what a feminist looks like

I'm very excited about Feminist Coming Out Day, an event to raise awareness & help us realize that all of us–single, married, all genders, all races, all political parties–are feminists. (Learn more here.) We support the rights of women to choose their career, their role in the home, their interests. We support, with that, the rights of men to do the same. We need to break the dichotomy. We need to learn to live together & respect each other. 

Feminist Coming Out Day is featuring pictures & snip-its by self-proclaimed feminists, showing us that we are feminists in our own way, by our own definition. I finally worked up the courage to submit my tiny two-cents, & they posted it! They're incredibly kind, & I encourage you to do the same. They make it very easy when you click here.
Their work couldn't come at a better time.

There's a lot going on for women's rights in the States right now, & I can't get my mind off of it. I've been concerned about women's issues since I realized that I would not grow up to be a member of New Kid's on the Block, that I would grow up to be a woman. I knew words like Glass Ceiling and Second Wave, but I never could have imagined, after we saw ourselves as so past these things–though admittedly still struggling–that I would learn words like Stupak Amendment or Justified Murder of abortion doctors.

I never thought my country could take actions to stop women's rights to an abortion in cases of rape or dangerous pregnancies. I never thought the country would seek to redefine rape & say the victim didn't try hard enough. I never thought we would try to stop Planned Parenthood, a program that provides not only abortion, but exams for cervical & breast cancer; stopping Planned Parenthood is stopping the health care of three million women. (For more information, watch or read about this Democracy Now interview with PP's president.)

I never thought I would be truly & deeply afraid to live in the United States. To have a daughter born there. To ask for birth control when it is for my mental & physical health and NOT FOR preventing pregnancy. I never thought we could try to move back so far while saying, so often, that the fight is for God.

Change.org, a site Joe introduced me to, collects petitions for various causes. They have several successful petitions going to work to stop this legislation on their Women's Rights page. It costs nothing, takes almost no time & helps us speak to our government.

If you're even ballsier, contact your representatives (whom their page still refers to as "Congressmen") or e-mail your Senator. If you don't, who will?

Keep yourself informed with two easy articles:
What stopping Planned Parenthood means for low-income women
And on a tangent... we pick NOW to argue about breast feeding?

more adult habits

Growing up, my mother had a horrible time getting me into anything that was too clingy on my legs–from stretchy stirrup pants to tights. I cried. I took them off when I got to school & put them back on on my bus ride home. I felt constricted, bound together against certain movements. She eventually gave up & would ask only in passing I readied myself for proms, "Aren't you wearing any hosiery?"

I didn't.

Last year, I realized that not all tights are bad. My hate for things touching my legs is no different; I prefer any skirt or dress to a day in jeans. But now, I see tights & leggings (gasp) as a way to wear skirts or keep my jeans from touching my legs all through winter.

This change happened just in time, because if you don't wear hosiery in France, people will ask you about it. Aren't you cold? Don't you have tights on? Why are you wearing socks with those shoes when we would just wear beige hosiery? (My argyle socks are not the hit here that I was expecting them to be.)

I have several pairs. I also have a habit of ruining them after three days of wearing them. I thought it best to scope out the French hosiery shopping scene before it was needed. They're everywhere, so that was easy... but I also realized how frustrating & inhibiting the advertisements & packaging are.

(image source one & two)

I don't look like this. My legs are half as long. My stomach is doubly wide. The elastic band of my tights forms a crease across my stomach. I don't wear my hosiery with only high heels. I don't expect the top of my tights to look nice; I don't expect anyone to see the darker part of my tights. 

So why don't they show what our tights would look like when we wear them at the office or in the classroom? Why don't the pictures show how the tights look sticking out from your knee to your foot while you're dressed in your work suit? Why don't they use women that represent the sizes on the packaging?

I put on my tights one day, sucked in my stomach & arched my back. Despite not having shoes on, I looked like a girl in an advertisement. I almost came close to sort of having abs. I thought, "Could I feasibly walk about like this today? In front of my students? While Joe & I make dinner? While I grade papers?"

We can't. But we're fed the possibility that we can; I just haven't quite figured out for who yet. Who are we advertising for? Who are we serving–when we buy? when we wear? when we suck our stomachs in & arch our backs?

women & marriage

While women's issues are something that I'm active in & passionate about, I realize that I've never addressed the issue in my blogging. With the many questions about why I chose to be married, my motivations for marriage & what we were planning on doing together for, well, ever, I decided to dedicate some time to the issue here.

Let me start by saying that Joe & I got married at ages that were considered the "standards" starting in the 1940s*. These standards where in place until our generation started going to elementary school and divorce became a social norm.  So, according to the U.S. Census Bureau we're coming in a few years under average.

While our families were supportive of the marriage, there were a few friends that were shocked–we have so much living & exploring to do still. We need time before we settle into families & children. They warned us. They weren't surprised by our decision, which came after three years of a wonderful (& strenuous stretch of distance) relationship, but they felt the need to caution us. We agree: we have a lot of living to do. The decision to marry isn't the decision to settle permanently & find The Career. We're still exploring, but we realized that the adventures were more fun when we had each other to share with and depend on.

This is the explanation that I keep giving the French students & friends that stare at me with wide eyes. I can see through them to the thoughts in their heads before they start asking questions, and I wanted to get a better handle on why this was so shocking.

According to UNICEF's outstanding list of statistics, 75 percent of French women use contraceptives (76 percent in the States). The French life expectancy (despite smoking & their seemingly "sinful" diets) is 81 while the States hovers at 79. So far, things weren't looking so different. Then, I discovered that those few French women that do get married won't have their first go until near age 30. (To compare this to the rest of Europe, where similar social trends are happening, click here.) I also found this table, which spelled things out pretty clearly.

While divorce rates in the States started to fall in 2009*, France is still on the rise. French marriages are still on a downward slope–less than five per thousand while the States reaches almost eight*. Does this mean that more people are celibate? No. It means that more people are just opting out of marriage. A Washington Post article summarized this well:

The trend in France is driven by a convergence of social transitions in both the demographic and cultural landscapes, including this generation's nearly universal estrangement from religion, especially the Catholic Church; massive migration to urban areas, where young adults are more independent from their families; and a society that has become not only tolerant but supportive of personal choice in lifestyles.

In France, these decisions are not only accepted by society, but also by the National Assembly. In 1999, the government introduced the Pacte Civil de Solidarité (PACs for short). These PACs are documents drafted by two individuals that awards most marriage rights to the couple... and here's where they one-up the states: PACs are available to different or same-sex couples (of no more than two people). (For more in a brief overview, click here.) Note: French law still prohibits same sex marriage.

So my decision to be married in an age of estrangement from the tradition causes several levels of confusion for people. This confusion is compounded when they realize that I, too, have doubts about one's ability to consistently be a good person (let alone a good spouse). I think we're all flawed, but one aim in my decision to be married is to have someone that accepts these flaws & helps me move through them.

Yes, I got married seven years younger than you will, but you'll die two years after me. Really, we're only talking about a five year difference here, and we both have t-shirts older than that, so what's the difference?

The process of coming to terms with being married in society, something I never thought I would have to do, has been interesting & is by no means finished. What is an appropriate answer when someone you hardly know asks, "Why?" Do I explain my faith–or the reason I fell in love with him? Do I bother justifying something that is in no way negative & therefore negates the definition of "justification"? Or do I simply explain it as a difference between two cultures when I understand that this isn't truly the case?

I've taken to looking at hands that swing at the sides of passersby as I walk down the streets of our sleepy little town. Is that purple stone an engagement ring, or could she not decided what other finger to put it on? Did the woman once have an engagement ring above her wedding band, or is it a band to honor her PAC? The challenge to understand marriage in our new culture & country has added new depth & meaning to our new commitment–it has made me a fiercer supporter, a stronger wife & a more avid feminist.

I'll leave this post with two quotes by Adrienne Rich. The first reminds me that I am my own–that I made the decision to marry, to carve my place in the history of feminist wives, not as a historical figure but as a woman striving to make women more than a sum of their domestic "responsibilities." It reminds me that the students or friends or French can say what they want about my marriage, because we did it. We created our name.

Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you.

 The second reminds me to know my reasons before acting. Did I marry early in order to escape an unfamiliar time that was coming? No, but I must remind myself that we have ambitions, that we are not settled; we are just taking the first step forward. Our standards are high, & we've got to keep moving.

Responsibility to yourself means that you don't fall for shallow and easy solutions–predigested books and ideas...marrying early as an escape from real decisions, getting pregnant as an evasion of already existing problems. It means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short...and this, in turn, means resisting the forces in society which say that women should be nice, play safe, have low professional expectations, drown in love and forget about work, live through others, and stay in the places assigned to us.