Words Matter. And It Takes Tits To Say That.

Okay, so you've heard that I'm in one of those "transitions."  Yes, I gave up my lucrative career as a nut-cracking litigator to string words together for a living.  When I first announced this decision one of the more common responses from my peers (male and female) was: "Wow.  Good for you.  That takes a lot of balls."  Not everyone said this with the same tone, but I took the statement to be variations on a theme.  Balls.  Bravery.  Guts.  Maybe even slightly stupid.  But all interchangeable parts, right?  

For the first time ever this phrase stopped me in my tracks.  I mean, it's not like this was the first time I had heard it, let alone used it.  I always talk about needing balls to do this or the balls to do that.  I employ it ironically and not-so-ironically.  Sometimes when I talk about having balls to do something I mean courage, and sometimes I mean recklessness.  But it is always associated with action, with putting yourself out there consequences be damned.  But here I was, about to strike out on my own, to make my own name for myself, and all of a sudden this phrase took on a new complicated complicity.  Did I really want to have the balls to do anything?  What did that mean????

Words matter, and am I not the first to point out the interesting association between these shorthands for power and action, and human anatomy.  After all, sex is power, and when we want to create an appropriate visual of that source of power, the default should be to those organs.  It is beyond stating the obvious.  I mean, without such a truism there would be no Hegemommy.  Go back through this sad little blog and find a post, aside from the disclaimers and re-starts, that does not have as it's central premise the connection between sex and power.  See.  Told ya.

 The shorthand works just as well in reverse and speaks volumes to our collective unease with female sexuality.  Pussy.  Weak.  Cowardly.  Passive.  Once again, a shorthand I've employed as a slur for someones perceived weakness.  But now, as someone who depends on words for survival, let alone identification, these shorthands are becoming increasingly problematic.

This is complicated turf.  I see creativity coming from that same vat of primordial goop as sexuality-- a raw and charged power source that defines many different aspects of personality.  So as a writer, my creativity is undoubtedly linked to my sex and my sexuality.  How could I then continue to employ language shorthands that diminished the very power source I rely on to keep my lights on?

I've decided that I can no longer be complicit in the cultural demegoggery of  female sexuality and power, and I'm taking over my own shorthand.  Feel free to use it if you like.  Pass it on.  Like all things cultural, it may gain its own cache, find its niche, and create the counter-narrative to the presumption that an active display of power is a masculine trait.  That's right.  It takes tits.  Not balls.  Tits.

Once said out loud, the choice seemed ridiculously obvious.  

Here We Go Again. On False Starts and Starting Over.

Okay, so some of you may recall that I promised a brand new Hegemommy, and vowed to post with fury.  Well, ugh.  It didn't quite work out as I had hoped, so, once again, I'm here to say, it's a brand new day.

A lot has changed since those first naive posts.  A lot has not.  Hegemommy has learned to trust her instincts more and rely on others less.  All good things, but not worth spending more than a small paragraph discussing.  Moving on.

I'm now officially a full-time writer, so, I guess I better write.  This will be a good forum for those thoughts that rattle endlessly in my brain.  And really, Palin is the gift that keeps on giving, so I figure I have at least a month of great material to help hone my craft.

So, once again, I'm posting a transition post.  One that helps lead from one idea to the next.  Only this time Hegemommy has put her money where her mouth is.  Literally.  

Go ahead, have another cookie....

As some of you may have heard or read, the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends using cholesterol drugs on children as young as 8 to stem childhood obesity. If there was ever any remaining doubt that our doctors are not our advocates, this bit of news should seal the deal. This particular issue really chaps my hide because of my own job, and I see a public health problem like childhood obesity as also being part of an environmental problem, and public safety problem, and a whole host of other problems that go well beyond the AAP's approach in this recommendation. But I'll get to that in a minute.

First, I have a favor to ask. Could you all stop trying to make my son fat, lazy and stoopid? For real. I by you all I mean big Pharma, Uncle Sam, and now apparently, my doctor. By now I probably lost a few of you into the "conspiracy kook" qualification, but this is not some half-baked paranoia. Doesn't matter if you send your kid to private or public school, they will be pumped full of garbage and there's really not a damn thing you can do about it. Here's an illustration.

My son is in daycare full time at a center that provides lunch and snacks. I only recently enrolled him in the lunch program after struggling for about a year to make him appropriate bag lunches that met the dietary restrictions his school created- most importantly no nuts and/or nut products and nothing that would have to be "cooked" but the school. So forget the pb&j fall-back or anything that wasn't essentially pre-assembled. And, I know this is going to make me sound like a total whiner, but getting those lunches together was hard. Usually I was making those lunches at midnight before bed or 5 am before work. It didn't matter though. I was determined that he not be pumped full of sugar and fat during the day. And, to be fair, my son's school provides healthful snacks, and the lunch program is better than most, but that's simply a function of the fact that we spend in daycare tuition what we would spend if we were sending him to college. That's a whole other post. My point is that it was more than my boho sensibilities driving his lunches of rice and beans, pasta with tomatoes, carrot sticks, and whole grain crackers. It was also my desire to keep our doctor's visits to a minimum, to try and raise my dude with as few food quirks as possible and, to be totally honest, to keep his energy and mood stabilized so that when I picked him up after a day of arguing, posturing, and getting flogged by the man my preschooler would be more, well, manageable. There, I said it.

It wouldn't have mattered if my motivation were only altruistic, the fact of the matter is, when he sat down for lunch and his buddy Tyler was eating a sloppy joe, or salisbury steak, or a breakfast burrito, my kid didn't want his lunch, no matter what it was. He wanted the hot lunch and began hunger striking to get it. I resisted his teacher's calls to sign him up for the lunch program at first but eventually caved after I'd lost hours of sleep to packing lunches that got thrown away, hounding from insistent teachers pecking away at my obsessing over his meals, and repeatedly came home with a cranky, hungry child who, despite my best efforts, had found processed sugar, empty starches, and a distaste for anything green and crunchy. I caved. I signed him up for the lunch program. I admit that its nice not to have to onemorething to do at night before bed or first thing in the morning, but before long I began to worry about what a lifetime in the hot-lunch program would do to my son's health.

Well thank fucking god the American Academy of Pediatrics has let me know that I don't have to worry about that anymore. See, rather than put their CONSIDERABLE resources toward creating healthful lunch programs and vibrant physical education curricula in public schools or for schools who receive public dollars of some sort, they have sided with big Pharma and now suggest we just further medicate our kids. Forget fresh fruit and a jog, try Lipitor instead. Sure makes my job as a parent a helluva lot easier AND the pharmaceutical and insurance industries make a windfall. Everyone wins! Besides, just ask Alice Waters and the Berkeley and Oakland public schools- no one is interested in actually creating healthful models when there is sooooo much money to be made on maintaining illness models.

But here's the ringer for the doctors. The Hippocratic Oath. First, do no harm. Do. No. Harm. First. That is an ethical obligation to patients no different than my ethical obligation to my clients. I am their advocate in the legal system, and my doctor, my son's doctor, has a professional obligation to be an advocate in the medical system. Meeting those ethical obligations is a challenge, especially when insurance companies want you to save costs, partners want you to secure a particular outcome, and you want to get home and be done with this stupidfuckingclientalready. However, if I abdicate my ethical responsibility it will, at a minimum, get me a professional reprimand, if not a malpractice suit. For the American Academy of Pediatrics those abdication result in public health policy decisions, mainstream media accolades, and a whole lot of grease from the industries they are supposed to be keeping a critical eye on.

It's Makeover Time!

Girls love makeovers, right?! That's what all those pretty fashion magazines tell me, anyways. Well, Hegemommy is undergoing a bit of a makeover, and here's what I can tell you so far.

As the three of you who regularly check in on this site have noticed, I haven't posted anything in a while. I'm gearing up for a big trial and what little time I've got left has been used trying to parent, and work on my material. The good news is I've compiled A LOT of it, so posting soon should be fast and furious. The other good news is that I've linked up with some folks who are challenging me creatively and intellectually, hence the Hegemommy makeover. All so new, yet so familiar.

So please, stay tuned. Big things are in the works here. I can't give a specific launch date, in part because if I'm in trial then the re-re-launch of Hegemommy will have to wait until all that jazz is over. Don't worry, this is no Chinese Democracy situation or anything. The countdown has begun. So sit tight, stay tuned, and get ready for a refreshed and reinvigorated Hegemommy to add the necessary dash of salt to your diet of politics, parenting, and pop culture. As told from the inside, of course.

Hillary, it's time.

For some reason I've withheld from posting anything overtly political, as in commenting on the current election cycle. It's time for the gloves to come off.

Hillary, girl, step aside. It's important. It's necessary. It's time. You're doing more harm for our cause now than good. And by our cause I mean all the other hegemommies out there. We champion your ball-busting demeanor. We LOVE that you don't bake cookies. We adore that you are the brains behind Bill's bravado. Most of all, we just love that men hate you simply because they fear you. They cannot demean you by sexualizing you and they cannot outsmart you. So instead they hate you and, by all appearances, you don't give a rat's ass. For that we love you because we see ourselves in you.

But speaking for myself now, I cannot support race-baiting any more than I can support gender-baiting, and your campaign, and your supporters, are race-baiters. The voters you woo in typically New-Democrat fashion are not Democrats. Many call themselves Reagan Democrats, or conservative Democrats. I call them Republicans. These are the same voters who for the past eight years actually believed that the Republican party gave a shit about them. They honestly thought the corporate robber-barons financing the Bush & Co., campaign would protect their jobs, provide them affordable health care, and, most importantly, save the institution of marriage from all those nefarious twinks. Oh, and the jihadists. We need protection from them also so your supporters vote for the party that will protect their jobs from the Mexicans, their cultural institutions from the gays, and their freedom from the Muslims. Those are your voters.

Do you really think if given the choice between a woman and McCain these voters will vote for you any more than they would vote for Obama? C'mon. You're a smart woman and you know better. These voters all go Republican in November, because they always go Republican.

I know you know better because I've watched you position yourself for this run since your first Senate victory. You vote Republican party-line at almost every opportunity. You want to bomb Iran as soon as you can. Your health care plan leaves all real power in the hands of the insurance industry. Your husband's administration (and the basis of your "experience" claim) shut out the working class with NAFTA and kicked the gays with Don't Ask Don't Tell. You pander to Hispanic-conservative racism, suburban fear-mongering and, at every opportunity, divide the true Democratic base to shore up personal support. You make millions of dollars a year, live the majority of your adult life in stately government mansions yet campaign as a commoner. Jeez, that sounds familiar. You learned a lot from the Bush II campaign, and its showing.

The thing is, I don't hate you, and I don't even hate on your political decisions because I am sure they are creatures of necessity. I understand that for a woman to get to your position of power that you had to make some compromises. I get it. I've made my own. I also get that just because I'm an egg-headed liberal that the nominee doesn't have to represent my "far out there" views. I can handle a candidate that plays to the center. So long as that is the center of the left, and you Hillary, you have been playing to the center of the right.

There's nothing I want as badly as a woman president. Well, maybe a few things, but for the good of the cause, we need a woman in office. Apparently this is a radical concept in the US, although not so much so for our democratic counterparts in the rest of the world as the UK, Germany, and a host of other industrialized nations have done just fine with it. But I also think as white women here in the states we have a larger ghost to exorcise.

History has used our white femininity as a means of whipping up racial frenzy and fear. Those early race-baiters preached that our country's fragile white women needed protection from the exotic sexual appetite of all things black. Miscegenation laws and Jim Crowe owe their very existence to the cultural urge to protect our women (and by default of female biology, our future) from the heart of darkness. Hillary, you are now, perhaps unwittingly, writing a new chapter in this country's abysmal history of race-baiting. It's got to stop.

I know the impetus of this blog is a vent for all the shit I take as a woman in a man's world. But I have not for a second lost sight of the fact that even in my diminished status in the professional world I remain absurdly privileged compared to my black female peers. Hillary, I think you could use some of that perspective.

And seriously, is your campaign, and the reporting of your campaign, not just a perfect illumination of the male gaze, the normative lens through which all cultural assumptions are formed? That gaze that has always pitted minority against minority, playing on women's perceived frailty as a cultural value endangered of being darkened. Do you really want to be such a pawn?

So please, Hillary, it's time. Let's let the Democrats, rather than the Republicans, choose our nominee. Your career has not arced yet, but if you insist on pressing forward in the manner in which you have since Iowa, then your defeat against McCain in November will do nothing but solidify the two dangerous cultural prejudices: that black men are still to be feared, and that women are too weak to ultimately govern. I know that is not the legacy you imagined as you set out on your campaign, yet it is the legacy you are helping to write. You've never settled for being simply another stereotype before, please don't do so now.

Compassion v. Competition in Gym Class

I'm a competitive person. I'm in a competitive profession and I've played competitive sports for the majority of my life. I've always seen competition as a healthy means to achieving some self confidence and, quite frankly, as a fundamental aspect of my personality. I have never been comfortable with the idea that boys are somehow inherently more competitive than girls, but a recent event did give me some reason to pause here.

I signed my three year old up for a sports clinic in an effort to drain him of some of energy during the week. The brochure told me the kids would be introduced to a new sport each week, and as a bona fide sports-lover I was sold. First they'd play soccer, then they'd play floor hockey, before moving on to basketball, flag football, and tumbling. The reality is it's just a glorified gym class with some poor young physical trainer-in-training at the helm, trying to organize ten kids ages three through six into some semblance of group cooperation. Whatever it is, it gives mommy one hour a night where my little dude can blow off some steam and all I have to do is watch.

The class is comprised of nine little boys and one girl, and the girl in this class is easily one of the most athletic kids there. That fact alone made me love her. Anyways, last week the kids were playing a version of duck, duck goose, but since it was soccer night they were playing soccer player, soccer player, goalie. I'll admit I was twitching a little bit at this game, and it was all I could do not to run on to the court and explain that goalies are soccer players, but I let it go.

It's pretty apparent at this clinic which kids are the older, more athletic of the bunch, and which ones, well, are not. And I'll come right out and say that in this group my kid is one of the little dudes.

During this simple little gym class for pre-schoolers, one of life's universal truths unfolded. The big kids kept choosing the other big kids to chase (including our only girl), while this whole group of little dudes, mine included, just sat eagerly waiting for one of those cool big dudes to pick them. The trainer-in-training picked up on this right away and she made a couple comments to the group about how they needed to make sure everyone got a turn. These comments went ignored by the all of the big kids except the girl. As soon as she was picked she ran around and tapped the chubbiest, most awkward kid in the group and shouted "GOALIE!"

Well, he gave chase and, like all nerdy kids before they are broken, chose one of the big kids as goalie because even at the young age of three the camps are drawn between those who are athletes and those who are not, and those who pine to be included in that group and those who will probably reject them. Not to be deterred, the teacher again told the kids to make sure everyone had a turn and again, as soon as the girl was chosen she picked another little dude to make sure everyone got to participate.

I'll admit that I was troubled by her choice, and equally troubled by my reaction. I love this little girl because she consistently out-maneuvers the boys and is quite simply one of the best athletes of the bunch. To the extent these little kids are "competing" she is doing so without the benefit of adjusted times, lowered expectations, all of those gender markers that plagued my gym classes, competitive sports, professional life, and the world of professional athletics for women. So when she was the only kid consistently trying to include everyone in their game of chase, and when the moms all looked at each other, grinned and said "of course its the girl who picks him" I thought that maybe we were teaching her and the other kids a bad lesson. Don't misunderstand, I am all for inclusion, especially at such a young age and when the whole purpose of an activity is just to have fun. But didn't we send a signal to the other boys that this was not their issue- that they could just go on in their "eat what you kill" world because inevitably, and obviously, the girl who could hang with them would take the responsibility of making sure societal expectations (in this case, the teacher's request that everyone get to play) were met? And what about all of us that were not surprised in the least bit that it was the girl who made cooperation possible? Isn't she just playing right into that expectation, even if it wasn't specifically articulated?

I also found myself concerned that I was irritated at her choice to try and please her teacher because, for some reason, it seemed to knock her down a peg in the group. By showing her empathy and compassion, she was relegating a bit of her competition. She slowed down her run to let the chubby kid catch her and didn't chose a kid because it would be fun, but because she was meeting an expectation. Why couldn't we just let her compete like all the other boys?

Of course, this is just little kids gym class, so there is part of me that needs to step back and get a grip. But I see this same dynamic play out everyday in my work. I'm chosen to deal with certain clients because I can empathize with them, a skill I'm proud of but not one that has earned me a lot of respect among the dudes writing my checks. Or, I'm placed on a case where it is important to create an certain image, like, see, my client can't be a sexually harassing asshole because he hired a woman to defend him. And the women I see who are truly successful in a litigation practice have turned those empathetic skills off completely- they have emasculated themselves in some sort of gender suicide because of this crazy notion that competition is inherently male.

So where does that leave us? At what point do we tell the dudes that it is their responsibility to meet those expectations that everyone get included because the girls aren't going to do it for them anymore? And can the girls do that without getting lost in that Lord of the Flies ethos that dominates pop culture constructions of masculinity? Trust me, this is not the last post here on the topic.

It's a Man's Game. Except When it Isn't.

When I made the decision to go to law school, and later when I made the decision to enter private practice as a litigator, I understood that I was stepping into some interesting territory as a woman. Sure, plenty of women go to law school, and plenty of women maintain very successful private practices. Heck, my graduating class was 51% female. But despite those facts and statistics, I also knew that the law was truly one of the last bastions of the old boys. Especially business litigation. I knew that many cases settled and deals struck either on the golf course or the steak house. I knew that my male collegues had wives who took care of the home and secretaries who took care of the office. I knew that some of my "partners" would never actually view me as such, simply because of my gender. I knew all that.

Despite that relatively clear-eyed view of my profession, I was dumbfounded when my gender became a central component in a case strategy. Let me explain. I'm working on a case where my main adversary is a notorious woman-hater. He just can't help himself. He's absoultely one of those guys who will always see smart women as a threat. If you de-feminize yourself enough he may accept you because this validates his idea that litigation is a man's game. If, however, you still embrace your feminity despite the fact that you work in a professional frat house (and I do) then he'll constantly demean you, harrass you, and for example, address questions and insults only to your breasts. For real. This fact is especially depressing because this guy is in his fifties. I mean, I expect it from the old farts who still rely on their secretaries to bring them coffee in the morning and turn on their computers, but not from someone even younger than my own father. Anyways, my client was about to have his deposition taken, and my partner on the case decided that it should be my job to defend that deposition. Normally that kind of task would both thrill and terrify me. I would be thrilled at the chance to go head-to-head with a more experienced litigator and show my stuff, and terrified at the possibility of getting beat pretty badly.

Not so here. No, I told that I was chosen for this task not because I'm a great lawyer, or because I could handle this legendary jerk of an opposing counsel (all of which are true, of course). Nope, I was chosen because I'm the woman on the file. And that fact alone. I was chosen because opposing counsel would be so distracted at the fact that a woman was sitting across the table from him objecting to his questions and defending the hell out of her client that he'd be off his game. He would be so distracted by my very presence as a woman that he'd forget to ask questions and instead of attacking my client (which is what he should be doing during this proceeding), he'd be attacking me. That's right. I was sent in as a diversion and a distraction. And got paid to do it.

Wow. What a complicated place to be in. Had my partner simply told me that I got the assignment because I'm good and could do the job, I'm sure I would have come to my own conclusions about any effect my gender had on the proceedings. To his credit (and his fault), he was completely candid about why I was sent on the front line. It was never because I'm a good lawyer and was always because I'm a woman who happens to be a good lawyer. My partner did say that if I sucked as a lawyer I most likely wouldn't have gotten the assignment because we could not be sure we'd keep the tactical edge. Hmmm.... backhanded compliment anyone?

The sad truth is it worked. And boy was I pissed. I was pissed at opposing counsel, pissed at my partner, and pissed at myself. Being pissed at opposing counsel is easy, and almost not even worth the effort or all that fun. He did spend hours on end baiting me, insulting me, and letting me know how to do my job. He behaved exactly as planned. But for my partner to use me as strategy, to subject me to that kind of degradation and attack for some intangible strategic edge?! The only reason he would do that is if he was pretty confident it would work, and to have that kind of confidence he must know just exactly what kind of ass our opposing counsel is (who, by the way, is an old friend of his-- they go waaaay back). And to let it happen, well that's all on me.

I suppose I could have refused. I could have turned on my heel and stomped off in an indignant huff. I could have let him know that manipulating institutional misogyny for the benefit of our client might be effective advocacy, but it is shitty personnel policy. Because it is. But at the end of the day I capitulated, knowing that my gender, at least in this case and at this moment, was another tool in my toolbox and I had been enlisted to use it.

If there's an upside to this story I suppose it is that the strategy worked and that in some twisted manner I was an agent of that strategy rather than a victim of it. I was attacked for over eight hours that day when it should have been my client, and our case is stronger for it. And I suppose my partner's strategy in coming clean with me about how and why I got the assignment made me more prepared for the assault than had he kept his true rationale hidden. Who knows, but I can't help but wonder if women in other professions find their "status" as a woman something that is manipulated either as asset or a liability depending on the task at hand. I can honestly say that this was the first time in my professional life (that I'm aware of, anyways) where I was given an assignment specifically because of my gender. Now that's some messed up affirmative action.