Men and violence

In this post I mentioned a book I was interested in reading, The Macho Paradox by Jackson Katz. I have started it and it has quickly supplanted all other books around as my top read. Katz points out that violence is fundamentally a male problem: virtually all rapes are committed by men, most violence in general is committed by men. He also points out how we are so accumstomed to this violent society that we don't think about it much. In one exercise he does with groups, he asks the men in the room how they protect themselves from being sexually assaulted on a daily basis. Generally, the men do not know what to say and usually someone finally says that they don't do anything. Then he asks the women, and answers come flying (don't go out alone after dark, hold your keys as a weapon, don't leave a drink unattended, don't park in an isolated garage, etc., etc.) We ALL do this, but most of us don't take a second to think of the reasons behind why 1/2 of the human population is scared of the other 1/2.

Rather than examine this, we generally tend to subscribe the acts to a few degenerate men, while other men say that they are not like that. Yet the high number of women and children that are sexually assaulted tells a different story. For that many people to be hurt, there are a lot of people doing the hurting. And generally, it's men that probably a lot of people consider normal, maybe even heroes (Kobe Bryant).

Our society turns out a huge number of violent men. But we rarely ask why or stop to think about what needs to be different so we turn out men who are not violent. Katz (and I) believe the answer is that more men need to step up to the plate in acting on the issue of male violence.

While there are many men who are not violent and are respectful to women, even those men do things such as:

• ignore other men's comments and actions that are demeaning to women


• belittle women in very subtle ways - such as listening to a man's opinion in a group discussion but not to a woman's. Often men (and sometimes women) don't even realize that they are doing this (I've experienced this -guys who sideline women in conversations seem totally unaware that they do this)


• get annoyed when a woman does not defer to them.

As I tend to look at these issues through the eyes of one who was spent years in the church, I find myself thinking about how this all applies in the realm of Christianity. I don't know how statistics would stack up, but I've certainly known of more violent men outside the church than within it. Following Christ for most people seems to exclude much of the cruelty we read about in the papers. But even in churches where lip service is given to women's inclusion, exclusion is often normative and often seems to be below the radar of even some women, never mind the vast majority of men. I've also overheard guys working at a Bible camp, of all places, rate the bodies of girls they know on a scale of 1-10 (that this was in earshot of me indicates either that they were entirely clueless about it's effects or had very little respect for me as a person). Incidently, one of those guys went on to be elected president of his Bible College's student body.

Katz points out, however, and spends a lot of time trying to diffuse, the inevitable defensive reaction of many men to the idea that their words and actions contribute to a violent society. "I'm not violent. I don't beat my wife. I've never raped anyone." We tend to want to pathologize the individual rather than look at systemic influences. Pathologizing individuals, however, will do nothing to bring down rates of violence. If we truly want to have a less violent society, men will need to own up to their responsibility, not for their own violence, but for how their attitudes and actions contribute in subtle but important ways to the idea that women are second class citizens who should be under men's control and serve men's pleasures.

Is Facebook destroying the blogosphere?

Sleeping at work

FIVE BEST THINGS TO SAY IF YOU GET CAUGHT SLEEPING AT YOUR DESK:
5. "They told me at the Blood Bank this might happen."
4. "This is just a 15 minute power nap they raved about in the time
management course you sent me to."
3. "Whew! Guess I left the top off the Whiteout. You probably got here
just in time."
2. "Did you ever notice sound coming out of these keyboards when you
put your ear down real close?"

And the NUMBER ONE best thing to say if you get caught sleeping at your
desk...

1. Raise your head slowly and say, "...in Jesus' name, Amen.

Minnesota pics

Apparently, even if you aren't on facebook, you can see the pictures I posted there using this link. These are the pics from our Minnesota trip. And facebook has a way better upload feature than Blogger.

My Summer Vacation

We finally had a real summer vacation, the first real vacation since we had kids. We were gone for a week and a day - getting back yesterday - to Minnesota. Our itinerary:

Saturday: Travel
Sunday: The Science Museum
Monday and Tuesday: Valley Fair
Wednesday: Pilgrimage to IKEA
Thursday: Minnesota Zoo, shopping
Friday: Mystery Cave, shopping
Saturday: Travel

The first day was stressful. We got a late start and Rob noticed that there were cracks in a tire when he was filling up. So we pulled into Cdn Tire and asked about it and found out that 3/4 tires were not really fit to drive on. So we resigned ourselves to waiting about another couple of hours while getting new tires. The staff, meanwhile, resigned themselves to fooling around, disappearing and chatting so as to take almost an extra 4 hours out of our day. A manager later left a message on our machine asking about our experience. He will get an earful.

When we pulled into Roseville MN it was after 1:00 am. We discovered that the hotel we had booked at was a dive. Peeling paint, no towel rack, no signal for the advertised wireless access, no coffee pot or basket for the coffee maker, stains on the hallway walls, our feet were sticking to the damp carpet, and as for comfort, well, as Rob so eloquently put it, "I've seen maxi pads that were thicker than those pillows." So in the middle of the night I was on the phone with the customer service agent finding something, anything, in the area that was not already booked up. She did find us another room which we moved to the next day, which was much better.

It was interesting to notice the different cultural mix just 8 hours south. Both MN and MB are multi-cultural societies, but the mix is different. Of course both have many caucasian people, but I find that in Winnipeg I am more likely to meet First Nations and Asian people on a daily basis, while in MN there are many spanish-speaking and African-Americans. What I loved about this: a wealth of Mexican restaurants, which is one of our favourite cuisines.

Everything we went to was tons of fun. The kids had a blast and were surprisingly adaptable to the pace and changes of vacation. Taryn went on every roller coaster and thrill ride at Valley Fair she could and Ashlin was ticked off that she couldn't because of height restrictions. I popped a Tylenol with Codeine every day and survived the stresses quite well.

Stopped by a Lane Bryant store on Friday night which advertises itself for curvy women. Had to put that one to the test. It seems that the company has introduced a new line of jeans. They researched their own customers' bodies (I couldn't think of a better way to say that) and came up with jeans that are designed to fit different builds. In other words, a manufacturer finally figured out that customers might buy more clothes if the clothes actually fit them. Amazing, isn't it. I did try their jeans - I'm a "blue fit" and they were perfect. I bought 2 pairs. The clerk said they are flying off the shelves. Yet most manufacturers seem to still be making clothes that only look good on Kate Moss. For a society so obsessed with making money they really miss some obvious ones.

The trip back was a repeat of the trip there. We got a late start after experiencing a scary what-if-this-turns-into-a-tornado kind of storm the night before. When we finally got on the I-94 to head home we encountered a massive traffic jam where we were just inching forward. We finally detoured around it, but it set us back enough that we arrived home after midnight.

I feel incredibly relaxed after the trip and am contemplating ways to keep this feeling into real life.

I finally downloaded some pics from my camera

Taryn's first recital

Ashlin's nursery school graduation

July 1 celebration

Conor and his cousin, Jaden. Conor fusses when holding my hand, but wouldn't you know that he and Jaden hit it off immediately.