Posts tagged “feminism”

Can’t You See You Like I Do?

Posted on December 8, 2014

“Mama, you are so pretty in that shirt,” I turned to look at where the voice had come from and saw Briar. I had known it was her talking, but the words were so out of context with how I was feeling. Her lips were turned up in the sweetest little smile and her eyes danced, happy. “Thank you, sweet love,” I said smiling at her. My smile was genuine, my face calm, but my insides were racing. I’d gone through the morning bedraggled, stretched out pajama bottoms hanging from my frame, a t-shirt with just a tank top underneath, and my hair doing that 40-something, morning halo of kinks. The bags under my eyes taunt me, even after a night of more than…

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Categories: Me

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Fighting the Darkness

Posted on October 29, 2014

Sometimes things alight on me, magical things—good moods, optimism, luck, butterflies. I revel in their arrival and do my best to enjoy them while they’re here. Other times things come to roost that aren’t the kind of thing that you share on Instagram or gush about over lunch. Anger, despair, even defeat. They cling to me without warning, more like oil than solid weight, suffocating me and defying any sort of strength or resistance. I do my best to avoid what I think may be triggers—comparisons to other people’s lives, reading the headlines, but sometimes the emotions are here before I realize it. The video that made the rounds yesterday about a woman getting catcalled switched my spirit to darkness like a switch. I cringed as…

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Categories: Roar

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A Good Fit

Posted on July 12, 2014

There are some milestones that I have breathlessly watched for—first steps, “mom”, reading, riding a bike. I rejoice as the girls achieve them and some times find myself a bit crestfallen at how much they make me ache. Over the past few months I’ve realized that we’ve reached a new one and it terrifies me. All three girls are sitting on an axis that is tilting them toward a new realm that involves unabashed worship of kids older than they are. I can see it in the trance-like effect of movies, the absolute silence that comes over them when we pass a group of teenagers, the way their necks crane when we pass the neighbor’s house that is always peppered with boys playing basketball…

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Categories: Roar

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Sticks and Stones

Posted on April 9, 2012

I can barely manage the questioning looks the girls give me sometimes, so I cannot even begin to fathom what it would be like to be a public figure subject to international, round-the-clock scrutiny. And let’s be honest, public scrutiny grows ever closer to a modern day witch hunt. Should political figures be questioned about their morality? I’m not sure, maybe if they shove one persona down our throats they should be called out if they’re being dishonest. Infidelity? Sketchy financial dealings? Disappointing, but I just don’t know where the line is.  A place I feel vastly more comfortable standing up and growing my throat clearing into a defiant, “Hell no” yell is the heaping amounts of criticism, speculation and ridicule waged on women.…

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Categories: featured, Roar

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