SubscribeNovember 9th, 2011
gender games
Male birds who dress like females:
Some male harriers are colored almost exactly like females, with mainly brown plumage and white heads and shoulders, instead of the overall gray of adult males. It’s not because they are immature, as is the case in many bird species, but because they spend their life in drag, a type of permanent mimicry known in only one other species of bird.
The abstract from the originating article:
Permanent female mimicry, in which adult males express a female phenotype, is known only from two bird species. A likely benefit of female mimicry is reduced intrasexual competition, allowing female-like males to access breeding resources while avoiding costly fights with typical territorial males. We tested this hypothesis in a population of marsh harriers Circus aeruginosus in which approximately 40 per cent of sexually mature males exhibit a permanent, i.e. lifelong, female plumage phenotype. Using simulated territorial intrusions, we measured aggressive responses of breeding males towards conspecific decoys of females, female-like males and typical males. We show that aggressive responses varied with both the type of decoys and the type of defending male. Typical males were aggressive towards typical male decoys more than they were towards female-like male decoys; female-like male decoys were attacked at a rate similar to that of female decoys. By contrast, female-like males tolerated male decoys (both typical and female-like) and directed their aggression towards female decoys. Thus, agonistic responses were intrasexual in typical males but intersexual in female-like males, indicating that the latter not only look like females but also behave like them when defending breeding resources. When intrasexual aggression is high, permanent female mimicry is arguably adaptive and could be seen as a permanent ‘non-aggression pact’ with other males.
It makes me remember a woman I once knew who was rather violently opposed to homosexuality (her son was a closet gay applying to belong to the Catholic priesthood). Her reasoning was that homosexuality wasn’t normal biologically. She said to me “bucks always go with does.” Silly woman. For someone whose set of values was centered around the natural world and the power of animals, she sure didn’t know much about them.
August 18th, 2011
Hilarious, and to be watched
From the Toronto Film Festival site:
Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy star in this cheeky romantic comedy about the invention of the vibrator. Victorian London is brought to life in vivid colour as a young doctor (Dancy) struggles to establish himself while confronting the gutsy daughter of his boss (Gyllenhaal). Rupert Everett and Felicity Jones play supporting roles.
From Jezebel:
Hysteria, of course, was a commonly-diagnosed medical diorder in the Victorian era that is no longer recognized in modern medicine. One of the cures for hysteria was a “pelvic massage,” or as we call it today, getting off.
From Pharyngula:
Arguably the greatest invention in the history of humanity
via: nearly everywhere.
June 30th, 2011
failure because of faulty assumption
You can probably tell this is a favourite topic of mine, but it gives me a great giggle boost.
“Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds.” Time Magazine, 1966.
Careful where you aim your assumptions sir.
From the futurist blog, Top Trends.
May 2nd, 2011
“theories” we live by OR the stories that story us
If you’ve ever heard a creationist say evolution is “just a theory” you know that there is more than one meaning attached to the word “theory”. Keep that in mind while you read this, and later, when you think about the implications.
It seems that our theories about how people of our gender usually feel can influence our memory of how we actually felt. Gender is but one of many theories that have this power to alter our memories. For instance, Asian culture does not emphasize the importance of personal happiness as much as European culture does, and thus Asian Americans believe that they are generally less happy than their European American counterparts. In one study, volunteers carried hand held computers everywhere they went for a week and recorded how they were feeling when the computer beeped at random intervals throughout the day. These reports showed that the Asian American volunteers were slightly happier than the European American volunteers. But when the volunteers were asked to remember how they had felt that week, the Asian American volunteers reported that they had flet less happy and not more. In a study using similar methodology, Hispanic Americans and European Americans reported feeling pretty much the same during week, but the Hispanic Americans remembered feeling happier than the European Americans did. Not all theories involve some immutable characteristic of persons, such as gender or culture. For example, which students tend to score highest on an exam—those who worry about grades, or those who don’t ? As a college professor, I can tell you that my own theory is that students who are deeply concerned about their performance tend to study more and hence outscore their more lackadaisical classmates. Apparently students have the same theory, because research shows that when students do well on an exam, they remember feeling more anxious before the exam than they actually felt, and when students do poorly on an exam, they remember feeling less anxious before the exam than they actually felt.
We remember feeling as we believe we must have felt. The problem with this error of retrospection is that it can keep us from discovering our errors of prospection…
Interesting don’t you think? Humans are so not natural scientists in some really important ways. But such “theories” and their effects explain a great deal, no?
January 18th, 2011
an educated woman
I am reading Bluestockings by Jane Robinson. (Thanks litlove for the post.) It’s a wonderful book, that I find hard to put down.
Here’s the starting quote from chapter four:
A Cambridge professor who is in the habit of addressing his students most pointedly as ‘Gentlemen!’ proceeded to his lecture room on Ash Wednesday, to find only the ladies present. With head erect and eyes riveted on the opposite wall, he announced, ‘As there is nobody here, I shall not lecture today,’ and with stately dignity made his departure.
I am an educated woman, have somewhat of a temper, have no class at all, and can barely imagine the outrage these gentle ladies must have felt. And although I do not know this, I suspect they said not a thing to the professor as he left the hall. Not that they should have / I doubt very much if I could have contained myself. They were in a delicate situation. Those ones out there that thought women’s education an atrocious waste of money and time as well as a real danger to women’s health and the well being of society itself, those people often controlled the doors to academia. So the ladies in the classroom had to sit still for it. Had they thrown their reticules or skewered the bugger with their parasols, the conservative pundits would have crowed and suggested that the retaliation proved the point of the unsuitability of women to education.
I so deeply admire these women’s ability to press against such callous disregard of their humanity. It’s because of them that I was not doomed to clean floors or work in a shop, as my class would have made appropriate.
And there is still so much of this. It’s appalling really to think of the number of cases today where such disregard still rules the minds of the majority. And not just with respect to gender either. Think of the inhumanity of the normal workplace as an example. But back to the book…
Bluestockings is one of those books that I have difficulty keeping all the names and players straight. There is so much information, much of which I did not know. Yet from the first page I felt a part of the “family” that these women make. I think that is in part because education, knowledge, and the right/power to pursue my own mind means so very much to me, but it is also the author’s writing style. It is friendly, warm, compassionate and yet clearly welded to the facts and not to her personal interpretation. This ability to be both deeply attentive to the facts of the world, and still flexible enough to achieve narrative lucidity, this is what it means to be an educated woman. At least to me.
This is a book I will buy because I know that the stories it tells are more than just about the fight women had to gain access to a decent education. It is about what it takes to refuse the little box cultural habit sometimes wants to impose: not only passion, but also self control. I can imagine myself pulling it off the shelves for an hour’s read when things get hairy and I really want to kill someone. Thank you Ms Robinson. You may have saved me the cost of a good defense.
December 16th, 2010
struggling for objectivity
So here is what I hate about Jungian thought:
In the mythology of the moon, the moon is wicked, for it is unreliable. The alchemists frequently quoted a psalm which says that in the darkness of the new moon the wicked shoot with their arrows at ethical just people, which means that the new moon protects thieves and the wicked when they attack the righteous. Thus the moon has all the wicked poison and unreliability typical of the anima in her original condition and also for feminine beings in general, not only the feminine in man, for in the feminine there is that catty, unreliable cunning, and rather doubtful ethics—one could call it the ambiguity of nature. The moon says that she is the waxing, moist, and cold moon and the sun is warm and dry, and when they are coupled in a balanced state, then she is like a woman open to her husband. (Alchemy, Marie-Louise von Franz, lecture 5)
Jeez Louise. Where do you start with shit like this?
My struggle with objectivity comes because I know Jungians know this is a symbolic system and not to be taken literally but they seem to be unable to separate the cultural and historical images of women (especially in men’s writing) from the “feminine” and also from women. One of the things that really gets to me is that Marie-Louise is an intelligent, well-read, and naturally thoughtful woman. I want her to know better than to posit herself as the mutable moon to Jung’s sun. I wanted her to look at herself as the foundation of what it means to be human and not look to Jung as the first cause.
Anyway…
Jung’s anima may have been catty. This means, of course, that he was catty since the anima is a psychological collection of traits not deemed appropriate for the role he was to fulfill in life (i.e. male, of a certain class, ethnicity, etc.) Why he would think his suppressed side was what women were is mind boggling. Well, we do know why don’t we? It’s because the culture thinks of women as badly botched men (which really hurts when it is a woman doing the culture’s work for it), and thinks of mind/spirit/masculine/feminine as somehow existent independently of its material matrix (i.e. the idea of an archetype and the collective unconscious/conscious).
See! I am really struggling with objectivity here—and at present I am not winning. I can feel the value of the Jungian system but this deep chasm of projection, of unwillingness to see women as complete and whole infects nearly the entire corpus of thought. (This and the fact that von Franz is a god-fearer.)
She knows this stuff is anima projection. In lecture 4 there is a description of the psyche in symbolic history as related to steam or vapour.
In parapsychological reports, if a ghost appears there is first something like steam, or a nebula, so it can be said that one of the most archetypal ideas is that the psyche has to do with the quality of steam or vapour, which expresses the idea that it is somehow linked with, but not identical to, solid matter. There is probably a certain anima factor in it for this text was probably written by a man.
Steam, vapour, matter, moon – all thought of as feminine – described as “the wife,” the empty vessel to be filled with her lord’s light. The vapour is the psyche of matter, matter to be destroyed to release the constant, immaterial, unchangeable, pure psyche so she can marry her constant husband the sun. Meh.
The thing is there is a thread of truth in the alchemical system, but probably not the one you think. Take the white spirit (psyche) in the black earth (materia prima). Alchemy says this is the case (is it?) but then the fragile, imagistic insight gets filtered through the language (and therefore conceptual framework) of the time.
First the insight: Imagine there is a young girl with a black monitor on her ankle. She is terribly frustrated at its presence and wants it gone with a fierce desire. Because she can’t get it removed she lashes out in frustration trying to break everything black she can find. What she doesn’t understand is that while it does restrain her, it is also the reason she exists at all and if she were to remove it she would cease to exist. It’s like a black candle with a white flame. Imagine the flame’s frustration that the candle follows her everywhere. The candle stalks her and she wants to be free. But she can’t be and as long as she cannot see the connection between her existence and the candle, then she will be frustrated.
Now the influence of the cultural myth of incorporeal permanence: replace the image of the young girl with a young boy. What did that do to your head?
Imagine there is a young boy with a black monitor on his ankle. He is terribly frustrated at its presence and wants it gone with a fierce desire. Because he can’t get it removed he lashes out in frustration trying to break everything black he can find. What he doesn’t understand is that while it does restrain him, it is also the reason he exists at all and if he were to remove it he would cease to exist. It’s like a black candle with a white flame. Imagine the flame’s frustration that the candle follows him everywhere. The candle stalks him and he wants to be free. But he can’t be and as long as he cannot see the connection between his existence and the candle, then he will be frustrated.
Think about it. How does the gender of the character effect the way the story would go if this were the seed of some Tolkienian movie?
In addition to whatever you’ve discovered about how gender effects your narrativizing, how many of you think that there is a “psyche” inside “matter” or “body?” It certainly feels like that, at least most of the time; but my question is how much of that sensation of separation is a result of the cultural narrative reifying the existence of a divide?
To get back to the story: From the flame’s point of view, it sees itself as the flame, not as an addendum to the candle. Easing the frustration would only be possible (so it is said) if the flame can come to see itself as a emanation of the candle. This, I take it, is (metaphorically) what Katagiri is saying with respect to impermanence. But what if neither permanence or impermanence is the bottom of the universe? What if the “bottom” is the relationship between the wax and its shape, the wick and the presence of oxygen, of the heat trail, of the combustion? What I’m saying here is that positing the bottom of the human universe as either permanence or impermanence is a male thing to do. It comes from the structure and functioning of the male mind working in a world where they are not the only progenitors, which, apparently, the male mind finds annoying. (I know that this isn’t fair, but that is exactly the point.)
The Western mind (currently with a distinctive male bias) is traditionally built around a core narrative character that we know as god. We posit this character as the protagonist and pose it in opposition to the fluctuation and impermanence of either the earth or some personification of those qualities (gaia, satan, e.g.). Western cultural narratives: God is most often associated with being masculine; the earth is feminine. Even for those of us that don’t buy the literal truth of the narrative, it is really hard to get outside this sense of duality, of opposition, of the existence of a foundation which does not change, does not alter—and of our genderized version of the tale. Take the ethical question, for example. If there is no absolute standard then how do we know what is good? It’s a silly question really, but it is taken seriously because we really like that permanent vs impermanent narrative—and we like the idea of god/man vs earth/woman (well some of us don’t, but we’re the minority)—and that generates its own silly questions. Does a woman have an “anima,” for example. Such a question irritates me in much the same way as an argument I overheard recently between two men about the size of angels. Really, I did. And they were serious. In 2010! (I really, really wanted to ask them how they measured a metaphor, in inches or centimeters. But I didn’t.)
There is resistance to this basic (masculine) Western narrative of course. (Hopefully not futile.) Wicca is an example: goddess as the divine principle, the god as the one who sacrifices himself, who dies and is reborn each year. It is not simply a reversal of the absolute/impermanent narrative but a reworking of it built around the sense of life that comes with being female, and taking herself as the human norm. Not that this means she escapes the mistakes that come with fictionalizing facts. But at least it is a different story that starts with other presuppositions.
What am I suggesting? Jungianism without the gender tags. No anima, animus stuff, but a language reworked to deconstruct these paradigmatic frameworks and give the young white flame a way of conceiving itself that does not also lock it into a hierarchy (neither the true life principle (soul/spirit/psyche), or as an emanation of the true nature of time and being, what Katagiri calls arising.
Come to think of it, that might be fun. Write an alchemical text for that express purpose. A witch’s alchemy! FFO!
Reading can be such a struggle. You’re given a whole cloth, and really what you need is the threads – even better the uncombed wool – the sheep? How far back do you go with the process of taking apart a thought system to get at its insight? And it isn’t better to leave it as it is – to take it “whole cloth.” If I had to do that then there wouldn’t be any philosophy that I could learn from because they all have these cultural fallacies and idiotic presuppositions. Especially with regard to the reification of male-felt gender categorizations. And of course that’s not the real problem is it? It’s that these categorizations are considered human when they’re not.
I don’t really care if Jung saw his catty side as female. All that means is that his world had associated the undesirable social position (relative powerlessness) as “naturally” female and also categorized cattiness as undesirable and then conflated the two. The deal is to realize that that’s what you’ve done and not mistake a narrative for reality, and I do care that Jung wasn’t able to do that, and care even more that von Franz wasn’t able to either.
Why care? Partly because if one does that, mistake one’s own narrative for the human (or even material) truth then all kinds of people get caught under the tracks of that tank. And I don’t like blood baths, even if red is such a pretty colour.
November 24th, 2010
assumptions hard at work
In a post a few days ago I mentioned an odd little study I am reading called A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus by Richard Payne Knight. The study itself shows that so-called pagan ritual and symbolism have survived into Payne’s time. He does that by investigating fertility cults via the use of genital symbolism, both male and female, hence the “worship” of priapus.
For me this is not the odd part. It seems clear that what passes for religion today is an accretion on the corpus of what passed for religion before.
What fascinates me about the study is the language, the underlying cultural assumptions, especially pertaining to gender. Given that gender and sexuality is critical to Payne’s analysis, his assumptions here seem important. For example: Discourse was published in 1786. Mary Wollstonecraft would publish A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792. These were barbaric times. So it will not surprise you that the male part of procreation was considered the active part, and the female part passive. (a note: when he speaks of the “organ of generation” he means the penis)
The great characteristic attribute was represented by the organ of generation in that state of tension and rigidity which is necessary to the due performance of its functions. Many small images of this kind have been found among the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, attached to the bracelets, which the chaste and pious matrons of antiquity wore round their necks and arms. In these, the organ of generation appears alone, or only accompanied with the wings of incubation, in order to show that the devout wearer devoted herself wholly and solely to procreation, the great end for which she was ordained. So expressive a symbol, being constantly in her view, must keep her attention fixed on its natural object, and continually remind her of the gratitude she owed the Creator, for having taken her into his service, made her a partaker of his most valuable blessings, and employed her as the passive instrument in the exertion of his most beneficial power.
The female organs of generation were revered as symbols of the generative powers of nature or matter, as the male were of the generative powers of God. They are usually represented emblematically, by the Shell, or Concha Veneris, which was therefore worn by devout persons of antiquity, as it still continues to be by pilgrims, and many of the common women of Italy.
(The emphasis is mine)
Imagine suffering such an assumption. Rock on Wollstonecraft.
May 14th, 2010
Dorion Woman and her interpreters
The last two days in the archives have furnished me with several treasures. One of them is a book published in 1930 called Red Heroines of the Northwest by Byron Defenbach. The second of three parts is dedicated to “The Dorion Woman.” Otherwise known as Marie Dorion, she was a 25 year old woman that traveled with 2 children from Oklahoma to Missouri to northern Wyoming all the way to the Pacific. Along the way she had another child – he died 2 days into his life. Madame Dorion ended up near Salem Oregon where she died in 1850 at the age of about 67.
If you read about this woman on the net and in the texts produced about her, what you get is often the bones of the Astoria trek to the mouth of the Columbia, and a lot about her apparently abusive husband, and the stuff about her bearing her third son on the trail, but mostly what you get is the author’s view of what all this means. “Marie” makes a perfect canvas for our views about women and the qualities we assign them because so little is known about who she, in fact, was. I mean we don’t even know her actual name. She is called Dorion Woman because her husband’s paternal name was “Dorion” and she was his woman.
We know this, at least in part, because of Washington Irving and his “Tragical Story Told by the Squaw of Pierre Dorion.” Much emphasis is given in Irving’s account to her “presence of mind and force of character” and certainly her survival seems, from the story, due in part to her attention to her household duties. This is why, for example, she had all the supplies that she would need in the near future if she and her children were to survive the winter. The story she tells, and that Irving would relay, about the fate of the Astoria party is what made her memorable to the public but no one, it seems, thought to ask her name.
Time tells much about women’s interpreters. Irving published his story in 1836. Defenbach published his in 1929 0r 30. Both accounts pay attention to Pierre Dorion, Irving calling him the “hybrid interpreter” as a way of describing his bi-racial heritage. Irving doesn’t mention the drunkenness as far as I know. There is a section when he is describing the French boatmen and how they lift their flagging spirits – by song, nary a drop of spirit is mentioned. But at that time alcohol might have been seen as a problem with respect to trading with Indians (their abode being the destination of the boatmen, trade goods being the cargo) and granted as a necessity to those water-haulers whose spirits needed lifting, but no one had come up with the idea of denying it to civilized white folk yet.
But by Defenbach’s time prohibition and its ideas had taken its toll on the interpretive mind of writers. In his story much attention is paid to Pierre Dorion’s use of alcohol. However, there is still a touch of admiration: “When sober,” Defenbach says “the stalwart young half-breed was a fellow of recognized ability as a trapper and trader. He had worked for Choteau and other Americans who were beginning to resist the monopoly of the fur trade by the Hudson’s Bay and other British concerns.” A drunk, yes, but he could hunt, trap, shoot and, on top of that, was on the right side politically. But when it comes to Marie…
(Pierre’s) proved himself faithful and serviceable. His occupation called for almost constant travel up and down the Big River, and in these journeyings he usually dragged the squaw with him. Nor was this his only encumbrance. The couple’s first son, the sturdy Baptiste, was born in 1806, and two or thee years later another lad arrived at the tepee. This latter was a frailer type of boy, with snake-like eyes and a mouth that extended from ear to ear; they named him “Paul.”
To these two children the Woman clung with the savage devotion of a mother-wolf, bringing them up after the Indian fashion. There was no discipline, the few instructions given having to do only with the children’s physical requirements. The only virtues inculcated were those of fortitude and courage, and even these traits were warped into ferocity and thirst for blood. Such ideals as those of morality, gratitude, truthfulness, unselfishness and honesty were not sought to be conveyed by the Woman to her children, primarily because she had no such ideals herself or any conception of them. The first precepts she instilled into those young hearts were those of cruelty, murder, and rapine.
Jeez.
Shortly after this little exploration of the Woman’s character and moral rectitude (compare Irving’s and Defenbach’s ideas about the ideal woman), he talks about Pierre’s accidental fall into the trip to the Pacific, which he would not survive but his wife and children would. This fall, the story leads us to believe, came because of alcohol.
The processes of evolution have never produced anything more averse to solitude than is whiskey, even a quart of it…Pierre found himself surrounded by, or perhaps one might better say surrounding, a whole flock of quarts. He passed through alternating stages of hilarity, amiability, deep melancholy, and extreme irritability. Several days and nights passed in the enjoyment or suffering of these various emotions.
(Aside: the use of the word “evolution” adds a nice little sparkle from the conceptual bounty that is Social Darwinism – also something alive and well during Defenbach’s time. I wonder if he was a eugenicist?)
What follows is a rendition of what Defenbach thinks happened when a drunk, angry and now without the salary due him by the Spaniard, Manuel Lisa, and includes an almost jovial boxing match between husband and wife. The outcome is that Pierre Dorion finds himself working for Lisa and having to cart his wife and two sons along for the ride.
Ultimately, Defenbach (nor Irving for that matter) doesn’t say much about Marie Dorion but what he inadvertently says about how he sees the world is enormous. Apart from the idea of what women are, there is the purchase place for blame. It’s not surprising that in the late 1920s when Defenbach was probably writing this text, that alcohol got much of it. Poor old Pierre, a noble sort with his rustic trade, but reduced to dragging his baggage around, getting hobbled by a treacherous Spaniard, a snake-eyed son and by that morally bankrupt Woman. Think what he could have made of himself if wasn’t for that demon rum!
meh
Would that there was someone who would haunt Oregon’s historical archives for a more accurate view of the woman. I haven’t had time for that yet, so perhaps it already exists. I’ll have to check into it.
February 26th, 2010
Women, power and reporting
I was browsing videos at wimp.com and came across the one about Mayor McCallion. As videos go it’s funny and fun to watch, but given the size of the woman’s achievement, it seems ever so slightly patronizing. Sort of like palling around with Stephen Hawking and casually mentioning (while patting him on the back) that he’s said some interesting things about the skies.
I don’t know if it’s the Mayor’s age and gender, her general demeanor or what but anyone who has gotten herself elected to such a normally contentious position repeatedly and without break since 1978 probably deserves a bit more of an in depth look and a little less of the cutsey hockey photo ops. For example, they could have mentioned the whole “transparency” issue with respect to city finances along with the city’s debt free position and how this might be a model for other government bodies. It might also have mentioned that Mississauga tends to have a strong immigrant population (11.4%) compared to the City of Brampton in the same region (9.93%) and interestingly Mississauga sits at 5.78% versus the City of Brampton at 8.73% when comparing the members of the population 25 and more years of age with less than a grade 9 education. It’s interesting that the city and region are more or less comparable with the unemployment rate at 6.5% for Mississauga and Brampton at 6.6% and the entire region (Peel) at 6.4%. (Stats here.) The national unemployment rate, for comparison purposes, is at 8.3%. In Vancouver, whose mayoral history is not so stable or so uncontested, the unemployment rate is predicted to be 8.0% for the period between February 7 and March 13 2010.
Mayor McCallion has not incurred debt, has kept her city on par with others in her region and has demonstrated a concern for future growth and development consistent with the needs of a energy troubled planet and urban areas with increasing population numbers and needs. It seems to me that this level of achievement requires a bit more sober attention. To be fair, I suppose since the Mercer video has reached 2 million hits perhaps some political writer out there will have been caught by its unaddressed implications and look into it. I would really like to know what kind of power she exerts to have been able to achieve such tremendous victories, and that is what they are.
But really, the pat-on-the-head tone, do you think that was deliberate or just possible because of her age and gender? Am I the only one annoyed by the vid?