The Monster Under the Sink

I recently bought a fully furnished apartment here in Shanghai, China. I have throw pillows and plants and stocked toilet paper and feel like an ADULT!

Along with the all the fancy gizmos and gadgets (yes, stocked toilet paper just took it up a notch for me) I found a scale under the sink.

I am 24 years old and have never owned a scale. Until now.

I am so sorry, ladies and gentlemen. I had no idea what you were going through. All you normal people out there with a monster under your sink.

I stepped on a few days ago out of curiosity. Oh, surprise. I weighed about 7 or 8 pounds more than I had estimated. No problem, right? I was clueless before then. I was still beautiful, wonderful, adorable me-

Eh, maybe I should start eating a little bit less.

Oh, how quick the fall. This morning I stepped on again, saw that the number went down, and was happy.

Happy.

Kill me now. It took twice, TWICE, and my self-esteem was already trapped in a little tiny square with a number.

Now is the problem of disposing with the monster.

I won't use it again, I'll keep it just in case. What if I need to weigh my luggage one day? That is a legit concern. What about that giant bag of bananas I bought they said was one weight at the grocery store but they were really lying and it's better if I have this thing around to check just in case? What if someday my weight really does become a problem and I should start monitoring it and I should just keep this one so I don't have to buy a new one someday, right?

It's a monster. Like the monster book Harry Potter has to buy that runs under his bed and tries to eat him.

A google image reinterpretation, but that's pretty much what it looked like.

I apologize to all of you out there who have had this monster much longer than I have, and I could never quite understand how it was so difficult or made you so depressed. I get it now. It's terrible. And while I completely understand how hard it is to get rid of the thing (I still need to make the final move of taking out the trash, myself) please, please please do yourself a favor and dump it. Start a revolution. Ruin the scale business forever and ever. You don't need this crap in your life. 

Instead, invest in a sexy, comfortable pair of underwear that you can dance around in while making some french toast. That's what I'm doing today. 

Kill the monster guys. Kill it dead. 

Why "Abortion in the Case of Rape" is Not Good Enough

I grew up surrounded by pro-life conservatives. I even inadvertently attended one of those pro-life rallies, the kind where you put tape over your mouth to share in the silence of the innocent unborn.

At a women's conference at the United Nations, a particular pro-life group stood outside boycotting a Planned Parenthood meeting advocating education, and handed out pro-life goodie bags. Mine included a brochure on the evils of contraception and an actual tiny plastic fetus. It was pretty uncomfortable. Throwing away a plastic fetus felt pretty weird. Keeping it would have been even weirder.

I'm not bashing pro-lifers, though I suppose I am poking a bit of fun at some of the extremists. The truth is I was right there with them while I was growing up. This post is actually for the reasonable ones, many of whom are friends and family. The ones who say, "I'm against abortion, except in the case of rape."

"Against abortion except in the case of rape" shows empathy. I appreciate that. It demonstrates an understanding that being raped is mentally, physically and emotionally scarring, that having a child after such an experience would be extremely difficult, traumatizing. Thank you for understanding that, for putting yourself in someone else's shoes.

There's many of us who picture rape as some horrifying deed done by a stranger in a dark alley. I sure did. Growing up with rape culture (that's a whole different blog post to tackle, touched on here: Rape Culture, Or Everyday Life) it's all about walking safely, in groups, before dark, carrying mace. But ask any of the one in four college aged girls in the United States if it was a dark alley, and the majority would say no.

I spoke with one woman. She fell in love with a guy, one loved by everyone who knew him. When they finally had sex, she walked away from the experience covered with bruises, a vaginal infection, vaginal bleeding, and a busted lip.

Was it rape? By legal definition, no. There are some out there that might say, "why didn't you scream? Did you say no? Did you fight? Didn't you know this would happen?"

She's not the only one. The amount of women who endure traumatizing experiences by their boyfriends, people they know, people they are pretty sure they love- are we dismissing their case entirely because it doesn't line up with our black and white legal definitions?

If your empathy has taken you far enough to imagine a dark alley, please try to imagine a little further. Imagine that not all sexual experiences fit into a definition of "good" and "bad", that rape by someone you know is just as scarring, if not more, than by a stranger, that expectations and hopes and dreams are often dashed to the ground, and not necessarily in cut and dry ways defined by law. Imagine the enormity of human complexity, of love, of sex, of lust, of want, of broken hearts, of broken families, of broken children who grow up and break more children. Put that complexity in an 11 minute horrific encounter, and then hold it up to the law.

It does't measure up.

The pro-life, pro-choice debate has been going on forever, and I know better than to try to change anyone's mind. This post is also addressing only one of many facets of the abortion issue. But I am begging you to look outside the box, to see the mess and the complication, to stop discussing pros and cons in coffee shops and actually go out and start showing love to broken people in a pro-active way. I could care less what your political stance is. If you can possibly find a way to show love and respect to the women around you, to honor them, to validate their experiences, to listen rather than shouting opinions-

well, that would make me one happy feminist.


Want more facts? Check out 50 Actual Facts About Rape by Soraya Chemaly

It's All Relative

While Wendy Davis was standing up in her much-discussed pink sneakers in Texas, here in China it was just another day where abortions are 50 bucks a pop- and that's for a good one.

Some Americans are fighting for the right to be in control of how many children they have by being able to choose abortion as an option. In China, some are fighting for the same right, by being able to not choose abortion as an option.

"One is enough," A friend of mine nervously laughed as we talked about the one child policy over rice and green bean soup. Her friend disagreed. "They become too spoiled!" She said. Here I was, surrounded by women who had zero choice in what their family could look like or be. Abortion isn't an option here. It's a must.

The idea in China is having more than one child sucking resources and money would be selfish, greedy, wrong. In the United States, the pro-life idea is that mothers who choose abortion instead of raising a child are selfish, greedy, and wrong. How could a human being with thought choose a lower "moral" path instead of choosing the rights of the unborn? says one half of the world. How could a human being with thought choose to take and take from the rest of the people that need things so badly? says the other half.

Woman in Saudi Arabia are fighting the hijab rules. Women in France are fighting for the right to wear them. Women in the U.S. still fight against the glass ceiling and job competition, while women in Scandinavia fight for a longer mother's leave from work.

We cannot define feminism by what we are for or against in these kinds of issues. The woman in China wanting less abortion clinics is just as feminist as the woman outside of the Texas courthouse wanting abortion to be more available.  Same for the women all over the world, fighting on polar opposite sides for the same thing: freedom.

Being a feminist is about more choice, however that applies. Be a global feminist. Think about the big picture. Be aware that your political stance does not hold true all over the world, that cases are different, that humbleness and wisdom are required wherever there is change. Be willing to be wrong, to be right, to stand with sisters whose needs are different from yours. Don't forget about the men, our amazing feminist men who have just as much polarity in some of their issues as the women have. Listen. Discuss. Travel. Read. Stay out of the box, and you can change the world.

Nothing Tastes As Good As...

"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

Well, f*** you, Kate Moss. You know what tastes good? The football-sized burrito I just ate. The taste of laughter on a skype date with my family when I said I wanted to dig a hole from China to Argentina (that's where I would end up, if anyone was wondering.) The taste of sweaty awesome success when I check boxes off on my Insanity workout program and realize my biceps resemble those of Michelle Obama's.The taste of Chinese words rolling around on my tongue as I read a 9 line "hello, my name is" conversation out loud  after working my butt off for the past two months trying to learn these frustrating characters. THAT tastes pretty damn good.

How I feel after reading in Chinese for the first time

Right now, nothing tastes as good as trying something new. We're human. We want touch and hugs and love and closeness. But if those cozy, warm, intimate things aren't happening in your life right now, don't you dare feel sorry for yourself. It's not about filling a hole, it's about discovering who you are when you're alone. How much you sweat when you work out in your underwear in your living room. How good you sound when you belt out Moulin Rouge songs in the shower at full lung capacity. How sexy your ass looks in that mirror when you are dancing all by yourself.

Learn a new language. Sing a new song. Dance that two step as if your life depended on it. Watch movies, read books, listen to music that makes you cry. Buy that hat.

More than anything, look out for all the lonely people around you that haven't figured these secrets out yet. If you haven't found that one person to love yet, thank God. There are so many more people out there that need your attention right now. Be a good friend, a good daughter, a good sister, a good stranger to meet on the street. You're not the only lonely one out there, you know. Go forth and love, sistas. You'll get so much love back, you won't even know what to do with it, except to keep spreading it around like jelly on peanut butter. Nothing tastes as good as a love PB&J, anyway.


Want to learn a new language? Check out memrise.com
Want to learn how to dance? Grab a few drinks and play Just Dance. Trust me.
Want to be generally cool? Strike up a conversation with a stranger. Grandmas on the bus are especially good candidates. 

Smoke Follows Beauty

At a camp full of girls, we would gather around a fire every night to boil some kind of protein/carbohydrate mush and heat up some koolaid as we were in the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin. The common joke every time a girl would get smoke in her face from the cooking fire and start coughing up a lung was, "smoke follows beauty!"

A few days ago, I saw this incredible post of photography portraying models and their mothers, found here. Some are cuddling, others are standoffish, others could be perfect clones of each other. 

This one is by far my favorite:

Then there's more photos, like this one:

The photo shoot begs the questions, does smoke follow beauty? What is beauty, anyway?

There is a quote out there attributed to the beauty icon herself, Audrey Hepburn. It reads,

"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone."

I look at these photographs, and I see truly beautiful women. I also see women who lost the meaning of beauty somewhere along the way- mothers and daughters alike. I wonder, which mothers understand what beauty is, and what did they tell their daughters when they were growing up? Which ones made sacrifices for the right reasons, and which ones for the wrong ones? Are they proud of their daughters? Jealous? Are they still chasing the smoke of outward beauty, or does their strength of character shine through?

I look at the daughters as well, those who are proud of their mothers or embarrassed by them, those that want to be close or don't. What words passed between them? What glances? What hugs and kisses or lack thereof? If there's damage, can it be repaired? What will the daughters tell their own daughters some day?

We are human beings, built and formed by our relationships with one another, and the values we choose to accept or ignore. I honor the mothers out there that have encouraged their daughters to be confident, loving world-changers, values that will be passed down to their grandchildren and great grandchildren. The moms who defined beauty as more than how long your eyelashes are or the size of your thighs, and taught that it might have something to do with love and kindness. In the wise, wise words of a currently famous boy band,

"that's what makes you beautiful."

Wax On

Summer is approaching. I'm in a new city with new crazy friends, one of whom thought that getting waxed for the first time would be a blast before bikini season. While I can grumble all day about paying for pain, I'm always up for a new experience. 

We went to a rather popular little spa, where all the assistants spoke English. I have to say that was a plus, as my vagina vocabulary in Chinese is still nonexistent (don't worry, I'm putting flashcards aside for that particular language lesson). 

To be perfectly frank, I was terrified. Stripping hair off your body just never struck me as a good time. However, the plush pillows were a nice touch. It's hard to fear for your vagina's life when plush is involved.

While the experience overall was satisfactory (chocolate wax, seriously cool) and I only yelped once or twice, the handy dandy spa's vagina drawings to help you choose your "look" were, shall we say, hard to interpret.

"Please choose which one you would like." The assistant hands my friend and I a chart.

"Wait- is that broccoli?"

"It's supposed to be hair. Look, there's less broccoli on the xx option, and none on the triple x off option."

"Oh. Wait. I have broccoli on my vagina?? So what's the heart? Ooh..oh, I get it. Center view. I thought we were looking from the top."

"Yeah, heart's the middle, broccoli's all around.""

"I feel like teletubbies hang out here, in my broccoli-covered, heart-shaped vagina... I like the broccoli. xx it is."

As I said, overall satisfactory experience. They even gave us cups of tea after all was said and done. However, my vagina is not made of broccoli or hearts, or even unicorns and rainbows when the broccoli is all gone. It's still a vagina, and it's mine till death do us part. While I appreciate the posh experience and pampering my lady self, the clever ad pictured above still is a far cry from encouraging independent, vagina loving women. The ad reads, you are lagging a few billion years behind in evolution because your bikini line isn't perfect. I'd prefer a realistic, colorful, Andy Warhol lineup of hairy to non-hairy vaginas with a caption along the lines of:

Shave, or don't shave. 

Wax, or don't wax. 

Do whatever the frick you want. And do it for yourself. 

My Dulcinea

I bought a picture once off a man on top of a mountain in Mexico. It was on old yellowish paper and showed an old man on a horse, charging at a windmill with his spear. It's one of the items I always pack with me no matter where I go.

My love for Don Quixote started when a dear friend of mine gave me the Man of La Mancha soundtrack back in high school. I had been given a record player with no records, so this was the first one I received. It was old, it was scratched, and it was beautiful. I listened to the whole thing while knitting in my room and crying. Yeah, I knit and played records when I was sixteen. Be jealous.

I've always seen myself a little more manly on the inside than maybe most girls (see previous entries) but God Almighty, I wanted to be the next Quixote. If you want to know why, just watch this.

If a nine minute clip from the 70s was too much for you, I'll explain. Don Quixote was a man who read so many books about being a hero, he decided to become one. He loses his mind a bit and claims to be a knight. During his journeys of fighting windmills and stealing shaving basins, he encounters a prostitute named Aldonza. She is the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on, and he calls her my lady and swears to protect her. He refuses to call her Aldonza, as that name is beneath her, and dubs her Dulcinea. He sings,

Dulcinea...Dulcinea...

I see heaven when I see thee, Dulcinea,

And thy name is like a prayer

an angel whispers...

Dulcinea, Dulcinea!

I know musical theatre isn't for everyone, but stay with me. Throughout the story, we see this woman hates her life. She is abused and raped. She believes she is nothing and noone, and can't stand this crazy man coming in and telling her she's better than what she is because she knows it isn't true.

And yet, it changes her.

I heard this musical and decided I wanted to be a Don Quixote. I wanted to see the beauty and heroism in the world, even if it meant I was a little crazy. I wanted to show people what they were worth. I wanted to tell all the Aldonza's that they were really Dulcineas.

Then life came along and turned me into an Aldonza. I had never really identified with her before some experiences that happened. Experience that made me feel just as low and worthless and angry as she did. I wasn't an imaginary hero anymore. I was a very real damsel in distress.

But Don Quixote came along, in one form or another, and managed to convince me otherwise. I could go back to dreaming the impossible dream again, reaching the unreachable star. 

We need more Don Quixote's and Dulcinea's out there. Men and women who believe in themselves, believe in the impossible, believe in each other. Be a hero for someone today. Be a heroine for yourself. You're not Aldonza anymore, or even the crazy guy that stayed in his house reading books. Go out fighting windmills and really live for a while. Let me know how it goes. 

Some Girl Power for the Road

This is how I feel at the moment. 

With a little of this thrown in as well:

I've been out to change my world for as long as I can remember. And now I'm up to bat. I've got a trip to India coming up, then prospects in Shanghai, maybe even Cambodia. The globe just became very very small and very very open.

I recently got back from 16 months in Peru. That was a deeply personal time. Mostly I cried a lot, had no idea what I was doing, and felt a little crazy. If I helped anyone, it was most likely by accident or during my two minutes of feeling like I had it all together.

And that's the trick, really. I remember learning in high school psych that only depressed people have a realistic view of themselves. Most of us rate ourselves above average in one area or another, when it's technically impossible for the majority to be above average all at the same time. But the ones who have a high view of themselves, even if it's fake, are usually the ones with the lives we envy.

For my fellow nerds, there's a Doctor Who episode I absolutely love, when the Doctor is face to face against a monster that thinks it's satan. The satan character calls out everyone on the team by their fears, insecurities, and weaknesses. The Doctor responds, what makes his truth any better than mine? And proceeds to call out the same people by their courage, bravery, and strength.

The girly part of me is obsessed with Pink's song, Fuckin' Perfect. I listened to this an embarrassingly amount of times on repeat while in Peru. Don't hate. The best line is, "change the voices inside your head, make them like you instead." (once you feel better the next one to listen to is Raise Your Glass- just giving some options for your progressively power girl mix tape that you know you are going to make if you don't have one yet)

It's damn hard sometimes to believe the best about yourself. But if we did, really did- not just the "slightly above average" kind but the

  "I'm love incarnate, universally important, capable of the impossible, priceless, strong and beloved"

kind, I think, just maybe, life would be a little more awesome.

February Challenge

My family is big on Groundhog Day, mostly due to Bill Murray and his classic movie about February 2nd. We try to watch it every year. If you haven't seen it, please do. You'll finish with a strange urge to quote French poetry, play jazz piano, and ice sculpt. You'll also never look at your toaster the same way again.

It's also Black History month. Special shout out to my girls rockin the natural hair, btw. Black History is rich and powerful stuff. I grew up on homemade mac and cheese soul food, and got to celebrate Black History in 2nd grade by singing I Believe I Can Fly for our boy Michael. We also put on a history play for the parents. Being the only white girl in the class, I think I made my teacher a little uncomfortable when I auditioned to be Harriet Tubman. Ignorance is bliss when you're 8 years old.

Anyway, we're in a month that's meant to look at the past, and look at our present. Rich history mixed with seize the day mentalities. 

So let's mix it a little further. 

Poverty has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe because I just got back from Peru, maybe because I'm headed to Calcutta soon. Maybe because our own country still hasn't gotten it together. (Side article on poverty and the Superbowl http://www.thenation.com/blog/172627/blackout-bowl-or-most-depressing-super-bowl-column-youll-read)

I understand the frustration. We've all seen the commercials and heart-breaking movies and depressing articles. Some of us turn it all off because we don't want to know. Others feel so overly informed we stop listening because feeling helpless in the face of so many problems sucks. 

I'm big on awareness raising, and it's something I struggle with. Is my goal to just depress people? As much as I loved The Vagina Monologues, A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer, Any One of Us, etc. I couldn't help feeling that I trapped the audience, beat them over the head with a baseball bat and then sent them back into the world with nothing but a headache. So, here's my remedy. 

Starve for a while. 

I'm not kidding. This is a challenge. This is for all the people that are sick of the way things are but don't know how to change it. 

Starve for a day. 

It's not a new concept. Lent and Ramadan have been around for a good long while. Pretty much every religion advocates it. Fasting cleanses the body, cleanses the soul, and even if it doesn't change the world, it changes you. 

So here's my challenge. Have a bellyache for a day on purpose. Pick a day to watch those movies and read those articles you have been putting off, and do it while skipping breakfast. Immerse yourself in the facts for the day and take empathy to a whole new level. Learn, absorb, identify yourself with people all over the world and send out good vibes while you do it. I promise you won't regret it. 

If this is a new concept, check out http://www.30hourfamine.org/ It's a cool program built for high school students, but you can take some info and ideas from it. Another favorite of mine is http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1457.

Fasting is kind of like volunteering. You take the focus off you for a day and do something that isn't necessarily in your comfort zone. 

If going totally without food scares the bejeezus out of you, set your own rules. Do one meal at a time. Pick a day when you have time to yourself. When you get hungry, drink some hot tea or warm milk with some sugar thrown in. Choose a day and read books about or by your heroes. Read up on world events. Pray. Memorize your favorite quote, the one you want to have in your head in case you are ever trapped on a deserted island and need some inspiration to get you through. Being hungry and productive at the same time is doubly impressive. 

Speaking from experience, fasting with purpose can change your life. Fasting and NOT making an effort to focus on bettering yourself or helping others is a complete waste of time and not fun. Going hungry when your heart isn't in it makes you bitter and mean, trust me. 

I know it doesn't make sense. I'm sure the Catholics and the Muslims can explain it much better than I can, why fasting = changing the world. All I'm saying is that if you want to take a more active approach, if you want to understand what's going on in the world and become a part of it, this is definitely a good way to go. Challenge yourself, whether it's a meal, a day, two days, or however you want to do it. I'd love to hear how it goes. 

Testimony Time, Unfinished

When I was little, I preached to my stuffed animals.

True story.

It would usually be Sunday afternoons, when I was already dressed up in some kind of pastel flower print dress with the big lacy collar and white tights to match. I would line all my stuffed animals up on the bed and sing a few songs from church and then say something wise and solemn, of course.

The most special stuffed animal was my angel bear. It was a white bear I got from one of my many visits to the hospital. I actually had collected three or four of these bears from the Children's Ward, but someone had sewn a white shift dress with felt wings attached for my bear, so this was the important one. Angel bear would go to sleep with me every night. If I ever had nightmares, angel bear was there, and I would sing the hymn "As the deer panteth for the water so my soul longeth after thee..." I really liked the word panteth. Longeth was pretty great too. I would imagine a wise old deer by a river watching over me, and even though that's not what the song was about at all, it did the trick. I would go right to sleep, every time.

I was a white Pastor's Kid (our kind were referred to as "PK's" back then) living in the projects of Chicago. My dad was pretty great at his job. He got to stand in front of everyone every week and people would laugh at his jokes or wail and cry if they felt the spirit, and there was a lot of hand-raising and clapping and swaying going on. I wanted to be as great as my dad. That's why I preached to my stuffed animals.

A few years later, I learned about sex and was hella confused. A wonderful teacher with the best intentions tried to explain that we were all special and unique and created by God, but we would all get our periods and develop boobs and eventually get married and be happy. I wasn't buying it. If I was really special and God really loved me, he wouldn't make me go through that, all that woman stuff. If God loved me, I wouldn't get my period.

Women role models in my life didn't help either. My mom (a wonderful woman, read more about her here) was an under-appreciated, overworked pastor's wife. I wanted to be on stage and have people laugh at my jokes, but I didn't see any women doing that at the time. It looked like I would have to be good at accounting and paying bills and being hospitable and have a lot of kids and work in a cramped office hidden under the staircase- all that, plus the boobs and blood to look forward to, wasn't really doing it for me.

So I hit the books. All of this had to be really shitty misinterpretation. I was sure God had gotten it right, I just had to find it. Something along the lines of "go forth, ye with vaginas, and change the world and be awesome and don't worry about that accounting stuff or having kids."

I was 10.

And the bible was pretty unforgiving to my optimism.

I was 10, and the world came crashing down, because God didn't love me after all. He wanted me to shut up in church and not wear earrings and cover my hair. He was down on the rapists, but if the girl was close enough to a city to scream and be heard and she didn't, then it was her fault. Concubines were cool, multiple wives were cool, and even male sacrificial animal offerings were worth more than the female ones.

Don't get me wrong. There was Sarah and Rebekah and Leah and Deborah and even Rahab the one cool prostitute. There was Jesus' mom and John the Baptist's mom and Mary who sat at the feet of Jesus and the one other cool prostitute that poured perfume on Jesus' feet. I did my homework, yo. But there was also proof of virginity and stonings and rape and incest and one girl getting cut up and sent to the twelve tribes of Israel.

13 years later, and I still don't have it all figured out. I'm pretty sure God loves me, and while Saint Paul and I might exchange some words about a couple of really stupid verses he wrote, I'm pretty sure God will be watching and laughing and secretly rooting for me anyway. And if baseball bats come out during the discussion, I think God might walk over and put his hand on Paul's shoulder and say "Paul, man, let it go. She's right. I just have a really good sense of humor and decided to show a little bit of the picture at a time." And then, of course, Paul will huff off and I'll go get my crown of jewels or something.

Anyway, while I seriously doubt anyone else had the same weird, awkward childhood I had, I'm sure I'm not alone on the feminist/religion reconciliation journey. All I can say is that there is peace to be had out there, though it might take some serious soul searching and some imaginary fights with saints. 



 

"I'm Not Cheap"

I know a woman in Peru that has been married for 30 years. She was in love, he was in love. Their first time, she didn't have a hymen. Her husband called her a whore and proceeded to mentally, physically and emotionally abuse her for the rest of their marriage. He thinks he's entitled. He didn't get what he paid for, after all. And she stays because there is nowhere else to go. 30 years, she's learned to live with it.

It's not like her experience is extraordinary. Entitlement is everywhere. In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Marco, a Peruvian man (weird coincidence) calls the character Esther a slut and tries to rape her because she took his diamond. Before the rape attempt, he jokes.  "Perhaps I shall perform some small service worthy of a diamond". Huh. What a service. She took something of his, he is entitled to take something back. She's left bloody and beaten and exposed.

And then of course are the women all over the world still killed for not producing proof of virginity. The men are entitled to have their honor kept intact and not destroyed by a wayward woman. A dead woman is better than a dishonored man, right?

My god, we think. How horrid. How dare a man feel entitled to do such things!


Well, maybe because everything we say and do promotes that kind of thinking. Let's take a look at this completely harmless cute little pink ecard here I saw online.

 "For all the women who brag about how many men want them, just remember... the cheapest prices attract the most customers."

Cheap. Price. Customers.

The problem with this kind of money language is that it's fully admitting we see a woman's sexuality as a commodity, one that men desperately want. It's a message to women that they need to set the price high and make men work for it. This card tells us that we have cheap women and expensive women. Cheap vaginas or expensive vaginas. Not to mention referring to men as customers who buy. This isn't looking good for anyone.

 Men buy, women sell. Men are the only ones that want sex, women only use it as a power trip. There might be something wrong here.Yeah, so maybe we don't see a lot of murder in America over virginity, but the concept behind it all is still the same.

Let's look at a scenario. A girl sits in a bar and shakes her head in a disgusted manner at the girl who let a guy buy her drink and is now putting on her jacket to go home with him. The girl thinks, my god she's cheap. One drink and she gives it up. I would never do that. I'm WORTH MORE!

So the girl waits for things to be done properly. Eventually a guy calls her up, asks her out. He pays for dinner and drinks, and even the taxi home. Wow, I found a really nice guy, thinks the girl. We won't go all the way, but all that is worth SOMETHING. He paid for everything, we gotta make out for at least five minutes on the porch before I send him home. That's the trick, leave him wanting more, let him know I'm not CHEAP.

Still a commodity, still a price.

Let's say she does everything right. More dates, more making out on the porch, eventually a proposal and ring. Perfect wedding, perfect cake and perfect first night. She has proven to the world that she is one expensive dame.

I'm not against abstinence. I'm against women who stay abstinent because they are too scared not to be, who do it because of the fear of being called a cheap whore instead of actually having convictions. My heart hurts for women who keep the mindset that their worth is dependent upon their virginity, that they won't be wanted or valued because of a decision they made. I hurt for the women who did have sex and now listen to the lies that they are dirty, easy and worthless. People kill and abuse over this stuff, or just use shame as a weapon. Value, worth. Same economic language as before.

Ladies, if we keep believing in the price tag between our legs, we are destroying ourselves and our men. The guy who raped his girlfriend because he bought her dinner and she still didn't want to put out-that guy believed in prices and entitlement. I paid for it, give it to me. The ecard about cheap women probably isn't helping that viewpoint.

Add in the "cheap" or "expensive" clothes. The girl was dressed like a slut, she deserved to be raped. The miniskirt means she was offering herself at a "cheap" price, so men can't be blamed for buying. And the ladies who called her a slut in the first place- of course that has nothing to do with it. There's no way women are helping perpetuate violence against women, right?

I don't know what happens to the girl in our scenario. Maybe she has a great marriage. Maybe it's rough. Maybe the guy stops being romantic because he got what he wanted and now doesn't have to try so hard. Maybe the girl struggles with her value and identity because her virginity was power and that's gone now.

But bottom line is, stop putting a price. Ladies, decide what you want to do and when and why, and don't base it on fear or lies.Gentlemen, treat a woman right because it's right, not because of what you might get out of it. And everyone, if you hear your friend refer to a woman as a cheap whore, do us all a favor and slap them over the head.

Family Matters

First of all, my mom is gorgeous. So is my aunt, so was my grandma. Thanks to our identical genes, I know I'll still be good looking at 50, 60, and 90. While our butts aren't exactly the "soulful ass" I dream of (I always wanted something that danced to its own beat), we are pillowy and adorable in all the right pear places.

My grandma.

I don't even need to say this, but my god, she's good lookin'. She was born in 1920, and went through everything. Prohibition, Depression, husband at war. But she never wanted to talk about it. She's a lady that counted her coupons and didn't believe in expiration dates (two qualities that were passed on to my aunt and mom- they also believe in the lasting omnipotent power of the freezer) but those were the only signs she gave of a life used to tight-belt times. Other than that, she was just always, always smiling.

My mom and dad got engaged when they looked at each other in the car one day. My dad said "guess we're getting married" and my mom pulled out her calendar (that sums up both of their personalities pretty well). They've been through 30 years together now and while they've had their rough spots, my dad looks at my mom from across the kitchen sometimes and says, "yup, she's my soul mate."

I underestimated my mom while I was growing up, and I know I still do. I just found out recently that she had all three of us kids with a midwife next to her in the hospital and no epidurals.She doesn't believe in makeup except for very special occasions and wanted to die in a skiing accident when she was 35 and single after traveling the world. My dad and us kids kind of messed that up for her, but I hope she doesn't mind too much.

Truth is, she's way more of a feminist than I ever took her to be. Growing up, I was angry. Our family leans on the private side, the kind that dresses in the bathroom because its too indecorous to walk around in a towel. I resented her for being the one to cook and clean and work in an office and being called "the pastor's wife", as if she was an extra limb attached to my dad. I thought if I became like her, it would be the end of the world.

I was so wrong.

My mom stood by my dad when he decided to be a preacher in the projects of Chicago. She dreamed of lemonade and front porches, and got gangs and poverty instead. She's the one that held it together when the electricity was cut off and bills were too much to pay. She worked the system, she used the coupons and expired cans of corn just like her mom did, and kept the family going. We lived in a big, beautiful house that used to be a convent. It was huge, with hidden staircases and triangular turns and RATS. We had rats the cats were scared of. They would come out in hordes when the sun went down and would actually knock down trash cans. One was finally caught in a trap and was so big its thrashing spattered blood all the way to the top of our man-sized fridge. My mom put up with a lot in that old house.

Then, after 13 years of that, it was time to move to the suburbs. She was so happy, house hunting and school hunting and looking at back yards. But it wasn't what she had dreamed. A string of dead end difficult jobs for my dad who wanted to be back preaching and not driving a truck left my mom as the main bread winner. Not really fun for anyone. My dad wasn't doing what he wanted, my mom wasn't doing what she wanted, and the 20-minute cookbook was the only one lying around.

Things stayed hard for a long time. But it eventually got better, and then they moved to Phoenix. Both my mom and dad shed 10 years of aging and looked like kids again. The stress was gone, the wrinkles were gone, and my mom became a blond and started wearing sequins.

I can't imagine the silent battles my mom has fought out in her heart over the years. For someone that had no inkling to get married or have kids or do anything besides ski and travel, her life changed drastically. She has been selfless time and again, and I don't know if I will ever be as courageous as her. While cooking, cleaning and office work still aren't my strong points, I honor her. She loves God, she loves her family, and one day, I'm going to take her skiing.

One of the Guys or Vagina Power?

I just finished reading How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. Right there, I probably alienated most of my audience, so don't worry, I'll do a quick summary. All you need are chapter titles.

Chapter 1: I Start Bleeding!

Chapter 2: I Become Furry!

Chapter 3: I Don't Know What to Call My Breasts!

Chapter 4: I Am a Feminist!

Chapter 5: I Need a Bra!

Chapter 6: I Am Fat!

Chapter 7: I Encounter Some Sexism!

Chapter 8: I Am in Love!

Chapter 9: I Go Lap-Dancing!

Chapter 10: I Get Married!

Chapter 11: I Get into Fashion!

Chapter 12: Why You Should Have Children

Chapter 13: Why You Shouldn't Have Children

Chapter 14: Role Models and What We Do with Them

Chapter 15: Abortion

Chapter 16: Intervention 

Caitlin Moran is hilarious. Her honesty about including Aslan the lion in her sexual fantasies and dealing with handbag-buying pressures is refreshing, the kind of conversations you have with your girlfriends at Chili's after a couple of cheap and delicious margaritas. I love honesty, and I love good writing. Moran does both pretty well.

The cover boasts two claims. One, "The British version of Tiny Fey's Bossypants." I haven't gotten to that one yet, so no comment. The other quote is "Caitlin Moran is a feminist heroine for our times."

Feminist heroine. That's a pretty intense title.

And in her own way, she deserves it, along with every other woman who has stared patriarchy in the face and decided to love herself anyway. But Moran's battle cry is for normalcy, to be treated as "one of the guys." And while that is totally legit, especially for women in male-dominated careers, it's not exactly ground breaking. Caitlin Moran is a damn good feminist. I'm just not sure that makes her a heroine.

I wanted to be "one of the guys" too, for a long time. I was 10 or 11 and had just heard sex explained in the most frigid and creepy way, by scared conservatives who had never come to terms with their own sexuality and didn't really want us to, either. Sex was for reproduction, modesty was to keep men and their animal lust under control, and vaginas were holes to put things in or drag things out. If that wasn't bad enough, I was told I was going to bleed every month for the rest of my life and that this was a gift from God.

I refused to have a vagina.

I was a scrawny pre-teen that wore my brother's cargo shorts and my dad's cast off t-shirts to school every day, who tried to beat up boys during Capture the Flag and made fun of the one girl in school who wore nail polish. I was terrible at all things boy- couldn't play sports, hopeless at video games, and totally not into picking up cockroaches. But I still tried to be as boy-like as possible, because the alternative was unthinkable.

Fast forward through lots of experiences that I'm sure will come up at a later time, to auditioning for The Vagina Monologues at my college. I told my mom about getting a part, the angry vagina part. I could HEAR her blush over the phone. "Hey mom! I auditioned for The Vagina Monologues!" Audible blushing. "You can't SAY that word, Jenni! I'm at the office!" Because I'm sure they were all listening in on our vagina conversation.

Anyway, vaginas. I'm totally biased because it was my first full on feminist experience, but Eve Ensler is a god. She doesn't believe in being one of the guys. She believes in lovin your vagina self, drawing pictures of it, naming it, dressing it up and giving it things to say.

  Eve is the one who taught me how to be a woman, much more than Caitlin Moran did. She taught me that I'm beautiful and wonderful and glorious and mysterious because of my vagina, not in spite of it. She was the first one to let me know being a woman was pretty great, not just average or something to ignore as we all try to blend in and be the same. The "we're all just humans" line is great until it turns us into something like Greendale's mascot.

But while we can argue "one of the guys" feminism vs "vagina power" feminism all day long, lets skip that and cut to the chase. Love yourself. Love all of you. And love the people around you, too.

A Little Bit of Sunshine

The following isn't a quote from Ghandi, or the Dalai Lama. It's just a note from a very dear friend of mine.

"I love what you have written... Mistreatment of and violence towards women is something that can make me so burdened, make me lose my shit and feel hopeless for the direction this world is headed. It's so, so shitty buddy, and mostly it seems there is an exponentially growing number of shitty men raising their boys to be even shittier men. Living on the south side, I see or hear examples every day. But buddy, buddy: I know men, a surprising number, who are fighting for not only violence against women to stop, but for respect of those women and support of them and their empowerment. And here's the beautiful, wonderful thing buddy: we're growing. Don't lose heart. Women are an integral part of this world. A growing number of men are understanding this and fighting hard for it to be common knowledge. Not all of us are bad, and the ones that are are very slowly starting to realize they're really fucking wrong. Please don't feel hopeless my buddy because there is most certainly hope."

In response: It's impossible to feel hopeless when I get notes like this. Instead, I feel like a tap dancing penguin.

Bottom line: THANK YOU. To men, women, and everyone in between who are filling the world with a little more love, a little more respect, and a little more dignity. Stay active, guys. Spread the love. It brings a little bit more sunshine to the world every day.

Rape Culture- Or, Every Day Life

So, a man tried to mug me once. But I'll get back to that.

There's been a post going around, called "Through a Rapists' Eyes". I read it for the first time about three years ago, and felt very enlightened. A little more nervous than usual, but enlightened. The post claims that after many interviews with already jailed rapists, there is now a list of helpful safety tips to keep women out of danger.

The advice can be summed up as saying, women: keep your hair in a crew cut, don't dress like a slut, and carry a baseball bat. Also, don't go anywhere, ever. Except of course if you have your hair in a crew cut, don't dress like a slut, and carry a baseball bat. And even then stairways are still off limits.

So back to the mugging- oh wait, that's just the short story. Let's do the long story first.

The long story is that I am more than aware that I am a four foot, eleven and three quarters white girl with very little muscle mass and relatively perky boobs. The long story starts when I lived near the projects in south side Chicago and wasn’t allowed to cross the street because it was too dangerous. The long story begins with whatever conversations inspired by fear of the unknown (something about the girl killed in our backyard two weeks before we moved there) made me consciously decide not to walk with my hands in my pockets when I was eleven because it might not be safe.

(If you're wondering, the worst thing that happened in dangerous, inner-city Chicago is when a classmate put grease in my hair and it took a week to come out. I just wanted to be black. I also made friends with a homeless man with the brain development of a nine year old that bought me a shake from McDonalds because he had a crush on me. It was cute. Neither of those things have anything to do with what I'm talking about.)

That was all growing up stuff. Cut to high school, where I had to stand in line for gym class my freshman year and a boy (bigger than me, but not by much) would pick me up from behind every day because he thought it was funny.

Every day. Because he thought it was funny. My god, is it really that hilarious day in and day out to hold someone with their arms pinned to their sides trying to ask you nicely to put them down? In hindsight, I should have kicked him in the balls. But you don't do that when you're a freshman girl trying to be cool and go along with the joke. You should, but you don't.

Now cut to my first missions trip, my first time leaving the country. The rules were always the same. Never go alone. Always walk with a man. Carry a purse with a strap that can go across your body because those are harder to steal, don’t look people in the eye, don’t wear any shorts or skirts or dresses above the knee because that clearly means you are asking to be raped. This would have been a good time to add in the baseball bat advice, as well.

(Worst thing that happened on a missions trip was the heatstroke I got from wearing jeans instead of shorts. Also, when I freaked out because a Costa Rican boy kissed me on the cheek and I didn't know that was a culture thing.)

Then I went to college, where rape culture was totally different. Now it was lesbians and signs and Take Back the Night! with exclamation points. Because I'm little and vulnerable and like to travel, I took RAD: Rape, Aggression and Defense, better known as the self defense class for girls who should have kicked high school boys in the balls but didn't and now it's their chance to get some.

The class was a lot like the "Through A Rapist's Eyes" post, actually. I learned to walk with my keys held between my fingers in case I needed to punch someone, how to look under cars in the parking lot and what kind of locks I should use on my doors. I learned what to do if someone attacks you from the front, from behind, or if you are pinned to the ground. I even got to put on pads and practice what it would be like to be attacked and how I would defend myself. I pulled an A in the class after my final, which was kicking Scott the Public Safety officer in the balls (wearing pads, of course) and using some cool hammer fist moves. Scott is awesome and should be appreciated for his volunteer work, by the way.

Ok, back to Peru and the mugging story. Every day, I would walk three blocks from my house to the school I work at, and had done so for the last 10 months. I never listened to music with headphones, I always wore my backpack with both straps on my shoulders, and I always had my purse on one shoulder with my other hand holding on to it. I always remembered my RAD training and knew where to look and what to carry.

So this particular day, at 6am on my way to school, when I felt someone behind me, I would just like to say that I was awesome. I did not freak out, I defended myself, I held on to my belongings and held my ground. The guy finally gave up and ran away. I hope he’s embarrassed that he couldn’t rip off a tiny little gringa. Of course, my glasses were thrown off in the fray and I stumbled around in the grass like a blind rat looking for them again after he ran off, but we can forget that part. I then walked victoriously to school, bruised, beaten, shirt unbuttoned but purse in hand. Once I got to school, I cried like a baby and had someone drive me home again. But again, we can forget that part.

I know all of this seems a little incoherent, but let me try to bring it together. As much as I love self defense and kicking ass, I hate that it's become part of our culture. That even after being mugged, people asked me what I was doing there and why I was alone as if it was my fault some creep took it in his head to jump the tiny, vulnerable, supposedly rich girl. I hate that I still carry my keys between my fingers whenever I go walking, just in case. I hate reading articles online about how girls can't wear their hair in that ponytail or go out in that skirt and high heels because its too dangerous and invites the attention of a rapist. Once again, it almost sounds like it's our fault.

Girls have been living and breathing this kind of rape culture their entire lives, and I hope I'm not the only one sick of it. There's a lot of truth to the posters and signs we see at rallies around the world now, something about how putting curfews on women won't stop rape, but putting curfews on the men will. Not that I support that, but it is true. Teaching women to defend themselves is great, but teaching men to be good men would be even better.

Men

"I call myself a feminist. Isn't that what you call someone who fights for women's rights?" -Dalai Lama

I taught junior high and high school in Peru for a semester, before I was switched to preschool and elementary the following school year.

Iquitos isn't known for it's men. My next door neighbors were from the next town over and still called the men of Iquitos scumbags. Absolutely not worth it, they said. Nothing but cheaters and liars and chauvinists.

My neighbors weren't the only ones with this view.

I couldn't figure out the switch, or where it came from. My elementary students were sweet, playful. But I knew they couldn't be unaware. A preschooler was dropped off at school one day by her mom sporting a black eye. "Is your mom ok?" asked the preschool teacher. "My mom and dad got in a fight," the preschooler said. "And then my dad went boom boom boom with her head against the wall."

Boom boom boom, said the preschooler. Welcome to the reality of home life.

Back to my elementary school kids. They seemed innocent enough, though some boys kept trying to look up the girls' uniform skirts. Second grade seemed a little young for that, but it is Peru.

I talked with a lot of men while I was there. One had sex for for the first time when he was eight years old. Three more had been bribed by money or clothes and once with food to have gay sex with an older man. They're not gay. It's just stuff that happens that you don't really talk about.

Once again, you only get glimpses while at school. My high schoolers once asked me, 'Don't condoms hurt the woman? That's why we don't use them." The boys would constantly pinch the girls or slap them on the ass. The girls would giggle or hit back, and everything had a semblance of being normal.

Gossip is the number one pastime in Iquitos, so I was always getting the scoop on so and so and her cheating husband, or so and so with so and so who is twice her age and very rich. It wasn't a hard stretch of the imagination. My own boss, a bloated man in his late thirties with gold rings on his sausage fingers, was dating a student there who had just turned 18. She began to help out at the business, driving up on her new motorcycle and standing on tip toe in 5 inch heels to open the padlocks on the doors.

All these moments together add up to a tangled and twisted web of culture, abuse, confusion, need, and role playing. Not the dress up as a sexy nurse kind, no. The kind where the man hits the woman and the woman hits him back but sleeps with him anyway because those are the parts they were assigned in life.

Now, this is all a generalization.l I did see a good example, once, in my year and a half of living there. I had been staying with a family in their home. The woman is American and had married a Peruvian man. I often tell her she got the best of the bunch. She nods emphatically.

It was only a moment, but I'll never forget it. The whole family was sleeping, the mom, three kids, and me in the guest room. I woke up around 3 in the morning to a loud noise. I froze in my room, not sure what had happened. A moment later I heard the dad get up. He walked through the house, checking all the doors and windows, and he was praying. Not loudly, just under his breath, but praying protection over his family as he made sure they were safe. I went back to sleep almost immediately, waddled in peace.

I exaggerate when I say that is the only moment I saw. I saw fathers collect their kids from school sometimes with smiles and hugs and carrying tinkerbell backpacks for their daughters. I saw families, sometimes five at a time, crowded on a motorcycle with a mom holding babies in her arms and a tot helping his father hold the handlebars.

But it wasn't enough. Every time I saw a high school couple, I would cringe. They would both be in uniform, walking to or from school, usually holding hands or sharing headphones. And as we passed each other, I would have to hold back a shout. Run! I wanted to say. This cannot turn out well!

The highschoolers worried me the most. As my students, I could see how bright they were, sometimes lazy, sometimes funny, sometimes reflective and sometimes just smelling like boys. And I still worry about them. I don't know what the key is, the key that helps them to decide to turn into good men instead of bad men. There has to be a secret, somewhere, of stopping these boys from continuing the statistics. The statistics of abuse, of rape, of cheating, of leaving, of paying for their girlfriend's abortions not because she wants one but because he does. I looked at my students, at all the good inside, and I was at a complete loss of how to help bring that out.

I am completely convinced that men are the key. The key to change, the key to good families, the key to love and progress and completeness. I'm sick of the yelling, of blaming men for being the problem, or giving them a list of don'ts. I don't know what the answer is, but I know we're not there yet.

And so, I want to say thank you. I want to say thank you to the men that have gotten it right. Not just in the context of women, but in the context of how they treat themselves. I applaud the men who think, who stretch themselves, who question the culture they are in and try to be the best they can be. Tell me your secret, guys. How do we get more men like YOU?

Camping, Fireflies, and Algeria

Found an obscure fact today. The first novel to be written in Arabic by a woman in Algeria, Ahlem Mosteghansemi, was published in 1993.

1993.

In 1993, my parents took my brother and I "camping" in the backyard. We roasted hot dogs on the grill and built a tent. My dad, brother and I crawled in the tent and my dad told us stories while my mom filmed home videos. The sound is broken, but we watched those videos last night. My dad's lips moved and his face contorted as he told us the story we can no longer hear. And I, in pigtails and a funny summer shift outfit, sat crossed legged on the green plastic, rocking back and forth as I listened. At parts my eyes widened, and at other parts I rocked back and forth so hard from laughing that I fell over and my legs went up over my head. My brother was sitting up so straight and tall with his legs underneath him, totally enraptured. Every once in a while he would glare at the tent door where my mom was filming and try to zipper the flap shut against her so he could listen in peace.

The footage cut to my brother and I outside the tent in the twilight, running frantically to catch fireflies in the tiny backyard. My brother ran with fists flying, whacking the little bugs out of the air instead of catching them. I ran from side to side as fast as I could, following the evasive blinking lights. Each one I caught I brought proudly to my mom and her camera to show off, and then let it go, only to go running to find another one.

It almost hurts to see how happy we were then. I was the blond child, eyes filled with wonder and grilling my hot dog with pure determination in my face. I would NOT let it drop in the fire, as my mom would warn me could happen. I held it steady and tight, and even when my dad took the skewer away from me, my hands stayed in tiny tight fists, still forcing my will on the hot dog not to fall.

I wonder if  Ahlem Mosteghanemi ever caught fireflies.

In 1993, I was living out a happy childhood, while women's rights were unfolding in a completely different part of the world. It's not that women didn't write in Algeria before 1993. It's just that the first one was finally accepted in 1993.

Watching the video, I wondered about all the people on the outside. I wondered if a neighbor girl my age poked her fingers through the fence, one eyeball focused between the diamond shaped wire, like the little match girl looking at the warm hearths inside the warm homes. I wonder if the girl turned around and hid in the tiny stretch of concrete on the side of her own house, and tried tentatively to catch her own firefly. And when she did, I wonder if she held out her cupped hands to the wall and said, look, look at what I caught, and if the wall looked on in silence.

Privilege is a tricky subject, so its easier to use the word blessed. I am blessed with a family and safety and love. I am blessed with the honor of being a woman, a beautiful, whole, woman. I am blessed with the freedom to write, and to come from a culture that while, withstanding patriarchy and voicelessness, still freed slaves and gave the right to vote.

We've come a long way, and there's still a long way to go. Fences still need to be broken down, not only in the United States but so many other places. Fireflies need to be chased and caught and let go all over the world.

I've never met Ahlem Mosteghanemi, and I've never been to Algeria- not yet, at least. But I honor her, and I honor the women who are finding a voice even today. And so I begin to write, for

"to write means to think against yourself, to argue, to oppose, to take a risk, to be aware from the start that there is no literature other than the prohibited, no creativity outside the forbidden, and only large questions to which there are no answers." Ahelem Mosteghanemi, "Writing Against Time and History" In The House of Silence.