Sam Williams

From Rage to Courage: Answers to Readers' Letters

admin — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Alice Miller alleges that "most people (ninety-five percent of the world population) were beaten as children." You might think these are some pretty hefty charges: so did I. This book, in my opinion, does not seem to have any purpose besides encouraging readers to read Miller's other works, and also for blaming bad parenting as the root of every societal illness.

Perhaps I would have better appreciated From Rage to Courage had I been familiar with Miller's research, or if the book provided any empirical data supporting her claims. Instead, I was inundated by Miller's recommendation that readers acknowledge the childhood abuse they suffered, even if they didn't remember it happening. This book encourages everyone to delve into their psyche to try and find some hints of abuse.

I am skeptical of Miller's proposition that ninety-five percent of the world's adults suffered childhood abuse, but what really struck me as odd in this book is the claim that victims must embrace rage and shun forgiveness to cure themselves. I believe that anger can be a very liberating emotion, and I agree with Miller that victims of abuse should acknowledge the perpetrator's role in hurting them. However, I do not think a lack of forgiveness and a permanent angry state is even remotely healthy. My experience with anger leads me to believe that when a victim holds on to grievances, she is the one punished—not the abuser. Anger leads to bitterness, and both poison a person from the inside out. Forgiveness is not something that excuses the person in the wrong: it is a means for the victim to make peace with their past and go on to live their lives without dwelling on their pain.

According to From Rage to Courage, abuse victims need to dwell on this pain in order to "free" themselves. Without an explanation as to how this is accomplished, however, the book just sounds like an exhortation to permanent resentment, without any means to get to the next step of recovery. Perhaps Miller outlines this in her other works, but as a book considered in its own right, this one doesn't stand up.

Make no mistake: child abuse is horrifying, and probably occurs much more than is reported due to the helpless nature of its victims. I fully support awareness of this issue, as there is no doubt that child abuse affects people negatively all their lives. Alice Miller's collection of her own letters just seems a bit melodramatic to affect any change, and her goal seems more to increase her book sales than to offer solutions.

Written by: Sam Williams, March 20th 2010

Shot

admin — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:59:00 +0000

By Christine Hume

Counterpath Press

It seems like it has become very fashionable for poetry collections to have short and ambiguous titles. We are long past the era where poems’ titles were incredibly detailed, as in “To my Lover, Upon Discovering that I Forgot to Do the Dishes and Churn the Butter. Autumn 1864.” I was drawn to Christine Hume’s Shot because it sounded promising, between the edgy title and the vague descriptions I could find through online previews. Her work lives up to my expectations.

When read aloud, Hume’s poetry has a certain melodic quality, by turns both jarring and soothing. This skillful placement of words goes hand in hand with an ability to create rhythm that evokes action, as in this phrase that is reminiscent of a failed attempt to start a car: ”My pulse stuck to the signal: turnoverturnoverturn.” An engine can almost be heard turning over–and even if that’s not the image Hume was shooting for, that’s just an example of the way this work is open to interpretation.

The recurring symbols in this collection of poetry are very decidedly feminine: night, moon, and darkness are all portrayed with feminine characteristics, such as wearing makeup or having skirts or female genitalia. Most pronouns are female, particularly when describing a character that seems integral to the poem in a positive manner. A rebellious edge sneaks into some of the poetry too, without being too specific as to its target. The poem “Um, Um...” starts out: “You may pound this night as much as you please/ You will never pound into me what you think.”

The only weakness is that the abstract personification of both objects and concepts occasionally borders on the obscure. Nontraditional uses of parts of speech make for interesting reading, but at a certain point it becomes almost distracting. Beautiful imagery sometimes results from this seemingly random pairing of words seventy percent of the time, however.

Some feminists in unquestioning support of women’s reproductive rights might find the detailed and rather opinionated narrative of the first section slightly unnerving: it’s a dialogue between a pregnant woman and her fetus. That can be considered under the catch-all of poetry’s ability to be random, to say one thing and mean another. Sometimes metaphor makes for objectivity. All things considered, this collection of poetry was mind-bending and a celebration of the feminine, both dark and light aspects.

Written by: Sam Williams, February 6th 2010

Taste of Cherry

admin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Kara Candito

University of Nebraska Press

One of the best ways to support awareness and understanding of taboo topics is to display them in a way that is non-threatening and invites discussion. Kara Candito’s Taste of Cherry is just such a collection of poetry. Bringing to life love affairs in everything from Greek myth to the HBO series Carnivale, Candito familiarizes the reader with both bizarre and mundane romantic entanglements. The collection’s chemistry is successful because she isn’t dependent on smut to get her point across: sensuality is skillfully woven in between the lines. (Let the records show that Candito’s poems also have their fair share of deliciously overt naughtiness, however. Not to worry.)

When I say sensual, I mean that in a very literal sense. While there is a certain amount of sex and romance depicted, Candito also uses her work to transmit sensual experiences on many levels. Smell, sound, touch, and taste are used to make the reader think about pain as well as pleasure. Subtlety is a powerful tool here, forcing the reader to draw connections and imagine the effect of cumulative sensory stimulation. The beauty, heat, and uncomfortable truth of each moment are fleshed out in a playful way. The casual changing of narrator gender and ambiguity regarding sexual orientation keeps the reader on his or her literary toes.

The undeniably erotic undertones to this collection of poetry are not to be outdone by political statements and what struck me as ultimatums: Candito presents a situation that is socially unacceptable, describes it as tenderly as she has the rest, and forces the reader to rethink his or her opinions. Women’s struggle between the conflict between society’s expectations and their own desires is an important theme, and part of what makes Taste of Cherry a feminist work.

Another theme is the power of suffering—from self-imposed pain, to accidents, to pain that teaches and heals. This expression can be viewed as an outlet of the female struggle between Self and Other, or perhaps the expression of an issue personal to the author that finds its way into several of the poems.

Whatever the case may be, the strength of this collection lies in Candito’s willingness to state the ugly truth, and somehow make it sound lyrical without losing meaning. Even more intriguing is her ability to pull such a high level of detail from historical accounts, published writing, and Italian opera, leaving the reader wondering how much of her writing stems from personal experience and how much is imagined.

Written by: Sam Williams, November 27th 2009

Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, And Lipstick Lesbians

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:00:00 +0000

By Lillian Faderman, Stuart Timmons

University of California Press

California: Land of the free, the brave, and the gay. This heart-lifting literary biopsy of gay rights’ progression in Southern California (Los Angeles, specifically) is a delight to read. For those of you who have ever stood in the face of adversity, protest poster in hand, Gay L.A. will remind you exactly why you did so. For the rest, it will open your eyes to the continuing need for civil rights activism on all planes.

The non-fiction novel is a chronological retelling of the way gay community has evolved in the past hundred years. Though both stories and people vary, the one element that does not change is each generation’s responsibility to push the envelope a little more than its predecessor. After all, where would Lindsey Lohan be today if Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo hadn’t been gender-bending wearers of pants? In the closet, of course!

From scintillating behind-the-scenes tales of Hollywood’s 1920s heyday, to the rigid role-playing of the 1950s, to the moving protests against the government’s indifference in the face of the AIDS epidemic, this historical work reads like a novel. All the work big Hollywood names of the '20s and '30s had to go to remain closeted is fascinating. Gay L.A. states that celebrities could be open and “out” in private circles, but they kept their flamboyancy far from public eye. Thanks to Twitter, paparazzi, and camera cell phones, celebs no longer have this luxury—which makes reading about the elaborate lengths famous gay people went to in those days all the more interesting. (Did you ever wonder where the term “beard” marriage came from? Even “lipstick lesbian” is an invention of a bygone era.)

As far as an accurate representation of the GLBT community, I’d have to say that these authors did a fairly evenhanded job. They are able to approximate the delicate balancing point between the telling of gay men’s and lesbian’s stories—although less attention is paid to transgender narratives. This gap in information might just be due to the lack of research and archived information on transgender identities, which is accurate for the time periods covered but still somewhat disappointing.

The amount of GLBT history that I gleaned from this book is astounding. For instance, I’d never heard the gay agenda addressed in a respectful and literal way. I’ve always wondered why conservatives fling the phrase around to depict gays as child-molesting monsters seeking world domination. The “gay agenda” always sounded so ludicrous to me, an offensive mischaracterization of a disenfranchised group’s fight for equality. Apparently such a thing actually existed at one point! Take, for example, the difference between L.A.’s early gay rights political activists fighting for domestic partnership benefits and a satiric website like The Homosexual Agenda. We have the ability to be flippant about the “gay agenda” in the 21st century because of the hard-won battles fought by those who went before us.

Gay L.A. is a two-fold motivational work: it is both a call to action and to remembrance. It ends on a hopeful note, reminding us that the battle has not been won but that much progress has been made. It also reminds modern-day civil rights proponents of just how much blood, sweat, and tears it took to get us where we are today.

Written by: Sam Williams, November 26th 2009

My Men

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:01:00 +0000

By Malika Mokeddem, Laura Rice, Karim Hamdy

Grasset & Fasquelle

I must admit that I approached Malika Mokeddem’s memoir with trepidation. I found it hard to believe that I would enjoy a life story recounted only in terms of the men involved. In retrospect, however, it is possible that a telling of Mokeddem’s story would not have been thoroughly explained without the background she provides on her men.

Mokeddem, a French Algerian immigrant, was raised in a society that encourages huge discrepancies between the treatment of men and women, to say the least. Her traditional upbringing gives her a sharp and discerning eye for the ways in which her life differed from the men around her and Western women all over the world. It takes a little bit of reading to reach a point where Mokeddem’s relationships with men move out of predictability—specifically, past the first chapter.

Titled “The First Absence,” chapter one is a laundry list of the ways in which Mokeddem's father failed her and occasionally borders on the melodramatic. (Oh, Freud, where would literary criticism be today without your theories? In a much less disturbing place, I think. But I digress.) Once this chapter is out of the way, Mokeddem explains in moving detail the most important relationships she’s had with men—from her first mentor, to her brother, to her longtime lover and partner. These men both establish and interrupt the expectations Mokeddem holds for men, and she shares openly the ways in which she has been disadvantaged and healed through these relationships.

Mokeddem’s writing retains the heartbreaking beauty of the French language even through translation, which is partly why I enjoyed it so much. She has a particular talent for turning a phrase, and the vulnerability and wisdom transmitted through her work is undeniable. She walks a fine line between conversational and lofty writing, never veering too extremely to lose her charm and approachability as a character.

My Men does suffer moments of dependent thinking; for example, at the end of the chapter on the author’s brother: “How long will the men I love continue to force me to sum up love’s failures—until I lose track of the years?” These low points are and far between, however, and definitely not enough so to make the story disappointing to the feminist reader. Mokeddem shows herself an indomitable female character with her own set of foibles and fears, and her unique perspective makes her memoir worth reading for any reader, feminist or otherwise.

Written by: Sam Williams, November 26th 2009

Doing Gender Diversity: Readings in Theory and Real-World Experience

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0000

Edited by Rebecca F. Plante, Lis M. Maurer

Westview Press

What does it mean to be female or male in modern American society? How does this limit the endless ways in which human beings are capable of expressing themselves? More importantly, how do we promote open-mindedness in a world that grooms people from birth to fit in one of two check-yes boxes? I cautiously pose an attitude change as necessary, with all due respect given to gender’s role in society. Reading Doing Gender Diversity, a collection of essays and articles, only confirmed what I’ve suspected for years: what we need is not a dissolution of gender divisions, but rather a softening of expectations that allows for identities ranging from “elective-straight queer men” to heterosexual women with typically masculine qualities, and everything in between.

Jamison Green affirms this eloquently in his contribution, "Part of the Package: Ideas of Masculinity among Male-Identified Transpeople," by quoting sociologist Holly Devor: “The time is upon us to reevaluate how we think about gender, sex and sexuality. It now seems perfectly clear to me that we live in a world which is far more diverse than any number of simplistic dichotomies can describe.” Hear, hear.

Doing Gender Diversity is a skillfully edited collection of eye-opening accounts of gender issues from multiple perspectives—that of activists, social scientists, and individuals living gender expressions that make them virtually invisible (or worse). The academic leanings and sheer heft of the book make Doing Gender Diversity appear more like a textbook than casual reading, but don’t let that fool you. The majority of the articles have main points in layman’s terms and make for interesting reading. Not a page-turner, certainly, but thought-provoking in all the right ways.

The only criticism I have is that the summary of research methodology can be dry occasionally, and anyone who has not taken a statistics class might have difficulty deciphering the majority of the figures quoted. However, this doesn’t interfere with its overall accessibility, as every article includes a section that explains the significance of the quantitative data.

Americans are so anxious to catalog every individual into a cookie-cutter construction of gender. This is understandable: gender is one of the most influential ways with which we make meaning out of our lives and interactions. This collection of refreshing articles emphasizes that the real problem lies not with those individuals who, through no choice of their own, land in a gender-bending gray area (be it physical, behavioral, or emotional), but with a society that causes so much heartache and pain for anyone that doesn’t meet a stringent list of heteronormative gender criteria.

Above and beyond its educational use, this skillfully edited grouping of gender articles is the perfect read for anyone who has ever—in any way—felt he or she missed the mark in gender expression. Everyone can take something away from Doing Gender Diversity: the straight man who’s surprisingly nurturing, the “top” in a gay relationship who prefers being the little spoon, the straight woman who can fix a flat tire, and the lesbian who can’t. You are not alone—and there is nothing wrong with you.

Written by: Sam Williams, November 26th 2009