Fierce

I think you'd have to be fierce like a lion to be a fundraiser in the Jewish community.  (Note homemade lion Purim costume for emphasis...he wore an orange -handknit-sweater and a pair of pants with a big handmade tail, too...!)

I read this article about harassment of women who work as fundraisers in the Jewish community, published by the JTA, and it really bothered me.  I followed it up by writing this opinion piece, which was published by the Jewish Independent this week:
A need for ethical guidelines
(My working title was something along the lines of: Ritual Sacrifice?  Or sacrificing fundraisers?)

On the broader topic, I've written little so far that specifically addresses the #MeToo movement.  That isn't because I have nothing to say.  I have so much to say that I don't know where to start.  The problem is so pervasive.  The worst part is that I haven't encountered a single woman who doesn't have something to say about this, based on her lived experience.

For me, it seemed so clear when I had a brief conversation at the dining room table with my mom and she said something like "Oh, what's coming out now is only the tip of the iceberg."  We talked about how we'd handled it previously, often with laughter. For a long time, all you could do is talk about the harassment or awful unwanted attention/physical assaults with your female friends and family and---laugh.  It was embarrassing and awful and...there was little one could do to fix things. Bringing up these issues in public only resulted in shame. It potentially also drew more abuse--as if we, as victims, caused this unwanted male attention, touch or assault. (If I'd only worn something else, sat in a public area, taken a different train...the list goes on.) This movement is a first step in a long process.

As a writer, I feel obligated to amplify unjust things as I can.  I am not fierce or as brave as some of these professionals who spoke out in a way that threatened their livelihood...but I owe it to them to step up and help.

Creative clothes for girls

A new friend of mine has a daughter in my sons' school class.  She's also a teacher at their school--and she has been wonderful to my kids.  In a 'past life'--she also sang opera professionally!  (And yes, that amazing musical talent gets shared with the kids, which is such an amazing gift.)

Today, I learned more.... I've long known that Miriam makes her daughters' clothes.  We have that in common too, although I stick to knitting sweaters, mitts, hats, and socks for my twins.  It turns that out that Miriam also has a new online boutique with girls' clothing here.

 Her designs are creative and colorful, and what's more--these clothes dress little girls in smart ways.  Her kids move and run in these clothes, and twirling is always a good option in these sparkly designs!

Even better, Miriam's found ways to dress her kids in a way that some of us prefer.  Instead of tight tank tops that show off belly buttons, these clothes fit so that girls can outrun everybody on the playground without being, well, inappropriately revealing.  (There's lots of research on this, it's hardly necessary to link to something here--just look at the clothing available for purchase for little girls these days.)

Some people deem this 'modest clothing' or call it 'covering up'--but in truth, it allows little kids to play without thinking about their bodies all the time.  And that's a good thing for everybody's psychological development.

These are fun, handmade, creative clothes, and nobody paid me to say it!  I wanted to let others in on this good secret.  So--please check out this great new resource, the Saravia Boutique....


(While you're there, read about Miriam's story growing up in the Soviet Union, too.  Her mother thought the Estonian school uniforms were the most fashionable, which is no surprise if you're a knitter.  Those Estonians do beautiful needlework!)

fair pay and feeding babies--why women's (writing) work matters

Long time blog readers may remember a few images like this from when my kids were infants?  (This used to be a pretty normal 'look' for me, but it's a while ago now, as they are about to turn six!)
Recently, I wrote a piece for the CBC about normalizing breastfeeding.  I posted about it here. Then I got approached about writing about how I fed my babies. I was enthusiastic about writing about that struggle... Except?  It was an offer for me to do it for free, and potentially provide free marketing to a very big company.  I chose to write a different opinion piece, because (surprise!) I think writers (and mothers) should get paid if they choose to write marketing copy.

 Check it out here, it ran on the CBC-Manitoba website for Mother's Day:
On Mother's Day, what about fair pay for moms?

---
It may not surprise you to hear that longtime friends of mine also like to speak out on issues that matter to them.  Long ago, I played in bands at Cornell University as an undergrad (yup, closet musician here) with Seth Kibel.  Seth has gone on to become an award-winning professional musician, and I am super proud to still know him.  (One of his first klezmer bands played at our wedding.)  Seth is launching a new album, and he's doing a Kickstarter campaign to provide support for its release.  Here's the link to the campaign, with more about this fabulous performer, and his creative efforts towards political commentary and making change. (Hint, watch the video.  He is very funny.)

Seth Kibel presents songs of Snark and Despair

Happy spring time!  Let's change the world, shall we? :) Joanne

Lost: 1 worry bear, 1 week, 1 batch of jelly

This weekend, the CBC-Manitoba ran my piece, Bottling Sunshine:Canning teaches mom essential coping skills.    Aspects of that essay summarized this past few days.  To start, last weekend my crew had their first lemonade stand.  This required at least one grown-up on duty the whole time, as neither of my twins can pour a full pitcher of lemonade yet, nor make change.  (they just turned five, that's understandable!)  After I worked behind scene and made the lemonade and cut up the watermelon, I discovered that my lovely professor had been filling up the spare moments (there were a lot of them) by picking more Nanking cherries from our yard.

(We also then caught one of the twins eating the watermelon and then putting it back in the container for customers...but that is another story. :)

We pick these cherries every year from our yard.  The boys love to help.  Usually, I make them into a jam, but this year, I decided to try a jelly instead.  After an ill-fated trip to Canadian Tire to find a jelly strainer, I rigged one up with cheese cloth and a colander instead. (This piece of equipment is also called a chinois, but since that seemed terribly embarrassing --who came up with that name?! It's inherently problematic in our bilingual world... when I asked a customer service person for it--hint, she was Asian--I decided we wouldn't be calling it that anymore.  She was gracious about it, btw, as she also was frustrated that the store didn't have one.  Who comes up with these terms for kitchen tools?! Ahhh!)

By the time everyone was done picking, eating, and wearing cherry juice all over their shirts, faces and hands, we had what amounted to something like 14 quarts of cherries.  Yeah.  I know this quantity because I used the largest slow cooker to soften them, in two batches (by boiling, you can get rid of the pits more easily).  The first batch of jelly did not become jelly.  It became roughly 10 cups of cherry sauce.  Turns out our particular cherries are oddly acidic or low in pectin or something, so I re-canned them with more pectin.  It was a colossal pain to redo, but then I ended up with 9 cups of jelly...and a lot of pulp.

For the first time, I figured out how to successfully do fruit roll in our dehydrator.  It was pretty easy, actually.  Roughly 6 cups of chopped fruit/pulp, then you puree it in a blender, add honey or sweetener if you want (I did banana and honey because cherry pulp is sour!) and then you sort of paint it on parchment paper and pop it in the dehydrator.  It took 10 hours at 135F, cooking on our front porch while we slept.  Since the natural fruit roll that we usually buy is $7.50CDN a package, this struck me as a good idea.

Unfortunately?  Fortunately? I had to do more jelly the next day (all that extra picking!) so we ended up with 17 cups of jelly and two batches of fruit roll.  If I never see another cherry this year?  It will be too soon.  Getty Stewart's cookbook was a huge help, as always, in dealing with this quirky prairie fruit.  I think I am grateful for her cookbook every summer!

In other news, you may remember a certain twin's Worry Bear?  Alas, Worry bear #2--the first one pictured here--is MIA or perhaps, RIP.  The good news about the travelling day camp is that you go new and interesting places every day.  The bad news is that between the swimming pool, the parks, the hikes, other adventures and a certain pair of shallow pants' pockets, we lost this guy last week.  We did have Worry Bear #1 as back up, but he just wasn't adequate.  Not squishy enough, not comforting enough...something wasn't right.  The loss of #2 was a little traumatic.

Yup.  You guessed it, I also spent several hours knitting worry bear #3.  This one is out of Rowan Pure Wool dk, a superwash yarn, and I stuffed it with Cheviot wool, so at least it won't felt if it ends up in the washing machine and dryer...again.

My mom said I might as well memorize the pattern, which was funny, because I make it up as I go along.  No two worry bears are alike.  Hmm.  I wonder if anyone else needs a worry bear pattern?

I also produced three challahs, 1 loaf of spelt bread, 1 banana chocolate chip loaf, and numerous other things for meals and snacks last week.  This travelling camp makes people ravenous, and packing twin healthy lunches and snacks takes a lot of time.

All this foodie and textile production--doing and redoing (my life story right now)-- hopefully lines us up for a smoother time this week.  No canning scheduled right now, because there are 5 medical appointments/tests scheduled for two of us (me and one twin) this week.  Six if you count next Monday.  Luckily, the Professor will manage a twin appointment or two so I don't have to do them all.

So, nothing deeply meaningful is happening over here...I squeeze in work where I can...but at the same time, every bottle canned, every fruit roll, every new worry bear produced? In some ways, I am taking ahold of traditional age-old women's tasks, (with significant help from the Professor) and making them new and full of love for folks in my household.  I'd argue that I do it differently, in a more feminist construct, but the love is love--it's not gendered.  It's the same, every time, no matter what we call it.

I am mother, hear me roar

I am mother, hear me roar

This is my newest op-ed, published today in the Free Press.  In general, I am proud of it-the editing was fine and I believe in what I said.  I love that it ran in the weekend paper, so more people might see it. However, writers never get to choose the headline.  I am upset about this one.  If a man wrote about getting good and equal access to healthcare, childcare, job equality and its effects on the tax base...everyone would say, "oh, right, of course, that is entirely reasonable and logical."  If I write about it, as a woman, as a mother, as a (gasp) feminist, I am roaring.   I am somehow making an (implied inappropriate?) loud noise and by implication, a statement about what women have to do to request a fair and equal status.

Really?  That makes me sad.  Not as sad, of course, as the struggle to get a fair wage, to have good access to the kind of healthcare I'd like, or to have decent and affordable childcare....but sad that the editors decided that what I wrote was somehow full of lioness rage, rather than full of a sort of legitimate frustration and an obvious logic about how to boost the tax base.  Boo.

International Women's Day

Last year, I posted about International Women's Day here. I wanted to post again today, but I haven't been feeling well and this post got delayed. (I didn't sleep much last night and am very out of breath lately from these twin fetuses squishing my lungs.) Then, I saw the Yarn Harlot's outstanding post and it spurred me on. I didn't have to cover that ground--cause Stephanie Pearl-McPhee did that part already. Well done...but I didn't want to miss my chance. So, I hauled myself back up to the third floor to post this.

I was reflecting on something important with the professor yesterday, and it fits here. The thing is, I was raised by a working mother who embodied a lot of the ideas of how feminism works. She was raised by a mom who worked, and a grandmother who worked...all strong women -- but there were two true feminists in my parents' household. My dad is a feminist, too. He took over a lot of childcare, cleaning, and other things when my mother couldn't do it all, and in the middle of the night, well, they were both there, taking turns, when one of us got sick.

I'm reading a lot of "this is how you give birth/care for a baby/care for twins" guides right now. I feel so lucky that I don't have to live in the households described in of some of these books. The world described there is one where mothers might have to "convince" fathers to help. That isn't how my parents did it, and it's not how we do it either. How do I know? Well, first, I worked hard to choose a person who would try to be an equal participant in my household. I was lucky to find one.

As my belly gets bigger and bigger, I have a hard time doing basic stuff in the house that I used to do or chores we used to share. That's ok, because the professor is doing it. Things like ALL the laundry, changing the bedding, walking the dogs, cooking a lot of the meals, all the grocery shopping...all of that and more. He also goes with me to all the doctor's appointments, and that is a huge support.

This past weekend, besides all the grocery shopping and laundry, he put in bannisters. A lot of bannisters. We have an old house, and matching up the bannisters or trying to make them fit properly was sort of difficult. Some of the details aren't perfect because the house is quirky, but the professor put up bannisters for 3 separate staircases this past weekend. Basement to first floor, first floor to second, and second to third floor. He knows I want to keep climbing these darn steps (dang it!) and now I can use my hands to haul myself up if necessary.

Many things in our society are still unequal. For instance, this week, I've been dealing with roofing estimates. (Fixing the roof will ultimately solve our ice dam/"raining inside" problems.) The amount it will cost to fix our roof? It's a lot. The cheapest estimate was $20,000. The most expensive ballpark figures are ridiculous--2 to 3 times that amount. Why is it ridiculous? Well, if I've never earned it in a year ($40,000?) in a "traditionally female" full-time profession like teaching? It seems ridiculous for me to even consider those figures, especially if only men quote them to me. One of them, I might add, had a bombastic macho confidence that leaves me somewhat speechless...won't be hiring him! Women's status in terms of income/health/well-being are so far behind men's status in most countries that it is still hard to imagine what it will look like when we're equal.

I keep hoping for change, and on a daily basis, the professor and I work on it together. My parents work on it, as do my brothers and their wives. I am often inspired by the men (and the women who raised them) who seek change and who make change in their daily lives. They work hard to break down stereotypes, and I want to support that. It goes without saying that I am incredibly inspired by the women who often fight on the front lines for equality on this front.

I know, too, that all these assumptions about nurturing being a "female" thing are just that. Assumptions. Harry (posing in a favorite position here) is a born nurturer...and he's not even a human male. He follows me around, kissing me, sleeping near me, and being absolutely sure I am safe while pregnant. He walks with me up and down every staircase. Sally helps too, of course, but lately, Harry is taking more of the on duty shifts.

I guess what I'm trying to say today is this:
I don't think being pregnant or giving birth or nurturing defines me as a woman. Not at all. That said, now that I am pregnant, it is even more clear to me how imperative it is that not just women are feminists. Men need to nurture women (and each other) as we all demand, support, and work towards creating equality. It's hard to do this stuff alone--and women don't have to. There are men out there who also can help make this world a better place. Sadly, not all men are working on this, but they could be.

In the meanwhile, we just have to start getting everyone else to step up to the plate and do their share. That's the kind of environment I dream of for my future offspring.

(I'm also thinking of how yarn might be used as insulation and roofing...cause I do have a lot of that, and it certainly doesn't cost $40,000. I'm also thinking babies, whether they are female or male, need a roof and a way to avoid getting rained on inside...can one spin/knit or weave a roof?!)

Here's to hoping that in a few years, this kind of post will seem hopelessly old-fashioned..like when women couldn't legally vote or drive. I can't wait.

poke in the eye?

My letter to the editor appeared today here in the Winnipeg Free Press newspaper.
For those who haven't heard about this case, recently a judge decided that a Manitoba rape victim's clothing implied "consent" and decided not to assign the rapist ANY jail time. Here's the latest on the case.

Unfortunately, one of the newspaper columnists had some convoluted reasoning when it came to this case. Her conclusions involved thinking that knitters were safe from sexual assault. I wish it were so...but alas, that is just not the case.

On a lighter note, I have more to post this week--the professor took some lovely photos of Festival du Voyageur. He went with some friends last weekend. --I stayed home as the windchills were -40 this year. However, I look forward to sharing the photos with you!

Social History #3

The professor and I saw this car one day in August, along the route we usually walk our dogs. It was gone (towed away) by the time we came back down that block. I've been waiting for a time to post this photo for a while--unfortunately, I think I've found it.

This Research Note from the National Endowment of the Arts fits perfectly with an image of an old, rusted out antique car.

Why, you ask? Well, according to this research on women artists in the United States from 1990-2005, women will have to work 25% longer to earn what male artists earn. Worse, the pay disparity becomes worse as women artists age...so the older women artists become, the less likely they'll be to catch up to male artists. Women artists will have to work until they are perhaps as beat up as this jalopy and---still don't earn what male artists earn.

If you're up on your feminist statistics, this seems like old news. In fact, the current statistic for women nationally is that women in the United States earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. (working full time, at comparable professions.) However, for women artists, it's 75 cents to every dollar a male artist earns. If you read the research note in detail (and I encourage that, it's not long and it's enlightening) it indicates that there are exceptions. Younger women (18-24) earn up to 95 cents for every dollar men earn, while older women earn 67 cents for every dollar men earn. The findings are not radically different when compared to other labor markets...but overall, it's bad news for women artists in the workforce.

In particular, it indicates that women artists may marry but don't have children with the frequency of the national average. I wonder, is that because it's very hard to have health insurance or provide it to your children as an artist who is self-employed? There are also interesting statistics that indicate that women earn more in Kentucky than the average--but I daresay that is because the overall average for men's salaries is lower here. State by state statistics for this can be illuminating.

What does this have to do with social history and the phrase "and she knits?" Social history often looks at the underclass...and if the research starts with 1990, we're looking at historical data from 3 to 18 years ago. Knitwear designers and writers are part of this overall labor category of "artist." Fiber artists, of course, fit in the category. Until we find a way to value women's work and women -- knitted work, written work, design work... the way we value traditionally male work and men-- women artists will be undervalued. Many talented female writers/designers/artists who do not rely on spousal support end up needing to change fields just to support themselves. Alas, even 2 cents on the dollar makes a big difference.

What a miracle it would be if women in the United States earned equal wages for equal work. That's part of this mystical thing that we call equality, part of the parity refered to by feminists like me. I know that I earned more the year before marrying than I've ever earned in the ten years since--almost a penalty for wedlock...and yes, that's with two graduate degrees. (not lacking in the education or experience department...)

To read the whole report rather than just the summary above, Click here to download the pdf. (it takes a bit to download--warranted, given the weighty topic.)

So, don't like being compared to a Tin Lizzie? What do you think about the NEA's research note? What are good solutions?