Girls Just Want to Have FUNdamental Rights

Thank you NY Times for capturing this image.

On November 15th, one week after Hillary gave her concession speech to the Flaming Ball of Id, I bought a plane ticket to attend the Million Women March in Washington DC. Sure, the presidential election served as a catalyst, but I had no idea that I’d be participating in the largest multinational protest in world history.

Let me qualify that: the media reported that the Women’s March might have been the largest US protest in history, but according to Wikipedia’s compendium of peaceful gatherings, it actually proved the largest multinational day of protest ever recorded. The better-attended events were typically funerals (e.g.,  Ayatollah, Khomeini, CN Annadurai), single-nation gatherings (e.g., the “Democracy and Martyrs’ Rally” in Istanbul, 2016), or celebrations in Southeast Asia welcoming the Pope, not to mention the incredible 5 million-person turnout for the Chicago Cubs World Series Parade. Therefore, the 4.7+ million people who marched across seven continents on January 21, 2017 produced the LARGEST MULTINATIONAL PROTEST IN WORLD HISTORY. I think that’s pretty damn exciting.

I was lucky enough to get a spot on top of a journalist’s black van at Independence and 4th Street in DC , one block away from the main stage while more than a half a million people stood in the vicinity. My partner and I were even featured in the NY Times.

We heard speeches from Dr. Angela Davis, Gloria Steinem, Kamala Harris, Ashley Judd, Madonna, Michael Moore, Scarlett Johansson, and Alicia Keys, among many others. I met an Iranian-American doctor who had attended the Civil Rights March on Washington as a child in 1963, and she mentioned that the Women’s March that day was still the most impressive show of activism she’d seen in her 50+ years living in DC. Above all, I learned that I wasn’t alone in my sense that all wasn’t right with the world in its treatment of women.

To be clear, people across the globe participated in the Women’s March for varying reasons; it wasn’t simply a display of people’s disgust with Trump, although I understand that sentiment; I can’t convey the indignity of having my own country’s president-elect brag about sexual assault. Not talk, but fucking BRAG about sexual assault. Some people don’t understand what it feels like when your eye contact with a man is treated as a sexual invitation, when you’re physically smaller than those who try to take advantage of you, and when all of it is no fault of your own. For me, the Women’s March helped remedy a longstanding ache in my gut that told me things would be easier for me if I’d been born a man. Here’s how I figure:

Women have only very recently earned legal rights and professional privileges I now take for granted. Women couldn’t serve on juries until 1973, get credit cards in their name until 1974, keep their jobs while pregnant until 1987, or legally refuse to have sex with their spouses until 1993. These restrictions continue to have sociopolitical consequences for women’s progress far beyond the scope of this piece. Just as the impact of slavery didn’t end with the 13th Amendment, we all know that that the legacy of injustice ripples outward affecting future generations long after a law has changed.

The Goldberg Paradigm holds that the exact same words coming out of a man’s mouth are perceived much differently coming from a woman. I’ve been frustrated throughout my life by this truism. A man’s assertiveness is my display of aggression; a man’s intelligence is my smugness; a man’s professional success is my anti-children stance; a man’s forgivable anger is my embarrassing emotional outburst; a man’s heroic, kind act is my default behavior as the “fairer sex.” And don’t get me started on my jokes which have fallen flat only to be repeated and adored when my ex-boyfriends cribbed my words and timing.

I should mention that I was raised by a badass, feminist, single mom. I can’t imagine a more fertile ground for this consciousness that helps me see the invaluable, under-appreciated role women play in society. Women have done more unpaid and unrecognized labor than any group in human history and in changing this disparity, there are excruciating growing pains. For every woman who’s grabbed by man with power, for every successful scientist who suffers sexism from her peers, and for all the moments in between: RESIST.

As for the carrot-hued catalyst of the Women’s March: all rational people see that the Trumpass is pointed in the wrong direction. In his first week in office, he’s implemented a racist ban on refugees and immigrants; pushed forward with the expensive and unnecessary Mexican Border Wall; and established fascist gag orders on several government agencies (e.g., EPA/NIH/NPS), to name the top three things that piss me off. (For the record, the “Mexico City Policy” withholding funding for women’s health organizations internationally is a ball that’s been volleyed between conservative and liberal administrations for the past 30 years. It’s nothing new.)

RESIST.

RESIST not only for women or blacks or Mexicans or immigrants or Muslims, but resist because it’s the right thing to do. We’re only as good as we let all people be, and an arrogant tyrant who cares for nobody but himself, his family, and small circle of wealthy cabinet appointees doesn’t have our best interests in mind.

RESIST.

RESIST by calling your senators and house representatives; RESIST by donating to Planned Parenthood; RESIST by correcting media-reporting errors through social media commentary; RESIST by shifting your money to a credit union away from the banks which stand to profit from the Goldman Sachs agenda; RESIST by enjoying peaceful protests and creating art; RESIST by teaching your daughters and sons that this administration is not normal and does not work in the interests of the American people.

RESIST.

Don’t Diet…RIOT!

I first saw ‘Don’t Diet…RIOT!’ scrawled on a bathroom stall at Laguna Beach High School. It stuck with me because at LBHS, there was immense pressure for girls to be thin, just like many schools today. This constant body-badgering is fed by fashion magazines, celebrity culture, and most recently, social media. In my day, at least my upward self-comparisons with the beautiful girls—almost all of them named Jessica—ended when I left school. For girls on Instagram these days, that’s not the case.

I can’t speak for other parts of the country, but for me, growing up in an environment with so many surgically remodeled mothers and proud size 0 classmates made me feel ugly and inadequate for most of my adolescence. I know my experience isn’t unique and I can’t deny the privileges I enjoyed at LBHS, but I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time fretting about my bad skin and love handles, counting calories, and gorging on products with artificial sweeteners. Most of all, I wish hadn’t bought so many stupid beauty products.

Beauty products. That 80 BILLION dollar industry in the US aimed squarely at making women feel unattractive and self-conscious. For the sake of our sanity, please help put some of these exploitative companies out of business and

STOP

BUYING

SO

MANY

BEAUTY

PRODUCTS

For the uninitiated, here are some of the modern things we women are taught we can’t live without:

  • Temptu Air (i.e., at-home airbrush kit) – $195.00
  • Shimmering Skin Perfector – $38.00
  • Kanebo Sensai Collection, The Lipstick – $40.00
  • Tom Ford Shade & Illuminate (for essential ‘contouring’ and ‘strobing’) – $80.00
  • La Prairie Skin Caviar Concealer Foundation – $220.00
  • Beautyblender Blotterazzi (i.e., sponges) – $20.00
  • Christian Louboutin Beauté Nail Colour in Louboutin Red – $50.00
  • Dr. Jart+ Water Replenishment Cotton Sheet Mask – $7.50 (what a steal!)
  • RéVive Peau Magnifique les Yeux Youth Recruit for Eyes – $750.00

I’m all for the free market, but the existence of this overpriced garbage highlights the toxic conflation of a woman’s beauty with her self-worth. Let me unpack that: why else would we justify spending $220 on caviar foundation unless it felt validating and essential to our well-being? What else could it be for? Certainly not to attract other people. Call me a plebe, but I doubt the majority of people can tell the difference between a contoured/strobed and a non-contoured/non-strobed feature on a person’s face. (Exception: my dear friends in the drag world. Derek and Robert, you totally know the difference and probably would disagree with every word in this piece. And can you actually strobe a feature? Am I even using that right? Hmm.)

And this year, L’Oréal is releasing a ‘smart hairbrush’ with a companion app to tell us all of the L’Oréal products we need to buy to treat our brush-detected hair issues. As if our socially imposed self-loathing will be fixed by a $200 hairbrush.

In sum, the damn beauty-socio-industrial complex employs a two-pronged strategy:

  1. Make women feel terrible about themselves.
  2. Develop expensive creams, masques, cleansers, lotions, elixirs, toners, and other junk while promising women a release from feeling terrible about themselves.

Makeup can be fun, sure, but a survey of the average woman’s  shower or cosmetics case is a real wake-up call. I want to end with a picture of the few products I use—simple, natural things I’ve never seen advertised anywhere:

  • Moisturizer: coconut oil
  • Hair care: Savannah Bee shampoo and conditioner
  • Makeup: Mineral Fusion foundation and mascara

I guess only time will tell if I end up looking like a leathery old crone at 40 because I didn’t throw down for that palmitoyl oligopeptide. Then again, the thousands of dollars I’ll spend instead on traveling & dining out & guitar lessons & sending boxes of dogshit to the White House once Trump assumes office will make me feel more alive & beautiful than anything I can buy at Sephora.

My Home Offline: Could You Live Without Wifi?

Our cottage near Amazon Park in Eugene, OR

[Written two hours ago from my cottage]

I’m sitting in a rocking chair by the glow of the fire, listening to the logs crackle and fingers tap-dancing across my laptop keys.  The living room window is flanked by a towering case of my favorite books and a Taylor guitar. I see thick snow clusters floating down outside into our garden. I sway my head gently to Macy Gray’s new album, her sensual voice an homage to her roots in jazz. I am utterly at peace because when I’m here at home in Eugene, OR, I’m unplugged from the world.

When I say ‘unplugged,’ let me be clear: not only do I lack internet and cable in the cottage, but I also haven’t had a cell phone plan since 2014. I’d dropped my carrier initially to move to Argentina for 10 months and I never found a reason to reactivate. My friends, family, and employer have long-since grown accustomed to not being able to reach me 24/7; they appreciate that I’ll respond once I’m online at a local cafe or a public library. And with wifi now ubiquitous throughout much of the world, it’s not difficult to find a connection when I need one.

From 2010 to 2014, I lived in San Francisco—ground zero for technological innovation. I loved the city, but I felt overwhelmed with my cell phone constantly at my side. Crushed by information and saturated with media. A gnawing feeling that my attention and time were never really mine to control and that I could be thrust forcibly into the infinite at any moment. The same feelings that people try to escape through digital detox camps and the like.

We’ve all been down that rabbit hole: the one that leads us from a text message to a Facebook vacation photo in Cambodia to a Google search for the name of that pink temple in Angkor to a Wikipedia article about the ancient stone making up the walls to a text message response, and so on. Seven minutes gone. With connectivity comes the possibility of continuous distraction—the pestering flak of text messages, pop-up notifications, electronic calendar reminders, and emails. Oh, the emails.

Constantly drowning in information without limits was taking its toll on me. I never seemed to have enough time to do the things I really wanted to do, the things I’d always included in my New Year’s resolutions: reading more books, playing the guitar, gardening, hiking, cooking for my friends, and writing for pleasure. Now when I come home, those are the only things in front of me, the welcome embrace of my chosen pastimes.

Free from text messages.

Free from checking email.

Free from pop-up notifications.

Free from Google news headlines.

Free from Twitter outrage.

Free from self-aggrandizing Instagram posts.

Free from Facebook check-ins.

Free from Netflix binges.

Free from self-promotion and distractions.

I can breathe again.

When people ask for my phone number, I have to explain that I don’t have one, which usually leads to a lengthier discussion about my lifestyle. Here are some answers to common questions I get about my disconnected home life:

How do you keep in touch with people?

The same way most people do: email, iMessage (for my fellow iPhone-users), WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, Skype, Instagram, etc. I even write letters by hand. I learned that our modern means of communication are not only plentiful but redundant. As tech companies compete for greater market share, there’s never a shortage of cheap, convenient ways to communicate with other people. The difference is that I have access when I choose.

What if somebody is running late and needs to contact you?

I deal with this the same way we all did pre-smartphone: I wait, usually with a podcast downloaded for offline listening. I’ve also noticed that people tend to make more of an effort because they know I can’t be reached; in SF, friends would sometimes cancel at the last minute or text about being late, as if the ability to communicate instantly with me diminished their accountability. That never happens anymore.

What if you can’t find an internet connection?

When cafes and libraries can’t be found, there’s always a Starbucks or McDonalds nearby with open wifi access.

What about all of the useful apps?

When traveling, I’ll download offline Google Maps, Yelp recommendations, or Trip Advisor lists prior to setting out for my destination. I spent most of 2015 road-tripping across the US and had no problems with this strategy.

What about emergencies? What if there’s a global disaster?

If it’s something pertinent to my local community, one of my neighbors will certainly knock on my door. If it’s not, there’s probably nothing I can do about it and I’ll find out soon enough. Dwelling on crises doesn’t help anybody. Case in point: one of the best decisions I ever made was to spend the entire 2016 election day hiking to various waterfalls in central Oregon, totally off the grid. Would it have been better for me to watch the ill-fated polls all day? No way.

What about your work?

I’m managing editor of Sechel Ventures LLC under two fantastic mentors. I’m grateful to have worked for this company for two years. My bosses are aware that they can’t always reach me and have faith that my ability to recharge offline at home ultimately improves the quality of my work. Plus, if the French can pass a ‘right to disconnect’ law establishing off-duty employees’ power to ignore work emails, I’m sure a similar rule could benefit many overworked Americans as well. (Not that it would ever pass in this anti-labor/pro-business country which has yet to establish maternity leave protections, a decent minimum wage, or solid PTO laws.)

What about news stories and other online reading? 

I’ll load important reading onto my computer before heading back to the offline sanctuary. On a related note, I’ve always preferred periodicals to newspapers, films to cable TV series. When people take more time to produce something, it broadens the scope and improves the quality. Minute-by-minute media coverage is chewing gum for the brain.

What about Netflix?! What about other great TV shows?!

I get this question a lot, and yes, I’m probably missing out on some popular culture here, although for my must-sees like Samantha Bee, John Oliver, and South Park, I’ll stream them on my computer at the Bier Stein, a local beer bar within walking distance of my cottage with 26 rotating taps, delicious food, and fast wifi. There are worse ways to consume media.

This lifestyle isn’t for everyone, and there are certainly times when I wished I had web or phone access and didn’t. But for me, these sporadic nuisances can’t outweigh the freedom to focus on what’s really important to me: the simplicity and peace of mind at home.