Saturday, December 03, 2005
Catharsis: The politics of pink
At the workhouse, they had been trying for months to hire a full-time teacher who could help inmates study for their GED. Lord knows we need more than one full-time person for that, but they've finally found someone. It's a woman, probably Caucasian, although I'm not sure about that. They wanted a man, preferably of color, since the inmates (all male and mostly minorities) might have an easier time relating to him. (As it stands, the two existing full-time staff at the learning center are old white ladies, and the two volunteers/interns—myself included—are also women.)
The senior staffer made an announcement about the hire to inmates today. The first question: "Is it a woman?" Yes, we tried to find a male teacher but couldn't. Great, is she young? Excitement, glee.
I don't know what happened to me, but I swear I could've killed the guy with my bare hands in that moment.
You think I'm crazy. I'm not. I guess I've just reached the tipping point where if I hear one more man talk about women as if they were objects—things that existed primarily for their entertainment, I would lose it.
I'm not reading too much into this particular inmate's comments. You know how some men, when they talk to you, just have that look in their eyes. The smirk that conveys so much. The ones who act like they KNOW you like their flirtatious BS and therefore keep spewing it. That is exactly the kind of guy he is.
What is perhaps most nefarious about this is the fact that he's incarcerated and still thinks he can chat up a free woman. (I'll wait till my birthday next month to write about my concern over what I feel is my growing conservatism.) How many times do you need to ask someone if they're single? Why would you ask that in the first place? And over my dead body will I bring you a Qur'an from my home when there's one easily accessible in the jail's library, so stop asking me every time you see me.
I know their comments, questions, and the pieces of paper they hand you with their phone numbers and release dates written on them, mean nothing to them. But to me, it just accentuates the underlying culture that encourages men to see women as "easy" or desirous of their attention.
Maybe I'm not making any sense. I'm too angry to be articulate, and have been for a long time. Angry about society's expectations of and attitudes towards women. My sister and I went to buy a card for my cousin's 5th birthday, and the first one she picked out had a glittery picture of Cinderella on it. "Awwwwwwww," she said. Seeing the revulsion on my face, she tried to find something else. "It should at least have some glitter on it." What the ....??? I said our family needed to stop getting extremely girly things for her (which she has plenty of anyway—apparently all the family friends think alike too). "But she is a girl." I gave up. We got something pink.
In her 1995 documentary, Blue Eyed, Jane Elliott told a group of women in her study to stop "being cute," not in the physical sense, but in terms of behavior. It was blunt, but she was on to something. If you relied on media depictions alone you'd think every woman in America is a sucker for expensive jewelry and would like nothing better as a holiday present. And what's with giving women teddy bears as a token of affection? We're not kids! (I'm sure some women appreciate stuff like that and I don't mean to imply they're stuck at a low level of mental development. My beef is with the popular notions of all women being equally and unfailingly in love with things like this.)
Of course, we do ascribe agency to women when it comes to sexual norms. Remember how many times Lynndie England was called a slut for having a child out of wedlock? Did anyone refer to this sexual relationship in similar terms when discussing Charles Graner, the child's father? Were the portrayals of the two comparable?
Enough ranting. I may have lumped together several parallel but distinct issues, but I hope to get people to think more critically about the implicit messages that surround all of us like heat in a microwave. (Sorry; trying to be poetic here. Not really my thing.)
The senior staffer made an announcement about the hire to inmates today. The first question: "Is it a woman?" Yes, we tried to find a male teacher but couldn't. Great, is she young? Excitement, glee.
I don't know what happened to me, but I swear I could've killed the guy with my bare hands in that moment.
You think I'm crazy. I'm not. I guess I've just reached the tipping point where if I hear one more man talk about women as if they were objects—things that existed primarily for their entertainment, I would lose it.
I'm not reading too much into this particular inmate's comments. You know how some men, when they talk to you, just have that look in their eyes. The smirk that conveys so much. The ones who act like they KNOW you like their flirtatious BS and therefore keep spewing it. That is exactly the kind of guy he is.
What is perhaps most nefarious about this is the fact that he's incarcerated and still thinks he can chat up a free woman. (I'll wait till my birthday next month to write about my concern over what I feel is my growing conservatism.) How many times do you need to ask someone if they're single? Why would you ask that in the first place? And over my dead body will I bring you a Qur'an from my home when there's one easily accessible in the jail's library, so stop asking me every time you see me.
I know their comments, questions, and the pieces of paper they hand you with their phone numbers and release dates written on them, mean nothing to them. But to me, it just accentuates the underlying culture that encourages men to see women as "easy" or desirous of their attention.
Maybe I'm not making any sense. I'm too angry to be articulate, and have been for a long time. Angry about society's expectations of and attitudes towards women. My sister and I went to buy a card for my cousin's 5th birthday, and the first one she picked out had a glittery picture of Cinderella on it. "Awwwwwwww," she said. Seeing the revulsion on my face, she tried to find something else. "It should at least have some glitter on it." What the ....??? I said our family needed to stop getting extremely girly things for her (which she has plenty of anyway—apparently all the family friends think alike too). "But she is a girl." I gave up. We got something pink.
In her 1995 documentary, Blue Eyed, Jane Elliott told a group of women in her study to stop "being cute," not in the physical sense, but in terms of behavior. It was blunt, but she was on to something. If you relied on media depictions alone you'd think every woman in America is a sucker for expensive jewelry and would like nothing better as a holiday present. And what's with giving women teddy bears as a token of affection? We're not kids! (I'm sure some women appreciate stuff like that and I don't mean to imply they're stuck at a low level of mental development. My beef is with the popular notions of all women being equally and unfailingly in love with things like this.)
Of course, we do ascribe agency to women when it comes to sexual norms. Remember how many times Lynndie England was called a slut for having a child out of wedlock? Did anyone refer to this sexual relationship in similar terms when discussing Charles Graner, the child's father? Were the portrayals of the two comparable?
Enough ranting. I may have lumped together several parallel but distinct issues, but I hope to get people to think more critically about the implicit messages that surround all of us like heat in a microwave. (Sorry; trying to be poetic here. Not really my thing.)
