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The following excerpt is from our book A Womb of Her Own (Routledge, 2017.) Dr. Richard Ruth places his own personal history in the context of his chapter on gay men and feminism.
Feminist scholarship (Fonow & Cook, 1991) critiques other trends in contemporary social and behavioral science and advocates that we not just insert but locate our studies in our personal experience. I bring that perspective to this chapter. I grew up male, with an incipient awareness I was gay, before the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s introduced not just women but men to the notion that male lives could be lived in different ways – less oppressive to women, and less constricting and thus less oppressive to men (Kaufman, 1994, has written theoretically about this phenomenon) – from what had been envisioned in the years after the suppression of first wave feminism (Banks, 1986). Like many, if not most, gay males of my 1960s generation, I internalized, early in life, that my failure to embrace or live up to (heterosexual) male ideals meant that I was destined to rejection, loneliness, sometimes physically violent bullying, and misery. Though I did not know, at the time, that pre-feminist US psychoanalytic theorizing held that male homosexuality is the product of an overinvolved mother, a distant father, and therefore developmental arrest (Drescher, 2008), I knew that the playground was dangerous and adolescent social life was hell. My fantasies of personal and sexual fulfillment took proscribed forms; “successful” male socialization, I knew well, would occur, to the extent it did, at the price of the death of my soul. One of the first things I learned about my emerging sexual identity was that, in most parts of the Western world, it was illegal at the time, and therefore dangerous (Johnson, 2009). Before Stonewall, it was the women’s liberation movement that gave me a sense of possibility. I hungrily consumed Friedan’s The feminine mystique (2010/1963) as a teenager, and Hanisch’s “The personal is political” (2006/1959) when it first appeared, transcribing the texts from a female to a gay male idiom. Feminism gave me vision and empowerment to come out, short years after Stonewall. One of my first actions after coming out was to join a conscious raising group. We met, sharing painful experiences of oppression, awkward first steps in being out, and dreams of a different future, and we saw each other through, for three crucially transformative years. We did not take each other on about the equal reality that gay men have male privilege, a gap I realized only in hindsight. I went through graduate school, and then psychoanalytic training, as an out gay man, something not common in the 1970s. I feel very fortunate to have had the support of feminist women in my personal life, and my emerging professional life, from the beginning of my journey to become a clinical psychologist and a psychoanalyst. This bolstered my courage and perseverance, though I was painfully aware that, as I encountered some colleague’s overt homophobic dismissal, that I had no role models ready at hand. None of my graduate school professors, analytic institute instructors, or supervisors was gay; as in an earlier phase of my development, I felt tolerated, at times warmly tolerated, but alone. I learned important insights about who I was in my consciousness raising group that it felt impossible to deepen or extend in my seminars and training analysis. Contextualizing my early professional development, I lived through the first stages of the divergence that came to divide the women’s movement from the gay movement, not aware at the time of what was happening, where it came from, or its implications.
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In our book A Womb of Her Own (Routledge, 2017) Dr. Richard Ruth traces the convergence and subsequent divergence of the feminist movement and the gay liberation movement. He points out that, while both movements borrowed from each other in ways of consciousness-raising, the gay movement carries within it a strain that devalues women. This position would certainly not be universal but is still recognizable. Dr. Ruth presents a clinical case in which two gay men are raising a son who is the biological child of one the men while he was in a traditional marriage. His broader point is that when diverse groups become the “other” it is difficult for oppressed groups of all types to work together against oppression.
Dr. Ruth writes: From the beginning second wave femini while sm recognized, and taught the broader society and its social movements, about the intimate ways that oppression reaches deeply into subjective experience and personal, emotional realities. This was captured in the insight that “the personal is political” (Hanisch, 2006/1969) and in the methodology of consciousness-raising groups (Larson, 2014) that the women’s movement of the time practiced and spread widely. In 1969, gay men and lesbians in the US were inspired by the example of the women’s movement, and other social movements of the time, to take a public stand for our right to live in freedom, and with pride. (While the gay movement included both gay men and lesbians, the alliances were loose, with more differences in focus than a common trajectory [Johnston, 1973]. Similarly, the distinct narratives and experiences of gay men of color [Beam, 1986; Brown, 2014; Hemphill, 1991; Leong, 2014; Marsiglia, 1998; Rodriguez, 2006] deserve separate treatment.) Beginning with a violent protest against police harassment at the Stonewall bar in New York, led by drag queens (Duberman, 2013), a movement that called itself the gay liberation movement arose (Cruikshank, 1992; Kissack, 1995; Thompson, 1994; Valocchi, 1999a). The movement named itself consciously paralleling the way feminism denominated itself as a women’s liberation movement, and the ways other radical social movements of the time in the US and the Third World named themselves, and framed itself intentionally not as a narrowly focused movement for civil rights, but as a movement with an ambitious broader scope – in its own conceptualization, liberation, with both personal and political dimensions (Valocchi, 2001). The movement of gay men that began at Stonewall adopted the use of consciousness raising groups from the women’s movement (Jay & Young, 1992). Across the US, and in other countries in Europe and Latin America, small, intimate groups of gay men met to share our experiences, learning that our shame, inhibitions, and experiences of internalized homophobia were not private or unique experiences, but rather were the psychological expression of a collective oppression (Larson, 3014). The movement intentionally melded consciousness raising with other forms of political activity, following the vision and successful trajectory of the women’s movement of the time (Jay & Young, 1992; Teal, 1971). In the next post Dr. Ruth describes his own poignant history of coming out as a gay man. Gay men’s lives are shaped by the oppression we experience in a still decidedly homophobic society. Homophobia often makes its most pointed attacks when gay men assert our right to control our bodies – how we move, how we express our desires, how we protect ourselves – with self-determination and pride (Plummer, 1999). We should therefore be the natural allies of women’s demand for reproductive rights, which is, at its core, about the right of women to control their bodies.
But the reality is that we are not. At a time when women’s reproductive rights are under renewed legal, political, psychological, and often physical assault (Ernst, Katzive & Smock, 2003/4), gay men, collectively, have not taken a pro-women, pro-feminist stand for women’s reproductive rights (Miller, 2000). To the contrary, some currents in the – progressive and welcome – move toward gay male couples parenting are starkly misogynist. This disturbing, and dangerous, emerging reality is all the more critical to understand at the current historical juncture. Backlash against advances in the rights and safety of gay men (Bronski, 2000) and backlash against advances in women’s rights and safety, especially the right to unencumbered reproductive freedom (Faludi, 2009), are both on the rise. Hard-won gains are eroding, and at heightened risk of eroding further – most especially, women’s right to reproductive freedom (Greenhouse & Siegel, 2011). In our book A Womb of Her Own (Routledge, 2017) aspires to contribute to turning this situation around, by examining how the disjuncture between feminism and gay men, and the gay civil rights movement, has developed, in the years following the launch of the gay movement in the US following Stonewall (Duberman, 2013), and by examining some threads of misogyny in the move toward gay parenting as they uniquely become visible through the lens of a psychoanalytic case. He begins the essay with a historical perspective. The focus on what was, in the 1960s and 1970s, called the women’s liberation movement (Evans, 1979) and is now called second-wave feminism (Baxandall & Gordon, 2002) had, as its primary focus, women’s rights and freedom in a society then even more rigidly and oppressively patriarchal than US society is now. There was nothing subtle about it – the status of women’s oppression was not a matter principally of attitudes, but rooted in the objective denial of women’s legal and economic rights, violence against women, and patriarchal power. (There are distinct intersections of women’s oppression and racial/ethnic oppression that now lead many to speak of feminisms, rather than feminism; for examples of analyses of these analyses, which lie largely outside the scope of this paper, see Chow [1987]; Collins [2000]; Garcia [`997]; Hooks [1981]Hull, Scott, & Smith [2003]; Smith [2005]; Thompson [2002]. Similarly, this chapter will focus mostly on developments in the United States.) Starting with the sexual revolution, much change has taken place in the area of gender equality. Some consider that a transformation has taken place in that women are succeeding in so many areas of life that previously were unavailable to them (Rosin, 2010; Kindlon, (2007). The movie “Frozen” is an example of a female assuming a new independent role, displaying her anguish as well as her strength and upturning traditional norms about intimate desires. Sexting and hook ups reflect women’s body affirming spirit and mettle; Tattooing displays their personal narratives. Females today are more assertive, and ambitious and less concerned about demonstrating it. They are far more expansive in their thinking about the skills they possess or can acquire. They seek academic excellence and often exceed men in many graduate school placements and accomplishments. They are entering fields that were heretofore unavailable to them.
Yet, this is clearly not the whole picture. Heterosexual relationships are still quite fraught. We know this by the divorce rate. Women still undertake the greater amount of child care and household work while holding down full time jobs, often leading to conflict in relationships (Schiebinger and Gilmartin ,2010). Such disparities may be contributed influenced by the idea that it takes some men a long time after college to give up their commitment to their buddies and the wish for sex rather than intimacy, and relationships of care and genuine equality Kimmel, 2008). Currently there are both engagement and significant difference of views between two female authors who are in the public sphere of influence, Sandberg (2013) and Slaughter (2012) .They discuss the problems of professional work lives of women. Sandberg exhorts women not to be subservient. Strong women in powerful positions are necessary and they need to give voice to their significant concerns. Women need to be assertive in both the domestic and the work sphere. They need to “lean in”. They need to persevere until they reach the top. They, of course, also need to select an appropriate husband that can allow for a woman’s high executive achievement. Slaughter, on the other hand, has left just such a high-powered political position because her adolescent child needed her during a difficult period for him. She felt, she said, “I’d been part, albeit unwittingly, of making millions of women feel that they are to blame if they cannot manage to rise up the ladder as fast as men and also have a family and an active home life (and be thin and beautiful to boot)”. Given the current economic business demands and its culture, Slaughter does not believe “women can have it all”. Not in the current climate where there is inflexibility in the workplace and women are penalized when they need time off for pregnancy, child care or elder care. (This is, of course even more the case for poor or single women where color and class distinctions are particularly relevant.) In addition, Faludi, (2013) points out that public policy contributes to sexism and discrimination. While mentioned by Sandberg, it is clear that this is not Sandberg’s focus. Instead she wants individual women to work harder ( as though they are not doing more than that already.) The clashing reality of family and demanding work lives take a major toll on women. Their unavailability and increased stress for high-functioning women places great strains on intimacy and sexuality. It creates tension between husbands and wives and often, because of long work hours, neglects child care needs. One choice for some professional women is to drop out of the work-place and obsessively concentrate as a chief executive of their children’s lives (Martin, 2015). Another choice some women make is to forego child-bearing and rearing (Daum (2015). Today, almost 1/5 of women in their mid-forties do not have children (Bolick, 2015). In this instance, smart, strong, empowered professional women know that time out for bearing and raising children means “catch up” which is difficult to accomplish and hampers careers. They opt out of bearing and bringing up children. In addition to various forms of gender discrimination, there is still much stereotypical behavior discussed in this paper and some women contribute to it by their tolerance and pleasure in their experience of benevolent sexism. Women’s acquiescence to much in our androcentric culture continues to maintain their marginality. For Faludi (2013), women need to lean in individually but also join collectively to alter the many forms of inequality that continue to exist. Faludi’s position is in contrast to Cicious’ in that the latter’s emphasis is on challenging sexism through individual narratives, not strong collective and supportive endeavors. A fair estimate of our current situation is what Schilllinger (Schiebinger and Gilmartin, 2010) has stressed that we have won “half a revolution.” We need to recognize that much has changed and much needs change. There is still the need for attention and hard work before true equality exists in the multiple spheres of women’s lives. What disturbs the [somewhat positive] picture presented above are the results of certain research. A portion of the research literature offers a different narrative for many young women. The sociological background of this phenomenon offers increased clarity which suggests a more complex view of hooking up. It starts with the double standard for the sexes which, while reduced, still exists and reflects the lack of equality and the greater need for more progress. Kimmel (2008), whose extensive surveys of students at college campuses, maintains that hooking up is really about male culture and their desires. Females accommodate to this culture. Thus, he claims, “When a guy says he hooked up with someone he may or may not have sex with her, but he is certainly hoping that his friends think he has. A woman, on the other hand, is more likely to hope they think she hadn’t” (Kimmel, 2008, p.197).
“The stereotype that males chase sex and are driven by lust but that females chase relationships and are driven by love” still has current valence (Reid, Elliot & Webber, 2011p. 548; see also Bogle, 2008). This leads to the idea that young women can have sex within relationships but young men are free to pursue sex indiscriminately. Thus, the hidden message for women seems to be the encouragement of being sexually attractive, thus inducing male’s desire, but not the active pursuit of their own desire. (This is the view of passive females that Freud wrote about in the early 20th century.) If females desire sex they are easily considered bad girls, sluts and hos (Armstrong, Hamilton & England, 2010). Thus, a study demonstrates that high school females’ popularity decreases with more partners even when some of these interactions become established relationships (Reid, Elliot &Webber 2011).. High school males, by contrast, experience an increase in popularity (Kreager and Staff, 2009). In college such men are called “studs” and “players” (Kreager and Staff, 2009) Women are not given favorable labels. In college hook-ups it is clear that females have to delimit their desire to guarantee their status as viable for future relationships. It is also relevant to illuminate the cultural and psychosocial factors that engage males during the period of high school, college, and somewhat beyond. Male attitudes and behavior contribute to a negative impact on women’s sexual experience. Investigation of males between the ages of 16 to 26 illuminate their development and the pressures they experience (Kimmel, 2008. ) This author maintains that these young boys and men continue to live out the Peter Pan syndrome. They never quite grow up. They are plagued by group and family demands to be “manly” and this idea is accommodated with its fantasy distortion of what it means to be manly. They drink, focus on sex and conquests, watch pornography, play video games, concentrate on sports, and see violent shoot-em-up movies. If not following these rules they can readily be labeled as ‘faggots” (Corbett, 2001) and suffer the physical and psychological abuse that follows this label. Heterosexual males of college age appear less interested in relationships with females. Their buddy connections appear far more important, therefore the expressions, “hanging out with their bros” and “Bros before hoes.” These expressions mean that nothing should interfere with their relationship to the guys in their group, especially not girlfriends or females in general. What is important to them are such questions as how each man stands in the pecking order; how manly or studly he is; how frequently does he “score”? He wants to be seen as a cool virile guy by his male friends, or as a patient offered, a” big dick guy.” Such male standards, especially characteristic of the college fraternity experience, lead to the need for sexual conquest. In particular, fraternities foster “hyper-masculine attitudes characterized by competition, athleticism, heavy drinking, sexual domination of women, and sexism (Martin & Hummer, 1989; Schwartz and DeKeseredy, 1997). Thus, there is the increased report of sexual coercion, rape or attempted rape on college campuses. Almost 28 % of “college women have reported unwanted sex that met the legal definition of rape or attempted rape” (Koss 1987; Flack, Jr, Daubman, Caron, Asadorian, et al, 2007)).A survey reported that almost 13% of completed rapes, 35% of attempted rapes, and 23% of threatened rapes took place on a date. (Kimmel, 2008, p. 273). Seventy-eight % of unwanted intercourse takes place in the context of hooking up (Fisher, Cullen & Turner, 2000 reported by Kimmel, 2008). This is a compelling statistic; yet, newspaper reports typically indicate that in most instances the experience of rape goes unreported. There are complex reasons for unwanted intercourse occurring, but high on the list is high alcohol consumption (Flack, Jr, Daubman, Caron, Asadorian, et al (2007). A huge amount of alcohol is consumed by both males and females when partying on campus. In addition drugs are used. Males supply the “date rape drugs”. Power inequality and sexual abuse frequently dominate with the use of alcohol and drugs. Research demonstrates that there is considerable male coercion of females. For example, a third of college males who were active sexually admitted to coercive and manipulative responses to get a disinclined female to have sex with them (Ramsey and Hoyt, 2015). Females report that even when in relationships that are not hook ups, these relationships threaten female academic achievement. They contribute as well to females’ feeling, or actually being controlled and manipulated in ways that interfere with their friendships, often inducing jealousy in their male partners. In some instances the control by male partners escalates into stalking behavior (Armstrong, Hamilton, & England, 2010 p.26) Given the need to “score” it is important to seduce an attractive, sexy female. Male focus tends to be on the stereotyped physical attributes of females, that is, the objectification of female bodies mentioned earlier (Kozak, Franenhauser and Roberts, 2009; Strelan and Hargreaves, 2005). The problem for females is that they, too, highlight their body parts and then believe that to be desired is based on their physical attributes. Their self scrutiny and physical health can be in jeopardy (anorexia or binge eating and vomiting). Not only are females’ self-objectifying, but, more important, they are less likely to concentrate on their own needs and desires and instead focus on those physical attributes that may be pleasing to males. It minimizes the likelihood of freedom to choose one’s own sexual path. For some females, hook ups are a way of coping with stress. They can lose themselves in the abandonment of drugs, alcohol, and sex. Others need an attachment and even a brief one can feel salubrious. For a distinct group of students there was significant evidence of alcohol abuse, depressive symptoms, feelings of loneliness, and low level of religiosity for those engaging in hook-ups (Manthos, Owen & Fincham 2014). Nevertheless, many females engage in hook ups because they realize it is an important way of finding and establishing a relationship (Bogle, (2008).  The practice of “hooking up” is a modern phenomenon that is still loaded negatively for women. From our book A Womb of Her Own (Routledge, 2017) Doris Silverman writes: Before I present issues involved in the practice of hooking up, I need to mention that for many it is a vague term with different meanings for each of the sexes. The Online College Social Life Survey, which is a collaborative endeavor among a number of colleges, interviewed both sexes about their hooking up. It covers a multitude of behaviors including: “kissing and non genital touching (34%), oral sex but not intercourse (15%), manual stimulation of the genitals (19%) and intercourse (35-40%). It can mean going all the way or everything but” (Kimmel 2008, p. 195).
A Narrative I am reading a Sunday Style section article from the New York Times called “Modern Love” by Ali Rachel Pearl (October 18, 2015). The author is in her mid twenties; a working woman. In part of her story, she described a sexual experience she had with a man she had met eight days before. She explained that he is a “stranger” She did not know him and thus to have sex with a stranger she needed to drink a half bottle of bourbon before they met. Although she did not label their interaction, she was hooking up. She found the experience quite pleasurable. She described it in detail including their spontaneity and lack of hesitation it was “fun, invigorating and kind”. Their first sexual experience on that eventful evening took place on a “wooden swing near a river in the trees behind the barn”, and the second time occurred that same evening and took place in the barn. They were both pleased with the experience and she described it as “romance and a whirlwind; It was sweat and sweet” on a humid summer evening. What is relevant is her willingness to describe her hook up experience. She is open and direct about her sexual proclivities, that is, when she finds herself abstaining from sexual intimacy and when she is free to engage in it. Sufficient cultural change has occurred so that there is acceptance of a woman offering her private confidences and intimacies in a public forum. What may have been once seen as a moral code of confidentiality even secrecy about one’s sexual intimacy with a stranger, is now brazenly overturned. It has much in common with sexting. Hook-ups can be considered an extension of sexting in but it involves more than just the visual. The increased frequency of both experiences appear to be a function of a number of factors: the more relaxed sexual attitudes of the past half century, the feminist movement, accessibility to pornography, the media and technology, all probably contributed to their development, . As with the practice of sexting, there are positive features about hooking up and the personal narratives they give rise to. The sense of stimulation and excitement, the freedom in the moment of decision, the pleasure in the sexual act, and even for some, temporary romance can be part of hook ups as it appears to be for Ali Rachel Pearl. Casual carnal sex has been with us for a long time, although not necessarily communally supported. For many women hook up experiences provide a sense of self assertion and exploration, a positive expression of their own sexual vitality and femininity, an affirmative feeling of their sensual-sexual selves which they wish to freely exhibit and communicate and their appreciation of men’s responsiveness to them. It expresses, as well, women’s own equally lustful feelings toward another with the possibility of a hook up leading to a relationship. Those who view themselves as affectionate and warm, uninhibited and direct about sex are also likely to engage in hook ups (Manthos, Owen & Fincham, 2014). Hook ups have certainly increased and are fairly wide-spread among college students (I will report on one high school commentary). It is he college age group that is typically investigated by researchers (England, Schafer, & Fogarty, 2007; Manthos, Owen & Fincham, 2014; Kimmel, 2008).  A phenomenon undreamed of when the feminist revolution began is the practice of sexting which is now quite common. Stasko & Geller (2015) reported that 80% of people surveyed on line from ages 18 to 82 (more than half of whom were female) sexted. Many females sexted as part of a committed relationship, and more than 40% sexted as part of a casual relationship. The number of girls and teens sexting is not clear. What is typically reported is that a majority of teens are sexting. When girls, as well as teens, are calculated, the percentage appears to vary from 50 to 80 %. (The latter figure is offered by Gadson, Griggs, & Duan, 2014). Sexting appears to increase with age.
The Atlantic Magazine (Hanna Rosin, 2015) did an in-depth study of this topic. Sexting refers to sexual messages delivered, and now, often accompanied by photos. Girls send nude photographs of themselves because, in most instances, they are pressured to do so by boys, sometimes friends, sometimes boyfriends. Her article covers sexting in middle school (6th through 9th grade) and through high school. In most cases nothing untoward occurs for these young females. However, for some young girls who feel coerced to sext by a boy, they discover that their picture is then shared with many other males without their consent. A small number of these girls are so humiliated that they commit suicide. (Rosin, 2015, p. 74; See also Bauman, 2015). The humiliation is understandable in that when photos are shared the girl is often labeled a slut or ho (whore) or a thot (that ho over there). Boys, by contrast do not experience any aftermath of criticism or shame whether they sext or not. For example, Haasinoff (2015) reported on a case of two cheerleaders who were suspended from school for sexting. The recipients of these photos distributed them without permission and they received no punishment. Despite the serious violation of these young girls privacy no penalty was exacted from the perpetrators. A double standard for the sexes still exists. In the male pursuit of nude photos there is an implicit objectification of females. As contemporary research reports, “To sexually objectify women is to mentally divide her body and mind in order to o focus on her sexual body parts. Her body parts and their functions are no longer associated with her personality and emotions but are seen as instruments to be used by others (Bartky, 1990)” (quoted in Ramsey and Hoyt, 2015, p.151; Weiner, 2015). Objectification appears to be ubiquitous in our culture without the recognition of the subtle, insidious effects it can produce in females (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997; Ramsey and Hoyt, 2014). Objectification can have a demeaning, overly self-conscious, and shame-inducing effect on susceptible young women’s ideas about their bodies. Some data supports the idea that it is the more vulnerable girls who respond to sexting pressure (Bauman, 2015; Drouin & Tobin, 2014; Drouin, Ross & Tobin, 2015; Reyns, Henson, & Fisher, 2014). Middle school girls who are sexting are more likely to be engaging in sexual activity, a bit surprising for this age group (Houck, Baker, Rizzo, Hanock, et al, 2014; Rice, Gibbs, Winetrobe, Rhoades, et al 2014). Older teen-agers who sext may do so because they have problems with substance abuse, and other personal issues which lead to high risk behavior (e.g., unprotected sex). (Crimmins, Seigfried-Spellar, 2014; Drouin & Tobin, 2014; Temple, Le, van denBerg, Ling, et al (2014). The positive feature of sexting is that it appears, for many girls, to be a normal feature of sexual experimentation and young women are actively taking advantage of exploration. They are pleased with their bodies and are willing to exhibit them. There is also a sense of freedom and independence and resisting conventional norms. Characteristic of this teen age position, one young girl commented, “This is my life and my body and I can do whatever I want with it. I don’t see any problem with it. I am proud of my body.” (Rosin, p. 67.) My summarizing of the literature on sexting suggests a complex picture of sexting. Middle school girls appear to be more troubled by sexting. They experience shame especially when their photos are dispersed without their consent. Reputations can be seriously blemished with negative name labeling associated with girls who sext. Age appears to be a relevant consideration. Some studies report that female college students sext more frequently and have serious mental issues such as impulsivity, drug and alcohol use, insecure attachment relationships, and poor self-image. Although there may be an increased use of drugs and alcohol consumption, for many students, it is accomplished in the social context of a sanctioned college environment. As Hasinoff (2015) has opined, sexting is a form of”interpersonal intimacy and communication” (p.1) She maintains that teens need protection from “malicious peers and overzealous prosecutors” and there is need for recognition of girls’ agency and choices when there is consensual sexting (p.2).  Given the fear and uncertainty that is sweeping the country, hope may be in short supply these days. But the holidays, however we celebrate them, can provide a respite from the worry and despair that beset us. It is a time when kindness becomes fashionable and charity, a byword. We have the urge to give and share; to feed the hungry and comfort the lonely.
The world can be magical this time of year. Sometimes, when I happen to be out on Christmas Eve, I find that everything is silent. The shopping is done or simply given up as hopeless. The cards have been sent and maybe even returned–marked “returned to sender; address unknown.” The children are “nestled all snug in their beds” …or not. It is a stillness that reminds me of the Karen Carpenter song: “There’s a kind of hush all over the world…” Those lyrics are about romantic love but in my mind they translates to the universal love of which all of us are capable. It is true that the holidays have become mercilessly commercialized. Holiday music begins earlier; advertising promises monumental savings even while busting our budgets to smithereens; holiday cheer becomes ever more enticing even though we know that these can be some of the loneliest days of the year. But still there is a song, a melody that keeps playing underneath the chaos and confusion. I believe it is a song about love. Perhaps it is the celebration of a miraculous birth that changed history. Or the escape from oppression and the restoration of a sacred site. It may be a harvest festival and the veneration of cultural values. Having been raised a Christian I had not been aware of the marvelous values that the Kwanzaa festival celebrates. The seven principles it teaches would benefit any culture or community. They include unity: striving for and maintaining unity in the family, community, nation, and race; self-determination: defining ourselves, naming ourselves, creating for ourselves, and speaking for ourselves; collective work and responsibility: building and maintaining our community together and making our brother’s and sister’s problems our problems and solving them together; cooperative economics: building and maintaining our own stores, shops, and other businesses and profiting from them together; purpose: making our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness; creativity: doing always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it; faith: believing with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. Perhaps you have heard of the sign posted in the window of a Muslim-owned restaurant in London which reads: “No one eats alone on a Christmas Day! We are here to sit with you. . . . Any homeless or elderly are welcomed.” Any other year, the restaurant’s offer of a free Christmas meal might have been quietly acknowledged as one in keeping with the holiday spirit of generosity. This year, however, it seems to have taken on extra meaning: The restaurant is owned and managed by Muslims, and its kind offer comes at a time when there have been many instances of Islamophobia in Britain. The handwritten note immediately struck a nerve. In the past three weeks, images of the sign have been liked and shared thousands of times. Hundreds of people have commented, praising the restaurant for its hospitable gesture in the face of the inhospitable environment for Muslims. The holidays illuminate universal themes of community and generosity; a desire to help the less fortunate; a time to put selfishness aside. They give us hope that our “better angels” are still present and can somehow prevail. They give us the chance to invest in someone else’s happiness; listen attentively to our children; allow our young ones to believe in magic; foster their search for a bearded gentleman who spends all year preparing to fulfill their fondest dreams. They provide an opportunity to listen for a brief span of time to “a kind of hush all over the world” and hear the faint but persistent music of love.  In our book A Womb of Her Own (Routledge, 2017) Dr. Doris Silverman writes:
A phenomenon undreamed of when the feminist revolution began is the practice of sexting which is now quite common. Stasko & Geller (2015) reported that 80% of people surveyed on line from ages 18 to 82 (more than half of whom were female) sexted. Many females sexted as part of a committed relationship, and more than 40% sexted as part of a casual relationship. The number of girls and teens sexting is not clear. What is typically reported is that a majority of teens are sexting. When girls, as well as teens, are calculated, the percentage appears to vary from 50 to 80 %. (The latter figure is offered by Gadson, Griggs, & Duan, 2014). Sexting appears to increase with age. The Atlantic Magazine (Hanna Rosin, 2015) did an in-depth study of this topic. Sexting refers to sexual messages delivered, and now, often accompanied by photos. Girls send nude photographs of themselves because, in most instances, they are pressured to do so by boys, sometimes friends, sometimes boyfriends. Her article covers sexting in middle school (6th through 9th grade) and through high school. In most cases nothing untoward occurs for these young females. However, for some young girls who feel coerced to sext by a boy, they discover that their picture is then shared with many other males without their consent. A small number of these girls are so humiliated that they commit suicide. (Rosin, 2015, p. 74; See also Bauman, 2015). The humiliation is understandable in that when photos are shared the girl is often labeled a slut or ho (whore) or a thot (that ho over there). Boys, by contrast do not experience any aftermath of criticism or shame whether they sext or not. For example, Haasinoff (2015) reported on a case of two cheerleaders who were suspended from school for sexting. The recipients of these photos distributed them without permission and they received no punishment. Despite the serious violation of these young girls privacy no penalty was exacted from the perpetrators. A double standard for the sexes still exists. In the male pursuit of nude photos there is an implicit objectification of females. As contemporary research reports, “To sexually objectify women is to mentally divide her body and mind in order to o focus on her sexual body parts. Her body parts and their functions are no longer associated with her personality and emotions but are seen as instruments to be used by others (Bartky, 1990)” (quoted in Ramsey and Hoyt, 2015, p.151; Weiner, 2015). Objectification appears to be ubiquitous in our culture without the recognition of the subtle, insidious effects it can produce in females (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997; Ramsey and Hoyt, 2014). Objectification can have a demeaning, overly self-conscious, and shame-inducing effect on susceptible young women’s ideas about their bodies. Some data supports the idea that it is the more vulnerable girls who respond to sexting pressure (Bauman, 2015; Drouin & Tobin, 2014; Drouin, Ross & Tobin, 2015; Reyns, Henson, & Fisher, 2014). Middle school girls who are sexting are more likely to be engaging in sexual activity, a bit surprising for this age group (Houck, Baker, Rizzo, Hanock, et al, 2014; Rice, Gibbs, Winetrobe, Rhoades, et al 2014). Older teen-agers who sext may do so because they have problems with substance abuse, and other personal issues which lead to high risk behavior (e.g., unprotected sex). (Crimmins, Seigfried-Spellar, 2014; Drouin & Tobin, 2014; Temple, Le, van denBerg, Ling, et al (2014). The positive feature of sexting is that it appears, for many girls, to be a normal feature of sexual experimentation and young women are actively taking advantage of exploration. They are pleased with their bodies and are willing to exhibit them. There is also a sense of freedom and independence and resisting conventional norms. Characteristic of this teen age position, one young girl commented, “This is my life and my body and I can do whatever I want with it. I don’t see any problem with it. I am proud of my body.” (Rosin, p. 67.)  In the progressive features of Frozen, there is a new female anthem of freedom, no longer the silent women, rather one of power, liberty and selfhood. Elsa is willing to tolerate and even endorse isolation, rather than fulfill an insistent need to offer up her independence, and confidence to achieve security under the protection of a husband.
Elsa’s willingness to remove herself from the world is, of course, the opposite of the Little Mermaid who makes a great self-sacrifice to be part of the human world, the goal of which is a significant love relationship. There are a number of dynamic issues that converge on understanding Elsa’s isolation. Elsa, the older sister, had to tolerate the arrival of her younger sibling. Anna is full of energy and naïve, lighthearted love. She is the direct, impulsive and simpler one, full of frolicking fun and engagement with what she experiences as a loving world. She is not the thoughtful, careful, controlled future queen. When they were younger, Elsa’s ambivalence resulted in severely damaging her sister. It was the temporary enactment of her hostile impulse toward her younger, care-free sister. She punished herself by abandoning all human contact. Her removal to a remote citadel is in part her guilt over the harm she has caused her sister and her need for atonement. Elsa contains strong emotions as reflected in the theme song “Let It Go”. Her song demonstrates a frenzied storm within her; the lyrics reflect her rage-filled embattlement that becomes more intense and gale-like as she proceeds up her ice fortress. The eruption raging within is matched by the ice-cold winter without. Yet, there is another feature of this isolation. Elsa is an artist, capable of producing sculptures of icy beauty. They are large, magnificent structures, dizzying swirls of curlicues, gorgeous geometric patterns, icicles that float and lift to the sky. She has filled her world and it is a gratifyingly aesthetic one to behold. Like many artists, she needed to remove herself from civilization, to maintain a hermitic existence to produce beauty (Think of Virginia Wolff who needed “A Room of her Own” to depart and be alone to be generative. Elsa’s isolating herself can be thought of as a retribution for her aggression as well as a transformational sublimation for her creative life. The second important feature of this postmodern fairy tale is the love of two sisters and the enduring trial of Anna to reach and restore their love for one another. This is the unusual point of this tale. The movie also has an unusual ending. Typically, the female protagonist needs the kiss of the strong, handsome prince who loves her and has endured trials which free her from her imprisonment and allows her to marry. True love in Frozen does not come from a man but from a sister who really loves her older sister and wants to restore their loving relationship. The turn is toward another woman rather than a man, a really unusual finality, suggesting all kinds of new partnering which can offer love and caring friendship. I see this as an important revolutionary turn. |
