Watershed - The Importance of Crying in Depression 07/03/12

**Trigger warning for depression, self-harm, social anxiety, childhood verbal abuse, discussion of triggers**

I wasn’t sure whether to write about this, but I realised that this is just part of men’s emotionless gender stereotype. I think it’s certainly resulted in a watershed, in more ways than one, and I hope it has touched upon issues people can relate with. It details how I’ve always cried to externalise psychological stress and stop verbal abuse from continuing.

It is the story of how doctors and opticians told me my eyes could barely produce tears, and how I felt depression robbed me of my ability to cry.

Reasons for the Riots

Camila Batmanghelidjh: Caring costs – but so do riots (The Independent)

London has woken up to street violence, and the usual narratives have emerged – punish those responsible for the violence because they are “opportunist criminals” and “disgusting thieves”. The slightly more intellectually curious might blame the trouble on poor police relations or lack of policing.

Nina Power: There is a context to London’s riots that can’t be ignored (The Guardian)

Those condemning the events of the past couple of nights in north London and elsewhere would do well to take a step back and consider the bigger picture: a country in which the richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest, where consumerism predicated on personal debt has been pushed for years as the solution to a faltering economy, and where, according to the OECD, social mobility is worse than any other developed country.

Socialisimo: London Riots

The youth have no jobs, and their are no jobs. Especially if you’re from the Afro-Caribbean community where kids are routinely stopped, you’re more likely to go to jail and there is rampant poverty. Why then should these people care about the places they live? it’s pretty obvious the government, the police and anyone outside London doesn’t give a damn about these people unless they have a backdrop of violence.

**Trigger Warning for Trans* Erasure** [Picture on Link]

There are a lot of t-shirts and infographics with this kind of message circulating. The following clarification is necessary:

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS:

GENDER ROLES, STEREOTYPES, ESSENTIALISM, BINARISM

NOT A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT: GENDER ITSELF

The picture shows a person clearly proud of their gender presentation, yet wearing a t-shirt that claims gender itself to be a damaging social construct.

It’s as  hypocritical as it is false.

Source: accidentally-on-purpose

[image: a long-haired person in army uniform behind a fence, sandbags and shipping containers in background]. motherjones: Invisible Women: The Military’s Not-So-Secret Gender Problem Yesterday, we posted a link to a jarring GOOD magazine infographic with the title “Female soldiers more likely to be raped by their own troops than killed by enemy fire.” The response was huge…and it got us thinking.
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[image: a long-haired person in army uniform behind a fence, sandbags and shipping containers in background].

motherjones:

Invisible Women: The Military’s Not-So-Secret Gender Problem

Yesterday, we posted a link to a jarring GOOD magazine infographic with the title “Female soldiers more likely to be raped by their own troops than killed by enemy fire.” The response was huge…and it got us thinking.

things I’ve learned from growing up asian-american

newwavefeminism:

chichaaang:

1. On the list of words I’ve learned to hate, ‘exotic’ has come to feature pretty prominently. As a corollary to the previous point, I have also learned that exotic is not the same thing as attractive. It is also often not a compliment.

2. On the list of things I don’t believe when people say them to me, ‘beautiful’ features pretty prominently. I spent years feeling self-conscious for not looking conventional-anything. I can no longer tell if people call me beautiful(/pretty/hot/cute/etc.) because I am or because I’m asian and therefore “different” and “interesting-looking”. This is not to say I am insecure about how I look. I just never know if other people think I am attractive in the same way I know I am attractive.

3. “Hey baby. Ni hao ma” is not an effective pickup line. I know. I was surprised too.

4. I am seen as either completely asexual or as a sexual fantasy waiting to be fulfilled. I am slowly learning otherwise in college, but this figured so prominently in my identity when in high school it’s still sometimes hard to shake.

5. My culture is a commodity. My language is a novelty, though Chinese doesn’t quite rank as high in terms of sex appeal as European languages. My American-ness always, always comes as a surprise to people. And if I don’t act how one thinks Asian-Americans should act then I’m ‘white-washed’.

6. Somewhat related to the above, in the plus/minus categories for being a hipster, my race should never be used as a factor. There are quotation marks around this whole point, by the way.

7. I have come to accept (accept, not condone, not like) that some people keep me around because I provide that much-needed diversity while still being ‘American’ enough that it’s socially acceptable. I guess it’s the first (or maybe the final) hurdle of friendship for me - if you can look far enough past my race when it comes to friendship to determine whether or not I’m a worthwhile human being or just a pleasant non-entity so you can check off the diversity box on your friendship checklist. Either way, I have grown so so tired of being the token Asian.

8. I am tired of needing the ‘Asian’ qualifier when being described. ‘Asian hipster.’ ‘Pretty Asian friend.’ ‘Cute Asian girlfriend.’ ‘Favorite Asian on campus.’ ‘Asian best friend.’

—-

Being Asian-American has made me unsure when dealing with others. I am always cautious in my relationships and, with some people, I am never quite sure if it is fascination or fetishization of my race that sustains those relationships or fascination of and interest in my person. This has made me insecure in strange ways, and yet I am not at all good when it comes to talking about this insecurity - how could I ever fully convey to someone, especially someone who is not a person of color, just how close, how prominent this concern always is? Being Asian is not weight I can lose or hair color/clothes I can change or education I can receive or money I can earn.

I bring nothing new in my list to the usual complaints/insecurities. I hesitated when deciding where to post this, especially when considering who will read this. There are people I admire and people whose intentions I’m not sure about who read this tumblr. I am not sure I am ready for either group of people to read something I consider so personal. I guess I could’ve just saved it as a sticky on my computer, or at least posted it on a much less public venue (then again - lol self, get over yourself. No one probably reads your tumblr as much as or as often as you seem to think). There’s a certain level of narcissism involved in posting this on my public tumblr, but there’s a certain level of bitterness as well. I take a weird satisfaction in even the remotest possibility of someone who has ever made me feel any of the ways enumerated in this list reading this and maybe understanding how his or her idea of an offhanded comment has and will haunt me my entire life

Bolded emphasis, mine. I talk about gendered racism a lot and how it affects women of color. This is another example, speaking from the experiences of an asian american.

Source: cmao

A study from late January by The White House Project found that female workers comprise 73 percent of the nonprofit sector, a figure that agrees with the Georgetown survey. However, the leadership at these nonprofits is disproportionately dominated by males—only 45 percent of the CEOs at nonprofits are women, and beyond that, only 21 percent of the CEOs at nonprofits with budgets of $25 million or more are women.
READ THE ARTICLE (via goodmenproject)

(via goodmenproject)

Do not write about women’s bodies or their sexuality until you’ve been writing and reading feminism long enough to understand that women will never care what you have to say in this area, apart from drawing their attention to the informed writings on this subject by other women. So said Garland Grey, one of the many people who called my old blog out. For those of you who are unaware, I ran a ‘male feminism’ blog for a period of about a year. Now I have come to tell you not only that I am not a male feminist, but that no one is. That’s right I said it, from the mouth of the former Lighthouse himself: there is no such thing as a male feminist. When I learnt about patriarchy, and my complicity in its continuation, I wanted to help solve it. I hated it so much I took on the voice of oppressed genders, deciding that my frustration at the injustice mattered equally to theirs. Perhaps most tellingly, I felt this was my struggle. I thought our struggle was the same, because everything that angered feminists angered me too. But it was not and is not my struggle. To struggle is to be on the defensive against an onslaught of heartfelt oppression. One of my privileges as a man is the ability to step back and stop thinking about it, because oppression isn’t my daily routine. I am not constantly reminded of unavoidable characteristics that hold me back in this terrible society. In the words of this Michael Kimmel quote, I am invisible. Perhaps the most important post on this subject is “can we stop using the term ally?” by Radical Masculinity’s Gauge. Much of my objections to the term Male Feminism are contained therein. The point I seek to make is that Male Feminism builds an identity on the oppression of others. Rather than being a reaction to experienced oppression, it is a decision to cease oppressing others. In essence, it is based upon the supposedly praiseworthy quality of being a decent human being. I continue to be involved in the movement. I was even elected Campaigns Officer of my university’s Gender Equality Society for next year. The difference between my former identification as a male feminist and my current activism is that now I am merely helping feminists out. Our president will be a woman, as will almost all of the committee. The society is led by women, run by women, and controlled by women. I bring only my enthusiasm, knowledge and IT skills to the job. Oppressed experience I do not. I am just a man helping the feminists achieve their righteous goals. Though I agree wholeheartedly with everything they do, and though my thoughts and ideals may be considered feminist, this is not my identity. My identity is as a privileged person who seeks desperately to mitigate that privilege, and sometimes that means refusing to take credit for the hard work of others. I am no special snowflake, I am no shining beacon, and I am no male feminist. Listen to the genders I oppress, read that essential post about allies, and see that though my realisation of the horrors of patriarchy can be considered useful, it is not in itself worthy of any support or reward. Two UK women are killed every week by a former or current partner. Now tell me who you think should be centred in this discussion.
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Do not write about women’s bodies or their sexuality until you’ve been writing and reading feminism long enough to understand that women will never care what you have to say in this area, apart from drawing their attention to the informed writings on this subject by other women.

So said Garland Grey, one of the many people who called my old blog out. For those of you who are unaware, I ran a ‘male feminism’ blog for a period of about a year. Now I have come to tell you not only that I am not a male feminist, but that no one is. That’s right I said it, from the mouth of the former Lighthouse himself: there is no such thing as a male feminist.

When I learnt about patriarchy, and my complicity in its continuation, I wanted to help solve it. I hated it so much I took on the voice of oppressed genders, deciding that my frustration at the injustice mattered equally to theirs. Perhaps most tellingly, I felt this was my struggle. I thought our struggle was the same, because everything that angered feminists angered me too.

But it was not and is not my struggle. To struggle is to be on the defensive against an onslaught of heartfelt oppression. One of my privileges as a man is the ability to step back and stop thinking about it, because oppression isn’t my daily routine. I am not constantly reminded of unavoidable characteristics that hold me back in this terrible society. In the words of this Michael Kimmel quote, I am invisible.

Perhaps the most important post on this subject is “can we stop using the term ally?” by Radical Masculinity’s Gauge. Much of my objections to the term Male Feminism are contained therein. The point I seek to make is that Male Feminism builds an identity on the oppression of others. Rather than being a reaction to experienced oppression, it is a decision to cease oppressing others.

In essence, it is based upon the supposedly praiseworthy quality of being a decent human being.

I continue to be involved in the movement. I was even elected Campaigns Officer of my university’s Gender Equality Society for next year. The difference between my former identification as a male feminist and my current activism is that now I am merely helping feminists out. Our president will be a woman, as will almost all of the committee. The society is led by women, run by women, and controlled by women. I bring only my enthusiasm, knowledge and IT skills to the job.

Oppressed experience I do not.

I am just a man helping the feminists achieve their righteous goals. Though I agree wholeheartedly with everything they do, and though my thoughts and ideals may be considered feminist, this is not my identity. My identity is as a privileged person who seeks desperately to mitigate that privilege, and sometimes that means refusing to take credit for the hard work of others. I am no special snowflake, I am no shining beacon, and I am no male feminist.

Listen to the genders I oppress, read that essential post about allies, and see that though my realisation of the horrors of patriarchy can be considered useful, it is not in itself worthy of any support or reward.

Two UK women are killed every week by a former or current partner.

Now tell me who you think should be centred in this discussion.

“Buss and Dedden (1990) examined the patterns of intra-sexual aggression,” said my Social Psychology lecturer. Aggression within a gender is called ‘intra-sexual’? This terminology is becoming problematic, I thought. “Women report that they are more to verbally derogate the physical appearance and promiscuity of their same sex rivals. Men report that they are more likely to physically dominate or aggress against male rivals. We can see with the women that this fits quite neatly into their evolutionary roles.” WHAT. I was on the verge of raging about these gender delusions, already planning to write a blog post about this, when he continued: “of course, as you might know, I don’t give much credence to these explanations. As you can see, these are only reported findings. This means that they are the result of a self-report, which is open to social desirability factors. Being aware of their social selves, these participants adhered to their gender stereotypes in order to ‘please’ the researcher.” I knew that when asked about gender, participants become more likely to imitate their perceived roles. A very interesting study by Lightdale and Prentice (1994) split their sample into two groups. One group was sent away to its own corner, while the other group was asked a series of detailed questions which included gender. When asked to play a videogame, the group that was asked questions showed gender typical behaviour: men were more likely to be aggressive than women. However in the anonymous group, the opposite was true. The group was more aggressive as a whole, perhaps as a result of frustrating isolation, but gender was the most interesting. Women were more aggressive than men in the videogame, indicating that when gender is not activated through their social selves, stereotypes are not adhered to. When the women in the individuated group played the game, they were in much the same mode as the self-reports above, thinking about their roles as women and what society deems accetable. This is proof, if proof were needed, that treating people as people helps to break down gender roles. Gender essentialism, whereby men are naturally more violent than women, is shown to be a hoax: one constructed from stereotypes and false ideals. If it were true that men had an evolutionary purpose to protect their families, why did they become less aggressive when their gender was irrelevant? Such studies are the basis of Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender, one of the most important books of our age. It is certainly refreshing to be on a Psychology course that consistently and unashamedly challenges gender stereotypes. The lecturer always plays devil’s advocate when he talks about biological essentialism or evolution. Our evolutionary roles, in my opinion, are not analysed in the correct way: they show how society has developed. It is this ‘cultural evolution’ that is not set in stone, and does not link to our biology. Unlike evolutionary explanations that say men are basically cavemen and will always be such, we should be thinking about where we went wrong, and where we continue to go wrong. In essence, our mistake is to assume so much on something so varied and inconclusive as gender. Men are socialised to imitate and carry out violence, and that should be at the heart of the debate at all times. Men are not inherently violent, because men are not inherently anything. Click for more Psychology posts.
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“Buss and Dedden (1990) examined the patterns of intra-sexual aggression,” said my Social Psychology lecturer. Aggression within a gender is called ‘intra-sexual’? This terminology is becoming problematic, I thought. “Women report that they are more to verbally derogate the physical appearance and promiscuity of their same sex rivals. Men report that they are more likely to physically dominate or aggress against male rivals. We can see with the women that this fits quite neatly into their evolutionary roles.”

WHAT.

I was on the verge of raging about these gender delusions, already planning to write a blog post about this, when he continued: “of course, as you might know, I don’t give much credence to these explanations. As you can see, these are only reported findings. This means that they are the result of a self-report, which is open to social desirability factors. Being aware of their social selves, these participants adhered to their gender stereotypes in order to ‘please’ the researcher.”

I knew that when asked about gender, participants become more likely to imitate their perceived roles. A very interesting study by Lightdale and Prentice (1994) split their sample into two groups. One group was sent away to its own corner, while the other group was asked a series of detailed questions which included gender. When asked to play a videogame, the group that was asked questions showed gender typical behaviour: men were more likely to be aggressive than women.

However in the anonymous group, the opposite was true. The group was more aggressive as a whole, perhaps as a result of frustrating isolation, but gender was the most interesting. Women were more aggressive than men in the videogame, indicating that when gender is not activated through their social selves, stereotypes are not adhered to. When the women in the individuated group played the game, they were in much the same mode as the self-reports above, thinking about their roles as women and what society deems accetable.

This is proof, if proof were needed, that treating people as people helps to break down gender roles. Gender essentialism, whereby men are naturally more violent than women, is shown to be a hoax: one constructed from stereotypes and false ideals. If it were true that men had an evolutionary purpose to protect their families, why did they become less aggressive when their gender was irrelevant? Such studies are the basis of Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender, one of the most important books of our age.

It is certainly refreshing to be on a Psychology course that consistently and unashamedly challenges gender stereotypes. The lecturer always plays devil’s advocate when he talks about biological essentialism or evolution. Our evolutionary roles, in my opinion, are not analysed in the correct way: they show how society has developed. It is this ‘cultural evolution’ that is not set in stone, and does not link to our biology. Unlike evolutionary explanations that say men are basically cavemen and will always be such, we should be thinking about where we went wrong, and where we continue to go wrong.

In essence, our mistake is to assume so much on something so varied and inconclusive as gender. Men are socialised to imitate and carry out violence, and that should be at the heart of the debate at all times.

Men are not inherently violent, because men are not inherently anything.

Click for more Psychology posts.