Girl.

On the dining room table of my brother's apartment lay, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling, writer on The Office and star of The Mindy Project.  While my brother was taking a shower, or getting ready, or something - or maybe his girlfriend had grabbed the book off her shelf for me because of our conversation - I can't remember - somehow it ended up in my hands.  I began reading it, and found myself laughing out loud - which I'm not sure has ever happened to me from reading a book.  My brother's girlfriend then (rather thoughtfully) gave it to me as a Christmas present and I've recently pulled it off my shelf as a form of self-care, to get away from the piles of work that have been slowly eating me alive this semester... bite by bite.

Here are a few excerpts:

(from chapter Types of Women in Romantic Comedies Who Are Not Real)

I love romantic comedies. I feel almost sheepish writing that, because the genre has been so degraded in the past 20 years or so that admitting you like these movies is essentially an admission of mild stupidity.  But that has not stopped me from watching them... I simply regard romantic comedies as a sub-genre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world... So it makes sense that in this world there are many specimens of women who I do not think exist in real life, like Vulcans or UFO people or whatever.  They are:

THE KLUTZ

When a beautiful actress is in a movie, executives wrack their brain to find some kind of flaw in her that still allows her to be palatable... A not 100-percent-perfect-looking-in-every-way female?  You might as well film a dead squid decaying on a beach somewhere for two hours... Our Klutz clangs into Stop signs while riding a bike, and knocks over giant displays of expensive fine china.  Despite being five foot nine and weighing 110 pounds, she is basically like a drunk buffalo who has never been a part of human society.  But Fred Tom loves her anyway.

THE ETHEREAL WEIRDO

...If she were from real life, people would think she was a homeless woman and would cross the street to avoid her, but she is essential to the male fantasy that even if a guy is boring, he deserves a woman who will find him fascinating and pull him out of himself by forcing him to go skinny-dipping in a stranger's pool.

THE WOMAN WHO IS OBSESSED WITH HER CAREER AND IS NO FUN AT ALL

...I am slightly offended by the way busy working women my age are presented in film.  I'm not like, always barking orders into my hands-free phone device and telling people constantly, "I have no time for this!" I didn't completely forget how to be nice or feminine because I have a career.  Also, since when does having a job necessitate women having their hair pulled back in a severe, tight bun?  Often this uptight woman has to "re-learn" how to seduce a man because her estrogen leaked out of her from leading so many board meetings... Having a challenging job in movies means the compassionate, warm, or sexy side of your brain has fallen out.

***

Those are just a few, and they make me laugh out loud.  I think she gets at these weird images and ideas that we can get lodged in our mind due to the leading females that we see who get the guy: must be mysterious, it's cute to be klutzy, better not get to work-obsessed or I'll turn into a nasty person.

This commercial actually makes me tear up:

It's when I see the younger girls running as fast as they can.  I'm thinking about how they haven't simply accepted the phrase, or had it take a certain drive out of them.  The look on their faces when they're running as fast as they can just gets me.  They don't have these weird images in their heads yet - the strange ways women can be portrayed and the expectations that can influence them.  These little girls believe in themselves.

I remembered recently how over the summer, in the all girls group, the girls refer to each other as "Girl".  "Girl, let me help you."  "Girl, your hair."  Girl.  Their intonation had this power to it.  It's hard to even imitate it unless I'm around them.

Girl.  Run.  Laugh.  Think.  Be.
And see Romantic Comedies as Sci-Fi movies.

Girl, go!

On Girls and Feminism

(A post from September 28, 2014 that I never finished)

I was inspired by a line I heard from an On Being podcast, something along the lines of perhaps happiness isn't always a pursuit, but sometimes we need to stop and let it catch up with us.  I've found it hard to slow down in recent years, as there are always things that I feel the need to pursue: photography, travel, friendships, job, academics, or even just the nature surrounding me.

But today, I'm letting happiness catch up with me.  I'm finally figuring out how to safely get the over 3,000 photos from the past 4 months off my iPhone.  This has taken me longer than I would have liked, causing intense technological frustration.  Thankfully, I went to yoga for 90 minutes this morning, which was a surprise to find when I got there, but welcomed.  I organized my room a bit more, rearranging the haphazard organizing that occurred when I first moved in and I basically threw all of my belongings in drawers, on the bookcase and under my bed, not to mention stuffing all kinds of things into the my closet (my tarp from the summer is still bound up tight).  My window is open and a warm breeze is coming through - probably one of the last ones as we are heading into Fall all too quickly.  I've got candles lit and am thoroughly enjoying Lord Huron's Lonesome Dreams.

Another thing that's going on in the back of my mind, is that I'm reflecting back over the summer and the girls that I worked with out there for a couple eight-day shifts.  Recently, Emma Watson gave a speech at the UN about her organization He for She about feminism, which I found myself resonating with - nodding my head at my iPhone as a I watched it.  She talked about how feminism became such a dirty word, but all it means is to believe that women should have the same rights as men - that's it.

Now, I'm not going to focus on feminism per se, but I will focus on the girls I saw this summer.  The girls who struggled with esteem - having to try and convince themselves that they were enough, worthy, and should stop trying to bear the emotional burdens of their families.  The girls who constantly smiled and sought to rescue one another from their negative emotions, saying "sorry" for what was not their fault.  To me, these are symptoms of girls growing up in a world where they may be encouraged not to be confident, to expect less, and keep on smiling.  They feel shame for never ever being good enough and call boys who treat them without respect their boyfriends if they happen to text them back.

Recently, I was listening to This American Life, a story about a woman who was a federal regulator, speaking out about the irresponsibility of Goldman Sachs.  It was a fascinating story, but what frustrated me most was hearing a recording of a supervision session with her boss, where he told her that she was "breaking eggs" and her "shoulders were too sharp" and she was "arrogant".  What I wondered was if she had been a man, would she have been called arrogant, or confident?

I don't really know.  But what I do know, is that girls are courageous, strong, beautiful, and smart.  I think this is one of the reasons that I love seeing girls out in the wilderness, where their bodies and their personalities are accepted as they are and they have the space to challenge themselves.  It's true even for me: I feel the most beautiful when I am the most dirty.  We're talking I rub my hands and peels of dirt come off dirty. It's not the dirt that causes me to feel beautiful, but it's because I'm in a place where there is no pressure to be anything more than all my imperfections combined, because it's those qualities that make me who I am.  It's not until I'm there that I realize the intensity of the pressures we walk around in daily that nudge us towards believing that we are not enough... and girl are those forces strong.

It is when I find my way back to that place of enough-ness (often a tricky place to find) that happiness can catch up with me.  Here's Lord Huron's Lonesome Dreams and some drawings from my time out there.  Enjoy :)