I’m caucusing for Bernie because he’s the one who shares my values

Left of lipstick: Believing girls mature faster than boys hurts everyone

“Girls mature sooner than boys.” I’ve got a twin brother, so I heard this even more than most kids, and most kids hear it a lot. It’s the explanation for why girls paint each other’s toenails at slumber parties and boys try to burp the alphabet. It’s the reason parents trust 14-year-old girls to babysit their five-year-old kid. It’s why we’re not creeped out when an 18-year-old girl dates a 25-year-old guy. They may be seven years apart in experience, but emotionally they’re equally mature.
What constitutes maturity? I matured dentally very early. I got my wisdom teeth out when I was 15, which I think is interesting, but you probably don’t. Nobody cares how fast people lose their baby teeth. The maturity we’re talking about is the ability to handle responsibility. It’s doing what you say you’re going to do. It’s judging social situations and behaving appropriately in the context. It’s adhering to social norms. It’s not finding fart jokes funny. We talk about social constructs a lot here. Social construction might be in the drawer of things you’re tired of hearing about, nestled between “problematic” and “appropriation.” Sorry! Often we call something a social construct in order to dismiss it. “What are job applications, anyway? Employment is a social construct. Hahaha!”
This is silly because understanding social construction is really important. Calling gender a social construct means that it is something that we as a society make collectively, not something that “just is.” One of the ways we make gender is by telling and believing myths about how it “just is” that “girls just mature faster than boys.” From a constructivist perspective, it’s wrong because it relates maturity to biological characteristics. That’s enough. But that’s not enough for the world outside of academic feminism. It matters for the rest of us because it’s a myth that serves patriarchy (I know, again with the patriarchy!). To be clear, I mean something specific by patriarchy. It’s a system in which men, particularly old men, have economic and political power over everyone else.
The myth that girls mature faster than boys serves patriarchy in (at least) two ways. First, it justifies romantic relationships between older men and younger women in which there is a substantial power gap (see my column on relationships between upper- and underclass students). And second, it excuses hurtful or irresponsible behavior in men but not in women. The flipside of the first consequence is that we expect behavior of girls that we don’t expect of boys. Believing that girls become women earlier than boys become men is a way of justifying how much we ask of them. Emotional labor, or all of the “feelings” work that women do and men don’t (remembering birthdays, sending get-well-soon cards, giving emotional support), is an idea that’s gotten a lot of traction in the pop-feminist community recently. The teacher’s pets, the helpful daughters, the obliging sisters, they’re all doing work. Labor. And after a lifetime—or just an adolescence—it’s draining.
Somehow this maturity difference is still a thing that otherwise progressive people believe about gender. All too often I find myself nodding along, not sure how to suggest that I see things a little differently. So here it is: the belief that girls mature faster than boys is untrue, sexist and harmful.
My twin brother is more mature than I am by many counts. He works full-time, has bills and rent to pay and cooks all his meals. He thinks about health insurance and helping our dad around the house. Just because he’s a boy doesn’t mean he’s any less mature than I am—in fact, in some ways, he’s more mature. This goes to show, our maturity is developed by our social world, not determined by our gender—even though I did get my wisdom teeth out when I was 15.

Left of lipstick: An alternate lexicon for sex terms: changing our words for the better

Can you believe it? Consent Week is almost here! I plan my year around this! This is when we leverage the power of the Bowdoin marketing machine for the cause of healthy sexuality. First, I’d like to thank the organizers for renaming the festivities. “Consent is Key” kicks “Consent is Sexy” to the curb. I’m sure a lot of us have experienced that robust communication about sex is sometimes awkward. And hard. And deeply unsexy.
And that’s OK! We’ve spent the first twenty-odd years of our lives in a society that is at once hyper-sexualized and sex-phobic. For example, I had me some of that good ol’ abstinence-only sex education in my Kentucky public high school. (“The only way to never get syphilis is by wearing a promise ring till you’re thirty.”) I also knew every word to Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” when I was eight years old.
One of the things, I’ve found, that makes communicating during sex hard is the stupid words themselves. Why are so many of them so awful? Well, I don’t know, but in an effort to facilitate ~communication~, I’ve come up with some alternatives. Dig in.
Friendly Butt Stuff OK, I didn’t come up with this. One of my friends was having a talk about sex with her significant other. He asked her how she felt about “a little friendly butt stuff. Like, not anal or anything, just a little friendly butt stuff.” Very silly—but they talked about it!
Doggy Style This same friend has thought for a long time that “doggy style” refers to a person having sex with a dog. She was wrong. It’s about two dogs having sex with each other. But it’s still unpalatable to a lot of people. I’ve searched high and low for a good alternative, and it’s hard. I thought maybe “table and chair” in the spirit of spooning, but sources tell me that’s weirder. Someone suggested “fun spooning.” That could work, but I wouldn’t want y’all to think regular spooning isn’t fun. I asked a friend who is French. Apparently, in French they say “levrette” which is the name for a female greyhound. No progress there. The Australopithecus, Wikipedia tells me, was the first genus of hominins to have sex face-to-face… so you could say pre-Australopithecus?
Obviously, I’m still working on this. If you have any suggestions, please send them to jmead@bowdoin.edu.
Miscellaneous I have also had some requests for things to not say. Of course, these are not rules or universal opinions, but out of deference to those who asked that their voices be included in this column, I will make note of them. “Pussy” came up frequently. Certainly divisive. Maybe check with your partner before referring to her vagina as a “pussy.” A lot of people aren’t into it. Same goes for “tits.” Referring to oral sex as “eating out” always makes me think of going to a restaurant. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not think about The Cheesecake Factory during sexy time. I much prefer the gender-neutral alternative, “go down on.” If you’re feeling a little bold, there’s “Australian kissing,” which is “French kissing, but down under.”
“Do you want this?” And when in doubt, questions like “Do you want this?” and “Is this OK?” go a long way. Also, I’ll plug, “Do you want to have sex?” That’s an important thing to not beat around the bush about. (Get it, bush?)
If y’all are feeling like I’m being all language police-y, think of it as an invitation. Maybe you think everything I’ve said is silly and you’re totally comfortable with “doggy style.” That’s great! Maybe not, but you think my alternatives are goofy (they are), and then you can talk and think and come up with new ones. Talking about talking about sex is important, but if we’re going to do it, let’s fill in the gaps.

Left of lipstick

I’m caucusing for Bernie because he’s the one who shares my values

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Julia Mead

Columnist

March 4, 2016

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about my column title. I don’t very often, but I did choose it for a reason. “Left” means Left politics: redistribution of wealth and privileging the interests of labor over those of capital. Basically, I’m a socialist. “Lipstick” is about femininity. To be left of it is to critique it from a feminist perspective. This has turned into a lot of writing about reproduction and patriarchy.

So, given this two-pronged ideology and the fact that the primary is right around the corner (March 6!), who am I voting for?

I’m voting for Bernie. Are you surprised? Didn’t think so.

Who young women are voting for (or should be voting for) has been the subject of much chatter from public figures and think pieces recently. Some of it is insightful. Most of it is silly. There was Gloria Steinem’s much decontextualized comment on Bill Maher’s (insufferable, misogynistic) show about young women supporting Bernie because “that’s where the boys are” and Madeleine Albright’s comment that there is a “special place in hell for women who don’t support women.” Neither of these bothers me much. Both are far less antagonistic than the sound bites make them seem.

Also, it’s not really how I’m thinking about the election. What issues keep me up at night? Reproductive rights, definitely. The loss of access to abortion is happening right now for women across the country, and Hillary does have a stellar record on women’s health. But here’s what else keeps me up: climate change. If we don’t have a president who will push on climate, we’re—to put it delicately—fucked. Climate change is not an “opportunity to revamp American innovation” or some such nonsense, it’s a lethal catastrophe and a moral failing, most strongly affecting people of color. It is caused by the fossil fuel industry and is unfolding in real time. Bernie knows this, but Hillary has had to be pushed into a reasonable climate policy by hardworking organizers. On racial justice, too, Bernie is stronger. And on taxation, on campaign finance reform and funding education.

These are issues that affect young people, and generational solidarity matters.
For a while we were amped up about Bernie Bros. (Is that fading? I hope that’s fading.) The Bernie Bro is a fictive creature. Yes, sexism within the Left is real and long standing. The radical women’s movement of the late ’60s and ’70s was born out of the misogyny in the anti-Vietnam War and Civil Rights movements. But our weary fixation on the Bernie Bro overshadows the real reasons young people of all genders support Sanders. Unlike so many alleged “pragmatists,” we, young Sanders supporters, have internalized that deregulated capitalism leads to inequality that is unjust and unstable. A financial collapse like the one that happened in 2008 can, and probably will, happen again. We’re looking at our future seriously, and we’re scared.

I don’t think Bernie is starting a revolution. Running for office within an existing political structure is by definition not a revolution. I think Bernie’s claim, or more likely, his staff’s claim, of starting a revolution is goofy. I don’t need a revolution; I need a functioning, active government that will exercise its power for the good of its citizenry. Democratic socialism isn’t sexy, but it’s just.

If Hillary wins the primary—and I’m realistic enough to realize she probably will—I will eagerly vote for her. I’ll phone bank for her. I’ll canvas for her. Maybe I’ll even get a bumper sticker. Because, as Distinguished Lecturer Susan Faludi pointed out in her recent New York Times op-ed, were a Republican to be elected—any of them—the policies that are so important for women (not to mention people of color, immigrants and anyone outside of the highest tax brackets) would be eviscerated. We can’t afford that. But in the primary, I’m going to vote my conscience. I’m voting for Bernie.

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