The Rental Market, Capitalism-Style

We - my partner and I - are trying to get an apartment.  She currently lives in a two-bedroom, and with her roommate moving out to live with her partner, and me moving down there to live with my partner, it doesn't make economical sense to stay in an $1850 a month two bedroom with an exorbitant amount of space for young professionals.  Especially since I am, as of yet, still facing unemployment once my class ends.

So even though "moving" is probably a lot what hell is like (that, and maybe a never ending visit to the dentist or gynecologist), it is ideal from both an economical and a personal perspective.  My partner has lived with her Stuff for three years in one place, and I have lived with my Stuff for three years in another place, and combining our Stuff (probably more of hers than mine at this point) may necessitate a new stage in our relationship.  One where we are in neither her space nor my space, but a smaller, shared space that belongs to us both.

All that is easily said.  So, as we've recently discovered, is saying "let's move into a one-bedroom!"  How hard could it be to move from a two bedroom unit in one complex to a one bedroom in the same complex, you might wonder?  Surely it's like all other apartment searches we've ever made (between the two of us, we've done this probably four or five times...that's plenty of experience, one would suppose.)  We don't even really want to move anywhere - just to a smaller unit in the same place.

Oh, dear readers, how wrong we were.  Nothing could have ever prepared me for the pure batshit irrationality of the rental market in this greater-DC condominium.  There are many things that fuel this irrationality.  Part of it is because my partner lives in a lovely garden condo complex where each condo is owned by someone different. So there is no overarching condominium office where you can put your name on a list or coordinate multiple showings.  Instead, every negotiation is with a new owner, which means there is no regulation or bench line for pricing.  One 630 square foot unit can be priced at $1450, while another 530 square foot unit with comparable specs can be priced at $1550.  I'm pretty sure they just price it based on their mortgages.  Or malicious whim.  It's hard to say at this point.

Dealing with multiple owners also means there is no standard for each apartment.  Some of them have hardwood, some have carpet.  Some have had their bathrooms redone, some are still in original form.  Some original features have been worn pretty hard, some have been better taken care of.  Some have new cabinets and granite counter tops in the kitchen, some still have the original oven and dishwasher.  Some have new windows, others don't.  Some renovations are professionally executed, others are a little homemade.  With every unit being so variable, you really don't know what you are getting until you see it.

But the point, we've found, is not to see it, not even to care whether it's worth the money or whether the features are ideal or whether we really want to hold out for hardwood or an eat-in kitchen or whatever.  The point is to sign a lease as soon as freaking possible.  It doesn't matter if you really aren't sold on a place - you must convince the owner that you and only you are the destined future tenant for the unit.  Why?  Because there are at least a dozen other winsome and articulate and appallingly rich young professionals just like you trying to do exactly the same thing.

Basically, one of these apartments can be posted on Craigslist at 3 p.m., and if you email them half an hour later, you are number five in line.  That's how high the demand is.  But even your placement in line doesn't matter much - these apartments don't go first come, first serve.  What counts is you making it to the designated showing decided based purely on the convenience of the owner.  That might mean Saturday at 2 (sorry if you had plans this weekend - if you don't make it to the showing, you're utterly SOL).  It might mean tomorrow at 4:30 (oh, is that usually when you're at work?  Guess you'll have to leave early on less than 24 hours notice!).  If you make it to the showing - and you must make it to the showing - you will be obligated to sign an application and authorize a credit check on the spot, plus make out a check for $25-$45 for your own credit to be scoped.  My partner's had hers run through whatever magical system they use upwards of four times in two weeks - it's so great to pay for the privilege of repeatedly being assured that you are a respectable, bill-paying citizen.

Making it through the application stage is nothing.  There are probably still ten other people, maybe more, who have done the same thing.  This whole securing an apartment process might involve four stages where you see the apartment, have a phone interview with the owner, have a personal interview with the owner, fill out a credit check/application, have your references called (and they will call your references), and then possibly still not be offered a lease.

You might get really, really, really close - a verbal agreement on the phone, a written agreement through email, even set up a time to sign on the dotted line - when capitalism body slams you against those sweet hardwood floors.

The problem is, as you might suspect, ka-ching ka-ching, a case of the Benjamins.  Being both desperate and in a high-income tax bracket makes people do strange, strange things.  Such as bidding on rentals.  Yes!  To secure a one bedroom, one must bid on it like it's the Queen Jewels at Christie's Auction House!  And this means, of course, that the most desperate and most wealthy always wins.

Let me tell you, dear readers...I now know there are some very desperate and very wealthy people out there.  One who will, for example, bid on a $1550 apartment for $1800 a month, a full $250 over the listed rent, plus covering painting costs.  Or another who will offer a full 12 months rent upfront, somewhere around a $16,000 one-time payment for one unit.  (Why they don't drop that on a down payment for condo of their own, I have no idea...the market is not logical, only driven by the principle that s/he-with-the-most-cash-wins.)

Desperation for housing inflates these units to obnoxious, impossibly high levels.  There are two sides to this capitalist inflation - one side are us prospective renters who stomp on each other and wave our wallets around to entice future landlords.  The other side are the owners, who take advantage of the irrationality of the market and ride out the capitalism for all its worth.  In our experience, owners may even narrow down their list of applicants to a handful of those who's credit checks have cleared and who made similar bids, and then ask them to name their "best offer," thereby ensuring the price will go up even more than the original bids.  Sometimes I feel like we're trying to get our kid into a NYC nursery school.

Clearly there is no way this can be sustained - at some point (I hope), people are going to realize that $1800 for a one bedroom without a washer and dryer in unit and no covered parking space is absolutely outrageous.  By bidding against each other, we create a ridiculous housing bubble that ensures only semi-wealthy people live in the condos, and pretty soon not even semi-wealthy people will be able to afford to live there.  We are not just pricing ourselves out of the market - we are pricing everyone out of the market.  I'm not sure where the invisible hand is yet, because the market hasn't self-corrected as far as I can tell - even if it all comes crashing down a few years from now, there will still be suckers like us paying inflated prices for months on end.

Capitalism only works because everyone is participating, competitively bidding on a supposedly scare product - myself included.  It also feels like there aren't any other options - surely if we want an apartment under these circumstances, we have to play the capitalism game.  We can't tell the owner, "You know, I think your original rate is already inflated, so I'm going to price you a little lower since it reflects the actual value of the unit," and we can't call a meeting of all the prospective tenants and say, "Alright, y'all - who really needs this place?  And let's agree to cap the bidding, okay?  It's us versus the owning class!  We need to work together in collective solidarity until we all have homes!"  If I thought Marx could really spare us from what we've had to do thus far, I would have tried other tactics.  But resistance doesn't work on an individual level, and this is a clear case in which I'm totally pwned by capitalism.  Part of the sinister logic of capitalism is that it shuts down all other paths, and leaves no option but playing Monopoly.

Consumption

After nearly three years of waiting, waiting, waiting, the end is almost here.  In just under three weeks time, I will be leaving upstate New York and relocate at long last to someplace where somebody loves me and where winter is about four months shorter (like it SHOULD be!).  And that means, of course, just like when I'm raptured into heaven, all my stuff cannot come with me.

Now, I'm not one of those people who is super attached to stuff.  I don't generally keep Things I don't need or use.  I do not hoard.  In fact, I may have a more serious problem of the opposite.  Last year, I read an article about an emerging urban simple living movement - not urban simple living in the sense of inner city poor people who are minimalist by force (bwahaha - who in the world would write an article about folks who have to limit their consumption as experts on limiting consumption?!), but white professionals who independently and of their own free will choose to abscond with Things.  I'm with the latter.  Inspired by such calls for limiting consumption to necessities, I've routinely purged my attic apartment of excess books, clothes, and sundry knickknacks.  The only time I ever feel any guilt is when I pull out something someone I care about gave me, usually my Mom.  Sometimes, dear readers, I am not strong enough to let it go...maternal obligation and projected guilt is an unconquerable force, but I do try.

And I'm not much of a Thing Purchaser, either.  I find the mall horribly depressing.  I get a very powerful urge to go, oh, four times a year, usually when the seasons change.  Suddenly it becomes very important that I get some shorts, or new canvas shoes, or a wool coat.  But then I become incredibly sad on the bus ride home with all of these bags of Things under my seat, over half a day lost to the great mall vortex and a credit card bill to look forward to, and I've maxed out on shopping until the next solstice.

Don't think that my resistance to Things is due to some Gandhian-like qualities.  It's not.  It's more because I am extremely cheap.  Like my mother, I adore a good 'deal.'  I abhor paying full price for anything.  As a rule, I shop sales racks (sometimes I pretend to look at items at the front of the store because zipping back to the sales feels a tad rude...but it's all for show, sales staff, all for show).  A few years ago, I discovered Clothes Mentor and have been a devoted convert ever since.  Basically you bring clothes you don't wear anymore and they maybe buy some of it (I'm generally told my style is "too mature" or the tags are too old) and donate the rest to charity, and then you can get bourgeois brands for cheap, cheap, cheap.  All you need is endurance to look through the crowded racks and a hunger for the unfathomably low prices.  (Although, after you buy high end slacks for $10 a pop, it feels even more criminal to be charged $120 for them in a mall store - hence, beware that Clothes Mentor will rapidly erode your already low tolerance for buying full price items.)

But I digress.  The Things in my apartment are a bit different than clothes or mall shopping or resale stores that only narrowly allow me to opt out of fueling the oppressive sweatshop industry.  (Buying second hand is better, but in no way perfect...cheap Banana Republic is still, sadly, Banana Republic....but seriously, y'all!  Pants for $10!!)

The Things in my apartment are furnishings I've acquired in part to make my home more homely.  They have both a utilitarian value and a chosen aesthetic.  All together, they 'represent' me, or whatever.  And for three years, they've more or less remained constant.  My dresser has dutifully held my clothes.  My bookshelves have lovingly buckled under my books.  My toaster has cheerfully toasted my toast (with the exception of the time I ran the toaster and the microwave at the same time and blew the fuse).

Due to high gas prices and U-haul's low mileage, however, my partner and I have decided it is best to Do Away with the Things.  I am taking this far better than she is - somehow she is more attached to me being attached to my Things than I am actually attached to my Things.  After a moment of, "what?! not my Thiiiiiiings!," I was pretty much over it, taking photos and making a Picasa page to send a mass email to about 120 graduate students advertising my wares.

Surprisingly, demand was high, and now the Things are departing, slowly, a few at a time.  The other day was the first big batch - a toaster, a knife block, a floor lamp, and my laundry hamper.  Even though I rarely used the floor lamp, I keep turning around from my desk and wonder why it is so empty behind me.  In a few hours, my six foot bookcase and rolling kitchen island will be leaving me.  While I know there is probably some part of me somewhere that feels a little sad to let things go - a little pinch as I load them in the back of someone else's trunk - mostly I just feel lighter.  "Good," I think every time something goes, "now I won't have to post that on Craigslist!"

Maybe the reality of having fewer Things will settle in later, but I doubt it.  Letting them go is perhaps the best way to realize how unimportant they really are.  In some ways, I feel like they hold the energy of the past three years and perhaps should stay here, anyway, so I can make a clean break of it.  It's always nice to give your Things to someone who is really excited about them, so your life can end just like Toy Story 3.  But I also realize that, as the Things go and leave empty spaces where they once stalwartly stood, I don't actually feel more empty.  Fewer Things means fewer worries.

And pretty soon I'll probably have to get more Things to replace the Things I'm letting go of now.  (I'd like to say I can live without a dresser, but who am I kidding?  I reiterate, I'm no Gandhi.)  But for the moment, I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to de-Thing.  It is a rare opportunity and a beautiful lesson about consumption, about importance, and about meaning.  So right now, I am just going to try to embrace this period between Thingyness, that quieter, less-cluttered, lighter, more open space when my love and attention and attachment can be devoted to the Things people that really matter.

Making it Better for Everyone

This was written for a class assignment, but I was hoping to get it to a larger audience.  I may have missed the boat on timing, though, so at least I can post it here!  This is my contribution to the critical commentary of the It Gets Better Project, not to tear it down, but to point out the limitations of addressing LGBTQ youth suicides with a single-axis framework.  With a special thanks to Caitlin Breedlove for answering questions and S.I.H for asking them <3.

UPDATE: A wider audience happened sooner than I thought!  Thanks to Caitlin, the article is now posted on S.O.N.G.'s website.

Making It Better for Everyone: A More Careful Look at LGBTQ Youth Suicide

First it was Justin Aaberg.  Then, just two months later, Billy Lucas. 

What both young white men shared besides their age – they were both 15 when they died of suicide – was that homophobic bullying destroyed their lives. 

Dan Savage, the gay white journalist behind the popular syndicated sex column, Savage Love, was frustrated and saddened by the loss of Aaberg and Lucas.  So he started an “It Gets Better” YouTube channel to reach out to those who are terrorized for their perceived or actual sexual identity.  On September 21st, 2010, Savage and his partner, Terry, posted the inaugural video directed at lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth contemplating taking their lives, promising “it gets better.”

The next day, 18-year-old white gay Rutgers college student, Tyler Clementi, jumped off the George Washington Bridge after having been cyberbullied by a roommate who streamed Clementi’s sexual encounter with another man online.  His body was recovered a week later. 

Due in part to the publicity around Clementi’s death and the growing media attention surrounding gay male youth suicides that month, the It Gets Better (IGB) project went “viral.”  Savages’s original goal of collecting 100 online video posts offering encouragement to LGBTQ youth was shattered almost overnight.  The project has since swelled to over 10,000 video submissions, including high profile celebrity endorsements such as Ellen DeGeneres, the cast of Glee, Perez Hilton, and Hilary Clinton, all echoing the “it gets better” message.  Even President Barack Obama posted a video advocating for the end of LGBTQ harassment.

The widespread popularity of the project is undeniable – the original video of Savage and his partner has accumulated over 1.2 million hits.  “It Gets Better”-themed events have sprouted up across the United States from California to Maine.  A purple “It Gets Better” t-shirt is available through American Apparel.  And a collection of stories, The It Gets Better Book: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life worth Living, hit bookshelves in March and shot up to the number one spot in Amazon’s “Coming Out” section.

With a cacophony of voices – celebrities, politicians, and regular folks alike – insisting that “it gets better,” such certainty begs the question, does it really?

Beyond LGBTQ Identity

The groundswell behind IGB is clearly responding to a pressing social tragedy.  Suicide is the third leading cause of death for all youth ages 10-24, outranked only by accidents and homicide.  It is estimated that LGBQ youth attempt suicide at rates four times higher than that of their heterosexual peers, and this rate may be even higher for transgendered youth. 

To look at statistics for LGBTQ youth suicide alone, however, only paints a partial picture.  When youth suicide rates rose in 2004, the largest jump was for young girls.  Although young men were almost four times more likely to die from suicide than young women in 2007, young women were almost three times more likely than men to attempt suicide.  In other words, although girls are less likely than boys to die from suicide, they are more likely to try to. 

Nationally, Alaskan natives and Native Americans have suicide rates that are 70% higher than the overall US average.  Latino/a and Black youth are also much more likely to attempt suicide than white youth, with Latino/a youth being the most likely to consider attempting suicide.  Although less data has been collected for Asian American youths, Department of Health and Human Services data shows that Asian American women ages 15-24 have the highest suicide rates among their age and gender group. 

Suicide rates vary by economic status as well.  Poverty, while not directly correlated with suicide, is a high stress condition linked to depression.  LGBTQ youth are overrepresented among the homeless youth population, and in one study of homeless LGBTQ youth, over half reported that they had considered or attempted suicide.

Given the complicated reality of suicide rates, focusing on homophobic bullying alone does not address the gendered, racialized, and classed pressures that lead many LGBTQ youth to see their lives as unlivable.  The suicides that achieved the widespread publicity were those of white boys, but there were likely many more suicide attempts by white girls and youths of color, especially those living on the street, that never caught the public’s attention.

It Doesn’t Get Better For Everyone

Following the release of the It Gets Better Book, David Michael Connor of the Advocate critiqued IGB for privileging the attractive, masculine gay white man.  Indeed, life might not get better for gay white men who do not meet exacting beauty standards, and it certainly is a false message for gay white men like Connor, who struggles with persistent depression.

Beyond the hierarchy of gay male beauty and gender presentation, however, is the privileging of white men, period.  While IGB has made significant and meaningful contributions to LGBTQ suicide and LGBTQ bullying, the project further invisibilizes non-white and non-male LGBTQ youth by only responding to, highlighting, and constantly invoking suicides of mostly white men and boys.

Life may have ‘gotten better’ for Dan Savage and other white gay men with money, but the future of “happiness, potential, and positivity” promised by IGB is not as easily accessible for many LGBTQ youth who are women, low-income or poor, gender non-conforming, and people of color. 

Gabrielle Rivera, a self-identified queer women of color, defied the “it gets better” message in her video contribution to IGB.  “It doesn’t get better, but what does happen is you get stronger,” she said, adding, “Don’t give into this myth that it’s going be fancy and amazing when you’re older and that everything’s going to be fine.” 

Rivera’s video has accumulated 16,000 views, and a transcript of her contribution was included in the It Gets Better Book.  In a recent Time Magazine article, Savage names Rivera’s video as one that “surprised him,” saying that IGB put her video in the top viewing spot even though some thought he would not post it. 

That this video stands out so strongly amid the thousands of contributions speaks to the importance of Rivera’s voice, as well as the rarity of her perspective.  It also points to how the hyper messaging of “it gets better” has left very little room for alternative messages.

The Difference between it Getting Better and Making it Better

Many have challenged the core “it gets better” message as a reactive, rather than proactive, measure to help LGBTQ youth.  Implicit in the ‘it gets better’ frame is that LGBTQ youth should endure bullying until it ends, presumably when they graduate high school.  Encouraging LGBTQ youth to hold out for a better life eventually doesn’t do much for them in the meantime. 

One community group that has addressed this shortcoming is Southerners On New Ground (S.O.N.G.), a social justice group that centers the experiences of southern LGBTQ, low-income people of color.  S.O.N.G. co-director Caitlin Breedlove says, “The idea that "it gets better" suggests that young people should wait, and should not organize.  It intentionally or unintentionally erases the history of struggle in LGBT communities while also not confronting the realities of how deeply our world needs people and youth to fight for gender justice, racial justice, environmental justice, and against systems of oppression.” 

San Francisco’s Gay-Straight Alliance Network, among other organizations, shares this framework.  They created “Make it Better,” a project that aims to empower LGBTQ youth and adult to create immediate change in their schools, neighborhoods, and communities. 

Savage has answered this pervasive criticism by noting that IGB does not prevent people from taking action.  This response, however, does not address the core concern voiced by critics – IGB might not be holding anyone back from taking action, but it is not actively encouraging it, either. 

Reflecting on the strengths of IGB, Breedlove said that it has provided a valuable “space for anguish,” particularly through “access to storytelling through the internet.  It also meets the longing that LGBT adults have to protect youth from homophobia and transphobia.”  But, she adds, “To think about liberation is messy and complicated.”  What IGB proposes is too simple, too neat, and too easy of a response to LGBTQ suicide.  It does not address the far more complex realities of all LGBTQ youth.

Homophobic bullying alone does not define the lives of those who experience racism, sexism, and classism.  In order to truly make life better for LGBTQ youth, we cannot treat LGBTQ bullying as something that is separate from other forms of discrimination and harassment, but rather as something connected to larger systems of oppression. 

Making it better for all LGBTQ youth requires addressing school harassment, yes, but also ensuring adequate food and housing for low-income youth and adults, a living wage and job security, as well as integrated and well-funded schools, for a start.  We also cannot forget that LGBTQ bullying is intimately connected to sexism, and that anti-gay bullying is just as tied to sexist oppression as lesbian-baiting, where women who defy gender expectations are pejoratively called lesbians, regardless of their sexuality.  Addressing LGBTQ bullying without addressing gender discrimination is to miss the forest for the trees.

The It Gets Better Project has provided a valuable space for LGBTQ folks and allies to speak up in support of LGBTQ youth.  But we must remember that the It Gets Better Project on its own won’t necessarily make it so.

Fearless Teaching

I just finished the first week of my six week summer course, dear readers, and let me tell you, I am living the dream of teaching without consequences.  That's right - no consequences.  So what if my course evaluations are terrible...my career doesn't currently depend on them.  So what if I say something that makes them uncomfortable.  So what if they complain to the department chair.  So what if they all suspect that I'm a lesbo commie.  I mean, really, what can my department do?  Fire me?  I've already given up my stipend.  My health insurance is set to expire in about three weeks.  I've even finalized a clean break on my lease.  In five weeks, I'm walking out of the last class session onto a plane to Baltimore.  I'm a free woman, Big Bad University!  You got nothing on me!

I'm pretty sure this is what tenure feels like.  Except probably with more meetings.

Fearless Teaching.  That's what I'm calling it - that is what teaching without consequences enables me to do.  If I were to write a handbook to a brave pedagogy such as this, I would outline the following necessary components:

1) No pressure.  This might be the last class I'll ever teach, and instead of feeling the overwhelming pressure of wanting to make it the best class ever, I only feel a huge release of pressure to give a crap about all the obstacles that get in the way of actual learning.  I am not governed by the looming bureaucratic expectations for what I ought to do, and instead just do what I want to do.  This means a release of control - I feel less of a need to 'control' my students, or 'control' how they perceive me and my course, or 'control' how rigid my policies are.  For example, I just took in a student one week late - sure, she missed one-sixth of the whole class (and probably the most important sixth, as we laid the groundwork for the next month).  But a little exposure to radical theories is better than no exposure radical theories.  Such an approach takes a lot of the internal pressure I put on myself for things to be perfect - liberation is messy, as they say, so when I allow for my teaching to focus on liberation, I allow for myself (and others, and life in general) to be imperfect, too.

2) Shift from testing to engagement and application.  For an educator, it's ironic that I greatly dislike most of what are considered to be necessary course components.  Like tests.  Or quizzes.  Or grades, for that matter.  So I cut them out.  Now, I still grade things, but I've set up the class so that everyone can get an A.  Unfortunately, I have to have some accountability measures or else they won't do the readings, but a large part of their grade is made up of activities where they apply what we're learning in their everyday lives.  Is this harder to grade?  Probably - there are fewer 'right' answers in applied learning, and mostly I just grade them based on the degree of effort and reflection they put into the activity.  But they are DOING things, and that is beautiful.  They have to think beyond multiple choice answers, and the class experience is carried over into their everyday lives.  My goal is not for them to understand everything or memorize it or be able to parrot it back to me, but to engage it, to apply it, to immerse themselves in a critical, liberatory framework.  You can't grade that, and, frankly, I'm not really trying to.

3) Tell it like it is.  This is probably the best part of Fearless Teaching.  In the past, even during my class last summer, I tried very hard to be a Good Instructor, to be Fair and Balanced, to be Open-Minded.  I would ask things like, "Why might this be considered oppressive?" or, "Do you think the birdcage theory reflects women's experiences?"  But trying to toe the line didn't spare me course evaluations that wrote me off as "biased" simply because I was a woman teaching the sociology of gender.  So now, I don't try to be Fair and Balanced.  I was called biased even when I was trying very hard not to be; now, I am completely unapologetic about my agenda.  Now I ask, "Why is this oppressive?" or "How does the birdcage define the lives of other groups at the bottom of hierarchies?"  I don't ask, "do you think the model minority stereotype is true?"  I say, "It's a myth, and it's a myth because of these three reasons."  I am more forceful, certain, unambiguous.  I don't offer room for interpretation.  I provide no space for capitalism, patriarchy, sexism, or heterosexism.  Instead I'm just embracing the flame-spitting prophetic Voice of Truth.

In that respect, this is one aspect that makes my Fearless Teaching not so grassrootsy radical.  It's lecture-heavy, and I don't allow much room for exploration.  I don't really lead them along into some of the main ideas, letting them work their way through the murky waters, slowly unpacking their privilege, slowly decolonizing their viewpoints.  There is some exploration, but mostly I just tell them.  There just isn't enough time.  They aren't here to come exploring with me - they didn't sign up for a six week workshop on self-decolonization.  They are here because it counts toward their major, or they need a general education credit, or they failed out of another major and need to finish a sociology major in six months.  They have no idea what ride they signed up for, and if there is a ride, most of them would rather not go on it, thank you very much.  So I am rolling with their interpretation that this class is like other classes, and not really an extended radical workshop thinly veiled by seemingly legitimate class things like a syllabus and a Blackboard account.

The way I see it, I got six weeks, and I will tell them as much as I can in that six weeks.  A few of them are hungry for these theories now - I can see them make connections and their minds expand as they realize how to reinterpret their own experiences of marginalization or privilege.  A few others think I'm a lesbo commie, and they are wishing they signed up for something less infuriating, like introduction to theory.  But for now, most of them are pleasantly noncommittal - they stare at me with an indifferent smile on their faces and take down notes as they see fit.  They still see it as a regular class.

Soon, they may come to realize its not.  Or it might take a year, or three years, or seven.  Or never.  But I will finish this class knowing that at least I didn't hold back.

Negotiating gender in the hair salon

As a short-haired woman, I have come to see hair cuts as a ceaseless negotiation.  They probably wouldn't be if I found a stylist and stuck with it, but as I am incredibly cheap (more to come on this front in a future post), I'd rather just pop into a Hair Cuttery or Fantastic Sam's or my mall's Unisex Hair Salon (that's its real name!) for a $18 trim.  As these locales are revolving doors for sylists, every trim is with a new face.  There is much to be said for having a perfect stranger cut your hair every six weeks - they always make small changes or have slightly divergent techniques.  Some prefer using razors, some prefer scissor-over-comb, some like thinning shears and others clearly don't own a pair.  If you aren't too attached to having your hair just one way, it can be nice to have it a little different every time.

But having to explain what it is I want in a cut every time I visit does have its obvious downsides.  I have regaled you all, dear readers, with a post mentioning my short hair as a gender challenge before.  As I identify as a woman and generally go through the world read and treated as a woman, sometimes I forget that short hair on a woman can still pose a challenge to gendered expectations.  I am made the most aware of this challenge when I get my hair cut and for a few days afterwards, when it's shortest.  It could be that I feel more exposed, or it could be that people really are looking at me differently - it's hard to say, as my sense of sudden baldness may tinge my perspective.

The most overt comments on what my short hair means for my gender presentation (which, in all respects, is almost completely gender conforming) have come from the stylists themselves.  Seeing as how I meet a new one every month or so, I have a steady stream of opportunities to negotiate what I want versus what they are comfortable giving me.

Last fall I paid a visit to my Unisex Hair Salon and I was assigned to a middle-aged Asian woman.  I was about to ask for my usual ("I'll take a three in the back, cut out around the ears, keep it a little longer on the sides and the front, and thin it out if you can too, please!"), but before I even sat down she put her hand on my shoulder and said, "You look like a boy!"  Gotta love her for coming right out with it.  "You are a woman, but you look like a boy.  I can help you look more like a woman."

"But I like it this way..."  I mustered feebly.  It's difficult to stand up to woman for whom tact is not really an issue.

"But you look like a boy!"

"I know but that's okay.  I prefer it short."

She stared at me dubiously, and then proceeded to trim my hair a tiiiiiiny bit.  Then she whipped out the thinning shears and thinned it a tiiiiiiiny bit.  "Okay!" she announced.

"Um...can you cut a little more?"

She thinned it a tiiiiiiny bit more.  "Okay!"  she said again, and this time moved to take my cape off.  Clearly she had cut as much as she was going to cut.

For months I went to the Unisex Hair Salon in fear of being saddled with her again (there is no non-racist way to say, "I'd like a haircut, please...but, uh, give me anyone but the Asian lady").  Last April I was assigned to her chair once more.  I braced myself for a pointless thinning, and I made up my mind to demand that she cut more if she tried to pull the cape off me again, but she actually cut my hair very thoroughly.  It may have something to do with the fact that the woman both before and after me were middle-aged white women with that short, middle-aged white women hair, so I fit right in.  She must have cut enough heads of hair like my own mother's to feel like it didn't matter much when she cut mine.

Last weekend, when I was in D.C., I dropped by the Dupont Circle Hair Cuttery, which has always been a dependable place to get my do cropped.  Historically, they haven't been so afraid of cutting too close.  It may be that it is in a trendy metropolitan area, or it could be because, as my partner tells me, all the gay boys get their hair cut there, so the stylists are accustomed to such things.  Who knows.

But last week (with another Asian stylist, strangely enough), gender came up again in an overt way.  She asked me whether I wanted the neckline trimmed straight across with the buzzer, or if I'd rather she blend it in.  I told her she could do whatever she preferred - I don't see the neckline, so as long as I can tell it's not a mullet, I'm none the wiser to the specifics.

She stood quietly for a moment, running her fingers through the freshly trimmed locks at the crown of my head.  "Well, straight across is...is more like a man.  That's a man's cut.  Blended is for a woman.  So I will blend it."

And then she spend maybe six or seven minutes meticulously manicuring a "blended" hairline, digging different buzzers into my neck to achieve the appropriate womanly effect.  My main thought while she was doing this: "dang, if I were a man I'd so have been out of here five minutes ago!"

It's interesting to me that hair can be so definitively gendered, to the point where a neckline is denoted as masculine or feminine.  It's sort of like the Butch Bakery, that cupcake place opened by a dude who wanted to make cupcakes "for men."  (Although with a name like Butch Bakery, he's not just going to be getting men looking for cupcakes.)  They are CUPCAKES.  Literally pieces of baked sugar and flour and butter with some icing on top.  They don't have a gender!  And neither do neckline techniques, or hair itself.  Hair is as dead and chromosome-less as cupcakes.  But as gender is a defining social organizing principal, we seem to only be able to understand inanimate things by imbuing them with gendered meaning.  Very often these meanings seem to keep us safely within our assigned boxes, even if we have tried to take a step out of them.  If women have short hair, they should at least have a feminine neckline; if men eat cupcakes, they better be whiskey flavored and covered in camo.

We are ridiculous.  All of the energy and creativity and human brilliance squandered on such meaningless details as how to make our choices more like a woman's or more like a man's, so that we don't really have to change much of anything at all!

Now I really need a cupcake.

Why Ms. in my classroom makes me uncomfortable

Ms. magazine is in my classroom.  And not just in a "Hey, let's read this article published in Ms. and have a class discussion about it!" but as in "You are required to enroll in Ms.' digital classroom as part of this class...and that'll be $15, btw."  And I feel kinda like...well, like I just drank one too many syllabus + business strategy + liberal feminism cocktails.

Don't get me wrong - there is a special place in my feminist heart for Ms.  It's like the Auntie who pushed to close the gender pay gap and advocated for shared heterosexual household labor and encouraged a bunch of her women friends to get into politics, because that's totally what Ms. did.  So maybe she's a liiiiitle single issue sometimes, and maybe she keeps posting front covers that are kiiiiinda unfortunate (Obama as Superman?  Pepto-pink backgrounds?  And why is Alice Walker staring up at Gloria Steinem?  Second editorship doesn't necessitate the punishment of having to eternally gaze at Steinem's grill.), and her feminism can be a biiiiiit culturally imperialist at times, but you know that you can down a couple of margaritas with her, have a serious chat, and then dance it out.  You'll still disagree, but she's your Auntie and you can't help but love her, even when you are pretty sure she's wrong.  Besides - she made it possible for you to rock your feminism now.  How can you not adore her?

So my queasiness is not specifically about Ms. itself, but more about the limitations of our market politics and what sort of choices Ms. has had to make to expand their readership and keep making the monies.  Specifically, I'm talking about their Digital Classroom.

(Let's put aside the fact that the whole point and beauty of classrooms is that they are not digital or made out of fancy computer pixel dust, but real, filled with real people, all captured in live, up-to-the minute, honest-to-goodness three-dimensional action.  Ahem.  But I digress.)

First, on the sign-up page for the digital classroom access, it explains how educators get a free subscription for enrolling their class.  And students have to pay $15.  Clearly that doesn't make sense because, from my general observations, professors actually have salaries, while graduate and undergraduate students don't, but then, statistically speaking, students far outnumber professors per classroom.  I know I shouldn't knock them for a business decision, and I shouldn't snipe at $15 when most textbooks are a racket industry anyway, but it makes me sad thinking how Ms. seriously thought, "Hey, let's entice a bunch of professors to sign up by making it free, but then we'll charge the students so we can turn a tidy profit."  Not only does this look bad for Ms., but it also makes me uncomfortable that professors are down with this.  Would I, as en educator, ever agree to sign up for something that is free to me but will require a fee from each of my students (with the obligatory exception of free Ben & Jerry's, should Ben & Jerry ever create a digital classroom, and, if so, please God let me live to see it)?  Perhaps I'm too close to the student role to answer this with certainty, but I'd like to think I'd at least sleep on it.

It's not the $15 that bothers me as much as the mandate that I join.  Now, I agree we should support feminist work.  And we should support Ms. magazine in an era where Playboy has a circulation that is 15 times greater.  A world where more people by Playboy than Ms. is sad, and a world without Ms. would be even sadder.  But does our world need Ms. to be a required classroom text?  Every other feminist endeavor requires reflection...but Ms. doesn't appear to invite critical reflection in joining their Digital Classroom.  They just want professors to sign up, and a lot of them, so that even more students students will have to join, too.  What if there is no conversation about what Ms. in our classroom means to us?  

Or, for that matter, what it means to study Ms., to even be tested on it?  The online classroom isn't just access to articles and back issues, but it really does see itself as an academic text, one that is explicitly testable.  The educator account includes access to sample quiz questions and writing assignment ideas.  Ms. as a teaching supplement, perhaps.  But as an academic authority?  I thought magazines were supposed to be informative, or, at times, entertainment...not a series of facts and names to remember like some history text book.  It is the real-world concepts that Ms. exposes us to that are its most important contributions, and these can't be easily tested in multiple choice format.  And while I fiercely advocate breaking the academic/non-academic divide in our syllabi and classroom content, the Ms. digital classroom wasn't exactly what I had in mind.  (It's not really 'non-academic' if only college-educated white women read it...right?).

Maybe one day I'll work for Ms.  Or be published in Ms.  Or take money from the Feminist Majority Foundation.  And if that day comes, I will eat crow.

But at least I will have asked the hard questions.  You know, like a feminist would.

Manifesto in Defense of Collective Dependency as a Necessity for Survival and Transformation

WHEREAS much has been made of the dependency of the poor on government assistance, such as welfare, Medicaid, and public housing.  Such dependency is used to malign those who seek services, or to imply that these services are unmerited, unearned, and undeserved.  Dependency has been made out as a caricature that especially targets low-income women of color, who are said to become royalty off food stamps.  We have made asking for help shameful, with the exception of those who we deem entitled to ask for assistance (i.e., Bank of America; General Motors). 

WHEREAS self-sufficiency, individualism, and to be ‘entirely self-made’ is touted as an American ideal and, more importantly, as a realistic, equal possibility for every child.  We share a deeply guarded belief in a classless America – or, if there are classes, they are easily scaled by sweat, long hours, and a thing called “merit.”  Those at the top are said to have it.  Those at the bottom have simply not pulled at their bootstraps hard enough.  The exceptions that make it up the rungs of the class ladder become tokens, proof that a rigged system is open to all of their otherwise lazy race, otherwise incompetent gender, or otherwise ignorant class background.

WHEREAS there is a growing divide between the wealthy and everyone else.  The gap between the really rich and the really poor is unapologetically expansive and rising.  As this gap grows, the double standards for the two are increasingly apparent.  Companies are said to be too big to fail, but individuals can lose their homes.  The bank is bailed out, but the client is forced to declare bankruptcy.  The car dealership is saved, but the owner’s vehicle is repossessed.  The wealthy lobby for tax cuts, but the union worker loses their bargaining rights.  The assistances bestowed on the millionaires are not matched to the non-millionaires, but only further perpetuate their degradation, disempowerment, and exploitation.

WHEREAS power lies in truth-telling, and self-reclamation lies in naming, this manifesto is a public, written declaration that:

(1) Self-sufficiency is a myth. 

There is no such thing as equal access to meritocracy in our nation as we know it today.  Those at the bottom know that the more you sweat, the longer hours you work, or the more merit you have does not rapid upward mobility make. 

The illusion of self-sufficiency is nothing more than plagiarism.  Self-made wealth is only possible because of multitudes of poor.  The top one percent is made possible because the bottom sixty percent has been immobilized from demanding their money back.  To claim to have self-made wealth is to plagiarize the common wealth.  (Note that exploitative dependency is not collective dependency – exploiting the collective is not transformative.)

Meritocracy is the fairy tale disguise that allows a few to continue to profit off the backs of most.  It keeps us aspiring to be at the top if we’re not, or resenting the bottom if we’re not, or hating ourselves if we are the bottom, or being terrified of falling if we’re somewhere in the middle.

Self-sufficiency is nothing more than a manifestation of our silenced history.  Who built the railroads?  Who drained the swamps?  Who nursed the children?  Who sewed the zippers on the denim jeans?  Who picked the cacao?  Who rinsed the pre-washed lettuce?  If we don’t name those we rely on, those whose backs we use as bridges, then they do not exist.  To claim self-sufficiency in the face of such reliance, such need, and such dependence is to deny our own reality. 

(2) Welfare is not a drug.

One cannot “overdose” on welfare.  One cannot develop a chemical dependency on it.  Welfare is not a pathological need.  To use a drug metaphor to describe the process of receiving welfare is fallacious, and it cruelly slanders those who have never been permitted to define themselves for themselves.

We are all on government assistance.  If you drive on the highway, fly out of an airport, attend a public school or university, get a vaccination, write-off a business lunch, or drink water from the faucet, you are a welfare recipient.  Deciding what is good welfare and bad welfare or what is acceptable dependency and pathological dependency prevents us from seeing that we all depend on each other and – through each other – our government to provide for our well-being.  Drawing lines in the sand on the beach will not save us from the tidal wave. 

Welfare is a right and it is justice.  If we practice exploitative dependency, it will be necessary to provide greater assistance to those we rely on.  You cannot squeeze a sponge dry and then deny it water, only to expect to squeeze it again the next day.  But welfare is also justice.  We must move away from the rhetoric of what is “deserved” or “earned” to an understanding that existence alone is enough to be worthy of a housing, of food, of clothing, of love. 

(3) Dependency is necessary for survival.

As self-sufficiency is a guise to prevent us from seeing our reliance on those below us, just as the distinction between those on welfare and those who are not ignores the ways we all depend on government assistance, this manifesto holds that dependency is real, true, and necessary.

Dependency is reality because we already need each other – that we choose not to acknowledge this basic reality speaks to the deep hold oppressive ideologies have on our hearts and psyches.  Scoffing at dependency is women-hating.  Denying our present dependency is poor-hating.  Imagining ourselves to be independent individuals when we practice such extreme degrees of reliance ensures that oppressed groups remain oppressed.  We should no longer foster shame for desiring simple needs of the human condition.  No one can make it through this hard but beautiful world alone, and no one should have to.  Nor should anyone pretend to.

This manifesto claims that non-exploitative dependency is transformative.  To depend is to be vulnerable.  To embrace vulnerability is to be free.  The sooner we recognize and nurture our collective dependency, the sooner we will see that our strength is not in independence nor in individual merit, but in each other.

Our liberation cannot be manifested.  For true actualization, this manifesto depends on us all.