men

erich hagan is a writing performer from a dead-end street in a part of Boston its many fine institutions advise visitors to avoid. He’s honed his direct style of communication and obscenely sincere subject matter in bars, coffee shops, theaters, residences, warehouses and classrooms across the nation. The Boston Globe calls erich “tender, yet violent.” He was a member of the 2007 Providence Poetry Slam Team and represented Boston’s Cantab Lounge at the 2008 Individual World Poetry Slam.

Presently, erich is consumed by a project called The Analog/Digital Debate; a production team and stage show that blurs the intersection of independent music, performance poetry and noise art. In his spare time, he is a freelance audio workhorse and a volunteer sexual assault outreach advocate with no dietary restrictions, no pets, no advanced degree in any of the liberal arts and no idea what his living situation will be by the time you read this.

As long as rape and sexual violence continue, we have to keep talking about it out loud. We need to keep talking so we can figure out how to take action. And, anyway, talking with each other is action.

Click here for what erich has to say—in his own voice—about men and sexual assault.

And you can read it here:

i am here to facilitate a discussion of sexual assault

this is not what i do for a living
i hold no degree in any of the social sciences
yes, i am a man
no, i’m not sure what that means, either

and like many of you
i worry about giving the wrong impression
this is a difficult topic
but i believe that rape is not inevitable

the crazy stranger in the bushes
accounts for a minority of incidences
survivors are mostly acquainted with attackers

the predatory relative
the nice guy who has a hard time hearing no
the abusive partners of every gender, race and orientation

it is not an act of sex
nor a matter of miscommunication
it is a planned exertion of power

exploiting trust, confusion
and silence, relying on society’s
inclination to discredit victims of explicit crimes

what were they wearing?
what were they doing that late at night?
how could they have put themselves in that situation?

truthfully, it’s an understandable reaction
if the mistake was theirs, then the world is fair
we want to believe that it could not happen to us

but it does: one in four, one in seven,
one in thirty-three, nine out of ten times
rapists identify as straight males

statistics are not my expertise
i just recognize a threat when i see it
i can not let this remain a touchy subject

there are boys
taught consent is women’s fault
there are places where forcible intercourse is a military maneuver

i am here
because i believe there is a difference
between risk reduction and prevention

everyone takes precautions
clutches cellphones on the subway
avoids specific colors of clothing on certain streets

it solves nothing
personal awareness is important
but it does not address the source of violence

drunk driving used to be
something we were warned to watch out for
stay off the roads at night, after holidays

later, the issue was reframed
friends didnt let friends, and it was effective
less people were endangered, no one stopped drinking

it just wasn’t an excuse
it became an individual obligation
to stop violators from operating

each of us can intervene
in any way we are comfortable
but someone you know will almost definitely be affected
and it is not funny
that is unacceptable

all a perpetrator needs
is a target no one believes
should’ve known, had it coming, naive

there are dozens of ways to shift blame
none of them excuse the one person responsible
nobody asks for this, lost control is not an explanation

it is the effect, whether or not
she goes silent or fights, whether or not
he can call it assault or explain to his friends

this is not a women’s issue: men, this is one war
you will not be glorified for waging
we can end it

Catch erich performing live:

•Friday 10/16 @ Nuyorican Poets Cafe, NYC (236 East 3rd Street Between Ave B & C)

•Monday 11/2 @ LouderArts, Bar 13 (E 13th St & University Pl, New York, NY)

•Monday 11/16 @ Emerson College, Boston, MA

•Friday 11/17 @ The Bridge Cafe (1117 Elm St, Manchester, NH)

•Thursday 11/19 @ The Inkwell (665, 2nd Ave. Long Branch NJ)

For more contact: info@theanalogdigitaldebate.com

Photo Credit: @ The Mercury Cafe — Denver, CO

This here post comes straight from dear friend of GWP and mine, and fellow writer, Daphne Uviller — who I’ve been writing about of late, here and here! –Deborah

I visited Debbie the other day to try to help her nest a bit, and she gave me two books, one of which was Ayelet Waldman’s Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace, which she said was a little too much for her (meaning Debbie) at this point.  I agree — it’s not a book that should be read while pregnant, but later, while struggling with what it means to be a good mother or even, as I often do, how to get back to even wanting to be a good mother.

I read the whole book in one sitting and while I disliked a few parts, I admire Waldman for her honesty — I consider myself a very honest writer, but she goes where I hadn’t dared — and her talent and her insight.

Here’s what I took away from it:

1) Men MUST be equal partners, not just pay lip service. Okay, that’s old news, but never bad to be reminded.
2) Men do not worry about being good or bad fathers, they just are what they are. We should follow their example. This is wrapped up in the whole idea of observing, of living in the moment rather than judging and worrying. More old news, but still, good to hear.
3) I’m glad I don’t live in Berkeley.
4) I kind of wished I lived in Berkeley.
5) Part-time work that you love is the answer to the work/life balance conundrum. (She doesn’t state this explicitly, but confirms what I already figured out.  We writers, money permitting, have it made.)
6) I think I’d like to try going on Celexa.

And the chapter on her abortion between her second and third child (she has four) made me weep. It is powerful, powerful stuff.

-Daphne Uviller

This month, The Man Files brings you Jessica Pauline — a writer and feminist with experience working in some of the dicey-er Los Angeles strip clubs. Lots of ink has been spilled on the sex worker debates. Are women oppressed by sex work? Liberated? Both? How is trafficking distinct from, say, dancing one’s way through law school? In this entry, Jessica leaves those debates for another day and instead turns a keen eye to her observations of the men who make it rain. (—verb: to throw wads of cash in the air for dancers to retrieve as tips.)

Like Jane Goodall and her chimps, I spent a good deal of time during my tenure as a stripper in some of L.A.’s seediest nightclubs observing the behavior of the primates. Not the dancers, mind you — the men who came to watch them.

Based on my humble observations, I came to discover that certain behaviors are both predictable and categorical, and that most hetero men, when confronted with a pair of boobs in a semi-public setting, fall into a few choice archetypes.

Let’s start with what I imagine to be the most common breed of American strip club patron: white, middle-aged men who golf and vote Republican. They swagger in to the club with an air of ownership, their masculinity stuffed into their wallets and tucked neatly into their pressed khaki pants. Observing the dancers with the same level of detached interest that one might imagine they’d use in selecting a prime rib-eye, they pick a girl, begin to talk to her in their most sensual voice while rubbing her back and her leg, and shortly thereafter are ushered back to the VIP room with very little to-do. This is the kind of easy sell around which strip clubs were designed, and for that reason, we’ll call this breed Strip Club Men (SCM).

Now, strip clubs have been around long enough for a type of strip club rebellion to brew amongst men. So imagine, if you will, if the SCM had a son. This son desires nothing more than to be the antithesis to his stuffy, conservative father, and so he becomes sensitive, wears ironic t-shirts to demonstrate the fact that he doesn’t take himself too seriously, and quite possibly sports artistic, sentimental facial hair. Let’s call this breed Feminist Men (FM).

When forced into a strip club, maybe because of a bachelor party, or maybe in search of a place to talk quietly on a Tuesday night, the FM immediately seeks to set himself apart. Rather than sexualize the dancers, he opens with a nice conversation, carefully keeping his eyes above the neck. But as the FM gets less and less guarded, a strange thing begins to happen. He becomes more willing to let his eyes wander down. His friendly conversation becomes more imbued with sexual innuendo. And finally, often after spending copious amounts of money on what he has come to believe is a “real connection,” he tries to get the dancer to go on a date with him. (This, as an aside, is both insulting and never going to happen.)

The final subcategory of men falls deeper into FM territory, and warrants mention simply because of the unique validation that they seek. They’re easy to recognize, because no sooner does some indie chick start swaying her hips to Tom Waits, the King of Melancholy himself, then the Tom Waits Man (TWM) begins nodding in recognition. Before long, he’s dug a crumpled dollar bill out of his pocket and walked up to the stage where he will deposit it, but not until he’s made sure that the dancer sees him so he can compliment her taste to her face and thereby secure his place as profound, mysterious and, of course, different.

Maybe you’ll read this and think that I oversimplify. But since the most honest interaction in sex work is based on a respectful, fun partaking of the service provided, it can’t hurt for men to examine their own behavior with at least as much gusto as I examined it (don’t worry, I took some long, hard looks at myself, too). Without that, gentlemen, you are really just entertainment.

Jessica Pauline is a freelance writer in Los Angeles. An NYU graduate with a degree in music, her writing appears regularly on LAist.com, and has appeared in $pread Magazine, The Printed Blog, the Ventura County Star, and a number of other websites and local papers. She is currently working on a book about her experiences as a feminist stripper, and lives in Silver Lake with her fiance and their dog, Molly.

A new book has caught my eye, covering some of my favorite themes: Gender Equality: Transforming Family Divisions of Labor (The Real Utopias Project), by Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers et al.

In a nutshell, the book proposes a set of policies-paid family leave provisions, working time regulations, and early childhood education and care-designed to foster more egalitarian family divisions of labor by strengthening men’s ties at home and women’s attachment to paid work. Its policy proposal is followed by a series of commentaries–both critical and supportive–from a group of distinguished scholars, and a concluding essay in which Gornick and Meyers respond to the debate over how best to promote egalitarian policies.

Contributors include heavy hitters like Barbara Bergmann, Johanna Brenner, Harry Brighouse & Erik Olin Wright, Scott Coltrane, Rosemary Crompton, Myra Marx Ferree, Nancy Folbre, Heidi Hartmann & Vicky Lovell, Shireen Hassim, Lane Kenworthy, Cameron Macdonald, Peter McDonald, Ruth Milkman, Kimberly Morgan, Ann Orloff, Michael Shalev, and Kathrin Zippel.

(Thanks to CCF for the heads up!)

Since I was busy puking my guts out this morning (month 6! when will the nausea end?!), Marco filled in for me over at Recessionwire.com.  I think his post is better than any of mine.  Check it out: he’s stepping out as “The Man Behind the Curtain.”

Chest hair, growth spurts, voice changes, lust! In this edition of The Man Files, Rebekah Spicuglia writes about the challenges of feminist parenting when boys start coming of age.

My 11-½-year-old son recently announced that he is going through puberty.

My usually obsessive preparations for Oscar’s visits now have a new urgency. I find myself planning discussions I somehow never thought I would need to have. When kids grow up it’s an exciting — but scary — time for any parent. And as a noncustodial, long-distance mom, the challenges and opportunities for me are unique. Over the years, lots of conversations with my son have been held over the phone. Lately, we’ve had some incredible talks about more adult things (you know … coffee, sex ed). more...

A must-read this morning: WGL panelist Courtney Martin expounds on many of the themes we discussed at Saturday’s panel in her column this week at The American Prospect. Thank you, Courtney, for so beautifully summing up some of the issues, and then taking it the next step.

For another great post-Father’s Day fix, try this latest interview with Jeremy Adam Smith, author of The Daddy Shift, over at Salon, “Daddy on Board”, where Jeremy discusses why dads are spending more time with their kids.

There’s so much Father’s Day goodness out there today I don’t know where to start.

Former NYTimes blogger Marci Alboher asks “Are Dads the New Moms?” over at her new Yahoo blog, Working the New Economy.

Lisa Belkin conducts a two part interview with The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared ParentingAreTransforming the American Family author and Daddy Dialectic blogger Jeremy Adam Smith

Michelle Goldberg of ABCNews.com tells us What Laid-Off Dads Want

And I offer “Findings from from the Layoff Lab”— a Father’s Day assessment of recession-era dads — over at The Big Money! 

You can bet we’ll touch on many of these themes — and more, and from a fresh and feminist perspective — at the Brooklyn Museum tomorrow when the WomenGirlsLadies talk about “Dads, Dudes, and Doing It.” Event is free!  We’ll be giving books away!  I’ll be wearing straight-up maternity wear!  This is one you won’t want to miss 🙂

PS. Time Out New York just listed us as one of the “Ten Best Father’s Day events” in town!

I’ve been busy working up my comments for this Saturday’s 2pm panel at the Brooklyn Museum, billed as “a fresh conversation among feminists in honor of Father’s Day.” We’re an editor’s pick over at the Daily News and Time Out is supposed to be featuring us too!

We’ve been launching a multimedia publicity attack, so if you receive email from me and another from Facebook, please bear with us.  As always, it’s one great experiment in getting the word out in the age of social media.  (Learning lots along the way!)

For a taste of WomenGirlsLadies, you can check out this YouTube video from one of our past events:

My fellow WGLs Courtney Martin, Gloria Feldt, Kristal Brent Zook, and I REALLY like to make these talks interactive, so it’d be so great to have YOUR voices there! And if anyone’s game for liveblogging it here on GWP, the door is open!  Just email me and let me know.  K?

My latest, up at Recessionwire.com today!  Today’s post questions whether laid off men’s (ok, Marco’s) values are changing, now that they’re spending more time at home.  Hint: It’s all about the eggs. I’d love your comments!