Author: Rachel

As a feminist, progressive thinking, academically minded individual, there are a lot of things in culture and media that I have strong opinions on — equality, education, and self-love to name a few. The thing is, as much as I cherish these things conceptually, it can sometimes be a real challenge to practice what I preach when I live in a world that constantly promotes exactly the opposite. I preach about the absurdity of beauty standards and expectations for women’s bodies, but I go to the gym every day to work toward a similar goal. I could argue to the death that women can do anything as well as men, but sometimes I catch myself looking for a male employee to help me with my electronics or repairs. I catch myself using the word “gay” or “retarded” as colloquialism for something inferior, though I would never think of the people who identify with these terms in an inferior way. It can be really difficult for all of us to be politically correct all of the time and I think all of us slip. I don’t think, however, that that makes us hypocrites, rather it makes us human.

We live in an extremely flawed society which we directly and indirectly perpetuate through many of the things that we do — reading tabloids, going on diets, looking away from problems of racism and sexism, etc. because otherwise we’d have to admit that we’re a part of the problem. We’re all a part of it, but that blaming (self or otherwise) isn’t going to solve anything. At the end of the day I think we need to unite in becoming better at catching ourselves and gently, lovingly, catching those around us. Everyone is so filled with fear of saying the wrong thing that we end up silencing ourselves, refusing to enter into the conversation, and thus further hindering progress.

What we need most right now are voices that are humble enough to admit they’re wrong, voices that are willing to speak when necessary and also listen, voices that empathize, voices that ask for help to learn. As a white heterosexual woman I often feel like I have no right to speak to issues of race or sexuality. Jackson Katz, creator of the Mentors in Violence Prevention program eloquently addresses this issue in his TED Talk called Violence Against Women–It’s a Men’s Issue:

“In the U.S., when we hear the word “race,” a lot of people think that means African-American, Latino, Asian-American, Native American, South Asian, Pacific Islander, on and on. A lot of people, when they hear the word “sexual orientation” think it means gay, lesbian, bisexual. And a lot of people, when they hear the word “gender,” think it means women. In each case, the dominant group doesn’t get paid attention to. Right? As if white people don’t have some sort of racial identity or belong to some racial category or construct, as if heterosexual people don’t have a sexual orientation, as if men don’t have a gender. This is one of the ways that dominant systems maintain and reproduce themselves, which is to say the dominant group is rarely challenged to even think about its dominance, because that’s one of the key characteristics of power and privilege, the ability to go unexamined, lacking introspection, in fact being rendered invisible in large measure in the discourse about issues that are primarily about us. And this is amazing how this works in domestic and sexual violence, how men have been largely erased from so much of the conversation about a subject that is centrally about men.”

Though this is more specifically tailored to gender violence, he makes an important point about the silencing of the dominant group. It is not our fault that our culture is flawed, it has become this way over the course of a long and messy history; what is our fault, however, is choosing to remain silent. Our voices are needed, voices that are willing to be learn to speak the language of respect to those populations that have been historically degraded by the dominant population. It’s time to establish a more forgiving and open dialogue so that we don’t feel as though we have to tiptoe around these issues for fear of saying the wrong thing. So, instead of tiptoeing, instead of feeling guilty for hypocritical slips, instead of pointing the finger at people who say something politically incorrect, it’s time to come together as a community and talk about the hard stuff.

*This post was largely inspired by a performance by Antonio Lyons, creator of the WE ARE HERE project. More information about this can be found on his website.

Freshman year, as I walked back to my dorm, I pondered how my sense of humor had taken a shift over the course of the semester. My wit had sharpened, my sarcasm become more dry, and even my laugh had begun to sound like that of my roommate. She was rubbing off on me. Much earlier in my life, as I was struggling to figure out my adolescent identity, I asked my mom in a panic “is it bad to take bits and pieces of the things you like in other people and do those things too?” I was terrified of becoming an emotional version of Frankenstein’s monster, but she assured me that this was only natural. It’s really amazing to think about the people who have shaped me and inspired me to act better, think more critically, and embody their good qualities in myself. Learning the lesson that it’s okay to be a “copycat” when it comes to finding yourself also showed me that it’s okay to change. In early high school, everyone’s biggest fear was always that of change. Whenever a pair of friends would drift apart, the mutter of “she’s just so different now” was always cast as a sort of blame on the changed one. When I said that leggings weren’t pants and I’d never be caught dead in them, but a few months later found myself sporting them on a regular basis, I had changed. When I walked into my first course on women’s literature, I did not identify as a feminist; I have changed. The ides exchanged in that classroom and all of the things I loved about my professor changed my thoughts about myself and my own identity. This is not a bad thing. The fear of hypocrisy and the fear of becoming someone you weren’t a few months ago overwhelms our culture, but as someone who is learning all the time, I think I change every day. This change is just growth and I’m learning to embrace it.

When I was in New York City this past Summer, I made sure to make it to my favorite spot in the city – The Strand. The Strand is the most amazing book store you can possibly imagine and I spent over an hour reaping the bounty of their shelves. One book that particularly stood out to me had an all mustard-yellow cover. Whoever said you can’t judge a book by its cover was far from right in this case. The off-yellow of the cover wound up perfectly matching the sort of off-beat humor and quirk of this book. The book actually turned out to be a collection of short stories called No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July. I’ve always loved short stories and the description on the back of the book really made me feel that this was the book for me. “July gives the most seemingly insignificant moments a sly potency,” it says. She does indeed. The power of these stories is the way in which they give voice to all the thoughts in one’s mind that are so often silenced for their out-of-placeness in common culture. Her stories reveal the depth of human complexity through seemingly insignificant experiences. I was able to see myself in so many of these characters and hear my own unspoken thoughts through all of their voices, no matter how extreme or unlikely the circumstance. I felt truly touched and inspired by this work. Miranda July has a presence in film, writing, and art and has just released her second book entitled The First Bad Man, a novel. I highly recommend No one belongs here more than you. It takes you on a journey of profound empathy that never fails to reveal something to the reader about his or herself.

Imagination is a beautiful thing. It’s the same thing that has allowed people to come up with the most advanced technology and art. Had Steve Jobs told people from the 90s about what future cell phones could look like, they probably would have thought he was insane, but his imagination and innovation led him to do amazing things for our generation. I firmly believe that this form of imagination is no more valid that that which allows young minds to escape into the fantastical worlds of television, though these worlds don’t abide by the same rules as our world. So, in honor of this (and because I know my last few posts have been pretty text heavy) I have decided to dedicate this post to the top five things from my favorite childhood TV shows that I wish were real.

1) Socko Socks from iCarly

Okay, I admit I was probably too old to be watching this show, but Spencer’s socks from his mysterious pal Socko always had the coolest patterns. A lot of times, they even lit up. I’m sure this type of technology is not beyond us, so someone please tell me where I can get a pair of these.

2) The Out of the Box Clubhouse

If you’ve never seen this pile of boxes transform into the coolest clubhouse ever, it’s imperative that you click this link right now! Did you watch it? Okay, good, then we’re on the same page. When I was a kid I wanted nothing more than to turn boxes into magic like this, but my endeavors never turned out like this.

3) The “Let’s Watch a Disney Channel Movie” Filmstrip Roller Coaster

This blurry picture leaves much to be desired, but it captures the essence of how amazingly cool this was. Again, if you’ve never seen it or don’t recall the glory of this, please watch this video. Personally, I thought this was the coolest part of whatever movie they were about to play. The filmstrip roller coaster is awesome for two reasons. One, it would be the coolest most thrilling ride ever at any theme park. And two, can you imagine doing back flips and other gymnastic feats in the middle of space, sometimes jumping through a gooey neon strip of film? No. You can’t, because it hasn’t been invented yet.

4) Krabby Patties from Spongebob

Let’s be honest, if real burgers looked like this, I probably wouldn’t be a vegetarian.

5) The Blues Clues Jump of Wonderment

Imagine with me for a moment that a little wiggle of the hips and a jingle could transport you into your favorite Renoir or Picasso. Then, once you’re there, you could actually speak with the people and objects in the painting and they’ll not only speak back, but give you direction on your quests. Magic. This day must come or I will lose all faith in humanity. I don’t need an iPhone 8S, I need to be able to jump into pictures.

Whenever someone refers me to a musician of any genre that they find “good,” I’m always hesitant to accept that what qualifies as “good” to them will be the same for me. Really, there are so many ways to connect with music and so many ways to judge it. Eminem for example can be perceived as a god of rap talent or as perpetuating the misogynistic theme of violence against women. When I first started expanding my appreciation of rap, I asked my friends what they liked about artists like 2Pac and Biggie because they didn’t quite fit into my understanding at the time of what constituted “good” rap. To me, good rap meant fast rap. Speed equated to talent, but I quickly found in these artists that a good understanding of rhythm and lyricism (both political and comedic) can often create a more profound effect than speed alone. I also realized that though Tech N9ne’s “Caribou Lou” was a great song to crank up and roll your windows down to, its lyrics contribute no substance whatsoever to the song. At the end of the day I was listening to a rapper list the recipe for a mixed drink over a really cool beat.

While different ways of evaluating value of music can open up many avenues for appreciating artistic talent, every person has their own taste and expectations. Something that has always been a crucial factor to me is lyricism. The more poetic and complex the lyrics, the more I get sucked in. I know I’ve talked about Marina and the Diamonds in the past, who began writing poetry and transferred her talents to songwriting and music production, but another master of lyric composition and one of my personal favorites is the band Say Anything. Judging solely from their sound, they fall right into the category of teen angst punk music. However, looking closely at the lyrics complicates their image by showing the band’s appreciation for poetry and profound understanding of the power of language. As a writer, I deeply admire the sentences they construct because many of them hit me on both an emotional and an intellectual level.

For example, from the song “Yellow Cat Slash Red Cat” off of their 2004 album …Is A Real Boy, lead singer Max Bemis spits the words rhythmically, almost as if to poetic meter:

Again, I watch my cousin Greg watch MTV inside his home.
He makes fun of the Hip-hop videos from the couch he rides alone.
Snug in the cushion of his cackling he forgets his looming doubts.
He has relied on this for years; you will not yank the carpet out.

The complexity of his sentence structures along with the obscured themes hidden deep beneath contemporary imagery emphasizes the complexity of adolescence and what it might really mean to be an “angsty teen.” By turning what could be crude or cliched imagery into poetics, he shows that this isn’t just some rant, rather it is a deeply thought out reflection on the grittier parts of life and how everyday scenarios (like an encounter between two cats or watching MTV) can factor into these issues that people think they understand.

Off of the same album (my personal favorite of their body of work), the song “The Futile” offers the same sort of combination of complicated language mingling with the raw emotion of the instrumentals and Bemis’ voice. In the opening of the song he starts:

Shit!
Nothing makes sense, so I won’t think about it. I’ll go with the ignorance.
Eat, sleep, fuck and flee; in four words, that’s me.
I am full of indifference.

I don’t want to clutter this post with direct quotation, but I think the lyrics often speak for themselves, reaching each listener on their own level of personal experience with the feelings that they are wrestling with throughout the song. The climactic moment of the song arguably comes to a head at a suicidal moment, though he never explicitly says he’s going to kill himself in explicit terms:

I’m eating rat poison for dinner.
Pull the cord from the phone. I am dining alone,
Tonight, rat poison for dinner.
Pull the cord from the phone. I am dining alone,
So goodnight.

Something about his use of totally non poetic words in these truly telling metaphorical and imagistic ways gives listeners a way of really rethinking and grappling with their own personal sense of these complex emotions. Everyone has felt anger, angst, frustration, maybe even suicidal at a point in their lives, but these tired and worn out adjectives are given fresh meaning by the syntactical feats of Say Anything. “So goodnight” can say so many other things than can a straightforward suicidal goodbye. Here, language is taking on the huge task of representing an arguably cliched theme for this genre of music and making it both personal and relatable at the same time.

This just scratches the surface of all of the things I love about this band. The way they use instrumentals to accompany these lyrics adds to the overall effect in a way that reading these lyrics on the web cannot convey.  At the end of the day, whatever way in which music speaks to you, finding ways of articulating and sharing this sense of “good” can open up a world of opportunities for others and yourself to experience music in a new way.

I’ve recently been seeing a lot of publications about the legging epidemic that seems to be overtaking America. The “are they pants or not” debate has been raging since my junior year of high school, but it seems to be getting fiercer as stores come out with more styles and varieties. Up to this point I’ve just sort of rolled my eyes and stayed out of it but a series of incidents have led me to speak out on the topic. Let me start by saying that as someone who loves fashion, I do believe there are times to wear and not to wear leggings as pants, such as if they are see-through or in a professional setting. However I also firmly believe in a woman’s right to dress as she pleases without being labeled a “distraction.” Last year I remember seeing battles between middle/high schools and wearers of bright patterned leggings. Schools called them distracting and were working toward banning them as a result of this. Public education systems struggle enough with getting kids to focus, so even though I disagreed with this affront to self expression, I let it slide.

It wasn’t until I worked as a camp counselor this past summer that I really began to feel outrage toward this issue. The camp has a long standing history of trying to take the focus off of romantic relationships and put it on a more brotherly/sisterly type of bond. This is a reason that so many people love the camp, so it was easy to be accommodating when they started to establish guidelines for a more appropriate way of dressing. Booty shorts and low cut tank tops were quickly abolished, but soon they adopted the dreaded finger tip rule. The problem (as everyone who has recently been in high school knows) is that everyone has different body types and a perfectly acceptable pair of shorts may not always go down to the finger tips. In addition to this, it was becoming increasingly harder for campers and staff alike to find long enough shorts in stores and no one wanted to buy an entirely new wardrobe that they would never wear outside of camp. So, to avoid the issue, this year most of the staff came prepared with loads of leggings and yoga pants – easy to move around in, relatively thin, and not against the rules. Until… One day during the staff training week, one of my superiors told me that they were thinking of banning leggings. I, like all of my coworkers, was infuriated because that was basically all we had brought. When I asked her why, she replied that many of the male counselors had been commenting and talking about the girls. So, once again, they decided to blame the women for the male gaze and sexualization of women’s bodies.

I told her it wouldn’t matter how many times they change the dress code, boys will ALWAYS find something to talk about. For once it would be nice if they addressed the boys about their tendencies instead of blaming the women. Though I thought I was sounding like a broken record, she told me she had never considered it from this perspective. Never considered it?! Even this woman couldn’t fathom that boys looking at girls could be a boy problem, not a girl problem. I wear leggings because they’re extremely comfortable, agile, and stay in place whereas low rise jeans often require constant readjustment so as not to expose the butt crack. No girl wears yoga pants to be sexy. We wear skirts and dresses and booty shorts if we’re trying to dress to impress, but we wear yoga pants for comfort. So to blame us for men and the media’s long history of taking whatever we wear and sexualizing it, is outrageously unfair.

In an article I came across last night, a woman spoke of her decision to give up wearing leggings in public out of respect for her husband after she found out that men (shocker) check girls out when they wear them. She spoke of not wanting to tempt anyone, identifying herself as the problem. This self-blame for male temptation is the same reason that the first question many women get in cases of rape is “what were you wearing,” reaffirming again and again the idea that we ask for it. What this woman doesn’t realize that not wearing leggings isn’t going to change anything. Jeans these days are just as form fitting as leggings, slacks still reveal that we have butts, and skirts and dresses still show off our legs. I’m tired of society telling me I need to change me to be acceptable. That’s why there are so many cultures around the world that force women to almost entirely cover themselves up, so as not to tempt the men who never seem to be held accountable for their own self-control.

Enough is enough, it’s time to change the conversation and ask ourselves if we really want to sacrifice our right to individuality and self expression to try to adapt ourselves to these bogus social rules rather than trying to challenge and change them. I’m not in anyway trying to blame men, it’s a media that constantly sexualizes the female body that is really at fault for this pervasive vein of thought and needs to be put into check. Of course, it won’t happen over night, but in the mean time banning leggings is just further objectifying and manipulating the female body. It’s time to raise our voices just like 13 year old Illinois middle-schooler Sophie Hasty did in protest of her school’s ban: “not being able to wear leggings because it’s ‘too distracting for boys’ is giving us the impression we should be guilty for what guys do.” I’m not willing to turn a blind eye anymore and I think it’s time we rethink our systematized victim blaming.