Dear Creepy Guys,

This summer, you ruined cute sun dresses for me. Please stop.

I like wearing sun dresses. In fact, a lot of women like wearing sun dresses. And men.  Men like sun dresses too! Not wearing them, I mean. Men like it when women wear them. That’s because sun dresses are great, and this is one thing most people can agree on.

But there’s this thing called positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. If you want to encourage a certain behavior, provide positive reinforcement. If you want to discourage a behavior, provide negative reinforcement.

For example, if you see a cute girl in a summer dress, positive  reinforcement would be to say “I like your dress” as you hold the door open. Negative reinforcement would be to make kissy noises and an ass-squeezing hand gesture.

The weird thing is, even though I was under the impression sun dress-wearing is something that most people enjoy, there seems to be a lot of negative reinforcement out there for the sun-dress wearers. And when I say negative reinforcement, I mean street harassment. Rampant street harassment.

It makes no sense! I cried upon this realization, and brought my palm to my forehead in confusion. Why would men on the street provide negative reinforcement to sun dresses?! What a horrible thing indeed!

Do guys not realize if they go around making women feel uncomfortable when they wear short things, then said females will be dissuaded from wearing flouncy skirts and flowy tops and shoes that make our butts look nice in the future. Stop it! Stop making women feel uncomfortable in public spaces.

Especially in sun dress season! Seriously, I only have 3 golden months to wear my cute sundresses and sandals, and I want to be able to walk around the park, or down the street to lunch, without being harassed. Don’t be that Sasquatch lumbering around the streets grunting and grabbing at women in skirts. You like the skirts. I like the skirts. Provide reinforcement that encourages sun dress wearing, and everybody wins.

And if you notice some creepy dude being creepy towards women in a public space, step in! He’s ruining sun dresses for you too. Be like, “hey man, that’s not cool,” and give him a condescending look. It’s that easy.

Today was the anniversary of the Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.

I was listening to NPR, stuck in traffic on the way home, and they said something I found rather funny. I don’t remember the exact words, but it was along the lines of “approval ratings across all areas of the government have never been so low.”

I kind of laughed to myself. Captain Obvious, to rescue! 

No but really, I got this beautiful moment of clarity where all of these snippets of information, facts, anecdotes, and ideas that have been swirling around my head for the past few months/years (my brain is kind of like a snowglobe) all came together.

NPR says approval ratings are low because of the whole Obamacare thing. I think they’ve missed the big picture. Approval ratings of the entire Government including the President, Congress, House of Representatives, Judicial system, IRS, FDA, NSA  and more are at an all-time low because they have been screwing us for a very long time now, and we’ve all finally run out of patience. They systematically have taken advantage of any & every loophole to further their own interests at the expense of the very people they are supposed to be representing.

This is because politics is no longer about serving the people, it’s about money. Money talks, and unfortunately, most Americans don’t have any. The United States Government has not been “of the people, for the people, by the people” for a very long time. It’s a bit more like, “of the powerful, for the money, by the wealthy.” 

1. Bush V. Gore & the Electoral College

One of my first memories of the US political system at work was Bush V. Gore; the election of 2000. At the time I had only a limited grasp of the electoral system and no concept of institutionalized racism. I could not understand how someone could win the presidency, even though they got nearly half a million votes less than one’s opponent. Today I’ve learned that under the electoral college system, someone can become president with only 22% of the popular vote.

With a bit more education I came to understand that the electoral college is an outdated system kept in place because it’s inaccuracy allows for easy abuse of power. Both parties have the ability to take advantage of the electoral college, and therefore, neither party has taken serious steps to amend the most fundamental aspect of democracy: A fair voting system.

This is not how the US government is supposed to work.

2. The Great Recession of 2007

After a disastrous presidency, and a complete and utter failure to properly regulate investment banks, financial conglomerates, and insurance firms, the USA entered what we are now calling “The Great Recession” (I really think we could have picked a better adjective than “great”, especially since we used for the depression and all, but hey, that’s just me.)

The housing bubble burst, people lost the values of their homes which often meant their entire lives savings, homes were foreclosed upon, blah blah blah, you all know this. What is especially telling is what happened during the “recovery”. The Government gave massive taxpayer-subsidized bailouts to these “too big to fail” companies. Here is our chance! I thought, our Government wouldn’t give these bailouts without conditions attached about how the money should be spend, rules & regulations about future corporate practices!

I was wrong. Here’s an example of what actually happened:

AIG received more than $182 billion in federal loans and cash, including $40 billion in TARP funds. General Motors received $13.4 billion, and Ally Financial got $17.3 billion…

Last year, AIG Chief Executive Robert Benmosche was awarded $10.5 million in cash and stock, while Ally CEO Michael Carpenter got $9.5 million and General Motors CEO Daniel Akerson received $9 million. All but one of the top 25 employees at each company received over $1 million in compensation. Combined, the top 16 earners received over $107 million. -Center for Research on Globalization

These companies received our tax dollars as part of the government bailout. They showed gross neglect to their employees & the general public, and directly contributed to a crippling economic recession. Had the government been doing what we elected them to do (represent & protect the people) then where were the punishments, new regulations, and guidelines for how the money should be spent? The people we elected to represent us, continued to represent corporate interests over the common citizen.

For the people, no more. This is also not how the government is supposed to work.

3. Stagnant Federal Minimum Wage, Unemployment & Income Inequality

(sorry things got kind of wordy back there, I’ll keep the rest of this brief like skivvies).

As a direct result of the great recession, federal minimum wage has stalled at $7.25 for the past few years, while the cost of living (and top 1% salaries) continue to rise.

At a 7.9% unemployment rate for those age 22-28 with a bachelors degree, and more than half of us working at jobs that don’t require a degree anyway, the unemployment issue to me is also a personal issue. 

My generation was told “go to college, otherwise you will have to work at McDonalds”. Then we successfully graduated college, could not find work anywhere, and were told “quit your bitchin’ you spoiled brats. You’ve got debts, go work at McDonalds”. We’ve taken out massive loans to pay the highest tuition rates in history, have the more debt than we can ever hope to pay off, only to realize our college degree is about as useful as a high school degree. The high school degree is the new GED. And if you only have a GED, you might as well go find yourself a nice, warm, cardboard box.

I have a 4-year degree from McGill University,  the 18th best university in the world (at the time of my attendance), and yet I have been told I am “not qualified” for unpaid internships, haven’t landed jobs because I was competing with Masters degree-holders who were laid off during the recession for the spot, and don’t have the “experience” to work at American Eagle Outfitters. 

This has all culminated in massive amounts of income inequality that has hit a fever pitch in the US – as signified by the Occupy Wall Street Movement, the Fast Food Workers Strike, and oh you know, Wal-Mart casually holding a food drive for their underpaid employees (what a fucking slap in the face. Just use part of your 15 billion in profits to hand out a few Christmas bonuses to your low-income workers, ya jerks)- and yet, tax reform has yet to happen, the minimum wage has yet to be raised, bailout money has not gone to should-be-retirees (the folks that lost their savings due to immoral corporate practices & can’t retire on time, thus, there are not openings for new workers to enter the workforce), and CEOs are not being fined for seriously immoral business practices that directly harm economic growth.

Whew. That was a really long sentence. Onward, my friends!

Once again, the Government seems to be turning a blind eye to basic, pressing issues plaguing the country.

You know what they are focusing on though? Vaginas.

4. Stomping on Women’s Rights

I am part of a gender which is paid 77 cents to every man’s dollar. But my rent is not 23% cheaper than a mans. Women do not get a 23% discount on bills, the way we do on our paychecks. Just because we are paid less, doesn’t mean we get to pay less. Just a thought.

Republicans called Obamacare a “war on bros” because women go to the doctor more often, due to feminine health issues. But the men who complain about the unfair cost of women going to the doctor are the same men who wrote into the law that women must go to a doctor if we want certain services, even if a doctor visit is not medically necessary. These are also the same guys that are pushing to make abortion illegal, but have nothing to say about men who abandon the women they’ve impregnated. As Slate said, “men who don’t want to pay for maternity care don’t understand the circle of life.”

These are also the same politicians that have the gall to tell women who want insurance-covered birth control to “keep their legs closed” because apparently women should not be having sex without the intent to reproduce. But it’s ok for men to have sex without the intent to reproduce, because these politicians seem to have no problem allowing Viagra to be covered under insurance. But gay sex is bad too! So I’m not sure who they think these men are supposed to have non-child-bearing sex with… animals maybe? Idk.

Women are continuously underrepresented & shut out of a male-dominated government that continues to waste time passing law after law regulating the female reproductive system, instead of addressing issues that actually matter. Like income inequality. And tax reform. And corporate power. And healthcare reform. And, you know, that entire fucking recession I might have mentioned once or twice.

Regulating the female body is definitely not what a government is supposed to be doing.

5. The Government Shutdown over ObamaCare

This was, like, the biggest hissy fit in the history of mankind. This is like, the Trojan War being started over Helen of Troy hissy fit status. Some of you may disagree, but it seems to me like the shutdown was House Republicans holding the entire government hostage, furloughing thousands of workers, and creating economic uncertainty, all because they were too fucking stubborn to admit they lost the ACA fight, since it was, you know, already passed nearly a year before the shutdown ever occurred.

And here’s another great example of politicians blatantly abusing their political power & legal know-how to make the system work for them, at the expense of everyone else: The House GOP changed the rules before the shutdown to better serve their purposes.

Would the founding fathers approve of this? Methinks not. Methinks this is also not what a government is supposed to be doing.

5. Governmental Constipation Because Republicans Hate Obama

Filibustering is only one way Republicans have been halting all progress Obama hoped to make during his presidency. There’s also judicial nominees, which is one way a President can have a seriously long-lasting effect on the country, years past his term.

Whoops! Just kidding, not for Obama. Nearly 20% of Obama’s nominations have been blocked by Senate Republicans, who haven’t really been all that shy about admitting that they’re simply doing this to make Obama seem like a failure. This is disrespectful both to our President, but also to the millions upon millions of citizens who voted for, and put him into office.

Once again, not what a government is supposed to be doing.

My main point is that I was taught the government was supposed to serve the best interests of the people, that our politicians were supposed to be servants of the public. They are not. They are slaves to money, and most Americans don’t have any money. Herein lies the “big picture” problem with the US Government, and only when a disconnect between money & politics is achieved will we ever see an improvement in that state of politics in America.

Until that time, I will continue to flirt with the idea of moving away. But not to Toronto, because they seem to be happy with their crack mayor, and that concerns me.

I hope I’ve given y’all something to think about. If you’ve actually gotten to this point in my blog post, I am most impressed with your attention span.

Now I must go make dinner, toodles.

I begin this post with an anecdote:

For the past few months I’ve been running a group Pinterest Board, Strength is Beautiful, for my company as part of our social media marketing efforts for Cody.

Here is my description of the board on Pinterest:

This is a group board for all things fitness! Strength is beautiful, ladies. Overly sexual images will be taken down. Email me if you would like to be invited to pin to this board: sophia@codyapp.com

At first the board was going well. There is always some degree  of uncertainty with group boards, because someone could come in and fill it with spam (or porn), but I was hopeful that the board would remain PG and body-positive. For the first few weeks, it was going well. The board was full of stuff like this:

All good stuff. Yay strength is beautiful.

As the board continued to grow, I continued to moderate the content.

There was about 40 Pinners invited to the board when a troll showed up. A male pinner decided to pin over 75 photos of topless & nude women to the board. I had to delete all the pins, and ban him from the board.

When this happened I was like, “Really, dude, really!? What about this board gave you the idea it would be appropriate to plaster boobs all over it?”

While that was a one-time incident, I have noticed an interesting pattern as I continue to moderate pins.

Female pinners “get” this concept of finding beauty in strength, and contribute pins of strong women (and men!) lifting, climbing, yoga-ing, dancing, jumping, and otherwise doing really cool, strong, impressive things.

Male pinners seem to struggle with the “beauty of strength” concept, and instead, pin images of buff women posing (often provocatively) in bikinis.

Do you see my point emerging here?

Yes, these women are strong and beautiful, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they don’t belong on Cody’s Strength is Beautiful board. I mean, at least I thought it was pretty obvious.

For women, “strength is beautiful” means “strong women do great things”, while for men, “strength is beautiful” means “strong women look hot”. While the female pinners contribute images of strong women doing athletic things, male pinners contribute images of strong women posing.

I’m not saying all the male pinners post images of women posing rather than doing, I’m just saying that all the images of women posing have come from male pinners.  This is probably because men are socialized to see women as decorative objects – passive ornaments that hold value in how they look rather than what they do.

And herein lies one of the main misconceptions I have seen repeated over and over again in the fitness community & mass media:

Strength is not a look, it’s an ability.

For many people, “strength” is just another “body ideal” that women must “conform” to. These are people who have still not broken away from the concept that the female body is only for looking at. It doesn’t surprise me that this basic misunderstanding between female strength as an ability versus female strength as a sexy body ideal is so common. Why do I say that?

Take a look at these statistics on gender ownership of media outlets:

• Female and minority ownership is way down in the single digits – under 5% each.
• Almost all women-owned “stations” are in fact radio stations, not television (the medium with the largest audience).
• In addition, three-fourths (75%) of women-owned stations are actually owned by both men and women.
• At more than 50 (13%) of those stations, women hold less than 60% of the vote, and in many cases women’s controlling interest is as low as 50.25% — barely a “woman-owned station.” In fact, many “women-owned” companies appear to be family corporations in which the female owners are greatly outnumbered by the male owners. (source)

What we see is a huge disparity in gender on mass media ownership. When dudes own the majority of media outlets, and are determining what content should run on these outlets, there’s obviously going to be a male bias. And as we have seen, dudes aren’t so great at recognizing women can actually do strong, impressive, difficult physical things. They’re still stuck on the idea that the female body’s value comes from how attractive it looks, rather than how well it functions.

The media shapes how we think (whether you admit it or not, it’s true. Harrumph). When the men who own big media outlets stop portraying women as pretty (useless) ornaments, and start portraying women as strong, capable people, only then will people en masse stop confusing “strength” with “a certain type of hot”.

A belated response to some past criticism:

When I had first written my “strong is the new skinny” post, I didn’t clarify that by “strong” I meant “being physically capable”. Many people got offended, telling me that I was just “promoting another harmful body image”.

I had no idea this “women as ornaments” mentality was so deeply entrenched that the very basic definition of a very basic word, “strong”, became radically misconstrued when applied to the female body. Tables can be strong. Trucks can be strong. Ropes can be strong. But once you apply the word “strong” to the female sex, the definition takes a wild leap from “powerful, physically capable” to “looking a certain way”. Do you see the problem here? 

“Skinny” is a look and a body type. “Curvy” is also a look and a body type. They say nothing about one’s ability to run an obstacle course, or pass the police academy fitness exam.

“Strong” is not  a look, nor a body type. While some people may be naturally thin, or naturally round, there is no such thing as being naturally strong. Strength requires hard work, dedication, sweat, consistency, and hours upon hours of physical training. It doesn’t just magically happen. And that is what’s so beautiful about strength.

Strength is beautiful, and so is recognizing that all women, including strong women, are more than just ornaments for looking at.

Hi all,  I  realized I haven’t blogged (or written any words at all) for a long time, so I thought I’d get back in the groove with a new years post. Now, I’m not very good at commitment, and new years resolutions usually tend to be a massive fail on my part. My goals tend to be like rollover minutes… except in years. Oh well, here it goes then:

1) Get that goddamn pull up.

WOW. It’s been over a year since I’ve started strength training, and I still haven’t got that pull up. Yes, it is kind of my fault. I’ve gotten close on occasion, with really consistent training, but then something would happen (l moved, I got a second job, I went on vacation, I moved again) and I’d stop training for a few weeks & BAM! No more pull up progress. Right back to the beginning.

2) Get a booty.

Ok, yes, another fitness goal. A lot of you know I’m kind of obsessed with nice booties and getting one for meself. So, this year if I haven’t done anything else in a day, I will do at least 50 squats.

3) Finish a story & publish it. 

I currently have one story written down and two more in my head. By 2015, I need to have completed & sent out at least one. 

4) Plant an herb & vegetable garden.

Many of you know I’m not generally a fan of small animals (or children), but this year I got a basil plant and it really made me like growing plants! Ok… most of the basil is dead… but that was like a practice round. This year I’m going to plant & grow some edible stuff.

I had all these other little things in my head like, “wear a little black dress once a week” or “wake up by 9am on weekends” and of course, the vague but relevant “be more awesome”, but I think I should just be realistic and keep the resolution count at 4.

Now that they’re public I have to do it! Or, at least I hope that’s how it works.

Hi all! It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about anything substantial, but I feel like I need to post something new, so here’s a whole bunch of my workout music. I make these playlists for work, and the Cody audience seems to really like them, so I thought I’d share here too.

All of these YouTube playlists should be set to autoplay:

Trap City, Bitch

Beast Mode 1

Beast Mode 2

CrossFit

Yoga

Hi all! Today I’m going to talk about something that strikes very close to home for an unfortunately large number of people: Eating Disorders.

As many of you know, I’ve had my own issues with disordered eating, the most recent of which was a physiological condition that kept me from feeling hunger – and I was happy about it – until I became so horrifically thin that many of my friends & family approached me out of fear for my own health.

Let me re-emphasize: I did not seek help for nearly 5 months, because in my head I thought it was a good thing; losing so much weight so effortlessly. My friends & family approached me and expressed their concern. Without this key factor, I’m pretty sure I would have ended up in a hospital, hooked up to IVs.

It is essential that if you suspect someone you care about has an eating disorder, SAY SOMETHING. It could potentially save her or his life.

In 2011 it was found that the mortality rate was 4% for anorexics, putting it at the highest fatality rate of any mental illness. When you include disorder-related health complications such as heart problems & suicide, the mortality rate of anorexia skyrockets to 20%. The mortality rate is  3.9% for bulimics (who also suffer from the highest suicide rates out of all the eating disorders), and 5.2% for unspecified eating disorders.

The following infographic was released by CNN in 2013 (click on it to read, my WP theme condenses images):

What concerns me the most is the numbers on children. Hospitalizations among children under 12 increased by 119%, and nearly half of girls 5-8 years old want to be thinner. This is nothing short of a catastrophe. This is a full-blown epidemic and it is our responsibility to fix it. Every. Single. Damn. Adult. All of us need to participate to be part of the solution.

“Ok, well what am I supposed to be doing about it?” You might be asking yourself right now. First, get educated.

Eating Disorders: An Overview

Illustration: “The demons- Ana, Mia, Self-harm, Hate, Depression”

An eating disorder is a serious mental health issue. Eating disorders are included in the DSM-5, just like depression or obsessive compulsive disorder. An eating disorder can be one or a combination of the following:

Anorexia Nervosa: Severely restricting food intake, intense fear of weight gain, obsession with behaviors to prevent weight gain.

• 4.2% of women and 0.3% of men will suffer from anorexia at some point in their lifetime
• Anorexia is the 3rd most common chronic illness among teenagers
• 33% will receive treatment, 66% go untreated. 4% will die.

Bulimia Nervosa: Self-induced vomiting, usually after consuming food, to prevent weight gain. Commonly manifests after binge-eating episodes, but bulimics can & will purge, even if there was no food binge.

• 4% of females and 0.5% of males will suffer from bulimia at some point in their lives.
• Only 6% of bulimics will obtain treatment, and 3.9% will die.

Binge Eating: Frequent episodes of consuming very large amounts of food, but is not accompanied by purging or behaviors to prevent weight gain. A feeling of being out-of-control during binges, along with shame, guilt, and often secretiveness.

• 3.5% of women and 2% of men will struggle with binge eating disorder at some point in their lives.
• Around 43% of binge-eaters will receive treatment, and 5.2% will die from health complications.

Disordered Eating: Includes excessive rituals, routines, or habits of food consumption that revolve around preventing weight gain, to the point where it interferes with one’s everyday life, and is detrimental to one’s health. Examples include laxative abuse, exercise addiction, night eating syndrome, purging disorder, obsessive calorie counting, and compulsive food rules/rituals.

• 50% of teenage girls and 30% of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives to control their weight.

I’m 22 years old, and since the age  of 12-13, I’ve had anorexic friends, bulimic friends, binge-eaters (sometimes myself), disordered eaters (also sometimes myself)… none of these disorders are a mystery to me.  And chances are, if you have lady-friends, a wife, sisters, daughters, aunts, grandmothers… every single one of us has been touched in some way by eating disorders.

Media Literacy:

How can I best describe the insidious power of the mass media – an omnipresent influence in nearly every young person’s life? This quote:

“Sticks and stones may break her bones, but the right words will make her starve herself to death.”

The media plays a huge part in the encouragement of eating disorders, by disseminating unrealistic & physically impossible images of women and men.

Women who are constantly exposed to images of impossibly perfect, “beautiful” women will judge themselves much more harshly. Additionally, men who are exposed to images of impossibly beautiful women in the media will, in turn, judge “real” women much more harshly as well. The same effect has been seen (with a lesser reach) among the male gender.

It is hugely important that we are educating little girls & boys in media literacy- that is- giving them the tools to understand that media is profit-driven, and not above manipulating it’s viewers for that sake of money, at the expense of social responsibility. Many young people have no idea the extent of photoshop in the images they’re consuming every day. Making them aware of how the media is essentially dishonest with nearly all of their images is a good first step to combating eating disorders. We need to tell them, “It’s not real.”

Interventions:

 How to spot an eating disorder: All of these signs require judgement on your part. Only approach someone about these behaviors if you are confident they’re indications of an eating disorder.

• Makes frequent comments about being “fat” – despite body size. Singles out (real or imaginary) areas of the body with too much fat.
• Wears baggy or heavy clothes to hide body, even in hot weather or other unusual circumstances.
• Has unusual food rituals & rules, such as chewing a certain number of times, only eating foods of a certain color, counting out exact portions, etc.
• Evidence of purging behavior: Frequent trips to the bathroom after eating, signs/smell of vomiting or laxative use including wrappers, excessive use of mouthwashing/mints/gum & hand sanitizing/washing.
• Evidence of binging: Sudden disappearance of large amounts of food, hidden stashes of food and/or empty wrappers.
• Doesn’t eat in public, or commonly uses excuses such as “already ate”/”about to eat”.
• Growth of thick body hair, loss of menstruation, hair loss (scalp), brittle nails, skin of the fingers & teeth stained yellow by stomach acid.

How to approach in a helpful manner:

• Research and be educated about the suspected disorder before you start spewing potentially (and most likely) unwanted “advice”.
• Express your concern for her/his health, and then listen. Do not bring up specific examples of her/his eating behavior. Be supportive and caring.
• Make it as neutral as possible: Neutral setting, neutral emotions – make sure that neither of you are having a bad day, or are running emotionally hot before the conversation.
• Ask if s/he would be willing to see a healthcare professional, even if it’s just the family doctor for an informal conversation.
• If this is a first-time issue, keep it between the two of you. A large group “intervention” in the case of eating disorders is not best – s/he will end up feeling “attacked” and react defensively. If this is an ongoing issue, bringing in one or two other people to help is ok.

DO NOT:

• Comment on her/his body – even positively. Do not make the focus on how s/he looks. Keep the focus on her/his health & well being.
• Attack the person  with an arsenal of specific examples & times s/he has exhibited disordered behaviors
• Start pressuring her/him to eat, offer her/him food, insist s/he consume something in front of you.
• Invade privacy under the guise of “helping”. Do not read diaries, do not stand outside the bathroom listening for guilty vomit noises, do not “rat her out” to parents, other friends, or doctors.
• Do not give more help than you are qualified to give. Leave that to the professionals.

End notes:

If you or someone you know is struggling with disordered eating, the best thing you can do is surround yourself with a supportive, non-judgmental community. I found that by joining Cody- a health & fitness social network, but you should find a group that feels safe to you – wherever that may be.

Best of luck,

Sophie

Hello! So with the flurry of media attention my blog has been getting as of late, I’m also getting a ton of questions from fellow ladies about what my exercise & diet plan looks like. I’m a huge advocate for lifting heavy, but it’s true I’ve also never gotten very specific about which lifts you should be doing. Hence…

Sophie’s Guide to Becoming a Lady-Beast

The first step to becoming a lady-beast is to roar.

First and foremost: I PERSONALLY PROMISE YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GET BULKY. DO NOT LISTEN TO IDIOTS WHO TELL YOU YOU ARE GOING TO GET BULKY. THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.

I’ve been deadlifting, back squatting, bench pressing, and so-on for about 1.5 years now.  I’ve gained 20 pounds of muscle and increased my back squat from 45 pounds up to 105 pounds. This is how I look when I’m working out:

I fucking love squats

And this is how I look in a teeny-weeny polka-dot bikini:

The opposite of bulky.

Lady-beasts DO NOT get bulky unless they are actively trying to get a bodybuilder body. Women do not have the testosterone levels needed to create huge, bulky muscles. It takes years of specific training, diet, and supplements (often testosterone) to look like a bodybuilder.

Bulkiness is not something that happens by “accident”, it takes real effort. That’s like doing schoolwork at a B-average level, and expecting to receive a 110% A++ from your teachers. It’s completely effing delusional. Stop being delusional.

The other thing you should know…

so stop trying. You can’t just get rid of your “stomach pooch” or “armpit pooch” or any other specific pooches on your body. But you can reduce your overall level body fat throughout your whole  body, which will contribute to reducing the tiny poochie-poohs you hate so much.

This is why, for the most part, all of the exercises below are compound exercises- meaning they target multiple muscle groups, and engage the entire body.

Ok, that being said, here we go…

My Favorite Heavy Lifts:

*Note: All of the links below lead to fitness guides I’ve written for work. Also, here is that fabulous Fitness Guide to the Weightlifting Room for the ladies who don’t know what squat racks look like.

THRUSTERS!!!!

Use a barbell in the squat or power rack. OR, use a fixed-weight barbell.

Rack it at your shoulders, descend into a front squat, then rise up to standing & press the bar overhead.

Most of you will have to start in the 35-45 pound range. Do 3 sets of five. If that feels ok, then increase the weight by 5lbs and go again.

ASS TO GRASS Squats (Back, front, and overhead):

Many of you have probably tried air squats or jump squats. While those are nice, to become a lady-beast you’re going to need to add some weight to your squats.

First and foremost, make sure your squat form is en pointe (check out my Ultimate Guide to Squats). Then go to the squat rack.

Start with just the barbell & get comfortable doing 3 sets of 5-10. If 10 with the barbell feels ok, then start adding weight, 5lbs at a time.

And remember: Half-squats = half booty.

Full squats = full booty.

Ass to grass, ladies.

Le Deadlift

Deadlifts:

Seriously nothing is more empowering that deadlifting a ton of weight. I personally want to get to the point where I could walk up to most dudes and say “I could deadlift you”. My deadlift is kind of weak- about 110 lbs, but I’m working on it!

With the deadlift, you can probably start a bit heavier than just the barbell (which is 45lbs). Depending on your bodyweight, try starting at 65lbs and moving up from there. As with the squats, make sure your form is impeccable before going heavy (Here’s my Ultimate Guide to Deadlifts).

Overhead Walking Lunges:

BOOTYBOOTYBOOTYBOOTY ROCKING EVERYWHERE

Once again, regular, un-weighted lunges just aren’t going to cut it anymore (especially if you’re trying to get a booty).

Grab a weight plate (10-25 lbs is good for beginners), hold it overhead, and do walking lunges.

I like doing 4 sets of 10-15 steps, but you can modify this number based on how much your butt is burning.

Cleans: 

These require a bit more skill, and I would only recommend them once you’re comfortable front squatting & deadlifting. However, if you are ready to clean, I’d recommend starting with just the bar again.

This article breaks down the clean for beginners. Start with hang power cleans. Then move to hang squat cleans. Then, finally, do the full squat clean.

Bench Press:

Yes, this is traditionally a “guy” exercise. I know most ladies aren’t interested in big arms. But what about perky boobies?! Bench press is first and foremost a chest exercise. And almost every girl I know would like a little lifting action in the chest area.

Start with just the bar, doing 3 sets of 5. If that feels ok (it probably will) then increase the weight by 5lbs and try again. I  can bench press about 75 lbs now, so take it slow. Girls have 40-50% less upper body strength than men – this is just how we’re built- so don’t expect to be bench pressing as much as the boys.

For me, this was by far the hardest lift to start doing, simply because the bench press is so totally and completely engulfed in manliness that approaching the bench made me feel naked in the spotlight. Literally. I felt naked. I don’t know why that is, but my point is, yes, it’s intimidating as hell, but…

Remember, Lady-Beasts are not easily intimidated.

If dudes at the gym are making you uncomfortable, do this:

I’m not kidding. It’s super effective.

I’ve also made that “cut it out” neck-slicing hand gesture in the mirror when I noticed a group of dudes behind me just staring at my ass- and they looked pretty embarrassed & stopped right away. Don’t feel bad. You’re not being rude. They’re being rude.

You will find that there is a learning curve for all of these new lifts. Don’t be afraid to go to the gym during off-peak hours & take your time playing around with the movements until you are comfortable.

Anyway, moving on to…

Bodyweight moves!

Here’s a my 5 favorite bodyweight moves, in order of most favorite to least favorite:

1. Burpees. Do them. Even if you hate them.
2. Jump squats
3. Hindu push ups
4. Box jumps
5. Planks

Favorite Workouts:

These are a few of my favorite, and just some ideas to get you started.

For strength & conditioning

As Many Reps As Possible in 7 minutes:

• 3 thrusters
• 3 burpees
• 6 thrusters
• 6 burpees
• 9 thrusters
• 9 burpees
• continue the pattern until time runs out.

For strength:

Warm up – 2000m row

3 sets of 5 reps of the following lifts, as heavy as you can manage:

• Back squat
• Deadlift
• Power clean
• Bench press

For conditioning:

Go to a rectangular field.

• Sprint the diagonal
• Jog the short edge
• Repeat until you collapse
• For added difficulty, do 10 push-ups at every corner.

As you can see, I like keeping things short & simple. Good form is everything, so don’t cheat.

Hope this helps! Happy training!

Dear Mark Saunders,

I see that you are a writer of men’s issues, and have taken it upon yourself to expose some of the insidiously institutionalized sexism that American men suffer from on a daily basis. Your article was titled “18 things females seem to not understand (because female privilege)” and I clicked on it, bracing for the usual dribble such as “we don’t like your pixie cuts”.

I was instead blown away by the incredible amount of  ignorance & misogyny I had unwittingly stumbled upon. Yes! A veritable goldmine of men’s issues & female privileges!

Although I’m not sure you are quite clear on the definition of a privilege.

Privilege: a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people. 

When I saw your post was a list of privileges I thought to myself, “oh good, something to remind me of how great it is to be a woman.” Too bad it was a list of literally the most pathetic, least useful privileges (& some non-privileges) ever. How ironic!

The vast majority of the list is unsupported by sound reasoning, logic, or statistics. So here I am fuming & taking 4 hours to refute an 18-point list that probably took you 30 seconds to write, when I could be watching Fringe on Netflix.

And, uh, Mark? You forgot the most important female privilege of all:

Yoga. Pants.

---

1. Female privilege is being able to walk down the street at night without people crossing the street because they’re automatically afraid of you.

Ah I see. You don’t like that people are “automatically afraid”. You’re upset you do not have the “privilege” of assumed nonviolent behavior that comes with owning a vagina whilst walking down the street at night, the possible benefits of which include being catcalled, groped, followed, harassed, taken photographs of without consent, abducted, raped, beaten, and/or murdered.

Those fucking privileged bitches who walk around at night with their keys in-between shaking fingers, pepper spray in pocket, staying on the phone with a friend so someone will be there to hear her scream if anything happens – these privileged women who just don’t understand that being avoided on the sidewalk is such a hardship.

Yeah, ok.

2. Female privilege is being able to approach someone and ask them out without being labeled “creepy.”

This one is actually not too offensive or outrageous – although a rather silly privilege in itself. I am slightly confused as to Mark’s dating tactics. Maybe take a romance course?

3. Female privilege is being able to get drunk and have sex without being considered a rapist. Female privilege is being able to engage in the same action as another person but be considered the innocent party by default.

Getting drunk + having sex =/= rapist.

Getting drunk + having sex with a non-consenting person = rapist.

This doesn’t change depending on your gender.

4. Female privilege is being able to turn on the TV and see yourself represented in a positive way. Female privilege is shows like King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond where women are portrayed as attractive, competent people while men are shown as ugly, lazy slobs.

 The above statement must have surely been a product of pure ignorance, because nobody could possibly believe that women are represented more positively than men. That’s because women are barely represented at all!  The CW is the only network that represents females in accurate proportion to their representation in the U.S. population.

Now, to the quality of female characters that do make it on screen. To the left is a chart that shows the representation of characters’ genders in positive, leadership positions. As you can see, women in fact do not get the privilege of being represented in a positive way, say as president, or CEO, or ingenious scientist. We barely get represented at all.

However, when we do get represented, it’s when we’re naked, since women are twice as likely as men to appear in sexually explicit scenes. Which, you know, could be what Mark meant by “attractive, competent people”…?

[above media facts sourced here]

5. Female privilege is the idea that women and children should be the first rescued from any sort of emergency situation. Female privilege is saving yourself before you save others and not being viewed as a monster.

6. Female privilege is being able to decide not to have a child.

First of all, it is a goddamn right to be able to decide not to have a child. You know why it’s a right and not just a silly little privilege? Because children grow inside our bodies, not yours, you fucking nincompoop. Of course a woman has the right to decide what happens to her body and a man doesn’t.

Plus, I don’t see how deciding to not have children is an exclusively female privilege. Men can decide not to have children too. Just don’t have sex, like all those women who can’t afford birth control.

7. Female privilege is not having to support a child financially for 18 years when you didn’t want to have it in the first place.

Let me translate: Female “privilege” is incubating an unwanted child inside your body for 9 months, undergoing a painful & dangerous childbirth, then raising the child every single day of your life for the next 18 years with no help from some piece of shit dude who complains about paying child support, all because a male-dominated government reduced access to contraception and enacted so many TRAP laws in your state that you did not have the time, money, or resources to prevent the child “when you didn’t want to have in the first place”.

Male privilege is being able to opt out this unwanted child’s life by writing a check every month.

8. Female privilege is never being told to “take it like a man” or “man up.”

I think everybody except for you, Mark, knows that this “privilege” is not really advantageous to our lives in any way, shape, or form, and therefore not actually a real privilege.

9. Female privilege is knowing that people would take it as a gravely serious issue if someone raped you. Female privilege is being able to laugh at a “prison rape” joke.

If people took rape victims so gravely seriously, then why must rape survivors in schools rely so heavily on Title IX to ensure that their sexual assault claims are given the time of day?  And secondly, if female privilege is being able to laugh at prison rape jokes, then who’s the privileged one when it comes to the (much more common) rape-rape jokes?

10. Female privilege is being able to divorce your spouse when your marriage is no longer working because you know you will most likely be granted custody of your children.

I’m getting tired of this.

11. Female privilege is being able to call the police in a domestic dispute knowing they will take your side. Female privilege is not having your gender work against where police are involved.

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY  THE POLICE FAVOR WOMEN? DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE THIS “PRIVILEGE” COMES FROM?Percentages of people killed in the U.S. by an intimate partner: 30 percent of women, 5.3 percent of men. Percentage change between 1980 and 2008 of women and men killed by intimate partners in the U.S.: ( w) 43 percent to 45 percent; (m) 10 percent to 5 percent. Yes, we are so privileged, getting beaten & killed in such high percentages that the police must be specially trained to handle domestic disputes with the woman’s safety as a priority. We’re so lucky. 

12. Female privilege is being able to be caring or empathetic without people being surprised.

This is ridiculous and once again, a totally useless privilege that I’d like to trade for… IDK… the privilege of an automatically higher starting salary over half the population.

13. Female privilege is not having to take your career seriously because you can depend on marrying someone who makes more money than you do. Female privilege is being able to be a “stay at home mom” and not seem like a loser.

While I do think that it’s important that stay-at-home-dads get their due recognition and shouldn’t receive any flak for wanting to stay at home with the kids – I’m pretty sure that it’s other dudes that are depriving  men of this privilege, since every woman I know is fucking ecstatic when dad wants to help out more. 

The whole “don’t have to take career seriously” and can “depend on marrying someone” lunacy… um 40% of households with children rely on the mother as the sole provider. 32 percent of mothers told Pew that their ideal situation would be to work full time rather than part time or not at all (2012).

And finally, you think it’s a privilege to depend on marrying someone? Really?

14. Female privilege is being able to cry your way out of a speeding ticket.

Don’t shoot me but I can’t refute this.

15. Female privilege is being favored by teachers in elementary, middle and high school. Female privilege is graduating high school more often, being accepted to more colleges, and generally being encouraged and supported along the way.

For around 1500 years, girls worldwide were completely shut out of the educational system – a privilege reserved for the boys. Just recently, in the past 200 years or so, girls were finally been granted widespread (relatively speaking) access to both lower & higher education. Only 30 years ago did women start to surpass men in enrollment & graduation throughout all stages of school.  By my (rough) calculations, men have had nearly 1300 years of “being favored by teachers” 100:0, so I don’t think that a few girl-favoring years of 54:46 is reeeally a deep-rooted, institutionalized bias against men.

Secondly, despite the fact that women are out-achieving men at school, it doesn’t matter once we graduate. There is only one of 285 major occupations where women’s median pay is higher than men’s: Personal care and service workers. What about within the same profession? “In a recent study of newly trained doctors, even after considering the effects of specialty, practice setting, work hours and other factors, the gender pay gap was nearly $17,000 in 2008.” 

Education is one of the only places women have the opportunity to be graded & awarded strictly according to merit and little else. Just let us have this one.

16. Female privilege being able to have an opinion without someone tell you you’re just “a butthurt fedora-wearing neckbeard who can’t get any.”

Whoever told you that is hilarious.

17. Female privilege is being able to talk about sexism without appearing self-serving.

(FYI – I’m ending this post because I’m tired)

18. Female privilege is arrogantly believing that sexism only applies to women

Ok, I would like to end with this:

Male privilege looks like this article. Male privilege is what allowed a guy like Mark Saunders to get his incredibly ignorant, badly researched, badly written “article” published on a high-traffic blog with apparently lower standards than I expected. And male privilege is what allows men to think women should be thankful for the above “privileges” that we have wrestled for ourselves – at the cost of men – in modern society.

Rant is over – kudos to everyone who made it to the end.

Hi everyone,  just your least-favorite, most aggressively feminist  blogger whittling away the hours of her short life here. If you’re reading this then you were lucky enough to catch me at an “open” (2.5 glasses of wine in) mood. This blog post was inspired by two things. 1) A wild attempt at being less guarded & more open, to you know, be a better human being. 3) An ex left me a (much unwanted) voicemail. Anyway, in an attempt to be thankful rather than spiteful, here are some things I’m glad learned from my past relationships.

BF No.1

You taught me that adolescent stupidity knows no bounds. And that my parents are usually right.

No but really, from you I learned what it feels like to not respect myself. I learned how horrible it feels to throw everybody you care about underneath the metaphorical bus of life barreling down the street for my own selfish wants. I learned of how addictive “love” (the 14 year old version) was, how it would make me do absolutely lunatic things like sit in a snowy parking lot for 3 hours waiting for you, steal cheesy sticks on the first week of my first job for you, lie to my parents for you, make excuses for you, take you back after you accidentally texted “I made out with Shirley” to me instead of your best friend.

You taught me what it felt like to not have self respect, and since then, trust me, I’ve never gone back.

BF No.2

You taught me about emotional manipulation. Now, I’m a goddamn fucking expert, so hats off to you.

And the importance of moderation, but that one is obvious.

No, the single most important thing I learned about life, dating, and men, can be summed up in this one anecdote:

I’m ticklish, and I hate being tickled, and he knows it. Nevertheless, he tickled me, often, even though I hated it and I yelled and screamed and tried to push him away, he would hold me down and tickle me, insisting that I liked it because I was laughing because I’m a ticklish person being tickled.  Finally one day, I get fed up and, after unsuccessfully trying to resist and being tickled for an agonizingly long amount of time, I reached up and pulled his hair as hard as I could.

It worked. He stopped. He was furious.

And then I spent the rest of the night apologizing to him.

*p.s. No, “tickling” isn’t a code word for anything. Tickling was actually the issue.*

Thank you, No.2, for teaching me the Female Reaction Paradox: When you are provoked by someone who then calls you “crazy” instead of admitting that it was his/her actions that caused your subsequent reaction.

BF No.3

You taught me about standards. Miraculously, I did not really have standards (albeit, in high school it was either “in school” or “dropout” so…) before I dated you. Now, I am happily cured and will not date dudes who are uneducated, unemployed, or unambitious.

BF No.4

You taught me what a good relationship was, even though I never had the courage to admit that we were in a relationship. You taught me that even though we can disagree about politics and education and food and humor, two people can still share respect & affection & a damn good time.

So thanks.

When one Illinois middle school cluelessly decided to ban leggings & yoga pants because they were “distracting to the boys”, they probably didn’t have any idea it would be the catalyst to a national conversation about dress codes in school.

I mean, dress codes are like, so un-controversial. Until now.

Now, all sorts of interesting stories are surfacing. Girls wearing the same regulation gym outfits, but the curvier ones are getting dress-coded. Tall girls getting dress-coded for short garments, even though they’re finger-tip length, while short girls seem to not draw the same leg-bearing ire. One girl getting sent home from prom for wearing pants. Another girl was sent home from her homeschool prom because male chaperons said her dress was “causing impure thoughts”…for the teenage boys, of course.

So… Many interesting stories indeed.

The leggings ban irked me immediately for two reasons. The first being that these girls are in middle school, which means they are 11-14. Stop making them out to be devilish little nymphets, you creepy Humbert Humberts. These girls are not wearing yoga pants/leggings to show off the prepubescent shapeliness (ha!) of their backsides. The main reason girls (and adult women!) wear yoga pants is because they are heaven compared to the alternative:

Traditionally “cute”clothing for young women are notoriously restrictive and often painful.

The following images are from IMPRESSION, a photo series that shows what women wear, by the imprints left on their skin .  Here’s what form-fitting jeans look like:

Does that look comfortable to you?  Because it looks pretty damn painful to me.

Keep in mind that loose or baggy clothing for girls is neither “popular” nor “attractive” and even borderline socially unacceptable. Professional women: would you show up to the office in a baggy pantsuit? No? Then why would these girls show up to school in baggy jeans?

(This is a bit off topic but…) I really bothers me how schools insist that girls wear bras (this starts at, like, age 8-14 when girls start budding. Many girls and/or their moms have embarrassing stories of female teachers quietly pulling them aside, and delicately suggesting that she get a training bra), but then simultaneously decree that bra straps are inappropriate. This is like insisting all boys must wear socks, but the tops of socks sticking out of the shoes are inappropriate.  It’s just… so arbitrary.

Anyway, back to my point: the (un)comfort of women’s clothing. Obviously girls are going to pick yoga pants/leggings over form-fitting jeans that cut off the blood flow in the hips. It’s not about looking “sexy”. It’s about comfort. To twist this innocent reason around and treat these girls as if they are temptresses is incredibly disrespectful.

The second reason the leggings ban irked me was the “reasoning” behind it.

It’s “distracting to the boys”

Ugh. Every sane person on the internet immediately called bullshit on this incredibly sexist statement. The basic and very valid counterargument:  Girls clothing is not and should not be responsible for boys’ behavior.  I’m actually not going to go too deep into this. I know if you’re reading my blog then you probably understand & agree with the counterargument. I wanted to take this conversation in a bit of a different direction;

One. 

It’s yet another reminder, and reinforcement, that a girl’s appearance is more important, and demands more attention, than her other, non-visible qualities. You know, qualities like intelligence, perseverance, athletic ability, tenacity, creativity, a hard work ethic… attention to those attributes seem fade away rather quickly once an inch of skin is exposed.

Instead, it teaches her to view herself in a sexualized gaze, from an outsider’s point of view. At an increasingly young age, getting dressed in the morning turns from “does teal clash with yellow?” to “is this too much shoulder? Can someone see down this shirt? Would someone be able to look up this skirt on the stairs? What happens when I sit or bend over? I should test that.”

It’s not necessary a bad way of thinking when getting dressed. But it’s a pretty damn insidious sign of something ugly in our society, when middle-school girls are worrying about people looking down their shirts, and adjusting what they wear because of it.

And schools, the institutions that are supposed to be teaching our kids the importance of education, teach the opposite when they pull a girl out of class because her tank top straps are only two inches wide, not the three inches regulation. It doesn’t matter if she’s the valedictorian working towards the Ivy Leagues. If one day her shirt rides up a bit too much (maybe it shrunk unexpectedly in the wash?), she could get sent home to change (perfect attendance award? who cares!).

Two.

Female bodies are not public art.

They are not for your viewing pleasure.

Or viewing displeasure.

Schools are teaching girls, at a very, very young age, that they are on-display, and that is not ok. They’re normalizing some pretty scary behaviors that women must put up with almost every day:

• receiving unsolicited comments from complete strangers on clothes and/or appearance
• fielding “suggestions” from others on how dress, apply makeup, or even style hair
• being forced to change clothes because someone in an authority position demands it
• experiencing the unwanted & unnecessary sexualization of her body by older persons
• responding to all of the above with compliance and politeness

Not only that, but for women, the feeling of being watched is unsettling but very common. I feel on-display when I’m waiting for the crosswalk sign to change. I feel on-display when I’m at the gym. I feel on-display at the grocery store… the list could go on. Usually it’s because I see the leers, the quick up-down flick of the eyes, the possible mental-undressing (many guys have told me apparently this is a common, almost knee-jerk mental reaction, to imagine a woman’s clothes off? Idk, let me know in the comment box). Its pretty jarring to hear that some schools have become one of those places that treat girls like they are objects on display.

I think what we’re hearing online is girls expressing that the strange, inconsistent enforcement of the dress codes is sexualizing them against their will. I’m pretty sure every single private schoolgirl has been subjected to some crass “naughty schoolgirl” joke, or unwanted attention, due to their uniforms.

It’s not the girls.

It’s not their uniforms.

It’s the outsider’s gaze sexualizing  them.

Right now schools seem to be doing a really good job of teaching girls being female in public means their bodies are on display for scrutiny. And schools are doing a really bad job of teaching boys that staring is rude (to put it lightly).

Until this changes in schools, I highly doubt the more mature, serious variations of unwanted sexualization - street harassment, sexual assault, and victim-blaming - will ever fully disappear.

All I have to say for now is:

If you’re a teenage girl in high school, it will all be over soon. You will graduate (or exit with grace), and enter the real world where nobody cares if leggings show the shape of your butt, because everybody wears leggings and everybody has butts. And there is nothing inherently sexual with either of those things.

I lead a privileged life. I was at a 4-day music festival the weekend of the Isla Vista shootings, and upon my return I scrambled to catch up to the wildfire that started as a conversation about misogyny, and spread into #YesAllWomen.

A few days of reflection, and this is what I’ve come up with (true story):

Last summer I went on a camping trip with some friends-of-friends. One couple was a 21 year old guy, and his 17-year old girlfriend, who was also the mother of their newborn child.

Less than 24 hours into the trip, he began verbally abusing her. He screamed & yelled profanities at her, calling her a “stupid whore” and a  “dumb cunt”.

A newcomer to the group, and unsure of what to make of it, I turned to the two other adult men at the campsite, the abusive man’s friends, and asked “Hey, is he being serious?”

They shrugged,

“Yeah, he does it all the time.”

I immediately  snapped, marched over to the abusive guy, and got right in his face.

The other two men did not get involved until the fight escalated and it looked like I was about to get punched.

I pulled the girl aside. We had never met before this camping trip. She was crying.

I told her to pack up her stuff and get in my car, because we were leaving.

As I drove her home, I told her that no-one should ever speak to her like that. That she’s a strong, young lady raising a child and she deserves the utmost respect from her partner.

“Did he hit you?” she asked me, quietly.

Barely, but I didn’t say anything.

Instead I countered, “Does he hit you?”

Her silence told me everything I needed to know.

I don’t know if she’s ever had someone stand up for her before. I don’t know if she’s ever been told that she’s worth more, that she doesn’t have to put up with that kind of abuse, that people care about her.

I know this  incident probably didn’t change anything for her. She’s a 17-year old high school dropout in an abusive relationship with the father of her 6-month old baby. I know she went back to him the very next day.

But I like to think that seeing someone else stick up for her would help her realize she can also stick up for herself.  Someday.

Now, was I a knight in shining armor – the hero of this story?

No.

At the end of the day, I was some crazy bitch that butted into a couple’s relationship, punched a friend-of-a-friend I had met only 24 hours earlier, and then kidnapped his girlfriend for the night.

But sometimes you just gotta be a crazy bitch.

Because there are certain moments in life that define who you are.

One of those moments is when you have the choice between doing what is easy versus doing what is right.

So, Men, let me ask you this:

If I — a 5-foot-4-four inches, 120lb, 22-year old, half-asian woman– can face off to a dude 1.5 times my bodyweight, and stand up for a young woman who’s being mistreated,

THEN WHY CAN’T YOU?

I’m not saying go out into the world and start fistfights with sexist assholes. I’m just saying, when you see a woman being mistreated, disrespected, abused, or threatened by another man, do not be a bystander. 

Oh lawdy lawd. Ok, many of my blog posts are often prompted by people being assholes, and me explaining exactly what about their behavior makes them crappy human beings. Osmel Sousa, the president of the popular Miss Venezuela beauty pageant, pretty much takes the trophy for crappy human being of the day (because there’s always a new one tomorrow).

The following video, produced by the NY Times, is only about 5 minutes long, but if you don’t feel like watching it, Sousa’s opening statement pretty much sums it up:

“Inner beauty doesn’t exist,” he claims, “it is something that unpretty women invented to justify themselves.” (He says this with a really creepy smile on his face, then laughs.)

The first issue with this statement was summed up really well by Erika Nicole Kendall, another blogger whom I admire very much:

“I think it’s pretty f—ing jarring to hear someone say “I say that inner beauty does not exist; it’s something that unpretty women invented to justify themselves.“ They need to justify themselves? As in, their raison d’etre? Their existence? Women who are not “beautiful” are subject to justifying their existence, lest there be no reason for them to exist?”
-Excerpted from “I Say That Inner Beauty Does Not Exist” | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss 

Props to Kendall for calling this guy out on what he’s really trying to say: If a woman is not physically beautiful, then she doesn’t have any value.

What is especially concerning (to me at least) is that this dude is gay, and he does not talk about women this way because he wants to bone them. This is not a sexual power play. No, as a gay man, he thinks “ugly” women have “made up” the concept of inner beauty because to him, women are objects for looking at, period.

To Sousa (and many other people), women serve no other purpose than being ornamental, like a painting, or a vase. And what is the point of an ugly vase? None. An ornament must be beautiful to serve it’s purpose, otherwise it is no longer an ornament – it is an eyesore & will be taken out with the trash.

The rest of the video explores the new trend of Venezuelan mannequins being modified to be super busty, reflecting the increasingly extreme beauty ideals of the country. This trend of mannequins with impossible body proportions is nothing new. But mannequins are also particularly interesting because they literally are woman-ornaments. A mannequin with a less-than perfect body shape is worthless and will be modified and/or thrown out.

And herein lies the scary connection to be made: To Sousa (and people who agree with him) If “inner beauty does not exist”, if traits such as intelligence, compassion, and strength do not matter, and women are merely ornaments to please the eye, there is no difference between a woman and a mannequin. If this does not outrage you right now, leave my blog.

Why do mannequins even matter that much? Much like photoshopped women in magazines, they contribute to social norms of what women should & shouldn’t look like.

Venezuelan mannequins:

American Mannequins:

(by the way, if you walk around to the back of mannequins in America, you can see the clothes are often clamped or pinned to be form-fitting, because the mannequins are thinner than size 0/XS).

Swedish mannequins:

(because Sweden does everything right)

Ok, obviously the notion that “inner beauty doesn’t exist” is complete and utter bullsh*t. This brings me to the second part of this blog post:

Yarrrg Musclezzzz (& Booty)

Our standards of female beauty are changing from heroin-chic to Wonder Woman. Don’t believe me? Google Trends knows – thin is on it’s way out, fit is just getting started.

Part of this trend is due to a strong resurgence in the feminist movement worldwide, ever since several notable gang rape incidents (selfcontrolselfcontrol don’t fly off the handle about rape right now). Check out any “fitblr’s” Tumblr account, and chances are you’ll see some feminist stuff on it. That’s because fitness & feminism actually go together like salt & pepper. Fit gals and fit dudes understand the mental, physical, and social empowerment that comes with control over one’s body.

Because I have a sociological background, when I started writing for Cody I realized I was in a position of influence, and I could use this influence for the better. That’s why you will never see sexualized fitness content on the Cody blog. I’ve made a point to only use body-positive language on Cody’s social media accounts. Our graphic designer Tasheon also does a really great job of  only using non-sexual, body-positive images & illustrations:

Another reason this trend is catching on so quick is CrossFit! This is because as CrossFit spreads, more people are exposed to images of strong women, and the more you are exposed to these images, the more you grow to accept it, like it, even want to look like it.

Here’s a short CrossFit video called “Letting Beauty Speak”:

Unlike Sousa & his beauty pageants, CrossFitters understand that beauty is not skin-deep. That being said, imagine what would happen if our mannequins looked like CrossFitters!

I’ve been waiting for the ever-vapid Seventeen or Cosmo magazines to start featuring some of the more conventionally “hot” CrossFit women, like Andrea Ager

or Christmas Abbot

or Camille Leblanc-Bazinet

But then I realized, if Seventeen & Cosmo won’t put athletes like Mckayla Maroney or Venus Williams on their covers, they’re probably not going to put a CrossFitter on their cover. Which is a damn shame. But that’s ok, because Seventeen & Cosmo are insulting pieces of shit that portray women as idiots who are only interested in makeup, clothes, and men, and they can go suck a fat one.

I’ve received some criticisms in the past – “this blog reads like a CrossFit advertisement” or “you’re still focusing on physical standards of beauty” or “stop hating on skinny bodies“… blah blah blah.

These are all people that don’t understand the deep connection between physical fitness & female empowerment. When  I started working out, yes, I was doing it to “look better naked”.  I had no idea that the following would happen:

1) I’ve stopped wearing makeup on a regular basis. Makeup is now reserved for big nights out, or job interviews.

2) I’ve stopped wearing form-fitting clothes, and pretty much my wardrobe consists of baggy jeans & a sweatshirt. Even though my body is now the most smokin’ I’ve ever achieved, I have no desire to show it off.

3) I’ve stopped weighing myself.

4) In short, I’ve stopped seeking outside approval for how I look, because to be honest how I look doesn’t really matter to me anymore.

Y’know what matters? Inner beauty. Intelligence, resilience, strength, creativity, compassion, resourcefulness, spunk, attitude, confidence, dedication… this is what inner beauty is. This is what matters. Not what you look like, but what you can do.

So for every single person out there, man or woman, don’t let any jerk try to tell you that inner beauty doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist. Even if your face got shot off like Chuck Palahniuck’s Invisible Monsters.

Hi readers!

In lieu of my 2-years single anniversary (yes, I did take myself out on a date), I have decided to take matters into my own hands.

I had always considered online dating to be for people too socially awkward to meet people in real life.

However, at the age of 23, I have finally come to terms with the fact that I  am too socially awkward to meet people in real life.

But online dating (or apps? Are those considered the same thing?) is not something I know too much about. Halp!

Please feel free to leave online dating advice, stories, and recommendations in the comments section.

Lord knows, I need all the help I can get.

This post was originally written as a guest post for Tony Gentilecore, and was first published on his blog here.

I have been strength training for about two years now. Before that, I was a starvation-dieter.

I began dieting around the age of 13 or 14. My freshman year of high school I discovered I no longer fit into size zero jeans and bam! Diet time. By the time I hit 21, the years of self-imposed malnutrition had left me at 100lbs, able to easily wrap my thumb & middle finger around my upper arm (“bicep” doesn’t seem like the appropriate word) and unable to open jars, heavy doors, or windows by myself.

Why am I telling you this?

During my seven years of starvation-dieting, I was never once told, “don’t get too thin”.

In contrast, during my two years of strength training I have been told, “don’t get too muscular” countless times.

The first time it happened to me, I had excitedly been telling someone about my new squat PR. Weighing in at a (finally) healthy 125, I had just squatted 100lbs. I was in the middle of explaining  “my goal is a bodyweight back squat-” when I was interrupted with a “well, don’t get too muscular now”.

Being new to strength training, this crushed me.

For an awful few days it took my focus away from becoming stronger, and back to measuring myself by the gauge of “is my body pleasing for others to look at?”

After I got over it, my dismay turned into anger – no – absolute fury at this society in which 42% of girls 5-8 years old want to be thinner, and 10 million women are battling eating disorders (source), yet we hear the words “don’t get too muscular” far more often than “don’t get too thin.”

Now, while this unsolicited “advice” is generally never welcome nor appreciated, it brings up two issues: The encouragement of female weakness, and the lack of respect for female body autonomy.

One:  Culturally-encouraged female weakness

Let me tell you right now, women who strength train know how hard it is to build muscle. If you tell a woman who strength trains “don’t get too muscular” then congratulations! You have just ousted yourself as a totally ignorant fool who doesn’t even lift.

The problem is that women who don’t strength train don’t know how hard it is to build muscle, and so this phrase, “don’t get too muscular” will seriously deter them from ever picking up heavy things in the first place.

This is a big problem. Naomi Wolf explains it better than I ever could:

“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.”
― The Beauty Myth

When women strength train, it is an act of borderline social disobedience. “Don’t get too muscular” is the phrase of choice used by people who are threatened by strong women to put them “back in their place”. And it’s working.

We have three generations & counting of women who have been brainwashed into voluntarily physically debilitating themselves.  Three generations of women who have been more focused on losing weight than running for government. Three generations of women have would rather be thin than intelligent. Three generations of women that would rather let the men-folk open jars for them, rather than develop the strength to open jars for themselves.

Now, I am not advocating that people start going around, accosting teenage girls with desperate pleas of “don’t get too thin! Put some meat on dem bones!” But to be completely honest, I probably would have benefited very much if I had received the message “don’t get too thin” at some point in my adolescence.

So. If you are going to say anything to a woman about her body (which you shouldn’t be doing in the first place, as I am about to explain), “don’t get too thin” is 1000% preferable  over the completely moronic “don’t get too muscular”.

Two: Lack of respect for female body autonomy

Why do people think it’s appropriate to tell women what they can & can’t do with their bodies in the first place? What makes someone think it’s perfectly acceptable to tell a woman “don’t get too muscular”?

This is an issue that’s been going on since the dawn of time, with female body autonomy being disrespected from reproductive rights, to personal space in public places, to -yes – appearance, weight, & fitness.

Most tellingly, no woman – no matter what kind of body she has – is immune from invasive suggestions on how she should be caring for her body. Women who strength train are warned against getting too “bulky”, “muscular”, or (my absolute favorite) “manly”. Women who are on the larger side by far endure the most unwanted commentary. From people remarking on what’s in their shopping carts, to what they should order at a restaurant, to what type of exercise they should be doing, to what they should be wearing whilst exercising… it never stops. Even thin women can’t escape the self-appointed body police, who unhelpfully pester them to eat more because “men like women with curves”.

If you are a man, and the idea of a random passerby raising knowing eyebrows at your gut whilst commenting on your ice-cream cone sounds invasive and preposterous – that’s because it is invasive and preposterous. You are just lucky enough to not experience it every day. Sometimes multiple times a day.

Men, for the most part, do not have to entertain this type of “well-intentioned” advice, because people actually respect male body autonomy. This is something that women would like to enjoy as well.

The people who tell women what they should do with their bodies are, frankly, so arrogant they believe their “benevolent suggestions” are actually doing the woman a favor. Y’know, helping us be more attractive to potential mates.

This completely disregards the fact that women do not exist to be aesthetically pleasing for others, and we (this may surprise some) often do things for ourselves.

Which brings me full circle to my anecdote in the beginning, about the first time someone interrupted my squat-excitement to not-so-helpfully remind me to avoid bulky she-man status.

Women who strength train are doing it for themselves, not for you. Women who lift weights have already eschewed social norms by touching iron in the first place, and I guarantee they give negative fucks about your opinions on their bodies.

So next time you are tempted to “help” a woman by telling her not to deadlift things because you don’t like muscular women, remember that nobody cares about your stupid boner. Especially not the lady deadlifting 200lbs in the gym tank that says “GET SWOLE”.

But even more importantly than not telling this to women who already have the ability to overhead press your girlfriend, don’t say it to women who aren’t strength training yet (like your girlfriend).  Because chances are, with every “don’t get too muscular” a girl hears, weight gets added to the already-heavily weighted scales that tip women away from becoming strong, healthy, and powerful, and towards a life of cardio, carrot sticks, and misery. And no woman deserves that.

If you (or a lady-friend) are ready to start getting strong, I highly recommend Krissy Cagney’s Beginner Strength program. She is an extremely knowledgeable professional, but more importantly, Krissy embodies female empowerment and is the type of coach that can actually change a girl’s life for the better. 

Income inequality is going to be a defining issue of our generation, no doubt. But one issue I think isn’t getting enough attention, possibly if not definitely from ignorance, is the mere existence of the creative class, and what the slow, drawn-out asphyxiation of the creative class really means.

Now, for a lot of people, why would you care about the Creative Class, a Marxist-sounding something you didn’t know exists? In fact,

What is the “Creative Class”?

The creative class, most simply put into words, are the artists, musicians, poets, writers, dancers, sculptors, etc. They can be rich, poor, undiscovered, wildly successful, or complete “failures” (by conventional societal standards). Not unlike runners, there is no requirement or certification to be a “creative” other than actively “doing” your creative thing. It is the restless group of people that cannot rest, cannot find fulfillment, unless they are pursuing their chosen art(s).

Now, my inspiration for this post came from my good friend Alex, who had invited me to see a rehearsal of Little Shop of Horrors, a musical she’s in (also, I highly recommend Seattle-area folks go see it).

What stuck out to me was that this musical was on Bainbridge Island, a two-hour round-trip ferry ride from Seattle (but the ferry serves beer!).  A 3-hour practice for the cast amounted to a 5-hour time-suck in their days.

Not only that, but this show is unpaid. Well… for the cast at least.

All in all,  it totaled to a small group of highly dedicated artists sacrificing their time, effort, and money (for the commute) to be part of a small musical production.

And the most interesting thing about it? They were all happy. Not just happy. Ecstatic.

One cast member, Shani King, works four jobs: Coffee barista in West Seattle, Old Navy service rep, service person at Sweet Deal on Bainbridge Island, and she teaches dance once a week. “The fact that it takes four jobs to be able to survive, and then to do a show at the same time, is kind of ridiculous,” she says.

Four jobs is definitely ridiculous, but what was even more ridiculous to me was watching her go through a grueling rehearsal, with the knowledge in the back of my head that, unlike me, she’s probably not headed home to sip wine and relax at the end of the night.

So what do I mean when I say the creative class is dying in America?

Well, something I remember vividly from my college admissions process, and I think still holds true today, is the devaluation of arts degrees. The idea that liberal arts degrees are a “waste of money” or have become “obsolete”. The idea that someone who dedicates oneself to deepening one’s knowledge of the arts is just wasting their time, and potentially a portion of your future paychecks.

But here’s what I always say at parties (and yes, I do say obnoxious shit like this at parties. I don’t know why people invite me anywhere. I really don’t):

The Civil War never would have happened if a fictional book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, had never been written. Because it’s not facts & science that changes minds, it’s irrational emotions. Feelings are what causes world-altering shifts in attitudes & culture.

Likewise, with our current climate change debates, it’s not the facts that prove icebergs are melting, therefore we should care. It’s photography like this, where 35,000 walrus’ need a place to rest in lieu of their preferred lounging areas (ice flows) melting, that are going to change public opinion and mobilize us in ways that a page full of numbers never could.

So when I say that the creative class, is important, you know I damn well mean it.

And when I say the death of the creative class is nothing less than a catastrophe, you know I damn well mean it.

How minimum wage is killing the creative class:

The blue line is annual earnings of a full-time minimum wage worker

This subtitle’s meaning will immediately resonate with all creatives, and most likely confuse everyone else.
The creative class is the small subgroup of people who are so drawn to their art, they will die for it, with little to no recognition at all. Compare that to other subgroups that are motivated by fame (celebrities), power (politicians), or money (business people).

Now, for the creative class to actually create, certain things need to happen. For one, they need to not die of starvation, which means basic food & shelter is a must. They also need the flexibility known as “time” to actually create. I’m not sure if you knew this, but creating magnificent works of art & literature actually takes a good chunk of time out of every single day.

Historically, artists used to seek out “sponsors” (also known as patronage) who would support them while they created, and their sponsor was paid back with recognition and status. This system existed so that creatives could have the time & basic resources to refine their art, without being bogged down by pesky concerns such as supporting their basic human needs.

Enter the 40-hour workweek. A challenge, but still do-able.

Enter the stagnant minimum wage in America, that has lost value through inflation, while the prices of food, shelter, education, and other necessities have risen.

Enter the new, mostly American concept of “time debt”, that has come from people having to take multiple, low-paying jobs to pay for basic necessities. This puts such a time-squeeze on an individual, free time, sleep, productivity, and exercise all suffer.

Michelangelo probably would not have finished The Last Judgement on the Sistine Chapel if he was taking orders at four different Dunkin Donuts all over town for 70 hours a week, only to get paid barely enough to feed himself. If Michelangelo worked multiple minimum-wage jobs, he probably never would have created much of anything. He would have spent all non-working time commuting, sleeping, and freaking out.

Which is what’s happening to a lot of my creative friends right about now.

Three talented women, part of the unpaid cast of Little Shop of Horrors

When I asked the cast of Little Shop of Horrors if they ever had to sacrifice pursuing their art just to survive, the answers varied, and were nothing short of amazing.

Alex stays at her waitress job, where her employers regularly violate employees rights (like not posting the schedule until one day before a shift, withholding pay, and charging their servers for their customers’ credit card processing fees), because she’s afraid if she goes to a different restaurant, they won’t give her the same hours that allow her to do musicals at night.

“I have a degree [in the arts], but I haven’t had any steady jobs in this line of work. It sucks because the kind of day jobs you get is coffee, or hospitality. And usually those are the jobs you get minimum wage for. Then taking time off of a minimum wage job to do a show where you get paid nothing is almost impossible. Having a degree in this, and trying to support myself are two completely separate things.”

-Alex Davis-Brazil

Meanwhile, the assistant stage manager, Eugene Price, put it succinctly: “I’ve generally had to make the choice between something that’s going to further my career, or something that’s going to pay me money. Generally, a minimum wage job that is going to pay me enough to live, doesn’t give me enough time to be creative. I’m lucky I have supportive parents, but that’s a luxury” (emphasis mine).

Yes, having supportive parents is a luxury, but it’s become increasingly clear that supportive parents my be a necessity, not just a luxury.

So are all Creatives doomed to live in poverty, or worse, with their parents for the rest of their lives?

(Please note: That was a joke. I do not actually think living in poverty is better than living with parents)

There are a few things we can all do. One is to start actually recognizing that the arts are, in fact, very important to society.

For instance, reading fiction actually teaches people how to be more empathetic through the practice of putting themselves in a different characters’ shoes. Photography does not just document the world, it actively changes it. We all can see how the documentary, Blackfish, is changing the public perception of SeaWorld in real-time. Rent, the musical, humanized and de-stigmatized HIV/AIDS, and taught us a powerful history lesson that American schools failed to do.

Another thing we can do is actively encourage the arts, via our wallets.

Yes, I know, nobody likes spending money when you can get things for free. Case in point: Downloading music on the internet. But hey! Tonight is Little Shop of Horrors’ “pay what you can” show. Maybe you should do more things like that. But actually pay. Don’t freeload.

The last thing you can do is – if this applies to your state – fucking vote to raise the minimum wage in the upcoming November midterm elections.  And don’t give me that “bad for jobs, bad for small businesses” bullshit. Just look at SeaTac.

I often say that publishing writing online is akin to publishing naked photos online.

It freaks me the fuck out. It puts me in a very vulnerable position, open to scrutiny, criticism, misinterpretation, and yes, compliments too. Plus, my parents read my blog, which can be awkward sometimes.

With that in mind, please enjoy this pointless drivel of a metaphorical striptease.

“Online dating is for people who don’t know how to meet people in real life,” I snidely chimed to Alex and Christine, while demurely swirling a robust red blend in my water glass.

They had reasonably suggested that I was still single not because of my own shortcomings, but due to my work situation (one employee in a company of – at the time – three), and my perchance for hanging out in dive bars. To them, the obvious solution was to get online. I refused.

I stuck to this sentiment that online dating was for social goobers – despite the fact that Alex & Christine (both who have online-dated) are attractive, well-adjusted, socially competent women like myself – for close to two years before breaking down and setting up an OK Cupid profile.

Surprisingly (or maybe not) online dating ultimately ended up being an exploration of the self, more so than an exploration of suitors.

The first thing I learned is that online dating was really good for my ego.

“It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet of men!” I squealed in delight to Christine, approximately 36 hours and 50+ messages from dudes later. “I see the light! Why didn’t I do this before?”

The second thing I learned was how to be picky at the buffet.

There was the guy who was the vanilla ice-cream of men. There was the guy who made a fat joke and then remarked on his desire to shoot raccoons  with a BB gun. There was the guy who invited me to a baseball game (the tickets were supplied by his boss), and then was too cheap to shell out $6 for a watered-down beer.

There was the date that went incredibly well until the guy threw up and passed out on my bathroom floor. There was the guy that pursued me like an over-eager puppy – despite my polite attempts to communicate that he needed to cool it – until I had to send him a “break up” text.

There was the guy that I actually hit it off with. We dated for a month or two, until he began to slow-fade me.

Let me be very clear about something: I can fucking tell when you’re slow-fading me. I will give you the benefit of the doubt for a few weeks, but realistically, you are not fooling anyone. You are just being an asshole.

For a while he rebuffed my invitations to hang out, then stopped replying to texts altogether (always with the texting), until I told him “it seems like you’ve lost interest, which is fine, but gradually disappearing is rude and cowardly.” Suffice to say, being called rude & cowardly did get a response from him.

There was the guy that treated me like a stop-n-go, then months later “humbly beseeched” for my forgiveness.

“Maybe he realized afterwards how cool you are, and he regrets it,” my friend Jackie mused.

“Maybe holiday party season is coming up, and he doesn’t want it to be awkward,” I shot back.

There was the guy who stopped talking to me after I had drunkenly called him to hang out, then told him “you’re the worst” when he declined.

Needless to say, while the buffet has been immensely entertaining to sample, I found myself walking away hungry.

“That’s funny, because I wouldn’t peg you as hard-to-date”, my friend Marco told me as I relayed my dating escapades to him.

“Maybe it’s because they can tell you hate men,” Christine suggested at a girls night out, as I lamented that even Charles Manson had a significant other, but I did not.

For the record, I do not hate men.

“You have another ten years (I’m 23) before you should start freaking out”, my sister consoled me. She recently got engaged, prompting a barrage of wedding-fever-esque commentary from my parents & grandparents about how “Sophie’s wedding is next” and “the girls’ grandchildren shouldn’t be too far apart in age”.

My awkward smile has been getting a lot of face time around my parents.

But as I try to get to the root of my dating woes (is it me? is it them?), it’s hard not to feel down on yourself when every romance dissolves right around the two-month mark.

I guess two months is the amount of time it takes to realize that I am a psycho that will blog about you.

But in my defense, I have exercised  an enormous amount of self-restraint in keeping mum about their sexytime behaviors. So there’s that.

How do I conclude this striptease of my admittedly hilarious, yet totally depressing online dating stories?

The third thing I’ve learned from online dating: How to be my authentic self.

As I looked for a common denominator for why I had failed so miserably at love, the one thing I could put my finger on was a horrible one:

Me.

I was the common denominator.

It could be that I dress like a total bum. It could be that I stoppped wearing makeup. It could be that I’m a smoker, which is gross, or a vegetarian, which is inconvenient, or that I don’t want kids, which is for many men “pointless”. It could be because I’m an angry feminist. To which I will say; unless you are a complete fucking idiot, it is impossible to be a happy feminist. It could be because I CrossFit, which some people find butch and threatening. I could be because I’m “the most opinionated girl ever” (according to a shoe salesguy, who had only heard my opinion on the shoes in his store, but nonetheless parroted a phrase that I’ve been hearing for the vast majority of my life).

But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.

“I’m going to throw myself a perpetual bachelorette party,” I told my sister and her boyfriend (now fiancee) as we waited for our table at Homeroom in Oakland. “Every year that I’m a bachelorette, I get another party.”

They think I’m kidding, using humor to deflect my inner hurt at being so incredibly accomplished, yet so incredibly single.

But I’m not.

Perpetual bachelorette party, here I come.

*Disclaimer: This is a short story about my personal experiences, and I in no way wrote this to make broad generalizations about any race.*

I’m half-asian and half-white, so people are racist to me approximately half the time.

More specifically, because I’m mixed, people have no idea what the fuck I am, so the first thing that usually happens is they ask what my ethnicity is, usually in the most eloquent way possible: “What are you?”

Now, let’s stop there and think about the value of word choice for a minute. To be a minority, even partially, immediately demotes you – a person – to a “what”. This is a good example of a microagression: “Racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults towards people of color.”

Anyway, back to the question at hand. “What are you?”

To which I will reply, “human,” hoping to deter them.

It never works. They always want me to elaborate.

“No, no, like where are you from?”

“Seattle.”

It is amazing how many people will continue pressing the matter.

“No, like, ok…” here it comes…  “you’re not white. You look like you have something else in you.”

There it is.

I am not so sure why people are so fascinated with ethnic origins (this is not a fascination that I share), but from my point of view, people are pretty obsessed with identifying and labeling races, like chocolates in a variety box. They get upset when one is ambiguous, without a clear label. They must know. So they ask. Rudely.

It is annoying, to say the least.

As for people who know I’m a halfie, plenty of asian jokes ensue.

But I have never heard a white joke in my life. 

Keep in mind, I am exactly one-half asian, one-half white. If racism against white people exists, wouldn’t I be experiencing that as well?

No. Because for all of those naysayers out there, there is no such thing as racism against white people. Take it from somebody straddling the fence.

Now I get the usual Asian driver jokes. People ask me why am I not good at math.  why am I not using chopsticks at the Pho restaurant, why am I not proficient in the martial arts, why can’t I “speak Asian”.

I get asked how to make fried rice, but never bread pudding. My friends will do mock-Asian accents, then apologize to me when they realize I am standing there, half a person of Asian heritage. That’s fine, I’m not offended. I do mock-british accents all the time too, without feeling the need to turn around an apologize to every white person in sight.

Sometimes I wonder if instead of being half-white, what if I was mixed with a different type of minority; would the racism double instead of halve? Or would people just pick a “side”?

Obama is a halfie too. He’s African-american, English, irish, and Kenyan. But you know what comes up in the Google suggest bar when I started typing in “Obama heritage”?

“Obama heritage ARAB”

Le sigh. Oh America.

The usual spate of year-in-review articles by the media has made it clear that 2014 was a great year for feminism.

Note: It was a great year for feminism, not necessarily a great year for women.

2014 was the year of Leaning In, the year of #YesAllWomen, the year of Beyonce,

had to do it

Laverne Cox, Emma Watson, Niki Minaj, & T-Swift, Ruth Bader Ginsberg (Long Live Notorious RGB), Hilary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, and all of their respective flavors of feminism. The year we refused to sweep domestic violence under the rug. The year of Title IX. Plus, we kicked off 2015 with the Sisterhood of the Traveling Golden Globes.

But 2014 was also the year of the Isla Vista killings, Hobby Lobby,  and 70 new abortion restrictions. The Paycheck Fairness Act did not pass for the fourth  time, and women are still not guaranteed equal rights in the US Constitution. Online, it was the year of Gamergate, and a celebrity nude leak that turned a large majority of the country into sex offenders. Oh, and leggings were banned in schools.

In short, 2014 was the year we acknowledged sexism and feminism, but didn’t really do anything progressive about it.

Let’s make 2015 the year we finally take action.

Take action? How?! you may be asking yourself.

I have a few suggestions on how to make 2015 a better year for gender equality.

But first, let me regale you with a (relatively) short story:

(or you can just skip to the bottom, you sound-byte ninnies)

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a lass known as “the feminist one”, but it had not always been that way.

For the first 20 years of my life I did not notice the social troll known as sexism living in my closet. Not to say I was completely oblivious. The men at my first job (age 15) had nicknamed me “Sophie the Trophy”. I had taken a Gender Studies course at McGill, where “Killing Us Softly” and “Miss Representation” were part of the curriculum. I had weathered my fair share of sexist digs.

But the concept that sexism actively affected me in very real ways was, by and large, foreign.

That all changed when my good friend Bridget explained to me the “Schrodinger’s Rapist” theory, and I read the original post in full. This is what I call my “Truman Show” moment.

Truman checks out a light that mysteriously fell from the sky

Much like how Truman was tipped off by one small detail that made him cognizant to many more small details which ultimately reshaped how he perceived his reality, Schrodinger’s Rapist was my feminist catalyst.

This line in particular:

“Is preventing violent assault or murder part of your daily routine, rather than merely something you do when you venture into war zones? Because, for women, it is.”

Never before had it occurred to me that the burdens of personal safety I undertook on a daily basis were actually female burdens of safety.

While men don’t necessarily have it easier, women definitely have it harder.

How does that logic work? Something like this:

Little things like texting a quick “home safe” confirmation to friends, bringing my drink with me into the bathroom stall, checking the backseat of my car before getting in – these were all things I thought everyone did.  And then I asked around and found out that none of my guy friends bothered with those precautions.

These small details that pepper my daily routine – driving 5 minutes to my bus stop so I don’t have to walk alone in the dark, wearing earbuds with no music so I can hear my surroundings – essentially what women do to stay safe (and what men don’t do) because of our gender became strikingly obvious in my new state of Femlightenment.

Hungry to understand,  I started reading feminist blogs, and the “woman” section of the news (a section that I had previously avoided because I thought it would be full of baby stuff).

The next “big” detail that really began to rub me the wrong way was the “male as default” phenomenon: The idea that it’s a man’s world, and it is women that must adapt to this landscape accordingly.

For example, linguistically, “mankind”, “man”, and “guys” are all perfectly acceptable ways to refer to humans, “women included” going unsaid.

But vocabulary is the fluffy, “privileged, white, first-world feminism” stuff, as critics like to say.

And the “male as default” phenomenon is not fluffy, it is downright dangerous.

women aren’t bad drivers. we’re just more likely to die

Male is the default in the car industry, with automotive companies using only male crash test dummies, despite the obvious fact that women drive cars too. This raised the risk of  moderate injury for women in car crashes by an astounding 71%, and the risk of serious injury or death by 47% (source). And we only realized this in fucking 2011. New requirements for female crash dummies were not put into place until 2012 (read more here). Shit like this is unacceptable.

Male is also the default in drug research, with scientists using only male test subjects in animal trials, and a heavy bias towards men in human trials (source). “Researchers avoided using female animals for fear that their reproductive cycles and hormone fluctuations would confound the results of delicately calibrated experiments” (Slate). This reasoning is curious, as female humans also have reproductive cycles and hormone fluctuations, but experimental drug trials will often be administered to women without ever being tested on female animals first. In other news, men continue to avoid period-stuff like the plague. To absolutely nobody’s surprise, women to experience higher rates of adverse drug reactions than men.

This is when I realized sexism was an active effort, rather than a passive “this is how it’s always been” shrug. It is so much more than a shrug.

Sexism defies logic. Even though women are better adapted for work in isolated & confined spaces such as submarines and spaceships (women used less oxygen, required less food, and produce less waste), they continue to face systematic barriers to joining  the ranks of astronauts and submariners. (sources 1, 2, 3)

Sexism defies capitalism. Even though a revealing study showed that companies perform better financially with more women in leadership positions, only 14.6% of executive officers in the 500 highest-grossing American companies are women (source).

You know when that typical jerkoff says, “If the gender pay gap exists and we can pay women less, then why don’t companies only hire women?” just reply, “Because sexism trumps capitalism, asshole.”

It seems like the only thing that beats sexism is good ol’ racism. But that’s a topic for a different day.

Anyways, the more I learned about the pervasiveness of sexism, and feminist theory, the more I started talking about it. For a long time I was afraid of being the “obnoxious feminist” every time I spoke up. I’m sure many people do think that of me. That’s ok. Because something unexpected started to happen:

It started rubbing off on the people around me.

A few months ago a friend excitedly called me to let me know that at her waitressing job an old man tried to pay her by reaching to put bills down the front of her shirt. Rather than giggling it off, she turned away with a flat “no”, and walked away.

“I thought of you,” she said.

I had also started interrupting my guy friends’ sports banter whenever they used “raped” in place of “dominated” or “won” or “triumph” (because really, when you think about it, how fucked up is that?).

It would go like this:

“Holy shizzle, did you see that game? The Seahawks RAPED the 49ers!”

“Could you use a different word, other than raped?”

“Oh yeah, sorry.”

That’s really all it takes. If the dudes in your life are decent people, they will apologize and use a different word.

Sometimes it takes a few times to stick. If my friends use “raped” again – it seems fairly common in the context of sports – I’ll take it a bit further.

“Oh my gawd, they raped in that play!”

“Hey! did you realize that 1 in 6 women have been raped, and there are 12 in this room?”

Watching the most recent Seahawks game, I overhead a friend start to say “raped” – only to stop and self-correct without any prompt. To me, that was more exciting than the touchdown.

Which brings me to my one suggestion for improving gender equality in 2015:

Talk about it. Talk about sexism.

Acknowledge it.

All of it.

Even the stuff that you disagree with.

It’s been a slow process, but over the past year I’ve seen my friends – of all genders – stand up against sexism with increasing frequency, due to their increased awareness.

None of this is limited to female-centric problems. Men should, of course, feel free to speak up about their  gender-specific problems too, because the road goes both ways. Sexism is solved by women and men speaking up and raising awareness to their gendered issues that would otherwise go unacknowledged.

Acknowledgement is a pretty low bar, by the way. It’s the least we can do.

Sexism in developed countries is not one thing we can easily point fingers at, like Saudi’s driving ban, or FGM, or forced veiling. Rather, sexism in first-world countries is an aggregation of small details.

Likewise, the solution to sexism is going to be an aggregation of small details.

Change the discourse, change the culture.

Here’s my easy, anybody-can-do-it short list of things you can do in 2015:

• Practice compassion and actively put yourself in others’ shoes. Often I stop and think “this would (or wouldn’t) be a problem if I was a man.” And likewise, it would behoove men to sometimes stop and consider “this would be a problem if I was a woman.”
• Stop over-sexualizing breasts. Don’t freak out and complain when a woman breastfeeds in public.
• Listen & believe women when they tell you something. Like the fact that we don’t like cat-calling. Or the 30 women accusing Cosby. That is either the most elaborate hoax ever, or… you know… true.
• Believe rape victims of any gender. Victims of violent rapes experience less PTSD that victims of non-violent rapes, because survivors with physical evidence are more likely to be believed. It is that important.
• Down with revenge porn! Don’t take or share explicit photos without consent. Delete that shit and tell whoever shared it that s/he’s a grade-A asswipe.
• And stop fucking using the word “girl” to describe fully grown women.

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Hi all! Today I’m going to talk about something that strikes very close to home for an unfortunately large number of people: Eating Disorders.

As many of you know, I’ve had my own issues with disordered eating, the most recent of which was a physiological condition that kept me from feeling hunger – and I was happy about it – until I became so horrifically thin that many of my friends & family approached me out of fear for my own health.

Let me re-emphasize: I did not seek help for nearly 5 months, because in my head I thought it was a good thing; losing so much weight so effortlessly. My friends & family approached me and expressed their concern. Without this key factor, I’m pretty sure I would have ended up in a hospital, hooked up to IVs.

It is essential that if you suspect someone you care about has an eating disorder, SAY SOMETHING. It could potentially save her or his life.

In 2011 it was found that the mortality rate was 4% for anorexics, putting it at the highest fatality rate of any mental illness. When you include disorder-related health complications such as heart problems & suicide, the mortality rate of anorexia skyrockets to 20%. The mortality rate is  3.9% for bulimics (who also suffer from the highest suicide rates out of all the eating disorders), and 5.2% for unspecified eating disorders.

The following infographic was released by CNN in 2013 (click on it to read, my WP theme condenses images):

What concerns me the most is the numbers on children. Hospitalizations among children under 12 increased by 119%, and nearly half of girls 5-8 years old want to be thinner. This is nothing short of a catastrophe. This is a full-blown epidemic and it is our responsibility to fix it. Every. Single. Damn. Adult. All of us need to participate to be part of the solution.

“Ok, well what am I supposed to be doing about it?” You might be asking yourself right now. First, get educated.

Eating Disorders: An Overview

Illustration: “The demons- Ana, Mia, Self-harm, Hate, Depression”

An eating disorder is a serious mental health issue. Eating disorders are included in the DSM-5, just like depression or obsessive compulsive disorder. An eating disorder can be one or a combination of the following:

Anorexia Nervosa: Severely restricting food intake, intense fear of weight gain, obsession with behaviors to prevent weight gain.

• 4.2% of women and 0.3% of men will suffer from anorexia at some point in their lifetime
• Anorexia is the 3rd most common chronic illness among teenagers
• 33% will receive treatment, 66% go untreated. 4% will die.

Bulimia Nervosa: Self-induced vomiting, usually after consuming food, to prevent weight gain. Commonly manifests after binge-eating episodes, but bulimics can & will purge, even if there was no food binge.

• 4% of females and 0.5% of males will suffer from bulimia at some point in their lives.
• Only 6% of bulimics will obtain treatment, and 3.9% will die.

Binge Eating: Frequent episodes of consuming very large amounts of food, but is not accompanied by purging or behaviors to prevent weight gain. A feeling of being out-of-control during binges, along with shame, guilt, and often secretiveness.

• 3.5% of women and 2% of men will struggle with binge eating disorder at some point in their lives.
• Around 43% of binge-eaters will receive treatment, and 5.2% will die from health complications.

Disordered Eating: Includes excessive rituals, routines, or habits of food consumption that revolve around preventing weight gain, to the point where it interferes with one’s everyday life, and is detrimental to one’s health. Examples include laxative abuse, exercise addiction, night eating syndrome, purging disorder, obsessive calorie counting, and compulsive food rules/rituals.

• 50% of teenage girls and 30% of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives to control their weight.

I’m 22 years old, and since the age  of 12-13, I’ve had anorexic friends, bulimic friends, binge-eaters (sometimes myself), disordered eaters (also sometimes myself)… none of these disorders are a mystery to me.  And chances are, if you have lady-friends, a wife, sisters, daughters, aunts, grandmothers… every single one of us has been touched in some way by eating disorders.

Media Literacy:

How can I best describe the insidious power of the mass media – an omnipresent influence in nearly every young person’s life? This quote:

“Sticks and stones may break her bones, but the right words will make her starve herself to death.”

The media plays a huge part in the encouragement of eating disorders, by disseminating unrealistic & physically impossible images of women and men.

Women who are constantly exposed to images of impossibly perfect, “beautiful” women will judge themselves much more harshly. Additionally, men who are exposed to images of impossibly beautiful women in the media will, in turn, judge “real” women much more harshly as well. The same effect has been seen (with a lesser reach) among the male gender.

It is hugely important that we are educating little girls & boys in media literacy- that is- giving them the tools to understand that media is profit-driven, and not above manipulating it’s viewers for that sake of money, at the expense of social responsibility. Many young people have no idea the extent of photoshop in the images they’re consuming every day. Making them aware of how the media is essentially dishonest with nearly all of their images is a good first step to combating eating disorders. We need to tell them, “It’s not real.”

Interventions:

 How to spot an eating disorder: All of these signs require judgement on your part. Only approach someone about these behaviors if you are confident they’re indications of an eating disorder.

• Makes frequent comments about being “fat” – despite body size. Singles out (real or imaginary) areas of the body with too much fat.
• Wears baggy or heavy clothes to hide body, even in hot weather or other unusual circumstances.
• Has unusual food rituals & rules, such as chewing a certain number of times, only eating foods of a certain color, counting out exact portions, etc.
• Evidence of purging behavior: Frequent trips to the bathroom after eating, signs/smell of vomiting or laxative use including wrappers, excessive use of mouthwashing/mints/gum & hand sanitizing/washing.
• Evidence of binging: Sudden disappearance of large amounts of food, hidden stashes of food and/or empty wrappers.
• Doesn’t eat in public, or commonly uses excuses such as “already ate”/”about to eat”.
• Growth of thick body hair, loss of menstruation, hair loss (scalp), brittle nails, skin of the fingers & teeth stained yellow by stomach acid.

How to approach in a helpful manner:

• Research and be educated about the suspected disorder before you start spewing potentially (and most likely) unwanted “advice”.
• Express your concern for her/his health, and then listen. Do not bring up specific examples of her/his eating behavior. Be supportive and caring.
• Make it as neutral as possible: Neutral setting, neutral emotions – make sure that neither of you are having a bad day, or are running emotionally hot before the conversation.
• Ask if s/he would be willing to see a healthcare professional, even if it’s just the family doctor for an informal conversation.
• If this is a first-time issue, keep it between the two of you. A large group “intervention” in the case of eating disorders is not best – s/he will end up feeling “attacked” and react defensively. If this is an ongoing issue, bringing in one or two other people to help is ok.

DO NOT:

• Comment on her/his body – even positively. Do not make the focus on how s/he looks. Keep the focus on her/his health & well being.
• Attack the person  with an arsenal of specific examples & times s/he has exhibited disordered behaviors
• Start pressuring her/him to eat, offer her/him food, insist s/he consume something in front of you.
• Invade privacy under the guise of “helping”. Do not read diaries, do not stand outside the bathroom listening for guilty vomit noises, do not “rat her out” to parents, other friends, or doctors.
• Do not give more help than you are qualified to give. Leave that to the professionals.

End notes:

If you or someone you know is struggling with disordered eating, the best thing you can do is surround yourself with a supportive, non-judgmental community. I found that by joining Cody– a health & fitness social network, but you should find a group that feels safe to you – wherever that may be.

Best of luck,

Sophie