The Moment I Became A Feminist

I'm a feminist, and here's why.

This weekend, my wife, her sister, her best friend, and I went to the Macklemore concert in St. George. We stood out in the cold and rain with five thousand college students and Macklemore repaid us by putting on a fantastic show. He rapped about baseball and thrift-shopping, which is a big reason why I like his music. Then the music stopped. He hushed the crowd and said into the microphone, reverently,

"This next song," he said, "is about acceptance."

The crowd cheered. "Same Love!" they yelled. 

Macklemore straightened up. 

"This next song is about compassion."

The crowd went berserk. 

Then Ryan Lewis laid down a soft piano riff. And Macklemore started to sing about tolerance and same-sex rights and how we should treat gay people with respect. The crowd sang along, including me. I like the song. It preaches tolerance and love, asking us to respect those around us, regardless of their sexual-orientation. 

The song ended and the crowd cheered. Macklemore then started a song called "Castle", which is about what he would do if he owned a castle. Here's a sample:

I got a cutey and I'm making a beat on her booty

Like I was up on the roof beating up on a bongo

and later...

Your thighs are the closet to Narnia

Is it cool if I go and get lost in that?

and one more...

Girl's booty was bigger than the stomach of Rick Ross'

Holy mother mountain of tender tendin' you get lost in

Bounce, bounce, that castle booty, that bottom

Make it wobble, wobbly-wobble 'til my third leg has to hobble

Now, I'll admit, I couldn't understand the lyrics while I was there. The concert was a lot of fun. It wasn't until after I downloaded the song that I realized the disparity that exists in society:

We preach love and respect for 5% of the population while we demean and indignify 50%.

I think what upset me most is that I thought about how I would feel if Macklemore were talking about my sisters, or my friends, or my wife with those lyrics. As a society, we get angry when someone says "that's gay," but we sing along with "See what's poppin' at the malls, meet a bad bitch, Slap her booty with my ****s."

I'm also angry at Macklemore. By cultivating the impression you are respectful and above all that "rapper nonsense", you make your young, impressionable listeners feel like it's okay to talk about women like you do. How can you be so upset about society's abuse of the word "gay" while you promote the abuse and objectification of an entire gender?

Mackelmore is right: if I were gay, I'd think hip hop hates me. But if I was a woman, I'd think hip hop hates me, too.

What I Wish I'd Known In College

I have sisters and brothers who are either in college or about to begin. I'm writing this post to them. I'm writing because I want them to know what life is really like, and to be prepared for the moment when they take their diploma, walk off the stage, and realize that life is not what they had expected.

Your whole life everyone around you has said that you can be anything you want to be. And that's true, but they didn't tell you everything. There's a big part they left out. All they have done, really, is given you a treasure map with a big "X" in the middle, but no path to follow. It's great to stare at the big "X' and know the treasure's out there, but it becomes depressing when you leave college, with your degree, and you realize that the degree doesn't have a path on it, either.

Then you'll wonder if it was even worth it. You'll think, "I have a degree. I know stuff. Why won't anybody hire me?"

When you start to think that, please remember that your degree is not worthless. Every degree, from the liberalist of liberal arts to the nerdiest BS, has distinguishable merit. You know how to think, you know how to write, perhaps you know some math. But you don't know how to get a career.

Isn't it funny? The one thing you need--the path to the "X"--isn't taught to you in college.

They teach you that life after college is like a game of checkers: you only move forward. But that's a lie too. Life after college is more like a game of Monopoly.

If you remember, in Monopoly, the goal is to collect as many properties as possible. These properties can then be used to earn you profit; they can be traded to further your goals; they can be used as collateral in a bankruptcy. They can do almost anything once you have them in your possession. But they do nothing if you pass them buy (especially if you go to jail).

Monopoly is a game of collecting. The more properties you have, the more value your collection is worth on the board. The more houses you own in a specific sector, the more your profit from that property grows.

Now, please don't think I am telling you to graduate and then immediately take out a loan and build a hotel on the boardwalk. That's now what I'm saying. But, you do need to build on the board, just not houses or hotels.

You need to build relationships.

80% of jobs are given to friends, relatives, or good acquaintances. That means that, out ten resumes you submit, eight of them are thrown in the trash before they're even read. Eight. 

That's why I laugh when I hear about resume classes on campus as being the ticket to success in the job market. Especially when, statistically, 80% of employers don't give a crap about whatever "power font" you choose. Most of the time, the only thing that sees your font is the trash can.

My wife works at a law firm that recently posted a job opportunity for a second legal secretary. In one hour, she got 75 resumes. By the end of the day, she had a stack of resumes. Let me ask you this question:

Pretend you are her, and you've just read 50 resumes that have the same business jargon/nonsense. And the 51st has this sentence:

Objective: I am a self-starter who desires a rewarding position with a well-established firm that will give me opportunities to advance and demonstrate my experience.

Would this crap, over and over again, start to make you laugh? Would you be able to take this "self-starter" seriously? That's the problem with relying on resumes. A good resume on the top of the stack is effective; a good resume in the middle of the stack is funny, and a good resume on the bottom of the stack is annoying.

So how do you get your resume to the top of the stack? Someone has to put it there.

Now here's a fun statistic: zero. That's the percentage of people who wrote or called my wife personally, asking for a minute of her time to meet and talk about the job. And the funny thing is, her boss asked her if any of the resumes made a special impression.

Your name on paper is a word. But, when associated with your face and personality, your name becomes an powerful impression.

This post is getting long, so I will cut out for the night. But this should get you started on the right path. I have a system I will write down in future posts for you to help build, manage, and sustain relationships. Your success after college will be determined more by what you do after school than what you do in school. If you're the person that comes home and turns on the TV with a box of Lucky Charms until you fall asleep, then have fun playing the resume game. Just don't use the phrase "self-starter." It will be a lie.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you what the path to the "X" is.

You can be whatever you want to be. You just need to know the right people. 

What The Shallots Taught Me

Friday's work was hard. He didn't get much sleep the night before, either. She had a beautiful dinner waiting, full of cubed potatoes and bacon bits and red wine vinegar. There was a side of cabbage with sauteed shallots and lemon juice.

An empty plate later, surrounded by dirty dishes, his left for the bedroom. He fell like a timbered log onto the bed. He napped. "Just for five minutes," he said.

She woke him an hour and a half later. The sun was gone.

"Get up," she said. "I've asked you five times now. I'm going to the store to get things for breakfast tomorrow. Come with me."

He rolled over, groggy and impatient.

"Why are you so concerned with me getting up?" he said.

She brushed off his question.

"I'm going to the store. Do you want to come or not?"

"No."

She huffed out and walked out the door.

He pulled himself up and walked to the living room. He saw the kitchen, full of pots and plates and crusty potato skins. The flavors of dinner came to him. The cabbage had been covered with so many shallot pieces. She must have spent a lot of time cutting them,  alone.   

The Man On The Train Tracks

Two weeks ago, a man was pushed onto the tracks of a Times Square subway station in New York City. He tried to pull himself out, but, because of the awkward height of the track well, he could only flail his arms. A photographer, R. Umar Abbasi, took a picture of him staring at the oncoming train. The man couldn’t climb the well and was killed.  The entire process, from fall to impact, took twenty-two seconds.

                       

Try staring at the clock for twenty-two seconds and imagine the ordeal unfold. That’s a long time to watch a helpless man try to escape with his life. What would you do? Of course you would help, right? That’s what a woman named Denise Martorana was quoted as saying in a news article:

                       

“I would certainly try to do whatever I possibly could. I certainly wouldn’t be able to stand there and watch, that’s for sure.”

                       

Is that for sure? Denise is probably upset, along with the rest of the United States, at Abbasi, whose photograph landed on the cover of the New York Post next to the headline “DOOMED!” But Abbasi’s interview with the Associated Press provides some insight into why he didn’t help, and why Denise probably wouldn’t, either. 

Here is a retelling of the event, from Abbasi’s point of view:

“It took me a second to figure out what was happening…I saw the lights in the distance. My mind was alert to the train. The people who were standing close to him…they could have moved and grabbed him and pulled him up. No one made an effort.”

                        

Ignoring a death is horrible, but the most terrifying thing? This isn't the first time.  

                        

In March, 1964, an elderly woman named Catherine Genovese experienced a long, loud, tortured, public  death. Here are the first few paragraphs of the story, written by A.M. Rosenthal, from the New York Times:

                        

For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.

                        

Twice the sound of their voices and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead...

[Assistant Chief Inspector Frederick M. Lussen] can give a matter-of-fact recitation of many murders. But the Kew Gardens slaying baffles him—not because it is a murder, but because ‘good people’ failed to call the police.

                        

Isn’t that what happened in the subway station two weeks ago? Rosenthal concludes that the depersonalization of urban life causes New Yorkers in particular to ignore their neighbors’ troubles. The only way to live in a big city is indifferently, he says.

                        

But psychologists have studied this problem, and have come to a different conclusion. There is a much larger rule being manifest in both the Genovese murder and the man on the train tracks. It’s called “The Principle of Social Proof”, and it’s the same reason for why sitcoms have laugh-tracks.

                        

The Principle of Social Proof states we view a behavior as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it. When an abnormal situation happens, we rely on the crowd to figure out how to react. But here’s the problem: when an individual looks to the group to understand how to act, he doesn’t see the group acting appropriately, he sees the group staring back at him. In our natural reaction to adhere to the norms of the group in abnormal situations, we render the group without any norms at all.

Let’s go back to Abbasi’s testimony, and imagine how Abbasi’s eyes moved.

                       

“It took me a second to figure out what was happening” (from the man)…

                       

“I saw the lights in the distance. My mind was alert to the train” (to the train)…

                        

“The people who were standing close to him.” (to the people around him).

And what does he notice? That no one goes to help. No one makes an effort, because they are just as confused as he is. 

And there's your twenty-two seconds.

The Principle of Social Proof sounds like a bad thing. But, in some contexts, it can have a positive impact on a situation. In fact, Disney uses this principle to help vacationers have the maximum amount of fun, in the same way laugh-tracks make bad jokes seem funnier. My wife and I recently went on a Disney cruise, and I was shocked by how many times I was told to do something. Before every show, and sometimes even before dinner, the cruise director would get on stage or the speakers and say,

"Everybody put your hands in the air!"

"Now wave them side to side."

"Now, as loud as you can, say "I'M HAVING FUN, AND I'M ON VACATION!!"

And you know what happened? Every single person in the theater/restaurant/pool deck would raise their hands, wave them side to side, and yell that they were on vacation. Even the big fat dude wearing the Crimson Tide t-shirt with his belly hanging out and a beer in his hand did it. Then he did the Mickey Limbo and dressed as a Pirate for Pirate Night. 

Disney uses this trick to get us into group-think mode, because they know that if we see others having fun, we will likely have more fun as a result. Even in 1830's Opera Houses, businesses such as L'Assurance des Succes Dramatiques charged performers for their services. What were those services? Professional applause. Each "Bravo!" and "Bene!" carried a price, all depending on how insistent you wanted the fervor to be. The claquers got paid, the performers got recognition, and the audience, believe it or not, enjoyed the show more because of it. 

Adam and Eve and Feminism

I’ve been thinking about a column my wife read to me a couple of days ago called The War on Men, by Suzanne Venker. Her ideas led me to wonder if men and women really do have natural talents and inclinations towards traditional gender roles.

Our parents and grandparents seem to think so. In their eyes, a woman’s primary role is that of caregiver. This is based on the assumption that women have natural talents men don’t have. Men’s role in society is that of ambitious career-seeker to provide for his family. We live with these enforced gender roles because we buy in to society’s assumption that men are better at one thing, while women are better at another. Media creators know they can get an easy laugh simply by combining a man and a baby. Look, he’s holding a bottle! Look, he’s duct-taping a diaper! That’s ridiculous, isn’t it?

Women have it just as bad in film and television, where to have a career is synonymous with being selfish and stuck-up; the higher the office, the higher the heels, and the louder the walk. Think Sandra Bullock’s character in The Proposal before she finds the joys of family…in the family’s mansion, in an Alaskan town owned by the family. Even Cruella Deville would grow a heart under those circumstances.

But the career-woman stereotype will have to disappear because now, for the first time, women have surpassed men in the workforce. Women do better in school and get more advanced degrees than men.  This feminine ambition is nothing new, however. A close reading of Genesis shows us it’s merely a rebirth of the actions of Eve, who I think was the world’s first feminist.

Shortly after God made Eve, her and the serpent have a conversation:

2. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

Eve’s explanation to the serpent fascinates me. Not only has God commanded her not to eat; he has commanded her not to touch. Why would Eve receive this second commandment which Adam did not? Could it be that God knew the temptation of His knowledge would be greater for Eve than for Adam? Was Eve the ambitious one in the Garden of Eden?

The serpent responds:

4. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as the gods, knowing good and evil.

6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

She ate the fruit in her desire for knowledge. And that knowledge probably included the realization that she would be kicked out of the Garden of Eden for her disobedience. But why did Adam eat?

And he [God] said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

The words “to be with me” give Adam’s motives away. He knew he needed to cleave unto his wife, and the only way to do that was to gain her knowledge and follow her out of Eden. He traded the comfort of the garden for the toils of living by the sweat of his face. He adapted. But it took the ambition of Eve to push Adam forward. That’s why it is not good that man should be alone.

Feminism is not the end of men. It is an opportunity for men. It gives us a chance to do what societal norms never allowed of us: to be a fulltime father, or a part-time employee who leaves early to pick up his kids from school and start dinner.  We can finally show the world we are more than one-trick ponies. Let’s fight sleep to rock a crying baby and cut the crusts off of sandwiches. At the front door, let’s hear “Daddy, I’m home!” for a change. Let’s make that old joke about the guy who can’t change a diaper obsolete.  

Fidel Castro's Relationship Advice

My current unemployment leaves me with time to think about subjects that interest me, and nothing interests me more than the mathematics of personal interaction. I receive squinted eyes as a response when I reveal this as my hobby, since mathematics is synonymous with arithmetic for the majority of the population. But there is a significant distinction: arithmetic is a branch of mathematics that deals with the study of quantity, while mathematics is the study of logical quality. I prefer to think of mathematics as Albert Einstein did: as the poetry of logical ideas.

In my mind, interpersonal interactions carry both weight and shape. The shape is the type of statement we form in response to another person; the weight is the effect that statement has on the other person's beliefs. In conversations where two people express opposing views, there is a desire to create a unified belief system between the two individuals. Each person wants the other to subscribe to his own beliefs, and both appeal to logic and reason to justify their claims. First, we need an understanding of where the thought process that you and I almost subconsciously subscribe to began.

Logic and rationality were not born in the Garden of Eden, but rather in Greece during an intellectual blossoming of the fourth century. Several schools of thought existed at that time, including the school of Socrates. The Socratic method of revealing truth through questions was formed during this time period. Plato was a disciple of Socrates, and wrote dialogues in which his master used the Socratic method to question, and vanquish, rival philosophers and rhetoricians. I am not going to enter into a treatise on rhetoric but, if you are interested after reading this post, there is a fantastic book I want to recommend called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

My point is to show that logic is just one of the many schools of thought that existed at the time, but it is the one the Western world adopted. And that is a good thing, because logic runs the computer on which I am typing, and the internet through which I will broadcast this post. However, I wonder if logical thought is the best way to deal with human interactions, and if the Socratic method is the best way to unify opposing belief systems. We appeal to logic and rationality whenever we argue with another human being, always under the implicit assumption that the rules for logical thought and rationality are universal.

One of my favorite documentaries is The Fog of War, a chronicle of the decisions of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. He described the Cuban Missile Crisis as follows:

"I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today."

Rational individuals came close to total destruction. But what scares me about this scenario is Castro. Was Castro rational? McNamara asked Castro these three questions in a meeting after the crisis:

"Number one: did you know the nuclear warheads were there? 

Number two: if you did, would you have recommended to Khrushchev in the face of an U.S. attack that he use them? 

Number three: if he had used them, what would have happened to Cuba?"

Castro's responses are chilling:

"Number one, I knew they were there. 

Number two, I would not have recommended to Khrushchev, I did recommend to Khrushchev that they be used. 

Number three, 'What would have happened to Cuba?' It would have been totally destroyed."

How is self-destruction a rational choice? Castro must have assumed that mutual destruction was inevitable, therefore nobody would be left alive to care who was responsible. Rational indeed. The choice, illogical to everyone else, was logical to Castro. 

I can imagine Khrushchev staring in disbelief at Castro's recommendation and asking, "Are you crazy?" Castro probably responded with, "Lo digo como lo veo." Translation: "I'm just telling it like it is."

This phrase bothers me when I hear it, because what is really means is, "Only my belief system is rational and logical," which is the same thing as saying, "You are irrational and illogical." No wonder over fifty-percent of marriages end in divorce: when you're assumption that is logic is universal, any argument means that one of the spouses is out of this universe (in a bad way). And nobody wants to be that person. 

The only relevant part of a conversation is what is heard, not what is said. Our words have no meaning other than the meaning which the listener attributes to them. 

This is because each human being is the intersection of an infinite amount of circles. For example, if I draw a circle labeled "Mormon," and another labeled "Man," then I am the intersection of the two. Now add a circle labeled "Moderate Republican," then one labeled "Husband," then one called "Brother." I am still at the intersection. 

Then draw one for "Baseball games with Dad" and "Grandpa has dementia" and "Mom was full-time homemaker" and on and on and on. Draw one for every experience, every feeling of happiness and heartbreak, then multiply the number of circles you have by infinity, and take the intersection of those circles. 

That is me. 

The labels on those circles define my frame of reference, which is the foundation for my own brand of logical thought and reason. I derive my assumptions from my frame of reference, and from there I form my premises and conclusions. My logic is my own, and so is yours. 

The stereotype that women are illogical always makes me laugh. Illogical compared to what? You? Some Aristotelian universal logic? It turns out that the circle labeled "Woman" is pretty important. 

Since logic cannot be used to change another person's mind, what can be? Rhetoric. Socrates and Aristotle just rolled in their graves, for the art they detested is the answer to the problem they created. 

Rhetoric deals with form, rather than substance. You have the ear of the listener in mind when you speak, instead of your own mouth. Presentation is the key. For which is better: to tell your son he should care more for the poor, or to take him to a soup kitchen? Both relay the same message, but one is combative to his belief that he already does care, or doesn't need to care, while the other provides another circle in his frame of reference. One tries to cut a branch, another adds a root.

I'll talk more about rhetoric in relationships in a future post.  

The Walls That Divide Us

For centuries, mankind has attempted to solve problems by building walls. I stood under one of those walls yesterday, erected for the same reason as the Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall--preservation through separation.

The fortress to which I refer is the wall that separates the West Bank from Jerusalem. It is built with mammoth cement bricks and resembles a grey row of teeth. Roads that used to connect the two areas stop at graffiti-ridden concrete slabs. The wall has suffocated the once-thriving West Bank.

We stood before it in the West Bank city of Bethany. What made this experience striking was the monument two-hundred feet beyond us. At a place where the wall can be seen ominously rising over surrounding buildings, a small wooden sign reads "The Tomb of Lazarus." It marks the place where Lazarus awoke from the dead at the command of Jesus Christ. Here, The Master tore down the wall that separates us from our loved ones: Death.

This makes sense because the Savior was an unabashed destroyer of walls. He spoke with unclean women and associated with the Samaritans. He ate with publicans and sinners. He chose a hated tax collector named Matthew and a simple fisherman named  Peter to be leaders in the organization of His church. He comforted an adulterer and praised the widow's mite. His teachings relieved people of the unnecessary fences the Jewish authorities had built around God's law, for His yoke was easy and His burden was light.

He tore down walls that divide.

Above the walled Old City in Jerusalem is a hill called the Mount of Olives. Here in this grove of olive trees, Jesus Christ routinely looked out over Jerusalem saying:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"

But it was below the Mount of Olives in a place called Gethsemane where He destroyed the barriers that separate us from God. My wife and I recently visited Gethsemane, and I commented on how foreboding the trees looked.

'"No," she replied, "I think they are beautiful."

When I looked again, I realized she was right. The unique twists and knots of the olive trees are picturesque in the daylight. I had been imagining them snarling at the Savior by moonlight as He fulfilled the Atonement.

This is where the Savior bridged an infinite wall that divides our imperfect selves from our perfect Heavenly Father. I studied mathematics in college, and when infinity popped up in a mathematics problem, I tended to throw my work out, because infinity in mathematics is impossible to overcome. That is why the Savior's Atonement is a miracle: He created a bridge to our Heavenly Father over a chasm of infinite width. By overcoming the world in Gethsemane, Jesus Christ defeated infinity for us all.

But what strikes me most about Gethsemane is its proximity to Jerusalem. The Savior could see His people from the Mount of Olives and their lit houses from Gethsemane.

All He had to do was look over the city wall.