Category: privilege

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General post-feminist problems privilege sociology

Everyday Cart-ographies: Navigating the Tricky Terrain of the Grocery Store

Badvertising: None of these mofos are "ripe"
Badvertising: None of these mofos are “ripe”

*The pun in the title is sick (even though the metaphor isn’t perfect), so please get it. 

Nothing is more fascinating to me than the mundane activities of (my) everyday life.

Identifying, thinking about and ultimately navigating the unspoken, implied social rules in any given context is something that I find challenging, but also generally hilarious.

Since becoming a full-on grown up, one of the most challenging activities that I carry-out on a pretty much every-other-daily basis is grocery shopping. Despite all of this very regular practice, I am still incapable of conducting myself like successfully socialized human being while shopping for food: there elements of the entire experience that I simply do not understand. The following (non exhaustive) list outlines the largest sources of my grocery shopping confusion and frustration:

1. Carts: I hate carts. I hate them even more when I have to somehow locate a quarter to release one from a chain of them– so not only do I have to grocery shop; I now have to emotionally reconcile the fact that the grocery store doesn’t trust me not to steal the cart, which as I said, I hate. I almost always end up opting for a hand basket — if I actually manage to find one. Committing to a cart is similar to how it feels to switch from a cool sporty, agile car, to a clunky, but practical mini-van. No one feels hip when they’re pushing a cart, but sometimes your circumstances call for it. The hand basket often works out very poorly for me, because after a few minutes, it gets so heavy that I have to use both hands to carry it. That said, when I do end up with a cart (I usually cave if I have to buy a case of pop), I almost always find myself in/starting a cart jam. I get confused about who has the right of way, and question why we don’t have turn signals or brake lights, or hazard lights (because sometimes you just have to make an emergency stop). It’s always mayhem, and I end with major aisle rage.

2. Avocados: If you want to eat one today, you better remember to buy one 3 days ago.

3. I don’t know where anything is: Where is the sriracha? Is it in the (problematically labelled) ‘Foods of the World’ aisle? Isn’t all food “of this world”? Or is it with the condiments? Where do I find a meat thermometer? What about chapstick? Sundried tomatoes? Peanut sauce is always elusive. I have often googled “which aisle would _______ likely be found in a grocery store?” This works never.  I call for the implementation of a Dewey Decimal-like system, but for food. It just makes sense.

4. The Checkout Process: This really comes down to the cart again. When it is finally almost over and I get in line, and the person in front of me places the conveyor belt relay baton/grocery divider on the belt (do this, it’s rude not to), I have to make a decision: When I ultimately enter the narrow magazine, gum and candy bar-lined lane, do I stay behind my cart, or do I get in front of the cart, and awkwardly pull it? Being in front feels and looks odd, but it is much more efficient in terms of loading the groceries. I’ve actually asked cashiers what they recommend, and the consensus is that it is a very strange question.

5. Bags: I have a stash of reusable bags. We all do. But, I forget them 70% of the time, or I didn’t bring enough. When it comes time, and the cashier asks if I need to buy bags, my guilt and shame almost always lead me to proudly say “no”. It is at this point that I shove as much of the small items in my purse as possible (most will stay lost in there indefinitely), and pile the bigger items on  top of each other until they hit eye level. This leads to the worst walk across the parking lot ever, and I feel strangely raw and exposed, while peering out over my 50 pack of generic brand tampons, trying to find the car.

This is but one of the seemingly mundane, routine activities that leave me bewildered. There are plenty of layers to this, perhaps the most obvious being the gendered element of grocery shopping (like other unpaid work). I was, and continue to be a feminist. But, in my 20s, I thought that I’d be living this awesome, radical and subversive life, where I would be smashing the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy on the reg. Here I am in my 30s, for a billion different structural and personal reasons, leading a really, hegemonically white feminine suburban life, and I’m not complaining because I am privileged, but it wasn’t what I prepared for.

Super markets are kind of a metaphor for my life course: unpredictable, difficult to prepare for, and sometimes a little overwhelming…

and really not scary at all, but becomes that way when I’ve over thought it, and turned it into a whole thing, and probably I should just chill out. 

Categories
'race' privilege sociology

What the Fuck are we Supposed to dress up as on Halloween?

I feel a little uncomfortable with my last post for a few different reasons.  Not the least of which was a message I received from a really smart friend of mine. He made me realize that my last post really didn’t contain *my* voice. In order to explain what was missing from my analysis of ‘race’ and appropriation, I’d like to talk a little about humour.

I have a lot to say about humour. In fact, I’ve said many times that a good comedian is a good sociologist; they are able to direct our attention to the absurdities of the taken-for-granted social world, and reframe in hilarious and relatable ways what we typically think of as mundane. An excellent comedian, in my opinion, is able to do this, while revealing something insightful politically. That is the sociologist in me, who believes that if you’re going to represent the taken-for-granted world, you should have something to say about it, and whatever you have to say should be a critique of the status quo and lend support to those who hold less political power.  I know, hilarious, right?

This whole issue was highlighted about two years ago when Daniel Tosh made a rape joke at his show. He was rightfully criticized by feminists, and good humans in general. The ‘feminist consensus’ (haha… that’s like the most oxymoronical oxymoron ever) around rape jokes at the time is that ‘rape is never funny’, so don’t joke about rape. I was always uncomfortable with this rigid, and quite frankly uncritical stance. And as it turns out, so were other feminists.  Perhaps some rape based jokes are funny, especially those that that are constructed in a way that challenge the rapist, and do not occur at the expense of (potential) rape victims.  For example, Jessie Kahnweiler’s “Meet my Rapist” is powerful example of a rape victim using humour and irreverence to challenge rape culture.  This is a great use of humour.

In response to my last post, my friend also suggested that Halloween is not just about mischief and mockery, but for many others, it is about “wit and satire”. And the dude is right. The notion that ‘rape is never funny’, so all rape jokes are wrong, is just a facile, and logically flawed as saying that ‘racism is wrong’, so all costumes that implicate ‘race’ are wrong.   Both are logical fallacies, especially when we think about how ‘race’ based costumes, like rape jokes can be done responsibly.

The formula is simple: At whose expense is the joke being made? Are we being encouraged to laugh at those who already encounter societal oppression (rape victims, women, or racialized people) or those who currently benefit from the oppression (rapists, racism, white privilege or rape culture)? In being encouraged to see the absurdity of privilege, the status quo is challenged, and therefore your joke or costume is progressive. Although I’m quite positive that it is not that simple.

For example, as my friend suggests, what about a white person using their body to depict “Paula Deen in Blackface?” Who would we be laughing at here? Clearly the intention would be a humourous critique of Paula Deen’s own brand of Showboatesque racism. That said, the effectiveness of irony and irreverence has just as much to do with the sophistication of the audience’s politics and awareness as it does the producer. Satirical humour requires and active audience to make sense of the performer’s intention. So, context would be important to consider.

Categories
'race' General privilege sociology

Memoirs of a (White Girl who dressed up as a) Geisha

White people like this time of year. We pick apples, wear sweaters and according to my facebook newsfeed, we visit pumpkin patches. For the most part, we are pretty happy.

That said, it is precisely this time of year that we are also likely to fuck up. Halloween, as many critical Internet dwellers have pointed out is a holiday associated with racism in the form of cultural appropriation and misrepresentation. There are plenty of photos available through social media depicting white folks dressed up a Mexican people, Arab people, Asian people and Black people. And there is so much evidence that this issue is not disappearing.

But, there are lots of whitesplainers  (like those quoted near the end of  this post) that are happy to smugly defend the practice of turning the racialized Other’s culture into a costume by reassuring those affected by the phenomenon that they are ‘taking themselves so seriously’, while others pull the “reverse racism” card arguing that it is actually racist to prevent white people from appropriating the cultural symbols of the ‘Other’, just because they’re white. I think that is definitely my favourite rebuttal. Yes, the implication is that resistance to colonialism is actually “reverse racism”. It takes a keen social scientific mind to spot that historical blind spot. Quick, some add “reverse racist” to Ghandi’s Wikipedia page.

To be clear, I think that it is irresponsible to dress up like someone from another culture. It is disrespectful, racist, and completely irreverent (and not irreverent in a funny way).  In fact, I feel pretty passionate about the whole thing. Whenever I teach in the fall semester, I like to discuss this issue, and assign an exercise where my students are encouraged to notice and critique racist (and sexist) elements of Halloween costumes.

But, despite my current politics regarding the matter, I have a confession; in 2003 my friend and I dressed up as Geishas. I had just finished reading Arthur Golden’s 1997 book, “Memoirs of a Geisha”, a book that would be impossible for me to get through today without squirming and cringing with feminist anti-imperial angst. But, at the time I liked the book, and my friend and I felt that the costume was appropriate, and perhaps even a little feminist.  Of course looking back, it was anything but.

Over the past few years, I have been actively trying to forget the whole thing, but this brand of lifecourse cognitive dissonance is persistent and embarrassing.  So, it is clearly something that has to be resolved. But, how does one repent for their imperial gaze? First off, whitesplainations are out of the question, because they are riddled with privilege, the denial of racism and colour blind racism. I’m also not going to simply apologize, because that isn’t productive or sincere either. Just ask Paula Deen.

I think that the best way to approach a mistake like this (and maybe ‘mistake’ isn’t the right word, as it sound too innocuous in the situation) is to recognize why I felt entitled to use (incorrectly) elements of other people’s culture, which I honestly knew nothing about (except for the ‘information’ I gleaned from some fictional account produced by some white dude).  It was my white privilege that uncritically drew me towards a “memoir” of a fictionalized Japanese woman written by an American male in the first place. It was my fascination with the culture of the Other that lead me to mimic rather than actually learn about Japanese culture and Japanese women. It was my white privilege that allowed me to go several years (which were spent in Masters and PhD programs… In Soci-fucking-ology) without thinking about my own role in cultural appropriation, and the exoticization of Asian women.

I have read about the problematics associated with identifying as an ally. For a long time, I felt that it was acceptable for a non-racialized person to call themselves an ally. I now see that this is indeed problematic. Especially considering that for quite a few of those years after 2003, I would not have hesitated to identify as an ally in terms of ‘race’ relations. And, obviously, I was not an ally, I was actively participating in the imperial gaze like a big jerk.

Categories
'race' education perspectives privilege sociology

Teaching: Privilege and the Denial of Oppression

Whenever I teach intro sociology, I (for better or worse) always hit my students with the most controversial chapters in the first 3 weeks: ‘race’ and racism, gender and sexism, and social inequality. Bam! I do this for many political and pedagogical reasons which I won’t go into here.  But, the effect of this is usually pretty intense. My students tend to experience anger. This anger is either directed at their culture, but often times it is directed at me. I am, after all pointing out the flaws in their culture, showing them that it isn’t always fair, and despite our best efforts, hard work does not guarantee us success. This is a lot to handle. People like to see their social context as fair and just. So, I come up against a lot of resistance.

Learning, especially in the social sciences necessarily entails a level of discomfort. Only when we become uncomfortable with the frame through which we are accustomed to viewing our world through, will we consider changing that lens. This is one of the main goals in teaching sociology. We want to push our students towards seeing all of the taken for granted disparate power relations that operate in all of our social interactions (both micro and macro), our identities/roles and our social institutions.

I always expect a level of resistance.  But one particular form of it drives me bananas… “white people/men also suffer from discrimination… blah, blah, blah, reverse-racism, blah, blah, blah.” Ugh.

I was discussing the phenomenon of “driving while black” in Toronto where we have a racial profiling issue. This is not an issue simply dreamt up in the minds of bored lefties. Even Bill Fucking Blair acknowledges this issue. Yet, this empirical fact is refuted with statements like “My son is white, and he was pulled over the other day, so yeah.”  Not only is this argument illogical, but it reveals this desperation to ‘fight’ for the privileged group, and refute that the oppressed group is actually oppressed.  It’s about aligning oneself with the valued group.

So, I’ve prepped my lecture notes for next week. This one is about sexism. This particular group (43 women, who are 40+) is outspoken in their advocacy for privileged folks. So, in my discussion of feminism, I actually spend most of my time talking about what it can do *for men* (it can do a lot, btw). This is ridiculously ironic, and actually quite manipulative on my end. It is an attempt to get them to stop advocating for men, when I go on to point out that (white middle class) men have more power in our culture by virtue of their gender.

 I will inevitably, at one point this semester hear that “women rape men too” in an effort to degender a discussion of rape and rape culture. But, hopefully I’ll come up with a similar strategy.  

 

Categories
'race' post-feminist problems privilege

Does this Outfit make me Look Racist?

I’m a white lady, and sometimes I find myself engaged in friendly chit -chat with other white folks, who I don’t know. This happens in such places as the mechanic’s, grocery stores, bars, and most often, in my experience, the gym. In fact, I find myself talking to women working out next to me on the elliptical machines more often than I’d like. It’s actually very physically uncomfortable to maintain eye contact without hurting your neck, so I rarely initiate these conversations, but because I’m such a well-socialized girl, I will always willingly go along when I am invited into conversation. Frequent topics include such things as husbands, careers, grown sons that they would like to set me up with, and chores. But sometimes the conversation takes a turn towards the racist.

As other white people (or people who are perceived as white) might relate, there is an assumption that because I am white I am also racist or at least ok with it.  Today at the gym, I was talking to this other white lady, a teacher, who started making several comments about her students, attributing (what she saw as) their shortcomings to their ethnicity. “You know how those people are. They have no respect for women.”

Ugh. Right, because white dudes are always so respectful. Despite how clearly racist this shit is, I also know that fellow white lady probably doesn’t see it that way. In fact, I think it is fair to say that she might see herself in socially progressive or feminist terms. Because we live in a society that largely sees itself as “postrace”, it is often hard to identify the hateful things we say as racist.

I always find these encounters to be so awkward. My first instinct is to be like, “back off. I’m a Sociologist!” and tell them loudly that they are racist, and under no circumstances will I tolerate it.  Actually, no that’s a lie. I wish that were my first instinct. What I really want to do is offer a subtle critique of ‘white’ western culture, or change the topic altogether (perhaps like a successfully socialized –feminine- girl). This is what always happens.  I know that this is not the behaviour of an ally.   At the same time that I know this, I also know that a quick Sociology lesson will do very little to change attitudes. I know that I have to develop other strategies in these situations.

 

But, for the time being, I’d like to encourage other white people to see ‘not racist’ as the norm, and racist as the exception, because I don’t like having to deal with it. I know that this is certainly not the case, but… fake it till you make it.

 

So, if you don’t know, now you know.

 

I honestly can’t stop quoting 90s rappers today.  I’ve already worked in a “don’t hate the player, hate the game” today.

 

I should also mention that this post is totally saturated with white privilege. Yes, I am a white girl who is complaining that racism makes me feel awkward while I do cardio. Yes, that is a very privileged complaint. Racism doesn’t deny me opportunities, present economic barriers, make me more vulnerable to law enforcement, or make me feel unsafe. I realize this.

 

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education post-feminist problems privilege

There’s no wrong way to be born

American Vice-President Joe Biden recently said that transgendered rights represent the “civil rights issue of our time”. As a Sociology instructor, and as a human capable of observing and processing information from the media, and my everyday life, I agree with him.

Often I can persuade my students to recognize racial, and even to some extent gendered dimensions of oppression. Many of them are also pretty sympathetic to gay and lesbian issues too. But, when I approach transgendered issues, I often come up against at best blank stares, and at worst angry sighs (every soc. Teacher knows the ‘angry sigh’).  When I actually talk about transgendered parenting, it becomes even more pronounced.  This brings me to the point of this post. I actually have two points. First, transphobia is exacerbated when trans gendered people boldly challenge the gender binary through non-normative parenting, and second, children are used as political pawns in justifying hateful and discriminatory discourse. These issues are highlighted in an interaction with my students during our last class.

I began to discuss the challenges associated with being a pregnant transgendered man. Incidentally, when someone who is not cisgendered, or whose sexuality involves non-heteronormative behaviour is expecting a child, we should all recognize that this parent, beyond any doubt deeply desires a child.  This is the case because ‘surprise’ pregnancies simply do not occur in such contexts. These pregnancies often take a great deal of planning, especially if a transgendered male has to stop taking hormones and engages in other preparatory actions. Anyways, students often become incredibly uncomfortable. There’s many reason why this might be the case. Here are a few:

  1. These individuals challenge traditional notions of both femininity and masculinity.

 

We often think of pregnancy as the epitome of femininity. I guess that on some level, this makes a lot of sense. Not only does the typical pregnancy involve the full use of the female reproductive system; uterus, vagina, fallopian tubes, ovaries, and all of those other well-hidden organs, but it is also (typically) the first step towards ‘motherhood’. Becoming a (certain type of) mother is considered to be a successful marker in terms of obtaining ‘authentic womanhood’.

 

But, this is total bunk.  If we believe that fathers can be nurturing and capable of raising well-adjusted children on their own (they can be, and they are), we should recognize that gender roles shouldn’t be so rigid, because they don’t define us, and shouldn’t limit our ideas of ‘acceptable behaviour’ for men or women. Also, and this has been said before, not all cisgendered women are mothers, and not all mothers are cisgendered women.

  1. Children are involved.

We love children! We are all about kids. If we deem something as being potentially damaging to these completely innocent and helpless human beings, we lose our shit, and we often become morally indignant about the whole thing. For example, in class the other day, while I was talking about trans men and pregnancy one of my insightful students expressed some ambivalence towards this form of parenting:

 

“But, Miss… like isn’t that going to be hard for a kid? His dad carried her. Like in his uterus. I get transgendered rights, but that’s not fair to put that on a kid, you know?”

 

Ugh.

I responded to this student like this:

 

“Fair enough. But, I’m pretty sure that all of us are pretty disgusted by our conception stories. For example, over 30 years later, I am still working through the pain and disgust associated with my own conception: my parents totally had sex with each other. Now that conception story is a lot to put on a kid, you know?”

 

Seriously, who cares? Like Drake says, “we started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now the whole team’s here.” Does it really matter how we entered the world? There is no wrong way to be born, and we are all a little uncomfortable with our own conception. That’s human nature. Besides, as much as we use children, and their best interests to fuel or “morally superior” politics, no one really cares about children. This is evidenced by the lack of universal childcare, the American deregulation of children’s media, and the dearth of support for mothers in our culture… *justtonameafew*

 

Anyways, that’s my rant for today.