Bitchalicious

Picking lint out of my mental bellybutton

2011-12-22T22:44:00.000-08:00

This year has been one of extremes. Extreme highs and lows- nights when I wasn't sure how I was going to get up the next day, mornings where I would look around me and marvel with gratitude that this was my life. I saw a manta ray swimming at 70 feet below in Cozumel and I'm not sure I've ever come closer to god in my life. I cried so hard I threw up, in a Houston airport bathroom, comforted by a flight attendant who told me it would look suspicious to security if I didn't peel myself up off the floor and go through customs.

The Dalai Lama says that those who are our enemies should be revered for their ability to teach us in a way that no other human beings can. He makes the point that we rarely have enemies in this life, and that, when we have one, it's an extreme gift. I have worked very hard to soften to this perspective, and have had time to work with it.

And now it is the end of the year, the end of this extremely challenging time. It may not be over- who knows what 2012 will bring-they say it may be the end of the world. But I thought I'd perhaps talk a little bit about what I think these days.

I believe in love. At the end of it all, I believe. And I still love.

I believe in myself. This year, I have lost many friends, my home, people I considered my family, and the person I loved most. I have been betrayed. I have been slandered. I have been hated. Some days, the only way I got through it was to turn up Lady Gaga's "Born this Way" as loud as I could and yell the lyrics to drown out the vicious inner noise. "Don't hide yourself in regret, just love yourself and you're set. I'm on the right track, I was born this way." And I do. I'm not perfect- I've made an avalanche of mistakes- but at the end of the day, I believe in me. I know who I am inside. This year has really helped to solidify that for me.

I believe in the power of karma. Pema Chodron describes karma not as getting "what you deserve"- not the punitive, hateful justice of some sentient universe- but rather, the idea that you are always given exactly what you need to learn the lessons you need to learn. This concept of karma applies to me, but it also applies to my hope for others. May we always get exactly what we need- and take advantage of it so we learn what we can from it.

I believe in the power of distraction. Byron Katie teaches that our minds do more harm to us than anyone else ever does. Someone may hit you, but every time you replay that thought in your head, you are also committing harm to yourself- reawakening that experience, that pain. If you consider how many times we reflect back on painful experiences, we end up doing ourselves harm quite a lot. By distraction, I don't mean simply thinking of something else (though sometimes that's what I've had to do- thanks to Netflix for putting seasons of television on instant view), but by consciously working toward creating space between our thoughts and how much emotion and stake we put into them.

I think happiness is something you work for, consciously. And that it's fleeting. But so is pain, even if it seems like it will never stop hurting. Every day, with work, little pieces move unseen, like cogs in a watch, until suddenly you wake up one morning and realize that you hurt a little less, that you forgive a little more, that everything is a little lighter. With enough work, I think someday you can get to a place where you start at a higher plane of happy, so that even if pain comes (and it always does), you can deal with it from a higher setpoint. That's my goal.

I believe in taking risks. With life and with love. Love is scary as fuck, but in order to make it work, you have to trust that you'll be ok, no matter what. Sometimes I still don't have that trust, but I think one day I will, as I get better at accepting pain and the unknown.

I believe in appreciating today. We have no idea what's coming. Love everyone as hard and as long as you can because if you knew that that moment would be the last time you'd ever see them, ever be that close, you'd hold them and kiss them and tell them you loved them like crazy, rather than just saying goodbye. And maybe that would make us all a bit nuts if we did that every time, but I know I'd have fewer regrets if I'd lived my life that way.

Anyway, I'll stop now. The nice thing about no one reading your blog is that you can write whatever navel-gazing bullshit comes up and there will be no witnesses.

"Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained."

-Seamus Heaney

Today's Poem

2011-11-29T18:02:00.000-08:00

Letter From a Shortsighted Girl

To Daniel

My hushed voice cannot reach you
My shortsighted eye cannot see you.

Maybe it is better like this.

Today I didn't have too much to tell you
Just that in the afternoon I went out for a walk.
It started raining.
Kissing in the rain, what a silly cliché
I thought, as I was searching for a shelter.

If I put all my courage together I would have told you
that in the last year I have learned to miss you reasonably,
while remembering the traps of the happy days.
Otherwise, I would have spoken about traveling and books.

Once I had a dream about you.
You were writing our embraces
on a piece of my unwrinkled skin.
In the morning, you wrapped it back around my body.

Last week I bought a green sun umbrella and a lily,
and put them on the balcony, in the place where I like to read.
From there I can see the horizon, stretching its back like a cat
ready to jump into my lap.

I don't miss you. It is just me,
that I don't understand anymore.
.

by Yodie

A Real Human Being

2011-09-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

Remember when you told me about that show you watched that predicted how long it would take cities to return to nature after a human apocalypse? The green would spread, eventually choking out the roads and the buildings and covering everything again. And, in not very much time at all, all that was created would be returned to the wilderness that it once was. Perhaps that is how love is, after all the hatred and anger and sadness, creeping in and slowly recovering, until things fade into green again.

Beautiful.

2011-08-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

This:

Dust

2011-06-09T14:59:00.001-07:00

It seems we’ve left skin
in each other’s lungs. I should have

looked under your bed skirt
for my wallet, but how

could credit cards compare
to the sneeze after we’ve parted?

Gone and still you make me
reach for a tissue—still my palms

turn circles in the red
breakwater of your heartbeat.

I want to tell you, I have nothing
but respect for your ribcage

now that we both know
it’s not big enough to hold us.

- Michael Meyerhofer

On the Advent of the Death of Osama Bin Laden

2011-05-01T21:43:00.000-07:00

Osama bin Laden is dead. Apparently we found a way to kill him. Everyone on Facebook is celebrating- a collective sigh of relief, no doubt, for the death of one who caused the deaths of thousands. There can be no doubt that bin Laden posed a collective threat to Americans and Muslims alike. The formation and support of a radical branch of Islam that supports terrorism and martyrdom as part of the religion makes him what ol 'W' would refer to as an "evil doer." A cold-blooded murderer. The face that launched a thousand bombs. And yet, celebrating his death still seems extremely wrong to me.

I don't believe in the death penalty because I believe that there's always more to someone than an action, or a professed belief. As evil as he was, as Saddam was, there were still, most likely, good parts to them. Because that's what it means to be human. It means that there's a substantial amount of both light and dark. He was a father and he was someone's child, someone's brother. And regardless of his substantial crimes, he could not have been utterly full of hate all the time. No doubt he played games and laughed and did kind things for people he lived amongst.

If it seems like I am being too soft on such a murderous criminal, I am not. I just think the act of killing requires a black and white thinking that is the fundamental problem in our society today, and, I should mention, the very same problem that the man is himself guilty of. It is because he was able to see all Americans as evildoers that he was able to plan and carry out a plot to kill thousands of us. We know we are not all evildoers, but this continued focus on bin Laden = BAD America= GOOD is a lie. He was not all evil and we are not all good. The reason that he despised us in the first place is because he is a crazy person, but also because he saw America's hands in the Middle East these past thirty years, saw first hand the death and destruction we have caused, and hated us for it. Attributed it to our lack of God. The very things we hate in him, he hated in us first, until it becomes a projection upon a projection. The things we hate about Osama- his self-righteousness, his violence, his ruthlessness, his hatred of America- are the very things that he hated about us: our self-righteousness, our violence, our ruthlessness, our hatred of all things Islam. And who is right? NO ONE. Because when you hate people, you cease to see them as people and in that moment, you are ALWAYS wrong.

Killing him will be seen as a win. For Obama and for the "war on terror." And I hope it does protect people and prevent more death and destruction. I really hope it does. But it is not a celebration. It is a continuance of the destructive patterns of violence and hatred that perpetuate our country and our world today. Death for death, a life to pay for lives (which of course, it never can), killing to "stop" killing. I worry that it makes him a martyr to his followers; that there will be fallout for this action that will result in more death and more revenge and more "justice" and that more people will die, whether our own or theirs. I worry that, far from being the final chapter in a tragedy, that this is merely another plot development in an ever-deepening saga of despair. I truly hope, like Obama said in his speech, that it brings our divided country together, that it heals the thousands of Muslims who have suffered from bin Laden's hate, that it helps to bring closure to those who lost so much on that day in 2001, to those who have continued to die as a result of it ever since. I hope for these things, but my heart is heavy because I do not think it will really accomplish any of those things.

And so, rather than celebrate his death as a victory for our side, I view his passing with increasing solemnity. He could never have won this fight, but neither can we, as long as we continue down this path. Death is always a loss. May this be the last.

Clean Getaway

2011-04-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

I made my place by the door.
I didn't know what I was waiting for.
Felt just like home.
Except no grass, no yard, no pictures hung.

I could see across to the park.
And there were friends, they were laughing hard.
They looked just like my own.
With no face, no name, no voice I'd know.

I finally made it.
I made a clean getaway.
I finally made it.
I made a clean getaway.

I met someone at the bar.
He had a great smile and a great heart.
He felt just like love.
Except no fear of losing, and it wasn't tough.

I finally made it.
I made a clean getaway.
I finally made it.
I made a clean getaway.
And I miss you,
I miss you every single day.

-Maria Taylor

Love

2011-03-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in a while. Mostly that's because I reread everything I'd written in the past year and basically hated most if not all of it. And, because I've been busy. And because I make excuses. :)

However, I need to write today, so poor prose be damned- it's gotta go somewhere, might as well take flight into the deep void of the internet.

I went to church yesterday for the first time in five years- not a Mormon church, but a Unitarian church. I figure, any church that allows you to be an atheist and has accepted homosexuals for ages probably can't be half bad. The pastor (or minister or whatever they call him) read a passage from Ursula Goodenough who is an atheist (religious naturalist) who talked about how she wishes, during times of trouble, that she could believe in a god to call on; yet because she cannot, she must rely on human love in all its fragility and imperfection, to help heal.

I think about love a lot. What it means to love someone, what constitutes "love" verses affection, whether there really is a thin line between love and hate, how to love someone and not be in love with them, how love manifests itself through actions, whether love can "die." So many questions about this emotion/feeling, so few direct answers. No one seems to have concordant answers to the questions.

Is it love if you don't say it?
Is it love if you betray?
Is it love if you can't forgive?
Is it love if sometimes you feel it more than others?
Is it love if it ends?
Is it love if you choose yourself over someone else?

I don't have answers either. However, having suffered my fair share of life's slings and arrows, I do believe, at the end of the day, that love is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is not shaken. I believe love comes with a price, like everything. It can be a heavy price, but at the end of the day, even while paying that price, I will say that I am not sorry to pay it. And so, come what may, I am thankful to have had the opportunity to have loved.

Then jet the blue tent topple, stars rain down,
and god or void appall us till we drown
   in our own tears: today we start
to pay the piper with each breath, yet love
knows not of death nor calculus above
   the simple sum of heart plus heart.

- Sylvia Plath

Why?

2010-09-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking lately about the rarity of the question "why." My friend and I were talking about religion the other day and he mentioned the frustration that, as an atheist, he is supposed to be respectful of people's beliefs, that it is considered bad manners to question someone religious as to why they believe the things that they do. This idea has extended somewhat in my thinking- why don't we ask why more often? Why seems like a question that invites vulnerability. If I ask you why you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or why you don't return my phone calls, or why you believe that Muslims shouldn't be allowed to build a community center in downtown NYC, the likelihood is that I am asking because I disagree with your position or your actions.

I get the whole "vulnerability" aspect of questioning someone's actions or opinions, but it seems like we could get to know one another so much better if we asked why about seemingly unimportant things too- why do you like that type of coffee? Why did you buy this truck? Why do you think you like Brandy Carlile? And then the importance of giving thoughtful answers. Communication focusing on actual connections- "why" indicates an interest in one's inner workings. "Why" means that I care about you enough to be interested in your reasoning, your processes, your background, your history. Being brave enough to answer "why's" means that you are able to act with integrity- to question your own thoughts and beliefs and see if there's something solid underneath the actions and the impulses and the emotions.

The green elephant in the room.

2010-08-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

So I've felt pretty boring lately- haven't had a lot to talk about in terms of politics, life experiences, realizations, epiphanies, etc. Which is not to say that there haven't been things to talk about; nationally, this has been a pretty brutal summer. I could talk about lessons learned in Thailand (the real question would be whether I could stop once I started). I don't know- none of it is giving me that buzz- the itch to just spill my guts via Arial font and smear them across my private corner of the internet neighborhood.

But I want to write today, so I figured I'd talk a little bit about money.

If you asked me to give you a run-down analysis of my experiences with money, it would probably go something like this: "I'm shit with money, I never have enough, I'm poor, I'm bad with money, I'm scared of money, I can never seem to get ahead" blah blah blah insanity. For the majority of my life (save a brief, rosy time when I was living at home and had no debt, before the car and the student loans and the credit cards), I have struggled with money. It has been a source of stress and fear and frustration in my life as long as I have been signing my name along the dotted lines of adulthood. I'd say my approach to dealing with this stress/fear/hate has been out and out avoidance. Classic denial, ostrich head in the sand, etc. Sure! Go right ahead and buy that! Why not! I have no money for it, but I'm NEVER GOING TO HAVE MONEY, so let's just keep on digging!

What this approach has essentially meant is that I will go for long periods of time with this vague, stressful feeling in the back of my head, and then one morning wake up in a cold sweat, spend hours of my day pouring over accounts, making plans, etc., until the panic settles down a bit wherein I return to my denial until the stress builds up again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

However, this past year has really been an amazing year. I have been happier, more productive, more focused, more in line with myself than I've ever been. Getting older sucks for the face, but it sure feels amazing to finally get to a place where you feel comfortable in your own skin. Anyway, so feeling good is sort of addicting, and once you start feeling so great in other areas of life, the temptation is to want that feeling in all areas. Crazy, I know. So slowly, I've begun to turn my focus toward the green elephant in the room.

I'm not feeling altogether secure on the wagon, but I figured I'd share some things I'm learning along the way. Here are some useful tools I've found:

Bryon Katie. If you appreciate her rather Buddhist approach to reality and existence, you may find her work with money can help with cognitive hangups. I think in the past, many of my issues with money have stemmed from beliefs I have had about where I am supposed to be financially, fear stories that I have inherited from my parents (whose fears about money have always been a factor), and stories I have told in conjunction with the events of my life (like the classic one- "I have a degree, so therefore, I should make more money" hahahahahaha....aaaahhahahahahah.... soooo funny!). So much of our lives are spent story-telling. Living in reality is so much kinder. It's really helped with my underlying fears.
I have a new goal (as of a few weeks ago) to spend a little bit of time learning about money every day. Whether that's reading through a few money blogs, reading the financial section in the NYT, getting books from the library on money, or what- I am committed to becoming more proficient in the vocabulary and terminology of money, finding tips that might help me out, finding people who give good advice, and following it. Doing it daily helps me to keep focus and it also helps me to remain motivated to stay on track with my own monetary goals.
J.D. Roth, author of the blog Get Rich Slowly. I like this guy. He's practical and non-gimmicky and his information is, for the most part, helpful.
ING.com- online banking. The best return rates for savings accounts, checking accounts, etc. I signed up because I was looking for a savings account that I can forget about. It was easy to sign up and, when I had a question, their customer service person was REALLY nice and helpful. I'm sold.
The Simple Dollar- I like this guy too. Informative and not preachy.
Mint.com- I'm pretty sure everyone already knows about this already. It takes a little time to set up, but once you're done, you have a complete, up to date, financial picture of just how screwed you really are. For me, while it's sort of depressing, looking at it helps me with my avoidance- I know exactly where I'm at. And, at the end of the day, it's not something that a little extra effort can't turn into a good situation.

What have I learned? The biggest thing I've learned is that, while I'm not perfect with money, I'm really not as bad with it as I'd thought. Hopefully, it just gets better from here on out.

Sluts

2010-07-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

*Names and information have been changed

So, I thought it might be interesting to dissect an incident that occurred last week as a little vignette on being a woman in today's society.

Since I've lived in the same house for going on four years, I've taken certain pains to establish connections with the community around me. I make friendly conversation with my next door neighbor when I see him, I clean up other people's dog poop at the park when I have a spare bag, I try not to leave our trash cans on the street for more than a couple days after trash day, etc. I'm no Pollyanna paragon of gung ho community spirit, but I love the place I live and I take a certain enjoyment out of the little connections that accent my life.

A certain amount of these little connections are to be found at my nearby grocery store. I know that cervical cancer has traumatized one of the checkers and that she's now too frightened to get a colonoscopy for fear of what they might find. I know that one of the customer service desk women goes running by my house and has a baby poodle puppy. I like talking to these people and I like seeing them day after day, year after year. One of my favorite people has been a little checker boy that I will call Steve*. Steve is probably around 21, going to Salt Lake Community College, likes to hike, likes to help me with my grocery store problems (no more tilapia on display, all the avocados are overripe, can't seem to locate the fennel). I've looked forward to saying hi and having a brief 30 second chat with Steve whenever I see him.

So, it was no surprise that when I got back from Thailand, Steve asked me where I'd been since he hadn't seen me in a while. I explained about my trip and we talked briefly about the things I had seen there. He mentioned that he was thinking about applying for medical school and would I mind giving him my number in case he had any questions about public health? At this moment, little warning bells started ringing in my head, but I figured, the kid is 21, he seems earnest enough, why not? So I did.

That night, the texts and the late-night phone calls and the Facebook friend requesting began. It became apparent that Steve was not looking for a buddy to talk school plans with. So in the spirit of honesty, I sent him a quick email the following day. My email is as follows:

Hey [Steve]!

I figured I'd write you a quick note on Facebook, rather than have a text conversation. I hope you're having a lovely day today. :)

This is sort of weird, but I just wanted to clarify with you that while I'm definitely interested in being friends and activity partners and etc., I'm not available for a relationship right now. I apologize if I'm terribly narcissistic in even bringing this up- for all I know, you're just wanting to have another friend on Facebook and go for hikes occasionally! I just try to make that clear with people from the getgo so that there isn't any awkwardness or miscommunication between friends.

Anyway, from your pictures, it looks like you like to do stuff outside- camping, etc. Have you ever been to the San Rafael Swell? If not, may I just TOTALLY recommend it right now? :) It's one of my favorite places in the whole world.

Have a great day!

Not too harsh, right? Pretty direct? Writing emails of this sort gets tricky, as any girl can tell you, because while you don't want to be misunderstood, you also don't want to offend someone. However, I didn't have to wait long for the following response:

Thanks for clarifying with me what you want. I am not really looking for a relationship either right now. I would like to hang out and go do things with you. this may sound weird to ask but would you want to be just freinds with some benefits on the side that we just keep on the down low?hope your having a great day and would you want to hang out sometime?

WHAT?

There isn't enough space on the internet to describe what is wrong with this email (grammar? spelling? Not even going to GO there), so let me just take one thing.

I was IMing my friend when I received that email, so I shared it with him. His immediate comment: "Yeah, he thinks you're a slut or something."

Yes. He DOES think I'm a slut. My 21-year old grocery bagger Steve thinks I'm easy.

You might feel compelled to defend Steve against the imminent skewering that is about to happen. The whole, "he's young and stupid" argument, or maybe "what's so wrong with asking for what you want?" argument. Or MAYBE, deep down, you're thinking something more insidious, like "what did she do to make him think that she was open to something like that?"

And the shitty thing is that, even as a strong feminist, as someone who openly defends women's rights to sexual expression, to taking the lead in relationships, to making the first move, to swearing and talking frankly about sex, MY first thought was, "My god, what did I do to make him think that I'd be open to something like this?" I quickly scanned through my head, reviewing past conversations for any hint of inappropriateness on my part, trying to remember if I'd ever gone to the grocery store sans bra (definitely, but also sans makeup and hair brushing), trying to figure out anything that might have led some random dude to think that I was, basically, a slut. Because of course it's MY responsibility to control what men think about.

Apparently though, according to the results of a study done by a Christian website called, "The Rebelution" on women and modesty, a woman doesn't even have to dress provocatively or say provocative things in order to be considered a slut!

So let's see here- I'm pretty sure I've walked around the grocery store. Pretty sure I've probably stretched once or twice. I've definitely bent over in an attempt to retrieve rogue produce. And, no doubt, the scrub bottoms I've occasionally worn as pajamas have served their insidious purpose as the "technically innocent" outfit with naughty nurse connotations (no actual medical practice need be involved!). No wonder Steve was confused as to my slut-ness! I am basically a walking SEX FOR HIRE sign!

All Christian man modesty insanity aside, it was really disturbing to me to see the culturally reinforced stereotypical interplay in this interaction even though it was relatively harmless. Here is a man who knows next to nothing about me other than my first name, who believes that sexual proposition to an almost total stranger is completely appropriate. And the woman in the situation, me, upon receiving such an utterly tasteless and offensive proposition,immediately tries to figure out what it is that SHE did to mislead said asshole. Classic sexism 101.

It gets even worse because, rather than dealing with the situation as I would have liked to, with a big "WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TALKING TO?" email, I hesitated. I didn't want to make waves or cause a fuss because I wanted to be able to shop at my grocery store without feeling deathly uncomfortable every time I saw Steve. And so I held back my indignant anger. I fell back on the most socially acceptable rejection excuse for a woman in today's society because, true or not, it's always easier to reject someone under the guise of a relationship than to reject them because they're a misogynistic disrespecting shitbag with no common courtesy.

Hey [Steve],

Unfortunately, perhaps I was not clear in my first email: I am not available because I'm seeing someone else.
-R

However, this little interplay of weakness only led to the following response:

Don't worry about it. I was just seeing if there was any possibility. we can just be freinds. and maybe if the oppurtunity rises if your not seeing anybody else just let me know and we could do stuff?

After which, I promptly deleted him from my phone and Facebook and thanked my lucky stars that I'd only allowed him "limited" profile access. But I'm angry. I'm angry at myself for not standing up for myself. I'm angry that I felt the pressure to be nice to him even in the face of utter disrespect. I'm angry that I didn't tell him that the real reason I wasn't interested in having "something on the side" was because he's a 21 year old checker at the grocery store who I'm not attracted to and who treated me like a sex object. I'm angry at the thought that he may still be under the impression that his attempts to solicit me constitute an appropriate way to address women. And I'm angry that all my compromising didn't help:

I still don't want to go to my grocery store.

Covert Q&A

2010-05-25T14:39:00.001-07:00

So, my aunt posted the following question on Facebook today and I want to respond to it, but I'm not stupid- the privacy of my own blog is probably a better place to respond with my non-Mormon opinions about things like "modesty."

I really need your advice. What do you say to your kids when they try to walk out the door in an inappropriate outfit? I teach a group of youth at my church and lately they have been coming to church in outfits that show off too much skin and I find it to be a distraction. Their dress is not appropriate for church but somehow they have managed to make it out the door past their parents in what they are wearing. I think the problem is these kids threaten their parents that they won't go where they want them to, church for example, if they have to change. I see parents feeling powerless and kids feeling too empowered. I haven't run into that struggle with my kids yet but I'd like to know what to say, kind-of get my tool bag ready for when the occasion arises. I don't want to have that same feeling of helplessness I see many parents have and I feel myself alot of the times.
Any advice? Maybe I can share it with other parents, too.

There are about 5 different issues to tackle within this single, long-winded question, but I really only want to tackle one: the issue of how to deal with modesty. I'm not a parent and I'm not a psychologist, but that doesn't stop me from having an opinion!!

First off, to be clear, let's narrow down the question. My aunt is not referring to boys in this article. This is a question regarding girls and the issue of "modesty" as it surrounds girls.

I think the answer lies in a few different steps:
1) Educate young girls on feminism and the role of sexism in the media, particularly fashion. Documentaries like "America the Beautiful" show the overwhelming burden placed on women and young girls to conform to expectations about beauty, including weight, clothing, skin color, products, brands, etc.
2) Talk about rape and slut shaming. This may seem to only marginally fit in with the concept of "modesty," but trust me, it's important. Women need to be educated on the hypocrisy of our society which both grossly over-sexualizes women and at the same time shames them for acting on their own sexuality. Young women need to be aware of the double standard. As one of my favorite feminists put it:

There’s a femininity tightrope that all public women are forced to walk.....Whenever a public woman fails to balance the following factors just right, the some dick jounces the rope, and splat she goes. To wit:

Public women should be X amount feminine, X amount motherly, X amount hot, X amount beautiful, X amount young, X amount confident, X amount helpless, X amount exotic, X amount educated, X amount intelligent (required: the last two values < always =" 0)."> ad dared to imagine that she would be judged on merit rather than her ability to do femininity right. -IBlamethePatriarchy

3) Self-esteem! Young women's self esteem is not solely within the control of the adults that surround them, but support from parental figures and other adult role models goes a long way. If young women are appreciated for their other talents, it's probably more likely that their looks and their sexuality will be simply a piece of their burgeoning identity, rather than the focus. Part of self-esteem means don't slut shame your own daughters. You'd think that would be innate, but it sure isn't.

4) Teach women the artistically expressive aspects of fashion. I don't have any experience in this, being about as fashion forward as a manatee, but I sure would have appreciated a role model

who could have given me tips and pointers on the aspects of fashion that are actually fun- like how to mix textures and colors and take risks and make a look that represents "you." In this way, fashion becomes something that women have more say in, more control over, more interest in, and it's less of the mindless drone willwearwhateveryoneelseiswearingbecauseIhavenomindofmyown. Mind you, this is likely to only be effective if 1) the role model rocks and 2) the girl has enough self-confidence to take risks.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. At the end of the day, girls are going to have to navigate this complex world by themselves and learn the hard lessons that every other woman has had to learn. It would be nice if they could do so with a bit of background and support.

Loss

2010-05-17T10:42:00.000-07:00

Mikey is dead.

This is the second time I have written that sentence since it happened, though in the interim between writing it, I have said it (to myself, to others) what now seems innumerable times. I have been afraid to write it. Writing is so permanent. I am frequently paranoid about writing things down and destroy evidence of anything I write that may be particularly incriminating later. But with this, I cannot take it back. I cannot destroy it. Because he is gone.

And I need to write about it because writing, in part, is how I deal with the world around me. But I don't know what to write about. If I write about all the memories of Mikey, all of the love I have for him, and only tertially touch upon the fact that he is dead, it seems like a lie. If I delve too much into the pain of losing someone I loved so much, it feels unseemly- too expositional- too emotional- not enough Mikey too much me.

I cannot seem to write about him in the past tense.

Worden (2002), gives the four processes of grief:

1) Adjust to the reality of the loss. (He is gone. He will not return. After I found out he was dead, I called his phone and left him a voicemail telling him goodbye. As if I somehow expected him to receive it. )

2) Work through the pain of grief. (It feels like the ocean tide. The pain comes in and it overwhelms me and eventually, it recedes and I can move forward, knowing all the while that it will come again. I don't know how long it is supposed to take- I feel almost awkward trying to deal with time in this perspective- I'm sure some would say that time isn't the important thing here, that the pressure to grieve and move on is natural, but to stick with it through its natural cycle. I'm sure there are all sorts of rules for this- I just don't know them.)

3) Adjust to the environment without the deceased. (I find it terribly ironic that, in the lowest circumstances of my life these past three years, it has been Mikey who has stepped in and sat with me in my despair and my sorrow. And now, when I again find myself in this place, the one person who has always unfailingly been there, is the one person who cannot step in and say all those right things that he is so good at saying, or tell all those stupid jokes that he is so good at telling, or give those big, lanky, all-encompassing hugs, or sing all those beautiful songs that somehow made things a little easier. Adjustment indeed.)

4) Emotionally relocate the deceased and move on with life. (How can I take him with me into the present? How can I honor him best? How do I keep such a dear friend close in my life, despite the fact that he is no longer living? This is a process I have not figured out yet. Not being religious anymore, I do not have the easy out of supposing that he and I will again reunify in another life. I was reading Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, the other day and he mentioned that it is almost a certainty that in every person's life, they will, at one point or another, consume a water molecule that has passed through Oliver Cromwell's bowels. For some reason, I found this oddly comforting.)

It is a process. It is a process I did not anticipate and, if he'd given me the choice, I wouldn't have signed up for it. But here we are. He is learning how to be dead, and I am learning how to grieve. He loved me and I loved him and that certainty makes this very difficult time worthwhile. He is worth grieving for. He is worth learning from. He is worth remembering.

"The pain of grief is just as much a part of life as the joy of love; it is, perhaps, the price we pay for love- the cost of commitment."

I am ok with paying that price.

On not being an A student

2010-05-10T16:08:00.000-07:00

I'm not an A student. I am A, A-, B+ sort of student, meaning overall, I'm probably at best an A- student. I try not to let this bother me, try to realistically analyze the fact that while I may not get the best grades in the class, I certainly learn the material and in fact may just not be that great of a test-taker, have skills in other areas, blah blah blah. I can make all sorts of rationale for it, and in truth, if this were someone else's issue and they were telling me about it, I would definitely not feel it to be that big of a deal, but, unfortunately, I do feel like it's a big deal and it totally bums me out any time I get anything less than an A.

It doesn't have anything to do with me being a perfectionist or anything- anyone who has looked at my car or my backpack or my room will tell you that I don't suffer from any sort of obsessive compulsive tendencies. In life, I generally try to aim for the stars and feel pretty content if I hit the moon. If my bread falls, if my garden doesn't grow, if my Blockbuster calls about yet another movie I haven't returned, if I need 30 "breathers" while on a hike, I take it with a pretty even hand.

I think my total disregard for my standard "hey, may not have done it perfectly but at least I tried/hadfun/didn't totally suck" attitude has to do more with the fact that I really hate feeling so fucking average when it comes to academics. I'm that nerdy kid on the playground who doesn't really rock at sports, isn't popular, isn't rich, isn't particularly ANYTHING, but damn I can read a book. Funny how grades bring me back to that mindset. A-'s seem like the epitome of "Also Ran." I don't think I'm totally alone in wishing that I was the absolute rock star at something, ANYTHING. Books/grades/school have always seemed like my best bet at being above average (because it sure as hell wasn't going to be anything else). However, reality deems that I face facts: I'm not a rockstar in school. I'm solidly middle of the row.

So what do you do with a solidly middle of the row aptitude? How does one deal with the fact that despite an enormously inflated ego, you're just not as smart as you think you are? I guess appreciate the humility of it all? I really have no idea. I guess I should get started finding out.

The Middle Way

2010-05-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

So I have some pretty negative thoughts on pornography. Negative as in, even typing the word makes my teeth grit together and my blood pressure rise.

The other night, I was at Piper Down with some friends. For some reason, all their television screens that night were showing porn. Not just boobs, but full-on female nudity, girl on girl action, etc. I'm not even sure what the show was about, but it seemed along the lines of some Girls Gone Wild action- except with full sex scenes, etc. When it first came on, I tried to ignore it and pretend it wasn't happening- tried to ignore seeing all the guys I was with watching it, etc. But as time went on and the seemingly never ending parade of boobs and sex kept coming, I just felt myself get angrier and angrier. I mentioned to my friend that I was thinking of asking Piper if they wouldn't mind changing the channel. Her response was just to "ignore it." Another friend of mine chimed in and said the same thing, that it wasn't that big of a deal. And I basically snapped a gasket. I told him OF COURSE it wasn't a big deal, to HIM, because he had a PENIS. I told him that it was impossible for him to understand the perpetuation of objectification and degradation toward women that comes in conjunction with pornography because he was a man. I was angry. Not at him, per say, but at the entire situation. Even now, I'm fighting back the urge to make this a post about the shittiness of porn.

Anyway, after my rant, I sat there feeling waves of anger just rolling over me. I really felt emotionally spent. I was worried that my friendship might be compromised due to yelling at my friend about his laissez-faire attitude. I wasn't having a good time. And the naked girl parade was still going on in full force. My anger had essentially accomplished nothing positive.

In Buddhism, there's talk about finding the Middle Way. As someone who does not identify as Buddhist, I apologize to those with more expertise on the subject than I have if I misinterpret the concept, but I believe it's the concept that in all things, balance is key. This applies to the normal, boring things like diet, sleep, exercise, sex, etc. However, it also applies to things like emotions, where allowing a particular emotion/mindset/belief to become entrenched is also a way to become out of balance. In fact, it seems like most of the focus on balance, regards this emotional upset that occurs when we attach to our thoughts. You see this focus on awareness and disattachment to thoughts in cognitive psychology too- I just think the Buddhist concept of the Middle Way is an appealing viewpoint.

Anyway, so I've been thinking about the concept of the Middle Way for a while. I think, for me at least, it gets tricky around things like politics and feminism and other ideologies that I subscribe to. How to be an effective proponent and supporter of things I believe in and yet not allow the beliefs about them to overattach? That's where it really gets tricky.

So for now, I'm practicing letting go with porn. Digging right down to the nitty gritty of it and admitting that, for as much as I utterly loathe it, all that loathing isn't going to stop girls from stripping for the camera in order to win "Most Sexy" or "Best Boobs." In fact, my loathing essentially accomplishes porn's initial intention- it deidentifies these women for me- I stop seeing them as individuals and can only see them in the context that they are displayed. I stop caring about them as human beings and instead feel resentful that they are playing active roles in supportive a sex culture that commodifies them- essentially putting them in the role of "other"- which then places me in a similar role to men who only see them as an objectification of sex. The only difference is how we each moralize it.

In other instances of successful letting go, I've noticed that it doesn't make me any less of an advocate. In fact, approaching things like this from a more positive, less attached position often times means I've been able to more strongly explain my positions without all the emotion. Hopefully, that means that next time, instead of becoming Mt. Vesuvius next time Piper does Girls Gone Wild night, I'll be fine with simply asking if they could turn the channel. And if they don't, that will be fine too.

Vegetarianism

2010-04-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

I kind of shrink when thinking about actually posting this because I really hate it when people get all sanctimonious about their life choices. If I go vegetarian this time, it will be because I really can't justify the consequences of eating meat. And I don't have to start quoting Michael Pollan or posting Humane Society feedlot videos. We all know what's going on. It's bad. It's inhumane. It's environmentally unsound. And yet, I'm still not altogether convinced that getting rid of meat is the answer.

Here are some things I've been thinking about along these lines:

1) From a logistical standpoint, the odds are pretty low that everyone in the world will become a vegetarian. This means that there will always be a population consuming meat. This means that, rather than trying to ban meat or preach veganism, it's probably more realistic and responsible to encourage more sustainable and responsible agriculture. However, if people like me who are interested in supporting sustainable and responsible agriculture convert to vegetarianism, we are no longer contributing to the meat market, per say. Which means that the meat market will continue to be dominated by the percentage of the population who doesn't care or can't currently afford to support sustainable practices. Which means that those who are in the meat industry won't be convinced that it is financially feasible for them to transition to more sustainable methods. So there's that concern. I don't think that my ONE meatless mouth is going to be the determinant factor in this, but it is definitely an issue.

2) I absolutely do NOT believe in vegetarian self-righteousness. I don't want to be labeled as an asshole. It seems like a paltry reason, but it's a big deal to me. Many of my social events in life center around friends and food and I'm not interested in bringing my political beliefs to the table in these circumstances. This means, at best, I'm still a flexitarian (which is pretty much what I am now). So what would be the point of making the transfer over if I know I'll still be in pretty much the same place?

3) I cook dinner probably two or three nights a week and the people I cook for (roommates, friends, etc) and eat with are not necessarily vegetarian. Since I pretty much hate cooking for myself, going vegetarian might mean that I end up doing more cooking for one. Unless I suddenly become the world's most awesome vegetarian chef. Which I'm not. I'm not a bad cook, but you're not going to be seeing my upcoming show on the Food Network any time soon.

So yeah. There are some thoughts that I'm having.

On turning 27

2010-04-06T09:49:00.001-07:00

I think blogging is probably the best way to talk about turning 27. That way, no one has to hear my long, drawn out thoughts on it without the ability to turn off. :)

My birthday is on Saturday. I'm turning 27. To be honest, up until about two weeks ago, I haven't really felt like turning 27 was going to be a really big deal. After all, it's sort of a boring age. Late twenties, not yet thirty, nothing exciting here, move along folks. That's sort of how I've been thinking about it.

Except, that's apparently NOT how everyone else thinks about it.

I had a friend ask me the other day how I felt about my upcoming birthday. I said I didn't think it was that big of a deal. "Oh come on," she said, "you and I talk all the time about how getting older sucks and how hard it is to deal aging and not having anything really settled down. You're saying that it isn't hard for you at all?"

I think that's where this whole navel-gazing began. Because my thought on that comment was simply, "do I really spend time talking about how getting older sucks?"

Since that little exchange, three other people in my life have commented on their own advancing age status (turning 30 for two of them, turning 50 for another) and how getting older is hard, especially turning 30. And when I mentioned that it was my birthday to a couple of friends from school, both of them seemed surprised (and happy?) to learn that I was older than they were. It seems like everywhere I turn these days, people are talking about how getting older is difficult and scary and signifies the end of....something.

And you know what? It totally does. When barraged by reminders of my ticking clock, I can look around and see how completely frightening it is to get older. Frightening because it is indicative of a loss of power, especially for someone like me who hasn't utilized the power of youth to steamroll herself into the social normative roles (married, kids, etc) expected in this culture. My god! If I don't have my looks, how will I ever attract a HUSBAND!!! And with no husband in sight, it's just a matter of time until my uterus gives up and shuts down the factory and then *GASP!* no babies!!!! Which means, of course, that I am going to die old and alone. Did you hear me? That's right. OLD AND ALONE.

On top of that, getting older means that at some point, I'm going to be ugly. Not saying that I've ever been Cleopatra or anything, but advancing age means that I'm stepping closer to that time when popular society will deem me useless, as they do with all women who get past a certain point. I'm not close to that point yet, but all the indicators out there are constantly screaming warnings about that dreaded date with destiny. BOTOX!! NO ONE WILL KNOW THAT YOU'RE FORTY!! Olay Night moisturizer! TAKE AWAY THOSE AGE SPOTS! Acai Berry Diet! Revamp your metabolism to that of a 21-year old!

So to sum: ugly, powerless, useless, alone. Definitely scary things to face. No wonder getting older can be terrifying.

I love Mad Men. I get together with friends and watch it and we revel in the drama and the despair and the beautiful retro clothes and the hotness that is Jon Hamm. The third season just came out and we've been like a bunch of addicts, cloistered for hours in a tiny dark room, watching episode after episode, impatiently pausing for bathroom breaks and food. So far, it's been a great season. One of the things that's really struck me though, is the concept of "having it all." There's a scene where Peggy and Don are talking about how Don's not going to give Peggy a raise and Peggy tells Don that she doesn't understand. He has EVERYTHING, she says. And no matter how she tries, she can't figure out how to be like him. Don just looks at her. The audience knows his repressed misery, the bad childhood, the empty marriage, the endless affairs, the distracted quality that rules his world. But from the outside, she's right. He has it all.

And maybe that's the thing about getting older. Maybe the really frightening thing is the clarity with which we learn to see our sacrifice at the alter of time. No one can have it all. Even if you have everything society deems useful (husband, family, career, wealth, beauty, brains, travel, success), somewhere along the line there's something you've compromised to get there. It's simply not possible to do it any other way. So perhaps that's why it hasn't bothered me so much. Although I do have days (and weeks, and months) where I question my life choices and ask myself whether or not this particular path I'm on will ultimately get me where I want to go (which is another topic entirely), this year has been a year of happiness, direction, and excitement. Many of the things that I have wanted for myself in my life are in the works. I feel more grounded now than perhaps at any other point in my life.

My favorite quote from Mad Men this season has come from Don.

"Our worst fears lie in anticipation."

It seems like that's the whole hype of aging. Society tells us that if we don't do xyz, at some point in the future we will be miserable. Reality, however, is this minute. I can't tell you if I'll ever get married or have children or die alone or grow haggardly. Statistically, the odds are pretty good that all of those things will happen. All I can really know is what is here, and right now I'm pretty happy with that.

Thoughts on Codine

2010-02-22T22:59:00.000-08:00

So I took a massive dose of codine about 30 minutes ago and am waiting for the said "amazing" effects to kick in and punch my lights out. But they haven't yet, so while I wait for said unconsciousness, I thought I would take a few short moments to write down some of my thoughts. Because I can. It's my goddamn blog. I can type whatever I want. On whatever drugs I want.

1) Maybe codine just makes me edgy and hostile.

2) Or maybe it's the fact that this is my second sickness in a month. Two weeks of February spent being sick. That is fucking. ridiculous. Doesn't my body know I've got shit to do and people to see and things to study? Doesn't it know that all the time spent indoors instead of outside in the sun means a spiral into late-winter SAD???? WHAT THE FUCK IMMUNE SYSTEM?! COME ON!

2a) I also find it really interesting how sensitive I am to the comments about how I am "always" sick. Seriously. If you want to piss me right off, tell me that I'm always sick. I had swine flu in November and then I've been sick for two weeks in February. Maybe to SOME people that's "always" sick, but to me, that's called winter. Working in a hospital. See how defensive it makes me? Why is that? Is having a shit immune system somehow equated with being a "weak" human being in my brain? I'm also sensitive when people rib me about taking medication when I'm sick. Like toughing it out through an illness is so much better than taking some fucking Mucinex and being able to function. Why do people think that toughing it out is better than taking meds? Do they think that if some future apocalypse should hit and the pharmaceutical companies should be blown to smithereens that suddenly I would shrivel and die upon catching cold, while they would laugh heartily in the face of illness and go do something tough, like chop wood and birth babies? Or maybe both at the same time. Guess what? Toughing it out through a fucking flu virus doesn't make you Paul Fucking Bunyan.

3) Today we were talking about gender differences in healthcare. Which sort of bothers me. It's kind of like this destructive cycle. You take a researched little factoid like "men are less likely to be diagnosed and treated for depression" and we talk about reasons why that might be. We talk about how men are socialized to ignore pain, socialized to "not talk" about their feelings, socialized to not go to the doctor for psychological illness, socialized to think mental illness is a weakness, etc. And then we talk about public health initiatives that might encourage more men to go to the doctor. But what's problematic to me is that by building upon stereotypes in order to extend care (someone suggested creating a support group for depressed men but disguising it so that it wouldn't involve the words "talking" or "feeling" and would instead use the word "doing"), we're just further contributing to the stereotypes that have created the problem in the first place. My professor didn't particularly care for this observation btw. This however, is the man who described all women as "empathizers" and all men as "systematizers." He's got his positive points, but gender neutral conceptualization isn't one of them. God, gender stereotypes piss me the fuck off. What pisses me off even more is when people in my life actually ABIDE by them. Blurg. Blurg indeed.

4) I now have a Facebook friend who is also a school colleague. For some reason, that makes me feel vulnerable. I have no idea why. Good thing there aren't that many people in my program.

5) I think Top Gear is one of the funniest television shows of all time. Seriously. I watched an episode tonight and laughed my guts out. Who knew that three British dudes talking about cars could be so funny? I've also learned a lot about cars and can now say big impressive car words like "Bugatti" and can tell you that an M5 is faster than the new Jag due to the fact that the M5 doesn't waste speed (whatever that means), but that the Jag has 80 pounds more torque than the M5 does. Are you impressed with my car verbage? No? You should be. I drive an 11-year old Toyota Echo. It's the only car I've ever owned and the most work I've ever done on it personally is to help change the brake pads and once I replaced a tail light. Weeeee. Cars....

6) I think my favorite food is the french fry. Honestly. Or, more honester (wahahahaha! grammar!), the sweet potato fry. Those things are the BEST THINGS EVER. And I never have them. It's like the tease of the food world. I rarely eat at places that offer fries and when I do, I rarely get them. But god they are good. Sooooooo delectable. Michael Pollan says that you should only eat junk food that you make yourself, mostly because it's all so goldarn difficult to make, that you'll only make it once in a blue moon. He's right. Good fries are hard to make. Also hard to make but delicious: eclairs. I once had the dream of swimming in a vat of eclair cream, like they do in jello in that Disney adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Alright, it's now been 64 minutes since the taking of the codine and I'm not feeling at all tired, but I'm stopping because I ran out of coherent and interesting things to talk about 6 numbers ago. (Takes a bow)

Nostalgia and future nostalgia

2010-02-08T18:26:00.000-08:00

I have moments where I wish I could go back and relive things a certain way, just to see how they would turn out. My life, like I'm sure it is with everyone else, has presented so many divergent paths over the last few years. Not just the kind of paths where you wake up one day and hey! you're an accountant and how did that happen, but the kinds of life-changing decisions where you have to sit down and weigh your options and try to go with what feels best at the time. Agonizing, painful decisions where things can't remain the same and so you have to go forward.

I kind of wish life were like those Choose Your Own Adventure stories from the 80's. You know, the ones where "If you choose to go down the secret corridor, turn to page 86; If you choose to go back and eat a sandwich, turn to page 93." I'd like to be able to turn to page 93 of my life--the page that I'll always have to skip because in real life I chose page 86 instead-- just to see how it turns out. Am I happier? Where am I in the world? Have I made more money? Have I been run over by a bus?

I like life the way it falls. I'm even silly enough to believe that things are exactly the way they are supposed to be right now. (Maybe that makes me delusional??) But it would be interesting to get a peek at the alternate realities that I could be living now, if for no other reason than to appreciate this exact moment in time.

Foreign Aid

2010-02-05T15:05:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note to voice my thoughts on a discussion concerning foreign aid that I heard on NPR this morning. Many participants had called in voicing frustration that the federal government continues to donate billions of dollars in foreign aid when people here in the states are suffering from economic crises.

My thoughts:

1) Our donations abroad equate to approximately 0.17 percent of our GDP, which is less than pretty much any developed nation. Last time I checked, the numbers were around 13 billion dollars per year. Our military spending is close to 500 billion dollars per year. So the money, while it's still a lot, is not even a drop in the bucket comparatively. It's America and these are our priorities (apparently), but stopping both wars we're in would do FAR more to help the people here at home than refusing care to suffering Haitians.

2) Of that 0.17 percent, 40% of that aid goes to two countries. Care to guess which? ISRAEL and EGYPT. We basically pay billions of dollars to each country to keep them from killing one another. I could go into this a whole helluva lot further, but I'll just leave that little factoid with y'all to ponder. So a big fat chunk of this money isn't even going to countries who qualify as "third world" or are in need of it. Getting control of our lobbyists would probably help this money to be better spent.

3) I have really conflicting thoughts on foreign aid, as I have alluded to in prior postings, but basically it comes down to this: We, the United States of America, substantially contribute to the general fucking-over of many downtrodden nations. And if we're not actively contributing to this fucking over, our past actions have done so. We have a moral debt to pay. We should pay it. And it should be more money than we're paying out now, irregardless of how many people in the US are hurting. However, that money should be carefully monitored to assure that it reaches people who need it and governments who will allocate it with wisdom and integrity.

4) All that being said, I think it's totally understandable that people are frustrated and angry.

Global Health

2010-02-04T14:54:00.001-08:00

So I'm going to Thailand for a month. Just got the official notice today. I'll be there for a month starting the second week of June through the second week in July. I have no doubt that I will be writing lots more about this in the future months, but the point of telling this is to note that as a part of this study abroad, I have to take a course on Global Health. In the class we talk about what it means to be a public health professional in an international setting.

When I was younger, I dreamt of saving the world. I saw the photos of children in Africa and Latin America and listened to the news of wars and famine and poverty and I would daydream to myself about how I was going to one day travel to those far-away places and help suffering people and how the world was going to get fixed and everyone would live happily ever after. I can't even tell you how many times I've daydreamed about this sort of thing, but let's just say that it was FAR more time than I ever spent thinking about getting married and having babies and a house with a white picket fence. In fact, much of my life has been directed around figuring out a cheap way to get "international" experience in order to boost my resume so that I would be a good candidate one day for some U.N. post somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. This dream has led me to volunteer work, refugee studies, and a whole host of experiences that I felt would expand my horizons in ways that would someday help me "save the world."

Today, I am here to report, that the dream is on its deathbed.

It's on its deathbed because, quite frankly, I'm a ginormous ignoramus. Oh, and I'm not God. I don't even believe in God.

I think the dying process of this dream really started when I started falling in love with my home. For me, falling in love with Utah and with the United States of America has been an evolutionary process that's taken many years, a political science degree, and a few bruises. But I do. I love my home. Love, however, does not mean that I am patriotic or nationalistic. I think this country is fuuuuucked up; I refuse to look away from that. But love is the reason I don't look away, or move to Europe, or become completely cynical and jaded.

However, loving one's home is a matter of really trying to "know" a place. To know the names of the mountains that surround me and the good places to eat downtown. To know the demographics and the politics and the issues in my neighborhood. To be familiar with the seasons and the plants that grow here and the good coffee shops and the times of all the festivals. It also means trying to understand the people who live here. And, if you're a crazed feministy atheist liberal, trying to understand the conservative Mormon culture here is a stretch. And I was Mormon once! Trying to understand the people and the culture of the place I call home is goal that I am still working on, and probably will be for the rest of my life. God forbid I eventually move somewhere else and have to start over again. (and yes, I probably will move elsewhere) :)

The point of this is that I have miles to go before I will really feel like I understand America. And I have even more miles (read: infinite) to go before I really feel like I've really got an understanding of America's problems (lack of health care, poverty, poor education, misogyny, racism, etc) and can solve them all. And until I can solve all the problems with my place, I'm just not feeling all that qualified to go to other people's homes and tell them how to fix their problems. What do I know? Yeah. Not a lot.

This doesn't mean that my heart doesn't absolutely burst every single time I hear about the tragedies occurring globally. I pretty much can't even think about the Democratic Republic of Congo without tearing up. Nothing gets to me like poverty does. It absolutely rips me up inside to know that people are suffering needlessly. These days I console myself with the knowledge that people in need are people in need and helping people in need in my own neighborhood is just as good as helping people in need around the world. Every human life has worth.

It also doesn't mean that I disparage the many people that travel around the globe trying to make a difference. Many of those people are experts in their fields and have means to back their directives. And many more people are just trying to do something kind to try and give back and alleviate the pains of a suffering world.

I chose the Thailand program because it's an education program rather than a service program. We're not going to try to solve any problems. We'll be under the tutelage of doctors, epidemiologists, hospital directors, monks, and government officials from Thailand who are getting paid to teach us what they know. They're going to show us what's up. And I'm excited to learn. But the objective here, at least for me, is just to learn. Hopefully they'll have something to teach me that I can take home.

Seeds

2010-01-07T12:29:00.000-08:00

Seeds in the desert are sneaky
Stealth.
Lying in wait
sometimes for decades
waiting for rain
for an unexpected coolness in the soil
and suddenly
the ferocious climb to the top
the bloom
quick to take advantage of this one
fleeting moment
quick to sow their ninja children
who will follow their example
in the coming heat
and bury themselves deep and quiet.
I scattered such seeds on you
while you lay sleeping
in the hopes that they too
would someday find a day of rain
in our desert.

Ari in the snow

2009-12-30T15:11:00.000-08:00

As anyone who knows me well is aware, I hate the winter. I hate driving in the snow, struggling in my tiny tin car to stay afloat, I hate the pervasive cold, the constant grey, the wet, the inability to get warm- the list goes on and on. The decision to stay in Utah instead of go to graduate school in Arizona was only a decision at all because I literally did NOT want to stick it out for another winter here. So, part of my decision to stay here was a bargain with myself to try and figure out a way to like the winter.

I stocked up on winter gear- boots, snowshoes, Yaktrax, a down coat, waterproof socks, long underwear, etc. I found a friend who likes hiking in the winter and doesn't mind me tagging along. As soon as I get health insurance, I am going to go skiing with my crazy skier of a sister. I am also taking St. John's Wort, Vitamin D, and fish oil every day to help stave off the inevitable Seasonal Affective Disorder that usually sets in from too little sunshine. So far, I feel like it's been a great winter and I've enjoyed it as much as I think is possible for a distinctly un-winter person. I will always prefer sunshine, but I have definitely gained an appreciation for snow that I didn't think was possible.

One of the things that has helped me the most has been my walks with Ari, my sweetheart of a pitbull. We have a park across the street from our house and she and I get out as much as I possibly can and go walking around the winding trails in the wilderness area of the park. It's not a crowded place most of the time, especially when the snow is falling.

She's one of those dogs with a sort of athletic grace that makes her beautiful to watch as she bounds through the snow. We throw a ball every little while (because the ball is basically GOD HIMSELF in her book), but mostly we just ramble in silence, through the snow. It's this silence that has given me a deep appreciation for winter. The silence that snow brings is not a new phenomenon to me, but it's accessibility on a daily basis definitely is. It is as if the entire world closes in around you- or rather opens into a vacuum of silence- and all there is in the world in suddenly myself and the dog. It recharges me on such a deep level that I find myself longing for it on days I cannot go.

With three more months of winter left, for the first time in my life, I can actually say that I am happy that everything is exactly the way it is right now. And that is truly a gift.

Don't think twice, it's alright

2009-08-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

It’s my last day at the job. Everything is in place. My things are cleared away, files deleted or passed on, keys out on the table. My blonde little replacement is sitting up front, doing her thing as if she’d been here for forever.

I am thinking about grey.

The woman who has made my life a living hell for the past year got me a goodbye hubcap. Yes, a hubcap. My car only has three. I came to work this morning and there was a card and a hubcap on my desk. The thoughtfulness overwhelms me. Amongst all other things, she is and has been kind. Crazy and obsessive compulsive and controlling, but kind too. And considerate. She is, to me, the living proof of my thoughts today.

You cannot divide life into black and white, good and evil. Nothing is wholly one or the other. The Yin/Yang concept of Eastern philosophy makes sense, but I think it’s even more muddled than a simple black and white divide. We bring it all to the table, every day. The upbringing of our parents, the neuroses of our histories, the scars and fears that haunt our footsteps, our anger, our savage competitive drive. The sunsets we’ve seen, the small kindnesses and miracles that have been bestowed, a kiss on the forehead, an unexpected birthday phone call, empathy, a loaf of homemade bread, a funny movie. All of it muddles together.

How do you know when it is time to go? I am learning to recognize the signs. The things that were once exciting and new are tinged with the pain and cynicism of regrets and unforeseen costs. The worn-in tired feeling. The lack of surprise for any bad turn. They have treated me with unkindness, with blindness, and deceit. They have also paid for me to live and walked with me and lived alongside me as life has passed by these two years. Often it has not been good to be here, especially in this last year. But just because it has not been good, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been worthwhile.

I have had a lot of time to research and grow. I have had the good examples of successful women who try to balance careers and families and how to do that and how to ask for things and not be considered a bitch. I have had a space to put my things and expand. I’ve walked around this block hundreds of times. I’ve gotten flowers here and kissed boyfriends and had absolutely awful days where the fact that there was work to be done was all that saved me from wallowing in despair.

It’s time to go. It’s time to go. I am so thankful for the going. I am scared too.

It’s never simple. You can love people who hurt you and feel sadness at leaving a job that made you unhappy and feel nostalgia for places you couldn’t seem to get away from fast enough. But I’m grateful for the complexity of it.

I was here.

On blogs

2009-08-12T15:23:00.000-07:00

I blog. I read blogs. I think blogging is an important and amazingly personal way to connect with incredibly smart people around the world that one would otherwise have not been exposed to.

Every great intellectual movement of the past has involved a relatively small, diverse group of individuals putting together ideas and collaborating with one another. Consider in America the transcendentalists; Emmerson, Thoreau, etc., who knew and spoke with one another. Or in Paris, the philosophical circles of existentialism headed by Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. We have always relied on one another for support-- for other heads on which to bounce our ideas. I personally view blogging and reading blogs as the modernist equivalent (at least in capacity) to such collaborations. Blogs are, when they are at their best, discussions about concepts and ideas. They are a way to pass on news, to report from one's window the world outside that may not be available to others elsewhere.

Thanks to blogging, I have a better understanding of history and it's implications in modernity. Thanks to blogging, I am able to access some of the smartest and most informative political and legal opinions in the nation. Thanks to blogging, I am able to learn about international issues in Africa and elsewhere. Thanks to blogging, I get tough grammatical questions answered. Blogging is a support system for feminism. And sometimes, it's just plain fun.

I don't think it's a waste of time. I don't think it's frivolous.

Love Obama today

2009-07-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

So much has been said lately about the arrest of Professor Gates in his own home. I don't and haven't felt like I've had much to contribute on the subject. I read the police report, listened to Sgt. Crowley, and read many responses on my favorite race blogs, such as Racialicious and Racism Review, and basically came to the conclusion that while I think both parties escalated the conflict, Sgt. Crowley, who I do not think is a racist, clearly demonstrated that just because you may think that you're not racist, doesn't mean that you don't act in ways that reinforce racism in America.

If anything, for me, Sgt. Crowley is a good example of how all of us, especially those who are in the business of helping others (police, social workers, politicians, healthcare workers), need to actively seek out our own deep-seated unquestioned biases. Whether it's latent racism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc., we all have deep ugly parts that, if unquestioned, can and will hurt the very people we are trying to help. I think this is an example where a pretty good man (Sgt. Crowley) was put in a situation where some of his unquestioned biases surfaced to bad effect.

Anyway, last week, I was both heartened and annoyed at Obama for his comments on the issue. Heartened because he commented, stood up for Gates, and bravely asserted that race relations are still a sensitive issue within our supposedly "Obama post-racial era." Annoyed because he so blatantly did NOT have all the facts on the situation and yet made a judgment call which then escalated the entire conflict.

Today he apologized. Said he was sorry he'd spoken without the full amount of information needed to comment on the subject. Talked to both Gates and Crowley and tried to smooth over things on both sides. Defended his decision to comment on the situation and still stuck with his original defense of Gates, which I thought was commendable. He is the world's most powerful man and he is a black man. I'm glad he's involved in conversations about race. His is a needed voice.

He said sorry. Why do I love politicians that know how to say sorry? And not just over big, youcaughtme sorts of things, but over something seemingly small that he didn't have to take on? Because it means that he is still listening. And a president who is still listening to anyone outside his advisers is a better president BY FAR than any we've had in recent years.

He didn't lie when he said he was big on communication. And I love him for it, even if I don't always agree with him.

*Update: This is a crucial blog for anyone who has any interest in the concept of implicit racism.

On Snobbery.

2009-07-08T13:41:00.000-07:00

I am slightly pretentious. Or-- let me start that again-- I have been known to be slightly pretentious when it comes to reading books.

I didn't begin that way. Growing up as the oldest child in an almost Victorianly strict household, reading provided some of my deepest joy and wonder. I devoured everything I could get my hands on. Books were consumed two, three, four times a piece and puzzled over- even the ones I didn't like or understand, such as "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret" which, to my 9-year old Mormon mind, seemed completely incomprehensible.

I don't know where the sudden snobbery in reading came from. I think it started in college somewhere. I began undergrad as an English major and was thereby subjected to literary snobbery at its epicenter, where one could not be considered a true appreciator of the art if one preferred say, Barbara Kingsolver, over a compilation of literary analyses on King Lear. We took Emily Dickinson, (up until that point one of my favorite poets) and picked apart her spindly little poems until they were so many letters of the alphabet lying on the ground. My professors were big into postmodernist constructions. Somewhere along the line, reading became less of a pleasure and more of a goal.

This is not to say that my post-collegiate years have been spent soley slogging through ridiculous "works of literature"- which is always what you call a book you hate. I've read some really great books in my quest for literary snob of the year.

Robert Bolano, however, broke me of snobbery, I hope, forever.

If you are not familiar with Robert Bolano, he is a Spanish author whose post post-modernist novels have caused critics the world over to rave about his "genius." His novel, 2666, was published post-humously and in unfinished form, yet was hailed as one of the books to read in 2008. So, I picked it up.

The novel is ginormous. Probably 1200 pages. I'd like to say that there's a plot, but there really is not. It is better seen as a compilation of stories that may or may not bleed into one another and then abruptly end. It's monolithic. It's dry. It's post postmodernism.

I didn't finish it. Around page 400 I thought it was going to turn around and get good. At page 857, I gave up. Slogging through 200 pages in which Bolano details the murders and rapes of the women of Sonora, I began to get indignant. Seriously. THIS is what we consider good literature these days?

N+1 has a good op-ed piece about Bolano that pretty accurately characterizes his style:

Why then, you begin to wonder, are you reading these books? What for, if they are each going to eschew psychology, characterization, pretty language, and neat conclusions, and if the narratives are all to devolve into shaggy-dog Iditarods mushing after some fugitive poet or novelist about whom—even if he ever turns up—we learn next to nothing? Why read and write at all if these empty Chinese boxes constitute the only goods ultimately in receipt?

In Bolaño, literature is a helpless, undignified, and not especially pleasant compulsion, like smoking. At one point you started and now you can't stop; it's become a habit and an identity. Nothing is so consistent across Bolaño's work as the suspicion that literature is chiefly bullshit, rationalizing the misery, delusions, and/or narcissism of various careerists, flakes, and losers.

Why indeed? As I started reading about yet another Sonoran woman, 5 feet 7 inches, anally and vaginally raped, throat slit, found out a trash heap, I recollected back on a piece of advice Stephen King doled out in his marvelous little book, "On Writing." Life's too short to read crap. With the millions of great books in the world, reading something you don't like is a waste of time.

And so I put it down. Since then, I've read a ton of great books and a couple really terribly written junk-food novels- pretty much nothing that would qualify to be on the world's list of 100-Most Influential books of our time and I've pretty much enjoyed all of it. Influential is overrated. I want a good story, beautiful writing, and characters I can get into.

Robert Bolano, you can kiss my ass. Thank you.

2009-07-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

Nylons at 96 degrees

itch.

chafe.

stick, slick with sweat, like some oppressive second skin refusing to shed.

the urge to peel

or rip

tear

-anything! to remove that silken suffocation-

best intentions (the careful, shimmied application; nightstand corners and jumping dogs successfully avoided)
are quickly shot to hell

in hot pursuit

of relief.

god,

the relief.

Bebakhshid

2009-06-30T14:58:00.000-07:00

Response

2009-05-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

Shapely Prose-- a blog that I absolutely adore for its commitment to changing the way we view weight, fat people, and weight-loss-- has the following post up today:

I’m talking to a reporter who’s doing a story about what “messages” celebrities send with their weight-loss/weight-gain narratives. In her own words, she wants to know: “What was your reaction to Kirstie Alley’s and Oprah’s latest revelations? Did their descriptions of the shame and humiliation they felt about it make you feel normalized? Hopeless? Angry? Other?”

I wanted to include my response here:

I think the first response I had to both Oprah and Kirstie Alley was simply questioning why they continually choose to share their "pain" and "humiliation" with the rest of us. Do they think that their bodies are some type of report-card grade that has to be authorized by the general public? These women, especially Oprah, are pretty private about many areas of their personal lives- why do they feel their bodies are public property? Kirstie Alley's fame for the last decade or so has been based solely on her weight loss and weight gain, so it's not surprising to see another tabloid cover confession, I guess I just wonder why she allows that to be marketed to the degree that it is when she is a talented actress and undoubtedly has other things going on in her life aside from her weight.

Society has an ongoing conversation about younger celebrities who market themselves with their bodies (e.g., Paris Hilton/Kim Kardashian's fame spawning from sex tapes), but I think that Oprah and Kirstie exemplify the same cultural pressure to submit their bodies to scrutiny in the name of fame that the younger generations do; except, rather than being directly tied to their sexuality, it's to their weight (which is then connected to sexuality, but also a whole host of other "ills" such as laziness, selfishness, and stupidity). It's like they're Weight Sluts. We can envy Oprah for her billions, her fame, her success, her life, as long as at the end of the day we feel like we're better than her- that lazy, stupid bitch who can't keep the weight off.

Update: Was interviewed by the New York Times for my commentary. We'll see if I am actually quoted in the article that they post. Either way, I'll be posting a link to the article to this website as a way to further this interesting conversation. :)

Love

2009-05-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

My ex-boyfriend is getting married.

To a very nice girl. A girl that is head-over-heels crazy about him. A girl who wants more than anything in the world to marry him. And, I should mention, a girl that I am friends with. And this is the part where we all say congratulations! and clap our hands for love, once again, conquering all and bringing people together.

Except lately, I've felt slightly behind in that cheer. Like that person always a measure behind in the song, or a beat too late when everyone is clapping in time.

A friend explained to me once that each year of her life feels as if it simply builds on the other years; builds, but doesn't replace the people we were before. So, in her mind, her 21-year old self still exists, her 5-year old self still exists, her 14-year old self still exists. And they all take up space and crowd for emotions. And, to me, it makes a lot of sense. The times I want to throw a huge fit and fling myself to the ground kicking and screaming and yelling "No! NO! NO!!!"? 3-year old self. Random road trip to California? Definitely 17-year old self.

I think this concept of selves explains a lot of my feelings about this marriage. The 26-year old self is super happy for them and wants nothing but the best. The 15-year old girl that was hopelessly, madly, achingly in love with him? Yeah, not so happy.

I realize this makes me sound slightly schizophrenic, but I think everyone has conflicting emotions from time to time. Times when you've been happy and sad. Times when you've been simultaneously angry and relieved. Dueling emotions, I think, are pretty common and I think they're usually the mind's response to sudden, unanticipated changes. They're what happens before we've had time to sort things out emotionally.

So I've felt slightly conflicted about it. I confess to avoiding Facebook for the past few days in an attempt to not get daily updates about the plans, or pictures of the ring, or whatever. Not because I've wanted anything to be different (I most certainly do NOT), but simply because every time I go to it, I have felt this swell of differing feelings and it's been disconcerting.

Last night my ex called me to give me updates about the wedding plans. He and the fiancee are making a trip out to Utah to hold a celebration with the friends and family here who will probably not make it to the actual ceremony. He wanted to know if they could use my house for the festivities. I have a good house for parties. A huge, flat yard with enough space for a good volleyball game. A beautiful living room with floor to ceiling windows that lend a gorgeous view of the mountains and the valley below. It makes sense to have it at my house. And so I agreed. And in a month and a half, we'll have a party for them here and it will be great, I am certain.

For some reason, this conversation was what I needed to get my emotions straightened out. I think it's because, in some strange way, this party is a way to satisfy all selves. It's a way to prove to myself that I kept my promise to him all those years ago- that I would love him for forever. It was more than a boyfriend thing- during that time period those people (the five of us) were my family and I still consider them thus. It's a way to spread that love over to her and solidify to the world that, in my life, they are now one and the same and, in a sort of Godfather sense, any person of his is a person of mine. It's a gift I can give. It's an affirmation of my long-standing belief that if you love someone, you love them for life. Without fail, that love changes and morphs and becomes something entirely different than you ever thought it would be, but at the end of the day, it's still love. And that's something worth celebrating.

So, with hands clapping synchronously to the beat, I say congratulations! I love you both.

When to speak out: Lessons learned

2009-05-04T14:21:00.000-07:00

There have been all sorts of reports in the news lately about multiple child suicides due to homophobic bullying. I'm not really sure what to say about this, except that I think it's important to recognize the ENORMOUS amount of stress and pain that still occurs today for kids who are "different." Whether it's sexuality, income level, race, etc., kids sure can be awful to one another. Oh wait, that extends into adulthood.

Anyway, the latest string of suicides due to this dragged me down the path of regret in regards to a conversation that happened a few months ago. My family and I were on vacation, staying with other family members. We had just arrived at their house after a long drive and were sitting down and chatting, catching up on their lives. In some way or another, one of my cousin's high school classmates was brought up in conversation. I'll call him "Max." My aunt proceeded to make jokes about Max because he wore fishnet stockings to school, eyeliner, miniskirts, etc., with my cousin adding occasional support with comments such as, "Yeah, everyone hates him" and "He's such a freak!" and "I stay away from him as much as possible."

As the conversation transpired, I sort of felt like I was sitting in a bubble. I felt this slow rage just boiling up and boiling up and boiling up. How dare they? I mean, seriously. HOW DARE THEY. My aunt- a grown woman- trash-talking (in front of her children) a kid who is different. And my cousin, openly admitting her active homophobia and unkindness- receiving support and condolences from not only her family, but MY family. Poor, poor girl having to go to school with such a freak! Kids these days are so much worse than they used to be! On and on and on ad nauseum, until I felt like the entire world was spiraling into some terrifying parallel universe in which you suddenly realize that the people you love most are bigoted and biased and hateful.

Reader, I said nothing. I did not defend this boy. Weakly I tried to point out that it probably takes a lot of courage for him to dress like that and come to school, knowing that he would be bullied and made fun of. "Oh he just wants ATTENTION" was the response.

Attention. Riiiiiiight.

To this day, I regret not saying more. Because I am not Mormon and my family is (and this conversation was brought up as a tangent to a discussion about California's Proposition 8 measure), I am seen as something of an ideological leper. My opinions and my voice are not valid on "doctrinal" subjects, such as homosexuality. What's more, when I DO voice my dissent, it is seen as hate-making against the LDS Church. I withheld because I felt awkward shaming my adult relatives. I felt awkward coming into their house and immediately taking issue with their hate. I felt awkward knowing that my parents would be upset with me for causing problems.

Despite all my reasoning, I regret it.

These children are literally DYING because of the opinions that people like the ones I love hold. They are killing themselves to escape the labels of "freak" and "faggot" and other such branding that leaves them open to verbal and physical abuse. I don't think that speaking out would have really changed the minds of my family and it sure would have caused some problems at the time, but at least I wouldn't have felt like a pawn in the game of this crazy-making.

Next time, I'm gonna do better. Next time I'm going to keep my cool and talk about how children are killing themselves because of the name-calling and the bullying that they receive at the hands of their peers. I am going to talk about the importance of solidarity in defending people like Max, who are incredibly vulnerable to depression, drug abuse, suicide, and other unhealthy coping strategies due to the amount of shit they receive for dressing/talking/looking the way they do. I'll leave religion and rage out of it, but I sure as HELL am going to have the facts:

(I'm including only a few, but a complete list of findings can be found here)

Almost all transgender students had been verbally harassed (e.g., called names or threatened) in the past year at school because of their sexual orientation (89%) and gender expression (87%).

More than half of all transgender students had been physically harassed (e.g., pushed or shoved) in school in the past year because of their sexual orientation (55%) and gender expression (53%).

More than a quarter of transgender students had been physically assaulted (e.g., punched, kicked or injured with a weapon) in school in the past year because of their sexual orientation (28%) and gender expression (26%).

Most transgender students (54%) who were victimized in school did not report the events to school authorities. Among those who did report incidents to school personnel, few students (33%) believed that staff addressed the situation effectively.
School staff also contributed to the harassment. A third of transgender students heard school staff make homophobic remarks (32%), sexist remarks (39%) and negative comments about someoneâ€™s gender expression (39%) sometimes, often or frequently in the past year.

Almost half of all transgender students reported skipping a class at least once in the past month (47%) and missing at least one day of school in the past month (46%) because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable.

All I have to say is: AMEN

2009-04-28T08:20:00.001-07:00

People who don't understand why I can't stand Judd Apatow movies, please take note:

AMEN

*

On Labeling: Why I think it's important to self-identify as a feminist

2009-04-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

Talking to a friend today who was bitching about the fact that anyone who labels themselves is essentially "limiting" themselves to a particular set of traits, he brought up "feminists" as an example. It got me thinking about the labels I apply to myself and my own box. Why DO I identify as a feminist? So many women, when asked, respond to the question of feminism with something along the lines of, "I'm not a feminist or anything, but I do believe xyz about equality, gender norms, stereotypes, etc."

I guess my take on "labeling" is this: When you are a member of a group of society that is currently and historically marginalized, I think identifying yourself as part of the group is important. Not only does it allow other people within your (race, gender, sexual orientation, etc) to feel supported and less alone, it gives other people who know you the opportunity to confront their biases and prejudices in an empathetic setting. That is, because they care for you, they may see the group you belong to in a more sympathetic light. This is the motive behind the mass "coming-out" parties within the gay/lesbian communities and I think it's an effective way to advocate for change without getting in anyone's face.

To me, identifying myself as a feminist means that I unequivocally believe that women in today's society face a gender disparity. It means that I am willing to have a civil conversation about gender inequality with people who don't agree with me. It means that I support women who are marginalized. It means that I pay attention. It also means that I am willing to be a challenge stereotypes about feminist women: that they are angry dike bitches who want to get rid of men and rule the earth.

Sometimes a girl just wants to be happy

2009-04-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

So, this woman, Susan Boyle performed on Britain's "Who's Got Talent" and basically blew everyone away. Today, Jezebel wrote an article questioning why it is that people are so excited about her:

The blogs are a-twitter with this Magical Woman, come to teach us Lessons. What fools we are! we self-castigate. Here's a dowdy lady who doesn't look like an American Idol contestant and we judge! Because she hasn't received validation from the patriarchy, we assume she's unworthy! And we were wrong! Stupid, stupid, shallow idiots! We judge! And are found wanting! Ad nauseam!

There is indeed something worrisome about plucking someone from obscurity and feting them for a week or so to make the rest of us feel better, reducing her to a two-dimensional character who reaffirms our belief in the Power of Dreams, never mind that Boyle seemed neither miserable before, nor particularly turned by the attention. (Indeed, she seems insufficiently willing to play the role for many of the interviewers, who seem reduced to portraying her as "lovable character" rather than "tragic redeemer.")

And sure, I guess I get that sort of criticism. I think there are definitely people out there who want to take Ms. Boyle and use her as a representation of the Great Hope for All Mankind or whatever- journalists, tv people, talk show hosts, sure. But that wasn't why I loved watching that performance.

I loved watching that performance because when you watch her sing, the sheer joy of singing almost overwhelms you. She is SO happy to be there, to be singing, to be on that stage (regardless of who she is or where she comes from) that you can't help but be moved by it, and the audience is and the judges are and for one beautiful moment you and everyone else are caught up in the triumph of music, of the moment, of the song, of her beautiful voice. For me, it was about that one pure moment of just utter love- not the stupid analysis that comes after it or the humble beginnings from which it sprung.

My brother and I had a discussion yesterday about whether it's rational to care about people you don't know. In this discussion, I was definitely the idealist of the two of us. I argued as rationally as I could that caring about others is not just the moral thing, but it's a necessity in a world where everything and everyone is so intricately connected. After the conversation though, I realized that although that's part of it for me, a large part of why I care about other people is because I want to believe in magic. I'm not talking about insipid tricks or potions or whatever- I'm talking about those very rare moments when the world seems to connect and life seems...possible. When you believe that all the shit that's happening in the world today can be overcome and even if not by you, by someone somehow. Susan Boyle's performance is an example of that for me where everyone is so surprised in those few brief moments that something (guard, cynicism, etc) is let down and everyone laughs and the whole world seems alight with childlike wonder. I want to believe in that.

And in things like this :)

A non-touching tribute to John Updike

2009-03-02T17:30:00.001-08:00

John Updike died a while back. I read about it in the New York Times and actually said aloud, "About time." And not because I didn't like the man- but because there are simply not that many artists living that are considered an enduring part of the American experience. His contribution as such was accepted years ago with all those Rabbit books- and with that, it seemed like he could settle down and write whatever he wanted, knowing his obituary would be run in all the major papers. I had been expecting him to die ever since I learned he was still alive.

He wrote some things that I love and some things that I hated. We don't see eye to eye on what it means to be a woman, but he certainly understood things about being a man. His essay, "The Disposable Rocket" was one of my favorites in college. He wrote a lovely poem called "Dead Dog," which makes me burst into tears every time I read it, including this evening.

To create in this world is a risky experiment. It takes a tremendous amount of self-confidence to attempt to put anything out at all. If you're even remotely in the loop, you know that there are people better than you out there doing exactly what you do and saying what you say. No small amount of self-delusion is necessary to keep steam after that realization. Then there's the fact that some people, even people you love and respect, will not like what you create and will say as much. You can hurt people you love by creating. John Updike, for what it's worth, created anyway, for decades, and I think that's courage worth appreciating.

A sudden, radical break from conventional wisdom

2009-02-26T12:44:00.000-08:00

Regarding the new study just published stating that "cutting calories"- any calories- will reduce your weight, I present to you this article.

America has an eating disorder.

And then my head exploded

2009-02-18T07:31:00.001-08:00

Lawmakers in this great state voted yesterday to deny homosexual individuals protection against discrimination in the workplace regarding their sexual orientation.

Right now, in Utah, you can be fired for being gay. Not just that, but you can also be fired for APPEARING gay.

Because that's how we roll in this state. So bigoted and biased that we would rather treat human beings like second class citizens based on ONE factor of their personhood, rather than confront our fears and biases. That's totally what God would want though. You know. Because HE hates those gays. Oh wait.... But that's right, God DOESN'T hate the gays- last time I checked, in fact, He was giving out orders to love everyone. But dammit all, it's gotta be tough love. God may love those gay people, but He sure as HECK doesn't love their perverse fornicating ways! So the best way to "love" them is to completely deny them any and all basic civil and human rights. Hopefully that will convince them to repent and return to normalcy. It's all about LOVE!

I want to bash my head against a wall.

Dear Utahns,

You cannot hate people for their own good.

Kisses,

Bek

The complexities of domestic violence

2009-02-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

Jezebel has a really awesome post about a post up right now about Rihanna and Chris Brown. My heart hurts for Rihanna, who, no matter what she chooses to do (press charges, dump him, get back together with him), will forever be scarred by this incident. It's one of those moments in life where bad things happen and right up front, no matter WHAT you do, your life will never be the same. I hope she has a good support system- people who are going to stick by her and love her and not judge her NO MATTER WHAT SHE CHOOSES TO DO. These situations are always complicated and emotional. I don't presume to know what's going to be best for her. I hope others don't either.

Having worked in a domestic violence shelter, I can attest to the fact that the situation that Jezebel's Megan describes is really quite accurate. Law enforcement officers aren't monsters and members of the prosecution aren't sadists, but the system is absolutely 100% overwhelmed. Good police and prosecutors can handle the overload with grace and empathy. Others, due to lack of training or lack of emotional ability, cannot. It's a hard, tragic, shitty situation for everyone. My heart goes out to all involved.

Update 1: Excellent interview with Elizabeth Mendez Berry, author of "Love Hurts"- an article looking at domestic violence, specifically within the hip-hop culture.

What is up?

2009-02-04T08:26:00.000-08:00

A year ago, my car stereo gave out. Blew a gasket and died, effectively removing me from any and all live radio for the past year. I made the best of the situation- listened to my iPod, downloaded lectures to listen to on the drive to work (my mind engaged is much less prone to road rage- yay rhymes!), etc. It wasn't SO bad, but I missed the good old days where I could unabashedly listen to the latest horrible bubble-gum pop and oldies in the privacy of my little tin can. And NPR. God, I missed NPR. I know that makes me a true blue liberal white person. And I can't help it.

The parents bought me a new car stereo this past Christmas (thank you thank you thank you) and I've immediately reverted back to my old habits....listening to KOZY 106.5 and NPR and 90.9 and the occasional ridiculous Beyonce "Put a Ring on It." It's been a lovely lapse in music pretentiousness. Fuck taste!- give me LOVE SONGS AFTER DARK!

Anyway, so when I was growing up, all the kids used to listen to X96. The source for all things "alternative." And, you know, I still have a real affection for the station. It brings me back to the old days of tooling around in Lauri's old station wagon, of waterballoon stakeouts, of childhood and youth. It's still one of my "favorites" buttons.

My year-long absence from the radio may account for this next question: Where are all the ladies in the "alternative" music genre? And why are they not getting radio time?

I love women musicians. Most of my favorite artists are women. There's gotta be a ton of them in the alternative young-hipster-toocoolforschool-generation of upandcomings. WHY are they not getting play? It bothers me.

That's all. If you need me, I'll be over listening to Delilah and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

:)

MLK

2009-01-19T09:01:00.000-08:00

Today MLK's got me thinking about all the people in this world who stand up against the popular current and take a beating- the people who dedicate their lives to being an example, however imperfect and flawed an example they may be.

I've said this before- I do not think America is a great country because it is God's land, or because it is a righteous moral nation. I do not think we are a country that has used its power benevolently or for good. However, I love this country for the individuals who live within it; amazing, powerful individuals who are willing to stand up against the current and protest. MLK was one of them. Not the soulless, hammed up guy that they taught me about in elementary school, thankfully, but a man whose life was full of choices. Some of them he made poorly, to the detriment of his family and himself. But I am ever thankful that he made the choice to stand up and continue standing, no matter what the cost. I love him for that. I love America for giving birth to that.

This was Gene Robinson's prayer yesterday at the "We Are One" concert that Obama attended. It is my prayer too, as MLK day and the inauguration take place.

“O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears -- tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless this nation with anger -- anger at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort at the easy, simplistic answers we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be fixed anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility, open to understanding that our own needs as a nation must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance, replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.

Bless us with compassion and generosity, remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable.

And God, we give you thanks for your child, Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, inspire him with President Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for all people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our ship of state needs a steady, calm captain.

Give him stirring words; We will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking far too much of this one. We implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand, that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity, and peace. Amen."

How do you know you've found your calling?

2009-01-05T15:09:00.000-08:00

When articles like this make you get all passionate and "save the world"y.

YAY reproductive health!

Need More Information

2008-12-28T16:50:00.000-08:00

I heard from a good source that the LDS church has forbidden missionaries to wear pink and purple ties, on account of the fact that it's "what the gays" wear. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Big Trouble in Fat China- Ruminations on Michael Pollan

2008-12-19T10:04:00.000-08:00

USA Today is reporting that obesity is on the rise in China, along with the standard health conditions that come with it, such as Type 2 diabetes. For me, this set off a series of contemplations about Michael Pollan.

For those of you who don't know who Michael Pollan is (and I'm assuming there will be only a few of you since he's quite famous right now), he's the author of The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and his latest, In Defense Of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. In Defense of Food was written as a follow-up to the Omnivore's Dilemma in which Pollan points out the disparities and hypocrisies in our food systems (including the organic industry). Apparently after reading 300-400 pages of expose, people wanted a solution. So Pollan told them as much, in small words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

It's a pretty simple solution. He advocates short ingredient lists (also known as "nothing on the ingredient list that your grandmother wouldn't recognize"), buying local, growing your own, and a few other simple solutions. He talks about the need to get away from the "Western" diet which focuses on processed foods and a lot of synthetic corn. One of the things he points to, which I think is especially relevant given this new report out in China, is that as soon as the Western diet is introduced to a culture, obesity and the typical round of Western health problems follow (heart disease, diabetes, etc). It doesn't seem to really matter WHAT diet people are on, as long as it isn't ours.

SO, knowing what we know, why is it still so hard to follow? I think one reason might be that his directives run the nebulous knife's edge of both easy and particularly difficult at the same time. The solution is TOO simple. For people who are accustomed to the exhaustively minute details of the ordinary diet book, six words of advice can seem- well, it can seem a little baffling. There aren't concrete steps and there aren't levels of measurement to make sure that you're progressing the way you "need" to. It's also difficult because to live those six little words means you put a lot more time and effort into your eating habits (more time cooking, more time shopping, more time in a garden, more time planning). Doing that can be a huge lifestyle change and everyone (especially at Christmas) knows how hard major lifestyle overhauls can be.

This year, I tried to follow those six words. I planted a garden (and herbs), I cooked twice as much as I usually do, I went the the Farmer's market and shopped as locally as I could, and I planned out my meals better. I think the hard part for me is the letting go- the feeling that there's something more concrete that I should be gaining other than a feeling of generalized wellness. This upcoming year, I'll try even harder to stick with this- to believe that it IS what works- to stop believing that all the marketed "low fat" "low carb" "diet" "sugar-free" chemical stuff is better for my body than the stuff that grows in the ground. Viva la FOOD revolucion! Spread the word!

Microcredit

2008-12-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

Racialicious has an interesting article about microcredit up today. Two short thoughts:

1) Anyone who ever tries to tell you that the answer to poverty is a one-hit solution is either a) ignorant, or b) trying to hit you up for money

2) The concept behind microcredit that I have always had a problem with is that it presumes that old American/capitalism concept that if you just work hard enough (i.e., take out a loan), you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and be successful. It doesn't take into account the fact that poverty is geopolitically, globally, socially, and demographically influenced. In a lot of ways, micro loans are just a smaller way of throwing money at a problem that demands a much more complex solution.

Anyway, check it out if you have a second.

Present/Infant

2008-12-15T19:52:00.000-08:00

So lately I've been thinking a lot about radical self-acceptance. I got out of a relationship a couple months ago and the heaviness of the sorrow had taken about fifteen pounds off me because I was simply too sad to eat. Regular exercise and a better diet have given me back some of my energy and weight and, while I've been grateful for it, the old eating disordered thinking raises its head whenever I have to watch that scale rise. It's always hard, even when it's for the best.

In the upcoming edition of "O" magazine, Oprah talks about her guilt and shame for once again allowing her weight to spiral up to 200 lbs. All my favorite feminists are talking about it- about how such an amazingly talented, gifted, smart, successful, beautiful woman is so beholden to her weight that it actually drives her to public confessional. We all know that body snarking is one of the foundations of our modern society, but I think Oprah is just a very extreme example of how a woman can be one of the most influential and powerful people in the entire world and STILL, STILL be beholden to constructs about how she's "supposed" to look. It's tragic. It's tragic to me that Oprah and I spend SO much time and energy on this stupid subject. Kate Harding writes:

"Some days, you feel like it would be so much easier to take on that old part-time job again — especially when you’ve done it so many times, for so many years, you could do it in your sleep. All you have to do is carve out three or four hours a day to exercise more vigorously, obsess about what you’re going to eat next, and prepare it; stop listening to your body and only pay attention to your food plan and workout schedule; cut out some hobbies and social time to make room for the job; recall all the tips and tricks for not eating at holiday gatherings, at restaurants, at your dear friends’ houses, at your own birthday party; retrain yourself to believe that salad dressing — let alone artisanal bacon, creme brulee, whatever — doesn’t taste good enough to warrant its negative effects on your job performance; talk constantly about what you’re not eating and how great it makes you feel, in hopes that some of your friends will join you at this lonely little workplace; and — most importantly — continue to believe with a religious fervor that your body is an ugly, hateful thing that must be punished and diminished. As long as you really believe that, the rest isn’t so hard to keep up, once you get used to it (again).

Some days, all that sounds a hell of a lot easier than resisting the messages — especially when you think of all the praise you’ll get once you’ve lost a noticeable amount of weight, or how good it will feel when you get to put on a smaller dress (though that feeling goes away quickly, as it must, or else you might lose your motivation to keep going). How proud and in control you’ll feel — again, for a few minutes at a time, for as long as it’s working. How much better people will treat you, as long as there’s less and less of you. I totally get that.

But I stopped giving in to it. And boy, I wish you would, too — because you’re way too smart to take that sucker bet yet again. "

And that's what I want to do too. I want to stop giving in to it. I want to live in my body, not outside of it. I want to be so comfortable and lived in that people who look at me decide to live in their own bodies too, instead of outside of them.

Some of you know about my deep, long-standing girlcrush on Ani DiFranco. If you don't know her, if you haven't listened to her, I'm embedding a small reason to start. Because this is a woman who GETS this concept:

Love is all over the place. There's nothing wrong with your face.

Peace,

R

PS- Sorry about the commercial up front. Damn WSJ and their moneymaking ploys! :)

On leaving

2008-12-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

I always think that it's weird when leaving someone turns out to be the best option. If you're at all like me, relationships these days are all about a careful process of selection. Personality-wise, I am not the type of person who solicits anyone and everyone for friendship. I make friends and then I tend to want them to stick around for the rest of my foreseeable life. And why not? It's not that difficult to maintain a friendship- the care and time and effort required is much less than a commitment-heavy romantic relationship, or the life-long blood ties that involve family relationships.

For this reason, it's always hard for me to wrap my head around the concept of losing friends. I'm not talking about the typical, "She moved 3000 miles away and we gradually lost touch but if we ran into one another there would be hugs and laughter"- I'm talking about the conscious decision to terminate a relationship with someone you love. If you've had friends that have been around for a few years, the likelihood is that sooner or later stuff is going to come up and the decision will have to be made whether to try to stick it through, work it out, or leave.

So when do you leave someone? And, if you leave, is there ever a time when it's okay to come back again? Does leaving someone mean that you didn't love them enough? Does returning to someone whom you've left indicate that time heals all wounds, or does it establish a return to old habits, addictions, cycles that will cause history to repeat itself?

Obviously, these questions are a case-by-case sort of thing, as is any personal relationship. There is no diagnostic book that can tell you the signs and symptoms of emotional regression within a particular relationship. However, I guess the reason I post this post is this: sometimes we have to leave. Leaving is not the worst thing. It is just one of a few uncomfortable options when problems arise. It can be the wrong choice, and it can be the right choice. And, just because it's the right choice now, doesn't necessarily mean that returning is the wrong choice later. Unlike chemical elements, people change and relationship compositions change.

(end streamofconsciousness word vomit) :)

There is no Switzerland

2008-12-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

So there's this great quote on Shakesville (which is quickly becoming one of my top favorite blogs EVAH) and I wanted to post it here but it seemed like posting it, without context of WHY I think it's such a great quote, would somehow lessen it.

Doing the Monday morning read-through of the newspapers and the blogs, I found the following:

1) Salon has a front page spread about Charles Graner, one of the guards convicted in the Abu Ghraib scandal. Roommate L and I were talking about the article and whether or not the sentence he is serving is a just one:

me: Did you read that article in Salon today/yesterday about the Abu Ghraib guard?

Just interesting when you're thinking about torture

and US involvement

L: Yeah, I read it last night before I read the other stuff

me: ahh

L: So sad

me: yeah

L: And corrupt

I have no pity for that man however

He can rot in hell

But the lack of action higher up in the military / government is inexcusable.

me: I have some pity for him. Not enough to release him from prison, but probably enough to not let him spend 29 months in solitary confinement.

We don't know how much of that they were ordered to do

it's always difficult with the military.

It's not enough though, because if someone told me to do that

I would refuse, regardless of the consequences

and I would have gone to the press

and the people

and been a whistle blower

and he didn't

he complied

and for that

he deserves to be punished

for a damn long time

But I do think he is the scapegoat

and that that's unfair

L: Yeah, I hear that perspective and I agree with the scapegoat issue, but him smiling and thumbs-up-ing over bloody corpses- that lessens my pity.

Uggh

2) There's a post over at Racialicious (probably one of the healthiest blogs for me or anyone to read) about Native American stereotyping and how common and harmful it is. I recommend reading it, as well as visiting all the links provided, as well as reading the lengthy and heated commentary that follows the posting. One of the posters seemed SO hostile to me in her challenges to other commentators, but Latoya (owner of Racialicious) had a different take on it:

Kathy-Oneida Nation is quite correct. It does get tricky when someone purports to comment on the nature of a community that is not their own. Now, I can only speak to Rob - not as familiar with Jess, but I’ve been working with you, Rob, since I’ve been on this blog - and I understand where you are coming from. We’ve checked Newspaper Rock for a while, and Rob actually does do good work with reference to bringing awareness to issues within the Native Community, particularly in reference to stereotypes.

However, Rob, this is part of the process. I know that you and Jessica have knocked heads before about this. And to be honest, that is going to happen. Tim Wise often writes about how he doesn’t expect anything from the communities he discusses in his anti racism work - he is often met with mistrust, but he acknowledges it is with good reason.

Carmen and I run a multiracial blog - we get hit all the time with questions about why we cover the things we do, and who we allow to cover certain issues. Often, if we are called by the media, we are asked to refer them to someone that is a part of a certain group - a transracial adoptee, or maybe a Muslim woman who is also African-American. Could Carmen and I talk about some of these issues? Sure we’ve posted on it enough, done our own research.

But most of the time, producers want someone who speaks from that experience. It isn’t just for the authenticity factor - it’s also because a lived experience can provide insights that you just cannot duplicate with research and observation.

And this is why we - and I would caution everyone on this blog to do the same - tread lightly when we cover issues outside of our own experiences. We all internalize stereotypes, and we can all make mistakes. And it is only by listening and learning that we move forward.

3) The Black Friday coverage of the deaths at WalMart in which people were trampled and killed and a pregnant woman was hospitalized.

Here's the quote:

"This is why we've all got to be consciously, deliberately, vigilantly all in. We each make a difference in this world, for good or ill. There is no neutral. There is no Switzerland. There is only saying no to the indignities one human visits upon another—prejudice, hatred, humiliation and pain—or saying yes. And sometimes there is only stopping and kneeling and laying your hands on a stranger and putting your own body in between theirs and a herd of the unconcerned.

Always, every moment of every day, we must remember that kindness really can be a matter of life and death."

Victim blaming take 5 bajillion

2008-11-24T09:52:00.000-08:00

A law is expected to pass in east Indonesia mandating that people with HIV be implanted with a microchipping device so that the government can "monitor" the disease and hold people accountable who are "deliberately" passing it on.

Err....what?

Ok, let me get this straight, instead of, you know, EDUCATING people about the disease in a mass public health campaign, providing condoms and programs to destigmatize condom usage, working to make sex work safer, confronting the issue of drug abuse and substance abuse etc., you want to MICROCHIP PEOPLE???

Wow. Just, wow. Because, you know, having HIV doesn't already SUCK ASS ENOUGH, they should definitely take away personal freedoms and infringe on people's civil/human rights. Because sex is evil people. Sex is evil and if you have sex and you get an incurable deadly disease as a result of having sex, well, then it's your own fault you're treated like dirt (and this totally includes victims of rape, incest, etc. btw. Oh and child sex workers too. EVIL SINNERS ALL OF YOU!) I love it when governments and religion combine and create oppressive openly-hostile regimes that use their power and moral superiority to further victimize already vulnerable populations. Oh and this will TOTALLY stop the spread of AIDS btw. Because now, instead of utilizing health facilities, people who don't want to be implanted, tracked, and potentially criminalized are going to completely avoid getting tested at all. And ignorance is bliss. No doubt the rate of HIV will drastically plummet- a success story for the Indonesian government! (Non-alcoholic drinks all around!) Strangely though, people will keep dying at about the same rate.... hmmmm.... Well, you can't solve everything!

Using religious values to legislate ends up hurting people time and time again. Religion, at its best, is supposed to appeal to our better natures, to bring out our better selves. Every religion acknowledges that this is a process and that everyone makes mistakes and everyone slips up. Unfortunately, (leaving out the small little detail that everyone's concept of religion is different, even if you fall under the same name umbrella), religion is not working with what is real. The reality is that, like it or not, legislate it or not, people have sex and do drugs and get diseases. When we stop looking at what "should" be and start looking at what "is," it's very easy to realize that rather than castigating people for actions that we may not approve of, it's far more productive to stop all the judgemental bullshit, roll up your sleeves, and start utilizing methods and techniques that WORK. And, just in case you were wondering, Indonesia, the whole microchipping thing? Not on that list.

Still I carry all my old delicious burdens

2008-11-17T15:41:00.000-08:00

Today, walking back from lunch at Wild Oats, there were two guys begging on the corner. I noticed that they were different than the normal homeless people who usually beg on that corner because their signs were bigger- one seemed to have been made from a washing machine box- and said, "Houseless" instead of "Homeless", as if to state that the situation itself left nothing lacking.

As I passed, the one sitting down called out to me, "Hey! Wanna take me home? I'll do dishes, I'll wash your car, whatever you want." And, as I laughed, he seemed satisfied and turned away. I walked up to them, and noticed that they were only kids- maybe early 20's at best. I asked them what they were doing and they told me they were traveling, that they had come from New York and were on their way to San Francisco. They were happy and light hearted and laughing, complaining about the cold and the fast-approaching snow. It was easy to see that San Francisco was the golden light at the end of the tunnel- the place where everything would be warm and happy and alright, but that they were in no great hurry to get there.

And I wanted to help them. Not for the reason that I would normally give money to a homeless person, out of sorrow, out of incredible sadness. But because something in them embodied a youth that I sometimes feel is slipping silently away from me. A freedom that is lost in the daily grind. The longing that wrenches at me from time to time- for space and open air and no backward glances. In a way, it was comforting to know that such a pair exist. Even if it is not me, at least I know it is not lost.

"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road."

-Walt Whitman

A bad week for women worldwide

2008-11-14T09:51:00.000-08:00

I feel like all I write about these days is either depressing or angry. Who wants that? :)

Two positive things before getting on to the yucky stuff:

Gardasil may be an effective HPV vaccine for men as well as women. This article made me smile, remembering a conversation I'd had with Dianne Fuller, a Salt Lake SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) nurse, and one of my personal heroes. She occasionally does clinical hours at Planned Parenthood and I swear, every time I am around her, I turn into this starstruck teenager, stammering and stuttering awkwardly while trying to follow everything she does as closely as possible. ANYWAY, so we were having a discussion about Gardasil a while back and all the protests that parents have made, arguing that giving teens this vaccine will push them into having sex early. Dianne harumphed about how ridiculous it was and then snapped, "and you can BET if I had a son, I'd be shooting him up with Gardasil just the same as I would any girl. It never hurts to be cautious." Looks like her genius prevails again. :)

The International Criminal Court may be pressing charges against Omar al Bashir (Sudan's "president") for using mass rape as a weapon of genocide. If it passes, it will be the first time in history that rape as a weapon of genocide has been charged against anyone. As far as Darfur goes, there are complications with the ICC pressing charges against Bashir and everyone is not all on board with it, but as far as this particular charge goes, I think if it happens, it will truly be a victory for rape victims worldwide. Acknowledgement that rape is a weapon of genocide will help bring justice to the millions of women (and men and children) who have been victims of rape at the hands of oppressors. (The horrific circumstances in the Congo happening right now come to my mind.) It would be a small but significant victory if Bashir is prosecuted for rape.

Other than that though, it's been a bad week for women all around.

Four Afghani girls were sprayed in the faces with battery acid on their way to school. The Taliban doesn't approve of women receiving an education and similar attacks like this have been reported 236 times this past year. All four of the girls were hospitalized and two of them are permanently blinded.
A 13-year old Somali rape victim was stoned to death, while thousands of people watched and cheered.

Duana Johnson, a trans woman, was shot and killed in an execution-style murder on the corner of her block. If you haven't heard of her before, she is the woman who was the victim of filmed police brutality after being arrested back in February. She was in the process of pressing charges against the Memphis police when she was killed.

I bring up these instances because I think it is important to realize that, whether worldwide or here in our own country, women are subjected to discrimination, hatred and extreme violence. And I know that "awareness" is sort of a shit thing in terms of actual action taken, but talking about these things and realizing that they exist can help us tune into circumstances in our lives where we actually CAN make a difference. At least, that's the idea.

We can support government officials who make international women's rights a priority. We can give money and time to organizations here and abroad that work with sexual violence and women's reproductive health. We can look at our own prejudices and biases regarding sex and sexuality and transgender people and make sure that these issues are something that we've worked through, rather than things we don't face until they bite us. We can teach our children to look at the world honestly and examine their prejudice and biases. We can talk about these things until people who would not normally listen, start listening. It's nothing as direct as I'd like- I'd like to rescue that poor little girl all alone in that stadium of so many angry voices, I'd like to offer protection to each brave girl and woman who keeps on going to school despite the risks, I'd like to warn Duana Johnson ahead of that gunshot. But I can't. I've got one life to live and it isn't in Somalia or Memphis or Afghanistan. It's here. So I do what I can here and pray it's enough.

Proposition 8....trying to blame it on black people?

2008-11-10T08:35:00.000-08:00

So there's sort of an eruption happening in all the blogs I read in regards to Proposition 8 and the fact that 70% of the black vote went to "YES" on Proposition 8. Lots of people are voicing their VERY strong disappointment that even as a black man makes history and cuts through centuries of racial division, black people are voting, in larger percentiles than any other demographic, to pass a law that fundamentally changes the California constitution to say that everyone should not be treated equally.

It's easy to be upset over this because it seems like such an obvious cut and dry case- the black community must be homophobic if they're voting like this, and, it's worth being upset at them because they might just have been the deciding factor on this issue. But obviously, when things seem that cut and dry, there's more going on. I wanted other perspectives so I've done a little bit of research. If you want a black perspective, I advocate going to Racialicious and checking out the compilation of links from black bloggers that they've acquired on the subject. It's very interesting and opens up more perspective on this issue of blame.

But basically, I've been thinking about it, and you know what? It's not my issue. It's not my issue who black people decided to vote for as a demographic. I cannot claim them as my demographic and thus, cannot blame them on issues as complex as this either. I think that the farthest I can go in respect to the black vote, would be to express surprise and disappointment that their demographic would support it the way that it did. Any further than that? I'm outta my league.

I'm out of my league because I don't understand. When is it appropriate to criticize a demographic of people not your own? I guess, I don't know. In many respects, I just don't think it's appropriate for me, as a white person with very limited access to black culture, history, etc., to criticize black people as a demographic because then it becomes a discussion about RACE that I don't feel qualified to have. I would be fine to criticize someone who was black for doing something I didn't agree with, because it's about an issue or a personality or an individual not about race. Criticizing based on race seems like a surefire way to make yourself look like an idiot and talk about things you don't understand.

Especially when, as far as critiquing goes, I've got my OWN demographics to worry about. I guess I just think that's what people should be doing, rather than pointing fingers elsewhere simply because it's more convenient and requires less self-assessment.

My demographic is the LDS church and the LDS background I come from and the fact that, with few exceptions, my very large California-based family HEAVILY supported Proposition 8. These people are the people with whom I am shocked and frustrated with the most. It sickens me to think that, once again, due to the "righteousness" of the LDS church members, basic civil rights have once again been denied to vulnerable populations, including children. The church will regret their position on gay marriage, just as they regret their past position on blacks and the priesthood. Their position will have to change as time passes; evidence of this change is already apparent in the fact that they are subtly changing their dialogue and approach to homosexuality. These days, gay members of the church are not told to get into a heterosexual marriage; they are not put through electro-shock therapy; they are not excommunicated and shunned; the church extends to them all the rights of membership....as long as they remain celibate. No longer is it a sin to have homosexual desires- it is only a sin to "act" on them. It's a fundamental change to previous church doctrine. My heart hurts to think that so many people I love, and a church who has so many qualities I respect, acted in such a short-sighted, hateful manner. This is my demographic and they are largely to blame.

Secondly, I am white, and despite the fact that the for/against white vote was closer than the black vote on this issue (49%/51%), the fact of the matter remains that 51% of white people are still against gay marriage. And this liberal percentile is only in California- in more white-based conservative states (Arizona? Arkansas? Utah?), the numbers are MUCH higher. California is not indicative of the white vote elsewhere, as is made obvious by the ease with which gay marriage amendments have passed in other states. White people still deal with large amounts of homophobia. This, too, is my demographic.

My roommate and I were talking today about the things we do in our individual families to keep the peace, despite having very different ideologies than the majority of our family members. Most of the time, this means we don't start fights. We want to love our family members, despite vehemently disagreeing with them on issues like abortion and gay marriage. But at what point does this become complacency? Where's the fine line between respect and undue deference? What amount of responsibility do I have to tell my family how I feel about Proposition 8 and gay marriage? A part of me says it wouldn't even matter- I am a second class citizen because I'm not a member of the church any more. But maybe conscience demands more.

Until I can even figure out my OWN family, you can sure as HELL bet that I'll leave the question of black responsibility alone.

UPDATE: Portlydyke at Shakesville has a great post about this (as do many others), but I wanted to include a direct quote because I think it is especially pertinent to my earlier musings about criticism.

To apply this lesson more generally: If you're ever wonder whether you're "laying" Blame rather than letting Responsibility "rest" where it belongs, notice how much effort is involved -- and where the Power is.

Changes: One line at a time

2008-11-05T14:23:00.000-08:00

Come on come on
I see no changes wake up in the morning and I ask
myself
is life worth living should I blast myself?
I'm tired of bein' poor & even worse I'm black
my stomach hurts so I'm lookin' for a purse to
snatch
Cops give a damn about a negro
pull the trigger kill a nigga he's a hero
Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares
one less hungry mouth on the welfare
First ship 'em dope & let 'em deal the brothers
give 'em guns step back watch 'em kill each other
It's time to fight back that's what Huey said
2 shots in the dark now Huey's dead
I got love for my brother but we can never go
nowhere
unless we share with each other
We gotta start makin' changes 
learn to see me as a brother instead of 2 distant
strangers
and that's how it's supposed to be
How can the Devil take a brother if he's close to
me?
I'd love to go back to when we played as kids
but things changed, and that's the way it is

Come on come on
That's just the way it is
Things'll never be the same
That's just the way it is
aww yeah

I see no changes all I see is racist faces
misplaced hate makes disgrace to races
We under I wonder what it takes to make this 
one better place, let's erase the wasted
Take the evil out the people they'll be acting
right
'cause both black and white is smokin' crack
tonight
and only time we chill is when we kill each other
it takes skill to be real, time to heal each
other
And although it seems heaven sent
We ain't ready, to see a black President, uhh
It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact
the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with
blacks
But some things will never change
try to show another way but you stayin' in the
dope game
Now tell me what's a mother to do
bein' real don't appeal to the brother in you
You gotta operate the easy way
"I made a G today" But you made it in a sleazy
way
sellin' crack to the kid. " I gotta get paid,"
Well hey, well that's the way it is

We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some
changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way
we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us
to do
what we gotta do, to survive.

And still I see no changes can't a brother get a
little peace
It's war on the streets & the war in the Middle
East
Instead of war on poverty they got a war on drugs
so the police can bother me
And I ain't never did a crime I ain't have to do
But now I'm back with the blacks givin' it back
to you
Don't let 'em jack you up, back you up,
crack you up and pimp slap you up
You gotta learn to hold ya own
they get jealous when they see ya with ya mobile
phone
But tell the cops they can't touch this
I don't trust this when they try to rush I bust
this
That's the sound of my tool you say it ain't cool
my mama didn't raise no fool
And as long as I stay black I gotta stay strapped
& I never get to lay back
'Cause I always got to worry 'bout the pay backs
some buck that I roughed up way back
comin' back after all these years
rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat that's the way it is uhh

Some things can change.  And will change.  And do change.

A Hard-on for Democracy

2008-10-29T11:45:00.001-07:00

Melissa over at Shakesville posts the kind of post to which one can only read and shout "AMEN!"

A new day, a new issue

2008-10-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

This is a relatively difficult post for me to write because, while I want to write about this subject matter, I also want to maintain sensitivity to the fact that some of the people who read this blog harbor very private and sensitive feelings about this subject and I don't want to offend. I simply want to question.

Echidne of the Snakes (if you don't read that blog, I highly recommend it) has been doing a 3-post long explanation of why she is a feminist. Her last post in this series has to do with religion and the concept of God as a male figure. I think it is an excellent post and would encourage everyone to read all 3 posts since they have a lot of material worth consideration. The religion post, talks a lot about how women grow up with male deities and often times only have higher access to God through a man.

Suppose that I have just arrived on earth and am eager to learn about the human religions. A kind earthling has given me the names of the possible members of a nuclear family: father, mother, daughter and son, and one such nuclear family takes me to their church on a lovely autumn Sunday. While in that church I learn that the family worships the Father and the Son. I also learn that it does not worship the mother or the daughter.

In the LDS religion, Heavenly Mother has a very miniscule spot in doctrinal/cultural affairs. Church doctrine states that, in order to enter the celestial kingdom, one must be married. By that logic, God must be married and there must be a Heavenly Mother up there. The church hymn "O My Father" has a reference to Heavenly Mother and I remember loving the song for it's tiny acknowledgement of a goddess figure. However, I was told growing up that Heavenly Mother was not to be prayed to and that God chose not to give information about her because he was "protecting" her and keeping her sacred.

As people who have left the church can attest, it is a process. Part of that process includes having to re-think and reevaluate everything that you've grown up relying upon. It can be painful and terrifying and infuriating all at once. Since leaving, I haven't once thought about the church and their lack of a female divine until today. While a member of the church, it didn't really bother me all that much because I sincerely believed that women were sacred and that it made sense that a Goddess figure would be protected.

Thoughts as of Today:

Protected from whom? Her own children?

Who would do what? Blaspheme her like they do God? What exactly is Heavenly Mother being protected against?

And if she is present, why discourage church members from praying to her? If women and mothers hold such a vital and sacred part of the church, why would they not be encouraged to pray to the one person (goddess) who would be able to intimately identify with their concerns and their pain? If the emphasis on the differences between men and women is so important in the church (and it is), why is Heavenly Mother not included to be an example and a specific support to this emphasis?

Why would a church who stresses the importance of mothers being specifically available to care for their children, have what essentially amounts to an absentee spiritual mother?

Unfortunately, I don't think there are really any good answers to these questions within the church or church doctrine. I guess my asking them is more just part of the fact that I had never considered the issue before and, now that I question everything (religion based or not), I figure I'll get around to it.

Bullet-pointed thoughts on Proposition 8 and Gay Marriage

2008-10-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

In my opinion, anyone wanting to talk about the Supreme Court decision in California or Proposition 8 should be familiar with the actual court decision. Glen Greenwald gives a very precise explanation of what the decision does and does not do.
My all-time favorite quote on the separation of church and state (I've probably listed it before in this blog and I'll probably list it again):

"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific values. Democracy requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faith's, including those with no faith at all. Politics depends on our ability to persuade one another of common aims based on a common reality. It involves compromise- the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of hte consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy-making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing." -Barack Obama

Being post-Mormon and having family and friends who are currently Mormon, my interest in the LDS church's position on this subject is perhaps more focused than my interest in the perspectives of other groups who advocate for Proposition 8. I've read the church's statement released in June, 2008 as well as "The Divine Institution of Marriage" which they recently released, as well as the "Same Gender Attraction" interview with Apostle Dallin H. Oaks and Elder Lance B. Wickman, of the Quorum of the Seventy. While these serve to provide a good perspective on why the church and church members individually oppose gay marriage, I did not find any of their arguments compelling in regards to passing a government amendment. I would be interested in speaking with someone who holds an opposing viewpoint on this- not because I'm looking to fight, but because I would be interested to see if the reasons stated within these documents can withstand questioning and expansion.

I'm sure I'll have more to say later.......for right now, that's about it.

UPDATE: OH COME ON CALIFORNIA!! RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR....

UPDATE #2: This was on Feministing via magdalune and I think it's hilarious:

Why you should vote YES on Prop 8

...the state amendment to ban gay marriage if you live in California.

1. Because America is a Christian nation. That's why Hindus and Muslims aren't allowed to marry.

2. Because marriage is an intrinsically religious legal ceremony. That's why atheists can't get married and why you can't have a non-religious ceremony.

3. Because gay marriage will undermine traditional marriages. That's why traditional marriages always work.

4. Because gay marriage is disgusting and we don't want to think about what they're doing in the marriage bed. That's why we never let ugly people or morbidly obese people or old people marry.

5. Because marriage is for procreation. That's why sterile couples and childfree couples aren't allowed to marry.

6. Because if we allow gay marriage, then schools will have to encourage it among our children. That's why everyone is pushing interracial marriage on kindergartners all the time.

7. Because if we allow gay marriage, churches will be forced to marry gay people. Like they're forced to marry anyone else who walks through their doors.

..........................................................................................................................................................................

The fact of the matter remains that if you take someone's concept of GOD out of the picture, the reasons to oppose gay marriage are pretty slim. Not only is it offensive to gay and lesbians, it's offensive to those of us who have a different idea of who God really is and what God thinks. That's the trouble- when we get to arguing about God, we've stepped into the realm of insanity.

Obama and the Abortion Debate- an exchange of letters between friends

2008-10-07T09:57:00.000-07:00

This post is essentially an exchange between my friend and I on the subject of abortion that I have decided to post. I'm posting it because I believe it is an exchange that many of us have had regarding different issues.

It is so easy to divide the world into black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. However, the uncomfortable reality is that, whether we like it or not, things are much more nuanced than that. I would like to point out that I do not think I am the ideological savior of nuance- heaven knows I've got more than my fair share of strong opinions about the way things are. I confess to have called John McCain "a duplicitous, lying fucktard" and other such names on more than one occasion. So, from the getgo, I admit hypocrisy here. However, I do attempt to do better.

One of the biggest lessons I learned from the 2004 election was that I had a choice about how I viewed the outcome of the election. It basically came down to two choices:

1) I could continue to view Bush as the GREAT SATAN SENT TO DESTROY THE COUNTRY AND THE WORLD, and the people who elected him again as RIDICULOUS FOOLS WHO DESERVE THE FUCKING OVER THAT THEY WOULD GET FOR RE-ELECTING SOMEONE SO CLEARLY EVIL. Thinking this way, however, had meant that I hadn't gone to school in 3 weeks (being a political science major during a presidential election is basically like taking concurrent hits of cocaine and heroine- it completely overwhelms your system) wore only black, and had taken to reading The Communist Manifesto and mumbling to myself.

2) I could choose to believe that, although I fundamentally disagreed with President Bush on basically every single issue, he wasn't "evil" (or at least, not completely evil, which was the best I could do). And, people who voted for him weren't evil either- they had different priorities and ideals than I did (and possibly less information).

Actively choosing the second option made me a more peaceful person. It made me more rational and able to accept the fact that I don't know everything about everything. It reinforced my previous belief that, when you are angry, no matter how right you might be, you are wrong. The following exchange of letters represents my (flawed) attempt at bridging the gap between black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. I'm half tempted to not publish it at all, lest I seem self-aggrandizing, but I think everyone has been in a position where they find themselves wanting to oppose someone, but with information and rationality, not emotion. I am hoping that people who read this exchange can critique my response- and together we can find a better way to discuss and debate ideas.

October 4, 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
In every election cycle, we as Americans have the distinct privilege of choosing which issues
are important to us, and then casting our votes according to which presidential candidate
we feel best represents our values. There are many issues this year that are important to
me, as well as most Americans, including the war in Iraq and especially the economy. The
current economic unrest is frightening, and must be taken seriously in our consideration of
who we'll vote for this November. But as a mother and as a christian conservative, I have
found myself very much concerned about the disintegration of the family in our society, and
more specifically the heinous practice of abortion.

Simply put, some issues are more important than others. How can future generations of
Americans have the privilege of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, if they are never given
the chance at life. For this reason, it matters a great deal to me how the presidential and
vice-presidential candidates feel about this practice. So I've done my homework. I have
been so repulsed by the information I found that I have felt compelled, for the first time in
my life, to publicly speak out against one candidate in favor of another- rather than keeping
my opinions to myself.

In 1999, a Chicago nurse named Jill Stanek (www.jillstanek.com) discovered that surviving
fetuses of botched abortions were being left to die in a soiled utility room at Christ Hospital
where she worked. At the expense of her job, she immediately began a campaign in defense
of these defenseless babies. She worked toward getting the Induced Infant Liability Act
passed before the Illinois State Legislature. But she received outright resistance. Barack
Obama, who was then the chairman of the Human Services Committee voted no, therefore
immediately killing the bill that would have given basic human rights to survivors of late term
abortions. The bill was later translated into the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act,
which was passed into law, along with the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, in 2003 by President
George W. Bush. Jill Stanek was vindicated in her work when she was personally invited by
the President to be present at the signing of those bills. Only 15 members of the house
opposed it and it passed the Senate unanimously. But Barack Obama didn't believe these
babies deserved human rights.

Another thing that concerns me is that according to the 1996 IVI-IPO General Candidate
Questionnaire, Barack Obama doesn't see the need for teenage girls over the age of 13 to
have parental consent to get an abortion. He's even gone on to say at a recent campaign
speech in Johnstown, Pennsylvania that he didn't want his own daughters being "punished
with a baby" if they were to make a mistake. In his language and his actions, Barack
Obama has shown a lack of concern for the protection of the unborn and defenseless and a
pattern of disregarding the sanctity of life.

It is for these disturbing reasons that I have felt personally compelled to speak out in favor
of his opposing candidate in this election, Senator John McCain, who has consistently stood
for life during his career as a Senator. And his running mate, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin,
has stood for life not only in her words, but in her actions, when she knowingly chose to
give birth to a child with Downs Syndrome.

In contrast Barack Obama's running mate, Joe Biden has said that as a practicing Catholic,
he believes that life begins at conception. And yet he still sides with the pro-choice
movement and refuses to come out against abortion. In fact, in an effort to appease the
pro-life movement, the Obama/Biden campaign has made it part of their platform to
"reduce the number of abortions" taking place in this country. On the surface that sounds
great, but the bottom line is that over 48,000,000 abortions have already taken place in this
country since Roe vs. Wade was passed in 1973. Six times the population of New York City
has never been given the chance at life. America today needs people of conviction and
courage in the White House who are willing to take significant action against abortion, not
people who will abandon faith and conscience in order to please their political party.

I believe that in order to protect the sanctity of life and to stop this destructive tide sweeping
our nation, that simply casting our own vote is not enough. I feel very strongly that those of
us who understand the sanctity of life must be willing to speak up and share our views with
those around us. We must be willing to engage in conversations with our friends and
neighbors, informing them why we feel the way we do. And we must be willing to support
the candidate that will most likely appoint judges to the Supreme Court that will fight to
protect the lives of these precious unborn children in the decades to come.

Please vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin on November 4th, 2008. Please vote to protect
the unborn and the defenseless. And please be willing to speak up and encourage your
friends and neighbors to do the same. Some issues are simply more important than others.

Yours sincerely,
Susannah Taylor

PS. If you feel as strongly about this issue as I do, please consider writing your own letter
and send it to your friends and family.

RESPONSE:

Sheena woman,

I truly appreciated you forwarding on that very thoughtful letter that your friend wrote regarding abortion and Barack Obama’s position on abortion. I think it is a wonderful thing to be reminded that all people have different opinions and different convictions regarding this upcoming election.

I wanted to write you a letter back because some of the information that your friend’s letter contained was out of context and erroneous. While I think the point of her letter was simply to point out that, to her, abortion is one of the most serious issues of this current election, this point rested on several pieces of information that are in fact, untrue. In correcting these, I am not seeking to undermine your friend’s convictions. Rather, I believe that having true information on this matter would make her argument stronger.

It is very true that people on both sides of the abortion issue have a tendency to misconstrue information and exaggerate the truth. In this particular instance, all one needs to do is go online and type in “Obama Jill Stanek” and hundreds of pro-choice/anti-abortion blogs and websites will pop up, each vilifying the other side for their take on this story. While I think everyone has their personal opinion about this “Born Alive Infants Protection Act,” I think there are some facts that don’t represent partisan slanting. I have listed them below, with references.

1) One of the reasons that Barack Obama has said that he opposed the “Induced Infant Liability Act” in 2001, 2002, and 2003 was because a law had already been in place since 1975, defending the rights of infants born alive through induced abortive practices. Pro-life groups dispute this, so I am including several passages from the actual 1975 law:

Sec. 5. (1) When the fetus is viable no abortion shall be performed unless in the medical judgment of the attending or referring physician, based on the particular facts of the case before him, it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother. Intentional, knowing, or reckless failure to conform to the requirements of subsection (1) of Section 5 is a Class 2 felony.
(2) When the fetus is viable the physician shall certify in writing, on a form prescribed by the Department under Section 10 of this Law, the medical indications which, in his medical judgment based on the particular facts of the case before him, warrant performance of the abortion to preserve the life or health of the mother.
(Source: P.A. 83‑1128.)

(720 ILCS 510/6) (from Ch. 38, par. 81‑26)
Sec. 6. (1) (a) Any physician who intentionally performs an abortion when, in his medical judgment based on the particular facts of the case before him, there is a reasonable likelihood of sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb, with or without artificial support, shall utilize that method of abortion which, of those he knows to be available, is in his medical judgment most likely to preserve the life and health of the fetus.
(b) The physician shall certify in writing, on a form prescribed by the Department under Section 10 of this Act, the available methods considered and the reasons for choosing the method employed.
(c) Any physician who intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly violates the provisions of Section 6(1)(a) commits a Class 3 felony.
(2) (a) No abortion shall be performed or induced when the fetus is viable unless there is in attendance a physician other than the physician performing or inducing the abortion who shall take control of and provide immediate medical care for any child born alive as a result of the abortion. This requirement shall not apply when, in the medical judgment of the physician performing or inducing the abortion based on the particular facts of the case before him, there exists a medical emergency; in such a case, the physician shall describe the basis of this judgment on the form prescribed by Section 10 of this Act. Any physician who intentionally performs or induces such an abortion and who intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly fails to arrange for the attendance of such a second physician in violation of Section 6(2)(a) commits a Class 3 felony.

(http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1928&ChapAct=720%C2%A0ILCS%C2%A0510/&ChapterID=53&ChapterName=CRIMINAL+OFFENSES&ActName=Illinois+Abortion+Law+of+1975)

As you can see, Obama’s statement that law was already in place for this particular issue is correct.

2) In her letter, your friend Susannah claims that Stanek’s efforts were vindicated when the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act was passed in 2003. However, the Illinois bills she references in 2001 and 2002 were, in fact, very different from the federal bill passed in 2002 (not 2003). Pro-choice groups, including Planned Parenthood and the NARL, had no objections to the federal bill, nor to the subsequent Illinois bill passed in 2005. http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=5334

However, there is some dispute over the 2003 piece of legislation that Obama also opposed. Pro-life people say that the 2003 legislation contained exactly the same language as the 2003 federal bill, with a few minor changes in language. FactCheck.org backs this, saying that the bill did contain essentially the same language as the national bill that Obama said he would have supported. However, pro-choice groups, such as Planned Parenthood offer a different take and clarification on why this bill continued to be different:

In 2003, “Born Alive Infant” legislation was reintroduced. This time it was a package of two bills instead of three. SB 1082 would have amended the Statute of Statues by including the definition of “born alive” in any Illinois statute, rule or regulation using the terms “person”, “human being”, “child”, or “individual”. SB 1082 included a clause that was different from the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. It also excluded language contained in the federal law. The second bill, SB 1083, would have created the Induced Birth Infant Liability Act which included civil liability for physicians who performed abortions. Again, the legislation was aimed at creating barriers to abortion services in Illinois. In addition, the package raised concerns about the provision of health care to pregnant women and the legal status of the fetus. For these reasons Planned Parenthood renewed its opposition to the package.

On March 12, 2003, both bills were posted for consideration in the Illinois Senate Health and Human Services Committee which was chaired by Barack Obama. The bills’ sponsor, Senator Rick Winkel first presented SB 1082. He requested that an amendment be adopted to the bill which would change it to mirror the federal legislation passed in 2002. The amendment was adopted in a procedural move called “leave for attendance roll call” which is a courtesy that is afforded to bill sponsors in order to move committee hearings along in a timely fashion. Despite the fact that the bill then contained the same language as the federal law, it remained problematic because it still amended Illinois statutes regulating abortion, and was still part of a package that included SB 1083. Senator Winkel presented SB 1082 to the committee and it failed on a vote of six members voting no (including Senator Obama) and four members voting yes.

http://factcheck.barackobama.com/PP%20Born%20Alive%20History.pdf

So even though the language in one of the laws was the same as the federal bill, the bill in question was part of a package that contained another bill which would have put general abortion rights at risk. I realize that I am including partisan information, but in doing so, I am simply attempting to point out the concerns voiced by the other side of the argument, since both sides make valid points.

3) The concern of whether or not abortion by teenagers requires parental consent is certainly much more ideologically based. I think, however, rather than labeling Obama as uncaring about the “protection of the unborn and defenseless” or “disregarding the sanctity of life”, looking at the pros and cons of such an issue definitely show that there are rational reasons to support either side of this issue. I have included a non-partisan break-down of the parental consent debate which I think shows many good points from both angles. For Obama to choose one rational side over the other does not mean that he is dangerously uncaring. It means that he has ideological priorities that differ from your friend’s.

http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_details.php?topicID=188

The fact of the matter is that Obama is pro-choice. Abortion is a very serious topic that no one should consider lightly, however I think it is worth mentioning that many people who believe in the sanctity of life and the importance of families are also pro-choice. If your friend chooses not to vote for Obama because he is pro-choice, that is a decision that I am sure she is not taking lightly, and I respect her decision. However, utilizing information that misconstrues Obama as a baby killer does a disservice to her (for misrepresenting information), to the people she contacts (who may not have the time to conduct a review of the information), to Obama (who, although ideologically different from your friend, is clearly NOT a baby killer), and to the large population of people who fundamentally differ in their beliefs of what constitutes life. Abortion is not a black and white issue- it contains thousands of shades of grey. Acknowledging this fact, while respecting differing opinions, can help bridge the divide between both camps, making the entire debate less hostile, less violent, and more approachable.

I hope this letter has not offended you, or your friend, if you choose to pass it on to her. I love you very much and hope I get to see you the next time I come out So. Cal. way!

Love,

Beck

On Obama

2008-08-18T13:54:00.000-07:00

*My dear friend Kristin and I had a conversation yesterday that I told her I'd follow up with a post on her blog. I went to her blog and decided that a 4 page rant-style post probably wasn't what she was looking for, and since that's basically all this blog really is, I figured it was probably more suited for a page that starts with the word "bitch".

We were talking yesterday about this Obama craze and how much it bugs Kristin that people have jumped onto the Obama bandwagon willy nilly, knowing nothing of his policies, knowing nothing of his stance on issues that matter, walking around like they're the big stuff spouting "yes we can" at every opportune moment. It's a national excitement that's hard to overlook, even if Obama support has been a little less glassy eyed as of late. Since Utah takes, in my estimate, at least twice as long to catch up to national trends, it's not surprising that we haven't hit backlash yet in good ol' SLC. People are still singing praises to the skinny black senator, savior of mankind, beautiful orator, hope-filler, wunderkind, with as much enthusiasm as the rest of the nation emitted back in February.

In some ways, I'm happy for them. I find that so few people are interested in politics that even the slightest amount of intelligence or enthusiasm on the subject is sort of encouraging. And, you know, after 8 years of misery spent in a hell of our own making (yes, WE elected that man America...TWICE), I think the concept of a savior has its own appeal. He certainly looks like a savior. Talks like one too. The concept of a presidential figure who was a well-published author before he even had a shot at the presidency is, to me at least, very sexy.

However, a degree in this political stuff, while not giving me a shot at a well-paying job or any sort of scholastic legitimacy in the eyes of my peers (no one respects a political science major, trust me), has taught me one lesson: We all shall fall.

I am voting for Barack. I am excited to vote for Barack. I think he has the potential to be one of the greatest presidents in American history. But he is, at the end of the day, a politician. In deciding to run for the president of the United States, he has ceased to be a man and has become a politician. It is inevitable. He has to do that in order to win. This decision has placed him in a precarious position that in the end, may prove to be his ultimate downfall.

To become a politician instead of a man means that Obama ceases to hold personal opinions. Each opinion he states now has been analyzed for political effectiveness, white-washed to remove potential offensiveness, and processed to be as vague as possible. To become a politician instead of a man means that Obama compromises his personal integrity for the "greater good," the greater good being a shorter term for "whateverisgoingtowintheelection." This means he will back bills and propositions that he would not have backed in the past (the FISA bill being a great example of this). This means he reverses or changes positions he has long held (abortion rights, Iraq war, Afghani war, the decision to not accept public funding for the election) in order to appeal to greater numbers of voters. This means he shills for people who are giving him money to win this campaign (backing "clean coal" is a great example of this...seriously....clean coal!). In order to reach this almost unreachable goal, Obama has turned into a well-oiled political machine, dictated by the most Machiavellian of ideologies: the ends justify the means.

We can't really blame him for this, because we created and supported this system. He is a product of our flaws and failures. The fact that he has to compromise himself to even get to a position where he can do potential good says much about the failure of our system to produce effective government.

The problem is that, by declaring him savior, we are essentially condoning this compromise for the long-term. We expect him to save us from ourselves, not acknowledging that we are creating a monster as he strives to attain that position. A mere man cannot be president. Barack Obama would never be president of the United States. He has to become an aggregate of the masses (the companies, the individuals, the 'demographics') in order to reach that spot and by the time he does it, he will have acquired all our worst characteristics in the process.

We can't give him a green light because without our voices, he will fail. Without our protests and our criticisms and our caution and our policing, he will become just another politician who got to the white house and proceeded to do a little good and a lot of harm. We can't go starry eyed on Obama because he needs us to save him from what he is becoming for our sakes.

He will disappoint. They all do. But, while he still has the capacity to listen (and I believe he does), it's important that we continue to remind him why we are voting for him, and why he has to reach a little farther and become a man again, in the most difficult job in the world.

I hope he can do it. For all our sakes.

Posting, yet again, on something I know very little about

2008-08-18T08:10:00.001-07:00

I've been reading a lot of blogs in the so-called "fatosphere" lately, and I wanted to make a small, uninformed documentation of my thoughts over here.

Having dealt with an eating disorder for most of my life, I live in constant fear of being or becoming fat. It is not something I am proud of. It has made my life miserable in many many respects. It is something that I will always struggle to overcome. I think it's somewhat like being an alcoholic. Alcoholics Anonymous shows people that, though they might not have had a drink in 25 years, they are, in fact, still alcoholics. They will ALWAYS be alcoholics. Having an eating disorder means realizing that I might not have starved myself or thrown up in years or months or weeks, but I still have an eating disorder. I will ALWAYS have an eating disorder. It's something to do with the interior workings of the mind. Something inside me that craves control patterns (or for alcoholics, the lack of control, or the lack of caring), will always want to return to eating as a way to manifest anxiety, stress, and pain. I have to accept it. The strength to accept the things I cannot change....

To come from this background where fat = fear/loathing/bad, delving into the fatosphere has been a very unique experience. I have long felt/known that fat people are society's whipping boys. It's acceptable to hate, demean, berate, judge, discriminate against, and blame fat people in ways that would never be acceptable to any other demographic. Even sitting in a puddle of my disordered hypocrisy, this has always bothered and offended me. Being a close scrutinizer of people's bodies, I have noticed time and time again that there are plenty of "fat" people out there, who are healthier and fitter than myself. I never believed the BMI bullshit, and talk of the "obesity" epidemic has always made me sneer.

Anyway, reading the blogs in the fatosphere has been an extremely empowering experience. I love hearing these (mostly women) people talk about their struggles to remain healthy and body-positive in a world that reviles them. As someone who struggles to remain healthy and body-positive with a mind that reviles me, I have found a lot of inspiration in their messages.

When I was taking a 40-hour training course on crisis counseling, we had a chapter on bias. Representative David Litvack, (one of my personal heroes) then the Volunteer Coordinator for the Rape Recovery Center, said something to us that I will never forget. We did an exercise regarding racism which was supposed to show some of our racial biases. At the end of the exercise, he got up and said, "Some of you are probably congratulating yourselves for coming through this test with few or no biases. I want to tell you that your work is not over. If you cannot find an immediate prejudice or bias, then your job only becomes more difficult because it means that your darkness is more hidden, more nuanced. I challenge you all to keep constant vigilance on your thoughts and to find the places inside yourself that are bigoted and racist and ugly. You have them. We all do." Obviously, this probably isn't a verbatim quote, but I remember it quite distinctly.

I think it will ultimately be up to individuals to challenge the greater society bias on "fat." To do this, we'll not only need a body of evidence that contradicts all the research being produced by diet companies, we'll need to challenge the idea that a person or a society can judge someone simply by their immediate appearance. We will need to get past our idea that nutrition is something that we should leave to scientists and that exercise is something that should be done at a gym and that if you don't follow those guidelines, you are wrong and bad and other.

I'm not perfect at this. I read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food" and I agree with his observations about our cultural food famine. And then I go buy "lite" butter and throw up my lunch. But I think the main point is to keep trying and keep asking questions, especially of ourselves and our perceptions.

Miscommunications

2008-08-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Salt Lake Tribune interviewed me yesterday for an article on Salt Lake Saves Darfur. The article was published today and I just finished reading it. And, you know, beggars can't be choosers. I feel very grateful that our organization is getting some press and some attention, grateful that people are taking interest and wanting to know more, hopeful that this article will bring a better turn out to our events. But damn. It was NOT a very good article. The facts were wrong, the misquotes were legion and the writing was subpar at best.

It's left me to think a little bit about miscommunication. There seems to be no escaping the fact that, more often than not, when two people are communicating, different things are being conveyed than either side means. In my case, it means that I was involved with the Darfur conflict before it even began (begging the question of whether or not my role has been entirely "on the level"), that I help these people to assuage previously dashed hopes of Peace Corps involvement, and that Salt Lake Saves Darfur began a full year earlier than our organizational records show. Since the news must be fact, I find myself questioning my formerly firm grasp on personal history. Maybe I did know about the conflict in 2003- which would make me some sort of international genocide psychic! How cool is that?!

Oh 2003 self, if only your psychic powers would have been used things other than predicting a genocide you could not prevent.....

For people who believe that misogny doesn't exist

2008-08-05T11:03:00.000-07:00

Jezebel is reporting on the Del Mar Medical Spa's recent advertisement campaign.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Get it?!! Because if you don't get plastic surgery, you're a fat ugly cow! If you don't have Playboy Bunny boobs and a tight ass, you're "less evolved" than the rest of us.

Vomit.

Rape myths, take 1,089,398,123,302

2008-06-27T10:04:00.000-07:00

International Planned Parenthood had this article about an 11-year old Romanian girl who is flying to Britain to get an abortion after being raped by her uncle. Romania has a 14-week abortion cap and this girl didn't know she was pregnant (or was too afraid to say anything considering she'd been threatened) until she had passed the time limit. The interesting point to me was the comment that one of the Romanian officials made about her case:

"The fact that the pregnancy stemmed from rape was not taken into account by the panel, for two reasons," explained Vica Todosiciuc, head of the Cuza Voda maternity section in the northeastern city of Iasi.

"One, because rape has not been proven. And two, because the penal code does not allow for any exceptions," he said.

I think it's important to note that, even though the Romanian courts were not going to make any exceptions, the head of the Cuza Voda maternity section still felt the need to perpetuate rape myths as a reason to limit abortion access.

philos

2008-06-25T13:09:00.000-07:00

So, I wanted to write a small bit today about politics today. Surprise, surprise.

I have a lot of close friends who are really invested in the concept of "going green." They grow their own food, work for green companies, patch their clothes, ride their bikes everywhere, plant trees, use cloth shopping bags, and basically do every personally empowering thing that they can think of to help reduce green house gas emissions. And I think this is really admirable, I do. The combination of these actions conveys a mindfulness and a sincere dedication to preserving things that matter; it shows a commitment to individual integrity and accountability that is oftentimes not seen in our society. I give props where props are due.

But none of them are interested in politics.

Oh sure, they'll give the occasional fist shake when George Bush, the GREAT EVIL ONE, is brought up in conversation. The Bush Administration has become this sort of Star-Warsian Evil Empire, dividing the world into cozy black and white geometrics that are so familiar, so comforting- especially when you are one of the good guys. But they don't keep up to date on local issues, know none of the local politicians, don't participate in rallies or citizen lobbying, don't write letters, don't follow specific bills or resolutions, and don't really read the newspapers.

I think there's a fundamental disconnect there. I mean, these incredibly caring motivated people are working their asses off to save the planet, one recyclable can at a time, and yet the area in which they would have the most power to affect REAL change, they shie away from.

It may be that they don't understand how powerful the political scene is. They see the Evil Empire and assume that all is lost on the political front and it's some sort of Orwellian everyman scenario where rag tags and rebels unite in grassroots struggle against the man, unified in one unspoken common desire for human betterment and global salvation. This may explain the overwhelming excitement about Obama (even though they have no idea what his positions are on any of the issues, much less the issues themselves). In posing as the opposition to the Evil Empire, Obama is a sort of political savior come during the apocalypse to save us.

Or maybe they are entrenched in post-hippy historical apathy toward anything political. They've heard myths the size of Paul Bunyan which posit that, no matter what you do, Big Oil or Big Pharma or Big Energy or Big Government will overpower any opposition movement with their money and lawyers and finesse. It's discouraging to listen to these myths (or actual stories), and one starts to feel completely disempowered and angry. The anger leads to apathy, the belief that we'd be better off without government all together and why can't we all just get along?

It may also be the fact that, up close and center, politics is a pretty boring business. Billions of pages of paperwork and minutiae, obtuse windbaggy senators obfuscating the benefits of this tort reform and that tax law until all the righteous energy is depleted by sheer boredom. Up close and personal, it's not a glamorous business.

It makes me sad though. Not sad in the, "kids these days just don't care" sort of way. These people care! They're just so busy searching for change that they don't see the $100 bill sitting in front of them. With all the brains and the motivation and the dedication directed in the right direction, we could really make a change. We could really get things done around here, do some clean up. It would take long-term commitment, and some boring afternoons, but we could really make things better. I keep thinking about this FISA bill that I've referenced in the prior post. If my friends were political, and they yelled and shook their fists at their elected officials (and their friends did that in their states, and their friends, and so on), all these Democratic lilly livers who are prepared to roll over and allow civil rights violations would be forced to listen. They'd be forced to stand up for the people they represent, the loud angry conscience in their ear, and do what's right...or else.

Blood boiling

2008-06-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

EVERY SINGLE TIME I think we might be heading for change in this country, I read some bullshit like THIS and immediately go get my head examined for feeling so previously optimistic. Earlier this week, I talked about the new TSA body scans that render all passengers essentially naked in front of security guards, and how this was an invasion of personal privacy. Well, my friends, THIS TAKES THE CAKE.

Let's talk history for a brief moment shall we? Venture with me, if you will, back to 1971, and the Nixon era of conspiracy theory, spying, wire-tapping, insanity. Nixon, complete and total power-hungry mental patient that he was, became convinced that people were out to get him (because, you know, they'd LIED about the war in Vietnam and he'd hidden the fact that he'd BOMBED Cambodia) and expose him for a the lying, murderous fraud that he was. So he took out hits on his "enemies," spying on them, listening to their telephone conversations, breaking into personal information in order to find any evidence to use against them. You know how that story ends. America was never the same and to this day, the view is that politicians are by and large corrupt and dishonest.

The Bush Administration, juxtaposed against Richard Nixon, is much smarter when it comes to political hits and personal invasions of privacy. Rather than go all underground, they'd much prefer to make it LEGAL for them to access the bank accounts, private email, phone records and LIBRARY records of private citizens. Which is exactly what they have just done. Mass surveillance with no checks and balances is now in place for at least the next five years. A big thank you to the Democratic party for their participation in the generalized rape of citizen privacy.

It's a little late....

2008-06-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to write a short review of Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy which, after years of hounding via Marty, I FINALLY picked up two days ago and finished yesterday.

I'm writing this because I'm about to go digging for reviews on it, looking for people to bring up the strengths and weaknesses of the book, to ask questions, to reveal more information. I do this with books and authors I adore. And I ADORED this book.

My background is a confusing amalgamation of conflicting stories. I was raised a devout, orthodox Mormon- a religion which socially (though, I believe is doctrinally conflicted about the subject) holds ultra-conservative ideas about women's roles. And yet, somehow, I emerged from my teenage years, a feminist. I'm not sure if it was a response to the church or because of it. Though I no longer affiliate in a religious sense with the LDS church, it's in my bones- most born-and-raised post-Mormons will agree with me that it just doesn't leave you.

So coming out of the church and into the rest of the world has been a bit of a difficult transition at times. Feminism was something I could get behind, something I could believe in, something that I was convinced was of universal value. But the concept of "raunch feminism" which Levy discusses in FCP, has always remained an uncomfortable enigma to me. I never understood the whole womenwanttobelikemenandthusmustbesexisttowardsotherwomen. Maybe it's due to the Mormon church's emphasis on the differences between men and women (I think I must have blocked the part about women being subject to men, and men getting all the power), but I've never wanted to be a man. Oh I went through a phase in high school where I wanted to be seen as one of the guys and reviled everything girly, but it was short-lived and in the end, I just emerged wanting just to be a woman, except, you know, with POWER. I fundamentally believe in the awesome beauty that is our sex. Not in a pretty way, a pink-dresses-tea-sandwiches sort of way, but I have always seen women as this strong amazing force to be reckoned with.

Raunch feminism has always seemed like a big fat lie, and Levy hits the nail on the head with this book. The most fascinating and pertinent part of all of it to me was her careful emphasis on the fact that women do not enjoy this type of flaunted sexuality, aside from the occasional milk-toasty power trip. Why? Because it's not real power and it's not real sexuality. It's not about pleasure- it's about sex and the connection of sex to money and the connection of money to power and the sad realization that, even today, women do not have access to power that works outside the rules men have created.

In an odd way, it reminds me of Queen Elizabeth I, the "virgin queen" who parlayed her sexuality (or rather, her status as a marriageable woman) to her own benefit by allowing herself to flirt with and be courted by the world's more powerful (and power-hungry) men. It wasn't about the pleasure, it was about maintaining her sovereignty over the most powerful country in the world. She had to use men, had to lure them with the possibility of marriage (and dominance, and power) in order to keep herself aloft. She used her weakness as a strength because she had to. Because it was the 16th century and women were still property. She had to act like a man and like a woman at the same time in order to achieve what she most wanted: power. And this raunch culture today, this ideology that somehow believes that women have got to be women acting like men but still being fundamentally women, is much the same. Except, Elizabeth's solution was genius- political survival in a world she was never supposed to inhibit. Women today have Civil Rights laws and independence and personal sovereignty- so why are we still acting like it's 1575?

Levy's theory is that it all comes back to the feminist split on sexuality- a divide that I am still trying to navigate personally. We still haven't figured out a way to negate power politics in sexuality and thus, sex becomes commodified and utilized and all the great amazing things about it are muted.

I would recommend reading it, if for no other reason than to identify the parts inside each of us that believe in raunch culture- the part of me that cringes when I go to a bar because I'm wearing more clothes than 3 typical bar girls put together and feel like an overdressed frump, the part of me that wants men, all men, to want me because that means I have some power, the part of me that still strives to appear unaffected and bored, rather than enraged when I hear misogynist comments from acquaintances and people I love. Who wants to live that way? Read it and let's make a change.

We might as well just start walking around naked

2008-06-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

Read this crazy blog over at Pam's House Blend that talks about the new "body scans" in which security personnel are able to view a person's body minus clothing, etc. Meaning, they get to see you naked, all in the name of safety. (Talk about a job for closet pervs)

It's a creepy article and I highly recommend reading it, especially the note about the potential targeting of transgender individuals as terrorists, or "persons of suspicion."

The ACLU is, of course, fighting it. Thank god.

I've been thinking about why this bugs me so much. On our way to San Francisco, we were lucky enough to get the "red flag" on our tickets, which meant we were subject to additional scan. Airport security went through every item in my bag and screened it for bomb material, including every bra and piece of underwear. They opened my bottle of ibuprofen, they wiped my cell phone and took the back off, they even screened my fucking tampons. THEY WIPED DOWN MY TAMPONS PEOPLE.

I normally don't mind the hassle that is airport security. I can stand feeling like a cow standing in a slaughter chute. I can handle the slight feeling of insecurity that comes from standing barefoot and vulnerable as someone looks at my possessions via x-ray. But I felt truly violated by this security check. I was angry and humiliated. I felt like a target, not a potential victim.

Why do we treat people as guilty until proven innocent rather than the other way around? In our desperation to find some semblance of safety, we compromise the thing that actually DOES make us feel safe: privacy. We've all heard the horror stories about mothers being forced to drink their own breast milk, minorities being targeted by their appearance, Muslim people being asked not to fly- gross violations of personal rights that wouldn't be tolerated in any other circumstance (can you imagine the day that some terrorist attack comes via automobile?) And for what? So some bureaucrats can cover their asses? Studies show that all this airport pomposity doesn't make a bit of difference in actual safety.

Frankly, I think I have a right to fly on a plane without having security personnel dump my underwear out for all to see. I have a right to go through an airport security check without wondering which security guards have seen my areolas.

2008-06-09T11:59:00.001-07:00

As a 1930s wife, I am
Very Poor (Failure)

Take the test!

Sex & the City

2008-06-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

So on Wednesday night Roommates A, B and me went to see Sex and the City. I've anticipated and worried about this movie for so long that it seemed sort of surreal to finally be watching it. I have loved SATC since a particularly low September in 2006 when I finally started watching them in successive episodes, loving and NEEDING the delicious escape from the gloom doom reality I was facing. I know there's a lot of controversy surrounding whether or not these women represent feminine empowerment or its opposite; I know the show is almost universally hated and feared by men (love to all the men in my life who have sat and enjoyed it with me- you know who you are); I know the movie met with seriously mixed reviews and that the antipathy towards Sarah Jessica Parker has reached new heights in the weeks since its release.

I think because of all the anticipation and worry, the experience was sort of muted for me. I collect essays and my favorite essay of all time, The Loss of the Creature, by Walker Percy deals with the concept that reality doesn't exist when it is viewed through our expectations and perceptions. To some extent, all the reviews and chatter I'd been reading for the past three or four weeks kept running through my head as I was watching the movie. I found myself constantly preoccupied with the questions raised in the reviews. Did Charlotte have a big enough role? What kind of achievement is it really that women over 40 can draw a $55 million dollar opener? How realistic was it that Smith turned out to be sort of an asshole? It made the movie itself sort of a colorful blur of questions, and in the end, I felt I had been cheated out of a good portion of the movie.

Except the forgiveness. One of the major draws of Sex and the City for me has been its consistent attempt to define love- self love, relationships, even love for places and things. It is, I think, the linchpin of what connects viewers with the characters, and there are moments in the seasons of deep deep love, mostly between the women, but also between the women and their men. The movie explored the concept of forgiveness as central to love in a way that was only grazed over in the episodes; it really looked at the tired, angry, painful awful parts of love that can only be surmounted by simply forgiving, even if it means the end.

When I was a little kid, I was obsessed with the Don Henley song, "The Heart of the Matter." I didn't question why I liked it, I just did. I couldn't listen to it enough. When I actually listened to the lyrics several years later, I understood. So I was really excited to hear it in the movie's soundtrack.

" I got the call today
That I didn't wanna hear
But I knew that it would come
An old, true friend of ours was talkin' on the phone
She said you'd found someone
And I thought of all the bad luck,
and the struggles we went through
And how I lost me and you lost you
What are these voices outside love's open door
Make us throw off our contentment
and beg for something more?
I'm learning to live without you now
But I miss you sometimes
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again
I've been tryin' to get down
to the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
and my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about...forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore
Ah...these times are so uncertain
There's a yearning undefined
and people filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age?
Ah...the trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
They're the very things - we kill I guess...
Ohh pride and competition
cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us
you know it doesn't keep me warm
I'm learning to live without you now
But I miss you, baby
And the more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I'd figured out
I have to learn again
I've been trying to get down
to the heart of the matter
But everything changes
and my friends seem to scatter
But I think it's about...forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if, you don't love me anymore
There are people in your life who've come and gone
They let you down, you know they hurt your pride
You better put it all behind you baby; cause' life goes on
If you keep carryin' that anger, it'll eat you up inside, baby
I've been trying to get down
to the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
and my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me
I've been tryin' to get down
to the heart of the matter
Because the flesh will get weak
and the ashes will scatter
So I'm thinkin' about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if, you don't love me anymore"

It perfectly defines my concept of love. I'm not a flowery kiss kiss girl. I haven't ever believed that romance is simply composed of holding hands and singing kumbaya as you walk on a beach. But I do think it's about forgiveness. All love. No matter who you love, you love 'em long enough and they're gonna hurt you at some point, and you will most likely hurt them too. That's what we do unfortunately. But forgiveness is essential to it all, no matter how it ends up.

This is a sort of cheesy superfluous post. I just wanted to say that I loved the SATC movie for showing the tired portion of love, the part that climbs the high mountains and walks over the rough patches and comes out on the other side. I don't give a shit about their shoes and their fancy apartments and how fantasy-land it all is- the part about forgiveness? That part is spot on.

If everyone is doing it....

2008-06-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been reading and thinking a lot about comprehensive sexual education vs. abstinence education, and just WHAT my reasoning is behind why I believe in the former over the latter. A lot of screaming has been happening between the camps lately (in my neck of the woods as well as nationally) and it's led me down a few paper trails doing a little research on the matter. Today, for example, I read a recently published research article entitled, "Trends in Premarital Sex in the United States, 1954-2003" (study found in this link). I am not done with it, but the general synopsis states that basically everyone has premarital sex, and that that hasn't changed with time. Mainly, when reading research studies, I am looking for bias, sample size, research methods, accreditation, publication, etc. Basically, I want to make sure the findings are legit. This study, it seems, is pretty legit, but feel free to check it out for yourselves and report otherwise.

Yesterday, I went the opposite direction and started reading through the website and some of the studies on the Parents for Truth website, an abstinence-education website/group. Interestingly to me, the website has a part of their FAQ section that addresses the fact that nearly everyone has premarital sex:

8. With most people having sex before marriage, isn’t the “abstinence until marriage” message unrealistic?

The fact that many individuals have sex before marriage and 1 in 3 births are outside of marriage does not diminish the benefits of waiting to have children until marriage, nor does it mean we should abandon the goal of changing the cultural norm for this behavior. In fact, historically, if a cultural behavior or norm is in conflict with the desired outcome, efforts are redoubled, not discarded. For example, a generation ago, smoking was a desired, normative behavior, but today smoking is almost universally viewed as undesirable and unhealthy - proof that cultural and social norms can and do change.

Similarly, although growing numbers of Americans are overweight, efforts to encourage exercise and healthy eating habits have increasingly become public health priority messages. We do not capitulate our highest public health standards based on the unhealthy choices of a majority, but on standards that promote optimal health outcomes in the population. Overwhelming social science data reveals that children who are born within a committed married relationship fare better economically, socially, physically and psychologically.¹⁹ In terms of child outcomes, the facts are clear – waiting until after marriage to have children is indisputably in the child’s best interest. Further, most teens are not sexually active and more and more teens are choosing to be abstinent, proving that the message of abstinence increasingly resonates with youth.²⁰ Amplified efforts to link the personal benefits of abstinence with the positive effects for children born from a marital union are warranted and necessary if positive changes in cultural norms are to be realized.

I have quite a bit to say about this answer, and I think it has helped me format the reasons that I support comprehensive sexual education.

First, and foremost, I want to give props out to the writer of these FAQ's for using the very good tactic of linking abstinence education to smoking cessation and end-obesity campaigns. Smart move. Basically, this is an amazingly effective paraphrasing of the old "jumped off a bridge" argument your mother used to make when you'd tell her, "But mooooom, everybody's doing it!" (Unless you were me, and then you didn't even bother because you knew, KNEW, that your mother didn't give a damn about what everyone else was doing-unless it related to being Mormon and Mormonism) Pairing the abstinence campaign up with successful other public health campaigns lends it an air of righteous indignity.

Ok, on to to the serious portion of my thoughts. This answer states that most teens are not having sex and that abstinence education can take credit for that. To be fair, the research study above didn't specify an age that most people start having sex, so it is entirely possible that teens are not having sex (though I sincerely doubt it). However, as far as the abstinence message of waiting until marriage- no matter what age, the VAST majority of people are getting down and dirty before a ring appears. So, even if teens aren't having sex at the time of education, they will be having sex at some point, most likely before they're in the "safe" zone that these people like to call marriage.

The answer states that talking about how children born into two-parent families are better off shows the positive aspects of abstinence education and provides incentive for teens. Trying to be fair to them, I can agree that baby-hungry teens would do well to learn that it's better to be married when you have a baby, but I highly doubt that a non-existent child's well-being is really going to provide sufficient motivation for teens to keep it in their pants.

It's not that I'm against abstinence. I think people, teens in particular, benefit from not having sex earlier than they are ready to. It's just that I see that as simply one component of the concept of sex, which I believe is one of the most important topics that teens/adults/anybody has to deal with. I'm serious.

Abstinence people want to emphasize that sex is a BIG FUCKING DEAL. And I totally agree. Sex IS a big fucking deal. That's why I think that sex education should be comprehensive. It's hard to know when to start teaching teenagers about sex, but truthfully, it has to be in this time frame that the discussion is opened. There's a forum for it. Teaching the abstinence until marriage education does a disservice to everyone, and not solely because, according to statistics, it isn't a viable reality.

Teaching teens about sex in a manner that includes contraceptive use, STI information, pregnancy information, relationships including homosexual relationships, and biological information isn't simply information that is needed to navigate the hormonal waters of adolescence. We teach our children the basics when they're young because we want them to have those skills to use throughout their lives. It's the same with sex. At no other time is there an organized forum for giving information about sex. Learning about sex in an educational environment prepares teenagers for a lifetime of sexuality. Not giving them comprehensive information about sex does a disservice to the adults they will become.

The abstinence only campaign that emphasizes that oral contraceptives fail and that condoms don't always work and that abstinence is the only way to truly remain "safe" make sex seem frightening and unnatural (not to mention immoral). They are right that sex is never safe. Sex is NEVER safe. It's not safe when you're a teenager and it isn't safe when you're a married adult. However, part of teaching teens how to be responsible adults entails teaching them that every decision has associated risks and ways to minimize risks. Contraceptives reduce risks of pregnancy and STI's and they do so very effectively. Not teaching about these options essentially leaves teens (adults) open to more danger. It's like driving a car. Going the speed limit and wearing a seat belt and practicing defensive driving help reduce the risk of injury and accident, but they don't completely nix the fact that driving a car is a risk. Not teaching people to put on their seatbelts because you don't want them to drive a car seems sort of cruel. (How'd ya like them analogies? Like how I added a public health campaign to my argument?)

Comprehensive sex education is better because it doesn't marginalize people's sexuality. Abstinence only education's emphasis on waiting for marriage before sex is a tremendous slight to teens who are homosexual, transsexual and transgender. It posits marriage as the only socially acceptable option for sexual expression, disregarding those for whom marriage isn't a legal option, a desired option, or a possible option. It effectively sends a message to teens that if they do not fall into the desired canon, that they are somehow less of a person and that their sexual relationships will never be as meaningful or as worthwhile, not to mention depriving these teens of information regarding their differing sexuality.

I think sex education shouldn't just be a presentation that kids attend before lunch one day. I think it should be a required class in high school and that it should cover topics ranging from the biological aspects of sex to relationship issues to technical aspects of sex such as contraceptive use and Pap smears. I think there should be sections on pregnancy and sections on homosexuality and sections on rape and sexual abuse and sections on consent. I think there should be an emphasis on the emotional aspects included in sexual relationships. I think there should be talk about men and women's roles and societal conceptions of sexuality, pornography, etc. I want MORE not less.

I am rannnnting!

P.S. Bill Watterson, on the infinitesimal chance that you ever read this blog, I know you hate it when people use Calvin and Hobbes for their own devices. I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. I just love them so much.

Blurbs

2008-05-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

I want to just make note of three news stories that have captured my attention lately. To write about them, in depth, at once, would be exhausting. But I do want to continue to keep them in the forefront of my mind, so making note of them is important for future consideration.

1) This story and this story in the Nation about Big Pharma testing drugs in third-world nations. For years I have mistrusted the F.D.A. and Big Pharma in general, but this is just one further example of how capitalism necessitates the oppression of the poor. The best example of this? The fact that, in justifying the fact that these pharmaceutical companies have lied, coerced, and denied treatment to sick participants (including infants), the main defense for their actions was that, "poor people are lucky to have any treatment at all." WTF? I would be interested to know if pharmaceutical companies from countries with socialized medicine are facing similar accusations. Are American companies more likely to perpetuate harm on research subjects in third-world countries than their European counterparts, given the difference in our respective philosophies about health care being a human right? Or is this just another example of racism, classism, and oppression? Or both?

2) In a similar vein, this op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal, in which Mr. Lomburg tries to argue that if we'd just stop focusing so much on the fact that our planet is going to implode, we could REALLY help poor people. Because, you know, 10 years ago before global warming was in the public/legislative/world consciousness, the world HAD no problems! Attempts to bring down the global thermometer are simply diverting monies from cancer, "preventative/peacekeeping" wars, and getting vitamins to poor kids. Again I ask, WTF??? Using poor kids to justify polluting the planet....classy.

3) People keep trying to keep "those gays" from getting married. An amendment to California's state constitution will be up for vote in November to keep gays from marrying. The problem, as I see it, is this: as this article makes abundantly clear, gay marriage is not something that is decided by a majority vote by the people. It will be tragic interesting to see the war of the worlds type battle that will ensue after this "amendment" passes (which it inevitably will- I don't have much faith in people, even Californians, to not be ignorant hate-filled retards). Will the Supreme Court's initial ruling stand since it was in place before the amendment was made? Ugh. Don't we have bigger things to worry about than whether or not people get married? Like, you know, numbers one and two on this list?

A Response Letter

2008-05-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Ms. Parker,

I am writing to tell you in the strongest possible language how incredibly offensive I find your recent article, "The Bubba Vote." Given the inflammatory nature of your op-ed, I realize you have probably by now received several letters similar to mine, but I hope that you will at least read my response, if, for no other reason than the fact that it is good to read the opinions of people who think differently than you do (which is why I read your column).

For the sake of brevity, I am not going to focus on the political campaign aspect of your article, though I would like to briefly reply that Mr. Fry's quote stating he would be more comfortable with someone who is a "full-blooded American" most likely has nothing to do with Mr. Obama's Kenyan father OR McCain's military service and more to do with the fact that an uncomfortably large number of people actually believe that Barack Obama is an immigrant with Muslim origins. It has more to do with political scare tactics introduced by people who want to use Mr. Obama's ethnic name as an excuse to stir up "the growing unease among yesterday's Americans" (aka- xenophobic America) than any deep-seated introspection on roots, or politics for that matter.

Now, on to your concept of full-blooded Americans.

"It's about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots. Some run deeper than others..."

I would simply like to state, (others having stated better the obvious fallacy of your argument in regards to Obama), that the last time I checked, the rules for running for president (and therefore, for being "qualified") did not include having "roots" that include generations of sacrifice (I'm sure you've already read Glen Greewald's criticism about Obama's grandfather serving in WWII). Instead, it mandated that a president must be born in the United States. That's it. That means, Ms. Parker, that the little Mexican girl born in the United States by illegal immigrants is JUST as qualified to someday run for president as John McCain. Or at least, that's how our forefathers who designed this system would view it (were they not encapsulated by the obvious historical constricts of sexism that didn't allow women to be viewed as equal citizens under the law).

I would encourage you to read American history texts, blogs, and other sources of information pertaining our country's long-standing heinous xenophobia and treatment of immigrants, illegal or no. Your nativist daydream that America ever had good ol' days is just that. And, unfortunately, despite posturing on the racial neutrality of your column, such sentiments are inherently racist.

What I love about this country (where I can trace my "roots" as far back as the early 1800s) is our collective ability to struggle. I am incredibly proud to be from a country where, despite MONUMENTAL opposition, strong individuals have spoken out against oppression, racism, sexism, genderism, and have taken a stand. I am so proud of the people in America who stand up against the conventional current that says that things are fine the way they have always been. Things are not fine. Things have never. been. fine. And, because we're America, they probably never will be fine. But it is fighting that current that makes us stronger as individuals, as families, as communities. It is the bravery of those who speak out, knowing what price they will pay, that gives me a fierce love for this country. We have been raised to believe that, despite all else, at least we have a right to speak.

When you say that an individual's patriotic legitimacy should be judged according to their heritage and their roots in this country, you state an opinion that, if one took seriously, would serve to silence a large portion of our country. Surely you cannot believe it. Politics aside, surely you cannot believe it.

I do not agree with your article. I found it incredibly offensive and naive. It is my sincere hope that, as you review the backlash firestorm that has occurred (at least in the blogosphere) as a result of your article, you will take a longer look at this country and its history of immigration and nativism.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Simmons

When blatant racism passes for patriotism

2008-05-14T10:56:00.001-07:00

There's an extremely interesting article in The Nation today that compares the struggles today's immigrants are facing to the struggles of blacks under Jim Crow Laws. I'd never seen it that way before, but it's a spot-on comparison. The struggle for basic rights is similar, but what I found most pointed about the article was its point about how immigrants are made explicitly aware that they are "different" from regular folks. Because, you know, they come from somewhere else....and different is BAAAAAD.

This is a difficult subject for me to take on because my emotions on this subject too oftentimes render me less than articulate. I start talking and find myself too full of rage to continue, so if I seem a little disjointed, forgive me; it's gonna take more than one take to get this out.

11% of Utah's population last time I checked (probably more now because that was a couple years ago) is Latino. They are the largest minority by FAR in our lily white state, and as this epicenter of cultural homogeny starts to gain a little color, Latinos have taken the brunt of the backlash. From making illegal immigrants use "driving privilege cards," to the Utah Minuteman Project, to Senator Chris Buttars shamefully ridiculous inference that
"In order for Satan to establish his 'New World Order' and destroy the freedom of all people a predicted in the Scriptures, he must first destroy the U.S. The mostly quiet and unspectacular invasion of illegal immigrants does not focus the attention of the nations the way open warfare does, but is all the more insidious for its stealth and innocuousness."
it is obvious that Utah is doing its part to make sure that racism extends well into the 21st century and beyond.

The difference between the blatant racism of the Jim Crow days, or the days of the Chinese Exclusion Act, or basically the BAZILLION different instances in US history where racism has been the driving factor behind our actions, is that now it is much more subtle and nuanced. For example, the majority of people no longer find it socially acceptable to be blatantly racist against legal immigrants. This does not mean that they aren't, it just means that there aren't as many public forums that support hate-filled rhetoric against legal immigration as there used to be in the good ol' days. NO, to continue the legacy of our racist agenda, we must turn to illegal immigrants so that when pressed for a reason behind the hatred, we can claim that there wouldn't be a problem if they'd just do things "legally, like everyone else."

*Aside: this particular "compromise" racism is also apparent in Barack Obama's bid for presidency, where a determined group of individuals are intent on proving Obama's Muslim roots. Because, you know, we don't mind that he's black, but if he's a black Muslim, well then there's a DEFINITE excuse to kick the fucker to the curb.

The standard arguments that allow people to continue spouting racist ideafuckologies continue along the boring, overused lines that have been used for literally centuries in our nation to keep out legal immigrants, with a few fun new ones just to mix it up a little. They take jobs, they don't assimilate in our culture, they raise crime, they don't pay taxes, they raise healthcare costs, they STEAL YOUR IDENTITY, they take money from the children (think of the children!!!), etc. etc. ad nauseum.

Hate to burst your bubble people. It's racism. Pure and simple. That's all it's ever been.

If Americans were so worried about rising healthcare costs, they would support a system of universal healthcare that relieves financial pressure on individuals and establishes a system of checks and balances for Big Pharma and the medical system.

If they were so worried about their job security, they would support sound economic practices (things that don't involve giving out an emergency stimulus package because the quick boom from the other one has faded), and they would truly start to examine our current stratified distribution of wealth, the likes of which haven't been seen since the 1920's. Instead of looking to the poorest people in our nation (yes, that would be the illegal immigrants) they would start questioning WHY the richest people in our nation are consistently the ones eligible for the largest tax cuts.

If they were worried about the uprise in crime (actually, other than domestic violence, crime has gone down nationwide), they would look at the long-established reasons that crime is perpetuated.

And if they really gave a DAMN about the children, they would focus more on fixing the public school system, relieving the crushing weight of college debt, pumping more money into teacher education, and ditching the abysmal mess that is No Child Left Behind.

The fact of the matter is that despite how far we've come, we are STILL a country who tries to pass off pervasive racism as patriotism. And sadly, it works.

White Feminist Apologetics

2008-05-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

One of the most difficult things for me, as a feminist and as a white person, is trying to figure out how to correctly address the criticisms of white feminism by women of color. Historically, women of color and their unique perspectives and issues have been marginalized within the greater feminist agenda, which has lead to many WOC feeling distanced from the greater feminist collective. If white feminists aren't talking about issues that are relevant to WOC, and are actively disregarding issues that specifically pertain to WOC, then I would argue that they are actively engaged in perpetuating culturally entrenched racism.

The problem for me is how to participate in a discussion about WOC and their issues without coming across as patronizing or disingenuous. I feel uncomfortable coming to this table, and I've felt it many many times. When working in sexual violence, I once attended a workshop about sexual/domestic violence against women of color. I was the only white person present and, although I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the discussion and learning about the cultural stratification that separates WOC from other victims of sexual/domestic violence, I did not feel as if I could participate- even to ask questions. It's not that I don't have anything to say, or that I don't have any questions, it's simply that I don't want to come off as that "white girl."

I really haven't found an answer for this conundrum. In all aspects of my personal and professional development, I try to consider viewpoints from women of color. I actively seek out different blogs by women of color and I try to follow legislative/local/societal issues that pertain specifically to different women of color groups. This, however, doesn't really help me know how to better approach women of color feminist issues as a participant. I am the great philosophical lurker- up to date on pertinent issues, yet with no voice or direction of my own.

Today, however, I read an article on Feministing and then several other articles about Ramona Moore, a girl who was kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered in a basement in Brooklyn. This story made me physically ill- literally nauseous. The police did nothing to find this woman while her mother and family members frantically tried everything they could think of to get her back. Her own mother discovered her brutally beaten body under an ice cream truck- the family was waiting by the body when the police arrived. The picture of her mother, Elle Carmichael, in the Village Voice was heartbreaking. Her eyes contained so much sadness. Her mother could have been my mother, in fact she reminds me of my mother. My mother would have done exactly what Ms. Carmichael did. She would have gone crazy with worry and hounded the police and put out fliers and conducted her own investigation. She would have fought tooth and nail to bring me home.

The difference is, my mother might have gotten results. She's white and so am I. The police pay attention to white women. When Elizabeth Smart went missing, the whole nation went into high alert. Thousands of people went looking for her and posted fliers and prayed. A black girl goes missing and it took her family contacting local politicians to pressure the police into action 4 days later. It makes me want to give up.

Her mother is bringing a case against the NYPD, accusing them of racial stereotyping. I am amazed by the strength and persistence of her love- the fury and the whirlwind type ferocity that drives this woman whose tragedy is unimaginable to keep fighting the system. I have looked for different ways to help, for different ways to lend a hand, and so far I haven't found a whole lot of direction from the blogs and news reports I've seen. But I can talk about it.

Women of color STILL face incredible discrimination and violation of their basic rights. I want to figure out how to participate in their struggle in a way that doesn't involve subscribing to typical brands of racism and patriarchy. Until I figure out how to do that effectively, I vow to at least TALK about it.

My own definition of feminism

2008-05-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

I am a perpetual blog lurker, especially on feminist sites. All the traditional sites (BitchPhd, Feministing, Feministe, AngryBlackBitch, etc.) and some non-traditional ones as well, when I feel so inclined. Usually, I lurk because I don't feel I have much to add via discourse to the feminist conversation- I am silenced for fear of my own ineptitude. However, it is my hope that creating this blog will give me practice on voicing my views and opinions. I don't intend to talk about JUST feminism because frankly, I'd rather leave this topic in the more competent hands of those who are already providing daily commentary. Because I rarely engage in the ongoing dialogue, however, I am going to use this site to process my own thoughts on politics, feminism, life, which will hopefully allow for more personal development that I'd like to see.

That being said, I want to give my own definition of feminism today.

When I say that I am a feminist, I mean that I am an advocate for women.

I mean I enjoy talking about things that pertain specifically to women and women's place in social structures (families, communities, nationally, historically).

I mean that I believe that women struggle in a patriarchal society which is, at best, schizoid in its conception of women's roles, rights, and responsibilities.

I mean that I do not assume to know everything that there is to know about oppression and disenfranchisement and that my state of being is a constant state of learning.

I mean that I believe in strong women who don't take shit from anyone, and that I empathize (and self-associate) with women who DO take shit because they've been socialized to believe they should.

I mean that I believe women have the right to do all of the same things that men do, without receiving flak for their gender.

I mean that I believe fundamentally in reproductive rights that protect women- specifically preventative, educational care that allows women to make informed choices regarding their individual bodies.

I mean that I believe in women's sexuality and sexual expression, and the importance of defining sexuality in non-masculine terms.

I mean that I believe that it is possible to harbor the dual beliefs that 1) Women are different from men and 2) We are all human and equal and deserving of treatment that disregards gender, race, and class.

I will probably have more to add to this list later, but I want to get these beliefs out there because they are what feminism is to me and they are why I identify myself as a feminist. As I continue to refine my definition of what feminism means, and how I identify with the term, I'm sure there will be more to say. For now- this is me.