I wonder how many hands have touched that bark. The tree is right beside the trail, so maybe a lot. But then, there are a lot of redwoods in the park, and the trail is wide, so maybe not so many.

A little context, first. Slate ran an article last week about dress codes. Also, a few days ago, a friend of mine reblogged this Tumblr post, which is, as things are usually defined, NSFW. (Whether or not such images ought to be considered safe for the workplace is a topic for another day.) These two items don't directly relate to one another, but both have to do with the concept of enforced modesty.

In case it is not clear from the title of this post, I do not support enforced modesty.

Here are some things that I believe that ought to be fairly non-controversial from a feminist standpoint:

• A woman is entitled to wear whatever she wants. There is some wiggle here with respect to the legality of public nudity, but at the very least, women ought to be allowed to be as clothed or unclothed as men are allowed to be.
  
• Regardless of what a woman is wearing, it is my obligation to be respectful and treat her like a human being in any and all interactions I have with her, not like a sex object.
• Regardless of what a woman is wearing, my actions are my own responsibility. As a man, I am, frankly, offended by the notion that men are incapable of controlling themselves around an unclothed woman.
  
• No one facet of a person's appearance or behavior can give a complete picture about that person, and it is very easy to be wrong when ascribing motivations to other people. Thus, no solid conclusions can be drawn about the amount of self-respect a particular woman has based solely on the way she dresses.

However, I also know that we live in a society that consistently broadcasts the message that the sole or most important qualities a woman has are her appearance and sexuality. You can see this in the kinds of stories we tell in our mass media. You can see it in the way advertising markets to both men and women. You can see it in the way we talk about our celebrities. You can see it in the kinds of articles that fill major women's magazines.

(For whatever reason, the publisher of Self magazine sent us a free copy last month. Flipping through it, it might as well be called "Your Only Purposes In Life Are to Be Pretty and Attract a Man" magazine. That it's actually called "Self" magazine was deeply troubling to me. I asked Juliette if we could please not keep magazines like that around the house when Eva is old enough to read or recognize what's going on in the pictures.)

Given how pervasive and powerful this message is, I think that most women who dress in certain particular styles are doing so in order to attract a certain type of male attention and, further, that the reason they are trying to attract that male attention is because they feel that beauty and sexuality are their most important qualities. This isn't based on any study that I've read. I don't have any numbers to back this up. It is, if we're being generous, an educated guess.

I'm very ambivalent about what this all means, though. In general, I don't treat a woman differently if she is dressed provocatively. I neither ogle nor chide. But I also don't really approve.

Of course, my approval is neither here nor there for most of the women of the world, and furthermore, I'd be way out of line for me to say anything on the matter. When it comes to my daughter, though, I'm not sure.

I wrote a piece last year about the mental struggle I have with this idea, and in responses online and off, I had women of many different sociopolitical viewpoints tell me that I should quit worrying about it, and that it's OK for me to set standards for both of my kids. Nevertheless, I worry both about the morality of telling a girl what she can wear and the practical effects of paying too much attention to her appearance.

What I've settled on—albeit uncomfortably—is that I will continue to tell my daughter that she's cute and pretty, but that I'll also tell her that she's smart, strong, funny, helpful, kind, honest, or any other adjective that applies. And that I can set reasonable standards for her dress that neither require her to wear a burqa but might, for example, require that her skirts cover her entire bottom, at least until she's an adult—once she goes off to college, if she wants to, say, go to a Pimps 'n Hoes Ball (that is actually a thing) then it'll be up to her to figure out what that means to her. And it'll be on me to make her know that she can make her own choices without changing my opinion of her.

That seems like a perfectly reasonable and non-sexist stance to take, to me. But I still can't help feeling like there's something wrong with a man telling a woman or girl how she can dress.

Children acting like adults is cute and another huge photographic cliche. What strikes me about this picture is not the phone—well, not just the phone—but her gesture and expression and body language. She fits right in with her mom and aunt.

Looking up into a tree and taking pictures may be one of the most canonical photographic cliches. It's fun to engage in cliches sometimes, though.

It was cold in the shade of the trees as we walked, even though it was a bright and sunny day. I miss forests sometimes.

I've been thinking a lot over the past few days about what it means to be a good man, whether that is something I can legitimately call myself, and who gets to decide.

Juliette thinks I'm being ridiculous. "You're so good," she said to me, "and it's crazy that you're letting this get to you so much."

The "this" that she's referring to is that someone told me over the weekend that I'm sexist. It turned out that this person's opinion of me was based in large part (though perhaps not entirely) on a misunderstanding we'd had several years ago, one which was my fault. I apologized and tried to explain better, and as far as I know we've now reconciled and have agreed to let bygones be bygones. Still, it's been eating at me ever since.

A man protesting that he's not sexist after an accusation of such always sounds to me a lot like my son when we tell him that he's acting like he's tired—no matter how strenuous his objections, it's usually not long before he nods off. He's sincere and honest in his objection, but he just doesn't have the perspective to know. I don't believe that I'm sexist, and I do believe that I'm a good man. I don't know how to prove that to someone who claims I'm not, though, and I suspect that the reason it bothers me so much is because I worry that they're right.

I was raised by a single mother, who is one of the strongest and most hard-working people I've ever known, and who is, more than any other single person, responsible for who I am today. I'm the husband of an amazing and intelligent woman who, among other things, has more academic honors and advanced degrees than I'm likely to ever have. I'm the father of a daughter who I want to grow up to be an empowered and confident woman, who I never want to be kept from accomplishing something because of her gender. I'm also the father of a son who I want to grow up to be a respectful and fair-minded man. It's important to me that I live up to my responsibilities to them all.

I think about sexism a lot, both in the context of society at large and my own behaviors and attitudes. There are a lot of things about the treatment of women about which I am outraged and offended. I know for certain that I am not a pig—that if I am sexist, it is not obvious. But it doesn't have to be obvious. I find that I don't always agree with the conclusions of feminist analyses that I read, or that I come away with more questions than answers. I tell myself that being a man doesn't invalidate my perspective, that it's good to be balanced, that I do not believe in intellectual orthodoxy, or in limiting the rights of people to hold opinions or engage in discussions. But maybe I only think that because, as a man, I'm used to a certain privilege. Maybe I am, underneath a veneer of enlightened manhood, actually the kind of asshole that I want not to be.

So I'd like to take the opportunity to use this space to explore some of my attitudes and beliefs about women, feminism, and sexism. Over the next few weeks or months I'm going to take a look at the subtleties and details, the things that aren't obvious. I'll try to explain my point of view, and ask the questions that I can't resolve for myself. You can feel free to join in via the comments—ask your own questions, give your answers to mine, express your support, or tell me how and why I'm wrong. All I ask is that we keep it civil.

This might be a terrible idea, and I'm more than a little nervous about what I might find out about myself. But I think it's important for me to do this, because I want to be a good man, and if I'm not, I need to know.

We took a walk in the state park on Sunday. Jason asked me to take a picture of him and his uncle standing inside the shell of a burned-out redwood. There was something striking about the contrast of vibrant youth in the foreground and blackened ash in the background. Plus it was very cute. This isn't that picture.

We had a quick weekend away, back home to visit Juliette's family. It sure is pretty up there.

I've been feeling an urge to do something different lately. Well, this is different.

I'm actually very frustrated with this picture. For whatever reason, I can't get Lightroom to play nicely with it—it looks great in the Develop module but crappy in the Library module, and when I export it. In order to get it to look the way I wanted, I had to keep it in the Develop module and then take a screenshot, which looks OK on a screen but doesn't have enough resolution to print very large.

Ah well. So it goes.

I read the first book of Naomi Novik's Temeraire series last spring, and as I noted in my very brief review it was a lot of fun. As regular readers of this site will know, I have soft spots for both fantasy and Napoleonic-era British historical fiction, so the combination of the two would be right up my alley—indeed, I can only think of one other book that falls into both categories, and I gave it a positive review, too. In any event, I'd been meaning to return to Novik's series, so after Christmas when I had some spare cash, I picked up the second and third books. I liked those so much that I went ahead and bought the remaining four, and tore through all six in just over three weeks.

The series imagines an alternate version of the Napoleonic Wars in which dragons are real, and the major world powers all have aerial corps made up of dragons and their aviator crews. It is, I suppose, sort of a silly concept, but it's an extraordinarily entertaining one, too. Over the course of the seven books, we follow the adventures of Captain William Laurence and his dragon companion, Temeraire, through war, diplomacy, intrigue, and exploration across five continents and even more cultures. There's action, of course, and the old-fashioned style was spot-on for me. But more than that, I found myself quite drawn in by the ways in which Novik explored the different facets of how life and history would be different if there were a second sentient species, and I found her alternate universe to be interesting and well-realized.

It's not serious or weighty "literature," but I found the Temeraire series thoroughly enjoyable, and if a light, fantastic adventure is your idea of a good time, I recommend it.

(Series comprises His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, Empire of Ivory, Victory of Eagles, Tongues of Serpents, and Crucible of Gold. Read 1/8/13 - 2/1/13.)