay Pride event does not imply that being gay is better than not; simply that it is a good thing to be.

So for any past disparaging remarks I've made, particularly about Women's Pride events which particularly got to me: I apologize. I get it now. :)

Now, this author went on to wonder why we don't have Heterosexual Pride days as well (tongue-in-cheek on his part, because he thinks the whole thing is absurd). From my reasoning above, I'd say that being straight is a good thing and one should certainly not be ashamed of it. But I'd say that Pride events are only really appropriate when there has been some public shaming going on. Straight people, as far as I know, are never made to feel ashamed of their heterosexuality, and so no event is needed to counter such shame.

But how about men? I would argue that men have to face a lot of shame for being men: we are often seen as potential rapists, potentially violent, potential child abusers. Men's gender roles are, I would say, more proscribed than women's these days, which means lots of room for shame. Boys, who tend to be more rambunctious in class, are told they should behave more like the girls who are listening nicely. (I'm assuming that stereotype still holds true.) So being male is not quite like being straight: yes, both are privileged positions, but at the same time there is some stigma attached to being male, and so I'd say that one can and should talk about Men's Pride in the same spirit as Women's Pride: not that being male or female is better, but that being male or female* is good. (Or if you're in between, that's good too.)

I thought I'd left panic attacks behind in Boston, but I've been having them the past few days. It starts as a feeling of discomfort in my chest and back, and even though I *know* that's where I feel anxiety, I still can't help thinking "heart trouble?", which is what escalates everything. It's possible that there is some underlying physical condition-- maybe I've pulled a muscle in my back or my chest or something. For the most part, I've been able to think of it as a physical ailment like heartburn-- an annoying discomfort but not a sign of impending doom. I'd go see my latest doctor but he's a moron; I've made an appointment with a new doctor for July 15th, and I'll bring it up then. I guess I should get an EKG or something just to be sure. I know I'm obese and out of shape (see how I'm distinguishing between the two, sanj and wavyarms! Aren't you proud of me? :) My blood pressure is probably a bit high too, although the little automatic blood pressure cuff we have at home has been giving me readings all over the map. I'm also a hypochondriac, so there's that. Is there some sort of "hypochondriac's hotline" or clinic where people like me can go in and ask stupid questions like "my little toe hurts, do I have cancer?"

Anyway.

I was going through my iTunes library and ran into the DS9 (we all know that stands for Deep Space 9, right?) theme, which I hadn't listened to in a while; putting it on gave me a nice little nostalgic thrill. When I was in high school I knew about TNG and I had friends who were into it, but I didn't watch it regularly and wasn't into it from the beginning, so I felt like I had missed the boat. (In hindsight, that's kind of silly given the episodic nature of TNG, but what did I know?) When DS9 came out, I think it was in my junior or senior year of high school, I decided that this would be *my* Star Trek series, the one I could get in on the ground floor. I loved the theme with its french horns, and I even tried to mimic it when writing an orchestral piece for my Composition class. (And I remember listening to the revamped theme song before the fourth season, leaked online and available via some random website or maybe mentioned on Usenet-- no Youtube or Google yet). Once I got to college, it became a weekly ritual for Jen and I to hunt down a free television somewhere to watch it, a hunt which occasionally led us to desperate straits. It was a definite part of our courtship. Sometimes I have to remind myself just how important our occasions of television were to us back then, and I wonder if we are missing something now that we have our own laptops and our own Hulu feeds. I know some of you still belong to communities based on or supported in part by television shows, and I envy that and miss that.

Salut, DS9.

I'm sitting in Barry Bagels, Miriam asleep in the stroller, and while I suppose I could do work (I have oh so much grading to catch up on), I feel like talking about myself instead. :)

( Long, possibly boastful ramble about church choir and singing and me )

Well, the girl's awake, and will be wanting her bagel. Au revoir.

I've set up a creative-project blog on LJ under the name doogadgit; it might go nowhere, but maybe having a potential audience will motivate me to write (or compose). I loved writing fiction when I was in junior high and high school, but fell out of it in college, probably because my taste outstripped my ability.

The first story I posted there was a repost of Ripples, which I already posted here.

I just posted the first part of a story I've been working on and thinking about for a while, working title "Klell". It's very much concept-driven sci-fi, but I'm hoping it's enjoyable. I would love critiques and comments.

Here's the direct link: http://doogadgit.livejournal.com/1768.html

Miriam went to "school" (daycare) on Monday for the first time in two weeks, and she cried from the time we got into the building until the time I left, but I was amused to note that while she's upset about the separation, she's not clingy or avoidant. Instead, she says in a loud crying voice, "Miriam has to take her coat off now! Daddy is going to work! I'm going to sit at the table and have cereal! I'm going to have fun today!" etc. (Those aren't necessarily exact quotes.) She's upset, but she knows what she has to do and she does it. It makes me proud of her. :)

Here's an interesting article which echoes the thoughts I've been having about being a male feminist:

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=whats_the_alternative_to_tucker_max

The point of the article is that progressive men are defining their gender based on what they're NOT-- against rape, against violence, against homophobia, what-have-you-- but there isn't any good idea about what masculinity SHOULD be. Of course, one might suggest that looking for a definition of masculinity or femininity is needless stereotyping, and that one should just be who one is, regardless of gender. That's pretty much how I approach gender most of the time, it's how J approaches gender, how I'm trying to raise my daughter, etc. But one thread of feminism goes beyond this to celebrate femininity and find strength from it, and while this is partly an attempt to counterbalance the centuries in which men have had their say about everything, I think it is also an embracing of diversity: that even if men and women were equal in this world, some of these feminist authors and philosophers would still find strength and purpose in their gender, and that has a certain appeal to me.

But can one create a positive progressive image of masculinity that does not detract from women? Maybe it's not possible at this stage of history, with so much misogyny remaining in the world, but I think we have to try: gender is an important part of most people's self-identity and certainly important in how one interacts with the world, and if one's self-definition is largely negative-- I am not this, I am not that-- then this makes it harder to grow, because you don't know where you're going, you just know where you're not.

(This idea of defining oneself in terms of what one is not ties in surprisingly well with my previous post, where I discuss my tendency to see myself up as a misfit in every group I belong to.)

This is complete procrastination on my part; I'm hoping that typing will prove a better segue into work than websurfing is.

( Miriam )
OK, let's try working now. :)

I envy Jen her full-time research position (not to mention the tenure-track part): I know that there's a lot of bureaucracy involved, but that still leaves a lot of time to do research in, where it's your top priority. Doing it in drips and drabs, as I have done during the past five years or so, is so much harder: harder to keep track of what's going on from week to week. I sometimes wish that I could have that kind of time.

And yet, I DID have that kind of time to do research. It was called graduate school, and post-doc. And I hated it; I was miserable and largely unproductive. I think there were good reasons for that: in both cases I was doing someone else's research, working on a problem I didn't really think had a solution, solely responsible for all the technical details while my advisor handled the big picture, so that I had no one to talk to about the nitty-gritty problems I had. I was paralyzed by anxiety all the time, and so progressed very slowly, and I was very lonely. Maybe things would be different if I found a job like this again: I could work on problems I was actually interested in, I could find collaborators, I could be a little less worried about my reputation and a little more willing to ask for help maybe. But I'm not really convinced that that would happen. All too often, I have great ideas about what I want to do with my time, only to start and find my motivation being replaced by overwhelm and anxiety: how should I start, is this too much for me, did I make a mistake that will render all of my results invalid (I found bugs in grad school that wiped out months of data, a few times), is this really the best use of my time?

I'm trying to keep my research going. I've got a collaborator in Boston, and we're fighting to get a paper published in PNAS (a pretty impressive journal). I'm trying to get something going with an ecologist here in Toledo; we haven't come up with research per se yet, but we are meeting weekly (or at least, we're trying to), which I think is an important first step.