Tag: culture

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Slackers Unite!

Troy: what happened to your normal clothes?
Michael: wow! Lelaina, look at you. You look…where’d you get that dress?
Lelaina: Oh, um… I don’t know. I just bought it. But I think I’m gonna go change because…
Michael: No, don’t. You look beautiful. You look like… You look like…
Troy: A doily.
Lelaina: I’m gonna change.
Michael: No, don’t change.
Troy: And don’t go thinking for yourself either, Lainie.

[scene from “Reality Bites”, universal pictures, 1994]

The Art Linklater film “Slacker” has been considered the generation-x answer to “Easy Rider”. Although it is not a road movie, it most definitely defined (or redefined) a generation. If this is truly the case, then we must also consider the movie “Reality Bites” as a defining moment in cinema history for gen-x. Both movies depict a world in which the most intelligent and creative among us become lazy and complacent. In “Reality Bites” the main character, the valedictorian of her graduating class at university, ends up having to work a minimum wage job to be able to make ends meet. Her roommate, who has also completed university, works at the gap and their friend, who has only one class left to finish, would rather loaf on a couch than complete his degree. Philosophically, what is the point of the piece of paper? That is the question asked in these movies and, unfortunately, they were not just defining a generation, but also foreshadowing the future. Smart people with no direction.

How can we better understand our current circumstances through movie depictions of our generation. Of course, we are not characters in a movie, but some movies strike right at the heart of real, living, breathing, humans. The characters in “Reality Bites” are not 2-dimensional caricatures, but fully formed characters. People that we, off the screen, can actually relate to and maybe see in others of our generation. Generation-x, that is. Those of us between the hippies and the hipsters. Those of us born in the 70’s who have really tried to make this country work for us. We are the main demographic for advertising now and we actually have always been. We grew up with MTV, but had to work for our media. We are the generation that was raised with sound bites and short attention spans, but didn’t have ADHD diagnoses to blame for our problems in school or life. We were told to try harder, not take the easy way out by popping a pill. If we wanted to talk on the phone we had to dial a number, but we have also adapted to our current surroundings. Generation-x may be considered a lost generation, now, looking back, but we are still here. We carry with us all the debt the 80’s created and the disillusionment of the 90’s. We carry the weight of the baby boomers as they move into social security years and the burdens of the hipsters who steal away our chances at success in new media industries, even though we were on the forefront of those technologies.

An outcome of slackerdom, or simple complacency, is the pull to stay in one decade. For gen-x, that decade would be the 90’s and, believe me, I have that bug. I would love to wake up at noon each day, go to a coffeehouse, hang out and read a good book, walk back home, stopping along the way to pick up a few items for dinner, and then work, after dinner, on a book or a libretto or something creative that pays the bills. Writing this blog and getting paid for it. Making espresso and getting paid for it. Reading and writing and getting paid for it. But getting paid enough to afford the things I need and want, not scrounging. Back to the days of $1.13 gallons of gas and free meals, 29 cent stamps and Fiona Apple. Back to The Counting Crows and Jewel and Puff Daddy. When Kurt and Left Eye, Biggie and Aaliyah, Tupac and Layne were alive. Back in the day.

So how can we make the 90’s happen in the teens? First things first. Find a job that makes you happy. Never settle for doldrums. If you have to scrimp and save and scrounge for a bit to get to where you want to be professionally it will be more than worth it in the end. Working a job you hate just to pay the bills ends you up a bitter person with a sad life. You will look back and only see the paychecks, not good times. Once you are on the road to a better existence though work happiness everything will look sunnier. Each morning will be one that you want to rise to the occasion for, not a struggle to get out of bed.

Next – stop beating yourself up for the things that you have not done or may not do that others wish you would do. Your life is your own and if you do not live it the way you want you will be unhappy in the end. You are living for you, not anyone else, and you have to put your needs and wants first, not those of others. You cannot take care of others unless you take care of yourself first. You cannot love others unless you love yourself first. This includes having children. Children are a huge responsibility and if you are not personally ready to enter into the realm of parenthood it is never a good idea to move forward. Let go of the things that people say or request of you and move forward with what YOU want. Positivity and moving toward goals will bring you everything you really want in the end and the guilt of children not being in the equation has to be let go of in order to move forward. You only get one life so you should live it how you want and not how others think you should.

Finally – always make time to be creative. If you have a talent, use it. The spent doing the things you love will make you a better person. Time spent alone, concentrating on a creative outlet wil make you a stronger and more well rounded individual. Always keep your mind open to new things and do not dismiss the opinions of others. You do not have to agree, but you should at least listen. From one human to another, this is all we really want from each other. To be heard.

So, maybe being from gen-x is not the worst thing in the world. We have a good handle on the future, based on the past, and we are able to overcome obstacles. Environmental issues? No problem! We will reduce, reuse, and recycle like rock stars. Bad economy? Please! We will downsize until things bounce back. Need a new tech? Of course! We will be working on the future of the tech that was introduced to us as children, because that is what we do. We are problem solvers and we will not quit until we have found solutions for everything. Moving forward, making the future brighter, this is what we slackers are all about. Don’t think that slacker is a negative nickname. It is the fuel that we need to change the world. And, mark my words, we ost certainly will. We should embrace the titles that older generations have given to our generation. Coffeehouses and grunge music were the beginning of our enlightenment. Don’t worry, Eeyore can still be our gen-x mascot. We will just make the Eeyore in each of us see the future in a brighter light. Eeyore can still be a downer and a doer at the same time. It is possible to be a walking contradiction and nobody knows this better than those of us born between 1965 and 1980. Go go gen-x! Rock it out and leave the boomers and the millenials in your dust!

Peace and Happy Fixing!
Chantale aka hippiegrrl

Links apropos
so maybe the slackers had it right after all
how generation x got the shaft but can still keep everything from sucking
eeyore

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The Holidays and Gender Roles

Studying Sociology has become a double edged sword for me. Over the holiday season, my sense of gender roles and norms becomes heightened. Most of the time I have to keep my mouth shut and ‘go with the flow’, but sometimes I decide that I want to engage in a conversation that will hopefully lead to a better understanding for everyone concerned. This is how I know that I should probably be a professor, but that is for another post. This post is about how people can be one way in their day to day life and then the holidays come, we meet up with family and friends that we do not see daily and things go back to the way they previously were.

I am sure that everyone out there has a story about how the holidays bring out a different side of people. But, what if the side that it brings out is actually the regular, day to day, side and we only experience it at this time of year? When you rarely see an individual, you lose the feel for their personality. In some instances this can be good, but it is a shock to the system when you have to deal with each other for hours at a time. Thinking about this situation can bring up many things. Memories that have been washed of melancholy and are now shiny little examples of what we crave around the holidays. We forget the fighting and the strife and focus on the good. This may be good for the psyche, but in the long run it makes it more difficult to function year to year.

By letting the past stand as a beacon of what the holidays should be, we lose sight of what is real. We try to make everything perfect, to make it match up to our expectations of what can be based on what was. And in this, we fail to see the difficulty that falling back into our previous roles can cause. When gender roles are so tied up in the way that we function, in these situations, it makes things tense. In even the most enlightened family situations sometimes those gender norms sneak up and bite us.

When we interact with different divisions of our family, we may slide backwards when it comes to things we are willing to do to keep the peace. On a normal day, one might be a staunch feminist, but when faced with a holiday, feminism might be put on the back burner. This is a disservice to the holiday season! Better to make it a learning experience. After all, when are you going to get all these people together again? It really is a great platform for dispelling gender norms and for subverting the roles that we often fall into.

So, how do we do this? It may be difficult, but it has to be done. Sometimes there are gender norms already being subverted that you can point out as a starting place. In my family, my mother does the bulk of the planning, my parents go shopping together, my mom cooks the meal and my dad washes the dishes. Although there are still a few gender norms being practiced here, there are also a couple being subverted. 50 years ago (or yesterday, in some places) the mother in this scenario would have done everything listed above, while the dad merely poured drinks and sat in the living room enjoying family and friends. The ladies would have spent the majority of the time in the kitchen; cooking, cleaning and sometimes even eating, away from the family. Yes we have come a long way, but we cannot merely rest on our laurels. We need to continue talking, dispelling, subverting and fighting until there are no gender norms. On the day that we no longer hear the words “that is women’s work” or “this is a mans job” uttered we will finally be equal and free of the constraints that come with being cast in a mold of social and cultural making.

Until next time, good luck in your fight, fellow feminists! We can go further together than we ever could alone so keep it up!

Peace and happy subverting,

Chantale aka hippiegrrl

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Social Construction and Gender

Let me begin this post by saying that, yes, I have completed my second bachelors degree in Sociology.  As of May 2011, I have double degrees, Music (1997) and Sociology (2011), and will hopefully begin a PhD in Sociology and Gender Studies, beginning in 2012.  Along the path to obtaining this degree, I have become a Marxist, Feminist, Social Constructionist.  I am completely on board with what these three designations entail, politically and socially.  Due to this fact, rise up buffalo is going to become much more sociologically centered.  We will still attempt to keep the community updated on activism and volunteerism in the city, but also try to help you, the reader, better understand some key concepts in the struggle.

Sociology is an awesome base from which to create activist campaigns and also a great source for common sense.  I hope you will continue on this journey with us as we delve deeper into the sociological aspects of our lives and communities.  We will attempt to better understand the world around us and that is always a wonderful and challenging thing.  Please, come along on the ride, it may be bumpy, but it is certain to be entertaining and enlightening.

On to today’s topic – Social Construction and Gender –

Let me begin with a quote from one of my favourite feminists – Gloria Steinem

“In a patriarchy, a poor man’s house may be his castle, but a rich woman’s body is not her own.”

I realize that this quote pertains directly to equality issues, but I find that it also has a lot to do with our perceptions of gender and the way in which it is constructed in our society. As you may have guessed, a social construct is a concept that is created by a particular group. This group may be society as a whole (which we must always remember includes each of us as individuals and is not just some alien concept that one can call upon to lay blame in an argument or debate), a particular culture or traditional system or a social or cultural group that is created by individuals to fill a need of the community. All groups have standards for the way that each member should behave. If we begin by looking at these standards as socially constructed we can start to see how our behaviours and perceptions are constructs.

For example – in American society, we still hold fast to a patriarchal system. When children are born, they are usually named after the father, if he is known. Even if the mother is single, she will, oftentimes, be strongly pushed toward this naming convention. Since this “tradition” has been the norm for so many years, we continue to see it as a social standard. In digging a bit deeper we can see the social construction of maintaining this naming convention. Property is divided up based on a patriarchal code and, as such, children must reflect their fathers family in order to partake in the division. With the rates of single motherhood rising, this trend is changing, however there are still many traditionalists who feel it a threat to our society to make this change. Any social construct that is challenged is seen as an attack on society, but as stated earlier, society is you and me, not some outside source that we have to look to for reason and understanding. We make up our society and we can change it. We can go forward naming our children in any way we see fit and our society will not collapse, just as we will survive if baby girls are not dressed in pink or baby boys dressed in blue. Another example of social construction that is taken for granted and made to seem ultra important in the rearing of children. As if dressing a boy in pink will forever stunt his growth or painting a girls room blue will make her less of a woman.

The funny thing about this particular construct is that it has become so commonplace that even women who profess to be feminists have named their children after the father.  It is as if this naming convention is SO normalized that we do not recognize it as such.  This is extremely dangerous territory.  Normalizing constructs is what keeps us down.  Not just as women, but as a human race.  If we cannot rise above these constructs there will continue to be gender equality in our “free and open” society.  Free for whom exactly?  The powerful and elite?  The XY chromosome group?  The pale complexion set?  The historically powerful, that is who.  I say no more!  We need to start dispelling myths and reversing norms.  This is the one and only way to reach full equality of all genders!

Peace – Chantale (aka hippiegrrl)

appropriate links:
Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey – the best site to better understand an extremely important read
Gloria Steinem Official Website – my hero and (hopefully!) yours!
Books by Judith Lorber – interested in the social construction of gender? start with this list and work your way forward!

questions?  comments?  like or dislike?  let us know in the comment section below…
please pass this post along to your friends and foes.  we love the attention from both sides!