So I've done the SlutWalk; now let's talk modesty

I always grew up hearing lecture upon lecture about the importance for young women to be 'modest.'  I will (somewhat shamefully) admit that I've even given a lecture or two on the topic myself.  Modesty was hashed and rehashed at home, at school, at youth group, during Bible studies, during worship sessions, during meals, during shopping trips, and during pretty much any and every other opportunity possible.  And even back in my semi-brainwashed-by-religion phase, I always knew that the arguments given were crap.  

Why on earthy would it be my job by nature of my being female to somehow control or even just affect how guys may or may not look at me?  

That was always the first question that popped into my head any time the topic of modesty was broached.  Why would the onus be on me to control how another autonomous human being thinks or acts?  I simply can't control another person’s thoughts or actions.

Now I guess I've always kind of known this, but it wasn't until this past weekend's SlutWalk that it dawned on me the reason why this logic is so very wrong.  It's because it is just another one of the many symptoms of this horrible rape culture that permeates our entire society.  I could never come anywhere close to explaining rape culture as well as Melissa McEwan at Shakesville does here:

Rape culture is the way in which the constant threat of sexual assault affects women's daily movements. Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you're alone, if you're with a stranger, if you're in a group, if you're in a group of strangers, if it's dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you're carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you're wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who's around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who's at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn't follow all the rules it's your fault.

Telling girls that they must dress (or not dress) a certain way to somehow try and control how someone else thinks or acts is a direct extension of this culture.

But even beyond the injustice of placing this burden, blame, and shame on women for when guys think or act a certain way, it dawned on me the other night that there’s a bigger (or at least equally big) problem with this lesson being taught to young girls: it places the entire focus of the discussion on how girl’s choices affect guys.  Instead of being an empowering discussion about how the way a young woman dresses and acts affects and reflects her self-confidence and self-worth, it does the exact opposite: it places the entire discussion in terms of boys.  And this all happens most frequently during a time when young women are trying desperately hard to figure themselves out.

But here’s the thing: for girls who have somehow managed to grow into women with at least some degree of self-worth, self-confidence, and self-respect, the way they dress (most of the time) has very little to do with how it is perceived by the rest of the world.  Instead, confident and empowered women wear clothing that expresses who they are, what they are comfortable in, and what makes them feel beautiful and strong.

A woman who is assured of her own worth doesn’t wear a low-cut top or a short skirt to try and attract a guy’s attention.  If she chooses to wear these things, it is because she feels comfortable and empowered in these clothes.  It will have nothing to do with the reactions she receives from others.

When I was growing up and trying to develop my own sense of style and fashion (and self-worth), I was never told to look for clothing that makes me feel beautiful and confident and powerful and loved and respected.  I was simply told that certain clothes were too tight or too short or too low-cut or too little or too much or too…  I was lectured about how to pick clothing that wouldn’t “force” guy’s minds to wander or lust or desire or even simply to guess.

Now, quick disclaimer here: I’m not writing this as (another) angry rant against how I was raised.  Really, I’m over it.  And I really don’t blame any of the many people who lectured me about modesty.  How girl’s clothing affects a guy’s mind has been the only way that the issue has been framed for so long that’s it’s in no way surprising that the people I grew up with didn’t know any better.  So, no, that's not the point.

I’m writing this because there has got to be a shift in focus.  The only way to change the rape culture is to continually combat it, and so this is one thing that has to change.  The discussion needs to be shifted off of the term “modesty” (because, really, it’s such a fucking ambiguous term anyways that’s it’s already pretty much useless), and instead focus on fostering confidence, self-worth, and self-respect in young women.  And then let them make their own choices about what types of clothing they are truly comfortable wearing.  And even if their motives have nothing to do with their own confidence and empowerment, we must always remember that, no matter what a girl/woman wears, it is never her fault if a guy chooses to think or act improperly.

UPDATED: Feminist Icons: Past, Present, and Future

UPDATED: This blog post of mine was edited and reworked to be posted on the EMILY's List blog here. Below remains the original version posted on my blog last week.

This week The Daily Beast and Newsweek published a profile of one of the greatest icons in feminist history, Gloria Steinem.

Mention the name Gloria Steinem to many women under 30, and if there is a flash of recognition at all, they put her in Florence Nightingale’s league—an admirable figure from the history books. To them, feminism was a war won before they were born, the miniskirted 1970s revolution that freed their mothers and grandmothers from drudgery and discrimination, paving the way for their own generation’s unfettered freedom. But in the living room of the funky Upper East Side duplex where she has lived for more than 35 years, Steinem, 77, is still on the front lines of a fight she considers barely half finished.

Now, on my college campus, the name Gloria Steinem holds incredible weight and even a measure of awe.  For weeks after her visit to American University last year, dozens of friend’s maintained FB profile pictures with Steinem.  But my world is an anomaly in which feminists and progressives abound and feminist icons are not only known but regularly sought out.   So I guess the question remains, does Gloria Steinem sill matter?  Or, perhaps the far more important inquiry is, who’s the next Steinem, Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, or Alice Paul?

When it comes to feminist heroes, there seems to be this problem of giant gaps in time where no one takes the lead. 

But is that entirely true?  I know that throughout my time in highschool, whenever we got around to talking about anything related to feminism, the only people mentioned were Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and maybe Betty Friedan. 

Once I got to college, I discovered the remarkable stories of Alice Paul and Carrie Chapmann Catt and how it was them, not Anthony or Stanton, that actually got the 19^th Amendment passed through Congress and finally ratified by the states in 1929. And then came the 70s and the likes of Shirley Chisholm, Sarah Weddington, and Gloria Steinem.  But these names were never mentioned outside my feminist world.

And while Gloria Steinem still has a voice, and is still fighting hard, I have to wonder, who’s next?  And why are there massive gaps between feminist icons?  Or at least between women whom the history books recognize as icons.

Today, we have Carolyn Maloney, who, every single year, largely unnoticed by everyone but the most dedicated feminists, reintroduces the Equal Rights Amendment.  We have Kirsten Gillibrand who is taking a stand and gaining national recognition for her “Off the Sidelines” campaign which urges more women to get involved in the political process.  And we have women like Nancy Pelosi, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Hillary Clinton who have broken through more ceilings and down more doors than perhaps anyone else in feminist history.

But will these women be viewed as iconic figures in the harsh light of history?  So many of them are still villianized by half of society and the rest are just plain ignored.

Who will stand up?  Who will stand out?  And who will lead the way to finish the race that all of these iconic figures and those running along side of them started so long ago?

Show Your Mercy New

I have been so incredibly ungrateful.  Over the past several months, God has proven himself more faithful than I could ever hope to imagine.  And yet...it's like once He's done what I need Him to do, I practically just forget that He ever existed.  So now there's only one thing that I can do: simply ask, knowing what His answer has been and will always be, "Lord, have mercy."

From this past March till the beginning of June, I was suffering from debilitating and seemingly inexplicable pain.  Most of the time I could barely walk, and when I could it was only with the aid of huge amounts of narcotics and nerve relaxants.  An entire neuro-surgical team at Johns Hopkins Hospital couldn't find anything wrong with me, and I was trying to mentally prepare myself for the possibility that I may be searching for the rest of my life for answers and never find them, and that I may have to remain in a constant mental and emotional flux due to the extreme amounts of medications needed to simply hold my pain to a manageable level.

And then my old doctor from back in Chicago had an idea: he thought that maybe my spinal fluid level was elevated and that with a lumbar puncture this level could be tested and then reduced.  In theory, this could completely alleviate my pain.

You'd think that this potential solution would excite me and give me hope.  Instead, it filled me with a dread and fear worse than anything I can remember.  You see, having to have a spinal tap again was one of my greatest fears in life.  When I was eleven and initially going through the ringer of medical tests before my doctors discovered that I have Chiari Malformation, I had several MRIs, and on one of them the doctors saw a blurry spot.  This could simply mean that I moved ever so slightly during the taking of that image or it could mean something much worse (i.e. a tumor or some other irregularity in my spinal column).  My doctor recommended a spinal tap, and my parents consented.

The actual procedure itself, while uncomfortable and quite annoying, wasn't that bad (probably mostly due to the fact that I had no real clue what they were doing, and thus my nerves couldn't set in).  The worst part was afterwards.  First, I had to lay flat on my back for upwards of six hours.  For an eleven year old kid, this seemed like torture.  I couldn't get up to eat or go to the bathroom or even just to stretch.  I had to remain relatively still and could only switch positions from my back to my side (or vise versa) every so often.  The reason for all of this was to make sure that my spine had time to form a clot over the hole which the spinal tap put in it.

While I vaguely remember this six plus hour process as being beyond annoying, that's not really what sticks out in my mind.  What I remember most vividly, what still makes me cringe at the very thought was the one thing that laying on my back for over six hours was supposed to prevent: spinal headaches (and all the wonderful things that come with it).

At some point while lying on my back in the hospital room, the doctors came back in with the results of the spinal tap: everything was fine and the initial assumption was assumed correct (I probably moved ever so slightly during the MRI process).  After about five and a half hours of lying flat on my back, I actually ended up falling asleep for about an hour and a half and was thus flat on my back for at least seven hours.  After I woke up, the doctors sent me home essentially because they had run out of ideas to explain my pain and I was reasonably well medicated.

The next couple days were filled with a pain that I can just barely begin to explain.  My head literally felt like it was going to explode.  My room had to be blackened as much as possible and my family could only speak to me in whispers.  Every time I had to raise my head above my heart, these symptoms multiplied tenfold and I would begin to throw up violently and uncontrollably.  I barely let myself eat or drink.  This lasted for about a day and a half when my parents knew that I simply couldn't go on like this.  They took me back to the hospital where the doctors drew some blood out of my arm to essentially force a clot to form over the hole in my spinal cord where my spinal fluid was leaking.

These memories are some of the worst in my life.  On a scale of one to ten, the pain that I felt was easily skyrocketing past a twelve.  So knowing that I might have to go through it again terrified me.  But at the same, I knew that I couldn't keep living like that.  I couldn't spend the rest of my life feeling high out of my mind on narcotics while still only barely able to walk.

So when I went home in June, I scheduled an appointment with my old doctor in Chicago.  We scheduled the lumbar puncture for the day after my LSAT, which actually meant that I couldn't focus on my potentially paralyzing fear, so that was good (although the stress of studying for the LSAT wasn't necessarily a fun alternative).

The actual procedure turned out to be not that bad.  They put me under anesthesia, so I remember very little. After I had been in recovery for about an hour, the nurse started talking to me about sitting up.  This is when my fear really set in.  It took me probably another hour or so to get up the courage to just tilt the bed forward a little.  Over the next several hours and even days, I was incredibly anxious at even the slightest pressure or pain in my head.

But the headaches never came.

I have yet to really sit down and process what all this means.  Since I had that lumbar puncture and they drained a huge portion of my spinal fluid, I have yet to feel like I cannot walk down the hall.  To be perfectly honest, the hardest thing since then has been both getting off of my narcotics and building back up my endurance after having been forced to remain relatively sedentary for several months.  For the past week or so, I have been pretty much off of my narcotics (for the first time in months) and my endurance is coming back.

You'd think that I'd be shouting about the amazing provision of God from every rooftop I can.  And yet...

And then at the end of last month, it became quite evident that my maternal grandfather's leukemia had progressed rapidly and he would only have a couple more days to live.  I've only begun to process everything that happened in the days before and after my grandpa's death, but there's one thing that I know for sure: the one thing that I asked God for was some form of reassurance that my Grandpa was truly a man of faith.  You see, everyone had been saying that we knew he was going to a better place and that he was just "graduating" into heaven and other such platitudes.  But the thing is that for my entire life my grandfather has always just been a man that I see at most a few times a year.  I loved him dearly and will always remember his love and sense of humour incredibly fondly.  But unlike my paternal grandfather of whom practically my every memory is of him telling stories about how God has worked in his life or professing his incredible faith, my memories of my maternal grandfather are all about him playing games and telling jokes to me and and my brothers.  The day that my grandfather died, when I knew that he only had a few hours left, I lay on a park bench just crying because while every one else had such confidence about where my Grandpa was going, I felt like I couldn't know.  While I know that no one but God can ever know for sure, there can at least be a reasonable degree of confidence if you know the person's heart.  I cried because I never really knew my Grandpa, at least not on a spiritual level.

A few hours later I got the call from my Dad that my grandpa had passed and the story that he told me took my breath away:  throughout that whole day, my grandfather had been almost entirely out of it, never fully having a lucid moment.  Furthermore, he rarely had his eyes opened, and when he did they were foggy and unfocused.  But in the moments before his death, my grandfather opened his eyes, clear as ever, tried his hardest to sit up, hum, and sing along to his favourite hymn: "How Great Thou Art".  After he sang through the whole song once, my mother and aunt told their daddy to go home.  And he breathed his last.

My grandfather died with a song in his heart and worship on his lips.  And I know that, at least in part, my grandfather died in that incredible, God-filled way in answer to my prayer.  My grandfather's death was God's amazing way of giving me peace.

Yet I haven't admitted that to anyone.  Until now that is.  And I really can't seem to figure out why.  I don't know why I feel like I can't admit how much God has done for me.  I'm still in this place where, if my Christian friends are talking on the metro about how God is working in their lives, I still look around, worried that some people within earshot might hear what we're talking about and think that we're crazy.  I don't entirely know why I'm like this, but I do know that it needs to change.  I need to be bolder and I need to be so much more willing to just be honest about who I am and what I believe.

So I claim God's mercy, because I know that it truly is new every morning.  So tomorrow I will begin a new day, and maybe tomorrow I will be just a little bit bolder and I little bit less shy about everything that I am and everything that God is, and how incredibly amazing He has been in my life.  Maybe I'll actually be able to use this testimony and this voice and these words to impact someone's life, someone else who is desperately crying out for some reassure, crying out for answers, crying out for some peace.

I might actually be good at this...

I know I said a couple weeks ago that I'd write a post updating you all on what has happened with my medical situation, and I really have been trying to...for the past two weeks...  And it's just become this long, rambling, and fairly incoherent post with no actual point.  I'd be happy to give actual details to anyone who really wants to know, just Facebook me or email me or whatever.  But suffice it to say that I went back to my old doctor at the University of Chicago and he had a solution...a solution that scared the shit out of me (due to a horrendous past experience), but by the power of Jehovah alone, I was able to get through it.  And for the past two weeks, I've been relatively pain free...for the first time in about three months (except for the fact that I'm going through major narcotic withdrawal, which is never fun).

But that's not the reason I'm writing this.  I'm writing this because, yesterday, I went on my second hospital advocacy call with the DC Rape Crisis Center.  And it was...intense, to say the least, but it also served as an amazing reminder of where I'm going and what I need to be doing with my life.  And it re-confirmed that I might actually be good at this...

Since school ended I've been focusing pretty much all my attention (with the exception of studying for and taking the LSAT) on my political interests.  I've been interning at EMILY's List, an organization that works at all levels, (national, state and local) to elect pro-choice democratic women.  Furthermore, working at this incredible (and remarkably influential) organization, I've begun to believe that my next step after graduation (this coming December) may be working on a campaign.  And this place can get me there  After asking some former interns if they had any specific advice regarding how to get onto a campaign, the thing which stuck out in my mind the most was one of the former interns saying, "Think about and write down the five names of the people on whose campaigns you would most like to work.  Then talk to people here [at EMILY's List].  They'll make it happen."

 My jaw is still kind of on the floor after that one.

See, when I applied for this internship, I knew that I loved EL and that it had a great mission and had done some cool things.  I had absolutely zero conception of their reach.  I didn't know that the President of EMILY's List, Stephanie Schriock, was the campaign manager for Al Franken.  Yeah, that campaign.  I had no clue that Denise Feriozzi, the director of the WOMEN VOTE! department (basically, EL's Get Out The Vote arm) was the Field Director for Hillary Clinton's Iowa Caucus race.

This place is incredible, and there are so many people here that I can learn from and so much to do that I agree with and love doing.  But...

There's that little thing in the back of my head that I know: This just isn't my passion.  Yeah, I love it, and in so many ways I'm obsessed with it, but it's not my calling.  It intrigues me, amuses me, and excites me, but I don't have that guttural need to do this.  Not like when I'm touching on anything to do with combating sexual violence.

That's where this past weekend comes in.  As many of you probably know, I'm a volunteer at the DC Rape Crisis Center, and I take both crisis hotline calls and hospital advocacy shifts.  Well, on Saturday I had an advocacy shift and, for only the second time since starting, I got called in.  Now, as usual, I can't actually talk about details, but needless to say it was a very intense call.  But beyond all that, for me, it was a remarkable affirmation of who I'm meant to be, of everything I'm meant to do.  Because this was my second time going on an advo call, I was confident enough about where I was going and what I was doing that I could actually just settle in and trust my instincts.  And as I've seen many times in the past, that's when I actually can do a good job.  After the major portion of the call was over, I had a moment alone with the SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner), and even though throughout the call I thought I had been getting very mixed signals from her, she actually told me that I had done a really good job, and she was shocked that it was only my second call.  Later, as I was spending a few final minutes with the survivor, she told me that I had made the whole process much easier for her and that she thought I would do a great job as a sex crimes prosecutor.

I'm not repeating all of this to try and toot my own horn or brag or whatever.  It's just that as I'm getting deeper and deeper into the political world, I love remembering what my true calling is.  And I need to remind myself that politics isn't it, as much as I may love this crazy world of American politics.

Oh, and by the way: I'm an American citizen now.  It's very weird...

Who I am Meant to Be

I was reminded yesterday of how very much I love litigation.  In my honours colloquium, Women and the Law, we posed as fake lawyers and Supreme Court Justices alternatively and argued a real Supreme Court case.  We had to prepare briefs and be aware of the inquiry style of the Justice to whom we were assigned.  It has been so long since I have been in a fake litigation setting that I entirely forgot what it felt like: the exhilarating anxiety, the feeling of my brain finding the central issue at hand and articulating it, the heart-pounding feeling of not having the answer, the amazing ability to bullshit something that somehow manages to be convincing.

I find it very strange.  I really hate speaking extemporaneously.  My brain seems to always freeze and I can't remember what I wanted to talk about.  I especially don't like to be forced to talk when I'm not highly versed in the field.

Now with that last statement in mind, I'm in no way claiming to be highly versed in the law, or even in any specific area of the law.  But somehow, for some reason, when I get up to the podium and begin to articulate a legal argument, and then a panel of "justices" inquires, interrogates, and attacks everything that I say, I get this incredible high and I find a way to combat and to redirect and to figure out what the central issue is.  And I somehow manage to focus on that central point, and hopefully manage to get my point across.

I'm going to get to do it again a week from today in my Con Law class, and I'm beyond excited.  Not because I have some lofty idea that I'm somehow amazing at it.  But because it reminds and affirms that this is what I was meant to do.  Even if I fumble, and falter, and fail, I still have this feeling inside that I can't even begin to describe.  It's just this feeling, this high, this invigorating voice which whispers in my heart and in my soul: "you were meant for this."

And I needed this affirmation.  I'm facing the prospect of LSATs and law school applications and all of these overwhelming things which seem to try and discourage me from pursuing this long-standing goal.  So I'm just so grateful that right when I needed it most, God gave me this affirmation of everything that I am striving to be.

Rejecting Jesus

My roommate recently told me about a class discussion which she had to participate in which was essentially a very frank and open discussion about the class members' personal religious beliefs.  Of those in the class with religious beliefs, there were several Roman Catholics, one culturally protestant Christian who openly admitted to not actually believing in God (not entirely sure how that works), one protestant Christian who didn't say much other than that she was a protestant Christian, and my roommate, a very passionate, outspoken, and charismatic protestant Christian.  The rest of the members of the class were either agnostic or atheist.

As the discussion progressed, much of the attention became focused on my roommate, as she was the only regularly active and devoutly outspoken religious person in the room.  Furthermore, her beliefs seemed radical to most of the rest of the class.  Much scrutiny was paid to the fact that my roommate believes that whether or not one goes to heaven is not based upon the good or bad things which one does in his/her life.  Instead, it is based upon one's belief and faith in Jesus.  Serial killers and child molesters, if they truly believe and accept that Jesus died on their behalf, will go to heaven; likewise, if Gandhi or Mother Theresa never came to believe and accept Jesus' sacrifice for them, they will go to hell.  To everyone (or at least every one who spoke up) in the room, this was an entirely novel concept.

Now, I have no clue who all reads this blog or what your respective backgrounds are, but I grew up in a devoutly protestant Christian home in which we went to church more than once a week, I went to a Christian highschool, and even here at American U., my closest friends tend to share at least my most basic religious beliefs.  So, to me, the idea that someone wouldn't understand the most basic tenant of my faith made no sense.  We live in a supposedly Christian nation, and while I know AU is very unique in its frequent rejection of devout Christianity, it never really dawned on me that some people here (or really anywhere in America for that matter) might not understand at least the very basic tenants of my faith.

So I'm going to lay it out.  Not to try and convince anyone of anything.  That's not the point, and beyond that, it would never work.  Believing in this requires both knowledge and faith.  Knowledge alone will never lead one to believe.  But I digress.  I'm only sharing this because I don't want to keep talking about being a Christian and about having faith, without people understanding what it is I mean by that.  It was my own naivety, personal comfort bubble, and cowardice that has kept me from doing this thus far, and I really am sorry for that.

This is what I believe to be true to the core of my being.  It is my statement of faith, and my declaration of love for this crazy radical man and son of God named Jesus:

I believe that this world is broken, and that everyone in it is entirely screwed up.  There's something terribly wrong with this place and these people.  We weren't meant to be like this.  We were made by a sovereign and holy God who loves us completely, but who also gave us free will, because he didn't want robots.  With this free will, we screwed up, and we continue to screw up.  Because God is entirely perfect, entirely good, and entirely holy (meaning that He cannot allow Himself to be with anyone who is not entirely perfect and good as well), he can no longer be connected with us like He used  to be.  However, because God is also compassionate and loving beyond anything that we could ever imagine, He cannot stand to be away from us, and He continues to help us and even show Himself to us, even though it hurts his holiness.  So God had to somehow find a way to reconcile His need to not be with imperfect beings and his need to embrace us with His unceasing love.  Well, God has a Son, and that Son agreed to come to this earth over 2,000 years ago to show us the extend of God's crazy radical, heart-wrenchingly awesome love for us.  Jesus didn't come here to condemn us, but simply to love us.  He also came here to show us what it's like to love those around us.  He wasn't here to set up some great moral code, but instead to be a radical, crazy example of what it's like to love those who are absolutely least in this world.  The culmination of this radical life of love was to agree to be tortured and brutally killed, accepting the ultimate punishment for every crappy thing which every human being to walk this earth has ever done so that no one else has to.  Jesus died for everyone, because He loves us all so God damn much that He couldn't stand the thought of any of us spending an eternal afterlife of total separation from all things good, including and especially God Himself.  God doesn't want anyone to experience what that total lack of Him is like, so he offered His son to die on our behalf.  The even more amazing thing about it all, though, is that, because Jesus never actually did anything wrong while on earth, death had no power over Him, so after three days in the grave, He rose from the dead, having conquered all disease, every horrible thing any human being has ever thought or done, and death itself, both physical and spiritual.

I don't fully understand it all, and it makes no sense to me why Jesus would do what He did, but what I do know is that if I simply believe it to be true and accept and truly accept that Jesus died in my place, and I will be able to spend eternity being completely connected to Jesus and everything that is good and amazing in this world and the next.

What I think that I like most about what Jesus did for me (and everyone else) is that he lived out this crazy radical life, basically just showing us how it's done.  He was entirely radical.  I know that I've said it already, but he really, truly was.  He declared the entire legal and moral code obsolete.  He advocated socialism.  He was a total feminist.

That last one's my favourite, and I love how much evidence there is to support it.

During the time of Jesus, women were not allowed to learn the Torah or address men in public (or even in private depending on the relationship).  Yet many of Jesus' good friends were women, during a time when women were viewed as essentially less than maggots. He allowed women to be His disciples.  In fact, Jesus' female followers were the only ones to stay with Him throughout His whole trial and execution; all of His male followers deserted Him, though they eventually returned.  He listened to women and showed them respect.  He refused to condemn and therefore saved the life of a woman with the worst reputation imaginable (she kept sleeping with other people's husbands).  Many scholars believe that Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' closest friends, yet she was a former prostitute.

And yet over the past years, decades, even centuries, the organized Christian church has chosen to reject this Jesus whom I have come to love so much.  The church tends to pay lip-service to Christ, and then immediately launch into its impossible laundry list of moral and political expectations for "good" Christians.

The Church has forgotten about Jesus, about his radicalism, and his socialism, about His feminism, about all of the crazy stuff which He did for the sole purpose of showing how radical His love is.  In fact, it's worse than a mere forgetting.  I believe that, in so many ways, the modern church has rejected this Jesus.  Instead of focusing on the most broken and hurting populations in our society in order to love them radically, the church seeks out these populations in order to condemn them and tell them how to change.  Instead of picking up Jesus' feminist mantle and advocating for female equality, the church lectures young women about their proper place in the church, in society, and in the home.  Instead of rejecting the legalism of the religious leaders which Jesus condemned so harshly (the only people whom Jesus condemned were the religious leaders, ironically), the church has created its own hierarchical list of morality.

By embracing the gospel of fear, the gospel of capitalism (aka the "Prosperity Gospel"), and the gospel of the Religious Right, the modern church has utterly rejected the radical, all-inclusive, even socialist message of Jesus.  This is why I have such a problem with the modern Church, and yet I still love Jesus so much.  But like St. Augustine says, "The Church is a whore, but she's my mother."  As much as I can't stand how the church has distorted and utterly rejected my Jesus, I still must love her, even though it hurts.

This is what I believe.  I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything.  That's not the point.  Jesus didn't sit around arguing and cajoling people into finally conceding that He was the Son of God.  No, half the time He didn't even want it to be said out loud.  Instead, He just lived his life, let his radical actions and ideas speak for themselves, and then asked His followers to live radical lives too, and to simply tell His story.  So that's what I'm trying to do.

I refuse to reject this amazing man named Jesus, no matter how crazy radical He seems.  He is my salvation, my reason for living, my everything.  And a long time ago, I said to him, "Yes, Here I am.  Send me."  And so I go, knowing full well that where thus life may lead may be crazy and radical and uncomfortable.  But that's ok, because the Jesus that I know will give me exactly what I need to live this life.  I will not reject Him, and I even will not reject the modern church, but I will reject what they've done to my Jesus.

Another feminist rant. What else did you expect?

So it really annoys me when people (male or female) make references to a specific piece of the male anatomy as a dysphemism for courage of some kind.  It's another one of those cultural slip of the tongues that most people say without even thinking.  It permeates our airwaves and our movies and our every expression.  And yet it serves as a constant reminder to women that they are less than, that they are incapable of achieving the same level of courage, audacity, or toughness that a "real man" can.

A friend's recent facebook status update used the phrase "...maybe one day I'll have the balls to [do the same thing which someone I respect does now]."  He was talking about a man of God and the courage which he had to talk about the true meaning of sex, as well as calling out men's improper and even violent treatment of women.  The message of the video my friend was promoting is absolutely fantastic, but I almost didn't even want to watch it due to the off-handed "balls" comment.

In one of my favourite movies, Whip It, the main character's best friend, Pash, tells Bliss that she doesn't have the "balls" to try out for the Austin all-girls roller derby team.  The movie is about a bunch of kick-ass, rough-and-tumble, anti-establishment women who basically say a big "F-you" to society's view of the proper place of women by wearing slutty clothing, having tons of very visible tattoos, and obsessively competing in the hard core game of Roller Derby.  And yet, by saying that she will "grow the balls" to learn how to play Roller Derby, she basically infers that this all-female sport really requires some form of maleness.

I've never understood why this anatomical reference is necessary.  I'm very aware that the people who say it rarely mean anything by it, but there is a very clear subtext behind the phrase.  That subtext goes something like this: "I am less than a true man because I can't do [whatever it is that he/she is trying to do]; furthermore, a true woman would never be able to do this thing."  However, what most people who are using this phrase truly means is "I don't have the courage/toughness to be able to do this thing, but I wish I did."

I'm gonna state the obvious here, because it apparently isn't so obvious to some people:

Men are not inherently more capable of courage or toughness.  Nor do men who lack said qualities become less than a true man.
Women do not inherently lack courage or toughness, and they don't have to become like a man in order to gain these qualities.

The phrase "grow some balls" (and its variations) is just one of the phrases which permeates our society which inherently degrade women.  "Man-up," "who wears the pants in that family?" and "Is it that time of the month?"  All of these phrases tell women that, due to their sex, they are somehow less than men.  Womanhood is negative.  Our two little tiny X-shaped chromosomes determine our lesser place in society and in the world.

Speaking of which, I find it incredibly strange that at a University which is 70% female, women very rarely run for student government positions and are even more rarely actually elected.  For this reason, I'm considering applying for an SG cabinet position for next fall.  Not sure though.  I've never really thought about getting officially involved in politics, but I figured, if I'm going to complain about a lack of women in the Student Government, I might as well do something about it.  Because at a majority female institution, we deserve to have female representation.  Because I am woman enough, and no actual balls are required.