On Being a White Cis Woman at the #WomensMarch & Beyond

I keep thinking back to Jack's quote from Lost as I write this: But if we can't live together, we're going to die alone. 

Maybe dying alone is a dramatic outcome, since we're not stranded on an island and based on the attendance of about 3 million people at marches all around the world last Saturday, we are most certainly not alone. But it is true that we are stronger together, and in order to truly "be together," not in the physical sense of marching, but in the ideological sense that we're all standing up for one another, white women have a lot of work to do.

Consider these points:

• 53% of white women voted for Donald Trump...the MAJORITY of white women. Why?
• how many women of color did you see at a march wearing a pussy hat, if you attended?
• what are transwomen supposed to think when participants at the marches are equating anatomy with womanhood?

If these things don't make you pause, then you're not doing the hard work yet. 

And consider this photo:

Photo credit: Angela Peoples @ms_peoples

When I saw this photo online, I made the mistake of reading the comments. Predictably, white women were defensive. I don't know the women in the photo, and for all I know, those white women are active transgender organizers in the Black Lives Matter movement. I have no idea...and the point isn't about those women personally. The point is that while we are donning pink knit hats and posting selfies of ourselves at the march on social media, women of color know that MOST white women voted for a candidate who has bragged about sexual assault, does not acknowledge #BLM, is already threatening women's health by defunding Planned Parenthood, and is threatening the rights of our LGBTQ community. 

White women, we're embarrassing ourselves and undermining our claims of feminism if we ignore that more of us than not support the patriarchy that continues to hold all of us back.

This weekend I also saw an online post from a white woman explaining why she wasn't attending the Women's March (not linking to it here. I don't want to be responsible for promoting it). It was a whole lot of march shaming, culminating in the assertion that we should stop whining about how bad it is in the U.S. and go help women in other countries who have it much worse than us. Not surprisingly, a bunch of white women posted and liked it on Facebook. And I thought, THIS is who we need to understand. White women who voted for Trump, who are shaming those of us who are fighting for equality, who are denying our lived experiences. Just as bad as the white liberal feminists who want credit for showing up but not doing the hard work are the white women who deny that the hard work even needs to be done. 

So for my white cis sisters who attended the march, waving their signs and wearing their pussy hats, here's some work for us to get started on this week. It's not going to be comfortable. As our sisters of color and trans sisters can tell you, it is not easy. But if we are to live together, to work together, to make change together, then we need to be prepared for the fight. This work is going to require more than poster-making or hat-knitting skills. It requires us to examine our innermost biases and beliefs, open ourselves to the experiences of others that are different than our own lived experiences, and then fight to change their experiences even when fighting for them means challenging our own privilege. THAT is the work. 

And for any of the white women who voted for Trump, or who spoke out against those of us who attended the Women's March this weekend, I invite you to do the work, too. We really are all in this together, and it all starts by listening to each other. ALL of each other, not just those who look and think and vote like you.

Let's get started. 

Ask yourself these questions:

• What would you do if you were harassed at work based on your gender, race, or religion? Would you have the ability to quit your job, or easily find another one? What if you had worked hard your entire career and landed your dream job, only to be harassed at work? What would your options be?

• What would you do if you were the only breadwinner in your home? How would that change your answer or options to the scenario above?

• What if you or your child or your partner had a pre-existing medical condition and would lose health insurance and wouldn't be eligible under a new plan if you changed jobs? 

• How many transgender folks are in your family? Friend circle? Community? Do you know the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity? Do you know what agender, or bigender, or gender fluid mean? Do you know the laws in your state that protect or discriminate against transgender folks?

• Do you personally know folks who are Muslim? Undocumented? LGBTQ? How many of these folks are in your family, your friend circle, your community? If none, how could you meet them or hear their stories? 

• Have you ever avoided going to the doctor for routine care because you couldn't afford it? Do you know folks who have? Do you know people for whom free or affordable clinics like Planned Parenthood are their primary source of medical care? What services would you use if you suddenly lost your health care coverage?

•  Do you have a safety net for health care coverage once you retire if there is no Medicaid or Medicare? What will your options be?

• Have you ever been prescribed birth control pills for something other than birth control? What other options would you have if you could no longer afford birth control?

• What would you do if the schools in your local district had such poor student outcomes that families who could afford it all pay to send their kids to private school? What if you couldn't afford private school for your children?

• Do you have the option financially to stay home? What enables you to have that choice? If you are financially dependent on your partner, what would be the impact of them losing their job, losing their insurance, or simply being passed over for raises or promotions?

• Have you ever noted in a conversation that you "have a black friend" or "work with a Muslim" etc., to prove you aren't racist?

• Have you ever said in a conversation, "I'm not racist, but..."?

• Have you ever said in a conversation, "I'm not racist."?

• When considering Black Lives Matter, do you more closely identify with those who support, those who oppose, or police officers? If you don't most closely align with supporters, what would it feel like to change your perspective for a week? A month? A year? Could you view this movement through the experiences of a black woman? 

• Consider how your experiences and opportunities would be different if you were black. Or Muslim. Or born to undocumented parents. Or born with male anatomy but feel very much like a woman. How would your life be different today? What challenges would you face that you don't have to think about today?

 

The power of putting yourself out there

In the early days of my writing this blog, I would be surprised when people, sometimes people I was meeting for the first time, would tell me they read one of my posts. Over the years, I've come to be less surprised, but more grateful. While people have told me they have disagreed with my opinion, and I've even been threatened to edit or remove a post or two, in general everyone who has talked to me about one of my posts has been really positive.

I've written before about how nice it is to have someone talk to you about how something you've written has impacted them, but I've always focused on the positive experiences. I have realized in recent weeks that there are just as many negative reactions, and just as many possibilities for people to think poorly of me, form an opinion about me without ever meeting me. As wonderful as it would be for everyone to always heap praise, it is just as important to pay attention to the naysayers.

Tomorrow I'm presenting on the power of social media at the 20th Annual Professional Women's Association conference at UCSB. I've been putting together my slides, and thinking about how blogging has helped, or at least shaped, my career. The reality is that for as many job opportunities, projects, introductions and recommendations my social media presence has facilitated, there are likely many that were squashed by my personal reflections, my mentioning my children, maybe even because of my love of my pit bull (seriously, I've had people contact me privately...but look at this face!). At some point along the way, one of these things that I've shared through social media has likely meant an opportunity lost.

Darwin would like me to finish up this blog post.

And so...so what?

I am who I am. If I didn't get an opportunity because of my personal beliefs or interests, then it's very likely that opportunity would not have been a good fit for me. If hiring a mom is a problem, I'm not right for your organization. If my publicly sharing my personal reflections and faith is troubling, then we'd likely not be a good match. If my love of zombies and robots and taking selfies on the beach with my husband are turn offs, then it's probably best for both of us to just move along.

While I like to think I post a good mix of professional and personal content on my social media accounts, what's true is that everything I post is a reflection of me, the whole human being. Social media allows me to find my tribe and build a solid, supportive network, but for me, it's not a closed network of like-mindedness. I welcome the differences in life views and experiences, because reading about you helps me learn more about myself.

And learning from others is (almost) always a good thing.

So blog and tweet and post and I'll be reading along, nodding in violent agreement or crying in empathy or laughing because it's funny because it's true. But don't hide, because it's nice to get to know you better, even if we're not kindred spirits. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there because of the potential lost opportunities; there is so much more amazingness to be gained.

The reminder that death gives

It's been a brutal start to the year with the news of several of my favorite musicians and actors passing away weighing heavily on my heart. It's tough to lose someone who has inspired you, entertained you, motivated you, validated you. It's tough to lose several of them within the span of a couple weeks.

It's funny what you think about when you're dealing with loss.

One of my overarching emotional responses has been what I like to think of as my death panic. As someone who likes to dig in and discover the root cause, solve problems and uncover unexpected issues that affect outcomes, death is really my nemesis. It is not a problem to be solved; it just is. And we don't know, no one does, what it really is. Is all of what I am here, right here, right now? All of these feelings and dreams and fears, are they just temporary, wiped out when I die? Or is there something beyond, and if there is, will I get to recognize and experience it?

A lot of questions with no answers + no way to really know = death panic.


But there ARE things you can control here and now. The death of my idols has been the catalyst to
reexamine my priorities. What is the life I really want to lead? Who am I, and who do I want to be for the people I care about? If today was my last day, what would be my regrets?

The big question: am I spending my most valuable resource, time, doing the things that are important to me?

As a product manager, one of the biggest factors in the day to day work that we do is time. Time is a known, limited resource. My whole job is to prioritize and make decisions around scope and urgency. I need to collect data and try to predict the future: what will have the biggest impact? what is the minimum amount of effort that will bring value? what should we do first?

When death affects me, I start applying those product management principles to my life. What is my minimum viable product? What bugs do I need to address? What enhancements do I need to tackle? What other resources do I need?

The world lost an immense amount of talent in a short amount of time; I lost some of my biggest sources of inspiration. As I'm mourning those losses, I'm also trying to appreciate the reminder that death gives. Thank you for one parting lesson, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Natalie Cole, Lemmy Kilmister and Dan Haggerty.

Burning bright

Last Sunday I served as Worship Associate at USSB and shared this reflection in the service titled, Dark of Winter. I didn't know what the reflection was going to be about when I started writing...I was thinking about winter and cold and darkness and how they resonate for me. Sometimes just writing triggers memories to work through; one of the benefits of having this space to blog.

Welcome 2016. Here's to winter and writing and having community to support you.

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I grew up in Michigan, and during my preteen years, in Northern Michigan. Because of where I was raised, I have very particular mental references for what constitutes winter. Snow, of course. Lots and lots of snow. Cold. Burn your nose and ears and fingers cold. The kind of cold that creeps into your clothes and takes a while to shake off once you’re indoors. Blinding whiteness. Everything white and shiny and bright. Glittering whiteness. But the thing I miss most is the quiet.

When it’s so cold and snowy in the heart of winter in northern Michigan, you spend a lot of time indoors. Everyone does. Fireplaces crackle and blankets and slippers are the preferred fashion of the season. Indoors is loud and cozy and bustling with life as you stick close with family and friends to stay warm. In my house, there was a lot of laughter. A lot of reading. My sister and I put on shows for each other. There was safety and love in my house.

That wasn’t true for everyone. Winter in Northern Michigan for some meant being trapped. The winter I was in 7th grade, I went over to a friend’s house after school. You know that feeling, when you walk into an environment and immediately feel like you need to leave? I knew something bad was happening in that house. I could feel the suffocation all around me. I could sense my friend didn’t want me to leave. Her sister clung to me. I could feel the tension from their dad, asking when I was getting picked up. It felt like he wanted me out of there.

When my mom finally did pick me up, I didn’t know how to describe to her what I felt. The days were short then, so even though it was only 5 o’clock, it was already dark as night. When we got home, I went outside to think.

There’s nothing like the dark silence of winter. When heavy snow has fallen, there’s nothing to make noise: no crickets, no birds, just the occasional sound of branches breaking under the weight of heavy snow. Sometimes, when there’s no moisture in the cold air, the snow itself can creak, an icy, low-pitched crunch as the snow gives way underneath you.  I remember sitting in my backyard, thinking about my friend. The cold air hurt to breathe in, but I kinda liked it. It made me feel alive.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless. Maybe that was the first day I really understood what empathy was, knowing that my friend and her sister wanted me, needed me maybe? to help them, but not knowing why or how. I could just feel it. The only thing that made me feel better was sitting in the dark, feeling the cold, and surrounding myself in the deep silence of the winter night.

Eventually, my mom came out to get me, made me brush off the snow in our vestibule, and then brought me in to sit by the fire. She knew I was upset, and she knew that neither one of us could fix it. Sitting in our warm, glowing family room that night felt wrong to me. I wondered what my friend was doing. In the era before junior high kids had cell phones, wondering was all I could really do.

A few weeks later, my friend handed me a note in class. It was a suicide note. I was only 11 years old, but I knew that I couldn’t let me friend hurt herself, even though she had written in the note that if I told anyone, she would never talk to me again. I took the note to my school counselor and there was a huge hubbub. My friend was whisked off to meet with counselors and administrators. Calls were made. I knew big important things were happening, but I didn’t know what. I knew my friend was safe, though...I knew that she had a chance to tell people she could trust what was going on in her life. I still don’t know what those things were. She was true to her word for a long time...she didn’t talk to me, and even when she did, our friendship was never the same.

The rest of that winter, I would go sit outside at night. I would let the air burn my lungs and my toes start to tingle as my boots couldn’t keep out all of the cold after awhile. I would sit in the silence of the heavy, snowy night and think. Did I do the right thing? Was my friend going to be ok? How could I enjoy being inside with the warmth and love of my family when other people were sad, in need, and in pain? 

I still like to sit out in the dark and think, although winter nights are not quite the same in Carpinteria as they are in northern Michigan. There’s no snow to muffle the noise, and no cold air to burn my lungs. But I can remember those feelings, and those nights, thinking about gratitude and fairness and empathy and helplessness. And I can still capture that clarity of vision in the dark that somehow is so elusive in the light.

What does equality look like?

On November 9th, I led services at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara. The service focused on gender equality; previously, I posted my opening reflection, "What Would Geraldine Ferraro Do?" Here is the transcript for the sermon I shared in that morning's service.

_____________________________________________________________

A few months ago, I heard through my "family grapevine" that one of my kids was not a feminist, or at least he had been saying negative things about feminists. I was in complete disbelief and that night at dinner, I asked him about it directly.

Here's how the conversation went:

Me: "I hear you've been saying negative things about feminists."

Him: "Well, yeah. I mean, I don't get how they want to be treated better than men."

Me (seeing red, freaking out inside): "Feminists don't want to be treated better than men, they want women to be treated equally to men."

(at this point my husband and the other kids made some excuse to leave their half-eaten food at the table...)

Him: "I don't understand. Women ARE treated equally to men. These feminists want to be treated better."  

At this point, I totally broke down into a rant about how women are NOT treated equally, citing numerous examples of bias and discrimination against women in general, but also bias and discrimination that I've experienced personally. I pointed out all of his privileged statuses (sex, gender identity, race, class, geography, able-bodied, apparent sexual orientation...he's at the top of the privilege chain). My son sat there wide-eyed and in silence, finishing his tacos.  

I believe I ended with, "I can't believe you're MY son, you live with me, and you don't know that gender discrimination exists."

As I was preparing for this service, I recalled the stories shared last year when a group of women in our congregation who were having  a decade birthday gathered in celebration. During one portion of the day-long event, we shared what life was like in different decades and I was struck by how much, but how little, things had changed for those of us turning 40 compared to those turning 50, 60, 70, 80 and even 90 years old last year. Some of the women talked about having to choose between having a career and having a family. Others shared how career options were limited to teacher, nurse or secretary. It was a day full of reflection and joy, and still I left feeling a little disheartened. For all of the progress that feminism has made in promoting equality, there are still so many ways we fall short.

Women still only make 79% of what men in similar positions make. 

Only 29% of speaking characters and only 20% of employed characters in films are women. 

Only 20% of Congress and the Senate are women. 

Only 14% of top executives in the Fortune 500 are women. 

Eroding abortion rights. Rape culture. Catcalling. Gamergate. Mansplaining. 

Interviewing an all-woman team of astronauts and asking them about hair, makeup and men.

There are still so many ways, large and small, that gender influences your choices, opportunities and life experiences.

So why did my son believe that women are treated equally? And why, when I asked a female member of YRUU to share a reflection today, did she answer that she couldn’t share a reflection because she has never been discriminated against? Is the world that our kids are seeing more equal or inclusive than what the data would suggest?

One answer may be that we feminists have done such a good job of promoting equality that it has been ingrained in our children. My son truly believed that women are treated equally, and some of that I’m going to take credit for. He’s grown up watching me, after all: in his lifetime, I led and grew a very successful division of an agency, I started my own company, spoke internationally, wrote a book, and have been at various times the primary breadwinner at home. He’s also seen me speak on this chancel.

In fact, he’s seen a lot of women in leadership in our church. From Reverend Deborah Mero who led the congregation we joined while living in Pennsylvania, to Reverend Julia and Reverend Caitlin here at USSB, all but one of the religious leaders Jackson has had personal experience with have been women. And that’s likely true of a lot of Unitarian Universalist youth. Currently, almost 60% of UU ministers are women.

But even that majority percentage doesn’t tell the whole story. Although women are 60% of our clergy, they are still very underrepresented in the leadership of our largest congregations.  Senior ministers of large congregations are overwhelmingly male. And maybe in part because of the size of the congregations they serve, female ministers still make less money than their male counterparts.

Still, all of this could easily be lost on a teenager whose mom has been instilling feminist beliefs into him since he was born, or on any children of highly privileged feminists who have only been told what equality should look like and not shown the inequality that still exists. My son looked around his world and seeing his successful mom and women in leadership roles all around him, made the assessment that this is what equality looks like.

Our current world, however, is definitely not my vision of what gender equality looks like.

As I’ve thought about it, I realized I have no idea of what it WOULD look like. What is my vision of a feminist utopia? How might it be the same or different from your vision?

Last month, a new book, The Feminist Utopia Project, was published. It is made up of short stories, artwork, and other depictions from 57 different feminists of what the world might look like if gender equality existed. Each of these stories focuses on an aspect of society that the author or artist is passionate about.

Digging into these visions, I started to notice a trend. In their depictions of what a feminist utopia looked like, it wasn’t just about gender equality. Their works painted a picture of overall equality: gender, racial, class...the visions incorporated what the world might look like if we were all treated equally, respecting our differences and providing for freedom of choice.

I have a confession: lately I have been struggling with the label feminist. As our family has been learning more about trans identities and the gender spectrum, the word feminist has felt too limited, too tied to the binary concept of male or female. I have always been a loud and proud feminist, and yet, I have felt a tension in fighting for equal rights for women when there are other marginalized identities that feel left out of that fight. There are even tensions among people who identify as feminists in how to advocate for women of color or trans women. And what about people who are agender, like my oldest child?

And yet, as I’ve heard celebrities recently claiming, “I’m not a feminist. I’m a humanist,” my reaction to that generalization is a strongly negative one, as has been my reaction to the #AllLivesMatter counter-campaign to #BlackLivesMatter. Doesn’t it make it harder to fight for the rights of a marginalized group when you don’t name them? Doesn’t it become easier to obscure the struggle of gender equality if it’s lumped under the label of human equality?

The label of feminist is unique in that no other group fighting for equality have a name. There is no name for people fighting for racial equality. There is no label for people passionate about equal rights regardless of your sexual orientation, or immigration rights, or for fighting against poverty. The only other social justice group with an identity label are environmentalists, and even that name has fallen out of style.

So what is a feminist like me to do?

Maybe the place to start is to embrace the concept of intersectionality, a term used to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc. are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another. A vision of a feminist utopia wouldn’t be complete without addressing all types of discrimination, because our identities are not limited to our gender identities.

Feminism is meaningful to me as a starting point for thinking about equality because of the intersectionality of my identity and privilege. Perhaps for you, racial equality is where you start. Or accessibility drives you because of your disability. Wherever you start, whatever the inequality that inspires you to action is no more or less meaningful than what drives me or her or them. Much like how each of the pieces in The Feminist Utopia Project are from the author’s or artist’s particular view and perspective, so too will each of our utopian visions spring from our reality, our privilege, and what we feel passionately about.

For me, imagining what utopia looks like is still a struggle. As much as I want to be able to work towards a vision of what equality looks like, it’s hard to see it clearly through the day to day realities that obscure my view. If I can’t articulate my own vision of utopia, how can I explain the difference between the reality of today and my vision for the future to my son? In the introduction of The Feminist Utopia Project, the editors acknowledge the challenge we face in imagining a gender-equal world. They write:

“When we yearn for more - food, power, sex, love, time - we are gluttonous, egomaniacal, slutty, desperate, silly. To want less, to be less hungry, we are told, is to be “reasonable.” After long enough, we tell ourselves this, too. Sexism justifies itself by commandeering our logic and, quietly, the limits of what is constrict our logic of what should be. Misogyny comes to taste like air, feel like gravity: so common we barely notice it, so entrenched it’s hard to conceive of a world without it. So how can we propose new ways of living when misogyny fogs even our imaginations? And even if we tried - where and when would we organize not just to preserve what we have but to build a wildly better future?”

Where and when would we organize to build a wildly better future?

Where and when can we talk about, form, and challenge each others’ visions of what equality looks like? Where and when can we collaborate, support and inspire each other to reflect on our privilege and plan actions to move our world closer to equality?

Here. Now. And every Sunday.

Please join me in a few moments of reflection on what your vision of utopia looks like. Think about how we might think differently about gender, race, body size, sex, family or governance. Imagine about what equality would look like for you.

[Closing Words]

As we leave each others’ company this morning, hold on to your vision of equality. Share it with someone after the service. Share it with a friend over coffee this week. Write it down. Draw it. Know that it’s a work in progress. And as you go through your week, acknowledge the instances where reality differs from your vision. Name it. The only way for us to get to utopia is to work together today to build the path. Go in peace, go in love. Let us call out a blessing.

Stand up to one

There's a lot of fear going around these days, and with it, a lot of fear-mongering.

Yesterday, I posted this on Facebook:

At the risk of inciting the ire of the Internet, here are some truths. Daesh (ISIS) are already in the US; there's not enough security or shoe screenings in the world to keep them out. Worse, we are bombarded with terrorism from our own citizens daily: school shootings, church bombings, people gunned down while sitting in a movie theater. We don't have the systems and controls in place to secure ourselves from ourselves, let alone from some unknown villain. People love to point fingers at others, to blame other people. It's easy to blame someone else. It's so easy to fall back on fear and hate to guide decisions.

Choose love instead. There are people suffering; we should help them. That is what good people do; they look violence and hatred in the eye and meet it with love, compassion and kindness. Those are the heroes, those are the free, those are the brave. That is how we win. We stop building walls and boundaries and we reach out our hands in peace. We take loving action. It's not enough to change your profile pic or post articles of support on social media. Open your hearts, open your homes and help those in need in real, tangible ways.

There will still be violence in the world. Innocent people may be hurt or killed. We may not change every heart filled with hate. The best we can do is try to overpower it with love and lead by example. The best way to win is to represent the opposite of the hatred and violence; be stronger and more powerful in our resolve to not give in to what terrorists ultimately want to create: a culture of fear and hate that they have created, in which they hold the power. The best way to win is with love.

Yesterday evening, I saw this posted on Twitter, and responded: 

Evidently, Dr. Scipioni didn't like to have his data challenged, because here were his subsequent tweets: 

So, because I cited a source with a different number of homeless veterans, I subscribe to a "that can't be" philosophy. I have pre-programmed beliefs. I am sub-literate. A pot-stirrer. A rabble-rouser. 

I actually found a few sources to back up my data. Here they are: 

http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/veterans

http://nchv.org/index.php/news/media/background_and_statistics/

https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2014-AHAR-Part1.pdf

I haven't found any sources that would bring the average number of homeless veterans on any given night to 3.2 million. So far, Dr. Scipioni hasn't provided any. I am happy to be proven wrong if anyone can provide me with data to support his claim. 

If, however, that data doesn't exist, why am I being called names for pointing it out? Why am I being personally attacked and called names? Why are assumptions being made about who I am? 

This is why social media is such a toxic place: the name-calling, the bullying, the threats are allowed to happen. Misinformation is spread without anyone fact-checking, and those who try to hold people accountable to data are attacked.

Why do we allow people to behave in this way? Why do we allow this type of behavior? Aren't there more of us that can keep our conversations civil even when we disagree? I committed the grievous act of challenging uncited data and somehow I'm the problem? 

No, Dr. Scipioni. You are. 

If someone you worked with behaved this way, they would be fired. If your kid talked to you this way, they'd be grounded. But on social media, we allow it. And it's ruining it for everyone. Aren't there more of us than there are of them? Can't we stand up and say "this is not ok"? 

The truth is, Dr. Scipioni could have responded with a citation of the source of his data. He didn't. He could have said, "Oh, my bad. Still, 50k is too many." And I'd agree. He could have just ignored me. But he responded with an attack and an assumption that I don't have the right to respectfully challenge his words. I believe that I do have that right. I believe we all have that right. 

So today, I call on each of you. Those of us that believe in civil discourse, even when we disagree. Those of us who love social media and don't want our spaces filled with vitriol and attacks. Those of us who want to make decisions and form opinions based off of accurate information. Those of us who are sick of being called names for standing up to mis-information. Stand up to one person. Say that it's not ok. Stand up with love to the personal attacks. Stand up to name calling. Stand up for the truth, and be willing to do the work to back it up, and be willing to be wrong. But stand up to those who don't want us to question, don't want us to challenge them. 

When we stop challenging each other, we all lose. Don't let intelligent discourse die because a vocal minority doesn't want to participate. 

Stand up to one person today. Let me know how it goes. 

What would Geraldine Ferraro do?

This Sunday I had the privilege of leading services at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara; I chose to tackle the topic of gender equality. The following is my reflection on gender discrimination.

I know the exact moment I became a feminist.

It was 1984 and my elementary school was holding mock presidential elections. I knew I was a democrat because, while Walter Mondale was running for president, I barely noticed him in the shadow of my hero, Geraldine Ferraro.

My mom had raised me to believe that I could do ANYTHING I wanted to do, be anything I

wanted to be. But when I learned about history, specifically US history, and I saw that endless parade of white guys, I wasn’t sure that being president was included in that word “anything.”

I was only 10 years old at the time, but I also remember that about the time that I was learning about political party affiliations, I also learned about sexual orientation when I heard Geraldine Ferraro called a lesbian and asked my mom what that meant. While my mom answered me with definitions not emotion, I understood from the way the media was depicting Geraldine that the only thing worse than being a female Vice Presidential candidate was being a gay female Vice Presidential candidate. I didn’t understand either as being an insult, although that’s how they were being depicted in the media. In spite of all the vitriol flung in her direction, I hoped and prayed that Walter Mondale would win so that Geraldine Ferraro, a woman, would be 1-step away from being President.

It was, of course, not meant to be, and I heard all of the commentary after the election that maybe having a female running mate had been a publicity stunt, or that it cost him the election. I was angry: angry not only because Geraldine Ferraro wasn’t going to be Vice President, but because so many people thought she shouldn’t, or couldn’t, be because she was a woman. I realized that while my mom told me I could be anything I wanted, a lot of people didn’t agree. I was frustrated, I was confused, I was sad. And I was angry.

I know the exact moment I decided to stop taking math classes.

My junior year of high school, I was taking a class called math analysis, which was the name for the honors pre-calculus class. My teacher had been teaching this class and honors calculus for over 40 years. I was getting a B in the class, which was driving me crazy because it was ruining my straight-A grade point average. About half-way through the second semester, I was frustrated when I got another test back with a B grade. I reviewed my answers and couldn’t figure out why I had gotten one of the problems wrong. I compared my test to my friend’s; he had gotten an A. We reviewed my wrong answers and found that they were exactly the same, except his were marked correct and mine were marked wrong. I remember walking up to my teacher with both tests in hand and asking for an explanation for why my answers had been marked wrong.

My teacher answered, “Because you’re a girl.” I wish I could tell you that he was joking, but he wasn’t. He refused to correct my test grade. There were only 2 other girls in my math class. They had gotten lower grades, too, but didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.

You’d think that I would have freaked out, and you’d be right. I went straight to the principal’s office after school and showed him the two tests, then told him what my teacher had said. I told him I wanted the teacher fired, and I wanted my grade changed. The principal said, “Your teacher has Parkinson’s disease, so he’s only teaching for another couple years. There’s nothing we’re going to do.”

For the rest of the year, I despised walking in that classroom. I didn’t take calculus my senior year so that I could avoid having another year with that teacher. But something else happened, something that I didn’t acknowledge for another 10 years. My perception of math gradually changed from “I hate this situation” to “I hate math” to “I’m not good at math.” By college, I truly believed that I wasn’t good at math and I avoided any majors that required math classes. I actually changed the whole trajectory of what I believed I was capable of because one math teacher in high school told me girls weren’t good at math. Even though I was angry and didn’t believe what he said was true, the power of his words changed the course of my life.

Years later, I took a calculus class at a community college because it was a prerequisite for a graduate program I was applying for. I aced that class. I loved it. I realized how many years I thought I couldn’t do calculus, that it was too hard. I thought about all of the doors I closed, what potential paths I didn’t take, because I thought I couldn’t be successful because of my gender.

Geraldine Ferraro is my hero. She had to have faced a million of those obstacles along the way, people who told her she was less than because she was a woman. People who wouldn’t hire her into their law firms because they weren’t hiring women. People who pushed back against her fight for wage equality. People who said a woman wasn’t qualified to be Vice President. She faced much worse opposition than a sexist high school math teacher, and she had the strength to move forward.

I remember Geraldine Ferraro when I’m ignored or marginalized. I remember Geraldine Ferraro when someone implies that my abilities are limited by my gender. And when I look at my daughter, I hope that next year, when she is 10 years old, she sees the first woman elected President and grows up trusting that she can be anything she wants to be.

My next adventure

Three and a half years ago, I started my new job at lynda.com. My own company had been acquired a few months earlier and I needed something new. Taking the position at lynda meant moving across the country. It meant selling my house and buying a new one, getting my kids settled in new schools and it meant making a big decision about my budding relationship with my now-husband, John. It meant going from being the boss to being part of a system. Taking the job with lynda.com changed my life in every way you can imagine.

Today is my last day at lynda. Over the last few years I've had 10 bosses, 3 titles and 4 desk changes.

Moving (On) Day

I've been through numerous restructurings, shifting company priorities and this spring, the acquisition of lynda.com by LinkedIn. I have learned to navigate through the changes of a rapidly growing company, to hold on to what's important, and to live by the wisdom:
If you're ever in a situation where you aren't happy, ask yourself two questions:

• Can I change it? 
• Can I live with it (and I mean really live with it, without bitterness or regret)? 

If the answers to those questions are both no, then you have to move on.

Over the last few months, I've been thinking about, as LinkedIn calls it, my "next play." One of the things I've loved about LinkedIn is their understanding and openness to people's personal growth and career paths. I felt like I was at a crossroads, just like I was many years ago as I entered college. I had been asking myself, "what do you want to be when you grow up?"

The Universe has a great sense of humor and timing, sometimes. I was presented with two dream job opportunities on the very same day: one in learning and one in product. One allowing me to leverage my expertise in immersive design, practice what I preach in my book and to build a team of instructional designers; the other allowing me to apply my experience and passion for product development and build a team of product and UX rock stars. One providing the safety of a large organization with big budgets and benefits; one providing me the opportunity to lead a small company to greatness. One that would be the culmination and professional recognition of my career so far; one that would push me to learn and grow.

I had a mini-breakdown under the weight of the decision. I talked to my mom. I asked my girlfriends for advice. I talked to my husband, my VERY PATIENT husband, about it ad nauseum. I got differing views: Follow your passion! Take the easier job! Don't underestimate the importance of flexibility! Take the one that makes you excited!

Any guesses which I took?

In the end, I had to take the position that would leave me with no regrets, the one that I knew in my heart would enable me to be better, the one that is a challenge and an interesting problem to solve, the one that made me light up whenever I talked about it to my friends and family.

Today is my last day at lynda.com/LinkedIn and Wednesday is my first day as VP of Product at ShipHawk.

For me, it's never about what's easy. It's about solving the puzzle, finding the solution, learning and growing and constantly challenging myself to be better.

I will miss my colleagues at lynda.com and will forever be grateful for the experience of building something great. I've learned and grown in the last few years more than I thought possible. And I am THRILLED for this new opportunity to do something amazing; I can't wait to jump in with the ShipHawk team!

After all, shouldn't we all be striving for passion and greatness?

Taking a break to get in the flow

One of the most interesting concepts in learning is the idea of "flow," a concept proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to describe the state of not so challenged that you're frustrated, but not so easy that you're bored. 

When applied to game design, this makes a lot of sense. Tic tac toe is the perfect example on the too easy end of the spectrum; at some moment in time, you realize that you can either win or tie EVERY SINGLE TIME (depending on the relative skill of your opponent). I tried to explain this to my 8 year old a few weeks ago at dinner when she tried to challenge me to a match, and then went on to show her that if she played her first play in a corner or in the center each game, and she made sure to pay attention, she'd never lose. I almost felt bad, ruining tic tac toe for her, but I honestly could not be excited about playing her. It is the game equivalent of absolute boredom for me. 

Opposite for me is any Call of Duty or, more recently, Flappy Bird. Seeing as I can't get past the first or second challenge (in CoD, I have yet to make it past "training"), I give up because my hand-eye coordination is not good enough to make me successful in these games without more effort than I'm willing to invest. In other words, they are too hard and I give up, frustrated. 

What does flow look like for learning? There are metrics we can look to, such as time on task or self-reporting channels like surveys. Research on flow in learning typically relies on experience sampling to gauge engagement. When it comes to flow, it's all about the feeling. So what are those feelings? I like this definition from David Farmer (1999): 

1. Completely involved, focused, concentrating - with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training
2. Sense of ecstasy - of being outside everyday reality
3. Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done and how well it is going
4. Knowing the activity is doable - that the skills are adequate, and neither anxious or bored
5. Sense of serenity - no worries about self, feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of ego - afterwards feeling of transcending ego in ways not thought possible
6. Timeliness - thoroughly focused on present, don't notice time passing
7. Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces "flow" becomes its own reward

In the end, flow is about optimizing what you're getting out of what you are putting in. When I think about this for learning, it's not just about the feeling, it's about the outcome. I'm in the flow when I am engaged and learning and excited about what I'm doing. I'm feeling proud of my effort and good about myself. I'm having fun. 

The past few months I've been trying to learn a few new things, but the one that has been the most challenging has been learning the ukulele. I hate to admit it. It has been hard for me. Me, voted most musical in my high school graduating class, has been struggling with the ukulele. IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE EASY, I tell myself. I get frustrated. I am definitely not in the flow. 

This is a small image of my Evelyn Evelyn ukulele
from Amanda Palmer. I love it. I need to play it. 

That's the thing about flow. People tell you to get in it, but HOW do you get in it? When you need to learn something hard, how do you get past the point of frustration to get to appropriately challenged? 

The truth is, you have to practice. You have to persevere. Eventually, things get easier and you get better. But in that point of frustration, you take a risk if you keep pushing. You can start to HATE the thing that is frustrating you. I will tell anyone who asks that I don't like Call of Duty. It's not because it's a bad game (although first-person shooters aren't really my cup of tea). It's because the day that I was trying to learn the controls to make it through the game orientation, I felt pressure. I couldn't do it. I was frustrated, and then I gave up. All of my negative feelings transferred to the game. I know that if I played again, in a less stressful environment, MAYBE I would like it, but I would have to get past my negative feelings towards the game and my previous poor performance. 

It's why people who struggle to read say they don't like to read. 

It's why girls who are told they aren't as good at math don't go into STEM careers. 

It's why women who go into STEM careers have a hard time staying when their work environment is gender biased. 

When we can't get into the flow, it's hard to love something. It's hard to want to do it all the time. We all seek flow. 

So what can you do to get past the frustration? Here are some tips I try:

• Find a patient coach or teacher. Sometimes you just want to feel supported. Don't find someone who wants to do it for you. Find someone who wants to be your cheerleader.
• Walk away for a little while. You may need to take a break before you jump back in. Don't let your negative feelings build up; find ways to shake off your frustration before trying again.
• Break down the task into smaller pieces. In learning the ukulele, I needed to admit I wasn't going to start out playing a whole song. If I just practiced transitioning between chords, and practiced until I was good at it, it felt like a victorious step along the journey to playing my first song. 
• Decide if the effort is worth it. Sometimes, it's really ok to walk away. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything because I never learned how to play Call of Duty or because I never scored higher than 4 on Flappy Bird. Some things just aren't worth the effort or frustration. 

The ukulele is worth it. I'm still working up to my first song :)

Raising a generation for the world we want, not the world we have

A few months ago, after experiencing a particularly discouraging incident of gender bias, I came home crying and frustrated. How can people not see this? I thought, probably asked out loud to myself. How often is this going to happen before people will call it out as wrong? How long until everyone, EVERYONE, stops discriminating based on gender? 

I had heard through my "kiddo grapevine" that one of my kids was not a feminist, or at least he had been saying negative things about feminists. My heart literally was in my stomach. He is MY kid! How could he NOT be a feminist? Hadn't he lived with me his whole life? I was in complete disbelief and that night at dinner, I asked him about it directly.

Here's how the conversation went:

Me: "I hear you've been saying negative things about feminists."

Him: "Well, yeah. I mean, I don't get how they want to be treated better than men." 

Me (seeing red, freaking out inside): "Feminists don't want to be treated better than men, they want women to be treated equally to men."
(at this point my husband and other kiddos made some excuse to leave their half-eaten food at the table...) 

Him: "I don't understand. Women ARE treated equally to men. These feminists want to be treated better."  

At this point, I totally broke down into a rant about how women are NOT treated equally, citing numerous examples of bias and discrimination of women in general, but also bias and discrimination that I've experienced personally. I then continued on to point out all of his privileged statuses (sex, gender identity, race, class, geography, able-bodied, apparent sexual orientation...he's at the top of the food chain, I made sure to point out...). My son sat there wide-eyed and in silence, finishing his tacos.  

I believe I ended with, "I can't believe you're MY son, you live with me, and you don't know that gender discrimination exists."

I've been thinking a lot about that conversation, and specifically my son's opinion of the world, since that conversation. The truth is, he's a really earnest, sweet kid and he'd be the last person who I would think would be perpetuating bias against anyone. When I thought about it, I realized that he wasn't. He HAD lived with me his whole life, and what he learned from that has been that women are equal to men. He TRULY, HONESTLY believes that. He couldn't comprehend what feminism is because in his world view, women are already equal to men and he treats them that way.

It was this same kiddo who, when he was five years old, got into a verbal argument with a cashier in a department store because he said, "I like your brown skin." and the man said, "I'm not brown, I'm black." My kiddo responded, "I can see your skin and I'm pretty sure it's brown." The cashier was NOT happy about it, and I had to explain to my 5 year old on the way home why the man was upset with him. I felt the same way, full of sadness and frustration and worry, explaining to him the meaning of and reasoning behind feminism.

I feel disheartened because my son sees the world the way I wish it actually was: where skin color is just a color and everyone is treated equally. I've shown him that through my example, through what I've modeled in my own behaviors and attitude. And now I have to teach him that's not what the world is really like. While the lessons have been heartbreakingly easier around race and sexual orientation because of tragedies and recent victories in the news that lend themselves to discussion at the dinner table, gender discrimination continues to be mostly invisible. It's not, of course, but besides catcalling, discussions of campus rape and sexual consent, and GamerGate, there aren't big news stories. It's just the everyday-ness of discrimination and bias that continues and continues and continues.

Even though I know I have to start pointing out reality, I wonder what it would be like for a generation to grow up taking for granted that people should be treated equally regardless of their sex. What if we succeeded in teaching our kids that all people should be treated equally and with respect? If all little boys were raised believing that girls could do anything they could do, how would our world change as they grew into adulthood and challenged and then changed organizational and cultural bias? I want to live in my son's world where we don't need feminism. I hope by showing him the world we live in now, it doesn't cloud his view of the way things should be and how he has already been living in this world where he is more likely the exception than the rule.