Mopheaded Rides Again (and again and again and again...)

2005-02-15 - 11:41 p.m.

MOPHEADED MUSINGS DURING A QUICK BREAK FROM MY HOMEWORK

Person-in-Relation Theories

Okay, briefly and somewhat vaguely, because I am actually supposed to be studying here, but I'm also feeling the need to synthesize what I'm reading and there's no one on msn with whom to shoot the proverbial psychology-related shit:

I'm really having trouble with what boils down to a basic argument between Nature and Nurture theories as they affect the life development cycles of people of different genders. Jean Baker Miller and Gilligan et. al., writing as psychologists and second-wave feminists, argue very persuasively for the rewriting of the traditional life development cycle to incorporate the experiences of becoming an adult woman in our culture (a vastly different experience according to them). All of this makes sense to me on a very fundamental level, because women are socialized very differently and our most intuitive and most natural-seeming reactions to life situations are very often pathologized.

(If you think this is bullshit, pick up a copy of the DSM-IV-R and read nearly any of the Anxiety or Personality Disorders. For the most part, they're just "diagnoses" based on extreme gender typing. In other words, if a little girl learns her lessons well and becomes a proper little lady, she's likely to be diagnosed as having CoDependent Personality Disorder as an adult.)

So the inclusion and/or substitution of feminine experience in order to depathologize and create a more appropriate vision of the life cycle for adult women makes total sense to me. Given.

What I'm having trouble with are statements like these:

"...[U]nlike the normal pattern of individuation, separation, and independent, autonomous development for males, women typically form their identities through connected, relational, interdependent patterns of development; and [...] unlike the linear, cause and effect, legalistic thinking patterns that males often exhibit in problem-solving, women typically process information systemically, contextually, and relationally."

-Royda Crose, in "What's So Special about Counselling Older Women?"

and just with this general idea that women are socialized, or biologically/hormonally programmed (?) to be so much more interdependent socially, to pathologize their relationships less, to think more about other people while at the same time thinking about themselves, to consider more alternatives, to be less linear and more intuitive in both their thoughts and their relations to others.

So the problems coming up for me are two-fold:

1) Is this just socialization? Can we work to undo this? Is there any reason for that type of work? and following that;

2) How is it that so many of my male friends can lay claim to feminism and yet be so out-of-tune with these female ways of relating, be so ready to partition and compartmentalize their lives and ignore the importance and the integral nature of their manifold relationships as they relate to who they are as people, and yet still claim to value the feminine? Is it just a mark of priviledge that they are able to make this double-edged claim, in much the same way that a "passing" bisexual woman (I use this case-in-point as it relates to my own assumed identity) can lay claim to "queer"ness without any reformulation of her own sense of identity?

And now, because I am a Self-In-Relation kinda gal, and deeply value discussion and the opinions of those about whom I care deeply, I'm going to fire off an e-mail to a few of my friends, and switch the display name on my msn*, in the hopes of stimulating dialogue with some of my friends on this fascinating-to-me topic. Because I think it's something I need to start coming to terms with** sometime in the next few years or so.***

*for the past week, it was "crazy as a bag of squirrels", a name for which i must express my deepest gratitude to gary c., my wonderful ex-boyfriend, who still amazes me with the beauty of his mind, even if only vicariously through second-hand retellings of his conversations with my friends.

**split infinitive! (didn't proofread this -- i'm doing homework! -- so i apologize if there are other errors which i've missed -- like, other than the lack of capital letters and stuff. Just deal, ok?!?)

*** much like my need to come to terms with the fact that, the more i work out, the stronger my body becomes, the more i meditate and practice yoga and realize myself and my path towards samadhi, the more i come in line with the cultural ideal of thin beauty (to the point where my mother will ask me if i'm anorexic, two minutes after watching me take a second helping of dinner, five minutes after telling me i look wonderful and have i lost weight?). that's gonna be a long process. i think the excessive tattooing and piercing are all reactions towards that, because there is something deeply invalidating to my political sensibilities to realize that i am so politically-minded and yet also, to current cultural standards, that i am so fucking gorgeous.

Musical Interludes

I'm listening to my playlist called "EmoTwang (get out yer razorblades)". I love it. The computer has decided that shuffle means skip back and forth between Dan Bern, Ben Harper, the occasional Shame Train, and the spoken-word CD my friend David, from my poetry class, gave to me. It's a weird, weird eclectic auditory experience, this.

Speaking of Poetry
...Mainly because I'm narcissistic...
I wrote three (3!) ghazals today, and I think one of them is brilliant. I'm taking it in to workshop tomorrow, and once I fix the final stanza, I will probably post it here. ... If y'all are lucky.

No links. Sorry. Here's a cool picture to make up for it.

Not quite sure why I like it so much, it's certainly not for the squeamish... I'll give the due props when I find a website for uaioe's roommate. Drawing a blank at the moment. Oh well.

added later: http://synaptik.deviantart.com/ Some amazing photography there.

--mopheaded is straight out of the Charlatans circa 1995

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