Padded bras and victim blame: it's always your fault

I’m not the first and I won’t be the last to blog about this but here goes, Abercrombie and Fitch has just launched a line of push up triangle bikinis for girls as young as seven.  That’s right, better make sure when your second grader hits the beach that her ‘tits’ are up front and centre because that’s what the boys and (possibly uncle Larry) want.

I hate this for the obvious reason touched on here and here but I want you to read the last paragraph from that second link again:

“It doesn't matter much, these days, as to what the comments are surrounding what the fashion industry has decided our teeny-bopper sex tantalizers should adorn themselves in. I'm slapping the blame on moms  for not seeing any further than their own breast implants when it comes to purchasing push-uppers for girls that don't, as yet, actually have any breasts,” said Shirlee Smith, CEO/Founder of “Talk About Parenting With Shirlee Smith.” “Who is paying for this sexy- kiddie marketing?  Mom in the short run, sex object girls in the long run.”

That’s right, it’s not A&F’s responsibility not to contribute to the hypersexualization of young girls it’s, wait for it…..mom’s fault.  Because it’s always mom’s fault.  Because dad has no involvement in raising the kids.  Because all little girls do exactly what their mothers tell them.  Because kids aren’t affected by the message sent by the very existence of such a product.  Because adults aren’t slowly absorbing and accepting the increasingly sexual images of and for our girls (see Miley Cyrus, Bratz Dolls, hell just read Cinderella At My Daughter by Peggy Orentstein).

Okay, sarcastic rant done.

But here is where I need to take it a step further.  I few weeks ago the New York Times wrote an article about the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl by 18 men and boys, for more details read this article from Salon.com

Don’t worry, I’ll wait…..

To quote:

After all, as the Times helpfully points out, "Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands -- known as the Quarters -- said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said." Gosh, I wonder if she's pretty or you know, developed, because that's relevant too.

The residents also wonder "how could their young men have been drawn into such an act" and lament that "These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives."

Did you get all of that?  The implication is that because she was “dressed older than her age” these poor boys were “drawn into such an act”.

So this is where we are, on one hand Abercrombie & Fitch wants our young daughters to wear padded bikinis and thongs and on the other hand, if your little Wonder Woman gets assaulted while wearing these clothes she was asking for it.

But wait there’s more….

The Times quotes a neighbor lamenting, "Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking? How can you have an 11-year-old child missing down in the Quarters?"

And…

The girl's mother, identified only as Maria, told the New York Daily news this week that the family has received several angry phone calls, and that the child has been moved to foster care for her protection. "These guys knew she was in middle school," she said. "You could tell whenever you talked to her. She still loves stuffed teddy bears." Where's that quote in the Times story?

Well, we’ve come full circle now haven’t we because not only will it be your daughters fault if she gets raped while wearing these precocious clothes it will also be yours, you know, if you’re a mom.  Dad’s are off the hook apparently (is anyone else wondering what happened to the stereotype of dad’s protecting their daughter’s virtue?)

It’s not the fault of the people who make the lingerie for girls if someone perceives her as a sexual object.  It’s not the fault of the rapists if she ‘looked like a ho’.  Stores are businesses after all and their only responsibility is to make lots of cash for their blessed shareholders.  And men, well, they cant’ be held responsible for what their bodies do while their hearts aren’t looking.

And there you have it, capitalism and patriarchy in a nutshell.

White trash my ass (or why Roseanne Connor was my hero)

I miss the show Roseanne.  I miss that, for a little while, we were reminded that being poor and white did not mean you were an ignorant, racist shit.  Poor white people are no more racist than the anyone else, they just haven’t been trained in the subtle art of talking out of both sides of their mouths.  Here’s another difference, they don’t have the power to enact systemic racism.  Bob from the parts plant may have some choice epithets, but Geoff at head office sets the corporate climate that prevents people of colour from advancing.

And lets talk about language for a minute.  I’m not going to talk about how important our word choice is here, that’s been talked to death.  And while I generally agree, I have seen too many privileged, educated women use their book learnin’ to silence women who are using the only words they’ve got.  Rather than hearing what she is saying they are like heat seeking missiles waiting for her to ‘slip up’ with the wrong word choice.  Perhaps we should give some credit where credit is due.  Why not give some voice to the woman whose criticism of the kyriarchy comes from her gut, without the benefit of a degree in women’s studies.

I watched my friend who was working for shit wages in a garment factory get driven out of a feminist collective because they treated her like a moron.  This while she deals with the reality of being paid half as much as the men at the factory up the road and gets forced to do overtime by her union rep.

So what does all of this mean?  Poor white people are an easy target.  Instead of engaging in some meaningful dialogue, and finding ways to include them in all levels of discourse, we dismiss them out of hand because they have bad grammar.  How many times have you, or someone you know, dismissed an online comment because of a spelling or grammar mistake?  I come from a family of grammar nuts but that? That is classism my friends.  This is why the Tories and Republicans do so well when they talk about intellectual elitism. 

So maybe before we go off assuming that being poor and white means you’re racist and ignorant we should recognize all the ways in which we exclude them from the conversation and the movement.

Digital spelunking

I just found this poem while spelunking around on my hard drive.  I wrote this in January of 2006 after I'd gained back all the weight I lost on weight watchers and starting trying to make sense of my compulsive eating.  I don't know if it's any good as a poem but it definitely says what I needed it to say.

This far into my journey I feel like I should be further along.

Recovered, not recovering.

Which begs the question, what am I recovering from now?

Depression? Sexual abuse? Bullying? Bereavement? Abandonment?

When do I get to be who I am instead of what I’m surviving?

Why do I eat.

I eat because I’m scared that the food won’t last

Somehow, inexplicably, it will disappear so I must eat all I can now.

I eat because food is my friend, it keeps me company when I’m alone,

it keeps me occupied when I’m bored,

it fends off the memories and the fear

it loves me unconditionally

it doesn’t care that I don’t belong

I’m still trying to prove to myself that there is some place in this world for me.

But so far I’m not very convincing

Maybe being big is a way to force the world to make room for me.

When I’m small I fit comfortably between passengers on the subway

and I can buy clothes anywhere I choose

but somehow fitting makes me unfit

this fitting in is not comfortable

On one hand I agonize over finding some space to belong,

on the other hand I know that I wasn’t born to fit

I was made to be the wrench in the works

It used to be that my presence, my very existence made those around me uncomfortable.

Now the person who’s uncomfortable is me.

When I’m big I’m unattractive and intimidating

When I’m small I’m weak and inauthentic

How will I find the balance between power and beauty?

How will I stop looking for salvation in a smaller dress size and a bar of chocolate?

Silence means "no"

Get ready 'cause this is a long one.

When I was thirteen I had a bad boyfriend that changed everything.  I spent years telling the story of K__ to any friend that would listen, I processed until I was blue in the face.  As an adult I don’t talk about it.  Like an old wound, it’s the scab that I don’t want to pick.  I am scared that if I tell that story one more time it will open a crack and that crack will become a chasm.  This is not okay.  This is not healing.  Out of fear of rumination I have locked that confused, hurt thirteen-year-old in a cage.  Just thinking about writing this makes my heart clench and my tears flow.  I don’t want this 21 year-old wound to have this kind of power over me anymore so for the first time, I am going to write it.  I apologize in advance for some of the language but these are words I haven’t let myself say in twenty years, this time I won’t shy away from them.

K__ was my second ever boyfriend.  I was in grade 9 and still not used to the idea that boys might actually find me attractive.  Both he and his best friend E__ wanted to go out with me but I chose K__.  From the beginning I was very clear about my boundaries, I told him that nothing was going to happen below the belt.  I spent every lunch hour and every weekend with him, mostly at E__’s house.  Because I didn’t live in town I would spend the whole weekend, sleeping at E__’s house because his mother was never around and we could do whatever we wanted.  In two months we never went out anywhere, no movies, no hangin’ at Tim Horton’s (kind of like Dunkin’ Donuts for all the Americans out there), not even the pool hall.  All we seemed to do was make out. 

Before I started dating him I went to every dance.  The one time I went to a dance while I was dating K__ he refused to go and threw an all-out passive aggressive temper tantrum.  He even had E__ and his girlfriend ganging up on me about what a horrible bitch I was to go the dance.  I though I was so empowered when I went to that dance.  I had my small victories, like when he tried to tell me I couldn’t have male friends.  I told him that he didn’t get to tell me who to be friends with.  I fooled myself into believing that I was “not taking any shit.”  I knew enough not to let him tell me what to do, but I wasn’t prepared for the more subtle and insidious kinds of control. 

One incident that sticks out in my mind was one of the most baffling and surreal fights I ever had with a boyfriend.  His best friend E__ had a crush on me, he had since before I started dating K__.  This one day E__ was particularly mopy about not having “got” me and complaining to K__ about it.  So K__ got mad at me.  Seriously, I’m not shitting you.  My boyfriend got mad at me because I didn’t “like” his friend.  What the hell can you say to that?  In everything K__ ever did that was manipulative, hurtful or controlling E__ was his sidekick.

Throughout all of this I was sinking into a depression.  One day, when the four of us (me, K__, E__ and The Girlfriend) were walking to E__’s house I became so overwhelmed by it that I just stopped dead and sat down on the sidewalk.  Nobody knew what to do, it took about ten minutes for them to get me up and walking. 

K__ was always testing my boundaries, he’d try to get his hand in my pants, I would move it away.  He’d put my hand on his crotch, I would pull it away.  One time, when I didn’t want to touch his dick he badgered and whined, “just this one time, don’t you love me, come on are you going to be a virgin forever?!” then he moped and E__ and girlfriend hounded me for the next half hour.  I don’t really know how to convey the atmosphere of relentless pressure, it was exhausting.  My mother, my friends and even one of his friends kept telling me that he was treating me like shit, that I should leave him. 

One day we were making out at E__’s house, as usual, and he tried to get his hands in my pants, as usual, but this time I just didn’t have any more resources to say no.  I was worn out, worn down.  It was not a “yes” it was defeat.  When he finished I said, “you promised you’d never finger me” and he said, “I didn’t.”  And I believed him.  I fucking believed him because I didn’t know any better.  Then he asked if just this once he could kiss me “down there”  “I promise I won’t eat you out” he said.  “Fine” I said as I turned my head to the side.

Later, I ran into a friend of his who told me that K__ said he’d eaten me out.  I was angry that he’d talked about it but I was also confused.  Who had he lied to?  Me or his friend?

The next day I raided my mother’s closet for an outfit that would be too hard for K__ to get his hands into.  When I think about that, it’s like there were alarm bells ringing in my head but I didn’t know what they meant.  That day K__ and I got in a huge fight because I was upset that all we ever did was make out.  It ended with a lot of yelling and swearing and me dumping him for the third and final time. I don't remember the details of the first two break-ups but I do know a few things.

I know that the first time I dumped him he wrote me a letter with veiled suicide threats, “if you don’t take me back I may as well kill myself.”  I knew it was manipulation and yet I went back. 

I know that the second time I dumped him I wrote a poem* about how badly he treated me, and yet I went back, hiding the poem from him to protect his feelings. 

I know that he cheated on me more than once and I continued to trust him.

I know that he forced me to watch porn.

When I left the house that day I had nowhere to go.  I walked straight to the house of a guy who had been nice to me at the dance.  He seemed so nice and understanding, he listened to me and I told him what had happened.  He promised never to pressure me.  The next day when I wouldn’t let him in my pants he told me we were “moving too fast" and we shouldn't go out together.  It was like a brick to the face.  I couldn’t believe I’d fallen for his “understanding guy” routine.  I walked out of the house and sat dead in the middle of the intersection.  I sat there for twenty minutes while he yelled at me.

Sometimes my depression made me seem batshit crazy but I honestly didn’t know what else to do, I was literally stopped dead in my tracks.

After that last time I broke up with K__ I swore I wouldn’t go back, but then I started to weaken.  The only thing holding me back was the thought of what my mother and my friends would say.  Still, I was on the verge of taking him back when I found out in an unceremonious prank call that he had cheated on me.  Not just with hickey’s this time, no, he had fucked R__.  It saddens me that everything else he did wasn’t enough to keep me away.  It saddens me to think that I was only thirteen.

Not long after, I had a major emotional break down.  My parents were away on business for the night so I had the house to myself and I lost my shit.  I mean breast beating, throwing myself at the walls, shrieking, wishing someone would strike me dead.  So I called K__.   He was so freaked out that he told his mother who told the cops who came to get me and take me to his house. And that is how I wound up crashing at my asshole ex-boyfriend’s house talking to his mother until 3AM.

I never told her about how her son had treated me, but I think she knew.  She told me his story of abuse.  It was horrifying the amount of abuse that boy had taken.  It didn’t make it okay but over the years it helped to have some understanding of why he may have been the way he was.

Over the next couple of years I stopped talking to him and he and E__ spread all sorts of nasty rumours about me.  I was labelled a slut just for having dated him. 

Three years later, after suffering from the rumours he and E__ spread about me and his occasional attempts to become my friend, I saw him at the pool hall and decided that it was time to confront him.  I told him that he had sexually coerced me and made it clear how much damage he’d done.  I thought he was going be defensive, I thought he was going to tell me to “fuck off bitch!”  I said to him, “I know you’re probably not even listening to me.” And he said, “I’m listening.”

I think that was as close to “I’m sorry” as he was able to get.

After that I was able to find forgiveness for K__.  I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to forgive E__.

In reading about depression recently I came across a description of one’s first depressive episode as being triggered by a catastrophic event.  When I look back at my first “major depressive episode” I can see that it started when I was with K__.  So while I know that K__ is not to blame for every problem and every depression, it is clear that that catastrophic relationship pushed me to the brink.  In two months he damn near broke me.

That experience cast a shadow over every relationship I had after that.

So let me be perfectly clear, in case you haven’t picked this up yet, just because no physical force or threats are used doesn’t mean there’s no assault.  Nobody talks about coercion.  Nobody takes it seriously.  When I tried to get a youth support worker to help me work through this and I told her I’d been pressured into doing things I didn’t want to do she dismissed it saying, “Oh every girl goes through that.”

She’s probably right.  And that scares the shit out me.  So, to all the parents out there, what is the most valuable thing you can do to prevent your boys and girls from falling into this trap?  Teach them to talk openly and honestly about their sexuality.  Teach your boys that it’s okay to not want sex, teach them about respect for themselves and their partners, teach them that sex is something that is shared, not taken.  Teach your girls that their sexuality is their own, teach them to talk about what they don’t want and what they do want, teach them to use their voice.  And if nothing else, teach them all that if you can’t openly talk about it, you’re not ready to do it.


*Used (1990)

I don't know where my mind is
I think I've lost my heart
I think I've lost my everything
you've ripped me all apart.
I don't know if you love me
you always say you do
but often you just treat me like
I'm just another who.
I wish I knew my feelings
I lost them with my heart
it seems to me that I'm to you
another little tart.
You may have never noticed
but I have feelings too
I tried to understand,
I pretended I was you.
I know you were confused
and I know you lost your head
but don't say you lost compassion
I know that I've been led.
Around your little fairground
of mind destroying games.
I don't want to see you
I don't want to hear the names.
I know they call me slut and bitch
I know they call me wench.
I also know who started that,
I know who was their hench.
I appreciate your caring
I appreciate your love.
Those last two lines are bullshit,
you just aren't good enough.

And I still took him back.

Grace thy name is Mabel

When I was three years old my father died.  This post is not about him.  This post is about my Nana.  She was the closest thing I had to knowing my father.  She played a major role in shaping me into the up-front loudmouth that I am today.

Nana had a hard life.  She was born in 1910 and when she was small she was removed from her single mother and placed in an orphanage.  When she was 19 she herself had become a single mother of two only to have her children taken from her because she didn’t have enough money to support them.  She went on to marry my grandfather and have four kids who she raised on very little money as she spent her days cleaning other people’s homes.  Everyone in the family knows the story of when the welfare cheque was late and she dragged all of the kids down to the office and said she would stay there with her hungry kids until they gave it to her.  One time they lived on stuffing for a week. 

Nana was the strongest, most open-hearted person I have ever known.  She would tell you exactly what she thought but she didn’t judge you.  When I brought a friend over who had a big spiky Mohawk she said, “what the hell did you do to your hair?!”  but that didn’t mean she wasn’t just as accepting of her as she was of anyone else.  When her busybody friend made comments about me having two guys for roommates her answer was, “if it’s okay with her mother then it’s nobody else’s business.”  And when I broke into tears because a guy at school was threatening me she said, “He’ll have to get through me and your uncle first!”

From her I learned what it means to be a strong, honest woman.  I learned what it means to lead a life guided by love and honour.  I learned beauty goes right to the core because Nana was the most beautiful human being.  She gave me as much of my Dad as she could.  She showed me what resilience really means.  She made me a Craig in more than name.

When she died I could have said a lot at her funeral.  I could have said all of this.  But I didn’t because it was mine.  Because there were people there who had never taken the time to get to know this phenomenal woman and I didn’t want to share my grief with them.  I cried at the funeral, quiet tears streaming down my face.  Later, at home alone, the real grief hit.  I wailed, I sobbed, I physically collapsed.  I couldn’t comprehend a world without her.  It wasn’t just my loss.  The world was forever diminished by her absence.  The pain ripped through me until I was spent.

Now, I feel her with me always.  She’s taken her rightful place in my heart next to Daddy.  When I talk to some of my cousins her presence is palpable in the shared ways of thinking.  And I am eternally grateful to see so much of her beautiful spirit in my cousin Darlene.  Just like Nana she is truly a warrior mom, full of that fierce love - God help anyone who tries to hurt her kids.  Darlene, thank you for keeping Nana alive for all of us.

To all of the warrior moms, keep on trucking, you know who you are.

Shaking the demons and a Thanksgiving message

This is the third time I’ve tried to write this post. Every time I try to write about my early high school experiences I get bogged down in the details. I feel like I need to describe all these incidents to get across what it was like. I feel that if I don’t tell certain stories no one will believe that it was as bad as I remember. And worst of all, deep down there’s this voice telling me that I’ve made a big deal out of nothing and I’m just a wimp who couldn’t hack it.

So let me get a few stories out of the way before I get to the point.

Late in grade nine I came to my locker to find a defaced picture of myself taped to the door with the words “DIE BITCH” written beneath it. It didn’t even occur to me to report it, even though I was pretty sure I knew who had done it. I just ripped it down and went to class. When I walked into class one of the guys snickered, “nice picture.” I later found out that my former best friend, whose parents had declared me a bad influence, had been involved.

On several occasions I had complete breakdowns, or “flip outs” as I liked to call them. Sometimes it happened at school, often it happened at home when my parents were out. One time it happened as I was walking from the bus stop at the end of my driveway to my front door. Halfway up the driveway I just collapsed into a sobbing, hyperventilating mess. This was one of the few times that someone sincerely tried to help. Eric made the bus driver stop and came running over to me to see if I was okay. For that I want to say to Eric H., thank you.

My time in that town, at that school was the hardest time in my life. I faced regular sexual harassment and out right bullying, I was often being warned that some girl or another wanted to beat the crap out of me. Aside from one or two guys that stuck with me consistently I was regularly being dumped or shunned by people who had been close friends. Between the bullying, the isolation and the fall out from an incredibly unhealthy relationship, it’s not at all surprising that by halfway through grade nine I was suffering from some pretty severe depression.

I went to a school where the administration wouldn’t intervene until someone got hurt. I had friends who had problems with alcohol and drugs. I had friends who had attempted suicide and friends who cut themselves. I had friends who were beaten at home and friends who had been sexually assaulted. I feel lucky that I didn’t have any friends die. There were so many broken people and sometimes I feel guilty about leaving them all behind.

At the end of grade ten I went to my mother and told her that I couldn’t take it anymore. She cried at first but then we found a way for me to move away, back to where my grandmother lived and where my old public school friend went to school, three hours away.

I thought that escaping the situation would be enough, and to this day I know that it was the right thing to do. Sometimes I still get angry that I was driven to leave home when I was fifteen, leaving a loving and supportive home in order to escape a miserable school. But I left, and I made new friends and my circumstances, while no less crazy, were immeasurably better.

The following Christmas while I was visiting my family I tried to kill myself. At some point in my first semester at my new school I realized that, even though I had left behind my tormentors and started a new life, the pain and the depression were still with me. I realized that escape is not that simple and I could see no way to escape the darkness and the demons. It felt like they would follow me anywhere and never let me go.

I didn’t plan to kill myself. I got in a stupid fight with a family member and ran up to my bedroom, once I started crying it brought all of the pain to the surface and it was excruciating. I blasted Nine Inch Nails and wrote in my journal. The last thing I wrote before I swallowed all my painkillers was, “I don’t even have the balls to kill myself.”

So here, finally, is the point. Bullying is cruel and vicious and can make a kid’s life a living hell. But it’s the depression that kills you. So yes, we need to stop the bullying. But, unless we find ways to reach out to those who are targeted and help them to pull themselves out of the situation and the depression, we will continue to hear about these tragic suicides and helplessly ask ourselves, “What could we have done?”

Just because there are no bruises doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell.

Postscript: To those who showed some compassion and liked me for who I was, thank you.

To Ollie, thank you for being there for my late night crying jags and thank you for caring enough to be angry at a certain crappy boyfriend.

To J, thank you for being completely un-phased when I showed up at your house in the middle of the night crying. You could have been angry, embarrassed or even flustered but you just looked at me and asked, “What happened?”

It gets better, but is that the point?

Lately it feels like every day on Facebook there’s a new post about a queer (or presumed queer) teen killing themselves as a result of homophobic bullying. My reaction to this has not been the predictable shock or sadness. Not because I don’t care and not because this isn’t appalling and tragic. No, the reality is that there is nothing about this that surprises me. This is not new. Queer teens have always had a significantly higher rate of suicide. Queer teens have always faced merciless bullying. Even teens who are not queer face homophobic bullying if they are deemed somehow unacceptable by their peers. The only thing I see here that is new is that the media is actually talking about it.

In response to these tragic stories Dan Savage has started a YouTube campaign aimed at giving queer teens some hope. Hundreds of people have posted videos to the “It Gets Better” campaign including the likes of Ann Hathaway and Kathy Griffin. I admire the intent behind this and I believe that it will provide some glimmer of light for some teens but I guess I’m also a little cynical. I imagine myself at 15 struggling to muddle on through the fog of my depression and I know what I would have been thinking watching all these videos telling me it would get better. I would have thought, “You don’t know me, you don’t know my life. Just because it got better for you that has nothing to do with me.”

And this is really what it comes down to. What is the line that divides the bullied kids who do try or succeed at killing themselves from those who don’t? The most likely answer is that those who take their own lives are suffering from depression. And the mind under the influence of depression has its own dark logic. Man, when I was in a depression I could ‘reason’ away anyone’s message of hope or sound advice. If someone said, “You’re a wonderful person, so intelligent and compassionate” I would just tell myself that they didn’t really know me and I wasn’t who they thought I was. If someone said, “I promise it will get better, this is just high school” I would just tell myself that it was a meaningless platitude and they didn’t understand just how bad it was. But beyond all of that there is the simple fact that at that moment when you’re standing on the edge of that cliff, it doesn’t matter if it will be better in five or even two years. What matters is that it’s unbearable right now and you can’t imagine how to live with this pain until that magic grown-up time when “it get’s better.”

When I tried to kill myself it wasn’t when I was in the thick of being bullied. It wasn’t when I couldn’t bear to face another day of school. No, when I reached my breaking point with the bullying I talked to my parents and we found a way for me to move away and go to another school. The suicide attempt came several months after I’d escaped that hellhole. It came when I realized that while I’d left the circumstances behind, all of the incumbent misery was still right there with me. The bullies may have been removed but the depression remained. When I realized that leaving the bullies behind was not enough, that was when I truly despaired.

So yes, give your message of hope. But lets talk about what’s really killing these kids. Homophobia and bullying are the circumstances that absolutely need to be changed but if you don’t address the depression in a way that’s more meaningful than simply pulling out a prescription pad, those kids who are at most risk will remain at risk.

I don’t have any answers, at least none that don’t require some massive cultural and policy shifts. All I can say is that the one and only thing that stopped me from trying again was that after my first attempt I finally understood what it would do to my friends and family.

To my mother, my sister and everyone else who was there for me, I am deeply sorry. And for all of your love and acceptance, thank you.