Ken Corbett And Mark O'Connell Discuss Gender, Bullying And More

Originally Posted on June 29, 2012 on

Today we bring you a conversation between Ken Corbett, Ph.D. and Mark O'Connell, LCSW.

Ken Corbett, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He is the author of "Boyhoods: Rethinking Masculinities." Dr. Corbett maintains a private practice in New York City.

Mark O’Connell, LCSW, is a New-York-City-based psychotherapist in private practice. His paper "Don’t Act, Don’t Tell: Discrimination Based on Gender Nonconformity in the Entertainment Industry and Clinical Setting" will be published in The Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health in July, 2012. Mark has written for The Huffington Post and Truthdig.com. His blog is playingyourself.blogspot.com.

Here Corbett and O'Connell discuss the role gender policing has in bullying, fathers and vulnerability and more.

Mark O’Connell: Hi Ken. I contacted you for mentoring after reading your book "Boyhoods: Rethinking Masculinities." I just loved it. You make it seem so freeing and empowering to utilize more gender behavior options than our society typically allows.

As you've said in your forthcoming paper for Psychoanalytic Inquiry though, the fantasy of what is normal (boys should be masculine/ girls feminine) lives in each of us and bullies "do our bidding"/"police" the way boys and girls behave in an attempt to keep us acting like we "should." Take for example "The Shorning," by which I mean the recently released horror story of a high school-aged Mitt Romney pinning down and forcefully cutting a classmate's bleached blond hairdo, saying it was "wrong" and not "masculine" -- the same Romney who today mocks guys who like pink ties. So, what's up with that? Why do you think gender nonconformity provokes so much discomfort and aggression?

Ken Corbett: I think gender nonconformity provokes so much fear and hate because that is a big part of how we are gendered. We need to hold in mind here that gender is a major part of what makes us us. Gender is part of what makes us into the kind of person we are. And gender norms make us even before we are us. Hence, norms are us. We are anxiously policed even before we are us. Hence, the police are us. Hence, anxiety is us. And gender is held tight with a lot of anxiety. Consider femininity and the battle of dieting. Consider masculinity and the battle of battle. Consider how most parents now know the sex of their child prior to birth and with that knowledge they presume that their child will follow in accord with the social norms of maleness of femaleness. If they know it is a boy, dad buys a football, mom paints the room blue.

When children and adolescents encounter gender variation either within themselves or with others, and if they have not had the opportunity to learn about variation, they react with anxiety which often takes the form of aggression. They throw a football at the sissy's head or they set about to forcefully cut his nonconforming hair. Boys and girls who step out of the normal circle are punished both in an effort to push them into the circle, but more to the point to make an example of them as "criminal" -- deplorable and shocking -- for they ways in which they live outside the normal circle. We might think of Mr. Romney and his adolescent peers as speaking through their aggression and hate: "There are rules by which we live. There is a strict social reality. These rules cannot bend. You, bleach blond boy, upset the rules/roles. You upset us. We don't trust you. You have to adapt not us. And since you don't seem to understand, we are going to force you to adapt."

Mark O’Connell: We have a disturbing need to punish those who are deviant -- it makes me think of the carnival games called “Shoot the Freak.” But we as a society have been able to acknowledge what appear to be natural rules (such as "we need to kill to eat") and adapt to become more civilized. Why can't "rules" related to gender norms bend or even be named? In your paper, you ask the question, "What inhibits the naming of normative hierarchies that feed and constitute bullying?" This resonates with me specifically because I wrote a piece about bullying for HuffPost last month, trying to name the misogyny, homophobia and effemephobia in bullying worldwide, looking to what I thought to be hard evidence and I was struck by how many people (some close to me) reacted as though I was projecting, whining, stretching “gender theory” too far and that I somehow failed to understand that bullying is simply about power vs. weakness in the general sense, not inextricably linked to gender norms. Fascinating, and discouraging, because when we deny the norms that inform and trigger bullying -- dismissing, for example, that in the schoolyard, in the millisecond between the impulse and the punch, the words feminine, weak, vulnerable, submissive all mean the same thing to the bully who attacks the “sissy” -- then the problem gets perpetuated. So I'm reiterating your question now but why can't the overwhelming misognyny and homophobia in bullying even be named? What does it cost people to simply name it?

Ken Corbett: I like how you ask your question as a matter of "cost." My first impulse is to respond that it will cost the cost of doing business. Socially and culturally we have so much invested in a rigid gender binary (there can be two and only two genders, masculinity and femininity, and they are defined in opposition to one another). This social investment powerfully and productively exaggerates the relatively small physical differences between the sexes while downplaying our human commonalities.

My second response is that it will cost the cost of education and the promotion of critical thinking. It will cost a reexamination of how we teach civil rights as part of grade school and middle school curriculums. I vividly recall how important a book like Richard Wright's "Native Son" was to me as a junior high school student as I learned about the African American civil rights movement. Challenging the gender binary and offering young children the opportunity to think critically about gender will not only cost the price it will take to introduce books like "Oliver Button Is a Sissy" or "My Princess Boy" or the Trevor Project video into school libraries, it will also rest on the cost of educating teachers to think along with their students about the social forces that are behind the playground fights.

This manner of critical thinking seems even more important at the junior high school level as adolescents can begin to engage abstract and critical thinking to read about the history of feminism and gay rights as part of their American history curriculum. It will cost the kind of discussions that could be had if students were assigned the introduction to Berry Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" or Ellen Wittlinger's novel "Parrotfish" about a transgendered adolescent. Mark O’Connell: You know, Ken, as you mention all these great books I'm thinking about that recent Ohio University study showing that by identifying with characters in books, people’s minds change significantly. As you said, the lacking investment in publishing and distributing of books with gender atypical characters presents a road block to this change. We are starting to see more characters like this on television though, and I think if more gender variant actors were cast and characters created for TV and film, the collective fantasy of what is normal would begin to transform -- I've written about this in a paper for Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health(which will be published in July). It’s a continuing challenge of course, to convince producers to adapt their own normative fantasies in order to invest in stories about gender variant lives.

It's just frustrating that folks can't simply take a leap of imagination into another person’s life, the way we do as therapists with our clients or actors do with their roles. My mother -- who righteously owns that she has successfully raised a gender nonconforming kid for whom things (luckily) got better -- wants to know why people can’t simply empathize with those who are different from them, or just mind their own business. I tell her that if we could get Meryl Streep to tour the country teaching people (men in particular) how to connect with the internal life (the agonies and ecstasies) of women and “girly boys” we’d instantly see less violence. If the characters don't show up onscreen, we can teach people how to act, how to dream themselves into another life, how to empathize. Can we get a grant for this Streep project?

Ken Corbett: I am laughing thinking about how many requests Meryl Streep must get everyday to save the world in every way. We should note here that she is doing some remarkable work raising funds and making plans for a women's history museum in Washington D.C., an institution that I imagine is being conceived as place for school trips and the kind of education about feminism of which I spoke. But you raise a very good point about what it means to put oneself in the mind of another and step imaginatively into their shoes. Whenever anyone lapses into that "women are from Venus, men are from Mars" mantra, I always like to remind them that Flaubert imagined Madame Bovary or that George Elliot imagined Mr. Casaubon and Mr. Latislaw. Perhaps middle school children should be given a writing assignment in which they must write from a gender with which they do not identify. But here we must remember that the appeal to imagination has always been the romantic impulse when reaching for change and that romance only takes us so far. Along with the romantic imagination, we would want to make sure that children are learning about the social and political forces that do more to make our world, even more than Meryl Streep, although that is hard to believe.

Mark O’Connell: Extremely hard to believe! I'm telling you, Meryl's already saving the world; she's starring in blockbusters about smart, lively women in their sixties, who have agency, and lots of sex -- for fun, and on their own terms. It may be romantic of me but I do believe that the world having protagonists like this for people to dream themselves into can make more kids and grownups interested in how politics and social rules impact lives. Unfortunately, without that identification with a person -- a character, a life impacted by our oppressive rules -- most people just can’t be bothered to learn about the mechanics of society.

Ken Corbett: You are certainly correct in reminding us, as have philosophers for centuries, that we need not and cannot separate reason and emotion. We need both and one does not follow without the other.

Mark O’Connell: So, since we're talking a little pop culture... You refer to one of Eminem's lyrics in your paper; something like "we all got reps to uphold," and you discuss how the defensive posture of upholding "reps" perpetuates aggression and defers vulnerability. So, I'm going to challenge your rep as a distinguished analyst and scholar for a moment, and hope that you don't get violent: Do you watch "Glee"?

Ken Corbett: Yes, I do on occasion watch "Glee" and I like to think that the ways in which I am engaged by the romantic imagination of the plot lines does not tarnish my scholarly street cred. I think there is room for a show like Glee to skirt reality and, in so doing, teach.

Mark O’Connell: Good, so you’re not going to punch me? "Glee" is good times, certainly of the cotton-candy variety but with one exception: the story between Kurt and his father. That somehow grounds the whole show in the burgeoning tensions that we’re discussing. I often feel a delicious discomfort myself when I see how accepting Kurt's father is of him. No matter how flamboyant, feminine, girly or "dramatic" Kurt is, I’m always astonished by how his father’s response to him completely lacks any kind of aggression. It’s like I expect it to be there and so I vacillate between squeamishness because it's unfamiliar and tears because it's a catharsis we've never experienced before on television -- or perhaps even in life.

Ken Corbett: As you suggest, Kurt's father is in my experience a rare man and a rare father. But let us hope that some little proto-queer boy and his father are watching and learning that things might be otherwise.

Mark O’Connell: Have you noticed any changes in the parents of gender nonconforming children you've worked with over the years, fathers in particular?

Ken Corbett: In my consultations with parents of gender variant kids I have begun to note a subtle shift in the attitudes of both mothers and fathers. In a word, they are less anxious and more eager to support as opposed to change their child's experience of difference. Still, one frequent problem that I have found that it is important to address with fathers of gender variant boys is the father's anxiety when and if he finds himself to be the object of his son's desire. If a father allows himself to become the object of his son's desire, does he remain a heterosexual man? If his imagination goes queer in following his son, where does that turn leave him in relation to his own straight imagination? Fathers and proto queer boys often get caught in this snag and fathers often resort to a kind of paternal behaviorism: "Let's go out to the yard and play catch." I have found that it is important to help fathers see that pushing against their son's imagination/wish is not simply a matter of sidestepping or challenging his son's play but also a matter of dropping his son's psychic reality and, in turn, his son's bid to alter social constraints.

Mark O’Connell: So interesting. We never talk about “Daddy’s Little Boy.” Maybe one day it’ll be easier for us to discuss that, and all that it implies, and perhaps we’ll start seeing more father/son dances at weddings. I’d like to think I’d have danced with my father at my wedding -- if he were alive at that time -- even though, had I even been brave enough to get out of my own way and ask him, I’m sure everyone else (aka "the normal police") would have punished us (as you were describing earlier). We need to make more room for fathers and sons to relate to each other.

One of the big obstacles here is that to accept his son's “bid to alter social constraints” requires a father to be vulnerable and many fathers resist that at all costs.

My father was a high-school principal in Westchester, a lot of pressure and responsibility, and his rep as a stern authority figure was often referred to as a notable strength. But as I was writing a eulogy for him, the stronger quality that I recalled -- and still hold onto -- was his ability to fail, to not be the smartest, to work hard yes, but to embrace the unpolished parts of himself with grace and humor, to let them breathe. That continues to be a great source of strength for me, reminding me to be on my own side even when I feel inadequate, which, I think, makes me more successful in many areas of my life, but in our culture that’s not considered to be a very “manly” or “powerful” exchange from father to son. This also comes up in the film “Bully” when one of the moms says to the dad, “Maybe I should punch you in front of our son, so he can see that you cry once in a while.” How can we convince fathers that they’re helping their boys by sharing vulnerability with them?Ken Corbett: Your question about fathers and vulnerability is an interesting one because I often experience fathers as exquisitely vulnerable. Indeed they frequently defended against that vulnerability and one has to work with them to see that their fears are an expression of their love and concern for their children. Here, I think we sometimes underestimate children and while we do not want to constantly flood them with our feeling states, it is often not only helpful to be more expressive but it offers them the opportunity to learn the hard work of empathy and repair. Also life is not only made in recognition. It is often those relationships that are threaded with conflict from which we learn the most. Perhaps threading back to your wish that we see more conflict between Kurt and his father.

Mark O’Connell: It's a tricky balance for parents and leaders to strike -- isn't it? -- to allow conflict to exist without giving up authority completely or completely shutting down those under their wing. Speaking of authority, in your paper you discuss how, when unaddressed, the unspoken hierarchies that inform bullying behaviors affect psychotherapists, like me, when we seek mentoring from seasoned analysts like you. You haven’t bullied me yet. Why?

Ken Corbett: I think your use of the word "balance" here is key. In my experience with children and students, authority is earned through processes of mutual recognition and respect. In that sense authority is shared, not earned by conquering. Key here as well are matters of shame. Behind every binary there is a hierarchy (teacher trumps student, masculinity trumps femininity, heterosexuality trumps homosexuality, whiteness trumps blackness, wealth trumps poverty, christianity trumps islamism). Behind every trump there is shame (the shamed lesser one). The bully relies on that shame. He/she works by silencing their victim, trusting that their victim will not speak because to speak is to place one in the position of shame.

Mark O’Connell: So, that's why you've tolerated me yapping away like a naive Gen Xer; If you shamed me, shut me down, you’d deny me the opportunity to take risks, to fail, and to grow. On this note, I find it particularly disturbing what you've written about "the bullied mind" and how our fears -- of transgressing the lines of gender, for example -- can keep us locked inside of ourselves, isolated and potentially cut-off from our own life force -- to the point of resembling the walking dead. For all of the "actors" involved in bullying -- those who attack and those who palpably attack themselves -- there are also the unsung casualties, the myriad people who experience severe, and perhaps debilitating disconnect, too afraid to be spontaneous or, as you say, live a "liveable life." This mostly troubles me because when a person experiences this nobody really notices what’s happening on the outside. I don’t have a question here... I'm just depressed by this...

Ken Corbett: Well, you should feel depressed. That means you are paying attention to the plight of others. Recognizing how we oppress others and how we lock them inside their own torment should make us depressed. But importantly, that depression is a place to move from, a place from which we might make a difference. It allows us to see that while we might not always have the opportunity to help those who don't know that they need help, or know how to seek help, we can work, nevertheless, to build a better social world in which the power and hierarchies that oppress people can be challenged and changed, thereby affording our fellow citizens greater mental freedom. This is why I think it is so important to not only address bullying as something that happens between two kids on a playground, but as something that happens in the social network that is the school -- a system that reflects the misogyny, homophobia, racism, and class prejudice that circulate in our society at large. Of course we must intervene between the bully and the bullied and we must include the witnesses to those acts of aggression but we must also educate children about the social forces that push all of us around.

How to Be A Bridesman

Originally Posted on June 26, 2012 on

 Marriage equality is a percolating reality in the United States, and "the same-sex people" aren't the only ones benefiting from it. Along with the president's recent, long-awaited endorsement and state laws trending in this direction, wedding customs are also evolving across the board.

Marriage ceremonies (even religious ones) are becoming more a proclamation of love and commitment, on equal terms, for gay and straight couples alike and less a public ritual during which one man drags a woman out by the hair and throws her at the feet of another man -- a gratuitous paraphrase, but I'm sure I've heard similar text read at weddings in the past. Wedding parties are progressing, as well, and the tradition of "boys on one side of the aisle, girls on the other" is being adapted so that each spouse-to-be gets to stand with his or her tightest pals, regardless of gender. Bridesmen and groomsladies are indeed the way of the future.

As wonderful (and intuitive) as this progress may be, we're still in transition and can't expect everyone to evolve as quickly as these appropriate amendments to tradition take place. So in lieu of that expectation, those of us honored to be groomsladies or bridesmen need some guidelines to do the job well without becoming derailed by the anxiety with which others will inevitably bombard us. Because nothing evokes more anxiety for men than playing a "woman's role" -- and being an experienced bridesman myself (most recently in North Carolina, where a ban was just passed against marriage equality) -- I've written the following tips specifically for bridesmen (though they can also be helpful for groomsladies and anyone involved in the development of wedding-party equality).

1. You must be asked.

There are currently many people trying to deny women the right to choose, but you can't be one of them, so as tempting as it is to insinuate yourself into your dear friend's nuptials, the choice is hers. That being said, if you share a deep bond with a soon-to-be-bride, you're a likely candidate for her party, if she's having one.

Women have been the pioneers of wedding-party equality, brazenly breaking tradition to keep their besties in line on the big day. This coming out, if you will, validates many special and enduring platonic friendships between women and men (very often gay men), proudly reclaiming them and challenging the common perception that they're based on invisibility and shame -- the "fag hag" and her "fag."

So, prepare to be asked and to say "yes," honoring her wish to publicly affirm your binary-shattering mutual affection. However, if she tries to draft you into the brigade of her betrothed, consider sharing how meaningful it would be for you to be deployed on her side.

2. Complain about your suit.

Not literally, but here you might have to severely depart from bridesmaid rule of thumb. Your chapel-bound gal pal has good intentions in giddily galvanizing you, but bridesmen are a relatively new phenomenon, and she'll have so much on her mind that when considering your wardrobe she may, for example, myopically recommend that you suit-up like a groomsman -- if there's a groom -- whether the suits are aesthetically cohesive with her party's gowns or not. This could be an immaterial concern (depending on what everyone's wearing), but you want to avoid stealing unnecessary focus; looking like a last-minute link to the bridal chain, or like you accidentally wandered to the wrong side of the alter, will do just that.

Ask her about the bridesmaids gowns, and collaborate on a look that you can pull off and that captures the essence, colors, and style of the bridesmaids gowns, so that the bride's tribe appears confidently distinct. (For example, if the maids are to wear lavender crepe gowns, and the groomsmen seersucker suits, then you might suggest a lavender summer suit for yourself, or pale gray with lavender tie and socks.)

Yes, you have more flexibility than the ladies (who could get stuck in teal or wine-colored sacks, with no room to complain), but with it comes a responsibility that you share with the bride to co-create a clear and respectable role for yourself, as well as for future bridesmen -- attire being crucial to that.

3. Get tight with the "maids."

Sure, this is standard bridal-party etiquette, but for you it's a means of survival. While the families of the engaged aren't likely to deride you directly, being the odd-man-in, you can expect to be the recipient of nervous laughter, strained jokes, excruciatingly awkward stares, and an overall visceral discomfort. An easy rapport with the bridesmaids will soften these blows by conveying your belongingness, and once you've bonded over the bachelorette weekend, they'll proactively protect and claim you as a party member.

A surefire entree into the clan is to enthusiastically participate in planning the bachelorette events, with a soft, genuine curiosity (e.g., "What happens at a shower?" "Can we use Google Docs to budget for this thing?" "Must we wear penis crowns?"). Sharing what you know always helps, too, so offer something you're good at (e.g., decorate a cake in the bride's likeness, or design a signature cocktail utilizing the wedding theme colors); the gals will appreciate your naïve efforts.

As a warning, don't let your being the only male involved get to your head and lead you to offer your stripping services. Unless you're a pro and it's as easy as tying your shoelaces, this will just be weird and could defeat your intent to form a secure attachment with the ladies.

4. It's not about you; it's about her... and you.

Whom and what this day is about is certainly not up for debate, but when you're cast against type in the eyes of your audience (imagine The Rock playing one of the seven dwarves!), you're going to be more distracting if you try not to be noticed than you'll be if you make active choices. So to ensure that the group focuses on the lovebirds and their revelry, you'll want to address a few technicalities.

Clarify the bouquet situation: If she wants them, consider how harmonious it is for you to hold one, and if very, then great, but if not so much, then offer her a few creative alternatives -- perhaps a boutonnière.

If she wants a standard recessional (meaning bridesmaids taking groomsmen's arms as they exit), she may not have considered how this affects you or the groomsman who'll be staring at you dumbfounded. I've been in this hot seat before and offered my arm to the confounded gentleman, thinking it better to confidently take the novel image of us walking together a step further than to passively attempt to blend in by taking his arm, or to avoid the issue altogether, likely causing an awkward distraction. The crowd laughed, relieved that an active choice had been made, and seemed to be left with an open mind rather than tense embarrassment. Collaborate with the bride on a flight pattern ahead of time so that your ceremonial moves are chosen and smoothly executed.

To avoid coming across like a lurking ghost in the wedding photos, advocate for having yourself placed in plain view, and allow the camera to capture your natural chemistry with the bridal team. When guests pass by and acknowledge only the ladies with comments like "you look so pretty," rather than colluding with their desire to Photoshop you out of reality, deploy your smile teeth and say "thank you" with an easy charm.

5. Just be.

Like a professional performer, you've set all your marks in advance and carved out the canal, so that when the moment arrives, you can simply flow through it. Now you can just radiate how genuinely happy you are that your dear friend has found a relationship that feels like home. By default you'll be performing, and illuminating a very special kind of love between women and men.

Don't Act, Don't Tell

Originally Posted on April, 27, 2012 on

"If they smell gay on you, it's over!"

This was stingingly declared by my friend, a prominent casting director. She referred to the flat rejection actors face at auditions when they "seem gay," whether the part is gay or straight, large or small, no matter how right they might otherwise be for it. Acclaimed out-actor André De Shields lends credence to this, having said that his casting director friends won't cast anyone who is "too gay."

What, then, are such actors to do? (If only Sir John Gielgud had written Letters to a Young, Gay-Acting Actor). Unfortunately the actors' unions are limited in the advocacy they can provide, because the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a proposed bill that would prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, still awaits approval -- and it was first introduced to Congress in 1994.

Meanwhile, in separate interviews, gay film actors Rupert Everett and Richard Chamberlain have both offered the same cynical mentoring to their kindred thespians, recommending that they stay in the closet, much like "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT), which prohibited openly gay and lesbian people from military service.

The problem however is broader, more elusive, and more insidious than actors getting penalized for "telling" who they want to sleep with. The salient issue is that casting directors, like my friend, determine whether an actor is "too gay" based on how that person seems/presents/acts, forcing the "gay-acting" actor to wrestle with an unspoken policy that should be called "don't act, don't tell."

What is meant by "gay-acting"? As screenwriter Aaron Sorkin wrote on The Huffington Post in 2009, "Gay and straight aren't actable things. You can act effeminate and you can act macho," clarifying that qualities of gender can be enacted, but you can't play a sexual orientation "any more than you can play Catholic." However, as a handful of studies (including Johnson's "Swagger, Sway, and Sexuality: Judging Sexual Orientation from Body Motion and Morphology ") indicate, people reflexively perceive sexual orientation (at lightning speed) based on gender expression. In other words, gay or straight, if you're gender-nonconforming, you're perceived to be gay; and if this is conveyed at your audition, "it's over!"

This unspoken "don't act, don't tell" practice affects all those who either have jobs or actively seek one (not just actors). Earlier this month Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) publicly stated that all LGBT people should stop wearing "their sexuality on their sleeve." In arguing to ThinkProgress.com against the passing of ENDA, Rep. King stated that unless a person "makes their sexuality public," they shouldn't fear discrimination.

Surely by "makes their sexuality public," Rep. King doesn't mean gratuitously flaunting it by keeping gay porn on a work computer, or having crystal-meth-fueled trysts during work hours, as these activities are more commonly associated with religious leaders who promote anti-gay beliefs, as opposed to your average gay, working American.

Rather, he suggests that people "project" or "advertise" their sexuality in the way they act. For instance, in attempting to demonstrate how one can successfully keep closeted, King shared with ThinkProgress.com an anecdote about how his colleague, Senator Jerry Behn (R-Iowa) couldn't get LGBT activists to guess his sexual orientation, based only on a brief encounter with him. Interestingly enough, while sharing this, King glibly remarked that "actually they should have known," suggesting that Behn's heterosexuality should have been easily detected by voice and mannerisms alone. Had my casting director friend been there, perhaps she would have even been able to "smell" it on him.

Because people rarely acknowledge or discuss prejudice based on gender nonconformity, and due to the distinct absence of anti-discrimination laws, many feel entitled to openly deride and discriminate against others on this basis. Take, for example, the behind-the-scenes clip of a recent Fox interview with Mitt Romney (currently viral on the Internet) featuring the presidential hopeful affecting an effeminate voice while jestingly requesting a pink tie. Certainly LGBT rights are not a priority for Romney's campaign, anyway, but neither is the plight of Latino voters (as evidenced by his lack of support for the DREAM Act, and his recent confounding references to "self-deportation"), though we're not likely to catch him on camera derisively "acting Latino."

Perhaps more importantly, Romney would legally be prohibited from discriminating against Latino employees, or "Latino-acting" employees, for that matter (as long as they were U.S. citizens, of course), but he has carte blanche to do so against effeminate male employees who happen to like pink ties (Romney's new, openly gay foreign-policy spokesman,Richard Grenell, may want to keep this in mind). To many, Romney's momentary attempt at levity is a harmless, vocal inflection, and that alone exemplifies the lack of social power and legal protections for those he impersonates.

This issue is constantly overlooked or dismissed due to the widely held expectation that people can easily mute or cover their gender nonconformity. In his book Covering, law professor Kenji Yoshino says, "[C]ourts will not protect mutable traits, because individuals can alter them to fade into the mainstream, thereby escaping discrimination." Given this expectation, it's no wonder ENDA is still in limbo, or that Obama refused to sign an executive order on LGBT nondiscrimination for federal contractors earlier this month. This is too bad, as not everyone can easily change the expression of gender in their mannerisms or vocal inflection, nor should they be pressured to do so in order to get hired or keep a job.

Last week's EEOC decision -- that discrimination against transgender people violates the existing federal ban on sex discrimination in employment -- is undeniably tremendous progress for transgender and transsexual rights, but it still leaves open the Achilles heel of being (or "acting") gay at work. The expectation remains that people "act" according to their identified sex.

"Don't act, don't tell" creates a dilemma for all gender-nonconforming workers, LGBT and straight alike, causing them to focus more on how they move and sound, their gender performance instead of their job performance. For example, an effeminate actor friend of mine recently described the excessive burden he feels at auditions. He said, "Let's say I'm trying to be convincing as the guy holding up the bodega; the character's not thinking, 'Do they think I'm gay?' The guy holding up the bodega wants to get the money. An actor who reads straight wouldn't have that extra layer of worry to get to the truth of the scene."

The passage of ENDA would create much-needed protections for working Americans and spark desperately needed discussions about each individual's right to "act" and express gender without fearing discrimination. It would also benefit employers whose gender-atypical workers would spend less energy on covering and more on doing the job they were hired for. In the meantime, everybody loses.

Bully Gets "Girl"

Originally Posted on April, 6, 2012 on

Over the past two years, a national conversation has developed around bullying.  A critical aspect of this conversation is the growing perception of bullying as a real and dangerous threat, as opposed to a normal phase of youth development.  At the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention last March, President Obama expressly rejected the idea of bullying as "just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up."  While the president should be saluted for his general leadership and this specific observation, another aspect of the conference gave me pause, namely the president's attempt to universalize bully-victimhood, as if each young person is equally vulnerable in this regard.  Using his famed charisma, Obama reassured the audience that even he had been teased as a child for his big ears.  This moment encapsulates a danger that the conference and the broader conversation on bullying both face: losing sight of the rash of teen suicides, mostly by males who identified as or were perceived to be gay, that originally catapulted the issue of bullying into the national spotlight.

A similar universalization took place last October, at a CNN-sponsored special at Rutgers University entitled "Bullying: It Stops Here." In his opening remarks, Anderson Cooper acknowledged the recent suicide of gay 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer, almost a year to the day after the death of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, who was also gay. Following these remarks, gay teen suicide was never addressed as a distinct or revealing symptom of the problem of bullying, and the program instead focused on bullying as a broad concept, including a Dr. Phil segment on how bullies are victims, too. One illuminating exchange between Cooper and a black high school student offered a chance to reinscribe the particular within the universal: the student explained that his teachers would be more likely to protect him if someone called him "the n-word" than if the same person called him "faggot" or any other anti-gay term. This was not expanded upon.

People can easily agree that bullying for any reason (e.g., race or ethnicity, physical or mental disability, real or perceived sexual orientation) is harmful and wrong. But in the well-intentioned effort to address bullying as a broad concept, specific insights may be lost that can help us understand commonalities behind many forms of bullying and the connection between bullying behavior and our broader culture. The double-digit string of gay teen suicides that launched this national conversation indicate that certain youths are more vulnerable than others to bullying -- or, in other words, there is a real hierarchy to bullying that remains a large, tense, pink elephant in the room. Refocusing for a moment upon these suicides helps to reveal the deeply ingrained ways in which our cultural expectations of what boys and girls are -- and how they should act -- informs every aspect of the bullying problem.

Our culture is ruled by the gender binary, a system to which we all contribute in order to delineate between female and male. While open to contestation, this system frequently preserves a sense of masculinity/power for men, and prescribes one of femininity/submission for women, ultimately securing male dominance. The effects of such a system can be felt beyond the literal image of what a man or woman is; more generally, in a misogynistic culture, every identifiable difference between people is filtered through a misogynistic lens. Indeed, every characteristic for which youth tend to be bullied has been studied in terms of its being "feminized." A quick Google search reveals studies on the "Feminizing of African Americans," the "Feminizing of Asians," of Southeast Asians, of Native Americans, the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, the overweight, and so on. Given these realities, it also holds that a particular group -- or perceived member of a group -- will be more vulnerable to bullying and abuse to the degree that such a group is not supposed to be feminine. This may help to explain why effeminate or gender-nonconforming male youth (i.e., those who are perceived to be gay) are in such regular and tremendous jeopardy, symbolizing as they do a loss of male power and privilege. We may also expect that other targets of bullying singled out for entirely different characteristics may be referred to by terms reserved for effeminate or perceived gay males, because such males are at the very bottom of the cultural barrel.

Lee Hirsch's just-released documentary Bully is an evocative depiction of how the gender binary impacts acts of aggression. The subjects -- several kids facing repeated bullying in school, as well as the families of two boys who committed suicide -- are all seen through a misogynistic lens. The boys are constantly called "bitch" and "pussy," while school administrators try to explain away the harassment, noting that "boys will be boys" and encouraging the youths (at least the boys) to resolve their "differences" with a "manly" handshake. Similarly, though none of the subjects are out, self-identified gay males, the word "faggot" is uttered throughout the film more than any other derogatory term, and in one scene a 12-year-old boy named Alex is threatened on the bus by a peer who says, "I'll shove a broomstick up your ass." According toThe Los Angeles Times, this explicitly homophobic scene was the lynchpin in the ratings controversy surrounding the film and was almost cut in order to change the MPAA rating from R to PG-13 -- still another example of the "gay" aspect of this epidemic at risk of being minimized or erased. The two female subjects are featured less in the documentary, and though we do not learn much about them, it is made clear that one of them has deviated from gender and sexual norms, having come out at her school as a lesbian.

The insidiousness of the misogynistic lens even affects how the parents of the children in the film view them. When Alex tells his father how his peers have been treating him, his father's knee-jerk reaction is to suggest that Alex has failed to protect himself and thereby failed to protect his sister, who will be attending middle school the following year. The reaction is clearly borne of love, fear, confusion, and desperation, but it shows just how deeply embedded the gender binary is in our minds, and how we perpetuate it (and its damaging effects) even with the best of intentions. Alex's father unwittingly establishes role expectations for Alex and his sister -- male vs. female, hero vs. victim -- thereby failing to empathize with or validate Alex's experience of victimhood, and instead exacerbating his feeling that he is less than normal.

We may be blind to the misogynistic gender binary in our own country by proximity. Perhaps it is easier to recognize it, and the brutality it inspires, by looking across the globe to the gruesome murders of "emo" youth in Iraq. "Emo," short for "emotional," is an identity adopted from the West, in which tight clothes, piercings, and spiked hair are flaunted as chosen emblems of vulnerability. Since last year over a hundred emo youth, mostly females and gay males, have been stoned to death in Iraq, and the killing hasn't stopped. Scott Long of The Guardian reports, "It's all about boys showing vulnerability in unmanly ways, girls flashing an unfeminine and edgy attitude," and it's causing a "moral panic" in Iraq. The idea of teenagers being massacred for presenting vulnerability and conveying gender-nonconforming expression sounds horrific, but how truly different is it from the bullying currently taking place in our own American communities?

The gender binary and its relationship to bullying may be an elusive and challenging concept for many, because it requires us to self-reflect, examine our own expectations, and perhaps even change some of them. No one wants to feel he or she is part of the problem. But we are, all of us. An awareness of the systems through which we live and perceive the world, and which we maintain everyday, is essential for healing and change to take place.  

Part of the solution lies in changing our expectations for how males and females "should" behave, particularly males.  We can take a page from the fathers in Bully, all of whom have been forced to walk in the shoes of their victimized, "feminized" children, all of whom now allow themselves to be emotional, to cry, and to take action against this problem.  We cannot wait for more young people (and their families) to be destroyed before we too make the necessary adjustments in our expectations of what is "male" and what is "female".

Game Change: Life Imitates TV Drama for Republican Women

Originally Posted on March 16, 2012 on

The HBO film "Game Change", which bowed on March 10 with Julianne Moore starring as Sarah Palin, effectively tells two stories: The first is about the rise and fall of Palin's vice presidential campaign, and the second has to do with how the GOP views women.  The real Sarah Palin insists that the film is pure fiction, but given the recent news on contraception, the film does seem to accurately capture how Republicans use women as political pawns--something to which female voters are getting wise.

Take, for example, an early scene during which John McCain’s national campaign manager, Rick Davis (Peter MacNicol), uses YouTube in search of the best possible running mate to help McCain win. He clicks through videos of qualified women, all of who lack swimsuit-competition cred, and all of who are pro-choice. They are all passed over for Palin, who with her experience (of the swimsuit-competition variety), guns, religious extremism and political pliability (or is it naiveté?) is a conservative Republican’s wet dream. Davis couldn’t have materialized the campaign’s fantasy more precisely had he hired Industrial Light & Magic to digitally create her.

The remainder of the film looks at Palin’s experience in the now-legendary 2008 presidential pageant through an empathic lens—aided by sharp, sensitive direction by Jay Roach and a deeply absorbing performance by Moore that transcends caricature. While the campaign team, led by strategist Steve Schmidt (Woody Harrelson), strains to fashion Palin to its fancy, we see her—a talented but tragically uninformed human being whose fragile ego has only ever found strength by being incorporated into male power structures—desperately fumbling for autonomy.

On the surface, the movie is a backstage drama about the McCain campaign’s failure to pull a Pygmalion on the nation. However, the underlying drama is a disturbing depiction of gender relations, as the men who selected Palin experience an array of emotions including shock (when she won’t follow orders), frustration (when her obvious ignorance proves to be less than charming), shame (having been blindsided by this “siren”) and finally full-throttle fury (when she insists on doing things her own way).

When Schmidt unleashes on Palin, soon after McCain’s official loss, Harrelson’s performance not only conveys his understandable rage, resentment and self-blame, but also a virile aggression, almost suggesting that to hit her would be just deserts. It’s an evocative moment, offering us the choice to identify with Harrelson’s aggressive, “male” power or Moore’s vulnerable, “female” humiliation—which may help explain why women like Palin allow themselves to be adopted by conservative male ideologies in the first place.

Adding insult to her injury, Ed Harris’ McCain then warns Palin not to allow the conservative male pundits to “co-opt” her. This, of course, is backhanded advice after he and his managers have done precisely that, only to disassociate from her when she failed to let them fully possess her.

Many Republican and centrist women voters can apparently identify with the plight of this “fictional” Sarah Palin. Articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among others, state that many women with tendencies to vote Republican are making an about-face in reaction to the current contraception issue.

It appears that recent events, which include the House Republicans’ selection of a panel of all-male “authorities” on women’s health and a certain conservative radio host calling a young woman advocate a “slut,” have amounted to a wake-up call for right-leaning women. Perhaps a number of them are feeling what Moore’s Palin emotes at the end of “Game Change”: the abasement of having been co-opted by a male-run organization, used as a political tool, stripped of dignity and then kicked to the curb.

As these women spring to life, unlike the “nonfiction” Sarah Palin, the light may be rising for them in the form of self-advocacy, as well as identification with kindred minority groups. For example, looking at some of the specific complaints some women have stated in the aforementioned articles—that the GOP tries to control them, instructs them how to act in the bedroom and commands them to “live as I live”—the overlap with the LGBT community is palpable.

This is far from coincidence, as Republicans’ resistance to both removing policies like DOMA and passing ones like ENDA, is more about what professor Judith Butler calls “the policing of gender,” about maintaining a gender binary in order to preserve male dominance, than it is about a fear of same-sex sex. In other words, much of homophobia is really just veiled misogyny, and women voters might be catching on.

This awakening could mean a sudden surge in support for rights such as same-sex marriage—which, as Slate writer Linda Hirshman clearly argues, may actually be a coup for straight women. It could also simply mean an increased demand for women leaders who actually stand for women.

Men in Drag: Armisen Charms, Sandler's a Miss

Originally Posted on March 6, 2012, on

During its theatrical run last fall, the response to Adam Sandler's cross-dressing comedy "Jack and Jill," which made its DVD debut on Tuesday, was an overwhelming thumbs down: The film's approval ratings on the website Rotten Tomatoes were 43 percent from audiences and an abysmal 3 percent from critics.  The focus has mainly been on Sandler's portrayal of a woman--in fact, his record-breaking sweep of Razzie nominations includes the distinction of Worst Actress--and upon the film's recent U.K. release, The Guardian's Steve Rose went so far as to write that his performance may represent "the death of the cross-dressing movie".

Why does Sandler’s shtick fail to elicit laughter—or anything but a furrowed brow—and what might be the significance of his profound unfunniness for broader issues of gender and media?

In order for the humor in a film like this to take flight, the “ridiculous character” (aka, the guy who looks awkward in drag) needs to be played truthfully. As fellow thespian John C. Reilly says, it is the actor’s job “to tell the truth as much as you can,” and this honest commitment to exaggerated circumstances is what makes a scene funny.

But in “Jack and Jill,” Sandler seems too uncomfortable to play Jill’s truth and instead defensively scrambles to make derisive jokes about her. He emphasizes her rough and crass masculinity, rather than committing to revealing her (and his) true feminine qualities. One wonders why he would choose this material in the first place, if only to grab some laughs at the expense of unattractive women. The Guardian’s Rose suggests that perhaps underneath on-screen drag performances like Sandler’s “lie the unrequited yearnings of our fading comics to really get in touch with their big, fat feminine sides. It’s a shame none of them seems to have the balls.”

The fear of identifying with a person who is female or feminine is an oft-unspoken reality in Hollywood. The greatest actress of her generation, Meryl Streep, says heterosexual male actors and audiences have always been resistant to “assum[ing] a persona if that persona is a she.” But if this insidious fear—or “Femme Phobia,” as memoirist Julia Serano calls it—is the root cause of “Jack and Jill’s” bombastic failure, then the film industry has a real problem on its hands. Breaking the silence on this issue is crucial to averting flops like this in the future, as well as to uncovering the myriad ways in which Femme Phobia is harmful.

To begin with, what exactly is so terrifying to men about femininity? Numerous social scientific studies conclude that, for most men, there is a fear that presenting as too sensitive, too soft or too feminine may read as “gayness.” In simple terms, all things feminine in male behavior are considered to be “gay,” and all things “gay” are considered to be undesirable and bad and the worst possible thing for a man to be.

Perpetuating these attitudes on screen certainly exacerbates problems for LGBT communities, especially young people too often memorialized in a relentless news stream of bullying and harassment to the point of suicide or murder. But infrequently discussed in such news reports is the fact that such violence usually occurs due to people’s perceived sexuality based on gender presentation (i.e., men who are effeminate) as opposed to their stated sexuality (men openly identifying as gay).

What is talked about even less is the impact these attitudes have on straight men. In a 2010 piece for The Christian Science Monitor titled “Homophobia hurts straight men, too,” Jonathan Zimmerman emphasized how this contagious fear creates harmful limitations for straight men, like keeping them from having intimate, long-standing friendships with one another. This toxic fear seems to keep certain male actors, like Sandler, from maximizing their obvious creative potential. By widening the margins of their own gender expression, male actors would make room for more honest, effective and funnier work.

Not all straight male actors are so constrained, however, as evidenced by “Saturday Night Live” cast member Fred Armisen’s performance in IFC’s “Portlandia.” This sketch comedy series, which mocks hipster culture on the West/Left Coast, features Armisen in various roles, including several as women. Armisen’s performances are the polar opposite of Sandler’s: He fully embodies his female characters, honestly exposing his sensitive and feminine qualities—often to extremes—resulting in hilarity without mean-spiritedness, misogyny, homophobia or self-hatred. Armisen is authentically funny, and critics and audiences have embraced the show.

If more male actors allowed themselves to play a wider spectrum of gendered behaviors as Armisen does, the benefits would be subtle but substantial. This could reduce an epidemic male fear of seeming sensitive, feminine or gay. It might even contribute to a reduction in violence against all women and men, particularly those in the LGBT communities, as so often we behave, enact and are what we watch.