Reportage

I'm in a bit of a pickle. Last night, I got a cab home. I already was bristling at the driver's assumption that no one really wants to live in NYC "except for the money." Apparently we all want to live in the suburbs. I said I could understand that (highly magnanimous of me, you'll doubtlessly agree) but I liked culture - theatres, independent movies, concerts - things not so easy to get in the 'burbs. But yes, parts are beautiful.

Then, when I got home, the exchange of money took place, I took the receipt, and then our verbal exchange went thus:

Him: This is a dangeous neighbourhood.
Me (not really listening): What do you mean?
Him: All those people loitering about. It's dangerous.
Me (looking around): Which people, where? What do you mean?
Him: Those.
He nodded at a group of about 6 teenagers at the side of my building's entrance.
Me: What them? They're kids from my building. They're nice. They're always friendly and holding the door open for me and everything.
He didn't respond.
I got out of the taxi.

Honestly, the more I think about this, the more fuming I am. He didn't say anything overt, as you can see, but I'm fairly sure his comments were racially motivated, and he wouldn't have said anything of the sort were the kids white - although maybe if they were wearing hoodies etc (the evil hoodie being the equivalent of 666 branded onto your forehead these days), he might have come out with the same.

What bothers me further is the underlying assumption that kids on the street are trouble, full stop. My neighbourhood is not rich and, like most places in NYC, kids don't have any real space of their own; they certainly don't have gardens to play in, or any coffee shops or places where they can just hang out with their mates, except for the street. What astounds me every time is that all ages hang out together - I've honestly never seen so many 18 year olds and 6 year olds playing peacefully together. There's no way I'd have done that when I was 18.

The kids are nice. They don't menace you with the ball, unlike horrible brats I've known in other places (or, indeed, the Columbia brats that menaced the homeless person, as viewed by WUB a few months ago). They stop playing to let you go past, open the door for you if your hands are full of shopping, and the kids that know me say hi. Yet someone like my cab driver sees kids on the street in the city at 9pm and that means a dangerous neighbourhood. In the 'burbs that's a "community," no doubt. I just can't bear them not being given a chance.

So the dilemma is: Do I report him for making what I think is an inappropriate comment on my neighbourhood - inappropriate for infringing on my personal choices (over which he has no right to comment - although that's a bit master-servant, no?) and for making a dubious assumption about the kids. The problem is, it won't fix anything. Still, the Taxi & Limousine Commission has an option to complain because the driver was "discourteous." I suppose that is the closest option I have... other than "fundamentally wrong and bigoted assumptions about passenger's neighbourhood."

Shop Talk

I was toying with the concept of blogging the Bar course I'm on. Not just its miseries, but its interesting points, things I'm learning about the Law that I just didn't know (it really is remarkable that after three years and nearly $120,000 in tuition just how much practical and useful stuff about which I do not have an inkling).

But, I decided, that's a tad self-indulgent, particularly as it'd be one post after another regarding my utter hatred of the situation and how hard it is for me to be somewhere by 8.30 every morning. Ugh.

Instead, it's another post about how NY Mag is pushing my buttons, and not in a good way. This week's edition had a major feature about the fallout from Spitzergate, and the large numbers of men that cheat on their wives. I need to re-read it, but the main argument was that current morality on monogamous marriages hasn't caught up with our evolving concepts of sexual morality - experimentation, acceptability of gay relationships, single motherhood, lack of marriage all together. It seemed to be some bloke basically saying he was too scared to tell his wife he wanted to sleep with other people, and he just couldn't help himself, so we should give him a green light. It's unrealistic to expect people to be faithful for life and it doesn't really hurt anyone, just like being gay or sleeping with people before marriage.

Unsurrisingly, there were a couple of things that I really took issue with that undercut what he's saying entirely.

First, the argument that infidelity causes no harm is simply not true physically, even if it's not true or arguable or we should change how we view it morally or emotionally. Syphilis rates increased 60% between 2001 and 2006 in the USA; as did chlamydia, and only gonorrhea dropped. HIV is the biggest killer of women of ages 15-44 in NYC. Given chlamydia's effects on fertility, this is clearly not a case of no effect or harm, necessarily, unless all the unfaithful people are using condoms, which somehow, I doubt... so he should have at least acknowledged that.

Second, he talks about all these poor husbands who aren't getting any sex from their wives, who have simply lost interest. Not once did he posit that perhaps the women are bored of their relationships, too. Not once did he suggest that maybe women's lack of sex drive could be connected to their husbands' failure to satisfy them or to keep them interested. Chances are, given statistics on infidelity, women are having affairs too. They too want someone to make them feel sexy, attractive, and to have sex that's exciting and new. But that didn't fit into this story about how Spitzer's decision to have sex with prostitutes could be explained by men trapped in sexless marriages.
Third and finally, as pointed out by the RH Reality Check podcast, having sex with prostitutes is NOT the same as having an affair. Yet this story conflated the two. Paying a person to have sex with you is not the same as establishing a relationship with someone else in order to have an affair, regardless of how fleeting that is. The only thing they have in common is that Dr. Laura will blame women for both.

The Ring Thing

Feministing's weekly reader had a link to this piece about one woman's reasons to not get married. It was pretty interesting; I always read these sorts of things, partly for solidarity and affirmation, I must confess.

Pressure to get married is really nothing I have experienced, at least not from people who vaguely know or love me. It tends to come from outsiders who don't know us, and just expect a couple of our longevity to be married. However, even then, the reactions have changed with the years, probably in part due to the length of our relationship - once you get beyond six years or so, people seem to get the message that you're probably not planning to get married. What seems to happen, however, is that people seem to assume that you've not really thought about this, that it's one person dragging her or his feet, or that you're just passing time.

To be honest with myself, I AM rejecting marriage; I can't pretend I'm neutral on it, because I'm not. I think it has too many gender role implications that I don't want to have to fight - I'm too busy being angry about and fighting against gender assumptions for women in general. And that starts with engagement rings and the talk of name change. If I think things are changing, then I get a bit of a reminder every now and then by many sources. For example, the Entertainment Tonight prat who was so overexcited by Eva Longoria's namechange; by Fox News using a commentator who equates anything Hillary Clinton says to some sort of domestic demand; or by Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Noodles* which just panders to this sort of bisected, quite frankly horrible-sounding marriage. Why would anyone want a relationship like that? Why wouldn't they want someone who is their partner, their equal? And that's when Bonnie's article sums it up for me:

[W]hile I know the word "married" would mean something to [Jeff's family], something tangible they could use when describing our life together, I can't do it. I am Jeff's partner, his friend and his lover, and he is mine. The terms "husband" and "wife" wouldn't even begin to describe our relationship.

If you do have a desire to get married, and it makes you happy, then more power to you. It's distinctly not my place to tell you what to do or why; that's a reciprocal thing, and I won't foist my anti-marriage feelings on you anymore than the other way round. But certainly don't bloody well do it because of stupid James Dobson and stupid Focus on the stupid Family.

* If you don't have a New Year's Resolution to be more masochistic, unlike Amanda Marcotte, you can read her discussion of this horrible, horrible thing at RH Reality Check's podcast transcript.