read.

just a little light reading on questions of sex, gender, and culture:

• on why "chick flicks" are not all that woman-friendly: "7 popular chick flicks that secretly hate women." (be forewarned of some profanity)
• on the federal court challenge to prop. 8 and the broader related issues: "gay on trial." winning quote: "They [defenders of prop. 8 who oppose gay marriage] also argue that sexual orientation falls on a continuum and that sexuality is 'fluid,' a decidedly nontraditional view that has taken root in college queer-studies departments but not the sort of thing you'd ever hear from Focus on the Family's James Dobson."  i'd just love to see most conservatives who oppose gay marriage swallow that pill.
• jessawhy's personal articles of faith, a beautiful piece: "my articles of faith."
• on the romantic paternalism prevalent in the church and the desire to be taken seriously: "romantic paternalism."
• on the dangers of the twilight saga (and a great example of why we should think just a little more carefully about the entertainment we consume): "ew moon: why twilight continues to hurt america."  winning quotes: "Young girls around the country are debating whether she should choose Edward or Jacob. Which abuse is better? He’s insanely jealous and stalks me or he can barely control his anger and may physically abuse me at any moment?" and " The messages behind Twilight? Be weak, let your man protect you. Be careful, don’t get him angry. If he hurts you, it’s your fault. Abuse is part of life. Accept it. If he really loves you, he’ll try not to hurt you but don’t be surprised if he does. You probably deserve it. You are nobody without your man, so don’t bother trying." is it any wonder that the author of the series is mormon?
• and, to be balanced, an interesting feminist defense of the twilight saga, which asks some very important questions: "another feminist defense of 'twilight'."
• and my hero for the week: the ten-year-old boy in arkansas refusing to stand and pledge allegiance because gay marriage is not legal, therefore the nation does not provide "liberty and justice for all." (no reading required, just a fast enough connection to stream video)

go forth, read, and comment.  i'd love to hear what you think.

post-gender.

in the introduction to the most recent edition of the feminine mystique, betty friedan argues that women's progress will essentially halt until our society makes changes in men's gender roles.  i couldn't agree more.  but i'd like to focus my discussion of male gender roles on the possibility of women's happiness, just for a moment.


recently, mfranti over at feminist Mormon housewives called attention to a little article in the mormon times which begins by asserting that feminism tacitly implies "that in order for women to have worth they had to be just like men" and ends with the pithy statement that "it's interesting, important stuff, feminism, i'm just not sure why anybody ever believed it was the ticket to happiness."  let's start with these two lovely points and work from there.  first, i--a staunch (some would say flaming), long-time feminist--i have no desire to be "just like men."  i'm a woman, thank you very much.  and i'm perfectly happy being a woman, even if i engage in a little gender bending on occasion.  feminism has never claimed that women will only have worth if they're just like men, even if it has claimed for women the same rights men have.  perhaps this subtle distinction is lost on palmer.  and then there's the question of feminism and happiness.  i'm not sure anyone has ever claimed that feminism was a "ticket to happiness," either, though i'm sure most feminists would argue that feminism has very clearly allowed for more equal access to things that generate happiness.  but more on that in a moment.


aside from earning my scorn for its rather superficial and inaccurate treatment of feminism, palmer's article got me thinking about the question of having it all.  contemplating the question of why it is, after 40 years of feminism, women are reportedly unhappy, palmer proposes that said unhappiness "is a product of the crashing reality that, no matter what we may have heard, and despite all our options, we still can't have it all. No matter what we choose, it will inescapably come at the cost of something else."  now, i'm not going to argue with the fact that making choices involves cost.  if i choose to work full time, i clearly will not be with my (hypothetical) children full time and vice versa.  but i maintain that there is a way for women to have it all--including happiness.  and that's where men's gender roles come in.


i'll pause a moment for the head-scratching.


...


and to continue.  so what does women's happiness have to do with male gender roles?  everything.  in a recent article examining gender roles in the workplace in the american prospect, courtney martin argues that "we have to stop using 'work/life balance' as coded language for 'working-mom stress.' despite ample evidence that men are served by investing more time and energy outside the workplace and 'coming out' as fathers while in it, there are very few men who are taking on this issue in a substantive, political way."  according to martin (and i agree with her), questions of balancing the demands of work and the demands of life have too often been framed in terms of women's needs, which ignores that men, too, are human beings with lives outside of the workplace.  so long as we equate masculinity with earning capacity and the ability to provide (coughcough--i'm looking at you, mormons), we'll perpetuate a situation in which women (even working women) carry the burden of making the home function while men just fund it. (aside: i know this is changing because i've witnessed it; part of the change is simply generational; but part of the change also needs to be conscious and proactive on the part of both men and women.)


but this brings me to a point martin made in another recent piece in the american prospect: it's not enough for us to identify what men should not (and, if my experience is in any way indicative, do not) want to be.  we (and by "we" i mostly mean men) need to develop a positive image of what a progressive, enlightened, post-gender man is.  it's not enough to want to get rid of machismo and entitlement and patriarchy; we need to have some sense of what will take their place.


it's tempting to simply say that men should be free to be themselves.  but is that enough?  simple freedom?  is that what the feminist movement earned for women?  in some ways yes.  we're now free to educate ourselves and earn for ourselves and become what we want to be.  we're free to make the attempt at having it all, while accepting the costs that come with it.  perhaps the answer is that we need to open to men what has been traditionally available to women: nurturing, educating, caring for children; maintaining and designing and operating a peaceful, productive living environment; being the primary caregiver rather than the primary breadwinner.  these things need to be options for men--real options that don't come with social condemnation attached.


perhaps most importantly we need a society in which individuals make choices for themselves about what works best for themselves in their own individual circumstances.  if we can reach a place where both women AND men AS INDIVIDUALS are free of gender constraints, i have no doubt that we can have it all and happiness, too.  because, as martin points out, "neither heterosexuality nor fatherhood is a prerequisite for wanting a more flexible, healthy workplace. anyone who hopes to be a balanced person with relationships and passions outside of work has a stake"--specifically a stake in policy issues that allow for balancing all of the demands of life, not just those of work.


in my mind this will take two radical (radical, as in 'of roots' implying a return to roots) changes (especially radical for mormons): 1. the breakdown of traditional male gender roles; and 2. seeing people as individuals first rather than members of a couple.  perhaps i'll leave you there, with the intention of following up on number two another time.  thoughts?

sir.

yesterday i buzzed my head again.  i was trying to wait until january so my sister could see my curls again when i go visit next month.  but i just couldn't handle the maintenance anymore.  and i didn't have the money for a real haircut.  so it was a set of clippers with a #2 comb, my friend C, her baby A on my lap, and her three-year-old E throwing a temper tantrum with periodic breaks for conversation.  she was a saint to take the time to do it for me.  and now i have my edgy, gender-bending cut back.  i wonder how long it will take for someone to call me sir...

fantasy.

let's talk weddings.  specifically let's talk wedding dresses.

i grew up fantasizing about wedding gowns.  my sister and i used to buy bridal magazines with some regularity.  we'd pour over them, dog-earing the dresses we liked, drooling over diamonds, dreaming of the day when we could deck ourselves out like the models in the magazines.  we weren't totally without a critical eye.  we frequently made fun of mermaid dresses and models who looked like they were sick to their stomachs.  but we generally bought into the bridal image: poufy, white, bead-bedecked froth accented with pearls and a diamond ring.

i went bridal gown shopping with my sister when she was engaged a little over ten years ago.  it was fun watching her try dresses on.  and i loved the dress she chose--simple a-line with a square neck and minimal pearl beading.  but even then i had started telling my mother that i didn't want a traditional wedding.  i had long since started making fun of the dresses i had fantasized about as a 13-year-old.  and when i saw first hand all of the planning that went into my sister's wedding--well, as much as i liked the finished product (and it was a lovely wedding), i started threatening to elope.

tonight as i was flipping channels, i ran across say yes to the dress on TLC.  and i got sucked in.  except what was once fantasy is now more like horror.  the fashionista in me still kind of enjoys seeing dresses.  i do watch the academy awards mostly for the pre-show red carpet, after all.  but so many wedding dresses are just style nightmares.  and the practical, feminist, non-traditionalist me with my taste for simplicity--well, i can't help but be horrified.  there's the prices--$5000 for a dress?  really?!  that's just nuts.  and that's the low end of the budget, if this particular show is to be believed.  and then there's the princess mentality.  heaven forbid the bride not have her perfect day.

i understand that weddings are a big deal in our culture.  i'm all for celebrating such an important occasion.  and i think people should celebrate in whatever way they feel is appropriate.  but i don't like traditional weddings.  i don't like the emphasis being on the party rather than on the commitment being made.  i don't like the tradition of the father giving the bride to her husband; it smacks of the past when women did not have a legal identity of their own.  i don't like the expense.  or the stress.  and i don't like tradition for the sake of tradition.

but you know what i like the least?  i really hate the way the fantasy dominated my youth.  to such an extent that the failure to accomplish the dream has created serious emotional and psychological blocks for me as an adult.  the assumption that i would grow up and marry was so deeply ingrained that i never doubted it as a child and young woman.  but i have not lived the fantasy.  and as it became more apparent that i would not have the fantasy, my self worth and confidence became proportionately less.  i hate that.  why should my sense of value be contingent on my being married?  to my having the fantasy? that's ridiculous.

so here's what i fantasize of now: i fantasize of a world in which everyone, female and male, is valued for her- and himself.  alone.  because they are unique and individual and have wonderful things to offer the world.  and if they are fortunate enough to find another individual whom they love, then we will celebrate that union.  because it is a beautiful thing for two people to love each other and commit for a lifetime.  but it is also a beautiful thing for one person to live a full, rewarding life.  and that should be celebrated, too.

equally.

i remember the day i proclaimed to my history class at BYU that i was a feminist.  i was 23 years old.  i had just done a group presentation about the women's rights movement.  i covered the question of abortion rights, since it would be incredibly ill-informed to explore the women's rights movement without talking about abortion rights and no one else was willing to do it.  i was alone in my proclamation.

the entire experience of that presentation was a little surreal.  it was a cold war history course.  one of the biggest assignments was to participate in a group presentation on the various civil rights movements of the 60s (and the moral majority movement of the 80s).  i naturally chose to cover the women's movement.  our presentation was to last 40 minutes.  we were supposed to make it multimedia, to dress our part, to decorate our classroom, etc.  so we did the following:

• a video-taped sketch of a woman experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace
• another video sketch of a protest for women's rights
• each of us painted protest signs covering our aspect of the movement
• in-depth research and oral presentation of our findings

we gathered on campus one saturday afternoon to film our sketches and make our decorations for our classroom.  doing my part, i painted a sign that read "it's my body! abortion on demand."  and then we proceeded to the cafeteria to stage our mock protest.  i innocently leaned my sign face out so i wouldn't get wet paint on the wall, not thinking at all about how people would react to seeing it.  we decided to move on to a quieter part of the student center so we wouldn't disturb the few people present.  we did so and began filming for our protest video, only to be interrupted by an irate woman who screamed at us about how she couldn't believe that we would do such a thing on BYU's campus, that she was going to send her children there and would not tolerate such sentiments which obviously went contrary to church teachings, that what we were doing was immoral and illegal and that she had called the police.  one of the members of my group quietly explained that we were simply doing a homework assignment, which sadly did little to placate this woman.  apparently she didn't fancy the idea of us even learning about protests for abortion rights any more than she fancied the idea of us actually protesting for them.  the police did come and we explained ourselves and then the police left.  the next week we were written up in the daily universe's infamous police beat.

after that experience, i realized i better really know my stuff about abortion before presenting the issue in class.  so i did my research--hours spent in the library and media center reading and watching documentaries.  i learned a lot doing my research; here's a sample of the more interesting points:

• prior to legalization, botched abortions accounted for thousands of deaths per annum, comprising close to 50% of the maternal mortality rate;
• abortion has a long history: the earliest recorded evidence of an abortion dated to something like 1500 b.c.e.
  
• it was only in the 1880s that the catholic church came down hard against all abortion (prior to that it was generally acceptable for a catholic woman to abort a fetus in the first trimester and later term abortions were not deemed as serious as murder)
• one of my roommate's mothers recalled one of her roommates being advised to attempt to induce a miscarriage by a doctor in the BYU health center

armed with this knowledge and other similar facts, i was fired up to make my case.  in class, i stood on the table, dressed like a hippy, with props at my feet--a bottle of bleach, a wire hanger, etc.--,which represented the methods of back-alley and self-induced abortions.  from that tabletop, i delivered a rally speech regarding the right to abortion, every bit as impassioned as the original protesters for the right.  you see, i had become so persuaded by the evidence i had gained that i had moved from being intellectually pro-choice to being adamantly pro-choice (a stance i maintain).

at the end of the hour, my group and i resumed our seats in the classroom and our professor took over.  he asked the class who among us would call ourselves feminists.  i was the only one to raise my hand.  i did so immediately, with no hesitation.  i remember being slightly shocked that i was the only one out of fifty students willing to claim "feminist" as a self-descriptor.

a few days later, another group presented on the moral majority.  their presentation naturally included a pro-life segment, since anti-abortion sentiment was a primary fueling force in the moral majority.  they ended their presentation by holding a press-conference where the rest of the class acted as the press.  armed with all of my stats about abortion and the horrible consequences of its illegality, i hammered the woman who had covered the pro-life movement.  relentlessly.  i called her out on her hypocrisy when it came to valuing the lives of unborn fetuses over the lives of very alive women, women who may have other children or family members dependent on them.  i threw statistics at her about the numbers of women who died annually, the lengthy history of abortion, and its dubious status as "murder."  i thoroughly enjoyed giving her hell.  and watching her squirm as she had no answers for my questions.  (i really shouldn't relish making other people squirm, but sometimes i do.)

it was an interesting class for many reasons, but i'll remember it for what i learned about the women's movement, abortion, and the culture of my church.  i was honestly surprised that not one other person in that room would identify as feminist.  i knew that feminism had something of a bad rap in the church, but i also felt very strongly that christ's gospel supported the objectives of feminism, as did many of the church's teachings.  it was hard for me to realize that i was so alone in my stance on women's issues in the church.

that realization remains a hard thing.  today i learned that BYU is closing its women's research institute at the end of the year.  and that makes me sad.  because it again underscores that my church and my culture do not value women's issues as fully as they claim to; that all of the rhetoric about women's equality and value is just that--rhetoric.  the realities don't really support the rhetoric.  mormon women remain second-class citizens and will for a long time, i'm afraid.

when the day comes that the majority of a history class at BYU identifies easily as feminist, or, even better, that the question doesn't even have to be asked because the affirmative answer is taken for granted--then i may believe that the church values women equally to men.  when we can talk openly of and pray to both of our heavenly parents--then i may believe that the church values women equally to men.  when my worthiness is not questioned because i believe in the radical equality of all of god's children--then i may believe that the church values women equally to men.  but right now i'm afraid i do not believe that the church values women equally to men.

if you'd like to voice your opinion about the closure of the women's research institute, there are some great suggestions at the exponent blog.

romance.

what i learned about romance from refrigerator poetry:

• nothing happens to or is done by me, as there are no first person pronouns
• in other words, everything romantic happens to someone else
• everything happens in the past tense; no present or future loving, apparently
• more happens to him or by his than to her or by hers (very little by hers, actually, since there is no 's' to make her into hers)
• for some reason saber-toothed tigers are romantic
• as are big dogs
• and pirate ships
• there are some truly disturbing images for female genitalia
• and hilarious ones for male genitalia
• most nouns are adjectively enhanced
• most adjectives come coupled
• he is much more active and aggressive than she
• i'm too embarrassed of the naughty bits to display them on the fridge where my innocent taiwanese roommate would see them; they live in a little plastic box on top of the fridge

and now i know everything i need to know about romance.  too bad it won't happen to me (see items one and two, above).

buzzed.

yesterday i was called 'sir' for the first time in a long time.  which is not at all surprising, since, at the moment, i look like this:  

a friend gave me a fresh buzz on tuesday.  buzzing my hair started as a form of silent protest, but continues beyond the election because i like it.  i like the $60/haircut it saves me (that's nearly $200 in savings in the last five months).  but mostly i like the way it feels and looks.

there's an honesty in buzzing my hair off.  on some level, i'm saying, 'what you see is what you get.  and you know what?  i like what you see; i'm not going to try to hide it.'  that's incredibly liberating for me.  after starting college, having perfect hair became, for me, a means of compensating for my face.  when i have hair of any length, i get a bit obsessive with making sure it looks just right.  and that it doesn't get mussed over the course of the day.  buzzing it off means i couldn't worry about my hair's perfection if i want to.

of course, i do wonder if buzzing my hair isn't just another way of making sure people don't notice my face.  i am noticed when i buzz my hair.  some of that notice makes me laugh.  like when i get called sir.  or when a sweet old lady in the temple asked me if i was glad my hair was growing back in; and then, when she noticed my confusion, added, "or is it just a cool, easy style for summer?'  i laugh about such notice.  i kind of enjoy messing with people's perceptions about gender.

but the notice i get isn't all comic.  both this week and the last time i buzzed it (about two months ago), i have noticed more men looking at me than usual (this could be a factor of my noticing their attention more; but j(wh) trained me to recognize flirtatious interest so i don't think it's that).  some of the looks are questioning.  buzzed-head-as-oddity.  but some of them are flirtatious--as if a woman with the confidence to buzz her hair is sexually intriguing.

i don't really know what to ultimately make of the increased notice--whether it's just curiosity or whether it's attraction; whether it's only focused on my (lack of) hair or focused on my face; whether it's really about depriving myself of a hiding place or making that hiding place even better.  what i do know is that i like the way i feel when i buzz my hair.  i think i'll keep doing it.  at least for now.

outrage.

if you know me, you may know that i have a little problem--a small addiction, you might even say. to outrage. and this week i seem to have found more than a handful of sources. so i thought i'd share them, just to get it off my chest.


the very thought of a mother taking her eight-year-old daughter for not only an eyebrow wax but also a bikini wax had the outrage mounting instantly. a bikini wax?!! what exactly was to be removed from the pubic area of an eight-year-old?! i wanted nothing more than to sit these women down and smack them, demanding that they wake up and let their poor daughters grow up seeing the beauty of their bodies as they are. and i realized again how very lucky i was in my parents' attitudes about beauty.

speaking of artificially achieving the ideal, i was horrified to discover that there's such a thing as a 'G-shot' to enhance the G-spot (if you're sensitive about treating genitalia casually, don't read that one). really!? i mean, i'm all for women enjoying sex. but the idea of trying to augment something like the G-spot strikes me as more about imposing ideals from outside than truly enjoying one's body.

and then there's this little gem from the london leader of the british national party (admittedly a far right, all white party which looks to me like it's racist, sexist, and extreme nationalist. but still):

Rape is simply sex (I am talking about 'husband-rape' here, for those who deliberately seek to misunderstand me). Women enjoy sex, so this type of 'rape' cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal. To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that force feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched.

another candidate for a sound smacking.


these were moments of outrage that, although genuine, were not very personal. i mean, i care deeply about each of those issues--the immense potential for psychological harm our society's beauty myths hold; women's sexuality not being an object to be manipulated, but rather being a source of natural pleasure; and rape being taken seriously, whether it's the kind of violent encounter we most often imagine or the much more common acquaintance rape this politician makes light of. but while i care deeply, this was the kind of almost-pleasurable outrage that comes with conviction of one's moral superiority. it's a distant kind of outrage.

my most recent moment of outrage was much more personal. this afternoon i logged into google reader (something you should all use if you read blogs as obsessively as i do), and found fmhLisa's post about being young and mormon and pregnant. and what i felt was less outrage and more sorrow. and i know that such stories should be taken with a grain of salt. but still it made my heart hurt that a girl could ever be so outcast at a moment when she needs to be loved. and that there could be policies in place (even the more benign one quoted from the church handbook in comment 22) that mandate this kind of treatment. i know the realities of the church are much more complex than could be captured in one anecdote or in quoting a policy. but i recognize the truth in the anecdote and the potential for serious harm in the policy and i want to weep.


but to end on a lighter note: i was taken in so completely by the IRS policy of sending some rebates in the form of goods instead of money to ensure people didn't 'waste' their rebate by paying bills instead of shopping, that my outrage didn't let me remember the date. until the host of marketplace reminded me. at which point i had to laugh at myself. a healthy reminder that my outrage is often fed by my own gullibility coupled with my obsession with pet issues (i hate that our government encourages spending rather than fiscal responsibility as a means to deal with our current economic problems).

update.

just read this, also on slate's the XX factor. it's a nice accompaniment to my post from last night. i'm all for recognizing the realities of sexism and naming them openly so we can try to change our society. but identifying sexism with such imaginative license? i couldn't agree more with melinda henneberger that it does far more harm than good--both by detracting from very real problems and by reinforcing stereotypes that lead moderates and conservatives to dismiss feminists as ridiculous.

identity.

i didn't follow last week's brouhaha over david shuster using the phrase "pimped out" to describe chelsea clinton calling superdelegates on behalf of her mother's campaign. i heard enough to know there was a brouhaha. and to know that hillary clinton threatened to not participate in the next debate NBC (shuster's network) sponsored and that the campaign called on NBC to fire shuster. but honestly, i think stories like this get overplayed.

i have encountered a bit of talk about it in the blogosphere. some people defending shuster. some praising clinton for her strong response. but what got me thinking about this long enough to actually care was a couple of posts at slate's blog, the XX factor. in his guest post at the blog, daniel gross briefly documents the clintons' long history of forgiving, including hillary clinton's forgiveness of her husband's philandering (for which i've heard other women criticize her). and then he asks why the clinton campaign would reject shuster's apology and suspension as sufficient recompense for his ill-advised choice of words on-air.

i found the post interesting, but i found gross's explanation (clinton is currently sliding; she's losing to obama; she's hurting financially) insufficient. the question itself was provocative. it seems to me that clinton has played the 'woman-as-victim' card on occasion and this seemed another such moment. stir the outrage. rile up the female vote. point to all the good ol' boys and how they couldn't possibly treat a woman fairly.

now i recognize that sexism remains a problem. and i see how sexism has colored responses to clinton's campaign. but i just don't believe that playing the victim is the best response. or even a productive response. i think strength and competence and intelligence and graciousness are much better responses. the moral high ground.

i think a couple of the XX factor's regular bloggers offer more interesting, if slightly tangential, answers to gross's question about the clinton campaign failing to "forgive" david shuster. clinton has siezed the opportunity for a little emotional blackmail--either of the female vote or of the sensitive aught guys (who are of course stereotypically liberal). and i really think there is an effort to "slap around" the female vote to make women feel like they must vote for clinton simply because she's female.

of course clinton's campaign has not wholly been a manipulative emotional appeal to women (and sensitive aught guys). no one could win with such a campaign. and i appreciate the good things about clinton. but i get frustrated by the attitudes i've seen about the "historic" competition between the first woman candidate and the first black candidate for president. yes. it's historic. i think it's fantastic. but beyond that it means very little when it comes time to walk into a polling booth. because identity politics should have little--if anything--to do with voting. to say that i should vote for clinton because the two of us both have vaginas is as sexist and backwards as saying men should vote for obama because they all have testicles.

woman.
being a byu alum, i get the byu magazine every so often. sometimes i pick it up and peruse it. occasionally i read an article or two. usually it just sits in my pile of mail until it gets thrown away. tonight i started sorting through my pile of mail (i always have a pile of mail; i hate mail; i wish people would just not send me stuff; unless they're people i know and love; then they can send me stuff) and ran across the byu magazine. and when i read the cover blurb 'jane clayson lands her dream job: mother,' some sick masochistic part of me turned to page 22 to read the article.

it's all about jane clayson who becomes jane johnson. perhaps that's reductive, but the article's attempt to represent rhetorically the shift from single to married by referring to the single jane as clayson and the married jane as johnson does call attention to that shift. it was a bizarre editorial decision--one that caused more confusion than anything. and it made the difference between unmarried and married sound almost jekyll-and-hyde.

anyway. back to the regularly scheduled programming. here's the reader's digest version: jane goes to byu expecting to graduate and get married. jane graduates but doesn't get married. jane becomes award-winning, nationally known television journalist. jane realizes that 'real life' has begun, even though she's not married. jane gets married. jane quits working. jane has babies. jane has epiphany: 'mothers matter.' (yes, that's the epiphany: 'mothers matter.')

it's a lovely story. really. i'm happy that this talented woman had the opportunity not only to find such professional success but also to fall in love and marry and have children.

but dammit. don't tell me i'm a mother simply by virtue of the fact that i have breasts, a vagina, a uterus, and ovaries. i am a woman. i am not a mother. and i don't care how much mental gymnastics you do, you're not going to convince me otherwise. but clayson (or should it be johnson?) tries: 'i want every woman to feel in her soul that among the many important things that women do, mothering is the most important thing, whether a woman biologically bears a child or not.'

i appreciate the sentiment. i feel all warm and fuzzy that jane (and sherri dew and numerous others like them) recognizes that the church's emphasis on motherhood for women leaves single and childless women feeling inadequate on some level. but has it ever occurred to them that perhaps the answer is to authenticate other life paths for women? to acknowledge that women have incredible contributions to make outside of motherhood?

i am a nurturer. i love children. i'm patient and kind and loving towards all of my nieces and nephews. i adore them. but i spend very little time with them. and while i know for a fact that they love me and that i have helped shape their characters in some ways, i also know that i'm not much of a presence in their lives. am i to understand that mothering is the most important work i do, when easily 90% of my time is spent completely apart from children? what does that mean about the rest of my time? is it really all that much to ask that the value of my work and life be acknowledged without trying to shove it through a mother-shaped hole?

please, jane clayson johnson (and anyone else who's made the error of trying to convince themselves and others that every woman is a mother)--please have enough decency to honor all the work women do, not just the work they do as mothers. don't tell me i am a mother in some misguided effort to make me feel better about the fact that i'm unmarried and childless. instead, look me in the eye and see me for who and what i am: a woman of god who is using the gifts she's been given to make as much beauty and goodness as she can.

enough.
about six years ago, i spent an evening sitting outside a friend's room on UVA's campus, talking with him as the sun went down. we'd taken a study break, ostensibly to watch the sunset, but our break lasted long after dark as we talked. for some reason our conversation wandered onto the topic of girls and beauty and before i knew it i was crying. because of the painful knowledge i had as a girl of 8 and 10 and 16 and every age in between that i was ugly. skinny yes. but ugly. because even six years ago, at the age of 25, i still only felt beautiful in flashes. but mostly i was crying because of my beautiful nieces and knowing that they, too, would experience that pain. being told in every way imaginable that they were not beautiful enough. that if only they could poke and prod and cut and snip and paint and dye and conceal and smooth and style enough, maybe--just maybe--they would be beautiful enough to be loved. it starts when they're so young. and it never stops.

i've blogged before about my perception of my own beauty. i am mostly comfortable with my appearance. i don't spend a lot of time trying to conform to preconceived ideas of what it means to be beautiful. but the pain of not being beautiful enough still lurks. mostly it has to do with the fact that i don't date. i can't help but think, in some of the dark moments when i wonder what's wrong with me, that if only i were beautiful--more fit, more striking, more sexy--then maybe men would be interested. i don't know why this thought process happens. maybe i really haven't accepted my body the way it is. maybe that awkward, gangly eight-year-old is still trapped inside me, looking in a mirror trying to figure out how to smile with a mouth that's just too big. or maybe it's easier to believe it's my body, and not my mind and my soul, that is unattractive. maybe wishing i was beautiful enough to attract some interest is just a defense mechanism meant to stave off the infinitely darker pain of wondering what's wrong with my self, rather than merely what's wrong with my body.

my tears six years ago ended happily, with my friend taking my hand and telling me how beautiful he thought i was. an articulation of an attraction that we had both felt since the day we met and which had been growing for months. a beginning of a relationship that left me happier than any other i've ever had. but i wish the cause of those tears didn't exist. i wish somehow we could let our girls simply be without cramming a beauty myth down their throats at every turn. so take a moment and watch a bit of what i'm talking about.



and yes. i realize the irony of that being a product of the very beauty industry it critiques. but honestly i'm desperate enough for something to change that i'll accept any consciousness-raising tool no matter where it comes from. even if it comes in the shape of advertising...

alarming indeed.
alarming--that's how ruth bader ginsburg described the supreme court's decision to uphold the 2003 ban of D&X (dilation and extraction) abortion procedures, more commonly known as partial-birth abortion. and i have to agree with her.

now, please do not misunderstand me here. i do not think i would personally choose an abortion in any circumstance except pregnancy resulting from rape. and even then i'm not confident as to what my decision would be. and i find the D&X procedure troubling in many ways. what i object to is not the effort to regulate abortion or this particular procedure. i object to regulating it without leaving any room at all for an exception. i am not a medical doctor, so i cannot make medical arguments as to whether or not such a procedure is a necessary option in order to preserve the life or health of a pregnant woman. but my understanding of both justice and equity demands that there always be room for an exception to be made in exceptional circumstances. and this law denies the option of exceptionality, and therefore equity. to that extent i find it deeply troubling that the highest court in our nation would place justice above equity, implying that an unborn child's life is always worth more than that of its mother.

ideal/idol.
as a teenager, i decided that when i grew up i wanted to be the mother of a large family. i planned the rest of my education based on that decision. i had my life mapped out. after high school, i would attend brigham young university where i would certainly find and marry my future husband. i would begin a major in secondary education, which would enable me to work in a profession compatible with mothering children--but only if life circumstances forced me to work. and i was prepared to drop out of college so my future husband could pursue his career plans as necessary. i would not put off having children for pecuniary reasons. i would be a wonderful wife and mother.

my plans didn't work out exactly as i envisioned them. right in the middle of my undergraduate education, the spirit prompted me that i should more seriously pursue my education--including a graduate education--in order to allow me to teach. i knew teaching was a gift from god and that were i not to teach, i would be failing him. i'm 31 now. i'm unmarried and have no children. i finished my undergraduate degree. and i continued to earn a master's degree. i am currently working on a PhD. i still want to marry and have children--more than i want anything else. i will not give up on that vision for myself. but my life is very different from what i envisioned it would be.

in the april 2007 ensign, shauna bird dunn shares her own teenage vision of her future life and how that life radically changed. after having spent years planning a high-power corporate career, she felt prompted to turn down a dream job in favor of a job that would allow her to have children. ultimately she left work altogether to become a stay-home mom. i respect dunn for her decisions. they were clearly very difficult decisions to make. and she made them in keeping with personal revelation about god's plan for her.

that said, i was troubled by her article. dunn creates a fairly stark opposition between the life she envisioned as the "leader of a large corporation" and her actual life as a stay-home mom. she writes: "i have stayed up many nights to comfort a sick or frightened child instead of staying up preparing a presentation for the board of directors; worn clothes covered in peanut butter smears instead of power suits; cleaned my home each day instead of enjoyed a penthouse view from my office; bandaged 'owies' and encouraged piano practice instead of handing out performance reviews; and enjoyed hugs and kisses instead of stock options as my compensation plan." dunn also describes her dreams of working as a high-powered corporate leader in terms of "wearing power suits to my penthouse office, dazzling my co-workers and employees with my expertise, and cashing paychecks that truly reflected my value."

the message is clear: being a stay-home mom is rewarding in very real, deeply human ways. it is full of love and compassion and kindness. it is selfless. pursuing the high power career with its "unbelievable benefits" is actually about shallow considerations like clothing, how high up the building one's office is situated, wowing other people, and making lots and lots of money; it is not about true fulfillment, passion, or serving others.

part of the problem here is that dunn is clearly discussing labor in a very capitalist system, a system in which money and power are the measure of all that is worthy. and she compares it to labor (the labor of mothering full time) that is not recognized in terms of money or power within our capitalist society. she is participating in a conception of 'work' that fails to recognize that leading which is done for money should be similar in kind to leading that is done for christ. in other words, leaders in the workplace should be servant leaders every bit as much as leaders in the church or the family. but i digress; servant-leaders in the workplace is a topic for a different post.

the thing that really bothers me about dunn's article is that she portrays women who want to work as supremely shallow. they are motivated by money. or by clothes. or by power. or by prestige. they are not motivated by passion. they are not trying to use god-given abilities and talents--talents that they will lose if they do not use them. they are the demonized other to the stay-home mother.

i want to give a voice to those women who pursue a career not because they want money or prestige or to be one of the boys; but because they are driven to do a certain work. because they know that if they do not do that work, they will fail god. because that work will allow them to be co-creators with god. i want to work not because i'll see my name in lights or have multiple publications or be able to append three degrees to my name when i sign letters; i want to work because i think teaching will let me do god's work in ways that nothing else will allow, not even motherhood. i want to work because teaching will give voice to passions and ideas that, if they remain bottled up inside me, will otherwise explode.

and i want to be a wife and a mother. the difference between dunn and i was she actually had a choice about following her teenage vision of a life. i have not had that choice. my opening paragraphs are not simply a subtle parody of dunn's opening paragraphs; they are an accurate statement of my dream for myself when i was a teenager. my life has unfolded in such a way that i have never had the opportunity to make the choices that would allow me to marry and have children. instead, i have had to grapple with the darkness of not being able to make that choice. but, like dunn, i have learned that "i am happiest when i follow the lord's plan for my life rather than my own personal plans."

dunn's article illustrates the great faith it takes some women to give up work and instead become a stay-home mother. i honor that faith. but this decision is idealized to such an extent that it is often idolized in the church. my decision, which mirrors in inverse dunn's decision, also required a great deal of faith. the decision to continue pursuing the work and education the spirit prompted me to pursue was a decision premised on faith--faith that doing so would not foreclose the opportunity to marry and bear children; faith that i have the capacity to do the work i feel prompted to do (believing this is an ongoing battle for me); faith that i can navigate the sometimes troubled waters of being a mormon, a feminist, and an intellectual. accepting the fact that my righteous desire for marriage and family may never be fulfilled, and finding the strength to build a life for myself alone, has required more faith than i realized i had.

dunn's almost-glib dismissal of women who work in favor of women who mother conceals the passion and spiritual commitments that inform some women's commitment to work. and the idealization/idolization of stay-home motherhood her article represents ignores the reality of so many women in the church--those who are single, whether with or without children; those who must work for financial reaons; those who cannot have children; and many others. it is time to celebrate motherhood and marriage without doing so at the expense of real women whose lives do not, and often cannot, conform to an ideal/idol.

{this was cross-posted on Exponent II.}

beauty.
a reflection on female beauty. in two parts.

being beautiful. growing up i thought i was ugly. i was very thin, with knobby knees and generally funny looking legs. my lips were very full and i hated my smile. my hair was first straight as a stick and blah in color and then, after puberty, thick and so wavy i didn't have any idea how to manage it. my face was long and seemed totally uninteresting. my only good point was that i was naturally thin, though that had the downside of meaning i was also naturally without much in the way of curves.

when i was 17, my conviction of my own ugliness cracked for the first time. i broke my arm, and in the emergency room they taped a fashion magazine around my arm as a splint. when the doctor cut it off, he told me i was lucky--the models like the one on the cover of that magazine usually had to inject their lips with collagen, but my lips were naturally full the way they wanted theirs to be. that doctor was simply trying to distract me from the pain of a broken bone. but his casual comment shed a whole new light on my own perception of myself. it had never occurred to me that one of my most hated features could actually be considered beautiful.

in spite of that momentary flash of insight, i was 22 or 23 before i ever thought of myself as attractive. and it took a couple more years to believe i was beautiful, and that only happened in moments. and it only happened after cutting all of my hair off, rejecting many beauty conventions (including wearing make up daily), and refusing to dress myself according to trends unless i liked them for themselves and unless i liked them on myself. i'm very comfortable with my appearance now. physically, i think that i am generally a plain woman who is sometimes pretty and occasionally beautiful. i know how to dress myself. i know how to use make up and i wear it when i feel like it. i love the silver that has been showing up in my dark brown hair for a long time now. most importantly, i've learned that my beauty comes from my mind and my soul and my laughter.

in large part, i have my mother to thank for both my childhood/teenage opinion of my own beauty (this is not a criticism of my mother) and for my current acceptance of my own body and beauty. my mother never stressed being "in style," though she likes pretty clothes and bought us pretty clothes. she was not tapped into trends and didn't shop for particular brands or in certain stores in order to ensure that we were dressed stylishly. she didn't interfere in our own particular tastes. and she herself aged with grace and beauty. i also have my father to thank, because he always made it abundantly clear that he found my mother beautiful and sexy--not in spite of, but because of her gorgeous grey hair and her curvy body which bore seven children. my parents' honesty about physical beauty and their lack of concern for the beauty myths promoted in our society made my own open attitude about beauty--both my own and others'--possible.

selling beauty. this morning, 'day to day' aired a story about dove's new 'pro-age' ad campaign. photos taken by annie liebowitz of women over 50 posing nude. no air-brushing. with the tagline "beauty has no age limit." the ads use a variety of women--mostly white, but a couple of african-americans and at least one who looks mediterranean. and all of them beautiful, though not all of them beautiful in necessarily conventional ways. some are immaculately toned and fit. others are not. all of them show the marks of age in one form or another--grey hair, wrinkles, age spots. and they are not professional models.

part of me is bothered by this. advertising and marketing can get under my skin. i recognize that the majority of the women in this campaign are toned in a way that the majority of american women are not, whether they are over 50 or not. and a photographer of annie liebowitz's caliber can capture beauty in a subject that many people would have a hard time seeing in the live subject. dove is still selling a myth of beauty in some ways. and that is deeply troubling.

but another part of me loves this campaign. i think it's wonderful that dove is not touching up the photos. and it's so very vital to send the message that age is not the enemy of beauty. that beauty is not about matching some platonic ideal of the female form and face. that one needn't tuck and lift and snip and squeeze in order to be beautiful. and the fact of the matter is that in american society, beauty is bought and sold. not just the products that we use to make ourselves beautiful, but the idea of beauty. more than anything else, it is magazines and television and films that provide us with our ideas of beauty. if dove can sell an idea of beauty that is more realistic than the idea sold on the runways of new york, london, and milan; if they can create an ideal that embraces age and experience rather than pre-pubescent blankness; if they can show a beauty that is real rather than imagined, i'm all for it.

one.
in two parts.

and you're single because...
that's a statement, not just a question. and i hate it when people tell me why i'm single--almost as much as i hate it when they ask me why i'm single. i hate it every bit as much when i have to listen to someone tell men why they are single.

last sunday, a very well-intentioned member of my ward stood to share his testimony. and as part of that testimony he recounted his own experience as a single man. looking back, he apparently believes he remained single as long as he did because he loved his fast car. and after explaining that, he advised all the single men in our ward (which is a stake magnet ward for mid-singles [ages 31-45]) to stop spending all of their time and energy on acquiring and enjoying toys and to just get to it and get married. i hate hearing this. no matter who says it and no matter what position he (it's almost always a he; a he in a priesthood position usually, though not always) may hold. i think it is a gross misrepresentation of why mormon men remain single. i find it callous and uncompassionate. i think it rests on sexist assumptions about both men and women: that men do not have a deep need for emotional support and love, unlike women who live for such things and who are not driven by physical appetites; that they are motivated by physical drives and pleasure, not the higher emotions women feel; that they, not women, are responsible for getting themselves and the women of the church married; that they are lazy freeloaders who will take whatever you give them (whether we're talking food or sex) and never make a commitment unless forced to by depriving them of that for which they have an uncontrollable need. i could go on.

i will not assert that there are no men who are simply too comfortable in their single lives to make relationship commitments or who are more concerned with acquiring things than with building love and family. i'm sure they exist. but i emphatically reject the notion that this group of the male population is anything like a majority. i know quite a few men who either were or still are "older" (in mormon parlance, though that is not always very old in non-mormon terms) and single. and their still being single has nothing to do with their obsession with acquiring and enjoying toys, an innate tendency to freeload, or an unwillingness to commit. generally it has much more to do with the fact that they simply have not yet found a woman they can marry. and i should say that i reject every bit as firmly the argument that if someone would just try, they'd find someone to marry. i suppose that is true if the only objective is to participate in the sealing ordinance. it is not true if by "marry" you mean build a deeply intimate, loving, beautiful relationship with someone who is/can become your soul mate.

{i should thank my bishopric for immediately countering this man's problematic, albeit well-intentioned, comments about single men.}

but touching is like watered down sex...
last wednesday as i was stewing over how to build a bridge between two sections of my paper, i took a quick break from thinking wilkie collins and the moonstone and community, and instead read a couple of blogs. deborah, over at exponent II, sent me on to a beautiful and poignant conversation happening at segullah about being single and not being touched. i read the entry with its subsequent questions and the first two comments before i realized that if i kept going i would start crying and not be able to refocus on my paper. and i had to focus on my paper that day. which i did. i finished it and submitted it and it made me happy to do so. but that post has been hovering in my mind ever since.

not being touched is one of the things i hate the most about being single. this is obviously in some ways about sex. some people have the ridiculous and, in my opinion, incorrect idea that women have little if any need for sex. or if they do, it's just not comparable to a man's. well, i'm not a man so i can't say whether my needs are comparable to men's. but i can say that it's just not true to assert that women have no need for sex. i understand the law of chastity. and i think celibacy outside marriage is a good thing. but i don't think the absence of all sexual touch is a good thing.

but it would be a mistake to believe the longing for touch is entirely sexual. it's not. as the post at segullah and the responses to it illustrate so profoundly, it's also about being human. human beings are social creatures. and they are, in my experience, creatures that express their care and concern for each other physically. at this point in my life, the only person who touches me with any regularity is my mother. but i sometimes go days without seeing my mother in the evening, which is when she usually hugs and kisses me as she says goodnight.

i'm not sure why it is that i have so little touch in my life right now. i'm used to having physical contact with my friends and family. when my brother jared and i were in high school, we'd often lay on his bed and listen to music and talk. and we had this almost ritualized bedtime routine that always included a hug and saying 'i love you.' while i was at byu, i lived with my best friends. a few times a week, late at night randi would climb onto my upper bunk and we'd start talking and laughing. and after not too many minutes had gone by, marguerite would come in (it became something of a joke for her to kick the door open) and join us. three of us curled up on my little twin bed talking and laughing and simply being together. i miss that closeness. i've almost always had friends--both male and female--that i hugged goodbye after spending time together. i have little of any of that now.

i have to take the blame for some of it. i have isolated myself emotionally for much of the last three years. it's been a hard time. and i'm sure that my self-imposed isolation has led to the absence of physical contact between me and my friends here (who are wonderful). but i think part of this has to do with this idea that touch is about sex--especially touch between members of the opposite sex. and i hate that--the categorical assumption that all male-female contact (and for some people, all male-female relationships) is by definition sexual. being alone together, touching each other is not the catalyst to some sexual conflagration. it's just two people being people. i'm not trying to argue that there is no possibility of sexual interest or reactions--reactions that are sometimes not meant to be acted upon; i'm simply arguing that it's not exclusively sexual. it's also human. and very, very necessary.


{i want to say, for the record, that at this moment i am very happy. and i feel more peace with where i am in all aspects of my life than i have for a long time. this has not always been--and probably will not always be--the case. but i'm glad for the peace i have right now.}

suffrage.
i finally watched iron jawed angels this weekend. i'd seen bits of it with caroline, but had never watched it all the way through. it tells the story of alice paul and lucy burns, who sought and were given control over the national american women's suffrage association's congressional committee and their later break with NAWSA and formation of the national women's party. it depicts paul and burns's efforts to push for an amendment to the consitution granting women the right to vote, including their picketing of the white house, demonstrations and parades, and their unjust imprisonment and the resulting hunger strike.

i was frustrated with the opening 45 minutes or so of the film. it felt too caught up in its snazzy soundtrack and its quirky camera work, both of which i felt detracted from the power and importance of the story the film was telling. and i have little patience for things like gratuitous lesbian kissing and masturbating scenes that do little if anything to develop character or story.

but. it is good. and worth watching, in spite of the weakness of the opening half. it brought to life the extremes to which these women were willing to go in order to make their voice heard. and it beautifully demonstrated the hypocrisy of the men who were willing to sacrifice human life in the name of preserving democracy even as they flatly refused to change laws in order to extend the rights and privileges of democracy to half of the american population. watch it. this history needs to be remembered and understood. and the film does present a succinct representation of that history.

perhaps the greatest praise i can give it is that it moved me to resolve to do better. to make use of the opportunities and rights that women who lived before me did not have. and to resist the myriad ways in which my own society confines, limits, and stymies women. i have watched commentary on hillary rodham clinton's upcoming (current?) presidential campaign with a mixture of interest and distaste. not because of any dislike for her on my part, though i think it would be a horrible mistake for the DNC to nominate her. nor because i have even one little tiny reservation about a woman's ability to fulfill the office of president, with all of its responsibilities. rather because of the kinds of criticisms i have seen of her. not so much by professional commentators; more from average, generally mormon, americans. she is criticized for wearing the pants in the family. for not leaving her husband when he cheated on her. i have heard her simultaneously criticized for betraying her sex by using domestic settings and for being a cold, unfeeling, unnatural woman--both criticisms coming in response to the same clinton statement, from the same person, practically in the same breath. when she makes a statement that, were it to come from a male politician would be lauded for its restraint, she is accused of being catty (the statement in question was "after six years of having bush in the white house"). but if she were to not level any criticism at all, she would be called weak. which is another critique i have heard--that she's too soft to handle the difficult foreign policy issues facing our nation. this in spite of her support of military action in afghanistan and her initial support for the invasion of iraq, two foreign policy actions supported by those who typically oppose her. and in spite of the fact that president bush, who most of her critics seem to support, appointed a woman to be secretary of state.

the long and the short of it is that this presidential campaign will throw into stark relief the ways in which women are held to standards radically different from those of men. that opinions of women are governed in large part by continuing stereotypes about which social realms they have the ability and right to influence. if anything can demonstrate the hypocrisy of our society's views on women, it will be a woman running for president. in my opinion the battle fought by women like alice paul will not be fully won until women can not only elect their representatives, but be their own representatives at every level of government.

wo·man.
this morning i took my brother to the doctor. we left home about five minutes after we were supposed to and right in the middle of rush hour. i got on the freeway and worked my way into the carpool lane. once i was there, josh looked at me and said "i don't know any other girl who could do that"--a compliment of my ability to assertively merge, accelerate, and change lanes all at once with no hesitancy or passivity. i just laughed and reminded him that i am our father's daughter (our mother's too, as she's no pansy when it comes to driving--they didn't call her parnelli pat for nothing; but it's our dad who's driven a sports car for thirty years and has drag raced everything from said sports cars to the family passenger van).

the interchange was particularly funny in light of the fact that last night i took this brain sex test. the test struck me as a bit hokey here and there, but it was still entertaining. and it told me that i was exactly in the middle--leaning neither towards a female nor a male brain. maybe that's why i can make my way into the carpool lane so beautifully.

rich.
and crass. that was the message delivered by the hummer i saw parked on harbor today. a hummer complete with custom paint job in a swirl of grays and blacks with highly stylized and completely nude women surrounded by brilliant bursts of color scattered over the whole of it. topped off with a light bar of flashing yellow lights. i couldn't decide whether i should be offended or relieved to see such honest pairing of destructive wealth and destructive attitudes. at least the offensiveness wasn't buried behind a facade of genitility.