Tag Archives: Shutup Jeff

From sexism in science to examining my own capacity for sexism

In reaction to -> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/context-and-variation/2013/10/14/standingwithdnlee-sciam

I’m glad the article focuses some on her positive impacts and solutions – those are what are most important to me 🙂 It’s a little worrisome though because this Ofek thing seems to be an instance of outright straight-forward disrespect and ‘ism’ – wound up into one moment and reply. I think a lot of it is more structural, persistent and crafty than that. Like, for instance, a lot of industries rely on participants who are essentially workaholics to be competitive to get limited positions and grants. This doesn’t seem bad at face value, but might exclude people who have alternative values – say, those who see the importance of having a family, collaboration through friendship in the workplace or doing engagement to bring in diverse perspectives, etc… Essentially a woman who wants to have a family or a person from a different culture who wants to take care of their grandmother or whatever gets penalized and this sort of thing feels like structural ‘ism’ to me. When we make our talking points mostly about people in white hoods we lose sight of the redlining.

I guess on the flip side I have no idea how to deal with resocializing men. I’m especially bad at connecting to and influencing guys who are sexist. In the overt ways I’d disagree with, anyway. Dudes really into violence and running over animals in pickup trucks and guys who think verbal expression of emotions is for weak people.
I mean I guess my definition of sexism is debatable – a friend once took the position that my suggestion that all people should have the capacity to be more assertive and rely on individual agency underscored an emphasis on a greater masculine narrative – from the one end I can suggest that girls should reclaim territory: to be a person who is ‘assertive’ and ‘confrontational’ shouldn’t be the turf of just men, but both genders, but on the other end it excludes alternative structures of interaction, such as trying to encourage everyone (but particularly men) to be more ‘passive’ or ‘reconciliatory.’ In other words what I see as an idealized social form (compassionate, informed, positive assertion) might be considered masculine and to suggest women need to match it might be sexist because I’m asking them to conform to the masculine norm. But if most did then it wouldn’t be a masculine norm anymore. I think she was mostly just mad at me for not really truly recognizing the costs and barriers that exist for women to do this (again, my ability to believe agency matters more than structure is not just optimistic, it is enabled by my vast swaths of privilege), but on another level I guess she could be right – I may just be sexist. Even if I just use positive encouragement (promote girls who are assertive) as my mode I’d end up marginalizing those who differ. Hell paying more attention to more attractive women than less attractive women is downright sexist and for me that’s in large part driven by hormones and decades of social conditioning – I do it automatically without thinking (but can choose to override it and do my best to do this). I probably have more sexism in me than I care to admit and therefore more ability to connect to other sexist men than I might realize but some of this stuff is so ingrained and nuanced that I have to make it a big soap box project to do it – and nobody wants that. It really seems so radical. Like sure, I can recognize that genders are social constructions and try to convince people that we should move beyond them. But ain’t nobody gon understand that ish. Or maybe I just suck at explaining and convincing. Or maybe that’s better done through time and life exposure and not words.
Ah well, speaking of soap boxes that are about to crumple beneath my ego…

Jeff Goes Shopping for Clothes at the Mall

A step-by-step:
1)      Try to determine if trendy clothing store is not just for women
2)      Attempt to find men’s section (the one floor or back corner)
3)      Get harassed by store person who unleashes a fury of trendy fashion words like triple bootcutcuff and tapercraftseams
4)      Claim “just browsing” defense and scamper away to seek style of clothing that has been out of fashion for 2 to 5 years
5)      Give up, go to Sears or JC Penny
6)      Easily find preferred clothing style, but only in sizes for giant people
7)      Wonder why clearance rack is only XXL sizes
8)      Find potential item worthy of purchase, ask phone for an estimate on the number of slave children required to make it
9)      Travel to thrift shop to be ethical, find only tattered clothing for huge old people
10)   Give up and buy exact copies of current clothes on Ebay

Jeff Goes Shopping for Clothes at the Mall with Gulsim (circa 2011)

1)      Complain unnecessarily about consumerism and materialistic culture
2)      Be shut up by being told that he too can be attractive (girls don’t say this to Jeff, generally)
3)      Gulsim finds clothing that is inexpensive and not made for extreme hipsters or fat people
4)      Go home happy!
I am still resolved to open a store called “Men: Skinny and Average” for dudes with wastelines under 34 inches, sizes M, S, and XM and clothing that comes in types such as ‘long’ and ‘thin’ and ‘extra pockets.’
Perhaps I should just shop in the children’s section more often. Because, you know, 5’11 at 150 lbs is child size?

Hyperbolistic Depression

Hyperbole and a Half ran a come-back post recently on depression. It might say something about my current peer group, or perhaps society in general, that I saw it referenced by at least a dozen friends and acquaintances on various social media sites.
It’s a profound illustration of what some people have to deal with, and I’m glad she wrote it. I feel bad for her, and, more importantly, I feel like I understand her perspective, one that I’m sure would ordinarily be alien to me.
I have two notable points to make:
1) In reading the post, it was easy to identify who I am in this story (pictured above). I have a savior complex. That is, I’m a privileged, empowered white hetero boy who grew up upper middle class, who has always been able to make a difference in his surroundings and make himself be heard. When a person comes to me with a problem, especially if they’re posing as a helpless attractive female, I don the cape and pick up the sword and fire my problem-solving death rays at them. I may not be qualified, I may not understand their problem, it may not even be the actual problem that’s bothering them, I just do it instinctively. People complain, I want to fix complaints. I have to actively police myself to not do this, ordinarily. It’s revealing of my own discomfort with being useless. I don’t actually know how to just sit there and be a passive listener. I don’t think I will ever say something like “boy those fish are super dead” in response to this question. I can’t generally be depressed and defeated along with the person complaining in this context – I don’t want to, but I also just don’t think I actually know how to. SO, this means I’m not the right person for ultra-depressed people to open up to. Check.
2) While that’s all fine and dandy, what I’ve found is that very few people are consummately/comprehensively depressed like this. A lot of the time only a part of them is dead. For instance, I’ve had some of my heterosexual male friends (around my age) who have never really dated express that they think romantic desire has died in them. I think people can be contextually or partially depressed. Generally with my friends who tell me this I haven’t had a lot of luck helping them to solve their problem – US society isn’t well-structured for people who don’t follow the standard steps in the sprint to the white picket fence (dating in college, job plus marriage after). I think their solution often requires single assertive women, and it seems like often those women are often paying more attention to the loud, confident men in front, not the depressed, inexperienced guys in back. Or at least, that’s what often happens when I try to set them up. Anyway so my actual response is exactly what is criticized by Allie’s blog post – I try to help them work with other problems. It’s not formulaic, exactly, but I think one of the root issues is confidence and people skills, so if I can get the romantically deceased dudes out with a gang of friends and doing things those other issues get better, usually. I don’t think it’s a direct solution, but I have faith that it’s worth doing.

Revisiting the Passive

Most people that know me well have at one point or another heard me complain about people (often women) who are ‘passive’ in damaging ways. And I still think this can happen (one of my present roommates provides a powerful example but I don’t want to waste space criticizing him), but as I’ve spent a lot of time in GSLIS, a place where extroversion is about as rare as men, social conservatives and people of color, I’ve started to gain a little perspective.
Here, for the literature review, some terrrible reading that I dragged out of the archives that will make you hate me:

So the metric I generally operate under, when thinking about passiveness and assertiveness is a spectrum based on initiation and response. People who initiate, lead, speak up, negotiate and otherwise make themselves known through action would be assertive, people who are responsive, reactive and compromise fall in the middle as reciprocative, and people who follow and don’t alter their thoughts or activities noticeably based on social stimuli and communication are passive.
Very few people really fall into that last category, and most of those that do are probably those with more severe social disorders or conditions. Hating on shy or introverted people is stupid. I think what I’ve really been struggling with over the years has been in part people who are passive aggressive, and whether or not people are confident or positive, and these intersecting threads that are hard to tease out at times (because they’re so contextual).
Anyway this post is not about this, really.
It’s that my narrative that I clung to so desperately when I was younger, that girls are (were) passive and cause hurt because of this, is only 50% right, at best. The reason so many people have avoided me, not answered my messages, talked bad about me behind my back (I was once lucky enough to be cyberbullied at age 26 – real-time tracking making fun of my soul-crushing break up via multiple Twitter accounts established by GSLIS students) or otherwise reacted to me in passive (evasive) ways is because of who and how I am.
At best it’s that I’m weird, at worst I think it’s that I’m downright undesirable. I’m pretty convinced that if I were more attractive than I am I wouldn’t have problems with this – the handsome surprise contact is a flattering secret admirer, the ugly one is a creep, so to say. But, generally, I think people find me annoying. Since I’m so frequently an initiator people probably assume that I’ll just be fine if they forget about me – afterall, they likely assume they’re probably just one minimal contact amongst hundreds (I’m 1400 Facebook friends cool, right?). And that’s shit, really, because I took the time to make the effort to do reach out to them, which shouldn’t be dismissed, but it is, all the freaking time.
I sent out gifts in the mail to approximately 50 friends this past Christmas, a spread of variety of folk of different genders. About 25% responded or acknowledged in some way or another and there was no discernible difference between men and women. Keep in mind, I’m not bitter about this, I didn’t expect responses, and I encouraged people to continue the positive event chain in their own lives. In fact I still owe responses to some of them (sorry Alicia and Matt!). What I want to emphasize is that it’s not so much that girls are passive, it’s that people don’t have time for this shit. I have to come to grips with not being worth their time.
If I think back over people that I’ve found annoying in my life, I think the only one I’ve gone to lengths to avoid or not react to is my mother. I’m terrified of becoming her – so very out of touch and untold levels of obnoxious. Now, in my world of self-imposed isolation as a miserable attempt to finish a dissertation, the second a friend reaches out to me they’re greeted with overwhelming verbal vomit, like this blog post. And no one wants that. If Tom Fairbank, my sister and a few others weren’t immune to me I’d probably have given up long ago.
Anyway I don’t know if I have that much of a point to saying all of this, other than acknowledging to the world that, yes, I get it, I’m annoying as hell and while you feel bad for me occasionally, you don’t really want to hang out with me. That’s why it was always essential that I had groups of friends over. The question is how much I want to bottle myself. I can be subdued, ask the right questions, douse the intensity, play the ‘be mysterious’ game, all pretty unhappily. It was pointed out to me recently how easy it is for me to slip in and out of making arguments and discussions simultaneously personal or theoretical/hypothetical. Now that’s yet another flaw I get to police, along with the savior complex, pigeon holing, inability to be apathetic, duty for social good and more I’m forgetting at the moment.
I think my sister captured the meditations on this better than I could:
I actually thought it was really interesting to hear your concerns about how you interact with other people, and talk about how to choose or not choose whether to continue acting in a way they might find annoying. It’s so hard to balance being yourself and conforming to or reflecting the situation you’re in. And I think it takes a good amount of self awareness to get to where you are. I also think it’s shitty that some of these groups have made you feel shitty, though. I realized another factor in your situation might be getting older; energetic positivity is much more widely embraced and followed in idealistic college years, but in masters years it wanes, and in phd programs it dies and becomes reviled. That’s the academic course; I think in so-called RL, it follows a similar trajectory but for different reasons. People get out into the working world, or don’t, and realizes how much it can suck to have and to not have a job. They have to do taxes, sign leases, worry about carpet stains, try to make friends without the support structures they’re used to, etc. And so energy saps away–or is redirected into sterile, accepted gym environments, rather than games and adventures–and world outlooks shift to become cynical and jaded. People begin to compromise on every front, including romantic ones. I think there might be an upswing when they start to have kids and have to get excited about things like Blues Clues and delude themselves into believing their progeny will inherit a world worth inhabiting, and they become interested in making it a world worth their children living in. Maybe that will be your moment again. Who knows.

Agency and Appearance

I am an assertive, friendly and extroverted male of average to slightly below-average appearance. In most contexts in life this works out to be a solid advantage but there are many times that my personality traits can’t make up for how I look. I can work out, which is good, but ultimately that does nothing to change my asymmetric face. My half-wavy hair that only grows sideways doesn’t allow for alternative looks other than short and shorter and my deep eye sockets and honking nose don’t combine well with a withdrawn chin that is almost double. I almost wish I could put on makeup. I know it would be a lie, and ultimately taxing both economically and socially (not to mention it doesn’t change head structure), but it would feel nice to have some (perceived) semblance of control.
Honestly I don’t know which is worse -> to ask people out a lot and get rejected or (worse yet intentionally ignored) OR to simply feel like you don’t have the power or worth to ask others out… left stuck in the position of not getting noticed or scaring off people by being assertive.
I stand facing an odd double-standard. If people don’t want to date me because of the kind of personality I have I’m just fine with that. If they don’t want to date me because of how I look I feel bad. I think learning to accept how I look might actually present a real honest-to-god challenge. If only I could learn to find less attractive people more attractive – hormones just don’t work that way do they.
At the end of the day I spose I should probably just feel lucky. Regardless of any number of romantic advance failures, I have a million good friends and a lion’s share of opportunity in front of me, backed by relative privilege and comfort. Yes, let’s go with that.

Connectors, revisited

Some of you may be familiar with Malcolm Gladwell’s famous set of archetypes that are the key to social epidemics (social movements that sweep very quickly over a nation or group of people). He outlines salesmen (people who can convince you to do anything) and mavens (people who know a lot and like to share knowledge) and connectors (people who know a lot of people and bridge different types of people/groups together). The notion has gotten a lot of attention and spurred a lot of argument. Regardless of the usefulness of the typology or classification we can generally agree that there are traits in people that might make them connectors (relative) in almost any group.
I was giving this some thought tonight. I’ve always considered myself a connector – particularly because I’m an extrovert and leader and I know (and like!) a lot (different) of people. I tend to make invitations and initate contact and start groups. But I’ve often struggled with getting groups to be cohesive once the basic connections between individuals have been formed. It makes me wonder what a connector does, exactly. Like in some sense an alternative measure of a connector is the type of person who would be interested (not just willing and able) to go to an event or break into a new group alone. I’m sure we can think of many people we know that refuse to go to a given event, especially when it’s recreational, unless they know someone there. Moreover some go so far as to need certain people there.
And this spurred me to thinking about who those people are. I think there may be another class (if you will) of connectors who don’t initiate (usually anyway) or may not be the most outgoing or outspoken. They are instead the ones who still know a lot of people, but know how to make them feel comfortable. I’d like to think I can do this but the reality of my personality is that I’m intense, I’m often overwhelming, and if I really would like a person to be a real friend I expect a lot of them. And this is too much to face up to for some people. I’m often action-oriented and while I like to talk about feelings or ‘just hang out’ I’m usually more interested in creating something or discussing a topic towards some greater benefit. I’m overtly passionate, and especially interested in people, which is a little freaky sometimes to those who aren’t.
Anyway thinking over my friends I can point out several who’ve been sort of complementary connectors to me. I bring people in and make the initial group/event formation (whatever it is, club, social, class group, etc…) and they end up making that person feel extra comfortable and bringing out the best in them. My X played this role in my life for the past year or so, which ispart of why I’m sort of floundering now trying to figure out what to do with my social life.
So where do I go from here? I suppose I could try to work on making people feel more comfortable, but honestly my personality is what it is, the fragile, picky or undependable ones are always going to be a problem. I think maybe a better direction is to show more appreciation for the connectors I know who make it their job (overtly or covertly) to create a welcoming rapport with others. Meanwhile I can continue to keep a positive hat on.
I won’t make any specific shout-outs to people at GSLIS, but there are several of you who I think really fill this role. Thank you.

Blog Piggy Bank

Shotgun Blast

I decided to break open my blog piggy bank and see what was inside:

I often talk about how much I value assertiveness and outgoing people, provided that they’re honest and not too negative. I’ve been wondering if maybe what I’m talking about is how much I value other driven leaders. There are plenty of outgoing friendly people who go out and party but don’t really care about others or the world.
My roommate watches A LOT of TV. For him it’s great, he can sit and code on his laptop for hours on end in front of the tube. TV bugs the crap out of me (especially mindless negativity [Southpark] and death news), so I usually go back into my room and close the door. It got me to thinking – I usually identify myself as part of the multi-tasking generation who likes copious multimedia feeds and yet I can’t deal with TV. I pay attention to it too much and it has commercials that interrupt the story (if there is one) all of the time. I greatly enjoy watching TV episodes that I choose to download that come without interruptions, just like I listen to MP3’s on random instead of radio. In total it’s more about sustained narrative, not jumpy disconnected bits of information. Maybe I’m more old-hat than I thought.
This was further emphasized the other night when I was talking to several people online who could have all hung out together. At the time I knew of 5 people in different spots who were being social (online) but didn’t want to be social in person. Granted group hang out is different but back before ICT’s these people would have had to hang out in person and I think I would have preferred that situation. I know technology enables us to be social in ways that we might not have been able to otherwise but I think it’s also, on the whole, been more of a way to allow people to be passive and introvert and that bugs me. Maybe I’m less young and technology-minded than I thought, at least when it comes to people.
I’ve decided my value in creation should be better described as value in creative, fun and passionate creation, not obsessive productivity. I like people who are driven in joyous ways, not super efficient cogs.
The election reminded me – there’s no information about local judges up on the internet. In fact I think they have identity management or protection going on, you can barely even find them on Google. I can Google my neighbor and find out more. Places like Judgapedia have tried to cover this but are far from filled out. I know we probably shouldn’t categorize them by Republican or Democrat or Green but I would definitely like to see a decision history and their stance on issues. If citizens are expected to vote yes or no for them we have to know something about them and one of the biggest places young people get information is the internet. DUH. A battle for another day.

Excitment Refresh (Facebook has ruined romance)

So I had the chance to go visit an amazing childhood friend tonight and we hung out talking… he’s probably one of only 3 or 4 people in the Universe that I can do that with – sit down without food or activity at hand and talk with endlessly, it’s a comfort I’ve learned to cherish. Anyway as we were talking the topic came to his excited interest in a girl he’s met in the Quaker group he belongs to who sounds unreasonably cool (she wrote a book! and has a had a really interesting and deviant life). He was thinking about telling her that he’d like to see her outside of a Quaker meeting sometime, etc… effectively ask her out. As we were talking I brought up the possibility that she could be seeing someone already, and Tom had thought about it but didn’t know. But what I remember most is just how joyful he was about the excited possibility of a person he likes – an opportunity, a connection, a thrill, the prospect of so much happiness!
I didn’t know this sort of thing still happened these days. First off, I really, really (and I mean really) miss the days when I could actually ask a girl out. Not that I’m afraid to or unable to (well okay I’m seeing someone so it’d be downright unethical, but that’s not the point here), it’s that I’ve learned to get better at it. I liked the days when it would be the moment where you felt as if you had just jumped off the high dive (or off the 40 ft ledge canyoning) and didn’t know what was going to happen. Pure concentrate excitement, anxiety, thrill, joy, all mixed together.
Now-a-days the procedure is different. First off, directly asking a girl out is against the rules. I know not literally but there does seem to be a social norm established, it’s creepy to be that up front with someone, unless you’re some dashing lad who plays basketball or sings acappella. I’ve had individual women argue that this is different for them but my observation is that on the whole it’s not cool by most women’s standards. Most girls will shit a brick and desperately find an excuse to dodge you, quite visibly so if you do it in person. So what do we do? Trickery, step-by-step:
1) Find the person on Facebook, see if they’re single. No mystery in this regard anymore, and in fact I miss it so because it gives a false sense of permanency. People are no longer a questionable option – if you see they’re dating on Facebook then you’re ethically obligated to stay the fuck away.
2) Invite them to an event with mutual friends or a large scale public activity that’s little 1-on-1 face time or pressure. Talk to them a little more than might be out of the ordinary at this event but without really revealing your interest, for if you do they will shit a brick and you’ll be back to square one.
3) Find them on AIM (or Facebook or Gchat or whatever) and start talking to them about a common subject (question about class, their opinion on something non-political, etc…) and eventually evolve the conversation into something more meaningful.
4) Ask them out to a non-threatening activity, most common is lunch or coffee, but more creative versions in my past have been skating around with Inline Insomniacs or going to build a puzzle together at the library.
5) Rince and repeat the above until you’re fairly brick-proof and then you might think about actually asking them out on a real date. Maybe.
And honestly, I think this system flat-out sucks. I used to say fuck it and was bold and asked girls out and tried not to be dodgy. But it resulted in an endless stream of rejections and let-downs and a lot of depression. So after a while of that I tried various remixes of the misdirection bullshit game above and had a lot of success. My current relationship is actually as a result of this sort of thing, and I’m not particularly proud of it.
As happy as I am for Tom to have found a girl mystery and a new source of hope, I’m still sick and tired of a world where only guys ask out girls and being forward and honest with one another is considered creepy, not compassionate.
I really do like Facebook – on the whole – I like that it presents us a whole new level of information. But really I think it’s inadvertently helped to perpetuate this potentially sexist norm and a lot of passive or indirect type behavior. The thrill of discovering someone through asking them out on a date is immediately diminished from the get-go simply because you already start off knowing if they’re available. Sure you avoid the embarrassment of asking someone out that is in a relationship, but you also avoid the flattery, the excitement and dammit I fucking like getting reamed once a while it helps me remember I’m alive. It makes the times that it does work out all the more worth it and I’ve learned to respect the people who can look you in the eye and actually say no. We don’t feel comfortable asking a person out until we check them out on this twisted social ecology. Girls use it as a defensive mechanism to keep guys away from them, in fact – mark their relationship status and suddenly they can feel safe. I mean hell we even somehow declare a relationship real when it’s hetero and on Facebook (nevermind the LGBT discrimination here, or the age-plurality complex).
So a lot of complaining about passive women and gender roles, I know, my usual, right? This might be my best unsung argument for denouncing Facebook yet, is that it helped to keep dating dishonest, indirect and introvert.
Maybe someday we’ll see a gender-equality universe where women are just as likely to ask out men as vice versa and Facebook won’t be the biggest cock-block in town… I’ll hedge my bets with the LGBT rights movement.
Signing out for the night, positivity will return later, I swear.

Becoming a Master of Arts

I know my professional blog has been quiet for a couple of months now – I spent much of the summer working on my porfolio and reading. I’ve suddenly been thrusted head over heels into my second year of graduate school. I’m teaching two new classes – an introduction to Sociology (soc 100) and Social Perspectives on the Family (soc 273) – but these feel like a natural part of life now, while I’m still in love with teaching I have plenty of confidence I can do it well. No, what scares me more is this whole independent study Masters paper thing. Most of the normal Sociology PhD’s here just write a paper that counts for their masters somewhere along their track to the higher degree but because of my transfer I need to finish it ASAP to begin my work in LIS. So I lined up an independent study and flushed out an outline to finish one paper, start two others, read oodles of sources, collect interview and focus group data, contact everyone around campus who has anything to do with what I do, and otherwise lose my mind. It’s terrifying.
At this point I have no idea if I’ve bit off more than I can chew. Being busy out of my mind is a normal state of affairs for me but this time the pressure is ten fold as high because I’m doing something I’m not so sure about and am very new to. I still don’t even know who all of my readers are because there are a whole two people directly related to what I do in Sociology.
In many ways I’m excited and enthusiastic – I have faith in my own abilities and motivation and have no fears about my interest in the subject. I know plenty of people who could help me out and have a plethora of resources among students and programs in the University. But at the end of the semester I’m going to be handing a paper to three individuals who’ve been trained for years in academe to be intensely critical and who have only a few minor connections to my area of study. It’s already a battle explaining to older professors the relevance of Facebook, it’s going to be an even bigger battle explaining it to professors who aren’t interested in technology.
But that’s okay. This is what I signed on for when I chose to go to grad school, and dealing with criticism, like it or not, is essential in an academe infiltrated by argument disguised as dialectic. I’m here to learn, I’m as smart and capable as I am, and only know what my experiences have taught me. Here goes nothing…

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