two sides of feminism

Feminist club.  The idea has been bouncing around EMU recently, particularly among a few freshmen girls.  I started thinking about it while I was vacuuming the other day (it's a good time to think, in case you didn't know).  Mostly I was wondering what shape it will take.  I suspect it will follow the pattern of old-school feminists, protesting male chauvinism and female passiveness, with loud and in-your-face feminine power.  I'm not against that kind.  In fact, I would probably go to their meetings.  But in some ways, the need for that kind of feminism is past.


Not that everyone in the U.S. sees women as equal to men or treats them as such.  There are certainly situations where women (and men) need to stand up for equal rights, especially when you consider the blatant inequalities in the salaries of many American job positions.  But in general, gender equality is more or less assumed, and while it may not be perfected, it's come a long way.


But.  I can't help but think of another kind of feminism.  The kind that stands up against sexism in the media, against objectification of women, against valuing us for our bodies alone.  My heart aches for every woman and girl who believes her only value is in her appearance.  Inner beauty is continually brushed aside in favor of this plasticized, unattainable, deceptive mask that we call beauty, and the truth is that living up to it is a fruitless, frustrating, life-draining journey.  Every woman in the world was created in the image of God, exactly as she is.  And we must stand up against exploitation of women who, by no fault of their own, are helplessly trampled under the feet of War.  They become victims of rape and war violence; they see their children fall to the weapons of soldiers or wither away from hunger and disease.  


These are the kinds of gender inequality that happen all around the world, every day, and we have not done enough to stop it.  I cannot be silent in the face of such injustice.   Because every time I see injustice and objectification toward any woman, anywhere, I feel it toward me.  We must stand in solidarity with our sisters and mothers and daughters - even the ones we have never met.


Feminism is dated? Yes, for privileged women like my daughter and all of us here today, but not for most of our sisters in the rest of the world who are still forced into premature marriage, prostitution, forced labor - they have children that they don't want or they cannot feed.  ~Isabel Allende


Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light.  ~John Ruskin

sisters and selves

To add to the list of things that make me proud:  Watching my grown-up baby sister play piano, holding the attention of a room, seemingly unaware of anything but herself, together with the music.

She is so expressive.  It's what everyone commented on after today's recital.  It was so beautiful, really hearing the music that had vaguely floated past my ears, echoing throughout the house while she practiced.  But it wasn't the music that brought tears to my eyes.  It was the image of this girl I have known all her life, in her flamingo-pink shirt, curling her long legs under the piano bench, letting grace flow through her arms and hands and fingers, embodying the music in every gesture.

Thirteen.  It's the age when so many girls take the first step away from their childhood and begin to capture what it means to be a woman.  At this age a girl's beauty is liquid and transparent; glowing.  She is the essence of time, a parent's fondest memories and a future of potential combined.

For many of us, looking back, this was the hardest age to be.  Society's pressures are merciless and often painfully confining; I hate revisiting my thirteen-year-old self and seeing how I defined myself.  I want to tell her, my younger self, not to listen to those other voices - but it's no use labeling them as "other", because the loudest and strongest voice was my own.  Telling myself to conform to what I thought was the ideal.  Inwardly criticizing myself for being less.  Believing that I would never be what I wanted to be.

She lives inside me still, but I have grown so much, and now my thirteen-year-old self makes up only one small part of me.  Now every time I see a thirteen-year-old girl I want to somehow convince her that she is beautiful, not for what she wants to be, but for exactly who she is.  It took me years to learn that, but now I believe it and I know it is true.  As a girl continues on her journey to becoming a woman, her translucent beauty turns warm and golden, distinguishable from every other woman and startlingly beautiful.  It is our history, scars and all, that makes us beautiful.

So in perceiving my beloved sister today, I saw her clarity and flexibility, but I also saw myself.  In contemplating my own story, I understood the place where she now stands:  a knowledge of how far she has come in her journey, and how far she will go in the future.  I cannot choose her trajectory, but I hope and pray to be a loving, guiding hand.

breathe

I'm writing this out of conformity...

...sort of.  This is the time when everybody comes home and posts some kind of reflection/analysis/summary of their past semester.  But that's not exactly what I'm doing.

I'm home.  As much as spending time reading, talking, resting, thinking, relaxing, listening, without worrying or being busy, would drive me crazy over a long period of time, it is exactly what I need right now.  Just for now, I will not let myself worry about the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.  Sometimes (like now) this is the only way for me to have peace.  My soul needs the rest of me to stop and be still, and this time I am going to listen to it.  And I will come back ready to throw myself freely into everything next semester holds, whether old or new.  I will be ready.  (I'm going to change the world, you know.)

Just for now
Just for now

It's that time of year
Leave all our hopelessnesses aside
If just for now (just for now) leave awhile
Just stop right here

Just for love

it feels like this:

mosaic

It is almost break because I am unfocused and random.  That's backwards, you might say; it should be that I'm unfocused and random because it's almost break.  But this is the way I function now.  Backwards.

Here's a backwards thought for you.  I went to a new church on Sunday and it felt all right and all wrong, all at the same time.  The people there were so friendly and accepting - it radiated through the air.  I could tell how much they cared about each other, about newcomers, and especially about praising God and expressing their faith.

But little things wriggled under my skin and nagged my thoughts into forming words.  The idea that we should focus our time and energy on those who are interested in learning about our beliefs, because "our number one goal in life is for as many people to come to God as possible".  I mean, it is.  But also, it's not.  The idea scares me because it takes the emphasis off of each individual person and puts it on numbers.  We need to love people with God's love - so deep that we will never give up on someone, even if they (at first) aren't receptive to what we believe.
And most of all, I don't want to give up on other people because I hate the thought of them giving up on me.

So I am formed of bits and pieces at the moment.  But I am hoping they are ordered chaos, maybe a kind of beauty in their unexpectedness.  I'm ready for this end-of-semester change.  I will be so sad to see many of my friends leave for their worldly adventures next semester - but I've been anticipating it for long enough that I'm ready to see what next semester brings.  I hope it will be full of love and willfulness and blending of souls and strange beauty.

unorthodox methods of coping

If you ever struggle to process something that is full of emotions, I recommend watching Zoolander.

No but seriously.  I learned something about myself tonight:  When I'm wrenched inside from too many kinds of feelings, the best thing I can do for myself is step back from them for just long enough to be able to think clearly.  Then the best thing I can do is talk about it, write about it, live into it.

Tonight I went to see Brent Anders' senior show, called REAL.  It was about vulnerability and the secrets we keep because we're afraid of what they might mean.  Twelve short plays, all unique, but united in this theme.  And it was amazing, because it was so hilarious and yet so poignant and raw.  It showed so clearly the stories associated with change, alienation, abuse, and self-destructiveness, and most of all, they are the stories of all of us.

It brought tears to my eyes many times.  It made me reach out for my two dearly loved friends who were there with me.  And as the three of us left, we all felt so burdened by what we had seen and felt, and we reacted in different ways.  I knew I was feeling the pain of so many, and I knew I wasn't big enough to contain it all.  I needed to let it be a shared pain.  Grace's anger at the world's injustice inspired me - sometimes anger can be a powerful fuel for activism and change.

So after we got back, I watched Zoolander for half an hour with some other people, until I was ready to think and talk.  Later we found ourselves in our room, talking about hope or lack of it.  Here's an example.

Grace:  ...That's been on the back burner for me.
Me:  I hate burners!
Bekah:  Life should just....be a stir fry!
Impassioned agreement ensues.

The reason I love these two girls is because we can express emotion in the most illogical, random, exhausting, inspiring, fulfilling ways.  Tonight, while talking about our frustrations at the world's closed-mindedness and oppression, we had a pillow fight (inspired by Grace's comment of "I want solve all the injustices of the world.  I just can't do it by throwing things!").  Surprisingly, it helped a lot.

So the moral of this story is, don't be afraid of thoughts and feelings that crush you with their weight.  Know what you need to survive them, and understand that whatever you need is okay, but just don't be afraid.  The world will not be made a better place without you feeling a bit of its pain.  And through everything, hold tight to those who love you.

i will always love quotes

Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts.  ~Martin Buxbaum


When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.  ~Chinese Proverb


I don't like standard beauty - there is no beauty without strangeness.  ~Karl Lagerfeld


There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.  
~Gilbert Keith Chesterton


Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting - a wayside sacrament.  Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Beauty... when you look into a woman's eyes and see what is in her heart.  ~Nate Dircks


We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light.  ~John Ruskin


Beauty... is the shadow of God on the universe.  ~Gabriela Mistral, Desolacíon

You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen.  But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul's own doing.  ~Marie Stopes