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Making America Great Again: Musings on East and West

1/18/2017

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We traveled 5,081 miles to get to San Diego. Maine and San Diego are about as far away as one can get in the continental U.S. I spent, roughly, 20 years of my life in California. I have not been back since moving to Maine.

In 2009, I moved from Washington state to Maine. I clarify Washington state because when you say Washington in Maine people assume you are talking about D.C. And when I talk to anyone who is not from Maine about Portland, they assume Portland, Oregon. In Maine we can’t help but assume Portland, ME in conversation; it is the largest city and the hippest destination in Maine.

Maine is a big state, but it is also a small state. It is an old state. I can feel the weight of history in Maine. Maine is heavy. Maine is made up of a lot of small spaces. Many of these are beautiful spaces. In its relationship to other parts of the east, it is beautiful and unique. Some people I meet when I travel don’t even know that Maine is a state.

Many of the people I meet in Maine have never, or rarely, been outside of Maine. Some have been to Boston or Canada or, maybe, Florida. Maine is a larger state than I expected when I moved there, and many people in Maine regularly travel two or more hours to get somewhere else in Maine. And it is a long way to go to get out of Maine, or New England.

If you are from Maine, you are a Mainer. If you aren’t, you are “from away.” People I know who are “from away” are often people who have specifically chosen to live in Maine (for any variety of reasons). Maine can be a great place to live and there are things I love about Maine. But if your heart is in the West—in Mountains and valleys and big trees and the flat forever of the Pacific Ocean—Maine, and the east more generally, can never compare.
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Before moving to Maine I had spent my childhood, and most of my education and professional life, in the West. Born in Mountainview, CA; raised in El Cajon, CA; college in Redlands, CA and then Arcata, CA. Graduate school in Corvallis, Oregon and then Pullman, Washington.

And a brief stint in Moorehead, Minnesota—my first job as an assistant professor.

As a child I had been to Pennsylvania to visit my grandparents, uncles, and cousins a few times. We flew there, but we drove into Ohio to feed the fish at the Spillway.

Visiting my mom’s family I also traveled to Bakersfield, CA and Davis, CA. In high school I attended a week-long awkward youth leaders conference in Washington, D.C. and spent an awkward weekend at Pepperdine University.

There are a handful of other places I visited as a child, mostly in California, and places I probably have forgotten. But, my lists here illustrate one thing: I have been a west coast girl. I knew very little of the east.

This brief list also illustrates that travel was a pretty regular part of my childhood, and was certainly something I took for granted. I had the privilege to see different parts of my home state and my country, but we also travelled out of the necessity of seeing a family that was divided between the east coast and the West. I did not see a lot of east, but I knew that I loved the West. That too, I took for granted.

People who have not been to the West really cannot understand what they are missing; they cannot feel and see the difference. They do not crave mountains. My old California friend, who now lives in the Fingerlakes region of New York, knows exactly what I am talking about. I am not the only displaced Californian who dreams of mountains and ocean.
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Getting out of Maine was a much needed shift in perspective. In Maine, every inch is owned, every perspective limited. Other places are becoming more and more like this, but in the West you can still see miles of nothing surrounded by big mountains, big sky, big water. The Atlantic might be big water, but it cannot meet the massive horizon and setting sun of the West.

I had been missing the West, dreaming of mountains and the Pacific Ocean, of open spaces. I thought I could live without these things, but I can’t. I thought that maybe I was romanticizing the West, and maybe I am, but this trip reinforced the differences between east and West. The sameness is a subject for another blog. We are all, after all, Americans.
When we were still a couple weeks away from home, we hit 10,000 miles. We were still in the middle of tall mountains and big spaces. It is a feeling that really cannot be described, but I hope that all of my students, colleagues, friends, and family who have not been to northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana will have the opportunity to go to these places, if only for a shift in perspective.
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From Election to Inauguration: The Epic Road Trip to Make America Great Again

1/18/2017

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It was mostly coincidence that my recent epic road trip coincided with the timeline from a few days after the election of Donald Trump for President to several days before his inauguration. I write this with only another day before shit may hit the fan.
Instead of being mired in hopelessness for the last couple of months, instead of storming the streets with my comrades, I was pursuing the very American dream of freedom—the very stuff of hope. As frightening as the election of Trump is for a variety of reasons, I have felt nothing but hope.

Perhaps it is my familiarity with dystopia or my critical American studies lens. Perhaps it is because I had more than 60 days and 11, 469 miles to see and experience a wide stretch of America, including 20 states and 15 National Parks or Monuments as well as beaches and hot springs and interstates and abandoned buildings and diverse people and ski resorts and the Mexican-American border.

America is deep and wide and we’ve been there before. The climate on the other hand…. I only slightly digress, but my point here is about hope. In the spirit of hope, I share a collection of essays that reflect upon my travels. I have posted these individually, but collect them here as a set.

Two I posted while traveling:
Musings on the Geographical Center of the U.S. and Making America Great Again
Reflections on Privilege and Border-Crossing

And several more I worked on over the course of the trip:
Making America Great Again: Musings on East and West        
The Thinking Woman’s Vacation
A Few of My Favorite Things…
 
And the culminating piece:
The Unauthorized Sabbatical: An Exercise in Self-Care and Professional Development

And, so, it is back to work for me. But back to work means doing what I can to hold my country accountable to its dreams, to work toward social justice, to take care of myself, and to continue to have hope.

PS: I include a selection of images that are generally representative of the places we traveled throughout this series of blogs. Enjoy!
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Reflections on Privilege and Border-Crossing

12/15/2016

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When I was a girl, my family went to Mexico with a group of church friends to do volunteer work at an orphanage in Mexico. I remember getting a kind of debriefing by one of the adults, probably my mom, before we went. I don’t remember her exact words, but she told us that the kids there do not have what we have. She told us that the people we are helping are poor and that they don’t speak English. But, she said, the word no means the same thing in English as it does in Spanish. So, if there is a situation where you are uncomfortable, just say no.

They also told us not to drink the water.

There was another girl named Sarah (my same age and one of my forced church friends) who was blonder than me, richer than me, cooler than me.* Her family regularly did such volunteer work. I remember watching her interact with the kids, letting them touch her hair. She looked like a Barbie doll being played with. I also remember saying no a lot. I felt uncomfortable and out of place; I wanted to do work, but we were not given work to help with.

This was the first time I had come face-to-face with abject poverty. I did not know what to make of it. I did not understand what made those kids different from me. I did not understand what made this place different from the place that I came from. And I did not understand why the people that I traveled to Mexico with had to be so arrogant and self-satisfied with their charity and goodness. They lived in luxury and they acted like a day in Mexico erased their privilege.

Of course, this is my interpretation and language looking back 30+ years. At the time, I did not have an understanding of the form and function of privilege. I was not asked by my education and profession to examine my privilege at every moment. I had not developed the white guilt that keeps so many white Americans on the defensive. I only knew that I was uncomfortable with the way that Sarah acted toward the Mexican kids.

These lessons from Mexico have continued to echo throughout my life. Examining my privilege, teaching my students to examine their own, are ongoing processes. Most of my students have pretty hard lives, but of course we all have privilege relative to someone else, and that someone is not always somewhere else.

~
As I travel back to the place I grew up (and back to Mexico) and reflect upon these childhood experiences, I am also reading Roxane Gay’s book of essays, Bad Feminist. (I love this book!) In “Peculiar Benefits” she writes about her own reflections on privilege, which echo mine: “We tend to believe that accusations of privilege imply we have it easy, which we resent because life is hard for nearly everyone. Of course we resent these accusations.” I worked through the resentment (and guilt) phase as an undergrad, but my entire PhD education was spent navigating what Gay (and many others) refer to as the “Game of Privilege” (or the “Oppression Olympics”).

“Too many people, “she writes, “have become self-appointed privilege police . . . ready to remind people of their privilege whether those people have denied that privilege or not.” This policing is especially prevalent in the online world, Gay notes. In my own experience and observations, this policing keeps people on the attack and on the defense. Attacks often come from insecurity, jealousy, and misplaced frustrations. Individuals are called out and we forget the larger system that makes privilege invisible. Gay argues that “we need to get to a place where we discuss privilege by way of observation and acknowledgement rather than accusation. We need to be able to argue beyond the threat of privilege.” We need to get to this place together.

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Don’t get me wrong. It is immensely important to acknowledge our own privilege and not enough of us do this. (And, really, it can be tempting to want to beat that recognition into some arrogant assholes.) My work as a professor of American studies and women’s studies requires me to examine my own privilege and point out the privileges that many of us share. There is always someone with more and someone with less. But Gay’s arguments are helpful here as well: we need to “understand the extent of [our] privilege, the consequences of [our] privilege, and remain aware that people who are different from [us] move through and experience the world in ways [we] might never know anything about.” We do not, she argues, need to apologize for our privilege.

This negotiation can be a fine line. It can also be difficult to understand the ways that “people who are different from [us] move through and experience the world” if we do not have the opportunity to learn about people who are different from us. And, it often takes at least a modicum of privilege to be in situations where we can learn about different people’s experiences. And, of course, having our actions and inquiries policed for privilege can stunt the process. But, respect, humility, and a lack of romanticization can go a long way.

~
Today I have the privilege to be able to arrange my schedule so that I can travel while still working my full-time+ job. Travel itself is a privilege, as one of my students reminded me when I shared my mid-trip mini-bout of depression with them in an email. I have the privilege to cross the Mexican border relatively easily, and I have a passport to return to the U.S. a few days later. I will be full with as many tortillas and avocadoes as I can eat and I will have the one bottle of Kahlua I am allowed to bring back. I will have spent most of my time in relative comfort, making footprints on a mostly empty beach.

I also have the privilege to work countless hours a week, to never stop working, to work through summers that professors have “off.” (I haven’t taken a “vacation,” let alone more than a few days away from work, in more than seven years.) I have the privilege to be underpaid and to use my hard-earned salary to buy food and supplies for my students when the budget won’t cover it. I am not that much different from most of my colleagues. We do this work, in part, because we have privilege and we have decided to use what little power we have to make a difference in the lives of the people we serve. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we burn out quickly.

If I mired in guilt over my privilege I would not be available for late-night emails and emergency texts from students. I would not be able to serve those who are trying to better understand themselves and the world around them, let alone better understand those whose lives and experiences are different from theirs. I would not be able to create opportunities for my students that they would not otherwise have. I would not be able to draw their attention to the structural inequalities that perpetuate privilege and oppression. I would not be able to equip them with tools to develop critical consciousness and the confidence to fight for what they think is right.

I would not be able to enjoy a few moments of sun and beach, and the privilege to be able to reflect upon my privilege in the middle of my working vacation.

 
*Side note/background: I grew up in El Cajon, California, which is a short drive to the Mexico border. The only other childhood trip  to Mexico that I remember was to a beach house that Sarah’s family owned or rented. There, we were surrounded by Americans enjoying the surf and sand. I got a wicked sunburn. As a teenager I went to Tijuana to drink once. We walked across the border. This was about my extent of my experience with Mexico, at least on the other side of the border. Mexican food was our favorite food. Mexican American girls were my friends, classmates, and teammates. Mexico was a neighbor and we shared people and customs. Still, I could often feel an invisible divide and the inequalities were clearly observable even from naïve/innocent eyes.
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Musings on the Geographical Center of the U.S. and Making America Great Again

12/1/2016

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We left Bangor, Maine in our Transit Connect cargo van a few days after Trump was elected 45th President of the United States. It was purely coincidental, really. Before laving, we would joke about what kind of American we would be driving across depending upon the outcome of the election.

But it’s the same America. And it’s already great, but (of course) it still needs work.

After hours and hours of driving to get to my American Studies Association conference in Denver (staying in somewhere, NY; Avon, OH; St. Louis, MO; middle of nowhere Kansas; and Westminster, CO), we spent a week traveling through state and national parks and camping in Utah and Nevada. We saw big cities and small towns, developed toll roads and interstates and America’s Loneliest Highway across Nevada.
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The view from my hotel room in Denver
After my conference, we car camped and visited many places including: Colorado National Monument, Arches National park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, and Great Basin National Park before arriving in Lake Tahoe on the California/Nevada border. These are amazing places with dramatic heights and depths where the signs of wind and water and time remind visitors how tiny and temporary we are.

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These National Parks are our legacy. A project of our past that looked forward to our future. They are tightly controlled and highly managed. They offer amazing vistas and unfathomable beauty as well as a glimpse of the tourist industry and packaging of nature—the best and worst of America.

Because that is what we are. We are both sides of the coin. We are the good, the bad, and the ugly. We are contradictory. We are principled and visionary and blind to our own weaknesses.

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This quote, from a sign in Bryce NP says it all!
But between these highly managed spaces preserved for posterity there are wild spaces and neglected spaces. The National Parks are surrounded by National Forests, State Parks, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recreation areas, small towns, isolated houses, farms, and tiny little Indian reservations.* There are government testing areas (some sharing borders with the Indian reservations), tumbleweeds, cows, expansive private estates, shacks, resorts. These contradictory places are all American.

We are the house in shambles in Lebenon, Kansas—the geographical center of the United States—that displays a Trump/Pence sign a week after the election. I felt it was wrong to take that picture; my heart was breaking. We are also the well-to-do, Asian American teenage boy in a Trump/ence shirt goofing around with his siblings at the Arches visitor’s center. Both of these constituencies feel neglected by America. Making America great again is a call to narrow ideas and privileges of the past as well as a call to the future.

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Perhaps he most famous arch in Arches NP. It was all uphill to see it!
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Just outside of Great Basin NP.
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South Utah desert.
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Just before our last leg to Lake Tahoe, we finally found a place to camp somewhere in Nevada. We woke up to at least an inch of fresh snow. The rest of the drive was just like being in Maine again!
Also coincidentally, our trip was planned to return home days before the inauguration. Anything could happen before then! In the meantime, we’re going about our plan that began long before the election madness—a trip across and around the United States with only a rough itinerary. Some time away from Maine—with old places and new, rarely-seen family and very old friends, work and play, and whatever comes our way. Always plenty of work to be done, especially if we are going to make America great again. .... We might need a metaphorical geographical center or some kind of re-centering on this journey....

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My "room with a view." This part of the trip ended with several days in Lake Tahoe, working and taking care of family business.
h*My trip across America (Maine to New York to Ohio to Missouri to Kansas to Colorado to Utah to Nevada) coincided with the “Thanksgiving” holiday. Passing through the deep red, green, blue, purple, and yellow natural landscapes of America’s National parks and state parks, scanning or old-school atlas (yes, the thing printed on paper, not that Google maps thing!) that shows small pink squares designated as Indian reservations, is a sobering reminder of the legacy that this holiday obscures.
I always put this holiday into quotation marks, often to remind my students to use their critical thinking skills. When we “break” for “Thanksgiving” I often ask students to reflect upon this holiday in relation to our course materials. Not always coincidentally, the work we do the week before this holiday break makes a direct connection to the ongoing lives and legacies of Native Americans. So, as we drove I was thinking about my students reading Shadows Cast By Stars, a YA dystopia novel that centers an indigenous girl. And I listened to a CD of the Burnnurwurbskek Singers, a Native American drum group, given to me by one of my students.
And I also thought about how, not far north of me, the battles over land and water and indigenous rights and the future of our planet rages on….but this is a subject that deserves far more than my little side note....
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The Sexuality Project: A Personal and Professional Reckoning

6/27/2016

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Intersections and Beginnings
Years ago, at my first job interview I was asked which aspect of race, class, gender, and sexuality I paid the least attention to in my teaching and research. I was not prepared for this question. My go-to answer, probably like most candidates’ answers, was that I really worked to be sure that I covered all of these aspects in my teaching. Each time I named one, I would second-guess that answer and talk myself out of it--my rambling process made awkwardly verbal. Race was central. So was gender. Class cannot be separated from race. I think I finally settled on sexuality, but I didn’t really have a good explanation for why. I could say out loud that I didn't focus on sexuality because I was not ready to be "out."

There were many reasons I did not get that job. One of those reasons could have been my lack of development as a scholar. I had not yet written my dissertation. I was still trying to figure out exactly what I should concentrate my work on, exactly which sub-field I should seek employment in. I was also naïve about politics and appearances. Because I was a white woman seeking a position in African American studies, I was immediately discounted by most of the students and potential colleagues that I met. The political climate--and the students' raw need for a professor of color--created a pretty tense situation, and understandably so. My intersectional approach, my commitment to diversity and social justice, my excellent teaching record, my published book and many conference presentations, the respect I had earned among my colleagues at my home institution--none of these mattered.

I was only what my appearance reflected, and my discount-store suit, untamed frizzy hair, and overall lack of polish didn't help. As much as I wanted a job, I knew that this job was not for me (and I was right; it was a failed search). I could not be the person they wanted and, in fact, each constituency--the students, the faculty, the administration--wanted a different person. The students wanted a black person who could understand where students of color were coming from. The faculty wanted a scholar who understood intersectionality within and beyond African American studies. And the administration wanted a person of color that they could parade around as a symbol of diversity. I was only one of these people, and I wanted my work to speak for itself.

Through my work, I have matured as a scholar and have come into my own; I feel (mostly) confident, especially in my abilities as a teacher, and especially in my interdisciplinary/intersectional approach. My work has grown from my educational foundations in American studies, women's studies, and comparative ethnic studies, and has given me the tools to write about Hip-Hop, literature, television, pedagogy, and so much more. I have also had the privilege to reconcile my personal and political interests through my work related to my book, Women and Fitness in American Culture, and my current research project about young adult dystopia.

I have found that my specialization is in the connections between and among all of the areas that I (am forced to) work in, but it is not easy to navigate the spaces between and among. As I have continued to teach, research, and write about race, class, gender and sexuality, this interview question--and my inability to answer it--has been at the back of my mind and I have worked hard to be sure that I am doing justice to each tenant of intersectionality, especially in their interlocking/intersecting/overlapping. This is not easy work. But it is work that I am passionate about.

The sexuality aspect of my work has not developed at the same rate as the race, class, or gender components. My radical ideas about sexuality have mostly stayed at the fringes of my work and the edges of my life. I have been afraid to engage with sexuality as a component of intersectionality for a variety of reasons, mostly because it is difficult to come out as something specific when I am still struggling to understand myself. I have not engaged this vector of intersectionality because I have the privilege to ignore it.

Just like my whiteness dictated how I was perceived as a candidate for a job teaching about race, my assumed heterosexuality means that I don't have to worry about being judged, belittled, or dismissed because my gender and sexuality are queer. I can stay silent and let people assume what they want to. Many times in the past people have assumed I am a lesbian (or so I have been told). I don't wear a wedding ring. I teach women's studies. I talk about my dog but not my partner/husband. I must be a lesbian, right?
 
But the beauty of the work that I do is that I have the freedom to explore my personal and scholarly interests from a variety of angles. I can rework the pieces and fill in the gaps. Recently I decided—for personal and professional reasons—that I need to bolster that sexuality piece of the puzzle. So, being the academic nerd that I am, I selected a number of books and started my own little reading/research/writing project.

I find time to read these books in the spaces in between my other work and they have already begun to inform my teaching and my thinking. They have already helped me to know myself better, to feel more confident in who I am, to feel less shame is being queer. So, when I have some spaces, I will share some of these books and the interesting intersections they push and pull. I am not sure exactly where this project will lead, but I am excited for the ride.
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Sisterhood Is Powerful ... Sometimes

6/27/2016

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One of the things that I teach in my Introduction to Women’s Studies course is that it is too easy to blame men or patriarchy for the inequalities and oppressions that continue to plague women. It’s always more complicated. And, yes, these inequalities and oppressions continue to exist in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, especially when there are more vectors of inequality (race, sexuality, class) at play. But, again, this is where things get more complicated.

We also talk about the importance of supporting women, of refusing to compete with other women for the attention and approval of men, of supporting other women who experience sexism, misogyny, and oppression. Many of the women of my generation, and many women the age of my mother or grandmother, find it important to mentor younger women. We try to model feminism in our words and actions and provide opportunities for younger women—our students, allies, friends, and families—to explore, excel, and act on their own behalf and toward social justice for others.

But another thing that we discuss is how women can uphold the values of patriarchy, even without realizing it. Even when espousing feminism. Even when trying to do the right thing by other women. Gloria Steinem's gender-infused support might have inexorably hurt Hillary Clinton’s bid for candidacy. But Hillary will survive. In cases closer to home, the damage may not be so easy to overcome. But it gives us more fuel to fight.

This brings me to a current and ongoing example of the ways in which women—whether we identify with and use the term feminist or not—can do more harm than good when we try to help younger women, when we try to make decisions in someone else’s best interest. There is a difference between being supportive or being an advocate and acting in a paternalistic way. Some women--even when they have good intentions--fail to see the difference.

Last semester a student came to me during finals week to discuss some of the work she owed me and ended up reporting how she was being sexually harassed at her place of work. The harassment had been ongoing and had escalated from comments about other women’s bodies, to outright propositions for sex, to unwanted touching. She had waited too long to report the sexual harassment, which had been going on for months. I told her she should report it immediately. Since the employee who was harassing her was leaving for another job, she decided not to report it. I respected her decision, but—in retrospect—I regret that I did not convince her to report the abuse regardless.

This student prides herself on being open and honest—on supporting other women and on being true to herself. After a lifetime of abuse, she deserves to have the space and time to find herself. That’s one of the reasons why she is attending college, majoring in Interdisciplinary studies, and working as the student intern for our Women Invigorating Curriculum and Creating Diversity committee. She advocates for herself and other women on a daily basis. She has been there for friends and for other students as they have dealt with abuse, stalking, and violence. But she also needs to work off-campus to support herself and pay for her education. She has learned a lot about herself over the past four years and is less naïve and sheltered than she was when she began college.

This student is also conventionally attractive and uber-friendly. She often dresses in short skirts, tight shirts, high heels, and a variety of fashionable ensembles. She wears a lot of make-up and puts a lot of time into her hair and outfits. She stands by her right to dress in the way that makes her feel comfortable even though she has also had to deal with other people’s inability to honor that right. Professors have asked me to talk to her about the way she dresses, to remind her that she is sending the “wrong message.” And her employer has attributed her appearance to the ways in which men act around her, flocking to the front desk and lingering to talk to her. She is regularly sexually harassed. In fact, it is a kind of a norm in her life. For instance, when her friends (and she has many male and female friends) found out that she had broken up with her boyfriend, she got several “dic pics” and an erotic story sent to her in a matter of a few days. She is regularly approached by men who want to give her things or take her on dates. She is still learning that these offers are not always what they seem at face value.

So, when she began to experience sexual harassment that went beyond playful banter (that she admits engaging in sometimes), it was difficult to identify it as something more sinister. Further, since this harassment often happened when she worked alone with her male co-worker and when the management staff had already gone home, she was isolated and rendered powerless and fearful. And, since this employee harassing her was widely liked and praised by many co-workers and patrons, she thought that she would not be believed.

But the biggest reason that she did not immediately come forward has to do with a previous incident at work, when she was shamed for her too-friendly behavior (which is her job) and blamed for the ways in which male co-workers and patrons treated her. This shaming and blaming was done in a way that couched the criticism as a “life lesson.” The female head of the company actually blamed her for potentially breaking up marriages and asked her to be less friendly and to leave the desk when certain male patrons entered the building. In other words, it is the same story told time and time again—blaming the woman for men’s uncontrollable sexuality.

She could recognize the problematics of this shaming and blaming. Not only was this “lesson” from the management sexist and discriminatory, it was something that she had heard before. So, it was no wonder that when she began to be sexually harassed, she brushed it off. The sexual harassment often took place in front of other employees who did not recognize the harassment as problematic. More than one employee had overheard him making comments about wanting to “tap that” when referring to women patrons. More than one employee had been harassed.

But then he decided to stay with the company and the head of the company sent an email to all employees praising him for his superior customer service skills, hinting at a promotion and raise, and referring to his bright future at the company.  And, so, this victim really had no choice but to come forward. In fact, I also work for this organization and I ended up reporting it to our shared supervisor during my performance review along with a sexual harassment incident I had experienced. Let's just say, things did not go so well and I have been working to support this student and to give her opportunities to tell her story and to fight for her rights. Her story is long from over.

The story from this point is long and more complicated than I can capture here. It is a universal story of women’s experiences that has been told a million times in all of its iterations, and it is a story that will continue to be told. The outcome (for now) boils down to the “he said/she said” situation of so many stories like this. The outcome was not immediate termination of the sexual harasser despite the fact that Maine is an at-will state and the fact that the employee had violated multiple workplace policies. This was the only acceptable outcome. Instead, schedules were rearranged, sexual harassment training was implemented, and she was expected to just get over it.

While (female) management claimed to believe her in private conversations, and while they sanctioned him and punished him, the official written response from the head of the company is that they did everything that they could possibly do, but also explicitly states that they are not admitting that any harassment took place. In fact, in private conversations management revealed that the reason that they did not fire him was because they wanted to protect her. He had threatened to sue her for defamation of character if he was fired. The “HR lawyer” said that she would be crucified in court, and they decided that she was “too fragile” to deal with something like that. Never mind that such cases (usually reserved for public figures) are difficult to prove and take substantial investment up front. The decision was made for her and she was left in the dark.

Further, her privacy was not protected; they said they were legally obligated to tell him who reported the claim of sexual harassment. When she tried to stand up for herself and requested a written statement of the information she was legally entitled to, her request was ignored. Instead she was pulled into a meeting where the head of the company tried to justify her actions while continuing to shame and blame. When the written statement finally followed, it was incomplete at best.

The process that was followed is symptomatic of our patriarchal culture. And it has been questioned and will most likely be questioned again. But the point here is that on at least two occasions a woman, claiming and believing that she was acting on the behalf of a younger woman, supporting her and teaching her life lessons, was really acting in the interest of the company, of patriarchy, and—as the head of the company who had praised and promoted the harasser—for herself.

There is no easy answer or solution to this situation and others like it, but when we work to support other women (especially the younger women we wish to mentor) we need to remember that we are fostering their voices, empowering their actions, and providing opportunities for growth and empowerment—and, ultimately, we cannot control the outcome any more than the playing field. We can fight for justice side by side, but need to let them speak for themselves, find their own paths, and wage their own battles. We need to get over ourselves, our experience, our earned positions and our honed expertise—and remember that this thing that holds us down is bigger than we are, and we are stronger together.

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The Sex Myth: Millennial Practices and Promises

6/27/2016

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Rachel Hills, The Sex Myth:
The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality


As a part of my personal/professional reckoning sexuality project, I will be sharing some thoughts on the books I am exploring. While I read this one a while ago, the author will be on our campuses this week, so I thought it was about time to share this blog!

The title of this book does not really represent what this book is about. The use of “the” to describe “sex myth” gives the impression that there is only one myth involved here when there are many myths that contribute to skewed understanding of the myths and realities. Further, the implication that we have multiple, plural fantasies, but only one, singular reality limits the possibilities of closing that gap. And, really, this book is about reality much more than it is about fantasy.

The title should be something more like: "How the Millennial Generation Navigates Hypocrisy and Hypersexualization." The “Our” in the title is most definitely interchangeable for Millennials generally, and Americans, Europeans, Australians, white, middle class, etc. specifically. But the book also provides diverse voices and works to represent sexuality beyond the heterosexual paradigm.

I consider this book a light, introductory read that shines light on a subject that is much deeper, more complicated, and embedded in a number of cultural institutions, ideologies, and practices. The author relates her own experiences and others’ experiences without judgment. She argues for a culture where sexuality “can be just one small part of the puzzle of who each of us is, instead of the load that defines us." She illustrates the ways in which young people define themselves through their sexuality, which is hindered by "the Sex Myth."

It is an interesting read, and the argument is valuable. This cross-cultural exploration of sexual myths, shows how the dominant ideologies of the white/Western world shape cultural norms and acceptable thoughts and behaviors. The anecdotal evidence that crosses several continents can only be so representative of the bigger picture. And yet, the stories are honest and genuine and the message of freedom is clear.

In my personal/professional project, this book gave me space to reflect upon what might have been different for me if I was coming of age today (and it had some interesting connections to my YA dystopia work and to my introduction to women's studies course). It reminded me just how sheltered I grew up and just how fucked up my sense of self and sexuality is. Sometimes I lament the openness and options that youth have today compared to the silence and assumptions of my youth. If I were coming of age today, would I feel more comfortable being open and honest with myself as well as with the world? Maybe. But today’s sexual environment is fraught with just as many roadblocks and potholes, they are just more varied and more menacing… and more potentially liberating.

Hills’ message seems to be more about the right to choose to not live up to the sexual hype and to be ourselves. How we should work collectively to change the limited structures of sexuality is offered a more passive solution. Her final paragraph proclaims: “It is we who are responsible for creating the future. We are creating it already, in the things we say, do, and choose to believe. The Sex Myth may be powerful, but we have the ability to dismantle it. You just need to cast off the stories and the symbolism, and let yourself be” (214). The shift from the collective voice of “we” to the individual voice of “you” might give the impression that making individual lifestyle (or ideological) changes is enough to “dismantle” the Sex Myth.

Choosing and enacting personal freedom is a start. We have to understand sexuality personally, politically, physically, mentally, and we can only begin to understand and rework our old ideas when new paradigms are available and accessible. Rachel Hills’ book helps us take steps in that direction, but we need far more tools in our toolbox.

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An Open Letter to the Man who Sexually Harassed Me and to the System That Let Him Get Away With It

6/24/2016

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I am sitting here taking an online training about sexual harassment. The voice-over reads every word at half the speed I can read it myself and it won't let me click forward to move more quickly. Several of my "wrong" answers are right. I would want to scream at the computer screen and pull all my hair out, even if I did not have first and second-hand experience with sexual harassment in the very workplace that is requiring me to do this training. In fact, I decided not to attend the training at work because I could not stand the hypocrisy. So, instead, I am sitting here with the computer talking to me like I am 5 years old; sadly, not effective, especially for those who really need this training.

And who really needs this kind of training? No one. But who needs sexual harassment training? Everyone. In fact, our culture needs to be "trained." The only way that sexual harassment, sexism, mass shootings, sexual assault, rape, domestic violence, child abuse, and other problems that stem from gender inequality will ever begin to go away.

So, it seems that this is the perfect time to share the following open letter. As you can see from the title, this letter brings together the personal and the structural. This one woman's experience is not an isolated incident, nor is the way in which the situation was dealt with. The training says now: "Your employer is committed, and has a legal responsibility, to resolve and prevent situations of sexual harassment. Give them the opportunity to help you before contemplating a job move or legal action." Indeed.

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This is an open letter to those who witnessed him sexually harassing me and did nothing. This letter is also for those who I reported it to--who said they believed me, that they understood, that they wanted him fired--but ultimately could not do what justice called for. Most importantly, this is for my sexual harasser. I was violated. I never consented to your treatment of me. You took advantage of me. May you read this letter and know that I will not cater to a system of silence. May the others who witnessed some of your unsettling behavior, but accepted it as normal, also read this letter and wonder what they could have done differently. I will tell my story to my students, loved ones, to strangers--and to the future victims of sexual harassment--so they can learn and grow as I have done. I will fight a system that does not care for the truth.

Asking "Sister, are you okay?" to someone you see getting harassed, is an empowering thing. Not only are you letting her know that what happened is wrong, but you are standing with her so she is not alone in a culture that accepts harassment as a part of the norm and just part of "boys being boys." You treat her as if she is family because she is. As fellow human beings some of the most important things we must do in our lifetime are to spread love, safety, and equality for everyone. When the law is broken and she is sexually harassed, stand beside her, show her kindness, and treat her like she is your sister for she is not a sex object to be played with at will. When you see a fellow human kicked to the ground, too afraid to get back up, would you leave her there in pain or would you risk injury to yourself to help her stand? She is not a possession. Her body belongs to no one but herself. Being there for her reminds her that she is strong, that she is a survivor.

After suffering a lifetime of abuse, I thought I was finally free to find peace in all areas of my life. I pride myself on being open and honest--on being me. Naïve and taught to trust everyone, I have encountered more and more trauma. Still finding my way through the cruel reality I was surrounded by, I met you. And upon learning about my past, that I was a survivor of abuse, you took advantage of me. You said all the right, comforting things so I would trust you. You saw how vulnerable I was and tried to fuck with me. You would watch my body as I walked. Your eyes would linger and grow heavy with want. Mouth agape, you’d lick your lips and ask to have a taste of what belonged to me. For hours you’d sit in your chair and talk about what you thought was an object born for your personal pleasure and would beg me to go with you to your car so you could take advantage of this body you thought belonged to you. “No,” I said turning my body away from you in embarrassment, and yet you persisted. You pushed.

You took up more space. You stood behind me and would whisper in my ear your desires. I could feel your hot breath on my neck, rolling down my spine, forcing me to shrink under the weight your words carried. Shrinking further and further into myself as you peered down at me, fear consumed and immobilized me. Fear that echoed from my past abusers and fear of you. I twirled the ring on my finger in hopes of calming down so you wouldn’t see me cry. In the safety of my car I wept. I wept because my trust was broken yet again and I had more to fear than just my past.

I became afraid to walk to my car at night because you might be waiting for me. Afraid to come to work because sometimes you’d treat me like the friend I trusted, and other days you’d act like a hunter slaughtering a deer with your wanting eyes ripping into my clothes to reveal the flesh you craved. It wasn’t long before you began brushing up against me so your hand would graze my ass and you could drink the spoils of your demeaning behavior and abuse of power. Paralyzed with fear, I did nothing. I made excuses for you. I made excuses for myself. Since you were leaving the company we worked for, I thought your leaving would make me feel safe again. I thought it would be easy to just let you go, to let my fear and insecurity leave with you. To my astonishment and disappointment, you changed your mind and decided to stay.

To the one teacher who stood by me and protected my rights to the best of her ability, thank you. You sought justice where others fell silent. You found legal help for me when others wanted me to keep quiet and accept the lack of action taken because it is a “he said/she said situation.” You reported his illegal actions and encouraged me to put my fears aside and come forward. You asked, “Sister, are you okay?” You found my strength and taught me lessons I never learned in a classroom. You taught me self-care and how to build the walls necessary to keep evil like my sexual harasser’s out. With each new brick to this wall I could feel the foundations of empowerment form.

Out of dread that he would treat my fellow coworkers with the same disrespect, I stood up to fight his perversion, but I was not alone. We stood together and created an unbreakable force. There has been no real resolution--no justice--but we are fighting this battle for all women who will encounter this man and others like him. I take part in an effort to create a world where we are all free from oppression, harassment, and coercion. To those who are suffering, I am here. I am with you. I am listening. I am fighting. We are not helpless victims who must shrink in fear. We stand together. Together we can reach out to all of those who are oppressed and seek a better world.

To my sexual harasser, apparently I need to make this clear as you have yet to grasp the meaning of consent. This is my body. My body belongs to me. My body is sacred and you have no excuses for your behavior. The system has made excuses for you. The system has blamed me because that is what it does to women. It has tried to take away my voice. I’ve had enough abuses and pain. I stand to stop the internal screams. You can’t touch me anymore.

My sisters stand strong with me.

--Jessica L. Bishop
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Fitness: What Are You Tracking?

4/24/2016

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I was recently asked to comment on the use of fitness trackers in the workplace, particularly as a tool toward building morale. I love being asked questions like this because it requires me to really think about aspects of fitness that I might not be personally attracted to. For instance, when I was asked to write an article for The Conversation about CrossFit, I was a bit reluctant since I will never, ever be interested in this form of extreme exercise. But the culture of CrossFit, and the potential for empowerment, makes it a subject I cannot easily dismiss.

Likewise, I really hate fitness trackers, especially those that require you to input what you eat and become a data entry drone. It is tedious and I have better things to do with my time. When I have tried to keep a food journal, for instance, I find myself eating things just so I have more tings to write down. Not exactly the goal.

I can see the appeal in having a tracker that automatically counts your steps or reads your heart rate and lets you know when you are in a cardio zone (of course we probably call it a fat-burning zone). I can see how the fitness tracker might be a great tool of motivation, and I have witnessed the ways in which people nerd out over their shared fitness tracker readings and goals. It's adorable. When I did Hiking Yoga with my mom and my sister ay the Yoga Journal Live! conference, I was able to glean onto their tracking so that I too accumulated those thousands of steps. Ding!

The use of fitness trackers can build on the camaraderie and competition that already exists in the workplace. Co-workers can playfully compete with each other even as they compete with themselves. They can share a common goal, even as the specifics of this goal may differ. More importantly, fitness trackers promote a shared culture of fitness, health, and wellness. Staying active is no longer relegated to the little time we have outside of work. Trackers can change the way we think about exercise from being an extra chore and obligation to being active and finding opportunities to celebrate that activity. (Like when someone's tracker dings to tell them they just reached x number of steps, for instance.) The tracker makes visible all of those "steps" we take, or don't take, throughout our day.

It concerns me that the fitness trackers might cause someone to become frustrated if they are following the guidelines set for them and still aren't seeing the results they expect. We want to still be setting realistic goals and weight loss should not be the ultimate goal or measure. We have to change our expectations. Making that shift to a healthy, active lifestyle means that we have to change our patterns and habits and just generally move more.
 
But I am more concerned by what the trackers might not be able to measure (though some are starting to). The fitness tracker, for instance, cannot capture all of the many benefits of yoga--in terms of steps and calories, yoga does not measure up. But fitness activities like yoga, relaxation, and meditation are an important part of the bigger picture as are getting more and better sleep and reducing stress. A workplace that recognizes the whole person and mind, body, spirit approach will ultimately be the most successful and fitness trackers can be a tool in this bigger picture.
 
I prefer to live in that grey area, to listen to my body, to let it tell me what it needs--that I ate too much or too little, that I need more cardio to release some pent up energy, that I need my daily yoga practice to keep my sanity. I can feel the need to move when I sit too long in a meeting or in my car or at my computer. If I miss my work out in the morning, I know it because my body tells me. When I have worked too hard, my body tells me and I take some extra time to rest (with no guilt!). My yoga therapy balls (tennis balls) call out to me when I forget to pay attention to the tension building in my neck and upper back or when I feel myself falling apart.

A fitness tracker can't tell you things like that, but it can remind us to listen to our bodies.
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Causal Sex/Hooking Up/Netflix and Chill??

4/24/2016

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A Guest Blog by Kevin T. Martin
In my Critical Thinking and Writing class, I assigned my Honors students the task of sharing academic ideas outside of the academic context. Students wrote on a variety of subjects. This subject is near and dear to my heart as I begin exploring my "side project" which I am calling my sexuality project... but more on that later.

Those kids today with their sexual freedom and irresponsibility spreading STDs and having babies that are going to end up on welfare. Does this sound familiar? It should. It is the same rhetoric the younger generations have been hearing for years and years and years. After years of being told we were sexually irresponsible, statistically our generation has a lower teen birthrate and lower STD occurrence than any previous. How is this possible? Perhaps the discouragement of absence only sexual education, perhaps the women’s body empowerment movements, perhaps greater awareness of rape culture and holding men accountable for unacceptable behavior. Most likely all of the above.

There are, however, a couple things to consider in this new age of Tinder and random hook ups. Enter responsibility. The saying, “When two people lay down together one gets up with feelings” is this true and if it is should the ramifications of this statement be taking into consideration when hooking up? In a society already vastly disconnected should there be some mindfulness around the intimacy and vulnerability involved with having sex? Or is it just like face book friends and twitter feeds?

Another question that comes to mind: is it possible for two people on their first liaison to meet all the criteria for a mutually consensual, respectful, and safe sexual encounter? The general scenario goes something like this: two people match, then they meet to get drinks, then they go back to whoever’s home and get it on. Simple enough right? But if any alcohol is involved is it consensual? How much can someone know about personal boundaries and what it takes for someone to feel safe and comfortable in only one meeting? Does one have a responsibility to themselves and the other to attempt to create a safe space or should all be pushed aside in the name of the mighty orgasm?

How much responsibility does one have for the intentions one brings to the encounter? For instance: if someone is simply lonely and seeking if only for a moment a feeling of love and acceptance, but the other person is just trying to rack up numbers what kind of damage does that do to the lonely person? Is there a way to understand and validate the other’s needs?  Yes, but it takes time, effort, and energy. In my experience men have a really hard time being vulnerable and intimate. Men are indoctrinated from a very young age about what is acceptable behavior and what is not. Crying and showing emotion is not acceptable and is discouraged often at the price of the boy’s emotional well-being. Sex is an intimate act, in my opinion, so how much damage is done personally and culturally if the gravity of the one situation where men are allowed to show love is reduced to which way one swipes the screen.

I am in no way trying to shame anyone’s sexual choices or activity. I am just trying to understand if perhaps some more thought should be given to the fast and loose rhetoric about sex becoming common place in our culture.    

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Freedom and Structure through Mind/Body Fitness Dance

2/23/2016

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I have tried many names and many incarnations of my particular "brand" of fitness dance: Pleasure, Power, and Movement; Feminist Fitness; Just Dance; Organic Dance (the biggest failure); and, most recently, Mind/Body Fitness Dance.

During the fall semester I previewed Mind/Body Fitness Dance at UMA-Bangor. I had positive feedback to this fitness class, and I decided to offer it this spring as a two-part series. While I have struggled to keep consistent attendance at this kind of fitness/dance class at the YMCA, I think that teaching this class on campus allows me to more fully share all of the nuanced aspects of this fitness form.

Starting this Thursday I will be offering Mind/Body Fitness dance on campus, Thursdays from 5:15 to 6:15. I have created a pamphlet that explains a little more about this form of fitness and dance, but it is really something that has to be experienced and embodied.
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People are often afraid to dance, afraid to move outside of culture’s strictly draw boundaries of body and space. This is especially true of women and girls. We are taught to take up as little space as possible and we fear judgment and doing things wrong. I know this because I used to feel this way too.

I found confidence in fitness classes that allowed me to follow directions--and to give those directions when I became an instructor. In both cases, movements were rigid, linear, contained. In group exercise classes we generally know what to expect and the rise of manufactured fitness classes (like Zumba, Les Mills, and MOSSA) make for consistent, predictable workouts. While not everyone enjoys classes, many find safety in proscribed movements.

Invitations to try Mind/Body Fitness Dance are met with: I can’t dance. I only dance when no one’s home. I have no rhythm. I can’t follow directions. I need to be told what to do. I am so out of shape. These are excuses I hear often.

I also hear the unspoken reasons. I am insecure about my body (too fat, too thin, too something wrong). I am uncomfortable trying new things. I’m scared. I have anxiety. (I have made all these excuses too.) But all of these discomforts are exactly what Mind/Body Fitness Dances offers to alleviate.

Movement helps us let go. Music gives us a landscape. Structure and freedom help us feel safe while we also have literal and figurative space to explore.

Mind/Body Fitness Dance has changed my approach to fitness and has helped me to find more confidence, wellness, balance, and joy in my life. Sharing this movement--my art--with those who are brave enough to try something different is scary and rewarding. I share Mind/Body Fitness Dance as a tool of self-care; it is my gift to my community.

Eastport 124, on a Thursday afternoon, is private and the environment is conducive to freedom of movement. Music fills, but does not overwhelm the space and the play of light and dark enhance the dance fitness experience.

I want to invite students, faculty, staff, and community members to try this form of mind/body fitness dance. When we step into the dance, we leave these roles and become movement. Lose yourself. Find Yourself. Move and Be Moved.

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Hip Hop: Coming Home and Coming Up

2/22/2016

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From the first few notes of Spearhead’s album Home, I was hooked on Hip-Hop. This isn’t the origin story that most Hip-Hop heads tell, and it certainly fits with my demographics. As I am reminded any time I am in Hip-Hop spaces: I do not look Hip-Hop. I do not speak Hip-Hop. I do not move Hip-Hop (well kind of, sometimes). But I am a part of Hip-Hop.

I feel Hip-Hop—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, politically, pedagogically. I am Hip-Hop because Hip-Hop is so many different things. I have published and presented at academic conferences on the subject of Hip-Hop. I teach a multivalent vision of Hip-Hop to my students in a variety of academic classes and I choreograph “freestyle” fitness routines.
My teaching in both these spaces brings Hip-Hop to populations that might not otherwise engage with this culture and art form.

I love Hip-Hop for its power, its depth, its edge, its truth, its flow.

But it is easy to get distracted from the things that I love. I have too much to do, and I am spread too thin. I am interested in too many things, and I have too many commitments. When I have time to listen to music, I am often memorizing Group Groove choreography and I listen to the same ten tracks over and over again. I repeat a song over and over until the music and choreography are a part of me.

But this is also how I listen to music that I enjoy. I get obsessed with a song (or an album) and it haunts me and follows me, and the songs that resonate most with me often becomes a part of one of my fitness classes. Hip-Hop is part of this obsession, but to keep up with the Hip-Hop that isn’t most readily available--on TV, on the radio--takes work.

I stumble upon new songs. I circle back to favorites. I rediscover. And my friends and students send me links.

Last semester, I noticed that something felt off. I was busy (as usual). Generally happy (as usual). I was stressing over the details of life and feeling frustrated. I felt disconnected and disconcerted. I was reminded of the power of Hip-Hop when the BreakBeat Poets visited campus; I witnessed (again) this power of Hip-Hop through my students and colleagues. I realized that what was missing was my connection to life through Hip-Hop.

On my next long drive, I listened to Lupe Fiasco’s album, L.A.S.E.R.S. I was transported, pulled into that swirl of love, and politics, and beat, and flow, and soul. I felt renewed and reminded about what is important in life and why I love what I do. In the past I had connected with "Letting Go," "Words I Never Said," and "I Don't Wanna Care Right Now" but this time new songs on the album stuck out to me. I was haunted by "Beautiful lasers (2 Ways)" and “Coming Up” became a regular on my rotation and a part of my fitness classes.

Lupe Fiasco explains in his album notes: "Lasers are shining beams of light that burn through the darkness of ignorance. Lasers shed light on injustice and inequality. .... Lasers act and shape their own destinies. Lasers find meaning and direction in the mysteries all around them. Lasers stand for love and compassion. Lasers stand for peace. Lasers stand for progression. Lasers are revolutionary. Lasers Are The Future."

Lupe Fiasco’s words resonate beyond his music. It’s easy to pass by the moments, to let our lives run out in our responsibilities, obligations, distractions. Hip-Hop brings me home in ways that no other form of art and culture can. Hip-Hop saves my life over and over. It reminds me who I am and who I want to be. It reminds me that I am still coming up.


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Yoga Is for Every Mind and Body: An Introduction

1/24/2016

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Yoga is something that has to be experienced, but many people’s first experiences with yoga can be off-putting. Maybe it is because the class is not a good fit. It is too advanced or too gentle or too new-agey or too fast or lacks instruction in the basics. Finding the right introduction to yoga might take several tries. The teacher, the style, the space, the music, the community can all be factors that shape a yoga experience positively or negatively.

There are also plenty of people whose first (or second) introduction to yoga transforms their lives. This is the experience that I want for everyone, especially for those who come to my classes. Yoga should not be scary. Nor should it be elite. Yoga is truly for every body. And it really is magical.

But not everyone can get to a class and finding the right class isn’t always easy (and sometimes we don’t even know what we’re looking for!). This is one of the reasons why I am sharing some introductions to yoga here and on my YouTube channel. These videos offer a standing warm-up series, a lying warm-up or cool-down series, and a seated stretch series. These videos can be used individually or linked together. They can also be broken into the pieces that work best for you. However you use these videos, there are a few important things to keep in mind for safety and effectiveness. This blog offers a few important things to know about yoga in order to get the most out of your practice.

For me, and for many others, yoga has been transformational, personally and professionally. I hope to bring this powerful form of breath and movement to as many people as I can. I teach three classes a week and reach a lot of people there. I have been asked by many people to provide some introduction to yoga and these videos are my attempt to reach beyond my studio and classroom. Even for experienced yogis, these basics are important to remember.

The advice below is meant specifically to introduce my video instruction; however, these ideas are even more important if you want to go try a yoga class or a yoga DVD or video. The more you know about these basics, the more you will get from the yoga you do.

First, a few myths to dispel. There are a lot of different kinds of yoga and a lot of different variations on those kinds. Yoga is not “just stretching” and it is not a “religion.” Yoga is a mind/body form of exercise in some spaces and a system of philosophies in others. Yoga is something that anyone and everyone—all sizes, ages, and levels of ability—can do. Yoga is about how you feel, not about how you look. You should choose the yoga that you like, try the yoga that might be a bit out of your comfort zone, and leave the yoga that does not appeal to you. Yoga can be weird and scary when it is unfamiliar, but it can also be a positive force when we commit to a regular practice.
Now, before we begin a physical practice:

Yoga—and any other form of physical fitness activity—requires the advice that you should consult with your physician before trying yoga. This is good advice, but what I offer here also mitigates the need for such permission. If one is truly practicing yoga, the risks are quite minimal. In other words, if you follow these principles (below), this practice is safe for most people.

Conscious breathing is the simplest form of yoga. There are several different breathing techniques taught in yoga. The simplest form is just to breathe in through the nose… and out through the nose. We try to take full, deep breaths that last about the same amount of time on the way in as they do on the way out. We might think about expanding the lungs, the ribcage, and the belly as we inhale and emptying the belly, ribcage, and lungs with the exhale (also known as a three-part breath). Breathing in this way, and being aware of this breath, is doing yoga.

Listen to your body. If something hurts, don’t do it. While this is always good advice, it is especially important in yoga practice. In some classes instructors do not offer a variety of levels and variations and people who are new to class (as well as people who attend regularly) often feel that they have to do exactly what the instructor or the other participants are doing. If you can’t do something, and especially if it hurts, you should not do it and a good instructor should be able to give you an option or variation. But it is important to know the difference between discomfort and pain. Discomfort helps us push past plateaus; pain causes us injury and mental and physical harm. Each time you do yoga it is your breath, your options, your flow, and your practice.

Yoga is a lifelong process that is different from day to day. It is not necessarily about progressing from the “easier” options to the more “advanced” options. There is no linear trajectory; the process grows in many directions. Yoga asks us to “let go of competition” with ourselves and with others, to listen to our bodies, and to make the best choices for the particular moment. (A good life lesson as well.) When we let ourselves be in the moment, we can make more of those moments. You should never force yourself into a pose. If the pose isn’t working for you, move on and try it another time.

Yoga is movement and flow—one breath per movement. While yoga is a set of poses/postures that are often practiced in isolation or in a linear progression, my aim in my classes and practice is flow. I work to create a series of movements that flow together, allowing for more relaxation and attempting to link breath and movement. Keeping in mind the one breath per movement principle helps to foster flow. Inhale up and exhale down, for instance. Flow in yoga describes our physical movement, but can also describe our psychological state of being fully in the moment when we are “in the zone,” so to speak.

Props are tools, not crutches. When my classes are small enough I use the few props I have available where I teach. I think a lot of people think that using a prop means that they can’t do the yoga poses the “right” way. Since there is no “right” way, there are many ways that blocks, blankets, pillows, straps (or resistance bands), stability balls, tennis balls, and walls can be used to enhance our practice. These props make some poses more comfortable and other poses more challenging. Using a block can help to find new aspects of poses and can also help us to enhance the mind/body connection. I demonstrate some use of props in my videos, offering techniques that can be used whenever needed. But really, props should be used to make you feel more comfortable when needed.

So, now that we have some basic ideas for our minds to ponder—and maybe we ponder these ideas again and again—we can experience the transformative power of yoga in our bodies. To get started, check out my first introductory video.
As you get comfortable with the basics, these might be enough to make a positive impact in your life and physical, mental, and spiritual health. Or, perhaps, this is only the beginning of a life-long journey.
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These ideas and videos reflect my personal teaching style, which has been fostered through my level 1 through 4 trainings with YogaFit as well as self-study. I have also attended a variety of yoga-related workshops (the most influential ones with Bo Forbes) and I have taught yoga classes 2 to 4 times a week for more than a decade. But my style and experience are only one approach to yoga. And there is always more to discover when practicing yoga!

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Discovering Authenticity at Yoga Journal Live!?

5/4/2015

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For almost 10 years I have been teaching yoga. And for almost 10 years I have not considered myself a "real" yoga teacher, let alone a "yogi" (or yogini if I'm going to gender myself). The last thing I expected to discover at the Yoga Journal Live! conference, in New York City of all places, was authenticity, purpose, or a feeling that I was exactly where I needed to be. I didn't expect to find myself or to find out how powerful I am in my teaching.

And yet, this is exactly what I got... and more.

What I expected at the YJL! conference was: a bunch of thin (mostly white) women in expensive, trendy, stylish yoga clothes; commercialism and consumerism; and star instructors whose personalities, images, and fame made for impersonal, packed classes and "show off" yoga. All of these things were at the conference, and all of these things--among other factors--have contributed to my lack of feeling "real" in my yoga. I have often felt like I am just going through the motions--literally and figuratively--even when I have felt that there is something more to those motions.

My training and experience have also contributed to my lack of feeling like a real yoga teacher. Coming from a fitness instructor background, being trained in a fitness style of yoga (YogaFit), having "only" part of the 200 hours required for official certification, and teaching primarily at universities and community centers are all factors that have contributed to this feeling. Additionally, much of my teaching has been self-taught through embodied experience in my own classes as well as the few other classes and trainings I am able to attend.

Over the past 10 years I have taught yoga and written about yoga--in and out of academia--in my classes at the local YMCA and at my university, and in my book, Women and Fitness in American Culture. Yoga has done much to keep me sane and balanced and energized. Yoga has been truly transformational, personally and professionally.

What I found at JYL! continued the journey of discovery and transformation and centered some of the things that had been floating around me. While I am still processing, still going over my notes, still thinking and practicing, I have already begun to bring this new yoga self to my participants at the Bangor YMCA--my yoga and fitness family.

Here are some of those floating things that my experience at YJL! brought home:

Yoga is a life-long process: I say this all the time in class, but what I discovered about yoga, and about myself, really confirmed this. We can't learn or know or feel or experience everything in a yoga class, let alone a lifetime. We have to be patient with our minds and our bodies.

Yoga really is for every body: I have been to several classes and workshops with this "every body" title and I am often disappointed when the physical practice of such classes do not fit with my vision of what "every body" can do. Seane Corn highlighted this idea in a different way. Sure, the physical practice of yoga can be modified for every body. But when we think about yoga as breath and movement, as an opportunity to experience sensation, as a technique to increase mind/body connections, as a way to work through resistance in our bodies and find new relationships with our emotions, and a way to connect to others beyond our mats.... Clearly there is more to yoga that every body and everybody can benefit from. Yoga gives us a different angle.

Yoga isn't about advanced postures or perfect alignment. Yoga may not even be about postures at all, but for most Americans practicing yoga, postures are the means if not the end. My students have often asked for adjustments and to be told whether they are doing it "right." While I provide many alignment cues and occasional physical adjustments, I remind them that the postures are not so much about how we look, but how we feel. What's right for one body might not be right for another, and I practice what I learned in my YogaFit training--I provide cues for how a pose "should" look and feel. When Bo Forbes explained that alignment cues will last for a class while teaching people to inhabit their body will last a lifetime, this idea really hit home.

Yoga can happen anywhere. While I have taken yoga to many different physical locations--purposefully or stealthily--this conference was a good reminder of the physical and mental places yoga can take us. Doing Hiking Yoga in Central Park (with Eric Kipp) on a beautiful Sunday morning, with my mother and sister and new acquaintances (and runners and dogs and more), reminded me how calming and rejuvenating yoga can be outdoors. But the mindfulness techniques I learned with Bo Forbes reminded me that yoga doesn't have to happen anywhere specific. In fact, the yoga that happens when I am in child's pose, with my forehead on a block--the yoga that clears my mind and centers me--happens mostly in my head.

Yoga can change your body and your mind... and your life. While most people I encounter come to yoga looking to transform their bodies, what they often find is that yoga does much more than work the body. But this aspect of mind/body yoga and yoga as a practice beyond the physical is a hard sell, especially at the YMCA where I teach yoga as well as more traditional cardio classes. I have been hesitant to emphasize the mind/body aspects, or maybe I just didn't have the language or the knowledge that I needed. I tell people that yoga is healing and even miraculous, and I have had many such stories shared with me by my participants. Now I have more tools to emphasize the mind/body connection, to expand my participants' experiences.

Mindfulness is worth learning more about--and practicing! What all of the above points have in common is the idea of mindfulness. While I had begun to learn more about mindfulness, I had not really given this idea or practice much thought beyond what I thought was the obvious mind/body yoga connection. Mindfulness is simple and practical, but not at all obvious until a good teacher brings mindfulness to the forefront. Just before the YJL! conference I had stumbled upon Dr. Jamie Marich's program Dancing Mindfulness, which reminded me how much I miss my own form of mind/body dance (Organic Dance). So, yoga and dance are ripe for mindfulness!

While there are many other things I learned at YJL!, the most important thing I learned is that I am absolutely a "real" yoga teacher. Yoga isn't any one thing and no one owns it. I will continue to work with, process, practice, and share these many kernels of wisdom as long as I am able to breathe. This is something else I tell my participants: if you can breathe you can do yoga... and you should. We all should.
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I am Divergent: A Disgruntled Reading of Allegiant

3/2/2015

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I should begin by saying Spoiler Alert! I waited what seemed like an eternity to get my hands on Allegiant, the final book in the Divergent series. I was annoyed that the release of the Divergent film made it nearly impossible to get Allegiant from the library. It was almost an epic game of waiting, requesting and re-requesting when my request was cancelled. I was also waiting for the Divergent film to be released to DVD, and my patience was thin.

One day, I waited through a play by play synopsis of the Divergent film delivered by the girl bagging my groceries. Without pause she delivered the story to the young man scanning my groceries. He looked less than enthusiastic, a mirror image to her high-pitched "likes" and her endless string of "and thens." As I was leaving, she took a breath and I told her that the book was much better. It was such an annoying adult thing to say. Maybe I was jealous that the movie brought my private reading experience to the movie-going public. (And I still hadn't seen it.)

I waited through a student paper about Allegiant, giving it a quick skim just in case there were spoilers. There weren't. And, luckily, it was a paper by a stellar student so I didn't have to feel guilty about my lack of close reading.

I waited, and the library assistant got tired of hearing me whine about it and helped me make a request that might come through more quickly. A copy finally came through inter-library loan, just when I considered giving up. (A couple days later I finished the book and another copy arrived.)

This book was the end of the series, and Roth took up an alternating narration between Tris and Tobias, while the first two books were told from Tris's point of view and in her voice. I was not happy with this switch; other YA dystopia series take this approach from the beginning, with much more success. (Legend, Into the Still Blue) Having two voices made it clear that there would only be one voice in the end. But I still didn't believe it could happen.

And then it did. The end of the series came with the unspeakable--the end of the female protagonist. I should have been excited about the ending since no other YA dystopia book I have read (so far) has ended this way. And while her death was key to winning their struggle (and only a battle within the larger war), it seemed a bit unnecessary and unbelievable. It felt like rather than develop the story to its natural end, the author would bow out instead--take the easy way out. But maybe this is part of the point. Heroics don't always have perfect endings.

In principle, I hate the Hollywood reliance on happy endings. I like unsettling stories and endings that don't fit fairy tale impossibilities. The Hunger Games' Mockingjay has this. So do so many other YA dystopia books. But when Tris died toward (not at!) the end, I was shocked. I flipped forward a few pages wondering how Roth was going to write her way out of that one. Some new-fangled technology? A mistake? Something we missed? But there were no tricks. And the aftermath means that the book ends with Tobias (Four) having to come to terms with her death.  Thus, for me, the book, and the series, becomes about Tobias. It feels like a betrayal.

I was not the only reader who was disappointed. In a July 2014 interview with Goodreads, Roth answers fans' questions and speaks to her decision to kill Tris. The comments section is fraught with tension as many fans say that they refused to read the book because they had heard Tris was going to die and that they would never read another one of Roth's books. Many didn't finish the book. Some fans were supportive. I am torn.

As a reader, I am easy to please. Make the scenario, engage me with characters who fight for what's right, give me ideas that expand my consciousness, and I will suspend disbelief and follow your story to the end. Give me struggles and sacrifices; give me a female protagonist who finds herself along the way. One reason I love YA dystopia is that it has everything that makes a good story--action, love, conflict, principled struggles. And it has bigger things to think about--power, justice, gender, sexuality, race, technology, poverty, violence.

And always--almost always--the "girl on fire" prevails, even if her victory is incomplete or contingent. Survival always comes with great loss and pain, but--in the end--she survives because YA dystopia gives us hope.

So, Allegiant was a dissatisfying reading experience, but perhaps the act of critique will redeem the  book for me. I can flesh out this dissatisfaction and see if there is something more to it. I can consider more whether the sacrifice of this character was worth it. But I am skeptical and a bit cynical about it. And, upon re-reading Divergent for my Girls on Fire class, I find myself bored and I find the world-making underdeveloped, even as I enjoy the book overall. Still, people are talking about this book and series, and not just because it was made into a movie. And that is at least somewhat satisfying.

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Feminist Fitness in WGS 101

2/23/2015

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In my WGS 101 class, Introduction to Women's Studies, after establishing some basic concepts like the social construction of gender and the meaning(s) of feminism, we consider a variety of topics like health, work, beauty, racism, and family.

This semester I included a video about fitness binaries along with our other readings including a reading about women's health, a chapter from bell hooks' Feminism Is for Everybody, "My Fight for Birth Control" by Margaret Sanger, "If Men Could Menstruate" by Gloria Steinem, and the preface to Inga Muscio's book, Cunt: A Declaration of Independence. These diverse readings provide some historical background and some contemporary issues related to women's bodies and women's health.

This was the first time I have formally introduced the idea of feminist fitness via my research and the ideas developed in my book, Women and Fitness in American Culture. I have given several talks using a version of the power point I made into a video, and have found that while feminism continues to be an "F word" in our culture, people generally respond positively to ideas about feminist fitness.

There is still some confusion over the term, particularly when people assume that feminist is equal to feminine, a common misconception about the term feminist as well. Feminist fitness is not about different approaches to fitness based upon one's biological sex, or even one's socially constructed gender. Feminist fitness is an ideology about fitness--a critical lens for considering mainstream ideas about fitness and a tool for creating fitness beyond the superficial ideals of size and the trends of "elite" fitness.

I asked my students what they think feminist fitness is, and here's what they shared:

"I would say feminist fitness is not working out because someone wants to achieve the body view media portrays women to be, but because they want to be in a healthy state. Feminist fitness helps support one another in achieving a goal and it realizes that everyone’s body is different and we all aren’t going to have the same body type. It is helping others find out what will work best for them and knowing that something that works for you won't work for everyone."

"That is what feminist fitness should be.  Taking care of you so that you can live life to its fullest as it comes along, feeling happy with who you are now."

"I believe 'feminist fitness' is about living a positive life. Striving every day to have a healthy body, mind and spirit by being physically active, consciously in the moment, taking care of yourself by getting enough rest and consuming food that is good for your body."

"I had never heard the term 'feminist fitness' before this class. The most important message and what I found to be at the very core of feminist fitness is the connectedness of the mind, spirit, and body. In general the components are viewed separately and the whole is not taken in consideration for its connectedness. This principal makes me reflect on the idea of synergy and how the whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts. My idea of feminist fitness is a personal and unique level of ability that is idiosyncratic and results in a life full of pushing ones limits and remaining in a state of constant challenge and activity."

"I think 'feminist fitness' is teaching all women young and old that being healthy physically and mentally should be the sole purpose when seeking to become fit. It's saying getting fit shouldn't be about visually pleasing anyone and not to take what the mass media says is fit or acceptable into consideration. It's saying we shouldn't need to look a certain way either when we go to the gym and that we should only dress to be comfortable not to look like we came out of a Dick's Sporting goods magazine. After watching the YouTube video I think the slide stating 'Ultimately, fitness beyond body, beyond binary calls for a feminist approach' hits the nail on the head as to what women's fitness should be about."

"Feminist fitness means many things to me, a healthy life style and body building are my immediate thoughts. When a women works out to maintain a healthy lifestyle that ideal for me. It should not be about the inches in your waist or the size of your butt. We all have different body builds, and should all do some sort of fitness to maintain a healthy balanced life. But, I also think of body building because I find it so fascinating to see the female form pushed to its boundaries. It’s the extreme of what I see in glamour, and it is great in my opinion for a woman to express herself in a way that she sees fit."

"I think it is a women’s intellect and her ability to enjoy quality of life.  Thin does not mean fit as noted in the video and as noted in real life.  Feminist fitness offers a constant contradiction in our society.  I have chosen the idea of mindfulness by adding a daily log of sleep patterns, food and water consumption, exercise and other self-care practices.  I have developed a plan of care for myself, by setting goals and discussing my journey with online classmates in my nursing course."

"I think 'feminist fitness'  is the confidence of a woman.  A woman can be physically fit and still be unhappy, she could have straight A’s and still be unhappy.  Any woman that is confident with herself and what she does with herself to me is feminist fitness.  I watched the video, and it analyzed women in the fitness world, which basically just talks about the sex appeal of a woman.  Women are much more than that.  We are mothers, daughters, sisters, co workers and overall human beings.  We shouldn’t be judged upon appearance, but unfortunately, we are."

"I think feminist fitness is a reality check. The truth verses the myths employed by media. I never realized that fitness was a tool once again being used to deconstruct a women's body image. Why do we continuously have a target on our back??! I swear it seems no matter what the topic is concerning a women, it is taken and deliberately used against us for destruction.......it's making me very f#$%^g  tired! Enough already! We need to wake the fuck up, sleeping women and men (myself included)!!... Ok, now that I have taken a deep breath of release, onward I will go :/"

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Binge and Purge U.S.A.

2/12/2015

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I have always had an unhealthy relationship with food. I learned it from my family, a habit passed down from generation to generation. Besides the fact that we were, generally, a fat family, we were focused on food, rewarded by food. We lived with plenty and what reason did we have to deny ourselves what we wanted? Such a situation is a disease of affluence and a disease that plagues Americans. About 1 in 7 households in the U.S. don't get enough to eat (and eat food of poorer nutritional value), about 14.5%. On the other hand, obesity rates are around 30%. Our social and cultural problems with food mirror our national schizophrenia.

But I never considered this unhealthy relationship as an eating disorder. Eating disorders were anorexia and bulimia. I had seen the after school specials. Later, in women's studies classes, I saw the documentaries--girls and women starving themselves and/or expunging food from their bodies. It was a matter of control, the analysts argued. Under the thumb of overbearing parents, under the shadow of the thin sister, one's own body is the only thing she can control. But anorexia and bulimia are different and there are all sorts of combinations and shades and methods and reasons for such behavior. And sometimes such behavior is not about being acetic; it's an obsessive compulsion. It's not simply about those numbers on the scale. The problems go deeper.

Food is something I can control. In theory. I can decide when to eat, where to eat, and what to eat. But, I can't control myself when it comes to food. I love it too much. And, at times, it substitutes for all sorts of different things including those things I can't control and those things that none of us can control. But mostly, overeating is an unconscious act. And this is yet another problem that plagues the U.S.; we are unconscious in so many things we do. Eating is only one such manifestation. Eating junk is only one thing that is pounded into our heads by media and culture. It's easy to choose not to think too much. The bag is full. pop another one in your mouth.

It's become common knowledge in the last few years that a variety of eating disorders plague the U.S. Statistics about the number of children who think they are fat or who are on diets reflects our culture back to us. For instance, Miss Representation offers the fact: "80% of 10-year-old American girls say they have been on a diet. The number one magic wish for young girls age 11-17 is to be thinner." With the highest rates of obesity and morbid obesity in the world, it is obvious that overeating is becoming more visible as a problem. But this isn't simply about overeating. It's also about health care, poverty, inequality, globalization, education, media, and food security and insecurity. These are complex problems undercut by a billion dollar diet industry, a billion dollar fitness industry, and a load of misinformation and misunderstanding. Where do we begin to sort it all out? And once we do, are our choices that much different?

Recently, I decided that it was time to get perspective on my eating disorder--my compulsive overeating, my binging without purging. When I mentioned the problem to my mother, and said that I was considering seeing a counselor, she confessed that she had talked to a counselor about her issues with bulimia. I was stunned, saddened. I couldn't ask for further details; I didn't know what to say. But it made sense. She was dealing with issues passed down from her parents that were modeled for me so that I was dealing with issues from my parents. And both of us were trapped in a culture that values thinness while also being trapped in a body that prefers soft curves. The issues compounded. And they were weighing me down.

The problems we pass down from generation to generation are weighing on us as a nation. We choose not to question too much what we put in our bodies, just as we choose not to question too much of what we put in our minds. In both cases, our choices are limited, passed down to us by those who have chosen not to witness the corporate take-over of farms, the consolidation of media outlets, the genetic engineering of grains and corn, the surgical and photographic manipulation of bodies and images, the over-fishing of our seas, the mass inundation of technological gadgets, the medicating of our cattle, the medicating of ourselves. These are problems that have compounded and these problems continue to grow. The scales are tipping.

There is no easy fix. I will always struggle with eating only as much as my body needs. Such a relationship with food requires mindfulness, conscious eating, letting go of control, and working out other kinds of problems. It requires breaking old patterns of thinking and unconscious action. This is not the path to healing that our culture models for us. Quick fixes and miracle cures are what we seem to be about. Or we ignore the problem, hoping it will go away. We cover it up with baggy clothes, convince ourselves that we are bloated, swear we'll go to the gym after work. We figure we'll start that diet next week, next month, next year. But we don't often turn to mindfulness, to a conscious relationship with what we take into our bodies or minds out of habit, ignorance, or hopefulness.

When the binging is over, purging is not the only useful method. Before or after the purge, we have to figure out how we got full in the first place.


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The Ups and Downs of Two Pounds...

1/15/2015

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Last fall my American Fitness students participated in a Personal Fitness Reflection assignment. At the beginning of the semester they were asked to identify one thing that they were going to do over the course of the semester for their own personal fitness.

Some had quite ambitious goals like quitting smoking. Others had what could be considered "easy" activities like eating more whole foods, going for a walk twice a week, or getting more sleep. None of these projects was "easy." Regardless, students were not graded on the success or failure of their personal fitness goals or activities.

I don't pose this project in terms of goals because even though some students made the project goal specific and measurable (like improving their mile time), meeting a goal is not the purpose of the project. (Plus, I am just not a goal-setting type of person; I just do it or I don't.) I want students to learn about themselves and to learn about fitness. This project lends itself well to dispelling the "quick fix" idea of fitness. And the students' reflection requires them to consider their Personal Fitness Project and how it relates to class. I love this assignment.

And here is one of my favorite project reflections. This student really speaks to many of my own problems with eating and body image, but what I really love about this reflection is that it was written without the prompt. This student worried about whether she did the assignment right. She had nothing to worry about. Plus, this piece really shows how fit this student is: she is beautiful, smart, thoughtful, caring, passionate, active, and engaged in her community.

I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I did.

My personal fitness project was to loose five pounds by reducing the carbohydrate intake from my diet. It sounded easy enough. Something I could monitor. Something I thought I could do. And so I decided to do this on my very first day of class, September 1, 2014.

Why I chose this weight loss project was on that very September morning, my bathroom scale said 161.8 pounds. This number struck a chord in me. It was 1.8 pounds over my, “you have to stop gaining point.”

I know that weight is just a number. But, it is also a state of mind. We are obsessed with our weight, what we consume and how we exercise. I did not realize this on the first day of class, but I sure do now.

Thin is everywhere! Magazines, TV, store fronts, internet. Everywhere you turn someone is shoving a skinny model at you. Then you start to compare yourself to them and you say OMG I am too big. My jeans don’t fit like that. I need to lose weight!

Every morning, (after I emptied my bladder), I would hop up on the scale and document the entry into my journal. I was obsessed with the number. One day I would be up two pounds the next day down two pounds. Then back up it would go two pounds over the original weight. It was crazy. Getting on the scale was like riding a rollercoaster.

I was exercising as I usually do. Walking the dogs, gardening, taking care of my horses. and taking riding lessons.

I also was monitoring and documenting what carbohydrates did or did not pass over my lips. But this was inconsistent. Some days were real good “no carb days” and others not so good.

My girlfriends would call and we would go out to Margaritas .I would have a couple of drinks and some salty chips and some sort of cheesy Mexican masterpiece and oppps……the scales would rise. For the next few days I would concentrate on the anti-carb diet and the scale would go down.  Every time I turned around there was some other event that involved eating. The fly in up in Greenville, another girls night out (there are a lot of those), The Special Olympics, the Trip to New Mexico, the Federal Women’s luncheon, the Equine affaire (three days of junk food and wine with my horse girlfriends) and  one of the biggest days of all Thanksgiving. Food is ever where and I am weak. I love to eat, I love to spend time with my girlfriends and family and we like to eat, drink and be merry.

What I discovered through my personal project is the sisterhood I share with my girlfriends is worth every pound.  That the obsession of food intake and weight is exhausting and getting on the scale every day is not for me.  I also noticed on some of my heaviest days I felt the fittest.  One such day I had a two hour riding lesson (posting, which is like continuous squats) and the next morning my weight was up but I felt great. I am sure that was the mind body connection of being as one with my horse.  Horseback riding is very good for the soul. Unfortunately, as winter approaches and my riding and gardening stops, and as much as I hate to admit it, I am going to have to increase my exercise to continue with this carbohydrate food frenzy. I am addicted to chips, M&M’s ,wine and margaritas(to name a few)  So, through the winter months I have decided to go to the gym twice a week to increase my exercise and burn the calories I would by riding my horse. Hopefully at the gym, I will achieve that fit feeling I do when taking a riding lesson.  


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Women and Fitness: An Open Letter

11/19/2014

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As a reader of this blog, you're most likely aware that I've written a book about women and fitness. (Click here if you aren't!:) What you may not know is that this book is a unique take on the world of "American fitness" that draws on my life, and at times feels like a really scary personal and professional risk. I am slowly letting go of the anxiety that surrounds publicly sharing my life in and between these two spheres of fitness and academia. This open letter is a part of that process.

And my letting go is slow since I drafted this blog post two months ago....

The reason we write books is to be read. We want to share our message, insights, and research with both an academic audience and a mainstream one. Since I do not have a marketing team behind me, I am relying on my own energy and the generosity of others to help me reach more potential readers and to keep moving this conversation. Many of you have already helped me do this. If you can help me get the word out on Women and Fitness in American Culture, I will return the favor or pay it forward.

Here's what I have been doing and where we might connect:

~I created a website last summer where I share all of my work, connect to resources, and maintain a blog.

~I am writing about my book on my website and through my blog. I have even decided to give the world of Twitter a try. @sarah_hentges

~I created a Facebook page for Women and Fitness in American Culture. Perhaps you will "like" it!

~I have also started an Author page on Amazon and would appreciate reviews that you might do there or on Good Reads or other similar sites.

~I have been working to get people to review my book in academic journals and other forums. If you're interested in this my publisher might send you a book!

~ I will be doing guest blogs like these: Love Average guest blog and Fit is a Feminist Issue guest blog and will be reaching out to a variety of print and online sources to share some of the ideas that this book takes up. If you know of such a forum, please share it with me! Here's a recent piece I wrote about CrossFit for The Conversation.

~When I get my tech needs sorted, I will be making a short promo video to share.

~This fall I am currently teaching my American Fitness (AME/WGS 306) class hybrid and online, and we will be making connections to our local communities through a variety of projects. I will be sharing some of my students' work through my blog. Here's the first post: a lovely piece about walking in three different modes.

~
I'm developing curricular tools for teaching fitness through American studies or women's, gender, and sexuality studies, or interdisciplinary studies more generally. I'm happy to share these!

The world of social media is rather new to me, so I am happy to receive any feedback that might make my work here more effective.

Finally,
~Over the next couple of years I also plan to offer mind and body workshops, both in academia and in fitness and community centers. I have a lot of ideas that range from an hour or two to a weekend or overnight retreat, and some versions that fit better in academia as well as some that work better in community fitness spaces. I outline a few possible fitness workshops on my website (click here for Move and Be Moved: Fitness Workshops for the Mind and Body) and will be adding to these descriptions as I develop more workshops. If you think that your campus or your fitness or community center would be interested in something like this, please contact me and we can work out the details.

~And, of course, the book would make a nice gift for the fitness enthusiast (or novice) in your life. That gift-giving season is upon us! And, yes, I would humbly sign and personalize a copy for such purposes.

Women and Fitness in American Culture is something I was compelled to write despite a lack of time and resources. It comes from my experience in a variety of overlapping fitness communities, of which many of you are already an important part. I want to thank you all for your continuing role in pushing the boundaries of mainstream fitness. This work--mine and ours--is work that I am passionate about and work that I think can be transformative. But I struggle with the idea of "self-promotion" as well as asking for help from others, as much as I am reminded that I am simply doing what I love and sharing my work.

And this is the reason why I do this work in the first place. To Move and Be Moved.

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Three Walks: Sisters, Dogs and Solitude

11/19/2014

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In my "American Fitness: Culture, Community, and Transformation" class this semester, my students do a variety of assignments and projects, including Observation/Analysis Blogs. Over the course of the semester, students do six blogs and choose from a variety of approaches and topics including: website/resource critique; social media critique/participation; product critique; pop culture critique; interview with a fitness professional; tour of a local facility; reflection on a fitness activity.

Over the next few weeks I plan on featuring some of my favorite student blogs here on my Culture and Movement blog. The first is by Christina Williams. Not only does she reflect upon the fitness activity of walking, she also gives us a comparison of the benefits of walking alone, with others, and with a dog.

Of course, I can immediately identify with the act of walking with a dog. So my dog is pictured here, giving the look that means it's time to go....

Three Walks: Sisters, Dogs and Solitude, by Christina Williams

I was recently thinking about some of the different types of company that one can choose to walk with. One can walk with people for company (therefore most likely chatting while walking), one can walk with a dog or other animal and one can walk alone.  My sister was visiting a few weeks ago and I decided to try all three forms to see how they differed from one another. After trying all three I found that they were all pleasurable, but differed in terms of how mentally/emotionally and physically satisfied I felt afterwards.         

My first walk was with my sister and her two children (both under the age of 3). We got a lot of exercise and were able to have a pleasant conversation, but were slowed down by the fact that we had two little ones with us, as well as by the fact that the physical exertion of carrying a child inhibited our pace quite a bit. After completing our walk, I found that I felt well exercised and had, had a nice time, but was unsatisfied mentally. Something was missing, but I wasn't sure what. 

On another day, I went for a walk alone and found it to be not very relaxing. First of all, I had trouble finding the motivation to get out the door since I had so many things to do and there was no one to "kick" me out the door. When I finally got out the door and had started my walk, my mind began working  and continued to work the entire time, trying to solve problems and thinking about homework assignments with due dates that were getting uncomfortably close. As I was thinking about these things (as well as others) my pace would slow until I would find that I was walking at a snail's pace.  When I got home, even though I had enjoyed being out of doors, I didn't feel satisfied physically or mentally because I hadn't gotten enough exercise or mental relaxation.

Later that week, I took my sister's dog, Tighe, for a walk. Now, Tighe is a Border Collie. Border Collies need a lot of exercise, attention and mental stimulation, so I thought that I would change into running clothes "just in case I felt the urge to let him get a run". This thought was disguised under the fact that Tighe needed exercise, it was not until later that I realized that it was really something that I wanted. I had no trouble getting out the door because my motivation was that Tighe needed a walk. We headed down to a dirt road near my house which runs along the Kennebec River. I spent the entire mile down the road thinking about nothing in particular, occasionally speaking to Tighe and concentrating on keeping pace with him. When we turned around and headed back towards my car, I decided that Tighe and I would run the mile back. I know that if it had just been me, alone, I would never have run the entire mile, but instead of focusing on myself, I spent the entire time encouraging Tighe (who, of course, didn't need my encouragement) and after the first few minutes, I was able to just "sit back and relax" watching my legs moving rhythmically underneath me and began to, once again, think about nothing in particular. I came back from that walk, feeling physically and mentally satisfied. I was relaxed, happy and ready for anything!

As I said earlier, I enjoyed and found pleasure in all three of these walks, but I found that if I want to be 100% satisfied with my walk, then I should take a dog along. With a dog for company I can go at whatever pace I wish, I have company, but don't have to talk unless I wish to and I can give encouragement, which in turn, encourages me through the happy look on his face.

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An "Innovation" Theme Out of Context: Fitness and Interdisciplinarity

9/20/2014

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The first year I got involved with my university's colloquium theme was the year that "revolution" was chosen and I was asked to speak on the theme at our annual convocation event. It was exciting to explore this theme in my classes and to share an American studies take on revolution. The next year I found the food theme to be at least as fruitful in the classroom, and the excuse to focus on food meant that we could nourish our minds as well as our bodies. I was less excited by the bioethics theme that followed, but I found myself learning new things and expanding the tried and true topics that have made my classes engaging and challenging.

When our committee settled on "innovation," I wasn't really seeing how "innovation" was anything more than a tool to promote the idea of a linear path of progress that pushes forward in attempts to fulfill mainstream definitions of success, weaving--and sometimes challenging--myths along the way.

But, the theme of innovation nagged at the back of my brain. It got me thinking, and, ultimately this is the point of having an academic theme. Taking innovation out of these obvious contexts of science, technology, and business only makes room for further innovation. Somewhat obviously, innovation in the arts and humanities is coveted. We celebrate innovative filmmakers, innovative artists, innovative writers, innovative thinkers.

I never think about my work as being innovative; I think about it being flexible, dynamic, engaging, challenging, tireless. But seeking new ways of looking at old ideas is certainly innovative (as James Cook confirms for me in his framing of the theme at Convocation), and this is at the heart of my interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship. Interdisciplinary studies are studies in innovation, finding connections in spaces where strict boundaries are drawn, creating new methods and new forms of knowledge.

The innovation theme invites us to think about what we teach and how we teach it, and part of the point of such a theme is to approach it from a variety of angles. A quick search reveals ways of teaching innovation that coalesce with interdisciplinary approaches, like this Mind/Shift list of ways to teach innovation.

While there is a long list of innovative pedagogies, and maybe even a short list of innovative technologies, at play in my teaching, what is most immediately on my mind are my ongoing explorations of fitness in humanities and interdisciplinary contexts. In our AME/WGS 306: American Fitness class this fall, we will consider fitness in a variety of texts and contexts and through an interdisciplinary lens.

We expect to see fitness as a topic in the sciences. Bodies are measurable. Time, distance, expenditure are measurable. And in the social sciences--attitudes, behaviors, and demographics are measurable and comparable and surveys and interviews provide qualitative analyses. Interdisciplinary fields like women's studies considers strong women and women who break gender norms in sports and physical education as well as the ways in which gender is portrayed in magazines, for instance. These approaches produce important insights and a foundation for innovation.

Innovations in fitness are often met with the rigid resistance of minds and bodies trained in certain kinds of movement--linear, purposeful, exacting. People drawn to the linear, competitive aspects of running might be threatened by the choreography and hip movements of a Zumba class. People drawn to dance might resist the regimented movements of weight training or the aggressive nature of kickboxing.

Innovations in scholarship meet similar kinds of resistance. Interdisciplinary inquiry threatens definable boxes and known quantities. Certainly Luddites push back against innovations in technology, ethicists push back against innovations in science, activists push back against innovation in business. When innovation meets at the intersection of fitness and academia, push back is often stillness, a lack of engagement, a quiet anger, a refusal or inability to embrace change let alone the possibility of transformation.

I detail, analyze, and extrapolate many of these fitness innovations in my book, Women and Fitness in American Culture. I also continue to highlight the work of my colleagues in this field through resources on my culture and movement website and features on my blog. My students' blogs and projects this fall will help to make this class--and interdisciplinary inquiries in the realm of fitness--more dynamic and innovative. Those interested in such innovations can join our Google+ Community.

My initially limited view of innovation in business, science, and technology left me with an underdeveloped idea of what innovation means. Innovation challenges norms, disrupts comforts, and shapes expectations. Innovation is now a conscious hammer in my toolbox and I look forward to sharing this tool with my students this fall.

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Women and Hip Hop: Sharing Sources to Shatter Mainstream Limitations

8/13/2014

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I meant to write this blog some time ago, inspired when Be Steadwell (B Steady) performed at UMA in connection with my Hip Hop class and sponsored by our Women Invigorating Curriculum committee and a Presidential minigrant. I have so many passions that it can be difficult to balance them all, and Hip Hop is one of those passions that is a common thread through all I do.

In the academic classroom, across disciplines, I use Hip Hop to talk about all kinds of issues from poverty to power to portrayals of women. In my fitness classes I use Hip Hop to inspire movement including two of my favorite Hip Hop yoga tracks: "Yoga Mat" by Stic Man and anything by MC Yogi. Hip Hop was what inspired me to dance outside the fitness box when I combined it with belly dancing.

But Be Steady's performance reminds me how important it is to promote women in Hip Hop by sharing knowledge of artists who don't get noticed in the narrow halls of mainstream Hip Hop. A recent interview with a graduate student working on a Master's thesis about women in Hip Hop rekindled my desire to share a few artists and observations about women and Hip Hop. But first things first...


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Nicki Minaj and Monsters in the Mainstream

Whenever I teach about Hip Hop, students often argue adamantly that Nicki Minaj is an "empowered" female rapper, and she is often the only example, besides Beyoncé and Rihanna, students can cite. I am not here to argue that Minaj is or is not empowered (especially since empowered can mean many different things); instead, I want to use her as an example of the problems with mainstream American culture and Hip Hop culture. It is no secret that the few women who have found marginal success are conventionally attractive and often use sex to sell themselves and their work (like American culture demands as much as Hip Hop does). My students overwhelmingly cite Nicki Minaj as "proof" that women can succeed in Hip Hop. Many of my students find her to be "strong" or "successful" or "powerful."

Even in a song like "Monster" (Kanye West featuring Jay-Z, Bon Iver, and Rick Ross as well as Minaj), a song that is blatantly misogynistic and highly disturbing, she is seen as holding her own and being empowered. I even had a student post a video on a social media site with only the verse that Minaj contributes and with a very long analysis of the empowering lyrics supported by the image of Minaj's split personalities. When I asked her to contextualize her analysis within the song as a whole, she declined because she didn't think that the bigger context (a video where the only other women are dead, hanging from meat hooks and being dragged around or used sexually) really mattered because of how "empowered" Minaj was in this one part of the song. Later, when her mother asked her not to post such disturbing things because grandma might see, the student removed her post.

Women who want to achieve mainstream success also have to fit stereotypes and so sexual confidence can be exploited just as much as sexual exploitation. For instance, when Nicki Minaj adds her voice to songs by popular male artists, many women see this as positive. They see her as empowered, as playing the game with the big boys, as holding her own. But this empowerment is all in a context where she has to play their game to find a place for herself. For instance, as I was writing this I came across an article where a quote, "I have bigger balls than the boys" is featured in the headline. If the headline doesn't say it all, then the tagline does: "She has a body like Marilyn and a mouth like Eminem. No wonder Nicki Minaj is the hottest female rapper in the world." No matter how big her balls, she will only ever be a female rapper.

Female artists who play this game gain success. Those who don't will stay at the margins or will achieve success only in limited and limiting ways. So, maybe it is actually a positive that women don't gain mainstream success. Maybe this means that female artists aren't willing to play a game that makes them a victim, a margin, a window dressing, a receptacle. Because Hip Hop is a powerful and empowering art form, because it is a form of social and cultural criticism, because it gives voice to the voiceless, maybe mainstream success is not what female rappers should waste their time trying to achieve. Women rappers are already challenging mainstream conventions by their mere existence; their messages do so even more. Women with a voice, women of color with a voice, are a real threat to mainstream America. So, I share these examples because they shatter mainstream perceptions of women in Hip Hop.
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Angel Haze

A student in my classes introduced me to Angel Haze. Her covers of "Same Love" and "Cleaning Out My Closet" take two popular and iconic songs and twist these songs to meet her experience as a black, pansexual female artist. Certainly the mainstream success of "Same Love" has exposed many people to Angel Haze since someone who is searching for Macklemore's song will inevitably find Angel Haze's version. This provides opportunities to educate--in and out of the classroom. When I show students Angel Haze's version of "Same Love," most remark that it is more real, more meaningful then the original. But, the original exploded Macklemore's career for a variety of reasons that speak to the politics of the mainstream. He is white and not gay, so the song is safer and can have "anthem" status. When Angel Haze adds her story to his message, she is exposing the limitations of the mainstream. Her identity, sexuality, and experiences with oppression are in the forefront, amplified with her talent for words.

Mainstream America is not ready for Angel Haze, and yet she recently recorded the theme song for the film 22 Jump Street. Another contradiction--this recording features Ludacris, lending it mainstream validity. In this song, she is singing for most of the song, and when she does rap she is rapping about the film's characters. She isn't seen anywhere in the videos I found for the song and no one listening would guess that she was anything but a "lesser" Nicki Manaj. So, again, mainstream success is limited. But it might be a start!
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Invincible

This picture of Invincible is a powerful statement about women in Hip Hop as well as queer women. When I first saw this picture, it brought tears to my eyes. I bought Invincible's Shapeshifters album, a title that is exactly in line with my passions for flexibility, interdisciplinarity, and transformation. "Shapeshifters" and "Sledgehammer" are my two favorite tracks and I use them in academic and fitness spaces often. Invincible opens "Shapeshifter" with: "Music's not a mirror that reflects reality/ it's a hammer/with which we shape it." Taking this popular revolutionary phrase and adapting it to her purpose speaks to the power we have to shape culture if not also reality.

Her politics are clear through her lyrics, but more so through her community activism and the larger picture of the projects in which she collaborates. A co-founder of Emergence Media, she produces her own music as well as videos about topics like women in Hip Hop and gentrification in Detroit. She's also involved with Detroit Summer, "a multi-racial, inter-generational collective in Detroit that is transforming communities through youth facilitative leadership, creativity and collective action" and other such social justice work. Her music plus her activism only strengthens the hammer.
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Eekwol

I don't remember how I came across Eekwol, an indigenous artist whose songs speak to experiences of colonization, violence, and freedom. Her songs "Too Sick" and "I Will Not Be Conquered" provide perspectives that "represent the truth." As her ReverbNation profile notes, "she holds a lifelong background of Plains Cree Indigenous music and culture, and invites the audience into a space of experimental hip hop unique to her land and place while respecting the origins of hip hop." Eekwol's work raises consciousness and connects communities.

She also speaks to the roles of women in mainstream Hip Hop in this interview/video that was created as a part of a seminar/presentation and a teaching tool for use in high schools. In educational settings, these artists can be used to make connections to our communities as much as they can be used to raise individual students' consciousness. Artists like Eekwol and Invincible combine art and politics in powerful ways.
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Be Steady

Which leads me full circle to Be Steady, an artist I discovered via Words Beats & Life. I started watching her videos and songs and fell in love with her. I didn't really imagine that I would be able to bring her to UMA to perform. I was almost surprised when I booked her so easily. At first she seemed shy and humble, so when she started singing, and her voice filled our little event room, I was speechless. The first few minutes of her performance and her first song "Worthy," hooked the audience. (Fast forward a couple of minutes through my awkward intro and movement of the camera!) I often play this haunting song over and over.

From there, the performance unfolded with songs combined with commentary about her music--the art and the subject matter. She fielded questions from the audience and wove her answers into her performance. She addressed everything I hoped she would address--including questions of identity and sexuality. (Click here for part two of Be's performance). My students were so energized by her visit and shared her music with other students and through social media. Be Steadwell was an amazing performer, but because she was a down-to-earth person, her work reached students even more. Will she gain mainstream success writing songs about her love for girls? Probably not. Will her fans continue to love her music? Will she continue to evolve as an artist, to connect communities, and inspire people? Outside the mainstream, such growth and transformation are possible.

Hip Hop cannot be contained by the mainstream as much as mainstream representations limit what people know about Hip Hop. Our heroes circulate in different spaces. None of these women have messages that mesh with mainstream American expectations let alone the narrow confines of women and Hip Hop. But they are changing Hip Hop as much as their work is transforming minds and lives. All we have to do is listen... and pass it on.
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Girls on Fire: My Obsession with YA Dystopia

8/10/2014

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My newest research venture is, by default, YA Dystopia. And "by default" I mean because I am completely obsessed with dystopia in general, but I am particularly addicted to YA dystopia with female protagonists. I call these my "crack books" because I quite literally cannot stop reading them. I can't stop reading without concerted effort and when I put down one and pick up another. Life isn't the same without being engaged in this other world for part of the time. And so of course that obsession extends itself into a kernel for teaching and research.

My real interest in dystopia came via Octavia Butler's novels and Star Trek fantasies (next Gen, of course!). My YA obsession began, predictably, with the Hunger Games. Before I was a third of the way through I ordered the next two books because I didn't want to have any interruption in my reading experience. I read straight through. And I had to find more. I worried I would never find another  reading experience like HG. While I read plenty of books that did not fall into this "narrow" category, some related and some not, I read books like the Birthmarked trilogy and the Chemical Garden trilogy and my less favorite works that focus more on boys: the Maze Runner Trilogy and the Ender's Game series. But there is so much more!

When I began to find monotony in the plot and characters/characteristics of the protagonists, I was floored when my friend forwarded me a link to a blog via Bitch Magazine. This was exactly what I had been looking for, hoping for, longing for--books that had protagonists who were girls of color. Visions of the future that consider how race, ethnicity, and identity are factors in the future. This discovery is what sparked my interest in looking at YA Dystopia as more than just an obsessive fan. There is way too much to explore (and that's exciting!).

In the spring of 2015 I will be teaching an online topics course called "Girls on Fire: Gender, Culture, and Justice in YA Dystopia." When I proposed this course one of my colleagues suggested I spell out what "YA" is. Half joking, I told him that anyone who doesn't know what YA is, I don't want them in this course! There are so many other  readers out there who are interested in this genre and read just as--or almost as--voraciously as I do. I know this class will be in demand.

This interdisciplinary course is cross-listed between American studies, English, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies and will consider the topics in the title as well as race, community, power, sexuality, technology, the environment, politics, etc. I am excited about the projects that we will engage with to explore this rich body of work. I'll be teaching online and developing resources related to the genre, including a guide to the best books.

Inevitably I'll be working on a book project related to this work as well. In many ways it mirrors the body of work that I explored in my first book, Pictures of Girlhood: Modern Female Adolescence on Film. YA Dystopia has many of the same themes--coming of age, absent parents, violence, limited representations, etc.--but it also has the context of the future and the bigger picture of the fate of the world (or at least a little piece of that world). These "girls on fire" give us hope in the present for the future.


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Additions and Reconsiderations: Red Nails, Black Skates

7/14/2014

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Whenever I finish a project, when what I've written/birthed/sweated out goes off to the publisher, I start to find more sources that would be "perfect." I lament not finding them before I was finished even though I could not have included another source. In fact, the last of my writing process for my last book--and most things I write--is cutting out the excess, polishing the product.
 
There was a lot to cut from Women and Fitness in American Culture. It went through many incarnations and there was so much "perfect" evidence. But that doesn't mean that there weren't sources that would have been helpful, insightful, even key to the crux of my argument. The fact that there are always more examples to add to the mix speaks to the flexibility of interdisciplinary studies as well as the subject at hand.
 
Red Nails, Black Skates: Gender, Cash, and Pleasure On and Off the Ice is a book I not only highly recommend, but also wish I would have discovered before my book was written--for my own personal and professional reasons.
 
It is really quite ridiculous that I did not discover this book during my extended research process. In fact, as I scratch at the reaches of my brain, I am pretty sure that I clicked right past it. At one point I decided that I needed to narrow my scope of research, to only tangentially consider "sport." I wanted to consider sport mostly as it stood in for "fitness," as it narrows the overall quality of fitness to an athletic/competitive activity that relies upon the mastering of a set of specific skills. I remember scrolling by thinking "skating" is not "fitness." And it's not, but I didn't imagine at the time just how relevant skating is, at least in the context of Rand's work.

Since author, Erica Rand, is practically my neighbor and is a friend of a colleague of mine, and since I am pretty sure said colleague mentioned this book to me at one point, it is simply a travesty that I did not pick it up. Her arguments about pleasure, social justice, and queer bodies and queer approaches and spaces would have been helpful to round out some of my less developed arguments. For instance, while I write about the term "pleasure" scaring away participants, Rand boldly writes a whole chapter on the connection of skating and pleasure titled, "Skating Is Like Sex, Except When It Isn't" and in the first paragraph she proceeds to provide the best definition/description of sex I have ever read:

        For me, skating is a lot like sex. It's at once hot, intense, smooth, and sweet. It involves control, in ways that mix taking         and yielding it. It's rhythmic, you can improve with practice, little things can make all the difference, it can feel like flying,         and when it really works it's intensely in-body and out-of-body at the same time (46).

While I apologize, Rand embraces.

But the biggest reason I lament my oversight is that Erica Rand's book is so much like mine at the same time that it is so different from mine. It would have been helpful to have her book in a kind of role model/mentor kind of way. So many things that I was afraid to do with my book--tell my story (even the personal details), use myself as a research subject, put my body on display beside the product of my brain--Rand does with confidence, poise, and insight. She owns her work in a way that I want to own my work.
 
Even the structure/approach of my work has similarities to Rand's book. When I read her "Introduction: Skate to Write, Write to Skate," I felt like we had parallel projects. The thoughtful subtitles, the process laid bare, the personal narrative, the connection between the spheres of academia and physical embodiment/engagement, and the desire to reach audiences beyond academia, are all qualities that our work shares. She lays it out with confidence.
 
I lay it out with trepidation--a different language, a less-definable subject (skating is more concrete, fitness is diverse and abstract), an exploratory method, a distilling of theory, a weaving of less defined voices and more abstract ideas. I am still in the process of understanding how to do critical interdisciplinary work; and interdisciplinary theory and methodology will be one of my next research projects.

But, ultimately, for both of our works, transformation is the impetus. In conclusion Rand writes about "the principle of ethical fieldwork: Don't take from communities you study without giving back" (261). This is a principle that is embodied in my dual spheres of fitness and academia; for both of us, "fieldwork" is also life. She also reminds me that "there is not one single way to effect change ... in the rink only" or "to participate in anti-oppression struggles across categories of race, gender, sexuality, economics, and nation" (261). Academia and activism, pleasure and politics do not have to be binaries.
 
Our endings are even similar. She notes, "we need to get out there and do the work. And still, then again . . ." (261), while I note "if we are willing to do the work(out)." But neither of us can let that be the last word. I turn to final relaxation/rejuvenation. She turns to correcting a myth (that I perpetuate)--that Emma Goldman never actually said: "If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution." But, Rand argues, she did express this sentiment. And to this sentiment, Rand adds, "And sparkle."
 
Next installment of additions and reconsiderations: Hanne Blank, The Unapologetic Fat Girl's Guide to Exercise: And Other Incendiary Acts.

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Octavia E. Butler: Racing the Future

6/12/2014

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Anyone who knows me also knows that I am an obsessive Octavia Butler fan. I have read and re-read all of her books. And I plan to read them all again and again! The first book I read was Dawn and I was instantly hooked. Her work spoke to me in ways that I will continue to explore as long as I have her books to read and people to share them with. I take every opportunity to teach Octavia Butler's works in my classes, and my students quickly recognize my passion for Butler's work.

This is one reason why I was so excited to see the formation of the Octavia E. Butler Society, an organization I hope to get involved with in the near future. Among other things, the OEB Society maintains a page that includes, for instance, highlights from academic conferences, a blurb about the release of unpublished stories, and the speculation about making Bulter's works into films.

As others have noted, when I have read and re-read Butler's books I have wondered why no one has ever made these books into movies. And I know what the short answer is: because they feature black people--particularly black women--as the protagonists. So, as much as I want to see these films, I am also scared of what Hollywood would do to them. Octavia Butler's books are about black people; as an extension, they are books about all of us. For too long people of color have been expected to extrapolate a future based upon white narratives. If we are willing to engage with the spirit of speculative fiction, there is no reason why black people's experiences--real or imagined--can't shape a (better?) future for all of us.

(My secret fantasy is that I might someday write the Parables screenplay. Now it is not so secret, but will most likely still remain a fantasy!)

Another post on the OEB Society site "People of Color in the Future" speaks to my current research project/obsession. While I am a pretty average white girl, the lack of people of color in science fiction, speculative fiction, and dystopia fiction is disturbing for a variety of reasons. The richness offered to speculative fiction by narratives that overtly tackle the question of, and issues related to, race is promising--to life as well as art.

Anyone interested in books that imagine a future for people of color should definitely check out Victoria Law's blog for Bitch Magazine, "Girls of Color in YA Dystopia." I have been devouring this reading list and there are so many interesting aspects to talk about. And my students and I will do this next spring in my "Girls on Fire: Gender, Culture, and Justice in YA Dystopia" online class!


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    Sarah Hentges

    I am a professor and a fitness instructor. I work too much, eat too much, and love too much. To borrow from Octavia Butler, I am "an oil and water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive." Because my work is eclectic, so are the topics I write about.

    During 2018-19, I will be focusing on blogging about my adventures as a Fulbright in Denmark, teaching American Studies courses and doing research about Danish culture and fitness and yoga.

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