Last August I attended the wedding of a dear girlfriend. It was performed on the shore of Big Bear Lake, and was a day beautiful both in reality and in spirit. The love that flowed was not limited to the couple; that feeling shot through and out of all of us present. It was like a heady tonic. I recall looking out at the amazing sunset over the water as an Italian guest sang an impromptu aria. I am sure I am not the only one who was moved to tears by this spectacle.

The service was performed by another dear friend, Sharon, a woman I admire for her courage and strength and love. When I spoke to her later about how well I thought she'd done, she said "you should do this." "Do what," I replied, genuinely confused. "Perform weddings, be an officiant." I truly thought she was kidding, so far was this from any concept of myself that I have ever had across a lifetime of living fantasy existences in my head. "Why?" Sharon replied: "Because you have such a strong connection to the universe. You'd bring something to this that I don't."

Wow. Me? A strong connection to the universe? Well, yes, I had to admit that I knew what she meant. In spite of a life dedicated to rigorous study and skepticism in the best Enlightenment rational tradition, I've ended up experiencing things that simply belie human explanation. And I accept that. And I embrace them. And I refuse to name or dogmatize them. Closest I will get is to saying that I worship the Moon Goddess. Is there really one? Don't know. Does that matter? No. I am an atheist who prays. Upon hearing that, an incredulous man once said "how does that work?" "I haven't the faintest idea," I replied. "But it does."

Anyway I got a good laugh out of what she had said and mostly disregarded it, although part of my "religion" if you will is being open to what comes, open minded, open to change, open to personal growth. I'd forgotten about it until recently when another friend approached me and asked if I had been ordained yet. "Huh?" I was puzzled. "You know, so you can perform weddings." "Is someone getting married?" "Yes, my daughter Rachel. And I told her you could do the service. She'd like that."

I've known this friend for 13 years. We've seen each other through all kinds of joy and pain. She knows me inside and out. And she wants me--ME--to marry her kid! I was humbled, amused, and only slightly afraid. Who am I to tell this friend, and Sharon as well for that matter, that they are wrong about me? Instead I choose to take it as a sign that I can be of service in a way I'd not yet dreamed of in my wildest ones.

So I got ordained. Yep, the Right Reverend Bip. High Priestess Diana. Minister of Moon Goddessness. And on April 19, with passover beginning at sundown, I will take my place before an excited couple and tell them that the universe loves them. And I will be right.

by Diana York Blaine at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Due to overwhelming demand--well, one old friend emailed to see why my site had fallen silent--I am making an appearance today to wish you all a marvelous winter season. Peace on Earth, Good Will to Women.

by Diana York Blaine at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Made the mistake of turning on my television today. Channel 4 has a show called Your LA and this is what they featured (in between Hooter's ads):

http://www.caddychicks.com/

Let them know what you think. I did.

yourlatv@gmail.com
http://www.caddychicks.com/Contact

by Diana York Blaine at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day in my Feminist Theory class we were looking at images of dead women. I haven't had to dig deep to find them; representations of eroticized corpses abound in our mainstream media. We are asked, simply by virtue of looking at magizines, movies, television, advertisements, music videos, video games, etc., to position ourselves as necrophilic voyeurs. My job, in part, is to bring these images to our awareness, asking what we see, what we feel, when we look at them. We've been asked to quit feeling. We've been asked to walk through life as if already dead ourselves.

One image occasioned much discussion, as it always does. Supposedly a fashion spread on lingerie, the feature actually functions as an advertisement. (Most of the copy in women's magazines does this, pretending to be something other than it is: a craven attempt to manipulate the reader into spending money.) In this article/advertisement, a young woman stands in front of the camera, arms at her sides, eyes half-shut, face turned slightly sideways and upwards just enough to expose her jugular. She's underweight, with a visible pelvic girdle and sharp collar and chest bones protruding. The overall effect mixes concentration camp victim with, well, fashion model chic. She looks like she's dying and waiting for--begging--us to finish her off.

Is the result sexy?

Of course. Sex is the point of the image. While today I see an underweight young woman photo-shopped to appear even weaker and more helpless than she actually is, I know the overall effect has been manipulated so that we have an erotic response to the image. After all, she's largely naked, covered only on the parts that our culture deems erotic--breasts and genitals. Hiding them evokes titillation. Also she stands there exposed, clearly marked as the object of our gaze. We have been taught to respond as voyeurs, enjoying the feeling of power over someone helpless, so her very position as powerless is what codes this picture as erotic. And she fits our definition of ideal beauty, thin, young, white, and female.

As we discussed the advertisement, oops, I mean article, considering when and why our culture began to idealize the underweight white female, one student mentioned that she works in an agency where teenagers come in every day to present their modeling portfolios. She said that at this place of business the floorboards have a small space between them, and often the prospective models get their stiletto heels caught in the gap. No big deal, except that when these girls turn their foot after having gotten stuck in the floor, sometimes their ankles break.

Sometimes their ankles break. Just from turning them.

If you don't feel anything when you read this, check yourself. The culture has stolen something precious from you, promising in its most seductive voice that if you simply cut yourself off from human compassion you will get lots of shiny stuff in return. But there aren't enough material objects in the world to fill the gap in our souls that results from living in such toxicity. It's simply not good enough. We are not doing good enough. Our land of abundance trains young women to starve themselves, prominently features their images when they do so, and then turns away and hurls accusations at them when their bodies begin to deteriorate in their teens.

Snap!

by Diana York Blaine at 08:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. First George Bush packs the Supreme Court with religious conservatives, all of them promising us all along that they won't be making biased decisions. Then the cases start rolling in, each of them easily resolved from the standpoint of civil liberty: side with freedom, vote to support individuals, protect free speech, avoid repressive laws.

But nooooooooo. Our "fair" jurists have made it quite clear that their interpretation of the constitution falls heavily towards control. Can a high school kid say whatever he wants? No, not if it's a joke about Jesus and pot. Can a woman control her body? No, not if it's a type of abortion that some people find yucky. Can women sue for wage discrimination? No, not if their attempt falls outside of a narrow time window. Can taxpayers be protected from having their money spent to support religious indoctrination? No, not since Bush renamed their conversion attempts "charitable." Can individuals defend themselves from large corporations? No, the court has made it clear they're pro-business not pro-people.

When I say "the court," however, it is important to understand that while the majority rules, there are dissenting opinions. I want to thank Stevens, Souter and Ginsberg for believing that teenagers should not be silenced simply because their message makes people uncomfortable. The kid was standing on a public sidewalk with a banner reading "bong tokes 4 Jesus." His principal made him remove it and he sued, saying his freedom of speech was being curtailed. Obviously it was. But not so obviously if you're sitting on today's conservative Supreme Court who just ruled against him in a split decision.

The paradox is obvious: "no," the conservatives thunder, "you can't get an abortion because that's an individual in your belly!" But as soon as that "individual" is born, she begins losing all of her rights. Control children, control women, control employees, control dissenters. It's all happening right in front of our eyes.

And I will show you where we are headed. I belong to a community service organization in which some members recently tried to convince us that we should all say the Lord's Prayer at the end of our meetings. Obviously this would be inappropriate as we are not a religious organization nor are all of us Christians. But this didn't stop some people from arguing vociferously that they were being discriminated against if we did not agree to say their prayer. Seriously. Discriminated against.

One woman gave a canned speech which I am quite sure her church has devised to try and force all of us to adhere to its theology in the public sphere, where I quite happily exist without religion. She said that any time people excluded monotheism, they were imposing polytheism (!), thus oppressing the poor wretched monotheists. Sigh. The fact that it is those of us who do not profess christianity who are in the minority seems lost on people like her as their need to grab and retain power persists unabated. While they won't admit it, they are the enemies of freedom, clothing themselves as the opposite, torturing logic in the interests of imposing a religious agenda on a nation which was founded by people who worked adamantly to avoid just such a theocracy, having lived under one and endured its injustices.

And now they have the Supreme Court on their side.

by Diana York Blaine at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Had such and interesting conversation with students the other day about the phenomenon of internalized self loathing. As I explained it, members of an outgroup, women, people of color, gay people, often say "I don't like [members of my group]," thinking they are expressing personal preference rather than reflecting the hateful ideology of the dominant class.

We do this in order to carve out some degree of self-respect, because hearing over and over how horrible, say, women are, for example, hardly causes me as a woman to want to identify with "them." So I do the opposite, identify with men against women, in effect identifying against myself but deriving a modicum of respectability for doing so.

How do I know this? Because I myself often used to say "I don't like women." Heck, I applied to a men's college, and as a 15-year-old girl, it wasn't because I wanted to "go wild." No, I wanted to be where the power and prestige was, and as I had learned and learned well growing up, that was where the men were (and still are).

It wasn't until I read feminist theory that I realized I had internalized a sexist culture's loathing of females and what we represent. Until then I had simply sided with the patriarchy, detesting weakness, vulnerability, and passivity, all of which we connect with women. In order to believe that women are weak, vulnerable, and passive, we must pretend men are not, which is where James Bond fits in. I saw Casino Royale the other night, and watching 007 get his balls repeatedly whacked only to beg for more caused me to snort in derision. Yeah, right. With only one whack to the balls, he'd have balled like, well, a "bitch." Get the idea how we artificially separate out human characteristics, rigidly associate them with either of the two sexes, and then revile those attached to females and femininity?

Which leads me to homosexuality. One of my brilliant students who identifies as a gay man disagreed with me when I said that marginalized groups internalize prejudice, leading to self loathing, which is then expressed as hatred towards the group as a whole. He felt strongly that his dislike of "gays" as he had recently seen them literally on parade during Pride festivities was generated by "their" behavior, which he found stereotypical and damaging to the cause of civil rights.

He explained that he did not act like "they" did, that members of his fraternity wouldn't know that he was gay unless he told them. Another student added that one does not have to be "fabulous" to be gay.

"What," I queried, "is wrong with being fabulous?"

Now of course I understand the point. I am not a "typical" (straight white middle class) female either. Don't lump me in with women. Why I am strong, smart, rational, coordinated, independent, etc etc etc. Those beauty pageant queens, they must be some other brand of woman than I am. They're not strong, smart, rational, coordinated, independent, etc, are they?

Are they???

Why, of course they are, come to think of it. Competition like that requires real grit. So why on earth would they choose to behave in ways that seem so demeaning, parading around trying to get power through male attention, trying to be the Queen of the whole country or even universe?

Hmm. When I put it that way, it seems kinda obvious, doesn't it? Because they are striving to achieve in one of the limited ways that women have been traditionally been allowed to achieve. They are striving for excellence in one of the traditional ways that women have been allowed to strive for excellence: as the objects of male desire.

So why am I mad at them for doing something perfectly logical given the limited circumstances of female existence? So why aren't I pissed at the patriarchy? Why am I not mad at sexism?

I am.

And it's that exact same sexism that forces my wonderful young students to identify against their own group, those fabulous, fey, exuberant men marching in the Gay Pride Parade, and with the very institution, that heteronormative fraternity system, which makes them cringe at the sight of every fairy. Why not be pissed at the Greeks? They are the ones who say that if you don't conform to rigid norms of heterosexual masculinity then you will be stomped.

The answer, as the word "stomped" suggests, is fear. It's a lot easier to stay huddled in the protection of the dominant group's shade, why some white women stay allied with white men rather than our sisters of color; why some men of color align themselves with white men rather than their sisters of color; why some gays align themselves with the straight world rather than with their homosexual brethren. What do the non-privileged peoples have to offer in the way of protection, resources, respectability? Nada.

This is why comprehensive civil rights movements take real courage.

As to what straight white men can get out of joining us in our drive to eliminate oppression, which is another good question that came up in class this week, well let's just say that constructions of masculinity today are so limiting that if I were a straight white man I would be SCREAMING for some fabulousness. (Perhaps this accounts for that bizarre Queer Eye show, but of course it just reinforces that false us/them binary that makes it hard for gay men to construct a self they can be comfortable with. That program is more about mandatory consumption patterns than sexual identity.)

Carl's Jr has a new commercial which shows said straight white male gulping down cocktails and chomping on the fruit that comes in his drink while clearly ogling "babes." The point of the ad is that "real" men cannot, do not, will not, don't, eat "fruit" (funny coincidence this is a derogatory term for gays) unless it comes lassoed to liquor.

If I were a "real" man I would be livid. How dare they try to peddle death, which is what you're asking for if you regularly consume that garbage, under the guise of masculinity? How dare they discourage "real" men from enjoying the foods that real men have been eating for millenia? And it's not just Carl's Jr. that discourages male self-preservation. Mitchum deodorant packaging actually anoints you a Mitchum man "if you don't go to the doctor until it's broken" or "if you consider mowing your lawn as cardio."

So here's my wonderful brilliant gay male students being pressured to identify with that sick world, one that pretends to represent power but actually encourages weakness, denial and death. So here's my wonderful brilliant straight male students being pressured to identify with that sick world, one that pretends to represent power but actually encourages weakness, denial and death.

Given these two options, I'd choose fabulous in a heartbeat. And proudly act to keep that heart healthy, eating fruit and getting lots of true exercise.

It's called self-love. And we could use a whole lot more of it in this supposedly self-centered society where we're all supposed to emulate and pander to this most life-denying, soul-sucking, toxic construction of straight white masculinity. No thanks.

by Diana York Blaine at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)