girls – Don't Gel Too Soon

Three Gorges and a Pioneer

This trip is almost over. We’re about to pass through the final of the Three Gorges: Xiling. The other two are magnificent.

Yesterday we sailed through Wu Gorge in a small, thirty-seat tour boat. Despite the beauty, most interesting was our guide, who gave us the name “Janine” because “my Chinese name is too hard to say.” A lovely 26-year-old with a great sense of humor, she was the headline for me.

She is the first girl from her village – tucked into the side of the mountain, several hours walk away – to go to college. The first girl.

She was able to do this, although she’d never been away from home, because Chinese businessmen have begun “sponsoring” college educations for local girls, and she received one of the scholarships.

I asked her about her village, assuming, correctly, that there was a lot of push-back from the community about her choice. Did neighbors give her parents a hard time, ask them “What are you doing? How can you let her do that?” Yes, yes – especially challenging her dad. Her mother didn’t even want her to go, but her father stood firm and supported her, and off she went.

View from board bow cropped — The view from our boat. It looks like that one in front of us.

It was tough – busy and noisy, especially for a girl from a little mountain village. “I cried and cried” she said. But she stuck it out – able to return home only once a year. She’s very proud of what she’s done and is working hard to enable her two younger sisters to follow.

I’ve been involved in issues regarding women for a long time, and admired groups like the UN Foundation‘s Girl Up, Vital Voices and The Elders‘ battle against child marriage. Janine, however, was the first person I’d met, in her home environment, who’d benefitted from such undertakings. It was quite an inspiration — delivered just down the mountain from where she started, sharing her education and her English major with us as she led us through the beauty that has surrounded her most of her life.

Art, Truth, Feminism, JD Salinger, Lena Dunham and Sex

when: From Lena Dunham’s Website

Lena Dunham was just a little older, when she wrote this, than she was in the currently infamous story from her new book; it’s been raging through right-wing and/or feminist (?!) blogs for days. If you’ve been offline for the past few days, her new book Not That Kind of Girl, includes material about sexual curiosity, sisters, vaginas and sexual limits, all in the form of what were, to many, uncomfortable anecdotes.

Dunham and her book have been brutalized in the press and on blogs – mostly for telling the truth – a truth which some claim is the sexual abuse of a younger sibling. It seemed more like a less-than-attractive set of events and not, to child development experts, worthy of the outrage it generated.

Beyond that, it’s honest, real and revealing, so: is this cacophony of condemnation how we modern readers reward a writer’s honesty? It shouldn’t be – and JD Salinger told us why:

Since [writing] is your religion, do you know what you will be asked when you die? … I’m so sure you’ll get asked only two questions.’ Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out? If only you knew how easy it would be for you to say yes to both questions. If only you’d remember before ever you sit down to write that you’ve been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart’s choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won’t even underline that. It’s too important to be underlined.” (Seymour, an Introduction)

WHO EVER THOUGHT RAISING SONS WOULD BE SO GREAT!

NOTE: This is another 2008 virtual baby shower post – to Julie Westerbeck Marsh when her first son appeared.

OK so I grew up with sisters. And I went to a women’s college. And most of my life I’ve worked in offices with more women than men (amazing, no?) So, when I was pregnant I was terrified at the idea of having boys. They were so strange — so noisy — I just had no idea what was coming. Except that what was coming was Josh. And then Dan. And it turned out that — hang on sisters — boys are a blast, great company, luuuhhhv their moms and — boys are easier! I know this because I’ve watched my friends raising daughters and the tensions are fierce. Girls and their mothers — boys and their dads. Not easy.

But let’s get back to basics. Little boys run around a lot and make noise. They jump off things. They ride the dog around and fall off and hit their heads and need stitches. They, later, seem to be trying to kill each other much of the time. And before I go any further – let me tell you that there’s an old shrink saying that therapists never believe that babies are born with personalities until they have their second child. This is also true with many women regarding gender differences – it hits you once they show up. My kids are feminists and very good to the women in their lives as far as I can tell – but they are men and they were boys and that is not like being a girl. Nope.

I have great memories from when they were little – stomping around singing Free to Be and Da Doo Ron Ron Ron and The Garden Song and Abiyoyo, skiing down black diamond slopes and going to Yankee Stadium to see Billy Joel and Carnegie Hall to see Pete Seeger and Madison Square Garden to see Sesame Street on Ice and being dragged to an infinite number of Police Academy and other disgusting movies.

And I lived in alien space much of the time. Some of our hit toys (ie things I would NEVER have had in my house if there were not these strange male creatures inhabiting the premises — and pre-video game age of course):
One of those Radio Shack electronics build-your-own thingy kits that make bells ring and bulbs light up if you hook them up correctly.
Legos
Anything aviationary
Anything Star Wars
Anything GI Joe
Voltron
Weird wrestling stuff (boy did I fight that one!)
Folk music (that’s my fault though)
Baseball cards (and proudly, I did NOT throw them out)
Stuffed animals
Ernie

No Mary Poppins books (I tried) but I did get to read all The Great Brain and Ralph S Mouse and Timothy Goes to School and a gazillion baseball player bios.

There’s serious stuff to having sons, of course. We have to be sure, no matter how much we love hanging around with them, that they get enough alone time with their dads or some other male figure. And wave bravely as they off together on a Sunday (also your day off after all) without you. We have to accept and celebrate the guy stuff.

Just like girls, but differently, we have to let them know we think they can take care of themselves – enable independence at each landmark, if we think they can handle it, even when we really want to help. It’s so easy, with a boy, to want to remain more connected than is useful for them as they grow. At certain points they may pull back for a while, when they need to untangle. We have to let them and respect the struggle

With regard to respect for women – I am deeply impressed with my sons’ perspectives. I hope that being honest and respecting their developing attitudes, helped. I never threw a Playboy out of our house but I made it very clear how I felt about them in the (brief) period they were around. Anything like that, of which I (or my husband) disapproved, had to come out of their allowance. They had to put their money on the line – and I think that helped more than locking it all out of the house and pretending they weren’t interested. It also helped us understand where their heads were. Although that is easier for boys because they are, honestly, more straightforward.

Of course none of what I write here applies to all boys. Much of it may apply to plenty of girls. But it was my experience and in a kind of stream of consciousness baby shower kind of way it’s what rose to the top. The bottom line though, is that even though it’s scary if you’ve lived in a world of women, as I had, they are just wonderful. Most of all, because I know Julie, from reading your blog for so long, you would be a great mother to any child with whom you were blessed, this kid is in for a great life. And where advice is concerned, I say take it only as far as your gifted mother gut takes you. Where the two collide, trust yourself. Girl, boy or android, that way your little one will always be in the right hands.

JULIE’S SHOWER: WHO EVER THOUGHT RAISING SONS WOULD BE SO GREAT!

OK so I grew up with sisters. And I went to a women’s college. And most of my life I’ve worked in offices with more women than men (amazing, no?) So, when I was pregnant I was terrified at the idea of having boys. They were so strange — so noisy — I had no idea what was coming. Except that what was coming was Josh. And then Dan. And it turned out that — hang on sisters — boys are a blast, great company, luuuhhhv their moms and — boys are easier! I know this because I’ve watched my friends raising daughters and the tensions are fierce. Girls and their mothers — boys and their dads. Not easy.

No Mary Poppins books (I tried) but I did get to read all The Great Brain and Ralph S Mouse and Timothy Goes to School and a gazillion baseball player bios.

A PLACE FOR EVERY JEWISH GIRL

This weekend was a special one at our synagogue: our semi-annual "Makom shabbaton." Makom means place, and the program, initiated by someone I greatly admire and sponsored in part by a local Jewish women’s foundation, works to help young girls find a place in the complicated world of Orthodox Judaism. Clearly, given the divided seating and prohibitions on certain kinds of participation, it’s a difficult undertaking, but the concept, and execution, of this project are exemplary.

Today girls in the third, fourth and fifth grade stood before the entire congregation and delivered commentary on the Torah reading for this morning, which was Va-Yiggash, the story of the reconciliation between Joseph and the brothers who sold him into slavery. It’s complicated stuff, but with the help of their spectacular teacher, they made wonderful sense of it. Why didn’t Joseph tell his dad he was OK for all those 20+ years? Why did he hide a cup in his little brother’s bag of grain, and "frame" him as a thief? Why, in big brother Judah’s pleas to Joseph for mercy, did he mention their father 14 times? In the mini-sermons given today those questions, and more, were answered.

I wish you could have seen these little girls (really, 9-12 years old) stand in front of a huge sanctuary and speak in clear, confident voices, retelling bits of the story, citing commentators and making their points. It was thrilling.

There’s lots more to do for both girls and grown women in the Orthodox world, but days like today, and the growth of groups like the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance encourage optimism. Of course here I am, only four years into life as a somewhat – more and more – Orthodox woman -and already ready to join the revolution. [What else is new? ]

The women (and men) who are part of this movement are smart religious activists and it’s an inspiring community indeed. What happened today is emblematic of their commitment to bringing more and more equity to the lives of religious Jewish women and in the process they are building a remarkable constituency and setting an amazing example for women (and men )from six to sixty and beyond.

HATS OFF (???) Part 2

You thought we were finished with this, didn’t you? Sorry. Laura Shaw Frank (scholar of such magnitude and teacher of such openness) this weekend continued her lectures on the issue of modesty. She made two points which greatly enhance this conversation — which follows from this earlier post.

The first was that the term "modesty" which includes not only hair covering and clothing but also a gender-neutral moral, ethical and spiritual modesty, is meant to bring us closer to God. So, although many of the most conservative Orthodox Jews set what appear (to me) to be unjust and unnecessary conditions, as we consider what’s modest and what isn’t, where, how and if to cover hair and why, we need to remember the overarching concept of a private relationship with a higher power, enhanced and empowered by a modest body AND spirit; as we consider how intense the rules should be – and indeed why they must exist at all — we need to do so in the context of the intent — male or female — of living modestly.

The second issue she raised was about something called "habituation." "Habituation" is change in social climate – in habit, really. Does the fact that so few women cover their hair make it no longer a form of "nakedness" to leave the hair uncovered? I have to tell you – half of me boils over still at the idea that we even need to have this conversation. In fact, at the discussion, one of my friends asked why she had to listen to rules and Talmudic interpretations of how women should behave, proffered by men. Frank cited valid, respected sources on both sides. Some say that many of the most critical prayers may not be recited in the presence of a woman with uncovered hair; others say that "since most women go that way now, it has become like an exposed part of the body." In other words, "It’s all around you so why would it harm your thoughts or seem like nakedness? You must be inured to it by now."

The thing is – if modesty is also a key to internal connection to God, what is the point of defying the concept? Why not find a way for men and women to pursue modesty as part of the pursuit of God? What Laura Frank maintains is that as we decide how to apply these ideas we need to know the sources. To struggle or condemn rules, as I am wont to do, only by applying current political standards without understanding of the deeper intention is not fair to those who interpret the rules or to oneself. You need a historic and biblical context.

Beyond that – the biggest question: IF WE DO ACCEPT THE CONCEPT OF HABITUATION – WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE???? You may remember my link to Cooper Munroe’s site – BEEN THERE, where she posted a New York Times piece called Middle School Girls Gone Wild. It’s a troubling description of very suggestive dance performances by tween-aged girls. No sensible person wants that for her child; it’s that end of the spectrum that underlines the question of "how far do we habituate? How do we maintain the decorum we do seek? Must the slippery slope govern everything?"

I realize that to non-Orthodox Jews this is probably a bizarre post but the idea behind it – living a life without showiness or improper behavior as each of us sees it — is not limited to our small community. The fact that the TIMES story was one of the "most emailed" for some time proves that.