Monthly Archives: August 2011

Feminism is Choice

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A friend sent me a link to this piece in the Huffington Post titled “Tough Gals: Do They Still Exist?” The piece is a jeremiad against the supposed “girliness” of today’s women and how we’ve all apparently abandoned the precedent set by our tough, bitchy, bra-burning feminist foremothers:

Women are girly. Again.

Don’t believe me? The proof is in the blogosphere: Women who blog about cupcakes! Women who blog (okay, rant) about gardening, Hello Kitty, and knitting! Even BUST magazine is sponsoring a Craft Fair in NYC. Women who blog about cats! And then there are cats who blog, but let’s not get into that just now. Don’t get me wrong, these are all lovely blogs, smart and entertaining. And some blogs, like the wonderful Jezebel, keep us on our toes pointing out what a long way we haven’t come, baby (like in this piece on how female superheroes are sexualized). But.. seriously… cupcakes?

To be frank, this article is so stupid that I was almost reluctant to even respond to it. (My first reaction was, who pays someone to write this shit? And then I remembered that HuffPo doesn’t pay.) Really, there’s so much wrong with it–a false dichotomy (be a feminist OR be feminine), the judgment of lifestyles that differ from the author’s, the assumption that there’s only one way to “do” feminism, and not to mention some good ol’ misogyny–that is, the idea that women are only worth the air they breathe as long as they act like men.

I could respond to this with abundant examples from my own life–the fact that I actually (shocker) enjoy cooking, cleaning, and doing my hair, the fact that some of my best memories are of taking care of my younger siblings, the fact that I knit, crochet, and sew, and…I am still a feminist. Don’t believe me? Take a look at my love life. I can barely date anymore because most men I meet piss me the hell off with their sexism.

So yeah, I could use myself (and my friends) as a counterexample easily enough, but I’m not even gonna go into detail about that because it’s unnecessary. The larger problem with this article isn’t that it doesn’t even begin to describe any of the women I know, it’s that it doesn’t even begin to describe the feminism that I know.

Feminism was (and still is) a response to two basic tenets of human society–one, that women are inferior to men, and two, that there is a right way for women to live. For centuries, this “right way” consisted of what we typically associate with oppression of women–having to stay home to cook, clean, and produce/raise babies.

In the mid-20th century, feminists obliterated this ideal. Or at least, they set us on the path to obliterating it. But the woman who wrote this HuffPo article, like many other so-called feminists–I say “so-called” because I don’t think they really represent feminism–seem to want to replace one ideal with another.

Repeat after me: feminism is choice. There can be no feminism without choice, just as there can’t really be choice (at least, not for women) without feminism. The minute you start dictating how a woman needs to behave in order to be worthy of your respect, you’re destroying decades of progress. Whether it’s that she can’t have too much sex or that she can’t cook and knit her own clothes, you’re still imposing an ideal on women. Women who have different personalities, backgrounds, and ideals than you do.

The comments on this article are awesome because they’re full of women talking about their lives and what they like and what they do, and basically demolishing all of the author’s assumptions. Take this one:

I have guns; a pink .22 and a purple .38 among others. My husband and father made dang sure I could protect myself and my kids when alone. I’d shoot first and ask questions later. I love cupcakes, gardening, knitting and just being a holly homemaker. Having a husband who deploys leaves me to my own devices often enough and screw Army strong I am my own breed of tough. Dare I mention the 3 children I delivered without an epidural? I can fix a flat, change my oil, bake bread from scratch, and sew my own curtains. I have degrees of my own, but being with my children and showing them to be tolerant and productive men in this world trumps proving I’m “feminist” Yes, i get to have my cake and eat it too!

Who’s a bad feminist now?

The author of this article is, in fact, an even more egregious sexist than most of these college guys I’m always bitching about, because she actually believes that the things our culture labels as “feminine” are inherently worse than the things it labels as “masculine.” To get all jargony on you, that’s called “internalized sexism.”

Feminism is not a convenient ideology for you to use to get people to live their lives in a way you approve of. That’s patriarchy. We don’t need more of that.

The College Story

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See, I'm not the only one.

I wish I could spin you the story everyone wants to hear.

That story has a whole cast of predictable characters, and many trunks’ worth of familiar props. The friends, the neat dorm rooms, the beer, the photo collages, the inside jokes, the cute frat guys, the walks by the lake, the hot chocolate, the study sessions, the mentoring professors, the sorority mixers, the coffee dates, the giggly all-nighters, the risque one-night-stands and the whispered confessions to friends in class the next day.

Sound familiar? That’s the College Story. You’ve seen it in every glossy brochure, TV show, Seventeen magazine article, and back-to-school commercial.

But that’s not my story. It never will be. Because the kind of person I am doesn’t get to live that story.

Halfway through my college career, it’s time to admit this to myself.

My story? Sure, it has some bright moments in it. Most stories do, and mine hasn’t been that awful. But then there’s all the stuff nobody wants me to talk about–the weather, the loneliness, the way guys at Northwestern treat me (to be precise, like a thing), the rich, preppy students that I’ll never resemble, the hours spent laboring over essays that professors barely even read (and then unceremoniously slap a B on without further explanation), the expectation to be a walking, talking, drinking/fucking/studying machine, the not-so-subtle bragging NU teaches us to perform, the bottles of anti-depressants lined up on my shelf, the many nights I spent considering transferring, asking for a quarter off, dropping out of college, or dropping out of life.

I played with my little sister today. I do that every day when I’m home, but today it was different because I was acutely aware of the fact that I’m leaving again in five days. I hugged her and my heart broke all over again. I hate that I’m not here to see her and my brother grow up. I hate that nobody at Northwestern loves me the way these two do. I hate that my little brother took one of my blankets to sleep with because he misses me while I’m at school. It all feels so wrong to me.

I’ll feel better once I’m actually there, I know that. Despite what it may look like, making the best of things is a skill of mine. Once I’m there, it’ll be easier to make myself forget the loving family I’ve left back in Ohio and to pretend that home isn’t where I’d always rather be. Sometimes I’m even able to get myself to believe that I somehow matter at this huge institution of higher learning and that it, or at the very least, the lives of some of the other people in it, would be noticeably different if I had never existed.

The truth is that I’m paying $200,000 and a lot of my own sanity for a stupid piece of paper saying that I’m qualified to go get a PhD and actually learn something relevant to my life, because all I’ve learned these past two years is how to act smarter, richer, and more well-adjusted than I actually am. Call me an idealist, but I hoped that college would be more than this.

I’m compelled to apologize for this. To apologize for hating college, because it goes against everything our culture dictates that I do. I’m supposed to love it.

Well, I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you that I do.

Difficult ≠ Impossible

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I’m going to come out of my cave and write about something that pisses me off. (OK, so I could start any blog post this way, but whatever.)

Here’s something that I consider one of the most glaring cultural problems in America today–it’s the idea that just because something is difficult, it is impossible and not worth trying. Our culture has become a deeply pessimistic one, and the message that it sends these days is “Oh, forget it, we could never change that anyway.”

Don’t believe me? Well, you should, because I’m right. There’s a reason that the issues that land on the political agenda are fairly simple–go to war, or not go to war. Allow gay marriage, or not allow gay marriage. Raise the debt ceiling, or don’t raise it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying these issues aren’t fraught with difficulties of their own. But they are very simple–yes or no. Right or wrong. Do, or don’t.

The issues that don’t really get talked about much are the complex ones. How to fix our education system. How to achieve equality between women and men, and between whites and people of color. How to create a more just and sustainable food system. How to end our addiction to oil. How to end the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. How to encourage democracy to take root in other parts of the world without shoving it down people’s throats.

To be sure, our government does things to try and ameliorate these issues somewhat, but they’re always band-aid solutions to broken-bone problems. For instance, George W. Bush tried to “fix” our schools with No Child Left Behind. President Obama issued empty threats to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop settlement building, with no regard for the religious and political complexities that the settlement issue dredges up. Then there’s that little Iraq thing. As for our screwed-up food system, racial justice, and ditching the oil habit, I don’t think anything’s being done at all.

Try coming up to an older person (by which I mean, someone old enough to have their own kids) and talking to them about these issues. About education, about food, about the racism still embedded deep within our society. Ten bucks says they tell you something like, “Yeah, it’d be great if that could get fixed, but face it–it’s never gonna happen.”

Why? Why the hell not?

Well, because it’s hard.

People think that these things are never gonna get fixed because it’s so hard to fix them. And by hard, I mean like when you’re trying to do a math problem and you don’t even know where to start. You’re completely stuck. Nothing you’ve ever learned is going to help you here.

The stuff that gets in the news, like gay marriage, the debt ceiling, and all of that sort of stuff, is different from these issues because, despite our disagreement on them, we know what to do. We either vote yes, or no. But you can’t vote “yes” or “no” on education reform or on ending racism, because you have to figure out what the hell to actually do about it.

Note what a clusterfuck occurs when our government actually tries to take on a complex and nuanced issue–for instance, healthcare reform. It nearly stops functioning. Our culture is terrified of complexity.

Usually when young people like me talk about fixing some of these complicated problems, older people call us “idealists.” (And that’s at best–sometimes they use less charitable labels.) To me, all that’s saying is that we’re willing to think about and talk about things that are hard, and “realistic” people are not.

Well, realism is dooming this country. Realists are people who don’t think we can stop global warming, who don’t think we can have just and efficient healthcare, education, and food systems, who don’t think we can ever achieve equality between sexes, races, socioeconomic classes, or sexual orientations.

And guess what? If you tell yourself you can’t do something, it’s not going to get done.

And anyway, isn’t that a terribly demoralizing thing to say? I think we’re selling ourselves short when we say that we can’t solve complex problems like these. After all, the human race invented democracy, finance and agriculture, created the Mona Lisa, painted the Sistine Chapel, put a man on the moon, eradicated polio, and set up the Internet. Do our accomplishments really end there?

Just because something is difficult does not mean it’s impossible. Things that are impossible, at least with our current knowledge and technology, are traveling through time, sprouting wings and flying, curing cancer, and turning lead into gold. But things that are merely difficult? Well, that’s just about everything else.

How Depression Feels

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I feel like there’s a disease in my head. I want to excise the brain parts that it lives in, the parts responsible for loneliness, worthlessness, apathy, cynicism, seriousness, sensitivity, and all the other ways in which I could be described.

I feel like a book lying open on the grass. The wind blows the pages around and one can’t help but read them. Nothing that’s written can ever be forgotten.

I feel like I’ve wound up my body’s pocket watch all wrong. It doesn’t go at the same pace as everyone else’s. Sometimes it ticks when it shouldn’t. Sometimes it doesn’t when it should. Where is that damn watchmaker?

I feel like a sinking ship. All of my most beautiful parts are underwater now, my framework waterlogged and rotting. Up on the tilting deck, an orchestra plays for anyone who dares to listen.

I feel like there’s a darkness following me wherever I go. Some call it a black dog, others call it a raincloud, others call it the noonday demon. Sometimes we sit on a bench next to each other, just gazing out into the world through our foggy, listless eyes. When it’s with me, I see in black and white.

I feel like a piece of driftwood on a beach. Why am I here, and not there? Is this sandy spot any better than that one?

I feel like there’s another spirit inside me and it’s more compassionate and optimistic and hopeful than I’ve ever been able to be.

I feel like there’s a flood slamming against the levee walls of my brain.

I feel like there’s a screeching phoenix beating in my heart, trying to burn a hole in the scarred tissue and escape.

I feel like I’m moments, or days, or years away from coming alive. It’ll happen, someday.

Dancing With Myself

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[This is a piece I wrote in response to a prompt at Open Salon and just thought I’d repost it here.]

You aren’t really a daughter of Russian parents unless they make you do ballet.

Mine did, though I started later than most–when I was five years old. I continued until I was  fifteen. Over those ten years, I perfected splits, fouettes, and grand jetes, danced in several professional ballets, and starred as Clara in the Nutcracker. I was thin and graceful, and my parents never demurred when asked to produce photos and videos of their talented daughter.I often danced for friends and relatives who came to visit, or who we went to visit ourselves.

But ballet took a toll on me, and not necessarily in the ways you would expect. Since I was prepubescent for most of that time, I didn’t need to worry about staying skinny; it was easy for me as a child. Dancing en pointe hurt my feet and gave me terrible blisters, but it really wasn’t that that did me in.

No, what led me to quit was the atmosphere that characterizes the world of ballet. The other girls were awful, catty, nasty people. The ballet teachers pit us against each other ruthlessly, calling one of us a favorite one day and choosing another the next.

We were talked down to, humiliated, and shamed. I recall one day when we were taking a break to stretch in the middle of class, and I politely asked my teacher if I may be excused to use the restroom. She nodded but pursed her lips and whispered, “Never again.”

If you came late to a class, as I often did because I lived far away and my parents, believe it or not, had other responsibilities in addition to driving me around, you were required to wait meekly by the door until the class completed its current exercise, wait until the teacher acknowledged you, apologize for your tardiness, and ask permission to join the class. You would walk to a spot at the barre with thirty pairs of eyes glaring at you.

As a shy and bookish girl, this destroyed me.

I remember how my teacher would insist to my parents that my hair must be in a bun that doesn’t fall apart–not exactly a small thing to ask from a mane of hair that reached past my derriere. Inevitably my bun would fall apart and I would be unable to fix it and I could feel those same thirty pairs of eyes narrowing, thirty mouths sneering and snickering at me.

I quit ballet, inevitably, when I was in high school. I joined the marching band instead. I delighted in wearing a uniform that hid my developing and no longer skinny body, in meeting people who didn’t judge me, in being able to simply run to my place in the warmup circle when I was late rather than performing the humiliating ritual required by my ballet teachers.

I’m not skinny anymore. Not at all. I’m not so flexible. I can only do three or four fouettes before I start losing my balance.

But I still carry myself well, chin up, back straight. I still love to dance, though I prefer to dance to the Black Eyed Peas instead of Tchaikovsky.

Sometimes I regret quitting ballet because I’d invested so much into it. But I’m thankful every day that ritualized humiliation and catty competition are no longer a part of my daily life. I’m grateful that I didn’t stay long enough to have a chance to succumb to some of the  more well-known pressures that a ballet dancer’s life brings.

The beat of the music still plays in my head, but now I dance to it in my own way.