The Buie Knife

'Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man of Mine'

http://youtu.be/r5WEQ8j1Me0

I hadn't thought about this song from the musical "Showboat" for a very long time, until I heard it on the radio today: "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man of Mine." This is from the 1936 movie, considered the best film rendition of "Show Boat." Lyrics that a modern feminist wouldn't be caught dead singing. It has a controversial racial history as well. Many other renditions are posted on Youtube.com as well. The song is a real throwback to the era before civil rights, equal rights and feminist "enlightenment." And yet it's a sweet ode to marital commitment after "the bloom is off the rose."

And the mescegenation scene was way ahead of its time:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZYlHQHbLk0

Men Hug, Kiss, Dance Together in Turkey, and Call Each Other 'Handsome'

My 12-year-old son is thinking about attending a Turkish private school. It's preferable to being home-schooled full-time by Dad, both he and I agree. He had a try-out today, and enjoyed the interaction, and especially the soccer game, but said he "didn't understand a word of the lessons." Hopefully that will change as he learns the Turkish language through total immersion. Even so, there are dramatic cultural differences. When I picked him up after soccer, one of the other boys touched Alex's cheek with his hand and said, "See ya, handsome."

On Saturday, we attended a Turkish wedding, where the men hugged, kissed and danced together, shaking their chests at each other, and a man caught the bouquet. Macho secret service types hold hands. It's not unusual to see male university students fawning over each other, but there is no indication they are homosexuals.

One could say the lack of self-consciousness is refreshing, without the American need to put a label on certain behavior and judge it, even if I'm too Americanized to feel comfortable hugging and kissing other men.  Alex, too, reacted less than positively when the boy "complimented him" by touching his face and calling him "handsome" -- his jaw tightened, he stiffened up and looked away from the boy.

"There are no gays in Turkey," or so I'm told. 

I'm sure. Interestingly, my previous blog posts on "homosexuality" -- Is Homosexuality A Sin? and Homesexuality: Nature Vs. Nurture? -- are blocked by the software managing the wireless network I usually log onto in Turkey. Is this block nationwide? Will this blog post be blocked in Turkey, or are blocks just determined by headlines? So far, it has not been blocked.

It does appear to be a society where one would not comfortably let on to one's homosexuality.  But hey, if hugging, kissing and dancing with other men, and men generally preferring the intimate company of men to women is not gay, then perhaps the gender roles and definitions in our two societies are quite different. I haven't figured it out yet. 

Watching men in another society behave so differently towards one other makes me wonder if Americans define sexual orientation, roles and behavior too narrowly. Or is it that Turkish men in the less Westernized sections are repressed because they do not acknowledge that homosexuality exists in their society?

Is the American or British or Anglo-Saxon desire to label and judge certain behavior as "gay" simply cultural?

Before observing this phenomenon of male behavior in Turkey, I would have thought that it wasn't "natural" for men to hug, kiss and dance with each other, because that's the way I was raised. In middle and high school in America, boys are taught what it is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. They are taught that it is "unmanly" and "unnatural" to show affection toward other men, and if you do so in junior high school or early high school at least, you are to be shunned and condemned as "gay." But that is just culture speaking, not "nature."
 
It would be interesting to see if actual homosexual intercourse in societies where men are free to show physical affection toward one another is greater or lesser than in societies where they are not free to do so. But it would probably be almost impossible to do an accurate survey, because you wouldn't get men in these societies to reveal their true behavior.

So all this remains a mystery to me. Perhaps I need to consult a specialist in "gender studies." But then wouldn't they bring their own cultural biases to the subject? If you can "explain" this all to me, I'd welcome the feedback. 

Meanwhile, I guess I'll do as a friend suggested, tell Alex to act as he feels comfortable acting. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Turkey, do as the Turks do, and when in America, do as the Americans do."

Religious Leaders Throughout History Have Apparently Been Threatened By Strong Women

Who would have thunk that gender is a bigger barrier to the presidency than race? I'm still amazed and puzzled by all the venom directed at Hillary Rodham Clinton on the campaign trail. ABC News posted this video of Hillary with a bad cold and cough, struggling through a talk, and trying to make light of her laryngitis. The normal human emotion is to be sympathetic to someone going through this, but there are hateful negative reactions to anything Hillary says or does, with epithets like "hag," "witch," "b----"' "dominatrix"; statements declaring that she was faking a cold to win sympathy, just as she faked emotion in New Hampshire a few weeks ago to win sympathy, and presuming to know the inner secrets of the Clinton marriage, that they have no love for each other and stay together only to pursue presidential power. Where are these people coming from? It is far less socially acceptable to use the n-word or other race-specific insults against Barack Obama than it seems to be to use gender-specific insults against Hillary.

I'm not a Hillary supporter (not yet at least), but I think she's very smart and competent. But the unfairness of some of the over-the-top vicious criticism of her makes me want to come to her defense. In an attempt to answer my puzzlement at the intense reaction against Hillary, my sister Ann forwarded me some antagonistic statements by male religious leaders in history against women, collected by Meg Bowman, a California sociologist. I have to wonder if some of the intense opposition to Hillary is that she "doesn't know her place" and is "uppity," frightening or threatening. 

Here are some of the religious leaders' statements:

“One hundred women are not worth a single testicle.” - Confucius (551-579 BC)

“A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave…The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities—a natural defectiveness.” - Aristotle (384-322 BC)

“Do you know that each of your women is an Eve?  The sentence of God—on this sex of yours—lives in this age; the guilt must necessarily live, too.  You are the gate of Hell, you are the temptress of the forbidden tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law.”  - Tertullian (22 AD)

“In childhood a woman must be subject to her father; in youth to her husband; when her husband is dead, to her sons.  A woman must never be free of subjugation.”  - The Hindu Code of Manu (c.100)

“Among all savage beasts, none is found so harmful as woman.” – St. John Chrysostom (345-407)

“Any woman who acts in such a way that she cannot give birth to as many children as she is capable of, makes herself guilty of the many murders.,” – St. Augustine (345-430)

“Are Women Human?” (In the year 584, in Lyons, France, 43 Catholic bishops and twenty men representing other bishops, after a lengthy debate, took a vote.  The results were: 32 yes, 31 no.  Women were declared human by one vote – Council of Macon, France

“Men are superior to women.” – The Koran (c.650)

“Women should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children…If a woman grows weary and, at last, dies from childbearing, it matters not.  Let her die from bearing, she is there to do it.” – Martin Luther (1483-1546)

“Woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, not rule and command him.” – John Knox (1505-1572)

“The souls of women are so small that some believe they’ve none at all.”  - Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

“What misfortune to be a woman!  And yet, the worst misfortune is not to understand what a misfortune it is.”  - Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

Related:
 

• Sexists Against Hillary
• Is Gender More of a Barrier Than Race?
• With Obama's Electoral Progress, Racial Healing Begins
• ABC News posted this video of Hillary with a bad cold and cough

The Powerful Legacies of Fathers

Wall Street Journal: "To hear the children of dead fathers talk about fatherhood is heartrending but also inspiring. Their memories offer insight into mysteries that living fathers ponder, and reveal how a few short years can change a child's life forever."

'The Wounds We Wear'

Justin Haas has some thoughtful observations on manhood and the spiritual journey. I'm a bit older than he is, but I had a lot of the same thoughts he expresses in this column in my early thirties. Reminds me of "The Seasons of a Man's LIfe."

On Female Influences, and the Importance of Work

Quotes from novelist Reynolds Price, a professor of English at Duke University. I had the pleasure of hearing him read from his work over the Christmas holidays. (Photo of the event taken with my cell phone):

"Our mothers, our aunts, the grandmothers, the babysitters, and if you're a boy, and you're a sensitive boy, which theoretically novelists are supposed to be, you do subliminally pick up a great deal about female sensibility."

“What I still ask for daily - for life as long as I have work to do, and work as long as I have life.”

12 Songs for Valentine's Day, and the Memories They Evoke; Blogging With One's Spouse

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5196270

NPR Commentary: Blogging: A Blight or a Boon to Marriage? by Julie Zickefoose, http://www.juliezickefoose.com/blog/index.php, with reference to her husband Bill Thompson, a blogger and publisher of Bird Watcher Digest.

Bohemian Dads

"These men believed they had discovered a cosmic secret, that the rules did not have to be obeyed, that the norms of society were arbitrary. I suspect they felt they had not only the opportunity to find true freedom, but the obligation. To be a bohemian was to be a commando in a culture war. What to others might look like irresponsibility or selfishness was, for them, a courageous assault on a repressive, uncreative and phony society. They were out there taking one for the team. And they didn't tend to live a long time, those guys, I'm sad to say." -- Joel Achenbach on "Bohemian Dads," which inspired remarkable, well-written online sharing about fathers and mothers in the "comments" section of Joel's Washington Post blog.

Hope, Optimism for Families of Divorce

Every few years, there's a different media spin on the social consequences of divorce. As someone who speaks to family lawyers, parents and children of divorce about my experience in a "virtual family," using technology innovations to maintain close family relationships, I've followed this topic closely.

If Your Ex Is A Good Friend, Does that Insult the Institution of Marriage?

"If you're such good friends, why are you getting a divorce?"

OR

"Do you have to be such bitter enemies?"

Two diverging views on the "trend" that formerly married people remain good friends, as represented by the rumor that Bruce Willis will be the best man at his ex-wife Demi Moore's wedding to Ashton Kutcher.

"Clearly we're in the midst of a sociological shift. Not long ago, War of the Roses embattlement was the post-divorce norm; now post-split convergence is the pop-culture standard....Some might find such an arrangement bizarre. I think it's the quintessence of the new normal. What defines a family has changed. Indeed, people now have more than one family in a lifetime. As such, the acrimonious "that bastard" attitude toward the ex is counterproductive, particularly when children are involved. When one does hear it, the sentiment is jarring, clearly a failure of intelligence or imagination.-- "One Big Happy Family: Keeping Your Ex As Your Best Friend," by Anne Kingston in Canada's National Post.

-----

"Marriage is more than a personal relationship between spouses. It is a social institution, with rules, public meaning and a story to tell. We used to know what married men were supposed to do -- less time out drinking with the boys, saving some money. Marriage was a status we graduated into, and it was bigger than we were. It defined us, and not the other way around. Now we seem to be losing the institutional imperatives of marriage, leaving only the private relationship -- and that is increasingly likely to turn on such things as personal satisfaction... We have tried to sell our children on the pragmatics -- particularly the economics -- of marriage, and it shocks us when they start weighing marriage in the way they might weigh a career change or a job relocation. Whatever works, and as long as we love. . . .Maybe Bonhoeffer had it right -- that it isn't love that sustains marriage, but marriage that sustains love." -- "Marriage is greater than the sum of its parts," by William Raspberry, Washington Post.

• "My advice for anyone who lives through [divorce] is to put the children first," says Bruce Willis in People