Fresh Bites

Olympic archery is cool!

Kawanaka received a bronze model for her part on the women’s team in archery.

The commentators…not so much. One of them (a Brit whose name I haven’t been able to lay my hands on) kept referring to Kaori Kawanaka of Japan as “the Japanese girl”, while her Russian competitor was simply “the Russian”; yet all of the male archers were referred to by their, er, names (such as Marco Galiazzo, Michele Frangilli and Mauro Nespoli of the Italian team, whom he called by their last names).

I thought commentators received training about that sort of thing? Not that it’s needed; most people probably don’t notice it as it’s so taken for granted.

From ESPN, a great article on the hypercompetitiveness of kids’ sports. Since ESPN is kinda an authority on these things, I appreciate their position: kids should be having a least as much fun as they are focused on winning.

Also, people really really do not know what rape is. Really. Men who rape, women who rape, the people who are raped, and a large number of bystanders– people are very confused about how to define rape. (That’s why I’m glad I have such a simple, straightforward definition, though admittedly rape is much more than a physical phenomenon.)

Pussy Rioters get jailed in Russia for blaspheming god Putin and being feminist (which really are the same thing, in fact).

A fun post on English language idioms.

Michiganians compete in the London 2012 Games!

An interesting blogger with a knack for limericks.

The Guardian has this cool chart which shows LGBT equality/lack thereof in the States.

And queers are going Alice Paul on MI politics in metro-Detroit.

(I know nobody cares except CELTA trainees and applied linguistics nerds, but this phonemic chart “keyboard” is so neat! And it’s saving my life, since MS Word is stupid and doesn’t have all the necessary symbols for writing in phonemic script, unless you know all the magic key combinations.)

The Greatest Games

I am a hopeless Romantic, and as such I love the Olympics. I could care less who gets the gold, which countries cart off the most medals and all that jazz. As I watched the Opening Ceremony, I was reminded that the true value (and true Romanticism) of the Olympics/Paralympics lies elsewhere: thousands of athletes from all over the world and from all walks of life coming together for, well, games. Being a good sport is more important than winning or trampling others for glory, in spite of the competitive nature of the Games. And countries who are “in real life” at war with each other might send athletes who compete peaceably with each other: so terribly romantic!

From the cover of Vogue Magazine.

These Games in London are especially exciting for a number of reasons. This will be the first time that women have the chance to compete in boxing, and they are predicted to steal the limelight. Women have been boxing for a seriously long time now, but only recently have people started taking it seriously. And they should, ’cause boxers like Marlen Esparza are seriously good! (She’s on the American team, by the way.) She was recently featured on the cover of Vogue– simultaneously powerful and sexualized, because of course we can’t fathom a female athlete of any sport wearing anything but a dress, yeah? >_< Cool photography, but seriously…the Queen’s shoes must always match her dress? Scoff if you must, but the sexualization of women has a powerful impact on female athletes– it might make or break their career, even for the best of the best. Take female weightlifters, who find it nearly impossible to find sponsors because they “can’t” be feature in a sexy red dress like Esparza here– despite phenomenal talent.

From Vogue Magazine

The London 2012 Games are also the first to design the Olympics and Paralympics simultaneously and in a fully integrated way, rather than independently as they typically have been in the past. Both games have also been created with PWD (Persons With Disabilities) in mind from the beginning, and the Committees of both the Olympic and Paralympic Games have decided to extend that cooperation through at least the 2020 Games, holding both Games in the same city. Their torch relay begins the 24 of August, and the Opening Ceremonies for the Paralympic Games will be held on the 29th; the Games will feature 21 sports, including shooting, powerlifting, wheelchair tennis, and sitting volleyball.

Both games have…bizarre, Cyclops-esque mascots. Whatever, they’re cute.

Credit to blogger Nincompoopery; Sorn in red.

Shout-out to my boys and girls in Kampuchea, whose team had a female flag-bearer for the Opening Ceremony for the first time ever, Taekwondo champ Sorn Davin! Six athletes will compete from Cambodia.

Here are some other cool “firsts” facts about the London 2012 Olympics/Paralympics.

It’s been speculated that LGBTQ athletes were responsible for the crash of a major dating application, Grindr, even though only a couple dozen of them are out. Hmm… Also, here is a list of all the lgbtq out athletes ever to have competed in the Games. If you are straight and/or cisgender and you think lgbtq issues don’t have much implication for “normal” peeps or the broader population, think again: the Olympics has been another stage where the sociocultural battles of sex/gender are taking place– going so far as to define who is “truly female” or “truly male”. Some have called this gender policing, and it has serious implications for straight/cisgender athletes who self-identify as one sex but “fail” Olympic sex test standards. Perhaps the issue has been louder and more noticeable in recent times, but it has a long history underlying the Games. Tell me again that sex is as clear as black and white. “Ability” is not quite so black and white anymore, either: the creator of Oscar Pistorius’ Cheetah blades has said himself that, if not Pistorius, then some other “disabled” athlete in the future may in fact be able to run faster on blades than any pair of human legs could ever run. Perhaps now it is fair for Pistorius to compete in both Olympics, but there may well come a day when Paralympic athletes competing on blades will actually be in a league of their own.

Lastly, a small complaint: if badminton and table tennis get to be Olympic sports, when is Ultimate going to be featured?! “In the distant future,” if at all, is some folks’ guess– in part due to a tendency of the Games in recent years to move away from team sports.

Good luck to all athletes throughout the Games; you represent more than you know.

Musings on Patriarchy

Most (all?) societies on this planet could be described as patriarchal and they many of the same elements in common, but it is likely that Patriarchy also manifests itself in unique ways from culture to culture. From my measly quotidian experience of two years in Cambodian, here are some things I’ve noticed can be said to constitute it as a patriarchally dominated culture, including ways that differentiate it from other patriarchal cultures. This is a brief, general list, just things that are rolling around in the ol’ noggin.

Work

It is apparent the world over that labor is almost always sexed. This means that some work is “women’s work” and some “men’s work”. This is often true of Cambodia, too, but another interesting, seemingly benign effect of the patriarchy on labor demographics has to do with age. In spite of all the “respect your elders” rhetoric one hears around the Kingdom, there is an awful lot of ageism going on. This means that, once you reach a certain age, you might find it very difficult to attain certain types of jobs– or even any job at all. People may expect you to retire. They may treat you like you’re slow-witted or fragile. It’s meant well, I’m sure, and of course some people really do slow down in their old age. But it’s quite mythological that old people are sought out for their wisdom and this and that; at some point, many old people here simply become spectators to the lives of the young. With the emphasis on families (especially having many children, in some instances), it’s not so surprising that the elderly are even expected to live vicariously through their children and grandchildren– even when they’re lively, even when they still have their own ambitions.

Ageism is frequently an intrinsic part of Patriarchy; only the young, fit, and virile may be successful, competitive. This is in part from where our drive to remain “forever young” is derived. To show one’s age is to show weakness, or even worse, uselessness and dependency. Yes, the words of your [male] elders may be respected, but probably not heeded. In a world of endless competition, one cannot afford to be cautious. The old may learn from life’s lessons and try to impart them to their successors, but it’s the young who “seize the day”. To this end, countless cosmetics, health foods, surgeries, and so forth have been created as a kind of fountain of youth, that we may put off “showing our age” for as long as humanly possible. Wrinkles and grey hair are repulsive and pathetic, not a sign of a life long lived.

Sexuality

Although both men and women in Cambodia have limited options in sexuality, women definitely get the short end of this stick. For while it is noted and even tolerated that men may be straight/cisgender or queer, women are “only” straight. I often find it odd that, for as homophobic mainstream Cambodian culture can be, female-to-male (FTM) transgender folk and gay guys get talked about with a certain frequency, whilst the subject of gay women is mysteriously absent. It’s sort of like the old Syrian proverb, “There are no gays here.” Well, no gay women anyway.

I’m told (by foreigners) that gay men in Cambodia are “acceptable” on some level, that Buddhism approaches them as souls who were put in the “wrong” body, and thus we should respect them, or at least feel sorry for them. However, I have encountered rampant homophobia, bordering on violence (or at least threats of violence), concerning gay men. It is the polite thing to do to pretend it doesn’t exist, and people start to get angry if they can’t do just that. Of course, there are plenty of people who simply don’t care one way or another, are willing to live and let live, as it were. LGBTQ allies, however, are few and far between Cambodia has a very quiet (mainly male, largely foreign) LGBTQ scene. I imagine that as this community grows more vocal and (hopefully) more accepted in the future, they will also gain more allies.

Also, women never have sex before marriage here. Unless they are broken.

Family

Cambodian families, like families anywhere, vary greatly. It would be unfair to say that all Cambodian men are heads of households or that all Cambodian women experience some sort of DV or discrimination by another family member. The statistics do point out some alarming commonalities, however, which can often be correlated with education levels. For instance, in families where women have low levels of literacy, those women are more likely to remain marginalized within their families and their communities (limited in resources, decision-making power, opportunities, etc.), and also to disadvantage their female children.

In general, there is a majority of male-headed households. There are many female-headed households, however, arising from many factors: during Khmer Rouge, many people lost their spouses, families broke up… Polygamy, though subtle and not prevalent, is still practiced in Cambodia, and often the man is only listed as HOH in one of his two families, thus skewing perception of actual HOHs. “Can women marry more than one man?” I have asked this, and been laughed at, whereas polygamy seems more normalized (dependent on the location). It’s technically illegal…but hell, a lot of things are “technically illegal” here.

School

In the city, school appears to be more egalitarian, at least on the surface. Nearly equal numbers of male and female children receive k-12 education, but the number of women enrolled in university is less than men in almost all fields, and is significantly less with each successive level. Thus, most people graduating from undergraduate are men (though female students are slowly gaining), and almost no women obtain Masters degrees, PhDs, etc.

In the countryside, though, girls remain noticeably disadvantaged. Large numbers of boys and girls seem to drop out in grades 4 and 9, but fewer girls ever begin school, and more girls than boys tend to drop out, so by the end, fewer girls are graduating from high school– in fact, many girls never complete even a single year of high school. There are lots of reasons why girls drop out of school. Some reasons of people I know personally are: a family member falls ill; getting married and starting a family; staying home to help with chores or business. Another reason that really gets me is that girls are often pulled from school (especially higher education) to fund their brothers’ schooling. Even if it’s a younger brother, male education often takes priority over female education. I don’t often hear that people believe women are not as intelligent as men, but that men can find jobs more easily, are able to travel more widely, and generally have more freedoms that would be enhanced by an education, versus women. Who should stay home. Yeah.

Those were just some things on my mind… Things I tend to ponder often. How does patriarchy manifest itself in your life?

Transcendence

I’ve known a few people who transitioned; all three of them I met in college or just shortly thereafter, and all were about my age.

One of them I met when he was still female-identified. Let’s call him Taylor. Within a few weeks of becoming friends, Taylor started hormones. I discerned little change in his behavior or personality, even as his voice pitch altered and he started growing facial hair. Some months down the road, he said he was having surgery. Taylor was one of the most gregarious storytellers I had ever met, and I felt I knew his family intimately just from his anecdotes of them. So I was very concerned how his conservative father would take the news that soon he would no long have a daughter, as I couldn’t fathom the father of Taylor’s stories being very pleased to hear as much.

He took the news very badly, indeed. Taylor remained surprisingly upbeat; he was just rolling with the punches, seeming to accept the rejection and hurtful words from his father because he simply couldn’t go back now. It was my impression that he had reconciled himself to transitioning for the sake of his happiness: he felt his life as a woman was a lie, as he often reasserted through telling me, “You know I’m xy, anyway.” I was in awe of how positive he managed to remain.

Unlike many other transgendered folks I’ve met, Taylor kept his birth name– it was technically a unisex name, anyhow. During the hormones but before the surgery, Taylor told me and his other friends to start calling him “he”. I was surprised, but then I was surprised that I was surprised; of course, that made sense, I supposed. I messed it up the first couple of weeks, but eventually it became naturally to me to refer to Taylor with male pronouns, even as the Essential Taylor stayed the same: upbeat, hilarious, bawdy, energetic, curious, adventuresome.

Eventually Taylor’s father came around, and accepted him back into the family– as his son. He seemed to figure out that Taylor wasn’t actually “different”, persay; in fact, he told Taylor that things “made more sense now”. “You were never into dresses or dolls,” he told his son. I also finally got to meet Taylor’s family in person, and they were exactly as I imagined them to be, as illustrated in Taylor’s stories. We shared a meal together and Taylor’s brother, sister-in-law, and father confirmed to me that Taylor’s “tall tales” were in fact true– life was just that crazy (and humorous) in their family sometimes. It was also obvious to me as I observed their interactions that Taylor’s father was really quite proud of him. I felt such elation for Taylor that he could live the life he wanted to, even if society tried to label such a life perverse, and still have his loving, crazy, funny family.

Another transgendered person I befriended during their transition was male when we first met and now lives as a self-identified female. Let’s call her Lisa. Lisa was a very polite, quiet, nice guy when I met her, the roommate of one of my good friends. Said good friend actually set us up on a date one time. Lisa was “the perfect gentleman”, but seemed immensely unhappy. She tried to describe to meet the root cause of her unhappiness, but was either unable to do so for fear of stigmatization on my part, or at that time couldn’t directly identify the source, herself. It saddened me to see such an intelligent, kind, interesting person spending their days in helpless melancholy, but at that time I had no idea what I could do to help, other than to listen.

Lisa and I fell out of touch after our mutual friend moved away, but we would see each other around from time to time. Almost two years later we ran into each after a particularly long dry spell, and I was surprised at the apparent changes in her. She seemed very guarded and anxious, which I only aggravated when I asked why she had painted her toenails black (a socially “abnormal” thing for a young man to do in America). She was very distant, and I let it go.

The next time I saw Lisa, it was in a picture on facebook. She was a woman, and finally it sunk in for me, her helplessness and hurt and anxiety over the years, and how my reaction was probably harmful in this regard. In the picture she looked joyful, and as if she had gotten her voice back. Because we were never very close friends, I didn’t come to hear about how Lisa’s family had taken her transition, but for herself it seemed to have lifted something off of her, or possibly restored something. It warmed me to see how well she was doing.

The most recent friend I’ve made who is transgendered is one of the most fantastic people I’ve met, though she probably doesn’t even know I think that. “Sarah” had already transitioned to become a woman when I met her, but after several weeks of being friends she revealed to me that she had been born male. Her transition had happened some time before I’d come to know her. I think one of the reasons she was hesitant to tell me is because she is an outspoken feminist– and feared that I would degrade or deplore her feminist proclivities if I knew she was actually “the Enemy”. My feminism doesn’t view males as “the Enemy”, but I think her fear was legitimately founded, considering that all-women “feminist” conferences, retreats, and so forth often exclude anyone who has a penis or xy chromosomes, even if they are self-identified females. To the contrary, my impression was that Sarah’s feminism had nothing to do with her gender, and everything to do with her belief in freedom and true equality. The “fact” of her “gender” in no way shapes my opinion of her right to promote equality, feminist style, nor reduces the legitimacy of what she has to say. I also felt honored and grateful that she shared her story with me. I wanted to hear about her experiences as a transgendered person; she expanded my sphere of consciousness so that I am not the same person I was before I met her.

NPR posted a story about a transgendered mother whose family, in spite of many difficulties, stayed by her side and supported her throughout her transition. His husband made a remark which struck such a deep chord in me that I felt truly optimistic for the first time in…well, a long time. As his wife transitioned and became male, he stopped being publicly affectionate with him; then one day he had a profound understanding of himself and their relationship: “I realized that I didn’t fall in love with a couple of body pieces.”

When I came out to some of my friends my senior year of college as bisexual, most of them were unfazed or even expected it, but some wanted to know, well, why? My answer was that I had had the epiphany that I don’t love genders. I don’t love races. I don’t love socially constructed groups of people. I love individuals. Sometimes those individuals happen to be male, sometimes female, sometimes Muslim, Khmer, older than me, younger than me, etc. Admittedly, I was a long time in coming to this realization (for many, complex reasons both interior and exterior), but when I finally did it raised my understanding of love to a new level.

Reading the NPR article brought me close to tears (and I’m not even on my period!), I think because I felt a deep empathy for the mother, for her acceptance and support by her family. When things like this happen, I see them as miraculous, as transcendent. I think, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Everyone Wants a Piece of This

While the mulling over the concept of modeling is its own juggernaut that I don’t feel I know enough about to take on in this venue, I did want to take a look at an article that I’ve noticed circulating online lately.

It’s subject is Andrej Pejic, a Serbian model from Australia who happens to be transgender. Evidently his transgendered look has seized the fascination of the fashion world, which has become all the rage as he models both men’s and women’s fashion and model agencies have experienced an influx of transgendered hopefuls.

His success has been chalked up to the novelty of his “guys look like girls” look. Or as stylist Kyle Anderson puts it, “He’s just this beautiful thing that everyone wants a piece of.”

Which is where the novelty suddenly ends. Usually the objectification and commodification of a human body is not put so bluntly, but that basically sums the culture of the fashion world and all who freely partake of it: “beautiful things” available for mass consumption by a voyeuristic audience. And this is normal and acceptable, and people willingly subject themselves to it.

Yet Pejic’s uniqueness (which probably won’t last long if the “transgendered look” becomes all the rage– androgyny has long been cherished as beautiful in “high fashion”), as a fashion model, as a human being, is subjected to the same processes which turn all models into generic, harmless, accessible, and consumable “beauty fodder”. hook’s “pornographic gaze” (in this case both male and female) can partake of Pejic in the same way they partake of all other reduced, even formless, personalities in fashion.

Perhaps the only novelty here is the increasing normality of the hypersexualization of males (from what I could glean, Pejic self-identifies as male), including the cooption of male sexuality– though it is, in fairness, often portrayed as feminine/female and hetero- sexuality.

Even a glance at Pejic’s portfolio reveals to us that while this is the hypersexualization of male entities, it is not masculine hypersexualization. Rather it is the hypersexualization of feminine sexuality as portrayed by a male entity. Nothing new there, either.

According to the article, Pejic’s status and beauty have likewise been appropriated by the LGBT community, under the premise of celebrating the diversification and increasing tolerance of difference within the realm of fashion. I see this as misguided: must we settle for the exploitative commodification of our gendered (whatever that may be) selves to gain “acceptance” or tolerance?