That Horse I Keep Trying to Get On
Well the 40-day thing got I think about 4 days in before life happened.
Dagnabit.
Of course, the correct thing to do is start the clock over from today. Also, I’m dropping the daily word count from 1000 words (which if I’m just taking any time to put my thoughts together and not just throwing up words all over the page still will take me an hour or more to get done) to 500 words. I’m hoping that I’ll still hit 1000 words more often than not, but I’m not going to beat myself up about not hitting 1000 words. The goal is to get back into the habit of writing and posting and commenting on life, family, the universe, etc., not to increase my anxiety over “OH MAN, I ONLY HAVE 800 WORDS WORTH OF STUFF TO SAY ABOUT [SUBJECT]! NOW WHAT?”
So, more posts, potentially less words. But more consistency, which is one thing this process is shooting for.
The other thing it’s shooting for is less concern with torquing someone off or talking about something controversial. For example, I’ve been on a kick of reading books from people that would be associated with either a conservative or a libertarian viewpoint. Greg Gutfeld’s The Joy of Hate, for example. Albert Brooks’ The Road to Freedom. Glenn Beck’s Control. Dr. Helen Smith’s Men on Strike, just to name a few.
Men on Strike, in particular, has me doing a lot of thinking about gender roles, the way people treat each other, expectations of the culture, etc. I want to be able to talk about those kinds of things, and how my own position has shifted over the past few years. When you start to see statistics like “by volume, 69 per cent of mass media reporting and commentary on men was unfavourable [sic], compared with just 12 per cent favourable [sic] and 19 per cent neutral or balanced,” that gets my attention. (Read more at: http://phys.org/news83863660.html#jCp) And it should get everyone’s attention. No one wins when we consistently portray men as generally evil.
From that same linked article: “Men were predominantly reported or portrayed in mass media as villains, aggressors, perverts and philanderers, with more than 75 per cent of all mass media representations of men and male identity showing men in on one of these four ways.”
That helps no one. And the people most at risk are, unfortunately, women and children.
A quick aside: I like comics. And there are a few web comics that I’m particularly fond of. I think that there are good writers in the medium doing interesting things. One of my favorites is and sort of has been ever since I discovered it is Sinfest. Tatsuya Ishida definitely pushes my buttons on occasion, and the comic makes me think. (God is a recurring character in the comic, and appears as a hand emerging from a cloud into a little hand puppet.) But for the last while, I’ve been getting more and more discouraged by the outlook he’s putting on the page. There are plenty of female characters who are shown as caring, strong individuals. They’re portrayed as well-rounded, caring individuals. There’s plenty of them.
But there are very few positive male characters in the comic. And the portrayal of the adult male characters has been getting more and more aggressively negative. The comic still makes me think, but now it’s doing so with less of a gentle jibe and a “isn’t that funny how people are”, and more of a pointy elbow and a “look how horrible men are. Don’t they just suck?”
A while ago, I wrote a post about wearing a black hat. And in it, I pretty explicitly said that if society insists on forcing me into the role of a villain, at some level, at some point, I will internalize that role, and become the villain the society expects me to be.
As I said in that post: “You can only be called a stupid, ignorant bigoted hick for so long before you start to suspect that by golly, they really think I’m a stupid, ignorant bigoted hick. Huh.”
From the post just prior: “I have never felt that those who didn’t agree with me were enemies. But apparently, that’s how they view and describe me. So be it. Sometimes you have to wear the black hat. And so I shall OWN this black hat. And I will make it look good.”
And if society at large insists on calling men “villains, aggressors, perverts and philanderers,” then we should not be surprised if eventually men will internalize that perception of themselves and act accordingly. Smith quotes UVA law professor Douglas Laycock: “To corrode these bonds unnecessarily is a dangerous thing. And we should have no illusions about who is most endangered. In any outbreak of intolerance, in any reduction of mutual concern and respect, the weak and oppressed will suffer more than the strong and dominant. Those who are most endangered by stereotypes and prejudice have special reasons to avoid invoking their own stereotypes and prejudices against others.”
It’s hard enough to be a good man. How much harder is it when society keeps telling you how horrible you are?
I have set a goal of blogging at least 500 words a day for 40 consecutive days. This is day one. I will see you here again tomorrow.
