I wish I could link to the original photographer, but this remains anonymous.

The talk about amending or rewording or deleting or repealing – or whatever the head honchos of the Republican party want to call it –  the 14th Amendment is the nastiest pill to swallow in the latest buzz about immigration “reform” and legislation. The history of laws in this country – who was allowed in and for what purpose – is hardly a clear cut issue.  And neither is deciding whose citizenship should be denied, revoked, or withheld.

Being born in this country and gaining citizenship is one of the most exciting and wonderful amendments in the books.  I’ve always thought that particular amendment was pretty rad.  The idea that the GOP is pushing –  altering the 14th amendment would only shun the children of “illegals” – is a bunch of baloney.  It’s like saying, “I KNOW WHAT WE SHOULD DO TO THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO ARE HERE WITHOUT CITIZENSHIP!  WE SHOULD NOT ALLOW THEIR INFANTS TO BE CITIZENS!  THAT’LL MAKE THOSE PREGNANT LADIES THINK TWICE ABOUT RISKING THEIR LIVES TO GET ACROSS THE BORDER SO THEY CAN WORK THEIR TALES OFF TO PROVIDE FOR THEIR FAMILIES!  THAT’LL CONTROL THOSE ‘ILLEGALS!’

Perhaps this is issue is striking a bit too close to my heart.  My parents came to this country to work their entire lives and devote their careers to giving us a better life.  Yes, they were “documented,” and my citizenship came by birthright.  So to hear the idea that children should be penalized for the government’s inability to formulate sensible and compassionate immigration legislation is infuriating.  And insulting to those of us who are children of immigrants.  The children who were brought here on the heels of dreams and labor.

An article on AlterNet by Greta Christina entitled the Five Things Society Unfairly Expects of Men has sent me into a mild, eyebrow raising rage.  Here are the bullets that Christina’s article outlines as the Five Things Society Unfairly Expects of Men:

1. Make Money

2. Win, win, win!

3. Be Physically Strong

4. Fix Stuff

5. Get It Up

Mhm, it never ceases to amaze me how westernized, US-centric and outdated is media’s portrayal of feminism.  Christina argues that:

…people who care about feminism ought to care about how sexist gender roles hurt men; partly because we’re human beings, with a sense of justice and compassion for one another regardless of gender, and partly because the cause of feminism can only be helped by convincing more men that it’ll be good for them, too.

Well, I agree with one thing there: sexism hurts everyone and unlocking the systematic roles and prejudices we inflict upon one another not only addresses core issues of freedom and rights, it unleashes the power to liberate ourselves and one another.

In a nutshell: yeah, fighting sexism is good for everyone.

But, here’s the problem in Christina’s argument:  this article points out all the things that sexism does to men, but raises these issues in a manner as if they are in addition to the problems sexism inflicts upon women.

Example:

Make money.  Yes, men are still largely expected to be the breadwinners of the hetero-normative nuclear family unit.  Yes, men are expected to be the “providers,”  but, women are often expected to be BOTH the provider and the caretaker.  Isn’t it somewhat curious that more women are enrolling in higher education and receiving degrees at higher rates then their male counterparts, and, supposedly a college degree increases your money making power, yet women overwhelmingly populate the trenches of welfare and poverty?  Women, who are often multitasking roles of motherhood, employee, student, and fillintheblankofwhateverneedstogetdone represent a whopping 57% of college students on American colleges since 2000, and still make less than their male counterparts once they are employed.  It may be an unfair expectation of men, yes, but the sexist reality is that it’s women who have dual existing responsibilities: make money and care for families.

And yes, women on average earn less than men, but that becomes even more stratified when you analyze race as well.  The ugly truth of sexism is that, yes, while men may be expected to earn money, it is women who are working and are paid less and women of color who are paid the worst.  It is single mothers who are often working to make ends meet and staying above water.  So, yes, Greta Christina, I, too, would welcome any and all men to put an end to sexism, so long as they understand it’s not just the unfair expectations of men that are of concern.  Maybe we can glean a more sobering reality of the financial aspects of sexism if we take a look at working mothers who tend to be discriminated against when trying to get back into the workforce or if you are a working and pregnant resident of Massachusetts and are now only protected for eight weeks of maternity leave to return to your position.

Winning, being physically strong, fixing stuff, and sexual performance are not just expectations of men, they are sexist depictions of what men should be in a sexist coordinated dance of how women should be as well.  They are in tandem, not in addition.

Men cannot be expected to be strong without women being expected to be weak.  Men cannot be expected to win without women being expected to not be competitive.  Men cannot be expected to fix stuff without women being expected to be entirely unknowing with it comes to mechanics.  Men cannot be expected to have a wild testosterone guerrilla-like sexuality without expecting women to be demure virgins.  Men are prized for their stoic facades and women are expected to be emotionally articulate.

These expectations especially flourish and deepen for men and women of color when it comes to sexuality:  black men are expected to be uncontrollable sex fiends while black women are Jezebels. Asian men are less attractive, less sexual beings while Asian women are subservient, fetish toys in the bedroom. The list goes on and on…

That’s the deception and stealth of sexism, it feeds off of what is deemed socially acceptable, and when someone or thing strays from that path of normality, they are are harassed, fired, threatened, discriminated against, or even killed.

Sexism varies in its destruction, from the mild to the severe and I, intentionally, focus on women because my experiences and observations of life have afforded me a belief that it is women who bear the brunt of violence, poverty, structural discrimination, and enslavement.  Whether that’s because of workplace harassment, racist and sexist depictions in media, or sex trafficking of mother/daughter families – sexism hurts us all, but it’s women that it most often kills.  It’s not about listing the top five of anything because all the harmful factors of sexism work together and leads us to false identities of masculinity and femininity.  It’s about the perilous manner that these expectations work together and influence what and who we desire, love, appreciate, and seek in ourselves, relationships, supervisors, friends, partners, and our families.  Not only do we come to standardize behavior based on our gendered expectations, we celebrate gendered behaviors in our daily rituals, religions, and beliefs.  And then we demonize whatever or whomever doesn’t fit in these snug expectations of male or female.  Just ask anyone who identifies transgender or individuals who feel that their minds and bodies do not fit into these boxes of identity.  Ask anyone who is gay about what expectations are heaped upon them; how gender-norming impacts expectations of how they are “supposed” to behave as a gay man; how they are “supposed” to be as a lesbian or queer-identified woman.  Or, if he could speak, ask the 17 month old boy who was beaten to death by a babysitter for acting like a girl.

Sexism isn’t just about forming our expectations.  It’s about forming our belief system about what is normal and acceptable.  And when those boundaries are crossed, the punishment are horridly severe, and sometimes fatal.

And so, Greta Christina, while I am not playing Oppression Olympics and pooh-poohing the plight of men in American society, I do urge all those who publicly reflect on the effects of sexism to remember that sexism works in pairs.  Like a railroad.  Two steel rods, opposite one another trying to keep everyone in line and on track.  And while I agree that we ALL are held captive and endure sexist expectations, when we blink and those expectations become reality, it is often women, particularly women of color, who pay the dearest of prices.

In the war of food introduction, where “Take No Prisoners!” is my battle cry, I must surrender this particular fight to my son and his sweet potato.  They won.  I tried and tried to keep him clean, to scoop any excess on my spoon, but the power of flying fists and pureed goodness rendered me helpless.  Take a look at those eyes.  Look deep into them and tell me that they aren’t saying, “Go ahead.  Try.  Just TRY to get in my mouth if you’re not an overly ripened fruit.”

I concede.



Every week I go to a Catholic mass.  And every week I recite the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in Jesus Christ,
his only Son, our Lord
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and became human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in fulfillment of the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

There’s that one line that intrigues me:  “For us men and our salvation, he came down from heaven.  By the the power of the Holy Spirit, He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man.”

“For us men…”

But we’re not all men.

“…he…became man…”

Now, I’m not a nitpicker, particularly of the Catholic church’s semantics, because the pronouns for God and Jesus and nearly all  biblically important people begin with the letter H and end with E.  It’s a losing battle, I’ve found, to try and wrestle with the overemphasis of God/Jesus’ masculinity.

There seemed to be this tiny disconnect as I said those words over and over again: For us men..

I always wanted to ask, “Would it be that hard just to say for us all?”

Would it make that big of a difference if we stopped referring to “us” as “men?”

I’m not a linguist.  I’m not a rhetorician.  I majored in English, yes, but I’m a far cry from a language expert.  However, I do know that English, unlike other romance languages that have a gender neutral pronoun that do not infer one gender or another, uses the universal “he” to throw everyone under the umbrella while still retaining the power to be used exclusively to refer to males.  Meaning, we don’t have a gender neutral pronoun, so we use “he” as the unifier even though it has connotations for maleness.

Since I was a little girl, I thought it sounded odd and it wasn’t until my 20s when I started to take pause with “for us men and our salvation…” part.  I refused to say it.  The earth didn’t stop spinning.  My heart continued beating and, unbelievably, I did not suffer from any demonic possessions that night.  I just repeated something else in my head.  Something I felt more connected to:  For us all and our salvation.

‘Cause I’m pretty sure Christ came for us all and its our weeny little battles with language, propriety, and patriarchy that compel us to make it a bigger deal than it needs to be.

But, it still haunts me, when I say the Nicene Creed aloud and I watch little girls say: For us men and our salvation…

Is it merely a language class she’ll need to take later to clear up this little disconnect?  Or is it possibly more than that?  What will she think when it’s coupled with the story of when five thousand men who were fed in the bible and women and children weren’t counted?  Where might she get the idea that she doesn’t count?  From our learned prayers?  From close readings of Scripture?  From looking up at the pulpit and rarely seeing someone representing her race?  Her language?  Never seeing her gender?

One of my favorite quotes is from Martin Heidegger, a German philosopher, who wrote in Letter on Humanism, 1947 a very simple, yet profound statement: Language is the house of being.

When I am holding my son and I profess my faith during mass, is it more important for him to understand these technical pieces of our English language?  Or is it more important for him to know why I sound different during a particular part of mass?  While most congregations utter the traditional “men,” I say “all.”  Not to raise a stink, not to be different, not to make a point.  I say all because I feel a connection to a greater Thing when I use language that means something to me.  It’s as simple as that.  My language is my house of being.  What I say is the roof over my existence.  I am not a man.  Why should I say I am?

And when we profess that Jesus became “man?”  Albeit, true, but I find it more powerful to centralize his humanness than his gender.  Jesus became human.

Jesus became man. vs.  Jesus became human.

My vote for most powerful goes to the latter.

Again, this is not an argument of semantics.  If I wanted to quibble over the nitty gritty, I’d love 50 years of my life in a scholarly debate (that I’d surely lose anyway) over matters that I don’t believe make a difference.

But that line: …For us men and our salvation…

I do take issue.  That’s where I believe that a small adjustment – like using the word ALL –  can remove a pause that many women take when they declare themselves as men and tell themselves in their head, “yes, I am included in this even if I am not a man.”  How many pauses do you think women make in their heads in that translation?  Pauses that men never have to make?  Or, perhaps some women make no pause whatsoever and just include themselves in a word that technically does not include them, but is used as the universal rope to tie us all together for the sake of our salvation?

Faith is hard enough.  Living out principles of goodness, hope, and love are difficult deeds.  And if a funny glance from the person sitting in front of me during the Nicene Creed is the small price to pay for an altered prayer that results in a greater connection to G*d…well, maybe I’ll just start closing my eyes to shut out the curious glances.

A small little memory plaque for our Carolina beach trip: Borchers Family Vacation, Summer 2010

–disclaimer: lots of board game quotes and inside jokes below–

Borchers family tree:

Ron and Kay – Nick’s parents;  Nick (oldest) married to MOI, Isaiah is our cherub; Kelly (Nick’s sister) married to Tim; Keith (Nick’s brother); Jay (Nick’s youngest brother)

“She’s, uh, without parents.  Homeless.  She’s also small in stature.” – Keith, trying to explain who is “Little Orphan Annie” during ‘Cranium’

“Did you walk out on the balcony with Isaiah yet to see the ocean?  Just don’t pull a Michael Jackson.” – Kelly

“Did Isaiah take a tumble?  His elbows look pretty red.”  –>  “Um, no, that’s just his eczema.”  -Keith and me

“I don’t eat pasta, but I make an exception for angel hair.” – Tim

“Are you actually playing poker without your cheat sheet?” – Nick, making fun of my “poker guide” that explains the hierarchy of hands

“We walked in here [the condo] and she immediately turned the thermostat on fifty.  FIFTY!” – Kelly reporting Kay’s first actions when arriving at the condo

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO SPLASH THAT BABY!” – poolside parent, hollering at her 12 year old who cannon-balled into the water right next to Isaiah.  Kid starts bawling.

“Can you please not keep looking this way?” – Keith to the whole family, during dinner, when he and Jay ordered an enormous seafood sampler that took them 30 extra minutes to finish when we all had finished our meal

*Silent but enthusiastic thumbs up sign* – given to me by an onlooker when I fell backward in my beach chair while reading.   Legs up in the air, book held above my head while the waves crashed over me so it didn’t get wet.  Kelly, trying to help, but trying to secure the loose straps of her bikini top first.

“Is putt-putt golf?”  –>  “Well, it has the word golf after it.” -overheard in another room

“SPF 70?  I might as well stay inside if I put that on.” – Nick

“You have a conference call about an upcoming trial?  Can you tell the judge that you’re in a bikini and this call is cutting into your beach time?” – me to Kelly

“Is anyone else other than me kinda freaked out about how Keith was singing ‘Movin’ On Up’ and then the next humdinger song that had to be guessed was ‘Movin’ On Up?” – me, after playing Cranium

“I think Grandma is more fascinated with the toy laptop than Isaiah is.” – Jay watching Kay fiddling with the plastic keyboard

“Shut it up.”  –>  “No, it’s ‘shut it down.’  When you want to shut down a computer, you shut it down, not shut it up.” – Keith explaining to Kay

“Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” -Nick to me, after twice being the Tripoly runner’s up

“Hey Buster!” – Kay to Isaiah

“Hey Buster!” – Ron to Isaiah

“Why do you guys both call him ‘Buster?'” -Keith to Ron and Kay

Until summer 2011…

Taken from the soul-shaking anthology, Pinay Power.  If you need a definition of “Pinay,” use the FAQ page.

“Peminism describes Filipina American consciousness, theory, and culture, with the p signifying specifically Pinay or Pilipina, terms used in referring to ourselves as American-born Filipinas.  It demarcates the space for Filipina American struggles…Peminism thereby signifies the assertion of a specifically Filipina American subjectivity, one that radically refudiates white feminist hegemony…Most important, peminism is about loving ourselves and other Pinays, loving our families and communities.  Indeed, peminism is an inextricable part of our decolonization as a people: far from being a slighting of Filipino American men or Filipino American culture in general, attention to Pinay voices and perspectives demonstrates our commitment to the liberation of all Filipinos.”

And another important tid-bit of information about the Filipino/Pilipino culture:

“Linguistically, the f sound derives from the Spanish colonizers that named the islands “Las Islas Filipinas” (after Philip of Spain); the American takeover of the islands in 1898 reinforced the imposition of the f sound via the Anglicizing of that term to “The Philippine Islands.” – Melinda de Jesus, Pinay Power, pg 5.

Get it?  See why history is important?  The sound, the letter F didn’t exist until the country was colonized.  According to Anthony Pido, “None of the seven major linguistic groups in the Philippines have an ‘f’ sound; the people refer to their country as Pilipinas and themselves as Pilipino.” – Pinay Power, pg 14.

Mabuhay!

Taken from the undeniable bell hooks, which I found a bit refreshing from the feminist blogosphere’s latest trainwreck on Feministe:

The exclusionary practices of women who dominate feminist discourse have made it practically impossible for new and varied theories to emerge…Yet groups of women who feel excluded from feminist discourse and praxis can make a place for themselves only if they first create, via critiques, an awareness of the factors that alienate them.  Many individual white women found in the women’s movement a liberatory solution to personal dilemmas.  Having directly benefited from the movement, they are less inclined to criticize it or to engage in rigorous examination of its structure than those who feel it has not had a revolutionary impact on their lives or the lives of masses of women in our society. -bell hooks, From Margin to Center, pg. 9