Do You See What's Happening?

It seems that everything has changed so rapidly when I think about cutting my son’s hair the other day at the salon where I rent a chair. Now, he drives there to see me and takes me out to dinner. Not that long ago, he wasn’t even driving and he was still living with me. Blah, blah, blah, our babies grow up and we miss them.  He knows this, I think.

On one particular day, as we leave the salon together and walk toward my vehicle on the next block, I point out a white van that is always parked on the street. I tell him that I wonder what they use it for. It is a newer model that looks like it would be used for commercial shipping or transporting inmates or some other order of business that seems out of place in a residential neighborhood. He spontaneously came up with the reasonably paranoid deduction that it could have something to do with human traffickers. I say reasonable because that is the first thing that came to my mind when I saw it a few weeks earlier. Now, I think it could possibly be facilitated for a wheelchair, but at the time, I was being aware of my surroundings as I was walking to my car after work. Naturally, I was cautious as I spied this van creeping along slowly-before it pulled into the driveway. It literally stopped me in my tracks that day and I had a definite “fight or flight” response as my mind unconsciously went into survival mode until I reached the safety of my own car. I was ready to run for it or kick somebody’s ass.

 It may seem a little odd that I had that reaction and that my son would immediately draw the same conclusion about this van. I suppose that I taught him to notice details and question when something doesn’t quite fit. Obviously, he is informed about the realities of human trafficking. He knows that Minnesota isn’t a safe Midwestern “bubble” where nothing bad ever happens.

Education is the key to safety and I will make sure my kids know the facts however scary they may be. Drug dealers are switching career paths in order to become pimps because it is much more lucrative and the legal consequences almost don’t exist except for the victims. Why is it that the dirtballs who traffic children in the sex trade are getting richer? It is because of DEMAND. There is no supply without demand which is the basics of economics. That’s just how it works in business. If nobody wants it then why would you sell it? There are all kinds of statistics and not many solutions for the problem but all the roads lead to demand when you look at the numbers. How many people are all around you that would go and pay to have sex with a child? Apparently, there are too many because these animals are willing to snatch your daughter right off a street corner, drug her and drive her to another state, never to be seen again.

I start to wonder how it got this bad. There has always been evil in the world but we are becoming more aware of the vices creating it. I think there is a true link to rape culture through pornography. We are desensitized daily with vulgarity much more than people used to be. It used to be hidden. Now it seems that violence and sexuality have some kind of normalized connection on television and especially on the internet where it almost can’t be avoided. To me, the only hope is to tell my kids the truth about what is really going on and hope that it has some meaning. I can make sure that he becomes the kind of man who tries to help instead of hurting.

Courage to Change

 

On February 6, my son jumped into my car after moving some papers I left on the front seat. They were face down but he read through the top sheet and exclaimed, “Does this say vaginas!!” in an amused but incredulous tone. He flipped it over to read the meme I had produced for National Stop FGM Day. It states, “Vaginas are not the problem. Gender-based violence is.”

We were on our way to the grocery store since I wanted to purchase some groceries for him at his new place, a house he now rents a room in. He works full-time in an assisted living community in order to support himself and has recently learned that JOB is an acronym for Just Over Broke. He moved out of my home in order to be independent which is a great way to develop an appreciation for one’s parents and all they do. Soon after, he related this to me by saying, “I didn’t realize that responsibility was a plural term. You’re always told that you have to ‘be responsible’ but it really means RESPONSIBILITIES.”  I am biased to feel this is an eloquent and insightful statement, I’m sure.

 I do think that he and I manage to have some really good conversations on a variety of topics but it became clear rather quickly that female genital mutilation wasn’t going to be one of them.  This isn’t an easy subject to broach with a young man or with anyone else for that matter. I think this is what makes FGM such a taboo topic. Nobody really wants to confirm its existence but I went on to explain to him the significance of the meme which was part of an assignment for an activist writing class. Appropriately, the date of completion happened to fall on February 6^th, National Stop FGM Day. He clammed up pretty quickly and I felt he may have been shooting a small prayer to heaven, “Please don’t let her talk about this with me!” So we didn’t. I like to think that I influence him without having to shove information down his throat. I also feel this way about my friends and family on Face book and I didn’t share my creation there.

Truthfully, even I don’t want to acknowledge the existence of a cultural tradition that involves removing major parts of the female genitalia. I have educated myself because it is important to be aware and informed of even the most horrifying evils in this world. I can’t make everyone else do the same but I can attempt to start a conversation. Judging by the lack of comments on the links about FGM I did share on my personal FB page that day, I can deduce that I probably ruined more than one person’s day.  At least they didn't have their genitals surgically removed so hopefully some were grateful for that. I know I am. It is discouraging to realize all the people I know would rather turn a blind eye but I can also empathize.

 I once saw a YouTube video of a young girl, around age 8, who had presumably just undergone the traumatic experience of having her most trusted and loved female guardians hold her down and butcher the most private part of her physical being. The adults were retreating at the edges of the scene and she was pulling a blanket around herself, grasping its security as if it could offer her some protection from what was already done. Nothing can erase the memory of the look in her scared brown eyes, so like my own daughter’s. So hurt and alone, just a tiny soul with no understanding beyond that betrayal, I wanted to comfort her so badly. She is why I have the urge to scream at these women who are doing this to their very own daughters even as I know they are only doing what they believe is right. She gives me the courage to bear the pain of knowing her existence, acknowledging her pain, helping her to save the next generation through education. She gives me the courage to try change the world just as if she was my own daughter. I will never forsake her for the comfort of ignorance.

Relevance, The War on Men, and Beauty Rituals

I started to have a conversation with my 19 year old son the other day. I say “started to” because both of us have reached a point of mutual willingness to avoid the inevitable arguments we seem to fall in to so easily these days. There is an invisible barrier in the communication between him and his 37 year old mother which we both acknowledge but don’t quite understand how to get around. The missing piece of this puzzle is what I hold in the back of my mind. It is what prompted me (while I was gathering my own textbooks in the bookstore after class) to purchase a copy of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Guys Become Men by Michael Kimmel.

I returned home, on this day, to find my son comfortably posted up on my couch with a PS2 controller in hand. He had spent a rare night in my home after babysitting his eight year old sister the previous evening. It was his day off from work. I sat down in the armchair with my coffee and scone, happy to see him, and peacefully enjoyed his presence. I showed him the book that I bought with him in mind and explained that it was being used as a textbook for some class. He was impressed saying, “You got it for me? Thanks, Mom!” even as I started to read the introduction myself. We discussed the poem in the beginning, about American boys, after I read it aloud to him. He had laughed at some parts that didn’t strike me as amusing but I didn’t ask why. We talked indirectly about the relevance of young men’s issues (I have been using this word alot lately so I had to check it out. I found definition #3 quite interesting and kind of hilarious considering my choice of words here) which led to topics that concern me lately and he gave me some good insights.

I mentioned that more and more women were complaining about the lack of male support for women’s issues. I have seen some downright angry about this before the most recent presidential election. When I thought about it, I realized that none of the men I know had anything to volunteer about the “war on women”. He struggled to explain why it may be harder for men to vocalize their feelings on the topics involving female inequality. Understandably so, given that “feelings” are the undecided factor that men seem to be out of touch with. He used himself as an example, “It’s why I’m different sometimes, you know, because I grew up with mostly women.” He had to learn later that, as a man, it is appropriate to be unemotional rather than the alternative which, to him, seems like a lack of control over his emotions. My understanding from the conversation is that he still views this as a struggle. He understands that it is normal to have feelings but there doesn’t seem to be an acceptable outlet for them. They are meant to be secret and this is the secret that he learned, outside of my influence, in order to fit in.

I wonder how many other men are lucky enough to recognize their true feelings. I don’t intend to discuss Judith Butler’s theories with him (partly because I barely have a grasp myself) but I have to ask myself the questions: How many are aware of the gender constructions that society guides us into? If we weren’t divided into categories, would there even be an issue? Is there any other way for us to move forward together? Thankfully, we have moved past the day of the “man-hating radical feminist” but I wonder if her shadow still lingers. Are men afraid to say the wrong thing? Men should be aware that they are also hurt by unequal treatment of women and they should be courageous in standing up for themselves.

As I said before, my son and I don’t like to stay on one subject for long so as not to shatter the fragile vibe. We brushed the surface of another interesting topic which I brought up by stating that I had seen a young lady on campus early that morning, balancing a huge backpack on her petite frame, wearing four inch platform boots. I joked that this was the start to my dubbing, “Really?” as the Question of the Day, followed by, “Seriously?” I had repeated this mantra a number of times in a two block radius, so much that I felt the need to throw it out on Facebook. Due to the fact that it was the first week of spring term, parking is unbearable without the added insult of dual double-parking assholes outside of the campus coffee house. Sarcasm was the only suitable release and it made me laugh as I said the words out loud again and again. He thought it was funny, too, and didn’t banish my Facebook status to the Realms of Uncoolness which is always a relief for a mother.

This all led us to the subject of what motivates women to wear certain clothes and/or makeup. He stated that it was purely for the purpose of attracting men. (My mind vaguely questioned whether or not this could be explained by some scholarly version of Freud’s phallic theory relating to boys being socialized into thinking the world revolves around them). I asked him what he thought about the idea that women do this sort of ritual as a competition with and, therefore, only for other women. I thought he made a good point by saying this still leads back to competing for male attention even though I personally feel that I wear makeup simply because I like it. I am capable of leaving the house without it so, in my mind, whether I choose to or not has everything to do with me and nothing to do with attracting a man.  I don’t know if I am one of those women who would cut off all her hair just to spite a man that told me not to, but I did think twice about cutting my hair off at the suggestion of my fiancé-just because it was his idea! Who am I to judge this girl wearing her heels to class? It just doesn’t look comfortable to me but if you like it, I love it. I think we should be concerned, as women, about why we feel it is necessary to attack other women. We should be building each other up instead, especially if we expect men to speak on it.

So, if anything, I feel that our society has evolved into this cautious dance between men and women. It also seems that this will change because the next generation already cares less about gender in their fashion statements (think boys wearing skinny jeans, etc.)

 It is good to have my son as a resource and I intend to read Guyland when he is finished.