Resolution

It has been a rough week. I am surprised to have the energy to blog. Ok, yeah I don't really.

Happy new year, peeps. I wish you love, peace, happiness and a dearth of hurt, both incoming and outgoing.

Connecting Far-Away Dots

Tonight I went to this meeting of a childcare collective, and it was amazing for so many reasons. One of them being that it gave me a chance to think about how I feel about raising children and how it relates to the other work that I do.

I remembered a party that I went to in Hyderabad last year for the holidays. My friend who hosted identifies as gay, and he and his partner live in an extended family set-up, with him and his partner, his parents and his siblings and their families. I remember being there and feeling like the space was so familiar - the usual desi party with all the feelings I associate with my own experience of tradition. But then it was also this great, totally inclusive queer space as well, where all the dividers of gender and sexuality that I associate with my own traditional South Asian experience (based in my family and community interactions) were all lifted.

One of the best parts of the evening was seeing how my friend's niece interacted with her uncles - and seeing their family bond in this space. It was this incredible experience, and yet I felt sad that it was an experience to be amazed about. I wish it was one that I could take for granted, because all spaces could reflect the same inclusiveness. I also noticed how the inclusiveness extended around age as well, with kids happily sharing the space with adults.

And that made me think about how sex & sexuality and children & child-rearing are conceptualized as the opposite ends of reality (although, presumably, at some point one led to the other!) but have everything to do with each other. Everything I've been learning about sex education, about organizing with sex workers & sexual minority communities, about gender roles & relationships: the topic of children comes up in every space. And yet in so many ways, our world only considers how to "protect" children from an awareness of all things related to sexuality...

Feminism != Male-Bashing

I was recently told that I am not as much of a male-basher as my feminist ideology would purport me to be. A string of recent conversations, including this one, have gotten me thinking about what it means to call oneself a feminist. Especially as many feminist organizations now seek allies in men, I started wondering where the male-bashing behavior fits into the movement.

And it led me to the following anti-climactic epiphany: Feminism came after male-bashing, not the other way around.

The popular perception of being a feminist is that of being a man-hater, a male-basher, a generally bitter and vindictive-on-behalf-of-my-gender female. But feminism is a relatively modern phenomenon. Opposite sex-bashing, on the other hand, is not so new. The war of the sexes, so to speak, has been a coping mechanism for both women and men for... ever.

For example:
The guy you've been seeing ditched you for your cute neighbor? Bitch to the girls about how all men are jerks and only want one thing.
Your woman's not letting you catch the game tonight? Let your boys know that the old ball-and-chain is PMSing again.

It seems to me that there are many women and men out there who specifically shun the label of feminist and instead engage through male/female-bashing. I'm not saying that these categories are exclusive. But they're also definitely not the same thing.

Resurrection

After a long break, and much fidgeting with this whole new Google accounts setup, I'm back! Now let's see how long this lasts...