OUR BLOODY HISTORY

I recently had to have a conversation with the Cabbage about menstruation. I don’t want to go into too many details, because that’s their story to tell or not tell. I just made a point to empathize with them and to stress that there is nothing shameful about periods and what is happening to their body. When I told Misti what I said to the Cabbage, she said that she wished she had had someone tell her the same thing and then I started to get really mad. Then I got furious because for far too long there has always been shame associated with what happens with women’s bodies. The natural processes of the female body has been used as a weapon against women since the dawn of time because not only is something men fear, it is something they don’t understand.

I’m about to set that Red Tent on fire.

Michael attempted to empathize with me for having to have that conversation with the Cabbage by saying something about all boys getting a talk about masturbation. Outwardly, I nodded my head and was all “yeah, that must have been difficult.”, but inwardly I was all “WHAT THE FUCK, GIRLS ARE NEVER GIVEN PERMISSION TO TOUCH THEMSELVES!” Even in sex education, the topic of self pleasure did not exist. Masterbuation was never part of the conversation when I was a young woman. Menstruation was never part of the conversation either. I was so ashamed to mention it that I had to sneak a note to my mother about the things I needed and even then, she did not give any instructions. My strong Southern Baptist upbringing taught me to believe all the things mentioned in the bible about a woman’s body. We were unclean and our only value was in the production of babies. Which is exactly what the patriarchy wants you to believe. I have lost track of the number of times I have heard that a woman can not be President of the United States because of menstruation, the most bullshitty, asinine patriarchal excuse ever.

It is all a lie.

The Sexual Revolution may have shined a light on the female orgasm, but it didn’t do all that much for taking the shame and embarrassment out of a monthly period. Bleeding into your pants has been seen as being as bad as peeing your pants. As if the start and stop of your period was something you ever had any control over. I had one friend tell me as I ranted on this topic that she was afraid to ask for the things she needed because she didn’t know if this was something her parents could afford. She is not the only woman or young woman to have this problem. There are too many women in this country that have to choose between buying milk or buying pads or tampons. Pads and tampons might as well be considered a luxury item and not being able to afford them adds yet another level of shame. Those of us raised in the environment that taught us that our female bodies where shameful now have a very serious choice to make. Do we repeat the cycle with this next generation of young women or do we rail against it with all of our might?

I’ve chosen to rail against it. Not just or the Cabbage, but for myself. I am at an age where my body is changing and doing weird things. I recently stopped taking birth control. My periods are random as fuck and I have no idea what to expect to happen to this body. There isn’t even a whole lot scientific research for me to read through because this society does not place any value on the women’s reproductive organs when those organs are no longer being used to produce. One more thing to add to my list of things that causes rage. This is my body. It does some pretty great things, but it also does some pretty gross stuff sometimes. BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT BODIES DO!

And I refuse to have any shame about it.

I GOT NOTHING

I started to write something about how this week is turning out to resemble my work life before the pandemic. Scheduling snafus and spring break quartines has me holding down the fort this week, which means going into the office EVERY DAY. It’s a little bit of a shock to the system and I thought “hey! let’s write about it!” Then I opened my New York Times for Tuesday morning and read about the latest mass shooting that killed ten people in a Boulder Co grocery store. After a mass shooting targeting our Asian Americans LAST WEEK, the fact that I was at work this week didn’t really seem to matter any more.

One evening sometime last year, Michael and I were sitting on the couch enjoying some wine and TV when we heard gunfire outside. It is not unusual to hear gunfire in our neighborhood, particularly east of us. There were two hundred and sixty nine recorded homicides in Kansas City last year. The weapon of choice for those homicides was some sort of firearm. The Daily Homicide Analysis statistics page lists “argument” as a contributing factor to many of those homicides. I made up the game Gunshots or Fireworks to make light of a serious reality. Guns are routinely shot off in my neighborhood. What was different about that evening last year is that the gunfire sounded so close that I ducked my body down over the dog to lay us both out flat on the couch. The gunfire was coming from the street right in front of our house. We heard squealing tires and then silence. After a few breaths, Michael opened the front door and stepped out. Our neighbor to our right came out. We all checked on each other and then tried to figure out what had just happened in our street.

I don’t tell you this story so that you will think that I live in a ‘bad’ neighborhood or that I should move because it is dangerous. It is not a dangerous neighborhood. My street and my neighborhood are both very safe. My neighbors on all sides look out for each other. Josephine and I regularly walk our neighborhood, waving hello to the people we see. I have given cartons of eggs to half the people on my block. At least two of my neighbors have called me to let me know that they had Josephine when she was going through her Houdini phase. I have returned the favor with other neighborhood dogs. My neighborhood is safe, but not immune to violence.

No one lives in a place immune to violence.

Now there’s a truth bomb no one wanted to read, but for a number of us who grew up in rural white America and the land of suburban picket fences it is a truth bomb we need to read and take notice. We are disillusioned and trained to believe in a vision of what is safe, but that vision is crumbling because the places that we thought were supposed to be safe, places like schools, our churches, our grocery stores, are not immune to violence. Owning a gun does not make you immune to violence. You’re just more likely to be the one to cause the violence, killing a loved one and or yourself. Yet it is a shock and horror to all of us when gun violence happens in the places where we thought we were safe. The problem for me is that it is no longer a shock or horror. It is becoming a way of life. The new American Dream is to survive a day in school, to worship safely and to survive going to the grocery store. This isn’t our ‘new normal’. This is our normal.

When we wouldn’t do anything after the first mass shooting in a school where children were murdered, why would we do anything now?

PRIVILEGE

Levels of gray

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My brother said something over the weekend about how he’s supposedly the enemy now because he is a white privileged male. He followed this up with how he didn’t understand how he was privileged because he’s had to work hard for everything he has. He sounded dejected as he said all of this and I felt bad for him. My brother is a good man. I wanted to explain to him how, even though he’s worked hard for everything, he still has a certain amount of privilege allotted to him because of the color of his skin and his maleness. How do you explain to someone who hasn’t had it easy, that they are privileged?

Privilege: a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.

I can see my brother reading this definition and asking “what was my special right?” Oklahoma is still a very racially segregated state. Most, if not all, of what he experiences is in a community of white where marginalization is socioeconomic. As a good friend of my pointed out, even the right to work is a privilege. This study is a good example of how just the name on your resume can keep you from getting a job.

White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews

I once had a boss ask me if it was true that some of the people we were working with didn’t want to talk to me because I am a woman. He said this with all sincerity. He was genuinely clueless. It just never dawned on him that this sort of discrimination was happening in his environment. Because it was something he himself had never experienced. This is privilege. Walking into a store without being under constant supervision because of the color of your skin is a privilege. Going to buy a wedding cake and not being turned away due to your sexual orientation is a privilege. Being paid and treated the same as your coworkers is a privilege.

I recognize that I too have many privileges allotted to me. I didn’t ask for them, but I sure did take advantage of the safety it provided me. I allowed myself to be naive in thinking that all people had the same advantages if they only worked hard for it. Honestly, I didn’t have to work all that hard to get to where I am today. Scholarships just appeared. My parents had just enough. I did not have to work and support myself while I was getting an education. THAT IS A PRIVILEGE. With my whole heart, I believe this should not be a privilege but a right for everyone. Now I use the benefits of my privilege to support education whether it be through volunteer outreach or donations. The first step is recognizing your privilege. The second step is using that privilege to do good, to speaking up for the marginalized and to be grateful.

Your privilege doesn’t make you an enemy unless you believe that you are owed these privileges because of your race. Or that you are owed these privileges at all. This is an important conversation that we need to be having because we need good men like my brother on our side. The last thing I want is for my brother to feel threatened or alienated for a number of reasons. Look what happens when white men feel threatened and alienated. They do stupid things like vote for Trump, hold rallies declaring their superiority, and have parades promoting their homophobia.

COMPLACENCY

32/52

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Michael goes back to school on Thursday. He won’t have kids until next week. This week will just be meetings and getting organized. On Friday he’ll have mass shooter training. He told me this as we were eating lunch somewhere. I don’t know even remember where or if we were in Boston or Kansas City. He said all of this to me before the mass shootings committed by white terrorists over the weekend. I just remember feeling the food that I had just swallowed congeal into a lump and wedge itself in my throat. Michael is a high school math teacher. Not a policeman. Not a TSA employee. Not a first responder. Not a soldier.

He’s a teacher.

Every year, before the students show up to class, all of the teachers spend a day where someone comes into the building and pretends to kill them. And the teachers have to find a way to survive. Michael told me that last year, they were given a length of rope to tie up the door. He said that this seemed to work okay and then he shrugged nonchalantly. It was a gesture that I couldn’t quite understand. Was it a shrug of “whatever”? Or was it a shrug of apathetic acceptance of the situation? I feel like maybe when he tells me about the shooter drills that I’m supposed to think of it as normal. Like it’s just like a fire drill or a tornado drill. Active shooter drills are just our new way of life.

Except it isn’t.

The minute I see this as ‘normal’ is the minute I become complacent.

Michael and I have been watching the series Years and Years on HBO. The series follows a family through the years as the world sort of falls to pieces. Climate change causes heavy rains and rising seas that lead to flooding and the displacement of millions of people. There’s a story line on immigration and refugees seeking asylum. There is a story arc around banks collapsing and the financial crisis that follows. Through all of it, you watch this family as they go about their day to day lives. Things don’t really look all that different for them. There’s some job losses from the financial crisis. Love stories and relationships change. There’s health issues to be dealt with. Deaths to endure. All of it seems very much like everyone else’s normal daily lives. They just go on about their business. All while the world falls to complete shit around them.

Some times there’s a really fine line between fiction and nonfiction.

I just signed up at Everytown for Gun Safety to be contacted as a volunteer. I don’t want to just go about my daily life while the world falls to shit around me.