Monthly Archives: March 2010

Concert high

Indigo Girls. Coyote Grace. (Oh can that woman play the bass. Oh to be that bass.) Unexpected meetings — good, bad, and flat bizarre.

And the music. The music! Rocking, slapping, dancing, moving the soul and body and mind, music to groove to, music to grieve to: who the fuck says women can’t rock? And men — violin-playing, accordion-squeezing men — too.

Then this, from a friend — unrequested, but far from undesired:

Signed! Three times! To me!

And my swoon was complete.

The high? Still flying. Oh yes.

5 Comments | Posted on 24 March 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body | Tags: Mental Health, music

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Pink and red: a rejection, a reconciliation

It’s a red underwear day, and last month I promised I would, eventually, tell the story of my first period — after all, so many of you did (thank you!). But first, let me set the stage:

Growing up, I hated pink.

I mean, really hated pink. Irrationally, completely, unceasingly hated pink.

I also hated hair (though I refused to allow mine to be cut — I just hated fussing with it or styling it or, um, brushing it. that led to tears not a little.), and skirts, and sometimes dolls (but sometimes not), and make up, and fashion, and, well, anything “girly”.

I got really pissed off in the third grade when the school photographer called me Mr Red. But I wasn’t about to stop wearing plain t-shirts in dark colors and boy’s shoes (they fit better) and nondescript pants, my unbrushed hair pulled messily back in the same pony tail for days on end.

It wasn’t that I had “gender dysphoria”, though perhaps gender role dysphoria. No, I think it was simpler and more insidious than that.

I think it was internalized misogyny.

Now, really, truly, one doesn’t have to like “girly” things to be a girl (cis or trans). And boys (again, cis or trans!) can like “girly” things and still be boys. But what I experienced, and to some extent still struggle with, was not just a simple lack of like for the “girly”, but an active, complicated rejection of it — not each thing on its own merits, but the entire category out of pure prejudicial loathing.

What else is that — hatred of the feminine — but misogyny?

I don’t know quite where this hatred came from. In part perhaps because I was the daughter of second-wave-era more-or-less-feminists, raised at a time when rejection of prescribed (and severely limiting) gender roles translated to rejection of all accoutrements of that gender. In part perhaps because I’m not particularly femme, but had no model for not-femme that wasn’t anti-femme. In part perhaps because I bought the lie, fed to me by every part of my culture, that there were “girls”, who were vapid and shallow and adored pink, and there were people, who weren’t and didn’t — and I was raised in the certain knowledge that I was a person (thank you Mom and Dad). In part perhaps because my mom didn’t wear make up or read fashion magazines or shave her (very sparse) body hair — though unlike me, she always wears skirts, and carries a purse. In part perhaps because I was simply a weird kid, raised by nonconformists but not, at so young an age, sure of the difference between nonconformity (good) and anticonformity (not so good). In part perhaps because I was already manifesting early signs of my neurological atypicalities and mood disregulation.

For whatever reason, I was really not comfortable with this whole being a girl thing (which I could not then distinguish from the doing the girl thing).

And then, at barely 10 — though already around 5’7″ (eventually to end up at 5’10″) and well on my way to well-endowed — I started menstruating.

My coping mechanism? I ignored it, as best I could.

It wasn’t that I had menstrual shame, exactly — I would happily stay up until midnight telling all the other Girl Scouts at camp about sex and pregnancy and busting “but tampons will take my virginity!¹” myths, I’d gleefully bring my copy of Where Do Babies Come From? to school and pass it around at recess, I’d say “period” and “vagina” and all the other words considered “dirty” or “bad”. I had no problems — and no lack of knowledge — discussing the reproductive cycle.

But that was all academic. Theoretical. Separate from me. The idea that I menstruated, that I was a girl-going-on-woman, that I had to deal with this tangible, inescapable reminder of pinkness every month forever (given that I most completely and emphatically and seriously did. not. want. children)… it horrified me. And, yes, embarrassed me. I hadn’t yet come to grips with my female-ness, and I was supposed to relish talking about my need for “feminine hygiene products”?

So, mostly, I didn’t. I used a lot of toilet paper (the first true bleeding came when I was at school — on an elementary school campus, like that helped the situation! — and I used those little pre-folded toilet paper squares for the rest of the day), and I filched from my mom, and eventually — truly, I don’t remember how — I found a favorite brand and style of pad and tampon (and for a short while, disposable menstrual cup) and managed to make sure I generally had enough in stock.

But I also tried to flush the pads².

Eventually — as you can tell — I got more comfortable with both my gender and my sex. I stopped longing for uterine replicators. I started letting people hold open doors for me (though I, of course, also still hold open doors for others). I stopped using toilet paper (except in emergencies!) and trying to flush unflushable things. I started saying “I’m having cramps”. I never did stop cringing at staining the bed, but I did start buying dark red sheets, and I didn’t let the stains stop me from getting help moving our uncovered mattress from The Man’s burly, macho coworkers. (I always was fine having sex and masturbating while menstruating, once those were happening at all. So no change there.) I stopped sending The Man out to buy paper pads, and started making cloth ones myself — and soaking them in the sink.

And I started blogging about it. Which you may take as a sign of my complete recovery, but rather has been a rather key component of it. Because I’m not just talking about menstruation in general, which I’ve always been comfortable doing, but telling you, my readers, that I am currently bleeding. Which, well hell, is half the time how The Man knows my period’s here, because I still haven’t figured out a way to say “And by the way, honey…”. (To be fair to myself, the other half of the time is split between me asking him to bring me a pad while I’m on the toilet, or him happening upon one in the sink.)

But now? After telling a few dozen/hundred/thousand people about it, um, many times, it really doesn’t feel like a big deal any more. It’s just something I do, because that’s the type of body I have.

I still don’t like pink, and am a bit neutral on red, but I don’t hate or reject either any more. It’s just a color, just a body function, and although I still can rage with the best of them at the meanings assigned to each by my society, I don’t have any arguments with them any more. We’re ok, pink and red and I. And I’m happier for it.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRGH!!!!!! ↩
Pro tip: don’t. ↩

10 Comments | Posted on 20 March 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body | Tags: Gender, Menstruation, societal pressures

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NPFP Guest Post: The Lioness and Shades of Grey

Welcome to RMB’s Naked Pictures of Faceless People, a series of guest posts from diverse anonymous bloggers. (Read more about NPFP’s origins.) These are the posts that are jumping to get out of us, but for whatever reason — safety, embarrassment, conflict of interest, protection of loved ones’ reputations or feelings, or so on — we don’t or won’t or can’t post at our own blogs. Anyone is welcome to submit or discuss a potential post by emailing me at arwyn at raisingmyboychick dot com.

The Lioness and Shades of Grey

My mother-in-law caused a scene at the hospital when my daughter was born. She wanted to be the one to see her first. She said she felt unwelcome at the hospital. I still have no idea why. The newborn stage was peppered with fights between her and my husband. I tried not to get involved, so I don’t really know what they were arguing about, except her lack of boundaries and he doesn’t cope with frustrations that well. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt at first, she had problems of her own, after all and suffered from depression.

My daughter never took to her. This was a deep violation of all her hopes and dreams of having a granddaughter. She was passive aggressive and would talk to me through our baby. I hated that. I didn’t want her to help me out around the house because anything she did she would throw back in my face. She hated that. And my daughter couldn’t abide even being too close to her.

It all changed one day — and not for the better. My daughter was not quite 6 months old. She was crying, and my mother in law was speaking to her in an aggressive tone and shaking her, vigorously. I made sure my daughter was safe and then talked to her about it, as gently as I could. Things continued for a time in awkward semi-civility and then it unravelled rather dramatically in a nasty confrontation. I was still in shock. I don’t know if I’ll ever really understand it.

My husband supported me. But I think in a way he’s in denial and never really came to terms with the seriousness of it. After all, it’s his mother and he loves her. Eventually, we returned to being civil, even friendly, although I still feel the strain. We don’t talk about it. I don’t know how to move past such a violation of trust. I don’t know how to feel comfortable with her ever being alone with any of my children (it hasn’t happened yet). I think it may be on the cards in the future. In my heart I don’t want her to be alone with my children. Ever. But I’m afraid that if I never compromise, this may damage my relationship with my husband in the long run.

I feel myself being hyper-vigilant now when she visits. I’m sensitive to every word, every harsh tone of voice. I feel myself becoming angered by things that wouldn’t bother me if they were done by others. My daughter now loves playing with her and is always excited when she comes to visit, which is not that often. I’m sure it’s because my mother-in-law doesn’t feel comfortable either. She always denied the shaking incident and feels injured by my unjust accusation. But here we are. I know that we will have a relationship with her for a long time and I wish there was a way through this and a way that I could include her in my daughter’s life without feeling like I was putting her in harm’s way. I want to protect my daughter, forever. I can only hope that I will have the strength to do so.

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11 Comments | Posted on 19 March 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Naked Pictures of Faceless People, Parenting | Tags: family

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Third Birthday

Monday was the Boychick’s birthday. My third anniversary of the joyful day when I birthed him.

And oh, was it full of joy. Once I could bring back in my body each of the sensations — the pressures, the muscle tightenings, the gasps and words and shouts and whispered pleas, the rush of joy that washed over me and through me, the shock of seeing him see me for the first time — but only a few remain now. Feeling spread apart, shoved open as he sat, head and shoulders out, waiting for my womb to expel the fluid that once cradled him, so it could finish helping him out. Laughing, joy-filled tears mingling with the bath water on my face as I pulled him into my arms.

From that day, that hour, I’ve wanted a full-body recording, wanted to go back and feel it all again exactly as it was, with just that baby, my little love. Each moment messy perfection. Each overwhelming pain itself overwhelmed by the joy, the rush of love.

Three years, now, since it happened. He didn’t nurse that day, waiting until he woke up after the first 24 hours then latching on like he’d done it forever. He didn’t nurse this day, either, but now because he’s done, and he never will again.

That day I held him in my body, deep within me, for the last time. This day I tossed him on my back and wore him again (“like when I was a baby!”), for what — I am aware each time when, every few weeks, he asks for it — may be the last time.

I could hardly believe he was real, that day. He was him (that shock when I saw him seeing me — there was an “I” there, looking back at me, which I was expecting-but-not-really), a being so dependent on me but so completely his own.

I can hardly believe he is so grown, this day. He is he, himself, a person who tells me stories and disagrees with my opinions, and wants to say even more than he knows how, as I hear him start a sentence again, and again, then grins when he gets it right.

I have never been able to tell the story of his birth. I can tell snippets, only. This moment. Those sensations. A time line constructed after the fact. There was simply too much — too much feeling, too much doing, too many arcs, too many stories all happening at once: beginnings, endings, middles, all braided together. How do you tell that without it unravelling?

I will never be able to tell the story of his life, because it is not mine to tell. He is at the age, now, he is building memories he will recall always. Snippets, pictures, moments. I can help him construct his time line, of what I can remember, what pieces I have managed to scribble down. But the stories he will create of now, I do not know. I may never know. I weave the larger strands of his life in these years — choose where he spends his days, choose the strands around for him to pick up or leave behind — but he will make of this weaving something I cannot now imagine.

So to my Boychick, my kid who insists on being called that and nothing else (not even the beautiful name we gave you, not even my child, not even my little love, not any of the hundred names we whispered in your tiny ear three long years ago): I love you. I have loved you since before you were born, since before I knew you. I loved you the day you looked me in the eye, when I first met you. I love you today, when you never hesitate to tell me when you think I’m wrong. I will love you when you are so much bigger still, though I can’t imagine who you will be then, other than you, always so very you. Of me, my baby forever, but never mine.

Happy birthday.

17 Comments | Posted on 17 March 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Parenting | Tags: birth, birthday, breastfeeding

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This is kyriarchy in action: the New York Times on “Mommy bloggers”

Type A Mom and Mom101 have done brilliant jobs explaining why the NYT piece Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Too Busy Building My Brand is disgustingly discriminatory — and just another example of a larger mainstream media bias against blogs, and “mommy bloggers” in particular. Without quite naming it, they describe how this is typical misogyny.

But — stop me if you’re surprised — I think it’s deeper than that.

What we have here is a number of highly paid mostly-white women (and mostly-white women hoping to be highly paid) coming up in the world and trying to get a piece of the pie so long hoarded by rich white men (like the owners and editors of the New York Times), and getting pissed about the misogyny used against them when it becomes apparent that they’re succeeding.

Which is completely understandable — there’s every reason and right to be righteously angry, and to mobilize against the mainstream media for their continued marginalization of moms-who-blog. This is certainly not an indictment of the women who have “made it” in blogging, nor those who are trying to get there, who are so rightfully angered by the contempt displayed toward them by the New York Times.

But let’s talk about who’s getting belittled here — and who’s getting ignored entirely.

The “mommy blogger” as described in the NYT is solidly middle class (with debt, perhaps, but also minivans and lattes and money to burn on an “expensive hobby”). She is understood to be straight, by way of being married. She is assumed to be white, by being both middle class and married. (And look at the pictures on the NYT article, and the graphic which originally accompanied the post in large, found at the bottom of Mom101′s post — which is a whole ‘nother blob of misogynistic turditry.)

And to be fair, the women-with-children-who-blog (especially about parenting) who get attention and marketing sponsorships and book deals and offers of swag and all-expenses-paid trips are overwhelmingly white and married and middle class.

But in addition to portraying that group offensively, as vapid and concerned more with appearance than parenting, more with parenting-as-competition than politics and cultural change, this leaves out vast numbers of bloggers who are women with children. It leaves out those of us who are not white. It leaves out those of us who are more concerned with getting food on the table than getting it all organically grown. It leaves out those of us who are not straight, not married, not male partnered, not partnered all all, or partnered with more than one other. And it leaves out those of us who are trying to build a revolution instead of, or along with (as though that were such a sin?), a brand.

It is a problem that the work of successful women — who have learned to play the SEO game, who have stood up and demanded fair pay from major companies and PR firms, who have worked long days and late nights to build a business powerful enough even the likes of Nestle have to pay attention — is dismissed as so much vanity indulgence, that new thing that those silly mommies are doing.

But it is no less of a problem that who is successful, who is getting smeared, is a very specific, privileged sort of woman. Those of us who are in this gig to tell our long-suppressed stories (which don’t show up in the papers, not even in the “Fashion” and “Living” section where newspaper editors deign to give privileged women a nod on occasion), to save our sanity in a society that damages us daily, to join together and oppose the multitude of oppressions we and our children face unceasingly — as well as, as Mom101 pointed out, to share our knowledge in the field of our passion or our profession, to influence politics and government proceedings, to contribute to the human conversation, to do the 100s of other things women-with-children who blog do — why, they don’t even bother smearing us, because we’re not even worthy of acknowledgment.

Whether she is out to make a living, or eschews monitization in favor of revolution, or tries to balance both, the “mommy blogger” who is not white and straight and living that suburban life does not even have the dubious “honor” of being derided by the old guard media — to them, she does not exist at all.

Now that’s a story worth investigating.