Everyone please mark the date for a screening of “Things We Don’t Talk About: Women’s Stories from the Red Tent,” on July 21, 2013 at Whole Life Center for Spiritual Living, 2020 South College, Fort Collins, CO.
Filmmaker Isadora Gabrielle Leidenfrost, PhD of Soulful Media, will be speaking. Isadora is supplying a Red Tent for ambiance, which will be ever so fun.
Bring your daughters to share in the beautiful sacredness of womanhood!
*Trailer Courtesy of Soulful Media.
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Ainsley and I were in the New York Times Magazine on Friday. It was risky and scary, though important, because the topic was early puberty. TGR Body, our craptastic-ingredient-free skincare line (many skincare products are thought to have toxins that interfere with hormones), and The Girl Revolution were both highlighted.
You know I’ve researched the issue and shared the information here, but I’ve not discussed our personal experience. We considered the decision carefully Ainsley, myself and her dad and we felt that discussing it in public would be useful for other parents and girls.And it has been. The writer,Elizabeth Weil, has two girls of similar age to Ainsley and vowed to present us in a positive light, unembarassing, not humiliating. I thank her for keeping her word. I’ve received several emails of support, other parents and girls sharing their own experiences; thank you notes for being brave and helping them understand what’s happening with their daughters; making them feel less alone.
We chose not to have Ainsley’s face appear in the photographs because we couldn’t really determine the consequences of that.
Shame & Causes
I also felt that choosing not to talk about it added some sort of shame to early puberty, as if we had done something wrong to, as you hear constantly “allow girls to grow up too fast.” Well, we’re not ashamed and we shouldn’t be. We didn’t doanything to cause it. We didn’t neglect to do anything that caused it. We didn’t do a damn thing to “make our girls grow up too fast.”
It might be the hormones in meat and milk, it might be pesticides, it might be flame retardants, it might be the plastic Playtex insert baby bottles we microwaved when she was a baby, it might be eating more protein than our ancestors, it could be anything. Or it’s possible that it is none of these things.
It might even be evolution in action right before our very eyes. The world is on fast forward with our explosion of technology, maybe evolutionarily there is a very important reason for developing faster as a species that we simply don’t understand yet. Everything is happening faster for them, we expect more of them. Ainsley is already doing math that we weren’t expected to know until the 7th grade. They blog and learn PowerPoint in elementary school. These girls have not become adults and while we may be afraid of the consequences of early puberty, we don’t know the outcome yet. It’s not only happening to girls, it’s happening to boys as well.It’s not happening only in the United States where many of the suspected causes are more prevalent, it’s happening all over the world (Hindustan Times article). It’s at least possible that it is not harmful, but helpful in some way.
Either way, it is what it is, we’re not likely to stop it, at least not before this crop of girls develop into teenagers. The only thing to do is accept it, and dare I say, even embrace it.
New Developments
Since last year Ainsley has continued to mature. But, it hasn’t been as emotionally or developmentallydisastrousas I had feared. In fact, the girls in her class discuss their “stages of development” very openly. They trust The Care and Keeping of You by American Girl as the Bible of Puberty. As it turns out Ainsley is #7 out of 10, not # 1, in getting a bra in her 4th grade class. It was one of the best days of her life. Getting a bra is a badge of honor with the girls debating the best colors to get (tan) and the best places to buy them (Target). Girls appear to be discussing their developmental stages openly with their parents (someone had to buy them a bra). They shave their armpits, and sometimes legs, as a matter of course and are even excited about it.
Juxtapose this to the many stories you hear from women about their first menses: no one told me it was coming and I thought I was dying; I didn’t tell my mom for three days; she saw the laundry and finally explained it to me; it felt shameful to me and no one ever talked about it; my mother called it a curse and told me it would be horrible; etc. You’ve heard the stories and maybe it’s your story. Things feel different now. Parents who went through those experiences and didn’t enjoy them are communicating with their daughters about the experience of development and puberty. Girls, in general, know about and don’t fear their periods or getting breasts. Rather than weird clinical books with bizarre diagrams, they are given fun books like The Care and Keeping of You, replacing Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret (we must, we must, we must increase our bust!).
Sacred & Powerful Gift
If you’ve ever read The Red Tent, (and if you haven’t you should) you know that once upon a time, for thousands of years, a woman’s first menses was acelebratory and sacred, holy, exciting event. Women held rituals to initiate a woman in her various stages of development from menses to birth to menopause Girl, Maiden, Mother, Crone. I’d like to see that traditionresurrected. As I mentioned in New York Times Magazine I do intend to throw a party. Even if it’s just a party of her and I a nice dinner and the Chocolate Cafe and maybe a piece ofcommemorativejewelry. Or a women’s circle ritual with our girlfriends at my friend Anna’s Women’s Sacred Way studio. I’m all prepared for her first period with a Red Goddess Celebration Box, filled with essential oils, eye pillows, letters from her grandmothers, etc. I have panty liners stashed away, just in case. I’d like to share an experience different from a tampon or douche commercial. I’d love to share an experience of menstruation as a sacred gift able to produce life, a source of power. (For more on the power of our cycles read Red Moonand The Optimized Woman: If You Want to Get Ahead Get a Cycle.) When I go to the bathroom to cry, it will likely be bitter-sweet, a mixture of joy and of saying good-bye to the baby stages of my little girl knowing that precious, tender time will vanish from our lives forever. I imagine that’s what mothers have done for eons.
Puberty, whenever it comes, is not tragic. It’s a life-giving, sacred and exciting gift. Women have been having periods and growing breasts since the dawn of time, and we’ll keep on doing it until the end of time. We’ve lived, flourished and nurtured ourselves at varying degrees during different phases of history. Now is the time for a rebirth of our own sacred traditions. It’s time to heal the Sacred Feminine.
The article is slightly condescending in tone, in that, well just look at the title yourself. Then look at this little cartoon. They cite Valley Girls and the Kardashians as the evidence of girls’ influence on language. The rest of the article is about how girls are using language to create bonding relationships and to convey emotion. You know, girl stuff, acting cute and being cute. Even though it makes them appear stupid and not to be taken seriously.
I’d like to point at that just because researchers just started studying female influence on language does not make it a “new”phenomenon. Nor is it limited to trendy teenage girls with reality shows. Have you read a Mommy Blog or Friended a woman or two on Facebook? Women are inventing new words, new syntax, new inflections and sounds, adding new meaning to existing words every second of the day.
Nor do women use language simply to create bonds and convey their feelings. They use language to get what they want. They use language to make political points. They use language to draw boundaries in the home, in the workplace, in politics. In every arena in which they participate and women and girls participate in every arena.
You should meet my friend Jenny. She appears to have invented a new word or phrase that conveys complex meaning for things that, as yet, have no known definition every time I talk to her. Just yesterday I learned the word Suck-tastic when a woman described the month of February on my Facebook page. I intend to use it frequently now.
Women have superpowers when it comes to listening to language. From the moment their babies are born they can distinguish their cries for hunger, tired and overstimulated; they can tell their baby’s cry from another, they can hear complex levels of emotion in their children; they can heara lie.
From the earliest of ages girls can distinguish between a truth and a lie. Young girls will tattle on other girls for saying something cruel and hurtful like “I love your hair” or “that dress is so pretty.”
In other words, this condescending theory is craptastic and straight from Crazytown.
Words are the most powerful thing in the entire Universe. In fact, we know from the Bible and many other faith and folklore traditions, that whole entire Universe was created with “The Word.” The pen IS more powerful than the sword. While men point out statistical evidence for this or that legislation, women bring the power to it by evoking emotion andpersonalizingthe political by means of Story. I promise you that Story is one of the most powerful means of changing people’s understanding and changing their minds. Statistics evoke nothing in us, they don’t touch our humanity and they don’t invoke change. But if someone perceives the Story behind the statistics that a child is going hungry, that people are left suffering for lack of healthcare, that women die from breast cancer leaving their beloved children without a mother, that gay teenagers are in such pain for lack of acceptance that they often consider suicide only then do they consider changing their original beliefs and taking action. Story is feminine domain.
Women make language their Bitch, bitch is the new black (Tina Fey). We direct the entire culture with it. We add layers of meaning where there is none. When called for, we can reduce the strongest biggest man to a cowering wuss, using language as a vicious sword to emasculate him. We seduce with language. We reframe perceptions with language. We expose truths with language. We create definitions and invent new concepts with language. Words are our playground.Language is feminine domain. We conquer entire nations with it. There’s no stopping a girl or woman with something to say.
A new study involving the feelings habits of 2,000 children and teenagers was conducted by the University of Missouri that found that boys and men find talking about their feelings a completely unproductive waste of time.
Previously, prior to my actually having a son, I would have argued, like many currently are on the Internet, that this is a “learned behavior” and that we need to do a better job creating a safer environment for our sons to safely discuss their feelings.
Now, five years into parenting a perfectly normal, loving and affectionate son, I kinda think that all that “hating to talk about their feelings” that I’ve experienced in my brothers, father, boyfriends, male friends, coworkers, bosses is just somehow built into their DNA. Some more extreme than others, with those on Autism and Aspergers spectrum on one extreme and a sensitive metrosexual in touch with his feminine side on the other extreme.
When we asked young people how talking about their problems would make them feel, boys didn’t express angst or distress about discussing problems any more than girls. Instead, boys responses suggest that they just don’t see talking about problems to be a particularly useful activity, states the press release.
Not only do males think talking about their feelings is a complete waste of time, they think talking about OUR feelings is a complete waste of time, not to mention irritating, annoying and a total buzz kill, judging from my personal experience.
Girls, on the other hand, the study found, find incessantly talking about their feelings to be endlessly fascinating. But, is it really productive?
I’ve started to wonder this myself, as my daughter has lately sought more and more attention from her negative feelings, wanting me to care deeply about this complaint and that complaint, wanting me to put so much energy in things I really think she should learn to let go. I’ve often told her that people who focus so much on these types of feelings, never find happiness and gratitude. I’ve even made her do chores like clean the bathrooms for expressing her feelings (read: incessant complaining) so continuously that it starts to ruin my day.
The study supports what I had begun to suspect.
Many girls are at risk for excessive problem talk, which is linked with depression and anxiety, so girls should know that talking about problems isn’t the only way to cope.
In this compilation of blog posts, I draw a parallel between the realityof dating violence, domestic violence, molestation, rape, date rape (if there is such a thing) and cohesion with the messagingof todays culture and media. Taken from almost 900 blog posts, I’ve chosen 30 posts that draw a concise and compelling picture of the Girl Traps, most stemming from a distortion of the word Love.
Love Distortion takes a critical look at the Disney Princess Culture and the messages within that set girls up for dating violence and disastrous expectations about transforming bad guys into loving guys, the messages encouraging girls to give up their voices, their talents and their families for the “love” of a boy or man.
Love Distortion also takes a harshlook at other girl culture phenomenon like the Twilight Series and Bella’s willingness to give up her mortality, family, education and future to be with Edward; Gossip Girls, and their emotionally violent and disastrous games to achieve “success” with boys; Hannah Montana and other extensions of the Disney Brand; and posts about dating and domestic violence and the ways in which the word Loveis used to coerce and manipulate girls and excuses violent and sexually predatory behavior against girls.
Love Distortion clearly explains the distorted thinkingabout love on both the part of the girl or woman and the boy or man in a violent, manipulative or abusive relationship. The book makes the connection between the thinking of participants in unhealthy relationships and the cultural messaging we are all inundated with day in and day out.
So as not to leave readers with defeated feelings, Love Distortion provides resources for more positive messages about, what I call, Authentic Love. Readers are given concrete exercises to do with their sons and daughters so as to prevent the distorted beliefs about love that they are inundated with through television, literature, music, Internet, video games, movies, advertising, radio and even, other adults in their lives.
