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I was once told that you should keep your child at home rather than send her to day care.
I do not fully understand the day care system, but I wonder why some people see day care as such a bad thing for their kids.
I'm pretty sure the idea that a woman has to be a mother first and foremost, and therefore tend to her kids is still strong. Although many women feel this to be something biological, it is not. It has to do with social factors, with being taught from an early age that a girl cares about the babies, that a woman has to be a mother, and so on.
But beyond the gender discourse, I think this fear of day care also has a lot to do with the day care/ kindergarten system in North America. As said, a system I still don't fully understand: what's the difference between them? Are these institutions public or private? Are people working there educated and licensed? Why some institutions are affiliated with churches? How come day cares are in private homes? Who decides on the curricula?
I mean, I do understand the historical circumstances and the institutional dimension, but I think it's simply wrong. And if you really espouse gender equality, you need to ensure that there is a reliable, secular education system where kids can develop intellectually and emotionally.
I grew up in a different part of the world and went to kindergarten. Our kindergarten was a huge brick building, with a big backyard and a wonderfully huge swing. Oh yes, small kids were allowed to use the swing... That was back in the time when kids were supposed to fall and hurt themselves. I did fall, and I did hurt myself but I survived and not really cared about it.
Our kindergarten had nice and not-so-nice teachers. Mostly women, it is true. But they were all educated and they all made sure our day was neatly divided into play time, learn time, eating time and nap time. I really really hated the afternoon naps.
Each morning, we would have breakfast there. That's when I met my friend M, who always skimmed the milk for me. Yes, that was during the time when milk came with all the natural fat and formed a disgusting creamy skin on top when warmed up.
We then went to our different classrooms and played. I had to learn that one doesn't always get what one wants. And that playing involves taking other kids into consideration. I also learned that I'm not very good at fighting for my toys, but that if you annoy me, I'll make sure I get what I want from you.
We also drew a lot of pictures and sang songs and learned funny things that make kids happy. A very important gift that I got in kindergarten was an extensive range of those annoying diseases kids get. They are to be experienced when you're young enough not to remember them.
My mom picked me up at 4.30 pm. Some days she was late, and I was crying my heart out fearing she has abandoned me. I survived, and I wasn't permanently damaged by my tears.
The point is: the kindergarten was a place that parents trusted. The stay-at-home mom was rare and usually frowned-upon: why was she at home instead of working? They never gave us junk to eat. They insisted on our morning milk and our afternoon veggies. We did NOT watch TV. We played with toys and with each other. We played outside almost every day, summer and winter. Yes, kids cried in the morning because they wanted to stay at home. But hey, it was a great lesson in growing up. And I made a friend for life there. So I guess in the end, it was actually good for me. Photo credits: Seattle Municipal Archives
Your friend's friend makes an intolerant comment on your friend's profile. It's highly offensive, almost bordering fascism from your point of view. But you are not sure what to do. It's not addressed to you, but it's in a cvasi-public space - a friend's wall. You do not know that person, but in a way it's just like being in a shop and witnessing a blatantly intolerant act. What do you? Do you comment? Or do you ignore it? Should you tell yourself it is just a private comment? Or should you rather respond to it, precisely because if a private comment in a public space remains unaddressed, it may look like everyone else endorses it?
"You're speaking Chinese again", a friend told me the other day. I wasn't actually speaking Chinese, but in the language she was using, 'to speak Chinese' stands for saying something that cannot be understood. It's an idiom, but a revealing one. The way we speak, even if we do not mean it, often indicates a variety of things: - how certain groups or certain differences have been constructed in that language and the ethics surrounding this construction;
- how we, as individuals, may consciously or not buy into these constructs, often perpetuating a problematic construction of difference as something to be feared, as something that cannot be surmounted, as something that has to be avoided at all costs.
When 'speaking Chinese' comes to stand for 'saying something that cannot be understood', the underlying implication is that Chinese is an exotic language that cannot be understood. Something that is so different that it becomes incomprehensible.
This is an interesting construction of difference - and I'd be curious to hear if this idiom has any sense at all in English or if readers can relate to it in any way. Here, difference comes to stand for something so apart from our ways of understanding the world, that it can no longer be made sense of.
As we learn our languages, with their biases and suggested views of the world, we also learn how to categorize the world. With this problematic idiom, Chinese comes to constructed as something incomprehensible. It is an exotic Other with whom we can have little if any rapport.
Such a viewpoint may often frame the way we come to relate to individuals we identify as belonging to the group. Often times, the incomprehensibility becomes a source of patronizing irony: "It's in Chinese, so you won't understand a thing, but it sounds so funny!". If you've ever seen someone of Asian background for whom English is not the first language trying to explain something, while other English speakers keep laughing at every word, then you know what I'm talking about. It is interesting though to think about how our perception of difference is informed by such an intricate web of cognitive, linguistic and social dynamics.
Photo credits: Steve Snodgrass
Who decides on your race, ethnicity or nationality? What are the features you need to have in order to be placed in one of these categories? While I am usually more concerned with deconstructing such categories and with showing how unsustainable they are, this post will be slightly different.
A few days ago, TIME published an interesting story on how the French must prove they are French. The idea was that children born abroad to parents that were French nationals are having a hard time getting their nationality recognized by France. If this nationality is not recognized, then you cannot be a French citizen. However, to be recognized as such, you need to be either born out of French parents, or to be born and to have lived in France until you reach adulthood. The TIME story traced the saga of one of the children born outside of France from French parents who were working abroad at the time.
Without getting into the intricacies of the law here, it is interesting to observe the struggle around defining what nationality is, who has the authority to recognize it and by what means it can actually be attained.
Nationality is a notoriously hard to define concept. Back in the 1950s, Karl Deutsch defined it as "a term which may be applied to a people among whom there exists a significant movement toward political, economic, or cultural autonomy” (1953, p. 3). There were obvious problems with this definition, and Deutsch was the first to notice that: just how do you measure that? It is fine to say "a people with a common will to being autonomous", but just what does the 'common will' mean here? Do you count those who are not in favor of that autonomy? Do you count those who do not recognize themselves as belonging to the group in question, but still live with the group?
And even if you come up with seemingly more 'objective' features to define nationality, such as language or common history, you're in trouble again. For instance, language is not as uniform as we want to believe it. In fact, language is better understood as 'languages', where the plural emphasizes the lived diversity of spoken dialects.
However, trying to understand 'what nationality is' is by far less interesting than trying to understand 'how nationality becomes the main principle of categorization' within modern world. Since most people are social beings, they have always lived in groups. What's different in modernity is the nature of the group boundary as well as the importance of the group as an essentializing force acting upon the individual. To the extent that nationality becomes the political principle justifying the organization of the state, nationality also becomes the most important category defining who is in and who is out, who has access to resources, and who has rights or not.
The overlap between nationality and the monopoly of authorized violence (the state) is the most intriguing and the most problematic one. With this overlap, the main authority in placing you within groups resides with the state. The state takes over the possibility of negotiating this placement in everyday life and rigidifies it into a set of rules that establish your location within a system of rights and exchanges.
Photo credits: fdecomite
References: Deutsch, K. (1953) Nationalism and Social Communication. An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality. NY: The Technology Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology & John Wiley & Sons, I nc.; London: Chapman & Hall, Ltd.
The commercial says: "Be smart. Be attractive to the opposite sex!"
What is this commercial about? You have three guesses:
- Excel, the gum that whitens your teeth.
- Toyota, the car that makes you socially desirable.
- London School of Economics, the higher education institution that makes you very employable.
If you guessed "Toyota", then you've got it! Not because there's something intrinsic to Toyota (the car or the brand) that makes you both smart and sexually attractive. But because the advertising/ marketing team has decided that wits and sex cannot possibly go wrong. Who doesn't want to have them both? And if all you need is a car, then hey, I'm in! The political correctness of this commercial - as well as its stupidity, unfortunately the two go hand in hand here - was compelling. It's a little treasure, revealing how intellectual concerns and criticisms about economic issues make their way back into the world of economics and get reincorporated in the economic logic of profit making.
This commercial may be a nice example of what sociologist Anthony Giddens has once called the reflexivity of the modern world:
“The reflexivity of modern social life consists in the fact that social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming informatoin about those very practices, thus constitutively altering their character.” (Giddens, 1990, p. 38)
When some consumers get upset or feel left out, the good advertiser knows that all you need is a re-branding, the miracle touch that transforms the gender-oppressive product into a gender-bender, gender-celebratory one.
- Buying the product gives you the two things feminists have nagged us about: sexual attractiveness and intelligence. Because we all know how hard it is to be both smart and attractive. Yet, with this product, the two become seamless.
- The product is not designed exclusively for men or women. And while it is unfortunately still designed for the heterosexual group (I guess the creative team could not come up with a word that would please everyone... And you have to agree that 'Be attractive to whomever or whatever you are attracted to' does not really sound very neat...), both men and women can benefit from its magical, sexual effects. No more "Mini-Cooper is a car for gays" or "VW Beattle is car for women"... No, sir/mam, this car's magic bestows sexual attractiveness in a (almost) politically correct manner.
Photo credits: DavidHT
References: Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990
When asked what she is doing, an acquaintance answered she is a mother. And added: "The best thing a woman could be". I had to disagree. As a child, I always wanted to hear my mom say that I am the best thing in her life. But growing up, I started to think that my mom was so much more than just my mom: she was a professional, she was an intellectual, she was a human being whose life extended beyond her role as a mother. My mom took pride in who she was, as a human being. And I am thankful for this, because it taught me that I am first and foremost a person. That biological sex is one of the many aspects of my life, and it needs not be the one that totally defines me.
It's true that being a mother is not easy. Nor does it come naturally. Like all other things humans do, it requires learning. To master it, you need to practice and to be patient. You rely on the existing knowledge, you seek information and you adjust what you find out to fit your view of the world. If anything, one can say that being a mother - better, being a parent - is one of the toughest jobs ever, because there's so much at stake. Not to mention that it is a round the clock, year round job. And that it never really ends...
But being a mother is not "the best thing a woman could be". It may be your personal calling, but that's not a consequence of you being a woman. It is the consequence of a choice you made, a choice stemming from your worldview. Women are not one and the same, defined by their capacity to procreate. Not all women are able or want to have children. Does that mean they will never reach their potential as human beings?
We all try to make our own choices about our lives. But to say that motherhood is the best a woman could be is highly problematic. You may say that motherhood is the best thing you chose to be, because it fulfills you. In such cases, you want to convey to others that you are happy and satisfied with what you have in your life. But one size does not fit all!
Photo credits: seanmcgrath
Warning: The contents of this post may be offensive. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just my political correctness. I may become 'old school': the kind of people who tried to fight consciously and unconsciously abusive labels and name-calling. But as the fight unfolded, so did a form of resistance that sought to reclaim the labels and to reinvest them with a new, empowering meaning.
The other day, I was looking for an unprotected wireless internet network that I could use for a mobile device. In the middle of a commercial area, the only unprotected network available was "niggerfaggot". I was taken aback: how should I read this? Could I read it in any other way than being utterly offensive? Did I even have the right to 'read' it in the first place, given that it most probably meant to be private? And what was I supposed to do about it? Report it? Connect to it? Ignore it?
I decided not to use the network. But my feelings didn't vanish: uncertainty, anger, wonder. Mostly uncertainty. What was the name's meaning? What was its role? We all name our technologies: my car's name is Sharky, mainly because it resembles a shark from the profile. Sometimes, the name is meant to be a joke. Which in itself doesn't mean the joke may not rest upon ethnic, racial or gender stereotypes.
We are meaning-making creatures: unless we make sense of things, we cannot move on. How am I to make sense of a network named "niggerfaggot"? What sets of criteria should I use to interpret it? Let's pretend for a moment that the name is reclaimed by someone who wants to challenge the mainstream hateful connotations of the words. Does this moment of personal empowerment matter in terms of the system? Would people sense the alleged irony or resistance?
The construction of difference is not something stable or unitary. It remains contextual: to understand, you need to know the context of the name. It also remains fluid over time: today's discrimination may be tomorrow's resistance. But most importantly, it remains historical: you need to understand the way in which the name was used throughout time to mark a particular type of difference.
Photo credits: Kelly Santos
I was once told that you should keep your child at home rather than send her to day care.
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