Category Archives: Feminism

September 14, 2011 · 12:12 pm

Telling the Truth about Motherhood: Do You Dare?

There are mornings in which words are too much; the previous night’s tension has not yet left my jaw, and the stream of questions and entreats–rapid-fired from little mouths which don’t yet require caffeine–proves too much for my overwrought mind.  Like the aspens which bend before my window in pre-dawn wind, I too have spent a night being battered: by images, by fragments of what I said and she said; by imaginings and second thoughts about the shape of a scraggly juniper which, the day before, met its match in a pair of long, sharp shears.   It can be anything, these ruminations that keep me up at night. 

And then there are the voices of my day, those which emanate unrehearsed, live from the moment as it uncoils.  I want to savor these young voices, to delight in staccato speech and the sputtering of words just learned.  But at times, my need for stillness and silence prevents me from such revelry.  At times, I seek only to tame the wild moment, because the unpredictability of  parenting—which in my mind leans toward chaos—can prove too much for my pattern-seeking nature.

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I’ve written often about my difficulty with motherhood (here, here and here, for example).  And each time I do so, I worry about how my daughters will respond when they, one day, read the ancient musings of their mother.  Will they confuse my feelings about the role of motherhood with my feelings about them?  Will they believe, if I acknowledge frustration with the fact that motherhood tends to be isolating and repetitious for me, that I love them less?  Or that they are responsible for my feelings?

The concept of modern motherhood is nothing if not a contradiction: we are told that we’re responsible for everything our child does, but then that we’ve overstepped our bounds and become too controlling; we are told to keep all potentially harmful substances—from pesticides to plastics–away from our children, but then told we should give our kids freedom and room to roam; we are taught to attend to their emotional, social, physical, intellectual, and spiritual needs, but then written off as helicopter parents, unable to separate from the children we’ve inadvertently smothered.  (But don’t dare back too far away from your precious and needy children, lest you want to be called selfish–perhaps the biggest sin in motherhood.)

This confusion about the optimal distance between mother and child boils down to this:  Are mothers supposed to have their own lives and experiences, independent from those of their children?  Most of us would answer a resounding “yes.”  Yet it’s likely we still fear that our distance may harm our children, because it implies that our availability will be limited.  (If you disagree, consider the so-called Mommy wars, and the heated debate about whether the children of working mothers are damaged by being in daycare; this remains an emotionally loaded and highly provocative issue.)

Another incarnation of this question is whether mothers are entitled to have—and give voice to—their negative experiences with motherhood.  Publicly acknowledging such sentiments may feel taboo, as though a sacred institutional pact has been breached by a disloyal member.  

Then there is the idea that our children will be harmed if we articulate the challenges of motherhood or show them that we’re struggling.  It is true that a parent’s emotional outpouring can be distressing or even damaging for a child, particularly if it is accompanied by abusive behavior, or if it is ongoing and representative of mental illness.  And children shouldn’t be asked to provide counsel or emotional support to parents struggling with their own issues.  But I suspect that our fear of acknowledging maternal dissatisfaction derives not just from our desire to protect children, but from the age-old belief that women are not full-fledged subjects in their own lives, entitled to their own experiences and reactions, but rather baby-making machines.    

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On days in which parenting takes the wind from my sails, I think of the ballerina in my daughter’s musical jewelry box.  Each time the box is opened, I’m surprised to see her spring to life; I assume that she’s been permanently destroyed, due to rough treatment from dirt-encrusted hands and a sharp hinge which comes dangerously close to decapitating her.  But there she is, rising again when the box is next opened, turning steadily as ever to the tune of “It’s a Small World.”  

Most mothers can likely relate to this tenacious plastic doll: we endure and persevere, and sometimes surprise ourselves with our own resiliency.  But, unlike the doll, we need to vent and spill and gripe about our lives, especially on days when our own spring fails–days when we’re not sure we’re cut out for this thing called motherhood.   In the end, there is no template, no right way to be a mom.  And at times, we all feel dissatisfaction and despair.  But ideally we can surround ourselves not just with children and their buckets of toys and clothes and carriers, but with other mothers who speak their truth and say, “I hear you” when we speak ours.

How about you–do you tell others if you’re struggling?  And do you think mothers are encouraged to speak of their dissatisfaction with the role?

Photo by Tilemahos Efthimiadis, via Flickr’s Creative Commons License.

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Filed under Being Authentic, Feminism, Girls, Motherhood, Navel Gazing (or More About Me), Parenting, Self Care

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March 29, 2011 · 8:15 pm

Padding and Patriarchy: The State of American Girlhood

If headlines from the past few weeks are any indication, American girls are coming of age in a time of considerable hostility.

Most recently, we learned that Abercrombie and Fitch is marketing padded bikini tops to 8 year-olds.  In case you’ve forgotten, 8 year-olds are in second or third grade. Girls of my generation tried the “I must, I must, I must increase my bust” thing (thanks to Judy Blume) and put toilet paper inside our training bras (thanks to Dolly Parton). But I remember this starting at 10 or 11.  And, though we certainly knew that when it came to breasts, bigger was better, we didn’t have a powerful corporation shoving this message directly at us; we picked it up by extension, as something that trickled down through the cultural waters surrounding our older sisters and our mothers.

Yet it’s not just the bikini top which is so disturbing, it is the reactions that litter the blogosphere.  Many go something like this: “I can’t believe A & F started making these slutty clothes!”  Or, to paraphrase my personal favorite, “If I saw a girl wearing this, I’d think she was a ho.”  Talk about blaming the victim.

Well okay then, I will: I’ll mention the New York Times’ recent coverage of the gang rape of an 11 year-old girl in Texas, which was another stop along the recent parade of patriarchy.  The Times was lambasted (appropriately) for its coverage of the incident, in particular for the fact that it soft-pedaled the accused boys’ responsibility, and focused instead on the girl’s behavior and dress.  Regarding the reaction of local residents, reporter James C. McKinley wrote, “They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.”  Which prompted Libby Copeland of Slate to shrewdly retort, “How can the New York Times fail to frame these quotes properly, to point out the stunning cultural misogyny that allows a brutal gang rape to be reinterpreted as vigilante moral policing? To report these details bare, without context, puts the misogyny squarely in the voice of the Times.”

Then there is the issue of sexting, as brought to the fore by an article in last Sunday’s New York Times.   It’s no longer just (pseudo) celebrities like Paris Hilton who (accidentally?) make sex tapes or document their naked bodies.  No, teens around the country are now engaging in this behavior.  And, as you might imagine, it is girls who typically bare all; boys who sext might show a bare chest, but it’s rarely more titillating than that.

When the Times asked teens why girls engage in this revealing practice, an 18 year-old named Rachel explained, “A girl thinks, ‘I know I’ve been warned against it, but this is something I want to share with my boyfriend, and he’s different.’”  Ah yes, Rachel, you are surely correct; teenage girls, like the rest of us, choose to believe that trusted partners would never betray.  But there is a larger issue at play:  Why do girls feel the need to disseminate images of their naked bodies?

This question would be easy to answer if it were just the “bad” girls, the poorly parented or racy ones, who posed and pressed the button.  And indeed, parents may rely upon such an explanation to reassure themselves that their daughters would never do such a thing.  But sexting is so widespread that it likely involves a broad sampling of girls from various backgrounds and family constellations.  As the Times article notes, some students feel that sharing naked photos is a standard step in the dating process, an unremarkable element of contemporary courtship.  But common ritual or not, sexting takes place because girls have learned that they are supposed to display their bodies; it’s a near-requirement of modern femininity, for both celebrities and mere mortals.

Ours is a society in which beauty–and more specifically the rarefied version manifest in only a small minority of women–trumps all; a culture in which Geraldine Ferraro’s passing merits a mere blip on the media radar, whereas Elizabeth Taylor’s death entails coverage as extensive as her marital track record.

And it is this cultural underpinning—the one that says that girls (and women) are valuable for the size of their fleshy, padded or silicone breasts; the one that says that you can read a girl’s sexual appetite based on the type of clothing that she wears and (even worse) that she is asking for trouble if her clothing is too revealing, too provocative—it is this thread that snakes its way through recent events, serving to recall and perpetuate a cohesive narrative about the objectification of women.

This is the backdrop of contemporary girlhood; this is the environment in which our daughters must come to terms with their sexuality, with the fact that their appearance and their behavior will be analyzed and labeled, categorized and catalogued.  We can try to inoculate them through open discussion as well as education in the areas of media literacy, interpersonal skills, assertiveness training, and the overarching tenets of feminism.

Our efforts will likely be challenged, even undermined, by an incredibly effective and invasive media, by corporate sponsorship and targeted marketing.  And by those who point the finger at “slutty” young girls of 8 or 11 years.

During times like these, the task of inoculating and empowering our daughters can seem impossible.  But I have two precious and tangible reasons to keep up the fight–two little girls who cannot yet articulate the need, but need my efforts all the same.  And they need yours, too.

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Are you worried about the young girls in your life?  How do you handle toxic cultural messages regarding female sexuality and appearance?

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Photo of girl by  mikebaird via Flickr’s Creative Commons License.

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Filed under Feminism, Girls, Media, Motherhood, Parenting, Sexuality

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February 10, 2011 · 7:23 am

Girls: Manipulative Bullies or Sugar and Spice?


This post was written as part of Teen Week, Medicinal Marzipan’s effort to reach out to and empower youth.  Too often, those of us who are supposedly “grown up” are quick to judge teens–as irresponsible, as wildly immature and lost.  I wrote this post to remind them (and us) that this assessment is inaccurate, as is the the media’s often cruel depiction of this age group.

As I wrote about last week, I’ve been preparing to conduct a series of workshops with 5th grade girls.  And though I’m familiar with what researchers say about tweens, teens, and the particular subculture they inhabit, every now and again I feel the need to brush up on what the popular press has to say about this group.   So I recently bought and combed through a fair number of periodicals aimed at boy-crazy girls who buy lots of make-up and obsess about jeans.

And here is what I learned:

  1. Some guy named Justin Bieber is apparently very hot.  I think his hair has something to do with it.
  2. Tangerine lips are big this spring, and you’d better get your requisite tube of “Orange You Going to Kiss Me?” straight away.  Failure to do so could mean you sleep alone.  For the rest of your life.

And finally:

  1. Girls fight.  A lot. They turn on each other more often than a revolving door, without pause or provocation.  Merely because they are girls—inevitably catty and backstabbing.

Well.  I’m certainly glad that the magazines enlightened me about that one.  Here I was believing that girls are strong and smart and interested in things other than proper blush application or stealing their best friend’s boyfriend.  Here I was believing that it might actually be sexist stereotypes which perpetuate the idea that girls are evil, that contribute to the notion that girls can go from ally to enemy in the blink of a charcoal-rimmed eye.

I was under the (apparently false) assumption that it might be those darn messages that are the problem—you know, the messages that girls are supposed to be like sugar and spice and everything nice, that account for the fact that girls don’t always communicate in the most straightforward of terms.  I assumed that girls might be unprepared to deal with anger because they are expected to be sweet and considerate of others at all times.

Silly me, I figured that something about the way that girls are evaluated—on the size of their thighs and the shape of their eyes, especially by magazines like these—might contribute to the competition and hierarchy that exists among girls, to the jockeying to claim the cutest boy in school (with Justin Beiber hair, no doubt) as “boyfriend.”

Thank goodness these magazines disabused me of my faulty assumptions.  And that they warned me!!!  Because I learned that my BFF might be “out to get me.”  Which makes sense, because she is a girl, after all, and girls do sneaky, conniving and crazy things like that.

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Wouldn’t it be easy for a girl to start believing the detrimental messages disseminated by teen magazines?  Because on some level, we’ve all probably internalized the notion that girls are backstabbing and manipulative, that there is something in the female nature that makes us inherently and inevitably so.

This idea is older than the ages, with roots in an ancient and bucolic garden, nestled somewhere in the fertile crescent.  Eve was the first woman to be typecast in such an unflattering and decontextualized light. And her legacy thrives in myriad contemporary incarnations:  think Single White Female, Gossip Girl, or The Roommate.

I don’t deny that plenty of girls experience bullying or interpersonal conflict. And these are certainly issues which must be addressed, at the level of individual and community.  But to do so, we need to understand the cultural context, the back-story about why (some) girls behave in such a way.

We need to look at what we ask of girls, in particular whether it is fair to insist that they be unflaggingly nice, even when it is not in their best interest to do so.  And we need to wonder about whether they are taught to assert themselves and to express anger in a healthy way.  (Boys need to learn these skills, as well, but because they are more likely to feel entitled to be angry, they can at least get out of the starting gate.)

Finally, we need to understand that, as long as girls and women are encouraged to cultivate—above all else—the externals in their lives (those things which relate to appearance and to the superficial trappings of femininity), they risk being stunted in their emotional and social development.  And they miss the potential to have a rich inner life, replete with self-awareness and the ability to contend with knotty social situations and the emotional havoc that accompanies adolescence.

Perhaps it’s time we come up with a few new nursery rhymes, and leave the sugar and spice in the kitchen. Where they belong.  Because teenage girls are much more complicated and wonderful than that.

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What do you think?  If you’re a teen, how do you feel when you see the media depict girls as evil and manipulative?  Are there some good female role models out there? And what about bullying?  Does the media’s influence encourage girls to be dramatic and backhanded?

Want to participate in Teen Week? Pop on over to Medicinal Marzipan to learn what you can do!

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Filed under Feminism, Girls, Media, Relationships, Uncategorized

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January 5, 2011 · 12:07 pm

To Keep, Change, or Hyphenate: What’s a Woman to Do?

My name is long, unwieldy, and commonly mispronounced.  It is a double-barreled and intimidating mess of letters.  When I first meet people, they typically opt for “Dana,” not as a means to be casual or chummy, but as a way to avoid tripping over those two words which are problematic by themselves, and near impossible as a hyphenated union:  Udall-Weiner.

When I say my name, I sometimes feel embarrassed, arrogant: Who do I think I am to insist on keeping one name and adding another?  Who do I think I am to ask that others learn to pronounce not one, but two, mouthfuls of moniker?

But I can’t imagine being just Udall, or being just Weiner.  Each feels incomplete without the other.

Apparently, using a hyphen may hinder my career prospects, or at least that’s what a psychiatrist recently implied when he said that my name must be “awfully difficult” for my clients.  Though his comment was brazen, condescending, and patriarchal, he had a point: my name presents a challenge.  I’d like to think that I have more faith in others than he does, because I trust that people will eventually get it.  (And they always do.)

There may be clients who are deterred by my choice to hyphenate because of their own implicit associations.  Perhaps they assume that I will be a hairy feminist with floppy, unbridled breasts and a bean bag chair. Or that I will be shrill and unyielding, staunch in my feminist stance and critical of those who chose a traditional path.

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Filed under Feminism, Motherhood, Navel Gazing (or More About Me), Parenting, Uncategorized

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December 10, 2010 · 6:13 am

Gay Jokes Hurt the Straight Folk, Too

Anyone seen the Bud Light ad in which a group of men, with letters painted on their bare chests, mistakenly spells the word “Girlies,” rather than their actual team’s name, “Grizzlies”?

If not, here is one version of it:

Funny, right?  It’s humorous that the men, initially self-satisfied with their display of masculine bravado, are deflated when they realize that they have spelled something antithetical to the intended word, something silly, and, well, girlish.  Because what’s funnier than a grown man being portrayed as a little girl?  Not much.

Given its emphasis on traditional masculinity, it’s clear the commercial is aimed at straight men.  Apparently women and gay men don’t comprise much of the audience during football games.  (Or they’ve given up on us because we drink better beer than Bud Light.  One would hope.)

In order to sell something considered feminine, something low in calories like light beer, advertisers have to make the potential buyer (the viewer) feel masculine.  They do this by deriding other men for being wimps, which leaves the viewer’s masculinity intact (he is not like them after all) and unassailable by something as tangential as light beer.  The viewer is different from these men, who are so dumb and clueless and illiterate that they might as well be little girls, just like the word they’ve spelled.

Though the misogynistic message is obvious (that men should not be feminine or girlish, since femininity is inferior to masculinity), we might overlook the connection to homophobia.  In essence, it’s not just that being feminine is bad, it’s that if you’re feminine, you might as well be gay.  In fact, the assumption is that being feminine makes you gay.

It’s not news that men—gay and straight—are mocked and derided for being feminine, and that’s what happens in this ad, as well.  So it’s not a stretch to say that, when we laugh at them for being sissies, the underlying message is homophobic:  they are so pathetic and feminine that they might as well be gay; whether they actually are is irrelevant.

These two—homophobia and sexism—are kissing cousins, cozy and mutually-reinforcing in nature.

It’s worth noting that gay men are not necessarily more feminine than straight men, just as lesbians are not necessarily more masculine than their heterosexual sisters.  But such hegemonic stereotypes endure because people don’t know what to do with masculine gay men and feminine lesbians.  (Are they hot or gross? And if we can’t pick them out of a crowd, then how will we stay safe and uncorrupted and moral???)

I know a lot of people (particularly men) who would denounce sexism, but tell a few gay jokes on the side. Or use the word “gay” to mean lame.  Because there’s no one in the room who’s gay, so what does it matter?

In an ideal world, each of us would chose to denounce homophobia for the most obvious of reasons—it is oppressive and potentially deadly to those in the GLBTQ community.  But for some people, this is not motivation enough, because they are disconnected from this community, and think they don’t know anyone who is anything but straight up straight.  They don’t see the relevance to their lives.

This is a myopic and inaccurate assessment.

Here is my request to the straight world, particularly to straight men:  Next time you think of razzing your buddy by insulting his masculinity and making a gay joke, consider that you are perpetuating traditional and sexist gender roles when you do so.  You might as well come right out and tell your daughters that they are less capable and serious and smart than your sons, because you are saying that being a woman (or a girl) is a sad, laughable thing. And you are perpetuating the idea that your son must conform to the rigid expectations of masculinity or be teased and humiliated, even if he is straight as an arrow.

You are setting your kids up to fail, because such rigid categories cannot contain all that they are, all that they can become.

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