The (high school) gods must be crazy

Sometime in the late eighties or early nineties (those years of my childhood blur together in a colorful array of puffy paint and spandex) some righteous (undoubtedly) white filmmaker produced a movie depicting the absurdity/hilarity/irony created by the encroachment of Western "culture" on what I can only remember as rural/tribal Africa. The opening scene depicts an unassuming "African" male walking through the wide expanses of his unadulterated homeland. The young boy is unexpectedly hit on the head by a coca-cola bottle which seems to fall out of the sky without explanation. Aside from my post-critical consciousness assessment of the essentialized imagery that shaped both the setting and the comedy of "The Gods Must be Crazy", I've recently appreciated the way the film conveys the phenomenon of alien cultures colliding without the language or framework to communicate with eachother, and how many images, words and ideas go untranslated when two groups occupy the same physical space but are unique and distinctive in so many other ways.

Such has been my experience over the last three months. In August, I went back to high school. To work, that is. Technically speaking, I'm an interventionist, which basically translates into more crises with less pay than the traditional guidance counselor on campus. They call me the "front line" of the counseling department. As the title suggests, my position at the forefront of the crisis response system situates me up close and personal with a wide array of teenage angst and issues. On any given day I might encounter sexual assault or domestic violence, failing grades or excessive tardies as well as the entire spectrum of adolescent relationship conflicts and dilemmas. It's almost as if I went to college to escape the things I hated most about high school, only to become qualified enough to confront them in my professional, adult life. What a cruel joke.

"The Gods Must be Crazy" first resonated with me when I had to google search a "recreational drug" a couple of kids at the high school had been caught using. I couldn't believe that within the same decade of my high school graduation, kids had already popularized an entirely new substance with which to get high. I felt the proverbial coke bottle crack against my skull. After several pop quiz phone calls to a number of my friends in their twenties (none of whom could correctly identify the drug I questioned them about), multiple minutes of lamenting my rapidly advancing age, and a quick survey of other adults on campus, I got to thinking: How can a population of professionals serve the young people they work with when they are socially and culturally isolated from them? Certainly, if I can't even understand the unique challenges, specific language, rituals and habits of high school students, few other adults are capable of connecting with teens who live and breathe by these normative systems every day.

The resurrection of my adolescent insecurities as an outsider in a world defined by who and what makes up the inside, aside, I wonder about the deeper issue of from whom and where kids are getting the information and insight that directs their daily lives. Most importantly, how are they interpreting the world around them, and what are the consequences of this interpretation? Simply put, in the absence of an adult support system who can communicate with and understand them, kids are making a whole lot of decisions based on what they hear from their friends and what they see in the media. And why wouldn't they? Even as adults, we tend to adhere to philosophies and wisdom that are the most relevant, the most familiar to us. High School kids speak and understand the language of myspace, text messaging and MTV entertainment. While adults may be aware that these social realms exist, they are more frequently trying to repress or monitor them, rather than experience and utitlize their communicative power.

I work in a high school with predominantly middle to upper-middle class white students(coincidentally, I also came from a high school with a similar social composition). Most of the students I see represent a demographic characterized by inherited privilege, automatic academic success, over-indulgence and an abundance of parent involvement in their academic, social and extra-curricular experience. These kids have parents who regularly call their teachers and school counselors. Parents who know who their kids friends are, what they do after school and on the weekends. And still, their parents are unaware of just how severe the cultural disconnect between themselves and their kids has become. These kids are assertive and intelligent. They are insightful and empowered. And as a result, they trade inaccurate information back and forth, pass on rumors and myths as fact, and validate eachothers destructive decision making and uninformed ideologies. They've learned everything they know from Youtube, Wikipedia and the blurred fact/fiction world of reality tv. As many of us in hyper-mediated America do, these kids take what they see and hear at face value. Since they aren't taught to be critical of the world around them, they learn to accept it, to co-opt it to fit their needs, desires and lifestyles. They use eachother as mirrors of normalcy. And since their parents don't understand this distorted universe they occupy, there is no intervention, no alternatives, no space for dialogue or discussion.

The number one complaint I hear from students about their parents is, "They say they understand, but they don't." "Good morning parents of teenagers: This is your son or daughter speaking. I want to inform you that high school is NOTHING like it was when you were a kid." Maybe this will shed some perspective: I am biologically too young to possibly have given birth to a high school student and still, high school is vastly different than it was when I barely survived it.

Now, to be clear, I am the last person to adopt an attitude that holds parents exclusively (or even mostly) responsible for the choices their children make and what type of adult incarnation their youthful development results in. Instead, I use parents as an example to represent the fact that practically every adult who has the potential opportunity to influence the process of teenage decision making and education is limited by their own social location. A location that is as far removed from the place where their teenagers exist as the Atlanta, GA-based coca-cola bottling headquarters is from the plains of Africa. Moreover, I am aware of the unique and specific challenges that face each individual teenager in each different social/economic context. The example of the high school where I work serves to highlight the idea that even the most well-served adolescents are, in many cases, suffering from alienation from the people and resources they need to make informed choices, create edified personal identities, and grow their self-esteem and self-assurance towards a productive future.

So what is the solution?
Let's be honest, if I knew the answer to that one, I would have my own segment on Oprah instead of a tiny little space on the internet to write a blog that only my mom and her boyfriend ever read.
What I can see, is that we're trapped in an old system that is serving old needs and providing (questionably effective) solutions to old problems. Adults are either paralyzed by the fear of what they might encounter if they explore the world that teenagers live in, or are living by ancient standards of family functionality (like having dinner around the table and "talking to your kids about drugs"). From what I can estimate from my experience, neither position is, on its own, productive. Perhaps parents would be better served to learn about what it's really like in high school these days, and instead of trying to protect their kids, engage them.

Let's take the example of sex. And yes, I assure you, teenagers are having it. Younger than ever, more often than ever. Whether you make them keep the door to their room open or restrict their access to the opposite gender or not. They're having it. Or they're going to have it. Or their friends are having it and passing on their experiential "wisdom" about it in the aftermath. If you frame this issue with kids as a "bad", "dirty" and/or "dangerous" practice, they're probably not going to be open about their degree of participation in it. Instead, if you ask them what they know about it, what they think about it, if they've tried it? You just might be able to help them become more equipped to deal with it in a safe and healthy way. Aren't we all better off in a world where people are the most prepared/educated as they can possibly be about anything?

I think, as with any systemic social problem, it is important to start with literacy and open communication. Learning the languages that young people speak can not only help us understand them, but help them realize that we intend to serve and support them, not judge or direct them. We are dealing with a generation of young people who know more, experience more and feel entitled to more of the world than any generation before them. If they don't know something they find out about it (for better or for worse, true or false), if they haven't done something they hear about, they try it. If they believe something to be true, they spread it around.

Inviting young people to join us at the table of dialogue may be a first step in identifying solutions to each piece of the adolescent/adult communication divide. The truth is, if young people trust and respect the adults in their lives, they actually want to listen to them. They want to be witnessed and heard. In my own experience, the end-product of creating open spaces of communication where young people can address questions, concerns and confusion has been overwhelmingly positive. It gives them the opportunity to navigate their lives with the help of someone who can, at best, provide answers and information, and at worst, have the presence of mind to direct them towards accurate sources of insight and resources to further explore their interests.

In a conversation with my mom (aged 58) this morning, I was lamenting "being a complete moron" between the ages of 16 and 20. She kindly rolled her eyes and said, "don't worry... we all were." So, if high school is completely different than it used to be, but teenagers are no more adept at handling their own lives than they ever have been, isn't it fair to propose a departure from the status-quo in favor of a consolidated, albeit revolutionary, effort towards a partnership of young and old(er).

Paulo Freire, an educational hero of mine, believed in dismantling pedagogical hierarchies and creating horizontal relationships. Freire fostered an education of empowerment, where both teacher and student participated in both the teaching and the learning. Most importantly, Freire taught within a framework that included systems, languages and ideas that were already relevant to his students. It didn't matter where he, as a teacher, was coming from. It mattered where his students needed to go. A Freirian perspective would suggest that no one knows better than teenagers, what it means to be them. Their education begins in that place and journeys in whatever direction they need to take it to serve their own educational cause. We are there, merely as facilitators of high quality (no mtv-generated pseudo-reality) work in the process.

Just imagine, for all of the things you wished you hadn't done or would've known then... wouldn't it be remarkable to give young people the tools to be prevention agents in their own lives, and perhaps, choose better and live better, as a result?

Good things about Sex (and the City)

I've spent a lot of time writing about all of the ways Sex and the City has brought evil into the world(not to mention my life): Generating and reenforcing imagery of normalcy as white affluence, creating representations of female value as it is tied to their relationships with men, affirming stereotypes of gender dichotomies and heteronormativity. When I first heard about the release of the film incarnation of the popular television series, I could only imagine the resulting conversations and critical analyses. I shamelessly went to see the film on opening night; the theater was filled with women of all ages, congregated in large, drunken groups of their peers, dressed in heels, stumbling, laughing and yelling in the spirit of sisterhood and female empowerment.

The Sex and the City movie was fabulous. It was beautiful, well-edited, emotional and funny. And for all of the reasons I could hate it, I chose to love it, instead. I chose to appreciate growing up in a generation that produced such a glamorous portrayal of powerful, successful women. I chose to embrace the fact that Sex and the City has dramatically influenced our ability to think and talk about sex: openly, honestly and on our own terms. Women everywhere have undoubtedly benefitted from the portrayal of: positive female relationships, women with challenging careers and ambitious professional goals, and countless other revolutionary ideas illuminated through the series and film.

It isn't easy for me to ignore the thin, flawless, wealthy white characters who marginalize those of us who fail to fit into all or some of those categories. Of course I challenge the recurring theme that women are somehow incomplete, empty or restless without a heterosexual relationship in their lives. And while countless other details reflect stereotypes and essentialism, Sex and the City has defined and redefined the space women have in the media. Sex and the City brought female sexuality to our intellectual and sensual attention. It narrated the world of relationships and sex in a voice that was distinctly feminine and uniquely single.

Sex and the City reclaimed the television definition of the adult female experience as one of possibility, variety and agency. For years, the popular television audience witnessed small revolutions in the portrayal of women: Modest, temperate housewives of two parent families became career-driven working moms and powerful single parents. Women took on new responsibilities and represented a broader range of characteristics and experiences. And while Claire Huxtable and Murphy Brown were pioneers of media territory; Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte became inventors of a world some women didn't even know existed in real-life, let alone on television. The women of Sex and the City talked about orgasms, masturbating, contraception, fertility and personal choice. Our most intimate personal thoughts became interpersonal conversations of everyday life. Women were empowered to control their own sexual destiny and encouraged to dialogue with their peers along the way.

While traditional education, cultural folklore and the wisdom of our parents taught women to be the objects of male desire and fantasy, Sex and the City taught us to be the subject of our own. Sex and the City interrupted archaic notions of submission and modesty with declarations of independence, curiosity and power. If the bright, sexy, sophisticated stars of the series could purchase vibrators and discuss the nuances of anal and oral sex in public, so could we. No longer constrained by narrow rules of social engagement, women were unleashed in the sexual world as the authors of their own boundaries and expectations.

Social progress is often a product of dialogue, information acquisition and community mobilization. While I have no doubt that the creators of Sex and the City did not set out to change the world; they may have created an important historical piece of our cultural evolution. Their imagery and language generated dialogue, their adventurous content produced exposure to information, and within the context of the series and its followers, a community of sexually liberated women emerged.

Quarter Life Crisis

My disgustingly charming and gorgeous college boyfriend was two years older than me. By the time I turned 21 he was self-indulgently immersed in a social/spiritual hell he could only describe as a quarter-life crisis. At the time, I relegated his constant reminders to "plan my future" before being confronted head-on by the inconvenience and confusion of my mid-twenties to the back of my mind where I stored everything I filtered from his occasionally dramatic-always self-absorbed life-lesson-lectures.

I got a text message on my last birthday from one of older friends: welcome to your mid twenties. Here we are, at that tragic juncture where children of privilege have to learn to navigate their own lives for the first time since emerging from the womb. From the time we were young it was all laid out for us: from what to say and what to eat to how to dress and how to succeed. And then it happens, one early summer day we awake as graduates from whatever major University we just happened to attend, and the entire world as we know it, falls apart.

Lately I've noticed there is one very drastic measure some of us are taking to cope with the ever-increasing angst of our mid-twenties. Leaving our jobs and traveling the world? Signing over our trust funds to an international non-profit and living off the land out of a van? Forsaking the Investment banking firm to build houses in sub-saharan Africa? All of these sound like heroic and pivotal efforts for members of the upper-middle class, but alas, I'm talking about a socio-cultural phenomenon that is much more dangerous, much more terrifying, much more permanent: marriage.

That's right, the privileged class is synching up, having beautiful and elaborate weddings attended by well-dressed, attractive, white people, and laying the foundation for the next generation of suburban social chaos. Are these people kidding? Haven't they learned the harsh and damaging lessons of our parents and their friends and every other unit of upper-middle class adults that we've had exposure to since our first day at the elite elementary school?

What is it exactly that motivates young people who are highly educated, professionally ambitious and destined to inherit the world, to get married before they reach their quarter century mark? I know young women in their twenties are no longer haunted by their ticking biological clocks, after all, even our own mothers waited until they were at least 30 to have children, and are now living fit and vibrantly with their kids grown, lively as ever in their late fifties and sixties. We know young men in their twenties are hardly compelled to be "settling down" as every image and source of information they've received since birth has shaped commitment, long-term relationships and certainly marriage as the equivalent of a commercial airplane crash landing: take all measures to avoid it, waiting for every contingency plan to fail before surrendering to your imminent death and giving in as a last resort.

The only explanation I can come up with is that young, privileged twenty-somethings are feeling lost, insecure and freaking out at the intersection of growing up and making their own decisions. Apparently the idea of getting married (or the overly-indulgent modern era practice of planning a wedding) somehow soothes the anxious soul of young adults who are accustomed to having everything in their lives handed to them, choreographed by the various entities of privilege that have shaped each stage of their(our) existence. It seems as if the solution to the confusion and feelings of failure surrounding the end of the path our privilege put us on, is easily solved by choosing to pursue tradition and uphold convention. It's as if the way they measure progress is how rapidly they can replicate their parent's dysfunctional lives.

So bring it on ladies and gentleman. Pass the free champagne and that charming piece of the $5,000 cake. I'll be happy to indulge myself at the singles table as I wager with my cynical counterparts about just how long this one will last.

The O.J Simpson Trial was not about race, and other things I learned from reading/Why I hate the TODAY show, today.

This is a thought in two parts. Part 1 came to me in the shower yesterday and part 2 arrived shortly after 8am this morning when I commenced my daily routine of getting showered and dressed to the sounds of the TODAY show on in the background (I live alone, I need the company). They are different parts of a whole that includes even more parts, pages and pages of parts, on a wide variety of subject matter, that all falls under the general category: criticism of an overly-electronic world (Or, the future of the U.S in a post-ipod era).

Part 1

I was in sixth grade when the O.J Simpson verdict was televised nationally. It is one of my most vivid elementary-school memories. I remember what I was wearing, what the room looked like-smelled like, I remember my mom was there (though I don't remember why), and I remember that it was one of those history making moments, those moments that freeze in time the way they do in the movies. It was epic, it was dramatic, it was...

It was a domestic abuse trial. It was a trial about violence. It was a trial about a man who murdered his ex-wife. It was a trial about a man who had gotten away with years and years of battery and assault because of who he was, who we wanted him to be, and now his wife and her friend had paid for it, and the whole world was watching. But at the time of the verdict, I knew none of this. Not because I had been shielded from it, or was too young to understand. Quite the contrary, I was both highly exposed to it (my stay-at-home mom was addicted to the trial coverage) and old enough to absorb and understand everything that was being said about it. I knew that O.J was black. I knew that the LAPD had a history of racial discrimination that was coming back to haunt them in a million, ugly ways. I knew that this was the trial of the century. I knew that an African-American hero was being disgraced and that it was another blow for racial equality. Those are the things that everyone talked about (those things and of course the real, crucial information like Marcia Clark's hairstyle, Kato Kaelin's rise to stardom and some other non-sense I'm thankful to have blocked out. Old habits die hard in the American media, it seems). What we knew of the case, of the trial, of O.J, of Nicole Brown, of Johnny Cochran, of isotoner gloves and louis vuitton luggage, was all told to us by cameras and voice overs, court TV experts and CNN analysts. It was all highly choreographed, planned and executed, and it wasn't until years later that I realized how much they were all leaving out.

About a decade after the Simpson trial ended I stumbled across an article written about it. bell hooks eloquently picked apart the politics behind the media coverage of the trial, identifying issues of gender and class privilege that were ignored by just about everyone. I was shocked. Not because I didn't believe the information in the article but because it occurred to me that all of us had been tactfully deceived. The media had drawn up a sensational, racialized narrative and for months and months we took it in as truth. fact. an absolute. The moment I put down the hooks reading was a defining moment for me. It was the moment that I really became critical of how many fallacies we are unknowingly accepting as a culture. I realized that the degree to and significance of our media exposure has exploded since the late nineties and the O.J media frenzy. "The Trial of the Century" marked only the beginning of the celebrity-obsessed, technology-dependent revolution that followed us into the 21st century.

The truth about O.J came to me in writing. It wasn't written in PDF or translated via someone's MySpace, but a real, tangible, textual document, the good-old fashioned kind you can rip apart, overly-highlight or crumple in the bottom of your backpack. Had I never READ about the trial, I probably would have retained the entire belief system that was generated by the media during the course of that landmark year in American justice. And the more I think about it, many truths of the world that had previously eluded me were revealed through reading. I've learned all sorts of things about women, politics, history and myself. I've learned to be skeptical of what I see and conscious of who is producing it. I've learned that my youthful ideas were shaped by suburban myths and legends that are somehow passed on through generations without anyone stopping to question them and find out the truth for themselves.

So I wonder, in a culture that is increasingly digital and decreasingly diverse in its output (didn't they already make this movie?) what will become of all of us? What will happen if we don't seek to expand our information consumption beyond the confines of network news, CNN.com and what's happening on Dancing with the Stars? What will we really know about anything? My guess is nothing. I anticipate that we'll all be walking, talking incarnations of advertising, reality television and apple electronics products who don't ever stop to analyze or critique themselves or the information around them. I worry about how young people will make crucial choices and exercise their voices when they've spent their entire formative experience in front of a computer monitor/television screen that more or less has told them what to think, wear and how to act. Our collective historical memory of the O.J Simpson trial (as a sensational, race-based, media-driven, national controversy) is a telling example of the social repercussion of our one-dimensional exposure to anything. It reveals our vulnerability and impressionability to the hypnotic imagery and information generated in the visual/technological realm. It suggests the consequences we face if we can't tune out the media and tune into the rest of the thoughtful, provocative, intellectual, expansive world.


Part 2

I don't know why I keep doing it. Every day I turn on the TV to provide a backdrop for my morning routine. 4 days out of 5 I regret it. I rarely catch the Today show visuals as I move from room to room in my house with the vague hum of voices in the background. On this particular morning I was in close hearing range as a segment was introduced: Are Americans getting dumber? Matt Lauer asked in his ever condescending-is that supposed to be endearing-tone. I bit the bait, I couldn't resist. As I watched the introduction to an interview with a woman who has written a "compelling" book about Americans becoming "dumber," I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Image after image of young, thin, attractive, blonde women came on the screen as Matt Lauer shrewdly examined the state of our collective national I.Q. I kept thinking that as the clip continued the images would diversify, but they didn't. They continued. Some of the women were famous, others vaguely familiar, some just random blonde women doing everyday things like grocery shopping and working out. When the segment cut back to the studio, I was so preoccupied with my disbelief about what had transpired, I couldn't even focus on the inane word exchange between the host and his guests. At a loss as to how I was going to articulate the feeling that had come over me to the people in my life that listen (my mom, my best friend, my australian shepherd), I did what any critically conscious viewer would do. I sent the following strongly worded email for the minions at the Today Show to read:

Dear Sir or Madame:

I am outraged. I just saw the segment about Susan Jacoby's new book that posed the question, "Are Americans Getting Dumber?" While I think it is a potentially provocative topic (particularly the way cultural inundation with technology affects the way we learn, spend our leisure time and raise our children), the imagery associated with the segment was astounding. The visual backdrop was exclusively female. The voice of criticism attacking our collective intelligence was read over image after image of young, thin, blonde women. Really? Are you putting such limited effort into production that the end result is a gender-biased, stereotype reinforcing hodgepodge of famous and vaguely recognizable women? I expect more from the number one nationally rated morning news show. I'd expect more from everyone. I understand the social risk that accompanies painting the picture of American stupidity in a particular way, which is why I can't understand why any well-minded, thoughtful producer or editor would send a segment to air that outlined our increasing "dumbness" in a one-dimensional way. Trust me, our culture doesn't need any more representations of stupidity in the form of young, attractive women in the media. Females of all ages and backgrounds are suffering enough from this phenomenon as it is. If I decide to put it on my TV again, I hope the next TODAY show segment I come across gives a broader visual definition of the topic it is addressing. That one was enough to drive me away forever.

Critical theorists and critical academics must have moments like this one all of the time. Watching media critique media while media continues to serve the same value-normative purpose it always does. While the voice of Matt Lauer questions the deterioration of our cultural intellect as a by-product of technological dependency, the images on the screen paint a perfect portrait of the problem the segment appears to address. The real danger of our over-exposure to mass media, especially in the absence of anything else, as a source for all kinds of information, is that it has a clever way of creating narrow definitions and limiting outlines of normalcy, truth and reality. Case in point: You get up in the morning and turn on the Today show to get your local news, weather and a taste of "what's going on in the world." You see a segment about how Americans are "getting dumber" and your visual reference is a bunch of thin, attractive blonde women. Yep, Jessica Simpson is dumb alright, you don't actually know her but you've seen her on TV enough to know what an idiot she is. Another stereotype reinforced, courtesy of the five corporations that own 80% of the U.S. media.

Maybe Jessica Simpson is a moron. And maybe it's important for Matt Lauer to question whether or not "America" is getting dumber. It is my suspicion however that Jessica Simpson (and thin, attractive blonde women everywhere) are dumb because that's how the media has constructed them, not to mention that the very idea of "America" being anything is preposterous. The notion of "America" itself is a product of the media imagination.

The point is two-fold (it's actually about a million-fold but I only have so much patience for this issue in any given sitting): While the O.J Simpson trial provides an example of the type of narratives of falsehood that can be generated and perpetuated by the media, the Today Show segment (under the guise of a provocative critique) illustrates the danger and prevalence of repetitive, discriminatory, reinforcing imagery from one-dimensional perspectives. The combination of these two issues creates an important consideration to take into account if ninety-percent of your daily information-intake is taken directly (or indirectly) from an electronic, mass-media source.

Strong Women(z)

A little over a year ago I was spent some quality time with 10 incredible teenagers at a good-old fashioned family picnic on an unusually coo, Fall day at UCLA. As we caught eachother up on the details of our lives over the past couple of months, we indulged in the finest of Smart and Final bulk-food fare. Among one of the highlights of the meal was the Smart and Final brand sports drink, furnished for our refreshment by the man who made all of the picnic purchases. Smart and Final is selling their overly-sugared version of Gatorade under brilliant marketing; It's called: Tough Guyz, and it features a cartoon white guy with an outrageously muscular build on the bottle. The brief history of this picnic is that it was a reunion of the courageous young people who let me and one of my best friends lead them deep into the Southern California wilderness the summer before, and who had all survived to be a little closer, a little stronger, and a little more conscious about the perils of gender inequity. Really now, what's the value of soaking up the majesty of nature and challenging your emotional and physical limits, if you can't learn a little about social justice on the way?

So as I drank in 200% of my recommended daily sugar value, I suggested to the group that we create a sports drink called Strong Womenz and sell it in all sorts of stores nationwide. Of course, we all enjoyed a good laugh as we tossed around potential advertising slogans and discussed the hilarious irony and cultural significance of our controversial new product. That was one of the most beautiful days of my adulthood (for many reasons) and as it ended that evening, my friend and I coined the phrase, "man I could really go for some strong womenz" for all of those times when our identity was in question (particularly in regards to our experience as women) and we needed a little emotional reinforcement.

In the months since the proverbial unveiling of my new sports drink, I've thirsted for the refreshment of feminine strength and resilience as I've come face to face with what it means to be me in a woman's body. Along the way, I've started to wonder about the unique experience of women, from all ages and backgrounds, who demonstrate the type of characteristics and behaviors that contradict their socially determined destiny. In the midst of a historic presidential campaign, run courageously by a woman who has risen above the gender normative criticism that has plagued her entire political career(not to mention countless other women in power), I wonder how and why the world is still having difficulty coping with women who don't fit the narrow female stereotype outlined in 1950s sitcoms, and how those of us who belong to this category are supposed to situate ourselves in a culture that is not yet prepared to embrace the beauty of strong women(z).

In late November, I met a group of 11 sixth grade girls who had come up on their school retreat to the outdoor education school where I was working. Resigned to leaving my job in a matter of weeks, and more or less burned out on the monotony of my professional routine, I had low expectations going into my week as surrogate mother for eleven and twelve year olds. And while I have been known to provoke a discussion or two with the young people in my life about issues I wish an adult had asked my opinion about when I was growing up, I had no idea what I was getting into with these brilliant young women. We had lengthy conversations about rare and racist representations of minorities in the media. We talked about unrealistic standards of female beauty and the differences in the social and academic expectations of boys and girls at their age and beyond. What emerged most consistently, and most saliently, was a common struggle these young women (who ranged in race, wealth and experience) were facing in their gendered lives: How to be accepted in their homes, their classrooms and among their peers as independent, opinionated, thoughtful females. One of the young women shared her angst and frustration with constantly being reprimanded at school for behaviors that "boys just get away with." I had never heard such a young mind so clearly articulate a personal injustice as when she expressed that, "my teachers don't want me to be loud or opinionated because I'm a girl." There she was, 11 years old, keenly aware of the rules that govern the lives of women in a culture outlined by binary gender definitions. I realized that the conflict associated with being a counter-normative woman was much broader than the adult, affluent, educated, white universe I inhabited.

I'm not even sure what series of observations and analyses led this brave and spirited young woman to her conclusion, but as she revealed anecdote after anecdote of supporting evidence, I realized that she is one of the lucky ones. She, who has the unusual ability to critique authority and to challenge convention with confidence and self-assurance, she who has the privilege to know herself and explore herself, she is unusual in both circumstance and expression. So what of young women, or any women for that matter, who don't have the space or social/emotional/intellectual resources to interpret and understand their plight as females and instead internalize their experiences as a personal shortcoming? My assumption is that those women who don't question or reject the expectations their teachers, employers, parents, friends, etc. have laid out for them (the way my brilliant sixth grader does) resign to them at some point, accept them and adapt to them. And there's no judgement in that from me. It's the way of the world. We do what we think is "right" and we behave the way we "should" behave in the situations we routinely encounter. And in turn, the expectations remain the same, and our reaction to them is predictable and consistent, and the entire cycle is self-sustaining. The truth is, most people (men and women) think of these expectations (and their behavioral counterparts) as naturally occurring phenomena as dependable as gravity and the orbit of the earth.

My point is that those of us (my heroic sixth grader, most of my close female friends, Hillary Clinton, and all of the millions other women on this patriarchal planet) who don't closely resemble the status quo are reliving the same head-on collision with the set of values that dictates gender roles every minute of our lives. What's even worse, the world seems more or less either unaware of, or not concerned with its social implications. I've had boyfriends, bosses and best friends who think I'm crazy, annoying and/or threatening for being opinionated, independent and existing outside of the female framework. Since I was young, I've heard the terms bitch and ball-cutter(referring to the metaphorical removal of a man's testicles, which of course are naturally tied to power and authority) ascribed to women who are assertive decision-makers and heads of their households. I wake up everyday in the wealthiest, most technologically advanced nation in the world, and still can't be taken for anything more than a cultural mutant because of who I am: at work, home, school, in public, etc.

What I'm most concerned about has nothing to do with my own day to day experience or the fact that my mom swears that I'll "never find a man to marry me." My concern is how women can grow to love themselves, appreciate themselves and exercise who they are in a culture that tells them they are abnormal, abrasive, misbehaved or otherwise contrary to what they "should" (there's that word again) be. My concern is that women will never find equality, security, or the presidency as long as they are held back by a restrictive definition of who they should be; one that inhibits the expression of their strength, and limits the way their identity can be displayed. Sure it's ok to be a "strong mother" or even a "strong athlete" or "strong reader" (and even in those we've come a long way), but where is the space for women who are in-your-face confrontational, the type of person who gets noticed, the girl in the classroom who demands to be heard? How do we give women the permission to be who we are when teachers, mothers, role models are guilty of buying into the formula that shapes who females are allowed to be without social objection. Even I'm guilty of it: I ask little boys at my summer camp to show me their muscles as I unconsciously turn to their female counterpart with a compliment about her "pretty shoes." But then I catch myself. I remember that there was a time when I too had pretty shoes, a quiet voice (and a clean mouth), and things were easy for me. Years before my boss rolled his eyes at me and men found me intimidating, my teachers adored me and boys thought I was cute.

I don't mean to suggest that women who portray a particular type of strength are the only women capable of creating change, leading the world or otherwise making an impact on this life as we know it. In fact, I intend to challenge the very idea that being loud, assertive, independent, powerful or any other way should exist on the margins of female identity. I hope to promote a space where all variations of self-expression fall on the spectrum of socially acceptable; the point being to broaden the definition of feminine strength, not narrow it. We will all be better off in a culture of women who are their fullest selves.

And if all of this sounds like nothing more than a pre-menstrual/post fight with my boyfriend rant to you(I assure you I am neither pre-menstrual or in a relationship), I invite you to conduct an experiment of your own. Spend a week recording the following: 1: your personal reactions to different behaviors exhibited by women you encounter in your everyday life, women you know well, women you live with, women you happen to run into in public space, etc. and 2: The portrayal of different women in the media; actual women, fictitious women, the women who represent the new cultural hybrid of real/imaginary (see MTV's "The Hills"). At the end of the week, take an investigative look at the way power and strength function in both the production, and your own understanding, of female identity. Who knows, maybe at the end of it, you'll need to be replenished by your own bottle of Strong Womenz.

I call it, solidarity

When I left my affluent suburban neighborhood six years ago for the streets of Westwood, California and the halls of UCLA, I was a young woman of many convictions. I had been raised to believe that I was intelligent, insightful and full of opinions that deserved to be heard. A walking wounded soldier of ongoing domestic warfare and witness to the complete collapse of everything I knew about what it meant to be me, I considered myself more aware of the world around me than my college-going counterparts. Among the core of infallible truths that I held most dearly was a set of ideas about the nature of female interaction, character and relationships. Essentially, these ideas linked together to form a philosophy that categorized women as conniving, shallow, duplicitous, and otherwise the source of angst and insecurity in my life.

In terms of the way I learned to formulate my convictions, I had plenty of evidence to support my indictment of women. At 18, I had been subjected to my share of female-generated pettiness, jealousy and alienation. I grew up in a community where when I was no more than eight or nine years old, the adult mothers of my young female friends called my house to accuse me of being "exclusive", "bratty" and/or "cliquey" to their children or others. I can remember more than one occasion when I was reduced to tears, pleading my innocence to a middle-aged woman. I endured junior high and high school at the mercy of the social hierarchies determined by wealthy pseudo-adults with trust-fund bank accounts, supermodel bodies and the image and apparel of the pop music industry. Really, there was no hope for any of us who suffered from a deep socialization of tv, movies, our mothers and eachother, that indicated, almost unilaterally, that women were untrustworthy, self-interested and inherently committed to doing evil in the world. Even in my overly-evolved state of cynicism and criticism, I both endured and perpetrated shattered friendships, socially condemning gossip and a general struggle to strike a balance between survival and inclusion in a bubbled world of privilege, over-indulgence and low self-esteem.

Determined to shed the weight and wounds of my adolescence, I set out for a personal, social and emotional change in college. In my first two weeks, I made about fifty or so new friends (as any socially active UC freshman can verify), almost none of whom, were women. I felt empowered and enlightened by my new lifestyle, convinced I had put a definitive end to everything that had made me miserable since the first grade. And while as my college-life normalized into a predictable routine and I managed to develop relationships with several women, I held on to the fundamental belief system that condemned women as the source of my social suffering, for the next couple of years.

According to my mom, and every formulaic romantic movie on the planet, everyone, at some point or another, endures their first, devastating heartbreak. Mine was courtesy of a man who came into my life concurrently with critical consciousness and the dawn of my twenties, and left it in emotional shambles. It was one of those experiences that makes you wonder why every image you've seen since you left the womb encourages and validates heterosexual monogamy. I was devastated, and even worse, had lost sight of any semblance of my personal self-worth or identity. In the months that followed, I set-forth to recover, and without any conscious commitment to it, discovered myself as a woman, and the meaning of womanhood all around me.

It was in the pursuit of sanity and autonomy that I came to both understand and appreciate the power and significance of female friendship. Determined to stay away from men romantically, and disillusioned by the absence of meaningful support (not to mention the self-interested pursuit of sleeping with me) demonstrated by my male friends, I began to realize the therapeutic and progressive benefits of surrounding myself with compassionate, understanding women. Initially I was comforted by the unconditional, non-judgmental sympathy of the women around me who all seemed to relate to my vulnerability and insecurity. When I felt ridiculous, immature and overly-emotional, my female friends assured me that I was justified, rational and sane. When I questioned everything, they were there with answers about how amazing and resilient I was. It was authentic, purely motivated love and kindness, and for the first time in my life, I took a long, critical look at the values that had shaped my relationships with women my entire life.

The days of tears and mournful reflection about the loss of great love, articulated over the soundtrack to Waiting to Exhale, turned into hours of righteous dialogue about female liberation. We reveled in the sanctity of singlehood and wrote our collective story of triumph to the tune of "I Will Survive."

Nostalgic karaoke anthems aside, something miraculous emerged from all of those 4 hour restaurant dinners, women-only movie nights and requests to club DJs for "Real Love" by Mary J. Blige. Amidst the shared stories of boyfriend-generated angst and relationship resilience came other conversations about our distinctly female lives. We discovered the parallels of what it meant to grow up as girls across race, class and geographic lines; we found social and gendered meaning in our daily lives, and we situated ourselves as young, educated women in a diverse and inequitable world. Somewhere between turning 21 and the start of my journey toward adulthood, I had a revelation: women of all ages, backgrounds and identities could benefit from a little female unity. I call it, solidarity. And as it turns out, there's considerably more to it than an aid in resurrection from a broken heart.

I don't know who started the rumor, but somewhere along the way (particularly in the community where I grew up), women learned it was safer to hate eachother than risk being betrayed by other women. Popular culture hasn't done anything to help dismantle this myth, and infact, seems to be increasingly dominated by media-generated images of women who occupy a narrow social space. That space is dominated by hyper-dramatic moments of rage, jealousy and inter-female competition. I remember the first episode I came across of MTV's latest installment of The Real World. I was horrified by the one-dimensional portrayal of the women on the show as shallow, manipulative and ultimately determined to destroy eachother. Unfortunately, the trend in imagery is not limited in reach to the overly-dramatized realm of reality TV shows, but rather it infiltrates almost every aspect of mainstream entertainment. It is no secret that media both creates and reflects our identities, our interactions and our social behaviors. Women of all ages are witnessing images of themselves pitted against eachother in pursuit of everything from good grades and attention from men, to social status and economic success. The product of this tension is a divisive and degenerative force that reinforces all types of patriarchy and oppression.

So, I promote solidarity as a means by which the media and other institutions that function to divide the female population can be interrogated, challenged and changed. I promote solidarity as a means by which young women, old women, all women, can learn from eachother rather than all of the male-dominated, male produced, male-serving information they get exposure to in so many aspects of their lives. Solidarity means women standing against domestic violence, sexual assault and discrimination as a collective, imposing, unwavering force. Solidarity means women collaborating to form educational, business and child-rearing partnerships and communities to counteract the ways in which they are marginalized and limited by long-standing sources of gender inequity.

A commitment to solidarity begins with becoming a woman who is compassionate and understanding of other women, and critical of the systems that teach us to judge, instead of support, and evaluate, instead of listen to eachother. Women can learn to make conscious choices that serve themselves and other women to the higher purpose of social progress and self-respect. Women can engage eachother in honest dialogue that encourages self-reflection and introspection. This serves to prevent the endless cycle of females who support eachother through self-destructive patterns of decision making because it is culturally acceptable to provide favorable insight in lieu of a more critical truth. Case in point: if you know one of your woman-friends is being screwed over by her boss, a man or her real estate broker, it's time to step up and let her know. Women can transgress normalized expectations by validating eachother's bodies, appearances, personal style and professional achievements. Women can question the systems that produce certain behaviors, clothing choices and attitudes rather than condemning the individuals that express them. And in doing these things, women participate in the betterment of not only their lives, but their daughter's lives, grand-daughter's lives, etc.

While I was late in arriving to destination: solidarity, I have never been more convinced of the importance of fostering female unity at an early age. Working with young people from diverse ages and backgrounds, I have endured painful trips through my childhood as I've witnessed the interactions of young women that so vividly reflect my own experiences. Giving girls the opportunity to experience the power of female friendship (that I ultimately discovered) is potentially transformative. It is a foundation for new generations of young women to be empowered by a mission of equality, who can pursue justice together and who through eachother, can better understand their own female identity.
I call it solidarity: my feminist agenda, my personal commitment and my invitation to women to join in something greater than themselves.

Members Only: A chapter on the professional good old boys club

I have no doubt that long before my awakening to feminist consciousness, I encountered the term "a man's world." Likely, the refrain echoed in the background of tv commercials and sitcoms in the ever-present way that American idioms shape the soundtrack of our popular lives. I first confronted the fact that I had been educated, socialized and brought up in a man's world during college, and it wasn't until I possessed the tools of critical consciousness that the retrospective analysis of my life came to be shaped by an understanding of patriarchy and the value of masculine identity.

As I contemplate the foreboding future of what I can only describe as becoming a grown-up, I find myself frequently analyzing the potential changing nature of my gendered experience, particularly the dynamics that govern professional interaction. The professional sphere is a unique political space. It is one of those areas in our culture defined by assumed equity. The combined exposure of our education and socialization has created a myth of equal opportunity, treatment and respect in the workplace, courtesy of the women's movement, the civil rights acts and the combined accomplishments of a few powerful females and a prominent person of color or two. We more or less exist under the pretense that your race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. is absent in the workplace and that none of our defining characteristics of identity make a difference in our employment experience. Unfortunately, I beg to differ.

My position as an upper-middle class, hetero-sexual, white woman has made it incredibly easy for me to understand the language and behavior patterns of the elitist realms of affluent culture. I can remember being eleven years old and finding great ease and comfort in conversation with educated adults. The way I was socialized to communicate eloquently manifested itself at an early age, and I have since benefitted from the ability to negotiate just about any sphere of interaction. When I was twenty years old I had my first pivotal encounter with grown men in a professional environment. I was serving on the board of trustees for a non-profit organization and as I sat in my innaguaral meeting, an unfamiliar sensation crept over me. It was both subtle and palpable, an ambiguous combination of isolation and objectification. I would come to label it much later as the experience of a young woman amidst the distinctive (and exclusive) language and behavior patterns of the professional good-old-boys club, but in the moment of my first encounter, I could only describe it as uncomfortable and alienating.

In the spirit of white privilege and other social invisibilities, the rules of engagement that govern the good-old boys club are unspoken, unwritten and for all intents and purposes, unseen from the perspective of your average, every day participant. How does something so pervasive exist without any detection and analysis, let alone objection? It's a simple function of normative expectations and socialization. We come to regard certain practices and interactions as inevitable, natural or automatic and we are not equipped with the tools to deconstruct these elements of our existence. The gender dynamics of the workplace represent a classic example of this phenomenon.

It turns out that one of the worst things about the conclusion (or at least postponement) of my student lifestyle and my (somewhat delayed) entrance into the capitalist workforce is the drastic reduction in my leisure time. Given that I have a limited amount of it, I choose to spend it in ways that enrich my mind, restore my spirit and provide me clarity, stimulation and sanity. It just so happens that fantasy sports doesn't make the cut on my free-time priority list. And although I devote zero hours a week to the digital world of imaginary athletics, I find that they have crept into my life experience through some process of information diffusion that occurs as a product of a male-dominated employment environment.

I've been in more than one professional meeting in my life that has opened with and/or included a discussion of the following: collegiate athletics, fantasy football or last week's golf match. And while one could argue that these may be relevant or even significant topics of discussion for members of corporations and industries that depend on, include, or otherwise are associated with college sports, "fantasy" anything or your office co-worker's golf score, I assure you, I have yet to venture into any of those professions. I have, however, worked in and around men who perceive these aspects of their personal lives as somehow intersecting with their careers to such an extent that they are not only fodder for lunch hour banter, but practically woven into the fiber of the conference room agenda.

Occassionally, when my time is involuntarily consumed by such crucial elements of popular existence, I entertain myself with an intellectual visualization of a public discussion of culturally defined female pastimes. Perhaps I poll my co-workers about their asssesment of the underwear selection at the Victoria's Secret Semi-annual sale? Or maybe we could evaluate the latest evolutions in birth control, tampons or body lotion? I am certainly not an advocate of affirming, validating or participating in the construction of this type of gendered distinction, but for the sake of the argument I'm going to have to accept the social prescriptions of this particular case.

It's not so much that I feel offended or inconvenienced by the office banter that includes all sorts of characteristically masculine interests and hobbies, it's that this particular workplace phenomenon is representative of a more significant, broader, more insidious epidemic that both reflects and creates gender employment inequity. At the center of this issue is inclusivity. Anyone who has walked in the world of office politics know that being on the inside of everything from client relationships and committee meetings to office golf rounds and workplace scandal are crucial to securing a preeminent position in any company or organization. It is within these spaces and from these places that impressions, evaluations and decisions are ultimately made, and as result, it arguably becomes a better career investment to spend your weekends watching the boss' favorite football team than putting in extra hours at the office.

Language and behavior patterns are indisputably two of the most powerful elements of any cultural formation. It would follow then, that if the language and behavior patterns of a particular office culture favor certain interests or individuals, it is professionally advantageous to adhere to these prescriptions. Those of us who may not fit into this category of belonging are alienated, marginalized or otherwise disadvantaged. When the social atmosphere of a professional environment is outlined, defined and dominated by masculinity, divisive lines are drawn.

The truth is, if the great office equalizer rested in our ability to adapt to or adopt certain characteristics that ensured inclusive representation, most of us who are accustomed to making cultural adjustments based on the narrow normative expectations of the white-male- upper middle class- heterosexual world, would just shut up and do it, the same way we have our entire lives. Unfortunately, the nature and function of the good old boys club has a depth of greater subtlety that is much more difficult to infiltrate.

The first and most obvious barrier to membership in the good old boys club is, of course, appearance. There is a certain image that is remarkably prominent among those who gain admittance and/or acceptance into the club, and those of us who fail to visibly resemble the standard suffer from practically immediate and permanent exclusion. Perhaps you've seen them around your office: a middle-aged-middle to upper middle class white man who defines his personal style by a polo shirt and khaki slacks. Maybe you know him as the younger well dressed man who celebrates each casual friday with a backwards hat and some sort of athletic paraphanelia. The truth is, as much as I amuse myself with vivid, specific, narrow stereotypes, the image of the good-old-boys club spans the spectrum of white male normative appearances. Beyond that, an individual has to pursue all sorts of alternative avenues to both seek and obtain a sense of belonging, not to mention the benefits, that accompany the position. Among them, the type of solidarity and inclusive identity that produce a wide variety of favorable workplace results. With limited exposure, I have already witnessed the perils of exclusion and the rampant rewards of ranking highly in the good-old-boys' favor.

It had always been my assumption that a capitalist market that values, emphasizes and reproduces individual rigor and personal achievement would commend the accomplishments of over-achieving, ambitious and otherwise self-motivated young women. My real-life experience has served to contradict this assumption in about every way imaginable. So while myself and the women around me in the workplace set exceptional standards for ourselves and aspire to all sorts of professional greatness, the men I've worked with seem to skate by on charm, mediocrity and of course, membership. I have endured countless staff meetings characterized by the subtle exchange of winks, nudges and other affirmations of solidarity among the men in the room. In an almost equal percentage, I have glanced around the room at the responsive expressions men make to the assertion of a woman's voice or opinion. I certainly don't mean to suggest that women are the only individuals who are marginalized by the deprivation of the good old boy rewards card, but this observation serves to underscore the type of us/them dichotomy that so often develops in the workplace, as well as the consequences that emerge as a result.

For those of us who are consistently eluded by the covet of membership, the struggle to situate ourselves in the workplace becomes more than an issue of fitting in, and serves to produce a barrier to advancement, recognition and ultimately, equality. Despite having just about every imaginable social privilege available other than my gender, I have outperformed men in the same position only to be met with, at the very least, apathy and at its worst, scorn and discrimination. My best friend (who also happens to serve as my professional partner during the summer day camp season) and I have jokingly labeled ourselves the over-achieving- annoyances of our office. In an environment that relishes the status-quo and rejects such radical phenomena as overtime and innovation, we continue to put up with rolling eyes, sexist humor and blanket praise that reduces our superior quality performance to the category of acceptable that is occupied by our (athletic, good-looking, white, hetero-sexual) male counterparts.

I think I struggle most with the existence of the good-old boys' club because of what it means to people who suffer from all sorts of other sources of social and professional adversity. If I am consistently frustrated with the difficulties that emerge from trying to navigate "a man's world", what hope is there for people who aren't equipped automatically (as I more or less find myself to be) with the skills, identity and education to succeed in it? How will corporations, the government, academia, and all the other spheres of power and privilege that we have come to regard as prestigious and influential, ever look any different than they have for the last 300 years if there is no challenge to the systems that serve to maintain their image. Both for myself and others whose membership status remains "rejected," I represent solidarity, and a continued commitment to dismantling, and at the very least questioning, the good old boys club (and other mechanisms like it) in all the professional environments I encounter.