Who Writes the Rules

Who decides what the rules are when it comes to gender and sex?

The short answer is, the People at the Top. You may not be surprised to discovered that, in patriarchal cultures (which describes most cultures), this is men. We can be more specific, however: bottom-to-top position in this hierarchy is determined by many things, and the closer one gets to the top, the richer, more educated, and lighter-skinned these men get. Upon discovering that the People at the Top are predominantly wealthy, white, Western males, understanding gendered rules and expectations becomes a lot easier. Patriarchal hierarchies of dominance vary from place to place (and even time to time), but the patterns of wealth, education, skin colour, ability, age, sexual orientation, and so on are fairly consistent.

As many people have discussed, not only in terms of gender but also in terms of race and other categories, the People at the Top do not actively and consciously determine and define gendered rules, necessarily; rather, it is largely through their mere existence as Normal and Best (or Default, as some say– I like that) that definitions of other persons are shaped relative to them. Male equals normal, female equals abnormal or deviant; male equals default, female equals Other.

That’s the short answer, but it’s not whole answer. The more accurate, complete, and much longer answer is: everybody. We all decide what gendered rules and expectations will be, by following them. And perhaps even more importantly, by punishing those who deviate. It comes so naturally to us it seems biologically innate to call the boy in your eighth grade class who was caught wearing toe nail polish a fag. Hatred and fear of deviance, however, is not innate; it is learned. We are taught early and often that deviation is bad, most appreciably by being punished, ourselves. Normal/good little boys do not play with dolls; they pretend to shoot each other. Normal/good little girls do not pretend to shoot each other; they sweetly and passively care for their dolls. Full-grown men do not cry. Full-grown women do not have double mastectomies. Et cetera. This is reinforced to us all our lives. We witness what happens to those who deviate, and we learn to participate in their persecution, be it in the comments section of Youtube or NPR, or on sports teams, or in ballet class, or in our classrooms, or within our own families (this is often referred to as gender policing). If you are not doing the persecuting, chances are you might be persecuted– so which side would you want to be on? This is the question faced by every single person who lives within the confines of patriarchal culture.

The next time you hear someone tell a young man “boys don’t cry” (or “you throw like a girl”, or whatever), call to mind the question: Who decides what the rules are when it comes to gender and sex? You do. Either through your inaction or by validating that young man’s feelings, you are helping to decide what the rules are.

In order to contemplate the rules and think about how you’d like them defined, they first have to be recognizable. For most people, gender rules are normative and it would never occur to them to question them. Those who do are said to be “challenging Nature” and pushing “unnatural ideas”. Challenging our conceptions of “natural” is a good place to start.

Thoughts on Racism

I have come to the realization (again) that I am racist. For some reason, I feel disappointed every time I have this realization. Maybe I gave myself too much credit, thinking that once I got it the first time I was just gonna get over it? Or maybe I thought it was an easier problem to root out than it’s turned out to be. A friend recently tried to console me that these realizations of my “cognitive biases” are a step in the right direction, which of course they are, but I still don’t feel very positive.

When I came across this open letter, I felt grateful to the author, but I also felt nervous reading it, as a “white” person. Could I ever read a letter like this, intended for a black man, with sincerity? Am I subconsciously, permanently tainted with racial prejudice? Then I got to part where Dyson, the author, says, “in America, we are taught to fear black men.” And whether or not I can read a letter like that with sincerity stopped mattering right then, because she had just spoken the truth, and the truth speaks not only to the subconscious self, but to all Selves. Yeah, I thought, we are. Who teaches us that? I instantly recognized that as true, but could not pinpoint particular moments in my life when I felt like I was being taught to fear black men. I guess this has just been a part of my general societal education, and is deeply rooted in me, whether I like it or not.

It’s really not easy to recognize one’s hand in oppression (of any kind). It’s painful. It’s humiliating. It’s depressing. Whether it’s small-time oppression or full-scale oppression, most people seem interested in justifying their behavior and, really, avoiding guilt.

I know that my friend knows what they’re talking about, concerning cognitive biases; I have seen them realize, acknowledge and begin to work through their own. It takes a huge amount of humility and honesty to even begin that process. I also understand why oppressed people resent their oppressors even after they have begun this process– but it can’t stay that way forever, if things are going to change for the better. Begrudge them, punish them, but eventually, work with them. Recognize them for the ally they’ve become.

I felt guilty reading that letter, like I didn’t deserve to. I’m still trying to work out precisely what that means. My friend also said that acknowledging one’s participation in oppression is only the first step…”the end of it is what you do after you know that about yourself.”

Take Back the Night 2012, Koh Kong!

Only two weeks in, and already June has been an eventful month. The first weekend was the national commune elections, and I was happy to see the political hubbub finally die down. But the very next weekend (after a week of my being sick) was the event which has been months in planning.

Click the link below to open up the full post and see photos of the event! ^_^

Destroying the Ultimate Dichotomy

The Multeity Manifesto, pt.1

Under the influence of heteronormative and sex/gender binary-normative (largely Patriarchal) culture, the world’s progression towards a deeper understanding of gender has inched forward slowly, out of the assumptions of “natural gender roles” and related gender mythology and into a more complex analysis of gender that acknowledges the influence of social construction. While perhaps the majority of people still hold the view that gender traits and roles are inherent and immutable facts of Nature (e.g. “girls are naturally more talkative than boys”, “boys are naturally more gifted at math”, “girls are natural nurturers”, “women are nurturers”, “men have a higher proclivity to violence than women as dictated by their nature”, etc.), there is growing acceptance of the theory of gender as a social construction– in other words, as not natural.

But while we can tolerate theories of gender norms and roles as rooted in sociocultural construction, there is very little tolerance of theories that question the absolute validity of dividing all human beings into two categories of biological sex. The notion of biological sex seems infallible: at birth, a child is clearly determined to be either male or female, typically based on their genitalia (when possible). Broader definitions of biological sex consider hormonal and chromosomal makeup in addition to anatomy– which is where problems begin to arise, but doubts are quelled by labeling any individual body which resists sex binary classification as “deviant.” Indeed, “biological sex deviation” is seen as “abnormal” and, perhaps ironically, “unnatural”; this is reinforced by highlighting the adverse health affects of chromosomal or hormonal “syndromes“, depicting these “deviations” as clearly problematic.

Some biologists and scientists of the human body resolve such difficulties by redefining biological sex as a two-point spectrum, rather than an absolute binary. Such a spectrum, with “male” at one end and “female” at the other, allows us to consider variations of biological sex which fall “somewhere in between” these two absolutes. The problem with this spectrum is that it positions “male” and “female” as opposite, and further assumes that any deviations from “properly male” and “properly female” still land between them somewhere, thus being either “more male” or “more female”. The idea of “properly male” or “properly female” implies an unquestionable truth, thereby maintaining the correctness of binary categorization where possible.

This construction of biological sex as dichotomous or oppositional is extremely limited and inadequate. The diversity of human biological sex simply cannot be described or conceptualized by attempting to position “deviations” between two “true” or “real” points. It certainly can’t be done so without marginalizing those persons who defy the “reality” of sex binary or two-sex spectrum.

This reveals a very deep-seated problem, which is the fundamental assertion that there are correct sexes (namely, xx with socially-defined “female” anatomy and hormones, and xy with socially-defined “male” anatomy and hormones), and any sex (or a-sex) which cannot be described in these terms is deviant, abnormal, wrong.

Human investment in this conception is so deep that we go to great lengths to reinforce and protect it, even so far as “correcting” individuals who pose a threat to its stability and infallibility: there are standards by which we determine the correctness of the sizes of penises and clitorises, standards against which we measure the correctness of male and female hormones, standards which dictate the correctness of one’s chromosomes, standards which dictate the correctness of one’s reproductive tissues, et cetera.

At birth, doctors and medical staff examine the infant’s genitalia to determine its sex. Sometimes this is very difficult to do, as many infants are not born with what is obviously a penis or obviously a clitoris. Sometimes a penis is “too small” (less than an inch long) and needs correction. A common way to “correct” an “abnormal” penis is to cut it off and remake the infant as female. Similarly, infants may present with a clitoris that is “too large”. An “abnormally large clitoris” is usually shortened (sometimes called female circumcision or female cutting). Normality and abnormality defined by what Martha Coventry calls “the tyranny of the esthetic”, or more broadly what I will term the Sex Binary Construct.

The Sex Binary Construct identifies only two “real” or “true” categories of sexual distinction. To account for all individuals who do not fit neatly into this paradigm, the SBC labels them “deviant”.

The idea of “remaking” or “assigning” an infant into one sex or another is evidence of the elastic and abstract nature of sex. Indeed, the very notion of “reassigning”, “remaking”, or “defining” a newly born human as either male or female seems to discredit the SBC, even as these are the methods used to uphold its infallibility.

Many other challenges have been posed to the concreteness of SBC. Apart from “intersex” persons (individuals whose sex cannot be established as “typical”), persons self-identifying as transgender, Third Gender, asexual, or otherwise genderqueer contradict the fundamental tenets of the supposedly infallible SBC.

The power and authority of the Sex Binary Construct appear to be absolute. Its tenets are supported by reputable and highly-respected scientific institutions such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, which call the intersex birth a “social emergency”. As a social emergency, the concerns of society are placed above the welfare and human rights of the individual. These institutions have control over decision-making processes about intersex bodies. Some have tried to argue that when children and infants fall prey to such decision-making processes, it is in violation of their human rights. This argument could also be made on behalf of queer persons who are declared mentally ill when their behavior and/or attitudes fails to conform to the SBC.

There are countless examples of the harm done to individuals and overall human rights by the Sex Binary Construct, which are not even remotely limited to intersex, transgender, or genderqueer persons. But what is the solution? Simply banishing “gender” and “sex” to the dustbins of history would not truly resolves these problems– not to mention the notion is unrealistic.

I cannot purport to have a definitive solution; I do wish to join my voice to those seeking alternatives to the current reality. If in seeking to dismantle the SBC we have no adequate (and accurate) conceptualization to take its place, the old tenets will continue to shape sociocultural consciousness. Thus the first thing to go should be our cognition of gender as a dichotomy, and even as a two-point spectrum. In place of it I suggest a radial spectrum, upon which any “point” is not more or less “true” than any other, and which can describe an infinite number of sex possibilities. A radial spectrum would also solve the problem of oppositional categories, for “points” may be unfixed and mobile. The symbolism of the circle also invokes images of fluidity and changingness, which more accurately embody the lived human experience of gender/sex and sexuality. Does this disrupt the “scientific ideal”? Is it imperfect? Probably so. But our current science is hardly ideal, and very much imperfect. All communities with an interest in seeing the SBC on its way out should be coming together for dialogue, idea exchange, and redefinition of gender/sex. In that vein, I welcome comments and criticisms on these subjects.

The Means of Reproduction (a review)

This is a review of The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World by Michelle Goldberg (2009).

Reading The Means was a lesson in self-discipline. At times, I was filled with elation and I wanted to run around and jump up and down for the energy it gave me. At other times, I was so frustrated or angry that it was all I could do not to launch the book (which I’d borrowed) across the room at the far wall; “Just take a breath and set the book down…” I would tell this part of myself, and give myself a minute to do something detached. For as sharp and lucid as Goldberg’s writing was a certain parts that could induce such feelings, the overall message of her book put those parts into a deeper, broader, more meaningful context. To that end, she’s a great, readable writer and even if you’re not deeply invested in the “big ideas” of the book, I’d still recommend it if you’re into well-crafted non-fiction prose.

What are the big ideas of this book, anyhow? (From this point on, there will probably be some “plot spoilers”, just to warn you.) That somewhat anthropocentric part of the subtitle, “the Future of the World”, nicely sums one recurring theme: human population on Earth. Perhaps it would be better to say “the Future of the World as We Know It”, but the discussion of population and demography is one which Goldberg examines and dismantles from every angle, from the ironically “anti-imperialist” far right of religious and political America and their far left counterparts, to the Cold War-era voices of Malthusian pushers of the “population bomb” theory.

Another major focus of Goldberg’s admirably well-researched work is the history and development of women’s rights and feminism in the global scheme. I admit to being woefully ignorant of women’s movements in places outside of my immediate experience (i.e. “the West”); Goldberg’s deep research and firsthand accounts of conversations with the major players in the international women’s movement is a crash course in the evolution of perspectives and strategies within that movement.

Another crucial motif is Goldberg’s analysis of “culture versus human rights”. This is an issue with which I have struggled for some time, especially coming out of school with a degree in anthropology (cultural relativism lalala). How can one objectively view the contentious, often incompatible relationship between the relativity of cultural views/values and the fundamental rights of the individual? I felt betrayed when it at first appeared that Goldberg was lending credit to the notion of culture trumping human rights– but that is why one must read this book from beginning to end. The careful examination Goldberg gives to all sides of this argument is edifying and elucidating.

Perhaps the most important theme is that which sums the elements of the subtitle; many, many aspects of this book come down to control, particularly control of female bodies. When put that way, it may sound horrific (what are women– cattle for breeding? Indeed, perhaps…), but the implications go far beyond an individual’s choice to have children, to control of our own persons. The author slowly but clearly builds on this picture, awakening us to the very real and imminent connections between our persons and our collective sustainability within our environments. She manifests some realizations that are impossible to ignore, my favourite of which is this: empowering women (i.e. recognizing women’s rights as human rights) is good for everybody– is good for Earth. (I’m tempted to plot-spoil on this, because it’s such a fantastic point, but because the entirety of Goldberg’s research gradually unfolds this point, I won’t ruin the pleasure of discovering her profound conclusion– you will just have to read it for yourself!)

The struggle between the religious right and more secular liberals is one that overwhelms much of this book (indeed, I think at the loss of including other perspectives on women’s rights, including environmentalists’ thoughts on the matter). As they are the major shapers of rights and policies which directly impact people’s lives, it makes sense that she makes this conflict a central focus. In that sense, we get to see the very irritating, very hypocritical ideology of the religious right at work in international politics: their arguments against women’s reproductive rights often assert that the liberalists’ agenda is merely neocolonialism in disguise, motivated purely by the desire to control the “under-developed” world. They frequently voice their concerns that liberal international (human rights) policies disrespect and undermine a culture’s autonomy– which certainly looks like imperialism. What those same religious bodies never admit is that their colonialism has been attempting to alter and “purify” cultures for millennia (Christian missionaries, Islamic jihad, say what?). Is their denial of the neocolonialism within their own agenda willful ignorance, or do they simply define “culture” and “colonialism” in ways that best suit their own (patriarchal) interests?

Going all with this, something that makes The Means very difficult to digest is that Goldberg pulls no punches when analyzing all sides of an argument. That means we have to hear some hurtful, angering, at times shocking “logic” from some truly misogynist, racist, or nationalistic individuals and organizations. Whether you believe in hearing all sides of a debate because you believe in critical thinking or simply because you want to “know thy enemy”, this aspect of the book often clouds impartiality as it strikes powerful emotional nerves (not Goldberg’s fault, but the partiality of the reader). Take, for instance, the Uganda parliamentary representative who wanted to deny a spouse’s right to not have sex: “Refusing to have sex is the most violent thing a spouse can do” (p. 10). I still haven’t wrapped my head around that one. Or the fact that the world still takes seriously people like Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who supports spousal abuse and execution of sodomites, though as to the former, “men should beat their wives lightly, and only as a last resort” (p.164). Or take the blatant 1970s sexism of American employers: “You’ll just work with us for a year or two and then you’ll go and have babies” (p. 69)– for, as we all know, maternity and careers are mutually exclusive. Or, in examination of women’s rights in northern India, “To be frank, [a woman] is never consulted whether she will go to bed with [a] man. So there is no freedom of decision” (p. 191). The Means is full of perspectives that are difficult to digest, but they also give a pluralistic view of how humanity sees women– the “point” of women, especially.

That “purpose”, actually, does lend hope in the end. This aspect of Goldberg’s work is neatly summed in this, one of my favourite quotes: “Such religious rivalries, however, masked an equally important polarization, both inside of countries and among them, between secular, liberalizing cultures and traditional, patriarchal ones. One saw women as ends in themselves, human beings with dignity and autonomy. The other treated them as the means of group cohesion and identity whose primary value lay in their relation to men” (p. 169).

A hard-to-swallow issue that, unsurprisingly, surfaces constantly in this book is female participation in and acceptance and perpetuation of hierarchy in general and Patriarchy in specific. Whether it manifests as promotion of female genital cutting (or, as some prefer to call it, female genital mutilation) as initiation into matriarchy (which is only endowed with authority through its position in the larger system of Patriarchy), or the devaluation of female life as seen in many Hindu women’s choices to terminate female pregnancy (sex selective abortion). Why is it necessary to cut off one’s clitoris (or more) in order to gain respect and a measure of autonomy? Why should one accept condemnation because one cannot “produce” a son (which, it is the sperm, by the way, that determines “sex”)? But more generally, why do we acknowledge and abide by the authority of these automatons when they directly violate our rights as individuals? As individuals we function inside of a larger collective, that which most people label as “our culture”, but why does that equate to the forfeit of personal agency? Why should we not actively, consciously seek to transform culture in ways that reflect on, examine, recognize, promote, and celebrate human rights– holistically and collectively?

For me, this book comes down to two things, which are intrinsically connected: the dismantlement of hierarchy, and the prioritizing of human rights over culture. What is manifest again and again in The Means is that hierarchy hurts the vast majority of the world’s people, whether it comes in the form of Patriarchy, the caste system, or capitalist economic dominance (and truly they are all very much interconnected), true fulfillment of human rights is simply impossible within a hierarchical context (unless, of course, one rejects equality as a fundamental, indeed prerequisite, element of human rights).

The dawning realization is that “culture and tradition is not a monolith” (p. 195); culture, as anthropologists have long droned, is dynamic. It is forever changing, evolving moment to moment, sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically, at times subconsciously and at other times with human imperatives hugely present. This issue, in my opinion, is one that has been growing more and more salient on the world stage. Maybe the major question every human individual needs to decide is “when culture and human rights collide, which should prevail, and who gets to decide?” (p.104). Traditionalists often cite identity, autonomy, and sheer reverence as reasons for the reactionary approach to culture, but to do so is to maintain harmful systems of hierarchy. That is one reason why I so appreciate the perspective of Agnes Pareyio, whom Goldberg interviews at length: “[Pareyio] wants Masai culture to change to embrace strong, educated girls” (p. 147). Pareyio’s ideas can and should be debated by individuals and groups of people, and globalization has made this somewhat unavoidable anyhow. This is an idea which the themes in Goldberg’s book foreground not only through her analysis of worldwide trends, but also through the relation of individuals’ experiences. It is time for humanity to move out of the age of the Cultural Mandate, and for each of us as individuals to engage in the study, shaping, and reshaping of culture, beginning with a collective redefining of cultural values.

I’m Not Commodity

For some unexplainable reason, I woke up at 5 this morning with R.E.M.’s “King of Comedy” (from the Monster album) stuck in my head. Obviously that means I need to write about the commodification and objectification of women.

Let’s start with objectification. Objectification is simply the process of recreating or using a person as a thing. We do this all the time. Some time ago, a friend told me that I was objectifying them by resting my head on them; I had turned them into a pillow. It is objectification to lean on someone when exhausted, as if they are a crutch. It quickly becomes apparent that some objectification is fairly mundane or benign, and other kinds of objectification are harmful. Sexual objectification is an obvious example of this.

Sexual objectification means turning a person into an object, accessory, or tool for sex. If you like sex in which either you or your partner is not an active participant, not giving and receiving pleasure mutually, then sexual objectification is probably gratifying to you. If sex is more than you using another person as a means to an end (your own sexual satisfaction), or being used to this end, then this kind of objectification is problematic.

The traditional view of heterosexual sex is deeply entrenched in objectification. The man is the pursuer, the initiator; he is necessarily aggressive, maybe even forceful. The woman is the pursued, the “end goal”, the object; she is passive, submissive, although in many ideal fantasies she also secretly wants to be pursued and caught. This view is reinforced in mass media the world over, in magazines, TV shows, movies, music videos, books, advertisements, video games. It is no wonder that lots of boys and young men are both confused and resolute about their understanding of a girl or woman who says no as just playing a role, and of girls and women who say yes as breaking that role (that is, as being sluttish).

Sexual objectification unavoidably sets the stage for the commodification of sex. Commodification is the process of recreating or portraying someone or something as a commodity– a good, an object for consumption. The ways in which sex is commodified still conform neatly to traditional views of heterosexual sex, which are also patriarchal. In this situation, men are the subjects and women are the objects. Patriarchy holds that sexual pleasure is naturally (or should be) centered around men; there is an emphasis on the uncontrollable nature of male sexual desire, whereas women are either passive recipients of this desire, or objects used to cater to it.

Women, specifically, have long been commodified as sexual objects (and men have, too, in a different fashion and to different ends). We aren’t just used to sell things, but we are things; we are figuratively “on sale” for consumption all the time. Although women are hypersexualized in this process of commodification, as individuals they are stripped of their own sexuality. If an object has a perspective on its own sexuality, its sexual identity or desires, it is in danger of becoming real, a subject. Commodification thus also means the smothering or eradication of female subjectivity.

I think a lot of men find all of this difficult to swallow. On the one hand, I guess I can see why it would be challenging to view things from such a different perspective– if you have always been the buyer, the consumer, there has probably never been much reason or incentive to view things from the perspective of the good/commodity. On the other hand, I think men can understand this perfectly; a large number of them are sexually objectifying and commodifying females all the time. I have a large number of very close guy friends who would adamantly deny this, but even if they truly see all human beings as, well, human beings, they surely experience their peers doing this much of the time.

What surprises me is when men have absolutely no qualms about doing this blatantly and shamelessly in front of women. I think this is because they feel either there is nothing wrong with it, or that there will be no consequences for doing it. For example, I was fundraising outside of a supermarket (for a project to end gender-based violence, no less) not too long ago, and I was observing a security guard as he was…observing a young woman coming out of the store. She was loading her groceries into a tuk tuk. She was wearing a dress, though by American standards I can’t say it was “too short” or what have you. The security guard was standing not far from her, staring at her– no, not staring at her, but staring at her behind. His stare was long and open, and at one point he even licked his lips. I had been talking to him earlier about the project I was helping fundraise for, so I felt it was not too out of place for me to ask, “What are you doing?” His answer was phrased completely innocently: “She’s a beautiful girl, why shouldn’t I look? Why is she wearing that dress if she doesn’t want me to look?”

This is an argument that I’ve heard time and again. Women secretly desire the male pornographic gaze on them. It’s what compels women and girls to wear make-up, to dress like the models on magazine covers, ultimately to sexualize themselves. Under the surface, all women really want to appeal to male sexual desire.

If that woman wanted that security guard to stare at her while licking his lips, I’ll eat my hat.

But that’s besides the point. This idea of women’s secret desire for men to visually consume them is based on a much more sinister myth: the idea that women secretly want men to fuck them. This sounds so absurdly egotistic and narcissistic as to be unbelievable, but when I look around myself I can see how it sort of…makes sense, in a sort of droll, male-centered way.

In high school I had a friend whose room was covered with large, glossy posters of Playboy Bunnies. There was one at the head of his bed that I can’t seem to forget; whenever I think about this person, I inevitably think of this poster. In it, a typical white, blonde “Bunny” is positioned on the floor with her butt high in the air, her knees bent, and she is propped up on her elbows. She is looking at the camera with an ecstatic, childish expression, and she is wearing nothing but bubbles. Yes, only soap bubbles, on her breasts and her crotch. I remember feeling horribly uncomfortable when I would go to this friend’s house to play video games with him and our other friends– all of whom were Good Christian Boys who regularly attended church and youth group. And stuff. Only one of my guy friends had the nerve to ask him if it wasn’t such a great idea to put up posters of mostly naked women on your walls– wouldn’t God be offended? (God definitely would be offended, since the Christian God hates women, after all. Ho ho ho, surely I’m just kidding…)

When I look around myself right at this moment, I am in an internet cafe in which every computer besides this one is occupied by a young man or boy. I am tempted to check each screen to see how many of them are watching porn, but I don’t want to get kicked out. Don’t worry, most of the younger guys are just playing WoW… Well, I guess that’s sort of the same as watching porn, isn’t it? Anyway, on the walls are posters advertising various Khmer and other Asian websites, mostly for games. Almost all of them feature partially-naked women, even the cartoon ones. The one behind me features two realistic-looking cartoon women with guns posed between two bulky men in armor; both women have huge breasts and long, skinny bodies. One is wearing a low-cut top with her midriff showing, and the other is wearing shiny black leather (she sorta looks like a dominatrix with that nazi hat on).

I could describe the other posters in here, but I won’t bother. You get the idea. Anyway, from your own experience, you already have an idea, I’m sure. Just looking around us at other people, at billboards and posters, at book covers and album covers, at music videos… We are constantly being inundated by this shit, all the time. Taking all this in, it isn’t hard to see why girls and women are so easily recreated as personality-less, consumable objects devoid of agency.

Perhaps the absolute worst part is that it is not only men who recreate and consume women as sex objects, but women recreate and consume women as sex objects, as well. Actually I think that’s why it is such an immense challenge to confront and negate these processes of commodification and objectification. Women and girls commodify themselves, early on and often for their entire lives. We hypersexualize and objectify our bodies, our sexual identities, but to what end? Ultimately it seems entirely dissatisfying, time-consuming, and hurtful. The results are a preoccupation with unattainable “beauty” standards, self-loathing of our own persons, and jealousy and contempt for other women whom we perceive as surpassing our own efforts. If you fail, all you get is some really low self-esteem; if you succeed, you get to be a sexually-consumable object for male-centered pleasure, which really only holds if you are available for consumption 24/7. Congratulations.

What I would like for us to do, then, is to reject our own commodification. Question yourself, question others, question culture, when you feel compelled to do something, go somewhere, dress some way, say something. I don’t believe this is easy, but I have learned multitudes about myself through such self-reflection and critical thinking of my surroundings. But it is as they say: once you’ve seen, you can’t un-see. Maybe ignorance is bliss, but transcendence is better.

I’m not king of comedy,
I’m not your magazine,
I’m not your television,
I’m not your movie screen
I’m not commodity
I’m not commodity

[R.E.M., "King of Comedy]

p.s. This is a really aesthetically-shit but highly informative website on some particulars of how women are portrayed as sex objects in certain media.

p.s.s Post on the sexual commodification of men forthcoming.

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.”

Happy International Women’s Day– made happier by pushing the boundaries of gender discourse!

Happy International Women’s Day!

In preparing to write this special post for IWD, I found it difficult to choose a single topic on which to focus. Without a doubt I knew I wanted to spotlight one of the many sociocultural issues in my current home of Cambodia, there being a dire necessity to raise awareness and promote dialogue about gender and human rights issues, especially among Cambodians.

But which issue? Both fortunately and unfortunately, there are many from which to choose, and trying to narrow it down to a “most important” issue is simply impossible for me.

When in doubt, I take the advice of many writers (including my favourite author Ursula K. LeGuin, many of whose works center on issues of race and gender): “Write what you know.”

Which directs me to immediate, grassroots goings-on that are affecting and involving people right around me.

Many gender issues in Cambodia are intrinsically connected to this concept of “Development”. Now, it cannot be denied that I have some major hang-ups with “Development” (in any country). While the aims of Development may be noble in and of themselves, the ideologies and methodologies frequently employed to achieve those aims remain embedded in racist, classist, and sexist contexts which ultimately undermine their success, purpose, and effectiveness. I have found this to be very much the case in Cambodia.

Though it’s tempting to concentrate on these more negative aspects of Development, in honor of IWD and Gender Across Border’s special theme, I would like to draw attention to the positive. (I’m sure my more regular readers are quite astounded, but hey– I’m not always a cynic when it comes to gender!)

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a serious yet seriously under-discussed problem here in the Kingdom of Wonder, especially when that violence is occurring within a familial context. There are two complimentary Khmer proverbs which describe the larger sociocultural attitude towards familial violence: “Don’t bring the fire into the house,” which means to discourage people from bringing “outside problems” into their home (i.e. if it’s not our problem, it’s none of our business); and “Don’t take the fire outside of the house,” which seeks to discourage people from discussing “internal” or family issues with people outside of the family. In other words, there is a lot of silence surrounding issues of familial violence in Cambodia.

There are people who are talking about “the fire”, though, and are doing it loudly and in ways that involve those directly affected by it.

Eileen McCormick and Hannah East are two such activists who are, shall we say, fighting fire with fire.

Both McCormick and East are volunteers living in Cambodia with Khmer families, McCormick at the village level and East at the provincial level. They have been here for just over a year and a half, researching, working with locals, and organizing grassroots projects on various issues; both have a special interest in gender, to which they devote a significant amount of time and energy.

Photography credit to Eileen McCormick, republished with permission!

Recently their time and energy culminated in a workshop on domestic violence. The workshop, which was hosted by the local office of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Kampong Chhnang Province, sponsored participants from fields which come into direct contact (usually through provision of services) with domestic violence survivors. More than 120 health center staff members, police officers, and village and commune government representatives attended the workshop sessions, which were co-hosted by local Cambodian NGOs and MOWA.

In spite of many obstacles, including resistance from their own superiors, McCormick and East were determined to bring attention to a subject which mainstream Cambodian culture wants to ignore. Most appreciatively, they sought to do so by educating and empowering the all-female staff of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, who led the workshop in conjunction with local NGOs in spite of not having an prior leadership experience. This is especially positive because McCormick and East recognize that Development and change are only as effective as the efforts made by sustainable sources– namely, local peoples.

 

Opening dialogue about issues directly impacting women and girls in Cambodia is a necessary first step to affecting successful change in behaviors and attitudes concerning gender. It has been my experience that Cambodian girls and women want to discuss these issues, but there are very few safe and open contexts in which they can do so. Perhaps this is one benefit of etic forces (such as McCormick and East), who can encourage women to actively create and participate in those contexts with significantly less stigmatization. I do not deny that this is the product of racist and classist privilege which have been projected onto volunteers like McCormick and East. Yet rather than partaking of and enjoying those privileges for themselves, these two young women push the boundaries of privilege into the realm of risk-taking in order to raise consciousness about gender and human rights within their local communities. By expanding the territory of “acceptable” dialogue, volunteers both etic and emic empower women and girls at all levels to talk about the issues that they face every day.

2.52%

la la la

You will probably be disturbed and irritated at me for writing this… “Lee, why you always gotta be such a downer?” Well, don’t blame me for being down, blame the Patriarchal world we live in for getting me down. It is not possible to cover our ears, shut our eyes, and run our mouths about human rights all at the same time, monkeys.

This week in news (Cambodian Daily-style)…:

Tuesday: Training Aims to Protect Children From Predators: British experts in Phnom Penh are training about 160 teachers, police, government workers and childcare professionals on how to better protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation as part of a three-day workshop that began only yesterday. …British Ambassador Mark Gooding said the training was necessary because of “the growth of Internet use in Cambodia, especially among young people.” According to… the country director for anti-pedophile NGO Action Pour les Enfants, there are clear signs that online sexual predators are beginning to have a presence in Cambodia. “We have observed a few cases where children were groomed online by traveling sex offenders, and that means it will be a great concern in the future.” (by Lauren Crothers)

The growth of the internet has produced many learning opportunities for kids in Cambodia, but the downside is that it also increases their risk of encountering predators who use this anonymous technology to seek out victims. Kids, especially boys, can use the internet in towns and cities (and, increasingly, larger villages) completely unmonitored. These days this is how young boys are more often exposed to porn; they can pay less than 50 cents for 30 minutes to an hour of unrestricted access to any site on the web, and many of them go with friends to watch pornography at public internet cafes. Even when shop owners and others know this is going on, there is little or no stigma attached to boys (even very young boys) viewing porn. For all children, though, “playing chat” on the web is the new “big thing”; my impression from my students is that there is a certain prestige to having foreign friends on Facebook and Skype– I can imagine how easy it would be for a foreign pedophile to arrange a meeting with a child in Cambodia via the internet. Cambodian nationals will probably catch on to the internet as a way of hunting victims, too, as their access to the web increases; probably they have already, but there are very few statistics on crimes organized using the internet here.

Court Charges Man with Raping 8-Year-Old Girl: The Kandal Provincial Court yesterday charged a 31-year-old man with raping an 8-year-old girl in her home…on Sunday. The suspect was drunk at the time of the attack and had gone looking for the victim’s 16 year-old sister…”But he did not find her and met with the victim,” said police chief Mean Samnang. (by Khy Sovuthy)

Um… I don’t really have anything to say about this. I think it speaks for itself. But if your first thought was, “It would have been better if he’d found the 16-year-old instead,” I hope you ask yourself why.

Wednesday: Girl Detained, Drugged and Raped Over Two-Week Span: Girl was allegedly given sleeping pills by suspect, fed little in order to keep her in a weakened state.

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court on Monday charged a teenager with rape, after he allegedly detained a 17-year-old girl at his home, drugged her and raped her over a two-week period, court officials and police said yesterday. The suspect, 17, was arrested on Friday after his uncle discovered the girl locked in his wooden house in Banlung City… After being questioned by police, the suspect confessed to raping the girl– who was his neighbor and knew him well– giving her sleeping pills and barely feeding her so that she would be sleepy, weakened, and unable to cry for help, [police chief] Vun said. “The girl was detained and locked in the room. The suspect had given her medicine that we assume must have been sleeping tablets,” Mr. Vun said. “He confessed that he raped her seven or eight times, but says it was because he loves her.” ..”After seven days, we were hopeless. We thought she had died, and we lit incense and put out offerings for her,” the victim’s mother said. (by Chhorn Chansy)

It is unlikely they will do a follow-up story here, but it is quite possible that the survivor will be mistreated (or disowned) by her family for “allowing” the rape to occur, or even worse she might be forced to marry her rapist. Well, he does love her after all.

Horrific? Toahmadah in the Kingdom of Wonder– normal, that is. If you talk to young adults, especially pre-teen and teenaged boys, in Cambodia, you will find that they have very unhealthy conceptions about “love”, “relationships”, “boyfriends/girlfriends”, and what constitutes “romantic”. A friend of mine had it from her teacher that the first time he had sex with his girlfriend, he had to hold her down and force his penis inside of her as she said “no no no” while physically resisting him. This girl later became his wife. Most people can look at this scenario and say, “This is rape.” But many people see this is “what must be done”, since it is culturally unacceptable for a girl to say “yes” to sex; if a girl says “no”, the default assumption can be that she wants to have sex, but cannot consent to it without looking like a whore. So the young man in the article above may have thought he was doing his “love” a favor by drugging her and locking her in a shed– maybe he really believed she wanted to have sex with him, but “could not consent”.

Friday: Violence Continues to Go Unpunished, Adhoc Says: Domestic violence continues to go virtually unpunished, authorities appear unable or unwilling to arrest sex traffickers, and rape of minors is “exceedingly numerous,” according to Adhoc’s annual report on the state of women and children in Cambodia… Deep-seated cultural obstacles are part of the problem of combating the violence, noted [Adhoc's] report. “Domestic violence is seen as the norm and women themselves do not think it is criminal but a regular part of married life,” the report states. …Impunity also plays a role in the punishment of rapists. Courts handle only 2.52 percent of rape cases, and 11.34 percent are mediated by local authorities. …Last year was the first year in which rapes did not increase, but 72 percent of rape victims were children under 18, “which is extremely concerning” [the report says]. …Khieu Sopheak, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, said the fact that figures remained “stable” was a positive sign. “It’s better than increasing,” he said. Asked about Adhoc’s focus on impunity, Mr. Sopheak said: “Oh, we don’t have an impunity culture. That is what people say, but the government does not have an impunity culture.”

Of course the Ministry of Interior is not going to just come out and say, “Hellz yeah we’re corrupt! LOLZ”. But Sopheak’s delusional observation of Cambodian rape statistics as positive because they are “stable” is insufferable. “It’s better than increasing”…? If you say dumb shit like that in the U.S., you lose your job (or you should, at least). Again, toahmadah. Whatever. Highly-ranked public “servants” can openly deny corruption and dismiss horrific rape stats in the same breath here with absolutely no consequences. If you live here, you’re thinking, “Well, duh. It’s not like this is a democracy.” And I agree. It still completely blows all my circuits though– I simply cannot comprehend it. I want to reinforce this point so that you understand how completely normative, pervasive, and acceptable rape culture is in this country. It is my personal belief that all of human society operates inside of rape culture, but it is more powerful and functions in greater degrees in some countries than in others. It is not just the lack of punishment and accountability of rapists that perpetuates rape culture in the Kingdom of Wonder, but the deeply-ingrained effects of enculturating people of all genders here with profoundly violent and misogynist behaviors and attitudes and acceptance of those behaviors and attitudes. Like the teacher I mentioned above: this is a teacher, a respected member of his community who wants to educate poor villagers for free and start a non-profit jobs training program and all kinds of stuff– Nice Guy™. He’s still a rapist, people. If a “nice guy” like him believes that you have to force sex on a woman the first two or three times you want to have sex with her, we can’t be surprised to see articles like the one about the 17-year-old who kidnapped and raped the love of his life, or the 31-year-old who raped his 8-year-old neighbor ’cause her older sister wasn’t “available”.

About the article… “But Lee, isn’t it positive that the statistics aren’t increasing?” The statistics, unfortunately, only take into account those rapes that Adhoc heard about in some way, shape or form. Most rapes are never reported to any official entity, let alone dealt with by the police. It is extremely common for rapists to simply pay off families of victims to maintain silence, and in some cases to marry the victim to the rapist in order to save face (especially if the victim becomes pregnant). If only around 13% of reported rapes were dealt with by some kind of official entity (courts, commune and village chiefs, etc.), then that means almost 87% of cases (again, of reported rapes) are being handled privately. Which means virtually no repercussions for the rapist. Who will then be free to rape again. And again. Well, you get the idea.

p.s. That 2.52% are case that are “handled” by the courts NOT cases in which the perpetrator is sentenced, let alone serves that sentence. The 31-year-old who raped his 8-year-old neighbor was charged, but that does not equate to being sentenced or going to jail, or even paying a fine (though he can, and probably will, pay a bribe to be cleared of charges). Are we getting the picture here? Really? (For a laugh, you could compare these stats with those from American courts and you’ll see that they are more similar that you might think. Ha. Ha.)

I’ve mentioned this in other posts, but the reason why I am so sickened by these statistics is because they don’t account for all rapes, but only a portion– how large of a portion? We can’t know, but remember that rape victims are extremely stigmatized here. If you knew you were going to be blamed, badgered, laughed at, possibly married to your rapist, and ultimately told to shut up, and your rapist would almost certainly walk free, would you tell anyone that you were raped, or would you keep it to yourself? I look around at my neighbors, students, friends, even my Khmer family and wonder how many of them have experienced violence, including sexual violence, and are stoically keeping their mouths closed about it. Actually, many of them would probably never label rape if it did happen to them, which is no surprise consider that Cambodian law excludes many forms of rape in its legal definition. I also look around at the same people and wonder how many of them have raped or are raping someone and they will never even call it that. It saddens me very, very deeply.

When I talk about things like this with my (most often American) family, friends, acquaintances, whoever… They express a good deal of discomfort, try to change the subject, attempt to “lighten the mood” by making jokes, and so on.

Am I getting you down?

I don’t care.

Perhaps this is the 2012 “new me”, but I intend to unapologetically disperse information to as many people as I can about the Situation we find ourselves is as often as I possible can. I will ignore your discomfort, I will refocus the subject, and I will carefully dismantle your jokes with psychosocial and cultural analysis so you see how joking about This perpetuates rape, the function of Patriarchy, and so on.

I am going to be SO POPULAR. :D

Two Views of the River

Mark Twain struck a chord with me in high school when our American Lit teacher made his essay “Two Views of the River” required reading. The students moaned and groaned about it, including me; I had little appreciation for nonfiction at that time, especially essays.

Yet what I read changed my perception of reality both profoundly and subtly.

“Two Views” is about seeing versus knowing, grasping intuitively versus logically. Twain grew up with the Mississippi, and it features in many of his works, both fiction and nonfiction. In his essay, recognizes that his initial view is romantic, uninformed, and unshaped (unwarped?) by Knowledge. He is held rapt by it. But when he becomes the pilot of a riverboat, the River loses its mystery, and as a consequence some of its beauty. Perhaps the greatest loss, though, is that he loses some of his original Knowing of the River. As a child and a young man, he knew the River in such a way that he will never get back after he has “learned” it; learned its hazards, its turns and bends, its sandbars and eddies and hidden dangers.

In the same way, I have lost my original Knowing of Cambodia: the more I learn, the less I remember of my first impressions. The more I learn, the more the romanticism and beauty wear away. This is not to say I “know” or “understand” Cambodia, in some larger or more profound sense; I can only compare these Two Views between my younger Self and my current Self. And they are different.

I do feel this as a loss, just as I feel the loss of my original Perception. Everyone experiences this, I imagine– perhaps this is a sign that one has “grown up”? Slowly but surely, our original Knowing transforms and transforms again, and maybe what was once Known can never be known again.