From Emily: God Help the Girl

Pandora (aka my Summer love that has yet to let me down) recently introduced me to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9zQggfpYEM I'm feeling lazy, hence the ugliness of the url posted straight up. I won't say much, because I think the lyrics speak for themselves, but this might very well become my new theme song - I love it that much.

Seriously, though, as you listen to the lyrics, don't you find it interesting how the idea of a heterosexual girl focusing on work or school instead of boys is treated?

From Erica: loving my balance on this fence

Something that's been bothering me for a long time is biphobia.

For some of you, the automatic response to that is to say "of course, it's a huge problem!" And for others of you, the automatic response sounds more like "huh?"

Here's the thing. We've got a lot of homophobia floating around out there, from straight folk as well as queer folk, about who can/should/does love whom and how acceptable that is or isn't. We've got a lot of literature, research, and theories making themselves heard in academia and the broader news media about what gayness means and how it comes to be, and of course about how gayness is affected by race, socioeconomic status, sex/gender identity, and more. There are gay folk who turn sexual desire into a political act, gay folk who loathe themselves, gay folk who just want the heteronormative lifestyle with a same-sex partner, and gay folk who don't care. There are promiscuous gay folk and celibate gay folk, and gay folk somewhere in between. But there's a long string of politics running from each end of these spectra to the other, and the overarching message is that it's okay to be gay. It's even better to be proud to be gay!

Being bisexual, bi-queer, or just bi- all labels that vary in definition and distinction from one self-identified bi person to the next- comes with a very different story, and that's what I want to talk about today.

In my experience, gay and lesbian folk can be gay or lesbian in many different ways, and as long as they say they're sexually attracted to individuals of the same sex and gender identity, people pretty much take it at face value. As long as they're not engaging in heterosexual behaviour at the same time, it usually goes uncontested. Not always, but usually.

For bi folk, it's a constant challenge and a constant quest to "prove" one's sexuality. I'm mostly speaking about the overarching rhetorical themes surrounding bi women, since bi men have a whole different set of stereotypes thrown at them, but some of these things speak true for anyone in the bi camp. Here are the things I've been told, as a bi woman, that I'm "really" going through:
-I'm not really bi. I just want attention.
-I'm not really bi. I just want to be part of the queer community while remaining in a safe, heterosexual relationship and use monogamy as an excuse to avoid being outed as straight.
-I'm not really bi. I'm not polyamorous.
-I'm not really bi. I look too femme.
-I'm not really bi. I'm actually 100% into women, and just can't face the truth.
-I'm not really bi. My sexual predilections, while not vanilla, aren't spicy enough.
-I'm not really bi. I want to attract the sexual attention of more men who find women-who-have-sex-with-women (WSW) hot.
-I'm not really bi. I'm not promiscuous enough.

Here's the truth, coming straight from this horse's mouth: I'M BI-QUEER-SEXUAL. I'm sexually attracted to males and females, men and women. I've been attracted to folk who play with androgyny too, though my trend has been pretty gender normative (as politically incorrect as that may be). As trans advocates have been saying for a long time, and as everyone else needs to start learning soon, sexuality is not the same as sex is not the same as gender identity is not the same as sexual behaviours is not the same as an entire person. Here's the thing. I like dresses, and I like playing with makeup from time to time. I've played with gender, and I feel most at home in a mainstream-White clothing-hair-makeup identity, with a dash of hippie thrown in. I'm a jealous person, and while I support peoples' rights to be polyamorous, I recognize that I'm not really capable of having an open, loving, safe, and happy relationship with someone who has other partners.

Monogamy works for me. As such, that means that when I settle in with a partner, my partner-based sexual behaviours fall into either "straight" or "gay" territory, as long as other people are defining it. For me, it's always sex, but for everyone else, the label matters. My current partner happens to be man-identified, male-identified, and straight-identified. I love him, and I see no need to justify that fact. Being with him makes desire women no less, and if he were a woman, that would make me desire men no less. I'm not on any fence for a lack of ability to choose one side or another; I'm balancing on the fence and able to reach both sides because I enjoy both.

Some straight women are jealous of the attention that bi women get for being bi, because of the myth that WSW are somehow sexually more available and more gratifying than straight women. Some lesbian women resent bi women like me, who can "pass" as straight if they want to. The truth is that both of those realities are horrible. The "attention" I get when I come out- the catcalls, the "Oooh, does Nick get threesomes?" questions- isn't fun at all. It's negative because it pins me into a stereotype that I don't fit. And the ability to pass as straight means that I'm expected to be complicit in heterosexism and homophobia because I'm not "one of Them," which is revolting and just plain wrong. I'm not bi to get queer attention and I'm not bi to get straight privileges. I'll admit that I get the privileges if I'm not careful- but that's something I seek to avoid as much as possible.

So here's an idea for people to chew on and maybe learn from: let my sexuality be itself. Being bi doesn't make me a traitor to anyone or any cause. It doesn't make me an attention-seeker, it doesn't make me a disempowered sexual beast, and it doesn't make me a liar. All it does is make me find people of multiple sexes and genders attractive, and makes me more aware of the negative treatment non-heterosexual sexualities get in our society.

For a further step, take this into consideration: stop thinking in terms of "heterosexual" and "homosexual." Think in terms of attraction (who you like), behaviour (who you do), and desire (who you want) instead, because the three are interconnected but not identical and because human sexualities are far more complicated than our two boxes can permit. When people talk about "gay people," consider how that term is an androcentric exclusion of lesbians and a heterocentric exclusion of a variety of sexualities, and a denial of the variety of personalities and preferences that the term is intended to encompass.

Above all, if you take no other step, please consider this: I like my view from the fence. It's a lot broader and more comfortable than being confined to one side or another. Please let me be up here, with all my cohorts, in peace.

From Emily: Chris Brown on Larry King

Here's a link to a youtube video of the Larry King Live Interview . The entire interview is shown in five parts.

I've been rewatching the interview since I only saw part of it, and I cannot believe my ears. I don't know how I didn't hear this the first time I watched the interview on TV:

When Larry King plays a clip from the apology video Chris Brown posted online, King asks him what he meant when he said he was sorry that he "wasn't able to handle the situation better and differently." But if you listen closely, what Brown actually says is "I have told Rihanna countless times, and I am telling you today, that I am truly, truly sorry, and that I wasn't able to handle the situation both differently and better." In case the significance of that little conjunction isn't as obvious to everyone else as it is to me, let me break this down:

the conjunction makes it so that this statement could be broken down into the following two sentences:

I have told Rihanna countless times, and I am telling you today, that I am truly, truly sorry
+
I have told Rihanna countless times, and I am telling you today that I wasn't able to handle the situation both differently and better

As problematic as an apology that states "I'm sorry I was incapable of doing anything else" is, "I want you to know that I'm sorry, and I also want you to know I was incapable of anything else" is even worse.

What disturbs me even more about the video, though, is that Chris Brown refuses to answer any of Larry King's questions about what caused him to become violent, with the argument of "I can't talk about that night, since it would violate Rihanna's privacy." He's probably right to not discuss that night if it would violate her privacy - for all we know, he'd just found out she was having an affair, and that's something she would not want out in the open. But if he truly thinks that every single fact leading up to that act of violence was contained in that one night, then I doubt he understands his personal responsibility in that situation well enough to change his behavior the next time an unexpected "incident" affects his temper that much. We all do things we shouldn't at times, and I think everyone has had an experience where they did something that surprised them. But there is always something leading up to it, whether we initially recognize it or not. I'm a firm believer in the human capacity to predispose oneself to react in particular ways, and I worry that anyone who cannot understand what it is that predisposed them to act that way might not be able to avoid acting that way again.

It also troubles me that his lawyer so openly cautioned him against publicly apologizing, and against pleading guilty right away. I think he should have let him. It also bothers me that his lawyer's defense for Brown's behavior in other incidents is yeah, but she slapped him first that one time and when he broke a glass that other time, it was technically vandalism, not domestic violence. Perhaps those facts show those incidents in a clearer light, but it doesn't change the fact that Brown demonstrated violence with Rihanna prior to that night. Many perpetrators of abuse work their way up from inanimate objects, to animals, to people. As Larry King points out, if Brown understood what had brought him to this point and could articulate it, he could help other people avoid becoming abusive. And that would do a lot more for the world than producing music or painting over graffiti.

From Erica: on tolerating and punishing intimate partner violence

Emily's last post got me thinking some more about the aftermath of Chris Brown's assault on his girlfriend, and with Domestic Violence Awareness Month coming up in a few weeks, I feel like it's a good opportunity to do a post on some basics of how our society responds to intimate partner violence. For those of you who are wondering, by the way, my area of specialization is domestic abuse prevention and intervention; I've worked in multiple domestic abuse prevention organizations and filled a variety of roles therein, including outreach and education roles.

Given the long tradition of tacitly accepting intimate partner abuse as a fact of life in Western society- and here I'm thinking of the popular belief in the origin of the "rule of thumb," the fact that it took until the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 to declare marital rape a crime in the US, and the fact that anti-cruelty organizations were established for animals and children about 100 years before "safe houses" were established for female victims of abuse- it should come as no surprise to anyone that lax punishments like the one Chris Brown received for putting his girlfriend in the hospital aren't uncommon for perpetrators of intimate partner violence. Emily and I were talking about this, and the truth of the matter is that, if Chris Brown had beaten a stranger that badly, he would've received jail time.

Of course, both of us are outraged that he's getting off as lightly as he is. My partner, while he agreed, was also seeking intellectual debate and asked why Chris Brown should receive something more serious. As my partner's argument went, and as many peoples' arguments go when dealing with assaults against strangers vs. assaults against partners, someone who randomly assaults a stranger- say, because this stranger knocked over their drink at the bar, or looked at them funny, or whatever small excuse they give- is more of a menace to society than the person who assaults their partner because they're liable to do it again, to another person, for another shallow reason- the long history between partners makes the assault more complex. Essentially, the argument runs, the stranger-assaulter is more dangerous because s/he will likely lose their temper with other people and thus have a broader impact on the community than the person who's "only" assaulting their partner.

This is what I have to say about that:

Reasons for assaulting people, be they strangers or partners, are almost always shallow. One abuser I knew of put his wife in the hospital because she hadn't ironed his shirts "correctly." Another one spent almost an hour going over his wife's activities for the day, actively hunting for something he could "get" her for, before finally making up a reason to beat her into the ER. Having a longer, more complex history between two people doesn't make the choice to physically abuse someone any more morally ambiguous; in fact, when you're talking about people who are supposed to love each other and care for each other, their prior relationship should serve as an even greater buffer against the possibility of abuse. The fact of the matter is, someone who assaults someone else- especially their partner- is choosing to do something wrong and is responsible for the consequences.

Furthermore, the person who commits an assault against a stranger is usually doing it more out of issues with temper and self-control than the person who assaults their partner. Intimate partner abuse isn't about love, jealousy, anger, or temper. It's about one person doing everything they can to control the other. That's why abusive relationships rarely start out with physical abuse. Early on, an abuser doesn't "need" physical abuse to keep their partner "in line." And that's why abusers toe the party line that Chris Brown did, that they should "just walk away" instead of "letting" their partners "provoke" them into committing acts of abuse. That way, the abuse becomes the victim's fault, rather than the choice of the abuser. Temper issues are dangerous; the person who's willing to use anything, even extreme acts of physical violence, to control someone is far scarier.

If we want to take this all the way to the final argument my partner made, about community impact, let's do something that our society never does: let's stop assuming that the impact of intimate partner abuse stays behind closed doors and between two people. The fact is that the impact is community-wide, just as much as the impact of the stranger assault. Let's say that Person A assaults their partner, Person B, one evening, and Person B has a couple of broken ribs, severe bruising on the stomach, and some sort of arm injury- maybe a fractured wrist. Person B visits the hospital to get their injuries sorted out, and by the time they get out of there, it's 5 AM and they haven't had any sleep. Their productivity for the day, if they're employed? Gone. Either they're exhausted and do badly at work, or they take the day off to let the painkillers do their job. If Persons A and B have children living with them, those kids have witnessed violence in their family- even if they didn't see it face-to-face, they know about it- and are gradually being traumatized. The kids' teachers have to deal with the stress the kids are experiencing, whether the kids are acting out in class or withdrawing. If they've been sent to stay with a relative while Person B heals, or a relative comes to help out around the house, that's further strain on the kids and an additional burden on the relative who's asked to help out.

So far, that's an impact on hospital staff, school staff, work, kids, and extended family.

The saga continues, however. Abuse almost never ends between partners unless the relationship ends- this is fact. Let's say that, the next time Person A assaults Person B, Person B is able to call the police. The police come out and issue an emergency restraining order against Person A, and Person B, after some hospital time to fix up these latest injuries, takes the kids and heads to a shelter. Because of the danger of having Person A being able to locate Person B at their old job, Person B either takes a leave of absence or quits; similarly, because of the danger of having the kids picked up at school by Person A or of being followed from the school by them, Person B chooses to transfer the kids to a new school district. While at the shelter, Person B looks for a new place to live and a new source of income; when they can't get a job right away, they apply for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families- in popular terms, welfare- to tide themselves and their kids over and pay for a new apartment until they land a new job.

That's an additional impact on the hospital staff, police, extra strain on the kids, social services, the job industry, and on society as a whole as they put additional funding into social assistance programs like TANF.

To get back to Person A, the judge issues a restraining order of 1-3 years (depending on the state) to keep Person A away from Person B in the future. Person A is required to go to classes on how not to be an abuser as well. Unfortunately, all of the evidence points to a lack of success: of the abusers who actually attend "batterer's intervention" programs, regardless of whether they're "supposed" to or not, only about 2% will actually develop healthy relationship habits to use in the future. In all likelihood, Person A leaves the program, gets a new partner, and begins the cycle all over again.

The final impact tally thus needs to include all of the earlier impacts, multiplied by the number of partners Person A abuses in his/her lifetime.

So is the person who assaults a stranger actually more dangerous than the person who assaults their partner? The evidence would suggest not.* Instead, what becomes clear is that our society is tacitly accepting of abuse between partners, especially when the abuser's a man and the victim's a woman (although let's be honest: how often does our society believe that a man can be abused by a woman?). The US has a long history of expecting a certain balance of power between men and women in romantic relationships, and popular culture- especially White-dominated popular culture- teaches us that the very things that ought to be warning signs about abuse, such as possessiveness and jealousy, are "romantic." Just look at the massive "heartthrob" reaction to Edward Cullen from Twilight. Even African-American culture, with a history of strong, capable women, isn't immune- there's a lot of writing and talking out there from African-American men who feel emasculated by their female friends and relatives, as though men of any race are entitled to some sort of power over women that they aren't getting. For some reason, the metaphorically loudest reactions to cases like Chris Brown's aren't demanding that we take intimate partner violence more seriously.

And what's even more frightening is how much our perception changes based on the races or sexes of the people involved. How would we have reacted if both Chris Brown and Rihanna were White? Or, more frighteningly still, how much would Chris Brown's sentence been changed if Rihanna were White, and he were still African-American? If Chris Brown had assaulted a White woman, it's a no-brainer to say that he would've gotten a much heavier sentence than he did. Our punishments for those who commit assaults are directly correlated to the social value we assign to the victims, and even to the status of being victims. In our minds, it goes: male victim? Lighter sentence- men can't be victims. African-American woman? Lighter sentence- African-Americans aren't as important as White folks. Trans person? Lighter sentence- how do we know it wasn't an extreme reaction to discovering the victim's dark past? Interracial violence? Depends on who assaulted who. Woman of any race? She was probably provoking him- we know how women can be nags. If you think I'm exaggerating, or kidding, or anything other than completely serious, check out the Bureau of Justice statistics on victims and the US Department of Justice statistics on perpetrators.

I'm going to leave this topic for now, since October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the US and I plan on focusing pretty heavily on it for those four weeks. But keep it in mind. Watch how our assumptions affect our initial and lasting impressions of the abuse cases we hear and read about. It's frightening.

*The type of cycle and level of impact I've presented here is about as average as it gets in abusive relationships, based on the statistics reported by studies and domestic abuse organizations across the country, and based on what I've seen in three years of working with victims of abuse.

From Emily: How do we respond to the Chris Browns of the world?

Tonight I saw part of an interview Chris Brown had on Larry King. The interview raised a lot of questions for me about how we can encourage growth and changes in perpetrators of abuse without downplaying the seriousness of what they've done. Brown's lawyer said he'd come to love him as a son or a nephew, and that he didn't think Brown would do something like that ever again. If his lawyer is right, then good. What bothered me was the way Brown explained what had "happened" in "the incident." He said he regretted not being more mature, since the mature thing would have been to walk away from the argument.

True - but beating a partner indicates a lot more than immaturity. Brown's repeated complaints about "the haters" who are "just bent on criticizing" him, and his insistence that he's only apologizing to Rihanna and his true fans [emphasis not added], all strike me as signs of immaturity. Beating someone up, though - that's more than immaturity.

So - is it wrong for all of us feminists and "haters" to continue criticizing him even after he's apologized? Are we interfering with his ability to grow and change? Does he even want to change, or does he just want to restore his reputation?

From Emily: Cheryl Glenn's Response

Cheryl Glenn is now one of my favorite scholars since she responded to my email so promptly. There's nothing that it would be bad to post, so here you have it:

What a great insight!
Thanks so much for writing to me about this issue.

I know I consciously use "women" when talking to graduate students, but I don't know why I use "guys." Maybe because I have a tendency to use "guys" when referring to both men and women? Maybe because guys don't need any reminders of their manhood?

What terms do YOU think I should use in situations like last Thursday's?

Cheryl

Here's my response:

That's a good question. I don't have an opinion on what terms you should use with grad students, but I think my personal preference would be to try to consistently use terms that go together. "Guys" feels similar to "girls," and "women" feels similar to "men." However, I think the risk that would come from calling female students "girls" and male students "guys" is that "guy" usually refers to young men, rather than children. "Girl," on the other hand, can also refer to children. So perhaps calling women "girls" would automatically cause problems, even if there were no middle aged female grad students. I guess there are no perfectly paired terms for gender.

Bottom line, though, I'm glad you use "women" when you're talking to grad students. It feels much more empowering to be a "woman" than to be a "girl."

Thanks for your response,

Emily


Sometimes I'm jealous of the precise language more experienced writers use. I didn't say more than she did, but it took me twice as many words.

From Emily: Gendered Labels

I'm absolutely swamped at the moment, so this will be brief, but today I attended a training session conducted mostly by Cheryl Glenn, a professor from Penn State. Dr. Glenn is best known for her work with education and rhetoric, which is what she discussed today (The training session was for graduate students who are teaching college-level writing at Brigham Young University). But Dr. Glenn also has a background in Women's Studies. This background didn't come up in today's lecture (which was amazing, by the way), but I noticed right away that she referred to the female grad students in the room as "women." I don't always notice whether BYU professors call female students women, sisters, ladies, or girls, but I know from the times that I have paid attention that BYU professors are much more likely to refer to male students as "men" than female students as "women." I'm sure there are many factors feeding into this linguistic practice, but the point is - Cheryl Glenn did the exact opposite. She never once used the word "girl" or "gal" to refer to a female grad student; she always said "woman." But she also never used the word "man" or "gentleman" to refer to a male student - she referred to each of them as a "guy."

I wanted to know why she was doing that more than anything else, but I was too afraid to ask. She did encourage us to email her though, so I might just have to do that.