I'd like to make a dedication to all the single ladies..

Do you know what really sucks? The constant pressure to be in a relationship. If you're a woman over the age of 22 and haven't got a fella on the brink of proposal, it's like there's something wrong with you. Okay, first of all, WHAT THE HELL. At social gatherings I feel my stomach knot up because I know that my aunt whom I haven't seen in four years--the one that's walking right toward me--is going to ask, "Is there anyone special in your life?"

I rue the day that all of humanity decided to reduce women to being babymakers and nothing else--like that's our only major contribution and accomplishment in all of history. There is nothing wrong with me if I don't manage to ensnare a man with my sexual wiles and then cling to him for dear life, never to let go.

Let's talk about the term "spinster." I'm sure it immediately conjures an image of a little old lady crocheting her own blankets in a decrepit old house, rocking chair and all. Again, the implicit assumption here is that if you don't get married THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU. i.e. no one would deign to love you for the rest of their lives because you are that. fucked. up.

All I can say to that is "no." Okay, if you're a woman over 50 and never married, I don't want you to be moping around feeling shitty about yourself like you're "not good enough." We need to change this paradigm, and we need to change it now.

I understand that not too long ago, getting married was, like, physically necessary. Women hadn't property or income so they were totally at the mercy of men, be they fathers, husbands or sons. I get that. Praise the Lord that we're in the 21st century and a woman can be economically self-sufficient.

So now marriage is a choice for women rather than an inevitability. Great. I am all for this. So why are so many women chasing after marriage as if their lives still depended on it?

Some look to marriage as a means of salvation. "Oh, if I just got married, everything would be better." It's the draught of fairytale happy endings that keep these women in drunken, delusional bliss. Getting married solves everything. You gain a purpose (being a good wife and mother), someone who will love you forever (validation and affirmation--YAY!) and you're ready to rock this gig out until the day you die. Yep. I get it. It's a template for your life. It's a track to lose yourself in and have satisfaction and meaning.

Some think of marriage as a status/prestige thing. It's like you belong to an elite club where you have bitchin' dinner parties with other well-to-do couples and drink your fancy dessert wine beneath a crystal chandelier. Especially among twenty somethings, getting married is, like, the "thing," so you'd better not miss out because you'll get left out. Harsh but tru.

Some people want to get married because they're pretty lonely and insecure. Now, I'm not judging peeps for feeling insecure or lonely. Not at all. I get needy lots of the time! But marriage to some supposedly guarantees that you'll never feel alone again. This is somewhat problematic because in marriage you can actually become even lonelier if your spouse is neglectful, self-absorbed, absent-minded or worse--emotionally abusive. Marriage is simply NOT the cure for loneliness!

So okay, I've made a lot of generalizations and now it's time for the postmodern pluralistic stuff. Every person is a stupid, unbearably unique snowflake and in marriage it all depends on individual personalities and motivation and character. Not all women are getting married for the wrong reasons. I've actually seen a few people get married for the RIGHT reasons. And I'm really happy for them (this statement is irony free). They deserve congratulations (really). The purpose of this post was NOT to shame married people!

I suppose the purpose of these unfocused meandering paragraphs is to say to women, It's OKAY if you're single. Nothing is wrong with you; on the contrary, EVERYTHING IS RIGHT WITH YOU. Don't let your relationship status dictate whether you're "satisfied" with yourself or confident in yourself or if you're "worthy." There are just way too many women out there feeling bad about themselves for being single and frankly it is unacceptable.

If you're reading this, whomever you are, I just want you to know:

You're gorgeous.

You have so much going for you.

You have so much to offer the world.

Don't let shitty passive-aggressive comments about the bareness of your left ring-finger get to you. Mrs. or Mr. Right, whether they exist or not, whether or not they're "coming for you"--just...You know what? Damn them. Damn it all to hell because you are fucking amazing and you don't have time to sit around thinking about inexistent hypothetical future scenarios. You've got too much life to live.

YOU JUST DO YOU and I guarantee you that someone will be impressed.

Love you all and thanks for reading.

"Let's not be elitist, April."

Okay, so hopefully every human being in the world is on an individual path of continual growth and transformation. Soooo I'm going to share a little bit about mine. Since moving back in with my parents after graduating from college, spending so much time with them has made me privy of their flaws, just as they have become privy to mine. Today I want to talk about being elitist.

Symptoms of April's Snobbery: 

• Biting, disdainful comments about mainstream popular culture (e.g. Dancing with the Stars, Miley Cyrus/Taylor Swift, Glee)
• Passive-aggressive comments about people making uninformed consumer choices (e.g. shopping at Wal-mart, buying bananas and Proctor & Gamble products, "Oh, I only buy organic fair trade cocoa powder")
• Smugly & inwardly gloating at single-occupant motor vehicles as I bike to my alternative homeopathic massage therapy appointment 
• Using abstruse academic jargon unnecessarily (e.g. constructivist paradigm, internalized oppression, the law of diminishing returns, fundamental attribution error)
• Being impatient with friends and family that are not progressive enough (e.g. anti-racist, feminist, body-positive, anti-oppressive and intersectional-->Subtext: "Why can't you be cool like me?")
• Projecting (intentionally or not) a demeanor of judging and self-righteous superiority

Why am I like this? Okay, so now let's commence the nature vs. nurture argument. 

NATURE: I'll be honest; my personality-type tends to be rigid and preachy. This is "how I roll." Granted, I can notice when I'm getting way too ramped up and tightly-wound and try to "tone it down." However, it's an indisputable fact that whether or not I verbalize my harsh judgments of myself and others, I still have them. 

As a self-absorbed perfectionist, I demand a LOT of myself--spiritually, ethically and intellectually. It follows, then, that I'm also quite hard on others when it comes to their thoughts and behaviors. Ugh, and as an intuitive person sometimes all I can see are others' flaws and their selfish motivations. I am a critic and a "glass half-empty" sort of person. Tuff. That's how it goes.

NURTURE: The prevailing cultural hegemony of my generation is without doubt (white) hipsterism. As a middle class American woman, I am about 70% hipster, for better or for worse (mostly worse). Elitism is a cardinal tenant of hipsterism. Being cynical, sarcastic and holier-than-thou in general is what being a hipster is all about.  

Furthermore, as a graduate of an institution of exclusive and elite higher learning I am, by default, an elitist. The main assumption of elitism is that being "enlightened" with "knowledge" makes a person inherently better than a high school dropout or a boorish midwestern redneck (sorry to use this slur, but uh, you'd be lying if you don't use it in the privacy of your own home, too). 

All hail the king of elitism, Dr. Frasier Crane!

I apologize if that pop culture reference is lost on you. 

So. Conclusions? Yes, I am an elitist. I am a snob. I am a self-righteous, grudgingly hipster, unbearable judger of all things that can be judged. There's no use in denying it. 

All I can tell you is this: I'm working on it. I have good days and I have bad days. Ideally, I always want to be in the space of "I just love everyone and I want to affirm everyone and you are beautiful and weeeeeee! life is beautiful, the end." Until then, I will try my utmost to be more compassionate, gentle and understanding with myself and humanity in general. Can't make any promises. But I will try. 

Mandatory Hunger Games Post

 Ugggggggggggh, I've been putting off posting about the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins because I know that admitting I read the books is like saying I liked the movie The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (which by the way I did NOT).Blargh, I hate myself for liking something so mainstream and over-hyped. BUT despite my many reservations, I have to give Collins props for including a lot of relevant social themes that would really benefit Americans to think about every once in awhile (instead of living in denial through various mind-altering substances and TV programs like Gossip Girl and Jersey Shore). Wake up, people! Sh1t is going down and denying it will only make it worse. Sorry, I just have to indict greater "society" every once and awhile. #SOAPBOXMOMENT

Here is an exhaustive list of the themes that I appreciate from The Hunger Games. Feel free to chime in if I missed something. :)

Social Themes from The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

• Classism/Poverty: The oppression and exploitation of traditionally "blue collar" laborers (mining, farming, etc.) uhhhhhh this might make all the little kids read about it actually wonder, "Who picks the grapes that I'm eating?" or "Who put my [stupid freaking/totally unnecessary] iPhone together?" Hahaha, good job, Suzanne Collins, for tipping your hat to the victims of globalization. 
• Colonization/Globalization/Mercantilism: One "developed entity" (District 1="The West") enjoys the finished products of smaller "developing" regions that provide cheap labor and raw materials
• Gender Roles: It's kind of amazing that Katniss isn't a helpless damsel in distress like the person Kristen Stewart plays in Twilight. Was her name Bella? Anyway, Katniss actually has a personality (???) and is competent in survival skills (???). She don't need to man to stay alive. Um, how ballsy is that to have a self-sufficient woman who does not necessarily find her ultimate satisfaction in snagging a hubbie??
• War's Moral Ambiguity/Pacifism: Do ends justify means? I think about the arguments for torture techniques with POW "terrorists." Does the waterboarding and electro-shocking justify the "intelligence" gained, the potential lives saved? (Amnesty International would say, "no.") Is accidentally killing civilians when trying to expose "terrorists" a "necessary evil" for peace? When Gale leads the avalanche on District 2, when the children (and then Prim) are bombed at the Capital, can you say that was the only way to end the violence? Fight violence with more violence? Have you read The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis? One of his speeches is "Why I am not a Pacifist." I could go on and on about this and never reach a conclusion.
• Mass Media/Brainwashing/Propaganda: If the government controls the dissemination of all information, can the masses be manipulated into submission without any opposing perspectives? What is truth? How critically do we really think when we read news articles, watch footage, etc.? More and more I see how easily human minds can be molded by dogma, tradition, irrationality--ack, it's kind of frightening.
• Rugged Individualism (Dehumanization) vs. Collectivism (Compassion): In the arena will "good will" or "kill or be killed" reign? When forced under the most difficult of circumstances, are we all just animals looking to protect our own livelihood and interests at the cost of others'?
• Politics/Power: It's All Messy/Everyone is Corrupt/Self-Interest Rules: The idea of gray area, no distinct "good guys" vs. "bad guys," especially when it comes to institutional power and maintaining it. In order to gain power and maintain it, a lot of moral concessions/compromises have to be made. E.g. Katniss killed Coin b/c she knew Coin would protect her own incumbency (which Katniss threatened). Check out political theory about this; it's fascinating.
• Substance Abuse/Dependency/Escapism: Haymitch as a (mostly) functional alcoholic in order to cope with loss and the harshness of reality.. Johanna and Katniss becoming dependent on morphling, as well as many of the surviving Victors from past Games. When reality becomes too tough to bear, when you feel helpless and cornered, just tap out with drugs. They don't take away the pain but at least they dull it. I talked to my gpa about this the other day and we agreed that those who become chemically dependent are those who are just so sensitive, that feel their own pain and the pain of others so acutely that they just can't take it; it's too overwhelming. Anyway, I'm glad that Collins included this, even though it may seem to "dark" for kids.
• Reality TV/Video Cameras Shape Personal Behavior/Acting in Order to Be Watched: Dude, this is real and it is live. On a grand scale, celebs and rich people are glorified in reality TV which capitalizes on the human penchant for voyeurism. They live it up, act dramatic and are often not themselves--they play up a caricature for the audience. How much is that happening now at the grassroots level through Facebook, Twitter and MySpace? How many people are constructing themselves to "be seen" by peers as a certain "character" (popular, witty, sexy). How much of personal decisions and choices are made just in order to "post" about them later? I mean, this is really scary. 
• Diaspora/Refugee Status/Displacement: The reality of refugees and a lot of immigrants is that you're stuck in this double-bind: you can't go back to your homeland because it's f*cked up there (civil war, government repression/corruption, mass poverty) but the new place you're in is just not that great (cultural vertigo, rootlessness). This is somewhat like Katniss & all of District 12 when their home is destroyed and they are forced to flee to District 13 which is rigid, strictand not dream-like/ideal at all. Oh, the tragedy of displacement!
• PTSD/Trauma Bites: Enuf said. Peeta & Katniss with their vivid nightmares after witnessing the deaths of many, mass killing through bombing and fire, torture, near-death experiences. All of these count as "traumatic incidents" in the DSM-IV, and they take a toll. I'm glad that in the books they don't get over it, that they're scarred and haunted, that it affects their daily functioning. WELCOME TO THE LIFE OF A REFUGEE. Damn.
• Savior Complex/Non-Harm/Tragic Hero: Okay, so maybe this isn't original AT ALL (see: Harry Potter), but I feel for Katniss when she takes on that enormously heavy responsibility of protecting the well-being of her vulnerable dependents (mother, sister, Peeta, Gale, etc.). She takes it all upon herself to act "right" in order to prevent harm to them, and to help the vulnerable citizens in the oppressed districts, yet finds that all she does is get people killed! (People are dying left & right for her! I mean, in the third book, dang--so many casualties. I think of that bombed hospital, just awful). And although she realizes she has enormous power to rally the "people," she's overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy and an acute awareness of her own imperfections, her impulsiveness. The ultimate lesson is don't try to be anyone's angel, okay? Hah. CanNOT stress this enough.
• Vanity/Bourgeois Culture: It's a reality that in the Hunger Games, physical appearance and pageantry are almost as valuable as practical skills used in the arena. Again, it's about projecting an image, of "beauty" being indicative of one's level of intelligence, competence, and even character (I'm not even kidding)! And it's like, for the coddled, spoiled Capital peeps, they become fixated upon vanity, hedonism (bingeing/purging), celebrity, gossip. They're just oblivious of the underclass. Grrrr.. it's too real.
• Possibility for a Multiethnic Cast: Dude, not everyone is just assumed to be white. What? is going on? Science fiction never has people of color. (Okay, sure, you could point to the captain of Deep Space Nine but that is an EXCEPTION, not the rule) Buuut wait? Katniss and Gale have olive skin, grey eyes and black hair--the "Seam look" sounds awfully NATIVE to me. Also, her dad knows how to hunt, has knowledge of nature (plants, etc.), sings folk songs--am I just reading way too into this? Whatever, I don't care what people say. I'm going to believe that Katniss is half Native and half white, okay?! Also, Rue and Thresh--hey they're black! Amaaazing. I mean, they both die; I was expecting that (just watch any horror or action flick, the people of color get picked off mighty early on, if they're included at all). But Rue is just sweet, resourceful and Thresh is a bad@$$ yet merciful in not killing Katniss. I'm just mad-pleased that there are ANY people of color, so hey, mega props to u, Suzanne Collins. Thanx. Maybe next time try including Asian Americans. We have a lot of purchasing power. Our median income is higher than the white man's; take note.
• Suicide as Rational Choice: Wow, loved the "Hanging Tree." Whoa.. I mean, do we ever as humans have the actual wisdom and discernment to know if things have gotten so bad that dying is better than anything else that could happen were we to continue living? Haha, in my political science/econ classes they talk about the "rational choice" of people doing "irrational" things like suicide bombings. It's like, hey professors up in your ivory towers, people aren't having crazy dissociative breaks when they commit suicide. They have viable reasons for doing so--I don't need to read your 20-page journal article to figure this out. lol, or think about the Death with Dignity Act. Do the elderly really think that dying is a better option than living with chronic illnesses and pain? Or, in the case of Katniss with Peeta, how could she have actually known and convinced herself that there was no hope for his psychological recovery--enough to "mercy kill" him? As humans we have the agency to kill ourselves and to kill others. What causes some to use this agency and others to not? Desperation? Fear? Hopelessness? Hubris?
• LOVE PREVAILS: Okay, I'm always a sucker for a happy ending. But just this notion that has survived through history--that out of the ashes something truly beautiful can emerge; it's irresistible to me. HOPE. RENEWAL. LIFE. "What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of descruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again" (388). Uh, YES and PLEASE.

 Haha, I actually really enjoy the Hunger Games just because it provides a non-threatening way to talk about some really controversial stuff. Because you can talk all "hypothetically" by discussing the characters and their choices, rather than the actual "political"/historical stuff--cuz, like I said, that can be "too real" for some, you know? Yo, but for all of the deep thinkers out there (i.e. all my close friends and a lot of my family), it's just another excuse to wax philosophical/theological/intellectual--just talk for a really long time about abstract concepts and the "future of humanity" and all that stuff. Haha, don't lie, we love it.

Okay, and to make sure this review is a bit more balanced, I've gotta get these last things off my chest.

Gripes about The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins 
(i.e. The Author's Popular Fiction Concessions)

•  LOVE TRIANGLE: WTF gag me with an effing spoon. I cannot believe Collins stooped so low to attract more readers. UGH whyyyyy pander to the base sentimentality of the general populaaace??? Booooooooo. And why does Katniss have to choose the middle class boy with the Aryan features instead of the low-income, savvy Native-looking dude with the rock hard body?? Suzanne Collins, you don't have to keep reinforcing what Stephanie Meyers already did in Twilight where the girl ends up choosing the paler, "civilized" dude instead of the woodsy, OLIVE SKINNED, BLACK HAIRED Native guy. Actually Suzanne, I bet you did this subconsciously and implicitly. I'll let you get away with it this time, but learn from this and make your next series better, okay?
• Peeta: Noooo Suzanne Collins, don't do this to teenaged girls all around the world. What guy out there is as self-aware, verbally expressive and (almost creepily) self-sacrificing/protective as Peeta? I mean, damn, woman, Peeta is a trifecta of un-reality--it's just blinding. Teenaged girls of the world, prepare for a rude awakening when you realize your Peeta is never coming for you. Come on, Suzanne, you're better than this--better than feeding the overstuffed, genetically mutated knight-in-shining-armor COW that IS young girls' minds. I'm not saying that men cannot be sensitive, articulate, self-aware and self-sacrificing buuuuuuuuut you'd have to admit, it's kind of rare? (Tell me if I'm way out of line here).
• War Melodrama or "Katniss almost-dies a million times: Seriously, how many times does she have to black out from an injury in "battle" and wake up in some emergency room hooked up to a morphling drip?! You know this is a legitimate gripe. Again, I understand that the "drama" of it all keeps readers on the edge of their seats and appeals to a wider audience, but could we go for more understatement next time?

Well, no more glaring gripes from this chica! As you can see, way more commendations for Collins than admonitions.  Along the lines of "pretty fly for a white guy," (sorry if I offend people with this reverse-racist microaggresion) I think The Hunger Games series is "pretty dope for popular fiction." Yah.

THE END

Thanx 4 reading.

Using Celebrity for Good

I'm always inspired when I read about actresses who have the guts to speak out against the sick, image-obsessed industry they work in. See Raven Symone, Margaret Cho and Gabourey Sidibe.

Let's now add Ms. Jennifer Lawrence. She's been criticized for being "too fat" to play a "starving" impoverished Katniss.

GLAMOUR: You must be in amazing shape.

JL: I hate saying, “I like exercising.” I want to punch people who say that in the face.

Ha! Further reading:
-The ‘fatness’ of Katniss? Jennifer Lawrence laughs off insults
-Jennifer Lawrence Calls Out Bad Body Image Role Models For Girls In Hollywood

FAT.

So I've been tossing and turning, trying to fall asleep tonight. My brain cannot shut down and be quiet; I think "processing" through a blog post might help. I've been wanting to post on this topic for a long while now, but it seems that every time I begin, there's simply too much to write about and I give up. Well, we'll see how much rambling I can fit--just don't expect this to be particularly concise or coherent.

In the past five years or so my interest in body image has skyrocketed. Recently it's been constantly on my mind. In high school I read Can't Buy My Love by Jean Kilbourne as an assignment for rhetoric class. She writes about the power of media (specifically advertising) to shape the way women see themselves. It raised my consciousness to realize that beauty ads were meant to make me feel dissatisfied with the way I looked (so that I would buy the marketed product to "fix" my "flaws"), food ads were meant to make me crave unhealthy junk while punishing/berating myself for "indulging" in them and clothing/fashion ads were meant to make me idolize thinness, youth and whiteness. (Sidenote: I'm starting to realize more and more that women are seriously oppressed--this whole "thin" beauty ideal is just the tip of the iceberg. It's awful.)

THEN last year I'm so glad that my roomie Hillary did an internship with NEDA, the National Eating Disorders Association, which provided many opportunities to dialogue about how pervasive body-hatred is among women. (Another sidenote: However widespread body dissatisfaction may be, Hillary & Faith really opened my eyes to see what women WITHOUT it can look like. I noticed right away from living with them that they hadn't internalized all the pressures to be super thin--I never heard negative-self talk from them about their bodies! E.g. "I need to lose five pounds." "I think I'm getting fat." "Ugh, my thighs are HUGE!" Talk about a breath of fresh air.) I read The Religion of Thinness by Michelle Lelwica, which articulated well the way women perpetuate the need to be thin. She compared it to a religion with rules (be self-controlled, disciplined, avoid "bad" foods) and rituals (overexercising, binging, purging, starvation). She was also really into the mindfulness practice of "listening to your body" for hunger/satiety signals and stuff, but I'd leave that by the wayside if I were you.

And THEN this past summer I read this book called Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters by Courtney E. Martin which I really enjoyed...mostly because I share all social identities with the author except for race (young adult, female, middle class, college-educated). She shares a lot of stories from her own life and the stories of friends. What struck me most was that any woman, really, can potentially develop an eating disorder. Like, seriously. We're all just hanging by a thread. As Hillary wisely told me, all women lie somewhere on a spectrum between "I love my body and am impervious to pressures to conform to a socially constructed beauty norm" & compulsive, disordered thoughts and behavior around food.

I think about where personally I fall on that spectrum today, and I would say I'm somewhere in the middle, probably more towards the compulsive/disordered side to be completely honest. I struggle with comparing my body (especially my legs) to other womens'. Sometimes I feel like food is my enemy, trying to get me fat. Sometimes I exercise for an hour at a time to desperately avoid being fat.

Now that I've hit 21 years, my metabolism has started to slow down. The overeating, rich desserts and fatty snacks actually catch up to me instead of magically metabolizing overnight. I feel a loss of control sometimes when I see that I have gained ten pounds since beginning college.

A lot of the time I feel foolish for being a victim to my own vanity. I get down on myself for being vulnerable to societal norms and pressures to conform. I think, "I should be above this! This is all bullsh1t and I know it!" But I think this is something that I'll battle for my whole life. I pray for God's grace and for his help because I'd really like to be thinking about bigger and better/more useful things than my caloric intake and the way I can make my thighs look thinner by wearing the right pair of jeans.

In the meantime, I've found some helpful tools for fighting against the pressure without and within to be really, really thin!
1. Limit my media consumption: TV just reinforces the paradigm that thin is best. Fat people are invisible (not represented) or the butt of jokes. (I could do an entire additional post about the normalization of frighteningly skinny women in TV, movies and magazines!)
2. adiosbarbie.com This website inspires me! The women who post here are smart, savvy and amazingly counter-cultural. Extra plus: They talk about intersections with race!
3. Talk to other women about it: Every woman I know is affected by the pressure to be thin, though we rarely bring it up. Whenever I do mention it and open up about my struggle with it, I find my friends and family opening right back up to me, too. You'd be surprised with the solidarity you can encounter out there, especially from friends who are vulnerable like you but keep trying to FIGHT THE POWER (I mean you, Rachel!)!
4. Lift my eyes up: Spending time in prayer and reading the Bible really help me to gain a bigger perspective on life. Life is not just about what you can see with your eyes or being seen by others. Being thin/attractive may grant status and power in the world, but that's not really what I want, anyway. Though they are tempting (status & power). ;)

Okay, that was a lot. Glad to get it outta my system. Stay strong, my fellow women.

Let's go!!!!