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Moral Mind Puzzle: Controlling Women/”Protecting” Women

This is going to sound very Captain Obvious, but I’m trying to figure out how a person who thinks assault weapons should remain an available product for Americans to purchase and own can get all up in arms (pun intended) about abortion.

Sometimes on a long road trip I like to drive in silence for a few hours and play moral mind puzzles. I’ll ask myself a question and then answer from the point of view that someone who is nothing like me would take, then I try to find common ground with that person. Or I try to figure out what factors might make a person reach their conclusion.

It’s usually pretty easy, and I finish the puzzle in a few minutes. I can always think of some life experience that would cause someone to support something I oppose. I really like this game, because it strengthens my “don’t take it personally” muscle, and because it has helped me to imagine and value the perspective of people with whom I am in actual disagreement in a real, not hypothetical, way.

The game starts with this question, “Why would someone think that?”

And then you go from there to “They might think that because…” The only rule of the game is that you’re not allowed to think snotty, dismissive thoughts like, “They think that because they’re uneducated idiots” or “They think that because they’ve been brain-washed by their __________.” You have be neutral and open.

So I was playing this game last week while driving home from Connecticut, noticing that it was the 40th anniversary of Roe V. Wade and that the country is also in the midst of this huge conversation about gun control, and that Senator Dianne Feinstein is introducing a bill to ban assault weapons. For a little bit of time (until I drove out of the range of the radio station) I was able to follow a radio talk show called “Politics, Burgers and Beer” with a woman named Faith Middleton (what a great name! That would be a great name for a minister, wouldn’t it?) and listen to some of the debate pro and con the assault weapon/heavy ammo magazines ban.

And I was trying to figure out for the life of me how someone could be passionately against keeping abortion legal and also be a defender of unlimited gun rights.

I suppose this sort of person sees themselves as a protector or potential defender of innocent lives.

On a simplistic level, I see it. On the systemic level, however, it just doesn’t hold. There’s no logic to the argument that the government should be in the business of outlawing a medical procedure that you think protects lives, but should stay out of the business of protecting innocent lives that are being lost to out of control access to guns.

I also experience brain pain trying to understand how any American can decide that all abortion is murder, always, but yet decide that guns are about protecting life, not ending it.

I don’t think I’m making my case very well here, probably because I’m still struggling to put myself in that hypothetical American’s shoes. Abortion: bad, always murder, sinful, should be outlawed. Guns: good, important, all about protecting myself, should be available, government shouldn’t get involved.

Cognitive dissonance and moral confusion. I am still chewing on it because I am trying to imagine how Americans can have more productive conversations on these polarizing issues. Still stymied by the pro-gun, anti-choice people and am trying to reach a more generous conclusion than something like, “They just want to control women while they themselves don’t want to be controlled in any way.”

What really made me barf was the guy who called into Faith Middleton’s show and said that he think all women are precious and sacred and that’s why he would never support them being able to be military combatants. Too late for that, pal. Some of those precious, sacred women have actually used their own precious, sacred free will and precious, sacred brains to decide for themselves that they want to be able to kill the enemy. Not a choice I would make for myself but boy howdy, if they’re willing and able to do it on behalf of our country, I’m not going to tell them they shouldn’t be allowed to. Speaking as a person with a uterus myself, we’d rather be equal than precious and sacred.

All of this intersection between controlling women’s bodies, ostensibly protecting us and paternalistic discrimination has me feeling itchy. Meanwhile, the Super Bowl happens tomorrow and along with it, lots of sex trafficking that we should know and care about.

Someday I’ll have something coherent to say that will tie all of this together. For now, at least I’ve put it out there. Thanks for listening.

 

 

 

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“The Muppets” A PeaceBang Review

Of course I loved it. I was raised on the Muppets, and remember the very first ever episode of “Sesame Street,” which replaced my favorite show at the time, “Kimba the White Lion.”

“The Muppets” (2011) is a charming movie about the Muppets. You don’t need to know the plot – it’s the same thing you’ve seen many times. The Muppets are in danger of losing their theatre, so they have to reunite for a big fundraising show.

The two main characters are Gary (Jason Segal) and Walter (a muppet) who is Gary’s brother who doesn’t quite know if he’s a muppet or a man. Gary has a girlfriend named Mary, played by the always-charming Amy Adams.

I get that the movie is a bit retro in its attitudes, as it’s trying to keep things innocent and fresh. I appreciate that. What I did not appreciate, however, is that the screenplay makes a strong point that women are nothing without their men (or frog, as the case may be). Really, Muppets? In 2012? In 2012, the female character can’t go out for the day by herself or eat lunch by herself without falling into despair about it (and singing a big musical number about it)? Her big first number has to voice her ultimate (and apparently only) desire that her boyfriend marry her?

Male characters in this movie have dreams. They make things happen. They save the theatre, and find their talent. The ladies just go along for the ride and complain about not getting the guy. After the muppets save the theatre and treat us to a big, happy ensemble number, the movie comes to a satisfying conclusion. However, just to emphasize the point that all happiness comes from gettin’ yer man, the film adds a penultimate scene with Gary getting down on one knee and proposing to Mary. Blergh.

Worse than “The Muppets'” inability to envision a self-respecting 21st century human female character (Rashida Jones gets to play the other female role of the stereotypical cold-hearted Career Gal, all business suits and Blackberry) is its treatment of the glorious Miss Piggy, porcine diva extraordinaire.

When the muppets go to find Miss Piggy to bring her back to the theater for the show, we find out that she is living in Paris and has the dream job of all time: plus-size fashion editor at Vogue!!  The funniest scene in the movie features the fabulous Emily Blunt (in a wink to her role as the assistant to Miranda Priestley in “The Devil Wears Prada”) imperiously blocking entrance to Miss Piggy’s ultra-glam office. When we see Piggy, she is a vision in Chanel (although stuffing her face with donuts):

Miss Piggy is living the dream! She’s not wasting her life away at a dive bar in Reno like Fozzy or wiling away her days in a gated mansion like her old paramour, Kermit. Piggy is important, successful and happy.

However, in what I’m sure most people thought was a throwaway moment, Kermit confesses to Miss Piggy that he misses her and needs her, and asks her to stay in Hollywood “for him.” Without hesitation, Piggy squeals, “Of course, Kermie.”

Are you kidding!? Piggy!! Who let that dialogue happen? She should have said, “Oh, Kermie, come with me to PARIS!” Then, voila, set-up for a Muppet movie in France!

I don’t care if these are puppets with plastic eyes, when you hear parents say things like, “I plan to raise my kids on this movie,” it’s worth paying attention to the messages that the movie communicates. And this movie clearly communicates that girls have no desires apart from being with their guys, and that no matter how amazing a gal’s life ever gets, she’ll be willing to drop it all in a heartbeat (and leave Paris! Paris!!) the second her guy asks her to.

I love my Muppets and I loved all the references to 1986. I just wish that they could have written a screenplay that didn’t have such a throwback treatment of female characters. Our little girls deserve better.

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The Demanding Tree

Today, the Rev. Thomas Schade of Worcester gave a shout-out to two of his parishioners for creating a re-telling of Shel Silverstein’s classic tale of a masochistic co-dependent relationship, The Giving Tree. I once loved The Giving Tree myself, until I came into a feminist awareness that revealed to me that this was the ultimate sentimental re-imagining of how patriarchy really works to dominate and amputate female power and presence (including Mother Nature’s power).

In 2000, I re-wrote The Giving Tree and my version has subsequently been used by Unitarian Universalist congregations all over the country: at least 34 by my count, as that was the last time I counted the requests by colleagues to use it in their worship services. And so my friends, I give you, “The Demanding Tree,” by Victoria Weinstein.Please share with attribution.*

*Amazing illustrations for “The Demanding Tree” were created by Jessica Alexander at the time, and I hope to be able to find and scan them soon.

 

The Demanding Tree , by the Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein, April 2000

(revised January 2003)

With apologies to Shel Silverstein…

Once there was a tree.  And she loved a little boy.

And every day the boy would come, and he would gather her leaves

and make them into crowns and play king of the forest.

And the tree loved the little boy, but the tree was a bit irritated.  “King of the forest, my trunk,” she thought. “Wherever did those human beings get such an attitude problem?”

Time went by, and the boy grew older, and the tree was often alone, which was nice and quiet, but she missed the boy.

Then one day the boy came to the tree and the tree called out to him, “Come, Boy, come and climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and eat my apples and play in my shade and be happy.”

“I am too big to climb and play,” said the boy.  I want to buy things and have fun.  I want some money.  Can you give me some money?”

“No chance,” said the tree.  “I have only leaves and apples.  Why don’t you go get a job if money’s so important to you? I hear that the Nature Conservancy is looking for clerical staff.  Why don’t you apply?”

Continue reading “The Demanding Tree”