Never Have I Ever . . . Thought I'd Write a Blog Post About Mindy Kaling

And Velma.

Mindy Kaling is the driving force behind a new "adult" cartoon take on the Scooby Doo characters, minus Scooby, called Velma and centering on a character called Velma Dinkley, beloved nerdy member of the Mystery, Inc. gang.

Mostly, people hate.  I've watched a few episodes and I am not a fan.

SOME of the criticism comes from dude-bros who decry it for being too "woke":  Velma's Indian, Daphne is Asian (with two moms), and Norville (not called Shaggy in this show) is mixed race (black mom, white dad).

I could give a fig about their races.  I'm cool with these originally white characters being a different race.  They come from an era where white was the default and any other race was exotic, at best, and a comic relief caricature, at worst.  It's high time that we have people of other races and cultures in our stories as just regular people.  Regular people aren't always white.

My beef with the show is deeper than the epidermis.  The characterization of Velma, Daphne, Fred (who remains white), and Norville bear no resemblance to the original characters in the countless iterations of Scooby Doo over the past fortyish years. The Velma in this show is not a confident nerd who employs her intellect to foil the villains, but an insecure, unpopular, obsessive, and, honestly, kind of mean girl. She's not even the smartest of the bunch anymore, asking "Norville" for help with math at one point.  The others are equally out of character.  This is not so much a "fresh look" on the old characters as a gutting and remodeling, like a 1920s bungalow in a gentrifying neighborhood.  Outside, looks similar to the original.  Inside, unrecognizable.

But this Buzzfeed article attempts to cast Velma as the next iteration of Mindy Kaling's self-loathing portrayals as an Indian-American female.  The writer says that Mindy Kaling has "a long career of writing and performing a specific kind of Indian woman:  dorky, self-absorbed, insecure, obsessed with attaining the romantic validation of caustic white guys, and eager to fling cultures under the bus to get it."  The Buzzfeed writer says, "More damning than her characters' obsession with white guy is their casually racist self-hatred" and notes the "collapse" of Kaling's characters into her actual self, or vice versa.  Essentially, the author is saying that all of Kaling's characters are about Kaling's own self-loathing as an Indian woman in America. Quite a casual and distant psychological analysis.  Quite an indictment of her work too.

I'm no expert on Mindy Kaling's career.  I’ve only ever actually seen her in the American version of The Office, and wasn’t taken by or offended by her character.  But I didn’t watch much of the show either because I found it sub-par to the British version. And I never watched The Mindy Project or Sex Lives of College Girls because everything I read about them suggested to me that they weren't my style.

I have watched Never Have I Ever, every single episode.  Mindy Kaling doesn't actually appear in it, but is the show's creator and executive producer.  It's a show about a teenaged Indian girl named Devi Vishwakumar, growing up in suburban Los Angeles.  She's dealing with the death of her father at a young age and generally growing up and being a teenager.  It's hilariously narrated by John McEnroe (and occasionally other people).  Devi has some rage issues, partly stemming from the death of her father and partly stemming from teen angst.  So the choice of McEnroe to be the one to tell her story is inspired. I love the show.

I feel that Never Have I Ever is NOT just a show about an Indian-American teenaged girl.  It's about an American teenaged girl, who is culturally Indian.  Distinction without a difference?  Maybe, but Devi Vishwakumar IS an archetype.  She's not an archetypal Indian teenager, but an archetypal American teenager, who is culturally Indian.  Devi’s repeated lapses in judgment and in the same general direction are infuriating sometimes.  WHY does she keep being so stupid?  But that’s a teenager thing, continually making the same or similar dumb mistakes and then, finally, FINALLY learning from them.

I saw Devi not as an archetypal ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) teenager, but as a confused teenager who happens to be Indian. She often rebels against her culture, and other times embraces it. I completely relate to that, even though I am definitely not an ABCD.

However, I was a smart teenaged girl once.  I could relate to Devi's desire to fit in, her being proud and feeling weird about being smart, her competitiveness competing with her laziness.  I even related to Devi alternately rebelling against and relating to her culture, only my culture was Southern-American-Cowboy, not South Asian.

Anyway, the idea of a smart teenaged girl, struggling to fit in and trying to distinguish herself from her cultural heritage is a universal theme everyone can embrace.  I do not see Devi Vishwakumar as a manifestation of one Indian-American woman's self-loathing, but a smart take on what it's like to be a teenaged girl in America.  As I said earlier in this post, it's high time that we have people of other races and cultures in our stories as just regular people.  Devi is a regular teenager who happens to be Indian.  We need to normalize the idea that not being white is normal. Never Have I Ever does that brilliantly.

Because I haven't seen the entirety of Kaling's oeuvre, I can’t speak to the larger point the Buzzfeed writer makes of Velma fitting neatly into Kaling’s own self-loathing.  But I can say this, I do not think that Devi Viswakumar is a manifestation of Kaling's self-loathing.  So I am not sure that Kaling even hates herself in the way the writer thinks she does.

But back to Velma . . . .

Because I'm not onboard with the idea that Kaling in some Freudian way repeatedly creates characters manifesting her own self-hatred, I can't say the Velma fits into that mold.  But I can say that the only resemblance the Velma TV show shares with Scooby Doo are the character names and character wardrobe.  There’s not a hint of the classic characters’ personalities.  They’re all loathsome and self-absorbed, except for “Norville,” who is now apparently the smart one.

Also, the idea that this cartoon was apparently made for grown ups is ridiculous.  It's filled with sexual innuendo, unfunny political jabs, and references to drugs, sex and violence. It’s the very essence of what children think adulthood is all about.  What makes Velma bad is not Mindy Kaling’s alleged self-loathing, which I take issue with, but that it thinks that puerile jokes about sex etc. is what amounts to adult humor.  It's not smart.  It's not funny.  And it's not even fun nostalgia because it makes these beloved characters unrecognizable.

Also, there’s no dog. 

MEternity Leave

Seriously, are we really going to have to have this conversation?  I guess we really are. 

Meghann Foye has written a novel in which the main character fakes a pregnancy in order to get paid maternity leave. She calls it "MEternity" leave. http://www.people.com/article/meternity-meghann-foye-maternity-leave-without-kids

Foye says that she came up with the concept when she became envious of her co-workers who were parents who had this ready-made reason to leave work early: the kids. And, she said, the childfree folks were expected to pick up the slack. 

The fact is, before I had kids, I had similar thoughts and similar feelings. In a sense, I know where she's coming from. 

But the solution isn't coming up with this kind of offensive concept of "MEternity" leave, which implies, at least, that Foye thinks maternity leave is some sort of mommy vacation.

Maternity leave, lest there be any doubt, is a 24/7 job that you are thrown into after a major medical procedure, with only a vague notion of how to do it, and with the expectation that you perform at peak levels at all times with little or no sleep.  So maternity leave is the opposite of the relaxing, reflective break that Foye seems to imagine that it is.

And it's also not alway free, not alway a paid three months away from the office.  My maternity leave was only (partially) paid because I used every single hour of vacation and sick leave I had built up in order to draw a salary while I took it. And even then I took leave without pay in order to stay home for 11 weeks after the birth of my son.  So, sure, I got 12 weeks guaranteed, but that was unpaid unless I had the vacation/sick leave built up to turn it into paid leave.

AND THEN, I came back from maternity leave with no vacation and sick leave at all. You end up having to take a lot of time off with a new baby -- they get sick, they get YOU sick, you have to take them for regular well-child visits, etc. It literally took five years for me to build up enough vacation hours so that my family could take a one week vacation to Disneyland.

So yeah, parents are absent from work a lot more than nonparents, and we leave early, but it's not all light and roses and relaxation. Sometimes, most of the time, it's because, e.g., your kid is sick and has been sick for weeks and every drug they use to try to cure him works kinda, but not really, or he has an allergic reaction to them, and you find it is four months later and you are still dealing with this shit. (To give a fairly specific example....)

Parenthood is stressful.

And missing all the work is stressful because we don't like falling behind. And we don't like leaving stuff to our coworkers to cover. We care about you.  You are our friends. My two best co-worker buddies are both childfree. I don't like things falling on them because of my status as a parent. They have important things going on in their lives too.  We parents, if we are at all decent humans, feel guilty that sometimes our crappy assignments fall on our childfree peers because we are out with the kid. And we try very hard to make sure that doesn't happen. 

But, I get it, Meghann Foye. I really do. Because before I had a child...I had those thoughts too. I did.  But I was wrong. And so are you. 

The solution you seek is not MEternity leave. It is a universal paid sabbatical, one that even parents could take to explore other interests or just binge read every book we've wanted to read but haven't gotten around to for the last six years.

And the companion to that solution is a shift in attitude in both the worker and in management regarding expectations at the office. Management should not expect childfree employees to "pick up the slack" every time.  Childfree coworkers should not expect that of themselves.  People should be expected to have personal lives. 

What you want is a fundamental shift in attitude toward work. You want your personal life, not your job, to be the most important thing. And that requires a psychic shift on the part of the individual. That happened for me when I realized how miserable and resentful I was at my law firm job. I resolved to fix that.

And as regards management, if they won't shift their expectations, maybe a job change is in order. I did that too, left the law firm and went to a more flexible, less demanding job.

And finally, Foye wants all women to support each other, to understand each other, be they parents or child free.  But the means of her expression of her hopes for all women -- this MEternity leave concept -- has done exactly the opposite.

It has driven a resentful, and indeed, ignorant, wedge between the workers with children and without, one that need not be there. We can all try to understand each other better. This is as ridiculous and petty as The Mommy Wars. It's hard for all of us, Meghann, and, P.S., virtually every one of us with kids has been a childfree coworker of a parent in the past. We do understand your plight. Please try to understand us too.

Get Out of the Office and Into the Kitchen

There's a study out that the suggests that the home cooked family dinner, idealized by the likes of Michael Pollan, Ann Romney, Michelle Obama, and June Cleaver alike, might not be all it's cracked up to be if you're the mom doing the cooking.

From the abstract:

Sociologists Sarah Bowen, Sinikka Elliott, and Joslyn Brenton offer a critique of the increasingly prevalent message that reforming the food system necessarily entails a return to the kitchen. They argue that time pressures, tradeoffs to save money, and the burden of pleasing others make it difficult for mothers to enact the idealized vision of home-cooked meals advocated by foodies and public health officials.

To a certain extent, I reject the study authors' suggestion that a reform of the food system does not entail a return to the kitchen.  Mass produced, restaurant food is, by and large, not that great for you.  You're better off making it yourself.

But I take their point:  the burden, disproportionately placed on women, often outweighs the benefit.  There are many problems:  picky eaters (including the adult men in their lives!), time, physical exhaustion, food prices.

I am lucky enough to be well-off enough that, though they are concerning, high food prices are not an obstacle to me cooking a meal.  But I feel the pressure of the foodie culture too.  I want to have a delicious, nutritious, sit down, home cooked meal every night with my family.  I think it's better.  It's the one time in the day when we're all together.  We can talk about our day and share, you know, good old fashioned family time.

Although, if I'm honest, the everyone 'round the table, every day meal from my childhood that I remember the most isn't dinner.  It's breakfast and that bowl of oatmeal and glass of orange juice and Flintstone's vitamin next to my spoon.  My mom may have had dinner on the table every night, but it's the mornings I remember.

And that's Point Number One that I'd like to make:  It doesn't have to be dinner.  If breakfast works better for you, why not bowls of cereal and a little morning conversation?  But if breakfast and dinner aren't feasible, well, maybe a snack.  Or maybe your family just doesn't share a meal together.  But the family meal to me is more about the family and less about the meal.  Finding a time to be together as a family without the TV blaring for about 30 minutes a day is really important.  No family time, no family connections, no family.

And so that's my Point Number Two:  If you only have thirty minutes free in which you can either cook a meal or spend time with your family, I vote you throw a frozen lasagna in the oven, open up a bag salad, and spend those thirty minutes hanging with your family.  Yes, good nutrition is important.  But careful label reading can steer you towards healthier pre-packaged options.  If feeding your family something quick gives you more time to have a conversation with them, do that.  (And, by the way, The Working Dad pitches in and cooks too, and his fajitas rock.)

Which brings me to my Point Number Three:  Holy smokes, give yourself a break and take some short cuts.  Some people make a lot of crockpot meals.  That's never really worked for us, but if it works for you, do it.  And I hereby give you permission to buy prepackaged stuff.  Just read the labels, friends.  Mrs. Dash even has sodium free marinades, for instance, that are pretty good.  And it's okay to make Kraft Macaroni & Cheese every once in a while.  It won't kill your kids, just like it didn't kill us.  Use canned food.  Use frozen vegetables.  It's okay.  (Obviously, if you've got food allergies, lots of the prepackaged things are irrelevant to you, or even dangerous. But not all of them. If this is you, though, you're probably already a good label reader, so keep doing what you're doing.)

As much as I love Martha Stewart, I understand that Martha has a whole staff backing her up and bringing her her farm fresh eggs and "best" vanilla.  When it's just me in there, I'm okay tossing a bag of frozen, tail off gulf shrimp into my quick creole that I will serve over Uncle Ben's boil-in-bag rice.  Go ahead and order in or carry it out every once in a while.  You've worked all day.  Sometimes, there's not the energy, even if there is the time.

So to my Point Number Four:  Dads, if you aren't helping out in the kitchen, you need to start, particularly if your wife is a working mom.  That you do not know how to cook or that your wife is a better cook is not an excuse.  She works hard at her job just like you do.  She's tired when she gets home from the office too.  Give her a break:  learn a couple of tasty meals that you can reliably cook once or twice a week.  (What?  You can't grill burgers or chicken breasts and toss some frozen veggies into the microwave?  What kind of man are you, anyway?  Just kidding . . . a little.)  She will appreciate the effort you make, and the opportunity to play with the kids while you cook, for a change.  Trust me.  I relish every bite of The Working Man's excellent fajitas every time he makes them.  (And the great thing about his fajitas:  I can't replicate them.  I can make my own version, but not his.  His are far superior.)

So, I may not have all the working parents' culinary solutions. But I've got a few. If you take nothing else from my little tirade tonight, take three things:  relax, help each other out and spend time with your family. Somewhere in there, you should eat too, but don't let Michael Pollan make you feel badly about your canned green beans. You're doing okay. 

My Boobs, My Choice

Why is it that, in some circles, when it comes to abortion, women's bodies are sacrosanct?  She's granted complete sovereignty over her person when it comes to the embryo or fetus within her.  She alone gets to choose.

But when it comes to breastfeeding, those same people who trumpet a woman's right to choose on the front end of the pregnancy also act as if, once the baby's drawn breath, there's no choice, no sovereignty of the body anymore. 

Lady, if you brought that child to term, you must breastfeed.  You don't have the right to choose what you do with your boobs.

Let me tell you a little bit about my experience:  I was 40 years old, fresh off a month of bedrest.  My breasts have always been plenty "full," but they were not -- they were never -- full of milk.  I starved my son for the first five days of his life trying to offer him a nearly dry teat.

And then, AND THEN, the lactation consultant came.  She made remarks about my nipples, their quality and type, even their ethnicity.

Seriously.

She encouraged me to use the breast pump to stimulate milk production when my child was not feeding instead of, you know, holding and bonding with my baby or taking a nap.

She even suggested that I use some weird contraption involving a catheter threaded from a bottle with formula or, preferably, expressed milk, alongside my own breast down to my nipple and into my son's mouth so that, even if he was not getting milk from the actual boob, he was still sucking it through the effing catheter.  (You should imagine me typing really hard on that last bit there.)

Because the only way to bond with your child is if he's sucking your teat.

Seriously?

I went along with the pumping-all-the-damned-time-thing, but the catheter was a bridge too far.

I'm sure the lactation consultant felt I was an utter failure for having rejected the ridiculous catheter trick.

What not a single professional said to me -- not the pediatrician, not the lactation consultant, not the OB/GYNs -- was that it was okay to let go.

No, the breastfeeding was too important:  More important than me getting rest.  More important than me sitting and holding my baby.  The agenda was more important than me.

And I bought into it.  I pumped incessantly.  I worried about there not being enough milk.  I gloried in the mere six ounces a day of anemic breast milk that I brought home from work each day.  (Until, at age six months, my son rejected both boob and breast-milky-like substance, mercifully freeing me from that sucking machine.)

If I had to do it all over again, I'd tell that consultant to walk on by so fast.  I would enjoy my maternity leave.  I would actually sleep when the baby sleeps.  I would allow that having a newborn is stressful enough without adding to the stress by trying to make happen what was clearly not going to happen.

I would relieve myself of the daily humiliation of half-disrobing in my office four times a day to pump while I worked.  I would also relieve my co-workers of the awkwardness of finding my bag of sterilized pump parts in the microwave where I'd forgotten them after a harried pumping session.

I would give myself a break, even when no one else would.  And in so doing, I think, I think, I would have been a more present and better rested mommy of a new human.  (But who knows, right?  Because newborns are challenging even when no breast pumps are present.)

One thing I know for sure:  I wouldn't feel betrayed and bullied by a system that means too well.  Breastfeeding is not so important to the bonding process that we need to pretend that we're doing it by means of a catheter.  That's just nuts.  I know the intentions are good, but someone needs to say, "Enough is enough, if it's not working, use the formula, lady.  It will be okay.  You'll still love your kid and your kid will be fine."

Because new mothers are as vulnerable as newborn babies.  We want to do everything just right.  We don't want to screw up.  We're terrified we'll accidentally harm this precious gift we've been given, our baby girls and boys.  Someone in the breastfeeding establishment needs to say, "You tried.  It's okay to quit."

Hey, if your boobs work well, and breastfeeding your child is a breeze, more power to you.  I am envious.  It wasn't easy for me.  I wanted it to be, but it wasn't.

But if you're having trouble, if you're feeling wrung out, if you feel like a slave to the breast pump, if you just don't want to do it anymore or at all (even though your boobs work fine), it's okay to let go.  I give you permission.  They're your boobs.  It's your choice.

Cheerleader Feminism

NFL cheerleaders are fighting back against the unfair pay they have, historically, received for, er, the privilege of being NFL cheerleaders. Because that's essentially the argument from management:  you get the privilege of being associated with the team and being thought of as the hottest chicks in town -- you might even marry a rich dude -- so, really, you should thank us for the privilege.

Some of these ladies get paid as little as $105 a season, while being subjected to jiggle tests and fines for gaining five pounds.  Some teams even have bizarre personal (and we're talking very personal) hygiene rules.  And the teams and their owners meanwhile make millions, a portion of which may be attributable to the cheerleaders' work.

On the latest edition of the Double X Gabfest Hanna Rosin quipped, off-hand (so I don't hold her responsible for the opinion only for reporting it), that it is harder for feminists to get behind cheerleaders than, for instance, strippers. Strippers sometimes describe themselves as artists, she said. And strippers are edgier.

Feminist -- old line feminists, I suppose -- like an in your face hyper-sexualized traditionally female profession, but only if it's edgy. 

But why?!

Look at the patronizing rationale for not paying NFL cheerleaders a decent, minimum wage. Why are old-line feminists not outraged by such belittling treatment of young women?

Often NFL cheerleaders are college students, ill-equipped to fight back, unschooled in the cruel world. Their cheerleader contracts may be the first employment contract they've ever signed. They probably don't have the document reviewed by independent legal counsel. Why doesn't the "sisterhood" stand up for them?

Is it because NFL cheerleading seems fakey?  Seems smarmy?  Too middle America?  Too mainstream?  Maybe the cheerleaders deserve it?  Maybe they're asking for the unfair treatment?  Surely, no right thinking feminist would think that way. Not and also fight for the rights of edgy, arty strippers. 

I guess I should pause to say, perhaps superfluously, that I'm not a huge fan of NFL cheerleaders.  Or the NFL. Or football in general.

I don't mind what I think of as "real" cheerleaders -- those acrobats of the fields. Those ladies (and gentlemen) are straight up impressive athletes.  But booty shaking, booby jiggling, pom-pon waving pin-up girls -- I'm not a fan.  I don't care if they are considered "ambassadors of the team."  (I'm not all that into the "team," anyway.)

But I'm a feminist and, by damn, if we feminists can line up for fair treatment for strippers, I see no reason why we cannot line up for an equal wage and fair treatment for NFL cheerleaders.

They deserve to be paid for the work that they do. They deserve at least minimum wage.  They deserve more.  They deserve to be afforded a modicum of human dignity while on the job. And I do not think that being considered a "hot girl" substitutes for monetary compensation or excuses ill-treatment by their employers.  Neither should anyone else.  Go team.

Pink is the New Blue.

I revise my opinion.

For several years, I've frowned on the pink and purple princess mania of modern girldom.  To me, it was a sign of early tracking of little girls to woman's weeds and "girl things."  It was so antifeminist.

I'd bristle. I'd roll my eyes. 

Why do they need special "girl" Mega Blocks?  What's wrong with the primary colored ones the boys play with.  What makes red, blue, yellow and green "boy," and pink and purple "girl"?

But I've change my mind.

I mean, sure, there is nothing wrong with girls playing with primary colored toys and I still think it's, I don't know, superfluous to make pink and purple blocks. But the fact that she's playing with pink blocks doesn't mean she is destined for a life of subservient, second-class citizenship.  That's going to require a lot more parenting mistakes than any frilly princess dress or box of pink blocks is going to impart.

I mean, let's remember that playing with any colored blocks is intellectually stimulating.  If pink gets her building towers, that's okay.  In fact, it's not just okay, it's great.  She's probably not going to demand a pink princess microscope when she gets to MIT.  The lessons she learned from her mom and dad about self-respect, personal fulfillment, education, and her fundamental rights as a human being are going to be the thing that determines whether she's mighty or a mouse.

Not that anecdotes are proof of anything, but I played with Barbies like mad and I turned out okay, with no illusions that I should only wear pink, have long blond hair, always wear heels, and have an impossibly tiny waist.

And, honestly, if I'm going to let my boy play with Hello Kitty and Minnie Mouse, I really ought to chill out about girls doing it. Probably, those girls have a few Hot Wheels or other "boy" toys in their toy boxes too. I mean, I did, after all.  I remember my collection of Star Wars figurines quite fondly. 

So, as due, I'm chilling out. And today, without second thought or guilt, I will accompany my son to a little girl's birthday party with an unapologetic gift of princess Duplo blocks.  May she build skyscrapers one day.

Maybe I'll even wear a pink sweater. 

Wisdom Shaming

Wha?

A few weeks ago, Emily Yoffe wrote a piece and then a follow-up piece suggesting that if young college-aged women didn't get blotto at college parties, they would be less likely to be rape victims.  A wing of the feminist commentariate went nuts, insisting that Yoffe was blaming the victim to dispense such common sense advice.

Some of the opposition even seemed to suggest that they would prefer the blotto-rapes occur so that the rapists get caught and prosecuted so they wouldn't go on to rape again...as if it's okay to offer one drunk college girl up to the rape gods in order to save five...as if there's a guarantee of prosecution when the victim was too drunk to remember exactly what happened?  It was surreal. 

Disturbingly, though, American college culture seems to revolve around drinking.  Example:  I saw a  series of photos recently of a sorority chapter's cooler decorating competition in advance of the big game against their long-time rival.  Lest you think that these coolers were destined to contain Capri Suns and orange slices, one of the young ladies had decorated her cooler with the phrase "Hakuna La Vodka."

How very drunk Disney princess of her....

But I was a drunken sorority girl too, 20-odd years ago, and it was a binge-to-blotto culture back then as well. I was fortunate to have friends, who were gracious enough to help keep me out of trouble -- and hold my hair as I puked -- the times I drank too much.

And the times I didn't, well, my sorority sisters and other friends were lucky enough to have me as a driver. In one instance, I actually helped carry a pledge, too drunk to stand, home from a fraternity party and sat with her through the night to make sure she was okay.

But none of that was okay -- then or now.

What if my friends hadn't been there for me?  What if I hadn't been there for them?  What might have happened?  I shudder to think. 

But here's the thing:  we knew it wasn't good for us to drink to excess like that. We weren't stupid or unaware. But we ignored the advice. 

We've got to make it uncool to behave that way. We've got to make maintaining control, even just a little bit, acceptable behavior and not "unfun."

And that means for the boys and the girls too. 

Because, I've got to tell ya', I am aware of instances where the sorority-girl-network failed some of my peers and they were harmed. And that is horrible.  Horrible and tragic.

Obviously, I think that we parents should educate our boys about respect for women and acceptable behavior toward women. That means starting early. It includes teaching them what consent is and that a drunk girl can't really give it.  And these boys are the most likely to be harmed by alcohol poisoning or other physical risk taking behavior. For their own safety, they should drink less. 

It also means teaching girls how to protect themselves from a potential assault:  don't accept drinks from strangers; don't drink to black out; do travel in packs with trusted friends; do be wary when a drunken boy takes your hand to lead you away (if he's really into you, he'll be okay with accepting your phone number and calling you in the morning).

Giving that advice is not blaming the victim/potential victim of rape. It's giving her tools to avoid becoming a victim.

I'll tell you something else:  it is not a feminist statement to get shit-faced drunk.  I think there is a certain subculture of the feminist culture who thinks that it's an affirming feminist act to be as loud and as raunchy as any 19 year old frat boy out at the party barn.  All I have to say is, really?

The college drinking culture makes sobriety, even moderation, uncool. So the girls get sloppy and the boys lose inhibitions, and everyone forgets the good lessons they were taught.  This has nothing to do with feminism, and everything to do with an American society that has failed to teach its young people how to handle alcohol and the situations that alcohol can create.

I'm not sure how we change the binge-to-blotto culture. If it's not changed in  the 20-odd years since I was a participant in it, I'm not sure it will change organically, or at all. 

But it seems to me that the place it will have to change is at home.  And the time for change is long before these kids set off for college. Parents are totally uncool, by their nature, but I think we've got to start this thing early so it sticks, like music lessons or a foreign language. It doesn't mean our kids won't drink -- or even that they shouldn't -- but maybe they'll be a little bit safer about it when they do if we give them the tools to think it through.  Safer than me and my friends were . . . .

We've come a long way, baby.

Hanna Rosin is one of my favorite writers on women's issues and, in this wonderful article, she invites the feminist elites to see the silver lining:

The Patriarchy is Dead.

Reproductive Justice

A few months back, I heard a speech about reproductive justice.

What's that?

It sounds like it's about abortion, right?

And it is, partly.  Partly, it is.

And, in fact, people often end up talking a lot about abortion -- justifying it -- when it comes to the topic  of reproductive justice.  And that's pretty much where most of this speech I heard sat.

But that's not all it is, and it is a shame that the conversation always seems to have to settle on the topic of abortion where there are a lot of other issues on which intelligent, well-meaning people should be able to agree.

And to me (and I'm going to go ahead and say that it should be for you to) reproductive justice is a lot bigger, a lot more important, and a lot more sweeping than determining the status of a fertilized egg.

(And for the sake of clearing the air on that topic, here's my position on that particular issue:  a fertilized egg may or may not have the potential to become a human.  A fertilized egg may lack the necessary genetic cell lines to even form a baby.  These are known as blighted ovums and they are the source of many miscarriages.  Such a fertilized egg was never going to be a baby, even though all the pregnancy tests tested positive.  A fertilized egg, even if it does have the necessary genetic cell lines to form a baby must attach to the uterine wall and grow there.  Many of them never do.  Many of them fail to reach the uterus, resulting in ectopic pregnancies that end in miscarriage. Many of them just sweep away as part of a woman's monthly menstruation.  So my opinion, in fact what appears to be scientific fact, is that "life" does not begin at conception.  It does begin sometime in utero, but it's not at conception.  Because I do not wish this post to be about abortion, I'm stoping right there on this topic.)

“Reproductive Justice is the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, economic, and social well-being of women and girls, and will be achieved when women and girls have the economic, social, and political power and resources to make healthy decisions about our bodies, sexuality, and reproduction for ourselves, our families, and our communities in all areas of our lives.”  Source here.

That's pretty broad, isn't it?  That's not just abortion.  It's not even mostly abortion.

To me, reproductive justice is really about economics and social well-being.  It's not about women like me:  I'm upper middle class and white.  I can afford birth control -- whether it's the pill or condoms or what have you.  I can afford to have a baby.  I have a job, a loving husband, a nice house, and a good, stable income.  If I wanted, and found myself with an unwanted pregnancy, I could also easily have an abortion.  I could easily find a clinic and I could easily pay for the procedure.  I am, as much as I can be, in control of my reproductive well-being because of my social class and relative wealth.

But before I was a lawyer in the suburbs married to another lawyer in the suburbs, I was well educated about my reproductive system and my reproductive health.  I was taught by my mother, and a little bit by my public school, about my sexuality and what causes pregnancy and disease.

It's the 16 year old impoverished girl whose home life is unstable that should be the focus of our concern.  She's not getting the same breaks that I have gotten my whole life.  And so when she reaches the age of 21 and already has 3 kids, she's 1,000 steps behind where I was at 21 and there is no catching up to that.

Reproductive justice is about her.  It is about finding ways to educate her about her sexual health -- her reproductive system, how to prevent her pregnancy, how she can avoid disease.  And it is also about finding ways to help her leave her impoverished situation to make a better life for herself.  And she cannot do that if she's had three babies before she is of legal drinking age.

It's not just about the teen mom in the US, though. Globally, there are women who are literally besieged by their own bodies in an endless cycle of pregnancy and birth.  They are victims of their husbands and of societies that see them as property and second class citizens.  These women need compassion.  They need birth control, they need education, they need options, and they need support systems that will free them from social tyranny.

Reproductive justice means so much more than abortion.  We all, pro-life or pro-choice, can find something to get behind under the category of reproductive justice.  And we women -- and as many men as we can recruit -- need to start fighting for it.  For ourselves, but especially for the women and girls in this nation and world who, by dint of circumstance, cannot fight for themselves.

What's a mother to do?

A friend of mine posted a link to this blog post on Facebook. And I read it. And gave it a the big thumbs up.

In it the writer, mother of "the Hall Boys," explains how she and her sons sometimes look at the kids' Facebook pages and if the mom sees a girl dressed or posed in a way the she deems inappropriate, she makes the kid delete the girl. No second chances. She wants to protect her sons and help them stay "pure."

Regarding the "keeping your kid pure part," I think she's fighting a losing battle, no matter how much she talks to them, how many times they read the Bible, or how hard they all pray. Teenaged boys, throbbing away with testosterone, are going to want to look at scantily clad females, be they peers or in a magazine.  And I don't think anyone -- mommy or otherwise -- is going to stop them doing it by going through their Facebook pages and deleting all the 16 year girls who have taken unfortunately provocative selfies.  Come to think of it, you're lucky if those selfies are all he's looking at. 

But in a post-Steubenville rape trial era, I can sympathize with a mother who wants to protect her sons from the sexual pitfalls of social media. My kid's not yet three, and I worry about when his days as a walking libido arrive. So I get the impulse. You don't want your kid to be the one forwarding some girl's naked ta-ta shot or much, much worse. So policing his Facebook activity is a way to do it. 

And the author of the Hall Boys post offers some advice to the girls taking the provocative selfies:  she knows you're better than that. She knows you're a good, smart, sweet girl who really isn't as slutty as your Facebook feed suggests. And she wants you to act like it and prove that you are the kind of girl she'd like her boys to date.  

I get that too. Because when I see a teen girl with her boobs and/or her booty hanging out, I think about how no one cares about her brain or her opinions because her Ts and A are getting in the way.  And that's the sorry, sad truth:  when you dress provocatively, you will provoke. And when teenaged girls provoke, they don't really understand what they're doing or inviting. They can't understand it fully, they haven't been there yet.  I hate to drag out the tired old phrase "youth and inexperience," but their youth and inexperience necessitates that they don't really know what they're doing.

Hey, if nearly 43-year-old me wears a lacy push-up bra, I know what I'm after, what I'm communicating, and what I'm likely to get. A teenager, not so much.  And I've written about this before, on this blog:  how the way you dress affects how people think about you.  In a post where I mused on the 20-something young professional women bringing sexy back to the workplace, I wrote, "I think that, fundamentally, we [middle-aged female professionals] feel that a sexy appearance means that you are less likely to be taken seriously by your peers."  I stand by that statement.  And it goes for teenaged girls too.  You're not likely to be seen as the next Ruth Bader Ginsberg if your bra is hanging out, whether you're a 27-year-old attorney or a 17-year-old high school senior.

The bone I had to pick with the Hall Boys' mom, upon first reading, was that she basically had a zero tolerance policy.  One skanky selfie and the girl was consigned to the Facebook trash bin.  I'm thinking, hey, we all make mistakes and especially when we're teenaged girls.  Maybe give the girl's mom a call, instead, and say, "I just saw Suzie's tits on Jimmy's Facebook feed, you might want to check it out."  (I mean, I couldn't be on the other side of town without my mom finding out somehow, and that was pre-cell phone, pre-Facebook, pre-Internet.  Heck, some people still used rotary phones back then.  But the Moms Network was in full force in my hometown.  Does it not work that way anymore?)

So, anyway, I clicked "like" and moved on, because I sympathized.

Then, a few hours later, another friend posted this on Facebook, a link to another blog post by a different woman, directly responding to the Hall Boys' mom. This woman, also a Christian, takes issue with the tenor of Mrs. Hall's post that sort of buys into the notion that boys and men are victims of their own biology in need of protection from these teen vixens. This author advocates teaching responsibility to the boys, and not just blaming the girls for dressing seductively and posing in sexy positions. The boys are not victims and it's not that they just can't help themselves. They're equal participants in the teen titillation tango, and should be treated as such.

She writes:  "[Modest culture] teaches men to dispose of women who don't fit their mold, under the guise of 'keeping themselves pure.'  It teaches men that women exist on a spectrum of worth determined by their clothing and that is is there right as men to determine which women are worth more - and yet, modest culture masks it as 'keeping away from sexual sin.'  It teaches men irresponsibility and play it off as 'integrity.'"

I read that and I thought, "God, she's right."  She's talking about slut shaming, right there in the church, disguised as virtue.  Without any effort to understand the girl -- she gets deleted for the first offense, after all, because the Hall Boys can't be exposed to a nano-second of provocation -- she is blamed for the boy's impure thoughts.  And so I liked that post on Facebook too.

. . . . because I want my boy to be in control of his own body and responsible for his own sexual activities and health. And keeping provocative images from him will not teach him that sort control, nor will it teach him to respect the girls he is banned from seeing.  Being what passes for a feminist firebrand in suburban Dallas County, I certainly want my son to see his female peers as people first, and not objects.  (It may help in years to come that The Boy has lots of female friends who are very much his equals in every way except, perhaps, volume.  He beats them in "loud" every time.)

But the problem with the response blog post is that it does not pose an answer.

The answer is not to shame the girls who dress provocatively.

The answer is not to make boys feel that they are the victims of their libidos and that they just can't help themselves when they see a sexy picture.

The answer is also not to tell girls that they can dress like a Victoria's Secret model, but we'll still think of them as the Supreme Court Justice that they've got hidden deep inside.

The way you dress communicates something to the wider world.  Girls must understand this.

But the way a girl dresses is not everything that she is.  Boys must understand this.

So since yesterday, I've had these thoughts rolling around in my head, musing as to what the right answer is.  I've thought about how I would talk to The Boy about these issues, when he is The Teen, and, specifically, when the inevitable sexy pictures of some classmate or another shows up.  Man, that's going to be an uncomfortable conversation, but we're just going to have to have the conversation.  And it's going to have to involve what we think is going on in the girl's head and what she might be thinking and how the picture is not the only thing about her.  And I'll probably ask him what he thinks of her intellect and what she's good at besides doing fish faces into the camera . . .  or something like that.  And, yeah, I may be calling Suzie's mom to tell her about the picture . . . .  I'm old school like that.

But what about the girls?  There's a trend among feminist, I think, to call any criticism of provocative female dress "slut shaming."  This is crap.  I've written about this topic too:

I mean, don't get me wrong, a woman's sexy attire does not mean she's asking for a sexual assault.  But I just can't get from, "My short skirt is not a rape invitation," to total female empowerment.  I guess the point is that we can be what we want to be.  We are free women.  We can get our boobs out any time we want.  Slutty, empowered, independent me!  As an expression of outrage, I totally get the Slut Walks.  As an expression of female power, I really don't. 

Because we can't – we shouldn't – get our boobs out any time we want.  We live in a society in which people are judged by their looks, men and women.  I’ve touched on this issue before, the fine line between sexy and powerful that women seem to walk.  And I firmly believe that if you want to be respected by your peers – and that includes your female peers – you have to dress and act and talk in a way that commands that respect.  And that means sometimes, you have to put your boobs away when circumstances dictate.  I am not empowered because I have some powerful cleavage.  I am empowered because I am well-educated, articulate, professional, intelligent, witty and quick.  My powerful cleavage may have turned a few heads in its day, but it has never stood up to oral argument in court like my gray, old, wrinkly brain has.  Maybe I just don't get it, but the attempt to reclaim the word slut as a feminist power-word seem so retrograde.  Honestly, it feels juvenile, even fatuous.  These are not two adjectives I wish to be affixed to my sex.

So, yeah.  In other words, there's a time and place for getting your boobs out, and the time and the place for getting them out is not "anytime" and "anywhere."  It's not slut shaming to say that or admit that.  It just is.  When you get your boobs out at the "wrong" time or in the "wrong" place, there are consequences, which include that people don't think as well of you as they otherwise might.  And girls need to learn that.  Learning that lesson is an important component of learning about their bodies and how to control their sexuality.  And, preferably, they need to learn it from their moms or other female role models.

Umm.  Anyway.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm pretty sure it's not an either/or proposition.  Girl Mommas gotta find a way to talk to their girls about the messages they're sending when they dress provocatively.  And Boy Mommas gotta find a way to talk to the boys about the messages they're receiving and try to turn them around to see the real person in that impossibly short skirt.  And we all will be very uncomfortable for about four to six years.  At least, I think so . . . Maybe if I start planning now, I'll be ready for this when it comes up for me in a decade or so.  I'll let you know.

(P.S., this all goes for Daddies too, which should go without saying, but I'm talking "momma" because the original two blog posts were by mommas, and because I'm a momma too.)

The Mommy Wars Are Over . . . .

Huzzah!

Judith Warner has a piece in the August 7, 2013 edition of The New York Times Magazine entitled The Opt Out Generation Wants Back In.  In it, she checks back in with about two dozen ladies who were profiled ten years ago as being high-power, high-stress, high-status, high-earner women who chucked it all in favor of staying home with the kids.  (I have to believe that one of the Opt Outers was behind the invidious acronym SAHM.  It'd just be like a corporate type to come up with an acronym to describe her new status.)

The article was inevitable ten years ago.  I mean, when a bunch of rich and powerful ladies make a bold move to leave the power suits behind, and announce it to the world in The New York Times and on 60 Minutes, you know that someone's going to want to eventually write a "so what happened next" piece.  And, sure, it's because we, the public, want to know what happened to the lady who left her $500,000 a year job in order to stay home with her kids.

Anyway.

Turns out not all of them, ten years down the road, are very happy with their choices.  It seems the grass wasn’t so green on the other side of the fence after all.  But the reason isn’t merely that housework is, in fact, kind of a drag, just like Betty Friedan said it was.

The reality is that these ladies didn’t really leave their high profile selves behind them when they entered their domestic spheres full time.  Instead, they threw elaborate birthday parties, they gave themselves projects like the ultimate photo albums, and they volunteered for organizations that stood in for paid employment.  They’re the ones that make you hate yourself for being an inferior homemaker every time you glance at Pinterest.  In essence, many of the Opt Outers, Martha-Stewart-like, transferred their corporate culture mindsets to the home.

Others of them found that their husband, having gotten used to not sharing the chores of dusting, washing, and cooking, were less willing to pick those chores back up again when the Opt Outers decided to re-enter the work force.  Still others found that their lack of economic independence led to jealousy and a loss of self-esteem, which, rather than improve their marriages, damaged them and made the Opt Outers feel like second-class citizens in their own homes.  And at least one, who went home in order to save her marriage, found out that,, in the end, there was nothing much to save.  Being at home only amplified the problems, and exacerbated hers by taking her out of the workforce and away from financial independence. 

It’s easy to feel a twinge of schadenfreude over these ladies' plights.  Go ahead.  After all, for my generation, as far as I’m concerned, they started it.  For me and mine, they’re the ones who started The Mommy Wars.

Because . . .  they’re the ones who went onto television and to the newspapers, and trumpeted to everyone that would listen that they were leaving corporate culture behind in favor of domesticity.  And because they had always been the best and made the best choices and gotten the best educations and had the best jobs and made the best salaries and had received the best professional accolades and won the best awards, they also believed -- and told everyone else so -- that what they were doing as the “best” choice.  And in so publicly announcing their best choice, they implied, of course, that we ladies who kept on working were making the wrong choice or an inferior choice.

So, yeah, to see that "the best" wasn't the best after all, gives me a tiny, self-satisfied, I-told-you-so sort of lift.  Guilty. 

As one of the Opt Outers – now working again making 1/5 what she used to make and divorced – sadly put it, “I was this woman who made this great ‘choice’ . . . . It wasn’t the perfect fairy-tale ending.”

But.

I can't be too smug . . . because it is sad.  These are real people.  They had the best of intentions, really.

But as I read and reread this article I kept asking myself (and my husband), “How could they not have anticipated this?”

How could they not have foreseen, for instance, that the economy might take a turn for the worse and their husbands would be laid off (as in some of Opt Outers’ cases) leaving them with a no income household?

Or that they would find cleaning the toilets less invigorating than closing a deal?  (I mean, I work, and I find cleaning toilets more chore than joy.  So surely, when they were still working, they too had an inkling that cleaning toilets could, in fact, be drudgery.)

Or that they would find themselves bored and devoting a substantial amount of their time in a quasi- professional capacity leading an organization whose entire focus is support of stay-at-home moms?  (Think about that one for a minute.)

Or that changing the fundamental dynamic of the household structure might also change the fundamental dynamic of their marriage, and not necessarily for the better?

Or that their chosen professions would move on without them making it, ten years out, more difficult to re-enter and making their re-entry positions far more humble jobs than they’d held a decade earlier?

Or that their retirement accounts would not be as fat at age 45 as they might otherwise have been both by virtue of having been raided to meet bills and/or by virtue of simply not receiving yearly contributions?

How could they, these lady-captains of industry, not have thought it through?

How could such smart and decorated professionals not have foreseen the worst possible outcomes?

Am I the only one who thinks about these things?

And the answer to the question is, obviously, no.  I’m not.  There are lots of stay-at-home-moms who have thought it through and made the choice anyway because, weighing the good and the bad, staying at home was the best choice for them.  And there are lots of ladies like me who have thought it through and decided that, on balance, the best choice is to continue to work.

But, honestly, I think that those decisions were made far earlier in our lives than after we got married and started having kids.  I never imagined myself staying home.  Ever.  And that is (probably) because my mom didn’t do that.  (Well, she did, when I was a toddler, but she was back at work pretty quickly after my younger brother was born.  And I don’t really have a clear memory of a time when my mom did not have a job.)  It was never in my make up or psychology to be a stay-at-home mom.  I always knew I would work.  And I wanted to.

By contrast, I have a dear, dear friend of 20+ years who is a stay-at-home mom with three kids.  And I recall conversations in college with her in which she expressed her desire for a large family and to stay home with her kids, even as she was sitting cross-legged on her dorm bed, studying marketing with voracious intensity.  She’s super-smart.  She’s super-capable.  Before her first child was born, she had an awesome job.

But I know that she had known (on some level or another) for decades before her son was born that she would stay home with him . . . just like I had known for decades that I would continue to work.  I think that if we had done the opposite thing, we would be far less happy people.  Our choices were best for both of us, though very different.

Now, sure, there are stresses with working – traffic, deadlines, the actual work itself.  But they are not insurmountable.  And I’m positive that there are stresses with hanging out with toddlers all day without adult interaction that can be maddening as well.  Neither choice is perfect.  But the choice has to be the right fit for the right person.

Which brings me back to the Opt-Outers profiled in The New York Times Magazine . . . .

After reading the article, I am left with one sense of these women.  None of them had stay-at-home-mom in their DNA like my college friend seemed to have.  All of them were more like me – but me on speed.  

It also seems to me – though it is admittedly difficult to judge other people’s relationships from the outside, even if you know them well – that there was a bit of the bait and switch going on with at least some of the Opt Outers.  Their husband married go-getter, up-and-coming professionals, who helped with the household income.  Husbands are entitled to have expectations and dreams too, and if their expectation is that they’re not going to carry 100% of the family economic burden and then their wives suddenly present them with an alternative plan in which the wife brings home no salary, that’s got to be a bit jarring even to the manliest of men.  I cannot help wondering about the level of communication between the husbands and the Opt Outers both before and after the marriages.

To be sure, these ladies were living large on the professional scale before they opted out, and when they came home they were going to do it big there too, and it didn’t turn out so well.  What they needed was not to leap off the bridge and go from all work to all caretaker, but to choose the middle way.  They needed to take the farm-to-market road rather than the freeway in their professional lives – less prestige, less money, more personal time.  I’m fine having a less-than-high-profile job that gives me personal satisfaction, intellectual stimulation, and a good income.  (I’d prefer 32 hours a week to 40, but, I’m fine.)  I could have stayed in the law firm and tried to make partner, but at the end of the day the satisfaction of making a lot of money is not equal to the satisfaction of being able to put my son to bed every single night of the work week.  I did not have to quit working to have that pleasure, but I did have to slow down.

Finally, here’s the problem unique to these really rich ladies (and we should not lose sight of the fact that the Opt Outers are tremendously economically advantaged) living in the NYC area: They all seem to have, on some level, made the decision that, with their husbands working high-demand six or seven figure jobs, it just didn’t make economic sense for them to take a job making $100K and have their comparatively meager salaries taxed at 40%.

In response, I have a few thoughts to share with the rich lady making this unique economic choice:

First, your work is not about the money.  If you are inclined to work, the work is about your personal well-being and your sanity and, possibly, about your husband’s satisfaction with and interest in you.  You do it for you.

Second, your husband should also slow down.  Your family does not need a million dollars a year.  You don’t even need half that.  Your kids need a mommy and a daddy who are happy in their lives (and, likewise, happy in their jobs) and are present.  They don’t need the latest do-dads.  They need you.  Both of you.  And, economically, that may mean you need to leave Westchester County.  Your husband’s tombstone should not read, “He lived.  He worked.  He died.”  You need to talk to him about that.  My guess is that he’d like to be at the house more too.

And, in fact, the end of the article gets to that very issue:  Men are facing the crunch too. Many men envy their wives' SAHM-ness.  And many of the Opt Outers would have preferred to slow their pace, rather than leave work entirely.

Men and women, moms and dads, need to work together to change the corporate culture so that parents who work get the sort of flexible jobs we need to be present in the office and at home. Work-life balance, as Judith Warner writes, is a gender neutral issue. We need to make the American workplace safe to be a good mommy and a good daddy and a good worker bee. And that takes the presence of moms and dads in the workplace willing to fight for their rights as working moms and dads.

Warner observes that the uniform lament of the Opt Outers was not that they left their high-powered jobs behind.  They lamented the nonexistent "ideal world" in which these moms could have "more time with their children combined with some sort of intellectually stimulating, respectably paying, advancement permitting part-time work."

It is a description of an ideal work/life balance, for both moms and dads, but it won't be handed to anybody by an employer unless we start asking for it. If that is they type of workplace the Opt Outers wanted, the answer is not to opt out. The answer is to stay and fight for changes in the workplace, for you and for your coworkers . . . else you come back ten years later to find your ideal working conditions still aren't there. But why would they be?  No one stayed to demand the changes. 

For my part, I am thankful that The Working Dad and I have jobs on the farm-to-market road that allow us both the flexibility to occasionally work from home and the predictability to be able to sit down at the dinner table with our son every evening and talk about the day.  We had to change jobs to get this life.  We had to pursue it.  It is not perfect.  Still, all things considered, it really is the best life . . . for us.

So, Mommy, it’s not that your choice is better than mine.  It’s that your choice is better for you and my choice is better for me, just like I said in my second post published on this blog.  You just – we just – need to be thoughtful and purposeful in our choices.  Just think it through, Mom, and be honest with yourself and your family.  And if you want to work, but at a slower pace, don't just quit.  Figure it out. You're smart! You might not find your ideal, but I'm betting that you can get pretty close.  (Because I have gotten pretty close . . . .)  If you do that, I’m betting that we can all get to what is best . . . for all of us.