Souriya

LAYAL RABAT

tw: rape

Souriya, Souriya, land of Syriacs and Assur

How many years must you suffer this curse?

I’ve been watching them starve, torture, and rape you for three years,

Tell me what to do, help me please.

Your temples of gods of all genders, shapes, sky, earth, fire, wind, moon, and sun,

destroyed and consolidated to only include the angry one.

I cannot speak for your daughters, I’ve been away for too long,

But their mournful cries haunt my dreams with their song.

Souriya, why do men treat you this way? Is it because you’re a woman they cannot oppress?

I grew up in a family of strong educated women,

I cannot believe how far you’ve regressed.

Souriya, your fields are dry,

The farmer cannot feed the children,

And he knows why.

Your rural citizens tried to join the city folk,

Unwelcomed they felt, so they decided to revolt.

You sure are developed! You’ve joined the modern age! 


With your own resources you’ve built up your own cage

My body is my own inside joke

MELLIE MACKER

"I finally have the body that I want. I'm going to tell you the secret to getting the body that you want. You just have to want a shitty body." Louis CK, Shameless

My mom once asked me why I go running sometimes. Jogging, whatever. Briskly walking--same thing, who gives a shit.

"That's not good for you, with all that weight on your chest, you could really get hurt!" Then she bounced her hands up and down in front of herself, miming housecats bouncing into the air and plummeting to the ground.

She's right. Running is bad for me; it must if it hurts this goddamned much. All people who work out and claim that they "feel energized" afterwards are bullshitters. The only reason people say shit like that is to force them to hear their own lies and then subsequently believe them.

"Are you running to get in shape?" No, mom. Truly. I obsess over my diet because it's genuinely interesting and fun. I too am a gullible self-liar and I've fooled myself into believing that kale and quinoa don't taste like houseplant and mulch. I have been a vegan/ovo-lacto pescatarian/ pollo-pescatarian (but dairy free!)/"I only gnaw on the bones of reptiles"/FULL ON CARNIVORE more times than I can count. But that shit comes with recipes, fun activities that don't make you question whether your heart has actually exited your chest cavity. 

Of course, the drastic and ridiculous changes in my diet often originate from my desire to wear actual human pants (They Look Like Jeans But They're Not Even Pants: The Mellie Macker Story), or my occasional insane whimsy to be hot enough for a fictional character portrayed by Matthew McConaughey, but my foray into the Mysterious World of Gymnasia stems from something.

You see, deep in my core I know that the zombie apocalypse is nigh, my friends. That may be a slight overstatement.

Instead, let’s say that I have a conversation with myself every time to decide to go for a run:

“What if the zombies come tomorrow? You can’t die immediately! You need to see what that shit looks like.”

“But I don’t want to go running.”

“Fine, then you can die at them hands of a far-fetched hypothetical situation. Just don’t blame me when you reawaken as a flesh-hungry undead biological travesty.”

“... Okay, I’ll get my sneakers.”

Despite my strange relationship with my body and my size, my motivation to engage in mobile activity or healthy lifestyle doesn’t usually originate from the loathing of my corporeal experience. The loathing generally surmounts to zero results, because I enjoy wading through the tribulation of my body mass index. That shit is funny later when I remember how miserable I was over this thing that I have theoretical control over. But that is just funny for me, not for you.

My body is my own inside joke.

Running, with or without my heels

HEATHER MAHER

When I was a little girl my mother always used to tell me “If you’re pretty on the inside, you’ll be pretty on the outside”. This simplified sentiment that “it’s what is on the inside that counts”, came to mind recently when I was busy fixing my makeup in the mirror before going out.

I have spent a considerable amount of time critiquing my body. I have fought the constant, nagging feeling that what I’ve got going on is just not enough. Some parts wiggle, some sag. For years I felt pressure to look a certain way and to be ashamed if I didn't fit within the tiny box of what is socially acceptable. When I went out on the weekends and didn’t put on the cute dress and make up, I felt I wasn't doing what women are supposed to do.

I was supposed to buy into the photoshopped images by manufacturing industries trying to make a few bucks at women’s expense.  Even after becoming aware that a lot of my body negativity was created by popular culture’s unattainable beauty standards, I still struggled with accepting my physical self. I was beating myself up for what reason? Who was benefitting from my internal struggle? Was it making me happier? Did this self-hatred give me more friends or make me more successful?

Several months ago, in an attempt to improve my image of self, I decided to try viewing my body from a different angle. Keeping things like appreciation and doing what feels good in mind, I have found ways to quiet the demons.

How many amazing things can my body do? So many. I have scaled seemingly impossible, rocky cliffs and marveled at the view from the top. I ride my bike effortlessly everyday in this superb southwest city. If I wanted to run a marathon, I know that my body would take me there. The privilege that comes with being an able bodied woman can lead to taking the simplest of things for granted. Not everyone can climb a flight of stairs or even get out of bed. Remembering how lucky I am to be able to do limitless things with my body makes the extra squish around my thighs inconsequential.

When I began to focus on what was beneficial for my body and mind more than what I thought made me look good to others, I found a well of confidence. I made the decision to be the only voice telling me whether or not what’s in the mirror is okay. This choice truly made me feel happier and more beautiful.

I know that exercising regularly makes me feel strong and reduces my stressors. Drinking water before my coffee in the mornings helps me wake up and I start my day out alert. Getting tipsy and eating an entire bag of cheese popcorn on the light rail with my friend feels pretty damn amazing too.

This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy getting dolled up, because I do sometimes. Occasionally, those stereotypical “girly” things do make me feel good. What changed was the source of validation. Before, it was all about doing what looked right to the world. My thoughts on my appearance only mattered in how best I could identify a “problem area” and attack it. Who cared if I couldn’t walk in those shoes, to forgo them was not an option.

Now, if I change something after looking in the mirror, it is because I truly want to, to please myself. My goal is to feel good about the choices I make with my body and I love all the things I can do with it.

Forgetting the body

KAT ZUBKO

My awareness of my body primarily comes from the weather. I enjoy the Phoenix summer because it gives me occasion to remember my body. I love the extreme heat that makes me sweat, makes me uncomfortable so that I seek out the cool of an air-conditioned house or business.

The blazing light reminds me to cover my eyes with sunglasses, so that I may be able to see better when I am driving. I noticed, upon reflection, that I think about my body far less once the heat of the summer subsides. When I sit outside in the winter, the weather is pleasant. 

Nothing moves me to go indoors. At times like those, during the winter time, I only become aware of my body when I am sick or my muscles are sore from working.

It strikes me as a little bizarre that the weather or an illness are the main things that remind me of my embodiment. As a genderqueer, female-bodied person, I am often surprised by how little I think about my body. The way that I dress and the way I groom and care for my body does not conform to society’s standard of what a woman should look like, so why do I think about my body and my embodiment so little? 

The answer is complicated. It is personal and it is societal. Thinking back, I can remember a time when I was acutely aware of my body. When I was about 13 or 14 years old, I tried very hard to conform to what I thought a woman ought to look like. I wore makeup; I wore woman’s clothes and jewelry. I was extremely conscious of the way my body looked. I wondered daily whether or not my face and hands were feminine enough, whether or not I was thin enough. I made every effort to perform the gender that I thought my body dictated and I always felt uncomfortable and self-conscious doing it. 

Over a period of years, I slowly moved away from a feminine presentation to a masculine one. I never made a conscious decision to do this. Instead, I arrived at the presentation I wanted gradually. While this happened, my mannerisms slowly changed as well. I began to carry myself differently, take up space differently. I never had particularly feminine mannerisms to begin with, but, over time, I began to behave in a more masculine way. My body, apparently, seamlessly and unconsciously responded to the gender that I wanted to project. 

While I was in college, other people seldom made me aware of my appearance. The college I attended was, in many ways, a very queer environment and certainly supportive of gender variance. Once I returned to Phoenix, however, I noticed that people would often stare at me, especially if they became unsure as to whether or not I was a man or a woman. The looks that people would give me again made me acutely aware of my body. I noticed that I was a gender non-conforming person in a largely heteronormative environment. This was disquieting at first, but eventually I learned to ignore people staring at me. 

Eventually I arrived at the state that I’m in today, a state of seldom thinking about my body. The personal reason for this is that, as a defense mechanism, I began ignoring other people’s evaluation of my body and whether or not it is transgressive. The other thing that enables me to forget about my body, for lack of a better term, is my privilege. As a white person, I am not made aware of my skin color, and consequently my body, on a daily basis in the course of my interactions with other people. Although I am still female-bodied, I haven’t conformed to conventional standards of appearance for women for some time. This has effectively removed my body as an object of evaluation based on these standards, whether men or women direct this judgment at me. These factors afford me the privilege of being able to forget about my body, something that many people do not have. It also leaves me in a strange position: if I do nothing to make myself more aware of my body, by doing yoga, for example, I can go days or weeks without thinking about my body. That is, until the weather heats up again.

Adolescent orangutan

KHARLI MANDEVILLE

Attention: By order of the President of the Ittie Bitty Titty Committee, I hereby deem small tits … SEXY AS FUCK.

I was appointed to the esteemed position of IBTC President by the eighth grade boys of my junior high during P.E. as they sat behind me singing a song they wrote about my 32A, mid-pubescent breasts to the rest of the class.

God, I wish I could remember how that song went. I think it was actually pretty witty. Though I look back and laugh now, in truth, I spent the majority of the afternoon sobbing in the girl’s bathroom.

I sat on the floor, leaning against one of the stalls, and I kid you not, one of the janitors walked in, led me by the hand toward the full-length mirror, and told me to look myself in the eye and say, “I am beautiful.”  I felt absolutely ridiculous, but I did stop crying and walked back to join the rest of my classmates in reading The Hobbit.

In high school, my guy friends showed up outside my house one morning as my friends and I had a sleepover. They stood outside throwing rocks at my window. I woke up and leaned out to talk to them – totally trying to be flirty and cute. I wasn’t wearing a bra and flashed everything I had upstairs in their direction. They called me “Orangutan Titties” for the rest of the year, which is totally funny now but devastated my overly sensitive teenage heart.

The funny thing is that I’m the only woman (of many) in my family who boasts less than a C-cup. However, I’m also the only woman in my family who spent their entire adolescence and beyond dancing ballet – but once I realized this, I started to feel a little bit better about my body, which could twirl and jump and glide across a stage with ease.

But I still wore Victoria’s Secret push-up bras. I wanted to look older – more mature.  I wanted to be sexy in the way I thought sexy was supposed to look. I wanted cleavage. And I wanted boys to think I was sexy – because--duh--boys like boobs, so they have to be big, right? And it wasn’t until I entered my twenties that it all Just. Finally. Clicked:

I DIDN’T HAVE TO WEAR A BRA.

My flower-power grandmother, who also encouraged me never to shave, had been telling me this for years. What use do I have for a bra? I run, and it doesn’t hurt. I don’t need any lift – those suckers perk up all on their own. And, dude, nipples are sexy. Especially when it’s raining. And it doesn’t matter their shape or size. The boyfriends I’ve had throughout my life have been telling me that for years – but for far too long I let my insecurities drown out their reassurance.

I’m not going to lie, sometimes I still catch a profile of my body in the mirror and feel adolescent – like I’m still waiting to grow into myself. I sometimes wonder if my cup size is why my age is often mistaken for 18 (I’m 25).

But I never feel more sexy than braless in a summer dress. I feel even sexier when I’m braless and dancing. Orangutan titties? Sure. Whatever. I know I dance better than an ape.

And P.S as a born and raised Phoenician, I can tell you that braless is the surest way to catch a much-needed breeze on 120-degree afternoons. 

When shit happens, let shifts happen

IRA BOHM-SANCHEZ

With tears in his eyes, he looked at me and asked, “Ira, if you like boys and girls, why would you get a sex change?” I explained that who you are and who you like are two different things and that, as a gay man, he should understand how that also plays out in his life. Truth is, I didn’t always like girls, boys, the people in between, and the people beyond. Growing up, I thought men were just plain gross. My uncle would sit me on his lap and say, “Dame un beso, por favor.” I’d reply, “No, your face is prickly, and it makes my face itch.”

As I got older, I felt the same way about men romantically, without realizing that men and women have all kinds of bodies. Fast forward to the age of 19, YouTube in full screen mode acted as my night light when I stayed up for days watching trans man after trans man discuss his experience on testosterone. The amount of information overwhelmed me while I tried to figure out what route would be best for me. I thought to myself, “Well, I really want the muscle gain, but I also really don’t want all of the body hair.” Unfortunately, hormones work less like fast food joints and more like strict parents in that “you get what you get, and you don’t make a fit.”

Puberty can act as an uncomfortable catalyst for maturation, emotionally and physically. As I did my research, young men all over the globe voiced their concerns about a variety of changes they didn’t expect to experience. There is a fear in some trans male circles that testosterone increases the likelihood that one will be gay. I assumed that this was simply impossible since I used to subscribe to the idea that gay folks are born gay and stay gay, forever. I’ve been on testosterone for over three years now, and I accurately describe myself as a queen. Not because I consider myself female, but femme.

I am now in a relationship with a cisgender, feminine woman who is arguably more masculine than I am in a variety of her behaviors, and I have to deal with being a queer boy in a seemingly hetero relationship. Navigating this space is sometimes awkward, but I simply tell myself this: Sometimes, when shit happens, I need to let shifts happen.

Accepting my newfound interest in men after spending a lifetime receiving persecution for my interest in women was only difficult for my pride. People tend to assume that all trans* people consider themselves gay before coming out as trans* or that all trans* people were more androgynous before coming out. I was extremely feminine, and I fought hard to gain respect as a feminine lesbian in school and with my friends. Admitting I was more interested in men since starting testosterone felt like I betrayed part of my history as a person. I didn’t know how to reconcile that. In some ways, I still don’t, but I do know that I was queer before and after coming out. Really, not much has changed.

My friend and I sat in a booth together when a young woman approached us exclaiming, “Gay boys! Yay!” I take this as a compliment, since it usually happens when I am dressed fabulously. On the other hand, it’s sometimes frustrating. It took effort to accept that I’m still queer, and now that I finally have, people assume that I am only gay. That was, at least, until I met the woman I am currently with.

I asked her out on a date after having had a long conversation at the bar. She bought my beer, so I offered to buy her a movie ticket. We agreed to meet up on a Saturday afternoon, and when that day finally arrived, I had no idea what to wear. Was my outfit too masculine or not masculine enough? What does a masculine outfit that’s stylish even look like? After having gone through about 12 articles of clothing, I settled on an outfit, and head out for our first date. As we watched the movie, she rested her head on my chest. It seems silly to say publicly, but I felt so grown up in that moment. I felt like a man, not a boy, and it was nice to feel that way.

After a while, I noticed that, even though I saw the world the same as I always had, it didn’t necessarily see me the same way. Sometimes, when people think you’re queer, they’ll react negatively. Sometimes, however, if they’re also queer, they may give you a nod, a smirk, or some other form of recognition. These nods and smirks aren’t exactly pivotal moments in my day, but when I realized that they occur much less now that I’m seen as straight when she and I are together, it reminded me of being a young, invisible lesbian. I may be dating a woman, but I am tired of being invisible.

My favorite part of being with a woman is being a fag while doing it. We hold hands, cuddle, and kiss in public, but I don’t censor my behavior in any way. I don’t try to man up or figure out what “manning up” really is. While she’s the one with long hair and lipstick, I’m the one who sits on her lap and is the little spoon. While I can’t spot other queer folks as easily, I sure as hell can confuse the straight folks around me, which is just as entertaining. We go to gay bars and clubs together. She’s seen me dance with guys, and I show her photos of the people I flirt with. Some gay men would say she’s my hag. Maybe she is, and maybe she’s my lezbro. At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter what our identities become as long as they continue to resonate with the souls they’re meant to represent.

Coming to terms: bodies through generations

KIMBERLY MACEACHERN

My mom taught me many things: the golden rule, self-reliance, the importance of laughter and, above all else, to hold your stomach in for God sake. Now, in my late 50's and after 34 years of marriage, I still worry if my stomach protrusion is showing. This is a challenge because I don't like billowy clothing.

I have been mislabeled as "big-boned." I get that from the Teutonic stock that produced my maternal grandmother-a classy and curvaceous woman who was obsessed with the rolls of fat on her back, despite the fact that they proved no impediment whatsoever to attracting intelligent and accomplished men.

My paternal grandmother was one of 9 girls who came in all shapes and sizes, giving me hope as a child that I might end up like the skinny ones. Concurrently I harbored a fear, no doubt buoyed by my mother's abdominal admonition, that I would follow the great aunt with the belly so big she could not cross her legs. (Don't get me wrong -I love and respect this powerful woman who was extremely self confident.)

You might think I must be scarred for life by these combinations of body imaging and you would be right. I have rarely felt "comfortable in my own skin". Like almost all women I suffer from a poor self-image, bodily speaking.  I am off the charts for weight and always have been.

Due in part to dense bones I am just plain heavy; so much so that I have never been a runner; but I can walk all day long.

Unlike most I don't see this as negative. Being a glass half full person I am grateful to my mother for instilling in me this focus on frontal fat. As a result I am very intent on healthful living. Virtually every week of my life I have exercised at least 3 times: there was the volleyball period, racquetball period, 20 years of aerobics, kundalini yoga, hiking, and on and on.

The other thing my upbringing imparted is a love for food and lots of it. Those Germans could cook and on the other side Mexican food was a staple. Drawing on the modeling of independent research my mother also exhibited, throughout my life I have paid a great deal of attention to all aspects of food-where it comes from, what it does to and for us, and the best places to buy it fresh. I figure that we have to eat so we might as well do it in the most optimal way. I ride my bike to the farmer's market every Saturday morning to fill in the holes of the CSA share I pick up on Wednesdays.

Bottom line is that I am the picture of health; I have no prescriptions and rarely get sick or go to the doctor. Every time I do go I am admonished to do the South Beach diet based solely on my height/weight numbers. I am not impressed with such a one-size fits all approach.

Given the longevity of the hearty women in my ancestry on both sides, and given that I don't drink sweet drinks, eat mostly fruits and vegetables, don't smoke, drink only in moderation and regularly exercise

(which ironically has actually caused my abs to get even bigger), I still gaze at my navel daily with dismay and likely will do so well into my 90's.  And I can totally live with that, thanks to Mom.

Skip dinner, be thinner

JAMIE WATSON

Tumblr users are sort of infamous for romanticizing mental illness. I think the most well-known example is the way they started toting the term “socially anxious” like a charming accessory. It’s annoying, sure, but mostly harmless. My own personal experience with Tumblr’s fetishization of serious diseases carried a few more consequences.

Tumblr can’t entirely be blamed for me developing an eating disorder. I suppose the potential was always there. During my Junior year of high school, my mother went on a “diet” of plain yogurt and chicken salad to combat the weight gain from the steroids she was taking for her lupus. She had always been on the heavier side, but soon enough she began to shrink right before my eyes. I thought it was amazing. Standing at five foot nothing in heels and weighing in at roughly 130 lbs, I thought, “If Mom can do it, so can I.”

Mom was in charge of the family meals, so one night I asked if I could participate in the diet with her. Mom’s eyes were too tired to look at me as she slowly shoveled a single spoonful of peanut butter past her cracked lips and said, “I’m doing this for my health.”

I flew to the Internet. The BMI (body-mass-index) charts said that at my height, girls were weighing in anywhere from 90 to 100 lbs on average, which meant I had work to do.

Mom wouldn't help me, but I wasn't discouraged. I figured it was time to take control of my body and show it whose boss.

It was then that I started looking for my own diet. This is where Tumblr came in.

One day I stumbled across something on someone’s blog called the ABC Diet. The ABC Diet is a series of calorie restrictions over the course of one month, starting with 500 calories a day, and gradually going down to 400, 300, 200 calories, until finally you reach “fasting days” in the middle of a week. Exercise included. The blog advertised itself as “pro-ana.”

Ana is Tumblr’s adorable name for anorexia nervosa, and is usually coupled with her twin, Mia or Bulimia. I followed this blog and others like it. I read the sweet letters authors wrote directed toward Ana and Mia. These blogs posted pictures of skeletal women calling them “thinspiration.” They pined for bones. There were tips for getting through fasting days and impossible exercise regimes. I saw guides on how to throw up, and how to take care of your teeth after. Some would post advertisements asking for texting buddies who could “encourage” them. They would post “before” and “after” pictures of themselves. I was so encouraged by their progress, but it wasn't just a dieting thing; t wasn't just encouragement.

These people tore into each other and themselves. The more you hated yourself and others, the more people respected you. Every once in a while I would scroll past a picture of some girl digging into her wrist with a box cutter, and I would go on with my day and pretend I hadn’t seen anything. I promised myself over and over that I wouldn’t be like these people, even as I observed and reposted their pictures. I used to say, “I will not lose control.” I recited it like a fucking prayer.

I don’t know why I pretended it was glamorous. I don’t know why I made a new blog so that I could document my weight loss to the public. I don’t know why I listed my goal weight in my user information. I don’t know why that number kept getting smaller and smaller, but Tumblr kept the ball rolling for a few years.

I was on the ABC Diet and I was walking around my neighborhood for 3 hours every day, past the point of exhaustion. When I would come home I would be so dehydrated I couldn’t speak. My knees went to shit after a few weeks. Nobody knew. Someone at school said I looked great, and I cried because I thought they were lying to be mean.

I think the thing that got to me most were the mantras, things to tell yourself when you started getting “cravings,” and by “cravings” I mean instances when you needed to eat, because you had a body. “Drink Water, Look Hotter,” “Fuck Flab, Get Abs,” and my personal favorite, “Skip Dinner, Be Thinner.” There were even some mantras, which almost sounded positive, like “Each binge is a stumble in a long journey. Don’t let it stop you.” How nice.

None of it mattered, though. Pretty soon, the growling of my stomach became its own mantra. Then the growling stopped, and it was just the pain left to talk to me.

I must imagine it seems easy to you. It must look like I could have stopped at any time and pulled back from this constant stream of toxicity. The thing is, I thought so too. I thought I could go back to a normal diet any time I wanted. And before I could even admit I was caught in the current, the hunger pains and the promise of feeling attractive became addictive. I was addicted to the numbers. I snuck into my mother’s bathroom just to step on her scale in the morning, and I remember dropping to the floor and curling into myself with such heavy emotional pain time after time when the numbers just weren’t low enough. My younger self had never once imagined we would be here, contemplating suicide because of some tummy skin. I never thought of myself as one for self-harm, but I have a burn scar to show just how far Tumblr pushed me.

When I tell people about this side of Tumblr, most people don’t believe me. Most people would rather believe that Tumblr is a safe place for fandom and reading and activism (with the occasional porn post here and there just to mix things up), and I don’t want to discredit these things which can make Tumblr great. But I think it’s important to remember that Tumblr offers the user a constant stream of information, and I think my high school self is a perfect example of how impressionable people can be. The messages I received day in and day out destroyed my state of mind and my body. It is truly astounding when you think of how mainstream media does the same exact thing. Looking back, it feels like a dieting commercial crossed the line and then invaded my life. It felt like I was replaying this commercial over and over and over every day for almost three years.

I managed to claw my way out of this shit-hole, but I’m still dealing with the consequences. I still catch myself pinching and pulling. I still check the nutrition labels on cans of soup and something in the back of my mind still asks, “Is it worth it? Do you deserve it?”

The answer is yes. Shut the fuck up, I deserve to eat.

I don’t really know what the right course of action is. The Tumblr staff is already taking baby steps to dismantle these harmful blogs. “Pro-ana” content is now against the Tumblr Terms of Service, and looking for thinspiration gives you a little message with a phone number for a national help line, which I guess is a good start. All the same, I would just like everyone to know that there are thousands of blogs run by men and women alike who call themselves “pro-ana.”  I would like to remind everyone that no matter what cute little labels you dress it up with, a disease is a disease, and it is not okay to romanticize that shit, because it is not glamorous. It’s real, and it hurts people.

And if you’re reading this and you’re dealing with an eating disorder, you can recover. This body is the only one you’re going to get. It’s not as energized as you’d like, sometimes it smells, sometimes it may seem like a big hunk of crap but it’s your hunk of crap. Please be gentle with it. You deserve so much better, and people on the Internet don’t know shit.

Country western hair

MELLIE MACKER

Occasionally, if I notice that someone on a baseball blog has written something egregious and erroneous, I won’t call them out on Twitter, but instead send them a courtesy email to protect them from their own shame. More often than not, my emails go unheeded, but twice I've received a kind response from the individual that I’m correcting. And once, I actually ended up having a really nice conversation with a blogger I greatly admire and he gave me some truly fascinating advice:

“Look, I don’t mean to be a downer but if you didn't play college sports and you don’t have Country Western hair, it’s unlikely that you will ever get a job in sports.”

He’s infuriating, but not at all wrong. The saga of female sports commentary is fascinating, and openly very sexist. Today, the most easily recognizable woman in the sports world is Erin Andrews of FOX Sports and formerly of ESPN--who is famous for getting naked once and saying incredibly stupid things even though she is a very intelligent college football analyst. Andrews has Country Western hair and though she did not play college sports, she was a cheerleader for the Florida Gators, which means that she’s hot and stood near football for a sufficient period of time to be recruited by national news networks.

But, in 2009, Andrews was filmed through a peephole in a hotel room without her knowledge and then subsequently posted on the internet. This horrifying invasion of privacy is the defining moment of her career. The harassment that was inflicted upon her as a result is all perfectly recorded for your reading pleasure if you Google “Erin Andrews” because Google loves to autocorrect her name to “Erin Andrews peephole”. Thanks, Google. You know exactly what I meant, I’m clearly not here to research a perfectly professional individual with a spectacular resume and an interesting story – I’m here to violate her privacy.

This is a woman who runs a television show about College Football and hosts men as correspondents, unlike the other 99.9 percent of all other sports programs on television that follow the opposite format. Sure, she says silly things once in a while, but “silly” is a total understatement when you breakdown the nonsense that emerges from the mouths of football analysts. Last weekend, I took a tally of the times that Jim Nantz and Phil Simms of CBS said “speed in space” – a phrase that means exactly zero things – in ten minutes, and the total was 86. That is stupid, borderline insane behavior. And while CBS commentators frequently field scrutiny for their total inanity, they never hear that they are stupid because they are men.

Erin Andrews, on the other hand, was deemed a “dumb blonde” by baseball fans across the nation because she accidentally stuttered to call Justin Verlander – one of the greatest pitchers in the last decade and arguably of all time – “Justin Bieber.” As embarrassing as that is, it was one single mistake that was picked at and scrutinized only because she’s a woman and therefore doesn't know anything about sports.

As for me, I sincerely doubt that I can take the pressure of that environment, but I’m not going to give up on the thing that I would most like to do with my life. So if you’re reading this and you know of a stylist who can make me look like Fara Fawcett’s hair had a baby with Cousin It, let me know. Maybe the Country Western hair isn't so much about the look as it is protecting yourself with a thick layer of hairspray for a helmet.

Gender roles and emotion

HEATHER MAHER

Callous, harsh, and inflexible: While I strive not to display these less than favorable attributes to those I respect, these attributes have on occasion proven to be beneficial. In the male-dominated industries and sports I find myself working within, the ability to withhold emotions, has always propelled me forward.

The societal glorification of men deemed stead-fast and withdrawn from softer emotions negatively impacts male relationships, as well as the way women relate and react to men.

How do the expectations of gender influence the dynamic of relationships? As a child, my brother was sometimes spanked for crying when he lost a basketball game, while I was never punished for crying when I lost a dance competition. What message does that send?

As I matured and developed intimate relationships with men, I sometimes doubted the legitimacy of the feelings they expressed. I hurt men I loved because I could not understand why they expressed anger as tears instead of throwing a punch. Society taught me that men were supposed to be tough. Accepting anything else was foreign. I had to unlearn what was programmed.

Even within platonic same-gender friendships, we are capable of restricting expressions of feelings because of the expectations within gender roles. In the stereotypical girl culture I have experienced, it is common to question another woman’s lack of outward emotional response involving a death or break up. Women are expected to be tearful in sad situations and show no anger. Failure to live up to this stereotype deems you less of a woman. Within male friendships, being tender and loving toward another male as an expression of camaraderie is often rejected and labeled as weak.

But denying each other full emotional experiences weakens our relationships. Humans are dynamic, and embracing all that a person feels is crucial to our development.

Breaking down restrictions on emotions is hard. Personal situations and upbringings aside, being aware of how gender roles have influenced expression is one step forward. For men, it is important to realize that a woman expressing anger and passion is as valid as her expressions of sadness or happiness. Keeping in mind that she has likely been taught to not express anger and if she does, it is wrong.

As a fiery woman, my male counterparts often dismiss my intense expression involving issues I care about. That being said, failure to acknowledge that softer emotions in men are not indicators of weakness is just as detrimental. These actions perpetuate gender-based emotional restriction.

Unwritten women

CHRISTIAN MANDEVILLE

In my free time, I like to write on a number of Internet forums and archives. None of my pseudonym-fronted stories or essays has become noteworthy, but these excursions have brought me repeatedly into the community. And in each microcosm of our various hiding holes on the web, there always seems to be a section of authors who feel comfortable stating, "I just can't write female characters.”

Why is this such a phenomenon? There are always novice authors who simply have difficulty creating any characters, male or female (not to mention other identities).

These guys are still writing directly from themselves (as I've yet to encounter a woman who "just cant" write one gender) and will hopefully grow beyond the restriction.

The true problem, as I've seen it, is that male authors create complex and fascinating male characters, yet women seem strangely absent. Maybe they're far from the storyline, or are unseen pillars, holding up the main characters (all male) as they go about their adventures. This is exemplified in The Lord of the Rings series, where women make so few appearances that I can only remember four women with dialog throughout the course of the series.

In Tolkien's case, it seems he was restricted by gender-roles at the time, and I would allow a bit of leeway for that. In the forums where I write, such as “Archive of our Own,” or the assorted Forumotion domains, however, I've seen present day authors adopt the same style of women – being in the universe, but having about as much effect upon it as a houseplant.

One such has a veritable series, equivalently seven chapters in length last checked, and the author was publicly asked why none of his five main characters were women.

"Because I don't feel that this story needs any romance element," he responded.

No commentary on altering the plot occurred, no mention of altering the relationships – this author simply couldn't conceive of having a woman in the foreground unless she was a conduit to a love-interest plot.

Others emphatically state that women are irrational, or so emotional that they don’t understand them. As one such author typed emphatically; "It's not that I don't want [female characters] in my work, I just don't get them. If you don't understand a character how can you develop them?"

While it's completely true, in my experience, that you need to empathize with a character and understand them to help them grow, the solution to overcoming this ignorance is simple: Read books with genuinely strong female characters, read books written by women hang out on message boards and casually talk to women – ask them their opinions. 


Or better yet, do as Neil Gaiman suggested to those seeking advice on developing female characters: "Just write people."

Fiction is the genre about the impossible and the improbable. You can break barriers, be they laws of physics or cultural norms, but if you can't write women in fiction, then you have bigger problems than static characters.


A young girl's perspective on bullying

AMELIE SATTERLEE

Hi, I am a ten-year-old girl in fifth grade. I have noticed that school boys have tried to make girls feel weaker than them and make girls feel bad. I want to tell you some ways to ignore it and to stop it from happening.

One thing I have experienced myself is having what kids like to call “frenemies”. It means that they pretend to make fun of you and you pretend to make fun of them. Now that is not really being a bully because you are actually friends just pretending to be enemies, but sometimes it can still hurt people’s feelings.  It is best to stop being mean to each other because sometimes people will not know if it is a joke or not. And even if it’s a joke it can still hurt so it is best to not play that game.

Common bullying in school is like if someone laughs at you, says mean things like you look dumb, and stuff like that. Boys sometimes try to make girls feel weaker by making fun of them or saying that the girls are bad at things or that they are stupid. One way to make it stop is to just say “thank you.” If you do that you will get the bullies very disappointed because they wanted to make you sad and you showed them that it didn't work.  Another way to ignore it is to simply walk past them. That will get the bully thinking a bunch of questions in his head and not give them what they wanted, which was some kind of reaction. Finally, a good thing to do is to tell them to stop. Sometimes kids don’t even know that what they’re doing is hurtful unless you tell them.

Maybe they have been bullied so much that they don’t even realize its wrong, and you need to tell them.

So that’s how you can ignore common bulling. Now there is one more thing I want to say, if you are getting punched or really hurt or something there is only one thing to do and that is to tell someone like a parent or a teacher and they will do something about it. You have to get help. Also, stick up for others if you see them being made fun of. It will make you stronger to help others and you will help someone have a better day.

Les femme

JAMIE WATSON

On the first date, you kissed that theatrical drama club girl beneath the canopy of your mother’s swing set in a way she never thought she would let herself be kissed by a man with hair on his face, a man who looked like a skinny lumberjack and could shred his guitar like love letters from a disembodied youth.

Her youth didn't occur to you that night, or any night.

Lying on your back under a bed of hazy Arizona starlight, she was fifteen and you were about to turn twenty, and in the moment that seemed all right because she was smart enough to know she loved you.

So when she told you, she didn't want to kiss that way anymore, with the slippery slope of your mouth invading hers, you held her chin in your hand and turned her about like a plump piece of fruit and told her she was cute.

When she told you, at fifteen years old, that sex was disgusting, you took it as a challenge, because every boy loves a challenge.

You were fine with her kissing other girls.

I mean what’s a girl to a girl, when she has a top score guitar hero to guard the closet door and make sure nothing gets in? Or out?

You tried your best to keep her protected, you tried so hard to make your motives go undetected for her sake because if you ever found the guy that did what you wanted to do with her, you’d kill him.

And what a sad situation it was for you, when she started to fill things in.

How she ripped into you, how bad it must have hurt when she got on top and kissed you the way you kissed her the way she kissed those other girls.

Poor thing.

How dare she raise questions when all she needs to know are the bumby bits of your body, how dare she sail her vessel with ideas instead of sinking into your bedsheets, how dare she skim her pocket stones when all you really want is to bone, how dare a girl love herself more than she loved your cock?

You poor, poor boy.

You had to be the judge, and the defendant.

You had to learn how to put up a fight and be independent because she was so manipulative.

She only looked like a little girl, she told you she wanted it.

How dare she lie for your sake?

Now she creates her own warmth at night in her bed. She can take off her dick when she needs to think with her head and she has girls spinning to know her name so they know what to say when they reach the edge of an uncovered tenderness, of real bouts of laughter that start from the inside out, of freshness and favors.

Of sun-buttered kisses that promise more than just an orgasm.

I hope that you fall in love with more than just your reflection,

I hope the girl who hops stages with you doesn't need your protection,

I hope you can peel away your armor and stop trying to be a knight because someday, you’re going to have to learn,

Girls don’t need your permission to be all right.

Who's allowed to cry?

KHARLI MANDEVILLE

When I was a young girl, most especially during my years as a teenager over-wrought with hormones I often couldn't control, I used to cry.

I was also a very passionate person. I still am. During these surges of hormonal panic, every emotion was exaggerated. But I've always been a passionate person – not because I’m a woman, but because I care about a lot of things, well, a lot.

My brother and I grew up talking politics at the dinner table. In fact, religion, philosophy and politics were commonplace in most family conversation. It didn't take long before I was able to articulate the ideas of goodness and morality I’d grown to see as truths. I’d argue them fiercely at home and in the classroom. My brother grew to be the same. Tears often flowed, for the both of us, during these bouts of passionate conversation.

Where we differed was how we learned not to display emotion. My dad was realistic with me: As a woman, if I wanted to debate intellectual ideas, I’d have to keep my emotions in check. Though this is standard practice in debate, it isn't right that these rules applied to me more so than for boys. My dad realized this, but it was, and unfortunately still is, a sad truth of the world we live in. No one, especially men, would take me seriously if I reacted to debate with emotion. I’d be deemed “crazy,” someone with which debate was laughable.

It took time, probably until my early years of college, but I learned to suppress the tears that welled in my eyes anytime a peer argued in favor of any injustice in the world.

My brother learned this, too, but for him, it wasn't so easy. When the passion he felt during classroom debates brought tears to eyes, his peers reprimanded him for it, rather than our parents. Young boys can be so ruthless to other, vulnerable little boys.  Media and society propagandize to them that if they cry, they are not men, that they are worthless, and boys learn to single each other out earlier in life than we probably realize. My mom, a teacher, says she sees this behavior in her kindergarten students.

My brother and I learned not to cry as defense mechanisms against a world that shuns emotion for varying sexist reasons:

Girls who cry are crazy – as well as stereotypes, and boys who cry are weak. Now, I hardly ever cry anymore – and neither does my brother.

But if crying is so wrong, then why does it come so naturally to us? 

Journal excerpts

SHANNON YUSO

One day we’ll find a whole group of people who seek the truth.

We’ll listen to old records every day and nobody will watch TV.

We’ll write with our hands. We’ll cry in front of each other.

We’ll stop living by whatever identity others have assembled

for us from the jumble of last-minute decisions we’ve made.

I met someone beautiful yesterday.

She was smart and kind and had eyes like a cat and it was too much. for me. We

We kissed on mossy stone steps

and our teeth clicked together between wide smiles.

I’ve never smiled so much while kissing.

I don’t want to take a stand about it; get off my back.

Labels on boxes & categories of humans.

We need a new way. Stop defining, identifying all

as something else.

The facades, the insecurities, the judgment. 

Aren’t we all so sick of this?

They say it doesn’t stop, either.

And they wouldn’t lie about something as devastating as that.

So let’s start something new.

A revolution where we are good to each other.

And we take care of ourselves. And we think and empathize and place our hands

on each others’ shoulders and say, “you are important!”

Because it’s true.

Because you are important.

Because there’s nothing else that matters.

No, I’m not fucking sappy, I mean it.

It’s that cynical attitude that got us into this mess in the first place.

Stop laughing at people who are being honest. It’s hard to be honest.

Let’s just stop and think for a minute and try to say what we really mean.

Let’s run so fast that our feet can’t catch us.

Let’s jump down hills and spend endless bounds in the air!

Let’s not feel embarrassed ever again.

Let’s create everything we can think of and when we can’t think of anything else, we’ll dance and howl and burst into tiny infinite universes and sing as loud as we can.

And while we’re at it, we can quit judging others for who they

fall in love with?

And no, it’s not a phase for attention.