Girldrive

GIRLDRIVE HAS MOVED!

2009-09-02T11:08:00.004-05:00

Hello! Thanks for visiting Girldrive. You will be redirected in mere moments to the NEW SITE:

www.girl-drive.com

Enjoy!

Rubyfruit Jungle, oh how I heart you

2009-08-12T18:23:00.004-05:00

Okay, so this doesn't really have to do with Girldrive, per se, except for the fact that it's about finding your feminist identity...but I just wrote a piece on Bitch's site about how much I love Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle. It seriously is the best feminist novel I've ever read. Check it out.

Preview: some dates for the Girldrive launch

2009-08-04T22:40:00.003-05:00

Seal Press and I have been hard at working settling some dates for various Girldrive events. So far we're planning on:

a reading at KGB Bar in NYC on Oct 29 at 7 p.m. (featuring some ladies from the book)

a classy-ass launch party (kid-and-underage-friendly!) at A.I.R. Gallery in NYC on Oct 30 at 7:30 p.m.

a reading at Women and Children First in Chicago on Nov 7 at 7:30 p.m.

a reading at Left Bank Books in St. Louis on Nov 22 at 4 p.m.

I'm also hoping to hit up Detroit, Milwaukee, Madison, and any college or bookstore that invites me within driving range! (Or if you want to fly me out, that's cool too.)

Real quick: Jezebel gives Girldrive a shoutout

2009-07-23T14:12:00.004-05:00

(Thought I'd tell you in case you didn't see it...)

Also, not sure whether to laugh or cry, but one of the comments jokingly compared the Girldrive vid to this fake trailer by Alicia Silverstone and Alanis Morissette. Crazy coincidence? Um, hopefully.

My Mother's Red Hat w/Alicia Silverstone & Alanis Morissette from Alicia Silverstone

Girldrive trailer!

2009-07-18T04:21:00.008-05:00

Check out the new Girldrive trailer, which has actual footage of our road trip (it actually kinda matches that photo of us on the right!). The video was made by the amazing and talented Lucy, who came with us for a week on our adventure, and brought her video camera along with her. Pretty soon, there will be shorter trailers of a few individual interviews to get you excited for the book.

Note: the new website (advertised at the end) doesn't work yet, obviously. That'll be up in a couple of weeks, I just couldn't wait to share the video!

Become a fan of Girldrive on Facebook!

2009-07-03T17:02:00.003-05:00

Hi everyone,

I just created a Facebook fan page, a place to keep up on updates and events related to Girldrive. Clearly if you read the blog, you already get these, but please become a fan so that your hundreds of Facebook friends will see the little icon, get curious, and click on it!

It also has some photos that aren't on the blog. Enjoy!

-Nona

Girldrive's cover

2009-06-16T09:36:00.005-05:00

Yay! Girldrive's cover is finally done!

It features the beautiful faces of some of our interviewees on this blog, like Mehiko, Puja, Pia, Gina, Noel, Julia, and Raine, as well as a few women we met after our initial journey.

This means I can finally make a Facebook fan page for Girldrive, too, since I have some actual art to accompany it. Be sure to become a fan so that your Facebook friends can see the icon and learn what the book's all about!

I keep promising a new site, and it is indeed in the works. I'll link to it from this blog as soon as it's done!

Love,

Nona

RainTaxi reviews Belladonna book honoring Emma

2009-05-21T11:50:00.005-05:00

Thought I'd link to this piece (better late than never), an amazing and thoughtful review of the fourth book in the Belladonna series, which honors Emma, written by Ellen Kennedy Michel of RainTaxi Review of Books. It has a lot to say about Girldrive, too--and it's very spot-on.

An excerpt about my essay in Belladonna:

"In her own contribution to Belladonna #4, “Emma’s Poetry,” Nona Willis Aronowitz writes: “Emma was always disappointed that ‘GIRLdrive the book’ could not possibly embody the headiness of ‘GIRLdrive the experience’. . . She wanted us to be more conspicuous characters in the story of GIRLdrive, more than just the talking heads of the odyssey that forged connections between hundreds of women across thirty-five cities.” Nona’s prose, both here and elsewhere, conveys the energy and intelligence of GIRLdrive. The two women knew how to seize the moment, identifying the gaps and the overlaps between their forebears and feminists (or “not”) of their own generation..."

And more specifically about Emma:

"It is clear from Belladonna #4 that feminism, photography, and artistic expression have lost a fierce, articulate, forthright, inquiring practitioner, the voice and vision of a young adult who was romantic, idealistic, impetuous, talented, and knowledgeable beyond her years. Her pace was fast, eager, and self-reflective. Emma’s photography (for which she earned a degree with Honors, with images such as the one here, of a friend) played with the notion of masquerade: “In all of the photographs, a set of elusive and unknowable eyes peers out from the layers of artifice, trying to see and be seen. There is a tragic element, as despite all the attempts at engendering an image that matches a mental picture, the woman underneath the clothes and behind the skin remains a mystery to us and to herself.” That Emma suffered so much at the end of her life confers a harder look at the issues that consumed her."

It's a great piece. Check out the rest here.

Update: Galleys headed my way!

2009-04-23T20:50:00.002-05:00

Yay! My deadline has officially passed and the first galleys of Girldrive are en route to my house. AND so is the second half of my advance, which means I will be abandoning blogspot for a dot-com very shortly. Look out for a new Girldrive website in the next couple months!

Love,
Nona

Women's History Month quiz

2009-03-26T11:03:00.003-05:00

Deborah Siegel at Girl W/ Pen, one of Girldrive's fairy godmothers, is trying to pass on this blog quiz. If you have a blog, repost this and add a question of your own!

(thanks to Feministing for the heads-up)

1. In 2009, women make up what percent of the U.S. Congress?
A. 3%
B. 17%
C. 33%
D. 50%

2. How many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are female?
A. 12
B. 28
C. 59
D. 84

3. Who was the first First Lady to create her own media presence (ie hold regular press conferences, write a daily newspaper column and a monthly magazine column, and host a weekly radio show)?
A. Eleanor Roosevelt
B. Jacqueline Kennedy
C. Pat Nixon
D. Hillary Clinton

4. The Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced to Congress in:
A. 1923
B. 1942
C. 1969
D. 1971

5. Who was the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?
A. Phyllis Wheatley
B. Alice Walker
C. Toni Morrison
D. Maya Angelou

6. What percentage of union members are women today?
A. 10%
B. 25%
C. 35%
D. 45%

7. What year did the Griswold v. Connecticut decision guarantee married women the right to birth control?
A. 1960
B. 1965
C. 1969
D. 1950

My added question:

8. What kick-ass woman said this phrase: "If I can't dance, it's not my revolution"?

A. Elizabeth Cady Stanton

B. Emma Goldman

C. Angela Davis

D. Madonna

Answers in the comments section....

Belladonna* book honoring Emma

2009-02-28T16:16:00.010-06:00

Belladonna*, a reading series and small press devoted to the visibility of women writers, is publishing a book in their Elders series dedicated to Emma. She was originally the editor on the project, which was connected to a panel that hadn't yet taken place. But she had completed her work for the book, and the event has morphed into a tribute to her and her art, both for GIRLdrive and elsewhere. I have a piece at the end called "Emma's Poetry." If you're in New York, check out the info for the book release event here.

You can buy the book here. It's really a beautiful little collection, full of Emma's photographs and both of our writing, as well as an afterword by Johanna Drucker and interviews with Marjorie Perloff and Susan Bee, Emma's mom.

Some Advance Press

2009-02-26T17:16:00.006-06:00

Check out this nicely-put piece on GIRLdrive in Too Shy To Stop, a relatively new online magazine for "young people who live, play, study, or work in the United States."

It connects older feminists' reactions to young female Obama fans with some GIRLdrive revelations, which is kinda cool. Lemme know what you think!

(photo from Too Shy To Stop)

This Is Awesome

2009-02-19T17:15:00.002-06:00

Update: Intense Writing Time!

2009-01-11T12:27:00.008-06:00

Hi everyone,

I'm taking some serious time to finish the GIRLdrive manuscript, so I won't be posting all that regularly during January and February. As you all might imagine, I have a whole lot more work than I thought I would and I want to make our book the best it can possibly be.

I'll check in with you soon. Wish me luck on the home stretch.

Love,
Nona

---
More tributes to Emma:

Her dad's tribute (includes eulogies spoken at the service)

Daoud's song dedication

Poem for Emma

Tribute from our publisher, Seal Press

Grace's post

Emma, 1985-2008

2008-12-26T12:38:00.015-06:00

My co-author of GIRLdrive, close friend, and intellectual soulmate Emma Bee Bernstein died on December 20th, 2008, in Venice, Italy. Unable to give Emma a fitting tribute on GIRLdrive until now (Emma had changed the password), I am finally able to honor her after my initial shock. The past six months had been an unimaginable nightmare for Emma, as she trudged through emotional turmoil and circumstantial stress almost daily, without allowing herself a minute of respite or peace of mind.

Yet I want to believe that her despair was in spite of GIRLdrive, feminism, and our work together. During many bonding work sessions or long car rides, Emma confessed to me that this project was one of the main positive forces in her life. She cared so much about the fate of women and feminism in this country; Emma had many sides to her, but at her core was a fervently idealistic soul. I can only hope to bring forth her passion as I finish up our book, and somehow keep her misty-eyed utopianism alive amidst very real tragedy.

The other positive forces in her life, of course, were her countless loved ones. Emma touched and was touched by so many people, it's unbelievable. I've been reminded of this daily for the last six days, as dozens of people important to her have reached out to me.

Love you girl. I will miss our adventures more than you can imagine.

--Nona

---------------
Courtney Martin of Feministing, one of our GIRLdrive interviewees, has written an amazingly insightful and honest tribute to Emma, linked here.

Her close friend Sam has set up a Flickr album to remember her through photos, the medium through which Emma reflected her artistic vision.

For New Yorkers, there will be a service on Wednesday, December 31st at 10:30 am, at the Plaza Jewish Community Chapel at 630 Amsterdam Ave (at 91st Street).

Happy Birthday, Mom

2008-12-14T23:55:00.006-06:00

Today marks the birthday of my mother, Ellen Willis, who died on November 9, 2006. If you're a follower of this blog, you probably know that she was a major Second Wave feminist writer, critic, and activist. The best way to honor her today is by reading one of her pieces, many of which you can find simply by Googling my mother's name. Every so often I am startled by the staggering amount of fans coming out of the woodwork, to tell me how much they were influenced by her work, and how much they love and admire her.

Her life's work was one of the main inspirations for GIRLdrive, and continues to be an inspiration to me every second of every day. As my dad wrote to me in an email today:

"Ellen is always on my mind and heart. But we sometimes need markers like birthdays to help us focus for more than fleeting moments."

Yes.

--Nona

Update: Nona on The Golden Notebook

2008-12-08T18:16:00.005-06:00

Hi guys,

Couldn't resist telling you about an interesting project that I'm involved in. The Institute for the Future of the Book is running an online think tank funded by the MacArthur Foundation about Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, a feminist classic and, apparently, one of Barack's favorite books, as well.

Six other readers, all female critics/writers, and I are participating in a close reading of the Nobel Prize-winning author's novel, literally commenting in the margins as we read along. Check out the website here.

-Nona

Mid-Week Memo: The Abortion Debate

2008-11-12T12:33:00.006-06:00

Last month, when we visited Fargo and spoke with three women who worked for the only abortion clinic in North Dakota, the presidential elections had not yet been decided. One of the central issues defining the cultural war--and the difference between a McCain and an Obama administration--is the issue of choice. The women who worked at Red River Women's Clinic told us that the topic is especially sensitive in the Dakotas; although there is a strong pro-choice voice, much of North and South Dakota is vehemently pro-life. Billboards like the one below (just west of Sioux Falls) weren't unusual to spot on the side of the road.

We checked back in with two of these ladies and asked them their predictions and hopes for a pro-choice, Obama presidency. They both seemed excited and hopeful.

Becca told us:
"It would be more than fair to say that all of our staff (and probably a majority of our patients) are glad to see our choice more secure with Obama as president. I have always been proud to work at the RRWC and being connected to our community, but it is frustrating to see legislation, ND, and our country move towards conservative values that leaves women with an unwanted pregnancies and people in other situations without control over their lives. Obama gives a me peace that we have a leader that I can trust and be excited about."

In response to our questions, Dena sent us a copy of a newsletter article she wrote regarding the election outcome. Here is an excerpt from her piece:

"Many of us woke up elated November 5th and for those of us who are pro-choice, a huge factor for our bright Wednesday morning was that our nation elected a pro-choice president. We elected a man who unabashedly stated 'A woman's ability to decide how many children to have and when, without interference from the government, is one of the most fundamental rights we possess. It is not just an issue of choice, but equality and opportunity for all women.'...Obama is also a strong supporter of comprehensive sex education and government funding of family
planning...The citizens in the United States spoke loudly and clearly with the election of a pro-choice president and the defeat of anti-choice legislation in two states. With these positive changes now is the time to keep that momentum going."

Read the rest of Dena's article here.

Moorhead: Beth

2008-10-24T19:15:00.011-05:00

Beth (right, at her parents' farm): 20, lives and grew up on a farm in Moorhead, ND, second oldest of five kids, started her own business a year ago called Eden Photography, attends bible college through the Fargo Baptist church.

"I wouldn't say I was a feminist. I don't believe that women should be a doormat--we're all equal to God--but he gives us different roles. The way I see it is that if this is his will, to raise the next generation, you're going to be your happiest [raising children]...you can have your business on the side, as sort of a "fallback" I would say, but your focus is on your family and God. I don't think that certain people shouldn't get a job because they're a woman, but I do think in a marriage, you should submit. There are definitely roles for a husband and wife, and feminism would be erasing that."

Fargo: Prairie Rose

2008-10-24T18:22:00.005-05:00

Prairie Rose (left, in her Fargo apartment): 28, member of the Fort Berthhold reservation in northwest North Dakota, grew up in Fargo, half Cheyenne/Arikara, half German-Russian, one of six kids. Former manager of the Fargo theater and now works with a local promoter, but her "passion lies with social justice issues."

"The Western interpretation [of native culture] is that women were very domesticated--they did all the housework, the skinning and tanning and building of homes. But with this comes a lot of balance...the women were the backbone of our society. The men were the skin--we can't survive without skin, and they protected us. The tradeoff was that women were responsible for education...we were the healers, the doctors, the midwives, we had power...

"[Now] Native American women suffer two or three times the rate of domestic violence, rape and incest than their Caucasian counterparts. What happened with our history is that our way of life was taken away from us...we were compassionate and equitable. But when you are a people who have lost everything, who are relocated, who are forced into this whole assimilation process, you lose yourselves--because of oppression we became the oppresors. There is a new generation are trying to bring back who we are, but it's a hard cycle to break."

GIRLdrive hits the Dakotas!

2008-10-23T16:40:00.006-05:00

This past weekend we headed out to the Dakotas (our first time!), visiting Fargo, Sioux Falls, Lake Andes and more... mostly gazing and gawking at the sweeping farmlands that define the region. It has been exactly a year since we first headed out on the road, and this was sadly our last official trip for book content. Roadtrip addicts that we are, though, I am sure we will be back soon enough. Until then, look forward to snippets in the coming weeks from the singular Dakotas women we had the pleasure of interviewing. Here below, sample some of our candid moments (with girlfriend Antonia) at one with the road.

Mid-Week Memo: Nuns, Sex, and Contraception

2008-09-24T22:06:00.008-05:00

Note: This is Part 2 in a 3-part series discussing Chastity, Purity, and Promiscuity.

Last week we met up with Katharine (below), a 23-year-old resident of Forest Park, IL, studying to be a librarian and working at a couple non-profits downtown. She also has another possible title in her future: nun. She has resolved to either fall in love with a man and devote herself to a family, or become a nun and devote herself to God and those who need help. Katharine, at first glance, does not fit any chaste stereotypes, coming across as a perfectly normal, stylish, cool twentysomething. She even told us she thought that a nun is "the ultimate feminist. They are looking at the world and saying, 'Listen, you want to care about what your clothes look like? I don't care. You want to care about making money? I don't make any money! You want to cast down those who are burdened? I want to pick them up.' She has given up her entire life, her clothes, her cool shoes, just so that she can help people who don't have help. That's really empowering."

But she also voiced some very strong opinions about sex and what it should mean in a woman's life. Emma, in a conversation about waiting to have sex until marriage, asked Katharine: "Is it ever okay for a woman to have sex just...because?" Katharine answered:

"My view here is to look at a person's entirety. So, a person isn't simply a body, or a brain, or a soul--all of these things make up an entire person and to be separate one or all of these things would be using the other person. In the case of sex, it is the use of his or her body. To an extent it is saying, "I'd love to have fun with you, but I don't want to deal with your emotions or well being after that. You're not a person--just an object, just a body." Or, in the case of couples using contraception, "I want all of you...except your fertility. We can just throw that part out of the mix for now." But, even in a case where love is deeply involved, contraception still eliminates an aspect of the woman's whole being--fertility is written into our genetics and we can't deny it."

Our interview with Katharine was one of our best, yet another reminder that a feminist can come in many forms, one who doesn't fit the strict parameters pop culture assigns to her.

Bitch Magazine in Trouble! Please Help

2008-09-16T10:30:00.004-05:00

Hi guys,

We normally don't do these types of things on our blog, but this one's close to our heart. Bitch Magazine, which is run by one of our interviewees, Andi Zeisler in Portland, in in serious financial trouble. This is a kick-ass publication--filled with wit, humor, and important commentary on feminist issues. So offer your help at this link, even if it's just $5!

-N and E

Philly: CILLE AND THEMBI

2008-08-30T19:27:00.008-05:00

Thembi (left): 29, originally from Philly, works for an educational testing service, really wants to be a "media maven--a writer and a talking head," writes a blog called "What Would Thembi Do?", a blog about black pop culture, among other things.

"One of the main things I'm disappointed about is that women don't band together more over sexual health. Don't ever have a women's health problem, because it will destroy your life. It makes me so mad the way doctors act toward something as personal as a reproductive system--which, by the way, are half female, it's not like it's some crazy thing that we can't understand. But if there's something wrong, the doctor is not able to say anything besides, 'Wait and see what happens.'...None of this, including breast cancer and diseases that affect women, has been addressed properly."

Cille (right): 24, originally from Philly, currently working for the city in emergency management, wants to pursue a Masters in public policy and a law degree--to become the "good" Condoleezza Rice.

"I relate to the term 'womanist' more than 'feminist.' It has a spiritual essence in it that you can't really divorce from the Black female experience. Feminism is not rooted in the spirit...it's too political. Womanist thinking is always based in theology: identifying the spirit in both men and women and making them whole, but in particular it relates to Black women and how we've been able to use the spirit of the Creator to heal our families and ourselves, and to take care of people and be the breadbaskets and mules of the world. What has sustained us over that time has been a spirit, whether it be God, whether it be whatever you believe in. [For many black women] that word has a more prominent meaning than feminism does."

New York: LIKWUID

2008-07-28T12:08:00.003-05:00

Likwuid: 26, born and raised in Columbia, SC, hip hop artist (her music linked here), personal trainer, learning how to DJ, has her own company, Royalty Media Group, which works on changing how women are viewed in hip hop.

"There are numerous women that are making great music. But if you let the industry tell it, they say, 'Oh, women don't sell, women artists are too hard to work with, you gotta do their fashion, their budgets.' I'm like, 'Please, you got men walking around with blue chinchilla coats.' The excuses that come up with women, they just don't add up. The problem really is that hip hop is so focused on objectifying women that they can't even step out and take an objective look at the situation. These women aren't selling because you're creating the same Barbie over and over again. When we had Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, it was balanced, it was beautiful, they had their individual style. Now they're taking women out of the picture and people are saying hip hop is dead. Of course it's dead! How you gonna have life with only one gender?"

Mid-Week Memo: Women and Rock

2008-07-23T20:14:00.002-05:00

In Philadelphia, we caught up with Emily, 26, right, who is the lead singer of Philly-based electro-pop outfit Pony Pants. She is the server of gelato by day, rock star by night, feminist all the time. She had some thoughts about women in music:

“I put a lot of energy and thought into performances, and I have rarely had anyone imply that it’s bullshit because I am a woman. There have been a couple of guys that come up to us after a show and will be just gushing about all the guitar riffages, and the gear, and the amps, and I’ll be like…didn’t you like the singing? And they say, “not really my thing.”

"Generally what happens more is that girls come up to me and want to hug and talk about their projects and it's fucking amazing. They will express that they really admire me, stuff I would have never expected. I figured people were over it. I see bands with girls in them all the time, in every capacity, and I love it. Sometimes when we’re on tour we get paired with bands just because they have girls in them, which is cool and I don’t mind at all, but guys in the audience will more frequently be like “Come on, you're not even in tune,” which is so stupid. I have the biggest soft spot for bands with girls, even if they are bad. It’s the whole Riot Grrrl, cult of amateurism stuff. Bands that are like “we don’t know how to play, but we are just going to fucking do it, because it feels good.”

Trip to New York: MARISOL

2008-07-21T18:00:00.000-05:00

Marisol: 22, native New Yorker, first-generation American, a financial analyst at one of the most famous investment banks in the world. Is going to quit next year and get her post-bacc to be a doctor.
(There she is, left, crossing Wall St)

On being a woman in the investment banking world:

"Surprisingly maybe, investment banks in New York are very modern in terms of women, childcare, minorities, diversity--they have it down. And you have to separate these banks from the rest of corporate America, like AT & T or GM, companies that are very old-fashioned. In those places, I feel like the environment for women is a lot different. My investment bank is five years ahead, not because they're feminists or anything...it's just that they realize that to work in the modern world and to get the best types of people you have to provide certain services and environments, otherwise you're going to lose women. There are three women in my group who recently have children, and they are provided with a childcare center in the building. That's better than other industries with more women, like publishing."

Overheard in Chicago #7: Summer Shows

2008-07-12T12:08:00.003-05:00

partying after the show: me with rebecca and jen of tyler john tyler

I arrived at the Sic Alps show on Saturday night, overwhelmed by the stench of male B.O. and stale Old Style. I scanned the crowd with my eyes, looking for a glimpse of that girl presence that always makes me feel so comfortable at shows. I elbowed my way to the front, so that I could see above all the 6-foot-tall bodies, and spotted some of the only other girls I know from the rock music scene bouncing along to the riffs.

A while later, I turned to one of my guy friends and said, "Man, it's so weird that there's not very many girls in the music scene in Chicago." He answered me, "Believe me, we're happy to have you. Before all you girls came onto the scene, who were we supposed to fuck?" He later told me he was kidding, that he knew we all played music, but the comment left a bad taste in my mouth. Did our gender make it necessary for the dudes in the scene to think of us as "groupies," and not as fellow music-lovers?

--Emma

Mid Week Memo: RYAN AND NATHAN

2008-07-08T16:25:00.004-05:00

In the early stages of GIRLdrive, we were reminded of a group of people that feminism sometimes glosses over: the transgender community. On our recent trip to the East coast (during New York's Pride Week), we talked with a genderbending woman and a transman who is currently passing at the workplace. This is what they had to say:

Ryan (left) is 26, born and raised in Queens, works at a real estate office, has been training for the last 2 years to be a firefighter. She identifies as genderqueer, and changed her name to Ryan earlier this year because she "never felt comfortable with [her] given name."

"Sometimes I feel more identified as female, and other times I feel more identified as male, depending on my situation. But then I start to think, 'It's based on the situations I'm in only because I'm thinking in terms of the definitions I've been taught.' I'm assigning language to behavior, but it seems kind of unnatural to me...I feel like the world is really in a struggle of borders, which have become the metaphor of my life. There's a struggle to cross borders and to keep things out. Confronting this will be important for feminism, I think, but more generally for just figuring out how to co-exist in the world."

Nathan is 22, lives and grew up in Philly, quit college last year, works for a pharmaceutical software company.

"I don't think that my decision to transition [into a man] makes me any less of a feminist, because the reason I transitioned is unrelated. My understanding of feminism is for both sexes to be equal--in ability, capacity, rights, everything. I can't say that switching really takes away from that. And I feel like I can make a difference from the inside...because now I am thought of as a man with other men. I don't pull out a whiteboard and write, 'Here's how not to objectify your wife.' But I do express feminist ideals covertly and I think it helps when guys hear it coming from guys."

We're back!

2008-07-07T18:07:00.005-05:00

We're safe and sound in Chicago, after a whirlwind tour of DC, Philly, and good old New York. Check back tomorrow for a combo Profile-Midweek Memo!

-N and E

(to the left is a photo of us in Telephone Bar & Grill in the East Village on 6/24, the same place where we first planted the seeds for GIRLdrive almost two years ago!)

GIRLdrive in DC, NYC, and Philly

2008-06-23T13:30:00.002-05:00

Dear Faithful Readers,
This week the blog goes on hiatus as we are in NYC, Philly, and DC conducting interviews and visiting our friends and family.

We are in NYC: June 20-27, June 29-July 2
Philly: June 27-28th
DC: June 28th-30th

If you know any awesome ladies to interview, please send them our way!
--E & N

Overheard in Chicago #6: Angie

2008-06-22T19:54:00.008-05:00

While taking publicity stills for Chicago based performance artist Angie, 23, right, we got to talking about life as a young lady in the theater arts world:

“My work has a lot to do with promoting my sexuality and understanding its power over people, especially men. Working in the performing arts, I’m not a stripper, but I feel that sex appeal is important…I am always hyper aware of my own use of my sexuality, and I use it to get what I want and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, because the converse of that is just being naïve and exploited. Woman [in the performing arts] are still completely objectified, especially in Chicago…They are not enough women in the performing arts in this city that are comfortable harnessing their sexuality in a way that is healthy and not exploited or commercial... The reason I am in performance is because I appreciate the fact that I can bring three dimensionality and depth to common notions of womanhood you see in flat advertisements and movies, being in the performing arts I take action against these commodified versions of femininity by bringing to life another version...”

--EBB

Mid-Week Memo: Words from the Guys

2008-06-19T20:16:00.001-05:00

detail from painting by Emma's mother, Susan Bee, titled "Girly Man,"
and the cover for a book by Emma's father of the same name

This week, we collected a few quotes from men on the topic of feminism--are they feminists, and what does feminism mean to them?

"I feel like men and women both need to be uplifted from where they're at, and in our society, women are more marginalized. So in the same way that I might be more aware of people that are poverty-stricken, or minorities that have had a harder experience in our country, I'd say I'm a feminist in the way that I'm aware that women are often subordinated in our society, or underappreciated. But I don't think you can uplift just women without changing the way that men approach it as well. The balance is very important, and it's a two-way conversation."
--Aaron, 26, production assistant and freestyle MC in New York

"I think I'm a feminist, but that doesn't mean that misogynist qualities aren't ingrained in me. I think that's true for women, too. I think I respect and am sensitive to women's issues, but I still find myself expecting women to act a certain way. I still say stuff like, "That chick is hot." I am feminist to the extent that I question how things exist now, but I'm still very much a product of mainstream 'guy' culture, whether I like it or not."
--Aaron, 27, waiter and writer in Chicago

"I am not sure how to answer the question of whether or not I consider myself to be a feminist. Of course, feminism means different things to different people, but it doesn't mean much to me. Do I respect people regardless of their gender? I would say yes -- at least I try to. If someone demonstrates themselves as worthy of respect, their gender really doesn't matter to me. However, I have a very different opinion of people who allow or choose to have the question of their gender (woman, man, trans, whatever) play too great a role in defining themselves." Matt took his thoughts in a more philosophical direction after this, wondering whether gender distinctions themselves create unbalanced power structures. He wondered: should we look past gender to find some mythical sexless human essence, or is there some merit to be found in embracing hierarchal structures? Click here to read his musings in his own words.
--Matt, 24, paralegal in Chicago

Overheard in Chicago #5: Open Mic

2008-06-15T19:58:00.002-05:00

While waiting to hear our girl Deliza perform at an open mic over the weekend at the Bassment, we overheard a choice exchange.

The female emcee (right) asked one of the guy rappers, DJ Uh-Oh, if he was intimidated by the amount of ladies stepping up to the microphone.

He didn't hesitate to retort (left): "Some of these b-girls are coming harder than niggas," he admitted. "I ain't gonna bite my tongue."

Cheers and shout-outs ensued.

Mid-Week Memo: JADINE

2008-06-10T15:26:00.000-05:00

This is Part III of a series dedicated to
Contemporary Art & Feminism

Last Saturday Nona and I had the pleasure of attending a graduate student symposium curated by Woman Made Gallery in honor of the Feminist Art Project. We sat through hours of presentations, with paper topics ranging from 1970’s confessional video art, to the use of string and embroidery to represent femininity in visual practice, to the repercussions of the “L-Word” on lesbian stereotyping in the media. It was the first time I have been to such an intimate gathering of art history and feminism nerds, and not been the youngest member of the audience. Most of the gals presenting and listening (unfortunately there were few men in attendance) are daughters of the third wave, yet there was a sense of scholarship and dedication to second wave artists that should serve as a placating reminder to intergenerational worry worts.

The youngest panelist was my college friend Jadine, 23, (above, middle) who now works for Woman Made Gallery. She presented her brilliant thesis on the performance artist Orlan (which I workshopped on when we were fellow art history students). Jadine also was one of our first interviewees, back in April 2007. We caught up with her after the conference to see how her opinions on art and feminism have developed over the past year:

“Interning at Woman Made gallery has changed my viewpoint a lot. It’s easy theoretically for me to feel like that there is no need to essentialize female identity, that females that are doing good work should just emerge. But, I’m seeing that in the everyday market reality there is a need to assert an essentialist identity of women to just get them equal opportunities to display their work.”

Last weekend Jadine and I were both in attendance at a panel discussion on “post-black” artists, put on by the Renaissance Society museum. The structure of the post-black argument echoed that of contemporary post-feminist artists, women artists who don’t want their gender mapped onto their artworks. How this plays out when race and gender intersect was, astoundingly, never brought up. I asked Jadine: Can you be a post-black, post-feminist artist?

“Somehow art made by women has a lot more fudge room then art by black artists. Everyone doesn’t expect female artists to make art about feminist issues, but it seems very hard for a black female artist to make art that’s not read in terms of race.”

jadine, april 2007

--EBB

Overheard in Chicago #4: RACHEL

2008-06-08T14:28:00.006-05:00

While browsing in a Logan Square flower shop, called Fleur, we struck up a conversation with one of the florists, Rachel. She clued us into the reality of "Bridezillas," telling us:

"I never really thought the Bridezilla thing was real until I saw it in person. Brides can really get controlling. They put all this money into one day, when it could go into a year of traveling. And it usually is a sign of a marriage that's not going to last, if they care that much about flower arrangements. Men care sometimes, too, but it doesn't seem to be much of a big deal to them."

Is this a true stereotype? Why do women put so much emphasis on one little day?

Mid-Week Memo: McCain Madness

2008-06-04T16:23:00.005-05:00

In the last few days, a disturbing phenomenon has caught our attention: incensed Hillary supporters are pledging their support for McCain, refusing to jump on the Obama wagon. Collier, 23, (left) one of our childhood friends and a lady who's never afraid to speak her mind, is our personal political consultant and political-blog expert. She had some choice things to say:

"I don't think it's fair to say that this largely white and older block of women are being hysterical and irrational--necessarily. However, I do think that older, white women feel like they were owed something, that it was their time to shine. And this was a huge blow to their collective ego, that somehow a younger, swifter (maybe too swift) black man took their moment. But these same women were the ones who by and large support the right to choose. These are the same women who believe that every American deserves access to affordable health care. And they would be doing a disservice to Hillary Clinton (their presidential hopeful) and all of the work she did surrounding the preservation of a woman's right to choose and healthcare if they voted for McCain.

They are not hysterical but they want to be heard. This is their way of being heard. It's an empty threat. They will come to their senses, both because Hillary Clinton will remind them of McCain's increasingly conservative anti-choice record. He used to believe in abortions for rape victims and victims of incest but since he needs to bring in those uber-conservative voters, he has denounced all abortion. They will come to their senses because they themselves will remember all that they struggled for. I don't think this is something that upstanding feminists should be concerned about. If white women do stay home or vote for McCain, it's because they're insane."

Chicago: LAUREN

2008-06-02T15:30:00.002-05:00

Back in April of last year, when I met up with Emma in Chicago to do a few sample interviews and test out GIRLdrive, one of the feminists we interviewed was Lauren Berlant (left), a professor of English at the University of Chicago and an influential feminist thinker. To this day, we still consider it one of the most important interviews we did, one of those long, meandering conversations during which you have several epiphanies. We remember one moment in particular, when Lauren addressed the issue of reconciling "work" (feminism, intellect) with "play" (happiness, sex). It's stuck with us ever since:

"As an intellectual, feminist or not, you are constantly being called to say what you are thinking and describe what you are doing all the time. Then there are these spaces for an interruption or a relief...the “appetite” spaces, like eating and fucking and watching TV and hanging out with your friends. What feminism hoped for was forms of pleasure that would also be about self-development, where your forms of self-cultivation would also be your pleasure. We have to admit that pleasure is not just about eloquence, culture, clarity. Its also fogginess and sex. Once you think about sex as a place where you lose control, it’s to some extent contrary to intellect and feminism as a theory. If feminism is about control, and sex is about losing control, how do you reconcile that?"

--NWA

Overheard in Chicago #3: Post-'Sex and the City'

2008-06-01T10:53:00.015-05:00

On Saturday night, we eagerly went out to see the Sex and the City movie with a few of our friends. Over pizza and martinis (of course), we "couldn't help but wonder": did Sex and the City portray women positively or negatively?
*warning: slight spoilers below*

Matt: I found some of the portrayal of women in Sex and the City to be kind of offensive. The general impression I got from most of the characters (the redheaded lawyer one being the exception) was that women are vapid, self-absorbed, and capable of self-reflection only when pushed by others ...which isn't really self-reflection after all, is it? (Matt had a lot more brilliant things to say about this issue. Check out more of his thoughts here).

Antonia: I disagree. I don't think the movie was sexist. I thought Samantha's storyline especially was uplifting--that she chose to be independent in the end.

Emma: But what about all that overeating bullshit, the fact that they made such a big deal about Samantha gaining 15 pounds? That was lightweight offensive.

Antonia: Yeah...but it's realistic. Some women do turn to binge-eating to deal with stress.

Collier: I thought the movie was very materialistic, and stuck in the late nineties, 'First Wives Club'-status.

Antonia: I don't think the show is insinuating that ALL women are materialistic, and I don't think there is anything really wrong with materialism! (check out her full diatribe here)

For Nona's opinion, check out her review of the film for VenusZine.

Mid-Week Memo: The Virgin

2008-05-28T21:01:00.008-05:00

Note: This is Part 1 in a 3-part series discussing Chastity, Purity, and Promiscuity.

The other day, Rosa,* 16, confessed to us that she had been raped when she was 9 by a family friend. "I'm fine now," she told us. Her voice wavered but her strength and poise was obvious. She seemed to have accepted what had happened and moved on. But our hearts broke when when she shared how it's affected the way she looks at love and sex:

"[My boyfriend now] knows what I've been through, and he don't even kiss me. We'll hold hands and he'll ask me if it's okay. I met him at church. There was a time where I came out to the church, because they were like, "Come up to the altar if you need healing because you've been raped or molested." So I went up there and he started praying for me...and I finally was able to give my problem to God. I really struggled with forgiveness, but now that I've started to go to church, I've forgiven the man who raped me. It was wrong, it was a mistake he did, but in God's eyes, I'm still a virgin, I'm still pure."

Our stomachs sank, not only because Rosa had been hurt, or because she was only a child when it happened, but because she fundamentally felt stained by the rape. No matter how she had let her life blossom, the most important thing to restore after she was raped was her "purity"--her virginity. Now that Rosa had gotten a second chance at guarding her sexuality, she barely lets her boyfriend touch her. On some level, she was admitting that she will forever think of sex as something to defend herself against, not to enjoy.

The reason for this dread is partly psychological--no 9-year-old is ready for sex, much less outright violation. But the social construct of virginity and purity is also so ingrained in our culture that who can blame Rosa for feeling impure and dirty? Why are we so fascinated by this tiny little piece of skin that, up until a few decades ago, was usually not even up to a woman to "give up"? Virginity is still a huge deal. Virginal pop stars are alternately idolized and scorned. "Virginity pledges" in the shadow of abstinence-only education are on the rise. Teenage girls constantly fret about what makes you "technically a virgin" (see Schechter's movie trailers, below). Not to mention that the whole idea of virginity is based on heterosexual relationships, leaving an entire population of homosexual women and men out of the equation.

Most unfairly, people couldn't care less about teenage boys losing their virginities. Guarding sexuality is almost purely, so to speak, on the shoulders of a woman, implying that the only one who would even want to have sex is unquestionably the man. Rape will always be unthinkably painful, but it could be a lot easier to heal from it as a young girl without the added job of "gatekeeper."

Emma and I have been obsessed with the topic of virginity ever since this road trip began. Emma is sinking her teeth into Hanne Blank's Virgin: The Untouched History, and I've been patiently waiting for Therese Schechter’s documentary The American Virgin (her website is where I stole that cherry photo). Schechter calls virginity "the cornerstone of Western civilization." It's a term that's only started to be questioned and broken down, and pop culture has a long way to go before they quit dichotomizing Madonna and whore.

*name has been changed

Discussion Question 1
Discussion Question 2

Chicago: DELIZA

2008-05-26T21:37:00.007-05:00

Deliza is one of the ladies we've met through Step Up Women's Network. We got to know her a little while back when we profiled her for Student of the Month (check out the article here), which is an honor given by Step Up to a particularly inspiring, diligent, and committed young woman who is part of the Teen Empowerment program. Deliza (left, in her pantry-turned-studio at home) is 16, was raised in Puerto Rico and Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, goes to North Grand high school, and plans to be a famous singer/dancer/choreographer (she already writes her own songs).

Deliza freely told us her steadfast opinions on everything from teen pregnancy to women's roles in the Latino community, but "feminism" was a new word and concept for Deliza. Emma and I tried as best we could to explain the many facets of what feminism could mean. We gave her a little history, told her that it's all wrapped up in choices, happiness, sex, family, love. We quoted one of her fellow Step Up girls, Maryann, who said that "being a feminist is not feeling like you just have to be in the kitchen and pop out babies." This is what Deliza had to say:

"If someone called me a feminist, I think I would agree. It's like what Maryann said, there are so many opportunities out there. You don't have to be what people want you to be. I am going to take a stand for it...You know when your parents tell you, 'You can do anything you want'? I really took that into consideration. I believe I can do whatever I want, and no one's going to stop me. Not a man, not a female, not the government, not Bush. I am my own person. So with the definition that you guys have given me, I would see myself as a feminist."

--NWA

Overheard in Chicago #2: DARYL and JOEY

2008-05-25T21:17:00.007-05:00

A coincidence: While Emma was out of town, I had two unrelated but quite similar conversations about GIRLdrive and our stance on international feminism. We've touched on this issue a few times (Siman from Phoenix had a lot to say about it), but it has not come up in a while.

The first conversation I had was with Daryl, a 25-year-old behavior consultant for an organization providing services for people with autism. She works in Berkeley but was in town for a conference, and I met her randomly at the tail end of Saturday night. When we got on the topic of the very American story of GIRLdrive, Daryl had a lot to say. "Our struggles are nothing compared to what international women go through," she commented over an Old Style. "I know you guys are trying to figure out where American feminism is headed, but in my daily life, I feel fine. I feel like I can say what I want and do what I want for the most part." Although tentatively identifying as a feminist, Daryl made it clear that basic human rights were her priority--and not necessarily sweating the "small stuff."

The next day, I heard something similar--from a boy. Joey, a twentysomething dude from Humboldt Park, Chicago, was in a car with me and happened to ask me why I moved to Chicago. I told him, and he had a similar reaction to Daryl's: "When I think of what needs to be done in terms of feminism, I think of other countries. It's all relative."

What do you guys think about this issue? Should GIRLdrive go global? Or is the search for feminism via a Chevy Cavalier a very specific American trope? Tell us your thoughts.

--NWA

Woman Made Gallery: AMY

2008-05-21T18:39:00.002-05:00

This is PART II of a series of blog entries devoted to

Contemporary Art and Feminism

I recently sat down for a conversation with Amy (above), gallery coordinator for Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, the midwest regional coordinator for the Feminist Art Project, and adjunct Art History prof at DePaul University.

On having a women only gallery: “Woman Made couldn’t be called a feminist gallery because we have shows that are abstract and geometric. Feminism has a connotation that is more political. Its really important to have that kind of show because women artists are underrepresented in the art world and just because an artist does abstraction or geometric forms doesn’t mean we can’t be an advocate for them. Being an advocate for all women artists is where the name Woman Made comes from. For our audiences the idea of a feminist made gallery would mean political art. Would more people come to the gallery if it was called WM gallery, would more collectors buy from us? What connotations are we promoting with our name? Ultimately it's not about identity, its about women being underrepresented in the art world.”

On younger artists aversion to being labeled feminist: “We had an emerging art show called ‘Feminist Interrogations,’ all about how feminism can be used as a tool of social activism. I encouraged younger artists associated with our gallery to apply, and a lot of them didn’t. Their idea of feminism was about images of women and this way we think about feminism traditionally. It seems there is a gap there in terms of how younger artists are getting involved with feminism and making it relevant to their lives… There are young artists who don’t want to show here. They don’t want to make that distinction, that their work is only supposed to be shown at a Woman’s Gallery, they don’t want to put that on their record. They don’t want the issue of personal identity associated with their work, and I can understand that, but I would still advocate for them.”

--EBB

Chicago: DOROTHEE

2008-05-19T01:28:00.003-05:00

Dorothee: 24, lives in Chicago's West Town neighborhood, and went to high school in Germany. She runs an online video magazine called Fresh Cut, and works at a foundation downtown "to pay the bills." Is a feminist "but I don't think about it every day."

On being called a feminist:

"Being a woman has definitely made me more sensitive to being taken seriously. I've checked myself if I really want to say that something's unfair about being a girl, like not wanting to sound like a militant feminist. I totally censor myself because I don't want to seem aggressive or unattractive. People are really turned off by it; they don't want to hear it...And [women] are raised in our society, too, so we're sexist against ourselves almost. We're turned off by it too."

Overheard in Chicago #1: JANE

2008-05-18T01:31:00.005-05:00

Every weekend we will post overhead musings from friends and random women we run into in bars, cars, restaurants, and on the streets.
One of my best friends Jane came into Chicago this weekend to help me celebrate my 23rd birthday. As we lay in bed one morning, groggily addressing our hangovers and our hungry bellies, we got to talking about the female obsession with weight. Jane had thoughts to share:

“Even if we blame the patriarchy for planting the seeds of body image anxieties, it seems to me that it was women themselves who disseminated and watered these seeds into the monstrous weeds they are today. I’ve observed that perhaps contrary to biological instinct, women mainly base their aesthetic self worth upon the assessment of other women: I dress to impress my female friends, not my boyfriend. These friends are more conscious, critical of weight fluctuations, bad haircuts, and make-up faux pas than my boyfriend—if he even notices that anything is different, he would be incapable of verbalizing the nuances desired in such a critique. A female friend satisfies the neurotic dressing room desire for abasement (honesty), she would tell you that your ass looks too fat in that miniskirt, your boyfriend would say, ‘you look hot…' ”

--EBB

UPDATE: Mid-Week Memo

2008-05-14T18:22:00.012-05:00

Wednesday entries will now cover specific topics and projects that we are involved in. Look out for ongoing themes such as women and the arts, mentoring teenage girls, intergenerational conversations, and more juicy tidbits from the feminist frontier.

Left Forum: Continuing the Conversation

In March, I got invited to speak on behalf of "young feminists" at the Left Forum, an annual conference of lefty intellectuals, activists, writers, and organizers held at Cooper Union in New York. The panel was called "The Pleasure Frontier: An Intergenerational Dialogue on Sex in Feminism" and consisted of me (in the middle); Jennifer Baumgardner (right), the thirtysomething Third Wave feminist activist, author and filmmaker; and Loretta Ross (left), Second Wave-era feminist and founder of the National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective. The room at Cooper Union was packed--people sitting on the floor and in windowsills, latecomers hanging in the doorways. The brief panel was followed by--I'm not kidding--a 1.5 hour-long question and answer session.

Anger and confessions spilled out of people's mouths, as arguments bounced across the room. Hands shot up everywhere: Can stripping and porn ever be feminist? Why is incest ignored by the media? Are women of color too oversexualized to be included in the feminist conversation? Jennifer, Loretta and I felt a palpable generational gap. There were audible "tsks" in reaction to what I had to say about teenage sex and modesty. I could feel the tension, rage, and passion in this tiny little classroom, and I left with a strange mix of defeat and satisfaction.

It proved to me that once again, feminists are their own worst enemies. It seems to take unfathomable amounts of compromise to please women from all over the spectrum. But it also showed me that feminism--sex-related or not--is still a hot topic. It is one that women care about and want to tackle head-on. People (yes, men too) get riled up about these issues. Sex was just a way to get the fire going, but judging by the profusion of hugs and thanks yous I got after the panel, it will continue to burn.

-NWA

*Look out for the next installment of Emma's Contemporary Art and Feminism series next Wednesday.

Chicago: HANNAH (aka GOOSE)

2008-05-12T15:33:00.009-05:00

Hannah (right, known to us by her former nickname 'Goose'), 23, is originally from Hoboken, NJ, although she "considers herself from New York, even if most people don't." She is currently assisting on a documentary about Grace Paley and is going for her MA in Film Studies in the fall at the University of Iowa. She considers herself a feminist and is an old friend of Emma's and mine from Camp Kinderland, a lefty Jewish summer camp where we met. We reunited with Goose in Chicago over sandwiches to get her take on feminism and being a woman. At one point, we reminisced about how Goose used to be a serious tomboy, and often people would mistake as a boy. Turns out it was a very conscious "fuck you" to preconceived notions about gender:

"As you guys know, I had very short hair for quite a long time, and part of that was that even when I was young, I would think, 'How can you say I look like a boy, because what does a boy look like?' It wasn't me questioning my gender identity, it was more questioning those kind of constructs from my naive 9-year-old point of view....I had a letter that I wrote to a pen pal that I never sent for some reason, [and I wrote] 'People always think I'm a boy, but I'm really happy being a girl'...after a while, it was like, 'This is my stand. I should be allowed to look how I look and still be considered a young woman.' [Then I changed because] I was attracted to men and they weren't attracted to me. Also, it was kind of exciting because I had never had the childhood experience to dress up in girly things."

Look out for Goose's upcoming article in The Believer, where she writes about being into baby names and, among other things, how it kind of makes her "feel like a bad feminist."

Chicago: LUCY

2008-04-29T00:38:00.006-05:00

Lucy is 24, a native Chicagoan, and an assistant editor for the post-production company Optimus, which produces commercials. She is an aspiring film-maker and screenplay writer and is our dear friend who came with us on the Southern stretch of GIRLdrive: through Austin, New Orleans, and Memphis. (The photo on the left was taken in the Marigny in NOLA.) Months later, we finally had a chance to sit down with her and ask her what she thought:

On feminism:
"Even after being on the road trip and knowing you guys so well, I still kind of don't know what that definition means...but I feel like, how can you be a woman and not be a feminist? I guess being a feminist is not ignoring the fact that if you're a woman, you experience things a certain way, no matter what, no matter whether you want to face it or not."

On mothers and mentorship:
"I'm lucky that I have a really good relationship with my mom, and she's been an incredible mentor to me...but I don't want to always go to my mom for everything. I don't do what my mom did and that's partially on purpose. I want someone else who will be not only a teacher, but a friend who has empathy. It's hard for girls to even find out what they want to do...and I would be more unhappy if I had to be the assistant to a man. [When I assisted men]...they wouldn't trust me with a lot of things and I would allow myself to believe that. I would slip into this weird submissive thing where I'd be scared to screw up."

"Beyond the Waves"

2008-04-24T14:04:00.017-05:00

This is PART I of a series of blog entries devoted to
Contemporary Art and Feminism

On March 30 I had my first feminist public speaking gig (well…since the mock debate on abortion in 5th grade). I was invited to be the youngest panelist for “Beyond the Waves: Feminist Artists Talk Across the Generations” at the Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, the bookend to a month of exciting events for Women’s Art History Month in New York put on by the feminist art gallery A.I.R.

(L2R: Kat Griefen, Susan Bee, Mira Schor, me, Carolee Schneemann, Brynna Tucker )

On the panel with me were an array of other accomplished feminist artists, many of whom we interviewed as part of GIRLdrive.* The implicit question on the table was daunting: what does it mean to call yourself a feminist artist? How is it different now than in the revolutionary glory days? Squeezed between famed Second Wavers, some of whom I literally owe my life to (my mom was on the panel), and with a standing-room audience packed in peering forward for answers... my nerves kicked in. The speech I had prepared didn’t necessarily provide backrubs for every neglected older woman artist in the room. The night before, practicing in my bedroom, it seemed like a good idea to draw attention to the changes in generational attitudes towards proclaiming oneself a “feminist artist.” Now all I could think was, thank God those emergency exits are blaring red, I might need them for a quick escape.

But as I took the podium, first talking about GIRLdrive, then about my own feminist-infused artwork, I began to feel proud to be representing my generation. After announcing our publishing deal, I got a round of applause that turned me as red as those exit lights. And even though I ended on an ambiguous, slightly admonishing tone (asking the audience to reconsider the ungrateful daughter paradigm, and come up with new language to describe gendered artworks), I was surprised to find an enthusiastic crowd waiting to compliment me when I stepped down. Maybe the reason why open dialogue between feminist generations is so hard is that we are all so afraid of hurting feelings, of misspeaking.
The panel taught me a lot. Feelings are for sissies.
Don’t open your heart: open your ears, and you’ll hear a whole lot more.
--EBB

*Our forthcoming book will have a section devoted to art and feminism. It will include interviews with curators, artists, art critics and historians on the state of women in the art world. Look for upcoming blog entry snippets with the likes of: Linda Nochlin, Amy Galpin (of Woman Made Gallery), Kat Griefen (of A.I.R. Gallery), Joan Snyder, Joan Jonas, Carolee Schneemann, Mira Schor, Susan Bee, Faith Wilding, the Brainstormers, a Guerrilla Girl, and many more!

Our date with Step Up Women's Network

2008-04-21T11:12:00.013-05:00

Emma and I spent a few hours yesterday at an event called "Cool Women, Hot Careers," a panel and workshop focused on helping teen girls make their professional dreams reality. It was hosted by Step Up Women's Network, an amazing organization that we have recently hooked up with. Step Up is a non-profit committed to mentoring, educating, and networking with disadvantaged teen girls in Chicago and other cities across the United States. The wonderful thing about it is that it's a true intergenerational exchange--the program pairs the teenagers up with grown women who provide professional guidance, arming the girls with the skills they need. When Emma discovered Step Up on the web, we instantly recognized that its urge to give young women a voice and forge connections between generations fit uncannily with the spirit of GIRLdrive.

We met with a few of the girls during a Dreambooking session (left), where the girls mapped out their goals and portrayed them visually in a collage. We've only caught a glimpse of how the organization works--at this event and at another showcase of the girls' photographs--and already we are so impressed and inspired. These ladies have unbelievable poise, and we can't wait to start working with them. Starting April 30, we are going to be helping out in any way we can with the "I Dream To" program. The girls involved in the program interview, report on, and photograph a professional woman they admire and would like to learn from. Sound familiar? After over 200 GIRLdrive interviews and photos, we are eager to pass down our photojournalism wisdom! Stay tuned.

--NWA

Chicago: AMY

2008-04-14T16:44:00.009-05:00

Amy Schroeder: 31, founder and editor-in-chief of the women-focused pop culture magazine Venus, through-and-through midwesterner, Third Wave feminist.

"In our new issue, we have a feature on the Greatest Female Guitarists of All Time. The reason we did it is because Rolling Stone in 2002 did a cover story on the Greatest Guitarists of All Time. There's 100 guitarists on that list. 2 are women. So that's why we did it, but I hate doing that in a way because its ghettoizing women. Saying like "Well, they're secondary" but they're fucking not. Yet if we don't do this list, then chances are these women won't be recognized anywhere else...It sucks to be thought as always the 'female guitarist,' but somebody's gotta recognize these women."

Update: We have a book deal!

2008-03-30T00:32:00.005-05:00

Seal Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, has just offered to publish our book! Details will follow, but just so our readers and interviewees know: the GIRLdrive dream has now become reality. Our journey is by no means over--it has been instilled with new life (aka money) allowing us to finish up our interviews and turn our adventures into a coherent narrative.

We will be writing in Chicago but will be back on the East coast for a chunk of time in the summer, to interview the ladies we have missed!

Expect a new slew of blog entries, updates, and photos in the near future.

Love,

Nona and Emma

Madison: EMMA, EMMA, AND SUMMER

2008-03-10T09:55:00.007-05:00

One night in a Madison bar, we met up with three ladies studying for their Masters in fiction at UW-Madison (and had our first taste of Wisconsin cheese curds). A long and winding feminist discussion ensued.

Summer: 31, worked for Court TV and the Christian Science Monitor until she moved to the Middle East and got married, came back to get her MFA in fiction, originally from Basking Ridge, NJ.

"I come from a very traditional family, my parents are immigrants from Lebanon and their roles are very defined...you can probably guess the details. When I got married, I really panicked, and was all worried, like 'Do I have to start cooking?' I just resisted it because it was so much the idea of a traditional mother, even though my husband never said anything about it...I had this weird experience where I start cooking all these meals out of anger...Now I'm more comfortable with the fact that my role is cooking in my marriage, but not because I'm a woman. We have our own way of splitting things."

Emma #1: 27, originally from Baltimore, went to Yale, taught in rural Louisiana and Beijing before going for her MFA.

"It's never really occurred to me to consider myself a feminist...I was having a conversation about this issue with my mother the other day, when Hillary Clinton beat Obama in New Hampshire, because she was super-excited, like 'Oh, this is so great for women, the idea of a woman president.' I was voicing to her, which she found to be heartening but also a little bit sad, that I just don't think about being female and being defined by that in the way that she does...It may just go back to childhood, because in my classes growing up, the girls were always smarter, more dynamic, talkative, and outgoing--the all-star students of the class."

Emma #2: 27, getting her fiction MFA, originally from New York, graduated from Oberlin.

"All my male friends now are single. They really don't feel pressure to get married the way some women our age do. They're all going out and dating and picking up girls in bars..and I'm not doing that, I've been in a relationship for 6 years now. I do feel this pressure, and it's connected to the idea of having children. If all women could have children at 45, it would be fine! I wouldn't worry about it. But it's not the case. And it's not like I want them to feel pressure, it's just frustrating."

Madison: KATIE

2008-02-14T00:23:00.007-06:00

Katie: 26, grew up in Wausau, WI, single mom to 8-year-old Kaitlin (pictured here), works at domestic abuse agency and a captioning company, graduated from UW-Madison in 2006. Definitely a feminist.

"My grandfather had set aside some money for me and my brother and my sister to pursue school, and it's been gone for a long time now, but I have had a little more luck and opportunities [to go to school] then other young mothers in my position. I would like to see that change, for there to be a way for single mothers to have those opportunities without relying on a family member. My friend has a daughter who's Kaitlin's age, and she can only take 1 or 2 classes because she has to work during the day and night. Her family is just not supportive at all. And she's going for nursing, which isn't something she is all that interested in. It was a very practical decision--once she gets a degree she'll be able to support her daughter in the way that she wants to."

Madison: JACKIE

2008-02-13T23:44:00.009-06:00

Jackie: 22, senior sociology major at UW-Madison, setter on the varsity Volleyball team, raised in the suburbs of Chicago, loves music, wants to be a college coach when she graduates. Is not a feminist because "people think of 'feminist' as an extreme position, and I tend not to be extreme about anything."

"There's a stereotype that if you're a woman athlete you're not necessarily feminine...I'll be out and a guy will come up to me, and instead of starting a typical conversation like 'How are you, what's your name?'...it's 'Whoa, you could beat me up!'...I've found that male athletes are easier to date, it's not as big of a deal, because you're into the same things. But any time I've dated a non-athlete, it's different because they see you as just an athlete sometimes. It's part of who I am, but not all of who I am, and sometimes guys don't see that."

Milwaukee: JESSICA

2008-02-13T13:40:00.002-06:00

Jessica: 27, born in Milwaukee, was an education major at UW-Lacrosse, works at a small alternative high school for "at-risk youth" on the South Side, volunteers at Milwaukee's feminist bookstore, Broad Vocabulary (pictured here). Considers herself a feminist.

"I started volunteering here in the summer, when I was off from teaching. Working here I meet a lot of people that really open your eyes to a lot of things. It's almost still like it was 50 years ago in most of Milwaukee, where two guys or two girls walking down the street holding hands will still turn heads. The owners of this bookstore wanted to open this place not as a money-making profit enterprise, but as a space for people to come and network and seek a community space...to let people know that feminism isn't a scary thing, that it's not penis-hating women running around crazy."

The Streets of Bay View in Milwaukee

Update: GIRLdrive is in Chicago!

2008-01-22T14:17:00.001-06:00

We are taking a semi-hiatus in Chicago, grouping all our material together and taking weekend trips around the area. Look out for snippets of our Madison/Milwaukee trip soon.

--Nona and Emma

New York City: MICHELE

2008-01-12T16:56:00.001-06:00

Michele Wallace: New York-born feminist, author, cultural critic, professor of English at City College and the CUNY graduate center.

"College is a major agent of dissemination for feminist ideas. When I was a teenager, I saw a lot of activity in terms of feminism with my mother [artist Faith Ringgold] and activists in New York, but if it had not been backed up by one of the first women's studies programs here in City College, I don't know what it would have meant for me. I got to read women writers and also just see the struggle of the women faculty through this program. [Feminism] was always reinforced by school...and outside of New York, the academic part of it was even more important."

New York City: SHARYN

2008-01-11T00:15:00.002-06:00

Sharyn: 28, native of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, bartender, graphic design student, former punk. Isn't sure what feminism means, "but do I support women's rights, do I feel empowered? Definitely."

"I come from a really traditional family...my mother's family is from Israel and my father's side, they're all Moroccan. Since I was a child, it has been banged into my head that I am to speak quietly and not have too many strong opinions and what I should be really good at is learning how to clean the house and cook food and raise children...When I was little, and kids would go and play in the park, I wasn't allowed to go, [my family] wanted me to stay home and mop the floors. I was the first one of my family born in the United States, and I remember thinking like, 'That's cool for you guys, but I'm American and I can do whatever I want.' I remember being really young and being so angry about that."

New York City: PIA

2008-01-05T17:09:00.001-06:00

Pia: 25, raised in Crown Heights, dancer, choreographer, dance studio manager, afterschool teacher. Wouldn't consider herself a feminist.

"The first step to getting racial equality in an American patriarchal society is getting some perks for your men, and then hoping that your men are going to turn around and try to get some perks for you. I feel like that's why a lot of Black women don't label themselves as feminists...they'll label themselves under racial activists and then bring in women's issues as a second-tier thing. We are grappling with a whole different set of issues that just come first--I'm always reminded that I'm Black before being reminded that I'm a woman."

(Photo by Sadye Vassil)

New York City: MEHIKO

2008-01-03T16:55:00.002-06:00

Mehiko: 23, one of the few non-Hasidic Williamsburg natives, born in Japan, law student at CUNY Law School, feminist.

"I would definitely like to see more girls involved in sports. I just think that athletics is a really important part of growing up, and I think it instills values you can't get anywhere else...Even now, you still get your boy a little football for Christmas and your girl a Barbie doll. I know some parents make a conscious decision not to do that. But I want it to be something that's unconscious...I want girls to want to do sports. It helps with body image later on, too, because you see your body as a tool rather than just an object of desire."

New York City: ANOTHER JESSICA

2008-01-02T17:01:00.001-06:00

Jessica: 23, lifelong Brooklynite, stay-at-home-mom to Olivia, her 4-year-old daughter, aspiring illustrator or interior designer, feminist.

“Since I have a daughter, I’m really aware of the media and how it degrades women. It starts from a really young age. Like those Bratz Dolls—Olivia doesn’t have any of those, thank god—but they look like strippers. Even if you don’t watch TV, just walking down the street people are judging women everywhere. I don’t ever want my daughter scrutinizing herself or comparing herself to the way women are ‘supposed’ to look. [laughs] Part of me wishes that mothers would get involved in an anti-Bratz campaign or something.”

New York City: ERICA

2007-12-31T16:48:00.001-06:00

Erica Jong (above, in her East side home): New Yorker, novelist, poet, media personality, pioneer of the sexual revolution, Second Wave feminist.

On young women, sex, and role models:

"I think young teenagers all need an older woman--maybe not our mother, since we are all rebelling against her at that age--who she trusts, with whom she can sort these things out. I had someone like that to talk to about promiscuity and my feelings about love and sex. Maybe every woman ought to have a mentor. Mentoring is the new feminism. I really believe that the next stage of feminism is going to be older women and younger women working together."

New York City: KATHLEEN

2007-12-30T17:15:00.002-06:00

Kathleen Hanna (left, in her SoHo neighborhood): activist, teacher, musician, feminist; early Riot Grrrl upstarter, singer/songwriter in Viva Kneivel, Bikini Kill, Julie Ruin, Le Tigre.

On her falling out with Riot Grrrl:

“A lot of the cool people left, including myself…It's a problem on its own to look at anything as your savior, its this kind of Christian capitalist way of looking at things. But when the thing that’s totally saving your life is now choking you to death, the language that saved your life is being used to murder you, it's really incredibly painful…I haven’t moved away from feminism, and I haven’t become softer and "nicer feminist" style or something, I’ve just really gotten bored of myself and want to look towards other people...It’s the arrogance of youth that made anything happen. I am glad I opened my mouth even though I didn’t fully know what I was saying…I had all the knowledge [about feminism] I needed because I lived it, and that’s the part of it that stands the test of time, but there is another part which is arrogant and not feeding into a positive sense of continuum.”

New York City: ANYA

2007-12-28T16:33:00.001-06:00

Anya Kamenetz (right, on her terrace in Williamsburg): 28, originally from Baton Rouge, journalist, personal finance advisor, author of Generation Debt. Considers herself a feminist.

"Women in general are bringing very high stakes to the work world. We are one of the first generations of women raised with the belief that we are going to work, and that it's not just about being a breadwinner. Men have their own pressures, like this intense fear of not succeeding and that he has to make his mark in the world. But for women, I think it’s more about finding a full expression of who you are in the work world, because if you don’t, you should be fulfilling the higher purpose of having children. A lot of women I know apply that binary to their lives."

New York City: JESSICA

2007-12-27T16:12:00.001-06:00

Jessica Valenti (right, at a cafe in her Astoria neighborhood): 29, founder and executive editor of the blog Feministing, activist, author of Full Frontal Feminism.

On Girls Gone Wild:

“The way you deal with a phenomenon like that is to encourage women to be critical thinkers—ask her, ‘Why are you doing these things? Why does it make you feel powerful to get drunk and show your boobs?’ The myth of sexual purity is the real thing that is screwing up young women, not the fact that they are being sexual. Both Girls Gone Wild and abstinence-only [campaigns] are about dictating what young women should do. So no wonder why we are completely sexually confused. When you’re telling a woman that her moral compass is between her legs, that can really fuck her up.”

New York City: LAURA

2007-12-25T15:18:00.002-06:00

Laura Kipnis: cultural and media critic, professor of media studies at Northwestern University, author of Against Love and The Female Thing. A feminist, but tries to avoid “being typecast as the pro-sex feminist…I get bored when people only ask me to write about those issues.”

On beauty:

"The hidden 'double shift' for women is spending an awful lot of time worrying about the way they look…It’s not like women don’t realize this [impediment], but I think they feel defeated by it. You can be self-aware of these things and still be on a constant diet. You can have read every feminist book on your bookshelf and still have issues about food and eating and the way your hair is styled. I guess you're not required to subscribe to this kind of regime, but it helps you blend in and offers you more sexual opportunity...because that's still the way the heterosexual world is organized, despite all the supposed female progress."

New York City: JEANIE

2007-12-23T17:10:00.002-06:00

Jeanie (left, outside of Café Pick Me Up in the East Village): 23, raised uptown in Manhattan, actress, former champion fencer, temp at a banking software company. Considers herself a feminist.

“Growing up in New York surrounded by strong women doing their own thing, it was much easier to be an individual, and be supported for that...My sister and I were always fighting this idea of what it was to be a “girl." We were very physical tomboys. I remember one summer, we went to this daycamp upstate, and I was the only girl playing hockey with the boys. I wasn’t afraid of being sweaty or being loud…we have always had that sense of ‘We’re different, and we’re proud of that.'”

New York City: TECLA

2007-12-21T13:47:00.001-06:00

Tecla (right, in her newly bought apartment in the Bronx): native New Yorker, 25, preschool teacher, plays keyboard and does backup vocals in the all-girl band Sweetie. Considers herself a feminist.

“Sweetie is a raunchy, raw, female, ‘I-don’t-give-a-fuck’ band. I like having that beautiful female vibe without having to deal with male energy. With men, there’s an unnecessary competition happening…their egos are tested. I know that women have their own issues with eachother, which is sad but true. But being with girl musicians feels like a more healthy, cohesive environment, where you can vibe in a pleasant way.”

Take a look at Sweetie's music video "17" on YouTube.

New York City: JENNIFER

2007-12-20T13:39:00.001-06:00

Jennifer Baumgardner (right, on Broadway): author, activist, film-maker, Third Wave feminist.

“I feel nothing but excitement about the new generation of women. People say things all the time like, ‘It’s much worse now, if anything we’ve gone back.' People look at things like Girls Gone Wild or the fact that girls cut themselves, or violent body images issues, and think it’s worse. But it’s not true, it's not worse. The issue of early sexual contact for instance…certainly there are girls who aren’t self-protecting, but there’s also more girls in charge of their libido and having a sense of sexual expression, before they find themselves being 40 and finally getting their first vibrator.”

DISCLAIMER!

2007-12-19T13:34:00.001-06:00

After Nashville, our entries are going to be short and sweet, purposely meant to be a tease so there will be some juicy stuff for the book! Our New York, Chicago area, and East coast journeys will be mostly snapshots and soundbites, with a stray longer entry here and there. Enjoy!

--Nona and Emma

Nashville, Day 2: RACHEL

2007-12-18T15:33:00.001-06:00

We have coffee in a hipster part of Nashville with Rachel, the 24-year-old art and design director at American Songwriter magazine. Like Lauren, she grew up in Memphis, and she and her two sisters were raised by Southern Baptist parents. “My parents are conservative, but always gave us freedom with how we approached our talents. I grew up with the arts,” Rachel says. She came to Nashville “to do music—I was fascinated with how the DIY independent music scene was going in Nashville,” but wound up getting a business degree and eventually got interested in design.

Rachel would consider herself a feminist, but “subtlely. It’s in my nature to feel empowered as a female. I always feel like I have to prove myself, even in the independent music scene, which I see as kind of a brotherhood.” Rachel describes herself as “quiet shaker.” She cites her parents as unlikely contributors to her progressive way of thinking. “My parents are both religious people, but they’re all about freedom of speech. My mom grew up in the hippie culture in Austin, but describes that time in her life as ‘before she found her faith.’” Regardless, she and her two older sisters “honed in” on their parents’ liberal past rather than their more traditional lifestyle later on.

Religion does play a role in Rachel’s life—“it’s a very quiet factor, but I treasure it.” The church she goes to “embraces the concepts of love between races and types of people,” and goes against the stereotype of close-minded Christianity. She thinks her anti-right-wing stance, and the fact that she is pro-choice, is “even more powerful because I am a Christian. It surprises people. I also get excited when I meet people who are both faithful and artists—because I sometimes feel like an outcast in either group.” Rachel feels much more adamant than Lauren about the importance of separation between church and state, and gets frustrated that the right-wing agenda uses the name of Christ.

Rachel is hopeful for the future of young women, and is eager for them to be included in what she calls the “creative class.” “I get encouraged when I find that needle in a haystack—a woman who is pursuing the male-dominated world of music or art. I think it’s getting better. People are finally allowing people to think for themselves and, little by little, boundaries are vanishing.”

--Nona

Check out what Rachel wrote on November 19th on her livejournal about our little chat!

Nashville, Day 1: LAUREN

2007-12-18T14:02:00.001-06:00

After dinner with Caroline, we rush home to meet Lauren, another med student at Vanderbilt. Lauren, 23, grew up in Memphis, went to nursing school in Texas, and just moved to Nashville in April to get her masters in midwifery. Lauren echoes some of Caroline’s hesitance about current ob/gyn protocol, telling us that “women are often treated like machines.” She believes that the birthing process is a woman’s domain. “I don’t think there’s room in childbirthing for men. It makes things awkward when a male doctor enters, even though I do respect some male doctors. Midwives really believe in women’s bodies, and that they can do it on their own.”

Does Lauren consider herself a feminist? “I wouldn’t. I don’t have the clearest picture of what it truly is…but I have a definite need for men in my life. When I was getting into midwifery, I heard stories about feminists that are very anti-men, anti-establishment, ‘hear us roar.’ That’s not my heart. From what I know of it, feminism seems like an imbalance. But I do think women were created beautifully and created strong, and I want women to be able to fulfill that, even in childbirth.”

We ask her if there are any other issues that she is passionate about. “Yes,” she says. “Abortion. I’m very pro-life. I believe that every pregnancy is a gift from the Lord and that there is a life at the moment of conception. I volunteer at a Crisis Pregnancy Center, and I’ve worked with women who have had abortions that feel like they have killed someone. I also see the lack of counseling given to pregnant women. I know women have their own choices, but I don’t think they know about the other options out there.” But Lauren thinks that if abortion was illegal, “there will be some women that will abort no matter what, so more women’s lives would be at risk.”

Lauren’s pro-life stance is directly related to her faith, which is extremely important to her. Emma asks Lauren if her political views are necessarily tied to her religion, and how she feels about separation between church and state. “That whole division is really hard for me, [because] my relationship with the Lord is everything in my life,” Lauren answers. “I don’t ever want to live a compartmentalized life; I strive to be the same person wherever I am.” Lauren sees the Christian right’s agenda as compatible with her views on women. “I don’t think our President is perfect by any means, and he professes to be a Christian. No matter how good a person is, they are going to make mistakes. But I believe Jesus supports women 100 percent.” Do pro-life male politicians have a place in legislating abortion if they don’t have a place in the delivery room? “My gut instinct is yes. Their position of being pro-life furthers knowledge and education, instead of them just wanting to have control of women.”

Lauren is concerned that too many young women “play around with sex,” and she believes in waiting to have sex until she is married. “I’m a virgin myself,” she tells us. “I grew up in a high school where most of my friends dated guys, and I was the girl that they came to, crushed, after they broke up with them. The girls were just giving themselves away…they were getting broken and torn apart. When I finally do get married, I want to be whole and not have had my heart broken.” But if Lauren were to counsel a young women on sex, “I’d maybe tell my own story, tell them about the risks, but I would also give them birth control.” Lauren doesn’t believe in abstinence-only education “because it’s not a reality. Girls need to know about STDs and pregnancy.” With both premarital sex or abortion, Lauren’s goal is “not to change or judge people, but to accept people, counsel them and give them advice. If a 16-year-old girl comes to me and still goes through with an abortion, I will still support her.”

--Nona

Discussion Questions:
Question 1
Question 2

Nashville, Day 1: CAROLINE

2007-12-17T14:38:00.002-06:00

After dropping off our friend Lucy at the airport, we drive to Caroline’s house in Nashville. Caroline, 26, is my back-in-the-day friend from Wesleyan. Raised in Montclair, New Jersey, she has been in Nashville for 3 years getting her medical degree at Vanderbilt.

Over thai food that night, Caroline (right and below, in a honky tonk on Broadway, Nashville's main stretch) tells us that she absolutely considers herself a feminist. “It’s something about myself that I have always known since I was young,” she says. Caroline describes her family as a “feminist household,” crediting both her mom and her dad for raising her that way. “My mom is outspoken but never really got to do some of the things that she was interested in because it was a different time.” She tells us that her mom, who is a teacher, regrets not getting professionally training until her late thirties, so it was important to her for children to have professional careers. “Both me and my sister are both off-the-beaten-path kind of people, but we are both in professional schools, and that’s not an accident. My mom wanted us to be able to support ourselves.” Caroline never took any women’s studies classes at Wesleyan—we both agree that the classes’ titles never quite popped out at us—but “a lot of my pleasure reading is non-fiction feminist books, like Manifesta.”

A couple years ago, Caroline had told me she wanted to be a obstetrician/gynecologist, but has since changed her mind about the culture around it. “The way women are treated, it is so impersonal and cold. There’s a whole atmosphere of talking about the woman like they’re annoying, speaking of them in very negative ways. It’s not geared to help women through the birth process. Emma, fresh with thoughts on midwifery from our interview with Kate, asks how homeopathic and natural procedures are raised in medical school. “The institution doesn’t teach it, but I see value in it,” Caroline replies. “I try to get everything I can out of medical education as it is now so I can make it more holistic in the future.” With feminism constantly on the mind during this roadtrip, I make the instant parallel of a woman who thinks, “If you can’t beat em, join em, then use the knowledge to beat em later.” It is an age-old feminist tactic for a woman to go along with the system until she gains a certain amount of power, then try to change things later.

Caroline wants to be successful, too, but she wants to “live like a human.” In many aspects of the medical field, she says, “you have to sacrifice your family for your career. I’m interested in pediatric or adult medicine, or maybe adolescent medicine or hospice. I want to have a life outside of medicine (as opposed to surgery). I like the idea of doing home visits or health care in the public schools or in community centers. You can achieve much more by considering a person's health in the context of their family situation or their home or school environment. " Is that why fewer women are surgeons? I ask. “Probably, because they are less willing to be in a chauvenistic, hierarchical environment.” And it may not be just that women are softer, but more that “there’s been a slow change in our culture where you can’t just boss everyone around. I don't see myself setting the world on fire, but I see me and my peers collectively changing medical education and the practice of medicine over time. ”

--Nona

Discussion Questions:
Question 1
Question 2

Update: GIRLdrive is HOME!

2007-12-06T12:54:00.001-06:00

photo by Sadye Vassil

Hi everyone,

As you may have realized, we’ve been taking a break in New York, interviewing all of the fascinating women in the city we were born in. But don’t worry…a few more Memphis and Nashville entries will be up soon, and a hint of what we discovered in New York will follow!

--Nona and Emma

Memphis: ALICJA

2007-11-17T23:59:00.001-06:00

Alicja is singer and guitarist for an array of Memphis-based bands, including the Lost Sounds and the River City Tanlines. We meet her at the HiTone, an eclectic retro-styled rock club where she is tending door. On a break between sets, she pulls us into the back room for a chat, before shooing us back to see the bands for a special discount. She is clearly a fixture in the scene here, as every few moments the interview is interrupted by a hello or congratulations on her recent baby. Alicja (left, backstage at the HiTone) tells us she started playing music with girls in high school, but always related more to males in rock music. She found that guys would approach her and say they don’t often relate to music written by girls, but they liked hers.

Has she experienced any discrimination being a woman in the heavily male-dominated garage and punk scenes? She looks bored with the question, but lets us know “men always soundcheck you last, look embarrassed for you, and always try to give advice to you if you are in an all-girl band.” I ask her about how she relates to the tradition of ostentatious rocker front-women: “I’m a jeans and t-shirt kinda girl--I let my pride and vanity go out the door. I want to be able to play with the boys.” She admits though that she “stands out. But I use it to my advantage, without dressing slutty when I play.” The last time I saw Alicja play in Chicago, she was six months pregnant and rocking out in a flowing red dress, riling the crowd with her punk pregnancy performance. She tells us that she hopes that her newborn daughter will be impressed with her mom one day, that she’ll see her with a “flying v-guitar” and think “mom is a bad-ass.”

Does she relate to feminism? “I secretly get satisfaction from the feminist movement, but I have felt repelled by the term, and by women who can’t stand up for themselves without relating to the term. I know I am a great guitarist already.” Alicja’s attitude is typical of many woman musicians, who have felt singled out for their gender, and have traded irreverence and confidence for being pigeonholed. “I can’t live down the stereotype of always being a woman in rock. I don’t understand, women are not a race. We are not like the Aztecs or Eskimos. We are 50% of the world, why do we keep being defined as separate from it?”

--Emma

Discussion Questions:
Question 1

Memphis: KRISTA

2007-11-17T23:57:00.002-06:00

Krista, originally from Sioux Falls, SD, moved to the city with her girlfriend after she graduated from Macalester this year to teach high school biology in North Memphis. She doesn’t consider herself a feminist because “calling oneself a feminist is an excuse for bad behavior.” She explains, “A lot of feminists I know tend to be anti-man and anti-trans. They gloss over things like race and class. I took one class on feminism in college and found that there was a lot missing, so I decided to study rocks instead.”

As a teacher, she does notice gender issues forming early: “Girls in the high school I am teaching in either act cute and dumb, or tough—that’s how they deal with things. They will hide the strong, intelligent part of themselves in front of boys. I think a lot of women keep on doing that for a while.”

--Nona

Discussion Questions:
Question 1

New Orleans, Day 3: KATE

2007-11-17T23:33:00.001-06:00

We meet Kate at nightfall (left, on her fire escape), in the lively collective anarchist bookstore and arts space, The Iron Rail. Before heading up to her loft, she takes us on a tour of the various colorful happenings and resources this unassuming industrial building provides. The bookstore overflows with literature, zines, records, and attractive gutter punks. Zig zagging through the halls, we pass a yoga class, a female and trans friendly bike shop, a library for prisoners, we meet a trapeze artist, and somehow end up in the street being taught how to hula-hoop with industrial piping.

Finally, we brew some tea and get pens ready for Kate’s story. She had a feminist upbringing in Phoenix, but chooses “not to identify with that label anymore. Anarchist is a more powerful label…it means fighting hierarchies overall.” Kate became frustrated with the male-dominated anarchy scene some years back, but after attending the North American Anarchist conference in 2000 in LA she became inspired by the presence of “loud, brash anarchist women,” and decided to make a documentary to expose the voices of female and trans anarchists. So far she has video-interviewed over 200 subjects, and is still working with the hopes it will become “an interview compilation, sort of a library resource.”

Despite her continued involvement in anarchist action, Kate became frustrated with the stagnancy of rhetoric, and decided to push her interest in women’s health and social justice into a career as a midwife. She cites a pivotal moment as attending a birth the night before Katrina hit. “Before, I politically analyzed every situation, now I am more in touch with exhibiting compassion, using my hands. It has really changed the way I interact with people in this city…[In midwifery] I’ve found an outlet for my liberation politics---attending births and helping at the hospital, increasing patient info, giving power back to the mother.” Kate previously had worked at Planned Parenthood, but found it “disempowering”: “There was a desperation for professionalism and acceptance of the status quo. Non-profits like Planned Parenthood just delay and control resources. Many feminists (and at Planned Parenthood) automatically assume that if someone gets pregnant at a young age, they're not going to have any kind of life…it’s a weak analysis around gender combined with an undercurrent of racism and classism.”

-Emma

Discussion Questions:
Question 1
Question 2

New Orleans, Day 3: SARAH

2007-11-17T18:00:00.001-06:00

We met Sarah while getting a tour of the anarchist collective from Kate. She was stretching for a free evening yoga class, and invited us to join. We had an interview to attend, but we wouldn't continue on until she showed off some trapeze moves for us (pictured left).

Sarah is a writer, but has worked as a park ranger, boxer, aerialist, and department chair. She has been living New Orleans in 1997, and has since published a number of books and written for NOLAfugees.com (“a website dedicated to chronicling life in post-apocalypse New Orleans”) in addition to continuing to perform and teach aerial arts. She was more than obliged to answer a few of our questions, here a few snippets from her responses:
“I went to college during the height of the Political Correctness Movement, so naturally I was exposed to a certain brand of feminism… it has developed so much negative connotation that I think people are afraid to define themselves as feminists, but those who treat men and women equally are feminists whether they realize it or not. Because of where I live, I see the most burning political issues as those related to economics.”

--Emma

New Orleans, Day 3: NOEL

2007-11-17T17:21:00.002-06:00

When we arrived at Noel’s house in our first night in New Orleans, we are greeted by a handful of lesbians watching a DVD of their drag king show they had just performed in. There was Noel on the screen, dancing onstage in guy’s clothing. The last time I had seen Noel, who is an old friend of one of my besties, she looked like a completely different person. She had longer, curly, angelic blond curls, wore tight jeans and lip gloss, and slept with guys. She was a ballerina and a flirt, the most stereotypically “feminine” woman you could possibly dream up. But as I observed her in the first few minutes of New Orleans, she looked happy, comfortable, and completely at ease with herself.

Days later, we finally go out to breakfast to interview Noel (left, on Magazine street), who moved to the city to meet her mom, a native New Orleanian. Noel’s mother had relocated to NOLA after her daughter's college graduation and had urged Noel to come down and do some work after Katrina. Noel worked for Common Ground for a little and established a media collective, then worked for non-profits and schools until she started doing video editing on a freelance basis. After a little while, we ask her about the dramatic recent changes in her life. “The process was slower than you think,” Noel tells us. “I kinda knew I was gay when I went abroad to Stockholm and the girls were all free to be a little bi. Then I took a look at Loren Cameron’s Body Alchemy [a book of transsexual portraits]. At first I thought, ‘Hmm, that’s kinda sexy,’ then ‘No, this is too alternative, too weird.’ But eventually I ended up dating a transmale for 9 months.”

Noel describes her straight life as unnerving for years—“I don’t know why, but I felt like I had to be the girliest girl. Other girls weren’t very nice to me, and guys were just ridiculous. I felt like I wasn’t well-respected and faced the most absurd amount of harassment, I even had gender nightmares…I made drastic changes to make my experience as a woman better…being with women feels so much better for me.” Noel does connect her recent experience to feminism, but notes that she was a feminist from the start—“My mom was a huge tomboy and I had elements of that, too. When I dated guys, I always wanted to take on some masculine traits and be ‘one of the guys’ and they just weren’t into it.”

She sees straight guys, out of everyone, as the most stuck in the gender binary. “If a guy hooks up with a guy, it’s epic, but with girls, it’s more accepted. People are progressing…but so far it’s just little pockets.” To Noel, the future of feminism includes expanding definitions of gender. “I really like the fact that in the queer community, genderbending is an actual activity, like our drag show. It’s just inefficient and unintuitive to separate genders.”

--Nona

Discussion Questions:
Question 1

New Orleans, Day 2: MAYABA AND MANDISA

2007-11-16T15:10:00.001-06:00

Mayaba and Mandisa, both young women active in the New Orleans branch of INCITE, meet up with us on Esplanade for late afternoon coffee. Mayaba, 27, is from DC and has been in New Orleans for 6 years. She works with INCITE, the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic, and Critical Resistance, an organization against the prison industrial complex. “The complex needs sexism, racism, classism, and heterosexism in place, or else people would realize that locking people up is not about safety, it’s about money,” Mayaba says. “In New Orleans, if you look at the rebuilding, they are just more cops, they are rebuilding a new jail, and meanwhile kids aren’t getting educated.” CR is now working on getting amnesty for prisoners whose cases were affected by Katrina.

Mandisa, 22, born in New York, moved here when she was 10. Through her work at INCITE, she also got involved with the Women's Health Clinic and Women's Health and Justice Initiative, and now is "a budding sexual health literacy organizer." Mandisa also worked in public housing in New Orleans when the Storm hit, which, as she tells us, "got coopted by white people. Public housing [inhabitants] in New Orleans were mostly black women and children. I have a serious problem with the white male taking the lead on this struggle. You can sit in the back and be an ally, but you can't just lead the movement."

INCITE's emphasis on the overlap of gender and race made Mandisa realize that "women of color are the ones who lie in this crazy intersection of vulnerability and violence." After the Storm, she found that people were talking plenty about race and class, but not gender. "I saw myself on TV every day, I saw black women from the ages of 5 and 50. Yet there was no gender analysis of this storm? That was painful." Mandisa describes the women involved in these projects as "center[ing] the experiences of women of color in post-Katrina New Orleans and being committed to rendering ourselves visible." Mayaba adds, "When they shut down public housing, there was an 83 percent drop of female head-of-households in New Orleans, mostly low-income, mostly black. Now, the government is denying the fact that black women are back here, and they block federal grants and money to help this population. So the Women's Health Clinic is a point of resistance in itself…saying, 'Look, we're getting people in and providing these services…there is a need.'"

Both women consider themselves feminists, but not without qualifiers. "I identify as a queer black radical feminist," Mandisa (right) says. "Feminism should not be devoid of race or ethnicity." Also, "If you can't see the ideals of capitalism as oppressive, you ain't a feminist. Until we see that white supremacy and capitalism and patriarchy are all intertwined, then I question your gender politic." Mayaba agrees. "I'm a black radical feminist…and an anarchist on a given day," she says. Mayaba felt at age 14 that "something was not right." She was introduced to feminism through the white mainstream, mentioning Susan Faludi's Backlash as one of the first feminist texts she ever read. But most of it "left me stuck because it left race out of the picture." Mayaba thinks, like Mandisa, that white supremacy above all needs to be challenged. "I'm not going to focus on forming feminism when we have this massive problem. Things are really oppressive right now."

As both ladies realize they need to leave shortly, one of Mandisa's earlier comments sticks in my mind: "I know a lot of people put a lot of emphasis on how we identify. But at the same time I'm just like, 'Fuck! Just do the work.'"

--Nona

New Orleans, Day 2: LYNN

2007-11-16T13:43:00.002-06:00

Lynn, 25, meets us in the Marigny for some lunch. A self-proclaimed "army brat," she's gotten around but considers New Orleans her home because she spent a bunch of formative years here. She feels such a connection to the city that she abandoned her full scholarship to college in Philly because she hated the east coast so much. "I was a weird kid because I actually talked to people and looked them in the eye," Lynn says.

Lynn (left, in front of an abandoned mansion on Esplanade) became a feminist in her early teens. "My parents started telling me to look for a husband in 8th grade," she confesses. "They told me that college is a waste of money for a woman because I should be a wife and mother. Feminism made sense to me when I was told that simply because I was a woman, I wouldn't have a home." After Katrina hit, her sense of being a woman became even stronger. "At one point there was one woman for every 25 men, and everyone tried to grope you. There was an extreme intensity in the air."

Lynn's "live-in-the-moment," plan-phobic attitude also coalesced after Katrina, since after the Storm, "locals realized that there was a big bad world out there...I gave up on the planning, because if you can't take joy out the moment, then why do you bother?" But, she says, "If I had one life goal, it would be working in sex education and sexual health." Lynn gets to talking about her two jobs--being a bartender at a Hustler strip club on Bourbon Street, and a saleswoman at a sex toy shop. "Sex work is an inherently feminist act," she proclaims. "Working voluntarily in the sex industry is lessening the gender dichotomy and reclaiming something that patriarchy has made us shameful about." She tells us that most women at her club love what they do. Lynn sees burlesque troupes like Big Star in Austin or alt-porn sites like Suicide Girls as no more or less feminist than mainstream strip clubs and porn. "The industry has really high standards, very regulated. Also, a lot of women are turned on by mainstream porn!" She also describes the everyday triumphs of working at the sex shop, telling us about how just the other day she enlightened a 60-year-old woman about her orgasmic clitoris.

Imagine our surprise, then, when Lynn suddenly says, "Feminists are such in a rush to be inclusive that people make too many things fit with the feminist movement. Sex really shouldn't be important." But didn't we just spend the last 45 minutes talking about Lynn's sex-positive attitude, how stripping is a feminist act, how women should know how to give themselves an orgasm? We are confused but Lynn stands her ground. "Talking about sex is treating the symptoms and not the disease. Until we change society's views, we will still have to be teaching 60-year-old women how to get off."

--Nona

Baton Rouge: OUR FEMINIST FIESTA

2007-11-15T20:56:00.001-06:00

Jessica, who teaches digital media and graphic design at a high school, found us on the web and invited us via email to a feminist party in our honor. We were much obliged and drove west from New Orleans in eager anticipation.

Weaving through the party, we pick up tidbits from more than twenty women, including two of Jessica’s older mentors. It is a tight-knight community, one that bands together in the conservative region, and has forums, radio shows, and frequent soirees. The buzz of conversation is fascinating, whether chain-smoking around the campfire, or eating cookies in the kitchen.

Two recent college graduates tell me of being called “baby-killers” in the newspaper for working at Planned Parenthood, even though their branch doesn’t even perform abortions--only one in Louisiana does. Another girl tells us about being drugged during the growing roofie problem on the LSU campus (don’t worry, her friends got to her first). An hour away from the Hollywood of the South we talk to a budding queer filmmaker. Some of the ladies are headed to Critical Sass soon, the women-friendly version of the popular bike march. A self-proclaimed “triple-threat” actress/singer/writer has just today auditioned for the Baton Rouge production of Steel Magnolias. These are accomplished and challenging women. There is a ceramics artist and teacher, a graphic designer, an attorney, a horror movie scholar, tons of PhD students, one of whom is even writing on the way the Internet and blogosphere is forging a new feminist future. Because we can’t interview everyone personally, we resort to hand-scrawled Xeroxed questionnaires (wait for the book!), which everyone fills out diligently before I yell, “Who’s ready for their mugshot?”

Tonight, we learn many things. That Baton Rouge has the most bad-ass feminist posse, full of dynamic women who hold their own amidst a dearth of feminism in Louisiana. That while singing "Me and Bobby McGee" on karaoke, you should be prepared for the "na-na-na"s. That just a little blog could create a huge feast including sesame kale, garlic pizza, three bean soup, and home baked focaccia. Talk about Southern hospitality (oh and thanks for letting me pass out on your couch...)

--Emma

New Orleans, Day 1: Seen and Heard

2007-11-15T10:00:00.000-06:00

“I know we’re the ones who bring people into this crap ass world. I know I’m a woman, but I like to keep things PG. When people talk about their vaginas, I’m like errr…”--Charlotte

“I don’t know if I’m a feminist.
I believe in equality.”--Angie

New Orleans, Day 1: LOYOLA LADIES

2007-11-15T09:19:00.001-06:00

On our first morning in New Orleans, we visit Loyola University’s tree-lined campus to meet up with 3 young women. Our first appointment is with Puja, a junior biology major minoring in business. Born and raised in New Orleans, Puja is president of an on-campus group called Bridging the Gap, which promotes awareness of racial and cultural injustices not by “scolding people, but teaching them how to accept others.” Puja (left) doesn’t call herself a feminist: “I’m defined as a woman, but that’s not all I am. Being Hindu and raised in a Catholic city, Hinduism defines me more than being female.” Puja feels connected to her cultural traditions, and she’s “not completely against” arranged marriages because they are “based on compromises and family—everyone gets to be involved.” When we touch on the topic of body image and young girls, Puja has a refreshingly positive point of view: “People becoming anorexic just to look like a movie star is really sad to me. I personally feel that I’ve never met an ugly person before. I believe that it is our duty as human beings to outweigh people’s good qualities over their bad.”

An hour later, we hook up with two other girls, Maria (right) and Azebe, who have never met but seem to easily bounce off each other’s ideas. Maria’s family immigrated to Kenner (just outside of New Orleans) from Nicaragua, and moved to Miami after Katrina. Maria, a sociology major, wants to travel after college and maybe become a human rights lawyer. Azebe, the daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, cites the Storm as a major turning point in her life and wants to join Doctors Beyond Borders when she graduates.

They both consider themselves feminists—Maria because she wants to be a “strong and independent person” and Azebe (left) because “I think I can accomplish anything.” Both women are politically progressive, and don’t seem to put a box around the definition of feminism. “Having children is compatible with feminism,” Azebe tells us, “because for every amazing person, every Martin Luther King, there’s a strong woman raising them.” Their views differ, though, on how feminism can conflict with traditional ideals, such as the Christian sentiment that infiltrated both of their childhoods. Maria tells us about her senior project assignment at her Catholic private high school—to plan out her own wedding. “I didn’t like that people were choosing my life for me,” Maria says. “It scared me to think that women were taught that marriage was all there is—there’s so much more!” But Azebe has a more personal interpretation of her faith, telling us, “Just because I’m a Christian doesn’t mean I’m a feminist. The way I see it, God wouldn’t want women to waste their gifts.”

--Nona

Austin, third night: CARMEN AND YASMINE

2007-11-14T11:55:00.001-06:00

Tonight we share pints with Yasmine and Carmen (left and right respectively, at Beauty Bar) in a balmy beer garden in west Austin. The two have never met: Yasmine is a friend of mine from high school, and I know Carmen from college. But they have a lot in common, both with each other and the other women we have talked to in Austin. Young accomplished activists, they came to Austin after college seeking the progressive community and organizations here.

Carmen is originally from Austin, and works with Erika at PODER. Her parents are both activists and musicians, and taught her that her environment and food are political issues. She sees class and race issues trumping feminism: “movements are always going to have identity lines, especially when peoples are not imprisoned the same way.” She still feels the need for balance between masculinity and femininity. “We need a transformation of the aggression that seems natural to men, that causes abuse in relationships and the violence born of war.”

Yasmine is French-Persian, grew up in NYC, and works at a firm that helps disenfranchised immigrants and refugees. “I can’t identify with the word feminism because it is not a stable term. I would never say it with a period at the end of the sentence. I’m against societal misogyny...but [poet] Erin Jackson said something like, 'if I shave my legs have I killed the revolution?' ” We all giggle, and in the same breath Yasmine attests, “Of course I’m a feminist if I’m going to be real, but my head gets so wrapped up in all the different movements and meaning.” Her dad is a lefty poly sci prof, and the extremism he dealt with in Iran influenced the progressive way he brought up Yasmine. Yasmine notes, “To deny that sexism effects us is a direct result of sexism, of being taught to be a quiet woman. Claiming to be ‘humanist’ is a result of sexism. At the same time, it is a privilege to be able to say you’re not a feminist, to not feel that anger.”

--Emma

Discussion Question:
Question 1

Austin, Day 3: INGRID

2007-11-13T23:54:00.001-06:00

We meet Ingrid, 20, for a quick Mexican lunch. She is a history and philosophy senior at the University of Texas-Austin and was raised in DC, Connecticut, and NYC. Ingrid wants to be a journalist in the deep South after graduation. Another one of the ladies who reached out to us through our blog, Ingrid heard about us through her professor Sarah Weddington, the lawyer who argued Roe v. Wade. She considers herself a feminist—“I would have winced at the word a few years ago,” she says, but after being in a controlling relationship, she realized how important it was to take her experience as a woman seriously.

Ingrid has a serene, unassuming, yet wise look about her, reflected in her voice as she explains her views on feminist theory: “I get fed up with the way academic feminism de-emphasizes male thinkers and writers. There’s a reason there aren’t all that many classic women writers—up until recently, there was no birth control and women had fewer options. It’s important to give yourself role models regardless of gender. It’s not good to be too worried about ‘patriarchal’ literature.” She sees academia as the only realm keeping the word “feminism” alive—but, she says, “even if the term seems outdated, the issues haven’t died at all."

--Nona

Discussion Questions:
Question 1

Austin, Day 3: ABBY AND GINGER

2007-11-13T12:15:00.001-06:00

Abby and Ginger met at UT-Austin freshman year. They share a similar ethos and wide-eyed gushy exuberance. Neither identifies as “feminist” per se, but as Abby puts it, “I’m probably going to get pissed when men stand in my way.” They count themselves as members of the boy’s club. Abby feels closer to dudes in general, counting Ginger as one of her few close female friends. Ginger remembers from an early age scoffing in the face of gender roles, wanting to “play football, hunt, repair motorcycles.”

Abby (left) was raised in Austin, is studying biology, and has hopes of teaching after graduation. She doesn’t sense much gender inequality in her science classes, but “likes surprising people” with her smarts. Abby sees feminism mostly as a historical series of movements, but notes that “women still need to be protected” in society. She is most passionate about battling meth addiction, the Bush administration, and the obesity epidemic. Ginger's eyes fill with fiery light when food and health come up. It is her lifelong goal to start an organic farm. When she says “the manipulation of food in this country hurts my feelings,” you know she means it.

That isn’t all Ginger (right) feels should be left natural. She doesn’t shave her legs, and gets constantly called “feminist” as a result. She explains: “it’s yet another expectation society puts on us” but I have feeling it has much to do with being a women as it does her spiritual passion for not fucking with “the gifts God gives us.” Ginger was raised strict Baptist near San Antonio, and although she’s not a fan of organized religion, she found herself quitting school last year and joining a 25-person Christian house. She was disillusioned with the excessiveness of her life, the intangibility of textbooks and school, wanted real “life experience,” so she sold her car and railed across Europe. She wanted “Truth, not knowledge.” It was a life awakening, she tells us with a possessed glow: “God must have sent me an angel.” To bring it full circle, Ginger and Abby delve into talking about how access to birth control is the catalyst to change for women. Without it, Ginger says, we cannot “control our destiny, our endless possibility of being.”

--Emma

Discussion Questions:
Question 1
Question 2

Austin, Day 2: TEXAS ACTIVISM

2007-11-12T22:06:00.001-06:00

Texas organizers are a different breed entirely from your garden variety east or west coast activist. Austin, an oasis of liberal bustle in the thick of Texas’s vast conservatism, seems to be a springboard for bad-ass women committed to local organizing. We talked to 3 native Texans these last few days, all of whom feel an urgency to put into action the change they want to see.

Elsa (left), the chief-of-staff for state representative Trey Martinez Fischer, chose the world of politics to pursue what she believes in. She grew up in the border town Pharr, surrounded by “incredibly tough” Mexican women and her activist father. She is a feminist, putting issues like sexual health and family planning in the forefront of her politics. Elsa splits her time between Austin and San Antonio, which makes her contemplate the dynamic of activism in each place. “It can be soul-killing to organize outside of Austin,” she says, “but it’s tough to be in an urban area where the same ideas are thrown around.” Mostly she sees her job as “connecting the dots,” and besides convincing the other side, “work[ing] with like-minded groups to build coalitions.” Elsa is hopeful about the future of feminism. “If you’re an organizer, you have to be optimistic about change…or else you might as well get off the wagon right now.”

Laurie (right), the 27-year-old political director of Texas’s branch of NARAL, was born and raised in both Austin and South Texas. She has spent years committed to pro-choice activism in Texas, reaching out to as diverse groups by arguing in logical, relatable terms. “Of course I am a feminist, but I would never call myself that at the Capitol,” she says. “Why poke that hornet’s nest? I tell people, ‘Texas is the #1 state for teen pregnancy—at least we can all agree on pregnancy prevention, right?’” Meanwhile, she says, she frames the issue differently when talking with Mexican-American women in border towns. Condemning teenage pregnancy is “not appropriate,” Laurie says; in communities where young pregnancy is part of the culture, she frames the issue as the right to prenatal health care. No matter who she is talking to, her Texas roots come in handy. “I’m aware, and I think it comes across to people, that I’m sweeping my own doorstep.”

Erika (below), also 27, grew up in the border town of Eagle Pass in a trailer park. Her father was a Tejano musician and her mother worked at Walmart for many years before she got her teaching degree, a goal which Erika also pursued. But later, Erika became involved with PODER, which she now co-directs. PODER was started by a group of Chicanos to challenge environmental injustices in East Austin, an area to which people of color were once forcibly relocated. Erika would have called herself a feminist a few years ago but now feels less comfortable with the title. “I call myself a woman or a woman of color…but also I don’t have a problem with the term ‘Chicana feminist.’” She acknowledges that feminism isn't a priority for most women, explaining “If you asked the women of Juarez facing femicide if they were feminists, they would say, ‘I don’t care, I’m just trying to get my children back.’” Regardless of the barriers between women and the issues they face, she hopes to see all women “come together somehow” in the future.

--Nona

Discussion Questions:
Question 1

Austin, Day 2: LIZA

2007-11-12T12:21:00.001-06:00

Liza is originally from New York, moved to Austin after her Americorp service in New Mexico, and now teaches at a public high school. She is also a member of a mostly male anarchist soccer team--“One day, a woman player told me she was sick of playing soccer and not having enough confidence for it, like what happened in soccer was the same as the way we are in life.” She told us her thoughts about feminism in Bookwoman, one of the only feminist bookstore in the South:

“The idea of feminism is almost part of my invisible knapsack—I have always taken it for granted that all genders should be equal. In my life, it’s always seemed like kinda of a moot point. Only when I come up against a challenge do I think about it, but that doesn’t happen often. I don’t feel limited by my gender all that much.”

--Nona

Austin, first night: BIG STAR BURLESQUE TROUPE

2007-11-11T21:14:00.001-06:00

The minute we land in Austin, we meet with Big Star, a plus size burlesque troupe. Here are the ladies:

Raine (left), 22, was born in Austin, has been doing burlesque for a year and is the head seamstress in soft goods for SewSister.com (a lingerie company). She lives with her husband in the house we have all gathered in, and also dabbles in phone sex for extra money on the side. She thinks of herself as a “modern, hip feminist,” one who got married when she was 20 because she wanted to, not because she was “pregnant or pressured.”

Cait, 18, is from Michigan, and after dropping out of high school, moved to Austin for a month and works with Raine at the soft goods manufacturer. She fell in love with Austin after a visit in July. She’s a feminist--“not an extreme feminist, but what Raine said…a modern one.”

Florinda (right), 29, is a “playwright, artist, activist, singer, educator” and a through-and-through Texas girl, raised outside of Houston. She works for the non-profit the Theater Action Project. She is a self-proclaimed feminist (although not an equalist: “I would fight in solidarity for women to do anything, but that doesn’t mean I would want to go fight in the war.”)

Rebecca, 22, is originally from California and has been in Austin for two years. She is a corporate recruiter by day—“every other day is a struggle to the top”—but doesn’t want to stereotype herself as a feminist.

Originally from Queens, Stephanie (left), 29, is the founder and “mother hen” of Big Star burlesque. She had the idea a year ago. Always interested in pin-ups but, as a larger woman, she had to find a venue for it. Now she runs a full variety show and is a telephone dominatrix—“the best-paid acting job I ever had”—where she can make upwards of $2 a minute.

THE TROUPE

Stephanie started the troupe because she wanted plus size ladies to feel a sort of “freedom in their own skin.” Her family never made her ashamed of her size, but she always felt like she had to remind herself, ‘Be careful, keep covered.’ Stephanie tells us that Big Star has more of a feminist slant than other troupes because it presents big women as “normal, beautiful, sensual, bold…campy, smart, sexy and entertaining,” without having to be merely “sassy ladies or comedic fodder.”

Most of the women seemed to have had a “lightbulb” moment when they realized they wanted to do burlesque. Rebecca (right) saw it as a chance to “get her femininity back,” being raised in an environment where women were the breadwinners. Florinda saw it as a way to make other bigger women feel sexy. Very thin once upon a time, Florinda gained weight later in life and realized how embarrassed other big women felt. She wanted to somehow tell them, ‘You ain’t seen a big girl like this before.’ Cait (below) adds, “Burlesque was a huge feminist step. It seemed to be a stab at the status quo."

I ask Stephanie and the other women why burlesque is often more considered “feminist” than, say, stripping. The consensus is that it’s a more female-run industry and concept, and a conscious decision to participate rather than having to strip for a living. The ladies make a distinction between class and education at this point. With the exception of Stephanie, none of the women in the troupe have a college degree, but all make enough money to sacrifice a Sunday to practice burlesque. “We’re all here by choice and don’t have to be working that third job,” Stephanie says. Florinda agrees. “We get to practice art. And I’ve always recognized art as a privilege.” All the women agree that living in Austin gives them easy access to an intellectual, liberal environment. Cait, when she explains to her friends what she’s doing, they react by saying, ‘Wait, so you’re a stripper who works at a factory?’ But in a community like this, those pursuits can take on a whole new meaning. They can not only be a way to make a living, but also a way to feel empowered, independent, and sexy, regardless of size or interest.

--Nona

Discussion Questions:
Question 1

Tulsa: MELODY AND MANA

2007-11-10T11:13:00.001-06:00

Melody had invited us to stay with her in Tulsa a few weeks ago, finding out about our project through a post on Feministing. She was raised in Colorado Springs in a traditionally Christian household and is a senior at Tulsa University. Melody, 21, invites her friend Mana to the interview, a graduate of TU who “fell in love with Tulsa when I realized I could do a lot of good here.” Mana, 24 (right), was born in Oklahoma after her parents paid a smuggler to bring them over from Iran. Both women identify as feminists. Mana came to feminism “through a natural progression of being socially conscious.” She jokes that her “heart bleeds for everybody,” telling us that people furrow their brows at the fact that she, a straight woman, works at a LBGT non-profit. “Justice issues are all kind of the same—everyone deserves access to resources.”

Melody (below) possesses an intensity that is countered only by her delicate brown ringlets, porcelain skin and glassy green eyes. In her most serious yet understated tone she tells, “I know this sounds religious, but feminism saved my life.” We both crane forward for the story. “I was in this abusive relationship, and everyone around me was telling me to get out of it. But I was in denial for so long, really isolated…then I started reading stuff about feminism and looking at blogs and livejournals.” Mana murmurs from the couch, “God bless the internet.” Melody says that if it were the seventies and her only option was to go to a “consciousness-raising group,” she would have never made it, but that the internet made her realize, “I was not alone…but plugged into something larger.” She even discovered as she was coming to terms with her abusive relationship that her mother was contemplating her own divorce. “She had a strict, controlling husband, and was a stay-at-home mom for 11 years because it was the good, Christian thing to do…but she made it clear to me that she had regrets and didn’t want the same thing to happen to me.”

Both girls agree that the blogosphere is where feminism really thrives, a place where, as Mana puts it, “the words are more important than the faces.” In states like Oklahoma and Colorado, where feminists are few and far between, online communities allow these ideas to exist in a place where they can’t physically live. Something clicks in Emma and me. At the start of GIRLdrive, the whole blog thing mystified us. We never thought of ourselves as the “blogger” types—we barely knew what a blog was. Even up until now, we loved the responses and were touched by our devoted readers, but still didn’t quite get it.

It now hit us that our initial ignorance about blogs had nothing to do with personal preference—we just had always had those ideas at our fingertips. We needed only to look as far as our own livingrooms to find bookshelves crammed with feminist literature, only as far as our teeming metropolis of New York City to find strong, supported women. Technology, our prime source of angst by the end of our Southwest stretch, suddenly seemed vital to feminism's future, and the only hope for revising the narrow, inaccessible label it constantly drags around.

--Nona

Discussion Questions:
Question 1

November 9th: ELLEN WILLIS, 1941-2006

2007-11-09T13:42:00.001-06:00

My mother, journalist, feminist and cultural critic Ellen Willis, died a year ago today. I’ve been honoring her by reliving the time following her death—obsessively sifting through writing by her and about her. After the funeral, it was sensory overload for weeks on end, not only because responses to death are emotional hurricanes, but because every lazy, indeterminate goal that I had to be both a writer and a feminist suddenly came alive. I began poring over my mother’s writing, filling in the blanks in my knowledge about the women’s movement. I learned how it had literally started from a few women realizing they had common ground and deciding to talk about it. It was a crash course in American feminism, a history lesson in the form of anecdotes, tearful elegies, and primary documents.

At the same time, people who had been affected by my mother’s work all felt drawn to me, to fill the space Mom had left behind. They handed me letters, old papers, photos, pamphlets from feminist conferences, old issues of The Village Voice containing scathing critiques in my mother’s weekly column. I had read my mother’s books in high school, and again in college, each time being moved by the clarity, wit, and subtlety of Mom’s writing but never feeling an urge to identify with the feminist part. But after November 9th, the feminist wheels in my head, once moving perfunctorily, began furiously churning. It was a mere couple weeks after this day last year, over eggs and mimosas in NYC, when GIRLdrive was born.

I knew that a day after she died, NPR had replayed an interview she did in 1989, but for some reason I never got around to listening to it. Every time I’d think of it, I would happen to be checking my email at home on my dad’s prehistoric computer, whose speakers are defunct. I’d think, ‘Tomorrow at work I’ll take a listen’ but would always forget. I stumbled upon it today, in the throes of this road trip, and discovered that it was mostly about how being a mother--I was 5 at the time--had affected her brand of feminism.

My heart stopped when I heard this part:

“I think Stanley [my father] and I do our best in good faith to try to share everything. But then there always are things, like I really have a driving phobia…and definitely I know that its connected with all sorts of things about female-ness. So Stanley does virtually all of the driving when we’re in the city together. Nona has been seeing this…At one point, she even said to me, ‘You have to have a penis to drive, right, Mama?’ I feel like this is really on my agenda as a big thing that I have to deal with… I try to make her understand that this is just my weirdness…Now she sort of sits in the drivers seat and she pretends that she’s driving and she really wants to learn to drive. The most important thing is that she should get the idea that it’s great for her to try to do.”

And I did get that idea—never questioned that I could get my license and have a car. Now, I am dependent on my driver’s license to finish the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’m really hoping that, somehow, she can see that she did it right.

--Nona

Kansas City, third morning: MARIA

2007-11-09T07:13:00.001-06:00

Flustered and late, we are greeted with breakfast at Maria Buszek's house on a street lined with autumn leaves. Maria, a third waver, has been a feminist since age 9, when a new papal law banned her from being an altar girl in late-seventies Detroit. "Does the pope think we're not as good as boys?" she asked the adults around her, and realized that "this gender thing was a big deal." Raised in a Catholic family, her dad's "denigrating comments about feminism indicated that it was a powerful, righteous thing."

She is a professor of art history at the Kansas City Art Institute and is the author of Pin-Up Grrrls, which explores the history of the pin-up and its long-standing connection to feminism. She is now working on a book, inspired by some of her crafty students, that is "bridging the art/craft divide" and acknowledging the cohort of artists who are experimenting with craft media. She says that "domestic media," like the subject of her first book, is a concept that "some faculty just doesn't get." It pisses her off when academia hastily judges whether a topic or a piece of art is feminist or not, and Emma fervently agrees. Emma, in her senior thesis, had examined the 1999 exhibit "Another Girl, Another Planet," a group show of young women photographers whose glossy, fashion-y images were harshly criticized for perceived misogyny and superficiality. Maria rolls her eyes. "The minute artists use titillation to attract journalists, they get attacked for it. The press says, 'These are the only images I will pay attention to, how dare you create these images?'"

I bring up the "Girls Gone Wild" phenomenon then. Does she think sexual empowerment has gone too far? "Some women do see this as liberating, but it seems to be an uninformed feeling of power," Maria says. "What we have to find out is what leads these women to believe in the power of showing their boobs at Mardi Gras if they can't even ask for a raise at work." But she thinks it's disrespectful to young women for older feminists to "take the scolding route…assume that these women don't know what they're doing." She has a lot of faith in our generation, but "simply reclaiming one's sexuality is never enough...sort of the narcissistic, Courtney Love, 'feminism for one.' Young women should be aware that their sexuality is a public matter."

--Nona

Kansas City: MONICA

2007-11-08T01:33:00.002-06:00

Monica (above): 25, was raised in Texas and Kansas, born to “free spirit” Mexican-Indian father and an immigrant German mother, former air force worker (kicked out and arrested for smoking pot), aspiring art teacher.

“I’m raunchy. I’m insulting. I’m sexually harassing. I exploit women. I want to grow up and make my house all pretty and plant flowers, just sit and drink and not have to bust my ass. Most of all, I’m not a feminist because I don’t view issues as a woman. I don’t separate things in terms of gender. Sometimes I feel androgynous…I really feel that I can live my life equally.”

Discussion Questions:
Question 1
Question 2

Kansas City: CRAIG

2007-11-08T00:31:00.001-06:00

We are staying with Craig, an artist who I met in NYC many years ago. He hooked us up with all of the great ladies we interviewed in KC, including his girlfriend Angela. After all this we get curious on his thoughts on feminism. He speaks with spastic eloquence, letting insights roll out as if he has been thinking of them for years, but just found the words for the first time…

“I feel insecure about claiming feminism, it is not my movement to own. I more see myself as a male operating between two extremes, two gender lines. I don’t think the movement ended. It never went away. From an objective point of view, I see feminism as ongoing industry, created and needing to be maintained. There is nothing wrong per se with the feminism industry (magazines, books, classes, products), but it can objectify the issue, turn it back on itself, create extremism and separatism that in turn reinforces stereotypes to the world (and creates the other side of extremism). It seems that the feminist industry can create a dangerous political correctness. I am worried that it is not ok to be free anymore. I think to a lot of people feminism is simply associated with sexual harassment, which of course is not right. Movements are supposed to be about change, but this can’t be when it’s stuck in an industry that replicates itself.

But ok, I don’t know shit about shit. I know I am not a woman, but my thoughts are based on a thoughtful process of observing every kind of woman and culture around me. I really respect strong independent woman, and ultimately, I embrace femininity for it’s difference from me.”

--Emma

Kansas City: ANGELA AND JOEY

2007-11-07T01:28:00.001-06:00

Angela and her friend, Joey, meet us at Monica’s house for a cup of coffee. Angela, 26, is originally from Kansas City, and although she plans to open a boutique and gallery with her boyfriend, she has a degree in biology and is now working at a lab. Joey, 23, grew up in Denver, wants to be a costume designer, and now sews and crafts freelance wherever she is needed at a show. They both tentatively consider themselves feminists, but they both shy away from the term because of the negative stereotypes. We got to talking about how each of their professions are directly associated with one gender, and they had some interesting things to say:

Joey (right) on the female-dominated field of costume design:

“I’m surrounded by gay guys and women. Little boys don’t sit around thinking about being a costume designer…or maybe they’re not allowed to. I’m sure a lot of men liked it in college but would never major in it because they wouldn’t want a negative label. I think women have passed men in the ability to blend gender roles.”

Angela (left) added,

“Yeah, because men feel like they would lose more, while we only have things to gain. Science teachers would say to the women students, ‘Prove them wrong that men are better at science.’ But in the workplace the doctors are overwhelmingly male, and the nurses are mostly women. I think it’s because nurses get shit on all the time, and also because they’re seen as more maternal. Its funny, though—women nurses are always encouraging other women to go into the profession.”

--Nona

Denver: SZOKE

2007-11-07T01:22:00.002-06:00

Szoke (right): 23, waitress, actress, went to Temple University, New York transplant. Wavers on the feminist question because she believes in the ideals but "isn't doing anything about it."

On the service industry:

“Sometimes I can’t believe I have a job that allows people to treat me certain ways. But I like interacting with people. Waitressing is good money and usually easy. Male waiters are more respected, though. There are always going to be those people who get off on the idea that a woman is serving them.”

--Nona

Discussion Questions:
Question 1

The Halfway Point: SANTA FE AND THE DESERT

2007-11-07T00:35:00.002-06:00

We interview Mei-Mei over tea the next morning on her sunny balcony overlooking a prehistoric southwest landscape (pictures lost). Mei-Mei is sixty, and has a regal and wise air about her. She is draped in an angular cream tunic, and her calm pointedness resembles the Agnes Martin paintings that hang in her bedroom. She was born in Beijing, from a long line of strong women, her grandmother being the first woman to have a formal education in China. “These dandelions are like a yellow blanket,” she uttered at age five, beginning her long career as a poet. She was the first Chinese-American woman on record to publish a volume of poetry, and as a result of her field, she very much considers herself a feminist, publishing through Kelsey St. Press, an experimental women’s poetry venue. Mei-Mei remained completely focused on her career until she had her daughter at 42, who is “the most significant person” in her life now. She sees an over-stressed, over-competitive streak in our generation, and believes we don’t have enough time to figure out who we are, which will inevitably effect modern feminism. She doesn’t feel much allegiance to “European principles of heroic individuality,” intuiting that a new feminism should “change the worldview to be more about unity and connectedness. Gender now has only elements of convention rather than an absolute.”

Phoenix: SIMAN

2007-11-06T23:12:00.002-06:00

Siman (left): born in Somalia, practicing Muslim, went to Howard University, works for the public health department, a single mom raising her daughter, Safiya. Does not identify as a feminist.

“I came into fundamentalist Islam in order to get back to basics.” I told my Marxist parents, 'You’re for the proletariat? Well, the proletariat believes in God'...[Eventually] Islam bumped up against my core beliefs….when you get down to the barebones of Islam, women are just NOT equal. I actually started thinking [as a woman], ‘Am I less? This can’t be.’ But it’s hard to give up my religion and culture. It’s a pull of allegiances.”

Discussion Questions:

Question 1
Question 2