The Happy Feminist

OPEN THREAD: I'M OUTTA HERE (UNTIL JULY 6)

The Happy Feminist will be on hiatus for the next week.  Today, I am frantically trying to tie up loose ends at work before the long weekend.  Then I am going out of town.  You won't see a post from me until July 6 or 7 (next Thursday or Friday). 

When I return, per Rachel's post, I would like to write something then about or for older women.  Maybe my 90 year old grandmother will give me some good ideas as I spend time with her over the next few days.   

If you would like to use this post as an open thread, go for it.  Just keep it clean and polite, please-- and please keep each comment under 250 words! 

LIVE BLOGGING IN LABOR -- UPDATED

There have been a number of musings and critiques in the feminist blogosphere lately about the community of "Christian lady bloggers" who reject feminism, egalitarian marriage, and even sometimes women's suffrage.  I like these two posts by Echidne of the Snakes. 

(NOTE to my Christian lady blogger friends:  Yes, Echidne titles her first post "Travels in Wingnuttia."  But as she hastens to explain that the term "wingnut" is a term of endearment employed by us feminazi/moonbat types.  Her tone in both posts is critical and bemused but not hostile.  And the first post includes pictures of some adorable little sweaters she knit.)

But actually my main point is that one of the bloggers discussed, Kim C. of Life in a Shoe, is currently live blogging her labor.  Now I have to say that's kind of cool.  I know she does not intend it as a feminist act, but there seems to be something very modern and feminist about recording and publicizing the experience of giving birth from the perspective of the mother herself.  In the past, the birth process with all its messiness and pain was something to be swept under the carpet and only discussed among the women folk and only then in hushed whispers.  It is always good to be reminded that giving birth is not necessarily an easy thing (although I certainly wish Kim C., who has 7 daughters already, a relatively easy and pain free labor).  It is also good to be reminded that the laboring mother is still a human being with thoughts and decision-making capacity and emotions and agency.  (My mother is still irritated 35 years later that before and during delivery, hospital staff referred to her in the third person as though she weren't even present.)  And finally, every birth and the prodigious efforts of every mother during labor and delivery should be celebrated whether one comes from a pro-choice or anti-choice perspective.

Of course, I know that Kim C. neither lives nor blogs as a feminist.  I don't know for sure but I suspect that she believes that all or most women should enslave themselves to their reproductive system by marrying, declining contraception, and carrying all resulting children to term.  Nonetheless, I am cheered by her live blogging.  Women expressing themselves, even or perhaps especially about intimate aspects of the female experience, can only be a good thing.   

UPDATED:  Kim had her baby -- a little boy, 8lbs, 9oz! Congratulations Kim! 

TO ARMS: IS THIS BLOG A TOOL OF GLOBAL EMANCIPATION?

I have been mulling over this old story about feminist blogs, which appeared in the Guardian on March 31.  The tagline reads in part: "[A]re they globalising emancipation - or just playthings for the rich and well educated?"   This snippet goes to the heart of the issue:

Nina Wakeford, a sociologist at the University of Surrey, is cautious about blogging's influence. "I think the way blogs can provoke debate is useful," she concedes, "but it isn't clear how much they feed into activism. In the past, there was a clear role for women's organisations as regards representations to government, but I'm not sure whether women can affect public policy through blogging. Just who are they representing?"

I certainly have never had a thought about "globalising emancipation" or "feed[ing] into activism."  So I guess my blog falls into the category of "plaything for the rich and well educated," although I hardly think having an internet connection qualifies a person as "rich." 

When I started this blog, I knew that I have a lot of crap in my head that I rarely express to anyone in my real life, and that it would be fun to have an outlet to do so. It just so happens that a lot of that crap in my head is feminist crap.  But I had (and have) no grand feminist hopes or ambitions for my blog.  I didn't even expect to necessarily have any regular readers.  I figured I would express my opinions and my thoughts in as honest a fashion as possible and see what might happen.  At most, I thought maybe people would occasionally stumble upon particular posts when researching particular issues and consider my point of view.  (It's a little scary how likely that has turned out to be, however.  If you google "women in combat & feminist," I am the first hit you get.  And who the hell am I? Just an average Jane with an internet connection.)

Once I started though, I found blogging to be one of the most pleasurable hobbies I have ever indulged.  It's been an absolute joy from the outset.  I think I like it because I am a rather "political" person in real life.  I wouldn't say that I am inauthentic, but I am conscious of people's perceptions of me and I manage those perceptions.  I spend a lot of energy making sure that employers and clients and potential clients have confidence in me-- which means that I don't spill my guts about nostalgia and longing and unhappy childhoods and What Feminism Means to Me.  It's wonderful to have an honest forum where I can Let it All Hang Out and Express the Real Me.  It is the ultimate in narcissism and it feels great. And the fact that people seem to like reading regularly enhances the experience for me considerably.  I suppose it feeds into a basic human desire to be seen and recognized.   

At the same time, though, while my motives are utterly selfish, I intuit that I am participating in a movement that is perhaps more important than my pleasure.  Certainly, I think there are ways in which blogging can "feed into activism" or draw attention to important news events that might otherwise go unnoticed.  But to me, even more importantly, it is the possibility of affecting individual outlooks that seems exciting.  Maybe some girl in an unfeminist or patriarchal corner of the U.S. or the world will stumble upon Ink and Incapability or The Sugared Harpy or Feministe and think, "I'm not the only person in the world who thinks like this!" or "I never thought about things in this light before!"  And isn't that the ultimate goal of all communication?  To make that individual connection with someone? 

I don't think that feminist blogging has to be organized or directed towards specific goals in order to be effective in this way.  Quite the contrary.  I like the fact that the "femosphere" is a collection of wildly diverse and often divergent voices and styles.  Whether we are academic, raunchy, sardonic, witty, gracious, reflective, angry, youthful, wise, analytical, poetic, a combination thereof, or something else altogether, we reflect the fact that feminists are individuals.      

I also like the fact that feminist bloggers vent about things like how annoying it is when strange men on the street tell us to "Smile!"  We are constantly told (usually by people who are somewhat hostile to feminism) that whatever subject we are discussing "trivializes" feminism.  But the fact is that blogging is supposed to be trivial sometimes.  Everyone's blog isn't always going to be about Big Issues like the latest Supreme Court decision on abortion or genital mutilation in North Africa.  Blogs are personal by their very nature, and the personal is often mundane.  And I think that is the beauty of blogging.  Even if being told to "Smile!" isn't the most earth-shattering event, I might be drawn into someone's blog by the fact that I have had that experience too and found it irritating, and by the fact that I hadn't really thought through the gender connotations of those pesky intrusions.  These are the kinds of things that get people thinking in a way that a dry treatise on the wage gap might not.  And getting people to at least start to see things from a feminist perspective can only be a good thing (as is the happiness of individual feminist bloggers).

LONGING

If you have read my blog for any length of time, you probably know that I am very prone to nostalgia.  I often experience nostalgia as a painful and intense longing for a past time and place.

Nostalgia hurts because you know there is no way to ever recapture the time and place of your imagination.  It probably wasn’t as great as you remember it being.  Whatever anxiety or fretting you did back then is forgotten because you know now that everything turned out alright, or at least you know that you survived.  But, even if you could go back to a place you left long ago, it won’t be the same.  Or worse yet, it will be the same but without you.

I have had the opportunity a couple times in my life to go back to places I had left behind many years before and to catch up with long lost friends.  It is always a humbling experience because you realize that the place or the community you were so much a part of kept going without you.  People who were once part of your daily life now only barely remember you.  Or they are happy to see you but they have grown up and changed and done things with their lives all without you.

It is weird.  I am never sad when things end.  I am always excited to leave places and move on to the next step in my life.  I usually say good-bye to people with a smile, rather than tears.  But the sadness of long lost people and places will hit me many years after the fact, and then I find myself googling all the people I used to know and feeling wistful when I realize that my old classmates have moved on so far and so unpredictably.  They have become U.N. volunteers and restaurant owners and riot grrrrrls and “unschooling” moms (don’t ask) and environmental journalists and struggling actresses.  I wonder if they ever feel the same way I do about the past time and place we shared together.

THREE FEMINIST STORIES FROM ONE WEST AFRICAN COUNTRY

All my nostaliga for my west African childhood led me to discover three feminist stories, all just from one country.  Kinda makes you wonder what else you're missing from this enormous and diverse continent.

Breast Ironing:  Broadsheet and Feministe describe the practice of beating away or ironing girls' breasts at puberty.   Approximately 26% of Cameroonian girls undergo these rather useless and painful attempts to get rid of their breasts and protect them (or, more accurately, protect their family's honor) from men's sexual interest.  The good news is that Cameroon has instituted a nationwide campaign against this practice.  It has also criminalized the practice, at least to some extent.  According to a story from BBC News Yaounde (reproduced at Jackaranda's blog),  if a medical doctor determines that damage has been caused to the breasts,  the responsible party may be jailed for up to three years.  It is unclear whether there are other penalties for breast ironing, but I would hate to think that the Cameroon's criminal code is primarily directed at protecting the breast rather than the young girl herself.  After all, a young girl can feel pain even if her breasts survive the process.

African feminist pioneer:  The story of Sita Bella, a Cameroonian woman who led an extraordinary life, is rather inspiring.  She was Cameroon's first female journalist, first female pilot, and one of Africa's first female filmmakers-- no small shakes in a highly patriarchal society.  She was also a writer, guitarist, and model.  The sad news is that she is no longer with us, having died earlier this year. Even worse, as blogger Dibussi Tande reports, she died in obscurity and poverty, virtually forgotten in her own country until after she died. 

Sisters in Law fight Patriarchy:  Dibussi Tande also reports that "Cameroon's Patriarchy Gets a Lashing from Sisters in Law," a documentary regarding a woman prosecutor, Vera Ngassa, and a woman judge, Beatrice Ntuba, who deal with crimes against women and girls, "often fighting deeply entrenched attitudes and a male-dominated power structure to find justice," according to this story from NPR.  The NPR story also includes an interview with Ngassa and Ntuba, as well as a clip from the film. 

MEMORIES OF AFRICA -- UPDATED

I wake up some mornings craving Africa.  It's been almost twenty years since I left and I feel far removed now from a continent that I felt for a long time was part of me.  Of course, Africa is an incredibly large and diverse place.  My Africa might not be someone else's Africa.  My Africa was (for three years) a relatively prosperous and stable Francophone country in western Africa and (for another three years) an Islamic country in northern Africa. 

I fell in love with my west African country the moment I set foot there.  Well, that's not exactly true.  The moment I set foot in the airport of the port city, I was drenched in sweat within two minutes.  The air was so humid and muggy that you could literally feel it's heaviness.  Fortunately, the capital city where we were to live was more elevated and temperate.  We had two seasons to cope with -- the dry season during which a fine red dust seemed to cover everything, and a wet season when there were heavy rainfalls every single day.  There is nothing more soothing than falling asleep to the sound of a heavy pounding rain falling on a metal roof.  Of course, on one occasion it wasn't quite so soothing, when a good portion of our roof blew off during the storm. 

Another wonderful sound I remember was drums and chanting as I fell asleep one night soon after we arrived.  I remember thinking how lovely it would be to fall asleep like that every night.  But it was to be an isolated event in our neighborhood, the funeral (I learned later) of a prominent local politician. 

I loved the internationalism of our community.  My classmates were French and Belgian and Italian and African and Israeli and Greek and Dutch and German and Indian and lots of other nationalities.  The British children all went home to the U.K. for boarding school at very young ages but we spent one Christmas eating mince pies with our British friends and they also hosted a lavish party to celebrate the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, which we listened to on the BBC.  The Soviet and Chinese children were all at home because their home government would not allow intact nuclear families to live abroad lest they defect.  But sometimes we were invited to the Chinese Embassy for lavish twelve course meals or to the Soviet Embassy to watch a film on wheat production in the Ukraine.  We would sometimes see North Koreans from a distance, all, even the babies, wearing little pins bearing the image of their Dear Leader. 

There was a very strong French presence in this country.  In my American school, for some reason, we always used the French word "cahier" to refer to our notebooks, and we all had to take French language class.  (I was thrilled to learn my first French sentence: "Le tracteur est rouge.")  We read the French and Belgian comic book series Asterix, and Tintin.  I also took horseback riding lessons at the local French horse club.  My French riding instructor always reminded me a little of Napoleon.  He would scream and wave his riding crop around if I wasn't doing well, which I usually wasn't. But it was hard to take him seriously because he would sometimes break into English and yell that I had to "CONTROL THE HORSEY!!!" I could never bring myself to tell him that "horsey" isn't actually the proper word. 

I loved being tuned in to African politics and African music and African art and African sports (hurray World Cup and tennis player Yannick Noah!).  In school, we read African literature, listened to African music, and ate African food.  When a plague of locusts covered every available surface in our classroom, our teacher invited us to pop the locusts in our mouths and eat them just like the African children.  Many people we knew had lived in other parts of Africa, so I grew to have a sense of what it was like in Mali and Mauritania and Niger and Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone.  I knew all about the war going on in Chad, and I wondered what was going to happen in the wake of several coups in Ghana. 

On one particular morning, I woke up to find myself in the middle of a coup attempt, in which Muslim and English-speaking factions united to try to take over the government from the Christian, French-speaking elite.  The American community used CB radios to communicate since there was only very limited phone service, and that morning there was all sorts of yelling over the radio as people called in panicking and the Embassy Marine Guard issued instructions.  There was also heavy shooting happening on the street outside our house.  We happened to be among the very few Americans living in the area with the heaviest shooting.  My dad was in Europe on business, so my mother and I spent the morning on the floor behind the bed in my parents' bedroom and away from the windows, as instructed by the Embassy Marine Guard.

Then suddenly, the Marine Guard were at our door to evacuate us to a safer location.  We had to run sort of under cover by the marines to a van outside our gate.  Then we had to sit on the floor of the van, while the marines drove us to the Ambassador's house.  We were there for three days and three nights.  We were among the first to arrive but eventually the entire American community of over a hundred people wound up there, except for some of the diplomats and Marines in the Embassy.  We ate C-rations.  There was only very limited running water so we couldn't shower, and I hadn't had time to bring a change of clothes or a toothbrush.  One woman spent the whole time in the corner, hysterical and yelling, "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"  At times she would quiet down to just muffled sobbing, and then she would start yelling again.  Most of the other people were laid-back because they had all been through other coups and coup attempts in other African countries.  Some kids were trying to scare people by popping balloons.  My friends and I watched videos.  (I remember watching "Class" starring Andrew McCarthy and Jacqueline Bisset and a mini-series called "Celebrity.") 

There wasn't a lot of shooting near our new location, but at one point some trigger-happy youths in a jeep shot through the windows of one of the bedrooms.   A bunch of us also crowded around the radio hoping to hear a mention of the coup on either the BBC or the Voice of America.  Finally, there was one sentence about it after some lengthy report about a crisis in the Canadian salmon fishing industry.  After three days, the coup was defeated and we were able to go home, feed our terrified dog, and take much-needed showers. We had to stay indoors for another three to four days as martial law was in effect.

Later that summer, we went back to the U.S.  I hadn't set foot outside of Africa for three whole years, which is a very long time when you are between the ages of 10 and 13.  It was weird to see things like guard rails and painted lines on the roads.  The array of products to choose from in the grocery stores seemed bewildering.  I wasn't used to having telephones and televisions and drinking water directly from the tap.  And I couldn't figure out why so many people were wearing t-shirts that said "Michael."  I knew who Michael Jackson was but I had no idea how staggeringly successful he was or that the t-shirts referred to him.  That fall, we moved to a different country in Africa, an Islamic one, for another three year stint.

Now, all these years later, I take all the amenities of American life for granted and I am no longer as tuned in as I wish I were to current events in Africa.  But I miss eating mangos for dessert every day.  I miss bargaining for malachite jewelry and embroidered shirts at the market set up by Islamic traders from the north.  I miss the sounds of African-accented French.  I hope one day I can go back but I have no idea how or when. 

UPDATED:  Re-reading this, I am now questioning my own memory as to whether we rode on the floor of the marine's van during our evacuation from our home during the coup attempt.  Presumably, the van would have been bullet proof, right?  So maybe I am remembering it incorrectly, or maybe they wanted me on the floor because I was a kid and they didn't want me to see the shooting.

AN OBLIGATION TO WORK OUTSIDE THE HOME

One of the things that reading the Hirshman book has made me realize is how easily I get trapped in the rhetoric of those who do not value women in the workplace.  This thread disturbed me in that respect.  Somehow the thread devolved into a discussion of why people as individuals even need validation from others and whether I might "want" to do something else if my circumstances change, since I might not feel the same way at another time.  I myself even reduced my own piece to a "feel good" piece and allowed the most important point to get lost.

That point is DUTY.  Where does our "duty" lie?  Probably more than anything else in life, I am interested  in doing my duty, in identifying and doing "the right thing." I have determined that my duty lies in the workplace.  It really has nothing to do with my feelings.  Even if I suddenly had a burning desire to stay home with babies, I would still work.  Because I feel that that is my duty. It is my duty to use my talents to benefit those beyond my family.  It is also my duty to take advantage of the opportunities hard won by generations of women before me. 

Unlike Hirshman, I do feel very uncomfortable telling other women what choices they should make.  Maybe that's a flaw or a weakness on my part.  But I am happy to share the moral calculation I have made in my personal life.

I do think Hirshman is one hundred per cent correct that feminists have ceded the "culture war" to the social conservatives.  Social conservatives benefit from feminist silence over "duty" because they get to define women's duty as staying at home.  People do want to know the "right thing to do" and the only one answering that question are the social conservatives.

Feminists generally don't want to offend or alienate anyone by castigating or belittling other women's life decisions.  I feel that way too, because I know a lot of stay-at-home moms whom I respect.  I guess I am squeamish, and that squeamishness plays right into the hands of the right.  (I note that social conservatives aren't quite so shy.  Hirshman quotes Danielle Crittendon as telling working women that our lives are "just a pile of pay stubs."  Thanks, Danielle!) But Hirshman is right -- by refraining from making value judgment, we're leaving the field wide open for the value judgments of the Christian right.  And we allow the Christian right (and others) to characterize working women as "selfish," an absurd characterization that might make it tough for ambitious young girls who want to do the right thing to justify their ambitions to their families and their communities. 

But by not making value judgments, we support a culture that is happy to virtually scream at women that they should stay home and focus inward on their families rather than the broader society.  Now, I can't speak to anyone's personal life or choices, so I prefer to take the positive-reinforcement approach by saying WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE IS AN UNQUALIFIED GOOD. Women in the workplace should be praised for their decision-- not because it's good for my little fee-fees (I am already fully committed to my decision), but because it encourages other women who want to do their duty to choose the workplace.  Just because we are feminists doesn't mean we can't have an opinion.   

MY NEW SPORTS FAMILY

What prompted my last post is my fascination with my sports-mad in-laws.  Their family life is so different than anything I have every observed before that I have never quite gotten my mind around it.   

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law (BIL and SIL) were both great athletes growing up. To his great credit, my husband's father was completely gender-neutral in the way he raised his kids, so he pushed my husband's sister really hard.  And, unlike my community, there were programs for girls where my husband grew up.  Also, because of her dad coaching her and pushing her, my husband's sister was also able to participate in a lot of leagues that were mostly boys.  My husband remembers every weekend morning being dragged out bright and early with his sister to hit the ski slopes or the baseball field.

I've known BIL and SIL since their kids were one and four.  The kids are now 12 and 15.  It was determined before these kids were even sentient that they would be athletes.  Heck, BIL and SIL even picked out their son's jock nickname before he could talk, and that is indeed how he is known out on the field now that he is in high school.  And certainly over the last eleven years, sports has been the thread that binds the fabric of my in-laws' family and social lives.  Both parents coach and both kids are on sports teams all year round.  Dinner table discussion focuses on changes to league rules (which the parents know cold), what the kids can do to improve their technique, which other kids in the community have athletic potential, and the varying merits and prices of certain athletic gear.  Most of my in-laws' friends are other parents whose kids play sports.  When I went to a cocktail party at my in-laws recently, the conversation revolved around kids' sports teams.

I often feel like an anthropologist exploring a whole new world.  I had no idea that sports could be so all-consuming.  As a kid, I knew my family was more indifferent to sports than most, but I had no idea that there were families that were so focused on sports.  My parents thought it was cool when I did well as a runner, but there was never a lot of focus on it.  My parents had no idea who my coach was nor did they think it was an area where I needed to be pushed.  It was just a fun activity that I seemed to enjoy and that was good for my health. 

I think organized, competitive sports are great for kids.  I see my niece and nephew learning how to deal with having a bad day, making a mistake and moving on, and what it's like to both win and lose.  They are healthy, fit, and coordinated.  They are confident in their physical abilities.  They are confident working with a team.  They understand the virtues of practice, practice, practice.  They have learned how to deal in a clear-eyed and pro-active way with deficiencies in their own performance.  I am confident that exercise and physical activity will always be a part of their lives.  When I see them doing their thing, I still regret not having had more of a chance to do team sports when I was very young.

Sometimes the intensity of their focus on sports makes me a little uncomfortable, though.  What about the arts and politics and books and schoolwork?  What about the uncoordinated dweebs (like me as a kid!) who aren't so good at sports and whose lack of ability is definitely noticed and commented on? Is there no value seen in those kids and the things they may be good at that aren't sports-related?  Is sports important as an end in itself and if so, why? Why so much focus on this activity and this alone?  Even after eleven years of being part of the family, I feel a little bewildered by it all.  On balance, I admire their lifestyle, but I can't quite put my finger on what it all means to them.   

MY SPORTS JOURNEY

When I was in grade school, I was desperate to become proficient at sports.  Until I was about nine, I had no particular guidance or encouragement from my parents to be athletic.  Neither of my parents ever watched sports on television, nor were we a particularly active family.  My parents spent most of their spare time reading.

We moved to the U.S. from Europe when I was about six. Soon after, I became enamored with the idea of doing sports.  Sports stood out to me as something particularly American.  My grandparents in Texas were constantly riding their bikes, and swimming, and playing tennis, in stark contrast to the elderly people I had known in Italy who seemed far more sedentary.    In addition, as I have written before, sports seemed to entitle the boys I knew to a lot of respect that the girls didn’t get.

Unfortunately,  I was a terrible athlete.  During Phys. Ed. Class, I was always that kid who was chosen last for the team (oh the shame, how it burns!).  I couldn’t understand how the other kids, and the boys especially, seemed to know how to throw and catch and bat and shoot baskets and make goals.  Many years later when I was babysitting a two-year old boy, I realized that a lot of parents nurture their kids’ athletic potential from the cradle.  The kid I babysat had been encouraged to jump and throw balls from infancy.  He had zillions of athletic toys, like little bats and little footballs and little soccer balls, and his father had already started teaching him how to throw a ball through a basket.

But for me, sports weren’t on my parents’ radar at all and, furthermore, there were no sports teams for girls at all in our community.  I was desperate to play a competitive sport but there was no opportunity for that whatsoever.

I tried hard, though.  I read biographies of Pele and got books from the library on “how to play soccer.”  But I learned very quickly that learning the rules of soccer and reading about proper technique does not a soccer player make.  One needs coaching and practice with other players.  Later I decided that baseball would be my sport.  My grandfather brought me a bat and a glove and a ball when he and my grandmother visited us.  After I begged and begged for some coaching, he also spent countless hours with me practicing my batting technique.  When we got to the baseball portion of my school’s Phys. Ed class, I shocked everyone who knew me as an uncoordinated dweeb with my prowess at bat! Unfortunately, it hadn’t occurred to me that I also needed to practice catching and throwing so I continued to be an uncoordinated dweeb on the field.

I finally started to make real progress as an athlete when I was nine.  In fourth grade, we had to take the Presidential Physical Fitness Test and I was determined that I was going to do well enough to score a “gold medal.”  I thought it was ridiculous that the  boys had higher standards to meet and I said so to the teacher.  She told me that I was not physically capable of meeting the boys standards.  When  I told my dad what she said, he stepped up to the plate to help me, bless him. We practiced sit-ups, push-ups, chin-ups, running the mile, and all the other categories.  When the time came for the test, I did indeed earn a gold in each category according to the boys’ standards -- and I did the best in my class in the mile!

(I felt further vindicated many years later when I read Collette Dowling’s analysis in The Frailty Myth of the Presidential Physical Fitness standards.  Apparently, many of the differing standards for boys and girls were completely arbitrary and not based on actual strength differentials between the sexes at the elementary school level.)

Around this time, my parents got caught up in the fitness boom of the late ‘70s.  They read Jim Fixx’s book and took up long-distance running.  I decided running would be my sport since success in running seemed to come from hard work and will power, rather than coordination.  My family spent many weekends competing in road races.  When I reached high school, I was a bona fide runner, and the first person in my class to earn a varsity letter.  Suddenly I was considered a “jock” rather than a “brain.” 

I was in top physical condition during my teens and early twenties, and I still am quite disciplined about doing some form of physical exercise every day, although I don't really push myself very hard anymore.  I am looking forward to taking up kayaking in the next couple of years, and when I retire I am going to try to find a novice ice hockey league for old ladies-- because what American could watch the 1980 Olympics without wanting to play ice hockey someday?

I am happy to report that my parents have been consistently active since 1980.  My dad kind of put-puts along on a 3 to 5 mile jog every day, and my mom, who is more driven, is basically a wall of muscle who does a solid and very grueling hour on the treadmill six days a week.  She is also developing a six pack through crunches and weight lifting. 

Of course, in the long run I would prefer to be a  “brain,” if one must choose.  But my slow and, at times, painful quest at jock-hood was an important part of my development.  I am glad I went through it and that sports and fitness became a part of my life.  There is no question in my mind that the “fitness boom” and the proliferation of sports opportunities for girls is an unqualified improvement to our society.

TRA LA LA -- GOT MY MANIFESTO IN THE MAIL

Tra la la -- I know everyone's probably getting sick of Hirshman, but I am just so tickled to have gotten my copy of her book Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World from Amazon. Hirshman's book speaks to something deep in my core.  The fact is, I am completely Hirshman-ish in my thinking about my own choices and I always have been.  Yet I see nary any  validation for that in our culture, especially for women. 

I have always felt not only a strong desire for a career but a strong sense of DUTY towards my career.  I have always been very duty-oriented, and in my mind, my obligation is to contribute to the labor force, and to push myself as far as I can in whatever endeavor I choose to adopt.  I feel this way partly because I feel I ought to exercise the rights hard-won by past feminists, and partly because I feel that I ought to use all of my privileges, all of my talents and education, out in the world for the benefit of others besides my family. Maybe I am not talented enough to discover the cure for cancer, but I still ought to use my talents however far they extend.

This is why it cheeves me off to no end when career women are castigated as being "selfish."  I always think to myself, "Working long hours and fretting constantly on behalf of my clients is the way a selfish person behaves?!?!?!? People think I do this just so I can drive a snazzy car?!?!?!?" (By the way, my car is so un-snazzy that I actually have to roll the windows up and down manually.)

Working is certainly no walk in the park.  It's stressful and you're constantly answering to people.  In my case, I've got demanding clients, perfectionist bosses, and grumpy judges all looking over my shoulder, as well as opposing counsel just waiting for me to trip up.  There are days when I love it and days when I am miserable.  But there is no question in my mind that my calling and my obligation in life is to WORK, and to work outside the home.  I don't do this just to have a little extra cash in the bank and I don't do it just to look all glamorous in a business suit.  I do it because I think what I do has value. 

And you know what else?  I do put my work above family.  All the time.  It is a frequent occurrence in our household that I will say to my darling husband, "You know what? You're not gonna see me this weekend, because I am going to be chained to my desk working."  Do I feel even slightly guilty about this? Not a bit.  His job as my husband is to support me in my endeavors just as I support him in his.  He has my first loyalty over any other individual on the planet, and I love him deeply, and I would certainly drop everything for him in a crisis, but family time does not come before work time in our house.  No way.  The point of family, in my view, is to support and nurture the individual visions of each member.  "Family" is not in itself a mythical good or an end goal.

I know Hirshman has pissed off a lot of people by trashing other women's choices and I have said repeatedly that deriding how other people spend their time isn't my thing.  But, you know what, it is so wonderful and refreshing to have someone validate -- without apology or qualification -- the choices of working women who value their careers.  And reading her validation made me realize how very rare it is to see that in our press and in our culture.   

The few times I have expressed to others my real feelings about career and its centrality to my life and self-image, I have been absolutely derided.  When I told a college professor/mentor that I was "ambitious," she acted as though I had confessed some terrible sin that she had to help me overcome.  Others have told me that I am "arrogant" or that I am a "sucker" just slaving away to make some big company richer. 

But I will say it here, loud and proud.  I work full-time for a living and I will continue working full-time for a living.  I will work full-time for a living if I have children.  I will work full-time for a living if my husband gets a $500,000 a year job.  I will work full-time for a living if I win the lottery.  On my death bed, I will probably wish that I spent more time at the office.   And  I think that's an absolutely honorable choice that I, as a woman, have no need to apologize for.  Thank you very much.