mind body mama: Girl Power

So it came to pass that one of my feminist process groups had a discussion about the use of the word “girl” in the original name of our group.

One of the two African American members of the group initiated the conversation with an eloquent email. She started her sentences with phrases like, “In my community…” and “In my experience….”

The gist of her message was, “This feels really crappy to me and I’d like us to change the name.”

And so we did.

In the process, I noticed something.

I realized that I had never felt completely comfortable with the name of the group myself. The use of the word “girl” didn’t sit right with me, but I wasn’t entirely sure why. It felt somewhat anti-feminist to call a group of adult, professional women children.

It was the kind of thing the old school lesbian separatist feminists would not have liked. I thought of the thirty-year-old feminist vegetarian restaurant where the collective members call the patrons, “Women.” As in, “You women can sit by the window.” Because they don’t know our names and won’t call us “You guys,” or “You ladies,” as in the vernacular. They always call us, “Women.”

I thought of all of this. I felt uncomfortable with the word choice.

I didn’t say anything.

When my colleague described the way the word “girl” has been used derogatorily by non-Black people towards Black women in this country, I knew exactly what she was talking about. I hadn’t thought of it myself, but I got it.

About one hundred years ago when I was an undergraduate, I studied at the City University of New York. The student body of my college—Hunter College—was, at that time, over eighty-percent African-American women. The other twenty percent were not exclusively suburban blue collar middle class white lesbians.

Which is to say: the story of my undergraduate experience is the story of being different than those around me.

It is also to say: I had the incredible privilege to study feminism in a setting that was primarily Black.

By grace, I listened a lot as my classmates told their stories. I read a lot about the African American experience. I took in a lot of information about experiences other than my own. I learned to see the dominant culture and name things that had been as invisible to me as air: racism, classism, imperialism. I learned a feminism that assumes racial and economic justice as bedrock, not as secondary concerns in a hierarchy of oppressions.

So last month, when my colleague described how and why Black people have been called “boy” or “girl,” and how that nomenclature has been a tool of oppression, it was not new information to me. When she described her personal, visceral experience of having been called “girl” by the “rich, White ladies” for whom she worked, my heart hurt and I felt angry. When she suggested that we might not want her and the other Black women in our group to relive that oppression, that historic or personal memory, through our work and our name, I agreed immediately.

But it reminded me of the canary in the coal mine: the one who gets hit first, and hardest, by the deadly toxic fumes. The choice of the word “girl” for our group felt wrong to me. I had a scritchy awareness that something wasn’t right, the way you might notice a bad smell when you enter a room. But if you ignore it a while it becomes familiar and inoffensive; it requires no action.

But to my African-American colleague, for whom the language choice raised personal and community experiences of racism, it wasn’t a bad smell—it was a toxic cloud. While I was sniffing and saying, “Hmmm, smells funny here, huh?” she was falling onto the ground clutching her throat and coughing, “Ack, ack, ack!”

Does this mean that we are responsible to know in advance anytime our choice of language might translate to an experience of oppression for someone whose experiences are different than ours? I hope not. Because I know I’ll forget again. I might not forget this one, but I’ll miss something else—something completely obviously offensive to someone who’s lived a different experience than I have.

What I hope I’ll remember is how easy it was for me to brush off my own initial discomfort. How easy it was for me to discount the sexism inherent in calling adults by the childish descriptor, and how hard it was for me to access my own understanding of the racist echo. I had to be reminded—even though it was not new information; even though I had already heard many such stories.

I hope I’ll remember that the person living any given oppression is the expert therein; it is terribly hard to imagine ourselves into one another’s experience, even with good and large hearts. I hope that I’ll remember this when my straight or privileged-class or male allies tolerate the bad smell of language or action that feels like it’s killing me, and I hope I’ll have a fraction of my colleague’s dignity and wisdom with which to explain it to them. I hope that I’ll remember this when something feels scritchy but tolerable to me: that I can be a better advocate for myself and others if I speak up.

mind body mama: The Process is the Point

I am part of three feminist process groups right now. If you are someone to whom that sentence does not have significance, suffice it to say that the readers who know exactly what it means are pointing and laughing and saying things like, “Better you than me, sister.”

This experience is giving me an opportunity to exercise the most enduring lesson I learned at Heather Berthoud’s diversity training last summer.***

I boiled this lesson into a mantra which, with a lot of deep breathing, gets me through it all without sticking a fork into one of my own eyes:

“When you work with people who are different than you—which is to say, all people—things will move more slowly than you might expect.”

Heather never actually said, “When you work with people who are different than you—which is to say, all people—things will move more slowly than you might expect.” It’s possible that this was not the take-away she intended. But despite the fact that I’ve been attending diversity trainings for over twenty years—my entire undergraduate experience as a Women’s Studies major at the City University of New York was a protracted diversity training—I understood something new in her class:

When I am thinking: “This would go so much faster/better if we just did everything my way,” people different from me—which is to say, all people—are probably not thinking, “This would go so much faster/better if we just did everything Lynne Marie’s way.”

Go figure.

Apparently, other people might be thinking, “This would go so much faster/better if we just did everything my way.”

Other other people might be thinking, with regard to my own stellar contributions, “What is she trying to do here? This is not the fastest/best way. This is making me very uncomfortable.”

And some other people might not even think “fast” equates with “best.”

(Insert more deep breathing here.)

Now, Heather’s a terrific trainer (see footnote: “genius”). Of course the session explored differences which are often culturally linked—such as values around punctuality or conflict, for example. I do understand that my ideas of “best ways” are inextricably tied to my identity as a white, blue collar/middle class, North American native-English speaker as well as my upbringing in a wealthy East Coast WASPy suburb.

But my mantra defines “people who are different from me” as “all people” because the voice of God that spoke through Heather’s training told me that I have to be more patient—with everyone.

When I get that scritchy, irritable feeling that things should be moving along right about now and why don’t we just do everything my way?—it is time for me to get very quiet. It is time to listen as deeply as I possibly can.

I know my way around a committee meeting. I am not only a lesbian feminist; I’m also a Unitarian Universalist. I know that group process can (will) hit a snag. If I get quiet I might be able to facilitate the snag. Maybe there’s a need for information or it’s time to call a vote. Maybe someone misheard someone else. Maybe we all need a snack.

But what feels like a slow-down might not be a snag at all. I’ll never know unless I try listening to my peers. What feels like delay to me might be an indication that the other members of the group need something—to speak, to listen, to feel, to act. Maybe the solution which is obvious to me is not smacking them upside the head because it’s not the best way for everyone.

Maybe people who are different than me—which is to say, all people—are really different than me. Maybe they are being their true and whole and beautiful selves. As opposed to just slowing everything down by refusing to see things my way.

Maybe being comfortable in a group—having everything happen in a way that feels natural or easy to me—is not the highest success. It can’t be if we value diversity. People who are different than me—which is to say, all people—are going to be maddeningly, infuriatingly, incomprehensibly different than me. A lot of the time they are going to want or need something other than what I want or need. I don’t understand it but it doesn’t mean that they are wrong.

If I’m never unsettled in a group it means that people who are different than me are compromising themselves. There’s a social justice piece to this, of course. As a white person I have to be hyper vigilent. It’s easy for members of the dominant culture to railroad a process according to what’s comfortable to them. That marginalizes the non-dominant members of the group; in common parlance it’s what we call “racism.” Or “sexism,” or “classism”—you get the drift.

It feels like a profound switch, though, to draw my attention to my own scritchiness—and lack there-of—rather than the apparent differences between myself and other group members. Rather than casting an eye around wondering how the straight members, or the African-American members, or the privileged-class members are going to demonstrate their differences from me, I look to myself. When I feel too comfortable I have to wonder, “Who’s not comfortable?” When I feel scritchy and impatient I have to wonder, “To whom am I not yet listening?”


(***The other really important thing I learned from diversity training with Heather is that she is a genius. In the event that you are in a position to hire a consultant for your business or non-profit, do not waste time researching her competition—just hire her. Pay her highest per diem, fly her to you business class, and do not send your assistant to pick her up at the airport. Pick her up yourself, because you will want to spend every moment you can learning from her.)

Mind Body Mama: This I Believe

In January, the phenomenal Lee Sinclair made her first demand upon the twelve feminist self defense experts she’s calling her national Comet Group.

I’m a little star-struck to even be counted among this group, which includes Nadia Telsey (who founded the school where I was first trained as a self defense instructor), Ellen Snortland (the writer/actor/activist/writing coach whose name I drop as frequently as I can) and Shihan Linda “Ramzy” Ranson (an eighth degree black belt who has intimidated me since I first met her twenty years—and several degrees—ago.)

The Comets—whose name was inspired by Miss Maria Mitchell, the first American woman to discover a comet—are a group of advisors to Lee’s No Means No Worldwide project. As Lee says, “It gives me a good feeling to think of this group’s exchange of ideas as lights streaking across the sky from one woman to another.”

Lee boiled her first question down to this:

“What do you feel are the absolute essentials that a Self Defense class needs to provide for students? These may be strategies or beliefs or a philosophy upon which many other fundamental behaviors rely."

What an amazing opportunity this was for me to name my core beliefs about the work I’ve been doing and thinking about for the past two decades.

This is what I know:

• Self defense is everything you do to take care of yourself: mind, body, spirit. It is acting as if you have value. Self defense considers both short term and long term consequences of your actions in terms of what will be best for you.

• As the instructor, I am not the only expert in the room. Women practice self defense—take steps to protect themselves and their children—all the time. Women are the best experts about what strategies and techniques will work to reduce or respond to violence in their own lives. In my classes we always learn from one another.

• Self defense is about increasing women’s choices. There is no “right answer” in self defense, no silver bullet technique that will work in all situations. No two women will respond to a given situation with the same choice.

• Self defense is a right and not a privilege. Everyone has the right to autonomy of his/her own body.

• It is easy to hurt another person’s body. The techniques we teach work. You can learn them. You can use them if you need them.

• It is never your fault if someone chooses to attack you. If someone makes the choice to hurt you, they are responsible for that choice. You might have compassion for your attacker; you might even understand what compelled him to make that choice. You can take steps to keep yourself safer and learn self defense techniques. But taking responsibility for your own safety is not the same as taking responsibility for having been attacked. It is always the attacker’s responsibility for having made that bad choice.

• It is my deepest hope that my students will never have to use physical techniques to defend themselves. These principles guide my understanding of physical self defense:

o Do the least amount of harm necessary to neutralize the situation.
o Understand that any physical engagement includes a risk of harm to the defender.
o Reserve the most damaging techniques for the most dangerous situations.
o Select techniques that will do the least amount of harm to your own body while striking vulnerable targets on the attacker’s body.

• Like many others in our movement, I use the Five Fingers of Self Defense as a pneumonic for the steps of avoidance/de-escalation/response:

1. Use your mind and breathe.
2. Use your voice.
3. Create distance.
4. Fight back if you have to and with appropriate force.
5. Tell someone you trust.

Mind Body Mama: A few things I learned from Momalom’s Half Drunk Challenge

Remember the Momalom Half Drunk Challenge? A week long period of blackout level stupidity and online overload just before Christmas? Here are some reflections.

1. When you write more, you have more to write. Even though writing every day in the week running up to Christmas was an idea singular in its insanity, the experience demonstrated beyond a doubt that when I write more I have more to write about. As my friend the Blunt Christian has put it, “I think in sentences again.” Writing every day, even briefly, turned my head into a tumbler of ideas and words and phrases that worked on its own between and during my domestic and workaday duties. This might be why Ellen Snortland and Kate Hopper and practically every writing teacher I’ve ever had or heard about endorses daily writing as necessary practice. Point taken.

2. I do not want to be a blogger, I want to be a writer. I’ve always been clear that I didn’t want to be that kind of blogger—the product-endorsing, one-woman brand machine that’s about following and being followed, creating a scene, turning myself into a channel of new media.

But I have credited blogging with saving me from the lonely writer’s room, for making it possible for me as a middle-aged mom to write without desperate isolation. I’m grateful—so grateful—for the connections I made with other bloggers during Half Drunk. I am delighted to witness their writing, to consider my computer part of the energy and space that holds their creative process in the midst of their crazy mom real lives.

But my real mom life is crazy too, and I don’t want to spend much more of it sucked down the monitor. My life is enriched by holding an open heart for the other mama writers I’ve met online, but not more than it is enriched by driving up to the hilltowns to lunch with my new friend the brilliant and gifted writer Erin White. It is too easy for me to stay home thinking I am not isolated because I’m chatting with—or maybe not even chatting, just peering into the life of—another mama writer. I’ve got to put on my hat and go out in the cold, hear my own voice somewhere other than inside my own head.

The Half Drunk also showed me a dark side to the blogging adventure. Erin named it for me over soup and sandwiches: the pitfall of cheekiness. My voice changes insidiously when I write to an audience as I imagine them. I feel compelled to play a character, to alter my narrative to conform with a self that is bright and sarcastic, dark and quirky. My friends and family will be quick to tell you that I am actually bright, sarcastic, dark and quirky. But I don’t want to write myself into caricature. I want to be a careful, precise writer, I want a voice that is true and strong, not trying to please. I want to be an essayist, sometimes a humorist, occasionally a preacher. I want to be a writer.

3. Feminism saved my life. (I’ve got to credit Erin on this one too—it showed up in an email she sent me a few weeks back.) I find the mom-o-sphere—whether online or in real life—stunningly and surprisingly different from the women’s community in which I’ve lived my adult life. That community is overtly feminist, anti-violence, anti-racist, supportive of economic and social justice and—in the words of my first karate dojo, The School of Come-the-Revolution, “unapologetically pro-lesbian.”

Not so among the moms of my daughter’s contemporaries, which is why I often feel like a shadow of myself among them. In my real life, I am almost never the only lesbian in the room—unless I am hovering over the Cheetoes at a seven year old’s birthday party. In my real life, I am almost never the only woman in the room who doesn’t shave or wear makeup or color her hair—unless I am at my daughter’s school. In my real life, I am almost never the only woman in the room who doesn’t speak disparagingly of her body—unless I am waiting with other moms outside of a ballet class.

Online, I encounter moms writing from their hearts, so far past the cocktail party chatter of the playground that I almost want to weep with gratitude. But even here, the personal doesn’t leap to the political. For all the hand-wringing and heart ache we each experience—around our agonizing about how to balance childcare and paid employment, for example—most don’t see beyond ourselves to understand the condition of women—of mothers— as collective. "Motherhood is a labor issue" I want to whisper while slipping copies of Miriam Peskowitz’s The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars into diaper bags around the country.

Twenty years ago when I came out as a lesbian and feminist, a relative expressed his distaste for my political ilk because “they make themselves out as victims.” I didn’t have the chops to answer flippantly, “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.” I wish I had. I’ve aged, and mellowed, and gotten married and had a baby and seen my world shrink to a domesticity I could not have imagined in my rabble-rousing days. I’ve failed to keep up with the women’s movement and find my credentials challenged in new radical circles, as my politics on gender and disability and race and the environment and globalization are not sophisticated or embedded enough, stalled as they are in the 1990s of my youth.

But I know that my experience as a woman and a mother in this time and country are not just an expression of my rugged American individuality. I know that my life is an expression of my time and culture, that my path is forged as much by my privilege and limitations; as much by my race and class and gender and sexuality and ability as by my abundant creativity and will. I might not always have a cogent analysis, I might not be at the forefront of today’s radicalism, but I don’t imagine myself the only architect of my condition. I know my life reflects my world as much as it reflects me. When we don't talk about that, I feel a part of myself left in the shadows.

mind body mama: Late to the Party

I used to be an overachiever. I used to be ahead of the curve, anticipate the obstacles, and wield an air-tight plan complete with contingencies. As much as I didn’t want to admit it last night when Janet Superhero cracked on the acronym, “Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance” was a common by-word of my upbringing. I come by it naturally; I can’t help feeling behind if I am not ahead.

But there are other proverbs available by which to live one’s life. One of Ellen Snortland’s comes to mind: “If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done.” And motherhood has mellowed me. As a mother, so much happens outside of what you’ve planned that planning seems beyond the point.

Plus, as has been noted, I really, really needed a vacation.

All this to say: I did not keep my (self imposed) deadline of posting last week. And I did not come up with a pithy way to wrap up 2009. But, serendipitously, my procrastination provided me with inspiration.

Some might think it better called “cheating.” But here’s another proverb for you: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

Bloggers smarter than I—like Lesbian Dad and Jen at Momalom—used their New Year’s post to round up their favorite posts of 2009. What a brilliant idea! And to think, if I had posted on time I would not have had a chance to steal imitate flatter it.

Instead of a monthly 2009 round up, I’m pulling together my favorite posts on a favorite subject. So if you’re late to the mindbodymama party you can catch up on what’s going on around here.

Raising a Strong Voiced Girl

Ellen Snortland says,

“One of the things that makes you an expert in your field of ‘how to’ is being able to discern that which is absent and then making it visible in an understandable, accessible way.”

This is, above all, what I am trying to do when I write about the intersection of self defense practice and parenting. Even though when I say those words out loud in the same sentence—“self defense and parenting”—as I did at a dinner party of Life Coach Jillian’s last year, people’s eyes glaze over and roll back in their heads and they get very quiet and tense.

What do they think I mean? Teaching my child how to mace her classmates on the playground? Using jujitsu to throw her clingy little body off me when I need some space? Practicing our blood curdling screams together? They’re probably thinking Stranger-Danger and that we spend our evenings studying the online sex offenders’ registry.

None of these are really terrible ideas—except maybe the mace. And the fact that kids are more often assaulted by people that they know than by true “strangers.” And the phrase Stranger Danger is hackneyed, over used, inflammatory, and ineffective.

None of that really matters, though, because it’s not what I’m doing.

This is what I write about: How I—and BirthPie, and Party Pam, and Life Coach Jillian and Foxy and all the black belt and color belt and car-pool mamas at The School of Love—parent our children so they can develop and strengthen the skills they need to protect themselves in this world.

The skills we teach are best summarized by the Five Fingers of Self Defense:

• Use your mind and breathe.
• Use your voice.
• Create distance.
• Fight back if you have to.
• Tell someone you trust.

We teach these skills the way we teach our kids any other deeply held values and spiritual practices: We let them see us practice. We teach by example. We talk about what we believe. We seize on teaching moments.

Here are some of my reflections on the intersection of self defense and parenting:

Mama Rage—Why we have to stand up for our kids, and why it is so hard.

Raising A Strong Voiced Girl, How To—A primer for the parent who wants to raise a girl who knows that she’s worth defending.

Hidden Hurt—What’s missing when parents ask their kids to change, “so they won’t get hurt.”

Get Your Self Defense On—My thoughts on how a violent episode played out in the media, and how my family turned a playground threat into a teachable moment.

Germ Warfare—Life with a girl who knows how to say “NO!”

Raising a Strong Voiced Girl—The essay that started it all, online at the sadly defunct http://www.mamazine.com/.

mind body mama: My Storybook Life

Earlier this week one of my favorite clients cancelled the third session in a row. When I called to see if I needed to stage an intervention she said, “I’m sorry—those last two were unavoidable conflicts. But the first time, I was just feeling overwhelmed. When I hung up the phone from cancelling I just lay on the floor and stared at the ceiling for twenty minutes.”

There are times when I might have thought, “Wow, do I need to make a mental health referral here?” But this week I just thought, “Damn, why didn’t I do that?”

Because I’m fairly sure I crammed thirty seven extra errands into that found hour before I screeched up to my next session. The to-do list just keeps getting longer, and it’s not just the Christmas machine. In fact, our organization, restraint and foresight on the Christmas front seem to have bitten us in the butts. We only have a few things left to do for the holidays, which is why it’s seemed reasonable to say “yes” to untold other things. Somehow I ended up at the School of Love Monday as well as a record three times on Tuesday, and then we rescheduled a meeting for Wednesday night that got bumped by the funeral a few weeks ago. There were flu shots in there, and a session at the radio station recording some of my blog posts, and a spate of emails with the afterschool enrichment program to see if we can get Small enriched even though she’s above grade level.

It’s been the kind of week where, when I call BirthPie to see if she can watch Small for an unexpected hour she says, “Sure, but only if I can do it at your place because Frisbee’s working the overnight and has to sleep all day.”

So I say, “I gave the last extra key to the AM babysitter, I’ll have to hit the hardware store to get you one.”

And she says, “While you’re there, could you get a few extra copies of my house key for my cat sitters?”

It’s a turning of the screw kind of week: every errand leads to another; nothing is ever actually finished. I shed belongings like skin cells: my lunchbox is at the college gym, my sunglasses are accidentally left in my glove box, I can’t find a clean sports bra. I wake up in the middle of the night hoping that it is morning so I can get back to the races, my to-do list scrolling through my brain like movie credits. But it’s only two am so I pass the time making a mental inventory of my January invoices until I fall asleep again.

But it is almost over. Christmas Eve, when I will wrangle the seventh graders into an assertive and cordial team of ushers and Small will read a portion of the nativity story to the congregation, is almost here. (Note to self: must purchase 40 AA batteries for the electric votives, per order of the War Ship.) In just a few hours our Christmas week will be upon us and we are hell-bent on doing a whole lot of nothing but eating, sleeping and enjoying one another for nine long days.

***

In case you haven’t got a visual yet for why I really, really need a vacation, here’s how my workout went yesterday:

It went great, thanks for asking. I had time to work out because I had another cancellation (different favorite client) and I had the foresight not to cancel the AM babysitter. So after a surprisingly good night’s sleep and two cups of coffee I found myself tearing it up on my favorite elliptical machine. I was having so much fun sweating to Dead Prez that I cut it very close to my next appointment.

Which is why when I discovered that I didn’t have a towel with me—after I’d already gotten naked in the locker room, natch—I didn’t have enough time to get dressed and run back to the gym to borrow one.

I resigned myself to the fact that I’d have to dry off with the workout clothes I’d just taken off. Eeww! Is right. And double eeww to the fact that workout clothes are now made to be moisture wicking instead of moisture absorbing so rubbing my dirty clothes on my clean body wasn’t even going to make me much dryer.

I showered very quickly. Maybe I thought a brief shower would make me less wet?

I was drying my face with a random clean sock I found at the bottom of my gym bag when I accidentally caught my earring and pulled it out of my ear. I heard it bounce all over the tiled shower stall—the earring headed in one direction, the butterfly clasp in the other. Since I don’t wear my glasses in the shower I couldn’t see where anything went. So the next thing I knew I was naked, and wet—with no chance of getting dry—on my hands and knees, crawling around a public shower, looking for my favorite earring, and late for work.

If this does not make me the poster child for mamas who need a vacation I don’t care to know what I’d have to do to qualify.

***

The AM babysitter, name of Deborah, is an absolute treasure. I worried about inviting someone into the chaos of our lives and the detritus of our decrepit house, but it has been an unmitigated success. Deborah not only makes it possible for me to work two early mornings a week, she loves and knows my daughter. Which is what I most deeply wish for when I put my child into another’s care; that the caregiver will really see her: her quirks and foibles, her gifts and challenges.

I got Deborah a downtown gift card as a year-end thank you. “Small,” I said, “please write a message to Deborah on this card, but don’t make it a Christmas message. Deborah doesn’t celebrate Christmas.” I was thinking along the lines of “Happy Holidays” or “I love you” or “Thank you for playing alien fighters with me.”

When I opened the card to tuck in one of Small’s school pictures I saw the message she wrote:

“Be ready for anything.”

In all fairness, this is the message I should have given Deborah when I hired her.

***

At dinner last night Small wanted to role-play being a lawyer. We’d been talking about how lawyers fight for people’s rights.

“What’s something that you believe in?” I asked Small.

Small drew up her most solemn and imperious self. “I think that gayness—I mean, being gay, like you guys—is OK.”

Sweetie and I looked at each other. We rarely use the words “gay” and “lesbian” around here because there’s no need to draw that strong a line between our family and other families. There are lots of different kinds of families. If it’s necessary of a conversation I might say, “There are boy-boy people and girl-girl people but most people are boy-girl people,” and Small will fail to even look up from what she’s reading to acknowledge my description of the world as she already knows it.

“Um…ok.” I stammered. “But where did you learn that word 'gayness'?”

“Akbar and Jeff’s Guide to Life.” Small grinned delightedly.

I am really not as terrible a parent as it seems, I swear.

***

After dinner we googled Life is Hell and found out it had been reissued as Life is Swell in 2007.

Small said, “Life is Swell is even funnier than Life is Hell. Because in that comic, life is definitely not swell.”

I caught her up in my arms. “Small,” I said with the deepest parental admiration, “that is called 'irony' and you have never said anything that made me more proud.”

“You’ve said that before,” came her muffled voice from my stifling hug.

“Yeah, but I mean it,” I declared. “I’m even more proud than when you said you were a feminist.”

***

When I tucked Small in last night she said sleepily, “Do you know what a bad comparison is? It’s when you say something like, ‘It was as loud as a loud noise.’”

“What’s a good comparison?” I asked.

She pondered. “‘It was as loud as a wolf’s howl’,” she said. “You have to use something that’s a loud thing. The other one is just too obvious.”

“You’re getting to be quite a good little writer,” I observed.

“You too,” she said, snuggling down. “Have you heard the saying, ‘it’s in the blood’? It’s like that. The writing.”

There it is: my storybook ending.

mind body mama: Holding You Up

Small's facility with language is such that she rarely makes those adorable kid mistakes with usage. When she does, she usually corrects herself quickly. But one we've managed to hold onto as a family is the phrase "hold me up" where you might normally hear the colloquialism "tide me over."

As in, "Since dinner's going to be a little late, I'll have an apple to hold me up."

A perfect storm of power failure, family tragedy, and holiday traffic conspired to keep me from the blog this weekend. While I'm working on a post to convey the sadness and silliness of our Thanksgiving, I offer you this essay to hold you up. It's a companion to my post of a few weeks back, Nothing Lucky About It.

Not Unlucky Neither

So we’re clear on the concept that luck is not what gets most women through an attack situation.

More like grit, determination, survival instinct, fighting skills, strategy and courage.

But what about how they found themselves in those situations to begin with? Absent the ever popular victim blaming—she shouldn’t have been there/worn that/ fill in the blank—is it just bad luck?

“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I say no. I say that when we ascribe the cause of an attack to bad luck we miss a crucial piece of accountability. In that place, at that time, somebody chose to attack her.

It’s bad luck to walk down the hall and stumble over your own shoelace. It’s someone else’s crappy, mean-spirited, effed-up choice if he sticks his foot out and trips you.

I am not a researcher, not a social worker, not an expert in the psychology of violent perpetrators. I know it could be argued that some attackers are not fully in their right minds. Perhaps some are actually unable to make a better choice than to assault someone.

And I do understand that those who witness or experience violence are considered more likely to become perpetrators themselves.

But if you think about the statistics on violence, such as these that I borrowed from Erin Weed:

• For every 1,000 persons age 12 or older, there occurs: 1 rape or sexual assault, 1 assault with injury, 3 robberies. (US Department of Justice, 2005)

• Up to 47% of women report that their first sexual intercourse was forced. (WHO 2002)

and these that I borrowed from The National Coaliton Against Domestic Violence:

• An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year (CDC 2003).

• One in 6 women and 1 in 33 men have experienced an attempted or completed rape (US Department of Justice, 1998).

you very rapidly come to the conclusion that there are an awful lot of attackers out there.

And I have to think that some of them are people who who could do better.

Men who could refrain from hitting their intimate partners.

Men who could recognize that inability to explictly refuse sexual contact— due to inebriation, for example— is not the same as actually granting consent.

Men who could take responsibility for their own anger and not visit it upon their families.

Men who could refuse the culture’s definition of masculinity as inherently violent.

Men who could refuse the culture’s definition of the female body as their object.

Men who could take control of themselves—instead of the women around them.

My National Women’s Martial Arts Federation colleague Deborah Schipper asks, “What’s the difference between going somewhere and getting raped and going to the same place and not getting raped?”

“It’s the RAPIST in the room!” is her answer.

It’s natural to ponder the trials that come at us in this life, to wonder how our lives are fated or directed. But I’m giving credit where credit is due. It’s not lucky when a woman fights back successfully, it’s a triumphant of spirit. And it’s not unlucky when an asshole assaults, it’s a criminal choice.

mind body mama: Nothing Lucky About It

A few years ago I taught the Arthritis Foundation’s exercise program at my town’s Senior Center. My students in that cold basement room were ladies in their seventies and eighties. When I let slip that I also taught self defense classes they were riveted. One student was nearly bursting to tell me something.

I can’t remember the details, but I still see the urgency on her face as she told her story of survival. It was something that happened during the war, something that involved a long walk to get a treat of fresh peaches during that time of rationing and patriotic deprivation. The assault was unexpected and her response was equally swift and surprising. Did she rip off his eyeglasses or does my memory confuse her own thick lenses with her attacker?

What I know is that she fought back and lived to tell the tale.

But this survivor did not just tell me how she met an attack with courage and pluck and self determination. She also told me the story she’s been telling herself about that incident for sixty years.

“I was lucky,” she said.

I have been practicing and teaching self defense for twenty-one years. I can’t count the number of self defense stories I have heard. Women tell me their stories in self defense class, as expected. But they also tell me in karate class, in fitness class and over the backyard fence. They tell me in the supermarket and they tell me over lunch. They tell me between classes at karate camp and at the community college.

All too often they sum up the story the same way. “I was lucky,” they say.

There is nothing “lucky” about turning around in the moment just before someone grabs you from behind. There’s nothing “lucky” about telling someone to STOP and having them listen. There is nothing “lucky” about jumping up, running away, yelling before a menacing group can set upon you. There is nothing “lucky” about grabbing something close at hand and using it as a weapon. There is nothing “lucky” about crying out to a passerby for help and receiving it. There is nothing “lucky” about blocking your head during a brutal beating and avoiding permanent brain damage. There’s nothing “lucky” about learning a batterer’s cues so well that you can navigate his dark evil moods and keep yourself and your kids alive. There is nothing “lucky” about hitting out with your arms and legs and elbows even if you’ve never fought before and making contact with soft spots on the attacker’s body. There’s nothing “lucky” about strategically yielding to a demand—for property or for sexual contact—in order to protect your life or buy some time until you can make your next move.

In the self defense movement we are often frustrated by the way success stories get reported. Erin Weed documented one such case on her blog earlier this year: a woman was running when a man tried to attack her. She yelled and fought back and he ran away. The headline: “Woman Jogger Attacked in Broad Daylight.”

But our sexist socialization is glaringly obvious in women’s collective willingness to downplay the headlines we give our own stories.

We are socialized to believe that women can’t fight, to believe that we can’t possibly be successful against a male attacker, to believe that must wait to be saved because we don’t have what it takes to save ourselves.

“I was lucky,” we say. Instead of saying, “That motherfucker tried to rape me and I fought back with everything I had. I hurt him and he gave up.”

Or: “I told him to stop coming on to me and he stopped. He never did it again.”

Or: “I knew something bad was about to jump off and I got out of there. I ran faster and yelled louder than I ever thought I could.”

Or: “I had a feeling that all he wanted was money. So I gave him my wallet and he left. I was right.”

When you hear a woman telling a self defense success story—especially if that woman is you—please correct her gently if she tells you she was “lucky.”

“Luck’s got nothing to do with it,” I tell them. “You trusted your instincts. You were brave. You valued yourself. You were strong. You used your mind, you made good choices. You were fierce. You are a survivor.”

Mind Body Mama: Hidden Hurt

On Wednesday, the New York Times parenting blog Motherlode ran a question from a parent concerned about how she should handle her five year old son’s desire to wear a tutu for Halloween. After describing her son’s preference for “pink, and sparkles and bows,” the concerned mama wrote:

But now he is in kindergarten and he wants to be a ballerina this year. I think it’s time to have him put away the tutu and be more like the other boys. My husband says that we can’t change him, and while I know my question probably sounds like I want to change him, or that I am embarrassed by him, I really mean it when I say that’s not my reason. Instead, I am worried about him getting hurt. Eventually other kids will notice and the teasing is inevitable. And one day someone will fight him over this. If I can protect him from that by explaining that this isn’t the way boys dress, then shouldn’t I? If should, then when do I start?

Although I’ve positioned this blog as a writing vehicle, I submit the photo above as evidence of our family’s position on children and gender socialization. Consider it an example of “a picture is worth a thousand words.” If you're unable to see the photo for any reason, it is a six year old Small in a suit and tie playing with a collection of Disney princess Barbies. (The process by which my feminist soul reached an uncertain detente with the Disney princesses is fodder for its own post.)

Early in my blogging career I made my peace with the fact that I would not ever be the blogger who could bang out a timely response to important issues. This is unfortunate, because I often rant about the news that enters my consciousness (usually via NPR), and poor, beleaguered Sweetiebabyhoneylicious would very much appreciate my entertaining a wider audience with my strenuous opinions. I am not the multi-tasking modern mama, however. We’re committed to the slow lane and I do one thing at one time: serve my clients, take my kid to school, chop vegetables. It usually doesn’t fit my lifestyle to stop everything and post my analysis of the day’s news.

Fortunately, Misty at Shakesville was on-the-spot and posted a brilliant feminist response to the original Motherlode post within a few hours.

I witnessed the discussions on both blogs throughout the day on Wednesday when I was home with a sick Small and was heartened to see lots of posts in support of this boy. I weighed in at Motherlode (and later made a similar comment at Shakesville), saying, in part:

I am a mama of a gifted child, a lesbian, and a self defense instructor. I think all of these identities contribute to my belief that our most important role as parents is to give our children the competencies they need to succeed as their true selves–not to mold them into people who are apt to have an easier time in life.

If your child is likely to get picked on for revealing his true self, he needs a range of strategies to deal with that harassment. Hiding his preferences is one tool to have in the tool kit–as a gay person, I’ve certainly used it myself. But it’s not the only tool. Having a strong voice to stand up to bullying, knowing who his allies are, knowing that there are others like him in the world and developing his inner resilience are all strategies he may need to call upon.

A theme emerged among some of the commenters that could be summarized as: “The parents should let the kid dress how he wants, but they should warn him that he might get picked on.” We discussed the article at supper Wednesday night and Small offered a nuanced version of this opinion, something along the lines of: “The parents should let him wear what he wants and they should help him.”

I’ve been pondering this concern—of the mama who posed the question, who I believe to be lovingly committed to her son’s well being, and of the supportive commenters—as I witnessed another conversation, this one on the professional list-serve of the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation Certified Women’s Self Defense Instructors. The topic there was “what works in women’s self defense, and how do we know?” (I’ve got a lot to say on that and hope to post about it soon.) But the discussion brought to mind some bad old “conventional” (aka “sexist”) wisdom regarding women who fight back.

The myth goes like this: A woman shouldn’t fight back because that will only make her attacker angrier and she’ll get hurt worse.

As one of my NWMAF colleagues pointed out, this old husband’s tale has been repeatedly discredited by research. She referenced Pauline Bart and Patricia O’Brien’s book Stopping Rape: Successful Survival Strategies and research by academicians Sarah Ullman and Jocelyn Hollander that demonstrate that self defense works.*

The connection between these two circumstances, in my mind, is this: there is a hidden hurt to both people—the little “pink” boy, and the woman who is being assaulted— that is not being acknowledged.

People who easily conform to cultural gender expectations can have trouble recognizing the psychological cost of being closeted. They are thinking, “If he just dresses as a fireman for Halloween no one will laugh at him or beat him up. He won’t get hurt. He’ll be safer.” These folks are well meaning—I really believe they are. But are they really that far from those who would say, “I don’t mind gays, but why do they have to be so obvious?”

We don't mind these people, but why do they have to be so bigotted?

There’s a huge cost to not expressing who you really are—just ask any gay or transgendered person. The cost is enormous and, to many of us, unbearable. I don’t know if this kid is going to be some flavor of queer when he grows up, but I do know that asking him to hide a piece of his soul has a cost. Just because it would be easy for his mama not to wear a suit and tie and his papa not to wear “pink, and sparkles, and bows” doesn’t mean it’s easy for him. If it was easy and natural for him to walk away from that stuff, he would. He’s drawn to it for a reason that can’t yet be known. If this truth about his being is squashed or shamed away, it will hurt him.

Similarly, I think that men who advise women not to fight back (and the women who accept and repeat this pat advice) are not acknowledging the impact of rape—not to mention the myriad other ways women can be “hurt” in assault that might not result in obvious physical injury.

Here are some relevant assumptions I unpack from the recommendation that women remain passive in an assault situation:

• Sexual violence isn’t “real” violence. Only bruises, broken bones, etc. count as injury.

• The only lasting damage that can come from an assault is physical. Women are unharmed by verbal/emotional abuse.

• Women do not have agency in the world. They are subject to whatever happens to them. This powerlessness is synonymous with their gender and carries no negative effect.

I think about the world through a self-defense lens. Therefore I think of the tool kits we each need to have to deal with the crap that life will throw at us. Passivity, yielding, and hiding are not a loser’s game. They are crucial survival skills that have served and continue to serve many of us who would be victimized—women; gay, lesbian, transgendered, and other queer folk; people of color; religious minorities. I’ll keep “passing” and keeping my mouth shut in my bag of tricks; there might come a moment when those tactics save my skin. And while I hope I never have to make the choice to submit to a sexual assault in order to stay alive, I honor every person who has made this decision and lived to see another day. This kind of bravery and commitment to self is a triumph of the human spirit.

But vital as they may be, these are not the only tools available to us. Those who seek to be our allies do us a great disservice when they expect us to be satisfied with them.

My tool kit’s full of resources—like the family, teachers and friends who could help ballerina boy feel accepted and loved. I’ve got a strong voice like the one he’ll need to tell bullies to back off. He might need to yell sometimes; plenty of women have stopped assaults with a loud shout and I do believe that my brain-piercing kiai saved my life and a friend’s one night in Prospect Park. I know lots of ways to hurt another person’s body—it’s not all that hard—and if I need to, I’ll do it.

And I’ll keep working for justice and equality for all of us. As many commenters pointed out, the parents of this "pink" boy have a great opportunity to teach their son that “different” need not mean “less than:” an early lesson in acceptance and advocacy that will serve him—and the world.

In the absence of a world that is safe for all of us this are the tools we each can carry. And, sadly, must.

The Five Fingers of Self Defense

THINK: Use your mind and breathe.
YELL: Use your voice.
RUN: Create distance between yourself and danger.
FIGHT: Fight back if you have to and with appropriate force.
TELL: Tell someone you trust, and work for peace and justice.

*Edited 10/31 to provide thorough attribution: I posted this before receiving permission from my colleague Martha Thompson to quote her statement in its entirety:

...I think the important message from Pauline Bart and Patricia O'Brien Stopping Rape: Successful Survival Strategies has been confirmed by follow-up research by Sarah Ullman, Jocelyn Hollander, and others: if attacked, respond immediately, yell, and use multiple strategies. In other words, the specific techniques are most likely less important than dealing with the situation immediately, using one's voice, and using the tools one has until the attack stops.

Martha is the director of Impact Chicago and a NWMAF Certified Women's Self Defense Instructor.

Mind Body Mama: A Tiny Feminist Rant about Birth Control and Menstruation

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I have a thing about underpants.

So it won’t surprise you that my eye was caught by a television ad that began with a clothesline full of panties. To me, that’s a pretty good hook.

But you might be surprised to hear the venom that poured forth from my mouth when I figured out what the ad was about.

The product was birth control pills. And the pitch was this: These birth control pills eliminate mid-cycle spotting. So you won’t get any stains on you underpants!

(Oh, and please over-look this last paragraph the lawyers are making us read about the possible side-effects of this medication including stroke or death. Didn’t you hear: No stains on your panties!)

Now, you might point out that I’m a lesbian and as such have no need of birth control. Which is why I’m not weighing in on how women choose to balance the side effects of various birth control methods with their active heterosexuality.

That, in fact, is none of my business.

What I am addressing is the pea-brain advertising executives who think that, “No stains on your panties!” is a better pitch than, “No unwanted pregnancies!”

It’s such a blatant example of the distain our culture has for women’s bodies and minds. It makes me mad and sad to think of the ways this body-hatred is internalized by so many women.

Really? I’m supposed to get wound up about stains on my panties? I’m female. I’ve had blood coming out of my vagina once a month for over 25 years now. Sometimes it gets on my clothes. My blood, my clothes, my business.

And frankly, I don’t think it’s that big a deal.

If I was getting someone else’s blood on my stuff all the time, that might freak me out. But on the other hand, that’s the life of the surgeon, the paramedic, the ER doctor, the midwife. They find a way to cope.

And I spent two years with someone else’s poop, pee and vomit on me. I didn’t appreciate the sogginess, but on the whole it did not diminish my quality of life. I’m glad that part is over but it was not terribly terrible.

We live in bodies, people. Right after I had Small—when that night of blood and sweat and amniotic fluids and tears and snot and poop was still still roaring in my head—I walked around the streets of our little town thinking, everyone came into the world like that. Of if not, through surgery—an even more brutal rending of one body into two.

We are born messy and naked and animal through a bodily transformation more powerful than any other act of nature. Think earthquake, tsunami, landslide. That is the power of the birthing woman. And that laboring woman bellowing from the center of her being, squatting to spread her pelvis, rides in every woman, whether or not she is a mama.

Why on earth are we walking around with manicures and stacked heels and lip gloss? Who are we kidding?

And perhaps more important, who does it serve to act like we are without bleeding genitals, stinky armpits and fearsome physical strength? Who would be scared to face what we really are?

Mind Body Mama: Warm Brains

One of the most incredible gifts to come to me from karate camp was the opportunity to meet Ellen Snortland. Even more amazing: at the silent auction, I bid on Ellen’s services as a non-fiction book coach. And I won.

Apparently, now I have to write a book. Or two or three.

But that’s not what this post is about.

If you don’t know Ellen yet, check out her blog on the Huffington Post. It is always ravingly feminist and is often focussed on issues of self-defense and violence prevention.

If you are or have a mother, you should not miss any opportunity to see Ellen’s Pulitzer-nominated one-woman show, Now That She’s Gone. It’s the kind of performance that will have you stomping your feet, doubled-over with laughter, while tears of sadness stream down your face.

BirthPie and I saw it together and she said, “It was so funny I wanted to punch you!”

If you are a writer, you should consider hiring Ellen as a coach. She is incredibly gifted at this work: her passion, creativity, and deep love for writers is apparent in every exchange. Among her many brilliant exercises is a writer’s warm-up she calls a Brain Warmer. I usually bristle at writing exercises, but when Ellen says something like, “See how amazing writing is! A whole world that never before existed can come into being just by you typing at your keyboard for five minutes!” I begin to soften.

Brain Warmers take five minutes—just five minutes!—and start with three words. (That’s all I’m going to tell you—if you want to learn the secret of this and other terrific writing exercises, you need to call Ellen.)

I will share one of my recent favorite results, though:

Aluminum foil, if it is crafted properly around a toilet paper tube, can apparently help you see the future. That’s what Small tells me about Super Future, her recycled invention. It’s on the staircase next to a pink tulle tutu and a green hoodie, a veritable trail of breadcrumbs leading to a life sized tiger, a week’s worth of dirty underpants and a disaster scene complete with rescue vehicle and Life Flight helicopter.

Why does everything I write have something to do with underpants?

How did my life come to be like this? I want to be the hipster in the Ikea ad, with my ebony desk and silver foil computer, sitting beneath a poster-sized picture of my little darling rockin’ out.

But the reality is me hopped up on too much coffee while workmen track sawdust all over my house, pollen dusts the shining ebony surfaces, and the debris replicates itself if I look away for a moment. In a closed loop, I bend to pick up the same library book and gently replace it on the shelf. Over and over through the weekend, until I come to Monday screaming for an escape.

How long is this five minutes anyway?

And then I anchor my ass at the computer and strap in, shoulder to the grindstone to plow through the day’s to do list, domestic detrius be damned.

Mind Body Mama: Unity Strengthens, Diversity Transforms

I did just re-enter the world from a feminist idyll of sorts.

It was not a purely separatist feminist idyll, but it was six days of being surrounded by powerful, committed and delightful women and girls in my residence, conference sessions, meals, and workouts.

Unfortunately, it was not the kind of feminist idyll where no one was triggered by her memories of violence, objectification or harassment. But it was a place where, when a woman was triggered, she was able to ask for help from someone who had the skills to gently reground her in the present moment.

It was not a post-racial idyll where no one need attend to issues of race and racism. But it was a setting where teachers were interested in the challenge of teaching across race, language and culture and discussed concrete strategies for doing so effectively.

It wasn’t a conference where instructors and volunteers would not benefit from diversity training. It was a conference where top notch diversity training was provided and participants talked about what they learned all weekend.

It wasn’t the kind of feminist idyll where the founding mothers establish a succession and power sharing plan from the organization’s inception. (If you know of a women’s organization like this, please let me know—I want to join RIGHT NOW!) But it was a week within which the elders came to the next generation of leaders in direct and indirect ways and said, “We are getting tired, and you are enormously skilled. We have raised you well and it is time for you to help us lead this thing.” And we made plans to do so.

It wasn’t the kind of a feminist idyll where we felt confident that the larger world shared our vision and concerns. But it was a feminist, anti-racist gathering on the campus of Oberlin College, renowned for its early admission of women and African Americans, in a city where pride in its abolitionist and civil rights heritage runs deep.

It wasn't the kind of paradise where no one ever said or did anything racist. But it was the kind of place where at least one white woman took responsibility for saying something ignorant and hurtful by making a public apology to the entire gathering.

It wasn’t the kind of feminist idyll where a young girl was never struck still by anxiety, panic and grief. But it was a place where, at the moment that happened, the girl was partnered with a mama whose own daughter struggles with anxiety every day. And the girl was passed seamlessly, within seconds, to a skilled practitioner of Trauma First Aid.

It wasn’t the kind of feminist idyll where all the white women know that anti-racism is their cause too. But it was a place where, when the word went out through the grassroots that “the women of color want more white allies,” a few more of us got over our racist selves and showed up at the Anti-Racism Council meeting.

It wasn’t a feminist paradise far-reaching enough to carry us through the airport without Homeland Security catching up one of our group--a middle aged African American woman with a few too many (beautiful, wooden, handcrafted) martial arts weapons in her carry-on. But it might have had some kind of halo effect. Because the young, white, male officer who held her at security for a long, long time finally spoke in a tone of genuine respect and regret. “You have several choices: You can surrender them. I’m sorry I can’t offer to mail them for you; they are too large for the mailers. You can give them to someone who is not flying today. Or you can go back and check your bags, and we will escort you through the lines.”

It wasn’t a feminist idyll strong enough from keeping our acquaintance from getting stressed out through the long delay and intense scrutiny. But it was a community strong enough to stand with her. So that she finally emerged literally into the arms of black women and white women standing together—some friends and some merely colleagues—bearing witness, keeping an eye out for trouble, and practicing relaxed readiness.

Suffice it to say, it was hard to re-enter the world to hear Judge Sonia Sotomayor being grilled in tones condescension by a bunch of white male yahoos whose names I perhaps should recall, but I prefer not to.

It was a delight to hear Sotomayor’s own voice—gravelly and measured, with the distinctive tones of Puerto Rico and the Bronx. But her staid and steady answers to the most obnoxious of questions left me restless and frustrated. I’m glad NPR’s Ari Shapiro explained it to me: Sotomayor’s strategy for these hearings is to be as boring as possible. If that’s what it takes to get a brilliant, ambitious Nuyorican Latina onto the Supreme Court, I can handle snoozing through her confirmation hearings.

But if Sotomayor cannot say it herself, I wish that an analyst somewhere—someone with the same gravitas and power in her voice— would put things this baldly:

“On the subject of Sotomayor’s remarks about the unique perspective and strengths of a ‘wise, Latina’ jurist:

The fiction that one’s identity—including such things as race, class, gender, religion, national origin, ability status, and sexual preference—do not influence the sum total of one’s experience, and thus come to bear on one’s perspective and judgment, is an illusion which is not only more easily maintained by those in positions of power, but which directly and concretely benefits those who have traditionally controlled access to political power: namely white, male, upper class, apparently heterosexual, Christian North Americans.

You may choose to believe that your identities as white, upper class, apparently heterosexual, Christian North American men do not influence your ability to have compassion, empathy and deep understanding of the broadest diversity of Americans influenced by your law making and justice. I say “choose,” because I do not believe that good judgment and self awareness accrue disproportionately to any specific race or gender. I believe that you have the capacity to recognize your own biases, to look into your own experience and understand how it may limit your comprehension of the law and its effects. I believe you have the capacity, and I believe that some of you choose not to exercise it.

So you may choose to believe that you are “neutral.” But those of us who you define as other: women, people of color, immigrants, non-Christians—know better. We know that our intellects are forged within our experiences, and we know that yours are as well.

We know that your judgments are exercised through the prism of your privilege and that your choice to deny this is a handicap that limits your ability to fairly and effectively govern.

Our legal system is a triumph of civilization. Our pledge as jurists to be as impartial as possible, to treat all who come before us fairly, and to maintain systems that ensure equity, are a hallmark of the unity of our great nation.

But our citizenry is not—and has never been—a homogeneous monolith. And the extent to which our leadership in the judicial, legislative and executive branches can reflect the diverse experiences of our people, the stronger, more effective, more compassionate and more equitable our government will be.

Unity strengthens. Diversity transforms.”