Little Boys

Gus is posting about an important topic, one that's been especially on my mind today.

I am the mother of an only son, an amazingly kind and gentle man who is so strong that he takes away my breath, often, regularly, spectacularly. I am the older sister of two little brothers, and the aunt of three nephews. I am the great-aunt of the world's cutest almost-one-year-old little boy, and I am -- as you may have heard -- a grandmother to my grandson. I held him a few minutes after his birth, looked into his eyes, said and meant "Namaste," and have been madly in love, ever since.

It's a sign of the Goddess' grand sense of humor that she's sent so many little boys into the life of this militant feminist, this Dianic witch, this old woman who would still love, at some point, to nurture a girl-child of my line. Maybe the joke's on the young men.

Today, I was considering the fact that there can be something so incredibly, burningly pure about a little boy's need for certain things. (It may be so for little girls, as well, I just wouldn't know.) Even when they're not the objects that I'd prefer to provide, I've coughed up the cash for them, simply because it was obvious to me that the little boy in question truly needed the object, and by "needed" I mean, "had to have in order to actualize," had to have in order for the universe not to veer off just that much wrong.

When Son was all gangly bones and adolescent longings and full of the need to move on, we did the campus tours, and he set foot on the Earth at Princeton, and he looked at me (a background of wisteria by the gate, as I remember it), and he told me that he needed to go there. I didn't like it. They had all-male eating clubs at the time. From the time that he'd been in my womb, I'd imagined sending him to St. John's in Annapolis for the education that I'd wanted, but couldn't have. But what I liked and wanted and what that nascent young man needed were two different things. Son went to Princeton.

At one point in his childhood, Son wanted a kit that took fingerprints -- a way to catch other people's secrets -- more than he wanted anything. I don't mean that he "wanted" it, I mean that, in order to be and become who he had to be, Son needed it. I was all the way broke at the time. I don't remember what bill I paid late, but I did get him the fingerprint kit with the magnifying glass, and the dusting powder, and the secret chart that explained everything.

G/Son and I have lately been enjoying the whole Redwall series, and G/Son has taken wholeheartedly, in the way that only little boys can take wholeheartedly, to the story of Matthias, the warrior who defends Redwall Abbey against all comers. I introduced him to the series, feeling that a steady diet of Pixar and Batman were somehow not meeting his deeper need for myth and for a hero with whom to identify. For a few weeks now, G/Son has been telling me, in that way that little boys have of telling you, and telling you that this REALLY matters, that he needed a sword and a shield, just like Martin and Matthias, the warriors. I don't like war, I don't like the notion of chopping up other beings with swords, I don't like the societal story that men get their value based upon whom they can kill. I don't know if this deep need for a weapon in all the little boys that I've known is genetic, or cultural, or some interesting brew of both.

But I know true need when I see it.

And I think that it just kills your own soul to see need that raw and to ignore it. I do.

Today, Son and I took G/Son to the Maryland Renaissance Festival and we ate spiced pecans and we drank meade and we listened to fiddles and bagpipes and we bought a wooden sword with a blue handle and a wooden shield with a blue dragon and we got a blue battle axe dripping blood painted on G/Son's forearm and we had, all in all, a perfect Autumn day.

Was I right? Was I wrong? Am I fostering exactly the wrong thing in the next generation? Am I simply giving way to a cultural/biological imperative? I don't know.

I only know that need that certain and that pure should be met.

That the world is better when such needs are filled and filled by one who loves the person who burns inside the flame of that need. When I was leaving this afternoon, Son told G/Son to "say 'thank you' to Nonna for everything," even though G/Son already had. G/Son looked with the eyes of his old soul deep into my old eyes and said:

"Thank you for getting me my sword and my shield."

I said, "You're welcome. I could tell that you needed them."

Then I went to my car and broke down in tears. Sometimes, my life is too wonderful for me to even bear.

I hope that Gus and our other elders can give us advice about little boys. How do we raise them in the 21st Century? What should their Nonnas be telling them? I want a better way to sister, to aunt, to mother, to grandmother our little boys. I just don't know what it is. And I'm not sure it's the sun dance that Gus proposes, but I'm willing to listen to all sorts of advice on this. I'm the one person who needs to know: the person placed in the position of sister, aunt, etc. But I don't know.

I only love and hope and try to provide what's needed. Goddess willing, that's enough.

My New Name For A Blog

What Echidne Said.

Just Because

It's the slight raising of the shoulders whenever he tells you the real truth that makes you want to take him to bed and make it ok.

You Know, They Used To At Least Have To Pretend Differently

On the May 29 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, host Bill O'Reilly asserted that the proposed immigration reform bill is supported by "people who hate America, and they hate it because it's run primarily by white, Christian men. Let me repeat that. America is run primarily by white, Christian men, and there is a segment of our population who hates that, despises that power structure." He continued: "So they, under the guise of being compassionate, want to flood the country with foreign nationals, unlimited, unlimited, to change the complexion -- pardon the pun -- of America. Now, that's hatred, too."


I don't think it bodes well for those of us who are rather emphatically not white xian males that they now feel free to be so blunt.

More here.

Men In Kilts. I Am Just Sayin'

My New Name For A Blog

What Sia said. Go read the whole thing. No. Really. Go read the whole thing.

To anyone who thinks that words still do not matter, and that I should just read "her" whenever I read "him" or or see "her" when the image is male, I say this:

I would like to offer a modest proposal. It's this: Men have had power over the history we read, the words we use and the money we spend and the wars we fight for centuries. They have carved and painted images of a the powerful male for us to see and portrayed women as the weaker sex. They have projected this patriarchal view of Father God and Male Leader for over 5,000 years and hidden any evidence to the contrary. Now it's our turn.

Let's use only Her words and Her images for the next 5,000 years. Only women can be Priests and Presidents, and let's not pay men anywhere near what we make for the same work. Let literature, film and music portray women as powerful and men as weak tools and victims and then let us use our religions to suggest that they have a good but lesser place, and that is in the home. We will control their sexual behavior and their reproductive rights, of course, because they are not mature enough to make these decisions on their own. Meanwhile, our charming boys can "rule" the domestic sphere, and we women will honor them for their dedication and compassion by praising them from the pulpit while refusing to pass, let alone fund, child care, health care, education reform or social initiatives that would serve them and their families.

And here we ask (as another modest proposal once did), "Who in their right minds would want to subjugate, humiliate and legislate another human being in this way?"

It's a long list - How much time ya got?

It is hugely important to provide Goddesses for both women and men. It is hugely important. It changes the world.

Now, go read the whole thing.

My New Name For A Blog

What Majikthise said.

Beltane and SCOTUS. Not As Unrelated As You Might imagine.

Wicca is often accused of being a-male. I certainly practice a Dianic form of Wicca that, well, that generally ignores the male. It works for me.

Perhaps it's the coming of Beltane, when my circle-sister K. always demands that we invoke the Green Man, that has me considering what it means to be a male: the union of the king and the land. Perhaps it's seeing Son being such a wonderful father to G/Son, changing diapers, cuddling, gentling to sleep, providing for, ensuring the future of.

Miniver Cheevey explains what it can mean to be a man in 21st Century America:

Nothing is stopping the bleeding. There seems to be nothing they can do. They talk about trying some drugs, but then they decide things are going too fast to give time to let them work. So that leaves only surgery as a possibility. Surgery means hosing her out. It means killing the baby. So obviously, we look into other options. Only now, my wife is so out of it, from blood loss, from the painkillers, that the doctor said she is no longer able to legally consent. Now I'm handed a clipboard. On it is consent to basically give my wife an abortion and kill our future child. And it is all on me, my decision, mine alone. Something I never thought I'd ever face, ever have to deal with. Made worse by being a decision of either kill the baby or potentially watch both my wife and the baby die. The doctors did not say at this point that it was absolutely necessary. Maybe more blood could be transfused in. Maybe she wasn't dilated—they hadn't figured it out yet. Still too much blood. So then there I was, facing the sort of choice that you usually see only in hypotheticals in ethics and philosophy classes. Only it was real. It was my wife. And I didn't have exactly a lot of time to think about it. It was just me and the clipboard. An empty line there, marked for my signature. My wife bleeding right next to me. The ultrasound of my baby, and its heartbeat, fresh in my mind from minutes before. I cannot begin to describe how I felt at that moment.

At an early point in D-i-L's labor, when the doctor was trying to impose his will on D-i-L, Son said calmly to the doctor, "Let's step outside and discuss this." He was calm, "Let's step outside." The doctor was freaked out; he thought that Son might be about to punch him in the nose. The doula was amazed; she came out later and told me, "Your son is stronger than almost any father that I've ever seen." Son just wanted to discuss the issue someplace where it wouldn't interfere w/ D-i-L's work of breathing, concentrating, bringing G/Son into the world. To me, that's the epitome of male power, the ability to protect wife and child, to deal with the outside world so that the inner world of childbirth and magic isn't imposed upon.

I'm sad that SCOTUS did what it did. Something in me doesn't believe that this will be allowed to stand. Sometimes, men are, they just are, called upon to stand in that doorway between life and death, that place where their wife's blood and their child's heartbeat run into each other. Sometimes, they are handed a clipboard and asked to step up, to be the Green Man, Pan, Dionysis, and Apollo all at once. Sometimes, they are called upon to stand in the breach, to tell the doctor to step into the hall, to do what they'd hoped not to have to do. I'm sorry that SCOTUS has made that moment so much more fraught, so much more difficult. I think that living male in this patriarchy is already way, way, way too difficult.

I had only one child, Son. Son and D-i-L have likely had their only child, a son. And in this insane patriarchy, in this culture of war and domination and acquisition, I have tried, Son and D-i-L are trying, to raise a man who can thrive and do the right thing in this world, a man who can face this scenario:

And it is all on me, my decision, mine alone. Something I never thought I'd ever face, ever have to deal with.

May the Goddess guard our sons. May she guard them as they must navigate this Roberts/Alito world.

May the Goddess and the Green Man guard Justice Stevens. It's already as difficult as it needs to be.

A Media Culture That Idolizes Voyeuristic Violence

What Woody Guthrie's Guitar said

When you throw 300 million people together in a dog-eat-dog competitive society, with declining resources, artificial scarcities, and zero-sum rules for everything from kindergarten to love and sex;
and then put at the disposal of the frantic, obsessive creatures scurrying around under the ultimate pressure of "success" in this insane environment--it's not just school/job/love, it's the REST OF YOUR FUCKING LIFE--
virtually unlimited fire-power, and a media culture that idolizes and is saturated with voyeuristic violence, SOMEBODY (what are the odds? 1-300,000,000; lottery odds) is gonna crack...

Now add to this the fact that everybody in the game knows--at some level, and despite acre -feet of denial--in their heart of hearts, that they are not only doomed but disposable.

In a patriarchy, where access to acts of love and pleasure depends upon access to guns, power, and "success," it's not surprising that acts such as today's happen; it's surprising that they don't happen more often.

I'm conscious of not aping the mistakes of the Dobsons of the world, of not blaming my particular demons for everything that goes wrong in the world. But when this turns out to be an honor killing, who is going to be surprised? Patriarchy, pace Robin Morgan, ruins people with penises, too.

The Denigration Of Women Sells

Gwen Ifill -- the ONLY woman at a tablefull of men -- and whom I often fault for being too "balanced," tries to explain it in syllables of one word or less that Timmeh can understand. You go girl. You go.

Photo found here.

Tiny Penis Disease

It always brightens my day when a man completely gets it. Paul Waldman, a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America and author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success shows in this Alternet article that he completely gets it.

Last month saw Al Gore's triumphant return to Capitol Hill -- the once-ridiculed candidate now acknowledged as a visionary and treated with long-overdue respect. But the most remarkable moment of Gore's hours of testimony in both houses may have been one in which he wasn't even involved. It shined a light on both the changed atmosphere in Washington today, and the fear and loathing that that change is bringing on.

The most confrontational part of the day came when Gore was being questioned by Oklahoma senator, famed global warming skeptic and former chairman of the environment committee James Inhofe, in a battle of wits that was not exactly an equal match. Inhofe had trouble getting Gore to answer questions the way he wanted to, and kept interrupting him and complaining about the limited time he was given.

After some back and forth between Inhofe and Gore, the new chair of the committee, Barbara Boxer of California, put a hand on Inhofe's arm and said, "I want to talk to you a minute, please." After Boxer suggested that Inhofe give Gore the time to answer his questions, Inhofe replied, "Why don't we do this: at the end, you [Gore] can have as much time as you want to answer all the questions..." Boxer then interrupted: "No, that isn't the rule. You're not making the rules. You used to when you did this," she said, holding up the chair's gavel. "Elections have consequences. So I make the rules."

Boxer spoke with appropriate authority: not angry, not loud but unmistakably firm. There was no doubt who was in charge in that room. You could almost see the steam coming out of Inhofe's ears, not only because he had been deprived of his power, but because he was deprived of it by a woman. She even held up the gavel, the symbol of that power, and practically taunted him with it. Freud couldn't have scripted it much better.

The response in some quarters was unsurprising. Michael Savage, whose hateful rants are reportedly heard by 8 million radio listeners every day, hit the roof. Referring repeatedly to "foul-mouthed, foul-tempered women in high places bossing men around," he opined that the image of a woman giving a man orders would lead to more terrorist attacks (or something like that -- it was a little hard to follow).

And it isn't only extremists like Savage who are having trouble stomaching the idea of women in positions of increasing power. We now have a female speaker of the House, and the strong possibility of the first female president; the prospect is sending some men over the edge. MSNBC host Tucker Carlson recently described Hillary Clinton as "castrating, overbearing and scary." Why Carlson looks at the junior senator from New York and immediately fears for the safety of his testicles might be something he and his therapist should explore, but he's hardly alone -- after the election Chris Matthews wondered on the air if Nancy Pelosi was "going to castrate Steny Hoyer." And Matthews has gone through a series of man-crushes on politicians whom he sees as super-hunky in their masculine ways. First it was George W. Bush, then John McCain and the current object of Matthews' affections is Rudy Giuliani. "I think he did a great job," Matthews said about Giuliani's tenure in New York. "And I think the country wants a boss like that. You know, a little bit of fascism there."

If Rudy ends up getting the Republican nomination, it will be because the GOP primary voters ignore his stands on hot-button culture war issues in favor of that little bit of fascism they crave. And if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, we can expect a virtual explosion of sexist rhetoric, every last drop of it based in fear and anxiety. She already gets described with a whole series of derogatory adjectives that don't seem to ever be applied to male politicians -- she is "ambitious" (unlike the men running for president) and "calculating" (unlike every other politician), to take just two. U.S. News recently noted that a speech she gave "was devoid of hard edges, contrary to her longtime image among critics as a harridan and a polarizer." She must have appreciated the compliment. Conservative radio and TV host Glenn Beck admitted that Hillary Clinton's voice drives him crazy. "She's the stereotypical bitch, you know what I mean?" he said. "After four years, don't you think every man in America will go insane?" (ABC News recently announced that Beck will be offering his insightful commentary on Good Morning America.)

For years, our campaigns have been marked by the "gender gap," the fact that Democrats do marginally better among women and Republicans do better among men. The gender gap in the 2004 election was actually relatively small -- John Kerry won women's votes by 3 points (51 to 48), while George Bush won men's votes by 11 points (55 to 44). But it is the fact that the latter margin is so much larger than the former that is worth noting. It is men, and white men in particular, who are so easily persuaded by campaigns like the one Bush ran, which can be boiled down to, "I'm a manly man, and my opponent is a sissy." Bush beat Kerry among white men by an astounding 25 points.

Should Hillary Clinton be the nominee, the gender gap will no doubt be bigger than it ever has been before. Part of this will come from some women who might have voted Republican (or not voted) casting their votes for her. But more of the gap will come from men fleeing from her, spurred on by the likes of Savage, Carlson, Beck and Matthews insisting that if you vote for a woman, then you must not be a real man.

One can't avoid noticing that as a group, conservative media figures are not exactly secure in their masculinity. Forever promoting war when they avoided military service themselves and doubling over to protect their tender parts every time a strong woman appears on their television screens, it's no wonder they are so impressed by politicians who may not be real men but know how to present a convincing facsimile of manliness.

Much of the audience that tunes in to the corps of overcompensating pretend macho men is just as insecure about their manhood, ready to cast a manly, masculine vote lest anyone raise an eyebrow at their choice for president. That doesn't mean that Hillary Clinton -- or any female presidential candidate, for that matter -- can't win. But if she goes around holding up any long, firm objects, a lot of guys' heads might just explode.

This story about Boxer fascinates me, not the least because even after she said to Inhoffe, "I want to talk to you," Inhoffe continued to try to just keep talking to Gore as if Boxer weren't there. I doubt there's a woman in the work world who hasn't experienced something similar. The result was that Boxer had to chide him: "Elections have consequences. You don't make the rules anymore."

Waldman's spot on when he notes that conservative men sure do seem terrified of that great big Vagina Dentata in their minds. I still think that Newt Gingrich's assertion that the U.S. should just bomb Iran in order to show Iran that "you're tiny and we're not" says as much about conservative men's real concerns as anything that I've ever heard. EVER.

Interestingly, I had lunch w/ someone on the Hill who was repeating the Boxer/Inhoffe story. I think it's going to become iconic. It's sort of like Pelosi telling Bush to calm down and quit issuing threats, as if she were gently admonishing the least-bright of her grandchildren. The women are taking control. They're going to start out, at least, gentle and firm. But for those like Inhoffe who persist in pretending that the women don't even exist, much less exercise any power, well, gavels have lots of purposes.

Really, conservative men, it's going to happen. We can do it the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. You'll like the easy way a whole lot better in the end. Trust me.

~Someone at Eschaton Comments linked to this article today and I apologize for not remembering who it was.

~Sigh~