Are You Ready for Some Football?

There is never a reason for physical violence.  There is never a reason to hit your partner or child to the point where they are unconscious or bruised.  There is never a reason to inflict violence against someone else but apparently there are exceptions to these rules if you’re a NFL football player.

In my native state of Wisconsin, watching football on Sunday is synonymous with attending church prior to the game.  Watching football on Sunday is a cultural norm in many, if not all, different regions of the country where individuals, whether you like it or not, gather each Sunday to both praise and pray that your team ends up on top.

In Wisconsin, you attend church with your family and head to your desired destination where you gather with friends and family to eat, talk about your life, and of course watch your local football team battle their weekly rival.  Although I am not much of a football fan these days, I have very fond memories of attending football games, watching them with my family and talking about the Green Bay Packers’ Super Bowl chances.  It was my time to both bond with the men of my family as well as catch up on the gossip the women would whisper back and forth to each other at the dinner table while the men were in the other room screaming at the TV.

Although I’m sure I will watch more games in my future, lately, all I do is cringe when I think about the growing violence that women and children face and have faced in the large shadow of an organization worth north of $9 billion dollars.

The biggest scandal to hit the news waves lately is that of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice’s assault of his wife in an Atlantic City elevator.  Although Rice and the various other incidents regarding NFL players and violence is disturbing, the biggest problem facing the NFL isn’t just its treatment of women but its continual commodification of them as a disposable resource emblematic with the culture of violence that it has created.

If you didn’t know, women make up an estimated 45% of the NFL‘s more than 150 million American fans and have, in recent weeks, become their most valuable resource and source of criticism.  However, after a long string of incidents stemming back from NFL teams underpaying cheerleaders to the Ray Rice incident, one needs to ask what the roles of women, if any, are outside of the disturbing images of the abused wife, hypersexualized cheerleader?  Is being dragged out of an elevator by your abusive husband the only way to get women’s issues addressed in the NFL by fans, league owners, and the NFL commission?

The roles of women in the NFL and religion have many similarities.  Aside from end zone celebrations where players praise God for his apparent direct role in helping them score a winning touchdown or certain players edifications as gods on Earth, women make up the crux of both NFL fandom and attendance but are responsible for the gatherings similar to the ones I, and many others, grew up with.

Although putting women in charge of drafting new policies that address the “woman problem” currently facing the NFL, it too reeks of the similar dismissive and patronizing actions women face when trying to obtain leadership roles in their religious traditions.  Supercilious progress for the sake of progress isn’t progress and progress under the guise of silence is still misogyny.  We need women in positions of leadership in both the NFL as well as in religious traditions.  The culture of violence and silence will only continue, albeit with a Band-Aid firmly in place, holding the painful experiences and histories of women, long forgotten and often overlooked, until society values their rights just as much as the men leading the prayers and those that are being prayed for on Sundays across America.

Ann Braude said it best in her foundational text Sisters and Saints that “if we want to understand the history of American women, we need to examine the religious beliefs and activities that so many have found so meaningful.” Without women, we wouldn’t have many, if not all, of the religions that are present throughout the world today and in case we forget, without women, we too wouldn't have the millions of little boys who grow up being taken to and from practice by their mothers with the hope that they too could one day become the professional football players that fans scream and pray for.

Without women, there is no NFL and without women, there is no religion.  Kelly Brown Douglas said it best on this very blog when she stated, “It is the violence that violence creates.”  Although I agree with her, I would only add that while violence does indeed create violence, the real sin isn’t the violence itself but rather the silence that follows.

Let us pray that we will continue to not be silent and that we will rise up and fight for the millions of women (and men) each day who do not live in fear that their significant other’s multimillion dollar contract will not be reinstated but rather that they and their children may not see another day on this Earth.

The Hot Seat

I've kept quiet during the whole #Hugogate that has taken the feminist blogosphere by storm.  Although I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, I took a moment to step back, examine the situation, and think about the next step not only for myself but also for all of those who identify as feminists and happen to be men just like me.  Men are here, doing good work, and making strides towards equality alongside women and yes, we can be angry over what happened, but lets use that as a force for good and overcome this pain and anger and continue to create a world that we all want to live and work in together, rather than further apart.  As always, thanks to Feminism and Religion for not only having faith in me since the start of the project but also for continuing to have faith in me and the work I do. 

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I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a male feminist lately.  As the only man to be a permanent blogger on this very site until my colleague and friend Kile Jones came on board, I took my role, as a man in a traditional feminist (online) space very seriously.  Although the ongoing struggle to be a male feminist is one continually wrought with dialogues about power and positionality (amongst a host of many other topics), I am often conflicted when I see male feminists take advantage and destroy the hard work that many, specifically on this site and beyond, worked hard to build and defend.

Not wanting to reopen old wounds or start new online battles, men have been involved in feminism for quite some time.  From James Mott chairing the first women’s rights convention, to radical feminist Andrea Dworkin’s life partner John Stoltenberg, to Michael Kimmel and Michael Kaufman’s life long work to legitimizing not only men in feminism but also what it means to be a man who works for gender equality, being a man in feminism isn't easy and that’s how it is supposed to be.

I’ve wrote on this blog that men often have to deal with an internalized misogyny that is a born characteristic trait that imparts that idea that men are not only dominant but also more powerful than women so they should, naturally, be atop of the proverbial pecking order.  This internalized misogyny leads many men, who already or want to exist in feminist spaces, to speak up more than the women in the room when they should really be listening.   However, what is more important than this internalized misogyny is how men, specifically, male feminists, fall victim to their ego by wanting to be the sole male feminist.

While I still believe that men are endowed with these characteristics as a result of purposeful and subconscious cultural, societal and religious imagery that shows men as Gods, it is important to realize that while there the image of the one God may be something that many men idealize and aspire to, the idea of the one male feminist doesn't exist and it is not supposed to.  Those who strive to be the male feminist are doomed to fail and they hurt those who came along for their ego driven ride and the feminist cause they sought to be a part of.

When it comes to leading, men are told to get to the front of the line no matter what the cost or who they hurt and women are told to take a backseat  However, when it comes to feminism, especially men in feminism, men must to go to the back of the bus first and work their way up to the front fully knowing that although they may never reach that coveted front seat, the work they did to help the cause was just as important because equality doesn't mean anything when there is only one voice screaming from the rafters.

Hopefully the hurt that has been caused as of late can be healed and as a result more men join the cause to stop all forms of injustice that threaten not only women’s equality but also equality for all, no matter what.

God Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: Gay Bars and the Growing Divide Between Sexuality and Spirituality

I'm always honored to be able to mix the various lives I lead together during my monthly contribution to the Feminism and Religion Project.  I hope you enjoy this month's post and continue to check out the project! 

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My good friend and fellow Feminism and Religion Contributor Marie Cartier’s forthcoming book, Baby You Are My Religion: Women, Gay Bars, and Theology Before Stonewall argues that American butch-femme bar culture of the mid-20^th Century should be interpreted as a sacred space.  Specifically, gay bars served as both communal and spiritual gathering spaces where butch-femme women were able to discover and explore not only their sexuality but also their spirituality.  An opus of an academic accomplishment based off of the amount of in-depth interviews she conducted, Professor Cartier explores lived religion in an area that has become all too common within the LGBTQ community: the bar

The Palms, the last local and only lesbian bar to be found in city of West Hollywood, CA is closing its doors and I can’t help but wonder where its patrons or parishioners will now go?

With its closing, specifically at the end of L.A. Pride weekend, where thousands of LGBTQ individuals flock to West Hollywood to celebrate what makes our community truly unique, one has to begin to wonder where, if Professor Cartier’s thesis holds true, God has gone? 

Does God exist within the LGBTQ community anymore or has the community itself abandoned God for all-night raves, dance clubs, alcohol, and hypersexualized and over commoditized fetishized forms of femininity and masculinity?  Oftentimes, I find myself answering yes to the above questions.  After surviving hate crime after hate crime and endless batches of newly elected conservative politicians hell bent on ignoring medical and social epidemic plaguing the very country they were elected to serve and protect, why would a community, oftentimes linked to sin itself, believe in a holy entity?

The overarching question at hand in regards to the closing of the Palms is not whether or not there is a space for God in the LGBTQ community anymore but rather what role does misogyny play within the very community sworn to respect and take pride in the very differences that makes itself truly unique?  Scholar Ann D. Braude credits the success of religion to the active and oftentimes overwhelming support of women.  With 40% of West Hollywood’s 35,000 residents identifying as gay but only 3% identifying as lesbians one can deduce that the closing of the Palms signifies the growing divide between the LGBTQ community and spirituality as more women leave the proverbial "church spaces" that they have created.  

The success of the LGBTQ community cannot be tied exclusively to gay men but also the struggles and successes of the lesbian community.  Similar to the various ways in which women helped religious communities boom throughout the 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th centuries in America, the lesbian community, as a whole, is integral to not only the successes of the LGBTQ community and the very cities and spaces they have helped to found.  

With the exodus of women, so comes the migration of spirituality itself and one can only wonder, whether or not, there will ever be any room or spaces left for women where more individual are becoming continually transfixed by Adonises and abdominal muscles. 

If Professor Cartier’s thesis does hold true, we have to begin to wonder if women are fleeing and God is following them, where might they be looking for a new lease?

Second Class Rape Victims: Rape Hierarchy and Gender Conflict

While most of my life has been dedicated to studying for my qualifying exams, finishing up a few book chapters, and working for the City of West Hollywood, I am constantly thrilled for the opportunity to step away from it all and engage in these thought provoking conversations.  I hope you enjoy this blog and visit the Feminism and Religion Project to view the new conversation occurring in the field.  

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The most disturbing part of the 2006 documentary Deliver Us from Evil isn’t that fact that Father Oliver O’Grady is rewarded by the Catholic church with a new congregation in Ireland after his short stint in prison for the rape of dozens of children in the 1970s but rather the hierarchy of gendered victimization which is often created throughout the various rape cases that both are reported and unreported throughout history.  

Deliver us from Evil

I am often troubled by the ways in which rape cases are discussed and even deconstructed via the mediums such as blogs, online communities, social media networks, the news, and popular culture.  No series of events troubled me more than the Jerry Sandusky trial but more importantly, the ways in which the young boys and adult men who were subjected to Sandusky’s abuse quickly overshadowed the other rape cases that are reported on a daily basis, specifically those involving young girls and women. 

Our country needs to have a serious conversation about the ways in which masculinity is not only constructed but also deconstructed through the acts of rape, incest, sexual assault, domestic violence, and virility.  How do these horrific actions pinpoint and break apart the depiction of the hegemonic and virile man who is impenetrable.  How do these acts, which have historically occurred throughout time, gain greater significance in our 24hr news cycle, tech obsessed culture? 

Although the rape of a women on a bus in India by six men didn’t go unnoticed by the world, I have to wonder what would have happened if her story would have occurred on November 4^th, 2011, the date when a grand jury, who had convened in 2008, indicted him on 40 counts of sex crimes against young boys.  Would it have gotten the same amount of attention it did when it came across U.S. news screens on December 16^th, 2012?  Would the outcry from women across the world silence those of both Penn State as well as various other sports fans and individuals from across the United States? 

What these events and society’s obsession with them for the weeks and months and even year after signify isn’t that more attention is being given to violent sexual crimes against all types of bodies but rather a resignification of the hierarchy that is already all too present within our culture today: stories about men in all forms get top billing. 

Upon asking a small groups of friends whether or not they have heard about the rape case involving the Indian woman on December 16^th, 2012 or even the rape of an elderly bird-watching woman in Central Park in September 2012 the resounding silence pinpointed the reasons why, when asked whether or not they had heard about Jerry Sandusky, their answers were an unequivocal yes.

While the activist in me wanted to cry out and scream “Are you serious!” the scholar in me knew to take a step back and examine the situation from various angles.   

Why are violent crimes against women cast aside in light of new stories that involve men sexually or violently abusing young boys or other men?  What about masculinity makes it seem both impenetrable and innately hegemonic? 

While we could reduce the actions down to the violent response men have when any form of their power and social/sexual status is threatened, we have to step back and examine the issue about the innate power that men are endowed with not only through social institutions but also religious ones as well.

Men are seen as “on top” both figuratively and literally throughout the various images that bombard both young girls and boys immediately from the expulsion of their mother’s womb (and some would argue even before their expulsion).  From early on, young boys are taught that they are #1 and that “the other,” i.e., the young girl, is not only below them but also an object that they must possess, whether through violent action or the eternal dance of courting.   However, when there is a disruption to this innate system of power structures, the response that we often see is one of violence.  While men are taught that they should not show emotion or deviate from the heteronormative society acted out in front of them on a daily basis, their crisis of masculinity often comes with the inability to negotiate what their identities as men actually mean to themselves personally.  Giving men the ability and space to discuss what their masculinity means to them creates the opportunity to change the narrative of “men on top.”  From small ripples of change that eventually overtake the mainstream current, deconstructing masculinity during times when violent actions are inflicted upon male bodies creates a new chance for scholars and activists to draw attention to not away from the victims at hand but rather into the larger narrative of social, sexual, and domestic violence that occurs all around the world every day to all types of bodies. 

Deconstructing masculinity isn’t the key to solving social, sexual, and domestic violence across the world but it is a step worth taking when attempting to engage men in affecting change to stop these violent actions since men, statistically are the perpetrators of such crimes that both cause such outcry as well as perpetual silence. 

(I was fortunate enough to get to spend some time this month talking with Dr. Gina Messina-Dysert at lengths about our lives, our careers, and like with most scholar/activists eventually about the topics we are passionate about.  Always a source of inspiration, Gina frequently helps me hash out the many topics I’m interested in writing about and pointing me in the right direction. This post (and the blog it is housed on) would not be possible without her continual presence as a force for change and progress within Feminist and Religious communities.)

Why Men (and Women) Still Can't Have It All

I oftentimes finding inspiration for my latest blog at the last moment.  Today, it came via a phone call with Dr. Gina Messina-Dysert about topics.  Inspiration, much like a muse, hit me.  In honor of my blog's topic I have to admit that without Gina's help, I wouldn't have been able to write this post.  Did I use Gina?  Maybe.  Did we work together on a project that best served both of our interests? Yes.
We used each other and we continue to day in and day out.  In doing so, we have created some great posts.  Thanks Gina, for all the help and constant inspiration you always give me.  Also to my faithful and dutiful best friend Anjeanette for reading it in the late night as I frantically read it over afraid of what people might have to say.  We all use each other and when we admit to it, we create beautiful end products as a result.

                                                                         -John

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Growing up, my favorite movie was The Associate staring Whoppi Goldberg as a woman at a Wall Street firm attempting to climb her way up the corporate ladder through hard work and dedication.  Her character Laurel Ayres does all the work and comes up with the ideas that clients eventually invest in, her partner Frank takes all the credit and eventually surpasses her at work by getting the promotion she had been vying for.  In a prodigious scene that I still vividly remember from my childhood, Laurel quits her job and starts an investment firm on her own; betting every cent and piece of property she has on the eventual success of her new business adventure.

In an attempt to break through the proverbial glass ceiling and play with the big boys of Wall Street, Laurel eventually discovers that although she can be (and is) the genius behind many of the great ideas that would save companies millions, she still needs to have her ideas expelled by a man she creates in order to win over clients, which eventually leads her to become successful.  However, while Laurel is reaping in the benefits of having Mr. Cutty, her made up business partner, by her side, she eventually learns that no matter what she does she will always be secondary to her male business partner.

Although the movie ends with a good feminist one-two punch to the proverbial patriarchal face, it taught me an important lesson about the politics and sacrifices each gender consciously or subconsciously make while trying to succeed in life’s adventures.  Why were perfectly good ideas by a female second fiddle?  Why were men the only ones capable of coming up with ideas?  And more importantly, why did women and men use each other in the same manner in order to succeed and further themselves in the world?

I’m sure many of the readers of Feminism and Religion have read the painstakingly long and brutally honest piece titled “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” by Anne-Marie Slaughter and others might have read Gina Messina-Dysert’s blog in response to it.  While we all took to the blogosphere to find and discuss our answers to the age old feminist question that many have been afraid to publically ask like Anne-Marie Slaughter and few have actually dared to answer in great detail, I’m here to tell you that both men and women still can’t have it all regardless of how many eye rolls you just had after reading this last sentence.

Yes, men use women and yes, when you look at the political, social, sexual, and religious landscapes of the world, white, Angelo-Saxon men blot out the terrain like an ever-growing forest in a land of capitalistic enterprise hell-bent on earthly and gendered domination.  However, what we fail to realize is that women also use men in many of the same gainful enterprises.  While I live in the world of academic, I also live in the real world.  I go out to clubs with friends, I listen to the stories from both men and women from highly respected careers discuss their crazy Saturday night, and hear from each of them about how they skillfully and successfully manipulated the opposite gender (or those of the same gender for my LGBTQ brothers and sisters) out of the club and back to their apartment or into some other compromising position that placed one at a disadvantage and the other in a seat of power.  

While my friends bragged about the escapades over coffee at brunch or in a text message, I often felt that many people are afraid to admit to their misusing because they are worried about how it will make them look rather than admitting it is something that we all have and still continue to do.   The point and problem about using each other is, that it serves as a catalyst to many of the world’s problems and successes.  Academics, many like Anne-Marie Slaughter and others would like to sit back and write about the inequalities in gendered politics and the advantages and disadvantages to women and men without truly engaging in the matter that they too once did the exact same thing that they are now writing about.

Can women have it all?  Possibly.  Can men ever have it all? Maybe.  Regardless of however we put it, the are ills to every good deed in the world and we need to get back to understanding how and why we use each other in order to fully understand that behind every good man might be a good woman but also behind every good women there might also be a good man.

We all use each other to get ahead in the world and there is nothing wrong with that.  It is the matter in which how we use each other that we need to question and deconstruct in order to fully realize and understand Slaughter’s final point about understanding our own power and in the process making the world better for all women and in the process men as well if we truly are attempting to create a world based on gender equality rather than inequality.

Much like the ending of The Associate, we all create and use people in our lives to succeed and fail in our endeavors.  Although Mr. Cutty was a fictional character, he eventually became the physical manifestation of everything the Laurel Ayres attempted to escape at her old job and recreate in her new, female owned and operated one.  She eventually had to literally become the actual manifestation of Mr. Cutty at an all-male New York City club to reveal that behind every good man may be a good woman but behind good women may still be the predestined and already defined actions of men that feminists have been trying to fight against for years.  Men and women may be able to have it all but they won’t get anywhere near achieving the goals of Slaughter’s article without acknowledging how we got there in the first place.

Today, I'm Thankful

Today I was asked "What do you study?"

I was in a crowd of women who did not know much about women's studies but their answer, after I explained what both studied and was deeply involved in, was: "More men need to study that," brought me back to great place that I have not been back to in a while.

It helped to once again show me how to important it is to build bridges and allies across gender lines and how women's studies creates the change you want to see in the world.

That is what I am most thankful for on Thanksgiving this year.

That little twinge of acknowledgement from the universe that I am "on the right path."

Today, I am thankful.

xoxo

John

Manly Man, Manly Man, Where are You?

To All the "Manly" Men,

How many guy's holding guns are in this video? How many fast, expensive cars weave in and out of streets or flip over and crash? How many women are used as objects? Where is masculinity in this video?

Let the Masculine Mystique Begin:

Pure from Jacob Bricca on Vimeo.

The progression of this video presents the problem with masculine culture today: It's been hijacked by the patriarchal ideal of how men NEED to act and not HOW to act. The idea behind this video is to depict the POWER and the VISIBILITY that comes with that POWER in Visual Culture and then how it is interpreted and LIVED by men who long to be "manly men."

Is there such a thing as the "manly man" in visual culture or is it all just a glimmer of the ideal that androcentrism and patriarchy want me to become. The men, in these videos, are to run around with guns, blow things up, bleed, possess women and progress the ideal that MEN need to do all these things in order to embody the idea of the "manly man." If they don't, they visual culture and society in general depict a very different type of man; one that can never possess these "qualities" of masculinity but rather someone who can only look in from the outside.

Sex, Power and Dominance, three ingredients that shouldn't mix but seemingly do across not just visual culture but culture in general.