New Queer Histories

John Irving's new novel, IN ONE PERSON, is fascinating, for lots of reasons.  Those who know Irving's previous work will be tempted to read the book biographically:  it is written in the first person with an author as narrator; it is set in new England; it features wrestling, bears, of a sort, and lots and lots of transsexual and transgender characters.  The narrator is bi, attracted to both men and women and, especially, or also, transvestites,  transsexuals or pre-op transgender people. (there is a lot of talk in the novel itself about how the names for various types have changed over the years, so I am using all that are used in the novel.)  Reading it, one wants to know, is this Irving's coming out?  Is he the bi narrator?  Does this explain the earlier books?

But the book is interesting in other ways, too.  It revisits the AIDS crisis and reminds us that the Reagan years were not the perfect years presidential candidates seem to imagine, but years of misery (Many of us never forgot that -- in addition to AIDS, I recall masses of homeless people, strongly charged racial issues, a bad economy and a culture of violence and indifference).  In the context of conversations about gay teens and bullying, it posits a queer child who has the "wrong" crushes, one on his soon-to-be stepfather, one on an older woman who turns out to be a transsexual, and one on a fellow male student. It lays claim to the idea that being queer is inborn, literally, as the narrator has an absent but queer father.  And characters who try to "nurture" queerness out of other characters are seen as idiotic and ineffectual.   Against the model of the lonely child whose desires not only cannot be spoken, but make the child feel isolated, Irving creates a world in which there are multiple, helpful and understanding adults, and in which the narrator is far from the only queer in town.  In addition to a cross dressing grandpa and the transsexual crush, among the adults, the narrator retroactively discovers that more than a few fellow students are gay, bi, transsexual or otherwise queered.  Straight people exist in this world but feel like a minority.  In fact, one character late in the novel complains to the narrator that his books make difference seem normal! 

But the book is also somewhat misogynist.  A transsexual is highly valued but only one woman with a vagina is valued.  She functions more or less like the gay best friend has functioned in so many narratives -- as a safe place and best friend for the polymorphous narrator.  Lesbians exist in the novel but they come across poorly - as man-hating, vicious, or embarrassingly womanist.   It is a bit of a disappointment in a book that imagines a world of difference and demands tolerance on every page that people with penises are the best she-characters and women are somehow painted as the most negative forces.   And not just women, but mothers -- in particular, two mothers are blamed for trying to deny their son's gayness.  The "best" mother is one who leaves her husband because he can't accept his son's queerness, then kills herself when her son dies of AIDS.  I'm not asking for a politically perfect fiction, but, in a fiction so attendant to gender stereotypes,  I'd have expected a little more.

Evaluations

So, I just got what are described as Course Instructor Feedback forms, which are course evaluations.  Of course, I never feel that the course is being evaluated.  It is me.  And my evaluations this time placed me in the very good but not quite excellent category -- a number that should satisfy but feels like failure. 

This semester, I taught two theory classes.  One in film theory and one in feminist and gender theory.  These are always tough.  Both are required courses for the major and both involve lots of dense and difficult reading, with lots of jargony language. I try to account for that as best I can, to unpack the readings and make them seem relevant to the students.  Generally, there are a small number of students who love the courses -- the super smart kids, the ones who like the really tough stuff.  And there are a few who hate it, and me.  Often, these are kids who do not like or cannot handle super academic stuff  (weird, right?  at college?  But the vast majority do not like theory, want film classes to be more or less film appreciation, or to teach them what they already believe.)   Usually, the ones who hate it latch onto feminism as a way of saying what's wrong with me.  "How was the teacher?"  "She was a feminist."  So, in a sixteen week class in which we discussed feminism one week and queer theory one other week, one of the film theory respondents said that I spent the whole semester doing feminism and that it was not a film theory class at all.  I guess he forgot about Munsterberg, Benjamin, Metz, Altman, Kracauer, Bazin, Chion, Gorbman and all the others we read who had NOTHING to say about feminism or gender.  Others will complain that I make them see old movies -- they want me to show what is in theaters, I guess, instead of things like THE PAWNBROKER, BAREFOOT IN THE PARK, FRANKENSTEIN, KLUTE, THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP (isn't that recent?), DR. HORRIBLE'S SING A LONG BLOG (again, isn't that kind of recent?), ALIEN (how bad is that?), LETTER TO THREE WIVES, SOME LIKE IT HOT, PILLOW TALK, or HAIRSPRAY (okay, that is three that are from this century) I am supposed to show, what, TWILIGHT?  IRON MAN?
  
So, I know that evaluations will reflect this span and that in a difficult required course I am facing an uphill battle.


But what baffles me is the gap between my experience of the class and the final evaluation.  In the gender theory class, especially, I felt like I was reading the wrong evaluation.  This was a class with students who had chosen gender studies and therefore would not blame me for being a feminist.  This was a survey in which the span of readings -- from Wollstonecraft to Halberstam -- was clearly mapped out. This was a class in which the kids came to class every day prepared and ready to speak.  They had opinions about the readings and always seemed excited to talk about them.  And they were able to talk about them on their final exam.  We got into deep discussions daily and we also laughed and seemed to form a bond. It seemed like a love fest.   But when I got the evaluations, there were clearly some people who felt differently. 

But even more baffling is that in both classes the numbers did not match the comments.  In the written portion, they said I was a great teacher, well organized, knowledgeable, accessible, that the class was well organized, that I explained things clearly, was accessible, etc.  In gender, they loved that I had them blog and do a PR project.  In film, they appreciated that I let them do a film instead of a paper for their final assignment. 

Ad it isn't just me.  A very good friend of mine has also faced this lately.  I taught with her, have seen her in the classroom, admire her teaching tremendously and know that she really teaches her students well.  But the evaluations never reflect that. 

So, where was the failure?  Part of me imagines that people who get the tip top marks on these things pander to students.  But that is probably a cop out. Maybe I am the teacher they remember later?    Maybe challenging students is undesirable in the current student as client climate?   Maybe I just have a dissociative disorder and can't tell a good experience from a bad? Is this what it will feel like when my kids have to go to therapy to deal with whatever damage I have done to them, whatever troubles I am blamed for?   

Family meals

I recently started having my kids, who are 8 and 10, each take responsibility for cooking the family meal one night a week. I stole the idea from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/dining/a-mother-lets-her-sons-do-the-cooking.html?pagewanted=all

The writer there says she started having her sons cook because she was tired of having them bug her about dinner as soon as she got home from work, or complain about the meal. My reasons were different. Until recently, I didn't do any of the cooking in my home. My husband did. He is a more intuitive cook than I am. I am a recipe girl. So we had a oddly gendered break down in which he cooked meats and mains, and I did salad, desserts and baked goods. But I started cooking more in recent years. In part, this was because he started doing some more childcare, and it seemed like we had to balance chores. In part, it was because I needed to take hold of my diet as my metabolism slowed and my body started wanting to pack on fat. So, I started cooking a few nights a week, building more meatless meals into our schedule, as well as more fish, more chicken, more veggies.

I decided to have the kids cook not because I resented cooking at all. Instead, I thought it would be a good way to have them take ownership of something, to learn more about food, to prepare them for the future and to find a new activity to share (as they grow up and away from me). Also, I realize that nobody taught me to cook and I wish they had. My mom was of the generation that had discovered canned and frozen food as a godsend. She wanted to escape the kitchen, but never did. Even though she worked full time, she cooked every meal, and still does. To this day, at almost 80- years old, if my mother left my father he would have to survive on peanut butter sandwiches. I don't even think I have seen him open a can of soup! So, while she cooked many foods from scratch, she cooked more using ready at hand ingredients and mixes. I helped a little but was never shown how to chop an onion, how to store veggies, how to recognize cuts of meat. Instead, I heated fish sticks, heated sauce from a jar, boiled frozen vegetables, and poured pancake batter from a carton. Like many of my generation, I have been finding out about food as an adult as part of a return to the kitchen, and to whole foods.

My kids are growing up in a very different world. Most of our male friends do cook, and are generally the dominant cook in the house (in line with the gendering of cooking as male when it is gourmet and female when it is functional). Many of our friends have vegetable gardens or belong to CSAs. All shop at Farmer's Markets and eat at farm to table restaurants. Some have chickens! So, the kids have some knowledge of food, certainly greater than I did. And they have been helping in the kitchen sine they were little -- mixing muffins and granola bars and cakes, making salad dressing.

But the experiment was to have them think about a dinner, and make it as much by themselves as possible. I usually suggest a few things and they pick or they suggest something and I find a recipe. It has to be something the grown ups will like, not "kid food," whatever that is. We usually work with recipes from Cooking Light or Weight Watchers but they don't notice that they are less caloric or lower in fat because they have never made them any other way.

It has been a success. My son, who is a bit of a foodie, is the most enthusiastic. He likes to do everything himself. Seeing an eight year old chopping onions is a little nerve wracking, but he has now done it every week. He has made turkey sloppy joes, lemon pasta, pasta with sausage and spinach, fish tacos, French onion soup, pecan chicken, chicken pot pie, and more. We have made sides of sweet potatoes, butternut squash, spinach, rice, and beans. My daughter is trickier. Until recently, she only ate food that had melted cheese or peanut butter in it. She might be what they call a super taster which means she tastes things more intensely than others, but whatever the cause, she is picky (she finds "bitter" tastes in the oddest places). She has started eating some meat -- steak, ribs, bacon -- but no chicken, fish, or recognizable vegetables. So, with her I nudge slightly. We have made a cheesy potato soup, french bread pizzas, a creamy pasta which was served with peas for her brother, peas and asparagus for the adults, and plain for her. This week, we made cream of tomato soup and cheesy toasts, a recipe form Epicurious (the toasts were great, the soup so so). She lets me chop more than her brother does and gets a little bored, but she does a good amount of work and takes pride in the result.

At the end of the day, it is a nice way for us to spend time together and have a shared project. I hope it also prepares them to be independent and healthy adults, hosts, dates, and partners.

Romney Wars

I am a bit late on this, but wanted to jump in. When Hilary Rosen said that Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life, she misspoke. She meant, clearly, that Romney never had a paid position outside the home. Her point, that Romney would not understand family economics because of that, was not really fair or accurate. Homemakers, of course, understand what feeding a family and running a house costs and they are often responsible for dealing with family budgets and finances.

There are two points here. One, that Ann Romney would not understand the problems of ORDINARY women, because of her privilege and wealth. Has she ever had a dilemma about whether she can take a day off to take care of a sick kid because she can't afford child care and can't afford to lose a day of work? Doubtful. Does she worry about how to feed her kids nutritious food when there are no good grocery stores nearby and she does not have money for fresh whole foods? Unlikely. Put simply, her budget is not my budget, or yours. But then, neither is Michelle Obama's.

The second point, and this, to me is what is really disturbing, is that Ann Romney should not be called upon to be the voice of women at all, neither by Hilary Rosen nor by Mitt Romney. Rosen's longer comment about the Romneys began with her saying that whenever Mitt is asked about women's issues, he says "My wife tells me women are really concerned about the economy" (more than whatever women's issue you want me to talk about). So, Mitt Romney's entire policy on women and his understanding of women's issues, boils down to what his wife tells him? Really? Of course, Ann Romney is just as insular. She says that she knows how valuable her work as a homemaker is because Mitt tells her everyday that she has the hardest job in the world. Uh huh. I am sure he will continue to tell her that when, god forbid, he is in the White House. "I may be killing Planned Parenthood, decimating health care, bombing Iran, and pardoning George Zimmerman today, honey, but you have the hardest job in the world."

Anyway, my point is that no president's knowledge of women should be only what his wife tells him. If Romney had a black friend and used him to explain race relations ("Well, Bob at the gym tells me that black people are really worried that millionaires might have to pay higher taxes") we could accuse him of egregious tokenism. Talking to your wife, who is white, rich, married, and a Mormon, and assuming that means you know anything about what American women want, is worse.

Women care about lots and lots of things in this election. The economy? Hell yes, especially as women are increasingly bearing the brunt of cutbacks. Equal pay? Yup, we want it. Health care? Yes, because the war on health care is a war on women's wellness as much as anything else. Abortion? Yes, because the Republicans have put it on the table front and center and tell us daily that job #1 is to kill Planned Parenthood. Immigration? Yes, there are lots of female immigrants with American born children fearing their status and the sundering of their families? Gay Marriage? Yes, for themselves, their gay sons, and all their allies. Schools? Absolutely. Most women can't afford to send their kids to private schools.

But Romney denies any of these "social" issues as having any bearing on women's lives. He claims we only care about the economy. But I doubt that he or his wife knows what unemployment, high gas prices, low wages, and other economic issues mean to most American women.

I know I do not speak for all women. And I know that I am privileged in many ways. No one woman is the American woman. But if the Romneys want us to imagine that they care about the American woman, they'd better start listening to the multitude of voices and viewpoints out there, instead of claiming that pillow talk is sufficient politics.

Vogue for kids

http://www.observer.com/2012/03/controversial-vogue-story-on-diets-for-7-year-olds-article-to-become-controversial-memoir/

I read this article in Vogue at the dentist. I was not totally horrified at the story itself. I actually sympathized with aspects of it: namely, that kids can be overweight, that being "positive" about their weight does not teach them good habits, that sometimes you have to retrain them, and that society (schools, other moms, grandmas, etc) can be an obstacle. A few years back, we had to explicitly talk to my son about portions because he, like the girl in the story, did not have an automatic stop. We did not call him fat or call it a diet but we expressed a concern and dealt with it. And we continue to deal with it, to figure out how to encourage his wonderful interest in food while helping him think about food in terms of health as well as pleasure.

The author was aware of the gender politics of her story-- concerns that she might be imposing a beauty ideal rather than a health ideal, concerns about creating anxiety around food which, with girls especially, can contribute to eating disorders.

In the context of debates about obesity among kids, an honest essay about how kids get fat and what has to be done to change their habits and societal habits to fix it serves a real purpose. This article did not necessarily deal with larger issues such as how class or race figure in obesity rates, but it raised some issues to which many parents could probably relate.

Okay, fine. The problem was not the content per se, but its placement in Vogue!

Not only does the story's juxtaposition with fashion spreads featuring rail thin models send a deeply mixed message about the mandate to lose weight, but the story also participated in this double message by including photos of the girl and her mom. Thankfully, they did not subject the girl to a before/after spread. But they included two photos of her now, at her "good"weight, wearing high end clothing, looking like, well, a model. These photos function to render thin beautiful, not healthy. And they make a nine year old girl into a fashion figure, literally a role model. But they do not emphasize fitness, as the story claims to do. They do not show the girl being active, but passively lounging. They do not show her in her karate uniform, though karate was supposedly key to her weight loss and newfound fitness. The pictures include her mom, who admits in the article to her own history with eating issues, if not eating disorders. So what are these pictures of her about? What value do they serve?

Why photograph the girl or her mom her at all? Do we, as readers, need proof of her weight loss? Do we need to see the mom, to know whether she is fat or thin? Would the story mean less without pictures? I do not think so. In fact, the potentially positive information in the article is undercut by the images. The daughter, experiencing a very private pain (and the article makes clear how painful and potentially damaging this diet was) is exposed first to doctors, friends and family as an overeater, then to readers as an overeater/dieter, and again, in photos, as a "successfully thin" girl, an image to which few, including her, should have to aspire.

sandwiched

My generation has a curious problem. Many of us did not have children until we were relatively old. In my case, that meant having kids at 36 and 38. This means that we are older than most of our moms were and that our parents are older grandparents than ours were. It also means that, as we are still dealing with taking care of relatively small kids, we might be faced with taking care of elderly parents. In my case, I have not been called upon to take care of my parents -- another feature of our generation is that we often do not live nearby, so I am thousands of miles away from my parents. But my father has been ill and I have been visiting a lot in the last few months.

I have been thinking about this sandwiching, as a friend calls it. I am conscious of being a mom and a daughter, both older than some and younger than some. I am especially conscious of this lately as many members of the older generation in my family have passed away recently. My mother lost two sisters and a brother-in-law. I lost two aunts and an uncle. Suddenly the top layer is disappearing. I am beginning to envision a time when we are the oldest. Aside from the panic that induces (because, as I said in a previous blog, I do not yet feel grown up), I feel sad to know that my kids will lose that contact with an older generation. This is perhaps where thinking of ourselves less in terms of bloodlines comes in handy.

We casually refer to a lot of our friends as aunt and uncle. This is probably because we didn't know what else to call them. Mr. and Mrs. or the southern Miss did not seem right. So, we made our friends aunts and uncles. And mostly they refer to us the same way. Straight aunts and uncles to be sure, and gay and lesbian aunts and uncles, too. Some married, some single, some in long term relationships without being married. I have always liked that they have knowledge of different possibilities in this life -- including among my family, in which we have a bachelor, a single mom by choice, a now gone lesbian aunt. But my broader family, that circle of friends, presents a more diverse array of lifestyles and racial diversity, too. They can see interracial relationships, gay and straight, working moms, stay at home dads, and other structures that quietly step outside the conventional norms of society and that, in my kids' minds, are as normal as the rest. Already, our holiday table is more populated with these aunts and uncles than with blood family (again, because we do not live near most family). Over the years, as we all age, I hope that this extended queer family can serve as the top layer for my kids, the older generation that can model the future for them.

Mulvey

Last week, I had the opportunity to host Laura Mulvey on campus. For those who don't know, Mulvey is a famous feminist film theorist. She is the one who developed the idea of the male gaze. In brief, the idea that in classical Hollywood films -- and often other kind of films, including more recent ones -- men have the power to look (they get point of view shots), and women represent to be looked-at-ness; men control the action and women are acted upon; women do not have the power of the gaze (they do not generally get point of view shots and are usually punished if they look) and men do not represent the same kind of fetishistic spectacle.


Now, I have been teaching not only Mulvey's famous "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" for years, but also other essays by her on cinema space, Psycho, melodrama, and more. So, it was great to be able to speak with her, learn more about the origins of her work, revisit her early films, and hear more about where her work is now.


But the even more tremendous pleasure was in seeing the reception she got on campus. Her talk was jam-packed with faculty and students from across the college. And faculty and students were all giddy! Mulvey is a rock star, it's true. And, in fact, while she was speaking at Notre Dame, she was being discussed in an episode of "Parks and Recreation," in which one of the male characters is taking a feminist theory class and was quizzed about Mulvey:

http://youtu.be/vDj9sAMfeW0


The best part was seeing young women, who do not often, at Notre Dame at least, identify as feminist, come up to Laura Mulvey and thank her for her work, tell her about how her essay changed their lives. These were my students, students whose feminism had not been revealed in film class, who seemed like typical post feminists. So, it was shocking and wonderful to discover their secret passion. But, gals, the secret is out! You love Mulvey! You love Mulvey! Now, we'll get you hooked on the rest of the feminist gals who have rocked my world.