Getting Old And Loving It

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary4 Comments

I turn 36 in a few weeks, and I’m excited.

Aging is cool. It’s the ultimate affirmation of having “made it.”

I have written about loving my first gray hair as a political act, because the whole you’re-old-you’re-done message sucks. It is a privilege to age. I’ve long thought women get prettier as we age; there is something sculptural about the way lines cut a face.

36 feels significant to me because this is literally twice the age at which I thought I might never have another birthday. Today, half my life ago, would have been about the first morning I would ever wake up in the middle of the night to flashlights making sure I wasn’t killing myself, going to the bathroom in front of someone so I couldn’t vomit, and taking a shower observed after my razor was retrieved from the locked cabinet in the back.

You see, both my 18th and 19th birthdays were spent in the hospital because I had been starving myself to death. I think about all the destructive things I did, and all the ways I tormented myself with what I thought was my fatness and unacceptability.

I’m not ashamed that this happened. I’m appalled that society does this to people every day, that gender roles suck as much as they do, that it’s hip to brag about how “good” or “bad” you were with your food or your exercise, that size 00 is a now a thing — like literally, now the size for women to strive for is less than nothing.

I’m significantly larger now than I was before that eating disorder started. And you know what? I am fucking alive and fighting.

As I get ready to go into my later thirties, I’m proud to be alive. I think about loving all of my “imperfections” — including my wrinkles, crows feet, gray hair, C-section scar, cellulite, varicose veins, shoulder scars, and especially the laugh lines.

I remember what it felt like to laugh and cry this hard, to get these lines on my face. The condition of my forehead is intimately related to the number of occasions I’ve had to raise an eyebrow at total bullshit. My stomach and thighs! After so many battles, I am soft, triumphant, and strong enough to run a steep hill.

Loving yourself and your body as it is is truly revolutionary. I’ve spent half of my life on the other side of rock bottom; long enough to learn that the kind of lady I want to be SCREAMS HER AGE, has a belly roll and acknowledges it, and encourages others to do the same.

Donald Trump Voters And My Daughter

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary4 Comments

Tonight, as I pushed a jogging stroller and my daughter held her butterfly wings and stuffed giraffe with the bell, we came across the neighborhood nightmare I hadn’t known existed:

Five Donald Trump signs on one lawn.

“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” they screamed.

I can hold her and rock her and sing to her, but I can’t shield my daughter from Donald Trump supporters.

They exist. They’re everywhere. The polls and votes are not an aberration, and getting snooty about it or exercising our right to denial won’t do anything: Bald hatred is apparently sort-of in.

More distressing was the house itself. This was the house with the woman who had caught me pushing this stroller a year ago. She wanted to chat. She clearly wanted a friend. She has two twin sons about the same age as my daughter.

And now her house is supporting a man who has called for building a national registry of Muslims, posing religious tests for who can enter the country, and building a wall along our southern border at Mexico’s expense. He profoundly disrespects women. He encourages violence.

So what am I supposed to do if we see each other at the playground? Should my daughter be allowed to play with her sons? How do I talk to my child about racism and sexism and violence, and the awful views that express themselves in society all the time?

I will admit to feeling a level of discomfort with a trend among some in the left of shutting down all opposing speech. While I’m all about taking care of oneself and what one needs to feel safe, it seems like there’s a qualitative difference between a justified non-tolerance for racism, sexism, and calls to violence, and creating bubbles where the only people we speak to are people who love everyone perfectly. That world is very small, and as an activist my goal has always been to create a bigger world.

I think about that tension as I consider what to do with my daughter and this family. There is a good chance the issue will never come up — after all, it’s probably been a year since we last bumped into each other. But these are real questions. There are, no question, other Trump supporters in our midst.

My non-negotiable is definitely labeling the problem. If someone says something racist in front of my daughter, I have already pledged to my husband, no matter how socially awkward it is, to say loudly, immediately: “That’s wrong, [he or she] is wrong, and what they’re saying hurts people.” It may lose us friends, but it’s important to me that we confront it in the moment, and that we do not allow anyone who wants to diffuse the tension to redefine that moment as different people seeing things different ways. Some things are just wrong and they hurt people.

But beyond a direct explication of views I just don’t know. More than anything, I want to help and support people — including my daughter, if this is the life she chooses — to change minds and demand accountability so that we treat our fellow humans and ourselves better, with dignity, equality, and justice. Will closing off the neighbor who now gives me the shivers do that? And what would it mean to label some people off limits — does Trump win if his way of thinking (even for different outcomes) wins? Maybe the best thing we can do to defeat bigotry is to invest in our kids openly, in ways that make us feel uncomfortable.

 

Leggings Are Pants

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary7 Comments

These are leggings.

Leggings

Leggings are pants.

Pants are made of fabric, and cover the lower abdominal area, crotch, and both legs.

Pants come in a variety of styles.

With pants, as with life, fit is everything.

Women, like men, are allowed to wear pants.

Some people say women’s bodies are “distracting.”

If only women and girls would hide their bodies, the thinking goes, men and boys could succeed.

That’s not right.

Women can have butts, and curves, and fat, and should be free to wear whatever is comfortable regardless of the shapes of our bodies.

Leggings are pants.

Praise be comfort, acceptance of women’s bodies, and women’s full and equal participation in society.

 

Are You Going To Have Another Kid?

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary3 Comments

So you found a girl with really deep thoughts

What’s so amazing about really deep thoughts

Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon

How’s that thought for you

– Tori Amos

My period began as annoyance, embarrassment, and pain. I was a late bloomer. After years of wondering what the hell was wrong with me, my period finally came at age 15, shortly after the last bell rang on the last day of middle school. Of course I was wearing white shorts. Of course there was a pool party the next day.

Over the years, my period has represented many things to me. Growing up. That thing I don’t want on Spring Break. Black underpants. A signal that I won and anorexia lost. A wedding day menace. Crying, ecstatic relief that I’m not pregnant. A discreet circle in a paper calendar.

A way out of the broken condom and the morning after pill I picked up from Planned Parenthood (forever devotion and thank you). An app on my phone. Erin, Unplugged: No birth control! Now with more cramps!

A week without it, a near-barf in bed, and a plus sign on a white stick. One daughter and several months of blood in maxi pads. 17 months of nursing and one delicious break.

People ask me if I’m going to have another kid.

This is the weirdest question. In my experience, people feel much more comfortable asking if you want to have a second kid versus asking if you want kids when you have none. Apparently we are open books once we have given birth (and remembering the undignified way I was splayed out in mortal pain, there’s something to that).

But the question is harder to answer now. I have seen the awe-inspiring, knock-you-on-your-knees love that comes with parenting. I am frankly addicted to babies. But I’ve also lived the endless exhaustion, the sleepless nights, the high-octane screams, and the daily responsibilities that fall on me with greater heft, even with an egalitarian husband who kicks ass.

I have a career I love, I have a daughter I love, and I have a husband I love. Our life is ridiculously fortunate. There are two dogs that can be more work than the kid, and a cat who has stuck with me through every phase of my adult life.

I love babies. I want more babies.

I love my life. I don’t want more babies.

I love my work. I don’t want anyone to know I have a conflict about babies and discriminate against me.

It is love that drives my conflict about my fertility, but more practically it is time. I am 35.

Every 28 days my period comes and I don’t know whether to be sad or throw a celebration. I go to the OB-GYN and ask her if her practice is willing to accommodate vaginal birth after caesarean and also how I can get an IUD inserted next week. I find myself angry that there is no forum to talk about these feelings, that there is so much silence about the ambivalence a woman can feel about her fertility.

Perhaps what I find most unsettling during the autumn of my childbearing years is the near-intolerance our culture exhibits toward a woman who isn’t 100 percent sure what she wants. After all, telling women what to do is practically the great American pastime, and watching our bodies and judging our sexuality is a sport with millions of male and female referees. If we’re not trying to tell women what to do, we hate-pity them instead. Oh it’s so sad she can’t figure it out. Hope she finds a way to deal with it.

It’s not just social bullshit; vocal ambivalence about fertility has economic consequences. It’s no accident that many driven young women (including me once) loudly declare that we are not going to have any children. No matter how earnestly this may be felt, and I do not discount someone who says it for a second, saying you don’t want kids comes with a significant professional bonus. Women who say they aren’t having any kids or any more kids are more attractive colleagues and potential hires no matter what those pesky laws on the books say.

Honesty about ambivalence is fraught with risk.

What if I were to start trying for more children, and tell people? Would others participate, and gossip, and evaluate my body and my sex life in telephone conversations with others? Would professional contacts write me off?

What if I were to close that door, or my body were to make that decision for me? Would you tell me I should have another, for the sake of my daughter? Would you celebrate my devotion to my work and my family, and those few shreds of time I have for myself?

Would you cry with me anyway when my period stops?

I don’t want to be judged. I don’t want advice, either. I will figure this out and continue living my best life, even in a world that can be hostile to women, hostile to mothers, and perhaps inclined to shit on me for being honest. I have a great family and a great life. I am trying to break stigma.

It is astonishing how much we talk to women about fertility, without giving us space to talk, and be messy and contradictory, just the way humans are.

You Are Eligible To Apply For An Internship

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary1 Comment

Less than two weeks ago, an organization I respect let me know I “matched new jobs.” The jobs included “summer internships.”

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Today I received another email. I “matched new jobs.” This time the jobs included “paid summer intern.”

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Let’s talk about this.

I’m quick to stick up for young feminists no matter who wants to give me shit for it and identify as the oldest possible millennial, but I’m 35. I’m a suburban mom. I have worked in a variety of professional positions, consulting roles, and management positions and have co-founded a new organization.

My quibble and reason for writing is not what anyone thinks of me. I’m in my work to make change, not to be loved. If you think I’m intern-level, okay. Susan B. Anthony nailed this:

“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really earnest must be willing to be anything and nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with the despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.”

The problem is that automated recruiting software thinks that someone with my experience level — someone working in professional positions since 2002 — might be a good intern. Or maybe, after almost two weeks go by, a paid intern.

What is wrong with recruiting software? What is wrong with our economy? Where are the jobs?

I remember meeting up with a former unpaid intern I worked with who had subsequently graduated in the top third of her law school class and been offered a variety of additional unpaid internships in Washington women’s organizations. The unpaid internship is a despicable thing, but what bothered me at least as much was the sense that a smart, capable law school graduate is internship fodder.

None of this is to throw shade on older interns. It takes a great kind of chutzpah to embrace a fresh start and initiate a do-over as an adult, and looking back, I think the oldest people in my college classes must have been the coolest.

But something is dramatically wrong when our economy seeks to make interns of people qualified for jobs.

Let Snow Days Be Snow Days

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary2 Comments

Expecting workers to telecommute on snow days is discrimination against caregivers, pure and simple.

It’s not just offices that are closed on snow days. Schools are closed. Daycares are closed. Caregivers who come to the home either stay home themselves, or put themselves in danger. Parents and caregivers aren’t capable of pretending like it’s just another workday, but in our pajamas and from our kitchen tables. We have people depending on us.

From a sentimental/artistic/being a human standpoint, I believe everyone should get a snow day — caregiver or no. When nature dumps white to the point of municipal breakdown, we may as well look out the window and wonder, catch up on our reading or binge-watching, or have sex (just saying, the maternity wards are going to be crowded in D.C. in 9 months).

But those think pieces exist. What exists far less is an acknowledgement that when our basic institutions don’t open, parents and caregivers who work outside the home can’t just do our work inside the home like nothing ever happened. There are diapers to change, baths to give, meals to prepare, and they do and should take precedence. And yes, this primarily impacts women.

The same extends to students. My alma mater, Georgetown University, now has a concept called “instructional continuity” that means that when classes are cancelled, students are often on the hook for doing something for the class during the same time. What an assumption that professors and students don’t have people depending on them in their real lives!

I’ve always hated the “work/life” concept and thought it was a marketing gimmick to cover up for the fact that our society throws women and caregivers to the wolves, even makes us feel guilty for it and like we are somehow personally deficient. But that’s a book and not a blog post.

For now, for modernity’s sake, for humanity’s sake:

Let a snow day be a snow day.

No, It’s Not Cool To Lose Weight On The Stomach Flu

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary2 Comments

I had norovirus, the kind where you are this pathetic, shivering creature crouched on the ground beside the toilet at 3:47 a.m. In the process of this unwelcome “total body cleanse,” pounds fell off my body.

Okay, they didn’t fall. But providing accurate detail about what happened is too disgusting.

It’s at least as disgusting that it’s an option to say someone looks good after they’ve been sick, or that it’s cool to lose weight on illness.

Not that my post-eating disorder brain wasn’t willing to play this trick on me. Of course I stepped on the scale after that night from hell, and of course it was shocking how much weight I lost.

And the old gremlins flared up. Maybe it’s a good thing, I wondered.

But actually fuck no.

Losing weight by process of being miserable always sucks, whether via stomach flu, eating disorder, or this week’s ridiculous dieting fad.

The way to look radiant is to feel radiant, and the way to feel radiant is to possess outrageous courage in a world that tells women we must keep ourselves in check, in line. Losing weight is not an act of courage. Losing weight possesses no intrinsic value, but we do — and it’s a radical act to accept ourselves as we are.

I’ve probably gained all my norovirus weight back by now, and thank goodness. My body knows exactly which size it wants to be, and I’m proud to have flipped my old eating disorder the bird one more time.

Every day presents these little opportunities for resistance. Against our own demons, and/or against societal things that suck. We should be so grateful to take them all.

So You Want A Feminist Job

On By erintothemaxIn Your Activism Guide5 Comments

I often get asked: I want your job; how do I do that? Here is a compilation of advice and reflection I’ve given over the years.

“Being a feminist” is not a job. Being a feminist ___ is. 
Pick a function or at least a set of skills that sound interesting. Maybe you like writing? Or fundraising? Or are interested in lobbying? If there are employers out there hiring feminists because they are feminists, I’ve yet to meet them (though they do sound lovely). You are going to be infinitely more employable if you say you’re interested in accounting, marketing, something — and yes, feminist organizations hire for all of these things.

You can still be a feminist and work anywhere, not just with a non-profit or an NGO.
I have worked in: Advertising agencies, consulting firms, investment research firms, writing companies, financial service firms, media organizations, and explicitly feminist non-profits. Working for a feminist employer is not what makes a ‘real’ feminist, it’s your values that count. This world needs more feminist bankers, doctors, and retail store managers. And let’s be honest — the pay in feminist organizations has a tendency to suck. It’s okay (and feminist) to want and seek more money than a movement job can provide.

Do not, under any circumstances, work for free.
Volunteering on your own schedule and for tasks you choose is fine, but unpaid internships are not your friend. You should not work as an de facto employee or member of a team of paid employees without getting paid. There are other internships and jobs out there that can be stepping stones toward the job you really want, even inside the organization offering you an unpaid internship, and you deserve to be paid.

Further, do not work for free. Do not offer to work for free as a trial, or delay paychecks if an organization you love is struggling financially. I drained my savings to work for an organization that didn’t pay me for months, and owed me back pay for years. It was horrible and I’m ashamed of myself for doing it; don’t make this mistake.

There isn’t a cause on Earth worth a toxic work environment.
Do not, under any circumstance, confuse an employer or a single organization with a movement. There are a million ways you can do feminist work. If someone is abusing you, harassing you, or otherwise treating you like crap, put yourself first and find a way to leave as quickly as you can. No regrets!

Seek out the smaller organizations.
Some of the most interesting work in the women’s movement is happening within smaller organizations you may not have heard of. Sure, request your informational interviews with the more obvious feminist organizations, but be sure to ask each person you talk to what other organizations they admire. They’re likely to name some folks you haven’t heard of; track those organizations down. They are likely to both be doing more ground-breaking work and offer more meaningful work for someone at the entry-level.

If your dream is leadership in a legacy organization, don’t move to Washington or New York.
In my personal experience, starting at the entry level and working your way up in the national office of a large, big-name feminist organization is exactly how to ensure you never ascend beyond middle management — in the best case scenario. These legacy organizations tend to be quite hierarchical, and entry-level employees at headquarters are often paid poorly, respected less, and spit out like cherry pits. If you want to build up leadership experience and have meaningful tasks, go work in a state affiliate. That’s where many of the most impactful fights are, anyway.

But still, your dream is to be the president of ____. Oh, boy.
Love me some ambition, but if you can’t articulate why you want to lead a specific organization and/or what new thing you would want to accomplish in such-and-such role, you’re just star-fucking.

Do not enter public feminism with the illusion that people will like you.
Feminists are generally treated like shit — by the outside world, and other feminists. Very few people will applaud you for doing the hard work it takes to advance equality and justice. Most will be mean, patronizing, or stare down your shirt instead. For that matter, I meet many people who believe that feminism is like a Xanadu where women are nice to each other and sit around saying, “great idea” while eating potato chips dipped in chocolate. Not so. Movement work is hotly contested, messy, and filled with rivalries and difficult personalities. And most everything you strive for will be shot down, in the broader world and the feminist world. It’s okay to be motivated by praise from others or visible progress — it’s totally human — but if that’s critical for you, there may be better fields.

But actually, it can be awesome.
I wouldn’t trade my life for the world. Every day I get to work on issues I care deeply about, and I do believe my efforts make a difference. There are hard-fought tangible political or institutional wins, yes — and those are the best. But the barely visible personal is at least as gratifying and exciting.

It literally makes my whole life when people I know from high school or an old job tell me I helped them see an issue differently, or someone who I helped with an informational interview comes back years later and tells me they are doing awesome work. I am moved to tears by women who seize their courage, stand up for themselves, and tell me about it. I am challenged and inspired every day by feminists who have it more figured out than I ever will.

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