the adventures of dr. diana york blaine

We buried my dad today. It was absolutely beautiful. At first I had worried that my decision to have an extremely simply graveside ritual would be unsettling to people or in some way dishonor my father's memory. But my instincts, education, and experience all pointed me strongly in that direction, and I am glad I followed those green lights, in spite of a few trepidations along the way.

Dad was a simple man, no doubt typical of his depression-era working class upbringing. He disliked "frippery," as he called it, praising polyester long before it became fashionable because he saw the practicality of a long-wearing fabric. Bernie never threw anything away, claiming it would be useful to him someday, and quite often in fact he was able to use his mechanical genius to make those broken parts sing again in new and unexpected ways. Still, we always laughed at him for his insistence upon saving empty plastic milk cartons. "This is a wonderfully malleable material," he would say. "I can use it for all kinds of repairs." And indeed he did. I grew up in a house with with plastic milk carton patches adorning the garage walls. My guinea pig slept in a plastic milk carton that dad had cut in half in order to make it into a den.

So when it came time to bury this man, I knew that fancy boxes and elaborate ceremony would be inappropriate. It also seemed ill-fitting to haul in a minister who had not known him, for dad had left the Catholic Church as a boy and never found another spiritual home. He lived in the world of ideas, numbers, theories, found solace in his stunning ability to manipulate mathematical figures, invent wondrous machines, read deeply in General Semantics. Much to my mother's horror, he actually hung a blackboard in the family room when I was a girl and there he would hold forth, doing equations, making diagrams, always using that beautiful brain.

Also since my research into death has drastically altered my views of how we handle this deepest mystery, I no longer endorse much of the materialism that accompanies a passing. While I do believe in the importance of ritual, I also feel strongly that it must be adapted to the purpose of the culture, rather than letting its conventional form determine our reality. Ceremony needs to serve us; we ought not be handmaidens to it.

With all of this in mind I decided simply to ask people to gather at dad's grave. I invited my brother to speak, and he said he would like to, and I wanted say a few words myself. That was the extent of the plan. Though I knew it was right in my heart and my mind, I did worry a bit over the last few days that "they" would not feel that I had done enough, not put on a show, failed somehow in my obligations as a daughter. When I expressed this fear to my wonderful mentor, she said of course I was right in keeping it simple, that all we need is a moment of reflection. Hearing these words from someone whom I very much admire gave me strength to stay the course, not run out and xerox a bunch of programs with a bunch of hymns and poems meaningless to my dad's life and our experience of his death.

Still, this morning I asked myself, “Not even a poem? Nothing?" The answer kept coming. "Yes. Nothing." So while on the way to the cemetery I did jokingly threaten to read Sylvia Plath's Daddy, I continued forward, wondering how the event would look and feel to those who gathered to honor Bernie.

I needn't have worried at all. How many more times must I learn this? To validate my instincts and let go of the results? When we arrived, there was a small memorial which consisted of dad's cremated remains in a gold box, the flag that was donated to commemorate dad's World War II service, and an absolutely lovely floral arrangement sent to me by my friends and colleagues in the Writing Program at USC. To this we added an 8 x 12 photo of young pop in his army uniform that my friends had suggested I bring along. The result was lovely and meaningful.

My brother spoke first, extolling the virtues of our ethical, brilliant, disciplined father. I followed, telling the truth, which was that I don't understand the meaning of life, why my mom died too young, why dad lived so much longer. I told the truth that I don't know the meaning of death, don't have an answer to what happens to us or why, don’t ascribe to any particular belief system that purports to explain all of this. I also thanked my dad for fighting in a war to keep us free, so that I would never be forced to have a belief system in which I did not actually believe, thanked my ancestors on both sides for their insistence on free thinking and liberty.

I also told the truth that while I am utterly perplexed by the mysteries of life and death, I know that we are not alone, none of us, ever. I have felt that truth more and more powerfully as my life has progressed, more and more powerfully as I have stopped trying to make the world conform to my beliefs, to change people and things over which I am powerless. It's as if I have gotten out of the way and the universal spirit of love has been able to sweep in and transform my life into an amazing magical journey, one that I am honored to share with others, as they share theirs with me.

I also thanked Team Bernie, all of those people who helped him over the years as he grew too feeble to take care of himself. My brother kept his prescriptions filled and entertained him with visits and trips; my husband stepped in and literally handled dad's bathing when he was too weak to do so himself; the hospice nurse Jan, also a dear friend who was present this morning, saw him through his last days in dignity and comfort--the list goes on and on, including Meals on Wheels volunteers, the podiatrist who made house calls for $25, clipping those gross toenails I couldn't face, my friend Bea who came and cut his hair, his caregivers Nick and Joy, my best friend Kelli who picked up pop's remains yesterday while I was in class, driving him by his house on the way to the cemetery as she blared music and showed him a final good time. I also expressed gratitude that I was able to transform into the daughter that this man deserved, no longer selfish and judgmental, able to accept him for exactly who he was and to find joy in serving him as he had spent his life serving me and my family.

And that was basically it. I invited everyone over to our house afterwards, and we were done. I wondered what the reaction would be, knowing that no matter what it had been the right thing to do and I would let go of the results, but in fact people came up to say how meaningful it had been, so much better than the usual funeral service. Reflecting on this later, my husband said, “I think it was the absence of fakery.”

Well said. An absence of fakery. What a goal for us all. How about living an authentic life? How about having an authentic death? How about simply standing up and thanking everyone who helped this man and his family, as he was alive, dying, and dead? How about walking in gratitude and humility, asking the universe to give you the words to say what needs to be said, as I did before the service?

We are not alone. This knowledge of the vast interconnected nature of existence--and the plenty that awaits us if only we ask for help--brings me great peace today. As he drew his last defiant breaths, dad may not have wanted to accept our human vulnerability, but I can guarantee that having done so has allowed his daugher to find real peace, something that would bring him the greatest pleasure. It may not be popular in this land of swagger and boast to claim one's own utter helplessness, but doing so works for me, and just like those stubborn folks I'm descended from, I intend to do life my way, even if it means stubbornly admitting I'm not the center of the universe nor do I have all the answers. It's sure lovely to have nothing to prove to anyone, both in and out of the graveyard.

Time for supper!

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 07:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

On Monday I spent several hours at my dad's deathbed visiting with his youngest grandson. I had encouraged the children--well he's a 21-year-old man now, but they are still the kids of the family to me--to come and see their dying grandfather, and Kevin took me up on it, sitting with me beside an old man in the waning days of his life.

Dad was largely incapable of communicating with us. His cheeks had become sharply defined by the bones beneath, his skin the yellow pallor of the dying. His hands were clutched up near his throat, though occasionally they would move slowly about as if searching for something. As I spoke with Kevin, I periodically held dad's hand and stroked his cheek and forehead, soothingly assuring him that he was safe, that it was ok to let go, that he was surrounded by love.

Several times Kevin glanced up from dad, who was constantly coughing with a grim rattle in his chest that hospice nurses had assured me was a normal part of the dying process. The action of coughing seemed to totally deplete him. "This is hard," Kevin said. "Yes," I replied, "it is."

How lovely it was to spend that time with my dad and my nephew, whose own father, my brother Barney, had died when Kevin was very young. I spoke of family history to him, talking of the events that had occurred so long ago, of pains and resentments long burned off and buried. I spoke to him of healing, of love and forgiveness, of his dead father, of his dead grandmother who had loved him so much, had loved all her grandchildren and children, as had my dad.

I found myself awash with admiration for the dying man in the bed, looking back over a life spent serving his country overseas in World War II and then serving his family, working in the aerospace industry for decades, climbing into his car at 6 a.m. to make the long drive from Pomona into Santa Monica so that his children could have what they needed and then some.

His own parents had traveled from Lithuania, escaping the tyranny of the Russians, to seek freedom in a foreign land. My mind boggles at the courage this took, my young grandmother, alone, traveling first to Chicago and then to Youngstown, Ohio, where she met another immigrant and they married and raised a family of three sons in the new country.

According to dad, my grandfather Peter Yorkunas was a socialist in the true sense of the word. Pop told me he would often say, "When the sun comes up in the morning, Brunuslav, it comes up for everyone." But in Lithuania, he was not free. He had been forcibly conscripted into the Czarina's army, selected because he was a strapping tall handsome man. He was made to ride about on a white horse, harassing Lithuanians trying to keep their ethnicity. According to family lore, one day he trampled through a cabbage patch that belonged to my grandmother, his future wife whom he would not meet until he traveled to the United States.

She, in her own defiance of the authorities, was secretly teaching the forbidden Lithuanian language to children in her home, everyone desperately hiding their readers under knitting when the soldiers would ride through to check on them. Her uncle, Jonas Basanavicius, is known as the father of LIthuania for his own revolutionary activities under Russian occupation.

I never knew my grandparents, but I do think often of their strength and sacrifices, of their dreams for their children and grandchildren. How surprised would they have been to know that the first doctor in their son's family would be a woman? Could they ever have imagined the possibilities for a girl child not even born yet that opened up as they made their way across the ocean, through Ellis Island, and over land to the midwest?

I like to think that they would be proud of me. I know my father was. He told me so.

Sometimes I wonder where I get my fighting spirit from. Why don't I just go along with the program like I am supposed to? Why do I speak out against things that seem unfair to me even though it brings such hatred raining down on my head? Why do I refuse to know my place? As I watched my father fighting for life on Monday, struggling to speak, smiling faintly when his grandson and I would throw back our heads and laugh at some delightfully ludicrous irony of life, I glimpsed the source of at least some of that resolve.

"It's ok, dad," I was saying to him as he struggled to cough. "You are being taken care of. You have everything you need. We have lots of people to help us. It's ok to need help."

Upon hearing this last statement, his mouth slowly moved.

"Bullshit."

I could barely hear the word; he could barely speak. It came out as a nearly-silent croak.

"Did you say 'bullshit'?," I asked him, delighted. He nodded.

A man with near complete organ failure, lying helplessly as a baby, unable to walk or see or even swallow, defiantly asserting his independence, refusing to go gentle into that good night. What a stubborn bastard. How full my heart was at that moment, full of admiration for him, full of wonder that we are so alike, that the iron will continues, generation after generation.

Ultimately dad did go gentle. He died in his sleep Wednesday morning at 4 a.m., alone and proud, like the butt-kicker Sergeant Yorkunas that he always was—a “larger-than-life” figure as my cousin David described him to me. He didn’t need his hand held, didn’t want his daughter there to see the last wisps of life escape from his once-imposing form. Instead his final words to me as I left Monday afternoon were “what’s your schedule?” as if everything were perfectly normal. I could barely hear what he said, comprehended him only because he’d said it to me every single time that I had walked out of his house for the last 6 years since I’d returned from Texas and begun the joyous task of taking care of him.

I replied just as I had for all those years, knowing that the answer brought him enormous pleasure and pride. “Well tomorrow I go to USC where I teach, dad, and then I will come back and see you.” He loved that I was a teacher and writer, always asked how it was going so that he could hear me say that I love my job and my students love me and that everything was wonderful. It made him beam.

I hope it brought him pleasure that last time, for I never saw him again.

When I awoke Wednesday morning, I knew. Voices told me loud and clear that he was gone and that it was o.k. I felt a feeling of total and utter peace that has not left me since. When I got up and encountered my husband in the bathroom, the look on his face only confirmed what had already been transmitted to me, somehow, someway, that I will never ever be able to explain. “We got a call,” he said simply. “I know,” I replied. “Dad’s dead.”

So when you think of our veterans this Memorial Day, please include in your prayers of gratitude my dad, Bernard Henry York, born Yorkunas, in Youngstown Ohio in 1925. He was a good man, an ethical man, a disciplined man, a proud American. As I looked through his Honorable Discharge papers yesterday, preparing to take them to the funeral home so that they could order a flag for his grave, a tiny picture fell out. It was my pop, impossibly young and handsome, laughing as he posed in his uniform, going off to fight a war in a land far from home because it was the right thing to do.

Thank you, daddy. For everything. And goodbye.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

I just received a call from the Meals on Wheels coordinator. He was checking to see if dad should be getting the renal, low-sodium, or regular diet. Last week I had said perhaps the renal was too unappetizing, and Mr. Johnson, who heads the volunteers, had remembered me mentioning this. When he noticed this morning that I had not called to change to back from the renal to the regular menu, he took it upon himself to telephone me.

How kind is that? How thoughtful is that? This seventy-four year old man, unrelated to us in any way, extends a compassionate hand this morning to help make my father's life more pleasant. I hadn't bothered to make the call, actually, because this weekend dad has basically stopped eating. I fed him a little mango jello yesterday that we’d bought at the local Mexican grocery, which was an Alpha-Beta when mom and I started shopping there almost 40 years ago. It's changed with the times, as the demographic of Pomona has changed, and when I shopped there yesterday for my dying dad, the permanence and inevitability of change seemed to me the one true meaning of life, just as letting go and surrendering to change seems to be the one true meaning of mine.

So, since he's no longer able to take in much food as his body shuts down, I know it would make sense to cancel the Meals on Wheels delivery altogether. I discussed this with my husband this morning, and he suggested I wait a few days, as he sensed that this action had a painful finality to it which I simply didn't need to face quite yet.

Isn't it interesting how we bargain with reality thusly, negotiating our way around it? By not canceling Meals I buy myself a tiny respite from the truth, that my wonderful, dignified, powerful father has been reduced to a helpless shell, one which no longer needs much nutrition and soon will need none.

But reality intervened anyway this morning, as I was working on my syllabus for tomorrow's first day of Feminist Theory class, in the form of that call from the Volunteer Coordinator--who was, coincidentally, my seventh-grade Spanish teacher. The rumor going around Emerson Junior High back then was that he had stepped down as principle of Pomona High School to take a job teaching us instead when the race riots became too much for him to bear. I heard that he'd actually been held aloft in his volkswagon by an angry mob. So I first met him in the 1970s as Señor Johnson.

Decades later we encountered one another again as I signed mom, and then later pop, up for Meals. I also volunteered my time at that point, so my husband and I have been delivering hot lunches to anonymous old people in south Pomona for the last six years; other volunteers have been delivering to my dad that entire time as well. I got to thank Lynn Johnson for that this morning, as he wished my dad a peaceful end to life. I told him how much I appreciated everyone's service all these years, coming into my dad's home to say hello and bring him food. There's an awesome amount of work that goes into this entirely non-profit venture, and I often reflect on what power it is that causes people to work on behalf of others for no visible benefit whatsoever.

A man called recently to see why dad wasn't home to receive his meal and I explained that he was at the doctor. This stranger said he'd heard the television on and just wanted to make sure everything was o.k, that he'd known dad for years and he cared about him. I was touched and surprised, yet I identified with his feelings, for my husband and I have definitely grown to care for those folks we deliver to, worried when they don't answer the door, saddened when we see signs of deterioration, grieving when they move on to care homes or die.

So why do this? Especially in a culture where we are taught to discount the elderly and remain largely isolated from them? Why take on unnecessary burdens and pain?

Well at first it just seemed appropriate to give back, since I was asking for these resources to be expended on my dad and I was lucky enough to have the time to be able to contribute to the system myself. But I quickly began to realize personal benefits from becoming a volunteer. No matter what my problems, which can of course loom large if I let them, I find that doing service to others helps me to get my perspective back.

For example, one of our regulars, Mr. H., lives in a tiny little trailer where he spends his time in a wheelchair watching television since both of his feet have been amputated. He seems relatively young and vital enough that I grieve for his isolation, and I fantasize about winning the lottery so that I could get him state-of-the-art prosthetic legs. I don't really know the situation, of course, since it's none of my business, and saying "hey what did you do with your feet and why don't you have fake ones?" seems a bit cheeky. So instead I deliver him a meal, chat, take out the trash, and go on my way, both relieved for my feet and happy to be a part of humanity, serving this man in need, in spite of the fact that I don't "have" to.

When we first began visiting him, my husband reported that Mr. H has a huge porn collection, and we considered the ways that such material can be of service to people like him, those who are what we used to call "shut-ins." This reality serves as a humbling reminder to me that being a feminist does not mean having all the answers or even understanding all the questions.

But I have found that while life may not be simple, life can be lived very simply: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
And so I serve food to these elders of my tribe, veritable strangers but part of our human family, simply because it's the right thing to do. Yep, it’s that simple. And when we serve others we become a channel for the universal love which exists if only we will let it.

Simple.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

I am watching my father die.

And that’s o.k.

Yesterday I walked in and found him asleep in the hospital bed hospice had delivered to the house earlier that day. They'd put it in the family room rather than the bedroom. Jan, the wonderful nurse, explained that he would be less isolated that way. My original bourgeois recoil at the thought of this violation of household decorum shrank in the face of her logic. How can he be right out here where everyone can see him?, I had thought to myself. He's dying, for crying out loud.

Well, yes. That's exactly the point. People die, and we don't need to hide that fact. But in the United States, we're pulling out of nearly a century of trying to do exactly that. People used to die at home, same place they were born, before both of those processes became medicalized in the early twentieth century and moved into hospitals. At that point we began to lose our familiarity with death as a natural process. At the same time advances in public services like water treatment drastically lowered both infant mortality and adult death from cholera and other diseases. In fact, around 1917, one magazine trumpeted our total victory over death, and urged people to turn the "parlor" of their home into the "living room," to signify that we no longer needed to that place where we’d traditionally laid out the corpse for viewing. There would be no more corpses was our optimistic American Dream.

Of course shortly after that one of the worst flu epidemics in modern times originated right here in the United States and then swept all over the globe, decimating millions. In spite of this, though, we continued to bury, if you will, the domestic mourning rituals and deaths that had made our mortality so visible, so homely, for all of preceding history.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was one of the visionaries who started to change this for us. She noticed that doctors had no training or skill in speaking to the dying about death. Seeking to redress this, she approached the administrators at Brigham and Women's Hospital. "I'd like to speak to the terminal patients," she said. "We don't have any," was the reply.

At this moment Kubler-Ross discovered a crucial dynamic in modern medicine: its view of death as a failure of the system. We had become so focused on controlling nature, and had experienced such apparent successes, that the most basic fact of mortality had become a problem to solve rather than a reality to embrace.

We're still trying. But we haven't solved it yet. So slowly, and surely, and messily (Terri Schiavo anyone?) we accept death as inevitable, and seek to alter its course off of the machines and out of the institutions that would prevent it unnecessarily and steer it back towards the home where it should logically reside.

This movement towards home death, facilitated by organizations like hospice who give those of us now clueless with the realities of death all the information and support that we need to walk through it, brings human mortality back into visibility. I remember when my grandmother died in the 1970s in Southern California, I was only allowed into intensive care for a brief moment to say goodbye. Minors were officially excluded, and it was incredibly alienating to be parked in the sterile hospital hallway only to be ushered in for an awkward, quick, “goodbye I love you grandma.” Hiding death from children, denying its inevitability as adults, is one effect of "progress" that we would do well to transcend. I will invite my father’s grandchildren to his bedside to spend all the time they wish with him.

It was hard seeing my father lying so close to death yesterday—really hard. His decline has been sudden. Dad's hands were pulled tightly up against his chest, his skin was yellow, his breathing shallow. I was shocked by the changes and by the reality of what I was seeing, right there in the family room. And I knew exactly what to do. I dropped into the nearest chair and sobbed. I kept sobbing for the next hour or so. I cried so hard I retched.

It's called grief, this sobbing, and I learned how to do it when my mom died. We live in a “don’t cry” culture, but at that time I realized that far from being inappropriate, grief is the visible manifestation of all the love you carry for someone. When you lose that love, it hurts like hell, and all of our cultural attempts to prevent us from doing the grieving that should come naturally at this time seem to me a disparagement of the most beautiful aspect of all creation.

It makes no more sense to force a dying man to live than it does to prevent the people who love him from grieving.

So let dying people die. Bring them home to do it. And then let people cry. Let yourself cry. Quit saying "she's in a better place" to someone who has just had her heart ripped out. Instead say "this must be incredibly painful." Because it is. It should be.

And that's o.k.

I love you dad.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)

Many people continue to contact me to express surprise at the outpouring of hatred against me and my unmutilated middle-aged breasts, which I had the audacity to have photographed in several spontaneous life moments and the unmitigated gall to share with others.

The nerve of some people! Don't I know my place?

But seriously, I am not surprised at all. My life work has centered on researching the ways that sexism functions as a method of control, benefiting a few at the expense of the many. As women in the United States, we are encouraged to serve men, making them happy in ways often detrimental to our own well-being. Feminist scholars write about the many forms such institutionalized sexism takes, all the way from unpaid labor in the home to underpaid labor in the workplace. And because our scholarship opposes current patriarchal ideologies, we threaten the system and therefore are viewed as enemies rather than legitimate contributors to knowledge. Hence the attempts to silence us.

I guess you could say in a way we are both contributors to knowledge and enemies of the system. For the more knowledge I have gotten, the less I have been able to understand why a country predicated on equality and justice distributes its resources so unequally and holds so tightly to prejudices, particularly but not exclusively those of race, class, gender and sexual orientation. I'd like to see things change for the better, for us to alter our perspective in a such a way that we no longer fear difference nor rationalize needless suffering, here and around the globe.

Since this all seems so simple to me, I do at times forget how much I have changed. But these hateful voices step up to remind me what I used to be like, and in a way I am glad for the lesson. How else might I appreciate the power of education? How else might I be shown what breathtaking changes I've made in my personal life and character?

I ran across a website recently for something called Buff Brides, a repressive workout regime designed entirely to alter women's appearances for one day, that supposed "happiest" day when we give up our freedom. Now the pleasures of marriage, particularly egalitarian feminist marriage, are undeniable. But the bizarre notion that the day we cease to be an individual is the "happiest day of our lives" needs not only contesting but eliminating altogether. What, pray tell, does this suggest about the many thousands of days to follow the nuptial ritual? That women are expected to grow steadily less happy? I fear this may be too true for some who still follow the dictates of convention.

I don't, thanks to an education that has taught me to think for myself. Until I had read deeply in feminism, I could not make informed choices for myself because I did not have all of the insight and information necessary. I could only go on what my culture told me about the role of women and the best ways for us to be.

So, for example, when my boyfriend proposed, I began madly dieting and exercising, doggedly determined to appear perfect on that "happiest day." As usual I received voluminous cultural approval for the weight loss, with that underlying implication that there was something wrong with me before I began to drastically limit my calories and go to the gym twice a day. It's because of this pernicious message—you are valuable as a woman only when underweight-- that I no longer comment on other women's bodies. It's enough to say "it's lovely to see you." I am not going to participate in sexist policing of our appearance.

Today there's no way I would allow hateful ideas about what we are supposed to look like determine my choices. I look back at myself at 30, trying to be the beautiful bride, which I believed at that time meant small and submissive. Now I let health determine my choices, about food, about exercise, about beliefs and actions both, and the results tell the tale. I am happy and well, content with myself, and no longer driven internally by those ideological voices of patriarchy which claim to own me and would punish me for being a human rather than a Barbie.

What ideological voices of patriarchy, you ask?

Just read my website.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 08:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (33) | TrackBacks (0)

One of my former students, a brilliant young woman who is now off to USC law school in the fall, forwarded me this post from a message board that basically argues that we women cannot both expose our breasts and not expect to be raped.

Superficially this argument in defense of rape culture seems to have merit, as do many that the anti-feminists make, but if you think about it for more than two seconds, or know anything about feminist theory, it indeed becomes, as my student noted, laughable.

Here's the whole post:

"FlyFishinTrojan
Registered User
Posts: 640
(5/13/06 9:46:10 am)
Reply Seems the world is full of feminazis or budding skankettes and when one of the skankettes gets second thoughts she runs to the feminazis for cover. Great combo.

I know I know, once a girl says no, its over. But when you have professors showing their t*ts on the net, and excusing it by saying *they are just breasts* she is playing fast and loose with biology. Breasts are *secondary sex characteristics*, why do women have them enlarged only cuz they are sexual markers, , as well as milk glands, and you have objectified yourself as a sex object, no matter WTF of how you try to spin it. If you make yourself an object you are begging to be objectified.

Don't b*tch if men treat you like an object. You started it.

Women by their own actions are painting themselves into bizarre corners."

I'm tempted to simply walk away from this, out into the sunlight of this gorgeous day. Dealing with arguments filled with specious logic and made in bad faith drain precious time and energy away from what really matters in life, which is why I have steadfastly refused to engage with my enemies. I've simply not heard one single valid point. Not one. Why on earth waste a second countering them?

But this post does bring up a number of issues which people with open minds mind actually be interested in the feminist take on, including what the role of sexuality is for feminists; the "meaning" of breasts; and women's relation to men in this culture--how that impacts our choices.

I'll try to keep this brief, for your sake and mine!

Let's dispense with the easy stuff. This person calls women skankettes and femininazis, thereby undermining his own ethos. How credible is the voice of someone who name-calls, in other words? Not at all. Furthermore, he attempts to blame us women for men's choice to rape. To do so he draws a faulty conclusion between the legitimacy of a woman's "no" to forced sex and my having topfree (a new word brought to me by tera.ca) photos on my personal website. He says "I know, I know....But," as if there’s something less than firm about the “no” given the existence of my photos. Also there's the idea that a professor should not have a body, particularly one with breasts, and that we must hide this fact if we do. In other words, professor=mind=man. This Cartesian binary definitively excludes females from being intellectuals unless we mimic the cultural position assigned to men of status, i.e. having no body. Such desperate rhetorical measures to protect male privilege contain nothing new in them. Moving on.

Ironically, the speaker also mounts an argument for augmentation by claiming that I flaunt my breasts which proves that we women use our secondary sex characteristics merely to objectify ourselves. (More muddled thinking--that sunny day calls me. You want show-offs? You should see the roses in my backyard this morning.) Setting aside the obvious fact that I have chosen not to get implants, a choice I would like to empower other women to make, I'd like to make a few salient points.

First off, if I were "begging to be objectified," I could do a better job than to bury 3 pictures on my Flickr site. I have gotten numerous emails from frustrated folks who can't even find these pictures, and I have to tell them the sad truth, that media reports aside, I don't have naked pictures on my website at all. I could, if I wanted to--USC points out such a personal choice has no bearing whatsoever on my professional status--but I don't, never have. The only reason there's even a link to my photos at all is because the wonderful people who built my website said "and we will link it to your Flickr site." I said, "yeah, fine whatever," not "ooh, mooo-ha ha ha ha, now my naked pictures will offer me up as an object to the world!!!!!!" Honestly I didn't even think about the pictures in this context at all, because they are no big deal, no different than any of the other 100 shots of my fun life. And the one picture that is most easily viewed since I chose it to front the "set" of topfree pics, me celebrating life at Burning Man, cannot be called erotic by any stretch of the imagination. I am jumping for joy, happy and free, not posing in hopes of attracting the male gaze. Some poor excuse for an object I am! Guess that’s why Playboy hasn’t called.

Let me add that I have not "bitched" about being "treated like an object." We're surrounded by commodified images of women all day long used for materialistic purposes. That's not what I am about nor what I was doing when I uploaded my few pics to Flickr. I am no victim. I chose to post the photos, never imagining that anyone would ever be interested in looking at them or any of the other images of my life when I did, but now that over 100,000 people have, well, fine. Many enjoy them, some do not. Like I said, it's none of my business. At least I am not being exploited to sell beer.

As to the idea that breasts exist to attract men, well researchers argue back and forth on the veracity of this. Most obviously, breasts exist to feed the young, as calorie-delivery systems, and they are not universally eroticized. In other words not all cultures have been interested in them during sex-play. Undeniably we westerners have become obsessed with them lately, and women have responded accordingly, enhancing them artificially both through surgery and clothing, in order to draw the attention of the people in our society who, as Dr. Parish puts it, "hoard the resources." It makes all kinds of sense to try and please the master-class when you have been positioned as servile. Since men provide access to all kinds of cultural goodies women have been historically prevented from acquiring, we have learned, logically, to court their attention. At this time and place in history, it's boobies, rather than, say, teeny-weeny bound feet, that offer that route, so women pump them up.

Also, as a sex-positive feminist, I would be remiss in leaving out the obvious fact that people—men and women both--enjoy sex-play. Our bodies provide all kinds of pleasurable sensations which I cannot imagine discouraging, though obviously we are hopelessly ambivalent about this as a culture. In my own life I seek to have sexual pleasure as well as all the myriad other aspects of existence, and I hope sincerely all women with enlarged breasts get to enjoy enhanced erotic play-- that can be a positive effect of undergoing the surgery and I know women who find more satisfaction in their sex lives because of the implants. Sadly I have talked to many other women who no longer have feeling in their breasts after getting them, or feel only pain, or have had multiple nightmarish consequences, so I simply cannot see taking the risk, given that augmentation can actually eliminate breast pleasure for the woman.

Let's imagine a day where we all feel free to enjoy our bodies and sexuality without guilt or shame. Let's imagine a day when the supposedly natural attraction grown men have to mammaries means they are attracted to women the way we are in nature. Let's imagine a day when women's self-love is so deep and so strong that we would never risk our health by altering our breasts. Let's imagine a day when men insist on taking responsibility for their choice to rape. Let's imagine a day when all other men speak up against our rape culture and instead celebrate the humanity of women, even as they share pleasurable erotic lives with us and enjoy looking at our bodies as we enjoy looking at theirs. Let's imagine a day when women can freely choose who to be in the world, in charge of our reproduction and sexuality.

Then let's work together to make that day come true.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (28) | TrackBacks (0)

"I loathe not life/ nor dread mine end."

-Sir Edward Dyer

I've been watching a skunk decompose lately. Why, you ask? Well, I've nothing better to do. It's between school terms and there's really nothing else going on with me lately--unless of course you count the furor my tits have caused, but since none of that is my business, I don't. Therefore I've been going along with my life, day by day, and in the course of doing so, have come to notice this carcass that lies along the center divider of a road I regularly traverse. Apparently he was hit by a car, and for some reason the roadkill removal people haven't happened along yet, so there he rests, slowly rotting. And this, like everything else, makes me think.

For while you may know some things about me, like the fact that I have large areolae, you might not know that I am a death scholar. Yep, death. The fancy world for this is "thanatologist." We give things fancy names in Western civilization because we fear, well, death, and so we act to deny it by Latinating and Greekinating and codifying and godifying. Another way we deny death is by pretending it happens only to women and other non-standard folks, like children and gays and people of color. Watch movies and t.v. with this in mind and you'll see what I mean. For example, I've collected a whole bunch of images that show thin, young, white, blonde women posed as dead bodies in order to sell stuff. They don't represent men as dead bodies in advertising, nor do they use old people this way. My students and I have fascinating conversations about this bizarre phenomenon, what it reveals about us ideologically. I have also presented the material in slide shows all over North America. (I'd be happy to come and speak to your group or university if you're interested. Drop me a line.)

Anyway, studying death has given me lots of time to think about my own. For instance, I am aware of the fact that I am currently walking around in my corpse. It's not going to appear after I die, in other words. This is it. I have found this useful to consider for it helps me to maintain a sense of humility. I too shall pass, as will you. The enormous significance of my life pales in comparison to this reality, and I find this liberating. The buddhists even have a meditation in which you imagine yourself decomposing. Try it some time. See if it sets you free.

But death is scary, Dr. Diana! We don't want to think about it! I know, I know. When I was about seven, I woke up my mother in the middle of the night, eyes wide with terror. "What's eternity?,” I gasped. It had struck me all of a sudden, there in the black of my bedroom, the idea of endless nothingness forever stretching on and on me not in it gone zip always. It made me want my mommy.

Those of you with children will sympathize with her at that moment. "Go to bed," she said. "We'll discuss it in the morning."

We didn't, though, and I suppose it was because mom couldn't really handle that topic either. We didn't do death real well in my family, which I've revenged by getting a PhD in it. Mom's in it now, eternity, a fact which makes me loathe every mother's day and resent all the women I know who still have one. Every commercial for crappy gifts makes me cringe. How dare they have mother's day this year when I don't have a mother? Grab your mom right now and tell her you are sorry and that you love her and thank you.

Of course I realize that my mom too lost a mother, that we all do, that the way of the world dictates the passing of every one of us. As I said, this fact keeps me humble, but I also want to note that I no longer fear death or eternity, nor does its inevitability prevent me from absolutely loving life and having a marvelous time.

How so? Well most obviously this second I am not dead. So I can be fully alive, right now, rather than living a future death in my head. That's totally cool. As to what will happen after I die, my goodness I don't know the answer to that, nor does any one of us who is still here, so there's no point at all in dwelling on it, at least from where I am concerned. In Paradise Lost, Adam asks whether the universe is Copernican or Ptolemaic in structure. Raphael says not to worry about it and to think about what more nearly concerns him. In Adam's case, his pressing issues were Eve and the threat of Satan.

Happily my pressing issues pale in comparison—not sure where we’re going to eat dinner tonight, for example--but I too, like Adam, need to be reminded to keep the focus on what's right in front of me. Living an ethical life, doing the right thing, being of service to others, feedlng, resting, and exercising my corpse--these pretty much take up all of my time, and in a vastly satisfying way.

I'd be remiss if I didn't end these musings with some feminist ranting, for that is what I have rightly become (in)famous for. Years ago I decided I wanted to take my teachings beyond the walls of the classroom and bring them to the wider world. Thanks to my boobies and a couple of angry boys, this has happened beyond my wildest dreams, and I don't intend to let the opportunity pass.

As I said in my post on peace, I believe that we can change the world by changing ourselves. It's time to stop pressuring men to be perfect: inviolable, immortal, infallible, invulnerable and independent. They are not. And so we must widen currently definitions of masculinity in such a way that men can feel their own humanity without feeling like failures. Recently my husband was teaching a medieval love poem from muslim Spain in which the male speaker cries. The students were taken aback that this show of emotion did not seem to undermine his masculinity. He explained, as we scholars know, that men have been permitted to exhibit different kinds of behaviors at different times in history. For example, the "gentle man" of our own western culture in the eighteenth century would have been expected to have feelings of sympathy and appreciation of beauty. Certainly raging around and dominating people would have been abhorred.

Today in the United States though we tend to celebrate the coyboy, the killer, the loner, and in doing so we give our youth very little to aspire to, very little room to grow into compassionate humans. And unsurprisingly this construction of masculinity has caused us to become loathed throughout the world as we continue to act on a foreign policy that pretends the ability to control situations and people with god-like omnipotence and clarity which we just ain't got but keep bombing as if we do.

So let's start by acknowledging that all men die. That all men, not just women and gays and people of color and the poor, are embodied, are vulnerable, fleshly, temporary, and weak. There's no shame in this, unless of course we continue to strain to pretend that privileged straight white males are somehow different from the rest of us. But just like that skunk, their corpses too will rot. And what world will they have left behind when they are gone? That choice is up to us as a people. Let's choose wisely.

As to how we will function as a society without the comforting fantasy of an invulnerable murder-daddy, let's just say that we can cooperate with each other and the rest of the world instead of relying on a few men playing strutting soldier, men who have never even been to war and yet continue to send our children off to kill the children of others. I can't tell you how many fine conservative men I have spoken with recently who are sick to death of George Bush and his cronies. Let's pull together as a people now, free from divisive political rhetoric, and begin by acknowledging with humility our own common humanity, our own inevitable mortality.

And see where we go from there.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 07:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (31) | TrackBacks (0)

As I have always said, a key part of my feminism, indeed my willingness to be a feminist, centers on the tenet that men are capable of real excellence. Unlike non-feminists, I do not believe that males are hopelessly "naturally" aggressive, programmed by nature to rape and to kill. In fact a friend has called my attention to the unspeakably sad story of 6 to 8-year-old boys attacking and sexually assaulting a young girl on the elementary school playground. She astutely notes that we are looking here at the effects of a rape culture, not at the biological essence of masculinity, unless someone wants to argue that children under ten are already running at full sexual capacity.

Of course some men will still argue that males who rape are merely acting upon hormonal urges over which they have no control. But the wonderful anthropologist at our university, Dr. Amy Parish, has taught me much about the true role of hormones in determining human behavior, including the fact that hormone levels are incredibly plastic, in other words, responding to outside stimuli. For example, when someone aces a serve during a tennis match, the testosterone of every spectator--male and female--spikes. So culture acts on nature, in other words, as it has for millennia. Evolution has not been a deterministic playing out of man-the-dominator; we change physiologically in reaction to environment, not the other way around.

So it's incredibly important how we act, what choices we make, what ideologies we support, since these determine our species’ characteristics. I would like to think this is why parents are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to send their children to excellent universities like USC. In higher education, we present diverse perspectives and in doing so enable people, at schools like mine literally the leaders of tomorrow, to think freely and to think well, and ideally to make choices that will continue to maximize well-being for the many as well as for the individual.

For this reason, I am unsurprised to find myself inundated with missives from men, many of them Trojan alumni and self-described conservatives and Republicans, writing in support of my work. Men who do not operate out of fear do not need to fear difference, nor do they need to act inappropriately when confronted with opinions that vary from their own. And the finest men, those fathers who value their role as benign authority and nurturer, are only too happy to hear that women like me help to teach their daughters not to hate their bodies nor to view themselves as objects. One just wrote to say that he hopes I am still at USC in 10 years when his children are ready to enter as the next generation of Trojans. I hope so too.

Certainly before I sent my children to a college, I would make sure that there was an active Women's Studies program and, ideally, a requirement that students take a basic course in Feminist Theory. Otherwise, if their minds are left dark in this area, there's no way to claim that they are receiving a full education. I cannot count the number of times students have said "everyone in the school should have to take this class!" After all, in SWMS 301 we discuss something as crucial as who they are, who they will be, what shapes our decisions, how we might change for the better. It's not like the periodic table of elements isn't important too, in its own way, but which really affects most of us the most?

Before I agreed to interview for a job at the University of North Texas, I called back to make sure that they had a Women's Studies program. Why? Because I had been teaching at Claremont McKenna, where there's not one, and I had become disheartened by the misogyny flourishing at that school. Prove it? O.K. One evening the Take Back the Night march came through CMC's campus and some of the students enacted a mock-rape in silhouette as the protestors walked by. I realized that trying to educate students in such an environment with little or no support for gender studies from the administration was an impossibility, and so I chose Texas, of all places, to flee. It's pretty sad when that state represents a safe harbor for women!

I am happy to report that USC is more diverse than Claremont McKenna, and does have a Gender Studies program, for which I am privileged to be ask to teach periodically. Sure we could have more support. Sure we need more tenured women faculty at USC. Sure there's a cadre of vocal sexists who would like to destroy us.

But I want the fathers and mothers of USC students to know that I and my colleagues do everything we can to teach their children well. I believe the body loathing of a thin, pretty, rich, white girl deserves healing. I believe the fearful reactionary sexism of the privileged young man needs addressing. I believe doing these things will make their lives much better, as well as the lives of those that they affect, everywhere around the world.

So thank you again to the men near and far, hundreds of you, who have written to say that you believe in my work, that you support freedom of speech and academic freedom, that you enjoy seeing a "real" woman's body and do not fear it or want to control or change it. Yesterday while waiting for a prescription at Rite-Aid, I counted 38 magazine covers that presented women's bodies for display, every one of them an airbrushed underweight white woman, most with artificial breasts. That your sons and daughters may now have had their view of the world altered slightly by seeing a different path for women, one of resistance to shame, self-loathing, and surgery, enables them to make truly informed decisions in the future, whatever those decisions might be. For I do not indoctrinate them, or think for them. I cannot. But I do teach them to think for themselves. In fact I happen to be excellent at it.

And I know that's why you sent them to USC.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (50) | TrackBacks (0)

There's no more important question. The answer that you give will have profound repercussions both for the quality of your life and that of those around you, including those human and non-human beings, plants and animals, all over the world.

The fact that a few topless photos has occasioned this opportunity for all of us to soul-search might seem odd, but from where I am sitting, it isn't. For as I have continued to listen to brilliant teachers, both in and out of the academy, both secular and spiritual, I have continued to re-evaluate my place in the larger scheme of things, my relationship to myself, my body, my friends, my family, and my community, both local and global.

One of my closest mentors reminds me often to be "in the world but not of it." This beautiful advice certainly comes in handy when you see naked pictures of yourself on the 5 o'clock news! And when people email to tell you that you're "fugly" and "fat" have "national geographic breasts." And when these aren't even the people who have taken to relentlessly attempting to discredit your entire life's work on a daily basis.

Yes, these are challenges. But do they matter to me? No. What does? To work and pray for peace and justice and to live in harmony with all creation.

Huh?

Yeah.

To work and pray for peace and justice and to live in harmony with all creation.

Kind of makes the nudie pics seem inconsequential and silly, doesn't it? That's because they are, though I will say that with the caveat that how we treat women--how men treat us, how we treat ourselves--matters for the future of life on this planet, and in the sense that these pictures reveal our innermost fears of nature and of change, and unleash in many people a desire to control these things, they do point to critical work we need to do as a people to let go of a philosophy of hate and war and embrace a program of acceptance and peace.

How dare I mention peace? Peace matters. It matters that we are killing people all over the world today. It matters that our current administration does this with the assumption that they are doing god's work. It matters that every one of us who is not working to change the situation is complicit in the misery being spread by our policies. Yes, every one of us is responsible for war.

And what of prayer? What role could it possibly play in the transformation of our world from one of anger and fear to one of peace and love? In the act of praying one in effect dies to the world, says Henri Nouwen in Peacework, his Christian call to (stop the) arms (race). He says "I think that the most powerful protest against destruction is the laying bare of the basis of all destructiveness: the illusion of control." He calls prayer a radical act, then, because in doing so we change our "whole way of being in the world."

In praying, I humble myself, I empty myself, I surrender; I remind myself of my smallness, how inconsequential I am. And given that I am not a Christian, who am I praying to, you wonder? I was raised in a lovely Christian church, started by the good people of Pomona College over 100 years ago, but even as a girl I never quite connected with the specifics of the theology, though I did imbibe the message that it’s our mission to minister to the least amongst us, as Christ did. When I grew older and more educated, I realized that it was ok to think for myself, that I needn't feel guilty about the fact that the theology did not resonate with me--save the message to work and pray for peace and justice, which was and is an important part of this liberal denomination's credo--and that in fact there were lots of good reasons to doubt the veracity of bliblical versions of history. The rib story, for example, is not what your better medical schools teach today about the origins of life.

And so I grew even more alienated from that religion, which was personally liberating but left me without a god. The danger of this for me is the temptation to fill that void myself. And so as I have said, I became much like my young detractors, lashing out in a desperate need to control things, people in particular but situations as well, that really were completely out of my control. I exhibited this behavior they currently exhibit, an absolute refusal to accept reality and an obsessive need to try the same things over and over again in the hope of getting different results. ("You WILL answer our charges, Dr Blaine," they thunder over and over. No. I won't. Peace. Goodbye.)

When the problem with continuing to live this way was brought to my attention as my mother began her extraordinarily painful death from multiple myeloma, something I was absolutely powerless over and which was gutting me to the core, I sought a way to surrender to reality without having to surrender to a specific (male) god-you-can't-see. I am a skeptic and a thinker and a questioner; I don't fault those qualities in myself today, but I do mind when they prevent me from living in harmony with all creation.

So I looked around and picked the moon.

Huh? The moon? Why would that work as a god? Well, I didn't hang it. Nope, I truly didn't, though I think my mom suspected that I did. (Love you forever, Nancy. Thanks for raising this warrior woman.) So when I look up in the sky and see it shining there above me, I am reminded of my radical inconsequence, as well as just how little I know about the universe, or anything else for that matter.

Every morning, then, I hit my knees and I pray to the moon goddess. Should I be ashamed of my god? She doesn't seem any more ridiculous to me than anybody else's deity, and as I have said, at least I can see manifest proof of a power greater than myself in the presence of that orb. Plus I’m named for her, so there’s a cool connection. And what do I ask her? To help us all find peace. To help me be an instrument of peace in the world. To help me find that peace in myself before I even try to move out into the community and encourage others to change as well. To walk through the day in serenity with a light heart because I deserve to be here and she loves me.

To find that peace within myself I must surrender to my god those qualities in me that I am powerless to change. As a woman in this culture, I have found myself riddled with anxiety over my body--yes that body, you've seen it--and so for years I have surrendered this body loathing to my loving god every morning. Why? Because I want to transform the world, and that transformation begins within. To be a peacemaker, notes Nouwen, resisters to violence "must go all the way to the inner reaches of their own hearts to confront the deadly powers of self-hate."

I have, and I do, and it is simply for this reason--that I surrender to the universal good every morning--that I am able to embrace that imperfect body, even love it and celebrate it, and, just as importantly, that I am able to bear the lashes of my enemies with tolerance and compassion.

Blessed are the peacemakers, said Jesus, a great visonary. And peacemaking begins at home, says Dr. Diana. Why not make peace with your own inner demons today, whatever those might be for you? You deserve it, to feel good enough and beloved, to root out fear and replace it with love. You'll find yourself losing the urge to attack other people, both in your world and around the world. The life you save just might be that of some woman in Iran.

Huh? Yes, because now the warmongers we support financially and otherwise are starting to set their sights on yet another target, another country to invade in order to pretend we have control. Don't let them! No more killing in our name! Gentlemen, to your knees!

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (70) | TrackBacks (0)

I received this email from a young woman I have had the privilege to teach. I post it with her approval:

"Hi Dr. Blaine,

So I hadn't been on your blog in a while, as finals have been currently ruining my life, but I was shocked to see how many people have made it their life's work to respond with such hate. While they try to sound quite philosophical with their responses, they come out sounding ignorant. I definitely agree with you in that people will always be that way and it's important to stand ground when they are. I find it interesting that this is happening at the same time a group of us in WSA and Take Back the Night have been fighting similar people on facebook (I'm not sure if you have caught wind of this at all). A young man made a group called "If Mark Sanchez didn't rape that girl then I'm going to..." The fabulous women of WSA along with many others were able to have it removed only for a number of other groups to pop up in response. All of these groups seem to take sexual assult as some type of joke. Many of the comments made on the group pages have been on the verge of hateful and offensive. Joelle Emerson (a rape survivor and survivor speaker at TBTN this year) wrote one of the groups and spoke (sarcastically) about how she thought her rape was "really funny." One of the men heading this operation responded by saying that he hoped that next time the guy was stronger and choked her a little longer. Luckily most of these groups have now been removed and I think those guys are giving up their fight.

Many of us did respond to comments made on those groups sites to which they responded by using terms such as feminazi, man haters, etc. to defeat us. What they don't know is that those words don't mean squat to us because taking on a cause and a belief means being ok with all the positive and negative associations.

We all have our fights... I'm just glad none of us are giving up.

Sarah"

This student pays her tuition like everyone else. Thank goodness the faculty is diverse enough to include people who can connect with her beliefs, helping her to understand the dynamics of male privilege and providing much needed mentorship and support in the face of such virulent misogyny. I admire you Sarah. And Mallory and Mindy and Kristen and Larkin and Merci and Arianna and Muriel and Sara and Joelle and Ernie and and and.... Continue to stand tall. I have heard from 100s of excellent men and women all over North America who support us in our desire to resist sexism.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday my father's doctor and I were discussing dad's imminent death from kidney failure. We spoke of the need for acceptance and letting go; we spoke of the need to span from bodies and pus to grace and light. We held one another and shared our experiences and cried. Then she got out a pad and prescribed me John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Needless to say it wasn't your usual doctor visit. Then again in case you can't tell I don't exactly live your usual life.

She told me she was impressed with my depth and my humanity and my intellect. She also told me that I was beautiful. I told her that I had learned through hard spiritual work to own these gifts of mine, that humility includes both acknowledging strengths as well as weaknesses. Anything less would be to spit in the face of the magical powers that made us.

Coincidentally (?), my husband, an English Renaissance scholar, had been speaking to me of these exact issues the night before and had brought up Milton as well. Wow. Don't have to tell me thrice. It's clearly time to get out that anthology I tore through in college in order to pass the tests and actually listen and learn with humility and gratitude from that seventeenth-century Christian visionary.

Anyway, as we were wrapping up our visit, she took one last note of my hard-earned ability to accept with dignity myself as I am, good and bad, and she said, "you're ready to stand naked before the world." I echoed these words, laughing and agreeing in amazement that a physician was making such a pronouncement about me and that it seemed so apt and timely.

Of course I thought we were speaking metaphorically.....

Several hours later, there I was on the news, naked before the world indeed. And unsurprisingly I felt no shame whatsoever. I've nothing to hide, and in fact look forward to the chance to foster informed discussion about women's bodies so that we may gift to the next generation a true sense of self-love, not one based on being polished and blasted, starved and shellacked, trussed up, and sliced up, and dyed.

So look for me today on the Channel 4 news at 5. They just left after interviewing me about who I am, why I am, what I am. I could answer with pride when Cary Berglund (shout out, hey Cary! Let's party!) asked me if I did not think there should be a code of conduct for professors. Of course we need to behave ethically, I said. I do not drink, smoke or take drugs. I do not have sex with students. I don't cheat, lie or steal. I do pass on to searching young women and men the permission to think for themselves, and value the right to free speech my ancestors fought and died for that gives me this ability.

The thought police have lost again. Somewhere Orwell must be smiling.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBacks (0)

I have just finished teaching a class called Literature and Society, which I centered on the theme of "scandal." We looked at literary works including the Marquis de Sade's Justine, The Scarlet Letter, Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Fear of Flying, The Bluest Eye, etc. I know the class worked well, because I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned much myself. And the students were just amazing. Their insights blew me away time and time again. Sometimes a class just works. This was one of those classes.

We talked much about how scandal functions both as a reactionary tool and as a mode of resistance to such conservative attempts to control behavior. In other words, now that I have become the scandal du jour, or at least du yesterday, we can see what the dynamics of this incident reveal about our cultural values, how power is constructed through discourse and how it cannot be deployed monolithically but has slips and cracks where opposing voices come through.

Scandal requires two things: a precipitating event and media interpretation of that event. So in this case for example, the precipitating event would be the appearance of those photos of mine on my flickr site. Now in and of themselves they are not scandalous, for they have been there for months and nobody cared. All of my friends and family know of them, colleagues and yes some students have as well, and while I have had good conversations with these folks about the meaning of the female body in our culture, none of these discussions caused "scandal" because no one had any vested interest in controlling me by trying to spin their appearance as inappropriate.

Until yesterday. The couple of conservative USC students who have dedicated themselves to attacking me clearly grew frustrated at my refusal to react to them, so they upped the ante and contacted the media about my nudie pics. One station bit, and voila, we have a scandal. It was fun watching the broadcasts about me throughout the day as I do what I am trained to do as a gender scholar, interpret media representations; it's just in this case I was the subject! But still I could easily view the reports objectively because they are so formulaic, precisely revealing our mainstream ideologies and they ways in which we use rhetoric to construct them.

(Bored yet? Don't forget, you may have met me because of my erotic photos, but basically I am just a nerdy PhD.)

Anywho, first we can see the obvious puritanical dynamic that the United States has had since, well, the Puritans came over from England where their particular brand of fanatical Christianity proved too much even for the fanatical Protestants breaking away from the Catholic Church in the Reformation. The Puritans loathed the body and tried to exert strict controls on sexuality, particularly female--read The Scarlet Letter for all you'll ever need to know about this. We continue to have their reactionary discomfort with the body, and so we too find it an object of obsessive fascination. Basically, by making nudity taboo, we've guaranteed its centrality. As Feminist Scholar Susan Griffin notes, the priest and the pornographer operate on the same value system--both mark human sexuality as disgusting, and then one says "turn your eyes away," while the other says, "look here, look here!"

So these kids were hoping to capitalize on our Puritanical sense that we should be ashamed of something as banal as our own bodies, trying in effect to mark me with the Scarlet Letter. "Ummmm, let's tell on her," is in effect their motivation (which my husband has aptly branded "juvenile"), and that way we can get her in trouble with patriarchal authority, in this case the administration at USC. That will show her for disagreeing with us! Put her in her place!

Now we need to take responsibility for our part in this. These young people were raised by us, and we are the ones who have taught them that they should have revulsion for nudity and sexuality. We have also taught them that it's appropriate to police women's sexual behavior, that they have the privilege to interfere in female self-determination. As Americans, we have failed them, and I hope that we can continue to evolve as a culture in a direction that is more life-affirming and less fear-based. I have dedicated my life's work to this type of education, one that shows the history of and contexts for our current beliefs and actions and therefore gives us the power to change, should we so choose.

No doubt this event will have the opposite reaction than the tattlers hoped, causing many people to move further away from what looks to them like what it is, an attempt by conservative ideologues to shut down free speech by using sex as the shaming mechanism. That's how scandal can actually function to undermine the very values whose enforcement its propagators are seeking in the first place. Our Literature class had many fascinating discussions about this regarding the Clinton/Lewinsky affair. Instead of siding with the government prosecutors, the majority of people, no matter what their politics, found themselves sickened by the expensive and relentless harrassment of the pair and therefore supporting more, not less, privacy protection.

So, to recap, the "scandal" derives from our ancient religious taboos against the body; the resulting fascination with it when displayed for sexual purposes; and an attempt by conservatives to silence and contain me for being a free thinker.

The last important element to consider is how the media actively constructed the alleged scandal. Of course there would not have been any story at all without pictures, because this is really an adolescent excuse to look at boobies. I was the T & A of the day! (Well just T.) (Excised lecture on current constructions of masculinity.) As my scholarship on JonBenet Ramsey has demonstrated, we aren't so much interested in what really happened as much as we are interested in having an excuse to run sexy pictures over and over again to help sell commercial airtime. Our puritanical repulsion/fascination with the body has combined with our materialist and consumer-based culture to create the perfect storm: get me sexy photos and run them asap! Coca cola needs to sell more cans of caramel-colored corn syrup water!

Interested in seeming more legitimate in their endeavor, however, Channel 4 needed to pretend that there was more going on than just MYLF soft-porn. Enter the role of rhetoric, which is something I teach for a living. Rhetoric, or the art of persuasive speech, essentially manipulates and constructs reality in such a way as to allow the speaker to convince listeners that what is being said is true. In this case the news had to imply that I was in some kind of trouble with the administration in order to justify running nudie pics on the news. So the broadcast begins with the assertion that the website "is causing concern." But as it continues, they make it clear that they, Channel 4 news, brought dianablaine.com to the attention of the administration, not the other way around as implied. Berglund even reports that the spokesperson was "caught off guard" when asked about this supposed breach of professorial conduct.

So exactly who is "concerned"? The news never makes that clear because what's really happening is the manufacture of a scandal, for all the reasons detailed above. The obfuscating language permits them to do this. Meanwhile over 2400 United States citizens have been killed in Iraq. But while I saw repeated televised images of my wonderful personal life and pixilated pictures of my breasts on television all day yesterday, I didn't hear those dead men and women discussed once.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 07:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (103) | TrackBacks (0)

My friend just called to say the Channel 4 news used me as a tease for their upcoming broadcast! Is this a slow news day or what? Apparently they're interested in the naked pictures, well topless pictures to be exact, posted to my flickr site. My husband and I rented a flat in London last Fall from one of our UCLA professors whose wife paints odalisques, those stylized nineteenth century nudes. They're hanging throughout the Bayswater apartment. One night as we got ready for bed, he and I were laughing about how much I look like them, and he took my picture in a similar pose in front of one of the paintings, which I then put up on my site as an intertextual homage to Ingres. The other photo is me at Burning Man, where I went specifically to confront and erase the body loathing that my culture foists on us women. I had an amazing time, which I wrote about here, and was happy to include a photo of me, arms up, celebrating life, along with all the other myriad photos I have, incuding those of friends, dad, dogs, mentors, lectures, rallies, parties, weddings, sporting events, travel, etc etc etc, the full panoply of my rich and meaningful life.

If this is true, and I guess it is, that anyone cares that some lady has her breasts on the internet--oops just saw the tease, hey I look great!--then it just goes to prove what I tell my students, that we don't really care about "news" in this culture nearly as much as sensation and sex. At least I am not on the news because I raped someone.

Of course it's my "enemies" who did this, because they just don't get it, and they want to hurt me, which they can't. Of course the university will defend academic freedom. In fact, I would like to thank those who have declared war on me for bringing me so much attention because I am writing a book on breast implants--why I won't get them in spite of cultural pressure to conform-- and I am looking for an agent, someone who wants to make a LOT of money backing a beautiful, articulate, brilliant, highly educated compassionate woman who has tons to say and has the power to change women's lives for the better. If you're that person, drop me a line. Today, Channel 4. Tomorrow, Total World Domination!

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (36) | TrackBacks (0)

So an interesting discussion has sprung up over whether to block these folks who have come in with the standard anti-feminist attacks we have all heard, thought about, and dismissed a million times over. Because I have heard them a million times and they have never convinced me in any way to change my mind, I don't bother to reply to them. It's not like I don't deal with these questions over and over, it's just that I am not going to do it here with a bunch of angry anonymous miserable souls. I have a classroom where I am only too happy to talk with students about these issues, particularly when asked in good faith, and I do it, with wisdom and peace and compassion. Therefore my evaluations and job performance reviews always comment on how comfortable students of all stripes feel in my classes and that I encourage open debate on all issues without silencing anyone. In fact I just got this email from a WRIT 340 student of mind and post it with his permission:

"Hey Dr. Blaine! Brad Williams here...Here is my paper #3....I am e-mailing it to you as I sit in LAX about to fly to the east coast for some comedy shows. I just wanted to say that I enjoyed the class and your opinions. While I agreed with some and disagreed with others, it was a pleasure being your student."

Guess this conservative Christian male student doesn't feel all oppressed by the evil man-hating feminazi. But I don't expect this to matter to my attackers. They don't care about the truth, which over 1000 student evaluations attest to as do 6 years of job performance reviews and a number of teaching awards. Gosh, I almost wonder how they are going to twist this all around like they do everything else, but as I told them to begin with, they do not interest me and I have no intention of reading their hateful blogs. People who do read them tell me that one of them has accused me of fraud, which I am going to let pass, and published a private email after asking my permission to and not getting it. (Nice and ethical, Andrew. You are responsible for the behavior of only one person on the planet. How do you think you are doing?) They also say that I have deleted posts of theirs, which is obviously untrue as well. My site abounds with their many attempts to cripple me; I've not altered a word. So now along with my funny feminist observations about the world around me, which I began writing because so many students have told me they want more of me after our class time has ended, there's a whole bunch of really frantic mean-spirited crap, included the hysterical charge that this woman with three degrees in English cannot write.

So why let them post? I am moved by arguments for and against. Women are hounded and silenced in billions of ways. I am brave enough to withstand the hateful attacks, so that's why I speak up--for women who cannot. Perhaps these women ought not have to see such blatant anti-female propaganda when they visit a space set up to advance our dignity, not shred it as so many of our institutions do every day all over the world.

But. I have learned in teaching that people who speak up and say appalling things teach far more than they ever intend by espousing their views. When I was a young instructor, I dreaded hearing the hateful opinions of students who speak out of fear, as do so many of these, upholding hegemonic ideologies, consciously or not, that perpetuate oppression, including hierarchies of racism and sexism among others. I wanted to protect the other students, especially those directly implicated by such bile, and I wanted to change the world by explaining the faults in the logic of the prejudiced voices. Then I started noticing what happened when people like these speak. Other students visibly recoil, and begin to move away from them, intellectually if not actually, because what they say is so ugly that few want to be like them. They teach by negative example.

So I stopped having to meet every ridiculous thing I heard in classrooms with sane responses. I intend to do the same thing here. Let the haters speak for themselves and let the readers choose who they want to be like. I have already told the people who have declared their intention to mock me that I do not want what they have; their preposterous attempts to discredit someone like me who is demonstrably talented and effective only makes me more certain of that fact and discredits them even further.

Somthing key here to consider: they keep trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This is a good definition of insane behavior. If I were them I would accept reality, that they have no power over me and they never will, so they may as well move on. That would be the reasonable and mature thing to do. Their choice in this matter will speak volumes about them, not like they haven't already nakedly revealed their characters to us over and over again. But there's hope for them of course. Change is possible, and as I said in my last post, I was more like them than people who know me now can probably imagine.

In the meanwhile, feel free to skip the junk they write. I do.

Meanwhile, rock on girlfriends and boyfriends. Life is absolutely amazing and I absolutely insist on enjoying it. Hope you can too, and hope I can help you do that by continuing to share my vision. I ain't going nowhere.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 09:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

I've had many wonderful conversations with friends, students, and colleagues lately regarding the recent spate of attacks against me on my website. All of them are surprised to find me so blasé about the whole thing; they don't understand why I am not interested in retaliating or reacting or defending myself.

Quite simply I have learned a few things in the last 45 years, 30 of which I have spent in higher education. ( I started college when I was 15). Not everyone is going to agree with my opinions. Not everyone is going to like me. It is not my business to try and make people like me. I don't owe the world an explanation. What other people think of me is none of my business. Everyone has the right to be wrong. I don't have to make everyone understand where I am coming from. I am not the center of the universe, not even my own web universe.

And while I cannot change peoples' minds, since I have no power over them, I can treat them with compassion, no matter how they treat me. I would like my epitaph to read "she was kind to herself and others." This being my goal, answering snarky attack with snarky attack would not advance me towards it, so I won't.

Besides, I am an educator. That is my chosen profession, and believe me when I say it chose me, I did not choose it. Therefore I hope to be a mentor to all young people, not just those who agree with me. In fact it seems that those most in need of kindness would be students who lash out against difference, and so in my morning meditation I have been asking that these people who seem so infuriated by my existence find the peace that I have found and continue to seek and to spread.

Last night when I told a friend that people with no college degrees are disparaging my three, people twenty-five years younger than me are mocking my wisdom, people who have never taught or taken one of my classes are questioning my ability to teach, he said, "you would never have acted this way." That is absolutely untrue. I was an intolerant little punk, mouthing off to elders, speaking up about things I had no knowledge of, being insolent to my teachers.

I think with particular shame of a time in high school when my beloved English teacher Ada Jepperson brought in a black scholar to explain the similarities between African American Vernacular English and the indigenous languages of those who were brought here in chains. His particular lecture was on verb tenses. I shot my hand up and said no way, there's no way language transmission was possible, there's no way AAVE verb tenses link to African languages, blah blah blah.

Now how much time had I spent studying linguistics? None. What did I know about the subject? Nothing. I spoke from one position only, and that was good old American racism. Unbeknownst to me, I was mounting a passionate defense of white privilege. I didn't know anything about his field of expertise, but I did know how to do be a racist, just as I knew how to defend sexism and male privilege ("bah, I don't need feminism. It's for weak people," I spat at a girlfriend in graduate school who wanted me to attend a meeting. Sorry Roxanne! I was wrong.) I also knew how to defend class privilege and heterosexual privilege and human privilege ("take a rat to lunch," I shouted at people who were protesting for humane treatment of laboratory animals on the UCLA campus), and I did it at any turn. Forget that I was speaking out of ignorance and fear; it felt like power to me and I used it, putting others down to pump myself up.

I've changed. I've spent three decades reading and learning the most amazing ideas from the most amazing people and I no longer speak from a position of ignorance. My views have altered absolutely, and it is now my privilege to pass this wisdom on to others. What they do with it is none of my business, but I will not hate them back, no way, just as my teachers bore my ignorance with equanimity and tolerance. Today I smile at the patience of these adults in my past, and cringe at my own disrespect. I make living amends to them today by showing the same forbearance. May my detractors mature enough to realize someday their own youthful folly.

"So," said my friend last night when I acknowledged my childhood similarity to these new voices on the website, "it's your karma." I threw back my head and laughed until I cried, seeing that beautiful half-moon above me that always reminds us of the mix of bad and good, full and empty, peace and pain, life and death, that exist simultaneously on our astonishing planet. He is so right. It's as if the ghost of my angry, sad, intolerant, youthful self has come back to haunt me, just like in Morrison's Beloved, where the bemused, disgruntled, needy corpse of the past comes back to find her place in the present. And now I get to embrace that lost child, love her, show her compassion, forgive her, and let her go.

Amen.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (43) | TrackBacks (0)

On this day of excess, a little reminder. It's not ok to drink and drive. Ever. Period. The end. There's no excuse. Of course putting other peoples' lives in danger is unconscionable; work to care enough about your own life that it also becomes unconscionable for you to risk your well being over something so easily avoided. So don't drink and drive tonight, or ever, and don't get in a car with someone else who has been drinking, ever.

So I know you are wondering, But Dr Blaine, how I am supposed to go out and get tanked tonight? Don't harsh my buzz before I've even got one!

The solution is simple. Plan ahead. Either get a hotel room near your venue, or take a cab to and from the bar. Just imagine you're Nick and Nora Charles. It's really quite glamorous that way. You can also rely on a designated driver if you truly know someone who doesn't drink, but generally binge drinkers flock together--won't go into why just now--just do look realistically at your own behavior and take some precautions.

I know it's weird to cab in L.A., but it is absolutely manageable. We've done it for years. You call them, they show up, you get in, they drive you home, and the best part is, you wake up the next morning in your own bed in one piece, not in jail, the hospital, or the morgue (where the waking up part gets a bit tricky).

Listen to words of wisdom from your elder: make plans that include not driving, and then go party hearty!

That way you can live to harass me again tomorrow.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Today a former student sent me this after finding all of these angry people focusing on my website instead of themseves. I post it with her permission.

While Viagra is covered by insurance companies, but birth control pills and abortions aren't, I will be reading DYB's blog.

While a man rapes a women every four minutes (360 women per day!) in this country, I will be reading DYB's blog.

While rape is used as a systematic tactic of war, I will be reading DYB's blog.

While women earn 75% as much as men do for the same job, I will be reading DYB's blog.

While women make up 51% of the world's population and yet own merely 1% of its wealth, I will be reading DYB's blog.

While governments attempt to regulate how much a woman owns her body and what's inside of it, I will be reading DYB's blog.

While one out of eight Hollywood movies contains a rape scene (usually from the POV of the rapist), I will be reading DYB's blog.

While Dr. Phil continues to tell his female patients that their lack of desire for sex has nothing to do with the fact that their husbands don't help out with the kids or chores, I will be reading DYB's blog.

While Oprah Winfrey, Lifetime TV, and Hollywood in general continue to make millions by exploiting and depicting women suffering, I will be reading DYB's blog.

While there are people out there who believe that being pro-woman and pro-choice and pro-self-love means being a man-hating feminazi, I will be reading DYB's blog.

While art that objectifies naked, and often decapitated women, is considered laudable (and put on display in the middle of Beverly Hills (for example)(gag me!)), and yet art depicting objectified penises creates riots (read Barbara Kingsolver's book Small Wonder for an essay about this smalltown scandal), I will be reading DYB's blog.

While women continue to oppress their sisters of color and different class, instead of bonding together in sisterhood, I will be reading DYB's blog.

While women continue to believe that mutilating their bodies via plastic surgery will solve a problem that was actually created by sexism and not their bodies, I will be reading DYB's blog.

While people in this world are prevented from being their most radical wonderful selves, I will be reading DYB's blog and thanking my lucky stars that she's around, waiting for the day that she has a
radio talk show, too

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 06:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

"You are SUCH a fuckup. You clearly have no idea how the world works. You need to get over your crazy persecution complex and realize that you're totally nuts. Universities should give you mental exams before hiring you. NO ONE IS AFTER YOU OR YOUR BREASTS! GET OVER IT! I really hope you read Cardinal Martini, and therefore can see yourself in an accurate mirror. You are ludicrous. Your life is a joke and a sham.

-Liberal Female USC Student (not that my gender or political leaning should have anything to do with how you view my comment, as I'm sure it will)

Laura"

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (23) | TrackBacks (0)