(no subject)
Coming soon to a Boys' and Girls' Club Near You!
Kyso suggests that we harness the natural energy and competitiveness (not to mention zeal for cool prizes) of youth in Patriarchy-smashing. Along the way, she educated me about vital cultural practices in a culture rather different from mine:
In Suburbansprawlia, we had lavish junior/senior proms complete with afterparties to keep us occupied with not having sex. The proms were so insane that classes of 300+ kids had to start fundraising and saving starting in seventh grade. But it’s hard to get a 12 year old motivated about saving a crazy amount of money for a party 5 years in the future, so you have to turn it into a game. A competition with immediate results. We sold candy, chocolate bars, coupon books, popcorn, cookies, whatever... So many dollars in sales went towards points redeemable for prizes ranging from the crappy to the impossible ... Then we kind of vaguely wondered what the hell was happening to all this money, and long after we had forgotten about doing the work, we this huge, elaborate prom that I personally never attended... .
See, this way, young men can see immediate, cool benefits to deconstructing the patriarchy, without waiting for that glorious day when we are all free of internalized sexism and socially constructed ideas about gender and sexuality.
Cookies today, cake tomorrow, and new paradigms some other glorious day.
* It should be noted that on Z&Z, the use of "smash" is intended to be purely metaphorical, rhetorical, and hyperbolic. No social structures, buildings, or Glories of Western Civilization were smashed, damaged, or otherwise rendered unfit in the creation of this LJ post.