What I'm Doing When I'm Not Writing My Grant

• Reviewing other people's work
• Having lunch out with b
• Filling out my annual report (and realizing I did a lot more this year than I thought)
• Deflating my balance ball/office chair so we can return it to the store
• Going to the library for an early start on next year's syllabus
• Following interesting blog conversations on mothering, feminism and power. Check them out.

It's A Man's World...

***Updated to appease Drax****

...at least at the movies. A while back I ran across this post about The Rule from an Alison Bechdel comic strip. The Rule is a guideline for what movies the main character will go to see. The requirements are:

1. There has to be at least two women in it who
2. talk to each other about
3. something besides a man.

Seems pretty simple, eh? Well as it turns out we are hard pressed to find movies that actually fulfill these requirements.

I found this blog where readers can nominate movies and rate them on how many of the requirements they fulfill. It is pretty sad and quite frankly I disagree with many of the ratings. Personally I feel if the conversation the two women have involves having a baby that should also count as a rule violation, but hey, maybe I'm being too picky.

I found these posts around the end of the year so I couldn't resist making a list of the movies I I watched in 2009 (I only included movies released in 2009) and wanted to see how they fared. I'm sorry to say, not to well. Here they are:

1. Star Trek
2. 2012
3. The Hangover
4. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (It was on Netflix. We were bored and desperate.)
5. Funny People
6. The Taking of Pelham 123
7. The Soloist
8. Julie & Julia
9. The Men Who Stare At Goats
10. Sunshine Cleaning
11. Good Hair
12. Tyson
13. Up In The Air
14. Sherlock Holmes

By my best estimate, only 2 of the 14 (14%) possibly meet all three requirements (Julie & Julia & Sunshine Cleaning). Even sadder, very few even have 2 women in them, no less talking to each other about anything.

What movies have you seen that meet the requirements?

Awareness

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. There are many "Awareness" campaigns that are assigned to individual months, weeks, or days but the breast cancer campaign, with its trademark pink ribbon and fun runs, is the one people know best. We are very aware of breast cancer in October.

I am particular aware of breast cancer this year. My mother was diagnosed and treated this summer as was b's aunt. More recently a blogger buddy of mine was diagnosed and has just had surgery. In addition my research assistant is struggling to accept her mother's recent diagnosis of a brain tumor not yet five years after her treatment for breast cancer. Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women (non-melanoma skin cancer is #1) and the second leading cause of cancer death (lung cancer is #1) for women in this country. It is the seventh leading cause of death among women. I say all of this as a caveat for everything else I'm about to say in this post. I recognize, personally and statistically, that breast cancer is an important health issue for women, yet I am anti-pink ribbon.

I'm not going to go into all of the reasons why the pink ribbon itself or campaigns such as "Save the Ta-Ta's" or "Feel Your Boobies" bothers me because there is an excellent book already written on the subject of breast cancer and cause marketing. Barbara Ehrenreich's Welcome To Cancerland also describes much of my frustration with the culture of breast cancer.

My mother, after surgery and radiation were over and life was--relatively--back to normal, was feeling very blue. The reality of living with a cancer diagnosis was just sinking in. What she was telling me reminded me of a post I had recently read, so I shared it with her. But it also made me wonder if, due to all this awareness, it has become too normalized? When I first moved down to SouthLite a colleague was diagnosed and undergoing treatment. I met many women across campus and in the community who, in discussing this woman's situation. talked about their own treatment. The manner in which they presented it sounded like it was a rite of passage. I wonder if this acceptance of breast cancer as a common event has made it easier or harder for women to process the gravity of the diagnosis?

My mother's treatment was seamlessly coordinated and she was handled with both respect and care. I am thrilled that she had that experience and I think we can thank the awareness campaign, in part, for the fact that these systems are now in place. However breast cancer also has huge disparities by race and class that are not highlighted by the awareness campaign. For instance, more White women are diagnosed with breast cancer but more Black women die from it. As I sat in the doctor's suite with my mother, I couldn't help but wonder if everyone has the same access to this type of care. This isn't a subject I hear much about in the campaign. Perhaps this could be the next step in promoting "awareness"?

As I mentioned, there are a lot of awareness campaigns out there because there are a lot of issues that need our attention. There are more campaigns than there are months, so they are forced to share. Breast cancer awareness shares the month of October with domestic violence awareness. The domestic violence awareness campaign is symbolized by a purple ribbon. Pink symbolizes femininity and Ehrenreich's piece has a lot to say on the feminization of breast cancer. What does purple symbolize? b says bruises. I prefer to think of the purple heart, but neither is a very satisfying thought.

The statistics on domestic violence are staggering. As prevalent as breast cancer is, domestic violence reaches into the lives of women and families at a far more alarming rate. One in four women experience domestic violence in their lifetime and, unlike breast cancer, the support system for treating the effects are seriously underfunded. Another blogger buddy, jo(e), has been seeing the effects play out very close to her home. These stories happen in every town but rarely get told.

While I don't think it is helpful to make social problems compete with one another and that is not my intent with this post, I do think it is important to question why we can be comfortable supporting and talking about breast cancer but not domestic violence.

What Exactly Is Feminist Mothering?

This week I received the proofs for a chapter I have coming out in a book celebrating the 20th anniversary of Sara Ruddick's Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politic of Peace. The chapter represents a stretch for me in terms of professional writing and I'm happy with how it turned out. This same week I also read this post over at Hoyden About Town and this response post at Blue Milk--both on the practices of feminist mothering (you may want to take some time right now to read them...I think you will enjoy the posts and the comments). I also took part in a survey on feminist mothering that I saw referenced on Blue Milk. Needless to say all of this has gotten me thinking about feminist mothering this week and I have to say: I'm very confused. Did something happen to feminism generally and to feminist mothering specifically while I was busy doing other things?

For those of you who haven't read Maternal Thinking, Ruddick makes the claim that (a) engaging in the practice of mothering (which she does NOT define as exclusively female) creates a unique way of thinking--the same as the engagement in any other practice creates a unique thought process (i.e. lawyers end up thinking like lawyers); (b) maternal practice ultimately consists of three factors--preservation, nurturance, and training; and (c) since the definition of training is preparing your child to be socially acceptable--as defined by the social groups to which the mother is a member--there are multiple instances where the tasks are in conflict and mothers must figure out how to resolve these conflicts. For example, raising your son to be a soldier, if this is the socially acceptable adult role in a woman's social group, is in direct conflict with the task of preservation. It is the resolution of these conflicts that forces mothers to think and, thereby, creates maternal thought. Now Ruddick also speaks of maternal inauthenticity--when these conflicts arise and mothers are not true to their own beliefs. However she notes:

"It is not when they submit or are prudent or timid that mothers are inauthentic. It is when they loose sight of the cost of prudence, deny their timidity, and tell their children that unquestioning obedience is actually right. Inauthenticity is a matter of form, not content."

To me, being authentic in this sense is feminist mothering. It is not whether we do or do not make concessions to the established order--to the institution of motherhood, as Rich would phrase it--but when we are false with our children and pretend what we believe is not valid, is not true.

However my other run-ins with definitions of feminist mothering this week seem to center on what I would term mothering (or even parenting) tasks--not practices--and many of these tasks seem to be related to styles of parenting (i.e. attachment parenting--which I freely admit I don't know enough about to discuss in an intelligent fashion) or even to other belief systems and practices (i.e. environmentalism). Now I have nothing against either attachment parenting (what little I know of it leads me to believe I would have endorsed it when Angel was small) or environmental practices but I don't think that is what defines feminist mothering (assuming we believe this term is meaningful--as opposed to their being people who are feminist and who mother--which is more how I think I would describe myself).

I also need to say that this post is not in response to either Lauredhel's or Blue Milk's thoughtful posts or any of the comments on their blogs, but rather as a response to the original post that generated their posts and, mainly, to the survey on feminist motherhood that I completed. I can do no better justice to the original post than Lauredhel herself, so I will put that aside. However the survey bothered me and I feel I can discuss it here. Again, I must start by applauding the researchers' efforts to study feminism and motherhood but I found it incredibly difficult to answer the survey. Below is a description of my main problems:

• The survey represented motherhood as only consisting of the mothering of young children and did not acknowledge that some of us are mothers of grown children, yet our practices and attitudes may still hold some value.
• Items of mothering practices revolved around specific tasks like breastfeeding, bed-sharing, and keeping children on a strict schedule. Given my definition of feminist mothering above, I don't see that there is necessarily any association between these tasks and a person's identity as a feminist. Take breastfeeding, for instance. The question asked (as I best recall) what length of time you felt breastfeeding was beneficial (it also asked how a "typical feminist" would respond--more on that later). Now there is quite a lot of data out there on the health benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and child and there are also recommendations for length of breastfeeding. However there are many reasons why woman either choose not to breastfeed or stop breastfeeding earlier than recommended time frames, would this mean she is not a feminist?
• A significant portion of the survey was devoted to the percentage of time the person spent engaged in household tasks, including but not limited to early childcare tasks (i.e. diaper changing, getting up in the middle of the night). While I understand that equality in household and childcare tasks is a feminist issue, I don't think it is associated with feminist beliefs or identity. That is, there are many women who identify as feminist and who hold (so-called) feminist beliefs but still end up engaged in more than 50% of these tasks on a daily basis. I believe the reasons for this involve deep-seated gender constructions that we all hold (even us feminists) and, more importantly, shape our institutions. Rallying against them is a battle most of us (especially those with small children) are too tired to take on on a daily basis. Now keep in mind that the stated purpose of the study is to learn more about how women feel about the relationship between feminism and motherhood. I'm not convinced that looking at associations between feminist identity, mothering practices, and time spent engaged in house/childcare work is going to provide that understanding.
• What exactly is "a typical feminist"? By asking me to rate responses to all of these items as a typical feminist would, you are assuming that I believe feminist are a homogeneous group. Would a feminist believe that?

So this post has turned into a bit of a rant and I feel bad if it sounds like I'm trashing this research. There is so little research out there on this subject and I do not know the specific aims of the study, nor do I think I was the correct demographic for completing the survey, so I don't want to appear unfair. It was more that trying to answer the questions was frustrating for me and it brought to the forefront these questions I have about the concept of feminist mothering. It seems I thought I knew what it meant, to me at least, but now I'm thinking there is another definition out there and it seems a bit too narrow for my comfort.

On Raising Boys II

So last week I wrote about raising boys from the vantage point of letting them go. Today I read this post over at Mothers' For Women's Lib. In it msruthmoss, who is raising a 2 year old boy, questions how mothers do/can raise a boy to be a feminist. She, rightly in my book, recognizes that there is more at stake than raising a man who will do housework willingly and there is more to the process than encouraging "feminine" interests in your child. She questions exactly what influence does a mother have and how do we/should we wield that influence.

Having raised a boy, and one who considers himself a feminist, I thought it might be useful to talk about what I learned in the process. I did not consciously raise him to "be a feminist." Honestly that never occurred to me. I raised him in the values that I hold and those are feminist values. I also did not raise him to be "more like little girls," which is one suggestion msruthmoss has come across.

I did not disallow guns or games of war in my house while he was growing up. That would not have been possible in a household with two martial artists. Angel grew up with real swords and sticks and staffs in the house. Angel grew up in a dojo with people literally fighting over his head as he ran between their legs. Angel grew up with a physically and emotionally powerful man as his father; a man with the ultimate position of authority in a dojo. Angel grew up the son of a sensei. However, Angel also grew up seeing his mother and his aunt fighting and teaching men how to fight. But more importantly, Angel grew up learning what physical power does and doesn't mean and how it should be used--with great respect and humbleness. Angel grew up understanding the importance of NOT fighting and for men in our society I believe knowing how to fight and that you CAN fight goes along way in helping to deter pressure to fight and prove yourself. Angel, at 19, has yet to be in a fight outside of sparring in the dojo.

msruthmoss talks about male peer pressure and how this is a powerful influence on young boys. I agree with her that teaching your child to say no is essential and to do that properly you need to accept that you will be the main person they practice on. I believe in negotiating with children whenever possible. I think it teaches them to think of alternatives; to realize that power can be shared; and it gives them excellent verbal skills. However I don't see that as a gender issue. I think it is as critical for a girl as for a boy.

Peer pressure is not always overt. In fact, indirect peer pressure is far more insidious than direct. With indirect peer pressure there is no obvious point in which you say "no." In fact you need to make the moment and speak out against the unwritten, unspoken masculine influence. No one is going to ask you if you think date rape is ok--they're just going to make jokes or comments that create an atmosphere where it is acceptable. First you need to recognize, not just that date rape is rape and rape is wrong, but that the jokes and comments are wrong and harmful. You need to believe that by speaking up you can make a difference. Finally you need to be willing to speak up and risk ridicule, social isolation, or worse. That is a lot to expect from a young boy/man and, as a mother, I think we need to accept that they will fail at times. But they will come home with the stories.

As a mother I need to recognize that when Angel tells me a "story" it means he is conflicted about what happened and his part in it. And I need to help him process it. I also need to accept that he may reject what I believe is the "right" action--as a feminist--as a human.

After the age of 13, Angel no longer admitted to many of his emotions and he no longer cried. I had tried my best to allow him space for both of those actions as he was growing up but there came a point where outside influences on what it means to "be a man" in this society took over. Feminist boys need to learn how to live in a society that is not feminist. They need to feel they have a place and a role and currently we don't do a very good job of providing one for them. For Angel, recognizing that this safe space was taken from him; that society doesn't allow the emotions he admits he still has but keeps under wraps, has driven him to try to understand feminism as an adult.

Angel is a thin, young, white, heterosexual, biological male who identifies as a man. He is the exact description that Lesbian Dad describes as the mythical norm in this post. So when I speak of raising boys I need to acknowledge that I can only speak to raising a very specific type of boy and that many of these issues are probably vastly different for mothers raising boys of different races and sexual identities. Angel struggles to see his privilege. It is often a source of friction between the two of us. As I've written about before, we are both struggling with his need to separate from me and discussions of our individual interpretations of feminism and white privilege can get heated. It is hard for me to hear his view sometimes, but I believe I need to hear it; to argue it; but also to accept it as his view. I believe that is the only way we ever get change to occur.

I had many surprises in raising my son and I expect to have many more in the future. I was raised in an all-female household and knew very little about masculinity when I gave birth to him. One of my biggest surprises was the male capacity to nurture. I certainly saw this in Angel at a young age, but I was more surprised to see it in the teenage boys that would interact with him. Angel always sought the attention of older boys and men. Older men would interact with him in a very domineering way (i.e. taking his toy and then trying to get him to fight for it back) but the teen boys--even the roughest looking of them--were always gentle. Showing him what they were doing; teaching him things; empowering him and encouraging him. My sister hired a young man to babysit her boys when they were in elementary school and it was a wonderful experience for everyone involved. Now my younger nephew at 13 has a job babysitting a 6-year old boy. He is gentle and caring and takes his position very seriously. So for those who are raising boys I would advise enlisting the help of older boys in their care and then when your sons are old enough, allow them to care for younger boys. Let's give boys meaningful opportunities to experience and excel at the job of nurturing. Lets enlist the help of boys to raise boys.