Mother's Day

I've commented on this topic before here, but I wanted to add some more thoughts in light of this year's recent Mother's Day.

In the days leading up to Mother's Day, something was bugging me. And then I remembered: the way we celebrate the day is too gendered.

For example, yesterday Laura and I made dinner at my family's house, so that my step-mom wouldn't have to. From talking to other people this seems to be a relatively common practice. Yet, the ironic thing about it is that it implies that on all the other days of the year my step-mom has to make dinner. And, in practice, she sort of does. After all, in many families—mine in included—making the food is often the mother's job, whether she likes it or not. On the other hand, is that good? Shouldn't (typically gendered) tasks be more equally shared throughout the year?

The problem here, as I see it, is that some women probably would prefer to assume different roles in their families, but our cultural modes of celebrating mother's day tell them that they shouldn't (or even can't). (And, of course, this works similarly for men on Father's Day, though it seems to me, to a lesser extent.) In other words having the men in a household make dinner on Mother's Day suggests that that action is an aberration. It's a "favor" or gift that they're giving, not something that they're typically responsible for. Implicitly, this also suggests that a mother should cook, and I'd she doesn't she somehow a less adequate person.

Obviously lots of women like to cook, lots of men don't, and flipping individual roles isn't a huge deal. What is disturbing, however, is when these behaviors become codified and foisted on those who don't appreciate them. As I listen to men and women talk at church, school, work, etc., making dinner on Mother's Day is something that men are encouraged to do. Similarly, all the women at my church were given roses this year, and in past years the men and women were given very gender specific gifts. (Laura actually gave me her rose, because she didn't really want it and I did.)

My point here, I suppose, is that Mother's Day and Father's Day are moments when our cultural constructs regarding gender become painfully apparent. Woman-as-homemaker is simply an accepted role, as is Man-as-provider/worker. These roles are simply taken for granted and accepted as good. For some people they certainly work, but when a culture so easily accepts them and equates them with "good" or "appropriate" it also requires those for whom they don't work to accept them.

Sandra Bullock: Gradual Feminist or Closeted Misogynist

A few nights ago I had the dubious pleasure of watching Sandra Bullock’s The Proposal, the second of her three films this year. Along with Bullock the film stars Ryan Reynolds and is a fairly formulaic romantic comedy: a man and a woman initially dislike each other, are forced to spend time in one another’s company, finally manage to separate only to discover that they’ve fallen in love. It’s the same story over and over again. However, The Proposal throws a curve ball into the mix: Sandra Bullock plays the role of the older, more powerful professional, while himbo Reynolds is the plucky underling who falls in love as a result of his superiors coercion. In other words, The Proposal reverses the typical romantic comedy gender roles.

Or does it? Though Sandra Bullock, as a vile and reviled publishing boss, is definitely playing against her type she can’t really shake her Sandra Bullock-ishness. The role she’s been given is basically trying to be Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, but Bullock really just comes off the same way she does in every post-Speed movie. Though this tension between her supposed evilness and her obvious charm actually makes the movie more entertaining, it also begins to undermine the legitimacy of The Proposal’s gender reversal. Much like Miss Congeniality, this latest film casts Bullock in a man’s role but is narratively concerned with removing her feminist veneer to reveal the awkward, tomboyish Bullock archetype. In that sense it’s not unlike several of Barbara Stanwyck’s films that cast the golden era starlet as a spunky working girl who nonetheless ends up in a very traditional relationship.

The process by which Bullock’s feminist veneer is removed further raises questions about the feminist slant of the film. Though the initial gender reversal is laudable (Reynolds, for example, is accused of sleeping his way to professional success much as a woman might be in a less progressive movie) the end of the film basically ends like any romantic comedy with the man proposing to the woman. (This is not a spoiler, as the inevitable end of any romantic comedy is a heterosexual coupling.) It’s trite, but in this case it’s also particularly disappointing because The Proposal had seemingly already done away with that particular convention when it had had Bullock getting down on her knees to proposal to Reynolds earlier in the film.

In any case, The Proposal begins with what could be an interesting premise but slowly unravels everything it has going for it so that by the conclusion it’s just business as usual. Hollywood often takes a lot of flack for supposedly being “liberal” and trying to push a progressive agenda. When some (overly conservative) person watched the film they probably lamented the fact that the film seems to endorse woman’s rights and gender equality. However and unfortunately for those of us who actually believe in those things, the film actually condemns them and advocates the gender disparity status quo that it might have been trying to dispel. In the end, then, The Proposal shows that men are in control and women are just schemers trying to find a husband.

Staying Home… For a Gender Fantasy?

Every once in a awhile my church’s magazine, The Ensign, will include something alarming and objectionable.  Unfortunately, the upcoming August issue includes just such an article.  Covering a short three pages, “Staying Home…Again” (by “name withheld”) relays the story of a mother’s struggle to balance child-rearing and work.  While the subject matter is timely, the point of the story—that women have an inherent responsibility to stay at home and take care of kids and accordingly should sacrifice careers to do so—isn’t simply wrong, it’s offensive. 

 

The article begins innocently enough by describing how the anonymous author was essentially forced back to work because of the economy.  While her husband ran one business she had to assume the responsibilities of a second one when they were unable to successfully sell it.  Eventually, she began to enjoy work more than being home and struggled with how to raise her children. 

 

If the first page or so paints a refreshingly complex picture of the challenges facing modern parents, the rest of the article clings to painfully outmoded gender stereotypes.  Once the author realized that she was enjoying work more than home life, she felt guilty and, more disturbingly, described herself as having “veered” from the “path.”  Things only get worse from there: she decided to pray for forgiveness for “straying so far from my divine role” and asked God to help her to want to fulfill that role and provide her with a way to do so. 

 

Throughout the article I was astounded at how little was mentioned about the husband/father.  Why wasn’t he helping raise the children?  Why was it only the woman’s job to fix dinners and attend to household duties?  Why didn’t he feel guilt about not being at home enough?  Maybe he did feel these things, but what stands out is the fact that the author never indicates her husband was shirking his responsibilities.  Instead she insinuates that her “divine role” is to be completely domestic, while his is to gallivant through the professional world having a good time.  Not surprisingly, the article ends with a return to gender stasis: the mother stays home raising the kids and the father continues to be a semi-absent figure.   

 

The problem with this article isn’t that a woman stayed home to raise kids while a man worked (both valid choices, of course, if people find fulfillment through them), but rather that the author claimed that God required her to behave in ways that were mentally and emotionally damaging. What a person (male or female) does professionally and domestically is a private decision and shouldn’t be determined by wrongheaded social proclamations on gender roles.  In this case, the author didn’t just give up work, she also sacrificed her psychological health (and, I’d argue, her spiritual health) in favor of an absurd and unsustainable fantasy about motherhood.  In the end, I can only imagine that if this story ever had a sequel, it would resemble “The Yellow Wallpaper” more than the hollow “faith promoting” rubbish that it aspires to right now.

 

Ultimately, if The Ensign’s usual emphasis on simple hagiography is understandable, its inclusion of marginalizing gender propaganda is not.  Forcing people into roles that leave them unfulfilled will not increase anyone’s well being, nor will it bring them closer to God.  (The editors also apparently missed the irony of including in the same issue articles on computer addiction and postpartum depression.)  As a practicing Mormon myself these aren’t the values that I believe in and it saddens me when a publication that has so much potential to help people instead stoops to misguided didacticism.  

Sex, Equality, and Rock and Roll

This coming weekend my band, Electron Deception, is playing at a show featuring all female-fronted bands.  For a lot of people, it’ll probably just seem like another local music show in Provo.  What many won’t realize, however, is just how remarkable it is to get three female fronted bands together.

 

Despite the superficially liberal leanings of many musicians, rock music critics have widely observed trends of masculine dominance, anti-feminism, and even misogyny.  Indeed, rock and roll is a “male form” and rarely, if ever, points to gender equality.  (If you want more information to support these assertions click here, or if you have a BYU ID, here.)  If this research isn’t enough, just watch some music videos.  Ask yourself A) how many feature women in lead roles (probably fewer than feature men), and B) how many of those that feature women don’t depict them as sex objects (probably close to none). 

 

Of course, gender inequality in music (as in most industries) is nothing new, but what is surprising is that these trends are as easily observed in local music as they are on the national stage.  In fact, at least in Provo (and despite the city’s strong music scene), the gender gap is even wider than it is in the larger music community; very few bands include women, and many of those that do give them minor roles or even seemingly use them as “eye candy” for male fans.

 

In light of all this, my band’s upcoming show seems like a significant assertion of femininity. Despite the fact that male performers will still outnumber females, women will occupy the most prominent positions and the whole event was organized by one of the band’s female vocalist.  Yet while these facts lead me to believe that music (and specifically local music in Provo) is moving toward greater gender equality, this particular show still includes some strikingly examples of machismo.  What’s even more alarming is that I have probably been the biggest culprit of this. 

 

Probably the best example of this phenomenon is the poster that I made for the show. 

Though it’s not particularly racy, it obviously relies Laura’s image and sexuality as a marketing tool (the design was admittedly inspired, at least partially, by classic pin-up posters).  In addition, the fact that the female lead singers of the bands are called “girls,” as opposed to “women,” further calls into question the show's claim to gender equality.  If other posters of ours have been less extreme in this regard, they've also worked along similar lines. 

In the end then, what started out as a potential night of feminist assertion has shaped up as a night to watch hot chicks.  If that wasn’t an obvious enough problem by itself, a bigger one might be that everyone has loved our posters, men and women alike.  I love our posters, and I’ll probably make more like them.  Though I’m readily willing to admit that making posters like ours—or calling something a “girl show”—might not promote gender equality, the bottom line is that it is effective.  People like it, remember it, and if our end goal is to get people to listen to our music, it’s something we almost have to do. 

 

All this then begs the question: can women not be objectified in rock/pop music?  (For that matter, can men?)  I know that as Laura and I have discussed stage presence, for example, I’ve been surprised to realize there are significantly fewer things for a female to do on stage than there are for a male.  Basically, it generally boils down to something like “be sexier” or “wear sexier clothes” or “do heavier make up” or something like that.  Most of these options are actually open to male rock musicians (at least within a certain genre), but for females they’re often times the only options.  Again, like the posters, these things may represent a questionable ideology, but they’re also effective. 

 

Ultimately, this upcoming concert will come and go without many people thinking about these issues.  It’ll be just one more local show (albeit a fun one).  Yet even as a “girl show” it will still be an anomaly (as everything else must, by implication, be boy shows) and in that light, it probably signals a trend toward something.  Whether it’s toward greater equality or objectification remains to be seen.

(Female) School Mascots?

My youngest brother attends Deerfield Elementary.  The funny thing is that the mascot for his school isn’t a deer.  It’s an eagle.  As I recently considered this fact I had to assume that deer weren’t considered adequately aggressive to be the mascot.  On the other hand, I thought, they could have chosen a buck.  A majestic male deer seems like a suitable school symbol.  Yet, as I thought more about this I wondered why they also couldn’t choose a doe.  Aren’t stereotypically “female” attributes, things like nurturing, also desirable?  Regardless, the more I thought about this question the more I realized I couldn’t think of a single female mascot.   

 

It appears that most mascots fall into two categories: men and animals.  Where Laura teaches, for example, the mascot is “the cavemen.”  Of course, this name might just be a throwback to a time when gender neutrality didn’t matter and in fact mean “cave-people.”  However, ignoring that obviously flimsy excuse, the actual picture the school uses is of a brutish male.  This is not dissimilar to the mascot at my own elementary school: Vikings.  Surely there were Viking women, but they weren’t on the t-shirts we got.  Another, more famous example, might be the Notre Dame Leprechaun, which is depicted as an angry male in a fighting stance.  The point is that some of the most common, as well as most prominent, mascots in the U.S. are males, and violent males at that.

 

The second mascot category, animals, is less obviously gendered.  My brother’s school, for instance, isn’t represented specifically by male eagles.  However, what seems to stand out about animal mascots is that they are all predators.  Though I would be reluctant to say that males are inherently predatory, I would be comfortable saying that our society conceives of them as being so.  And though I lament the cultural entrenchment of gender stereotypes, I bet I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone at Provo High School, for example, who thinks their mascot, a bulldog, is a female.  If the predatory nature of mascot animals isn’t enough to indicate male-ness or typically male qualities, take the fact that many actually look like men.  This is certainly the case with Provo High’s mascot and while male and female bulldogs probably look similar, people’s tendency to anthropomorphize leads me to believe that there is a stronger resemblance between the bulldog and the human male than the human female.  If this wasn’t enough, some animal mascots are overtly male.  Take Yale’s, for example.  They also use a bulldog, but one named “Handsome Dan.”  In any case, it seems that most animal mascots are chosen either because they symbolize accepted male behavior, or because they bear some sort resemblance to males. 

 

The predominance of male mascots seems immensely problematic to me.  Why is that socially perceived “female” behaviors are not acceptable in symbols of our educational institutions?  How can we expect those institutions to impart both traditionally male and traditionally female attributes when the images we choose to represent those institutions are of hyper-masculine men?  What’s more, why do we have to accept social constructions of gender?  I’d be willing to bet that female cave-people were pretty aggressive.  For that matter, I can think of plenty of female animals that perform roles that many (western) humans associate with men (for example, lionesses, which do most of the hunting).  Why I haven’t I ever heard of a high school that uses the Amazons, Valkyries, or any other strong women from myth or history as mascots?  If its about getting people riled up at a football game an Amazon woman seems quite a bit better than a bulldog or an eagle.  In the end, our mascots seem to reveal both that we are not comfortable giving up violent symbols and that we are still fully invested in outmoded gender stereotypes.  If we are going to use symbols, lets choose ones that convey assertiveness and nurturing.  If we need to have aggressive images surrounding us, lets acknowledge that men don’t have a monopoly on strength.   

 

Ultimately, I don’t mean to suggest that mascots have more meaning than they do.  My own high school mascot, after all, was a tartan, which as I understand it is a piece of Scottish fabric. (This is also possibly the most gender-neutral mascot I can think of, as a tartan represents a family.  Surely it still has a violent undercurrent, but it at least isn’t as overtly aggressive.)  However, mascots do have some meaning; if they didn’t we wouldn’t use them, remember them, or erect images of them.  That meaning may not be the most potent symbol of an institution, but it still inflects the atmosphere and actions of a given setting.  So whatever kind of mascots we choose, maybe its time to consider a cavewoman, Bellona, Vesta or even a doe.