Body Sculpture

One should never think too terribly hard about motivational sayings, posters, or images, but a striking comparison presented itself to me today, and I could not avoid having thoughts.

(I do try, sometimes, to avoid thoughts. Especially the inconvenient ones.)

A few months ago, a few different friends of mine shared the following:

I do not know the source of the image: who created it, for what purpose, or who owns the copyright.  (If the originator somehow finds this post and speaks up, I'd love to be able to give proper attribution.)

My friends who shared it had different intentions in doing so and different interpretations of the image.  One found it inspirational; another was horrified by it; still another (a "friend" only in the Facebook sense, and not for very long after he shared this) took the opportunity to make fat-people jokes.

Words in the url on which I found the image offer their own ambiguous interpretation: funny-stone-fat-woman-carving-herself.  I know not how to interpret either the words "funny" or "fat."  Even "carving" is giving me more trouble than it should.

I was and am uneasy with the image, although (or perhaps because?) it does seem to represent faithfully a longing that many women have (to re-sculpt their bodies) or an idea many women have of themselves (of a fit, beautiful, self-disciplined, happy woman hidden somewhere inside them).

I couldn't put my finger on exactly why the image made me uneasy, though, until I tripped across this one, today:

I think the inspirational quote on the man's image works for either image.  Both of them are proclaiming the malleability of the body, and the fitness (pardon the pun) of the project of self-renovation.

But there's the rub, no?

The man is not engaged in a project of self-renovation.  He is in the midst of self-creation.  He takes unformed, undifferentiated matter and makes it into himself.  He is a little god in that sense, performing in his own little way the same work that God does in forming man out of the mud of the earth.

It is a pure and gratuitous act of self-creation: he is powerful and he is free.  He is Man.  He is a god, a son of the Most High.

Not so the woman.

She starts trapped in her own body.  The "real" her is thin and beautiful and fit, but this ugly, evil monstrosity (called her body) is imprisoning her.

She must cut that body away to find the real her inside.   She must punish it for its sins so that her real self--the thin, beautiful, fit, happy her--can break free.

He is free to pursue his project of self-making.  She must--must--succeed at it in order be free.

There is no sharing in the creative work of God here.  She is not Eve, mother of the living, blessed with the capacity to make and feed little humans with her very body.  She is not even Christ, freely giving her body to be sacrificed for others.


She is just whittling away at herself, carving her own embodied life into a more controlled--and controllable--form.

How will she know whether that form is free?  Might she not find that that form, too, must be whittled away?

I'm a fan of caring for one's health through exercise and diet.  Really.  But self-hatred disguised as self-care . . . not so much.

Reading This Week

Interesting proposals afoot in the world of elementary and secondary education: Cuomo's Plans for School Reform.  Lots of reasons to be concerned, especially if you're a teacher.  Or a student.

Here's the thing, though.

Until we solve the poverty problem, we are never going to solve the the education problem.  Never.

Yes, incompetent teachers are a problem and should be fired.
Yes, school districts that fail to educate their students are a problem and should be reformed, whether they like it or not.
Yes, wasteful educational programs should be curtailed and eliminated in order to spend money educating students helpfully.  (Note to politicians: services for gifted or disabled learners, the arts, and the humanities do not fall under the "wasteful educational programs" rubric.  Nor do programs that involve class sizes smaller than 40, students having textbooks, and buildings that are not in imminent danger of collapsing.)

But teacher incompetence, failing school districts, and wasteful educational spending pale in comparison to the problems generated by the wealth gap in this country.

They also pale in comparison to the rank injustice of property-tax-funded school districts.

Solve the poverty problem.  Do that first.  Then worry about firing teachers and cutting programs.

First Day of Classes

Well, it's the first day of classes here at [my college].

Some cruel and thoughtless person sent me this link, and I was stupid enough to read it, even though he said it made him cry every time he read it:

All Legs and Curiosity

I've got a baby heading off to college next year.  So I get it. 

I've been thinking about it for seven years now, actually--right after Theo was born, and I realized, "He'll be home for ten years after his big brother goes to college.  How will he manage without his big brother around?  For ten years???"

But, anyway, I get it, Moms and Dads.  I get that my students are your babies.

I don't promise to love them as much as you do.

I certainly won't be keeping up with whether or not they wear socks, although I might chastise them for using tobacco or apologizing too much or texting in class (and definitely for texting while driving).

But I promise to do right by them, and to try to help them become adults, and to want better for them than they want for themselves (and almost as good as you want for them).

And I promise always, always to remember that they're somebody else's babies.

What I've Been Reading This Week

This is a long, careful, and necessary article, written for those of us struggling to make sense of the life and writings of John Howard Yoder.  His description of Christian non-violence is as compelling and beautiful as his history of coercion and harassment of female students is horrifying.

One of the things that particularly strikes me about this is the way our language about such interactions frustrates the victims of them.  One woman, for example, told of receiving a letter from Yoder that described her body in wildly invasive personal and sexual detail--so much so that the only language she could conjure to describe the experience of reading such a letter was one of sexual violation.  "I felt as if I'd been raped."

I myself am struggling to find words to describe her experience--at second-hand, obviously, and therefore inadequately, but without reference to violent sexual assault.  She wasn't touched, she wasn't penetrated, her body wasn't forced to do anything against her will.  And yet something dreadfully wrong was done to her, something that women experience far too often at the hands of men, and something that men don't tend to go through life experiencing or fearing.  The legal language of harassment wasn't necessarily available during the earliest years of Yoder's career, but even today that language seems insufficient.

But using the language of actual sexual violence is problematic for at least two reasons.  First, it does, I think, some injustice to women who have experienced sexual assault, the way it does injustice to survivors of the Holocaust to have non-genocidal situations described as holocausts.  And second, it lets men give themselves permission to dismiss women's accounts of such experiences: "Seriously?  You got an explicit letter and you felt raped?  Gosh, you women sure take these things way too seriously!"

Still, somewhere between "he sent an inappropriately explicit letter to me" and "I felt like I'd been raped," there is a great yawning void in our language, and women are continually struggling against it.  The absence of language to describe what sexual harassment does to its victims (and even the word "harassment" has proven wildly inadequate to the job) only helps those who commit it.

By happy coincidence, I read the above article along with this one, about male privilege in the church.  The writer does an admirable job trying to put words to those experiences that do not rise to the legal definition of harassment and yet constantly hound women in the workforce.  While it would have been nice to have a #11 (You will go through most of your days neither fearing nor actually experiencing inappropriate sexual or personal barrages passed off as "jokes," constant references to your sexual availability, or having a colleague "accidentally" play porn at you when you walk into his office for a meeting), it is, I hope, helpful for men to think about what it would be like to have their work constantly qualified with reference to their gender.  No one ever says, "He's the best male theologian we have on staff," or "you're a really good theologian, for a man."

On the other hand, I have to say that very, very few of my experiences of being at a real disadvantage because of my sex have taken place in an ecclesial context.  I felt far more vulnerable to men's beliefs and behaviors the few times I've worked in entirely non-religious, male-dominated contexts than I have in the church or in church-affiliated schools.

What I've Been Reading This Week

This has got to be the awesomest story ever, even if it was an April Fools joke.  For the record: if I were from a future "communist chocolate hellhole," with no poverty and free Kit-Kats for everyone, I don't think I'd be trying to stop it.

This one left me stunned and flabbergasted.  I had no idea that being hungry could make people grouchy.  None.  Somebody funded this study, y'all.  They may as well fund a study on whether or not people like bacon.  Duh.

I have no idea why it's news that Philip Seymour Hoffman left his estate to his long-term partner, the mother of his minor children, rather than to the children themselves.  Don't parents normally structure their wills this way, trusting their surviving spouses to take sufficient care of their minor children?  Don't a whole lot of them do it this way even when their children are grown, trusting their surviving spouses to do right by their own children?  Sorry, kids, but if you bump me off, you still have to work around Dad.

What I've Been Reading This Past Week

I'll say something intelligent about this one when I stop crying.  Hold on.  Nope.  Still crying.  "He was the only chicken they named."  That's exactly what it's like.

Instead of opening up the Bible, reading a random verse (or a tiny collection of your pet verses) and confirming what you already knew anyway, maybe try this.  Plainspoken yet profound advice on reading the Bible.

What I've Been Reading This Past Week

My friend Laura . . . well, I don't even know how to tell you why you should read this.  But you should.  You should read it with a copious supply of tissues nearby.  And then you should go hug your babies, or your mama, or someone who wasn't expecting a hug today but needs one, and thank God for the oft-unlooked-for miracle that is quotidian life.

I've been swinging maniacally between appalled and delighted at this story: human-leather-bound books re-discovered at Harvard library.  It's just so wrong, but if I had one, I think I would kind of love it.

This one made me happy for two reasons: A Different Kind of Walker.  Number one, obviously, everybody likes something that makes life a little cheerier for special-needs families.  And this one is so especially clever--who knows what sorts of developmental leaps might be enabled by putting kids in a "normal" position for their age, leaps that were previously understood to be precluded by the disabling condition itself rather than by the absence of a typical developmental experience?  But, number two, go moms.  Who knows what sort of therapeutic advances might be facilitated by listening to more caregivers, leaps that were previously dismissed as not being worthy of "serious professional" attention because they came from "mere" moms?

Also, Vive le Francais! Actually, some of these are pretty dumb reasons.  There is really only one that matters.  You should learn French because then you will be more motivated to visit France some day, and if you do, you will be able to eat Mont d'Or, and macarons, and financiers, and Marmite Dieppoise, and fifty-year-old Calvados.  (And if you do, you should take me with you.  Because I haven't been back in ten years, and I still cry sometimes about that.)

How Many Clueless Men Does It Take To Host A Radio Show?

I'm so glad so very many other people are commenting on the sheer stupidity evidenced by these two children masquerading as men.

It saves me the trouble.

Well, since it's not out of my way, I'll go ahead and state the obvious:

Sure, dudes, let's go ahead and make women responsible for cutting open their own bodies to avoid you missing a baseball game.

I'm sure your children, too, (will) appreciate hearing that you think they should schedule their neediness around your professional lives.  Being born surely takes a back seat to 1/162ndth of a single baseball season.  Thanks, Dad, for putting that into perspective!  I'll mark you down as a "no," then, for high school and college graduation, shall I?  And I won't dare to plan a summer wedding, don't you worry!

You know, now that you put it this way, I'm sure all parents will be nodding in agreement, that parenting is exactly just like that--you can arrange every detail of a child's life, from conception onward, to suit yourself.

Also, no one can respect a man that stops doing a life-or-death activity--you know, playing baseball--to do something stupid like hold his wife's hand after she, you know, does nothing of any importance whatsoever.  Real masculinity requires, positively obliges, men to be ready to dismiss at a moment's notice and for any reason, anything done, or valued, or said by people with ovaries.

And it's totally true that biology teaches us something important about ethics: men don't have boobs, so they're pretty much useless after they donate their sperm.  They can get on with more important things, like playing baseball.  Sure thing.

Yes, you're the one "putting food on the table" with your Really Important Work.  The fact that I can produce food with my very body--not important.  At all.  You're feeding us.  It's all you.

Also, the thing where you endanger women by casually tossing around your disgusting opinions about their bodies and their medical care so that you can have a cute little reputation as a "controversial" commentator--totally okay.  With all of us.

I'm definitely pointing you out to my sons as role models to follow.

Oops.  I think I may have gotten a little sarcastic there.

Despite the above sarcastiplosion, the idiocy, the ignorance, the appallingly willful and unabashed misogyny evidenced by these two men is not really the thing that troubles me about this video.

What troubles me more is the possibility that this will shift the conversation about child-bearing and -rearing toward the collectively-bargained rights enjoyed by a few privileged men and away from the lived experience of women who still cannot afford to exercise what few and inadequate protections they have.

Working mothers will hear every one of Esiason's and Carton's contemptuous dismissals of their needs as mothers, every one of their contemptuous rejections of a father's role in nurturing children, and gnash their teeth at being told by one more pair of assholes that it's their job to breastfeed the babies, alone, while their husbands go off and do "real" things, things that matter, things that put food on the table.

But they will also hear, in the background, everything contemptuous thing their co-workers and bosses say about "breeders," about women who take maternity leave at "inconvenient" times for the company, about women who "owe the profession" a single-minded dedication that leaves no room for child-bearing at all (much less child-rearing).

(I'm not making this up.  I've actually been told that it's my job as a woman in academia to delay childbearing until I have tenure, or forgo it entirely.  I've been told that it's what I owe the profession, and especially other women in the profession.  I mean "been told" literally, here.  Like, by a person, speaking to me.  In those exact words.)

They'll read all the articles cheering Daniel Murphy for doing such a "sweet" and "important" thing as showing up for his child's first week of life, and they'll remember all the times they, as working women, were criticized for doing the same thing, or for their failure to do so.

Women are criticized by traditionalists for failing to handle all the nurturing on their own, and they're criticized by supposed progressives for failing to protect The Company from the inconvenience of their functional reproductive system.  (I guess they're supposed to be grateful for the sort of "progress" that allows them to work for pay at all, and not pay attention to such things as maternity leave, lactation accommodation, and health insurance for dependents.) 

I was extremely grateful to my colleague at [my former college] for covering my classes for me the first two weeks of the spring semester after the birth of my third son, because it allowed me to have a full month's maternity leave.

But the insanity--the stark, raving insanity--that Amos's birth will forever in my mind be linked with all of the professional obligations he didn't interfere with (fall semester exams, grades due, seven Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services)!  I swear, I am not making this up: I have never once spoken of Amos's birth without joking about him "helpfully" waiting until the day after Christmas to be born "because of all of our pastoral responsibilities."

And the insanity--the stark, raving insanity--that I've met actual, real, live, educated, professional women who have told me that they went back to work within a week of giving birth because they "couldn't afford" to take maternity leave!

Please hear me: I am among the privileged few in the world, even if you can't tell it from my bank account.  My colleagues are other privileged women--women with terminal degrees in their field, with professional clout, with publications and numerous speaking invitations per year, women who've been on NPR, even.

If my colleagues and I have to worry about this . . . what on earth is going on in the rest of the world?

No.  I don't get worked up by the fact that a pair of idiotic men said some idiotic things about men taking paternity leave.

But I am worried that a bunch of men will use this as an excuse to spend their time wagging their tongues what wealthy men do with their legal rights and collectively-bargained contract protections, and ignore--once again, still, always--the needs and rights and near-constant vulnerability of women and children.

Adventure in Literary Land II

Isaac is back with another review of obscure books your teenage child probably loves.

John Green is my favorite modern author behind Scott Westerfield and Rowling. Not only does he write excellent books for teens, but he also has multiple YouTube channels dedicated to random facts and education. His brother Hank is more of the same. Check them out.

I first heard of JG about a year ago when a friend of mine was fangirling about his book The Fault in Our Stars. Apparently it's the best book ever and I need to get around to reading it. Anyhoo, a girl in my bio class was reading a JG book and offered to let me borrow it, knowing that I would finish within the school day.

An Abundance of Katherines is the story of a child prodigy who never reached full potential. This distinction is discussed several times throughout the novel and is better explained there than here. The protagonist, Colin, is said genius and his amigo Hassan plays the part of slightly less intelligent but far more funny Muslim best friend. Hassan spends the better part of the novel trying to get Colin out of his self-obsessed funk. Colin has a mental block when it comes to dating, which manifests itself in that he can only date girls named "Katherine." It must be spelled that way or no deal. The general pattern of these relationships is that Colin get dumped and feels bad about himself, and then finds another Katherine and the cycle repeats. Well, the 19th time is the worst for poor Colin because Katherine XIX is also Katherine the Great: the original Katherine who started the trend. Hassan observes the emotional fallout and takes Colin on a road trip. The two find a job in a small town somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and encounter Lindsey, who is the love interest of the story. That's about all the plot that one needs to know except this last bit.

Colin becomes fixated on the idea of creating a mathematical equation that plots the outcome and happiness of a given relationship. For the sake of brevity, I will link to it here. 

The novel's main strength is that it connects deeply with its reader. It seems written by one of us, and by one of us I mean teens. Hassan is the best friend we all wish we had. Lindsey is the cool not-girly girl that we all wish we were dating. Colin is the tormented teenager we all think we are. John Green's writing style is the epitome of young adult literature. Each chapter has at least three footnotes that impart a random fact or related anagram or strange historical parallel that both lighten the mood and complete our of Colin's brain: random, funny, and tangential. Never will you ever find more anagrams in one piece of literature. 

So Abundance of Katherines is really one of those "voyage of self-discovery" books that you read in freshman English class, only AOK is actually enjoyable to read. Holden Caufield, we're looking at you.

Hopefully your humble literature critic will get his hands on more John Green and will be able to more accurately discuss his authoring merits. But you all / y'all / youse should not panic in fear if your child comes home with a JG novel in his/her backpack. It's okay. It gives you an excuse to read it too.

Cheers,
Isaac

What I've Been Reading This Past Week

I've been saying this for awhile now, but only to people who are tired of me saying it: praise music makes it harder, not easier, for the congregation to participate.  I could add ten more reasons than the ones offered here by Erik Parker, but I'll stick with two.
The more a tune follows a pop aesthetic, the harder it is to sing, unless you're the kind of tenor for which most pop music is written.  The majority of hymn tunes, boring and unlovely as some of them may be, are written to be sung by almost any voice, and virtually all of them also have parts that can be sung by specific voices.
And, second, when the tune is all there is (and it's hard enough to catch that), the church misses out on the strangely theological wonder that is harmony, the unique sound that can only come when people sing different notes at the same time.  Beauty is enhanced by difference--what a wild world our God has made for us!


This was a fun story: professors on a plagiarism sting op!  I would love to be a full-time plagiarism detector.  That would be fun.


In many ways, this is old news: Children with family routines have better emotional health.  But just in case you needed an expert to tell you so, there it is.  The sorts of things you imagine a healthy, happy family doing--reading, playing, eating, making music together--tend to make for healthy, happy families.


This was a fascinating article on Shakespeare performance.  I was especially interested in how the company dealt with The Taming of the Shrew, which ceases being a comedy at precisely the point it offers the pretense of a happy ending.

What I Read Last Week

(Besides, of course, a million papers on Hinduism.)

This is a lovely reflection for the beginning of Lent.  Even we high-church folk are a little childish in our church-going, sometimes.

I listened to this, rather than read it, and then I repented of having preached a merely entertaining Ash Wednesday sermon.

I read this lovely collection of reflections by women religious, and was reminded that a life hedged in by promises and renunciations is no less full than the allegedly unrestricted life.  Indeed, self-denial creates the conditions for an unlooked-for kind of flourishing.

I read this, and then stridently repeated it near verbatim to my offspring.  And then I wished the accompanying chart had provided guidelines for the adult consumption of screen entertainment.