Holidailies Day 31: Equality is Not A Bad Word

If you hadn't guessed from my last big post on here, I have some thoughts on how women are treated in many areas. Not just the way I grew up, but realizing that in the broader culture, it's just as bad if not worse in a lot of areas. Though, in some, there are great voices and strong calls for more and better forms of gender equality.

However, there are a few areas that have been called to my attention the past few days, where this still isn't being put into practice anywhere. The modesty bit, for one. That's always a big one in the Christian realm. Outside of that, there's also the complete and utter removal of Rey from nearly every mass produced Star Wars toy (which I saw in person). Then there's the blog post I read about how people get offended when people post reviews that are critical of popular - in the sense that they are well thought through and point out uncomfortable truths (read it, you won't regret it). To top it all off, a great article popped up on USA Today about how equal coverage of women's sports is the first step to women's sports gaining fans, which leads to marketing money, which leads to better quality of play, which leads to better pay, etc. All of these things I feel very strongly about.

I think what it really comes down to is representation, which is what the USA Today article pointed out. They made the point that in situations where women's sports have been covered and promoted at the same level as men's, and normalized in that way, there is a distinct increases in interest. I feel like this applies to all situations.

For Star Wars, Rey was already a main character. She was already awesome, already SUPER well-written to be a strong female who was not a Mary Sue and didn't actually need anyone to save her, except for maybe a push or two to get her off the "I need to go back to Jakku and waste my life path!" She was representing all over the place in the movie. So why is she so under-represented in the merch? Especially the kid's toys? I saw it at Target. A whole aisle dedicated to Star Wars, and there was exactly ONE TOY that had any representation of Rey on it. It was tiny, most of it was her scavenger scooter, and you could barely tell it was her. The books were a little bit better. There was a whole book detailing how she survived on Jakku (which I super want to read). She was featured in some of the other compilations. But a lot of the ones focused on younger kids (young readers versions, etc) were solely following the male characters.

Still, this isn't a simple case of women in ensemble casts being left out of the merch runs (a la Black Widow in the Avengers, and Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy). This is the main character. Rey's it. She's the new Jedi. She managed to spank Kylo Ren with only minimal training in the Force, sometimes figuring it out as she went along because she is smart and resourceful and freaking POWERFUL. Why are there oodles of Kylo Ren toys, even toy packs that include different classes of Stormtroopers, and NO Rey?

People think that boys won't like playing with toys of women, but how will they know unless they make them and see? What about the tons of girls who love to play with action figures and would love to have a Rey figure to fight the First Order with? Let's be honest, I'm 26 years old, and I would probably buy a Rey action figure if it existed. She is freaking cool. More than that, I work with kids, and one of the huge topics of conversation with a lot of the boys this week has been about Star Wars. I had quite a few of the boys tell me that they really liked Rey, because she was awesome.

We can no longer make the excuse that we don't know what to do about this anymore. The answer is right there. Just acknowledge it. Acknowledge that inequity has dominated the culture, and still does in a lot of ways. Acknowledge that it is wrong and it needs to be fixed. And then acknowledge and support when someone goes out of their way to fix it. If a time exists when I have money (in my dreams), I will buy a ton of Rey merchandise. I will totally buy jerseys for women's sports, because I love the players and I want to grow the sports that I enjoy (and entice some NWSL teams to get better streams because, seriously, it's 2015, the fact that you're apparently relegated to equipment from the 90's is just sad). Until then, I'm over here in my little corner of the internet, speaking out because that's what I have the ability to do right now.

The first step is acknowledging. The next step is representation. The last step is support. All of these things we can do on a daily basis. Whether it's telling your kid that the movie that you've loved is great, but there are some flaws, or strategically buying things that support the sort of content you want to see. Or promoting people who have stated opinions really well. It all changes the culture just a little bit. It's starting to gain momentum. Do it well. Rule one of the internet (and of life, IMHO) is still, "Don't be a dick."

It's the end of the year, and 2015 has seen a lot of strides towards equality in many areas. Even if it's just things seemingly collapsing, which is a necessary (if painful) step towards rebuilding. Hopefully we can start building a better, more loving society next year. One that treats everyone as people, and values them equally.

Until next year.

[sermon] For the record, this happens to be one of the issues that I wish the Church would actually do a lot better on, if only to show everyone else how it should be done. When it's the other way around - as it very often is - we're failing at our calling. Point blank. We're called to transform not conform, and when other people are transforming better, we need to take that as a wake up call and figure out our crap so we can fix things. Pro-tip: Jesus will help, and He's generally better at it than anyone else, so it's not totally hopeless. [/sermon]

Holidailies Day 30: Alarm Clocks

The title is such, because I did this stupid thing last night. I forgot that my alarm clock is relentless, and as I am working morning shifts this week, would inevitably go off way earlier than I am ever okay with. Then I stayed up until midnight, which my poor sleep deprived brain is regretting now.

Actually, it's been regretting it all day. I was lying on the couch watching a really great soccer match (2011 Women's World Cup Quarterfinal between Brazil and the US, featuring the worst reffing in a World Cup match EVER, Hope Solo being a ninja anyways, and Abby Wambach saving our collective sanity in injury time of extra time), and I was almost falling asleep until I sat up. When I'm falling asleep watching soccer, I really need to take that as a sign to not do stupid things again.

So my big post that I've been ruminating on and half-composing in my head shall have to wait for tomorrow. It shall be an appropriate send-off for Holidailies, as this crazy month comes to a close. And I will have gotten more sleep, and thus it shall be composed with more quality, and there will be much rejoicing (at least in my head).

Until tomorrow.

Holidailies Day 29: Just a Little Bit More

I had this great idea for a post about a thing I ran across today. But then I realized that it's 11 pm and I have to get up early tomorrow for work. So... maybe not the best time to get into a long topic sort of thing. Instead I shall... Leave you with a funny video and call it good.

This is one of my personal favorites out of the USWNT sphere of my life. Abby Wambach's teammates, impersonating Abby Wambach.

Becky Sauerbrunn's is the best, because you can tell she really gets into the performance and her face is perfect. "REFEREE! REFEREE! DID YOU SEE THAT?"

Until tomorrow, with hopefully better brainpower.

Holidailies Day 28: Confessions of a Tomboy

Fair Warning: I'm feeling extra sarcastic today, so I'll try and be positive, but I make no promises.

So I came across this article last week that touched on one of my favorite/least favorite topics in Christian culture. Then the week got crazy, and there were other things to think about and talk about so it got put on the back burner until today when I actually have some amount of time to devote to it.

The distinction between this subject being my favorite and least favorite largely depends on who is talking, and what they're saying about it. The topic is modesty, and the "modesty culture." The article was about "Christian cleavage" and how that probably isn't as big of a problem as some of us were raised believing. Myself included, which is obviously why I have some pretty strong feelings about it.

First off, reading the article will get you started on what my views are on this subject. The author lays out a great foundation of actual Biblical evidence, and this weird thing called logic. Also another weird thing called respect for human beings, not just women.

A breakdown of the highlights of modesty culture, if you're in a TL:DR mood:

• Puts all the responsibility on women for dressing in a way that "doesn't cause men to stumble," which is harmful to both men and women.
• Women are taught that they are held accountable for men's actions (which they can't actually control).
• Men are taught that they aren't totally accountable for their actions, which is dangerous, to say the least.
• Men are also taught that they are more or less animals, with no distinction between a passing sexual thought and actual lusting/obsession/fantasizing about women. 
• Women are usually not taught positive things about themselves in the course of this doctrine. It boils down to, "That cool body God created you in? Yeah, it's shameful and you should hide it because people could SIN, *Rebecca St. James plays in the background*"

I almost don't even know where to start with this. For most of these things, any decent human being should be able to see what's wrong with this picture. If you can't, or if you're into Biblical proofs, read the article. Really, so much has been written on this topic that all I have to add to it this time around is some personal experiences that I may or may not have shared before.

First off, if you know me in person, you know that I'm a pretty huge tomboy. Like, I intentionally did my best to look guy-ish for a significant portion of my formative years, that kind of tomboy. There was a reason for that, in my little kid head. With all the super strong talk about how modesty was important, from camp dress codes sent out with every registration form, to conferences about keeping yourself pure from all manner of shady sexual sin, that I somehow ended up at before I even really hit puberty. 

I took it to the extreme (which I *never* do. Ever.). I decided that being a girl was just WAY too complicated and stressful, and being boyish, literally, was easier. After all, no one ever gets on girls for wearing loose t-shirts and cargo pants. (Well, unless you're super-extra conservative, but thankfully my family was never on the "we should wear long-skirts and sweaters always" train. I might have died.) 

T-shirts - especially unisex styles - are the epitome of modesty, especially when they have sometimes slightly clever appropriations of pop culture sayings on them, with a Christian twist. My personal favorite when I was 14 was a shirt that said "Talk to the Hand" with a picture of Jesus' hand with a nail sticking through it and blood dripping down. Plus a Bible verse. It was what I considered my most hardcore shirt. Oh, and the best part? The name of the company that made this shirt was "Yahwear" (I wish I was making that up). 

So fast forward 12 years, and I've had a number of changes of theology (thank GOD). I'm still a tomboy, don't get me wrong. I still rarely wear anything fancier than jeans and a t-shirt, but the jeans are women's jeans not men's cargo pants, and the shirts are cut for women and have necklines that I'm still getting used to. I'm slowly trying to buy more things that I could potentially wear in a professional setting, even though that's an expensive endeavor (non-standard size shopping is the worst). I own more than one dress that I didn't have to buy for choir, even if I don't wear them that often. Buying them was difficult enough. I'm working on the whole wearing them bit.

See, this teaching was buried deep in my brain, and I'm trying to pull it out piece by piece, because I realize how it skewed my perspective on everything. It taught me to believe that my body was shameful, before I even had much of a body to be ashamed of. Somehow, just by virtue of being a girl I was heaped with all this extra responsibility. Be modest, make sure your shorts are longer than your fingertips, skin-tight clothing may as well have been invented by the devil, necklines are really dangerous, especially if you have big boobs, but we can't actually say that so we just preach the gospel of the undershirt and the camisole because OH BY THE WAY you're still somehow required to look cute and girly, and be into makeup (though not too into it, because beauty is also dangerous), and want to wear dresses, because that's what boys want, but don't you DARE actually try and draw attention to yourself with your looks because then you're causing them to sin. 

Talk about mixed signals. And I still hear this litany going off in my head every time I try to stray out of my clothing comfort zone. It gets worse (significantly) when weight plays into it, and then I REALLY can't find anything "cute" to wear unless I pay $50 and maybe sell my soul to Torrid because it is the only mainstream store I've found that makes clothes a) in my size and b) not something your average middle aged housewife would wear. I have never been into that style, though I still get dragged into it occasionally, because you try finding professional plus size clothes without going to Dress Barn. 

That particular issue has as much to do with general culture's view of weight (another topic) as it does with the highly shame-based version of modesty I was taught. But for me, they are still rather connected, because nearly every piece of clothing that could possibly be considered nice falls under one of two distinctions in my head. "I could never wear that because I don't have the right undershirt, and if I leaned down plus bend in this really odd angle someone could see slightly more skin than is appropriate." Or, "This would be nice but... oh, never mind, it isn't the right size/cut right."

I don't know if I have a happy ending to this story yet, to be honest. I am still very much in the middle. In the conflict. In the trying to find some form of femininity that doesn't make 12-year-old me - a very vocal age-range still - run screaming into a corner because it's just too hard. In trying to actively not be ashamed of my body, in all it's glory. In trying to learn that the first step to being healthy is actually being okay with yourself as you are, which is a war where I've won some key battles, but there are plenty more than I still have to face. 

In Pokemon terms (because who doesn't relate their life to RPGs?), I've beaten the first couple of gyms. But beating the rest of the game is going to take some work, some grinding to train up my team, and a lot of strategy and playing to my strengths. Problem is, it's way easier in Pokemon than it is in real life. I may or may not have actually found my strengths yet, which makes strategy harder, which makes figuring out what areas to work on nearly impossible.

Still, I'm trying, which has to count for something. Trying to read things like the article that started this whole thought process, which affirm what I now believe, that bodies are not shameful things. I should have to be extra responsible for things that I cannot control. I just need to be responsible for me, and that's difficult enough already. No need to add other people's bricks to my load.

Until tomorrow.

Holidailies Day 27: Vacation's End

After another, even more uneventful drive over the pass, I am back. Sitting at home, in my room, contemplating all of the stuff that I left on my bed. I never actually learn that leaving a pile of junk on the bad in the packing process is a bad idea. I always do it, and I always wildly regret doing it when I get home and I'm tired and I just want to go to bed, but oh wait I dumped a bunch of clothes on the bed. I have no other place for clothes in my room, obviously. Except for, you know, a closet and a dresser. *glares at bed*

At least I'm only half off of vacation. I go back to work tomorrow, which is good because money. I sign up to work mornings every time we have full-day programming, because I'm a fan of torturing myself. At least, that's what it feels like. Logically, I realize that I am in fact training to be a teacher and a feature of that job is getting up early in the morning. This means at some point I should train myself to be at least functional in the morning. This is currently my best way of doing so.

I survived the summer working mornings, 8 weeks worth of it. Though, just one week, or a one-day stint is more difficult. You don't get your body into that rhythm as well, or by the time you get it there you're back to normal. For this week, I stocked up on caffeine, more for the afternoons after I get off and still have things to do. 

My goal for this week is to not turn Sims on, because I rediscovered the amount of time it sucks, which is rather unfortunate for goals that include productivity. My other goals are all about productivity, which is to say, cleaning and calling important people like mechanics, doctors, and dentists (oh my!). Make sure all parts of me and my car are in fairly good working order before jumping back into the next, longer stint of school. Also, putting some serious thought into better ways to cope with overwhelming amounts of school, because I feel like my systems of doing so broke down around week 10 of 16. So we're going for longer amounts of relative functionality this time. We'll see how that works. 

Now it is time to reclaim my bed, and - as one of the kids at work always says before his fellow club members arrive - prepare for chaos by sleeping.

Until tomorrow.

Holidailies Day 26: Adventures in the Kitchen

It's always exciting when you get a slightly crazy idea and decide to go for it. I'm on vacation after all, and why shouldn't I try something new? That was my thought process this morning when I decided that I was going to try making my friend's heavenly mac and cheese dish (seriously, it's like pure Holy Spirit on your tongue), without ever having tried to make it before. Also, receiving instructions over text message and the occasional panicked phone call. (To clarify, the result was all user error, not the fault of the instructions at all... She is awesome and makes this the best ever.)

So this didn't actually go as bad as it could've gone, to be fair. The pasta was great, and the mixture of seasoning and the ingredient that kicks it up from perfect to divine - pancetta, may all worship your greatness - turned out pretty spectacular. Together, they did not make a bad pasta salad. 

This was quite fortuitous since the sauce seemed destined to fail. There is not yet a consensus on exactly where it went wrong. Whether the milk was too hot or too cold, or I added the cheese too fast or not fast enough... no matter. The end result was liquid and curds, which was very interesting. Apparently, it didn't even suck that way - according to those who were brave enough to try adding it to their pasta and microwaving it. I admittedly was done trying to save it at that point, and just had the pasta with the pancetta and seasonings, which like I said was still pretty top-notch.

So what have we learned from this experience? One, I am occasionally skilled in the kitchen, because it didn't figuratively blow up in my face until the last step. Two, I should probably learn new dishes in person first, and not over text message because there are things that get lost in translation. Three, people did no go hungry, so you know, I'm still counting it as a partial win.

And at the end of the day, I still had my dad's Christmas gift to share with him: A big bottle of Stone's collaboration IPA, appropriately named "Sorry Not Sorry." That makes a lot of things much better. 

Until tomorrow.

Holidailies Day 25: Driving

Merry Christmas everyone!

My fun today was that I got to drive my Subaru up over the hill all by myself for the first time. Being a coastal and valley CA native, snow and ice are not a reality I have to deal with all that often. So it was one part exciting, one part slightly terrifying. I found myself trying to recite what ice looked like and the signs of black ice, and how to steer into a slide and all that...

Thankfully, it was pretty dry all the way over. We ran into a flurry, but that was it. What was more fun was stopping in Reno to figure out where we were going next and playing around a little bit in the empty parking lots. I justified it, because I need to know how my car handles in those conditions just in case, right? It's a lot more fun to find out at low speeds with no one around.

I am feeling the effects of stressing out while driving for over two hours though. I got out of the car and had to shake out my shoulders, try and loosen my neck up, because I was so tense. I'm very much looking forward to a relaxing night and hopefully a chill day with family tomorrow.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Until tomorrow.