Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, Foreskin Man, Vulva Girl and the Two-Thirds of My Freshman Composition Class Who Are Failing Right Now

You know that feeling when there is so much going on, so much you have to do, so many different threads that you need to keep weaving together, or balls in the air that you can’t let drop, or spinning plates that you have to keep spinning, that you can’t make room in your head for a single, small, even the smallest, coherent thought to settle? Well, that’s been me these past couple of weeks. I’ve wanted to write about Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky and that whole infuriatingly shameful debacle, but I haven’t been able to feel anything other than enraged, haven’t been able to articulate a response other than wanting to take the world by the scruff of the neck and rub its nose in the rape Sandusky committed, that Paterno and so many, all too many, others conspired to cover up. And it doesn’t matter whether the cover-up was by commission or omission; it’s still a fucking cover-up; and it is part and parcel of the much larger cover-up that continues to obscure the scope and the consequences of the sexual abuse of boys that takes place very day all over the world.

I have wanted to write about that, and I have wanted to write yet one more time about Foreskin Man, which I have posted on before, because I am wide-eyed incredulous at the fact that Matthew Hess was unable to come up with a more imaginative female counterpart for Foreskin Man–because all Supermen need their Supergirls, right?–than Vulva Girl, whose picture I just have to show you:

And here is how Hess describes her:

With the Siri Amulet as he energy source, Vulva Girl harnesses the supernatural powers of flight and psychokinesis to battle female genital mutilation.

As she soars across the jungles of Africa, girls celebrate her victories over the bloodthirsty circumcisers who prey on their fragile innocence. After centuries of suffering, their intactivist superheroine has finally arrived.

As quoted in “Foreskin Man, Meet Vulva Girl,” by Jonah Lowenfeld on JewishJournalism.com, Hess states that his goal in introducing Vulva Girl is to equate

the surgeries performed on boys and girls… I think everyone has met at least one person who believes that circumcising girls should be a crime, but circumcising boys is okay[.] The idea behind Foreskin Man #3 is to expose that double standard and help persuade readers that male and female circumcision are really two sides of the same coin.

That statement, of course, is problematic on its face and it completely obscures all kinds of problems inherent in the character of Vulva Girl, starting with the fact that she is certainly not a girl, and it doesn’t matter to me that calling her Vulva Girl is in the long tradition of Supergirl, Batgirl, Wondergirl or whatever. The names Foreskin Man and Vulva Girl, just placed side by side like that because they work as a team, recapitulates a whole string of patriarchal, sexist notions that do more harm than good, it seems to me, even if they are being deployed in the interests of ending female genital mutilation and routine infant penile circumcision. Not to mention the racism implicit in how she is described: the jungles of Africa? bloodthirsty circumcisers? But even that whole discussion, and it is a discussion worth having, has been crowded out of my head, leaving just enough room to tell you about, first, the trailer for Foreskin Man #3, which begins with the words, “The hate us because we are blond” and needs, I think, no other comment:

And, second, the Foreskin Man Song, the lyrics of which, I am afraid, speak similarly for themselves:

Mmmm ooohhhh

While you’re out saving boys from the knife
I can’t help feeling lonely in my life
I know it’s a calling that must be answered
They’re not the only ones who need to be pampered

I get relief knowing you put cutters away
But a girl still needs time for foreplay
When the doc and mohel are behind bars
Let me help you forget about those scars

Foreskin Man, I need your lovin’ tonight
It’s the only thing that makes me feel right
Foreskin Man, I want that slip and slide
Won’t you please come glide inside?

Foreskin Man, I miss your gentle caress
My body cries for you, I do confess
Foreskin Man, visit my balcony
Being gone this long is a felony

I’ll cheer for you on tonight’s news
When they talk about your latest rescues
And while my heart aches for a rendezvous
I trust you’ll return when my time is due

These lyrics truly left me speechless, and I know this is a terrible segue, but that speechlessness felt to me not so different from the speechlessness I experienced grading papers earlier today. I am not going to quote for you from my students’ work, but suffice it to say that a lot of it did not reach the caliber of this writing; and so I am left feeling utterly depressed. I just checked my grade book and fully 2/3 of one of my freshman composition classes is failing, most of them simply because they have elected not to hand in work that was due. It is, of course, entirely possible that they would be failing even if they had handed in that work, but I have no way of knowing that. What’s even more depressing is that they have all received a warning email from me and not one of them has bothered to come talk to me. And so tomorrow I will not be teaching. I will be telling the students who are not failing that they have the day off so that I can speak one by one with the students who are failing. I am not looking forward to those discussions.
Cross-posted.

This entry posted in Africa, Anti-Semitism, Education, Gender and the Body, Jews and Judaism, Rape, intimate violence, & related issues. Bookmark the permalink. 

27 Responses to Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, Foreskin Man, Vulva Girl and the Two-Thirds of My Freshman Composition Class Who Are Failing Right Now

  1. 1
    Elusis says:

    Shouldn’t it be… Foreskin Boy and Vulva Woman?

  2. 2
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Vulva Girl is a girl! She’s just a very… mature girl.

    I can’t bring myself to read the comics, but I did note the mention of “trafficking in infant foreskins.” (discussed on the page here, with reference to yet another very mature girl: http://www.foreskinman.com/auroratattington.htm)

    Has anyone forced themselves to read this? What are the trafficked foreskins USED for?

  3. 3
    Seth Gordon says:

    @gin-and-whiskey: They get sewn together into a wallet which, if you rub it, turns into a suitcase.

  4. 4
    Jen says:

    My pal the cancer biologist used to use infant foreskins a lot (she worked in a lab associated with a hospital). I forget why exactly–the infant foreskins had some particular kind of cells that were really useful for cancer study.

  5. 5
    Babylon Bike-a-thon says:

    @gin-and-whiskey:
    Among other things, hospitals regularly sell foreskins to be used in high-quality skin creams. And they can also be used to generate skin cells for use in skin grafts. I was under the impression that foreskins were used to generate skin cells for use in the “skin cell gun,” which is one of the more interesting medical advances I’ve seen lately if you weren’t already aware of it. I could be full of shit on that count, though, and a google search didn’t produce anything substantial to support that claim.

    NSFW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin#Foreskin-based_medical_and_consumer_products

  6. 6
    iamnotanoctopus says:

    Why not call her Woman Hood? It’s punny, references the clitoris, AND doesn’t infantilize the character. (This is one of those things that makes me feel clever and stupid at the same time, by the way.)

  7. 7
    RonF says:

    And so tomorrow I will not be teaching. I will be telling the students who are not failing that they have the day off so that I can speak one by one with the students who are failing. I am not looking forward to those discussions.

    Kudos to you for actually giving a shit. Seriously. Guess what? Most of those kids will not respond. But there’s going to be a few that just needed that personal contact to get moving, to overcome fear or apathy or whatever is blocking them. Those are your victories. Cherish them. Celebrate your victories. You need them as much as they do.

    That’s not a two-sided coin, BTW. The others are not defeats. You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped.

    And be prepared, as I’m sure you’re already aware, to hear about a whole lot of things that have nothing to do with English Comp.

  8. 8
    Momsomniac says:

    Okay, I am hugely anti-circumcision all the way around, but it seems to me that if he wants to equate the 2 procedures, then there ought to be a focus on the largely white US population still insisting it makes boys “normal”, right? In other words, bloodthirsty Africans…my tatto’d arse.

    I couldn’t bring myself to read any of this.

    Regarding Joe Paterno – college football has long been a haven for rapists. I wish I could say I was stunned that it went this far before anyone said ANYTHING, but I am not. I am not sure where I’d be if anyone did this to my sons…but I probably would not be able to comment on a blog.

    *sorry* randomish enraged comments/enraged thoughts

    I just remembered why I don’t visit your blog often. It’s very good, but leaves me wanting to scream and weep all at once. I often just can’t handle it. I don’t know how you keep it up.

    Blessings to you and good luck with your students.

  9. 9
    Jeff says:

    I have been that student who was failing because I was not turning in any work. And for me it was because I was only in college because my parents insisted I go there and I was deeply, deeply depressed at the time. This led me to do things I regret tot his day like stay in classes and not do the work instead of dropping them.

  10. 10
    Susan says:

    Just remember that learning is a two-way effort, and just as you cannot (so far as we know) teach anything to someone who is in a coma, you cannot teach these kids anything without their cooperation. Which in many cases you don’t have.

    You are making a valiant effort, for which you deserve all due credit. Try to keep your spirits up, and focus on the successes, not on the failures.

  11. Ron, Susan, Jeff–

    Thanks for the support. I will be having the same conversation in a couple of hours with my other Freshman Comp class, and with one of my technical writing sections next week. This is, of course, not the first time that I’ve had to do this, but I am astonished each time at how many of the students who are failing seem, or at least respond as if they are, absolutely clueless about their status in the class. As if the F’s and D’s they’ve gotten on the assignments they’ve handed me so far have not even registered. It’s also quite said how may students–and I am speaking collectively here, over the course of years–have said to me that they just hadn’t realized how hard college would be and that they are grateful that, at last, someone has taken the time to talk to them frankly about their performance, their work, etc. I don’t always believe that I am the first–though I sometimes do–but I do wonder at how many of them seem to have been able to escape the consequences of being held fully accountable for their work.

    My policy at the midway point in the semester is to offer them a W (withdrawal) form the course if they let me know within two or three days of our conversation–especially since they are freshman and may indeed have been a little shell shocked at what being in college would mean, I want to give them a chance to start fresh next semester. If they decide to stay in the class, convinced they will be able to bring their grade up–and some are successful at that–then I tell them I will not give them a W at the end of the semester if they are still failing. They will at that point have to take the F they have earned.

    Still, the conversations are emotionally and psychologically draining and I marvel sometimes at how much I manage to like my job in spite of stretches like this.

  12. 12
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Good luck.

    I’m fascinated to hear a report of what happens. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you talked about many students having trouble. But 2/3 failing seems extraordinary.

    Do you have an odd class? Are these same students failing other classes? It doesn’t sound like this happens in most classes as you’ve never mentioned it before; have you figured out what’s so different about this one? This seems like the sort of thing that can easily be related to entirely unrelated factors, like a change in scheduling etc. Out of sheer nosiness, I’m curious as heck.

    “I do wonder at how many of them seem to have been able to escape the consequences of being held fully accountable for their work.”
    Helloooo, NCLB! This is absolutely not your fault; when failing isn’t allowed by the government then nobody can fail, and when failure doesn’t exist then accountability sorta goes by the wayside. It’s truly unfortunate that they have to learn it in college. But it’s fortunate they they ARE learning it in college, from you, and that you’re not just joining the social promotion club. (It’s also unusual that your admin will allow failure rates that high. No admin pressure to pass them? Amazing!)

    But I am *so* saving this quote for our next union argument. :)

  13. 13
    Mina says:

    I am a student and this quote was really interesting to me. I hate studying but I am studying hard now. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know why I am studying for. What I know is studying makes human developed and stronger. Thank you for sharing it.
    By the way this is new blog about social justice! Please check this out!!
    http://wtfcsusm.wordpress.com/page/2/

  14. G&W:

    I don’t know that it’s an odd class–actually two odd classes; in my other composition class 50% have an F as of today–but sometimes this happens. Personally, I think it is a combination of the “luck” of the draw in terms of which students ended up in my class and of classes overloaded by a little more than 15% or so (the result of budget cuts and teacher firings), which makes it hard to pay as much attention to students as I would like. As to what happens, we’ll see. My guess is that most of them will elect to stay in the class, some because, in truth, work that I have not yet graded will resolve their F’s and they have shown real evidence that they can turn their grades around; some because they are in denial and refuse to accept that it’s okay to admit they fucked up this semester, take the W and start fresh in the spring; and some because other constraints–financial aid or something like that–make taking a W more trouble than it’s worth.

    Regarding our next union argument, well, all I can say is that in my union faculty have been fired for not doing their jobs and, if it’s before they get tenure, it’s the people in the union who do the work of getting them fired–but that is for another subject and another thread. And about this:

    (It’s also unusual that your admin will allow failure rates that high. No admin pressure to pass them? Amazing!)

    One of the benefits of tenure is that even if the administration did want to put pressure on me to change my pass/fail ratio, there’s nothing they could do to force me to do it. They would have to change those grades themselves.

    And there is a situation at the college now, one that does not involve classroom instruction per se, but does involve how students get placed into freshman comp, in which the administration has made a huge blunder–one that will certainly result in students being placed into credit bearing courses who don’t belong there–and they are trying to pass the responsibility and the consequences on to the faculty; and it is only because the faculty member in charge of placement has tenure that she is able to stand up to them and not let them do it. But that, too, is the subject of another post, one that I might write once the entire situation has played itself out.

  15. 15
    RonF says:

    G&W:

    Helloooo, NCLB! This is absolutely not your fault; when failing isn’t allowed by the government then nobody can fail, and when failure doesn’t exist then accountability sorta goes by the wayside.

    I don’t understand this. What part of NCLB causes the government to prevent children from failing classes?

    In my school districts (elementary and high school are separate districts) the biggest issue with kids failing is that a teacher or administrator is likely to get an enraged parent in their face proclaiming that their child doesn’t deserve a failing grade, that such a grade must be the fault of the teacher and demanding that it be changed. We don’t have helicopter parents – we have gunship parents.

  16. 16
    Ruchama says:

    I think the most frustrating student conference I’ve had was when a crying student came in with a test that she’d gotten an F on, and kept insisting, through her tears, “But I’m a good student! I don’t fail!” I tried going over the correct answers with her, but that wasn’t what she wanted. I tried discussing other classes she could take, but that wasn’t what she wanted either. She just wanted me to agree that she was a good student, and that good students don’t get Fs, and thus change her grade.

  17. Ruchama:

    In my experience, the students who take that attitude tend to be honors students.

  18. 18
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    RonF says:
    November 16, 2011 at 6:47 am
    I don’t understand this. What part of NCLB causes the government to prevent children from failing classes?

    The NCLB attempts to work around the normal distribution of skill/intelligence/ability/etc., by attempting to eliminate the bottom half of the curve. (It’s a little like lake wobegon, where everyone is above average.) The practical effect of NCLB is that failing students is anathema, since failing a student is taken as evidence of leaving a child behind. And also, since everyone is mandated by NCLB to line up to avoid failure and to preferentially assist students who fall behind the curve, the practical effect of NCLB is to eliminate the majority of consequences of failure.

    If RJN were bound by NCLB, the question wouldn’t be “what is the matter with the students,” it would be “what is the matter with RJN and why is he allowing those students to fail..”

  19. 19
    Dianne says:

    Why not call her Woman Hood?

    I am a bad person. Not only did I giggle at this idea, I had an instant vision of the character. She doesn’t look anything like Vulva Girl. Much less skin showing and far more scary. Her costume includes a hood. Woe be to ye who touch her hood…

  20. Dianne,

    I also giggled, and your character description makes me think of Raven–right? isn’t she the one in the purple hood and cape?–from Teen Titans.

  21. 21
    Angiportus says:

    Have your students write new adventures for Foreskin Man and Woman Hood.

  22. 22
    Dianne says:

    @RJN: Raven’s not a character I (consciously) know so I looked up the image…It actually wasn’t what I was thinking. I was thinking more along the lines of a monk’s robe, something covering the entire body with a hood that shadows the face so that most of the time you can’t see it at all. Though I see the character’s face as actually nothing special: neither blindingly beautiful nor incredibly ugly nor any combination (i.e. beautiful with a hideous scar)…just ordinary.

  23. Dianne,

    I am not sure which Raven images you looked at, but the one from the Teen Titans cartoons, which is of a young Raven, whom they sometimes show in pictures like this is what I was thinking of.

  24. 24
    Angiportus says:

    And, you know, the face under the hood doesn’t have to be white…

  25. 25
    Angiportus says:

    …and what character, dressed how, is going to defend all the intersex babies from being mutilated?

  26. 26
    Dianne says:

    And, you know, the face under the hood doesn’t have to be white…

    Personally, I was picturing someone of mixed race and ambiguous phenotype, i.e. who could “pass” for white, black, or Hispanic depending on behavior, context and assumptions.

    …and what character, dressed how, is going to defend all the intersex babies from being mutilated?

    Possibly hopelessly naive and/or out of date, but I thought standard practice was not to alter the genitalia of children born with ambiguous genitalia because it’s hard to know which gender they’ll identify as later in life (if any) and you could make a big mess for them later on.

  27. 27
    RonF says:

    The NCLB attempts to work around the normal distribution of skill/intelligence/ability/etc., by attempting to eliminate the bottom half of the curve. (It’s a little like lake wobegon, where everyone is above average.)

    This sounds like you presume that the bottom tail of the curve is automatically failing. If you set absolute standards for what comprises success and failure, you can both still have a normal distribution curve and not fail people by improving results to the effect that the curve now centers in the “B” range instead of the “C” range. Now the kids who would fail get “D”s instead of “F”s.

    Of course you can also get this result by lowering standards, altering test scores after the fact, etc., and therein lies the problem.

    The practical effect of NCLB is that failing students is anathema, since failing a student is taken as evidence of leaving a child behind. And also, since everyone is mandated by NCLB to line up to avoid failure and to preferentially assist students who fall behind the curve, the practical effect of NCLB is to eliminate the majority of consequences of failure. If RJN were bound by NCLB, the question wouldn’t be “what is the matter with the students,” it would be “what is the matter with RJN and why is he allowing those students to fail..”

    Yeah, well, as the old cliche says, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.