Thoughts on Brooks and Rosin: Do Women Have a Role in Why Men Fail?

This isn’t a book review because I haven’t read Hanna Rosin’s book, The End of Men, yet.

But I noticed, with dismay, that the comments on David Brook’s NYTimes opinion post on the topic, Why Men Fail, were closed within 2 days, and indeed, many of the comments were rude and politicized. Not to mention sexist, in both directions.

I’d like to try a different – maybe a more humane – tack.

This is not to be down on men but to explore the sad reality of gender and economics in our society right now. Men are failing, socially, economically, and physically. But ‘we’re all in this together.” And I’m not sure we’re going to get anywhere if we isolate and blame 50% of our population.

If anything, I wonder if it is women (as much as men) who expect men to stick to old ways. We want to have our chivalry cake but eat it with empowered feminist icing. I’ve known plenty of women (perhaps used to be one, cough cough) who want a sensitive, intelligent, handsome, feminist-minded, loving man – who is also muscular, traditionally-attractive (that is, like a superhero) – but who also opens the door and pays her way, and doesn’t mind if she doesn’t look like a supermodel.

Not to mention the homophobia in this country that tells men if they behave in a loving and flexible way, they are either feminine or gay.

Men are subject to a huge number of stereotypes that are both rigid and contradictory. The stereotypes come from everywhere – media, female AND male parents, relatives, and partners. My mom likes to tell an anecdote about an acquaintance who burned her bras with the best of ’em, but then raised her sons to be “good ol’ boys.” Her boys were expected to get a high-earning career and work outside the home for their entire career.

These social expectations govern what men wear, how and what they talk about, who they’re allowed to hang out with, and what they do with their time.

I’m saddened most when I see little boys’ clothes in only the three colors they’re “allowed” to wear – blue, red, and black. As though color were not a way to express oneself,  and to appreciate beauty, but only a signal of conformity.

Maybe we women could consider changing how we think about men so they can more easily change how they think about themselves. Perhaps then they’ll feel safe enough to be less rigid, more communicative, and more flexible.

And wear pink!

What I’ve Been Reading Lately – Sept 2012

Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup

This book by a widowed mother of four who becomes a chaplain for search and rescue missions is a soothing read even if you can’t exactly relate. Her voice is sincere, thoughtful, and humane. The scene that touched me most was when she counseled a man whose sister had committed suicide by taking barbiturates and walking into the cold woods. The dead woman’s minister had told her that all suicides go to hell. When her brother expressed distress about this, Chaplain Kate responded, “The game wardens have been walking in the rain all day in the freezing rain to find your sister. They would have walked for the rest of the week. And if there is one thing I am sure of, it is that God is not less kind, less committed, or less merciful than a Maine game warden.” She went on to assure him that his sister is safe, forgiven and “free at last from all her pain.” (p. 112).

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

People keep giving me Anne Fadiman books as gifts, so I must be making it clear that I like to read well-researched writing that still manages to be personal and creative. About the joys and quirks of being a book-lover, there are lots of obscure yet entertaining tidbits in here. I most enjoyed the essay about carnal versus courtly lovers of books, who are distinguished most starkly by whether or not one would ever lay a book face down on its spine. I also learned some new sesquipedalians that made me realize my goals are to have a diapason, adapertile jars, and a team of agathodemons looking out for me.

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The title of this book, first published in 1949, is meant not to denigrate but to honestly represent how women were viewed at the time: as an imperfect version of the prototypical human specimen, the male. In her introduction, she asks “Are there women, really?” And certainly, decades of health and psychology research that included only male (and white, Anglo-Saxon, educated, i.e., WEIRD) subjects, would seem to indicate that for many scholars in the early 20th century, the answer was a bizarre “no.”

Side note: In Ex Libris (see above), Anne Fadiman points out in her chapter on “True Womanhood,” noting that “…although my father and E. B. White were not misogynists, they didn’t really see women, and their language reflected and reinforced that blind spot.” (p. 76).

I’m through the chapter on biology and found it a helpful reminder of the physical and physiological limitations of female-hood. S. d B.’s prose reminds me that while women’s moods and anxieties help define our daily experience as more variable than a man’s, this does not define us, our humanity, or our possibilities. Rather, I’m striving, as I read this book, and as I grow into myself (to quote a dear friend), to accept the ups and downs of my emotional brain, and to use these experience to become more compassionate and present with myself and with others.

UCLA Study Shows De-Cluttering Good for Mental & Physical Health

De-Cluttering Good for Mental & Physical Health

This article is timely because I just moved and have been packing or unpacking for months now (OK, with a vacation thrown in). I haven’t collected any data but often when I spend time with my possessions – washing dishes, putting away clothes, or yesterday when I spent 10 seconds deciding which spoon to use to stir my dinner – I think about what else I might do with those minutes…

Play the guitar

Weed the garden

Read a book

Practice vocal exercises

Take a walk

Talk with a friend

Write a blog post…

It’s probably not a realistic goal to have zero possessions, which is the sort of extreme thought I have when I’m completely fed up with the pile of seasonal dishtowels creeping out of my pantry.

Instead the goal might be like the rule of parsimony that writers are taught to follow: write what is necessary, but nothing more. Researchers are also trained to think of complex problems or ideas as simply as possible.

Getting back to possessions, how do we know when we have what is necessary but nothing more? Sometimes it’s useful to have more than one serving spoon, such as when people come over and you want to feed them.

Perhaps we don’t know how much is too much until we have gone way overboard. Which the UCLA study about clutter seems to illustrate. If the ’90s and the naughts were about acquiring, I’m crossing my fingers that the 2010’s will be about being selective and resourceful.

Questions to consider:

1) What type of possessions do I spend the most time managing, cleaning, or maintaining? (In which room do most of these possessions belong: kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, study)?

2) If I didn’t have those possessions, what might I do instead? (It’s OK if I just want more rest).

3) What is necessary? What is not? (This is the hardest one. How do you know you won’t need something in 4 months?).

For more on this topic, visit: http://www.scribd.com/doc/77197556/60100856-the-Happiness-Project

UVa BOV: We Need Transparency in Communications

I’m moving out of my apartment this Father’s Day weekend, so I have no business blogging. But the events at the University of Virginia (UVa), my employer for the last 5 years, are too exciting to ignore. On Sunday, the Governor-appointed Board of Visitors announced their surprise decision to fire Theresa Sullivan after only 2 years as UVa’s first female president (not a splendid, ice-cream-truck-type “surprise” but more like a corporate takeover, coup, or nighttime dealing by a secret society, of which UVa has many).

There has been excellent journalism on the situation, though little concrete information has been offered by the Board of Visitors. I particularly liked this Slate article, by a UVa faculty member, for summarizing what seems like the main issue – I’ll give you one guess – money and how places like universities get it in a recession.

Here’s the part that’s of interest for this blog and my interest in honesty and growth: the lack of transparency in the Board’s actions. In the most concrete terms I can manage, the Board’s mistakes were 1) replacing a president who was enormously popular with virtually the entire university community, 2) for no clear reason, 3) and without informing anyone else at the university before doing so.

These layer upon other problems, which are ethical, philosophical, existential, financial and (probably, for good measure), psychological. But I’m supposed to be packing. So, just two more things:

1. Since I have been at UVa, much has been made of “The Community.” As in, what is the definition of a community, is UVa a community, and how can we help people who feel like it isn’t feel like it is? I participated in an event following Yeardley Love’s death called Day of Dialogue, which brought together staff and students from across the university to communicate honestly about sensitive issues that most people don’t talk about at work, such as racism, sexism, cronyism, hierarchies, how UVa relates to the non-UVa Charlottesville, community, mental health, communicating with one’s supervisors, and religion. (The UVa Day of Dialogue has no connection that I am aware to the Focus on the Family’s Christian-oriented Day of Dialogue).

I came away from the Sullivan-supported Day of Dialogue, which was actually several 1.5-hr sessions, with a greater optimism about UVa being a place where open communication is possible. In my group, there was impressive diversity in age, though somewhat less diversity in gender and race/ethnicity. Women especially seem to dig this sort of group activity. The point of the group was talking, and we spent the first session establishing how to listen and respond to people whose opinions and values differ from one’s own. Still, I met a UVa Groundskeeper, a head of Dining Services, undergraduate students, and non-education faculty members whom I never would have encountered otherwise. Participating helped me decide that a community is a place where people attempt to – at the risk of being redundant – communicate with one another about issues that matter to them. It was one of the UVa activities that I felt proudest to be a part of, even after three years with a research team whose work inspires and uplifts me.

2. Shame on you, Board of Visitors, for being so secretive about a decision that affects so many members of the UVa community. You have corrupted a tradition of open communication that universities and their members aspire to. You have shocked a community that, if not always succeeding, is trying to be one of those places where people talk about things that matter to them and to others. I’m sure you have your reasons and, if you were willing or able to articulate them, they may even make sense to people who are not in your privileged position. But the way you went about removing our president was shameful. The way you went about it casts doubt on your ability to serve on the Board and your ability to represent the diverse interests of an intellectual, yes, financial, yes, but ultimately social community.

As you undoubtedly know, humans are inherently social creatures. We need each other. We need to be able to tell the truth to each other, even if the news is difficult. So I recognize that you, Board members, are also human. And maybe your news was tough, maybe it was “look, folks, your beloved UVa is going under if we don’t do something drastic like offer online degrees.” Or maybe it was “Gosh, I don’t know how we’re going to be able to pay out your retirement benefits.” Maybe it was, “Faculty, we have to get you to bring in more grant money or teach more classes because the state is just not helping us out very much,” or “We need undergraduates to pay more tuition than they can afford because our funds are drying up” Or maybe it was – gasp – “Time to let go of some staff who are taking advantage of the system,” or “What if we reduce your hours?” or – God save us all – “We think the only option besides firing 20% of UVa employees is to sell millions more university brand t-shirts.”

If those are the options, let’s talk about them. While we may not be wealthy land developers or political appointees, we are adults and we can handle it. We know that our country and our state and its institutions are pressed for cash. And we can certainly handle/face/confront/resolve (or whatever business-school lingo you would like to use), the problem a lot better if you communicate about it, instead of doing urgent backroom dealings without consulting anyone with an opinion other than your own.

The way you went about removing our president suggests you have little respect for openness, honesty, or due process. And so, to use your own words, would it be too much to ask that we “mutually agree” on your collective resignation?

Love is an Ability

For Mother’s Day this year I would like to thank my mom for her ability to love.

I first learned about this idea of love from the special features following the film “Pieces of April.” Derek Luke, who plays Bobby in the film, says the movie is unique because of its message about love. Through the magnificent failings of all its quirky (did I say quirky? I meant dysfunctional) characters, the film shows that love is an ability, not a feeling. Which means it is something that can be learned, a word I usually associate with school.

While I learned about the importance of effort in academic pursuits in graduate school (and boy, did I!), it took me longer to realize that the same effort could be applied to learning emotional and relationship matters. And though I began my academic learning when attending school for the first time, my ways of feeling, reacting, and relating to others had been practiced and reinforced since I was born.

When certain behaviors, like a particular way of responding when another person speaks, are practiced over and over again, they create “super-highways” in the brain. After that, they become the default behavior – the impulse, the automatic response, or the thing that is easiest to do without thinking. For example, if a child is often hungry as an infant, that child will probably react to a snack by eating it immediately when it appears. If the child has never had the opportunity to practice waiting to eat snack, he probably won’t be very good at it: behaviors that aren’t practiced are like roads that don’t get driven on. They simply disappear.

When anything threatening or uncertain happens, my default reaction –  my superhighway – is anger. Lashing out, raising my voice. It doesn’t necessarily have to mean that I’ve been personally threatened – it could be something as simple as someone disagreeing with me. On the phone one night, my mom and I were discussing what I should do about my fatigue. I was (idiotically) trying to figure out a way to continue in my three after-work hobbies: a cappella chorus, weekly writer group, and monthly writer group. I’ve been on a schedule overload like this since high school, and my mom was trying to encourage me to rest:

My mom: “What if this is your window to rest and recover, and what if you spend it too busy? You may miss that window and end up tired…for the rest of your life.”

Me (angry): “What did you need to go and say that for? Don’t you think that’s what I’m worried about most?”

I was angry because my mom had said exactly what I was thinking. It’s kind of ironic to get mad at someone for essentially agreeing with me. But like many default reactions, anger is a defense mechanism meant to deflect other negative feelings like feeling scared (in this case), or ashamed or ignored. It is not a very useful response, because no matter what the anger is directed towards – a person, the store that’s out of a key ingredient, a flat tire – the anger usually shuts down the situation instead of resolving it.

In the past couple years, I decided that I needed to find a way to either avoid anger in the first place, or (more realistically) to do something besides go into attack mode when I felt it. The process was (is, I must admit) messy and stilted. In emotional conversations, I often become angry anyway, even after telling myself it won’t happen. (I once made myself a little note – a “yellow card” like in soccer – to use when I was feeling over the edge; I was in Italy during the World Cup at the time).

It helped when a teacher reminded me that “when under stress, regress,” which means, when a person is under stress, she reverts to her original ways of handling a situation. This helped me to have patience with myself when I was trying to lay down the new highway in my brain. It helped me to realize that even if I didn’t always succeed in managing anger, it was important that I was trying, and some day, I might succeed.

Eventually, after a much longer time than expected, I became able to feel anger and not do or say anything about it. I can “just be” and let the feeling occur. Sometimes, magically, I can even say, “I want to talk about this, but can we do it later?” Other times, it is like my car has stalled on the highway. I won’t let it go any further down the anger road, but it doesn’t have anywhere else to go. So I remain silent, staring, remembering my breath. And still other times, when I am at my most vulnerable, the anger still comes.

My mom has stuck by me in all of this. She has talked and listened on too many phone calls to count (though my cell phone company is delighted to count them). For several months last year, we talked on the phone every single night. I was going through a divorce, plus dealing with health problems, and was not the most cheerful of conversationalists. But my mom was there, putting in the time, listening and responding. Sometimes I even asked her for a different response, which she remarkably was able to give. And many, many times, my mom responded with wisdom and kindness, with words I didn’t even know would make me feel better and with stories that helped me see the strength and dignity in our human plight. She helped me see the value of having the world tumble down around our feet. She helped me find my own particular strength and dignity.

My mother is not a perfect person (I always wonder why that seems like a disclaimer. As far as I know, not one of us is perfect so this is a way of saying “she is a human being, not a robot” which is intended as a compliment). But my mom has a quality that I admire a lot: she tries, really hard, to love. She sees love as an ability and as something you can show a person through words and actions. She believes that people can change their words and actions, that she can change and I can change for the better – “for the healthier.” She is able to love me. And she succeeds.

Thank you, Mom, for all that you’ve done, to get me here, to today. I’m more grateful than words can say (But like the academic I am, I shall try).