My own viewpoint, Michigan Daily reaction

Today, I came across an article on the online version of the Michigan Daily that I disagree with. 

Jeffrey McMahon begins by sharing his personal experiences with hook-up culture.  I think it’s really brave of him to share such personal experiences and perspectives via school-wide, internet-searchable newspaper. I think it’s wonderful that he shares his story, but that makes the next part of the article hurt more – he says “I know how it feels.”  He assumes that everybody else’s experiences are just like his.  He says it hurts him that women are “resigning to that lifestyle,” and he dismisses men who participate in hook-up culture as not “real men.”    He asks people to try to understand his experiences and then takes a 180 degree turn to let me as a reader know that he doesn't try to understand experiences that are different from his own.  Firstly, I don’t like it when people judge other women’s choices with regards to sexual choices.  If you can’t respect a woman who chooses to have sex, why would you respect my choice not to have sex?  I don’t want people to respect my choice because they agree with it, I want them to respect my choice because I am a human being and making choices about my sexuality is my right. Secondly, as a woman, I am very troubled when people try to define what makes someone a “real woman.”  I am a woman, and I don’t need you to tell me whether or not I’m real.  So his judgment on what a makes a "real man" irks me.  I think McMahon’s intention is to question people who use others and who dismiss commitment because they want instant gratification.  I don’t like the assumptions he uses to make that point.  Women should be able to wear what they want – even if it is “barely more than a bathing suit” – and behave how they want, without people thinking there’s something wrong with them.  Men should be able to make choices about their sex lives without being told they think women should be “possessed and used.”

Where I think McMahon really pushes his luck is when he says that women are “away from their homes and families and are now in our care,” implying that men on campus must take care of the women on campus.  I think this is an odd way of looking at it.   I backpacked Europe alone.  I flew to China alone.  I'm not saying nobody helped me.  But nobody was over my shoulder taking care of me the whole time, just as nobody is doing that now.  Men I have never met are not responsible for "taking care of me."      

McMahon’s following slippery slope assumes that men who participate in hook-up culture don’t respect or value women and that women who participate in hook-up culture do so because they have been abused or neglected by the male figures in their lives.  These assumptions sound like over-generalizations of the author’s personal experiences.  There are men who value women and have sex with them outside of committed relationships.  There are women who have sex outside of committed relationships whose parents were active and wonderful in their lives. 

McMahon then implies that if I don’t find “security, support, and comfort” in a man, I must search for it “here and there” and that I will be “ultimately left objectified and used.”  Well.  I guess he doesn't think I’m capable of holding down a secure job or getting support from my friends and family or finding comfort in my accomplishments.  Who doesn't value women now?

McMahon tells me I am “amazing and worthwhile” after that.  It’s nice of him to notice, but after what he just said, I don’t know if he really means it.  Especially because he calls me a “girl,” and follows it by telling what to do.  He tells me what to look for in a romantic partner, and what to wear.  I have never met McMahon before, but he assumes he knows what I want out of life AND that every woman on campus wants the same thing I do.  If McMahon actually cares about me, he can comment below and we can grab lunch and talk.  But if he isn't willing to get to know every woman on campus, his is in no position to give advice to them.  

Locke

“ Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut; and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in common with others; become my property, without the assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.”
 – John Locke, Two Treatises of Government

 My awesome econ class this semester just read Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, and we talked a lot about this passage – the turfs passage – because it’s been a heavily studied thing in economic history.  The big deal about it is the phrase “the turfs my servant has cut.”  Locke’s general idea of property is that, if you put work into something, and anybody else could have done it, than it is your property.  So if you plant an apple tree, it’s your apple tree, because anybody else could have planted an apple tree just as you did.  

So the turf’s passage causes many people to give an intellectual double take – it is easy to get that my horse’s grazing land is mine, and that if I dig ore it is mine – but I did not cut the turfs.  My servant cut the turfs.  So why is it my property and not my servants? Like I said, this causes many people to give an involuntary intellectual double take.  A little “what the hell” moment, if you will.  Locke’s point is that a person’s work creates his own property, so why is he saying that the fruits of one man’s labor are another man’s property?  This didn’t cause me to do an intellectual double take.  Look at language in which Locke writes – you can tell from the passage he likes to use personal pronouns.  He also likes to talk about “we” – he is including himself and his reader, although he may mean all of man when he says “we.”  Because he also likes to talk about man – man this and man that – to talk about the nature of . . . man.  And given when he was writing this, I am certain he was not using “man” as an all-inclusive and gender non-specific, as it is often used today.  His language and the time period in which he is writing make it clear to me that the fruits of my labor would not be counted in my property.  Just like the grass the servant cuts, the things that I create or achieve are the property of another.  The turf passage does not stand out to me because I do not stand out to Locke – it makes sense to me that he might consider the fruits of some people’s labor as a different person’s property because Locke has been telling me that this is the case the whole time.  

This is something I totally expect out of this class – these are not modern writings, and I do happen to know that history is not all hunky dory when it comes to the rights of women.  I’m actually really excited because my professor managed to get a female economist onto the reading list.   My point is just that all these feminist perspectives on things pop into my head and it’s totally awesome.