White People, You're Not Listening

I have a paper that I should be writing, and it has nothing to do with gun violence. But the recent school shooting in Connecticut, plus other recent episodes of gun violence (Trayvon Martin, Sherry Frey) and a host of other violent episodes have me thinking a lot.

First, I will say unequivocally that we need stricter gun control laws in this country. We are one of the most violent countries domestically and in our foreign policy. Our foreign policy is a discussion for another day, but America is violent.

Second, I will say unequivocally that we should be ashamed of ourselves the way we stigmatize, limit resources to and treat mental health in this country. Having spent my summers out of law school working at Idaho Legal Services, then with a disability law firm in Boise, and this last semester mediating mostly low income family dissolution disputes, we are doing it wrong when it comes to acknowledging and treating mental illness.

But lots of other people are addressing those issues in the wake of the Connecticut shooting. I want to talk about something different. I want to talk about the way we talk about these violent episodes compared to the gun violence that happens everyday in our country in inner-city neighborhoods, in altercations with law enforcement and in domestic situations.

The last three things I listed almost *never* make national news. When I tried to find Sherry Frey's shooting, a google search didn't even bring it up. I had to go search the twitter stream of one of the women I follow to link to the blog post.

Trayvon Martin's shooting brought understandable outrage from the African American community, but mostly just defensive posturing from the white community about how it couldn't be racist because Zimmerman wasn't white; about how we needed to examine Florida's stand your ground laws; but nothing about how fucking tragic it is that a 17 year old unarmed kid was shot to death in his neighborhood by some neighborhood watch dude carrying a gun.

How many of you remember Aiyana Jones? She was a seven year old shot by police. Her family still hasn't received any closure from that incident. There was no outrage from mainstream media. Only victim blaming of the girl's family.

If these shootings were happening the other way around, if they were being perpetrated by African Americans or someone of Muslim descent, we would be jumping at the chance to analyze their anger or their religious background to explain the shootings.

White people are in denial. We are in denial because we refuse to acknowledge the interracial violence happening in our country everyday, and we are in denial because we refuse to look at the impact of our capitalist, patriarchal, largely Christian culture on our young men. White men, when they go in and kill people, get the privilege of being mentally ill, or law enforcement, or a jaded lover. But that's not fair, white people. We have to stop. We either have to examine *all* gun violence in terms of mental illness, or we have to start exploring racial and religious motivations in the violence we perpetrate.

We do not live in a post-racism society any more than we live in a post-feminism society. White boys are surrounded every day with TV shows, video games and movies telling them they are heroes, telling them they are bosses, telling them they are heads of their households. Girls and people of color are surrounded by TV shows, video games and movies telling them they are helpless, or evil, or subservient and sometimes all of the above. Can we really be surprised that white men are this violent when everything in society tells them they should still get the final say? If we combine these societal factors with mental illness, can we really be surprised when angry, frustrated white men seek out revenge on the vulnerable? Can we really be surprised at the levels of violence perpetrated by our law enforcement officials?

White men in particular need to shut up and listen to the women in their lives telling them about the difficulties they face in an implicitly sexist society. Then white people (my self included, god knows) need to shut up and listen to the people of color, the disabled, and the other vulnerable people in our lives and with whom we share this country while they are telling us about their lives in our implicitly racist/ableist/sexist society.

These groups are talking. But we're not listening. And it's time we started.

Update: Just since writing this, I read another article about the reinforcing of stigmas against the mentally ill that these episodes usually bring about. I'm afraid I've done the same thing here. This article, by Thursday, does an excellent job of explaining why it's unhelpful to talk about these mass shooting episodes in terms of mental illness. So while I will still say America should be ashamed of the way we treat mental illness, I am sorry that I drew some of these same damaging conclusions. Also, I wonder if this strengthens my argument that white people need to do some *serious* introspection and some *serious* shutting up and listening.

Body love and hate

Maybe it's because I'm sick of law school or maybe it's because I'm making an effort to do more things for me in order to survive law school, but I'm writing another blog post. Whoa. Slow down, me!

At any rate, I was reading a recent post by Chandelle about dieting, exercise, and body acceptance. I've only met Chandelle a couple of times in real life, but something about her connects with me, and I consider her a dear friend. Go read her post. I'm responding to her challenge.

I've addressed body issues here before. Most recently (almost two years ago now) here. Like most women, I've had a mixture of contempt and love for my body since I was very young. I'm going to give some full disclosures before I get too much further. Aside from the information about my family background at the end of that last post, I weighed 120 lbs. until after I had my second child. At that point, I went up to about 145 lbs. I'm five feet, almost nine inches tall. I wear a size seven. Sometimes a size five. Right now I weigh anywhere from 135 lbs. to 140 lbs. My diet is terrible. I eat lots of processed foods, lots of chocolate, lots of dairy and lots of bread. Some evenings on my way home from school, I'm so tired and hungry that I stop and get fast food rather than try and cook something for dinner.

Up until three days ago (which hardly means I can call it a habit), I almost never exercised. So to make a long story short, I'm tall and relatively thin no matter what I do. It runs in my genes. I sometimes hesitate to talk about my own body issues because I realize that according to today's standards, I have it lucky. I don't garner automatic sneers when I walk down the street. Most people don't feel they're entitled to comment on my body.

As it is, I was embarrassed by my body for a good portion of my adolescent and adult life. My mother played basketball when she was in high school and did aerobics semi-regularly until me and my sister were in our teens. She was always in excellent shape. When I was around 14, she told me I needed to start working out because my butt was saggy. I didn't know this at the time, but no 14 year old who is five foot nine and 120 lbs. has a saggy butt. So of course I believed her. I'm not sure what possessed her to say that, but it stuck with me for the rest of my life. I was embarrassed by my butt. I tried sporadic exercise but never fell into a routine, and it never changed. Even my ex-husband told me that I didn't look good in a bikini because of my butt. So I believed him too. To this day, in spite of the fact that my butt still isn't saggy (it is dimpled though. Two kids'll do that to some women), I'm still incredibly self-conscious about it.

Additionally, now I have a muffin top when I wear jeans. Not the end of the world, I know, but it bothers me. All those thin women on the magazines don't have muffin tops. What's my problem? They also don't have a layer of fat on their abdomens like I do. I suck in a lot. What's wrong with me? I think that's the message that I've taken from America's body culture: "You are thin, but you're still doing it wrong!" I'm not thin enough. I'm not fit enough.

For the last three semesters, I've struggled with anxiety problems (sometimes minor, sometimes major). A good friend who's also been through law school assures me that this is par for the course. But this semester, I've decided that I owe it to myself to do something for me. So I've been walking every day since I got back to school. It's 13 degrees out today, so I'm going to borrow my roommates Dirty Dancing Workout Video for kicks (combine that with my rock-like coordination and it should make for high entertainment. Too bad y'all can't be passersby outside my window) and tomorrow I'll probably try some indoor rock climbing.

As Chandelle mentioned in her post, I'm trying not to get hung up on weight loss or toning as an end result. But there's a little part of me that still secretly hopes that if I keep up the walking (maybe turn it into jogging if I get really motivated later) and the rock climbing (yay for having student membership to the gym!) I'll trim off not pounds so much as the muffin top. And maybe I'll finally have that ass of steel. And maybe my tummy will finally not sag a little bit from the layer of fat on top of it.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep moving to try and keep myself from going crazy under all the stress. Not sure how it will go, but I'm hoping that even if I have that muffin top for the rest of my life, I'll be a less anxious person if I can really be authentic in my efforts to exercise.

Issue Spotting

So... I want to address a topic that I've never really looked at before. I don't really even know how to start it, so I'll just say: I've been thinking a lot about race. I want to start by saying, this post is sincere. If I say something stupid, call me out. I know I've got a lot to learn.

It all started with the Slut Walks (I'm not gonna link. Y'all know how to use Google, and I'm lazy this evening). My issue, the thing that gets me excited or angry or ready to carry a sign, is women's rights. So when I started reading that some black feminists were criticizing the movement, I was taken aback. It took me a few posts and articles to figure out why the Slut Walks, which seemed like an awesome idea to me, were a potentially bad idea for women of color.

After the Slut Walks, it was the Occupy movement (again. no links. Google it. I'm tired). Feminist sites had already pointed out some of the sexist fumbles women were encountering at the encampments (indeed, fumbles is too nice a word. Rape and sexual assault weren't rampant, but they were happening and some blogs were objectifying female occupiers as well). In addition to the feminist critique was the racist one. Occupy is/was largely white washed. Where were people of color in this movement? Of course they were there, but once again they were largely marginalized.

After Occupy it was an evening with an attorney/writer from one of the Indian reservations here in Montana. He came to our university to speak about why he wrote. And he said he wrote because so many people have this image of Indians as stuck in the late 19th/early 20th century. And that's inaccurate. I spent time after the presentation talking with a classmate who grew up on a reservation in Canada, and we talked about her experience growing up Indian.

After that evening, it was my favorite move Iron Jawed Angels. There's a scene where Alice Paul, a personal heroine of mine, tells Ida Wells, a black activist, that she'll have to agree to march in the back of their suffrage parade with the rest of the black women because the women's movement can't afford to mix issues.

And that brings me to where I am now: realizing that I've been living with blinders on for awhile. My own struggle for visibility and search for my own voice made me sympathetic to issues of race (and sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.), but I didn't really see them as something to spend much time thinking about. But the more I think about it, the more of an issue it's becoming to me. I'm becoming more aware of the general assumption of whiteness that pervades almost every aspect of our culture.

I'm finally internalizing that not only does this assumption pervade mainstream culture, but it adds a layer of invisibility for people of color who don't identify as straight or cis-gender or Christian or any number of other things outside this straight, white, Christian male assumption.

I've come across this quote often: "If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time... But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." --Lila Watson

It's always been something that I've given a passing glance at and thought, "Yeah. Ok. That's nice." But now I'm thinking about it a lot more. There's a lot of injustice in our country right now. There are a lot of groups--ethnic, gender, race, religious--being oppressed. But the more I think about it, the more I realize I've got to broaden my focus. The game is fundamentally skewed. The fact that my classmate and I are both women means it's skewed against us both on certain levels. But the fact that I'm white means it's still skewed more in my favor than in hers.

I guess I'm asking: What do we do? What do I do? Obviously the game needs to change--radically. But what does that mean? This is where I'm hitting a wall. What action do I (we?) take from here? How do we write the contributions of all these invisible groups--and for me recently race has been the one on my mind--back into our everyday understanding? How do I teach my sons about these things? How do I help them notice and respect and learn from the contributions of so many groups are institutionally, systemically shut out?

The Thing about Being a Kid and Being a Mom

The thing about being a kid and being a mom is they don't always mesh. When children are young, we make every effort we can to instill in them the values we wish we'd had instilled in us. The thing is, children grow up, and if we're lucky, they learn to look critically at the ideas we taught them and decide whether our values need to be their values.

This article on The Daily Mail, by Rebecca Walker, illustrates that point to me. Rebecca is the daughter of feminist/womanist icon, Alice Walker. Read the article for yourself, but Rebecca's argument is that her mother, in an effort to instill her own version of feminism on young Rebecca, ultimately neglected many of Rebecca's needs and refused to recognize Rebecca's own desires and personhood. Rebecca asserts that her radical mother didn't prepare her for the role of motherhood that Rebecca herself craved so desperately. And frankly, I think Rebecca is right. Alice Walker seems like the wrong kind of mother for a woman who wanted so badly to be a more traditional mother.

But what about women for whom the opposite is true? By that of course, I mean what about women like me? My own mother was very traditional. She stayed home, she indoctrinated my sister and I with the idea that a woman's place was in the home. Unfortunately, from a very early age, that was not that kind of person I was. So I could say that my mom's efforts to instill her values in me were ultimately damaging. My mom didn't seem to think doing well in school was that important for me and my sister. She'd never gone to college and was fine. If we wanted to go, that was fine, but ultimately, we should be looking for a man to take care of us and so college was mostly something to do until we met such a man. My mom didn't teach me about being independent and driven and passionate about career goals. Those were things I had to figure out for myself.

I guess what I'm getting around to saying is, for Rebecca Walker, the problem was feminism. For me, the problem was lack of feminism. And I guess that's what I'm getting around to saying. We're still not applying enough imagination when it comes to raising children. We look at them as either a burden and form of servitude or as the ultimate fulfilling object of womanhood. I think both do a disservice to children themselves.

The thing about children is they aren't interested in whether they're fulfilling you or not. They're interested in being loved and respected and acknowledged as individuals. My children are simultaneously one of the biggest points of anxiety for me (in that I'm by no means a traditional mother and feel like traditional motherhood would prevent me from attaining my personal goals) and one of my biggest sources of pride as they grow and become smart, loving and capable individuals.

I guess what I'm saying is, we can only expect so much from our children and, as we get older, we can only expect so much from our parents. My mom would have been a great mom for Rebecca Walker (based only of course, on the beefs she has in this article. Otherwise, I understand this is a gross over-generalization). Alice Walker would have been a kick-ass mom for me. As dearly as I love my children, I had them because I felt like I had to--not because I had always longed for a family. It would have been great to have a mom who told me that I didn't have to have kids. It would have been great to have a mom who enforced independence so entirely. Just as Rebecca didn't feel comfortable disturbing her mother from her writing career, I didn't feel comfortable expressing my career aspirations to my more traditional mother for fear of earning her disapproval.

And so I guess that brings me to my point: We have got to stop telling women that they absolutely should or should not have children; we have got to stop making parenting about shaping children and more about recognizing individual children's propensities and interests; and finally, we have got to make parenting more village oriented--stop expecting so much from one woman.

Making Amends (I hope) or a Public Apology

I am a proud, arrogant, stubborn person. Especially when I feel threatened. Last night, I went into a rampage on Twitter against my ex-husband and his new wife who were behaving in a way that I felt threatened my relationship with my kids. I called the two of them juvenile, stupid and weak. I roared about getting a lawyer if they thought they could just step in and tell me that I no longer had say over my children's lives. I went on a particularly vicious rampage against the new wife, who frankly has been engaging in some power play with my kids. I refuse to apologize for all the terrible things I said about her except for one. I called her short and fat. And for that, I am deeply sorry. I'm not even so much deeply sorry about how it might affect her feelings should she ever see it. I've tried to maintain compassion for her through these little power battles but since she continues to refuse to talk to me (she's never once talked to me. It's not like I've done or said something up to this point that has made her mad. She just won't talk to me), I've decided to quit seeing her point of view and build her into whatever kind of monster my imagination desires. Suck it, chica.

The reason I'm so sorry for that comment is because it was so entirely uncalled for. I had this brought home to me when one of my dear friends sent me a tweet telling me that as a short and fat person, she was no longer following me on Twitter. I realized at that moment that I've internalized the privilege that comes with being thin. I've internalized the messages that tell me that as a tall, thin person, I'm automatically better than someone with a different body type. For me, my comment about that woman's height and weight are equivalent to racist, sexist or religionist (?) comments about someone's skin color, gender or faith. I recently read this post on The Exponent blog and found myself whining about how hard it was to be thin. After my friend's comment to me last night on Twitter, I find that my whining about my body type makes me no better than the white, Christian male who whines about how discriminated against he is.

And the thing is, I should know better. In theory, I have no use for the current beauty culture and the way it idealizes only one body type. I cheer quietly to myself when I see plus-size or just different sized models in feminist magazines. I was at a friend's house just a few weeks ago getting angry at my friends for putting down fat people and refusing to date them. And then I go off and say something to the effect of someone being inferior to me based on appearance alone. My father is six three and weighs around 170 lbs. My mother was almost my height and was thinner than me for the majority of her life. I came into my body type entirely by chance. I have no right to lord it over others.

This particular friend that I've offended has done countless good to me. She's had me in her home, fed me, given me rides when my car broke down, taken me out of town for fun trips and simply been someone I could rail with on all my little soapbox subjects. And yet I managed to betray her entirely. And not just her, but others of my friends who aren't tall and thin like me but have been just as kind and giving. How did I dismiss their worthiness so off-handedly?

I have no excuse. All I can offer as an apology is that I gained some self-awareness from my friend's comment on Twitter. I won't do it again. This will be something I'll be thinking about for a good while. How do I eradicate the feelings of superiority I didn't even realize I had? How do I internalize the concepts that I argue for outwardly but obviously hadn't accepted inwardly? How do I ever make this up to this friend and any of my other friends who saw that comment and were also hurt by it?

Once again, I'm deeply sorry to any of my readers or friends who saw or were told about my behavior. I love all of you so much. You've all been so kind to me with no expectation of return. I'm going to work to change my views on these things. Allow me now to beg for your forgiveness.

Sexual control, consent, responsibility

Since I have a contracts final in two days, I'm doing the obviously responsible thing and putting off studying to write a blog post about rape. We'd been talking about rape in my criminal law class even before all the drama about Julian Assange went down. So in a morbidly fortuitous way, I'd already been thinking about what rape means in our culture when he was arrested.

True to my lazy ways, rather than go research rape history, I'm going to outline how I've understood rape and leave that open for criticism in the comments. I'm still learning, so if y'all know something I don't, feel free to point me in the right direction.

From the way I understand it, rape was originally about theft, not sex. If a man forced a woman to have sex with her, that was only a problem if he wasn't married to her. Society saw that sex as a theft from the man that the woman actually belonged to. We didn't always recognize marital rape as a valid crime because rape wasn't about the woman originally. It was about a commodity being stolen. As time progressed and women became more fully human under the law (thank you, feminism!), we finally started seeing rape as a means of control or domination over women. It still wasn't about sex. It was about a man overpowering a woman and making her submit to him. It was about him seeing her body as something that he was entitled to. It was about her not having any sexual autonomy. We're finally getting to a point where we're acknowledging as a society that rape isn't about what a woman is wearing or where she's walking at night. Rape is generally about control--which is why we're also realizing as a society that rape is most common in relationships where the woman knows her attacker. Men use rape or sexual to keep women in a place of submission.

And now here we are at a place in history where women have more sexual autonomy than they've ever had before. Condoms are relatively easily accessible (I know they should be even more so if we're serious about preventing unwanted pregnancy, but that's for another post), birth control, at least for most middle class women, is still relatively accessible and while we have a long way to go on sexual education, enough awareness about disease prevention is arising so that most women and men are talking about these things and deciding what kinds of protection they want to use (hmmm. I'm realizing I could be projecting my own experience on to society at large here. Is that sentence naive?).

Which brings me to what I want to discuss. Again, before the Julian Assange drama, we were talking about rape in my criminal law class. We discussed rape history. We discussed consent. We discussed force as an element of rape and whether it should even have to be an element in rape. Legislatures are finally recognizing that some women don't resist because it would further endanger them. They're also recognizing that sometimes women are "forced" to have sex by more than just brute force. Maybe they're manipulated. Maybe they're shamed. But we're slowly realizing as a society that sex without consent can happen even without being beaten to the ground.

And this is where we get into the gray area. This is where I start getting confused and this is why I'm writing this post. We discussed a hypothetical where a man is potentially convicted of rape because he lied about wearing a condom. The woman had consented to have sex with him as long as he wore a condom. After the sex, she found out he hadn't worn one and so she filed a rape charge. I have to say, this makes me extremely uncomfortable. While I'm not going to say this happens all the time, it does happen that a woman will lie to a man about being on birth control. Has she raped him?

I'm all about a woman having a say in how sex goes down for her (heh). And I've been in situations where I felt like my body was being co-opted for someone else's purposes. I've been made to feel dirty and owned by a sexual partner (not this one, but that's also a post for another day). And it messed with me. It gave me issues about my body, control, trust, sexuality, etc. So I can't imagine the emotional trauma that must come from an actual rape.

And yet... I realize that I also have to take responsibility for my sexuality. I'm a big girl. I've never had sex and been unaware as to whether or not a condom was present. I've had condoms break in the middle of sex before (aren't y'all just thrilled at how much information I give you? Sorry. I feel like we gotta say these things out loud for them to get better). And I would hope that if I told a partner, "hey. the condom broke. you gotta pull out" or if the partner said, "oh, shit. the condom broke" and then i said, "ok. then pull out" he would. But if he didn't... I'm not sure it qualifies as rape. Is it wrong? ABSOLUTELY. You gotta stop when someone says stop. Jerk yourself off. Maybe ask her if she'll do it (and be willing to reciprocate. I mean, really guys? This shit is not all about you). But get out when she says get out.

But is that situation going to cause the same amount of emotional trauma that a more manipulative and/or forceful situation is going to cause a woman? Is a guy who keeps going after the condom breaks working under the same "i'm entitled to her" mentality as an uncle who molests his niece? Or is he like, "oh, shit. but i'm almost done!" I mean, no one likes a buzz kill, cock block, interrupted orgasm, however you want to call it. Are we really going to tell women that they're not responsible at all for checking whether the condom is in place before they actually start having sex? Is that helping women to tell them that they're entitled to sexual autonomy but still not capable of taking some responsibility in what we're trying to reform into a mutual relationship between mature adults?

Lastly, I want to clarify that I know I wasn't in the room for the Assange events. I have no idea what those women went through. My questions stem mainly from the hypothetical we discussed in class that seems to be very similar to the Assange mess. I'm also not trying to blame those women for anything. They're certainly entitled to have sex with whomever they want and to insist on condom use. But my questions above are sincere. I really want to understand this issue more. I want an honest dialogue (seriously, chrome? we're not spelling that with "ue" on the end anymore. sigh). So please, discuss.

UPDATED: Just wanted to throw in this delightful video on consent :) You know, lighten things up a bit.

Subjective Experience, Dogma and Community

As my four, maybe six, readers know, I attend the Unitarian Universalist church here in Idaho Falls. We're an eclectic group. Some of us are Budhist, some are pantheistic, some are pagan, some worship Norse gods and goddesses, some are agnostic, some are atheist (me, me, me!), some are new agey, and some I haven't talked to or figured out yet. But as I've said before, we disagree about where we come from, what we're doing here on earth, and where we'll go after we die. Put us in a room together to vote on anything from our seven principles to whether UUs should adopt a stance on war and peace, and we'll argue, cajole, debate, and get loud. But again, as I've mentioned in previous posts, we manage to make a loving, committed community in spite of these differences. What we generally have in common is our desire for social justice, peace, egalitarianism and deeper understanding of different circumstances. What's even more amazing is we manage to get things done both in our congregation and in the community at large.

What each of us brings to the community is our own subjective experience. Some of us have felt things or seen things or heard things that make us feel like there is some kind of higher power out there watching us. Some of us have never had any kind of experience like that. Some of us may have had these types of experiences, but written them off as emotional responses to beauty, fear, guilt, whatever. But we respect each others' subjective experiences. While most UUs hold very few things sacred, our subjective experiences are one of the things we do.

We also use different language to describe these experiences. Some people use words like revelation, blessings or spirit. Some use words like dream, gifts or connection. But each of us understands that these experiences, regardless of how biological or not they are, are meaningful to us. These experiences help us cope with the difficult elements of life. These experiences give us strength and healing. And for those of us who don't have these types of experiences, perhaps we scratch our head, but accept that the people we're talking with are sincere in their belief and entirely accepting of our own lack of belief.

And this brings me to dogma. I'm not writing this post to convince everyone to become UU. I'm done being a missionary. I will proselytize no more forever. I'm simply using my UU congregation as a microcosm to look at a broader issue I've seen in my larger community lately. Some of my close friends (one of whom even attends the UU congregation here on occasion) have been speaking out against religion and religious language in all its forms. They've been calling out religious liberals for their "irrational langauge," their "adherence to superstition", or their belief in "magic". Just today I was using the phrase, "kool-aide drinkers" in reference to people who accepted their respective faith without question. So I understand the ease of reductive language. But in the case of larger societal discourse, I find it unhelpful. I worry that we atheists are beginning to formulate our own dogma and display intollerance similar to the kind we criticize so vehemently in some religious sects.

I'm not saying that blind adherence to any ideal is a good thing. I'll continue to criticize religious sects or leaders who I feel are harming their members or certain groups of society. I'm not calling for a cessation in criticism, only for an examination of our own prejudices. I know many faithful, believing Christians and hippie, happy pagans who share my ideals of equality for women, the right to choose, equality for gay and lesbian citizens and tolerance and acceptance of beliefs that are different from but do not threaten their own or others' ways of life.

The source for their commitment to equality is their understanding of Jesus' teachings or their understanding of their place in nature just as the source for my commitment to equality is the realization that this life is all I've got and so I should try to make the most of it for myself and others. But ultimately, we're working toward the same goals. Why would I want to alienate myself from these kind, compassionate and motivated people simply because they hold a belief that I find baseless? Is their belief threatening me? No. Are they insistent that I accept their belief? No.

I understand that religion can be harmful. Boy do I understand. The religion of my childhood and adolescence caused me so much pain as I got older and realized that my goals in life conflicted with those prescribed for me by that religion. I'll be honest and say that I feel the higher-ups in many religions do take pains to control their membership with fear and guilt. But I'll also acknowledge that this is not everyone's experience of religion. For some, religion is nothing but a net positive. Religion has spoken to them and prodded them along the path of sharing and love.

So I guess what I'm arguing for is less dogma from either side. Call for questioning of assumptions. Call for questioning of authority. But don't stomp on someone's motivation for causes that you feel strongly about. Where religious liberals are concerned, we must search for common ground rather than getting hung up on differences in motivation. Even if everyone became Christian or pagan or atheistic, we'd still disagree about things. Why not work more on practicing a society who accepts and thrives on those differences (again, as long as those differences aren't harming people or groups) rather than one that insists on such strict conformity?

On Grace

Amazing Grace is probably my most favorite song of all time. I have lots of favorite songs that are favorites for different reasons, but I always come back to Amazing Grace when I need comfort or need to unwind from stressful situations. Recently, this song has become something of a meditation for me that I will play and sing over and over again when I need to clear my mind.

I've often wondered about my fascination with this song. It's one of the few gospel songs I've maintained a liking for since leaving Christianity behind. Ironically, it was never in Mormon hymnbooks when I was growing up, and while this is somewhat beside the point, I remember feeling somewhat guilty that I liked a non-approved hymn so thoroughly. At any rate, my love for the hymn now stems from a combination of what I feel is a beautiful, versatile melody and from my need to internalize the song in ways that are meaningful to me even in my atheism.

I was discussing atheist spirituality with a friend about a month ago. As usual, he was much more on the ball about writing a post, but finally, here is my own addition to the discussion, albeit slightly more focused on one concept.

I hesitate to explain too much of my former, Mormon views about grace, mostly because I don't want to bog down this post. But I feel a little background would be helpful. Mormons believe grace will save you after you have tried your hardest to be a righteous person and, according to some interpretations I've heard, gone through the temple and received your endowment. As a Mormon, I was always led to believe that other brands of Christianity depended too much on grace for salvation. I was under the impression that other Christians could be horrible people if they wanted to but because of their concept of grace could still receive salvation if they had had their own revelatory experience of being saved or born again. Shortly before my exit from Mormonism, I learned about the concept of grace being something like a boost to help you to God since as a mortal, your efforts to be perfect would ultimately fall short.

It's that last definition that I've co-opted and tinkered with for my own use in how I try to deal with my fellow humans. The guiding principle of my life right now is accepting the ambiguity that is life. We humans are never going to get everything right. How many of us have done something with the best of intentions, only to watch ourselves cause a loved one pain when we were sure we'd be helping them? One could argue for the goodness of our action from our intentions or for the inadequacy of our action from the pain it caused our loved one. But really, the situation is ambiguous. You can't really pin down how bad or good it was. All you're left with is the reality of the pain caused and the regret at having failed someone. For me, this is where grace comes in.

Grace as I currently define it is my own acknowledgment, acceptance of and forgiveness for mine and others' shortcomings. It's that boost I offer to myself and others when I know the disappointment we've caused each other was unintentional.

This definition fits in making Amazing Grace a good metaphor for my life. The thought that my loved ones will forgive me for my foibles, "how sweet the sound." And while I have no hope of an afterlife, I do hope that this concept of grace will save me in a more practical way by allowing me to see the good intentions of others.

Even the line, "twas Grace that taught my heart to fear," holds some truth for me in that leaving Christianity and Mormonism left me painfully aware of my shortcomings and the relative fruitlessness of my efforts. But this definition gives me hope that if I extend grace to others, I'll be the recipient of their own grace when I fall short of their expectations.

I don't really know what questions I have for this post. I'm interested in hearing your own thoughts about spirituality or the lack there of, in criticisms you might have of my definition/use or of your own thoughts on the subject. Please discuss :)

Getting Rich

I want more money. I realize that's rather an ungrateful thing to say given that my income still puts me in the top seven percent of wage earners world wide. But it's true none the less. I want more money. Given my current situation, I'm always teetering on the edge of financial disaster. I mean, I pay my rent, my childcare, my bills, every month. I feed my kids, though perhaps not as healthily as I'd like to. Thankfully they get most of their meals at daycare each day, and they're able to provide a more balanced diet than I am. I'm able to get a few extras here and there. I can buy an album of music I like from time to time. Every once in awhile I'm able to buy myself or my kids some new clothes or shoes. But if one of us gets seriously hurt or ill, or in the case of my youngest, needs more medication for existing conditions, then I'm pretty much screwed.

But that's not the only reason I want more money. I feel powerless. I admit that ideally, there are some things I'd like to be able to buy without hesitation: music, art from friends, and admittedly new clothes from time to time (although I'm really not that big a clothes horse. I keep all the clothes I own in my closet, and it's not even crowded). I don't need much more out of life than these things. I don't mind small houses; I eventually hope to live and work somewhere where I won't need a car for daily transportation. I don't want to get rich so I can accumulate more stuff (except for where the music, art etc. comes in). But I do want more money so that I have more freedom and don't spend a lot of my time worrying about what happens if something disastrous happens.

Perhaps the last reason I want more money is that I'm tired of not being able to help out. When the earthquake struck Haiti, when the hurricane struck New Orleans, when the tsunami hit India, I wasn't able to give really anything to the organizations over there providing aide. I did contribute a little. Don't get me wrong, I realize that if I can afford a new album here or there I can also afford to give some money to charity. And I try to make sacrifices in my personal wants when I feel like someone else needs my money more immediately. But I'd like to do both some day. I'd like to be able to surround myself with the beautiful things in life as well as help others have those things.

Those of you who know me in real life know that I'm making a move toward hopefully improving my financial situation (I have to be vague as I don't want this getting to my employers yet). But am I being naive? Does more earning ability automatically make one greedy? Am I going to forget this desire to live small and simply and compassionately when I'm bringing home a bigger pay check? Also, for my readers who may still be working toward being settled in, what do you hope for once you feel like you've reached a point of financial stability? For those of you who feel relatively well established, what do you enjoy in life? What are your concerns now?

On Hair. TMI ALERT!

I want to talk about hair. The hair on my head, the hair under my arms, the hair on my legs and the hair "down there" (read that phrase in a Vogue magazine one time and liked it. Dunno why).

I'm recently learning to love the hair on my head. As you can tell from my profile pic, I'm a brunette. What may not be quite as obvious, is that it's also curly. Not kinky curly, not wavy, but an odd mixture of curls and waves that have a mind of their own. Now, the color of my hair has never bothered me. I'm not one to get highlights or colors put in my hair. I've done it before and liked it, but it seems impractical given my budget and time constraints. But as I said, recently I've learned how to take care of my hair and what products keep it in some semblance of order (or artful disorder, as the case may be). So it's longer than it's been in years, and I'm generally satisfied with how it looks.

I'm really not sure what the hair under my arms looks like. I started shaving it when I was about 14 (I was a late bloomer. I'm sure it's earlier for a lot of women). So all I know about it is that it's dark and gets stubbly after a couple of days without meeting my razor. However, since becoming familiar with Amanda "Fucking" Palmer and her brazen ways, I'm considering changing that. It's not that I mind shaving. Many, many men shave their faces or at least parts of their faces everyday. This isn't necessarily an issue I'm spending a lot of feminist energy on. But I'm tired of shaving under my arms. I'm not entirely certain whether I will or not, but watching a woman like AFP be successful and confident and beautiful all the while having hairy pits... Well, why not? It'd save me that much more time in the mornings (I am not a morning person. I get up in *just* enough time to shower and get my ass out the door).

Now for the hair on my legs. Honestly? I like my legs to be bald. I like the way they feel when I rub them up against each other and they're all smooth. And I like how even cotton sheets feel like satin after I've shaved. So chances are, I'm gonna keep shaving them. I didn't start shaving them til I was in my mid teens. I simply didn't want to mess with it. But if I recall correctly, my leg hair, while dark, is rather fine. So I think I could probably go without shaving them. But I'm not gonna. 'Cause I like it :)

While I like my legs to be bald, I do not like bald pussy. These words by Eve Ensler (in the first chapter of her Vagina Monologues) were incredibly comforting to me, "You have to love hair in order to love the vagina. You can't pick the parts you want." And yet, most underclothing and bathing suit styles nowadays insist that women should be completely bald, except for their heads. Well, sorry. I ain't buyin' it. I mean, I do buy bathing suits and panties. But I don't buy the idea that I should have to be bald. Not down there. However, as I said earlier, I haven't been expending a lot of feminist energy on this. I'll be quite frank, I do some maintenance down there. I mean, folks trim and shave the hair on their heads and faces (or legs and armpits). So I don't see it as being far fetched to do the same to pubic hair. But I refuse to shave it or wax it into non-existence.

Ultimately what I'm saying is that from here on out, my hair will be about me. About what I'm comfortable with, enjoy etc. I'm tired of it being about a larger cultural beauty standard. AFP tweeted this today, "hopefully ... we'll change the cultural beauty & shaving standard this year." And that's what I hope for as well. I have enough things to worry about. I'm tired of this being one of them.

How about my few readers (bless your enduring, "omg, here Lessie goes again, and we're reading anyway" hearts)? How do you all feel about your hair? All of it? Do you like your hair long? Short? Do you like smooth legs or a more natural look? Are you a wild and bushy type down there? Or do you like a hairless look (cause seriously, I really don't care either way)? Do any of these things bother you? Worry you? I wanna hear.

Sorting Memories

So my ex moved to a new apartment this weekend and found a few boxes of my things that had inadvertently gone to him when we split. Living in a shoebox as I do, I've been going through the boxes all day long so I can get them out of my livingroom as quickly as possible. It's been a trying day.

At this point in my life, I still see my marriage as something that I failed miserably at. I went through the boxes and found receipts and pamphlets from the several get-rich-quick and personal business opportunities that A and I invested in. We literally dumped thousands of dollars on Mary Kay cosmetics, ACN phone company, real estate investment companies and financial advisers. I winced each time I pulled out an item we had put so much hope and expectancy into and that had ultimately only caused us to lose more money. I'm not saying these businesses have never been successful for some, but my ex and I had to learn the hard way at least three different times to figure out that we're just not good at sales. What's worse, each of these ventures caused all kinds of friction in our marriage as we would blame the other one for wasting so much money and time on something that we knew they weren't going to succeed at.

Other boxes are full of cards and letters. Some of them from well-wishers when we got married, some of them to and from each other when we were dating or first married. Some of them from my mom. But most all of them painful reminders of a me that I don't really even remember. I look back on the time that those letters recall as one of doubt and fear. I don't remember the happy, love-smitten, spiritual giant that they describe. It's kept me wondering all day which was more authentic, the person all those cards and letters are talking to or the person that I remember?

Still other boxes are full of baby blankets that people made for our oldest son when he was born. I assume I received these simply because my ex didn't want to have to store them anymore. Still, they bring back ambivalent times. The months leading up to, during and after T's birth are some of the most painful and dark in my recent memory. They exposed a side of my ex that I hadn't known existed up to that point. The happy puppies and teddy bears on the blue and yellow backgrounds just seem flat and burdensome now.

So I guess ultimately what I'm asking is, what do I do with all this stuff? I have such limited space. My little apartment is already bursting at the seams with papers and pictures that the boys bring home from school and daycare. There's not a lot of room for much more. But at the same time, I'm reluctant to get rid of everything in those boxes. As painful as the memories are, they were a real part of my life, and I feel a need to hang on to some of it. Suggestions for sorting through all this mess would be great. How do you decide which memories to keep and which ones to toss?

If Only It Were Just Blindness

So a friend sent me a message on facebook today. He told me he'd seen some special on PBS about this new technique that allows some blind people to see, at least on a minimal level. While I'm sure this friend meant well, as Gareth gets older, I worry less about his vision and more about the other medical conditions that he was born with. Why isn't everyone concerned about fixing those?

Many blind children also have either debilitating or potentially debilitating diseases that accompany their blindness. With Gareth, it's SOD. Missing a septum pallucidum isn't a big deal. Having an under-developed pituitary gland is. It puts him at higher risk for diseases like diabetes, could potentially stunt his reproductive health and will almost certainly affect his ability to grow normally. From what I understand, there could also be potential cognitive issues that arise if he doesn't receive treatment. Maybe I'm insensitive, but doesn't blindness pale in comparison to these other issues?

But ironically enough, blindness is the "visible" part of his disease. It's the part that everyone else can see when they meet Gareth. He still determinedly rocks his head back and forth. He still walks into table edges if you don't warn him in time. He stumbles over toys in front of him. Daycare workers, family members and your average Jane on the street can see these symptoms. And they think they can potentially relate to them as well. They think, "Gee. That would suck to live in the dark all the time," or "oh, the poor blind child. I bet he's gonna be another Stevie Wonder when he grows up. I'll give him free music lessons. To hell with his sighted sibling." And so they spend all their pity and condescension on fixing that.

But they don't see the cysts in his brain. They don't see his almost non-existent pituitary gland. They don't see him two years down the road when he's receiving hormone shots everyday of his life until he hits a potentially induced puberty. And frankly, next to those worries, I'm not so much worried about the fact that he can't see. That's normal for Gareth. As far as he's concerned, blindness is business as usual. Not that there won't be the occasional insensitive playground bully. Not that he won't face some discrimination. I do realize that it's going to be something he'll have to deal with. But being unhealthy isn't normal for anyone. When your body starts to rebel against what you think it ought to do, you're going to notice--regardless of whether you can see or not.

And who are we kidding? The diseases that accompany most children's blindness are what's going to cause their families the most worry financially as well. Luckily most of us are covered by some kind of state program or other. But we all know that given a sudden rise in income, or an improvement in functionality, our children could lose that coverage and then who's going to pay for that? I admit this keeps me up some nights.

But again, these are the parts of our children's conditions that people don't see. And so they don't send us news about stem-cell research regarding gland re-building, or fighting blood related or auto-immune disorders. We get access to that information through our service coordinators, doctors, etc. But for me at least, it sometimes gets irritating to have family members and friends send me stuff regarding only the blindness, wanting to fix my poor broken child who, if they really took a look, is actually a pretty normal kid overall, but who will also face some serious health challenges as he ages.

Lastly, I know these people mean well. But seriously, folks (and I'm talking more generally. Not to the people who read here. Most of you have been incredibly sensitive in real life), don't be afraid to ask me questions. Don't make assumptions.

Cross-posted.

Sex. You Know You Want It ;)

I can honestly say that there was a point in my life when I wasn't so sure I did. I was a good girl. I waited to have sex until I was married. I went into it completely blind. I had the basic mechanics figured out in my brain, but absolutely no nuance or idea about how my own body worked. My first time was awful. It hurt. I was scared. And when I asked for a break the next morning, I was guilted into giving in and having sex again. And it hurt. Again. And I was scared. Again. That set the pattern for my married sex life. He asked. I looked for excuses to avoid it. He guilted me. I gave in.

Thankfully, I finally discovered orgasms, and I learned to enjoy sex once I was guilted into it. But I can honestly say that there was only a brief period in my married sex life where I actually craved sex. And you guessed it, that was the period in which he wasn't that interested. And while we're at it, he also happened to most enjoy the sex positions that hurt me the most. Had I craved sex before I was married? Yep. You betcha. But it's funny what fear and guilt can do to a sex drive.

So when I left my ex, I really didn't expect sex to be something I'd want. I was petrified to have sex again. I was afraid of it being another control battle. Of not being able to say no without lots of pouting and accusations.

I was pleasantly surprised. It turns out, I did still have a sex drive. But what to do with it? I sure as hell wasn't going back to my ex. The thought of having sex with him still weirds me out (even though I admittedly still care for him in other ways). So for awhile, I just took matters into my own hands. And while we know this works, it's hardly ideal. But I also wasn't willing to go out and sleep with whoever. I had had such a bad experience with sex the first time around that I figured it was probably a bad idea to find some dude off the street and fuck him. Who knows what kind of psycho I might have ended up in bed with?

Fast forward to my current sexual partner (who wants to remain anonymous on the internets, so no names). Because of his wish for anonymity, I'm going to try to explain this situation without giving details about how/where we met. Suffice it to say we met in a safe social situation. I wasn't really looking for anyone at the time. So to hear him tell it, he had to work hard to get my attention. But he eventually succeeded. We started talking a lot, going out for lunch, watching movies together. And yet, I was still scared. I wanted sex, but not badly enough to have another bad experience. And I certainly didn't want to get into another committed relationship.

Did I mention we talked a lot? We did. And over the course of a few months, we talked about sex, relationships, relationships gone bad (turns out we'd both had one) and what we wanted from each other. It turns out neither of us wanted to settle down. In fact, both of us are fiercely terrified of it. He doesn't want to be in Idaho Falls forever, and I just don't want to feel tied down and owned like I did in my marriage. So we reached an agreement. No expectations. Every day we spent together would be a mutual choice. If the other one needed a break for any reason, we would know that it wasn't a comment on our adequacy. We would not involve my children.

And even still, jaded me wasn't quite ready to have sex. Even though my body was. Finally, slowly, I began to trust this guy. I knew he wasn't a permanent fixture, but I knew that for the time being, he was a sincere fixture. He wasn't going to be dishonest with me. He wasn't going to pressure me (cause he still hadn't up to this point). We were getting physical, but he was reading my signals and backing off when I wanted him to. Finally, I gave the go ahead. But not until I was ready. And you know what? It turns out that some guys will stop when you tell them to. But that's only happened a couple times ;-) Because guess what, I haven't wanted to stop. I actually enjoy sex even before I start now. I want it now. It's fun now.

So now that you know more about me than you EVER WANTED TO, let me get to my point. Marriage isn't the only way to express our sexuality. In some cases, it's not even the ideal way. Not all of us fit into the category of people who want nothing more out of life than to get married and settle down. Some of us value our independence. Some of us don't feel that a marriage certificate changes our decades long commitment. Some of us aren't interested in decades long commitments but are interested in enjoying partners for the moment and then moving on when one or the other partner's needs change, some of us may be okay with open relationships, and some of us may have different ideas about how our relationships will work. But as long as those ideas are fleshed out openly, honestly and entered into consensually, they're all viable.

And lastly, let me say this. I'm not expecting for this current relationship to end painlessly. I'm not in love with this guy. But I do care about him. He has become a very good friend. And when he goes, I'll be sad. But I know from experience now that I'll move on. That there will be other good guys and maybe eventually a good guy that I'll decide is worth keeping. In the mean time, I know now what I should be able to expect from a sexual relationship. Indeed, from a relationship period--respect and honesty.

The Real Issue Behind Global Warming

So let's talk about global warming. I live in one of the most conservative areas in the country. I get a lot of letters to the editor, some from scientists even, talking about what a scam or hoax global warming is. They point out, correctly as far as I can tell, that our planet has always gone through warming and cooling periods. And I agree with them. However they also go so far as to say that the extreme amounts of C02 that we're putting in the atmosphere aren't really contributing to the latest alarming finds in polar icecap melting, extreme climate conditions and rising natural disaster rates (and you know you've all met, hell maybe even been one of, those lovely people who are just sure these are signs of the times and that the end is nigh). And you know I'm not a scientist. I trust the scientific sources who have told me that we're doing some severe harm to our planet, but I admit that if presented with raw data, I wouldn't know what to do with them.

But to me, these scientists and lay people decrying global warming are missing the point. They are missing the point entirely. This planet will survive whatever we throw at it. We may not, and the polar bears may not, but the planet will. But even this is beside the point. The real point is that global warming is a humanitarian issue far more than it is a planet issue. Regardless of how our carbon footprints are affecting the planet, our blatant consumerism is affecting our ability to sustain ourselves on this planet. There are just too damn many of us.

"Wait! Wait!" say the traditional family values folks among us. "America's birthrate, hell the birthrate of quite a few developed nations is in decline! It's those heathen third world countries who are making too many humans!"

This is true. Third world countries do in general have a higher birth rate than developed countries. But I'll be damned if some woman and her seven children living on a dollar a day consume nearly as much as just me and my two kids living on nearly sixty times that a day. You can bet that in clothing, feeding and transporting my kids that I'm consuming way more than my share of the resources. In fact, if I'm honest with myself, I'm probably able to consume this many resources because this woman and her seven children are working on a plantation of some sort, or a brick molding pit or maybe even a clothing factory producing, harvesting or mining the everyday "necessities" that I feel so entitled too.

The reason we need to cut back on our consumption, the reason we need to downsize our lives, is because we are stepping on other people's backs to be here. We are maxing out our planet's ability to support our lifestyle. There are only so many arable acres, and every time a new subdivision goes in, we're limiting our ability to make that land agriculturally useful in the near future. Every time we slash and burn a section of rain forest to grow corn or soybeans, we're cutting out vital ecosystems that do their part to support local climates and maintain those areas' abilities to feed themselves. And every time a privileged First Worlder (myself included, although I made the decision to have kids before I was aware of this) makes the decision to have another child, we're depriving dozens more already living people of the real time stability needed to have even one third of the "necessities" that we take for granted.

So don't talk to me about the "science" that contradicts actual climate change. Tell me how it is you're looking yourself in the mirror knowing that everything you use today probably came off the back of someone working dawn til dusk and getting paid a minuscule wage just so you could have the latest in fashionable clothes, cars or even breakfast cereal.

(And just so we're clear, I'm the uber-hypocrite and actually don't spend a lot of time looking myself in the eye in the mirror, because I'm so ashamed of my apparent unwillingness to change my lifestyle)

More Parenting Anxiety

Don't know how many of you knew this, but I also blog here. But I blog there even less than I blog here :P But anyway, that's my most recent post over there.

BEFORE You Friend Me on Facebook

This is mainly for those of my LDS friends who find me on Facebook. Consider this my full disclosure.

I am apostate. I am an atheist. I am pretty liberal in my political views. I use lots of obscenities and blasphemies in my day to day language, and they come up from time to time in my status updates. I drink alcohol, coffee and tea (but rarely all of them at once ;-P). I watch rated R movies. I disagree with a lot that the LDS Church does, and from time to time, that will also make it into my status updates. I have left my husband. I work outside the home.

I operate on a basic premise as far as status updates and comments go. We are all entitled to our own opinion. I personally am not interested in antagonizing anyone. Thus if I see a post on your wall that I disagree with, I will simply shake my head to myself and let it lie. I expect the same courtesy. If you do choose to argue/disagree, please send me a personal message. While I'm not inclined to argue, I'm certainly not afraid to defend my position.

I am aware of the implications of my behavior from the LDS point of view. I accept full responsibility for my lost and fallen state. Let me assure you that I'm happy; I'm healthy; and I'm sane (heh. I realize this has always been debatable, even before I left the church). I am a human being, not a missionary opportunity.

Lastly, if you friend me, I'm sure I'll be thrilled. I enjoy hearing from the people I grew up with and spent time with. I like hearing about people's high moments and being there for them when they're having a rough time. I'll make no claims about whether I'm a good person or a bad person. All I'll claim is that I'm doing the best with what I've got. Be well, mes amis.

Why an Atheist had to Re-shape God(dess)

As you all know, I attend the Unitarian Universalist Church. Two of the women in our local congregation are leading a class called "Cakes for the Queen of Heaven", based on this curriculum. While very few readers new me as a child, those who did know that I was fascinated with ancient Greek, Roman, Norse and Egyptian (to name a few) mythologies. So even though I wasn't interested in finding another deity to worship, I was drawn to the group because I wanted to learn more about goddesses in particular.

The first couple of sessions I attended were a little more theist-centered than I was comfortable with. I almost decided not to keep going. But the women leading the discussions stressed to us that they wanted to make our group into its own little community where we could rely on each other. So I stuck out the first five sessions. I'm glad I did. I'm now eagerly attending the next six sessions.

The websites I linked to should give you an idea of what ground the sessions cover. What I want to go into here is how empowering it has been for me to re-create the god I don't believe in as female. When you're raised LDS (my god, that's two posts in a row in which I've dealt with Mormonism), you're taught that Adam and Eve were the first people on the planet and that they worshiped Jesus Christ and his Father. So the concept that other mythologies legitimately predated Christianity was a foreign one for most of us.

Mormon teachings also had the potential for there to be goddesses, but it was never fleshed out, and we were discouraged from searching out this (these) woman (women). We were told that our Heavenly Mother was too sacred, that God was protecting her from blasphemy by not revealing her to us. As I learned more about feminist theory, this idea began to rankle me. Who was God to tell his wife that she couldn't reveal herself to her children and interact with us in ways similar to him?

Mormonism was full of stories about men. It was a boys game. It revolved around a male savior sent by a male god to save men. Women were exalted for bearing more men. Or we were put on a pedestal and told that we were too special and busy with the kids to bother ourselves with any administrative duties (the Relief Society used to be under the sole control of the women called to lead it. Then the men decided they needed to oversee even that. *coughcontrolfreakscough*).

Learning about the history of goddess worship allowed me to rebuild my spiritual history. There were stories about female deities who loved their children, who interacted with them, who guided them. I now have stories I can draw from where women were the heroines. Where we existed for our own sake and not the ends of the patriarchy.

Perhaps the single most important thing this class did was help me let go of some of my remaining reticence about my personal space and ambition. I've always been pretty laid back. But I had taken that to an unhealthy level when I was a member of the church. I didn't know how to say, "no", or "I have the right to goals and ambition as much as you do," or "I'm glad you appreciate my physical appearance, but I'm much more than that." While I had realized these things in theory after leaving the church, having this history of strong women/deities to build off of finally enabled me to put these things into practice. I'm more assertive now and more ambitious.

So I'm still just as much a heathen atheist as I was before attending these discussions, but I'm a stronger woman for it.

Descending from My Pedestal

G and I were talking awhile back and discussing some of the issues we'd dealt with since leaving Mormonism. I don't go into my issues with Mormonism a lot here. This is largely because while things about the church piss me off, giving myself permission to leave it banished most of the cognitive dissonance that was making life so difficult right there toward the end of my stint.

That said, leaving the church and losing my belief in God necessitated a shift in my world view that was overwhelming at first. I had to reconstruct my reality in very fundamental ways. I had to do everything from change my conception of the cosmos to come to grips with the fact that people I'd taken as real historical figures never even existed. But I think the most difficult thing I struggled with after leaving the church was my overwhelming insignificance. This was what G and I were discussing particularly. We agreed to do blog posts on it. She's much more on the ball than I am :)

My loss of testimony happened the last couple semesters I was in school, so most of my "aha" moments happened as a result of things I was studying. The realization of my nothingness happened as a result of a "History and Philosophy of Science" class that I was taking my last semester. As we worked our way through each successive scientific discovery, I saw the need for a creator god becoming less and less. And while this is clichee I'm sure, our study of the cosmos was key in my realizing just how tiny, vulnerable and unimportant this planet--and as a result of that, myself-- was in the bigger expanse of the universe.

Growing up Mormon, I was taught that I was a daughter of deific parents and would someday, if I was righteous, be a goddess myself. I was told that I was special, that my generation would do magnificent things in the world. As a result, while I never really planned on being famous or anything like that, I still felt pressure to make my own particular mark on the world. The brand of Mormonism I was brought up in said that I would do this ideally through the influence I would have on my children. But the message was the same: You are a daughter of God. You should do great things.

When I left the church, I'd already made decisions that largely cut off the possibility of my making my own, kid-separate mark. I'd had children, hadn't gone to graduate school as I'd wanted, and I'd gotten a largely useless degree that didn't bring me a lot of financial freedom. It hit me at some point that I would probably never be that world famous philosopher. I'd never be a famous singer. I'd probably never make it out of the lower middle class. It was quite a blow to my admittedly large ego.

What was even worse was realizing that even if I did make some mark on this world, it would be transitory at best. I had an Ozymandias complex, I guess. Even if I wrote that great novel, came up with that thought changing philosophy, or even did a great job with my kids, eventually, it would be forgotten. Eventually all the people who remembered my stories would die. This caused me, and if I'm honest with my self still causes me, a lot of angst sometimes.

At my most fatalistic, I realize that if I ceased to exist, people would only be sad for as long as they were alive (and maybe not even that long) and then eventually, no one would care that I was gone. On those days, it's my stubborn, refuse-to-throw-in-the-towel idealism that keeps me getting up in the morning. But overall, the way I've dealt with this is to tighten my sphere of influence. I realized that the most important people in my life were not important to me because they were famous, but because they cared about me. I realized that if I lost any of them, it would be significant to me and their other loved ones, even though the rest of the world would never notice. And I realized that if these people were that important to me, chances were I was important to them too. So what if I never write the all-American novel (or even short story for that matter ;-)? If I've been a good friend, mother, teacher, lover, co-worker, whatever, to the people who share their lives with me, then it's enough. Because these people are absolutely vital in my eyes. If I lose any of them (and they are many) I would be honored to keep their stories alive. And even though I won't care once I'm actually dead, I'm honored to think that they'd be telling mine. Nothing is permanent in this world. And in general, I'm okay with that. 

Making Me Feel Better

We're raising the prices on our obits here at the paper I work for. It had been ten years since we'd done something like this, so I know it's about time. Nevertheless, it made me uncomfortable. I don't like the idea of profiting from others' misfortunes. Still, a few things have made feel better about the idea:

According to my manager (to whom I expressed my pinko-commie concerns), because of estate planning or life insurance policies, most people are better off at the time of their deaths than at any other time.

We're an independent paper. Sure we're a corporation. But we're not part of a corporate conglomerate. A local family and many of the employees own shares in our stock. However, we're also struggling as a result of the poor economy and the information shift to the internet and free media. Raising the prices on our obits (and charging for some other announcements we'd previously offered at no cost) will provide us with instant (even if not hugely significant) profit that will hopefully alleviate a little of the discomfort we're having.

Also, by being an independent paper, we're still able to raise our prices without charging as much as some of the bigger, conglomerate owned papers in the region. So printing an obituary in our paper still won't cost nearly as much as it does at most comparable papers.

It's the second and third one that have my gears turning, as well as this article from TIME magazine (and some stuff I've been learning about how our international finance system influences our ability to create wealth, but that's for another post). What I'm coming to realize is that until we develop a better compensation system, we're going to have to learn to prioritize and be willing to pay a little more for the things that are important to us (i.e. keeping papers, grocers, builders, producers etc. local) on the bet that doing this will eventually make these things cost us less in the long run.

I'm far from living up to this standard in every aspect of my life. Finances are always tight in my neck of the woods, but certainly not as tight as some. But since I've been on my own and have been allowed to prioritize my money my way, I've realized that if I'm careful, I'm able to buy things that make me feel responsible environmentally/socially without breaking my budget. Do they cost me a little more? Yes. But I'm fortunate enough for now to be able to handle it and willing to make what small sacrifices (and in my case they have been small) I have to do this.

Anyway, back to our paper. I have my gripes about my workplace. I think everyone does. Is it a business? Absolutely. Is it's goal to make a profit? Absolutely. But one thing I'm glad of is that we're still independent. The paper claims to and really does care about the community it serves. It functions in and depends on this community. So while I'm hesitant to charge more for what I feel should be a public service (in spite of my gripes about obits in general), I also feel that if our community values us as much as we're still able to value them ("we" being the paper, in this case) then hopefully they'll be willing to pay a little extra for our services knowing that we're still trying to treat them better than other places would.

Woman

I've been chasing something around in my head lately that I'm having a hard time articulating. I like to consider myself pretty open to gender bending, whether I indulge in it overtly myself or not, I'm not the least bit bothered by trans-women/men, effeminate men or butch women. And yet, I identify very strongly as a woman. I have several very good women friends and a core of close women friends that I consider closer than my family in many respects. I enjoy spending time with these women and laughing or crying over our shared experience as women in our communities, families and society at large.

Even as I say this, I realize that I don't really even know how to define the word woman for myself. I'm certainly not the type of woman my mother and sister are. I've always leaned more toward classic/liberal arts education and before leaving Mormonism, had a hard time relating to other women because of this. I've always been more career oriented and reluctant around babies, another characteristic that made it difficult for me to relate to most women in the church. For the last couple years of my stint in Mormonism, most of my mentors were men, and I related better to the husbands (with a few exceptions) than the wives in my circle of married friends.

Now that I've left the church, I've found more like-minded women and formed bonds that have surprised me with their strength. There's something very fulfilling for me to sit and visit with women in my mother's or even grandmother's generation--as if we share a common heritage or culture all our own. My core female friends are some of the most important people in my life. I relate to them and rely on them and support them in their own struggles on many different levels.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that in theory at least, I don't consider myself to be a gender essentialist. I do think that gender is more fluid than we acknowledge in our society. So it confuses me that so much of my identity is wrapped up in being a woman--not androgynous, not lesbian, not butch, not feminine--but a woman. It's just that my views about gender are so flexible that I have a hard time defining that in any concrete terms. I think of myself as a woman, but I realize that I can't under any circumstances generalize what it means to be a woman from my own experience. So I'm wondering why that label is so important to my identity and why it brings me so much fulfillment.

Anyway, I'm not sure that was as clear as I would have liked it to be. Any thoughts anyone has on the matter would be welcome. How do you define the two genders? How do you see yourself on the spectrum?How do you relate to others of your "assigned" gender? How much of gender bending is perhaps anomalous (by anomalous I mean outside "normal" gender identification but acceptable nonetheless, clear as mud)? How much of gender identity is socially fabricated and how much is biological?