My beef with Borders: Part 2

I envisioned my previous entry as an essay on the conservative crisis in bookstore conglomerates, but somehow it mutated into a unilateral rant that barely scratched the surface of what I experienced on my last visit to Borders. I only wish it had started and ended with the Men's Studies encounter.

I've read alot of what Borders has to offer in the Women's Studies section, it has ranged from brilliant and relatable to obscure and unbelievable. On this particular day, I was scanning chapters and reading back-covers to find something intriguing. I came across one alarming thing after another: books about feminism written by men, a book about recapturing femininity and re-establishing traditional gender roles, and of course the text closest to my heart: the book about being a bitch. To those of us who cherish the subject, Women's Studies is a source of revolution, a space of meditation and a place where we come together in solidarity and support. It is sacred place where we transgress and transform and it is not to be reinterpreted and co-opted.

I had almost given up the hope of finding anything worth reading when an all black cover caught my attention. The author was a man, and because I had resigned myself to making my next Borders purchase from a different section of the store I took my time to investigate what the book was about. The book is written by a criminal justice attorney and contains detailed accounts of the ways in which "radical feminist thought is corrupting the national justice system." I can only imagine that radical feminist thought includes the ideology that shapes the pro-choice movement, promotes women's health issues and continually strives to obtain the social, political and economic equality of which women are still being deprived; but I'll leave the specific definition up to the author. The book focuses on a case in which an adult woman successfully testified against her father to convict him of acts of sexual abuse that occurred during her childhood. The chief complaint of the author? That the outcome of the ordeal ruined this man's life. Essentially the author set out to argue that the woman was, at the very least, an exaggerator, and that she used the "tools of radical feminism" to make her case believable. Are you kidding me?

What I find most appalling about this book is how deeply it reflects one of the most profound (but under-addressed) problems of inequity that women face in this culture. I call it: your word against his. The truth about sexual abuse and sexual violence is that it rarely occurs in a circumstance or surrounding that includes anyone other than the perpetrator and the victim. Complex forms of shame and embarassment are closely linked to the experience on both sides and it often leads the system of justice to make a determination based on one person's word over the other. And I guess we could all rest our faith in the purity of legal proceedings, the inevitable reign of good over evil or the intervention of a higher power to ensure that justice is served in all cases of sexual crimes. Unfortunately, the world of male-female power dynamics and the perceptions and expectations of each gender complicates and blurs the clarity of the entire situation.

Case Number 1: The too drunk to remember situation. How come it is socially acceptable to excuse rape when women are intoxicated? What about drunk women gives men the right to have sex with them without their consent? My favorite reason for why women aren't able to press charges against the men who sexually assault them is that there was alcohol involved. I wonder what the world would look like if we applied this contingency to the commission of other crimes? It's good to know I can steal my roommates' car without any consequence the next time she comes home after a few drinks. The next time I'm out at a bar I'll be sure to steal money from the people around me to save on the taxi ride home. And hell, if that's the case, the next man who dares to touch me while intoxicated better be careful because I clearly have the license to kill him if he's too drunk to tell me not to.

It paints a pretty bizarre picture, doesn't it? but you'd be surprised how many women are discouraged from and/or unsuccessful prosecuting men who have sexually assaulted them for that very reason. As if to suggest that a woman who has altered judgement (or is completely passed out) somehow transforms into an object of male desire. The implication is that it is a certain state of consciousness that makes women humans, not anything else. And ultimately the point is this: women are only entitled to control of their own bodies as long as they are alert and awake. There is a casual and subtle debate occurring on college campuses about who should be held responsible for women who are raped while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and although I do not condone the irresponsible use of any substance, I cannot even fathom how we can honor any discussion of the subject. It should be simple, it should be a fundamental rule of human behavior and certainly an entitlement that falls under the "democratic rights" of American women: our bodies belong to us and should not be subjected to even a touch that is uninvited and without consent, no matter what state of mind we are in.

Case Number Two: "She was asking for it". The phenomenon of female sexuality and the expression there of is very much a contested terrain in feminist politics. No one can come to a consensus about just how and to what degree women should be able to express their sexuality. For me, the problem is just that, no one has the right to determine, constrain or interpret the expression of female sexuality, because I can tell you for one thing, no one is making those choices or assumptions for (heterosexual) men. My point is that women should be able to dress, dance, behave, etc. in whatever manner they choose and none of it should be construed as an invitation, to any man, to exploit her sexuality. Somehow our culture has managed to construct women in such a way that certain manifestations of expression become dehumanizing and hypersexualizing. Although I have my own set of opinions about the elements that function in producing the type of dress and behavior that some women choose to exhibit, the fact remains that there is no situation in which either of those things can justify sexual aggression, assault or exploitation. Simply put, a woman should be able to walk around completely naked and no man should touch her.

Every two and a half minutes in this country a woman is sexually assaulted. That means that while so many of the women in this country zone out during a single episode of grey's anatomy, approximately thirty other women have become victims of sexual violence. Most women my age have either experienced sexual violence themselves, or have some sort of friend or friend of a friend relationship with someone who has. I am 23 years old, and that is staggering.

Case #3: Shame and Silence.
59% of rape goes unreported, typically because women feel ashamed, at fault or otherwise silenced by a culture that tells women at an early age about the dynamics of male-female sexual relations; More specifically: that men's sexuality is imminent and that it is a woman's responsibility (obligation) to control and constrain it. The translation for many women who have been raped is that it is their fault because they should have been able to stop it. For a variety of cultural and social reasons, women do not have space to talk about being raped and choose, instead, to carry the burden themselves. In many cases, this phenomenon is particularly relevant and dangerous for young women.

This brings me back to my original observation about the book I discovered at borders: An adult woman finally seeks retribution and resolution for crimes committed agains her in childhood and some man has a problem with the legality and justice of it all. There are an overwhelming number of reasons why young women do not speak out about the sexual harm that is done to them, particularly when the perpetrator is a family member. Among these reasons are shame, guilt, fear of the consequences, not to mention the fact that the person who is doing these things has often convinced the young person that there is nothing wrong; kids learn to trust adults who are close to them, believe them to be infallible, well-meaning and harmless. Meanwhile, here is a book that reinforces the idea that women who have been victims of rape, molestation or other acts of sexual violence are dishonest, dilluded or otherwise misdirected about the harm they have endured. As if the severity and longevity of impact created by the experience of sexual assault is not haunting and intense enough, we have created a social culture that discourages women from finding healing in speaking out, confronting their assailants and utilizing other forms of expression to seek resolution. The criminal justice attorney writes about how it is absolutely ludicrous that an adult woman could prove the guilt of her father in a crime that occurred so many years ago and how the process has destroyed his life. But what about the young girl who carried the weight of something absolutely incomprehensible well into her adulthood, before finally having space to confront her abuser. I wonder, who's writing that story?

I can't even imagine raising a daughter in a culture that allows any of this to go on, and I certainly hope the author of the book I found isn't the parent of one. It is interesting how so many men who have mothers, daughters and sisters can continue to see and treat women as objects of their own desire. In addition, it is hard for me to imagine that while we teach and preach about gender equality in this country, women continue to face obstacles, the significance of which most men (the white one's in particular) can't even fathom. Anytime issues of gender arise in mixed company I try to pose this question to my male friends, "when was the last time you walked alone in the dark and worried about being raped." If I have the chance, I ask the women the same question, and typically let the respective responses speak for themselves.

Someone conservative is stacking the borders bookshelves

I've heard my share of idiotic things from UCLA undergraduates. They've ranged from racist and ignorant to just plain moronic and thoughtless. Occasionally, they provoke an impulsive response (which I typically regret), but most frequently, I acknowledge them with an internal meditation on the millions of California young people who will never receive a degree from UCLA who are infinitely more brilliant, insightful and critical. In any case, one of my recurring favorites is typically uttered by a taller Caucasian gentlemen wearing Greek letters plastered across his chest and/or some sort of shirt displaying an obnoxious clichéd phrase that he undoubtedly thinks is irresistibly clever. My roommate's favorite example? "trust me, I'm a doctor." The statement I speak of comes seldom as a surprise and rarely from a source I can't anticipate. Infact, I've encountered it more from my colleagues in political science than from anyone else on campus, "women's studies, that's ridiculous, why isn't there a men's studies, that's prejudiced against men." And why wouldn't they think that? Afterall, I certainly didn't get anything from my degree in political science that taught me to think critically about the white male lens through which the field is examined.

Unfortunately, I'm far from making my point. There is nothing particularly provocative about an uncritical UCLA student or someone in their young adulthood making a unoriginal joke about the ever marginalized and unappreciated field of women's studies. Up until recently, I had safely assumed that the "educated" population accepted the idea of "men's studies" as just about as preposterous as a proposed University course on the white christian interpretation of U.S. history. About a week ago when I was shopping for some righteous feminist literature at my neighborhood Borders bookstore, while perusing in "women's studies" I glanced up to see what the third from the top shelf had to offer (no I could not see beyond it, and no I don't intend to make this a discussion of the way that stores such as Borders are designed and by and for who they are structured). At the highest level, all I could make out was a plaque labeling a category section change: Men's Studies.

No that wasn't a typo. The Borders in Westwood is now stocking books in Men's Studies, and judgement has been passed.

I was pretty young when the politically correct revolution changed the standard language labels of just about everything, but I still remember a mildly persuasive backlash indicating that the ideology that shaped the politically correct movement would someday come back to bite everyone in the ass. Enter Men's Studies, no doubt a political correction made by white men who couldn't stand the idea that there was a section in most major bookstores devoted to the study of women and no corresponding label for literature devoted to men. Even some of the most uncritical people on the planet can at least acknowledge that the evolution of women's studies, ethnic studies, LGBT studies, etc. emerged from challenges to the white male norm that comprised every other single field of study that existed in bookstores, universities and library catalogues. If you've ever sat through a lecture on anything from psychology to art history to music theory you might have noticed that the information and perspective is overwhelmingly dominated by men. Men write about men doing psychology, creating art and music and everything in between, and the margins remain reserved for the rest of us.

Instead of creating curriculums that incorporated women, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, Gays and Lesbians in both perspective and practice in all subjects, the world of academia (or the people who control it) decided it would be more appropriate to isolate these people/groups into their own programs of study. With this structure in place people have to actively choose to study non-white people and women, because god forbid the entire academic population learns about oppression, especially on accident. The other by-product of this over-simplified solution to underrepresentation is the argument of "reverse discrimination" a ludicrous notion put forth originally by opponents to affirmative action, that essentially demands protection of the privileged classes. Afterall, we musn't disrupt the balance of power in favor of white male heterosexuals, it just might be the impetus to apocalypse. In this case, the idea of Women's Studies, African-American Studies or departments otherwise concerned with people and projects not closely associated with power in this country, have obviously sparked concern among white male academics, who have apparently used all of their extra time, funding and resources to devise a plan to intervene in the world of critical theory and put a stop to the one-sided perspective of the underclassed.

The addition of Men's Studies to my local Borders Bookstore is not only a development that has occurred just in the last year, it is a dangerous and haunting indicator of the shifting ideology of the time and the waning power of the American progressive. I for one, am terrified. It's bad enough I was educated by a system controlled and constructed by a finite set of values and ideas that exist to reproduce power dynamics, economic hierarchies and dominant social norms, now I have to be concerned about challenges to the challenges of the status quo. Holy backlash batman, what are we going to do?

In an era when most people know nothing and the people in power seem to know even less, it is alarming to think about how young people of future generations are going to be equipped with the tools to even acknowledge growing social problems, let alone attempt to solve them. As the Men's Studies Section widens and examining the social movements of the sixties feels like the equivalent of studying ancient history, I wonder just how limited access to methods of change and mobilization will seem ten or twenty years from now. More importantly, I wonder how the voice of anyone who doesn't have White Anglo Saxon parents, a penis and a Harvard degree will be heard through the echos of evangelicalism, neo-conservatives and libertarian economics. Hey, but what do I know, anything I've written since I came out of the womb would be filed under Women's Studies, and clearly isn't relevant to the mainstream academic population anyway.