Being a Heel

You may or may not have noticed that I sing. I sing with an excellent chorale who routinely performs with a superb symphony. You'll have to take my word for it, but I have always been willing to admit when groups I sing with lack skill or professionalism, and while I can't vouch for every singer in my choir, by the time our conductor is done with us, we're kind of awesome. This year, because we're kind of awesome, another choir has asked us to help them augment their numbers for a large and fabulous choral work which we will be collaboratively performing in two weeks.

We don't regularly collaborate with other choirs. Collaborations require a lot of coordination, and so they're generally undertaken with a lot of forethought, planning, and compromise. They're rare beasts, but not unheard of. Today I was reminded of the primary reason I dislike collaborations. 

Today we received a seemingly innocuous email, and I'm sure you'll think I'm being oversensitive and extreme to be offended by it. You might even be right. But there is this small dress code section that has me A. planning not to comply with the dress code and B. already losing respect for the person making the request, the other choir's director. I am glad that it will be a symphony's maestro who will be conducting the whole ordeal, because I have, in full Elizabeth Bennet style, already decided not to like the collaborating choir's director.

"For concert dress, we're planning on black dresses for the women (with black stockings, black close-toed heels; [our] singers have a uniform, but any simple black dress will do) and tuxes for the men. Hair pulled back, no fragrances."

Simple enough. Our choir wears black from the collarbone down. Long sleeves and dress pants or skirts for women, black socks, black shoes, and the men wear a dark suit, white shirt, and conservative tie. The dress code isn't actually that different, but it has me thoroughly agitated.  

Can you see why I'm going to be the woman who shows up to the performance without having followed the dress code? 

Sure, women being required to wear a dress is kind of sexist, but I'm good with it. It's fairly reasonable to presume that most women who perform in a choir will have some sort of black dress, and they're fairly ubiquitous if one needs to purchase one, granted, I don't have a black-dress budgeted for this season, I am sure I can make do with something I already own. That's not my problem, though I understand entirely if it is a problem for someone else.

It's the close-toed black heels.

Heels? Really?

Did a man just tell me to wear heels? A man who has likely never had to wear heels himself? 

How is it 2013 and women are still being TOLD to wear heels?

About years ago I was wearing my favorite pair of low-heeled Dr. Scholl's sandals, the wooden ones with about a 1.5" heel that they stopped making shortly after I fell in love with them and I was chatting with a rheumatologist. He said a funny thing to me. "I know you're very young, but you really shouldn't wear heels. You're doing a lot of damage to your feet." He went on to talk about a vast swath of patients he sees because of their debilitating foot pain brought on by wearing heels, and stressed it wasn't just women who wore them regularly, that it was also women who frequently donned them for special occasions, and that the damage was directly related to the wearing of heels. 

Of course, I thought he was a nutball. After a debilitating bout of plantar fascilitis at the nearly geriatric age of 32, I started researching shoes with some seriousness. I'd heard, in college, of a woman who had shortened her Achilles Tendon substantially by overwearing heels too much. I thought it was a myth to get us girls to look like hippies in Berkenstocks. It turns out, no one was trying to frighten me. They were just being honest.

Even the short term wearing of high heels can cause lasting foot damage. 

Experts on foot pain warn against wearing high heels. 

So, aside from purely feminist issues with being told to wear heels (all the better to admire your calves, my dear), asking people to do something that can be damaging to their health is unethical and inappropriate.

Yes, many women love high heels: the look of them, the feel of them. They have the right to love them, to wear them, to enjoy them. That's their business. And if on very rare occasions I want to wear high heels, it's my business, but do not tell me to.

Actors are often asked to wear or do things that aren't the healthiest things in the world because it's part of the character, and if they're unwilling to do them, then the director finds someone who is willing. Of course, that's the answer isn't it? If, after months of preparation you don't want to wear high heels, don't show up. Right? 

I don't know. 

I suppose I've gotten all of the scathing invective my husband overheard upon my first reading the message out of my system. I'm secure that I'm not going to call the person who rudely suggested that health and comfort are secondary to style for a collaborative community endeavor an arrogant misogynist to his face, but I'm surely going to arrive in flats, because I'm certainly not risking reverting to last year when walking was so painful it brought tears to my eyes. 

So yes, maybe I am too sensitive, but maybe just maybe men need to think before they instruct women to self harm for the visual effect.

Heroes

As a kid in school, we were often asked to pick our "hero" and give a report on him or her. In March, it was always her. I always struggled with this. Sure, there were the Susan B. Anthonys of the world, and the Queen Victorias about whom to give our reports. We could talk about Rosa Parks and Mother Theresa, and a few kids decided to talk about their mothers or a doctor who they knew. Once every year or two, some brown-noser would talk about the teacher who assigned the report in the first year. I always hoped that they got downgraded for that. I, however, always found the assignment particularly daunting. Was there even a female role model that meant anything particularly important to me? Not really.

One year I put together a report on Madonna, because she was a successful musician. Another year I reported on Ginger Rogers, because she was an inspiring dancer. Once I even presented on Princess Diana because it was a name the other kids would recognize. Yes, I could have talked about her humanitarian efforts, but instead, because I was very young, I focused on things like her upbringing and adapting to life Royal.I came to the conclusion that it wasn't nearly as much fun as it sounded like it would have been. 

Yes, I always finished my presentation, complete with visual aids, but I didn't really feel very strongly about any of them. It wasn't until I was fifteen that I had a female hero who wasn't Wonder Woman, but a tangible person who inspired me to do better and changed my idea about the role of women in the world at large, who wasn't my teacher.

When I was fifteen, my choir director came to a few of us with an opportunity to audition for an operetta with the local music club. They were doing The Merry Widow and needed Grisettes. As a vocalist who imagined herself a serious musician in training, I jumped at the opportunity. It was a serious audition process, but in retrospect, I probably made a bigger thing out of it. After all, only a few high schoolers were invited to audition, and even fewer probably bothered to show up. Nonetheless, I was over the moon to get to work with a group of music professionals and talented hobbyists on the operetta, and threw myself into the rehearsals with all of the enthusiasm a fifteen year old can muster.

That's when I found, or perhaps developed is a better word, my first female role model. My first real "childhood hero." Not my school's choir director, but the woman who conducted us and bossed us around for The Merry Widow.  

She was young. Younger than my parents. She was short. She was energetic. She was pretty enough, but not gorgeous, and although she had ample femininity, she didn't wield it like a weapon. She was just herself, seemingly comfortable in her skin, and she wore the mantle of authority both gracefully and securely. 

Within the cast of the operetta were myriad performers from varied backgrounds: music professionals, male and female, layers, doctors, educators and a lot of people who were accustomed to being in charge. If anything, it was a cast of chiefs, and not so many indians. Performers also tend to be very independent. After all, it is their art, and while they're willing to take direction, if you've spent any time in a green room, you know how hard it can be to fit all of the ego into the room.

But here was this small woman correcting people older than she was, more wealthy than she was, and whose recent performing credentials may have carried more weight than her own, and most importantly men. Why should that be important? Why does it matter that she was directing men? Don't all conductors direct men? Of course many of them do, but many of them are also men, and as a musician, I've seen the way that males in a group tend to cede deference to conductors, male and female, and although we'd like to pretend there isn't a difference there is. 

Although it may be subtle, most of the time the male conductor receives greater respect, less back-talk, more immediate compliance, and all around increased professionalism. This is, of course, the fault of those directed, but nonetheless, I've seen it too many times to ignore it. But this was different. When she called a rehearsal to order, everyone, male or female gave her their (nearly) undivided attention. Let's face it, adults aren't the best at focusing. But everyone, even the men who are used to telling other people what to do and to being the king of their own little mountain, treated her, invariably, with a level of respect and professional courtesy that I had never seen before. 

I had grown up with more female principals than male ones, more female teachers than male teachers, and yet this was an entirely new experience. There she was, a woman, a small unassuming woman who wasn't using any feminine wiles to regain the balance so direly lacking back then, and she was unquestionably the authority in the room.

It changed my life. For the first time I believed in the possible eventual scenario where I could grow up and have just as much professional credibility as any one else through mastery of my field, regardless of the organs with which I was born. This was new. This was a hero who wasn't a nurse or a nun, or famous because of how and who she married, or for being an anomaly like Amelia Earhart who stood out specifically because she was a woman in a man's field, or a Queen Elizabeth who was who she was because of how she was born. This was a hero because she commanded respect simply because she had earned it and seemed to expect no less.

Finally, a real world hero. Of course, she terrified me. At the close of that project, she asked me to sing  a different work with another group she was conducting. Of course! Then she invited me to join a choir which did a couple performances a year. Of course! It was possibly the most important part of keeping me involved in music, because for the first time I found there were many outlets which didn't involve school or music lessons. There was a whole new world of groups with whom to sing and places to perform. 

Later I moved away for college. Sadly, at the collegiate level, I did not see as much respect given to the other women under whom I sang as my childhood hero had demanded, and I began to wonder if perhaps my perception was colored too strongly by my extreme youth.  I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised when, as an adult, returning to the area in which I had grown up, I had, again, the opportunity to sing for my childhood hero again. Of course, my later observations and impressions were a little different. She's still short, pretty, and less young than a lot of her professional peers, but she's not perfect. I never really thought she was, but as an adult, everyone loses a touch of their shiny- though really, being a flawed human makes it all a little more meaningful, doesn't it?

It was interesting. She still intimidates me a little. As a man in my choir recently said, she "has this way of telling the basses that they made an error that makes you feel like it was your fault, even though you sing a different part, and then you're more determined not to be the one making the mistake." But, every time we rehearse or perform, I'm again impressed and once more inspired for the better by the fact that my youthful perceptions were pretty spot on. There she is, remarkably consistently well respected.

With the respect of one's peers, also comes a certain amount of derision. I've, on occasion, heard a derogatory comment from someone who didn't appreciate being corrected. What's interesting to me, now that my anger at hearing anyone speak against my childhood hero has somewhat dissipated, is that the most rude thing I've ever heard, in the last eighteen years, about this woman, basically equated to another man saying "how dare she command us as though she were a man." There's always a throwback in every group, no? I won't bother to repeat his actual crass statement, he doesn't deserve direct quotation. In retrospect, I should have responded by saying "she's the one with the presence, command, and experience." 

However, I didn't. So I'm saying it now. She is the one with the presence, command, and experience- and she isn't the only one. Knowing her has led me to expect, seek out, and find the other women like her. The ones who command their field irrespective of sex or gender. They're out there, and you know what? We need more of them. More real world heroines for the young women to set their expectations of treatment on. More mothers who learn to stop saying "just a housewife," and start saying "I'm a mother."

So it's not March, and I haven't been asked to present on my hero, but this week, when trying to wrap my head around the concept of heroes, I realized that I had one, and maybe, just maybe, sharing the story of how I found a hero as a young lady might help someone else who doesn't realize that sometimes the best heroes are the relatable  people with whom we interact every day.

If you have a human hero, please feel free to share below. I'd like to read about more of them.

Gendered Legislating.

There should be a law against gendered legislating.
Why do I say this? Because Georgia State Rep Bobby Franklin wants a law on the books which would make it a felony to miscarry if it couldn't be shown that the miscarriage occurred naturally. That's right, he wants to make it illegal to have a miscarriage that the miscarrying woman and her doctors can not show for a fact was entirely natural and unaided.
You can read the bill here.
If Rep Bobby Franklin knew anything about miscarriage, he would know that in the majority of cases, no cause can be given.  Maybe it was low progesterone, maybe the fetus wasn't developing properly, maybe mom had a weird hormone spike, maybe swamp gas was reflecting light off of Venus.  Most of the time, the devastated and grieving mother is left wondering.  The notion that she should have to prove that she didn't seek to end her pregnancy is not only inhumane, it's the type of legislative nonsense that endangers lives and once again relegates women to the position of second class citizens. What?  You have a semi-functional uterus that failed you? Well, if you can't prove that something else didn't happen, you're going to jail, little missy.
There is so much wrong with this. First of all, proving a negative is impossible. Secondly, our nation is built on Common Law, not Napoleonic Law.  The burden of proof, in the United States, must lie with the accuser, not the accused.  Of course, we've already gone off the rational and human path if we are wasting taxpayer money and adding to the burden of grief and guilt of mothers who lose their pregnancies by creating Uterus Police to investigate losses which are 100% out of the purview of the government.  Lest we forget HIPAA, frankly, the government isn't entitled to this information to start with.
More disturbingly, this sort of legislation, while stripping women of the right to have their bodies function as they will, this sort of legislation will endanger the health and lives of women who are afraid to report pregnancies and seek health care if pregnant for fear of being investigated and charged with a felony should they miscarry.
Ironically, Republicans usually push for bills that will help businesses. Yet, this bill would certainly be bad for businesses.  Imagine how many early pregnancy tests wouldn't be purchased because God forbid a woman pee on a stick, get a faint positive, and then lose the pregnancy and have to worry that she'll be investigated if she tells anyone, especially if she doesn't follow through with the proposed investigation and formal fetal death certificate.  Of course, ectopic pregnancies would not be excluded, and one has to wonder how the Uterus Police would handle molar or chemical pregnancies.  What? There is no baby?  Where did it go?
Surely, this sort of biased, anti-woman, and anti-human Napoleonic legislation will not pass, but knowing that enough persons residing in the 43rd district in Georgia thought Bobby Franklin, who seems to think that women shouldn't have the right to have bodily functions go awry, was a worthy representative, scares me.
It scares me that we live in a nation where legislation that can only be used to persecute members of a specific gender can be entertained.
It scares me that Republican Bobby Franklin is in favor of taking one of the most tragic things that can happen to a member of *not his gender* and turn it into a felony.
Shame on him.
Shame on anyone who agrees with him.
Shame on anyone who wants to create crimes based on body functions, and moreover on gendered ones.

If you live in Georgia, I highly recommend you write or call your State Reps opposing this for intrusive, bigoted,  unethical lawmaking it is, and if you live in the 43rd district, I ask you to voice your opposition to Rep Franklin, both now and at election time.

*Note- this post is being written in anger and surely isn't as sensitivity worded as it should be. I realize I'm discussing this in terms of cis women, and that is because as one, that's the set of issues with which i have more familiarity.

Worthless.

This morning, over on Single Dad Laughing, I read a thought provoking piece on the types of negative and demeaning comments women make about themselves, and how Dan, the Single Dad himself, thinks that the problem basically boils down to men behaving like Neanderthals and oogling airbrushed magazine covers, and prairie-dogging when a young busty hottie with "perfect legs" walks by.
I applauded taking some of the blame, but mostly, I cringed.

Why, oh why, does it have to be about the men in our lives?  At some point, YES, if men stopped behaving like hormonal teenagers whenever they saw something idealized, maybe that would change how many women hurt to see that some idealized version of the female body seems to turn her partner or desired partner's head more than she does.  Yes, that can hurt. Yes, men should be more aware of it, but it's NOT ABOUT THE MEN.

Yes, I yelled that.

This is about women. When women say hurtful things about themselves, it isn't because a man put that notion into our head. There are a lot of reasons.

We live in a society that tells us we have to be perfect to be valued, but we are contributing members of that society. Why are there airbrushed scantily clad women on magazine covers? Because they sell. And not just to men. To women.  We have agreed that these skinny ready-to-roll icons are what we should be, full well knowing that for many women, it's unattainable.

Quick question- who is the most beautiful woman on the planet?  Did a bunch of famous faces flash through your head? Did you sort them by "her lips are too big," "she's too bony," "she could stand to lose a few pounds," or "maybe if she were a readhead."  Now, who is the sexiest man on the planet?  Again, finding little bitty things you would change about everyone you consider?

Now, of all the women you've known, who was the most beautiful? The sexiest? Of all the men?

Serioiusly, think about it.

I am going to wager that a lot of the people we really find amazingly sexy, desirable, or worthy of emulation don't really fit into the mold of idealized perfection.  I certainly know that one of the most beautiful women I can think of weighs nearly 300 lbs and wouldn't make it on the cover of Cosmo, but I don't think anyone who knows her would argue that she isn't beautiful. Because when we look at people in our lives, when we talk to them, do we really continue to view them based on their thighs and cheekbones?  No, we don't. We notice the light in their eyes, the way they smile, we view them as them.

So why on earth do we continue to heap upon ourselves this load of bull that we have to compare ourselves to idealized standards?  It's not because something turns a man on.

I have an unpopular hypothesis. I think we continue to devalue ourselves because we want to.  We're afraid that if we admit "Hey, I'm spectacular. I'm beautiful, I'm smart, I'm funny, and I'm just right the way I am," then we don't have any more excuses.  So we CHOOSE to see the worst in ourselves and raise the bar of what we should be higher and higher and make it more and more unattainable so we can always say "spectacular is too hard to achieve, so I'm not going to try."

It's not just about how we look. It's whether or not we try new things, whether or not we try to get that new job, why we don't put ourselves out there.  It's safer, and easier to say "I can't, I'm not good enough, I'm not going to try."

No man does that to us.  We do it to ourselves.  They do it to themselves.

So guys, yes, stop being jerks. It feeds into the complexes of those of us who are more comfortable being afraid of believing in ourselves.  But moreover, EVERYONE- take a look in the mirror. Find something you like.  Chances are, someone else likes it too.  Now think about something you're good at.  See, there? Look at you being all good at something.  You're awesome.  Now make a point of finding the awesome in others and making sure they know you know it.

NOTE- This isn't nearly as eloquent as what I want to write, but at the moment I feel like timely is more important than eloquence.

A Less Civil Response.

July 9, 2010
Bob McLain
Program Director, 106.3 FM
bmclain@entercom.com

Dear Director McLain,

Recently, my attention was drawn to  a segment that aired on the Russ & Lisa show on Tuesday, July 6, 2010. in which Lisa Rollins, whom you employ as a news anchor and a talk host thought it was an apt idea to question the rights of infants to eat in restaurants and for their mothers to feed them in a safe environment.  I've read some of the other responses you've gotten, ones like the one Dionna Ford wrote, responses which are calm, non-argumentative, and reasonable.  This isn't that response.  I'm too livid.


Can I first state the ridiculousity of saying breastfeeding in a restaurant is disgusting when one is in said restaurant, a Chic Fil-A, most likely eating the breast of another animal, to be offended that woman might be using hers to feed her baby?  Because it is ridiculous. 


Also, I noted from what Ms. Rollins had to say that she was in the Chic Fil-A, not eating in her car.  I presume that since she said it was "100 dadgum degrees," that she would have found it uncomfortable to eat her meal in the car.  Similarly, I would imagine that a baby and mother would rather not be sitting in said uncomfortable environment.  However, maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps Ms. Rollins would like to take all of her meal breaks in her car for a while so she can tell me how delightful, uncramped, and cool it is.  That sounds fair.


If in your judgement it is too hot for Ms. Rollins to be expected to eat in her car, preferably with the air off, there is an oil crisis going on right now, as a news anchor could probably tell you, maybe she'd like to eat in the bathroom.  Other than the part where bathrooms are areas set aside for dealing with human waste, I can't imagine she'd have a problem with it, considering that she thinks it's a good place for someone with a still developing immune system to eat.  She also doesn't seem to think that a nursing mom would mind spending her time out of the house in the restroom, so I can't imagine why she would mind spending her off-the-air time in the restroom.


That brings me to my next point. Off the air time.  Maybe she needs some.  She thinks that moms just staying home instead is a reasonable option, so I invite her to do it. As her employer, you could help make that a reality.  The way I look at it, the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding up to at least two years of age and as long thereafter as it is mutually beneficial to both members of the nursing dyad, so that sounds like a good period of time that she should just stay home. Two years.   You know, stay home, discreetly.


She also implied that perhaps the mother of the nursing infant could have nursed in the car on the way there.  Other than the part where it's illegal to travel in a moving vehicle with an infant who is not properly restrained in their car seat, that's a brilliant idea.  Oh wait, it's a horrible idea because it is a suffocation risk to lean over the carseat to nurse an infant and it's dangerous and illegal to remove said child from said carseat while it is in motion. Further, if the mother was driving, it's a whole new level of irresponsibility, illegality, and danger.   I admit it, I'm disturbed that you have a news anchor and talk show host in your employ who recommends, even jokingly, illegal practices which endanger children.


As per Ms. Rollins suggesting that nursing in public, which, by the way, is a specifically protected right in the state of South Carolina, as well as in the vast majority of the United States, and is supported in most of the rest of the world, should have legislation enacted to criminalize it just grieves me deeply.  I can't imagine that the majority of your listeners are so against infants being nourished in the most healthy way possible, but I would postulate that if she were saying that drinking beer in public, which, unlike breastfeeding which encourages healthy development, kills brain cells, damages livers, increases the incidence of people making ignorant comments, and leads to deaths, injuries, and property damage via inebriated drivers and needless altercations, should be made illegal, there'd be a bigger uproar.


So if I was being nice, and tactful, and unaggressive, I'd ask that she not only recant but take a class on Women's issues and another on breastfeeding, but I'm not being nice.  I'm being bombastic and disgusted and suggesting that she eat in the car, and in the bathroom, and stay home for the next two years.   And then and only then will I give her or your station any credibility.


I'm usually nicer than this, but this sort of anti-baby, anti-family, anti-woman, anti-health attitude has got to stop.


Have a nice weekend,
Slee