28 Wednesday Nov 2012
Posted in identity
Last night I returned to krav maga after a break of nearly a month (due to school wrapping up, sickness, holidays). It was good to get back to a real workout after so much time off: working some strong kicks and groundwork was satisfying.
And then this unsettling thing happened.
Continue reading
30 Thursday Aug 2012
I want to remind you of the shock and fear that God felt when he realized he was not the only god of the world. How do we know he knew? “I am a jealous God and there is no other God beside me”, he told the angels, and by so doing indicated that there were indeed other gods, or why would he be jealous? And as long as there is jealousy, how can there be freedom? And if God is not free how can man expect to be?
from Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis
(h/t Elyas Khan for posting this beautiful excerpt)
17 Tuesday Jul 2012
“As a mestiza, I have no country, my homeland cast me out, yet all countries are mine because I am every woman’s sister or potential lover. (As a lesbian I have no race, my own people disclaim me; but I am all races because there is the queer of me in all races.) I am cultureless because, as a feminist, I challenge the collective cultural/religious male-derived beliefs of Indo-Hispanics and Anglos; yet I am cultured because I am participating in the creation of yet another culture, a new story to explain the world and our participation in it, a new value system with images and symbols that connect us to each other and to the planet. Soy un amasamiento, I am an act of kneading, of uniting and joining that not only has produced both a creature of darkness and a creature of light, but also a creature that questions the definitions of light and dark and gives them new meanings.”
Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera
26 Tuesday Jun 2012
Posted in identity, literature
Today my new boss asked me why we are made to read the really depressing stories as part of our education–Steinbeck, Orwell, Melville, Hemingway.
Last night I was reading Melville for homework–why else would I read him? I had to read Moby Dick for a class and it turned me off Melville. I swear they shouldn’t start students with Moby Dick. It feels impossible.
But Bartleby, the Scrivener–now that’s something different. I loved it. I came across this passage:
So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul be rid of it.
Up to that point, I’d been feeling sort of indifferent to the story–I wasn’t sure, exactly, what I was going to get out of it. But then I read that passage, and it was a turning point for me.I found myself nodding my head emphatically as I read, and something in my chest said YES YES YES.
I understand my own self better now.
09 Wednesday May 2012
I went back for my second Krav Maga class last night. Really, it’s quite a workout: I was sweating and breathing heavily after just a few minutes of warm up exercises, which is not generally something that happens in kickboxing. Continue reading
02 Wednesday May 2012
from the Oxford Dictionaries Online:
empower /ɪmˈpaʊə, ɛm-/
v. give (someone) the authority or power to do something
Last night I took my first Krav Maga class.
one of several excellent bruises
Taking inventory of my body’s reaction to the class:
Taking inventory of my mind’s reaction to the class:
My instructor has been talking for a few weeks about the sense of empowerment he feels now, and how his training has been life changing. I can see why that is true for him, and I hope to feel a similar shift.
03 Tuesday Apr 2012
In the summer of 2011, I climbed that huge hill up from Precita Park to Bernal Heights Park in San Francisco. It was awesome.
This moment (and later, this picture) made me want to change everything.
16 Thursday Feb 2012
Posted in identity
(today’s post title brought to you by the awesome Sojourner Truth)
There are so many discussions taking place right now that will ultimately impact the way women can exist in the world:
In Virginia, the Senate voted to ratify the Equal Rights Act (that’s right, the Virginia Senate is just now, in 2012, getting around to agreeing that women and men are equal – but not without some debate as to whether or not that’s an important thing to acknowledge).
Also in Virginia, there is a bill making its way through the legislature that would mandate a transvaginal ultrasound prior to abortion. If passed, this law would make it absolutely unavoidable for any woman seeking an abortion to have a probe inserted into her vaginal canal.
There’s the whole birth control mandate argument, with supporters of the mandate applauding the president for ensuring access to preventive health care, and opponents arguing that forcing the Catholic church to provide prescription birth control coverage is tantamount to Hitler targeting Jews during the Holocaust. (For realsies, that’s happening.)
Don’t forget Liz Trotta, who thinks women in the military shouldn’t be so whiny about being raped too much. Oh and stop wasting all those taxpayer dollars on bureaucratic bullshit like crisis response units and advocacy and good God if you don’t want to get raped stop having a vagina, ladies. (Bonus: Watch Samantha Bee’s satirical response, same link.)
Too, there’s Santorum, with his whole “Bitches be crazy, no front lines for them” thing (except, as my lovely and inimitable Donna pointed out, “we don’t war in lines”).
And of course the votes in the NJ State legislature on marriage equality, and Christie’s determination to veto (this will impact more than just women, of course).
I’m sure there’s more. Lots more. I just can’t bear to talk about it.
Listen, here’s the thing: people talk in hypotheticals a lot. “If gay marriage gets legalized,” and “If we don’t overturn Roe v. Wade,” and “If this,” “If that.” And a lot of this hypothetical talking comes from people who are men, or who are not gay, or who are not really ever going to have to worry about access to birth control or what will they do if they get raped or what happens if their Humvee gets blown up or or or. But these people who do all this talking are so dead set on hearing themselves talk that they forget: there are real people, actual living, breathing, blood-in-the-veins people who will be impacted in some very significant way by the words coming out of their mouths.
I am a woman. I am queer. I have been pregnant and I have been not pregnant. I have found myself in circumstances that make me feel safe, equal, privileged, loved, and valued. I have also found myself in circumstances that make me feel the opposite of those things. I am an intelligent, forward-thinking human capable of making decisions that are right for me at any given moment. And if, at some point in the future those decisions are not right for me, I am capable of learning from them and moving forward. I have fingers, toes, a heart, lungs, kidneys and a scar on my ankle.
I am tired of other people talking about me as if I am a hypothetical.
14 Monday Nov 2011
Last night I went with Donna and two friends to see a burlesque show. It was a great event, featuring the Peek-A-Boo Revue, a neo-burlesque troupe from Philly, at the Trocadero. I had never been to one before and so had only a vague idea of what to expect. The MCs of the evening (there were 2) were quite funny, and the jazz band backing up the performance was pretty spectacular. But of course the highlight of the evening was the ladies.
Oh, they were beautiful women. And I think what impresses me most about the art of burlesque is the emphasis on real bodies – none of them were super-scary-skinny, all of them were curvy and beautiful. These women were wonderfully comfortable with their bodies, and I felt such a sense of awe and admiration for their confidence. The dancing was pretty spectacular. The costumes were gorgeous.
The featured performer of the evening was Satan’s Angel, a woman who by all accounts is a trailblazer in the industry. At nearly 70 years old, she took the stage last night and strutted. it. alongside the other ladies. Incredibly impressive. And at some point, she lit her tassels on fire. Yes, seriously. Lit them on fire. Insane. She was sensual and in control, and really seemed to enjoy herself.
I think that’s the best part, really – all of the women on stage seemed to genuinely be having a good time.
The only drawback, as I could see it, was the crowd. The energy level was high, of course, but so aggressive. There was a charge to the room that just felt too intense, too entitled. Perhaps it was the result of my own sense of uptightness; I didn’t realize until last night just how deeply-seated my own perspectives on sex and sexuality are, which amuses me a bit since I’m one of the first in a crowd to make a “That’s what she said!” joke or zip out an inappropriate comment. But in discussing the show on the ride home, I started to understand that I do have very specific ideas about how I prefer to experience things.
There was also a lively discussion on the ride home about whether or not it’s appropriate to take pictures of the women with cell phones and cameras. Donna’s perspective – with which I largely agree – is that you pay the ticket price and see the show, but you don’t get to take a piece of them home. I think this goes along with the unsettling trend of increased access to celebrities, how easily we feel we connect with them via avenues like Twitter and Facebook, and how frequently we take advantage of their privacy in order to post videos and pictures to places like YouTube. Of course, I challenged Donna initially, pointing out that I’d taken numerous photos of Amanda Palmer the two times we saw her in concert. We ultimately decided that this is a somewhat different situation because Amanda, who often performs in cabaret-style get up (which means, mostly, a bra and corset), offers a persona but the focus of her performance is still the music. The product you’re buying from her is the music, not her body. That still doesn’t feel like an exactly accurate explanation. I’m open to interpretation here, people.
All in all, it was a good show. I’m glad I went. I’m not sure if I’ll do it again.
11 Tuesday Oct 2011
I took a long, long break from reading feminist blogs. It hurt a lot to read them every day, so much so that there were days I felt like I couldn’t get out of bed. The world is just so incredibly broken. But then today I had a frustrating conversation with a coworker about what it’s like for girls who date girls when guys make jokes about watching those girls make out with other girls. So I did what any frustrated bisexual feminist would do on National Coming Out Day: I sought out feminist discussion.
After a totally awesome discussion on Facebook about what it means to identify as bisexual, I then surfed over to Feministe and found these Two. Awesome. Things.
Awesome Thing #1:
Jill posts on why it’s totally not cool for dudes to pressure their ladies to change their names after marriage.
Awesome Thing #2:
Feminist Ryan Gosling
Happy National Coming Out Day, kids.
