The (Ideological) Dupes

I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes a statement racist. Is it the statement that is racist, the individual making the statement or the individual decoding that sentence? From a theoretical perspective, each of these three possibilities is tied to a particular understanding of the world:

• a statement is racist --> words carry the meaning, people are simple filters through which these words circulate. Who carries the responsibility for being a racist here?
• the individual making the statement is racist --> the words we use reflect who we are on the inside. The 'racist' is a clear-cut identity inside us that is expressed through these words. In such cases, the individual carries the responsibility of being racist.
• the individual decoding/ interpreting the sentence is racist --> in this case, the individual interprets everything said through a racist lens. Everything makes sense to h/ir only through the racist perspective s/he espouses. Again, the locus of responsibility is within the individual.

Of course, there are always other options than these three. In fact, the mere fact that I only list three options here betrays a worldview: an understanding of communication as a message that moves from the source to the audience.

During these past few days, I was reminded of how complex the questions of 'what counts as racism' and 'where is racism located' are. Part of me, the politically engaged part, cannot escape the feeling that some of these experiences were clearly tokens of racism. But pinpointing exactly what made them so and how were they racist became increasingly difficult. I know that for some, things are easy to interpret: if it smacks of racism, then it is racism. But I'm a theorist, and nothing is simple for me.

I was reading a long and heated thread on Feministe. The topic - parenting - elicits everyone's opinion. Parents and nonparents alike, we all believe there's an objective 'proper way' to raise kids and integrate them in the pre-existing social setting. During this chaotic online conversation, someone qualified their statement as being true regardless of race, gender or ethnicity. In itself, this may be a reasonable statement: "I believe kids can misbehave, regardless of their or their parents' race, gender or ethnicity". As a performance, this kind of statement seeks to counter any accusation of racism, sexism or nationalism. The speaker seeks to reassure the audience that the statement is not uttered through the racial, gender or ethnic lens.

But the audience rejects this assurance. In fact, the audience is quick to point out that the statement itself is racist. Is anyone so deluded to think that normative statements about behavior can be uttered in a space devoid of race, class, ethnicity or gender? No, the mere fact that such a sentence is uttered only reinforces the audience's belief that it is actually racist, classist, sexist etc. No one who has been subjected to racism or to class-based discrimination would ever believe that such a sentence can be 'neutral' (if I may even use this qualifier) . It is uttered from a particular racial, ethnic, gender, class perspective - meaning, the person who utters it is probably white, middle-class.

By extension, all members of the audience who read that utterance and find it non-racist, non-sexist, etc. are themselves racist, sexist, classist etc. because they fail to recognize that the possibility of uttering such a statement is only opened for their class/ race/ ethnicity/ gender.


The other case is of a quite different nature, but it ends up pretty much in the same place. I see this person on a quite regular basis, without being friends or even acquaintances. We live in the same neighborhood and in time, we started saying "hello" to each other. One day, I saw a person that looked just like her, but yet a bit different. My friend confirmed the similarity. We didn't know if it's her or not; being confused, we focused on identifying her instead of being polite and missed the chance of greeting her - whether she was our neighbor or not.

The next time we ran into our neighbor, we told her the story and offered a variant to "save face": maybe it was her sister or a relative? No, she said. It's probably the fact that "all Asians look the same" she said, and then added: "But even my brother was convinced he ran into me once, and it wasn't me". She had offered us another "save face" variant, but one that didn't sit well with us because of its implications: we were white, and as the stereotype goes, "all Asians look the same" to white people. We protested the implied racial framing in a quite clumsy manner. But were we reading too much into it? Could it be that we were actually hearing what she said from a racial perspective? Could it be that the source of our confusion was a racialized vision in the first place? Did she mean it in a racist way or was she simply trying to be nice by offering a possible explanation? Would she have offered the same explanation if we were not white?

* * *

I do not sit well with the idea that we are always first and foremost making a statement from a racial, gender, ethnic, class position. While that's partly true and needs to be recognized and interrogated, it is not the whole truth. If we can think only "as whites", "as women", "as Americans", then we find ourselves in an impossible world, born into these pre-established categories and unable to truly understand each other. These being said, it is only a few of us that have the privilege (or maybe the burden?) of affording to question these things.

Facebook Intolerance

Your friend's friend makes an intolerant comment on your friend's profile. It's highly offensive, almost bordering fascism from your point of view. But you are not sure what to do. It's not addressed to you, but it's in a cvasi-public space - a friend's wall. You do not know that person, but in a way it's just like being in a shop and witnessing a blatantly intolerant act. What do you? Do you comment? Or do you ignore it? Should you tell yourself it is just a private comment? Or should you rather respond to it, precisely because if a private comment in a public space remains unaddressed, it may look like everyone else endorses it?

Speaking Chinese...

"You're speaking Chinese again", a friend told me the other day. I wasn't actually speaking Chinese, but in the language she was using, 'to speak Chinese' stands for saying something that cannot be understood. It's an idiom, but a revealing one. The way we speak, even if we do not mean it, often indicates a variety of things:

• how certain groups or certain differences have been constructed in that language and the ethics surrounding this construction;
• how we, as individuals, may consciously or not buy into these constructs, often perpetuating a problematic construction of difference as something to be feared, as something that cannot be surmounted, as something that has to be avoided at all costs.
  

When 'speaking Chinese' comes to stand for 'saying something that cannot be understood', the underlying implication is that Chinese is an exotic language that cannot be understood. Something that is so different that it becomes incomprehensible.

This is an interesting construction of difference - and I'd be curious to hear if this idiom has any sense at all in English or if readers can relate to it in any way. Here, difference comes to stand for something so apart from our ways of understanding the world, that it can no longer be made sense of.

As we learn our languages, with their biases and suggested views of the world, we also learn how to categorize the world. With this problematic idiom, Chinese comes to constructed as something incomprehensible. It is an exotic Other with whom we can have little if any rapport.

Such a viewpoint may often frame the way we come to relate to individuals we identify as belonging to the group. Often times, the incomprehensibility becomes a source of patronizing irony: "It's in Chinese, so you won't understand a thing, but it sounds so funny!". If you've ever seen someone of Asian background for whom English is not the first language trying to explain something, while other English speakers keep laughing at every word, then you know what I'm talking about. It is interesting though to think about how our perception of difference is informed by such an intricate web of cognitive, linguistic and social dynamics.

Photo credits: Steve Snodgrass

Motherhood

When asked what she is doing, an acquaintance answered she is a mother. And added: "The best thing a woman could be". I had to disagree. As a child, I always wanted to hear my mom say that I am the best thing in her life. But growing up, I started to think that my mom was so much more than just my mom: she was a professional, she was an intellectual, she was a human being whose life extended beyond her role as a mother. My mom took pride in who she was, as a human being. And I am thankful for this, because it taught me that I am first and foremost a person. That biological sex is one of the many aspects of my life, and it needs not be the one that totally defines me.

It's true that being a mother is not easy. Nor does it come naturally. Like all other things humans do, it requires learning. To master it, you need to practice and to be patient. You rely on the existing knowledge, you seek information and you adjust what you find out to fit your view of the world. If anything, one can say that being a mother - better, being a parent - is one of the toughest jobs ever, because there's so much at stake. Not to mention that it is a round the clock, year round job. And that it never really ends...

But being a mother is not "the best thing a woman could be". It may be your personal calling, but that's not a consequence of you being a woman. It is the consequence of a choice you made, a choice stemming from your worldview. Women are not one and the same, defined by their capacity to procreate. Not all women are able or want to have children. Does that mean they will never reach their potential as human beings?

We all try to make our own choices about our lives. But to say that motherhood is the best a woman could be is highly problematic. You may say that motherhood is the best thing you chose to be, because it fulfills you. In such cases, you want to convey to others that you are happy and satisfied with what you have in your life. But one size does not fit all!

Photo credits: seanmcgrath

Negotiating Name-Calling

Warning: The contents of this post may be offensive. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just my political correctness. I may become 'old school': the kind of people who tried to fight consciously and unconsciously abusive labels and name-calling. But as the fight unfolded, so did a form of resistance that sought to reclaim the labels and to reinvest them with a new, empowering meaning.

The other day, I was looking for an unprotected wireless internet network that I could use for a mobile device. In the middle of a commercial area, the only unprotected network available was "niggerfaggot". I was taken aback: how should I read this? Could I read it in any other way than being utterly offensive? Did I even have the right to 'read' it in the first place, given that it most probably meant to be private? And what was I supposed to do about it? Report it? Connect to it? Ignore it?

I decided not to use the network. But my feelings didn't vanish: uncertainty, anger, wonder. Mostly uncertainty. What was the name's meaning? What was its role? We all name our technologies: my car's name is Sharky, mainly because it resembles a shark from the profile. Sometimes, the name is meant to be a joke. Which in itself doesn't mean the joke may not rest upon ethnic, racial or gender stereotypes.

We are meaning-making creatures: unless we make sense of things, we cannot move on. How am I to make sense of a network named "niggerfaggot"? What sets of criteria should I use to interpret it? Let's pretend for a moment that the name is reclaimed by someone who wants to challenge the mainstream hateful connotations of the words. Does this moment of personal empowerment matter in terms of the system? Would people sense the alleged irony or resistance?

The construction of difference is not something stable or unitary. It remains contextual: to understand, you need to know the context of the name. It also remains fluid over time: today's discrimination may be tomorrow's resistance. But most importantly, it remains historical: you need to understand the way in which the name was used throughout time to mark a particular type of difference.

Photo credits: Kelly Santos

Everyday Inconspicuous Discrimination

At the lab were I usually get my blood tests done, there is a person of the same nationality as me. We have never been 'properly introduced'. The first time I went to the lab, this person overheard me speaking the language and immediately jumped into the conversation. Like when you travel abroad, and someone overhears you speaking the same language and they immediately feel an imaginary (yet hardly real...) connection. They feel you share something, although you are complete strangers. They want to establish rapport, although given the same situation in your own country, they'd never approach you.

But how can you tell such persons you are really not interested in establishing rapport just because you happen to speak the same language... After all, you so happen to speak this language with some other 29 million people but you do not have a relationship with each and every one of them. Frankly, you probably don't even want that.

Yet, when someone tries to be nice, regardless of the reason, it's hard to be rude. Hard to tell them: You know what, I don't know you and frankly, I'm not really interested in knowing you just because we speak the same language, have the same skin color or drive the same car. How can you tell them that in fact, what drives them to approach you is annoying and offending, because it discriminates? Because it identifies you a priori with something you may not be, feel, share or want? Because it categorizes people, and you don't support that?

Funny thing is, every time this person realizes we speak the same language, they try to be extra kind, to serve us first, to bypass the lineup. All just because we happen to speak the same language. I know this seems insignificant, but let me assure you it is not. It is at the root of many discriminatory practices; and with time, such practices became institutionalized networks of influence and distribution of resources. Their discriminatory core becomes obscured; all it's left is the result: discrimination.

The need to classify

We classify. Maybe because we want to master the world around us, by putting order into it. Maybe because our brains work with a tree-like structure, placing things into categories and drawing branch like relations between them. We classify, and in this process we buy into the order of things*: we accommodate things within a pre-determined system of beliefs and interests that underlies every classificatory order.

No classification is innocent.

- I'm going to a concert tonight. There's a famous piano-player from Canada playing.
- What's her name?
- Sarah Cheung.
- Oh, she's Asian then.
- She's quite famous in Canada.
- Yes, of Asian origins. Cheung does not sound ... well, how shall i put it, Canadian.
- It may not sound Western.
- Yeah, that's what I meant.

Canadian, Asian, Western... we need to put people in categories. It's not enough to say what a person does or where a person now lives. To properly place that person in our nicely fitting systems of categories, we need to find out "where is s/he coming from". As if, by ticking the little box of birth-place and/ or ethnic group, all of a sudden there's order. And we can breath out, relax and hear the rest of the conversation.

*The Order of Things is the title of one of Michel Foucault's books, dealing with the relation between power and knowledge.

Will you work for a chick?

I know someone who didn't get along with their boss. A female boss, I should add. So, when he was fired, he said "I will never work for a chick again". I have to confess this comment stayed with me; its derogatory labeling of women as 'chicks' kept bothering me. Women in power, that's even worse! Chicks in power sounds so much less threatening! Chicks are cute, chicks are innocent, chicks are brainless...

A recent TIME issue was devoted to the the state of women in America today. I didn't know there was no female FBI agent in the early 1970s, when TIME first covered this topic. From the 1970s up to now, there has been quite a change: a quantitative change, with more women taking on jobs as well as claiming decision-making positions, but also a qualitative change, with both men and women complexifying their definition of gender roles and expectations.

There is a gender-related change, no doubt about it. But there must also be a healthy dose of skepticism about the scope and depth of this change. There's little doubt in my mind that there's plenty of men out there, who consciously or not, truly believe there's no way they would 'work for a chick'. Yes, they do need a serious system upgrade; patches won't do. But they are also the fathers raising up the next generation of sons who 'won't work for chicks'. Of sons who won't read 'chick lit' or watch 'chick flicks'.

What on earth is a chick flick anyway? It turns out, the fathers and sons who won't work for 'chicks' also won't study the same 'chick' curriculum. I remember reading about this boys-only school where boys won't be made to read literature targeting girls (translation: anything that deals with nurturing, bonding, raising, problematizing, discussing). 'Cause boys cannot identify with that, they need to identify with trains and cars, with explosions and guns, with the real issues boys face in the real world (yeah, like trains and guns...). As the guy in charge of this school explained, most boys fails school because the curricula is 'girl-oriented'....

Chick flicks, chick lit, chick curricula, and, let's not forget, chicks-in-power. Some things do change, but exactly how deep is this change - and how the change itself is reinterpreted by some groups - remains open for debate. There should be enough reason to stay optimistic, but at the same time, there's plenty of reason to be very cautious.

One of the most important Marxist thinkers, Antonio Gramsci once argued that dominant ideologies - like patriarchy in our case - work through hegemonic processes: they seduce us into consenting to their worldviews as much as they force us. And, when change threatens the worldview that patriarchy proposes, there will always be an attempt to reincorporate that change back into the dominant ideology, by redefining its terms so that they are less threatening. Like calling women chicks. Like re-drawing strong gender lines, where real boys don't cry and definitely don't watch chick flicks. And where chicks themselves reclaim the label for themselves, rejoicing the (questionable and tricky) sexual power a chick has over a man, and calling only on their moms and girlfriends to go out and watch a chick movie (cause you know, my husband doesn't really like chick flicks...).

Photo credits: Dominic

On Chick Lit, the Feminizing of Stupidity and Gendered Language

Most of the times, English is a gender-neutral language. Yes, it's true you can say 'chairman' or 'chairwoman', thus betraying your gendered-vision of the job market. But for most of the times, one cannot guess if the noun is feminine, masculine or neutral. Take French for instance: la femme ignorante/ l'homme ignorant. The epithet (adjective) changes with the gender of the noun - and in French, like in other Romance languages, the noun is always gendered.

So, when a man wrote the other day in one of these Romance languages: "I'm new here and I do not know the details of this problem, but I'm asking like a 'stupid' one", he used the feminine for the word stupid, and put it in between inverted commas, to emphasize the fact that it should be read in a connotative manner.

But what is the connotation here? That to ask stupid questions is always a female way of dealing with things? Most probably, yes...

The other day, someone else wrote to say he's reading "chick lit!" I was intrigued... what exactly makes literature 'chick'? Could it be because it is about poultry? Probably not... As I was pondering the 'depth of this comment' (*sarcastic tone*), I took out the newspapers and happened to come across an article about the 'feminization of the school curriculum', where 'poor boys' (*sarcasm, again*) are being forced to read those annoying Jane Austin books... Consequently, due to this 'outrageous discrimination' (*sarcasm, again), the boys' grades were going down the drain, so the professor replaced the 'chick lit' with books where the boys can read - in a manly fashion! - about the adventures of a young boy. Go, boys, go!

I wonder if people ever ponder the mangitude of such words, deeds and feelings. If they ever stop to ask themselves: why am I labeling this 'chick lit' or why is stupidity always bound to be a 'female' attribute?

Here's my biased two cents: in most cases, I suspect telling people that using such a language is derogatory, betraying a sexist and patriarchal vision of the world, will only bring a smile and maybe a polite acknowledgment: "Oh, but I didn't mean it in that way". Maybe you didn't, but then again, you did mean exactly in this way and maye not because you 'intended' it, but because that's the only language you're comfortable with, and you don't give it a second thought. But you should.

Gender and Blogging

The Gender and Technology blog with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society has posted an interesting note on Arab female bloggers:

And while there are certainly well-known female bloggers discussing issues unique to women, many female bloggers in the Arab world face a unique challenge: to speak out about women’s issues often means going against the grain of family and society.
Still, for those who do, blogging is a potentially liberating experience.

Yet, in spite of this, the post proposes that many Arab female bloggers are getting out of the bloggosphere, mainly because blogging is constructed as a 'masculine' (made me wonder what exactly is meant here by 'masculine' - is it a male practice, like in saying 'men are interested in politics'; or is it a practice shaped by particular values associated with masculinity, like in saying 'men are rational'?). A Libyan blogger adds a new layer of explanation: women who blogged were probably reprimanded by family and friends for doing this, so they either opted out of the bloggosphere or restricted their blogs 'by invitation only'.

There's one argument I often hear: that the bloggosphere - or the internet for that matter - is a safe space. As if the 'safety' is a feature of the space. But it is not. What makes a place safe is not its physical characteristics, but the people and social structures inhabiting it.

First, a blogger is never fully safe - the precise location of your averagely tech-skilled blogger is easy to pinpoint. Furthermore, should the blogger subscribe to the many various services that aggregate your digital traces, the blogger's identity may be inadvertently disclosed. Say you have a Facebook account to keep up with your friends. You list your blog there, thinking it's only them who have access to it. But you forgot to set your privacy settings - and a simple search by either name or blog may bring that info up. There are also things you cannot control: say a friend adds you to her blogroll, but instead of using your blog's name, she uses your real name.

But there's yet another way in which the blog is never fully safe: it has to do with the emotional involvement in building your digital life. In many cases, the comments people post may be supportive, pleasant and educational. Yet, in many other cases - and particularly in the case of posts about gender relations - the comments are stereotyped, destructive and even hateful. If you think you're safe from such comments just because nobody knows who you are, that they won't mean anything just because you're blogging from the comfort of your couch or bedroom, you've probably never blogged. The emotional toll such comments may take on you is almost never discussed by researchers. Maybe because it's deemed as a 'feminine' trait?

I think many of our biases in approaching blogging stem from the fact that we get blindsided by its so-called 'empowering potential'. We forget to ask ourselves exactly whom we want (or think of being) empowered and what are we missing because of this assumption. We also tend to think that blogs will collectively contribute to the advance of democratic, liberal and tolerant values. Again, we forget to question the assumption that if people have the means to express themselves, they will participate in the rational public sphere and reveal themselves as critical thinkers. This assumption is closely connected to that of 'understanding via information': let there be information, which will allegedly reveal the 'truth', and there will be mutual understanding, acceptance and ultimately a redress of oppression. Such assumptions are in great need of more deconstruction, particularly in the social construction of new communication technologies.

Photo credits: bohPhoto

Those hairy feminists...

It seems that everything I'm getting angry about these days relates to gender issues.

The other day for instance, I got mad over a disgusting article in a newspaper in Eastern Europe talking about how feminists are stupid, have a mustache and grow chest hair?!? Do I need to say that the article in question was (allegedly) written by a woman?

Not that I buy into the 'sisterhood' thing, but I find it extremely dangerous that in a country where gender equality was an official state policy, things can change so dramatically against women once equality is no longer publicly heralded (there still are equality of opportunity policies, but nobody - politicians included - truly support it publicly). What does this say about the real mental pictures people hold about 'women'? What does this say about the real shared understandings of what a woman is and where she belongs?

If decades of equality didn't do much to actually change collective gender stereotypes and patriarchal worldviews, exactly what will? (OK, I'm exaggerating a bit: it was a public equality, but not necessarily equality in the private sphere, in the everyday life of households).

But hey, not everything bad happens outside the 'civilized' world (note sarcasm here). As a woman has been killed while jogging in BC, the RCMP representative commented something along these lines: "women have to ensure their safety when they go out jogging in a park"?!?! Excuse me?!?! Again, women have to do something to protect themselves: how about, for a change, society collectively makes an effort to de-legitimize violence against perceived members of a group - be they women, gay, immigrants and so on. How about we live in a society that takes collective responsibility for such gender-motivated (and for that matter, ethnic and race motivated) hate and violence, and ensures that punishment is adequate and that social discussion in the public sphere takes place?

I just finished reading a review of the new movie Polythechique, recreating the massacre of women in Montreal's higher education institution way back in 1989 (incidentally, the same year when communism fell in Eastern Europe, putting an end to the official communist policy of gender equality). I don't think there's anything that can be said here, but then maybe something should be said: what is it that makes some individuals hate the fact that other individuals are to be treated as equals? That they have rights, and that they have the right to say 'no'?

You'd think that after so many years of discussion on gender equality, there will be less and less individuals prone to thinking that men and women are two separate biological entities, defined by their reproductive system and therefore pre-ordained to a given social hierarchy. But I'm looking around and many male friends cannot cope with the reality of an equal female partner. Rationally, they think they're all for equality. But the truth is that they cannot deal with equality. Emotionally, they are not ready for it. They are not ready to be told "no, I'm not gonna sacrifice my life to have a child now" or "no, I'm too busy working, and too tired in the end of the day, so I'm not gonna cook, wash or iron". They are not ready to be told "you have no right to tell me what to do, and if you continue imposing your views on me, I'll dump you".

That's the society we live in: an official policy can accomplish only that much in affecting the everyday life of people. And the irony of it all is that sometimes it's the mothers raising up the boy as the king of the family - and, guaranteed, that boy is gonna grow up emotionally unable to cope with gender equality.

It seems all I do is rant about gender lately. How can I not? I opened the newspaper today, and like everyday in the past week, there's an item there about Michelle Obama's sense of fashion. This one got on my nerves: a cartoon (click here to see it, I'm not sure I can reproduce it here because of damn copyright concerns...) summarizing the collective imaginary of the relation between men and women. I know that a cartoon intends to mock by exaggerating traits - and I think this one does a very good job of showing us what we actually think: clothes are for women, brains are for men... I beg to differ!

Photo credits: nyki_m

You've (Not) Got the Looks!

Two business men are sitting at the bar, checking two women. One man says to the other: "Women after 30... they look like the lights went down on them". The other replies: "What do you mean?". "Women are glowing before they reach 30, they loose the glow after that", and he smiles nodding at one of the women.

The scene is from Mad Men, the popular TV series about advertising world in 1960s New York. It's set in the 1960s, but it could well be set in the 2000s. After all, that's when a female friend of mine was interviewing for an advertising position but she didn't get it because... well, let's put it this way, she wasn't a Barbie doll. Of course, nobody in the top management would ever admit to that, but they whispered off-the-record that she doesn't have what it takes - the looks.

But I'm not at all surprised, really! You see, I went to school with some of the men now in advertising. I remember a conversation we had - a conversation which only mirrored avant la lettre the world of Mad Men. We were talking about women, and my male colleagues were quick to make the distinction between women you marry and women that are best to be your lovers (in other words, women you cheat your wife with). Just like Don Draper, who kept a lovely wife at home (here's his mistake, according to my colleagues, she was just too beautiful) and a lovely yet fiercely independent lover, my colleagues argued that you marry the not-too-beautiful woman who worships you and waits for you at home with the hot soup on the table. The other ones - whether you are attracted to beauty or wits or both - are best kept outside the home.

Why is that, we asked? It's because you don't want to worry too much about what is at home. You want to come home and be taken care of. If you want the thrill, the fight, that's what lovers are for.

You think this is the past? Think again! This is very much today. And this is going to be the future as well. There will always be lazy and insecure people who want the quick way out. It's always easier to buy into stereotypes and live accordingly. And, truth be told, the society in which we live favors your looks, your appearance, your compliance to mainstream standards of beauty. Yes, there's way more room for contestation - but there's a difference between being tolerated and being seen as part of the 'normal' definition of everyday life.

When a Woman Marries a Rich Guy...

A long, long time ago, when newspapers and TV shows were closed off to the comments of the public, we decried their lack of transparency and openness. Now, most online newspapers and television shows allow us, the mighty public, to critically engage with them. In theory, this is a process of democratizing the media, of coming closer to what Jurgen Habermas thought a free public sphere - where people engage each other in a critical, rational manner to discuss political decision-making - should be like.

But, up to now, the main thing I get from reading the comments posted on various news items is a feeling of narrow-mindedness. One may say this is because the access to the public sphere is not free, as Habermas requested. Not everyone participates; and not everyone participates in a critical manner (which I think is Habermas' main fault: assuming the human being is a rational being).

In most of the cases, those news items gathering hundreds and thousands of comments are those touching upon ideological issues: patriotism, women's role in society, politics and politicians, religious beliefs. Today's perusal of online news was no different. The story harvesting most of the public's comments (being surpassed only by a couple of political news) is the one of a woman's conflict with her husband.

Behind the story is the question of a woman's social behavior vis-a-vis men and other women. And because the woman married a rich man, the story is also about class relations, intertwined with gender issues. To summarize, this woman is a well-known pop culture star, an icon of beauty and a role-model for 'women who make it'. But the story is about her marriage to a rich man, with whom she lives for 10 years and has a child. The marriage breaks up, and the ensuing divorce is being carried out in the open: she alleges he wants to destroy her and that he has the means to do it.

No divorce is an easy story - and nowhere is truth harder to find than in such a context. Assigning blame is always complicated: what do we impute each person? Based on what values do we label their interactions as 'wrong', 'faulty' or 'immoral'? How do we think about marriage, what does it mean for us and why? All of these questions are means to probe into the underlying worldviews behind our evaluation of the situation.

Reading the comments people left on this beautiful-woman-divorcing-rich-man story is a saga in itself - and requires a tremendous deconstructive effort to understand just what prescriptions of gender roles transpire out of them. I have a few quick favorites to share:

- the theme of retribution rooted in a class antagonism: she got what she deserved for marrying a rich guy, cause we all know those rich guys are all jerks. She should've known better, but she wanted to enjoy his richness, now she has to pay. He might be a jerk, but hey, that's what rich people are!

- the theme of religious kindness: a loner in the comments section, the religious devout cries out for forgivness and kindness. Yes, she made a mistake, but hey, we're all human, so we should help her out. We should not envy her material well-being and hate her for indulging in it, but we should forgive this to her because all human beings err.

- the theme of retribution rooted in a frustrated feminism: it's all her fault, because she didn't want to make it on her own in life. She relied on a rich man even if she knew being what being a trophy wife implies (namely, her degradation as a woman), so ultimately she gets what she deserves.

- the theme of the oppressed male: she probably married him for his money, because that's why beautiful women marry rich guys. But, with all this gender equality stuff, she's gonna take all his money in court, and the poor guy - a jerk, yeah, but still a guy - will pay the price of being rich and married.

- the theme of retribution rooted in the patriarchal thinking: she is to be blamed, because she married a younger man and because she is really a whore who married for money, not like a real woman who works hard by her man's side to sustain the family. She should protect the child, and not create a public scandal out of the divorce. Let her give up her fancy cars and pay for her child's upbringing instead.

Photo credits: Kevin Dooley

Bella: A beautiful movie with a strong message

I found this movie interesting, moving and different in so many ways. As I was browsing the movie's website, I came across this small quote which I think sums up the experience of the movie in a powerful way. Mind you, this is not a movie about inter-ethnic relations - but a movie about love, responsibility and life:

Several years ago, he (singer and actor Eduardo Verástegui) abandoned his career track determined to make films that do not exploit media stereotypes of Latino men as gangbangers, bandidos and Latin lovers. “My goal is to elevate and heal and respect the dignity of Latinos in the media,” the Antonio Banderas look-alike said in a recent phone interview. (from LA Times, December 4, 2007)

Gendered Dilemmas

"I never wanted a girl", the woman sitting in front of me said tonight. "I really, really wanted a boy, cause you know, boys are so great". "Oh, yes, indeed, my husband wanted a boy very much too... Now we have a girl... I guess it's OK with me, but he really really wanted a boy".

As I watched the group of women talking about their pregnancies in one corner, and the group of men talking business in the other corner of the room, I had to ask myself just what kind of mentalities we still carry on into the future. Of course, many things have changed: men are now entering the kitchen, that forbidden territory their mothers inhabited. And occasionally the women are now able to tell them "bring this plate to the dining table, dear". But deep down inside, what do we think of each other? "Boys will always be boys," somebody once told me. "No matter what, when it comes down to gender, the truth is that one is born a boy or a girl, with certain features. A boy will always want the car, a girl will always go for the baby-doll". Will he or she? And is it the boy or the little girl who 'wants' the toy, or is it us, the parents, pushing the car onto the boy, and the pinkie thing onto the girl.

A few days ago I bought some Tylenol for my friend's baby. At the drug store, I was faced with a dilemma: do I buy the cherry-flavored Tylenol with a baby-girl on the box, or do I buy the blueberry-flavored one with a baby-boy on it? Guess what? I bought the 'girlish' one for a baby-girl... I just couldn't help it, I guess... Call it stereotype, call it a habit. The truth is, we routinely divide babies into gender. Each year, I bring a photo of a baby and show it to my students. I tell a third of them the baby is a girl, a third the baby is a boy and I do not provide a gender for the third group. Then I ask them to pick toys for the baby. And guess what! They always pick a doll for the girl and a car for the boy. The third group feels handicapped: they want to know what sex the baby is before they go on with the task. The Baby X experiment never ceases to amaze me; it puzzles my students and yes, it does provoke a vivid discussion. Truth be told, we go on reproducing the same gendered thinking in our everyday life choices and small talks.

And truth be told, the men still congregate in one corner, talking cars, business and sports. The girls are fluent in the language of the household, pregnancy and infant diseases. And why is it that almost all women find all babies 'beautiful', 'cute' and 'absolutely lovely'? It's almost as if there's an unspoken wall that, sooner or later, will divide the party into two genders. Of course, it is heterosexual men and women that fit this picture, but hey, there was no one challenging the gender categories at the party tonight... Maybe just me, an awkward fit, uninterested in the household talk, wishing the kids will stop screaming and not finding them that gorgeous after all...

Seavey, C.A., Katz, P.A., Zalk, S.R. (1975) "Baby X" Sex Roles, 1(2): 103-109

Untitled, Unlabeled

Sabina was a painter. It so happens that she lived in communist Czech republic. The fact that we are born in a place is an accident. We could easily be born somewhere else. Of course, being born somewhere carries some heaviness with it: the places and people you grow accustomed to, the social rules of interaction you come to know, the food your taste buds come to enjoy, all mark you. But they don't define you. It's what you make out of everything around you that comes to define you. And that's the trick most people fail to grasp. It is so much easier to simply stamp people with your ignorant stereotype of what they - a woman, a Czech, an Asian - allegedly should be like, then to take on the burden of paying attention to the individual.

When the Soviet troops invaded Prague, Sabina left for the West. But in the eyes of many Westerners, she was defined by her upbringing in a communist Czech environment. Sabina was first and foremost an oddity, an Other from another country and political regime. When her first exhibition opened in Germany, everyone assumed it was about living under communism. When she protested that, she wasn't heard:

"Do you mean that modern art isn't persecuted under Communism?
'My enemy is kitsch, not Communism!' she replied infuriated.
From that time on, she began to insert mystifications in her biography, and by the time she got to America, she even managed to hide the fact that she was Czech. It was all merely a desparate attempt to escape the kitsch that people wanted to make of her life"

(Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 1984/ 2008, First Olive Edition, p. 275)

A Wonderful Little Book Called Embroideries: A Glimpse behind the "Muslim" Curtain

As other Westerners, all I know about the "Muslim" world is filtered through the Western lens. Yet, I've also learned that it is hard to claim one "Muslim" world, just as it is hard to claim one "Western" lens. Though I do not know much about the historical background of non-Western countries, I've always made a point in telling people that it is hard to think of one "Muslim" world or of one "Muslim" religion. All I had was to do was think of say Christianity, or the debates over what makes the "West" to know that there is no such thing as 'one version' of things or 'one religion'.

Yesterday I found this little gem of a book by Marjane Satrapi. Some of you might know her as the author of the book behind the movie Persepolis, which got a lot of attention back in 2007 at the Cannes Festival. The little book I got yesterday was Embroideries - as I said, a wonderful little book opening up the big black box of women's lives in Iran. And not just any type of lives, but their sexual lives.

It is a delightful easy read which leaves one wondering about the 'difference' between those all too often invoked lines of difference between West and East, North and South, Christian and Muslim, and so on and so forth. An autobiographic book, Embroideries is the story of many stories told by women about their sexual lives, about the power relations which structure their lives but also offer them the opportunity to bypass them and make their own choices.

Here's a short interview (in French) with Marjan Satrapi about her life and writing such a political (yet banal) novel about women's lives in Iran:



Photo credits: Random House

The constraints of national identity

I have discussed Wayne Norman's book on Negotiating Nationalism in a previous post. Here I want to talk about national identity - and why I find it so limiting, annoying and unsuitable for a world in which we would like to be mobile, to have our human dignity recognized and to challenge/ change/ sanction physical and systemic violence. In chapter 2, devoted to National Identity, Norman outlines some of the underlying assumptions, beliefs and sentiments that make the national identity. And here is exactly why I think we need to become creative, get rid of national identities and imagine new ways of mobilizing loyalties and justifying the social contract:

National identity, argues Norman, is based on the following sets of:
- beliefs: that there is a nation of which I am a member, which has a homeland. Furthermore, you cannot become a member of the nation just by moving there, although in some situations (certainly not if you are of Turkish background in Germany for instance) being born there out of immigrant parents may qualify you as a national. In other words, one remains eternally (or at least for the duration of one's life) defined by his/ her nation and his/her homeland. One is eternally doomed to be a stranger, should he or she decide to move somewhere else. One cannot never be 'part of us'. Now, I find this not only narrow-minded, but increasingly unsuitable for our contemporary world (read a very interesting article on this by Arash Abizadeh)

- still under the rubric of beliefs, national identity is informative - in that it tells something about yourself to those who do not know you. Now, again, this is not only paternalistic, but also absurd. If I tell you I'm Canadian, you'll feel you know something about me. But what you think you know are stereotypes. You'll make assumptions and you'll place a label onto me - without ever trying to get to know me. How can 33 million people be defined by some common traits?

- last, but not least, national identity means I'm morally obliged to my fellow-nationals - and more so than to non-nationals. This is what I would call a double standard: one cannot be committed to the idea of human rights, of individual dignity and respect derived from one's humanity, and to the idea of the nation. How can one believe in human rights, but apply two different sets of moral principles to co-nationals and 'others'?

- and finally, my favorite: even if I live in another country and become a citizen, I would always be a citizen of my nation.

No, I am not. I beg to differ. I realize I am embedded in a Western system of thinking, but I am who I am. I am not who the group decides for me to be. I may be marked by the things I have lived through, but the way I have experienced them is mine in a way too complex to even start describing. I share experiences, symbols and ideas with my friends, but not with 33 million people. And more likely my belonging to the middle class has marked my tastes and values more than anything else (well, class and the books I've loved to read throughout my life).

Now, before you jump and say: oh, you are so wrong, you are marked by your national identity in ways you cannot even began to grasp, through education and socialization, through being immersed in an universe of meaning and symbols yada yada... let me ask you to think of your own identity:

- You think (assuming you buying into the Western ontology) that you are a distinct human being. Do you think it's legitimate to have one morality for yourself and one for say your brother, your friend, your teacher - who are all 'distinct' and therefore 'others' to you?

- Are you exactly the same as you were 15 years ago? Have you reconsidered some of the things you believed in when you were a child?

- How do you react when others tell you who you are? When they tell you what you believe in, what are your traits, what and how you think?

Then why would you still buy into this national identity thing?

I like Jet Li!

Yes, I confess, I do like Jet Li. A lot. So, when I saw his new movie War (2007) offered at the DVD machine yesterday, I went for it. I am a sucker for movies where the good prevails and where an individual has the determination and the strength to defeat the evil and make their own justice in this world (though, I have to admit, on a certain level this is deeply disturbing, especially if you commit yourself to the principles of the rule of law, and not the rule of the fist...).

But the curse of living your life in the academic world is that you cannot escape your critical thinking mind, not even when you watch your usual Hollywood-type movie. I could not help but notice how difference was constructed, not only in terms of the topic, but in terms of the choices movie-makers made, choices of actors, of ideas, of stereotypes. And this is what my critical thinking mind wondered while watching War last night:

• This is a very politically correct movie: you have several visible minorities present as lead or supporting actors. But then I wondered why most movies with Jet Li or Jackie Chan have to be karate/ action movies. And I remember what a friend of mine said: "I do not like the watch movies with Black actors". Here goes the political correctness down the drain...
  

• Is San Francisco a Yakuza-ruled town? And are all Asian neighborhoods dominated by the Japanese mafia? Yes, I know it's a movie. Yes, I know there's criminality everywhere. And yes, an incipient stereotype was inconspicuously born in my mind last night. A stereotype and a fear, which will make me unconsciously avoid certain places I identify as resembling the urban images I saw in the movie last night. Here goes my political correctness down the drain...

• The second-in-command in one of the Yakuza clan was this woman, the daughter of the big boss. She the big-shot. And yet, as soon as her dad is not there, the others are challenging her lead because she is a woman. She puts them back in their places with a blade and a gun, humbles them and makes them agree with her. "Go get me a salad", she says, and the men are confused. They're not some woman's servants, but hey, she holds the gun to their head. They look at each other, and they give up. They go get her salad, but they remember to mutter: "Bitch". So, if she was a he, they would have said "Dog" or what?

Now that I got you interested in the movie, peak at the trailer, and go get War:

Banal, Inconspicuous Racism...

What is it you see in this picture? Pick your choice:
A). A bunch of Chinese
B). A bunch of Asians
C). A bunch of people

If you answered A or B, you have a problem. A banal, inconspicuous problem. You see race before people. You take race to be something that defines people. Which, in a banal and inconspicuous manner, does make you a racist.

The other day, I was reading this blog post about dealing with racist stereotypes and prejudices within your own social network. Should one react to them? Should you confront your friends and acquaintances? Should you just avoid the discussion and pretend you didn't get the racism? I even left a comment on the blog, feeling like one who has been there and found the balance...

Well, I was wrong (and I hate to admit it). There is no balance. I've forgotten how difficult it is to live in a world where people judge other people based on their skin color or shape of the eyes. And how difficult it might be to react, out of many reasons (age, social status, social ties and so on). I simply left the room as soon as I could with that bitter feeling that change is next to impossible, to say the least.

The discussion started innocently, as most racist discussions do, with a story about a trip by bus.

Oh, there are so many Chinese taking the bus... Yes, many indeed, but if you think this is many, then go to Vancouver... There are almost only Chinese there... So many you (the White voice, my note) feel like a minority there... Yes, they are everywhere... And they go everywhere... They'll soon be everywhere...

I confess I didn't react. The people involved in the conversation are intellectuals, with a rich cultural experience, who traveled the world and back. The people involved in this conversation know exactly how I would react, or where I stand on this type of inconspicuously disguised racism. I know I should have reacted.

The same people are however enraged when they themselves are placed into groups and homogenized. They take offence when they are stereotyped and labeled and when they experience the status of being a minority (hard status for a white person!). Yet the logic doesn't seem to be the same when encountering other people. People are almost always perceived through what is taken to be the sign of difference: the skin, the physical traits, the ethnicity, the nationality.

I remember a girl once saying "I will never date a Russian". Why, I asked naively. "Because he would be Russian", came the self-explanatory answer. In his 1995 book entitled Banal Nationalism, Michael Billig discusses the concept arguing that we recreate daily and in a banal manner the ideas that the world is naturally divided into nations defined by particular ethno-cultural-psychological traits and that individuals are primarily defined by their belonging to their nation. The argument is pliable to racism as well. Yes, some of us might live in places proclaiming themselves to be multicultural and tolerant, but it is the daily recreation of racism, nationalism, homophobia and intolerance that needs to be seen, investigated and addressed.

Photo Credits: ernoldino