Girls Can Be Anything: Guest Post from Megan McCafferty for #HereWeAre

March 16, 2017 |

Today’s guest post for “About The Girls”/#HereWeAre is from one of my long-time favorite authors, from wayyy back into my own teen hood: Megan McCafferty!

Megan McCafferty has written about adolescence for two decades. The author of of ten novels, she’s best known for the Jessica Darling series. She’s currently adapting SLOPPY FIRSTS into a stage play that will debut in spring 2018.

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I was a 10-year-old Junior Girl Scout in 1983. It was my second year with the organization and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stick around for a third. At my young age I was already wary of any group that required conformity, especially the form of an actual uniform. And I hated knocking on strangers’ doors to sell Thin Mints and Samoas. What was the point of sticking with Scouts when my sash would always have more blank space than badges?

I liked our Troop Leader though. Mrs. Henderson was the divorced-and-remarried mom of Kim Hartmann, my only friend with a different last name from her parents. I liked Mrs. Henderson mostly because she bought Kim a copy of FOREVER… and let her daughter read it even after she discovered it was all about sexy sexy sex.

Still, I was pretty determined to de-enlist from the Scouts when Mrs. Henderson made an exciting announcement at our weekly meeting.

“Troop 10 is participating in a show! On stage! In front of an audience!”

I loved being in shows! On stage! In front of an audience!

The theme of the show was “Singing and Dancing Through the Decades” and each Troop was randomly assigned a specific time period to celebrate in skit, song and dance. I wasn’t much of a dancer, but I was one hell of a singer/actress double threat. No 10-year-old Annie wannabe could out-vibrato me. For a blissful ten seconds, I imagined myself at center stage… I was the 30s in a red dress and curly wig singing “Tomorrow.” I was the 40s in a swingy skirt and army cap harmonizing all three Andrews sisters’ parts in “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” I was the 1950s in a Pink Ladies jacket, belting Rizzo’s tour de force “There Are Worse Things I Can Do.” Nevermind that my historical references were mostly anachronistic and all from movie musicals. For the first time since I put on my Junior green beret, I was excited to be a Scout.

This excitement lasted for about five seconds, when Mrs. Henderson informed us that Troop 10 would present the E.R.A. era.

The what what?

“The Equal Rights Amendment era.”

I had no idea what this was. And if I didn’t know, none of us did.

Mrs. Henderson devoted the rest of the meeting trying to convince us of the great entertainment value to be mined from second-wave feminism of the early 1970s. And the more we heard about inequality, Congress and constitutional amendments, the less enthusiastic we all were. Mrs. Henderson, however, remained optimistic.

“One of you will be the first female President of the United States!”

“In the show?” I asked.

I knew a juicy part when I heard it.

“In the show! And in real life!”

Mrs. Henderson lost me again.

A few years earlier, my beloved first grade teacher Mrs. Mohr had introduced me to the book GIRLS CAN BE ANYTHING by Norma Klein.* In it, six-year-old kindergartner Marina pushes back against her boysplaining best friend Adam. He says she can’t be a doctor (she can be a nurse!) or a pilot (she can be a stewardess!) or President of the United States (she can be his wife!). Marina isn’t having any of this sexist nonsense. If other countries elected Golda Maier and Margaret Thatcher, why couldn’t the United States elect Marina? I loved the book but was disappointed by the realization that it was probably already too late for Marina and for me. I did the math: I’d turn 35 years old just in time for the 2008 election. Surely the first female President would be elected before then.

Mrs. Henderson needed me on her side. If I didn’t muster any enthusiasm for the ERA era, no girl in the Troop would.

“Why are we making big deal about girls being able to do all the same stuff as boys?” I asked her. “This E.R.A. stuff should have been settled a million years ago already.”

“You’re right, but it’s not.” Mrs. Henderson said. “And until it is? We keep making a big deal.”

Mrs. Henderson’s vision was simple, maybe even inspired by Klein’s book. All girls in Troop 10 would dress up as just a few of the many jobs women could do as well as men. We had a doctor and a pilot, as well as a construction worker, a teacher, a scientist and a mother. We held a special vote to determine who would be Troop 10’s First Female President of the United States.

I won the election in a landslide.

On show day, I dressed in a wool blazer and pleated skirt. The outfit was itchy and uncomfortable but commanded respect. I wore it that one time and never again. I marched in circles holding a poster saying “VOTE FOR MEGAN FOR PRESIDENT AND VOTE FOR ERA.” It wasn’t as glamorous as the razzle-dazzle song-and-dance numbers in my head, but I was proud to be chosen by my peers to represent the most powerful person in the world. I couldn’t help but wonder about the girl out there somewhere who would eventually grow up to be the real first female President of the United States.

I still wonder about that girl.

And until we know who she is, I guess we all need to keep making a big deal.

*Norma Klein deserves her own post. She wrote groundbreaking YA books throughout the 70s and 80s featuring fiercely feminist teenage girls who had lots and lots of sex with–and sometimes without–consequences. She died at 50 in 1989, a premature end that perhaps explains why she isn’t worshipped on the same scale as her kick-ass contemporary, The Goddess Judy Blume. All of Klein’s books are out of print.

“I Push That Voice Down”: Lilliam Rivera on Body Image & Appearance for Latinas #HereWeAre

March 14, 2017 |

Welcome to the week-long celebration of feminism! This series, which began its life as “About The Girls,” has expanded this year to highlight broader issues of feminism and social justice. Guest writers are sharing their insights into their own life and writing experiences with feminism.

Today, we welcome Lilliam Rivera, author of the recently-released YA title The Education of Margot Sanchez, to talk about clothing, the Latina body, and more.

Lilliam Rivera is an award-winning writer and author of The Education of Margot Sanchez, a contemporary young adult novel available now from Simon & Schuster. Recently named a “2017 Face to Watch” by the Los Angeles Times, Lilliam’s work has appeared in Tin House, Los Angeles Times, and Latina, to name a few. She lives in Los Angeles with her family where she’s completing her second novel.

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“They say I’m a beast.
And feast on it. When all along
I thought that’s what a woman was.”

“Loose Woman” by Sandra Cisneros

Mami tells me to cover up. The oversized t-shirt I wear reaches just above my knees. It’s early Saturday morning and I’m ready to sink in to some Saturday morning cartoons but apparently that’s not going to be the case.

“Put something decent on,” she says.

I glance over to the kitchen. My younger brother sits at our kitchen table, loudly slurping the milk from his bowl of cereal. He wears a t-shirt and boxers, his regular pajamas. I look down at what I’m wearing. We’re dressed fairly similar. I can’t find a difference.

“But I’m not going anywhere right now,” I say. “I’m having breakfast.”

Mami shakes her head.

I reluctantly go to my bedroom and put on jogging pants and a bra. The message my mother was sending was clear: My body is meant to be hidden. Exposing my legs and not wearing bra, even to my own family, was considered wrong. Even in an innocent shirt, I was projecting some sort of sexual overture. I’m twelve years old.

Mami is a very soft-spoken person. She rarely yells. When she tells me to do something I usually do as she says. At that time, I didn’t have the words to form a valid argument on why I should be allowed to relax in my home like my brother. Instead I was left with this deep feeling that somehow my body was dangerous and dirty.

According to a study conducted by Brandon L. Velez, Irma D. Campos, and Bonnie Moradi in regards to the relations of sexual objectification and racist discrimination with Latina’s body image, “greater internalization may lead women to self objectify by focusing on how their body appears to others rather than on how it feels or what it can do.” The study continues to state, “Self-objectification manifests behaviorally as body surveillance, or habitual monitoring of one’s appearance.”

Throughout my teenage years, I wore oversized clothing that never showed off my curves. There are very few pictures of me as a teenager. Constant voices in my head told me that I was ugly. My parents never said those words to me. Still, the subtle signs from my mother helped contribute to this low self-esteem. I struggled to understand why my body needed to be policed, why it was so important to wear a certain outfit, to cover up my growing chest, for my body to be controlled by my parents.

It would take many years, and therapy, to finally overcome this distorted view of myself. I know I look good and I love to dress up accentuating what I like about myself. But even as I sit to type those words there is a slight strangeness that creeps in, reminding me that I need to cover up. I push that voice down.

My daughter is twelve years old. I try to teach her to have a better understanding of her body and to cultivate a more positive body image. It’s not an easy task. She still suffers from the many ailments that I did. We live in Los Angeles where celebrities are worshipped. She notices how certain classmates are “popular” and why she isn’t. Television and movies continue to perpetuate the same aspirational messages that thin and white is the only beauty allowed. But unlike my upbringing, I try not to shy away from the uncomfortable conversations that my mother would never allow us to have. I don’t blame my mother for this. This low self-esteem spiral was passed down from her mother and so on. I just hope to stop the cycle.

Research:

“Relations of Sexual Objectification and Racist Discrimination with Latina Women’s Body Image and Mental Health”

Brandon L. Velez, Irma D. Campos, Bonnie Moradi

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/cc66/c02aeaaf828a56535175e2a18a3216f039e5.pdf

Defining The “Strong Girl” in YA: A Guest Post from Anna Breslaw

March 13, 2017 |

Today launches a week-long series that began as an exploration of girls and reading, asking the question “what About The Girls?” This year’s take on the series goes a little bit in a different direction. There’s still a good deal of talk about girls and reading, but the topic focuses more on feminism, opening up discussion to bigger topics and those all along the gender spectrum.

The first piece in the series comes from Anna Breslaw.

Hi! I’m a New York-based freelance writer and author. Previously, I was a staff writer at Cosmo and a sex & relationships editor at Cosmopolitan.com. I’ve also been a contributing writer for Jezebel and Glamour.com.

My debut YA novel, Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here, is out now from Razorbill/Penguin.

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When I was 14, I felt self-conscious every time I read the description of Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield that opened every single Sweet Valley High book: “A perfect size six, with long blonde hair and blue eyes.” The year I graduated from high school, Twilight showed marginal progress by normalizing an Everygirl protagonist. Unfortunately, she was also a passive, helpless victim, caught in an abusive relationship that was framed as romantic.

The Hunger Games, which exploded just three years after that, was basically the backlash to Bella. Katniss was active, independent, a warrior who didn’t rely on anyone but herself. It worked because it subverted gender roles and tropes on multiple levels: Katniss’s journey is motivated by love, but for her little sister rather than a crush. She dreads her girly makeover in the Capitol, but ultimately bonds with her stylist and is surprised by how powerful she feels in her “dress on fire.” Peeta, the male love interest, was a gentle, domestic caretaker—but none the less sexy for it.

But many less-thoughtful ripoffs (I will not name names, because I am #classy) rely on a lazy, underwritten version of Katniss. Go to Barnes & Noble right now, and you’ll find countless dystopian YA books led by a “strong female character.” She knows how to fight. She doesn’t wear dresses. The opposite sex isn’t really a priority. She doesn’t care if people like her. Did I mention she knows how to fight?

Ironically, these are all heteronormative alpha-male attributes. A “strong female character” these days is pretty much a dude with a braid—sometimes even a misogynist one, scoffing at all those Other Girls™ who care about fashion and boys. As empowering as this trend may seem on the surface, it actually perpetuates the idea that conventional feminine traits are synonymous with weakness.

While the lexicon of female characters in YA has expanded over the years, the insistence that one type of girl is a more “worthy” heroine than others—and a reliance on easy commercial tropes over three dimensional characters—has remained the same. Teenage girls today are a lot smarter and more aware of their place in society than I was at their age, but I still worry that there’s some 14-year-old bookworm out there who mistakes macho posturing for female strength. Maybe it makes her feel ashamed that she does like dresses, that her feelings are hurt easily, or that she’s insecure, or that she cares what boys think, or that her biggest battles are fought on the inside.

Now more than ever, that girl needs to know that navigating these anxieties and contradictions are the things that make her strong. Simply being female in the world makes her a dystopian heroine.

Own Your Voice & Share Your Story: The Lady Project & Wrapping Up “About The Girls”

March 25, 2016 |

A recent college graduate approached me two weeks ago to thank me for the workshop I gave at The Lady Project Summit. To anyone who has ever presented or talked in front of a group, it’s pretty well-known people will approach you after and chat. It’s my favorite part, since often, I get asked really great questions and get to interact one-on-one.

But what this girl said to me really struck me, and it struck me hard. She told me thank you for my presentation because it will change her life. After spending four years in college and earning a degree in a field she enjoys, she’s working full-time in an unrelated place. It’s not awful, but the challenge is she has no idea what it is she wants to do. And the reason she thanked me was because my presentation focused on figuring out what it is you want in your life and how you can effectively take risks through discovering your core values. These are the things deep inside you that matter; they are touchy-feely sort of things that are different for each and every person.

They are not the sort of thing you’d learn about in school.

This girl told me it meant a lot to listen to someone talk about values, rather than career milestones. It hit me then how little time we spend talking about the softer parts of ourselves and how much those matter in all aspects of our lives. In a world that is eager to funnel you into one place or another, it’s important to stop and reflect upon the ways you as an individual get to control those funnels and how much you pour into one space or another.

What struck me about her comments, though, weren’t that they were flattering to me (they meant a lot, of course). Rather, they were the same sorts of thoughts I was having about the event that day and the takeaways I’d had from the workshops I attended. I had the opportunity to learn about assertive communication — learning there is a tiny but powerful difference between assertive and aggressive that has changed my entire perspective of talking and asking for what I want and need. The other workshop I got to attend was about negotiation, where I walked away with real tactics for negotiating and advocating for myself. Both workshops, as well as two of the powerful keynotes, were given by smart, driven, engaged women and it hit me how wonderful it was to be learning powerful things about “softer” talents from women who’d figured these things out. So what this college graduate student said to me mirrored so many of the things I’d been thinking about my own experiences and things I wish I’d had the opportunity to say the those speakers.

The last few months have been personally challenging for me. I haven’t talked much about it and don’t plan to, but I’ve had to make a few life adjustments in order to make space for even more changes in my life. Non of it is bad, per se, but it is exhausting and draining in a way that can exacerbate the reason I need to do those things in the first place. I’ve tried to find positive, exciting spaces to make up for it, including joining a local yoga studio and being involved with the practice on and off the mat, but it was really The Lady Project Summit that unlocked something for me.

There are some wonderful women in my life. There are incredibly talented, well-spoken, driven, and reliable ladies in my life. But now that I’m not engaged with a professional institution as I have been before, I’ve missed out on the opportunity of networking, of learning new skills in an in-person environment, and enjoying the spontaneity of connection. I’m not a particularly extroverted individual, but one reason I find conferences to be worthwhile is that I can take away the things others say, mull them over as long as I need to, and figure out which pieces are worth it for me and which aren’t. I love being challenged by new ideas and voices, and part of what made The Lady Project Summit so wonderful was that I knew no one in attendance — I’d only emailed and chatted briefly with the CEO and co-founder — and I had never attended an event that was 100% female-centric and female-developed.

I can think of no way to describe the level of enthusiasm, of empowerment, and of intellectual discussion and “you can do it, dammit” spirit that infused the entire event. Walking away, I was filled with a sort of excitement I hadn’t felt in a long time, and I’ve been eager to share the things I’ve learned and learned about with about anyone who will listen. (And yes, if you’d like my notes from the sessions and keynotes, please hit me up — I am jazzed to share them!).

from Emilie Aries of BossedUp.org

This year’s “About the Girls” almost didn’t happen, in part because I’ve not been feeling like my best self. I didn’t want to push something together that wasn’t great or outstanding. In part because I take pride in everything I write here and elsewhere, and in part because I know how blog engagement is down significantly from what it has been. In order to stand out anymore, you need to be angry or be talking about hot issues of the moment. And honestly? I’m just not interested in that right now. What I am interested in is primarily self-focused: I want my old self back, and I want to put together the best work I can in all capacities.

But when the end of February rolled around and I had no “About the Girls” to look forward to, I knew that I had to put it together again. Even if it was low-key. I knew the women who would participate in the series would turn out great work.

I’ve thought about that last-minute decision in conjunction with the way I feel about blogging and engagement more broadly, and I can’t help but see the parallels between those things and what it was I walked away with from The Lady Project. There will absolutely be times we’re all on our up, just as there are absolutely times we’ll be on the down. Respecting them both matters, but there shouldn’t be a point where one’s down impacts one’s ability to recognize there will come an up time again. Maybe this series was meant to be smaller and tighter this year; not because our audience isn’t there — it is, and thank you! — but rather, it was meant to be smaller so I could use my reserve energy to put together the most amazing anthology for next spring.

And maybe, part of this year’s “About the Girls” is about recognizing that I needed to hear from the voices I heard from, as much as I needed to share them with readers (and then those readers sharing them with their readers and teen girls themselves).

Female-identifying individuals are amazing. They are wildly talented, and they’re worth our time and energy. In many ways, it’s surrounding ourselves with women as women that we begin to truly understand the magic of other girls. Being in a space that welcomes women of all shapes and sizes and ages and experiences and then encourages those women to be themselves in order to find their best selves is like nothing else in the world. The energy is there. The compassion. The “got your back” vibe. Not to mention how incredible it is to see other ladies in their own element and showing others how to make the best of theirs.

The final keynote from The Lady Project Summit left a sour note in my mouth following such a spectacular day. The speaker is a business woman who crawled from the bottom of the barrel up to being a major player in some major companies. I cringed about ten minutes into her talk when she proudly proclaimed herself “not a feminist, but a woman.” Those, to me, are not separate identities. Her advice to the audience bothered me to no end because it came down to this: play the boys’ game in order to be part of the game. Dress nicely. Don’t wear dark nail polish. If you got in trouble for wearing something, it was probably merited. “Don’t distract from your message” was her repeated mantra.

But the truth is our world has bowed to and catered to the boys’ game forever. If we don’t stand up and demand change and if we don’t do things on our own damn terms, then the boys will continue to be the ones we ask about and bend do. The boys will continue running the show, putting limits onto what is and is not “acceptable.” And even if you play the game by their rules, who says what the outcome is will be what it is that makes you your best self? Dampscribbler on Twitter said it even better:

@veronikellymars Also, you don't win *your* prizes that way, best case you might win theirs, maybe. Know what you want.

— Dampscribbler (@dampscribbler) March 13, 2016

“About the Girls” is about remembering how important it is to recognize that girls and girls’ stories and voices matter. Every girl has magic within her, and it’s important to encourage girls to cultivate those things and share them in the ways that feel best to them. Likewise, it’s vital to tell girls and women when their stories impact you and when it is you’ve taken a piece of their insight and grown from it (or expect to grow from it). I want a world that is rightfully angry and driven, but I also want a world that encourages girls to work together, for one another, with one another. That is how we allow one another to come from out of the shadows, how we stand up and own our voices and refuse the erroneous beliefs pressed upon us by others, and how we come to find safe spaces and solid, powerful bonds among each other.

This is how we claim our own prizes and how we find what matters to us.

Never stop reaching. Your way is the right way.

Permission Granted: Guest Post by EK Johnston (Exit, Pursued By A Bear, A Thousand Nights, and More)

March 24, 2016 |

The final guest post in “About the Girls” this year is from EK Johnston. After reading Exit, Pursued By A Bear, her most recent novel, I had expressed a few questions that felt left open for me as a reader. They weren’t criticisms, but rather, threads of thought I wanted to toy with. She reached out to me to answer them — and thus, here’s a really thought-provoking post about power, about girls, and about how sometimes realistic fiction can be the most fantasy of fiction.

E.K. Johnston had several jobs and one vocation before she became a published writer. If she’s learned anything, it’s that things turn out weird sometimes, and there’s not a lot you can do about it. Well, that and how to muscle through awkward fanfic because it’s about a pairing she likes.

You can follow Kate on Twitter (@ek_johnston) to learn more about Alderaanian political theory than you really need to know, or on Tumblr (ekjohnston) if you’re just here for pretty pictures.

E.K. Johnston is represented by Adams Literary.

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There’s a thing that I keep saying: this book is the most fantasy that I have written. The worst part is that it’s true.

I have unleashed a plague of dragons across the globe, turned a girl into a god so that she could save the world, and I’m in the process of re-writing history from the Victorian Era onwards, and yet Exit, Pursued By A Bear is my fantasy novel.

To write it, I imagined a world where a girl is believed and supported; a world where adults do their jobs and children are gracious; a world where a bear of a girl can heal, and then save herself. And it’s the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever done.

It’s made slightly less fantastical by the setting. Canada, particularly southwestern Ontario, is a much easier place to access abortion clinics, therapists, and necessary medication, but it’s not perfect. Hermione has access to a car, which not every rural teenager would – especially if they didn’t have their parents’ support. Other Canadian places, like PEI, which has no clinics at all, and the Territories, need attention and funding.

I don’t regret writing any of it the way I did.

I didn’t set out to write a different kind of rape story. Or, rather, I did, but I don’t want to set books like SPEAK, ALL THE RAGE, FAULT LINE, SEX & VIOLENCE, etc, etc, aside. Those books are important. Those books are real. BEARS!!! is a “how it could be” book, a “how it should be” book. It’s the world I want for children who have been violated.

I think what I ended up with was Polly Olivier in book form; the girl who will hold your hair while you vomit and your flower when you duel. The VERONICA MARS comparison was deliberate on my part: this is a Veronica who never had to build that shell, and, more importantly, Lily and Meg don’t have to die to kick-start the story.

Because that’s what I want too: stories for girls that don’t revolve around what they are to their families, teachers, and boyfriends, where their reactions aren’t dramatic fodder. I wasn’t able to do this entirely in BEARS!!!, but I could have my characters be aware of the roles they played in other people’s lives, and redefine themselves accordingly.

I tend to view writing YA less as coming-of-age stories, and more as deciding who you want to be with who you are, but both of those imply a certain level of arrested development. We love to tell stories, especially tragic ones, and lock the protagonists into that narrative as if they can never be anything else, but that’s not how life works.

The world expects so much of girls, with no guidance and a myriad of contradictions. Hermione learns to give herself permission to live outside of that, despite what happened to her and how people want to view her as a result. I give you permission to do the same thing.