Before I tackle a discussion of human families, I’d like to take some time and examine what goes on in primate societies. Yes, people can’t realistically be compared to animals because of our specialized economies, spirituality, mobility, blah blah blah, but stick with me here.

Chimpanzees, genetically our closest relatives along with bonobos (we share about 98% of our genes with both of them), live in large communities made up primarily of females and their offspring, with a smaller number of males who are often related. The females co-exist within matrilines – that is, groups of closely related females – of which there are several within any given community. There are semi-separate hierarchical rankings for males and females. Both may use physical dominance and bullying to get their way, whether that is to gain access to some tasty fruit, have control over the behavior of another chimpanzee, or to get preferred sleeping spots. However, females also have the legacy of their mothers to draw upon. The matrilines are not equal, but rather each female has both her individual status and the status of her lineage. High-status matrilines have distinct advantages. A female need not constantly reinforce her place in the hierarchy with violence (though she may have to remind others of their places) with every interaction. Rather, simply being the daughter or niece of the highest ranking female allows her to take what she likes from other females, and sometimes from males as well. She will also have more and healthier offspring than her low-status counterparts, and her daughters will hold her position in society when she is old and feeling a little creaky. The daughters of low-status females, however, will be forced to disperse, to find another chimpanzee society that will take them out of charity. These daughters don’t have much chance of increasing their status; after the first few weeks of intensive grooming and shows of dominance, she will still probably end up at the bottom of the pile.

A chimpanzee female’s relatives are her best allies. She can count on her aunts, cousins, sisters, nieces, daughters, and granddaughters, and of course her mother and grandmother, to support her in any conflicts she may get in. Moreover, these relatives are the most likely ones to help her feed her own babies, to groom her, and to babysit. Of course female chimpanzees make friends outside of their families, but these friendships are just not as good. If given a choice between helping a sister and helping a friend, a chimpanzee will always help her sister, and the friend knows it. However, she may not help her cousin or her aunt quite so readily – sometimes they just don’t get along. A chimpanzee is stuck with her relatives and their bad habits and their abrasive personalities. The relatives may grudgingly intercede if, say, a male is harassing her especially harshly, but they may not stick their necks out as much as she would like. Still, a female without family is a female alone, and unless there’s a revolution (more on that later) she is doomed to the situation of the lower class -  eating the scraps of the high-class, blessed with fewer and sicker children and at the mercy of whichever males take an interest in her.

There is one exception to the relative rule, in which female solidarity outweighs all status considerations – when males attack infants. Any nearby female is apt to come to the rescue. Usually a stranger is responsible, since males within the society mate with all females anyway, and the females would drive out a murdering male. Infanticide by males is a fear that all females share and will probably have to endure, and that like no other thing unites them as a sex. All females are always subordinate to all males.

Primate sexual behavior is really complex and fascinating, but the basic idea for all primates that kill infants is this: males have limited opportunities to reproduce and ensure his offspring’s survival, since females may not be ovulating when he is in power. Being in power, in the chimpanzee sense, is being in the same space as foreign females. Males have the opportunity to mate with all the females they live with, so only strange females are at risk of infanticide attacks. Since females nurse for several years, the best way to get one to ovulate (and be impregnated) sooner is to kill her baby and then be around to mate with her when she ovulates again. But this is a touchy business, requiring time for her to begin ovulating, firstly, and secondly it requires control of her sexual partners. If a male can kill a female’s infant and then ensure a relative monopoly over her sexual experiences, then he is likely to “win.” But if she can wander away and mate with other males when he’s not looking, then he has a greater chance of “losing.” And since females feed themselves and spend time away from other individuals while they do this, male chimps cannot be said to really control female reproductive choices. They can only influence those choices.

Males, speaking of which, are not so tyrannical as the above descriptions make them seem, though their constant threat against females is something to meticulously guard against. They make alliances with other males in hunting and in war, and status during those crucial times depends upon skill. Males establish their hierarchy almost exclusively through force – out and out fights, bullying, and so forth. As such, their status is unstable, especially when compared to species like gorillas, whose alpha males rarely leave power (that is, his harem) before death.

But of course males need not rely solely on that. Like females, they make friends with other males, especially their brothers, and will support each other in acts of defense and aggression. And they also make friends with females. If a male catches the fancy of a high-status female, she may bring him up in the world, if she can escape attacks from high-status males who wonder what she sees in that shrimp. (Answer: he’s probably really good at grooming, babysitting, and being aggressive on her behalf.) If the terms of the friendship are not fulfilled, however, resentment can poison the relationship and–voila!–a male sees himself without the support of a female and all her relatives. But if he’s the kind of chimpanzee who makes friends, he probably won’t mess it up. A male who makes friends of both sexes gains his status by goodwill and not by might, for his status is a proxy of his friends’. Still, these friendships are fragile, and chimpanzees tend not to maintain strong relationships over the long term with non-relatives.

Males, though, have little ability to change the social order of a group; they are always at risk of usurpation by younger males, raids by neighbors, and they remain unable to dictate terms to females (primarily because they cannot control female food supply, and therefore her behavior). Yet this depends upon local culture as well. Chimpanzees on the savannas of eastern Africa are more brutal, prone to war, infanticide, and male dominance of females than the chimpanzees of the Tai forest in the Ivory Coast. Tai chimps are more egalitarian and cooperative, use more and more complicated tools, and are more advanced – that is, more human – than their relatives on the savanna. Which messes up the idea that we humans evolved when we exited the forest for the grasslands.

Bonobos are fabulously different. Adolescent bonobo females are the ones who plunge into the great unknown. As chimps must do, they must prove themselves worthy of inclusion in a group of strangers. The young females must demonstrate cooperative personal traits, a willingness to please others, and generally show that they will be valuable assets to the community. In short, they must make friends. And they do this by giving everybody orgasms.

Bonobos remain one of the world’s most promiscuous species. They use all kinds of sex (oral, anal, gay, straight, orgiastic, masturbatory, exhibitionist, sex with minors, frottage, etc.) to maintain social bonds within the group. Most other species use other strategies. Cottontop tamarins, whose adolescent females disperse like bonobo females, primarily show their mettle by meticulous babysitting. Chimpanzees groom and pet each other to show affection to friends. But the destiny of the bonobo society is not determined by a core group of matrilines competing for privilege. Rather each individual group is held together by bonds of mutual affection and obligation. Any individual who proves herself (or himself) to be unpleasant or unwilling to contribute to the group will be kicked out. Chimpanzees may hate their relatives and get more enmity from the relationship than good, but this is never true with bonobos.

A young female bonobo, during her petition to join a community, will focus her initial attention on the females. When her position is more established she will turn more to the males, though sex with her female friends remains a large part of her life. For example, if a group is sitting around a watering hole and a young female wants a drink, she will have sex with every individual around it before slaking her thirst. Sex is also used as an alternative to other aggressive behaviors in stressful or new situations or in socially awkward situations (say, in the case of young bonobos learning new social skills).

What is remarkable about bonobo society, though, is its utter pacifism. Bonobos have a level of egalitarianism that the chimpanzees of the Tai forest do not come close to matching. Rather than having semi-separate social groups based on sex, high status bonobo males will often be the children of high status females, and they will interact closely with their mothers long after adulthood. Chimpanzees go to (cannibalistic, raping, baby-killing) war with neighboring chimps; bonobos peaceably mingle. There has never been a reported case in the wild or captivity of male bonobos killing infants. Females still are the primary caretakers of their children, but they are much more willing than chimpanzee mothers to let bonobo males take over for a little while. Females take precedence at feeding sites, which is unusual for nonmonogamous species. (Monogamous males such as gibbons will often cede the right to eat first, which makes more sense since the health of a female mate is directly tied to the male’s reproductive success.) There has never been a reported case of bonobo rape, and should a male press his suit too harshly every other female (and even nearby males) will attack him.

Let us regard bonobos and chimpanzees not as different species, but as two different kinds of cultures. What would “family” mean for each of these cultures?

Since the world is harsh and other primates only looking out for their own, families are the individuals in one’s group who look out for each other. They protect each other from harm, trade favors, and enjoy spending time near each other. Chimpanzee families are clear: for females, families are female relatives and possibly friends. For males, families are brothers and other males close in status. Families exist as smaller, semi-supportive units within a larger culture that contains hostile social elements. Families protect against those elements.

But for bonobos the question is almost nonsensical. Yes, bonobos within a group prefer some individuals over others, and they may particularly prefer blood relations. There are quarrels and disagreements within the culture. But bonobos will defend any member of their group, will trade favors with anyone, and like pretty much anybody. “Family,” then, is a superfluous concept in bonobo culture.

I do not mean to imply that everybody should be more like bonobos or that chimpanzee culture is a bad one. And, as I mentioned before, human cultures cannot and should not be compared to primate cultures. We differ too much. But it is interesting to note that bonobo culture, which is supportive (for whatever reason), does not need the family structure to support individuals. Chimpanzees must protect themselves not only from the world itself, but from others around them. It so happened that semi-segregated societies based on sex worked for chimpanzee survival, even if it didn’t work out as well for chimpanzee egalitarianism. Thus, hierarchical chimps need the family institution.

Finally and for no particular reason, here are some chimpanzee siblings.

Feminism in the United States seems to be, well…in a slump. A large generation gap looms, building resentment and misunderstanding as my generation declares itself decidedly “Not Interested” in the issues mapped out by the Old Guard. Young women seem to display feminist values but don’t want to call themselves feminists; in some cases they say they are feminist while blithely expressing the opposite in the next breath. What is trendy in feminism in the U.S., though, is decidedly not at all helpful to feminists in other nations. Our lovely nation is facing a disconnect with the rest of the world, because we have been more feminist in a real sense than most of the rest of the world for decades now. We are in a different stage of discussion and development, something which U.S. feminists fail to appreciate when talking with international partners. Here are six issues I see as most important to the reduction of suffering and the advancement of women worldwide. You may notice that abortion does not make the list.

1. Thoughtful discussion of traditional customs. Part of the legacy of colonialism has been a reticence to examine the effects of culture, particularly traditional culture, on the well-being of women. There is a short story from Ghanian writer Ama Ata Aidoo called Hair which highlights this perfectly. In it, a female professor thinks about the pressure African women feel to have long, straight hair. This was one of the holdovers of colonialism, where all that was white was good and all that was African was ugly. The narrator describes her own struggles in a world with no easy answers: either she must wear a wig and embrace the inherent self-rejection in that act, or she must obey her brothers and leave her hair natural, garnering the social consequences of being African in a society that still likes European things better. No matter her choice, she must also watch other women make the same choice and compromises that reinforce their “inherent” lack of worth.

The short story also subtly brings up an interesting point, and that is that the narrator cannot make the choice to be “African” (or not) without also obeying male authority figures. Throughout the world, traditionalists struggling to maintain cultural identities from various threats have equated women’s rights with the threatening force. Whether the enemy is former colonial powers (as in much of Africa), capitalism (as in China, Viet Nam, and other communist nations), materialism and debauchery (as the West looks in the eyes of Muslims), threats to traditional religions (pretty much everywhere), or genetic diversity (as in Europe in its constant efforts to devalue immigrants), traditionalists declare that any change in women’s status is a direct result and poisonous consequence of the cultural invasion. Renewed repression becomes a way to assert cultural identity and authenticity.

The results of this are different depending upon local tradition. Indians and Chinese selectively abort female fetuses, reasserting even in the face of demographic disaster that females are not worthy of life. Critics of traditional practices, such as recently murdered journalist Uma Singh of Nepal, who criticized the dowry system, are intimidated and attacked. Women who seem to be go beyond their “places” are threatened. In her autobiography, Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai  recalls being attacked as anti-African by Kenyan legislatures for the double crime of being an educated woman and one willing to participate in the political process on her own terms. Women whose clitorises have not been scraped off and their vaginas sewn shut sometimes face total rejection from all future partners. Women in the Middle East/South Asia region of the world risk being mutilated with battery acid if they reject (or accept) sexual partners or try to go to school. Worldwide, women’s sexual choices, no matter what they are, are used as justification for denying them and their children legal protection, for rape, for denying their very sanity. Muslim men in particular seem to enjoy taking it upon themselves to kill their female relatives for sexual misconduct – that is, any sexual conduct.

These traditions need to come under scrutiny. In many cases I will admit that traditionalists’ critiques of Western culture (it is pretty much exclusively this which they are fighting against) are valid. Materialism is and consumption-based economies are, in fact, bad things. Yes, our tendency to oversexualize women, to the extent that we make sexualized dolls and clothes for little girls (go check out the girls’ section in a store once and you’ll see) is not a good thing. Still, is it not also wrong to consider a woman such a burden that she must “pay off” her husband with a dowry? Why not view a dowry as assets she brings to a marriage, assets that she herself controls rather than her husband? That’s a twist to a dowry that retains some of its cultural purity without degenerating into an attempt to keep women without economic means. Discussions like this cannot be imposed from the outside of the cultures which they affect, and all attempts to impose them will backfire. Still, there is not an inherent conflict between women’s rights and traditional cultural identity, and we need to continue discussing how they converge in a meaningful manner.

2. Making it okay for women to say “no”. This is a debate from about forty years ago for the U.S. – whether or not women have an obligation to have sex because they are married, or because they are in sexual situations at all, or because they wore the wrong clothing, or because they were/are prostitutes, etc. It’s a debate that is still going on, unfortunately. (However, now the debate is whether someone can say “yes” without giving a blank check.) In most parts of the world there is no debate. The situation is so terrible that a large portion of research money into an HIV vaccine goes into developing ways for women to protect themselves without their partners knowing about it. The research is important, yet sad, because it means that a huge population of women cannot enforce condom use, dictate the terms of their sexual experience, or decide when and with whom to have sex. The Bush administration’s abstinence-only AIDS policy for the last eight years has employed a “just say no” approach for young women – but most HIV-positive African women contracted the virus after marriage. The policy also assumed that young African women were like teenaged U.S. women in that their sexual choices were determined by lust and social pressure. This does not square with the reality that, unlike in the United States, a woman’s rejection of sexual advances would not be upheld without question by the larger community. Boys and men do not need to take their partners’ requests into account, because there are few social consequences for rape.

I doubt that this is an issue that women can really make much headway on without male allies. A recent NPR story highlights the actions of one man who has embraced the importance of female choice, and there needs to be more men like him (except maybe for the “I was a rapist first” part). In fact, I see this issue almost exclusively as in the domain of men. Women can certainly band together on this issue, and they can teach their sons about consent (which would require, you know, actual conversations about sexual conduct), but they will win no legal battles without male allies. Their enforcement techniques will be poor at best without male enforcement. Children, especially sons, will not listen to their parents unless their fathers also assert that condom use is required during sex, that consent is not inherent in any situation, and that female opinions matter.

Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi

In about two weeks I will take my first flight across the Pacific and begin a semester abroad in Viet Nam.* I am very new to world traveling – only this past summer did I take my first unchaperoned trip abroad, to the not at all threatening continent of Europe. Culture shock only took vague form when interacting with occasionally rude Poles.

Here are a few things I’m looking forward to and a few things I am nervous about.

Reasons for an anticipated excellent experience:

-The food. With a delicious abundance of regional and ethnic styles, I anticipate regretting no meal. As a coastal country, the seafood will be superb. I’m also a fan of street vendors, so much so that waiting the recommended six weeks until my stomach gets used to local bacteria may be a challenge.

-This year’s Lunar New Year (Tet) celebration occurs in February, when I will be in Da Lat. The celebrations include, of course, specialty food, fireworks, and general revelry. However, this is also a family holiday, and I look forward to getting to know my homestay family as well as the other students in my program in a cozy family dinner.

-The environment. Viet Nam is incredibly diverse, with ocean habitats, tropical forests, mountains, temperate forests, the Red and the Mekong river deltas, and much more. Like most of the rest of the world, many of these areas are threatened by development, but there remains much to see. Viet Nam is a biodiversity hotspot, with several new species discovered last year.

-The people. From what I’ve read thus far Vietnamese culture is relatively friendly and relaxed. It is nearly impossible to have business relationships within the country without first making friends with one’s Vietnamese partners, because of the culture of personal connection. There’s less of a division between personal and professional life than there is here, and I am excited to get to know people.

-Learning about Vietnamese perspectives. Non-Vietnamese writers are anxious to paint the Vietnamese people as totally friendly and open-minded (if socially conservative), with many admirable qualities, and minimal communist tendencies. But these writers are clearly reacting to the negative images of Vietnamese that we in the U.S. gained during the war; the image of them as enemies has not been erased from a lot of peoples’ minds. I am delighted to have the opportunity to talk to actual Vietnamese people directly and hear their thoughts on their own country, on mine, on what they care about, on the social trends and developments that are happening right now. On world events. On feminism. On, well, anything. I love learning about why people think the way they do, and I am quite excited to be immersed in a culture I have very little knowledge of.

-Learning about communism. In high school I studied the epic pissing contest that was the Cold War fairly extensively, but I don’t think I learned much about communism, and certainly not communism from a non-Soviet perspective. For one thing, the historians and politicians who wrote about communism clearly believed that to take any position other than a polarized one was equivalent to de-manning themselves. For another, we discussed only the big events, not the minutia of day-to-day existence (except where it “proved” that capitalism is better). Well, my personal identity does not depend upon my unrelenting defense (or attack) of capitalism, so I feel like I will be able to examine Vietnamese communism with a relatively fresh gaze. And what “communism” is now is very different than what “communism” is at any other point in history. I’d like to see what’s going on with that.

-Studying disease prevention. During my program I will write an independent paper on whatever I wish. I have chosen to examine epidemic diseases and the way that healthcare workers educate people in rural communities about prevention. Particularly, I want to compare knowledge and education about HIV/AIDS to another epidemic that has little to do with human sexuality – malaria, say, or Japanese encephalitis.

-Tea. I’m a fan, and in the U.S. it’s just not as ubiquitous as it is in Asian countries. I love that tea is going to be a drink option no matter where I go.

Halong Bay

Things I’m not looking so forward to:

-Struggling with the language. Vietnamese has six tones and is notoriously difficult. My passion as a student does not lie with the study of language, so I anticipate difficulty.

-Talking about sexuality for my research paper. Everything I’ve read so far just advises that I never even bring up sexuality with any Vietnamese person. Yet I must do so in order to evaluate knowledge of HIV/AIDS and its prevention. The cultural barrier + awkwardness about sex + people not trusting a stranger (me) + the language barrier + etc. = extreme potential for failure after it’s way, way too late to fix it.

-The almost certain bout of traveler’s diarrhea I will experience.

-Mild psychotic nightmares from taking the anti-malaria medication. Also the possibility of contracting rabies, worms, or any other gross tropical disease.

-Being regarded as a boorish, loud, uninformed, slutty, rude, insensitive American. In defense of people who may regard me as American and therefore uninformed, it is extremely difficult outside of an academic library to find anything on Viet Nam (not the war). There’s only travel books and war books, and the war books are 100% dominated by the U.S. perspective. Come on, America. We frickin’ doused the country in Napalm and bombed people and set up an embargo until the 1990s and we struggle with homeless PTSD veterans. We seriously can’t stock even one book in public libraries or bookstores from the Vietnamese perspective? In any genre? Come on.

Check out my travel blog for semi-regular updates.

*In Vietnamese, “Viet” and “Nam” are actually two different words. Like Chinese, most of the words are monosyllabic. “Viet” is the primary ethnic group in the nation, while “Nam” means south, which refers to the country’s position as south of China, its occasionally invading and always pushy neighbor. In English the words were pushed together in newspaper headlines by editors who didn’t know/care that the words were separate. This reflects a time when journalistic integrity apparently only applied to people of one’s own culture; should someone nowadays attempt to display such cultural ignorance, that person would rightly be called a dumbass.

photo credits http://flickr.com/photos/andrewhuxtable/

I have a question, born from years of observation. Some background: I like to work out, and a part of my workout routine involves free weights for my upper body stuff. I work out about twice a week on average, though I’d like to do it more. My question is this: why don’t women lift weights?

Keep in mind while reading this that I’m talking about women who work out regularly – not folks who have never done so or that only go every once in a while. I’m talking about people who are past the stage of feeling intimidated by a gym and who find value in taking time out of their week to exercise. More power to them; I wish everybody worked out more. However, there’s this strange phenomenon that I’ve observed in gyms all over, and that is that women don’t lift weights.

I get some of the reason why. The free weight section is rather intimidating, because it requires a basic knowledge of form and muscle groups; machines are more user-friendly in this way. And there’s men in the free weight section. Beefy ones. There was a time when I myself attempted to be as unobtrusive as possible, assuming that the men there would be hostile to my presence. Actually, if anything they were surprised. Like most people, though, they focus on their own work outs; the fear of being judged is a big reason why people are shy to start exercising, I think, but it just doesn’t happen very much.

The free weight section isn’t male-dominated because of any active or covert intimidation on the men’s part; the fear of that came completely from me, and I’ve gotten over it. But the lack of women in this area puzzles me, because presumably other women have discovered this as well. I have observed a number of women using free weights, but mostly they use weights that are less than twenty pounds, if that. I can count on one hand the number of women I’ve seen using weights higher than thirty, me included, and I think the others were athletes.

Okay, so why don’t women lift heavy weights? Let’s go through possible explanations. One: women are not as physically strong as men. Well, maybe. But are they as physically strong as a thirty pound weight? I’d say this explanation is diversionary. I’ve seen women do badass stuff at gyms, like run for 90 minutes and do seven bazillion crunches. And I myself started free weights with twenty pounds in each hand, so it’s not like there’s some inherent weakness here. Two: women are intimidated by weights and generally think of that as a “male” activity, while machines and such are “female” activities. This is quite possibly the case, and if so I think it’s time to stage a coup and shake up the gender divide. Since I’m hanging out on the “male” side of the equation, I’ll rally all of ‘em up and take over the machines so that women will be forced through lack of options to lift weights. Take that, division of exercise labor!

The third explanation is that women don’t want to have muscle. They want the benefits of exercise (healthy metabolism, strong heart and lungs, proper body-mass index, etc) but they don’t want to look like they exercise. I’ve heard a lot of women express the desire to “tone up” rather than gain muscle (as though they had any in the first place. I’ve had two female athletes – athletes! – tell me that they “don’t want to have muscles.” And I’ve heard female friends with twigs for arms say they don’t work out because they fear having muscles.

For one thing, this displays a gross ignorance of what the female body actually looks like. Women with big bulky muscles work out for a living. It’s their job. Women just don’t gain muscle mass the way that men do. Do women not work out because they are afraid of losing their femininity? Do they think that only men have muscle?

Here’s what I think when I see someone (of any gender) with muscle: “Wow, that person could twist my head off.” It’s quite an impressive sight. Along with that, though, I also think that the person looks capable. I think that they look strong. Muscled folks look like they know their worth and they aren’t afraid to display it, and they are not afraid to make others pay attention. A muscled body takes up space.

These are all very good things. Why shouldn’t women be as capable, strong, aware of their worth, and take up as much space as men? I just can’t see a muscled person standing for such treatment as being underpaid or ripped off or otherwise mistreated. That’s not who comes to mind when I see a victim. Yes, there’s more than one way to achieve the above virtues, and yes, there’s an undercurrent of aggression in a muscled body, simply because one becomes more aware of the physical power it holds. The first objection is a cop out; the fact is that women do not choose to display themselves as physically strong, physically capable, physically aware of their worth, and they do not like to physically take up space. To the second objection, I ask: why is it bad that women hold an undercurrent of aggression? Because I am female, strangers look at me and see a victim, which is why women in particular are cautioned from walking alone at night. If I can demonstrate with my very physicality that I can fuck you up (more delicately referred to as “defending oneself”), then I’m all for it!

Given these obvious benefits, then, why don’t women want to look strong? Why do women consistently chose to discount their ability to lift weights and say that they want to avoid muscle? The opposites of strong, capable, knowing one’s worth, and taking up space are weak, incapable, ignorant of one’s worth or devaluing one’s worth, and taking no space. Is that what femininity is? Do women really want to be these things? Or am I completely off base? Is there another good reason I’m missing why women do not chose to lift heavy weights? I’m a bit bewildered by this observation of mine, and I do not think that it is only present in the gyms I go to.

photo credit http://flickr.com/photos/dirty_dan/

Every year Dr. Douglas Goodman and Dr. Bruce Mann, two economists from the University of Puget Sound, review and forecast the Pierce County economy. The Pierce County Economic Index (PCEI) is organized by the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce and several local organizations.

Obviously the forecast for 2009 is comparatively pessimistic, since the U.S. economy has been in a recession since December 2007. However, it is worth noting that the Pierce County economy did not begin to show signs of recession until mid-2008, and it is predicted to improve by the third quarter of 2009, along with the rest of the nation.

Here’s the unedited presentation by Goodman and Mann:

image credit http://flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/

I must begin by admitting that I was biased against liking Othello from the very beginning. When I read the play in my high school English class, I thought that the characters were universally flat – even Iago, whose personality is just clever evil rather than dumb evil. I had no sympathy for Othello’s inner struggle, because I am fundamentally disinclined to give jealous men any sympathy, mostly because their “solution” to feeling jealous is to murder their female partners. Rather than, you know, talking it out. There’s an idea!

I’m also disinclined to like stories about jealous men and their psyches, because their jealousy stems from a belief that a woman’s sexuality is owned by men. And they also believe that a woman’s worth is fundamentally determined by the extent to which she closes her legs. This attitude contrasts with some modern interpretations of sexual jealousy, which place its source more on a breaking of trust; that is a much more legitimate reason to be jealous. Shakespeare’s Othello on the page sources Othello’s jealousy from the women-are-property standpoint, but of course theatre is written to be performed, not read. So I went to Seattle with my housemates, knowing my regard for this play was going to be an uphill battle, but trusting that the Balagan just might get beyond that substantial yet not insurmountable hurdle, that it might prove to me that this play is rich and deep and still a relevant display of genuine human feeling.

It failed.

The tiny Balagan is an intimate blackbox theatre, where of necessity the set must be imagined more than shown. In this type of theatre the relationship between the audience and the actors constantly moves back and forth, and individuals in the audience itself can feed off each others’ reactions. The setup for Othello (which ended December 13) cut the audience into two portions, facing them at each other across the stage. The set consisted of large wood blocks scattered around the stage. Only Iago, played by Mike Dooly, touched these, moving them about as he orchestrated the progression of the play, until the last scenes in which all of the blocks formed Desdemona and Othello’s marriage bed. By the end of the first act, the bed was only partially created, indicating that the result of the play was not inevitable and the course of action was not set. This, though, was contrasted by the acting, which guaranteed the ending almost from Iago’s first treacherous suggestion to Othello.

Before I slam the play too harshly, I should note that it has a lot of good points. Dooly’s Iago was not an incarnation of the devil, nor was he entirely in control of every other character. He was a human being whose own insecurities drove his actions, not his supposed inherent evil. He was likable, even when we descended into the depths of his private thoughts. Iago and his wife Emilia genuinely loved each other, an interpretation I had not picked up when I read the play or saw the last 30 minutes or so of the Samuel L. Jackson version of Othello. This, in turn, made Emilia more likable, since her part in Desdemona’s death was truly an accident born of love and trust. Terri Weagant’s Desdemona herself was a very strong character. She was not some flighty idiot who defied her father out of whim, but a woman who knew the consequences of her actions and had a strong moral compass. She was in tune to the movements of politics and knew her value as a politician in her own right. Actually Weagant had to play against the stupider things that Shakespeare wrote for Desdemona, such as in the following:

Emilia: (reacting to Othello calling Desdemona a whore) I will be hang’d if some eternal villain,

Some busy and insinuating rouge,

Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,

Have not devised this slander; I’ll be hang’d else.

Iago: Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.

Desdemona: If any such there be, heaven pardon him!

Or at the moment of her death:

Desdemona: A guiltless death I die.

Emilia: O, who hath done this deed?

Desdemona: Nobody; I myself…

Jesus, Shakespeare. She’s forgiving and virtuous. Gag me with a spoon.

To be fair, excepting Johnny Patchamatla as Othello, the actors did a good job of making their characters into whole people. I especially liked the relationship between Cassio and Bianca. Not only was it kinky, but Cassio was a switch. Hot.

But the weakest performance of the play was Patchamatla. Othello, as written, was supposed to be old-ish and somewhat homely. Not so Patchamatla. He was young and delicious, and we all knew it. During his first monologue I watched him look into the eyes of a pretty audience member and fluster her completely. Patchamatla played a good noble Othello, but a poor agonized Othello. Within one conversation, Patchamatla’s Othello is completely taken with the idea of Desdemona’s affair with Cassio. The times he hides and watches innocent conversations are not moments where he is gradually convinced, through manipulation and coincidence, of her guilt. He already knows. It’s a masochistic impulse that makes him watch. With this, of course, Iago’s role as a manipulator is extinguished; Othello has already fabricated the evidence for him. There is no process of doubt; there is only certainty, for it is clear here that a woman who deceived her father to marry a suitor is without morality, e.g. “honesty.” Honesty’s meaning, in Shakespeare’s plays, depends entirely upon the gender of the person with it. Iago has no honesty because he lies and is disloyal; yet Desdemona is honest because she does not have extramarital sex.

And, I am convinced, it is impossible for Othello’s murderous jealousy, by the words of the play itself, to be an expression of broken trust. It must only be an expression of wounded ownership. After Iago first suggests Desdemona’s disloyalty, Othello muses:

…I am abused; and my relief

Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,

That we can call these delicate creatures ours

And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad,

And live upon the vapour of a dungeon,

Than keep a corner in the thing I love

For others’ uses….

So perhaps it is unfair to blame Patchamatla’s performance of Othello exclusively on a lack of skill. True, there is no process of belief, and there’s a lot of unnecessary writhing on the floor, but he cannot change the words of Shakespeare himself to fit modern conceptions of his character’s struggle. Othello thinks of Desdemona as his possession. The only, only reason his murder of her is wrong is because of her innocence. If she were not, the story would still be a tragedy, but the lesson would be “Well, you shouldn’t have gone and married that lying slut anyway.”

The director’s statement asserts that this play is about choice. If so, it is entirely about male choice. Desdemona, Bianca, and Emilia have no efficacy when it comes to how their men treat them. Their offstage – and, therefore, inevitable – choices do move the course of the play. But it is the choices of men to decide whether or not these women continue to breathe, and they are powerless to affect these essential choices.

So what value does Othello have to a modern audience? The reason we still perform Shakespeare is because his plays have something that still moves us, something that still speaks to our human realities despite the difference in time, place, and culture. For its time, Othello was stunning. It had a Moor main character who was good, and a bad white guy (although it wasn’t too surprising, since Iago is a Spanish name and the English of the time considered the Spanish to be rather evil). The stereotype of the raunchy Italian woman was countered. Emilia’s perspective on why a woman might cheat is one of the best I’ve seen by a male author. It is reasoned and sympathetic, and Emilia is still given the privilege of being a virtuous woman.

But these stereotypes relevant are not today. We have moved beyond simple discussions about race; it should not be surprising to us that minorities are not inherently devilish people, nor that white people are sometimes evil. We do not hold women to the same codes of chastity, though we still occasionally kill them for not being chaste.  And since that is the case, Othello is not relevant to us today. Othello’s agony is illegitimate. It is illegitimate to kill a woman for her sexual choices – and it is clear to the audience that Desdemona’s death would have been righteous if she were guilty. Thus this play need not continue to be performed. To do so would only legitimize the feelings of people who feel they can abuse their partners. If we should keep Othello around, let it only be taught as a part of our heritage, but no more than that. Do not let it come to life onstage. Any small value in the subplots are overshadowed by the illegitimacy of its central plot. Put on, instead, a Shakespeare play that actually has something worthwhile to say about life today.

Let Othello rot.

This week a special panel created by Congress to investigate…something (CNN did not deign to give the name or purpose of the “blue ribbon panel” – way to increase knowledge and transparency, CNN!) has concluded that a biological terror attack somewhere in the world will happen by 2013. Since the raw materials and knowledge required for biological (read: disease) weapons are widely available, presumably, terrorists will make use of disease, somewhere, somehow.

Let us examine this argument by looking first at the potential contagion-spreading terrorist. He will have many diseases to pick and choose from, so which he selects depends exactly on what his goals are. If his goals are distinctly nationalistic – say, he is a Tamil Tiger, a Chechan or Tibetan separatist, a member of Hezbollah, or some other group with the goal of living in a certain area in a certain way – then he is unlikely to use biological weapons. The risk of the disease spreading back into his home community, whose health and continued existence he is presumably fighting for, is far too great. While some individuals in nationalistic groups may favor suicide attacks, it is likely that they will stick to good old fashioned bombs and guns, since they provide control over who and how many are being killed and to what extent. Likewise, terrorists that have any sort of goal that involves a society after the enemy is wiped out (such as the Taliban) are unlikely to use biological weapons in their home territories. They may identify enemies in other regions and try to kill them with disease, but these folks have very particular regional goals.

Which brings us to the problem of disease – why wouldn’t a group like FARC use biological terror? I’ve answered it a little above, but unless a group’s goals are to “Destroy Everything”, disease just doesn’t work. Diseases, for the purposes of a terrorist, fall into two categories: easy and hard. They can be easy to spread (tuberculosis, smallpox, the flu) or not (SARS, some parasites). If they are easy to spread, they may target particular populations based on class or climate, so their effectiveness is limited. And if they are easy to spread, they may also be easy to survive, to cope with, or vaccinate against.

The goal of most nationalist(ic) terrorist groups is to convince a local population that they should live as the terrorists propose. In this they differ only in methodology from mainstream nationalist groups. That is, groups like FARC argue that Colombia and South America should turn to communism in one way, while communists politicians, lobbyists, artists, and others use more acceptable methods of persuasion for the same goal. Thus FARC in the end wants to kill only a selected group of people, because if everyone started dying then they would never win anyone over. Terrorists like these were the ones most ingrained in the popular consciousness before September 11, and they remain the most common.

Then there are the terrorists we now associate with September 11: crazy motherfuckers (CMFs) who want to “Destroy Everything”. These folks are in very short supply. It is feasible to know the name of every CMF currently living, which shows you how kind of ridiculous (not bad, just strange) it is that they have dominated security policy discussions for the past seven years. CMFs are definitely the ones who will be using biological weapons.

CMF Aum Shinrikyo Wanted Poster

The diseases they choose will be meant to have maximum killing effect – they will be totally uncontrollable and very spreadable. The problem for them is getting access to known massively deadly diseases. AIDS, for example, while deadly and common, is difficult to spread since a change in victim behavior easily prevents further infection. So diseases that are airbourne, or even mosquito-bourne in some cases will be preferable. It will also be best if the disease hides for a short while so that victims can infect others before realizing they are sick. And it needs to be something without a readily-available vaccine.

CMFs may use themselves as a way to spread the disease, and the people hardest hit will probably be poor urban dwellers. The question is only when and where, not if, at this point. Since that is the case, we should not get overexcited about it – that is, resort to fearmongering and taking away minority rights.

December 1 is World AIDS Day, a day in which countries, individuals, and organizations around the world come together to stop the global epidemic. While not all research and changes in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention can be summarized here, I will do my best to provide a snapshot of the state of HIV/AIDS in 2008.

Background:

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) originated in chimpanzees in Africa. However, most cases of SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) affect only chimpanzees in captivity; other primates such as sooty mangabeys can live with SIV in their bodies to no ill effect. The earliest human case found was from a blood sample in 1959 which had been taken for another purpose. Current research, however, estimates that the virus may have begun to evolve as early as 1900. HIV attacks the immune system and causes key immune cells, CD4 cells, to malfunction. HIV cannot be cured, though drugs can be used to slow its progress. When certain vital immune cell counts fall below a threshold, HIV develops into Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). AIDS, in itself, does not kill; it provides an opening for secondary infections to invade the body. Tuberculosis is one of the most common secondary infections that currently kills AIDS victims.

There are several strains of HIV currently known, a few of which are resistant to anti-retroviral drugs. Each year the proportion of drug-resistant strains increases, in large part due to unsafe sexual behavior between HIV-positive partners. The drug methanphetamine (aka Tina, crystal, crystal meth) has also been implicated as a cause speeding up the process of HIV evolution among gay men in the United States.

HIV is a relatively difficult virus to acquire: malaria can be transmitted in mosquitoes, or the flu can be transmitted by breathing in air another person coughed into, but HIV cannot be transmitted in either of these ways. It can only be transmitted through blood to blood contact, contact with sexual fluids (e.g. semen, menstrual blood, and vaginal discharges coming in contact with tiny wounds, mucous membranes, and/or the cervix), and breastfeeding. HIV has a very high rate of co-infection with other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). For example, having herpes, even with no outbreaks, can significantly increase the risk of contracting HIV.

Palin Dresses Like a Naughty Schoolteacher

The rather crazy identity politics of this most recent election brought into the mainstream discussions of identity and the importance of it. Sure, these discussions were usually no more than superficial regurgitations of stereotype…but conversations between pundits do not reflect the perhaps more significant private conversations among individuals. Central to these discussions were, of course, Barack Obama’s racial heritage (and, at times, his skin color was interpreted with respect to his Americanness – revealing that Americans still really struggle to see dark skin as “American”) and the gender of Hilary Rodham Clinton and Sarah Palin. These discussions had nothing to do with who these people actually are. Rather, what their differences from white male politicians – that is, their “weirdnesses” – symbolized were was on debated. We did not talk about HRC, Palin, and Obama themselves. We talked about female politicians, and therefore women generally, and black politicians, and blackness generally.

Clinton’s shameful treatment by the conservative/moderate media (read: most of it) has been well-documented elsewhere: statements about how the country run by her “would be like being nagged by your wife”, how she’s a “bitch” (but isn’t that a good feature in a leader? I mean, by definition no one pushes bitches around), constant assessment of her clothing, etc and so forth and please god let the misogyny stop. These comments had nothing to do with her, but what she represented – a powerful, liberal female politician.

When Sarah Palin came on the scene out of nowhere, conservatives were overjoyed. Apparently not understanding the definition of “feminism,” conservatives declared that their support of Palin made them “feminist.” Actually, Republicans supported her because she is “theirs”; their contempt for Clinton’s politics translated into insults based upon her biological status as a woman. If they really were “feminists,” they could still say hateful things about Clinton – but their statements would have attacked her ideas, not who she is.

So much for conservatives. Yet the mere fact of Palin’s presence on the political scene allowed a slimy undercurrent of liberal feeling to surface as well. Liberals, faced with a female political opponent, conducted the exact same method of attack. For the most part they ignored who Palin actually is and used a distorted caricature of her ideology to discredit her. This is typical in politics. Yet as with conservative attacks on Clinton, the basis and center of Palin’s caricature was femaleness, not her ideas.

The primary method used by the liberal media (and in casual conversation with liberals) was sexualization. (For a mild example, click here.) Media of all kinds sexualized her. The difference was that when the conservative/moderate media mentioned how “hot” she is, it was a positive statement. Their admiration of her ideology and their admiration of her body came together. Liberals, however, used sexualized/naked images of her in order to demean her. Her reactionary views on sexuality, birth control, and other choice issues was usually the justification for this. Liberals knew that the quickest way to humiliate Palin was to reduce her to the level of a naked body, to make her image into one that could be used for sexual gratification (even if it wasn’t.) In doing so they did not directly respond to the ideas that they objected to, but attempted to undermine the credibility of such ideas by sexualizing the woman that held them. After all, if she’s nothing but a slut, then her ideas aren’t important, right? And we can tell she’s a slut because her look-alike is in a porn flick and we drew naked cartoons of her with fetish gear. Palin’s consent in using her image this way of course is irrelevant to the conclusion that she is now a slut whose opinions do not matter.

Sometimes feminists annoy members of the general community by claiming that certain actions that harm women or show a bias against women based on gender are political. Most people claim such things are social, not political. Well, folks, here we have it: the degradation of a woman via sexual imagery for explicitly political purposes.

Additionally, we have a kickback to an earlier era of eroticism, where one is meant to feel contempt for the subject of one’s arousal. Make no mistake, Sarah Palin is attractive. And when we explicitly sexualize her even when we violently oppose her ideology, doesn’t that seem unhealthy? We’re getting off on the image of someone we are contemptuous of. To me, that is an unhealthy expression of sexuality as well as misogyny. The only difference between this and hating women who act as porn models or strippers generally is that it is aimed at a particular person.

This reminds me of a story. When William Jennings Bryan was running for president under a Populist platform around the turn of the century, his wife appeared with him on the campaign trail. In one particular instance in the South, she was insulted by male Southerners and even egged. This was despite the tradition of “Southern chivalry” that demands (white) women be treated with respect. Mrs. Bryan, of course, was exempt from this because she not only had the “wrong” political views, but she was acting in an “unwomanly” fashion. Thus the harassment of the Southern men was justified – she had to be put back in her place.

Likewise liberals have and will try to put Sarah Palin, whose ideas are “incorrect,” in her place by using her gender as a weapon to undermine her credibility. And, like conservatives, they will do this and still attempt to claim that they are “feminist.”

Due to a serendipitous act of God, The Melon has obtained previously undiscovered documents concerning 1776′s siege of New York and the Battle of Long Island, particularly regarding Nathan Hale, America’s first patriot spy, and other influential patriots. Since we are committed to America’s legacy, we are now releasing these documents to the public.

General Washington: (arriving in New York) Okay! We’ve shown the British what’s what in Boston, we have a Declaration of Independence in the pipe, and I’m pretty sure that they are coming for New York next. So, Major General Nathanael Greene and my trusted adviser, how are we going to defend this place?

Nathanael Greene: Well, sir, we have several plans for defending the city here (points to plans on a table.)

Washington: Hmmm. Well.  I don’t know anything about the terrain, the loyalty of the people appears to be mixed, the troops think that they deserve freedom from discipline as well as freedom from tyranny, we have no idea where the British are or what their plans may be, we cannot afford to pay the men wages most of the time, and everyone keeps getting typhoid.

Greene: That about sums it up, sir. So what plan do you want to try?

Washington: Let’s do…everything.

Greene: What?

Washington: Yes. We’ll divide up the troops into uselessly small divisions on Long Island, Manhattan, and a few other places for good measure, and the only communication route between most of them will be by sea, which is soon to be in British control. Sounds solid to me.

Greene: Uh-oh.

Washington: What we really lack is…(hears noise from window) What is that?

General Charles Lee: (shouting) HEY GEORGE!

Washington: WHAT, CHARLES!

Lee: CONGRESS SHOULD HAVE PICKED ME TO LEAD THE TROOPS! YOU SUCK!

Washington: Asshat. (ignoring Lee’s shouts) Now -

Lee: JUST BECAUSE YOU AND JOHN ADAMS HAVE A THING

Washington: (slams window closed) Now, what we lack here is intelligence.* We need a spy. Do we have any of those?

Greene: Well, there’s this one guy…

Nathan Hale: (Bursting in the door) I’ll do it!

Washington: Who are you?

Hale: I, sir, am Nathan Hale, a patriot.

Washington: Do you have any experience at espionage?

Hale: I will serve my country to the best of my ability.

Washington: Uh, well, do you know how to write in code or how to weasel information out of people?

Hale: I have no qualifications for this job whatsoever.

Washington: So why should I let you do this?

Hale: I’m enthusiastic!

Washington: Can you keep your mouth shut?

Hale: (silence)

Washington: Off you go.

————

(Hale goes to a bar in British-controlled New York City)