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How happy should we be about Conchita Wurst’s victory?

5/31/2014

As many of you might know, this year the winner of Eurovision – famous European music contest – is the Austrian drag queen Conchita Wurst. I personally think that her song is beautiful; this victory made me very happy. I have read with a certain satisfaction (and irritation) about how this event freaked out Russian conservatives. Some of them even claimed that from now on they are going to shave every day to stay manly – which of course made a lot of “sense”, same as everything Russian conservatives are doing and saying. Meanwhile, European LGBT communities have been celebrating this event, seeing it as a beacon of hope in the fight against invisibility.

As I said, I was quite happy about this victory, but I have been also thinking a lot on how much actual hope and change it can bring. I have written elsewhere on how slow the process of changing things for the better is. Although we certainly have a reason to celebrate, we should be careful. Some may say that this victory marks the moment of liberation for LGBT communities (at least in Europe). However, it does not mark the end of the fight. This victory gave hope to liberals, but it also angered conservatives beyond extent. It brought to LGBT individuals the hope for greater visibility, but it did not magically stop violence against these individuals.

Some time prior to Eurovision 2014, some European countries started legalizing same-sex marriages. These legal shifts have been much more impactful in lives of many people that the victory of Conchita Wurst. Yet they did not solve the problem of homophobia and anti-gay violence in Europe. Actually, in a way, these very progressive laws exacerbated the situation, as angered anti-gay groups and individuals became more violent.

What is the point I am trying to make? We should be happy about Conchita’s victory, as well as about the legalization or self-sex marriages. However, we should not stop here; we should not let ourselves or others believe that this is the Victory, and that we can now rest. If we get too happy at this point, we will let our dragons of complacency grow. And that’s not good. We should not see this event as zero victory either. This Eurovision was super important, but it is hardly the end of the battle.

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Lack of awareness: I don’t know, or I don’t want to know?

5/16/2014

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In my previous posts, I started discussing why, despite of the fact that giving and receiving love is important for people, they hurt each other so often and so badly. I briefly talked about one of the three main reasons for that – the cycle of hurt – which explains how those who were hurt and cannot heal their wounds properly start hurting others. This time I would like to begin the conversation about the second reason – lack of awareness.

It is all too easy to inflict pain if you do not understand the effect of your actions on another person. And to understand another person one needs to put an effort, one needs to ask the right questions. Certainly, in some cases a person may want to make somebody suffer. But often the real depth of suffering is ignored. Ignorance in this sense does not mean innocence. A bully who laughs at an obese child does not really think about consequences. This bully exists in the moment, and her actions are shaped by herd mentality, peer pressure, fears, parents’ behavior – so many reasons! This bully does not understand, does not want to understand the victim’s feelings. Ignorance is, of course, not an excuse. However, it is important to understand that in this case the aggressor is not “evil”. If the bully was told about the damage her actions cause, if somebody helped her to find other ways of dealing with the fear of being rejected by the peer group – this act of violence might never take place again.

People ignore others’ pain all the time. They do it because they don't have time to get into details, they do it because they want something real bad, they do it because they are told do, or because nobody explained to them what these actions do to others. Same as with the cycle of hurt, the lack of awareness is not the reason to do nothing in order to stop the abuse. The bully must be stopped. But instead of just punishing, we should teach her, and to do that that we need to understand the causes of her actions.

I came across a term once – “moral education”. I am not sure whether I like this exact term and whether I agree with all the ideas behind it, but I surely agree with one of them. We should teach young people not only to write and read, but also not to hurt others. There is this good slogan against sexual violence. It says: “Society teaches people how not to get raped, it must teach not to rape”. Raising people’s awareness about pain they can inflict with their careless selfish actions should be a priority of educational system if we want to live in society based on love and respect, not on violence and punishment.

Finally, it must be said that the cycle of hurt and lack of awareness can co-exist in one person. If somebody is caught up in their own pain and hurt, they are likely to ignore the pain they themselves are causing.

Don’t let people hurt you. But if you are being hurt, you can use your empathy to understand why it happened/is happening. Whoever hurts you, might not understand what they are doing, or might be suffering themselves, or both. You might not be able to help them, you might not want to - that is fine. But try to understand their actions for your own sake. This way you can make sure that you will not get into your own cycle of hurt, and that you will be able to move on with your life more easily.

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The power of not giving up

5/14/2014

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What do you feel when you read about the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamic militant group? I feel sadness, anger, frustration. And most of all, I feel my powerlessness. For what can I possibly do? I can write a post, a tweet, maybe send a donation. It is something, but it is so very little.

These events are happening far away from me – but there are other things that are close and that I still cannot change. If my friend is in pain, I can listen to him. If my friend needs help, I will come to her house and do what I can. But when it comes to systemic problems – be it the so far unsuccessful attempts to save the Nigerian girls, or sexual violence on US college campuses – I am painfully aware of my inability to influence things in any major way.

Several posts ago I talked about dragons that many people carry within – dragons of complacency that slow us down on our journey towards a society based on justice, equality and freedom. While there are plenty of people whose life is good enough for them to believe that no change is necessary, those who do want to find ways of dealing with social problems often feel powerless. It all boils down to the issue of motivation. Whether I believe that there is no need for change, or that there is no hope for change, the result will likely be the same – I will not do anything.

Those who have ever engaged in activism know how long and difficult the process of bringing about even a little improvement is. There are too many forces at play, too many gatekeepers (some of whom do not think that change is necessary), too many factors out of our control. No wonder that there are not so many activists out there (compared to the total number of people in the world, I mean).

I am not an activist, but I really want to make the world a better place. I think about it all the time, and I work on creating strategies of making a difference. Some days I am down and out because I feel that whatever I do is a microscopic drop in an ocean the size of the universe. I think of efforts of so many people before me, and with frustration I have to admit that many problems people have been dealing with for years and years are still around – poverty, violence, sexism, racism, homophobia, to name a few. If after all these years and all this work these problems are still around, than what can I possibly do?

When I get to the dark place of hopelessness, I tell myself this: The best thing I can do is just go on. I will choose a road, and if it leads to a dead-end, I will find another one, and then another one. If I fall, I will get up, regroup and continue. I will always believe in people, and believe that things can be better. I do not have the power to magically make all problems disappear – buy I have the power of not giving up.

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Being stylish can be fun for everybody!

5/7/2014

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All right, I have recently written too many posts about things that annoy me. For a change, I want to write about something that is fun! So let’s talk about clothes. What, a girly topic? Not really! I think it is very unfair that caring about one’s clothes is considered to be intrinsically feminine. Some men like to emphasize that they hate shopping and that matching clothes in a creative way is a waste of precious time, that it is something for “chicks”. Women “appear” and men “do”, and while they do stuff they don’t really care how they look (the most important thing is being effective).

While I don’t think that everybody needs to take pleasure in combining clothes in fun ways (although I think that everybody can!), as any other hobby this one should not be restricted to only one gender. Unfortunately, only men who inhabit certain subcultures (for example, hipsters or rappers) are “allowed” to be playful with their style. The rest are supposed to either be boring (businessmen style), or simply not to notice when they walk around in wrinkled shirts and worn out jeans (à la Dr. House) and change those only when their women remind them to.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not for being obsessive about one’s clothes. I think that spending too much money and time, wearing only things that are in the current fashion, and judging those who don’t go to such lengths – is a bit too much. I believe that to be stylish one does not have to buy clothes in boutiques, or only favor certain brands. Really, a person can combine several fairly old and even worn out pieces of clothes in a creative way and look amazing.

I love checking out pictures on The Sartorialist blog. Some random people this photographer sees in the streets of Paris, New York, London, Milan (and other cities) dress in really great ways. I also love watching people in New York City. I think new yorkers really get it. Wherever I go in this city, I am constantly inspired by people’s styles.

You don’t have to agree with me, but I think that expressing oneself through one’s clothes is really gratifying. It’s not about wearing something new every time, or competing with others in whose suit is more expensive. It’s about creativity – last time I checked, being creative makes people happy.

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Just stop: The "tricky" concept of consent

5/3/2014

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There is one thing that makes me really mad: the way people misunderstand sexual violence. I was going to sleep already when I read this article about the fight against sexual assaults on college campuses. In general, there are different kinds of sexual violence: rape, child sexual abuse, street harassment. And it seems just mind-blowing to me how often the victim is blamed for what happened.

There is this amazing misconception, that if the rapist is not a total stranger hiding in the dark alley (which happens in a fraction of assault cases), it is most probably the victim’s fault. She drank, she wore inappropriate clothes, she was flirting. Blablabla. And poor men of course cannot resist, because as soon as they see a naked shoulder, they have an erection, and as soon as they have an erection, they just can’t think straight. Poor things.

Let’s just imagine a hypothetical situation. A guy with his girlfriend is getting into bed. They get naked, everything is great, everybody’s happy. And then, before they really get into it, the girl suddenly gets a stomach ache. Let’s say, she has eaten something wrong for dinner. So all of a sudden she is not into sex anymore. Or, another scenario, a landline phone is ringing, her mother leaves a voice message with some upsetting news. Again, the girl suddenly does not want to proceed. So what, the guy won’t be able to stop? Will he have a heart attack or be traumatized by this lost erection? No! It’s totally possible for a guy to stop in the middle of sex if the girl – for any reason – has changed her mind.

So all these stories about a couple getting into bed, and the girl suddenly asking the guy to stop, and the guy not stopping and having sex with the girl without her consent, and then the girl being accused of confusing the guy with her changing moods – these stories really drive me mad. In the story described in the article I mentioned above, they have already had sex sometime during the previous year, and this time she went in bed with him willingly, and then he did things that she clearly asked him not to do. And then she had hard time explaining to the University what happened, because they did not want to believe her.

So all these arguments about drunken girls in miniskirts... Puhleeze! Just stop this bullshit. Is it so difficult to educate everybody (including University administration) the simple rules of determining where consent starts and ends? I thought colleges are about teaching.

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The dragon within: Hegemony explained

5/3/2014

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The story of a hero challenging a dragon is archetypical. The Soviet film “To kill a dragon” (1988) used this same old myth, but with an unusual twist. A knight-errant comes into a city that has for hundreds of years been ruled by the Dragon. The knight wants to save people from the cruel tyrant, but to his surprise discovers that they don’t want any change. It turns out that killing the Dragon who occupies the throne is not enough. To be truly free, every person needs to kill the dragon within. And if making the Dragon leave the city might seem easy (for somebody with a sharp sword), purging people’s souls is not.

This film was, of course, a reflection on the political situation in the Soviet Russia, a pessimistic take on the fight for freedom from Soviet ideology. As such, it was rooted in the time when and the place where it was created. However, the movie’s metaphors can be effectively used to illustrate today’s situation in countries where, it seems, everybody is free, and tyranny is no more. I want to use the story of the dragon within to talk about a concept important for the exploration of power relations and inequalities: hegemony.

The theory of hegemony emerged as a development of the Marxist theory of power. In Marx’s interpretation, power is achieved through domination. According to the theory of hegemony, power is maintained through consent. In other words, people don’t want to change things, because they like how things are! How can it be?

When things seem to be getting better, and when people don’t have enough information about the situation, they can easily start celebrating the change. And, while things might indeed get better, if nobody sees this change as only a stage of the journey to the social order based on justice, equality and freedom – then the positive transformation just gets stuck. And sometimes even turns into regression.

I would like to give two examples to illustrate this statement. I won’t go into detail here, as I plan to explore this topic in subsequent posts. My two examples are sexism and racism. There are many people in the U.S. who sincerely think that these two don’t exist anymore. Women can work outside of the house, have their own business, be independent and explore their sexuality. Black people are free, there is no slavery, there is no segregation. Yey, we won! Not so fast. Inequality between men and women is still a sad reality of the U.S. world. Women have lower salaries, there are still many professions where women are not welcome, and they are often judged more by their appearance instead of by what they actually do in their jobs. As for African-Americans, we might not have slavery, but for some reason the majority of people in U.S. prisons are Black (interesting coincidence, right?); and there are too many stereotypes connecting Blackness with crime and delinquency. Here you can read more about color-blind racism.

So what is this dragon within? I think it is this feeling of complacency that too many of us have: things have improved, so now they are fine, so I don’t have to question my actions or try to make things better. They have changed, but there is still a long long way to go. And to reach the destination, we should be all in it together. Without our dragons!

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How happy should we be about Conchita Wurst’s victory?

Lack of awareness: I don’t know, or I don’t want to know?

The power of not giving up

Being stylish can be fun for everybody!

Just stop: The "tricky" concept of consent

The dragon within: Hegemony explained

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