Editing, diversity, and finding meaning

Yesterday Time published its fourth annual list of words to be banned in the coming year, and the internet exploded.

Typically I pay barely any attention to these lists, because A) it's all kind of silly and B) it's usually a poorly disguised reflection of whatever brand of "kids these days" BS people are complaining about right now. See Time's past winners: OMG, YOLO, and twerk, which are really just slang developed by the 13-to-25 crowd and otherwise harmless.

Okay, but now. Apparently the word "feminist" ought to be banned--and Time's measly reasoning for this is "when did it become a thing that every celebrity had to state their position on whether this word applies to them, like some politician declaring a party? Let's stick to the issues and quit throwing this label around like ticker tape at a Susan B. Anthony parade."

I don't need to talk about how ridiculous and infuriating that is--a thousand people before me have already done so, you can Google it--but yeah, I was pissed all day.  

So was Roxane Gay, incredible author of Untamed State (haven't read yet, want to/kind of scared to) and Bad Feminist (holy smokes what a wonderful book), who had a perspective on it that resonated with me in a major way:

(Also Gay said she is going to write her own essay on this whole issue which is going to be perfect and everything we need, and much better than what I am writing here, but I will write it anyway.)

So, diversity. I know it's kind of a boring buzzword ("At HerpDerp Corporation we value diversity because bleh bleh bleh"), and usually I don't care for it any more than you do. But actual diversity is important in real situations, like this fiasco, where the real question is--who let this slide? 

You're telling me that not only did a woman (yeah, I know! A woman!) concoct this embarrassingly racist/ageist/sexist list, but it got vetted by at least one editor? Who was the person who read this and said, "Yup, looks good"? 

Editing is about a whole lot more than knowing where to put your commas or what the difference between "gorilla" and "guerilla"is or when to end this run-on sentence. It is also, as Gay touched on, about being sensitive to what could sound shitty to a particular demographic.

I think about this occasionally when I'm daydreaming about my eventual full-time career in editing (it will happen! It will!), because as much as I sincerely love the itty-bitty details of editorial work, I also have this obnoxious desire to do something "meaningful" and "fulfilling" with my life, with the overall goal of one way or another "making a difference." Fixing other people's grammar sometimes does that for me--it really does--but other times I have to get all Carrie Bradshaw on myself and wonder: what does it all mean? What if I look back at the end of my life with the knowledge that I was always able to support myself financially but the work I did for 40 hours a week was pointless? 

That's perfectly fine for some folks (and a lot of people have no other option; let's be real here). I don't know if it would work for me, but I'm also 27 years old and probably could stand to give myself a break for not being the successful woman I want to be yet. Still, it's something I worry about: maintaining a steady income while managing not to have to look myself in the mirror and laugh at the robot I've become. I would like to, eventually, Be Someone.

And then Time gets totally slaughtered on the internet for letting one of its correspondents write up this dumb-ass article, and I look at that and think, okay, I never would have let that happen. And neither would a lot of really smart people in the world, people who are not necessarily middle-aged straight white men, who might have a different and more careful understanding of words and ideas, who will make your publication or your website or your book better and smarter and more nuanced and less likely to hurt or shame anyone, intentionally or not. 

The more diversity you get in a business--especially a big one, like Time--the better you're going to be at whatever it is you do, unless the thing you're doing is actually like making home furnishings for white supremacists, or what have you.

I am still far away from learning everything I need to learn about people different from me, because for all my good traits I am still a straight white woman who has been given a lot of things in her life and doesn't always realize how good she has it. Intersectional feminism is a vast and difficult field, y'all! But I would also bet my humble savings account that I have substantially more sense and empathy running through my bones than whatever sack of meat decided it'd be okay to leave "feminist" on a word-banning poll.

Things not to talk about #43: how and what I'm eating.

Let's set a simple little rule, everyone. It's easy to remember, it's easy to stick to. I'll even spell it out and add explanations. Here it is:

Unless the thing you are saying is completely positive or completely neutral, please don't comment on what I'm eating, or what it must say about me. 

Here are the things you may say about my lunch: "That looks good!" "That smells delicious!" "How's your sandwich?" And variations thereof.

Here are the things you may not say: 

"Oooh, being good, are we?" When I am having a salad or otherwise "healthy" lunch.

"I wish I could eat that!" I guess this is alright if you have a medically diagnosed food allergy and are sincerely sad that you can't partake in my gluten-based pasta or whatever, but not in any other case. 

"Is that tofu? Ugh, I HATE tofu. Disgusting." Bro, we don't have to like the same foods, but don't gag at me. It's rude.

"That'll go straight to your thighs!" Okay, thanks! I'm just going to sit here and suddenly feel shitty about this burger that one second ago I was really enjoying.

"TWO sandwiches?! That's so much! Where do you keep it?" This was literally said to my best friend in regards to her PB&J lunch recently. For what it's worth, my friend is a petite woman, but it honestly doesn't matter. You can't just go around saying things like this.

Okay, so here are the reasons why.

Food is a HUGE source of shame for a lot of people. Women in particular. We are pretty much taught that eating anything for the simple sake of pleasure is a bad thing--which, of course, is where you get phrases like "sinful brownies." If you have dessert with your dinner or you choose the fries instead of the side salad, you probably do so with a certain amount of guilt. I know I do! It's a delightful part of being a woman in a society where food is plentiful and usually rich. Welcome to shoveling food into your mouth and feeling really bad about all of it!

If you're saying nasty (even subtly nasty) things to people about what they eat, you're part of the problem.

Here's the other thing: it doesn't matter who you're saying these hurtful things to, or even if you think you're complimenting someone (which is a whole other issue I'll get to in a second). It doesn't matter. Because you never know what's going on with someone.

As far as my friend's experience from earlier, I'm going to guess--because I know her life--that she felt like having two PB&J sandwiches, so that's what she made. But there could have been a hundred reasons. Maybe she's getting over an illness and needs the extra energy. Maybe she's training for an athletic event and is burning a zillion calories. Maybe her doctor wants her to gain weight. Or, again, MAYBE SHE JUST FELT LIKE TWO SANDWICHES.

You don't know and it's none of your business.

And stop it with the backhanded compliments towards skinny women. The following are no longer allowed:

"Oh, I wish I could eat like you!" No one's stopping you, as far as I can tell. Do what you want.

"I hate how skinny you are!" How do people think this is okay to say?

"What, do you have an eating disorder or something? Haha, you must be bulimic!" Honestly, so many people deal with some type of disordered eating that you could easily be right on this last one. Not because skinny people always have eating disorders, but because it's an epidemic, for people of every size.

Thin people are put on a pedestal of sorts, to the point where some think it's perfectly okay to give them shit for their body type, out of some kind of misguided envy. But that really needs to stop.

I also want to point out that none of what I have said so far is different when it comes to anyone who is actively working on losing weight or getting healthier or anything like that. The same rules apply. If your coworker has told you that he's trying to shed a few pounds, don't read the label on his container of full-fat yogurt and be like "Hmmm, cheating today, huh?" You. Don't. Know. For one thing, maybe that's something he fully allows himself on whatever diet plan he's doing, and for another thing you are not the diet police and your coworker is an adult who can take care of himself.

Everybody just shut up already. 

By request: a few thoughts about anti-date rape nail polish

Several days ago, I (along with the rest of the world, apparently) heard about a group of North Carolina State University students who had developed a nail polish that would detect date rape drugs. With a swirl of your manicured finger in a cranberry vodka handed to you by some new guy you met, you'd be able to tell--based on whether or not the polish changed color--if it'd been laced with something.

My first thought was: Hey, that's kinda cool. My second (slightly embarrassing) thought was: Does it come in different colors?

Here's the thing--I'm not as outraged by the invention of this nail polish as many of my feminist peers seem to be. And I'll say up front that they have made some excellent points, many of which I agree with.

I am just as angry about the expectation that women do all the work of preventing rape and sexual violence, about the idea that if you'd just worn less revealing clothing/not gotten drunk/stayed at home like a good little lady this horrible thing would not have happened to you.

I am just as angry about the idea that rape happens, and that there's not much you can do about it except stay away from rapists, who conveniently wear badges that say "RAPIST" on them and are never someone you personally know, like your boyfriend or your classmate or your coworker you thought was cool.

It's just that I don't really see a nail polish that can detect some date-rape drugs as part of the problem. I see it as a tool: just one tool in the entire war against sexual violence.

My freshman year of college, I was threatened by a guy who lived in the same dorm building as me after I told him (following one date and a few make-out sessions) that I didn't really feel like seeing him anymore. There'd been more than a few signs that told me he was a little unstable, a tad insecure, and I was starting to get grossed out. ("If you wanted fries from McDonald's right now, I would walk there and get them for you," he sobbed at me in the middle of a frigid February night, and I was like, "okay...thanks, I guess," silently wishing he would go away so I could get some sleep.)

Some time after I ended things, he came by my dorm room and showed me his poorly slashed wrists, a tribute to his affection for me--evidently it was my fault he'd decided to cut himself. I showed him out. After that came the phone calls, which I didn't pick up. Then there were the voicemails in which he informed me that I deserved to die, stupid, cold-hearted bitch that I was.

At that point the police got involved. The dude quit bothering me, though we continued to live in the same dorm building for the rest of the school year and I'd see him wandering campus or standing outside in his pajamas during a fire drill. My heart raced every time I saw him. I was nineteen and I didn't know what to do. I did, however, buy a small canister of pepper spray to keep on my keychain.

I never had to use it. I think it was only in the last year that the thing finally got chucked it out. But having that little weapon on hand, closing my fingers around it inside my coat as I went from class to class, made me feel a little safer.

Date-rape nail polish is hardly the answer to the problem of rape. But if it lends any sense of control or empowerment to the person wearing it--if it means she feels comfortable going out among strangers--I cannot begin to tell anyone that this is a bad thing.

All that said, however, we all need to be clear on a couple of very important points:

1. Drug-detection nail polish is NOT anti-rape polish. It will detect a few common types of drugs used for the purpose of date rape (we'll get to that in a second). Never, under ANY circumstances, should a woman be blamed for not wearing the damn nail polish if she's raped or assaulted after being drugged. The victim-blaming BS has to stop.

2. Here are the drugs that the nail polish can detect: Rohypnol, Xanax, GHB. These are NOT the only drugs used for date rape. (I mean, usually it's just as simple as getting someone really drunk on plain old alcohol.) Trust your instincts. Don't drink anything you don't feel is safe.

3. That last point might have a few folks bristling, because again--why should it be a woman's job to keep herself safe from rape and sexual violence? I know. I agree. But please don't tell me not to look out for myself. It sucks, it absolutely does, but we are not yet at the point where everyone gets that rape is horrible and no one should do it, ever. Until we get there--and it's not going to happen in my lifetime--I'm never going to fault a woman for doing whatever she thinks is best for her own safety.

4. This is the hardest one, for me: talk about this shit. Out loud, with people who possibly don't agree or don't understand. The pushback against date-rape nail polish has primarily been about the fact that a fashion accessory isn't going to solve the problem; only educating people about the reality and the horror of rape, about the concept of consent, will get us there. So do it. It would be great if there was, like, a high school class that you had to take in order to graduate that was all about various forms of sexual violence and how none of it is ever okay. But until that happens: call people out for their gross jokes and their misogyny. Share your experiences, if you're comfortable. If you get drugged and/or assaulted and/or raped, report it.

And believe women who tell you they've been raped. It happens more often than you think.

A rebuttal to my free Lululemon tote bag

I'm not the only one who has one of these, right? The Lululemon tote that came with your $1.2 million purchase of one pair of yoga pants? Here's the thing: this is a nice tote bag. It's sturdy, and it's just the right size for my workout clothes and a water bottle.

But I'm a little ashamed of all the pithy sayings printed on this bag. So-called "inspirational quotes" usually inspire me to do little more than roll my eyes. Last year, a coworker passed around little badges that we could write an "inspiring word" on for a visual reminder at our desk, and I promptly wrote "FAIL" on mine, because EFF THAT NOISE.

And now, I take this little bag on the train to work with me, and I find myself wrapping my arms around it to keep all the inspiration from offending my co-riders. Maybe it doesn't matter--I see other women with this same damn bag all the time. Still! I need, in my small, simple way, to fight back a little bit. So, here are all the quotes on my tote bag, and my response to each.

"Friends are more important than money."

In what instance would I have to choose between my friends and my money? There's kind of a false dichotomy. Sure, I can see how maybe you don't want to work 80 hours a week and lose track of all your family and friends because you are too busy climbing the corporate ladder. But there are also many people who don't make nearly enough money at all, and yeah, they're gonna take that extra shift if it means being able to pay their bills. Their friends will understand--they better, if they're decent friends at all. And for those of us kind of in the middle...I don't know what to tell you. I can't think of a single instance in which I actually had to prioritize one over the other. This makes no sense.

"Don't trust that an old age pension will be sufficient."

Sufficient for WHAT? You just told me to value my friends over my money and now you're telling me that none of it matters anyway, we're all going to die broke and alone?

"Sunscreen absorbed into the skin might be worse for you than sunshine. Get the right amount of sunshine."

NOOOO. We have strayed away from inspiration directly into bad science. Do not believe this hocus-pocus. Wear your damn sunscreen. My god, for a company that's purportedly all about health, this is horrifying. On that note...

"Write down two personal, two business and two health goals for the next 1, 5 and 10 years. Do this four times a year. Goal setting triggers your subconscious computer."

I don't know what it means when someone tells me to trigger my subconscious computer. Also, based on Lululemon's track record, I would assume a health goal is essentially "be skinny enough to keep wearing Lululemon clothes."

"Creativity is maximized when you are living in the moment."

Boring and cliche. Also untrue for most people.

"Visualize your eventual demise. It can have an amazing effect on how you live in the moment."

The thing that gets me here is the word "demise." Not "death," which leads me to imagine being very old and slipping away quietly in my comfortable old-lady canopy bed, but "demise," which makes me think I'm going to get run over by a bulldozer. Also, why is Lululemon so obsessed with mortality?

 "A daily hit of athletic-induced endorphins gives you the power to make better decisions, helps you be at peace with yourself, and offsets stress."

I was okay with this one at first, but "athletic-induced" is giving me hives.

"Effectiveness is predicated by replacing the words "wish", "should" and "try" with "I will."

Ugh, so many things. First: EFFECTIVENESS? PREDICATED? Whose stuffy boardroom are we in? Also, I left that typo after "wish" there because that's literally what's printed on the bag. Commas go INSIDE the quotation marks, people. Even in Canada!

There are others, but most of them are cut off on one end so that you don't get the full quote, leading to tantalizing bits such as "...orgasm of life." For real.

Books don't have to be everything

This is awesome but not THAT awesome.

A while back, as part of my graduate studies, I took a class on the publishing industry and its rather uncertain future. We spent one evening talking about the different ways that writing is getting published these days--e-publishing, blogging, fan fiction--and inevitably, talk turned to the 50 Shades of Grey series.

Someone mentioned a book club in her hometown where little old ladies and housewives would get together and read (you guessed it) 50 Shades of Grey. We all tittered at her description. Not only is the series pretty heavily S&M-based erotica, but the writing is poor quality. (Disclaimer: I have nothing particularly against erotica, but the otherwise conservative people I know who kept posting on Facebook about how much they loved 50 Shades always amused me.) And even if you've read the books and enjoyed them--and I don't care if you did--you can probably concede that, well, they aren't exactly great writing.

But one of my classmates drew us back as we laughed. "At least they're reading," she said. "We talk all the time about how people don't read anymore, and then we make fun of them for reading 50 Shades of Grey? It's still a book and we don't need to make fun of it."

At the time, I thought she was right. We were silent after that, put in our place as graduate students in writing who ought to be happy that, for any of its flaws or ironies, a book was bringing people together.

But I'm not sure I agree anymore. Now, here's the obvious part of the post. I love books. I love reading. I have a handful of degrees focused on the creation, digestion, and analysis of the written word (that's a fancy way of saying I was an English major). Books are amazing and literacy allows for creativity and mind adventures and reading rainbows etc. to infinity. When I meet someone who says they don't read, I'm disappointed; anyone with a full bookcase is extremely sexy in my eyes.

But not ALL books are equal. Some are just plain bad. The existence of words on a page does not automatically make a certain story superior to one told in, say, a TV show. For example: for Christmas this year, my mother bought my fiance and me a book called 1001 Questions to Ask Before Getting Married. When we started reading it, we quickly realized that the book was a joke. And not even an intentional joke, just a poorly thought-out bunch of words on paper. There were questions in this book so basic that any reasonable couple would have talked about these things well before any idea of marriage--like what kind of career you want, or if you want children. There was an entire section devoted to making sure you weren't secretly gay--obviously the whole book catered to straight/heteronormative couples. A section on pets had a question about what you'd do with your partner's pet if you hated it: try and get it to run away and lie about it later, maybe? Hmm? Would you do that? Better find out if your partner is a psychopathic kitten-killer before it's too late!

We were in hysterics, reading this horrible book. (In my poor mom's defense, she thought she'd bought us something else--some other, way more legit couples book--and agreed with us that this book was totally ridiculous. We all had a good laugh.)

For what it's worth, I don't really care for used bookstores. At least not the ones where the books are piled high and you can barely move and everything is $2 and mildew hangs in the air. These places are the holy grail for some bibliophiles, I know, but they're plain gross to me.

Now, I don't care what you read--if you read Twilight for fun, that's all good by me, though we ought to be able to at least agree that there are some rather problematic themes in that series and that maybe the writing quality isn't the best. Harlequin romance novels? Why not? Again, they can be formulaic and silly and often rather sexist--but also fun and frothy and totally fine. Graphic novels? Actually, a lot of these are better than you might be aware and I really want everyone to read Persepolis.

I also don't read as much as I think I should. A so-called writer like me ought to be tearing through a novel a week at least, right? Yeah, that doesn't happen. I do read, and I'm slowly getting back into the luxury of diving into something really wonderful and not coming up for air until much later, blinking slowly as I remember my own reality. It just doesn't happen every week, or even every month. Because a lot of the time, reading feels like a lot of work, and I'd rather turn on Netflix and scroll through Twitter.

I've decided that I should work on my reading habits, but I should also work on my unnecessary guilt about how much reading I'm doing. Reading a so-so book isn't necessarily praiseworthy, and it certainly isn't better than watching your favorite movie or listening to a podcast. Books are not the holiest of media.

And reading should not ever ever be something you do because you don't want to feel like you haven't done it enough. Read whatever you want, but read it because you want to. (Or because you're paid to be a lawyer and read legal briefs or because you're paid to read someone's biography and review it.)

And those women in their 50 Shades book club? I mean, I'll never fully get it, but I'm fine with it. You do you.

Am I right, ladies?: a review of memoirs by women in comedy

So I recently started, tossed aside in disgust, picked up again, and reluctantly finished Julie Klausner's memoir I Don't Care About Your Band. It was an okay book--I'll talk more about that--but it made me realize that I've read several memoirs in the last several years by women who work in comedy in some way or another. Here's my list of funny-lady books, in order from (in my opinion) best to definitely-not-best:

Tina Fey, Bossypants

Okay, who else would be at the top? Not only has Fey had an awesome career in comedy so far, but she's an excellent, hilarious writer. I have read Bossypants cover-to-cover at least twice, but more often I pull it up on my Kindle (oh my gawd, I know, a Kindle) and pick a chapter at random when I need to pass some time. Every story, from the description of her debonair father to her after-college job at the Evanston YMCA to her first meeting with Lorne Michaels to her reflections on motherhood, is delightful and engaging. Fey has a deeply feminist perspective that I appreciate, and balances her cynicism with the self-deprecation and perfect pop-culture references that also came through during the seven wonderful seasons of 30 Rock. Okay, Tina Fey is one of my role models and I get that I'm seriously biased in this review, but even if you're meh on her, you will enjoy this book.


Jen Kirkman, I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales from a Happy Life Without Kids

Kirkman is my ultimate girl-crush, and even though she's best known from Chelsea Lately and Drunk History (not to mention her own comedy and her wonderful podcast, I Seem Fun), it was through this book that I found out she existed. At the time, last summer, I was hungry for books from women who'd chosen never to have children, a future I was going back and forth on at the time, and Kirkman gave me exactly what I needed: a manifesto for the childfree lifestyle, built not through judgment but through memory and wit and solid argument. I'd say this book is part memoir, part testament to a way of life that still doesn't receive nearly the credit it deserves, but at the same time, Kirkman never tries to persuade her readers that they should be just like her. The point is simply to say that she's never wanted children, and it's totally fine. And if the thought of being childfree isn't in the cards for you, it doesn't matter; this is a fun read either way.


Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns

The first time I read this book, I think I was a tad bit disappointed. A lot of what Kaling writes about is rather surface-level, and occasionally you get the feeling that she never did so much as smoke pot once in college or under-tip a waiter or have sex with a creep. Make a mistake, Mindy! Let us be mildly disappointed in you! That said, this is another enjoyable, smart memoir by a woman whose career had only begun to take off when it was published (at the time she was still writing for The Office and playing its character Kelly). The way Kaling writes about her childhood friends, her brief job as a nanny, and the daydreams she has to get herself through a workout remind me a great deal of her character on The Mindy Project, actually: a little superficial and ditzy on the outside, but also charming and intelligent.




Rachel Dratch, Girl Walks Into A Bar...Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle

Meh. I so wanted to enjoy this book--Rachel Dratch is a fantastic actress with a long SNL career that I was aching to learn more about. But you really don't get much of that. The childhood stuff is pretty bland, the comedy/SNL stuff is good but fleeting, and then you get page after page about her unexpected detour into motherhood. Dratch loves being a mom, especially after believing she wouldn't be one for so long, and her not-quite-romantic-but-definitely-partnered relationship with the father of her child is interesting, but that's not the reason why you'd read this book, is it? Of course not. You want to read about hanging out with young Jimmy Fallon and what it's like to be a popular actress who isn't particularly beautiful (that sounds meaner than I intend it--it's just that I like reading/thinking about people who make it in entertainment despite not having the classic "look"). At least, I did. I only got a handful of the good, meaty, show-biz stuff and way more than I cared to about baby slings and nursing.


Julie Klausner, I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Faux Sensitive Hipsters, Felons, and Other Guys I've Dated

Blerg. I've been listening to Julie Klausner's podcast recently and liked it, so I figured her book would be good, too. It really isn't. There are some funny, juicy bits in the beginning, but most of the book is bleak and rather boring. Thing is, it could have all been so much better with some context. Who is Julie Klausner, and why should we care that she dated/slept with her fair share of shitty men in her twenties? This book offers up very little of the rest of her life. What does she care about and what does she want? What does she do with her time when she's not watching some unfortunate dude shed his clothing in a dank, ugly bachelor pad somewhere in New York? We don't know. This book is simply chapter after chapter of disgust and frustration that never gets resolved. Sure, it's "relatable," in the sense that most of  us have been there, but that doesn't mean it's interesting.




Let's not forget that the wonderful Amy Poehler's book, Yes, Please, is coming out in October! What books by women in comedy have you read and enjoyed/not enjoyed? Anyone read any Chelsea Handler? I really can't bring myself to do that but I will if you think it's worth it.

A thing about weddings that I wrote!

I'm leaving tomorrow evening for a July 4th long weekend with my fiance's family, and I'm working on a longer post that may take some time to put together. In the meantime, here's a link to something I wrote for Offbeat Bride (an amazing, inclusive, non-stuffy wedding website) a few months ago!

 Who the hell cares: important lessons from partners who aren't as interested in wedding planning

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: A Review of Season 2

Murder mystery series, whether in book or television form, have always been amusing to me as far as the overall conceit works. Not the Law & Order-style murder mysteries, where you have professional detectives getting called into investigations because that's their job. But more the Nancy Drew-style series, where an amateur, otherwise regular person goes about their daily life, which just happens to include a gruesome murder every week or so.

It's suspension of disbelief that allows these type of series to survive and flourish. (If you witnessed a murder every week, wouldn't you start to go a little crazy after a while?) And as far as flourishing goes, I am overjoyed that the Australian series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries is going to come back for a third season sometime later this year, after some consternation and wringing of hands by its fans who were worried that it might be canceled.

I love this show. Once I'd learned that a third season was imminent, I spent the past weekend watching the entire second season (and rewatching part of the first). And let me tell you, suspension of disbelief is never more enjoyable than when you're immersed in Miss Fisher's world. It's Melbourne, Australia in the 1920s. Phryne Fisher has inherited a vast fortune, which allows her the freedom and the funds to dress in couture every day, gallivant around town in her top-of-the-line "motorcar," and support a complete household staff in her luxurious home. Phryne speaks her mind and does what she likes, and she's irresistible with her coiffed black bob and her purr of a voice.

All of this combined with Phryne's insistence on solving crimes and upholding justice would be enough, but there's more. She's talented and athletic, confident and witty, intelligent and intuitive. (As I write this, I wonder how it's possible to love and admire a character with almost no flaws.) Season 2 finds her performing a fan dance at a gentleman's club (all part of an undercover scheme, naturally), acting out a radio drama, directing a film, and showing off her singing abilities. She is sexually voracious and independent; nearly every episode includes a brief moment with a new lover, who is featured in that episode, appears in her bed for one glorious evening, and never turns up again. Sex is fun, guilt-free recreation for Phryne--an extraordinary accomplishment for a woman in that era, and often in this one.

This leaves us wondering what's going to happen with Phryne and Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, whose will-they-or-won't-they chemistry was evident nearly from the first episode and only grows stronger in the second season. The traditional television formula would have us believe that eventually, Jack and Phryne will put aside all their reservations about one another, fall into each other's arms, and live happily ever after. That still could happen here--the sexual tension between them is thick and permeable, and their friendship is solid--but what exactly would "happily ever after" look like for these two? It's practically unthinkable that Phryne would settle down into a quiet, romantic life with Jack, and as much as I want them to be together, I would also be disappointed by that kind of ending.

The good news is that we've got Season 3 to look forward to now. Spoiler alert--there are a few tantalizing "almost" moments in this most recent season, but Jack and Phryne never do share as much as a first kiss, making the advent of the third season that much more exciting.

In "Dead Air," the 11th of 13 episodes in Season 2, Jack Robinson counsels his constable, the boyish Hugh Collins, on how to respond to the fact that Hugh's fiancee Dot (Phryne's constant companion) doesn't want to quit working once they get married. Poor traditional Hugh isn't sure how to take it. "That's the paradox of pursuing a modern woman," Jack tells him. And he would know.

Look at these two! I mean, seriously. Can't wait for Season 3.

Re-finding Feminism

A while back--not far back enough that I'm able to stop cringing about it yet--I renounced feminism.

Well, kind of. I never stopped believing in equal rights for women; I never stopped being pro-choice and I never quit voting and I never decided that we women were all just a bunch of whiny harpies who needed to be put back in our place. I held onto my beliefs, but the word "feminism" became a dirty one in my vocabulary.

The unfortunate, hilarious, oooh-seriously? reason: I was influenced by a man I was dating at the time.

He was, generally, a good guy. Probably still is. And by "good guy," I mean he was respectful and wasn't the type of man you'd find creeping on women in bars or raping anyone. I mean the basic tenets of not being a monster.

But he felt threatened by feminism. As he explained it to me, feminism meant preferential treatment of women by a society trying too hard to right its past wrongs. As a man, he felt he was often overlooked for things like jobs or scholarships, in favor of someone who could fill a diversity quota. And as a white man especially, he felt that as an individual he might miss out on opportunities because he represented too much power and privilege. He was angry that traditional gender roles not only limited and hurt women, but men as well--it was just that no one seemed to care.

Back then, I understood very little about the concept of "privilege." It didn't occur to me to tell him: Yes, but as a white male in America, you have so many advantages you probably don't see most of them. Or: the very fact that you feel threatened by women standing up for their rights not to be second-class citizens is proof of why feminism is important.

I wanted this dude to love me. So he kept talking about how feminism had wronged him, and slowly, I came around to his point of view.

I was raised by feminists. My mother in particular was crucial to this part of my upbringing: giving me books by Gloria Steinem, teaching me about my period and the particulars of my lady-parts when I was very young (much to my chagrin), subscribing me to New Moon magazine. My father was never so overt, but he instilled a strong sense of responsibility and independence in me, and he always liked to toss a baseball or kick a soccer ball around with me when I was growing up. None of this "if only you were a boy" BS.

When I started dating this particular man, I felt only briefly that I was betraying myself (no kidding). I was giving up the ideals that I'd learned were so important, in favor of something that, I was convinced, was more evolved, more enlightened. Men experience sexism, too!!! I'd think, anytime someone mentioned something unfair to women. Harassment? Stereotyping? Discrimination? They happened to men, too, I reasoned, and therefore what women experienced wasn't so special. It was hardly worth discussion. And after all, if you were getting paid less than a man for the same work, it was probably your own fault. I wrote an editorial for my school paper about "reverse sexism" and began explaining that "I'm a humanist, not a feminist. I believe in equal rights for ALL PEOPLE."

I was probably insufferable.

I'm back on track now. That man has been out of my life for several years now. A while ago, I read Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman and found myself falling back into the soft, pillowy safety net of my feminist allies thanks to her clarity, wit, and utter reasonableness. This quote of hers, in particular, helped lead me out of the tunnel:

“We need to reclaim the word 'feminism'. We need the word 'feminism' back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29% of American women would describe themselves as feminist - and only 42% of British women - I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of 'liberation for women' is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? 'Vogue' by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY?” 

And with that I realized what an idiot I'd been.

Several things have happened in my life recently, however, that made me realize that my own return to sanity regarding feminism doesn't mean shit for the rest of the world. Caitlin Moran is right. A lot of us just plain suck when it comes to women's issues, and whether it's because we're too afraid of the "feminist" label or have some misguided idea of what feminism is, we're not doing a very good job at all.

Identifying as a feminist can be terrifying. It still is for me. I have a hard time talking about it with anyone whose viewpoints might be different than mine; it's only the known feminists I can be completely honest with. That's partly to do with my own dislike of any sort of conflict, but a lot of feminists struggle with being loud and proud about it, too. If I were to tell a complete stranger that I'm a feminist, that person might come to all sorts of unfair conclusions about me, from the superficial ones (I must hate the color pink and any woman who shaves her armpits) to the devastating ones (I must hate men and want to crush their dreams).

And as much as they'd be wrong, I still don't want them to think those things about me. I do have a mental weapon (built on Caitlin Moran's influence) against that doubt and fear, though, which I'll share here.

For any woman afraid of feminism: there's a good chance that unless you live in some sort of cult, you're operating on feminist values without even realizing it. Do you have a job? Are you educated? Do you wear pants and use birth control? Do you enjoy going out unchaperoned on a Friday night, spending your own money, and heading home without any expectation of a curfew? You can thank feminism for that. Women didn't come by these privileges easily.

It's easy not to realize or remember where we've come from. It's incredibly common for an otherwise "modern woman" to not recognize why she is able to live the way she lives. I lost my way for a while, and it feels good to get back to being totally myself, thinking my own thoughts and living as I choose. And after all, isn't that the whole point?

I'm baaaaaaaack!

Hello, lovelies.

Remember when I kept a blog? It was a while back. My most recent post went up more than a year ago.

Life got a little crazy. I moved in with my boyfriend, who then became my fiance. (We're getting married in October!)

Plus I was in grad school, and hurrying to finish up a little sooner than expected so that I could put all my energy into wedding planning and just generally moving forward with my life.

But now, my degree is done, it's summer, and I have lots of ideas and thoughts. A few of them are Chicago-specific. Most of them are not. So let's just pretend that this blog is called "the Ursula files" instead of "the Chicago files" because as much as I love this city, most things that are important to me don't have a lot to do with what happens here.

Also! I used my name just then. Don't know if you noticed. But that's a new thing. Let's drop the anonymity, okay? My name is Ursula and I live in Chicago. There's probably more than a handful of us here. When I started this blog I was all worried about "important people" finding out who I was and, based on my accounts of various landmarks and restaurants in this city, decide that I was unfit for...something. A career, a livelihood, a future. But now I've decided that that's stupid.

Okay, that's enough blathering. See you guys soon.