Column Until we remove the stigma around feminism and stop creating barriers between each other, we’re not going to achieve equality, no matter how far in we may lean.

The first act of feminism I witnessed was mortifying. I was at my Brownie Fly-Up ceremony, the celebration of our troop graduating from Brownies to Girl Scouts. There we were. On stage. And the leaders of all of the local troops were supposed to sing us a song before we walked the ceremonial bridge over a mirror, which is actually a little creepy when you think about it, to become Girl Scouts. I watched in horror as our leaders—one of whom was my own mother—stood silently staring into the crowd. Not singing.

Suddenly, Troop 310 was walking the plank. I glared at my mom and asked why she had done that to me. She replied, “Did you listen to the words of the song?” I had not.

It was a cheery rhyming number, the gist of which was that while we failed at everything from tent-pitching to sports, they were letting us graduate anyway. I looked for this song in the official Girl Scout songbook and came up empty. It was probably a local specialty.

At the time, I cared very little about the words and just wanted my mom to have sung and shut up about it. On the way home, we had a long talk about what it would have meant. I lived in a house where Ms. Magazine sat comfortably on the table with an assortment of novels, the New Yorker and newspapers. I distinctly remember an intimidatingly heavy-looking book called Backlash on the table for a while. When my mom explained why the song was wrong, I got it. I was still pissed because, at eight, being embarrassed is about the worst thing possible. But I got it: As a feminist, you don’t belittle yourself and your friends. This is a lesson I have had to relearn many, many times.

And it’s a lesson that seems to be getting lost with this new generation of feminism. This wave (I forget how many waves we’ve had at this point) started last year with Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in The Atlantic: Why Women Still Can’t Have It All. Talk about backlash.

Cut to today. Marissa Mayer doesn’t identify as a feminist and is, I think, just trying to do her job. But she has been repeatedly criticized for not being a role model for real women, especially the working kind. Then we have Sheryl Sandberg a self-defined feminist starting a deliberate movement.

The criticism of Sandberg has been severe. She doesn’t understand real women. She’s judging us for not working hard enough. She doesn’t get what it takes to make it when you’re not the COO of Facebook (though I would argue that getting to that point in her own career means that she most certainly does get it). We’re picking her apart.

These new voices in mainstream conversations about feminism have a lot in common, which they talk openly about: they are wealthy, straight, attractive, white women. This is the same problem Gloria Steinem faced in the ’70s. Despite the progress Steinem made, she was accused of not understanding the plight of everyone else, of creating an elitist, exclusive movement dedicated to the advancement of a few. Sounds a lot like what people are saying about Sandberg’s book and social campaign, Lean In. Have we not progressed at all?

Once again, we are undermining ourselves because we don’t see ourselves directly reflected in Sandberg’s mirror. But, while our finances might look different, Sandberg argues that we all face the same struggle. In her recent 60 Minutes interview, she says that as women we all learned to downplay our accomplishments from a young age (hell, some of us were even encouraged to celebrate our alleged failures in song). Girls who displayed leadership skills were deemed bossy; as we get older bossy becomes bitchy. She notes that women hold themselves back to avoid these negative stereotypes. While we hold ourselves back, we also take down those women who don’t.

Sandberg is not saying, “Lean in and be me,” but she only has her own life experience to draw from. She’s saying, lean into your own life and ask for whatever it is that you want or need. And yes, it will be easier for women with supportive partners and good jobs. The best response, I think, to her advice about work is Jody Greenstone Miller’s piece in the Wall Street Journal: It’s about changing the structure of the American workday so that all people—parents and singles alike—can have a fulfilling life outside of work. Figure out a way to let people who don’t have Sandberg’s advantages leave work at 5:30, too.

There are many women (and men) just struggling to get by who might look at all of this and say, this isn’t about me. But it is. Feminism has long been about giving a voice to those who are silenced, and Sandberg has the stage. She acknowledges her status and said during the 60 Minutes interview, “Yes, it’s easier for me to say this, and that’s why I am saying it.”

It’s time we stop shooting the messenger and listen to her message. It’s time to stop saying, “I’m not a feminist, but of course I believe I deserve to have a place at whatever table I’m sitting at. I’m not a feminist, but I should be paid as much as my male counterpart. I’m not a feminist, but I think women are equal to men.” It’s long-past time to remove the stigma around feminism, stop creating barriers between each other, and get down to the real conversations about equality at work and at home. As long as we separate ourselves because of a word, we’re not going to achieve equality no matter how far in we may lean.

Image: Lean In

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ColumnNatalie Chanin’s bi-weekly column, Material Witness, offers a seasoned designer’s perspective on the fashion industry, textile history and what happens when love for community trumps all.

There was a time not so long ago on humanity’s calendar that sewing was not considered “women’s work,” but rather a tool for survival.
Hunter/gatherers looking for food on a cold winter’s day, some miles from their camp, might have a shoe wear through and break, and their ability to sew that shoe back together in a simple repair stitch might have meant the difference between safe return to the camp, the loss of a foot to frostbite – or an even worse fate, death.
It is thought that healers began to sew human wounds back together in ancient Egypt – formed as a unified state around 3150 BC, and most likely before.  Over 5000 years ago, sewing was taught, not as craft, but as a survival skill necessary to human life. In fact, a heavy-duty needle and thread for repairing clothing and equipment (and sewing one’s own flesh) is still included in first aid and survival kits today.
Sewing was an invention that greatly aided our advancement as a people and it is believed that needle and thread existed as early as 15,000 years ago.

History World writes:

A long slow sequence of invention and discovery has made possible the familiar details of our everyday lives. Mankind’s programme of improvements has been erratic and unpredictable. But good ideas are rarely forgotten. They are borrowed and copied and spread more widely, in an accelerating process which makes the luxuries of one age the necessities of the next.”

In districts where warm clothing is necessary, Stone Age people stitch skins together with threads of tendon or leather thongs. For each stitch they bore a hole and then hook the thread through it.

The development of a bone or ivory needle with an eye speeds up the process immeasurably. The hole is now created by the same implement which then pulls the thread through, in an almost continuous movement. Needles of this kind have been found in caves in Europe from the late palaeolithic period, about 15,000 years ago. Several are so thin as to imply the use of materials such as horsehair for the thread.

How is it that 15,000 years later, a survival skill of the highest order and an important invention for humanity has come to be classified as “women’s work” and, at the same time, declassified as a life skill? In our Alabama Chanin sewing workshops and group or corporate meetings around a sewing table, it is ALWAYS the men and boys that seem to enjoy the sewing the most.  Perhaps it feels like they have been given permission to try something that they have been culturally banned from, without fear of judgment.

A friend recently sent me an email that her son’s math teacher was using sewing in math class to demonstrate themes of geometry and symmetry.  What a great lesson for life: Life Skill (Math) + Life Skill (Sewing) = Sustainable Life + Learning. Although the students most likely do not recognize this at this point in their lives, they will most certainly look back one day with understanding.

Neuroscientists today agree that using our hands also affects the way our brains function. More proof is uncovered every year that simple survival skills like gardening, cooking, and sewing cause the neurotransmitters in our brains to send out signals of happiness.  (I understand that this is a grossly over-simplified explanation of the brain’s complex workings, but research like Kelly Lambert’s Lifting Depression are changing the way the neuroscience community thinks about action and happiness and the power of the brain.)

I say we as the greater humankind (women AND men) take back our skills and our happiness. I say that we occupy our hands; we democratize sewing (cooking, gardening, making) and restore these useful, and sustainable, life skills back to their honored place in our everyday lives. Through reestablishing these abilities to create our food, clothing, and shelter, we will begin to intimately connect with  our beloved communities and, in the process, begin sewing this beautiful nation of ours back together again – one simple stitch at a time.

Natalie Chanin is owner and designer of the American couture line Alabama Chanin and author of three books including Alabama Stitch Book  (2008), Alabama Studio Style (2010) and the upcoming Alabama Studio Sewing + Design which comes out spring 2012. Look for her bi-weekly column, Material Witness here and follow her on Facebook and her own blog at Alabama Chanin.

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Five girls pushing boundaries and effecting change.

Although women still lag behind men when it comes to pay and presence in the boardroom, an emerging generation of girls sees only possibility. They have a wealth of opportunities open to them, and are breaking new ground.

ShopGirls Design Fuel Efficient Car

The ShopGirls team from Washington State garnered a lot of attention when they were the first all-girls team to compete in the 2010 Shell Eco-marathon competition. Each year, students across the Americas compete to see who can design a car that travels the farthest on the least amount of energy.

The girls range in age from high school freshmen to seniors and manage all aspects of the project, from designing the prototype to racing the cars. When problems arise, it is their job to identify and fix each one. The original goal wasn’t to win, but to create a car that runs efficiently, and they far exceeded their own expectations, by taking first place in their energy class for Diesel Vehicles and an additional third place in Safety. The majority of the 42 teams in the competition were in college. U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, specifically praised the team in his speech about career and technology education.

Five of the six girls in the original ShopGirls teams returned to the 2011 competition, this time competing against 61 teams. They again took first place in the Diesel Energy category, and were one of three teams honored for safety.

Teen Feminist Creates the FBomb

Outspoken Ohio teen feminist Julie Zeilinger created the FBomb website to give other teenage feminists a place to be heard. Zeilinger encourages girls to speak their minds and explore issues facing teen girls today. “All young feminists who are just a little bit pissed off and very outspoken are more than welcome here. The FBomb.org is for girls who have enough social awareness to be angry and who want to verbalize that feeling. The FBomb.org is loud, proud, sarcastic…everything teenage feminists are today.”

Zeilinger first learned about women’s issues in 8th grade while researching a school project. She tried to find a feminist community, as opposed to just a blog, for teenage feminists, but couldn’t find one, so she created the FBomb in 2009. The idea caught fire and the FBomb and its creator have been featured in various publications, including Bitch Magazine, Mother Jones, Jezebel, and Salon.

At first, the very definition of “feminist” as seen by adult women versus this new generation of girls caused friction, but the FBomb community has redefined the term for themselves. Teen girls and boys contribute to the site about many different topics. Recently Zeilinger gave an impassioned speech at Endangered Species Summit: Our Generation and Body Image (NY), about body image, self-hatred, and how creating the FBomb helped her work through these issues. She cites body image issues as perhaps the most written-about topic on the FBomb, but sees each post as a positive chance for discussion, and for more girls to rise above body image issues.

Former Victim Battles Cyberbullying

After a girl she considered a friend posted, “I hate Sarah Ball and I don’t care who knows,” on Facebook, the Florida sophomore was devastated. She told the St. Petersburg Times, “You see other people reading these things and they’re so hurtful, and you have no idea what to say,” Sarah said. “I was in so much pain.” Her first instinct was to keep quiet, but after she researched other cases of cyberbullying, she discovered how many other teens had been victims and that some had even taken their own lives. Ball resolved to speak up.

In 2011, she decided to launch a local initiative called Hernando Unbreakable to raise awareness about cyberbullying. The group is growing steadily welcoming other victims, and gaining support from the school administration and a local sheriff. Ball has also teamed up with high-profile philanthropy Do Something to spread the word and hopes that Unbreakable groups will form in other high schools.

Ball contacted her school principal with printouts of offending Facebook pages and was instrumental in getting them taken down, although more crop up all the time. Her goals include lobbying Facebook to make it more difficult to take someone else’s pictures from their page, and encouraging the company to display a definition of cyberbullying prominently on the site. Due to these actions, Ball has again become the target of cyberbullying, but she remains determined.

Ball’s principle, Ken Pritz, says that the biggest benefit of an effort like Ball’s is simple awareness. “What’s neat about this is it’s a student movement,” Pritz said. “If the students are aware and they care, hopefully you’ll see less of [the cyberbullying].”

Girls Scouts Work to Save the Rainforest

Two dedicated Michigan Girl Scouts have been lobbying Girl Scouts USA for more than five years to change the ingredients in Girl Scout cookies. Rhiannon Tomtishen and Madison Vorva learned that a major ingredient in the cookies, palm oil, was harmful to the environment. Palm oil has been associated with rainforest destruction, slave labor, and climate change.

The girls wrote to the Girl Scouts head office, but were brushed off. In five years, they were only able to secure one meeting with the organization in 2008, but nothing has changed. All but one of the seventeen cookie varieties uses palm oil, but Girl Scouts USA claims that they can do nothing to influence the baker.

Not to be deterred, the girls joined forces with the Rainforest Action Network and Change.org in April 2011 to bring their campaign public and put more pressure on the national headquarters to pay attention. So far, 58,210 people (as of this writing) have signed the petition and thousands have inundated the organization’s Facebook page and Twitter account with requests for change. In response, Girl Scouts USA censored the Facebook comments, still refuses to meet with the girls, and palm oil remains in the recipes.

In their Rainforest Action Network video, Tomtishen points out, “You would think that an organization whose key mission is to empower girls to make a positive impact on the world would have addressed our concerns by now.”

In 2012, Girl Scouts will celebrate 100 years of empowering girls and teaching leadership. Vorva, Tomtishen, the Rainforest Action Network, and Change.org all hope that before their centennial cookie season, Girl Scouts USA will show that they really embrace their core mission by rewarding the girls’ perseverance and eliminating palm oil from their cookies.

College Student Runs for School Board Seat

Nineteen-year-old Samantha Smith is running for the school board in her hometown, challenging two incumbents for one of two available seats. Smith is a recent graduate of Harborfield High School on Long Island, and now attends New York University, majoring in entrepreneurship and government.

Smith contends that she understands what it’s like to be a student in the current educational climate, and has ideas about how to “optimize” the learning experience. She proposes to bring in speakers and conduct workshops during the free hour students now have because an elective was cut due to budget constraints. She also wants to work toward better use of community resources and more hands-on experiences for students to enhance learning. She told the Times Beacon Record, that “Instead of constantly looking to cut, cut, cut,” the board should focus on “How can we take care of what we have already invested in.” The elections are on May 17, 2011.

image: Amanda Venner, Stephen Cummings

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