I've talked about this before, but it bears a revival.
Of all the various hats I've worn over the years (including coffee drinker, boy rejector, guacamole zealot, and Growing Pains aficionado), nerd or teacher's pet have to be the oldest and most enduring. I've been a good student since the day my mom dropped me off at preschool and told the teacher that I already knew how to read. I always desired the respect of my teachers and worked hard to convince each of them (those flawed people who were arbitrarily given influence over my life for exactly one academic semester) that I was a competent human being. I never tired of the challenge, and for some reason was eager with every new class to prove, once again, that I had a brain and due respect for grammar.
There are two common ways of viewing the stilted student-teacher relationship: Some recognize it, eventually, as a confining and semi-irrational system and are glad to be rid of it once they've jumped through enough hoops to earn a degree, and they move on to a job where the system of measurement doesn't exclusively depend on kowtowing to an opinionated authority figure. Others get a sort of high from the positive feedback of authority figures and, when pushed into "the real world," sorely miss an environment where feedback was direct and personal, and where success was easily measured in percentages and grades.
Obviously, (even as an adult) I belong to the second class of students. I sometimes wonder if my being in grad school isn't simply a product of me being addicted to positive feedback.
Earlier this evening, I was reading through some of my old undergrad essays, trying to find the name of a book I'd referenced. (I always saved the final, physical, graded copies of my papers, for reasons I never consciously knew, but I figure it must have something to do with mistrusting my computer.) I quickly got sucked in and began reading my entire folder of graded essays from my sophomore year. At some of them I naturally cringed, but overall I was impressed by how much information they contained. And how much I'd already forgotten. I evidently wrote with sass and conviction about subjects I couldn't pick out of a lineup today.
What really caught my eye, though, was my professors' comments. Those essays presented me with textual history of living, breathing professors who cared about my brain--about my writing style, wit, and ability to form a convincing argument. These people spent time providing scrawling, blue-ink commentary, specifically designed to help me be better at life. Notes that I found unfair in the heat of the moment (or gratuitously complimentary) I now recognized as valid and productive--attempts to reinforce or improve my writing ability and capacity for fair and critical thought.
My entering into a PhD program in the Humanities, believe it or not, came with a monumental dose of self-doubt and guilt. (Why aren't you doing something more useful with your life? What does literary criticism matter when people are starving or oppressed? Are you trying to escape the real world? Do you think you're too good to have a normal job like everyone else?) But I think I'll finally be able to set aside one such nagging question: I'm not simply in it because I like hearing professors tell me how good I talk. I'm in it because I want to be one of those teachers whose positive esteem I so sorely craved, whose blue notes I nostalgically admired today. At this point (pawn of the system though you may call me), I can appreciate the fact that I desired my teachers' approval not for approval's sake, but because they were smart, invested people who had valuable insight that would help me grow into a better (or at least better-spoken) person.
I want to help people like that. Or more accurately, I want to be that all-powerful, arbitrary authoritative figure for a future generation of coffee-drinking, boy-rejecting teacher's pets and authority-hating, hoop-jumping non-academics. Regardless of whether they appreciate me in retrospect or run away from me with glee after graduation, I like the thought that I'll make an impact.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
We get a little further from perfection each year on the road
As a teenager, I had a habit of pretending that I didn't like talking about gender issues, sexism, or feminism. In reality, that was a huge lie. Just as most football players enjoy talking about sports and most English majors love disparaging Twilight as literary poison, I believe that most women are interested in thinking and talking about their own place in the world, and that includes me. My adolescent self avoided the subject merely out of fear that I'd sound cliche or ill-informed. (Naturally, by avoiding this one topic, I succeeded in being an otherwise utterly original and omniscient teen.)
Now that I'm older (and legitimately a bit better-informed), I'm still conscious of being "that female who always talks about being female," and I become concerned about ignoring equally pressing issues like race or poverty--but I'm less likely to let it stop me from talking. At this point I prefer to operate under the assumption that if I find something interesting, maybe other people will, too.
You can probably see where this is going.
Today GR showed me an article from The Atlantic entitled "Are TV Ads Getting More Sexist?" He and I have had several conversations over the last few years on the very topic of sexism and commercials, so the headline immediately interested both of us.
In the article, Presumed-Feminist and Man-Author Derek Thompson declares it his mission to uncover how sexism in advertising has "changed its tone in the last 50 years" in response to feminist action. He describes the "jaw-dropping" and "heinous" sexism present in commercials from the 1950s, and notes that things got better in the 1970s thanks to the woman's liberation movement. In fact, women and men are pretty much equals now. But in the last decade, Thompson sighs, we've backslid in terms of commercial representations. He cites 9/11 (which resulted in a "machoization of American culture") and the recent recession (which "emasculated" men by depriving them of their ability to support their families) as events that incited a recent upsurge of sexism in advertising.
Unlike racism, Thompson says, sexism in mainstream media can still be seen as funny, which goes a long way to explain why it's still abundant. He identifies two types of contemporary sexism--"Winking Sexism" and "Boomerang Sexism"--and provides a thoughtful and enlightening analysis for how current commercials use each to get away with funny-sexist advertising. Current ads, like Bud Light's "Yoga" commercial and Flo TV's "Spineless" commercial, are rightfully highlighted as some of the worst offenders. Finally, Thompson draws three conclusions: 1) advertisers knowingly utilize sexism, 2) commercials have become increasingly concerned with masculinity, 3) but still, it has gotten better since the 1950s (which makes sense, given that women have overcome "marginalization" and "achieved parity in the labor force" since then).
Thompson's article leaves a bad taste in my mouth--which is sad, because I believe that he's trying so hard to present a pro-feminist perspective. When so many male writers are busy complaining that video games have all but literally castrated millennial men (and that it's the worst crisis ever), I feel like I should be grateful that Thompson is tackling this subject at all, that he attends to how the media portrays women. But what I want is a real feminist attitude, not just a writer who knows how to use his feminist goggles. I've read a lot of articles by people like Thompson, who seem to be missing the critical point.
My red flag tends to go up at lines like this one:
"[Today's ads] are not the sexist ads of the 1950s. They don't portray women as second-class citizens, failures, or helpless victims of male superiority. Having lost the argument that women are incompetent, American advertising has had to settle on the argument that women are attractive. The latter point certainly stands up to scrutiny better than its alternative."
This statement is incredibly troubling to me, because the contemporary ads to which Thompson refers are ones that depict women as either sex objects or shallow, gibbering, shopaholics. They present women as brainless annoyances that wise, patient men learn to endure, like sexualized monks. Sure, we would no longer see a man berating a woman for making a bad sandwich in a commercial for Subway, but we do see a man bravely announcing that he will suffer through listening to his wife have a conversation with her friends (and will bear the brunt of whatever psychological damage ensues) in a commercial for Dodge.
Thompson wants us to believe that such commercials "don't portray women as second-class citizens." That they don't promote "male superiority." That they don't label women as "incompetent." Did we watch the same commercials? Is "being so insufferable that hearing us talk requires Herculean strength" somehow demonstrative of competence?
Thompson's halfway-feminist argument doesn't cut it. We shouldn't be calling it a "victory" that ads haven't gotten "more sexist." We should be demanding that commercials be devoid of sexism. We shouldn't be pointing out, as he does, that "more women than men [are] in the workforce" and use it as convincing evidence that women and men have "achieved parity." We should pay attention to the fact that only 18 of the 500 companies on the Fortune 500 list have female CEOs. It's not acceptable to acknowledge that sexism exists in advertising, as if in a vacuum, and deny that it exists anywhere else.
I don't want to be too hard on Thompson here. I welcome him as a fellow feminist-in-training and am glad that he's raising these issues. But even as articles like this one work to raise consciousness about sexism in the media, they subtly confirm the fallacy that real-life sexism has been vanquished--an illusion that, like my teenage belief in my own omniscience, is just as tantalizing as it is false.
Now that I'm older (and legitimately a bit better-informed), I'm still conscious of being "that female who always talks about being female," and I become concerned about ignoring equally pressing issues like race or poverty--but I'm less likely to let it stop me from talking. At this point I prefer to operate under the assumption that if I find something interesting, maybe other people will, too.
You can probably see where this is going.
Today GR showed me an article from The Atlantic entitled "Are TV Ads Getting More Sexist?" He and I have had several conversations over the last few years on the very topic of sexism and commercials, so the headline immediately interested both of us.
In the article, Presumed-Feminist and Man-Author Derek Thompson declares it his mission to uncover how sexism in advertising has "changed its tone in the last 50 years" in response to feminist action. He describes the "jaw-dropping" and "heinous" sexism present in commercials from the 1950s, and notes that things got better in the 1970s thanks to the woman's liberation movement. In fact, women and men are pretty much equals now. But in the last decade, Thompson sighs, we've backslid in terms of commercial representations. He cites 9/11 (which resulted in a "machoization of American culture") and the recent recession (which "emasculated" men by depriving them of their ability to support their families) as events that incited a recent upsurge of sexism in advertising.
Unlike racism, Thompson says, sexism in mainstream media can still be seen as funny, which goes a long way to explain why it's still abundant. He identifies two types of contemporary sexism--"Winking Sexism" and "Boomerang Sexism"--and provides a thoughtful and enlightening analysis for how current commercials use each to get away with funny-sexist advertising. Current ads, like Bud Light's "Yoga" commercial and Flo TV's "Spineless" commercial, are rightfully highlighted as some of the worst offenders. Finally, Thompson draws three conclusions: 1) advertisers knowingly utilize sexism, 2) commercials have become increasingly concerned with masculinity, 3) but still, it has gotten better since the 1950s (which makes sense, given that women have overcome "marginalization" and "achieved parity in the labor force" since then).
Thompson's article leaves a bad taste in my mouth--which is sad, because I believe that he's trying so hard to present a pro-feminist perspective. When so many male writers are busy complaining that video games have all but literally castrated millennial men (and that it's the worst crisis ever), I feel like I should be grateful that Thompson is tackling this subject at all, that he attends to how the media portrays women. But what I want is a real feminist attitude, not just a writer who knows how to use his feminist goggles. I've read a lot of articles by people like Thompson, who seem to be missing the critical point.
My red flag tends to go up at lines like this one:
"[Today's ads] are not the sexist ads of the 1950s. They don't portray women as second-class citizens, failures, or helpless victims of male superiority. Having lost the argument that women are incompetent, American advertising has had to settle on the argument that women are attractive. The latter point certainly stands up to scrutiny better than its alternative."
This statement is incredibly troubling to me, because the contemporary ads to which Thompson refers are ones that depict women as either sex objects or shallow, gibbering, shopaholics. They present women as brainless annoyances that wise, patient men learn to endure, like sexualized monks. Sure, we would no longer see a man berating a woman for making a bad sandwich in a commercial for Subway, but we do see a man bravely announcing that he will suffer through listening to his wife have a conversation with her friends (and will bear the brunt of whatever psychological damage ensues) in a commercial for Dodge.
Thompson wants us to believe that such commercials "don't portray women as second-class citizens." That they don't promote "male superiority." That they don't label women as "incompetent." Did we watch the same commercials? Is "being so insufferable that hearing us talk requires Herculean strength" somehow demonstrative of competence?
Thompson's halfway-feminist argument doesn't cut it. We shouldn't be calling it a "victory" that ads haven't gotten "more sexist." We should be demanding that commercials be devoid of sexism. We shouldn't be pointing out, as he does, that "more women than men [are] in the workforce" and use it as convincing evidence that women and men have "achieved parity." We should pay attention to the fact that only 18 of the 500 companies on the Fortune 500 list have female CEOs. It's not acceptable to acknowledge that sexism exists in advertising, as if in a vacuum, and deny that it exists anywhere else.
I don't want to be too hard on Thompson here. I welcome him as a fellow feminist-in-training and am glad that he's raising these issues. But even as articles like this one work to raise consciousness about sexism in the media, they subtly confirm the fallacy that real-life sexism has been vanquished--an illusion that, like my teenage belief in my own omniscience, is just as tantalizing as it is false.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
My life may not be something special, but it's never been lived before
For my seminar this semester on Issues and Methods in American Studies (hello, grad school), I'm currently reading The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age by Alan Trachtenberg. ...It's more interesting than it sounds.
The book's project (as far as I can tell) is to define how, between 1850 and 1890, America transformed into Uhmercuh! -- in other words, how as the U.S. became an "incorporated" nation, economically as well as culturally. Trachtenberg uses evidence from the Reconstruction/"Gilded Age" period to explain why, for example, we all still see ourselves as rugged individualists despite all evidence to the contrary. (Thomas Edison, anyone?) It is an attempt to trace the origins for our seemingly-divinely-endowed, more-or-less-homogenized sense of what it means to be American.
But the most interesting thing I discovered in this book so far came in third chapter, entitled "Capital and Labor." While introducing the relationship between the laboring classes and the ruling Economy in the mid- to late-1800s, Trachtenberg quotes Walt Whitman in 1869:
"'If the United States, like the countries of the Old World, are also to grow vast crops of poor, desperate, dissatisfied, nomadic, miserably-waged populations, such as we see looming upon us of late years--steadily, even if slowly, eating into them like a cancer of lungs or stomach--then our republican experiment, notwithstanding all its surface-successes, is at heart an unhealthy failure.'"
Well that rings a bell. As I read on, I began to stockpile pithy quotes that seemed to function as prophesy for 21st Century America's current wealth disparity problem. Here are some other choice excerpts that seemed, to me, to capture our current socioeconomic climate:
"Now, Whitman observed, the signs of 'exceptional wealth, splendor, countless manufacturers....' represented 'a sort of anti-democratic disease and monstrosity.' But for [those] on the rise... Was not the successful businessman the very model of a 'healthy and independent' America? The poor had no one to blame but themselves. Workers, on the other hand, tended to agree with Whitman."
"...Political battles and ideological campaigns in the Gilded Age took the appearance of struggles over the meaning of the word 'America.'"
"...The ideology of free labor that promised independence and mobility for all honest, diligent laborers had developed into a justification of big business, and further, an implied insult to the cultural status of manual laborers."
"And more and more, as the industrial working class took on a distinctly 'foreign' cast with heavy immigration... the wealthy came to seem a homogenous group: white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, and Republican. 'The men who were getting to the top,' writes Carl Degler, 'even in the 1870's--that alleged era of the self-made man--had not been poor farm boys or uneducated immigrant lads starting at the bottom, but instead men who had been given rather exceptional opportunities to make the race to the top.'"
"We have to reckon, then, with the fact and the perception of a widening class rift."
History sure does repeat itself. Upon reading this, my first instinct was to post Whitman's statements up on Facebook or my blog in a spirit of indignation. Aha! I would cry. The U.S. hasn't changed since the 1860s! The underclasses today are the same as the laborers of the Gilded Age! The fight against the wealth gap today is exactly the same as the fight against late-19th century robber barons! It's so simple! Vote Democrat.
Of course, I never would have posted such partisan material, being constitutionally wishy-washy. But then came another thought: Is this what it's like to be in the Tea Party?
I've been mentally criticizing the Tea Party for months now for their ridiculous, zealous insistence that their cause channels the divine republican purpose of the Founding Fathers. Aside from a similar knee-jerk hate of taxation, it seemed transparently clear to me that the Tea Party of today is so fundamentally different from 18th century leaders, if only for the basic (and extremely important) fact that we live in wildly different conditions. What it means to have taxes and the concept of the "common good" are completely different today, in the age of globalization, modern corporations, and American post-colonialism, than it did back when George Washington was, himself, representing some colonies. It's not the same. Tea Partiers are not Colonial Patriots. Any idiot could see that.
Such apples-and-oranges parallels, however, manage to suddenly appear not idiotic when I find them embedded in a historical notion that I find emotionally resonant. Of course members of the Tea Party aren't like Jefferson. But laboring classes struggling against the uber-wealthy in 1860? Why, it's just like today! Here, let me show you this quotation from Walt Whitman.
I'm not trying to defend the Tea Party here. But my perspective has changed, in that I will no longer view their emotional allegiance with the Founding Fathers a product of purely right-wing irrationality and stupidity. I myself now know what it's like to look at people from a substantially incomparable time period and exclaim, "Look, it's me!" As difficult as it is to consider those I disagree with as legitimate debate partners--or to consider the fact that my methods of rationalization and argument are just as fallible as theirs--it occurs to me again that I should, at the very least, try.
The book's project (as far as I can tell) is to define how, between 1850 and 1890, America transformed into Uhmercuh! -- in other words, how as the U.S. became an "incorporated" nation, economically as well as culturally. Trachtenberg uses evidence from the Reconstruction/"Gilded Age" period to explain why, for example, we all still see ourselves as rugged individualists despite all evidence to the contrary. (Thomas Edison, anyone?) It is an attempt to trace the origins for our seemingly-divinely-endowed, more-or-less-homogenized sense of what it means to be American.
But the most interesting thing I discovered in this book so far came in third chapter, entitled "Capital and Labor." While introducing the relationship between the laboring classes and the ruling Economy in the mid- to late-1800s, Trachtenberg quotes Walt Whitman in 1869:
"'If the United States, like the countries of the Old World, are also to grow vast crops of poor, desperate, dissatisfied, nomadic, miserably-waged populations, such as we see looming upon us of late years--steadily, even if slowly, eating into them like a cancer of lungs or stomach--then our republican experiment, notwithstanding all its surface-successes, is at heart an unhealthy failure.'"
Well that rings a bell. As I read on, I began to stockpile pithy quotes that seemed to function as prophesy for 21st Century America's current wealth disparity problem. Here are some other choice excerpts that seemed, to me, to capture our current socioeconomic climate:
"Now, Whitman observed, the signs of 'exceptional wealth, splendor, countless manufacturers....' represented 'a sort of anti-democratic disease and monstrosity.' But for [those] on the rise... Was not the successful businessman the very model of a 'healthy and independent' America? The poor had no one to blame but themselves. Workers, on the other hand, tended to agree with Whitman."
"...Political battles and ideological campaigns in the Gilded Age took the appearance of struggles over the meaning of the word 'America.'"
"...The ideology of free labor that promised independence and mobility for all honest, diligent laborers had developed into a justification of big business, and further, an implied insult to the cultural status of manual laborers."
"And more and more, as the industrial working class took on a distinctly 'foreign' cast with heavy immigration... the wealthy came to seem a homogenous group: white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, and Republican. 'The men who were getting to the top,' writes Carl Degler, 'even in the 1870's--that alleged era of the self-made man--had not been poor farm boys or uneducated immigrant lads starting at the bottom, but instead men who had been given rather exceptional opportunities to make the race to the top.'"
"We have to reckon, then, with the fact and the perception of a widening class rift."
History sure does repeat itself. Upon reading this, my first instinct was to post Whitman's statements up on Facebook or my blog in a spirit of indignation. Aha! I would cry. The U.S. hasn't changed since the 1860s! The underclasses today are the same as the laborers of the Gilded Age! The fight against the wealth gap today is exactly the same as the fight against late-19th century robber barons! It's so simple! Vote Democrat.
Of course, I never would have posted such partisan material, being constitutionally wishy-washy. But then came another thought: Is this what it's like to be in the Tea Party?
I've been mentally criticizing the Tea Party for months now for their ridiculous, zealous insistence that their cause channels the divine republican purpose of the Founding Fathers. Aside from a similar knee-jerk hate of taxation, it seemed transparently clear to me that the Tea Party of today is so fundamentally different from 18th century leaders, if only for the basic (and extremely important) fact that we live in wildly different conditions. What it means to have taxes and the concept of the "common good" are completely different today, in the age of globalization, modern corporations, and American post-colonialism, than it did back when George Washington was, himself, representing some colonies. It's not the same. Tea Partiers are not Colonial Patriots. Any idiot could see that.
Such apples-and-oranges parallels, however, manage to suddenly appear not idiotic when I find them embedded in a historical notion that I find emotionally resonant. Of course members of the Tea Party aren't like Jefferson. But laboring classes struggling against the uber-wealthy in 1860? Why, it's just like today! Here, let me show you this quotation from Walt Whitman.
I'm not trying to defend the Tea Party here. But my perspective has changed, in that I will no longer view their emotional allegiance with the Founding Fathers a product of purely right-wing irrationality and stupidity. I myself now know what it's like to look at people from a substantially incomparable time period and exclaim, "Look, it's me!" As difficult as it is to consider those I disagree with as legitimate debate partners--or to consider the fact that my methods of rationalization and argument are just as fallible as theirs--it occurs to me again that I should, at the very least, try.
Friday, September 23, 2011
I said, "If you don't come any closer I don't mind if you stay"
For me, opting to get a studio apartment when I moved to Boston seemed like a no-brainer decision. For one thing, no one I knew lived here, and as much as I loved the prospect of spinning the Craigslist lottery wheel and hoping that it didn't come up "rapist," I wasn't keen on the idea of having a stranger-roommate combo. The second major factor was moving. I'm sick of boxing up all of my possessions every 364 days. If I lived alone, I wouldn't be subject to a roomie's moving whims, and would automatically have the opportunity to (dare I dream it?) stay in one location for more than a year if I so choose.
The decision was so automatic and [weirdly enough, given that I was long-distance real-estate shopping] so painless, that I didn't stop to consider the fact that by living alone, I've entered into a whole new sociocultural group, complete with stereotypes.
For example: in 2007, a medical research organization decided that "living alone" was an alarming enough condition that they conducted a study for the purpose of discovering whether a middle-aged person, living alone, would die sooner than average. (Fortunately for my gender, only the men fulfilled the early mortality prophesy. In fact, single-living women were not only less likely to die, but also less likely to be obese or hypertensive.) Of course, the fact that this study occurred in the first place is telling. The researchers began their report by explaining that choosing to live alone, "especially in urban areas," is "considered a psychological risk factor" associated with "social isolation" and "emotional loneliness," and thus worth studying for its life-and-more-likely-death implications.
Thanks a lot, science.
To be fair, I've been in my apartment for less than a month, so my eyes are potentially still too fresh and rose-colored to judge. There's ample time for me to fall into various and sundry stereotypes, Thoreau-ian and Unabomer-ish alike. Yet I'm already feeling a little defensive on behalf of my kin. Thus far, I really like living alone. I like that the mail is always for me. I like not having to quarantine my food to "my half" of the cabinets and refrigerator. While I'm not keen on taking the full hit on the utility bills, I'm comforted in knowing that I am personally responsible for every cent of electricity that I'm obliged to pay for. (Is this what it felt like to be an only child?)
As for feeling "socially isolated" or "emotionally alone," I have yet to feel either -- partially due to the fact that I'm contractually obliged to converse at length with my grad school classmates on a regular basis; partially due to the fact that I am, after all, making friends; and partially due to the fact that Skype keeps people even 1,000 miles distant from forgetting what I look like. Having had several roommates over the years, I'm loath to accept that having another person proximal to my bedroom would somehow increase my chances of Being an Objectively Successful Human over the next few years.
...
On the other hand, you should probably come talk to me again after I find the first spider or cockroach in my apartment. Without a roomie to kill it, there's at least at 45% chance that I'll surrender territory and take up residence in the hallway.
The decision was so automatic and [weirdly enough, given that I was long-distance real-estate shopping] so painless, that I didn't stop to consider the fact that by living alone, I've entered into a whole new sociocultural group, complete with stereotypes.
For example: in 2007, a medical research organization decided that "living alone" was an alarming enough condition that they conducted a study for the purpose of discovering whether a middle-aged person, living alone, would die sooner than average. (Fortunately for my gender, only the men fulfilled the early mortality prophesy. In fact, single-living women were not only less likely to die, but also less likely to be obese or hypertensive.) Of course, the fact that this study occurred in the first place is telling. The researchers began their report by explaining that choosing to live alone, "especially in urban areas," is "considered a psychological risk factor" associated with "social isolation" and "emotional loneliness," and thus worth studying for its life-and-more-likely-death implications.
Thanks a lot, science.
To be fair, I've been in my apartment for less than a month, so my eyes are potentially still too fresh and rose-colored to judge. There's ample time for me to fall into various and sundry stereotypes, Thoreau-ian and Unabomer-ish alike. Yet I'm already feeling a little defensive on behalf of my kin. Thus far, I really like living alone. I like that the mail is always for me. I like not having to quarantine my food to "my half" of the cabinets and refrigerator. While I'm not keen on taking the full hit on the utility bills, I'm comforted in knowing that I am personally responsible for every cent of electricity that I'm obliged to pay for. (Is this what it felt like to be an only child?)
As for feeling "socially isolated" or "emotionally alone," I have yet to feel either -- partially due to the fact that I'm contractually obliged to converse at length with my grad school classmates on a regular basis; partially due to the fact that I am, after all, making friends; and partially due to the fact that Skype keeps people even 1,000 miles distant from forgetting what I look like. Having had several roommates over the years, I'm loath to accept that having another person proximal to my bedroom would somehow increase my chances of Being an Objectively Successful Human over the next few years.
...
On the other hand, you should probably come talk to me again after I find the first spider or cockroach in my apartment. Without a roomie to kill it, there's at least at 45% chance that I'll surrender territory and take up residence in the hallway.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
What is life but reckoning
It's a weird thought that ten years have passed since something occurred which I can remember with clarity and cognizance. I'm still young, which means that something that happened five years ago still qualifies as "kind of a long time" in my personal history. Ten years seems like a very long time to me, and so the fact that I can knowingly mark the 10th anniversary of something is significant in its own right, apart from any significance of the event itself.
In terms of September 11th, my youngness is revealing in another (though related) way. Yes, I can remember 9/11. I can tell you where I was, what I was doing, what I thought, and what pieces of footage I saw on TV as various events unfolded in real time. I was 13, and as such wasn't a complete nincompoop. I remember 9/11.
At 13, however, and no matter how precocious I was or thought myself to be, I didn't understand September 11th. Illustratively, here's an excerpt from my diary on that day (it should be noted that I didn't actually keep a diary. I only wrote entries on days where I thought something inordinately significant happened, and so literally the only entries in that diary are from 9/11 and the day of my first kiss):
"[...] During gym class was when I found out. My friend Suzie came up to me and asked if I had heard about the Pentagon while we were in the locker room. Then, during gym itself, Mrs. Furlan told us about everything. Unlike usual, everyone was very quiet. [...] It's hard to believe that just this morning the biggest news that filled the televisions was that Michael Jordan was playing basketball again for the Wizards. [...] The news says that this was a terrorist act, possibly by Afghanistan. There are no planes in the sky; it's a little strange. I noticed that people are taking this differently: some laughing, some mourning, some just act like it's not happening and talk about something else. Some look it full in the face and discuss it. [...] We just heard the President speak about retaliation. This is all very frightening. People talking about war. I thought that maybe in my life I wouldn't have to live through a war. Now I'm not so sure."
My diary entry communicates with pretty much total accuracy what I was feeling that day. Which is to say: not much. I understood that what happened was a tragedy in the same, emotionally distant way that I understood the Holocaust to be a tragedy. I understood that it was horrific, historically important, grave, consequential, and that it would undoubtedly have ramifications into the future. I remember writing in my diary and simply trying to record my experiences because I thought I would find them interesting or significant at a later time. I mentally attempted to accept how big of a historical event had just occurred. But I didn't feel much.
I remember thinking that a building collapsing to the ground was a huge and terrible disaster, but for whatever reason (and I'm thinking the reason was "being a child") I didn't think of the people -- the firefighters being asked to climb up 96 flights of stairs, the debilitating panic of the office workers nearby, how horrific it must have been to have 65 floors worth of skyscraper crashing down on you as your last moments on earth. That kind of terrific empathy was, frankly, well beyond my capacities as a 13 year old and is still something I doubt I completely grasp.
And so it's been over the last ten years that I've slowly, gradually started to absorb the actual tragedy that was September 11th. It's not an easy task. The words September 11th, tragedy, patriotism, hero, and particularly terror have become so exhausted in the lexicon to pretty much lose all meaning. Complicating matters is that fact that, in the venture of gaining information, you have to be an intelligent consumer, discerning between emotional tributes and tawdry displays, between meaningful investigation and careless bandwagoning.
Particularly in the last couple weeks, the media has been completely saturated with "tributes," "memorials," and "dedications" to 9/11, as well as several spoonfuls of analyses over whether or not there are too many tributes in the media. Now that it's been a full decade since 9/11, it's even harder to figure out what's in good taste and faith.
I agree, overall, that there's an almost garish amount of 9/11 retrospective leading up to the 10th anniversary. But as someone who is still attempting to emotionally comprehend an incident that I was too young to take in at the time, I've been cautiously touched by and thankful for the impassioned journalism. It's a dubious decision to unearth footage of terror and fear. But today I'm a 23 year old with a brain and a desire for cultural meaning, and I feel like it's right for me to re-experience the event and empathize with my country like I couldn't a decade ago.
In terms of September 11th, my youngness is revealing in another (though related) way. Yes, I can remember 9/11. I can tell you where I was, what I was doing, what I thought, and what pieces of footage I saw on TV as various events unfolded in real time. I was 13, and as such wasn't a complete nincompoop. I remember 9/11.
At 13, however, and no matter how precocious I was or thought myself to be, I didn't understand September 11th. Illustratively, here's an excerpt from my diary on that day (it should be noted that I didn't actually keep a diary. I only wrote entries on days where I thought something inordinately significant happened, and so literally the only entries in that diary are from 9/11 and the day of my first kiss):
"[...] During gym class was when I found out. My friend Suzie came up to me and asked if I had heard about the Pentagon while we were in the locker room. Then, during gym itself, Mrs. Furlan told us about everything. Unlike usual, everyone was very quiet. [...] It's hard to believe that just this morning the biggest news that filled the televisions was that Michael Jordan was playing basketball again for the Wizards. [...] The news says that this was a terrorist act, possibly by Afghanistan. There are no planes in the sky; it's a little strange. I noticed that people are taking this differently: some laughing, some mourning, some just act like it's not happening and talk about something else. Some look it full in the face and discuss it. [...] We just heard the President speak about retaliation. This is all very frightening. People talking about war. I thought that maybe in my life I wouldn't have to live through a war. Now I'm not so sure."
My diary entry communicates with pretty much total accuracy what I was feeling that day. Which is to say: not much. I understood that what happened was a tragedy in the same, emotionally distant way that I understood the Holocaust to be a tragedy. I understood that it was horrific, historically important, grave, consequential, and that it would undoubtedly have ramifications into the future. I remember writing in my diary and simply trying to record my experiences because I thought I would find them interesting or significant at a later time. I mentally attempted to accept how big of a historical event had just occurred. But I didn't feel much.
I remember thinking that a building collapsing to the ground was a huge and terrible disaster, but for whatever reason (and I'm thinking the reason was "being a child") I didn't think of the people -- the firefighters being asked to climb up 96 flights of stairs, the debilitating panic of the office workers nearby, how horrific it must have been to have 65 floors worth of skyscraper crashing down on you as your last moments on earth. That kind of terrific empathy was, frankly, well beyond my capacities as a 13 year old and is still something I doubt I completely grasp.
And so it's been over the last ten years that I've slowly, gradually started to absorb the actual tragedy that was September 11th. It's not an easy task. The words September 11th, tragedy, patriotism, hero, and particularly terror have become so exhausted in the lexicon to pretty much lose all meaning. Complicating matters is that fact that, in the venture of gaining information, you have to be an intelligent consumer, discerning between emotional tributes and tawdry displays, between meaningful investigation and careless bandwagoning.
Particularly in the last couple weeks, the media has been completely saturated with "tributes," "memorials," and "dedications" to 9/11, as well as several spoonfuls of analyses over whether or not there are too many tributes in the media. Now that it's been a full decade since 9/11, it's even harder to figure out what's in good taste and faith.
I agree, overall, that there's an almost garish amount of 9/11 retrospective leading up to the 10th anniversary. But as someone who is still attempting to emotionally comprehend an incident that I was too young to take in at the time, I've been cautiously touched by and thankful for the impassioned journalism. It's a dubious decision to unearth footage of terror and fear. But today I'm a 23 year old with a brain and a desire for cultural meaning, and I feel like it's right for me to re-experience the event and empathize with my country like I couldn't a decade ago.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Adventures in solitude
I'm in Boston. 1,007 miles, 3 Great Lakes, and 1 laughably eroded mountain range now separate me from Chicago. Everything I own on this planet, as it turns out, fits into a 5x8 U-Haul truck plus a few cubic feet of Aztek trunk space. Campus is beautiful. Every building looks the same, which is great for aesthetics and cohesion but terrible for my ability to successfully navigate campus. My apartment is also beautiful. The walls are serendipitously already painted colors that match my furniture and linens perfectly. Moving in took less time than I thought it would. I never think that I have too many books until I have to move. Now that I'm all moved in, I've already decided that I could use more books. Boston drivers honk as often as geese and just as randomly. The nearby interstate allows motorists to drive on the shoulder during morning and evening rush hours, which looks weird and feels weirder. Everyone I've met has been unusually friendly, including random townies. I touch-up painted the walls in my apartment when I was bored and without internet, which made me feel hyperbolically competent in DIY house repair. I prefer playing my Gilmore Girls DVDs in the background while I putz around, rather than music. I stocked a bare-shelved kitchen with 100% of the foodstuffs I need to survive for roughly $170. I don't feel lonely yet and I think it'll be a while until I do. I do miss my seester, my parents, my friends, and my GR. I was slightly embarrassed this morning when the Comcast guy came to install my internet and my bed was still unmade with a teddy bear splayed on my blankets. I'm ahead in the reading for my classes but feel like I should be more ahead. The T is harder to figure out than the L. I haven't actually been to downtown Boston yet, but I have finally memorized my zip code. Very few people I've talked to so far have had a Boston accent. I'm curious to find out if anyone ever thinks I have a Chicago accent. My picture in my new student ID is surprisingly flattering. My first class is on Thursday.
Let the games begin.
Let the games begin.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Now the buildings aren't so tall
Dear Future Resident of My Apartment,
Congratulations on your new digs! And congratulations also on your move to the Big City. How do I know you’re new to Chicago? Frankly, if you lived in this city before, you would know that you could’ve done better. Over the course of the year, you will meet dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people with nicer, cheaper apartments that you will subsequently secretly covet. But hey, your signature is on the lease and it’s not coming off, so let’s focus on the positives.
Actually, no, there are a few more negatives we need to cover first. I’m sure the rental agency (rich in moral fiber and cognizant of your expectation to be told “all the important things”) disclosed these issues already, but we might as well go over them again:
The locks for the exterior doors freeze in the winter, making it impossible to enter the premises without some B&E tactics; the weird barbell shape of the apartment means that there’s no logical place to install a window air conditioner, so you might as well not bother; the alley out back seems to be a particularly attractive urination spot for the local homeless; the landlady will never send a professional for maintenance issues, but will instead commission various “handy” family members, and even then only for dire repairs; no matter how good or responsible of a tenet you are, the landlady will still speak to you at all times as if you were a child and/or felon. Also cockroaches. There are cockroaches sometimes.
Okay. Now on to the positives.
1. Being within 30 feet of an L stop is actually as awesome as it seems—although it has the effect of making all of your friends’ apartments seem painfully far away from their respective stations (“You’re three blocks away?! How do you stand it?!”).
2. Being a stone’s-throw away from the lakefront is similarly awesome. Aside from summer beaching possibilities, you’ll never be forced to run or bike on exhaust-filled streets, navigating around slow-walking pedestrians or risking death-by-suddenly-opened-car-door. The worst you’ll encounter on the lakefront trail are hardcore runners or cyclists who will (in my mind, arrogantly) zoom past you as you plod along in your average athleticism.
3. The spacious, elongated design of the apartment is perfect for 1) having too much furniture, and 2) pretending you live alone. If your roommate is in the living room, you could visit your bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen before heading out the back door without ever seeing his/her ugly mug. I imagine it’s also great for hide-and-seek, although we never used it for this purpose.
4. I don't know about you, Future Resident, but hardwood floors make me feel classy. Also, I never determined the purpose of that tiny, tiled room attached to the living room, but it sure has a nice view.
5. There are four coffee shops, a theatre, a beach, two occult/mystic shops, a Walgreens, a 7-Eleven, and 12 restaurants (two Mexican, two Thai, one Japanese, two Chinese, two pizza, one Italian, one Indian, and one pub) within a 5-minute walking distance.
Of course, Future Resident, there's an extent to which none of this matters. When I look back on this past year, my apartment itself doesn't loom large in my memories. As MTV's The Real World has been teaching us since 1992 (seriously, 1992. Look it up.), it's not your physical environment, but the people who surround you that give your life color and vim (and lots of drama and some obligatory racism, if TRW is our measuring stick). You'll undoubtedly enjoy your life in this apartment more if, for example, you manage to score an eerily compatible sister-roommate, a boyfriend living along your L line, and friends from Gold Coast to Hyde Park to Logan Square who are willing to hang out with you at the drop of a hat.
Good luck and godspeed, Future Resident. And seriously, keep an eye out for those cockroaches.
<3 Linda
-------------
Cathi: I gave $20 to Planned Parenthood today.
Me: Good for you. I see their volunteers in Evanston a lot.
Cathi: Yeah, I mean, there's always a bunch of people out there asking for money, but this one was the first one that really caught my interest...
[... long pause...]
I'm not sure what that says about Save the Children.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Because the finish line is a shifty thing
Am I the only person who thinks that "gourmet cupcakes" don't look any more or less appetizing than the ones they sell at Jewel?
So, it was several years ago, in the first psychology class I ever took during my senior year of high school, that I learned about Rotter’s theory of Locus of Control. I still remember the theory to this day, despite the fact that it wasn’t touched on much, if at all, in my subsequent psych courses. (This isn’t a testament to the earth-shatteringness of the theory, but rather a product of my high school test preparation tactics. While studying for the final exam that year, I used the mnemonic device of rotting and locusts to remember Rotter and locus—creating a mental picture gross enough that it stuck with me ever since.)
Anyway. “Locus of control” is all about whether you believe that you have full control over your life, actions, and environment (internal locus), or if you are powerless like Odysseus in your non-epic life (external locus). Rotter theorized that everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum between the two. Like most spectrum-oriented theories, there are pros and cons of living at either side—e.g., people with high internal loci are prone to being extremely motivated but also jerks; people with high external loci are prone to being laid-back but also clinically depressed.
The underlying assumption here is we’re all control freaks. Where we place our sense of control shapes our personalities.
Supporting this idea: when you look across the wide world of abnormal psychology, control ranks just under "my mother" as the hottest topic in mental problems; it factors into OCD (the need to control everything), depression (the feeling of lost control), dependence (never having control), anxiety and paranoia (the worry of losing or having lost control). Eating disorders are often explained as a displaced control issue. Control is apparently kind of a big deal to our brains.
(And the point is…?)
I’ve been following the news, and thus I’ve been inevitably flooded with stories about the political flailing surrounding raising the debt ceiling. It seems like everyone is frustrated and annoyed by it… with the exception of the people in charge, who might be annoyed, but are presumably more annoyed by things like The Super Evil Other Political Side Maybe Winning Kind Of.
If I’m frustrated, I like knowing why, and I suspect it has to do with control. I, like many people, desire control the most when it comes to important decisions, and the fact that I’m forced to passively observe weeks of bureaucratic inanity on such a significant issue understandably invokes a palm-twitchy, punch-a-congressperson level of annoyance in my brain.
You can’t help but feel like if you had control, you would behave more responsibly (and by "responsibly," I'm invoking the kind of cognitive sense that keeps most of us, after the age of 11, from playing chicken on the railroad tracks).
So, it was several years ago, in the first psychology class I ever took during my senior year of high school, that I learned about Rotter’s theory of Locus of Control. I still remember the theory to this day, despite the fact that it wasn’t touched on much, if at all, in my subsequent psych courses. (This isn’t a testament to the earth-shatteringness of the theory, but rather a product of my high school test preparation tactics. While studying for the final exam that year, I used the mnemonic device of rotting and locusts to remember Rotter and locus—creating a mental picture gross enough that it stuck with me ever since.)
Anyway. “Locus of control” is all about whether you believe that you have full control over your life, actions, and environment (internal locus), or if you are powerless like Odysseus in your non-epic life (external locus). Rotter theorized that everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum between the two. Like most spectrum-oriented theories, there are pros and cons of living at either side—e.g., people with high internal loci are prone to being extremely motivated but also jerks; people with high external loci are prone to being laid-back but also clinically depressed.
The underlying assumption here is we’re all control freaks. Where we place our sense of control shapes our personalities.
Supporting this idea: when you look across the wide world of abnormal psychology, control ranks just under "my mother" as the hottest topic in mental problems; it factors into OCD (the need to control everything), depression (the feeling of lost control), dependence (never having control), anxiety and paranoia (the worry of losing or having lost control). Eating disorders are often explained as a displaced control issue. Control is apparently kind of a big deal to our brains.
(And the point is…?)
I’ve been following the news, and thus I’ve been inevitably flooded with stories about the political flailing surrounding raising the debt ceiling. It seems like everyone is frustrated and annoyed by it… with the exception of the people in charge, who might be annoyed, but are presumably more annoyed by things like The Super Evil Other Political Side Maybe Winning Kind Of.
If I’m frustrated, I like knowing why, and I suspect it has to do with control. I, like many people, desire control the most when it comes to important decisions, and the fact that I’m forced to passively observe weeks of bureaucratic inanity on such a significant issue understandably invokes a palm-twitchy, punch-a-congressperson level of annoyance in my brain.
You can’t help but feel like if you had control, you would behave more responsibly (and by "responsibly," I'm invoking the kind of cognitive sense that keeps most of us, after the age of 11, from playing chicken on the railroad tracks).
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
And I'm not proud that nothing will seem easy about me
There's a book of collected stories and essays called Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (who is evidently pretty famous among readers in the other Americas). I own it. It's spent the last three years on my bookshelf, silently making fun of me for the fact that I bought it as part of the syllabus for a sophomore college English class, during which I read two of the stories, and after which I never picked it up again. I finally shut it up a few weeks ago by reading the rest of it.
Labyrinths is a weird, smart book, but one of coolest things about it, in my opinion, is the fact that JLB's writing is unarguably hard while also remaining interesting. Borges is clearly way smarter and more conceptually creative than I could ever hope to be, but as I read his stories he allows me, if I pay enough attention, to follow his breadcrumb trail of thought far enough that I die of exposure a mere 5 feet before the destination. (I'm never quite sure I understand what he's saying, but I know that I appreciate him having said it.) I feel like if Borges wanted to--if he was more interested in showing off his Smart and less interested in sharing his wildly interesting thoughts--he could have just as easily eaten the crumbs himself and left me, the reader, prostrate in the wilderness before I had a chance to follow him a step.
This immediately made me think of how seldom students (particularly English students) tend to admit that anything they read is difficult. Difficulty is a quality that's typically only mentioned if it's being manipulatively used as a tool to make said student seem smarter. ("Why indeed, scholars posit that Ulysses by Joyce is one of the densest novels in English literature, which is why I've read it merely five times rather than my typical nine, hem hem.")
Which is a shame, because "difficulty"--like, you know, most things--is a pretty multifaceted concept, one that has way more and better uses than name-dropping. Figuring out what makes a book seem difficult (or not) to you (and why) helps you learn what kind of books you're more likely to enjoy or appreciate. Considering your preferences in regards to difficulty makes you a more thoughtful reader, and you'll be better equipped to defend yourself from that annoying idea that anything that's been blanket-deemed "difficult" is worth your time.
Even if you decide that, for whatever reason(s), you prefer to spend your time reading romance novels, the fact that you put sufficient analytical thought into your decision will still make you appear strategically smart at a cocktail party.
That's what literature is good for, right?
Labyrinths is a weird, smart book, but one of coolest things about it, in my opinion, is the fact that JLB's writing is unarguably hard while also remaining interesting. Borges is clearly way smarter and more conceptually creative than I could ever hope to be, but as I read his stories he allows me, if I pay enough attention, to follow his breadcrumb trail of thought far enough that I die of exposure a mere 5 feet before the destination. (I'm never quite sure I understand what he's saying, but I know that I appreciate him having said it.) I feel like if Borges wanted to--if he was more interested in showing off his Smart and less interested in sharing his wildly interesting thoughts--he could have just as easily eaten the crumbs himself and left me, the reader, prostrate in the wilderness before I had a chance to follow him a step.
This immediately made me think of how seldom students (particularly English students) tend to admit that anything they read is difficult. Difficulty is a quality that's typically only mentioned if it's being manipulatively used as a tool to make said student seem smarter. ("Why indeed, scholars posit that Ulysses by Joyce is one of the densest novels in English literature, which is why I've read it merely five times rather than my typical nine, hem hem.")
Which is a shame, because "difficulty"--like, you know, most things--is a pretty multifaceted concept, one that has way more and better uses than name-dropping. Figuring out what makes a book seem difficult (or not) to you (and why) helps you learn what kind of books you're more likely to enjoy or appreciate. Considering your preferences in regards to difficulty makes you a more thoughtful reader, and you'll be better equipped to defend yourself from that annoying idea that anything that's been blanket-deemed "difficult" is worth your time.
Even if you decide that, for whatever reason(s), you prefer to spend your time reading romance novels, the fact that you put sufficient analytical thought into your decision will still make you appear strategically smart at a cocktail party.
That's what literature is good for, right?
Saturday, June 11, 2011
A gap you can't see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes not sound
"But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again."
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
But be careful getting coffee. I think these people want to shoot us.
I'm close enough to moving to Boston that I feel like I can almost literally see a scrolling number marquee counting down the seconds until BC-Day. It's a pretty dramatic piece of mental imagery, that scrolling marquee. It's a tense symbol, the exact opposite of, say, a rainbow or an open road. I suspect that people who are or were seasoned movers (like military brats or, I dunno, buffalo herders) would scoff at the stressed, borderline-funereal seriousness with which I'm mentally treating my half-cross-country move. But as someone who has never really left her bubble, even exciting educational prospects and a generally sunny attitude aren't quite enough to keep my gut from feeling anxious and bummed at the prospect of relocating.
It's not helping that I still can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that exactly two months from now, I'll be giving up my citizenship to Chicago, and in three months, Illinois. Three months, then five years. Five years. 2016.
*clucking chicken*
...
Moving on.
After having lived in The City now for about a year (and I do love living here), I feel like I now have tentative claim to join that ultra-cool, swaggering, sunglasses-wearing, chic-dressing, CTA-Pass-wielding clique of Urban Dwellers. See my nose, up there among the skyscrapers? I know what it's like to be bored on the L. I've been to beaches other than North Avenue. I know the names of a fair number of neighborhoods, and their associated demographic profiles. I don't gawk at the skyline. (That's a lie. I do. Anyone who doesn't is soulless. Or blind.)
Interestingly, after having gained this knowledge--the knowledge that distinguishes a City Mouse from a Country Mouse--I feel like, for the most part, I've simply graduated from Crotchety School. The City-specific lessons that a City has to teach you are, I've found, not character-building, but rather like a medically applied leech to your empathy center. Illustratively, living in The City has taught me:
Just kidding. Sort of. Go Cubs.
It's not helping that I still can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that exactly two months from now, I'll be giving up my citizenship to Chicago, and in three months, Illinois. Three months, then five years. Five years. 2016.
*clucking chicken*
...
Moving on.
After having lived in The City now for about a year (and I do love living here), I feel like I now have tentative claim to join that ultra-cool, swaggering, sunglasses-wearing, chic-dressing, CTA-Pass-wielding clique of Urban Dwellers. See my nose, up there among the skyscrapers? I know what it's like to be bored on the L. I've been to beaches other than North Avenue. I know the names of a fair number of neighborhoods, and their associated demographic profiles. I don't gawk at the skyline. (That's a lie. I do. Anyone who doesn't is soulless. Or blind.)
Interestingly, after having gained this knowledge--the knowledge that distinguishes a City Mouse from a Country Mouse--I feel like, for the most part, I've simply graduated from Crotchety School. The City-specific lessons that a City has to teach you are, I've found, not character-building, but rather like a medically applied leech to your empathy center. Illustratively, living in The City has taught me:
- not to make eye contact. With anyone. Ever.
- that it is never inappropriate to honk, loudly and often, no matter how early the hour, how domestic the neighborhood, or how temporary the obstruction
- that unfamiliar people who approach you are probably mentally disabled, in need of money, and are best avoided
- that my car can never be parked in the same place for more than a week or something [expensive and perhaps boot-like] will happen to it
- that everyone else drives too slowly and are clearly ignorant, befuddled tourists
- that everyone else drives far too fast and are clearly impatient maniacs
Just kidding. Sort of. Go Cubs.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Listening to the suits talk about their world
Someday I'll write a short, lighthearted post again.
Several weeks ago, Newsweek ran a cover story entitled “The Beached White Male.” As the aquati-dramatic headline suggests, the feature article focused on how the recent recession has plighted middle-aged, college-educated white males in America (…a.k.a. “The Man”).
The article could frustrate anyone who’s ever heard of homeless people. The story follows the post-2008 lives of a handful of formerly-Trumpesque businessmen. The men’s three biggest complaints are 1) they feel too ashamed to tell their still-credit-card-freewheeling wives that they’re unemployed, 2) they’re now struggling to afford their 9,000 square foot homes, and 3) their sex drives have been negatively affected due to feelings of lost masculinity.
Ninety-nine problems, man. Admittedly, “The Already-Impoverished-Prior-to-2008 Single Mother” is a considerably less snazzy tag line.
Still, I don’t want to aim my Mockery Death Ray at The Beached Man himself. All of us are psychologically wired to base our notion of what’s fair or tragic on our own experiences, our lives and immediate peer group—not on, say, sub-Saharan orphans. It’s unnatural to experience a significant blow, comparable to your own personal experiences, and feel unaffected, thinking, “Well, at least I’m not a starving amputee.” For the washed-up businessmen featured in the article, the unexpected deprivation of their Fortune-500 lives must feel at least as tragic and soul-crushing as, for example, failing a semester of college would have seemed to my own privileged, White Girl brain. Tragedy is in the eye of the beholder.
The more deserving target of the Death Ray, rather, is Newsweek itself, who, with their journalistic obligation to reporting Important Things, decided that this story was cover-material, over and above… anything else, frankly.
But I still don’t want to be too hasty. Perhaps the story about the plight of the impoverished Latina woman went out in 2009, and now Newsweek is scraping the barrel for new martyrs to feature.
To find out, I decided to turn to hard-hitting investigative journalistic techniques (and by that I mean, searching for “recession” in newsweek.com’s online archives and seeing what popped up). After browsing roughly 1,500 titles, what I found was that, since October 2008, Newsweek has published one or more lengthy (at least 3 pages on newsweek.com) articles on how the recession has affected the following specific American demographics* (listed in order of frequency, starting with the most frequent):
You could argue that "Poor People: Still Poor" isn't cover-story news. Or that Newsweek is catering to their primary readerly demographic -- they want to write articles that will interest their generally white male readers, and an article entitled “I Know You Think Things Are Rough But People Who Don’t Have White Skin or Prostates Generally Still Have It Worse Than You” probably isn’t going to do the trick. “The Beached White Male,” on the other hand, not only interests their readership, but garners extra publicity by all the controversy it generates among its non-white, non-male non-readers.
Still, I can’t help but think of my Psychology of Racism class, where one of the more pointed lessons was that, in order for systems of privilege to be upended, those in the position of power need to get educated about the disenfranchisement of others. Newsweek, given their readership statistics, has the ear of The Man. And what do they do with it? Convince The Man that he’s the disenfranchised one. Someone deserves a Pulitzer.
---
* This means I utterly ignored all articles that were about “Americans” in general, global (rather than American) concerns, Obama, and any stories focusing on the reasons behind the downfall of the market. Obviously, these topics comprised a fair portion of the article-age.
** I quickly found that titles can be misleading when you’re on a hunt for diversity. There was one article entitled “The Color of Money,” which turned out to be a profile of a deceased artist. Another called “Poverty Hurts,” about how new college grads will have a hard time finding a job. Another called “A Room of One’s Own,” about space issues on airplanes.
Several weeks ago, Newsweek ran a cover story entitled “The Beached White Male.” As the aquati-dramatic headline suggests, the feature article focused on how the recent recession has plighted middle-aged, college-educated white males in America (…a.k.a. “The Man”).
The article could frustrate anyone who’s ever heard of homeless people. The story follows the post-2008 lives of a handful of formerly-Trumpesque businessmen. The men’s three biggest complaints are 1) they feel too ashamed to tell their still-credit-card-freewheeling wives that they’re unemployed, 2) they’re now struggling to afford their 9,000 square foot homes, and 3) their sex drives have been negatively affected due to feelings of lost masculinity.
Ninety-nine problems, man. Admittedly, “The Already-Impoverished-Prior-to-2008 Single Mother” is a considerably less snazzy tag line.
Still, I don’t want to aim my Mockery Death Ray at The Beached Man himself. All of us are psychologically wired to base our notion of what’s fair or tragic on our own experiences, our lives and immediate peer group—not on, say, sub-Saharan orphans. It’s unnatural to experience a significant blow, comparable to your own personal experiences, and feel unaffected, thinking, “Well, at least I’m not a starving amputee.” For the washed-up businessmen featured in the article, the unexpected deprivation of their Fortune-500 lives must feel at least as tragic and soul-crushing as, for example, failing a semester of college would have seemed to my own privileged, White Girl brain. Tragedy is in the eye of the beholder.
The more deserving target of the Death Ray, rather, is Newsweek itself, who, with their journalistic obligation to reporting Important Things, decided that this story was cover-material, over and above… anything else, frankly.
But I still don’t want to be too hasty. Perhaps the story about the plight of the impoverished Latina woman went out in 2009, and now Newsweek is scraping the barrel for new martyrs to feature.
To find out, I decided to turn to hard-hitting investigative journalistic techniques (and by that I mean, searching for “recession” in newsweek.com’s online archives and seeing what popped up). After browsing roughly 1,500 titles, what I found was that, since October 2008, Newsweek has published one or more lengthy (at least 3 pages on newsweek.com) articles on how the recession has affected the following specific American demographics* (listed in order of frequency, starting with the most frequent):
menFurther, Newsweek writers are prone to calling the 2008 recession the “mancession,” and they’ve dedicated several short articles to how the recession was actually good for women, as more of them have been forced to work when their mancessed husbands lose their jobs. I managed to find one women-authored article arguing against that idea, but I found literally not one article focusing on the specific effect the recession had on the most famously disenfranchised populations in the U.S. (e.g., people of color, the working poor, the homeless, single moms, etc.).
college students/new graduates
Baby Boomers
the West Coast
rich people
the Midwest
white men
small businesses**
You could argue that "Poor People: Still Poor" isn't cover-story news. Or that Newsweek is catering to their primary readerly demographic -- they want to write articles that will interest their generally white male readers, and an article entitled “I Know You Think Things Are Rough But People Who Don’t Have White Skin or Prostates Generally Still Have It Worse Than You” probably isn’t going to do the trick. “The Beached White Male,” on the other hand, not only interests their readership, but garners extra publicity by all the controversy it generates among its non-white, non-male non-readers.
Still, I can’t help but think of my Psychology of Racism class, where one of the more pointed lessons was that, in order for systems of privilege to be upended, those in the position of power need to get educated about the disenfranchisement of others. Newsweek, given their readership statistics, has the ear of The Man. And what do they do with it? Convince The Man that he’s the disenfranchised one. Someone deserves a Pulitzer.
---
* This means I utterly ignored all articles that were about “Americans” in general, global (rather than American) concerns, Obama, and any stories focusing on the reasons behind the downfall of the market. Obviously, these topics comprised a fair portion of the article-age.
** I quickly found that titles can be misleading when you’re on a hunt for diversity. There was one article entitled “The Color of Money,” which turned out to be a profile of a deceased artist. Another called “Poverty Hurts,” about how new college grads will have a hard time finding a job. Another called “A Room of One’s Own,” about space issues on airplanes.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Now let me at the truth which will refresh my broken mind
So, it’s been over a week since the president announced Osama bin Laden’s ambush and death. Now that the media climate is slightly less rank with the musk of Post-Osama Retrospective, I feel okay talking about it myself.
Several things surprised me about the whole, messy ordeal. I’m surprised it happened, frankly. I’m surprised it happened in Pakistan. I’m surprised that the operation was kept so successfully under wraps for so long. (As Garrett noted, for however worried anyone was or is about WikiLeaks, clearly some secrets are still secreting successfully.)
And perhaps as a result of my Americanism, naiveté, or simple bemusement over anything that seems a little ridiculously “meta,” I was also surprised by the overall strong reaction to the overall strong reaction that Americans had to the news.
Intellectually, I can appreciate why various people, both in our own country and around the world, were a little taken aback by what appeared to be unrestrained, patriotically-flavored glee at the announcement of bin Laden’s death. The mood, particularly in New York and D.C., was reminiscent of the Munchkin parade after the house-crushing of the Wicked Witch of the East. Which might not seem so unreasonable until you remember that bin Laden was a pretty serious political and quasi-religious figure, and the Wizard of Oz is a kid’s movie.
On the other hand: September 11th was a day that resulted in an explosion of shock, grief, fear, and rage, and since then there has never been an event that's offered a counterbalance of needed, conciliatory relief. Since 2001, there has only been a slow, plodding progression of disappointments, confusion, and antagonism over the U.S.’s arguably misguided attempts to respond to the attack, as well as compounded sadness over the subsequent military, Iraqi, and Afghan lives lost in that effort. Over the last decade, there has been continuing terrorist activity and near-misses, and very little in the way of events that would give mourners of 9/11 reason to feel hopeful or resolved.
I don’t believe that Americans reacted to Obama’s announcement last week in a thoughtful, considerate way. I believe the reaction was an emotional deluge (the word catharsis has been bandied about a lot, and for once I don’t think that Aristotle would particularly object) that burst out with such rapidity and fervor that deconstructing its source is all but impossible.
I believe it’s a mistake to react with distaste and judgment to the happiness that emerged in D.C. and NYC. The reasons for the “gleeful” reaction are necessarily complicated, a powerful cocktail of raw emotion—that The Face of Terror is gone, that the U.S. government achieved a goal, that there is finally just one excuse to feel like something has been resolved, that Al Qaeda is maybe even just a little weaker, that there is perhaps a reason to believe that the U.S. will stop being at war sometime soon, that Obama has proven himself to be sort-of-okay at the whole military thing, that the U.S. suddenly (if briefly) felt like a united country.
For people in other countries—who may, as a result of cultural and political differences, always view the actions of Americans as dramatic, brash, arrogant, and in bad taste—I can understand their lack of understanding at last Sunday’s celebrations.
But as for the born-and-raised Americans who quickly decided to be jaded, intellectual, and embarrassed over the burst of emotion from their countrymen and -women, I’m confused and feel a little pity by the lack of understanding and empathy. It's a free country, and all that, and people can believe what they will, but I just hope to never begrudge an emotional surge of non-antagonistic joy in a group of people who have experienced such pain.
Several things surprised me about the whole, messy ordeal. I’m surprised it happened, frankly. I’m surprised it happened in Pakistan. I’m surprised that the operation was kept so successfully under wraps for so long. (As Garrett noted, for however worried anyone was or is about WikiLeaks, clearly some secrets are still secreting successfully.)
And perhaps as a result of my Americanism, naiveté, or simple bemusement over anything that seems a little ridiculously “meta,” I was also surprised by the overall strong reaction to the overall strong reaction that Americans had to the news.
Intellectually, I can appreciate why various people, both in our own country and around the world, were a little taken aback by what appeared to be unrestrained, patriotically-flavored glee at the announcement of bin Laden’s death. The mood, particularly in New York and D.C., was reminiscent of the Munchkin parade after the house-crushing of the Wicked Witch of the East. Which might not seem so unreasonable until you remember that bin Laden was a pretty serious political and quasi-religious figure, and the Wizard of Oz is a kid’s movie.
On the other hand: September 11th was a day that resulted in an explosion of shock, grief, fear, and rage, and since then there has never been an event that's offered a counterbalance of needed, conciliatory relief. Since 2001, there has only been a slow, plodding progression of disappointments, confusion, and antagonism over the U.S.’s arguably misguided attempts to respond to the attack, as well as compounded sadness over the subsequent military, Iraqi, and Afghan lives lost in that effort. Over the last decade, there has been continuing terrorist activity and near-misses, and very little in the way of events that would give mourners of 9/11 reason to feel hopeful or resolved.
I don’t believe that Americans reacted to Obama’s announcement last week in a thoughtful, considerate way. I believe the reaction was an emotional deluge (the word catharsis has been bandied about a lot, and for once I don’t think that Aristotle would particularly object) that burst out with such rapidity and fervor that deconstructing its source is all but impossible.
I believe it’s a mistake to react with distaste and judgment to the happiness that emerged in D.C. and NYC. The reasons for the “gleeful” reaction are necessarily complicated, a powerful cocktail of raw emotion—that The Face of Terror is gone, that the U.S. government achieved a goal, that there is finally just one excuse to feel like something has been resolved, that Al Qaeda is maybe even just a little weaker, that there is perhaps a reason to believe that the U.S. will stop being at war sometime soon, that Obama has proven himself to be sort-of-okay at the whole military thing, that the U.S. suddenly (if briefly) felt like a united country.
For people in other countries—who may, as a result of cultural and political differences, always view the actions of Americans as dramatic, brash, arrogant, and in bad taste—I can understand their lack of understanding at last Sunday’s celebrations.
But as for the born-and-raised Americans who quickly decided to be jaded, intellectual, and embarrassed over the burst of emotion from their countrymen and -women, I’m confused and feel a little pity by the lack of understanding and empathy. It's a free country, and all that, and people can believe what they will, but I just hope to never begrudge an emotional surge of non-antagonistic joy in a group of people who have experienced such pain.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Force from the world a patient smile
It wasn't until I was halfway through my first year at IWU that I discovered what a big freakin' deal the study abroad program is there. I eventually heard from several students that the study abroad program was a major enticement--even a deciding factor--in their choice to attend the university. Small though it is, IWU partners with dozens of study-abroad organizations, meaning that a student can practically throw a dart at a map and find a viable destination for international study. Plus, unlike many schools, IWU allows financial aid to carry over and apply to your overseas schooling. Heck, sometimes it was even cheaper than staying at IWU. I discovered that a surprising number of frustrated, suburbanated students saw this tiny, landlocked, corn-studded college as their unlikely gateway to Abroad.
I went to the study abroad fair as a freshman, after dozens of professors and organization representatives talked up the magic of Abroad in my classes. There, I found myself surrounded by students bitten with the international bug, eager to whip off their Ameri-centered glasses and experience the world. I felt a little like an impostor wandering around the fair, actually. My reason for attending the fair was that, after so much impassioned imploring, I frankly felt guilty for being so ignorant and/or ambivalent to this apparently incomparable opportunity at my fingertips. I went to the fair by way of apology for remaining unswayed.
Obviously, I left the fair still more or less unswayed, too, given that my passport remained unmolested throughout my tenure at IWU.
Don't get me wrong; I believe that it's vitally important to be informed about other cultures and countries. There are thousands of places in the world that would dazzle me, and I believe that there is probably no better way to become educated about the larger world around you and to appreciate the multiplicity of viewpoints in the world than to see it firsthand.
Still, I've never been able to get myself to feel impassioned about being in other countries for very extended periods of time. My generally positive attitude about travel is always overshadowed by the expense, the separation from loved ones, and the anticipation of my embarrassment over being an ugly American inherent in the prospect of travel.
I'm going to go ahead and use this personality quirk as my excuse for why, when people ask me whether I'm excited to be moving to Boston, my answer is usually to the tune of "...I guess." The inquirers always seem surprised and a little disappointed that my answer isn't delivered with more enthusiasm (despite the fact that I'm not exactly known for my giddy excitability).
I view my forthcoming move as an interesting sort of challenge. It will be challenging to try my hand at living in an entirely new environment, to learn the culture of an unfamiliar city, to find out whether I can actually develop a taste for seafood or become invested in college sports. And as a chronic overachiever, I like challenges, but it's not the sort of thing that has me doing cartwheels.
If this "climb every mountain" attitude seems worrisome for its lack of OMGBOSTONICAN'TWAIT-ness, know that my inborn lukewarm reaction to traveling does not reflect my feelings about Going to BC as a whole. I'm very excited to actually Be In Grad School, to leave my office job behind and re-immerse myself in the scholastic environment which I've always felt to be my emotional home.
In other words, the journey from cubicle to classroom is the "travel" that really has me psyched.
Glad we got that cleared up. I'll be in the nerdery if you need me.
I went to the study abroad fair as a freshman, after dozens of professors and organization representatives talked up the magic of Abroad in my classes. There, I found myself surrounded by students bitten with the international bug, eager to whip off their Ameri-centered glasses and experience the world. I felt a little like an impostor wandering around the fair, actually. My reason for attending the fair was that, after so much impassioned imploring, I frankly felt guilty for being so ignorant and/or ambivalent to this apparently incomparable opportunity at my fingertips. I went to the fair by way of apology for remaining unswayed.
Obviously, I left the fair still more or less unswayed, too, given that my passport remained unmolested throughout my tenure at IWU.
Don't get me wrong; I believe that it's vitally important to be informed about other cultures and countries. There are thousands of places in the world that would dazzle me, and I believe that there is probably no better way to become educated about the larger world around you and to appreciate the multiplicity of viewpoints in the world than to see it firsthand.
Still, I've never been able to get myself to feel impassioned about being in other countries for very extended periods of time. My generally positive attitude about travel is always overshadowed by the expense, the separation from loved ones, and the anticipation of my embarrassment over being an ugly American inherent in the prospect of travel.
I'm going to go ahead and use this personality quirk as my excuse for why, when people ask me whether I'm excited to be moving to Boston, my answer is usually to the tune of "...I guess." The inquirers always seem surprised and a little disappointed that my answer isn't delivered with more enthusiasm (despite the fact that I'm not exactly known for my giddy excitability).
I view my forthcoming move as an interesting sort of challenge. It will be challenging to try my hand at living in an entirely new environment, to learn the culture of an unfamiliar city, to find out whether I can actually develop a taste for seafood or become invested in college sports. And as a chronic overachiever, I like challenges, but it's not the sort of thing that has me doing cartwheels.
If this "climb every mountain" attitude seems worrisome for its lack of OMGBOSTONICAN'TWAIT-ness, know that my inborn lukewarm reaction to traveling does not reflect my feelings about Going to BC as a whole. I'm very excited to actually Be In Grad School, to leave my office job behind and re-immerse myself in the scholastic environment which I've always felt to be my emotional home.
In other words, the journey from cubicle to classroom is the "travel" that really has me psyched.
Glad we got that cleared up. I'll be in the nerdery if you need me.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
You know, I don't avert my eyes anymore
One of the joys associated with the return of decent (i.e., non-hypothermic) weather is the freedom from the necessity to studiously layer my outfits. For example, I’ve made it my habit after work to head straight to the gym and then walk the rest of the way home afterward—a relatively short, three or four-block stroll. Over the winter I was perpetually (albeit insignificantly) annoyed by the fact that, even though I left the gym flushing and glistening with sweat, before leaving, I still had to cover my hot, gross-self in several layers of wool and cotton to prepare for my diminutive walk.
The first time I was able to walk home in just my shorts and gym shoes this season (which, presumably thanks to global warming, was in early March), I experienced a lovely feeling of liberation, freed from inhibiting fabric and frostbite alike. Even lovelier was that odd-yet-satisfying sensation of the wind meeting my legs for the first time in six months.
Of course, mere seconds later on that same walk, I experienced the markedly less lovely (and considerably less unfamiliar, and rather the opposite of liberating-feeling) obligatory “Hey, gorgeous!” blurted at me from a man who I had just passed on the sidewalk.
- - -
Recently, BBC published an article, matter-of-factly titled “Why do men shout at women in the street?” It got so much feedback and attention that they quickly added a follow-up commentary article.
Getting holla’d at on the street is a difficult thing to complain about. To the receiving ear, it sounds like an awkward attempt at bragging: “I’m so beautiful that I force complete strangers into a fit of Pretty-Lady Tourette’s!” And even though pretty much every woman has gotten cat-called at least once (which really takes the wind out of a narcissist’s sails) there is, I admit, a complimentary aspect to it. As a commenter in the BBC article says, “there’s no such thing as a woman who doesn’t actually like receiving a compliment based on the way she looks—provided it’s delivered in a genuine, respectful and unimposing manner.”
In other words: sure, compliments are appreciated—when the complimentee can discern their intention. But in my opinion, any sense of flattery or pleasure derived by the street-goon “compliment” is simply a knee-jerk, conditioned reflex to an otherwise creepy intrusion into your day. Why creepy? Well, what can you really discern about the motivations of a leering 40-year-old holding up the wall of a drug store? Any sense of flattery is soon consumed by intrusive questions, namely, Why did he just yell at me? and How should I react to ensure that he leaves me alone and doesn’t say anything else?
Despite this, I’ve noticed that guys tend to defend the practice, because they seem to think they’re doing a service to preserve a woman’s self esteem. How else is a woman supposed to know that she’s attractive, if not by the word-vomit of street-walking strangers? It’s practically a civic service.
Pertinently, a psychological study found that superficial or unearned compliments are only capable of causing temporary spikes in mood. Your stable, lasting sense of self esteem is only altered by meaningful feedback that you feel is demonstrably and intimately connected to you, as a person. Science.
Complimentary fluff aside, the BBC article argues that the true roots of cat-calling are actually nefarious. It’s the wading pool for sexual predators trying to determine where the awkward-to-harassment line is drawn. It’s a method of maintaining social/sexual dynamics and establishing male dominance, since the practice is essentially a loud, vocal act of objectification. It has nothing to do with women at all (who cares what they think?) but is merely a way for men to establish themselves, amongst each other, as confident and… virile, or something.
Whether these theories sound valid or a little Second-Gunman conspiratorial to you, when you think about it, you have to admit that the whole practice appears to revolve more around men than, say, women. No matter how the woman reacts or feels, a man will always succeed in his attempt to affect a woman’s day, or make her feel uncomfortable, or solidify the stereotype that women are around to be admired. Women receive the Grand Prize of a questionable compliment and a likely dose of paranoia.
On the bright side, perhaps now I can claim new insight into those irritating people who walk around with earbuds stuffed in their cochleas, dangerously oblivious to their surroundings. I’d just as soon tune out, too.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Her hair bears silent witness to the passing of time
When I was 14 years old, over a period of three months, I miraculously and unexpectedly lost 30 pounds (amounting to 20% of my total girth at the time). Conveniently, those same three months happened to be the summer break between my last year of middle school and first year of high school, meaning that it was surprisingly easy to forever discard my former, "Nerdy Marshmallow Puff of my Graduating Class" self. It was a dramatic enough physical change that, six months into high school, more than one of my middle school teachers failed to recognize me on sight.
To my recollection, I did absolutely nothing to lose the weight--which is why I call it miraculous, although in this case "miracle" is undoubtedly just a code word for "puberty." My eating and lifestyle habits were as chicken-finger and couch-filled as ever that transitional summer.
Ironically enough, it was this sudden, unsolicited gift from the Gods Who Apparently Cared About My Social Life that inspired me to start exercising and eating healthy. While there was no clear indication that my weight loss was correlated to such things, after having lost the weight, I became unreasonably certain that I would gain it back if I didn't give my health habits a makeover. So when I started hitting the ellipticals and salad bars a few months later, it was not, like most people, in pursuit of a particular goal, but more an attempt to purchase insurance on this suspicious, unearned charity I'd received.
Now that I've spent almost a decade in my new body, I don't often think about the random, paradoxical experience that led me to my current health-conscious habits. I assume, like most people, that eating right and staying active result in weight management--not the other way around. I consider near-daily exercise the norm and point to it as the reason that, to this day, I've kept Marshmallow Me at bay.
On rare occasion, however, it strikes me how improbable it actually is that, thus far in my relatively short life, the only time that Nature has conspired to surprise me resulted in a Publishers-Clearing-House, "You're-A-Wizard-Harry" style surprise. Something unexpected happened to my body that inspired me to enact healthier habits, and it was good news. Granted, puberty-induced transformations are pretty common and nothing to get too excited about. But then again, I have friends who, in their own relatively short lives, can also point to occasions where nature has conspired to change their lives, and more often the "surprise" is cancer, juvenile diabetes, or congenital heart defects.
This is just to say: I'm sometimes surprised by just how many reasons I have to feel blessed.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Tick-tock
I don't generally believe that I'm in any position to figure out the World At Large or How Things Work--mostly because the world is very, very big and I am very, very small. Smallness couples with the fact that I and everyone else on this earth have a wildly limited perspective on Things, thanks to the pure and incidental fact that we are all born as ourselves, with two eyes and one brain, and not Everyone Else in the World with Infinite Perceptive Faculties. The extent of my judgmental influence and sense-making pretty much ends at my corneas, and the World, as far as I can tell, doesn't arrange itself to suit my brain box.
Further, my brief experience in this world has taught me that what seem to be small decisions may wind up being important ones, while sometimes the seemingly major crossroads turn out to be relatively inconsequential, to the extent that I'm able to figure out such things. I also know that important things are prone to happening so slowly and gradually that sometimes they don't present themselves as "decisions" at all. I also know that what's "important" tends to change from day to day, even for those with the strongest convictions.
...
So, how much more of this, do you think, it will take before this whole grad school thing becomes an easier decision?
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