Category: Commentary

Is It Rude To Bring A Baby To A Restaurant?

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary13 Comments

Is it rude to bring a baby to a restaurant? Should parents get a babysitter or stay home so other patrons can have an adult conversation without the threat of crying in the background? Should mothers breastfeed their infants in the restroom because boobies don’t belong in a dining room? To all of the above: Hell, no!

Let’s be clear about something. The most disruptive behavior I have witnessed in public restaurants, coffee shops, and bars has always been drunk and/or horny adults, not babies. Sure, I’ve been in restaurants where babies cried, but I never remembered those crying babies years later, the way I do the drunk guys who puked on the floor of the restaurant, the frat boys who shouted and shoved each other into the snowbanks on the sidewalk outside the door, the middle-age couple with mismatched ring fingers more or less sliding into second base at Starbucks (it was so clear you were cheating, OMG!).

And yet no one is saying the drunk and/or horny shouldn’t be allowed to go into restaurants.

Being a new parent of an infant in our culture can be incredibly isolating. One of the things you hear new parents say over and over again is that first going into public can be scary for fear of the baby needing to cry, nurse, or both. This fear is culturally supported by the idea that infants in restaurants and other public spaces are disruptive. Further, this fear is supported by deeply ingrained ideas about gender: That women and children should “stay home,” that public spaces are primarily for “adults” (read: men, or women without children), that breastfeeding infants is  somehow “sexual” or “dirty.” Gender matters because while this affects parents of both genders, women are disproportionately and uniquely impacted.

It’s something we should overcome because infants are part of our human family as much as everyone else, and deserve to live in public, declare their basic needs, and have them met. It’s something we should overcome because mothers (and fathers!) are adults who deserve to take up space in public restaurants at least as much as, if not more than, rude adults who can be much more disruptive than a crying baby a parent is working to soothe. 

No one makes blanket statements that drinkers and people who are going to have sex should not be allowed in restaurants.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Is A Rock Star

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary5 Comments

Recently, Justice Elena Kagan gave a speech honoring Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It is moving and wonderful. You can watch it here.

The speech gives those of us who identify as feminist a lot to think about. In particular, I noticed the reoccurring theme of the strategic approach Justice Ginsburg used in her career before becoming a judge: the way she chose which issues to work on, prepared immaculate arguments, and waited for the perfect moments to act.

Toward the end, Justice Ginsburg herself speaks, touching on how rewarding it is to work on something larger than yourself, in her case, the cause of working toward equality for women. We are so lucky to have this rock star in the highest court.

The Push To “Lose The Baby Weight” Is Bunk

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary6 Comments

The social and psychological push to “lose the baby weight” is among the crappier things we do to new moms. There is, even during pregnancy, a fixation on “getting your body back” that leads to pregnancy fat-talk, or the push to share how much weight you have gained. I have written before about why I chose not to participate in that talk, as well as my story navigating pregnancy after an eating disorder, and on having a new sense of body image after having a baby.

By now, I’m fairly good at resisting negative body image-type things. In fact, I can often completely shut down internal and external messages that conflate my worth with taking up less space. If I hadn’t — painfully — learned how to do this through the course of various medical interventions, I do believe anorexia would have prevailed and I would be dead. This does not mean I don’t hear the pressure to lose the baby weight. I hear it loud and clear. And I find it irritating.

Yes, losing the baby weight is most definitely something other people do and do care about, and my eating disorder culture police siren isn’t chasing after them. It is not feminist to judge others in a different lane in life. I can appreciate the drive to want to fit into more of your old clothes, and to “feel like yourself again.” But I would, again, like to push back against a broader frame that asserts that a pregnant body and a body after giving birth belongs to anyone but the person in it.

There is strong overlap between eating disorder culture, voyeur culture, and an anti-modern fundamentalist culture that denies the existence of reproductive rights. I have written about this before in the context of why I chose not to post pregnancy photos to Facebook. To boil it down more essentially, modern pregnancy is a spectator sport, socially, and an increasingly church- and state-controlled sport, physically, and these two phenomena support each other. At the core is a belief that having a baby is an other-worldly condition, something that doesn’t belong to a woman herself, which is rather funny as the process of giving birth is, once initiated, an unavoidable, unstoppable total body experience for women.

In this context, body hatred and shame, within the frames of losing the baby weight and getting your body back, operate to support the idea that your body does not belong to you right now. Before birth, during birth, and even after birth. It is as if, with regards to pregnancy, a woman’s body is not allowed to change, and if it does, that woman’s true body is seen as a state in the past, captured in photographs or pant sizes gone by, while the state of present is simply a misshapen shell to be rejected.

Body hatred as a general state operates to keep women in a second-class status by making us prisoners of our appearance; by obliterating our self-worth; by robbing us of time, energy, and in many cases nutrients; by pitting us in competition with what appears to be other women but what is actually an unattainable state for all; by caging us from within. All of this continues with the fixation on the pregnant and post-pregnant body. But there is an additional punch: The social and psychological rejection of a pregnant body as “that woman’s body” from a hot-or-not standpoint operates to support the increasing violation of pregnant women’s civil and human rights. If that body isn’t yours now, then it’s easier to suggest that a statute written by a pen passed between politicians and clergy should trump you in moments of life, death, and great weight. This is one way that the psychological rejection of the pregnant and post-pregnant body is so serious.

But it’s most of all serious in the immediate experience of women who find themselves under pressure to not accept their bodies as they are now, before, and after giving birth. Having a new baby means you are usually tired all the time; if the pressure to lose weight is followed to its logical end of dieting and restriction, new moms may feel starving as well as tired. Giving birth is a moment of profound strength. It’s simply disgusting that a woman who has given birth should, as a matter of cultural expectation, then look at her body and reject it. This year I intentionally chose not to make a New Year’s resolution to lose my remaining “baby weight,” which I am reminded, when I look at my adorable daughter rolling on the floor, is actually “my weight.” She deserves better goals from me, and I, like any woman, deserve to accept myself as I am today.

P.S. – I feel it is nearly inevitable that this post will receive a comment about “health.” We are trained to equate less weight with “health,” and I not only reject that, but also identify it as a critical Jenga piece in eating disorder culture. Concern-trolling about health as a means to push weight loss upon post-pregnant people (or anyone else, for that matter), is not legitimate in a cultural context. Your doctor can credibly claim you need to lose weight for health reasons but the peanut gallery is not qualified to do so.

Feeding My Dog

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary58 Comments

My husband kept his last name when we married; only our eldest dog, Auggie, chose to hyphenate. Augusta Matson-Johnson does what she wants.

“It’s a good sign when the dog who knows you best connects with your new wife,” I explained to my husband. He agreed. He and Auggie are the best package deal. Like Auggie, I have imagined so many ways to get through the banalities and indignities of daily life. Until a few years ago, I never could have dreamed of sharing it with a man as good as her owner, and her.

Mornings are exciting. After feeding the baby, I walk the dogs, then feed the dogs, then take a shower, then feed the cat. No one waits patiently for me to do this on my own timetable. Two labrador chins rest on my side of the mattress while I nurse, Auggie wanting her walk and Joon wanting her food. If it’s early, I will walk beneath the stars with the dogs, Auggie leading the way with her wagging tail while Joon searches for scraps of anything to put in her mouth. This time is a religion for me.

When we get home, breakfast time in the kitchen is Joon’s purpose in life. Auggie, not so much. Auggie often waits before eating. “She’s reminding us she’s not a dog,” my husband says. This was funny until she stopped eating.

Eventually, I fed her slowly on the floor, pellet by pellet, between my fingers. I did this two times a day around the time our baby was two months old. She took some of the food, so it was worth it. Then she stopped taking the pellets, even from my hands, even one by one. We came up with a series of elaborate rituals designed to stop the cat from eating her food, in case she might want it later. We started using wet food. She took it for a time, and then she stopped.

As a former anorexic, I can relate to the emotional tinnitus Auggie must feel: The stupid, hollow ring of someone’s well-intentioned and totally fucking clueless “Why don’t you just eat?” in response to obvious emaciation and declining health. I suspect there are many reasons why Auggie doesn’t just eat, many of them going beyond her arthritis and being almost 14 years old. But she is weak and we had to do something.

Saturday, we took her to the vet. He expressed surprise that she wasn’t falling over given her dramatic weight loss, and told us to start feeding her whatever people food she would take. He used the word “hospice.” And so, though my husband and I are both vegetarians since childhood and frankly find cold cuts to be disgusting, we now have a refrigerator full of meat.

I pick up some smoked turkey and it’s slimy. I roll it. I smile. I call for Auggie. And she eats piece after piece after piece. This is a time when I could start to get really sad, because I love this dog. But I love this dog. This is a dream come true for her. I am making her sandwiches, feeding her cookies, and giving her exactly what she wants. When she gets up, I hear her, and call for her to come my way, cheering, “Yay, Auggie!” She comes in a little less wobbly now, beaming. We are not sorry and we are not sad. Life is a present moment. It should be so fun.

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For My Readers: In Gratitude

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary4 Comments

On September 27, 2012, I woke up excited. It was so early in the morning it was still late at night. My dear sweet husband was out of town on business, and so I grabbed this laptop, took it into bed, and launched this blog.

I had personal blogs before, but it had been a few years. By that morning, I was winding down a leadership stint in an old-guard feminist organization. Ironically enough that experience meant I quieted about a number of issues within feminism about which I had previously been vocal; having a space at a microphone stand is not the same thing as fostering a functioning set of vocal chords. Finally, I felt, I was more free to help advance and shape a much-needed dialogue about the status of women in society, the importance of activism, and the evolution of modern feminism as I see fit. (Something I encourage others to do from their own perspectives.)

And so, with my hands shaking with excitement, this blog was born. I almost threw up in the bed. What was that about, I wondered? How bizarre. Some days later I would realize I was pregnant.

So this blog has a very special place in my heart. The existence of it, period, is something I associate with the importance of having (and using) our own voices. It also reminds me of this wonderful new daughter of mine and how, even with the way her presence has redirected my daily activities and existential moorings, it is so energizing to participate in a broader effort concerning the status of women and girls.

Most of all, I enjoy being part of a conversation with all of you. So as this year comes to a close, I just wanted to give a simple but heartfelt thank you to those of you who read my blog. It means a lot to me that you care about feminism, and I so appreciate your thoughtful comments. So thank you. Thank you so much for coming to this little corner of the web that, in ways I intended and ways I did not foresee, represents my labor of love.

Policing Personal Lives Is Not The Point: Dos And Don’ts Feminism Must Die

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary10 Comments

Do you wear lipstick, or high heels, or short skirts? Have you, during the course of a heterosexual marriage, changed your last name? Regardless of whether you hold a job, do you find yourself taking care of your kids while other moms are “leaning in” to the demands of a boss in the paid workforce?

Honestly, who cares?

The nitty-gritty details of your personal life do not influence whether you can be a feminist, nor do they influence your ability to be a cause-advancing member of Team Gender Equality.

Still, the media continues to advance a false and worthless narrative of what we can call Dos and Don’ts Feminism, which posits that criticizing a woman’s personal life is a feminist act and further that one woman’s choices set an example that all other women must follow. Both practices are offensive and not feminist. Let’s look a little closer.

First, feminism is a movement that holds at its core the ideals of respect for the self-determination of individual women, as well as compassion for the lived experiences of women more generally. Accordingly, attacking, criticizing, and needling women for the way they live is not an expression of feminist ideals.

Further, the practice of criticizing women’s personal lives — for even thinking that women’s personal lives belong to the public domain — is rooted in a centuries-old pattern of sexism where men are supposed to get the public sphere, and can be disagreed with on the level of their ideas, and women are supposed to get the private sphere, and can be disagreed with on the level of who they are.

Second, one woman’s choices do not set an example that all other women must follow. In no legitimate feminism is there one ideal woman who we’re all supposed to be. I say no legitimate feminism because actually there are feminisms, not feminism (and any feminist who tries to assure you there is only feminism like what she says is probably fairly dictatorial, pretty insecure, and whether self-aware or not benefiting from some unhealthy dollops of unearned privilege, be they race, ethnicity, ability, religious status, gender conformity, sexual orientation, and/or marital status).

An outcome of feminism for women is agency, or the ability to direct the course of our own lives, and the proper placement of perspective with regard to women, that say, our bodies are actually about our bodies and not God’s will to be interpreted and enforced through (primarily male) theocrats. It’s not far by extension that a woman’s personal life is actually about that woman’s personal life and not about what potential should exist for all other women’s personal lives. In the context of a social movement that works for the ability of all people, and especially women, to truly express their own free will, it’s fine to draw inspiration from the lives of other women, but that does not mean that each woman must set an example for others. Men are not subjected to this, not this way.

Picking apart a woman’s personal life is not a feminist activity, nor does it reveal whether or not that woman can be a feminist. Feminist behavior lies in how we treat others, and how we work to ensure others are treated. Scrutinizing women’s personal lives is a waste of time, it’s not feminist, and let’s be real — it’s really mean. Dos and Don’ts Feminism can die now.

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Feminism Doesn’t Need A Savior, But It Does Need Leaders

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary9 Comments

The media loves to search for the next Gloria Steinem, as if what feminism most needs today is an iconic leader for everyone to follow. But we don’t need a singular icon, we need the actions of multiple leaders. The solution is reflected in the words of a Hopi elder: “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

On the other end of the spectrum, some argue that feminism is best served without any leaders at all. The reason for pause is understandable.

Ironically enough, some of the worst instincts of second wave feminism yielded into a small but noisy sect of hierarchal, top-down leaders who lost sight of the anti-dominance ideals that are at the core of the movement. Further, leadership circles tend to reflect privilege: white, able-bodied, gender-conforming, class privilege. Diversity is not just about who is at the table, and who sees that table and believes they are welcome to sit, but also which perspectives get centered. Finally, speaking for all women, as iconic leaders are wont to do, is a ridiculous urge. Whether it is an individual or a group of people, speaking for ‘all women’ is more harmful than helpful to the modern feminist cause. I’ve written about that before here.

All those disclaimers said — feminism needs more leaders. The great news is that we are all right here. You and me and everyone we know can and should step up to be the feminist leaders of today.

One of the most important places to take leadership is outside the feminist movement. Back when I had a hierarchal title within a hierarchal feminist organization, younger women used to say to me all the time: “I want to do exactly what you’ve done. Tell me how.” And my honest answer is: Don’t. Don’t limit yourself to taking leadership inside feminism, particularly in a movement job that probably isn’t going to pay you very well or provide much mobility (especially at the entry levels).

Feminism doesn’t need a queen or a savior. But looking more broadly, more feminism and more diversity in leadership is sorely needed. Disturbingly, the world is still largely run by white guys doing it by themselves.

So yes, organize and wave your feminist flag everywhere you can (including inside the movement). But go forth and be a feminist leader in government, in business, in your family, in your faith community if you choose to take part in one, and in non-profit organizations that aren’t focused solely on women.

Do not be afraid to take leadership ever. It is incredibly feminist to take leadership. Feminism needs more leaders, not fewer leaders. The modern feminist leadership is action-oriented rather than iconic or symbolic, collaborative, diverse, dynamic, and external, not internal, in focus.

I Waited Until The Polls Closed To Say This: It’s Insulting To Have Only Men Running On Women’s Issues

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary14 Comments

I waited until the polls closed to say this:

It’s insulting to have only men running on women’s issues.

I live in Virginia. I am a feminist. I am a Democrat. And, I am disgusted.

This is me and my daughter doing a September literature drop in Arlington for the Democratic slate. At the time, she was 15 weeks old:

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We walked for hours through the heat distributing copies of a newsletter featuring the photographs of nine men the Democratic party urged Arlingtonians to vote for. No women.

You don’t need me to tell you women’s issues are front and center in the Virginia election. Nearly every ad on television has been about abortion, and/or has featured women surrogates speaking for candidates on both sides. I have been receiving invitations to attend events with “the candidate’s wives.” As I type, the races have not been called and all local and national pollsters are talking about women voters. Because, duh, that is a major part of what this election is about.

The more I walked with my daughter, the madder I got. What kind of feminist mom am I?

Every day I work for policies that will support her future. It is important to me to include her in some of my work. I want her to understand how politics work. We have not just campaigned together, we have gone lobbying on Capitol Hill together. I want her to see public service as accessible. There is a woman suffrage poster in her nursery. I have been encouraging her to run for Governor of Virginia when she grows up.

By no means do I want to send a message to her that women’s issues are important, and they are best handled by men.

By public appearances at least, the feminist infrastructure in my state supports all the Democratic men without making public comments about how wrong it is that women weren’t included — not just as wives, not just as issues, not just as voters — but on the ticket.

It is unacceptable to run on women’s issues without women on the ticket. Men can and should run in support of women’s rights, but men also need to make room for women to share leadership with them. I am new to Virginia, having moved here in March. Perhaps some will say I am naive. I made a decision to not say anything about this until the polls had closed. I considered whether to say anything at all.

It’s true that I am a newcomer and don’t know the intricacies of the Arlington Democratic politics. It’s also true that I vehemently agree that this year’s Republican ticket was dangerous for women, and I was committed to electing Democrats.

But clearly, whatever excuses I’m about to get, the continuous presence of unchecked “women are important! let’s have men lead the way!” messages and deeds is pandering and it’s wrong.

I will not remain silent through a future election cycle. It should have been a woman running against Ken Cuccinelli. At a minimum, there should have been women running down the ticket.

If Democrats want to run campaigns on women’s issues, and I agree that they should, they must immediately begin to make room for women on the ticket. Women must run. And the party must support us in our capacity as not just constituents, but leaders.

In Response To The Allegation That Pointing Out White Male Dominance Is Racist And Sexist

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary13 Comments

Is it racist and sexist to point out that white men are dominant? Since launching the Tumblr white guys doing it by themselves, I’ve been called a “racist bitch” and told I’m sexist, too.

I welcome the opportunity to respond to these comments because while they lack decorum, this strain of thought is out there in less aggressive forms and it’s important to address it.

No one is a bad person for thinking that it’s racist or sexist to point out differences between advantaged groups and disadvantaged groups. Rather, they are tuning into decades of right-wing messaging gone mainstream: That equality has been achieved, that racism and sexism are wrongs of the past and not the present, and that the true victims of racism and sexism are white men who are less likely to get jobs and all the other things they might otherwise rightfully achieve on this planet were it not for misguided affirmative action efforts. None of these messages are true.

In a hypothetical world, it could be racist to exclude white people in order to prioritize people of color. It could be sexist to exclude men in order to prioritize women. We do not live in a hypothetical world.

We live in a real world where white men are so dominant that it’s easy to overlook how often they dominate to the point of excluding everyone else unless it is pointed out.

Pointing out white male dominance is not an attack on white men. It is an attack on the centuries-old practice of racism and sexism excluding everyone but white men from the levers of power, and the invisibility that allows that discrimination to continue.

The ability to be taken seriously as a leader, as a white man, is a privilege. It is not earned, although many white men work hard and do good things on top of this privilege. With this unearned privilege must come awareness and responsibility among hard-working white men to insist others are included in discussions affecting all of us. This is why white guys doing it by themselves exists.