Disposable Boys: Masculinity Culture, Homophobia and Infanticide

While some of us have been trying in vain to ignore the Casey Anthony case (and the Nancy Grace-like histrionics and fundamentalism that seems inextricably interwoven with it) the world has gone on spinning.

It ought to be a relief people aren't seriously tried in Grace et al's court of public opinion, because this version of justice seems based on gut reactions, and sentimental plays to emotion; things that ought to never replace empirical proof and credible testimony. We'll just forgo such complicated things as facts provided our biased opinions "tell us" how to feel. I'm just glad the case is over so America can collectively put its attention to the other cases of infanticide that occur. Or, America's Next Top Model, depending...

More to the point, what annoys me about the Casey Anthony media circus is that in an expanded context, we could harness all this pearl clutching vigor over the injustice and apply it to the numerous cases that mirror it involving caregivers and the violent deaths of their charges. A well crafted article from the Huffington Post's Michael Rowe frames this nicely:

A nominally civilized society such as ours can only recoil in horror at any news of a child's death at the abusive hands of an adult. Infanticide is the ultimate forfeiture of our humanity, rightly seen as a perversion of the very essence of the natural order and the circle of life. The act is a declaration of such abject monstrosity that is very nearly beyond forgiveness. But it happens every day, and we guiltily avert our eyes to these stories when we read them because, on some level, we realize that the children could easily be our own and the pain is too much to bear. In 2008, in the U.S. alone, the Department of Health and Human Services reported 772,000 cases of child abuse, resulting 1,740 fatalities--a sharp rise from 1,330 in 2000.

So, problematically, this sort of horror is visited upon children more often than we're discussing here. And while we were painting our protest signs over the Anthony case, another case caught my eye.

One of the most horrific cases of infanticide I've ever seen came out of Durham, NC this week, and one would think people would be aghast collectively, as this on paper has all the earmarks of a high profile Nancy Grace-case. All the bells and whistles are present really- cult like groupthink, conspiracy to cover up the crime, coldblooded rationalization/motive for shooting a 4 year old point blank in the head. Ultimately, a gruesome crime of this nature should have the sort who were gravely preoccupied with the Anthony case holding prayer rallies...with the exception of some key variables...

Americans seem to feel much less "concerned" about boys who fail to convincingly "man up" and meet with harsh consequences, than we do about calculating mothers (especially so if the victim is non-white and working class).

Out of Durham, NC this week as per the DallasVoice, 4 year old Jaden Higganbothan was shot point blank in the head on the off off chance he might be gay:

According to information presented in court by prosecutors on Friday, July 8, Moses lived in a house in Durham with several women and their children — most of whom were fathered by Moses. But 4-year-old Jaden Higganbothan had a different father, who had left his mother, Vania Higganbothan Sisk, 25. Because Jaden’s father had left his mother and because Jaden hit one of the other children on the rear a couple of times, Moses decided the boy was gay and that they needed to get rid of him. In fact, prosecutors say, Moses had already told Sisk to get rid of Jaden at least once.

And "get rid" of Jaden they did, like so much refuse. While every bit of this case reads like the most calloused of crime fiction, one of the many disconcerting things about this case is the overarching trend at play here as it coheres with gender and (perceived) sexuality. Of parents and authority figures acting with violence towards little boys (toddlers) in the hopes they "man up", stop emoting, and by way of operant conditioning learn to stop being exactly what they are at 3 and 4 (infants) and start behaving like "men".

Many of my recent entries have touched on the cultural disconnect we have about gender and sexuality, be it our obsession with pre-adolescent gender roles and their (tenuous) connection to adult sexual orientation, or the extremes to which we go rigidly reinforce culturally specific gender socialization.

The truth here becomes harder and harder to ignore, when we enforce gender expectations to such a brutal degree before children are old enough to bare the weight, we can do irreversible psychological damage. When we over-emphasize the presumed importance of expressing particular gender behaviors, and therefore devalue any other sort of behavior (i.e- all boys must like/play sports or they're unmasculine) we create standards that can put those that don't (yet) conform at considerable risk.

The trend repeats itself, and makes national headlines decidedly less rarely than when a boy wears pink nailpolish and we contemplate how the "mother is making him or her gay". When children don't convince their parents in a credible way that they're being gender socialized apropriately, the consequences can, as seen in the recent tragedy in Durham, and a similar one that occured a year prior in NY where a man beat his girlfriend's 17 month old for not "acting manly"....whatever that means under the circumstances of infancy.

The earlier referenced Micheal Rowe article touches on this:

But there is an added and significant dimension to the tragedy. The reason given for the beating is that, even at 17 months, the toddler was perceived by his killer to be effeminate. Madhouse logic indeed, but to Pedro Jones there was a way that little boys should act and a way little girls should act.

While Jones is a tragic example of the paradigm taken to deadly lengths, society's discomfort with gender variance permeates nearly every part of the national dialogue and runs through every part of the culture.

And all of this rings truer and truer still in the few widely publicized cases involving sexual orientation and youth culture. Look at the Lawrence King trial, and some of the (appalling) "gay panic" justifications that stemmed from it. Look at Tracy Morgan's profoundly ignorant rant. We live in a society that passively condones violence against boys when they seem like they could be "gay". Then we wring our hands (some of us) and feel just awful about bullying gay kids after they've jumped off a bridge, or have been shot twice execution style in the head, or 17 month old boys have been beaten to death for "acting girly". Education and consistent dialogues on how damaging these fabricated standards we've pushed on children regarding gender are of extreme importance to countering the barbarism and ignorance that bring about the senseless loss of life associated with the above cases. Its imperative we get beyond such colossal stupidity as a culture given that the consequences are so unthinkably tragic. And while its good to see people collectively feeling anything resembling human emotions these days...it would be nice to see rational thought and compassion prevail over the regressive bible thumping of our archaic pasts.

Now hear this: Music to shake your fist to:

Bigots in Sheeps Clothing: the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-gay Lobbyists

Southern Poverty Law Center, Family Research Council: 'Hate group' label fits - latimes.com

As an undergraduate at East Carolina University, and later as a Grad Student in their Sociology department, many times I’d find myself at Southern Poverty Law Center’s website with both a stark admiration of the quality of the research they do, and the inkling that someday, in some way, I’d love nothing more than to work with an organization with the same sort of mission statement. The SPLC does invaluable work monitoring and providing legal opposition to hate groups, and their dedication to civil rights and the civically disenfranchised in our society is beyond commendable. The difficulty with being a steadfast proponent of positive social change is that there are often social and legal constructs long set in place against such progress. Quite similarly, scripture and (false) pseudo-scientific rationalizations were concocted to justify slavery and later segregation socio-culturally, just as Jim Crow was legislated to ensure that the social order/status quo was maintained.

Sociological thought assumes no different when it comes to homophobia. Attitudes towards those that seek to enshrine persons who happen to be gay in a separate and unequal career trajectory should their cloistered lives be brought to light. (I’m looking at you Don’t Ask Don’t Tell) Or are squeamish about anti-bullying legislation if it includes any language “endorsing” homosexuality whilst being draped in the guise of religious freedoms can still in fact be hateful. Discrimination of this nature is institutional, much the way slavery became institutional and anti-miscegenation laws became institutional. When the government adopts the prejudices of the overall society and then seeks to disempower an ethnic or cultural minority group based on these assumptions (i.e- Travel Bans on HIV Positive persons) we have no place pretending that we live in a democratic, egalitarian society where the rights of all are upheld and protected.

What is entirely valid and well said about the editorial I reference above, is that Tim Rutton on December 1, 2010 evidenced all the ways individual prejudices become institutionalized discrimination. He looks at the history of the SPLC and the contrasting organization the Family Research Council and comes away with the analysis that the verdict of the SPLC here is correct entirely because of the defamation and misinformation used to pursue their goals. If the Family Research Council has valid information about why homosexuality in their religious view is a sin, fine. But to present scientifically disproven information (numerous studies bare out that a lot of the rhetoric the Christian right presents about the evils of homosexuality are miguided at best) and/or to conflate an entire group of people with pedophiles hellbent on converting one’s children and destroying the foundation of the family is nothing more than pearl clutching histrionics, not the assertions of a credible research institution.

These paragraphs are key:

Other conservative commentators also have assailed listing the council as a hate group, calling it an affront to protected speech. That is a superficially compelling argument, but it won't withstand scrutiny. It is perfectly possible for a church or an organization associated with a denomination or religious tendency — as the Family Research Council is with evangelical Protestantism — to oppose, say, marriage equality as a departure from tradition and traditional notions of civic virtue without defaming gays and lesbians as a group.

But the council goes well beyond that. Over the years, it has published statistical compendiums purporting to quantify the "evils" of homosexuality. One of its pamphlets is entitled, "Dark Obsession: The Tragedy and Threat of the Homosexual Lifestyle." At various times, its spokesmen have spuriously alleged that the gay rights movement's goal "is to go after children" and that child molestation is more likely to occur in households with gay parents. Last week, one of its senior fellows, Peter Sprigg, told reporters on a conference call concerning repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that "homosexuals in the military are three times more likely to commit sexual assaults than heterosexuals are relative to their numbers."

Such rhetoric is eerily reminiscent of that with which religiously affiliated opponents of African American equality once defended segregation. It wasn't all that long ago that some of them argued against school integration because, they alleged, black adolescents were uniquely unable to control sexual impulses and, therefore, would assault white schoolgirls. Exhortations against "race mixing" were commonplace pulpit messages short decades ago, though we now recognize them as hate speech. It's past time to do the same with rhetoric that denigrates gays and lesbians.

And this is the eerily familiar aspect of this social conservatism. Society, especially those in more socially conservative periods of humankind, has been uniformly talented at maintaining the status quo, and incredibly creative about creating ways to perpetuate social control. Politicians and now unfortunately powerful lobbyist groups like the Family Research Center are quick in these instances to deem themselves as the arbiters of social propriety and dictate others act accordingly. As Rutten implies, this oversteps the bounds of religious freedom by a great deal, and encroaches on the rights of others to make any decisions outside of those prescribed by said arbiters. If these assertions are made within the confines of a religious institution, they are to be honored and protected, if they make their way into public discourse and policy, the assumption that they’re to be protected by religious freedoms becomes flimsier and flimsier still.

If you and your preacher agree that “the gays” are all the things those scant scriptures say they are, fine. But the day you seek to disempower the rights of other law abiding citizens because of it all pretense of civility and ethicality recedes from view.

Perkins "Explains" Gay Teen Suicides : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/11/perkins_explains_gay_teen_suic.php

"These young people who identify as gay or lesbian, we know from the
social science that they have a higher propensity to depression or suicide
because of that internal conflict," he says.

Homosexuality is
"abnormal," he says, and kids know it, which leads them to despair.

Its such a convenient, utterly despicable argument that it almost is beneath my dignity to discuss outright. Except that Perkins and his ilk have been working overtime the past several weeks to counter the idea that LGBT young adults and teenagers are in any way deserving of human decency for their so called “lifestyle choice”.

Nevermind that there are in fact very real correlations between suicide rates, depression and LBGT youth, but what Perkins willfully ignores in the above is that one of the reasons driving the problematic trend is the consistent fact that he and other evangelicals and social conservatives are ardently, and bitterly reinforcing the fact that gay kids are vile, evil abominations that do not in fact deserve to live. That they’re somehow pushing “an agenda” for wanting to live an unrepressed life. Or hell, according to recent polls out of Texas, that they may be inadvertently responsible for the freaking apocalypse just by proxy of existing. Perkins blithely goes about insisting that these “lifestyle choices” are monstrous and ungodly, is allowed to press this issue in “objective” news sources from the Washington Post to NPR, and has the gall to pretend to lament the loss of life when he’s perpetuating the conditions responsible for the “despair” these gay (or perceived as such an therefore persecuted) students face. Its like saying that a given racial or ethnic minority experiences depression at a higher frequency and then ignoring the socio-environmental factors like prejudice and discrimination that in many cases are socially created and culturally reinforced in our society that causes it. Its almost an insult to one’s intelligence to present this ruse of “compassion” when shunning, scorn and victim blaming are the very aims of the organizations Perkins helms and the movement he leads.

When otherwise “normal” children feel justified in taking this embedded message out in society about homosexuality being abhorrent and justifiable to persecute against, and thus become gatekeepers of so called morality, the results can be grim as we’ve learned recently. But make no mistake, we do not learn messages about stigmas and negative statuses in a vacuum. If status Y is somehow tainted, and vile and worthy of scorn, it is in every way because of the values attached to it by the societies we inhabit. LGBT youths can’t feel “despair” about their sexual identities without Perkins’ thinly veiled code about their sin, and the bully pulpit demagoguery others backing this anti-gay rhetoric have been pressing so consistently since the Cold War Era. One can point to studies about depression and suicide amongst gay teens and see a valid correlation, but one cannot remove the idea that social factors that drive those trends have much to do with the open hostility created by Perkins himself.