Slut.

Maybe it's attributable to that queer-studies class I took during another handsomely-dallying semester back at college; maybe it was the girl in high school who loaned a Bikini Kill CD to me, or maybe it's that I've had an active dating life. Whatever the reason, I took time off from listening to the Twins lose another one, to Half Price Books, to blow consumer wad at their Memorial Day sale, on two books about gender politics.

I'm fascinated by the topic, but it's a closely-guarded and monitored obsession, since too much gender analysis doesn't so much clarify my current status as American male, but makes me want to voluntarily castrate myself and become a anatomically-neutered Ken Doll. I've read books, like 'Feminism: A Guide for the Doofus,' and 'Understanding Sisterhood in 2,301 Easy Steps,' and promptly built couch-cushion fortresses to protect me from psychobabble.

I know feminism through cut-and-paste sources like riot grrrl music from the early 1990s, which produced as strong an ideal as ever committed to public record. Most of it sounds like bursts of manifesto, with wry humor playing perfectly well with the thundering drums and bellowing guitars. I know feminism through cultural totems like Bitch and Venus magazines that I still browse whenever I'm in a mega-bookstore. And, of course, I know feminism through those women whose company I keep, perhaps the finest exemplars of strength; women who have filled my lunchbox every morning before heading off to school, or work, to be there for me anywhere, anytime. It is through them that I know heroism.


Yay! A reason to embed a Sleater-Kinney video!

It matters because from my vantage-post on testosterone mountain, I see two things that continually pique my interest in the subject, even as I keep taking aspirin and spend more nights wishing they were heavy sedatives. First: Women seem pretty strong. For argument's sake, I'm referring to women in the Western World where I claim my address. Life for a woman in Milwaukee is a little different from the grim realities in any country whose name starts with 'Democratic Republic of....'

By that, I mean that most of my bosses, and workforce superiors have been women, all of whom have earned more money than me, and have longer titles that take up more typeset on their business cards. In my experiences, women have been promoted faster than their male counterparts, and most have proven diligent, impartial managers with exemplary leadership capabilities. My mother and her female friends are all bright, ambitious, and have achieved much. Yet I think that's my take on the sharpest disparity; that women have material resources, but still lack a fundamental cultural respect. Hilary Clinton may be Secretary of State, but it's still notable to so many people that she's a woman, and therefore the recipient of pithy adjectives: Cold, calculated, ruthless, pant-suit, opportunist; the worst being allegations that she rode her husband's arc into status. Chances are you've heard someone allege such tripe.

We all know that sex sells. An even semi-attractive woman could put on a mini-skirt and sell vials of poison from a roadside stand, and there would be a line around the block. I could put on my best boxers, and cavort around selling gold bars for a song, but nobody would want to sing. But why continue to play the card? I'll use Christina Aguilera as an example of selling out her body to, ahem, move units, instead of relying on her creditable vocal talents. The cover of her 'Stripped' album was soft-core porn, all oiled flesh, thrusting hips and a bikini as afterthought. I haven't seen the picture in years, yet remember it keenly. Because I have a positive context for genders, I can't say it has had deleterious psychological side-effects. In other words, I don't think my views of women were harmed by seeing her tight jeans in creative back lighting.

But there must be a compounding effect, a desensitization that happens gradually, that makes men either fearful of women, disgusted, or more disturbingly, misogynistic. Susan Faludi, in her book 'Stiffed,' argues much of this debasement happens on a subconscious level for most men, who are long displaced of frontiers to conquer, relegated to being marginal providers at best, and handlers of the stick's shorter end during most child custody legalities. Semen in a cup, really. Then there's an argument for media's crude distortions of masculinity. Lifestyle magazines like G.Q. are offensively predatory, as are its populous ilk, to anybody with a hint of insecurity, from the physical to the financial.



Aside from that one night I listened to Tori Amos on repeat while doing laundry, I have no idea how absolutely boggling it must be to be a woman, to stand upright in the maelstrom of freaky cultural distortions, contradictory expectations, all while buying enough into it all to exist without sticking their fingers down throats and worrying about leaving drinks unattended. But, I'm a guy, so it's all speculation on my part, but mere conjecture holds when I consider the ways my gender is increasingly coated in consumerist tar.

Television is the most dastardly form of manipulation. I'll give you a minute to grab the remote and scan the channels for shreds of masculine competence. I've got a soda, and am prepared to wait for a while. Every guy is either an oaf or layabout, spitting wisecracks and getting browbeaten by an overbearing woman, whose sole jobs seem to be keeping the lazy bums from setting fires, hitting on the neighbors, or drooling on himself. Not even the comics are safe: The fathers in Hi and Lois, Beetle Bailey, and Fox Trot are emasculated, overweight, and hopelessly addicted to emotional crutches, like alcohol, fatty foods, and passive-aggression that barely prevents them from beating the shit out of their kids and going to live on a fishing boat in Alaska.

Fortunately, I've had strong, ideal male role models to emulate. What about those that aren't so lucky to have had such supportive characters in their lives? The media is a poor substitute, but it's usually the only one available to those unfortunates looking for clues to define themselves through their developing gender roles. It could be claimed that Charlie Sheen doesn't measure up any more than the King of Queens. Music and celebrity glamorize wealth, aggrandized machismo, and narcissism, which works for anybody making over two million dollars for a twenty-minutes of on-screen womanizing.

Kids without role models look to these miserable cads as evidence of what masculinity should be, and are too often upset and resentful when the broadcast myth doesn't square with fact. Guy Garcia's book, the 'Decline of Men' tries to explain why more men aren't finishing school, aren't ambitious, are addicted to violent video games and amateurish sex-fantasies, technologically insulated from the real deal. More women than men now hold higher degrees, and seem to be excelling in most academic strata. Add increasingly delayed adolescence, a few Maxim magazines, and an internet connection, and it's easy to see why most men wouldn't make suitable furniture, much less an emotionally-developed friend or partner.

Yet the continual objectification of women is ceaselessly perverse. To have to be a woman with upright mobility and careerist ambitions, while being a wife, girlfriend, mother, friend, sister, and object, must be a difficult balance to maintain. My point then, is that I know how strange it is forming a male sensibility, and I have visible guideposts. Feminism means the right to equality, not just in wage and career opportunities, but a broader respect that stems from an understanding culture that seems to just reinforce the worst stereotypes, while expecting more from women. That's a lot of weight to carry.