Blog Archives
Doing Dumb Stuff to Prove Manhood
By Alexander Ghanma
When David Wexler’s wife asked him to hold her purse for a moment he was suddenly filled with shame, seeing his masculinity at risk:
Loaded down with shopping bags, my wife asked me to grab her purse and carry it across the plaza. That’s all. Yet even though I knew I was being stupid, I couldn’t do it. The 15 seconds being seen carrying a purse were beyond my capacities as a card-carrying male…
Shame may be the least understood dimension of men’s inner experience — by both men themselves and the people who live with them.
Shame-o-phobia is what therapist, David Wexler calls the sort of thing that leaves men questioning their manhood over stupid stuff. Like The Freezing Water Test:
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Flaunting It: Damned if Do, Don’t
Dear girls,
Last night, as we sometimes do, our family sat around the dining table and looked through the summer’s social media photos.
We have teenage sons, and so naturally there are quite a few pictures of you lovely ladies to wade through. Wow – you sure took a bunch of selfies in your skimpy pj’s this summer!
I get it – you’re in your room, so you’re heading to bed, right? But then I can’t help but notice the red carpet pose, the extra-arched back, and the sultry pout. What’s up? None of these positions is one I naturally assume before sleep.
That post doesn’t reflect who you are at all! We think you are lovely and interesting, and usually very smart. But, we had to cringe and wonder what you were trying to do?
Girls, if you think you’ve made an on-line mistake (we all do), RUN to your accounts and take down the selfies that makes it too easy for friends to see you in only one dimension.
You are growing into a real beauty, inside and out.
Act like her, speak like her, post like her.
Those are a few lines lifted from a Given Breath blog post that went viral. To read the whole thing, unedited and intact, go here.
Kyoto Redbird responded, focusing less on the girls’ behavior than on our society’s messages. To see her full response, unedited and intact, go here.
Kyoto Redbird is a college-educated 20-something who finds navigating around a contradictory — and too often hostile — view of women difficult and frustrating.
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Pro-Lifers Killing Kids
Plenty of “pro-lifers” are okay with killing kids.
On the one hand, they preach against contraception, claiming it might cause an abortion. And no woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy!
On the other hand, they have no problem taking away kids’ food and medical care, which will leave some of them dead.
Yes indeed, an awful lot of “pro-lifers” want to defund Obamacare and deny medical services to at least eight million children.
And last week “pro-life” Congress members voted to slash $40 billion from food stamps. Nearly half go to kids. (And then they lavish tax subsidies on rich corporate interests.)
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When Playboy Pushes Consent It’s Cool
You’ve probably heard about Playboy’s new and revised Top 10 Party Commandments for the ultimate guide to a consensual good time.
Because without consent, “party times are under serious threat” by rape:
A good college party is all about everyone having a good time. Consent is all about everyone having a good time. Rape is only a good time if you’re a rapist. And f— those people.
You’ve probably also heard that these revised commandments are a hoax unleashed by college feminists.
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My Boyfriend, the Objectifier
![playboy-bunny-manual-main[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/playboy-bunny-manual-main1.jpg)
When I first heard feminists complain about sexual objectification I didn’t get it. Why didn’t they want women to be sexy?
Turns out, I didn’t understand what objectification was.
Put simply, it is about seeing someone as nothing but an object – one that is sexual in nature – that exists for someone else’s pleasure. Objects don’t have feelings, thoughts or life goals, so you needn’t worry about hurting them.
So I finally got it intellectually. But I didn’t fully get how it played out until I met “Mike” (that’s what I’ll call him). And years later saw Mike’s way of seeing in a Ms. Magazine article discussing objectifying ads.
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A Law Against Girls Riding Bikes?
Ten-year-old Wadjda yearned to ride a bike so that she could race a neighbor boy. But Saudi law forbade it.
The girl is actually a fictional character from the film, “Wadjda.” But she likely represents plenty of real Saudi girls. They may not yearn for bicycles, especially, but they may have other forbidden dreams.
Six months after “Wadjda” premiered, Saudi law declared bicycling legal for girls and women. But the continuing restrictions reveal why it was ever banned.
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GIRLS “On All Fours”
If we started saying, “It ain’t sex unless everyone enjoys it” would rape and “gray-rape” (where consent is unclear) become less common? And might we all enjoy sex more?
An Emmy-nominated episode of “Girls” sparks the question.
“On All Fours” finds “Natalia” ready to have sex with “Adam” because, “You’ve been really nice all week.” And then she tells him what she likes and what she doesn’t as they indulge.
The next time is very different.
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Turning Indian Girls Into Boys
Indian parents are paying to have their daughters turned into sons through sex-change operations that cost about 145,000 rupees ($3,200). Up to 300 girls have been surgically turned into boys in one city.
The procedure involves fashioning a penis from the little girls’ female organs. Afterwards they are injected with male hormones, which they will need to take throughout their lives. The procedure will leave these children impotent and infertile in adulthood. No sons or daughters for them.
The Madhya Pradesh government is investigating.
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Scrutinizing My Body Takes All My Time
On a typical day, you might see ads featuring a naked woman’s body tempting viewers to buy an electronic organizer, partially exposed women’s breasts being used to sell fishing line, and a woman’s rear—wearing only a thong—being used to pitch a new running shoe. Meanwhile, on every newsstand, impossibly slim (and digitally airbrushed) cover “girls” adorn a slew of magazines. With each image, you’re hit with a simple, subliminal message: Girls’ and women’s bodies are objects for others to visually consume.
So says Caroline Heldman, Assistant Professor of Politics at Occidental College, in a piece for Ms.
This notion of bodies for consumption leaves us constantly judging ourselves and others. How do we stack up? How do “they”?
Our friends declare someone too fat or too thin, sitcoms quip on body weight or shape, tabloids spot celebrities’ flaws, men bluster about big boobs, Howard Stern picks women apart while Rush Limbaugh insists feminism was established “to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.” (Yes, really, Rush and Howard think they are in a position to make unkind remarks about other people’s appearance.)
All this leads women to “self-objectify” so that we see and judge ourselves through others’ eyes, and especially, the male gaze. Women live in “a state of double consciousness … a sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others,” says Heldman.
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Gender-Swapping Grammar Lessons
A Chrome app called Jailbreak the Patriarchy switches gendered words and makes for an eye-opening experience.
This app has inspired me to go a little further to see how the world looks when gender changes. So I’ve spiced it up by changing gendered names, etc., too.
“I Kissed A Boy (And I Liked It)” (male singer, of course)
I kissed a boy and I liked it,
the taste of his cherry chapstick.
I kissed a boy just to try it,
I hope my girlfriend don’t mind it.
It felt so wrong,
it felt so right.
Don’t mean I’m in love tonight.
I kissed a boy and I liked it.
Or how about this headline:
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