I've Moved!

Thanks to the efforts of my thoughtful and supportive husband, The Liberal Bitch is now official. The new site, and my latest post, can be found at www.theliberalb.com. Thank you for the continued support and I hope you like the new digs.

Why I'm Marching on January 21

Hey there party people. First off, how kickass was Corrie’s post about body positivity? It’s such an important message and movement and I am so happy to have someone who knows much more about it than I do speak about it. If you haven’t already seen it I encourage you to check it out. The following post was hard for me to write so here's a life-affirming, heart warming Joe Biden-President Obama meme to get it started: 

Who’s excited about Inauguration weekend?! *crickets* *sky falls downs* *I eat cookies over the sink while screaming at my phone as it streams the Senate hearings* *I wipe off my phone* OK, for obvious reasons based on the title of this blog, I am not excited to see the Obamas leave the White House. But, even though DJT might be planning on taking his first weekend in office off, I do not. I will be heading to Washington, D.C. to march with my mom and a few hundred thousand other people on Saturday, January 21 in the Women’s March on Washington. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to travel and march with my mother and add my voice to the estimated 1.3 million other people who will be marching across the globe (that number keeps changing so click the link if you want to see if it's changed). *Also, a side note for any potential robbers, my house will NOT be uninhabited. My husband will still be home so please don’t try to rob me k thanks.* I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed about the impending inauguration and am experiencing a resurgence of a lot of the same feelings I felt the day after the election. I am grateful to have the opportunity to participate in a movement that speaks to many of my concerns and surround myself with others who are standing up in support of things I believe in, though of course there is also some “infighting” because women and feminists and activists of all genders are diverse and different and, historically speaking, "women's" issues have largely been dominated by the voices of white, educated women at the exclusion of everyone else and that legacy remains today. As the date of the march approaches, I’ve been trying to organize my thoughts around why specifically I am marching and I basically need a pensieve to organize my thousands of thoughts and reasons. I’m marching because I think it is, and has been, time to stand up and be counted. I’m marching because I need to feel like I’m not alone. I’m marching because I believe that Black lives matter, that trans lives matter, that indigenous lives matter, that women’s lives matter and that policies, politicians and ideologies that demonstrate or suggest otherwise must be changed, stopped and eradicated. But what I feel most strongly right now, and what I am embarrassed to admit, is that I am marching because I am afraid.

I wish I had some grand statements about hope and progress and empowerment for you. I wish I could tell you that I believe it will all be ok and we’ll all be fine but I cannot do that. The truth is, I am afraid for myself and I am afraid for the people in this country. I am afraid that policies that have limited access to resources and oppressed this country’s most vulnerable communities will continue to be passed. I am afraid that the longstanding history of racial, socioeconomic, gender and sexual-orientation based inequity upon which this country was founded truly will represent what this country will be defined by indefinitely. I am afraid that admitting my fear will alienate others because it is an unjust and unearned privilege that I have not always been afraid. I am scared of being shot while going to the movies, walking through an airport, shopping at a mall or going to class and I fear that the new administration’s stances on both human rights and guns will fail to adequately address policy reforms that would make us safer. (side note: know what I am not afraid of? Grizzly bears).  I am afraid for the people who will continue to be dismissed, overlooked, harassed and attacked for using their voices or having the audacity to suggest that they receive equal rights as human beings in this country. I fear the apathy that is bound to set in for white upper-class America when it becomes clear that new policies and changes will only affect some. I am afraid of the statement “well at least we will be fine” and what those words mean about how much we care about the safety and value of others who aren’t in the same position. I am afraid for my niece, who will have to fight hard to stop this world from stealing her power. When I watch her run around and shout and laugh with a ferocity only a 2 year old knows, I am heartbroken to think that she will have to resist society’s messages that will tell her she must be more quiet and take up less space or be swallowed by the sea of unrealistic expectations. I am afraid of what messages she will learn from a president who brags about sexually assaulting women, denigrates immigrants and people of color and mocks people who are disabled. I am afraid for my nephews, who are sweet and sensitive. I fear that this world will try to steal those qualities from them and replace them with ideas of masculinity that are fake and false and cruel. I am afraid because people will die without access to health care. People will continue to die without adequate gun control and people will die because this country’s soon-to-be president has made it clear that not all lives are valued equally in this country. I am afraid because none of this is new and history has demonstrated that lives will be lost and most people don’t want to change.  

I wish I could say that the voices of people who will be marching across the globe on Saturday will shatter the glass ceiling and tear down the structures in place that continue to limit access to resources and oppress people of color, people who identify as LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, people with limited socioeconomic access. I don’t think anyone is expecting that to happen. I fear the divisiveness and disregard for humanity highlighted in this election cycle and demonstrated throughout U.S. history. I worry that we are so separated by political affiliation that we’ve lost sight of our humanity and what the real problems are. I am fearful because, in many ways, this country as a system has never really demonstrated a sense of humanity for all. 

This is not to say I don’t have hope. I do. I have hope that the shock waves that resonated through some communities on November 8 will open up communication barriers and break down defensive walls that have made it hard for white people to listen to the realities of people of color, men to acknowledge the imbalance in our gendered system, cisgender folks to recognize the continual oppression of people who identify as transgender, and so on. I also know that this won’t happen overnight. I know this because this type of oppression has been going on since the start of U.S. history and those who have been active in the fight against it have never been in the majority. Marches matter but one march isn’t going to change the past or completely reroute our future. The real hard work will be in the every day. It will be calling our politicians and voicing our concerns. It will be staying up to date on politics and getting involved on a local level. It will be having hard and uncomfortable conversations. It will be asking those who were shocked by this election, those who feel they are finally “awake,” to stay awake. It will be listening to people who are doing the work and not assuming we have all the answers. It will be in self-reflection, humility and acts of humanity every single day. It will be tiring and thankless and critical.

I know that marching isn’t enough on it's own but it is an opportunity to join voices, share in strength and stand together. Marching doesn’t make me an “ally” and it doesn’t make me a “savior” but it does provide the chance to add my voice to a call for equality and I believe that every voice counts. We won’t all be marching for the same things but I will be showing up because I think it’s important to show up as much as I can. I’m marching because change cannot happen in isolation and there is power in numbers. I’m marching because there is no safety in standing still and no security in staying silent.

I hope you will consider marching this weekend too if it speaks to you, wherever you are. Even if you don't agree with me or believe what I believe, your opinions matter and your presence is meaningful and I support every person's use of their voice as long as it isn't being used to harm others. If you want to march and you can’t for whatever reason, remember that this work is every day, marching isn’t the only form of activism and every moment you have to make progress is power.

Stay safe, y'all!

First "guest" post! Why I am marching on Saturday: body positivity and social justice

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day, folks! Hopefully everyone is able to take a minute today and remember the principles and rights for which he fought and died and honor those who are continuing to push for forward progress. 

I am SO excited to post my very first "guest" piece! (Guest is in quotes because, though I started this blog, it's not really my space alone and I am hopeful to have more posts like this in the future.) Corrie doesn't just talk the talk when it comes to body positivity, she walks the walk and does the hard to work to encourage others to love and honor their bodies. This is a topic near and dear to my heart as someone who has spent many years conflating self-worth with physical appearance and internalizing media messages even when I consciously knew it was all smoke and mirrors. I am so happy and honored to have Corrie share why she's marching in the Women's March on Denver this weekend and why body positivity is social justice! I'll be back here in a few days to talk about why I'm flying to Washington, D.C. and marching next weekend too. But first, thank you, Corrie!

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I have struggled in my relationship with my body. I spent a lot of years trying to make it thinner, stronger, more “healthy,” and eventually I came to realize that it was not my body that was the problem, it was the society and culture in which we live. Throughout my youth, I remember overhearing female role models talk about the latest diet they were on. I remember hearing men I respected and valued objectifying and dehumanizing women for their large breasts or fat thighs. I remember being given praise for the way I looked, or ridiculed just the same. I remember being taught to keep my virginity, as it was something to be treasured and saved, and used to please a man, my future husband. I remember thinking my worth was wrapped up in my physical beauty, and in finding a husband. So, find a husband I did. I got married when I was 21. Things were good when I was quiet, but when I found my voice I also got divorced. It wasn’t until I started playing roller derby that I began to see the world through a different lens. I started to see women, real women; white, black, gay, straight, Christian, atheist, small, big women embracing who they were. The formerly unnoticed truth of our society and culture began to inescapably come into my clear view.

I wish I could say that the nature of the messaging that exists currently has changed, but its pretty much the same. The difference is that I no longer internalize any of those messages; instead I fight against them. I know I am not alone in this struggle of relationship with body. I now work with people on a daily basis who are fighting the fight of eating disorder recovery, and really in my opinion, we together are fighting against the patriarchal system of oppression of women’s bodies. Now, I realize that there are plenty of cultural expectations of men’s bodies too, but for this particular article I am going to focus on the oppression that women face in our culture and society.

We live in a society that is obsessed with the shape and size of women’s bodies. There is a plethora of potent messaging that is constantly telling us through social media, advertising, television, diet promotion, the fitness industry, billboards, magazines, and through many other avenues, that we are not good enough. We are not thin enough, strong enough, pretty enough, we don’t have clear enough skin, we have too many wrinkles, we are too fat, too weak, our teeth are not straight enough, ultimately we are not enough. The deeper message here is that we are too DIFFERENT. I believe the source of this oppressive messaging is fear, and desperation to hold onto power. The fear is rooted in our differences. The patriarchy has a deep embedded fear of anyone who does not look like the mythological woman that it promotes – the “thin ideal,” because if we all look and act the same that gives the patriarchy some semblance of control, and it confiscates our power as women.

Body positivity is a belief and a movement that focuses on the recognition, and the internalization of the idea that all bodies are good bodies, and it is also so much more than that. Our societal messaging, which I believe comes largely from the patriarchy, is what many in the body positivity movement refer to as “diet culture.” Diet culture is the oppressive messaging we see and hear all around us that tells us that our bodies will never be good enough. I would like to take this one step further, and address the idea of what diet culture promotes. Size-ism and weight-ism are the pillars of diet culture. These pillars are the cultural prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping of any body that does not fit into the thin ideal. Now size-ism and weight-ism may be the obvious components of diet culture, but it goes a lot further than that. In my opinion, diet culture also promotes an undercurrent of sexism and racism. What is an often time overlooked or ignored reality when examining diet culture is that the “ideal” body that is promoted goes beyond just the size, shape, or weight of the woman, and also subliminally addresses gender and race. More often than not diet culture promotes white bodies as the ideal, as well as cisgender bodies. There is little or no representation of people of color and/or of those who do not identify within the cisgender binary.

                                              

Body positivity is about accepting and internalizing the notion that all bodies are good bodies – regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, class, size, weight, shape, or ability. Body positivity is about bestowing each individual with autonomy over their body and allowing them the space to express themselves freely in this society without oppression through law or otherwise. Body positivity is also about recognizing and internalizing the idea that we are more than our bodies, and our bodies do not define us. It is taking back our power and believing that our bodies are not who we are.

Learning to accept and possibly even love our bodies, and even more importantly our whole selves, is an act of rebellion against diet culture and its enmeshment with the patriarchy and white supremacy. This is social justice in and of itself because loving ourselves, and believing we are enough right now – just as we are  - are exactly what diet culture and the patriarchy want to keep us from. When we band together and embrace our differences, celebrating our breadth of diversity of shape and size, we become a force that cannot be reckoned with. We as women get to stand up and say my voice matters, regardless of how my body looks. We get to demand equal pay, access to healthcare, protection from violence, and equal rights because we are no longer distracted, wasting our time worrying about figuring out a way to fit into the thin ideal.  We not only get to embrace our own bodies, but we also get to hold space for, and celebrate every BODY, recognizing that there is enough space for all of us. Ultimately, we get to embrace, and step into our POWER.

I will be stepping into my power by marching to advocate for body acceptance and size diversity (among many other things) on January 21^st in the Women’s March on Denver (as a Sister March to the Women’s March on Washington) to fight for justice for ALL BODIES, and I will continue to fight for this in my day-to-day, everyday. As Roxanne Gay put it in her book Bad Feminist, “I’m trying to lead, in a small, imperfect way. I am raising my voice as a bad feminist. I am taking a stand as a bad feminist.” I hope you will join me in Denver, or in your hometown!

New year, same me

I'm six days late but I hope everyone had a nice New Year's celebration if you celebrate it. I ate pasta, drank red wine, played with a puppy, watched the Jason Derulo carpool karaoke (for the second time that week) and several episodes of Grimm and cried while brushing my teeth because I am terrified of 2017. So, yea, I had a pretty wild NYE. 

I don't typically put much stock in resolutions because I generally don't think they last. However, 2016 was rough for me and I thought it might be a good idea to take some time to reflect on the year and identify things I'd like to focus on doing differently to be a better partner, student and person moving forward. Here are some of the highlights.

• Be f*cking compassionate. I don't want to be just a little compassionate, or only compassionate towards some people. I want to be so f*cking compassionate that it's coming out of my ears. As we enter 2017 with a president-elect who is clearly trying to encourage division, compassion is not only important but, for me, will be a survival tool. We are all living under the same messaging and cultural influences and may react to them differently. At the end of the day, we are all human beings and even if someone doesn't see me as a human being who deserves safety, respect, access to affordable healthcare or to live in a world where I do not have to walk around at night with keys sticking out of my knuckles, that doesn't mean that I should respond with anger or disdain. Don't get me wrong, I am angry. But I also know that I need to be smart and thoughtful about the ways in which I plan to tear down patriarchy and conserve my energy. I genuinely believe in the value of human life and that the oppressive systems at play hurt us all and, for my own sanity, I want to lead with that.
• Lead by example. It has taken me a long time to get to this point, but I recognize now that I am strong and confident enough to keep speaking up. I think it is so important to address oppressive systems head on. People are quick to react in horror to actions that overtly reflect -isms like violence. However, when it comes to jokes, comments and "locker room talk," a lot more gets away unchecked. I'm not saying I'm going to become some sort of call-out machine (though I could buy one of those giant sports fan fingers and go around at parties pointing at people shouting "that's racist!" or "that's homophobic!" Maybe with a referee costume?). I'm not the be all and end all of social justice. I'm certainly still learning too. However, I cannot tolerate comments and jokes that reflect racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, ableist or classist (etc.) messages and I'm not sorry if it ruins the mood to say it. It ruins my fun to be around that kind of language and I know that the more I speak up (with *compassion*), the more other people get comfortable speaking up too. I'm more than happy to be the "wet blanket" or the "bitch" in the situation if it helps others recognize how pervasive oppressive systems are and encourages others to recognize that they don't need to tolerate it either. *Narrator: and she was never invited to a party again*
• Be more affirming. I received a tremendous amount of support in 2016, for which I am grateful beyond words. Through a variety of experiences in the past year, I realized how important it is to verbally affirm and support my loved ones. I think it can be easy to assume that support is implied, particularly for friends and family who have been in your life for a long time. However, I think to assume this is a mistake. Also, where is the harm in saying it even if it is unspoken and understood? Every time I have been flooded with self-doubt and insecurity, especially regarding this blog, someone else's words of encouragement pulled me out of it and made me feel so many things but mostly gratitude. It is easy to compliment friends about shallow things, "I love you shirt" or "your hair looks great," but it is more difficult to get deeper and say "I'm proud of you for x, y and z" (those are the technical terms) or "I admire your tenacity and think that's such a strength." I want to be the kind of source of strength for others that I want for myself and to focus on lifting up those around me. There is so much negativity in the world and I think every positive act makes a difference.
• Be more honest. Ok, it's not like I am lying all the time but I have realized this year how exhausting and unfair it is to make excuses for things when honesty would be easier and kinder. For example, as a textbook introvert, I often make plans in advance and then simply don't have it in me to put on real pants and walk out the door when the time comes. Instead of trying to soften the blow of bailing by making up some excuse like "I'm sorry this day has been crazy busy I've been running around all day and won't make it back in time" (as I already said, I'm not even wearing real pants in this scenario), instead I'll say "I'm sorry I just don't have it in me tonight." I think these type of white lies are justified because people take on the position that they are protecting the feelings of their friends (by people here I clearly mean me). What I learned this year is that it is neither my job nor within the scope of my ability to "protect" my friend's feelings in that way. In all honesty, I was trying to protect myself from an uncomfortable conversation. And how arrogant is it to think that I know what is in the best interest of my other adult friends? Instead of dancing around issues, I want to focus more on speaking honestly and openly and encouraging my friends to do the same with me.
• Keep focusing on intersectionality. It's not a secret that activists and advocates are going to continue to have a lot of work to do in the coming years. It's important to me to recognize that even the fight for equality has never been equal. I've seen the quote floating around that "feminism without intersectionality is white supremacy" and that is true true true (I can't find who said that). Even in Pantsuit Nation, which tries to be some sort of liberal beacon of hope, women of color are actively silenced and their perspectives diminished by white folks who respond defensively to the assertion that feminism has not represented all women. To move forward, I plan to continue educating myself, engaging in conversations with white women about the complexity of women's issues and listening to what women of color are saying to understand more clearly how to use my own positions of privilege to amplify their voices.
• Eat more pasta. There's no lengthy explanation needed for this. I love pasta. It makes me happy and I want to do it more.
• Exercise.  I do this already. I do it so much that I'm right on the brink of becoming one of those people who posts pictures of tupperware containers full of steamed chicken and broccoli with a caption like, "you have to eat like a beast to train like a beast." I do not, I repeat, I do NOT want to be that person in 2017. But I will need the endorphins for sure and also need to be in tiptop shape for all the political marches I have coming up.
• Listen to more early 2000's throwback music. This isn't really a thing but Usher's "Yeah" just came on my Pandora and it is excellent. 

And finally

• Stop undermining my own abilities. One thing I do very often is downplay my own knowledge or power. When talking about politics, I recently realized that I always preface my statements with "I never really followed politics" or "I've never been that political," which, looking at it now, is totally ridiculous because, um, I am obviously political and I do follow the issues. I think I've always done this as a way to soften my opinions (because, you know, women have to be soft and silent), and also protect myself in case I was wrong about something. As a woman, I have definitely internalized the idea that men are the experts even though I consciously know that this is BS. But if Donald Trump has taught me anything, it's that I can know nothing but say I know something and that automatically makes it true! The new America! I'm kidding but I have realized that, you know what? A lot of the time I do know what I'm talking about. I don't need to soften that or feel weird about it. And if I'm wrong about something? Ok. My bad. Now I know. Why do I feel bad or weird or need to preface my statements with "now I'm no expert..." when I have quite literally watched people on Facebook dismiss or reject ideas that they clearly know nothing about with no shame or awareness? I definitely don't want to be those people but I do want to be confident in what I do know and honest about what I don't. And, truthfully, it's amazing to watch someone aggressively argue that something doesn't exist while simultaneously demonstrating that he/she has no idea what that thing even is. So I am going to focus on not apologizing when I don't need to, not undermining my own knowledge and remaining curious and humble when I really don't know something. 

That's it, y'all. See ya next week.