Letter to Myself, to Everyone

There is a song by Alanis Morissette called That I Would be Good. The narrator sings about her hopes. Her hopes that she will be "good" even if she does nothing, gets sick, gains weight, goes bankrupt, grows old, gets overwhelmed, gets angry, goes insane, loses her love...you get the point. Her song really resonates with me. I am constantly telling other people that they are good, regardless of their perceived faults (gaining or not losing weight, missing a work-out, breastfeeding issues, getting angry and losing it, making mistakes) while at the same time being a total hypocrite and beating myself up over the same things that are presumably not determinants of whether or not I am a "good" person.

Today I told my friend who is in training to be a lactation consultant that I had to stop breastfeeding my son. Without missing a beat she said, "Good work, mama!" I actually cried. And I thought to myself that no one in my life had said those words to me. People have either ignored it, because they disapprove, expressed condolences because they know I am disappointed or ask why I didn't just switch to formula sooner. That I breastfed my kids as long as I could is awesome. That I had to stop does not make that less awesome.

She went on to say - "How come if a mom has glasses, nobody judges her for not using her eyes properly, but if she has a hard time nursing and isn't able to nurse the "optimal" length of time, we all want to tell her how her *behavior* or *mental state* was the problem? Guess what, people, boobs don't necessarily work perfectly any more than any other body part does." 

I had never thought about it that way. But, she is right. And I am so glad that someone like her is going to help women breastfeed!

And breastfeeding and parenthood are only some of the ways I beat myself up. My weight, my hair, my skin, my temper, my bra size, my stretch marks, etc. I spend so much of my life thinking that these arbitrary measures of "good" really matter. They really don't. So here's my letter, to myself and everyone really.

Dear Badass Warrior Goddess,  

Can I just say how much you rock? Because, you do!

You have grown two human beings in that body you frequently hate. You grew humans. That is fucking badass. So cut yourself some slack on losing the "baby weight" and stop hating your new shape. Throw away your scale or break it with a baseball bat. Bask in how amazing you are and how amazing your body is. Teach your children to do the same by example.

And you are raising your kids to be kind. And confident. And to love themselves. And have dance parties in the living room. And bake cookies. And do for themselves. And think for themselves. You have an awesome approach to parenting and your kids are thriving. Fuck yeah.

 

You are strong. Your body can do things that you never imagined and your resolve and inner strength are amazing. You have endured and not just survived, but thrived, when faced with challenges. And, you are constantly looking for the next mountain to climb and do things that terrify you. Whether you know it or not, that is pretty awesome.

 

You are kind. You spend every day building people up, providing support and helping others grow. You always have something nice to say to someone when they are having a hard time, even if you don't like them personally. It's time to start saying nice things to yourself, too. 

You are awesome at your job. And should know that someday your daughter may be inspired by that - inspired to choose a nontraditional path - and she won't feel limited by her gender, but empowered because of the example that you set for her. You are a warrior. You fight for what you believe in and for what's right and work to make positive change at home, at work, in your community and in the world. You are teaching your kids to do the same.

You are funny. Your sense of humor, while dry and sarcastic, doesn't only help you get through the day, but it also does the same for others.

You are a good partner. You have been married for almost nine years and have weathered a lot of storms together. That's awesome. Go you.

Finally, you ARE good and good enough, no matter what. 

You are actually better than good. You are awesome, strong, badass, kind, funny, a great manager, a great cook and the most important person in at least three people's lives. Tell yourself that every day.

Love you,

Self

You say you want a revolution?

Nearly every day someone asks me to explain the so-called "War on Women". Usually in the context of an internet debate and often someone who has the privilege of being a white, male, well-off Christian, but I digress.

Well, first off, there's nothing "so called" about it. I am of the belief that this war has always been around. A cold war, pervasive in our culture, even when most people didn't realize it or acknowledge it and when many of us (women) didn't mind or didn't notice that we and our daughters were casualties. The thing about culture is that unless you willfully ignore what you've always known to be true, it wins. 

To go against the grain takes courage and quite honestly, never occurs to most people until they are in a situation where they have been abused, need help or recognize evil or wrongdoing. And when the majority looks down on you, demonizes you and even threatens to imprison you or harm you and yours for doing so, it takes a uniquely strong person to step outside of the box and say - "Hey, that's not right." And even if you are that person, it takes political clout to do something about it. 

I know the "War on Women" is real because of.... 

1. Anti-Choice Extremism - Between 1995 and 2012, states enacted 755 anti-choice measures. This number doesn't include the many bills passed in 2013 and it also doesn't include those that were introduced, but didn't pass. This number has risen from 18 in 1995 to 42 in 2012. These measures include everything from restrictions on gestational age to mandates that non-essential medical procedures be performed on women against their will to allowing/making physicians present false information to women regarding risks to outright abortion bans and personhood bills.

Cumulative Number of Anti-Choice Measures Enacted Since 1995, NARAL Prochoice America 

WTF? Abortion is a legal medical procedure. Even if you aren't pro-choice, I hope that you consider that our mostly male legislators are passing bills restricting a procedure that only women can undergo, including those that allow and/or force physicians to lie to women. The premise behind these bills is generally that the value of an embryo or fetus is greater than the value of a woman or girl, even if that fetus has no chance of survival and even if that woman or girl will die if she carries the pregnancy to term. Think about that.

And, as if restricting abortion wasn't bad enough, several of these pieces of legislation also have the potential to restrict birth control. Based on junk science and religious rhetoric, birth control is being mislabeled as abortion left and right. Talk about counterproductive. If anti-choice extremists really wanted to end abortion, they would work to improve the status of women and girls in our country and provide evidence-based sex education and access to preventive health care to everyone. Instead, they've demonized women. Shame is a powerful weapon in this war. 

2. Rape Culture - Rape culture is so pervasive in our country that people don't even realize that they are a part of it. From rape jokes, to movies featuring young men seeking to have sex with drunk, passed out girls, to the many cases of rape survivors being required to justify their every decision up to, during and after their rapes to prove they were not, in fact, to blame for their attacks. One out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (including the woman writing this post), and 90% of rape victims are women and girls (RAINN). Rapes are often not reported and rape victims are joked about, demonized and attacked in the media. Rape is not only common, it's become casual and that's wrong.

3. Pay inequity - At the time of this writing, the wage gap between men and women who work the same jobs is appalling - about 77 to 80 cents on the dollar depending on the measure. It is shocking that 50 years after enactment of the Equal Pay Act, the nation still faces gender wage disparities. Why is this and what can we do about it? Should women just accept this as fact and feel lucky that we are able to work at all?

Employment and median usual weekly earnings of women and women's earnings as percent of men's, by industry, 2009

Industry	Total employed	Median weekly earnings	Women's earnings as percent of men's
Total, 16 years and over	44,712,000	$657	80.2
Agriculture and related industries	162,000	413	84.6
Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction	87,000	873	79.7
Construction	568,000	696	92.2
Manufacturing	3,467,000	618	73.8
Wholesale and retail trade	5,268,000	523	76.0
Transportation and utilities	1,242,000	685	78.6
Information	1,015,000	756	75.8
Financial activities	4,126,000	732	70.5
Professional and business services	4,080,000	744	76.6
Education and health services	17,133,000	717	77.0
Leisure and hospitality	3,027,000	421	83.5
Other services	1,703,000	503	72.2
Public administration	2,834,000	783	78.5

These data are featured in the TED article, Women's earnings and employment by industry, 2009

When I was an undergraduate, I studied the connection between income inequality (the Gini Coefficient) and international conflict (war, tribal conflict and coup d'etat). Not surprisingly, countries with greater income inequality (a larger gap between the rich and the poor) had more conflict, when I controlled for Gross Domestic Product (overall income level), level of democracy, religious freedom, freedom of the press and type of government. I wonder if the time will come when American women realize that they are under attack and stage our own coup?

4. Decision makers (for the most part) are male - I say this hoping that this will improve, and quickly, while we still have some rights left to protect. In 2013, 98 women serve in the US Congress (78 - House, 20 - Senate), which seems like a lot until you consider that this only represents 18.3% of the 535 seats. State and local elected positions feature more women. There are five female governors and 24.2% of all state legislature seats are held by women. This is one area where we have made progress, but as we look at the above statistics regarding anti-choice legislation and pay equity, one should reflect on how the status of women and girls might improve if our representatives in positions of power actually looked like we did. Even more dismal is the fact that only 21 CEOs of the Fortune 500 are women. Again, let's think about that in relation to pay equity, family friendly policies and insurance coverage for maternity leave.


5. Disney Princesses - Now before anyone rips me for equating princesses with rape and abortion laws, please know that even my daughter has gone through a princess phase. Hear me out. Our culture, with princesses as a vehicle for this message, stresses that a girl's main value is how pretty she is (so she can someday attract a prince, of course). Not that there's anything wrong with being pretty or wanting to be pretty, but often, this quality is juxtaposed against other qualities that we value in boys - strength, intelligence, success. In our culture, women can't really be smart, strong and beautiful...or at least the media tells us we can't be. Consider the Bechdel Test: for a film to pass the test, (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man. So few films actually pass that it is startling. When you start thinking about how many media messages reach our ears, eyes, brains and hearts each day, it's no wonder that many of us grow up with self-doubt, confusion and a desire to reach an unattainable status - as a princess - if you will. The next time you read a book, watch a film or even look at an ad, reflect on what message it might be sending to a young mind. My four year old daughter commented to me the other day that she wasn't beautiful. She is actually quite conventionally beautiful, but her tone and desperation at the thought of not being beautiful was startling to me. It's easier in our or any culture to go with the flow, and in the US, the norm is to want to be a pretty princess, not to be a tough as nails CEO or smart scientist or creative artist.

So what do we do? 

With this war being waged for so long, it feels overwhelming, but here's my take on it: we fight back. Not with weapons, but with words and actions. We get educated, get employed and break the glass ceiling or we raise and support our daughters to do so. We teach our sons about consent. We stand up for our reproductive rights, even if it takes 13 hours of filibustering or 40 days of picketing and call foul when fake science and religious rhetoric are used in place of evidence. We storm the Capital and phone lines and the internet with our presence and make sure that the truth is heard and those in power understand that women are not afraid to fight back.

We create a new normal.