Sexism – Unspoken Politics

On “the culture war”

Throughout 2022, but in particular in the aftermath of the midterm election, I’ve been circulating thoughts in my head about the term the culture war and how I would approach it from a sociological lens.

There are a couple of considerations that I want to address, in particular when the term has arisen in various forms of media. The culture war is not a catch-all for non-economic political issues, they often involve fundamental rights and also connect to a material base- basic Marxism here. It is also an asymmetrical term, so I want to avoid false equivalence. The culture war is a political process often for very cynical, self-serving reasons by right-wing political elites, but those affected by it are not “another side” of it.

So I want to define the culture war as best as I can using what has been circulating in my mind:

The “cultural war” is a political process wherein issues are pressed:

By conservative elites, a nexus of wealthy political donors, the conservative media, and politicians and their operatives.
Are aimed at activating white evangelicals in particular
Are tied to elections, with a limited number of culture war issues in the spotlight at any one time, and they are often dropped by elites for use later
However, they are framed as existential threats to America that are undermining some abstract values

We see some issues wax and wane for decades- the concern today about “smut” in libraries and classrooms goes back in its modern form to about 1974, when a frenzy was whipped up in West Virginia. For my lifetime, from Tango Makes Three to Gender Queer, the thrust has gone from certain language and depictions of heterosexual intimacy to anything regarding queer themes. This is a linkage in social movement literature, which lead to bloc recruitment (when a whole group comes as a single entity). People who didn’t really care about “banned books” for the most part, when a media frenzy and money being funneled into the issue led to dramatically increased attendance and hostility at school and library board meetings. So it went from a niche movement to a central point of cultural warfare.

As you remember, 2004 was the peak of anti-marriage equality as an election strategy. So many states had ballot measures attempting to bring out more apathetic voters (again, the centrality of almost every culture war topic is activating white evangelicals). As with 2022, it’s difficult to find convincing evidence that this ultimately mattered (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/abs/samesex-marriage-and-the-2004-presidential-election/1EF13FD3DEC005457783AF1DF79928D6). I would hypothesize that voters are, in many states, more apathetic than the media-political class. Even very red states in 2022 failed to advance abortion from the Dobbs decision to ballot measures, with a lot of vote splitting. The culture war is most felt acutely at the local level, where highly committed but numerically small ardent right-wing groups have the most leverage.

Transphobia and homophobia were an issue ushered in significantly in general and especially in regards to education, but even in reddest Utah, it doesn’t register (“other” is 13% so at most we’re talking one in ten people, probably much lower) (https://www.deseret.com/2022/7/25/23272939/heres-the-top-issue-on-voters-minds-ahead-of-federal-elections-inflation-economy-congress-president). With school policy as a whole, besides recurring concerns like class sizes and assistance to students who lag behind in expectations. Also the Uvalde shooting showed a much more existential threat to schools than any concerns about culture war issues.

I would say that the culture war is most pushed by red state politicians today, while nationally independents and liberals are often on the same page with progressive topics. Also, Democrats fell into a trap on a major issue in 2022, with Eric Adams and others raising fears of crime that the media was pushing- leading to a huge under-performance in New York. However, liberals, though often not vociferous about things, rejected the framing of gender identity and sexuality by the right and avoided it becoming the non-stop coverage by media of all types that promoted inaccurate narratives on crime.

It has been 42 years since the Christian right was fully politically activated in the election of Ronald Reagan. For a long time, before the radicalization of conservatives in the 1994, 2010, and 2016 electoral cycles, political elites generally used culture war appeals to win elections but did not have them as a serious priority. In my lifetime, more of the political right elites have gone from opportunists to true believers, bringing cultural warfare to the center of policy. Also, the media-political connection has changed with the deregulation of media in the late 1980s and the gradual move of much more extreme talk radio to television and political talking points.

To win liberation for oppressed groups, and to counter activated voters who become activists, a much more vibrant liberal-left political culture must emerge to counter the activists themselves but also the many wealthy elites who pour money into concern trolling on Critical Race Theory and who can say what in schools. Also direct action must play more of a role- the Supreme Court now has hard-right majority and is willing to rule decisively on things like abortion and discrimination that earlier courts tended to punt on. Though there is no political horizon thus far to actually counter the court through elections, SCOTUS is self-destructing its credibility and causing cracks in some parts of the Republican coalition, especially right-leaning independents. There is a time to seize the moment. The time is now.

“A Unitarian Universalist Pipeline to the Right?” Cited in UU Needham Sermon

I’d like to thank Ellie Valle, a lifelong member of First Parish Needham Unitarian Universalist, for citing my blog series on the pipeline to the Right, Covenants, and Disruptive Behavior Policies, in her July 21st guest sermon at the Parish. The sermon is available on Apple Podcasts here or on their website here. She will be attending the Boston University School of Theology this fall as a Master’s of Divinity student.

She also cites the UUA Commission on Institutional Change (CIC), which, in doing their great work, came across similar patterns of behavior, and proposed similar solutions. Coming from an outsider’s perspective with a limited understanding of the UUA’s investigations into white supremacy, white fragility, and institutional racism within the faith, that I came to similar conclusions strengthens the importance and relevance of their work.

Please join us in the UU Discord if you’d like to talk about these issues, or anything else that relates to a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

Healing and Reconciliation in Unitarian Universalism: An Ethnographic Approach

This is another offshoot of the “A Unitarian Universalist Pipeline to the Right?” series, but I’ve decided to put the main series on hiatus for a while, if nothing else because the title is a mouthful.

So, how do we learn to address white fragility, white supremacy, and otherwise offensive and disruptive behavior within congregations? The congregational structure of Unitarian Universalism tends to wall off larger discussions- something upsetting happens in a congregation, it doesn’t travel far. It may end up elsewhere in the form of rumors, but those are not constructive. If a church has to deal with problematic behavior within its own community, an honest, instructive account of what happened is unlikely to appear. This limits the ability of communities to learn from one another, to develop best practices, and to effectively counter instances of white fragility and racially insensitive behavior.

There are many problems with simply publicizing events and providing a timeline of a disciplinary process, or the interactions between disruptive people and marginalized groups. It singles people out. It can re-traumatize and open up not-yet-healed wounds. It stands against principles of privacy and that things said in the confidence of a congregation is kept confidential.

So, is there a way through? I have something to propose.

The Ethnographic Approach

Ethnography is a research method used in multiple academic areas, primarily anthropology and sociology, alongside disciplines that emerged during the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, like ethnic studies.

Here’s a definition of ethnography that’s pretty good:

Ethnography, emerging from anthropology, and adopted by sociologists, is a qualitative methodology that lends itself to the study of the beliefs, social interactions, and behaviours of small societies, involving participation and observation over a period of time, and the interpretation of the data collected. (source)

Besides a general definition, ethnography as it is performed in developed nations has some best practices:

Information about places, persons, and unique features are anonymized to avoid negative impact and conduct research in an ethical way.
Notes, observations, and interviews are kept stored in standardized ways that limit access and make sure that anonymity is preserved.

An example of a highly-regarded modern ethnographic study is Evicted by Matthew Desmond, a MacArthur grant fellow, about how poor Milwaukee individuals and their families struggled to make rent, dealt with eviction and its consequences, and remained trapped in a cycle of poverty.

While there was great insight, and vivid observations within Evicted, names and places were changed to avoid retaliation from the people followed, in order to have them speak freely.

So, could ethnography be a way for congregations to learn from one another on how to deal with disruptive behavior, and become authentically anti-racist? Good ethnography is a skill to be learned, but it does hold the promise of helping describe how congregations addressed problems- whether formal or informal conflict-resolution measures were used, whether the problem was addressed at lower stages or had to be escalated, and the lasting impact upon the congregation.

Here’s an example of how a Unitarian Universalist ethnography could start:

During a recent winter, Green Hills UU Fellowship, a congregation in the suburbs of mid-sized Midwestern city, had a middle-aged couple (Jane and Joseph) who would use language found to be offensive during the “joys and sorrows” portion of Sunday service. They described conflicts they had with their neighbors, who were families of color, and invoked harmful stereotypes, while raising their voices in a way some felt alarming.

After an informal group of congregants attempted to resolve the issue with Jane and Joseph directly, it was decided that a meeting be held to discuss the Fellowship’s Covenant, and how Jane and Joseph’s actions did not constitute right relations . . .

Would this be helpful to other congregations? I’m not sure, I’ve only recently started going to my current congregation, and have lived in four different areas in five years. But by taking an ethnographic approach, stories of disruptive behavior could be shared with:

Congregations who do not have a covenant of right relations and/or a Disruptive Behavior Policy (DBP), but would like some guidance on the characteristics of effective policies.
Congregations who have found their current policies lacking in some manner, and hope to draft new ones that are more effective.
Congregations currently experiencing a disruptive behavior situation, and wonder how other congregations have addressed it.

Ethnographic accounts could be drafted by lay leaders, perhaps trained at General Assembly or through virtual chat by those with experience. They could be housed at the UUA in a central location where they could be accessed by congregational request.

Would that help? I’m not sure. But I don’t want each congregation to start from scratch in their attempts to be authentically anti-racist and to counter white fragility, congregants using alt-right language, or other actions that target marginalized peoples.

We, They, and Us: UU Tactics and Strategy for 2020

We stand today a month removed from the 2019 UUA General Assembly, under the theme “The Power of We.” The tagline, and the Assembly content itself, has helped promote a discussion on what “we” within Unitarian Universalism means. From that, the logical next step is to discuss the not-we, the “they”. And in a dialectical fashion, with “we” the thesis and “they” the antithesis, “us” is the inevitable synthesis.

Or is it?

I attended a summer gathering in New England last Sunday, in which the topic was on the we-they-us trifecta. From the description, I wasn’t exactly sure what direction the sermon was going to take. Additionally, because the summer gatherings often had discussion segments, I didn’t know how the random mix of people who showed up that Sunday would interpret the title and topic.

i voted sticker lot — Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com

Ultimately I was disheartened by what I heard from the individual leading the service. While in a recent post I dismissed the “generation gap” hypothesis explaining the tension within the current UU church, the content of the sermon clashed strongly with my political socialization, and the realities of America as it exists in 2019.

The address focused in part of the term “political tribalism.” This is an old concept, but it was revived by author Amy Chua in a new book Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations. Chua has a fairly lengthy, fairly controversial history- she authored Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which ignited a national debate on high-expectation parenting and whether that had a negative effect on child development. More recently she was a leading voice arguing Brett Kavanaugh was a great leader of young women and carried water for him during the rape allegations that threatened his nomination to the US Supreme Court (her daughter was later rewarded with a Kavanaugh clerkship in a blatant and cynical quid pro quo). She authored a giant Atlantic feature to uncritically lay out her entire thesis of political partisanship tearing apart the constitutional system of American government.

I’m not going to devote this entire post to Chua, who I think is decent at historical analysis but pretty consistently wrong in her contemporary social commentary (for the record, I read her comparative historical book Day of Empire when I was a teenager and thought it was pretty good). The idea of “political tribalism” in the sermon was, from my perspective, a fundamentally misleading concept for a number of reasons. It’s also been taken pretty much at face value in the media. Let’s list three big problems:

The term has an imperialist mindset. “Tribalism” is used as a way to say our politics are more primitive, brutish, and violent than they were previously. Whether that is true or not isn’t the point in this case. Many communities exist as tribes today, they are not a historical stage of development. To suggest that tribes and “tribalism” (whatever that means) are primitive and inferior is both cultural erasure and pretty racist.
It’s a false equivalence. Dividing America into “left” and “right” tribes, or “red” and “blue”, or saying tribes fall under racial, ethnic, national, and gender lines is painting with a broad brush and saying all these “tribes” are short-sighted and destructive. Conflating the alt-right, who have murdered people in cold blood in places like Charlottesville and Christchurch, with the left, who in this period haven’t killed anyone, is misleading and indicates a politically useless centrism. It also treats ideological difference as little more than bickering, rather than a life-and-death struggle for universal health care, an end to the climate collapse, and justice for communities of color targeted by police violence.
Its logic is entirely backwards. The idea is that political partisanship is undermining the Constitution and the government that stems from it. This is both really obvious, but also misidentifies the problem. Partisanship is not what’s hurting society. It’s the Constitution. As I wrote in 2016, in “The pre-democratic American Constitution“, the Founder were fundamentally opposed to democracy and willfully ignorant that partisanship and political parties would arise around issues such as taxation, the extent of federal power, and most importantly, slavery. The Constitution has never been rewritten to establish America as a contemporary democracy, unlike every other modern country, developed or developing. Reducing partisanship is not only not going to happen, it’s not even going to solve the core problem.

The sermon then transitioned from political tribalism to reaching out to the “they”, creating dialogue with the other side. This means talking with “reasonable” Trump supporters, finding common ground, and using moral suasion to stop the racist Trump regime. The individual giving the sermon talked about regular discussions with a Trump-voting gym acquaintance, and how productive all their discussions have been.

Here’s a reality check: of all the potential options for 2020, this person is most likely voting for Trump again. 2020 will be a very high-mobilization election, this is very clear. Basically everyone who voted in 2016 is going to vote in 2020 as well- with the exception of those being disenfranchised by Republican state governments, the Trump-packed court system, and the Department of Justice. So, it’s not likely that this person abstains from voting for president. There’s a slight chance they vote third party instead of voting for Trump, but people who say they’re going to vote third party often end up voting for a major party candidate. So is this proud Trump voter really going to vote for a Democrat, even a centrist like Joe Biden? Let alone a progressive like Warren, or Sanders? To do that, they would have to like the Democrat more than they like Trump, and Trump has 90% approval among Republicans, which is as high if not higher than approval ratings by Republicans for previous GOP presidents.

Is it worth the time and effort to try to persuade one Trump voter to vote for the Democrat? Probably not.

Gene Sharp, in his influential pamphlet From Dictatorship to Democracy, talks about four ways for a nonviolent resistance campaign to win- conversion, accommodation, nonviolent coercion, and disintegration. Here is the section where he discusses the probability that opposing forces will convert to the resistance’s side:

Screen Shot 2019-07-22 at 10.31.46 PM — (Sharp, *From Dictatorship to Democracy*, p. 35) (full text)

Now this applies more to mass action at a very large scale, like what is currently happening in Puerto Rico. The mainland has not had mass action of this scale for any sustained period- not during the Women’s March(es) or the airport protests, or the recent Lights for Liberty vigils.

But it can be fairly applied to the one-on-one conversations we have with political opponents. Can Trump voters be converted? Maybe, a few? I was politically socialized starting around the beginning of the Iraq War, with the first phase ending with the election of Obama. The “bipartisan” period in American politics is dead, and has been for a long time. The parties are now, for the first time in a long while, if ever, ideologically coherent. There are no longer sectional differences, meaning liberal Northern Republicans and reactionary Southern Democrats. Trump has control of the Republican Party, and its voting base agrees with what he’s doing. They don’t want someone “moderate.” The party will not be taken back by Trump opponents, who are a tiny fraction of the party and politically irrelevant. People who think individual moral suasion is a viable political tactic want to go to a mythical past that, if it ever existed, hasn’t in my 29 years on this planet. The desperate need for “normalcy” is wanted, but there never was normalcy. Unless you were an upper-middle class professional white person, for whom the profound injustice and violence of the US political and legal systems do not reach you, except in documentaries and charity outreach.

Alternatives to Converting “Moderate” Trump Voters

Register a street to vote. Or a neighborhood. You have a lot of time to do it. Every hour you argue with an uncle or a tennis friend or whomever in your social lives voted for Trump, you could do something that a) affects more than one person, and b) uses energy to uplift marginalized communities
Fundraise and organize rides to the polls.
Phonebank for candidates and ballot issues.
Collect signature for popular ballot issues (like the minimum wage or legalized cannabis) which boost turnout.

All of these things are better uses of your time. It is not about reaching across and compromising with “they” to create “us.” Not everyone should be compromised with. The leader of the service suggested “not leading” with UU values like trans inclusion and marriage equality. To hide these issues in discussions is to treat them as, ultimately, political expendable. This election is about mobilizing and empowering the “we”, more than reconciling with “they.”

“They” need to be defeated politically. Their policies need to be repealed. The courts they packed need to be countered. The concentration camps need to be destroyed and their inhabitants freed. I don’t really care whether my uncle votes for Trump in 2020. Because I’m going to find people to cancel his vote out and then some. That’s the way forward.

A Unitarian Universalist Pipeline to the Right? V: Covenants and Consequences

This is another in a series, please visit parts one, two, three, and four if you have not, it informs this post.

So, how do we do right by each other? How do we come together in love and have dialogue that’s both honest and affirming? How do we be authentically anti-racist and avoid tokenism and othering?

I mentioned before the trend within Unitarian Universalist communities of Covenants of Right Relations. This extends now into virtual spaces, as the UU Discord server is currently voting on our own Covenant. Online spaces have conditions, like anonymity and the potential presence of trolls and bad-faith actors, that call for a set of precepts that guide our interactions with one another. Every person who’s spent any amount of time online has encountered one, if not many, dysfunctional communities that do not have a membership that treats each other with empathy and compassion. Covenants are a way to construct form in the formless, to have something, like the Earth, that we all return to.

The flip-side of the Covenant, one of the reasons they are formed in the first place and have grown in popularity, is the Disruptive Behavior Policy (DBP). Covenants are a pre-emptive effort to set expectations and define, often through omission, what is unacceptable. There are clear issues of implicit bias and fairness that come when dealing with a disruptive person(s) without guidelines- a democratic congregation is not structured to dispense ad-hoc decisions while staying true to Principle Five, among other Principles and general standards of organizational ethics.

I’m going to outline two potential problem areas in the Covenant-DBP dual systems that might need to be considered if a congregation is developing a Covenant from scratch, adapting a different congregation’s, or updating their own.

Area One: Disruptive Behavior Policies that are too broad and lack a tangible foundation.

Looking at the three problem behaviors outlined on the UUA website.

Dangerous: is the individual the source of a threat or perceived threat to persons or property?

Disruptive: what is the level of interference with church activities?

Offensive: is the behavior likely to drive existing members and visitors away?

These are relatively comprehensive, in that they’re general enough to capture most things a reasonable person (or congregation) would find disruptive. This comprehensiveness is at the expense of guidelines for action. Going back to the UU Pipeline to the Right thesis, we see a very specific type of potentially disruptive behavior. An issue is whether in practice congregational membership and leadership will link the general standards with specific behavior, given the very guided and intentional anti-racist work that has been done at a national and local scale in the past few years.

A parallel can be drawn between this ideal-specific dialectic and Hannah Arendt’s theories on statelessness and human rights. Here’s a quote from a book scanned for a class at Columbia (PDF download warning) on the subject:

Human rights, as developed in the inter-war period during mass deportations and stateless people, applied to humans in a general sense, but in practice applied to no one without citizenship rights. It protected everyone except the most vulnerable. General principles sounded good, but did not actually counter forces of oppression and marginalization.

This ties into the second area of concern.

Area Two: A reluctance to invoke DBP due to the calls for right relations, and a general fear of singling someone out and confrontation more generally.

An empirical question I have for anyone who reads this: if you have a DBP, how often has it been used or referenced in a dispute about someone’s conduct? Now, a DBP never being invoked could be an example of congregational success- the Covenant bringing people back into right relations and productive dialogue. That’s the hope. And I think Covenants are very useful instruments of creating congregational harmony and creating healthy communities.

But the question is: how often is disruptive behavior solved formally, versus informal “solutions”?

Informal solutions include:

An individual or group that feels mistreated by a disruptive person(s) stops attending services and events, or comes less often, or avoids the person whenever possible.
The disruptive person is de facto shunned, without being called into right relations or put through the escalating steps outlined in a DBP. The hope is that they leave on their own, through what is in practice informal, arbitrary coercion.
An ad-hoc group of congregational members have a conversation in which the person(s) most affected by the behavior (who may be socially marginalized and at the receiving end of white fragility or othering behavior) are not consulted. An attempt to warn the person is made in which the affected party is excluded and denied the chance to use the formal policies that exist.

There are, of course, more constructive informal solutions that exist, and it would be a logistical and emotional nightmare to constantly be going through formal channels and referring back to the Covenant and/or the DBP. That being said, what, fundamentally are the consequences of disruptive behavior? And how are those consequences affected by policies that may trend towards the general and avoid concrete behaviors that run counter to UU principles and our community (going back to Area One)?

If this seems like a theoretical approach to the issue, it is. As stated in Part III, there is a fragmentation of UU space, and the odds that you would hear about a disruptive behavior situation at another congregation may be quite low. All communities are not fond of airing the emotional and social tension that may run within. There may be rumors, but how often is the whole process documented and available publicly? It runs into issues of privacy, which then shrouds the impact and efficacy of the policies. It’s probably not reconcilable.

As a sociologist, the preferred path is to anonymize people, places, and organizations. An ethnographer might write about “Green Hills Church” having an disruptive behavior issue, with all people being at the very least referred to by pseudonyms, or even partially fictionalized. This would allow for real-world examples of disruptive behavior and the process of addressing it to be disseminated to other congregations, especially for those without an DBP (or an incomplete one). For controversy in this approach to talking about sensitive issues, read Syed Ali’s “Watching the Ethnographers” in Contexts, it’s pretty short.

So how much do Covenants and Disruptive Behavior Policies actually promote an anti-racist, anti-transphobic, anti-oppressive faith? Can they counter the Pipeline to the Right? It’s a balance of the policies as debated (democratically, hopefully) and codified, and usage in keeping the relations we have with one another vibrant and healthy. Leftists often debate the relation between theory and praxis. The obvious (and in this case, actually correct) response is that the two are inextricably linked. Our theory of how we should relate to one another and affirm each other’s inherent worth and dignity means nothing without the praxis of using policies to promote a faith that liberates and raises up.

Sulkowicz’s story: universities treat assault with contempt

Demonstration against sexual assault at Columbia University

No justice, no peace.

Emma Sulkowicz was not the first woman to be raped at a university in the United States. She is, unfortunately, far from the last. The epidemic of sexual assault in the college system, like the similar scourge in the military, comes from a fundamental lack of accountability. Internal justice systems in colleges do not incorporate best practices for victims of assault, and police departments around the country are still skeptical of both female and male victims.

A transcript of Emma’s interview at Democracy Now! is available here. The sea change in the past couple years has been driven exclusively by victims- not finding accountability at their own institutions, they began looking beyond to the Office of Civil rights and their powers using Title IX (PDF) to smash apart a conspiracy of silence.

My old credit union had copies of the Stanford Daily, so I have read the paper several times each school year. A recurring motif is the inadequacy of existing courts and boards to handle sexual assault cases. Victims are not given due consideration. They often have to meet their attacker several times as a case works through the system. No-contact orders and other paperwork issued by the university do not address two key issues: the alleged rapist is still on campus with little real separation from the victim, and anyone who has been accused of rape may be a threat to other people.

Orientation for the four-year university I will attend next month included much information on consent and where the sexual assault resource center is. But education is not nearly enough. Rapists will still exist, and the key question is what sanctions and legal action will be taken against those who are accused of a crime. As Columbia blog bwog states:

“In New York State, first-degree rape is punishable by a prison sentence of up to 25 years. At Columbia, a student found responsible for rape, groping, or harassment could potentially receive the same punishment given to underage students found in possession of alcohol.”

Sexual assault is a violent felony. Keeping suspects on the same small campus as victims is a terrible idea. It is disturbing that elite institutions, that stress their advanced education and community, are just as backwards on this issue as lesser schools. And that a woman must carry a mattress around for weeks to get attention is horrible and degrading. Those that are harmed should get the respect and attention they deserve without resorting to high-profile stunts.

Even in 2014, it is clear that a woman’s body is not given the same legal protection as a man’s. Executive leaderships still can’t believe that what these people say is likely true, and that factors like alcohol and drug use are distractions from the core problem.

The university is losing authority by the week, as complaints now go both to the federal government and the police. Central to this discussion is the dilemma, that perhaps there are many crimes that should not be dealt with by a school. Perhaps one day these places will have a sexual assault policy as enlightened as their academics.

Perhaps not.

It’s disgusting.

Learning empathy, resolving identity, rejecting violence against women

In my Ring The Bell promise, I said I would continue to write on the subject of sexual violence and oppression against women. So here are some thoughts.

Born a white cisgendered male, I have two fundamental flaws. My life has been about first acknowledging these flaws, then working to overcome them.

First- the sheer blindness I have towards discrimination and unfair treatment. Only through reading Audre Lorde, Malcolm X, and right now Jimmy Santiago Baca’s memoir A Place to Stand have I began to appreciate how fixed the game is. Much like how a member of Congress can support and defend a war that they themselves do not have to fight, one is tempted to shut their ears and eyes and pretend that injustice is cleansed from our society. And many white, male Americans have retreated into this cocoon, and ignore what other people are suffering through.

The problem is distance, and the solution is an ever-vigilant campaign to understand and to empathize. In the civil rights battles of our time, white men like myself either stand with the enemies, or sit the fight out. An awakening to injustice in its countless forms: racial discrimination in arrests and sentencing, stop-and-frisk policies that almost exclusively target minority youth, and the epidemic of sexual assault and harassment across continents. Two weeks ago I wrote about how every country in the world has slaves– even countries that consider themselves enlightened and in a morally superior position on the global stage. The Walk Free Foundation says that just under thirty million people are treated as slaves. A strong majority of them are women, including many under the age of 18.

It seems impossible that in my own California county sex slaves are routinely found in police operations. Even if I personally do not mistreat women, it is because of men- as sexual consumers, as organized criminals, as buyers of goods that are far too cheap to come from voluntary labor- that this system continues. The bottom line is that violence, discrimination, and oppression- are not someone else’s problem. They are everyone’s problem.

The second flaw is an issue of identity. White men are often under siege as a major group perpetuating discrimination and abuse. This is statistically true, and many civil rights campaigns ended up against a power clique dominated by white men . One can become defensive from all of this- feel that they are personally being blamed. But just because other white people, other men, other cisgendered individuals are part of the problem doesn’t mean I am the same. This underlying primal mentality- to defend groups that look like you- is dangerous and has to be overcome.

So the first flaw requires an ability to understand the world, and learn from other people in different circumstances. The second is liberation to act for justice, not solely as a white man who sees the world in a very specific way. I am not just white, I am not just male, I am not just an American citizen. I am Andrew Mackay- and my concerns are universal.

This is all a complicated way of saying simple things. While I will never fully understand the plight of women, or another ethnic group, I can understand the conflicts going on among men- especially white men. Coming over to a side that speaks out against sexual violence requires a stark reading of your own philosophy and ideas of what is and what is not important. Some men are almost through the process, and will join me to continue on the path. Others have not even started yet. But there are millions of them, and without them only so much justice can be done.

You are not, and never will be entitled to sex

There’s been a tumblr post circulating among my Facebook friends to support the idea that there exists a “rape culture” in America, and it demands serious action. Rape in our culture is a point of contention between various groups- debates over whether rape jokes are socially acceptable, or if the term is used too casually have happened again and again in the past few years.

The statistics in the post are legitimate, and are collected with citations here. A series of surveys and academic articles, published between 1981 and 1994, found widespread acceptance of rape among middle school and college students. In a disturbing result, many young girls accepted rape as justified in some circumstances- sometimes at a rate equal to young boys.

This data is compelling, but dated. However, an exhaustive survey by the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey has been published recently, thanks to significant support from government agencies. It is stark in its conclusions: if the rate of sexual abuse has gone down, it hasn’t gone down much. In the 1988 college survey, about one in four women reported rape or attempted rape. In the 2011 report, it was one in five.

I don’t mean to drown this post with statistics; rather, I want a strong grounding to stand on going forward. More below the fold.

Continue reading “You are not, and never will be entitled to sex”

The stubbornness of chauvinism

I was directed to a tumblr post that greatly dismayed me. Written by a woman who regularly takes public transit in Los Angeles, it talks about how often he is approached by men who are aggressive and, in the case she recounts in full, deeply threatening and scary.

The point raised is not that sexism is rampant or that men are pigs. Rather it is going to a core idea, for which these things are symptoms. It is the issue of male privilege- the inherent advantages men have in life, regardless of their socioeconomic background. The issue with critiquing them is that most men do not notice these advantages, or dismiss the idea as petty feminism. It is very difficult to cope with an unearned, background aspect of your life.

I was born a white male who, unlike my parents, was raised in a background of privilege rather than working-class self-reliance. Privilege is embedded in me, and it defines my interactions with other people; particularly, it defines my interactions with people that are not white, well-to-do, and male. Activism, going to a UU church that focuses on inequality and entering public education at the age of 19 have made these interactions more frequent and laden with importance. The evening speech class I am taking this semester has a great many people in menial jobs trying to get a later-life education and improve their chances of moving up. It is quite different from my stint in an expensive and prestigious liberal arts college. Many colleges are cocoons, and they price out a great deal of reality.

Ultimately, what dismays me the most about these posts is that a lot of these men are under forty. I would hope that people whose lives have included the backdrop of modern feminism would refrain from the same callous chauvinism that their fathers and grandfathers had. Seeing someone my own age (three people in the post are mentioned as being about eighteen) act like a sixty year old man is disheartening. While I know that gender relations are still evolving, and should, sometimes I think that at this point we as a society should be further along.