Talking to my Kid About Gun Violence

When the Sandy Hook shooting happened last year, adults were discussing it and the topic of gun violence and gun control a lot, and so it was inevitable that my then-four-year-old daughter would pick some of that information up.

I learned her interest when she told me that she wanted a gun for Christmas so that she could shoot and kill me. Then she laughed, as if this were a funny joke.

What followed was me explaining the concept of death to my kid for the first time. What ultimately hit home for her was the idea that once someone is dead, she would never see them again. They were gone, forever. She started crying at the very thought of it, and as much as it pained me to see her suffer like that, I was glad that she was beginning to understood that real violence can have real horrible consequences.

My thinking is that if a kid is old enough to play-act scenes of violence, to watch cartoons that act out violence (often with no consequences), he or she is old enough to at least have a cursory understanding of what that parallels in reality.

I found myself thinking about this today as we drove home from her school, and she noticed the field of t-shirts on crosses at the Lutheran Seminary, each individual shirt in memorial to a specific victim of illegal gun violence in Philadelphia. My daughter, who has just turned five, asked about the shirts.

In simple terms, I told her the truth: "Those shirts are for people who were killed by guns in our city. So we remember them, and so people stop shooting each other." My voice cracked as I said it. At a stop light, I turned to examine one shirt more closely; its victim's age, 2 years. My daughter's voice peeped up, "Don't feel sad, mama. It'll be okay."

“I think it is unnatural to think that there is such a thing as a blue-sky, white-clouded happy childhood for anybody. Childhood is a very, very tricky business of surviving it. Because if one thing goes wrong or anything goes wrong, and usually something goes wrong, then you are compromised as a human being. You’re going to trip over that for a good part of your life.” -Maurice Sendak 

Adults so often try to hide these hard realities from kids, but how can we hide what is right there, out in the open for all to see? How can we hide what we are discussing constantly? How can we stop our voices from cracking? Trying to hide the ugliness of the world seems much worse, as kids aren't that stupid, and they will at least know that something is up. Or worse, they'll grow up only associating guns with a bunch of romantic, fictional imagery.

I suppose the retort to that might be something such as, But what if it gives kids nightmares? What if they can't sleep at night for fear that they will be shot by some violent criminal?

So far my daughter hasn't expressed any such fears for her own safety, and she sleeps just fine. I'm the one sometimes kept up by the sound of gunshots in the distance, and haunted by a t-shirt in memorial to a toddler.

Thoughts After Reading The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

Tomorrow I'll begin taking a free adult education class called Extinction: Life On Earth and Human Impact (offered through the Wagner Free Institute for Science.) Because I'm the sort of person who likes to spend my precious-little free time learning nerdy nature/science stuff, regardless of how depressing it might be. 

A few days ago I finished one of the recommended readings, The Sixth Extinction by journalist Elizabeth Kolbert, published earlier this year. Though it covers a sobering topic, it is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it to all lovers or nature and all those with even a passing curiosity about the nitty gritty details of how humans are transforming the global ecosystem. 

The best thing about this book is the way it is organized. Each chapter zooms in on either the plight of a species either already extinct, or on the brink of doom. For example, the Great Auk, hunted to extinction before the turn of the 20th century, or the Panamanian Golden Frog, one of many frog species which were plentiful only a decade ago, but are now critically endangered. 

Kolbert did her footwork. She traveled around the world to witness the places where extinctions happened and are happening, and to interview the scientists trying to piece together what occurred, and conservationists desperately trying to preserve or restore what remains. Kolbert takes us readers into a cave where the floor is piled with frozen bat carcasses. She wades us into waters populated by scores of exotic and sometimes terrifying sea creatures: jagged coral, struggling sea turtles, stinging stone fish, and an octopus who can kill with one bite. If, like me, you have not the time nor funds to go to the Amazonian rain forest or Great Coral Reef yourself, reading this book can help take you there in your imagination. 

By connecting both ancient and recent extinction with currently endangered species, Kolbert builds the case for what scientists have been calling the Holocene Extinction (a mass extinction event caused by humans). As Kolbert emphasizes, it might soon be re-named the Anthropocene Extinction, in acknowledgement the enormity of our impact on the biosphere. 

In the final chapter, Kolbert writes about the black-faced honeycreeper, which is thought to have gone extinct in the fall of 2004. As I read this, I couldn't help but think about what I was doing in 2004. As it so happens, I got married that year in the late spring. So just as I was beginning my life-partnership with my husband, the black-faced honeycreeper was ending its existence as a living species. Though I lived to witness this animal go extinct during my lifetime, our daughters were born after it was already gone. This sort of sad event is happening constantly, and the evidence that it is due to human activity has become as overwhelming as the reminder of our species' own limited lifespan. 

Kolbert's tone manages to be rather upbeat. Though deeply concerned, she never comes off as alarmist, nor does she shake her finger at only certain perpetrators. Instead, she draws the reader into specific situations, lays out all the facts, connects the up-close experience to the bigger picture, and finally wraps it up with a few poignant phrases. (I've highlighted three of my favorite lines from the book in this blog post in green.) She makes it clear that we humans are all in this together. Indeed, radically transforming our environment at a rapid pace (geologically speaking) might be written into our genetic code. 

By the end, it is clear that Kolbert's heart is most with the animals going extinct. It was here that I felt my concerns diverge a bit from the author's. As much as my heart bleeds for the rhinos and corals, throughout my reading of the book, I found myself wondering, what does this mean for us? As beautiful and evocative as I find the natural world, and as sad as is the thought of losing so many species (especially the most charismatic ones), I must admit that my main concern regarding these mass extinctions is that in causing such profound disruptions to the global ecosystem, we humans are making the planet inhospitable to us. 

Last week the UN just had its annual Summit On Climate Change. Some, such as Gustavo Fonseca are hopeful about the world's nations finally taking strong action to combat the forces changing our planet. Others, such as Nick Cunningham, were little impressed.

Right now I'm rather pessimistic that the world's leaders and citizenry have the will to take actions most necessary and based in both hard science and human compassion. It certainly didn't help that during the Summit, I drove across my home state of Pennsylvania, encountering a steady clip of pro-fracking, anti-environmentalist billboards paid for by the Coal industry. 

I would like to think that if anything could bring humanity, so deeply divided by ethnicity, race, religion, and class, together, it might be the cause of climate change. But those problems are simply too large, slow-moving (in human terms), and complex for most of us to grasp, much less feel emotionally engaged enough to act. While the UN Summit happened, ISIS had been committing horrific atrocities in an attempt to establish a new Islamic State, the US and allies geared up to bomb Syria, and Vladimir Putin was busy turning Russia into a war state. That's only naming a few, big and current clusterfucks in the affairs of humankind. It is as if most people are too busy feuding with their neighbors over inches of property line, meanwhile rising sea levels might soon claim their entire homes. 

With headlines about beheadings of journalists by Islamic radicals, and invading Russian military forces in the Ukraine thinly disguised as humanitarian aid, I can understand why many people are more concerned about other animals going extinct than the possibility of humans destroying ourselves. 

That said, the only reason we feel angst over the animals going extinct is because of our uniquely human capacity to find meaning and assign values to those lives. Bats don't write symphonies, and frogs don't even care for their young, much less experience years of wonder and hope, tinged with anxiety, as they watch their offspring develop into adults. I want to save the bat, frog, rhino, coral, and all the rest, because I want the world, this world, for my children, and for all children, and their children, and their children.... 

The Oversimplification of Hawks and Doves

Today begins Peace Day Philly's week of activities and events leading up to the International Day of Peace. As can be expected, it is a full schedule of mediation workshops, volunteer opportunities, films, music concerts and other performances, and talks by peace activists, all free and open to the public. 

This holiday began with a 1981 Resolution by the United Nations General Assembly. Today it continues to be celebrated all around the world. (Check out this website to find events near you.) 

This year's Day of Peace comes in a timely manner, just days after President Obama announced plans to bomb in Syria. Obama stated: 

“Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, [ISIS] through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.”

Of course this actions has many critics. Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink held a protest outside the white house. On Democracy Now she said, 

"I think President Obama has been hounded by the media, by the war hawks in Congress, mostly from the Republican side but also from the Democrats, and is going into this insane not only bombing in Iraq, but also talking about going into Syria, at a time when just a couple of months ago the American people had made it very clear that we were very tired of war." 

But are Americans tired of war? According to polls, a solid majority of Americans do support more airstrikes in Syria. Of course as Jon Stewart pointed out on the September 12 episode of The Daily Show (4 min, 30 second in), half of Americans can't even identify Syria on a map. 

Some formerly anti-intervention Libertarians such as Rand Paul are beginning to change their stance, much to the glee of those eager to increase military involvement. In response to this article in the Washington Post, John McCain tweeted, "It's gratifying to see all these doves turn into hawks!" 

I first heard the terms "dove" and "hawk" as they are applied to those for or against military engagement in 2002, during discussions over whether the Iraq War was justified by the supposed "weapons of mass destruction" held by Saddam Hussein's regime. Over 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, 4,800 allied forces casualties, and $1.1 trillion in US war spending later, we all now know that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and as awful a dictator at Hussein was, the destabilization of the region has only made matters even worse for the people living in Iraq. 

Now here we are, out of the frying pan and into the fire. Except to most Americans, this all might as well be a video game or fictional tv special. The violence, destruction, upheaval, and grief is happening so far away. It directly touches the lives of so few Americans. 

Looking at polls, not just the Pew poll mentioned above, but CNN's recent polling of American opinions regarding the threat of Isis and how the US should respond, I find myself pondering what the terms "hawk" and "dove" really mean. The terms never set right with me. 

To start off, the dove as a peace symbol comes from the most violent, horrific event in the entire Bible. After using a great flood to exterminate the entire human population (except Noah and his family) including babies and children, plus most life on earth, the (supposedly benevolent) God sends Noah a sign in the form of a dove holding an olive branch to signify that his global massacre is over, and now life can start again with the ark's survivors. What the hell does such a story say about achieving peace? Every time I hear a so-called "hawk" on television or radio say of the "terrorists" that we should "kill them all" or "wipe them off the face of the earth" I am reminded of the Biblical flood and the Judeo-Christian God's solution for dealing with the failings of humankind. 

In contrast, why do we call people who are quick to go to war "hawks"? Because hawks are efficient predatory birds? Indeed they are, but like all predatory animals, hawks only kill because they need to in order to survive, they only kill as much as they need, and they only go after the easiest targets in order to minimize risk to their own health and safety. They are in harmony with the ecosystem, picking off just enough of the weakest prey animals to keep those populations from getting out of control and depleting the resources of the local environment. How wonderful it would be if humans were more like hawks! 

Alas, humans are humans. And one of the many dumb things we do as a species is to simplify incredibly complex, life-and-death situations and strategies into black and white labels such as "doves and hawks." 

I do not know how much of a threat ISIS is to US national security (although I suspect not much.) I can't even begin to guess what will be the long-term impact of ISIS on international relations whether the US becomes heavily involved in the fight against the Islamic state or not. I read conflicting opinions on people who actually spend their careers studying these issues, and if they can't agree, how can I hope to know better? Had I been asked most of the questions on the Pew and CNN polls, I would like to think I would be honest with both the pollster and myself and answer "I don't know." I wish more Americans were enlightened enough to realize how often we express strong opinions on matter of which we know little, and yet which will have serious consequences on the lives of thousands, or millions of our brothers and sisters. 

What I do know is that any military intervention, even if the net result is less long-term suffering and greater security, causes death, destruction, pain, grief, and lingering animosity. Nobody should have a glint in their eye, a smile on their face, or feel "gratified" in a smug way when he or she speaks of bombing "the enemy". It should always be regarded as a gravely serious and risky undertaking that if we do, we do only because we are convinced we must. 

Look to the hawk. 

Andrew W.K. Insults Us (Who Don't Pray)

Last week a person of secular worldview wrote to advice columnist for the Village Voice Andrew W.K. From here on out I'll refer to him or her by their signature NGP (Not Gonna Pray.) NGP's brother had been diagnosed with cancer, causing a great deal of anxiety and confusion among family members over how to deal with the situation. NGP's grandmother suggested: 

...we should all just "pray for my brother," like prayer would actually save his life. Just thinking about it now makes my fists clench with frustration. 

NGP's vocal opposition to grandma's call for prayer caused more upset within the family, and NGP concludes the letter to Andrew W.K. with: 

I need to get them to see that praying and religious mumbo jumbo doesn't help. How do I explain this to them?

Andrew W.K. started off by defining prayer as "a type of thought" that involves concentrating one's thoughts and feelings on a particular person or object. He tells NGP: 

I'll bet you're already praying all the time and just don't realize it.

Nevermind that no common definition of prayer resembles Andrew W.K.'s. It is none of the 7 found at dictionary.com. The dictionary defines prayer as either the attempt to communicate with God, a "religious observance", or as NGP interprets grandma's suggestion as: "a petition, entreaty." Wikipedia's opening sentence on prayer would probably sound about right to most people: 

Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with a deity, an object of worship, or a spiritual entity through deliberate communication.

Admittedly, Encyclopedia Britannica's opening definition is vague enough to include Andrew W.K.'s definition. 

Found in all religions in all times, prayer may be a corporate or personal act utilizing various forms and techniques. 

But that hardly gives credence to W.K.'s indication that his definition is the definition, or that it is the definition being used by NGP's family. 

Nevermind, also, that people are constantly crediting supernatural intervention for all manner of good fortune, from hitting a home run to preventing a suicide, and regardless of how often misfortune occurs. 

Having established that NGP apparently doesn't even know what prayer really is, W.K. goes on to call those who refuse to pray stubborn and arrogant. According to W.K., the "X factor" in prayer is "humility." 

If there are any other out-atheists reading this, you've no doubt encountered this awful stereotype of us before. And people wonder why so many of us are frequently angry and frustrated. But I digress. 

As if these personal assaults on the character of NGP (who, remember, is a person suffering not only from recent news that his or her brother has cancer, but from family tensions) weren't enough, after going on and on in flowery descriptions about the correct way to pray (which, again, fits no commonly accepted definition of prayer) Andrew W.K. finishes off by chiding NGP for his or her disrespect toward grandma. NGP is instructed to make amends: 

I want you to pray for your brother right now. As a gesture to your grandmother — who, if she didn't exist, neither would you. I want you to pray right now, just for the sake of challenging yourself. I want you to find a place alone, and kneel down — against all your stubborn tendencies telling you not to — and close your eyes and think of one concentrated thought: your brother.
... 

Then get up and go be with him and your family. And you can tell your grandmother that you prayed for your brother.

Andrew W.K.'s solution to NGP's problem is basically for him to redefine prayer so broadly and vaguely that he can appear to share his family's worldview, thus rendering his secular worldview invisible. In other words, back into the closet with you, naughty atheist! 

There are those, such as Amanda Shea at Mad World who found Andrew W.K,'s response to NGP "EPIC." I found it to be a condescending screed that failed to understand NGP's point of view, and worse, re-enforced damning stereotypes that have plagued us secular folk for too long. 

Of course I can't know how NGP felt after reading such a personally insulting response from someone he or she trusted enough to seek advice from, but I imagine pretty damn bad. In my involvement with organized secular humanism, atheism, and skepticism, I have met so many people tormented by feelings of isolation as their families condemn them for their lack of faith under the pretense of love.   

It is hard, if not impossible, to empathize with a totally different worldview. It upsets me when my fellow atheists lack the curiosity to learn about the various theistic perspectives, and instead project false assumptions about all religious and spiritual mindsets, and then go on to belittle religious and spiritual people based on those assumptions. Likewise, it upsets me when people like Andrew W.K do the same damn thing to one of us. 

I don't know if NGP will ever read this blog post. But for NGP and anyone else out there who might be suffering from a similar problem, here's what I would have advised: 

Dear Not Gonna Pray, 

I'm sorry that your brother, you, and all your family have to deal with this situation. 

Keep in mind that at times such as these, emotions run high, and family tensions tend to flare up. You might need to step away to work through some of this matter on your own or with friends who share your perspective before engaging with your family again. 

When you say: "We need to actively help my brother and do actual things to save him", I take that to mean that you want to gather as much pertinent information as is available that might help your family understand your brother's illness, so that you can be most effective in your support of him and hopefully his recovery. If so, I completely agree with you. 

That said, the first thing you need to accept is the uncertainty of the situation. Even with the best doctors working on his case, any course of treatment will carry certain risks and only rate a percentage of possible success. Like predicting the weather, even though science is involved that helps us make more accurate predictions, prognosis comes down to the chances of this or that happening. That might sound a bit cold and clinical, but it is hard truth. 

That hard truth is exactly why people with religious faith turn to prayer. When your grandmother suggests that everyone "just pray", that might be her way of finding acceptance of the uncertainty of your brother's health. Granted, plenty of people (if not most) pray in the hopes that God or some other Higher Power will actually intervene and fix the problem. And maybe your grandmother or other family members mean it that way. But whatever prayer is for them, you can't change their minds about the importance of it, and you shouldn't try. It will only cause strife and family division, and that will hurt everyone, including your brother. 

Years ago my grandmother was staying at my house on Christmas Eve. My mother had gone to midnight mass, and I, as a young woman who had lost any faith in religion or gods, refused to go with her. My grandmother was too ill at the time to physically go to church, so she watched the Pope give service on television. I was a pretty out-atheist and assumed my family had accepted my atheism, so I was shocked when my grandmother tried to get me to watch mass with her and seemed to shame me for not going to church with my mom. We ended up getting into a rather nasty argument about whether God exists and actually intervenes in the lives of humans in response to prayers and faith. At some point I stormed off, angry and frustrated. Almost immediately, my grandmother called me back to sit with her on the couch. She didn't say anything that would re-ignite the argument. Instead she just took my hand and told me that she loved me. I told her I loved her, too. 

She passed away soon after that evening, and in my grief I felt so much gratitude toward her for making that peace with me. Even if we didn't share a worldview, we shared the same priorities when it came to family. 

You and your family can have your different perspectives on prayer and still love and support each other fully. Once you agree to disagree, you can move on to more practical matters, such as who is going to bring your brother meals on what days while he's recovering from his cancer treatments. 

Peace.  

Beyoncé's Feminism

Let me start by saying that I neither love nor hate the music and performances of Beyoncé. I'm not even familiar with them. Couldn't give the title of a single song off the top of my head. (I don't listen to a lot of pop music except what I catch on the radio while driving whenever I'm bored with NPR.) Being neither a fan nor a hater, I'm in a good position to dispassionately evaluate the approach in which Beyoncé has promoted feminism as of late, and the media response to her approach.

If you haven't seen the performance, here it is, and I recommend watching it. I just did, and first and foremost it is 14 minutes of mesmerizing vocals and choreography. During part of the song Flawless, words defining and advocating feminism from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (an African writer also known for her TED talk) flash across a giant screen. You can read the full lyrics of the song which include Adichie's statements in verse 2 here.

Editor of the Federalist Mollie Hemingway lays down pretty typical conservative spin on this, claiming that Beyoncé's performance at the VMAs proves "feminism right now is an incoherent mess of double standards." Hemingway's reasoning is that Beyoncé's hyper-sexual performance is at odds with feminist objections to the objectification of women. The problem is, even if one finds the sexual segments of the medley too bawdy to be in good taste, the performance doesn't read as objectification. The gist is clearly that the woman is being sexual assertive and seeking her own sexual gratification as much as that of her partner. The most sexual part of the entire performance is followed up by the voice of Adichie (and her words projected on the backdrop), commenting, "We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way boy are." Beyoncé is certainly an exhibitionist, but that she does it for her own gain and pleasure is made explicit. 

Megyn Kelly who interviews Hemingway snarkily comments, "But she's okay with 'Bow down bee-otch" (her mis-pronunciation proving that Kelly hasn't actually watched the performance or know those lyrics in their full context.) The line "bow down bitches" is chanted as a challenge to other women to acknowledge, value, and be inspired by Beyoncé's ambition and success that goes beyond the domestic sphere. Again, the lyrics from Adichie in the song read, "We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men." Oh, those pesky details getting in the way of Hemingway's and Kelly's conservative spin. 

Hemingway makes a judgmental comment about Beyoncé as a parent in this article, saying: 

I mean, it wasn't totally usual in that Beyoncé's toddler child was in the audience to witness all this dry-humping and simulated getting down, but other than that, your typical Beyoncé. 

I am perfectly comfortable with either of my toddler children watching this performance, because first of all, they wouldn't even understand the most sexually explicit lyrics (and by the time they do understand, they'll be mature enough to process it), and in case anyone hasn't noticed, we live in a culture that is absolutely saturated with sexually suggestive images of women. Does Hemingway never notice billboards or magazine covers featuring women in provocative outfits giving bedroom eyes to the viewer with their lips suggestively parted that are everywhere? At least in Beyoncé's performance the glittery butts are attached to professional dancers who are not just on display for us to gawk, but actually engaged in an impressive dance routine. 

The biggest problem with Mollie Hemingway's criticism of feminism is that what might appear as an incoherent mess can be pretty quickly sorted out if one bothers to take a close enough look.

I'm not going to go into details that anyone can look up on Wikipedia, but I can put this particular performance in some context. After all the major successes of what is often called first wave feminism (voting and property rights) and second wave feminism (reproductive rights, equal opportunity in jobs and education, changes in attitudes regarding gender roles) we entered into an era where feminism is suffering from its own success. Some leaders in the movement thought the next big fight should be against abuses of women in the sex industry (sometimes dubbed "anti-porn feminists"), but there was backlash against those leaders because some anti-porn feminists allied with religious conservatives, and also because it could be perceived as an attack on women who work in the sex industry, including those who enjoy and make a good living off their work. Thus we had the birth of sex-positive feminism, which emphasizes women's sexual freedom as a fundamental to the goals of the feminist movement.

While there are still anti-porn feminists, it is clear that sex-positive feminists are winning that war. Beyonce's uber-sexually titillating performance juxtaposed with the feminist label is nothing new. Candida Royalle is a former porn actress who produces and directs pornographic films for couples and which specifically aim to appeal to female sexual desire. Feminists Against Censorship is an organization in the UK whose mission is to prevent censorship, particularly of materials with sexual content. Hell, just check out sex-positive feminist Annie Sprinkle's website.

There is a middle ground between the extremes of Andrea Dworkin who wrote "No woman needs intercourse, few women escape it." and Camille Pagilia, who justified "certain forms of rape" as "what used to be called unbridled love."

I suspect that most feminists, such as myself, fall in this middle ground. I wouldn't label myself an "anti-porn feminist" because I think porn, while often a shady, manipulative and degrading (to both men and women) industry, can and often is produced under ethical conditions. Similarly, I'm also not against legal prostitution across the board, but I am deeply concerned about how any form of prostitution - legal or otherwise - is run and regulated, given the abuses common to that industry.

While I'm totally cool with Beyoncé's hyper-sexual VMA performance as the act of a particular artist in the appropriate venue for such a performance, I am disturbed by the omnipresence of images of women displayed in a cheap, narrow, and generically titillating fashion for the real purpose of making a quick buck. Context matters. 

This issues are not black and white. They are not simple. Of course there will be endless debate within the feminist movement. That doesn't change the fact that issues of inequality exist and call out for research and thoughtful discussion followed by plans of action. Feminism is the social movement that specifically addresses issues of sexual inequality. And, gee, sorry if that gets complicated because the world is complicated. When Mollie Hemingway dismisses feminism as meaningless, she undermines the work of grassroots feminists who are working to achieve and maintain sexual equality.

I do think some of the liberal, feminist response to Beyoncé's VMA performance is rather over-enthusiastic. 

Jessica Bennett wrote in Time that Beyoncé has "accomplished what feminists have long struggled to do: She’s reached the masses." She goes on:

Universally loved, virtually unquestioned, and flawless, the 33-year-old entertainer seems to debunk every feminist stereotype you’ve ever heard. Beyoncé can’t be a man-hater – she’s got a man (right?). Her relationship – whatever you believe about the divorce rumors – has been elevated as a kind of model for egalitarian bliss: dual earners, adventurous sex life, supportive husband and an adorable child held up on stage by daddy while mommy worked. Beyoncé’s got the confidence of a superstar but the feminine touch of a mother. And, as a woman of color, she’s speaking to the masses – a powerful voice amid a movement that has a complicated history when it comes to inclusion.

Oh, yes, it is totally refreshing and exciting for sex-positive, third-wave feminists to see a successful, talented, black woman taking ownership of the feminist label in the expressive languages of R&B, hip hop, and soul. But how much of what Bennett writes is hopeful hype? Clearly Beyoncé is a talented artist and super-celebrity, but when it comes to the shifting socio-political landscape with regards to women's equality, is she taking us in a new direction, or really just part of a tide that was already moving that way? 

Amanda Marcotte writing for Slate, remarks: 

Having dismantled the idea that feminists are just ugly wannabes during her performance, she might as well clean house by smashing the notion that feminists hate men or are somehow not maternal.

Oh give me a break. There are plenty of self-declared feminists out there who are, while not as stunning as Beyoncé, perfectly attractive, happily married, and mothers, so as far as I can tell, the accusations from assholes like Rush Limbaugh that feminists are "ugly" and "man-haters" should have been laughed into oblivion the moment he said them. And yet they weren't. Stereotypes of feminists as ugly, bitter man-haters took hold and continue to thrive.

Those who perpetuate or who eagerly accept those stereotypes will not be moved to change their minds by Beyoncé. Like Mollie Hemingway, conservatives are mocking the idea of Beyoncé as a feminist, using her VMA performance as proof that feminism is contradictory and meaningless, and then just for good measure, shaming Beyoncé for being, as Megyn Kelly puts it, skanky. 

What Amanda Marcotte suggests is that feminism needs a ridiculously gorgeous performer who wears scantily clad clothing and dances and sings in a manner that would rival the greatest stripper act in its ability to titillate the average straight man in order to refute the stereotypes of feminists as ugly man-haters. But we don't, and we never did.

Fans of Beyoncé who are totally ignorant of feminist history and current issues and grassroots action might take an interest in it because of her, but I doubt we're suddenly going to see a surge in feminist activism or a big bump in the percentage of people labeling themselves "feminist" any time soon. 

Indeed, what good does the trendy rebranding of the "feminist" label do to achieve actual equality of the sexes? Lauren Duca writing for Huffington Post points out that Beyoncé championed feminism in the midst of an award show rife with old-fashioned sexist behavior. She writes:

The VMAs are like a petri dish for all of the misogynistic crap in the music industry: It is the reality of refusing to accept women as legitimate artists and reducing them to sexual objects boiled down into a handy two-hour television special.

Duca concludes that Beyoncé's efforts are futile unless the label and definition of feminism she promotes are taken into action. 

Beyonce isn't just hot in the sense that she turns on most men (and no doubt a lot of women, too.) She's hot in the sense that she's known and adored by the general public. She has reached the apex of popularity. It's called pop culture for a reason. Feminism is not hot. It's not popular. So those devoted to the feminist cause and the feminist label are getting a huge charge out of it being adopted and promoted by such a hot celebrity. That's great and all, but I'm skeptical that it goes any deeper than that. 

Sin in the Secular Age: Smoking and Obesity

The Judeo-Christian concept of sin is an offence against capital-G God. It is going against His will or plan for us human beings. Some sins are considered minor (venial sins), others are major (mortal sins), but any type of sin carries with it not only consequences in this life, but in the life hereafter. Unless, of course, the sinner is sufficiently repentant, and in the cases of some religious sects, adhering to the correct faith.

We who hold a secular worldview today scoff at the concept of sin, and for a few good reasons.

First, while many behaviors traditionally regarded as sinful do harm (such as lying and stealing) others are not necessarily harmful and might even be beneficial to a person's well-being (such as having healthy sexual relationships outside of marriage.)

Second, inherent in the concept of sin is an additional punishment for supposed misdeeds. It is not enough that lying carries the risk of being caught and not trusted in the future, or that those who steal risk trial and punishment by law enforcement. There must also be the threat of either extra time in purgatory, or eternal torment in hell.

Third, the concept of sin tends to glaze over the reasons behind peoples' misdeeds and focus on punishment. Sin easily goes from being a verb (something a person capable of good or evil has done) to the noun sinner (a person whose fundamental nature is wicked.) When this happens, anger, righteousness and condescension trump humility and compassion. Punishment is emphasized over prevention or more constructive ways to modify harmful behaviors.

The thing is, these problems with sin are not exclusive to those of Judeo-Christian faith. Just as many people of faith emphasize compassion and forgiveness over self-righteous judgement, many secular people have adopted a sort of secular concept of sin.

One example of this is rising premiums on health insurance for smokers. The trend began a few years ago, and the Affordable Care Act does nothing to stop it.

All the problems with sin are present: These measures punish all smokers, even those who smoke in moderation and/or who suffer from no health problems directly connected to their smoking. It adds punishments in addition to the possible ill-effects of smoking (which disproportionately impacts those with lower income, who I might add are those more likely to smoke and have more difficulty quitting.) And instead of addressing the root causes of tobacco addiction and finding non-punitive ways of helping addicts who want to quit do so, it simply punishes them, hoping that these additional punishments will be the deterrent that finally works.

Let's look at a second, similar example: The rising cost of health insurance is driving many companies to pressure obese employees to meet arbitrary weight-loss goals and into participating in often humiliating weight-loss programs. Again, the Affordable Care Act does nothing to stop this discrimination against the obesity in the workplace.  

And again, all the problems with sin are present: These measures punish all (and only) obese people, regardless of any individualized assessment of their health and lifestyle, and while ignoring those who are thin but unhealthy for other reasons. It adds punishments in addition to the possible health problems that disproportionately impact many obese people (not to mention the social discrimination obese people face because they are outside mainstream measures of attractiveness.) Instead of addressing root causes of diseases correlated with obesity (such as diabetes and heart disease), it burdens and shames an entire class of people, hoping that will change their behavior and that those hypothetical changes will yield desirable outcomes.

Smokers and the obese do not need more arbitrary consequences from employers and health insurance companies. Either they are perfectly happy with their behavior choices, or they are not and already have enough motivation and challenges for modifying their behavior. In the case of the former, bug-off because we all have our personal indulgences which are nobody's damn business. In the case of the latter, people need encouragement when and from whom they request it.

While all of our day to day choices will never be 100% in line with our personal goals and values, we can always strive toward personal improvement. The benchmarks are different for different people based on circumstances. Not everyone's values are identical nor should they be. Knowing how much a person smokes or drinks or how much he or she weighs does not give a measure of how hard he or she is working toward personal improvement.

Perhaps some of you reading this post think smokers and obese people should be further punished for their behavior, either because their transgressions deserve it, or you are convinced (despite evidence to the contrary) that shaming people actually works. If that is the case, I implore you, go hang out with the Religious Right where you belong.

Tribute to Robin Williams and Response to Rush Limbaugh's BS About the Liberal "Attitude"

 As one of millions of Robin Williams fans, I am deeply saddened by the entertainer's death. Even moreso because it was by his own hand, and especially because his suicide has sparked a stream of not only tributes, but ugly and wrong-headed sentiments in the media. One such sentiment comes from blowhard Rush Limbaugh, who said of Williams: 

He had everything, everything that you would think would make you happy. But it didn’t. Now, what’s the left’s worldview in general? What is it? If you had to attach not a philosophy but an attitude to a leftist’s worldview, it’s one of pessimism and darkness, sadness. They’re never happy are they? They’re always angry about something. Not matter what they get, they’re always angry. 

Okay, like most of what Rush Limbaugh says, that's pretty infuriating, so I'm taking a moment to calm down and ponder.

Nevermind that speculating about the death of someone only known to Rush through his celebrity is crass and hurtful to those who personally knew Williams (Note Lewis Black's response below. As a side note, Black wrote a thoughtful tribute for Williams for Time.)

Nevermind that depression has been well-established as a health issue, and one that is difficult to treat, opposed to a mere matter of toxic attitude.

What about this business about the Left (presumably Limbaugh means politically-engaged secular humanist liberals) having such a bleak attitude about life? We're pessimistic, dark, and sad compared to what? The theological concept that most people are destined to spend eternity in Hell? Has he never noticed that the main symbol of Christianity is an instrument of torture and execution? Never heard of valle lacrimarum, otherwise known as the Vale of Tears?

For anyone who hasn't noticed, there is a great deal of suffering in the world. Here's just one example: Over one billion people on earth live in "extreme poverty," which is defined by the UN as earning less than $1.25 a day. Extreme poverty can mean insufficient food and drinking water, poor sanitation, inadequate shelter from the elements, little to no access to proper health care, education, and opportunities to escape from the conditions of extreme poverty. Over a billion people suffering from that in the world right now. But according to Rush Limbaugh, Robin Williams was supposed to be happy because "He had everything." I guess in the world according to Rush Limbaugh, if you've got yours, there's no good reason to give a damn about anyone else.

It is clear that Robin Williams, in addition to being an talented comedian and actor, stayed informed and engaged in current issues, devoting a great deal of his time and efforts to charity work. He cared about people. It isn't hard to imagine that his concern for the homeless, soldiers on the battlefield, and victims of natural disasters might have put a damper on his enjoyment of personal fortune.

The playwright Jean Racine famously said, “Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.” Of course all people do both, and so at times we can laugh at the pain and absurdity in life, but not always. 

Sometimes those who laugh the most also cry the most, because that which allows them to so cleverly tap into what is humorous also forces them to more intensely face the darkest aspects of the human condition. Today I read a joke on this theme:  

Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says his life is harsh and cruel. Say he feels all alone in a threatening world.

Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go see him. That should pick you up.

Man bursts into tears. "But doctor.....I am Pagliacci"

When interviewed on Inside the Actor's Studio, James Lipton asked Robin Williams if heaven exists, what would he like to hear when he gets there (watch the video below.) Williams concluded his witty response by saying that it would just be nice to know there's laughter in heaven.

I don't know about heaven (or hell for that matter), but there's certainly a lot of laughter to be found in this life, not least because of the gifts of one comedic genius.

Thank you, Robin Williams, for all the light you brought to the world with your spark of madness.

I Need Feminism (And So Do You)

Perhaps you have seen some of the Women Against Feminism tumblr that went viral some time ago. 

Most of the messages fall along the lines of being angry at the personal being politicized or a reaction to individual encounters with self righteous, anti-man, or otherwise extreme feminists. 

Okay, I get that. When I was an undergrad I was turned off a bit by feminism after encountering several batshit insane feminists who did and said horrible stuff, such as squirting male supporters at a Take Back the Night march with pee-filled squirtguns or holding up signs saying, "All men are potential rapists." 

But then I realized that there are a lot of dipshits in the world, and a few dipshits don't invalidate an entire movement that brought women property rights, the vote, reproductive rights, education and employment opportunities, and shifted the mainstream perception of women in society to the point where we can now easily be accepted as leaders in any industry. 

Knowing the broad history of feminism, which is the history of the movement for women's equal rights, I see how much I and every other woman of my generation has benefited from it. I simply cannot allow the heroism of people like Susan B. Anthony and Betty Friedan be overshadowed by the foolish behavior and ideas of the powerless and downright absurd feminist fringe. Every movement has crazies on the edge. Doesn't mean we sensible folks should stop associating ourselves with noble and necessary battles. 

Issues of racism still exist and need to be dealt with even if some activists do or say dumb things in the name of anti-racism. We don't stop fighting animal cruelty because of idiots who break into research labs to free mice. The short-sighted degradation of the environment by companies seeking only profit is still a serious issue even if a few idiots sabotaged trees, injuring innocent loggers. 

Many feminists have created our own memes in response to the anti-feminist tumblr campaign. The first photo in this blog post is my own response. I decided to be all serious, even though my favorite response - Confused Cats Against Feminism - employs humor. 

I included personal details from my life because as a white, educated, middle class American woman I'm supposedly the type of woman for whom women's equality has been fully achieved. And I did sort of feel that way for a long time (with much gratitude to all the feminist pioneers who fought to get the society I live in to be so great for women like me by the time I came of age.) 

Then I had kids while living far from family support (have to stay put, too, 'cause hubby's good-paying job with benefits is here) and realized that my husband's job pays too much for us to quality for any subsidized child care, but doesn't make enough that we can actually pay for any kind of day care. So I did what most of the moms (and some dads, but way more moms) I would soon meet in play groups did - I quit most of my jobs and stay home with the kids. I network like crazy to do babysitting trades for when I do work. I pay much less into my own social security since I work less, so let's hope my husband doesn't die or become disabled or divorce me before he retires. I'll probably be fine (cross fingers) but this is not a secure position to be in. Spending almost every waking hour either watching kids, doing housework, scheduling my and my kids lives, or working on my actual career (which is obviously now part time) - I do start to resent how financial vulnerable I have become, despite how hard or how many hours I work. 

When I head on over to the National Organization for Women's website and see how much they are fighting for "caregivers", for the first time in my life I don't just feel grateful for feminists of the past. And I don't just feel supportive of feminism for women in poverty or foreign countries. I feel like part of feminism here, today, still is for women like me. Despite all my privilege (and I'm not denying that I have tons of privilege) in some ways I have been disadvantaged. I'm not whining about it. Like I said, I'll probably be fine. I'm lucky enough to have enough people in my private life to keep me afloat even if the worst happens. But my class advantages don't negate my disadvantages as a women, specifically a mother. 

(Of course even if feminism wasn't benefiting me personally, shouldn't I still support it for the sake of the all other women in the world who need it? Abandoning the movement just because I got mine already seems rather shitty.) 

So I'm just sick and tired of reading "anti-feminist" memes and sentiments on my facebook feed, often by women who are not only obvious benefactors of past feminism, but who are smart, articulate, and exactly the sort of women needed to maintain the women's rights movement. My advice for anyone who doesn't think feminism is necessary or relevant anymore, please take a look at how women, especially mothers and female heads of households are disproportionately represented under the poverty line, look at how wages for women drop after we have kids, and then seriously tell me that we don't need a women's rights movement in America anymore. 

And some people think feminists have no sense of humor!

That's just in America. In some nations women can't even drive a sick child to a hospital without a male escort. This is often in countries where women used to have that right, but lost it. Because rights can be lost - look at Iran. Look at Afghanistan. 

Feminism isn't something we champion when we need it and abandon once we've achieved everything we personally needed. As long as we women are the incubators of the next generation of humans, we are all vulnerable to gender roles enforced by law or social norms that might put us at serious disadvantage. 

Women  today who do enjoy equality, who have power and influence, who don't feel victimized, are in the best position to help maintain rights achieved and speak out for the most vulnerable and most harshly victimized. It isn't about being anti-men (I don't know how feminism can be called anti-man when so many self-declared feminists such as myself are happily married to men!) It's simply about equality for women. 

America Needs Quality, Subsidized Day Care

Me working  a job while recovering from having my first
child. As an independent contractor, if I didn't work, I didn't
get paid. 

 I have three jobs. One is full time, two are part time. Only one pays, and not much. 

I am not alone. 

My first, full time job is as a stay-at-home mom (SAHM). 23% of American moms with kids under age 15, and 35% with kids under age 6 stay home. Such work is always unpaid, and always more than the typical 40 hour work week. It's a job we can never leave. The kids are there in the morning needing to be changed and dressed, taken to school, play dates, classes and practices, fed breakfast, lunch, and dinner, helped with their homework, bathed, and gotten ready for bed. Many of these moms are single, and many others have husbands who work long hours and/or commute to jobs, causing them to come home late and exhausted. 

It's a big risk being a SAHM. Even for those of us who are married to spouses with well-paying jobs with good benefits, the divorce rate is still high, and sometimes spouses die or become disabled. For a parent who stops working for years to take care of children, going back to work in later life poses all kinds of challenges, and our life-time earning potential has been drastically lowered. 

On the other hand, many SAHMs express deep fulfillment in this practice. I know I feel grateful for all the time I spend with my daughters, how much I get to see them grow up, and how I'm building a bond and memories that the three of us will cherish for our lifetimes. 

Everything in life is give and take. 

My second job, as an artist and writer, is also mostly unpaid. I manage to put in an average of 20 hours a week in my studio making woodcuts and doing blogging and social networking to "raise my platform", and sending my work out to agents, editors, and galleries. I do this work while my littlest one is napping and my older child is at school, and after they go to bed at night. I rarely go to sleep before midnight. In my studio I'm surrounded by to-do lists and self-set deadlines to keep myself focused. 

In addition to fulfilling my creative and intellectual needs, my work as an artist gives me a huge sense of personal accomplishment and sense of career status. When strangers ask me or my husband what I do, we talk about my art - where I'm showing, the book I'm trying to sell, the new book I'm working on. After all, only other parents really want to hear much about my kids, and even then talking about the kids can get tedious. 

Me working on a book at the kitchen table in between
making dinner and getting kids ready for bed.

But as I said, this rarely pays. I sell a few, small prints on Etsy every month. I earn a paltry amount through Google Ads. The last arts and crafts sale I did, after the table fee, brought in only $25.00. I scored an agent, but she wasn't able to sell my book for me, so now I'm again at square one with that project, adding to the pile of things to do. It is a daily struggle to keep myself feeling confident that eventually I'll hit my "tipping point" and make some real income. 


My third job is as a part time art teacher. I must do this to bring in extra income because my husband's pay alone isn't quite enough to support our family. I work through non-profits and art centers. It pays a decent hourly wage, but I get hardly any hours, and those I do get require a lot of babysitting trades with other parents to cover childcare. When all the extras are added up, it's really not much more than minimum wage for a few hours a week. 

I am one of the lucky moms. My marriage is strong, and my husband has a good job. Without his gainful employment, my art career would go comatose, despite years and thousands of dollars in investment. I also have enough family support to get us through rough patches. If things for me keep going the way they have (fingers crossed), odds are I will eventually hit that sought after "tipping point", so that by the time my kids are grown, I might actually have a full time paying career as an artist and writer. 

But what about the moms without supportive spouses who can pay the bills? The ones without extended family who can help out? 

Today in America, women are under-represented in politics, business, STEM fields, the arts, just about everywhere. And not for lack of women getting the degrees and having the potential to be hugely influential in all those segments of society. Do we really wonder why? Do we really think we can fix this problem by merely giving women lip service and the encouragement to "lean in"? 

Typically, the only subsidized early childhood care in America is for poor parents, and most of these programs, including Head Start, are at facilities where those children are segregated from their more affluent counterparts. 

In general, day care in America is associated with substandard early childhood care, which is one reason why so many parents who can manage to avoid it, do. But in many other industrialized nations, publicly subsidized day care, which is accessible to all families, often on a sliding scale based on income, is of high quality and embraced by parents. Just look at France. 

American parents seem increasingly convinced that children fare better with a parent at home than in center-based care, but there is little to no scientific evidence for this. Consider: 

Multiple studies, including the NICHD study, have found that, after statistically adjusting for the effects of social class and other potential confounders, kids enrolled in high quality child care given by nonrelatives develop slightly better cognitive and language skills—as measured at various points in their lives, all the way up through age 15—than do kids in low-quality care. These beneficial effects are more pronounced for low-income kids than children from more affluent families and for kids in center-based care than other types of care. The NICHD study also compared children in child care to children who stayed at home with their mothers for the first three years of their lives, and the ones at home fared somewhere in the middle: They scored better on verbal comprehension tests at age 3 than did kids in low-quality care, but they scored worse on language tests at age 2 than kids in medium- and high-quality care. Interestingly, studies suggest that the cumulative amount of time kids spend in care makes little difference when it comes to scores; what matters is whether they go at all and if it’s good or bad.

In her article The Dark Side of Preschool, Gwen Dewar compared studies of American center-based care to a study done in Norway. Although more studies need to be done to come to a better understanding of how center-based care impacts children, there is some evidence that it is largely the quality of care that makes a difference, not whether children are at home or in a day care center. 

So if Zachrisson’s team found no evidence that preschool attendance causes behavior problems, that might be because preschool in Norway is better. 

The question becomes this: how can we make center-based care in the United States as good as it is in other developed nations? In addition to integrating programs that separate the poor and middle class, another no-brainer seems to simply subsidize care so that we can afford to raise the professional standards for those who work in day care centers and preschools.

Childcare workers are often paid a paltry sum, despite frequent requirements for degrees in Early Childhood Education and having to work year round and longer hours than school teachers. The average hourly wage of these workers is less than $10 an hour. Even in New York City, day care workers are paid an average of $25,000 a year - barely a living wage! This leads to high turnover, low status, and staff burnout, not exactly a formula for quality child care. 

We Americans need to ask ourselves what sort of society do we want to be? One where women are equally represented in every career field while our children receive loving, quality care from well-respected child care professionals, or one where we turn back the clock to the days when women took a back seat to our husbands running the world while we stayed home and changed diapers, regardless of our educational backgrounds, talents, and aspirations. 

I'm raising two little girls. Right now I tell them that they can be whatever they want to be so long as they work hard. But I know that's only a half truth. When my girls come of age, will I have to change my tune and tell them that they will probably have to choose between fulfilling their career dreams, or having kids while being financially dependent on a spouse and setting their careers back at least a decade? I dearly hope that they and none of the other American women of their generation will have to make that choice.