This line, crooned by Courtney Love, is almost always in the back of my head. My college roommate would repeat this line and her love of cake was almost unmatched. Almost, because I too love cake and it only sometimes rivals my love of soft-serve ice cream or frozen yogurt. But Love can't capture the deliciousness of Prinsesstarta, or Princess Cake.

There are many wonderful cakes in Denmark. In fact, kage takes many forms and even inspires holidays. There is a daily kage on my campus and students often make kage for events. The Danes’ love of cake has inspired me to make myself vegan cakes way too often, and I have been eating cake almost every day.

But I digress, which is easy to do when talking about dessert… unless that dessert is Princess Cake.

Apparently, if you watch The Great British Bake Off you are already familiar with Princess Cake. And if you frequent IKEA, you may have sampled their version (which is pink, not green, which is a total travesty). But I had knowledge of neither context. Instead, I discovered Princess Cake at a breakfast buffet on a Viking ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki.

It looked intriguing: creamy layers covered in a green marzipan. When I saw that it was called Princess Cake, I had to try it.
Side note: the meaning of my name is “princess,” something that never seemed to fit until I found Princess Cake. I mean, besides Princess Lea, of course.

I fell in love with Princess Cake. The next day at the buffet, I got the last piece. The next two days, I ate the grocery store version in Stockholm. The next day, on my birthday at the Romme Alpin ski resort, I was disappointed to find no Princess Cake at the Swedish dinner buffet. (But I more than survived, stuffed with dinner and several desserts.)

Princess Cake is layers of vanilla cake and pastry cream and raspberry jam, with a big dome of whipped cream and a green marzipan layer encasing it all. There are other versions, but this is THE cake in Sweden. And it has a fun story that connects it back to Denmark.

Princess Cake is far from vegan, so it will be a short experience that I will savor as long as I am on vacation in Sweden. Someday I might venture a vegan copy, but for now, I am just going to be the girl with the most Princess Cake.

While I am only mostly vegan, I prefer to eat vegan when I can. When traveling, being vegan can be a challenge, especially with a picky vegan partner. But, Sweden has provided an extra fun opportunity for some vegan tourism: fast food.

If you are vegan, you know how tough it can be to eat fast food. Even if an option is available, it is difficult to trust the kitchen. But I had done some homework, and I knew that Sweden was extra vegan-friendly compared to other places.

In fact, Sweden is so vegan-friendly that the “McVegan” burger was developed here. Sweden is one of the few places in the world where the McVegan is sold. And I have been planning a trip to Sweden with almost the sole purpose of getting to try the McVegan.

Now, generally, I try to avoid McDonalds despite the very nostalgic connections I have to the place. Every once in a while I start to crave the hot fudge sundae and I will sneak off for one. But, otherwise, my only fast food splurges are usually confined to Subway sandwiches, and usually in a pinch.

*Side note: I have taught the book Fast Food Nation many times, and my colleague taught it to our students this semester. I read 40 final exams that talked about the ills of fast food in America… And still, I can’t help but want to eat at McDonalds.

But Sweden not only delivers the McVegan at McDonalds’… the local Max Hamburger chain also offers vegan fare. Since both fast food restaurants were within 70 meters of each other and only a two-minute walk from my hotel, the vegan taste off was on!
Both restaurants offered kiosk ordering. (I never want to order at the counter again!)

Max Hamburgers was significantly more crowded, and significantly more expensive. Max also didn’t have a vegan hamburger though they had a lot of vegetarian options. Max was also very dirty…but it was also very tasty. As one of the oldest hamburger chains in Sweden, it has some authenticity points.

The verdict: the McVegan burger did not disappoint. It had that good old McDonalds’ taste I remembered from my youth. More impressive, however, would be if they made a McVegan burger version of the Big Mac. Then I would most definitely have to live in Sweden.

Max Hamburgers was just darn tasty. The vegan burger option was a barbecue pulled pork type of sandwich with jalapeños. While not my favorite sandwich, this one was absolutely the best vegan version I have ever had. The barbecue sauce was sweet and spicy and the vegan “meat” was a nice texture. The fries were also significantly better. The meal, however, cost almost twice as much.

Another Max bonus: we also had vegetarian chicken nuggets that I am pretty sure were vegan (according to a food blogger) and were definitely vegetarian according to the menu, but they were a little too much like my memory of the real thing. But they were very good, and my husband’s favorite.

Another Max drawback: There are a wide variety of sauces available, but any extra sauce costs 7 Swedish krona (SEK) for a very small cup. Thus, we only had the vegan mayo, which was very good. Very good, but not my first choice of sauce.

All said, I would eat both of these vegan fast food meals again, especially after my vegan internet research yielded two failed attempts: one to find a vegan grocery store that was a café instead, and one to find a buffet that I imagined being endless and only included a couple of not-so-good-looking choices. Further, the grocery stores in Sweden are stocked with vegan options. So, while food can be a bit pricey, the vegan food is not hard to find. Finally, both fast food options were significantly healthier than fast food in the U.S., so it is almost guilt-free.

And then there were those non-vegan splurges, like my favorite new discovery—Princess Cake. But that is another blog.

Before living in Denmark, and learning (a little bit) more about other countries in Europe and Scandinavia, these places seemed like a kind of utopia for women. Iceland is considered to be the “best place in the world to be a woman.” In Sweden, children are taught to think about “people” rather than “women” and “men.” In Denmark, there is leave for new mothers and fathers. In many of these places there is legislation against sexism and stereotypes in advertising. These are conscious steps toward gender equality, and in the U.S. we have yet to take such steps.

But what I have found (in my very little experience and underdeveloped analysis), is that women here are still struggling to be seen as equals across institutions and traditions. Women and men still do gendered work. Women fail to hold the top positions at the same rates of men; for instance, many academic departments at my university lack tenured female faculty members. Moreover, while there is more gender equality, feminism might be even more of a “bad word” here than it is in the U.S. Many of my female students crave female mentors and opportunities to study gender.

With more research, my limited and anecdotal observations would certainly yield more proof of patriarchy’s insidious hold on the world, but I mention these observations here as one of the foundations for a special event I plan to offer this March for International Women’s Day, a mind/body fitness dance event that I hope people here in Odense, Denmark will be brave enough to attend. I am trying to be brave in offering this opportunity to my new and temporary community.

This type of event takes many people way out of their comfort zones, but this is part of the point. Mind/body fitness dance is an opportunity to “dance it off” or “dance it out,” to “shake it off” or “light it up.” My poster invites participants to: “Lose Yourself. Find Yourself” and “Move and Be Moved.” However we think about it, the results are achieved the same way: through novel physical movements set to inspiring music and through new ways of thinking about ourselves and our world(s).

A merger of feminism and fitness, dance and yoga, structure and freedom, this event is really just a glorified fitness class. If someone has done Zumba or step aerobics or Jazzercise, my mind/body fitness dance will seem very familiar. But my class is about more than these dance fitness classes that stay on the superficial planes of the body. The goal of mind/body fitness dance is not toward burning calories or losing weight; it is toward freeing ourselves from such expectations and limitations. It is not an exaggeration to say that this class is a transformative experience.

So, I hope the women and girls of Odense will come dance with me. Brave men and boys are also welcome. That’s part of the point about feminism: it helps all of us live outside of the limited and limiting expectations of gender. This event is an opportunity to play in a dystopic space where the possibilities are what we make them to be.

So, be brave, be fierce, be vulnerable, be powerful. Move and Be Moved.

For a mid-term election event organized by M.A. students in American studies, I gave a brief no-frills talk about Politics. At first I had no idea what I was going to talk about, but one of my students gave me some great questions to consider concerning whether this mid-term election was part of the Year of the Woman and what role pop culture plays in elections.
 
As I note in this piece, my students and colleagues here in Denmark are much more interested in Politics and elections than most people I know in the U.S. Of course, everyone I know is more interested in/involved in Politics now that American politics resemble the worst kind of shit show ever. At the mid-term election event, students gathered and watched the news as the ballots were counted and the results were shared and analyzed. Many stayed on campus until 5:00 in the morning! Many were waiting to see if the anticipated blue wave would arrive.
 
So, as the blue wave comes into power and the shit show continues, I share a slightly revised version of my talk here:
 
Politics with a Capital P
For most of my education and early career, I have not really been interested in Politics, at least not the kind in the category of the capital P. I think the system is broken and needs some work if it is going to both represent the American people and carry on—or more accurately, finally realize—the American traditions of democracy, liberty, justice, and freedom.
 
I am interested in the kind of politics that are not capitalized. Cultural politics.
 
As Americans we agree on the general principles, but the way we define the pursuit and definitions of these ideals varies greatly. And the divide—the false divide between Republicans and Democrats—continues to grow, in part, because our system cannot contain the realities of the spectrum of political beliefs and desired methods.
 
I have long been a registered Independent, and I think the system needs some major revisions if not an overhaul, but I put my efforts in the cultural and educational realms.
 
But, at the same time, the election of Donald Trump means that I can’t be uninterested in Politics—capitol P. None of us can. And there have been a number of good old-fashioned grassroots politics that have emerged in the era of Trump, but these stay mostly peripheral to my life and work.
 
So, I am fortunate to be here in Denmark with American studies students and colleagues who can remind me about the importance of capital P politics. In fact, many of my students have a much firmer grasp on political systems than I will ever have and my students and colleagues here are more interested in American elections, especially midterm elections, than just about anyone I have ever met in the U.S.
 
I want to offer some food for thought on a couple of related topics—women and politics, pop culture and politics, and the bigger picture of Politics. And I have to do what I do, what American studies does—you know I have to make it more complicated….
 
The Year of the Woman?
There are many reasons why women would opt out of politics. Who wants to be treated the way women in politics are treated?
 
Certainly the election of Trump provided an impetus for women to get involved and run for office in record numbers. But not all women are equally promising toward a realization of justice and equality.
 
Being a woman in politics means that you have had a similar experience of being belittled and even accosted. In this patriarchal structure you’ve probably been steered toward other pursuits or told that you’ll never make it in politics. Being a woman in politics means having to prove yourself every day. It means having to prove that you “have what it takes,” that you can play with the big boys, or the big guns. Because politics have been a man’s world and a boy’s game.
 
Simply being a woman in politics is not enough to change the structures of politics as usual, let alone the policies reflected by a particular class of people (namely: older, rich, white men). Today, many women in politics espouse similar ideas and policies as the men who have come before them. We see a few women playing pivotal roles or, in the recent case of Susan Collins, failing to play an important pivotal role.
 
We see every woman in politics judged for her looks first and her mind second; this is an American tradition after all. We see women like Dr. Ford (and Anita Hill before her) treated like poison and accused of being liars and opportunists. We see professors who advocate “engaged citizenship” banned from teaching with the excuse of “partisan politics” when political pressure is applied. Academic freedom is threatened; women’s right to control their bodies and speak their minds are treated as if these are optional rights.
 
Politics is dirty, manipulative, and short-sighted. It has been the realm of the privileged. Idealists are eaten alive.
 
I do hope that this is the year of the woman, and that the roles that women play in politics continue to increase at least until we find equal gender representation. This would be a start.
 
More so, seeing women like Stacey Abrams elected would signal a shift, but not simply because she is a woman and not simply because she is a black woman. There is nothing simple about these aspects of Abrams’s identity; but both are cultural identities that have shaped her life and her politics. This means that she offers more than just politics as usual. [And the blue wave of women entering Congress means that we might just see different politics.]
 
We need more of these firsts because when there are no more firsts—that would be a start. When ideologies and actions are more important than appearance and party loyalty—that would be a start.
 
The shift that begins with the “year of the woman”—with the increase in women serving at all levels of government—is more important symbolically than it is in terms of any immediate impact or policy-level change.
 
The simple presence of women does not mean anything unless social justice is what is on our agenda.
 
So how do we put social justice on the agenda? How do we empower the people with the most to lose and the least to win?
 
…How do we get people interested in running for office when we can hardly get people interested in voting?
 
 One answer might be found in the power of popular culture—but not just the power of pop culture to entertain and excite—the power of popular culture to shape our ideologies, our consciousness, and our approaches to politics—cultural politics, or Capital P politics.
 
The potential of popular culture toward these ends is, ultimately, why I am in the field of education and not politics.
 
Pop Culture and Influence on Elections
The power of popular culture is complicated. Its power to shape political attitudes and beliefs is certainly greater than its ability to make a direct political impact when it comes to elections. This is one of the reasons why celebrities can make an impact. Celebrities represent more than just a candidate; they represent an institution.
 
Celebrity fan culture can hack general apathy and the—not untrue—belief that an individual’s vote does not matter. But because people’s pop culture choices are also political, pop culture and politics are intertwined. Pop culture is nuanced, while politics allows little room for complexity.
 
Celebrity support often unintentionally exacerbates the divided nature of the either/or aspects of the American two-party system. Their support has the appearance of partisan politics because their support is for left-leaning causes: human rights, in short. Sometimes celebrities are well-versed; sometimes they are passionate tools.
 
American popular culture helps to shape our understanding of politics, but basic human rights should not be polarized in the way that America’s two-party system requires.
 
Side note. I am not even talking about the whole “fake news” situation though news is now a part of entertainment media and overlaps pop culture. I am talking about pop culture: movies, television, music, video games, and entertainment media and practices of all kinds.
 
Some shows, films, music, stars, etc. cater to liberals and some cater to conservatives. None are neutral in the bigger sense of cultural politics. Thus, people’s pop culture choices reflect their ideologies and political views.
 
Side note: We can, perhaps most obviously, see the difference in the power of left pop culture and right pop culture in the attempts to find celebrities and entertainers willing to perform at Trump’s inauguration, which of course, made it easy for the “fake news” to mock Trump.
 
Most pop culture texts and agents—and the most popular ones—cater to liberals. Sometimes in dangerous ways.
 
For instance, Bill Maher can be just as emotional and close-minded as any conservative talk show host. When one of his guests said that when we, on the left, have conversations about “how can they think such things,” on the other side of the door, there’s a group of conservatives having the same conversation. Maher cut to the next segment as if he not just displayed this exact behavior, as if his whole show was not built on it. Maher probably lies a lot less, but he panders to his fans at least as much.
 
Taylor Swift’s recent voter inspiration is interesting because she does so with a more liberal message despite her pop culture image that plays well in the often conservative white world of country music. But her fans are young, and maybe they are still open-minded.
 
Big-name celebrities, respected celebrities, celebrities with questionable motives, celebrities with good intentions—all can inspire votes through their endorsements. But these celebrity interventions can only do so much. The hard work is something that cannot be reduced to a sound bite or secured with a check.
 
So, in terms of elections, celebrities can, perhaps, be of most help through sound bites and big checks. But, if we keep pandering to a populace that lacks critical thinking skills, we might need those well-informed celebrities to use their power in other ways. Maybe they already do….
 
Ultimately, it is not celebrity, it is conscious pop culture creations that teach us about truth, social justice, human rights, compassion, joy, and love—the stories that move people’s hearts and minds—that hold the most political potential. These are the kind of politics without a capital P, but with the potential to influence, and maybe even transform, the capital P politics.