White privilege weightlifting

Grunting children are pretty funny.  I've taken my boys, age 2 and 7, down to the weight room.  Not as spotters, but just to keep an eye on them while I pound out the day’s stress on some cast iron.  It’s good for them to see a mother lifting weights instead of kitchen pans.

 

They fight over who can use the 5 lbs and who can manage the 10s.  They boast.  They strut.  They drop barbells on their toes and wince and whimper and then pretend it never happened.  Not so different from the grown-ups at the gym: preening in mirrors, absorbed with counting reps, taking themselves very seriously.

They gather around me and marvel at my strength as I bench the equivalent of their bodies.  They smooch my lips and giggle every time I come down from a sit-up.  They play between my legs as I squat and lunge.  Weight-lifting with small children is not for the impatient.  The reward?  I feel like Nike, triumphant and fertile.   The Greek goddess, not the shoe brand. 

Once we land in the kitchen for some ice-water and snacks, my eldest starts complaining that all the other boys in his class have bigger muscles than him.  He vows to catch up.  His classmate, whom I’ll call Jamie, has the biggest, he proclaims.  Jamie, it turns out, can lift “30 times” what he can.  Teasingly, I remark,

“Wow.  Jamie sounds like a superhero.  Are you sure he’s not a superhero?”

My son stares at me incredulously.

“Mum, Jamie can’t be a superhero.  He’s brown.  There’s no brown superheroes.”

Now it’s my turn to stare, shocked.  The ice cracks in my glass.  My son tries to fill in the silence by explaining his seven-year-old interpretation of the world the best he can.

“Mum, you know Jamie.  Jamie’s skin is dark.  You know, his skin is sort of that brown color.  Superheroes don’t look like that.  Batman, Robin, Spiderman, that badguy girl that’s like a cat, Superman, Ironman, they look like us.”

He starts rattling off all the superheroes he can think of.  I’m still in shock.  We don’t really watch superhero movies or play superhero video games at home, so he’s passively absorbed this from school, posters, TV commercials, wherever his little eyes and ears might have been when I wasn’t there to point out the gender biases or racial inequalities, or worse, when I wasn't even paying attention to them.  My librarian brain is on fire trying to name a black or Latino superhero he would recognize and I’m drawing a blank.  I’m ashamed to admit in that moment I can’t think of a single one.  I know they exist, but none of them have the staying power of Batman or Wonder Woman in the flawed storeroom of my mind.

How do I make good on this example of passive racism to my young children without diving into the entire sordid history of our prejudicial Hollywood and comic book culture; without making excuses for white dudes who draw comic heroes that they wish they could look like and comic heroines they wish they could bed?  There is no way I can comfortably explain black exploitation to a child his age.  But this isn't about my comfort.  How do I tell my innocent kids that the world isn’t fair and that even though Jamie has the best muscles in the class the media doesn’t celebrate his likeness?  There may be the occasional minority superhero character that pops up here and there, but they are rarely the star, the hero, the guy all the other little boys want to be when they grow up.  I realize for the first time how hard it must be to be Jamie in a classroom full of white kids.  In a world full of white superheroes.  

The whole episode makes me profoundly sad.  I vow to search out minority superheroes portrayed in a flattering light.  It sounds as daunting as finding well-rounded female supers that aren’t reduced to eye-candy or damsels in distress.  My first stop is to remind him of Frozone in the Incredibles, a movie he loves. 

What are your suggestions of comics and movies with minority heroes for an elementary audience?  What can we do to change this, so Jamie can see himself in the heroes our culture puts on its screens?

The Bridal Shower

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

― Jiddu Krishnamurti

It starts with obvious whispers behind manicured nails.  The giggles and lips pressed together to muffle repressed hostility.  Furtive glances at thigh jiggles, spider veins, plunging necklines, contracted abdomens, shallow breaths, too much blush.  Female vanity, built on the shaky foundation of socialized insecurity is nowhere more rampant than at the bridal shower.  Who has been chosen, who hasn’t.  Comparisons of diamond cuts and weights.  Talk of upgrades and settings.  Who has gained weight, lost it, gone off the gluten, gotten a boob job, who is too old for those booty shorts, who has worn the wrong shoes with that outfit.  There are no discussions of politics, world events, art, literature.  I have one solitary conversation about planting asparagus with an aging lesbian.  I suggest someone start a craft-based home business.  There are a few polite inquiries about jobs, but no one cares.  Everyone eats too much cake.  Almost everyone expresses their guilt about it.

I know we are more than this.

We are thankfully past the era where the cruel fate of being born with ovaries sacrifices your mind and talents to a lifetime of manipulating your aging body and neglecting your soul in an attempt to catch or keep a man who can protect you, feed you, shelter you, clothe you, and on a rare occasion, even love you.  Theoretically we can care for ourselves.  Right?

So what is this ambition, this game of superiority where women, like hens in a pecking order, rank themselves (and each other) according to height, facial symmetry, hair length and texture, tooth whiteness and straightness, breast perkiness, dress size, skin smoothness, ability to walk in heels without looking like a teetering giraffe on methamphetamines?

What does this superficial brutality matter compared to our warmth, our friendship, our intelligence, our empathy, our creativity?  Why does my self-esteem soar when I realize I’m the thinnest woman in the group and they all make a fuss about it?  Why does it plummet when I stand naked in the mirror and stare incredulously at my chest, home of two sad, shriveled, deflated-looking balloons, once the source of rapture for men, babies, and myself, and now a source of shame and concealment.  Surely these are first world problems.  Surely if I was scrambling to find food for my family, my lack of skin elasticity would be a non-issue.  Instead of abundance making me peaceful, generous and content, it has left me greedy, insecure, and dissatisfied.  I can’t be the only one.  Perhaps we were rightfully rejected from the metaphorical Garden.  I suspect God knew hardship and lack make us kinder.  Less entitled to Eden.  Less unwilling to share or let anyone else in the gates. 

In an era where I can buy myself beautiful, what is the value of it?  Once having a post-pregnancy boob lift (or let’s face it, a sweet sixteen set of knockers from daddy), becomes “normal body maintenance”, along with the full-body hair removal, hair color, mani/pedis, teeth-whitening and straightening, laser skin imperfection treatment, daily workouts, and severe calorie restricting, where do we go from here?  As Mindy Kaling said, “It takes a lot of work to look like a normal/chubby woman.”  How much time and energy are we, as a gender (because I can’t speak for the others) willing to invest?  How far do you want to go in the “one-upmanship” game?  Men seem to need to constantly upgrade their stereos and TVs and cars, women need to upgrade their bodies.  Why is our source of life also such a huge source of our pain?  No TV has ever cost a man a dance with a surgeon’s knife and $10,000.  Is this because our bodies, while life giving, are also unending sources of conflicting emotion and sensations.  Giving birth is humbling, empowering, rewarding, and excruciating.  Menstruating, like our sexuality, is both a source of pride and shame (and sometimes relief!).  There have been many great books written on these subjects (I’m looking forward to reading Naomi Wolf’s Vagina next), but no one at a bridal shower (or lunch date or shopping trip) is talking about them.  Instead they are talking about Vanity Fair.  I’m not going to pretend these are easy questions to ask ourselves, but that’s why they are so important.

No amount of beauty will save you from heartbreak.  You only have to glance at the tabloids to confirm that riches and double DDs won’t stop a divorce in its tracks.  To borrow from Cheryl Strayed, love is not a competitive sport.  But I often suspect, that even if men were removed from the conversation, the competition for attention and status would remain.  When our very sense of self-worth, our right to exist as people, is based upon a variable (our outward appearance) that is subjective at best, and doomed towards complete annihilation at worst (the reality TV show we don’t want to watch – There are no Survivors), there can never be contentment.  There is no winning in the war against time and gravity.  So judging how other people are playing the game when no one wants to admit the outcome is irrelevant seems, frankly, delusional.  Then again, delusions are often a coping mechanism for distracting ourselves from a painful reality we don’t want to see.  A closet full of perfect outfits and a facelift won’t save you at the emergency room.

I’m not suggesting we stop throwing parties or celebrating life events.  I’m not going to be able to change thousands of years of female socialization.  I like buying shoes.  I want to fit in with my peers.  I’m not about to ruin someone’s wedding shower by standing on the couch and yelling, “What does it all matter anyway, we’re all gonna die and he’s probably going to cheat on you by Christmas!”

I just think it is important to stop and question what it is we are doing.  To be mindful of how profoundly fucked up we are.  That is the crack in the wall.  The tiny, almost imperceptible fissure that will let in just enough light for something new to grow.  And maybe, just maybe, that tiny bit of room is enough for me, or any of my beautiful, talented female comrades, to let ourselves be more than what we’ve become.  And to not be afraid to talk about it.  To brag about our professional achievements instead of openly criticizing our lack of willpower towards limiting bread consumption.  To celebrate one another’s emotional strengths instead of rolling our eyes at skirt length.  We are all, every single one of us, guilty of it.  We blame men and the patriarchy for treating us like objects (and they do, and that is a rant-filled discussion for another day), but I've never met any woman who doesn't fiercely objectify her own body, and those of everyone around her, right down to the littlest stretch mark.  I have never spent more than a few hours with a woman before the subject of her weight comes up.  Often it is in the first ten minutes.  I know more about most of my friends’ and family’s body hang-ups than I do about their career aspirations or political leanings.  I have no idea how my best friend votes but I know she waxes her toe hair and upper lip.

I can’t control what anyone else does.  But I want to stop talking about my body (including that horrid internal monologue) and all the things it can’t do, or isn’t going to be, and instead celebrate all the things it can do and its triumphs.  I birthed two healthy boys vaginally.  I breast-fed both of them, despite complications.  I’ve survived trauma and ill health.  I can run and swim and jump (even if I pee myself a little) and teach yoga and give a really really good head rub.  I want to live happily IN my body instead of criticizing it as an outside observer with an agenda.  My body isn’t a project.  I’m not a project manager.  It isn’t a building I live inside and I’m not its architect.  It’s a home.  I want it to feel safe.

How to Be a Woman

Any writer, male or female, that can spend an entire chapter riffing on pubic hair so hard I nearly pee my panties and then turn around and deconstruct the entire recorded history of women into the depressing thimble of: we've-been-too-busy-and-tired-giving-birth-and-cleaning-up-after-you-twats-to-do-anything-important has my attention.  This lady is smart.  Smart and brash and awkward and so spot-on sometimes you'll want to argue with her but then you realize she's right.  The thing is, feminism has become a dirty word.  And not in a good way, like saying something naughty under your breath makes you feel powerful behind the back of an overbearing boss.  Feminism has become embarrassing, for everyone.  Conjure up the image of a feminist in your mind and I bet you picture a short-haired, ugly, makeup-less middle-aged woman screaming bitter tirades about absolutely NOTHING.  You just want to give her a valium and a warm bath.  Nobody in their right mind wants to be that woman.  Or sleep with her.

This is not Moran.  Moran wants us to take back the word.  She wants us to stand on chairs in bars, slightly tipsy, and shout, I AM A FEMINIST.  And not just us ladies, the menfolk too.  See, the problem is most people (that actually take the time to think about this) are walking around under the impression that feminism is a "female" issue, which is ridiculous.  Feminism is a female issue as much as civil rights are a "black" issue.  The right for one gender to be treated equally to another is a HUMAN issue.  Just like the right for one race to be treated equally to another is a HUMAN issue.  Feminism is a human right.  And men have as much to benefit from it as women, which is why we should all be standing on chairs right now shouting, "I am a FEMINIST" while wielding our furry muffs and spending our hard-earned paychecks on tequila shots.  Well, that's Moran's take on it anyway, but I'm pretty sure she'd be just as thrilled if you stood on a chair at the hairdresser and shouted while getting your eyebrows waxed.  The thing is ladies; no one is going to just give us rights and freedom, unfortunately.  The whole sad history of human affairs does not bode well for oppressed peoples being granted liberation from the money-hungry power mongers just because, well, the raging tyrants stopped raping and pillaging for a moment to say, "Hmmm....maybe we should share our wealth and power and get along!" 

My two grandmothers never learned to drive.  Not only were they not "allowed" to by their husbands, they didn't have the means to purchase and maintain an automobile or the freedom to use it.  And this isn't a story from 1688.  I'm not THAT old.  We're talking a few decades ago.  We're talking NOW.  These were my role models growing up.  That's why I get so bitchy and angry when I watch yet another movie/video game/advertisement/music video where the woman's role (sometimes we get lucky and there is two or three women!) is that of aggressive seductress or passive damsel in distress.  That's it.  That's what we are reduced to.  That's what all the little girls growing up have as role models.  Grotesque surgically-mutilated clowns teetering around in stilettos or else trembling ingénues waiting for a big strong man to protect them from the world and keep them safe.  Seriously?  Because that’s fucked.  Because that is not a single woman I know in real life.  And I doubt very strongly that’s a thinking-man’s idea of a solid life-partner.  A quick wank, maybe.  Real women are strong and courageous and tender and vulnerable and loving and sometimes horrible.  We are so much bigger and more complicated that society wants us to be.  And that’s what is so great about Moran’s book.  She wants us to celebrate the fact that we are bigger and more complicated than some puny, pathetic stereotypes.  As Meg Jay says, we need to get some identity capital: http://www.ted.com/talks/meg_jay_why_30_is_not_the_new_20.html

We need to get off the poles, get into office, throw on our big-girl granny panties and get on with getting shit done.  If that means we need to put our kids in daycare or have abortions or stop spending money on “investment bags” or get a divorce or piss off a lot of people, then so be it.  We need to let go of the boring, heterosexual get-a-man-and-have-a-baby-and-everything-will-be-perfect dream we have been sold because it isn’t a dream at all, it is a nightmare.  Everything is not perfect just because you are married with kid(s).  Sometimes those husbands leave, or die, or hate you, or leave their damn shit all over the place and expect some magic fairy (you) to pick it up for them.  Sometimes your kids get sick, or die, or hate you, or leave their damn shit all over the place and expect some magic fairy (you) to pick it up for them.  Sometimes you stare in the mirror at three am with baby-vomit on your nightgown and think, “THIS is what I was waiting for?”  All those nights at the club grinding my pelvis against some over-cologned idiot hoping he was “the one” lead to THIS?  I could have been in Paris eating truffles!  I could have painted a masterpiece!  I could have slept for more than three hours in a row for the last ten years!  I’m not discounting the joy and delight there is to be had during the coupling of two people leading to reproduction and parenthood.  I’m just saying it isn’t necessarily the pinnacle of your existence.  We need woman doing other things.  Like men.  Because men can seem to have babies and wives AND also invent shit and lead revolutions and make art and get things done.  Because they aren’t usually the ones up at three am cleaning baby vomit off their nightgowns.  They are sleeping blissfully in their cozy beds with their hand down the front of their boxers dreaming of their next merger or the blonde next door.

For throughout history, you can read the stories of women who - against all odds - got being a woman right, but ended up being compromised, unhappy, hobbled, or ruined, because all around them society was still wrong.  Show a girl a pioneering hero - Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Joan of Arc- and you’ll also, more often than not, show a girl a woman who was eventually crushed.  Your hard-won triumphs can be wholly negated if you live in a climate where your victories are seen as threatening, incorrect, distasteful, or - most crucially of all, for a teenage girl - simply uncool.  Few girls would choose to be right – right, down into their clever, brilliant bones - but lonely. (p.10)

Just imagine how much other shit you could get done if, instead of worrying what your boyfriend thinks about how your butt looks in your new jeans, you just GOT ON WITH IT.  What if you took all that money you spent painfully and tearfully ripping downy little hairs off your beautiful body and went to Paris?  With or without said boyfriend.  Moran claims there are four things a modern grown woman needs, “a pair of yellow shoes (they unexpectedly go with everything), a friend who will come and post bail at 4 a.m., a fail-safe pie recipe, and a proper muff.  A big hairy minge”(p.45).  This big fluffy muff is not only a political statement, but it is also a subliminal message to yourself that you have better things to do than spend time and money making your front door look like a cold, itchy, child’s vagina.  Your vagina is worth more than that.  You are not going to hurt it any longer.  It has been hurt enough.  If a man takes one look at your lovely mess of curls and gags, well, let him.  I’m sure he’s no prize himself.  Maybe he’ll asphyxiate on his own vomit.  Any man who spends more than ten seconds tending to his own love triangle is a deranged sheep.  Leave him to the fold.  His vanity is his own affair.  If this narcissism also leads him to bake like a potato in tanning beds and hog the bathroom mirror during those crucial minutes you have to get ready when the kids are actually occupying themselves: RUN.  He is not a man.  He is a plastic Ken doll.  Spooning a pillow would be more emotionally fulfilling.

Even though Moran makes a thorough argument for all the ways she has been repressed or discriminated against during the long road to adulthood she never becomes morose or despondent, but instead encourages us to embrace the future with new hope that women will, one day, earn as much as men for the same work.  The future is bright; not because everything is just so much better, but because WE are getting so much better at standing up for ourselves.  Louder, more visible, angry, motivated, and banding together.  We now live in a world where Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Amy Sedaris, and Caitlin Moran make a living BEING FUNNY.  Not being cookie-cutter sexy.  Not being rescued.  Being smart and witty and powerful and hilarious.  And there is pleasure to be had here girls.  Pleasure in making it on your own.  A deep, satisfying, post-orgasm “ahhh” in knowing you paid your own damn way and did it on your own terms.  And it doesn’t have to be lonely.  We’re all in it together.  And believe it or not there are men out there who don’t give one lick whether or not you have hairy legs.  Find them.  Don’t settle for less.

I’ll leave you with this from Moran:

Lying in a hammock, gently finger-combing your Wookiee while staring up at the sky is one of the greatest pleasures of adulthood.  By the end of a grooming session, your little minge-fro should be even and bouffy – you can gently bounce the palm of your hand off it, as if it were a tiny hair trampoline. 

Walking around a room, undressed, in front of appreciative eyes, the reflection in the mirror shows the right thing: a handful of darkness between your legs, something you refuse to hurt.  Half animal, half secret -  something to be approached with a measure of reverence, rather than just made to lie there, while cocks are chucked at it like the penultimate game on Wipeout.

And on proper spa days, you can pop a bit of conditioner on it and enjoy the subsequent cashmere softness, safe in the knowledge that you have not only reclaimed a stretch of feminism that had gotten lost under the roiling Sea of Bullshit, but will also, over your lifetime, save enough money from not waxing to bugger off to Finland and watch the aurora borealis from a five-star hotel while shit-faced on vintage brandy.

So yeah.  Keep it trimmed, keep it neat, but keep it what it’s supposed to be: an old-skool, born to rule, hot, right grown woman’s muff. (p.49)

Underground

 

Underground by Shane E. Evans

 



A winner of the 2012 Coretta Scott King Book Award for Illustration, this thoughtful picture book is deserving of its fame.  I was extremely impressed with the artwork.  The theme of darkness and slavery giving way to freedom and light is perfectly captured by Evans’ textured and moody illustrations.  I think the simple text combined with the grave and emotional artwork strikes a nice balance. 
I question whether the story itself is presented in such a simple way as to be for a very young audience (say age 3-6), in which case, the subject matter may be too complicated for such a generalized explanation.  If it is intended for an older audience (say age 6-12) its text may be insultingly easy and considered “babyish.”  This is, in my opinion, its only fault.  I did enjoy the author’s note at the end of the book expounding on the topic and the author’s personal relationship to it.  A nice, easy introduction to a horrific, complicated subject.

Moving Pictures

Moving Pictures is a fun little historical graphic novel with a Canadian background I picked up on a whim at the Kennebecasis Public Library this week.  It's written by a husband and wife team.  And by fun, I mean fun in a plodding, ominous, can-you-solve-the-riddle sort of way. 

Set during the Second World War, Ila is a Canadian curator in France who has been assigned to label the value and importance of works of art so that they can be "catalogued" (i.e. stolen) by the Third Reich.  A quiet, tense commentary on the nature of loss, betrayal, and war; the beauty of art becomes Ila's only self-granted permission to feel, in a time when feeling too much can lead only to heartache.  We are left to solve the mysterious emotions and motivations between her and a high-ranking German official and their art-filled love affair.

Not recommended for a newcomer to graphic novels or those without a serious crush on art or historical fiction.  For those who appreciate the 5 minutes and 2 seconds they get to spend with a favourite painting, it will haunt you.

What Do Women Want? Bread, Roses, Sex, Power

I love Erica Jong.  I don't always agree with her, but she always gives me a good kick in the ass when I need it most. 

This book came out in 1998 and I'm only getting around to reading it now.  It is a collection of essays centering around the essential question of what women most desire.  And the truth is, as any lover worth his (or her) salt knows: we want everything!  Drawing on such varied figures and topics as Anais Nin, Nabokov, Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband's penis, Princess Di, James Joyce, pornography, plastic surgery, and Viagra; Jong skewers politicians, porn stars and virgins alike.

Though not always an engrossing read (I skipped around from chapter to chapter depending on my current attention span), the book has its memorable moments.  My favourite being when Jong recalls throwing a glass ashtray at the television in her hospital room after enduring a painful C-section with the birth of her daughter.  The program?  An anti-abortion diatribe by a priest and male politician; people without a uterus who have the nerve to tell us what to do with ours! 

The book is full of great Jong one-liners: "You were born to breed and die and the heart breaks either way."

The best chapter, for personal if not political reasons, is The Perfect Man.  Because, if we are going to be frank, and Jong always inspires frankness, is that is what almost every heterosexual woman is in search for, resenting, frustrated with, or completely given up on.  Keep in mind Jong has been married four times, so I consider her to be quite an expert on the relentless search for "getting it right."  As she admits, sometimes the man who is perfect for one stage of your life, say the stable provider, is not who you need twenty years later, when you want a passionate best friend.  As Jong points out, for years women had to sell their beauty and sexuality in order to acquire social status and financial stability.  Now that we no longer have to give up our sexuality (I can live in my own house and sleep with whom I please thank-you-very-much!), why should we?  Most men certainly don't!  Three cheers for freedom of speech and freedom to choose!