so much for brevity
I've been exiled the past few weeks, battling the thesis and generally forgetting to enjoy life. Walking across campus today with Fran Healy crooning in my ears and a spring breeze swirling past reminded me just how good it is to be here, awake, alive. I'm now at work in Schoenberg Hall's music library, where the distant voices of a choir rehearsal
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I remember you ranting a bit about this a while back. Are you seeing a lot of this at school or in things you've been reading lately? Or both?
I guess both. It seems like an attitude that crops up in things I've read, and in people I know... I've had people apologize to me for, y'know, just talking to me about feeling bad about something, and I get kind of irritated. Not with them, but with social pressures that make them feel bad about taking their feelings seriously. Isn't that what friends are for? Why is it so bad to be affected by something? Why do we have to denigrate ourselves for feeling things? I think it's really counterproductive.
Admittedly, it's a bit of a bitter subject for me because it can be difficult to be both sentimental and male, due to the way that masculinity is constructed in this society. That's not to say that sentimental women have it easy either (it's more socially cceptable for women, I think, to be that way, but you're still marginalized for it)... anyone like that is going to have a tough time in a society that generally devalues sensitivity.
True enough, but the point was that you shouldn't have to kill the puppy in the first place, much less dissect it to understand its value. Can't see the forest for the trees and all that.
Hmm, yeah, I think I like that better than what I said anyway. Dissection metaphors are creepy...
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I recently saw American Beauty again for the first time since theatrical release. I'd forgotten this fantastic scene where Annette Bening's character closes the blinds of the house she's failed to sell and cries in frustration. Then she slaps herself until she stops crying, calling herself a weak baby and shrieking, "Shut up. Shut up! Shut up!" She pulls herself together, straightens up, and walks calmly out of the room, all business again. Really disturbing.
Ironically, there was a whole cult of sensibility in the 18th century that encouraged women to be melodramatically sentimental and emo, due largely to an assumption that they were made to feel rather than think. (My thesis addresses this somewhat, actually.) The modern pressure to be a big girl or a tough grrrl or whatever is presumably a backlash to those sorts of assumptions, which still haven't disappeared. Not that the scene above applies only to women, of course. But it is interesting how, even with those modern pressures, people still characterize sentimentality and emotion as feminine, almost unconsciously.
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Yeah... at least two people have apologized to me for being "emo" in the past couple of months when all they were doing was talking, and that's what really got me thinking about it. It's not that I don't think the pendulum can't swing too far in the other direction into wallow-ville (you and I have had experience with people in the past who certainly fell under that category...), but I think the current tide can be really damaging to people by discouraging them from talking about things they need to talk about. It's all about balance.
Personally, I think it ties a lot into the fact that as a general trend, our society prefers to place the blame for problems entirely at the individual's feet without even looking at systematic issues or even just plain bad luck. "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps," and all that. I got into an argument with my mother over bilingual education this morning, with her doing the "if they're going to come here they should learn the language!" line, simultaneously holding the assumption that they're not trying and lacking any real consideration for how hard that actually is.
The modern pressure to be a big girl or a tough grrrl or whatever is presumably a backlash to those sorts of assumptions, which still haven't disappeared. Not that the scene above applies only to women, of course. But it is interesting how, even with those modern pressures, people still characterize sentimentality and emotion as feminine, almost unconsciously.
That historical context is really interesting. Sometimes, looking at things like that, it seems like it's this deep and almost inextricable current woven into the fabric of our society. I don't know that we'll ever get rid of that association completely, just due to the fact that it is so solidly embedded in most of our literature and media stretching across, well... the entire span of recorded history. It's so deeply embedded into our socialization, too. I think even the most liberal of us respond to those roles sometimes.
I've thought about the association of sensitivity and gender roles a lot recently with regard to Hillary Clinton and politics. The President is supposed to be "masculine" in very specific ways, so, in order to be a viable presidential candidate, she has to adjust her rhetoric a certain way to appear "tough"... but she's also a woman, and thus people expect a certain degree of "softness" or "femininity" and will penalize her if she doesn't show the requisite amount of that. Regardless of her merits as a candidate (I haven't really evaluated them, myself), that's a tough place to be, and a unique challenge that the other contenders don't really have to face.
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True. In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting, though, I was pleasantly surprised to see (both local and national) concern over the quality of student psychological services. Whether it leads to any serious review remains to be seen.
but she's also a woman, and thus people expect a certain degree of "softness" or "femininity" and will penalize her if she doesn't show the requisite amount of that.
Yeah, I believe she's taken a lot of crap about that already as First Lady and senator. Sadly, this included her physical appearance, which she overhauled early on. I remember the media making a big deal about how she "glamorized" her image to look more feminine and appealing, complete with "before" and "after" photos.
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