Not ever

I'm in a victim advocacy class this week.

Not Ever

a quickie

how would it change our concept of beauty if actresses went without make up more often?

No Make Up

Black Beauty - an oxymoron?

In the article, "Black women ugly? Says who? " Granderson responds to a post on Psychology Today titled, "Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?" The post drew a great deal of criticism and was removed from the website. Highlights from Granderson's commentary on this post:
-Culture publications such as People and Maxim struggle to include black women in their annual most-beautiful listings, but at least their editors don't try to justify their choices under the guise of science.
-The westernized standard of beauty has not only haunted some black women into buying cream to bleach their skin but prompted some Asian-Americans to undergo surgery to make their eyes more European looking.
-A system that declares one set of physical attributes as the standard to which a multiethnic society must adhere is destructive.
-The statistics say 42% of black women have never been married.
-Their sass is a constant source of comedic relief, but rarely are they seen as complete human beings, to be romanced or capable of being vulnerable.
-The wounds that hurt the most don't come from enemy lines but friendly fire. It comes from black men who know enough to respect the black women who are their mothers but not the black women who are their lovers. They fail to see the disconnect.
-The truth is Kanazawa's post doesn't hold a candle to the amount of damage black men continue to do to the image of black women ourselves.

After reading this article it was interesting for me, being black and white, to consider whether black women are considered beautiful. I have heard some men and women say they think black women are beautiful and exotic. As little boys, my husband and his brother used to dream of marrying tall, dark, beautiful black women with large afros. But then I think about how black women view themselves. Me, for example. I can have really nice curly hair, but I prefer the look (and maintenence) of my hair when it's straight. I have gotten compliments on my curly hair, but I always feel like it's not as pretty as when it is straight.
In 1954, psychologist Dr. Kenneth Clark conducted an experiment to see how black children viewed race. In this study he put two dolls in front of each child. The dolls were identical in everyway except for their skin color. One doll was white, the other black. Clark asked the children to pick which doll they liked best and the overwhelming majority chose the white doll. This was not too surprising back in 1954 given segregation laws. Recently, a young women conducted the same experiment. She documented this experiment in a documentary called "A Girl Like Me"



What do you think?
-Do you find yourself thinking women of color are not as beautiful?
-If you do find black women beautiful, what physical characteristics seem attractive? Do white women share those physical characteristics?
-What other characteristics define beauty?
-How does the clark doll experiment make you feel? How does this affect the way you would raise your children?

I really didn't want to blog about Kate Middleton...

Disney's Princesses

So I wanted to take a moment to talk about the princess theory. I recently read an article that said little girls are not interested in Kate Middleton because she is not meeting their standards for being a princess. An example of these standards include; being confined to a castle with a beast, being oppressed by evil step sisters and step mother, pining away in a tower with long flowing hair. At first this seemed obvious to me. What is interesting to a little girl about a lack luster real life version of poor girl makes it big? Should it be interesting? Should little girls value the prospect of being swept away into a rich overly publicized lifestyle of pomp and circumstance? Probably not. It doesn't even seem fun to me at my age! I, like almost every other girl, am a hopeless romantic. I don't like to admit it, but my head tends to stay in the clouds when it comes to love and romance. I don't even like chick flicks (except for those few that make me cry and wish some guy would express his love for me in some goofy public display). But I still hope to be swept off my feet! I must include at this moment that I am very happily married, and my husband makes me feel preciously loved. So even the happily married ladies seek it out!

So why am I, as an adult (questionable) hopeless romantic female not AT ALL interested in the Kate Middleton story? Is anyone else not as enamored with this whole thing as me? I tried to put my finger on it. Maybe it's because this marriage has not really been about love. Now, I am not in a place to say whether Kate and William are in love truly madly deeply. But in the short clips on the news that I caught it's not about the love... it's about the ring, the dress, the date, the flowers, the sister, the sister's dress, oh and let's not forget to compare Kate to Diana. I know this is a function of the press trying to feed the monster that is the superficial public. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in what Kate's wedding dress looked like. Hi, I'm MISSed and I googled Kate's wedding dress photos. But this wedding, this marriage, does not look like a happily ever after to me. More than once while watching the hype on TV the week before the wedding I sincerely felt bad for Kate, I thought "How could she possibly be happy?" "This isn't even about her" Can you imagine being Kate? How many of those wedding decisions do you think she actually had a say in? Hopefully you only get one wedding, and that was it for her.

What do you think ladies? Is Kate really living a fairy tale? Should little girls be more interested in her pauper to princess story?

I've attached some eye candy to appease your material needs-

The 'Slut' Movement

I was reading an article on Times.com about a global movement to change to usage of the term "slut". Essentially, the term has commonly been used to describe women who deserved, or were asking to be, sexually assaulted or raped ("Did you see the way she was dressed? She was asking for it", "She obviously wanted to"). The article is pretty interesting. Apparently, during a student safety lecture at a college in toronto, a Constable claimed that women could avoid sexual assault if they avoided dressing like a "slut". A group of students were so offended that they staged a "slut walk" to protest. SlutWalks are now going on around the world. Check out their site to find a SlutWalk near you. The intent of the SlutWalk is to build awareness of the unfair treatment of women because of the way they are perceived.

What do you think?

I think we can all agree that no one (male or female) deserves to be assaulted no matter how they dress or act.

However, do you feel that women put themselves at risk by dressing provocatively, and do they deserve to be treated differently because of the way that they dress? Example: should a women in a tube top and mini skirt be treated the same in court as a women in a suit?

In addition to that, do you think it's possible for our society to have a blind eye and NOT judge people by the way they dress?

Birth Works: why don't we know it?

What better a way to celebrate Mother's Day than to attend a lecture by the nation's leading midwife?!

I had the privilege of attending Ina May Gaskin's talk entitled "Birth Works; why don't we know it" at Town Hall this past weekend. For those of you who aren't familiar with Ina May, she is considered to be the mother of modern midwifery. As part of a group of young hippies that were living off of a large plot of land in Tennessee called "The Farm", she started attending births for women living on "The Farm" with no medical training. She had grown up on a farm herself and had seen how birth can be a very natural process that does not always require medical interventions. In the beginning she was very lucky in that none of the births she attended had any complications and went very smoothly. Soon a local physician heard about her and offered to teach her some of the basics so that she would be prepared. She eventually became a certified professional midwife (CPM) and has attended over 1200 births. She has written multiple books that have become some of the most commonly read literature for expecting mother's around the world.

I wish I had a video clip to share with you from her talk, but all I have are a few key notes:

1. We can learn a lot from animals. Animals give birth in the wild without help all of the time. Watching them can be a valuable learning experience in trusting your body and it's ability to create something wonderful that it can also give birth to in a wonderful way. Here are a couple of AMAZING videos of some impressive mothers in the animal kingdom. WARNING: not for the faint of heart!

Elephant Birth

Chimpanzee Birth

2. Women in recent history have begun to fear aspects of giving birth. This fear started out as a fear of interventions and medical equipment, and now women fear their own bodies and rely on medical interventions and equipment.

3. All women deserve a supportive environment during birth despite her economic status or ethnicity. This requires being surrounded by people who support her and her wishes, encourage her, and empower her. Check out the MAMA Campaign.

Finally, all this to say that every women is entitled to her own vision of what birth should look like for her. A completely "natural" childbirth is not for everyone, and medical interventions can be very necessary and have saved many lives. Be empowered to envision birth however you want it, and surround yourself with people who support that! But above all else, research your options and their positives and negatives. Be educated and empowered!

Happy Mother's Day- what are Mom's worth?

(Reuters) - "If the typical stay-at-home mother in the United States were paid for her work as a housekeeper, cook and psychologist among other roles, she would earn $138,095 a year, according to research released on Wednesday.

This reflected a 3 percent raise from last year's $134,121, according to Salary.com Inc, Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts.

The 10 jobs listed as comprising a mother's work were housekeeper, cook, day care center teacher, laundry machine operator, van driver, facilities manager, janitor, computer operator, chief executive officer and psychologist, it said.

The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, it said, working 40 hours at base pay and 52 hours overtime.

A mother who holds full-time job outside the home would earn an additional $85,939 for the work she does at home, Salary.com.

Last year she would have earned $85,876 for her at-home work, it said.

Salary.com compiled the online responses of 26,000 stay-at-home mothers and 14,000 mothers who also work outside the home."

Killing Us Softly

I believe this is the documentary that Katie mentioned in our interview a few days ago.

It's a little bit old, but still very pertinent to us today.

What do you think?

Do you think there are professions women should not do?

I ran into Katie at a wine tasting event and decided to ask her about her profession as a teacher.

Highlights from Katie's interview:

1. women do not naturally gain as much respect automatically in certain professions such as being a cop.

2. our society does a huge disservice for girls' self confidence.

-our society, through media, perpetuates this perception to be perfect which starts even in 2nd grade.

-this is more of a girl problem because there is more pressure for girls in our society to maintain body image

-Killing Me Softly Documentary

3. every girl living in america feels this pressure

4. different rates of growth (ex; katie being smaller than other kids) are treated like a concern, which can mess with a kids' self confidence growing up

Favorite quote: "...everyone does not have to look the same, and there's beauty in that, and there's beauty in being unique..."

Thanks Katie for a great interview!

Why we have too few women leaders

Highlights from Sheryl Sandberg's talk:

-Out of 190 heads of state, 9 are women

-only 15-20% of women are at the top of large agencies/businesses

-only 1/3 of married women in the workforce have children, while 2/3 of married men in the workforce have children.

1. sit at the table

-women underestimate their own abilities

-women do not negotiate for themselves in the workforce

-men attribute their success to themselves, women attribute their success to others

-success and likeability are positively correlated for men, and negatively correlated for women

2. make your partner a real partner

-in a dual income household, typically the woman does twice the amount of housework and three times the amount of childcare compared to the man

-couples that have the same income are half as likely to get divorced

3. don’t leave before you leave

-once a woman begins thinking about having a child, she takes on less responsibilities and opportunities

- your job needs to be really challenging, enjoyable, and rewarding to be motivated to go back to work after having a child

-keep your foot on the gas pedal until you know you are having a child

What do you think?

I'm starting with the basics

Things every woman should know:

-what she looks like

-how her cycle works

-she is wonderful