Postscript

As far as I’m concerned, being any gender is a drag.

–Patti Smith, 1975

The Gift

Atomic has safely returned from another UN mission, and will spend several weeks in Montreal before leaving for the Democratic Republic of Congo. When we met for dinner, she presented me with a gift of Herbal Virginity Soap, which she picked up during her last stint in Iraq.

Chuffed, I decided I had to do a little research. The soap is manufactured in Thailand “with ingredients of USA,” and is distributed under the name Argussy Paris, which I’m reasonably certain isn’t located anywhere near France. Nevertheless, the soap is one of a line of products that includes “Gentleman Men Gel,” “Fitting Insertion,” and “Pink Nipple Lipstick,” as well as the disturbingly named “Whitening Face Cream.”

Considerably more disturbing is the company’s marketing strategy, which heavily targets southern African countries such as Malawi. Malawi is one of the world’s ten poorest countries, and the average life expectancy of its citizens is 36.5 years. This is due, in part, to the high rate of HIV infection that is common in the region, which is estimated to afflict close to 30% of the country’s population.

The fear of AIDS has reinforced the social value of female virginity, and has lowered the ideal age of a new wife to the early teens. Capitalizing on a desperate market of potentially unmarriageable women, Argussy Paris claims that its product will “tighten the vaginal muscle” if used daily, thus simulating virginity in its consumers.

The soap costs $8 US per bar. The average annual household income is $160 US per year. You do the math.

Women’s groups in Africa are fighting to have the product banned, despite the ongoing efforts of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to impose radical stimulation of the free market. Wish ’em luck, will you?

Y’think?

From The National Post:

Statistics Canada says senior women who suffered from psychological or financial stresses in 1994-95 were far more likely to die over the next eight years than those who did not have such problems.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Last night, I watched the first English-language debate of the federal political campaign, which wasn’t so much a debate as a heavily moderated Q&A session with a carefully selected group of “regular” Canadians. It was, as you might imagine, a total snooze, except for one strange interlude.

Doris, one of the aforementioned Canadians, asked the candidates what they would do to control the “infighting” that has plagued the House of Commons since the last election. The moderator echoed Doris’ complaint, quoting a certain oft-namedropped “rock star” (I’m looking at you, Bono…) who apparently divulged that “he was appalled and shocked by the behaviour in Question Period.”

After a faintly lacklustre discussion about the importance of civility in Canadian politics, NDP leader Jack Layton pronounced, without a trace of irony, that his party would solve the problem of infighting by electing more women to Parliament. “Mark my words,” he intoned, “The tone of that House would change if we had a lot more women there!”

Not to be outdone, Prime Minister Paul Martin quickly agreed with Layton, adding that the primary reason that women declined to run for federal office was because of the “poisonous” atmosphere of the House. This was, I believe, the only time that the Liberals and the NDP expressed agreement on any subject during the entire two-hour debate.

As Carolyn Ryan remarked on the CBC’s Debate Blog, “Are the female MPs supposed to shush their male counterparts when they get raucous? Should they hold tea parties in the foyer? Will they bring in a “bad-word jar,” with MPs having to pay a twoonie every time they heckle? Puh-lease!” The prospect of female politicians suddenly taking up the role of tight-lipped schoolmarms is as demeaning as it is ridiculous, yet the exchange speaks volumes about how little has changed in Canadian political discourse during the last hundred years.

In the early twentieth century, Nellie McClung and her colleagues in the Famous Five fought for, and eventually won, female suffrage in Canada. Given the provisions of the Election Act, which stated that “no woman, idiot, lunatic, or child” could vote, and the views of politicians like Premier Roblin of Manitoba, who blustered, “I don’t want a hyena in petticoats talking politics to me—I want a nice gentle woman to bring me my slippers,” this was no small feat.

It bears noting, however, that like their contemporaries in the United States, Canadian suffragists were closely aligned with the Christian Temperance movement, which sought to “civilize” society by imposing prohibition and other social reforms. In the view of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and similar organizations, women were by nature morally superior to men, and were therefore duty-bound to protect the social order from the transgressions of the less spiritually adept half of the human race.

(In fact, the Temperance movement saw women’s suffrage not as an inalienable human right, to be won for its own sake, but as a means to a far more important end: increasing the number of voters who would support their broader program of social reform. The strategy worked: by 1919, the sale of liquor was banned in all nine of Canada’s provinces.)

The admission of women to provincial legislatures, and later to the House of Commons, would likely not have been achieved were it not for the reassuring tenor of Christian Temperance discourse. Even when engaged in the rough-and-tumble sport of politics, it was promised, women would retain their “natural” maternal virtues and bring a more sensitive and feeling influence to statecraft. They would, thus, tame the masculine excesses of the political sphere, from which “the whole race suffered.”

It is hardly surprising that such views continue to hold sway among both Canadian and American conservatives, whose political ideologies are firmly rooted in traditional Protestant values. As columnist and Rush Limbaugh fill-in Walter Williams recently opined:

“Men and women have different psychological make-ups. Women tend to be more nurturing, sensitive and submissive. They demonstrate greater feelings of love and tend to exhibit grief to a greater extent than men. On the other hand, men tend to be more competitive, aggressive and hostile than women. Female characteristics are vital to a well-ordered society, for they exert a civilizing influence. I’d never want to live in a society where women didn’t have a major role in the rearing of children and management of the household. However, sensitivity, nurturing and a capacity to exhibit grief are not the best characteristics for political leadership.”

What is rather more surprising, and also deeply disheartening, is that a comparable view was advanced not by Stephen Harper’s Conservative party, but by the leader of Canada’s “progressive” party, the NDP. If not the others, shouldn’t Layton possess the intelligence and, frankly, the balls to challenge commonly held assumptions about gender? Or, is the notion that women are perfectly capable of playing political hardball with their male counterparts—or, at least, that nothing in their “nature” prevents them from doing so—now so dangerously subversive that it is anathema even to progressives?

To be, I suspect, continued…

Show

Tomorrow night, I will see Bauhaus. I bought the ticket as a birthday present to myself, and it has had pride of place on my fridge ever since. Soon, the waiting will be over, and I will, with luck, be close enough to the stage to smell the band’s sweat.

I almost didn’t buy the ticket, being out of the habit of going to see live shows, and thinking this one in particular obscenely expensive. But then, I remembered how much I loved Bauhaus back in the day, and I realized that I would never forgive myself if I didn’t go.

So, I’m going. Whee!

Listening to In the Flat Field tonight, it occurred to me that Bauhaus was never an especially cool band to like. They lacked the “cred” of peers like Joy Division or Pere Ubu, and they weren’t nearly as intellectually aloof as Wire. Still, I couldn’t have cared less, because the band was so brilliantly sexy and campy and fun.

This, I think, is what the music critics missed: that goth was, at least for a little while, camp. More to the point, it was a form of camp that women were allowed to participate in. How better to send up femininity—which is always, infuriatingly, expected—than by dolling up in torn fishnets, corset, and black lipstick, while your date for the evening sports his best waterproof eyeliner and feather boa? As every teenaged vampire knows, goth is equal opportunity drag, which is a rare treat for a girl. Especially one who likes a mean guitar riff.

Speaking of drag, I wonder what I’ll wear tomorrow? Hmm…

Mars in retrograde

Yes, that was James. I suspected as much, but received final confirmation last night. As I told him when I saw him, I’ve been itching to yell at someone for weeks, and, grand contrarian that he is, he provided me with an excellent opportunity to do so.

(Incidentally, James is no more a postmodernist than I am a ballerina. I mean, the man still believes in aesthetic value, for chrissake. And you should see the way he dresses…)

In other news, I have decided to treat myself to a massage this week, which is, I suppose, the female version of treating oneself to a prostitute. There is one notable difference, however: I have absolutely no intention of engaging in conversation with my masseuse.

I’ve asked sex trade workers about this phenomenon, and they’ve all said the same thing: the johns always want to talk afterwards. I find this revealing, since it flies in the face of the standard line: i.e., that men want sex and women want intimacy. Such utter nonsense, and yet people persist in believing it, even when presented with clear evidence to the contrary.

Whenever we argue about this, which is surprisingly often, James insists that I am an exceptional case. I have suggested to him that he needs to get out more, and perhaps also to keep better company. Having done neither, he remains unconvinced.

In any case, I will have a massage this week, which will have nothing whatsoever to do with intimacy. I trust that my masseuse will understand.

Leading questions

I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership lately, in large part because of the breathtaking dearth of the quality that has become painfully evident post-Katrina. Leadership. It is one of those quaint, modern words, like “character” or “truth,” ones that possess little currency in a post-modern age.

Thinking about it, I envision a world in which men wear fedoras and women brandish silver cigarette holders, one that is fondly remembered but very much gone. Saying it out loud, I find myself sounding uncannily like Jimmy Stewart. Still, although we don’t actually believe in it, we do seem to notice it when it isn’t there. It may be that leadership is best defined antonymically: i.e., it is that which is not cowardice, irresponsibility, or blatant self-interest. It may also be that it is akin to pornography: i.e., you know it when you see it.

It is, in any case, a deeply gendered term. Men demonstrate, or, more often, fail to demonstrate, leadership. Women… well, women do other things. They serve. They inspire. They manage. Most commonly, they endure. But somehow, they don’t quite lead, at least, not in this language. This is, perhaps, because leadership is not unrelated to heroism, both being character traits that lie dormant until they are occasioned by circumstance, and it is not terribly often that circumstances favour women in this way.

Think of the difference between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Clinton is, it is generally agreed, a competent politician, a capable senator, and a reasonably skilled orator. However, Giuliani is—or, rather, he became—a leader. Both occupied important political positions on September 11, 2001, but Clinton did not emerge from that surreal day a national hero. Giuliani did. Why?

This is, of course, a largely rhetorical question. Nevertheless, I will suggest that women in the political sphere are caught between two contradictory imperatives: the personal imperative to prove oneself as a leader, and the political imperative to preserve one’s femininity at all costs. Would Clinton’s handlers have allowed her to set off for Ground Zero, without her make-up properly applied and her hair expertly coiffed, while debris still rained down from the Twin Towers? What if she came off as pushy? What if she got hurt? What if she looked haggard in front of the TV cameras?

Lest you think that this is a uniquely American phenomenon, I ask you to consider the Canadian case. Can you think of a single female Canadian politician who could roll up her shirtsleeves at a disaster site and not appear completely ridiculous? Kim Campbell? Nope. Belinda Stronach? Not a chance. Audrey McLaughlin? Who?

My point is not that women aren’t capable of leadership (plainly, they are) or that men are, as a group, intrinsically better leaders (plainly, they are not), but that the kind of leadership that is considered acceptable for a woman of the political class to publicly demonstrate is distinctly unheroic. Which is unfortunate, ‘cause we could sure use a few heroines right about now.

What gives?

By now, the Montrealers among you will have heard about Sefi Amir’s art exhibition Never Needed Nobody, which received a write-up in this week’s Mirror. In a nutshell, the artist recruited twelve of her friends to take pictures of themselves while masturbating, which she subsequently turned into photorealistic paintings.

Strangely, although Amir had no trouble at all finding female models for the project, she was only able to convince one man to participate. As justification, one told her, “You can take a picture of my dick while I’m masturbating, but not of my face—it’s too personal.”

Reading this, I was reminded of a conversation I had with Ada several months ago. I was telling her about an idea I had been toying with to start an erotic group blog, to which contributors would receive fully anonymous invitations and which would be limited to invitees only. Ada, who is a card-carrying member of Montreal’s literary set, immediately warned me that men would never do it in a million years. And with that, the idea joined at least a hundred others on a slowly buckling shelf.

Although I heeded Ada’s counsel, I still want to know why this is. Amir suggests that it is because men have a “higher level of attachment” to privacy, but I’m not entirely satisfied with her explanation. My own suspicion is that it has something to do with men being targeted as the consumers of pornographic materials rather than the subjects—the old “men look, women are looked at” argument—but that’s about as far as I get with it.

I was going to conduct a readers’ poll, but I think I’ll leave it for another time.