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.

Just a Man on a Microphone

9 months ago I started the following blog:

On Monday night I had an epiphone. I experienced a moment in which something I had struggled with for many years without identification, revealed itself with such clarity that I could finally articulate it. Tim McGraw quieted an entire arena of screaming, drunk country music fans and every day of my life I battle to be heard among the murmurs of a man's world. I stand in front of my 40 person day camp staff whose average age is 16 and barely hold it together, while night after night, Tim Mcgraw comes to the point in the show where he raises and lowers the voices of his entire audience with a simple wave of his hands and thousands upon thousands of people respond without question.

I am a powerful woman. I am not a woman who holds leadership positions because I am organized and detail oriented, I hold them because I command attention, possess vision and communicate in the world the way I learned to by a socialization that favored men. I grew up in large groups of boisterous boys who talked over eachother and at eachother and fought for control of their audience by increasing the volume of their voices. At some point in my early adolescence, it occurred to me that the way to be recognized for your opinions and contributions was to be heard by others, and the way to be heard was to articulate yourself by a certain set of codes and mannerisms that govern the communicative male universe. In turn, i adopted these prescriptions and since then have experienced a measurable amount of success communicating in all sorts of social and professional circles. So as I proceed with this discussion, let it be clearly conveyed that I am not a woman unfamiliar with captivating an audience.

The Tim McGraw/Faith Hill Soul 2 Soul tour presented an interesting medium for an examination of gender roles and dynamics. Faith performed first, warming the crowd with professions of love, her beautiful smile and minimal talking between songs. Enter Tim, who I have seen in concert more than once, who is charming, sexy and engaging. And on this particular night, an exquisite image of the privileges of patriarchy.


About a week and a half after I finished that last sentence, I took a job that not only took up all of my time, but rendered my brain almost completely incapable of formulating coherent thoughts. The post remained un-finished, and eventually was lost in the shuffle of re-organizing my life. I sat down at my computer tonight to write about an experience I had recently (at my new, intellectually stimulating and emotionally fulfilling job), and as I pulled up the blogger interface, i was shocked to discover that the post I intended to write already existed.

I attended a "march for higher education" rally at the state capitol at the beginning of the week. Recent student fee surges and a looming state budget crisis are threatening public education access (what else is new) and (apparently) young Californian's are not going to take it anymore. So to kick off a spirited campaign to save their futures, an inspiring collection of diverse students from all over California gathered to tell it like it is to the decreasingly popular celebrity governor. I was impressed by the organization and attendance of the event. I went to college on a campus that was mostly divided between students obsessed with being fit, beautiful and well-hydrated and those preoccupied with their grade-point average and preparing for professional school entrance exams with a small smattering of diverse students who took on the responsibility of both going to college and paying for it (a concept those in the previous two categories couldn't even imagine).

As I stood in the crowd of impassioned young people (not quite sure where I fit on the spectrum of mostly student attendees) I watched one man after another take the microphone and deliver his message. The orations varied in strength and value, ranging from the barely comprehensible to the somewhat convincing. The speakers varied in class and occupation, ranging from outraged student leaders to righteous Sacramento politicians. The creativity of the speeches varied hardly at all, and the gender of the voices on the microphone remained constant. Speech, after speech, after speech.

I took a long walk back to my car, re-visiting what I had witnessed, and reflecting on the numerous images from both my memory and imagination of men on the microphone. I recall both the audio and visual footage from famous speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK recurring throughout the course of my education in "history" while I was growing up. I remember being so angry once or twice a year when my favorite tv sitcom was preempted by the President delivering the state of the union address. In high school, I was under the impression that our spirit rallys should be run by male students because "guys are just more engaging in front of an audience." Years and years and example upon example of the male voice have shaped my understanding of the world.

And here I am. Many years later and many milestones through my lifetime educational journey, being reminded once again of who belongs behind the podium, whom is capable of commanding the crowd and who deserves to have his opinion heard. He does. Whoever he is, wherever he is and whatever he is talking about, a man will speak loudly and the people will listen.

I marched for higher education with one of the students I work with. Tall, good-looking, white, articulate...... female. And the future student body President of the college where I work. I asked her if she noticed that the only speakers at the rally were men. She said, "that's a good point, I didn't even realize there were no girls." Of course she didn't. Why would she? We've all been more or less exposed to the same unilateral definition of what type of people belong in what type of roles in our culture. Why would anyone question an abundance of men speaking for any cause?

Because something isn't quite right. Women currently outnumber men in higher education, both in attendance and in achievement. And while I think the steady decline of academic success among young males is as tragic as it is systemic, the fact remains that although young women have worked themselves to the forefront of educational success, men are still speaking up on their behalf. The phenomenon of men on the microphone doesn't begin or end with higher education. It reaches far and wide to just about every imaginable aspect of our experience. Men who exercise their voices are heroic, labeled "experts" and are typically considered to be "standing up for what they believe in." Women with similar intentions are "bitching," labeled "whiny" and typically considered to be irrational and/or pre-menstrual.

How powerful and present can the female voice possibly be if it's taken until the current century to hear a woman speak on the presidential campaign trail and behind the desk on the network evening news? We witness men on television narrating the shows and moderating the conversations. Women accessorize our visual framework as they are relegated to objectification at worst and tokenism at best. Female co-anchors giggle and sigh as daytime tv hosts exchange gender-role reinforcing stereotypes: the man holding the newspaper and the woman telling highly scripted stories about her husband and kids.

Enter real life, a place where men's voices echo with emphatic opinions and incisive language through elementary school classrooms to university lecture halls; a place where women are charismatic, attractive, assertive and courageous and still struggle to be heard over the voices of men who are nothing more than accustomed to being listened to. It is a place where young girls with quiet hands and pretty handwriting are ignored in the presence of impetuous boys who shout out answers to command the attention and praise of their teachers who expect nothing else. It is a place where even decades after women organized the civil rights movement while men spoke for it, the impact of the female voice remains marginal compared to the resounding influence of its male counterpart.

It's hard for me to anticipate the future of the female voice. Whether or not my dedication to exercising my own opinion, advocating for myself and encouraging and empowering other women to do the same will ever make any real change in the world, I can't say. One thing I know for certain is: the next time Tim McGraw raises and lowers his hands to quiet an entire audience, I'll be screaming my head off to make sure he knows I don't have to respond to his presence. Afterall, he's just a man on a microphone.

Surrender

I spend most of my life pretending. Pretending to be happy, pretending to listen, pretending to be successful, ambitious and motivated. Infact, I'm so immersed in the grandeur of my life performance, that I'm actually a pretty happy, invested, successful and driven person. Yesterday I had a conversation with one of my employees that inspired a meditation about the authenticity of my existence. Infact, it launched an evaluation of the authenticity in all of us, and the quality of the world that we produce around us.

My employee had just returned from a challenging week serving as a counselor for a person with physical and intellectual disabilities. We were discovering the powerful, humbling, transformative process of it all as we reflected on the day-to-day of our lives that seem so vacant and insignificant in comparison. We spoke about honesty and open hearts, about innocence and lack of inhibition. We shared the so often unspoken secret of ourselves that in the everyday world we are only shadows and silhouettes of the beings we are inside. We maintain barriers and pretenses that protect us from our own identities, and preserve our anonymity in the world.

On those rare occassions when I've been moved out of my emotional shelter and into the elements of vulnerability and surrender, I have found my fullest and best self. I love stronger, I laugh harder and I understand and absorb the world in a purer and more beautiful way. It is only in that space that I appreciate the sound, smells and essence of the tangible environment. That space makes life palpable and immediate, and it gives me the rare opportunity to collide with the moment, to really live in it, experience it and thrive in it.

The last time I had that feeling was at the end of a four day backpacking trip with one of my closest female friends and 12 of the most dynamic young people I have ever encountered. It was one of those rare and spectacular life moments in which every single breathe creates a memory, the meaning of which you intend to hold on to for the rest of your life. That particular feeling is produced by the sensational collision of complete vulnerability and empowerment, and at the core of it, is the sanctity of surrender. That surrender is to something much greater than the force of all the elements of our lives that keep us from doing it in ordinary existence. That surrender occurs in the moment we stop pretending and give in to the weaknesses and intricacies of our most authentic selves.

I started wondering, what are the social and conditional causes of our failure to be authentic in the everyday world we live in. Is it capitalism, patriarchy or some other form of institutional oppression that I typically identify as the root cause of everything? Or is it a more complex combination of the expectations of our social culture and the limitations of the prescriptive norms we live by? And more importantly than its cause are the consequences of living by highly interpreted and transcribed versions of who we really are.

I've tried to envision a space in which we engage eachother in the purest form of our humanity. Where instead of operating under the demands of the defensive, we reveal compassion, vulnerability and unconditionality. I've also considered that the tools and awareness of critical consciousness would certainly be supported by the elimination of our own self-consciousness. I've grown up in a generation where all forms of communication and interaction are mediated by some form of electronic synthesis, and it seems that the further we get from eachother, the more and more we can occupy social existence without any identification or portrayal of ourselves.

I can't help but think that the further we are removed from eachother, the easier we can generate hate, anger and other destructive forces of difference and misunderstanding. The more we exist in a world dominated by constructed identities, false personas and other mutated forms of self, the more we are isolated from the enrichment and solidarity of the humanity that transcends so many of the barriers that produce ugliness, insecurity, racism, homophobia and the like. The more we see the world through the lens of television, myspace, the iphone and other co-opted tools of capitalism, the more we come to understand the world under the terms and conditions of a marketing license, and the less and less we understand about individual experiences, struggles, opinions and perspectives.

For me, surrender is a mechanism through which space is created. Surrender leads to the type of emotional evocation that spurs dialogue, and there is no doubt that dialogue is a source of hope, and a means by which hierarchies of all kinds are dismantled. There is tremendous power in that. My yoga instructor (whose wisdom I often use in my writing) often jokes about making her class incredibly difficult, with the objective of leaving "no fight left" in anybody so that "when we hit the mat, we will be left with unconditional surrender" When I hit the mat after having my ass thoroughly kicked by my yoga instructor, I am awakened with tremendous clarity and compassion and have the capacity for reflection that I rarely encounter in my everyday life. It is incredible how much energy it requires to relax in our culture, and I can only imagine the beauty that would emerge if we were far less consumed by our insecurity, boundaries and other forms of toxic mutation, and more invested in opening up our humanity to eachother.

Surrender. In a world where inequity, injustice and all sorts of heinousness run rampantly and perpetually beyond our control, it just may be a source of transformation. It may be the source of creative change and understanding, the power of which generates ideas that overcomes the boundaries that our failing to surrender have created. Surrender is access to ourselves and eachother, to solve problems and bridge boundaries on the simplest, most pure, most human level we can reach together.

"That's where the good stuff is"

About a month ago I made the epic pilgrimage home from west los angeles to spend the summer in the suburban paradise of Carmichael, California, population: mostly middle to upper middle class white people: claim to fame: the least known adjacent city to the illustrious state capital. Carmichael is one of those places that lingers three to five years behind the evolution of popular culture, marked by radio stations that play retired top 40 hits and clothing stores that market fashion trends featured four seasons ago on The Real World. Needless to say, my addiction to the southern california phenomenon of power yoga has remained unsatiated since my triumphant return to protected left turns, wide streets and well-defined sidewalks.

Eager to reimmerse myself in my workout ritual and desperate to find a substitute for the practice to which my devotion has become borderline religious, I fired up the stolen wireless internet (one of the privileges of a technologically underdeveloped society is the absence of password protected networks) and set out in the direction of a google search. Four rounds of word order manipulation revealed a vinyasa flow yoga studio in Sacramento's wanna-be-urban midtown district. I was sure my well-articulated, non-western prayers had been answered and Shiva had shined upon my pathetic hometown existence to reveal the source of my suburban salvation.

The good news is, the power yoga studio was not just a northern california urban legend, but rather a unique and inviting space owned and opertaed by an energetic yoga enthusiast slash large dog owner who seemed to be an ideal combination of down-to-earth sacramenton and experienced instructor. The bad news is: while both of those things may be true, the practice she led that evening became the inspiration for this entire entry, and if you read anything I've ever written you know that can't be good.

Somewhere between the intricate interpretations of the standard poses I know, love and count on for both challenge and familiarty; the yoga instructor launched into a predictable life lesson connecting the work on the mat to the work we do every day in the world beyond it. Somewhere between the fifth and sixth breathe of an unusual and awkward contortion, she began encouraging us to endure the pose through the pain. It's not an uncommon mantra to hear in a yoga studio, a spiritual space for opening your body, mind and heart which sometimes requires maintaining focus and serenity through discomfort; but the daily-life analogy that accompanied it nearly collapsed my down-dog.

"Yoga is just like a relationship, you have to stick it out through the pain and discomfort, because that's where the good stuff is." There she was. Not just a character in a poorly written sitcom or romantic comedy, but a real live, talking, walking, thinking woman, telling her captive audience of (primarily) female yogis to stay in relationships that are painful, destructive and/or dysfunctional; not just because she's optimistic or hopeful for improvement, but because that is where the greatest meaning and depth of it exist. Are you kidding me?

As I drove away from the studio that night (appalled and offended) it occured to me that the take home message of the evening was not just the advice of an overly-organic, new age, chanting pseudo-spiritual yoga instructor, but rather a legitimate product of the conglomerate image-ideal-belief system that women grow up with about their orientation to the people they are in relationships with and the relationships themselves. The values of patience and compassion are revered as virtues of women who are self-sacrificing, devoted and unconditionally loving. Women learn that their own worth is measured by what they contribute to the lives of others at an early age girls develop the impulse to put themselves at the bottom of their emotional investment hierarchy.

So here we are. Grown up women, products of exposure to fairy tales, disney movies and countless other academic and media-based lessons about the roles females play in all types of human interaction, who have been imprinted with the some interpretation of exactly what that yoga instructor was talking about: that while we may be exploited, disrespected, abandoned, cheated on, derided, marginalized and otherwise demoralized by the people we choose to be in relationships with, the appropriate, heroic, selfless response to all of it is to keep loving, keep working, keep adjusting because ultimately that is what makes the relationship worthwhile.

Being a daughter of this phenomenon, and a weathered soldier of far too many battles to save a relationship that wasn't working, I wonder how it is that although countless generations of women have undoubtedly endured painful relationships with fruitless results, we are still without a prevailing alternative wisdom that suggests relationships that are painful should be terminated immediately.

The most severe and haunting element of this entire discussion is the depth and breadth of the consequences that accompany relationship endurance. Aside from the (in some cases) permanent emotional scars, remnants of bad relationships leave traces of behavioral patterns, professional distractions, not to mention self-image and self-respect distortions that can potentially leave women hollow, defeated and emotionally raw. Even worse than any of this is the weight beared by women who refuse to give up on the pursuit of "the good stuff" even when what they see, feel and experience is unequivocally bad. These are the real victims of the ideology that emerges from the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast. Some women wait an entire lifetime to reveal their charming prince, with persistent devotion to both the idea of commitment and the person they are committed to.

It terrifies me to think that anyone is existing under the assumption that staying in a relationship through heartbreak and discomfort is not only one way, but the only way, to get to the place where the relationship really happens. I envision a world where women get into relationships because they are healthy and fulfilling and get out of them as soon as they fail to live up to that standard. I write fairy tales and children's books in my head that cast brilliant young women as heroines and detail stories of independence, self-respect and male characters who are unconditional, sacrificing and compassionate. Until we live in a world where narratives of this sort thrive in the media, I leave women with advice I got in a santa monica yoga class, from a woman who teaches yoga as well as she teaches life.

Ally told a story one night while we were sitting in a deep hip opener pose about leaving the man of her dreams after she witnessed him swipe a block of cheese from a whole foods without paying for it. She said, "the truth is, that was one of many red flags I didn't take heed of throughout our relationship" She continued, "the beauty of yoga is that you get to know yourself so well that you're capable of getting out of something at the first sign that it isn't working for you"
And Ally is most definitely right, your most intimate relationship is knowing the depths of yourself, because that's where the good stuff is

What are women waiting for?

When I was sixteen my parents split up. I had spent most of my young life wondering how they ever got married in the first place, and one of the strangest repercussions of their divorce was the unraveling of the 25 year web of matrimonial secrets that had been buried beneath my parents best efforts to keep their kids out of, what turns out, was a pretty disastrous relationship. Somewhere between my junior year of high school and my first encounter with adulthood, I asked my mom to tell me honestly how she ended up with my father. And of course, even when you know a relationship ends in the worst of ways, something about our romantic socialization suggests that every story has, at the very least, a happy beginning. I was struck by a moment of resolution and clarity when my mom finally admitted that more than anything else, my parent's marriage was a product of her resignation to his persistence. That's right ladies and gentlemen, my mom raised the white flag of surrender and my dad said I do. And perhaps the worst part of the entire story is that she actually used the phrase, "felt sorry for him" while explaining her justification for a union that never made sense in the first place.

I don't bring it up to shed light on my own personal and relational dysfunction, but rather to illuminate an example of a woman, not unlike many in this culture of young individualism and future two-somes, that got married for some reason outside the scope of passionate romance and life-long partnership that we have all come to regard as the beating heart of marital bliss. Whenever I think about all twenty-five years of my parent's marriage, I think about how many other people get into, and perhaps more importantly, stay involved in, marriages that are less than the living incarnations of our fairy tale expectations. Even more relevant to this particular moment of inquiry, is my investigation of the idea that while countless marriages end in some combination of divorce, heartache, infidelity and disappointment, young women in their years of prime fertility remain utterly consumed by the marriage manhunt.

I live in a world where women are educated, powerful and ambitious. My female friends and peers are products of revolution, feminism and decades of advocacy and sacrifice. We are the elite members of a unique sphere of privilege who comprise the poster image of the women's movement. Compared to the diverse political, economic and social struggles that confront women in so many different contexts worldwide, we seem to have unlimited access, resources and potential to become whomever we want. Without a doubt, our success represents the fusion of social reproduction and generations of heroine predecessors. And yet, at the point where I sit on the human-age number line, where two years behind me, young college women are still fascinated and liberated by the art of the one night stand, and two years in front of me, my older brother attends a wedding of a friend every other weekend, I seem to be surrounded by a culture of women obsessed.

Obsessed with their careers, their latest promotion or the workload of their professional schooling, you ask? I wish. These women are in hot pursuit of a husband, and nothing else taking place in their educational, personal or occupational lives seems to matter. Just outside of my immediate social network of women who are a rare hybrid of independent, cynical and ambitious, I have encountered innumerable young, intelligent women who seem preoccupied by either their current relationship or the prospect of securing one. I wonder if all of these women are products of parents who have beautiful, committed relationships shaped by partnership, trust and equity; or as I suspect, they are trapped by the delusion, either subconciously or otherwise, that marriage is a sign of success, desirability as well as a source of security, stability and validation. Why is it that the value of womanhood is determined by which man you marry and when? The shape of our lives is defined by the lines drawn from relationship to relationship, and of course the image is only completed when marked by an engagement ring and a wedding date.

As I finished my bachelor's degree, I had a righteous image of post-college women in their twenties taking on the world without reservation, bound only by self-limitation and financial obligation, concerned with the realm of holy matrimony only in terms of the rejection or avoidance of it. My disappointing post-college reality has revealed all sorts of variations on the age-old plight of the single woman. Most frequently, I listened to my older friends lament the fact that they " didn't find a husband" while they were in school and have been painfully confronted by the abyssmal selection of men in their off-campus lifestyles since then. Initially I was the first person to pass the information on to other women who were still in pursuit of higher education, warning them of the depths of despair that lingered just beyond the horizon-line of graduation.

When I took a step back for a minute (and re-examined the meaning of this wisdom), I wondered why anyone who had just been empowered by their entire future opening up in front of them, would be even remotely concerned with finding a mate. Of course a bachelor's degree doesn't exactly set you up with a one way ticket to the top of the world, but it certainly gives women, who in previous generations had no scope of a livlihood beyond their domestic identity, a broad spectrum of professional and personal opportunties that don't carry a husband-required clause. So why is it exactly that women are seeking the holy grail of matrimony? Why do women obsess about when, where and how to meet a husband so that they can go ahead and settle down before the rest of their life gets away from them? Aren't we getting it backwards? Shouldn't we be more concerned about our personally concieved and achieved happiness before we worry about identifying someone to share it with? Wouldn't it make more sense to pursue the goals that apply to us before we start incorporating the objectives of someone else's dreams?

Perhaps I'm the one who's looking at it all wrong. Maybe all of those personal ambitions I've been rambling about are tied to or (worse yet) defined by the men we hope to marry. The most disturbing and discouraging aspect of this observation is that the race down the proverbial alter is by no means a forum or space for gender equity. Most men of education and privilege remain devotedly on track to professional perfection while the women in their lives chase them from promotion to promotion, desperately clinging to the hope that they'll find a break between board meetings to return their phone call.

And all of this for what? When one out of ever two marriages end in divorce, and many people remain unhappily married for multiple decades without satisfaction or solace, why are women still in hot pursuit of the legal definition of heterosexual commitment? Last time I checked, the unemployment rate was lower than the divorce rate and we might all be better off taking a chance on our career investments than playing the fifty-fifty odds of marital bliss.

I don't intend to persuade women to avoid marriage, dating and heterosexual partnership altogether. I do however, encourage women to be critical of an institution created and perpetuated to serve the various means of capitalism, christianity and patriarchy. I also hope to witness a generation transformed by the power of their own potential and relishing the freedom of pursuing their own ambition. Rock on ladies, because while professional opportunities may come and go, the institution of marriage will likely always be around for you to fall back on.

My beef with Borders: Part 2

I envisioned my previous entry as an essay on the conservative crisis in bookstore conglomerates, but somehow it mutated into a unilateral rant that barely scratched the surface of what I experienced on my last visit to Borders. I only wish it had started and ended with the Men's Studies encounter.

I've read alot of what Borders has to offer in the Women's Studies section, it has ranged from brilliant and relatable to obscure and unbelievable. On this particular day, I was scanning chapters and reading back-covers to find something intriguing. I came across one alarming thing after another: books about feminism written by men, a book about recapturing femininity and re-establishing traditional gender roles, and of course the text closest to my heart: the book about being a bitch. To those of us who cherish the subject, Women's Studies is a source of revolution, a space of meditation and a place where we come together in solidarity and support. It is sacred place where we transgress and transform and it is not to be reinterpreted and co-opted.

I had almost given up the hope of finding anything worth reading when an all black cover caught my attention. The author was a man, and because I had resigned myself to making my next Borders purchase from a different section of the store I took my time to investigate what the book was about. The book is written by a criminal justice attorney and contains detailed accounts of the ways in which "radical feminist thought is corrupting the national justice system." I can only imagine that radical feminist thought includes the ideology that shapes the pro-choice movement, promotes women's health issues and continually strives to obtain the social, political and economic equality of which women are still being deprived; but I'll leave the specific definition up to the author. The book focuses on a case in which an adult woman successfully testified against her father to convict him of acts of sexual abuse that occurred during her childhood. The chief complaint of the author? That the outcome of the ordeal ruined this man's life. Essentially the author set out to argue that the woman was, at the very least, an exaggerator, and that she used the "tools of radical feminism" to make her case believable. Are you kidding me?

What I find most appalling about this book is how deeply it reflects one of the most profound (but under-addressed) problems of inequity that women face in this culture. I call it: your word against his. The truth about sexual abuse and sexual violence is that it rarely occurs in a circumstance or surrounding that includes anyone other than the perpetrator and the victim. Complex forms of shame and embarassment are closely linked to the experience on both sides and it often leads the system of justice to make a determination based on one person's word over the other. And I guess we could all rest our faith in the purity of legal proceedings, the inevitable reign of good over evil or the intervention of a higher power to ensure that justice is served in all cases of sexual crimes. Unfortunately, the world of male-female power dynamics and the perceptions and expectations of each gender complicates and blurs the clarity of the entire situation.

Case Number 1: The too drunk to remember situation. How come it is socially acceptable to excuse rape when women are intoxicated? What about drunk women gives men the right to have sex with them without their consent? My favorite reason for why women aren't able to press charges against the men who sexually assault them is that there was alcohol involved. I wonder what the world would look like if we applied this contingency to the commission of other crimes? It's good to know I can steal my roommates' car without any consequence the next time she comes home after a few drinks. The next time I'm out at a bar I'll be sure to steal money from the people around me to save on the taxi ride home. And hell, if that's the case, the next man who dares to touch me while intoxicated better be careful because I clearly have the license to kill him if he's too drunk to tell me not to.

It paints a pretty bizarre picture, doesn't it? but you'd be surprised how many women are discouraged from and/or unsuccessful prosecuting men who have sexually assaulted them for that very reason. As if to suggest that a woman who has altered judgement (or is completely passed out) somehow transforms into an object of male desire. The implication is that it is a certain state of consciousness that makes women humans, not anything else. And ultimately the point is this: women are only entitled to control of their own bodies as long as they are alert and awake. There is a casual and subtle debate occurring on college campuses about who should be held responsible for women who are raped while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and although I do not condone the irresponsible use of any substance, I cannot even fathom how we can honor any discussion of the subject. It should be simple, it should be a fundamental rule of human behavior and certainly an entitlement that falls under the "democratic rights" of American women: our bodies belong to us and should not be subjected to even a touch that is uninvited and without consent, no matter what state of mind we are in.

Case Number Two: "She was asking for it". The phenomenon of female sexuality and the expression there of is very much a contested terrain in feminist politics. No one can come to a consensus about just how and to what degree women should be able to express their sexuality. For me, the problem is just that, no one has the right to determine, constrain or interpret the expression of female sexuality, because I can tell you for one thing, no one is making those choices or assumptions for (heterosexual) men. My point is that women should be able to dress, dance, behave, etc. in whatever manner they choose and none of it should be construed as an invitation, to any man, to exploit her sexuality. Somehow our culture has managed to construct women in such a way that certain manifestations of expression become dehumanizing and hypersexualizing. Although I have my own set of opinions about the elements that function in producing the type of dress and behavior that some women choose to exhibit, the fact remains that there is no situation in which either of those things can justify sexual aggression, assault or exploitation. Simply put, a woman should be able to walk around completely naked and no man should touch her.

Every two and a half minutes in this country a woman is sexually assaulted. That means that while so many of the women in this country zone out during a single episode of grey's anatomy, approximately thirty other women have become victims of sexual violence. Most women my age have either experienced sexual violence themselves, or have some sort of friend or friend of a friend relationship with someone who has. I am 23 years old, and that is staggering.

Case #3: Shame and Silence.
59% of rape goes unreported, typically because women feel ashamed, at fault or otherwise silenced by a culture that tells women at an early age about the dynamics of male-female sexual relations; More specifically: that men's sexuality is imminent and that it is a woman's responsibility (obligation) to control and constrain it. The translation for many women who have been raped is that it is their fault because they should have been able to stop it. For a variety of cultural and social reasons, women do not have space to talk about being raped and choose, instead, to carry the burden themselves. In many cases, this phenomenon is particularly relevant and dangerous for young women.

This brings me back to my original observation about the book I discovered at borders: An adult woman finally seeks retribution and resolution for crimes committed agains her in childhood and some man has a problem with the legality and justice of it all. There are an overwhelming number of reasons why young women do not speak out about the sexual harm that is done to them, particularly when the perpetrator is a family member. Among these reasons are shame, guilt, fear of the consequences, not to mention the fact that the person who is doing these things has often convinced the young person that there is nothing wrong; kids learn to trust adults who are close to them, believe them to be infallible, well-meaning and harmless. Meanwhile, here is a book that reinforces the idea that women who have been victims of rape, molestation or other acts of sexual violence are dishonest, dilluded or otherwise misdirected about the harm they have endured. As if the severity and longevity of impact created by the experience of sexual assault is not haunting and intense enough, we have created a social culture that discourages women from finding healing in speaking out, confronting their assailants and utilizing other forms of expression to seek resolution. The criminal justice attorney writes about how it is absolutely ludicrous that an adult woman could prove the guilt of her father in a crime that occurred so many years ago and how the process has destroyed his life. But what about the young girl who carried the weight of something absolutely incomprehensible well into her adulthood, before finally having space to confront her abuser. I wonder, who's writing that story?

I can't even imagine raising a daughter in a culture that allows any of this to go on, and I certainly hope the author of the book I found isn't the parent of one. It is interesting how so many men who have mothers, daughters and sisters can continue to see and treat women as objects of their own desire. In addition, it is hard for me to imagine that while we teach and preach about gender equality in this country, women continue to face obstacles, the significance of which most men (the white one's in particular) can't even fathom. Anytime issues of gender arise in mixed company I try to pose this question to my male friends, "when was the last time you walked alone in the dark and worried about being raped." If I have the chance, I ask the women the same question, and typically let the respective responses speak for themselves.