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.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
"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.
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.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
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.
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.
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.
Monday, January 21, 2013
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
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.
"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.
Monday, January 7, 2013
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.
Friday, January 4, 2013
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?
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?
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
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.
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.
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