There are some words, phrases, and ideas I love. I love them because they fit in my mind like a key in a lock I've had for years, finally putting words to a soft and shapeless idea I couldn't name.
Operationalize is one of them. I love that word.
Bodily Autonomy (or bodily integrity) is another.
I first read the phrase bodily autonomy (or integrity...it was probably integrity, but my brain likes to say autonomy more) in a twitter rant about abortion rights. This smart and well informed individual was making an argument for bodily integrity, that we have laws protecting bodily integrity of one person over the well-being of another. For example, you cannot be compelled against your will to donate blood to save someone's life. Or to donate a kidney, or a piece of your liver. Because that would be insane, right? To force someone against their will and by law to donate a kidney to another person, a stranger or a family member, just because it could save their life. We don't do that in the United States because we value freedom above all else.
If you aren't a woman with a uterus.
Because if you are a woman with a uterus, you do not have the right to bodily autonomy. I mean, you do, sort of, right now. But it really depends on the state you live in, how much money you have, what your docto's religious beliefs are, who is on the supreme court and what judges and lawmakers in your area think. Because if you are a woman, and you happen to let a sperm past your complicated, expensive, and onerous system of reproductive defenses, you can lose your bodily autonomy to a pulsing packet of cells.
Forever.
I have already ranted and raved to everyone who will listen about the physical and psychological tolls of pregnancy, delivery, and do not get me started on the cost of what I hope is effective parenting. So let's look at the other side of my new proposal:
I refuse to listen to any pro-life person who has not already donated a kidney.
If you are truly pro-life, if you truly believe in saving lives, and have two functioning healthy kidneys, why on earth are you torturing some poor soul on dialysis when you could save a life?
Don't worry, I'll wait.
Because nephrectomy is major surgery? Sure. But it is a major surgery with minimal risks and less than 1% chance of future kidney failure according to the Mayo Clinic. The risks associated with the Cesarean section that saved my baby and I from complications carries far more risks than a routine kidney transplant. This is especially true in the United States, where we have a rising rate of maternal mortality, the worst record in the developed world.
So childbirth is potentially deadly, and pregnancy requires 9 months of life-altering preparation as your organs and bones shift to accommodate a human, then a painful delivery and recovery that is life-threatening in this country, followed by weeks of recovery and months of your organs, bones, and skin slowly shifting back into place. Also, you have to raise a human being. Or put them into the complicated system of foster care or adoption, where many kids go their whole lives without ever having a stable family.
But that's another rant, titled "If you are so pro-life, you better foster and/or adopt some of those children you forced to be born!"
By any measure, kidney donation is far easier, less impactful that childbirth. But we do not mandate kidney donation. Or life-saving bone marrow donation. Or even life-saving blood donation (which everyone should do, because it saves lives, is easy, you get a free cookie, and donation rates are dropping in the US). But we do not mandate that people give up their bodily integrity in any of these cases, and I can't figure out why. Are the 5-year-old children with bone cancer not as cute as a 10-week or fetus? Was my uncle who died because dialysis was too painful to endure not as important or worthwhile a person as a clump of pulsing cells? Or is it just that men have bone marrow, blood, and kidneys, and they don't want to give up their bodily autonomy?
This does not even touch on the number of abortions given to women who need them for medical reasons, who make the heart breaking choice to end a wanted pregnancy to save their own life, or prevent the suffering of their child. But you pro-life assholes don't want to talk about forcing mothers of wanted babies to slowly bleed to death and die of sepsis while their beloved child dies inside of them, do they.
Fucking assholes.
So, until we make blood donation, kidney donation, bone marrow donation, and liver donation mandatory in life-saving cases, every single pro-life politician can go fuck themselves all the way to the moon, and then suffocate silently in the cold darkness of space and leave the rest of us in peace.
/rant
Friday, October 19, 2018
I'm done.
I am so done with men this week.
Okay, not actually men, just patriarchy.
White supremacist, hetero-normative, ableist, cis-gendered capitalist patriarchy.
That fucking shit.
I am *so* done with it all.
This week, I had to walk a young female student and her friend to their car because a guy has been stalking her; waiting for her outside of her class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. After eight weeks she finally asked for help.
And I get it. I have had the same problem, and when subtly taking out work or checking emails doesn't work, I resorted to ducking the guy by going out different doors, leaving at different times. Plus, my annoying guy was much less persistent. One of the benefits of entering my late thirties and growing a mom-bod is that far fewer people want to bone me, so I can move through the world with less friction. To say it is a bittersweet victory would be understating it.
But I remember those days well, and they still happen often enough to remind me that as women, we are the emotional laborers of this society. It reminds me of a philosophy professor who suggested, as an exercise, that we assume that gravity is created by tiny creatures shooting arrows with rope attached to things to keep them from flying off the face of the earth. I pictured a version of the gremlin that used to haunt Bugs Bunny, hundreds of thousands of them under the surface, keeping the machinery of the world functioning as we know it.
That's the emotional labor of women. We are walking around all the time, being patient with a frustrated colleague, listening to the feelings of a stranger, letting a guy hit on us when we would much rather be sitting in silence. But most of us, most of the time let it happen, make the emotional space for the guy in the situation so we don't have to find out what would happen if we don't.
Even when we don't articulate it to ourselves, that's why we do it. That's why we are nice, or patient, or don't argue, or give out a fake number, or lie about a fake boyfriend or husband or appointment, or wear headphones or bring a book or walk with friends to mix up our route or keep our route the same and therefore familiar and safe. We put in all that extra work to protect the feelings of the men around us, strangers, family, friends, and peers, so we don't have to find out if this is the kind of guy who will snap. Or the situation that will make this guy snap. The anger and violence and ego of men is the fuel that drives us to do all of this emotional labor. We do not want to do it, even if we have tricked ourselves into believeing we don't mind. No one wants to work for free.
But we all do. We all do all this emotional labor of patiently making some guy's feelings or concerns more important than ours, more important than our precious time, because you never know when or where or which guy is going to snap and hit you or yell at you or threaten you or stab you or rape you or dehumanize you in some way because you made the mistake of asserting your autonomy, your humanity in the face of their own.
As if you were an equal.
And, how dumb would that be?
Okay, not actually men, just patriarchy.
White supremacist, hetero-normative, ableist, cis-gendered capitalist patriarchy.
That fucking shit.
I am *so* done with it all.
This week, I had to walk a young female student and her friend to their car because a guy has been stalking her; waiting for her outside of her class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. After eight weeks she finally asked for help.
And I get it. I have had the same problem, and when subtly taking out work or checking emails doesn't work, I resorted to ducking the guy by going out different doors, leaving at different times. Plus, my annoying guy was much less persistent. One of the benefits of entering my late thirties and growing a mom-bod is that far fewer people want to bone me, so I can move through the world with less friction. To say it is a bittersweet victory would be understating it.
But I remember those days well, and they still happen often enough to remind me that as women, we are the emotional laborers of this society. It reminds me of a philosophy professor who suggested, as an exercise, that we assume that gravity is created by tiny creatures shooting arrows with rope attached to things to keep them from flying off the face of the earth. I pictured a version of the gremlin that used to haunt Bugs Bunny, hundreds of thousands of them under the surface, keeping the machinery of the world functioning as we know it.
That's the emotional labor of women. We are walking around all the time, being patient with a frustrated colleague, listening to the feelings of a stranger, letting a guy hit on us when we would much rather be sitting in silence. But most of us, most of the time let it happen, make the emotional space for the guy in the situation so we don't have to find out what would happen if we don't.
Even when we don't articulate it to ourselves, that's why we do it. That's why we are nice, or patient, or don't argue, or give out a fake number, or lie about a fake boyfriend or husband or appointment, or wear headphones or bring a book or walk with friends to mix up our route or keep our route the same and therefore familiar and safe. We put in all that extra work to protect the feelings of the men around us, strangers, family, friends, and peers, so we don't have to find out if this is the kind of guy who will snap. Or the situation that will make this guy snap. The anger and violence and ego of men is the fuel that drives us to do all of this emotional labor. We do not want to do it, even if we have tricked ourselves into believeing we don't mind. No one wants to work for free.
But we all do. We all do all this emotional labor of patiently making some guy's feelings or concerns more important than ours, more important than our precious time, because you never know when or where or which guy is going to snap and hit you or yell at you or threaten you or stab you or rape you or dehumanize you in some way because you made the mistake of asserting your autonomy, your humanity in the face of their own.
As if you were an equal.
And, how dumb would that be?
Thursday, May 17, 2018
The Emotional Labor of a Nation
If you haven't heard of Gina Haspel, there might be a very good reason. I mean, she was a spy for most of her career. I'm sorry, a highly decorated agent in the clandestine services. By all accounts she has spent the majority of her professional life as a measured, capable, smart member of elite people who sacrifice some level of normalcy to gather an utilize intelligence about international goings-on. Then the current president, who goes through staff faster than I go through cheese, needed a new director of the CIA. The first female director, which is great,e specially because she is, by all accounts, great at her job. Experiences, level headed etc.
But. For a week during the Bush administration she over saw a Bangkok black site where a man was waterboarded three times. Later, against the recommendation of some, she penned a memo for her boss directing the tapes of some waterboarding to be destroyed.
There is a lot in those two sentences, a lot to unpack. Waterboarding is torture, and torture is wrong. Bad. Problematic. A lose-lose. Most experts agree that torture does not get useful information, and is against the Geneva Conventions. It is a violation of human dignity.
That being said, when Gina Haspel was in Bangkok, we had a president and an administration who considered waterboarding okay. They called it 'enhanced interrogation' to skirt the law, and they said it was necessary to prevent a mushroom cloud in Manhattan or something. Before Gina Haspel arrive at the Thai facility she briefly oversaw, another detainee was waterboarded more than 80 times. That poor man lost consciousness and actually died, and had to be resuscitated. The descriptions are horrifying. Haspel took over, briefly, over saw the same horrific act conducted 3 times, and then shut the site down and moved on with her career.
I am not here to assuage her guilt, or defend water boarding. But I can't help but feel like holding this woman, who over saw a tiny fraction of the horrific acts done in the name of U.S. national security and actually worked toward stopping it but shutting the Bangkok facility down, is misguided. We had a president who supported it 2002, and we have a president who claims we should do more than water board suspects now, and no one is questioning either of those men. Nor is anyone bothering to speak to the man who was in charge of Gina Haspel's conduct, who placed her in Thailand for those weeks in 2002. Nor is anyone questioning the individual who actually did the actual water boarding. Or who actually destroyed the tapes.
We are questioning, haranguing, the woman in the middle, between the men with all the power and the men who follow orders, and holding her responsible. To me, that seems like we are asking Gina Haspel to answer for our national sins, our election of these presidents and their appointed cabinets, because we still can't.
Talk about emotional labor.
Seriously. I understand that she is being elevated to a high position, that deserves a high degree of scrutiny. But can we all agree that she didn't decide to waterboard anyone? Why is no one asking any of these tough questions of our current or past president, both of whom rationalized and excused torture when it was convenient, and sacrificed the humanity of others to stay in power, to look strong.
It is so much easier to rest it all on the shoulders of Ms. Haspel, because even though she neither gave the orders nor took the action, she is the woman we can all turn to and ask if it is ever going to happen again.
I mean, do we all need a national mommy that bad? Maybe we should elect one, then.
But. For a week during the Bush administration she over saw a Bangkok black site where a man was waterboarded three times. Later, against the recommendation of some, she penned a memo for her boss directing the tapes of some waterboarding to be destroyed.
There is a lot in those two sentences, a lot to unpack. Waterboarding is torture, and torture is wrong. Bad. Problematic. A lose-lose. Most experts agree that torture does not get useful information, and is against the Geneva Conventions. It is a violation of human dignity.
That being said, when Gina Haspel was in Bangkok, we had a president and an administration who considered waterboarding okay. They called it 'enhanced interrogation' to skirt the law, and they said it was necessary to prevent a mushroom cloud in Manhattan or something. Before Gina Haspel arrive at the Thai facility she briefly oversaw, another detainee was waterboarded more than 80 times. That poor man lost consciousness and actually died, and had to be resuscitated. The descriptions are horrifying. Haspel took over, briefly, over saw the same horrific act conducted 3 times, and then shut the site down and moved on with her career.
I am not here to assuage her guilt, or defend water boarding. But I can't help but feel like holding this woman, who over saw a tiny fraction of the horrific acts done in the name of U.S. national security and actually worked toward stopping it but shutting the Bangkok facility down, is misguided. We had a president who supported it 2002, and we have a president who claims we should do more than water board suspects now, and no one is questioning either of those men. Nor is anyone bothering to speak to the man who was in charge of Gina Haspel's conduct, who placed her in Thailand for those weeks in 2002. Nor is anyone questioning the individual who actually did the actual water boarding. Or who actually destroyed the tapes.
We are questioning, haranguing, the woman in the middle, between the men with all the power and the men who follow orders, and holding her responsible. To me, that seems like we are asking Gina Haspel to answer for our national sins, our election of these presidents and their appointed cabinets, because we still can't.
Talk about emotional labor.
Seriously. I understand that she is being elevated to a high position, that deserves a high degree of scrutiny. But can we all agree that she didn't decide to waterboard anyone? Why is no one asking any of these tough questions of our current or past president, both of whom rationalized and excused torture when it was convenient, and sacrificed the humanity of others to stay in power, to look strong.
It is so much easier to rest it all on the shoulders of Ms. Haspel, because even though she neither gave the orders nor took the action, she is the woman we can all turn to and ask if it is ever going to happen again.
I mean, do we all need a national mommy that bad? Maybe we should elect one, then.
Wednesday, May 09, 2018
#MomLife
10:45 pm Baby is crying. Bring water, pacifier. Snuggle him back to sleep, then stumble back to bed
12:45 am repeat
1:55 am repeat
3:50 am Baby is crying. Approach with water and search for pacifier blindly only to find pacifier is sitting in pool of chunky vomit. Wipe hand on own pajamas, and reach for child, who is only damp with vomit. Move child to clean, dry area. Replace his pajamas, wipe vomit off of face, hair, and hands. Give child cup of water to occupy himself. Remove bed sheets, mop up vomit, throw offending items in a pile in the bathroom. Lay a clean rag over the stain because you are too lazy to put clean sheets on the bed when there is only one more hour of sleep to look forward to anyway. Bring child, sippy cup of water, favorite stuffed animal, and favorite blanket into bed with you and sleeping, snoring partner.
4:15 - 4:50 am Baby rolls around in the bed, pretending to be sleepy while poking and kicking.
4:51 am Baby sits up to drink water
4:52 am Baby begins to throw up water. Grab still-vomiting baby and try unsuccessfully to catch vomit in your hands, pajamas, anything but beloved stuffed animal or bed sheets. Carry gathered bed clothes, pajamas, and vomit-y baby back into baby's room, wipe up vomit, change pajamas. Sleepy partner puts clean sheets on mostly clean crib. Snuggle now clean baby back to sleep, tuck in, close door. Change out of own vomit-covered pajamas into new pajamas.
5:20 am Baby is asleep, you are awake but already behind schedule. Make coffee, prepare alternate baby breakfast of simple oatmeal in anticipation of further tummy trouble. Shower, and dress in robe.
6:15 am Baby is crying. Again. The room smells like poop. Baby is damp and smells like poop. I lay baby down, then think better of it and grab a baby blanket to lay baby on. Begin process of pulling wet, shit covered pajama pants off of resistant baby. Baby cries more as I wipe feet, thighs, and mop poop into a pile. I grab another towel upon which to lay the shit soaked pajama pants, nearly useless diaper and growing pile of wipes. Being stripping poop soaked pajama shirt off of baby, trying to keep poop out of face and hair. Realize poop traveled up back and into armpits, and begin mopping up poo.
Baby is clean, dry, and crying. Dress him in optimistically chosen day care outfit, substituting sweat pants for shorts after imagining next wave of vomit or diarrhea streaming down bear baby legs. Groggy partner takes baby to our bed to snuggle, possibly sleep. Change crib sheets, begin washing large chunks of vomit and poop out of collected laundry, and start a washing machine load with lots of detergent and bleach. Wash hands, thoroughly. Smell robe for poop and add to laundry pile.
6:45 am Baby is quiet. Partner is quiet. Pour coffee into cup, sit down at desk and begin answering work emails. Text daycare back ups for availability.
7:30 am Baby is up, but not crying! Timidly offer baby special breakfast of oatmeal and blueberries. Baby eats four bites and then insists on more exotic fare. Feed baby whatever he wants. Bemoan options with partner; is he too sick for daycare or not? Baby's temperature is take multiple ways for accuracy. Nothing is learned. Partner agrees to stay home with baby, I agree to come home early. Day care rejoices. Move laundry from washer to dryer.
8:30 am Finally dress for work. Baby is crying, partner puts him down for a nap. He cries, demonstrating a strong will, and then falls asleep. Apply make up, arrange hair in what I assume is the style of a person who slept more than I did.
8:55 am Reheat leftover fast food burrito and eat it for breakfast while standing in the kitchen, debating making another cup of coffee. Remind self to feel lucky for a schedule that allows for such a leisurely morning. Remind self to be grateful for blessed child, despite his inability to keep partially digested food in his body. Remind self to be grateful for leftover burrito, which is better than the granola bar under the front seat of the car.
9:08 am Leave for work, late. Arrive at work, find decent parking space magically available.
Spend the rest of the day wondering if I missed a spot of vomit or poop, still somewhere on my body. Or maybe in my hair?
12:45 am repeat
1:55 am repeat
3:50 am Baby is crying. Approach with water and search for pacifier blindly only to find pacifier is sitting in pool of chunky vomit. Wipe hand on own pajamas, and reach for child, who is only damp with vomit. Move child to clean, dry area. Replace his pajamas, wipe vomit off of face, hair, and hands. Give child cup of water to occupy himself. Remove bed sheets, mop up vomit, throw offending items in a pile in the bathroom. Lay a clean rag over the stain because you are too lazy to put clean sheets on the bed when there is only one more hour of sleep to look forward to anyway. Bring child, sippy cup of water, favorite stuffed animal, and favorite blanket into bed with you and sleeping, snoring partner.
4:15 - 4:50 am Baby rolls around in the bed, pretending to be sleepy while poking and kicking.
4:51 am Baby sits up to drink water
4:52 am Baby begins to throw up water. Grab still-vomiting baby and try unsuccessfully to catch vomit in your hands, pajamas, anything but beloved stuffed animal or bed sheets. Carry gathered bed clothes, pajamas, and vomit-y baby back into baby's room, wipe up vomit, change pajamas. Sleepy partner puts clean sheets on mostly clean crib. Snuggle now clean baby back to sleep, tuck in, close door. Change out of own vomit-covered pajamas into new pajamas.
5:20 am Baby is asleep, you are awake but already behind schedule. Make coffee, prepare alternate baby breakfast of simple oatmeal in anticipation of further tummy trouble. Shower, and dress in robe.
6:15 am Baby is crying. Again. The room smells like poop. Baby is damp and smells like poop. I lay baby down, then think better of it and grab a baby blanket to lay baby on. Begin process of pulling wet, shit covered pajama pants off of resistant baby. Baby cries more as I wipe feet, thighs, and mop poop into a pile. I grab another towel upon which to lay the shit soaked pajama pants, nearly useless diaper and growing pile of wipes. Being stripping poop soaked pajama shirt off of baby, trying to keep poop out of face and hair. Realize poop traveled up back and into armpits, and begin mopping up poo.
Baby is clean, dry, and crying. Dress him in optimistically chosen day care outfit, substituting sweat pants for shorts after imagining next wave of vomit or diarrhea streaming down bear baby legs. Groggy partner takes baby to our bed to snuggle, possibly sleep. Change crib sheets, begin washing large chunks of vomit and poop out of collected laundry, and start a washing machine load with lots of detergent and bleach. Wash hands, thoroughly. Smell robe for poop and add to laundry pile.
6:45 am Baby is quiet. Partner is quiet. Pour coffee into cup, sit down at desk and begin answering work emails. Text daycare back ups for availability.
7:30 am Baby is up, but not crying! Timidly offer baby special breakfast of oatmeal and blueberries. Baby eats four bites and then insists on more exotic fare. Feed baby whatever he wants. Bemoan options with partner; is he too sick for daycare or not? Baby's temperature is take multiple ways for accuracy. Nothing is learned. Partner agrees to stay home with baby, I agree to come home early. Day care rejoices. Move laundry from washer to dryer.
8:30 am Finally dress for work. Baby is crying, partner puts him down for a nap. He cries, demonstrating a strong will, and then falls asleep. Apply make up, arrange hair in what I assume is the style of a person who slept more than I did.
8:55 am Reheat leftover fast food burrito and eat it for breakfast while standing in the kitchen, debating making another cup of coffee. Remind self to feel lucky for a schedule that allows for such a leisurely morning. Remind self to be grateful for blessed child, despite his inability to keep partially digested food in his body. Remind self to be grateful for leftover burrito, which is better than the granola bar under the front seat of the car.
9:08 am Leave for work, late. Arrive at work, find decent parking space magically available.
Spend the rest of the day wondering if I missed a spot of vomit or poop, still somewhere on my body. Or maybe in my hair?
Friday, March 09, 2018
Thoughts While Driving to Work
"How well did I wash my hands?"
That was the thought that occurred to me as I nibbled bits of bran muffin from underneath my finger nails and drove my son to day care. How well did I wash my hands? Because, about twenty minutes earlier, I was cleaning poo off his bottom. And his thighs. And his shirt and pants. And his changing pad. And his junk. Oh why is it so hard to get bits of baby poop out of the tiny creases of baby testicles?! It is the worst.
And I washed my hands, but I was also keenly aware that the clock was ticking and I had about 70 minutes to finish up with the Poop-Apocalypse, get a clean and dressed kiddo into the car, and make the 50 minute round trip drive to drop him off and get to work on time. Since breakfast time had been replaced by an early nap wake up and a surprise poo-splosion, I grabbed a bran muffin after cleaning up everything to the minimum level of acceptable hygiene and threw the kiddo and I into the car.
Finally in the medium-chill place of knowing that I was at least on the road and moving towards my goal I started scarfing my muffin down, savoring every crumb, including the ones under my finger nails until it occurred to me that it might not have been wise to both skimp on hand washing time and go after *every* crumb.
Oh well.
It's too late now.
And by too late, I mean both that the poo/crumbs are in my tummy now, and that I am late to work.
That was the thought that occurred to me as I nibbled bits of bran muffin from underneath my finger nails and drove my son to day care. How well did I wash my hands? Because, about twenty minutes earlier, I was cleaning poo off his bottom. And his thighs. And his shirt and pants. And his changing pad. And his junk. Oh why is it so hard to get bits of baby poop out of the tiny creases of baby testicles?! It is the worst.
And I washed my hands, but I was also keenly aware that the clock was ticking and I had about 70 minutes to finish up with the Poop-Apocalypse, get a clean and dressed kiddo into the car, and make the 50 minute round trip drive to drop him off and get to work on time. Since breakfast time had been replaced by an early nap wake up and a surprise poo-splosion, I grabbed a bran muffin after cleaning up everything to the minimum level of acceptable hygiene and threw the kiddo and I into the car.
Finally in the medium-chill place of knowing that I was at least on the road and moving towards my goal I started scarfing my muffin down, savoring every crumb, including the ones under my finger nails until it occurred to me that it might not have been wise to both skimp on hand washing time and go after *every* crumb.
Oh well.
It's too late now.
And by too late, I mean both that the poo/crumbs are in my tummy now, and that I am late to work.
Monday, January 22, 2018
Aziz Ansari and Other 'Regular Guys'
So, the thing about waves is, the aren't exactly the most controlled of forces. The ocean does not care what you had planned, and waves will wash over everything in their paths. Waves will over reach. What I'm trying to say is, it was inevitable that we would get to this point, where we'd have to have a reckoning between the folks who said, "yes, obviously, Harvey is a monster, but.." and the folks for whom there is no but.
And I think we're here.
Stuff is continuing to come about about less egregious forms of sexual assault, harassment, and dysfunction. Grey areas are being wadded into, uncomfortable truths are emerging, and everything has gotten a whole lot more convoluted. Most recently, or not, since I am by no means the most up to date, Aziz Ansari and James Franco have been pulled in for somewhat more complicated offenses.
And, to me, the crux of the issue comes back to a favorite winter song, Baby It's Cold Outside. If you've never heard the song, hop on to youtube for the original, or any of the many, many, many, updates and remakes of the classic song. I'll wait. It's a lovely, controversial, date-rape-y song. Recently, I was online in the midst of kitten videos etc. when I stumbled onto a more uplifting take on the song's origin. The argument was that the song was not, in fact, date rape-y, but a woman making excuses to stay the night with a man she liked. See, in the not-so-good-old-days, women lacked the freedom to make sexual choices on their own. They were the brakes, and men were the gas (and everything was hetero-normative as hell....sorry about that). Women were responsible for maintaining their chastity against the hoard of sex hungry, uncontrollable men that were their friends and neighbors. Essentially, we pretended that everyone had the sexual norms of cave dwellers, but in snappy 1940s and 50s attire. And we didn't talk about it.
But people are people, and sexual appetites vary, and some women, even back then, just wanted to get laid or fool around with the guy they liked, so they'd have to come up with a guise of being too drunk to go home, to play the part of unwilling but unable to fight prey, so that they could maintain their social standing to some extent. Basically, the argument is, Baby It's Cold Outside is actually a ladies' anthem for repressed sexuality; she's playing the game with him, making excuses so she can spend the night. Which is a much more pleasant subject for a song.
BUT.
Here's the problem.
We don't know if that's true, because she never gets to say, "hey, by the way, I want to stay, I am just playing this dumb game." Because she's not allowed to because of social constraints on female sexuality. Social constraints that persist to this day. And this is the real problem we are all struggling with now.
Without women and men (and people of all genders) growing up in a nonjudgmental space of sexual expression and enthusiastic "Yes!" and "No!" responses to sexual advances, we can't even really know our partner's take on our own sexual encounters. Women (at least from my not-that-long-ago, born in 1980+ generation) are still growing up with the idea that sex is something inherently gendered with roles on predator and prey. I know I grew up with potent images of the romanticism of sexual dominance and violence, to the point where i fantasized about it with my friends as a child. If you think you didn't grow up with the same images imposed upon you, thing about everyone's hero, Harrison Ford, who makes his way through Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises kissing women by force, against their will, until they submit, admitting it was all an act.
How the fuck are we supposed to learn about consent from that?
We didn't. And Harrison Ford is just an easy target; think back to other movies, whether women say no when they mean yes, how violence is portrayed around sexuality. One of my favorite dumb movies, Mr. and Mrs Smith, starts out with a battle to the death between spouses, and ends in a bloody sex scene. Complicated. I find myself searching media now, for signs that the people being kissed, trust upon, are actually into it. It is a disheartening exercise.
Herein lies the problem. We have completed trained ourselves to not expect female consent. All of us. I feel like this piece of writing articulates the complication of it all very well. And maybe it's changing, but these things take time. Aziz and James are close to my age, so I assume they grew up with something similar to my cultural milieu, and I can tell you I've had tons of sex I didn't really want. Bad sex, unpleasant sex. Sex I had because I thought I was proving something to someone, or because I thought it meant something. But for a very long time I had a lot of bad sex because I thought, truly, that I *should* say yes to every offer that came my way. I was never cool, I never considered myself pretty, but I was funny and had big boobs, so I would attract some guys some times. It took me a while to put my finger on it, but I didn't always feel like I had the right to say no, because who was I? Who was I to turn these guys down, who were cool, or bought me beers, or seemed funny at first, or didn't care that I was on my period. Who was I to say no?
If you've read the New Yorker piece Cat Person, you know what I'm talking about. There are so many fine, grey lines in between what we all want for everyone, which is joyfully consented to enthusiastic sex, and what we are used to expecting. I might be alone in the way I valued myself in my early twenties, but I know I am not alone in what I am seeing echoed throughout the world lately. Scores of women have had sex they didn't want. Sometimes, because they were forced, coerced, drugged, tricked. And that is rape. Sometimes, they had sex they didn't want because they felt it had gone too far to stop, or they didn't no how to say no, or their partner didn't think to seek an enthusiastic yes. Sometimes someone screams no in their head, but smiles, and goes along with it, because that's what you do. Because if you say no, it could go from a bad sex story to a terrible rape story, to a beating, to some other more heinous act that you can already imagine. At least if you don't say no, you are holding on to some facet of control in the face of the looming culture that demands that women be the source and substance of sexual gratification for all, without necessarily taking too much of it for themselves.
What I'm trying to say is, it is complicated. And we are all to blame. If I had said no when I meant it, I would have brought the world a little closer to the enthusiastic yes that I believe we all deserve. That is SEXY AS HELL. But it took me a few years to learn that I was worth the no and the yes, and that both were part of my feminism and my sexuality. As a society I see more enthusiastic "Yes!" moments in movies and tv, which is important. We learn a lot from media. We need to teach ourselves and the next generation that sex is great for those who want it, and great to not have for those who don't want it. That it is a complicated mismatch of flesh and feelings, and that respecting the other person you engage in it with is the most important thing. We need to find a way to talk about this without jumping on each others' perceptions and experiences, and come at some of these situations with some empathy.
And we are talking about it, so that's a start. We need to keep talking, and listening, and questioning. Especially things that make us uncomfortable. That's how we get out of this quagmire of grey.
#imho
And I think we're here.
Stuff is continuing to come about about less egregious forms of sexual assault, harassment, and dysfunction. Grey areas are being wadded into, uncomfortable truths are emerging, and everything has gotten a whole lot more convoluted. Most recently, or not, since I am by no means the most up to date, Aziz Ansari and James Franco have been pulled in for somewhat more complicated offenses.
And, to me, the crux of the issue comes back to a favorite winter song, Baby It's Cold Outside. If you've never heard the song, hop on to youtube for the original, or any of the many, many, many, updates and remakes of the classic song. I'll wait. It's a lovely, controversial, date-rape-y song. Recently, I was online in the midst of kitten videos etc. when I stumbled onto a more uplifting take on the song's origin. The argument was that the song was not, in fact, date rape-y, but a woman making excuses to stay the night with a man she liked. See, in the not-so-good-old-days, women lacked the freedom to make sexual choices on their own. They were the brakes, and men were the gas (and everything was hetero-normative as hell....sorry about that). Women were responsible for maintaining their chastity against the hoard of sex hungry, uncontrollable men that were their friends and neighbors. Essentially, we pretended that everyone had the sexual norms of cave dwellers, but in snappy 1940s and 50s attire. And we didn't talk about it.
But people are people, and sexual appetites vary, and some women, even back then, just wanted to get laid or fool around with the guy they liked, so they'd have to come up with a guise of being too drunk to go home, to play the part of unwilling but unable to fight prey, so that they could maintain their social standing to some extent. Basically, the argument is, Baby It's Cold Outside is actually a ladies' anthem for repressed sexuality; she's playing the game with him, making excuses so she can spend the night. Which is a much more pleasant subject for a song.
BUT.
Here's the problem.
We don't know if that's true, because she never gets to say, "hey, by the way, I want to stay, I am just playing this dumb game." Because she's not allowed to because of social constraints on female sexuality. Social constraints that persist to this day. And this is the real problem we are all struggling with now.
Without women and men (and people of all genders) growing up in a nonjudgmental space of sexual expression and enthusiastic "Yes!" and "No!" responses to sexual advances, we can't even really know our partner's take on our own sexual encounters. Women (at least from my not-that-long-ago, born in 1980+ generation) are still growing up with the idea that sex is something inherently gendered with roles on predator and prey. I know I grew up with potent images of the romanticism of sexual dominance and violence, to the point where i fantasized about it with my friends as a child. If you think you didn't grow up with the same images imposed upon you, thing about everyone's hero, Harrison Ford, who makes his way through Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises kissing women by force, against their will, until they submit, admitting it was all an act.
How the fuck are we supposed to learn about consent from that?
We didn't. And Harrison Ford is just an easy target; think back to other movies, whether women say no when they mean yes, how violence is portrayed around sexuality. One of my favorite dumb movies, Mr. and Mrs Smith, starts out with a battle to the death between spouses, and ends in a bloody sex scene. Complicated. I find myself searching media now, for signs that the people being kissed, trust upon, are actually into it. It is a disheartening exercise.
Herein lies the problem. We have completed trained ourselves to not expect female consent. All of us. I feel like this piece of writing articulates the complication of it all very well. And maybe it's changing, but these things take time. Aziz and James are close to my age, so I assume they grew up with something similar to my cultural milieu, and I can tell you I've had tons of sex I didn't really want. Bad sex, unpleasant sex. Sex I had because I thought I was proving something to someone, or because I thought it meant something. But for a very long time I had a lot of bad sex because I thought, truly, that I *should* say yes to every offer that came my way. I was never cool, I never considered myself pretty, but I was funny and had big boobs, so I would attract some guys some times. It took me a while to put my finger on it, but I didn't always feel like I had the right to say no, because who was I? Who was I to turn these guys down, who were cool, or bought me beers, or seemed funny at first, or didn't care that I was on my period. Who was I to say no?
If you've read the New Yorker piece Cat Person, you know what I'm talking about. There are so many fine, grey lines in between what we all want for everyone, which is joyfully consented to enthusiastic sex, and what we are used to expecting. I might be alone in the way I valued myself in my early twenties, but I know I am not alone in what I am seeing echoed throughout the world lately. Scores of women have had sex they didn't want. Sometimes, because they were forced, coerced, drugged, tricked. And that is rape. Sometimes, they had sex they didn't want because they felt it had gone too far to stop, or they didn't no how to say no, or their partner didn't think to seek an enthusiastic yes. Sometimes someone screams no in their head, but smiles, and goes along with it, because that's what you do. Because if you say no, it could go from a bad sex story to a terrible rape story, to a beating, to some other more heinous act that you can already imagine. At least if you don't say no, you are holding on to some facet of control in the face of the looming culture that demands that women be the source and substance of sexual gratification for all, without necessarily taking too much of it for themselves.
What I'm trying to say is, it is complicated. And we are all to blame. If I had said no when I meant it, I would have brought the world a little closer to the enthusiastic yes that I believe we all deserve. That is SEXY AS HELL. But it took me a few years to learn that I was worth the no and the yes, and that both were part of my feminism and my sexuality. As a society I see more enthusiastic "Yes!" moments in movies and tv, which is important. We learn a lot from media. We need to teach ourselves and the next generation that sex is great for those who want it, and great to not have for those who don't want it. That it is a complicated mismatch of flesh and feelings, and that respecting the other person you engage in it with is the most important thing. We need to find a way to talk about this without jumping on each others' perceptions and experiences, and come at some of these situations with some empathy.
And we are talking about it, so that's a start. We need to keep talking, and listening, and questioning. Especially things that make us uncomfortable. That's how we get out of this quagmire of grey.
#imho
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
It's Not You...It's All Of Us
We're having something of a moment of reckoning right now; people are coming forward in droves, telling the stories of their sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and sexual assault. And they are actually (sometimes) being believed! And the accused are actually (sometimes) admitting their wrongdoing, and ever apologizing! And even (sometimes) facing consequences!
It feels like a scary, shifting zeitgeist moment of cultural awakening and accountability. And it also sometimes feels like it is spiraling out of control. Someone posted somewhere on social media that in 2016, every time a celebrity's name was trending, we had to worry they were dead, but in 2017 a trending celebrity name likely implies new allegations of sexual misconduct. And that feels pretty true.
So where will this roller coaster of accusations and accountability stop? Hard to say, but I am reminded of the once great 'Your Fav is Problematic'. For the uninitiated, it basically spent time pointing out how every beloved cultural icon and celebrity had done or said something shitty to some marginalized group at some time. Everything you love, it boasted, is problematic. I loved that, because it was true, and it's good (and challenging) to face our own biases and shortcomings. But it is a bummer to find out how flawed everyone is.
THIS IS THE SAME THING.
By which I mean that if we keep searching for guilt, we will end up pointing fingers at everyone to some degree or another, because we are all complicit. You will probably have to face the fact that your fav actor/writer/business owner did something fucked up to someone else because they could. Because that's how power dynamics and misogyny and toxic masculinity work. That's how rape culture works, and we are all complicit in some way because we are all part of this system. Even those of us fighting to dismantle the cis-normative, white supremacist, hetro-normative, capitalist abelist patriarchy were at some time not completely sure of ourselves and made some mistakes. Because that's what being young is, especially in this culture. Any time you told your friends you really didn't want to talk about rape culture at a party, you helped keep it in place. We all did.
I know I have made mistakes. I've been a bad ally to other women, to other victims. I've held on to a bunch of internalized misogyny that was harmful in was I am certain I don't fully understand. And I have made moral compromises to save myself. I am part of this system, and when I wasn't fighting it, it was in me, working to maintain its self like the virus that it is.
So. Where do we go from here? Forward, of course!!
We are all to blame in some way, which means we can stop being outraged. We do not need to stop holding people accountable, but if there is anything the #metoo campaign taught us, it is that this was happening all the time, to everyone, everywhere. So, to some degree we were all involved.**
So let's hold people accountable. Let's change the way we view power and sexuality and sexual violence. Let's make sure that there is diversity at every level of everything, so that diverse perspectives view these problems at every level. Let's make sure there are consequences, and let's work to hear and believe victims, and take actions against perpetrators. Let's appreciate those who come forward with honest and forthright recognition of what they have done, and hold to the highest level of accountability those who try to pass their shit off or blame someone else. Let's change fucking power dynamic and the fucking culture. Let's finally get together to dismantle this shit.
**I do not mean to imply that victims are to blame for their assault/harassment etc. I mean only to imply that as a society we are all complicit in some small way. No victim is ever to blame for being assaulted. If I walk down the street with a $20 bill hanging out of my pocket, the decent person will tell me, not just take it. There is NEVER an excuse to commit harassment or assault, sexual or otherwise. I'm just trying to articulate the larger way in which society systemically creates space for these crimes and violations to occur.
It feels like a scary, shifting zeitgeist moment of cultural awakening and accountability. And it also sometimes feels like it is spiraling out of control. Someone posted somewhere on social media that in 2016, every time a celebrity's name was trending, we had to worry they were dead, but in 2017 a trending celebrity name likely implies new allegations of sexual misconduct. And that feels pretty true.
So where will this roller coaster of accusations and accountability stop? Hard to say, but I am reminded of the once great 'Your Fav is Problematic'. For the uninitiated, it basically spent time pointing out how every beloved cultural icon and celebrity had done or said something shitty to some marginalized group at some time. Everything you love, it boasted, is problematic. I loved that, because it was true, and it's good (and challenging) to face our own biases and shortcomings. But it is a bummer to find out how flawed everyone is.
THIS IS THE SAME THING.
By which I mean that if we keep searching for guilt, we will end up pointing fingers at everyone to some degree or another, because we are all complicit. You will probably have to face the fact that your fav actor/writer/business owner did something fucked up to someone else because they could. Because that's how power dynamics and misogyny and toxic masculinity work. That's how rape culture works, and we are all complicit in some way because we are all part of this system. Even those of us fighting to dismantle the cis-normative, white supremacist, hetro-normative, capitalist abelist patriarchy were at some time not completely sure of ourselves and made some mistakes. Because that's what being young is, especially in this culture. Any time you told your friends you really didn't want to talk about rape culture at a party, you helped keep it in place. We all did.
I know I have made mistakes. I've been a bad ally to other women, to other victims. I've held on to a bunch of internalized misogyny that was harmful in was I am certain I don't fully understand. And I have made moral compromises to save myself. I am part of this system, and when I wasn't fighting it, it was in me, working to maintain its self like the virus that it is.
So. Where do we go from here? Forward, of course!!
We are all to blame in some way, which means we can stop being outraged. We do not need to stop holding people accountable, but if there is anything the #metoo campaign taught us, it is that this was happening all the time, to everyone, everywhere. So, to some degree we were all involved.**
So let's hold people accountable. Let's change the way we view power and sexuality and sexual violence. Let's make sure that there is diversity at every level of everything, so that diverse perspectives view these problems at every level. Let's make sure there are consequences, and let's work to hear and believe victims, and take actions against perpetrators. Let's appreciate those who come forward with honest and forthright recognition of what they have done, and hold to the highest level of accountability those who try to pass their shit off or blame someone else. Let's change fucking power dynamic and the fucking culture. Let's finally get together to dismantle this shit.
**I do not mean to imply that victims are to blame for their assault/harassment etc. I mean only to imply that as a society we are all complicit in some small way. No victim is ever to blame for being assaulted. If I walk down the street with a $20 bill hanging out of my pocket, the decent person will tell me, not just take it. There is NEVER an excuse to commit harassment or assault, sexual or otherwise. I'm just trying to articulate the larger way in which society systemically creates space for these crimes and violations to occur.
Monday, October 16, 2017
#MeToo
In first or second grade, I'm not sure which, a boy in my class pulls me off the jungle gym and sticks his finger in my butt through my leggings. He looks at my face as he does it, asking if I like it. I didn't think of my ass as sexual yet, so I was very confused. A teacher stopped him, but I don't know if anyone ever told my parents. To this day, I wonder what was going on in that boy's home that he was mirroring with me.
In middle school I go to the movies with two girlfriends. And adult man its next to me, and throughout the movie starts rubbing my arm and stomach. I am embarrassed and confused; I say and do nothing because I don't understand what is gong on, and worry I'm imagining things. I tell no one.
In high school I go to a sleep over new years party with my friend and her boyfriend. The girl hosting, her mother, and her boyfriend are the only other people there. At night we all sleep in the same bedroom, and I hear the host's boyfriend pressuring her to have sex while we sleep. She says she can't because something is wrong with her vagina. He tells her if she doesn't, he'll have sex with me. They debate for what feels like hours; she whispers that I'm asleep, he whispers that he'll wake me up and rape me. I lie perfectly still as she eventually gives in, and whimpers and cries through what sounds like painful intercourse. I feel guilty, terrified, relieved, and disgusted. I know I should do something, but I don't know these kids well, and I'm far from home. I finally fall asleep.
My college roommate comes home from a party, and tells me she slept with the guy she met, but didn't want to. Her hesitance and confusion is common as she explains that it wasn't rape, she just didn't want to have sex at first, but was okay with it during. I realize consent is confusing when men see tricking and badgering women as viable seduction tactics, and women are trying to explore their sexuality without feeling victimized. I realize, looking back, how many times I have had sex because I didn't want to find out what would happen if I said no.
I go visit my friend at her university, and she tells me she was raped by a guy she thought was her friend. She tells me it happened last semester, at night after she'd gone to her room to sleep, and that she woke up to him on top of her. She tells me her mother is in the process of trying to shame his family into getting him to leave the school, because he's still there, still taking classes and living n campus. She tells me she is getting married in a year. All I can think is, she's trying to protect herself. Married women are known to be off limits from male 'friends'.
In my first full time job after college, my 50-something year old boss makes sexually inappropriate jokes in the open office. I laugh, because I think this is the way an adult should behave. My supervisor, who is younger and female, stops us, reminds him he is being inappropriate, and later pulls me aside. She explains that she has to work to keep these men in check, and can't leave any room for them to question what is appropriate. I realize how little I understand.
I am working as a manager full time and going to school part time. My boss says racist things to me, and asks prying, personal questions, but I need the job. One day I come to work without make up on. My boss calls me into his office to accuse me of being hung over at work, and I try to explain. I never come to work without make up again.
In graduate school a female friend mentions she is meeting another to study. She explains she's worried, because he is male, and so she'll have to be careful about how she dresses, or he will come on to her. Other women in the room echo her sentiment; that most male peers will only want to meet up if it's a pretense for a date. I realize that being in a relationship has shielded me from this, because my male peers see me as off limits. Because I belong to another man already. I feel relieved and deeply troubled.
I am called into the dean of the department's office, and I am nervous. I hope it is about a research or work, and have prepared to talk about my qualifications. Instead I am asked about sexual harassment and assault. "Has any faculty member offered to change your grade in exchange for sexual favors? Are you sure?" Eventually I convince her, and we spend the rest of the time talking about how difficult it is to be a female department head.
I am at my first academic conference, and it's going really well. I make friends, including someone who went to my school. We have a mutual friend, and he is successful and connected, and offers to introduce me to other people in our field, so I follow him to a party in a hotel room. We continue the drinks we started at the conference cocktail hour, and at the end of the night he tries to make a move on me. I remind him that he is married, and I have a boyfriend, but he is unconcerned. I do not like this man, but he is using time honored manipulations, and I realize he is better connected than me, and my rebuff has to be subtle and complimentary. I escape from where he has me pressed against the wall and make an excuse about being too drunk, I run back to my hotel room. He is charming and cordial in the morning, as if nothing unusual happened. I suppose he is right.
I am teaching at a public university and a student meets me after class to discuss why she's struggling. She talks about her financial troubles and her physical disabilities, which are new and she is struggling with. Then she tells me she was sexually assaulted by her roommate, and currently looking for new housing. I talk to her, we work out a way for her to pass the class with all of her constraints. I ask her if there is anything she needs, but she remains confident, brave. She doesn't want help, but she needs to find a new living situation, and in L.A. affordable housing is expensive. I later relate this to another professor, an older mentor, and she says, "Well, that's our job." And she's right, because University faculty get training on how to handle and report sexual assault; I am a mandatory reporter. If I want to teach economics to adults, I also have to handle the abuse and assault of my students, because that's the world we live in.
This doesn't include things that have happened with friends, times I was physically assaulted in ways that weren't sexual, all the things that happened at parties and bars, including the time a buy set his drink on the edge of my ass while I was turned toward the bar, trying to order. All the times someone grabbed my tits or ass, or rubbed up against me or my friends, all the times guys on various dance floors wouldn't take no for an answer, or the time I was mistaken for a hooker in Barcelona and had to fight my way out. Those are just casual harassment, and happened when I was out at bars or parties or night clubs.
I don't consider myself a victim; I think I have likely lived a less-molested-than-average life. I often barely remember that all of these things happened to me, that all of them are inappropriate. That these things happened to me and the people around me because of our femaleness, or because of our perceived weakness, but mostly because of the culture of toxic masculinity that has convinced generation after generation of people that consent can be bought or pressured out, or is optional. That conquest is all that matters, and the conquerors needn't worry much about the feelings of the conquered.
When a person comes forward about sexual assault or harassment, the initial response is disbelief. But if you look out into the world today, the number of women (and men) standing up, saying 'Me, too.', it looks like everyone has a few stories in her past, a few experiences that reminded her she was not fully autonomous, that she was capable of being controlled or violated.
For fucks sake, can we start to believe people?
In middle school I go to the movies with two girlfriends. And adult man its next to me, and throughout the movie starts rubbing my arm and stomach. I am embarrassed and confused; I say and do nothing because I don't understand what is gong on, and worry I'm imagining things. I tell no one.
In high school I go to a sleep over new years party with my friend and her boyfriend. The girl hosting, her mother, and her boyfriend are the only other people there. At night we all sleep in the same bedroom, and I hear the host's boyfriend pressuring her to have sex while we sleep. She says she can't because something is wrong with her vagina. He tells her if she doesn't, he'll have sex with me. They debate for what feels like hours; she whispers that I'm asleep, he whispers that he'll wake me up and rape me. I lie perfectly still as she eventually gives in, and whimpers and cries through what sounds like painful intercourse. I feel guilty, terrified, relieved, and disgusted. I know I should do something, but I don't know these kids well, and I'm far from home. I finally fall asleep.
My college roommate comes home from a party, and tells me she slept with the guy she met, but didn't want to. Her hesitance and confusion is common as she explains that it wasn't rape, she just didn't want to have sex at first, but was okay with it during. I realize consent is confusing when men see tricking and badgering women as viable seduction tactics, and women are trying to explore their sexuality without feeling victimized. I realize, looking back, how many times I have had sex because I didn't want to find out what would happen if I said no.
I go visit my friend at her university, and she tells me she was raped by a guy she thought was her friend. She tells me it happened last semester, at night after she'd gone to her room to sleep, and that she woke up to him on top of her. She tells me her mother is in the process of trying to shame his family into getting him to leave the school, because he's still there, still taking classes and living n campus. She tells me she is getting married in a year. All I can think is, she's trying to protect herself. Married women are known to be off limits from male 'friends'.
In my first full time job after college, my 50-something year old boss makes sexually inappropriate jokes in the open office. I laugh, because I think this is the way an adult should behave. My supervisor, who is younger and female, stops us, reminds him he is being inappropriate, and later pulls me aside. She explains that she has to work to keep these men in check, and can't leave any room for them to question what is appropriate. I realize how little I understand.
I am working as a manager full time and going to school part time. My boss says racist things to me, and asks prying, personal questions, but I need the job. One day I come to work without make up on. My boss calls me into his office to accuse me of being hung over at work, and I try to explain. I never come to work without make up again.
In graduate school a female friend mentions she is meeting another to study. She explains she's worried, because he is male, and so she'll have to be careful about how she dresses, or he will come on to her. Other women in the room echo her sentiment; that most male peers will only want to meet up if it's a pretense for a date. I realize that being in a relationship has shielded me from this, because my male peers see me as off limits. Because I belong to another man already. I feel relieved and deeply troubled.
I am called into the dean of the department's office, and I am nervous. I hope it is about a research or work, and have prepared to talk about my qualifications. Instead I am asked about sexual harassment and assault. "Has any faculty member offered to change your grade in exchange for sexual favors? Are you sure?" Eventually I convince her, and we spend the rest of the time talking about how difficult it is to be a female department head.
I am at my first academic conference, and it's going really well. I make friends, including someone who went to my school. We have a mutual friend, and he is successful and connected, and offers to introduce me to other people in our field, so I follow him to a party in a hotel room. We continue the drinks we started at the conference cocktail hour, and at the end of the night he tries to make a move on me. I remind him that he is married, and I have a boyfriend, but he is unconcerned. I do not like this man, but he is using time honored manipulations, and I realize he is better connected than me, and my rebuff has to be subtle and complimentary. I escape from where he has me pressed against the wall and make an excuse about being too drunk, I run back to my hotel room. He is charming and cordial in the morning, as if nothing unusual happened. I suppose he is right.
I am teaching at a public university and a student meets me after class to discuss why she's struggling. She talks about her financial troubles and her physical disabilities, which are new and she is struggling with. Then she tells me she was sexually assaulted by her roommate, and currently looking for new housing. I talk to her, we work out a way for her to pass the class with all of her constraints. I ask her if there is anything she needs, but she remains confident, brave. She doesn't want help, but she needs to find a new living situation, and in L.A. affordable housing is expensive. I later relate this to another professor, an older mentor, and she says, "Well, that's our job." And she's right, because University faculty get training on how to handle and report sexual assault; I am a mandatory reporter. If I want to teach economics to adults, I also have to handle the abuse and assault of my students, because that's the world we live in.
This doesn't include things that have happened with friends, times I was physically assaulted in ways that weren't sexual, all the things that happened at parties and bars, including the time a buy set his drink on the edge of my ass while I was turned toward the bar, trying to order. All the times someone grabbed my tits or ass, or rubbed up against me or my friends, all the times guys on various dance floors wouldn't take no for an answer, or the time I was mistaken for a hooker in Barcelona and had to fight my way out. Those are just casual harassment, and happened when I was out at bars or parties or night clubs.
I don't consider myself a victim; I think I have likely lived a less-molested-than-average life. I often barely remember that all of these things happened to me, that all of them are inappropriate. That these things happened to me and the people around me because of our femaleness, or because of our perceived weakness, but mostly because of the culture of toxic masculinity that has convinced generation after generation of people that consent can be bought or pressured out, or is optional. That conquest is all that matters, and the conquerors needn't worry much about the feelings of the conquered.
When a person comes forward about sexual assault or harassment, the initial response is disbelief. But if you look out into the world today, the number of women (and men) standing up, saying 'Me, too.', it looks like everyone has a few stories in her past, a few experiences that reminded her she was not fully autonomous, that she was capable of being controlled or violated.
For fucks sake, can we start to believe people?
Friday, October 13, 2017
To my cousin, on her next step
I have two amazing cousins. Actually, I have *several* amazing cousins. Really lovely people.
One of these lovely humans is now in her first year at Harvard Law School. Seriously, how rad is that?
She is a sweet, funny, and obviously hardworking and extremely bright young woman in her twenties. Already some douche nozzle has called her a 'girl', as in "You girls better be ready to work hard! I don't go to school here, but it's hard!" Already she is second guessing herself and worried about raising her hand, while those who haven't done the readings are happy to give incorrect responses with vigor. She's got a long fight ahead of her, because law school is hard, and I'm sure Harvard is hard, but being female (and from a middle class family) in a less traditional field is really hard.
So, I want to take a minute and type out all the things I wish someone had said to me when I was starting out in grad school, terrified and certain I didn't belong.
First, you are in the right place. You belong here, you earned your place here. There's this thing called an admissions process that determines who belongs, and you went through it, the same as everyone else around you. You all passed, and now you are all here. That's it. Starting from the first day, you are all on equal footing, in that you are all qualified to be admitted to your program. Do your best to stop wasting mental energy overthinking it. You belong.
Second, find some people! It is going to be hard, and everyone will freak out at the first few (hundred) assignments. Being with a group of other people with whom you can admit how little you understand, or ask questions of, or be the person who has the answer with is going to be invaluable. And I promise, all of those things will happen at some point, no matter who you group up with. But find some folks and form a study group. Or two...or four. I had a study group of about five folks, and one person there was in two others, and would share the information from each group with all of us. You can do things alone, but it is so much harder, and so much more isolating. Get groups, get help, and get confirmation that you aren't the only one struggling!
And speaking of struggling, because you will, do your best to not feel dejected every time you do struggle. You are doing something very difficult, that only a small portion of people ever even attempt. Give yourself the space to struggle, to be challenged, and for that to be okay. You went through a lengthy process to literally prove you were good enough to be there, and the illustrious university's People Who Decide picked you. You belong, and you are right where you are supposed to be. If it was easy, everyone would do it.
Since it's not easy, make sure you ask for help. There is always help; clinics, boot camps, T.A.s , advisors, office hours, the notes of friends, dear sweet lovely google, study groups, people who've gone before. Ask and accept all the help you need, please. That's self care, that's efficient, and that's economical! You want to take advantage of everything that can help you succeed, honey, because every little bit helps and you are paying for the privilege of it all. So ask, seek, find help when you need it! It's not weakness, it's intelligence!
Try to trust yourself, trust your instincts. Part of what you are doing is being trained to be a confident decision maker. Don't let other people steal or borrow your power, just hold yourself centered and still, and try to let the crazy that may unfold flow around you, like wild ocean waters around a calm stone. And take excellent care of yourself. Because, girl, you got this.
And when all else fails, call home, because we have got you. <3 br="">
One of these lovely humans is now in her first year at Harvard Law School. Seriously, how rad is that?
She is a sweet, funny, and obviously hardworking and extremely bright young woman in her twenties. Already some douche nozzle has called her a 'girl', as in "You girls better be ready to work hard! I don't go to school here, but it's hard!" Already she is second guessing herself and worried about raising her hand, while those who haven't done the readings are happy to give incorrect responses with vigor. She's got a long fight ahead of her, because law school is hard, and I'm sure Harvard is hard, but being female (and from a middle class family) in a less traditional field is really hard.
So, I want to take a minute and type out all the things I wish someone had said to me when I was starting out in grad school, terrified and certain I didn't belong.
First, you are in the right place. You belong here, you earned your place here. There's this thing called an admissions process that determines who belongs, and you went through it, the same as everyone else around you. You all passed, and now you are all here. That's it. Starting from the first day, you are all on equal footing, in that you are all qualified to be admitted to your program. Do your best to stop wasting mental energy overthinking it. You belong.
Second, find some people! It is going to be hard, and everyone will freak out at the first few (hundred) assignments. Being with a group of other people with whom you can admit how little you understand, or ask questions of, or be the person who has the answer with is going to be invaluable. And I promise, all of those things will happen at some point, no matter who you group up with. But find some folks and form a study group. Or two...or four. I had a study group of about five folks, and one person there was in two others, and would share the information from each group with all of us. You can do things alone, but it is so much harder, and so much more isolating. Get groups, get help, and get confirmation that you aren't the only one struggling!
And speaking of struggling, because you will, do your best to not feel dejected every time you do struggle. You are doing something very difficult, that only a small portion of people ever even attempt. Give yourself the space to struggle, to be challenged, and for that to be okay. You went through a lengthy process to literally prove you were good enough to be there, and the illustrious university's People Who Decide picked you. You belong, and you are right where you are supposed to be. If it was easy, everyone would do it.
Since it's not easy, make sure you ask for help. There is always help; clinics, boot camps, T.A.s , advisors, office hours, the notes of friends, dear sweet lovely google, study groups, people who've gone before. Ask and accept all the help you need, please. That's self care, that's efficient, and that's economical! You want to take advantage of everything that can help you succeed, honey, because every little bit helps and you are paying for the privilege of it all. So ask, seek, find help when you need it! It's not weakness, it's intelligence!
Try to trust yourself, trust your instincts. Part of what you are doing is being trained to be a confident decision maker. Don't let other people steal or borrow your power, just hold yourself centered and still, and try to let the crazy that may unfold flow around you, like wild ocean waters around a calm stone. And take excellent care of yourself. Because, girl, you got this.
And when all else fails, call home, because we have got you. <3 br="">
Sex with Jabba the Movie Producer
In the wake of the 'revelations' about Harvey Weinstein's decades of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape and other abuses, one troubling idea continues to surface. Actually, several troubling ideas continue to surface, like the claim from elites that they "had no idea" when things like this and this were happening, or that conservatives are approaching the subject like drooling puppies, thrilled their party no longer has the market on abhorrent misogynistic behavior cornered. What is most disturbing to me are sentiments like the one posted by a friend of mine on facebook.
The sentiment is basically one of reluctant agreement that something bad has happened, followed quickly by a call for women who benefit from the system to also be dragged down. Or that this isn't that big of a problem, because some women's careers are improved. Or that women are complicit in the harassment by being a certain, way, not fighting harder, using their sex appeal in other ways. To me, this reeks of, "I get that this seems bad, but I'm pretty sure there's still a way to blame women". also known as the usual.
Part of this is the toxic idea that women 'use' their sexuality to get things; money, power, jobs, friends, guys to help them move. This idea is the basis for the "friend-zone" trope, the idea of a 'femme fetal', the reality and idea of sugar daddy/baby relationships, prostitution, and the whispered belief about any woman who makes the mistake of being both powerful or smart and too attractive. If you think about it, a lot of media promotes this idea of women being able to separate themselves from sex as pleasurable and use it as a tool or weapon; even in sitcoms, the attractive wife will often begrudgingly agree to sex as a reward to the dimwitted or boorish spouse (I'm thinking of multiple episodes of King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Simpsons, just off the top of my head).
I've thought about it a lot, and I think it stems from an essential way to think about women's sexuality as intrinsically different from men's. Not long ago, women were reduced to mothers and wives. The idea of a career, least of all a fulfilling, competitive, or challenging one, was laughable. Women were relegated to the hoe sphere, as was their sexuality; they were supposed to be virgins until marriage, keeping their ravenous suitors at bay until god and country could sanctify their union. Then they would submit physically to their husband for the rest of their lives, and sex was for having children and satisfying (or manipulating) your husband. And that was the expected and perceived scope of a woman's life and sexuality, she would never have the space to consider sex for her own satisfaction, and it stands to reason that it became transactional in some situations. If you legally bind a person to another, make them financially dependent, prevent them from working, making money, accessing credit, or having any traditionally determined power, what else are they left with?
Then women had the nerve to leave the house, pursue their own achievements, make their own money and determine their own sexual, financial, domestic futures. We're still working on all of those things, by the way. But it seems like a lot of men are still confused by the idea of women having the same desire- and satisfaction-based sexuality they enjoy. It seems like many men still consider women as inherently sexless, who use their convenient vulvas and breasts to get what they want, because they certainly have no use for them. Because why else would some men willingly, hopefully, enthusiastically believe that women are out in the world, being propositioned by aggressive men thirty years their senior at a business meeting and deciding, yeah, I'd love to let this guy ejaculate in my hair so I can work a little bit less hard. Unless these guys are walking around, wishing they could trade degrading and disgusting sex acts for promotions, they have to believe that women just don't care about human dignity or sexual desire. Because anyone with human dignity, sexual desire, and a sense of self preservation would find themselves in a situation like Harvey Weinstein's hotel room and realize they are the mouse in the lion's den, and have to find a way to survive with as much of themselves intact as possible.
And there is nothing sexual about that. That is about power, and control, and dehumanization. In that situation, the prey (not always but usually a young woman) is not a person the sexual predator wants to have a consensual relationship with, the prey is a toy, an acquisition, a masturbation tool, an object to admire and manipulate. There is no consent in that situation. A person calculating how likely it is they will have a job after the leave the room can enthusiastically consent to mutually satisfying sex acts, because they are trying to decide if their dignity and safety are worth more than their rent and career for the foreseeable future.
And if you haven't been there, you might not understand. But try to be a human being capable of empathy for a minute, and imagine you are told to go to a room for work, only to find you are trapped in an unclear situation where you will absolutely risk offending someone who can make or destroy your ability to feed yourself for the next decade, someone who can physically overpower you and slander you. Someone who is asking for one thing, but could ask for literally anything once you give in, because then you said yes. As women, we are trained from a very young age to prepare for these times, because they are inevitable, so I get that some men don't understand. They still see women as these mothers and wives, who have sex to get children, or get an increase in their grocery allowance, who couldn't possibly have their own ideas about what is sexually desirable and what is terrifying.
But, they should really try.
The sentiment is basically one of reluctant agreement that something bad has happened, followed quickly by a call for women who benefit from the system to also be dragged down. Or that this isn't that big of a problem, because some women's careers are improved. Or that women are complicit in the harassment by being a certain, way, not fighting harder, using their sex appeal in other ways. To me, this reeks of, "I get that this seems bad, but I'm pretty sure there's still a way to blame women". also known as the usual.
Part of this is the toxic idea that women 'use' their sexuality to get things; money, power, jobs, friends, guys to help them move. This idea is the basis for the "friend-zone" trope, the idea of a 'femme fetal', the reality and idea of sugar daddy/baby relationships, prostitution, and the whispered belief about any woman who makes the mistake of being both powerful or smart and too attractive. If you think about it, a lot of media promotes this idea of women being able to separate themselves from sex as pleasurable and use it as a tool or weapon; even in sitcoms, the attractive wife will often begrudgingly agree to sex as a reward to the dimwitted or boorish spouse (I'm thinking of multiple episodes of King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Simpsons, just off the top of my head).
I've thought about it a lot, and I think it stems from an essential way to think about women's sexuality as intrinsically different from men's. Not long ago, women were reduced to mothers and wives. The idea of a career, least of all a fulfilling, competitive, or challenging one, was laughable. Women were relegated to the hoe sphere, as was their sexuality; they were supposed to be virgins until marriage, keeping their ravenous suitors at bay until god and country could sanctify their union. Then they would submit physically to their husband for the rest of their lives, and sex was for having children and satisfying (or manipulating) your husband. And that was the expected and perceived scope of a woman's life and sexuality, she would never have the space to consider sex for her own satisfaction, and it stands to reason that it became transactional in some situations. If you legally bind a person to another, make them financially dependent, prevent them from working, making money, accessing credit, or having any traditionally determined power, what else are they left with?
Then women had the nerve to leave the house, pursue their own achievements, make their own money and determine their own sexual, financial, domestic futures. We're still working on all of those things, by the way. But it seems like a lot of men are still confused by the idea of women having the same desire- and satisfaction-based sexuality they enjoy. It seems like many men still consider women as inherently sexless, who use their convenient vulvas and breasts to get what they want, because they certainly have no use for them. Because why else would some men willingly, hopefully, enthusiastically believe that women are out in the world, being propositioned by aggressive men thirty years their senior at a business meeting and deciding, yeah, I'd love to let this guy ejaculate in my hair so I can work a little bit less hard. Unless these guys are walking around, wishing they could trade degrading and disgusting sex acts for promotions, they have to believe that women just don't care about human dignity or sexual desire. Because anyone with human dignity, sexual desire, and a sense of self preservation would find themselves in a situation like Harvey Weinstein's hotel room and realize they are the mouse in the lion's den, and have to find a way to survive with as much of themselves intact as possible.
And there is nothing sexual about that. That is about power, and control, and dehumanization. In that situation, the prey (not always but usually a young woman) is not a person the sexual predator wants to have a consensual relationship with, the prey is a toy, an acquisition, a masturbation tool, an object to admire and manipulate. There is no consent in that situation. A person calculating how likely it is they will have a job after the leave the room can enthusiastically consent to mutually satisfying sex acts, because they are trying to decide if their dignity and safety are worth more than their rent and career for the foreseeable future.
And if you haven't been there, you might not understand. But try to be a human being capable of empathy for a minute, and imagine you are told to go to a room for work, only to find you are trapped in an unclear situation where you will absolutely risk offending someone who can make or destroy your ability to feed yourself for the next decade, someone who can physically overpower you and slander you. Someone who is asking for one thing, but could ask for literally anything once you give in, because then you said yes. As women, we are trained from a very young age to prepare for these times, because they are inevitable, so I get that some men don't understand. They still see women as these mothers and wives, who have sex to get children, or get an increase in their grocery allowance, who couldn't possibly have their own ideas about what is sexually desirable and what is terrifying.
But, they should really try.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
The Woman Behind The Man
Am I the only one worried about Melania Trump?
I get it; she is distant, formal, and married to probably the single most polarizing figure in politics today. And she has made cyber bullying her mission, as First Lady of the U.S. Which is hugely ironic. I don't have to explain why, right?
(If you don't know what I'm talking about, just google "Donald Trump twitter attack" and see what comes up...)
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| Melania giving her anti-bullying speech at the U N. this week |
But, really, is it her we're mad at? No. Of course not. She buys and wears expensive, inappropriate clothes and says tone-deaf, plagiarized things. But none of that is really her fault when you think about it. She did what a lot of women in difficult situations do; she used what she had to get where she wanted to go. Growing up in Slovenia, becoming a (some would argue mediocre) model, working to get to the next level, and then dating and finally marrying Donald Trump; from the perspective of a person using their appearance to lock down a nice life for themselves, none of this is surprising. In the scope of gold-digging, she hit the jack pot. And I say that with no intended denigration; it is so not my place to judge her choices or compromises. I've made my compromises, we all have, she picked the path that made the most sense to her, and given the path she was on, I'd give her kudos for being supremely successful. Because there was no way she could have seen this whole presidential train wreck coming; no one else saw it coming!
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| cute couple... :/ |
Then he started down this crazy road and all of the sudden she is thrust into the political spotlight; her husband, who I think we can agree is not the most level headed or stable fella, is under new stress all the time, maybe he's becoming more irrational. Melania's safe bet has totally changed, the ground moved beneath her feet. And, if I were her, I might feel like there is nothing I can do about it.
Because what would you do if your somewhat domineering, controlling, bull of a husband became president. What if he was a little abusive, but no one seemed to care when the facts came out. What if he was more than a little abusive, but you felt like you needed the security of his money and power to give your son a good life?
Everyone who says they would leave anyway, but can provide no evidence of making such a hard decision in the mast must now exit the discussion. Because those situations are DIFFICULT. Hard. It is hard to leave a marriage in the best conditions. It is harder when there are threats of retaliation in the air, or a history of retaliatory behavior (duh), or when there's a lot of money, pride, and fame at stake.
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| Inauguration Day, and the RBF heard 'round the world. |
So every time the media and twitter and everyone laughs or gets mad at Melania Trump, I can't help but step back and wonder, what is this poor woman's trying to say? She doesn't seem stupid to me, she seems savvy, if not a little out of touch. She seems, to me, like someone balancing on the edge of a knife. So I'll laugh at her husband's missteps, but I'm going to leave her out of it, because unlike most of that family, I don't think she wants any part of this whole fractured spotlight. I think she just wants to go home.
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Let's Get This Over With
I have never accidentally said the 'N' word. Ever. I have accidentally said pretty much every swear word you can think of, and a few inventive ones I think I may have come up with. I've said the 'C' word to my infant son hundreds of times. Like, ten times this week alone. But I've never accidentally said the 'N' word because one doesn't accidentally in the heat of passion say a word they don't already say all the time, in the heat of passion or alone with their white friends, in private.
Because we all know that's what's going on here.
It's simple, to me. Black people have generally agreed, and most other folks have agreed with them, that there is one word they have chosen to be off limits. It brings up too much f the bloody, painful, cruel past and they would really like it if it would never again pass over white lips. I, as a person generally dedicated to not being a dick to strangers, especially a whole population of them, am happy to comply. Because it's not that big of a deal to me, but it is to them.
Imagine this; you have a neighbor who has had a really shitty year; his cat died, and his grandma died, and maybe he lost his job and his spouse left him. Just really shitty stuff. And you're talking to him, and he says, "You know what? Every time you say the word 'foyer' it really upsets me; that was my cat's name, and I named my cat after my grandmother, and now they're both dead. So it just sucks to hear the word 'foyer'. Could you just not say it anymore?"
Wouldn't you say, "Yeah, dude, of course! It's a pretty old word anyway, I usually say entry. Consider it struck from my vocabulary!"
Because that's what a decent person does.
Now, trade the rough year of one neighbor for generations of oppression, brutality, literal slavery, torture, economic repression, and general discrimination for an entire group of humans. A population of Americans. And they're asking, in addition to, ya know, equal and fair treatment, us not using that one word.
What kind of ass hat says no? Probably a person who thinks that their enjoyment or use of that one word is more important than the aforementioned generations of literal and figurative slavery, oppression, general mistreatment and abuse. That kind of ass hat.
So just don't say it. It's not that hard.
Because we all know that's what's going on here.
It's simple, to me. Black people have generally agreed, and most other folks have agreed with them, that there is one word they have chosen to be off limits. It brings up too much f the bloody, painful, cruel past and they would really like it if it would never again pass over white lips. I, as a person generally dedicated to not being a dick to strangers, especially a whole population of them, am happy to comply. Because it's not that big of a deal to me, but it is to them.
Imagine this; you have a neighbor who has had a really shitty year; his cat died, and his grandma died, and maybe he lost his job and his spouse left him. Just really shitty stuff. And you're talking to him, and he says, "You know what? Every time you say the word 'foyer' it really upsets me; that was my cat's name, and I named my cat after my grandmother, and now they're both dead. So it just sucks to hear the word 'foyer'. Could you just not say it anymore?"
Wouldn't you say, "Yeah, dude, of course! It's a pretty old word anyway, I usually say entry. Consider it struck from my vocabulary!"
Because that's what a decent person does.
Now, trade the rough year of one neighbor for generations of oppression, brutality, literal slavery, torture, economic repression, and general discrimination for an entire group of humans. A population of Americans. And they're asking, in addition to, ya know, equal and fair treatment, us not using that one word.
What kind of ass hat says no? Probably a person who thinks that their enjoyment or use of that one word is more important than the aforementioned generations of literal and figurative slavery, oppression, general mistreatment and abuse. That kind of ass hat.
So just don't say it. It's not that hard.
Saturday, September 16, 2017
My Best Friend's Wedding, and other generic titles
I have a friend. He's a great person. You know how there are people you meet and you think, oh, yeah, they are adequate. Normal-sauce. Really nice, or fun, but not in an exceptional way.
My friend Joey isn't like that. He stands out. And honestly, when I first met him I thought he was kinda childish, and dumb. But then we actually talked. So, you know, books and their covers, etc.
But seriously. my friend Joey is one of those unique, wholly honest people. He lives with this sort of overt vulnerability that can sometimes be mistaken for run-of-the-mill tactlessness, but in reality, it is a deep and very honest actual concern for everyone around him. What the fuck does that even mean, right?
He's the kind of person who will ask you pretty much anything regardless of the circumstances, which we don't do in polite American society, because it makes folks uncomfortable. But now ask yourself, when was the last time a person asked you a deep, semi-awkward question, but also actually cared about the response? Now you see where I am going. Joey is actually invested in the wellbeing of others, to the extent that he will ask the awkward questions in service of his effort to let people tell their truths, and actually be honest about what's going on in their lives.
Which, pretty much, is how we became friends on a research trip to South Dakota. My divorce was finalizing, I was dating, and I was delving into a new research subject that I hoped would *be* my career, which was all I believed in now that love seemed to be bullshit. The timing of the trip meant I was missing the funeral of my beloved grandmother, one of the many sacrifices made in service of 'the career I would have". I'd also somehow positioned myself between the two principle researchers, as a sort of go-between/priest/hairdresser for both of them. No one seemed to notice that I felt I was dying inside, while diving into other people's worlds to try to fix some damn thing while everything I knew seemed to be finishing crumbling. Except, of course, Joey. He asked rude and intrusive questions, which I answered. We discussed music, and I told him what was actually going on in my life, because he seemed to actually care. Because he did actually care. So that's how we met.
We continued to work together, and he continued to pry into my personal life, which meant for once I had someone to talk things through with (besides my therapist. Yay mental health care!! It's why I'm still alive!). And I got to know what was going on with him. And in a short time he became a person I trusted deeply, whose opinion I valued deeply, someone I loved and was truly my friend. Plus we managed to get a lot of work done, and kinda brought the best out of each other. Joey talked me off many metaphorical ledges, and through so many life choices. He's the first person I told when I found out I was pregnant. He was my person.
So, him dating scared the shit out of me. Because seriously, people are kinda crummy toward people they date these days. There's the whole nonexclusive thing, and all the dating apps that present this idea that maybe the next person will be better, if you keep swiping, because there are infinite people...and are they really even people anymore?
But...I digress. And this makes me sounds old. And I kinda think Aziz Ansari already covered most of this.
The point is, I saw my friend Joey as a pretty special individual. He goes out of his way to make strangers on the street happy. He sees through people's weakly constructed facades, and actually cared what was beneath those facades. He is a person of deep faith and love, but also a man of philosophy, prone to asking the tough questions. So, his faith means something, but is open to being debated well. Joey is dedicated to his passions, and is honest and aware of his own short comings. What I'm trying to say is, he's not going to do the whole 'pretend to be super likable' song and dance that we all use to make ourselves likable on dating apps or social media. And he would actually question a person's ideas and ideology, but with actual interest, and wanting to enter into a discussion. Which is to say that I worried that dating apps would never help Joey find someone who would understand him, because who's that honest and complex right away??
But then he met Antoinette, and he was happy. So I was happy! And I was optimistic. Until I finally met her, and started to really get to know her, and learn about her. Then I was thrilled.
In Antoinette, Joey has truly met his match, in every way. She is kind and loving, which of course I want for my dear friend. She knows and understands the dark feelings and times that can plague people who think too much, or worry too much. So many of us have these feelings of inadequacy, depression, anxiety, but most of us (me) don't like to talk openly about it. Here was Antoinette, as honest as Joey was about struggling to be her best self. Here is Antoinette, who is creative, passionate, and thoughtful about her faith. Someone who can meet Joey, word for word and idea for idea, who doesn't shy away from taboos simply because they are, but questions and makes her own choices. The more I get to know Antoinette, the more I am certain that Joey had found a true partner for life in her. And I don't worry about my friend anymore. Because he is going to marry and build a life with her, and I get to be here, on the sidelines, cheering them on. We all do. And for that, we are all blessed, because there is nothing greater in life than watching good people have good lives.
My friend Joey isn't like that. He stands out. And honestly, when I first met him I thought he was kinda childish, and dumb. But then we actually talked. So, you know, books and their covers, etc.
But seriously. my friend Joey is one of those unique, wholly honest people. He lives with this sort of overt vulnerability that can sometimes be mistaken for run-of-the-mill tactlessness, but in reality, it is a deep and very honest actual concern for everyone around him. What the fuck does that even mean, right?
He's the kind of person who will ask you pretty much anything regardless of the circumstances, which we don't do in polite American society, because it makes folks uncomfortable. But now ask yourself, when was the last time a person asked you a deep, semi-awkward question, but also actually cared about the response? Now you see where I am going. Joey is actually invested in the wellbeing of others, to the extent that he will ask the awkward questions in service of his effort to let people tell their truths, and actually be honest about what's going on in their lives.
Which, pretty much, is how we became friends on a research trip to South Dakota. My divorce was finalizing, I was dating, and I was delving into a new research subject that I hoped would *be* my career, which was all I believed in now that love seemed to be bullshit. The timing of the trip meant I was missing the funeral of my beloved grandmother, one of the many sacrifices made in service of 'the career I would have". I'd also somehow positioned myself between the two principle researchers, as a sort of go-between/priest/hairdresser for both of them. No one seemed to notice that I felt I was dying inside, while diving into other people's worlds to try to fix some damn thing while everything I knew seemed to be finishing crumbling. Except, of course, Joey. He asked rude and intrusive questions, which I answered. We discussed music, and I told him what was actually going on in my life, because he seemed to actually care. Because he did actually care. So that's how we met.
We continued to work together, and he continued to pry into my personal life, which meant for once I had someone to talk things through with (besides my therapist. Yay mental health care!! It's why I'm still alive!). And I got to know what was going on with him. And in a short time he became a person I trusted deeply, whose opinion I valued deeply, someone I loved and was truly my friend. Plus we managed to get a lot of work done, and kinda brought the best out of each other. Joey talked me off many metaphorical ledges, and through so many life choices. He's the first person I told when I found out I was pregnant. He was my person.
So, him dating scared the shit out of me. Because seriously, people are kinda crummy toward people they date these days. There's the whole nonexclusive thing, and all the dating apps that present this idea that maybe the next person will be better, if you keep swiping, because there are infinite people...and are they really even people anymore?
But...I digress. And this makes me sounds old. And I kinda think Aziz Ansari already covered most of this.
The point is, I saw my friend Joey as a pretty special individual. He goes out of his way to make strangers on the street happy. He sees through people's weakly constructed facades, and actually cared what was beneath those facades. He is a person of deep faith and love, but also a man of philosophy, prone to asking the tough questions. So, his faith means something, but is open to being debated well. Joey is dedicated to his passions, and is honest and aware of his own short comings. What I'm trying to say is, he's not going to do the whole 'pretend to be super likable' song and dance that we all use to make ourselves likable on dating apps or social media. And he would actually question a person's ideas and ideology, but with actual interest, and wanting to enter into a discussion. Which is to say that I worried that dating apps would never help Joey find someone who would understand him, because who's that honest and complex right away??
But then he met Antoinette, and he was happy. So I was happy! And I was optimistic. Until I finally met her, and started to really get to know her, and learn about her. Then I was thrilled.
In Antoinette, Joey has truly met his match, in every way. She is kind and loving, which of course I want for my dear friend. She knows and understands the dark feelings and times that can plague people who think too much, or worry too much. So many of us have these feelings of inadequacy, depression, anxiety, but most of us (me) don't like to talk openly about it. Here was Antoinette, as honest as Joey was about struggling to be her best self. Here is Antoinette, who is creative, passionate, and thoughtful about her faith. Someone who can meet Joey, word for word and idea for idea, who doesn't shy away from taboos simply because they are, but questions and makes her own choices. The more I get to know Antoinette, the more I am certain that Joey had found a true partner for life in her. And I don't worry about my friend anymore. Because he is going to marry and build a life with her, and I get to be here, on the sidelines, cheering them on. We all do. And for that, we are all blessed, because there is nothing greater in life than watching good people have good lives.
Friday, June 02, 2017
Reflections On My Time As An Incubator
When I told my coworkers I was pregnant, a charming Ukrainian colleague of mine approached me in the break room and asked, "Do you have this word in English, incubator?". I laughed because, obviously, we do have this word, and because I knew exactly where she was going. Being pregnant with a wholly wanted and loved fetus was at times a wholly dehumanizing process, and more often than not I felt like an incubator that existed only to sate the appetite of the unseen squid-parasite sucking all of my nutrients and energy from me. And I had a pretty chill pregnancy.
Seriously. I wanted to be pregnant, and I have wanted a baby all of my life. Yes, I have always valued my independence and envisioned a life without children that would have been happy enough, but since I was a little girl, begging to babysit and care for children I have wanted to raise kids of my own, so getting pregnant was a joyfully, tear-eliciting event. And I had an easy pregnancy; I suffered from no morning sickness, none of the hypertension or gestational diabetes that plague so many modern women. I managed to sleep pretty well, had an incredibly patient and supportive partner, friend group, and family around me the whole time, and had access to regular prenatal care. I didn't have to give up any life saving or life affirming medications, and aside from occasional pregnancy headaches and carpel tunnel, had no problems while pregnant. I didn't even have a problem giving up my cherished all day caffeine consumption or nightly half-bottle of wine habit.
But it still sucked. The whole time I was marveling at how my body was capable of this massive change, this insane undertaking of creating a human from to bags of cells, I was also watching the body I'd known for almost 35 years become unrecognizable. I used to challenge people to try to name one part of my body that hadn't been affected by pregnancy. Lose joints and tendons, displaced organs, bleeding gums, stronger hair and nails (that later fall out and become brittle, respectively, not matter how many post-natal vitamins I take...), swollen feet and sore hands. Even my skin changed color and my sweat smelled different. Nothing stayed the same, and five months later, my body still feels foreign. My hips are still not fully secured, my breasts are still too big for tops without an 'X' in front of the L, and as I fight to regain lost muscle mass I watch my linea nigra slowly refuse to fade.
Which is fine, because I wanted a baby, and my child is a nonstop tornado of magic and insanity that I cried for when I was afraid it wouldn't happen.
But imagine if I didn't want a baby, or didn't want a baby yet. Or didn't have support in place, or a partner with whom I shared mutual love and respect. Imagine if I had to go through more than twelve months (most doctors concede that it takes between 6 and 18 months to recover from pregnancy and delivery) of physical changes that would make Jeff Goldbloom think The Fly was a boring ass documentary. Who else would say that was an acceptable price to pay for sex and/or failed birth control. The fact that no (biological) man ever has to worry about this reality, yet many speak openly, vocally, legislatively, about womens' responsibility, is horrifying to me.
Let me put it more simply. Imagine every time you had sex you had a one in ten chance of having to give up alcohol, caffeine, deli meats, and raw meat and fish, and gain 30 - 50 pounds for nine months. And then lost the ability to poop or control your bladder for a few weeks, and then could go back to normal until the next time. That would suck, right? And that's just a fraction of the reality a woman without full fertility/birth control options faces. These choices should be personal, private, and freely available to women capable of sex, pregnancy, or being assaulted. No matter what. Because the individual sovereignty of a woman should not be nullified by a cluster of cells, or a fetus, or even a baby.
If a baby was dying, and only my liver would save it, would the law force me to donate a lobe of my liver? I could be reasonably expected to survive the surgery, and could go on to recover and lead a normal life, but we would never compel people to give up their biological sovereignty in that way. Even without a nine-month lead up to the surgery that required me to adopt a special diet, miss work for regular appointments, and intense physical trauma of surgery and recovery. Until mandatory non-lethal donations are legislated, we can't talk about eliminated birth control or abortion without recognizing the inherent bias against people with vaginas and uteruses.
Seriously. I wanted to be pregnant, and I have wanted a baby all of my life. Yes, I have always valued my independence and envisioned a life without children that would have been happy enough, but since I was a little girl, begging to babysit and care for children I have wanted to raise kids of my own, so getting pregnant was a joyfully, tear-eliciting event. And I had an easy pregnancy; I suffered from no morning sickness, none of the hypertension or gestational diabetes that plague so many modern women. I managed to sleep pretty well, had an incredibly patient and supportive partner, friend group, and family around me the whole time, and had access to regular prenatal care. I didn't have to give up any life saving or life affirming medications, and aside from occasional pregnancy headaches and carpel tunnel, had no problems while pregnant. I didn't even have a problem giving up my cherished all day caffeine consumption or nightly half-bottle of wine habit.
But it still sucked. The whole time I was marveling at how my body was capable of this massive change, this insane undertaking of creating a human from to bags of cells, I was also watching the body I'd known for almost 35 years become unrecognizable. I used to challenge people to try to name one part of my body that hadn't been affected by pregnancy. Lose joints and tendons, displaced organs, bleeding gums, stronger hair and nails (that later fall out and become brittle, respectively, not matter how many post-natal vitamins I take...), swollen feet and sore hands. Even my skin changed color and my sweat smelled different. Nothing stayed the same, and five months later, my body still feels foreign. My hips are still not fully secured, my breasts are still too big for tops without an 'X' in front of the L, and as I fight to regain lost muscle mass I watch my linea nigra slowly refuse to fade.
Which is fine, because I wanted a baby, and my child is a nonstop tornado of magic and insanity that I cried for when I was afraid it wouldn't happen.
But imagine if I didn't want a baby, or didn't want a baby yet. Or didn't have support in place, or a partner with whom I shared mutual love and respect. Imagine if I had to go through more than twelve months (most doctors concede that it takes between 6 and 18 months to recover from pregnancy and delivery) of physical changes that would make Jeff Goldbloom think The Fly was a boring ass documentary. Who else would say that was an acceptable price to pay for sex and/or failed birth control. The fact that no (biological) man ever has to worry about this reality, yet many speak openly, vocally, legislatively, about womens' responsibility, is horrifying to me.
Let me put it more simply. Imagine every time you had sex you had a one in ten chance of having to give up alcohol, caffeine, deli meats, and raw meat and fish, and gain 30 - 50 pounds for nine months. And then lost the ability to poop or control your bladder for a few weeks, and then could go back to normal until the next time. That would suck, right? And that's just a fraction of the reality a woman without full fertility/birth control options faces. These choices should be personal, private, and freely available to women capable of sex, pregnancy, or being assaulted. No matter what. Because the individual sovereignty of a woman should not be nullified by a cluster of cells, or a fetus, or even a baby.
If a baby was dying, and only my liver would save it, would the law force me to donate a lobe of my liver? I could be reasonably expected to survive the surgery, and could go on to recover and lead a normal life, but we would never compel people to give up their biological sovereignty in that way. Even without a nine-month lead up to the surgery that required me to adopt a special diet, miss work for regular appointments, and intense physical trauma of surgery and recovery. Until mandatory non-lethal donations are legislated, we can't talk about eliminated birth control or abortion without recognizing the inherent bias against people with vaginas and uteruses.
Monday, April 24, 2017
On Pregnancy, From the Rearview Mirror
Just over a year ago, I managed to get a couple of eggs fertilized by
my main squeeze, which means I am now mommy to a joyful little 15-week
old boy. It also means that I have spent the last 12 months being taken
apart piece by piece and rebuilt into new iterations of myself that I
did not entirely recognize. Pregnant me was about four different
people, and mom me is someone I have never met. Physically and
psychologically everything has changed. Seriously, challenge me on
that. Try to name something (other than my name) that has not changed
in the process of the last year. I have it on good authority that my
skin changed the way it smelled at least three times during pregnancy.
On thing that has changed in a delightfully unexpected way is my newfound confidence in my old feminist ideals. I've finally experienced a few things I'd only even talked about before, and finally have some authority to discuss them. So, in no particular order, here's some shit I learned or have become certain of in the last 12 months:
1. No one should ever have to be pregnant against their will. Ever. I had a relatively easy pregnancy, in that my symptoms were limited to swollen breasts, sore breasts, mood swings, exhaustion, anxiety, gas, constipation, drooling, heart burn, carpel tunnel syndrome, swollen feet, swollen ankles, fluid retention, sore joints, reduced vision, indigestion, insomnia, varicose veins, diarrhea, back pain, forgetfulness, and an insatiable hunger. I also developed a sweet tooth, but I think that is because I had to give up alcohol, caffeine, raw food, partially cooked food, lunch meat, sushi, seafood in large or exotic quantities, and most OTC medications. So cookies started to seem like my only option. Other pregnant women experience nausea, vomiting, acne, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, stretch marks, changes in blood sugar, bloody gums, development of boils or allergies, and much much more. Basically try googling any symptom or condition with the word pregnancy, and you'll find the same response, "occurs in some number of pregnancies; could be normal or serious, check with your doctor.". That in and of itself should tell you that a person shouldn't have to go through it if they don't want to. But think about all the sacrifices a pregnant woman makes for her beloved child. No imagine that the woman does not want to be pregnant; how might that affect her decision to have a cup of coffee (which affect neurological development) when she suddenly needs twice as much sleep to function at the same level in the first trimester. Or her decision to forego anti-depressants, allergy medicine, or pain killers (all of which are tied to birth defects).
This is to say nothing of the loss of autonomy you feel as a tiny force inside of you steals your vitamins and nutrients (necessitating those expensive prenatal vitamins), demands your energy and alters everything in your body from your hair and skin to the location of your organs and arrangement of your joints. To me, it is an argument first about autonomy, second about how and why we value children and life, and third an appeal to what our actual priorities are.
The first argument is difficult, because there's no great comparision to be made; pregnancy is not really like any other aspect of life. The best I've heard so far is of a life-saving donation, like a kidney or liver transplant. Do we obligate everyone who is a donor to donate their blood or a lobe of their liver? Sure, there are risks, but a life can be saved, right? In these cases, with two adults, the donor's autonomy wins out over the recipient's life. Why is this not true in cases of small, non-viable fetuses?
The second argument and the third are intertwined; they have to do with how we treat these babies before and after they are born, and how we indicate the value of babies through public policy. If we value these lives before they are born, then why to we appear to cease caring as soon as the baby leaves it's mother? Why do we have a failing foster care system, children aging out of mediocre and damaging state care without ever knowing the love of a family, and children languishing in care that fails to meet their basic needs, is abusive, or both. If these lives are all truly special and valuable, then why aren't babies born to mothers not ready to raise them not treated as valued by our society?
Finally, in terms of our national priorities, we cannot rationally continue to claim that children are precious, that life is precious, if all of our policies are to the contrary. If nascent life is precious, why isn't adult life also precious? Why to we imprison adults with drug addiction, or leave people of all ages with mental health issues to their own devices? Why do we kill other people, and accept that police killing innocent people is acceptable, if all life is truly precious?
And why don't these precious lives then have access to health care and education? If we want mothers and people to believe that every child is wanted, why do we not provide free or even subsidized maternal health care? Why do we not provide excellent health services to those who conceive? Why do we not make sure that every child, or even most children, have access to quality child care, quality education, quality health care and mental health services until adulthood? If these children are wanted, why do we not support their parents when the wanted child comes, through paid family leave? And why do we not provide people of childbearing age with quality sex education and pregnancy prevention, so that they can make the best possible choices for themselves?
I have never heard a satisfying answer to these questions. Instead, the most recent health care bill proposed by the president and congress sought to make maternity care optional, allowing insurance agencies to choose whether or not to provide healthcare to pregnant women. More than any law attempting to force women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, the lack of healthcare options for pregnant women indicates what our true priorities are. Pregnancy is physically and psychologically brutal, to say nothing of motherhood, parenthood, and the 18+ year commitment entailed therein. If you want to spout nonsense about each life is precious, act like it is true for more than the first handful of months prior to birth. And act like life is actually valuable and worthy of care. And then we can have a serious debate about the autonomy of women with uteruses versus the autonomy of fetuses. And then that debate will no longer be about, on some level, condemning women who get pregnant to live forever with the result of one instance of sexual intercourse.
On thing that has changed in a delightfully unexpected way is my newfound confidence in my old feminist ideals. I've finally experienced a few things I'd only even talked about before, and finally have some authority to discuss them. So, in no particular order, here's some shit I learned or have become certain of in the last 12 months:
1. No one should ever have to be pregnant against their will. Ever. I had a relatively easy pregnancy, in that my symptoms were limited to swollen breasts, sore breasts, mood swings, exhaustion, anxiety, gas, constipation, drooling, heart burn, carpel tunnel syndrome, swollen feet, swollen ankles, fluid retention, sore joints, reduced vision, indigestion, insomnia, varicose veins, diarrhea, back pain, forgetfulness, and an insatiable hunger. I also developed a sweet tooth, but I think that is because I had to give up alcohol, caffeine, raw food, partially cooked food, lunch meat, sushi, seafood in large or exotic quantities, and most OTC medications. So cookies started to seem like my only option. Other pregnant women experience nausea, vomiting, acne, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, stretch marks, changes in blood sugar, bloody gums, development of boils or allergies, and much much more. Basically try googling any symptom or condition with the word pregnancy, and you'll find the same response, "occurs in some number of pregnancies; could be normal or serious, check with your doctor.". That in and of itself should tell you that a person shouldn't have to go through it if they don't want to. But think about all the sacrifices a pregnant woman makes for her beloved child. No imagine that the woman does not want to be pregnant; how might that affect her decision to have a cup of coffee (which affect neurological development) when she suddenly needs twice as much sleep to function at the same level in the first trimester. Or her decision to forego anti-depressants, allergy medicine, or pain killers (all of which are tied to birth defects).
This is to say nothing of the loss of autonomy you feel as a tiny force inside of you steals your vitamins and nutrients (necessitating those expensive prenatal vitamins), demands your energy and alters everything in your body from your hair and skin to the location of your organs and arrangement of your joints. To me, it is an argument first about autonomy, second about how and why we value children and life, and third an appeal to what our actual priorities are.
The first argument is difficult, because there's no great comparision to be made; pregnancy is not really like any other aspect of life. The best I've heard so far is of a life-saving donation, like a kidney or liver transplant. Do we obligate everyone who is a donor to donate their blood or a lobe of their liver? Sure, there are risks, but a life can be saved, right? In these cases, with two adults, the donor's autonomy wins out over the recipient's life. Why is this not true in cases of small, non-viable fetuses?
The second argument and the third are intertwined; they have to do with how we treat these babies before and after they are born, and how we indicate the value of babies through public policy. If we value these lives before they are born, then why to we appear to cease caring as soon as the baby leaves it's mother? Why do we have a failing foster care system, children aging out of mediocre and damaging state care without ever knowing the love of a family, and children languishing in care that fails to meet their basic needs, is abusive, or both. If these lives are all truly special and valuable, then why aren't babies born to mothers not ready to raise them not treated as valued by our society?
Finally, in terms of our national priorities, we cannot rationally continue to claim that children are precious, that life is precious, if all of our policies are to the contrary. If nascent life is precious, why isn't adult life also precious? Why to we imprison adults with drug addiction, or leave people of all ages with mental health issues to their own devices? Why do we kill other people, and accept that police killing innocent people is acceptable, if all life is truly precious?
And why don't these precious lives then have access to health care and education? If we want mothers and people to believe that every child is wanted, why do we not provide free or even subsidized maternal health care? Why do we not provide excellent health services to those who conceive? Why do we not make sure that every child, or even most children, have access to quality child care, quality education, quality health care and mental health services until adulthood? If these children are wanted, why do we not support their parents when the wanted child comes, through paid family leave? And why do we not provide people of childbearing age with quality sex education and pregnancy prevention, so that they can make the best possible choices for themselves?
I have never heard a satisfying answer to these questions. Instead, the most recent health care bill proposed by the president and congress sought to make maternity care optional, allowing insurance agencies to choose whether or not to provide healthcare to pregnant women. More than any law attempting to force women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, the lack of healthcare options for pregnant women indicates what our true priorities are. Pregnancy is physically and psychologically brutal, to say nothing of motherhood, parenthood, and the 18+ year commitment entailed therein. If you want to spout nonsense about each life is precious, act like it is true for more than the first handful of months prior to birth. And act like life is actually valuable and worthy of care. And then we can have a serious debate about the autonomy of women with uteruses versus the autonomy of fetuses. And then that debate will no longer be about, on some level, condemning women who get pregnant to live forever with the result of one instance of sexual intercourse.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Chapter 34.5
In which our hero makes a potentially life-altering decision.
Is this what parenthood is? Today is my first day in a job that is, as far as I can tell, a step down in every way except that it will provide the consistency my employment has lacked for the last five years. I am starting as an assistant manager of some kind at a student apartment complex in Davis. This is essentially the job I had 9 years ago that inspired me to go after my PhD in economics. It was a smaller property, but I was the manager, so step up? Step down?
It feels like a step down, like a sacrifice. Like something I should be ashamed of. Like moving back in time, like I am erasing the last nine years of my life....big years, by the way.
Years in which I fell in love, got married, got divorced, fell in love, got pregnant, realized my dream of becoming an Economics professor and loved every painful second of it, lost and regained my sanity, became a subject expert on Native American voting rights, experienced a pile of death and life and found strength in myself that I thought could only be reached through the worst conditions necessitating survival. And thrived. And now...
And now I am back. In Davis, the town I went to high school in. Doing the job I did when I was 25 years old. Sort of. It seems like the smart choice, though, because there is a baby coming, and babies need things like money and food and health insurance and consistency. But I can't shake the feeling that I am letting go of a piece of myself, a piece of myself that makes me strong and proud.
And I don't even know if I'm supposed to be here today. All I know is everyone around me is happy for me, congratulating me, and inside I am screaming, "NO! This has to be some kind of mistake! Can't you all see how wrong and backwards this is?!" And no one can hear me.
Is this what parenthood is? Today is my first day in a job that is, as far as I can tell, a step down in every way except that it will provide the consistency my employment has lacked for the last five years. I am starting as an assistant manager of some kind at a student apartment complex in Davis. This is essentially the job I had 9 years ago that inspired me to go after my PhD in economics. It was a smaller property, but I was the manager, so step up? Step down?
It feels like a step down, like a sacrifice. Like something I should be ashamed of. Like moving back in time, like I am erasing the last nine years of my life....big years, by the way.
Years in which I fell in love, got married, got divorced, fell in love, got pregnant, realized my dream of becoming an Economics professor and loved every painful second of it, lost and regained my sanity, became a subject expert on Native American voting rights, experienced a pile of death and life and found strength in myself that I thought could only be reached through the worst conditions necessitating survival. And thrived. And now...
And now I am back. In Davis, the town I went to high school in. Doing the job I did when I was 25 years old. Sort of. It seems like the smart choice, though, because there is a baby coming, and babies need things like money and food and health insurance and consistency. But I can't shake the feeling that I am letting go of a piece of myself, a piece of myself that makes me strong and proud.
And I don't even know if I'm supposed to be here today. All I know is everyone around me is happy for me, congratulating me, and inside I am screaming, "NO! This has to be some kind of mistake! Can't you all see how wrong and backwards this is?!" And no one can hear me.
Monday, July 18, 2016
99,999 miles
Credit to my wonderful Aunt Melanie for this idea, because I apparently *needed* a reason to write.
Today, on the way to work, my car hit the 99,999 mile mark. This is not terribly remarkable, because I bought the dang thing with 89,000 miles on it, but it felt like an opportunity to mark time, to plant a flag and state proudly "this is where I am; that is where I was and that is where I am going."
I thought I would hit the marker on Saturday, when I drove into downtown LA for 10+ hours of extra work to try to make some extra cash because I am still, somehow, at the ripe age of 34, a broke-ass graduate student. It didn't, likely in no small part due to the fact that I was so fried after a full day of troubleshooting minor technical glitches and listening with fake enthusiasm to an introductory seminar for MBA students that I drove straight home, untemped by even the slightest detour. Yesterday me, who had tried to make dinner plans with friends in the city? She was an insane masochist with no concept of the finite nature of energy.
And I didn't hit it on Sunday for similar reasons. working all day Saturday had left me drained, so I vowed to stay in bed and relax while watching tv shows on Amazon Prime. And fell back asleep. And ate pasta in bed, and eventually decided that it was exactly what a pregnant lady would do after working 6 day straight. take one damn day off and do nothing. So I didn't leave my house all day Sunday.
In a sense, my Sunday is an apt metaphor for my general feelings of late; mobilized; stuck somewhere between self care and self pity, avoiding a potential stream of thoughts threatening to overwhelm my mind at any moment. A lot of avoidance. In part because I am scared.
And there's this thing i do when I'm scared where I let fear sort of wash over and color everything else in life. I'm afraid of my dissertation, of completing my degree, so now I am also afraid of my baby's development, of what kind of relationship I am in, of what my choices have been and are going to be...general fear washes and paralyzes.
Fun times.
In my experience, the first and best step in mitigating all of this fear and avoidance is simply sitting quitetly, thinking, talking with trusted friends, and letting the thing most terrifying, my thoughts or my success, just happen. It's never as bad as the anticipation of it is.
Which, if I were to try to tie this all together and wrap it up, is the whole point. Life, death, change, growth, age, development, shock, fear, and shit are all inevitable. Life and things rarely go as planned. But the clock keeps ticking, and we strive to make better choices int eh moment, because in actuality that is all we have; our choices in the moment. So I have been slacking off? So what. That was yesterday. Today is pregnant with potential, and filled with moments for me to make the most of. Chock full of potential. The clock hasn't ticked over yet, and I am still at 99,999 miles, 16 weeks, 8 years, and 34 years, depending on what we're counting. Life is good.
Today, on the way to work, my car hit the 99,999 mile mark. This is not terribly remarkable, because I bought the dang thing with 89,000 miles on it, but it felt like an opportunity to mark time, to plant a flag and state proudly "this is where I am; that is where I was and that is where I am going."
I thought I would hit the marker on Saturday, when I drove into downtown LA for 10+ hours of extra work to try to make some extra cash because I am still, somehow, at the ripe age of 34, a broke-ass graduate student. It didn't, likely in no small part due to the fact that I was so fried after a full day of troubleshooting minor technical glitches and listening with fake enthusiasm to an introductory seminar for MBA students that I drove straight home, untemped by even the slightest detour. Yesterday me, who had tried to make dinner plans with friends in the city? She was an insane masochist with no concept of the finite nature of energy.
And I didn't hit it on Sunday for similar reasons. working all day Saturday had left me drained, so I vowed to stay in bed and relax while watching tv shows on Amazon Prime. And fell back asleep. And ate pasta in bed, and eventually decided that it was exactly what a pregnant lady would do after working 6 day straight. take one damn day off and do nothing. So I didn't leave my house all day Sunday.
In a sense, my Sunday is an apt metaphor for my general feelings of late; mobilized; stuck somewhere between self care and self pity, avoiding a potential stream of thoughts threatening to overwhelm my mind at any moment. A lot of avoidance. In part because I am scared.
And there's this thing i do when I'm scared where I let fear sort of wash over and color everything else in life. I'm afraid of my dissertation, of completing my degree, so now I am also afraid of my baby's development, of what kind of relationship I am in, of what my choices have been and are going to be...general fear washes and paralyzes.
Fun times.
In my experience, the first and best step in mitigating all of this fear and avoidance is simply sitting quitetly, thinking, talking with trusted friends, and letting the thing most terrifying, my thoughts or my success, just happen. It's never as bad as the anticipation of it is.
Which, if I were to try to tie this all together and wrap it up, is the whole point. Life, death, change, growth, age, development, shock, fear, and shit are all inevitable. Life and things rarely go as planned. But the clock keeps ticking, and we strive to make better choices int eh moment, because in actuality that is all we have; our choices in the moment. So I have been slacking off? So what. That was yesterday. Today is pregnant with potential, and filled with moments for me to make the most of. Chock full of potential. The clock hasn't ticked over yet, and I am still at 99,999 miles, 16 weeks, 8 years, and 34 years, depending on what we're counting. Life is good.
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Ch-Ch-Changes
There's this feeling that arises when one is on the brink of a major life shift; a feeling of urgency colored with anticipation. Like I want everything to happen all at once, so that I can be in the middle of it already, but the magnitude of the change makes me hope I can delay any real change indefinitely.
In this case, this change can neither be rushed nor delayed; I have it on good authority that a health pregnancy takes about 40 weeks, and there's no way around that.
The challenge, then, becomes filling the time remaining with productive and precious experiences. There are two ravenous horses pulling the cart that is my life; one clomps ahead, urging me to work, pack, write, read, prepare, prepare, prepare. The other matches the first's pace, instead insisting I savor, that time is dwindling, that things will never be the same again. Never again! And they are both right, and they both send me straight to Netflix to engage in practiced avoidance while I re-watch episodes of Jessica Jones and 30 Rock over and over.
Realistically, none of this is really that new. There are always events that seem larger than life, too big to focus on something as mundane as a literature review. And so I keep scheduling time to sit in front of my trusty laptop, waiting for the motivation to come...inching closer to actually completing work. Today, instead of Netflix, I started writing something! That's better than nothing!
The other thing I keep thinking of is something I like to call event-hangover. I get it all the time; birthdays, weddings, vacations, dinner parties. Planning for a big thing, something you are excited about, can take up so much energy and lead to so much anticipation, it can be hard to stay afloat in the quick recession to normalcy that follows. I am sure some of that will still pop up, but the reality of this life event is that now it is forever. I am going to be a mom forever, Bruce is going to be a dad forever, to my baby, to our baby, we are going to be a family, bound to each other, in a new city, on a new joined adventure.
So, there's that.
In this case, this change can neither be rushed nor delayed; I have it on good authority that a health pregnancy takes about 40 weeks, and there's no way around that.
The challenge, then, becomes filling the time remaining with productive and precious experiences. There are two ravenous horses pulling the cart that is my life; one clomps ahead, urging me to work, pack, write, read, prepare, prepare, prepare. The other matches the first's pace, instead insisting I savor, that time is dwindling, that things will never be the same again. Never again! And they are both right, and they both send me straight to Netflix to engage in practiced avoidance while I re-watch episodes of Jessica Jones and 30 Rock over and over.
Realistically, none of this is really that new. There are always events that seem larger than life, too big to focus on something as mundane as a literature review. And so I keep scheduling time to sit in front of my trusty laptop, waiting for the motivation to come...inching closer to actually completing work. Today, instead of Netflix, I started writing something! That's better than nothing!
The other thing I keep thinking of is something I like to call event-hangover. I get it all the time; birthdays, weddings, vacations, dinner parties. Planning for a big thing, something you are excited about, can take up so much energy and lead to so much anticipation, it can be hard to stay afloat in the quick recession to normalcy that follows. I am sure some of that will still pop up, but the reality of this life event is that now it is forever. I am going to be a mom forever, Bruce is going to be a dad forever, to my baby, to our baby, we are going to be a family, bound to each other, in a new city, on a new joined adventure.
So, there's that.
Wednesday, June 01, 2016
Timing is something...
When you are an unmarried student with hundreds of thousands of dollars of grad school debt and five roommates, people tend to ask you if your recently announced pregnancy was 'planned'.
Which is fair, I suppose. And the answer is complicated. Faced with an unsure completion date, a precarious and unknowable job market, and an equally precarious biological clock, I thought I would hedge my bets and go for broke! I have a partner I love and trust, and want to start a family with, and a handful of friends who either already have school-aged children or are struggling with infertility, so I figure I would just go for it. We started trying with the assumption that it would take a while, and the belief that there is no 'right' time to have a baby.
And then instantly got pregnant.
So planned might be strong language, but this wasn't unexpected, just slightly ahead of schedule. Now I find myself feverishly mapping out time tables in my mind, reading the blog posts of other women in similar positions (who all, somehow, manage to be further along than I am...), and breaking into a cold sweat while imagining the sleep deprivation of academia coupled with the sleep deprivation of motherhood. It's been a fun time to experience hormone fluctuations.
The thing I notice, when I read about the experience of others, is the same problem I have with most of the available narratives academia offers up; they all come from a position of unacknowledged privilege. None of these women are worried about how they are going to pay rent while finishing their dis and caring for their pregnancy or baby. The biggest secret I should have known about academia rears it's ugly head again; this game works best if money isn't an issue for you. Poor folks need not apply.
But. I use that calm rational voice I hope will someday work on my kid, and repeat my mantra in my head, "There's no such thing as a perfect time; Everything happens for a reason; Everything will work out in the end; You are a survivor, and have done more with less". It works, about 45% of the time. The rest of the time I try to push that anxious energy into productivity, writing disjointed sections of an almost due lit review or a new revision of my modest c.v. Sometimes I take the time to do what some women write they wish they'd done, and enjoy my pregnancy. I read articles about prenatal care and early childhood development (almost as much fun as poverty trap formulation!), and try to take it easy, let my body just be pregnant. And wonder in the back of my head if the women I read about only became successful because they sacrificed these tiny luxuries.
I constantly assure myself there are no right answers, and that I am making the best choices I can in the moment, the same choices that led me to be a successful adjunct with a fantastic relationship and research areas I actually care about, and have presented at several conferences on. So the next part can't be all bad.
I tell myself that there is no rule or firm definition for what constitutes a good life, and I have to trust I will find it, now with a tiny hand held in mine. I remind myself all the times I worried that this would never happen, and marvel at how quickly I moved from fearing I'd never be pregnant to resenting the inconvenient timing. So I try to shut up, get back to work, and be grateful.
Timing is just chance most of the time, and we can't control the things that appear on the path before us. So I keep walking forward.
And I miss coffee.
Which is fair, I suppose. And the answer is complicated. Faced with an unsure completion date, a precarious and unknowable job market, and an equally precarious biological clock, I thought I would hedge my bets and go for broke! I have a partner I love and trust, and want to start a family with, and a handful of friends who either already have school-aged children or are struggling with infertility, so I figure I would just go for it. We started trying with the assumption that it would take a while, and the belief that there is no 'right' time to have a baby.
And then instantly got pregnant.
So planned might be strong language, but this wasn't unexpected, just slightly ahead of schedule. Now I find myself feverishly mapping out time tables in my mind, reading the blog posts of other women in similar positions (who all, somehow, manage to be further along than I am...), and breaking into a cold sweat while imagining the sleep deprivation of academia coupled with the sleep deprivation of motherhood. It's been a fun time to experience hormone fluctuations.
The thing I notice, when I read about the experience of others, is the same problem I have with most of the available narratives academia offers up; they all come from a position of unacknowledged privilege. None of these women are worried about how they are going to pay rent while finishing their dis and caring for their pregnancy or baby. The biggest secret I should have known about academia rears it's ugly head again; this game works best if money isn't an issue for you. Poor folks need not apply.
But. I use that calm rational voice I hope will someday work on my kid, and repeat my mantra in my head, "There's no such thing as a perfect time; Everything happens for a reason; Everything will work out in the end; You are a survivor, and have done more with less". It works, about 45% of the time. The rest of the time I try to push that anxious energy into productivity, writing disjointed sections of an almost due lit review or a new revision of my modest c.v. Sometimes I take the time to do what some women write they wish they'd done, and enjoy my pregnancy. I read articles about prenatal care and early childhood development (almost as much fun as poverty trap formulation!), and try to take it easy, let my body just be pregnant. And wonder in the back of my head if the women I read about only became successful because they sacrificed these tiny luxuries.
I constantly assure myself there are no right answers, and that I am making the best choices I can in the moment, the same choices that led me to be a successful adjunct with a fantastic relationship and research areas I actually care about, and have presented at several conferences on. So the next part can't be all bad.
I tell myself that there is no rule or firm definition for what constitutes a good life, and I have to trust I will find it, now with a tiny hand held in mine. I remind myself all the times I worried that this would never happen, and marvel at how quickly I moved from fearing I'd never be pregnant to resenting the inconvenient timing. So I try to shut up, get back to work, and be grateful.
Timing is just chance most of the time, and we can't control the things that appear on the path before us. So I keep walking forward.
And I miss coffee.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
My Best and Worst, right now
I have a friend who is a very dedicated mom to two lovely children, and she has this tradition of asking her children what their 'high' and 'low' of the day, are as a way to encapsulate the day's activities, and release gratitude and resentment.
I think. I just think it's cute.
So, here are my current perceptions on the high and low of pregnancy:
Low:
All jokes aside, so far it has been a pretty easy process, and I'm increasingly excited for the next steps. My man and I have long conversations about morals and how we want to raise our family, what kind of people we want to send into the world, and it makes me more optimistic, in general.
Who knew planning for a future made you give a crap about it?
I think. I just think it's cute.
So, here are my current perceptions on the high and low of pregnancy:
Low:
- Making it through the noon-slow-down with zero caffeine. WTF.
- So, is this lower back soreness going to persist? Or get worse...
- My train of thought now runs on it's own schedule, often in the wrong direction
- I miss red wine, dirty martinis, and coffee
- I have always wanted/needed an excuse to snack constantly!
- Drinking so much water is making my skin look great; you mean I could have been doing this all along?!?
- Superb excuse to be in bed with dinner and netflix by8 pm.
- Braggin about being everyone's go-to designated driver is making me feel *very* important
- So much fruit and so many avocados! delicious!
All jokes aside, so far it has been a pretty easy process, and I'm increasingly excited for the next steps. My man and I have long conversations about morals and how we want to raise our family, what kind of people we want to send into the world, and it makes me more optimistic, in general.
Who knew planning for a future made you give a crap about it?
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