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January 27, 2012

No Makeup!

Image from wikipedia.org

If you follow me on my various social networks, you probably know that I’ve started a club at the high school where I teach just for girls. We meet every week and talk about issues in our society and in their various communities that affect girls and what we can do about those issues.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about pressure from the media to be thin and wear makeup. Actually, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about makeup, which is appropriate because sometimes I think these girls spend so much time on their makeup that there’s little time for much else. I walk into the restroom and girls are lined up at the mirror, every passing period, adjusting their cosmetics or adding some feature to their faces that they wish was there. Sometimes I see the same girls in the restroom doing their makeup three, four, five times a day. There’s no harm in this, I suppose. Makeup is fun to play around with and passing period is their time, so they can do with it what they choose. But I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had to tell girls to put away their compact mirrors and their eyelash curlers in class. Appearance is important to them – especially at that age – but to be adjusting it so constantly that they take out their makeup and spread it out on their desks in class just seems to be overdoing it.

We had a very long discussion about who we wear makeup for. Is it for ourselves or for people looking at us? Many of the girls initially said it was for themselves. It’s fun! It’s cute! It makes them feel good! But then one girl pointed out that she doesn’t wear it at home when she’s by herself, so it must actually be for other people.

Whatever the reason, I challenged them to try to go makeup-free for a day, just to see how it felt. And, surprisingly, a few girls did the next day and came in to show me. They said it was difficult not to find the nearest mirror and put the makeup on, but they also noted that they had a lot of time to do other things. One of the girls remarked, “I actually had time to sit down and eat breakfast this morning! And everyone keeps telling me I look exactly the same!”

I’m not saying girls shouldn’t wear makeup, but I am saying that, sometimes, it can be freeing to realize that you don’t have to, not only because you’ll have more time for other things, but also because it can be extremely powerful to realize that people don’t necessarily even care if you do or don’t. Hopefully my group can learn this; if this is the only thing I teach them this semester, I think I’ll have been successful.

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More on Female Friendships

I blogged about the importance of female friendships yesterday and then, about an hour later, so did Feministe!

I’ve also been blessed with a handful of truly deep and transformative relationships with women — friendships that have carried on for the majority of my life; friendships that have evolved into family; friendships that have kept me afloat when sinking felt inevitable. And it’s a shame that the value of female friendship isn’t recognized beyond films that are assumed to be silly.

Check it out!

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January 26, 2012

The Importance of Friendships

I was talking to my pal, Jillian, a few days ago, and she brought up an interesting point. The strongest structure is a triangle; with three legs, for example, a stool won’t wobble as it would with four, and it won’t fall over completely as it would with two. Similarly, the most fulfilling situations are ones that include more than just two people.

It’s not surprising, then, that, when couples couple up and lose contact with their friends and family, they become less happy than they were when they were single. According to the Huffington Post‘s summary of a recent study on married, cohabiting, and single people:

In some ways, the single people did better, and in other ways, the people who got coupled did better. The advantages of the single people were lasting. The benefits of those who got coupled were fleeting — by the end of the study, none of the initial advantages posted by the couples had endured.

All participants were asked at the beginning of the study, and again six years later, about the extent to which they maintained contact with their parents, and the amount of time they spent with friends. The idea that authors Kelly Musick and Larry Bumpass were testing was that getting partnered increases your social support. Theoretically, coupled people “connect their partners to larger networks of friends, kin, and community that can be drawn upon in times of need.” That is not what they found.

Instead, those who entered into a cohabiting relationship or who got married had less contact with their parents and spent less time with their friends than those who stayed single. What’s more, the couples did not become any less couple-y over time. In the first three years of the study, those who got coupled were less connected to others than were the people who stayed single, and in the last three years, they remained less connected.

Personally, I’m not all that surprised to find this out. This is the first rule of the dating book, isn’t it? Once a girl gives up or blows off her girlfriends for a guy she’s dating, trouble is sure to follow. I’ve seen many of my friends do this, and they usually come running back once they realize they were miserable without their friends.

But when we get married, we seem to forget this cardinal rule. Somehow, we think, this time is different. After all, when we say “I do,” we’re saying it forever, so when we opt for hanging out with the hubby over having cosmos with our girlfriends, that’s different from making that choice with a less serious boyfriend, right?

Wrong.

Our husbands provide us with love and support, of course, but our girlfriends provide us with a different kind of love and support. I can’t tell you how important it was for me to have a few good girlfriends to turn to when things got rough with Tim and me when we first moved in together. When they told me similar stories about themselves, I felt so much better. I knew I wasn’t a failure but, rather, I was just adjusting to a completely new and different living situation for me, and that my reactions to that change were completely normal. Without my friends during that time, I would have felt completely isolated. I’m sure there will be more times when I will need the always sage advice of my buddies over my husband, and there is nothing wrong with that. I’m not leaving him or hiding anything from him. He just can’t give me the kind of friendship my girlfriends can. He can, however, give me the experiences that come with marriage and long-term committment, and that is unique to my relationship with him.

Bottom line: it’s important to have more than one person in your life. If you don’t, you’ll just be that two-legged chair that keeps falling over.

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January 24, 2012

No Television?!

Family watching television, c. 1958

Image via Wikipedia

Seriously, y’all, there are people out there who actually live without a television.

After a few months of this numbing routine, we decided to get rid of our TV. It wasn’t a radical decision at the time. We just knew that something had to give. So out went the television and in came books (lots of books), cooking, lengthy discussions, hiking, marathon training, Yahtzee tournaments, bowling dates, and much-needed sleep. Ryan even learned to juggle five balls and ride a unicycle. Life as we knew it slowed down and we finally caught our breath.

That was seven years ago.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard about people who choose to live TV-free. Most of those who I have met who have made the leap were professors I had when I was in undergrad. I also know plenty of people who go without cable and watch shows on Hulu and movies on Netflix or on DVD.

However, I don’t know if I could actually live without a television.

We aren’t slaves to our TV by any means. The shows I consistently watch that are actually still on include Castle, Parenthood, Bones and some random shows on the USA network when I need something mindless to watch. Oh, and Chopped. Obviously. I almost never watch these shows at their regularly scheduled time and, with the exception of Castle, I rarely watch every episode in the season. We just watch what we want, when we want. While I think going TV-free is a really great way to connect with your family and get more stuff done, I don’t think I could ever give it up entirely. And here’s why:

  1. Cozying up on the couch with the husband and the dog to watch a movie or an episode of Friday Night Lights is one of my favorite ways to relax after a long day.
  2. Sometimes, after a long day, I just don’t want to get any more stuff done. So I watch something I don’t have to think about.
  3. I read books all day. Sometimes, I don’t want to read books when I get home, too.
  4. I’m a high school teacher. Tim is a junior high teacher. We need to know about pop culture, or we will be completely lost. Every day.
  5. We have an Apple TV that plays music, and the television it’s hooked up to has the best speakers in the house.
  6. Our internet bill would skyrocket if we got rid of the cable, because we have a bundle deal with our cable company. Get rid of one, the price of the other goes up. And I need the internet, so we might as well keep the cable. This is actually the reason we haven’t given up cable in favor of internet television. That and free OnDemand. Though now that OnDemand has found a way to not let you forward through commercials, we may rethink this whole thing.
  7. WHAT WOULD I DO WITHOUT THE FOOD NETWORK?!
  8. The computer screen has to be so close to you to watch a movie on it, and the battery heats up uncomfortably so it’s impossible to keep it near you unless you want to burn something. (OK. I’m stretching. But it’s true.)

While I see the value in giving up the television completely, I don’t think it would ever be for us. That said, I practice with TV what I do with food: Everything in moderation. You shouldn’t spend all day in front of the TV, but using it to relax your brain and connect with your spouse every once in a while can be priceless.

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January 23, 2012

Overload

English: Jump! Deutsch: Spring!

Image via Wikipedia

This week, I have been on overload. You may have guessed by my absence here.

Seriously, though, I’ve been doing too much. The way I see it, I have four separate things going on in my life:

  1. Blogging and writing (here, at GAB, some copywriting for pay, and a few random posts elsewhere)
  2. Teaching
  3. Extra curriculars at school (Contest Play and Fearless Females)
  4. A really huge project I’m not quite ready to talk about yet

Oh yea, and I have a life, too. Which is, you know, important. So, clearly, I’ve taken on way too much. And when I take on way too much, I get panicky and work really, really hard, but I don’t work really, really smart. Meaning I try to do absolutely everything at once, which makes me panic more, which makes me want to do absolutely nothing at all. This usually leads me to try to quit things without really thinking the choice through, or to disappear completely. Hence, my absence here.

I had a heart-to-heart with Tim last night about it all. He is always my cheerleader. He tells me I can do anything and everything and supports my hair-brained ideas to start really huge projects I’m not quite ready to talk about yet. Yesterday, I told him I knew I could do anything, but that I didn’t have to do everything, and I needed him to tell me if I was trying to do too much. You know what he said?

“You’re trying to do too much.”

And you know what that felt like?

RELIEF.

Of course I’m trying to do too much. LOOK AT THAT LIST! One of those things alone would be too much, and I’ve got four plus a life with family and friends, for cryin’ out loud. I can’t even find time to get my hair cut or, you know, sleep, let alone spend time with my husband and dog.

But my problem is that if I set arbitrary goals for myself and don’t meet them, I feel like I’ve failed. But last night, Tim helped me realize that these arbitrary goals are, well, arbitrary and I can adjust them as needed. So I did some adjusting. I decided to meet with my Fearless Females every other week instead of every week, and I took a look at my deadlines for my really huge project I’m not quite ready to talk about yet, and realized that all parties needed a bit of an extension, so I gave everyone some extra time. (And I was overwhelmed by emails of relief from my participants! It was fate!) Now, I’m starting to feel like I can manage things without hating everything I’m doing and resenting the time I am spending away from my family.

And the beautiful thing about this arrangement? It will all still get done. Just not right now. But it will! And that makes me happy. :)

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January 16, 2012

Marriage Milestone: We talked about money without fighting!

Without money

Image by Toban Black via Flickr

Tim and I had a conversation about money yesterday that didn’t involve yelling and screaming.

I know, right? Exciting stuff.

You may remember me writing about sharing money about a year and a half ago. In short, we decided to keep our own money and put enough in the joint account to pay bills and rent and all that good, joint responsibility stuff.

Well, that’s not really working anymore. When we moved in together, Tim and I were making pretty much the same amount of money. I mean, I made a little more per year, but with extra duties, etc., our biweekly paychecks were about the same. So it didn’t really matter if we shared money and gave ourselves allowances. It ended up working the same whether the money was filtered through a joint checking account or if it was filtered through our separate checking accounts.

Now, though, Tim’s facing his second year under a pay freeze, and I have other jobs and I’m writing other places. Sometimes that pays me money. I’ve also been doing some copywriting, which also pays me money. I guess you could say I am now the breadwinner. Which is great, because we don’t really care who wins the bread around here, as long as there is bread. So really, it just means we have more money to spend.

And, because we have more money to spend, we often spend it. Which means that I have been having to sign over more and more of what’s in my checking account because I’m the one earning the extra money. As you can imagine, that’s actually kind of difficult for me to do. I mean, it is my money, after all.

Sure, it’s my money, but I keep doing these extra jobs because I want to have money to do fun things with my husband. And we do fun things! Which means that this money I’m sending over to our joint account every month is going towards awesome meals and mini-vacations, which is exactly what I want out of life at this moment. It isn’t really a problem of parting with the money physically; it’s more of a psychological thing. Top all that off with the fact that we really would like to save enough money to buy some property in the near future, and we needed a new way to think about money.

After our wonderfully calm conversation, we decided a few things. First, we will now be depositing our checks directly into our joint account. From there, we will budget how much we can put on our separate credit cards each month (It’s an allowance, but I refuse to call it that because I’m not a teenager asking my parents for money.) This isn’t very “feminist,” I suppose, but it will make things easier for us to manage. From here, we set up a few stipulations:

  1. We need to sit down together twice a month and pay bills. Together. No  one is allowed to move money any other time, unless it’s an emergency. This way, we both know where our money is going.
  2. I get to stipulate what my “extra” writing money is used for. And it will be fun.
  3. We will never, EVER get into a situation where the other has to ask permission to use money. This is why we have our separate credit card budgets – so we don’t have to ask.

I think it’s a good situation. I mean, we’ll probably have to revisit it in a few years when we buy a house or if anything else changes financially for us, but it’ll work for now. I’m just really, really impressed that we had this conversation without moving into a fight! Money always makes us super tense, so this is a huge milestone for us. I guess we’re growing up!

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January 15, 2012

I am officially a Zumba convert.

Zumba for Japan

Image by anujraj via Flickr

Y’all might not know this about me, but I used to be a dancer. I took ballet classes from the tender age of 3 all the way through the age of 13. When I got older, I added more classes like tap and jazz. And when I gave all that up to follow my musical pursuits, it didn’t take me long to want to get back in the swing of things. I joined a hip-hop class shortly after I got my driver’s license, which I continued all the way through high school and summers when I came home during undergrad. While away at school, I enrolled in dance classes for my physical education credit. I also dabbled in Irish dancing and belly dancing (yes, you read that right), and am a serious fan of yoga and Pilates. More recently, Tim and I took about 4 months of social dance classes for our wedding. Since our wedding, though, I haven’t taken any dance classes at all. I’ve tried to continue to reach my fitness goals through visits to the gym which have included, but are not limited to, activities such as walking, running, and weight lifting. My gym offers a plethora of classes, but I have never been interested in aerobics, and I get nervous about new settings, so I stuck to what I knew and kept walking, jogging, and hitting the Stairmaster.

In November, I realized I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of my fitness routine. I had left the gym, but found myself more sedentary in the winter months, so I decided to rejoin. This time, however, I decided that, if I had to work out, I needed to have a well-rounded plan that included a focus on cardio, weights, and flexibility. And I needed to be having fun while doing it. I also do better with actually getting to the gym if I have a real reason to go, e.g. a class to attend. So I checked out the group class schedule and found a yoga class and a hip hop cardio class that seemed right up my alley. I attended two of the hip hop classes, and it was cancelled for the winter season due to lack of interest and instructor availability.

Total bummer.

But when the winter session schedule came out, I noticed a new Zumba class on Sunday mornings. I had heard things about this Latin-fusion dance class that was reported to burn upwards of 400 calories in an hour-long session. Many of my friends had taken classes and loved them. With a cursory Google search, I immediately saw the slogan: “Zumba – Ditch the Workout and Join the Party” and assumed it wasn’t really all that great of a workout. I mean, workouts aren’t really supposed to be parties, after all. So I just assumed it was a craze that would eventually dissipate. But with the cancellation of my beloved hip hop, I decided to give it a try this morning.

And I am hooked. For an entire hour, we did not stop moving. I seriously think I burned at least 400 calories, but I wouldn’t know because I didn’t care. It was… FUN! I was sweating! I felt confident! I was dancing! The music was great! To the inexperienced onlooker, we probably looked ridiculous, swinging our arms and jumping around and swirling our hips, but it was truly an enlightening experience. It was one of the best workouts I have had in a long time, and one that actually left me smiling at the end, rather than wanting to curl up in a ball and yell, “MY MUSCLES CANNOT TAKE ANYMORE!” (Although, I was sore, don’t get me wrong. I just felt… well… happy!)

So, Zumba, you’ve claimed another victim. I’ll see you again next Sunday morning.

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January 14, 2012

Cohabitation is bad for you?

BERLIN, GERMANY - SEPTEMBER 10: A so-called '...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

According to The Huffington Post, cohabitation is a bad idea.

“So what’s so wrong with living with your boyfriend or girlfriend? Let’s forget the studies pointing out the booze (cohabitors drink more), weight (they’re heavier) and happiness (they’re not quite as happy as married couples but they aren’t more miserable, either), because those aren’t the issues. Nor are the results of the latest NMP study, “Why Marriage Matters,” which predicts doom and gloom for the children of cohabiting couples. .. [a recent] Pew Study finds similar results, at least when it comes to cohabiting couples’ economic well-being; they’re poorer, and that puts stress on a relationship. A lot of stress.”

Cohabitating couples are poorer? That seems to cut into the economic fears participants expressed. Also, government tax incentives to get hitched provide an additional reason to go ahead and tie the knot. Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis’s rumored split shows that cohabitating doesn’t keep you from breaking up, either.

The study results make a great case for educating people about other forms committed relationships can take. Lisa Haisha, who blogs for The Huffington Post and is in a self-proclaimed “unconventional marriage,” advocates living apart from your spouse as the secret to relationship bliss — and one million Australian couples (both married and unmarried) would agree with her, according to a 2011 study.

Is it just me, or is this article incredibly prescriptive and normative?

I’m married. I believe in marriage. I really like having a partner as I move through my life. I like having a home-base, somewhere I can go and someone I can spend time with to reset myself after a long day of fighting the good fight. But I do not believe marriage is right for everyone, and I might not feel the way I feel now for the rest my life. I also don’t think that I had to get married to have all of the things I love about marriage. In fact, I’m pretty sure our relationship would have remained the same regardless of our marital status.

Frankly, cohabitation is one of the new faces of modern relationships. For whatever reason, people are choosing to live together without getting married, and we need to respect those relationships and those choices as legitimate. Sure, cohabitation doesn’t make you more financially secure, necessarily, but I don’t think it makes you all that much less financially secure, either. And if we’re going to talk about cohabitation not keeping couples from breaking up, I’m pretty certain marriage doesn’t do that, either.

Committed relationships can take many forms. Marriage is one form; cohabitation is another. There are even more options than just those two. We should all avoid pushing one over the others and trying to scare people into getting married, like this article tried to do. Rather, we should listen to people’s thoughts on the matter, should they care to share them, and respect their choices as what they are: what is right for them.

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January 13, 2012

Chifems Book Club: The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

If you’ve been a good Chifem, you’ve been reading The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht! Hopefully you’re finished or almost there, because we are meeting on Sunday, January 22 (check the link for place and time) for an in-person discussion.

If you’ve read the book but can’t make it, our discussion questions are after the cut. Feel free to comment here or on our Goodreads page if you would like to virtually participate.

Furthermore, I’d love to have the next book picked by the end of the meeting, so if you have suggestions, pass them along and we’ll talk about them next Sunday!

Without further ado, here are the questions. Don’t read them if you haven’t finished, because there are some spoilers!

Read the rest of this entry »

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January 12, 2012

The Marriage Project

Not long ago, I was introduced to The Marriage Project at Diverge. It’s a wonderful set of interviews with women who are in modern marriages and relationships that I was fortunate enough to participate in, and I encourage you to participate, as well. My interview follows, but here’s a little blurb about the project:

Chanel is invested in creating a space where women can honestly address questions that she doesn’t think we’re asked or encouraged to engage with around marriage. The Marriage Project is an exploration of marriage in the realities and imaginations of women. Through interviews, it asks women to confront, deconstruct and process the why’s, how’s and who’s of the institution, as well as its stereotypes and politics. Two discrete groups of women are currently being interviewed; heterosexual women married to heterosexual men, and heterosexual women who do not want to get married, with the knowledge that sexuality and gender are fluid constructs. If you’d like to learn more about the Marriage Project, contact Chanel Dubofsky at chaneldubofsky@gmail.com, or find me on Facebook and Twitter (@chaneldubofsky). You can see all the interviews up until this point at http://idiverge.wordpress.com/the-marriage-project/.

(By the way, women who are engaged or divorced are also welcome to contact me for interviews; they’ve just been doing so less frequently.)

Why did you decide to get married? 

Quite simply, I decided to get married because I fell in love. 

But why enter into a patriarchal institution that has been some form of ownership since… forever? That’s a different question. And a good one, at that.

Personally, I believe in marriage. And I believe in partnership. I believe that a strong and supportive marriage can not only make two separate lives feel whole, but can serve as an example of grace and love and strength and social consciousness and devotion and individuality and support. Of course, I am not able to ignore centuries of oppression in the form of marriage. However, I can work to subvert those notions and redefine what the term “wife” means to me. 

We toyed with the idea of waiting to get married until everyone had the right to do so, but then, after much thought and much reading, I realized that so many people who continually vote, speak, and work against marriage equality are married. They talk constantly about “protecting the sanctity of marriage.” Quite literally, the Defense of Marriage Act defends the sanctity of marriage by keeping LGBTQ people out of it. Considering the rhetoric that beats us over our heads day in and day out, being a married person that believes marriage shouldn’t be some exclusive club is quite powerful.

What did you think marriage would be like?

I’d like to say that I didn’t have any preconceived notions of what marriage would be like, but that would be a lie. Honestly, I had the worst ideas of marriage. I feared I would turn into the nagging wife; I feared I would lose myself completely; I feared my husband would want me just to have a family rather than to be married and foster a relationship; I feared I’d never be able to trust him with my hard-earned money; I feared getting stuck in a big house with pearls and a vacuum; I feared living in a suburb with the same job my entire life.

I was totally wrong, thankfully. My relationship with my husband has made me more secure in myself, and my creative pursuits. In fact, if I hadn’t been so worried about finding someone to love me, and if I hadn’t been so busy molding myself into what I thought (or was told) men wanted me to be, I might have started living my life this way much sooner. And, while we’ve decided to stay in the suburbs and not make the move to the city, we are so happy starting other, new adventures. Together.

Where do you think you got your ideas/concept/narrative about marriage?

I definitely got my ideas about marriage from pop culture. Growing up with shows like Everybody Loves Raymond and Friends, and going to undergrad with shows like Sex and the City, I wasn’t sure it was ever going to be for me. The single, city life looked so glamorous and I wanted to pursue that. When I moved to a small town to start my first job, and then moved home and started grad school and my second job (and met my husband), my life took a totally different path, and I started to realize that this path could be glamorous, too.

How do you feel about the word “wife”?

Some believe that the word “wife” is archaic. Oddly enough, I was a bit queasy about using the term “wife,” but was never all that bothered by the term “husband.” As stated above, I’ve made my version of the term “wife” into what it means to me, and that’s all that matters, plus it’s made me feel better about it. Once I was able to realize that, I became much more comfortable with the word.

Why did you make the decision you made about your name?

I didn’t change my name, nor do I use his name socially. I just kept it the way it is, and I correct almost everyone who assumes otherwise. It’s mostly because I’m a writer, and I never dreamed of seeing “Ashley Lauren SomeOtherName” on a bookshelf.

Honestly, I never wanted to change my name, and once I realized (probably from watching to some TV show or listening to some radio program) that guys had certain “deal breakers” that could end the relationship in a flash, I realized it was probably OK for me to have one, too. So when I started meeting guys that I thought I really liked, I’d tell them that keeping my name was my deal breaker. Every single one broke up with me almost on the spot. (Who knew this was such a problem!) Even my husband was angry with me. He didn’t talk to me for a few days after I told him I was keeping my name, and that was non-negotiable. I figured it was over. But then, he called me and we went out and talked, and he offered to hyphenate his name if I would hyphenate mine. I told him that was very sweet, but then asked if he would really like to go to the Social Security office and the DMV and then change all of his credit cards and billing statements to match his new name. When he said no, I said, “So why don’t we both just keep our names the way they are then? Much easier.” And he agreed.

Out of curiosity, I asked him what changed his mind. He said, “I thought about it, and realized that if I wasn’t willing to change my name, why should you be willing to change yours?” That was when I knew I would marry him. That was two months into our relationship.

Do you think your relationship with your partner has changed since you got married?

Oh yes. In the best way. We spent the first year of our marriage oscillating between delirious happiness and some of the worst fights I’ve ever had with anyone.  Now, we have become more comfortable together and are starting to function as a unit. We talk things out, and figure it out together. And I’m working on no longer being afraid of all that stuff I was afraid of when I entered this marriage. It’s a work in progress.

What have you learned about yourself since you’ve been married?

I’ve learned that I am all of the things I was always afraid I wasn’t. That I am smart. That I am passionate. That I am beautiful, and that I have really great legs. That I’m funny. That I can do whatever I set my mind to. That we can do something spectacular together.

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