How Macho are You Now?

Long ago, doctors used to not treat prostate cancer right away because it was a slow growing cancer. In this environment, my grandpa got prostate cancer. But later, in about 1987, they reexamined the cancer and found that it had spread. It spread to his testicles. The doctors had to remove his prostate and his testicles. He lived for 12 more years after that, if you can call that living. I only learned this last November, when my dad told me, because he just learned. He had also just been diagnosed with prostate cancer and had his prostate removed in January. He talks about it all the time, and I'm really glad.

According to the BBC, men don't want to get checked for prostate cancer because they are worried that it isn't "macho." Just a bit of how our idiotic gender norms harm everyone.

In a related story, we are first led to believe that having daughters leads to prostate cancer, then told that the results are inconclusive, but not until the end of the story. The media just can't seem to help itself when it comes to the birth of girls and negative consequences. Then again, maybe I'm just sensitive. I wouldn't be if so many places in the world didn't see the birth of a girl as a disappointment.

Talking

Published retroactively

Today's Luann comic kind of irritated me, because it was about women talking more than men. The feminist blogs said it best - that society promotes that stereotype of women talking too much and being annoying to shame women into talking even less. I, frankly, don't know how we can really say that men talk less when it is they who are all over the media. Women, on an individual level, might talk more, but men write more, and their ideas are the ones that get out there. So maybe I want men to shut the hell up. Well, maybe it is only certain men. I think one factor in women talking more is that we know that sometimes, people aren't listening, and by people, I mean the men - the sexist men - that don't think women are people, and therefore don't listen. So those poor women in relationships with those sexists need to say more to be able to get through to those asshats.

In the Luann comic, the mom is just talking in stream-of-concouisness style, and she is talking about something she did. Whereas, during the same time, the dad probably sat on the couch watching golf or something. So, in reality, maybe it is just that women actually have things to say. And really, do men talk about important things? That sexist asshat at work only talked about music and movies, because that was all he knew. I remember a time in high school, my sophomore year, when I was sitting with some girls from my junior high. They were overhearing some guys talking about some technical thing - computers, video games, whatnot - and one said "jeez, don't they have lives they can talk about?" I felt very conflicted about this statement, because I didn't particularly like these women, and I didn't think the guys' conversation meant they were losers, but it was an interesting comment, that I obviously still remember.

Now, in the human society, generalizations do not work all of the time. You can't look at one woman and assume everything about her simply because she is a woman. Intelligent people understand this, but still use generalizations because they reflect basic trends. As I said in an earlier post, as women go through puberty, they begin to focus more on interpersonal relationships, but not all of us do this. I didn't, neither did my friend C, neither did Entomologista. But because women focus on relationships so much, and lose interest for abstractions, men seem to fill the void of women talking about those things. But interpersonal relationships change every day, and abstractions remain the same. After a while, maybe people run out of things to say about a video game, movie, or sporting event, whereas it is hard to run out of things to say about an ongoing relationship.

As for me, my talking is definitely learned from my father first and his mother second. My dad talks a lot, and my mother said that her father was a big talker as well. She said she thinks that is part of why she was attracted to my dad. When my family goes somewhere, it is usually Mom, my sister and I that want to leave first, and we have to often go get Dad out of a conversation with some person and tell him we're all leaving, NOW. He once got in trouble with a couple of farmers for telling one farmer a story about another farmer that he didn't realize was intended to be private. I often describe his mother as a woman who would talk to "anyone, anywhere, about anything, at any time", and really, my dad and I learned this exact trait.

Overall, humanity is a social species, and we like to share our experiences. Some of us talk more than others, and we all talk about different things. Some of those things might just be more interesting and may necessitate more talking than other things. And really, it is rediculous to assume that guys don't talk about relationships either. Some might not, and maybe it is because they don't necessarily have relationships (those guys back in high school didn't).

There was a recent study that said that when young girls talk about relationships, it hurts them, whereas the same is not true for young boys (and I mean junior high age). I crtainly hope someone thought to ask what else each group talked about. In every woman's experience, she knows that women are often not encouraged to talk about certain things, like abstractions. Even our toys from childhood are belittled. We recently had that Transformers movie, but could you imagine a movie about My Little Pony being recieved in the same way? And it isn't because girls' toys cannot be made "cool". I seem to remember a Rainbow Bright movie I used to watch that seemed very cool. Granted, my adult mind might not be nearly as impressed, but themes in the movie could be rewritten and made very interesting. But in our society, little boys are just young people, but little girls are still inferior and weak. Maybe that is why girls growing out of that stage don't talk about that kind of thing, and instead obsess over relationships to the point that is harmful. Just some thoughts.

Weddings, whats the point?

One of my favorite people, a former employee, explained the significance of this day. She told me that 7 is God's number, because he rested on the seventh day after working for 6 days to create the earth. Consequently, three times as many people are getting married today than on any other day. Source

To me, marriage is the creation of legal kin, as opposed to directly biologically related kin. We seem to understand that a child has the right to see her dying mother or father, but not every kid gets to come into the hospital room. Marriage takes two biological strangers from the human species and gives them the rights we allow biological kinfolk.

Women know that their kids are their own, and that by getting pregnant, they will pass on their genetic material. Men do not have this luxury, which is just one part of my "evolution of sexism" theory, and they know it. The ultimate goal of life is to sustain life, and pass on genetic material. Women have more control over this than men, and men have been punishing us for it for a long time.

But marriage, itself, is not necessarily a punishment, especially not if the man in question can provide the woman with viable pregnancies and help her effectively raise the new people. No, the punishment comes in the form of "women don't have the minds for math" and "don't be such a girl" - not to mention rape and murder¹ after the wedding and damn, everything else I talk about.

I don't know how much more explanation I need to give before I can get to my point, but I'm satisfied with what I've already written. Many cultures have realized that the joining of two adults needs to be recognized to be official. Hence, the wedding. Some weddings are short, sweet, and to the point. Some weddings last a week. Some weddings include the slaughter of a whole cow and a town feast. Some weddings include a million dollar dress and 5,000 famous people. My parents wedding was in a small local Catholic church. The bride wore a knee length brown-green dress, the groom wore a tan couderoy suit [hey, it was the 70's]. The reception was a dinner in the church basement, and their "honeymoon" was an afternoon outing to a local lake.

But so many women put their entire lives into their wedding. I admit, as I child, I liked to play wedding, if only for the pomp. But I also liked to play queen and royal palace for the same reason, often with the chess set. I went to wedddings as a child. The dresses were beautiful, yes, but the couple often made it to the reception so much later because of the photographer. The speeches ran long, when all I wanted to do was eat and dance.

And now, we all love to hear about bridezillas and elaborate weddings - well, all except me. Despite what I believe about the true purpose of weddings, I can't get past the blatent sexism and patrimony of the ceremony. In the past, both the man and the woman were leaving their respective parents' house, but the man stands at the head of the church, with his buddies, while the women put on an elaborate parade. In the end, the grand marshall, the man who paid for the whole thing, escorts his property down the aisle to give her to this other man, for his use.

Weddings are called "her day" because in the traditional, sexist reality, weddings were her last opportunity to be beautiful and show off, and she was now a wife, destined to begin a life of servitude to this handsome man. He doesn't worry about the wedding because he knows that his life will continue as normal, but better than normal because now he has someone to take care of him - just like his mother once did.

But so many non-famous women still want the huge wedding. They want all the pomp, all the gradeur, and all the tradition. The song must be just right, the dress must be perfect, the vows must be beautiful, the flowers must be breathtaking. And in the end, who gives a crap? It is one day, one dress, and a bunch of meaningless words. The real wedding is in the signing of the document, not in "I do". The point of a wedding is to tell everyone that you are now legally related to someone else, nothing more, nothing less.

My parents walked down the aisle together. They gave themselves to each other. My mother might have worn that dress again. My parents married as adults, and they did it without fuss, or without going into tons of debt.

My Cousins and The Babies

A few years ago, my cousin, J[1], had a baby. No one in the family knows who the father of J[1]'s baby is, mainly because J[1] doesn't want to talk about it. As far as I can tell, everyone seems to be fine with that. She probably knows, and has the information about his family history in case there are medical problems, but we're all more focused on her son, D.

Well, J[1] and D inspired another cousin, A[2], to have a baby of her own. In her case, she was married to I[W], and we all know who the father is. Well, I[W] was finishing a PhD in English, but was unable to find a job as a professor. My cousin had the baby, but realized that it would be a better idea if her husband was bringing in the income so she could stay home with the infant, as opposed to the other way around. After all, she would be the one breastfeeding, and she didn't want to switch to formula. So, according to my parents, my cousin told her husband to get a job. Now, I[W] may just be feeling stifled by that job right now, but my dad thinks that he isn't exactly ready for the responsibility of having this kid.

So many anti-feminists decry feminists who do defend the "traditional" value of the mother staying home with the baby. The problem with that logic is the lack of logic. A real feminist is a logical person, and realizes that not all traditional values are necessarily bad. Infants do need constant care, and breastfeeding is best. Logically, that would mean new mothers would do best to take time off, especially during the first few years, to care for their children. But after breastfeeding is done, the gender of the parents to stay with a child - at least until they enter school - is irrelavent. In that situation, mommy could stay with the baby until then, then the partners would switch roles, and daddy could stay home.

But that gets to the real problem with staying out of the externally defined workforce - explaining the gap on the resume. But I postulate that wo/men should include infant care on their resume. It might not bring in any money, but it is work, and it demonstrates a lot of responsibility. As someone that has hired at least 7 people in the past nine months, I have to say that I would be impressed with a resume that listed taking care of an infant as part of work experience - for any job. I will go so far as to say that the only people that would not be impressed are complete idiots.

My Matriarchal Roots

A grew up in a matriarchal family. I really did. This is not because the men were not there - my grandparents and parents stayed together, and in what appeared to be good relationships between equals. This wasn't even because the women were the primary breadwinners of the families. Rather, my family understood that women were people, and expected women to be just as successful as men.

I grew up in rural America; I grew up the older of two daughters. My mom is an educated professional, and my dad is a farmer. I was born on my dad's 36th birthday, in the Wisconsin summer, not in the nearest hospital to where my parents lives, but the one with a chair to allow my mom to sit up as she gave birth.

I grew up being expected to work when I got old enough. I grew up weeding gardens, picking up apples, picking raspberries, shoveling snow and later loading hay, feeding cows, and lifting heavy things. My parents expected it of me, and I saw it in the people around me. My grandmother worked hard, and loved it. And nobody got out of tasks for their gender.

On my mother's side, my grandmother was a typical housewife and my grandfather worked in construction. But my grandmother emigrated from Germany as a single woman. When her parents expressed concern, before she left, that she would go to America and become a prostitute, my grandmother threw it right back in their faces. She asked them if they thought that they had raised her so badly, that she would, in the late 1920's, think that prostitution was a viable life path. They didn't, and she didn't, so she took her brother's advice and moved to America.

There, she met my grandfather, but due to the depression, they did not marry - they possibly didn't even have sex - until about 1940. They then had four kids. They assumed they were done at three kids, but that fourth pregnancy, my mother, caught them by surprise. Of course, there are no mistakes in a Catholic family. Because they already had two girls, my mom was supposed to be a boy, oops. All of the kids went on to get education. The first became a nurse and married at 25. My uncle went to Vietnam and then used the GI Bill to go to college. He married in 1986 or 87, as I remember. My mom's other older sister went through a great degree of soul searching, even a stint in the convent, before really moving out on her own, but not without a great deal of fuss from her parents. Now she is a cultured and educated professional. Finally, my mother, the baby of the family, used the roads paved by her sisters to not get married right away, and lived during her 20's. She went to college and got a BS, then decided to go to graduate school and get a Master's degree.

Without being a typical consciousness-raising, bra-burning feminist, my mother was strikingly independent. One of her favorite stories is of the year she saved her money to buy a summer pass to the local pool, only to learn from her mother that she needed to stay home to cook lunch for her father. After putting up with that for a while, she finally put her foot down and told her dad to make his own damn lunch and went off to enjoy the fruits of her own labor and planning. Another story regarding my grandpa was the time his wife left him instructions to cook dinner, but she neglected to tell him to either turn on the oven or put the bird (chicken?) in the oven, so he didn't. What may have been a protest on his part about having to actually do something for the family turned into a funny story about my grandpa's ignorance.

But I did not grow up with those relatives - oh, I visited them a lot, but my mom had moved 12 hours away, to rural Wisconsin, and met my father, who was living with his family after his stint in the Navy and 5 semesters at UW Madison. I was closer to that family, and that was the true matriarchal family. And the matriarch of the family was my dad's mother. She was the youngest of 10 kids, and she was a daddy's girl. Her life was about work, everyone appreciated it, and she gave the orders.

She had a degree from a teaching college, but her career was as a farmer and a mother. She taught all 12 of her kids how to read and write before they went to school. She sold raspberries primarily, but also sweet corn, tomatoes, currants, strawberries, and apples every summer. She and her husband raised cows, pigs, and chickens, managed the biggest farm in the township, and ran a successful small business. She made cider, soap, bread, quilts, doughnuts, and she did her laundry with an old ringer washer. I don't know if there was anything my grandma couldn't do.

And she loved us. She loved everyone, and she gave. She did what needed to be done, and she accepted everyone. She was scary as hell, and she wasn't afraid of anything. She raised a generation of strong people, and even with their faults, they managed to raise my generation, and we're doing well. We're strong men and women, and we'll always remember where we came from. We carry the spirit of my grandmother - a woman who wasn't a feminist only because she didn't really need the movement to tell her that women could, should, and would work like men. I said it twice before she died, but I can never say it enough - Thank you Grandma, for everything.

Nine of my grandmother's 12 kids were girls, but only four of those girls went on to have kids of their own. Two of the remaining five never married - not to mention my mom's sister that never married. But unlike the patriarchal fear mongering, these three women are all still wildly successful. All three are home owners, and one owns about three houses - at least three - including the house where she grew up, the farm.

Most of my aunts and female cousins are successful professionals, including two nurses, three teachers, a high ranking army officer, and a firefighter. Many are married, and along with the three mentioned before, I have a couple of older female cousins that aren't married either. I grew up watching these women, and importantly, so did my male relatives. The men of the family behaved as if women were people - they knew their place beside women, not in front of or behind.

My matriarchal family did not berate women and girls for being women and girls - nor did it berate men and boys for being men and boys. The family did not expect anyone to not work because of her gender. If anything, my matriarchal family taught everyone that women and men could, would, and should work, and hard too. So I grew up knowing that I could do for myself. My dad doesn't think we should get married until we are thirty, and he is highly critical of the men my sister and my cousins do bring home. One cousin recently had a baby, and my dad isn't sure if her husband is up to the responsibility of being a father. I'm so glad that my family raised everyone to be an adult - a fully functioning, independent adult, male and female.