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Labels are not always lies

1.21.10 | No Comments »

500_bodyisgiftToday, I sat in on a two hour long seminar called Women and Leadership. The professor began by asking how many students in the room could call themselves feminists. As I shot my hand up, I noticed that barely half my peers had done the same. They blinked, not seeming to understand the question.

The professor was intrigued. “For those of you who didn’t raise your hand, why didn’t you?” One student answered that the term was antiquated. Another stated that she didn’t want to be accused of being a bra-burner. As more and more reasons piled up, I saw that I was one of the few people in the room who was unafraid of declaring feminism to be a part of my identity.

This isn’t the only time that I’ve been upfront about who I am. I’ve declared other things too: I’m an Asian American. I’m a writer. I’m a food maniac. I’m an obsessive compulsive. My liberal arts education taught me to do otherwise: avoid labels, don’t embrace them. My education tells me that that nothing is definite, everything is malleable. It tells me that being loud and proud is a performance, all show and no sincerity. As intellect becomes more important, conviction and the sense of self becomes less so.

College, I’ve discovered, often involves more talk than action. Brilliant minds sit in a circle and throw ideas at each other, always making sure to follow certain rules. Don’t accuse someone else of being an essentialist. Don’t say anything that doesn’t relate to the texts. And don’t ever, ever get overly personal. Sometimes I hate these rules. I can’t stand the emotional stagnation after I’ve done all that mental work. It’s because of these things that so many people are afraid to step forward and believe in something; they’re thinking and rethinking to the point of paralysis. Some people take an entire lifetime to get comfortable with a term like “feminist”, or refuse to even give it a chance. They don’t know what they’re missing.

As a new blogger for The Line Campaign, I can only hope to use my daily experiences to initiate both emotional and intellectual discussion, about gender, sexuality, the body, and all the gaps in between that complicate our movements through social spaces. My therapist once drew a Venn Diagram, with emotion as one circle and intellect as the other. She pointed at the overlapping space and said, “That’s wisdom.” The first piece of wisdom I’ll share with you is: Labels are not always lies. Don’t run away from conviction, belief, or chances to find yourself. Find your boundaries and stick to them.

Media glutton + Internet geek + Feminist

1.20.10 | 1 Comment »

500_carmen2

I began my second morning as a Soapbox Soldier with an Americano. I ordered a small, upsized to a medium, and sat down to smell the beans before running to our first meeting at the Feminist Press, up the street from Penn Station at the CUNY Graduate Center.

This was just the beginning of a day focused on media: on getting into it, on challenging it, on consuming it, and on creating it. I was particularly interested in this, as someone who has ventured into the areas of film, graphic design, writing, and promotions in her time as a student and advocate and has thoroughly enjoyed it all.

The organizations hosting us and speaking with us were all what seemed like worlds apart: from the Feminist Press, the oldest feminist publisher in the world (and just a note- yes, book design is still an appreciated art) to the Women’s Media Center, which advocates for more equal gender representation and opportunity in the media, and even Courtney Martin of Feministing, the world of “real-life feminists” seemed to be one full of different creative outlets. This is a good sign for activists, I think- we’re going to stay busy, which means we will stay satisfied. We also get to choose from a variety of activities to express our feminism, be it through blogs or PSAs.

In terms of how these various mediums benefit feminism, well- messages. Gloria Jacobs of the Feminist Press sees it as a vehicle for feminist thought that goes beyond “women’s issues” – it’s about bringing forth the issues relevant to women’s lives, written about by women, or even separate from women but related to other social justice causes. This was echoed by Debbie of BUST Magazine, who met with us and professed deep convictions that presenting typically “frowned upon” things like cooking, knitting, and fashion in BUST was controversial but necessary: she is trying to create a feminist pop culture, not critique an anti-feminist one.

So this leaves me, the media glutton and the internet geek, slouching in trains at the end of the night piecing it all together. “Carmen, how you gonna do it? How can you? What should you do?” For now, I’m taking the young and ambitious route: I’m doing a little bit of it all. I’m going to remain vigilant, remain visible, but make more of an effort now to reach out to media outlets and let them know how I feel about their programming and coverage. I’m going to remain outspoken and nontraditionally active in feminism, but I’m also going to stick to my guns and lobby and rally and yell like all hell. This is what feminism is made of, after all. Love for your own voice and respect for your own self, and knowing that nothing else matters- except maybe figuring out which blog to publish first.

Packing for (Feminist) Boot Camp

1.5.10 | No Comments »

P1222880

As school begins in the Capital City, I will be far away in New York. Reckless? Ah, it would appear that way, but alas- I am merely suiting up for Soapbox Media’s Feminist Winter Term, a weeklong activism conference for young people that focuses on women’s issues, women’s history, activism and methodology, and professional development.

If you managed to find out about it prior to registration and will also be in attendance, let it be known that you will have a comrade from THE LINE in your ranks. But if you didn’t, regret not! I will be reporting back via this very blog about the skills I pick up, the techniques I realize, and the people I meet.

(PS- information on the conference and a tentative agenda can be found online, and if you’re wondering who I requested they bring to town, my answer was inevitably Hillary Clinton.)

Carmen’s New Year’s Resolutions!

12.30.09 | 1 Comment »

dg2ddu

My last days at school were nothing if not thoughtful. It had been a rough ‘n tumble semester, but I found time once again for my feminism. I began at the American Democracy Institute’s Pathways to Power Conference.

Women at the conference were frustrated with workplaces in which their work was seen as unimportant. Women wanted resources, support, and purpose: on their terms. And only when they were respected and trusted by their colleagues and superiors did they feel truly valued.

I hopped from that conference to a Day of Action against the Stupak Amendment, where I was volunteering with the Feminist Majority Foundation. The amendment, which would strip women across the country of the ability to control their own bodies, caused young people from all over the country to congregate in a building where I slapped stickers on their chests and pointed them to free food and signs. They were speaking loudly, and they were harmonizing with the women I had met earlier that week, demanding the trust and respect of their government.

In the spirit of the week, I skipped out on studying one night to sit in on Cleve Jones, the founder of the AIDS Quilt, while he was speaking on campus. His words, provoking, moving, and dripping with strength, culminated in a question nobody in the room could answer: where is the anger? He said young people today seem to lack the urgency and fervor that formed the various movements he organized for, and continues to passionately work on behalf of.

Angry may be the wrong word, but to deny this generation the labels of passion and ambition would be crass. I know that young people today are ready to make waves and wreak havoc- and watching adult and young women alike work for trust and respect resonated with me as proof that the goals of the feminist movement are not always generationally fractured.

So the keywords, then, are trust, respect, and worth. (And if they don’t sound familiar after perusing this very blog, something is wrong.) I walked away from the semester assured that I am worth respect and worth listening to, and that my voice is important, whether it’s expressed in the bedroom or the boardroom. The best part of this knowledge, of course, is that it is true for you, too.

And so, I have drafted a New Year’s Resolution fit for every person, for everyone who demands respect, craves to be trusted and works to earn trust, and wants the ability to control their direction– to be louder, to be braver, and to continue to stand tall. And to stop allowing others to overlook our voices.

To truly speak out, and to make sure our voices are heard.

Sexist Boyhood in Urban NJ

11.9.09 | 16 Comments »

500_Real attraction

I actually really love talking about sex with my parents. From that special moment when I was watching Bernadette of Lourdes and asked what an ‘immaculate conception’ was and was informed more about ‘conception’ than my 9-year-old mind could take, my parents have always been pretty open about sex, and I as well. Though we don’t always get along or agree, I respect the two of them a lot, and as awkward as it sounds, am happy that they still have a sex life after twenty-three years of marriage, and are looking pretty damn good for their age.

I went out to dinner with them last weekend; my dad was in town to run the Marine Corps Marathon. I’m not exactly sure how it began, but we started talking about societies’ views on sex and nudity – how boys don’t shower together in gym like they did when my dad was my age, about an conversation that my mom once had with her students, while teaching a study-skills class back in New Jersey.

Hey, Mrs. C, we got a question.
What is it?
Do you think it’s okay to go for it if the girl is drunk?

My mom sat down with a sigh, about to humor their question.

Why are you even asking that. Do you really want to go for it and have sex with a drunk girl if you’re sober?
No, no, no! You don’t understand, don’t get me wrong, I want us both to be drunk!

Where I come from in New Jersey is almost a majority-minority town. The public high school, which I attended for two years, was 75% Latino, and speaking from observation, Spanish girls tended to be more willing to be submissive to their men, and the young men were extremely masculine – willing to fight, take risks, carry weapons, and dominate women and each other. My mom found it tough sometimes, especially when she had to deal with study-skills sessions, which weren’t the smartest or most well-behaved kids, but they respected her enough to give their honest opinions, one guy said—

Well, girls should be careful when they get drunk, they should know what us guys are like.

As my mom had said later, even if she had wanted to slap him for his words, or even if every other person we knew had scorned him for the statement, it was undeniably his honest opinion, and right or wrong, that’s what he felt and that’s how he acted in his life – that guys are a certain way, and they can’t control themselves when it comes to girls.

Feminism wasn’t something I considered back in New Jersey as ever having an impact on my life. I lived in a town where women seemed to be subservient to men by culture, and I went to an all-boys Catholic school, where the only talk of women was in the most objectified way possible – even more so due to our lack of opportunity to interact with women in school.

When there’s no girls around, it seemed that there was no check on the misogyny and masculinity of eight hundred teenage boys. But I knew something was strange, as I didn’t adhere to the beliefs of my peers, who talked about the newest bitties of the weekend, and called out at young female teachers in the hallway. I dated in high school, and was in a long-term relationship with an older, extremely artistic and open-minded girl for two years. We were inexperienced, but I couldn’t imagine an arrangement in which we were anything but equal. Other relationships I saw and witnessed in high school struck me as so foreign – how could some of these girls be so blind as to not realize how little he cared for her? How could they even call this a relationship?

In college, things are different. People are feminist, and queer, and polyamorous, and unconcerned with gender roles in a way that was impossible back in New Jersey. (There were also hipsters, a very rare sight in Bergen and Hudson Counties.) When I came back in the summer and began delivering at a local restaurant, it was a return to the masculinity of working-class New Jersey, and a culture shock for me. During the day I worked in urban Hudson County with men who called at women on the street, customers who would be abusing their wives when I rang their doorbell, and every vulgar thing said about lesbians who ‘just need to get fucked in the ass to make them straight,’ but at night I’d be in a whole new world, whether with my amazing feminist friend Carmyn in the leafy northern suburbs, or with my open and egalitarian family, or with my friends who disavowed the kind of sexism that seemed to be so pervasive in the city.

I don’t know where to go from here, and I don’t fully feel comfortable singling out the black and Latino people who always seemed to be the most sexist and the most spiteful towards women. For every Salvadorean man who would be coming into the restaurant barking at his wife and daughters there would be an equally repulsive white man throwing his wife into walls right in front of me, the delivery boy. For every Blood that came in with a sneer, his girlfriend weeping, there might be a Norteño covered in tattoos smiling at his wife and taking a sincere interest in what his daughter had to say.

Generalizations mean everything, and nothing. I don’t have enough experience in all-white areas to say whether they’re just as sexist – but I don’t think it really matters. In any population you can find good and bad.

It’s hard for me to imagine a world where sexism is dead; we hope for every generation to be an improvement on their parents’, but I see no clear improvement in mine, decades after the civil rights and first- and second-feminist movement was relevant. The people of my generation associate feminism more with the hateful ideals of Dworkin rather than the tolerance of Paglia or other modern feminists. Personally, I keep it real with the people I work with, and even if I can’t change their minds, I will never agree with their views on women for the sake of fitting in with them, or even endearing myself to them. I’ll continue trying to treat every girl I interact with, whether romantically, as friends, or even just in passing, with all the respect I can afford.

What was it like growing up in your town?

Dear(est) Jaclyn

11.3.09 | 3 Comments »

500_Carmen Photo

Dear(est) Jaclyn,

I was barely eighteen when I stumbled upon Yes Means Yes!, a young activist who had just discovered what sex-positivity even was and decided instantly to buy the anthology after reading the foreword in Ms. Magazine. Now, it remains one of the most pivotal pieces of my feminist history. Yes Means Yes! was the first book of its kind to grace my bookshelves. Today, my collection of feminist literature is vast, a reminder of how much I loved reading the anthology on the bus, holding it high and putting on my thick, black readers to make sure every single passenger knew exactly what I was into. It was not until I had read your piece, “In Defense of Going Wild,” however, that I was ready to finally close the book and take action. Your portrayal of college life as a microcosm of rape culture shook me. I read and reread your essay. I handed the book to my friends to read your essay. I defiantly marched down the hall, no longer ashamed to be going out- and then handed my floor-mates your essay.

It was around this time that I stumbled upon Nancy Schwartzman. She was working on a documentary about sexual boundaries and consent, so I did what all ambitious young women do: asked to be her intern. After sending over an uncomfortably long interest letter (I have yet to master concise feminist credentials), I became part of a four-woman core team at THE LINE Campaign, where I played an integral role in a movement that is changing lives and perspectives.

THE LINE is a documentary about rape that is told from Nancy’s perspective, detailing her decision to confront her attacker and making the viewer question exactly where the line of consent is, and how to make sure we all respect our partners. This grew into “where is your line?” a campaign that gives people the opportunity to share their lines and opinions on hookup culture through blogs, photos, and videos. At every screening, audience members are encouraged to cover themselves in the ink of confession, sharing their lines on stickers. Responses include “SOBER,” “Communicate with me,” and “I’m a sexual being, not a sexual object.” The project has only reinforced how important ending rape culture is to me.

In all of my activism toward rape prevention is a memory of “In Defense of Going Wild”; I have told all of the brilliant minds of THE LINE about how the essay impacted me, and how I hold it close to my heart still. Because of how important your work was to my own activism, I was hoping that I could interview you for THE LINE’s website. I’d also love to send you a copy of the film. It’s a challenge to articulate how fitting it would be to see you become involved with a project you created my passion for in the first place. I’m hopeful that you will see our work in the same light I do, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Love,

Carmen

Is Gang Rape A Typical Workplace Dispute?

10.16.09 | No Comments »
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape-Nuts
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

This piece is lifted directly from the Huffington Post, they won’t mind. Kudos for Franken for putting this forward (he did get a lot of heat for his rape jokes prior to the election). Love the outrage from Jon Stewart, and how boldly those 30 Republicans stand up for corporate interests!

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers while working in Iraq and locked in a shipping container for over a day to prevent her from reporting her attack. The rape occurred outside of U.S. criminal jurisdiction, but to add serious insult to serious injury she was not allowed to sue KBR because her employment contract said that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration–a process that overwhelmingly favors corporations.

This year, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment that would deny defense contracts to companies that ask employees to sign away the right to sue. It passed, but it wasn’t the slam dunk Jon Stewart expected. Instead the amendment received 30 nay votes all from Republicans. “I understand we’re a divided country, some disagreements on health care. How is ANYONE against this?” He asked.

“Call Me”: Sleazy Men at the Yuppie Steak House

9.30.09 | 3 Comments »

Tiffany Call Me

I started working in the restaurant industry three years ago to help pay for my undergraduate degree back home in California. It was a small family owned sushi place, no big deal—mostly college students sake-bombing and a few locals. Fast forward to NYC last fall, where I started working at a pricey steak house frequented by mid-level professionals in Union Square.

I once had the restaurant’s general manager direct me to the restroom so that I could “put on more makeup.” We called the GM several things behind his back, but the descriptions that come to mind are slimy and scumbag. He fancied himself a former boxer, actor, and all around player, but in reality, as a bartender once noted, “He’s a loser.” With enough grease in his hair to shine a shoe or two. He frequently touched the other hostess and me: a small hand on the back, rubbing on my shoulders, dancing around. The thing about touching your employees when you’re the boss, well, its not because you’re a touchy-feely person. Don’t play dumb. Touches aren’t the same for everyone and the power dynamic between the boss/employee is too great to be ignored.

So what do you do in these situations? It’s $12 an hour. I’m not exactly rolling in dough and it’s not like there aren’t new restaurant openings every other week in New York.  People—the staff, the owner— notice and talk when the general manager is a jerk. And I’ve got a mouthy-mouth. Jobs are replaceable. My dignity, less so. You’d be surprised the number of happily-married men who are eager to drop off business cards (in my cleavage) on a Tuesday night.

It’s funny how your line of comfort shifts according to situations. I expect yuppie Union Square bar frequenters to be scummy, sure, but I don’t have to take it from my work environment. In fact, I refuse to. It’s taken me a bit, but I learned where my lines are for work and I expect others to respect them, too.

Un-Shutup-Able

9.15.09 | No Comments »

meet carmen! carmen, meet your sexuality.

I wanted to start off my blog at whereisyourline with an explanation of whyiamattheline:

Saying I came home from college “changed” would be an understatement. I came home from college distanced from the nostalgia and naivete that had filled my prior life, a newborn revolutionary with internship and advocacy experience under her belt. This was, however, also a façade. I was more than a professional and a respectable student: I had a salient taste for nightlife, a never-silenced mouth built for feminist rhetoric and queer theory, and opinions that were controversial, as well as a lifestyle marked by experiences quite different from the cookie-baking, girl-scout-loving, D.A.R.E. enclave I had once belonged to. I couldn’t adjust back to the suburban modes of conformity and silence after being vocal, active, and observational in college.

College is an empowering time for young people, especially young women. It is an awesome time for them to learn about themselves, grow to become independent, and form their own beliefs. It was that newfound persynhood that brought me to THE LINE. I am passionate about empowering female sexuality because I know that, ironically, even our partners often are not. I am working to increase the equality of women- in court, at work, and in bed. I see feminism as a way of life, not a movement limited to legislation, and I know that the impact of consensual sex as a standard is one that will come to fruition in a world without rape and a world respectful of women’s desires and needs.

So, I went to college a homebody from middle-of-nowhere, New Jersey and came back an opinionated, un-shutup-able young woman with a mission to empower womyn with their own sexualities and safety. The results? Well, just keep in touch.

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