Tag: feminism

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The End of Roe

When I saw the leaked draft opinion from Justice Samuel Alito, concerning the overturning of Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, on 2 May 2022, I was stunned, but not surprised. After all, my last post on this blog, just 2 weeks before was on the topic of Bodily Autonomy. Readers here know that I have always been pro-choice and I am consistently grappling with those who are not. Pro-choice seems like a pretty obvious way to be as it accounts for the life of the pregnant person first and foremost.

I am greatly disheartened by the trigger laws in individual states across the country, including my current (Tennessee) and former (Alabama) states of residence. In Let’s Talk About Tennessee’s Trigger Law, the Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood blog does a great job discussing these trigger laws in general, as well as what could happen in Tennessee specifically if Roe and Casey are officially overturned. The Human Life Protection Act will set the state of reproductive justice in Tennessee, along with 12 other states that have similar laws lined up, back 50, but what feels more like 150, years.

As a person having lived the better part of 40 years in Western New York, I have resources that will allow me to visit the state if I ever need access to abortion care. But, unfortunately, I am among the few with this privilege. Many people who will need this healthcare do not have a direct resource in a state with legalized abortion. With the passage of the Reproductive Health Act (RHA), in January 2019, the NYS legislature “legalized all abortions up to 24 weeks of gestation.” (wikipedia.org) This also decriminalized abortions in the state as prior to the act’s passage, abortion was “included as part of the penal law under homicide, and could be charged as a criminal offense.” (wikipedia.org)

The Tennessee trigger law will do the opposite of what the NYS RHA did, by making “abortion not only illegal but also a felony.” (plannedparenthoodaction.org) This, as I stated above, will set the United States back in our struggle for reproductive justice, but we cannot give up. The people who fought for the initial right to choose and who won this right with Roe had to sacrifice a lot for the cause. We cannot let them nor the future of reproductive justice down by being complacent. We must stay informed and keep up the fight!

So, after my initial shock over the leak wore off, my next step was to get more information. My first love, after all, is research. It helps me to work through all of the emotions and channel them into action. This led me over to SCOTUSblog (an excellent source for all things US Supreme Court) for more information. In the weeks since the leaked opinion, SCOTUSblog has been tracking all the news on the leak, along with movement on the case itself, here: Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization and I strongly suggest perusing that archive. Knowledge leads to action, action leads to movement, and movements can change the world!

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Bodies, Autonomy, and Perceived Selfishness

Is it real or is it brainwashing?

I used to think it was wrong to disparage people socialized as women who chose to stay at home with children and not pursue any outside employment, schooling, or general interaction with adults aside from their neighbors, family members, and spouses. After all, anytime someone like me – childfree by choice – made a comment about not wanting to be a mother I would hear about how rude it was to imply that women who made the choice to be ‘stay-at-home moms’ were somehow inferior. As if that had anything to do with my personal choice to be childfree. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t believe any choice a person makes is inferior, but hear me out for a moment. I don’t believe that people socialized as women actually CHOOSE to be stay-at-home moms. I’ve come to this conclusion after much observation and a long conversation with my own mother who floated the idea that perhaps they are not choosing it so much as being coerced into believing that it is required of them.

This goes for those in cultures that prize motherhood in a way that is imposed upon them through rhetoric and religious beliefs. Complementarianism mixed with bullshit ideas about gender roles has created a toxic stew of beliefs that force some people into situations that they may not have chosen if they had other options. This is not about being a mother or a parent, in general, this is about the role of staying home with the children and forcing yourself to believe that you don’t want anything more for your adult life. That you are unable to do anything other than stay home with your children because others have made you believe you cannot do anything else. This, my dear friends, is brainwashing, plain and simple.

Now, I know -this seems like the ramblings of a childfree by choice feminist killjoy, but truly – I do not believe that these women who say they only want to be stay-at-home-moms are being truthful. I think they believe this because they have been made to by their upbringing, their partners, or the heads of their churches. To put mothers on a pedestal and make them believe that their ultimate goal in life should be to only raise children and take care of a home is doing these mothers a disservice. Every human has the capacity to do multiple things throughout their lifetime and motherhood is no different from any other profession. Of course – in the beginning, someone has to stay home with the baby humans, to keep them alive, but egalitarian parents seem to accomplish this just as well as complementarians, with the added bonus of all parents remaining equal. With a little help and support, parents can raise their children and have lives outside of the home. It is happening every day and it isn’t strange or different.

The glorification of motherhood and the backlash people socialized as women feel if they vocalize the fact that they do not want to be a stay-at-home-mother is damaging to society as a whole. We have cultivated a traditional sense of motherhood that has been detrimental to all people, parents or not. This sense of what people socialized as women should want is toxic and feeds into the self-loathing they feel regardless of the route they decide to take.

Of course – people socialized as men don’t get this same treatment when they say they don’t want to have kids. It is always and only people socialized as women that bear the brunt of vitriol from others. That vitriol, of course, is outwardly facing internal pain, but that is a whole other avenue of psychology that I’m not going to try and tackle here.

Critical thinking skills are essential

The conversation with my mother actually got me thinking a lot more critically on this topic. I have always believed that being a parent is a choice that each of us makes, independently of any other forces in the world, but I also realize that there are many people who make their life choices based on their surroundings. They listen to the people in their family, friend groups, community, and/or church elders to determine their choice. They may not listen to the voice in their own head that tells them what they truly want because the messages that they receive from the outside are too loud. They also might not have the critical thinking skills to determine exactly what they want versus what the world wants for them. At worst, they might not know that they have other choices.

The points above, coupled with the fact that stay-at-home-motherhood is put on a pedestal in our culture, makes for a conversation that is almost impossible to have. Or, at the very least, it is impossible for someone like me to have. Someone who has chosen NOT to have children. Someone who has listened to the internal voice that told me I didn’t want to be a parent. Someone who did a wealth of critical thinking, questioned my gut reaction, and still came to the conclusion that I did not want to be a parent. I did not arrive at this conclusion quickly, easily, or without thought. I did the work to get here. I do not believe that those in the complementarian style of life do this critical thinking. They just move forward with what they have been taught to believe and they never question it. At least not in the beginning.

A wedge emerges

The day after the conversation where my mother asked the question; ‘but do they really WANT to be stay-at-home moms or are they merely socialized to believe that is what they want?’ I woke up with my brain buzzing. Do they truly, deep down, want to be ONLY stay-at-home moms or are they just saying that because it is what they believe they have to say? Why don’t we ever give people socialized as men grief for having a job and children? Why are only people socialized as women in the hot seat when it comes to child-rearing? Why are people socialized as women put in a position to have to ‘make a choice’ or try to ‘have it all’ or ‘go childfree for a career’ when people socialized as men can just do all the things and there are no conversations about it. There are no think pieces (a quick search returns SO MANY for ‘women’) written in major publications on why people socialized as men can or can’t have it all.

And here is the crux – people socialized as women are pitted against each other in this conversation because if one person says “I don’t want to have children” another will ask “why? children are gifts from G-d and we should be happy to be mothers”, therefore continuing the lie of motherhood as an imperative.

There are people who want to raise children. There are people who want to have careers. There are people who want to raise children while having careers. But there are not people who want to only raise children and never have any other work. The idea that there are people socialized as women who are ‘born to be mothers’ or only and forever want to stay at home raising children because they don’t have any other interests is a bullshit myth that has been instilled in people socialized as girls and women for centuries in order to make the white supremacist patriarchy function.

Throughout history, when people socialized as women show ambition for anything beyond raising children, it is tamped down by the forces in society that maintain the status quo. If people socialized as women collectively agreed that we can be parents and have careers, just like people socialized as men can, then perhaps we would be able to crush the stay-at-home mom expectation that harms people socialized as women who think they have to be doing that job in order to be good.

In an excellent piece by Jill Filipovic (jill.substack.com), the myth of stay-at-home motherhood is shown in all its toxic glory through MLM schemes. The piece focuses on the new documentary about LuLaRoe, which connects directly to what I have stated above. No person socialized as a woman is born wanting to be only and always a mom with no other outlets in her life. This is why MLMs are so easily ingrained in traditionalist communities. They promise an outlet for stay-at-home moms to interact with other moms, without leaving home to do so, and in the process, they take these people socialized as women (and sometimes people socialized as men) for a ride financially. Something framed as empowering is really a scam that ends up becoming an extremely expensive hobby.

There is also something to be said for the infantilization of people socialized as women in society. Traditionalist people socialized as men see their wives as inferior to them by design and although they are tasked with the huge responsibility of keeping small humans alive, the moms are often seen as children themselves who cannot make decisions. So, when one of them is scammed by an MLM scheme like LuLaRoe it confirms the narrative of childlike behavior, further pushing them into the realm of the home and not allowing them to seek out other career opportunities or even have hobbies that take them away from the home and their children. And when a mom decides to go out and get a job to fulfill the need to be a participating member of society or contribute monetarily to the home (not to diminish the fact that domestic labour is already contributing GREATLY to the home, but as unpaid work is devalued) her jobs are often devalued by these traditionalist communities as hobbies. They are seen as ‘little jobs’ that are not really contributing anything to the bottom line, even if they have the potential to contribute a great deal to that home budget.

Double standards

Social media allows toxic positivity and traditional motherhood tropes to thrive virtually unchecked. I have witnessed comment threads in which people suggest stay-at-home moms who attempt to go out in the world to work or have a social life are being selfish. Giving pointers on how to have a job and still ‘keep house’ is a common occurrence, but only on the comment threads of people socialized as women. Those parents who were socialized as men never get pointers on housework or raising kids, even when their threads are full of leisure activities, let alone when they talk about work opportunities. The double standards abound and it creates an environment where mothers are held to a more stringent standard than fathers. This is a toxic loop that we are still having a hard time getting out of, even in 2022. The political climate of holding back on or, worse, rolling back legislation that provides equal rights adds to the issue. If paid family leave is not available then mothers end up having to leave the workforce for long periods of time, setting their careers back and lowering the standard of living for their families.

Add to this, the mothers who think they know best what other mothers should be doing. The ones who talk about how to work, take care of the kids, clean the house, do the laundry, and get dinner on the table, without ever thinking that perhaps the father in this scenario could help out as well. And that also completely leaves out single parents who have to do all of these things on their own and don’t have the option to just stay at home with the kids. If you have a partner, you should be sharing in all of the home duties as well as bringing an income into the family. Adults should work in and out of the home, no matter what gender they were socialized into.

Honestly – my partner and I share the household chores and we do them on Sundays. It takes about 2-3 hours of our time to clean our home from top to bottom. Every season we do a larger cleaning, also on a weekend. During the week we share the responsibility of cleanup after dinner. One cooks, one washes dishes. And we, together, keep our home and clothes clean. These responsibilities add up to maybe 8 hours per week total. So, if there was one person doing this type of work, why would they need to stay home and not have a job? The answer, obviously, is that they wouldn’t. The framing of ‘stay-at-home-mom’ as necessary is a myth. Yes – someone has to stay with the children as they grow, but once they are in school and on their way to adulthood, the person who stayed home to raise them should be able to re-enter the workforce or education system or any other outside of the home outlet they wish to pursue. They should not be relegated, forever and always, to the role of housewife. This role was created simply to control people socialized as women and nothing else.

Why does any of this matter?

On the individual level, people socialized as women are being made to feel like garbage when they want to raise children and have a career. At the think piece level, people socialized as women who stay at home with their children are interviewed to glorify the traditional stay-at-home mom role while lashing out at people socialized as women who are raising children and cultivating careers. But these are merely tools for the patriarchy to continue control. Wedges that are placed between people socialized as women so that we will continue the infighting, rather than looking outward as a collective at the harm that these myths have caused over time.

There are so many people who have set aside their ambitions because they didn’t think they could raise children and pursue a career and they were, frankly, duped. They can do it. With help. And that is the point. Raising children does not require some special skill that only people socialized as women have. It merely requires adulthood and knowledge. It requires assistance from others and the support of a community that cares for it’s young.

It also requires universal daycare and pre-K, universal healthcare, paid family leave for 6 months after the arrival of a child, a $20 minimum wage, and universal healthcare. It requires community care. You know – the basic things to live. The stability to live life with dignity. Needs met. We put tax dollars toward so many other things in the United States that do not benefit the whole of society, and yet we don’t see the need to fund these basic services for all. It is truly disgusting.

Because people socialized as women are made to believe, over our lifetimes, that we are not able to do all the things, we fall into the patterns that society has laid out for us. Some of us have children and stay at home. Some of us don’t have children at all. Some of us have children and careers but struggle to make ends meet. If we dropped the myth of motherhood and came together as a collective of people fighting for a common goal of equality, we would see a better world.

As a collective, we can lobby the government to get the things we need so that we can have it all, no matter what having it all looks like. We can stop resting on the myth that people socialized as women are ‘meant to be’ mothers and if they choose something else they are going outside the norm and smash that myth into a million pieces through our organizing for the rights of all people to have support in our ongoing efforts, parenting or not.

This past week

The above conversation about raising the young is all fine and good, but there is another force at play that reared it’s ugly head again last week and that is the right for people with uteruses to have the ability to choose what they want to do with said uterus. Yes, I am being very specific here because there are all kinds of people who can create, grow, and bear children and all of us are at risk of losing our rights.

First Texas, then Oklahoma, and just yesterday, Kentucky, have basically made abortion illegal in their states. At present, we still have Roe v. Wade to uphold the bodily autonomy of those with a uterus, but if the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization moves forward, it could send the decision of viability back to the states. The issue in the case is “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional” (scotusblog.com) and if found to be true would essentially overturn Roe. With near total abortion bans setup in many states across the country, to be triggered with an overturn of Roe, we are truly on a path backwards. Women are people. All women are people. All people with uteruses are people. And at the end of all of this, if we overturn one of the most crucial Supreme Court decisions we have seen in recent memory, we are telling all people with uteruses that we are, in fact, not human.

How can we retain our rights?

The good news is that many pro-choice groups and organizations, across the country, wrote amicus briefs, in September 2021, in support of the defendant, showing a great deal of pushback to the draconian reversal of human rights that the petitioners seek. Contacting legislators through phone calls, text messages, emails, and marching to capital buildings with our message of equality will continue to pressure these officials. Holding them accountable through our votes is another avenue of resistance. We need to stay aware and remain vigilant in the protection of equal rights for ALL, not just for those in power.

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Intersectionality

While I was visiting my family and friends in Western New York, I had a great deal of time to sit and think about my life and the ways in which I move through the world. I had a few interesting conversations while I was up there that helped me work out a few concepts to move forward with.

During my visit, the Governor of Alabama, the State in which I currently reside, decided that it would be a good idea to pass a bill that basically eradicates abortion in the state. This drew feelings of anger in me that then dissipated into a need to take action. As I stewed in my emotions up north, I realized that when I returned to the south I was going to need to find ways to get out in the streets and show my support for the cause. I knew that I needed to find a candidate that would challenge the Governor in her next bid for the seat, but more importantly, start backing women of colour for positions of power within the state senate and house of Alabama. The stats are dismal for women in general, but even more so for women of color in the state and that needs to change.

Before I can do this work though, I need to work out my own understandings around my feminism and how it has led me to be engaged in this particular struggle. During my trip and upon my return, I have also been reading a book by another white feminist, Amber Tamblyn, that has helped me to really suss out the ways in which my feminism has not been fully intersectional in the past and figure out how to make it so going forward.

First and foremost – amplify the voices of women of colour that exist around me. Do not paraphrase those voices, but move aside so that those voices can be heard. Do this online and in person. Work for the cause of uniting all women together, but help the white feminists understand that the voices of women of colour have for far too long been silenced, or whitesplained, by well-meaning (and often not well-meaning) white folks. In our need to push forward with the cause of equality for women, we have lost sight of how we have limited the voices of those that are doubly oppressed by both sex and race. This has got to end and the only way to end it is to step aside and let the voices of those women of colour speak their own truth.

Having said that – I will now point you toward women of colour that need to be heard. We all have to put in the work to be inclusive and intersectional. We need to be silent allies, amplifying the voices of those that matter.

People to Follow
Brittney Cooper
Morgan Jerkins
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas
Kimberly Nicole Foster
Tiffany Cross
Maya Wiley
Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom
Roxane Gay
Aja Barber

Sites
Writing on Glass – The Essential Audre Lorde
bell hooks institute
Autostraddle
Bitch Media
BGD
Adios Barbie
Anniways

Books
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
Sister Citizen by Melissa Harris-Perry
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks
Women, Race, & Class by Angela Y. Davis

Pieces
The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House
15 Indigenous Feminists to Know, Read, and Listen To
“Homecoming” Homework: 7 Books to Read After Watching Beyonce’s Epic Documentary
15 Latina Activists Who Inspire Me

This is by no means a full list, but it is good to get you started. Now go read, follow, and get acquainted!

Peace and happy learning,

Chantale aka hippiegrrl

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Patriarchy, MRAs, and Dismantling the Current System of Oppression

Over the years, whenever straight, white, men feel threatened, they band together in groups to discuss the situation and ‘right’ the ship. See – when dudes feel like they are losing grip on the control that they have ALWAYS had over women, they freak the fuck out. This is evidenced by the backlash against moves toward gender equity in the tech workplace. Women, in Silicon Valley specifically as well as other areas of the country with a heavy concentration of tech jobs, started speaking out last year about the harassment inflicted upon them within the male-dominated field. At my own place of business, I have witnessed dudes that have gotten away with low levels of harassment with a slap on the wrist and a ‘just try to be better’ or ‘avoid that girl from now on’. This amounts to a wink and a nod between dudes and we, as women, continue to suffer under this horrible system of misogyny.

In 2010 there was a similar backlash within women’s studies departments on college campuses. The MRAs (Men’s Rights Activists) got all twisted up about women’s studies being biased toward women. They felt the need to have male studies as well (this was in contradiction to the formal men’s studies wing of sociology that had already been incorporated into what is now called gender studies). As if all the other things that are studied in college weren’t already MALE studies. Good grief. The HIStory of the world has always been taught from the perspective of men. Women’s studies departments were created to bring some equity to the world of education and suddenly some men were getting nervous. This is what happens when people get scared. They start a backlash against the thing that scares them. And when men (specifically white, straight, cis and mostly wealthy men) get scared, the rest of us better ‘get in line’ because they have to get things back to the status quo. The patriarchy must survive and if it looks like it is being dismantled in any way, that’s when the MRAs appear to prop it back up again.

The best question we can ask ourselves, at this point in human history, is what would the world look like if the system of patriarchy that we have lived under, for all of eternity, was dismantled?

If we had a true and lasting system that was not skewed toward one sex (in this case the male sex), we would ALL be better off. Feminism works toward making EVERYONE EQUAL, not making women more powerful than men. That was never the cause of feminism. Women need more power in order to be equal to men, yes, and this is where those who are afraid of losing their grip on the full scope of power get nervous. Men who speak up against feminism are afraid of losing their power over women. They do not want to be equal because they want to continue to hold ALL the power. They want to be able to make all the decisions for the women in their lives and not allow those women to gain any traction in the movement.

This isn’t about losing equality, it is about losing the top spot in all areas of life. It is about losing the boy’s club and the ways in which the patriarchy support their policies of subjugation. If the patriarchy was dismantled, we would all be free to be ourselves and live our best lives. Women and men would both have the same opportunities and have to compete with their brains on an even playing field. Men would not be given preference, as they have for all of HIStory, in business. We are a long way from dismantling the patriarchy, but we chip away at it a little each day.

Patriarchy is not an American invention. You would not know this if you read the comment sections of any article pertaining to dismantling it though, as most Americans think that 1) our system of patriarchy has only been around for 100 years or so and 2) it’s all quite fine and dandy here in America and the misandrists (a bullshit term that denotes people who hate men and boys) need to stop trying to change things. See, when feminists (or anyone that wants to make things better for any group of people) try to make changes in society, those that benefit the most from the status quo start screaming as loud as they possibly can. Often, they find ways to back up their claims with arguments that look, on the surface, to be valid, but with a little bit of research, these arguments can be quickly dispelled.

The difficulty with research though is that many people do not want to hear facts unless they align with the position they already hold. So they listen to non-experts that spew garbage on the internet and regurgitate this crap for their ‘friends’ on social media. We used to live in a society where research and reason ruled the day, but it feels like those times are quickly diminishing. I am hopeful that we can turn the tide and stop the stupid among us from claiming expertise, but hope is not enough to make lasting change. Voting for progressive candidates that understand how to assess information is super important. If we don’t get smart people in office in 2018, we will continue down this path of stupidity that has been cultivated by the current POTUS.

So – what can we do to move toward a world where patriarchy is a thing of the past?

VOTE! Get to the polls and choose the smartest and most informed candidates, regardless of their place on the spectrum of gender.

MARCH! Attend marches in your local, regional, and national community to show support for the issues that affect you and yours the most. March with women when they gather to demand equal rights. March with people of color when they gather to demand equal rights. March with LGBTQQIA folks when they gather to demand equal rights. March with immigrants when they gather to demand a path to citizenship and equal rights. March with people of conscience when they gather to demand equal rights for all, regardless of the distinctions above.

WRITE! Go online and send a letter to your representative on issues that you find important. Hold these leaders accountable. You can even do this through text messaging with Resistbot! To setup, simply text RESIST to 50409 to get started. It is simple and awesome!

STAY INFORMED! Continue to read up on the issues that are important to you and research articles before posting/reposting on social media. The ALA has a comprehensive set of rules for evaluating sources listed here: Evaluating Primary Sources. Assessing the Authority, Audience, and Accuracy of the source will allow you to determine it’s credibility and worthiness. Let’s work together to improve the nature of what is shared on social media and on the internet, in general. Improving the reliability of sources will help EVERYONE.

So – are you ready to join me in dismantling the patriarchy to improve the world for everyone? It’s time to get to work! Leave comments below to tell me how you will work toward a world of equality for ALL humans!

Peace and Down With Patriarchy!

Chantale (hippiegrrl)

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Topple the Patriarchy

Last week felt like a tipping point. I realize that, over the years, there have been many moments that felt this way, but last week really (REALLY) did.

So, can we finally talk about sexism and the ways to combat it and change the course of our future in an open, honest, and realistic way? Is it finally time for those of us that have been shouting about feminism and the need for the fall of the patriarchy to finally have our voices heard? Is it time for feminism to embrace intersectionality and come together as one voice to stand up for what is right? Finally? After years and years of struggle can we finally see a light for all those who are marginalized?

If you think that Hollywood is the only industry where sexual predators exist you would be wrong. Sexism exists in every industry in the world. That’s right – it isn’t just an American problem, but we certainly take it to new levels of disgusting. The only way we can ever fix the problems that we have across industries is to dismantle the system that is holding women back from true equality. We need to topple the patriarchy!

Patriarchy
noun
1. a form of social organization in which the father is the supreme authority in the family, clan, or tribe and descent is reckoned in the male line, with the children belonging to the father’s clan or tribe.
2. a society, community, or country based on this social organization.
3. a social system in which power is held by men, through cultural norms and customs that favor men and withhold opportunity from women:
The corporate glass ceiling is one consequence of patriarchy in education and business.
4. (often initial capital letter) the men in power in a society (usually preceded by the):
The Patriarchy is vested in maintenance of the status quo.
source: Dictionary.com definition of patriarchy

The patriarchy is not an inanimate, nebulous thing that is casting a shadow over our world, but a strategic set of systems, put in place thousands of years ago, to continue the oppression of humans that identify as female. Feminism seeks to right the wrongs of the past by bringing equality to all humans. Feminism, as a concept, is relatively new in human history, but the fundamental understanding of fighting for equality has been around since the beginning of time. Women have always struggled to be equal to men. Women have circumvented the system in order to bring about more equitable circumstances, but that has never been enough.

Feminism
noun
1. the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.
2. (sometimes initial capital letter) an organized movement for the attainment of such rights for women.
3. Older Use. feminine character.
source: Dictionary.com definition of feminism

In the waves (are we up to 4th wave now?) of modern day feminism, the concept of intersectionalism has been de-emphasized. Giving space and voice to WOC, Lesbians, Trans women, and disabled women is an important, and necessary, step toward full social justice. If we do not include the voices of all women, we will continue to bear the burden that comes with our separate struggles. WOC, Lesbians, Trans women, and disabled women have to deal with additional levels of marginalization that white women don’t even think about. The privilege that is afforded to white women in the movement needs to be examined and broken down. White women need to listen to marginalized women. The act of listening requires silence from white women. It requires all women to create a dialogue in an atmosphere where all voices are magnified and all women feel trusted and heard.

Intersectionality
noun
1. the theory that the overlap of various social identities, as race, gender, sexuality, and class, contributes to the specific type of systemic oppression and discrimination experienced by an individual (often used attributively):
Her paper uses a queer intersectionality approach.
2. the oppression and discrimination resulting from the overlap of an individual’s various social identities:
the intersectionality of oppression experienced by black women.
source: Dictionary.com definition of intersectionality

In the 1960’s feminists took up the act of gathering in groups and sharing stories, which began the act of consciousness raising within the movement. Although the concept was not new, as there had been a long history of talking circles in India and Native populations of the Americas, feminists found that sharing stories allowed them to be enlightened by each other, sometimes seeing something of themselves in other women’s remembrances. Unfortunately, these consciousness raising sessions were usually homogenous and therefore did not benefit from the gains that could have been made in a truly intersectional gathering of feminists. The 1960s also saw anti-feminist factions drive wedges between groups of women that had previously been united, festering resentment across the movement. This tactic was successful in splitting apart a struggle that had been united in the fight toward equality for all women. In our current day feminist struggle, we need to find a way to dispense with the wedges that have kept us apart and work together toward equality. Women are a force to be reckoned with, but only when we are united toward a common goal, keeping in mind our differences and additional burdens, and working in an intersectional manner toward justice.

“It was the first time I witnessed the ancient and modern magic of groups in which anyone may speak in turn, everyone must listen, and consensus is more important than time. I had no idea that such talking circles had been a common form of governance for most of human history, from the Kwei and San in southern Africa, the ancestors of us all, to the First Nations on my own continent, where layers of such circles turned into the Iroquois Confederacy, the oldest continuous democracy in the world. Talking circles once existed in Europe, too, before floods, famines, and patriarchal rule replaced them with hierarchy, priests, and kings. I didn’t even know, as we sat in Ramnad, that a wave of talking circles and “testifying” was going on in black churches of my own country and igniting the civil rights movement. I certainly didn’t guess that, a decade later, I would see consciousness-raising groups, women’s talking circles, giving birth to the feminist movement. All I knew was that some deep part of me was being nourished and transformed right along with the villagers.”

Steinem, G. (2015). My life on the road. p 36.

After raising our consciousness as a united group of women, the next step is to deconstruct the structures in our society that have been keeping women down for so long. In order to truly dismantle the patriarchy and break down the barriers to success for all, we have to start taking a long look at all of the industries and organizational structures in our world. This is not just a problem of Hollywood or Silicon Valley or the Media. The problem exists in offices large and small, where women still make up a small percentage of senior staff and an even smaller percentage of C-level positions. The problem exists in the home where women are still expected to work a “second shift” (Hochschild, 1989) to keep the household running or to simply work in the home as an unpaid labour force. The problem exists in organized religion, where women have been made subordinate, for centuries, by dogma and male interpretations of sacred text.

Until women can hold places of power in all industries and institutions, we will not be equal. Until the work that women do in the home is valued in the same way that work outside the home is valued, we will not be equal. Until power is evenly distributed across sex and race, we will not be equal. Until we are able to open the doors of opportunity to every citizen of the world, we will not be equal. And until we are equal, the acts of abuse, harrassment, assault, and rape that are committed by so many men in power, will persist.

One other thing though – until women who gain power can stand up for other women, we have gained nothing. There are still women who believe that it is better to stand behind a man than to help their fellow sisters. There are still women that are willing to be shills for the patriarchy. There are women that voted for the current predator-in-chief, knowing that he is unworthy of the White House. There are women who will cover for abusers and harrassers. There are women who are apologists for men that cheat. Perhaps some of these women are afraid, and to them I say that there is help out there. There is someone that is willing to help you come away from the person that is dragging you down and move forward with your life. There are people that can assist you in deprogramming from the crap that you have been fed your whole life about being inferiour. There are resources available to move away from the hatred that is the patriarchy and to move forward, surrounding yourself with people that care about equality.

And there are men that care about equality as well. You don’t have to stay with an abuser or continue to be an apologist for the men in your life that abuse others. You don’t have to stay with a cheater and continue to be lied to and deceived in the service of someone else’s inability to be faithful. You don’t have to vote the way the men in your life vote and you don’t have to take their shit. There is a network of people that believe in justice for all and that network is made up of feminists. Feminists are the only people that will ever, in the end, fulfill the real promise of the United States and bring about liberty and justice for all. Join the movement and together we can topple the patriarchy!

 

Peace,

Chantale (aka hippiegrrl)

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Women Really CAN Do Anything

Remember when we were kids, in the 80s, and the teachers would say, “you can be anything you want to be”? They encouraged us to work hard and we would succeed. I get that we were raised in a time when that seemed to be true, but as a girl I never had the feeling that it was.

This year, we are finally seeing a shift toward the ideals we were taught as children. But it is not without pushback. Unfortunately the pushing back is not just coming from the standard, “other side” contingent, but also from inside the party of progress.

Bernie Sanders ran in the Democratic Primary to push the party in a more progressive direction and this was truly a good thing. The unfortunate outcome of his campaign, though, was the creation of BernieBros. These (mostly) dudes refuse to give up, even in the face of Senator Sanders concession on the floor of the convention. They continue to complain on social media and attack those who are trying to be happy for the historical progress we are making with the nomination of the first woman for President on the Democratic Party line.

Let me pause here to just ponder that last sentence. The first woman, in 240 years, to get this far in a presidential race in the United States. This is extremely important. It is a moment in time that we must recognize as important. Whether you vote for her or not, you must at least admit that this time is important.

But why? Why is it such a big deal? Well, think back to how I started this post. When I was a little girl, growing up in the 80s, I was told I could be anything. But people don’t truly believe that things are possible until they can see other people like them doing those things. Until a woman leads the United States, other women cannot truly believe it is possible. Someone has to go first. And it is important.

So, if you have children, especially girls, you need to have them watch the DNC tonight when Secretary Clinton accepts the nomination. It is an important part of our history and it shatters a glass ceiling that has been sealed for 240 years. We should be sharing this moment with the young ones. We should be celebrating. This is a wonderful time and I’m not going to let the BernieBros, or the Racist Trumpites, or the Evangelicals who are afraid of female power, get me down.

My one wish, that will unfortunately not come true, is for my niece to see this moment. She should be exposed to this wonderful time in history and all the doors it opens for her future. She should be taught that she can do anything she wants and see other women who are doing those things. She needs strong female role models to counteract the messages she is fed through fundamentalist sources. I cannot change the path of the future for her, but I hope that someday she finds it on her own. Women truly can do anything and my wish for her is that she has the opportunity to see and feel that fact.

Enjoy the convention. Let the moment wash over you. We are a part of this awesome time in history and we must carry it through into November!

Peace,
Chantale aka hippiegrrl

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The Future of Feminism

The future is bright for those in the feminist movement but our work is never done.  With that in mind, I feel it is a good time to put down my thoughts on the future of feminism and the next generation (are we going to call them 4th wavers?) of women and men that will keep the movement strong.  One of those women will be my niece.  She is yet to be born, but I vow to be a good influence on her sense of self worth and equality.

Here are some of the things I hope for her, and all women growing up in the coming years, decades, and centuries.  This is as close as I will ever get to words of wisdom, so I hope they are taken in the spirit they were intended. Keep them in context and understand that I say the following out of love and commitment to the movement and all those that will carry on the legacy.

Always know who you are and don’t let others bring you down

This is a tall order as society places many restrictions on a woman’s sense of worth.  We have to fight every day to feel good about ourselves, beginning with the way we look when we leave the house, to the things we do once we are out there in the world.  Men do not encounter the level of scrutiny that women do when it comes to appearance and choice of task (whether it be staying home with children or taking the business world by storm.)  At the end of it all, we must know ourselves and our own personal strengths and limitations.  These must be learned through our autonomy as humans and never fostered by negativity from outside.  Be you.  Let the negativity roll off your back and march ever forward.  The only opinion that matters is your own.

The choice is yours

Your body is your own and nobody can make choices for you. You must choose for yourself. Do not misconstrue this to mean that you are alone in the world for you are not. There is always someone there for you no matter the situation. In my life, I will always be the open minded and honest hearted person who will support my niece (and every other woman in my circle of family and friends) NO MATTER WHAT their choices are.

You don’t have to smile if you don’t want to

On too many occasions in life, I have been told to smile. This is my face and I don’t have to be happy to make you feel okay about yourself. This is actually a pretty common theme. If women do not make themselves into something that can be well presented to the world, they are looked down upon. When women don’t wear makeup or don’t have perfectly coifed hair, when they don’t make themselves appear to be happy even when they are not, they are thought to be assaulting others with their lack of “upkeep”. This, I must say, is bullshit. We should be able to look and feel any way we want without criticism or complaint. This is who we are and we will continue to live strong, healthy lives whether we smile or not.

Being smart is cool

There will be times in your life when you are made to feel too smart. As if women who are smart somehow make men feel inferiour. Well, I have two things to say to that; first it is nonsense and second, even if it is true, so what? Men have made women feel inferiour for eons for a million little things, so maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. If a smart woman makes you feel inferiour, maybe you need to assess yourself rather than turning it back on her. Smart is awesome and there is no reason to dumb yourself down for anyone, especially not a man.

You don’t need to be in a relationship to be happy

This does not mean that you should be alone. Having a significant other is a wonderful experience, but not for everyone. The point of this is that you should never need another person in your life to know that you are okay. You can take care of yourself and you should never feel like that is impossible. Of course we all need help sometimes, but that doesn’t make us weak or needy, it makes us human. So, whomever you choose to spend your days and nights with is your choice, but never feel that you have to have someone in your life to feel worthy. Self worth comes from inside, not from the musings or gaze of another.

You are worthy

No matter your sex, gender representation, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or level of ability, you are special and worthy. Never let the world make you believe you are not. Society is a tough place for all of us to navigate, but knowing deep down that you are who you were meant to be can go a long way to keeping you healthy and happy. Knowing, also, that you have people that believe in you and know you are who you were meant to be is invaluable. Keep a network of like minded and supportive people around you and you shall never fail.

I could go on all day, but I think you get the gist. Women are just as strong as men and can do anything they set their minds to. As feminists, we need to stick together, stay united in the movement, and push forward toward full equality. Someday, it will be a reality, and in the meantime, keeping the positivity flowing around each and every woman is the only way to find true self worth. We must support one another and keep up the fight.

Peace and Love,
Chantale (aka auntie chanti/hippiegrrl)

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Riot Grrrl: Better Late Than Never

The 90’s were a time of new music with an undercurrent (and sometimes blatant current) of radical feminism. L7, Sleater-Kinney, Bratmobile, and, the leaders of feminist punk, Bikini Kill. Back then, I listened to the music, but I wasn’t fully in the scene. Living in Niagara Falls and attending school in Buffalo removed me from the angst-ridden, raw intensity of the scene in Portland, DC, and NYC. My life was pretty good and, as such, I didn’t have much to riot about.

 

I did create a ‘zine, but it was focused more on movie reviews with occasional pieces on homophobia. I was in touch with the sexism, racism, and homophobia of my hometown, but I didn’t quite yet know how to express my rage. Riot Grrrl culture would have saved me, had the internet existed. This, I suppose, is where the disconnect began. In the early 90’s, before the prolific nature of the internet could infect our homes, we had to get our music and cultural news from MTV and the radio. Living in Buffalo afforded me a wealth of great music, coming out of Toronto, Ontario, on CFNY, but not so much a wealth of female voices. I saw stories on MTV news about the Riot Grrrls movement, but that movement never really made it to Buffalo. Sure, we did “Take Back The Night” walks every year at school and we had speakers come in and talk about women’s issues, but we didn’t have anything on the level of Riot Grrrl. There was no Kathleen Hanna to scream for us in Buffalo and Ani Difranco was pale in comparison to that level of rage.

 

So, my path leads me back to Riot Grrrl. It always, inevitably, does. I may not have had a name for it in the 90’s, but radical feminism has always been a huge part of my existence. I’ve always been outspoken in my defense of women, myself and others, and have tried to convey my utter disgust for the lack of feminist sources in my hometown. The difference though, between Kathleen Hanna and myself, is that I am not as motivated as her. Although we share a birthday, (12 November, along with Neil Young, Grace Kelly, Charles Manson, and Ryan Gosling) she is way more fierce!

 

She got up on the stage and screamed out the reality of her own life and the lives of others. I could barely write a word about my life until the last few years. She yelled at the audience to bring the ‘girls to the front’. I kept my mouth shut, while growing up, through a lot of patriarchal bullshit. She stuck to her principles in the face of complete and total sexism. I let shit go. She always stayed true to herself and the cause of radical feminism. I let my desire to be liked get in the way of my activism for too long. Not any more! I am revitalized! After watching “The Punk Singer” documentary, I am reenergized and ready to move forward.

 

Since we moved into the 21st century, the riot grrrl movement seems to have fizzled. There are still pockets of the radical feminist scene, but the overall music and zine culture that was directly connected to riot grrrl has dwindled. My question then is, what happened? Was the scene not sustainable without big figures like Hanna? Was a change in music the death knell for grrrl punk? Or did the boys just retake their places at the top? Why do women need to continuously fight for their places in music?

 

Feminism is not dead, but the patriarchy wants it to be. The second wave feminists are still pushing ahead, but the ERA is still not ratified. The third wavers have taken the struggle online, but the social media spaces are crawling with misogynists waiting to pounce. Women are baited with articles about career women vs. stay at home moms, shifting our focus from feminist goals. We should be gathering together and fighting for our lives. There are too many attacks, in the United States (not to mention around the world), on our collective rights as women.

 

The powers that be, which often include other women, wish to take away our right to control our own bodies. They want to take away our agencies and our voices. They want to make us helpless and powerless as a group so they can continue to control us. The patriarchy will never quit fighting so neither should we. We have to push onward. Continue marching! Continue running for office and retaining feminist values while leading! Organizing as if our lives depend on it, because they do! And never believe the media when they say that feminism is dead. It is alive and kicking and we will continue in the riot grrrl path. Never compromise! Never concede! Never go back!

 

Peace and Happy Patriarchy Smashing!
Chantale

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Good vs. Evil aka Binaries and Why They Are Not Useful

Last week, the writer and I received a note in the mail. Inside the note was a printed sheet that listed sermon notes from a service attended by a family member. The sermon was purported to be about Gender, although I would argue that it was actually about Sex, as Gender is a social construct that is carried out by individuals according to how they feel, and, in this sense, is fluid. Gender is how one performs their masculinity, femininity, or neither, to the world.

Sex is connected to the sexual organs that one possesses and is not connected to the Gender representation that one performs. Sometimes the Sex and Gender match up, but more often than not they don’t. For more on cis, trans, sex, sexuality, and other fun gender studies terminology, please refer here: Why I Am A Feminist.

Now that I have reiterated the differences between Sex and Gender, let me return to the sermon and it’s notes. The beginning of the notes had the usual biblical information. God made this and God made that. Yadda yadda yadda. God made a woman and God showed Adam he needed her. And so on. Then we get to a section about the different Evangelical views on gender (sex) roles.

Egalitarian view: God made men & women equal – and they have the same roles regardless of gender.
I like this one and, honestly, I am extremely surprised to see this on the list. I was under the impression that Evangelicals did not believe this. The next one is more in line with what they actually believe, so here goes…

Complimentarian view: God made men & women equal – but they have different roles based upon gender.
This is the view that this particular preacher states the bible teaches and he is correct. The bible does teach this. It teaches that women are the property of men and that patriarchy is the only way to live. It teaches that slavery is the norm and that we should never eat shellfish or cut our hair. It teaches many things that do not have bearing on the world today.

It also teaches really awesome and good things, but, sadly, the Evangelicals never seem to get around to that stuff.

After all the introductory information is presented, the real important (and scary) part is this:
There is a call to battle at the end, the gist of which is that anyone who does not believe women are subordinate to men is an enemy. Enemies seek to distort the Bible. So, I suppose this means that if I want to work and drive a car, I am an enemy. Since I studied Sociology and received not 1, but 2 (!) bachelor’s degrees, I am an enemy. Since I have a vagina, but I choose not to use it in the service of procreation, I am an enemy. Since I am pursuing a Masters degree and working a full time job, rather than staying home and raising children, I am an enemy.

You know what? I will settle for that then. I will settle for being an enemy. If that is what they are going to see me as, there is really no way to fight it. They will always and forever see me, and anyone that agrees with me about civil rights, as an enemy. I was not preparing for battle prior to receiving these sermon notes, but perhaps I should be. In the end, though, I prefer to just be me and let everyone else be everyone else. I prefer to love each other, just as the person that they worship told his people to do. I don’t need to go to church on Sundays and pray to a deity in order to be a good person. Nor do I need the threat of hell fire to make me act civil to other humans. Organized religion ruins spirituality in very deep and profound ways.

I have seen supposed Christians standing outside of clinics, screaming at women. Is this what Jesus wanted?
I have witnessed supposed Christians standing on soapboxes screaming at passersby to convert or burn in hell.
Is this what Jesus wanted?
I have noticed supposed Christians who talk ill of one another during the coffee hour, after the sermon.
Is this what Jesus wanted?
I have heard supposed Christians be passive aggressive in their dealings with other people.
Is this what Jesus wanted?
I have been in the presence of supposed Christians screaming at gay and lesbian folks for the way they were born.
Is this what Jesus wanted?
I have received tracts from supposed Christians who say they want me to be saved, but only on their terms.
Is this what Jesus wanted?

No! Jesus wanted us to love one another. Jesus wanted us to be good people. Jesus would probably tell these supposed Christians to chill out.

Life is not about binaries, but fluidity. When we think about a situation, we should have the ability to open our minds to ALL the possibilities, not just those that have been imposed upon us. Imposition results from all different areas of life, but no other place is it more prevalent than in the modern day Fundamentalist movement. The bible is held to be truth beyond a doubt and questions are looked upon as evil. You either believe or you do not believe, and this is dangerous as it leaves no room for the bulk of humanity.

We are all individuals, moving through space and time in different ways and at different speeds of living. We do not all see life from the same perspective and, therefore, should not feel beholden to any book or opinion of a man on a pulpit. We each create and recreate our lives based on what we encounter from day to day. Belief evolves over time, just as everything else evolves. Change is constant and we need to move with it. Having the ability to shift gears and understand your reality without relying on the dogma that has been inflicted upon you over time is important. Without this ability new situations can be daunting and, at times, even overwhelming.

In the end, you can, and should, live for yourself.

Whether you believe in something or you believe in nothing, the one thing we should all believe in is each other. We should be open and accepting. We should not just tolerate, but embrace difference. We should live our lives in the best way we can and in the end it will all work out. If not, who wants to spend eternity with a deity that punishes humans for their very nature? Not me. Would you?

Peace,
Chantale aka hippiegrrl

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Nice To See You! How Have You Been?

I realize that it has been almost a year since the last update here at rise up buffalo.  To my readers, I am truly sorry.  Life has become chock full of things to be done and this web journal had to be put on the back burner for a bit.  I should have mentioned that, but sometimes life takes off before you have time to give notice.  Anyway – we are back now and hopefully there will be weekly updates of goodness for you to ingest.  

Here are some of the things that have been happening elsewhere, but are, in many ways, connected to rise up buffalo:

For all you gender studies folks, and those of you that could use a couple lessons in gender studies, we present not just girls, a place to learn and pass it on.

Are you interested in wiping out hatred? Squashing bullying? Eliminating racism and discrimination? Join us at Hatred Be Gone where we will attempt to put a positive spin on the negativity that comes from discrimination and hatred. Moving toward a world without hatred. This includes the hatred perpetrated by those that are discriminating in the name of religious beliefs. This is the worst type of hatred, couched in the words of scripture or a system of belief. Hatred Be Gone! Poof!

hippiegrrl explains it all is up and running! We are finally on our own server. All the old posts from Backwash.com are archived here, as well as the new goodness. Please pop by and check it out when you have a moment to spare.

In the future we will have a landing page for all the “hippiegrrl” properties, but for now we are scattered across the interwebs. Safe travels and see you again soon!

Peace,
Chantale

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With Liberty and Justice For Some

We live within the confines of our environment. Although there are dreamers amoung us, the majority of the human race just goes with the flow. This is why it is so hard to come up from our country’s racist past. Why is it so difficult to look at a situation and really see it for what it is? Mainly because it is easier not to try and understand the underlying causes of racism. It is easier to just move forward with life, live in a bubble of understanding about our immediate needs, and not question the norm. This is laziness at its finest. True understanding is difficult. It requires hard work and perseverance.

In America we would rather watch reality television and be hyper consumers than think about our history or future. We walk around in a daze, brought on by fast food and the need to pay bills, while ignoring the bigger parts of our being. We miss out on the important things in order to focus on the garbage. The media easily shifts our focus away from wars, in other countries and down the street, by “reporting” on the latest pop culture phenom and his or her fall from the pedestal of fame. We buy in to this focus shift through our own retweeting and sharing of senseless memes, or worse, memes that make fun of marginalized communities. We continue the cycle of nonsense that the major media creates, through social media outlets. This is not to say that we should give up Facebook, twitter, tumblr, Instagram, and everything else online, but that we should be more thoughtful (and, even better, thought provoking) in our interactions on these sites. Social media is a tool for change, but until we focus, it will continue to be taken over by the masses who do not care about real social change.

I suppose this sounds like the rantings of a bitter feminist who does not want anyone to have fun, but that is not the case. We should all be able to have fun. Our lives should be enjoyable and we should, each and every one of us, expect the following things out of life.

1- to be able to have a job that we love, or, if our preference is not to work, to be able to make that happen in our lifetime.
2- to be able to work in an environment free of harassment and maltreatment.
3- to be able to have the family structure that we strive for, without restriction, and all the benefits that come with that family structure.
4- to be able to pursue an education without having to pay off the debt of said education for the rest of our living years.
5- to be able to walk down the street, in any neighbourhood in the country, without being followed or made to feel unsafe and certainly to not be attacked verbally or physically.
6- to be able to make choices about our bodies without the interference of other bodies.
7- to be equal, each of us, all of us.

There are many more ways in which our lives can be enjoyable, but these should be what we expect, at minimum. After the past week of events, it seems that we cannot even have all of the above things fulfilled in this country and that is sad. Pundits are always floating the idea that America is the greatest country in the world, which is, by the way, baseless when you consider all the injustice. Would the greatest country in the world seek to limit the rights of half its population by sneaking through restrictive legislation in secret special sessions? Would that nation allow a young person, who was unarmed, to be brutally killed by an older, armed man, and then put the child’s friends on trial rather than the perpetrator? Would that nation set standards for voting only to revoke those standards 50 years later in the name of progress? Would that nation try to sidestep its racist past by being apologists for a frame of mind that still exists in the southern most reaches of its land mass? No! A great nation would not. On the birthday of our country, it is shameful to see what we do in the name of a great nation. We hurt our own people and we send our citizens to other countries to fight and die for these ideals. What we should be doing is having a very real conversation about equality, in this so called great nation, and how we can truly be a beacon for the world. How we can own up to our past injustice and move forward. How we can lead the charge for human rights by example, not by rhetoric.

When a parent tells a child what to do, maybe the child will do it, maybe they won’t, but when a parent models behaviour to that same child, the child will eventually mirror those behaviours. As a young nation we have had massive growing pains, but it is time now to grow up. To be a decent society that treats all human beings equal. To be the best we can be. I know we have it in us, but we need to bring it out. Bring up the best and call out the worst, then move forward, together. If we need a model, we can always look to an even younger nation to the north. They seem to be moving in the right direction. They stumble at times as well, but they are also pretty damn good at standing up, dusting off, admitting wrong, and moving forward. That should be our goal. Lets make it happen, together.

Peace,
Chantale

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Words

Today, we saw change on a grand scale. DOMA was killed. Prop 8 was killed. LGBTQ folks can move forward with the struggle, with a little bit of it behind them. I am there too. Fighting for equality for ALL. Until we have it, there is no rest. Until we understad how our words pierce through others, we can never be fully equal. Until we move away from the garbage that is our past, we can never fully be one. Until we let go of the chains of the people that came before, we can never move forward. We must break free and understand each other within the context of the future, not the past. Stagnation is never a good thing. Evolution is the only way to go. Let’s evolve together and show that we can be better than we have been. We can have a bright future and stop recreating the past through oppression and dominance.

“Seeing the world through anothers eyes, is like bustin a window in a house of lies, and in the end you make up your own mind.” ani difranco ~ promiscuity

Last week was not so nice. Before the writer and I left for our favourite spot in Canada, we had an evening out with friends and family. Everything was going great until one guy decided, in his wisdom, to discuss how if he were married he would “never let his wife mow the lawn.” I am not quite certain how we got on the topic, or why we were talking about mowing the lawn, but the word ‘let’ struck me. I immediately barked back, “why do you have to go there?” He looked at me, confused, and asked, “what did I say now?” The defensiveness of his retort should have stopped me, but my feminist sensibility had taken over; I was off and running. Note: This entry is not meant to be an apology, as I have nothing to apologize for, but just a way to suss out exactly what I meant when I stated that the word ‘let’ was hurtful. To deconstruct a word or words. To better understand why one would choose this particular word. To understand how it sounds outside of the speakers head. These are the reasons for this entry.

“I search your profile for a translation, I study the conversation like a map. ‘Cause I know there is strength in the differences between us, and I know there is comfort, where we overlap.” ani difranco ~ overlap

Let – to hinder or prevent. I do not like to use dictionary definitions in my writing, however, at times it is necessary. In order to understand a word, fully, we must first see what the definition is. Using the word let, in the context that it was used Thursday night, is basically to prevent or not allow another person to do something. Not permit them to mow the lawn. He backtracked, after being called out on the word let, and said he meant he “wouldn’t want her to have to mow the lawn.” Well, if this is the case, why don’t you say it? Why would you say you wouldn’t let someone do something if you really meant you wouldn’t want them to have to do that thing? You wouldn’t. ‘Let’ was actually the correct word.

What this guy didn’t understand was what the word ‘let’ implies. In the context of a man ‘letting’ a woman do something, or not do something as is the case here. Using that word is a continuation of the power dynamics implicit in a patriarchal society. By saying, “I wouldn’t let my wife mow the lawn”, this guy might think he means well, when, in actuality, he is continuing the language that oppresses a whole group of human beings. He would say this is too big an idea, but that is the point. It is all about the big ideas. If we don’t look at the big picture, as mirrored through individual lives, we don’t see the consequences of our speech. We don’t see the trajectory of history and how using the language of oppression pushes a message of submission. The word let implies that this hypothetical wife will obey her husband, without question. This is not an egalitarian union. Although it is in his head, the language he uses forms his frame of reference for the future. This is the sad truth and why ‘let’ really does mean so much.

The next level of discussion was to turn it back around on me. I am a feminist, and, as such, I have the distinct pleasure of suffering fools. People call me names and talk about me as if I’m a mega-bitch, just because I believe in true equality. My striving for this equality has made me into a nemesis of those that rely on the status quo. By telling me that I’m over thinking or nit picking by calling someone on the word ‘let’, the patriarchy continues to thrive. By putting all the blame on feminists for the way the world is, the anti-feminists win.

After about 5 minutes of debate and argument, I thought we had come to a good conclusion. I explained why the word ‘let’ might be hurtful and he said he understood. I could tell he was appeasing me, but I also felt that we had reached an agreement. An empasse, yes, but an agreement nonetheless.

“I know the biggest crime, is just to throw up your hands. Say this has nothing to do with me, I just wanna live as comfortably as I can. You gotta look outside your eyes, you gotta think outside your brain, you gotta walk outside your life, to where the neighbourhood changes.” ani difranco ~ willing to fight

This time, I fought back. This time, I didn’t back down. This time, I continued to argue until I drove the other person to the point of name calling. That is where the debate ends. Devolving into argumentative, playground tactics is base and I will not give it time. We would not discuss this again. That is, until, I heard what he said behind my back, after the fact.

I have the decency to call people on their crap, to their faces. Anything I bitch about or mull over in private, I will also say to your face. That is not true for everyone and that is why it is so difficult to change hearts and minds. When someone that is a misogynistic pig tells you they understand, to appease you, don’t believe it’s over. After all, they will fight dearly for their way of life to continue. Change is difficult and, for some, it is never to be.

If you have a story about change, or lack thereof, please post in the comment thread. Or just rip me apart. Either way, debate is educational. It is the only true way to make change happen, so bring it!

Peace,
Chantale

Thank you to ani difranco for the continued inspiration. I am trying my best to be a Phoenix. It is a long and difficult road, but we will all get there someday. Together.

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Let’s Talk About Gender (and Media)

Earlier in the week, I posted an article to Facebook, from New York Magazine. It was titled “The Retro Wife”. Maybe you saw my post, or the comments that transpired after the fact, maybe not. Either way, I have decided to get up on my gender studies soapbox and write a post. This is one of the great things about having an online journal. If something sticks with me for more than 24 hours, I can write about it. Good for deconstructing ideas and gathering my thoughts.

Every night, when I settle down to watch my favourite shows, I notice something about the commercials that come between. Even on such progressive networks as MSNBC, there is still an undertone of difference in some of the commercials that are aired by the sponsors. This is something that I find across the board, but let me explain precisely what I mean by undertone of difference.

Commercials advertise products. They have since the beginning of television and before that, businesses used radio, newspapers, magazines, and other forms of media to advertise their products. These products are geared toward demographics, which are made up of specific people. With this in mind, you would not see a tampon commercial that was geared toward cis gendered males, simply because that is not a product they need to use. However, when I say an undertone of difference, I mean that a tampon commercial can play to the stereotypes in our society about menstruation. Just as other commericals play to other stereotypes. This is a marketing strategy that has been used for many decades in advertising and it will continue to move forward in such a way. The undertone of difference creates a problem in society that continually perpetuates. If a product is marketed directly to you and you are being told that you need it because of some thing that is essentialist about your being, that is a problem. Of course, tampons will continue to be marketed to women, but there is a better way to do it than shaming.

For years, I have noticed these things about advertising. Since I was a child, I have felt that undertone of difference while watching television or going to movies. This difference transcends entertainment and moves into the real world when we take the things we learn from media and implement them in our lives. Sociology gave me the terms I needed to better understand the undertones I already sensed. However, it did not alert me to anything I was not already keenly aware of, as a cis gendered female, in American society. For this reason, I have felt the need to speak up. I feel the need to investigate and research and then write down my findings. I feel a push to better understand why there is an undertone of difference in the first place and work toward change.

There are companies that are coming around, slowly but surely. Amazon, a major player in online consumerism, released a commercial, in February of this year, that supports gay marriage. That, in an of itself, is a good thing, but the way that it is presented is even better. It depicts a woman and man sitting in side by side lounge chairs on the beach. The woman is reading on a kindle and the man is using an ipad. The man is struggling to read because of the glare and the woman tells him about how great her kindle is. The man then states “Done!” and proceeds to say he just bought a kindle “let’s celebrate! how about a drink!” The woman says “yes, my husband is bringing me one right now” and the man says “so is mine!” They both turn to see two men at the bar, purchasing beverages.

Now I realize that this is, from a marketing perspective, a way to gain more of the lbgtq community, but it also does something broader. It shows us changing attitudes about the culture. Advertising can, and should, do that. As we move forward into a more equal future for all, advertisers should continue to get on the bandwagon, as Amazon has, and push the envelope. Seeing depictions of oneself in media strengthens the ways in which we interact on a personal and societal level. Moving us forward through messages of positivity is good for our culture as a whole and, at the same time, good for business.

So, when I see products being created like “Bic for her” or “Dr. Pepper Ten” that put people into distinct categories and pit the sexes against each other, I cringe. Honestly, the first time I saw a Dr. Pepper Ten commercial, I thought it was a spoof and at the end they were going to do one of those needle scratch moments and say “Dr. Pepper is for everyone!”. But they didn’t. They just moved along with the same tired trope of making the ten calorie beverage seem more appealing to cis gendered males in a stereotypical way. 2013? Disappointing.

So, where do we go from here? How do we continue the trends of good advertising that cater to ALL people rather than to those who identify as just male or just female? How do we move the media in a way that will also move the culture? That is a work in progress that I believe those people in media who want to move it are doing. Slowly but surely. People like Melissa Harris-Perry and her nerdland staff and places like the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. TV programs like My So-Called Life and Will & Grace that started pushing the envelope and opening the door to equality. Websites such as Feminist Frequency and Feministing that continue to show us how examining and better understanding pop culture, through a feminist lens, is the way to true gender equality. We are moving forward. Change is slow and grueling and although we may not get there in our lifetime, if we could just keep moving forward, leaning in, setting our sights for true equality and moving our ship in that direction, our country can eventually achieve equality of all people. Not just the people that have the loudest voices or a specific set of sex organs, all people.

/soapbox (for now)

Peace,

Chantale

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What’s Wrong With Indiana?

This past week, in the State of Indiana, a new bill was introduced for consideration to again attempt to install the requirement of a transvaginal probe for women that are persuing an abortion. This is a travesty, considering it is an additional hurdle that needs to be overcome just to exercise the right to choose. Bigger than this, however, is this far reaching request; the State is seeking to institute this bill for women seeking RU486 as well. This drug, which is taken within the first week of a potential pregnancy, and most often as an emergency contraceptive after a sexual attack or mishap with contraception, prevents the woman from having to continue a pregnancy that is wholly unwanted. It assists the woman in not having to make this decision later in a potential pregnancy. Basically, it is a way to counteract an act of violence.

Counteracting an act of violence, in and of itself, is reason enough to not inflict more violence on the woman, via an invasive and unnecessary procedure. A farther reaching issue with this bill is the fact that it would require clinics that administer RU486 to change the structure of their facilities to accommodate these tests. If they cannot comply they must stop dispensing the drug, taking away a fundamental right of the women of Indiana. The right to medical care. The right to live autonomous lives. The right to control their bodies. The right to choose.

Turning back the clock on reproductive rights is not the right direction for our country to take and each time one of these unrealistic bills comes to the forefront, it proves that women’s bodies are still a battleground, even 40 years after Roe v. Wade. Hopefully, this ridiculous bill will not pass in Indiana, but we should be mindful of this and other bills like it and the ways in which lawmaker seek to continuously erode our rights.

One woman, one body, one right, one choice.

Yet another example of why we need the E.R.A. We need to enshrine reproductive rights in our constitution and give women the protection we need to make our own decisions, once and for all.

Peace and keep up the fight!
Chantale

Links:
Indiana May Require Women To Have Two Transvaginal Probe Ultrasounds
How Republicans Quietly Mandate Transvaginal Probes When They Think No One’s Paying Attention
NARAL Pro Choice America
roe v. wade, 30 years later

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Why I Am A Feminist

I am a feminist because I believe that people of all genders are equal. All human beings, no matter what gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or creed, are equal. We all live on the earth and we are all homosapiens. We also all have to perform basic bodily functions, such as eating, sleeping, hydrating, and eliminating waste, on a daily basis. We all need food, clothing, and shelter to survive and we all need the interaction of other human beings in order to thrive. These are basic facts. They are not beliefs and they do not need faith in order to understand them. Human beings of all shapes, sizes, intelligence, and talent are equal. Our actions show us to be leaders or followers, innovators or users, but at the base levels we are all equal.

There is a book that exists that has many stories in it. Many people read this book and make decisions for their lives based on these stories. This is good in practice, for personal growth and development, but when this book is used to tell other people how to live their lives, this is where a line should be drawn. Inequality exists for many reasons, but the main reason, the first reason, is the ways in which this book tells stories concerning roles of the sexes. This book depicts a world where men are in charge and women are merely property. It pushes the ideals of patriarchy which have been detrimental to our collective consciousness. This is why we must set the book aside and enact laws from a state of equality. Pass amendments to insure that all human beings are treated equally under the law and follow through in maintaining these amendments. Women were not made fully equal by the voting rights that were won by those that came before us and fought with all their might to obtain, but by a constant daily struggle toward equality. This also includes the rights of non-cis people who are or will become trans gendered.

Time for a quick gender studies (yay sociology!) lesson: cis is a term used in gender studies to denote those individuals that have sex organs matching their gender orientation. Let me go back another step. The sex of an individual is determined by ones sex organs, the gender is the way they perform their orientation. Even easier, sex equals male/female/intersex, gender equals masculine/feminine/asexual. Sex is related to biology while gender is related to performance.

Example – I have female sex organs, I feel like a woman, I dress the way I want so sometimes I may be performing what society would deem masculinity, but overall my clothing is feminine. This makes me a cis female, meaning my sex organs match my personal identity. If I had female sex organs, but I felt like I should have male sex organs, that would make me trans, but not lesbian. I am only lesbian if I am also attracted to women. If I then go forth and have an operation to become a man, I would be a trans gay man. This makes sense in that they call the surgery reassignment surgery. This means that they are reassigning the sex organs from female to male or vice versa. This does not change the sexual attraction that an individual will feel. This is why we can definitively state that sex organs do not link to attraction. They do not link to gender. They only link to sex assignment and reproduction.

So now that you know what cis and trans mean, let me continue to explain why I am a feminist and will continue to be one throughout my life.

There are young women that feel like feminism is no longer necessary. We can vote and work and now we can fight in wars, so why do we need to keep fighting for equality? Well, it is simple really, complacency. If we put down the struggle and just live our lives, we will find ourselves back in the past quicker than we can blink. Once we settle we sign our inequality warrant. If we do not continue to look at sexism in popular culture, and critique it in order to end it, it will get more out of control than it already is.

This is where I live, feminist-wise. In the land of feminist critical studies. Watching movies and television shows and commercials, reading the latest literature, and then using my pen (or computer keyboard, I suppose) to fight the good fight against misogyny and institutionalized sexism. This may make me a pain to some or a thorn in the side of organized religion, but it is what I must do. Ministers speak of a calling that they have to do gods work, well this is my calling. I am called to right the wrongs of years of oppression by a system that makes us feel like everything will be okay if we just sit down, cross our legs, and shut our mouths. Well, I never cross my legs and I will definitely never shut my mouth. The struggle is long and difficult, but we can muddle through.

Thanks for reading this and please keep coming back. Without you, I have no voice. If you are interested in reading more about cis, trans, gender performance, feminism, and other good stuff, please click on the links below and sign up for some feeds. Information is the best defense against inequality!

Peace,
Chantale

appropriate links:

gender binary primer
who needs feminism? – yeah, that would be everyone
feminist majority foundation – the ms. foundation on the web
feminism in the 21st century – a little piece I wrote in 2003
Judith Butler on Gender Perfomativity – the mother of gender performance discourse
feministing.com – one of my favourite feminist places on the interwebs
sociological images – discourse and visuals
why i’m adding feminist to my online profiles

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2006.7.24 – feminist musings or the ani revelation

Over the weekend the NOW conference was held in Albany, NY. Being honoured this year with a “Woman of Courage” award was the Buffalo Folksinger, Ani Difranco. During her speech, overwhelmed by the supportive NOW audience, Ms. Difranco let a revelation loose by announcing that she is, indeed, 12 weeks pregnanat. Ani will be giving birth in February 2007, smack dab in the middle of our gorgeous Buffalo winter.

This news was wonderful and a little bit strange at the same time. It’s absolutely spectacular that Ani wants to have a child. It’s even better that she can make the choice to do so. The strange part is that she is Ani. The first and foremost folksinging feminist of the 90’s. It’s just a bit weird. This is a situation where I must say I am torn. Happy and astounded at the same time. Joyful and taken aback.

Well – at least we know she will raise the kid the best way she could and hopefully remain left. More to come on Ani and her baby. A whole new realm of musicality could spring from this. The hormones alone could spark another album. Ofcourse, the baby will most likely be talented as well. The hope is that she will continue to make music after the birth. We shall see. An Aquarius will certainly be complementary to her Virgo, or at least we hope so.

In other news – the NOW conference was celebrating the 40th anniversary of the organization. 40 years of bringing women together and “building a feminist future”. Betty Friedan was remembered fondly at the conference. Ms. Friedan passed away earlier this year but her presence was most likely felt at the conference of this organization that she founded.

The number one issue for the National Organization for Women is still the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). This is an amendment that women have been trying to get passed since 1923 (three years after women won the right to vote with the 19th amendment). Why do we need the ERA, you might ask? Equal pay, non-discrimination in the workplace based on pregnancy or sexual orientation, reproductive rights. Making women legally equal in our society would afford us with the opportunity to better pursue legal action concerning discrimination and the erosion of our rights, in general.

It is unbelievable that in a country that is supposed to stand for freedom and justice, we still do not consider women to be 100% equal, in every way, to men. We are supposed to be the most civilized, most aware of human rights nation in the world, but we still have the “glass ceiling” in the work place. Women have tried to break through and a few have made it, but there are still large discrepancies between men and women in high paying positions. This isn’t a call to give women jobs just for the sake of having a women in the position (quotas), but to give women an actual shot at the jobs they are qualified for. An even playing field between the boys and girls is truly all we ask for. No special treatment, just equality.

Someday.

Peace and Justice Now!!!
Hippiegrrl

If you enjoy this column PLEASE pass it along

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2005.4.18 – so much to say

i was going to talk about pop culture today. try to lighten things up, but then andrea dworkin passed away and made things ever so heavy again. it happened last saturday (9 april 2005) so i am a bit behind in my reporting, but she was important enough to warrant an entry even a few weeks after her passing.

who was andrea dworkin? only one of the greatest radical feminist writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. she would delve into issues that most of us don’t even want to think about, let alone write and talk about in public. her ideas on pornography and the subordination of women in all institutional constructs would make her a sworn enemy of other feminists critics such as camille paglia (who believes in the artistic value of pornography and dismisses the objectification of the industry). although not outwardly argumentative, you can be quite certain that paglia did not appreciate dworkin’s views on feminism and pornography.

what would be a good book of dworkin’s to read to become acquainted with her work? all of dworkin’s books were fantastic, but the one that i feel is the most moving and influential is her memoir “heartbreak”. it explains much of her struggle as a radical feminist and the reasons why she did what she did. “heartbreak” would also prove to be the writer’s last work having passed at such an early age of 58.

wasn’t dworkin just basically a man hater? this is something that the conservatives have long said of dworkin. that she was basically a misandrist (a term used by anti-feminists to point the finger at what they believe to be “man haters”) and that because of this her views were null and void. this, of course, makes no sense (just like most conservative ideas) because she lived with and even married her best male friend, john stoltenberg, in 1998. both individuals identified themselves as gay, but they felt it necessary to wed (perhaps for legal marital status). now, if she really hated men would she have married one? even though he was gay?

why is it important to know about andrea dworkin? just as it is important to have an open mind and always be learning about new people, places, and things, it is important that we know about dworkin and her place in the feminist movement. although many women in the movement thought dworkin annoying for her push toward the demise of all pornography (calling it an infringement of free speech) it remains to be seen exactly what her impact will be on the movement in full. i believe that dworkin was a driving force in a movement that badly needed a push in any direction and this current generation of feminists can gain much knowledge from a woman who defied all stereotypes and wrote from her gut. without her books, the movement would be completely different.

r.i.p. andrea dworkin
26 September 1946 – 9 April 2005

peace,
hippiegrrl

 

important links:

feminist majority foundation

national organization for women (now)

feminist campus

feministing

feminist frequency

feminist ryan gosling

everyday feminism

the feminist press

the feminist wire

aha feminist caucus

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2003.4.16 – feminism in the 21st century

We’ve come a long way, baby! Degrading as that statement may seem, it is actually very true. We HAVE come a long way, but the only way to know for sure that the struggle was not in vain is to continue on with it. We cannot just rest on the laurels of our foremothers who fought for the big stuff. We have to rise up and continue in their honourable footsteps.

Equal rights are not fully won with just the right for women to vote or equal pay for equal work. Feminism has to evolve into the 21st century and be a force to sustain these rights while winning new battles for women. Many times, in our society, women are treated unfairly in the workplace by other women. This is the most tragic event of all. Whether it be for reasons of contempt towards one another or ladder climbing, maltreatment of women by women is unacceptable.

It is an undeniable fact that, in organizing, petitioning and speaking out to free the slaves, American women learned how to free themselves. -Betty Friedan – The Feminine Mystique

In the early days of women’s rights, the feminist movement moved parallel to, and many times in conjunction with, the civil rights movement. Women were getting out and speaking up for the rights of blacks in America and, in turn, realizing that these rights should also be extended to themselves. With the notion that every human being was and is important, we see the struggle that would befall the most noble of feminists. In the process of helping to free the slaves and secure their civil rights, women saw something that they too wanted. Equal rights.

Feminism was a movement of resilience and militant pride. In recent years, feminism has begun to be looked at as a bad thing. Many factions have been ever increasingly more critical of feminists. Taking the example of two or three militant femi-nazis and making the whole group of feminists seem to be that way. This is yet another way for the establishment to dumb down the concept of equal rights for women. A way to make it seem unnecessary and even, in some instances, dangerous to be a feminist.

Every glamour magazine that sits on a shelf, screaming from its pages to the teenage girls of America, is a factor in this anti-feminism. Every add on television that makes a girl or woman feel less than she is contributes to anti-feminism. Each and every day that a girl or woman is taunted or made to feel inferiour results in the persistence of anti-feminism. Anti-feminism is a force in this country far stronger than the masses would give credit to. The ability to make women feel guilty for not spending every waking moment with their children is a form of anti-feminism.

Society still perceives career women and working mothers as a short phase in life. It is supposed that eventually these women will come around and learn to love staying at home. The assumption in that is that every woman is exactly the same and does not want to reach for a higher goal then marriage and motherhood. That the education of women ends when they become mothers. This is obviously not so, or we would not have so many career women as it were. In so much as it is possible for women to learn as well as men, so is it necessary for women to be afforded the luxury of both children and work. Women should not have to be “tied down” to family, giving up dreams of work success, unless they choose that as their goal. There are women who truly want to be housewives and nothing more and feminism extends them that choice as well.

The central theme is choice. The ability to choose career, family, home. The right to be able to choose whatever, whenever, and however without the consultation of a man. This does not, by any means, lessen the role of man in society. If anything, men are strengthened by feminism as well. They are able to have more openness in relationships because their wives/girlfriends/friends are more content and therefore more honest. Feminism is good for everyone, not just women, and this is the message that needs to be conveyed to the masses. Keep up the fight because no matter how far we have come, there is always road ahead to travel and to stop short would be nothing other than a travesty.

Peace,
Hippiegrrl

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from the archives – just a girl – 6 July 2008

this weekend i had a realization. no matter how old i am or how successful i become – no matter what trials i face in my life and what struggles i overcome – i will always be (to some people) just a girl. someone who is vulnerable and needs to be taken care of. someone who creates worry for others simply because of my gender. someone who is believed to be incapable of certain things because i don’t have the anatomy of a man. someone who does things the way a “girl” does. whatever that means. since i am female i would, ofcourse, do things “like a girl” but that should not mean that it is less than a boy.

you would think that since it is 2008 we would have gotten over the old way of looking at things, but i suppose that is not the case. there are some people that will always believe that women cannot do certain things. case in point – hillary clinton. after she conceded the election i heard a few rumblings from people about the fact that she probably would not have won anyway. this is a sad state of affairs. especially when you consider that her opponent (john mccain) is not the sharpest individual. in fact – he has even admitted that he does not know things that would be important for a president to know. ofcourse, he never puts it that way. his supporters like to call it “intellectual honesty” but it is really just bull crap. at least hillary clinton has actual intelligence and thankfully so does barack obama. hopefully the masses in our country will have learned the lesson of not electing someone who is actually stupid. we had 8 years of it and i do not think we could withstand another 4.

getting back to the girl issue – in honour of my realization – i am dedicating this entry to all the strong women in this world and especially to the girls that will become the strong women of the future. if we ever want to see a woman president we have to start to change minds. starting at home is the best place to do this mind changing, but if it cannot happen right away do not be deterred. changing hearts and minds is a difficult task that we must rise up together and work toward. if we do not do this now – we will continue to be “just girls”. if we do not stand up for ourselves the issues that affect us today will continue to worsen. wage equality will never be overcome. reproductive rights will be further eroded. gender discrimination will be allowed to stand as normal and right. the world will be a worse place for our children (especially the girls). visit one of the links below to join a cause. take a stand – many people believe that this is the only life we have to live so it is only right that we should be allowed to live it as equal to everyone.

peace, hippiegrrl

links for the feminist in each of us:

national organization for women (NOW)

code pink

lucy stone league

equality now

emily’s list

feminist majority foundation

9to5 – national association of working women

feministing

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Rochester NY or The Place To Be

“I’m a pixie, I’m a paper doll, I’m a cartoon” Ani Difranco

Music has always had an effect on me. It brings memories rushing to the surface, good and bad. When my iPod shuffles to an Ani D song that I have not heard in a while, most likely my thoughts will turn to Rochester, NY.

This past week, there was a flower show in the “flower city” and a few people that I follow on twitter were in attendance. In an attempt to make sure they enjoyed their visit, I suggested a few establishments to peruse while off from the show. Unfortunately, they were unable to visit these places, but I want to highlight them here, for future visitors to one of my favourite cities. Even though I retuned to Buffalo, NY, for work, I still miss Rochester and hope that the writer and I will be able to return some day and make our life work there.

In the meantime, we are only an hours drive away from some great restaurants, art galleries, film houses and cafes. Here is a sampling of some great places to see the next time you visit RaChaCha.

Those of you that know me probably figure that the first place I will talk about is Java’s on Gibbs. This is one of my favourite places to hang out while visiting, but the last time the writer and I were in town we found a place that I enjoyed even more, amazingly enough. That place was Boulder Coffee Company on Alexander Street. The atmosphere was very relaxing and the coffee was wonderful. I did not get that usual acidic reaction, like I do at Javas, where I have to quickly reach for my papaya tablets to fend of agita. I was able to drink the whole cup without incident and the sandwich was extra yum. I did not feel like I was in the way, as I usually do at Java’s, since the tables and chairs were set up in a good proximity to one another.

Let me stop for a moment to talk about this phenomenon of feeling “in the way”. This is something that women have to deal with, on a conscious or unconscious basis, daily. Men do not seem to have this issue, usually. This relates to the power dynamics that still persist in our society. Men are looked upon as being powerful, and this is normalized, by taking up as much space as they need and want. Women, for the most part, often strive to make themselves smaller. Either through the crossing of legs, the squeezing into girdles and spanx, or by not eating to become smaller mass-wise. These are ways in which women have had to live in order to not make a “spectacle” of the themselves. When a woman sits “like a man” with legs uncrossed she is either given dirty looks, in order to make her comply, or she is looked upon as “masculine” as if this is a bad thing. The norm, in American society, is for men to be in power and women to be subordinate. Even in these days of feminism and moving toward equality, these ideals still persist, under the surface. They rise up at times to push women back into their proverbial cubbyholes and, in essence, keep them in line with the norms. Two steps forward, one step back. This is the plight of feminism in the 21st century. I will continue this in my next post, on Ren Faires, so stay tuned. In the meantime, back to Rochester…

A place that the writer and I love to eat is on Park Avenue. Actually, there are two favourite places on Park. The first is Hogan’s Hideaway and the second, Magnolia’s. Hogan’s has the best Reubens and Crabcake sandwiches that we have had and the beer selection is sufficient. We enjoy hanging out in the bar area or sitting in the dining room as the atmosphere of both spaces is very relaxed.

Magnolias has the best paninis and pizzas in town and a great selection of craft beers to drink with lunch or to take home in six pack form. While living in Corn Hill, the writer and I made the effort to visit Magnolias many times. The service there is very homey and the food is fantastic. The seating is not the most comfortable, but the summer months bring one of the best patios in the city, well worth the trip.

If brunch is more your style, Jines is the place to be. Also on Park Avenue, this establishment has the BEST stuffed French toast you will find in the city. A few other diner locations, such as Gitsie’s, Jay’s, or Mark’s all serve awesome breakfasts, but for brunch I would definitely recommend Jine’s. Even if there is a wait to be seated, it is well worth it.

Leaving behind food and drink, let me tell you about a few entertainment venues that are not to be missed while visiting RaChaCha. If you are looking to see a great indie film, the Little Theatre on East Avenue, is the place to be. The Cinema, on South Clinton at South Goodman, offers low prices for second run movies and a great old theatre to view them in. This theatre was, and most likely still is, home to the R.I.T. Film studies program senior project screenings. The writer’s classmates had their senior screenings here and it was the perfect venue for these events.

The George Eastman House is a great tour to take while visiting and if you time it right, you can also partake in a screening of an old or indie film. Just wandering the house and gift shoppe are a great way to spend the afternoon. The second floor has a very interesting, although morbid, case that tells a bit of the George Eastman history that is not to be overlooked. Eccentric and fabulously wealthy, George Eastman was nothing if not ostentatious and this tour proves it.

As museums go, the Memorial Art Gallery has an excellent collection to view. Located on University Avenue, it is connected to the University of Rochester and houses several collections of fine and craft arts. For the kids, the Strong Museum of Play is a great place to spend an afternoon. Many interactive displays are present and will keep the kids and the adults busy.

If walking is what you enjoy, Rochester boasts several parks and recreational areas right in the city limits. A favourite, from my time living in the city, was Highland Park. Movies in the park are put on at the Highland Bowl in the summer months, as well as Shakespeare in the Park. The Lilac Festival is held here in mid-May each year and the lilacs themselves are a wonderful addition to any walk through the park. An afternoon in the park with a journal to write in, a good book to read, or an excellent cup of coffee can make any week more enjoyable.

For live theatre buffs, the best place in the city is the Geva Theatre. Celebrating the 40th season this year, the Geva has been putting on excellent regional theatre productions since 1972. If you are looking for a great performance, look no further than the Geva. For great live bands, the place to visit is the Bug Jar, on Monroe Avenue. This venue hosts dj nights as well and, if nothing else, it is worth a trip for a beer and a gander at the “bug fan”.

I hope that you enjoy your next visit to Rochester. Writing about it has made me want to pack up the car and get away. Maybe next weekend, see you there!

Peace and happy day tripping,
Chantale aka hippiegrrl

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The Holidays and Gender Roles

Studying Sociology has become a double edged sword for me. Over the holiday season, my sense of gender roles and norms becomes heightened. Most of the time I have to keep my mouth shut and ‘go with the flow’, but sometimes I decide that I want to engage in a conversation that will hopefully lead to a better understanding for everyone concerned. This is how I know that I should probably be a professor, but that is for another post. This post is about how people can be one way in their day to day life and then the holidays come, we meet up with family and friends that we do not see daily and things go back to the way they previously were.

I am sure that everyone out there has a story about how the holidays bring out a different side of people. But, what if the side that it brings out is actually the regular, day to day, side and we only experience it at this time of year? When you rarely see an individual, you lose the feel for their personality. In some instances this can be good, but it is a shock to the system when you have to deal with each other for hours at a time. Thinking about this situation can bring up many things. Memories that have been washed of melancholy and are now shiny little examples of what we crave around the holidays. We forget the fighting and the strife and focus on the good. This may be good for the psyche, but in the long run it makes it more difficult to function year to year.

By letting the past stand as a beacon of what the holidays should be, we lose sight of what is real. We try to make everything perfect, to make it match up to our expectations of what can be based on what was. And in this, we fail to see the difficulty that falling back into our previous roles can cause. When gender roles are so tied up in the way that we function, in these situations, it makes things tense. In even the most enlightened family situations sometimes those gender norms sneak up and bite us.

When we interact with different divisions of our family, we may slide backwards when it comes to things we are willing to do to keep the peace. On a normal day, one might be a staunch feminist, but when faced with a holiday, feminism might be put on the back burner. This is a disservice to the holiday season! Better to make it a learning experience. After all, when are you going to get all these people together again? It really is a great platform for dispelling gender norms and for subverting the roles that we often fall into.

So, how do we do this? It may be difficult, but it has to be done. Sometimes there are gender norms already being subverted that you can point out as a starting place. In my family, my mother does the bulk of the planning, my parents go shopping together, my mom cooks the meal and my dad washes the dishes. Although there are still a few gender norms being practiced here, there are also a couple being subverted. 50 years ago (or yesterday, in some places) the mother in this scenario would have done everything listed above, while the dad merely poured drinks and sat in the living room enjoying family and friends. The ladies would have spent the majority of the time in the kitchen; cooking, cleaning and sometimes even eating, away from the family. Yes we have come a long way, but we cannot merely rest on our laurels. We need to continue talking, dispelling, subverting and fighting until there are no gender norms. On the day that we no longer hear the words “that is women’s work” or “this is a mans job” uttered we will finally be equal and free of the constraints that come with being cast in a mold of social and cultural making.

Until next time, good luck in your fight, fellow feminists! We can go further together than we ever could alone so keep it up!

Peace and happy subverting,

Chantale aka hippiegrrl

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Is This A Dream?

Sometimes I wonder if my current state is merely a dream and that someday soon I will wake up to a different reality. I will still have the same apartment and the same significant other, but I will be doing something else (something better and more important) with my life. On that day I will rise in the morning, be happy to get out of bed and go to my wonderful job, teaching the future leaders of the world. Until that day, I am living in a haze of good intentions. Until that day, I am applying to PhD programs and attempting to make something of myself. Until that day, I will continue to be a low level employee, working my butt off for very little money, induring great heaping piles of micro-management.

As you may or may not know, I dislike my job. Mostly because it feels like I have taken several steps backward to get to it. At any given time in my past you could have found me managing IT projects for a small community based bank, doing the barista thing, or stocking the shelves at the college bookstore. For a short time I did a stint as a teller, hoping it would evolve into something more. It did not. The only solution is to take a different path. Customer service has been at the root of nearly every job I have had in my life. This has to change. I have finally figured it out. I do not enjoy waiting on people!

So – working from that realization will get me beyond this simple, but tedious and aggravating job set. Moving toward being a professor, working on web design and development as a freelancer, writing articles for hyperlocal media and journals. These are career paths that will lead to somewhere better. Somewhere challenging and fun and not so staunchly conservative or sales based. My dream will come true someday, only this dream will include a classroom and office hours, not a knight in shining armour.

Peace,
Chantale (aka hippiegrrl)

What I’m reading now:
Book: The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
Magazine: Ms.
Online article: The Only Child: Not a Loner?

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Social Construction and Gender

Let me begin this post by saying that, yes, I have completed my second bachelors degree in Sociology.  As of May 2011, I have double degrees, Music (1997) and Sociology (2011), and will hopefully begin a PhD in Sociology and Gender Studies, beginning in 2012.  Along the path to obtaining this degree, I have become a Marxist, Feminist, Social Constructionist.  I am completely on board with what these three designations entail, politically and socially.  Due to this fact, rise up buffalo is going to become much more sociologically centered.  We will still attempt to keep the community updated on activism and volunteerism in the city, but also try to help you, the reader, better understand some key concepts in the struggle.

Sociology is an awesome base from which to create activist campaigns and also a great source for common sense.  I hope you will continue on this journey with us as we delve deeper into the sociological aspects of our lives and communities.  We will attempt to better understand the world around us and that is always a wonderful and challenging thing.  Please, come along on the ride, it may be bumpy, but it is certain to be entertaining and enlightening.

On to today’s topic – Social Construction and Gender –

Let me begin with a quote from one of my favourite feminists – Gloria Steinem

“In a patriarchy, a poor man’s house may be his castle, but a rich woman’s body is not her own.”

I realize that this quote pertains directly to equality issues, but I find that it also has a lot to do with our perceptions of gender and the way in which it is constructed in our society. As you may have guessed, a social construct is a concept that is created by a particular group. This group may be society as a whole (which we must always remember includes each of us as individuals and is not just some alien concept that one can call upon to lay blame in an argument or debate), a particular culture or traditional system or a social or cultural group that is created by individuals to fill a need of the community. All groups have standards for the way that each member should behave. If we begin by looking at these standards as socially constructed we can start to see how our behaviours and perceptions are constructs.

For example – in American society, we still hold fast to a patriarchal system. When children are born, they are usually named after the father, if he is known. Even if the mother is single, she will, oftentimes, be strongly pushed toward this naming convention. Since this “tradition” has been the norm for so many years, we continue to see it as a social standard. In digging a bit deeper we can see the social construction of maintaining this naming convention. Property is divided up based on a patriarchal code and, as such, children must reflect their fathers family in order to partake in the division. With the rates of single motherhood rising, this trend is changing, however there are still many traditionalists who feel it a threat to our society to make this change. Any social construct that is challenged is seen as an attack on society, but as stated earlier, society is you and me, not some outside source that we have to look to for reason and understanding. We make up our society and we can change it. We can go forward naming our children in any way we see fit and our society will not collapse, just as we will survive if baby girls are not dressed in pink or baby boys dressed in blue. Another example of social construction that is taken for granted and made to seem ultra important in the rearing of children. As if dressing a boy in pink will forever stunt his growth or painting a girls room blue will make her less of a woman.

The funny thing about this particular construct is that it has become so commonplace that even women who profess to be feminists have named their children after the father.  It is as if this naming convention is SO normalized that we do not recognize it as such.  This is extremely dangerous territory.  Normalizing constructs is what keeps us down.  Not just as women, but as a human race.  If we cannot rise above these constructs there will continue to be gender equality in our “free and open” society.  Free for whom exactly?  The powerful and elite?  The XY chromosome group?  The pale complexion set?  The historically powerful, that is who.  I say no more!  We need to start dispelling myths and reversing norms.  This is the one and only way to reach full equality of all genders!

Peace – Chantale (aka hippiegrrl)

appropriate links:
Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey – the best site to better understand an extremely important read
Gloria Steinem Official Website – my hero and (hopefully!) yours!
Books by Judith Lorber – interested in the social construction of gender? start with this list and work your way forward!

questions?  comments?  like or dislike?  let us know in the comment section below…
please pass this post along to your friends and foes.  we love the attention from both sides!