Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #10
Halloween is done, my husband came home yesterday to end my solo-parenting stint, birthday presents are bought and wrapped for this weekend's party (there is seriously one a week for us in Oct/Nov/Dec!) and I am finally sitting down today to write the weekly Feminist Fare round up. So while I know it is late on a Friday night, here are the posts and videos that caught my eye this past week.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. In case you don't know this already. I am a HUGE Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan. I own the box set of the series and named my dog after Willow. And while I loved the Buffy-Angel relationship, my true love of the show was the darker Buffy-Spike dynamic. It spoke to the bad-boy lover in me. I could go on and on and on here... but, let me actually get to my point... and that is, that I think Joss Whedon is a genius. Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Serenity... this man writes kick-ass stuff people (and a lot of it involves really strong female characters), and it seems that whenever he is on a press junket, reporters have one particular question for him. Here are his replies to this much repeated query...
[youtube]http://youtu.be/cYaczoJMRhs[/youtube]
~~~~~
2. I am not sure how much more "Listen up girlies, don't get drunk so you don't get raped" bullshit I can read anymore. If a dude got so blitzed that he could hardly walk home and then got mugged would anyone be telling him that he deserved it? That he shouldn't have had that last half-dozen beers? Probably not. Add to this the Men's Rights Group claiming that men are just as much victims of false-accusations as women are of rape (or that rape-culture doesn't even exist!) and it is enough to make a girl want to... oh, I don't know, get REALLY, REALLY drunk and forget that this is the world that she lives in and is raising her children in!
~~~~~
3. And really, on that note. I have nothing better (or worse?) to leave you with than this amazing, painful, powerful, and haunting spoken word poetry...
[youtube]http://youtu.be/zgQRkHcEyq8[/youtube]
~~~~~
Enjoy your weekend everyone!
Natasha~
"Likes" don't save lives: #UNICEFDay 2013
Halloween is upon us and when it comes to this childhood tradition, like many things in my life, I am a purist. I like to encourage my kids to think outside the box (or racks) of traditional gender-biased costumes, I like to decorate our front porch with that crazy spider web stuff and DANGER tape everywhere and like the good hardy Canadian kids that they are, my children don their snow pants, squeeze their costumes on over top and go door to door in our neighbourhood screaming "TRICK OR TREAT" at the top of their little lungs. It's how I did it as a kid and I feel it is important to maintain these traditions for my kids. One of the things that I do miss from my childhood and that was always part of Halloween growing up were the little orange UNICEF boxes that everyone had as the ultimate accessory to their costume. My brothers and I used to have a little bit of a competition every year to see who could collect the most pennies and whoever had the heaviest box at the end of the night would get to pick something from the others candy haul. Those were some good {cavity-inducing) times.
And while the orange boxes may not be around anymore (UNICEF Canada cancelled the program in 2006), UNICEF continues to do amazing things for children all over the world. I had a chance to talk to some wonderful UNICEF representatives while I was at Blissdom Canada a few weeks ago and got a mini tour of UNICEF's main programs and humanitarian efforts that directly affect children around the world. It was an eye-opening, tear-inducing, heart-breaking and hope-creating experience for me.
From tasting the Plumpy Nut high protein therapeutic food that they provide for malnourished children, to following the trajectory of a vaccine from manufacturing to a child in a tiny village in a remote area of Mongolia, to picking up the VERY HEAVY jugs that children have to haul miles every day just to have safe drinking water for their families, it was humbling and inspiring to see what all those pennies we used to collect have done and what donations to UNICEF continue to do today for children the world over.
The one program that touched me the most was UNICEFs work with children in refugee camps. In the UNICEF room at Blissdom, hanging on the walls were pictures that were drawn by Syrian children from refugee camps and I am still haunted by their artwork. I have two children who love to express themselves through art. My 7 year old loves to draw pictures of dinosaurs and his latest Hero Factory toy and my daughter draws pictures of animals and her family daily. This is what Syrian kids are drawing...
And not because they saw these images on some superhero-to-the-rescue cartoon show, this is their REAL LIFE. We hear about Syria every other day in the news and the focus is always on drone warfare and chemical weapons and trying to figure out who is the bad guy in this particular war and what, if anything, we are to do about it. What we don't hear about are the over 3 million children IN Syria living in dire situations and caught in the lines of fire or about the over 1 MILLION children that have been displaced from their homes and are now living in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and other regions of North Africa.
UNICEF has multiple ways that they help in these situations and one of them is through their Survival Gifts donation program. For just over $200 dollars you can send a whole school in a box to a refugee camp. Or an early childhood development box. These are literally big steel boxes with enough supplies for up to 50 kids that get shipped to the areas that need them. A tent can be turned into a school. The shade of a big tree can become a play area for toddlers. In the grand scheme of things this 'gifts' may not seem like much, but for a child who has lost everything and who is in a strange place and has a terribly uncertain future, a slice of normalcy-reading a book, learning his or her letters and numbers or stacking some blocks-can be just what is needed so that all hope is not lost and so that they don't forget what it means to just be a kid. There are many other much needed survival gifts that can be purchased and some for as little as $10.00. It really doesn't take much to help save a life.
Thursday, October 31st, 2013 is national #UNICEFDay. Won't you please join me and support UNICEF's work and NOT "LIKE" THIS POST at all! Instead, please visit Unicef.ca and purchase a life-saving survival gift. Think of it as a your little orange box and fill that sucker up with as much as you can. Somewhere in the world there is no Halloween, no trick-or-treating and no dress-up school parties to attend today. There is only fear, and hunger, and sickness, and despair, and no amount of "likes" is going to change that.
A gift of medicines, of tools for education, of blankets and nutritional supplements, these are the things that offer hope and comfort to these kids. So please, Tweet about #UNICEFDAY all day long, post it all over your Facebook page, and then walk the walk and let everyone know that your support goes further than just sharing something on your timeline.
I just bought a School-in-a-Box.
In my mind, it is one ginormous orange UNICEF box and someone now owes me some of their candy!
Happy #UNICEFDay Everyone!
Natasha~
P.S. Disclosure - I was not compensated in any way for this post, but thanks to the generosity of Hallmark, because of this post, 10 children will be getting a live-saving vaccination.
P.P.S. Want to get in on that action? Head on over and give UNICEF your email address and you too can help a child get vaccinated. One email address = one vaccine = one child's life.
Happy {Feminist} Halloween!
I just couldn't wait until Friday to share this amazing little piece of holiday Halloween brilliance. These four beautiful wordsmiths blow this one right out of the park.
Enjoy!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/jXk3uhlhAVY[/youtube]
Happy Halloween to all of you MotherF****ing Monsters!!
Natasha~
Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #9
It's a short one this week. I am recovering from taking care of everyone else who was recovering from various stages of stomach bug and between washing every towel and bed sheet in the house and wiping all variety of bodily fluids off of everyone, the internet and all it's fabulous feminist fare took a back seat to family this week. Due to the sheer exhaustion that made me fall asleep on my poor, poor husband last night, all you're getting today is this wonderful gem. (I hope you are not as disappointed as he was.) [youtube]http://youtu.be/IbXfrZt-6pw[/youtube]
I sure do miss SCTV.
Have a great (healthy) weekend everyone!
natasha~
skinny mirrors, curves and entitlement.
I am washing my hands in the washroom of a greasy spoon diner.
I look up and see myself in the mirror.
I back up a few steps to get a better look at all of me and the outfit of the day.
Hmm... not bad.
And then I decide that this must be one of those 'skinny mirrors'.
..............
This is what it has come to. I am a 41 year old woman, pretty secure in who and what I am and I still have a hard time looking at myself in a mirror without sucking in my cheeks, holding by breath as I suck in my belly and standing up on my tippy toes to create something that I have been taught to believe everyone else thinks is beautiful.
If I do happen to think that I look nice on any particular day, my automatic assumption isn't "Natasha- YOU are beautiful!" it is "what's wrong with this mirror?".
How's that for some messed up thinking?
And I am not sure how, but this insidious thinking is seeping into my little girl's brain too. Yesterday we were getting ready to go outside to do some yard work and she wanted to wear one of her skirts. I said no, that she needed to change into pants. She proceeded to dramatically crumple to the ground in tears claiming that if she was to wear pants that "no one will think I am beautiful!" My BRILLIANT response? "Don't worry honey, Mommy is wearing sweats, so I am not beautiful today either." Thank goodness parenting is a two-person job in our house, as my husband quickly came to the rescue before I inadvertently killed all her self-esteem and said "EVERYONE here is beautiful, we need to wear pants to stay warm. End of story." Logic, that's what my husband brings to the party.
It is no secret that we have a messed up vision of what beauty is in our society. Fashion magazines, TV commercials, giant billboards, all of these things are bombarding us on a daily basis and no matter how hard we try to block it out, this kind of marketing, this perpetual visual reminder of all the "beautiful people" gets into our brains. And into the brains of our little ones too.
Last week the talented, hilarious and beautiful actress Melissa McCarthy was featured on the cover of ELLE magazine in their 'Women in Hollywood' issue. She was photographed in one of fall's hot trends, the oversized jacket and the internet went bonkers! Why? Because she was TOO covered up! Because the photographer did not highlight her curves. Because it can't be a cover shot if there is no skin showing DAMNIT!!
I get it. I get that this is not what we are accustomed to seeing on the cover of magazines. We're used to seeing the thin women in barely there outfits with every supposed 'flaw', every extra pound, every wrinkle, zit, or oversized pore airbrushed to oblivion, (mis)representing the "beautiful people". We all then compare ourselves to this flawless (and photoshopped) ideal that we inevitably are never able to measure up to, you know, because we are not all made from the same human perfection mold.
I looked at that shot of Melissa and thought, 'DAMN girl, you look amazing!' I felt more of a kinship to someone on the cover of a fashion mag than I have in a long time. And then I read a bunch of articles shaming ELLE for covering her up, and tweets from people wanting to see more skin, more of her body and all I could think was how seriously EFF'ed up a society we are that we feel somehow ENTITLED to a woman's body and cheated when we don't get to see as much of it as we want!
I know that the point of all the internet hullabaloo is the double standard. That the thinner women get the skimpy outfits and the full-figured women get covered up. That seems to be the message and the point that everyone from xoJane to HuffPo to Slate and beyond are making in their critique of the cover, but I think this issue goes deeper than that. How is it that somehow if a full-figured woman is in a magazine that she automatically becomes the poster child for curvy ladies everywhere? You don't think that these same media outlets and all the folks demanding to see more of her curves wouldn't be as critical (in a totally different way of course) if she was photographed in a swimsuit?
And do I have to point out as well, that not two weeks before everyone was all, "OMG, don't cover up Melissa, we should see more of her", EVERYONE was telling Miley to "PUT SOME DAMN CLOTHES ON GIRL!!" It seems that we just can't win, so matter what size we are or how much or little we are wearing.
I am a curvy girl, I've got the proverbial junk in my trunk, a 32F bra size and somewhat of a leftover belly from having my babies. And I can tell you that I feel ten times sexier rocking an oversized sweater, jeans and a gorgeous pair of boots, or a maxi dress with some awesome earrings than I ever do in a bathing suit or a skin tight dress that is supposed to "celebrate" all those luscious curves of mine. I know that I would much rather define my beauty according to my standards and comfort in my own skin, than one dictated by a messed up society looking for some skin and a bit more cleavage!
I also have a daughter who, although she shares my husbands and my DNA equally, is my physical mini-clone. And she is the most beautiful creature I have ever set my eyes on. There is no way I am going to let her believe that there is only one way to be beautiful and I am going to make damn sure she knows that no one, and I mean absolutely NO ONE is entitled to seeing, touching or being privy to any part of her body at any time in her life. I don't care what magazine she may or may not eventually be gracing the cover of (crosses all the things and hopes it is Forbes).
Love yourselves my fellow beautiful women, and know that NO, that is not a "skinny mirror", that is all you baby, no airbrushing required!
natasha~
Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #8
I am very sorry, it's been two weeks since I've served up some yummy feminist fare for you. As you can imagine, a lot has been going on in the feminist realm and I'll do my best to get myself {and you} up to speed and back on track. This is what happens when a certain 41-year old goes to a blogging conference and stays up carousing until 2 AM for three nights in a row. At my age, it takes exactly 10 days to recover and get one's head out of the fog that those three days created!! But, I did have a REALLY, really good time and you can read all about it here. Now, onto the good stuff.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Last week the internet was all up in arms about a T-shirt. Granted it was a masturbating, menstruating vagina t-shirt from American Apparel and artist Petra Collins, but still a simple t-shirt none the less. And while I am not about to go out and buy this particular t-shirt, I do get that it is art and art is meant to provoke. And really folks, there are a lot more crazy and WAY more offensive things put on t-shirts these days than a depiction of someone's lady parts. Now, if it wasn't enough that the internet went all bat-shit-crazy on Petra over her t-shirt, her Instagram account was recently deleted as well. Why exactly is still not clear, but Petra herself has some thoughts on why an image of part of her unaltered body (that contains no nudity) may have caused this level of online censorship to occur and it is making me feel very, very angry.
~~~~~
2. And while we are on the topic of the female body, I came across this powerful poetry reading last night from Lily Myers called "Shrinking Woman".
[youtube]http://youtu.be/zQucWXWXp3k[/youtube]
This piece really gave me pause, especially because I have a daughter and I don't want her to absorb that kind of "accidental inheritance" from me about food, about my body or hers or about how much space women are "allowed" to occupy in this world.
~~~~~
3. It is that time of year yet again. Halloween. Or as I like to call it at our house, "Hallo-avoid every commercial store and costume EVER because MY 5 YEAR OLD IS NOT SEXY AND SPIDERGIRL DOESN'T WEAR A PINK TUTU-ween". Beth Greenfield at Yahoo Shine examines what kind of messages these over-prettified and hypersexualized costumes send to our children. HINT-not good ones!
~~~~~
4. Privilege. It's a word we hear a lot these days. Gender privilege, race privilege, socio-ecomonic privilege, it's out there people and for a lot of folks, privilege is a really hard thing to truly grasp. Which when you think about it, is incredibly ironic and sad. I had an interesting experience last week talking to a middle-aged, middle-class white man about women being shamed for breastfeeding in public. Do you know what he said to me? He interrupted me, told me he can't even believe that this is an issue in our day and age and dismissed the problem outright. Here's the thing. I am a white, cis-gendered, middle-class woman. I HAVE privilege up the ying-yang! But not until that very moment when my experiences and that of so many other breastfeeding mothers was so summarily dismissed by someone who has privilege that I do not, did the whole concept of PRIVILEGE come to full fruition in my brain.
In feminism, no talk of privilege can exist without intersectionality coming into play and I know that for some this can seem like some kind of high-level academic feminist balderdash. I assure you it is not and in this incredibly honest piece from Winona Dimeo-Edigar at The Frisky, you will see why it's as fundamental to feminism as the basic premise that "Feminism is the radical idea that women are people".
~~~~~
5. And finally, it's October, or "Pinktober" according to KFC, the NFL, Chambord, Pilsbury and a whole slew of other brands and retailers cashing in on "raising awareness" for breast cancer and donating a mere pittance of the proceeds from all their pink merchandise to actual cancer research. Cancer is not pretty. It is not pink. It is not about "setting the tatas free" on a ridiculous no-bra day campaign. It is painful and devastating and life-altering and women young and old are fighting for their lives against this beast. The public needs to see this side of breast cancer and that is what The Scar Project is doing with this striking photography series of young breast cancer survivors shot by fashion photographer David Jay. It's not easy to look at these photos, but it puts a reality to breast cancer that the general public needs to see before heading out to buy another big pink garbage bin. Please donate directly to your local cancer societies or to any number of organizations that directly help cancer patients and survivors and avoid all the "pinkwashing" of this terrible disease.
~~~~~
On that note, I wish you all a safe and wonderful weekend!
Peace,
natasha~
Somewhere in the world it is "Wine O'clock".
I like wine. Have for a very long time actually. And before I liked wine, I liked Strongbow and before that Traditional Ale and before that (well, to this day, to be perfectly honest) gin and tonic. I even like a few shots of tequila now and then.
Just no sambuca! NEVER, ever, any more sambuca! Or GoldSchlager. That stuff is just wrong.
I've liked booze for a long time. I REALLY liked it one particular year in university that is very much a blur to me and could explain why I just barely passed English Lit. that year (it was an 8 AM class people!).
There was always some kind of alcohol in our house growing up. It was my grandmother's drink. She liked gin. And whisky. And vodka. And beer. And I may have inadvertently sipped a few of her tumblers in my young life having mistaken them for glasses of orange or apple juice.
We also grew up with my very French Godparents who would offer everyone, kids included, an aperitif -a tiny glass of Dubonnet- before dinners at their place. I can remember feeling so grown up sipping that sweet red liquid out of my tiny little glass at these special celebrations.
So, just so we are clear, I like a good drink and have been a social drinker for most of my life.
Why all this booze talk you ask?
Because I have a bit of a rant in me that I must get out.
THIS IS DRIVING ME BATTY!
I can not stand all of the websites, twitter hashtags and chats, Facebook pages, memes, and yes, even books about mothers and their NEED to drink, their REASONS to drink, and all the ways that motherhood seemingly makes women RUSH for a bottle of booze to cope with all of it!
Maybe I am being too sensitive. Or maybe this is just another form of brilliant marketing on the part of the wine makers and sellers of the world. I mean seriously people, there are wines called "Layered Cake" and yes, even one that is actually called "MommyJuice". And let's not forget the "you can drink as much of this as you want because it's called Skinny Girl" creation (which I do also enjoy every now and then).
And these so-called reasons that moms need to drink? The implication is that it is our kids and the daily drudgery of caring for our babies. Of doing laundry and chauffeuring and making lunches and wiping snotty noses and breaking up fights and picking up toys and stepping on teeny tiny Lego pieces and finding glitter glue in our favourite pair of shoes and reading Good Night Moon ONE MORE FREAKING TIME. It is hard some days, that is for sure.
But...
I find the whole idea of marketing booze specifically to the "mommy" crowd condescending and belittling. And yes, I am throwing this beef of mine in there with all the other mommy-fying of words and concepts that the world continues to come up with simply because some women also happen to be mothers (you know my all-time faves - mompreneur and mommy blogger).
I also think this epidemic of memes and the cultural trope that is the frazzled mom and her glass of wine that we see all over the internet sometimes hides a darker underside of self-medication, alcohol dependence and addiction. I also worry about what kind of message this sends to our kids about responsible drinking. Mommy needs her 'special juice' to relax, to get through the day, to DEAL with all of it! What kind of example are we setting when what they see is Mama seemingly using alcohol to blur the lines of reality a bit so that all will be good in the world again.
Hmmm....
I repeat. I LIKE WINE.
I like it with a nice meal. I like it after a long day. I like it while I am sitting in a bubble bath with my special candle burning and some soft music playing. I like it at book club with my ladies while we spend about 15 minutes talking about the book and the other hour and 45 on just about everything else in our lives. I like it while I am sitting at my laptop writing and I like it on beautiful days enjoying my backyard and the view from the comfort of my deck chair.
What I don't like it this feeling that somehow mothers need a reason to have a drink, that we are only drinking our "mommy juice" as a form of coping with the stress of everyday life and not a way of celebrating or even just enjoying our lives. And I especially don't like that for some women who may be excessively drinking and putting their health or the safety of others in danger, all of these memes and Facebook pages and books serve as a way to sanction what could potentially be harmful behaviour.
What it all boils down to is this. The message that I hear in all of these memes and themes of mommy needing booze is that a woman can't just enjoy a nice glass of wine BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT SHE WANTS TO DO. Nope, she has to have a good reason to drink. And it's her children, those evil little beasts of burden, that are just that reason!
And for me, that is just wrong.
Please tell me that I am not the only one who feels this way?
Now....
Where did I put my coffee.....?
Natasha~
Knock Knock Little Sucker: aka 'What I learned at Blissdom Canada.'
Blogging conferences are funny things. They are full of opportunity. They are fun. They are chalk full of women {and men} who are looking for connections and who are, for the most part, notorious over-sharers and gregarious huggers.
They are also terrifying and overwhelming and can send even the most seemingly extroverted person off to a far corner to hide from the hulabaloo and constant "who, what, where, when and why"?
Four weeks ago I made a snap decision to go to Blissdom Canada this year. The stars aligned one day and within 24 hours I had a conference pass, a roommate and a plane ticket booked. I guess it was a kind of conference kismet.
And then ALL of the self-doubt started to seep into me.
Why was I going this year? What did I hope to get out of it? I don't really fit the blogger target market of conferences like these and the sponsors who support them, so again, what was the point of me going exactly?
I convinced myself that this was going to be a glorified girls weekend with some fabulous women that 95% of the time I only connect with online. I registered for all the required sessions at the conference and chose the Creative and Change tracks versus the Business ones. I didn't even bother getting business cards made, since I don't really see what I do as "business" anymore.
With all of that done and a typed-out, page-long "how to be me for four days" instruction sheet for my husband taped to the refrigerator, on October 3rd, I packed my suitcase, valet parked my car at the fancy lot at the airport and hopped on a plane to Toronto.
Maybe it was because I did not have a lot of expectations going into this conference. Maybe it was because I was being more of an observer and listener than a talker this time around (I know, I know. WHAT??). Maybe it was because I avoided the whole monetizing side of things and spent time spending money at the Handmade Market instead. Or maybe it was because I wasn't worried so much about what people thought of me and I was just being me. Unapologetically Moi. Whatever it was, in the end, I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the conference, getting to meet so many new faces and spending time with my beautiful peeps, Annie and Alex and Tillie!
One moment truly defined the conference for me. No, it was not the opening keynote, although Eric Alper's ability to make everything and anything relate back to music is simply amazing and somewhat uncanny. It wasn't the incredibly powerful "Social Media Etiquette" panel, that included the stupendous {in my squealing fan-girl opinion} Glennon Melton of Momastery fame and the quiet strength of Rehteah Parson's dad Glen Canning, even though that session did make everyone in the room think REALLY HARD about what they put out there (online) and what the universe inevitably gives back.
My moment came during the aptly-called "Power Hour". An hour of mini presentations à-la-TED-style that were inspirational (@Schmutzie), motivational (@CanadianDad) and hilarious (@sharonDV). I was standing at the back of the room absentmindedly scrolling though my Twitter feed when a speaker I had not heard of before was introduced.
I was still engrossed in some silly Twitter convo, when this speaker's words started to register in my brain and they pulled me away from my phone:
She wasn't giving the usual kind of presentation. She wasn't telling everyone in the room to be authentic and to find our voices and to tell our own stories. SHE WAS TELLING US ONE OF HER STORIES.
A story that she had written. On her blog. A story that was at once hilarious and crazy and so incredibly vivid and beautiful, that she had a whole standing-room-only conference room hanging on her every word.
And it was this moment, the simple act of Shannon Fisher telling us her crazy pig story that made my whole Blissdom Canada experience worthwhile. Her words sucked me right in and I felt like I was on that cold snowy road with her and the asshole pig. And having found the post afterwards, I have read it no less than three times already.
Then it hit me, a full week AFTER the conference ended. Why I went, what I needed from this conference and why I still want to continue over-sharing in this wacky world we call the 'Blogosphere".
I needed to redefine what blogging was for me. I needed to know that it is OK to be the blogger who doesn't work with brands, that it is OK that I am not blogging for the almighty dollar or the not so mighty, yet still lovely box of nice smelling bum wipes. I needed to know that MY stories matter. That my stories ARE making a difference for someone out there.
And the way that I learned that was through listening to someone else tell one of their stories. A big bonus was getting to sit down with Shannon at the after-after party on Saturday night to get to know her a bit too. She really is one cool chickita and I feel like I should leave you with another of her posts to read, just in case the pig story didn't already hook you.
Shannon's reading of her post out loud, the actual embodiment of the advice we often hear at blogging conferences about finding and using our authentic voices, THAT was my Lollipop Moment at Blissdom Canada.
And it took me this long to actually realize it!
Oh, and second epiphany...
@clippo and I take awesome Half-Ducky selfies!!
natasha~
P.S. You really need to watch this video and listen to Drew Dudley, who had the original Lollipop Moment, and hear his message. He was the amazing closing key note speaker at Blissdom Canada this year and blew us all away with his message about true leadership!