What does a feminist look like?

I found this picture on Tumblr a little while back ago - terribly sorry, but I can't remember the source. It made me think on several things. One, I really need to get that T-shirt from the oh-so-wonderful Feministing.com that says "This is what a feminist looks like." Two, I'd really like to know what the newest bullshit stereotype of what a feminist looks like is - I quit keeping up with that crap. Three, I need to point something out: this picture is entirely right.

Feminists can:

• wear heels
• wear makeup
• have long hair
• paint their nails
• wear dresses/skirts
• Do... things... that girls are "supposed" to do? What are those again?
• I dunno... be scared of frogs?

Or not! 

I really don't subscribe to the whole "a feminist must do X, Y, or Z to be considered a real feminist!" Anytime I see somebody screaming about the "ONE TWUE WAY" to do or be something, at little light turns on in my head that says "Don't take them seriously."

Now, how does one fit this into the nerd scene? Oh! Right! SEXY COSPLAY! I cannot tell you how many times I've been on the receiving end of a tune that goes like this: "My goodness, Marigold! How can you be a feminist and wear that to -insert convention/event here-!?" How about this? I believe feminism is the radical idea that a woman, as a fully-functioning human being, can make her own choices for her own body! You know what that entails? Here's a brief listing:

1. What characters to love and want to cosplay, even if their outfit or one of their outfits is more revealing than someone ELSE deems "appropriate."
2. To choose for HERSELF how much of her body she wishes to expose and to be able to go about that way without being touched/harassed/etc.
3. To dress in a manner as quote-unquote "feminine" or NOT as she pleases because, guess what!? It's HER body and HER business.

We all go to cons for our own reasons. I'm quite sure that "showing off" and "because I freaking want to" and "because I love this character" are legitimate reasons to do a certain cosplay. And that is YOUR business, whatever your gender may be. We'll all get along a little better if we get off each other's backs about the "ONE TWUE WAY" to do things. Oh, and don't get me started again on tearing into each other for perceived "wrongness" in someone else's cosplay. Just stop it.

Marigold, looking forward to the Georgia Renaissance Faire, wishing you a happy Thor's Day!

I'm Back!

I apologize for the unannounced hiatus, but there were some things going on in my life that left me without much time or the whatsis to blog. One, I have school and I had to do stuff for that - I wouldn't be a good person to listen to if I didn't at least sometimes put school first. Two, some stuff was going on that was really making me angry. I don't want this to turn into an angry, ranting blog, and other people were saying more on the subject in better words than I could hope for. Then spring break happened and I wasn't really around the computer all that much - probably all to the good. To sum up the hiatus:

1. School gets in the way of doing fun stuff... but I think I probably have to say "Do it anyway."
2. I stand with Jane Doe in Steubenville (Stupidville), Ohio because there is no excuse for rape.
3. World of pain. Two words: mechanical bull.

Okay, right now, wherever you are reading from, there is something very important going on in the Supreme Court here in America. Marriage equality goes up in an unprecedented set of hearings. In other news, scalpers are selling tickets for gallery seating at upwards of six grand. I'm not going to lie... One, that second part makes me think people kind of suck. Two, I can honestly say I have never been so nervous about anything going on in America's court systems. However, sitting here and worrying isn't going to help anything. All we can do here is love more and hope... And chew the ears off of our representatives letting them know what's what. Find a phone number and start masticating some pinnae...

And... on to the meat of today's subject! Female role models.

This comes from a semi-conversation had in the Barnes & Noble with my brother when he came to visit for part of spring break. The conversation turned to Disney starlets, particularly Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez. I, personally, would like to go on-record and say I'm not really much of a fan, but I'm not going to give anybody else a hard time. The discussion didn't last long, because we got hooked on looking through books of show-tune and Disney sheet music. This morning, though, I woke up thinking about it, especially with what I talked about with my mom over break.

Does anybody remember the Vanessa Hudgens nude picture scandal? Yes? No? Didn't care? Well, I remember Dane Cook's response to that. I'm terribly sorry, but that was funny... Anyway, a bunch of people apparently got all up in arms because of some things that some Disney starlets did. Miley Cyrus had that whole "oh, let's count down to when she's 18 and see what she does" crapstorm. I'm sure there were other issues that I never even had flip across my radar screen. Made me kind of think, though, after that talk with my mom...

Um,  why are we counting on actors and actresses for role models? I do get it - ever since Annette Funicello's days as a Mouseketeer, young ladies working for Disney have had a squeaky-clean image. America's sweetheart and all that mess. Well, I think it's crud. You know what these people are? They're actors. Their job is to get in front of a camera or on a stage and pretend to be stuff. It might be a hooker, it might be an ingenue... Might be a squirrel, for all some directors care! The majority of them, we will never meet or know as people. Why the hell do we want them for role models?

I'm sure some of these actors are awesome people. I'm sure some of them are total jerks. In my mind, that kind of isn't the point. If you are a parent, shouldn't YOU be trying to be a role model for your child? I do get that it's important to be aware of what your children are watching and interacting with, but when "scandals" happen, you know what that is? That's a teaching moment. That's a chance to sit the child down and say "Vanessa Hudgens isn't actually a singing high school student. She's a real person with her own life and the freedom to make her own decisions." Whether or not you agree with what a performer does in their personal life, it's a good chance to explain characters vs. people.

I am not a parent and I never will be, but some things stand out to me. I think that children need real people as role models - preferably, people in their own lives. Me, I look up to my mom and Katie and my brother Jareth and so many other people who are actually AROUND me. People might have a lot less to complain about if we ALL got the character/live person difference through our heads. It is ridiculous to expect Miley Cyrus to behave like her character all the time just like it would be nuts to expect Sir Patrick Stewart to ACTUALLY control people's brains via superpower. Actors are people who happens to live their lives in front of cameras. I mean, that's a whole different can of worms - how much we hear about these people's lives.

My point is that if you want people in your life - your children, your friends, your family, whoever - to have a decent role model, try being one. Try living the way you would like to see other people live. Really examine how much something another person is doing is affecting you specifically - if it's "not at all" or "really not that much" you might want to just let it go. If you have children, teach them yourself. Not "OMG BAN TELEVISION" - actually sit them down and talk to them about what is on the screen. Oh, and my guess would be your average High School Musical-obsessed nine-year-old wouldn't begin to even know that Vanessa Hudgens took some pictures without her clothes on. If they found out, it was probably because some adult freaked out about it.

I'm not even going to go on my whole "It is entirely her business what to do with her body/who to take pictures for/whatever" spiel. Y'all have heard it in various forms already on this blog and Criminal Minds is about to come on. I'll spare you... this time.

Marigold, still in her pajamas after noon, wishing everyone a happy Tuesday with lots of love!

In Honor of International Women's Day

This post is gonna be personal too. It's a tribute, in honor of today as International Women's Day, to all the badass women in my life, and spotlights on some of them in particular. There are not enough words in any language ever for a comprehensive view of each lady, so everybody gets a long paragraph - just to be fair. Without further ado, here we go - in no particular order:

• Katie

Holy cow. I don't even know where to start with Katie. Something "up there" - whatever deity/deities/higher power/The Force - really knew what they were doing in September of 1992. Both of us remember to this day when I walked up to her and went "Hi, I'm **** - wanna be friends?" [Not printing my real name in this blog - some of you know me, some of you don't - for personal safety.] That was a serious life-changing moment for at least two whole families. The ladies in her family (her mom, Aunt Karen, and Granny in particular) are all so freaking wonderful. Both of us gained a second family that day and I would not trade Katie for anything, ever. We've been through so much - some of it together, some on our own journeys - but we are always sisters. She is so effing strong I don't even know how to put it in words. She upholds HER standards and she's not "noodging" for anything or anybody and it makes me so proud to know her.

• My mom

Twenty-five years minus six days is a long time to love somebody. My mom has been there to do that every day for 9234 days (as of this post) and yes I just calculated that. She's hugged and kissed and cooked and nagged and yelled and fussed and driven me all over creation and back. She's listened to me be perfectly horrible and then still given me a hug the next day when I needed one. I can honestly say my mom has done everything for me while teaching me to do for myself. That's the best way I know how to put it. Heaven knows we've disagreed many, many, many times over the years, but I know I will always have a place to come home to whenever my mom is there. She's gone to bat for me, tried her best to do what's best for me, and now she's being strong enough to let me be grown. She has been through a life I don't even begin to know everything about, but I know it's been hard, and I have no words to describe how much I love and respect her. She made her mistakes, and she owns up to them - I think she blames herself too much, because she's been exactly the right MOM for me.

This brings me to...

• My mother

My mother and I met for the first time in 2010. My mom and dad had never kept it a secret from me that I am adopted (I've got a whole 'nother spiel on that) and I am perfectly fine with that. Yes, I had been curious, but I've known for a long time that biological parents and adoptive parents are ALL your "real" parents. Meeting my mother and hearing her stories and the stories of my Nana and Mamaw (my great-grandmother!) and my aunts and cousins has neither upended my world nor "told me who I really am." It's not like in the movies - it's just added another wonderful layer to the life I already have and love. Having another family to get to know has been a little overwhelming at times, but in a way, it's not all that new. I've always had love for the mother who did what she felt was best for me - it is honestly the bravest thing I have ever heard of anybody doing. Plus! Now I know exactly how I come by so much of myself: physically AND in personality!

These are the top three badass women in my life, but I'd like to give shout-outs to a few more. Some of them are still here on Earth and some of them are up in heaven. It doesn't change for a second how much I love them:

• My Grandma - my dad's mother. She had this gift for gifts, and I still treasure a great many of the things she gave me as links to her. I will never forget her fashion advice or the Little Mermaid-decorated room just for me at her house.  I don't know most of her story, because I was so young for most of the time I knew her, but I remember her as a pretty kick-ass Grandma! I will always associate the Tresor Lancome scent with her. She passed away when I was fifteen, leaving one more gift... Mostly for my dad, but Beau the Flat-Coated Retriever was my special buddy as well. I love you, Grandma, and thank you for everything!

• Meme (pronounced like Mimi) - my mom's mother. She let me totally ransack her living room every chance I got, encouraging the building of couch forts and watching of cartoons, while teaching in her own quiet way. She loved to read to me and I think she may have been prouder than my mom when I started reading out loud. I don't think she would have been able not to teach, having spent 40 years teaching English in the Atlanta public school system. I can never thank her enough for teaching me to speak properly, particularly the difference in "nauseous" and "nauseated." I still have her red ceramic rooster named Joe - he is my favorite reminder of her. I was only in the third grade when she passed away, but I will always remember her. I love you, Meme - you're part of the inspiration for me to become a speech therapist!

 

• Gigi - my mom's aunt. All of my memories involving Gigi involve laughing. She would tell me stories about my cousins when they were little and growing up out in the country in Jefferson, Georgia. Some of the people she told me about, I didn't remember that well because I saw them so infrequently (weddings and funerals), but I loved the stories nonetheless.She let me play with her lipstick and perfume, had the greatest taste in accessories ever! I still wear the silk scarves she gave me, whether it's everyday or to conventions or RenFaires! When she died after making the courageous decision to end the dialysis, I was in the sixth grade. I didn't really understand what was going on, even at 12, but I do know her funeral was the first funeral I really cried at, and I had already been to plenty by then. I will never forget what her laugh sounded like, though, and the song "You Are My Sunshine" reminds me of her most of all. Gigi, I love you so much and I hope you would be proud of your littlest grandniece!

• Aunt Judy - my dad's sister. She had three boys, so I've been told she felt a special kind of joy when she found out she had a niece. I was her only niece, and now it makes me sad that she's not here to see her future grandchild - her son and his wife are expecting their very first! In that joy, she picked out, for my first Christmas, and gave to me the one most precious gift I have ever received in life: my bear. I still have him and, yes, I still sleep with him. She and I were never as close as either of us wished we could be, and now I really regret that. Bath and Body Works and fuzzy socks will always remind me of her, because that was what she always knew I would love on birthdays and Christmas. She was particularly badass in raising my cousin, who has very special needs - I believe it was she who coined the term "handi-capable." I can't hear the song "Wind Beneath My Wings" without thinking of her. She was as brave and strong as anyone could possibly be while battling colon cancer. Aunt Judy - JC and I both still love you, and we miss you so much!

 

• Aunt Katy - my mom's sister. She's the only one of my aunts who's never had kids, but that has always been totally okay with me! Being the baby of the grandkids, I usually got Aunt Katy all to myself. She's been the greatest with advice and little tips and tricks to get through the hiccups in life, like tying your bra straps with dental floss so they don't show in a tank top. She let me get away with a little more than Mom did, and I think I learned all my "bad words" from her. She has always been one of the most cheerful people I think I've ever met. Even beating breast cancer, losing her hair, going through chemo, and getting healthy again, she has always been so BRIGHT! Take that, cancer! Conlee women are WAY too strong for you! 

 

• Aunt Karen - Katie's aunt. Two Scorpios in one place can only lead to trouble! She is a canon lawyer for the Catholic church. She speaks German. She dances ballet. She's raised two boys who have grown up (RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES!) into wonderful young men. A devout Irish Catholic, yet not dull at all! Aunt Karen has always been a hoot - she is a strong woman and she will TELL you what's what! 

 

• Ms. Holly - Katie's mom. I knew I was adopted by the time I met Katie. So I knew I had a mother and a mom, and I was totally cool with that. I had no idea when I walked up and made friends with Katie I was getting a second mom in the bargain! Loud, opinionated, funny as hell, Ms. Holly did NOT take crap from ANYBODY. If she thought something was wrong, she got up and fixed it. And heaven help you if you tried to get between Katie and me for any reason... Her personality and mine were so similar that it was almost scary. We (me, Katie, Ms. Holly, and my mom) always said that if we were switched, Katie and my mom would be fine, but Ms. Holly and I would kill each other! I will never forget, ever, that night when the four of us were sitting around my kitchen table, laughing until we cried and banging on the table while we talked about throwing cheese out the window! [Side note: Go figure...] She passed away when Katie and I were sixteen and I miss her every day - Katie gets more and more like her every day. Ms. Holly, I always wish I had told you that you were my second mom...

 

• Nana - my mother's mother. It is so wild to have living grandparents again! Getting to know my grandmother now that I am a grown woman is very different from being around Meme and Grandma. I can't imagine how it was for her to know that she had a granddaughter and not being able to watch that baby grow up and change like Meme and Grandma could do. She got that experience with my two brothers, but I can't help but wonder how much she wondered. Nana has great skill with anything involving yarn - I wear the scarves she sent me this Christmas all the time and the purple crocheted blanket she gave me when we first met is one of the most special things I own! There was nothing like watching Chipper Jones hit one of his last career home runs with the family I always knew was out there, but had never met. Thank you, Nana, for simply everything!

These are certainly not ALL the badass, wonderful, wild, awesome women in my life, but I have to cut this off now. I have a chorus performance tonight and I've been crying since I started typing about Katie almost an hour ago. My choral director is going to have my butt if I turn up all red-eyed and sniffly - snot's bad for your vocal chords, you know... Just, every one of the ladies in my life, please know that I have so much love for you! You're all so freaking amazing and I wish I could hug every one of you right this minute!

All my readers, sound off in the comments! I want to hear about the badass women in YOUR lives!

Marigold, still sniffling, wishing you all wonderful women in your lives!

My Favorite Disney Princess

First of all, I would like to say so many thank-yous for the overwhelming response to my last entry. I love you all so much - you are completely amazing! Like I promised, this blog is not up so I can tell my sob story to the world. I wish only to use the bad things that have happened in my life as a way to teach other people that these things don't just happen to people far away. This, however, is not the subject of today's blog post.

A recent conversation... Well, okay, a topic that I can go on and on about with little to no prompting at any time brought the subject of this post to mind. Yes, I was recently having a conversation with a friend that involved Disney. If you happen to know me (and if you don't, you will soon!) then you know it doesn't take much to get me started on Disney. So, yeah, that conversation happened and now, here I am, stuck in the Wonderful World of Disney in my brain.

Just recently, also, I saw this picture on Tumblr:

Before you gripe at me that Mulan isn't a princess and where the heck is Kidagakash from Atlantis or Eilonwy from The Black Cauldon and BTW Giselle fought a damn DRAGON while still not marrying the prince in the end (I think this may have been made pre-Brave), I have a princess of my own missing! My very favorite Disney princess of all time: Nala. As per the picture above, she play-fought her prince as a little one, kicked his furry butt up and down the jungle to see that he'd act right, THEN fought hyenas and their usurping uncle! Of course, she's a lion, so that's kind of par for the course, I guess.

 

See that? That is a badass princess! Look at her TEETH! I'm reasonably sure that only Pocahontas and Kidagakash (and Merida) would be able to go up against a princess like that without wetting themselves, and I only give Kida a fair chance at coming out on top hand-to... paw. Seriously - THIS is my favorite princess, and I really can't say that enough. 

People like to complain that Disney upholds very gendered stereotypes. In response, I give them Nala. Actually, I'd say The Lion King in general was very good about being non-gendered. It is a universal coming-of-age story that appeals equally to both boys and girls. At least, it certainly did in my class when I was in the first grade. Heavens, all we ever DID - boys AND girls - was play Lion King. Yes, they did market different products to boys and girls (I was always mad about the lack of Lion King sundresses), but a girl didn't get called a tomboy for liking Lion King. On the flip side, ALL the boys that I remember loved it, even with one of the top love scenes in Disney history.

Look at that picture of those princesses again, and think of Walt himself. Think of his vision of progress. When you look at Snow White, then follow the princesses on up the line, right up to Rapunzel and Merida, and you are looking at PROGRESS. Do we have a long way to go? I would say yes. Have we come, pardon my French, hella far? I think we have. For my part, I'm looking forward to Frost, coming out either this year or next (can't remember). Just remember what it says on the Carousel of Progress: "It's a great big beautiful tomorrow/ Shining at the end of ev'ry day/ It's a great big beautiful tomorrow/ And tomorrow's just a dream away!"

Marigold, singing that godawful song over and over, over and out!

Very Personal Post

Okay, I must give trigger warnings in this post for emotional abuse and mental illness. If there's any triggers I should have warned about and haven't, I apologize - it's been a weird day.

Last week was Domestic Violence Awareness Week at my university. I walked into the school gym for my aerobics class on Monday and managed not to notice - that's Monday for you. However, I started seeing T-shirts hanging up all over campus. For two days, I didn't realize what they were. However, I was a bit more clear-headed on Wednesday morning. (Just for the record, before 8 AM is no time to be clear-headed...) I started READING the messages on the T-shirts and, looking around, I saw a piece of laminated paper with a key on it, explaining the colors. For a full description, please visit "The Clothesline Project." I actually wound up late to my class because I had to step into the bathroom and cry for a good minute.

Long story short, the T-shirts are a way for victims of various types of abuse to tell their stories without fear of any sort of repercussions. When I got to my class, I asked a girl sitting next to me, hypothetically speaking, if she thought the shirts might be upsetting or triggering to anyone. She answered that she honestly figured nobody cared. Not sure if she could hear me, but I said "I sure as hell do." Obviously, I had to kind of sit on that thought (figuratively) and get on with the workout. It came back and smacked me in the face when I left the class though.

I looked around from pink to blue to yellow to white to grey and everything in between... There was a young lady at a table not far away. She had pamphlets on domestic violence awareness and things like that, but most prominent were the stacks of T-shirts and containers of paint markers. I had a proverbial light bulb moment and I had to go over there. I selected a yellow T-shirt, the color for survivors of domestic abuse. On it, in green, black, and red markers, I wrote a simple statement. It was addressed to my abuser: "You never hit me. I honestly wish you had. Then you would be IN JAIL where you belong."

This is not a blog for personal venting, I promise, and there is a point to this story: every T-shirt on that line is one too many. Keep in mind, these particular ones - HUNDREDS - hang up on a college campus. This is a bullshit number I'm pulling out of thin air, but let's say in theory that the women of my university mostly range in age from about 18-25 years old. What. The. Actual. Fuck. Why the hell are hundreds of women at this one university all reporting abuse before they even live a quarter of a century? That's a really hard question, isn't it?

There's a lot of answers, and a lot of them are pretty freaking incendiary - bound to cause a lot of friction and even make people outright angry. Like the FACT that our culture PROTECTS AND ENABLES RAPE, VIOLENCE, AND ABUSE. Sorry, not sorry, there is no getting around that. The system is set for silence, and I am NOT cool with that. I am NOT okay with the fact that there is nothing I can do to my abuser because he never hit me. It is NOT right that:

• Women's clothes, sexual histories, and states of intoxication remain the focus of rape trials
• Men are told every day, by the lies people tell women, that they are potential rapists
• LGBTQ/Poly people have trouble finding support systems for their issues with violence/abuse
• Legislation to protect people from abuse is either not properly enforced or used to further shame and blame the victim
• Assistance of legal and medical varieties are withheld from certain people just because somebody doesn't like their choices.
• The majority of violence is committed by someone the victim already knows, usually an intimate partner

Every time I see another article about violence, I get sick to my stomach. I think of those T-shirts and I look around at the people I go to school with. I wonder who wrote what on which shirt. Look around you, every single person reading this blog. Wonder that too. Take a glance around at the people you know, and wonder how many of them have been the victims of violence. It can be ANYONE. You can be in a demographic that is LESS likely to be victimized, but the plain, cold, hard, ugly truth is that any human being can be the victim of abuse. And these T-shirts I describe, most of them are only representative of physical violence. Not spoken of are mental, emotional, and psychological abuse, which are very, painfully real.

I had always considered myself a strong and independent woman, yet here I am to this day, blaming myself for allowing myself to be abused. Maybe I'm not qualified to advocate for other women if I was weak enough to let someone do that to me? Maybe I can't help anyone because I'm not fully recovered myself? I would never, ever dream of blaming another person for getting victimized, but I had never thought for a second that I would allow it to happen to me. It makes me wonder how many of my friends and family lost respect for me. How many people reduced me to this pitiable wreck of a person? Have I been reduced to the label of "victim"? Even if I make it to "survivor" (and who gets to make that decision?) will I ever be seen as strong again? What if it happens again? Will it be my fault then?

Every day, I wonder if he won.

So, there you have it. I added my T-shirt to the clothesline. There were so many, just at this one university - relatively small at about 22,000 students. The people making T-shirts are not just our sisters, brothers, friends and family, or even strangers. They are US. Every human being could be the writer of a message on a T-shirt. Please, everyone who reads this - I am seriously begging you: get outraged. Make it your personal goal to see that NO ONE EVER NEEDS TO MAKE A SHIRT AGAIN. It's a big goal, I know, but I do not - I cannot believe it is impossible. Even without my abuser ever laying a hand on me, I would not wish the treatment I received on my worst enemy. I certainly cannot sit idly on my rump and be quiet about these T-shirts.

There are simply too many to ignore.

Marigold, wishing for love to overcome violence, sending you all love!