A Feminist Body: Ode to the Fuzzy Ladies

I love to be sexy

I love that this body is mine

But if you 

just sexualize me

you jeapordize a 

chance to dive down 

the depths of my mind

So don't.

Don't get me wrong

I said I love this body

but I'm not just some 

superficial hottie

or naughty 

or gaudy
This body is filled and covered with stories
tales of glamour and grit and glory

I don't shave my legs

or my armpits

or my mons pubis

My hair grows free as the grass

Long and fresh --

Why don't more people do this?

I've been braless

Bare and Braless

since I was barely sixteen

My boobs are my best friend

I'd never suffocate them

because someone says nipples are unseen

I love my body

From the shape

to the skin

to the brain

in the head

which my mane

grows in.

I love my scars

and the stories they tell

Times in paradise

Times in hell

I'm a patchwork person

Look at the stitch marks 

and the skin grafts

Like the many lands

which polka-dot a world map

The blemishes

The stings

The spots

The burns

You could look at me and sexualize me

or you could look at me and learn

and know

and grow

as the grass

in the air

Like my armpit hair.

  

Book Review: The Purity Myth (otherwise titled I'm so sick of the Clean Virgin/Unclean Slut Dichotomy)

Welcome to my first book review rant.

Sooo a few months ago, I read this book called the The Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti. The book takes a critical approach to the cultural narrative told to girls about their sexuality via media, family, and sex education in the United States. If I'm totally honest, it wasn't really a shocker because I come from a pretty conservative family and had to learn on my own that a lot of the religious teachings that constructed my views toward my sexuality were, well, bullshit. I thought Valenti took a harsh approach to these people, judging them just as severely as they judge sexually active women. Yeah, it's a frustrating situation, but when I think of my poor lost family members that gave me advice during my teenage years, I don't see evil puritans... I see people who only want to make their God happy and help everyone around them make it to heaven. It's backwards and wrong, but I think the solution is through empathy, not judgement. Isn't that what we're constantly demanding when we fight to end slut shaming?
Nevertheless, Valenti has good intentions, and to paraphrase The Perks of Being a Wallflower, read it with a filter, not like a sponge. Overall, I did learn some new things, she proved a lot of connections between culture, belief, and the damage of this Virgin/Slut dichotomy that is essential to fighting misogyny. 
Since reading this book, I feel as though I've been put on high alert. I see the dichotomy in movies (ESPECIALLY kids movies), music (I'm looking at you, mainstream!), and, sadly enough, the next generation of Americans.

In my family, I'm known as the open-minded one, and even though conservative families tend to frown on progressive hippies, I can tell you confidently that they don't hesitate to call ME when they're stuck in a pickle.
So this week, I got a call from my cousin who's having boy troubles. She's only in 10th grade, but we've been close since toddler days and so we still talk often even if I'm halfway across the world. She was telling me about her current beau and how actually she's over it. Wants to be single. It's the way of the high school game.
"But I've done stuff with him!" She said to me.
"So?? If you don't like him then... uhh... break up with him!" I told her. And that's when she said something I hadn't heard in years and was hoping to never ever hear again. "Yeah but if he tells, no one will want to be with me. Guys don't want a girl who's used."
I think I vomited a little bit in my mouth when she said it. My cousin is one of the most beautiful, intelligent, athletic people I know and for her to doubt her merit because of her sexuality made me so terribly sad and frustrated for her. And that's exactly what I told her, give or take a few words.
I basically replied that it's absolutely untrue that guys won't want to be with her anymore, and if some dont, they're prude assholes whose parents are obviously raising them with morals from the 18th century and who needs that anyway?

But it did have The Purity Myth alarm bells ringing in my head. I realized how spot on Valenti really was with how deep this dichotomy goes. First my cousin was the beautiful, smart athlete, but a little sexual exploration and BAM -- concrete slut for all eternity. It's not fair. And change only exists in education. We cannot let this mindset go unchecked. So I recommend the book whole-heartedly as a part of the fourth wave foundation.

Finding Your Feminism on the Feminist Spectrum

I was thinking about this while walking to the store today...

I think what I love most about feminism is that there's no structure to it beyond fighting individual and systemic gender oppression and working toward gender equality. Feminism is an ideology, and mindsets can't be worn or bought. They're believed. Feminism doesn't mean stop wearing your bra. It doesn't mean stop shaving. It doesn't mean to throw all your makeup away. I choose to do those things because once I learned about certain issues, that was my response. (Or wasn't my response -- I still have all my makeup).

I try to read as much as I can about feminism on a global scale, but in my day to day life in the first world, my little acts of feminism include explicitly telling a man "no" when he wants something I don't want to give, not giving that cute little disapproving laugh when someone makes a sexist joke, calling those out who make subtle stereotypical remarks that perpetuate oppressive mindsets.

One time I got catcalled and turned around, looked the guy dead in the eye, and said, "Really dude? I'm a human being." The look of shock on his face was so rewarding. Not because it was a "Ha! See I got him!" moment, but because his expression was genuine. Maybe he never realized women were humans and was now having that epiphany. Maybe he was simply linking the character-complexity he sees in his mother and sister to the random girl he was just catcalling on the street. I don't know. I don't care. As a feminist, these are the kinds of people who are keeping our world stagnate, but also have the potential to shift their perspectives and join the cause.

I don't think its fair to say that Western women shouldn't complain or fight the misogyny in our countries because it's "so much worse in other places". Because while that is true (for the majority of us, we don't have to deal with being a child bride, or being acid burned, or having our genitals mutilated), it's also not come far enough. Women in the first world are sexually assaulted on college campuses like its an extracurricular activity. And isn't it funny how when schools get shot up, everyone talks about making the schools safer for kids, but when a college woman is raped, everyone wants to know what she was wearing? That alone shows the mindset in the West (I'm talking more specifically about America) is not where it should be... and that's why I'm a first-world feminist.

My Feminism also doesn't mean that I want to cry and beg for change because, well, poor me! I'm not a victim just because of the genitalia between my legs. But that also means I'm not going to stay in my quiet, docile box or conform to any other social structure that's just not me.
I'm a human being, and that's all feminism ever articulated.

So the point is that the fight for gender equality has layers like an onion. Some may be more subtle, but it all stinks. If you care about the state of global womanhood, you're not crazy or militant or stupid. You just see things for what they are: That there are other human beings out here being oppressed by a failing system and that doesn't feel okay. If that last sentence is you, and you want to change things, you identify with feminism.

I'm saying all of this to say, let this blog be a place where one feminist is heard, but I don't speak for all feminists. What I love about feminism is that it's an entire spectrum. And being a feminist doesn't depend on where you find yourself within the spectrum, but more on what you can take from and give to it.

When finding Your Feminism on the Feminist Spectrum, start with some good books and videos. When I first learned about sex trafficking, I couldn't believe how real and common it is. The more I learned about what a massive problem this is, the more I also learned about the people who are fighting to stop it. Donate to them. Volunteer for them.

That's what I did when I learned about an NGO school for Cambodian refugee children in Thailand. Because of their status, they had been barred from public school. Many of the children were girls, who without education, could easily fall victim to the very sex trafficking I had been reading and watching documentaries about. I flew across the world, packed with books and supplies, and taught for 6 weeks at the school.

Beyond the day to day education they received while I was there, I showed everyone -- both girls and boys -- that a young woman (and a brown one at that!) can be educated and even teach abroad if she has the drive. Maybe that inspired them to stay in school. It's all I can hope.

But that's the thing about mindsets, they're in your mind. So only time will tell, but with the small fraction I have on this planet, I want to spend it on the paradigm shift. What about you?