First a little business.
The geezers in the previous post, I am told by my friend Kenne in Hawaii, are from the Log Cabin Republican website. He thought I'd hate this, and though I suppose that's a realistic assumption knowing me and my "love" of all things republican, I didn't actually hate it. I went to the Log Cabin website and looked around. I felt I owed them that much since they're fighting the good fight from their own perspective, and since I know so little about it I shouldn't start in on them until I do. Though I agree with very little of the notion that one can be gay and republican in this political atmosphere I realize that most gay republicans hold to the original ideals and intentions of their party and are fighting for those ideals not the ones represented in the current administration.
But remember this folks, Lincoln is long dead, and the things your party teaches are not the same anymore. I know too that the Kennedy's, and Roosevelt, and Truman are dead, and that the things the Democrats once stood for are fast disappearing as well in the sea of apathy that is congress today. So perhaps we need an overhaul. Maybe it's time for those who still hold to the ideals that, all "men" are created equal start new parties that actually do reflect what we believe, and what we know we can accomplish. We've had new parties before and the country didn't crumble, so don't fear that I'm preaching anarchy. Who the hell has the energy for that anymore? But we can make changes,and we can make a difference,we just gotta wanna.
That having been said it's a great way to segue into my post today.
I just read a post that was talking about dealing with misogyny in America. How does that work? How do you eliminate something that is so ingrained in a culture that even those being denigrated find the subject amusing?
A couple of years ago I took a conversational Spanish class, and one of the ways the instructor broke the ice with the class was to make jokes. Most of those jokes were not about women, but about how funny it is for someone to act or be like a woman. The class was mostly women, and even the women laughed. One evening we were having a discussion about those kinds of things and I brought it up. One of the women was incensed. "You never heard me laugh at a joke like that!" She was getting agitated. I said, "Sorry, but you did." All this guys jokes had to do with women, men acting like women, how funny it was that being feminine meant being something less than, and those women laughed.
Because that is what we're taught to do.
Milton Berle built a career off the notion that a man dressing as a woman is laughable. Even the women laughed.
Let's not see a woman dressed as a man! That's immediately suspect. Why would she want to impersonate a man? Does that threaten us somehow? Does the thought of a woman posing as a man instill fear in us? Does it upset the balance of our universe?
For that matter, does an effeminate man,i.e. a man who would be with another man intimately pose some sort of threat that makes them laugh nervously? I've always noticed that the best defense men have against gay men is that we're less than because we're attracted to men. Because we'd "subjugate" ourselves to a man sexually. This makes a person less than somehow. They wink and they nod to each other as though there is some inside joke only shared by straight men about us. Like they have some secret knowledge we cannot possess because we're less than them.
I have some friends whom I love dearly. They have two children, and once, perhaps twice, I really don't remember, I sat with their children while they went out for the evening. I'm not much of a sitter, because frankly, I'm not much for kids, and everyone knows this. But for these people, who've been such good friends for almost two decades, I did it.
One of the first things that happened was that the youngest child climbed up on the couch with me and snuggled next to me and nodded off to sleep. Well, let's say I was shocked. I laid there wondering where this child could have gotten the impression that THIS was something he should feel free to do with ME. My first instinct was to put him down, or to get up myself. But I feared this would give him the idea that I didn't care for him, which is not true, I love those boys as if they were my own, so there I stayed. Frozen with some foolish adult notion that this was wrong and shouldn't be happening, and somehow ignoring the fact that this child was just being close to someone he trusted and loved.
But looking back I have to wonder if there wasn't another reason I stayed on that couch. I was acutely aware at that moment that the child's father was standing just behind me in the other room watching this little moment, and I also knew he was troubled by it.
Now, these are people who love me...But!
They're troubled by my being physically close to their child. Being the defiant S.O.B. I am I stood my ground waiting for Dad to come put a stop to this, but he didn't. I suppose that's to his credit, yet, to this day I am still troubled by it.
It made me know I am less than in the eyes of people whose opinion I value, it reminded me that this lack of regard for someone "feminine" is so ingrained in our culture that even someone you love and care about is suspect at times.
If we're ever going to progress as a society, as a culture of people who learn that the color of your skin, the shape of your anatomy, the desires in your heart make no difference in the person you are, we have to start with the notion that no one is laughable because of who they are.
If anyone, is regarded as less than, we are in jeopardy. We are not living those things we supposedly hold so dear in this christian society that, and trust me, I'll be paraphrasing here because I'm attempting to quote the bible and I am no scholar on that subject, "Whatever you did for the lesser of my brothers you did for me." Well, if you hold women, homosexuals, and people of color to be less than you, why would you not behave as though that bible quote wasn't impetus to improve those relationships, and bring you nearer to that God you use to beat everyone up with so regularly?
Maybe then the laughter would stop and we'd start to deal with each other seriously as though we all matter.
As we grow older we simply become more of who we are. Those who are concerned about their macho image become bigger blowhards, those who are obsessive complusive get really ramped up, those of us who prefer isolation withdraw even more, the narcissistic get closer to their mirrors, and those who believe that there are people in this world who are less than they are get really wrapped up in their superiority.
That child knew who loved him and cared about him and whom he trusted. The adults paid no attention to his wisdom, as usual. Perhaps if we did we'd see that none of us are laughable, because of our differences. That those differences are the most important things about us.
Let's conduct an experiment. Just try to make note of how many times in the next seven days you make a judgement, a joke, a snide remark, even to yourself, based on the knowledge or the assumption that someone is less than because they're feminine, or homosexual, or have different color skin than you do. Don't tell me the results I don't want to know. But let's see if it makes you aware of the problem.
Then perhaps I won't be able to note that even the women laughed.
Even the women laughed.
