While preparing my taxes — on April 13th on the dot, like every year! — I came across a screen that reminded me of a post I’d written about lifecourse assumptions.  The post featured a slideshow with birth control advice with very rigid age-based expectations.  Turns out, Turbo Tax has some similar ideas.  As I finished up my returns, it announced that it was ready for what would come next in my life. It knows I’m single, rent, and have no dependents so… married, house, and kid (obvi!).

The “poverty line” is an income, set by the federal government, used to measure whether one is in or out of poverty.  But this line, of course, is both sociological and political.  What is poverty?

A nonprofit organization called Wider Opportunities for Women has released a study challenging the federal poverty lines.  According to the New York Times article on their work, their aim is to “…set thresholds for economic stability rather than mere survival, and takes into account saving for retirement and emergencies.”  Their “lines,” then, deviate significantly from those of the federal government.

Michel Foucault famously suggested that we stop congratulating ourselves for our willingness to talk about sex (“We are just so, like, liberated!”) and ask what it is exactly that we are saying. I thought of him as I pondered this 50-second compilation of each time a character in a single episode of the ABC Family show, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, utters the word “sex.” How many times?  70 times.  70 times in just 45 minutes of programming.

So we definitely know that we’re talking about sex.  That’s for sure.  But what is the impact of all of this talk?  You can imagine a thousand different messages contained in the space between one “sex” and the next.  Whether that’s liberating is up for debate.

Found at The Daily What.

Ria sent along an example of something simultaneously routine and jarring.  Disney princess grapes:

Thinking out loud here:  By now, in the U.S., we’re used to thinking about food being branded with mascots, movie/tv show characters, and even corporate entities.  When I posted about Cars– and Disney princess-themed diet snack packs, for example, it wasn’t the branding of food that interested me.  But there is something unfamiliar to me about the associating of grapes with Disney.  I think it has to do with the idea of processed versus “fresh” foods.  In this case, Disney is marking a (genetically-modified) natural product in its natural state.  This feels different than marking a brightly-colored, largely synthetic, already highly-branded foodstuff.  Can Disney really claim grapes?  Celery?  Red peppers?   To me, these are the last things in the grocery store that actually feel as if they come straight from the farmer.  Now they’re taking a detour through the happiest place on earth?

Ria links the new development in branding to the obesity panic and the push for kids to eat healthier food. And she’s suspicious of the linking of corporate interests to health.

What do think?  Are you as weirded out as I am?  Is Ria onto something?  What does it mean!?  What’s next?  Republican Party chicken breasts?  South Park brand brown rice?

In this TED video sent in by BlackCat and Chana Messinger, Tony Porter gives a nice introduction to what it means — for men, women, sons, and daughters — that men are confined by the dictates of masculinity.  (Trigger warning: at about the 9 minute mark, there is a story about a sexual assault.)

Transcript after the jump (thanks to DECIUS for posting it in the comments).

I grew up in New York City, between Harlem and the Bronx. Growing up as a boy, we were taught that men had to be tough, had to be strong, had to be courageous, dominating — no pain, no emotions, with the exception of anger — and definitely no fear — that men are in charge, which means women are not; that men lead, and you should just follow and do what we say; that men are superior, women are inferior; that men are strong, women are weak; that women are of less value — property of men — and objects, particularly sexual objects. I’ve later come to know that to be the collective socialization of men, better known as the “man box.” See this man box has in it all the ingredients of how we define what it means to be a man. Now I also want to say, without a doubt, there are some wonderful, wonderful, absolutely wonderful things about being a man. But at the same time, there’s some stuff that’s just straight up twisted. And we really need to begin to challenge, look at it and really get in the process of deconstructing, redefining, what we come to know as manhood.

This is my two at home, Kendall and Jay. They’re 11 and 12. Kendall’s 15 months older than Jay. There was a period of time when my wife, her name is Tammie, and I, we just got real busy and whip, bam, boom: Kendall and Jay. (Laughter) And when they were about five and six, four and five, Jay could come to me, come to me crying. It didn’t matter what she was crying about, she could get on my knee, she could snot my sleeve up, just cry, cry it out. Daddy’s got you. That’s all that’s important.

Now Kendall on the other hand — and like I said, he’s only 15 months older than her — he came to me crying, it’s like as soon as I would hear him cry, a clock would go off. I would give the boy probably about 30 seconds, which means, by the time he got to me, I was already saying things like, “Why are you crying? Hold your head up. Look at me. Explain to me what’s wrong. Tell me what’s wrong. I can’t understand you. Why are you crying?” And out of my own frustration of my role and responsibility of building him up as a man to fit into these guidelines and these structures that are defining this man box, I would find myself saying things like, “Just go in your room. Just go on, go on in your room. Sit down, get yourself together and come back and talk to me when you can talk to me like a –” What? (Audience: Man.) “like a man.” And he’s five years old. And as I grow in life, I would say to myself, “My God, what’s wrong with me? What am I doing? Why would I this?” And I think back. I think back to my father.

There was a time in my life where we had a very troubled experience in our family. My brother, Henry, he died tragically when we were teenagers. We lived in New York City, as I said. We lived in the Bronx at the time. And the burial was in a place called Long Island, it was about two hours outside of the city. And as we were preparing to come back from the burial, the cars stopped at the bathroom to let folks take care of themselves before the long ride back to the city. And the limousine empties out. My mother, my sister, my auntie, they all get out, but my father and I stayed in the limousine. And no sooner than the women got out, he burst out crying. He didn’t want cry in front of me. But he knew he wasn’t going to make it back to the city, and it was better me than to allow himself to express these feelings and emotions in front of the women. And this is a man who, 10 minutes ago, had just put his teenage son in the ground — something I just can’t even imagine. The thing that sticks with me the most is that he was apologizing to me for crying in front of me. And at the same time, he was also giving me props, lifting me up, for not crying.

I come to also look at this as this fear that we have as men, this fear that just has us paralyzed, holding us hostage to this man box. I can remember speaking to a 12 year-old boy, a football player, and I asked him, I said, “How would you feel if, in front of all the players, your coach told you you were playing like a girl?” Now I expected him to say something like, I’d be sad, I’d be mad, I’d be angry, or something like that. No, the boy said to me — the boy said to me, “It would destroy me.” And I said to myself, “God, if it would destroy him to be called a girl, what are we then teaching him about girls?”

(Applause)

It took me back to a time when I was about 12 years old. I grew up in tenement buildings in the inner-city. At this time we’re living in the Bronx. And in the building next to where I lived there was a guy named Johnny. He was about 16 years old, and we were all about 12 years old — younger guys. And he was hanging out with all us younger guys. And this guy, he was up to a lot of no good. He was the kind of kid who parents would have to wonder, “What is this 16 year-old boy doing with these 12 year-old boys?” And he did spend a lot of time up to no good. He was a troubled kid. His mother had died from a heroin overdose. He was being raised by his grandmother. His father wasn’t on the set. His grandmother had two jobs. He was home alone a lot. But I’ve got to tell you, we young guys, we looked up to this dude. He was cool. He was fine. That’s what the sisters said, “He was fine.” He was having sex. We all looked up to him.

So one day, I’m out in front of the house doing something — just playing around, doing something — I don’t know what. He looks out his window, he calls me upstairs, he said, “Hey Anthony.” They called my Anthony growing up as a kid. “Hey Anthony, come on upstairs.” Johnny call, you go. So I run right upstairs. As he opens the door, he says to me, “Do you want some?” Now I immediately knew what he meant. Because for me growing up at that time, and our relationship with this man box, do you want some meant one of two things, sex or drugs — and we weren’t doing drugs. Now my box, card, man box card, was immediately in jeopardy. Two things: One, I never had sex. We don’t talk about that as men. You only tell your dearest, closest friend, sworn to secrecy for life, the first time you had sex. For everybody else, we go around like we’ve been having sex since we were two. There ain’t no first time. (Laughter) The other thing I couldn’t tell him is that I didn’t want any. That’s even worse. We’re supposed to always be on the prowl. Women are objects, especially sexual objects.

Anyway, so I couldn’t tell him any of that. So, like my mother would say, make a long story short. I just simply said to Johnny, “Yes.” He told me to go in his room. I go in his room. On his bed is a girl from the neighborhood named Sheila. She’s 16 years old. She’s nude. She’s what I know today to be mentally ill, higher functioning at times than others. We had a whole choice’s-worth of inappropriate names for her. Anyway, Johnny had just gotten through having sex with her. Well actually, he raped her, but he would say he had sex with her. Because, while Sheila never said no, she also never said yes.

So he was offering me the opportunity to do the same. So when I go in the room, I close the door. Folks, I’m petrified. I stand with my back to the door so Johnny can’t bust in the room and see that I’m not doing anything. And I stand there long enough that I could have actually done something. So now I’m no longer trying to figure out what I’m going to do, I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to get out of this room. So in my 12 years of wisdom, I zip my pants down, I walk out into the room. And lo and behold to me, while I was in the room with Sheila, Johnny was back at the window calling guys up. So now there’s a living room full of guys. It was like the waiting room in the doctor’s office. And they asked me how was it. And I say to them, “It was good.” And I zip my pants up in front of them, and I head for the door.

Now I say this all with remorse, and I was feeling a tremendous amount of remorse at that time, but I was conflicted, because, while I was feeling remorse, I was excited, because I didn’t get caught, but I knew I felt bad about what was happening. This fear getting outside the man box totally enveloped me. It was way more important to me, about me and my man box card than about Sheila and what was happening to her.

See collectively, we as men are taught to have less value in women, to view them as property and the objects of men. We see that as an equation that equals violence against women. We as men, good men, the large majority of men, we operate on the foundation of this whole collective socialization. We kind of see ourselves separate, but we’re very much a part of it. You see, we have to come to understand that less value, property and objectification is the foundation and the violence can’t happen without it. So we’re very much a part of the solution as well as the problem. The center for disease control says that men’s violence against women is at epidemic proportions, is the number one health concern for women in this country and abroad.

So quickly, I’d like to just say, this is the love of my life, my daughter Jay. The world I envision for her, how do I want men to be acting and behaving? I need you on board. I need you with me. I need you working with me and me working with you on how we raise our sons and teach them to be men — that it’s okay to not be dominating, that it’s okay to have feelings and emotions, that it’s okay to promote equality, that it’s okay to have women who are just friends and that’s it, that it’s okay to be whole, that my liberation as a man is tied to your liberation as a woman.

I remember asking a nine year-old boy. I asked a nine year-old boy, “What would life be like for you, if you didn’t have to adhere to this man box?” He said to me, “I would be free.”

Thank you folks.

(Applause)

Chris Rock makes a downright profound observation about race discourse in this 2 1/2-minute clip, sent along by Collin College sociologist John Glass:

In the wake of two rounds of racially-charged anti-abortion campaigns: “Black Children are an Endangered Species” and “The Most Dangerous Place for an African-American is in the Womb.” These campaigns are built around the fact that pregnant black women are more likely to have abortions than pregnant white women.  The one getting attention at the moment, sent in by Laura E., is a set of billboards from That’s Abortion in the South Side of Chicago:

I’ve said this before, and it’s being said elsewhere, but I think it deserves to be said again, and strongly.

Many women have abortions because they cannot afford to raise a(nother) child.  They would bring the fetus to term if only they weren’t all-but-crushed under the burdens of under-served neighborhoods, shitty public education, a dearth of jobs that pay a living wage, a criminal justice system that strips inner cities of husbands and fathers, a lack of health care, and stingy, penalizing, and humiliating social services (when they can get them).  So telling black women that they are bad; telling them that they are killing their race alongside their babies, is twisting a knife that already penetrates deep in the black community.

Not to mention the fact that as soon as those poor women have children, they’re demonized for irresponsibly bringing babies into the world that they cannot support.  It’s called a double bind; damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  And no they cannot “wait until they’re in a better place financially” or “not have sex until they can afford to raise a child” because many, many women will never be in such a place in their entire lives.  And they can’t just “practice responsible contraception” because half of all pregnancies are unintended, at least a third among even the most well-educated and resource-rich women.  So pregnancies will and do happen, even to people who don’t want or can’t have a child.

If pro-life groups want to stop abortion, they need to stop accusing black women of moral bankruptcy and start putting those billboards up across from the Capital Building.  What black women need isn’t an ethics lesson, they need resources.  They need those very same people who tsk tsk them to stand up for them, to fight for a living wage, investments in their schools and communities, protection instead of criminalization, more available and better subsidized child care, and guaranteed parental leave benefits for all (it’s not a fantasy).  If black women had those things, then they might feel like that had a choice to keep their baby, just as they have a choice to abort their fetus.

It’s not the parents who fail to care-about-the-children in America, it’s a government and it’s citizens that allow 1 in 5 to languish in poverty.

Mark Twain, Plato, Charles Dickens, John Stuart Mill, Voltaire, Ralph Waldo Emerson.  For years, these names were thought necessary components of higher education.  Without understanding these authors and their “great books,” so the story went, our students would lack in critical thinking skills and intelligence.  Yet, in the wake of the 1960s and challenges to white male dominance, students and educators begin to demand a more well-rounded and inclusive canon.  University curriculums constituted almost entirely by dead, white, male, European writers, were slowly accompanied by a few token “others.”

In the 1980s and ‘90s, the debate over what constituted a proper and effective “canon” reached a fevered pitch.  The supposed decline of American knowledge and intelligence was blamed on the multiculturalism’s rise in the Ivory Tower.  For example, University of Chicago philosophy professor Allan Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind (1987) vigorously argued for a return to the traditional canon.  In addressing this tension, sociologist Bethany Bryson wrote:

Two decades of heated battle would ensue between members of what would become known as the Cultural Left and the Cultural Right—academics and public intellectuals who engaged the debate in the national media.  Despite the appearance of an epic battle between opposing forces, however, the two “sides” shared an extraordinary premise: that every time an English teacher put together a reading list, the future of a nation hung in the balance.*

Years later, most agree that the “Cultural Left” won the canon wars.  It is generally assumed that today’s university curriculums and bookstores are repositories of diverse writers and viewpoints.

So, what does this cornucopia of diversity look like?   We don’t have to look far to answer the question.   A trip down the aisles of today’s college bookstores serve as off-hand metrics for what is “legitimate knowledge.”   Moreover, these bookstores decorate their store walls with uniform and corporate–approved book covers and authors’ likenesses.  By way of example, I headed over to the bookstore at Mississippi State University.

Throughout this bookstore, 3’ x 5’ posters of notable books are displayed above the shelves and sitting areas.  In total, thirty-three different book covers grace the walls, however, John Steinbeck’s Cup of Gold is displayed twice to bring the total to thirty-four.  Nine of these thirty-four (26%) titles were produced by nonwhite, female, and/or gay/lesbian writers: Rosario Castellanos’ The Book of Lamentations, Pablo Neruda’s Fully Empowered, James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On The Mountain, Maria Edgeworth’s The Absentee, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.

In addition to the posters, on a wrap-around,mural above the café, 23 authors sit in a restaurant, smoking, drinking, eating, and enjoying one another’s conversation and company.  As shown below, the authors displayed are: Shelley, Whitman, Melville, Trollope [spelled as “Troilope” here], Kipling, [George] Eliot, James, Wilde, Twain, Shaw, Hardy, Dickenson, Orwell, Nabakov, Joyce, Parker, Faulkner, Steinbeck, [T. S.] Eliot, Singer, Kafka, Neruda, and Hughes.

Out of the twenty-three authors displayed, four (17%) are women, two (9%) are people of color ( literally marginalized to the far right of the mural as it curls behind a support beam), and two (9%) are considered to have been gay.  Withstanding the overlap of Hughes in two categories (gay and nonwhite), we are left with only six out of twenty-three (26%) authors that do not conform to the white, male, straight demographic thought characteristic of traditional canon authors.

The twenty-six percent of book covers and paintings are the height of LGBT, female, and nonwhite author representation in this store.  While the shelves certainly carry more than nine books and six authors of this ilk, I’d wager that the total percentage does not come close to a quarter of their total inventory.  If these numbers and framing together epitomize the great victory of the Canon Wars by the Cultural Left, then it is certainly an unfinished battle.

* Bryson, Bethany. 2005.  Making Multiculturalism: Boundaries and Meaning in U.S. English Departments.  Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, p 2.

Matthew W. Hughey is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia (2009) and is currently an assistant professor of Sociology at Mississippi State University.  He is co-editor (with Dr. Gregory Parks) of The Obamas as a (Post) Racial America?, 12 Angry Men: True Stories of Being a Black Man in America Today, and Black Greek-Letter Organizations, 2.0: New Directions in the Study of African American Fraternities and Sororities.  He is also author of the forthcoming White Bound: White Nationalists, White Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race.  Please feel free to visit his website or contact him at MHughey@soc.msstate.edu.