The End of the Stick

I've been doing a lot of thinking about privilege. Who in our society has it? Who doesn't? Who has more? Race and gender privileges is what I've been doing the most thinking about, and I've been reading up on these matters to broaden my mind on the subject.

I've come across a privilege checklist on a blog that I'd like to share, a compilation list developed over time. Sometimes it's so hard to explain to men that they enjoy privilege that I do not. Often it turns into some sort of misunderstanding that I believe these privileges give men a free ride. I don't. But I think it's important to realize that whatever issues men face, women are getting the shorter end of the stick.

And as a white woman, it behooves me to recognize that I experience privilege that people of colour do not. One of the big privileges is being able to ignore that fact I have it.

The Male Privilege Checklist
If I'm a man...
7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are relatively low.
8. On average, I am taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces much less than my female counterparts are.
14. My elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more this is true.
17. As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of children’s media featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of my own sex. I never had to look for it; male protagonists were (and are) the default.
25. I do not have to worry about the message my wardrobe sends about my sexual availability.
27. The grooming regimen expected of me is relatively cheap and consumes little time.
29. If I’m not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to ignore.
32. I can be confident that the ordinary language of day-to-day existence will always include my sex. “All men are created equal,” mailman, chairman, freshman, he.
34. I will never be expected to change my name upon marriage or questioned if I don’t change my name.
41. Assuming I am heterosexual, magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are rarer.
44. Complete strangers generally do not walk up to me on the street and tell me to “smile.”
45. Sexual harassment on the street virtually never happens to me. I do not need to plot my movements through public space in order to avoid being sexually harassed, or to mitigate sexual harassment.
46. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.

White Privilege:
Because I'm white...
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children's magazines featuring people of my race.
30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
50. I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.

I think it behooves us all to be aware of privilege. It's not acceptable to pretend like it's not there, or to brush it off because we all have our own problems. When a person is born into this world and bestowed automatic exemptions from certain bullshit or immediately in a low risk group for certain harms, and others are thrust into it due to the luck of the draw in their DNA, that's something we all need to see.

If you don't or won't see it, it can't be fixed. Pretending you don't have a mouse in your house doesn't mean you don't have an infestation. I can only take a backseat to stories of racism and listen and try to learn. But I can speak of sexism because as a woman I live it. I truly believe in in the end it hurts everybody, not just women.

When men are taught to devalue women, they then dissociate with them as human beings. If you can't let yourself be feminine ever for fear of the lurking inferiority it will bestow on you, you can't be in touch with your emotions. You can't truly experience affection and love. You can't be a good parent. You can't be a fully realized person.

It's all connected and it all starts with acknowledging there is a problem, then seeing the problem and then working to fight the problem.

If as a man you need guidance as to how to do that, I direct you here, written by a smart man, the author of Critical Masculinities.

Scaredy Cat

Sometimes when you're phobic you miss out on some fun things, like the Harry Potter exhibition at the Science Centre. The Dude and I were going to go. I was so jazzed about it. I wanted to get sorted by the sorting hat.

But I was concerned. See, there's that mofo big-ass arachnid in the second movie. I've never actually seen it. I've always covered my eyes. But I was nervous it would be there. So I asked the Dude to call on my behalf to ask.

Dude: Hi, I was wondering if I could ask you a question.
Science Lady: Certainly, sir.
Dude: Well, I was going to come to the Harry Potter exhibition today and, uh... hm... well, my 5-year-old daughter is terrified of spiders.
Me: (Ass!)
Dude: (Smirk)
Dude: Is there any spiders at this exhibition?
Science Lady: I don't know... let me just check for you, sir. One moment.
Me: (Your daughter?)
Dude: (Better than saying my adult girlfriend needed me to call.)
Science Lady: Sir?
Dude: Yes?
Science Lady: Yes. Yes, there is. A big one.
Dude: Oh... Okay then, thanks. Appreciate it. (To me) Well, Jendra...
Me: Oh fuck.

Every now and again someone suggests I get cognitive therapy to deal with this phobia. You can de-sensitize yourself in hours. Thing is I'm too scared to be faced with my fear. Go figure. Maybe I just need a few more disappointments to make me ready.

Naked

Since I heard that there was little to no chance of promotion in, basically, the foreseeable future, I've been working on my graphic novel. I suppose it was easy to get lazy when I thought there would be growth in other areas of my life. This week I've completed two new pages.

It's hard, though. It's autobiographical and it's going to deal with some sensitive subjects, things that I may have spoken about to close friends, may have written down privately at one point, but have never illustrated for a wider audience. I'm realizing this is going to require more bravery than I had considered.

I think about the best graphic novels I know, which are about the author: Blankets, Persepolis, Stitches. All required the writer to be honest, revealing and to share. If you're not willing to go down as deep as you need to, what is the point? The story I want to tell I've been bullied into not telling. Oh, I've talked about it with friends, but never in any kind of public way. And when you make art, it's public. Because I'd want people to read it, it's very public.

Living with someone's alcoholism is a painful experience, but a common one. It usually involves being coerced into secrecy. Even being free from the drunk in question, you still somehow feel bound by their rules.

Writing this novel feels like being naked.

Lady in Red

My red dress came in the mail today. I love it and hate it at the same time. Mostly I hate it because I need to alter it and 90+ of the reviews of the dress say the damn thing fits like a glove. Once it's tailored and hemmed, it'll be a showstopper. As for right now, it makes me look like a little girl playing dress-up in mommy's clothes. The main issues are my height and my bust, and the lack of both.

I have a complicated relationship with the girls. Generally, I like them. They're small enough I don't actually need a bra for support. I only wear it for shape and modesty. Sometimes I don't bother. I can buy the cute bras without worrying about said support or lift. They're not going anywhere. They're as high as they were when I was 20. I like the shape of 'em. No complaints, right?

When you're a small chested woman, you don't feel terribly womanly. Even with all these advantages (bralessness or cute bras and no sagging) you still miss out on things like cleavage, and more importantly... feeling truly like a woman. Men don't look at you as much, you feel inadequate when you can't fill out a special top or dress, and all around you larger chests are celebrated and praised and considered the ideal.

90% of the time I don't let it bother me. Most of the time I focus on what's good about my breasts. I happily think about how they won't be acquainted with my navel when I'm 60. But I'm not 60. I'm 27 and I'm missing out on something fun.

And for all the larger chested women I know who've talked about it, I can tell for all the complaints, they wouldn't trade places with me. I can hear a ring of the pride in their voices. Because there's something inherently sexy about even the most inconveniently large breasts. I see the DD+ club comparing complaints over who has it worse, but under it all it's a pissing contest. When those comments are made in my direction, I know the question is really, "Aren't my breasts big?" I know some women who genuinely want a reduction and have even gone through with it. When you get dents in your shoulders, you have a legit complaint. But I can tell the difference between that and trying to coy about boobie bragging.

There's a woman at my dance class who's often mentioning how much support she needs, and to me. It's like complaining you don't know which vacation house you should summer at this year to someone who rents out a room to live in. I don't understand. Clearly I can't relate. I'm happy for her that she enjoys such bounty up there, but do I really need converse with her about it? I have nothing to offer on the subject. So I reply that I don't need support and only wear bras for aesthetic reasons. (I find that acknowledging my tininess makes these types of women uncomfortable. I don't feel bad about it. Unfortunately, since acquiring this response, it's hard to turn off.)

The kicker is how many women with big breasts like to talk to me about it. Some have gone out of their way to mention it for no apparent reason. Almost like preempting my assumed envy and saying, "It's alright, it's not really all that great." Or maybe it's a way of being smug. Sometimes it feels smug, particularly when the boobs in question are not overly enormous and cannot really be such a nuisance, not when the owner loves showing them off so much.

Sometimes I feel sad when I know women have gotten breast implants. It's like publicly acknowledging an A or B cup's inferiority that had to be corrected. Like there was no way they could be beautiful and this woman just couldn't live like that. We live in a world that sends this message. All my bras save two have padding. And this hasn't been a necessarily conscious effort. They come that way. 9 bras out of 10 have padding, at least they do in the A and B range. Every time I put one on I'm reminded an industry and a culture thinks I'm inadequate the way I am, and by buying and wearing the bra, seems I've decided to agree with them.

I think sometimes to a conversation I had with a close friend of mine in a La Senza, who was shocked to see all the padding in an A-cup bra. "Can't we all just be ourselves?" she asked. Quickly, I replied, "No." And it's true. We can't. Women are walking lies.

We get up in the morning. Our legs and underarms are shaved, our eyebrows tweezed because we're all too hairy. Some women even remove hair from their holiest of holies because nature doesn't know best. We put on makeup because our skin isn't beautiful enough, our lips not red enough, our lashes not long enough. We get our hair coloured because our hair colour isn't right. We put on heels to alter our height and silhouette because it's sexier than being comfortable on flat ground. We put on perfume to mask our natural scent. We wear bras that change the size, shape and lift of our breasts. And then we go shopping and look for things that'll fit our unique body shape and feel like we are the ones who have failed when we don't conform to the shape of a dispensable piece of clothing.

And this is after the feminist revolution and the corset and the girdle.

I posed nude for an art class once. No makeup. No bras, no perfume, no heels, nothing. Just me. For the first time since I started my period, I was just fine the way I was. I got to keep a drawing of myself and I never looked so beautiful or so goddamned free. For the evening, I was liberated.

Monday I take the dress to a tailor.

Cakes and books

I heard from an older and wiser woman that you couldn't make any real career mistakes until you were 30. I'm 27. I feel as though I'm at a sort of impasse in my work life. I've been doing the same job for five and a half years. I'm good at it. I'm really good at it. Five years of honing in on a specific skill will do that.

But it's a long time to be doing the same thing. And it seems that when the rare opportunity arises to advance, it's a mirage in the desert. I get close enough and it disappears. I've capped out my salary, too. I've got great stamina to work a job without getting bored. But give me over five years with some disappointments that crush my motivation and what I have is a career dilemma.

I have dreams. Not goals. Goals would suggest I'm actively working towards making things happen. I have dreams.

Dream one: To write a graphic novel. I already have the right story to tell. I have a measly six pages complete. I have no place to work on it. Strangely and sadly my best motivational time of day is when I'm working my job and can't take three hours to sit down and work out a page layout.

I think it was Virginia Woolf who said every woman who writes needs her own room. Or something like that. Virginia was on the right track, but I think one needs more. Virginia didn't have to work at a computer for a living. I sometimes wonder how JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter in a cafe in her spare time with a sleeping baby.

Dream two: Bake and decorate cakes. I love baking. I live in an apartment with practically no kitchen. It's a struggle to make quiche. Making sweets makes me happy and cake is my favourite. I've travelled distances and agreed to parties on the assumption I will get some cake.

I'm an artist. Inherently, it's a part of who I am. Designing unique cakes would be art. It'd be enjoyable and challenging. I have no room in my home or bank account to make this happen. And yet today I looked up cake classes, the prices, the dates and times.

I'm 27 years old. I'm unmarried and childless. I don't own a home. It makes no sense to think that I'm stuck in any kind of job. I wonder why I feel like I am.

Money Can't Buy Me Love

Yesterday the Dude and I attended a potluck with friends. Only instead of potluck, we all brought $10 and the hosts used their connections to buy steak, lobster and rum.

It's hard not to enjoy your life when your weekend is spent doing things like eating lobster, seeing friends, sleeping in and being incredibly lazy. Even if you are broke at the moment. The $20 we put in was so worth it, but waiting on some cheques to be paid out, it was a stretch. I sometimes ask the Dude how we'll look back on these early years. He says we'll feel like we paid our dues.

Not like we're po', exactly, but things are a little tight. Such is life when one party is a burgeoning freelancer. There's something romantic about it in its own way. It's sort of a struggle we're sharing together. I always liked listening to settled married couples talk about their first few years of living together. It always involves a story of tight budgets, less than ideal living conditions, some sort of hardship that they had to work on dealing with as a team.

Not that I wouldn't love me some sweet, sweet spacious home ownership or exciting vacations or lots of dinners out. But I've long since developed an appreciation for the things that build character. Knowing how to do without makes the doing with into something fulfilling. It's like a reward instead of a frivolous distraction.

It also makes you love the smaller things. The Dude and I have never travelled together. We've been overnight at his dad's on the lake. That's about it. Take something like going on the rollercoasters together at Canada's Wonderland last Sunday and there's been a happy glow in this apartment all week. When you can only do so much, what you can do feels amazing. And here we are saving and putting away money for a trip to Mexico in November. It's a bit of a burden, but we're making it happen together.

Today we slept in. The Dude made us coffee and we drank it in bed. Then we stayed in bed, ate scones and watched Mad Men all day. And it's the things like that which remind me not having money isn't so bad.

Bursting seams

The attack of the fatigue returns. It's like I'm 70 years old and I MUST nap. Yesterday I said nuts to hot yoga because I was so damn tired. Didn't think being in a hot sweaty room would exactly wake me up. Wound up sleeping for two hours instead, the sort of sleep you can't fight off.

I'm a low-energy person. Except when it's 1:00 a.m. Then I'm a high energy person, which doesn't suit my current lifestyle needs. It's all so ludicrous. My digestive system is a ongoing battle, my brain doesn't follow any sort of sun rhythms or a clock of any kind. What is this devilry? I eat right, don't smoke, don't drink very much or very often, limit my caffeine consumption and I get a relatively okay amount of exercise. My body has no business being so unreliable. And yet here I am.

Sometimes I worry about the future. Like, being pregnant, getting old or fat, falling apart at the seams. Some people feel like they're immortal. I fear jaywalking 'cause I'm convinced I'll get hit by a car. I haven't eaten McDonald's in years because it feels like it'll take root in my body and never leave. I avoid pop and fried foods because the agonies they visit upon my intestines. My legs are bowed, so I can't overstress the joints in my knees or ankles or I'll cripple myself in the future. As it is, when I run I look like a hobbled gorilla.

I'm 27 years old. All of this hardly seems right. At least my skin is good. It's pretty much all I got right now.