Facebook status

Just an observation...

When I comment on facebook about needing a new cell phone, preferably one that has email functions, I get several responses about what to (or not to) purchase. As a sidenote, I am annoyed by my dependency on my phone... I only got it in the first place because it was required by daycare, but now I feel naked without it.

However, when I write a post that has more meaningful social commentary, such as supporting the local OPSEU strike, I'm lucky if one person "likes" it... and this occurs even though my friends list is full of social activists and leftist grad students and professors (granted, they aren't the ones commenting on my cell phone choices).

Priorities, I guess. Sometimes it seems as though people (at least on facebook) are more invested in small purchases that have nothing to do with them than they are in important current events.

Disney princess videos

I've come across these videos before, but I think they are such a brilliantly funny critique of Disney princesses that I wanted to post them here too.





I guess many of the role models out there for little girls to look up to might leave something to be desired...

A third post about body hair

It seems as though posts about body hair (especially leg hair) might become regular installments on this blog because I have had so many experiences around being outside in the summer without properly groomed legs.

This time, it was my mother who commented. I was at her house and she said;

I don't know why you do that to yourself (referring to not shaving my legs).

To which I responded;

You mean why I don't do that to myself.

It is not me doing something to myself that my mom is questioning, but the absence of doing something that, as a cisgendered woman, I am expected to do. My mom gave me my first razor the summer before grade 4. At that age, I wasn't doing it for boys but because women were not supposed to have body hair. I wonder how many hours I have spent shaving over the past 18 years. And how much money I spent on razors, waxes, depilatory creams, shaving gels, and moisturizers to soothe sore skin. It is something that is largely unquestioned by the women I know.

I am currently almost 8 weeks razor-free (shaved once after going about 6 weeks without prior to my son's birthday party at the beach). My legs are actually the softest (and most comfortable) they have ever been, no razor burn, rashes from harsh chemicals, or any discomfort whatsoever. That being said, I am sitting here in shorts debating over whether I should change into capris before I go out this afternoon so I am obviously not completely comfortable yet, but I'm working on it.

And I think the next installment might be a post about dating with body hair.

Real boys can't dance

I was at my son's soccer party today and really had to bite my tongue at another mother's comment... one of the parents was talking about enrolling her daughter in dance this fall. Another mother said (and I wrote this down right away so I could quote it)

I wish I had girls. I only have boys so I can't put them in dance cause that would be a little, you know... (trails off).

A little what? Gay? I was about to tell her off right there, until I realized that we were surrounded by 5 year old children. I started to think about how to approach this when another parent stepped in and talked about the cute little boys in her daughter's dance class.

As a former dancer/ figure skater/ gymnast, I have heard the boys is my classes get ridiculed for being there by their peers. Were some gay? Probably, but then, some hockey players probably were too. Most were not gay. It is just another example of things that are designated as feminine being off limits for males.

Gender and beauty standards

How long do I have to hold strong feminist values before some of the dominant views of women begin to erode? Or how strongly do I need to hold beliefs about healthy body images before I stop comparing myself to other women all the time? Have any women reading this made it that far? If so, please share your story, as I am getting frustrated with some of these knee jerk reactions that are so incompatible with my politics.

I was at an event not too long ago where there were a couple other women about my age, and right away I found myself sizing them up, comparing their physical appearance to my own, judging them based on their appearance. This lasted about a second and a half before I caught myself and snapped the proverbial elastic band around my wrist, but it was a lesson for me. I, of all people, am still buying into these dominant gendered beauty norms.

My friends and family know better than to make a sexist statement around me, and are careful when making any comment on a woman's appearance, as they know that I will call them out if I believe it to be inappropriate. I tell people off when they make catcalls on the street when I feel safe doing so. I think I have shaved my legs 4 times in the last year, and I've recently made a commitment to not shaving anymore because I miss the soft hair. I wear make up maybe once a month. I style my hair about every other week. More often than not, I wear jeans or capris and a T-shirt. I am not remotely high maintenance, and I try not to care what I look like in relation to dominant standards of beauty, but I still worry about body image.

Maybe it dates back to when I was a competitive figure skater and gymnast, as we were very hard on each other and ourselves to look how we thought a female athlete was supposed to look. Note that I said female athlete and not just athlete... athletes are supposed to be strong and muscular, female athletes on the other hand, at least in the sports I participated in, were supposed to have long lean muscles. I know I define myself by my figure to an extent... I still exercise regularly and get concerned if my pants start to get too tight (although I have convinced myself that I just don't want to buy a new wardrobe... maybe that is only part of the problem).

So, now I am trying to find a balance of some sort. How do I exist in a world where everywhere I look there are photoshopped images of women posing in various (often contorted) positions, and still try to maintain a healthy body image? How do I try to enjoy television programs that feature women who were often picked because of their appearance along with men who are allowed to be chosen because of their acting abilities (not that being a conventionally attractive woman is incompatible with strong acting skills, all I'm saying is that there are different standards for actors and actresses).

I think another part of the problem is that appearances do have actual consequences in real life. I have been wanting to dye my hair purple and teal again.. not sure why... but I am hesitant to do so before I present at an academic conference in a few days because I feel as though I may not be taken seriously if I don't have "normal" hair. When I worked as a server at a bar, my tips were largely dependent on how well I fit into the box that has been constructed for hetero cis-gendered women. So, I am trying to change my beliefs about what I am supposed to look like, while realizing that there are actual consequences to whether or not I fit in to a specific mold.

It is not incredibly difficult for me right now. I am a grad student, work at the university, and am very involved in an academic union- not really areas where gender conformity is highly scrutinized. But, I wonder if this will still be the case when I graduate and go into the workforce- when I have to worry about being passed up for raises and promotions if I don't conform to specific standards.

Dr. Phil comments on pornography

I tend to avoid watching shows like Dr. Phil, but for some reason it was playing in the background the other day. He was talking with a couple and the wife was upset that her husband was watching internet pornography. When I heard Dr. Phil's response, I had to rewind it and write it down.

He said

You have a daughter, right? Well, that's somebody's daughter that you are leering at on the computer.

Although I like the idea of humanizing women in pornography rather than further objectifying them, and I like the idea of seeing them as actual human beings with families, friends, jobs, histories and aspirations, I do not like this comment at all. To me, Dr. Phil may as well be saying that these women are another man's property. It is reminiscent of criminal laws in Feudal and early industrial Western Europe, where rape was a crime of property against a husband or father, and not seen as something that was harmful to women.

Stop watching pornography, not because your wife is very uncomfortable with it and not because many of the images are objectifying (note- I'm not saying that pornography is innately objectifying, as I don't think this is the right post to get into that pornography debate), but because you are somehow offending the father of the woman in the movie.

Edited to Add
I just saw this related post. The author explaines that Montana Fishbourne is not a possession of her father, and her decision to do pornography should not be looked at as something she did to her father.

Airplane conversations and scattered thoughts

I was on a short flight in a small loud plane - basically a greyhound bus with wings - and began talking to the girl sitting next to me. The conversation started when she apologized for taking up too much space. She was a bigger girl, so her bum didn't quite fit in the small seat. Luckily, I don't take up much room, so we fit together into the double seat, and I told her that it is absolutely not a problem and there is no need to apologize... this annoys me, as I have never sat beside a man who felt the need to apologize for taking up some of the space that the person who made the seats designated as mine... but it is not relevant to the rest of this post. Also not relevant to the rest of this post, why do flight attendants always wear high heels? It must be required or something. Flight attendants (mostly female) are on their feet most of the flight for as many as 8 flights per day, often through turbulence, in high heeled shoes while the (mostly male) captains get to sit down in loafers.

Anyway, the girl sitting next to me told me that she was about to start university in a couple weeks. She told me, in detail, about how she was taking biomolecular (or was it biomedical?) engineering, and how the bachelor's degree is 4 years, then a double master's degree (or something of that sort) for another 4 years, and then another 4 years for her PhD. She went on to talk about exactly what it was she was going to do for the rest of her life. She had just graduated from high school and was on the flight with her parents, returning from one last vacation before she moves away for university. She then turned to her ipod(or some other similar contraption- I am technologically challenged) and began to watch what appeared to be a Harry Potter movie.

I looked out the small window at the grey clouds scattered underneath me and the city lights glowing in the distance, and wondered what I was doing 12 years ago... trying to think about anything other than how guilty I felt about the environmental impact of my unnecessary air travel. I struggled to place my exact age. To be fair, it was almost midnight, and I was returning home from a union conference which involves living at a hotel in a strange city, and there were a lot things happening for me mentally and emotionally... simple thoughts were difficult to come up with and math can be nearly impossible.

All of a sudden it came to me. Twelve years ago, give or take a week or two, I spent my first night on the streets; I was homeless. Talk about a defining point in one's life. Twelve years ago (before homelessness) I could have told you with that same level of certainty that I was going to be a lawyer. I was never going to have kids. I was going to travel a lot. I was politically conservative and quite anti-feminist. I was also described as "boy crazy" by my mother. I had a list surprisingly similar to that girl on the plane, but it fell apart exactly 12 years ago.

Twelve years ago, if you had told me that I would be a single parent with two young children, a graduate student in sociology, and working with various social justice movements, I would have thought you were crazy. I would never have believed that I would later identify as a queer Marxist Feminist.

Now, if you ask me what I am going to be doing in 12 years, I wouldn't be able to come up with a firm answer. I could tell you a variety of things that are quite possibly what I might be doing in 12 years (teaching, research, writing, union work, social activism, and the list could go on). But I no longer have a plan; I don't know what city I will be in, I don't know what type of relationship I expect to be in (if any). I have goals, but no plans, and I think that is a good thing.