The "F" word

Feminism. It's become such a trigger word in our society. My girlfriends, my daughter, my sister, and I wear it as a proud badge. To us, it means something important. It truly is about equality. I wrote what I hoped would be the beginning of a book (maybe it still will be) a year or two ago. I think it's even more important now.

I sat with a group of friends a few nights ago. The three of us chatted over adult beverages and 
appetizers. We talked about motherhood, jobs, husbands, fitness, money, the gamut! It struck me more 
than once the manner in which we would rail against the injustice of some condition of the modern 
woman in one breath and dismiss it as something we must just bear in the other.

My friend, the fitness instructor, complains nearly every time we talk about her job that the women talk 
badly about her. And worse, that every person who enters the gym where she works is so unhappy. 
No matter the level of fitness, they all are unhappy with their bodies. She wants to help them feel better
mentally and physically through exercise, but she feels she is only helping them and herself feel more
miserable. Then she sighs, sips her margarita, and moves to the next topic. I’ll confess I wanted to hear
her excitedly tell me about how she has thought of some new techniques to help them love themselves
more. She did not. I don’t know if this is because she fears it won’t be accepted, she does not want to
put in the effort, or that the disappointments and many practical responsibilities of life have rendered her
unable to catch that spark of idealism. I fear it’s the latter. Or maybe I’m just too idealistic. Maybe she's
tried and got stopped short by the trappings of bureaucracy.

These two same friends live feminism in a way that I find both intriguing and inspirational. They choose 
whether they work outside the home or not, and financial considerations are not their only motivations. 
They are both great moms that don’t parent by the rule book. And, though they’re great friends, they 
aren’t afraid to disagree or criticize each other.  In a few weeks, they will embark on a 5 week camping 
trip with their respective children. Their husbands will join them for portions of the adventure, but they will 
do most of it without them. We are not talking campers and hotel back-up plans, either. They have 
reserved campsites, sealed tents (I don’t even know how one seam seals a tent!), and even planned 
sleeping arrangements within their vehicles for the long drives. Accompanying these moms are SIX 
children ages ranging from 5 to 10!

Once they were on a smaller camping trip and had a flat tire. They fixed it themselves (I think AAA might 
have been involved), but were asked many questions along the way about how they were able to do so. Not just 
questions about the tire; questions about how they were camping without their men! This is one of the 
most poignant and personal expressions of feminism I’ve ever encountered.

Shouldn’t feminism be personal? Few people would suggest that everyone should have the exact same 
job for exactly the same pay, wear exactly the same clothes, or otherwise live cloned lives. Yet too many 
times, that’s what feminism becomes. We must all work outside the home and become executives. We 
must all dress modestly or dress immodestly (depending on which message we’re sending this month). 
I am not suggesting that these are not noble efforts to gain awareness and equality. I am instead 
suggesting that we personalize feminism.

Feminism and the fight for women’s rights has been compared to and linked with the civil rights struggle 
of people of color in this nation. What is the story most told about the civil rights movement? What really 
grabbed the attention of the nation and our history books? Rosa Parks on the bus. Or a random person 
being denied a seat at a lunch counter. Were these the greatest issues facing people of color in the 
South in the 1960s? I dare say not! Of course we are aware of voting rights, lynchings, disappearances, 
and other travesties, but it is so often boiled down to the very personal experiences of eating, drinking, 
sitting on a bus, and using a toilet. 

How can we apply that to feminism? Let’s start talking about what feminism means to each one of us. 
Not in a pedantic way that suggests what works for one woman works for all women. Let’s share our 
experiences and how we overcame our internal fears. Let’s share the times that we have felt 
persecuted and how we moved past it.

What's the Deal with Santa Claus?

What's the deal with Santa Claus? Is he an elf, is he a man, is he a myth? (That was my best Jerry Seinfeld impression. Please hold your applause...or rotten fruit...until the end of the post.)

Living in a house with a couple of smallish children, we have a lot of Santa Claus talk these days. My parents even sent a cute little message from Santa Claus to my son-a video of Santa talking to him...cute stuff!  Both my kids still believe in Santa Claus. My daughter (10) is crazy into Elf on a Shelf these days even. My son is learning about the whole thing. You ask him what Santa says and he says, "Santa Ho Ho Ho!" But then I think he's also a bit confused between Santa and God because he asked if he could talk to Santa in the sky the other day. He asked Santa for a Slinky Dog from Toy Story. We never actually took him to see Santa; he just asked him in the sky. Maybe this could work to our advantage-Lazy Parenting 101: teach your child they can talk to Santa like God and avoid the lines at the mall!

We also have been big into watching Christmas movies on TV this year. I like to watch the cheesy made-for-TV Christmas movies on channels like ABC Family and Lifetime. My husband watched part of one with me the other day and said, "What is this!?" I call it mind candy. But my son and I have been watching Polar Express a lot. We have the book and read it every year with my daughter. I had hoped to read it to my son this year but I can't find it! Anyway, the movie got me thinking.

There are three main kids in the movie. One is the main character, a little boy from a small town who is unsure about the existence of Santa. The other two are a little girl and a poor little boy, both of whom believe in Santa. The poor little boy is drawn in shabby clothes and says things like "Christmas just never works out for me." You get the idea that maybe he didn't get anything from Santa last year. He gets very excited when he discovers a neatly wrapped package for him from Santa.

I've been working with a group of people at my job lately trying to connect low income people in our community with people who can help them. We're not, for the most part, trying to be the help-just connect them with it. But in doing this, I've come much closer than I ever have before to poverty on a pretty wide scale. There are people in my community who will not have enough to eat tonight, who don't have a place to sleep tonight, and whose kids will not have gifts from them or Santa this weekend.

I don't write this to ask you to give them presents. If you do, great! But I wanted to write this blog post (I've been busy-sorry about the no posts for most of a year thing, assuming there are any readers to apologize to!) because my heart broke for those kids...and for the kids who will get something from Santa but don't realize other kids won't. All over the world, both kinds of kids exist. The kids who will have gleaming, new toys under the tree from Santa believe that every child in the world will also get a present from Santa. Maybe that's good: Santa is equal opportunity, no discrimination there. But it's also bad. They assume they will get gifts. They are not aware of the poverty and the hunger and the want of the children who will not get presents from Santa this weekend.

And what of those children? Will they think they're bad? Will think it is their fault the presents aren't there? That's what we tell them and the songs and TV shows tell them: you will get presents if you are nice and none if you are naughty. Is this what society also teaches? That if we are good and work hard, we will get rewards but if we are naughty and lazy, we will suffer. If we are in want and poor or hungry, it is because we did not work hard enough or didn't do something right.

I don't believe it. I don't like the thought of the child wondering what they did wrong to not receive presents from Santa and I do not believe that the only way to be poor is to be stupid, lazy, or bad. Does Santa just perpetuate this attitude?