princesses v. pandas

"I used to think that the interesting issue was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not? Our current royal family doesn’t have the difficulties in breeding that pandas do, but pandas and royal persons alike are expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment. But aren’t they interesting? Aren’t they nice to look at? Some people find them endearing; some pity them for their precarious situation; everybody stares at them, and however airy the enclosure they inhabit, it’s still a cage."

– Hilary Mantel, in this article

Also, stop what you're doing and go read Wolf Hall. Then we can talk about it! Thanks!

how it fits

This afternoon I was at Davies Symphony Hall, viewing a performance by organist Chelsea Chen. She was wearing an asymmetrical dress with only one shoulder strap. The organ is a big instrument, and requires a lot of movement to play: the lifting and pulling and crossing over of arms, the swinging of legs and tapping of feet. I thought of the small tests I run in fitting rooms, lifting my knees, sitting and standing repeatedly, trying to gauge whether a skirt or dress will be easy to bike in. I wonder what strange fitting room contortions professional organists go through, stretching and bending in tiny spaces, trying to see if the fabric will tear here or chafe there, before purchasing a dress for performance.

ladies who ink

The hard data seems hard to come by, but all the anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that the tattoo world is pretty seriously male dominated. The women tattoo artists interviewed in this New York Times article have pretty mixed feelings as to how pervasive sexism in is in the industry, as well as the value of a tattoo artist convention solely for female artists. (Marked for Life is an annual conference that gets women tattoo artists together.) Which reminds me that I'd really like to do some extended thinking on female separatism soon. But probably not right now, because I'm sleepy.

Meanwhile, here in the Bay Area, we've got Diving Swallow, Black and Blue Tattoo, and Sacred Rose Tattoo, for starters. There may be more, but it's a weirdly hard search to do. P.S. Hey Yelp: What's up with that? Why can't I search for "women-owned business"? Thanks. Actually, that's a great point. I just searched for "women-owned businesses" on Google and came across this helpful site for women who'd like to open a business, brought to us by the Small Business Administration, who also maintain this (warning: glaringly ugly!) directory of women-owned businesses around the country. It's impressively long and the index isn't even alphabetized, so I can't believe I haven't used it before. Right. This information should be free and friendly, people. No reason why not.

Want to know more? The SBA also maintains this handy page of recent studies and research on women owned businesses. Neato!

feminism is for everybody (part one)

For no particular reason, this thought crossed my mind today: What if I just bought bell hook's Feminism is for Everybody for everybody's birthday for a year? ("everybody" here used to mean, "everybody I would be buying a birthday present for that year") I don't actually think I'll be doing that, but I do want to take a moment to talk about feminism, women's rights, and women's bodies. After all, the body is the start and source of all "difference" and discrimination. But what is a woman's body?

I started writing this post about about the Intersex Society of North America, an organization dedicated to "systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female." (Hyperlinks theirs and, especially if you're not sure what I'm talking about right now, I encourage you to follow them.) It seems that, as an active organization, they are no more, although they do maintain a comprehensive web page. The new action place seems to be Accord Alliance.

Now while I am eager for us all to enter a post-gender world, that's not what Accord Alliance is (or ISNA was) all about. And that's okay with me. They are tackling a largely ignored challenge and source of discrimination in this country, and I stand with them in that. And although ISNA is closed, their webpage continues to have a lot of helpful information about what it means to be intersex, and do a great job of unpacking why it's neither accurate nor okay to call someone a hermaphrodite. Accord Alliance is doing a lot of work around education, for medical professionals, for the general public, and for families of intersex people. What can you do? Read up, get educated, and, if you feel so moved, make a contribution.

our bodies, our selves

There are several important issues that are being addressed by Peer Health Exchange, including obesity, alcoholism, and drug-abuse. And while I'm comfortable asserting that all of these issues have intersections with feminism, I particularly want to give PHE mad props because they're also tacking violent relationships and teen pregnancy. Which is important, because they work with high schoolers. Apparently one in three teenage girls in this country becomes pregnant. Meanwhile, conservatives throw their aprons over their faces at the thought of teenage girls taking sex ed. Because, you know, obviously all the girls who are pregnant had great sex ed classes in high school. Of course, the science doesn't bear that out. And while (predominantly male) politicians dither about if and how to teach our youth about consent, safety, personal boundaries, and contraceptives, girls are getting unintentionally pregnant. Male and female people are entering and staying in violent and unsafe relationships. Which brings us back to PHE. PHE targets "high schools that lack health education and in which the majority of the students live at or below the poverty line" and then "recruits, selects, and trains college student volunteers to teach high school students a comprehensive health curriculum consisting of thirteen standardized health workshops on topics ranging from decision-making and sexual health to substance abuse and nutrition." In a nutshell: Free, quality, no-agenda sex- and health-ed for underserved youth. Now you see why I'm excited. 

Was sex ed a lousy, insulting, awkward joke and complete waste of time when you were in high school? Yeah, me too. Wouldn't it be awesome if that stopped being the case? We talk a lot about individual rights in this country. But I for one refuse to believe that a parent's right to raise their child "the way they see fit" trumps a child's right for safe and honest information about their own body. Children and teenagers are also citizens, and it's past time we start treating them as such.

So, PHE? They're hiring and looking for volunteers. (And of course, they'll take your money, too.) Check 'em out, & spread the word.