Hi guys!
I’m going to be doing some updates to my website pretty soon because the pages don’t adequately reflect what I’m trying to say. They did good at first, but there’s a lot of stuff that is going unsaid.
And the purpose of this post is to get some of it out there in a concentrated way, so you know who I am and what I’m about.
I’ve always been a feminist, even before I knew the words “feminist” or “feminism”. I was raised in a pretty traditional household – my mother stayed home with the kids and my dad went to work. But my parents taught me that that was because my dad WANTED to work and my mother WANTED to stay home with us kids. That if it was the other way around, they would have done it that way instead. They taught me that mommies can be as powerful as daddies and daddies could be as nurturing as mommies.
It wasn’t until I was older that I saw that this wasn’t true for everyone. I didn’t understand it and I thought that maybe my parents were just that special, but I wanted to grow up to be like them.
Then I learned more and more about culture and expectations and gender roles. In school, I learned that I wasn’t supposed to be good at math. I learned that I was supposed to be good at art and English classes instead. (and I was good at those, too!) I learned that boys were supposed to be more into sports, and girls were supposed to be into home making.
But feminism isn’t just about wanting to make things more equal for women, it’s also about making things more equal for men. Being a girl, I thought we had the worst of it, but in high school, I got a wake up call when my friend was suspended from school for wearing eye liner and mascara. *I* could wear make up just fine (and I did so badly), but he couldn’t? And another friend was harassed and suspended for wearing a skirt to school. But we were SOOOO lucky we went to the high school we did, because in other areas, my friends could have been killed for that.
This background drew me a lot into looking at the cultural roots of why things are the way they are. I discovered a lot of hold-over beliefs, things that just were “that way” and things that you “just knew.” They had no reason for existing, but they still did.
I also discovered so many ways that women are taught that they can’t make it in the world – they’re not strong enough, not smart enough, and they just can’t cut it. Simultaneously, we live in an economy that demands a two income household and fast food jobs aren’t going to cut it. You need two adults in a professional position in order to make it now – and if one (or both!) is a woman, then the struggle can be SO hard.
But times were changing, and people need to change with it. But how can they possibly change if they’ve never been taught to question their beliefs?
So, part of what I do is ask those hard questions – those deep questions – that root out beliefs we’ve developed over years and years of habit and generations of things “always being that way.” I help you see the cause for things and not only do I help you remove those chains from your hands, shoulders, and feet, but I also teach you how to change your own behavior so you cause a ripple of change out into the world.
I can teach you how to be assertive in a feminine way – so you can get what you want (including respect!) without having people call you a “bitch” or other lovely names. I can teach you how you can be assertive, confident, capable, and true to yourself. And how you can pave the way for other women as well.
Of course, that isn’t all that I do, but I’ll go over more of what I do and why I do it in future weeks. Stay tuned!
I really believe that together, we can change this beautiful planet that we’re on for the better. Men can be stay at home dads and artists and women can battle it out on wall street, bring home the money, and still be feminine and loving. We can do this. And we can do this TOGETHER.
Let’s step forward!
