Don't Fail The Dreamers

The smell of coffee in the morning comforts me. That moment just before you are wide awake, when all is a little hazy, mid-dream world, makes me happy. That is the moment when there is no stress, no anxiety, no rush. I listen quietly for the sound of three little beings breathing in the early morning light, knowing that it will be the only peace I will encounter for the rest of the day. I’m not really a morning person but I love the morning. For so many years I wandered aimlessly wondering where I would feel at home, just to find out that the answer would be nowhere and everywhere. I am at peace with that now, and at peace with my feet wanting to go in one direction and my heart in another. Travel takes time nowadays, and time isn’t always easy to find. Travel also requires money, and quite a bit of it too, so it becomes more of a dream rather than a necessity. Next time we travel we will be moving on again. Who knows where. Nowadays I just know that I don’t mind mornings so much.

I don’t have fears about starting over again, because I have done it so many times. My fears are more primal, run a lot deeper than that. If you told us to leave tomorrow we would, our ties to one another, not so much to this country. I promise to teach my children about where they were born, the truth, dark times and bright lights, about the genuine and the fake, and about how age-old prejudices, fear, and hypocrisy can rot a country from the core. I promise to also teach them about where we, their parents, were born, about the traditions that we brought with us, and about the lives that we gave up to be here, especially what their father gave up. And I promise to continue to teach them about all religions and cultures and traditions and why one doesn’t cancel out the other, instead how they can be intertwined and celebrated together. For now they don’t remember donning brightly-hued headscarves in a Sikh temple, or lighting candles on the menorah, but as they grow older these will just be normal events, just like popping into the St Patrick’s to have a quiet thought about those who have left us, or discovering cultures and religions of their own will be. They are US citizens, but also British and Mexican citizens, with France as yet another one of their heritages. My children will be free to choose their own home, if they so please.

When I was struggling to live in the US, fighting with an immigration process that was so backed up and complicated and wrong I promised myself if I ever had kids I would live in the same home for the rest of my life, so they could always join me if they needed to. Time and circumstances has made me realize that this won’t happen, not right now anyway. Maybe we will have a forever place at some point, that beach home I have always dreamed about. In the meantime we will have for-now homes. They have already known three homes in their short lives; a few more won’t faze them. My home is with my family and their home is with us.

But what if their home had always been here? What if all they had ever really known were the same house, the same streets, the same church or temple or mosque? What if the only difference between them and our neighbor’s kids was that they were born in a different country? What if we had brought them here as babies and they had grown up on the same street, gone to the same schools, had the same friends? What if they had always known that they were immigrants but never really felt like it, because they didn’t remember where they were born anyway? What if all they knew of their birth countries were the photos and the stories and the traditions that their parents brought with them? What if their Abuelita was only a voice on the phone? (Actually that last question is true for my kids too). Anyway, what if they were determined to finish college, start businesses, make a difference, but only one thing was stopping them: the wrong birth certificate. Would it be the right thing to do to ask these kids to pick up their belongings and leave without another thought? Only the most ignorant, evil person would answer that question with a yes.

My children were born here, but only because it was where we lived. They will never have to fight for the right to live here like their parents did. They are lucky. Other kids have lived their lives in the shadows, going to school, finding jobs, starting their own families, buying houses and opening businesses, but always knowing that one day it could all fall apart. And then, finally, a few years ago, a bill was introduced that would give them a chance to hop onto the long path towards citizenship. So some of them, 800,000 or so, put their trust in the country they considered home, and signed up. Now that has been taken away from them and they are waiting, in limbo, for a better option, wondering if they will be deported to a country they don’t even remember. Being held in immigration holding zones and detention centers, being threatened with deportation and visa cancellations is nothing new to our family, and if or when it happens again we will deal with it as we have always dealt with everything. But these kids? These Dreamers? They deserve better. They don’t deserve this.

YOU CAN HELP. Call your representatives and ask them to vote NO on a spending bill that doesn’t include a CLEAN DREAM ACT. (Make sure you leave your name and street address if you leave a message). Send them a fax or an email. Jump online and join up in the vigils that are taking place across the country. WE NEED TO GET A CONFIRMATION THAT A CONCRETE CLEAN DREAM ACT WILL BE IN PLACE BY DEC 22nd. This isn’t about illegal or legal or somewhere in between immigration – this is about the lives of youths who have been here most of their lives and call this their home. Trump is trying to use these people as a bargaining chip, and THIS should be illegal.

If these people lose their status then I don’t know if I can call this country my home anymore either. And I will also be teaching my children exactly why we left.

Your Safety Is An Illusion

As a child I would curl up in a chair and devour books about WW2, Résistance fighters, Holocaust stories, and think about how lucky I was to be living in a safe country, protected by our freedom and our laws. I would listen to Tracy Chapman and Bob Dylan and feel inspired to become a real activist, always speaking my mind and never letting anyone put me down. As a young teen I delved deep into feminism and activism through people like Marge Piercy, studied the Civil Rights movement, wishing that I had been alive in the 60’s so that I could have been a part of it. I butted heads with my American history teacher during my first year at university in France, chastised for using the word “massacre” in an essay describing the battle of Wichita Village. There were no massacres apparently. It didn’t matter, I knew I was right, and I was stubborn. I sang to Bikini Kill and Hole, shy but ready to fight for equal rights. I still assumed that I was safe: privileged and safe. When I moved to the US I spent the first few years being proud to live in NYC, discovering a city that brought every part of me into a whole. I finally understood why so many people wanted to live in the US, and despite her flaws, she would be the place I felt the safest. Still, I understood how privileged I was, and how lucky: young working class white girl from England and France, running around the streets of the Big Apple, every opportunity available to me should I want to try it. I WAS safe, I really thought I was.

As I was putting the dishes away just now, relishing in the first moments of calm after putting the kids to bed the too frequent realization that we are NOT safe here washed over me. I live in a country where (just to name a few of the most glaring issues:

• You could be gunned down at the movies, in church, on the street, in a bus, at school, or anywhere else for that matter, at any time.
• Racism is institutionalized and constant: we may all have the same “rights” but POC still have to face racism and aggressions every single day of their lives, even from those who are supposed to be allies.
• People are called “illegals” when they don’t have the documentation that allows them to legally live and work in this country, even those who have been here for decades, or most of their lives.
• Women are in constant fear of losing their reproductive rights.
• Women STILL earn less than men, and POC women usually earn less than white women. For the same position and same job.
• Sexual harassment, assault, and abuse are still rampant in all levels of society, and the president has gleefully admitted to harassing and assaulting women on tape.
• When victims are brave enough to report assault and harassment they are usually blamed, their lives dissected and paraded for all to see, and finally made to shut up. Usually white, male perpetrators get a slap on the wrist, or become president.
• Immigration officials have no qualms about shoving 10 year old post-op kids with Cerebral Palsy in detention centers without their parents, or going into schools to check out possible undocumented fourth graders, or trying to deport adults who have an American parent, but whose other parent forgot to do the paperwork when they arrived in the US decades before.
• We are being governed by a disgusting idiot, most likely thanks to the Russians who have been on a massive hacking spree, probably infiltrating everything they can, in cohorts with the extreme far right wingers.
• Anyone can buy an assault rifle and use it.
• The current administration considers a median income of $450,000 a year as “lower middle class”.
• Climate change is apparently a farce, even though we are faced with the reality of it every single day.

So, no, we do not live in a safe country. We are not at war (unless you consider the “war on terrorism” to be a legitimate war), and there is no civil war raging within our borders. People seem to think that this country is still doing pretty OK, and some delusional individuals even think that this president is going to “make America great again”. But we are NOT safe. Our enemies could literally be anyone, even a neighbor who you say hello to every morning. While there HAVE been some isolated attacks by “radicalized” persons who were not born here, we have a lot more to fear from gun-toting homegrown terrorists than we do from ISIS. And we have a LOT to fear from this current administration, because everywhere you turn a liberty is being knocked down, and down every road you go a roadblock is being thrown up. It’s been a year since the elections now, and nearly 11 months of Trump, and it’s a LOT worse than even I imagined it would be. And I was considered a fearmongerer back then. I fear for my partner and for my children. I fear for my friends who don’t fit in your WASP box (which basically means 99% of them). And I fear for this country as a whole, and for this world in general more than ever.

I used to imagine myself working for the Résistance, wondering if I had possibly been alive in France in the 1940’s in a previous life. I used to imagine working underground during the civil rights movement, always on the run, always challenging the system. And now I find myself, at the age of 39, fearful for our lives and our safety, penning letters and articles and stories, writing faxes to Congress every day, calling representatives I don’t even have the right to vote for, planning escape routes to Mexico and Canada, and generally just wondering what else I can do to make us safe again. I can’t vote here, and even then I am beginning to wonder just how much of a difference it would make (that would never stop me from voting though).

And yes, I know we don’t live in a war-torn country, running for our lives while the government rains down biological weapons on our heads or holds us hostage in our homes. I know that I don’t have to worry about my children being trained to become child soldiers before they hit the age of 10. I know that there is no imminent danger of us all dying tomorrow from some kind of chemical warfare… But I will never feel safe here ever again. As much as we fight gun laws never change. As much as we talk about the benefits of immigration, people still hate us, as much as we talk about the decline of racism, it is still a very prominent and ingrained issue in this country, and as much as we talk about women having equal rights, we are still fighting for real equality. Gay marriage may be legal today, but in the mean time people are pushing through idiotic transphobic laws, and camps to “convert” gay teens STILL exist. So yeah, maybe we aren’t so free after all. And we are definitely NOT safe.

Please, for the sake of us all, do your part in the resistance. Because if we don’t all band together, no matter who we are or where we are from, we are going to wake up one day and find ourselves in a reality we never thought possible. And even those privileges we took for granted yesterday will probably be gone. We cannot let this happen.

(Do your part by voting in local elections today PLEASE).

Ramblings: #IAmAnImmigrant

A few days ago my sister shared an article on social media that discussed the existence of Immigrant Heritage Month and the use of the hashtag #IAmAnImmigrant. And then that got me thinking about another article I had perused recently about how the British who live abroad always call themselves expats and other immigrants “immigrants”, as if the word immigrant is dirty, wrong. I’m British and I’ve been an immigrant most of my life. The word doesn’t sound dirty or fearful or wrong to me, it just describes that I have moved from the country I was born in to another. And another. And a few more after that. Would it surprise you if I said that as a family we left England in the late 80’s to find a better life? We were not fleeing oppression or death, famine or hatred, but we were fleeing a country where the working class was being stomped upon and where the government ruled with an iron fist. My mother wanted a better life for us all.

We emigrated to The Netherlands. And then to France. Years and years later I followed my mother and sister and brother out to the US, emigrating yet again. I spent some years on a temporary visa, working, some time without any visa, working, and finally got my green card about 11 years after my mother sponsored me for one. I am an immigrant in a country that is made up of scattered natives, immigrants, ancestors of immigrants and people who were brought here as slaves. Oh, hang on, maybe I should have said it differently. I am an immigrant in a country that used to be the home of different Native American tribes but is now a place where the descendants of immigrants, "legal" immigrants, "illegal" immigrants, a few asylum seekers or refugees and a bunch of descendents of slaves live. Altogether. I myself don’t really differentiate between whether you are here “legally” or “illegally”, but apparently you are supposed to (see more below on that). It took me years and years to finally have some real kind of permanent “status” here, and I’m happy I do now. I’ve heard “legal” immigrant’s state how disgusting it is that other people can just “waltz” in here while they had to wait years doing it the “right” way… I’ve never felt that way. You do what you need to. It’s not like anyone really wants to be “illegal” you know…

Oh yes! Let me just leave my country of origin because I’m bored here, hop over the border and steal someone’s job. And HA! I don’t have to pay taxes and I can use all of the awesome welfare services offered to me! Win! Yeah, no, it’s not like that. Actually, most undocumented workers are on a payroll and pay taxes. They just don’t claim any refunds that may be due to them. There is no state in all 50 states that will provide any kind of health insurance, food stamps or WIC checks to anyone who cannot prove they have legal status in this country (apart from if you are pregnant when you may be eligible for a restricted type of health insurance for 10 months, as long as you earn less than the threshold). And if so many immigrants were taking US citizens jobs then why are so many people hiring them? Seeing as most places have all of their employees on payroll so it’s not like they can pay them less than minimum wage. Let’s just be honest about it: many undocumented immigrants are working jobs that no one else wants to work. Doing back breaking work in the fields for 12 hours a day under the blazing sun, working for hours prepping and making food in the restaurants that we all want to eat in, cleaning up your vomit and broken bottles when you go out bar hopping with your friends, scrubbing hotel rooms down day in day out, etc etc, you know the drill. I’m not trying to be annoying here, I’m just telling the truth. No one is taking anyone else’s job, not if we are looking at it from an immigrant vs. US citizen standpoint anyway. We are all just trying to SURVIVE and create a BETTER LIFE for ourselves and our families.

Isn’t that why the first non-native Americans came here in the first place?

I’ve lived here long enough to have been through two US presidential elections (2008 and 2012, I moved here in 2005), so this year will be my third. As a green card holder, an immigrant, I don’t have the right to vote, but I still follow the entire procedure with somewhat bated breath and anticipation. I was working the night that Obama was re-elected in 2012, the entire bar was full of friends and friends of friends holding our breath until the results were announced, cheers and tears going up all over the city. While the outcome during that election wasn’t too bleak, I found the opposition scary based on their use of women’s reproductive rights as a huge part of their campaign (this happens to be an ongoing theme in this country that deserves another article in its own right). However, this year has been particularly strange and even ominous. These elections are different in so much as there is now only one Republican candidate still running, and he not only appears to be a little unhinged, but he has managed to create an enormous following for himself.

Last year we were all laughing at the idea that Donald Trump was going to run in the presidential race. This year it’s not only a reality, he’s also the ONLY ONE LEFT ON THE RIGHT. This is the man who has called Mexicans rapists and drug dealers, the one who talks about his daughter as if she were his wife, who states there is no such thing as climate change. Oh and who wants to set up some kind of tracking system for all Muslims living in the US. At the same time he wants to schedule mass deportations of “illegal immigrants”. This man could potentially be the next US president. What scares me more than him is the fact that he has managed to amass so many supporters who actually believe in him and everything he spews. You can blame some of it on ignorance, but is it that possible that there are SO MANY ignorant people in this country?! Do people not actually look outside of their own homes and see that this country is full of people of different heritages?! Do they really believe the things that he says? Why does he think that the US isn’t great anymore? Does he not know that “America” stands for many more countries than the US? And that Mexico happens to be part of “America”? I really, really doubt that this individual is going to do anything more than create an even more obvious base of hatred and self-doubt in this country while ruining what small and uneven foreign alliances that exist. Why are people so scared of “the other”? “The other” doesn’t exist. Indoctrination doesn’t just exist “over there”. It exists everywhere. It’s up to the individual to stop being scared and to start learning about WHY and HOW.

Earlier I mentioned an interesting point that I have seen come up all over the place… “Legal” immigrants showing their difference from “illegal” immigrants, kind of like a badge of honour. Oh I spent X amount of years waiting to live here and you just ran over the border without any worries. Wait, WHAT? Yes, it took me many, many years to become a legal resident but at least I was able to travel and see my family and friends and homeland (apart from the time that I actually didn’t have any legal right to live here, during which I still paid taxes by the way). I didn’t spend hours, days even, trawling through desert, hiding in the sun, rushing over the border to be caught and sent back again. I didn’t hide in the back of a truck in the boiling heat, not seeing daylight for days until I reached a destination unknown, a place that was huge and busy and didn’t speak my language, left to find work and a home and a new life. I don’t have to worry about never seeing my mother again, only hearing her voice every few weeks on the phone, worrying about how she is getting older and who is going to look after her. I don’t have to worry about having to make the decision between leaving my life behind and attending my father’s funeral or missing it and staying here. There is NO EASY WAY about being here without papers. Or anywhere really. So please, whether you have papers or not, you are still an immigrant. No one is “better” than another. It’s not some kind of elite status that one should be proud of. We all came here for a better life in some form or another.

So yes, I am an immigrant. My partner is an immigrant. We have two children who were born here which makes them US citizens by birth. We both want them to be proud of their country of origin, just like we are of ours, and love their heritage, just like we love the countries that we have lived in and live in. I love the US, and I’ve loved all the years that I have lived here. But I also love England and France, the two countries where I grew up. And I love Canada, the country that granted me citizenship because my father happened to be born there (even though he only spent a few months there and had an English mother and Welsh father). If push comes to shove, and Trump is elected president in November, we will consider finding another place to live, and being the proud immigrants that we are will become immigrants elsewhere. Or maybe our children will become immigrants in one of our countries of origin. Because yes, there are many US citizens who have emigrated abroad, effectively making them immigrants too. An immigrant is just someone who has left their country of origin to live in another… Where they actually come from doesn’t change anything. Remember that when you are eating at your local Mexican joint, drinking fresh orange juice, waiting for your child to go through life-saving open heart surgery, getting your weekly pedicure, taking your beloved dog to the vets, cruising through the newest social media fad and listening to your new favourite rock band play. You most likely interact with an immigrant every single day. And you most definitely interact with the descendant of an immigrant every day.

And just so you know, your average Christian is just as capable as committing an act of terrorism as your average Muslim. And your average Mexican is just as likely to be a rapist as your average white guy. Actually, I am pretty sure that we can say “less likely” to the latter seeing as campus rape is becoming quite the epidemic. Maybe that doesn’t ever happen at Trump University though?!

June 7th is the day that California votes in the primaries. Please remember that your vote counts.

Ramblings: Women Against Feminism?!?!

Definitely more ramblings than structured essay, a sort of rant but mainly an observation stemming from something that angered me when I first saw it and now just saddens me.

When I think back to myself as a teenager I see a shy girl unafraid of discovering life, experimenting and living, experiencing and learning – basically doing what every teenager does. I was taught to always aim for my dreams, that everyone was equal no matter what their skin colour, background, family, gender, sexual orientation were, and that it was important to fight for one’s rights, for freedom and for our own personal views. Obviously we would never have had to do that if oppression, inequality, prejudice and racism were not deeply rooted issues in this world, and by still fighting against these problems, and teaching our children to fight against them, at least we can tell ourselves that maybe someday things will be a little bit better. I will always keep that hope, no matter what. When I was a teenager the Riot Grrrl movement was also in full swing and we had no issues with stomping about in our Doc Martens and dresses screaming along to the lyrics of Rebel Girl. I have posted Kathleen Hanna's Riot Grrrl Manifesto at the end of the post, as it is still so valid today, nearly 25 years later. Nowadays my views and aims are a tad more sophisticated but pretty much still amount to the same thing. And I still wear dresses and Doc Martens.

I was horrified when I came across that Women Against Feminism website that went viral this month. I wanted to write about it, as I do with anything that upsets me, but at the same time I was loathe to give it any more publicity than it had already had. Then again, what I say isn’t going to stop people from posting their views on the site, but I do hope that one day my daughter will read this and thank me for bringing her up in the same way that I was brought up.

I’ve had time to think a bit more deeply about the subject and ask myself why such a website would even exist in the first place. If these women are so intent on saying why they are against Feminism, then what image of Feminism do they have in the first place? If you read through some of the posts it appears that the whole idea of Feminism has been so distorted that Feminists have now become “angry vaginas” who are against women staying at home to raise their children, who disrespect men, or more accurately hate men and tend to go on men-bashing rants and who don’t think it’s a good thing to dress in a feminine way (??!!!). Yes. I feel like I have missed something along the way. Have I just been so out of the loop on everything and not realised that women today have forgotten about the past and think that equal rights no longer need to exist? When did the satirical image of a Feminist become what other women actually really think is a Feminist?! When did Feminism become something women would publicly fight against? What did the movement do so wrongly that women feel the need to post about it on a website?

I think it all really boils down to this phrase, taken from a quote on the website, “In the United States women have the same opportunities as men”. I fundamentally don’t agree with that statement, however that is besides the point right now. Yes, maybe it appears that in this country men and women have equal opportunities, in the very, very near past this was definitely not the case. Maybe because in this day and age women have the right to vote, use contraception, marry and divorce multiple times, have children without being married, work the same jobs as men and aim for the same dreams as men, people tend to forget that not that long ago this wasn’t so. Have these women forgotten what their ancestors went through so that we could live like this today? Do I need to remind anyone that women have only been allowed to vote in the US for less than 100 years? Also, if I remember correctly, the Suffragettes wore dresses and were pretty feminine (unless the images and photographs from the time were doctored of course, ahem). (The latter is not a serious argument but meant as a light joke, based on the assumption that Feminists are not allowed to be feminine – you only need to read a few of the posts to see that this is a common reasoning for being against Feminism).

So basically what I am trying to say is that on the one hand the Feminist movement needs a serious image revamp, and on the other hand people need to be given a more accurate view of what Feminism has given them. If so many women think so badly of a movement that gave them the rights they take for granted today, then somehow the message has been perverted into something it isn’t anymore. Being a Feminist is not about forcing people to all feel the same way about different topics, but about being proud to be a woman and for continuing to fight for what you think is right. I’m proud to be a woman, I love wearing dresses, I am currently a stay at home mum and I will gladly stomp all over any document that declares that I do not have the right to decide what to do with my reproductive organs.

“I’m not represented by women who dress up like vaginas”. Um what? How does one dress up like a vagina?! After reading through some pages on the website I now have the image of a Feminist being a woman dressed as a vagina (?!) wearing combat trousers and boots and a tank top, with a buzz cut and screaming about how men are evil and married women are stupid. See what I mean about Feminism having a bad rep? Where did this come from? I have to say that as a Feminist my vagina is pretty much happy most of the time (apart from around the time I gave birth – I would say that I had a pretty angry vagina after that). “I don’t need Feminism because my boyfriend treats me right”… Why does that mean you don’t need Feminism? My boyfriend treats me right too, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to stand up for other women who are being mistreated or abused! I feel like a lot of the comments on this website come from misinformation and misinterpretations. And also of a lack of willingness to look back and understand what Feminism really means (although there are some who do specify “modern Feminism” which shows that at least they are not against the movement that gave them the rights they have today, just against what the movement has become in their eyes, which kind of validates what I have been saying).

I’ve written a few posts about the subject in the past, and instead of going on a continuous rant about why the Women Against Feminism site angers and saddens me, I will post a slightly edited version of a piece I wrote in 2005 just below. I think that post stemmed from coming across something that angered me too! Of course, everyone is entitled to have their own opinions, and this is mine. The original post can be found here. (See below to links to other articles).

I Was Born a Woman

I didn’t get into Feminism. There is no real moment in my life that I can say “that’s when I became a Feminist”. I was born into it.

I was born a woman. I was going to be either a boy or a girl and I pulled the girl straw. No choice, no plan, no nothing. So there you go, you accept it and you live with it and you learn to be happy with what you’ve got. I never wished I were a boy. I never even dreamt about being a boy. I never wondered what it would be like to live as a boy for a day. I’m damn proud to be a woman. Just as I would be damn proud of being a man if I had been born a man.

Feminism is not about being superior, or better, or worse. It’s not a closed discussion about how women are fighting against men. We all share this world, and it’s up to us to accept the fact that we are all different, to accept that everybody has different bodies, minds, faces and opinions. Feminism is about being a woman and being proud of whom you are. All humans are equal. It’s up to each and every one of us to fight for the consistency of this equality.

I can’t say how I “got into Feminism”. It’s always been a part of me. From a very early age both my mother and my father instilled deep in my heart the need to stand up for my rights and for my thoughts. Strong women constantly surrounded me. My whole family is full of strong women. We have not had it easy, but we have always managed to get over every mountain, build bridges over every river and make the most of every straight path. So I think it is right to say that I was born into a Feminist family and make every effort to continue this line.

For me Feminism is not about ranting about how women are so much better than men, about how we should rule the world and about how we should stomp out men and male dominance.

No. Feminism is what you want it to be. In my opinion Feminism is regarded too often as something pejorative, and this is because of the way it is portrayed. Annoyingly, Feminism is looked down upon and challenged while, even today, male chauvinism is still accepted and seen as normal. This doesn’t mean that we are supposed to jump up and call all men pigs, but it means that it is up to us women to prove that we are not trying to show that we are better, but that we are trying to prove we are equal and therefore should have equal rights everywhere. We can get rid of the acceptance of chauvinism in society and move on to a new, more equal world where women don’t have to constantly fight.

Apart from the close female figures in my life; my grandmother who bought up her first three children on her own during the Second World War, who outlived her four husbands and lived to tell her tales long after the age of 90; my mother who battled violent and addicted men and who has always been a role model and who shows everyone that they can accomplish anything in life; and then a special woman that I have never met. She’s been by my side since I first came across her on my tenth birthday, and since then has been a constant influence. Her name is Marge Piercy and she is a Feminist and political poet and novelist. Her characters are always strong and rounded, but not without flaws. Real women who have to deal with the struggles of everyday life, who sometimes make the right choice, sometimes the wrong one, but they never let society pull them down. Whenever I feel that it is all getting too much, I pick up one of Marge Piercy’s writings and she helps me believe in myself again. We all have our own demons; it’s up to us to choose whether to fight or to flee.

As women have to deal with so much, learning to accept who we are and why we are, accepting our bodies, our wants and our needs, and learning to understand that although what we want might often be frowned upon, there is no need to not go out there and get it.

Feminism is all about being a woman and fighting for it. You want to have sex, have sex. You don’t want to sleep around? Then don’t! You want to have a career? Have one! You want to be a housewife, and stay at home to bring up your kids? Then do just that! We have to choose what is right for us, without letting pre-assigned unwritten and ancient social “laws” bring you down.

Feminism is not about fighting men, but about fighting for what’s right for YOU. This is what Feminism is to me. Being a woman is a right, and it’s up to us to make the most out of it.

We only live once, why not make the best of it, and be able to live to tell the tale to the next generations.

Be strong and be real. And never keep your mouth shut. Because once you have said it out loud someone is going to hear.

An article I wrote in 2012 questioning why people were trying to take away my rights to decide what I did with my body: Why are people trying to take my right to choose away?

An article I wrote in 2013 about the "Traditional Sense of Marriage"

An excellent article written by my friend Cristiana Bedei on how blogging gives women an opportunity to express themselves in a way that they could not before: The Discreet Power of Blogging is Allowing Women to Express their Expertise

Kathleen Hanna's Riot Grrrl Manifesto - still so fucking valid today!!!