Feminism and Fecal Matter

I’ve been looking forward to this post for a long time. As a recent college grad, I’m feeling bold, and ready to take on the topic, no matter how shitty it gets. Hah. Get it? So many more poo puns to come…moving on..

GIRLS POOP. THEY DOODIE. THEY DROP THE KIDS OFF AT THE POOL. ETC.

In case you aren’t clear on what that is, it’s this biological process thing where you excrete waste from your bumhole. All humans do this! Also, most animals. Actually all animals, I looked it up and snakes poo too.. The more you know, right?

Yet there’s this running joke I’ve heard, mostly from men, that girls poop “flowers.” That rainbows and baby unicorns come out of our tushes instead of the nasty brown goo men enjoy bragging about to their friends.

Yes, guys love and thrive in poop culture. They brag about their big ones to their friends, and movies and television portray men on the toilet, pants wrapped around ankles, holding the newspaper all the time. Men are encouraged to enjoy their “wasteful” activity. In Dumb and Dumber, we all gagged along but also laughed when the main character managed to get poop all over the bathroom walls.

 When’s the last time you saw a girl, pants around her ankles, humming whilst reading the paper in a movie or television show?  Sure, in Bridesmaids it’s referred to, but we still see Maya Rudolph quaintly falling in the street in a huge gown, ashamedly covering up the mess. Certainly, no enjoyment there. Recently, a commercial targeted towards women attempted to sell “poopourri,” an odor masking product. A gorgeous British woman in a fancy dress asks, “How can we make the world believe your poo doesn’t stink? Or that you don’t poop at all?”

As a staunch feminist, I find this to be problematic, horseshit, a piece of crap.

Girls are entitled to the same waste, and enjoyment of the deed as men are. In pretending that women don’t have normal body processes, we are forced to instead appear as dainty creatures whose sole purpose is to provide beauty and entertainment in an effort to appear “lady-like.” Any way you look at it, it’s dehumanizing. Another manner in which women are asked to conform to a physically impossible level of desirability. We are not art or any kind of passive beings created for you to gawk at, and therefore we do not poop flora. We are equally human, and we deserve to enjoy this biological process that will certainly remain a part of our EVERY DAY lives FOREVER. Maybe even twice or three times a day if your metabolism is kickin.

Between the smells and the mess, it’s not the most pleasant process, I know. But when you add the level of shame women have to feel about their bodies, the amount of constipated friends I have because they’re too afraid to poop at their boyfriends apartments, we have a problem.  

In essence, women; I challenge you to embrace your poo in all of its glory, and men; I challenge you to quit being such turds about it.

From One Privileged Jew from New Rochelle to Another

(Here's a link to his article in case you haven't read it: http://theprincetontory.com/main/checking-my-privilege-character-as-the-basis-of-privilege/ )

By now the young Tal Fortgang's fifteen minutes are almost up. His article detailing why he should never be asked to "check his privilege" has gone viral, enthused some, and pissed off most.

It's no question to me that the kid is blatantly wrong. His understanding of white privilege came from an extremely privileged, ignorant perspective of the term. I was offended as a person with basic awareness of the structural issues at play that keep those of different races disadvantaged.. and I personally as a Jew was offended that he felt his Holocaust survivor grandparent's struggles excused him from awareness and compassion. The kid's article, for all intents and purposes, sucks. HARD.

And so, forty year old men in suits condemn him on CBS, and make a joke of his ignorance. The good people at FOX praise him, because what else are they good for but pissing people off?  And this kid gets a media whirlwind of praise and condemnation... and then it settles and he's forgotten.

But the thing is, there's a way larger lesson here that should be a take away.

We're offended because he's wrong, but he did it with some pretty decent vocabulary. We're offended because he goes to Princeton, so he should absolutely know better. If an Ivy League would accept him, surely he should be the highest caliber of student, right? (see George W. Bush for reference.)

The major issue is not his opinion though, it's the educational structures that allowed for it.
This kid is just a kid.
I bet if you met him, you'd think he's a nice Jewish boy.
You'd probably like him as the sleepaway camp counselor of your kids or something..

His opinion may be wrong, but so is writing him off. He came from a very similar background to you, he just got higher SAT's and learned how to use that vocab to dazzle his teachers over time. I know, because I did similar things (though not similar enough, because I go to UMD.) Coming to college, I didn't know a damn thing about privilege or how it worked or what it meant. From the perspective of the privileged, things look pretty good around here. Sure we see the homeless on the street, we hear about gang violence in the news, but there's the separation of a television screen or our different clothing, or even skin color. Moms and schools avert our eyes from unpleasantness, and we let them.

On Tuesday I was assistant teaching a class with 13 year olds and I asked if they had ever heard of the term "white privilege." None had. Just now, I discussed this very article with my roommates, and one asked, "what does it mean to check your privilege."

I didn't learn this stuff until I pursued sociology and service learning in college, which I only took because I chose to. My dear roommate is a dietetics major, and hasn't been exposed to any kind of awareness of her privilege. She too could have easily written the article, and it wouldn't be her fault, not really. Until given good reason to look around, people don't. Privileged people unfortunately don't know the questions to ask, because like I said, stuff looks pretty good around here. We should, we must, but we don't. It shouldn't be a choice to learn of the ills of society, and instead, it should become a requirement.

The problem in my opinion is that our education, system never challenged us to look around elsewhere. It asked us to memorize equations, to write a five paragraph essay that never stray from the rubric, or to guzzle information on topics we care little about and regurgitate them for tests. It challenged us to read about historical issues with the distance of a textbook. As far as plenty of students know, MLK already settled all that racial inequality business..THANKS MLK. Never once in my High School, which was actually racially diverse, was I asked to "check my privilege." Though I really wish I had been.

So, until we find a way to change the dialogue in classrooms, maybe to change just one semester of gym class to one that centers around social understanding, or creative thought, or dialogue about important issues, we're going to find countless Tal Fortgang's. In an ideal world, we privileged would all read into this stuff ourselves, and think before we speak, but we have never had to before, and that's not the world we live in. His article sucks, but it sucks for a reason. When we vilify him, we ignore our daily participation in sheltering ourselves and our loved ones from "checking their privilege."

Graduation.. A Thing That is Definitely Happening

So I received a call back to be commencement speaker for the English major graduation ceremony. This means I wrote a speech, which was kind of really fun. While I didn't get chosen to deliver it, I figure I'll share my efforts with you fine people.

I'd like to extend a hearty welcome to these esteemed graduates of the Robert H Smith school of business.. Oh wait, it's just the English majors. Hey guys! Sup

Ok, so we're no business school. Few of us have worn suits to class, and fewer of us are fighting to work for Fortune 500 companies next year. Instead, most of us can be found either cuddling up to a book somewhere in Tawes, or staring off into space contemplating that very book, also somewhere in Tawes, as we overhear a debate about the new Star Wars cast.

Frankly, we're a little different. But in my opinion, in continuously trying to justify why the English major rocks, we forget that we don't have to explain this to anybody. We chose this major because of a love of literature, an incredible faculty, and a need we all had to analyze the world around us in a formal setting. It may seem like it's about books, but through these characters and settings we learn history, science, sociology, psychology, religion.

 The other day I called my mother to talk about the film version of the Great Gatsby with Leo Dicaprio. She was deeply impressed by my level of analysis and told me so. I said, mom, if there's one thing I can walk away from college doing, it's analyzing the crap out of the Great Gatsby. So hello fellow professional Gatsby analysts.

One thing that has created a dichotomy in my life especially has been our time in the classroom and our time outside. The longer I stayed in this major, and the more I learned from my fiercely intelligent professors, the harder it was to reconcile my lessons and put them away in practical application.

For example, Professor Auchard has an obsession with the American use of the word fun. He spent many class periods explaining his fascination, pointing to both cultural usages such as the "fun sized" candy bars that aren't fun at all.. because really, what's fun about getting less chocolate.. and literature's portrayal of fun.

Once this lesson, this awareness was  implanted in my poor sophomore mind, it stuck. How was I to enter some frat party and not laugh when the young "bouncer" told me to have fun. Fun is entirely all encompassing of a very subjective emotion! I want to yell. But it's not the time, nerd. It's rarely ever the time outside of the beautiful walls of Tawes.

Professor Olmert aptly told us the other day that learning changes you. The more you know, the more you want to talk books and movies, thoughts and ideas, he explained, as your other friends want to binge on bottomless mimosas at brunch and ask what you thought of The Real Housewives last week. And That's ok too.. Kind of.. But the point is, whether you sat in the back of the class hoping to coast or sat front and center for all of these discussions, in this major, you walked away with at least one lesson per class that has changed you and maybe even what you want to talk about forever. And bottomless mimosas, as delicious and plentiful as they are, just won't cut it anymore.

What I'm saying, fellow English majors and analysts of the world, is that our dear Professors have ruined one party, and started a new one. A one in which we enter the "real world" as we so fearfully call it, with a heightened awareness, a keen eye for detail and a sharpened ability to critique and create.

And now we are ready to use these skills we hardly noticed we gained. We may not be headed to the Fortune 500's of the world, but we have instead attained a treasure more fortunate than any; and that is a lifelong pursuit of independent thought.

 Most of us will go in different directions from this moment in time. Some will pursue a degree in law or education, others will seek to be journalists, writers, actors, humanitarians, politicians, plumbers, professional bassoonists for all I know. This major's job was not to filter you in to a company and get you paid for your services in exchange, it was to teach you exactly how to filter yourself and your strengths into the world.

I personally am as unemployed as can be for next year (hold your applause.) My path to self discovery could have me teaching English abroad or simply working on my personal blog until I get discovered.. which will so happen right? Yes, I'm unsure of my direction as so many are, but I can tell you one thing, I'm not scared, and that's because at the very least I can analyze the crap out of the Great Gatsby.

Congratulations to all of us, and may we continue in our paths with pride in what makes us different and a deep appreciation for those mind molders we have called our teachers. Thank you.