Gay Man Covertly Attends NOM Conference

[Content note: homophobia]

Recent college grad and blogger Carlos Maza recently attended the National Organization for Marriage's (NOM) "It Takes a Family to Raise a Village" conference in San Diego. This conference contained segments on homosexuality, defending marriage, and included a number of speakers known for, to put it generously, their anti-equality views on marriage.

Maza's account, which is pretty detailed, is interesting. If you follow this particular "culture war," not much about the conference is surprising, including the repeated mis-use and citing of Mark Regnerus' discredited study.

One of the more bizarre claims, entirely new to me, as the following, uttered by Douglas Allen:

"This is a puzzling one, but very interesting. The lesbian households, they tend to be much more likely to marry in the rates, not just in numbers, in numbers and rates, but they’re much less stable than the gay households. And lots of theories about why that is. You know, getting on the same menstrual cycle, getting really attached to your own biological child and not being willing to share the biological child with your female spouse." [emphasis added]

Wut the wut now?

Maza ends by talking about how he became kind of close to a young woman there who attended BYU. Despite their different views on homosexuality and marriage, they seemed to have much in common and she seemed to be kind, thoughtful and not motivated by anti-gay animus. "The enemy lines," he writes, "were blurrier" than he had previously imagined them to be. To him, the "us v. them" mentality seemed to have become stark mostly through the work and advocacy of NOM and the Ruth Institute. He notes:

"The ideological divide between me and the BYU student may have been small, but NOM had spent the entire weekend trying to widen it by teaching her that gays and lesbians - including me - are unstable, dangerous, and unworthy of raising their own families. Despite the promise to focus on 'marriage, not gayness,' ITAF had been a veritable crash course in demonizing LGBT people."

How sad.

I hope NOM and the Ruth Institute learn how to do a better job of bringing people together, rather than further polarizing society. Maybe one day, the LGBT people can be present at these conferences, not as undercover agents, but as people whose opinions matter with respect to our own health, autonomy, relationships, humanity, and morality.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go synchronize my lady cycle with my partner's.

Here's A Thought

[Content note: Rape culture, rape apologism, misogyny, anti-feminism]

The more a dude fails to understand, refuses to cite specific instances of, and caricatures his lady opponents' positions on abortion the less seriously he deserve to be taken with respect to the topic of abortion.

I mean, seriously. If the phrases "abortion lust" and "if [Todd Akin] were a Leftist Democrat, he'd get a pass" are in one's argumentative repetoire, dude is basically just dropping ping pong balls into the Making Shit Up Bucket of Bozo the Clown's Grand Prize Game.

It's weird to have to, like, spell that out, but what another rich irony about reproductive rights conversations. Although, let's be real here, this man's blog isn't so much a "conversation," but a one-way monologue in which he supports legislating away women's rights, but can't even bother to actually learn about, let alone fairly summarize or actually cite actual women's positions on the issue. Pro-choice women's views on abortion just aren't germane enough to his Absolute Moral Trooths to bother to learn.

What he doesn't seem to understand is that one can't even accurately summarize the opponent's positions, one is extremely unlikely to be able to "demolish" those positions.

But, sure. Perhaps he supposes that, hey, he's a man talking, so why shouldn't everyone just take his ignorant rantings about strumpets with "abortion lust" at face value? I mean, thank gawd above that we have a man to tell us all exactly what Todd Akin did and didn't say, complete with highlighted and underlined "Nos" just so it's extra-super-diddly-duper clear to all of us barely-literate abortion lustists, so he can then suggest we're making such a big deal out of nothing, geeeeez. After all, according to him, the big problem with Akin's statement is that it "wasn't good from a public relations standpoint."

Case Closed!

Apparently.


Seriously though, I continue to be amazed at the unwarranted sense of self-confidence some Christian male bloggers have, as well as by their obvious hatred of their political opponents. Notice his characterizations and cheap-shot ridicule of "the feministas," none of whose arguments, articles, or blogposts he actually specifically cites or references, of course. Like, he wouldn't want to humanize them in any way or bring nuance into his black-and-white cartoon worldview.

I would suspect that for some of these Christian men who oppose abortion rights (and lots of other rights for groups they aren't a part of), their illusory intellectual superiority and misogyny can be traced back to the gendering of god/Jesus as male, and the resulting implied inferiority of women that results.

For, "if god is male, then male is god."

As a related side note, I know his post is pretty, um... all over the place, but I'm creeped out by his graphic, made-up scenarios about what he reckons does and doesn't count as Real Rape. Mostly because that shit reads like bad rape fantasies to me. Like, he's taken the time to actually think about how men can violate women's boundaries and stated expressions of "no" while having that still not count as rape, and he seems super pissed that "the feministas" have had some success in educating larger society about the fact that people other than virgins walking in dark alleys can be raped.

Like, he seems really upset? entitled? angry? that he doesn't get to define what women's sexual boundaries are. I mean, gawd, can't men even rape women anymore without it being called rape? So unfair!

Which is strange, because earlier in the post, he seemed to understand the concept of "No," since he, you know, bolded the word and underlined it multiple times. I guess it counts when some people (hint: men) say no, but not others?

To end, I adore that he put a "warning" at the top of his post for unspecified "triggers" and "explicit language." Yes, because "explicit language" is definitely the most awful thing about his piece.

It's like when virulent opponent of LGBT equality Peter LaBarbera will write articles saying the most horrible, mean-spirited things about LGBT people while including a "warning" at the top that his article contains a "graphic" picture of.... dun dun dun.... gay people kissing.

*Faint*

Today's Fun Facts

 [Content note: heterosupremacy]

Via The Hollywood Reporter:

"DeGeneres' popularity among those Middle America viewers (many of whom likely voted for McCain) is not without irony. In fact, this is precisely the viewership affiliates feared a homosexual comedian would offend, if not altogether alienate, when Warner Bros. executives pitched Ellen 10 years ago. To persuade those skittish station managers, DeGeneres crisscrossed the country, making stops in each of their markets with Jim Paratore, the late president of Telepictures Productions. 'They were always shocked. They'd be like, 'She didn't curse,' as though cursing were a characteristic of gay people,' says DeGeneres, reflecting on the draining process of schmoozing a cadre of people fearful of who she was and, worse, what she might do with it on air.

These stations really thought she'd have a gay agenda. 'It was the hardest show we've ever had to launch in the history of our company,' says McLoughlin, recalling the subsequent test interviews she did prelaunch with stars including Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt and singer Alanis Morissette to show affiliates she was capable of having compelling conversations with those outside of the gay community. 'I had to show them that I know how to talk to people -- like how hard is it to talk to people? -- and still a lot of them didn't want to hire me,' adds DeGeneres, who confesses over iced teas at West Hollywood's Soho House in August that being on this end of an interview is the only time she is uncomfortable talking. (It is for that reason that DeGeneres, more serious in person than she is on her show, gives them so infrequently.)"

 Yep, it's true.

Just like some of the Normal People, some lesbians can speak without cursing and can talk to people.

Seriously, reading this story about the 10-year anniversary of Ellen's successful TV show reminds me why I bristle at  homophobes who bleat about Hollywood's Gay Agenda and how LGBT characters. Coming out was not easy for Ellen, it is still not easy for many people, and it almost cost her her career.

Sure, we have shows like Glee and Modern Family that at least acknowledge, however imperfectly, the reality that non-heterosexuals exist, but we also still have bigots who refer to the representation of non-heterosexual characters on television as an "infection" that should be stopped. We still have people who think it's offensive or PC (whatever the hell that ever means) to acknowledge the fact that not all families are "traditional" heternormative families and that not all people in the world are cis or heterosexual.

And, I think that's largely due to the ignorance and misperceptions they have of non-heterosexuals. So, I thank Ellen for changing some of those perceptions. She's not perfect. No one is. But, she's done a lot to humanize that caricatured picture of LeSbIaNs that many people apparently had in their heads.


[Tip of the beret: G-A-Y]

Finally!

 [Content note: Sexism, eliminationism]

A radical feminist separatist voice has been given space in the New York Times!!

*cackle cackle*

Seriously, though. The article, in case you're not inclined to click, is by Greg Hampikian, who is apparently a "professor of biology and criminal justice at Boise State University." It is entitled, "Men, Who Needs Them?" and, in it, he opines that "we should perform a cost-benefit analysis" on whether society should keep men around given, among other things, men's propensity for violence and women's ability to reproduce with frozen sperm.

It's honestly not clear to me if this guy is being facetious, is trying to generate controversy, or if he is sincere. Whatever the case, I find it incredibly sad and contemptible that he's been given a forum in the New York freaking Times to treat it as legitimate, debatable question as to whether one sex is worth keeping around.

I've also never heard of this author, and have no idea if he's a feminist. From his CV, easily found on Internet, his degrees (BS in Biology, PhD in Genetics), publications, and research do not strike me as being informed by either feminism or gender studies.

I do find it so typical, however, that.... well, I reckon there is a small sub-set of radical feminist separatist women who would concur with this guy for reasons substantially similar to his own. Naturally, though, it's not they who get space in the New York Times to raise the question of whether men are needed in society.

Instead, it takes a male "professor of biology and criminal justice" to say what some radical feminists have been saying for years before it can be said in a mainstream publication as opposed to, say, marginalized within The SCUM Manifesto or small, largely-ignored, and extreme niches of Internet, sources that only MRAs looking to discredit feminism have ever taken seriously.

I don't point out this privileging of the male voice because I want to see such sentiments be taken seriously. But rather because this privileging of the male voice suggests once again that MRAs, "Feminist Critics," anti-feminists, and other pointers-out-of-alleged-feminist-hypocrisy-and-misandry are largely wasting their time, if they truly care about men, by maligning feminists- and primarily feminists- for our alleged man-hating and man-ignoring activities. Non-feminist people, often men, exist who are taken seriously, who do influence policy that harms men, and who do get space in major mainstream publications to air their profoundly sexist and misandrist views.

I'd say that most non-feminists ignorantly assume that feminists "hate men" and that we would agree with Hampikian's article, despite the fact that, in my experience, far more feminists would disagree with him than agree. What most non-feminists who don't regularly think about gender stuff don't seem to know, however, and could use some enlightening on, is the ways that mainstream and often powerful voices are, actually, indicative of hatred or sexism toward men.

Yet, non-feminist men's rights activists often let such people completely off the hook, instead choosing to fixate solely on what The Feminists are doing wrong, what we're "not doing" to solve men's problems, or how we're magically influencing such people via our obscure, and if not obscure then maligned, blogs and publications.

So, seriously, what about the non-feminist sexists? I asked this question last year and noted:

"I therefore contend that many (most?) critics of feminism who single out feminism do so, not because it's some startling revelation to the [non-feminist] fan base that some feminists create problematic narratives [about men], but because it is not as politically risky to single out feminism for such criticism. Namely, because feminism is coded 'female,' criticizing it involves no breaking of ranks with male-dominated narratives or with the narratives that also privilege men, manhood, and masculinity.

I further contend that it is, in fact, cheap and easy to single out feminism as the number one cause of men's problems, because feminism is already viewed by many (most?) anti-feminists, non-feminists, mainstream, and traditionalist commentators as marginal, hysterical, man-hating, subjective, emotional, and utterly lacking in credibility (and yet- bizarrely- also extremely powerful. Unlike anti-feminist, non-feminist, mainstream, and traditional narratives which, as the silence of these critics would have us believe, are utterly powerless to shape cultural narratives)."

I predict that the non-feminist men's rights reaction to this piece, if they can bother themselves to react at all (after all, that would take work!), will be to blame feminism, and feminism almost entirely, for this man's article. Bashing feminism, rather than concretely taking action to help men, seems to be a numero uno priority among many non-femininsts. And, by seeking to preserve male privileges via this prioritized feminist-bashing, such folks will continue to polarize themselves from potential feminist allies, marginalize already-marginalized feminist voices, and, in the end, continue to not make productive gains in the area of getting the mainstream to care about sexism against men or to take it seriously.

You wanna see actual people actually laugh men's issues like men being raped in prison or by a woman? Go post a concerned comment about the issue at any number of non-feminist, non-gender-focused conservative blogs and report back.


Related:

Is it really up to feminists to create all pushback?

Reasons given for inaction of men's rights movements

Trolly McTrollertons

I'll just assume that the preponderance of  trolls in the comments as of late means I'm striking a nerve deep into the heart of the heterosupremacist patriarchy.

I consider that a win.

Seriously, though. If people have sincere disagreements to make, they are welcome to make them. If a comment consists of ignorantly braying on about "leftards" or talking about how icky gay pride parades are,  I'm totes okay with banning someone. And, I'm completely unsympathetic toward consequent and 100% predictable whinging about censorship and a troll's precious First Amendment Rights.

See, average troll's perception of the First Amendment is something along the lines of "The bloggers shall implement no policies at their own blogs about what are and are not acceptable ways of interacting with others."

But, how it works is, there's this service called Blogger where one can start one's own blog if one wishes!

And the best part for trolls is, if they have something super-duper important, aggressive, asinine, witty, snappy, snarky, mean, homophobic, misogynistic, or annoying to say, they get to say it! I guess the only downside is that the Troll Blog lacks an audience, and saying asshole things in front of a progressive audience seems to kinda be the whole point of trolling.

So let me be clear, my blog and the work I put into it, is not an affirmative action program for ignorant, mean-spirited trolls oozing with illusory superior fantasies of setting the progressives straight about how we're too PC to understand "the trooth" about stuff.  Stick that in your libertarian pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-damn bootstraps narratives.

Just When I Thought I Couldn't Get Any Gayer or Feministier

[Content note: Sexism, male supremacy, evopsych sci-unce]

I'm linking to Liss at Shakesville, rather than Kevin Williamson's original piece at National Review Online, but Williamson seems to be really into male offspring, alpha males, and Mitt Romney's balls:

"You want off-the-charts status? Check out the curriculum vitae of one Willard M. Romney: $200 million in the bank (and a hell of a lot more if he didn’t give so much away), apex alpha executive, CEO, chairman of the board, governor, bishop, boss of everything he’s ever touched. Son of the same, father of more. It is a curious scientific fact (explained in evolutionary biology by the Trivers-Willard hypothesis — Willard, notice) that high-status animals tend to have more male offspring than female offspring, which holds true across many species, from red deer to mink to Homo sap. The offspring of rich families are statistically biased in favor of sons — the children of the general population are 51 percent male and 49 percent female, but the children of the Forbes billionaire list are 60 percent male. Have a gander at that Romney family picture: five sons, zero daughters. Romney has 18 grandchildren, and they exceed a 2:1 ratio of grandsons to granddaughters (13:5). When they go to church at their summer-vacation home, the Romney clan makes up a third of the congregation. He is basically a tribal chieftain.

Professor Obama? Two daughters. May as well give the guy a cardigan. And fallopian tubes.

From an evolutionary point of view, Mitt Romney should get 100 percent of the female vote. All of it."

 So gross.

Rather than owning his homoerotic male supremacist fantasies of a future America that's a literal patriarchy ruled by the upstanding, alpha male patriarch Mitt Romney who has lots of High Value Children (white sons), he projects his fantasy onto women. All of us.

It's almost like some Republican men are actively trying to get women to vote for Obama.

Fatigued

 [Content note: rape culture]

I haven't written about Todd Akin's comments because, well, this article resonates with me. A lot.

That a man who wants to limit women's bodily autonomy can be so ignorant of women's bodies, display this ignorance and aggression publicly, and yet still be leading his female opponent in a political race.... I just... what can you do, really, except go drink vodka straight from the cat dish?

No.

I know more productive things can be done, should be done, and are being done. I receive about a zillion action alerts about reproductive rights on a daily basis, and I take action in other concrete ways.

Hillary Clinton is right to note that extremists always focus on women. She says:

"It doesn't matter what country they're in, or what religion they claim, they all want to control women, they want to control how we dress, they want to control how we act, they even want to control the decisions that we make about our own health and our own bodies."

They want to control us, and despite society's stupid jokey "what do women want?" lingering question, many extremists simultaneously don't seem to want to know much about women, our bodies, our thoughts, or our experiences. They just aren't germane to some men's governing process [over women's bodies].

And that's what gets me most of all about some of the statements these Republican men have been making.

For a man to think he doesn't know any rape victims and/or to have such fundamental misunderstandings about rape and women's bodies is incredibly scary. These ignorant, aggressive male musings are the Ultimate Mansplanations whereby they wrongly explain things to us, to society, to women as though they Know Things better than we do. But, they don't. The problem is, they don't know they don't.

Wut?

Unless a person is, like, Ann Coulter, how does one lone article even manage to be sexist toward men, stereotyping and offensive toward gay people, offensive to straight people, erasing of non-male members of the group "the gays,"erasing of a great majority of male members of the group "the gays," fat hating, body shaming, gender essentialist, and trivializing of the reality that, hey, there's this whole other group of people who exist in the world, many of whom also tend to have lots of body image issues: women.

I mean, wow, to seriously address all that's wrong with that article would take me an estimated 10 solid hours of work only to result in a "Geez, I was just kidding, can't people take a joke?!" retort from the author and his supporters.

Thus, I have only this to say to privileged cis gay men who think they are the default gay whose experiences are not only representative of all "the gays" everywhere but are the sun around which all other oppressions and legitimate issues revolve, try getting out of your kyriachical bubble of unexamined privilege from time to time. There's a whole Internet out there to learn about stuff.

Good gawd.

Why Milbank Gets It Wrong

In an opinion piece for The Washington Post, and in response to the recent shooting at the Family Research Council (FRC), Dana Milbank takes issue with the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) categorization of the FRC as a hate group. He writes:

"I disagree with the Family Research Council’s views on gays and lesbians. But it’s absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as Aryan Nations, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and the Westboro Baptist Church. The center says the FRC 'often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science.' Exhibit A in its dossier is a quote by an FRC official from 1999 (!) saying that 'gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement.' 

Offensive, certainly. But in the same category as the KKK?"

I have to object to Milbank's argument.

By placing a parenthetical exclamation point after 1999, he first seems to suggest that the offensive statement was perhaps made too long ago to matter.

Yet, statements made years ago, do still matter. They still matter, especially as in this case, when neither the person making the statement, nor an official spokesperson on behalf of the FRC, has ever, not once, repudiated the statement or condemned it. Offensive statements do not magically become less offensive just because time has passed.

To gay people who were around in 1999, a never-apologized-for statement doesn't hurt less just because someone said it back then, does? Not to me. Especially when, for all we know, FRC officials and supporters still believe in, agree with, and condone that very statement.

If reconciliation is ever going to be possible in this "culture war," both sides are going to have to acknowledge past wrongs, not sweep them under the rug as though they never happened just because they might have happened years ago. It's going to mean acknowledging that what one said in the past might have been hurtful, unfair, and/or dishonest.

Secondly, I also have to object to Milbank's characterization of the evidence, which he pseudo-summarizes as though it consists entirely of one mere purportedly-outdated "Exhibit A."

The reality is that it's not "just" that "an" FRC official made that one "offensive" statement.

The SPLC, in reality, cites (a) many offensive and dishonest quotes uttered by multiple FRC staff members; (b) the FRC's promotion of "ex-gay therapy"- therapy that implies that gays can and should change; and (c) the FRC's publication of anti-gay materials that rely on discredited studies by researchers like the notorious Paul Cameron and that misuse legitimate studies.

Only by ignoring most of the evidence that the SPLC cites for labeling FRC as a hate group, Milbanks is able to end thusly:

"The [SPLC] said that Perkins should stop putting out 'claims that are provably false' about gay people. 

Yes, Perkins should stop doing that. But even if he doesn’t, the Southern Poverty Law Center should stop listing a mainstream Christian advocacy group alongside neo-Nazis and Klansmen."

A couple things are going on here.

First, Milbank acknowledges that Perkins lies about gay people, but nonetheless scolds the SPLC for listing the group alongside racist groups. One is led to wonder, what exactly does an anti-gay group have to do before Milbanks think it reaches the threshold of authentic hatred? I mean, I can understand the impulse, especially after a frightening act of politically-motivated violence, to say Can't We All Just Get Along? But, it is incredibly unfair to minimize the impact that FRC has had on the lives and marginalization of LGBT people by suggesting that it's unfair or inapt when a powerful tool, the power to name our experience of a group's impact on LGBT people, to call out people who are hurtful.

Secondly, notice how Milbank refers to FRC as a "mainstream Christian advocacy group." Notice too, how he also conceded that the FRC lies about gay people. If it is the case that the FRC both lies about gay people and is representative of "mainstream" Christianity, the morality of "mainstream" Christianity must really be in the gutter.

One also wonders if Milbank has familiarized himself lately with the FRC's position on homosexuality.

Along with 16 "resources" explaining such "mainstream" Christian topics like the "top ten myths of homosexuality" and "homosexuality is not a civil right," the FRC states:

"Family Research Council believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed.  It is by definition unnatural, and as such is associated with negative physical and psychological health effects. While the origins of same-sex attractions may be complex, there is no convincing evidence that a homosexual identity is ever something genetic or inborn. We oppose the vigorous efforts of homosexual activists to demand that homosexuality be accepted as equivalent to heterosexuality in law, in the media, and in schools. Attempts to join two men or two women in 'marriage' constitute a radical redefinition and falsification of the institution, and FRC supports state and federal constitutional amendments to prevent such redefinition by courts or legislatures.  Sympathy must be extended to those who struggle with unwanted same-sex attractions, and every effort should be made to assist such persons to overcome those attractions, as many already have."  

Are these views really "mainstream" Christian views?

I certainly don't think so. And if they are, I think they should be marginalized from the "mainstream." I think such views, views that explicitly advocate for the inequality and stigmatization of gay people, should not be treated with respect just because they happen to be "Christian" views held by lots of Christians.

The analogies between the FRC and "neo-Nazis and Klansman" are imperfect. However, in my opinion, the comparison is apt. The SPLC lays out its case and it's very clear that a mere opposition to same-sex marriage will not place a group on its list of hate groups.

I don't doubt that some do not see the FRC's activities as evidence of hatred. I do think that many people exist who truly think they are helping society and "homosexuals" by telling us how dangerous we and our "lifestyles" are. I'm sure they really think they are defending themselves. I also do not think that everyone who oppose marriage equality is hateful.

At the same time, in my opinion, as a lesbian person on the receiving end of the FRC's rhetoric, the rhetoric feels very hateful, no matter how it is intended. No matter how steeped in love or "mainstream" Christianity the FRC's statements purportedly are, when I read its rhetoric about homosexuality I hear a drumbeat telling me that I'm inferior. Sick. Perverted. Unequal. False. Not real. And that, worst of all, I have to respect and by tolerant of this rhetoric because it constitutes some people's purportedly sacred religious belief.

And, that hurts.

It hurts most of all because the person FRC says I am doesn't resonate with my lived experience of who I am and who my friends and family are. Yet, millions of people somehow think they know my lived experience better than I do myself. Even though I'm happy and spiritually-fulfilled, these people think they have lots to teach me about how to be happy and spiritually-fulfilled. So, my truth is, rather than feeling like an expression of Christ's teachings, the FRC's rhetoric feel to me like a tomb in which their spiritual leader's moral wisdom, love, and compassion has been buried.

It feels like a lot of people being aggressive while patting themselves on the back for being good Christians for sharing their aggression with the world.

So, to end. I have no idea of Dana Milbank is gay. That he is capable of so casually minimizing the FRC's rhetoric would suggest to me that he is maybe not used to being repeatedly told by "mainstream" Christians that he is unnatural, that his marriage is false, and that his sexuality could never be affirmed.

I don't know, and I don't much care, what his sexual orientation is. (See how that works?) What I do care about is that he's just said that a bunch of rhetoric that is incredibly hurtful to people like me is "mainstream" and does not deserve to be called hateful.

I have to object. Rather than mainstreaming hate, I think a far better alternative for groups not wishing to be labeled hate groups is for them to stop being hateful.

[Cross-posted: Family Scholars Blog]

Very Important News

At the risk of turning myself into a caricature

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Xena.....on my favorite television show? Yes please.

Guard Shot At Family Research Council

[TW/Content note: Violence]

This Wednesday, a man opened fire in the lobby of the Family Research Council (FRC), shooting a security guard. 


I know Barry (at Family Scholars Blog) wrote a nice piece about this earlier this week and many of the pro-LGBT bloggers I read have also condemned the shooting, but I'd like to add my voice to those condemning the shooting.  I also wanted to wait until more information was available before I wrote about this incident. I've seen several unconfirmed reports noting that the man did so because of the group's anti-gay or conservative policies. The Christian Science Monitor (a source I generally respect, by the way), describes the shooter as someone who "had volunteered at a community center for gays."

This shooting is horrifying and deplorable. Full stop.

And, if it was actually motivated by political ideology, I think it is evidence of the toxic, aggressive, and bullying nature of the way LGBT rights are often discussed and "debated" in US society by those on all sides of the issues.

When we call it a "Culture War," do we expect it to happen without guns?

I don't, in general, buy into the notion that "both sides are just as bad" when it comes to questions of LGBT equality. But, I do think many voices, especially some prominent voices, demonize, bully, and caricature those who oppose LGBT rights in a way that is dehumanizing.

Look. I get it, I really get that groups like Family Research Council hurt us as LGBT people.

In my very first post at Family Scholars Blog, I advocated for a greater awareness for how our rhetoric and incivility disrespects the human dignity of our political opponents and, ultimately, hurt our cause. Yet, when I have made such pleas, several gay men (and it's always been men) have ordered me to get off my "high horse" (are men who advocate for civility regularly ordered to do this?) for noting that when we meet hostility with hostility we legitimize its use.

For, I've found that stepping out of line and criticizing certain pro-LGBT voices or disagreeing with them has sometimes meant finding myself on the receiving end of hostility that they used to only aim at our mutual "enemies." I understand the intensity of their anger and the sense of righteousness with which they yield it, but when hostility has been directed at me it has felt scary at times. As though, once a person is put in that little box that's labeled "enemy," we become people who's dignity no longer matters.

I'm not perfect and I never will be. And, I'm not at all letting those opposed to LGBT rights off the hook here. Many folks who oppose same-sex marriage do the exact same thing. And, as a lesbian and a woman, I've felt much more fear and disrespect as a result of my interactions with some who oppose LGBT rights than I have in interacting with the supporters of LGBT rights.

In all honesty, I hesitated to even write this post admitting that LGBT people aren't perfect because I know how such concessions can be used against us. As though, if it's a lesbian admitting that LGBT people can be mean, it's some sort of "confessional" that justifies the further mistreatment and vilification of LGBT people as Big Bad Mean Bullies. Another toxic element of these "culture wars" is that it's difficult to make even the tiniest concession due to our fear about how the "other side" will use it against us.

For instance, as the Christian Science Monitor reports, "about two dozen" LGBT rights groups rejected and condemned the attack. (That number, as of yesterday, is actually 41). I hope that organizations that oppose LGBT rights acknowledge that condemnation.

As of yesterday, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) has posted 13 updates and pieces of commentary about the shooting, while pushing the message that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is responsible for the shooting due to its labeling of the FRC as a hate group.

This sort of swift, reactionary politicization of the shooting, without appearing to care or understand why the some might see FRC as a hate group, doesn't help lessen the toxicity of the national conversation. By failing to concede that hate is a real thing that actually exists in the real world not only against opponents of same-sex marriage, but against LGBT people as well, NOM further polarizes this "culture war" and feeds into the cycle of aggression.

My thoughts are with the security guard- Leo Johnson, his family, and all who live in genuine fear of violence because of their political beliefs.

And, I hope those who have prominent platforms to voice their views and rile people up will begin to use them more mindfully, sincerely, and responsibly.


[Cross-posted: Family Scholars Blog]

OFFS White People

Examine your privilege.

Today's post was brought to you by the people who think it's So Unfair that there's a gay pride parade but not a straight pride parade, that there's an NAACP but a group for white people would be considered "racist," and that some feminists primarily talk about..... wait for it..... women's issues.

Need a Smile Today?

This cartoon by Kate Beaton made me smile, anyway, and I'm one of the most No-Fun Feminists of all Nofunnington.

Fischer: "Underground Railroad" Needed to Rescue Children in Gay Families

[Content note: Homophobia, heterosexism] 

In his essay discussing how confusing and harmful it was for him to have been raised by lesbian parents, Robert Oscar Lopez states that the flawed and widely-critiqued Regnerus study is especially "affirming" to him "because it acknowledges what the gay activist movement has sought laboriously to erase, or at least ignore." His claim is that the "the gay activist movement" is actively trying to hide or ignore the reality that "the children of same-sex couples have a tough road ahead of them" because "being strange is hard" and they don't have both a male and female role model.

In his narrative, Lopez does not acknowledge that a main critique of the Regnerus study was that it was not a study about "the children of same-sex couples" or same-sex parents, but rather, that it was a study of the adult children who reported that their parents had ever had a same-sex relationship while the children were under the age of 18.

Are scholars of the family to now believe that Lopez's story gives Regnerus' study a statistically-significant sample size of "children of same-sex couples"? Does his anecdote somehow bolster the study's conclusions? Can his article be used as though it's a scientific addendum to the study? Does family scholarship methodology in a post-Regnerus era now consist of collecting a buncha anecdotes and calling them "data"?

For those who are using the Regnerus study to confirm their already-held belief that "the children of same-sex couples" fare worse, much worse, than other children, Lopez's narrative will surely ring true. In a vicious domino effect of confirmation bias, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer has used Lopez's essay, which both relied on and supported Regnerus' study, to Tweet that Lopez's story is evidence as to "Why we need an Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households."

So, in addition to groups misusing the Regnerus study in legal actions to deny LGBT people equality, the study is now, however tangentially, being used to incite unlawful kidnapping of children from their families.

Personally, I have always given Regnerus the benefit of the doubt that he did not have bad faith intentions when he published his study, and I continue to do so. I can't read his mind, so I'm not even going to try to explain what was in it. Mostly, I remain perplexed by his actions. When one is purporting to write about a topic as politically-contentious as same-sex households, it is inexplicable to me as to why one might think that their sketchy categorization method would not be scrutinized with resulting blowback and critique, or that groups devoted to attacking and marginalizing same-sex families wouldn't misuse the study.

The actions and words of all of us can have consequences down the line that we cannot anticipate or predict. I think that those in positions of power and influence, on all sides of this debate, have a responsibility to try to be more mindful of that reality.

Same-sex families are constantly under attack and, no matter Regnerus' intentions, his study- and the flawed methodology that he chose to use- enables that.

That Bryan Fischer can incite criminal acts against "children from same-sex households" also demonstrates that, despite so many protestations to the contrary, Americans can say quite a lot about homosexuality, LGBT people, and our families without being arrested and detained by either the PC police or the actual, real police.

That will continue to be the case even if same-sex marriage is legalized throughout the United States. To those who fear otherwise, I wonder.... is what you really want to say more uncivil, more aggressive, and more bigoted than what Bryan Fischer has already said?

[Cross-posted: Family Scholars Blog]

Okay Then

A Louisiana charter school is changing its policy on banning pregnant students from the classroom.

Students who get other students pregnant, however, will continue to be banned.

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course the policy only negatively impacted those students with uteri. Via NBC:

"The Delhi school policy says that if a student is suspected of being pregnant, a parent conference will be held and the school will have the right to require female students to take pregnancy tests and refer those girls to a doctor of its choice. Pregnant students can’t attend classes on campus; they must study at home. Girls suspected of being pregnant who refuse to take the test will be forced to study at home or leave school."

Note, of course, the bodily intrusions this policy mandates. Not only are pregnant students banned from the classroom, the school can make a student get a pregnancy test on mere suspicion of pregnancy, and the school can then refer the student to a doctor of the school's choice.

An article in USA Today states:

"No one at Delhi Charter School in rural Louisiana realized there was anything wrong with the policy until the American Civil Liberty Union's state chapter threatened to sue, said chairman Albert Christman."

The intrusion into the bodies and academic careers of people with uteri, but not into the bodies or academic careers of people with testes, is just such a given to the school leaders that of course they don't see anything wrong with it. I mean, what kind of echo chamber was this school board and leadership that "no one" saw anything at all wrong with this policy that it took outsiders like the ACLU, those who consciously think about how liberty and freedom has historically meant different things for different people, to bring the wrongness of the policy to the attention of those who don't think about such things in a critical manner.

I Feel Vindicated

That Publisher's Weekly has declared Nightwood by Djuna Barnes the "most difficult book ever written." From the article:

"Nightwood is a novel of ideas, a loose collection of monologues and descriptions. What will keep you going: The cross-dressing Irish-American 'Dr. Matthew-Mighty-grain-of-salt-Dante O'Connor,' who, when not wandering Paris, drinking heavily, or dressing in nighties, rouge, and wigs of cascading golden curls, is expounding great rambling sermons that fill most of the book. These are funny, dirty, absurd, despairing, resigned—even hopeful in a Becketty I-can't-go-on-I'll-go-on kind of way."

I read this book a few years ago and, er.... it had a character who was a "cross-dresser"? Okay, totally missed that part.

In fact, I had little idea what was going on in that novel for probably 90% of it and I finished the book only out of pure stubbornness and an ever-dwindling hope that "it might get better."

Are there books you would put on that list? If you don't like a book, do you stop reading it?

The only book I can remember ever stopping reading because it was so bad is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. In my early 20s I had a brief flirtation, an experiment if you will, with objectivism after reading every single one of Rand's books one summer.

John Galt lost me with that tedious monologue. I mean, seriously, Ayn. Just write a freaking political non-fiction book. Don't try to "sneak it in" by having your political beliefs uttered by your super-heroic protagonists who only ever encounter straw flawed caricatures of their political opponents.

Is Aynsplain a thing? It should be.

Beware the Marginalization of Women in Feminism

It's become abundantly clear to me that some people's biggest problem with many feminists is the intentional and therefore uppity centering of women in which many feminists engage.

Taken to an extreme, some men's entitlement to always be centered in all narratives everywhere becomes apparent when the failure to center men then becomes their working definition of "misandry."

In Joanna Russ's To Write Like a Woman: Essays on Feminism and Science Fiction, she surveyed both feminist and (what would today be called) MRA/anti-feminist science fiction. She noticed that a common theme among feminist science fiction was women building their own societies free from men, male aggression, and war.

I don't agree with the simplistic gender essentialism and trans*misogyny implicated in the premises of some of the books she surveys, but I will note that these societies are (some)women-centric.

The MRA/anti-feminist themes, in contrast, tended to run along the lines of men entering women's simultaneously all-powerful-yet-totally-stupid-and-incompetent "gynocracies" and over-taking these societies via the incredible power of their penises and/or some other phallic object.  In one story, a male character lands on a female-only planet, the remnants of an ancient sex war that he describes as having been"'started by some idiotic feminist movement somewhere.'" ("Presumably," Russ interjects, "the same idiots who built the Lunar Battle Computer.")

She then notes:

"In three of the ten stories, women are not actively engaged in fighting men; they have merely withdrawn from men's company- but the challenge to male domination is seen as identical."

And, while the women in the MRA/anti-feminist stories are often framed as wanting to do away with men, the men are not willing to do away with women. It's as though the men require the existence of a separate group, perhaps their sex/gender "opposites," to exist on the periphery, whom they can be dominant over.

Russ ended by noting that while the feminist stories were grounded in the women characters' yearning to defend themselves and a desire to, for once, be central figures rather than marginals objects, the anti-feminist stories not only weren't written for women, they weren't even about women. They were written by people who seemed to know nothing about women and very little about feminism. Indeed, the common theme of the stories was of men drafting "a permanent class of worshippers"and subordinates- women- who would keep men central.

When men complain that (lady?) feminists don't talk enough about men while simultaneously stating that they don't even want us to talk about men since we don't do it well anyway, I see not only incoherence and an ineffective strategy for men's advocacy, but a similar pattern.

We are at once all-powerful in the realm of gender talk and totally taken seriously by all members of society, yet also totally inept at talking about gender.

Now, to be clear, I do think men have a place in feminism. I certainly try to write thoughtfully and adequately about men's issues- and I do so despite the ignorant men who don't read my blog yet who nonetheless mansplain at me not to be "too self-congratulatory about" doing so since feminists "are bad at it anyway." I also think the work that many feminists, even if woman-centric, can tangentially help men's lives. And, I admire the work that some male feminists are doing with respect to talking about gender issues from a male and male-centric perspective.

Yet, if you scratch the surface, some critiques of feminism don't seem to be written for feminists. For, if they were, they would include some sort of meaningful call to action and some thoughtful organizing of men beyond feeding into their anger, hatred, and resentment of and at feminism and feminists. Some critiques seem to serve the purpose of giving men the justification to say, "See, that's why I'll never be a feminist," even if, in reality, they actually have many points of agreements with many feminists.

These critiques, often treating feminism in absurdly generalized monolithic "the feminists" and "feminism" language, also aren't often about specific, actual feminists who actually write stuff in the real world (unless they're named Andrea Dworkin or Valeria Solanas). They're aimed, just kinda in general, at "feminism," bemoaning it for not creating the same shitstorms for men that it does for women.

It's still not clear why men don't start these shit-storms they want started on their own, whether they call themselves feminists or not.

That they don't, makes some (many? most?) critiques rendered by non-feminists appear instead to be about trying to tear down those who make women and women's concerns central.

Some of them don't seem to want us to go away, they just .... want us to STFU and let them do the talking about gender if we can't even center men, okay?

Like I said, the critiques are not always coherent or even written for us.

From some of these voices, we can barely get a begrudging concession that many feminists might be busy talking about things that are important to women's lives, even if we do care very much about men. What that tells me is that such people don't seem too care much about learning about women or feminism, they just know they don't like that we're talking about women *gasp* more than we we're talking about men!! And we can't have that now, can we?

Even if we're not actively hating men (and most of us, I reckon, don't hate men), what we're not doing is centering them. It seems as though the threat to male dominance is seen as identical.

Quote of the Day

I'm curious what people think of this quote:

"Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate." -Rick Warren

My thoughts?

I was tempted to write, "via Rick Warren, in How To Be a Bigot While Still Feeling Good About Yourself!"

For, "lifestyle," of course, is dog whistle for homosexuality, so let's not pretend that we're talking about acceptance in general here.

And, my homosexuality is not a mere "belief" or "action." It's a fundamental part of who I am. And, what Warren is saying here is that someone can still love me even if they disagree with who I am and strongly believe that this fundamental part of me is immoral.

How strange. 

Believe homosexuality and "homosexuals" are immoral- disagree with homosexuality all you want. But do not call that love.

We do not merely "tolerate" those whom we love, do we? For love to have any meaningful definition, for me, would require the acceptance of LGBT people as LGBT people and the trust that we, rather than non-LGBT people (or any purported religious leader) knows what is best for our own lives.

Don't call Warren's Big Reveal Of Truths love.

I don't want half of me loved and the other half "tolerated" as though it's disease.  That may indeed be tolerance. But, it also constitutes marginalizing a group of people while feeling smug and self-righteous about it. So own it.

It's Okay to Unfriend People. Really.

All this Chik-fil-a stuff, a good portion of which people seem to be hashing out on Facebook, has reminded me of this post I wrote a little over a year ago.

In it, I noted the hyperbole of an anti-feminist, anti-LGBT blogger who was Very Upset about people un-friending him on Facebook because of his (quite aggressive, unfair) political posts about liberals, leftists, LGBT people, and feminists. He presented this un-friending as entirely a "leftist" phenomenon and reacted to it as though it were a human rights violation of the highest order, saying:

"It is indeed a Brave New World we live in where friendship hinges on taking offense instead of merely ignoring those words from whom we disagree."

Ah yes. You MUST be my friend even if I say mean and abusive things on Facebook all the time, or else you're a fascist who's violating MY RIGHTS!

Nope, nothing problematic about that. Not at all.

On behalf of the World Order of All-Powerful Feminists, pursuant to Section 6.28 of the Homosexual Agenda, I hereby declare it to be 100% acceptable for people to un-friend bigots on Facebook. We had a meeting last Thursday and the measure passed.

On Complicity and Mindfulness

"The basic assumption with which we must start any theorizing about the past is that men and women built civilization jointly. Starting as we do from the end result and reasoning back, we thus ask a different question than that of a single-cause 'origin.' We ask: how did men and women in their society-building and in the construction of what we call Western civilization arrive at the present state? Once we abandon the concept of women as historical victims, acted upon by violent men, inexplicable 'forces,' and societal institutions, we must explain the central puzzle-- woman's participation in the construction of the system that subordinates her..... 

The patriarchal mode of thought is so built into our mental processes that we cannot exclude it unless we first make ourselves consciously aware of it." -Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy

Here, a couple of points stand out to me.

First, Lerner's contention that men and women built civilization jointly seems so simple to me. Yet, dominant narratives seem to posit that it was men who primarily built civilization, with some feminist narratives inferring that, therefore, it was men who primarily built patriarchy.

If we accept that men and women built civilization jointly, with women being subjects in history rather than passive objects who historically only had things happen to them, it is, I believe, logical to infer that women have also, as Lerner argues, participated in building patriarchy and legitimizing it. I don't think that would be a contentious concession for many feminists. And, not only because women like Phyllis Schlafly exist, but because I think most of us- all of us?- are complicit in it to some extent. Complying with how one is "supposed to act" according to the sex one was assigned at birth has its own set of rewards, safety, and pats on the head- and those reinforcements can be quickly and violently withdrawn from those who do not comply, as many trans* people talk of knowing all too well.

Where I see most value in feminism is doing exactly what Lerner suggests in that last sentence: consciously becoming aware of the patriarchal mode of thought. Lerner defines patriarchy as "the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women and children" in families and society, but I fall more into thinking about sex/gender subordination from a kyriarchy approach.

However, I think her more general point remains: People are going to be complicit in problematic power and kyriarchical relations if they do not consciously think about them and if they are not aware of them.

As a related example, I was recently in a conversation with someone on Internet where a woman opposed to same-sex marriage asserted that "homophobia is a relative term" and that it's "mostly" used to silence the opposition, implying that (a) homophobia mostly exists in people's imaginations, and (b) that people who assert that others are being homophobic are only doing so to "defame" their political opponents. This woman, consequently, does not seem to see herself as being heterosexist, privileged, or bigoted.

In fact, we hear a lot in debates about LGBT right, from those who oppose LGBT rights, about how the opposition isn't homophobic and how there are only like 3 actual bigots left in the world. But, I'm always wondering.... when have these opponents of LGBT rights taken the time to consciously think about the power structures that preserve heterosexual privilege? When have they become aware of the internalized homophobia and heterosexism that we all possess by virtue of living in a homophobic/heterosexist society. And, when exactly have they done the work to actively rid themselves of these problematic mental processes and privileges?

By the way they speak about us and to us and explain away our concerns and inform us that bigotry isn't a real thing in the real world, I'm just not convinced that many people, no matter how nice and well-intentioed they think they are, have done this type of work on themselves. We live in a soundbite society where many people think in Bumper Sticker catchphrases.

So, it's like the declaring of oneself to be Not A Bigot reflexively comes before one actually and mindfully considers whether one might be a bigot or not.

Friday's Deep Thought

Aren't you so impressed by the fact that I haven't even written about Chik-fil-a?

I just can't even.

But, I'm pretty sure the issue isn't going to be resolved by people making quippy one-liners on Facebook or Twitter, which seems to go against the thinking of many of my friends, family, and acquaintances.

Feel free to vent, or talk about whatevs today.

Reasons Given for Inaction of Men's Rights Movements

In a post from earlier this week, I asked what was stopping men and men's rights activists from initiating pushback with respect to a producer's statement that the show "Snapped," which she describes as being about women killing men, as "hilarious."

My post was in response to a post at Feminist Critics that largely turned into a referendum on feminism, rather than on the failings of a movement that purports to be concerned with bettering the lives of men- the men's rights movement.

Trying to explain the discrepancy, a commenter here in Fannie's Room who is critical of feminism opined:

"Feminism has broken men's political backbone by bullying men into believing that it is morally wrong for a man to stand up for himself and other men as men. As a result, men are unable to organize for that purpose."

He did not indicate, specifically, how men are literally "unable" to organize to stand up for men as men.

A conclusion to be drawn from the circumstances is that men are able to comment on feminist, anti-feminist, and non-feminist blogs about the failings of feminism, but they aren't able, for some unspecified reason, to organize themselves into groups that stand up for men. (The numerous men's rights blogs and forums notwithstanding, I suppose).

In comments to a follow-up post at Feminist Critics, dungone articulated a different reason as to why men's rights activists have not stepped up and initiated pushback:

"By itself, one woman’s misandrist sense of humor is a mere peccadillo. There’s no reason for men and men’s rights activists to start an international series of 'Snapped Walks' over something that one single woman has said...."

Here, he seems to be saying that men's rights activists didn't see the incident as a big enough deal to do anything about, that's why they didn't initiate pushback. Yet, by implication, dungone, ballgame, and other men at Feminist Critics nonetheless expected feminists to see this incident as a large enough deal about which to initiate pushback.

As one commenter exclaimed:

"this is why I'll NEVER be a feminist...."

What a strange position.

According to ballgame, and his is a position I would agree with, the producer's statement about "Snapped" is abhorrent because it frames violence against men as entertaining. When feminists are silent about this issue, some men see it as a huge failing and a big reason why they will "NEVER" be feminist. Yet, when men's rights activists are silent about the issue, the incident is minimized as a "mere pecadillo" that's "no reason" for men to take action about.

It remains unclear why feminists should make big deals about issues that those purporting to speak for men do not see as big deals. It is irrational as to why feminists, and we alone, are maligned, criticized, and examined for failing to do what men's rights activists fail to do.

In another comment at Feminist Critics, Clarence comes up with a different explanation:

"because most of us MRA’s (I’m either an equalist or MRA depending on whom you ask, so I’ll speak for the MRA’s on this) didn’t know this woman, or this show, existed....."

Here, we see Clarence giving MRAs a benefit of the doubt that is not extended to feminists. From the silence of feminists it is inferred that we're hypocrites who don't care about men or men's issues. From the silence of men's rights groups, it's inferred that they simply didn't know about this instance. (For the record, several feminist commenters here and I also noted that we had not even heard of this incident until we read about it on Feminist Critics).

So to sum up, the reasons given for the inaction of men and men's rights groups with respect to the "Snapped" incident is that men are politically powerless, men didn't see it as a big deal, and men didn't even know about it. And, the thing is, I can understand the last two reasons. I'm sure many men, like many women and feminists, didn't think twice about the comment and others probably didn't even know about it.

Yet, in the conversation, we see men holding feminism to a standard of perfection (it MUST do THIS or ELSE it's the WORST!) that is a much higher standard than they hold men's rights activism. The position of many men critical of feminism seems to be an incoherent: It's up to feminists to take the lead on initiating pushback on men's issues, and also, feminists have serious blind spots when it comes to men's issues, but don't expect men's rights to take on these issues (after all, men are powerless, men don't see it as a big deal, and they have blind spots too).

So, I really am at a loss here. Rather than finding or talking about ways to get men to initiate pushback, I see a lot of excuse-making and reason-generating that seems to let all political groups other than feminists off the hook for solving men's problems. I'm not sure that's helpful or fair for anyone.

Commenting Note

Hi folks, we have an abusive commenter in our ranks, so for the time being, comments are going to be moderated so as not to allow potentially triggering, abusive, or defamatory material.

Comments may not immediately appear as I won't be at a computer until later tonight.

Thanks for your understanding.

Men Need MAN FOOD! (Part 3,021,472)

[TW/content note: Gender essentialism, gender policing, sexism]

Wut?

"Called 'The Man Aisle,' the space stocks stereotypically male items like beer, cereal, soda, beef jerky, hot sauces, barbecue sauces, condoms, and oh, Chock Full o'Nuts coffee.

'People rarely cater to men in the supermarket,' COO Ian Joskowitz told us over the phone. 'So I thought let’s do something fun, get people talking, something guys would like. So we started discussion, and it’s funny because most of us came up with a very similar list.'

People rarely cater to men in the supermarket?

What an incredibly strange statement to make. Are men really so different from women that they are incapable of obtaining adequate fuel sources for their bodies' sustenance needs when they go shopping? Are their minds so different that they are unable to figure out how to read aisle signs, place items in a shopping cart, and then stand in line to purchase these items? Like, they have to be specially-catered to, or they can't figure it out?

And, do women, all women, dislike beer and beef jerky? Are they repulsed by/repelled from the Man Aisle by virtue of being women?

In this way are men in the unusual position of being framed as Other within a space. Such framing sometimes occurs in female-coded occupations and spaces as, here, the supermarket representative frames women as the default supermarket consumer while framing men as perpetual frat guy types with poor eating habits.

Or.... maybe not. The cited article ends:

"Now if only we had a woman's aisle full of tissues, romantic comedies, tampons, and chocolate. And also, maybe a survival guide telling us to pat ourselves on the back for cooking dinner."

Sigh. Yes, hahahahahaha, only if! 

/barf

How on earth would we ever get anything done in life if we weren't constantly reminded that we're men or women, rather than people with overlapping likes, dislikes, appetites, and needs.


Related:

Men Need Man Food

Man Food, Again

Boys Need Boy Food