Date: Saturday, July 26th, 2008
Time: 6:45 PM
Where: home in Laguna Beach (Orange co., halfway between San Diego & L.A.)
Hosted by: Jeannine

Leave a comment or email us if you need directions.

This is a good thing, because I’m entering a Ph.D. program in Sociology this autumn. I suspect I wouldn’t do very well with without a brain.

I’m now trying furiously to become re-accustomed to heavy reading and writing before school starts. I’ve got a course of books and articles that I intend to complete in the next few months, and FMH has generously agreed to allow me some space in which to discuss my readings with you. I intend to put up weekly posts. My reasons for doing so are:

• to keep myself honest - do this will motivate me to actually complete my reading;
• to help me think about the stuff I’m studying;
• to get FMH readers’ ideas and input about the stuff I’m reading, and about how it relates to us; and
• to get back into blogging. I’ve missed you all!

So, here’s my first post. This week, I’m just going to throw something out for discussion, sans analysis.

Over the weekend, I read the introduction to Remaking Modernity: Politics, History, and Sociology, edited by Julia Adams, Elisabeth S. Clemens, and Ann Shola Orloff. I chose this book because Ann Shola Orloff is a faculty member in my department and I’m interested in her work. The volume deals largely with recent developments in the subfield of historical sociology, defined by Wikipedia as “…a branch of sociology focusing on how societies develop through history. It looks at how social structure that many regard as natural are in fact shaped by complex social processes. The structure in turn shapes institutions and organizations, and they affect the society - resulting in phenomena ranging from gender bias, income inequality and (sic) war.” Rather than discuss all the ins and outs of the sub-discipline’s philosophical and content shifts over recent decades, I’m going to focus here on a topic discussed in the text which I think may be of special interest to FMH readers: feminist challenges to modernization theory.

The following is an excerpt from Orloff’s introduction:

In the narrative of modernization theory… women have been seen to inhabit a “traditional,” “private” world of family and home. As they move into the public sphere of the labor market, civil society, and the state - as did men before them in the transition from feudalism to modern capitalism - they too become modern subjects. We can now say that women’s status and activities are important signs of what is understood to be modern or traditional, including by social scientists, even as the content and significance of these terms shift over time and place. “Women” represents a key category of modernity’s Others, and liberal and autonomous individuals, citizens, workers, and soldiers - the categories of modern subjects - are defined in opposition to what is “woman,” even when actual women are making decisions, working, or fighting. Their absence helped to constitute the modern bourgeois public sphere and citizenship. Later, their inclusion signifies that modernity has arrived, even if the structures themselves retain a masculine character. Once (in the nineteenth century heyday of the “family wage”) women’s paid labor was taken as evidence of the barbaric (if not satanic) character of capitalism, which had to be civilized by protecting women from paid work. Contemporary analysts often assume that modernizing developments will inevitably bring women out of what they see as traditional housewifery and into the paid labor force and that the exclusion of women from paid work demonstrates societal backwardness. Feminists have shifted this narrative decisively, showing that women’s expulsion from public social life and the erection of a public-private divide between domesticity, home, and family, on the one hand, and paid labor, democratic politics, and states, on the other, is very much a modern creation, not the residue of women’s incomplete modernization.

So, what do you all think of this?

Before:

After:

It matches Grandma’s Jadite Dishes!

Now I think I’m going to antique them if I dare.
And just how ugly is that backsplash tile?
And if I’m moving, do I care?

I live in a smallish house, by American standards. It’s a very comfortable house in a sprawltastic neighborhood, we bought it as a “starter home” fully intending to upgrade (in true American fashion) but then a lot of my ideas changed. Ideas about lowering my carbon footprint, and not buying into the warped American standards of success, and consuming less. Now a part of me feels like I should be content to live here the rest of my life. The part of me that read Jana’s post on living small and admire people like her who really really live their convictions.

But of course, being the patriotic American that I am, I am not content, I want more (though I do try not to). I don’t want a lot more, I don’t want three floors with vaulted ceilings and vast indoor landscapes of uninhabited space. But I would like a small office space, where I could close the door and type, and perhaps set myself on the road to being a real writer of the paid variety. I would like a yard with sunny garden space, and a spot for a few chickens (my yard is too small, too shady, and chickens are banned). I’d also like my house to be the spot where my kids want to hang out with their friends as they get older, and as it is right now, with all three of the punks sharing a room, and the family tv/computer space in mom and dad’s room, I can’t see this being a draw to your average teen.

And finally the shallowest reason of them all, while I do like the inside of my home and find it cozy, the outside is bud-ugly, a big garage with a room attached to the back, identical to allllll the other garages (with a room attached) in the entire neighborhood. And something in me constantly rebells at being one of those sprawltastic people in the garage house. Shallow, I know. I honestly think that if my house was this small, but in a cute older neighborhood with tree-lined streets and houses with front porches and a spark of personality, then even without the chicken and the sunny garden spot I could breathe and be content. Shallow, shallow, shallow.

Any how, it seems that someone has kinda sorta shown some interest in buying our home at a fair price, and now I’m faced with a potentially easy exit from sprawlville. And lots of excellent opportunities to buy an older slightly larger house with a spark of personality and a spot for chickens, I’m very tempted.

So, how far do we compromise our ideals to our comfort, or vise versa?

If you are local to the Salt Lake City area and would like to help Artemis and her famiy, please email me at fmhjanet at gmail dot com. I’m trying to work on a meal schedule as well as a few other possibilities.

Artemis and family very much appreciate your concern and prayers. God be with her and her family, and with us all.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Artemis currently inhabits the stressful space of a hospital room due to significant leakage of her amniotic fluid. While her baby shows a strong heartbeat and no signs of distress, the situation still requires close monitoring. The pregnancy is still several weeks shy of vaiblity and doctors can really only prevent infection and watch. In all likelihood, Artemis has at least a couple weeks of bedrest in her immediate future. She’d very much appreciate general prayers asking God to reseal the membranes (medically possible but not common) or stop the leakage, as well as general prayers on her and her family’s behalf. Thanks, in advance, for your concern, love, and prayers.

I admit that I’m often annoyed by the whole, “I’m not a feminist but . . .” line that I often hear round these parts. It is my opinion that your average moderate women should be perfectly comfortable embracing the word feminist. Despite all the spin to the contrary, “feminist” doesn’t mean man-hating baby-kicking lesbian sans bust support.

So what does this have to do with patriotism you ask? Well . . .

We were at a parade this weekend. Dairy Days, you see. First came the flag, and the uber dad next to me in his Nascar T-shirt saying, “Stand up son, hand on your heart, that’s the flag!” Next came the chocolate milk truck, with chocolate milk for everyone! Very Classy . . . and delicious. Next, a long line of military vehicles followed by a sizable group of women and children pushing stollers. Every stroller had a sign reading, “My dad is a hero.”

And there I was getting all teary eyed and lumpy throated. Deeply grateful for the sacrifice, but also deeply sure that the sacrifice is gravely misused. (Which is just my opinion and not what this post is about.)

Which leads to my confounding ambivalence on the subject of patriotism. I do “love my country” and feel an appropriate level of “loyalty” (more on this later), which is all the dictionary definition of “patriotism” requires. In that manner patriotism feels to me relatively innocuous (much like feminism is defined as the [currently culturally innocuous] belief in equality of the sexes).

But still, I am not comfortable with the connotations I attach to the word patriotism: nationalism, jingoism, racism, elitism, bellicism. I feel uncomfortable identifying myself as patriotic because in my mind it feels like I’m skirting the dirty edge of self-righteousness and violence. Am I wrong? I very well could be. Truthfully, I’m not at all sure.

I’ve even considered taking down the (old and huge and beautiful) US flag that hangs on the wall in my garage (despite the fact that patriotism is all the rage in the inter-mountain west) because I don’t want people getting the wrong idea about my beliefs . Just last week a neighbor complimented me on it and I had to suppress the urge to clarify that I was certainly not making any kinda pro-war pro-Bush conservative (shiver) kinda statement. That isn’t what the flag is suppose to say, is it?

When I look at that flag, I worry that I am.

But I don’t take it down, I guess in some ways I want to prove something, much like the “Peace is Patriotic” bumper sticker crowd. That I can be a dirty liberal, deeply disagree with the current administration about nearly everything, be profoundly disturbed by the ugliness of our American past and present, yet still believe in the self-evident truth that we are all created equal.

But I’m not sure the flag says all that, though I’d like it to.

So I guess the question is, just as there are many feminisms, and a feminist is free to pick the type that suits her, are there many patriotisms, and should I be willing to embrace one that suits me? Is “patriotic” a term I want to claim or re-claim or is there a fundamental flaw in even the most innocuous version, the idea of “love and loyalty” of country?

I do think there are things about America worthy of love. Oodles of things, even. The most obvious being Idaho potatoes, of course. Fried, frenched, hashed, mashed, boiled, baked, julienned, twice-baked, scalloped, and most deliciously, funeraled. And then all those other little things, like, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, government of by and for the people, muckrakers, purple mountains majesty, I Have a Dream, dairy princesses, liberty and justice for all, squeeze cheese, and of course, Hillary Rodham-Clinton.

Sure these things fail us sometimes, yeah, I get bitter, but we have grown so much, freedom rings from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado, And that potential of which Dr. King preached is still electric. There is so much room for hope.

So if I love funeral potatoes and freedom so gosh darn much, why don’t I just tattoo Patriotic on my forehead buy some flag t-shirts at Old Navy and get on to the next question already? Eh?

Well, first off, isn’t “I’m proud to be an American” a tad tacky? I was born here and that makes me lucky as hell, but what have I got to be proud of? It’s like saying “I’m proud I’m so beautiful.” “I’m proud I don’t have cancer.” “I’m proud my children don’t have birth defects.” Love nurture protect my good fortune, sure, but pride?

I suppose my particular patriotism could eschew misplaced pride.

And then there’s my little underdog genetic disorder. When I watch the Olympics I can’t stop myself from cheering for the Lithuanian dead-lifter. You just know that every single Lithuanian is glued to tv praying that Ona will bring home their one and only gold medal. Meanwhile Americans are like, dead-liff-wha? And I’m not really talking about the Olympics people.

Which leaves what I think is really at the heart of the matter for me. Patriotism is all about loving us, America the Beautiful. Which is, admit it, not all that challenging when squeeze cheese is involved.

But every human soul has a culture of which to be proud, a past worthy of knowing, fore-mothers who loved their babies, languages, art, and food of which they are proud. And so many places in the world have so very little. So very little freedom. So very little food. So very little education. So very little hope.

We Americans believe in equality, it’s the word, the creed that started it all, this whole huge American thing. Can we truly believe in equality, truly strive for it, and hope for it, and still emphasize patriotism. (We love us! Ra Ra!)

Or can we have hearty patriotism (freedom rocks!) and a still nurture a truly equatable love for all God’s children and all their cherished cheeses? I guess my patriotism, does that, now that I’ve thunk it through.

And now, it’s time for the Indigo Girls: (hum along to the tune of “Be Still my Soul” or break out your CD, you know you want to.)

This is my song
Oh God of all the nations
A song of peace
For lands afar and mine

This is my home
The country where my heart is
Here are my hopes
My dreams my holy shrine

But other hearts
In other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams
As true and high as mine

My countries skies
Are bluer than the ocean
And sunlight beams
On clover leaf and pine

But other lands
Have sunlight too and clover
And skies are everywhere
As blue as mine

Oh hear my song
Oh God of all the nations
A song of peace
For their land and for mine

Signing off now,
Lisa the fledgling patriot

It’s wonderful to see the men and women stand and be applauded for their service, and it makes me happy for them to be recognized this way.

At the same time, I always squirm for the (potential) Non-Americans in the audience. It’s all very pro-military and pro-American and it has nothing to do with Mormonism. I wonder about the appropriateness of holding this ceremony at a church sponsored event. We are a world church, with members in countries on both sides of most any civil conflict.

What do you think?

First, it should be noted that single-sex gyms are no stranger to litigation by people who are denied admittance. A popular womens’-only gym based in Massachusetts, Healthworks, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to litigate (it lost) and then to legislate its right to refuse admittance to men under the Commonwealth’s anti-discrimination laws (it won).

Disclaimer: I’ve never been a member of Healthworks or any other single-sex gym. I have, however, been a member of a co-ed gym for the past five years, and I work out there regularly.

With my limited experience at single-sex gyms and my vast experience at co-ed gyms, I’d say that women’s only gyms unfairly discriminate against men who’d like to take their killer pilates classes, and might not be doing women any favors either.

The most often repeated justification for single-sex gyms is that heterosexual men have a propensity to ogle women, and women don’t fancy be ogled while working out at the gym.

I can see why ogling would put some women off their work out, but is the threat of ogling justification enough to keep men out of the killer pilates classes? Surely, to function in civil society, most men have learned to keep their overt oogling to a respectable minimum level. That said, given their admitted propensity to ogle, guys probably are ogling you (women readers) everywhere you go anyway (stealth oogling included). Thus, I’m sure you’ve built up some defenses to unwanted ogling - stealth ogling and actual ogling - otherwise you’d never leave your house. (note: some women like to ogle other women, but that wasn’t a stated concern of the women gym-goers)

On the other hand, women who are victims of sexual abuse may be dissuaded from working out at the gym if they are forced to exercise in the presence of men. I think this latter justification is probably the most compelling argument for single-sex gyms. Then again, we don’t grant victims of sexual abuse their own private subway cars or privatize other public spaces where men congregate (and therefore ogle). At some point, you’re going to have to deal with the ogling (or the threat of ogling) - even if it’s just on the way to your gym - or else you’ll never leave your house.

In all seriousness, I’m not a supporter of sex segregation (clubs, schools, etc.) because, in our modern society, men and women generally have to work together - not separately.

Many of the justifications for segregating women remind me of the infant industry argument for trade protectionism. Even though there may be a few compelling reasons to protect women from men by segregation, just as there are compelling reasons to shelter nascent industries from foreign competition, segregation very often hurts rather than helps women by shielding them from the opportunity to learn to compete with and to work/live together with men.

Over-subsidization has undermined the economic progress of many a third-world nation. At some point, you gotta learn how to run with the big dogs, mange and slobbering aside. Plus, women-only gyms perpetuate the myth that pilates is only for women. You’re missing out, guys.

I realize there’s probably not a lot of deep meaning or redeeming social value or great artistic merit in said movie, I’m sure it glorifies our unsustainable consumer culture, questionable social morality, and American self-obsession. And if these moaning men objected to the movie based on those issues, I’d be peachy keen. But that’s not it at all, no, men object because it’s a movie that is apologetically feminine, it’s about pretty dresses and relationships and love and female lives. And they feel it is necessary to loudly proclaim that they’d rather have their toenails yanked out with pliers than go to that movie.

Why? Well, obviously interest in womanly things is humiliating and degrading. Of course.

I like pretty dresses and strappy impractical shoes, and I like chick flicks and women’s fiction and romance novels, and by golly I get all sewy and crafty, indeed I do. Further, I’d much rather see Sex in the City than some movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme and The Rock blowing stuff up in fast cars. Not a lot of deep meaning or redeeming social value or great artistic merit there either, but witness that when such movies are released (every other day), you do not have a loud and enthusiastic public backlash of women saying they’d rather wear a mullet than sit through that movie.

I’m not saying that I want (most) men to start jumping up and down and saying hurrah hurrah, I can’t wait to go to Sex in the City and gyrl, that’s the cutest purse!, though you may if it suits you, of course. And neither am I likely to watch 300 while smashing beer cans on my head.

I have no interest really in erasing the distinctions between the feminine or masculine, but I do hope that we can somehow, someday remove the value judgments. The illogical knee jerk erroneous deep-seated idea that blowing stuff up is somehow more important and valuable and less embarrassing than squealing over a new pair of shoes.