Memorial Day is the unofficial start of Summer, and the preferred time of year to take off some days for vacation, either for travel or just relaxation.

Now, of course, if you’re like me, the recession really has not “ended” for you, and you’re broke. Maybe you’re not broke, but just hate extravagance. If you’re not broke, and love extravagance, you’re probably a GOP bundler, and are confused as to why this site discusses OWS without links to McDonald’s applications. Just type “World News Daily” in your little search engine box and you should be fine.

So, let’s list some cheap things to do this summer.

1. Visit The Library. When I was a boy, my Mother would drop me off at the library most days of the week during the summer, and it was the best thing she could have done for me. It’s a place full of books and magazines with air conditioning. All it’s missing is a well-stocked bar.

2. Visit your nearest national park, and enjoy our national heritage before the Koch brothers buy it all up. .

3. Campaign for your Congressional candidate. It’s an election year, remember? Walking is great exercise, just be sure you have a sturdy pair of shoes. You can even canvass in a Tri-Corn hat, if you have one.

4. Visit a local museum. Just like your local library, no matter how bored you are, you cannot deny it… you love climate control. I live in New York State, and in NYC, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cloisters are free, with merely a “recommended donation”.

5. Go see The Avengers. I know that costs money. I don’t care.

(Edited to make more sense, links are included in comment below because I am bad at the computing -Justin)

Have you noticed the poor quality of some news channels?

Have you noticed how some news channels seem to be little more than partisan propaganda?

Have you noticed that “If it bleeds, it leads” is only the tip of the iceberg?

I won’t name names since you can find it across the political spectrum and I’m not in the mood to argue which channel does it the most, but you know what I’m talking about. Nigh-Pornographic coverage of famous people, interminable coverage of relatively frivolous things, like awards shows and athletic events, , selective reporting to fulfill an agenda… it goes on and on and on.

Nothing happens in a vacuum, of course, but surely one of the reasons the USA is going to the dogs (hey, I told you I was being a curmudgeon, I’ll use that turn of phrase and you’ll like it!) is that we are told what to think by irresponsible journalists and pseudo-journalists who serve some ulterior agenda that has very little to do with keeping people informed, and more to do with keeping the population amused and docile.

That’s why 24 Hour “News” Networks spend so much time covering people that are famous but in truth have no effect on how we live our lives, rather than public servants, or the people who labor in obscurity but have great power over the nation and the world.

But these news channels insist they’ve been responsible and kept you informed, after all, there’s all those little news tickers at the bottom of the screen… that are hard to read, and far less interesting than the physically perfect face of the newscaster.

As Captain Beatty said in Fahrenheit 451, “…chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving.” And so it goes, but we’re not better off for it.

I think we need to come up with a new rule for watching Televised news:

The trustworthiness of a news program is inversely related to its use of visual stimuli.

In short, the more flashy it is, the more bullshit is shoveled. Does this rule already exist? If not, it needs a name. The Law of Info-Tainment, perhaps?

Again, without naming names… Think about the most actually informative news program you’ve watched. Did they have a scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen, or did they have a newscaster pretty much at the front and center of the action with no distracting text or graphics?

Right.

The only useful thing we can do is refuse to watch flashy “News” Networks, and watch more serious reporters, and even (gasp) spend more time reading. We deserve better than to be treated like idiots.

On Friday’s Majority Report, Sam Seder interviewed show regular Jeff Smith of Occupy Wall Street. They spoke of an article by David Graeber, detailing accusations of systemic sexual assault against women OWS protesters by the NYPD. They speculated that this is being done to provoke a reaction from other peaceful protesters, especially men.

This is outrageous and must be investigated. I sent the following email to my City Councilman, Mayor Bloomberg, State Assemblyman, State Senator, Governor Cuomo, Congressman and Senators Gillibrand and Schumer.

Today I read a very disturbing blog post by David Graeber describing what appears to be a systemic use of sexual assault against female Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/david-graeber-new-police-strategy-in-new-york-sexual-assault-against-peaceful-protestors.html

These allegations are shocking and outrageous. I urge you to please look into them, and if they are valid, please take action to protect the rights of all New Yorkers. I feel strongly that First Amendment Rights must be protected. As a woman, I have the right to peacefully protest without fear of sexual assault from the NYPD.

I also contacted the New York Times Ombudsman, and I encourage you to do the same.

Contact your NYC city council person.

Contact Mayor Bloomberg.

Contact your New York State Assembly Member

Contact your New York State Senator.

Contact Governor Cuomo.

Contact your Congressional Representatives.

Contact your Senators.

Monday’s episode of Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast featured Chelsea Handler. It was pretty much what I expected, but what stood out to me was the way she handled Maron’s questions about sexism.

They were discussing Handler’s relationship with a producer at the E! television network, which began after her show premiered, yet still led to speculation that she only had a television show because she was dating/having sex with him.

MARON:It’s like fundamental sexism to…Obviously the show is a success, and you’ve written these books and you do standup but people are like..
HANDLER: I know, I mean, it’s like come on. Thanks a lot for all the credit!
MARON: Do you think that’s sexist? That attitude towards you?
HANDLER: No I don’t. Sexism is bullshit to me. I don’t even buy into that anymore. I mean men and women are equal. And that’s that in my mind.

Later in the interview, Maron asked again:

MARON: So you don’t even engage in the dialogue, that people are harder on you because you are a woman?
HANDLER: No. I don’t really care about that. No! I mean that, I feel like talking about that makes it real, it’s like, for me, that’s never been an issue. It’s like, I’m not I mean who cares? It’s not a sex issue. There’s funny women. There’s funny men.

At first I thought that this is an example of the accomplishments of feminism – powerful women feel like sexism is not an issue in their lives. It’s disappointing that she doesn’t think about why that might be so, or that it might not be true for other women, however.

Then I looked at the comments on the WTF website. Now, I have once commented online to Marc Maron that he should ask Carlos Mencia why he’s a no talent hack with a minstrel show. So I am not above writing mean things about celebrities on the internet. But looking through the comments about this episode, I lost track of the number of times Handler was called a bitch, someone insinuated that any women who don’t like her are, “insecure ladywhales” and a moderator posted that he had to delete many comments calling her a cunt:

Come on, people. You are free to dislike and debate the relative merits of anyone who is on the show, but in the end these people are still our guests. Let’s lay off the personal attacks and liberal use of the c-word. If you notice a previous comment of yours missing, it’s because I deleted anything with the c-word. Zero tolerance on that one until things get a little less prickly in here.

Good for Marc and Brendan PW McDonald for not tolerating that shit.

So Ms Handler, I can respect your discomfort in talking about the sexism, even if it indicates you really don’t believe that it no longer exists. One look at those comments disproves that idea. I understand that if you were to tackle the sexism of some of your critics either through humor or direct statements, you might not have a television show anymore or financial security for your family. But I wish you would acknowledge the absurd irony of a rich, white, traditionally attractive woman who denies sexism exists being called a cunt because she is otherwise extremely confident in who she is and what she wants.

Note: An expanded version of this post is available here.

As the years go by and my identity as a Unitarian Universalist solidifies, I feel my appreciation of my new tradition deepening all the time. At first I was drawn to a place where I could be spiritual with others who accepted me. My congregation is a community where I can share common values but also where disagreements do not mean fear of expulsion.

But something I have been thinking about recently is the UU doctrine that “Revelation is not sealed.” What this means is that while there might be some good lessons in the holy books of other religions, people can still learn truths about morality, human nature and the world in a multitude of ways. We must “be open to new and higher truths.”

What this also means is that Unitarian Universalist Ministers are not limited to a single volume, written in the past during a different time and place to find the words to inspire and guide their congregations.

I think of that scene in Walk The Line where Jack says

Look, J.R., if I’m going to be a preacher one day, I gotta know the bible front to back. I mean, you can’t help nobody if you can’t tell them the right story.

To a young boy of strong Christian faith, this makes perfect sense. But in my mind, his earnestness is immediately contrasted with Julia Sweeney’s remarks in Letting Go of God about the priests who have to live this reality of trying to tell people who need their help the right story,

[L]ike a big ocean wave, the force of all that I hated about this Church welled up in me; all the pompus, numbing masses, the unabated monotony of the rituals, all the desperate priests trying to tease out something meaningful from a very flawed ancient text.

I first articulated this problem myself in thinking about a recent Sunday service at my UU congregation about Leymah Gbowee, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for her activism in stopping the Second Liberian Civil War. On the drive home after service, Adam and I, and anyone else in the car usually continue the discussion. I wondered how a Catholic priest could talk about Leymah Gbowee if he wanted to. There was a priest in the parish my family belonged to when I was in high school who loved to talk about “the power of prayer.” Sometimes he quoted guests on Larry King Live or something he read in Reader’s Digest to make his point. But, as a Catholic priest, he was limited in when and how he could broach the subject – or any subject. The Catholic Church has selected Bible readings for every Sunday of the year – these are the same all over the world – on a three year cycle. So any given priest only really needs 156 homilies for his entire life. If he wants to write more than that he can – but the readings never change. Unlike Jack, who was a protestant, Catholic priests do not even have the entire Bible at their disposal.

Current events did come up during homilies on occasion. The Catholic chaplain on my university campus often spent Sundays relating that week’s gospel to the unjustness of the Iraq War. And I will always remember the Christmas Eve Mass I attended in 2001, where the priest spoke of the Olympic Torch in Rockefeller Center, on its way to Salt Lake City, as a light of hope – we should see it as symbolic of the light of Christ – and a symbol that we would heal from the horrors of September 11. Several members of our community had been killed in the attack.

But these homilies were not the norm. Most of the ones I have heard were much more generic. I understand perfectly what Sweeney is talking about when she refers to the “desperate priests trying to tease out something meaningful from a very flawed ancient text.”

When a priest wants to speak about an issue facing his community he faces two hurdles. First, how to relate that issue to the week’s Bible passages prescribed by the Vatican. Second, the possibility that the topic he wants to express is not relatable to any of that years readings or the entire three year cycle of readings at all. Aside from the Christmas Eve Mass of 2001, and every Ash Wednesday in college I cannot remember which Gospel readings went with any of the homilies that have stayed with me through the years whether they be the best and most uplifting, or the frustratingly close-minded or silly. The purpose of the homily is for the priest to relate the message of that week’s Bible passages to the community. But the two types of homilies I remember hearing most often were either interpretations which amount to vague platitudes about being a good and forgiving person, or insightful discussions which only tangentially relate to the Bible. It was very rare that a homily was both inspiring and clearly related to the text.

Unitarian Universalist ministers do not have this problem. I have heard UU ministers read from the Bible, or from another holy book. But more often than not they read a passage of poetry, prose, philosophy, or history that speaks to them. Sometimes these readings are written by other UU’s – and sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes a reading not a piece of text, but a piece of music or a work of art. In this way, a congregation can address its needs and is not frozen in time. When we believe that revelation is not sealed, we are open to learning about the world and about ourselves from every source around us. In not limiting ourselves, we can continue to grow unrestrained.

Just as limits on the creation of “graven images” slowed the development of artistic techniques, and prohibitions of dissection impeded the progress of biology, when we limit ourselves to only the Bible, we stunt our spiritual growth.

Adam posted about how the Pope rejected calls from Catholic priests all over the world to allow women and married people to be ordained. What he missed was the third demand,

[A]n Austrian group called Preachers’ Initiative… has issued a “Call to Disobedience,” asking the church to allow the ordination of women, to remove the obligation of priestly celibacy and to permit priests to give holy communion to divorced Catholics who have remarried without an annulment.

I think that this is extremely important. The Catholic church cannot continue without more priests, but it could probably hobble along just fine refusing to give communion to divorced people. Like the prohibition against contraception, there are many who simply ignore this rule. Many times, in large anonymous parishes, the priest or Eucharistic Minister does not even know they are breaking a rule. The problem would be for divorced people who “out” themselves or for priests and EM’s who know the truth but feel conflicted about the rule. Technically only divorced people who remarry outside the church without getting an annulment, or are cohabiting with a new partner are excommunicated – but that still excludes many people who wish to receive the sacrament.

As I stated in my previous post about the church,

Receiving communion is a big deal for Catholics. To be told that you may not do so can feel like a devastating rejection.

This feeling of devastation may account for why some people simply ignore the rule. Receiving communion, for many Catholics, is more important than following other rules of the church – even those rules about who is forbidden and who is allowed to partake in the sacrament. The priests who signed this letter to the Pope understand this on a deep level. They understand because as Catholics themselves they can empathize with the pain people who are being shut out from something so central to their lives, and also because some may have brought their pain on this issue to them directly and the cognitive dissonance of their empathy conflicting with their desire to obey the church is keeping them up at night.

And the Pope understands this, but instead of offering comfort, he mocks their troubles,

Benedict said that although such priests claim to act out of “concern for the church,” they are driven by their “own preferences and ideas,” and should instead turn toward a “radicalism of obedience” — a phrase that perfectly captures the essence of the theologian pope’s thought.

He’s pretty much telling them that they can shove their empathy for divorced Catholics in very uncomfortable place.

This is utterly cruel. It denies the reality of divorced Catholics and the priests who counsel them. They tried obedience and it wasn’t working. That’s why they signed the petition. They signed this petition at risk of excommunication, a fate which has befallen others who advocated for the ordination of women, or for simply being openly opposed to making abortion illegal. These priests had such compassion for their parishioners that they risked the same punishment. That is a moving display of service and selflessness which the Pope ignores and perverts by simply telling them to be more obedient. Secondly, Pope Benedict will never be a divorced Catholic seeking communion, nor the troubled priest being sought out for comfort. I would almost be glad for the latter as it would mean that no one would have to be subject to his twisted advice – except that he has so mush more power to abuse. That he is not capable of the empathy these priests are speaks ill of his character and makes him wildly unfit for leadership of any kind.

So. Now that Rick Santorum’s out of the race, Mitt Romney has become the inevitable. The Republicans will go through the Five Stages of Grief, the fifth stage -acceptance- is the main stage in Tampa. Romney is the culmination of everything that’s wrong with politicians. He’s mendacious, smug, well-connected, and out-of-touch with his social lessers. Every politician has at least one of these traits, Romney has all of them.

We cannot judge this man by his words, only by his deeds. Mitt Romney has bolstered the rich, ignored the poor, and introduced the half-measure that is the Individual Mandate. There is no doubt, were he President, he would amass more power, as did every President in the history of the Republic. In terms of policy, Mitt Romney has only one difference with Obama worth mentioning: as a Republican, he is openly hostile to reproductive freedom, unless he was lying about that, too.

Yet the President is not an Emperor, there are others who hold authority. I don’t know what horrible part of the degraded human psyche wishes to be dominated by a dictator that we keep granting the President more control, but the power truly lies in the Legislature, which is elected by a fickle populace.

Sometimes, you can actually get access to these lawmakers, and speak to them about your concerns. Sometimes, they even listen! When they don’t listen, they have ways to sweep it under the rug. Senators rely on long terms and short memories for re-election. Representatives, having much shorter terms, rely on pork and populist tommyrot to survive. These rascals also depend on voters paying attention only one year out of every four. That magical year has arrived… the Presidential Election has captured the attention of the greatest possible number of potential voters.

During the Mid-Term Election of 2010, while many people were watching the new season of whatever lurid TV show has been going on for too long, or were keeping their head down, grateful they had a job, others were engaged in participatory democracy. The Tea Party candidates of 2010 made quite a lot of proud talk about freedom and justice, when they actually meant “Freedom for just Us”. Since they were sworn in, we have not benefitted in the slightest, as they affirm the horrible powers wielded by George Walker Bush. They truly believe the government may intervene in every aspect of your life, unless it would actually be helpful.

Public safety is so important, strip-searches are permitted for the slightest infractions, yet the government cannot provide affordable care in the name of public health. Women should not have abortions, yet cannot get enough assistance to raise their children. People should have to live with the consequences of their actions, unless these “people” are corporations. There’s never a cop when you need one, because they are all conducting a full-body cavity search on a stoner. Our priorities are screwed-up thanks to the efforts of screwed-up people. Power lies in Congress.

The point is this: the Presidential race is no longer important. Rick Santorum, the possibly-deranged fool we must keep away from the Nuclear Football, is out. In January 2013, regardless of who we vote for, we will have a President who wants war with Iran, protects the rich, ignores the poor, and desperately wants to be liked. President Obamney. Mitt Romney will not touch reproductive rights if the poll numbers tell him not to. Seriously, ladies, just say “I wouldn’t date Mitt Romney” and he’ll ask “Why not?!”, then you can tell him. He’s that pathetic. Vote for whoever you like. Power lies in Congress.

You can make a bigger difference working to dislodge the Tea Party crazies. They have not yet cemented their bases, though incumbents are hard to beat. Democrats, vote Democrat -those bastards are the only hope you’ve got, even if it’s a fool’s hope. Power lies in Congress.

Any Republican reading this… please, primary the Tea Partiers. I know you won’t vote Democrat, I accept this. Just vote for someone in the primary that isn’t out of their goddamned mind, and they’ll beat the Democrat, come November -if your district is red enough to elect a Tea Partier, your district is red enough to elect a conservative who understands “compromise” is not a synonym of “sell out”. Power lies in Congress.

Don’t let the Presidential election distract you from what goes on in the true halls of power, where men skulk and hide their actions because we focus all our attention on the man in the hot seat. We don’t need more men who would shred the Constitution and insist they saved it. We don’t need more men spouting populist phrases while scraping before the wealthy. We cannot endure another two years of a do-nothing congress, nor a do-nothing-right congress. Power lies in Congress. Consider carefully who represents you in Congress. Watch what they do in Congress.

With all the hype around the Mega Millions record jackpot, I found myself with the urge to reread George Orwell’s 1984. As I walked around New York City and saw the lines outside stores, listened to my co-workers excited chatter, and even bought a few tickets myself – I couldn’t help but think of the part of the novel that discusses the proles fascination with the lottery and the way it was rigged and used to control them.

This must be at least the fourth time I’ve read this book, and this time I am having trouble with a part of it that always seemed to be one of the best parts. Orwell writes of a language called “Newspeak” which the government creates. The goal is to eliminate as many words as possible from language and therefore making rebellion impossible because people won’t be able to think or express objectionable thoughts. Ayn Rand also plays with this idea in Anthem. As my high school English teacher taught me, this is based on the “Sapir-Wharf Hypothesis.” However, according to Wikipedia, this isn’t exactly what Sapir or Wharf had ever written. And while there is some evidence that the language a person speaks can have some influence on their thoughts, there’s nowhere near enough proof to support the idea than an experiment like Newspeak would ever work.

The reason I looked into this was because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the internet has changed the way I communicate. After a day on reddit, I occasionally find myself wanting to communicate in Advice Animals. I love the way that hyperlinks shape and color an article or blog post, providing a richer experience than mere footnotes. The way that twitter allows people to have a conversation on a hashtag delights me. And the vocabulary! Last week I was rolling my eyes on an article about Gloria Steinem which “discovered” the feminist blogosphere for about the fourth time in the past two years:

The big political issues of yesteryear have been supplanted by messier sociocultural questions that a new generation debates in its own patois of activism, with terms like “rape culture” and “slut shaming” and “fat positive” and “cisgender.”

The author forgot mansplaining, and hippie punching.

But while the jargon of feminist blogs or any internet culture might be confusing to a newbie, it’s not impossible to learn. That we continue to find and create the language we need to express our ideas and that these neologisms are understood fairly quickly is enough for me as a lay person to doubt the idea that Newspeak would gain any traction.

While the nightmares of a police state or constant surveillance still seem startlingly possible, I will rest easy knowing that the versatility of language will probably frustrate the efforts of those who would try to stifle thought.

My husband just turned 30, and I’m on my way there as well by the end of the year. Sometime during this decade we will probably decide to have children. People who are childfree remind me that this is not my only option, and I want to discern my own desires from the cultural and social pressures that surround me. In part, I have been reading up on the childfree movement. Several times, I heard mention of a book, “The Baby Trap” by Ellen Peck. It’s out of print, but available for free online in several formats.

Published in 1971 – it was one of the first books to advocate not having children as a valid option. For that reason, I understand why it’s considered a classic and revered by childfree people. However, the book is so incredibly sexist that I don’t understand why anyone would encourage women to read it today.

Peck’s argument about the cultural pressures on women to have babies and the vapid consumerism that is selling maternity as much as it’s selling toys and clothes is worthy of praise. It was groundbreaking. But in praising her for that, people seem to overlook the overarching theme and argument she relies most heavily on in her book – directed entirely at women – which is that if you have children, you won’t be able to spend all of your effort on pleasing your husband and he will stop loving you and divorce you.

Other arguments made in the book are about the cost of having children, financially, socially and medically to the parents – and also ecologically. In the 1970’s many people believed that the world was so overcrowded as to be headed for an epic disaster, and so I can forgive her alarmist rhetoric on that topic. Despite that, an ecological argument for not having children is still valid today.

In fact, I think any reason for not having children is valid. People who don’t want to be parents should not be parents. Whether they are concerned about climate change, want to travel or just plain don’t feel like it – I would never impose my opinion on any other person’s reproductive plans.

However, where Peck’s book disappoints me is where she veers off into implying that no one should have children (just as silly as saying everyone should) and that grown men are incapable of adjusting to fatherhood, which is why I found the entire book so distasteful.

Lori is thirty and looks eighteen. She’s fickle, irresponsible, and inclined to fly off to the Azores for weekends, not, usually, alone. She dates married men, because most of the men she knows are married.

The last time I saw her I asked if most of the married men who took her out had children. Her answer was immediate.

“Are you kidding? All of them. In fact, when they pull out the kids’ pictures at a cocktail party, I know they want to get serious for the evening. Lots of times it’s an unmistakable signal. Almost code for, ‘Look, I’m married, honey, I won’t fool you, but it’s just because of these kids; my wife means nothing to me.’

“Sure, it’s the guys with kids,” she continued; “the ones who don’t have kids still like their wives.”

The ones who don’t have kids still like their wives.

That’s not a typo. Peck restated that sentence for emphasis, hoping to make the readers’ blood run cold. She also had an annoying habit of calling women “girls” throughout the book.

In her chapter on the consumerism of modern parenting (probably the best in the book) she included this vignette:

And the salesman was approached by a distraught- looking man, whom I’d seen wandering around the store for some time, come to think of it. In a barely audible voice, and with nervous glances at the other girl and me, he asked the salesman for a “a . . . a . . . do you have … a … a breast pump?” His embarrassment had made the last two words shrill. He glanced over his shoulder at us again, then the salesman led him cheerfully down the aisle.

What was wrong? That man’s wife had evidently needed a breast pump; he’d gone to buy one for her. What was wrong with that, I asked myself. Well, the fact that he had seemed so nervous about it— embarrassed would be more the word— that was what was wrong with it. He looked like a twelve-year-old boy looks when his mother sends him to the drugstore for Kotex. And I think Philip Roth has described that feeling well.

Yes, because the character of Alexander Portnoy is to be taken as representative specimen of healthy male sexuality. Perhaps we should do a case study on Humbert Humbert and responsible step-parenting next?

I wanted to figure this out. Why does a boy or a man feel embarrassed or humiliated at having to buy a woman things like Kotex or a breast pump?

….

They’re accoutrements to female reproductive physiology. In asking a man to get them, is there kind of an implicit subjugation involved? Is there?

A psychologist I’d interviewed the day before, Nathaniel Branden, had said, “To the degree that aspects of reproduction are overemphasized, aspects of sexuality are de-emphasized.” Would that man, that night, see his wife’s breasts as, well, alluring or romantic?

There is no way to tell, of course. But it is possible that wife-as-babynurse is not at all the same as wife-mistress.

Apparently fatherhood is demeaning, subjugating and emasculating to men, and motherhood makes a woman lose all sex appeal forever and ever. That’s why no one ever has more than one child!

The book continues with a much more coherent analysis of media and cultural messages about parenting, and how these pressure people into making choices they otherwise might not have. But these chapters are also littered with anecdotes about how great it is to be child free because you can buy other things with your money and go on vacations. Apparently materialism is okay if it’s not related to parenting. There are several times where this is stated explicitly,

I freely admit that spending nearly all your money on clothes seems a bit unjustifiable in this troubled world. But I would defend her doing so for two reasons. First, I see nothing wrong with self-indulgence if it doesn’t have any negative social consequences for anybody else. (There are, by contrast, brands of self-indulgence that are destructive. In case it hasn’t come across, I think that indulging yourself with a large family is a destructive kind of self-indulgence. But the surface materialism of fashion, while it does nothing particularly good for the world, doesn’t really hurt anybody, either.)

Her environmental analysis is way off if she thinks that rampant consumerism of any kind is okay.

Chapter Six, “Husbands and Babies” is the one where the sexism is the most egregious.

[A] wife who has no children to preoccupy her time and attention can give that time and attention to her husband. She is more of an attentive companion and a loving woman than a mother-of- two-or-three has time to be. And her husband thrives on this attention.

Nearly every man wants this kind of attention from a woman. I don’t think many men have enthusiasm at the prospect of offspring.

…

The adult male, it would seem, who has a clear and confident grasp on the world and on his life wants to live that life himself, rather than spend most of it “watching his young grow up.”

…

Now, there are husbands who want their wives to stay home, be “domestic,” have children. In the opinion of therapist Helena Lopata, “Such a husband is either not very wise, or inwardly he does not love his wife very much. Let’s look at such a situation in real terms. He wants her confined to the home, while he is out in the world of work. He gives her limited and routine tasks while he is out growing, learning, creating, being challenged and stimulated by conditions of competition within his field. He is, by asking for such a situation, creating marital incompatibility: first, in terms of conversation; then sexually. And there is virtually no way around that. Such a husband, in long-range subconscious terms, is aiming toward the dissolution of his marriage, denying future possibilities of relating to his wife as a companion. These men, you see, do not feel comfortable with emotional closeness and intimacy. This is their way out.”

I know in the 70’s there weren’t mommy blogs and all, but I’m pretty sure women who were stay at home mothers did things other than stay indoors all day cleaning and changing diapers. And while I am not a psychologist, I doubt “becoming a father is a passive aggressive way to divorce your wife” and “men are emotional children who need their wives to mother them” makes any sense at all as generalizations.

The chapter continues, and Peck gives several examples of men angry that when they became fathers…they were no longer men without the responsibilities of fatherhood.

“I used to break my neck getting home,” a taxi driver in Dallas told me. “I knew just how to get every green light and make it home in fifteen minutes flat after my shift. We’d have a beer; we’d put the steaks on; we’d talk about the kooks that turned up that day… Or go to this bar a few blocks away for a nightcap and dance… It was great. All the guys thought I had the greatest wife around. Now, I get home to a kid screaming, and a wife who doesn’t notice if I’ve come in the door or not half the time, she’s that busy with the kid. I take the longest way around I can find.”

If anyone was reading this book did not know that having children means that you can’t just randomly go out drinking on weeknights, Peck has done a public service. But I think everyone else on the planet who isn’t that guy is left puzzled.

Peck goes on to talk about the financial stresses of having children, and the way it limits one’s career choices. Again, this is something that should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than two seconds.

Then there is a bit on how parents have less sex than they did beforehand. Again, it makes sense that this is a source of stress to parents, but the way Peck frames the argument – we should sympathize with men who divorce their wives for that reason, as if women who become mothers maliciously withhold sex by definition.

As a British husband who had just left his wife explained to me, “There were few occasions when we could be free of the babies’ needs. There were fewer occasions of sex, it was as simple as that. And therefore there were fewer occasions when everything went right and was fulfilling. This led to some trouble in other ways. It was simply not the same. It was not the marriage I had bargained for; she was not the wife she had been before, not responsive to me …”

As someone who is not a parent, I can’t begin to imagine the demands of taking care of an infant. But what did he expect to happen? That all of Peck’s empathy is with him, and not his wife who now must take care of the demands of parenthood entirely on her own is astounding.

The next chapter, about how women change after becoming mothers is not much kinder.

Since a mother is with a baby all day rather than with her husband, she is more aware of that baby’s needs than she is of her husband’s needs. She knows the baby’s schedule for feeding, changing, cuddling, and check-ups. How can she possibly know that her husband has had such a terrific strain at work today that he needs one hour of complete silence between 6 and 7 p.m. How can she know that he just lost an account at 3 p.m. and could really use a night out as an ego boost? The baby’s needs are simpler, and she’s in more direct touch with them, and the baby is small and helpless, so it’s almost inevitable that baby’s needs come first.

Or perhaps if the husband needs something from his wife, he can open his mouth and ask for it, given that he is a grown man, and not an infant?

A husband can see his wife’s devotion to the baby, and it’s pretty for a while. (Usually for at least one month.) His wife exhibits new qualities: concern; motherliness; responsibility; maturity.

But there’s a catch. These new qualities may not be adding on to the qualities that attracted him to his wife in the first place. They may be displacing those prior qualities: freedom; humor; impulsiveness; youth. Before a husband’s eyes, the girl he married gradually disappears and is just as gradually replaced, by a mother.

Peck continues on, with examples of more men cheating on their wives because they became mothers, seemingly seeking to validate the madonna/whore complex of every man who has ever had one. She does give examples though of women who cheat on her husbands out of boredom – but these have a much less understanding tone.

I know that this book was written a long time ago, and I tried not to come down too hard on it for being dated. I concede that at the time, academic feminism was in its infancy. I have mixed emotions about criticizing so harshly the work of a woman who put so much effort into her marriage only to get divorced anyway and die alone. But that does not make this book a good one, and I cannot understand why childfree activists continue to recommend this book when so much other more egalitarian and coherent writing has been done since. There have been studies that marital happiness decreases after children are born. But suggesting that the only reason a man would want to be a father is because he wants a divorce is ludicrous. And fear mongering about divorce, based solely on an assumption of immaturity on the part of men, is not an argument.

F’em is an anthology of short essays by Jennifer Baumgardner about feminism, music, family, and politics. Baumgardner writes in such a personal style that the book reads like a memoir, even though not all of the writing is autobiographical.

Interview subjects include rock stars like Bjork, Kathleen Hanna, Ani DiFranco and Amy Ray, whom Baumgardner previously dated. The book covers issues like abortion, feminist critiques of popular culture, transfeminism, anti-rape activism and female sexuality. In her essays, she explores her own vulnerabilities, her romantic and family history and the ways her views about feminism have changed throughout her life.

F’em was a quick and pleasant read and ended with an essay sketching out the possibility that feminism has entered its fourth wave, or forth wave, as Shelby Knox dubbed it earlier in the book. I think that the book was organized to make this argument, but until I was done reading it, I often found myself wishing that the essays had appeared in chronological order. While many essays were very poignant and thought provoking others seemed repetitive. I think that organizing them by theme would have solved this problem as well.

Some reviewers have commented on their dislike of the title, but I like the inherent geekiness of it. Fem-inist, Femme, Fuck ’em… the word play is something I appreciate.

Although this book can be understood as one defining the current state of feminism as it transitions into the 21st century and potentially a new wave, it’s also a good resource for the history of the third wave and how feminists with different perspectives can form a coherent movement. As someone who found my feminism because of the feminist blogosphere, I like having a primer on the days of ‘zines and Riot Grrls.