Scribblings with Green Chalk

The project isn’t gone, but I had a lot of doubts about posting and halted that part. I’ve thought about the pros and cons of putting up posts and questions vs. just writing the thesis on found and idiosyncratically compiled blog entries. I haven’t resolved it yet.

Meanwhile, in blogland, a post appeared mentioning Sara Baartman. I recommend Janell Hobson’s Venus in the Dark if you’re interested in the making (and unmaking) of the Hottentot Venus. You will want to sink under ground, reading about the brainlessness of European “science” in the 19th century. The anti-logic of racism never ceases to surprise: while “theorizing” the black female body shape as illness (steatopygia–because it sounds smart if you invent a word), Europeans found it a titillating fashion inspiration. The bustle, a scaffolding-like device inserted underneath ladies’ dresses, compensated for the flatness of the–supposedly ideal–European derriere. The pornographic interest showed by visitors to the exhibitions where Bartman was displayed (much like an inanimate object) is quite terrifying even to read about. Interestingly, the perception of how acceptable this kind of interest was did differ: a sketch reprinted in Hobson’s book shows that some of the contemporaries considered it outright morbid that “gentlemen” and “ladies” alike would scrutinize the details of someone’s anatomy under the pretence of scientific interest.

Patricia Hill Collins’ thoughts on the easiness of objectifying others (Others) shed some light on what happened then and what keeps happening to Baartman. Even today, despite of best endeavors, many academics researching Baartman end up presenting her as a non-person, Collins observes. Pretty slideshows begging for the use of pictures and pointers can turn an informed discussion of the body into a freak show in which again we watch it as a curious object, as if it didn’t belong to a human being. Read more in the sections of Black Feminist Thought devoted to Baartman and pornography.

More arguments for my developing conflict with the idea of the Muse.

Those self-righteous uppity bitches just don’t know when to stop. They throw at you that twisted nonsense divorced from reality, cos they’re closed off in their own world. They’re loud and ridiculous. Vicious and competitive. Turn off the volume and you get an amusing pantomime. Caricatures of women. They’re like half-women, trying so hard to be like men. If they knew the meaning of the word “moderation,” they’d just shut up.

Sorry. Did I forget the quotation marks? I was so focused on translating. I’ve always been quite gifted with languages, supposedly because I have ovaries. Or because I inherited the talent from my father. Either it’s irresistible biology, my small, comely feminine brain, or my masculine side, making me an exceptional token woman, almost as neat as a guy. Theories of intelligence are exciting, really. And they’re oh so objective and oh so neutral.

There is an interesting post on Shakesville about this article. Sadly, the comments shifted quickly from theories and perception of intelligence to whether men are “maybe, just maybe, actually smarter.” Good luck arriving at conclusions beyond the shadow of a doubt. But just how do you plan to “see” and evaluate intelligence? I might have old information, but for all I know no one has procured the philosopher’s stone and we’re stuck in a world of perceptions, misperceptions, and inferences.

The first paragraph is, as I hinted, a translation of a message I’ve heard many times. In its most polite formulation meant as “good advice,” it sounded like this:

“Modesty is the greatest virtue. A truly modest person will be content with possessing knowledge and keeping it to herself. She will answer only when asked directly. She will help others, give them the answer, because she knows she has a moral duty toward the group to work toward achieving harmony, to cooperate.”

Quotation marks duly inserted. Emphasis mine. The only thing this vision lacks is a deathbed scene wherein a grateful crowd gathers over the heroine’s body (after her last breath) to say how wonderful she was. Hearing the accolades would be to immodest, of course she has to be dead. Why do I make “person” feminine? Because I got this wonderful lesson of “true womanhood” from someone who was very concerned about my modesty. It’s a picture of what I should have become but never could.

Looking back, I can say I am greatly indebted to my native culture and system of education for the following: for not knowing what “intelligence” should mean, having heard smart and accomplished women described as bitter bitches (worse if they happened to be childless and/or unmarried), for not having a sense of reality that would allow me not to feel like the world’s biggest hoax, an award and national contest winning idiot, for recognizing my curiosity as inappropriateness, stupidity, a desire to be “one of the boys,” for translating my ambition as “trying too hard,” ” an anti-social impulse.”

Abiding by the rules of “modesty” does not let a woman excel. But that is not a problem, given that an “immodest” woman is evil. And, as so many will let her know, she is not a woman at all, because she supposedly wants to be a man, as shown by her sins against femininity.

The performance of intelligence is gendered, and intelligence itself, the “essence” is beyond reach. You never experience someone’s naked intelligence. There’s always gender trouble and intellectual cross-dressing involved.

When you hear a man disclaiming his contribution with “This may be stupid or irrelevant…” or “I’m sorry…”, let me know. I never have. If that happens somewhere in the world maybe we can talk about those IQ tests.

This question is intentionally hideous. It says what is says and is not rhetorical. I’m asking. Seriously.

The way the Chicago murder was dismissed by certain readers (Bhutto’s couldn’t be, for obvious reasons) and the swift, though unconnected, succession of these deaths made me wonder: since it appears to be easier to discount the particulars of a woman’s death, including or especially her sex (some argue that we should focus on Bhutto as a politician “minus” the gender factor), does that mean for some people that less is lost along with a woman’s death? Is it easier to kill a woman?

There is a point where relativity cracks: some things just aren’t funny. And if you still think they are, you should run a reality check, you might be dangerously disconnected from the world around you. Sense of humor just ends somewhere, it’s not about “different feelings and responses.”

I saw this pencil sharpener ad two days ago and couldn’t quite believe my eyes: sharpening a pencil as rape and that is supposed to be funny?! Please enlighten me what is amusing about a pencil sharpener in the shape of a woman exclaiming (yes, it’s got sound) “Help!” when you stick in a pencil into its… well, it’s the plastic woman’s vagina (sic!). Is that not rape in some alternative universe of misogynist logic?

Right here, right now it’s a representation and an attempt to satirize rape. It promotes misogyny (among men and women) and tries to condone sexual violence.

One of the comments on Feministing.com linked to the producer’s customer service, and I’ll do the same here. Please write to them, tell them what you think about the product.

It’s usually them, a distant, vaguely defined group of the abject. We know they’re there, but they don’t have faces. They come to embody the reverse of the norms we live by, clinging to the idea of romatic love, clinging to lust, clinging to the images of family, and clinging to disgust. Useful but useless. Always used.

There is still no language to talk about prostitution and not enough courage to talk about them as people with faces and personal stories. There is no way we could rationally talk about their rights, since most societies choose to pretend they do not exist.

This article about murders of prostitutes in Edmonton, Canada is a glimpse into the larger narrative of hypocrisy and violence, spanning centuries. The article links to the murdered women’s pictures and presents them as mothers, sisters, wives; individuals rather than mere bodies for rent.

I know that it’s a bigger question whether any perpetrator sees the victims of their crimes as persons in their own right. Given the fact that in this case the victims were chosen solely among sex-workers, it does seem like a misogynist crime, attacking a “safe” target: women rejected by society in principle, partly invisible, those no one would stand up for. The families of some of them strongly deny that they were prostitutes, probably some of the relatives only found out about this after they died. The story’s caught up in a spiral of shame. Many, perhaps all, of the families feel stigmatized by the publication of the photos. This is not a truth about their lives they would wish to reveal. Whatever the actual details were, however heinous the deed, there is the troubling connection between the womens’ profession and what happened to them. In a sick and insane way, the perpetrator(s) (?) channeled the desires to penalize the abject. The society left them a niche to operate in by denying sex-workers their rights. If you’re invisible, no one will hear your scream.

I remember watching a debate about sex-workers’ rights on French TV. Among the participants, there were several ex-prostitutes. Not hiding their names nor faces, they spoke openly about their situation and demanded legal recognition of their existence. I don’t know what that led to but I was stunned to see real people speaking up about real problems instead of the usual “experts” throwing theories and hypothesies at each other. And finally talking instead of blushing.

What do their relatives and neighbors feel when they look at the pictures of the dead women? What do you feel?

I will not hold your hand while your trying to sneak into other people’s bedrooms. If your life lacks excitement, I suggest focusing on fearing spiders rather than people you know nothing about. It’s as stimulating for the imagination if not more. Or is “arachnophobia” more difficult to spell than “homophobia”? Yes, we all make our choices, in terms of spelling and bedroom games. But would you find it amusing if someone tried to convince you that the love and passion you feel for your partner is perverse? If they kept asking you where’s the difference between what you feel and paedophilia (another Greek word)? Are you outraged as I say this? Rightly so. I’m just repeating what you said. Now try and do it in front of the mirror. Dear homophobe, proudly embracing this label, you are crudely offensive and incredibly pig-headed. Do you really think you’re so attractive that all the gay people out there are after you? Don’t worry, they are not even remotely interested. More than that: I can assure you that once all the toads and snakes start dripping from your mouth, no one wants you anymore. Forgive me for not rubbing your back when you deliver your tearful tale of personal trauma, but did that person really try to kiss you, or was it your desire twisting the facts? You know, if we appeal to pure logic, heterosexuality should have been outlawed ages ago, taken the staggering number of rapes every day. Don’t want logic? Then let’s listen to irrationality — you are scared. I sympathize. But fear is an issue for therapy and there are good drugs. How long will fear be an excuse for persecution? Why should your fear be so important that the world be organized around it? I will not hold your hand. Stop whining.

This is to friends, wherever on the queer continuum they place themselves, and to common sense in all this narcissistic madness. Happy Thanksgiving.

Everyone can do it: pick a place on the map, possibly the most distant from your home, and come up with a few crazy ideas about what life there could be like. You can call this game “Inventing the Barbarians.”

What brought me to this conclusion was a post about Kyrgyzstan on one of the wordpress blogs. I sent the link to a friend who is Kyrgyz (the HCA people all know who that is:-)) and then decided to join the discussion myself, having read through all the comments.

I do believe that it was genuine curiosity that inspired the discussion. However, it was nothing more than folk anthropology and, in the end, “Inventing the Barbarians.” Folk anthropology is a temptation we all give in to, when we want to grasp the exotic and lack the information and proper tools to approach it. Yet folk theories should not be treated as anything more than what they are — rules of thumb to be kept within the intimacy of one’s mind. Folk anthropology relies on simplistic distinctions between “us” and “them,” “the civilized” and “the barbarians.” If let out into the world and popularized, it can be very harmful. That is my main reservation toward the kind of writing exemplified by Brownstein’s post. A university professor should be sensitive to how easy it is to get the hate machine going, and the comments he got unfortunately show that his thinking out loud corroborated some of his readers’ own folk theories.

One other interesting issue that the post brought to my attention is how folk anthropology uses sources of information and how it blindly trusts data. The most minuscule scrap of information gains paramount importance, is clung onto and quoted over and over again along with a set of obscure statistics. (All of a sudden, everyone’s forgotten that statistics is the most refined lie.) It becomes an issue of faith, not of interpretation. The New York Times as ultimate authority? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan; I don’t know what my Sunday breakfast would be without NYTimes. But whatever happened to critical reading? NYTimes, like any other newspaper, is tied to the demands of the market. The articles have to cater to the lay public (yet intelligent, yes) that seeks not only information but also entertainment. The writing style has to be pleasing and generalizations need to be formed so as to communicate a point within the limited space of the printed page. NYTimes is not the gospel truth, there are other sources of information out there. Go find them.

Internet and blogging give you the opportunity to talk to the people from the most exotic and distant places. Use it instead of inventing barbarians.

To us all folk anthropologists out there: go out and listen and seek. And think quietly, and think quietly again before you start thinking out loud.

You do know that feeling when you see a homeless person, a sense of shame tinged with indifference. Not that it’s most convenient to look away, or that like Ben Franklin we have absolute control over what happens to us… But how far does ranting and raving go and just how much love for the world and benevolence is there in our personal reservoir?

I remember a friend of mine who, seeing a beggar by the entrance to the Viennese Hauptuni, got into a long tirade over what this country and our demonic capitalism do to people.

I have my fears about waking sleepwalkers, so I let him dream his marxist dream. Maybe I have a heart of stone, but I didn’t see things as he saw them there and then.

It’s becoming my favorite answer that we are all to a greater or lesser extent bound within our perspective. What you are and what you have directs your perception, structures it, and writes between the lines. Embodiment is tough to oppose. You cannot, try as you might, just float out of your body and stand apart with a sense of complete insight and oneness with the world. Yet our pet theories often give us the feeling that through them we are achieving precisely that. This is my pet theory.

And this is how I make sense of that situation from several months ago. My friend, who was an American exchange student, comfortably well off, and a big fan of Marx, saw in the beggar the proof of great social injustice caused by capitalism and the US impact on world economy. While he struggled with outrage and what seemed to me like a bit of self-disgust (for being American), I was somewhere else on the whole issue. An exchange student like him, but with incomparably smaller funds, and, moreover, from a former people’s republic, I did not conceive of the old man’s desperate condition in terms of capitalist oppression. First of all, because capitalism in Austria is not an exact recreation of American models (so “this country” is not “this country” with the intonation and criticism that automatically came to his mind). And, perhaps more importantly, because the old man was not an Austrian ousted to the margins by the state economy’s cruel machine, but an emigrant, most likely from a former communist state. His mumbling didn’t sound even remotely like German. If it were possible to ask him why he came to Vienna, I imagine we’d have heard a story about how he wanted to embrace the cruel capitalist machine. Where it got him objectively and how evil the world actually is remains beyond anyone’s perspective.

If it’s the homeless who really know what homelessness is about, then there are slight chances that the others will be able to go beyond romanticizing homelessness. It’s an ironic footnote to the standpoint theory. Be it linguistic barriers, madness, or aimlessness of storytelling, whatever the reason, it’s not very likely that we’ll get a comprehensive outcast’s view of the world.

There is a beggar on Heidelberg’s Hauptstrasse that everyone recognizes. The guy usually has a peaceful albeit somewhat blank look on his face and he’s always sitting with his dog. He’s got a piece of cardboard covered in unsteady handwriting (I never read it) and he wraps his dog up in a blanket. Like many people, when I pass them I can’t help to want to stroke the dog. Thank God I never tried to.

This is what I heard today from my classmate Ricardo. As he was walking down Hauptstrasse a while ago, he saw an elderly man approach the guy and try to lift the blanket to look at the dog. The homeless guy quickly leapt to his feet and punched the elderly man, who staggered and fell down cracking his skull on the pavement. A crowd gathered around them, people yelled at the beggar. And Ricardo said that the beggar yelled back something like: “He shouldn’t have tried to touch my dog.”

Whoever knows what that meant. I’m not up to theorizing about poverty nor madness, nor up to stroking anyone’s dog after this story.

It was at a birthday party a few weeks ago. We were sipping our drinks and then a friend of the birthday girl who I had met only the day before suddenly said, “I have a list,” and smiled in a telling way.

I was curious how the conversation would develop, so I just listened.

“Oh, yeah, sure, everybody has one,” replied one of my two friends sitting at the same table.

“I mean,” he hesitated in spite of the reassurance, probably because I and the other friend didn’t say anything, “it’s just for the record. So that I know who I’d been with when I’m old. To have some sort of perspective.”

Interesting, I thought. Thinking ahead, in case you have Alzheimer. Or were we heading towards one of those aimless debates about cultural differences? The friend who backed him on the list issue was American like him. Pragmatically-minded America with her list of lovers versus old European forgetfulness of past sins and adventures?

“Just for the record, you say? So it’s not like you look at the list to boost your ego?” My other friend (my compatriot, by the way) asked. I just watched and listened.

“No, absolutely not. I don’t conceive of the women on the list in terms of sexual triumph. I do it just to remember who I had an intimate relationship with. That’s all.”

“But if you had to finish the sentence ‘the more names on the list…’” my friend insisted, “what would you add?”

“The more people I slept with,” he replied simply.

“Yes, but that’s redundant. That’s what we know from the first part of the sentence. But what does it imply for you? Would you say, ‘the more attractive it makes me,’ for instance?”

“No,” he denied.

“Come on. Isn’t it that the list is an assertion of your, um, virility?”

“No, absolutely not. But let’s not get into this. You” — he looked at me — “look appalled by the very idea. You think it’s morally wrong?”

“No, it’s not that…” I said but I didn’t finish the sentence. The birthday party didn’t seem to be the best context for the expression of my thoughts on the list. Even though what I wanted to say had nothing to do with moral judgment (that’s what he feared, I guess), I didn’t feel like examining my reactions there and then.

I took the time that elapsed since that memorable conversation to explore the issue in greater detail. Although none of the Europeans I asked particularly liked the idea of listing their past lovers, I don’t want to push the discussion into the shady realm of cultural differences. Furthermore, I am not connecting it to any idea of morality, religious or not. It’s not my intention to evaluate list-making and certainly not to vilify and ridicule anybody. Quite simply, if you’re a guy with a list, I am letting you know what I’m thinking. These are the thoughts rushing through my head as we sit there and you try to explain why you have a list.*

First of all, I don’t believe you when you say that it doesn’t make you feel better about yourself. I bet your list has numbered positions and every time you write down another name you add in your thoughts “and counting…” and feel contentment.

You probably don’t realize this, but the list is an absolute turn-off. Even if you look like a Greek god, even if there was a flicker of mutual interest between us, the list killed it like a fly swatter smoothly flattening a fly. Right now my imagination’s busy with images of you and your list –

…in a grocery shop, when you realize you took the wrong list and begin to wonder whether ‘Rachel’ could mean that you’re supposed to buy tomatoes and ‘Annie’ that cheese is out. And ‘Jim’ perhaps something as surprising as caviar…

…hopelessly searching for your to-do list and pulling out your I-did-list only to be struck by the lame pun…

…lying next to a lover and figuring out a way to turn the quiet moments ‘after’ into a spelling bee, because you want to be sure you get her name right…

…you, old and for some reason bitter, calling up the women on the list to hiss into the phone “I slept with you in 1999.”

The one good reason I can think of for having a list is if you’re diagnosed with VD and need to tell your partners they should get tested. And yet the list somehow implies that you’re constantly anticipating that, even though it’s not necessarily true.

The list, I feel, is like a leech draining it all of spontaneity. Without the risk of forgetting too easily or remembering too well, the passion’s half its worth. The night is placed within your major plan, I can almost see it inscribed on that sheet. There is this looming vision of the adventure turning into a number on a scrap of paper, too strongly reminiscent of a menu from a pizza place and that second before you order. A catalog of who, what, how, and not the haze of whatever happened.

Which is why I’m giving you that skeptical or, as you might see it, judging look. Your list has just annihilated our potential love affair and made you seem to me funny in your obsession of recording, cataloging, and so terribly missing the point.

*I wish to clarify that this is not addressed to the man I talked to that night. I don’t know him too well and also have no reason to criticize him personally. It’s the idea of the list that does not appeal to me.

This wasn’t inspired by any madeleine moment. Nor by yesterday’s grammatical misunderstanding. No eurekas of the past, no linguistic crimes. This is just a moment in my ongoing thinking process. Although if I had to name a particular turning point, it would probably be reading Toril Moi’s “‘I Am Not a Feminist, But . . .’: How Feminism Became the F-Word” (PMLA Vol. 121, No. 5 — for the more curious among you). Before that article I imagined that the backlash I noticed in Poland was merely a local phenomenon. Yet another wave of Catholic resurgence, yet another dirty trick orchestrated by the far right. It’s been a little over a year now since I left the country and am trying to trace why I thought so. I blame it all on idealism. Trying to believe in positive change, I tend to overestimate my findings. But there is always another rude awakening.

Or let me put it differently. Though certain ideas may seem old and used up, they still persist. In spite of all the confusing talk about ‘post-feminism’ and equality won and established, the reality fell behind in the chase with newspapers. The world is not as fast as thought. We are not blasé post-modern in everything. This never happened. What did happen was that theory (in humanities, I cannot speak for other fields) turned so theoretical that it wasn’t about anything much but itself. Reading it is similar to reading old science fiction — to those visions of the year 2000 when we no longer need dentists. Remember that? I don’t and neither does my dentist.

But was the theory madness the reason why so many people today consider feminism obsolete? Or am I getting it all wrong and running into a conspiracy view? But I see things that really scare me. The invention of the young conservative woman, for instance. Who pulls her strings and whose voice is it when she opens her mouth to announce that feminism is evil and that renewal will come through ‘traditional values’? It’s a wild interpretation of Pascal’s claim that most of the mess in this world comes from our inability to sit quietly in our rooms. If women sat quietly in their rooms appreciating traditional gender roles, so the argument goes, there would be less mess in the world. So feminism’s obsolete, no?

Perhaps in a parallel world, where all the edges are smoother and everyone’s benevolent, this is merely a question of perspective: there is no problem when so many people don’t see it. Here and now, I conceive of this as a blind spot blotting out the view. The struggle for gender equality began to seem so familiar that it ceased to be treated seriously. Instead, it became common to approach it as a fad. Moreover, as a fad that is long passé. It’s in that smirk followed by “so you’re a feminist,” in all the nonsensical debates about ‘militant feminism.’ (How frustrating and vacuous all this talking is is best explained here and here.)

If I did realize these things before, only needed to recognize their gravity, what is then the change? What’s with the initial disclaimer? Maybe I’ve known too many women who believed that they were stupid and said it aloud, and too many who never dared to speak in class. Or, on the most personal level, I’m annoyed with myself for not being able to cope with my own extroverted nature all these years, with always trying to guess what is ‘appropriate’ and advisable. Not that I follow those rules, but still I know where the bit is even if I refuse to hold it between my teeth. Sitting quietly in your room, M. Pascal, you can become your own worst enemy, even if only out of boredom. This moment in my thinking is when I feel thinking alone is not enough. Browsing on-line, I mostly found organizations asking for donations and that is not the kind of activism I mean (who will pay my rent?). Any ideas on what I could do?

How much has been done for simplicity’s sake: dealing cards on the table of history only to your best buddies, keeping women in the kitchen, peasants in the field. For simplicity’s sake masses of people were deprived of rights. For simplicity’s sake all they were given instead were lame explanations why that is the case. It was both cruelty and fear of effort that did so much for the idea of simplicity. So when the intelligent young man who had a talk on Thoreau today told me he used in his paper the words ‘man’ and ‘he’ as synonyms of ‘the individual’ precisely “for simplicity’s sake,” I tried to explain that he was shooting himself in the foot.

For how does simplicity benefit from excluding roughly half of your readers? With ‘man’ scurrying to and fro in the text, searching for transcendence, how could the woman reader seriously believe that she too is implied in all the masculine glory of that ‘individual’? My brain shuts off after a few paragraphs of such writing. The ‘he’ is huffing and puffing, but my indifference towards the idea only grows.

I don’t care if ‘he/she,’ ’s/he,’ or ‘he or she’ seems cumbersome to you. You can always pluralize. Otherwise, don’t count on my understaning and appreciation. “For simplicity’s sake” I will ignore your text.