Symbolism is Not Activism

I'm not the first to say this but I don't think changing your Facebook profile picture to your favorite cartoon character from childhood is going to help prevent child abuse. This kind "symbolism as activism" is making me nuts lately, as there is so much of it, and the fact that we participate in these very easy, very convenient protests makes me think it is not just ineffectual, but possibly harmful to the causes we ostensibly care about.

One of the most powerful things that humans do, indeed, part of what makes us human, is that we name something and it begins to mean something.



The good lady above gets a lot of what she says right, but words are not dead. They are not inert. The fact that we make words mean something, and that the meaning changes, tells us that words are alive; we make them live. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman considered the process of language creation and assignation part of the Social Construction of Reality, which basically says that we build our world and we give meaning to it. From Wikipedia:

The central concept of The Social Construction of Reality is that persons and groups interacting together in a social system form, over time, concepts or mental representations of each other's actions, and that these concepts eventually become habituated into reciprocal roles played by the actors in relation to each other. When these roles are made available to other members of society to enter into and play out, the reciprocal interactions are said to be institutionalised. In the process of this institutionalisation, meaning is embedded in society. Knowledge and people's conception (and belief) of what reality is becomes embedded in the institutional fabric of society. Social reality is therefore said to be socially constructed.

One of the major principles of the theory is the idea that language and symbols are powerful because they allow us to communicate shared ideas and meanings. They write in their essential book The Social Construction of Relaity: “A sign [has the] explicit intention to serve as an index of subjective meanings … Language is capable of becoming the objective repository of vast accumulations of meaning and experience, which it can then preserve in time and transmit to following generations… Language also typifies experiences, allowing me to subsume them under broad categories in terms of which they have meaning not only to myself but also to my fellowmen” (p.35-39)" So, like the lady above says, it's important that we can say "saber tooth tiger" to one another, but it is fascinating that we can also say "love" and it have nearly the same effect.
I've written about this idea before, in talking about Herbert Blumer and Symbolic Interactionism but Berger and Luckman are talking on the macro scale, while Blumer and SI are really focusing on micro interaction.

I've been thinking lately about symbolism and activism/protest and I've decided a few things. I think that we engage in symbolic activism because we are aware, on some level, that we are creating symbols and we have the capacity to spread those symbols out in the world, that we can change the social fabric. I am not one to argue with the idea that language matters, and that by changing language we can change the way we talk and think about oppression, but I do argue with the idea that wearing a purple shirt for one day or changing your profile picture to a cartoon character is activism. Now, if people are doing these things and admitting that they are merely symbolic showcases of solidarity and not particularly meaningful or effective then I have less of a problem with it. I mean, I still think these people should really do something, like go to a rally or write a senator or adopt an abused kid or join a group who are actively working for social change. I will also point out that changing the way we talk about things like discrimination based on race and gender and ableism and sexual orientation is more effective than relatively quieter symbolic acts because when we change the way we talk we expose the paths of least resistance that others traverse, and we can make people aware of how privilege and oppression are inherently part of the way we talk and think. The difference, however, is that while crucial, this is not protest. Oh, against child abuse? Good, but we shouldn't get rewarded or feel particularly good about ourselves for expressing a sentiment which is clearly the dominant narrative anyway. The next thing you know, we are gonna have cookies for people who don't kick puppies.

I am a long-time reader and lover of Tom and Lorenzo, who do a lot of writing about fashion and TV and who have insights that make watching certain shows way more interesting to me (Mad Men in particular). But they also harbor deep and moving insights about social change. One of the shows they write up is Glee, a show that I have an increasingly tortured relationship with but has remained on my radar because of it's treatment of issues connected with LGBT youth. A recent post beautifully summarizes what i have been blathering on about for too long already:

In recent weeks, there has been a rhetorical explosion around the concept of bullying, especially gay bullying. That's a good thing, of course; a very good thing. Tragic that it took a flurry of young men taking their own lives in the wake of others' cruelty and prejudice, but it put the topic of gay teenagers on the national agenda in a way we haven't seen for some time, if ever. The problem is, when a topic like this is given a little sunlight, people think they know all they need to know because they read a couple of articles or blog posts about anti-gay bullying and subsequently the public has no real concrete solutions nor does anyone do any real work addressing the issue (Did you wear purple to show your solidarity? Did you shoot your YouTube video?) before interest wanes and the topic gets shunted aside. Do we sound cynical? Then we sound cynical.

Listen, I know that time is limited and it feels good to show solidarity with others who want to fight injustice, but you can't just say (symbolically or literally) that you want to fight injustice, you have to do something about it. And doing something doesn't mean buying/ wearing a T shirt. Take for example the recent TSA debacle and the way some people are "protesting". Wearing an otherwise invisible T-shirt with message that will be read by low-level functionaries does not raise the cost of business as usual. The main thing that will be accomplished is generating profits for the T-shirt makers and retailers. That's part of the beauty of capitalism. It takes our dissident impulse, commercializes them, and sells them back to us for a profit.

Before you engage in protest or activism, always ask "Cui bono?"



UPDATE: found another blogger with similar views, at least on this topic. See here

POST UPDATE: hooray! sarcasm!

More sports awfulness

via Jezebel

R. Kelly Sings World Cup Anthem, I Am Pissed Because Now I Have To Consider Not Watching World Cup

This is so fucking annoying. I was really looking forward to the World Cup. I know that R. Kelly was acquitted, but give me break, he's a guilty mother scratcher.



From The Atlanticc:

In all his modesty, R. Kelly expects his anthem "Sign of Victory" to "inspire world peace and shine a light on global warming." Hence these lyrics:

Now I can see the distance of the journey/High and front with all your might/You open your eyes to global warming/Been through it all, you sacrificed your life.

Sounds kinda like an R. Kelly song with the the phrase "global warming" randomly thrown in.

Looks like R Kelly isn't the only reason to boycott: apparently there are some other people who recognize the hypocrisy of hosting an event that the majority of a population is financially excluded from. Some artists and musicians have called for a boycott of Thursday night's World Cup Kick Off concert, "for including few South African acts and charging steep ticket prices that are higher than what many workers here earn in a week."

I have written extensively about not supporting artists that promote rape culture so I won't go into my theories again, but I can tell you that this creates a serious moral dilemma for me. I might have to settle for watching Invictus and Dhani Tackles the Globe to get my "football" fix.

UPDATE: it was only while watching the time waster that was Invictus did I find out that it was about rugby and not soccer. Seriously, this movie blows.

Mike Tyson, former rapist, now fucks up some pigeons

So, you may remember a post I did not so long ago about Mike Tyson, and Hollywood normalizing rape by embracing him and putting him in movies and award shows?
Well, now he's got his own reality TV show on Animal Planet, where he will race pigeons that are allegedly "cherished and respected by their owners".
PETA has a problem with this, and for good reason, but more importantly, EVERYONE should be concerned that a violent convicted rapist is now starring in a family oriented show.
But most people think it's funny instead of indicative of a larger problem in Hollywood.
What does it mean that we let unapologetic rapists have television shows? What does that tell young boys and girl about the consequences and meanings of this crime? What does it mean that the only outrage I can find on the Internet (a series of tubes, btw) is coming from animal rights groups? With a marginal exception of Amelie Gillette of the AV Club's Hater, I see/ hear no commentary from people with a problem with this from a feminist perspective.
While Amelie comments on the similarity (of phenomena and cultural taste) between Tyson's show and O.J.Simpson's proposed reality show Juiced and concludes that murderers should not get shows, she fails to fully come down on the idea of Tyson's show, and sorts of aquiesces to her guest on the Hate Cast who wonders "What else is [Tyson] going to do?"
Right, because the ONLY thing he can do is hope to get on television.
While other sites are putting up pictures to accompany this story of Tyson nuzzling birds, the only acceptable image for me is this one.

No more Animal Planet for me, that's for fucking sure.
Asshats.

Why I Won't Go See "The Ghostwriter"

"If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences"
W.I. Thomas

Roman Polanski, director of The Ghostwriter

I know many of you assume it's because of my aversion to all things Ewan McGregor
but it's really because I don't want to participate in the normalization of rape by Hollywood.

I think it's pretty well established that Hollywood is adamantly anti-woman, but when people there (and in general of course) qualify what Polanski did as ok because
1) "it was a long time ago" and it was "a little mistake"
2) it "wasn't RAPE rape"

3) Dude, they totes had sex before and it was consensual
4) where the fuck was her mother in all this?
or any other lame-ass excuse it makes me really angry.
These are relativistic arguments that go beyond the atomization of larger socio-structural forces and into the territory where they don't even cite personal responsibility of the person who committed the act. Instead, all personal responsibility is ascribed to the CHILD or the mother as apparently men just can't help themselves from drugging and raping children so let's just alleviate them of the blame.

The fabulous writers over at Sociological Images offer their critique of the above The View clip:

Notice that part of her defense (about about 0:30) is that they’d had sex before, which seems to preclude the possibility that he could have raped her (and assumes that those previous times were consensual and that sex with a 13-year-old is okay as long as it was consensual).
At about 2:05 she appears to make a sort of cultural relativist argument, saying that we’re a “different kind of society,” while in other places, including “the rest of Europe,” 13- and 14-year-olds are sexualized. That is, of course, entirely true (that girls at 13/14 have been treated as marriageable/sexual, not that this is specifically true “in the rest of Europe”), both historically and now (my great-grandma married a 22-year-old man when she’d just barely turned 15). There are a lot of interesting points there, but Goldberg doesn’t seem to be making a complex argument–she seems to be saying “in some places this would be okay, so we shouldn’t punish him.”

At 3:15 they discuss the responsibility of the mother, asking what kind of mom would let a young girl go alone with an older man. It’s a very appropriate question to ask. And my guess is: lots of parents in Hollywood, if the older man was an influential director who said he had set up a photo shoot for a major fashion magazine for your daughter. That, of course, is horrid; at the very least it’s extreme denial (“oh, he’s so nice, he just wants to help her get her big chance because he sees something special in her”), at worst it’s actively offering sexual access to your child for a chance at stardom.

I can’t see, however, that it in any way changes the situation regarding Polanski. And the use of excuses like “they’d had sex before, so it couldn’t be rape” is stunning to me.

When we buy art from people who are known rapists do we contribute to the normalization of rape?

I know this, I don't feel good doing so.
When Mike Tyson was in The Hangover I was really upset because I felt like this was giving him an avenue to wider social acceptance and thereby ignoring or dismissing the fact that he is a straight up unapologetic rapist.

We also have to remember the fact that The Hangover was heavily marketed to adolescent boys (of body and mind) and that this portrayal and subsequent embrace by Hollywood significantly reduces the (deserving and usually effective)stigma that acts as a means of social control, undoubtedly creating paths of rationalization that allow us to first celebrate convicted rapists and possibly dismiss the seriousness and damage of the act itself.
Jane Claire Bradley, writer and editor, articulates it succinctly:

To me, it seems sickeningly inappropriate that a convicted rapist should be glorified to an audience predominantly made up of adolescent boys ... I can only conclude that this casting decision was an intentionally provocative one, and that just makes it all the more offensive.

Just what the fuck is "RAPE rape" anyway?

When we define rape narrowly, what we are really doing is empowering rapists.
When we define rapists as deserving of praise, we essentially negate the act of rape they commit.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that Polanski and Tyson are free to make art, but we are also free to not consume it.
I don't buy from companies I find morally compromised, why should I buy from artists that are?
I'm sure someone will take this argument and point out that it could be expanded to include people who are assholes in general but that loses sight of the fact that there are huge implications and consequences (externalities) when we normalize rape. Not so much when we don't buy art from just your average artist asshole.
What do you think?

6/11/10 update:
Natalia Antonova, occasional guest blogger at Feministe says in her blog post about Russian artist fucking asshole Ilya Trushevsky beautifully what I struggled to say earlier. Apparently Trushevsky who is accused of an attempted rape of a 17-year-old, just got a special "Moral Support Prize" from Winzavod Contemporary Art Center a big-time venue in Moscow. She writes:

The award was presented publicly. By a dude who had previously referred to the 17-year-old girl who was beaten and sexually assaulted as a “drunk cow.” And I’m not going to use the phrase “alleged victim” here, because Trushevsky was pretty open about what happened on his Facebook & LJ. He made fun of her bruises. The media reported that he admitted what happened to the cops.

The stated point of the Moral Support Prize (I feel dumber every time I type it out, truth be told), apparently, is to show solidarity with artists who are in trouble. “REMEMBER, HE’S AN ARTIST! We should still totally hang out with him and do coke, or whatever” – that sort of thing. It always strikes me as really interesting, how someone inevitably thinks that these gestures are very important to make when a Guy Who Glues Rhinestones to Turtles Great Artist is involved. Please won’t somebody think of the Goddamn Rhinestone-Covered Turtles ART?!

What bothers me about that – aside from priorities that are just as messed up as the “but we can’t let the parish know that there’s a predator priest in our midst, it’s bad PR, gaiz” thing – is that a particular artistic community indicts itself when it engages in such apologist hand-wringing. The art should be able to stand on its own. Always. And in many cases, it does. “Rosemary’s Baby” is still a good movie. The fact that I’m somehow “supposed” to defend Polanski because I think it’s a good movie is, on the other hand, idiotic. I’ll defend him to people who think he’s a crappy director – because he’s not. But those pesky laws that dictate that it’s illegal to rape people weren’t created as a springboard for a referendum on some Great Man’s Great Work.

Via Feminste

Are you Lonesome Tonight? Alienation and collective identity at work

Cue your speakers! This is a musical entry

As I was working this evening I took a little break to nerd out on The AV Club and ran across this interview with Joshua Ferris, author of the tremendous Then We Came to the End, a dark and funny and deeply resonating novel about office politics and the formation of identity around work, especially that of collective selves.

I just finished an amazing book by Peter Callero called The Myth of Individualism. Callero’s definition of individualism illustrates that individualism is a particular ideology with tensions between the personal and the social, the private and the public. It also assumes that values of independence and the like are “natural”; a rational worldview with people as free agents making choices with direct outcomes that impact their lives (17). Callero notes that this definition is not inherently a bad thing on its surface, but rather the unintended consequences and ramifications that create negative outcomes. In short, there are limits to the good that individualism can bring an individual and a society.(This would be a great introduction to some of the basic premises of Symbolic Interactionism, the kind of sociology that I heart if anyone is interested. On the micro-level he cites work by Sheryl Kleinman, Arlie Hochschild and Stephen Lyng to name a few.) Specifically he is talking about how the narrative we tell ourselves about how we become who we are is detrimental to us in the end because we fail to realize the power of the larger social forces that shape us. Callero uses great contemporary examples like the Unabomber (attempting to “make sense” of Ted Kaczynski from a sociological standpoint and ultimately seeing him as a “radical individualist” or an “extreme American” (16- 18)) , the mythology surrounding the supposedly singular accomplishment of some famous Americans, and the participation of disparate lliberal-union groups in so-called "battle in Seattle". In short, the myth of individualism was created, perpetuated and institutionalized by those who achieved success in order to 1) prevent people from understanding their own agency and the power of collective action 2) create a kind of flip logic in addition where failures and constraints are seen through the lens of personal responsibility and failure 3) obscure the collective action that allows elites to remain in power 4) avoid examining larger social issues in such a way that the powerful are not criticized. Mills talked about this in The Power Elite and Marx did to, as well as many conflcit theorists, but Callero pointely looks at the way the narrative of the American Dream is scripted for the continued disenfranchisement of those who will be least likely to achieve it. That is, as fewer and fewer people are able to reach success, the more they believe they could do so with lots of hard work and determination.
Callero is NOT saying that individuals are not ambitious and motivated by singular forces sometimes, but what he is saying is that many Americans buy into a dream they can never achieve and the power of that dream prevents them from seeking alternative routes to agency.

So what does this have to do with Joshua Ferris?

Well, Callero also talks about how work is a particularly strong force in how we define who we are and how we construct identities. This is especially important to understand as right now, a new generation of “downwardly mobile” Americans find themselves wondering where they went wrong, measuring their failures by the brutal yardstick of the American Dream and coming up short. When work becomes difficult to obtain, maintain and make meaningful in these contexts it affects our relationships to others and to ourselves. Our personal narratives no longer make sense as they get interrupted again and again. This is a symptom of new capitalism or neoliberalism Callero draws a map from the new capitalism to larger social currents and problems. Issues like crime, education, poverty, divorce, and social isolation cannot be treated as incidents of individual motivation (or lack thereof) that only quantify “individual limitations or personal weakness” (123).

But another limitation, one that also resonates with themes of alienation is how when we do work power separates us. As Ferris says in his interview:

When you’re a member of management, you’re usually not one of the group. Sometimes you have to make decisions that necessarily exclude the collective. It’s more difficult to be a friend—even though they know each other and they treat each other like friends, it’s more of a challenge for them. It’s just institutional fact; the two characters that are the most aloof are the ones who have the most responsibility. If someone were plucked from the group and given those responsibilities, they might find themselves growing more aloof, just by virtue of that promotion. Suddenly the group culture excludes you. I saw this in my own working life, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence—I sensed a kind of loneliness in middle managers especially. The people at the very top could fall by and grace you with their presence and give you a little largesse, and you’d be “Oh, I’m so beloved.” In a way, it was kind of like flattery. The middle managers didn’t quite have that cachet, but at the same time, they had to seem like they were of that caliber. So there’s a little bit of loneliness at the heart of those with a little bit of power.

Wow.

This statement is so true that is makes my teeth hurt, and it undesrcores the fact that those with power can become disconnected from those without it, even when they don't want to be. Being a manager is a special kind of hell in that you get to observe others forming bonds and creating strong collective identities, but you don't really get to participate. It's a lonely way to form a work identity in that you are usually doing it on your own, surrounded by those with more power than you (and similarly isolated) and those with less power than you (who are socialized not to see you as part of the group). You are from but not of. As Marx would say my "species being" is not being fully realized to my detriment. And I think Callero would say that this is a particularly American kind of loneliness at work.


To quote Bette Middler in Beaches, "Ok, enough about me, what do you think about me?

More Twilight hating

If you don't already know how I feel about Twilight, I think it's bad for women, and just bad.



Soooooo.....
Clearly, I take issue with this kind of thing. This is a T shirt transfer available from faboo on ETSY.

Twilight is Bad for Women, and Also, Bad.

Look at this poster.


I read the first and part of the second books in the Twilight series. Not because I'm a masochist, but because I love good young adult literature. Well, as a person who finished Finnegans Wake, Infinite Jest and most of William T. Vollman's books, I can tell you, this shit is unreadable.

The writing is bad. Just.Really. Fucking. Awful.

But it has beautiful vampires and is set in the Pacific Northwest and had crazy marketing so teenage girls flocked to this pile of manure in droves not seen since the height of the NKOTB madness of the late eighties*.

But worse than being bad, this series seems dangerous to me.

The thing that bothers me is that those who are rallying behind these books/ movies (due mostly to Meyer's Mormon faith, methinks) continually point out the strength and independence of the prtoagonist, Bella. Because the book tells you she's independent. But her behavior holds up traditional gender norms of women being beautiful, virginal, and submissive. Bella's obsessive thoughts about Edward are normalized in the world of Twilight and the violence between them and around them is normalized because it is surrounded by or associated with traditional romance imagery and props. This reminds me of an amazing article I read this semester written by Jennifer Dunn called “What Love Has to Do with It: The Cultural Construction of Emotion and Sorority Women's Responses to Forcible Interaction". Using the Interactionist perspective, Dunn examines the emotional response to and interpretation of “forcible interaction”, a qualified group of behaviors that run the gamut from “pestering” to “stalking” that transpires between two people when one is attempting to take by force what is normally freely given. What she found was how the “influence of courtship imagery” shape these women's “interpretations of unwanted attention”. This pattern was most pronounced in consideration of men they had been in long-term relationships with, but it was also present in the context of men they had simply dated. There was a “range of attempts” considered: leaving a gift, waiting at the respondent’s residence with flowers, leaving messages, showing up (sans flowers), following and suicide threats. All of these behaviors were understood to be forcible interactions but when they were framed with the “trappings of love” the women were much more likely to ameliorate the behavior into something they viewed as acceptable. Thispresents evidence of how women participate in their increased vulnerability to forcible interaction and how such behaviors are codified as acceptable when in the context of romantic relationships. Sound familiar?

Look at that poster.

A friend posted an article on FB that points out that by all measures, Bella and Edward are in an abusive relationship. Ha ha, Oh wait, no really.
This shit really bothers me. What are we teaching a whole generation of young women? I'm not saying that girls read Twilight and are suddenly spineless, boy-obsessed and sexually chastened morons, but I'm saying it doesn't help to have such a salient cultural touchstone be championed for having a strong woman protagonist when in fact it has the opposite. Bella is not strong, not independent and is kind of an idiot. Also, sex and violence are all mixed up and worst of all, she's made to feel guilty whenever she feels desire. . It really really really really really really bothers me that when Bella expresses physical desire she in punished in some way. Sex is always dangerous or imbued with violence. This is not OK. This is fucking bananas, and bad for women, and also, bad.

So.
Let's not, mmkay?
Thoughts?

* Madness which came to a screeching halt in my elementary school due to my brother circulating the rumor that Joe was rushed to the hospital with a stomach full of sperm. Jordan's sperm. I remember one friend, crying into her pencil box in the girls bathroom at T.A. Hendricks, wailing, "Joe! How could you do this to me!" Not to be judgemental, my first concert was NKOTB with my sister from another mister the night before Martin Luther King Day which her school failed to recognize so she had to get up and go to school while I got to sleep in. Oh, Indiana.

"Hit The Bitch": Or how The Danish do Domestic Violence Awareness

From AdFreak

There are subtle ways to raise awareness about relationship violence. And then there's "Hit the Bitch," a Web campaign by a Danish advocacy group. Setting up an interface where you're encouraged to slap and punch a woman seems pretty extreme. It's almost like an advergame, except you're delivering an adverbeating! (You can use the mouse, or connect with your Webcam and swing at the girl with your hand.) Getting called a "100% idiot" at the end doesn't feel like much of a rebuke. Perhaps you're supposed to feel guilty, like a real-life abuser might, for continuing to hit the woman just to see what happens next?

Un-fucking-believable.

From Sociological Images

At the top, a counter keeps track; you start out as 100% Pussy, 0% Gangsta, but your Gangsta rating goes up every time you hit her.
Apparently, though, when you get up to where you’d be at 100% Gangsta, it instead says 100% Idiot, as though this is a real put-down that is going to make you think really seriously about domestic violence.
I am trying to think of any context that would make this seem like a good idea, or an effective way to combat domestic violence. I mean, ok, yeah, I guess people might be made more aware of it after hearing about or playing the game, but is it likely to have any positive effect? It seems more likely that people who don’t already take domestic violence seriously would either be uncomfortable, leave the site, and never think about it again, or find it funny to play for a few minutes just to see what would happen…and somehow encouraging people to slap around an image of a woman for fun seems like a really weird way to get people to think more seriously about domestic violence.

I have no words. thoughts?

Are you happy?

This feels apropos: sometimes I just need a little reminder. Thanks to Tara for this.

"the impact...depends on who is watching it"

from my new favorite website Sociological Images:

"This cartoon satirizes the common sitcom family that includes an average-looking, bumbling husband and a gorgeous, put-together wife. It reverses the roles to illustrate (1) how offensive these sitcoms are to men (men are useless oafs who can’t be expected to act like adult human beings) and (2) how we take for granted that hot chicks should marry useless oafs,"

"I know, it’s satire, and, if you’re a regular reader, you know how I worry about satire. To me, this points out how stupid (and gendered) family sitcoms are. But, for others, it might just reinforce the hateful stereotype that fat women are disgusting and useless. The problem is that the impact of the cartoon depends on who is watching it."

A-men!
I worry about satire too, it's so easily manipulated into the opposite of what it sets out to be.

The Wackness not the Dopeness

The Wackness

1) The commercial for a female heroine centered video game with the horrible horrible awful title of WET

2) 17 hours this semester
3) no time for the gym in over a week
4) my exam tomorrow
5) fat jokes on a friend's Facebook update and The Daily Show
6) cigarettes
7) one of my classmates making me feel dumb b/c apparently reading Marx is sooooo easy for him
8) the healthcare "debate"
9) being broke
10) not sleeping

The Dopeness

1) MAD MEN!!!

2) the chicken tetrazzini Jeff made dor dinner

3) ...