The Tradition of Bullying

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The past few years there has been more media attention on the issue of bullying then I ever remember happening in the past.  The death of Tyler Clementi as well as a spike in teen suicides in Michelle Bachmann’s district have reminded us that bullying can escalate into especially cruel behavior on the part of its practitioners and spiral into hopelessness for its victims. Not that all bullying, or even most of it, gets that bad but the root behaviors are the same.

Of course, whenever you discuss and try to deal with any social ill in this country you will have people who have benefited from that flaw fighting for its continued existence. I am not going to complain about reasoned, though in my mind somewhat shortsighted, arguments that question how much of a problem bullying is, or how it should be addressed. Especially when, as I do, they argue that the best medicine is education. My biggest problem is the “it’s always happened, it happened to me, why shouldn’t it still be happening” types.

I get that bullying has always happened. It happened to me just for being a quiet and slightly weird kid. I also get that when it is not too severe it can possibly help you develop into the sort of person you want to be. The quiet slightly weird kid grows up to be an outspoken and delightfully (to my way of thinking) weird adult. Just because it always has been that way doesn’t mean it should continue.

I never have understood that line of reasoning. Should we not aspire to making a better world than we, our parents or grandparents grew up with? We (ostensibly at least) don’t tolerate bigotry or sexism anymore. Not that bullying is on the same scale of social ill as either of those, but it is something we are better off without, and falling on that tired, old and frankly never very good argument “that’s the way it’s always been” is lazy and more often than not selfish. Selfish because the people saying it are usually people who are, or have been bullies themselves. I also suspect, though I cannot know, that some are former victims that, despite all the “sometimes life is unfair” rhetoric, think it would be unfair that they couldn’t escape bullying while a future generation might. It is sad but true: we treat so much of social interaction like a zero sum game.

No doubt bullying has been around longer than culture or even civilization. You only have to look at the animal kingdom to come to that conclusion. Once upon a time it likely benefited our entire species. We aren’t living in that world anymore though. Bullying, and bullying culture, don’t just affect the bully and his/her victim. It affects all of us. It is one of the things that keeps us in the aforementioned zero sum game mentality. It keeps us thinking that life has to be about winners and losers rather than everyone winning. With 7 billion of us competing for, rather than working together toward, resources that becomes less and less of an acceptable way of looking at the world.

The Female Body: A Strange and Frightening Country

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I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with the unifying theme of this year’s Republican Presidential Nomination process. At first I thought it was economics, but everyone else is having too much fun taking shots at the richest man on the field, Mitt Romney, so I don’t think that is it. Maybe it is national security, but Ron Paul is a pretty strong isolationist, so that isn’t it either. Perhaps  religion is what unites them, but they are all of differing, often dramatically so, versions of Christianity, so I don’t see it there either. Oh… wait! I know what it is! It’s that “women are icky!!!”

Every one of them is anti choice, or at least mouths the party line on that one. They are all about “freedom of religion” when it is religion imposing itself on women’s bodies. They all complain about the downfall of traditional gender roles to varying degrees. Even Bachmann, maybe especially Bachmann, when she was still in the race seemed to want to wage war on women and their bodies.

The idea of women controlling their own destiny is of course inimical to male privilege, the dominant paradigm of our entire species, so it is no surprise that politicians, regardless of race, sex or religion are going to pander to conservative views especially when they belong to the conservative party. The vigor with which this years candidates, and their most vocal supporters, do so, however, would be almost comical if it were not so dangerous and wrong headed. They are walking tropes of anti women motivations and behavior.

Romney? He belongs to a faith that until the past generation or so held firm that it was the absolute right of a man to marry multiple women (not so much with the other way around.) Santorum? Leaving aside for a second his foaming at the mouth devotion to an organization that is the last Christian sect to say “nah, women can’t hold leadership roles in our group”, the guy just oozes “I live in the closet but lady parts scare me.” (Assuming I am correct, though, you gotta admire the intestinal fortitude it would take to father five kids under those circumstances.) Bachmann? Please. “It’s not fair that other women get to have orgasms and I don’t.” Paul? This is going to be kind of mean, and I know I’m never going to win any beauty contests myself, but does he kind of remind you of that poor, ugly kid in high school that is constantly rejected and takes it out on all women, even his mother? Finally there is Newt. What can possibly be said about Gingrich that hasn’t already been said. Newt raises misogyny to an art form. My hat is off to you sir (so I can slap you across the face with it.)

Now maybe I am biased. I want a female body, though I was not born with one, and still have a great appreciation for other women’s bodies. I admit it, I may have an agenda here. But jeez, don’t you think their lives, and ours, would be a lot less frightening and a lot more fun if they tried to see things from that perspective? Isn’t life a bit saner, and a bit nicer if we see a woman’s body not just as a baby factory or a masturbation aid for men, but as a beautiful thing in its own right, owned wholly by the woman residing in it?

Mirror, Mirror… You Know the Rest

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By now I am sure most of the country has seen the picture of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer waving her finger and shouting (or maybe she was yawning, though I doubt it) in the President’s face. The Christian Science Monitor does a pretty bang up job of trying to look impartial. This is, of course, a lot of bull. Had this been President Clinton, however he confronted her, she would never have gestured like that at all. It would never have occurred to her to raise her voice, or her hand, to a white President.

Now I realize that there are certain people who will read this that will never be convinced of what I just wrote. These are the folks who do not see racist bile in signs with watermelons in front of the White House or photoshopped pics of the first family as chimpanzees. These people are quite comfortable with their hatred and I haven’t the time or energy to deal with delusional fools that actually believe straight, white, Christian men are somehow victimized in this country simply because they don’t always get their way.

What has me worried is the number of self described liberals, people offended that someone disrespected member of their team who have denied the racist undertones of Governor Brewer’s behavior. They display a knee-jerk defense of their own race, and against accusations of racism that is sad on so many levels. It is sad because they can only see racism if it is blatant. It is sad because they cannot see the difference between racism and bigotry: “black people can be racist too” (quick lesson: no they cannot. Yes they can discriminate and hold bigoted views, but they do not live in a system where their race holds the levers of power.) It is sad because they are unwilling to face their own racism, own it and attempt to move past it to do what is needed to undo it.

I wish that this was the first time I’ve seen something like this, and I hope it is the last. Unfortunately just a few months ago this picture was making the rounds on liberal forums and FB comment threads. Just to make it clear, I am no friend of Michelle Bachmann (after all she has a pretty clear hatred of people like me.) Displaying her as a sex object and making jokes that encourage our rape culture however are beyond the pale. This was lost on more than a few liberal men (and sadly one or two liberal women.) I don’t know what is more troubling, the fact that any man can think it is okay to humiliate a woman like that for any reason, or the hypocrisy involved (had this been Secretary Clinton you can bet many of the men making these comments would have been quoting Andrea Dworkin.)

These statements and jokes alone would be a little less troubling were it not for the reaction when they are called out.  The defensiveness displayed by these people is itself offensive. Is it so hard to take a step back and reflect on what you said and did? Is it so important to drag out a list of your diversity bona fides everytime someone dresses you down for defending racism or making homophobic, transphobic and sexist statements? Would you rather be viewed as a good guy than take that little extra effort it takes to really be a good guy?

No one is perfect. Hell, I’ve made cis sexist remarks and I’m a trans woman. When I have though, and I’ve been called out, rather than accuse the other as being too touchy, I let myself feel the guilt of my actions, take a deep breath and think of how I can be better. I know it is hard when you enjoy privilege to accept that you are a beneficiary of  it and even kind of painful to admit it when it is pointed out to you. As difficult as it is though, you have it so much easier than those without and to claim victimhood when you are asked to look in that mirror is selfish, self defeating and just plain rude.