So, To My...Hair

Watching the recent Senate confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, I've noticed an particularly important distinction between her and many of her questioners. Most of the progressive world has fixated on the fact that she is Latina, and they are white males. They have also noticed that she is, in fact, female, whereas they are males of the species. These are important differences.

What I notice, though, is that most of the Senators...the men, that is, and that still means "most"...have silver or grey hair. Judge Sotomayor has lustrous raven locks. It's night and day, ebony and ivory, living together in perfect hairmony. I'm so, so sorry. My pending vacation has addled my brain.

Whether that comes from genetics or a product entitled "Lustrous Raven," it...err..highlights...the painful truth about women, power, and hair. To have power in our culture, women must be young, or give the appearance of youth.

We males are permitted to show signs of age. While the gut that I so carefully cultivate is not viewed quite so positively, the traces of white that are popping out in my beard are a different story. Those first streaks of salt in our hair...assuming we have the good fortune to still have hair...indicate maturity and wisdom. They are also, Grecian Formula's efforts to the contrary notwithstanding, a sign of social status. Men who color their hair are trying too hard to be young, and if they're trying to be young, they must not have achieved status now. Silverback human males are at the apogee of their power in the culture.

Women, on the other hand, must be young, because a woman's power in our society is radically defined by her sexuality/nubility. Every image that pours from magazines and screens reinforces this, and women, who tend to define themselves by social expectation even more deeply than men, internalize this. They cannot be Georgia O'Keefe. They must be the Wonder Girls. Or at least Sarah Palin.

Age...the very thing that gives a woman wisdom and depth of knowledge...cannot be admitted. It must be hidden. Even women who have achieved positions of significant leadership feel the compulsion to carefully apply product. Why can't the Speaker of the House have her natural hair color? Why does the Secretary of State feel a societal obligation to wash that gray right out of her hair?

In large part, it's because a woman in our highly sexualized consumer culture is valued primarily by her ability to stir male desire. The depth of knowledge found in our grandmothers? Nah. We never see Grandma. We have Grandma stowed away in Soylente Greene Village, the Organic Retirement Community for FreeRange Seniors. The strong mature woman whose years have been filled with hard-earned wisdom about life and work and the world? She creeps us out, because she's all old and, like, nott hott and stuffz, ewwww.

Way I figure it, America will be ready for a woman as president when we've somehow managed to work this sickness out of our system. We don't appear to be there quite yet.

A Question of Diversity

With the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, I'm seriously stoked. Who'd have thought my 200-to-one bet would come in? I mean, dang. I had to argue a bit with my bookie about her cat's name, but Puddles Q. Puddleton still counts.

Given this potential new addition to the Supremes, there's a great deal of chatter in the media and the blogosphere about the role of diversity on the court. The whole event is highly charged, crackling with allegations on both sides of racial bias. Racism is, in the strange spin calculus of America's binary political system, the primary charge being leveled against Sotomayor by her opponents. Given the rather tenuous and troubled linkage between the conservative movement and Latino culture, this seems a rather foolish approach. The most effective counterspin seems pretty straightforward: "So she's proud of her culture and her heritage, and that makes her racist? Being proud to be a Latina makes you racist?" I guess the Latina vote in Florida and Texas just aren't important any more. The GOP seems so deafened by the din in it's increasingly small echo-chamber that it's walking right into that one.

The charges that she's an "intellectual lightweight" aren't going to help them much either. So...she's a Latina, ergo she could only have gotten where she is with the help of bleeding heart liberals, ergo she must be una muchacha estúpida. Again, I'm not sure that conservatives grasp the whole concept of getting la gente to vote for your candidates.

The piece that most interests me in this whole media maelstrom, though, is the rather odd spin this puts on the religious makeup of the Court. If Sotomayor is confirmed, the Supreme Court will have a Catholic supermajority. Of the nine justices, six will be Catholic, two Jewish, and one Protestant. This little oddment hasn't really made it past the radar of the faith-blogosphere into the broader media, but it's interesting. There was a time when the idea of having a Catholic in a position of leadership was a radical thing. Now, people seem utterly unphased by the idea that one of the three branches of government...the one in which people have lifelong appointments....is two-thirds Catholic in a nation that is majority Protestant.

As my tinfoil hat is quite effective in keeping the transmissions from the Illuminati at bay, I don't worry too much about some great Catholic conspiracy to take over the nation. What I do find myself wondering is what factors have lead to this seemingly random and utterly disproportionate weighting.

This seems mostly a construct of interesting dynamics within the conservative movement. Given that two of the last three administrations have been conservative, and that the conservative wing of the Court (Roberts/Scalia/Alito/Thomas) is entirely Catholic, I find myself wondering: is there something about conservative Protestants that makes them steer away from careers in law and government?

In stark contrast to the vigorous intellectual life that is encouraged in certain quarters of the Catholic church and Catholic systems of education, the American evangelical movement has been typically charged with a strong anti-intellectualism, favoring instead an emotive approach to faith. I'm not sure that this is all that is at work here, as within fundamentalism in particular the life of the mind can be surprisingly active. It is constrained within presuppositions about Biblical inerrancy, sure. But it's amazing how much intellectual capital one can expend defending that worldview.

What I think is more significant is the conservative Protestant understanding of the role of the state. Moving in step with cultural conservatism, the evangelical movement has woven into itself a deep distrust of government and the federal government in particular. This doesn't mean that evangelical Conservative Protestants are averse to practicing law. Some of the most intensely fundamentalist souls I've interacted with have been lawyers. Folks who get off on the structures of the law can find the legalism of a literalist faith deeply affirming. Even Jesus noted that tendency on occasion.

But given the deep distrust of government that defines Protestant conservatism, finding evangelicals whose calling is to federal civil service might be something of a challenge.