Three Mike-Checks with Feminism

I wrote a first draft for this post, and it was stiff, dry, boring, essay’ish.  

I do like writing essays, but I also like saying stuff that is on my mind without running it through some structured filter.   

Why do I plan every little thing I am going to say?   

I barely understand most of the theoretical nomenclature I use, so why do I insist on using it?   

At this moment, I feel like a cheesy morning news anchor who gets to work, takes one look at a lame joke on the teleprompter and says, “Fuck it.”   

Lol, it feels good saying that.  

 So rather than trying to sound like someone who knows what he is talking about I’ll be totally honest and say that I am just trying to figure things out.   

There's been a shift in my feminism that I want to explore.  For a long time I thought I was really cool and progressive because I was a feminist, but the title isn't enough.  

A lot of my performance (by that I mean my actions, gestures, etc) still need to be interrogated.  And the reason for this post is not to guilt trip myself; I guess the reason for writing this down is that I want to add to the conversation about male feminism.  

The ideas, thoughts and challenges of other male feminists have helped me, so I want to give something back.  These are some of my experiences, mistakes, and lessons.  

 I want to talk about some moments that exist in my mind as flash backs.  These moments all went down after I started learning about feminism, and...... they're kind of embarrassing.   

I try not to think back and feel guilty; the feeling is more in line with that wave of awkwardness that comes from thinking about a bad date, or a sloppy first kiss.  

I took my first Women’s Studies class last summer, and I have a TON of positive memories about the experience.  But, when I reflect I also distinctly remember feeling very smug about being one of the only guys.  I would sort of half listen to the class discussion, and while I was listening I would carefully formulate these really verbose responses.  

Then I would put my hand up, consciously kind of drop my voice a bit to give it an “air of western rationality”, and I would recite this nicely memorized contribution.  In reality, they were pretty simple talking points; I just dressed them up in a bunch of fancy words.   

Oh man, talk about intellectual vanity!  I also distinctly remember hanging out with a classmate on the last day of summer school, and she started telling me about how she was going to treat herself to a $30 pedicure.  I said, “Why?  You know guys don’t even notice that stuff, right?”  She (in a friendly, joking tone) responded, “Why do you think I am doing this for men?  Haven’t you learned anything in this class?”   

That reallllly dragged my self-righteousness down to earth.  It made me realize that taking a women’s studies class does not give me license to start saying, “Guys are problems, but I’m different!”  (I also now realize that saying “guys are problems” is a crazy oversimplification, but these lessons came much later)  

So those are my sloppy first date memories, but feminism called me back! 

 

After my summer class ended I was fortunate enough to meet an amazing team running a campus feminist group – Scary thought: if it wasn’t for Melanie, Alyssa and Raisa I would be a marketing major this year :/ .  

I remember seeing everyone for the first time at a campus safety meeting just before the school year kicked off.  So I am sitting in this meeting, listening to everyone speak, and I started thinking to myself, “You’re just passively sitting here, say something!  Take control and say something smart.  This is your first impression, don’t screw it up.”  So I came up with something simple and redundant, dressed it up nicely, and said it.   

After the meeting we were walking towards the bus lanes at York and someone suggested going for beers at the campus pub.  At that moment I wanted to go very badly, but this is exactly what ran through my mind; “Ok, you made a solid first impression! They think you know your stuff, you have successfully hidden your suburban lameness.  Evacuate before you screw up!”   

So what did I do?  

I walked away...  

The final club flash back I want to share involves a person with whom I had a tiny bit of a crush. I liked this person, and as I do with everything in life, I made this plan in my mind.  It wasn’t anything elaborate, more or less a faint sketch of the boundaries for my actions, all so that I would look cool, confident, in control, etc.   

Anyway, I get to this Halloween party which we are both attending, and I have this mini-meltdown. I was so concerned with how my performance and I was so scared of screwing up in front of my friends in the club and my crush that I ended up just retreating into myself.  

 I threw away a chance to talk to a person I liked all because I was afraid of appearing less than ideal.  I guess that is the night I started to think about throwing away the teleprompter.  (side note: Today, I am very fortunate to consider this person a friend).

I think these flashbacks show that I have, and continue to struggle with an element of cognitive dissonance.   

My actions aren’t always in alignment with my feminist values.   

When I speak in class, and I chose to dress things up in all of these fancy words, I am using language like a weapon.  I am calling forth the language of privilege, and by doing so who am I silencing?   

This is a single social gesture which I must pay more attention to.  And sometimes my actions produce a weird dynamic that I am only now beginning to understand -- me oppressing me.    

When I act the way I think people want me to act (whether this is as a man, as a student etc) I am burying the conditions for great experiences and relationships.  These flashbacks are not dramatic turning points, but they are markers that I can use to know that I am on the right path.  

Today, I am going for beers after the committee meeting.  Today, I am going to ditch the posturing, and I am going to talk to the girl (or guy) at the party.  

Feminism is opening up the world to me – after all, would I have ever had the courage to write this post a year ago? Absolutely not!  Feminism is telling me that I don’t have to carefully plan everything I say, sometimes I can just be.  

-Michael     

 

Oh, the Discourse!: The Royal Wedding and Yada Yada

I couldn't think of a better way to break my blog-ginity than with an essay-style rant dovetailing the coat-tails of the recent Royal Wedding. I think it'd be wise if we did our best to reflect on the discursive deployment mediated through the coverage.  

By discursive deployment I mean the fundamentally political ideas communicated through the cultural production of the wedding.  I strongly believe that the interplay between the ritualized construction and Western commoditization of the Royal Wedding conjointly operated to produce a Christian European white patriarchal heterocentric discursive deployment.  

 To begin, I will reflect on the elements which played out on the social stage of the Wedding.  Of the thousands of official guests an overwhelming majority were white.  The power of this stilted representation was precisely that it was not acknowledged, thus whiteness was discursively universalized in the context of the production.  

In addition, a clear gender divide was mediated through the social signifiers presented through fashion.  In general, the female identified guests draped themselves in extravagant clothing, and (based on the tenor of the “expert” analysts) their social value was contingent on the success of their feminine aesthetic embellishment (think big decorative hats!).  

In contrast, a notable percentage of the male identified guests wore military uniforms, and in their case the social value (once again allocated by a procession of analysts) was earned on the basis of their conduct in the public arena (think military accolades - a concrete embodiment of historically masculine value).  

To take a single example, the camera panned to David and Victoria Beckham and after a detailed evaluation of Victoria’s clothing the analyst drew attention to a single aspect of David’s clothing which indicated that he is a member of the British Order.  

The signifiers arranged and deployed, and the analysis which mediated consumption drove a divisive speak between the masculine and feminine, with the former gauged according to public conduct, and the latter judged relative to Eurocentric conceptions of feminine beauty.  

After a thorough gendered analysis of the guests the cameras spent several minutes filming the interior of the Westminster abbey, mediating the consumption of every detail of gilded splendor.  A procession of clergymen spoke at the event, and collectively they weaved connections between heterosexuality and spiritual fulfillment, Eurocentrism and global hope.  

The tenor of this oratory was that the union between a man and a woman is divinely ordained for the increase of mankind, and that in the face of contemporary global peril this naturally ordained union is a beacon of hope to all countries.   

The totality of social signifiers and discursive formations deployed on the social stage of the Royal Wedding collectively expressed a body of politics with embedded notions of white, Christian, Eurocentric, patriarchal, and heterosexual supremacy. 

The social stage of the Wedding was, at its core, a ritual.  A ritual carries no power within itself, rather the power stems from the resonance it strikes in a broader social context.  Thus, a more detailed reflection on the Western packaging of the wedding is necessary.  

The pervasive focal point of the Western coverage was the wife to be, Kate Middleton. This emphasis was made explicate before the ceremony even started – Kate’s car had modified windows which facilitated a degree of voyeurism unattainable with any other vehicle, a calculated move to accommodate media saturation.  

Prince William and all other members of the Royal family were arranged in the abbey far sooner than the bride, and when Kate made her entrance a CTV analyst was practically gushing, “Born a Kate, now a Katherine.  A four minute walk up the aisle and into a different life.”  Another analyst said “The cut of her dress makes her look tiny, and her waist is cinched.  She simply radiates confidence!”  

Later in the ceremony, when William made his vow the camera was trained solely on him, and when Kate made her vow she was given a few frames of airtime before the camera found William once again.  Through the lens of the Western media Kate operated as a fluid social unit negotiating integration into a static institution (physical the Westminster abbey, socially the British monarchy).   

The camera followed her as she was paraded down the crowded streets of London, and her procession walked down the aisle surrounded by a sea of motionless Monarch’s and dignitaries.  

The commentary of the CTV analyst struck a note within a very specific narrative; Kate is the fortunate “commoner” plucked from obscurity, and she alone has the opportunity to fall into the arms of a prince charming.  

Thus, it follows that the camerawork at the altar was guided by the feminine gaze – we saw William clearly, and, for the most part, only the back of Kate’s head was visible, which effectively made her a site of projection for every female (or male) identified person who has ever dreamed of being wisped away by a prince.  

But to delve deeper, I contend that in the context of this production the personal particularities of Prince William were insignificant, rather the Prince operated as an institutional fixture, more specifically a personified emblem of a specific power structure.  

The surface fantasy was falling into the arms of a prince, the underlying foundation was being brought into the fold of a power structure; both dimensions operated as deeply historic discursive productions.  

Therefore, the Western media coverage of Will and Kate’s wedding was a staged fantasy of sorts, whereby the (predominately) female identified viewer was both witness and participant to a feminine “commoner’s” socially recognized alignment with a power structure.  

The interplay between the social stage and the mediated Western consumption of the wedding reveals the aggregate discursive deployment of the wedding; the apex of feminine fulfillment is being plucked from obscurity and heralded into the confines of an established power structure. 

More specifically, along the lines of the Western media coverage, the lucky girl is chosen on the merit of her European feminine aesthetic (recall Kate and her “cinched” waste), and the established power structure has a very specific texture – white, Eurocentric, patriarchal and heteronormative.    

In closing, I would like to very briefly talk about a person who was the subject of one of the human interest stories shown during the CTV pre-wedding coverage.  The female identified person was around seventy, from Calgary, and a lifelong Royal enthusiast.  

When she talked about the Royal family her joy and excitement was palatable, and it made me realize that her relation to the concept of the British monarch is something I cannot relate to.  Being of a different time she has navigated a social space steeped in collective values which facilitated a totally different relationship with the Monarch.  

To generalize, the people of my generation will necessarily consume this event in a different way relative to this older person from Calgary.  I think we need accurately map the youth interpretation to the discursive deployment of this wedding,  and based on the findings perhaps we will have a snapshot of the dominant discourse on gender, race, and sexuality specific to (broadly speaking) the social epoch of the youth of the contemporary West.  

The product being offered to us is sexist, racist, and heterocentric but the site of production is our collective interpretation, and this is what must be mapped!

Over and out, 


Michael.