a subset of derek

…big girls can’t represent in the world of beauty?

I am not a big fan of beauty pageants (especially ones with exceptionally young contestants — think JonBenet Ramsey age) but I can’t help but tip my hat to this one. Miss Surrey 2008, Chloe (I can’t seem to find a last name for her) is vying for Miss England.  What’s different about her?

She is a size 16.  Yes, one – six. She’s 5′10″ and about 168 lbs.

Maybe, dare I say it? People are starting to see beauty at any size.

As a man that is partial to the fuller – figured ladies, I am happy to see this.

Cierra got published!

Congrats!

To read her work called Bridging Differences through Feminist Service Learning, click here.

A young woman told me this today after I told her I have a child and she wasn’t interested:

“i just want a man that doesn’t have that baggage. it shows me he was with another woman and couldn’t make it work so how could it work with us”

That has probably got to be the most short-sighted statement I have EVER heard a woman make. Women are all different as men are all diferent. There are extenuating circumstances in EVERY relationship. The end of a relationship does not automatically constitute fault or defect, though many times faults do contribute to the end. She sees a child as a reminder of a past failure…I see him as a bastion of future success.

She’s missing out.

The forces are hard upon me……..

The first thing I heard when I woke up this morning was this:
6 a.m., alarm blaring: man’s excited radio voice
“Well that GIRL is about as sharp as a bucket of mud.”

Then the station ID “Q98!”

I flew out of bed faster than I thought was possible to turn that radio off. Well, great start to the day….

THEN

I had to visit the EMPLOYMENT department this morning to pick up an application. I walked in and saw a very LARGE poster which read:

“Failure is the path of least persistence.” (picture-A white man was carving something from stone.)

I just thought, if I don’t pass stats, I don’t get my degree, but I have WORKED so hard and been so PERSISTENT and am NOT getting good enough grades. So resent the insinuation that people have no other lives but work, and that if I do fail at something work related (like looking for a job), then I just haven’t tried hard enough.

Good ol’ American Dream.

Pan right. Speaking of achievement, on the wall next to the PERSISTENCE sign was a huge section (largest in the room) on military: job opportunities, literature, veteran information, etc. All of the propaganda had pictures of (white) men on them. There were no women or people of color represented at all.

What this juxtaposition of media says to me is: if you fail at finding a job in the EMPLOYMENT department, you didn’t try hard enough, but don’t worry because the U.S. Government will take care of you poverty stricken scourge.

It’s a good way to get rid of the poor and the minority men (women now too). Eugenics at work?

As I looked around I noticed a lot of knick knacks and bobbles that weren’t there before. WOW, they are really sprucing up the place!

There were tiny white men all over in various manly militant poses. One was even sitting on a huge machine gun turret type thing. If I positioned myself just right it looked like a giant penis….the man had a giant penis! WOW! His white buddy did too, but he was stepping on his (his foot rested upon a rocket launcher).

No women, no people of color were represented with the knick knacks (and are quite a few). What a homogenous society we live in….or so it seems.

So, I was wondering what women and people of color do when they go into that office, because it appears that there are none in the U.S. (at least not represented in the media of this office).

(Funny thing is that all the people waiting and using the facility were women.)

As I turned to go I finally saw him: an African American man. He was on the homepage of every computer introducing people to the job search capabilities of the U.S. Employment Department. It said to me that he represents the “type of people” that might be using the job search software.

He didn’t have to worry though, because if he failed in his job search then he could always join the military.

This all happened within the first hour of my day.

Next time someone tells you “its not that bad,” (punch them out) please educate her or him on reality.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound………….

On May 25th, 2005, author Inga Muscio visited my very own rural institution of higher education, Eastern Oregon University. It was great to meet Inga and hear about her research and her childhood stories; she is a great storyteller. We share similar background stories, interests in research, and lived experiences so I really connected with her through her writing. I am looking forward to reading her new book Secrets of a Blue Eyed Devil. This writing is about my connection with Inga’s first book.

Muscio wrote a book called Cunt: A Declaration of Independence and in it she explores all things vagina (sorry Inga, all things cunt). Reading Muscio really had an impact on how I am raising my daughters with regard to menstruation. I actually used to freak out a little bit about my period, because it is such a drag. Reading what Inga had to say, though, helped me connect with my body and think about what it meant in connection to the circle of life. I feel better about my body, and Muscio made me feel “okay” about having a period. Now I share that with my daughters. I do not want them growing up feeling like they need to hide their periods. I want them to rejoice their entrance into the sisterhood of women.

This is personal—so don’t read on if you have something against blood—but I want to share with you how I have begun making my period “natural” for my daughters. I do not shut them out of my bathroom when I use it (most of the time). This means they see all manner of my personal hygiene, including my “rituals” when I am menstruating. Before I read the book I used more privacy when I was on my period, but I want to normalize the experience of having a period so my daughters will not feel ashamed.

It is important for my daughters to feel wonderful and important as girls and women in America. One way of doing that is normalizing menstruation, which has become such a “travesty” in America. We have developed culture bound syndromes, as PMDD (Pre-menstrual Dysphoric Disorder), and mainstreamed pharmaceutical treatments for PMS (Pre-menstrual Syndrome), because our periods have become so cumbersome. We are prevented from engaging in battle or covert operations because we are women and have periods and get raped because we have cunts. I have a responsibility to normalize this process for my daughters so they do not feel the same pressure I did to hide my period (thus, denying my womanliness).

One day I forgot to use anything to catch the blood and it got all over my cute pink sweat capris: the girls happened to follow me into the bathroom and were present when I discovered this, so I did not freak out like I wanted to. Calmly, I said “ooops, I forgot my tampon. That’s okay,” and I went on from there. The opposite experience—me freaking about a blood stain and closing the girls out of the bathroom to clean myself up—would have conveyed a sense of shame to be experiencing womanliness. I am thankful for what I learned in Inga’s book and my girls are too, even though they do not yet know it.

My womanifesto is to develop a sense of appreciation (in me and in my daughters) for all things woman, beginning with our cunts.