It's a process

I first wrote "Its a process." I'm usually a great speller - especially out loud, for long words. You'
re, your - do not phase me. This short one though, I never, ever remember. I usually avoid it, spell out "it is" and sound way more formal than I've intended.

As for the process, it is my legs. Or, rather, coming to terms with them. Looking at hairy legs and not immediately thinking them ugly. Or unfeminine. I'm still smack-dab in the middle of that process. I still find they look strange. I don't like them very often, yet sometimes I get over it and don't care. And I think this may be part of the difficulty I've been having. With my legs, and with anyone (especially a women) who doesn't look magazine-perfect. My legs are a total failure of what fashion magazines tell me I should look like. The rest of me, I can do a pretty good job of molding into a "tall enough to hide I'm not skinny enough" image of mainstream advertised femininity. I'm lucky that way. What isn't up to snuff I can hide easily enough. I have great skin, and thick hair.

But the issue is that I've been trying to see my hairy legs as beautiful.

And I'm not so sure they are. I mean, I like my legs for what they can do, but the problem (even on blogs that encourage women not to care what people think of their legs) is that the question is still in terms of how I look. To myself, but really that means to others, too. I think what I'd rather feel is that they are strong and who cares how they look, it matters they can dance, and take me to work, and help me give horse-rides to my kid, and hang out on the side of the amazing coffee I can brew, next to the Sunday New York Times crossword I can actually solve, by Monday some weeks. By. My. Self. That is what I want to think about me, and not about how my legs look.

 

















This also goes along with the problems I have "just noticing, not judging" how people look. I've realized that in the same minute, I can see a woman, notice that she would not be featured in a magazine (the classifying my brain does immediately), and then also tell myself she is a perfect example of a human being. Not just a woman, but a person, who thinks, laughs, talks, works, cries, and is. This works much better for me than just trying not to judge how a person's body looks. And I'm thinking it can apply to me, too.

My hairy legs don't look like anything in a magazine. I don't know if I'll ever call them gorgeous. But some of this exercise, at least for me, is to think of myself as a human being first, and not in comparison to how someone in a photo looks.

And, based on a TED talk I watched last week, about the sexual objectification of women, part of what I stumble on in looking at these blog photos of women's legs only, is that it is only one part of the body you see. Instead of the whole person.

If that third photo is of a woman who wants to be elegant and gorgeous, I think that is a FAIL in my mind. If it is of a person, who can do and think and make, it is fine. It is good. And both the crossword and the coffee make me proud.

Ist es möglich, in Englisch zu sprechen?

I may have mentioned before how much I hate talking on the phone. That dislike is multiplied manyfold when it means speaking in German (possibly Swiss German) about anything I'm not well versed in in terms of vocabulary (I'm pretty good at symptoms of illness that toddlers and their parents tend to have, as well as talking about things that are broken in my apartment). When it comes to work-related things, I'm hopeless. I have Google translate open on my browser, but it takes one or two unfamiliar words from the other end of the line to knock me off my game completely and default to "Is it possible to speak in English, I apologize, please thank you."

Today there are two German calls on my list and they are the sorts of things (one for work, related to the university, and one about bank charges and apartment deposit info) that are so hard for me to actually sit down and do that I get to watch a movie if I want if I just make these two calls. There have been so many times that an interaction in German just went south, as soon as the person I'm talking to didn't understand either what I was asking or was classically bad at simplifying their own vocabulary and slowing talking. Seriously, people, have you not ever played charades or talked with a child? You can't just slur all the words together, or assume that I'm just poorly intentioned.

Well, I just made the first call, which gets put in the "good experiences where no one yelled at me" pile. The first person I called at the advertising division answered, was older, I thought "crap, I'm going to crash and burn", and when I asked the "Can we speak in English?" question, said "Nein, Spanisch, Italienish oder Deutsch." I almost cried out in happiness - Spanish I can do. Spanish, I have a personality and confidence in, even if my vocabulary is limited. I can get along well enough, and I don't break out in a sweat. Turns out, he was in deliveries, and the guy in charge of advertising schedules spoke English. And was nice. And informative. And I feel great about the call.

The next one, is our old rental company. And the woman I'm calling is actually friendly, but she is also not of the "I'll meet you halfway with simplified German". So, I have my three questions sitting on the Google translator window, and I'm about to jump off the cliff again.

Here goes.

Taking a personal day

I was all prepared for today to be a learning opportunity for A. She's got a cold, no fever, still up for lots of stuff, but somewhere between me asking her about her throat (still guarding against the strep throat I had last week), and M asking if she feels sick (no! don't give the answer you're hoping she doesn't say!), she asks to stay home because she's sick (in that universal, slightly pathetic kid voice....sniff sniff, cough, I'b sick, baba.).

And since it is summer and I mostly have errands and phone calls to make today, I decide it is a good time to show her what a sick day at home is like. The boredom, the not playing with me, the having to be calm, the opting out of going swimming in a cold pool later today. The watching every Baby Einstein video we have (that is still roughly the level of media she watches).

Turns out, she's pretty happy to have a day off of school, and mostly chill out. And, more surprisingly, turns out so am I.

I'm not able to procrastinate nearly as much as usual. I actually cleaned the whole kitchen during snack time, and have a list of calls I'm working on. It is nice to have the quiet, small company embodied by my kid. And she's doing pretty well with not needing me to play with her all the time.

Not so bad, actually. 

Now it is just the hippies

How did that happen? It is almost a month since I've written here.

I'm coming out of a short quarantine for strep throat (which we're all hoping only I caught this time around) and that second day of antibiotics (assuming you didn't wait too long to get to the doctor and you're not already delirious with a fever) is a bit magical. Your kid can go to daycare, your partner is at work, you feel mostly fine and yet you're not allowed to go much of anywhere. And you probably don't want to be all up in all sorts of food preparation yet, either. You get to just sit and watch a movie or read. If you want to do a telecon, you go do that. I got to just reschedule some meetings for next week and instead I gave myself the day off. Because M insisted I actually take it off, and not try to be productive.

But other than that, what I have I been doing all this month? Why have I not written? I'm in the middle of both diversity of thought (in the workplace) literature, and a load of TED talks about gender.

And still growing out that leg hair.

I'm not sure if it is as long as it is going to get. I'm not sure if I'll always have a hard time seeing it as feminine. And yet, how can something that all women have, be something that isn't feminine. What a strange concept that there are things that all women are trying to change about themselves to feel more feminine.

One thing I know, from taking a more than causal glance at all the various legs passing me by at the Zurifest yesterday (3 days of citywide celebration, that happens every 3 or 4 years), is that hairy legs are no longer a "European" thing. I was the only one out there, female, between the ages of about 12 to 55, who didn't have shaved legs.

Designing for diversity

I've been dipping my toes into the literature on the importance, the value, of "diversity of thought" in business lately. Yes, there is actually a literature on this - mostly from the business world - yet another example of things I never realized someone was doing well. So many things aren't given their due in the practice of academic life, that it is like one easter egg after another some months.

So the thought that surfaced sometime yesterday (anywhere between being barely awake to going to sleep, I don't remember) was that one measure of diversity is how much all participants in an organization have to adapt to it when they arrive. Because usually, it is the women or the minorities or someone else who needs to become more outspoken, more confident, more assertive, more this and more that. And I think this results in a group that is less diverse, regardless of the reproductive organs or skin color or native language of the group's members.

I mean, how often do you hear, in addition to women having to become more assertive, that the men in a group had to become more sensitive to the feelings of others, and more soft-spoken? Maybe you have heard of it, and in that case I'd love to know where. Because apart from a few token sexual harassment seminars that don't actually require anyone's behavior be different in order to succeed in the field, I don't see talks about how males should practice acting less confident and being better at service roles in academia.

Footie-blut

Or something like that. My kid has been going around saying "footie-blut!" as a sort of toddler curseword. I'm told it means something like totally naked, but in a kid sort of way. So, I've decided not to try stopping her from saying it on buses and trams and in public. And at home. As long as she's not going around yelling "sweet mother of jesus, what the fuck is that?!?!", she can toddler-curse, I guess.

Totally naked. Brings me to that discussion from the last post where she brought up body hair and I proceeded to skip happily down the rabbit hole of women on the internet who don't shave. I also managed to avoid, by careful forethought of Google search terms, all those other unshaven women one might find on the internet when one is in to that kind of thing in a way I am not. Phew.

It took me to lots of photos on a blog of hairy legs, which is meant to be a positive space for women to share photos of their legs (and all else clothed, thankyouverymuch) with hair. Lots of it, not so much of it, in sneakers, in heels. I have to admit many of the photos made me cringe inside. Not a reaction I'd like to have, but the "hairy legs = male" association is strong in my mind. So I just scrolled down, and kept looking. Kept thinking about how it made me feel, and why. About whether or not I was ready to do this thing, too.

I'm still bothered that I'm still bothered by women's hairy legs. But a few things came through all that rumination. This isn't about making all women stop shaving their legs or other, um, areas. It is about really feeling like it is a choice instead of a fear that small children will run away screaming as their adult counterparts make puking sounds in sheer disgust. I also learned that my legs and their fur lie in about the middle of the distribution, which is not something I ever imagined was true. Yes, we're mammals, but I honestly thought I was the furriest one around. And, after having a dream that my unshaven legs looked like Chewbacca's, and waking up to realize that is not true (probably not even for any human being on the planet, in fact), I went out today in a dress and whatever legs. It didn't matter. I may shave this summer (I probably will), but I don't have to do it to be presentable. I may be itchy if I shave, but if I don't, I'm presentable the way I am.

(Note: I found another site today, about not wearing make up. I wear lipstick about once every 10 days and mascara once a month. I don't wear foundation or anything else, so these photos were not so shocking to me. But I imagine this is the same feeling for women who do wear make-up daily as it is for me with the shaving. And then, just for good measure, I let my tummy pooch hang as I went to the grocery store. It was an anarchist sort of day over here in northern Switzerland.)

Sugar, and spice, and everything nice

The thing is, I don't want my daughter to think she can't also be made of snails and puppy dog tails. I don't want her to think she is most valuable (and powerful) for how she looks in lingerie.

This weekend we went to see a kid-circus open house. It was awesome. So many of the things I'd hope for in an environment for A: kids from 6 to 16 years old, in mostly unisex costumes that were neither too tight nor too gendered, kids doing what they could do but without big tears or worries on their faces if they made a mistake, boys and girls holding hands or bodies in a non-sexual way, not worried about touching. A chance to use one's body, to enjoy movement and skill.

Of course, one the way there, we had to pass an advertisement for women's underwear - "Why is that woman naked, mama?" It was the first time she has noticed that kind of ad for its strangeness. Nakedness is usually reserved for home, for the pool locker room, for quick changes at the beach. And I wasn't sure what to tell her. "Yeah, that women sure looks cold." Or my usual, clumsy fallback: "They are trying to sell underwear." Great, so we establish that is an advertisement (whatever that means to my 3 year old), but what about why a naked woman sells that. Because there is an element of seduction in every underwear ad I've seen - I have yet to see normal women's bodies in normal underwear in full color, large poster format. I swear I'm getting t-shirt post-it notes made up (and maybe sandwiches, too, because most of these ladies are looking not just cold but like they could use a meal) to stick up on posters like that.

I don't want my child to start learning, already, that women's bodies are for selling things.

On a related note, this morning we had a conversation about body hair, as we were all getting ready for the day. There were showers, and wiping of bums, and all sorts of naked in the process of 3 people getting dressed, and A noticed that we, her parents, had hair. Why did Papa have hair under his arms? Did Mama? Where else was there hair? Where did A have hair?

And it was yet another sweet/heartbreaking moment, as she took a good look all over herself and announced that she had hair on her arms and her legs. Statement of fact and nothing else. How lovely, how envious I am of that, and now how protective of her getting to look at herself and not make a value judgment.

My first instinct is to fiercely protect that for her. My second thought is to chuck my own razor this summer. Yikes - no shaved legs or armpits, although I may have to hold on to the shaved armpits, given the more "natural" deodorants I've been sticking with lately. But the rest? How else am I going to stop her (okay, at least slow her down) from shaving her legs at age 10, like I did, to get rid of those fine white hairs? How else can I mount the assault on her thinking of her body for how it looks instead of how it feels? And how can I try to calm my inner fears if I stop shaving this summer? What does it mean to be a women with hair on her body? (This woman gives a very powerful answer to that question). And then I got to this artist's website, where she had asked women to stop shaving, plucking and generally de-hairing their faces and took photos, and it has had the effect of a spring breeze, or a 10-minute meditative sit. Oh, the places (the conversational places) we could go, if only people looked more like themselves instead of each other. The shades of grey (those books just kind of messed up that phrase for the rest of us) we could explore, and find comfort in. The subtle and complex, instead of photoshopped and self-doubting.

There sure is a lot of walking-the-walk in parenting. I never thought it would be such a daily dose of reinterpreting our cultural norms. I like it, I'm just surprised at the intellectual work that goes into having a 3 year old for me. I find it refreshing. Just like this font.