Why We Don't Need a Female President

For some reason the debate on whether or not our next president should/will be a woman has been springing up all over facebook and pulse for me. I used to think having a female president, or at least a female VP, was an important step for the US. Now I am not so sure that gender matters. Well, of course gender matters. Gender is a huge issue, but it can also be a distraction. That our political system is unrepresentative of half of our population is not fair, but it is just a sliver of unfairness among an entire unfair, broken system.

Women wait eagerly for the day when they can have a role model- someone who has broken through that final, impenetrable door of gender inequality in the US. Women can be doctors and lawyers, senators and businessmen, and even the president of the United States. I get that it is important- to have someone to look up to- proof that we are capable of everything that men are capable of. But people act like it is important to have anyone who isn't a white male in the white house- a black, a hispanic, a woman... in the end it doesn't matter. Feminists say that we need to position the election of a woman president not as a woman's issue, but as a human issue- that a woman would provide perspective in leadership that would challenge and progress the system for everyone, not just women. But let's be real, a woman will not lead the country any differently than a man would. Female CEOs work within the structure of white, male business. They do not change the working world. Female doctors are educated in the realm of male science. They do not change healthcare. All it would prove is that women have learned to play the game of privilege and politics by the same rules and rituals as men. Women work so hard to have equality in an antiquated system that they end up supporting the system. In order to be "as good as men," and, "as free as men," they end up acting like men instead of working to expand the options of how men and women can act.

I was watching a video on Upworthy the other day, and I noticed that at the end (Around 3:15) when H. Clinton finishes, it is announced, "The gentleman's time is up." I poked around, and apparently female members of the house are supposed to be referred to as gentlewomen, but in practice I am not sure how often that happens. If a woman wants to be respected by her fellow politicians she has to become a gentleman. But what bothers me is not so much the gender of the world- gentleman, gentlewoman... they are both very old, class-based words that create an environment of assumption in American politics.

I am beginning to think a female president would do more harm than good, because it would make people feel that we are "progressing." It would be yet another lie that politicians could hold up to justify clinging to an old system that no longer meets the needs of the people. It doesn't mean I wouldn't vote for a woman. I just don't see it as the big deal I once thought it was.

I looked into the eyes of my unborn baby

When he was 6 or 7- 

They were clear, fresh, excited, 

So much like my husband's, so foreign to me. 

His lips parted, breathless, 

And he said-

"Mom! I'm going to be president!" 

Oh, son, what did they teach you in school today? 

If I had known today was the day

They would teach little girls they wanted to be brides, and mothers, and maybe nurses... 

And little boys they wanted to be soldiers, and maybe president... 

I would have kept you home. 

We would have finger-painted and played in the falling leaves. 

You wouldn't have said you wanted to "be" anything. 

"Mom, I am happy!" you would have said. 

But now you look at me and you say you want to be president- 

- To enter into a system broken with corruption, greed, and privilege. 

- To enter a world based on status, lies, and bureaucracy. 

You tell me, and you wait. 

You are still breathless, 

Less from the run home and more from the prospect of possibility. 

As a mother it is my job to nourish your hopes- 

We collect tinder for your dreams when you are young 

So that you can grow up to be passionate. 

- A man on fire. 

I see the way you take the dog for a walk, hug your little sister, give your friends equal slices of the pumpkin pie I baked for you. 

You are fair, and kind, and too responsible for your age. 

I wish you were an anarchist, like me, 

But I hold you close and I whisper- 

"You'll make a great president." 

And I believe it. 

"That's What Makes You Beautiful."

I take great issue with this song. Well, not so much the song itself, but the fact that it is touted to young girls as a song that they should listen to in order to feel better about themselves. This song, at the moment, is considered empowering to girls, and I wish that people would look at the song and think critically for one moment before they start to push teenage girls back into a box of self-doubt. Most of the song I could just walk away from as annoying but harmless. Then the last, tagged on line from the chorus comes and I just can't let it be.

"You don't know you're beautiful,
And that's what makes you beautiful."

Woah. Wait. Hello virgin and whore dichotomy. This line basically makes it so that the most desirable trait in the girl is her naivety to her own attractiveness. It is a catch-22. She can only be attractive as long as she doesn't think that she is attractive. She can only be attractive if the boy is the one who rescues her by showing her the beauty that she cannot see in herself. This song doesn't promote the agency of young girls. It promotes a dependency on boys to imbue girls with beauty. Self-awareness of beauty is considered narcissistic and unattractive, as is embellishments of beauty. The most desirable trait in a girl is the opportunity for a boy to exercise agency over her by revealing her own beauty to her. If she sees the beauty on her own, without his assistance she is considered spoiled and no longer beautiful or desirable. 

Yes, I understand that is a lot to glean from one line of music. However, the fact that the line just hangs there as the final word, hovering in the air, makes it too obvious to not say anything. It is not hidden in the song. It is the blatant message that stays with you at the end, and in my opinion it is harmful. Well, again, the song itself is not harmful as much as it being spoonfed to shy, insecure girls as a way to feel better about themselves. Sure, it is intended to give them hope that maybe someone else secretly finds them attractive, but instead of empowering them to love themselves it just increases that dependency on that external validation.

At the moment there is a lot of discussion about empowering young girls. The most prevailing example at the moment is the Disney-ization of the pixar princess Mirada. When transitioning from the 3d world to the 2d world some 'improvements' were made in the poster-girl for tom-boyism, mainly a bit of taming and sexualization that pulled her in line with the other disney princesses. Parents were angry. They were so angry that the new figure has been temporarily pulled while disney searches for a solution (how about the solution of leaving her unruly and boyish?). I haven't read any reactions of little girls though- whether they thought that Mirada no longer represented them. I would like to know whether little girls at a young age are being taught feminist rhetoric, or maybe they honestly see a problem with the changes, or maybe they don't care and it is the protection of the parents. These are questions that I have and don't see any answers to. I always hover in a weird space concerning parental and societal protection of youngsters. How much of the world do you hide until what age? And when do you actually introduce these issues and discuss them with your child? And how do you go about letting your child form their own opinions? For so long I have worked with teenagers, who already have a strong base of decision making and critical thinking skills. I never really thought about having to get them to that point. 

Of Dogs and Men

By the time that I had reached the park I wanted to relax and exhale. The streets in my neighborhood were busy, and the sidewalks narrow (as always). Women refused to give even an inch to the foreign girl running headlong towards them and I was forced off the curb, into traffic, and occasionally had to slow to a walk. It was not a glorious first kilometer and I longed for the soft mud of the wooded path, the silence of the park hidden only a few meters from the busy street, and the sound of my breath, feet, and mp3 player. Instead, as I rounded the corner and mounted the steps I was greeted by an unfamiliar small yapping, and a set of fierce, bared teeth.
It took me a moment to realize what was happening. I had stumbled upon a dog protecting her two very new, adorable puppies. I slowed to a walk and backed away from the dog, deeper into the park. A few meters up the hill I saw another dog, not growling at me but very aware of the situation. I sighed and resigned myself to a steady, slow walk until I hit the main park path, well out of the dogs' territory. I was sad and frustrated to have lost my anticipated release, but it was an understandable situation that in some way made me happy. Although it conflicted with my personal desires it showed enough of love and protection, not to mention the cuteness of the puppies, to ease the edge off of my disappointment.
I got away from the dogs and began the ascent to the central loop of the park. The central loop of the park is only 1km long, but my run was only supposed to be 10km. I spent the uphill section debating whether the dogs would be gone or if I should alter my route home to take the main road instead of the park, and it passed quickly enough. I had slipped my earbuds into my ears once again and was preparing for a quick but hard workout when I noticed a man running behind me. How I noticed him I am not sure. Sometimes you can just sense a presence around you. Sometimes that sensation is a good one, and others, like that day, they make your skin crawl.
The man had jeans and a leather jacket on. It was obvious that he wasn't out for a run. But he was jogging along behind me, increasing his pace until he was beside me. He started talking to me in Turkish. I told him that I do not understand Turkish. He continued with the most basic phrases- You do sports. Friend. Now, perhaps I would have found this conversation appropriate if he was dressed in jogging gear. Maybe he wanted a running partner. But it was quite obvious that he was headed for the metro and the only reason that he was running was to talk to me. I told him that someone was married (my Turkish had left my mind and I could not think of how to claim that I was married.) and tried to show him my ring, which I had unfortunately left of the bedside table the night before. He continued to run beside me, insisting that we should be friends. I shrugged and put my earbud back in, signaling that the conversation was over. He thought otherwise, reached around my head to my far ear and took the bud out, touching my cheek and shoulder and trying to pull me towards him when he returned his hand to neutral territory. He then looked at me with those big brown eyes- full of sex and playfulness- and made a clear motion of "me, you, kiss." I very firmly said no, and increased my pace, beyond what I could hold for very long. Thankfully I was to the metro turn and he was left behind at the bottom of a steep hill.
I did two laps of the central loop, trying to figure out what about the interaction bothered me so. I could tell that I was bothered because my chest was welling and I was short of breath, and I really didn't want to run anymore. My first reaction when I saw the man was fear, and that bothered me. For the most part in Istanbul I feel safe, and I like to think that I am safe, and yet my first reaction was fear. I found a certain unfairness in that reaction and I am not sure if the unfairness is to me as a woman, that I have to constantly consider my safety, or to Turkish men (or men in general) that I assume the worst from them. After the initial fear, but while I was still pumping with adrenaline my thoughts turned more logical. I thought of escape routes and whether I could outrun him, or overpower him, and whether anyone would hear and/or come if I screamed. All of these thoughts were before he even talked to me, and again, they are unfair both to me and to men. Once he began talking to me my thoughts changed. For a moment I was hopeful. I love interactions. I love friendships. Also, I felt the need to be friendly and encouraging of his interest in me. After all, it can be hard to approach someone that you don't know. But there was something in his speech and in his eyes that quickly ruined that interest and I started to become fearful again. Then he touched me- reached into my space without permission with what might have been a very innocent motion, and that fear became anger. I became rude and left.
I left the situation but the situation wouldn't leave me. It stuck in me. With each loop I continued to assess exit routes and the danger of running in the park. Was it worth the risk to be off the main road and away from cars? Was there really any risk? Usually there were construction workers in the park. Surely their presence assured my safety, or did it make things worse? In the end I cut my run short and decided that it was a form of social gaslighting. We talk about gaslighting as a current act imposed from one individual onto another, which it can be, but we rarely look at gaslighting as a social phenomenon. As a woman I am completely set up for gaslighting. I am constantly told that women over-react to simple things, dramatize events, and make things about themselves. If I had pushed the guy away surely the response would have been that physical force was not necessary as his action was obviously harmless. Even my rude response of, "No," was unmerrited as I couldn't really understand what he was saying and maybe he did just want to be friends. However, if I had done nothing and let things progress then it would be my fault if anything happened as I had obviously encouraged the interaction in a secluded place.
Running home I decided to change my route in order to avoid the stray dogs. I cut my run short by 5km and decided that enough was enough for one day. On the way home I debated whether or not I would write about it. It seems kind of pompous to write about it at all; to assume that the guy was even interested in my sex seems very egotistical. Yet somehow to keep silent and not write about it seems worse, because there is obviously an issue if a woman who is as strong, confident, and optimistic as I tend to be, can be frightened and put so off her balance by such a simple encounter in a park. I ran by the entrance of the park and the puppies were no longer there. I was disappointed, partly because the puppies had been cute and I wanted to see them up close again, but partly because the dogs were a violence that made sense to me. Everything was clear and strait forward in those flashing teeth, and I needed something simple that I could understand to settle my nerves. I decided that it is indeed a sad world when a woman would rather face a pack of stray dogs than a single man.

Birth Control Thoughts

Every night around eight, for the past three weeks, I began to cower. I consider myself a strong woman, and this cowardice frustrated me. At 8:20 I bravely swallowed the pill. Some nights were good and that was the end of it. On the bad nights I stayed awake, uncomfortable in my skin, slightly nauseous and wondering if it could really be that tiny, unassuming pill that caused me to feel that way, or if it was just my imagination. I second guessed myself, led strongly by uncontrollable swells of estrogen-magnified emotion.
The decision to go back on birth control was not an easy one. From age 18, when I first walked into the clinic at my university to ask for birth control, I was unsure of myself. I was already considered a crazy teenage girl, and I had heard horror stories of how the pill affected women. Did I want to make things worse? No, I didn’t, but I was sexually active and I felt immense pressure from society to do something about it. I might not be shunned from sex altogether, but my parents, friends, and high-school sex education classes all demanded one thing from me: responsibility. Since that first moment of youthful responsibility I have been on and off birth control for most of my adult life. Low-dose pills, the ring, the patch and the shot. The choice is overwhelming. It's strange, these options are supposed to offer some kind of freedom and yet I feel confined by them.
This is my minority plague, or at least one of them.
The assignment to write a native anthropology in an auto-style excited me. I could practice a bit more honesty and let my creativity peek out into academia. But my academic self resists any foray into the colorful world of description, let alone emotion. Within a day I had spiraled out of the confidence of notes and citations into a much less clinical, more personal realm. Be vulnerable, I was told. Vulnerability is nothing new to me, but the question was what I should be vulnerable about. My professor said, "Think about what you are a native of." But I heard, "What minority groups are you native of?"
Anthropology fetishizes the exotic. Before it valued societies that were different than the dominant culture. Now it values the change in the individual as a representative of the dominant culture.(1) This gives me two choices. I can write about what I am that no one else is, my minority oddities, or I can write about how I am just like everybody else in a way that is so sensual and exotic that it forces the reader to consider their self for the first time. Feminism can be depressing, celebrating the ways in which every individual must be marginalized.
I do not feel any direct pressure to take birth control. My fiancee is supportive, recognizing that it is my choice, and my government agrees with him, for now. The pressure I feel is subtle, ingrained through years of after-school specials. I have to choose whether to subject my body to the awkward swelling, dryness and tenderness of hormone control. I have to choose whether I want to have bareback sex with the man I love or maintain a semblance of sanity. These are tough decisions, but the modern woman must make them. Sometimes it is barely a decision at all. The taking of birth control is expected, and supposedly the side-effects are a minimal price to pay for the whorish crime of actually desiring sex.
The first time that I bought birth control in Istanbul I was shocked. I went into the pharmacy with my fiance and brazenly asked the pharmacist for yasmin. It was a name that I recognized from the United States and I had read that it was available in Turkey. I didn't know the Turkish words for birth control and explaining with gross motions that I wanted a pregnancy test the week before had been enough cross-cultural fun for me. The pharmacist didn't flinch. She walked out from behind the counter, opened a cupboard, and pulled out a month's supply of the pill. It cost 16 lira. I was shocked. I had not expected it to be such an easy task. In the United States there had always been the scraping together of enough money to pay for an exam, opening my legs for a stranger to swab, and getting the valued piece of paper that my insurance may or may not cover. Then it was finding the sixty dollars each month to pay for these preciously guarded pills. I had no idea that it could be easier. I wondered vaguely about the Turkish women who bought these pills. Were they married? How did they figure out the proper usage if they were not prescribed? I realized that birth control in Turkey, while not entirely different than birth control in the U.S., is different enough to be notable. Better or worse? I didn't have enough information to make a judgement, just enough to jolt me into the realization that yes, there are different ways.
I am a woman, and these are my experiences, but they are not the experiences of every woman. Does taking birth control give me any authority to speak about sex, desire, social pressures and medical experience? The diversity within the field is greater than what binds us as common. The modern woman, in many countries, is faced with the same decisions as I am, but the factors that weigh her decision are infinitely varied. Cultural taboos against sex, access to medical care, and whether there is a need for a prescription. The list grows the more that I delve into it and I find that I have no right to speak for women just because I happen to be one. Some women are thrilled by their access to birth control. For some it may not even cause internal debate. Being inside the question does not give you the answer to the question, assuming that there is actually a question to be asked. Perhaps there is just a collection of experiences.
A main concern in modern anthropology is the misrepresentation and exploitation of groups of people by anthropologists in the name of research. I wonder whether we honestly believe that this can be fixed by giving preference to native anthropology. It is naive to believe that an individual within a group represents that entire group, can fully understand the experiences of the group, or due to in-group loyalty would never exploit their own culture. If native anthropology is meant to protect the people being studied I say that it is not a valid solution. I am a woman. That does not mean that the oppression that I experience beneath the choice of birth control pill is representative of all women. Perhaps I am the minority within the minority. If we are supposed to advocate for the minority, how can we ever be sure that we are advocating for the right underdog?
Darren Ranco and Nancy Scheper-Hughes both described anthropology as a sort of predatory, hunting act. The anthropologist goes out and brings something, usually information and understanding, back for their own community. But who are we returning our spoils to? As an academic practice we are loyal to our academic institutions. We are loyal to our professors, colleagues and publishers. Vine Deloria claims that we should be loyal to the people we are researching. There are all of these questions of who the research serves, of authorship and authority, but not enough questions about the reader. Who is supposed to read our stories? Are they meant for professors? For lawmakers? For the researched? For my own community? The reader should influence the creation of a text as much as the author and the subject does. At the end of her speech Cecil King tells a story of how Native Americans need to protect their own culture before allowing it to be extinguished by others. Their culture needed to be recognized internally before it could be shared. I think this presents a quite valid audience. If an anthropology is written from the inside, for the group, then a dialogue can begin, and an identity can be created. This paper is directed towards women. It is me sending out a pulse and wondering if anyone will echo it. It is not meant to change society. It is not meant to change women, or men, or pharmaceutical practices, but that does not mean that it is worthless. Worth does not have to be measured in change. The beginnings of understanding are worthwhile.
I lasted two weeks this time. It was all of the usual symptoms. I had no desire to have sex (ironic considering their purpose), and the world grew ever more faint. I cried at television shows and experienced fits of uncontrollable irritation, bordering on rage. These are the hormones and emotions that are used to discredit women as feeling too much. I understood why people might say that women are crazy. I felt crazy. However, I felt nothing like a woman. I feel like a woman when I am loving and tender. I feel like a woman when I suffer empathy and desire. These things are emotions. The surges that I experienced while in a hormonal haze were not emotions. There was nothing feminine about them.
The night I skipped my first pill I felt such dejection. I couldn't make it. I wasn't strong enough to conquer these hormones. Within four hours the failure was worthwhile. I was no longer on the verge of tears. I wanted to have sex with my fiance. I am back to normal now, at least by my own standards. By society's judgements? Well, I hid my momentary lapse in sanity so well that hardly anyone commented.
If, as Scheper-Hughes suggests, a society is revealed in what it rejects then the anthropological society reveals itself by rejecting the emotions of females as mad, as if we cannot control them, and as if by giving them allowance we surrender all pretenses of objectivity. I must say that while in my hormone-induced madness, even in the darkest rage of the pills, I was still able to remain aware of different positions, and possible bias that I was experiencing. The question of whether I acted on these biases or not is less important than whether I recognize them now, in the retelling of my experience. Now I can write my explanation of the insanity inflicted by choice, a dilemma born disproportionately by women, and if I am vulnerable enough and honest enough then perhaps it will be a valid piece of work. Perhaps it will add something to the field. Will it be anthropological? Perhaps. Will it be authentic? Yes, and for me that is much more important.

The Time Has Come... part II- weight

It is just a number, I know, and I have struggled as most girls and some boys do, against the opression of that number. The ideal weight. Ideal to whom? Where do we get these numbers in our heads? Mine came from my adolescence, and is strongly associated with that time of purity aand youth. I was 15 or 16 and never bothered to weigh myself, but somehow I know what I weighed. 116, 118, The number kept pace with the rising gas prices and still I have no idea when it became more than 120. It was just that I woke up one day and weight became a question and I was 140. How was that possible? I was a tiny girl.
Strangely weight and size are so confusedly wrapped up in each other that I am tempted to say that they have nothing to do with each other. I want to weigh less, and yet I like my body shape. I am okay with where things are laid out. I like the hint of curves that I have. When I look at myself I do not feel overweight. When I look at a scale I do. I have never really admitted it, except to my closest of friends, that I have a secret weight that I want to be. I am not that type of girl. I do not diet, I cultivate healthy eating habits. I aam not the type to obsess over clothes or how they fit, or looking good. It isn't about that. It is very simply about a number. 120. A number that hovers over me insultingly.
When I created my identity I had brown hair, sometimes colored, I was an alternative girl, I was active, I had bad skin, and hazel eyes, and I weighed 120 pounds. It is how I see myself.
This doesn't come up often, but since I started running, and had to keep track of m weight for training, it has snuck into my thoughts. Now I miss having a scale. Do I weigh less? Am I closer to that number? I feel like without a scale I am floating without a name, not sure if I am drifting further or nearer to my destination. Target.
I tell myself that this is nonsense. Health matters so much more than a number. Health is not defined by a number. Attractiveness is not defined by a number. It seems to be a little prince issue- adults always needing to measure things in order to give them meaning. So I walk by the store and I think about throwing down 40tl for a scale. After all, I am going to start training for my next marathon soon. But then I wonder why I have this obsession. This guilty little goal that will never, and probably should never, be achieved by me.
I feel such guilt that I struggle with this. I am supposed to be "better" than such mundane struggles. I should be struggling with ethics and questions of the soul, not weight. It isn't something that I think about constantly, but it floats into my head often enough that I wonder why, and how it came to be, and wish for it to just fade away. 130, 140, are good numbers too, and I have known them for quite some time.