Shopping for a cause? A cause for shopping?
Topic: Editorializing

I've touched on my skepticism about "consumption for a cause" before.  This makes my point even better than I did: "Join us in rejecting the ti(red) notion that shopping is a reasonable response to human suffering."  Right on.  But then, I grew up exposed to an attitude to public service that said that donating money to a cause wasn't even enough.  If you really believed in something, you got out there and volunteered.  I am probably not in the target market for "activist chic."

But it's not like I've done any meaningful volunteering lately, to be honest.  I got motivated briefly by Women in Black a few years ago, but I haven't made what I would consider a meaningful to commitment to a cause in a long time.  So I don't know that I have a foot to stand on when it comes to critiquing "cause marketing."  Fortunately, I can just point to Jessica Bennett's Newsweek article on the surprising strength of support for BUY (LESS) CRAP, a parody of the (RED) marketing campaign. 

Bennett's article raises some interesting questions about what cause marketing is really effective in doing.  Is it better at raising money for causes, or profits for corporations?  Is it good for educating consumers, or making them feel good about their purchases?  Is "or" even a helpful way of constructing these questions?  If cause marketing benefits corporations, consumers, and a cause, should we accept all these outcomes as good ones and just keep shopping?

An idea that I think Bennett's article could have done more to explore is that of the impact of consumption decisions.  She quotes a University of Maryland international development expert as saying that "What we buy and consume and use up and waste has a big impact on the developing world,” he says. “So sometimes I think the responsibility is on the part of citizens to really take an active role [in learning about an item].”  Take the iPod that Apple has designated as a (RED) campaign product.  Bennett spoke to Randy Cohen, who writes about ethics questions for the New York Times.  He said that "there’s nothing wrong with buying an iPod."  So if you want an iPod (like I do), why not buy one that will result in Apple making a donation to anti-HIV/AIDS efforts?

If only it was that easy.  Demand for consumer electronics in the global North has helped to fuel conflicts in the global South, because the materials used to create these items are acquired from the most cost-effective source, regardless of questions of who benefits.  And who benefits may be corrupt governments or warlords in conflict-affected areas who exploit resources to fuel violence.  There are also questions of how products are produced - what are the labour conditions that workers face, and what are the environmental impacts of production?  The iPod, for one, has been criticised for having a battery that is not easily or cheaply recycled or replaced, resulting in entire iPods being thrown away and replaced when the battery dies (although this can be weighed against the positive environmental impact of purchasing digital music, which does not generate the waste associated with producing and disposing of CDs).

The whole idea that it's okay to consume needs to be considered, as well.  The Worldwatch Institute's 2004 State of the World Report charges that unsustainable consumption is reducing the quality of life across the world, in both richer and poorer societies.  Consumption in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, according to the report - the entrance of more people into the consumer class helps to meet basic needs and create jobs.  But what we tend to lose sight of is how much is enough.  The Worldwatch Institute has some suggestions in their Good Stuff guide to help make more informed purchasing decisions.  It appears, at a glance, to be geared more toward environmental impact than examining issues like the conditions under which goods are produced (although their section on clothing highlights anti-sweatshop initiatives), but it's a start toward making more informed purchasing decisions.

I don't think that "cause marketing" is a bad thing, necessarily.  But I do think that it risks furthering complacency about unsustainable consumption and creating false expectations about the ease with which social problems can be solved.  Fundraising is not enough.  Hopefully, the awareness-raising aspect of cause marketing will prompt people to learn more about issues and what they can do to respond to them, but - and this is only to be expected - it doesn't challenge people to consider whether the best contribution they can make is by buying something.

Another tip of the hat to My Heart's in Accra.

Targeting girls
Topic: Editorializing
No time for extensive comment from me, but I did want to point out this story from the Christian Science Monitor: 'A pattern in rural school shootings: girls as targets' and this op-ed originally published in the New York Times: 'Why Aren't We Shocked?'  I find it very interesting that both articles find that the media plays a role in school shootings targeting girls, but that the authors diverge strongly in identifying what that role is.  And that's all I'll say, since I really need to get to work.  

Five Things Feminism Did For Me
Topic: Editorializing

(via EL's open invitation)

1. Made participation in the political process possible for me.  (Which reminds me that I need to find the safe place where I tucked away my absentee ballot for the upcoming elections.)
   
2. Contributed to the creation of a large and vibrant body of literature in all kinds of genres that has both validated my own experiences, and said that women's experiences matter.
   
3. Emphasized, over and over, that although it is an important social role, it is normal and okay for a woman to choose not to be a mother.  
4. Affirmed that I should be able to do any kind of work that I want and have the capability to do, and that I should have access to the education necessary to engage in that work.
5. Made it possible for me to have a large and diverse circle of friends, both male and female, who are smart, funny, interesting, and ambitious. 
   
6. Bonus contribution: Provided the route through which I've been able to access a range of theories and critiques of society that have contributed significantly to my own thought.  If I hadn't started out from a feminist perspective, I wouldn't have had the starting ground from which to interact with critiques of feminism from perspectives based in analyses of race, class and sexuality.  

You're it:  Kate! And anyone else who feels moved to join in.  Feel free to contribute in the comments if you are currently sans blog.    

Thesis
Topic: Editorializing

One month to the day until it's due, if I hand in on time.  

The panicking begins . . . actually, I think I'm kind of beyond panic, at this point.  I've maxed out on panic, or at least hit some sort of plateau.  Which is preferable to where I was a couple weeks ago, I suppose, where I was getting maybe 5 hours of sleep a night, at best and bouncing back and forth between being crazed and being narcoleptic.  Definitely on a more even keel now.  

I feel like I've become so boring lately.  Like my world has shrunk to a few topics, and the first one is always the thesis. I try to maintain an interest in world affairs and culture and whatnot, but all that information seems to be squooshed aside by my thesis obsession.  

For example, I saw this site and thought, 'here are some people who should maybe read my thesis': Peacekeeper Cosmetics.  Because this automatically positive image of the peacekeeper (and the aid worker) is something that I'm really interested in questioning.  Although, I was realizing as I was talking to a friend earlier this week that I do need to be careful in my thesis to make it clear that I'm aware that the abuse and exploitation of local people is perpetrated by a small number of peacekeepers and aid workers, and the case that I have to make is that these are not a few individual 'bad apples' but that they are representative of systemic problems within peacekeeping and aid organizations.  (But I do want to be careful not to be seen as advocating for disposing of the baby along with the bathwater - I think he thought I was saying that women would rather not have peacekeeping soldiers around than to run the risk of abuse or exploitation, and I definitely don't think that.)

Anyway, I found this idea of 'Peacekeeper Products' really interesting.  I've been sitting on it for several days now, just sort of picking it up and turning it over in my head when I need a break from my thesis.  I'm fascinated by the founder's idea that it's possible to purchase virtue: 'the very act of buying a product for which ALL profits support women's health advocacy & urgent human rights issues would transform the buyer into a PeaceKeeper herself. The product becomes imbued with the power of advocacy and transformation; and thereby, the consumer who buys it takes on those qualities as well.'  

By purchasing PeaceKeeper Products, the consumer is buying 'the power of advocacy and transformation'.  Really?  Because, call me hopelessly old fashioned, but I always thought that effecting meaningful social change called for more from individuals than buying stuff.  I'm torn between thinking, 'every little bit counts' and 'this is much too little a bit to make a difference.'  I just see so many problems with this - like the fact that nowhere on the site does it address the labour conditions under which the products and their ingredients are produced.  Which isn't to say that I'm assuming that they're bad conditions, just that I think that it's interesting that a product line that's about 'the power of advocacy and transformation' doesn't find it important to comment on the way their business is run or how their products are produced.  I also find it interesting that the initial product line is cosmetics, considering the endless feminist debates about the relationship between women's subordination and social expectations about women's looks.  And there's also the automatic assumption that women have a special relationship to peace, when in reality, substantial numbers of women support war directly and indirectly.  

Have I become hopelessly critical and cynical, that I see an effort like this and immediately start picking it apart and looking for the cracks?  Because the goals are admirable: supporting projects promoting women's health and human rights and working on awareness raising around these issues.  But I'm just so skeptical of the model being used to get there, particularly when such extravagant claims are being made on its behalf and I don't see how it's substantially any different from business-as-usual.  

Oh god.  I just was poking around on the site and found a page where the product line is called 'PeaceKeeper Cause-metics'.  I'm done.  That's just too much for me tonight.  

Erasure
Topic: Editorializing

In the midst of celebrating the birthday of Radical Women of Color Blog, brownfemipower takes time to comment on a new issue hitting feminist blogs:  a meeting between Bill Clinton and a group of bloggers.  The issue?  The point was made by another blogger that none of the attendees were people of color.  None of the attendees who posted about the event addressed the question of the racial composition of the group in their posts.  And now, 

the critique that there is something patently wrong with progressive/feminist bloggers attending an all white blogging get together under the guise of progressive/feminist politics has been rewritten as a sexist attack against feminist bloggers.

I'm only scratching the surface in my description of the issue, because I really strongly suggest going over to the original post on Radical WOC for bfp's analysis and extensive linkage. 

I'm not even sure how to begin articulating my irritation with this.  I feel like I'm kind of dropping it in here out of the blue because I haven't talked about personal politics extensively here, to some extent because that's not what I intended this blog for when I was starting out, and also because I haven't exactly put the most solid anonymity barriers up, which means that I feel some need to self-censor, and which has sometimes meant that I steer away from sensitive topics.  The all-important job search will be coming up soon, after all, and I'd like to have some control over the impression I make on prospective employers.  

Hence, part of my fear of making a ass of myself trying to grapple with complex and sensitive issues in a public forum.  And one of the many of those issues that has been working my last nerve lately is the erasure of people of color, in society generally and in feminist/progressive circles particularly.  You know, I didn't think I had much naivete left, but I continually find myself amazed that people who claim to want to fundamentally change the way society works somehow give themselves a pass on addressing a whole range of substantial critiques made by people who are oppressed by society.  How is it possible, in this day and age, to find yourself, as a progressive or feminist, in a group that's meant to be representive of a sizeable community, and not say, 'you know, it's weird that we're all white here.'  Or even if you don't notice it at the time, when somebody points it out to you, how can you not at least say, 'that's a very good point - I wonder why the group was so homogeneous?'

Race is an uncomfortable topic for white people.  (How's that for a ground-breaking statement?)  I mean, I just spent two minutes trying to decide whether to capitalize 'white' or not.  But white people in feminist and progressive movements have got to step up and deal with it.  There's no way around it.  To allow a critique about the whitewashing of the blogging community to get sidelined in favor of getting up in arms about sexism is counterproductive, in that it prioritizes one source of oppression over another, and it's harmful to the people who are shunted aside: told, effectively, that their critiques don't matter, that they're not important enough to engage with or to be taken seriously.  It's politically stupid, if you believe that coalition-building is essential to change, and it's ethically unacceptable if you believe that it is necessary to treat all people with dignity.  I've identified with feminism and with various progressive positions because that's what I thought they were about: changing social structures and systems to effect the recognition and protection of the dignity of all human beings.  I've had it with internal arguments about who or what is or isn't feminist or whether sexism is more oppresive than racism, or the attitude that suggests that feminism is somehow powerless or too fragile to stand up to critique.  

Grrrrrrrrr.

Since this issue of the erasure of people of color has been on my mind, I'm looking forward to the Radical Women of Color Carnival.  The topic this time around is Dehumanization and the Media:

How has the media shaped our historical lives and the world we live in today? How has it been used as a tool to dehumanize, disempower, and marginalize communities of color? The media has had a significant impact on the way we think of ourselves, our bodies, our loved ones, our relationships, and all of those around us. Who has the media been benefiting and how has this been at the cost of the process of us becoming complete human beings?

My interactions with what I think of as 'the media' are kind of limited these days.  I don't get a newspaper, I don't have a TV, I don't listen to the radio, and I don't have the money to see films or buy music or new books very often.  But messages about race seep through in so many ways - not only through my compulsive internet habit, but in ways that I wasn't even cognizant of not long ago.

For instance - the messages you get from products and packaging when you're shopping.  I'll leave aside my issue with the incredible pinkness of everything associated with girls' toys at the moment, although there's a rant and a half brewing about that.  I found, as I was shopping for books for Miss C, that finding children's books in a normal bookstore that doesn't present light-skinned and fair-haired children as the norm involved a sustained effort on my part.  Flipping through the picture books that featured babies went something like this: 'white, white, white, whitewhitewhite, next!'  If I hadn't gotten stubborn about it, I might've just given up and gotten her only books with pictures of animals, but I finally found a very cute book with a multicultural cast of babies, produced by an Indigenous Australian publishing house - just about the only book to prominently feature characters from a wide range of racial backgrounds.  The last page had a mirror in it, which was a nice addition, because kids love looking at themselves, and it sort of creates this virtual community - saying, 'You and all these other kids are Australian babies.'

And then I went looking for a card to give to Mama and Papa Bear to say congratulations on their new baby.  And after I got done ruling out all the revoltingly cutesy and cloyingly sweet ones, I was left with a whole lot of 'white' ones.  I stood there staring at one card that featured drawings of a dozen different hip and happy couples pushing prams, every one of which was comprised of two pink-skinned people with light hair.  Every. Single. One.  No darker shades of skin, no darker shades of hair.  I was so disgusted.  You'd think, in a city that's supposed to be one of the most multicultural in the world, you might be able to find greeting cards that reflect that reality.  But no.  And yes, I could've looked harder, I could've tried other card shops, but my point is I shouldn't have to.  White people are not the only people in the world, and it's past time that that fact is reflected in all the media that we have access to. 

Added:  More from bfp on this issue in an excellent post:

 the tone of this post (and other posts that it mimics) reflects a passionate racism within the blogosphere that is quite disturbing. the internet is the driving tool of communication these days, all of us know that. who gets listened to and who doesn’t is not only reflective of the racism in the real world, but is also instrumental in continuing the silencing of “problematic” communities (i.e. communities that don’t buy/challenge structural propaganda). does it really mean absolutly nothing that clinton had an all-white luncheon? no, let’s unpack that ambigous language. does it really mean absolutly nothing that a former head of a racist imperialist nation/state had a luncheon with a an all-white group of people who control the “new frontier” of media?

Not editorializing
Topic: Editorializing

Despite filing this one under the topic 'Editorializing', I'm not.  I just couldn't work out where else would be a good place for it.  'Whatever' is overpopulated, and 'Politics' isn't quite right.  I need to re-think categories.  And I need to think about moving this blog elsewhere if the problem with the comments doesn't get fixed right quick.

And for more thinking fun, I've got two posts inspired by the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.  On humanitarian.info, Paul points out several graphics meant to explain or illustrate aspects of the conflict.  Thanks to my fancy-shmancy postgraduate education, when I look at graphic representations of complicated information, I think 'Oooooooh.  Pretty.'  Then maybe if I'm up to it, I get around to trying to figure what information is missing or misrepresented.  After all, as Paul says in his post, any attempt to represent the 'real world' is going to simplify by leaving information out.   

Ethan Zuckerman asks if Israel is a problem for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, pointing out that the media attention focused on the Middle East is not actually justified in terms of the scale of the conflict, particularly when one considers that far more people have been killed or displaced by conflicts in Africa.  Simplification is a factor that Zuckerman points to, as well, arguing that stories about the Middle East have been simplified and are, therefore, easier to digest than those about contemporary major African conflicts:

This helps explain why Congo has gotten less attention than the conflict in Darfur, or the conflict over a decade ago in Rwanda. Those conflicts - accurately or not - have been described in stark, black and white terms - evil people are killing innocent people… the sorts of terms Israel/Lebanon is often reduced to by partisans on one side or another. As the situation in Darfur gets more complicated, it may get less attention, because the story becomes harder to tell.

Please, have a look at the essay in full.  There's a lot of food for thought in it, as well as some pointed illustrations of the concepts of  'consonance' and 'continuity' as 'news values'.

Theme alert!  It comes back to attention, again, and the questions of where one's attention directed, and why. 

And reflecting on that, I realize I need to be directing my attention back to my research. 

Grammar police, arrest this man
Topic: Editorializing
I'm generally a fan of adhering grammar conventions, but I know I make plenty of mistakes, especially right here, where I'm usually writing quickly and not re-reading very closely before posting. I haven't been called on any of them yet, but others online have not been so lucky. Like this Metafilter poster who makes a classic its/it's error in a comment, which another user points out. The original poster obligingly re-posts the comment - and I leave it to you to decide whether the final result comes out of grammatical ignorance or mischievous baiting of the grammar police.

What's worse, inaccurate grammar that doesn't actually disrupt the sense of a sentence's meaning, or being a grammar snob? I correct the hell out of the grammar in the essays I read, whether they're my students' or my friends'. I think I'd be doing them a disservice if I didn't, when better grammar could help them get better marks. But is it really worth it to be one of those people who interrupts conversation to correct someone's usage when whatever error has been made doesn't detract from understanding the point (or in this case, to be the online equivalent of that person)?

I'm not asking that question rhetorically, because there are lots of casual grammar mistakes that people make in various fora that I don't say anything about in the interests of not appearing insufferably pedantic - but I wonder sometimes if people would rather know? My own grammar wouldn't be anywhere near as good if people hadn't corrected my usage, and good grammar is important to good communication. I have corrected people on stuff like mispronunciations, which I do think pose problems in understanding what they're trying to say, but where does one cross the line from being helpful to being a know-it-all show-off? Or am I already over that line, and should just keep my mouth shut in the future?

Part of my position on same-sex marriage
Topic: Editorializing
As I mentioned earlier, I've been mulling over a tricky question for a few days now: not that I'm having difficulty answering it, but that I'm having difficulty thinking through how to explain my position to those who don't understand the issue in the same way that I do. I don't think that I've arrived at the definitive argument, but I do think that if I keep thinking about this instead of writing about it, I'll never actually say anything.

This all started when I received an e-mail with a link to this article from Tolerance.org, which argues that Rev. Bernice King's activism against same-sex marriage sullies her father's legacy. The author uses a statement by Corretta Scott King and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s long-standing relationship with Bayard Rustin, an ally who was also homosexual, to support his argument that MLK would have been a supporter of the gay rights movement had he lived to see its rise. He closes the article by charging Bernice King with bigotry, which prompted this question from my correspondent (someone very important to me whose position on the issue I don't know, which prompts some of the difficulty): 'can't a person be against gay marriage and not be a bigot?'

In considering my answer, I thought it was important to establish what a 'bigot' is. In the case of sensitive questions, I find it's best to be precise about terminology. What seemed significant to me is that definitions of 'bigotry' and 'prejudice' carry fine distinctions: although similar, they are not precise synonyms. The definition in Merriam-Webster is: 'a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices'. Dictionary.com yielded similar results. By comparison, the relevant definitions of 'prejudice' describe it as an adverse or irrational belief based in ignorance. So bigotry is a more harsh charge than prejudice, to my mind - the state of ignorance can be changed more easily than that of obstinacy.

So, if one is attentive to the semantics involved, it is possible to argue that a person can be opposed to same-sex marriage and not be a bigot, if that person is open to the possibility that their opinion could be wrong and is willing to consider information that might change that opinion. Ideally, those who wish to guard against prejudice and bigotry would seek out information and arguments that challenge their beliefs, because it's all too easy to maintain an opinion when all the information you encounter affirms it.

However, I would have difficulty accepting an argument that someone could be opposed to same-sex marriage without having prejudiced opinions about people of non-heterosexual orientation. I don't see how someone could accept gays, lesbians and bisexuals as human beings, as adult citizens, as fully participating members of a community, while denying them the legal rights and responsibilities that are available to adult heterosexuals.

This essay points out that, in North America, governments have historically created barriers to marriage on the following grounds:

• Age: a couple has to be old enough to marry.
• Disability: Those who are severely mentally disabled are often prevented from marrying.
• Consanguinity: Those who are too closely related cannot marry.
• Religion: The law discriminates against those faith groups that promote polygyny.
• Sex: In most jurisdictions, couples of the same sex cannot marry.
• Species: Humans can only marry other humans, not their pets or other animals.
• Quantity: All known marriage laws prohibit the marriage of three or more persons to each other.

The discriminations based on age, disability, and species are arguably protective of individuals, in that fully informed consent would be difficult for one or both of the parties to provide. The other measures are protective of society. Discrimination on the basis of consanguinity protects against the increase of genetic defects associated with prolonged close interbreeding and reinforces the social taboo against incest. What society is being protected from in the case of the other discriminations is less clear.

I'm still sorting out how I feel about polygamy, because the concept is so closely associated in my mind with polygynous practices in societies that place restrictions on women's behavior and mobility that I would not want to have to live with. That might be a topic for another post. Discrimination on the basis of religion is linked to the issue of quantity in this essay, but I wouldn't be surprised if old laws outlawing marriage across religions haven't been overlooked. After all, one critical historical discriminatory factor that's missing from the list is discrimination based on race. (Alarming semi-associated fact: according to Wikipedia, the last US state law prohibiting interracial marriage wasn't officially repealed until 2000, even though the Supreme Court declared such laws anticonstitutional in 1967.)

However, from a purely practical perspective, the challenges of allowing same-sex marriage should not be grouped with those associated with allowing polygamous marriage. Legally recognizing the marriage of more than two people would involve a substantial overhaul of existing legal and regulatory frameworks that recognize marriage as a union between two people. Recognizing marriage as the union of two consenting adult people of any sex would not.

Excluding same-sex couples from marriage, then, indicates that society believes that they are either a) incapable of giving consent - childlike or disabled in some way that makes them less than fully adult or b) 'deviant', 'undesirable' and 'problematic'. The disability argument lost its teeth when the psychiatric profession finally stopped officially classifying homosexuality as a mental illness. I think the argument based on the 'deviancy' of homosexuality is losing force with the increasing evidence that there is a biological or genetic component in human attraction - that while we are socially conditioned in our sexual behavior and able as individuals to choose to regulate that behavior, we are not entirely in control of who we feel attraction to.

But it wouldn't matter to me if homosexuality was entirely a 'lifestyle choice'. I don't think it makes people less human, less capable, less responsible, less deserving of belonging to a community - in other words, less equal to those whose orientation is heterosexual. What was most essential to my adoption of a pro-same-sex marriage stance is my desire to be part of a society that does not view people as 'undesirable' based on their sexual orientation (or their race, ethnicity class, gender identity, religion, political beliefs, etc). For me, this requires the legal inclusion of homosexual people in all aspects of social belonging. As long as marriage is a state that society values and as long as official and unofficial benefits accrue to people who are married, every adult member of a society should have the right to enter into marriage with the person they wish to make that commitment to, regardless of sex, class, religion, race, and so forth. To me, this position is entirely consistent with the desire for a society that recognizes the equality of all its members, and I have great difficulty seeing how one could argue against it without involving arguments that are based in prejudice against homosexuality.

-----------
I know I've only begun to scratch the surface of this and there are a lot of arguments and perspectives I've glossed over or missed entirely, but I really need to get back to work on my literature review. Here's some stuff I came across on the web while I was thinking about all this that I liked but wasn't able to work into my post: another take on bigotry and same-sex marriage from Alas, a Blog, which also provides a bit of historical perspective on changes in marriage laws; also from Alas - a concise argument in 8 steps for supporting same-sex marriage (even if you're mostly opposed to marriage, period); McSweeney's Policy on Marriage; Peggy McIntosh's essay, 'White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack' which, although focused on race, is very helpful in thinking through the advantages that discrimination confers on the members of a favored group; and, so that we're not totally North American in our bias around here, some perspectives (mostly left) on the same-sex marriage debate in Australia in the comments to this post on Moment to Moment.