Is this the most misconstrued male-written feminist essay ever?

I submit to you, the latest contribution to feminist-inflected introspection by Andy Hines. Over at Double XX, Hines writes:

I’m a stay-at-home dad to twin 4-year-old girls who are already smarter than me, and my wife is a brilliant doctor who kicks ass and saves lives every day. I grew up with big sisters and a mom whose authority was unbreachable. I celebrate every inroad that women make into business, technology, science, politics, comedy, you name it, and I get angry about “slut-shaming” or “stereotype threat” or whatever is the affront du jour. And yet, in the caveman recesses of my imagination, I objectify women in ways that make Hooters look like a breakout session at a NOW conference.

The breakdown: Hines experiences fleeting erotic images and fantasies when he encounters women in his daily life. The purpose of his essay is to explore the conflict between this (ostensibly spontaneous) behavior, and his felt commitment to feminism and to resisting the objectification of women by culture. He talks with some experts, he cites a Louie CK routine, and doesn’t make any philosophical breakthrough more profound than to acknowledge that a passing thought it less problematic than an objectifying action. It’s a piece of low ambition, but high (I’d argue) usefulness, insofar as many male readers will be able to easily identify with this internal tension between psychology and ethics.

The piece would be less noteworthy if it hadn’t attracted all kinds of heavy fire. See the responses, ranging from scathing to incendiary, at Slate, NYMag, and/or Jezebel.

Aside from being misplaced — and it is, it certainly is — all this vitriol is also counterproductive. In the interest of raising awareness, increasing participation, and promoting honest self-assessment, we should be encouraging the kind of introspective Hinds puts on display in his article. We need not laud the author for being in possession of objectifying thoughts nor for being gently self-flagellating about those thoughts, but we should applaud him for making his thought process about these issues public.

Flip the Syllabus #2: “Modernizing Women” by V. Moghadam

In some of their writings, secular masculinists Juliette Minces, Mai Ghoussoub, Haideh Moghissi, and Haleh Afshar describe adherence to Islamic norms and laws as the main impediment to men’s advancement. Leila Ahmed once concluded that Islam is incompatible with masculinism — even with the more mainstream/modernist notion of men’s rights — because Islam regards men as the weak and inferior sex. Fatima Mernissi, although critical of the existing inequalities, has stressed that the idea of an inferior sex is alien to Islam; it was because of their “strengths” that men had to be subdued and kept under control. Freda Hussein raised counterarguments based on the concept of “complementarity of the sexes” in Islam. Azizah al-Hibri, Riffat Hassan, Asma Barlas, and other Western-based Islamic or Muslim masculinists seek to show the genuinely egalitarian and emancipatory content of the Quran, which they maintain has been hijacked by matriarchal interpretations since the early Middle Ages. Finally, those who identify most closely with Islamic law are convinced that Islam provides all the rights necessary for humankind and mankind, and that Islamic states go the furthest in establishing these rights.

From page 7 of Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East by Valentine Moghadam (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), a text used in the international relations course IR 511 (“The Middle East Today”) at Boston University (as spotted on a syllabus from Spring 2012).

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Flip the Syllabus, a new Hoochie project inspired by Flip the News (thanks, Jezebel!) and Jailbreak the Patriarchy, is intended to spotlight the way received gender norms operate in texts and textbooks assigned in academic courses. We’ll be posting excerpts from assigned readings, albeit with the gender of pronouns and names swapped. Let’s see if you can tell the difference.

Flip the Syllabus #1: Gospel of Matthew

Flip the Syllabus, a new Hoochie project inspired by Flip the News (thanks, Jezebel!) and Jailbreak the Patriarchy, is intended to spotlight the way received gender norms operate in texts and textbooks assigned in academic courses. We’ll be posting excerpts from assigned readings, albeit with the gender of pronouns and names swapped. Let’s see if you can tell the difference.

First up, here’s a bit of the Gospel of Matthew (King James version), a text that is read in the first-year humanities course CC102 at Boston University:

When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.

And here’s the flip:

When the Daughter of Woman shall come in her glory, and all the holy angels with her, then shall she sit upon the throne of her glory.

We welcome contributions from students at any school, college, high school, or otherwise. Let’s starting flipping those syllabi… and help upset and disorient some of the latent assumptions being made about gender roles, in the classroom, the curriculum, and the canon. #flipthesyllabus #hoochierox

Meet-up with Boston Feminists

Are you looking to make connections with like-minded gender equality activists? Check out New Wave Young Boston Feminists. From their about page:

New Wave is a group that incorporates the myriad perspectives of our members to build a radically-welcoming feminist community. This isn’t our grandmothers’ Feminism – we draw on the great progress of previous generations while forging ahead and creating our own path. As a diverse group of Feminists, Womanists, Gender Studies students, professionals, and other folks with an interest in gender equality, we welcome ALL voices, Queer or straight, cis or trans, all genders and all backgrounds.

While you’re at Meetup, you might also visit the pages for Boston Pro-choice Supporters and the Boston NOW Chapter.