Posts by Ashley:
- Look good
- Drive a VW Beetle
- Type furiously
- Decline invitations to office parties
- Sue people
- Eat frozen meals because she has no time to cook
- Watch Sex & the City
- Enjoy some light reading before bedtime (aka really thick nonfiction)
- If I don’t get these papers graded, what’s the worst that can happen? (The kids might ask me if I’ve graded them yet, or parents might ask me what’s taking me so long.)
- If I take this night off from copywriting for my second job, what’s the worst that can happen? (Maybe the work won’t get done by the deadline, but I already negotiated flexible deadlines with my employer because I have a full-time job, and he understands. So… nothing.)
- If I ask my employer (the copywriting one, not the teaching one) to reduce my work load, what’s the worst that can happen? (He can say no.)
- If I pitch this article to this awesome magazine, what’s the worst that can happen? (They can say no.)
- If I don’t write a blog post today, what’s the worst that can happen? (I might lose readers, but they were probably not that interested anyway if they drop me after one day of inactivity.)
- If I quit blogging, what’s the worst that can happen? (I might miss it.)
- If I don’t get to the gym today, what’s the worst that can happen? (Probably nothing. I might feel kind of gross the next day, but it takes some ridiculous amount of calories to even make a pound of fat on a human being, and the chances that I would consume that many extra calories in one day are slim – no pun intended.)
- If I gave up my gym membership, what’s the worst that can happen? (Again, probably nothing because I am an active person and don’t necessarily need a gym membership to stay fit.)
- Serious writing (GAB, op-eds, published articles) – and this includes reading, for how do we write if we don’t read?
- Teaching like I mean it
- Spending time with friends and family (being a good person)
- Buying a house
Ms. Magazine Blog: Women – And Men – Aren’t “Born” Teachers
December 23rd, 2011Today, I’m on the Ms. Magazine blog with my piece about teachers as trained professionals! Here’s a taste:
My husband also chose a career in teaching. When people ask us what we do, I answer that I am a high school English teacher and they say, “Oh, how nice.” He, too, answers that he is an English teacher, and they say, “Oh, bless your heart!” The difference in those responses is subtle but significant. My choice is seen as unremarkable because the teaching profession is traditionally dominated by women; a 2007-2008 study found that 76 percent of public school teachers were women. My husband’s choice, however, is a noble one.
Perhaps the association between women and teaching is one reason conservative politicians seem to see teachers as easy targets. Last year, Wisconsin’s Governor Walker made headlines by stripping teachers of their collective bargaining rights and cutting their pay and benefits. He wasn’t the only one; governments in Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio and Tennessee tried to pass similar legislation in 2011. Many states are already in the process of crafting reform to reduce the power of teacher tenure, making it easier to terminate teacher contracts.
Perhaps these politicians are emboldened by the belief that women won’t fight back.
If so, they’re sorely mistaken.
Go read the whole article, share it, and comment!
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Little Girls and Modern Women
December 22nd, 2011Behold, readers. A cute, little girl playing a modern woman:
The Huffington Post seemed to think this is endearing. I happen to think it is disturbing. And not just because she is wearing an outfit I might actually sport, as well as has my exact same glasses, computer, and phone.
Am I the only one who thinks that this little girl playing grownup is actually really sad? Let’s break it down, shall we?
First, the stereotypes abound. Clearly, a modern woman must:
Is this truly how we see the modern woman? If so, we really do have some important work to do. It also makes me wonder how we would see the modern man… but I won’t go there.
Second, however, it absolutely concerns me that we are seeing a little girl play a grown-up woman. And I’m not sure what disturbs me more: that this little girl is growing up much faster than she should, or that the modern woman’s concerns are being trivialized (and infantalized) by whoever made this movie.
What do you think, readers?
Let’s Talk About Teaching
December 14th, 2011It’s the end of the semester. We’re all feeling the pressure. So let’s take a look at some of the more interesting articles about teaching I’ve been perusing this week!
“Where do teachers come from?” – Huffington Post
But even if most teachers come from the bottom two-thirds of college graduates, just what does that mean? Let’s do the math.
Begin with 100 eighth graders. After seven years (not five), how many will have earned high school diplomas or an equivalency degree?
Let’s be generous and say that 88 of 100 will have that credential.
Of those 88, how many will continue on with their education? Suppose 65 go on to a 4-year or a 2-year institution. After six years (not four), how many will have earned a 4-year degree and thus possibly be eligible for a teaching position?
Again, let’s be generous and say that 32 of 100 will have earned degrees.
That’s the group we draw our teachers from, and that suggests that our teachers come from the top 32% of our population, even if they are not at the top of that particular pyramid.
So our teachers come from an elite group — college graduates — to begin with. Where they rank within this elite is the issue, and it’s simply unfair to suggest that a large group of people in the top third is somehow fundamentally flawed.
Why does this matter? Precisely because one proposed ‘solution’ to our education crisis is ‘better people.’
“Teachers Have It Easy? Just Ask One.” – The Broad Side (This is a series. I highly recommend you check out the other posts, too!)
“Teachers are off of work at 2:30.”
Excuse me while I laugh my butt off at that comment.
bwaaaaaahahahaha*piddle*hahahhaahhaaaaa…
I’ll use the example of the elementary school at which I worked: Students were at school from 8:45 am to 3:00 pm every day (Wednesdays until 2:00). Teachers are required to be in their classrooms or working at school at 8:00 am and are allowed, by union contract, to leave after 3:30 pm every day of the work week. During the school day, teachers are scheduled for 22 minutes for lunch, and have a 50 minute planning period.
Now, just imagine the amount of papers to grade, detailed lessons to plan, papers to copy, bulletin boards to decorate, learning centers to prepare, documents to complete, books to read, spreadsheets to enter, department and school-wide meetings in which to participate, statistical information to compile, parent-teacher meetings to hold, and in-service classes to attend.
These cannot physically be done in that one 50-minute per day planning period, and 30-minute** span before and after school that’s provided for the teachers. (**I’m being generous with the 30-minute spans before and after children are in the classroom, because in my case, our principal required us to keep our classrooms open and available for students to enter, thus making teachers responsible for the students.)
I’ve not ever met one teacher, good, bad, or ugly, who can complete all of their required work in that 50-minute planning period and 30-minute span before and after school.
None.
“When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids” – The Answer Sheet – The Washington Post
A longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to do. He took versions of his state’s high-stakes standardized math and reading tests for 10th graders, and said he’d make his scores public.
By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. Enough time of his own to give serious attention to his school board responsibilities. The margins of his electoral wins and his good relationships with administrators and teachers testify to his openness to dialogue and willingness to listen.
He called me the morning he took the test to say he was sure he hadn’t done well, but had to wait for the results. A couple of days ago, realizing that local school board members don’t seem to be playing much of a role in the current “reform” brouhaha, I asked him what he now thought about the tests he’d taken.
“I won’t beat around the bush,” he wrote in an email. “The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a “D”, and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.
“Why so much disrespect toward teachers?” – Chicago Tribune
In general, most teachers are not opposed to a longer school day, but they want to know how the day will be used and that class size will be reduced. They are not opposed to feeding children breakfast, but they should not be employed to do it. They know economic times are tight, but they want honesty from the board. They are not opposed to merit pay, but they want it to be fair.
There are important conversations about teachers going on out there, readers. Stay informed and have an opinion, whether you are in the field or education or not!
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Review: Undecided: How to Ditch the Endless Quest for Perfect and Find the Career – and Life – That’s Right for You
December 12th, 2011
Undecided: How to Ditch the Endless Quest for Perfect and Find the Career – and Life – That’s Right for You by Barbara and Shannon Kelley – 3 out of 5 stars
The folks at Seal Press graciously sent me a copy of Undecided to review (and that was the only payment I received for this post), and I was super excited to dive into it. I suppose by now it’s no secret that I have, at times, been a little disillusioned with teaching, and have questioned my career path. I’m often told that I should be doing something “better,” and, while I wholly believe that there is nothing “better” I could be doing, that notion seems to seep in to my consciousness from time to time, nagging me to pursue other options. I also have a lot of other interests, like writing and going to school, so I have toyed with the idea of writing a book or getting my PhD. You could say that the grass is always greener for me, and that I would like to be incredibly “accomplished” – whatever that means. And this book addresses an epidemic of women my age who are experiencing these issues just like I am.
As far as defining this problem – “analysis paralysis” or the “grass is always greener syndrome” as they call it – this book was brilliant. The major premise that Barbara and Shannon Kelley present is that, since our mothers were all participants in the feminist movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s, we are now products of that movement. Whereas they may not have had choices for what to do with their lives besides being a teacher, secretary, or houseworker, we now have infinite choices, and we feel the pressure of these choices. Because we “can do anything,” as we’ve been told so often, we tend to think that this means we should do everything, and do it well. Since we are still women living and working in a world built for men, we not only have to do something awesome, but we have to do it awesomely. It may also be the case that, with so many options, we just can’t decide, and so we end up flitting around from job to job, not really quite sure if we are making the right decision for our lives, and trying really, really hard to make it all work.
The product of all of these choices coupled with the desire to achieve is that us young women end up overwhelmed and overworked. It should be no surprise to anyone that the women who were interviewed in this book were struggling with having children and working full time (or with the decision of whether or not to have children at all), and many of them wished that the decisions could have just been made for them. I have often felt this way, and I’ve told Tim as much. I’ve sometimes wished for a mortgage just to be able to say, “Oh, sorry, I can’t move across the country for some mythical job offer. I have a house!” Needless to say, I identified with the women interviewed in this book on that aspect.
However, that is where my personal connection with the book ended. The women in this book were extraordinarily successful by anyone’s standards, and many of them were considering leaving their high-end jobs for “easier” jobs in teaching. As you can imagine, this sentiment really bugged me, because, first of all, teaching is not easy, nor should it be a back-up. And second of all, there seemed to be a pervasive attitude throughout the book – especially when the older feminists were interviewed – that teaching wasn’t good enough for our generation of women. We need to fill in at the top! We need to climb that economic ladder! If there are no women leaders, the world will continue to be a man’s world! I honestly thought that the message of this book was going to be: “Decide what is right for you and do it. If that means you teach full-time, write on the side just for fun, and raise a family, then go for it if that makes you happy. Stop reaching for something more, because you’re doing great by anyone’s standards.” And, towards the end of the book, this was the message, but that was too little, too late for me. Nowhere did I see women with “pink collar” jobs (like teaching) interviewed for this book, and that left me feeling underrepresented.
Along the same vein, I felt that, for a book with a “how to” title, there was so much time spent identifying and proving a problem existed that there really was not very much time spent telling us how to fix the problem. Sure, “look inside yourself and decide what is best for you” may be great advice, but it’s a little lofty. I would have liked to hear more advice along the lines of one of the women interviewed in the book. I can’t find the exact quote, but it went something like this: When it comes to your career, think like a man. Realize you have to pay your bills, and find a job that accomplishes that goal, that you can live with and at times enjoy, and that allows you to do other things with your life. That’s the decision I had to come to. I’m sticking with teaching because I like it, and because it pays the bills and allows me to do other things with my life that I enjoy. Now, I have to come to terms with that decision, which I hoped this book would help me do. Unfortunately, in that aspect, I was disappointed.
Buy the book (and support this blog at the same time)!:
Barnes & Noble (eBook): Undecided: How to Ditch the Endless Quest for Perfect and Find the Career-and Life-That’s Right for You
Barnes & Noble (Print): Undecided: How to Ditch the Endless Quest for Perfect and Find the Career-and Life-That’s Right for You
Powell’s (Print): Undecided: How to Ditch the Endless Quest for the Perfect Career and Find a Job (and Life) That Works for You
Feministe: Feminist Friendly Marriages on Television… Or Not
December 6th, 2011I’m on Feministe today with my article, “Feminist Friendly Marriages on Television… Or Not“:
One year ago, I got married. As a heterosexual woman who has identified as a feminist for her entire life, the idea of marriage posed many philosophical issues for me, mostly because marriage has historically been an institution into which women have been placed, often against their will, and subsequently erased. However, knowing that I wanted to spend my life with this man and always being open to a challenge, I decided to take the plunge. And, believe it or not, fighting against patriarchal norms that come with the idea of marriage has been a piece of (wedding) cake compared to what it has taken for me to define myself as a wife in the face of what pop culture tells us wives in heterosexual relationships are supposed to be.
Of course, there are a wide variety of problems with portrayals of marriage on television. Where are positive images of same-sex marriage? Interracial marriage? Romantic cohabitation? The list goes on.
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January #Chifems Book Club Selection
December 6th, 2011
Attention, Chifems! We’re starting up the book club again! I know you all are as excited as I am for this. 😀 I am really excited!
Now that we have a place to house all of the Chicago Feminist events, I feel we’ll get more participation because we can spread the word farther, so I decided to start this group up again. I literally cannot wait! (Did I say that already? I think I said that already.)
We’ve selected The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht. It is a beautiful novel with both feminist and international issues and will be both wonderful to read and to discuss. From Goodreads.com:
Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation.
In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself.
But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel.
Grief struck and searching for clues to her grandfather’s final state of mind, she turns to the stories he told her when she was a child. On their weeklytrips to the zoo he would read to her from a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere; later, he told her stories of his own encounters over many years with “the deathless man,” a vagabond who claimed to be immortal and appeared never to age. But the most extraordinary story of all is the one her grandfather never told her, the one Natalia must discover for herself. One winter during the Second World War, his childhood village was snowbound, cut off even from the encroaching German invaders but haunted by another, fierce presence: a tiger who comes ever closer under cover of darkness. “These stories,” Natalia comes to understand, “run like secret rivers through all the other stories” of her grandfather’s life. And it is ultimately within these rich, luminous narratives that she will find the answer she is looking for.
Our tentative meeting date is scheduled for Sunday, January 22 at 1:00 PM. I’m open to suggestions as to where we should meet. I hope you can all join us!
To purchase the book (and help me earn some money) try these links:
Powell’s (print): The Tiger’s Wife
Barnes & Noble (print): The Tiger’s Wife
Barnes & Noble (Ebook): The Tiger’s Wife
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Review: He Said What?: Women Write About Moments When Everything Changed
December 4th, 2011
He Said What?: Women Write About Moments When Everything Changed edited by Victoria Zackheim (Click on the image to buy the book from Powells.com or the text to buy from BarnesandNoble.com and I will receive a sliver of the profits from the sale.)
A little while ago, Seal Press graciously sent me copies of several books to review, and this was one of them. I specifically requested this book because I was excited to see what a bunch of brilliant women had to say about what men have said to them that changed their lives. I was not disappointed. The essays in this collection were as diverse as the authors, though most of them did deal with either a man with whom the author was in a relationship or the author’s father. Considering these are the two most important men we ever encounter, it makes sense that women would write about them. Aside from that, though, the essays are extremely diverse. Some things said to the women are even positive, which I did not expect. There is also an essay by Maxinne Rhea Leighton that talks about her boss – a woman who wanted her employees to refer to her as a man because the business world is a man’s world and she was willing to do anything to get ahead (including poisoning the author!). Other highlights from the collection include one which moved me to tears: Colleen Robinson’s essay, “Brotherly Love” in which she talks about her brother’s coming out and subsequent battle with HIV/AIDS, as well as the essay that followed that kept the tears flowing, “My Real Father” by Rose Castillo Guilbault. “My Real Father” describes Guilbault’s struggle to accept her step-father, only to find out after his death that he truly considered her his real daughter. There are many, many more essays in this collection, each one as good as the last.
Victoria Zackheim did a wonderful job of organizing these essays, as well. One voice seemed to flow into another, and stories were placed in an order that connected them and made the book seem entirely cohesive. With such varied authors, this must have been no small feat, but Zackheim did quite well. This is an essay collection you can easily read from cover to cover rather than picking through to find the essays that appeal to you.
Reading this book, of course, got me thinking about what the men in my life have said to me that have changed the way I view the world. In my limited life experience, I already have several candidates for this, and I haven’t been faced with an affair or divorce like so many women in this book have. However, I think the best “He said what?” moment for me was when Tim and I were first dating and asked him what his favorite part of me was. Without hesitation, he answered, “Your legs.” From the time at 12 years old and I noticed my knees turned awkwardly inward and my thighs spread out like goo when I sat down until that moment, I had hated my legs so much that I wore jeans and long pants straight through the summer. But when he said that to me, I realized concretely that my perception of myself was off (even though I had known this theoretically for a long time), and it changed the way I dealt with my body image for the better.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the relationships between men and women, and, honestly, to any woman who has ever interacted with a man and thought, He said what?! In other words, I’d recommend this to every woman alive.
View all my reviews on Goodreads.
Buy the book! (And I’ll receive a commission!):
Powell’s: He Said What?: Women Write about Moments When Everything Changed
Barnes & Noble (Print): He Said What?: Women Write About Moments When Everything Changed
Barnes & Noble (EBook):He Said What?: Women Write About Moments When Everything Changed
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Do Political Views of Fiction Authors Matter?
December 3rd, 2011Recently, one of my former students came to me and asked for some book recommendations for over winter break because she had recently finished The Book Theif on my recommendation, and hadn’t been able to find anything that came close to its awesomeness since. (Note: I haven’t either.) Knowing she also loved The Hunger Games trilogy, I recommended several books with dystopian or fantasy settings, including Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I read Ender’s Game in junior high and was absolutely obsessed with it (it has a kicker of an ending!), and I thought she would really enjoy the book.
This morning, as I was browsing through my Google Reader, I found this article by Dave Astor, questioning “Should a Novelist’s Anti-Gay Marriage Views Matter?” in which he describes how he enjoyed Card’s Lost Boys so much he did some research on the author himself, only to find out that Card is vehemently anti-gay.
This struck me as particularly important this morning because the student to whom I am recommending this book came out to me last year, and we have remained in touch because I was supportive, and she was struggling with her family.
Now, it’s been a LONG time since I’ve read Ender’s Game, and, in seventh grade, I wasn’t too focused on anti-gay sentiments in fiction, but the only political overtone I recall seemed overwhelmingly anti-war. However, knowing other artists’ and corporations’ political leanings has lead me to seek entertainment and places to purchase products elsewhere. Knowing some of my friends’ political leanings has lead me to soften ties with them. So why shouldn’t it be the same with fiction?
The true question, for me, is: Can I truly enjoy a novel knowing that the author is homophobic, racist, misogynist, or otherwise actively preaches against my political views? And a more important question is: Can I share these authors’ works with my students who may be struggling with some of the issues about which these authors speak in their personal communications?
The fact of the matter is that, whether or not I can overlook novelists’ political leanings is unimportant in comparison to whether or not my students can. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend a book that has anti-gay (or anti anything else, for that matter) themes and, similarly, I cannot recommend a book whose author has anti-gay viewpoints. True, literature – like all great art – can be appreciated without knowing anything about its creator, but what if my student loved this book so much that she, too, decided to research Orson Scott Card, only to find out that he rejects her very being? No, I do not think I can do that.
I don’t know that I will research every single author out there before I recommend a book (maybe I should), but if I come to find information like this, I’ll have to cross the books off of my stock list of books to recommend to students.
Goodbye, Ender’s Game .
Such a shame that such great art has to be created by such awful artists.
Quick Hit: What Have We Been Teaching?
December 3rd, 2011This is one of the best articles I have read about the recent events at UC Davis. Read it. Now.
So, I am forced to ask this question, what have we been teaching, in our schools, in our homes, in our churches, in our everyday lives, that has allowed so many completely amoral people to not just be among us, but to rise to positions of responsibility?
How has a society, a global society, which once so condemned the actions of Mississippi Sheriffs (1960-1965), Chicago Police Officers (1968), Ohio National Guardsmen (1970), South African Riot Police (1970-1995), Chinese police and troops (1989), and the security forces this very year from Tunisia, to Libya, to Egypt, to Syria, become so accepting of official violence against our own children?
What have we been teaching? and what questions have we not been asking?
Seriously. Go read the article.
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I’m Not Nice
December 2nd, 2011Yesterday, I held my first rehearsal for the Contest Play, and I started by telling the students on my cast a little bit about myself. In my opinion, the most important detail I shared was that I am not nice.
When I said this, the students laughed. I just shrugged and said, “I’m not. And I think that’s really important for you to know.”
I went on to explain to them what I am, instead of nice: I’m honest, and I call it like it is. If you give a shoddy performance, I’ll tell you. But if I tell you gave a good performance, you’ll know I really meant it.
The students looked uncomfortable with this, and one student even asked me why I thought it was important for them to know this about me. So I told him.
I truly believe that most people – especially students – expect female teachers to be nurturing and motherly. Of course, this makes sense because teaching is a profession in which the majority (82% in 2005) are women, and in which those women deal with children. One might then assume that teachers are supposed to sooth and comfort rather than give honest and critical feedback. I, however, disagree. I am here to make sure my students learn and grow, and in a setting in which I am a coach and they are competing, we don’t have time for soothing and comforting. These students are here because they want to win, and I, also, want to win. So I am going to do what it takes.
When a male teacher criticizes, students often either do what he says or roll their eyes. If it is a coach that asks them to jump, they ask “How high?” In my experience, women coaches are perceived differently. When they demand something, the students whine or try to get out of it or try to pull the wool over their eyes, making it look like they did the work when they actually didn’t.
So, when I first meet my competitive drama students each year, I make sure they know what to expect, and, hopefully, they will understand that this doesn’t mean I hate them or think they are awful actors. It means that I have faith in their abilities and know they can do better. I am mostly the same way with my students in class, but for a competitive activity, this is especially the case.
Has anyone ever had an experience like this, whether in teaching or in life? Do people expect you to be nice because you are a woman?
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Teaching Tolerance: Personal Connections Empower Students
December 2nd, 2011Check me out! I’m on Teaching Tolerance today with my article, “Personal Connections Empower Students”:
I just started my sixth year teaching high school English. This year began with the same question as always: “How will I empower the young women in my classroom this year?”
I teach mostly sophomores, who are around 16 years old, such a delicate age for young girls, especially in a culture that routinely worries about the latest generation of boys. Teenage girls, like their male counterparts, are trying on so many different hats that, as a teacher, I’m sometimes not sure which personality I will encounter on any given day. So every year, I try to teach as much literature by women as I can, but I find it never seems to be enough.
As I reflected on my annual question, an unexpected answer came to me. I stood in front of the class, introduced myself and told them a little bit about myself: I’m married, we have a dog, I like to cook—the usual. After this, they had to fill out a form and put my name on it, so I wrote it on the board: Ms. S____. A hand shot up in the air.
“But I thought you were married,” the student called out.
“I am,” I responded.
“So shouldn’t you be Mrs. S____?”
I told the class that I didn’t change my name when I got married, and I briefly explained the difference between Miss, Ms. and Mrs. Then, I noticed a hand raised in the back of the room. It belonged to a girl who hadn’t said a word all day. I called on her and she paused for a second to search for just the right words before asking, “You have a choice to keep your name when you get married? I didn’t know that.”
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I am, most definitely, mad.
November 28th, 2011
Image via Wikipedia
Today was the first day back at work after a wonderful Thanksgiving break. And I opened my inbox – which I had not checked even one time over break because I refused to get sucked into work on my time off – to five different emails asking me to do five different, time-sensitive things. And this was on top of the five different time consuming things I had been asked to do before break. And on top of that, I have my first rehearsal on Thursday for the contest play and the 162 (yes, I counted) papers I had to grade as well as meetings scheduled before school tomorrow, and during my off hours tomorrow and Friday. The off hours and morning hours I use to grade papers and do the ten things that are still on my to do list because I’ve been asked to do them.
I’m not saying any of this to complain. I’m not even trying to make the point that teachers do, actually, work hard. Rather, I’m saying it because, after I filled in my calendar and to do list with all of the things that had to be done, I thought to myself, When on Earth would I ever find time to have kids in this mess?
As we all know, I’m not sure if I want kids at all. In fact, I’ve written about this several times. And here. And here. Oh, and here.
But I am open to the possibility of having kids, and I do like children. They’re cute and cuddly most of the time, and even pregnancy is getting less and less scary to me by the minute. I have many friends who have been pregnant and then lived to tell the tales, and it’s starting to seem like I, too, could possibly live through a pregnancy if I put my mind to it. But I absolutely cannot imagine having a child and having a career. I know lots of women do it, but I wonder, at what point, do we become good enough at raising children as well as at our careers rather than being really excellent at just one of those things.
I just don’t think I can do both at the same time. Plain and simple.
So when I caught wind of this article about Nancy Pelosi and how people look at her as a woman who has it all, including children and a career, it got me thinking, because she explained to her audience that she actually didn’t have a career and raise kids at the same time. She, like so many women of her generation, took time off from her job to stay home with her kids, and then went back to build her career. And was wildly successful. According to Belkin, however, we don’t have that option anymore:
There was a moment in time when women could live their lives serially — have their children during the 1950s and 60s, when not much more than that was expected of them; launch those children by the 70s and 80s, when doors were newly opened to women. Pelosi, now 71, was of that moment. So were Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, 81, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 78. Both graduated from law school during the 1950s, then spent years on the slow career track or as a stay-at-home-mother, and came roaring back when their children were older.
That route, however, isn’t really open to women any more. If today’s young women were to do the same — have their children young, expect to get started on a career when those children were grown — they would emerge to closed doors.
Which leaves them facing a different set of options. They can do what Pelosi herself says she could not have imagined doing: raising children and working full-steam-ahead for pay. Or, they can get a running start in the workplace, hoping to build up momentum, then step out or ratchet back for a few years and gamble that they can ramp up again some day.
Or they can just not become mothers at all.
Which is probably the pressure I am feeling at this point. Because she’s right. By the time I get around to having kids, I won’t be a young mother by any stretch of the imagination, so if I leave my job, I’ll be expected to either stay home for good or find something else to do, and spend another ten years working my way up the ladder. And by then, I’ll want desperately to be retired.
According to Barbara & Shannon Kelly, we should be really mad about this:
In a recent interview with the Observer, Steinem is quoted as saying:
“I think we need to get much angrier about childcare, about flexible working patterns. It’s alarming to me that women are still encouraged to blame themselves. No one can do it all. If I had $5 for every time we’ve tried to kill off superwoman, I’d be very rich. But women are planning their lives, they have choices, and that didn’t happen before, believe me. We thought our husbands and children would dictate everything.”
Childcare, flexible working patterns, blaming ourselves, trying to do it all: um, yeah, of course we should be mad! I think many of us are. The trouble is, hell if we’re gonna admit it. Most of us won’t even cop to being pissed when we’re fighting with our significant others. Be honest, now: Who among you hasn’t said “I’m not mad!” …in a raging fit of anger?
Well, me, for one, (it is, after all, the subject of the majority of the past year’s worth of blog posts on this site) but I’d like to add my MAD voice to this one, too, because I am mad. I’m mad that I feel like I can’t have kids and a career because I would actually really like to have both of those things. I’m mad that I have to choose between a fulfilling career and a fulfilling family life. I’m mad that, if I do have kids, people will write me off and assume I don’t have time to do the things I used to do, and I’m mad that I actually won’t have time to do the things I used to do. I’m mad that it’s actually not a choice; it’s a society that demands that you either give up everything to have a kid or give up having a kid to have everything else.
Frankly, if I felt I could take some time off to raise my kids and then go back to my career, I’d have kids. But, I can’t for many reasons. First, the doors will be closed. Second, I’ll have to work until I’m 70 before I see my full pension. Third, there is just no way we can survive on one income with just the two of us, let alone with a baby. The list goes on.
So, yea, I’m mad. I’m mad that I live in a society that makes me choose between these two fulfilling things in life. I’m mad that if I don’t choose and try to do both, I’ll only ever hope to achieve mediocrity in both areas of my life. I’m mad that men don’t have to make these choices.
Yes, it is safe to say that I am, most definitely, mad.
What’s the worst that can happen?
November 27th, 2011This year – 2011, that is – I started by adopting a new mantra. In every situation that seemed really terrible, I’d ask myself, “What’s the worst that can happen?”
I could write an entire blog post about each one of these bullet points, but it’s the last two that have been haunting me for the past week or so, because it was the last two that were hardest for me to accept.
I have always gone to the gym almost every day. And if I didn’t go to the gym every day, I would beat myself up about it or guilt trip myself into doing some yoga late at night or an extra workout the next day to make up for lost time. To be honest, I actually liked going to the gym (most of the time). It was a time to collect my thoughts, blow off steam, be alone for even just an hour, and it made me feel really good to work up a sweat.
Then, I got married.
I didn’t want to lose weight before my wedding, but I wanted to look GOOD (duh) and getting myself to the gym was part of that. No matter how stressed out I was, no matter what wedding vendors I needed to meet with or which party I needed to attend, I had to get to the gym. And because it was becoming something I had to do rather than something I wanted to do, I hated every minute of it. Then, after the wedding, the pressure was on not to be that woman who gained 20 pounds in her first year of marriage. As you might expect, I hated going to the gym after the wedding, too, because, frankly, I could have cared less if I gained 20 pounds. All I really wanted was for people to stop talking about weight, and I wanted people to stop judging me for how much I gained or lost depending on my marital status. (People were probably not judging me, but when everyone you know has gotten married and is complaining about how much weight they’ve gained since the big day, it’s hard not to notice a pound or two on yourself, as well.)
Around this time, we adopted Penny, and I started walking outside more and I realized, Hey, this is fun! I should do this instead of go to the gym! So I dropped my gym membership and made it a point to walk her a few miles every day. That was great. And then school started, which seriously diminished the time I had to go walking with her. But I kept it up as best I could, because the thought of going back to the gym was almost unbearable. And then we almost stopped walking her all together because of the rain and the early darkness and the fact that we both just get so busy in the year. For the past month, I have been taking her outside to do her business and then right back in, and I haven’t been making much of an effort to supplement that activity.
And what happened? Nothing. Not one single thing. My weight remained stable.
Of course, I felt lazy and lethargic, what with going from lots of activity to almost none, and I probably lost some muscle mass and gained some fat, which could account for the stable weight. But my clothes still fit, I didn’t gain copious amounts of weight like I was afraid would happen, and I wasn’t even watching what I ate.
However, it was this lazy and lethargic feeling – compounded by the onset of the holiday eating season – made me go back to the gym and get my membership back. I went on Friday, and again today and I feel awesome. But I’m back for the right reason – to feel good – and with a new outlook. After all, if I miss a day – or a week, or a month – what’s the worst that can happen?
I swear, I’m coming back
November 23rd, 2011Well, I said I was coming back, and then I posted nothing for a week.
I promise you, readers, I AM coming back. With a vengeance. Just as soon as our Internet starts working again.
Yes, in true Thanksgiving irony (I finally get a break, so the Internet must fail, yes?), we have had no Internet access for the last few days because our modem died. We’ve only had it for a year and a half, but it is dead. So we need to wait until the company (I’ll give you a hint: it starts with “C” and ends with “omcast.”) gets out here today to fix it.
Even though I am on my sweet, new iPhone 4s, I still hate blogging on my phone, so instead of a real post, I’ll give you a preview of what’s to come.
*Motherhood and careers – women can’t do it all, all of the time
*Overworking In general
*PhD programs and ambition – for myself
*The importance of doing what you love, even if you are not paid for it
*And much more
Stay tuned, kids. I’ve got all this and much more up my sleeve.
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You can take the girl out of the blog…
November 17th, 2011… but you can’t take the blog out of the girl.
After an hour of wandering around the apartment, checking Twitter and Google Reader and Tumblr and Facebook obsessively, whining about how bored I was, I looked at Tim and said: “I think I’m going to start blogging again.”
And he said: “Yes. You are. Please stop whining.”
So, here I am. Again.
You’ll notice I changed my theme (again), and removed the ads. I’ve discontinued my relationship with BlogHer ads in an effort to make this a stress-free (read: not monetized) writing environment. It’s helping already. I’ve also updated my blogroll, included a page of places I’ve been published, and linked to my professional site. I’m a writer AND a teacher. In the past month, I’ve worked on owning the writer part of that statement. Now, I’ve put all my writing information on here, so I’m excited about that. Finally, I’ve changed a few categories. I’ll be writing more with a focus on gender under the subheading of activism (because writing IS activism!) rather than about feminism. The difference is subtle, but the difference is there.
Hopefully some of you readers stuck around for the past month. Hopefully I can find some new readers, too.
I’m glad to be back!
Review: How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
November 17th, 2011
How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran was selected for this month’s A Practical Wedding Book Club. Being a devout follower of A Practical Wedding, a lover of all things feminist, and mostly because my pal, Jillian, asked me if I’d like to go with her to the meeting, I ordered my book immediately. And that’s where the fun began.
Caitlin Moran is decidedly British. This might seem obvious to those of you who have read anything by or about her, and I knew that before I cracked open the book – I did, after all, have to order it used from a vendor in the US because it is only available new from the UK – but I did not expect her writing to be so, incredibly, British. There were so many references to British pop culture she made as what I assumed were jokes, but could only assume such because, if I had taken the time to look up all of the references I didn’t understand, it would have taken me three months to read the book, still reading every day. As I was reading, I could almost hear myself reading with a British accent. This was not, however, what earned the book a three-star review.
Moran is a bold writer, and she has to be with the subjects she covers. From her puberty – described in detail – to her awkward teenage years, to her acceptance of “strident feminism” as she calls it, through her marriage and childbirth and rearing, she absolutely covered what almost every woman goes through in her course to be, well, a woman. However, it was her bold writing (LOTS OF IT IN ALL CAPS, UNEXPECTEDLY) that had me wishing the book was about half the length it was. While I’m not sure what subject I could do without in the book, I do think she went on quite a few tangents that weren’t all together necessary, and it did make the book difficult to continue reading. In the same vein, I wish I had more time to read it, which would have given me more space to digest what it was she was saying.
I, for sure, could have gone without the broad, sweeping generalizations about women she made. From “women should have children” to “women shouldn’t have children” and all through the description of her wedding, which made her assume that all women secretly (or not so secretly) hate their wedding, seemed a bit much. It’s one thing to be A Practical Wedding, accepting everyone’s idea of the perfect wedding. It’s quite another to say women don’t have any fun at their weddings and, therefore, should just give up on the whole thing. (I, for the record, had the most fun I had ever had at my wedding, though the planning was a bit arduous at times.)
That said, there were some wonderful parts to which I found myself fist-pumping in agreement. This, for example:
If you look recognisably, straightforwardly human – the kind of reasonable figure a ten-year-old would draw, if asked to sketch a person in under a minute – then you are fine. … If you can find a frock you look nice in and can run up three flights of stairs, you’re not fat.
Preach, sister.
Also, this:
We need more women who are allowed to prove their worth as people; rather than being assessed merely for their potential to create new people. … Whilst motherhood is an incredible vocation, it has no more inherent worth than a childless woman simply being who she is, to the utmost of her capabilities. To think otherwise betrays a belief that being a thinking, creative, productive and fulfilled woman is, somehow, not enough. That no action will ever be the equal of giving birth.
Yes, Caitlin Moran. Yes.
So, all in all, the book was a good, feminist read. It was also very funny at times. Rarely do I laugh out loud at a book, causing my husband to give me the eyebrow from across the couch. I would definitely recommend it to a feminist looking for a break from feminist theory and a foray into feminist real-life.
Buy How To Be a Woman from Powell’s, and I’ll receive a piece of the profit.
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Review: Follow My Lead: What Dog Training Taught Me about Life, Love, and Happiness
November 17th, 2011
Follow My Lead: What Training My Dogs Taught Me about Life, Love, and Happiness by Carol Quinn – Purchase Follow My Lead from Powell’s Bookstore via this link and I’ll receive some of the money from your purchase. All comission from the sale of this book will go to the Naperville Area Humane Society, where we adopted our dog, Penny.
Perhaps we’ve forgotten, but dogs are not furry people, they are animals. Sure, we should train them to fit in with civilized life – to a certain degree. The rest? It’s golden. The imperfections, the flaws – they are precious to me. They both infuriate and amuse me. They also remind me of my unfinished self. There is a part of dog behavior that I just like to watch. It reminds me of the truth about life, and each time I see their oddness, I feel a bit better about my own. – Carol Quinn, Follow My Lead
My husband, Tim, and I just adopted a dog in May. We named her Penelope (and call her Penny) because he and I met in a graduate class about The Odyssey. She absolutely changed our lives. From the moment we brought her home, she would come sit with us on the couch, or lean against our legs and look up at us with the intense desire to belong to our family. She is absolutely the best dog. Ever. No, I am not biased. For a shelter dog, she also had surprisingly few quirks. She didn’t chew, pee on, or eat anything she wasn’t supposed to. She didn’t jump, scratch, bite, or bark. The only thing that seemed to stress her out was when we left and had to put her in a crate. Nevertheless, we enrolled her in a beginner training course at a local pet store because it seemed like a good idea to be able to give her basic commands in case she ever decided to jump or charge at someone or something.
Through our 8-week training program, I learned more about patience, love, rewards, humor, and how to get results than I have ever learned, even in my 5+ years of teaching. This training class, albeit short and relatively simple, seemed to be more about training the owners than the dogs. Say the command one time. Be authoritative. Be patient. Give rewards immediately. Correct bad behavior immediately. Needless to say, this training course not only made me a better dog owner, but also a better teacher and person, because so many of these ideas apply with people, as well.
So imagine my excitement when Follow My Lead by Carol Quinn came in the mail from Seal Press (I did receive a free review copy, but no other comission for this work). In this memoir, Quinn discusses her experience with agility training with her two Rhodesian ridgebacks, Nairobi and Sheila and a strict instructor, Irena. She chronicles what she learns with the dogs and applies it to her life – mostly her writing, advertising business, and a seemingly dead-end romantic partnership with a man named Henry. At times, the metaphor of training-to-life can seem a bit heavy handed, it is never a stretch. Quinn applies what she has learned about training her dogs to her experiences with remarkable clarity and humor. It is clear that she loves her dogs and, above all else, wants to do right by them and give them a good home and good experiences, and that is something to be respected. Throughout the book, she exists to help her dogs live the best lives they can, rather than inviting them into her home so she can enjoy their presence, and she happens to learn a few things along the way.
Much of the style of the book felt as if she had written several blog posts and mashed them together into a book, which did make it difficult to read at times. Many of the sections started with a description of dog training, followed by an instance in her life to which she applied what she had learned, or vice versa. Her sentences and paragraphs were often short and choppy – a device, I presume, that was used to try to keep the reader’s attention rather than create a halting sort of prose which, I felt, was the actual outcome. However, overall, the book was heartwarming, relatable, at times funny and at times deeply emotional. I would recommend this book to any dog lover.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
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Doing Fewer Things Better
October 12th, 2011I have been struck with the notion that I’m doing too much.
Writing here, writing at GAB, doing admin tasks for GAB, trying to get articles published, trying to make some extra money so we can buy a house and take a vacation, trying to write an Op-Ed after the awesome Op-Ed Project seminar, teaching like my hair is on fire, reading (at all), being a good wife/daughter/friend/pet owner/human being… It’s all exhausting.
So I started thinking… what if I could do fewer things better? What if I could throw all of my focus into a few things and really focus on just those things? I’d probably be happier, less stressed, and I’d definitely beat myself up less for getting nothing done because, with a shorter to do list, it would look like I was accomplishing a lot more.
I had to prioritize. What was most important to me? Here’s what I came up with, in no particular order:
That’s still a lot of priorities, but it seems like a smaller list, yes? Less overwhelming, for sure.
But, unfortunately, blogging isn’t on there. It’s not that I don’t love blogging. I do. I like being able to spew whatever it is I want on a blog, but I also feel like I’ve sort of outgrown Small Strokes. I started it to chronicle my endeavours through grad school, then I got engaged and I wrote about that, then I got married and wrote about that. Now, we’re through the first year and everything I could say about us seems to have been said – for a while, at least. And I’m starting to feel pigeonholed. I’m sort of sick of being the “feminist wife” and I’d like to focus on more serious writing of different subject matters. It’s also sort of ridiculously hard work to make a blog successful; you have to update it frequently, you have to think of things to write, think of things that are appropriate to write for your audience, and on top of it all, you aren’t even paid that much. Not to mention you don’t get much for ads on the site, and you have to update really frequently to even keep the ads let alone make any revenue from them. I’m not saying blogging is all about money, but considering what other venues for writing pay, this is next to nothing, and if one of my priorities is buying a house, I need to think about those things.
All this is to say that I’ve decided to take a break from Small Strokes. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with it from here on out (and it will remain here for probably at least another year because that’s what I paid for with my hosting site), but I’m going to try to follow other pursuits for a while. Never fear; if you still want to read some of my writing, I’ll be over at my personal site blogging occasionally, mostly about books and maybe my life a little, but not as much as I did here. I’ll also probably be on Tumblr from time to time. I just want blogging to be fun again, not a job.
I’ve taken many breaks from Small Strokes, as you know if you’ve followed me for a long time. And this might just be another break. But it might not, depending on how things pan out. Either way, you all have been an incredible audience, and an inspiration to me on so many levels. Thank you for your comments, questions, guest posts, and overal support. And I hope to see you over at my other site!
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Becoming Interdependent (Or, Our Anniversary)
October 9th, 2011
“Oh my gosh, a year ago you got married! Can you even believe it’s been a year?”
I’ve been hearing this a lot lately, and, honestly, I can absolutely believe it’s been a year. Looking back, time has sort of flown. Or, at least, at this time last year, I couldn’t even picture making it this far or what this year would even look like and now, all of a sudden, we’re here, looking at another October, looking at each other and looking ahead to the rest of our lives.
This past year has been full of trials and errors, joys and anger. I can honestly say there has never been a year in which I have worked as hard, been as introspective, been as retrospective, been as afraid and nervous, and cried as much as this past year. And I can also honestly say that there has never been a year in which I have laughed as much, been as proud, learned as much, and felt as connected as this past year.
But this year hasn’t been about us. I mean, it has, in the sense that it has been about Ashley and Tim, but this year hasn’t been about us functioning together so much as it has been about us learning how to function apart. Instead of trying to come together right away and learn how to be strong in our interdependent relationship, this year has been all about trying to preserve our identities while creating a marriage. As you can imagine, that’s created more tension than progress.
I’m finally starting to realize that being a little dependent on someone isn’t always a bad thing, and that leaning on each other and fostering each other’s successes and building up each other’s spirits and supporting each other’s endeavors can, actually, help us become better people apart than we ever could be, but to do that, we need to function more as a unit than as two people who happened to marry each other.
Furthermore, I’m finally starting to feel comfortable in my own skin, in my own apartment, and in my own marriage. For an entire year, I felt unsure of who I was now, who I was supposed to become. I wanted to be an activist, a writer, a teacher, a wife. I wanted to redefine what it meant to be a wife and a teacher. I wanted to rescue a dog and spend all my spare time with my husband, cooking excellent meals and reading books. I wanted to always be the one with the cute clothes and the excellent sense of style. I wanted to be the perfect hostess. The perfect wife. The perfect woman. Perfect. And I believe this drive toward perfection started with the perfect wedding.
I took on too much, and I lost myself in the process.
But, through our mutual support and our marriage, we’re not only finding ourselves and each other, but we’re finding our partnership. We’re finding humor in the imperfections, allowing ourselves to make choices that will affect the rest of our lives without fear, realizing that we don’t have to make a move to the city to be young and hip and fun, and that our friends will still be our friends even if we turn them down so we can spend some much-needed time together. We’re writing articles and running marathons. We’re giving a wonderful dog a good home. We’re teaching like our hair is on fire.
We’re doing well, and we’re doing good. And we’re doing it together as much as we’re doing it apart.
I’ll never forget how special our wedding day was. I’ll never forget how perfect our love was, and how loved we were. I’ll never forget how beautiful I felt, how lucky I felt. But, now, a year later, looking forward rather than back feels good; it feels right. Exactly one year from the time I was walking down the aisle, Tim and I will be celebrating his first marathon, my strides with my writing, our successful first year of marriage, and all the years that are to come. And we’ll do it with our wedding video, year-old champagne, and thawed wedding cake in a hotel room in Chicago as Tim ices his knees. And it will be perfect.
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Our Anniversary is Coming Up!
September 30th, 2011I just wrote and scheduled my post about our anniversary. Yay! It’s only a week away. 🙂
And, as a nice early anniversary present, our picture is on A Practical Wedding’s anniversary post today! Yay!
Happy Friday, everyone.
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