In Which I Am Betrayed By My Fandoms

 As a person a little too online and way too immersed in the Bravo cinematic universe, I have to say that I'm not thrilled that my escapist news has become almost as insane as the actual news. 

I must preface my reaction to it all with a message for Taylor (Frankie Paul, of MomTok & Bachlorette fame), Lindy (West, Shrill creator and great feminist writer), Amanda (Batula, Summer House persona), and Ciara (Miller, model and Summer House queen):

You deserve better. I promise.

Even you, Amanda. 

Watching all these beautiful women, at least two of whom are creatively talented (Lindy, obvs, and Amanda is a decent graphic designer regardless of her absolute terribleness as a friend), and all of whom are great at social media content creation and public speaking, spin out because of mediocre-at-best men is. . . .

Not what I need right now. 

(For those of you who are not chronically online/reality TV fans, here's a quick summary of the situations, from least to most dire:

Amanda, Ciara, & Summer House: 

The women: Amanda and Ciara are dear friends. Real friends. Super supportive of each other friends. Amanda helped Ciara through her painful, public break-up with Summer House castmate West and Ciara has supported Amanda through her challenging marriage to Summer House OG Kyle and their recent separation. 

The men: West is a player who broke Ciara's heart and then dissed their relationship WAY TOO MUCH in the press. Kyle was emotionally abusive to his wife and cheated on her. They are probably not actively evil, but they do need therapy. 

The travesty: As Ciara and West were talking again, and soon after Kyle and Amanda's separation, Amanda and West started having a thing. Even though Amanda knew that Ciara still had feelings for West, even though West and Kyle are friends, even though Amanda and Ciara are really close friends. After all kinds of rumors, Amanda just put out a statement admitting to it. 

Lindy West and the Adult Braces Discourse

Adult Braces in Lindy's new book. It's billed as a road-trip self-growth book, but the internet has been distracted by the fact that her husband is terrible. This is the BEST explainer. 

Is he terrible?

Even if you overlook the way he forced her into polyamory (as she does, and which he did by saying I'll only marry you if the marriage is open), the way he overstepped her request that he not date anyone she knew (which she does, and which he did), the way he and Roya (that's the third person in their now throuple, who he started dating first) sleep in the master bedroom while Lindy sleeps in the guest room of the home she owns, and the way he sent a completed unhinged and abusive email to the reporter from Slate who recently interviewed Lindy, he still seems terrible just based on his own (recently deleted) Instagram posts. 

What's the problem?

The way Lindy has defended this man and the way he's treated her is very uncomfortable for a lot of people. The way this man, and Roya, have attacked people who question their treatment of Lindy reinforces people's distrust of this situation. 

Even smart, talented, beautiful people can get stuck in relationships with people who treat them poorly. So, it's like we're all witnessing a slow-motion train wreck. 

Taylor Frankie Paul 

Which brings us to Taylor, erstwhile leader of MomTok, center of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and star of the most recent (and now canceled) season of The Bachelorette. Taylor was part of a swinging scandal involving her now ex-husband, with whom she has two children. While feeling guilty about all that, she met Dakota, an addict and cheater. They had a child together. He kept cheating. They kept breaking up and getting back together and having terrible fights. He locked her in a garage. She attacked him and faced charges. When the video became public (right before The Bachelorette was to premiere, even though it was 3 years old), her season was canceled, and Mormon Wives stopped filming.))

See? It's been a lot. 

And I'm not ok. 

First of all, it really pisses me off that Taylor has had more consequences than any man in the Epstein files... or even Dakota, who just got cast on another reality show (from the Call Her Daddy podcaster, who I don't like anymore) despite also being under investigation for domestic violence after his and Taylor's most recent fight. 

Yes, I have a soft spot for Taylor because her mother is a piece of work, and Dakota is such a manipulative liar, and she is so relentlessly honest about herself. But I don't mind her facing consequences... I just mind all the men avoiding them. 

Speaking of men avoiding consequences, let's talk about West Wilson. Since he and Amanda hard-launched their situationship, he has gained a ton of social media followers, and I've barely seen any criticism of him. Meanwhile, people are sending Amanda death threats, and Rihanna (also a Bravo superfan) has unfollowed her. Even Jon Hamm (another superfan - we are legion and one of us is Michelle Obama) insulted her on Watch What Happens Live.

Once again, I'm fine with her having consequences. She deserves them for betraying her friend. But West now claims to be Ciara's friend (at least) and is also Kyle's friend. He has been just as shady. And yet no one seems to care about his role in all of this. 

If I wanted to watch white men get away with being shitty, I could just watch the news. 

(One could argue that the Trump White House is, in fact, just a giant reality show produced by Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Putin, and I don't disagree with that argument. But I only watch shows that have people I like. It's why I don't watch the show House of Villains.)

Aham, Lindy's husband, is experiencing some consequences: now the whole world thinks he's terrible. He's also not white. But even so, I fear Lindy is suffering bigger consequences; he's going to punish her for making him look bad. Trust me. 

I hope her book sales make up for it. 

Anyway, if I seem grouchy or distracted, this is why. Not the lack of justice for the Epstein victims. Not this ridiculous, horrible war. Not the racism of trying to get rid of birthright citizenship or the misogyny of the SAVE Act or whatever other bullshit they're doing to distract from the fact that Trump is a pedophile and a loser. 

It's because Taylor, Ciara, Lindy, and even Amanda deserve better. But mostly Taylor, Lindy, and Ciara. 

In conclusion, 

Fuck the Patriarchy. 

Valentine's Day Sucks

I've never been a fan of Valentine's Day.

As a child, I did not like my chocolate with "stuff" in it.

As an adolescent, I did not like never having a boyfriend on Valentine's Day and never getting one of those love carnations in homeroom.

As a college student, I did not like how every restaurant was crowded and over-priced, or how often I heard about how expensive roses are. And then there was the time I got the stomach flu on the way to a supposedly romantic getaway, so we spent the weekend at my parents' house instead.

And nothing was more awkward than dating during Valentine's Day season as a young adult. Or not dating, as I eventually decided to do.

In other words, I've almost always had sucky Valentine's Days.  And I can't help but think about all the people out there who are having sucky Valentine's Day each year. 

But I swear that's not the only reason I think V-Day sucks.

 I think it sucks because it's bullshit.

It's not that I object to gifts, going out to dinner or flowers as tokens of appreciation.

It's not that I automatically loathe all holidays - you should see me on Christmas.

But I hate the idea that romance is some performative bullshit that must involve flowers, jewelry and sappy cards given on a certain day of the year. Of course, I have weird ideas about what's romantic.

A friend of mine once dated a guy who got her tires rotated and all kinds of car maintenance done for on her birthday, just because he knew how much she hated dealing with all that stuff. I think that's way more romantic than giving her flowers and jewelry (especially if they look like the flowers and jewelry he gave to his last girlfriend on her birthday).

I'm a big fan of being specific in regards to romantic gestures. Which is basically the opposite of Valentine's Day.

I also think nurturing your relationship should happen on the regular, not on the one day that everyone else is doing it.

That's like being grateful for your blessings only on Thanksgiving. Definite recipe for unhappiness. 

I'm cool with Galentine's Day, though. Which was yesterday (coincidentally - or not coincidentally, right, universe? it's my grandma's birthday) but the thing about Galentine's Day is that you can celebrate it tomorrow, too. Or right now.

Fuck You Katie Roiphe

Katie Roiphe was Lena Dunham before Lena Dunham had gotten out of diapers. Anointed by New York media as spokeswomen for their respective generations of feminists in their mid-20's,  only Katie has a terrible habit of assuming her (white, middle to upper class, college educated, extremely fortunate) experiences and social circles actually represent the experiences of most women.

Lena at least knows that her fictional account in Girls was representative of a small subset, even if many media behemoths did not. And why didn't the NY Times realize this?

Because of Katie.

Katie Roiphe is doing the same thing to #MeToo that she did to the discussion of date rape in the '90's and motherhood 5 years ago: basing its acuity on talking to 20 of her friends and then telling big time male publishers what they want to hear. She also claims that her 20 friends are afraid to have the complicated conversations about levels of harmful behavior publicly.

Other people have explained it better than I could, both in Slate  and in The Cut.

You should definitely read those. Really. But if you don't want to click over, read this excerpt from Rebecca Traister in The Cut. 

If Roiphe were looking for someone brave enough to question the dictum “believe all women” — which, as an aside, isn’t quite the thing; it’s “believe women” and I know plenty of feminists, including me, who don’t simply believe women as a blanket practice, but do tend to “listen to” and “trust” them, which are different — she could have quoted amply from Bari Weiss’s column, entitled “The Limits of ‘Believe All Women,’” in the New York Times. Roiphe didn’t need to offer deep anonymity to a friend who wanted to say that “the sources” accusing Al Franken of groping women were “sketchy”; she could have quoted Mika Brzezinski, who said the same (and also questioned whether we’re really supposed to believe all women’s claims) on MSNBC. Roiphe’s nameless friend who wished someone could admit that power is an aphrodisiac must have missed Laura Kipnis’s piece wrestling with the implications of that old Kissinger observation, in The New York Times Magazine. Uneasiness over the category collapses and anonymity of claims on the Shitty Media Men list has been expressed eloquently by so many women, including Doree Shafrir and Jia Tolentino; in the Times Magazine, Zoë Heller wrote of the subjective nature of accusation, of how “my unexceptional office banter is your horrifying insult.”

The best take, though, is probably the most succinct:

The Roiphe story is the Nunes memo of feminist discourse.

— Irin Carmon (@irin) February 4, 2018

At this point, though, calling Katie a feminist is like calling Nunes a patriot.

They're both loyal to the powers that be, not ideas like equality and honor.

They can both fuck off.

Trophy Tuesday: That Bitch Is Totally Wrong

So I'm way behind on this story, mainly because I no longer have babies and never watch vloggers, but . . .

I need to talk about the woman who said she breastfed while having sex. 

The story appeared in my Facebook feed and I just. . . .

I mean. . . .

What the actual HELL?

Look, I breastfed all of my kids. 

Ironflower weaned herself at 11 months. She also had formula on many occasions because some days she wanted a damn bottle. If you know Ironflower, this makes perfect sense. The boys were a different story. 

Lovebug and Hugmonkey nursed exclusively and compulsively for the first 6 months of their lives. I nursed those boys everywhere. I even nursed Lovebug during a hike to a glacier in Alaska. 

My boys nursed so often that I used to joke that I could do anything one handed. 

Clearly "anything" was not the word I should have used. 

Because I never had sex or even fooled around while I was nursing. Or bottle feeding Ironflower. I think I may have intentionally flashed Hot Guy a few times, but that was only to get him ready for the quickie that we would have when we put the baby down in the crib in the other room. 

One comment I read defending this vlogger said, "What if the baby cries when you're about to climax?" 

Um, then the baby cries for a minute. Mama deserves her orgasm.  

Apparently this mom is an attachment parent vlogger who tags her breastfeeding videos as #sexy.  

First of all, breastfeeding is not sexy. 

Second, this is not multi-tasking, this is boundary crossing.  

Third, how can you possibly think being apart from your baby for 30 minutes will traumatize them but sex noises and bouncing won't? Newsflash: Neither will at the time, but think about whether you'd like to know that your parents had sex while your mom was feeding you or that they let you cry a bit so they could have adult time?

Fourth, your parents probably let you cry so they could have adult time.

Fifth, you don't really need 30 minutes if you're actually horny.

Sixth, don't procreate with a guy who cannot wait until you finish nursing. 

I can't help but think that this is some warped version of a super-mommy complex. As in, "I never let my baby cry AND my husband is always sexually satisfied." That's a recipe for disaster, or at least a future dependence on chemical substances, if I've ever seen one. Just imagine what's she's going to do when she's got a feverish preschooler who won't leave her side and a husband who expects his needs to be met no matter what. 

Actually, DO NOT imagine that.

The reason I saw this awful story is that a feminist page I follow shared an essay in her defense. I've been a feminist (and alive and a parent) longer than all of these people, so I feel completely justified in saying that making breastfeeding the "sexy" choice and/or compatible with satisfying all your man's sexual desires DOES NOT MAKE YOU A FEMINIST ROLE MODEL.

It does make you a breastfeeding asshole, though.

Trophy Tuesday: Ammosexuals

As I start this draft, we are 24 days into the new year. So far there have been 11 school shootings.

It's America's thing.

Really. 

I discovered this in the bathroom at Hugmonkey's school last week. It's a PreK-3 school. I mean, on one level, this is great. It's very clear on what to do. But on another level, like the fact that it has to exist. . .

I will never forget what it felt like to walk into that school the day after Sandy Hook. Ironflower and Lovebug had their winter concert and suddenly parents had to sign in and there were police officers on hand and you had to wear a red sticker and I think I cried during the whole concert.

The whole culture of the school changed overnight, it seemed. And I was so grateful that my second grader and my first grader and my preschooler were safe and that the school was doing everything in its power to keep them safe.

I was also furious.

I remain furious.

I also remain grateful, because of course I'm grateful every day that I get to be with my kids. But gratitude is not getting a trophy today. 

I first saw the term "ammosexual" on Twitter. Twitter is also where I 'met' my first ammosexuals.

I've known gun owners all my life. I won't say I've been around guns all my life, because all the gun owners I knew kept that shit locked up. My mother talked fondly of her stepfather hunting to supplement their grocery budget; Hot Guy talks fondly about growing up doing the same. Other family had their guns for protection; some had them for both. Hell, when my cousins lived in Alaska they brought guns on hikes. Because of bears.

Most gun owners are not ammosexuals. Most gun owners would like universal background checks, for example. Most gun owners do not belong to the NRA, which has gone from a force for education to a force for paranoia. Most gun owners, like most citizens, would like to know the most effective ways to reduce mass shootings and gun suicides.

Ammosexuals will literally spend hours trying to convince you that suicides and mass shootings cannot be reduced and so the CDC shouldn't study gun violence.  that any US citizen should be able to buy as many guns as he or she wants, regardless of domestic violence restraining orders or mental health issues. Some ammosexuals will try to convince you that Sandy Hook and Las Vegas were fake or orchestrated by the "Deep State" as an excuse for the government to seize all the guns.

Other ammosexuals have decided that Sandy Hook and Las Vegas and every other mass shooting are the price we all must pay so that they can always buy as many guns as they want. Ammosexuals are convinced that their right to bear arms must be unlimited, despite Scalia's assertion otherwise.

Ammosexuals' entire identities are so tied up in gun ownership that even the idea that some people don't want guns around them at the movies or the grocery store is threatening. This would be like me being threatened by the Amish, attached as I am to modern conveniences like cable TV and the internet. Or by those homesteader people who live off the grid (some of whom are, in fact, ammosexuals).

Except that I'm not.

And if the CDC wants to study how social media contributes to suicide rates? I support that. I hope they're doing that, actually.

What kind of asshole doesn't want to figure out the best way to reduce suicides? Or mass shootings? Or domestic violence?

Oh, wait. We know about domestic violence. The presence of a gun increases the risk of homicide by 500%.

I've had no less than 4 Twitter ammosexuals respond to that statistic with, "They should have left." As if it's that easy. As if that's not what triggers more homicidal violence.

Ammosexuals love guns more than they love people.

Fuck you, ammosexuals. Fuck you, Russian backed lobbying arm of the ammosexuals, aka the NRA. And fuck you politicians who listen to the NRA over American voters.

Ignorance Is Not A Virture, Nor Is It An Excuse

You have to read this piece by Lindy West. For real. I'm not just linking for back up here.

She opens her take on the Aziz Ansari story with this:

In 1975, 42 years before the comedian Aziz Ansari reportedly brought a date home to his apartment and repeatedly tried to initiate sex with her after she told him “next time” and “I don’t want to feel forced,” Susan Brownmiller published “Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape.”

“All rape is an exercise in power,” Brownmiller wrote in 1975, “but some rapists have an edge that is more than physical.” Sometimes, the 1975 text suggests, rapists “operate within an emotional setting or within a dependent relationship that provides a hierarchical, authoritarian structure of its own that weakens a victim’s resistance, distorts her perspective and confounds her will.” “Against Our Will” has been available in American libraries since its publication, which was in 1975.

Her ultimate point is that feminists have been talking about issues around consent for a long time.

I would like to take this a step further for all those lamenting "political correctness" and wishing to "make America great again".

People have been talking about white privilege and gender issues for a long time too.

Example from 1978. Here's an entire thesis on the historical origins for the term white privilege. Spoiler alert: a graph on page 3 shows its first usage in the 1940s.

Gender identity in 1968. Manliness being separate from loving your penis in 1963. You can also read a nice summary and check out all the citations in Wikipedia, of all places.

Don't like academic works? Read Maya Angelou. Or James Baldwin. Or Ralph Ellison. Or Alex Haley. Or Alice Walker. Or August Wilson. Or Virginia Woolf. Or Langston Hughes. Or Audre Lorde. Or Armistead Maupin. Or Karl Heinrich Ulrichs.

Definitely click on the Karl Heinrich Ulrichs link. He was pretty cool. 

People on the margins have been talking about all this stuff longer than you've been alive.

Of course you didn't hear about it when you were a kid or a teenager. When we were kids and teens, there was no social media, no internet and having cancer was something people whispered about. The MINISTER who lived behind me was forgiven by the community and his church for having an affair while his wife was dying of cancer because, well, "a man needs a wife who can perform her duties."

Yes, this is an actual quote I overheard about the whole issue when I was a kid. Not from either of my own parents, thank God. It was from another neighbor. Also a minister. Of course, beliefs like this still exist. 

But I bet if you reached out to black peers, they'd tell you they were talking about this stuff as kids and teens. And if you have peers who are gay or queer or not cis, I bet they were at least desperately searching for info on this stuff back then.

What's new is that we're talking about it openly. What's new is that your grandma is not only talking about her breast cancer, she's sporting a "Save the Boobies" t-shirt. What's new is that people who are different aren't hiding anymore. What's new is that we know racism is not only wrong, it's harmful. What's new is that you can go on Twitter or Medium or Instagram and hear directly from people who aren't white, or cis, or middle class, or American, or straight, or on your side of the political divide.

Every day, you choose whose stories you listen to, whose feeds you follow, whose experiences you learn about. You can absolutely curate your information in such a way as to never hear about struggles you don't relate to or ideas that make you uncomfortable, but if you choose to do that?

You don't get to complain about everything changing or being a new idea. New to you doesn't mean it's new, just like the fact that you just ate lunch doesn't mean that people aren't starving to death in the world.

You don't get to plead ignorance of the nuances of consent, alleged feminist Aziz Ansari.

Not anymore.

Friday I'm in Love: I Love Women*

*In a non-sexual way. Usually. I would probably switch teams for Tina Fey, though.

Maybe "Feminist Themed" would have been a better title?

Oh well.

Nothing screams "Subvert the Patriarchy!" like a vagina cake at a baby shower. As long as it's a co-ed baby shower.

"Ask a Slave" is my new favorite web series.

This is my new favorite Pinterest Board: Political Poop

Sites to read if you love women too: Jezebel.com
                                                          The-Broad-Side
                                                          Slate's Double X
                                                          Bitch Magazine
                                                          Black Feminists

Pop Culture Thursday: An Oasis in the TV Desert

If Kathy Griffin, Joan Rivers and Amy Poehler had a comedy baby, it would be Amy Schumer.




I would like Amy Schumer to be my best friend. Provided that she is actually making fun of herself (and others) in this video and that she's not actually like this. If she's actually like this, I'll settle for being regular friends. I'm not a masochist.

Anyway, Inside Amy Schumer is my favorite thing on T.V. right now. Granted, there's not a lot of competition right now, but still. Her show makes me laugh out loud every time I watch it. I'd watch it even during the regular TV season.

Besides, I feel a certain feminist pull to support a woman's show on Comedy Central - really, to support women in comedy in general. Not because I don't love (some) men in comedy, but because douchecanoes like Daniel Tosh and Dane Cook have their own shows and specials all the time and women of much greater talent do not.

Ticked-Off Tuesday: Torrington

When I was 12 years old, a college student gave me my first beer. I was sleeping over at a friend's house on New Year's Eve. Her parents were out and her older brother and his friend were getting ready to do the same. I thought the friend was cute. Even though he was legally an adult. Hell, he may have been legally able to buy the beer, I have no idea. What do I remember is that he was older and nice to a couple of 12 year olds and let us have two of his beers before they left.

I thought he was the cutest boy ever. He gave the beers after we begged him to take us to the party he was going to. We had no idea what a party full of high school and college students would be like (we had not yet seen Sixteen Candles) or that, "Take us with you!" could be seen as a come on. Lucky for us, he said no. Giving us a couple of beers, sure. Taking us around a bunch of drunk teenagers? No. Taking advantage of our obvious crushes? No.

I haven't thought about that crush, or my first beer, in years. But when I heard the story about the 13 year old girls from Torrington and the 18 year old football players, I remembered.

That is a child, people. 

I feel like sending him a thank you letter. 

I don't know what happened to those girls in Torrington - whether they consented or not. Even if they did consent, they were not fucking old enough to do so. But I do know that they don't deserve all the victim blaming they're getting. When people say, "Why were they hanging around with 18 year old guys?" I want to scream. 

I was lucky that the 18 year old guys I knew at 12, 13 and 14 - the ones I had crushes on, the ones that maybe could have persuaded me to do things I had no business doing - were not rapists. 

Why isn't everyone asking, "Why were those 18 year olds hanging around 13 year olds?" What kind of guys do that? 

But once again, teenagers are so brainwashed that they're defending the rapists and attacking the victims. 

WTF?

I think it's time to overhaul our sexual education curricula. 

Ticked Off Tuesday: Angry

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you might have noticed that I've been posting a lot about the Steubenville case. Or rather, the world's reaction to it.

I am angry.

Not so much at the rapists. I mean, I am no more angry at them than I am at any other rapist. What they did was terrible, but unfortunately, it is not all that uncommon. (Don't want to believe me? Read this post. Or this one. Or this one. I'm not going to keep going, though I so easily could.)

A lot of us were drunk when we were raped.

So the takeaway (the victim-blaming) is that women, especially young women, shouldn't drink. Especially at parties where young men are around.

I find this interesting, because I used to get drunk a lot. Working it out mathematically, it seems that I was raped far less than one percent of the times I was drunk. Something like 1 in 800 times. Which is far less than my chances of dying in a car accident or a fall, but no one is saying that people shouldn't drive cars or stand up.

The other thing we should note is that while some people are raped while drunk, not every person who is raped is drunk. Plenty of sober people get raped too. In fact, the National Institutes of Health say one half of the people who are raped are sober.

So even if young women never got drunk at parties, there would still be rapes.

But it would be so much harder to blame the victim if every victim was sober, wouldn't it?

Do you know what EVERY SINGLE RAPE VICTIM* has in common? Sober or drunk?

Being around a rapist.

The tragedy for those young men of Steubenville is not that they got caught committing a crime. It is not that their futures are ruined. It's not that their families are sad.

It's that these young men with good grades and sports abilities and other blessings thought it was okay to rape someone. They thought that raping a drunk girl was funny. The tragedy is that they were so completely able to dehumanize another human being, not that they can't play college football.

I am angry.

I am angry that we are not telling our sons, maybe you shouldn't drink, because then you might dehumanize another person. Why are we not emphasizing that not only does no mean no, but that silence means no? Drunk means no. "I'm not sure" means no.

I am angry at every person who says, "Well, those boys were drunk too." As I mentioned before, I've been drunk a lot. I have done stupid things while drunk. But I never killed anybody, much as my drunk self may have wanted to, because I knew that was wrong. I knew that in the marrow of my bones. I never robbed a bank while drunk, or even stole easily accessible money. Even when I was drunk and broke. Because I knew it my bones that it was wrong.

Why didn't these boys know in their bones that raping this girl was wrong?

Why didn't anyone else around them?

I am angry.

I am angry that we still have to talk about this in 2013. I am angry that victim blaming is so pervasive, other young women are threatening her. I am angry that we live in a country where people think anyone ASKS to be raped.

Are people with cars asking to be carjacked? Are people with wallets asking to be mugged? Are people who own things asking to be robbed? Are people who talk asking to get punched by people who disagree with them?

I am angry that the supposedly liberal media is more worried about the rapists than the victim*.



*Hey media folks, did you know that when something bad happens to someone, that person is a victim? People who get mugged are not "assault accusers". People whose homes get flooded are not "flood accusers". People who get raped are VICTIMS (and survivors), not accusers. 

I Am Not My Children

Quick quiz: What picture do you use as your Facebook avatar?

According to Katie Roiphe, if you answered, "My kid's", you are erasing yourself and making Betty Friedan turn over in her grave. According to Katie Roiphe, men don't do this. According to Katie Roiphe, you are spending your time at dinner parties talking obsessively about your kid(s) instead of talking about books or movies. According to Katie Roiphe, we are all constructing our identities solely around motherhood. According to Katie Roiphe, we are all too involved with our children and that's why they can't play independently.

To which I say, Katie, when are you going to stop assuming that your experiences with your friends constitute a sociological study? And why don't you get some different friends?

It's not that I disagree with Katie, exactly. I do feel that our generation of mothers is the most overly involved and self-critical generation of mothers ever. I do worry that kids today aren't learning to self-entertain or problem solve. It makes me sad when we only celebrate women who have chosen to be wives and mothers as well as rocket scientists, instead of women who have chosen to be rocket scientists and knitters and aunts. Or whatever.

But to say that our generation is going to disappear because your academically and professionally gifted friends can't talk about anything but their kids? That's ridiculous. I don't know know Katie personally, but I know that she is a professor at NYU. So let's assume her friends, for the most part, are fellow New Yorkers. She mentions how educated they are. I'm going to guess that they are also financially secure, because it's pretty hard to host dinner parties when you are poor (and over 25). That's a pretty small slice of the population on which to make assumptions.

When I look at my Facebook friends, for example, most of whom aren't upper middle class New York academics, I see a lot of pictures of people with their kids. Or even - shocker - alone. A lot of the men also have pictures with their kids. Of course, I realize this is about as scientific as Katie's sampling*, which kind of proves my point. Or maybe we're just more enlightened in the suburbs?

To quote the article about using your kids' picture as your avatar:

But this particular form of narcissism, these cherubs trotted out to create a picture of self, is to me more disturbing for the truth it tells. The subliminal equation is clear: I am my children.

Not to dismiss Facebook as a place where you can discover social trends, but are you fucking kidding me? As someone who loves social media, who self-identifies as a mommy blogger and who spends way too much time on Facebook, I found some subliminal equations in Katie's article: 

If your social media presence comprises your entire identity, you've got bigger problems than being your children. 

If you put so much thought into your social media presence among your alleged friends on Facebook that your avatar picture indicates your soul's health, you need to stop using Facebook. 

If you feel the need to bitch about your friends' lack of interest in the world around them in an article for Slate, you need new friends.**

If you feel that women are disappearing into motherhood, write something engaging to bring them out. Don't write an article slamming them. 

If you feel that your friends represent womanhood as a whole, get out and meet some new people. 

If you think your friends aren't parenting their kids the way you would like, cite some studies about effective parenting techniques. 

If you think your parents did a better job raising you than your friends are doing with their own kids, then parent like they did, not like your friends. But also ask yourself if your own wonderful parents spent so much time judging other parents. 

I mean, I wonder what's more indicative of someone's sense of self: a hastily thrown together Facebook profile or an article written for a well-known website? I can tell you that I've spent more time writing this blog post for my obscure blog than I did choosing what photo to use as a Facebook avatar. 

But just because that's true for me doesn't necessarily mean it's true for Katie Roiphe. Right? 


*If you would like to make it more scientific, please like my Facebook page and expand my informal sample.

**If you're a real life friend of mine who starts getting on my nerves? I promise I'm not going to blog about how all people who are obsessed with their cats are mentally ill. I'll probably just stop asking about your cats, or maybe I'll avoid you or something.

A Love Letter For Tina Fey

Dear Tina,

I can call you Tina, right? I've read Bossypants twice, so I feel like I know you. And I love you. This is probably making me sound like a creepy stalker, but I swear I'm not. First of all, I'm not creepy. Second of all, I'm way too lazy to stalk anyone. And if I was going to stalk anyone, it would probably be Taylor Kitsch. Or Jon Stewart. Or Brett Favre.

I have eclectic tastes.

Anyway, I love your work - 30 Rock, Bossypants, Mean Girls, essays, some of my favorite SNL years. But more than your work, I love that you are so honestly yourself. You don't try to pretend that you're perfect or that every aspect of your life is perfect all the time. You have this amazing career, a great family, a bunch of (much deserved) awards, and yet you still fret about things.

I find it comforting. Reassuring, even. The knowledge that even if I became the most successful mommy blogger of all time (or managed to actually finish a book and publish it and have it turned into a movie), with the financial security, uber-patient nanny and awesome housecleaner that would come along with that success, I would still have moments of insecurity. I would still feel like I was juggling things not very successfully all the time. I would still cry for no good reason every ninth Tuesday.

I think our generation of women  has always had this idea that we could do it all, that we should do it all and that it wouldn't be that hard. I have a friend who was really ticked that she was still having these times of insecurity and panic when she turned 40. As if we would eventually hit a point, at 30 or 40 or whenever, where we would have everything figured out. That all those inner critics and inner 13 year olds would disappear suddenly. I had that idea too, until I started reading books and blogs by all these amazing women, who sometimes trip or feel insecure or say the wrong thing.

I'm so grateful to you and to the other successful women who are openly imperfect (Mindy Kaling! Kathy Griffin! Scary Mommy! The Bloggess! Jenn Lancaster! Laurie Notaro! Jenna Fischer! Adele! And that's who I can think of off the top of my head. Who did I forget?). I'm so thankful that you have helped create a world in which Christopher Hitchens seems like a total idiot for not thinking women are funny. I love that you are a feminist in my favorite sense of the word, not someone obsessed with checking all the boxes of stereotypical academic feminism.

You make me look forward to the (fast-approaching) day when I need glasses. You make me proud of my husband for having such a huge crush on you. You make me proud to have a been a theater nerd. You make my teenage self proud to have been called "too smart" by too many loser guys. You make me happy.

                                                                                                          Thanks,
                                                                                                             Jen

Lucky Hooker

That's what I really want to name my blog. In fact, that's what I really wanted to use as my internet name. I was exhausted when I chose to leap from a now-defunct writing community to my own place in the bloggy world and all the names I liked were already in use. Except "Lucky Hooker".

But I chickened out.

I was already feeling brave enough by NOT including "mommy" in my title. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I originally started writing on the internets before I had kids. Too bad I wasn't knowledgeable enough to start my own blog back then. Instead I wrote for the defunct writing community and before that, Blogit. Anyway, I guess I saw blogging as MY thing, my "me" time and I wanted a name that described me.

But I wasn't quite brave enough to choose "Lucky Hooker", possibly because a lot of the first mommy blogs I read were of the "my kids are so adorable and my husband's perfect and I love scrubbing the floor with this homemade organic soap I made" variety. Since I already knew my blog was going to be different, I was too afraid to just brand myself that way.

Not that I really knew about branding.

Anyway, you may be wondering why I even considered calling myself "Lucky Hooker" at all. Generally, hooker's not exactly a compliment. And if you'd ever met me - even when I was skinny and going clubbing - you would know that I could never be mistaken for any kind of actual hooker. Too unpolished to be high class, too conservative to be of the street variety. But back when I was a single teacher, I had these friends. Well, I mean, most of them are still my friends but we no longer work together and very rarely get drunk together anymore. Anyway, we called each other "hooker" all the time.

I don't know why. Maybe we were subversively reclaiming the word for feminism. Probably we just thought it was funny. The "lucky" bit came later, when one of us saw a t-shirt with the words "lucky hooker" on a fishing show. We made our own shirts soon after.

To be a lucky hooker, you had to have a big sense of humor and a small sense of propriety. You had to be able to do a shot and dance on a table. You had to be able to laugh at yourself. You had to like sex and like talking about it almost as much. Oh, and while you could look fabulous, you never quite managed to look perfect.

I am still a lucky hooker at heart. Okay, I'm in no shape to dance on a table, but I danced on enough of them at the time to earn me lifetime status anyway. I miss my lucky hookers every day, even though there are definitely some in the blog world.

Aren't there?

Things Not To Say Around Me

There are a lot of phrases that can piss me off.

"Name calling is no big deal." (Nah, it's just a form of bullying and we all know that's not a problem today.)

"Sarah Palin says. . . ." (She's IGNORANT. And a hypocrite who actually does get state support and health care for a kid and a grandkid.)

"She was asking for it." (Unless she said, "Will you have sex with me?" she wasn't asking for it.)

"Teaching kids about birth control will make them have sex." (Well, a lot of them already are having sex, so why not let them be safe? And do you really think the ones who have chosen not to for moral reasons are going to jump right into it because they can do it without getting pregnant or AIDS?)

"Well, the Bible tells us that homosexuality is wrong." (It also says lying, drunkenness  and premarital sex are equally wrong - care to condemn those with the same brush?)

And today's personal favorite, "I'm not a feminist, but . . ."

Usually the "but" is followed by some feminist tenet like equal pay for equal work or praise for a gutsy woman like Kathryn Bigelow. It makes me want to scream. Unless you are one of those uber-Christians who take the Bible literally in EVERY aspect (not just the aspects you like) Quiverfull people or a Taliban member, you have no reason not to call yourself a feminist.

A feminist is a person who supports feminism, which Merriam-Webster defines as:

1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

— fem·i·nist \-nist\ noun or adjective

— fem·i·nis·tic \ˌfe-mə-ˈnis-tik\ adjective

What part of that scares people? It doesn't say you have to hate men, be pro-choice, be a lesbian, work outside the home, skip make-up, hate sex or whatever other stereotypes are  out there. You just have to believe that women are equal to men - that your daughters deserve the same educational opportunities as your sons, that your boss can't grab your ass and laugh about it, that your vote counts just as much as anyone else's, that you should earn the same pay for doing the same job and that you are equal partners in your relationship.

Is there anyone reading my blog who doesn't believe that?

Well, then, welcome feminists! Who wants a margarita?

Things I Shouldn't Do In Public

Cocky is one of those words I hate. I'm sure it originated from those early morning birds, but is that what YOU think of when you hear it? Me neither. So it bugs me because it always seems kind of wrong to use it to describe women. And there's no comparable female word. Why doesn't anybody say "vulvtastic"? Or "breasty"?

Though I suppose there's always arrogant. Prideful. Conceited.

Anyway, this morning I felt a bit arrogant/prideful/conceited/vulvtastic/breasty/cocky. I had managed to get up and dressed before the kids got up. I had managed to dress and feed all three of them forty-five minutes sooner than usual so that we could take Hot Guy to work. Which we did. Then I got a good deal on gas, hit the bank and took Lovebug to preschool, where his teacher was very impressed to hear that Lovebug dressed himself this morning (It's true. If I lay the clothes out and leave the room, he does it.) Then I took Ironflower to dance class, where I managed to breastfeed ChunkyMonkey while watching the class. Next we hit Walgreens and Stop and Shop.

Stop and Shop was my downfall.

After grabbing a few necessary things we headed to the bakery department (sure, I realize that it's probably a bad idea to bribe my daughter with baked goods, especially in return for dance class behavior. But it's the only way the whole day won't be ruined.) The free sample today was rather large pieces of chocolate cake with buttercream frosting.

Mentally patting myself on the back for all that I accomplished by 11 am - without tantrums or other disasters - I decided to have a bit of cake. I let Ironflower have some, then I took a bite. I wiped her face and mine and proceeded with the trip.

I though the check-out girl looked at me oddly, but I didn't worry about it. I found it strange when the guy standing outside smirked at me, but shook it off. And when the woman parked next to us seemed to run away I assumed that she was in a hurry.

It wasn't until I got in the car and used the rearview mirror that I noticed the frosting on the tip of my nose.

A lot of frosting.

In fact, I think there was more frosting on my nose than there had been on Ironflower's face, and Ironflower had needed a big wipe down. Though apparently there wasn't enough to make Ironflower mention the frosting on ME. Or maybe my nose always looks big, white and fluffy to her.

Anyway, now it's not just my thighs suffering from my love of all things dessert. It's my pride, too.

Hey Kim, Shut the F*** Up

(Notice my language restraint? Because you never know when Lovebug could start reading)

Kim is not my friend or relative. Kim is Kim Gandy, the president of the National Organization of Women. I joined NOW in college. That's right, I don't just call myself a card-carrying feminist, I actually am one. Or, at least I used to be. Apparently my views are starting to differ from mainstream feminism.

Kim Gandy is all over CNN, claiming that Obama's Cabinet picks don't include enough women. For the record, there are five - the same number as Clinton and Bush's first cabinets. Sure, I'd love it if the Cabinet matched the population with a nice 50-50 split, but the world would have to change a lot before I'd go on CNN to complain about it.

In a world where rape victims are blamed and then stoned to death (even Fox covered it), where a quarter of women in the US are victims of domestic violence at some point in their lifetimes and where Viagra is more likely to be covered by insurance than birth control pills we have more important things to complain about on national television.

I suppose it's possible that she did complain about those things and (typically) this is the only complaint that the media embraced. But even if that's what happened, I still want her to shut up. Shouldn't the president of NOW be more media savvy than I am?

Is NOW Going To Take Back My Membership Card?

I can't remember a time when I wasn't a feminist. I remember my first political act in the name of feminism, though. I was in first grade.

Since this was back in the dark ages, we actually had free play time in my first grade classroom (yet we still managed to learn to read, write, spell, add and subtract. . .amazing). Every day the boys played with the blocks. Every day the girls created puppet shows or drew pictures. Until one day, when  I we thought that the blocks looked awfully fun. So we went to the block area. And the boys told us that we couldn't play. Completely offended, I marched over to the decrepit substitute teacher. Who told me that girls didn't need to play with blocks.

I don't remember what I actually said to her, but I remember my initial feeling of disbelief. She must not have understood me. I patiently explained to her that we girls WANTED to play with the blocks and that the boys wouldn't let us. She not so patiently replied that blocks were for boys and that I should go do another puppet show. Realizing that I would have no help from the authorities, I decided on a different tactic: Violence.

Dragging the braver girls with me, I marched over to the block area and began kicking down buildings. The boys were stunned. And then angry. Flushed with the thrill of power, I didn't care that every boy in my class was ready to hit me. I told them that I would keep knocking down their buildings until they let me play with the blocks too. Being nice, smart little boys they took me at my word. Blocks were for everyone then on.

Thirty years later, I still believe I am a feminist. I still believe everyone should get to play with the blocks. And yet I judge Sarah Palin. Not simply because I see most of her political views as abhorrent (no abortion for rape and incest victims? no sex ed? letting the business model take care of health care when they've done such a stunning job with mortgages?), but because I don't think much of her mothering skills.

It's not because her children - for the most part - are quite young. It's not because her infant has Down's Syndrome. I'm sure she has lots of wonderful nannies and older siblings to take care of the little ones. While I personally can't imagine being away from my kids that much, that's her business. What I can't stomach is her decision to thrust herself onto the national scene while her seventeen year old daughter is pregnant. Either she's so naive that she really believes the press will leave the poor girl alone (I guess she missed how cruel they were to Chelsea Clinton during her awkward years- not that it seems to have hurt the pretty Stanford and Oxford graduate) or she doesn't care.

And even if the press does leave Bristol alone, she's still going to have to go through the whole thing without her mother. I taught an awful lot of children of teen moms and all the ones who were happy and had great kids also had very involved parents. And there's no way you can tell me that Sarah - or her husband - is going to have a lot of time for Bristol right now. And if she wins, she's not exactly going to be able to help with babysitting. Hell, she probably won't even have much time and energy for emotional support. And while all new mothers need lots of emotional support, I think young ones need more.

As I watched Palin talk about how Bristol and Levi were going to take on all of these adult responsibilities, I couldn't help but think of how cold she sounded. Very "you decided to go against our beliefs by having sex, suffer the consequences, you're an adult now and I'm done." And I think that's shitty - especially since this possibly could have been avoided if she'd been taught about birth control. But anyway, I think this is a lousy time to drag your family into the national spotlight.

And while as a feminist I feel like I shouldn't care about Palin's family, and that I should cheer that even nightmarishly reactionary women are breaking glass ceilings, I just can't.

And That's The Last Time I Read Vogue

So I was reading Vogue yesterday. Not for the fashion inspiration I so desperately need, because I will never be six feet tall, twenty or able to spend $4,000 on a shirt. And I rarely like anything high fashion anyway. I was reading Vogue because now that we have invested in the wading pool, I've been spending a lot time reading magazines while the kiddos play. Novels take too much concentration, I've found, so I use the magazines to keep myself awake. (I'm sure some of you would take this time to play with your kids, but my attitude is that if they're happy without me actually playing, then I'll relax for a few minutes. Sue me.)

Anyway, I was scraping the bottom of the magazine reading barrel by reading Vogue, but I had already read my own magazines (Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly and Parenting) and read most of the good ones that my parents pass on when they're done (People, The Week). So Vogue it was.

The pictures alternately depressed and horrified me. Most of the articles weren't much better. I knew it was bad when I avidly began reading the article about the lack of models of color on the catwalks. Finally, something with an opinion! And a valid one to boot. Apparently racism is alive and well around fashion designers and ad agencies. As in,  model agents getting calls saying, "We already have a black girl," and "You didn't tell us she was black!". Seriously.

After I got over my initial shock, though, my first instinct was to dismiss it. Because it's hard to feel sorry for a model. Unless you're eating dinner with one. Anyway, I was about to forget about it (there being only so many things I can keep track of these days) as unblogworthy when I remembered a girl I knew during my first year of teaching. A little African-American girl who loved fashion and used to take all of my InStyle magazines.

What happens if she never sees any models that look like her? Especially when cretins like Don Imus still use "nappy headed" as an insult? And what good is it for my kiddo to only see models that look like her (for real, Ironflower is the ultimate ethereal blond)?

So, yeah, it does matter that designers and ad agencies aren't hiring many - or any- models of color. Not being a customer of any of these designers, (Target and Old Navy, I'm proud to say, have people of all colors in their ads, at least) I'm not sure what I can do about the problem. Any ideas?

And Now For Something Completely Different

I haven't gotten very political on this blog. And trust me, it's not because I'm not a political person. I honestly can't tell you why this made me change my ways and give up my general separation of blog and political state.

It's about Hillary. And feminism. And stuff.

Look, I don't care if you hate Hillary for her political views or her odd marriage. I don't care if you make jokes about her personality or her political decisions. But if you're making jokes about Hillary really being a man? Or giggling while someone shouts, "Iron my shirt!" Then you're an asshole. Because would you joke about Obama "really being white"? Or would you laugh if someone shouted, "Plow my field!" during one of his speeches? Maybe you would. And if that's true, then go have fun in your cave. But if what I said about Obama REALLY offended you, why doesn't it offend you when Hillary gets the same treatment?

Possibly because you're like the woman who commented on The Soccer Mom Vote who claimed that feminism had ruined her life. I wondered how. Was it the right to vote? Own property? Get paid the same wages for equal work? Not being sexually harassed at work? Having maternity leave? Having rape victims not being treated like sluts? I was really dying to know how feminism had ruined this woman's life.

I am so tired of hearing about "whiny" feminists. Did you know our maternity leave policies are on a par with Lesotho's? That only 16% of our elected representatives are women? That date rape still happens?

What's your take? Do you call yourself a feminist? Or do you think I'm being hysterical?

(all stats taken from this week's Newsweek)

You're Fired!

Picture this: You come home to find your children's lunch congealed on the dining room table. Their toys, along with a few paper towels, are strewn across the play room and living room. The person who has spent the afternoon with your children complains loudly about his/her exhaustion and the children's bad behavior. Would you ever hire this babysitter again?

No, of course not. But if the person is the child's parent, then days like this happen sometimes. Right? You'd get over it, maybe even help clean up the various messes. You'd commiserate over temper tantrums and the exclamations of, "NO! I DO IT MYSELF!"

Yet, when I mentioned to several people last weekend that Hot Guy was with the children, they cried, "It's so great that he baby-sits!"

Excuse me folks, but he's their FATHER. I don't pay him to watch our children. He doesn't pay me to watch them (although maybe we should take all those corporate tax breaks and instead use the money to pay parents to take care of their children. . .I wonder how much I'd make a week?), either. We're the PARENTS.

That's why it's okay when one of us slacks off on that whole cleaning up after them thing. Or when we (okay, usually me) let them watch three shows so that we can clean the kitchen, sort the laundry and write a blog. I didn't slack like that when I was a baby-sitter because I was trying to do a good JOB. But parenting is way more than a job. It has to be, otherwise there'd be pay, health insurance and a 401k. And vacations. And lunch breaks. And the opportunity to wear cute shoes.