Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Happy New Year!

Hi Folks-

I know it's been a while.  Sorry for that.  I've been spending the past month gearing up for some new teaching gigs, working on some other writing projects, and spending plenty of time collecting material for this blog.  Unfortunately in the short-term Hegemommy got a little sidetracked.

So, for the couple of you that check in with me occasionally, I hope you all have a healthy and happy 2009.  I can't wait to discuss with you the Obama administration, raising my boy in the shadow of my own feminism, competitive athletics, lady mags, parasitic personal influences, and all those spaces where the personal is political and the political is personal.  I've amassed quite a bit of material that I'm anxious to unload for you all.  So, thanks for checking in.  You've made 2008 quite a big year for me personally and I'm anxious to return the favor.

See you in '09!

Hegemommy


Tuesday, December 9, 2008

So Obama's Wordsmith Copped a Feel on Hillary.....

Well on a cardboard cutout of her anyways.  This story is a little old, but in case you are confused, here's a link discussing the event.  

You can see that this Facebook post (in case you didn't believe me that this would be the Generation X Administration, well, I submit the fact that we are even discussing a staffer's picture on Facebook as Exhibit A) has caused quite a stir in the feminist blogosphere.  I've withheld posting on the topic because, quite frankly, I'm still not sure where I fall on the outrage scale.

Without a doubt that picture makes Jon Favreau look like a tool.  But, um, it's a cardboard cutout for chrissakes, not some drunken co-ed he's fondling.  And I think that the Hillary camp handled the event with the grace and class that we have come to know from her (and you have to imagine at this point the woman is sick to death of hyperbole-driven sex scandals).  At the same time, I totally agree with Bartow that the media is wrong in driving a "boys will be boys" narrative to explain away the picture even if I do think the feminist response is a little over-the-top here. But surprise surprise, I'm interested in the story that the feminists seem to skip over-- that is the continuing and evolving narrative of Hillary Clinton's sexuality.

Remember when Hillary Clinton showed a hint of decolletage?  That scuttlebutt was all about how she was backing away from a carefully crafted persona of asexuality to make herself more appealing to hot-blooded American voters.  Before that, remember the lesbian rumors?  Those, it would seem to be, were also politically calculated stories designed to stir the lust of the far right.  Very different stories, identical agendas.  Use female sexuality to drive desire and hope that desire drives the voter to the polls.  

What is inescapable, and what I have yet to hear from the other feminists, is that fusion of power and sexuality for political gain- anyone's political gain.

At the end of the day I guess I'm happy that this story has been relegated to the collective eye-roll it deserves, but I do wish we could springboard it into a larger conversation about women, power, and sexuality, because that to me is the real story here-- not some picture of some frat boy acting like a frat boy.






Monday, November 24, 2008

Have We Feminized the State Department?

When news broke that President-Elect Barack Obama planned to nominate Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, analysts instantly latched on to the tired narrative of the Obama/Clinton primary wars while simultaneously wondering what kind of damage, or assistance, Bill would bring to the nomination process.  What has been missing in the dissection of the Clinton nomination is to what extent her gender may have played a role in her nomination.  For all the talk of gendered politics in the election season, I'm a bit surprised by the silence on this point now.

Assuming Clinton gets confirmed for the post, and that is a pretty safe assumption, then three of the last four Secretaries of State have been women with Colin Powell the lone exception.  The Secretary of State, in partnership with the Secretary of Defense, coordinates the execution of American foreign policy.  Importantly, the Secretary of State is the "face" of US foreign policy, the lead diplomat and the go-to person for US foreign interests.  

Now, Clinton is no doubt a good choice for this role-- she is the ultimate pragmatist and an outstanding advocate.  She will push the Obama Administration's foreign policy with grace and zeal.  She brings instant credibility and a hawkishness that should appease some of the more centrist of the Obama constituency.  As a Senator she's proven she can craft compromises and get things done.  All of those accomplishments would also make Clinton an excellent Secretary of Defense, but that possibility, or the possibility of any woman taking the reigns at Defense, is apparently non-existent.  Why is that?

I can't help but think we've developed a gendered default for the roles of Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense.  The skills that make one a good diplomat seem to skew female and may inform our presumptions about who would be a good fit more than we realize.  Clearly this country is comfortable with a woman as it's lead diplomat, but I wonder when it will be comfortable with a woman in charge of it's armed forces?

Monday, November 17, 2008

It’s Our Time: Gen-Xers and the Election of Barack Obama

As a member of Generation X, my generation has been defined and categorized by others: boomers and millennials in particular. Boomers labeled us lazy and disaffected while doting and hovering over lazy and disaffected millennials who did little else but just show up.

With the onslaught of campaign post-mortem and the gearing up for the 2010 election, boomers and millennials are once again at the center of this analysis, while Generation X, my generation, the generation coming of political age in the Obama administration, continues to get passed right on by.

Xers have the unfortunate luck to be situated directly between two population booms.  We are, by sheer fact of our numbers, incapable of matching the self-aggrandizing of the boomers and their lauding of the millennials.  Our collective voice, no matter how strong, just cant shout loud enough.  Thankfully for this country we realized there was no need to compete.  And once the rest of the world took notice, things began to change.

That's right.  I'm doing something very un-Xer like.  I'm taking credit for the vision of change promised by the Obama administration.  You see, we Xers gave up long ago trying to play by the political rules crafted by the boomers.  I'll admit, we flirted with them briefly during the first Clinton administration, but once we saw that administration as the same old same old boomer crap we checked out.  But if we checked out, how then could the election of Barack Obama possibly be about, let alone driven by, the slacker generation?

For starters, one great benefit of consistently being overlooked by the boomers meant the creation of our own political counter-insurgency in the private sector.  My generation are the business leaders of the green economy.  We created those private sector models designed to tackle the looming environmental (and related geo-political) catastrophes.  Same goes for poverty eradication, education, and finance.  Those industries that have remained in the boomer charge-- I'm looking at you auto, airline, and banking -- have come crashing down under the weight of their own avarice.  We know how to tackle the big issues of the next decade and will lead that change.

My generation has now fought in three wars- Gulf War I, Afghanistan, and our current debacle.  We can throw in Somalia and the Balkans as well, just for good measure.  We know the human toll, the human sacrifice.  We can talk about war other than Vietnam.  As a product of divorce and custody battles we are natural diplomats.  We spent a lifetime negotiating with warring parties.  This perspective, these skills, will get us out of Iraq and usher in a new era of global diplomacy.  Sound crazy?  Just watch.

Being on the front end of the technology boom, teenagers and college students at the advent of email and the World Wide Web, means we are rooted in the actual world as we branch out to the virtual.  Unlike our little brothers and sisters the millennials, we remember a time when life was not digital.  That realism will serve us as we advance the goals of equality in this digital age and assist developing nations.  We will keep the human in humanitarian.

We are a post-identity politics generation and have laid the foundation for the awakening of a new age of liberalism.  But this is not your father's liberalism.  No.  Living through recessions, war, divorce, and raised in the shadows of Vietnam and Watergate made us inherently skeptical of bold institutional promises of anything, let alone substantive change.  We know that government cannot do it alone so we will not expect nor demand it to.  

Our heroes and peers in the chattering class have set the tone for the critical, engaged, but ultimately still hopeful political rhetoric of this new age.  Through the lens of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Rachel Maddow we will keep our institutions honest.

And by now we are used to the millennials getting all the attention and taking all the credit.  That's fine.  Go on boomers-- keep applauding your legacy and praising the millennials simply for showing up.  This is our time and we've got work to do.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Voter Suppression and the Thugs Who Support It

Patriotism is about as close to a defined religion as I get.  I do believe that at our best, this country is a beacon of light for the rest of the world, proof that idealism mixed with hard-work can break down any barrier.  The foundational texts of our democracy-- the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, these are my versions of the King James, the Torah, the Koran.  The principles they espouse- liberty, equality, common good- form the core of my morality.  The idea that our government is simply an expression of our common consciousness, a realization of communal aspiration rather than a power derived by god moves me every election.  This is not jingoistic love.  This is romantic love.

That's why I geek out over voting.  I'm not going to preach about how people all over the world still die for the chance to live in a participatory democracy, and I'm not going to scold you for not participating because I also believe there's power in abstaining as much as their is power in participating.  

But abstention is a far cry from suppression, and this is after all a post about suppression.  About coordinated efforts by the Republican party to disenfranchise US citizens.  Not black voters, not latino voters, not women.  Just voters.  And I'm sorry, but its a disgusting, un-American practice and needs to stop.

My previous post mentioned my experience as a poll watcher-- a position only made necessary by the phenomenon of the GOP's use of "challengers" set up to delay, intimidate, and obstruct the voting process.  GOP challengers are only one weapon in the arsenal of GOP voter suppression tactics, but they are a powerful and particularly odious one.  They sit in the polling places and literally identify who they believe to be legitimate voters.  If they don't think you are a legitimate voter, they notify the election judge who then decides whether or not you can cast a ballot.  In Minnesota, thankfully, the basis for a challenge is extremely limited-- you must be a Minnesota resident, your challenge must be based on personal knowledge that a voter is ineligible to vote in that specific precinct, and the challenge must be reduced to writing in the form of a sworn statement.  This is a change from the previous election and a result of the GOP sending in legions of attorneys from Texas and D.C. to man the polls and challenge voters.  For real.  In order to be a challenger, or a vote protector, one must go through a training session and receive a certification from either the GOP or the DFL that they are that party's official representative.  My point is, if you volunteer for either of these tasks, you are well versed in election law before the voting actually begins.

Heading to the polls at 5:45 am on election day I was the crazy combination of tired and wired, and when I got to my precinct and saw a line of voters an hour before the polls opened I knew it was going to be a big day.  For twenty minutes I sat there, chatting with election judges and thinking, for just a moment, that my presence was going to be a waste.  There was no GOP challenger in sight and the election judges were psyched for high voter turnout and to be part of a historic election, irrespective of outcome.

And then he showed up.  The challenger.  A Vietnam veteran living on acres of land in booming Dakota County.  The basis for his support of the GOP comes from his evangelical roots.  Here we were-- a feminist and an evangelical.  Sitting side by side at one table.  For the next 14 hours.

Election day got off to a bang.  Right as the polls opened and the voters started streaming in we hit our first issue.  Mr. Challenger tried to set up shop at the new voter registration table because he was intending on validating the identification of every new voter that registered that day.  That's right.  He was checking id.  I realize I've said a lot, so if you need to go back up and look at the extent of his authority as a challenger on I understand.  You will not see on that list "verify identification."  That is what the election judge does.  Not a partisan representative.  And he knew this.  

He knew he wasn't allowed to check id's.  But he also knew that starting a fight with me and the election judges would delay the vote.  Most people were trying to get to work, and if the line stopped moving, they'd probably leave and not come back.  For the challenger and his party it was not about winning that particular battle, it was winning the war of voter turnout.

Well, I was not taking any of that shit, and thankfully, neither was the election judge.  Rather than debate the law which we knew he was versed in, we called the city.  They sent down a city representative who let our challenger know that any more stunts like that and he'd find himself on the curb.  Cudos to the city for not putting up with any of that crap.

For the next 13 hours I saw him bristle at every minority voter that registered, particularly those who spoke with an accent.  I overheard dejected calls to GOP headquarters that turnout was high and that he had been pinned.  I heard him have conversations with election judges about the dignity of civic service and his pride in his country.  

And, had the statute not prevented me from doing so, I would have asked him how on earth he reconciled those feelings with his role as voter gestapo.  How he could call himself a patriot while he sneered at the 200 new voters that waited in line for the chance to have a say in the governance of this country.  

I just don't understand it.  Sure, we could stereotype the voters he'd challenge as likely DFL voters, but we have no proof of that.  I was stationed in a heavily republican district- wouldn't you think it was possible that some of those new voters would vote GOP?  If the past eight years have taught us anything it is that people do not always vote in line with their economic or cultural best interests- they often just vote for who they'd like to go drinking with.  Why would a veteran, a self-confessed patriot, strive to undercut the basic foundation of a country he could have died for?  

It really makes you wonder why the GOP is so scared of a fair fight.  I guess we will see if these tactics continue as the republicans work to rebuild their party and what place these extremists hold in the new republican brand.  But so long as the intolerant right serves as foot soldiers of the election they will have to tangle with Hegemommy because even one vote suppressed is a crack in the foundation of our democracy, and something I just can't sit back and watch happen.  So in the meantime, bring it on boys.  Until you are willing to go voter for voter in a clean, fair fight I will sit at the polls, 14, 16, 18 hours an election, as will my own army of hegemommies to stop your treasonous strategy.  Bring it on.

 





 

What I Saw

So I know I'm off schedule with posts, and I'm going to do my damnedest to make up for lost time in the next couple of days.  This may not be a traditional Hegemommy post, but I'm just overcome with a sense of immediacy and I don't want to over-think this experience, so I'm breaking a rule and just putting it out there.  

Last night I worked as a vote protector.  I was an official representative of the DFL and my job was to make sure every eligible voter who showed up to vote got the chance to.    There was also a GOP representative there, except he had a different job and a different title.  He called himself a "challenger" and his job was to challenge voters' eligibility to vote.

I promise in the next post I will get into what happened at the polls, and the nitty-gritty of voter suppression tactics (and how they were SQUASHED! by the way), but for now I just want you all to catch a glimpse of why the Republican strategy of voter deterrence is tantamount to treason in Hegemommy's world.

At 6:00 am there was a line that wrapped down the hall and around the corner of my assigned poll.  Polls open at 7:00.  This particular polling place was in the basement of a nursing home.  None of the people in line were nursing home residents.  

Yesterday I saw an African immigrant cheer and almost cry when she turned in her ballot after voting for the first time as a citizen.  I saw parents come with their adult children to cast ballots together.  I saw hoards of senior citizens, some from the facility and some not, wait with oxygen tanks, in wheelchairs, and some with helpers to read or write for them, just to vote.  I saw  group of young African-American men proud to show off their "I VOTED" sticker.  I saw people who had come to register that day COME BACK with neighbors, family members, friends, to register them as well.  I saw voters who had waited in line for an hour at a polling place only to find out they were in the wrong precinct wait another hour to vote at mine.  At 7:57 I saw a single mom running down the hall with her toddler to get to the poll by 8:00.   Her son was in his featie pajamas, and as I played peek-a-boo with him while she filled out her registration card, I heard the Election Judge comment that this was the first election where this mom was eligible to vote.

Yesterday over 1200 people voted at my polling location.  We registered over 200 new voters.  My side didn't get all 1200 votes, but all 1200 people who showed up to vote were able to.  


Monday, October 20, 2008

Please Make Palin a Contender in 2012. Feminism Could Depend On It.

I know.  I can't believe I just wrote that either.  The current Palin candidacy has me very worried, and not for the reasons you may think.  I'm worried that no matter how the election cuts her status as the beauty queen of the religious right political movement just Barbi-fied the very real gains in politics made by all sorts of women, including Palin.  Gains made thanks to feminism.  

Palin calls herself a feminist, and for some reason, I believe that she really does identify as one. I understand that the difference in Hegemommy's feminism and Palin feminism stems from a difference in, oh, everything, but I absolutely respect the fact that she's scrapped her way up the food chain from broadcast reporter to vice-presidential candidate.  She's one of a handful of female governors, she's clearly comfortable on the national political stage, and fierce at riling the darkest corners of America's heart.  All notable feats to be sure. 

Yes, Sarah Palin is a pretty darn good politician, but the big questions around her candidacy- Is she qualified?  Can she do the job?  What did she just say???- those pose the biggest problem for any gains women have made from the likes of Libby Dole, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Hillary Clinton, Olympia Snow.  

This is how it cuts.  If McCain wins the election and Palin becomes Vice President, that is in itself a victory for feminism.  Less than one hundred years after being granted from the male political establishment the right to vote and an ability to have the voice of a citizen, a woman would hold the second highest political position in the nation.  That's a big deal and there will be a lot of talk of  history making.  Put ideology aside and ignore political platforms, do we want Palin as the Exhibit A to the gains made by feminism on the political landscape?   Should she be our history maker?

It's absurd to think that a Palin Vice Presidency would be the culmination of a race to the top by the brightest, most capable female politicians of the right.  She just is not in the leagues of Dole, Hutchinson, Snow, Whitman, O'Connor, Noonan.  On Sarah Palin, even Peggy Noonan and I agree.  My god that hurts to type, and this is gonna hurt even more - -bravo for having the tits to call out the shallowness of the Palin candidacy, Noonan.  

I think more condemning than Noonan's remarks (she is a paid commentator, so, well, she makes money saying stuff) is the stark silence from the leadership, or even the rank-and-file, of the feminist right coming out in praise of Palin.  Her candidacy is an exercise in vulgarity and they know it.  How insulting it must be to all those qualified women to be overlooked and instead have the cheerleader of the far-right male political establishment on the ticket.  

If Sarah Palin is sworn in as Vice-President that is a victory for style not substance.  Women will remain relegated to the image of supporter rather than equal.  Young girls will be given the image of the beauty queen who grinned her way to political prominence.  A leader that was so darn cute it didn't matter if she wasn't that smart.  We didn't expect her to be.  In fact, sometimes being too smart is a liability, so when in doubt, avoid it.  Try to be pretty instead.  It will get you further.  If only that was simply my tinfoil hat paranoia talking again.  I was actually given that advice by some wealthy women when I was 12.  I have no doubt those who gave me that advice years ago today plan to vote McCain.  And they'll call Palin a feminist too.  

If Palin loses, it cuts along similar lines.  By now her lack of an even basic grasp of historical reality, foreign policy, or time on the national political circuit is well documented.  No one even pretends that she is of a political mind and freely discuss her only a political image.  Her lack of substance will be named McCain's liability.  It already has.  As pundits dissect the campaign they will shred Palin.  Who knows how that will play into the subtle sexism still infecting politics- the sense that the women have a hard time winning national elections in part because of a lack of "qualified" candidates.  

Which is why I hope Palin makes an appearance in 2012 as a serious political candidate, and not as the current candidate Palin.  I want her to be educated on the issues, even as I shout at the tv as a result.  I want her to prove wrong the premise that she simply is Falwell's promised one, because I want to believe that this country is beyond simply voting for homecoming king (or queen) rather than president.  I want Palin to redeem the feminist right, to slap back at the misogyny in its own party that would elevate Palin as its standard bearer, signaling to all the truly brilliant feminist minds of the right that "this is what it takes" to get on the ticket.  Not merits.  Personality.

 

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

I Promise You, Palin Wears the Skirts on Purpose

Oh Sarah Palin.  Can you believe we are this close to the election and I have yet to really tackle the persona of Palin?  Me either.

Now, normally the idea of critiquing the fashion sense of any female politician is repugnant and one of the few areas where I get all bitchy feminazi.  But Palin's case is different.  And no, it's not different because I think Palin is a nutjob.  It's different because what strikes me as so fascinating is her constructed identity, and in that sense, the skirts, the heels, all of it is fair game.

Say what you will about Palin's apparent lack of readiness, her blatant disdain for all things intellectual, this is a woman who knows her political base.  She winks.  She flashes a toothy open-mouth smile, and she wears a lot of skirts.  She's teasing the right with her anti-intellectual lapdance and has made herself the walking, talking blow-up doll of the religious right.  I half expect to see the pull-string peeking out from one of her silky blouses.  She is the right's  antidote to Hillary Clinton's Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuits.  And she's doing it on purpose.

A lot of feminists have decried Palin's treatment by the press, and by other women in particular, as playing out another version of Mean Girls-- girl-on-girl hate crimes that hurt all women.  That would be true but for several factors, only one of which I can get into here.  The rest will have to wait for a future post.  

First, and most obviously, Palin is entirely complicit in her constructed political image and she works it with a savvy that the McCain folks either did not understand or totally disregarded.  When McCain first announced his pick the Republican base lit up like Christmas in Vegas.  The fringe of the party that had spent the better part of the twentieth century actively advocating against the rights of women heralded Palin as their champion.  And she took the crown with glee.  That snapshot allowed us to see what the religious right saw as an image of female leadership.  She was perky.  She was scrappy.  She was attractive (especially by political standards).  But she was also willing to cede all power, authority, and leadership to her male elder.  She was, at the end of the day, no threat to the male political establishment and never would be.    

But I have to give Palin credit.  She's just not mistress material.  As the McCain campaign derails pundits now complain about his inability to "control" Palin.  Her vicious race baiting (again, in stark contrast to the subtle race-baiting in the Democratic primary practiced by the Clinton campaign, but that is also another post) brings all the fever of a Pentacostal revival with none of the soul-saving.  It doesn't sit well with the Lutheran roots of mainstream America- it's too loud and too honest in it's bias.  

And Palin is too ambitious, again, a fatal flaw in the religious right's image of acceptable female leadership.  She's had a taste of the national spotlight and trust me, she's looking for more.  Think it was a slip when she referred to the "Palin/McCain ticket"?  I don't.

As the campaign draws closer to election day, and the pitch continues to elevate, and as the Grand Old Party sinks deeper in despair look for Palin's shirts to get a little tighter, the skirts a little shorter, and the hair worn down more than up.  Just a hunch.  

It's actually a game I'm pretty familiar with, but the thing is, Palin is no Hegemommy.  See to really beat the big boys, and I have no doubt that Palin aspires to beat them, you still need to be smarter than them.  The skirts, the winks, the toothy smiles are all the tools to get you past the cronyism, to let you in to the boardroom.  It's the substance that keeps you there.  On that point, neither the GOP nor its current fetishist Palin seem to get it.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Words Matter. And It Takes Tits To Say That.

Okay, so you've heard that I'm in one of those "transitions."  Yes, I gave up my lucrative career as a nut-cracking litigator to string words together for a living.  When I first announced this decision one of the more common responses from my peers (male and female) was: "Wow.  Good for you.  That takes a lot of balls."  Not everyone said this with the same tone, but I took the statement to be variations on a theme.  Balls.  Bravery.  Guts.  Maybe even slightly stupid.  But all interchangeable parts, right?  

For the first time ever this phrase stopped me in my tracks.  I mean, it's not like this was the first time I had heard it, let alone used it.  I always talk about needing balls to do this or the balls to do that.  I employ it ironically and not-so-ironically.  Sometimes when I talk about having balls to do something I mean courage, and sometimes I mean recklessness.  But it is always associated with action, with putting yourself out there consequences be damned.  But here I was, about to strike out on my own, to make my own name for myself, and all of a sudden this phrase took on a new complicated complicity.  Did I really want to have the balls to do anything?  What did that mean????

Words matter, and am I not the first to point out the interesting association between these shorthands for power and action, and human anatomy.  After all, sex is power, and when we want to create an appropriate visual of that source of power, the default should be to those organs.  It is beyond stating the obvious.  I mean, without such a truism there would be no Hegemommy.  Go back through this sad little blog and find a post, aside from the disclaimers and re-starts, that does not have as it's central premise the connection between sex and power.  See.  Told ya.

 The shorthand works just as well in reverse and speaks volumes to our collective unease with female sexuality.  Pussy.  Weak.  Cowardly.  Passive.  Once again, a shorthand I've employed as a slur for someones perceived weakness.  But now, as someone who depends on words for survival, let alone identification, these shorthands are becoming increasingly problematic.

This is complicated turf.  I see creativity coming from that same vat of primordial goop as sexuality-- a raw and charged power source that defines many different aspects of personality.  So as a writer, my creativity is undoubtedly linked to my sex and my sexuality.  How could I then continue to employ language shorthands that diminished the very power source I rely on to keep my lights on?

I've decided that I can no longer be complicit in the cultural demegoggery of  female sexuality and power, and I'm taking over my own shorthand.  Feel free to use it if you like.  Pass it on.  Like all things cultural, it may gain its own cache, find its niche, and create the counter-narrative to the presumption that an active display of power is a masculine trait.  That's right.  It takes tits.  Not balls.  Tits.

Once said out loud, the choice seemed ridiculously obvious.  




Friday, September 26, 2008

Here We Go Again. On False Starts and Starting Over.

Okay, so some of you may recall that I promised a brand new Hegemommy, and vowed to post with fury.  Well, ugh.  It didn't quite work out as I had hoped, so, once again, I'm here to say, it's a brand new day.

A lot has changed since those first naive posts.  A lot has not.  Hegemommy has learned to trust her instincts more and rely on others less.  All good things, but not worth spending more than a small paragraph discussing.  Moving on.

I'm now officially a full-time writer, so, I guess I better write.  This will be a good forum for those thoughts that rattle endlessly in my brain.  And really, Palin is the gift that keeps on giving, so I figure I have at least a month of great material to help hone my craft.

So, once again, I'm posting a transition post.  One that helps lead from one idea to the next.  Only this time Hegemommy has put her money where her mouth is.  Literally.  

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Go ahead, have another cookie....

As some of you may have heard or read, the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends using cholesterol drugs on children as young as 8 to stem childhood obesity. If there was ever any remaining doubt that our doctors are not our advocates, this bit of news should seal the deal. This particular issue really chaps my hide because of my own job, and I see a public health problem like childhood obesity as also being part of an environmental problem, and public safety problem, and a whole host of other problems that go well beyond the AAP's approach in this recommendation. But I'll get to that in a minute.

First, I have a favor to ask. Could you all stop trying to make my son fat, lazy and stoopid? For real. I by you all I mean big Pharma, Uncle Sam, and now apparently, my doctor. By now I probably lost a few of you into the "conspiracy kook" qualification, but this is not some half-baked paranoia. Doesn't matter if you send your kid to private or public school, they will be pumped full of garbage and there's really not a damn thing you can do about it. Here's an illustration.

My son is in daycare full time at a center that provides lunch and snacks. I only recently enrolled him in the lunch program after struggling for about a year to make him appropriate bag lunches that met the dietary restrictions his school created- most importantly no nuts and/or nut products and nothing that would have to be "cooked" but the school. So forget the pb&j fall-back or anything that wasn't essentially pre-assembled. And, I know this is going to make me sound like a total whiner, but getting those lunches together was hard. Usually I was making those lunches at midnight before bed or 5 am before work. It didn't matter though. I was determined that he not be pumped full of sugar and fat during the day. And, to be fair, my son's school provides healthful snacks, and the lunch program is better than most, but that's simply a function of the fact that we spend in daycare tuition what we would spend if we were sending him to college. That's a whole other post. My point is that it was more than my boho sensibilities driving his lunches of rice and beans, pasta with tomatoes, carrot sticks, and whole grain crackers. It was also my desire to keep our doctor's visits to a minimum, to try and raise my dude with as few food quirks as possible and, to be totally honest, to keep his energy and mood stabilized so that when I picked him up after a day of arguing, posturing, and getting flogged by the man my preschooler would be more, well, manageable. There, I said it.

It wouldn't have mattered if my motivation were only altruistic, the fact of the matter is, when he sat down for lunch and his buddy Tyler was eating a sloppy joe, or salisbury steak, or a breakfast burrito, my kid didn't want his lunch, no matter what it was. He wanted the hot lunch and began hunger striking to get it. I resisted his teacher's calls to sign him up for the lunch program at first but eventually caved after I'd lost hours of sleep to packing lunches that got thrown away, hounding from insistent teachers pecking away at my obsessing over his meals, and repeatedly came home with a cranky, hungry child who, despite my best efforts, had found processed sugar, empty starches, and a distaste for anything green and crunchy. I caved. I signed him up for the lunch program. I admit that its nice not to have to onemorething to do at night before bed or first thing in the morning, but before long I began to worry about what a lifetime in the hot-lunch program would do to my son's health.

Well thank fucking god the American Academy of Pediatrics has let me know that I don't have to worry about that anymore. See, rather than put their CONSIDERABLE resources toward creating healthful lunch programs and vibrant physical education curricula in public schools or for schools who receive public dollars of some sort, they have sided with big Pharma and now suggest we just further medicate our kids. Forget fresh fruit and a jog, try Lipitor instead. Sure makes my job as a parent a helluva lot easier AND the pharmaceutical and insurance industries make a windfall. Everyone wins! Besides, just ask Alice Waters and the Berkeley and Oakland public schools- no one is interested in actually creating healthful models when there is sooooo much money to be made on maintaining illness models.

But here's the ringer for the doctors. The Hippocratic Oath. First, do no harm. Do. No. Harm. First. That is an ethical obligation to patients no different than my ethical obligation to my clients. I am their advocate in the legal system, and my doctor, my son's doctor, has a professional obligation to be an advocate in the medical system. Meeting those ethical obligations is a challenge, especially when insurance companies want you to save costs, partners want you to secure a particular outcome, and you want to get home and be done with this stupidfuckingclientalready. However, if I abdicate my ethical responsibility it will, at a minimum, get me a professional reprimand, if not a malpractice suit. For the American Academy of Pediatrics those abdication result in public health policy decisions, mainstream media accolades, and a whole lot of grease from the industries they are supposed to be keeping a critical eye on.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

It's Makeover Time!

Girls love makeovers, right?! That's what all those pretty fashion magazines tell me, anyways. Well, Hegemommy is undergoing a bit of a makeover, and here's what I can tell you so far.

As the three of you who regularly check in on this site have noticed, I haven't posted anything in a while. I'm gearing up for a big trial and what little time I've got left has been used trying to parent, and work on my material. The good news is I've compiled A LOT of it, so posting soon should be fast and furious. The other good news is that I've linked up with some folks who are challenging me creatively and intellectually, hence the Hegemommy makeover. All so new, yet so familiar.

So please, stay tuned. Big things are in the works here. I can't give a specific launch date, in part because if I'm in trial then the re-re-launch of Hegemommy will have to wait until all that jazz is over. Don't worry, this is no Chinese Democracy situation or anything. The countdown has begun. So sit tight, stay tuned, and get ready for a refreshed and reinvigorated Hegemommy to add the necessary dash of salt to your diet of politics, parenting, and pop culture. As told from the inside, of course.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Hillary, it's time.

For some reason I've withheld from posting anything overtly political, as in commenting on the current election cycle. It's time for the gloves to come off.

Hillary, girl, step aside. It's important. It's necessary. It's time. You're doing more harm for our cause now than good. And by our cause I mean all the other hegemommies out there. We champion your ball-busting demeanor. We LOVE that you don't bake cookies. We adore that you are the brains behind Bill's bravado. Most of all, we just love that men hate you simply because they fear you. They cannot demean you by sexualizing you and they cannot outsmart you. So instead they hate you and, by all appearances, you don't give a rat's ass. For that we love you because we see ourselves in you.

But speaking for myself now, I cannot support race-baiting any more than I can support gender-baiting, and your campaign, and your supporters, are race-baiters. The voters you woo in typically New-Democrat fashion are not Democrats. Many call themselves Reagan Democrats, or conservative Democrats. I call them Republicans. These are the same voters who for the past eight years actually believed that the Republican party gave a shit about them. They honestly thought the corporate robber-barons financing the Bush & Co., campaign would protect their jobs, provide them affordable health care, and, most importantly, save the institution of marriage from all those nefarious twinks. Oh, and the jihadists. We need protection from them also so your supporters vote for the party that will protect their jobs from the Mexicans, their cultural institutions from the gays, and their freedom from the Muslims. Those are your voters.

Do you really think if given the choice between a woman and McCain these voters will vote for you any more than they would vote for Obama? C'mon. You're a smart woman and you know better. These voters all go Republican in November, because they always go Republican.

I know you know better because I've watched you position yourself for this run since your first Senate victory. You vote Republican party-line at almost every opportunity. You want to bomb Iran as soon as you can. Your health care plan leaves all real power in the hands of the insurance industry. Your husband's administration (and the basis of your "experience" claim) shut out the working class with NAFTA and kicked the gays with Don't Ask Don't Tell. You pander to Hispanic-conservative racism, suburban fear-mongering and, at every opportunity, divide the true Democratic base to shore up personal support. You make millions of dollars a year, live the majority of your adult life in stately government mansions yet campaign as a commoner. Jeez, that sounds familiar. You learned a lot from the Bush II campaign, and its showing.

The thing is, I don't hate you, and I don't even hate on your political decisions because I am sure they are creatures of necessity. I understand that for a woman to get to your position of power that you had to make some compromises. I get it. I've made my own. I also get that just because I'm an egg-headed liberal that the nominee doesn't have to represent my "far out there" views. I can handle a candidate that plays to the center. So long as that is the center of the left, and you Hillary, you have been playing to the center of the right.

There's nothing I want as badly as a woman president. Well, maybe a few things, but for the good of the cause, we need a woman in office. Apparently this is a radical concept in the US, although not so much so for our democratic counterparts in the rest of the world as the UK, Germany, and a host of other industrialized nations have done just fine with it. But I also think as white women here in the states we have a larger ghost to exorcise.

History has used our white femininity as a means of whipping up racial frenzy and fear. Those early race-baiters preached that our country's fragile white women needed protection from the exotic sexual appetite of all things black. Miscegenation laws and Jim Crowe owe their very existence to the cultural urge to protect our women (and by default of female biology, our future) from the heart of darkness. Hillary, you are now, perhaps unwittingly, writing a new chapter in this country's abysmal history of race-baiting. It's got to stop.

I know the impetus of this blog is a vent for all the shit I take as a woman in a man's world. But I have not for a second lost sight of the fact that even in my diminished status in the professional world I remain absurdly privileged compared to my black female peers. Hillary, I think you could use some of that perspective.

And seriously, is your campaign, and the reporting of your campaign, not just a perfect illumination of the male gaze, the normative lens through which all cultural assumptions are formed? That gaze that has always pitted minority against minority, playing on women's perceived frailty as a cultural value endangered of being darkened. Do you really want to be such a pawn?

So please, Hillary, it's time. Let's let the Democrats, rather than the Republicans, choose our nominee. Your career has not arced yet, but if you insist on pressing forward in the manner in which you have since Iowa, then your defeat against McCain in November will do nothing but solidify the two dangerous cultural prejudices: that black men are still to be feared, and that women are too weak to ultimately govern. I know that is not the legacy you imagined as you set out on your campaign, yet it is the legacy you are helping to write. You've never settled for being simply another stereotype before, please don't do so now.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Compassion v. Competition in Gym Class

I'm a competitive person. I'm in a competitive profession and I've played competitive sports for the majority of my life. I've always seen competition as a healthy means to achieving some self confidence and, quite frankly, as a fundamental aspect of my personality. I have never been comfortable with the idea that boys are somehow inherently more competitive than girls, but a recent event did give me some reason to pause here.

I signed my three year old up for a sports clinic in an effort to drain him of some of energy during the week. The brochure told me the kids would be introduced to a new sport each week, and as a bona fide sports-lover I was sold. First they'd play soccer, then they'd play floor hockey, before moving on to basketball, flag football, and tumbling. The reality is it's just a glorified gym class with some poor young physical trainer-in-training at the helm, trying to organize ten kids ages three through six into some semblance of group cooperation. Whatever it is, it gives mommy one hour a night where my little dude can blow off some steam and all I have to do is watch.

The class is comprised of nine little boys and one girl, and the girl in this class is easily one of the most athletic kids there. That fact alone made me love her. Anyways, last week the kids were playing a version of duck, duck goose, but since it was soccer night they were playing soccer player, soccer player, goalie. I'll admit I was twitching a little bit at this game, and it was all I could do not to run on to the court and explain that goalies are soccer players, but I let it go.

It's pretty apparent at this clinic which kids are the older, more athletic of the bunch, and which ones, well, are not. And I'll come right out and say that in this group my kid is one of the little dudes.

During this simple little gym class for pre-schoolers, one of life's universal truths unfolded. The big kids kept choosing the other big kids to chase (including our only girl), while this whole group of little dudes, mine included, just sat eagerly waiting for one of those cool big dudes to pick them. The trainer-in-training picked up on this right away and she made a couple comments to the group about how they needed to make sure everyone got a turn. These comments went ignored by the all of the big kids except the girl. As soon as she was picked she ran around and tapped the chubbiest, most awkward kid in the group and shouted "GOALIE!"

Well, he gave chase and, like all nerdy kids before they are broken, chose one of the big kids as goalie because even at the young age of three the camps are drawn between those who are athletes and those who are not, and those who pine to be included in that group and those who will probably reject them. Not to be deterred, the teacher again told the kids to make sure everyone had a turn and again, as soon as the girl was chosen she picked another little dude to make sure everyone got to participate.

I'll admit that I was troubled by her choice, and equally troubled by my reaction. I love this little girl because she consistently out-maneuvers the boys and is quite simply one of the best athletes of the bunch. To the extent these little kids are "competing" she is doing so without the benefit of adjusted times, lowered expectations, all of those gender markers that plagued my gym classes, competitive sports, professional life, and the world of professional athletics for women. So when she was the only kid consistently trying to include everyone in their game of chase, and when the moms all looked at each other, grinned and said "of course its the girl who picks him" I thought that maybe we were teaching her and the other kids a bad lesson. Don't misunderstand, I am all for inclusion, especially at such a young age and when the whole purpose of an activity is just to have fun. But didn't we send a signal to the other boys that this was not their issue- that they could just go on in their "eat what you kill" world because inevitably, and obviously, the girl who could hang with them would take the responsibility of making sure societal expectations (in this case, the teacher's request that everyone get to play) were met? And what about all of us that were not surprised in the least bit that it was the girl who made cooperation possible? Isn't she just playing right into that expectation, even if it wasn't specifically articulated?

I also found myself concerned that I was irritated at her choice to try and please her teacher because, for some reason, it seemed to knock her down a peg in the group. By showing her empathy and compassion, she was relegating a bit of her competition. She slowed down her run to let the chubby kid catch her and didn't chose a kid because it would be fun, but because she was meeting an expectation. Why couldn't we just let her compete like all the other boys?

Of course, this is just little kids gym class, so there is part of me that needs to step back and get a grip. But I see this same dynamic play out everyday in my work. I'm chosen to deal with certain clients because I can empathize with them, a skill I'm proud of but not one that has earned me a lot of respect among the dudes writing my checks. Or, I'm placed on a case where it is important to create an certain image, like, see, my client can't be a sexually harassing asshole because he hired a woman to defend him. And the women I see who are truly successful in a litigation practice have turned those empathetic skills off completely- they have emasculated themselves in some sort of gender suicide because of this crazy notion that competition is inherently male.

So where does that leave us? At what point do we tell the dudes that it is their responsibility to meet those expectations that everyone get included because the girls aren't going to do it for them anymore? And can the girls do that without getting lost in that Lord of the Flies ethos that dominates pop culture constructions of masculinity? Trust me, this is not the last post here on the topic.


Thursday, May 1, 2008

It's a Man's Game. Except When it Isn't.

When I made the decision to go to law school, and later when I made the decision to enter private practice as a litigator, I understood that I was stepping into some interesting territory as a woman. Sure, plenty of women go to law school, and plenty of women maintain very successful private practices. Heck, my graduating class was 51% female. But despite those facts and statistics, I also knew that the law was truly one of the last bastions of the old boys. Especially business litigation. I knew that many cases settled and deals struck either on the golf course or the steak house. I knew that my male collegues had wives who took care of the home and secretaries who took care of the office. I knew that some of my "partners" would never actually view me as such, simply because of my gender. I knew all that.

Despite that relatively clear-eyed view of my profession, I was dumbfounded when my gender became a central component in a case strategy. Let me explain. I'm working on a case where my main adversary is a notorious woman-hater. He just can't help himself. He's absoultely one of those guys who will always see smart women as a threat. If you de-feminize yourself enough he may accept you because this validates his idea that litigation is a man's game. If, however, you still embrace your feminity despite the fact that you work in a professional frat house (and I do) then he'll constantly demean you, harrass you, and for example, address questions and insults only to your breasts. For real. This fact is especially depressing because this guy is in his fifties. I mean, I expect it from the old farts who still rely on their secretaries to bring them coffee in the morning and turn on their computers, but not from someone even younger than my own father. Anyways, my client was about to have his deposition taken, and my partner on the case decided that it should be my job to defend that deposition. Normally that kind of task would both thrill and terrify me. I would be thrilled at the chance to go head-to-head with a more experienced litigator and show my stuff, and terrified at the possibility of getting beat pretty badly.

Not so here. No, I told that I was chosen for this task not because I'm a great lawyer, or because I could handle this legendary jerk of an opposing counsel (all of which are true, of course). Nope, I was chosen because I'm the woman on the file. And that fact alone. I was chosen because opposing counsel would be so distracted at the fact that a woman was sitting across the table from him objecting to his questions and defending the hell out of her client that he'd be off his game. He would be so distracted by my very presence as a woman that he'd forget to ask questions and instead of attacking my client (which is what he should be doing during this proceeding), he'd be attacking me. That's right. I was sent in as a diversion and a distraction. And got paid to do it.

Wow. What a complicated place to be in. Had my partner simply told me that I got the assignment because I'm good and could do the job, I'm sure I would have come to my own conclusions about any effect my gender had on the proceedings. To his credit (and his fault), he was completely candid about why I was sent on the front line. It was never because I'm a good lawyer and was always because I'm a woman who happens to be a good lawyer. My partner did say that if I sucked as a lawyer I most likely wouldn't have gotten the assignment because we could not be sure we'd keep the tactical edge. Hmmm.... backhanded compliment anyone?

The sad truth is it worked. And boy was I pissed. I was pissed at opposing counsel, pissed at my partner, and pissed at myself. Being pissed at opposing counsel is easy, and almost not even worth the effort or all that fun. He did spend hours on end baiting me, insulting me, and letting me know how to do my job. He behaved exactly as planned. But for my partner to use me as strategy, to subject me to that kind of degradation and attack for some intangible strategic edge?! The only reason he would do that is if he was pretty confident it would work, and to have that kind of confidence he must know just exactly what kind of ass our opposing counsel is (who, by the way, is an old friend of his-- they go waaaay back). And to let it happen, well that's all on me.

I suppose I could have refused. I could have turned on my heel and stomped off in an indignant huff. I could have let him know that manipulating institutional misogyny for the benefit of our client might be effective advocacy, but it is shitty personnel policy. Because it is. But at the end of the day I capitulated, knowing that my gender, at least in this case and at this moment, was another tool in my toolbox and I had been enlisted to use it.

If there's an upside to this story I suppose it is that the strategy worked and that in some twisted manner I was an agent of that strategy rather than a victim of it. I was attacked for over eight hours that day when it should have been my client, and our case is stronger for it. And I suppose my partner's strategy in coming clean with me about how and why I got the assignment made me more prepared for the assault than had he kept his true rationale hidden. Who knows, but I can't help but wonder if women in other professions find their "status" as a woman something that is manipulated either as asset or a liability depending on the task at hand. I can honestly say that this was the first time in my professional life (that I'm aware of, anyways) where I was given an assignment specifically because of my gender. Now that's some messed up affirmative action.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Am I a bad feminist because I'm glad I have a boy?

I have a son. A wonderful, boisterous, little dude who is the light of my life. When I was pregnant and found out I was having a boy my first feeling was....relief. And then guilt.

I was relieved that I dodged the teenage girl bullet with my first (and perhaps only) child. I go to the mall. I see them. They travel in packs and speak a language I can't understand. And I'm not that old. Today's teenage girlhood exudes a level of sexual sophistication that even in my thirties I can't pull off. How on earth could I parent around and in a culture that sexualizes girls as young as six? No doubt about it I was happy not to deal with any of that crap.

Until the guilt set in. I'm a feminist. I pride myself on a developed sense of gender identity that articulates a contrary vision of mainstream femininity. I'm a professional. I litigate complex business dispute and spend more of my day than not navigating the last bastions of the old boys club. In heels. With cleavage. Who am I kidding that sexuality and gender identity don't go hand in hand in my daily existence? Shouldn't I be praying to the goddess for a little mini-me to mold into a vision of third or fourth wave feminist dreams realized? And am I now a traitor to the cause because when presented with the fact that I was having a boy instead of a girl I didn't feel even a teensy bit sad that I was not birthing another little hegemommy? I was, by all accounts, overjoyed that I was not having a girl. Doesn't that make me a bad feminist?

Now that I've had a couple of years to let that guilt process I've realized that having a boy doesn't mean the coast is clear on this issue. Not by any stretch. How do I raise a young boy to view girls as his equals in a culture of female hyper-sexuality? That's an even stickier issue for me as my gender is highlighted daily in my career. I'd be lying if I said that I'd never played on my femininity at work, or gambled on the fact that the douche on the other side of the table has issues with women and used that to my advantage. All. Day. Long. Maybe the answer is that I was a bad feminist all along.

This issue is far from unpacked. When people tell me my son is "all boy" I beam with pride and entertain visions of bad high school bands, skateboards, football games and floppy hair. And if he was a girl, and someone told me my daughter was "all girl" how would I respond? Right now that conjures images of princess parties, pink everything, and dance. Despite the fact that NONE of those images populated my girlhood, they are the images I default to in imagining girlhood. So having a son has, at the very least, given me a template for exploring all these nuances of mainstream gender identity, my own identity, and how those two identities clash, compliment, and coexist. At the very least its provided me with plenty of material to write about.

To start- a disclaimer. Of course.

The whole purpose of launching this blog was to give myself a forum to explore all those sticky issues of womanhood that I safely ignored until becoming a mom. Of course, that was many months ago, and here I am just getting around to my first post. At some point I'll unpack the lagtime between the creation of this site and my first substantive post and offer some euridite explanation for the delay. Not today though. Today I'm just happy to post.