Rescue, Recover, (Re)inscribe

All my life, I have felt a certain fascination for historical photographs. As I meandered through museums and libraries or explored ghost towns and historical sites, it has been the photographs that draw me in, staring curiously at the stern black-and-white faces that seem so distant and yet so familiar. What qualities do these images possess that so possess me? In them, I sense whispers from white, unmoving lips, the secret commonplaces that filled their daily lives, mysteries of a time and place now closed away in the dim storage-bins of archive and memory.

Photo courtesy The Atlantic

These are the faces of history; these are the faces of our history. And these yellowed, aging faces of history are not silent: as Malea Powell (Beyond the Archives) reminds us, “History isn’t a dead and remembered object; it is alive and it speaks to us.” But what does it say?

Sometimes, history speaks of things we don’t want to hear. Sometimes, it may show us truths about ourselves we don’t want to know. Among the darkest chapters of our unwanted histories, American slavery lingers like an inky stain on the national consciousness, one that many would simply rather forget to remember. In the course of my recent studies, I have read the narratives of escaped slaves, of abolitionists, and even of novelists who re-imagine our past for us in vivid textual detail. But nothing I have read so far has captured my attention the way that a single photograph, discovered through happenstance, has done.

This photograph features three children, with markedly Caucasian features, combed and neatly dressed and staring determinedly into the camera. The caption beneath the image reads “Rebecca, August and Rosa. Slave Children from New Orleans.” The composition of this photograph and its caption are, in my estimation, intended to shock. These light-skinned children, some with long, silky hair, are slaves? These children do not fit the image of the bestial, black-skinned African. These children tell a far more complicated story. These children have “white” fathers; these children have slave mothers. According to the law of their day, children, regardless of parentage, “shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.” From a photograph, they speak to a history of oppression and violence, of suffering and silence. From a photograph, they speak to a future of the same.

Yet the voices that these innocents have been given are not their own – they have been exploited as propaganda for abolitionists, determined to force their Northern audiences to admit the depravity that their complicity allows. They have been used, for “a greater good,” some say, but used nonetheless. The have been appropriated, re-presented and, in the process, erased from our collective memories. 

When feminist rhetorical scholars speak of “rescue, recovery and (re)inscription,” are these and others like them the needy ones that come to mind? If they could speak – if we could listen – what do you suppose we would hear?

Star Trek, or Repeating History (Again)

In the far distant days of my High School experience, I associated with a diverse group of friends. In fact, our little band of misfits prided itself on including those who were excluded everywhere else: the uber-nerds, geeks, theater folk, and the extremely introverted were always welcome additions to the lunch table or extracurricular excursion. One of these friends was (and probably still is) one of those curious individuals who are fans of Star Trek, more commonly known as “trekkies.” She was unusual in many ways, not only because she was the rare female trekkie among an overwhelming male majority, but also because she was a quiet, highly intelligent young woman who just happened to know how to speak Klingon and enjoyed attending science fiction conventions in her spare time.

Original 1960s crew

So when Paramount Pictures et al announced the arrival of a new series of films based loosely on the original Star Trek television series, I immediately thought of my long-lost friend and the many geeks, nerds and/or freaks that would no doubt eagerly await the first release. I, on the other hand, had my reservations. 

Despite my youthful interest in the Next Generation series that aired up through my High School graduation (I had a thing for Patrick Stewart, if you can believe that), I had lost interest in the franchise upon reaching adulthood. So when I finally made an effort to watch the 2009 Star Trek film, it was hesitantly and on DVD. I was immediately sorry that I had not gone to the theater to see the film – it was far better than I had anticipated, and although I can’t say that I joined the ranks of zealous trekkies, I eagerly awaited the release of the next film in the series, Into Darkness, and over the summer paid my hard-earned $8.50 to see it on the big screen. It was (and still is) exceptionally entertaining.

Pale faces, then and now

So when Into Darkness was released onto DVD this month, I bought it and watched the film again. And again. And then I noticed something that shocked me right down to my toes. Star Trek has always had more than its fair share of powerful white men. There was Kirk and his crew back in the 60s (even the aliens are white, quite an amazing accomplishment); then came Picard in The Next Generation, and (since I am unfamiliar with the other Star Trek spin-off series, I’m skipping ahead), we have come full circle back to Kirk in the 2009 and 2013 films. And the films, like the original television series, is entirely organized around powerful white men who either use or abuse that power as they see fit. This is the case, despite the diverse cast of supporting characters and the fact that the story is supposed to take place in a far-distant universe where inter-galactic travel has promoted a diversity that we cannot currently comprehend.

The 2009 Star Trek features Kirk Sr., Pike, and James T. Kirk, rising to positions of power as they face off against the bad guys and, in the end, save Earth from obliteration. In the 2013 film, Kirk and Pike return, and are joined by Marcus and Kahn, both of whom are far more powerful bad guys than the opponents defeated in the first film. Both are white. Spock (both older and younger), the always-ready second-in-command, is also white, despite the eyebrows and pointy ears. None of these characters are killed off or lost (excluding Pike, who dies early in the second film and thus provides the emotional exegesis for Kirk’s quest for revenge); the diverse crew members, on the other hand, drop like flies with the explosion of every photon missile. Even Kahn, the baddest (white) bad guy around, doesn’t die. He is returned to his cryo-tube to await justice in some distant future.

Kahn

Stinging from the slap of this realization, I brooded. I have long complained about the mini-skirt and gogo-boot wearing female members of the original Star Trek crew, as well as the token Asian and black men and women on that show. And now, nearly fifty years later, what has changed? Unfortunately, not much. The skirts in the new Star Trek films are just as short; the men in power just as white. And don’t even get me started on the lingerie-flashing Dr. Marcus (blonde, white, skinny).  These films, my friends, are touted for their “success.” This only goes to show that this brand of success is measured in dollar signs, rather than measurable advances in socio-political equality.

Shake It For Me, Girl

For reasons I cannot explain, I woke up this morning with country singer Luke Bryan's song "Country Girl (Shake It For Me)" stuck in my head. I cannot explain this, because it just happens to be one of my LEAST favorite songs. Ever.

Now, in general I consider myself to be a country music fan. But this relationship to country music isn't without its problems. In fact, much of what is played on my local country radio stations centers on objectifying (usually blond) women and drinking beer, two things I don't endorse or condone. Bryan's song is an obvious case in point - the lyrics invite his "country girl" to willingly objectify herself as she performs for the titillation of male fantasy:

Shake it for the young bucks sitting in the honky-tonks
For the rednecks rocking 'til the break of dawn
For the DJ spinning that country song
Come on, come on, come on

Shake it for the birds, shake it for the bees
Shake it for the catfish swimming down deep in the creek
For the crickets and the critters and the squirrels
Shake it to the moon, shake it for me girl

Aw, country girl, shake it for me
Girl, shake it for me, girl, shake it for me
Country girl, shake it for me
Girl, shake it for me, girl, shake it for me

However appealing and, in the most generous interpretation possible, ambiguous "shaking it" for "the critters" might be (I haven't tried it - why would I? - so I'm not sure what is to be gained there), the music video that accompanies these bizarre requests makes Bryan's meaning crystal clear. Really, between the boob and booty shots, bare midriffs and, of course, the "shaking it" by a group of young, too-thin and otherwise sexually objectified women, what else is there? This song has no other purpose than to encourage the belief that such behavior is "sexy" and desirable, and will make any woman willing enough able to attract the attention of her pick of equally attractive men. The prevalence, shallowness and pernicious superficiality of this message is painful, particularly in light of the centuries of feminist activism battling against this very kind of media representation. That it exists at all, in this day and age, irritates like a pebble in my shoe, one that returns no matter how many times I stop and try to shake it out (pun intended).

Thus, I can only conclude that my present torture, condemned to hear the teeth-grindingly stupid lyrics run endlessly through my brain, is the result of a subconscious desire to punish myself for some unrecognized offense. I hope I figure it out soon, because no better torture has ever been designed or inflicted!

Gaga Feminism?

In 2012, author J. Jack Halberstam released a book titled Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal. In it, the author forwards a new theory of feminism, a “gaga feminism,” one that is “a form of political expression that masquerades as naïve nonsense but that actually participates in big and meaningful forms of critique… a scavenger feminism that borrows promiscuously, steals from everywhere, and inhabits the ground of stereotype and cliché all at the same time.” This definition seems an apt demonstration of what scholar Carisa R. Showden calls “girl-power” or “Girlie,” or even “postfeminist” feminism, a feminism that focuses on individualism, on consumerism, and a push to “reclaim traditional models of heterosexual power relations as pleasurable rather than demeaning and to embrace standard tropes of feminine sexuality” ("What's Political about the New Feminisms?" Frontiers, 2009).

In this sense, Halberstam’s use of Lady Gaga and her theatrical celebrity is entirely appropriate: she is nothing if not the ringleader of embracing standard tropes of (fantastical) feminine sexuality. However, as Showden (and others) have pointed out, there are just a few problems with branding Lady Gaga and her minions as feminist activists.

First and foremost, definition of terms. According to Lady Gaga, she is not a feminist; she’s a feminist. How is that possible? Defining what a feminist is. In 2009, Lady Gaga gave an interview in which she was asked, “Are you a feminist?” (See Lady Gaga on Double Standards & Feminism). Her reaction was instant and powerful: “No! I’m not a feminist!”

Years later, in 2011, she responds to questions about feminism again, only this time, she has prepared a lovely little speech in which she details all of the reasons why she is a feminist (See Lady Gaga on Feminism). Under a postfeminist framework, the pop artist’s dubious explanation is precisely what “new” feminism is, what it does, and the standard by which feminists and non-feminists are differentiated: it is, in part, women jumping on the objectification bandwagon, where “women as well as men participate in female objectification—making sex objects of other women and of themselves, ‘ironically’ adopting the male gaze as their own” (Showden). At the same time, it is paradoxically “a rejection of all of those things” (Gaga) taught to children to ensure societal conformity, things like standards of dress and behavior, for example.

Which brings us to a second problem: confusion. Showden characterizes this problem as a tendency for Girlie feminism to “confuse a determined reclamation of femininity with a feminist statement on agency,” in which freedom and empowerment are “illusory given the individual’s inability to control the reading of her actions.” Thus adopting an attitude of “I can do whatever I want because I want to do it” is mistaken for activism; materialism and consumerism mistaken for empowerment. “In fields of social inequality,” cautions Showden, “the adorned body…has a material significance.” For this reason, only denial and ignorance (Gaga, anyone?) make Girlie feminism and all its trappings unproblematic, a terminal issue that leaves us precisely nowhere.

Ignoring problems and still-existing inequalities, oppressive systems and demeaning objectification is not the same as eradicating it, no matter how loudly one sings, dresses or rebels. Adopting a degrading male gaze and uncritically objectifying oneself is pointless, without a political agenda to forward or a specific inequity to critique. The nonsensical “girl-power” logics of today’s pop feminists mask and delegitimize the real work taking place beneath the neon glare, the activists and advocates, both feminists and beyond, who work in the hopes of effecting actual socio-political change instead of merely slapping a glitzy wig on it and calling it a fancy name.

The Cyborg Woman of Atlas Shrugged

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is, from one perspective, about a woman who runs a railroad. But this oversimplified description hardly captures the breadth and depth of the novel, much less the character of its strong female protagonist, Dagny Taggart. Miss Taggart does not really “run” a railroad; she is directly responsible for its operations, of course, but Vice President Taggart is far more than a company executive.

She is a cyborg.

Her passion for steel and rails, for locomotives and logistics consumes her, and when we meet her in the pages of Rand’s novel, her identity, her very being has merged with metal and machine until she is no longer distinguishable from them. She is her railroad, and it is her. In her book Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Donna Haraway defines a cyborg as “a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” (p. 149). Haraway does not, I must point out, refer to fictional characters in her book. Rather, Haraway is speaking of “real” people, people for whom “reality” and “fiction” have merged into a unity of being. Yet if real people can merge with fiction, why then cannot fictive people merge with reality? Haraway herself claims that “the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion” (149), and thus subject to the kind of permeability, the kind of transgression, that I am asking you to consider.

A merging of woman and machine?

The transgressions of Dagny Taggart are a fascinating subject. Her situatedness within a fictive, capitalist white male world is so tenuous, and yet so darkly poetic. In her rise to power, she has deliberately stripped away as much evidence of her femininity as possible, assuming manners and attitudes that mimic the men with whom she associates. Not only this, however: she has assumed an exoskeletal shell of machinery that both protects and limits her, lends her strength and power, and prevents her from developing a self that embraces, rather than denies, the soft, fleshy, sexed body underneath. What she accomplishes is only possible because she is, as Haraway puts it, “out of place,” a unity that is both “monstrous and illegitimate” within the world that Rand imagined for her.

This, then, is what makes Dagny Taggart a monster. She is not evil, nor animal, nor male. She is a woman out of place, a woman who has become the beating iron heart of a railroad. She is transgressor of borders, a chimera, and an unsolvable enigma. She is a cyborg, dependent upon her steam and metal for her very existence (as she understands it) to continue.

Yet strangely, she is you and she is me; she is each of us and no one in particular. As Haraway explains, “By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation. In the traditions of ‘Western’ science and politics—the tradition of racist, male-dominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as resource for the productions of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflections of the other—the relation between organism and machine has been a border war” (p. 150). A war that rages on, does it not?

"A Moving Bubble of Wilderness"

A young man in a hoodie strolls through a quiet, gated community. He is returning to a friend’s house after purchasing a drink and some candy at a nearby convenience store.

Such ordinary, unremarkable moments in a life. How, then, did this young man end up shot to death on those meticulously manicured HOA lawns?

Crime scene photo courtesy CBS News

Others have told, and continue to tell, this story from every imaginable perspective. Trouble is, not one of these represents What Really Happened, an impossibility of fact and yet the one thing we desire above all else. Denied this, what remains, what seems clear, regardless of guilt or innocence, regardless of the questionable and violent choices made by any one man, is that Trayvon Martin was perceived as an outsider, a stranger, and a threat to the idealized inhabitants of George Zimmerman’s community. Seems obvious, right? Such perception has been used to justify the killing of another human being.

Yet what also seems clear is that if the brief and mundane scene I sketched in the first sentence of this post had happened in any number of other neighborhoods, it could have passed unremarked, extraordinarily ordinary. In still other settings, perhaps this scene could have played out as “routine” gang violence, the violent death of yet another young man stamped and filed by local authorities without investigation or a second thought. It is the combination, the volatile mixture of this individual, in that specific place, that facilitated (and, per the court’s decision, vindicated) violence and death, the indelible remnants of which will forever mark the shooter and his target, their families and communities, with injury, with tragedy.

Horrified, today I have watched my academic musings over the potency of what I call white space (see below) spill off the pages of abstract theorizing and take form on a national stage, a morbid verification of what I have suspected all along: despite all our protests, despite our veneer of “civilization,” all our empty talk of colorblindness, tolerance, freedom and peace and whatever else you’d like to throw in there, we, as a people, as collectives and communities, are not so very far removed from our slaveholding, Native-slaughtering, indigenous-eradicating past—and we all know it. Deep down, we know, and we work so hard to build illusions of cohabitation that, in the end, simply do not cohabit with the lived realities of our others. 

Yet our investment in deluding ourselves is so extensive that, at this point, we are incapable of abandoning it.

What, then, is to be done? Could the tragic death of Trayvon Miller, or any of our multitudes of unnamed, un-mourned men, have been prevented? In light of our current, obsessive focus on denial, I say, regrettably, no. Not in this place, at this moment in time. But that doesn’t preclude the possibility for future shifts, in which we get honest with ourselves and, ideally, shift our energy away from supporting poisonous fantasies of colorblind justice and toward working on the insidious source of our problems—selfishness, greed, prejudice, and a deep-seated belief in our God-given right to contribute to the oppression of others.

From “’Bubbles of Wilderness’: The Rhetorics of Non-white Bodies in White Space” by Shersta Chabot, 2 May 2013:

 “In the United States, some bodies are more susceptible to “becoming” strange than others. This is due in part to the national structures of power that frame a white dominant culture rooted directly in the oppressive ideologies of white supremacism. The resulting cultural environment generates, and manifests through, what film critic Audrey Foster labels white space: locations and/or moments that are constructed and governed by heteronormative, white supremacist ideology. Recognizing the way that this white space constitutes nonwhite, and thus in this context non-normative, bodies, Charles Mills asserts that “[t]he nonwhite body is a moving bubble of wilderness in white political space, a node of discontinuity which is necessarily in permanent tension with it” (53). Following Mills’ conceptualization, this essay focuses primarily on the tension between the nonwhite body and white space, which includes the communal white space of the white cultural imaginary.”

The New Jim Crow and Police Women of Maricopa County

A favorite old adage of mine warns: “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (Jean-Baptiste Karr, 1849). 

In her latest book, The New Jim Crow, author and scholar Michelle Alexander begins with this very thought before building a case for the way in which, despite wars, legislation and decades of civil rights movement, racism hasn’t disappeared—it has merely shifted, transformed, adapted. Despite these changes, racial discrimination is alive and well, evidenced in what Alexander calls “new rules, new rhetoric, new language, and a new social consensus” that all continue to produce the same results—the oppressive discrimination of what are typically labeled “racial minorities.”

For Alexander, such oppression is currently accomplished via the so-called War on Drugs, and the mass incarceration of black and Hispanic men as a system of oppression and control. This system, which funnels government money into policing organizations and punitive institutions, is “based on the prison label, not prison time,” Alexander claims. Once an individual is “in the system,” they are immediately subject to a completely different set of rules, vulnerable to a unique set of oppressions and discriminations that their more privileged compatriots do not see and cannot possibly understand. Justification and denial are the order of the day: as Alexander reminds us, “[t]he notion that a vast gulf exists between ‘criminals’ and those of us who have never served time in prison is a fiction created by the racial ideology that birthed mass incarceration, namely that there is something fundamentally wrong and morally inferior about ‘them.’ The reality, though, is that all of us have done wrong.” Thus while mass incarceration is markedly different from historical systems such as slavery or Jim Crow, the end result is disturbingly familiar—the hypocritical dehumanization (and criminalization) of a group of people based largely on the color of their skin.

Although Alexander tends to pit white against black and strategically overlooks any culpability that imprisoned individuals may have, as she carefully builds her arguments it quickly becomes clear that one need not be white to participate in the oppressive, white supremacist system of oppression that she describes. 

Recently, I was scanning through a list of television channels and came across a reality TV series called Police Women of Maricopa County. Intrigued, I paused to watch as cameras followed the activities of four female police officers as they responded to calls, made arrests and even ran down suspected criminals in dramatic style. Each officer spent time speaking directly to the camera, discussing her job, her reactions to each scene in which she participated, and the difficulties of balancing the demands of police work with personal and family life. These interviews felt honest and compelling, a poignant glimpse into these women's lives.

Now, I have nothing but admiration for these women, some of whom represented one or more of the “minorities” discussed in Alexander’s book. They navigate a largely white male world, the product of white supremacist ideology, and are making their way through with courage and an enviable verve. However, I was disturbed as I listened to these women talk about “criminals”—mostly black and male—in such a way that they became representative voices for the system of mass incarceration that Alexander exposes. In a similar series, Police Women of Broward County, I felt troubled as I listened to a black female officer affirm with confidence how the black males she had apprehended that day belonged in jail due to possession of illegal drugs. In fact, from my observations, nearly every “criminal” arrested on these shows becomes a “criminal” due to the US's ongoing “war” on drugs. Clearly, these women have become full participants in a system that targets their own neighbors, families and communities, and yet they express nothing but confidence in the absolute rightness of it all. Saddened and horrified, I wondered in what other ways do we all contribute to dehumanization of large groups of people, either by physical or psychological distance, hypocritical criminalization, or any other number of mental devices required to justify The Way Things Are. 

Do we question enough? If we do not, why not? Perhaps we have been frightened into silence by a contradictory, punitive and merciless system, one that rarely values the individual while emphasizing the importance of individual exceptionalism. More troubling, perhaps, is that so few of us are troubled by the present state of things—like our police women, we work hard for success, desperate to convince ourselves that what we intuit, deep down, simply couldn’t be true—that we are merely pawns in a game that no one who plays by the rules can win.

Iron Man and the Monstrous Female

I took my family to the movies this afternoon, and spent several entertaining hours experiencing the cinematic magic of Iron Man 3. For those of you who don't know me well, I suppose I must admit that I am a closet fan of the superhero movie--I have participated in the consumerist frenzy spurred by the recent outpouring of films based on Marvel comics with unabashed delight.

Of course, it seems that my training in feminist rhetorics is now an inescapable fact of life: no matter how I try to turn it off, there is always a part of my brain busily analyzing everything I see and experience through one or more of those lenses.

Today was no different. As I laughed, sighed and nervously bit my nails, I was struck by the filmmakers' choice to evoke the Trope of the Monstrous Female at particular moments to up the impact just that much more. The Monstrous Female is a common figure in modern cinema--she is found in movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (think blonde model-meets-alien-lizard-thingy), Men in Black II (same thing, except brunette), and even the Twilight saga, except in this case the power of the monstrous vampire female is mediated by her overpowering motherhood impulses. Just like the motherhood-mediates-vampire-strength situation, the powerful female characters are so often situated within controlling social devices that they have become standard (read: invisible) to the masses. Think about it: she's either incredibly evil and, as a result, is killed off before the end of the film, or she is "tamed" by a man/falling in love with a man and safely married or in a relationship before the credits roll. The Monstrous Female simply cannot remain a monster--convention demands that she be shifted back into safe and familiar hetero-normative conformity before we can all go on with our own happily conforming lives.

Pepper Potts: superhero or monster?

So now comes Pepper Potts, and her shining moment as a volcanic, iron-suit-wearing hero. In her violent yet superbly choreographed climax, Ms. Potts defeats the villain, saves her beloved Tony, and becomes, for the briefest moment possible, the most powerful individual in the film. Her eyes glowing orange, her skin translucent, her long hair loose and wild, she surveys the wreckage around her and says..."Wow, that was really violent." In this moment, the audience is shown that not only is the powerful female something the audience should fear, but that the woman is actually afraid of herself, of her new strength and ability. And that, dear readers, is clearly just an insupportable situation! (Mind the sarcasm, now.) It is only after Tony Stark reassures her that he will "fix" her that she relaxes, smiles, and then they are free to engage in soothing romantic banter and an affectionate embrace.

If you detect a note of bitterness, dear reader, it is unintentional. This is, for better or worse, merely recognition of The Way Things Are. As long as films continue to reproduce damaging tropes about power, about women, and about powerful women, there is an ongoing need for critics and scholars to continue calling Hollywood (and their audiences) to account for their part in the melee. This is why, despite popular belief, feminism's work is far from over.

For an alternative (but excellent) analysis, see also Scott Mendelson's article "'Brave,' 'Iron Man 3,' and the Faux Feminism of Armed Women."

Here, There Be Monsters

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

I just finished a very pleasurable read by Roseanne Montillo titled The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece. As promised, this darkly alluring tour of the grotesqueries of eighteenth and nineteenth century European popular and scientific culture is a thrilling jaunt through a horrific yet fascinating history of grave robbing, alchemy, artistic scientists, scientific artists, and everything in between. Equal parts biography, travelogue and campfire tale, Montillo’s book features a skillful interweaving of intriguing facts and fantastic speculation, all brought to life by way of the author’s captivating narrative style.

What Montillo's book also brought to mind is the strange depravity that appears to be synonymous with human nature regardless of time period or geographical location. We think that we are gods, harnessing the elements, sparking our monstrous, soulless creations into life just because we can. Yet our visions of divinity merely twist us into the very monsters we work so hard to destroy, a strange and self-destructive dance with the devil in all its many forms. In a way, we are all mad scientists, obsessing over our creations until they awake and turn on us, revisiting upon our own heads the nightmares to which we have subjected our Others.

Our job then becomes not to destroy, but to acknowledge and accept, to educate ourselves and mediate the damage so that in becoming, we channel the danger into more constructive pathways, feeding that divine spark within until it overcomes the monster without. 

Thus gentle monsters, we may be; 

Alive with possibility.

Prostitution, Past and Present

What do Nicki Minaj and Les Miserables have in common?

Nothing, according to my teenager and her friends.
Loads, says me.

See, in my inclination to expose my child and her culturally starved companions to some better-than-average music and acting, I arranged a movie night in my living room during which we would be watching the 2012 film based on the ever-popular stage production of Les Miserables. Of course, it wasn't until the film was well underway that I realized that there was a possibility I hadn't quite thought this choice of film all the way through--as the ragged poor and theatrically dirt-smeared prostitutes filled the screen, the uncomfortable shifting of my audience began. Not only had I not sufficiently prepared these youngsters for the gritty, historical realism that the film attempts, but I had also somehow failed to remember the quantity of protruding breasts, suggestive lyrics, and even an intensely icky scene where Anne Hathaway is shown underneath one of her patrons, enduring his rigorous intimacies with a pained expression on her face.

Oops.

Needless to say, movie night failed miserably, with a few teenagers even promising lifelong traumatization from their exposure to the dark underbelly of France's (Hollywood-inspired) past.

In my own defense, however, I couldn't help but point out a few minor (major!) inconsistencies between the "acceptable" forms of pop entertainment these young people consume daily and their revulsion when faced with a more realistic version of what I consider to be the exact same thing. One of the teens, I happened to know, has a slightly unhealthy obsession with pop singer Nicki Minaj, whose revealing wardrobe and suggestive lyrics and dance moves are startlingly akin to modern forms of prostitution--selling sex, just to millions instead of one lusty customer at a time.

Anne Hathaway as the prostitute Fantine

Nicki Minaj, modern prostitute?

To my feminist sensibilities, Minaj offends on every possible level, far more than a crowd of dirt-smeared, singing prostitutes ever could. While I would not hold up either as exemplars of female empowerment, I think that there is something just slightly more honest about the everyday street-walker than these artificial pop icons, shimmying their way into massive record sales and onto pornographic posters on teenage boy's bedroom walls.

The teenagers in this case did not agree, and probably never will. I don't blame them--after all, they are products of their environments, right? Does give one pause for the future of feminist movement in this country, though.

Creepiest Fairy Tale Ever

While doing research for my next project--an examination of the fantasy "ideal" of white female beauty--I read an 1884 translation of the Grimm tale, "Little Snow-white." Unlike modern-day remakes of this classic tale, the version I found may be one of the creepiest tales of attempted filicide, demented aristocrats, necrophilia and kidnapped child brides I have ever heard.

In case it has been a while, let me refresh your memory. As the tale begins, a Queen sits sewing in an ebony-framed, snowy window, wishing for a child. She pricks her finger and three drops of blood fall on the snow, inspiring her to wish for a child with ebony hair, blood-red lips, and skin as white as snow. Sure enough, a short time later she gives birth to such a child, dying in the process. The little girl grows up, getting more "beautiful" every day. (I really have to wonder at who would think that a person matching this description would be beautiful--extreme pale skin and dark red lips remind me more of the dead, or maybe a vampire, than a pretty little girl.)

Anyway, the King remarries, and Snow-white's stepmother not only has unsurpassed beauty, but is obsessed with making sure things stay that way. When Snow-white turns seven years old (yes, that's right, that would be seven years old) the Queen's enchanted mirror declared that the little girl is now more beautiful than the Queen, prompting her into a murderous rage. Hauled off into the forest to her death, Snow-white is released by a kind-hearted huntsman and eventually finds and breaks into a cottage of dwarfs, where she helps herself to their food and sleeps in their beds before being discovered. Although alarmed at the intruder, the little men are so charmed by her great beauty that they agree to let her live with them in exchange for domestic servitude. Things seem to go okay for a while, until the Queen realizes that she's been tricked and that Snow-white is still alive (and still more beautiful than she). She disguises herself as a peddler and convinces Snow-white to let her lace her into some pretty stays (or corset--not sure why a seven-year-old would need a corset, but there you go) which suffocate the little girl and she loses consciousness. She is revived by her housemates, only to fall victim the the Queen's next temptation, a poisoned comb. Fortunatley, the comb is removed and Snow-white recovers in time for her to be duped once again, this time into biting a poisoned apple. Unable to figure out what's wrong with her, the dwarfs decide to encase her in a glass coffin which they display on a hill, under guard. It is at this point that the Prince wanders by and is instantly taken with the sight of a dead child in her glass case. He finagles the dwarfs into giving him Snow-white and, loading her into a wagon, heads out for home. The bumpy wagon ride dislodges the bit of apple apparently causing Snow-white's death-state, and she revives, surrounded by strange men, in an unfamiliar place. The Prince, noticing that she is now awake, proposes marriage to her (!), which she accepts.

Yeah.

So if bargaining for a dead child wasn't weird enough, now this creepy Prince character is going to marry a little girl?

Even more bizarre is the thought that it is stories like these upon which modern ideas of beauty and romance are based. Fairy tales frequently have one or more pretty blatant morals that supposedly teach children maxims that keep them safe: don't break into bear's houses, don't walk alone in forests inhabited by wolves, that sort of thing. But the story of Little Snow-white is so focused on white aristocratic beauty, including the dangers and rewards of desiring it, possessing it, etc., that it is tough to tell if other morals are present.

I think this story is great stuff for use in researching standards of white female beauty, particularly in the nineteenth century when this particular version of the story was widely circulated. While I am still working out the particulars, I see many interconnections between the fantasy of fairy tale and the "reality" of the illusory white ideal. Even today, don't white women still compete for status through physical beauty? How else can we explain the multi-million-dollar industries that traffic in polishing, "fixing" and re-shaping female bodies, all in a quest to gain recognition as the "fairest of all."

I See White

I see White with my White eyes, my pale and deadened eyes.

I see my Whiteness with those eyes, that alabaster key, opening gates I never see.

I see the not-me with White eyes, the Other that startles with difference-from-me.

I ghost along with my White eyes, eyes that stare, glossed and still, at all that is all White.

White is me, and White I see, and all I see is White.

Whiteness

I've been working on a proposal for my seminar paper in my Critical Race Theory class, and decided that I would like to research the rhetorical signification of "fair" skin among nineteenth-century (upper-class) white women. Yes, that is "fair" as in "fairest of them all." Surprisingly, this connection (although evident to me due to the domination of my home life with Disney films and other animated media) was suggested by my professor, someone I am quite sure does not share my level of exposure to children's media. But, despite my fears that grounding my work in a fairy tale might cause me to lose ethos among my peers and instructors, I think I'll give it a try.

Although it is hard now not to think of the ridiculous singing girl that Disney made her out to be, I have gone back to the original Grimm tale, "Little Snow White," to glean connections to my current topic. The older tale is far more graphic and nasty than other versions I've seen, which I like. But the title character, Snow White, is sort of this disturbing non-person, the figure to whom everything is done, the eternal victim. Her only defense and asset appears to be her beauty, which ingratiates her with the dwarfs and stays the woodsman's hand. But her beauty is also the root cause of all her troubles, because the Queen's jealousy over being knocked out of the top "fairest" category goes murderous in a hurry.

My question is: Why would you want a child with white skin anyway? White as snow, really? That seems a bit extreme. But then again, if the culture from which this story emerges prizes pale white skin above all other physical attributes, the woman with the whitest skin should reign, figuratively and literally, at the top of the hierarchy of female power. She would have her pick of the richest, most powerful husband, garner admiration and status among her peers, and top it all off with an inner purity (as evidenced by her complexion) that would virtually guarantee her angel status both before and after death. The price for all these advantages, however, is quite high: she must simply become the palest, most silent shadow of a person possible. Although, like Snow White, she may be forgiven certain feminine foibles (such as a tendency to naively assume all people are good, to desire beautiful things, and to ignore warnings given for her safety), otherwise she should be the palest of the pale - intellectually, physically, spiritually, emotionally. No flush of anger or rash of passion should mar those porcelain cheeks.

Startlingly, everything I've just discussed can be found explicitly detailed in etiquette books of the nineteenth century. This, my friends, is our legacy, our history, and the misguided idealizations of women that hold us back, hedge us in, and force us to fight the same battles, over and over, without ever winning out in the end.

Registration, Part II

Kindergarten registration, continued. Yep, I'm still trying to get that finished up, and here's why:

Thursday, our neighborhood school held its annual "Kindergarten Round-up" (not sure why they think it's appealing to compare our children to cattle, but it is public education, so who knows?). Kindergarteners and their parents were invited to the school to register, meet the teachers and take a short tour of the classrooms.

Well, except this event happened to be held on the one evening a week that I have a graduate seminar and can't be there. This was not a problem, the Voice on the phone told me when I called. Just bring in the enrollment form and some documentation and we can register your little guy any time.

So, I rushed through my morning routine today, planning a quick stop at the school on my way to campus. I walked in, enrollment form completed and in hand, all documents gathered and ready to go. Things were going well...until the individual "handling" the registration came back and told me that because my son was missing an immunization on his health record, they were not going to be able to register him. At first, I think I just stared at her in dumb disbelief. I think I then tried mumbling something about the child needing proof of immunizations upon starting school, not upon registration. As my son would not be starting school until August, I thought I had plenty of time. Not so, I was assured. No immunization, no registration. But you let me register my other two children without full immunizations, I countered. Well, that's because they had already gone to public school (albeit in another state).

Realizing argument was futile, I gathered my papers in a huff and stormed out, driving straight to my office to look up "Immunization Requirements" on the Arizona State Health Department web site. Sure enough, the site clearly states "attend," not "register."

So what had just happened? And why was I so angry about it? I realized that, due to several other encounters with this same school employee, I was reading this particular incident as a personal slight. I felt that this woman had placed a label on me, invisible to me but legible to everyone at the school, a label that amounted to "second-class citizen." Was it my lack of wedding ring? My seven-year-old car? Or had I inadvertently written "low-income working single mom" on my forehead before leaving the house today? I wasn't sure. But I felt it, in my core. She did not like me, and that combined with her position of power gave her the right to dictate the rules to me any way she saw fit, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Or could I? Reading the state website left me angry but vindicated, and I considered my next step. Surely, I felt, at the very least a letter of complaint was due. I called the school and asked for the employee's full name, including spelling, then politely thanked the office staff member and hung up. Not thirty minutes later, my phone buzzed in my pocket but I was unable to answer it; I was teaching. I checked the message after class was over, and surprisingly, it was from this same employee. She apologized, saying she had gotten mixed up and if I would just come back in, they could get everything straightened out.

My first thought came straight out of my frustration: Uh, no?!? I work for a living, lady. And then I wondered if my phone call to the office had caused her sudden change of heart. I hadn't said anything about the incident, nor asked to speak with the administration, nor complained in any way. But maybe I wasn't an powerless as I had originally thought.

For now, the plot thickens. I did not make it back to the school, and for now no longer want to enroll my child there. Not after today. I guess I'll see how I feel about it tomorrow.

Busing It

My chosen method of accessing ASU's Tempe campus is to park in the distant (but relatively less expensive) parking lots and then use the provided shuttle buses to close the gap between my car and my destination.

Yes, this really is what it looks like. I ride these green monsters every day!

My usual bus ride routine is to snag an empty seat and then bury my head in a book. It is part of my success strategy for grad school, to use every available bit of time to get a little more homework done. So far, it seems to be working pretty well.

But on Thursday, although I still rode the shuttle bus, I was feeling lazy and so spent my trip looking at the scenery. I was late coming in due to unexpectedly horrific traffic on the freeway, and so there were few passengers on my ride. At the first stop, a young woman moved to the front door of the bus to exit just before the bus stopped. The brakes locked and gasped, the back door opened, but as I looked on I realized that the bus driver had not opened the front door despite the student waiting at his elbow. Just as I was realizing what was transpiring in front of me, she turned and, with a look of what I interpreted as defiant resignation, sauntered slowly to the back door of the bus and exited. Her eyes met mine, briefly, as she passed, and we shared a look of commiseration that was completely unequal. How could I know what one more slight, one more act of prejudice, feels like?

I watched, and although this particular bus driver did not open the front door at the next stop either, still I had to wonder. What had I just witnessed? Was I reading into it something that was not there? Were my eyes and recent attenuation to issues of race and gender playing tricks on me?

Does it matter that the student was a women with dark brown skin and the bus driver a middle-aged white man?

Registration

In an odd confluence of circumstances, it just so happened that I read Chapter 1 of Rev. Thandeka's book Learning to Be White this week, and also registered my son for Kindergarten.

Why is this odd?

Rev. Thandeka's chapter discusses, among other things, her experiences with and theories about the concept of "white shame." According to the author, it simply isn't possible to not be racist if one has grown up in a racist society. At some point, the argument goes, each person will be brought face-to-face with a situation in which they are "racialized," a process that varies from individual to individual but can be a traumatic experience for those who seem to sense that something is not quite right about The Way Things Are.

For the uninitiated, Kindergarten registration is an interesting process of one, proving that you are who you say you are (both for the parent and the child), and two, filing out a registration form that includes a section that asks for the student's "personal information." Pretty standard, really, until I got down to the part where I was presented with check-boxes and asked to categorize my son by both "Ethnicity" and "Race."

"Ethnicity" in this context represented two choices: "No, not Hispanic/Latino" or "Yes, Hispanic/Latino."

Under "Race," there were five options: "American Indian or Alaskan Native," "Asian," "Black or African American," "Native American or other Pacific Islander," and "White."

Now, I've seen the kinds of check-boxes all my life, probably starting with my own entrance into public school. But this time they rose up from the page with such insidiousness that I was startled.

My first reaction was avoidance. I just wouldn't check any boxes.

Then I saw the italicized line of text at the top of the section. It read: "The U.S. Department of Education requires all states to collect race and ethnicity information on students and staff." Beside "Ethnicity," it said "Must select one." Beside "Race," "Must select one or more."

Requires. Must. Doesn't seem to leave much room for opting out, does it?

So I decided to bow to convention and check some boxes. But as I lifted my pen, it suddenly got really pear-shaped. My son is not Hispanic/Latino nor white. He is both. His mom is a light-skinned individual with Western European heritage. His dad, born in Argentina, bears the rather darker skin and hair of his mixed Spanish and Middle Eastern ancestry. His dad would be what most consider "Hispanic." So, in a way my son is Hispanic. In another way, he is not.

In the end, I decided that I could choose. I, with my privileged white skin, have the luxury to choose. My son could benefit from my phenotype and easily pass for an olive-skinned "not Hispanic white." Or, I could indicate that he is Hispanic, but still white (in the absence of more descriptive categories), but past experience tells me that the office staff will simply change it after taking one look at me. My privilege follows me around, like a pale shadow, whether I ask it to or not.

Am I making too much out of this? Some would say yes. But I don't think so. Maybe the reason that we are "required" to confine our children to race and ethnic check-boxes is that we aren't making enough out of things like this. The questions are endless. Why would the government need to know this information? Will indicating one race or ethnicity result in my child being treated with prejudice and discrimination? Scholars of Whiteness say yes. Under these circumstances, who does it then benefit to assign races and ethnicities to five-year-old children? Who does it disadvantage?

Perhaps Rev. Thandeka has the answer. She asserts that at one point in her life she believed that "the Euro-American child...is a racial victim of its own white community of parents, caretakers, and peers” (13). I wonder, for a child with claims in multiple race or ethnic communities, does this work the same way?

Color Blind

I think I might be a racist. But I don’t want to be.

Perhaps you will permit me to explain.

Over the past few days, I have had the opportunity to examine my own beliefs and attitudes about and toward race and come to the realization that I, like most other (whites) here in the U.S., have been operating under the “sincere fictions” of color-blind liberalist ideology. I grew up with it. As an individual born at the tail end of the Civil Rights “era,” I have been carefully instructed in the pretense and profound uneasiness propagated by this system. I, like most other (whites) here in the U.S., viewed my all-white neighborhood, schools, friends, even co-workers, and “natural” and “normal” effects of personal choice. I have not thought of my circumstances as racialized, despite the distinct lack of diversity I experienced in my early life.


I have been forced to come face-to-face with the way that I have bought in to color-blind ideology through my reading of Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s book, Racism without Racists (2003). Via a combination of surveys and personal interviews, Bonilla-Silva’s project focused on “examining how many whites subscribe to an ideology that ultimately helps preserve racial inequality rather than assessing how many hate or love blacks and other minorities” (15). Because I have never subscribed to beliefs that promoted thoughts nor actions of overt racism, I felt relatively secure going in that I would not struggle too much with what Bonilla-Silva had to say. I told myself that, because I try to avoid stereotypes and generalizations about people based on skin color, I wouldn’t find too many similarities between myself and the individual described in the book, those who engaged in discriminatory practices or those contributing to a racist society.

Yeah. So I was dead wrong about that.

Bonilla-Silva says: “Since color-blind racism is the dominant racial ideology, its tentacles have touched us all and thus most readers will subscribe to some—if not most—of its tenets, use its style, and believe many of its racial stories” (15). As you can see from my opening statements, I came to realize just how much I had been affected by this “dominant racial ideology,” and how much I would struggle, as those interviewed did, to explain my personal beliefs while trying to sound “nonracist.” Trying to sound nonracist, not trying to be nonracist. There is a pernicious fallaciousness about that that rankles something awful.

Of course, the rub is that this is something I learned right alongside my alphabet, my mathematics, even my moral and ethical training via formalized religious teachings. Make a good show of it, this ideology whispers. Make sure you don’t say or do anything overtly discriminatory, and everything is just fine. No need to change. Those advantages are available to you because you earned them. Those other folks, they just didn’t work hard enough. Not like you. They could have whatever they want, if only they tried a little harder, got an education, and…what? Buy in to a system that would have them serve as second-class citizens their entire lives? Make it okay to verbally assault someone with racial slurs? Not only formulate but endorse double- or triple-standard business processes that discriminate against people based on their appearance? Refuse to provide quality educations to children who need them most?

So after realization comes the question: what can I do? What can I, one relatively insignificant individual, do, really do? Stop faking it, for one. Bonilla-Silva urges “a personal and political movement away from claiming to be ‘nonracist’ to becoming ‘antiracist.’ Being an antiracist begins with understanding the institutional nature of racial matters and accepting that all actors in a racialized society are affected materially (receive benefits or disadvantages) and ideologically by the racial structure. This stand implies taking responsibility for your unwilling participation in these practices and beginning a new life committed to the goal of achieving real racial equality” (15). Unwilling participation is nice, it gives me some hope that while before I may not have chosen to participate, in an active, all-choices-present-and-equal kind of way, I do have choices now. I am sure that this will not be easy, however; as Bonilla-Silva concludes, “The ride will be rough, but after your eyes have been opened, there is no point in standing still” (15).

Bibliography: Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003. Print.

Americanness

Just wanted to share a quick though from the fabulous Toni Morrison:

In "American literature...one can see that a real or fabricated Africanist presence was [is!] crucial to their [our] sense of Americanness. And it shows" (Playing in the Dark, p. 6).

A Question of Blackness?

After an intriguing discussion during my last Women's Studies class, I wanted to comment on something that seems very apropos in this space.

According to a January 9 Huffington Post article, "During an episode of "First Take" in December, [Rob] Parker asked his fellow panelists if RG3 [Robert Griffin III] 'was a brother or a cornball brother.' Parker went on to cite aspects of the 22-year-old rookie's personal life and his rumored political leanings as he questioned his authenticity and connection to the African-American community. Griffin had previously spoken with USA Today about race, with those quotes seeming to spark Parker's commentary."

So in my all-female class, we questioned how a professional football player could come under fire for what amounts to "not being black enough." I was mystified by this accusation. Never in my life have I been accused of not being "white enough," or "female enough," or maybe even "mother" or "student" or "employee" enough. I have been accused of not being "Christian" enough, so I guess in a very limited way I can use this experience of religious prejudice to attempt some kind of understanding. In order to belong to any group, in my case a religious order, it is necessary to align one's performance with the expectations of that group. Any deviations from this behavioral code can lead to punitive correctives, accusations, exclusion and, depending upon how invested the rest of the group is in forcing the issue, violence (whether psychological, emotional, social or physical). In the interesting case of Parker, my class members and I talked about how there is this desire to "claim" members for the race, especially successful individuals like pro football players. Thus it is Parker, and not the actual performance or non-performance of RG3, who has first "claimed" the NFL star for his own and then voiced criticism when his perceived performance did not match what Parker considers to be "black."

In my recent readings, this particular phenomenon is brought up a great deal, particularly as it pertains to white supremacy and the way in which (white) invaders, conquerors and other oppressors create an idealized image of native or aboriginal or somehow "othered" peoples, then punish them for not living up to this fantasy of an expectation. Is racism, then, simply a matter of the subjugated living up to the violent expectations of a dominant, oppressive governance? Not sure. Whatever it is, though, it is not simple, in any way.

Political Lingua Franca

Having just finished my first reading of Charles Mills's The Racial Contract, I have a loud collection of unexamined ideas buzzing excitedly between my ears. My initial reaction is one of admiration - I think that Mills has made a compelling argument (or series of arguments, really) that illuminate the pernicious silence surrounding racism and racist ideals, the need to recognize and name it, and more. In his introduction, Mills asserts that "what is needed...is a recognition that racism (or, and I will argue, global white supremacy) is itself a political system, a particular power structure of formal or informal rule, socioeconomic privilege, and norms for the differential distribution of material wealth and opportunities, benefits and burdens, rights and duties" (3). A provocative and dangerous idea, to be sure. That racism has historically (as presently) been willfully erased as part of a national attempt to hide an extraordinarily shameful past I do not doubt; Mills offers up each atrocity with a shocking frankness from which it is impossible to look away.

Yet as always, knowing and doing are two very different things. Once an awareness is raised, once acceptance has begun, things start to get really sticky. Continuing in ignorance, while definitely the more quiet, tranquil route, is no longer a possibility. But Mills does offer up the idea that whites, at least in theory, have a choice. The color of one's skin cannot be helped, any more than I could go back and change the course of events that systematically constructed and then subverted the evils of racism and white supremacist oppressions. Neither skin nor ancestry should ever be used as a weapon against anyone, white or otherwise.  But one could take it upon oneself to reject the Racial Contract, "to speak out and struggle against the terms" (107). Admittedly, I have very little idea of what such a struggle might look like, how it might take shape from my specific positionality. However, I think that Mills is correct that first, it does become necessary to distinguish between whiteness ("phenotype/genealogy") from Whiteness (political commitment to white supremacy") (126). According to Mills, "By unquestioningly 'going along with things,' by accepting all the privileges of whiteness with concomitant complicity in the system of white supremacy, one can be said to have consented to Whiteness" (107). If I take Mills to be correct, then, my compliance, and silence, and passivity and cooperation are potentially the equivalent to complicity in a system against which, at least ideologically, I am vehemently opposed? Stings quite a bit, doesn't it?

Bibliography: Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. Print.

Paper Cuts

Microaggressions, often committed by well-intentioned  peers, faculty, and other support people, have been compared to a “million little paper cuts.” These pernicious acts poison our relationships, our communities, and ourselves, and unless/until they are acknowledged, they will never stop.

This blog has been re-purposed and devoted to one individual's search for awareness of the implications of and complicities in multiple oppressions. I don't know where this will lead, or even if this is an exploration I want to make. I don't know what shape discovery will take. But knowing what I know, believing what I believe, what else can I do but leap in faith and flail, eyes wide open, for the hope I hope is there.

Working Girl

I recently received an email from a wonderful new acquaintance of mine, an email sent to a group of women that are working together to coordinate the teaching of a women's religious studies and support group. The email was addressed to "Girls!..." which, I am assuming, includes myself.

Girls. Girls?!?

I understand that many women nowadays use such terms to address one another, and even Dictionary.com acknowledges this more playful and/or offensive form of casual address:

Usage note 
Just as many mature men, even young men, resent being referred to as boys,  many adult women today are offended if referred to as girls,  or the less formal gals.  In business and professional offices, the practice of referring to one's secretary as the girl  or my girl,  as in I'll have my girl look it up and call you back,  has decreased but not disappeared entirely. Such terms as the girls  in reference to a group of women, girl or gal Friday  in reference to a female secretary or assistant, and bachelor girl  in reference to an unmarried woman are increasingly regarded as offensive, and working girl  in the sense “a woman who works” is declining in use.


I guess I now get to count myself as one of the offended ones, having been referred to as a "girl" and being really irritated by it. As usual, I couldn't just leave it there, though. Why would being called a "girl," as part of a group and by a very kind person, cause me so much disgruntlement? It was not meant as an insult. I would guess that there is really little intent behind it at all, except perhaps giving us a clue into the way that this particular person sees herself and others around her. Does she think of herself as a "girl," then? A young person, a child, "a young, immature woman, especially formerly, an unmarried one"? I don't see myself this way, except maybe the unmarried part, but somehow "divorcee" and "unmarried" don't quite fit the exact same social categories as implied by the dictionary definition. At least in my head.

So at what age do I get to stop being a "girl" and become a "woman"? I thought I had already achieved the rights to this status by virtue of passing thirty years of living, but perhaps I have erred. Perhaps I must wait until the gray hair has taken over, until the youthful face has sagged and wrinkled, before I will no longer be seen as a "girl."

It has been an odd and strangely poignant moment of conflict, struggling momentarily with the discord of exterior definitions and/or labels and my own, preferred, self-definition. Maybe I should insist upon a less troubling form of address. And probably lose a potential friend, in the process. I don't know: is "ladies" any better?