Where’s The Hair or Masculinity Ain’t All We’ve Cracked It Up To Be
I apologize for the general messiness of this post. Sometimes what does on in my head isn’t pretty and sometimes I can’t find an organized way to write it. I still have to write it though.
Another day, another ridiculously obtuse editorial about (that’s right–Edwards’ hair has become a proper noun). This time, the compares Edwards’ apparently over-groomed Hair to Fred Thompson’s denial, and thus outright lie, about his history as a sometime .
What finally has enraged me about the Hair Issue is that the Edwards campaign’s initial response to mitigate the importance of how much Edwards’ haircuts cost (he claimed not to know the actual cost which isn’t hard to believe in the case of a presidential candidate–?), is that the same media outlets, and at times even the same journalists and pundits helped refuse to take responsibility for the part they played in making his personal grooming/masculinity an issue in the first place. Remember the and the “ that got hours and hours of play on numerous media outlets and blogs? God forbid a man wanting to look good on TV. It wasn’t just or , it was Nora Roberts, John Roberts, , etc., etc., etc..
Conservative pundits have been making an issue of Edwards’ masculinity since he announced his candidacy (if not before). Of course his campaign tried to mitigate the Hair Issue–the media have been breaking his balls (“if he had any” Limbaugh would say) over his supposed metrosexual tendencies throughout the campaign. That’s like watering a mint plant near your front porch and then pretending that you had nothing to do with the noxious weed taking over your entire front yard. The sheer denseness involved in this silent denial is stunning to me. And what the hell does Cohen mean by calling an expensive haircut a “Euro-trashy indulgence?” Is he trying to make the sissy French connection to Edwards as well? Has Cohen no pride? (And I won’t even get into Cohen’s justification for discounting Edwards’ credibility as a presidential candidate. It seems that work, research, expertise in one’s field, and years of legislative service don’t count for much. What matters most is that you’ve sponsored some “important legislation” like the towering legislator George W. Bush. Duh. Cohen may not buy Edwards’ efforts to find some relief for the poor in America, but I think many poor Americans do because at least someone is talking about their situtation. One thing is certain–you don’t win elections by focusing on the poor.)
For weeks I’ve been thinking about how Americans’ preschool notions of masculinity and femininity have gotten us where we are today. And where would that be? In a country where citizens make completely fucked up choices, not only about who we elect, but also who we protect (more on that later). We can’t be counted on to elect men and women of conscience, integrity, and experience–the election of George W. Bush (TWICE) and the media frenzy that Fred Thompson continues to generate among political pundits is evidence enough of that. Thompson and Bush are the men most of us would so naturally that qualifies them for the presidency. They wear boots and speak in scripted phrases lifted from old Westerns. Their contrived masculinity is what wins Americans over–not the real bravery of men and women who volunteer to serve their country in combat situations and have the courage to speak truth to power when its necessary. No. Americans prefer the faux masculine men who must perform their masculinity as if they acting out parts in Bonanza. Men like Bush and Thompson don’t worry about looking good on camera (at least not when we’re paying attention). They don’t mess around with things like diplomatic negotiations. They probably don’t even eat quiche. They are men. And aren’t we proud?
But let’s go on because I promised to connect this whole masculinity thing to Americans’ equally fucked up notions about who is worth protecting. I’ve written about intimate partner violence before and this summer has been a stellar one as far as providing examples of the national news media once again reacting with shocked surprise after another and another wife and son were murdered by their father. As if that wasn’t insulting and disappointing enough, I watched as pundits like Chris Matthews fell in love with Fred Thompson’s bad imitation of John Wayne, well, really the pundits fell in love with Thompson’s bad imitation of George W. Bush doing a bad imitation of John Wayne. We feminize Democratic candidates like John Edwards because they are good looking, don’t think wars are the best way to resolve conflicts, and seem to care others? Because they don’t talk about kicking Iran’s or Iraq’s ass all the time? All that sauntering around in cowboy boots is such an obvious move to overcompensate for our sense of national insecurity and fear since 9/11. It couldn’t it be an clearer really–we are letting masculinists rule our politics. We want to see American masculinity on display around the world because we think somehow it might protect us. Like , we are seduced by a contrived masculinity that for some reason we think presidents ought to have. As long as we make decisions based upon 1950s film characters and idealized versions of masculinity and femininity, we will continue to make bad choices about who we elect and who we protect. And there is a definite connection between the two. Is it any wonder we elect men like George W. Bush to be our president?
I’ve written about intimate partner violence before. Intimate partner violence is committed by both men and women, but women commit intimate partner violence with MUCH less frequency than men and the violence committed by women tends to be much less serious overall. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I’ve discussed this before in the context of the Darren Mack case. But here’s where I get really angry–I cannot understand how Americans continue being surprised by intimate partner violence, and particularly, intimate partner violence directed against women and children. It happens all the time, and in most cases, there are plenty of warning signs. Charla Mack warned those around her that . The Virginia Tech student, Cho Seung Hui, . And in the case of Chris Benoit’s murder of his wife and son, ” before dropping the complaint and the divorce. Oh, but how could we possibly have guessed what they might become violent?
Here’s how:
- On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.16
- Women are much more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. In 2000, intimate partner homicides accounted for 33.5 percent of the murders of women and less than four percent of the murders of men.17
- Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause18 , and evidence exists that a significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.19
- Research suggests that injury related deaths, including homicide and suicide, account for approximately one-third of all maternal mortality cases, while medical reasons make up the rest. But, homicide is the leading cause of death overall for pregnant women, followed by cancer, acute and chronic respiratory conditions, motor vehicle collisions and drug overdose, peripartum and postpartum cardiomyopthy, and suicide.20
(Statistics on intimate partner homicide from the for 1993-2001.)
What I’m waiting for is the murder that will shock us enough to actually do something about intimate partner violence as a country. Compare the response the nation had to Michael Vick’s indictment for dogfighting to the response for death of Chris Benoit’s family. In the case of Vick, there were street protests in New York and thousands of calls to the NFL and the Atlanta Falcons in addition to the press coverage. The press coverage surrounding the Benoit case centered on his “Roid Rage” rather than on the murdered victims. Again and again, the press misses the chance to galvanize the public about how common intimate partner violence is, how our strict definition of what is masculine contributes to violence in general and violence directed against women, and what we can personally do about it.
We do feel shocked at the violence, but as a nation we’ve known for several years that , yet we keep pretending that we don’t know women are being brutalized and murdered day in and day out by those close to them. Perhaps ? Periodic shock is not enough anymore.
Let me take you back to a post I wrote about how the choices women can now make frighten many Americans–men and women. You only need look at someone like to realize how frightened many women are by the choices other women can now make. Women can choose whether or not to have children, whether or not to marry, whether or not to be sexually active, whether or not to divorce, whether or not to be a stay at home mom, whether or not to have the cervical cancer vaccine, whether or not to use contraception–the choices go on and on. And those choices threaten our notion of what it is to be feminine or masculine, woman or man.
Fear breeds brutality, and our increasingly out of whack ideas about how masculinity and femininity should be performed continues to plaque this nation with a legacy of acceptable aggression and violence against women by their male intimate partners. Women are brutalized in disproportionate numbers, whether they be pregnant or not, mothers or not, wives or not, sisters or not, daughters or not. We see this brutality demonstrated by . We see this brutality demonstrated by the crimes of disturbed men who . We see this brutality demonstrated by the vehement rhetoric against the freedom of women by some religious groups who view women’s ability to make choices contrary to their beliefs to be a threat. We see this brutality and lack of protection in the violence women experience every day throughout the United States.
Gender roles are constructed by all of us (men and women) and we are all responsible for the bad decisions we make based upon those constructions. What the hell is wrong with us? It doesn’t have to be this confusing or this tragic.
Similar Posts:
- Darren Mack Was A Perfectly Normal Abuser
- Charla Mack: Victim of Darren Mack, A Perfectly Normal Abuser
- Elizabeth Edwards Opens The John Edwards Campaign Office In Reno
Enjoy this post? Leave a comment below or . You also can sign up for email delivery by .
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
[...] OK…so this is kind of old news (from CNET). Somehow I missed it…and if it did hit the local headlines, my apologies for my Google alerts to fail me. Anyway, since it’s not in Myrna’s RSS feed I’m wondering if the usual suspects for ballyhooing this about are too focused on John Edwards hair hahaha! [...]
[...] Its official–man loving Republicans admire Fred Thompson as a candidate because of his impressive height and countenance. Have the noticed that he seems to try to be out Bushing Bush when the country clearly wants the opposite? But more importantly, what does this fetishization of hyper-masculinity say about the Republican Party? I tell you what it says. You know all that take about a nanny state? Republicans clearly want a daddy state and Big Daddy Thompson will be happy to give it to them. I’m trademarking that by the way: Daddy state TM. [...]
[...] Where do I begin? First, the central subject of this little instructive fable, the woman with the huge breasts, apparently doesn’t say a word to anyone. The men, including her escort and Farley all talk around her and her breasts while they are talking about her and her breasts. Surprising….unfortunately not to me. Farley takes the popular “blame the breasts for the behavior” line of thinking; i.e., men have to not only look at breasts, but comment upon them as well because, you know, they’re there. Perhaps Farley forgot his human nature/perpetuating the species analogy above? Because if you’re following that line of logic, its only natural that American women enlarge and expose their breasts to attract men. What those analogies don’t explain is the freedom and confidence so many men feel to comment aloud upon the body parts of women they don’t know, particularly when they are in groups. Performing masculinity for other men is often what such behavior is really about. Farley’s story illustrates this behavior perfectly. One man escorts his scantily clad woman (I’m assuming she was scantily clad because it would be a shame if all this fuss was just about large covered breasts wouldn’t it?) in order to show off for other men. And, as if on cue, he becomes aggressive when another man challenges the masculinity he is demonstrating by escorting a woman that other men can’t help themselves from noticing. There’s a whole New York City website devoted to this phenomenon called Holla Back NYC because it happens all the time to all types of women whether their bodies are covered from head to toe or not. Street harassment is an everyday occurrence for most women no matter how they are dressed. [...]
Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Not to mention this case:
Good post.
I’m not sure you can compare the Benoit case with Vick. In Benoit’s case, Benoit took care of the problem. He made himself dead. Centering on his “roid rage” is actually somewhat responsible because the “sport” he was involved with has a serious steroid problem and refuses to acknowledge it. The steroids do things to your brain that cause actions. That’s no excuse, but the media attempted to focus on an issue that is affecting an industry and can lead to things. If they had immediately focused on the abuse part of it, I think people would have tuned out. Benoit showed no signs of that. By the accounts I saw, they were a pretty happy family. If you focused on abuse with a happy family, you’re just scaring people into thinking that every family has these problems. They don’t.
Michael Vick, on the other hand, based on conversations (and laws!) that have been promoted on this very site, is a perfect candidate for acting out against women. I’m surprised you didn’t draw that comparison. His treatment of animals should put him at the top of the list for potential abusers of women around him.
But I see your reasoning also. You wonder why we care so much about dog abuse and not enough about familial abuse. I couldn’t agree more. I find it pretty pathetic myself.
Finally, in fairness, can we expect the name “The Hairdo” to forever be banished from the pages of this site? Or is your use of that so ironic that it’s not ironic and comes across as totally hypocritical? I mean, who can fault a guy for wanting to look good on TV?
For once, I agree with you about the huge problem domestic violence poses. I would like to know how you propose we fix it.
It has been my personal experience that many times the women are part of the problem. Before you jump all over me for that, I don’t mean that they deserve to be beaten or killed or anything like that. I mean that even when given help they go back to the same loser that beats them.
I have personally inserted myself, even fairly recently in a situation like this with a friend. After he beats her ass, and goes to jail she gets a restraining order. He shows up at her house with a weapon (nun-chucks) she calls the police, then decides not to press charges. With in weeks, he’s living there again and my family is now in danger because he knows where we live. In talking to her mom, my wife and I are not the first ones to try to help and this is not the first time he’s been arrested for this very thing and she’s taken him back. It is my firm belief that it is only a matter time before something serious happens.
So how do we, as a society, help these women who refuse to help themselves before it’s too late?
A shout from the amen corner. One proposal might be to require filing domestic abuse charges whether the woman wants to cooperate or not. The down side is that these cases are hard to make, and some might argue the statute could discourage calls for help. Another issue we need to deal with revolves around the children — under what circumstances can (must?) we remove kids from these environments?
Ryan have I ever used the “Hairdo” name? I have mentioned that he has an impressive head of hair before but I’m fairly sure that’s the Gleaner’s term. I just did a site search and couldn’t find it. I have commented on Romney’s hair as well–he’s got a good head of it as well. That’s exactly the point I was trying to make about the Vick case–that it was so easy for PETA to get thousands of people to make phone calls of protest–it says something anyway. I’ve made the point on previous posts about how animal abuse is often a sign of domestic abuse and that pets are often abused to emotionally torture family intimates. About the roid rage—okay, I see your point, but I still also see mine. And like I pointed out in the post–there were plenty of signs that the marriage was not normal or happy or violence free. In other words, we have no reason to be surprised that he was violent toward his family. We do have a reason to be surprised that he killed them. For me, roid rage is the secondary issue. It doesn’t make someone kill someone although it can definitely create the conditions that would contribute to this kind of tragedy. For much of the media to blame it on the roids was wrong. Dan Abrahms on MSNBC was one great exception to that in the media coverage.
Todd–I totally agree that women are often if not half responsible for all of this. And not necessarily in specific cases but overall. Men and women create this culture together and that’s the way it has to be solved. There are several organizations (NOMAS is one I can think of) that target the problem from the angle of changing our conceptions of masculinity. The UK has embarked on a nationwide program using their principles. Men and women both reinforce, or at least allow the attitude we saw in the VATech case: “Its just a domestic.” I think our political choices reflect our warped sense of what it means to be a man or a woman. Take Hillary Clinton—she’s being called the masculine candidate by some (as opposed to Obama). How screwed up is that? She has to try and out man uber men to become president.
If you’ve never used “Hairdo” then I apologize. I could swear you had.
I don’t think you can change society’s conceptions of masculinity until another generation or two start leading things. It can only be done from the start of lives. And even that is a tremendously uphill battle. Until you can convince a huge portion of the population that both sexes should be treated the same there isn’t hope.
I have one of each kid. My son is treated by people like the typical boy, and my daughter like the stereotypical girl. Except by us and our closest friends. My daughter used to get dress-up clothes as gifts from family members “because she’s a girl.” Meanwhile, she’s a kick-ass soccer player and loves to watch baseball with me. I can disappear the clothes but the fact that she received them hasn’t changed. Plus, she also like the dress-up stuff. I can treat both kids the same at home, but they’re being treated differently in the world. How do you fix that? By not exposing them to stuff? By moving to a hippie colony? I don’t think it’s possible, but with each generation, it will improve slightly. My kids’ kids will move slightly in the right direction and hopefully, eventuallly we’ll get there.
As for what te Beacon said, that’s really tough. We call things “domestic” mainly because we think they’re private. And some things are private and should be private. So forcing an arrest, for instance, can just exacerbate things that might not be necessary. Not to go all “Darren Mack fathers rights group guy” on you, but until the system starts treating everyone fairly, you kind of have to let things work themselves out sometimes. I think that if cops see signs of physical abuse, they won’t just leave. But if there are no signs, and the person who called (or better, the neighbor heard something and called) doesn’t want to press charges, then why start people through the already overcrowded system only to have the situation right back to where it was in 24 or 48 hours?
Yeah, but a nationwide movement would make much more of a difference than what we do now. I agree that everyone makes choices that reinforce our gender roles, but unless we are talking about it all the time and pointing it out when its happening, we are doing little if nothing. And no worries about the hair thing….
Anyway, its not that girls and boys need to be treated exactly the same, but they do need to feel that they are equal. My problem is really with those who are hyper masculine and hyper feminine because that’s where the gender roles become rigid and you get men who thinks their masculinity is demonstrated through dogfighting or fighting or being aggressive. Just like its awful when women are excessively passive or afraid…for instance.
Sure, people have to be treated fairly by the justice system, but for as many men who feel they aren’t there are as many if not more women. Its better now that it used to be but the number of women and children who ended up in poverty thanks to divorce (and no child support payments) was incredible. It still happens just like there are women who work the system. Ultimately, children need to be treated as children and not mouths to feed or visitation rights you purchase.
I would just like to say that we know way too much about violence in the home and how it escalates (particularly during or just after a divorce) to do that “let things work themselves out.” That’s why I get so angry when people come out and say “But he was such a nice, normal guy–they seemed like a happy family.” To me, that’s just more evidence that our priorities are completely whacked.
And on a mostly unrelated matter you may want to remove Mimi Miyagi from your blogroll. The domain has been taken over by porn squatters.
I’ll jump back in to re-iterate the question about getting kids out of theses circumstances. There are a couple of things we know about abusers — they usually come from abusive families; and, they do as adults what they were shown as children. I’d hold out more hope for improvement in the next generations IF I believed that we’re doing enough to remove either the home violence, or to remove the kids from the home violence.
Oh thanks Cash
A few responses:
1. Todd: While women do participate in gender binarization and stratification, once we’ve entered the domain of actual intimate partner violence, why don’t we stop blaming her, and start asking when men are going to stop terrorizing, brutalizing, and murdering women. “Why doesn’t she just leave?” is the kind of question that ticks me off. “Why doesn’t he stop beating her?” seems like the more obvious, and yet more elusive question in these situtations.
2. There’s quite a link, as Myrna has been astute at pointing out between bullying which involves language which calls masculinity into question, and the school shootings committed in recent years. Call someone a fag long enough, make them out to be not a man (or the right kind of man, or whatever other unique angle this stuff takes), and they’ll eventually show you just what a man they can be by shooting a bunch of women.
While we may never entirely wipe out gender inequality, but the current anti-bullying emphasis in schools and communities must, must, must include the elimination of gender and sexuality based taunting and teasing that is contributing to the problem of devaluing women, stigmatizing LGBT communities, and creating a masculinity in which violence seems to be the ultimate proving ground – exactly the sort of teasing, commentary, and attention that have continued to be aimed at John Edwards’ hair.
Amen
Tonight on channell 7 –
Primetime – “Family Secrets” – a really provocative piece on an abuse case in N.Y. – the husband got 26 year or more so oit was ground-breaking. The 13-yr old son was made to take a video of a particularly intense situation that put the mother over the edge…she protected he husband and her family for many years…the judge broke down and cried while viewing the video…the woman was very brave to finally get help – he was a scarey guy…