Toilet Seats: Up or Down?

Have you seen this? I saw it on a friend's Facebook wall.

Now, if you read all of these, plenty of them are based on lame gender stereotypes. In the second column, for example, there is the comment about colors and how subtle shade differences are lost on men. Guess what? They are lost on me too, and I have a vagina. Also, I get my oil changed exactly when it needs to be changed. Every time. And for my boyfriend, a living, breathing male, Saturday=books or Saturday=sleep (actually these days Saturday=work but that's beside the point), but Saturday=NO Sports.

However, I do really enjoy and appreciate the first rule (henceforth known as The Toilet Seat Rule). I myself have done some complaining over the years, that might have sounded something like this: "Why can't you put the toilet seat back down after you use it?" "If you do that, I'm gonna fall in!" "It's not that hard to put it back down."

But I also remember one moment of gender-equality consideration on my part. I was hanging out at a guy friend's apartment, and I asked to use the bathroom before we left. Since he lived alone, and he was (and still is) a male, I chose to put the toilet seat back up when I was done. I'd never done that before (or since, I don't think...), but for whatever reason, in that moment I was very aware that I was in a guy's apartment, and that guys usually want the toilet seat up. So I put it back up. When I told my sister that I had done this, she laughed at me as if I were so silly. But if we expect them to put it back down in our bathrooms, why shouldn't we put it back up in theirs?

Let's be honest ladies. For most of us (at least those reading this), it's been a long time since we were small enough to truly fall into the toilet. I can only remember one occurrence of walking into the bathroom and sitting down without realizing the seat was up, and I caught myself before coming anywhere close to bare bottom meeting toilet water. Yes, I would say the toilet looks better with the seat down, and usually looks cleaner, and that is the image that I personally would prefer for visitors to my bathroom to see, but that is how I feel about my own home.

Now, I definitely am not endorsing the stereotypes in most of these rules. The "Crying is blackmail" and "Yes and no are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question" are just reworded versions of "Men don't have emotions. We don't understand women and their crazy emotions. Stop crying--we're not allowed to, and seeing you do it freaks us out!" In fact, 2/3 of these rules are based solely on "Women talk too much, feel too much and buy too much" and "Men are superior and therefore above those silly words, feelings and consumer products."

But I do find the toilet seat rule to be funny and to ring true. I feel like I learned to complain about the toilet seat more from movies and TV than anywhere else. I've been wondering where this started. Maybe it started when work moved out of the home and women became primary homemakers; they had control over the home and how it looked, and therefore the home was subject to their demands and needs. But however it started, I think it's interesting how it has persisted, and even come to symbolize, in a way, the little, frivolous arguments of a married (heterosexual) couple.


And the rule gets one more thing right: I've never heard men complain about having to put it back down.

Oxford Educated or Oxford Ignorant?

Today, the school board of my former school district, Oxford, will be voting on which type of sex education policy to adopt. They can choose between "abstinence-only" or "abstinence-plus" (comprehensive) courses. What will Oxford, Miss., choose? I'm not sure.

Growing up in Mississippi, I have learned to handle contradictions (though not always happily or easily). The personhood amendment was brought to Mississippi by Personhood USA precisely because we are considered to be the most conservative state, and they felt sure it would pass. Yet, we voted it down last November by about 14 points. But, we still voted for Phil Bryant as governor, who was directly involved with the personhood movement. (I don't understand it either.) We have the highest teen pregnancy rate, highest infant mortality rate, and our educational attainment rates are some of the lowest in the country, yet our politicians are mostly anti-abortion and anti-sex education.

So what do these contradictions mean for sex-education policies in our schools? Well, it's a little unclear. The Lafayette County School District (the county of which Oxford is the seat) has already adopted an abstinence-only education policy. But according to this article, "Mississippi parents are overwhelmingly in favor of age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education." One Oxford parent points out that those opposed to comprehensive sex education are "a minority of parents" who are "very passionate about their beliefs and are active in influencing their local school boards." So it seems very plausible that this minority could force their beliefs into policy, whether or not most of Oxford's parents actually agree with them.

So, it seems to me that all Oxford parents need to get their voices heard. I just e-mailed members of the school board about the vote. I don't know how much weight my opinion will hold, since I am not a parent of any Oxford students, but I did it anyway. If you want to write to school board members, go to the School Board website with names and e-mail addresses provided. If we want Mississippi's teen pregnancy rate to fall, we have to start educating Mississippians. It starts here.

*This post is cross-posted at Represent!

Finally! Obama's Support of Gay Marriage

Today the Internet is buzzing about Obama coming out (no pun intended) in support of gay marriage. In an interview with ABC (the full interview has not actually aired but this clip has been released), Obama talks about the "evolution" of his views on gay marriage.

Now, we all know why he is announcing this today. This week, Joe Biden said publicly that he was "absolutely comfortable" with gay marriage, an announcement that Obama staffers began trying to correct, putting it more in line with Obama's support-of-equality-falling-just-short-of-marriage-to-toe-the-political-line platform. The Chicago Tribune writes,

While the White House claimed the remarks were essentially a restatement of the president’s position, it was obvious they were everything the president's stance was not: open and clear.

After Joe Biden's statements were praised, and the Obama campaign's obvious efforts to dial them back seemed to prove that the President was still unwilling to take the next step in declaring support for America's LGBT activists and communities, there was really only one thing he could do: go ahead and support marriage equality already. So he did.

And I'm glad he did. I know it came from political pressure, but so what? How many people do you think there are that really backed his support-of-equality-falling-just-short-of-marriage-to-toe-the-political-line platform who are suddenly freaking out and running to Mitt Romney's open arms? I'm guessing not very many. And I'm disappointed that it took him this long to make this declaration, since his toeing of the line was such a lame, copout way of handling a divisive issue in our country.

So the question is, does this change anything? Not really; not yet. As I said, I'm pretty sure that no one thought Obama would ever back up and go the other way on gay marriage. He repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell; he's often discussed the importance of civil unions and equal rights in all aspects of life for homosexual, bisexual and transgender individuals and couples. No one is surprised by his full-support statement (just surprised it took us this long to get here). But will he take this support he's declaring and use it to push legislation in favor of marriage equality? I don't know. But I hope so. Because if he doesn't, he's just making a meaningless declaration...much like Michael Scott on The Office:

So, President Obama, please don't just declare your support of marriage equality.

Do all you can to make it happen.

Videos to Keep You Going

I know I haven't been writing much lately, and as much as I want it to get better, I'm about to move out of my apartment and into a house, so the rest of this month will probably be just as spotty as the last one was. I promise to get back on track after the move, and to post as much as I can during this time, but here are a few videos on recent events to keep you going.

I'll start with the funny, before we get to the sad and too-very-real. The latest from Funny or Die, called Republicans, Get in My Vagina! Hilarious. 

 

This video is Rachel Maddow discussing how an extremely qualified doctor in, you guessed it, Mississippi was fired from the Board of Health because of a very remote connection to an abortion clinic. Ridiculous.

Here is more Rachel, this time discussing the problems with the wage gap in this country, after she argued with Republican Alex Castellanos who told her, quite simply, that women don't get paid less than men, or when they do, it's because they choose lower-paying jobs (totally ignoring facts like how we raise our daughters not to pursue fields like math and science, how societal pressure forces many women (instead of their husbands/boyfriends/partners) to drop out of the workforce to raise a child instead, or how overly expensive daycare often makes a parent dropping out of the workforce the cheaper option.) 

And last but not least, a little humor to brighten your day. This video was filmed in Oxford (I think, I'm not sure who made it), in response to Phil Bryant's recent claim that all liberals have one goal: to abort babies. Enjoy!

Really, Phil Bryant? REALLY?

I might be a little late, but I can't let Phil Bryant's recent comments go without mention. According to the Associated Press,

   "Mississippi's Republican governor had new harsh words for proponents of legalized abortion this week, saying, 'their one mission in life is to abort children, is to kill children in the womb.'"

  I'm so sick of this man ignoring what is right in front of him. We told him in November that we don't want personhood legislation. We voted no. (Somehow we also voted him into office at the same time; this still baffles me.) And we told him, loudly, why we said no. We want the right to abortion, yes, and safe access. We want the right, and access, to birth control. Women want the right to make decisions about our lives and bodies, and men want the women in their lives to have that right. Mississippi couples want to decide what's best for their families by discussing it together, and with a doctor if necessary--without legislation getting in the way.

  Yet good ol' Phil manages to distill this into all of us crazy liberals wanting to kill hundreds and thousands of unborn babies.

Sigh.

  I know it's all a political game. I know that in his position, he has to make the issue sound emotional, visceral and sinful in order to appeal to those moderate voters who may be unsure how they feel about "abortion" but definitely know how they feel about "murder." But this game is so exhausting. How can Mississippi's governor ignore the unintended pregnancy rate, the teen pregnancy rate, and the infant mortality rate in his state?! How can he ignore the studies that have shown that comprehensive sex education (not abstinence only eduation) is the best way to reduce teens having unsafe sex and to reduce unintended teen pregnancies?! How can anyone ignore that abstinence-only has been proven ineffective?!

Well, he can ignore it because it seems that is what so many Republicans are doing across the country. They've started down this extreme path, standing stubbornly against women (and against sex, basically) no matter what. And I don't think it's going to work out for them in this year's election. So, I'll end with a message to Phil Bryant (and all Republicans, since unfortunately we're stuck with Phil for a few years), my favorite quote from one of the many women-led protests this year:

Women will remember in November.

Women will remember in November.

Polite or Honest? The Modern Family Problem

The other day I was watching the most recent episode of Modern Family. (I won't be talking about the whole episode but there will be a couple of spoilers for one storyline.) So Mitchell and Cam are driving around in their car with a PA system they've set up, so they can campaign for Claire (it's voting day and she's running for city council).

At some point, of course, they pull over to the side of the road and have a conversation without knowing that they have left their speakers on. Everyone on the side of the road can hear them as they talk about a woman they know, whom they see on the sidewalk, and how she is engaged to a gay man. Of course, since she hears the whole conversation, they have to talk to her about what they said. She's upset and asking them to be honest with her: do they really think he is gay? They console her, saying "No of course not," and "we were just gossiping." She asks them more than once if they are really sure and they assure her that he's not gay. At the end of the episode, in one of their interview segments, they say to the audience, "Three weeks later, they got married. The wedding was beautiful. He did all the flowers....which is a perfectly normal thing for a straight guy to do." The implication, of course, is that yes, he is gay, and she is still in denial.

Now, yes this is a sitcom, and the situation is funny, but it also left me feeling a little uncomfortable. Why not just tell her the truth? (Again, I realize this is a sitcom and destroying her engagement might not have been a funny ending, but just go with me.) What's really gonna be worse for this woman: to find out/admit to herself that her fiancee is gay, cancel the wedding, and try to move on with her life, or to find out that her husband is gay after months/years of marriage?

This got me thinking about society in general and how it is so often considered better to be polite than honest. Why is that? Yes there are certain situations that call for it. I remember once going to a wedding out of town, and I only brought one dress with me. I asked my sister and friends how I looked, but I didn't want them to be completely honest. After all, I only brought one dress; whether or not it looked good, at this point it was my only option. What good would it do to tell me that it wasn't the best dress for me? None. In this situation, in which I might not look my best for one night but a little lie or extra encouragement would keep me from feeling self-conscious all night, polite trumped honest.

But in the story of Modern Family, we aren't talking about one night of self-consciousness. We are talking about a woman's life. Her marriage. A relationship in which she has invested a lot of time and energy. She deserves to know the truth that she either has been too blind to see or unwilling to admit to herself. And Mitchell and Cam seem to know her pretty well. Maybe they aren't best friends, maybe they wouldn't seek her out to tell her this normally, but after they've blasted it over their campaign speakers, I personally think they owe her the truth. And they could always say, "You know, we've never seen him actually having sex with a man, so these are just suspicions, but we've always thought it, and you can do what you want with the information." I just don't see how it does her any good to lie to her.

I know this picture is from another episode. Deal with it.

Why aren't we more willing to be direct with the people that we know and care about? Why is it that we always want to be polite to others, even in situations when it is potentially more damaging? Most of the time (my dress example excluded), when people ask for an opinion or information, they want your honest answer. Yes, sometimes the truth hurts, and sometimes you might even get angry or upset with the person who told it to you. But in the end, isn't it better to know?

Dan Savage, Rape, and the Gray Area

I was listening to Dan Savage's (sex and relationship advice columnist and star/host of the new MTV show Savage U) most recent podcast and a caller wanted to know if he (the caller) had been raped. His story was of a girl with whom he had a sexual history taking advantage of him and having sex with him when he was blackout drunk and she was sober. And, it should be noted, he had made it clear to her prior to this incident that their sexual relationship was over and that he was no longer interested in seeing her. So in his answer, Dan discusses the gray area that he believes exists and doesn't get talked about in the realm of sexual violation.

Dan's opinion is that people have experiences, negative experiences, that leave them feeling violated but that aren't necessarily rape. And I think, though I've never spoken to him, that he is defining rape in this context as a "you could and should report to the police and pursue an arrest/conviction for the perpetrator" situation. So he's saying that there are situations that lead to feelings of violation, feelings of being taken advantage of, that don't necessarily mean the other person involved is a criminal because of what happened. 

He also said that he doesn't understand what good it does (in some cases, not all) for people to label a situation like this as rape. For example, he told the guy who called that he could label it rape, he was well within the general definition to do so, but he didn't understand what good that would do. For one thing, as a male victim, reporting to the police would most likely not be taking seriously. 

My first reaction to this is, "No, Dan, we just got the FBI to expand the definition of rape; don't try to lessen it for us!" But, at the same time, I understand what he means about experiences that may leave you feeling violated but not leave you feeling like the victim of a crime.

However, I wonder, is this because the gray area exists, or because our society has convinced us to see certain types of sexual experiences as okay, or even just unpleasant, but not to see them as rape. Is it just another symptom of rape culture that we discuss this gray area? Or is it just a more nuanced way of looking at sexual experience (as opposed to consensual, good sex vs. non-consensual rape)?

I know a woman who once got extremely drunk at a friend's house. A guy was there with whom she had had a friends-with-benefits relationship. Drunk, feeling sick, and not interested in anything but sleep, she excused herself from the party and headed into one of the spare bedrooms to pass out. (I think she also went to the bathroom to throw up first.) The last thing she remembers is this guy, with whom she had hooked up previously but with whom she had no interest in hooking up that night, crawling into the bed with her and starting to make out with her. I don't remember what he said to her, but I know her responses were along the lines of, "What? I got sick" and other drunk, sleepy, confused responses. She woke up with her underwear on, so she's pretty sure intercouse didn't happen (she doesn't think she would have put underwear back on after if it had, since she was so incapacitated). But she doesn't remember what did happen. She doesn't know how much happened. She doesn't know if anything happened. And because she never talked to him about it later, she'll never know.

Now, I'm using this example for a reason. I know this woman did not consider herself to have been raped. I also know this woman felt uncomfortable about what had happened. She felt violated. She felt disgusted with this guy, whom she had known so well and for so long, for taking advantage of her drunken state. She felt scared and bothered by the fact that she had some kind of sexual experience with no real consent and no memory of it. At the time, I told her that she had been raped, period the end. But can you really say that when you don't know what happened at all? She'd been taken advantage of, that's for sure, but that's all we really know. (I did advise her to talk to the guy, not in an accusatory way, but just to ask what happened, but I don't think she ever did; honestly, I think she wanted to move and never deal with it again. And if that's what she wanted to do, then who am I to tell her to do differently?) So how can we go about defining this experience?

Recently, the rape definition was expanded by the FBI (thanks to a long campaign by the Feminist Majority Foundation and Ms. Magazine). It now allows for male and child victims, and it defines rape as the forced penetration of any person without their consent (so rape with an object counts; forced oral sex counts). This definition is a huge victory. But it doesn't necessarily solve all rape-definition problems. 

Feminists always talk about consent, and that the lack of "no" doesn't mean "yes." And I agree with that. If you're hooking up with someone, and you move your hand somewhere, and they don't push it away, but they also don't seem to like it, you might want to check in before continuing. And asking if someone likes something, or how they want you to do it, can still be sexy; it doesn't have to be awkwardly asking for permission. And yet, I can understand how a person can find themselves in a situation where, after the fact, they find out that their partner didn't want something done and didn't voice it, and they truly didn't know that what they did wasn't okay with their partner.

Let's be honest. It can be hard to say no, especially, but not only, in a relationship with someone (be it a committed relationship, friends-with-benefits relationship or any other situation in which you find yourself having sex with someone you know well and are generally comfortable with). You're used to each other, you're past the point of nervously initiating sex, you're used to trying new things, and suddenly someone wants sex when you don't feel like it, or wants to try something that you're not interested in or ready for. It can be hard to say no. You don't want to disappoint them. And I do wonder, in this kind of situation, in the kind of situation like the example above, does the other partner's unawareness of your discomfort when you don't say anything automatically move them into the rape area? 

I'm really struggling with this concept. The first thing that comes to mind when someone says "rape" is a man (sorry, it is still statistically true, as well as the common image our society gives us) trying to touch/have sex with a woman, her clearly saying no, and him continuing anyway, forcefully if necessary. But I know that rape doesn't only occur in this way. I know the power dynamics between the two can affect how one may react (like an employee not feeling able to say no to a boss). The use of a weapon and threats can keep someone from saying no. 

Can we say that how the person feels about the situation is enough to define at as rape or not? Meaning, if the woman in the situation above said "I feel violated, but I don't feel raped," is that enough to conclude that she then wasn't raped? I'm not sure if that works either, because so many women describe situations of forced sex that they would not themselves define as rape, but many others would. 

So what do you think of the gray area? Does it exist? Do we need to separate the idea of rape from the idea of reporting to the police (meaning, is it better to define it as rape even if the survivor has no intention of pursuing any kind of arrest, as opposed to saying, "I would never try to have this person arrested for this, therefore it wasn't rape")? And is it important to get someone to define their experience as rape when they don't see it that way? Or is this gray area just another symptom of a culture that normalizes rape?