Julia Alvarez’s A Wedding in Haiti – Ms. Magazine Blog

I’m on the Ms. Magazine Blog today, reviewing Julia Alvarez’s A Wedding in Haiti for your reading pleasure:

Feminist novelist Julia Alvarez (How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies), known for her clear, unaffected prose and her keen sense of justice, applies her powers of observation to her own life in a new memoir, A Wedding in Haiti. In her most intimate book to date, Alvarez delves into her own closest relationships–with her aging parents, her husband and a young Haitian man named Piti. Most of all, though, Alvarez takes us deep into her relationship with Haiti, a land that speaks to her while testing her bonds with others, her confidence in herself and her faith in humanity.

I really, really liked the book. So, you should go read my full review (no spoilers!) and then read the whole book. You won’t be sorry you did.

This Is What MY Face Looks Like

I’m sure you all have heard by now that Hillary Clinton was recently attacked by the media for deciding not to wear makeup in public. Yes, it’s true. Hillary Clinton, arguably most powerful female politician in our nation, is being picked on for having flaws in her skin and not covering them up with makeup.

Um, for real?!

My Fearless Females have tackled this issue before by not wearing makeup to school. Even before all this hoopla about Hillary, we knew that the beauty industry is a multi-billion (yes, you read that right) dollar industry. Makeup is something women are told is a fun way to express yourself, but underneath that, with images of bare-faced celebrities coupled with headlines showing disgust gracing every tabloid, what we’re really told about makeup is: you’d better wear it or else people will make fun of you. Hillary Clinton is just one more example, and the worst thing about it is that, no matter how successful or powerful you are, you are not safe.

How are we supposed to tell our girls (and ourselves) that they are beautiful just the way they are if this keeps going on?

Shelly Blair has an answer, and I think it’s brilliant. Over at Fair and Feminist, she’s started a campaign called “This is what a FACE looks like,” and I think it’s brilliant. She’s urging women to change their social networking photos to images of themselves without makeup for two days – on May 17th and 18th – to show the world what women really look like.

I’m all in. And here’s proof:

Will you participate?

Can’t I Just Work Out in Peace?

It’s been a while since I’ve written about being harassed at the gym. This is probably because, once Tim and I moved in together, I joined a gym that was closer to our apartment. It is also much more expensive and associated with a local hospital, so they offer many more services besides just a weight room, some cardio options, and a group fitness room. I think you pay for what you get in terms of gym memberships, and, unfortunately for many women, in order to not be harassed at the gym, they need to pay more for a nicer facility.

Since I started working out there a few years ago, I haven’t been harassed once. No men come up to me and try to tell me how to work out. They don’t yell at me across the gym, either. I don’t get hit on. I don’t get gawked at. All in all, working out at this facility has been a very pleasant experience.

A little while ago, though, and older man – maybe in his 70′s – started talking to me when I was on the bike. Thinking he was just a friendly fellow, I responded a bit, and then during a lull in the conversation, I made a show of putting my headphones in. He left me alone for the rest of my workout.

We must have very similar workout schedules, though, because since then, he has found me on every single morning workout I’ve done and stood in front of me to give me a thumbs-up sign. Now, I’m not one to turn down encouragement, but I do not like to talk to people at the gym at 5:30 in the morning, nor do I like the idea of anyone standing over me as I’m working out, whether they are giving me a thumbs-up or not.

Besides that, how does this guy know that I haven’t had some traumatic experience in my past with a stalker or someone who has gotten a bit too close to me. Standing over me to say hello during my workout could really be triggering to someone who has had a past traumatic experience. Fortunately, I have not, but I’m still left with a creepy feeling. I mean, I don’t even know this guy. I know he’s probably just trying to be nice, but I’m one of those people who believes that if you don’t know me, don’t talk to me.

I’ve tried every nonverbal communication option in the book. If I don’t look at him, he stands there till I do, sometimes trying to talk over my headphones. If I don’t smile at him, he doesn’t seem phased. If I turn away, he just yells hello loud enough to be heard over my headphones.

I’m not sure if this is harassment or not. Probably not. I mean, I did see him doing the same thing to another male patron a ways away from me the other day. But still, can’t I just go to the gym in peace? Shouldn’t my having my headphones in, not responding, not smiling, and turning away be enough of a hint for this guy?

Maybe I should just start working out at home.

Photo credit: lululemon athletica.

I Admit, I Love a Good Romantic Comedy

Objectively, I hate movies that fall under the romantic comedy heading. Modern romantic comedies are usually completely degrading to women, and almost always follow the exact same plot line: Boy meets girl. Girl and boy resist falling for each other for one reason or another. Girl meets another guy. Boy gets upset. (Or boy meets another girl; girl gets upset.) They fight and don’t talk for a while. Then, someone realizes they loved the other all along. Subsequently, they rush to each other’s arms and kiss and live happily ever after.

I think this has probably been the accepted format for romantic comedies for, well, ever. I can even think of some Shakespearean classics that follow the same story line.

Most often, the women in these movies end up looking either desperate for love or horribly confused. The men don’t fare much better; they are usually either portrayed as players or idiots. Definitely not representative of equal partnerships or great beginnings to relationships.

But I keep watching them. Over and over, I fire up my Netflix and go straight for the list of rom-coms. I watch and complain throughout the entire movie, but my outward whining does little to mask the “awwwwwww!” feeling I get when the music swells and the couple finally realizes they were meant to be together.

There is something comforting, I think, about the romantic comedy genre. It’s nice to be able to tune out for an hour and a half and know pretty much what is going to happen. Sometimes, that’s just what you need at the end of a long day. This is probably the same reason people so enjoy those awful, half-hour sitcoms on TV during primetime; we’ve worked really hard all day, and we want to watch something uplifting and mildly amusing with a narrative arc we don’t need to think too much about.

There’s also something to be said about the happily ever after. Romantic comedies have really ruined the way we look at relationships, to be sure. This genre would have us believe that, after the first kiss, they live happily ever after. Anyone who has ever been in any kind of relationship knows that just isn’t true. People fight, couples break up, and sometimes they really don’t get back together. However, sometimes it’s nice to feel like, in a world where it seems things rarely end like the fairy tales, sometimes things do work out. It gives you hope for humanity, in a way.

Even knowing that romantic comedies portray the genders in the ultimate of bad lights and ruin our view of realistic relationships, it’s sometimes just nice to watch two people end up happy.

And, hey, if they’re happy, who cares about equal partnerships? Even when talking about equity in relationships, aren’t we really talking about a way to find happiness with another person?

Image courtesy of he(art)geek.

How Do You Leave Work at Work When You Work at Home?

In the past, I have been really terrible at leaving work at work. As a teacher, it is really hard not to take things home with you. This year, however, Tim and I have made a really conscious effort to leave the work at work and only grade or plan at home during down time on the weekends. I have to say, it is really great to be able to do that. Sometimes it just isn’t possible; when I collect 135 essays, most of the time I need to grade a few of them at home, and, if I’m really determined not to take anything home, sometimes I have to come in early or stay late in order to get what I want done before I leave. However, leaving the work at work helps in a number of ways. First, it doesn’t make me resent the time I’m not spending with my family, thus allowing me to enjoy my job and my home life more. Second, it forces me to be more productive while I’m at work; when I’m there, I’m focused on my job and when I’m home, I’m focused on home. Third, it actually frees up a lot of time for me to do fun stuff with Tim, with my family and friends, and other work I also enjoy doing (like writing). All-in-all, it’s a great thing.

But, when I do write from home, I sometimes feel stressed and overworked and like I wish I had more time to spend with Tim. Even though it is personally fulfilling for me, I still feel like I should be doing other things like cooking, cleaning, or enjoying a glass of wine with my husband. Every time I decide to come home and throw a frozen pizza in the oven so I can work on writing some articles, I feel good about the fact that my writing life has gotten to a point where I’m very happy with it, but I feel bad about the fact that we are eating frozen pizza. Again.

When Tim decided to take on a second job last summer and keep it through the upcoming school year, I hated it. During the summer, it was fine, but when it wormed its way into our lives during the school year, it was awful; he was never home. Somehow, though, I feel my writing jobs are different. Why? Is it because I feel that my second job is personally fulfilling while his was not? Do I secretly like the stress of being a provider for my family? Do I secretly like the stress of being able to do it all?

This summer, I am going to devote time to my writing, but after that, I think I’ll have to come up with a better schedule. Right now, I am able to compartmentalize teaching and home, but not writing and home – probably because I do writing at home. But writing is a job like any other, and maybe having set hours for that job would be helpful in balancing my work and home lives.

Do any of you have second jobs? If so, how do you handle the work-work-life balance?

Photo Credit: gwdexter

Goodbye, GAB

By now, most of you in the feminist blogging community have probably heard that Gender Across Borders is closing its doors. From the site:

While we haven’t finished our global gender justice fight, due to several reasons, we can no longer function as the blog you are familiar with today. As fellow activist and friend Mandy Van Deven once told me, “Nothing lasts forever…that’s why we have so many beautiful ruins to visit.”

Gender Across Borders will be our beautiful ruin… For all of you who want to make a difference, I am inspired by the advice that Anne Frank gave in her diary, “How wonderful it is nobody need wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world.” If you have a dream or a passion to change something, whether big or small, just do it. I have met so many activists in the gender justice world who see activism as a struggle and time-consuming, and I’m not going to disagree with that. But if you want to make a difference, don’t wait a single moment because we need you and we believe in you.

As staff members, we’ve known about this for some time, but wanted to keep it quiet for a number of reasons. However, I can now officially say that I am deeply saddened by the absence that Gender Across Borders will inevitably leave in the blogosphere. While I have only been on staff for about a year, I started following GAB when it started in 2009 – about when I started this blog. We have a plethora of sources where we can access information about domestic feminist issues, but the places where we can find information about global gender issues is very small. Now, unfortunately, it is even smaller.

I am grateful to GAB for filling that void for so long, and I am grateful to have been part of such an amazing team. I have been able to connect with such wonderful people, and I have made some great friends. I’m also extremely happy to have been able to hone my writing, researching, and editing skills, which has led me to a position at Care2.

So, in short, thank you GAB and the GAB team for the wonderful year and for showing me what fighting for gender justice around the world truly means.

The Space Between

I’ve been thinking a lot about space, probably because I am getting ready to own some. I’ve also been listening to a lot of music, which only helps to foster my thinking. In particular, I’ve been listening to the band Explosions in the Sky, who, incidentally, appears on a Friday Night Lights soundtrack. They are a Texas-based band, which made them the perfect candidates for the show, which was also filmed primarily on location in Texas, and which supported the local Texan economy in many other ways. More importantly, though, Explosions in the Sky’s entirely instrumental music perfectly captures the feeling of the wide expanses of Texas skyline and the country roads and farm land that prompted Tim Riggins’ infamous plea: “Texas forever.” When you listen to Explosions in the Sky, you can see Tim Riggins clinking beers with a buddy, looking quietly and pensively out over a gorgeous expanse of land he hopes to call his home.

Rural Texas was the perfect setting for Friday Night Lights. Not because it is the football capital of the world, but because the show is about the quiet moments, the space between the games, the excitement, the big stuff. Rural living gives you that emotional space to collect yourself. Space, in general, gives you the ability to collect your feelings and internalize them. In my senior seminar paper for undergrad, I wrote about the hauntingly beautiful book, AVA by Carole Maso. The book itself is written in short, poetic lines that have lots of white space in between, and in my paper, I argue that the beauty of the book is in the ability of the reader to collect a personal, emotional response between the lines.

I’m no stranger to space. After living and teaching in a small town for a few years, I truly understood the emotional depths and self-awareness you could reach while driving along country roads. I knew it wasn’t for me, but I got it. I understood why you would want to settle down there, make a life there. Having the space to collect yourself, to fully experience your quietest emotions, is a privilege.

It was the rural living that prompted me, originally, to decide I wanted to move to the city. Experiencing my quietest emotions scared me, and I wasn’t ready to face the questions that raised – especially after I met Tim. Was I ready to be a wife? Did I want children? Had I done everything I wanted to do with my life? The hustle and bustle of the city seemed an oasis from that kind of thinking. There would be so much going on there, I thought, that I would no longer have to think about these questions. I would have so many things to do there that I wouldn’t have to make any of those big decisions.

The realization that we wanted to live in the suburbs was not an easy one. And, though I wasn’t thinking this way when the decision was made, as I was listening to my music and driving the other day, I pictured myself in our (huge) backyard at dusk, sitting and enjoying a glass of wine, watching the fireflies and listening to the crickets, and I was glad that I would have the space to quiet my mind, to explore my emotions, to just breathe.

 Photo courtesy of No Name Farm/Ranch

I’m a Causes Blogger at Care2!

Image via CrunchBase

Hey all! Exciting news! I am officially a Causes Blogger at Care2.com! That’s right, yours truly will be blogging several times a week about women’s rights and education!

My first post – about standardized testing and fostering a love of literature – is up right now, so go check it out. You can also view and subscribe to all of my posts here, or by clicking on the “Care2 Posts” link on the top of my page.

Never fear, though! I’ll still be here, blogging away about marriage and all that other stuff that makes me super happy. But, seriously, check out my posts at Care2! You won’t be sorry you did!

Being a Pro Writer is Like Being a Pro Athlete

LeBron sporting the Jordan tongue (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ll never forget sitting in our hotel room in San Diego in July 2010. We had just moved in together, and we were taking a pre-wedding, post-move-in honeymoon for me to present at a conference and to visit my cousin who had just moved out there with her new husband. I got out of the shower, and Tim had the television on. There was Lebron James, on a press conference, telling the world that he was moving teams.

“Does he really think everyone cares this much about him to watch this press conference?” I asked.

“He does,” Tim said, “and he’s probably right.”

Sports players have always struck me as self-centered egomaniacs who care more about themselves than anyone else. They think they are God’s gift to the Earth, and they don’t hide it at all. And all of their fans and their huge paychecks feed into the problem.

Last summer, the summer of 2011, I started writing more seriously. I wanted to get my name out there and maybe even make some extra money with it, though that wasn’t the main goal. I started feeling like I was a decent writer, and I wanted to see if I could get some pieces in legitimate outlets. I certainly think I succeeded in many ways. I’m happy with that list, anyway. But the hardest thing was, and still is, putting myself out there. Even when my writing isn’t personal, it’s still a part of me. It’s something I put time and effort into. It’s something I’m proud of. Asking someone else to read it and validate that feeling in the form of publication is nerve-wracking to say the least. It’s also somewhat humiliating to ask someone to publish your work. It sort of feels a lot like begging, in a way. Please, sir, read my work and like it. I think you will like it. What do you think? Did you get it? Did you read it? Did you like it?…

If I treated my pro writing career like pro athletes treat their careers, I wonder if it would be any different. If I walked around with my articles like they were the best articles known to humankind, maybe I would have even more success. Is that what the big names have that us little guys don’t: A sense of confidence that allows them to say, Hey, you can take this or leave it, but if you don’t take it, someone else will? When you have that kind of attitude, like you’ve got nothing to lose, I can only imagine that your writing would soar to new heights.

My goal last year was to get published in legitimate venues. Done. My goal this year is to be more confident in my writing. I have interesting things to say, and I have fascinating projects taking shape. People aren’t going to want to  miss out on what I have in store.

Now, if only I can keep that attitude up…

I’m not paying attention to the Mommy Wars

I have to admit, I haven’t really been following the new Mommy Wars all that much. Franky, it just seems like a way to get women mad at each other and shift their focus off of more important issues like, say, policies and laws politicians are trying to pass to take away our rights.

Like this one, for example. New Fed restrictions say that people now need to use their individual income, rather than their household income, to apply for a credit card. Which means stay-at-home parents who are not bringing in an income cannot get a credit card. Like the article says, this has far greater-reaching repercussions than just not allowing people with no income to get credit:

“A homemaker may make most of the household’s financial decisions, from paying the bills to buying groceries. But she — and by a 30 to 1 margin, it’s a she — is barred from taking out a line of credit based on income that, it cannot be doubted, she had a hand in earning,” Sekar said.

Approximately 98 percent of abusive relationships involve financial abuse, or withholding money or keeping a partner from earning it, Sekar said. The Fed’s rules on credit cards could magnify that problem.

This plays into the Mommy Wars directly, I should think. Now, not only do stay-at-home moms not make an income (which they should), but they cannot apply for lines of credit (which they should be able to).

Doesn’t this say something about how we, as an entire society – not as a few politicians or politicians’ wives or political commentators - view motherhood, caregiving, and homemaking? It’s no secret that the typically female-dominated ”caregiving” jobs (think teacher, nurse, daycare worker, etc.) are already some of the lowest paid professions because they are seen as second income jobs. Even with one of those jobs, though, I can get a line of credit. Being a stay-at-home mom, though, is the lowest paying (monetarily so – this is not to say anything about being paid in the reward of raising a child) job in the world. And now, they can’t even get credit cards. Seems ridiculously unfair to me, and something we should definitely be focusing on.

But, what do I know? I’m not a mom.