Parenthood

I just have to say that in light of all the heaviness that I write about on here, there are some really positive things going on in the world that are encouraging people to respect one another as people. One such thing is the NBC show Parenthood. The show revolves around a family named the Braverman's. There are four siblings, two guys and two girls, and it examines their lives and the way they try to live as parents. I really enjoy this show because it shows alternative ways of living than what is expected of males and females. For example, Julia and Joel are married and have a daughter, only Julia is a lawyer while Joel is the stay at home dad who attends PTA meetings, dresses his daughter, fixes dinner, and cleans the house. He is not threatened by his wife's accomplishments, if anything, he is proud of them. It is great to see such a positive and different type of relationship being shown on television. In another family setting, Adam, the oldest brother, has a wife who is more of a stay at home mom, while he works at a shoe company. They have an autistic son named Max, and a teenage daughter. It is really wonderful to see how much Adam loves his family and how dedicated he is to forming a bond with his son, regardless of Max's autism.

The show is just a wonderful little gem, and I am happy it exists because it highlights different ways of living so that males and females are seen as equal, instead of living in a male dominant household. I have a few more shows and programs that I have stumbled upon that make me really feel as though change is a great possibility. I will share them in the next week or so.

Guyland-Chapters 9-11

I finally finished reading Guyland! I am glad to have read the book because it was a real eye opening experience to the world that some guys are a part of, and ultimately the world that I live in. I will post something solely dedicated to the last chapter of the book, but in this post, I wanted to discuss chapters 9, 10, and 11. I think there is some really insightful and important information in these chapters that must be addressed. In chapter 9, Kimmel discusses hooking up in guyland, and just what sex means to these men and women in college. This chapter was not so eye opening as some of the other chapters have been because I am in college and know of the sexual practices that some of my fellow students, as well as some friends, partake in. I did find it alarming that so many girls were okay with this form of casual sex because there is very little in it for them. As Kimmel says, the women who are hooking up with these guys are not experiencing great sex, they are oftentimes not even experiencing mediocre sex. The sex is mainly for the guy to have an orgasm, and if the girl can’t find a way to get something out of it, it is her problem. Once again, women have become a tool, a car, if you will, that allows men to get where they need to go. Girls must make themselves available for sex, but not get too attached, as guys do not want to have “the talk” about whether or not the sexual relationship could evolve into an actual relationship. Alcohol, as Kimmel says, has a ton to do with the hook up process(199-200). Liquid courage has become the most important component in sealing the deal, so to speak. It helps to lower expectations and relieve one of their consciences. However, it can also lead to rape, which is discussed in Chapter 10. I feel that hooking up in college is a normal process. That is to say, if it is something that one is doing because they enjoy sex, but do not want to have a commitment. So long as both parties are being safe and responsible and honest with one another, there is nothing wrong with casual sex, in my opinion. But when sex becomes a means to get close to someone or to make yourself less of an invisible entity in guyland is when the problem begins. Women should be able to have casual sex like men can have, but they should not aim to regard sex in the same way as guys in guyland do. As I just previously mentioned, if a woman wants to have sex because she truly enjoys it, then there is not a problem with it. It does not seem that this is the case with these women, however. As Kimmel states, “Most hookups are not great sex” (210). Kimmel explains how in a recent survey, only 19 percent of women reported having an orgasm, while males had orgasms more frequently. So the question is, why do these women hook up with guys if they are not enjoying the sex? Why not just wait until they find someone who can satisfy them? My guess is that they want to appear likeable and relevant in guyland, and if they don’t adhere to the sexual advances of these men, they will be not be remembered. They want to be seen as popular and needed, and what better way to get this validation than to use their bodies to do it? They believe that since they are deciding who they sleep with, that they are in control. But they are no more in control than they ever were. One of the scarier ideas this chapter brings up is why these girls want to be seen as valuable by these guys who obviously do not value anything because they do not value themselves?

Chapter 11 discusses more of the same thing in regards to women in guyland, and the ways that sororities aim to please the males on their campuses. The girls in this chapter believe that if they sleep with the guys, they will become one of the guys, or at least seen as equal. Kimmel says it best when he states, “Whereas guys are permanent citizens, girls are legal aliens at best” (245). This chapter just further states my point about the fact that women must stop trying to use sex as a bargaining chip with these guys in guyland, that they will not be seen as equal to them just because they casually sleep around and binge drink. The guys are described as thinking these traits are not attractive and do not deserve respect, and this is the first time I would have to agree with them. It does not say a lot about a person if they feel their self-respect comes after their need for attention and popularity. It is a fine line between this and sexual assault, because on the one hand, I am saying that I believe that women have a responsibility to one another and most importantly themselves not to use their body to get equality. Their aim should not be to be seen as “one of the guys” because that means that they are perpetuating the idea that male desires are more important than their own. This goes along with not hooking up with a guy to be seen as popular or significant. Like I have said, if a girl wants to have sex because she wants to for her, then there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. However, to do it in order to please a guy, once again reiterates the idea that male desires are more important than the worth of females. However, when a woman gets raped, she is not at fault, nor is there anything she could have done differently. Rape is different in that women are not seeking this to be on an equal level with men, men are using sexual assault to reaffirm that they will always be dominant, and therefore, above women. I just wanted to clear that up.

I decided to group Chapter 9&11 together because they had a lot to do with each other, and then separately discuss chapter 10…

Chapter 10 was a little more difficult to read. It was all about predatory sex and party rape. I have to say that I enjoy the ways that Kimmel weaves these chapters together. Kimmel opens chapter ten by saying that when he was younger, he remembers hearing, “when it comes to sex, never take no for an answer…Look, girls have to say no, even if they want to do it. It’s part of being a girl. So if they say no, they’re really saying yes. They still want you to” (217). It scares me to think that people actually believe this and will tell one another, but it happens. When Kimmel said how he told his class about the idea that one only stops “when she hits you” (217) and his classmate said it was different now, that now you only stop when she hurts you, I was shocked. This was not the end of it. More shocking than this was that women blamed themselves for being targeted and raped. Kimmel states, “They blamed themselves for leading him on, for giving mixed signals, for not really knowing what they wanted, for being too drunk to say no clearly” (221). To have women feel as though they could have prevented the rape from occurring is sad, to say in the least. Although I believe that women can take precautions, such as not drinking at a party where they do not know at least half of the people, if they are going to attend a party of a stranger, to arrive and leave in a group, do not walk to their cars or anywhere alone at night, and never leave drinks unattended at a party. With that being said, a victim of rape cannot make herself less of an attractive candidate for rape. There is nothing that a person does to ask to get raped, no matter what. Kimmel talks about anti feminists, such as Cathy Young and Camille Paglia, who lay blame for sexual assault on the women. “Roiphe, Young, and Paglia all argue that boys will be boys, and that to constrain male sexuality is to do a disservice to young men. As Paglia explains, today’s female students have the temerity to believe ‘they can do anything, go anywhere, say anything, and wear anything.’ Well, she says, ‘No, they can’t.” (221). It is no wonder that so many men feel as though their rough sexual practices are harmless, while women believe they are the responsible for being sexually assaulted. When anyone, especially a woman encourages the phrase “boys will be boys” and links it with rape, they are giving people permission to sexually assault women. If anyone, other than the rapist, is at fault for sexual abuse, it is these women and men who turn rape into a nonchalant practice that is a consequence of “bad decision making” on the woman’s part. These women believe that victims of rape should accept the consequences whenever they make a mistake, meaning that they should accept that rape is their fault.

Kimmel talks about the fact that victim confirmation is a key part of rape cases, but how it is one of the only crimes that victims have to define the crime. He writes, “Yet one has to engage in some strange epistemology to conclude that if they don’t define it as rape, it wasn’t rape. For most crimes, the subjective experience of the victim plays little role in the labeling of a crime. A robbery is a robbery, whether or not you were dressed so nicely that the mugger thought you wanted it. It is still a robbery even if, in your drunken foolishness, you walked through a bad part of town in the middle of the night with an expensive camera around your neck, or if you ‘consented’ in your fright and said, ‘Here, take my money’” (223). I think it is interesting that we are so dependent on proving that a rape did not occur. The bottom line is, if the person says stop and you keep going, you sexually assaulted them. It does not matter how much she had to drink or what she is wearing, she is not asking to get raped. The fact that we as a society cannot all get on the same page with that basic concept bewilders me. Like I previously mentioned, there are cautionary steps a woman should take to protect herself, but ultimately, if she fails to take them, she still does not deserve to be raped. A lot of this chapter can be related back to the chapter on pornography, where men see images of women getting “gang-banged” and think to themselves, “all women really want it and I am going to give it to them.” This is not to say that all men who watch porn are rapists, but it does send this message to some. Kimmel furthers this point by saying, “many men subscribe to what sexual assault counselors call ‘date rape myths’-that women want sex just as much as men do but are socialized to say no even if they mean yes; that women like to be forced to have sex, that drunk women are ‘fair game’” (225).I wonder where they are hearing these myths from and where the idea for these myths started. Could it be in some of the images that are seen in pornography, or is that too much a stretch? Rape happens a lot in guyland, and a great deal of it occurs with Greeks and jocks. Fraternities and athletes are seen as celebrities on college campuses, and with that status comes the entitlement and silence. Some of the members of these organizations feel that it is their right to have sex with any woman they want, no matter how she feels about it. Communities, fellow members, and school administration turn a blind eye to what goes on with these guys, and the whole ugly culture becomes perpetuated once again. I do not want to spend a lot of time with these ideas, as I have covered them in previous posts. I would rather talk about what some schools are doing to change these things from continuing. Schools like USC, Penn State, Ohio State, and Stanford have created mandatory sexual assault prevention programs for their players. To discourage possible recruits in high school from having the opportunity to rape girls (which they are taught is a part of their right as men and athletes by the college athletes), schools like Stanford have the players’ parents attend the recruitment sessions with their sons and they are all housed together in the same hotel. Schools like Antioch College created a new Code of Conduct program that is required for any sexual contact that is not “mutually and simultaneously initiated” (240). The policy states not to take silence as consent because it isn’t. Women seemed to be happy with this new policy, whereas guys are not so excited. They feel as though the code takes away the moment and will be a turnoff, but as Kimmel shows, Canada introduced a similar program and no protests have come up from Canadian men. The program in Canada works just fine. I think these programs are wonderful, and encourage healthy sexual practices. While some students may think they take away from the moment, they are no more of an interruption than sexual assault is, and with these programs, they ensure that miscommunication will not happen.

Guyland-Chapter 7&8

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Dreamworlds 3 &Guyland

I just finished watching Dreamworlds 3, a film that takes a look at the misogyny and violence of music videos. It ties so perfectly with Guyland because it shows a lot of the members of Guyland in their natural habitat-abusing women out of a sense of entitlement. It really affected me because I had no idea the amount of sex that goes into the videos that I watch. It was also interesting because the need to display sex was not just from random groupies/aspiring models and actresses who would sacrifice their self respect to get some screen time. This overt sexual behavior was from the likes of Beyonce, Madonna, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore, and there was no way around recognizing the amount of use their bodies get to stay relevant. I had always thought of Beyonce as a strong, independent woman who had the highest self esteem. I would never even think to put her in the same category as these self-proclaimed “video ho’s,” but they can be compared. They are both selling the same thing, which is a fantasy. It is not to say that I believe Beyonce is insecure, because I don’t, I just can’t deny that there is a connection between her behavior in her videos and that of these random girls in the other videos. The intent is to be sexy and it is often times used as compensation for a lack of creativity. Women have become the tool to sell all types of items, most of all the male fantasy.

The video got me thinking more about the responsibility that women have in the formation of guyland and to the hope that it will be absolved someday. While I was watching the movie, I was thinking about the girl in chapter five of Guyland who had said that she was trying to be seen as equal in the eyes of the guys she knew, so she drank them under the table and slept with a stranger. I can bet that if someone asked a lot of the girls in these videos if they believed they were being disrespected, they would say no. They would probably make up some answer about the fact that they have complete control over their bodies and are independent thinkers. It is hard to decide whether or not that is true, but I’m just wondering why a woman once again feels the need to use her body to assert her equality with men. To the guy, the women are still objects and they are not viewed as being equal or respectable. They are just a reminder that men still have power over women. In order to help put a stop to guyland, women have got to stop being playthings and disguising it as “asserting equality.” We have got to start recognizing that using sexuality to be validated is not a healthy practice. Allowing men to pour liquor on our heads and throw meat at our naked bodies for sport is not a way to prove that we are their equals. If anything, it further proves in their minds that we are things that can be raped and beaten.

It is very difficult to regulate sex, however. Beyonce’s video for “Single Ladies” is quite different than Nelly’s video for “Tip Drill,” where women allow mostly their butt’s to be focused on while they wear thong underwear. In Beyonce’s video, she is wearing a leotard and dancing sexual at times, but she is not allowing men to disrespect her by swiping their credit cards between her butt cheeks. Oftentimes in videos by female artists, they are seen being sexual by themselves as opposed to dancing seductively on a man and letting him put his hands all over her. It is the same question that gets posed with porn stars. Obviously, they are watched by millions of men and a lot of them may have the same motives for their decisions-to assert their equality in a man’s world-but should they stop their jobs as well? I don’t have an answer. I don’t know why porn stars should be able to continue doing what they do, but “video ho’s” should stop. Maybe it is because a lot of female porn stars have creative freedom over their careers, but then I think that a lot of the porn companies that these women work for are ran by men. So, do they have creative freedom, or are they just sexual playthings like the women in the videos are? I really can’t figure it out. What’s more, if I were to let the thought of who runs the company be my deciding factor, then it would pose an even bigger issue because record companies where Beyonce and Madonna work for, are run by men. It is a male dominant society, so at what point do women have control over their bodies? Granted, Beyonce and Madonna do have the luxury of deciding how they want to use their bodies and what type of sex they want to sell, but at the end of the day, it is still creating this fantasy in the male mind that women are nothing more than sexual objects. On the other hand, the male fantasy is so broad that I could walk out of my house wearing sweat pants and someone could get aroused. There is no way to determine what sets off that sexual tick in a guy’s mind. Also, men may not even be thinking about the differences between Beyonce and a video ho that I have lain out. He most likely sees a practically naked woman on a TV and has the same reaction, no matter who the woman may be. A man may just see his desires being fulfilled and get the idea that whenever he wants to be satisfied, there will be a woman there to answer his every need.

Women have a responsibility to themselves and other women to look out for their image, bottom line. I may not know much else, but I know that so far. Women have got to stop allowing themselves to be duped into believing that using their bodies will help them get credibility because it will not. If a woman wants to be sexual because she wants to be, then by all means, do whatever feels natural. But do not consent to males getting to decide what counts as appropriate sexual behavior because that is just perpetuating the cycle of guyland, which is where we want to move away from.

Guyland chapter 5

In chapter five of Kimmel’s Guyland, he explores the world of initiations in the form of hazing rituals. The chapter, as most of the chapters in this book go, was eye opening and disturbing. He discusses the importance of binge drinking and fraternities in Guyland, as these are certain rites of passage that guys need to be exposed to in order to shape them into a the masculine beasts they were meant to be. This chapter also pushed more ideas about the roles that girls play in shaping Guyland, and what can be done by other guys to change this sick society of gang rape and homoerotic hazing.

Kimmel describes initiations as something that can “also reassure the guys that they are not yet men, not yet apart of the adult world, and that there’s still time to have a little fun before they have to find their way in the real world” (Kimmel 98). The fun these guys are having, however, is not something I would measure as “little.” Initiation rituals, or hazing as it is more commonly known, include binge drinking at all hours of the night, something that Kimmel says results in death more often than not. He explains that “three fourths of all Greeks are binge drinkers” (Kimmel 104). So what drives these guys to partake in these dangerous acts to be initiated into Guyland? The answer is simple: popularity. Popularity, as I have learned, is not something that dies at high school graduations, it is something that lives on and gets bigger as one enters the college arena. If a guy wants to be popular, he must be initiated into a group of other guys who hold the key to that popularity. Who are these guys? They are members of guyland. Kimmel explains, “Initiations in Guyland are about the passage from boyhood to manhood. Boyhood is the world of women-Mama’s boys, wimps, wusses, and losers-or the world of me who are considered women-gays, fags, homos, queers. Or babies” (Kimmel 99). The rituals that one does to cross this barrier from boyhood to manhood, however, is infantile. The whole process is infantile, if you think about it, but that is not what these guys are focusing on. Some fraternities will make their pledges dress as babies and eat regurgitated food from other brothers. Kimmel describes this as “If initiation is going to validate your manhood, first you have to regress to babyhood” (Kimmel 99). What I thought was interesting was how most of the actions of those who live in guyland are not marks of a man, they are, in a sense, very child like. They are purely motivated by their Id and their ego doesn’t even seem to come in to play to let them know that their actions are not wise. Or maybe the ego does come in to play, but the id, that part that needs to be a part of guyland, is much stronger. The voice that says “if you’re not a part of this, you’re a homo,” is screaming inside of these guys at all times.

There are so many issues that are raised in my mind as I read these chapters, but the one that seems to be at the forefront is: are we encouraging violence? We must be, since a lot of these guys are now CEOs of companies and were once a part of guyland in their college years. We have created this space of “boys will be boys” and allowed them to go off to school and mess up as much as they want to, as long as they eventually come out of it. It reminds me of other rituals that take place in the Amish faith, in the form of rumspringa, where people are allowed to “run around” at the age of 16 for as long as they like, until they choose baptism into the Amish church, or to leave the community forever. During this time, guys can sleep with whomever they choose, drink as much and as often as they like, and essentially get away with murder, all with this notion that it is their rite of passage. What is more, they do not get punished in any way for the acts that they committed during this time, as long as they come back to the church someday. It is similar to guys in guyland in that they also do not get reprimanded for their lewd behavior, if anything, they get a free pass because it is all under the guise of “finding oneself.”

The idea of “having fun” needs to come with limitations and consequences, if the fun that people are having is in any way like the “fun” that members of guyland are having. The fact that people are essentially encouraging these guys to go out into the world and rape girls and drink themselves into oblivion is frightening to say the least. No matter what someone says, you do not grow out of the pull towards violence like these guys have displayed. It is not as simple as saying, “Yea, I raped a few girls in college, but now I’m done with that. I’m a family man.” If you rape girls for sport, then obviously there is a deeper problem going on in your early life that is only crafted further with the support and encouragement of guyland. We are encouraging this behavior, even if all authority figures are doing is ignoring it. By ignoring it, they are allowing the problems to get worse. For example, with fraternities who haze and binge drink, the community praises these guys for doing absolutely nothing good to contribute to the world. When a recent event happened with a fraternity in my area giving girls roofies and date raping them, they were disbanded for a few years, if even that. Now they are back and people say it is because they “have changed” and those who committed those acts are gone. But we all know that is not true because those who have left are now alumni and have been throwing an arm around the new guys, teaching them the ropes of guyland. I am not saying that all Greek life is bad, it is just not fair that some are held up on an infallible soap box because they are “creating the future man.” If that is what the future man is, someone who rapes girls, tortures others to become a part of their group, and binge drinks, then I am afraid for the future society.

So what can women and men do to change guyland? I think for women, they need to stop encouraging this behavior and also stop trying desperately to be a token member of guyland. For example, Kimmel discusses the role of women in guyland and how they have the “misguided notion of being equal to the guys” (Kimmel 100). One girl in particular was trying to assert her equality to the men by hooking up with a guy she did not know after drinking a lot of guys under the table. She believes that guys see her as equal and respect her as such, but little does she know, she has just become a token in their world. For her to sleep with a guy that she barely knows, she is giving off the vibe that men are still dominant and that a woman must use sex in order to be recognizable in guyland. Also, she puts herself at a risk by drinking as much as she did because now she has made herself available to being taken advantage of. A woman trying to be equal to a guy in guyland is not possible because the only way to get them to notice her is to use her body to be validated. It is a disgusting practice that allows men to stay at the head of the situation. Women need to discourage these practices by not allowing themselves to be tricked into thinking they could ever be a part of guyland. They need to stop dating these guys who disrespect people in the ways that guyland encourages, and become enough for themselves instead of needing approval from men. They also need to stop going to these parties with guys who are notorious for bad behavior because they are only putting themselves in a bad situation. This is not to say that a girl who gets raped is asking for it, just that girls need to be aware of dangerous people and stay away from them. I’m not sure this will end guyland, but it will help girls to not become sport for guyland members. As for other guys, this is the hard part. I have not completely come up with a fool proof method for overturning guyland, but I know that it is going to take the participation of other males. The reason this is difficult is because a lot of guys have been bred for guyland since they were little children. Their fathers were members, and have brought up their sons to be shining members as well. But if there was a way that guys could see that they have other options, that being a man is not synonymous with being violent, I think it could work. How that is to happen, I have no idea yet. It is difficult because I feel as though the parents wouldn’t allow their sons to take part in women’s study classes in high school as well as learning about homosexuality and the harmful effects of gay bashing. I hope I can figure out a more thoughtful plan for guys to stop the events in guyland as I read on.