Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #25
I have that damn Friday song in my head! Which is a good and bad thing. It's good because, YAY! IT'S FRIDAY and bad because, OMG! that song. Either way, here's some of what I read this week that made me think. (Which is not what that damn song does!)
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1. Ready for another round of which Hollywood starlet wants you to know that she is definitely NOT a feminist and LOVES all the mens? Yeah, me neither, but you know, stupid sells. With some notable NOT stupid feminist actresses stepping up to the plate.
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2. Get into any kind of conversation about rape culture or feminism/anti-feminism or sexism or misogyny and you are going to hear from at least ONE person (usually male) tell you that NOT ALL MEN think/act/believe THAT way. For a brief history of every dudes favourite argument (and perhaps it's signalling of some kind of positive shift for SOME men), please read the following from Jess Zimmerman at TIME.
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3. When Hip Mama magazine tried to publish it's latest edition with a photo of artist Ana Alvarez-Errecalde's breastfeeding her son on it's cover, the backlash was swift. It showed us just how far we have NOT come in our efforts to normalize images of breasts performing their primary function - breastfeeding. Vendors refused to carry the magazine in their stores and (not surprisingly) Facebook banned the photo multiple times from multiple accounts. Please read the following from Ariel Gore, the editor of Hip Mama, about what happened next.
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4. Last Thursday was the end of this season's Grey Anatomy and the end of the era of Cristina Yang. I have watched this show since its beginning and have always been invested in the lives of these characters and the choices that they make for themselves. And it wasn't until Cristina uttered those final lines to Meredith last week that the full scope of what this show has done for women (and perhaps even for me) really hit me.
"Don't let what he wants eclipse what you need;
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4. And finally, the video "Hugs" by JC Little is pretty much the best thing on the internet this week!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/SHFhepoy-Rs[/youtube]
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"HUGS" everyone!
Have a great weekend.
n~
Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #24
Ah! May long weekend! I don't know about you, but for me, this marks start of me feeling the beginnings of summer (even though I live in Alberta and it did briefly snow for a bit last week). It's a weekend of clearing out the closets, figuring out who needs new shoes and rubber boots and finally packing away all of the winter gear and getting the box of summer and outside play things ready for use! Before you get into spring cleaning/gardening/going camping mode, what better way to start your weekend than with some wonderful feminist food for thought.
Enjoy!
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1. "Why aren't you happier?" "You should smile more?" "What have you got to be unhappy about?"
Ugh, so many questions. So many times directed mainly at women. Jessica Valenti breaks it down for us in this Guardian post about why women seem to be so "unhappy".
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2. It is prom time once again. You know, that time when teenage girls all across North America beg their mothers for a custom made red taffeta strapless dress with layers & layers of tulle under it (or was that just me in the late 80's??). Seriously though, it's a special time of year for these students as they celebrate their scholarly achievements and a rather big transition in their young lives. And they get to dress up all fancy-like for it. For some though, what is supposed to be a wonderful night with friends can turn into a complete sexist shit-show, as it did for Clare last week when she was asked to leave her prom because of her non-dress-code violating sparkly dress and a bunch of ogling 45-year old dads who blamed a teenage girl for their own pervy-ness!
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3. This week was not a great one for women in positions of power. Which begs the question? Is all this "leaning in" really working out or are we still just telling women to play a {male} role in a world not set up for them? Soraya Chemaly examines this phenomenon in this Ms. Magazine article.
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4. The kidnapped Nigerian girls are still missing and the world is still talking about it (although the Solange V Jay-Z Elevator thing seemed to take centre stage this week). What the world needs to know is that Nigerian women, these African women are the reason, and will likely be the main reason, that these girls will eventually be found and rescued. Please read this powerful piece from Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gwobee.
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Have a wonderful and restful long weekend everyone. At least that's my plan.
natasha~
A battle within: the stay at home mom vs the feminist.
Confession time. I am not always 100% on board with this whole "Stay at Home Feminist" thing.
I know, I know....
It's the name of my blog/Twitter/Instagram. I have claimed this moniker as ME. It is, as the marketing world calls it, "my personal brand". And yet, while I embrace this label that I have given myself and all the tongue-in-cheeky-ness that it implies, I have to be honest and admit that sometimes there exists within me a kind of battle of the two seemingly opposite sides of myself. As integrated as I think these two parts of me are, the "in-fighting" and negative self-talk that can happen from these two can be downright nasty at times.
The Stay-at-Home mother and housewife goes on and on about how I should DO more with the kids and around the house. More baking, more reading of books to the kids, more cleaning, more timely folding of the laundry, more crafts, less TV and iPads. She's can be a very demanding bitch and has obviously been spending way too much time on Pinterest, comparing all the way I am doing things to some kind of perfectly photoshopped vintage/retro/modern ideal of motherhood and housewifery.
And then there is the Feminist. She seeing things from a different angle and wants so much for a different world for her children. She gets upset that I am not doing more "active" activist work and wants me to find a way to "lean-in" and make some real changes for women in our world beyond just learning to play the game according to the current status quo. I know that there is a part of her that looks at the Stay-at-Home Mom and sneers at the level of privilege that she has and tells her that she just can't - absolutely CAN NOT - speak for other women who do not have it as good as she does.
Some, or all of these thoughts live together in my head at any given time and on any given day. Depending on the circumstances of the day, it can be an ugly battle that leaves me paralyzed with feelings of complete inadequacy in either role, or there can be an arbitrary truce and a certain level of acceptance that exists between the two.
I know what some of you are thinking, "Whoa there Natasha, how could YOU feel like this? You are supposed to be all, "Rah-rah-women can choose to do whatever they want-that's what Feminism is for!" and now your saying this? You are sending some serious mixed messages here! What is up with that?"
Let me try to explain.
A few weeks ago, I saw the CBC documentary "The Motherload". The film takes an in-depth and new look at the subject of working mothers - the current issues, challenges and triumphs that come from trying or having to do it all and that ever elusive utopian world called "work-life-balance". A lot of the film hinges on Anne-Marie Slaughter's 2012 article in The Atlantic in which she pointed out all the reasons "why women still can't have it all". While there were plenty of people who argued and disagreed with her take on this "motherload" phenomenon, I found most of her arguments compelling and very similar to my own.
"I still strongly believe that women can “have it all” (and that men can too). I believe that we can “have it all at the same time.” But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured."
Except I do not think it is just America's economy and society, it is our whole world. I have written about this before, about how there is no winning (read: having it all) in a game where one group of players has ALWAYS gotten a head start or where the playing field is always tipped in favour of one side.
One of the most strikingly true lines from the film is one from York University Women's Studies professor Andrea O'Reilly, in which she points out that "motherhood is the unfinished business of feminism." This statement is undoubtedly at the very core of a lot of the issues surrounding modern feminism today. And because most theories of feminism were based on the "unencumbered subject", I believe that this is why there exists this general feeling and misconception that feminism is done, that we've "arrived", and that there is no need for a continued movement towards equality for all women.
I need you to know that whether this is the third or fourth wave of feminism or modern feminism or whatever you want to call it, it is decidedly NOT done. And not just because women are not leaning in to more high profile corporate and political positions, but because we've been sold a version of equality that simply can not exist within the framework of our current society.
In the film, Slaughter says that she receives emails from women all the time who have some version of the same story that goes along the lines of "I had a promising career, I got married, I had children and then LIFE happened. I felt like such a failure, like I had betrayed my younger self." These sentiments gave me great pause while watching the film and made me think that we are doing a major disservice to our daughters and young women when we don't actively talk about motherhood as part of their life plans or career paths. Statements like the one above, obviously felt by many women, actually hurt my heart. And while I know that these women are not necessarily saying that becoming a mother was a failure, in our world that values the primacy of work and what we "do" versus who we are, motherhood just doesn't quite fit the bill of valuable work. Not only does it not compare to our paid work, women who are mothers are often penalized for this 'life happening' as well. In Ann Crittenden's 2001 book The Price of Motherhood, she points out that:
"We talk endlessly about the importance of family, yet the work it takes to make a family is utterly disregarded. This contradiction can be found in every corner of our society.
First, inflexible workplaces guarantee that many women will have to cut back on, if not quit, their employment once they have children. The result is a loss of income that produces a bigger wage gap between mothers and childless women than the wage gap between young men and women. This forgone income, the equivalent of a huge "mommy tax," is typically more than $1 million for a college-educated American woman."
and
"The idea that time spent with one's child is time wasted is embedded in traditional economic thinking. People who are not formally employed may create human capital, but they themselves are said to suffer a deterioration of the stuff, as if they were so many pieces of equipment left out to rust. The extraordinary talents required to do the long-term work of building human character and instilling in young children the ability and desire to learn have no place in the economists' calculations. Economic theory has nothing to say about the acquisition of skills by those who work with children; presumably there are none."
Not much has changed since she wrote that more than 12 years ago, except that now, not only is the pressure on for mothers to "lean in" and have it all at work, they are expected to be doing it all and doing it all FABULOUSLY at home too. If you are a women who had decided to stay at home with your children, it can sometimes feel like the pressure to be the "perfect" mother is just as great as the pressure to climb the corporate ladder and break the glass ceiling. From how to feed your baby, to what to put on their bums, what kind of school or 'un'school you choose, to what are considered 'essential' mommy and me classes, to getting a nanny or to sending them daycare, and for all the major and minor decisions made each and every day, motherhood has become a veritable rat-race in and of itself.
And in both the work and the home front women are paying an increasingly high price for being in these races. In Arianna Huffington's new book Thrive, she points out that,
"... women in highly stressful jobs have a nearly 40% increase risk of heart disease and heart attacks compared to thier less-stressed colleagues, and a 60 % greater risk for type 2 diabetes (a link that does not exist for men, by the way). Women who have heart attacks are almost twice as likely as men to die within a year of the attack, and women in high-stress jobs are more likely to become alcoholics than women in low-stress jobs."
The statistics are not that much brighter for mothers either, with upwards of 20% suffering from postpartum mood disorders. Katherine Stone of Post Partum Progress Inc. reports that,
"...more mothers will suffer from postpartum depression and related illnesses this year than the combined number of new cases for both sexes of tuberculosis, leukemia, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy. This is not to minimize these other terrible diseases, of course. I simply want to illustrate just how prevalent postpartum mood & anxiety disorders are."
The pressure these days to have it all, be it all, and do it all are too much for our bodies and our minds to handle and it is a no-win situation for everyone involved. And yet, I can't help but wonder, as my two sides battle it out in my own head, how much of this pressure is coming from ourselves? We live in the era of the "cult of busy-ness" and 24/7 connectivity and 10,000 hours to mastery (Ha! I just calculated and I've been a mother for just over 60,000 hours! I am SO the master of this! -insert sarcastic eye roll here-), and putting our lives on display via social media for all to see (and criticize). And then we wonder why, for some reason, it is never, ever, enough? We are a time-starved people living in a world of scarcity that is often of our own doing.
My question is: are we in fact the creators of this scarcity and if so, how do we change that?
Do you know what landed me in the hospital 26 weeks pregnant with my first child with a blood pressure hovering around 200/100 (normal is 110/70)? Because one hour before my OB appointment, I had gotten into an argument with a work colleague about a rather important event that we were planning. My life changed in an instant that day. My blood pressure would not go back down without medications and complete bed rest and I had to take an immediate medical leave from work.
That was my first AHA! moment of motherhood and it was a scary-ass wake up call to the reality that would now be my life. One responsible for the safety and well-being of not only myself, but of this other person I was growing inside of me. In essence, motherhood made me look up. Look up from my self-centred, looking-out-for-Number-One, how-do-I-get-ahead, life and see the world in front of me. One that sadly, as Joan Williams, law professor at the University of California Hastings, says in the Motherload film "was never set up for women."
So what is a woman to do in a world that is not set up for her? How does one reconcile the need to be a valuable, contributing member of our economic society and also one who is nurturing the human capital that will one day be valuable, contributing members of said society?
I don't know that anyone has the answers to this just yet. Slaughter thinks that a woman in the White House will affect changes, but I question this as a blanket solution. Other women have held the highest offices of government in other countries before and still the world has not changed significantly for women. Sheryl Sandberg thinks that women need to lean-in and actively seek the higher paying, higher ranking jobs we want, but she forgets how she got to the place she is in now, in part by hiding the fact that she was sneaking home at 5:30 to have dinner with her children.
In THIS world, one has to make compromises. For me, the decision to stop working was made for me due to medical circumstances, but the decision to STAY at home after my children were born was all mine. This is the compromise I made. My former career, for this new version of my life. It's one that I would likely make again and one that in hindsight, made me realize how much I was trying to play the game of "work/career" with a set of rules that were never going to let me win. So, yeah, I forfeited the game and 'opted out'.
And so the two sides of me sometimes get into a bit of a kerfuffle with each other over this. I strive to be an example for my own children of living a wholehearted life and valuing myself and my work, both as a stay at home mother and as a feminist, but the guilt of not being the ideal or "perfect" version for either of these sometimes still gets to me.
Today I came across this post from Karen Walrond, photographer and blogger extraordinaire, and someone I had the pleasure of both meeting and hearing speak at Mom 2.014 last week. Here's what she had to say about comparison.
"I believe that comparison -- that is, comparing yourself or your work or your art with another person('s) -- is ultimately and almost without exception a waste of time. In my opinion, when you compare yourself with someone, you're comparing all of you -- your work, your thoughts about your own work, the effort behind your work, your thoughts about yourself -- with the appearance of someone else or their work at one instance in time, having no knowledge of its context. In other words, comparing yourself or your work with anyone else or their work is inherently an unfair comparison. It should be avoided. Besides, I do believe that it is patently impossible to create effectively in someone else's voice -- the inevitable result is disappointment. Accepting that you will do what you do differently from everyone else is incredibly freeing, and should be lived whole-heartedly."
This made me think... do you know what I do differently from everyone else?
I do this whole Stay at Home Feminist thing differently than anyone else. I know that in however small the ways may be, I AM affecting change. I am giving a voice, my voice, to other mothers and women in the world of feminism and beyond. And I am going to do my darnedest for the rest of my life to make sure that motherhood does not remain "the unfinished business of feminism".
n~
Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #22
Happy Easter/Passover/Zombie Jesus/Egg laying Bunny weekend to everyone. Ok, no really, if this weekend is a serious one for you, I mean it, I wish you peace and blessings all around. And if for some of you it is just a good excuse to crack open those Cadbury eggs and slowly lick out the centres until you pass out from all the sugar, well, have at 'er folks! Just make sure you read some yummy feminist fare below before you get too full on all that creamy, sugary, chocolate-y goodness.
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1. No one has ever said that being a parent is easy. It's hard knowing that pieces of your heart are walking around outside of your body. This week was the release of yet another (timely) "motherhood is the toughest job on earth" videos. It's been shared and viewed close to a bajillion times already (my fact-checker is on vacation, but I am pretty sure that is accurate) and it's one of those 'love it or hate it' kind of videos. I kinda don't love it at all that much and not surprisingly, I am not the only one.
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2. Tuesday and Wednesday nights on Twitter it is usually PAR-TAY central. And by par-tay, I mean the corporately sponsored, hashtaged kind where you get to win prizes and answer all kinds of really important questions like, which bread you use, when was the last time you cleaned your bum with a wet wipe or what spunky outfit your kid is wearing this season. I do not usually participate in these twitter parties, for a variety of reasons; I don't use the product, I don't feel comfortable disclosing my personal toilet hygiene routines online or more often than not, I do not support the company sponsoring the party.
This last point has become increasingly important in my consumerism since the tragedy that happened at the Rana Plaza in Bangladesh last year. Annie at Phd in Parenting has been staying on top of what has been happening since the factory collapse and has put together a rather comprehensive post outlining some of the brands and companies that have, and those that have not, stepped up to the plate to compensate the victims and change the way that they do business in Bangladesh. There is no need to boycott all goods made in Bangladesh, but there is a need to hold accountable the companies that are NOT doing the right thing for and by the people they use to make their goods.
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3. I am not a fan of banning words. I like words. I write a lot of them here and I aim to write a whole lot more of them. One day I hope that my words will end up in a book that people will want to read and buy and keep in their libraries. And maybe, just maybe, it will be one that gets me on the list of most-banned books in America, along with the likes of Captain Underpants, The Hunger Games and Perks of Being a Wallflower - all three of which made the 2013 list of the top ten most challenged books.
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4. And a bit of good news from our local provincial government today.
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Have a wonderful long weekend everyone.
natasha~
Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #21
Sometimes I wish for nothing to write here. Why? Because 8/10 things that I post in these feminist round-ups are not positive. They are perpetuations of the kind of culture we live in where women are still "other", still marginalized, still working for less, still trying to DO it all so they can have it all and never actually getting "it". Here we are in 2014, still talking about/legislating bodily rights, the "controversy" over the colour pink and why, who and how we are all somehow doing feminism wrong (or right). My friend @DanaDitomaso posted a hashtag Thursday morning that sums up the week very well: #FeministRageWeek.
And I warn you, you will totally understand why after you finish reading...
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On Monday...
I am not a tech gal. I can write one, maybe two lines of code in an emergency and with a Youtube tutorial playing on the iPad beside me, but I have A LOT of friends who are very tech-y, who can write the shit out of code, who do this for a living AND... are women. Unfortunately the creators of the new HBO series, Silicon Valley, don't seem to run in the same kinds of circles that I do and apparently haven't met any women in the tech world. I have not yet seen the show, but according to Madrev at Medium.com there are only two female characters in the show and...
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On Tuesday...
Ad companies are really sticking their feet in it these days. If you thought the days of Mad Men sexism were gone, well, you'd be wrong. A few weeks ago an Autralian ad for Snickers thought they were being funny about guys not being "themselves" when they are hungry and it backfired quite spectacularly.
This week's "BADvertising" winner is Veet. You know, the chemically-laden crap that melts hair off of your body so you can be porn-star smooth? Yeah, that VEET. Apparently, and according to the three person female marketing team for Veet, having a bit of body hair or stubble the day after shaving will LITERALLY turn you into a dude! True Story! Veet has since pulled the US ads from Youtube and issued a "Sorry you're all such party poopers and didn't like our very funny joke" apology, but you can still find them here... You know, to fuel your rage a bit more.
Tuesday also brought us the release of the "much anticipated, first EVER, feature film from documentary filmmaker Chris Wiegand".
Umm, WHO??
Well, you see Chris is this guy who is married to Casey. Casey has a blog. It's one of those really pretty blogs with lots of pics of her three cute kids, their perfectly imperfect shabby chic decor and wardrobes and every picture is totally Pinterest-worthy. It's the kind of blog that you look at dreamily and then look at your pile of clean-but-not-folded-for-a-week laundry, mismatched bed sheets (NOT done on purpose) and kid with two different socks on (also not on purpose) and think, my God, how does she do it! And why doesn't someone make a movie about her and all her friends?
Chris did just that. He bought himself the ultimate hipster camper (an Airstream), travelled across the United States, made a movie about Casey and 51 of her closest blogging friends and called it American Blogger. If you haven't already seen the trailer, here you go.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/89759305[/vimeo]
Yes, this is a real trailer for a real movie. NO, it is not an SNL skit or something off of Funny or Die (like my husband thought). And yes, roughly 90% of bloggers (my non-scientific guess-timate) from America (and Canada and I'm going to assume everywhere else) are kind of upset about it. A quick Google search will find you plenty of posts examining why this is NOT a documentary about America or even about blogging, let alone American bloggers. I particularly liked Kelly's post at Debie Hive, and I think she hits the nail squarely on the head...
"One of the things that bothered me the very most about the trailer is the part where one of the women interviewed says something to the effect that if we don't put our writing out there, what are we doing it for? As if to say that the only value inherent in writing is that someone else reads it. I challenge this statement on its face, and I question if she's actually figured out what it means to be a writer yet. I don't think she has, and it makes me sad for her a little. A person who is just a blogger writes for an audience, particularly if they are doing it in some attempt to make a living which necessitates a loyal audience."
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On Wednesday...
Not only do we now have pens for the ladies (Thank Bic, those man-pens were just getting too.... manly for me), now boys, you have no need to worry anymore about your yogurt! Don't eat that belly-dancing stuff. You need to get yourself some POWERFUL Yogurt or "Brogurt" as those in the media are calling it.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/zZMsI45mHVo[/youtube]
I am not kidding people, THIS TOO IS A REAL THING! And guys, I hope I don't need to tell you this, but just in case, you can not get washboard abs from a tub of greek yogurt! (I've tried.)
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On Thursday....
IN MY OWN CITY!!!
Ugh. This is a tough one.
I am not sure if this was a Social Media intern gone awry or an intentional click-baiting tweet or just plain ass stupidity, but Thursday morning a local and (up until today) much loved talk radio station posted the following tweet and link to an online poll.
You can't get much more victim blaming about sexual assault than actual putting the words VICTIM and BLAME in the same damn sentence. The outrage over this tweet (and identical post on the stations Facebook page) was swift and merciless. AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN! The worst part? Before the station took down the tweet and "apologized" by re-wording the question with more context, 35% of the respondents (I don't have actual numbers) said YES.
So, just in case ANYONE needs a reminder...
AND "Dear CHED. The answer is NO."
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And now it's Friday...
I thought I'd leave you with something not so rage-inducing. How about a totally awesome gender swapping art series?
Have a great weekend everyone.
Maybe meditate a bit, calm the rage and get ready to keep on keeping on next week!
Luv ya,
natasha~
Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #20
Feminist Fare Friday is bought to you today by the inimitable Ms. Gloria Steinem.
Happy 80th Birthday Gloria!
For all the work you have done, for all the torches you have lit, and for all the ways we need to keep our torches lit, and keep working to light even more. We thank you.
I thank you.
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1. Liz Gumbinner at MOM-101, wrote this great post in honour of Ms. Steinem's birthday. Go and read it. And in case you miss it (it's one of the links in the above post), please read this post from Liz as well, from way back in 2006 (which is, like, the stone-age of blogging! Ha!) in which Gloria Steinem talks about the stay at home mother and feminism.
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2. The fine people at Makers.com put together a nifty little infographic of Gloria Steinem's life. It highlights what we know about her and what we may not know and is a great insight into her life and her legacy.
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3. This week was also the week that CBC radio and Jian Ghomeshi really stuck their collective feet in it when they aired a debate about rape culture on Ghomeshi's popular radio show Q. (Your first clue here should be the word "debate".) Folks, the fact that people who are witnessing a rape can't even identify it as such (think Steubenville case) shows us how much of a problem this is. The social media outrage and response to the myriad of rape apologists was witnessed in the #rapecultureiswhen hashtag and outlined in this PolicyMic post from Danielle Paradis.
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4. My little Kindergartener has been having a colour-a-day theme going on at school this past week and yesterday was pink day. It was also her celebration of learning day and parents were encouraged to also wear the colour of the day. My daughter has A LOT of pink in her wardrobe. She likes bright colours and is not afraid to mix and match. Finding something for her to wear yesterday was not an issue. In my wardrobe on the other hand, I have one pyjama top and one sports bra that are pink. That's it. I am not opposed to the colour pink, it's just not a colour that I gravitate to when choosing my garments.
Pink has been in the media again this week (the colour, not the singer!) and my friend Avital Norman Nathman very aptly expresses the "problem" with pink in this post over at The Mamafesto.
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Have a wonderful weekend everyone. Keep fighting the good fight!
N~
Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #19.
This is officially my 400th published post on this site! Last night I was racking my brain trying to think of something EPIC and truly profound to write about and well, Scandal was on, so... Do not fear though! In light of International Women's Day last weekend, I have found a treasure trove of things for you to read and watch this weekend to get your feminism ON!
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1. The folks at Glamour asked TED put together a list of the Top 10 TED talks by women that all women people really should watch. I was quite pleased that I had already seen 5 of the 10 and was blown away by the rest of them. Especially this one by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist who observed her own stroke as it was happening.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/UyyjU8fzEYU[/youtube]
Bookmark this page and please watch these talks at your leisure. I promise, you won't be disappointed.
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2. If you haven't heard already, there is a new campaign by the Sheryl Sandberg "Lean-in" crowd going around called #BanBossy. Many feminists have written varying opinions about it this week, myself included. bell hooks even got in on this one and started tweeting her own version of reclaiming the word with the Twitter hashtag #bossyandproud. Jessica Bennet at Time.com wrote a handy guide for how not to sound like a sexist or use sexist language and I thought it highlighted very nicely all the ways that we use a lot of different words in sexist ways every day and points out how we can change this.
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3. Ever wanted to be a real life super hero? Well now you can by simply joining the growing force at GenderAvenger.com. Gender Avenger was founded by Gina Glantz and has a mission of "building a community that ensures women are represented in the public dialog." I performed my first mission as a Gender Avenger this past week and nominated CBC's Hockey Night in Canada to the Gender Avenger Hall of Shame for their use of the word DIVERSE to describe their new line up of hosts and commentators (Hint: the line up is all male and all white). You too can become a #genderavenger! Sign up for the newsletters, get yourself one of these fancy-schmancy badges, and speak up when you see women being left out of the public dialog.
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4. I came across this lovely, colourful infographic the other day called "The Science of Raising Happy Kids". It is from an app and website called Happify.com that from what I can gather is a kind of Lumosity for getting happier. There are some really good points to consider here and I particularly liked point #2. Be happy mamas, it matters not only to you, but to your kids too!
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5. The other day one of my lovely Instagram followers sent me the following message:
"I haven't been following you long, but I had the opportunity to meet Gloria Steinem this weekend and thought of you!"
Umm, WOW! First, that she got to meet Ms. Steinem and second, she thought of ME! I read an excerpt from an essay that Gloria Steinem wrote for MS. Magazine last week about the myths of feminism and why our revolution has just begun and it has made my resolve even stronger to continue in this thing called Feminism and to keep lighting the torches of others. We still have a long, long way to go....
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Have a great weekend Avengers, Revolutionaries and Happiness creators!
love and light,
n~
bossy boots
I am a firm believer in language and the power that words have in our lives. Whether it is the words that we speak to ourselves, the ones we use to address others or the ones we read or hear, words surround us all the time. And as such, we need to use them well. It seems that today, the word of the day is "BOSSY", thanks in part to a new campaign from the Sherly Sandberg "Lean-in" crowd and the folks from Girl Scouts of America. Their new #BanBossy campaign is aimed at, well... just that, banning the word "bossy" from conversations, especially those about and around assertive, confident girls and women. In an article for the Wall Street Journal, Ms. Sandberg and Anna Maria Chavez, CEO of Girl Scouts of USA discuss the new campaign:
I completely understand the intent of this campaign and the message that it hopes to spread, I am just not sure of the wording of it all. Now, maybe this has something to do with my general dislike of the whole 'lean-in' phenomenon (I don't believe leaning in to a man's world makes things more equal on any level) or perhaps it is the very privileged heights that this type of preaching is coming from, but there is something about this #banbossy campaign that is not sitting well with me.
Maybe it is because I am a bossy woman. I was a bossy kid (I am the oldest of four-hello, birth order traits!), and I guess that bossiness just kind of stuck. I like to think that I am a do-er, I see things that need doing and when no one else is stepping up, I do and then, I just kind of naturally take charge. True story - the first time I met my then boyfriend/now husband's friends from undergrad was at an outdoor wedding in a beautiful park in downtown Vancouver. It had rained the night before and the area for the ceremony was right beside a pond and the natural habitat of about 50 Canada geese. It was literally covered in wet stinky goose poop. While everyone was lamenting about how awful the situation was, I recruited the groomsmen, the ushers and a few others and in half an hour we had cleared a path and the area for the ceremony of all traces of the stinky little poop landmines and marked it out with white balloons tied to trees. I suppose to some that may have seemed bossy, but to the bride and groom and their guests, I like to think not having goose poop all over their wedding finery was more important that day than whether or not their buddy's new girlfriend was a bossy boots.
Danielle Henderson over at The Stranger wrote a response to the #banbossy campaign and I tend to agree with her on this one.
And Micheline Maynard at Forbes had this to say:
I am still and will likely always be a bossy boots. I speak up when I have something to say, I use my voice to speak (and write) for others when they can not and I tend to just DO what needs to be done. That is the kind of example I want my daughter to see, I want her to know that speaking up is the right thing to do, and that she has every right to be the boss if that is what she wants. And I know that she does see it. When I observe her playing with her friends, she is a leader already, a quiet one at first, feeling her way into the crowd and assessing her situation and then directing play and using her imagination and helping others. It's quite fascinating really and I find myself beaming with "that's my girl" mama-pride when I see this "bossy" side of her showing itself.
The thing is, I doubt Sheryl Sandberg or Anna Maria Chavez got to where they are today without being a little bit bossy. Clear in their ambition and goals, assertive in achieving them and never really listening to the nay-sayers telling them that "no one likes a bossy girl". Again, I find myself taken aback and somewhat insulted by this message that women have to alter our selves and now our language in order to be taken seriously, or to "get a seat at the table", so to speak. When I think of the women whom I respect, I think of bold women, fierce women, women whose spirits are strong and proud. Some are loud, some are quietly powerful and some are downright bossy. Whatever the case, they all get shit DONE!
In the end, I truly believe that this one little word is never going to hold back the power of OUR daughters and I sincerely hope that this new campaign doesn't end up giving it more power and not less.
#beBOSSIER
N~