When is being a mom an accomplishment?

Image by Erik Kastner on Flickr

When Yvonne Brill died in 2013, her New York Times obituary famously led with her culinary skills. Her beef Stroganoff masked her innovative work on a propulsion system to help keep communications satellites from slipping out of their orbits. The feminist internet clapped back until the NYTimes edited the dish out.

Last week Brenda Barnes, former CEO of Sara Lee, died. The Chicago Sun-Times framed her professional accomplishments along with her title of "Perfect Mom." Fortune called her a hero to working moms.     

I remember reading about her stepping down to attend to her children during their teen years and then later her ramping back up. For a bit, I quite obsessed about Barnes. Why wouldn't I be? In Barnes returned to full-time employment in 2004 I was still a rookie mom with big career aspirations. Anytime I have big dreams, I scour the world for role models to study as if to find clues as to how I can replicate their success. I was still operating under the adage that under no circumstances does a working woman take more than a year off from work if she wanted to stay at the top of her field. I was still healing from being burned by being pushed out of an org after taking family leave from feminist organizing. What magic did she have?

I feel like I saw her speak once. Most likely at some women's professional conference here in Chicago. Or maybe I just read about her enough that I feel like I saw her speak. The two lessons I took away from her was 1) never truly stop working. Fortune mentions this, but belittles her board work while as a "stay at home mom":

she stayed on the sidelines serving as a director on numerous Fortune 500 boards.

This ignores the time and commitment necessary for such board work and the pay. Sure she wasn't a CEO or President of a company, but she was working. Fast Company outlines her "stay at home mom" duties as:

Unlike some women executives who have famously dropped out, Barnes did not go home to write her memoirs or devote herself to charity and her children's soccer schedules. She just chose what is, for her, a less demanding path: She serves on the board of six major companies, among them Sears, Avon, and The New York Times; she's taught at the Kellogg School of Management, and stepped in as interim president of Starwood Hotels and Resorts in early 2000.

The Wall Street Journal similarly noted her work when she was hired at Sara Lee in May 2004.  Never stop working is advice often told to women who want to take extended time off for caregiving. Stay connected to your workplace via committee work, mentoring younger coworkers, etc.

The second lesson I think learned is that Barnes downshifted her career during her eldest kids' teen years. She said something about how the time when they least want you around is actually when they need you the most. As my daughter is now in her teens, I think about that a lot. I  have heard it said by other moms too. I repeat it to others.

Every piece written about her since her death remarks about her role in the never-ending juggle that working moms contend with. Few note that she never really did stop working, she just downshifted. None truly acknowledge the privilege she had to downshift in the first place or how easy it was for her to on-ramp back to the top.

I do think she will always be important to the story of working moms, as I have said, I learned a lot from her. But other women have helped me see the holes in her story, the holes that leave too many mothers without much choice to downshift or even go back to work when they want. I would hope she would want us to notice those wrinkles too.

Thanks, Brenda. Goddess bless you and your family.

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Starbucks Not Serving Up Their Baristas

I've been mentally obsessing over the story of a teenage woman being hit on at a Spokane Starbucks since it went viral a few days ago. The virality of the story seems simple enough - a 34-year-old guy thinks it is ok to ask out a supposed 16-year-old - the internet seems to think otherwise. He gets labeled gross old dude and we feel better about ourselves for being outraged.

I also think the outrage is amplified because many of us are on edge because Donald Trump, a man with a long list of sexual assault accusations, will become the next President of the USA. While his actions clearly did not offend the large group of women who did vote for Trump, the majority of women who did not vote for him ARE PISSED. And if we cannot keep a man who likes to brag about grabbing women by the genitals out of the White House, we can at least be pissed as hell when we see men acting as if women, of any age, are available just because men want them to be.

But what many people, including some women, do not understand is that this type of situation happens every day for women in the food and service industry. 

Last summer UNITE HERE Local 1 released a report, Hands Off Pants On, about the epidemic of harassment and assault in the service sector. They cited a 2015 national survey of "2,235 full-time and part-time female employees and found that 42% of women surveyed in the food service and hospitality industry reported sexual harassment, the highest of any field." UNITE HERE Local 1 went on to drill down into the situation here in Chicago with shocking results.

• Among the hotel workers surveyed who had been harassed by a guest, over half (56%) of women said they did not feel safe returning to work after the incident.
• 77% of casino workers surveyed had been sexually harassed by a guest.
• 78% of women surveyed who serve guests in food and beverage outlets at casinos have had a guest make an unwelcome sexual comment, joke or question to or about them.  

ROC United found that "90% of tipped workers report experiencing unwanted sexual comments or behaviors in the workplace."

Yet we do not hear stories of other service sector workers being harassed or assaulted on a daily basis. Why? I believe it is because 1) these women do not report for fear of retaliation or as the report states, they feel nothing can be done and 2) the age difference in this Starbucks incident set off people's outrage mode quicker than if the guy in question had written a creepy note to a woman of his own age. UNITE HERE Local 1 also points out that "[j]ust 19% of hospitality workers surveyed said they had received training from their employer on how to deal with sexual harassment by guests."

Reporting sexual harassment in the service sector can often be confusing though. With the existence of restaurants like Hooters and their copycats that make their women servers wear revealing outfits more suitable for Vegas, it is no wonder that men can think that a teenager laughing at their stupid joke is flirting. Women flirting to get through to their job is part of what is called emotional labor.

Emotional labor is all the smiling, the "yes, sirs", and the giggles that women must do to fulfill their duty as customer service. The customer is always right, even if he is a skeezy old dude hitting on a barista who is just trying to remember which mocha gets soy and which gets whole milk.

What happened with this teenager at the Starbucks is not a new occurrence. It happens all too often and we fail to recognize it. Some of it is friendly emotional labor, it is still labor. It is not just being polite when I go into my local coffee shop and the barista I see almost every day knows not just my order, but every regular's order. Let's keep that in mind as we head out for our morning coffee, panini at lunch, or quick stop dinner. This issue is a women's issue and a feminist issue. Not just for the skeezy dude hitting on a teenager, but for every worker who has to put up with unwanted touches, looks, and comments.

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New Year, New(ish) Book, New Hashtag

Don't get too excited now...I am certainly not going to attempt to blog every day this year. But I felt the need to get blogging right away today. So who knows!

 2017 eh? We survived the great 2016 purge and we should be grateful for that. A lot of has been written about our public grieving over lost idols and pop culture icons. What I will say is this...1) I truly feel like we are finally at some tipping point of pop culture where we have a critical mass of such idols that when they start to die, it feels like a reaping. We're still just about 100 years since the mass consumption of radio, television, and films. Add to that the explosion of pop culture from those who create art (Bowie) to those who simply do stupid shit, and we have a whole lot more people to watch out for on our dead pools. 2) Many of us learn stuff from our idols. Some good, some bad. But behind the tears are some really strong reasons for mourning. I am still a bit ashamed to say I got up early to watch Princess Diana's funeral and cried through it. But ya know what? I think I was sad that this woman whom I grew up watching through photo shoots, tabloids, and rumors seemed to have finally gotten her life together was robbed of that life. So yeah, cry over Carrie Fisher, Prince, and George Michael. For some reason they imprinted themselves on your heart and that is why you cry.

I finished my last book (Rollergirl) a few days ago and wanted to wait until today to start a new book. I got a copy of Daniel D. Arreola's Postcards from the Sonora Border in the mail a few days ago and thought it appropriate to start the new year with a book written by someone who shares my last name. Alas, I feel it most appropriate to start the new year, a year which brings much challenge to us all in the form of the Trump administration and good challenge to me professionally as I just started a new job. I saw that Florinda is doing First Book of the Year so that pushed me to decide yes, I am going to restart and finish Brené Brown's I Thought It Was Just Me. My primo will have to wait for a little introspection before I tackle his book.


The new New Year's question of my life...What is happening with #365FeministSelfie? Well as I often say, while I launched that hashtag a few years ago, there is little way to truly own & control a hashtag. Last year's leap year produced a new hashtag out of necessity. Others have made the hashtag their own by adding kids, pets, or simply day to day life. But going back to using the hashtag to build community and looking out into the new year to create something powerful, I suggest we start to use #365FeministsResist. This does not mean #365FeministSelfie is over. Rather this is an addition to the #365Feminist family because this year will be our year of resisting, of being the resistance.Use the #365FeministsResist hash tag to challenge yourself to resist something every day. Are you speaking out when someone teases boy about showing emotion? Why are you standing silent when a racist goes on a tirade in front of you? Do you offer a sign of support to your neighbor who does not look like you? This new administration is mean and if we are truly going to trump it with love, we need to act radically in love. Be careful out there, but do not be afraid.

ONWARD...

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Here's to 2017 in color

I asked friends on Facebook what word they want to carry into 2017 and this is what I made from their suggestions. Not everyone's word made it here, but I did my best.

And yes, I made you a black & white version to color for yourself.

Now let's go kick 2017's ass before it can do the same to us.

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

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Review: Hidden Figures (book) by Margot Lee Shetterly

I am a nerd in many different ways. I love math. I went to Space Camp for my 40th birthday. I could go on, but I think I have established my nerd credentials. Thus when I heard this book came out and a movie, I could not wait! I picked up this book at Powell's Portland airport store. Let me tell you,  Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly is a beautifully written book about the collision of race, gender, and science in the USA from World War II to the late 1960s.

Hidden Figures tells the stories of a number of African American women who found themselves working on engineering projects during World War II and through the 1960s space race. Oh, I should add that they were doing all of this in Virginia too.

As someone who has spent her career working to diversify science, technology, engineering and mathematics, these type of stories are not new to me, even if the characters are. There are so many hidden figures in the annals of the history of science we could write books for a generation. No, what is most compelling about Hidden Figures is how effortlessly Shetterly connects the dots between what is occurring in the government labs during the space race and what is happening in our society writ large.

All those sticky notes are places I wanted to quote to you, dear reader. Alas, that might border on copyright infringement.

In the prologue, Shetterly sets the stage with the fact that "growing up in Hampton, the face of science was brown like mine." This is so important to the overall story. The author grew up in a community where people of color did science, so no big whoop! Can you imagine the choices her generation were able to conceive because of this fact? Goodness. But as she untangles the threads of the stories, she begins to craft a new vision of where she came from. One where Black women as mathematicians were not only recruited, but due to discrimination a smart business move for the government agency that would become NASA. And yes, despite the professionalism that one would give to a government mathematician, the burden of working hard and long hours to offer one's children a "better life" was just as real for these women as the women who labored in homes and factories.

Time and time again Shetterly balances the progress happening in the research labs with how stuck Virginia and the rest of the country were in terms of race and gender relations.

In relation to African Americans fighting in World War II, she writes:

The system that kept the black race at the bottom of American society was do deeply rooted in the nation's history that it was impervious to the country's ideals of equality. 

In relation to using education as a force for social advancement:

The Negro's ladder to the American dream was missing rungs, with even the most outwardly successful blacks worries that at any moment the forces of discrimination would lay waste to their economic security.

Shetterly never lets the readers forget the larger social forces at play, even as our heroes make leaps in mathematical theory. The reality is that they are Black women in the South in the 1940s to 1960s. No amount of heroism allows them to escape that gravitational pull. The desegregation of schools was a huge issue at the time of these women's fantastic accomplishments, but Shetterly writes:

As fantastical as American's space ambitions might have seemed, sending a man into space was starting to feel like a straightforward task compared to putting black and white student together in the same Virginia classrooms. 

One especially touching and brilliant example of the two worlds these women were living in was when Mary Jackon's son wins the box car derby.

Mary knew that her son was a ringer; the two of them had been building to win. Brain busters' kids were supposed to come out on top in a race like this, even if the brain buster was a woman, or black, or both.

Shetterly shares many women's stories with us in 265 pages. You may get overwhelmed by the number of stories as well as the emotions that come along. But keep track. Their stories have been hidden so long that Shetterly could have written a whole book on each woman. Maybe she should for children to read along with their biographies of Glenn, Armstrong, and Lindberg. Because these women may never have gone into space or set foot on the moon, but they are no less part of our history of exploration and American exceptionalism.

Buy a copy from Powells or IndieBound. And go see the movie! I can't wait to see it myself.

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Eight Great Feminist Books for Last Minute Gift Giving

I've read quite a few great books this year, but haven't had time to write up proper reviews. Honestly I have a few half-written ones, but I wanted to make sure you have some recs for a last minute run to your local feminist or indie bookstore. So let's get to them...Note all book links are affiliate links so I do get a little something if you buy the book through those links. Which is much appreciated!

 

Forward by Abby Wambach is a difficult walk through this legend's life. Abby is my favorite player in recent years. I was so eager to read this and while I did not walk away from it not loving her, but rather it changed the temperature of my fandom. Her honesty is brutal in ways that are endearing and off-putting. Abby is forthright with the privileges she has held since childhood from being a star athlete, but also the burden of being a younger sibling of a star athlete. The way she talks about the Brazilian national team and Marta is so dismissive I had to put the book down for a bit. Abby's struggle with addiction is humbling and that comes across throughout the book. In the end I left the book admiring her more, but in a more humane way. Not as the greatest soccer player ever, but as someone who went through a lot of crap to accomplish her dreams. Buy a copy from Powells or IndieBound.  

Threadbare: Clothes, Sex & Trafficking a comics report from the Ladydrawers and Anne Elizabeth Moore is A+ feminist killjoy. Disclaimer...Anne is a friend of mine & I'm friendly with many a Ladydrawer. What Anne & Co do with Threadbare is connect our addiction to cheap cute clothes with the global epidemic of low-wage work that disproportionately impacts women and human trafficking. See...feminist killjoy. Now you say you only buy second hand clothes to reduce the money going into the pockets of big corporations and reduce our environmental footprint? Sorry, you fall into this vicious cycle too. This book is a must read for the feminist fashionista in your life as well as every well-meaning feminist who wants to save women in the developing world. Buy a copy from Powells or IndieBound.  

In what I dub the natural partner to Threadbare is Andi Zeisler's (another friend!) We Were Feminists Once. Andi digs deep into the current pop culture moment feminism is having. For awhile it seemed hard to get through a profile of a pop star or actress without someone asking her if she was a feminist. But what does that mean when feminism is hip and cool? Andi outlines how it ends up watering down feminism and what it means to be a feminist. What does it mean to consider an act of feminism to be consuming Amy Schumer and wearing cute feminist tees? Can we buy our way into a feminist future? Spoiler....Nope. Again, feminist killjoy at its finest. Buy a copy from Powells or IndieBound.

Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner? by Katrine Marcal is a must read for every feminist who skipped economics class because it sounds hella boring and/or intimidating. I admit that I would never had taken econ if it wasn't mandatory for my masters degree. I found it frustrating as hell because we had to suspend reality while talking about supply and demand curves or how if you don't like the benefits at a job you just get a new one. What is especially frustrating about economics is how women's caregiving is lost in all the equations and valuations. Marcal painstakingly, yet in an accessible way, walks us through modern economic theory and points out its flaws in regard to women's work. The title comes from the fact that Adam Smith, who wrote foundational works in economics, lived at home and was able to do all that thinking and writing because his mom took care of him. Buy a copy from Powells or IndieBound.  

This hunk of snark is brought to us by the geniuses at Reductress. How to Win at Feminism is a handy dandy guide to feminism as if written by all the people who don't understand feminism. But way funnier. During these frozen days of winter and depressing post-Trump days curl up with this book to remember all the victories we have had and all the work we still have to do. Buy a copy from Powells or IndieBound.

I really do have a much longer review to be published for Powered by Girl by Lyn Mikel Brown, but let's do this quick hit first, eh? This book is a must read for anyone who works with girls, especially in leadership programs. Girl Scout Leader? Yup. Camp Leader? Totally. At times the book gets a bit repetitious, but considering how few people think that girls can leader, you do need to repeat the message a few times. Buy a copy from Powells or IndieBound.

Another book written by a friend. Dear Princess Grace, Dear Betty by Alida Brill is a sweet look at the life and struggles of a woman who is equally a fierce feminist and a hopeless romantic. What is so wonderful about this book is that you feel the full passion of Alida searching for true love without feeling like she is trying to fill a void like most "looking for Mr. Right" stories. She's not looking for the missing piece or to fill a hole. She simply believes in love and wants some...while also demanding women's equality. She balances both sides of the story in a way that will make you reexamine how you view Second Wave feminists (I mean, if you only know it through history books of course.) Buy a copy from Powells or IndieBound.

If you haven't heard about Unsportsmanlike Conduct already, you obviously aren't watching ESPN because Jessica Luther has been on countless times since its release. In Unsportsmanlike Conduct, Jessica (another friend!) painstakingly breaks apart the problem of sexual assault and college football. It is not just an epidemic or one of too much drinking. Then she puts things back together in a logical and creates a playbook for every campus to follow in order to better address campus sexual assault and athletics. When she was in Chicago for a reading, I told her that I was truly impressed at the delicate dance she performs at calling out the racism that both makes white women the perfect victim and the often-African American football player the perfect perpetrator AND the misogyny that also invalidates women's rape accusations. Buy a copy from Powells or IndieBound.

Happy gift giving season, everyone!! 

Other great feminist books I read this year:

• Beautiful You
• Modern Girls
• Asking for It
• Investigating Lois Lane
• Unslut
• Girl in a Band
• South Texas Experience

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Paperless Post for Holiday Card Magic [Giveaway]

Well Thanksgiving is over and that means full steam ahead on the winter holiday season! For many of us that means managing our holiday card list. I keep my list in an excel spreadsheet. Although now that I type this out, I think I need to still update my 2015 list. Oops. Oh well. I missed a year. While holiday cards are tedious, they are one of the highlights of my year. I love sending cards to friends I see often and friends I only see via holiday cards. I even love reading holiday letters that come attached!

But managing the writing, the addressing, and the picking out of cards while working & parenting can be a PITA. That's where Paperless Post can come in! In addition to the holidays, Paperless Post offers great cards for other occasions, such as baby shower invitations or housewarmings. Although snail mail cards are my fave, sometimes it can be too tedious or life throws you a curve where  you find yourself days from a holiday still needing to send out a pile of cards.Who hasn't thrown in a last-minute holiday card when you get one from someone you haven't talked to in awhile? The etiquette can be overwhelming. The idea of uploading your list to paperlesspost.com and hitting send can be handy! And maybe the answer to your prayers? Keep scrolling....

GIVEAWAY:

To help you manage your holiday card list, I'm happy to be able to giveaway 1,000 coins that can be used on paperlesspost.com for awesome holiday cards, electronic invites, thank yous, and notes. This is a $90 value.

To enter:

1) Comment with your email address & what winter holiday you celebrate
2) Extra entries by sharing this giveaway on social media. Either tag me on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram or share the link in a comment.
3) Deadline is Friday, December 2nd at 9 pm CST. 

I hope this giveaway helps ease the chaos of this year's holiday season!

This post is a partnership with Nakturnal

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Three Years of #FeministSelfie

Three years ago two feminists tweeted out #FeministSelfie in the face of a condescending article attempting to label all selfies as anti-feminist and a cry for help.

Since then countless feminists have used the hashtag, or others it inspired including #365FeministSelfie, #366FeministSelfie (leap year!), and #365FeministLife, to showcase their daily feminist actions whether it is escorting at a clinic, painting a son's fingernails, or exhibiting our bikini bodies from sizes zero to 32. Most days our #FeministSelfie is just the ordinary day of someone who claims the label of feminist. For us a selfie is revolutionary in a society that still worships and values young thin white bodies. It is revolutionary to share one's journey as a transgender person in a world where using a public restroom is a battle. It is radical, not narcissistic, to want to share our selfie that shows our "flaws" and scars. It is radical to show pride in our family composition. It is community building to selfie with our "I Voted!" stickers.

Many hashtags are born of snark and frustration. #FeministSelfie was no different. Yet it endures in many forms to connect those of us in the feminist struggle.

Normally I write a next year post in December, but the anniversary/birthday of the #FeministSelfie hashtag just two weeks after the election of a racist misogynist con man seemed like a good time to make a statement. As we plan to enter 2017 with the knowledge that we need each other more than ever, #365FeministSelfie will be here to help.

#365FeministSelfie will continue on through 2017 and I believe through out the entire Trump-Pence regime. The hashtag will continue to connect us. The challenge will hopefully remind us to do something feminist every day. It will also signal to others that feminists are indeed everywhere. From our college campuses to our baristas. Feminists come in all shapes, shades, sizes and backgrounds.

I also hope the hashtag will challenge us to strengthen our feminism. Maybe we are big city feminists who need to learn from rural feminists - at the same time lessen them from the isolation I often hear about from rural friends. White feminists who want to learn how to make their feminism more intersectional can listen to feminists of color who often speak volumes in their selfies.

I know a selfie can't solve all our problems, but I do have hope that the community we continue to build through the hashtag will sustain us in the dark times and inspire us to keep fighting.

If you have ideas on how we can use the hashtag for education and resistance please leave a comment or connect with me over at Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. I plan to set out our 2017 in coming days. Until then...

ONWARD!!

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Book Review: 2nd Edition of Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Six years ago an inspiring daily mediation on self-love was released. Recently Rosie Molinary released an updated edition of Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance.

From my initial review of the book:

Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance by Rosie Molinary is a self-help guide for those of us who don't like self-help guides. Beautiful You is a book of 365 daily life prompts that not just asks you to reconsider how you see yourself, but to push you to try new things (stop apologizing: ever notice how many times you start things with "I'm sorry but...") that help you readjust how you view yourself, the world and how you connect to the world.

In the new edition there is obviously a new cover, but also a new introduction, a new acknowledgments and then about 50 posts were either updated or replaced. Rosie's favorite new post is Day 362. Rosie gave me the scoop on the new edition.

When approached by Seal Press to revisit her book for updating she discovered that a few passages no longer spoke to her or she realized she approached the topics differently. Overall, what she realized in her own self-acceptance work is that so much of our pain is really the result of a lack of awareness of our own self-worth.

If you value yourself, you don’t hurt other people. And if you value yourself, you don’t hurt yourself. We want so much to be heard and seen and understood, and the reality is that the very first person we need that from is ourselves. If we can begin to see our own worth, the world expands for us.

I wrote Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance to give people a tool where they could collect all the evidence of their worthiness. This isn’t a book where I tell readers to believe in themselves. This is a book where the readers become the writer and compile all the proof- which is already inside of them- of how very worthy they are. My hope is that the book provides readers with a journey into a relationship with themselves that is not adversarial and that is life changing.

To get your own copy please purchase from an indie bookstore or Powells.com.

Disclaimer: The only payment I received was the copy of the book.

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Review: Kazoo Magazine

The world of girls magazines is a scary place. Walk up to the magazine aisle of your fave drugstore and flip through girl-centric magazines...then try to sleep well at night. Recently Girls Life came under fire for exclaiming the secrets of dream hair on their cover while Boys Life was all about planning for a solid career. Someone "fixed it" via Photoshop.

I have a ton of issues with the original Girls Life cover, but have some issues with the "fixed" cover as well. First of all is the shaming of the actress on the original cover. Olivia Holt is yet another young woman trying to have it all through the Disney empire. She sings! She dances! She karate chops! She acts! Having a teenager myself, I have watched plenty of Disney shows. And while there are some things to improve in their narrative, you gotta give props to these teens who are slowly building their own empires...critique of Disney aside cause I'm already on a way tangent. Next, while I love that the "fixed" cover includes a headline on careers, an equally large headline is about girls doing good. When are we going to get away from that narrative people? Maybe label that leadership? And "my first miss" as confidence? Nah...let's call that entrepreneurship 101. Anywho, even when we try to fix problematic things for girls we miss the mark.

That's where Kazoo comes in. It's tagline is "A magazine for girls who aren't afraid to make some noise." YESSSS! Erin Bried is the founder and has oodles of magazine experience behind her. She came up with the idea for Kazoo as she was searching for magazines for her 5-year-old. Now there are plenty of other magazines that I got my daughter at that age, mostly from Cricket Media, as well as New Moon Girls, but I am happy to welcome Kazoo to the land of kid media.

Bried says Kazoo is important because even girls at the age of 5 are being indoctrinated by popular media and culture to conform to gendered expectations that result in:

•Six in ten girls stop doing what they love, because they feel bad about their looks. And by age 11, 30 percent of them have already put themselves on a diet.
•Seventy five percent of girls are interested in engineering and related fields, and yet only 11 percent of practicing engineers are women.

Kazoo has a great feel to it. Bried do NOT go glossy! I think the thick paper feel is perfect, especially since there is a coloring page on the inside cover of issue 2. While the incredibility beautiful feature on Jane Goodall was amazing to read, my favorite article is the how-to on parkour. Seriously how many times have you seen a parent scold a kid, especially a girl, for climbing up where you "shouldn't" climb when walking down the street? I mean, if you didn't want a kid climbing on the ledge of building, don't put in a ledge! haha..Kinda kidding, but I was totally that kid who could find every nook to climb up and walk on. The world was my balance beam.

In addition to great content, most of the magazine is illustrated. And the diversity of illustrated girls is what we should expect from any media outlet in 2016.

So what if your girl isn't into the outdoors or climbing on stuff? Does she like puzzles? Kazoo has that. Does she like cooking? Got that too. Issue 2 has so much info on photography you might think the magazine is about photography!

Kazoo is sweet and fierce. It sends all the empowering signals we think we need to send our girls without using most of the jargon. A great example is the parkour article. Not only are there how-tos, but the how-tos come from Alexa Marcigliano, professional stuntwoman. Not once were the safety issues that impact stuntwomen brought up in a sidebar or infographic. While the issues are important, clobbering girls over the head with a negative framing can backfire as I know from working in women in STEM for almost 20 years.

I recommend getting a subscription for that girl in your life. Heck, get a subscription to all the fab girl magazines as a bouquet of magazines! 

Disclaimer: I was sent a review copy of the magazine.

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Interview with Sarah Potenza

I get a lot of pitches to cover musicians and musical acts. My usual screening is based on my time and a quick web search. That's when I realized that Sarah Potenza is not the usual musical artist. She's making waves with the title track of her album, Monster, including its fun video (posted at the bottom of this post). I had the chance to chat with Sarah as she prepares to return to Chicago for a show at The Hideout on Saturday, November 12th. This is not a transcript, but taken from notes.  

VLF: I really enjoyed your album. Right now you are getting a lot of praise for your song, Monster. It has been called an empowerment song. Over the past few years, empowerment has been used to describe a lot of things. So what does empowerment mean to you?

Potenza: Empowerment is something that makes you motivated. Something that makes you feel a certain way. I read something about body love and since then, over the past year I have made an evolution about how I feel and see my body. I use to feel "ewww" about my body parts. But I read a story about a woman who learned to love her body, her juiciness, all of that. It empowered me to love my own body. I follow a lot of body positive people on Instagram and Twitter and it matters. When you see someone who can wear a bikini and have back fat it empowers you. It changes the way you see yourself. Especially to see yourself from a more powerful position. As feminists we need to be ok with being powerful. Feminism doesn’t mean angry. Empowered doesn’t mean angry.

VLF: In an interview with NPR you talk about not being taken seriously because of your flamboyant style. Is that one reason that drew you to audition for “The Voice”? That you would be judged by your voice and not your visual style?

Potenza: No, not at all. I auditioned because I believe in saying yes to every opportunity. Not letting your inner hipster stop you from doing things either. Too many people say no to things they think are beneath them, but I think nothing is below you. I saw "The Voice" as a way to elevate my career and platform. So I decided to walk through that door.

VLF: Oh, great! I asked because I know about the research about blind auditions being great for removing many biases. The classic one is about orchestra auditions and how once blind auditions became standard, orchestras went from being mostly dudes to a better balance. 

Potenza: ARGH!! I hate that. You know I use to send emails with a man's name because I knew I wasn't being taken seriously by some in the music business. Now my husband handles the business side of my music business because he is taken more seriously. This is just one of the many reasons why I early voted! I have been so incredibly hurt and disgusted by the many men I know who hate Hillary. They have a loathing for no reason, but I know it is because of what she represents as a woman.

VLF: Agreed! OK, pivoting back to your music.... Monster is bringing you such amazing attention because in our thin-obsessed society, being proud of your not-size-zero body is radical. Do you worry that the attention is too focused on this one song, this one radical message and won’t carry the rest of your amazing work to people’s ears?

Potenza: No, I don’t really…I'm honored if people just get this one song. I do a lot of work with young women. I teach workshops and I have a lot of fans who are young girls. One girl did her 7th grade career day project on me. I don't know her, but she lives in Michigan. I encourage girls to be their own best friend. My mom and I are now great friends. My mom use to put a lot of energy into her looks. She's a life-long member of Weight Watchers and I use to feel bad that I would never be a size 4 like her. I want to be the role model for girls who will never be a size 4. But yes, I definitely want people to explore the rest of the album.

VLF: What does success look to you? Do you have it?

Potenza: It is weird. After you have been on "The Voice," everything seems small after that. I have had so much success already. I do feel successful in a lot of ways. At the same time I know there are so many more mountains to climb. Success looks like Bonnie Raitt, Neko Case, Alabama Shakes. I’m going to be playing The Hideout and having a hundred people will be a success. I want the longevity. I want to become iconic. I want to get to be where I can be an artist and do what I want to do. I'm always creating. It's funny, promotion wise you’re always living in the past because I recorded the album a year ago and wrote Monster long before that. For me, success is closing that time gap between creation and promotion. Yeah, I want Lemonade success - to write, create, and distribute as quickly as Beyoncé does.

VLF: How do you practice feminism within the music industry?

Potenza: wow...This is a hard question, good, but I haven't thought about this. I think I practice feminism by being myself and being a role model, by writing the music I want to write. I am not writing songs where women are only doing things they "should be" singing about. I do not want to be participating in the gendered nature of song roles. I practice feminism by writing about things like the election, without being preachy in songs, but writing about them. I've been touched by Leelah Alcorn's story. I am thinking about writing about her. But do it from a clever, non preachy way like Monster. Not angry, not sad. I'll be following along the steps laid by Neko Case.

VLF: Thanks for taking time out to talk to me. Good luck in Chicago! And the rest of the tour. 

Potenza: Thanks for wanting to talk!

Sarah Potenza

Saturday, November 12, 2016
Doors: 8:30 pm / Show: 9:00 pm
The Hideout
$12.00 - $15.00

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Why I joined #BreakUpwithSalt

I was honored to be asked to join the American Heart Association's #BreakUpwithSalt team. Here is an excerpt of my post:

This December I’ll be 42. That puts me at t-minus five years until I am as old as my mom was when she died. FIVE YEARS. No one does know how long, but most of us do want to live to be little old ladies and men. One thing I am trying to get a hold of is my health. My mom died of diabetes and my dad, thankfully still with us, is battling high blood pressure and heart disease. So yeah, I have a lot of work cut out for me.

In terms of the high blood pressure, I know that increased sodium in one’s diet is the major cause of that. But I had forgotten WHY this is such a bad thing to do to one’s body.

Head over to the AHA's site to read more of my reasoning and to find resources on how you can also #BreakupwithSalt.

Disclaimer: I was compensated for writing my post on the AHA.

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Why I brought Ida B. Wells flowers

As anyone paying a teeny bit of attention to this year's Presidential campaign knows we are now one week away from election day. Much has been written about taco trucks, emails, sexual assault, and adorable old (mostly white) ladies who were born before or around the time women's suffrage was written into the US Constitution. No matter what the outcome is, November 8, 2016 will be a historic day as it took 96 years from suffrage to having a woman as a candidate of a major political party. Many women have run before, but Hillary Clinton is the first to be steps away from being the first woman to be elected to the highest office in the USA.

This means for many women we are reflecting back. Reflecting on our grandmas and mothers who were our first women's studies teacher, who role modeled strong womanhood, and who could critique Hillary while still sporting a "I'm with her" button. It also means reflecting on the countless women who fought for suffrage including the most recognizable suffragist in the USA is Susan B. Anthony.

Anthony has been memorialized on the dollar coin and since at least 2014 had women voters visit her grave after they have cast their vote. The image of her grave full of "I voted" stickers has gone viral. The fact that I have seen that image frequently in the build up to election day made me stop and think.

First of all, I'm in Chicago. Even if I wanted to say thanks to SBA I can't.

Second, being a Chicago feminist means I know our history is chock-full of kick ass feminists and maybe there's someone here to visit. OF COURSE THERE IS!!!

My first thought was Ida B. Wells.

Wells famously gave the suffrage leadership a big middle finger when she refused to walk at the back of the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, DC. She was also a journalist, anti-lynching activist, and all-around bad ass. I said a quick prayer and searched for her grave. JACKPOT!!

According to "Find a Grave" her resting place is on the south side of Chicago near the Museum of Science and Industry at the Oak Woods Cemetery. Now to find someone to go searching for Wells. I enlisted Natalie Moore of WBEZ and author of The South Side (go get it now!).

On Monday we met up at Oak Woods, went to the office and asked how to find Ida B. Wells. After some navigating with a paper map*, we found her headstone. I left her some flowers as a thank you. I haven't voted yet, so I couldn't leave my "I voted" wristband** for her.

It is nice when my ideas pan out so well. Feminists of color continue to fight for our place within the movement, call out "white feminism" when it rears its head, and create spaces that center our lives and experiences.  Natalie and I stood there for a bit having a great conversation about racism in the suffrage movement, racism in the campaign, how we need to still have a much needed conversation about racism in the USA, and even swapping stories about our daughters. I haven't studied her work close enough to know for sure, but I'd like to think that Wells would be hella proud of so much of our work, from Donna Brazile to Opal Tometi, Alixia Garza and Patrisse Cullors. Wells would be proud of each of us who have been told to "stand over there" only to show up anyway. Some of us will cast our vote for Clinton, some won't. My visit there wasn't about who you we vote for, but to remember and mark this historic moment by saying thank you to a suffragist who was also a woman of color.

Instead of only thanking Susan B. Anthony for our ability to vote on the 8th, take a moment to do some research to find out who your local suffragists were and thank them too.

* We also got a packet of the Who's Who of Oakwood. Jesse Owens one of the many amazing people laid to rest here. It is also the future resting place of Roland Burris.
**  Chicago voters don't get stickers cause too many people put them on walls, so this year we are getting paper wristbands.

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For Cubs fans past and present

 I have been an emotional wreck since Saturday afternoon.

After we got done with our daughter's soccer match (for the record they lost) I focused on game 6 of the National League Championship Series (NLCS). My Cubbies were heading into the do or die game in a few hours. And yes, while I know there was a game 7, I knew that momentum is on the victors side. If the Cubs somehow lost, I can imagine the Dodgers steamrolling us in game 7 and thus crushing all of Cubs Nation once again. Nerves overcame me. Anxiety was all I could feel. Nausea replaced any appetite. My husband landed last minute tickets and I immediately regretted it. Despite the historical nature and "once in a lifetime" nature of the game, I started to say, "I don't want to go. I can't go." I had the same feeling, times 10, that I get just before the Superman roller coaster starts. I told our daughter, "If they lose, you'll have to carry me home." I knew I would not be able to handle being there to watch our dreams evaporate.

My husband, our daughter, and I got on the Red Line and headed to Wrigley Field. My husband asked many times if I was ok. Apparently anxiety stole the remnants of my summer tan to leave a ghost. I swallowed and said, "I'm ok," in an attempt to convince myself.

But once we got into view of the Friendly Confines its magic started to set in. This was my happy place, despite being there for far too many losses. This is the one place I definitely want my ashes spread. We walked around to look at the merchandise, but committed to not buying anything until "this is all over." Not after we win, but when it is over. No jinxing allowed. I did take a photo of the Eamus Catuli sign because I knew it would change no matter what.

Now we are safe inside one of the holiest places to me. Our rally towel in hand, my scorecard purchased, and a peek at batting practice. Kudos to the crew who picked the music. It's all perfect. As the game moves along and I'm keeping score, watching us take out the Dodgers 1-2-3 each inning, the feeling starts to build. This might happen!

Then the life flashbacks start to happen. Am I dying? Nope, the Cubs are merely inching closer to winning. The entire game I wished my dad was with me. He's the reason I am a Cubs fan. Many summer days were spent watching games on TV. Many days of school were spent ditching to head east to Wrigley Field. Ironically the Dodgers were one of our fave teams to go watch as I was a kid during FernandoMania. When we would sign guest books on vacation he'd add, "Go Cubs!" But he moved to North Carolina almost 20 years ago and there wasn't time or money to get him to the park in time.

I also thought of my mom who died 13 years ago. The long-suffering spouse to a Cubs fan who had daughters who grew up as Cubs fans. She eventually learned to love the Cubbies and enjoy coming out to the park with us...as long as it wasn't an icy Opening Day. How she would have enjoyed watching us lose our mind over this season.

The next morning I walked out to our alley and ran into the woman who lives behind us. "The Cubs won last night!" she reported. I told her I knew, we were there. "We finally had enough angels to make it happen." Her husband who died a few years ago was a huge Cubs fan. I couldn't bring myself to say, "Frank would have loved it." I can barely type it! I remember my husband & I talking to him shortly before he died about maybe, maybe the Cubs would win before he passes. Alas. Then I thought of a friend whose dad recently died. Then I was drowning in ghosts of Cubs fans before me. Thinking of those of us who were carrying our lost dads, grandmas, and best friends into the stadium or sitting with us on the couch.

For most of us, we cried on Saturday night because we never believed we would live long enough to hear the words, "The Cubs are going to the World Series!" But we also cried for those who did not.

Go Cubs!

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Clean Air Moms Action

Every year it gets worse. As we move from hot & humid days to cool & crisp air that tiny bit of allergy-induced asthma I have gets worse. My dependency on an inhaler grows.

From past allergy tests, I know most of what I am allergic to is Mother Earth. Her glorious trees and flowers make my life hard and clog up my nasal passages. But I also know from experience that air action days make high pollen days seem like a picnic. What makes me feel worse about those days is that for my health I need to stay in air-conditioned spaces. Even if AC is part of the bigger problem!

That is why I consider the health of our environment is an important issue for me. Despite it not receiving the needed attention during the presidential or vice-presidential debates, our environment is a national issue...even a national security issue!

I really don't understand why such an important issue and one that should be one we can all rally around wasn't truly addressed. I know that Trump has tweeted that climate change is a hoax and that many in the GOP do not believe the science, but even more so why it should be addressed.

That is why when Clean Air Moms Action asked for people to write about why air pollution is an important issue for the upcoming election I said, "HELL YES!" They are traveling the country with a documentary film crew capturing the stories of parents who are fighting daily to protect their children’s health effects of exposure to oil & gas productions, high-tide flood waters, and ground water contamination from coal ash waste sites.

Clean air is an issue that is wrapped up in other issues. Normally we talk about it as a side issue to energy or climate change, but really it should be THE ISSUE. Then we break it down into trade, health care, economy, immigration, etc. Let's flip the conversation! 

No matter who wins the election, we have a lot of work to do to clean up our environment. So make sure you get out there and vote!

Join me in pledging to vote on November 8th (or earlier!)

This post was produced with support from Clean Air Moms Action.
All opinions are, of course, my own.

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