May 14 2017

Gender and Sex

Gender and Sex

Do you know the difference?

Do you understand the consequences of getting them mixed up?

Do you understand the consequences of thinking they’re related?

 

May 14 2017

Size Matters – a short film collage

Size Matters, Peg TIttle

What if women were the taller sex?  I suggest that this would make a difference in the power relationship between men and women.  Ask any short man.

This short film is a five‑minute (approximately) collage of scenes from ordinary life.  That is, ordinary life reversed ‑ one in which women are taller than men.

So every woman in the film must be taller than every man, except where specified; on average, the men should be 5’4″ and the women 5’10”.  (Tap into women’s basketball and volleyball teams and men’s figure skating clubs and dance companies for extras.)

This is a silent film, though clearly dialogue is going on.

It is of utmost importance that the actors’ carriage not undermine the height difference.  It should be mandatory for all actors to take a cross‑gender acting workshop.

For that reason, a woman should be director.  Most women, more than most men, tend to be more aware of the nuances of body language that mark dominance and subordination.  A woman director would thus be more apt to ask the actors to make the necessary corrections.

SCENES:

  1. The halls, classroom, and grounds of an elementary school: all the teachers are male; the principal is female; students are shown mostly in all‑girl and all‑boy groupings; when the group is mixed, boys and girls are the same height; all are engaged in gender‑neutral activities (I know that young girls play house and young boys fight, but showing this would confuse the point; young girls and boys also sit at their desks, stand around talking, walk down the hall, chase each other, etc.)
  2. A cafe: all the staff waiting on customers are male, as is the cashier.
  3. At home, in the kitchen: as she’s on the phone with an important call, she absently reaches to get something out of a high cupboard for a child, then does the same for him (he could’ve reached, but it’d be a stretch ‑ it’s just an easy reach for her, no big deal.
  4. At the office, in the lobby: a cluster of women executives walk in on their way to their offices; they nod or ignore male subordinates at reception.
  5. A dinner date: a man and a women are finishing dinner and the cheque is presented to her.
  6. Hospital admissions area: the nursing and clerical staff are male; the doctor walking past is female.
  7. The halls, classroom, and grounds of a high school: all the teachers are male; the principal is female; students are shown in situations somewhat similar to the elementary school scene, but now the girls are taller than the boys.
  8. A male‑female couple walking down the sidewalk: she takes longer strides than he does, so he has to walk more quickly; in fact, he has to half‑run to keep up, like a child (and perhaps he hobbles on platform shoes); the way they hold hands, she seems to be leading him, and is always just a tad ahead of him.
  9. At home, at dinner time: she and the older, taller daughter are at the table; the younger, shorter son enters from the kitchen carrying something, followed by the husband carrying something (nothing special, it’s just routine dinner time).
  10. Crowd scenes: these are sprinkled throughout the rest of the film, but it is imperative that they not begin about half way through so the viewers see the effect first (power relationship reversals) and only later the cause (only in the crowd scenes does it become really clear that women are taller than men in this world).
  11. At the office: a woman in her own office is engaged in serious business as a male secretary slips in with a message and a cup of coffee for her.
  12. Various offices at a university: most of the faculty are women (shown in classrooms or in their private offices); most of the admin and support staff are male (shown at desks in a more public area).
  13. A male‑female couple dancing: she leads.
  14. Hospital operating room: the surgeon and anaesthetist are women; the nurses are men.
  15. At home, in the living room: she’s in the larger of two chairs, reading the paper; she lifts her feet up off the footstool so he can run a vacuum cleaner between the chair and footstool.
  16. A male‑female couple posing for a picture: her arm is around his shoulders.
  17. A courtroom: the judge is a woman; the clerk is a man.
  18. At the office, in a meeting room (all of the women must be taller even when seated): the seven or eight women present are talking and deciding; the one or two men present sit silent, taking notes; a man half raises his hand for permission to speak, but is unacknowledged; a man reaches over to fill a woman’s water glass before filling his own, not because he was asked to do so but just as a matter of routine (the subordinate attends to the superordinate’s needs).
  19. A male‑female couple approaches a car; the woman gets into the driver’s seat; the man gets into the passenger seat.
  20. Election campaign shots: all candidates are women; the men are in the background and clearly aides.

May 08 2017

To all the men who

To all the men who let their mothers and wives do all the dusting, vacuuming, kitchen wiping, and bathroom scrubbing; to all the men who throw their garbage  out of their cars and boats and ATVs and snowmobiles; and to all the men who ‘externalize’ the waste/disposal costs involved in doing (their) business — because it’s somehow emasculating to clean up after yourself, YOU NEED TO CHANGE YOUR DEFINITION OF ‘MASCULINE’.  Because at the moment it’s very much like ‘infantile’ and ‘irresponsible’.

May 02 2017

Visionary?

Reading about Nipissing University’s Students in Free Enterprise (NUSIFE), which is a group of students who undertake projects “intended to increase the public’s awareness of entrepreneurship and business-related subjects,” it occurs to me to wonder why such an endeavour is undertaken only by business students.

Consider the projects listed below – and imagine…

– “Global Crusaders” educated high school students about minimum wages and exchange rates in five different countries – why not educate them about gender issues in five different countries?

– “Team Builders” led team-building exercises during a weekend program at the YMCA – my guess is that sociology students’ take on team-building would be quite different than that of business students…

– “Junior Tycoons” were high school students presented with a basic business plan – why not present “Junior Diplomats” with a recess plan based on insights from political science, history, and psychology?

– “Budgeting for Mental Health Patients” – how about “Philosophy for Mental Health Patients”?

– “My First Bank Account” – whatever happened to “My First Library Card”?

– “Nipissing East Community Opportunities” received a marketing plan – they could have used an environmental assessment plan…

– “Show Me the Money” was about financial planning guidelines on the web – how about “Show Me the Stars”, astronomy on the web?

– “A Feasibility Study” was presented to graphic arts students – how about presenting them with an ethics study?

Such projects, both by training students to apply their knowledge outside academia and by increasing the visibility of business in the outside world, probably contribute to the strangle-hold business – business activities and business interests – has on the world; therefore, suggesting that such endeavours be undertaken by humanities and science students as well is more than an exercise in imagination – it’s an identification of responsibility.

This particular infiltration of business is so developed that there are actually competitions among universities for their SIFE teams.  Yes, there are poetry and drama competitions too, but poems and plays don’t reach out and engage the community in the same way; they just present to, perform for, the community (except for those cool workplace theatre guerrilla groups).  Perhaps science does a little better – there are, of course, the annual science fairs, but from time to time I also see students out in the field with their lab kits.

This lack of engagement is rampant throughout the humanities curriculum.  We teach our English students how to appreciate and write poetry, but not how to find a literary agent; how to appreciate and write drama, but not how to produce a play.  Philosophy students are great at clarifying concepts and values, identifying hidden assumptions, testing for consistency and coherence; psychology students know all about how our minds and emotions work; sociology students know about people in groups, small and large, in cultures and subcultures and countercultures; history students know what hasn’t worked.  Along with our students of gender studies and native studies and our other social science students, humanities students (the humanities focus on humanity – and who, what, are we talking about when all is said and done?), and of course our science students (what is humanity but one bunch of carbon-based organisms among many), would be great consultants if they had any consulting skills.[1]  But we don’t teach them how to write a proposal, how to contract for business, or how to manage a project.

Until we do these things, our humanities and science students will be dependent on business students as go-betweens and as enablers.  And since business students, by definition apparently, have profit as their motivator, their purpose, and their goal, there is bound to be a certain amount of unfulfilled potential.  Business students are not likely to set up Sociologists, Inc. or History Is Us.  Nor are they even likely to engage the services of non-business students as consultants.

OPAS is another example of the deficiency I’m trying to expose.  It’s a partnership between Ontario universities and Canadian companies, named “The Office for Partnerships for Advanced Skills” with a mandate to “foster more effective relations between universities and companies who hire and maintain a highly skilled workforce” and “respond to requests and develop initiatives that promote increased use of university-based resources including advanced skills development.”  One might be forgiven, therefore, for thinking it was pretty inclusive.  This seems indicated even by the Special Events & Programs (which includes “the Visionary Seminar Series, Industry Sector Symposia, Internship & Reciprocal Exchange Programs and the development of a National Network”) and by the Skills Development statement (which says “In knowledge industries, skills requirements advance and change, creating new needs. OPAS responds to these changing skills needs with solutions designed and delivered by leading university programs across Ontario”).

However, a close look reveals that there isn’t a whole lot of room for humanities and social science; there’s something for science and engineering (an auto parts symposium is listed, as well as a biotech sector symposium), but it seems that the university programs they’re talking about partnering with are pretty much the BBA and MBA.  Their website welcome page confirms this: “In today’s knowledge-based economy, business organizations are faced with the need to address constant changes in operating practices, human capital requirements, and technology.”  That page is pure business buzz (“human capital”?!).  (And there you do see the specification – “business organizations….”)

Indeed, had I visited the OPAS website first, I wouldn’t have been so surprised to discover that the keynote speaker (the only speaker) at the “Visionary 2000” seminar was the CEO of the Royal Bank (how much more focussed on business, profit, money, can you get?).  And the very fact that his talk, nothing more than a Royal Bank promo, was billed as visionary indicates just how much we need to correct this deficiency.

 

[1] Marc Renaud, president of SSHRC, says “many of the key questions confronting our society fall within the realm of the social sciences and the humanities and our disciplines represent a goldmine of knowledge that can help.  We need to make sure that people outside the research community know about this goldmine, so that it can be put to broader use” (quoted by David Bentley in “Humanities for humanity’s sake” University Affairs).

May 02 2017

A Great Twisty Faster post: “That can’t be sexual assault because it’s normal”

Thought I’d start reposting some of Twisty’s pieces (because, really, they need to be read again and again) (sigh).

 

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2014/02/01/that-cant-be-sexual-assault-because-its-normal/

Apr 25 2017

from Joanna Russ’ The Female Man

excerpted from Joanna Russ’ The Female Man:

 

…I wept aloud, I wrung my hands, crying: I am a poet! I am Shelley! I am a genius! … Lady, your slip’s showing. …

There is the vanity training, the obedience training, the self-effacement training, the deference training, the dependency training, the passivity training, the rivalry training, the stupidity training, the placation training. How am I to put this together with my human life, my intellectual life, my solitude, my transcendence, my brains, and my fearful, fearful ambition? I failed miserably and thought it was my own fault. You can’t unite woman and human any more than you can unite matter and anti-matter; they are designed to not to be stable together and they make just as big an explosion inside the head of the unfortunate girl who believes in both.

Do you enjoy playing with other people’s children-for ten minutes? Good! This reveals that you have Maternal Instinct and you will be forever wretched if you do not instantly have a baby of your own (or three or four) and take care of that unfortunate victimized object twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, for eighteen years, all by yourself. (Don’t expect much help.)

Are you lonely? Good! This shows that you have Feminine Incompleteness; get married and do all your husband’s personal services, buck him up when he’s low, teach him about sex (if he wants you to), praise his technique (if he doesn’t), have a family if he wants a family, follow him if he changes cities, get a job if he needs you to get a job, and this too goes on seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year forever and ever amen unless you find yourself a divorcee at thirty with (probably two) small children. (Be a shrew and ruin yourself, too, how about it?)

 

 

 

Apr 25 2017

Mentoring

Studies show that people who have had mentors, who have had someone to provide “sponsorship, exposure, visibility, coaching, protection, and challenging assignments – activities which directly relate to the protégé’s career” do indeed experience more career advancement than people who have not had mentors [1].  In a study of 1241 American executives, 67% of all respondents said they had a mentor [2].  Which just goes to show  – it’s who you know.  That’s how, why, they are executives.

Given that it’s a 1979 statistic, presumably the respondents are referring to an informal mentorship, which arises spontaneously, as opposed to a formal mentorship, which is arranged by the organization as part of a mentoring program.  The problem in both cases, however, is that most people who are in a position to mentor, a position of power and prestige, a well-connected position, are men.  Still.  So sexism keeps women from becoming protégés – because even if the guy’s wife is fine with it, everyone will wonder whether she’s sleeping her way to the top and that’ll handicap her, essentially cancelling any advantage of the mentorship.  Furthermore, women who could be mentors avoid mentoring other women because they fear being labelled feminist troublemakers.  Why don’t men fear mentoring other men for fear they’ll be labelled – what, part of the old boys’ network?

All that aside, it seems to me that mentoring is unfair: it makes ‘it’s who you know not what you know’ true.  Merit becomes not the sole criterion for advancement.

Though perhaps mentoring counters chance.  Chance is unfair too.  With mentoring, those who do get doors opened for them are those who deserve it.  But to say ‘All A are B’ doesn’t mean ‘All B are A’: to say ‘All those who are mentored have merit’ doesn’t mean ‘All those with merit become mentored’.  And, of course, I’m not sure mentors choose their protégés according to merit.

So why do mentors choose who they choose?  Why do mentors mentor at all?  I wonder if it isn’t just some primitive lineage impulse in action.  You know… men need a son, someone to carry on the family name.  And since it’s more and more unlikely that men have actual sons in a position to be their protégés …  Do mentors tend to choose sons of friends when available?  Do they tend to choose people who are twenty to thirty years younger, in the ‘son’ age bracket?  What about women who mentor?  (More likely, their motive is social justice, not personal legacy.)

I’m not saying people shouldn’t seek, or give, advice and guidance.  That’s not what mentoring is all about.  A mentor does more than that: a mentor introduces you to influential people in the organization, facilitates your entry to meetings and activities usually attended by high-level people, publicly praises your accomplishments and abilities, recommends you for promotion, and so on.  But see here’s the thing.  Introductions should be unnecessary.  Meetings attended by high level personnel shouldn’t be open to others.  Everyone’s accomplishments and abilities should be praised publicly.  Only your immediate supervisor or some named designate should be able to recommend you for a  promotion.  And so on.

In any case, the need for mentors means the organization isn’t structured to advance based on merit.  So shouldn’t mentors’ efforts instead be directed to making sure that it is?  To making sure that mentors aren’t needed?  You shouldn’t need a mentor to open doors because the doors shouldn’t be locked.  You shouldn’t need a mentor to give you inside information because there shouldn’t be any inside information: an organization’s policies and procedures should be written out for all to read, perhaps even presented at a new employee training session (and there should be no unwritten policies, no under-the-table procedures); any preferences for application materials, be it for a job, a promotion, or a grant, should be stated on the application form itself, or perhaps explained in a separate ‘Tips for Applicants’ sheet; and knowledge of any available job, promotion, or grant should be freely accessible to all.  Influential people should use their influence only in formal channels; their authority should only be that vested in them by the terms of their job description.

Men are so proud of not mixing pleasure and business, of separating the personal from the public.  Bullshit.  Aren’t a lot of critical connections, let alone decisions, made on the golf course?  At the bar?  Between conference sessions?  It seems that by ‘personal’ and ‘pleasure’ they just mean women – wives, daughters, sexual liaisons.  They leave the women in their lives out of consideration.  But their relationships with their buddies and their sons – these are very much brought into the workplace.

 

[1] “Formal and Informal Mentorships: A Comparison on Mentoring Functions and Contrast with Non-mentored Counterparts,” Georgia T. Chao and Pat M. Walz  Personnel Psychology 45.3 (1992)

[2] “Much Ado about Mentors,”  B. Roche.  Harvard Business Review 5.7 (1979)

Apr 14 2017

The Mr. America Pageant (a short film script)

The Mr. America Pageant, Peg Tittle

(hoping there are some people out there looking for short feminist scripts!)

This is a parody of the Miss America Beauty Pageants.  Basically, it’s a freeform collage of scenes (of indeterminate length – five minutes might suffice) similar to those one would see during the pageant, but all featuring male contestants instead of female contestants.  Seeing men say and do such things is hilarious; why isn’t seeing women equally laughable?

Suggested scenes…

  1. Backstage before the opening parade of contestants, showing shots of individual men in close-up, wearing their crowns, gushing about how excited they are to be here, to have won in their home state – and to be HERE!! – oh my, this is what they have dreamed about since they were a little boy…
  1. Opening parade of contestants: each man in a tuxedo, wearing his home state banner and crown, walks (in that rehearsed way) from offstage to front and center, poses in profile to left and right, smiling throughout, then walks to the back to stand in chorus line, while the MC introduces each one by state, the contestants adding “I’m X, and my home state is Y!”
  1. Swimsuit competition: a parade of the men, most in a bikini, some in a larger suit, again with their banners on
  1. Talent competition: men doing the things the women tend to do…twirling a baton (and smiling at the same time), playing the piano, playing the flute (and smiling at the same time), singing a (sappy, insipid) song, dancing on pointe and singing at the same time (and smiling at the same time)
  1. Interview section: the individual men are asked questions, and they give the answers the women so often give – What are your life plans? I want to help people, I would like to work with children, I want to become the best person I can be, I like reaching out to young people, changing their lives…What is the most important thing to you? world peace…What do you cherish the most? children, life…What would you tell young people today? I would tell them to look inside their hearts…
  1. Mr. Congeniality Award: presented with lots of hugs and tears
  1. Mr. America crowning: the finalists are called and assemble at front and center, then the runners-up are eliminated one by one, and finally the winner is declared, crowned, and presented with flowers and a sceptre; again tears and hugs; he stands in glory, then does the victory walk out toward the audience and back, then stands again, tears streaming down his face.

Apr 07 2017

“What is Wrong with this Picture?” a short feminist film script by Peg Tittle

What is Wrong with this Picture?

This film consists of a collage of scenes, five to ten minutes in length), in which women are always the superordinates and men are always the subordinates.  Dialogue isn’t that important, so once the scenes are decided upon and roughed out, the cast can probably improv rather than follow a script.

Suggested scenes:

Office: Woman in executive office summons her secretary, who is a man, who enters and politely inquires “Yes, m’am?”  She says something like “Ask Ms. Jordan to come to my office, then bring us coffee, please, and hold all calls.”  He nods in subordinate fashion and exits.

Boardroom:  Seated around the table discussing important matters are, every one of them, women.

Hospital scene: Female doctors and male nurses and clerks.

University: Female faculty and male support staff.

Bank:  Male tellers; occupants of individual offices are all women.

Courtroom: Judge, lawyers, and security are women; clerk is male.

Golf course:  Only women are playing.

Office:  Woman executive directs her male assistant to call her husband and tell him she’ll be late for dinner.

Home:  Househusband answers the phone, surrounded by cloying, annoying kids, and shows irritation at the message.

Fancy restaurant:  Several women dine together and discuss business.

Doctor’s office: Female doctor giving embarrassed man a physical, which includes a close examination of his penis as well as a rectal examination.

Househusband taking kids to the dentist: The waiting room is full of fathers and kids; the receptionist is male, as is the dental hygienist; the dentist, who breezes in for the authoritative final check of the hygienist’s work, is female.

Househusband grocery shopping:  All of the other shoppers and all of the checkout cashiers are men; a woman is in the manager’s office.

Home:  Husband sets the table and brings out the dinner he has prepared; kids and mother sit waiting; perhaps the woman offers to help, but the offer isn’t really genuine and is brushed aside. with a smile.

Guests for dinner: Two male-female couples are sitting at a dinner table; the conversation is dominated by the women who talk about politics; the two men are silent, though they look supportive from time to time and interject supportive comments, questions to let the women shine; one of the women says something like “Let’s let the boys clean up, shall we?” and the two women retire to the living room for drinks and more conversation.

Office lunchroom: All and only men sit in small groups talking about their kids, the need for an on-site daycare, their failure to obtain promotions, their bosses; a sweet male voice comes over intercom “Danny, Ms. X would like to see you right away”, at which Danny grimaces but gets up and leaves the room.

Car:  Woman at the wheel, man in the passenger seat.

Mar 28 2017

Men against Abortion

Is that why men are against abortion?  Because women are, might be, killing men?  Male fetuses?  If the fetus was known to be female, they wouldn’t have a problem with it?