Congratulations to classes of 2009 everywhere

I was watching the news today and saw various clips of head figures offering commencement speeches at various universities. Figures such as President Obama, The First Lady, Ellen Degeneres, Desmond Tutu and more.

I watched the smiles of various graduating classes and began thinking back to my own graduation in 2002. I can honestly say that college changed my life. Particularly the last two years. As I watched the tassles turn and hats toss into the air I began to wonder if these students felt something similar. I wonder if they all truly got something out of the speeches from their commencement speakers and if they will carry their words on with them into their futures.

I attended two schools. I transferred to the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington for my Junior and Senior years of college. The woman who spoke at my graduation was Dr. Joycelyn Elders. Elders served as the surgeon general of the U.S. during the Bill Clinton's presidency. In December 1994 she made a statement that "masturbation is part of human sexuality and a part of something that perhaps should be taught." This prompted President Clinton to ask for her resignation. Many conservatives already had a problem with with Elders as she was quite vocal in her support of sex education, the distribution of condoms in school, abortion rights and the use of medical marijuana.

When she spoke at my school she was given a warm introduction by the school president. He stated that she was a former U.S. surgeon general but no longer had the position. Elders proudly stood before the podium to say in a humorous, righteous and sassy manner that we all know she was fired! She was received with an applause and roaring laughter. She went further to say that she knew what she had said (in reference to her comment about masturbation) and she would say it again!

Dr. Elders left a lasting impression with me. What stuck with me most was not her wit but her statement about us graduates. That we were so very fortunate to have a college education when there are so many that do not have the same opportunity. Amen.

Dr. Elders' speech was a great conclusion to my time at Evergreen. But to this day I am quite nostalgic for the place.


(llama.evergreen.edu)

Evergreen is smack dab in the middle of the forrest. I fell in love right away. I love California and I think I will most likely always call it home. But it is a big change to go from beautiful palm trees to a forrest.



(Evergreen State College Emblem) (http://www.tacomasds.org/)




(give.evergreen.edu)

Part of Evergreen's impact is due to how unconventional it is. It is a "hippie" liberal arts school that does not rely on grades or traditional classes. That's right. No grades. It's a pass or fail system and students enroll in one class rather than several. Each class/program can last from one to three trimesters. My senior class is what had the most impact. It was a multi-cultural counseling class entitled 180 Degrees. There are no "majors" at Evegreen but rather we choose an "emphasis". If you are feeling sketchy about this place, let me reassure you that it is an accredited school. I was never given a single test at Evergreen although I was assigned a LOT of reading and writing. I engaged in individual and group projects, an internship and a outdoor challenge series that was meant to unite and challege the class of 19 students.

The class was extremely challenging. In fact I pretty much had to audition to get in. I had to meet with a student counselor and be prepped for the class, read the professor's portfolio, phone interview with the instructor and sign a contract that literally stated that the class would take over my life. He wasn't kidding!

The class met several times a week for "seminar" in which we would discuss the readings for the week and issues surrounding psychology and multi-culturalism. It was quite difficult as the issues were heated and we didn't always get along. On many occassions the room became so heated I felt completly drained and dissapointed by the end. Still, it was the best experience I could ever ask for.


(www.usnews.com)
I mentioned that the campus is located in the forrest. In fact there is a pathway to an area that is very...well forresty. I spent a good amount of time there and felt so blessed to find myself in such beauty. Running water, a bridge, a pebble beach. I certainly wasn't used to pebble beaches. We've got sand her in California.


(www.flicker.com/.../in/set-72157604064846137)

Whenever I'd walk around the campus at night I'd hear drum circles, Bob Dylan or Marley flowing from the dorms, and people making or discussing art, music and politics.
As a Christian gal I was often a minority, but as a feminist I was able to find common ground with most.

At Evergreen I learned how to embrace myself. I learned to explore my issues, my desires, my goals. I learned to embrace my personality. My introversion. I also learned just what type of people I wanted in my life. I grew and began and emphasis on wellness.

I experimented with new activities as well. I joined a drumming circle/class, a west african dance class, (that I fell in love with) break dancing workshops, and modern dance classes.

I became more involved in multi-cultural and socio-political issues. I returned home a different person. A new outlook and dreadlocks! Hee!

***


(www.tescbookstore.com)
This is a geo-duck plush toy that I purchased from the Evergreen State College bookshop. I named him Jimmy. Isn't he cute? What is a geoduck? It's a clam! It's pronounced gooey-duck. It's also the mascot of the Evergreen State College. When I ventured on to graduate school the mascot was The Trojan. It made me think of Trojan condoms. Seems like the schools I choose have a phallic theme in common.


(potanbox.wordpress.com)

This is the geo-duck mascot. Evergreen doesn't have a football team...but we do have a basketball team. Although the main sport on campus is rugby.


(www.sacramentofoodblog.blogspot.com)
And here it is! It burries it self in the sand quite swiftly. Many people eat this clam. I've never tried it.


Washington state even has a song dedicated to the clam.


Dig a duck, dig a duck
Dig a geoduck
Dig a duck, dig a geoduck
Dig a duck a day

You can hear the digger say
As he's headed for the bay
I gotta dig a duck, gotta dig a duck a day

Cuz I get a buck a duck
If I dig a duck a day
So I gotta dig a duck
Gotta dig a duck a day

They walk across the sand
About a half a mile from land
To dig a geoduck
You dig him up by hand
But it isn't much trouble
And you don't use a shovel
You find a geoduck
By looking for the bubble

It take a lot of luck
And a certain kind of pluck
To dig around the muck
To get a geoduck
Cuz he doesn't have a front
And he doesn't have a back
And he doesn't know Donald
And he doesn't go "quack!"

Charming little diddy isn't it? Well, sort of. It's tacky and that's why I like it.

***

When I graduated it was quite an event. Brief but special non the less. Normally I actually wouldn't have felt the need to be a part of the ceremony but my class and I had been through so much together. I owe a lot to them and possibly even more to the professor. I miss him and still think about him. Every now and then I'll shoot him an email to touch base. He was so inspiring, so dedicated, patient and compassionate. I thank him.

The graduation was filled with interesting gown choices. Because the campus is filled with artists (and left handers like myself) there were many alternation made to the green gowns. I even saw a couple wear gowns made out of grass and sod.

I was excited to finish school but I knew that really my educational career was just beginning. I had plans to venture onto graduate school. I had another chaotic two years ahead of me. It's unfortunate (but understandable) that you can't get very far in the world of psychology with just a bachelor degree. It's treated as more of a highschool degree.

My 180 Degrees professor very much prepared us for graduate school. The class was like a mini-graduate progam. I graduated from the University of Southern California in 2008. As a recent grad I still hear the words of Joycelyn Elders. I acknowledge that I am fortunate and I do feel blessed and grateful for the opportunities I have had. And as I watched the proud students of 2009 raise their voices and sport "Hire Me" signs on their graduation caps, I feel grateful for what lies ahead... Life.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

I have inconsistently thought about what love means. I have thought about it while in relationships of course but I do not think I have ever reeeally sat down and discussed what love means to me with a male partner. Something that will surely change in the future.

When I was a senior in high school, one of my teachers recommended a book that addressed the topic of love. The book is called The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth by M. Scott Peck. The book was written in 1978 and is still very much valued, utilized and sought after to this day. I very much admired the author's definition of love. He states that love is "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another spiritual growth."

Professor and a favorite feminist author of mine Bell Hooks, has written two books on the subject of love. I have read both All About Love: New Visions (2001) and Communion: The Female Search For Love (2002) and learned much from both publications. In these scripts Hooks emphasizes that love is not instinctual but rather a choice. That from early ages we are often taught vague and weak definitions of love. We are taught that love is simply an ooey gooey feeling. Additionally many consider love to be the same as offering emotional affection. This is not so.

Love involves communication. The media for example, would have us believe that love equates to being swept off of one's feet or is the process of involving oneself in a sexual relationship without discussing the emotional needs or world view of each party. Why does this happen time and time again? Patriarchal culture depicts love as easy and effortless. It insists that there is only one way to love. Investing ourselves in relationships doesn't sound as romantic and so many avoid it all together.

While some may roll their eyes at the mentioning of patriarchy I believe that our patriarchal culture offers limited views on love. Feminism on the other hand gives us the freedom to love ourselves and others in healthier ways. Ending a relationship that is not healthy for you is a form of loving yourself. Dismantling the notion that aging single women are "Freaks" is a form of loving yourself. And most certainly, not settling for someone who cannot love you in a way you need to be loved is also a form of loving yourself.

I think many of us have heard by now that loving others often begins with self love. Hooks points out in her books on love that one of the flaws of feminism is that many progressive women have felt that in order to be strong and equal to men, there is no place for them to discuss love in their own lives.

Love was never discussed in my home. My parents were a whirling tornado and I was holding onto the banisters for dear life (we didn't really have banisters..heh..). Not only was love not discussed but my parents did not offer a healthy example of what it is to love.

In late Elementary school and early Jr. High I witnessed my peers enter relationships. At that age it all seemed so superficial to me. When I finally entered a relationship myself in high school I began to understand the seriousness of loving someone. It wasn't until I was much older that I was able to see the playfulness. I began to see just how important communication and respect were in relationships. I also came to see that not everyone is up for that. I encountered men that assumed that simply being in the relationship was the only gesture that need be made in order to express love or define love.


During my ponderings of love I see that the struggles women face today regarding love and respect have changed over time. Many of us females today will not tolerate such claims that a woman is the one who is SUPPOSED to clean the house, make the meals and is the sole caretaker of husband and child. We owe this change in thinking to the first and second wave feminists. However, today us third wave feminists undergo continuing challenges.

According to Bell Hooks, (and I agree) it seems that many women and me forfeit the topic of love for one of power. Whether it is a woman who feels she must prove to herself that she is in control of her sexuality by becoming an extremist when it comes to her view of sex (i.e. a sdomasochist, promiscuous, exhibitionist, porn actress) or has gained power by way of money and social status, it seems that all of this is easier to some than discussing how impportant and liberating loving oneself or giving and receiving love is as it is not considered to be "sexy." The message is that love is not sexy, love is not freeing. Sex, power and money is.

If we are to really talk about love then we must acknowledge and examine our desire for it, our lack of it, our gains and losses, our histories and evolutions. This can leave us quite vunerable.

***

Excerpts from All About Love: New Visions and Communion: The Female Search For Love by Bell Hooks

Women are not inherently more interested in or more able to love than are men. From girlhood on, we learn to be more enchanted with love. Since the business of loving came to be identified as woman's work, females have risen to the occasion and claimed love as our topic.


Women who learn to love, represent the greatest threat to the patriarchal status quo. But failing to love, women make it clear that it is more ital to their existence to have the approval and support of men that it is to love.


As long as our culture devalues love, women will remain no more able to love than our male counterparts are.


Positioned to be primary caregivers, women are often arrogant when it comes to matters of the heart. Believing in the mystification of our sexist social conditioning, which encourages us to assume we know how to love - as though desire and action were one and the same - we may suffer countless relational failures before we begin to think critically about the nature of love.


Making a relationship "work" is not the same as "creating love."


Even though a great many of us had been raised by tyrannical, codependent, immature women, many of whom were sometimes violent and abusive - usually via verbal shaming and humiliation - for the most part we were still clinging to the image of women as being "all heart."


Our cultural idealization of caregivers is so powerful. It's really one of the few positive traits assigned to women by patriarchy. Therefore, it's not surprising that women are reluctant and at times downright unwilling to interrogate notions that wea re inherently more loving.

Media Marginalizes Women In Music

My favorite magazine is VenusZine. It is a music magazine that features mostly indie rock artists and focuses on female musicians. What disappoints me is that there is actually a strong need for a magazine such as Venus. Why is there such a need? Because the majority of music magazines on the market focus on male talent. Althought magazines such as Spin and Rolling Stone make mention of female artists, I find that women are often presented in a marginalized fashion.

Many female artists that earn attention from magazines are displayed as a flavor of the month. Some may argue that male solo artists and bands alike often grace magazine covers and lead articles in the same way. I disagree as the female artists that appear on the cover of mainstream media are often mainstream artists. There is a wide world full of female artists that do not get much media attention.

In the late 1990s there was a "women in rock" trend. Lilith Fair came into play and women were placed into two categories. "Angry" women such as Alanis Morrissette was pegged to be or "sensitive" folk singers like Jewel. Instead of being viewed as female musicians they became females who happened to be were musicians. They were female AND they were capable of making music. As if that was such a phenomenon!

In the late 80s and early 90s the Riot Grrrl movement consisted of punk bands that also created workshops and activities that encouraged feminism and a DIY (do it yourself) ethic. Unfortunately, some saw this movement as a cutsie trend and began shouting "girl power!" in a surfaced Spice Girl fashion.

It is my belief that many record companies and other forms of media perpetuate the myth that music must be about what's flashy only and not about making people think. Should we be worried about the future of music? Should we be worried about how women are perceived in music?

To be honest I do get scared sometimes. On the one hand I see what a powerful force women are in music. On the other hand I see how some women are either neglected, superficially marketed, marginalized or exploited.

One example became blatantly apparent on a routine trip to the market. How many of us trot up to the check out aisle and take a glimpse at the yellow journalism staring us in the face by the gum and TV guides? I know I do. We all know that the trash magazines are stacked strategically in attempts to tempt us into making an impulse purchase.

To my surprise The National Enquirer featured a photo of one of my favorite music artists. Beth Ditto is the lead singer of one of my favorite punk bands The Gossip. She is a powerhouse all on her own. Her voice is amazing. Even if the band isn't your taste in music I think most will agree the girl's got chops.



So, why was she on the cover of this gossip magazine? Because she's heavy. A photo was taken of her in a bikini and she was labeled as having one of the worst "beach bods". I was surprised to see her in the magazine and then my surprise quickly turned into frustration. The Gossip is not a mainstream band and is not played on any mainstream radio station. I'm sure many who saw the photo thought to themselves...Beth Ditto who? The Gossip who? Apparently she is news worthy though, not because she has a powerful voice but but because she is a heavy woman.



In weeks following the Beth Ditto mention in the Enquirer I noticed that she kept popping up in the same magazine. I don't know how Beth was portrayed in any article that may have appeared on the inside of the magazine. But it's safe to say that her weight was more of an issue than her talent. While the Enquirer is not a music magazine, their photo spread is just one example of how the media is willing to portray female artists.

Google is a whore?

Are we all sleeping with the devil? We all use Google right? How about Yahoo? Microsoft? Through research I have come to discover that in order to strike a deal with China's thriving economy, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have agreed to censor information so that internet users in the East cannot access information that the Chinese government does not want them to see.

Information on the Dalai Lama, Tibetan independence and religious freedom are removed or offered in limited fashion. Google attempts to defend itself by stating that they are using a filtered search engine in China as their former engine did not work as well. If you want to see the difference in information you can sign on to Google.com and also China's Google.cn to compare.

Cupcake Cases!

Cupcakes for the busy guy or gal on the go? I just found these online.


Range Kleen Cupcake Holder
(www.rangekleen.com/catalog79.php)


They hold cupcakes or muffins and are supposedly pretty sturdy.




Cup-A-Cake Container
(www.cupcake.com)

These aren't as cute but if you're looking for a more basic look, here ya go.

The Male Abortion

Choice For Men is a group that is bringing attention to the "male abortion." They argue that "a woman can legally opt-out of if she gets pregnant. A man is stuck with fatherhood and that isn't fair, ergo she has more rights. So, he should have legal right to opt-out." I don't think that aborting a child or giving it up for adoption is a simple choice to make. And therefore not an easy way to "opt-out."

Choice For Men argues that if a woman becomes pregnant she should not be able to dictate what a man does with his body. In other words Choice For Men believes that if a man unintentially plants his seed in a woman and that results in an unwanted pregnancy he should have a choice as to whether he supports the child or not.

If a woman becomes mistakingly pregnant but wants to keep the child in spite of her partner's protest.. Well, the discrepancy between the two is an unfortunate problem to say the least. I can only imagine who outraged a man who has been raped by his female partner must feel when he hears that his former partner has become pregnant. Or if a woman is to be so evil as to take the semen from a used condom and it into her vagina. The anger and panic of a man who has to come to terms with this is I'm sure beyond my comprehension. However, because there is a life involved that does not get a say in the matter...I believe that it is that man's responsibility to assist in supporting it.

Shocking Shirts

Jennifer Baumgarder is an feminist activist and author. I have read her co-authored (with Amy Richards) book entitled Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future. For five years she was an editor at Ms. Magazine and now writes for various publications including Mother Jones and The Nation.

Baumgarder has taken a bold and some would say offessive step in destigmatizing women who have undergone abortion surgeries. Well, actually she has taken three steps. The first is a book entitled Abortion & Life which addresses the issues surrounding terminating pregnancy. She has produced a film by the same name which features women speaking out about their own abortions. I have not seen the film or read the book but I have seen photos of women wearing Baumgarder's "I Had An Abortion" t-shirts.


Gloria Steinem

According to her website (http://abortionandlife.com) this was Baumgarder's way of encouraging women to come out about their abortion procedures. She states that the shirts are meant to be shocking but not offessive. She is not saying that abortions are a happy occassion but rather one does not have to feel ashamed.

My thoughts on this matter? I am pro-choice but that does not neccarily mean that I am always pro-abortion. While I advocate reproductive rights for women I am not at a place where I can be as gung ho as some. Perhaps one day I will be. At the moment I can not see myself cheering happily at a pro-choice rally or sporting an "I Had An Abortion" shirt, if I had indeed had an abortion. The reason for this is that I find abortion to be too sad of a topic for me to shout and carry on with a hand held sign. However, that being said I understand that it is often people who do those things that get the job done. Active marchers, and caterwaulers and promoters of grassroot politics make a huge difference in history.

I am not opposed to Baumgarder's t-shirts. I am however, wondering why they make me twinge ever so slightly. I suppose it is because although I think some abortions are necessary, it is a procedure that takes a life just the same.

Any thoughts? Any opinions that might make me feel better about this topic?