And This is Yesterday

April 22, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Certain albums are woven into periods of our lives, evoking immediate memories of those times. For me, one of the major albums was the Manic Street Preachers’ The Holy Bible, which I listened to on repeat for much of my sophomore year of college. It’s an angry, vicious, depressing album, which perfectly fit my mood that year. I had voluntarily committed to a social group that was both verbally and psychologically abusive to me and others. The album addresses prostitution, anorexia, the Holocaust, fascism, and other lovely subjects that made my problems seem minor. It both allowed me to express my frustration through more than a desperate howl and gave me the strength to leave my situation. So when I happened to see by complete chance in the paper that the Manic Street Preachers were not only playing in the U.S. for the first time in six years, but featuring that specific album, I knew I had to go.

Listening to the album and being at the concert led to a deluge of memories. Sitting at my desk in college, playing music over my computer speakers, trying to drown out the fondness for pop country of my housemates. Playing the first song for one of the few people I thought would understand and having them dismiss it as “just punk.” Analyzing lyrics by the band in my communications papers in a desire to share my discovery. Escaping to hang out with my friend who introduced me to them, who now lives outside DC and attended the concert with me. And most of all, singing along with everything I had, clinging on to it, the music and the darkest lyrics resonating with the all the shit I was going through at the time.

But listening over the last few days was much more than a nostalgia trip. While other albums of theirs mean more to me now and music just doesn’t play as large a role as it once did, I still felt a kinship with it. Lately, I’ve gone through frustrating cycles of activist fatigue. I read about something unjust in the news, which makes me angry and sad. Black children and their parents needing to worry about police violence, climate change worsening with few successes in sight, water shortages and corporate control of water in California, pedestrians and bicyclists being killed in accidents with drivers, women gamers being threatened with rape, famine caused by war and broken food aid bureaucracy. I do what I can – sign a petition, educate the people I know, organize events – but it can never be enough. So frustration and helplessness set in, the antithesis of accomplishing anything useful. Instead of feeling hopeful about the ability to make change or at least fight the good fight, it drains me, leaves me empty. I read more and it starts again, reinforcing its ugly self.

But when I listened to angry music for the first time in a long while, I remembered why it was so powerful for me – it short-circuits that nasty cycle. It provides an outlet for the anger, stops it from turning into frustration, provides immediate catharsis. Most importantly, it draws the darkness out of my head, like sucking out a poison. All of the nasty unpleasantries that crawl through my mind about the general state of humanity are externalized, someone else’s words that I can sing but are no longer mine. That lifts the burden off me, allowing me to see the light and beauty of things. Banging on the elliptical machine with every chorus released something in me that I had been holding onto, holding down far too tightly.

Manic Street Preachers Concert at 9:30 Club in Washington D.C.

So this seemed like a good viewpoint at the concert. As a photo, less so.

Even more than just listening to the album, the concert provided that double dose of nostalgia and relief. While it started with a bit of a stutter – the first song on the album begins with a recorded quote and they came in way after the song would have normally started – I quickly fell into the Concert Trance. That’s when you’re watching a band that you know every song of theirs by heart. You let yourself go, allowing the music to wash over you. It’s both a communal and intensely personal state. It’s also uniquely freeing, especially because I feel responsible for something all the time, whether it’s my job, my child, my writing, my own well-being or an event I’m organizing. I sung along, head banged (gently), jumped up and down like a ninny, and disregarded any hesitations or judgements I might get from someone else or myself. Despite the darkness of lyrics, I came out of it clear-headed and renewed, able to breathe the night air in deep.

Besides the rare opportunity to see my favorite band play live, I’m so glad I rediscovered the power of this music. To my frequent bafflement, mothering has brought out much stronger emotions in me than I’ve ever experienced, both in my reactions to Sprout and the world around him. To be the type of person I want to be and set a good example for Sprout, I need to find better outlets for my emotions, better ways to filter and express them. I don’t think I ever verbalized it, but I think some part of me assumed this music was juvenile, something that moms of toddlers don’t listen to. But that’s actually harmful to my mental health. While it’s not important to me the way it used to be – thank God it doesn’t have to be – it still holds an important place in my life. And I have a poorly researched newspaper blurb alerting me to an incredible concert to thank for it.

A Chance to Breathe

April 16, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

The last few weeks have felt overwhelming, pressing down with the weight of my to-do list. I’d gape at the number things not done while still feeling like I wasn’t contributing enough – in work, in parenting, in activism, in life. To add to my stress, a number of my plans didn’t turn out as I anticipated. A particular highlight was switching from going to the Cherry Blossom Kite Festival because of 32 F temperatures to brunch, only to find out that the brunch place had an hour and a half wait. Then after entertaining Sprout by watching the bakery and going around a rotating door at least 20 times, we discovered that they did their frying in peanut oil, barring my friend – who has a peanut allergy – from eating anything. The absolute topper seemed to come last Wednesday, the day before we were supposed to fly out on vacation. Chris texted me these dread-inducing words: “Sprout’s sick…Really sick…Everything is covered in puke.” It was accompanied by one of the most pathetic photos I have ever seen of my child, curled up on the couch, blanket pulled up to his chin. Because no one has ever thought a five-hour flight with a pukey toddler is a good idea, we canceled our reservations. But despite everything, it actually turned out to provide the little bit of breathing room I needed. Unfortunately, it was going to get worse before it got better. I stayed home Thursday to help Chris, but planned to go back to work on Friday. But by 7 AM, I knew there was no way in hell I was going anywhere beyond our bed. While I was capable of aiming – unlike Sprout – I still had the fundamental problem that everything in my intestinal tract had a desperate need to leave at once. I slept until 4 PM, only taking a break to listen to Chris read to me from Game of Thrones during Sprout’s nap. Even trying to read my phone brought on a fresh bout of intense nausea. That evening into Saturday morning, I had so little energy that I needed to rest after walking up or down stairs. Not surprising, considering the only thing I had to eat over a 36 hour period was 3 slices of toast with jam. But still a very strange feeling. We were mostly recovered by Saturday afternoon, well enough to go to the park on a day with blue skies and a high of 65 F. Sunday was even more wide open. We were supposed to be on vacation, so we had no obligations. We didn’t go to church because we were nervous about being contagious and no one expected us anyway. We could literally do whatever we wanted; the beautiful weather was beckoning. Rather than try to be ambitious, we stuck close to home and enjoyed its simple pleasures. After reading Sprout 10 different books, I got him into some proper clothes and the three of us walked to a park almost a mile away. Even though we had gone there several times last year, he certainly didn’t remember it. We’re trying to get him used to walking further distances, so we didn’t bring the stroller. Of course, that meant we were subject to every toddler whim, but we had time. We picked up seed pods, cajoled him away from walking up neighbors’ front stairs, woof-woofed at dogs, and rambled along. The other park was a good change of pace, offering a rock-wall and wobbly balance beam in addition to the usual slides and stairs. He was dragging on the way out of the park, so we had to carry him home. But I was so proud of how far he walked there. In the afternoon, we watered the garden with his new watering can, although he ended up watering his pants and shoes more than anything else. Eager to get in some more Tour de Cookie prep, we pulled out the bikes for another short ride. He was absolutely beaming about wearing his “bike hat” and clambered to climb into the trailer. Stopping at our pedestrianized town square, he butted in on other people’s soccer games (who kindly welcomed him) and refused to eat anything but a sample of chocolate scone. He clearly enjoyed the little bite though, as he somehow managed to smear chocolate all around his mouth! Everything was unplanned, straightforward and relaxed. As far as I was concerned, this felt as much like vacation as traveling would have. It was hooky from the hectic mess in my head. So even though it all began with sickness, we ended up with a freedom I often don’t give myself the opportunity to have.

Montessori Practical Life Skills for Modern Times

April 14, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

My son is in a Montessori playgroup, so I’ve spent a decent amount of time browsing descriptions of the philosophy as well as activity suggestions on Pinterest. While I agree with its broad aims of child-led education and teaching practical skills, one thing that frustrates me is that the curriculums don’t seem to be updated to reflect modern times. And I’m not even talking about computers. While some of the skills taught are great, like gardening, others are downright archaic, grown out of date through the development of technology or culture. For example, I certainly don’t iron handkerchiefs, arrange flowers, polish silver or wash chalkboards on a regular basis. (These are some of the tasks mentioned in Montessori presentations and Montessori websites about Practical Life Skills.) Instead, I offer a suggested list of updated activities and life skills that Montessori or not, practical-minded parents and teachers may want to integrate into their children’s learning. These are skills that I do use very regularly, some learned from my parents and some through trial and error. I’ve gained as an adult through some amount of trial and error, building on my parents’ well-intentioned efforts to teach me them when I was younger, which I often ignored.

Picking out and cooking vegetables: Food preparation is a pretty big part of the Montesorri curriculum, from what I can tell. They actually teach kids to use knives properly, which is both great and something my junior high home-Ec class failed to teach me. (The main thing Home-Ec taught me about kitchen knives was to be afraid of them.) Picking out and cooking vegetables is the next step up, but definitely a skill that an elementary school student could learn under supervision. I think it’s essential for kids to learn how to cook vegetables in particular because there’s such a cultural prejudice against them. Children are already told by society that they should dislike vegetables. In contrast, part of the reason many of us love to bake cookies at Christmas or pie at Thanksgiving is because we fondly remember doing so with our parents or grandparents. If most people looked back on cooking tomato sauce, preparing sweet potatoes, or sauteeing broccoli with their families, I think we’d all eat a lot more veggies. Involving kids in the process builds that inherent fondness, staves off some of that cultural negativity and helps them feel responsible for the end product. Even if a kid is too young to even go near the stove, parents and teachers can still talk about what vegetables are in season and how you can tell if a vegetable is fresh. In terms of specific learning goals, this allows you to talk about seasons, months of the calendar, problem solving (if this isn’t in season, what can I use instead?), and characteristics of a vegetable like color, firmness and flavor. In field or shopping trips to the farmers’ markets, children can ask farmers questions, learning about agriculture as a career and different growing methods. For older kids, this can feed into conversations about environmental impacts, the transport of goods, and plant life cycles.

Taking care of animals: Everyone knows that taking care of an animal can be great for teaching responsibility, but no parent wants the poor animal to suffer through the child’s learning process. But both parents and teachers can help prepare students to be good stewards of wild and domestic animals without taking on the responsibility of a cat or dog. For wild animals, kids can help fill bird feeders, plant flowers for pollinating insects, or hang bat houses. On the most basic level, little ones can practice their pouring skills with small bags of bird seed. On a deeper level, it can lead to conversations about animals’ needs (food, shelter) and larger ecological roles. Classrooms usually can’t have cats or dogs, but many can have lizards, hamsters, butterflies, or fish. As part of the class’s daily activities, children can feed the animals, play with them, and even help clean their cages. To build awareness of the skills needed for keeping more demanding pets, students could take care of toy cats or dogs, play-acting feeding and brushing them. Kids themselves love to pretend they are pets, which also helps them build empathy for animals and think about how they may see the world differently from humans.

Recycling and composting: Recycling and composting provide tons of great opportunities to build sorting skills as well as lead into bigger thematic conversations. Depending on your community’s recycling set-up, you may be separating garbage into paper, plastic, metal and trash, or if it’s single stream like ours, just recyclable and non-recyclable. Adding composting to the mix makes it even more complicated, with produce scraps able to go into it, but no other food scraps. If you do your own composting, you can also explain how you need to balance the food scraps with dry input like newspapers. These activities can lead into conversations about how much we throw away and what happens to it, how that affects other people and how we can reduce our waste. With older kids, composting is a great opportunity to talk about decomposers, soil chemistry, and their role in ecology.

Bike maintenance: This is one I could use a better handle on myself. When I pulled my personal bike out for the first time this spring, Sprout was fascinated by it. I showed him how I pumped up my tires and had him help by pushing down on the handle. Every kid who has a bike should at least be able check their bike ABCs before each ride – Air in the tires, Brakes working, and Chain running well. In an ideal world, they should also know how to place a jumped chain back on and fix a flat tire, although those are both fairly challenging. These skills build both fine and gross motor skills, along with problem solving skills. While preschoolers and even most elementary school kids won’t bike alone, having these skills does make biking possible as a form of transportation for kids, far earlier than they can drive.

These are just a few of the practical skills that I think we should be teaching all kids, especially in the Montessori curriculum with its focus on “real life” learning.

What practical life skills do you want to teach your young kid or do you wish you were taught when you were a child?

Easter with All the Trappings

April 10, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

While I celebrate Easter as a Christian, I also appreciate its spring celebration aspects as well. Needless to say, rabbits and eggs are much more about fertility than Jesus. So somewhere between the seasonal, commercial, and religious, we celebrated Easter in its many weird forms.

We were partly motivated by my in-laws visiting for the weekend. Because it was too cold to do anything outside, my mother-in-law wanted Sprout to get photos with the Easter Bunny. While I have conflicting feelings about Santa, I’m just apathetic about the Bunny. Considering Sprout’s highly negative reaction to Santa at Christmas, I didn’t have high hopes for the Bunny. I was mostly right. Sprout stood calmly in front of the Bunny, leaning forward to peer at him from a foot or two away. But when we tried to put him on the Bunny’s lap, a wordless look of panic crossed his face. He held out his arms, looked at me and pleaded, “Mama mama!” After only a few moments, I declared it a lost cause and picked him up. I’m not going to try to convince my kid to grin when he’s terrified. The photographer got in one photo before he got properly upset, but he’s far from smiling. My mother-in-law was happy with it though, which was enough for me.

Our other Easter activity that day – dyeing eggs – went over much better. Sprout knows the word “egg” and is starting to learn his colors, so it combined two exciting things for him. I’m not sure, but I think he jumped to the conclusion that the different shades of colored water were paint. (He’s familiar with the idea from the book Mouse Paint, where white mice jump into jars of paint and mix them together.) So when we showed him what happened when you drop a white egg in colored water, much like a white mouse climbing into paint, he caught on very quickly. Despite our cautions to be “gentle, gentle,” he dropped almost every egg into its respective cup of water from a substantial height. Of course, he managed to avoid getting splashed – it all ended up on my mother-in-law’s shirt instead. Thankfully, food coloring does wash out.

The next morning, our dyeing paid off, despite my initial hesitation. While I was afraid Sprout was going to step on them, my mother-in-law convinced me to do a gentle introduction to egg hunting with him on Easter morning. We spread the eggs out on the rug and gave him the carton to put them in. He methodically picked up each egg, looked it as we named the color, and placed it neatly in the carton. The adults actually came much closer to stepping on the eggs than he did! His basket was filled with plastic eggs, which he also loved playing with. Even now, he’s constantly picking them up, opening and closing them and putting them back in the basket. Woe to me for thinking a toddler wouldn’t like filling something up and dumping it back out!

Sprout only received one Easter basket, filled to the brim with sweets. I knew that my in-laws were going to give him candy – even though they knew we would eat most of it – so I didn’t want to do that as well. Besides, candy is one of those things I won’t bother giving him until he asks for it. Instead, I bought him two spring related presents – a set of real gardening tools made for children and the complete collection of Beatrix Potter stories. Both are fabulous, although I severely underestimated how much of a tome the stories were. Hopefully he’ll understand that we can’t read them all in one pre-bedtime session!

After we opened baskets, it was time to go to church. While we had family Easter egg hunts in the past, we included the general public this year for the first time as an outreach event. One of the other church members brought 200 eggs to hide, which I thought was going to be more than enough. Of course, any time you’re overly confident about something, it backfires spectacularly. Much to my surprise, 10 minutes before the hunt was supposed to start, we had a tremendous group of children and parents all over our front churchyard. And a bunch of kids were putting eggs in baskets before I had the chance to say, “Go!” In literally less than 5 minutes, all of the eggs were gone. Knowing that other families were going to show up a little late, I scrounged eggs from Sprout’s basket and that of the church kids’ and re-hid them so they would at least have something to look for. Thankfully, the same folks who brought the eggs also brought extra goodie bags of random toys and candy, so all of the kids that had very few to hunt for at least got goodie bags. We also had a plethora of sweets, so my fellow-church goer Jan made sure every kid got a cookie or cupcake. Thank goodness for extra cookies. I still felt terrible when we had to tell families that there weren’t any eggs left though. At least we have some lessons learned for next year.

The day finished off with dinner at a restaurant modeled after an Adirondack or Rocky Mountains lodge, all wood crossbeams and duck decoys. My father-in-law – who is a pickier eater than Sprout – enjoys the food and the decor. Plus, as Sprout loves running up and down a ramp it has decorated with twinkle lights, we acquiesced to his request of “walk, walk!” several times. He also managed to put away a truly ungodly amount of macaroni and cheese.

Except for a few bobbles, our Easter turned out pretty darn well.

Reintroducing the Bike to a Toddler

April 7, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Most of the time, when I do a bike ride, my training is the most important aspect. But when I’m bringing along a small passenger, I need his willing participation as well. For the upcoming Tour de Cookie, I was quite concerned that Sprout was not going to buy into my plan. Fortunately, after pulling my bike out of the shed for the first time this spring for a ride with him, I’m much more confident that we’ll all have a good time.

While I rode with Sprout a number of times last year, he was never fond of it. Although he was big enough to be in the trailer, he wasn’t tall enough to see well out of the windows. He was also much more adverse to risk than he is now, making the bumps rather disconcerting to him. To make it worse, he absolutely hated hats, especially his bike helmet. He would whine, yell, and try to pull it off to no avail. He smiled all of once when I put him in the trailer last year. He usually fell asleep, looking uncomfortable with his head on his chest. I probably would have skipped riding with him altogether if I hadn’t been leading the Rockville Kidical Mass rides. You can’t really lead a ride for families with young kids without your young child with you.

This year already seemed more promising even before we got on the bike. Sprout’s nearly twice as old as he was last spring. Since the ride in November, his demeanor and understanding of what’s going on has evolved considerably. He can now use words to tell me what’s wrong, follow social cues, understand simple explanations, and predict what will happen next. All of these characteristics made me think he might have a much more pleasant, less disorienting biking experience now than he did then.

Even better, he now knows what a bike is and can say the word. There are bikes in a number of his books, including Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. He loves pointing them out with a proud, “Bike!” On the way home from the playground, he always stops at the Capital Bikeshare stand to spin the pedals.

A few days before our first ride, I introduced the idea of my bike and trailer to him. I hooked up my pump to my tires and encouraged him to “help” me pump by pushing down on the handle. He wanted to poke at everything, so I let him spin my bike’s pedals and touch the tires. I tried to keep his little hands away from the gears, the many sharp or pointy components, and the greasy chain. Unfortunately, I was only partly successful in that last effort. When I took the tarp off of the trailer, his first instinct was to climb inside.

For our first ride of the season, I got home early on a pleasantly warm day. Unfortunately, the sky had turned from blue and calm to gray and windy during the day, so I limited our ride to less than 2 miles. Although it was going to be far less than the 15 mile Tour de Cookie (plus a few miles each way to get back and forth from the start), I figured it was better to get something in than nothing.

For starters, Sprout seemed much less upset about his helmet than he had been in the past. It fit him better (his head has grown), he’s taken a fondness to hats after reading Jan Brett’s The Hat, and he’s been interested in my helmet for a while. I explained, “You get to wear a bike hat like mommy!”, which seemed to help. While there was a little bit of whinage, it wasn’t a National Emergency the way so many things in toddlerdom are.

When Chris helped me put Sprout in the trailer, he looked around and actually smiled! He seemed eager to find out what was going to happen. (He’s young enough that he has no memory of last year’s experiences.) He was a little startled when we started to move, but he quickly caught on, leaning forward and giving me a running commentary of our surroundings. I heard a little chorus of “Car! Car! Car!” every time we passed a parked car. I explained how this was like the horse and cart (or zebra and carriage or elephant and bandstand) in To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry St., except I was the beast of burden and he was the passenger. After reading all of these transportation books and walking around himself, I suspect he has a much deeper appreciation as to what is involved in pulling him around. He actually liked it so much that he cried when I put the tarp over the trailer when we were done.

Besides enjoying the ride, Sprout had a much different reaction than when he’s in the car. I’m not sure if it’s that he can’t see much or it’s the vibration, but for short car trips, he goes into a really quiet, meditative-like state. He genuinely doesn’t seem interested in interacting, even if you try. In contrast, he was very engaged in the trailer, talking to me even though I had a hard time hearing him. I love that even though the trailer is more isolated than a kid’s bike seat, he was still getting some of the benefits of the biking experience.

To top it all off, I was reassured that pulling the trailer didn’t feel that bad. While it weighs a lot more than my normal bike, it didn’t feel that much worse than riding a Bikeshare, which I use almost daily.

Overall, I’m very positive about our chances for having a good time doing the Tour de Cookie. I can always ply him with cookies, and if all else fails, Chris will have the car.

Teething Bites

March 24, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Text: "Teething Bites / We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So" Picture: Cartoon shark holding up a fin

The scourge of teething has darkened our door once again. And if that sounds overdramatic, let me assure you that it is not at all.

Sprout started teething quite early, around five months. He showed all of the classical signs: drooling like a waterfall, chomping on his hands, and slight stomach crud. Every day, we would check to see if there was any progress made, if those little white bumps were any closer to poking through. We applied Ora-gel religiously, hoping to find a way to help him sleep better.

Unfortunately, it was more than two months until we saw the first tooth emerge. The others took their sweet time as well, sprouting from his gums like the world’s slowest, hardest seedlings. While there was some pain, especially just before they poked through, it didn’t affect his mood too badly. He was a little cranky here and there, but nothing vastly out of the ordinary.

Much to our relief, there was a brief reprieve.

Then came the molars.

Continue reading →

Women’s History Month Role Models: Historical and Modern Advocates for Justice

March 21, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Reading all of the wonderful stories of women being shared for Women’s History Month inspired me to think about the women who have influenced me. I realized that they fell into three categories: women I personally know, women (and girls) in pop culture, and historical and modern women in advocacy. This week, I’m going highlight my female role-models and hope you find someone to be inspired by!

Today, I’m focusing on real-life women in history or the larger culture who are advocates for social justice. In particular, I’m focusing both on women who inspired me personally and who may not be quite as well-known. This list tends to be focused on my areas of interest – poverty, environmental issues, food systems – and this is just but the shortest of lists, so there are a lot of issues missed. Nonetheless, I hope to raise awareness about some of these women who aren’t always (although sometimes) mentioned in the history books.

Vandana Shiva: Shiva is one of the most compelling and unique advocates in the sustainable food movement. While much of the sustainable food movement is white, upper to middle-class Americans concerned about their personal exposure to bioengineering, Shiva is Indian and focuses her work on how corporate control of the food system affects farmers in non-Western countries. She’s spoken out against corporations and governments patenting plant species that farmers have been cultivating for centuries. She’s also done a lot of work in seed saving, helping farmers access to alternatives to “terminator seeds” that only produce sterile seeds. Her organization, Navdanya, has set up more than 100 community seed banks throughout India and is working with the government of Bhutan to convert 100% of their agriculture to organic. Plus, her PhD thesis was on “Hidden Variables and Non-locality in Quantum Theory,” which is inherently hardcore.

Sister Dorothy Stang: If Sister Lucy is the most badass nun I’ve ever met, Sister Dorothy Stang is probably the most badass one I haven’t. (At least in modern times – some of those saints had some very interesting backstories.) As a young woman, she traveled to Brazil to educate farmers in the Amazon jungle about land tenure and avoiding deforestation. However, her work quickly became political as she learned more about the farmers’ situation. As loggers, ranchers, and real estate speculators moved into the rainforest, they threatened the livelihoods and lives of the people she was trying to serve. She collaborated with the local people to fight against the profiteers trying to kick them off their land. She lobbied the local government and sat in vigil to blockade logging trucks trying to get into the forest. Because of her advocacy, she was put on a “death list” and later murdered by the local crime group. As they approached her, she pulled a Bible from her bag and began to read from the Beatitudes. In college, I read about her story in Outside Magazine and hung their obituary on my door. Both her story and my experience with H.O.M.E. strongly influenced my passion for social justice, especially in tandem with environmental justice.

Nellie Bly, Ida Tarbell and Ida B. Wells: When I aspired to be a high-flying journalist (ha) in high school, Nellie Bly was my gal. Perhaps most famous for faking severe mental illness to get admitted to an insane asylum, I admire how she put herself in serious danger to expose corrupt systems and inhumane treatment. She was in the asylum for 10 days, where the nurses fed them poorly, tied the “dangerous” patients up with ropes, didn’t clean up waste, forced the women to beat on hard wooden benches all day, and yelled at and beat the patients. The articles she published exposed the subhuman conditions that were common in the very broken mental health system, leading to reform. For bonus awesomeness, she also beat the world record for circumnavigating the globe. Similarly, besides both being named Ida, Ida Tarbell and Ida B. Wells also leveraged the power of the pen to sway people’s attitudes and actions. Ida Tarbell wrote a series of articles in McClure’s about the monopoly of Standard Oil and how it manipulated the economy. She pored over piles of public documents and interviewed people across the country. Her articles and the book that followed were the first examples of both investigative journalism and the corporate expose. Ida B. Wells was an early civil rights advocate. When forced to give up her seat in the first class cabin of a train because of her race, she refused, more than 70 years earlier than Rosa Parks did on a bus. She sued the railroad and at least initially, won her case. She was co-owner and editor of a black newspaper, where she wrote articles exposing the lies that white supremacists used to justify lynching, identifying as far more of a form of social control over the black community than anything related to punishment of individuals. All of these women show how fundamental communication is to social change and managed to do in a profession that has never been welcoming to females.

Ella Jo Baker: Baker was a key figure in the 1950s civil rights movement, but isn’t that well-known today. I actually hadn’t heard of her until recently. But she probably would have preferred it that way. Baker worked in the background of the movement, organizing people, mentoring new leaders, forging connections and building the foundation for the mass movement. She opposed the idea of charismatic leadership in advocacy and specifically rejected how the church was set up, with mostly male leadership over a female congregation. Instead, she embraced participatory democracy with a collective style of action rather than a hierarchical one. As someone who has only acted in an official leadership positions a few times, but dedicated many hours in the background, I highly appreciate this viewpoint. In addition, much of my learning curve of becoming a better ally and advocate has been about understanding how to listen, appreciate other people’s true needs and provide them the support they need. For me, leadership is much more about being a servant than having charisma. She’s such a great example of this philosophy.

There are so many more women around the world in the past and present who are making their communities stronger and the world a more just place. Oxfam America and ONE have been doing a number of profiles of women in non-Western countries that are both powerful and inspiring.

Who are your favorite female advocates for justice now or in the past?

Women’s History Month Role Models – Pop Culture

March 18, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / 7 Comments

Picture: Pictures of Clara Oswald from Doctor Who, Agent Peggy Carter and Anna from Frozen; Text: "Female Role Models in Pop Culture / We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So"

Reading all of the wonderful stories of women being shared for Women’s History inspired me to think about the women who have influenced me. I realized that they fell into three categories – women I personally know, women (and girls) in pop culture, and historical or cultural women in advocacy. This week, I’m going highlight my female role-models and hope you find someone to be inspired by!

Today I’m focusing on female role models in pop culture, particularly action adventure and SF. In addition to being my favorite genres, they also have a historic under-representation of women, especially when compared to movies, TV shows, or books with a romantic or historical focus. Unfortunately, most women in these genres are either “The Girl” in a group made up of all men or Strong Female Characters who are physically capable but over-sexualized and emotionally flat. While the characters I describe are far from unproblematic – both if they were real people and in how their works choose to portray them – I find them to have a number of traits worth emulating.

Princess Elizabeth, The Paperbag Princess: One of the first children’s stories to subvert the traditional “Prince rescues Princess” plots, Princess Elizabeth was probably my first fictional feminist hero. After a dragon burns her clothes and kidnaps her betrothed, Princess Elizabeth sets off to rescue him. After she beats the dragon, she finds out her “practically perfect” fiancé tells her to come back when “she looks more like a princess.” Declaring him a bum, she leaves him in the dragon’s cave alone and skips off to pursue her own destiny. I love how even though she anticipated being a “normal” princess, she does what needs to be done when people are in danger. She also uses her wits to defend the dragon and of course, won’t stand for the Prince’s shallow crap. Too bad Sansa from Song of Fire and Ice didn’t read this book before moving to the castle. (Despite my previous hesitancy, I’m totally on a Game of Thrones kick now.)

Anna in Frozen: In many ways, Frozen is an update of the Paper Bag Princess, with Elsa both acting as the dragon putting others in danger and the prince to be rescued. While it’s an obvious one for the list, it’s important to highlight how Disney has finally given us a female protagonist who is brave, compassionate, smart, self-motivated and deeply flawed. The movie wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful if it didn’t show both Anna and Elsa making bad decisions in their process of recovering from a life-long traumatic situation. While Elsa is such an important symbol for so many people – especially through Let It Go – Anna is a better role model once she’s gotten past the “next day wedding” idea. She’s far more willing to ask for and appreciate help when needed, be emotionally open, and tackle problems rather than hide from them. Although I think these two are the best, other good Disney heroines include Belle (her smarts and compassion), Lilo (her adventurousness and willingness to love outsiders), Rapunzel (her ability to break off an abusive relationship) and Tiana (her independence and passion for her work).

Agent Peggy Carter in Agent Carter and Captain America: I love Peggy Carter and totally want to be her super-spy friend. Unfortunately for me, she’s a fictional character who had her heyday in the post-WW II era. Nonetheless, I definitely appreciate how Marvel took a character who have easily been written off as “the girlfriend” in a superhero movie and showed how she is a badass in her own right. She stands up for herself against historically accurate sexism, outsmarts her co-workers and the bad guys, and is willing to support other women. While she first pushes people away from her to protect them, she comes around and realizes that while she wants to save people, she needs relationships too. From a visual perspective, I like how she has a very straight-forward fighting style, similar to the men surrounding her. While she’s more flexible and a little quicker than them, she doesn’t have the gravity-defying acrobatic style that many women in action-adventure movies do. It shows that you can be as physically tough as a man without being superhuman.

Clara Oswald in Doctor Who: Clara has come under a lot of criticism from Doctor Who fans for being a bit flat and boring during her first season. While the show’s portrayal of her definitely had its problems, her character actually had a lot of subtlety from the beginning. Since then, she’s only gotten much deeper. She’s a control freak overachiever who just wants to help people – the grown-up version of the fairy-tale heroine who always saves the day. And on the show, she frequently does, often through the dual powers of cleverness and compassion. In fact, she even saved it once through a story and a leaf alone. Needless to say, Clara is a woman after my own heart. What I relate to the most is that saving the world isn’t even her day job – she’s constantly trying to balance her travels with being a full-time teacher in an inner-city school. She wants to do good so badly that it exhausts her. Besides depicting this struggle for balance, the show has also used her to poke at the question, “What does it mean to be a good person and a hero?” Her desire to have things be “right” sometimes drives her to despair and other times has lead to drastic abuses of power. So often, shows and books tell us that the people who fight the bad guys are obviously both heroes and automatically good people. I love that Clara tries so hard to be good and is so morally complex in her quest to be so. (Lots more analysis on Clara is available in this TARDIS Eruditorum post and the author’s Tumblr.)

This is by no means an exhaustive list. I know that the female characters in Avatar the Last Airbender are supposed to be excellent, but I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet.

In addition to these laudable characters, a number of shows and movies have complex but far more morally ambiguous characters including Kima Greggs on the Wire; Catelyn Tully Stark, Arya Stark, and Daenerys Targaryen in A Song of Fire and Ice / Game of Thrones; President Laura Roslin, Starbuck, and Anastasia Dualla (Dee) in Battlestar Galactica; Black Widow in the Avengers and Captain America; Evey in V for Vendetta; and Micah Wilkins in Liar. As women come in all shapes, sizes and moralities, I appreciate this diversity.

Who are your favorite female role models in film, literature, and TV, especially in action-adventure and SF?

Women’s History Month Role Models – My Friends and Family

March 16, 2015 / Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Reading all of the wonderful stories of women being shared for Women’s History Month inspired me to think about the women who have influenced me. I realized that they fell into three categories: women I personally know, women (and girls) in pop culture, and women who have been major leaders in advocacy movements. This week, I’m going highlight my female role-models and hope you find someone to be inspired by!

What do you say when someone asks who inspires you? For me, it’s often the people I have a personal relationship with. Our greatest role models can be right in front of us.

My mom: My number one female role model in my life has always been my mom. As bonkers as we make each other – in that special way only mothers and daughters can – we love each other deeply. As a teacher in an inner-city school district, my mom instilled in me a dual love of learning and service. She was unrelenting in her dedication to her students, buying thousands of dollars in classroom supplies and more than once seriously considering fostering or adopting a student. She taught me what the word “privileged” meant before I ever heard the term, emphasizing that I was lucky to be both physically and emotionally taken care of. Reminding me that many children had neither of those – often, children she worked with every day – she taught me be grateful for what I have and help those who don’t. In her retirement, she’s volunteering at the local nature center and food bank. She’s also the one who inspired my love of cycling. While my family had always gone on short bike trips, her decision to bike 500 miles across New York State during my junior year of college motivated me to sign up for the AIDS Ride for Life. It was the first time I had ever done a major ride and made me a convert to cycling advocacy. In my family, my dad’s mom was the another major influence, whom I’ve written about before.

My friend Nancy, at the first Carl Henn Memorial Ride.

Nancy Breen: On the bike front, Nancy Breen, the chair of the Rockville Bicycle Advisory Committee, is another real inspiration to me. I know she’ll probably raise an eyebrow at her name being on the list, but she totally deserves it. She’s been the chair of our all-volunteer committee for several years now and it’s a pretty thankless job. Besides motivating us to get into gear, she’s spent endless hours with our city’s Mayor and City Council, whose meetings regularly run to midnight. She’s spoke in front of local policymakers on topics varying from police training to bike lanes. And she does all this in the very male-dominated field of bicycle advocacy. In fact, I think Nancy is a big part of why women are well-represented on RBAC and our concerns are heard. I’m also putting a major shout-out to my friend Sophie Chan-Wood, who does a lot of our group’s marketing and is the Rockville Roll Model for the Washington Area Bicyclists’ Association’s Women and Bikes program.

Sister Lucy Poulin: Lucy is the toughest nun I have ever met. Admittedly, I haven’t met that many nuns, but she is a total badass. She founded Homeworkers Organized for More Employment in the 1970s in very rural Maine and still runs it. (She had co-run it with fellow awesome nun Sister Marie Ahern until two years ago, when Marie passed away.) What started as a simple co-op for crafters expanded to a substantial network of services including multiple homeless shelters, a food bank, a soup kitchen, a land-trust program that helps people build their own houses, an alternative high school, and much more. In addition to the main campus, she’s the matriarch of a rambling farm property. Chris and I volunteered at HOME for about a month and stayed in a plumbing-free house next to a lake at the farm. We ran the summer day camp, which at that time was down to 3 girls. Two of the girls were sisters and came from an incredibly tough background – they lived in one of the homeless shelters and their mom was a user and seller of illegal prescription drugs. Living and working there was super-hard and rewarding. But we had the luxury of it being temporary. Lucy deals with some radically difficult people, both those seeking services and volunteers, day in and day out. I saw her frustrated and even angry, but never impatient or mean. Most importantly, she created an atmosphere of fundamental equality. If you were more than a short-time volunteer, no one made the distinction between you and someone who needed paid work. It was never said but widely acknowledged that we all needed to be there, even if it was for different reasons.

Sylvia Robinson: Sylvia is another local activist that is the heart, soul, and backbone of an essential community organization. Leaving her steady job, she sunk her entire life savings into pursuing her dream of establishing a community center for her neighborhood. Housed in a impressive and historical but crumbly brick building in the DC neighborhood of Pleasant Plains, the Emergence Community Arts Collective hosts dance classes, children’s summer programs, poetry open mics, swap meets, and support groups. Through the organization, Sylvia has also led several projects delving into the history of the neighborhood, with a particular focus of highlighting the contributions of black women. I had the pleasure of knowing Sylvia when I volunteered for Ecolocity, a Transition Towns group that focused on sustainable food. She gave us free space for meetings and events as well as use of the building’s yard for a community garden and mini-food forest. Despite the fact that running your own non-profit is relentless, she was always willing to give our group time and energy as well. I’ll also offer a shout-out to my friend and fellow Ecolocity volunteer Gerri Williams, who now lives in Duluth, MN and co-hosts a radio show.

All of these women are dedicated to their greater community without losing sight of the individual relationships that truly make up that community.

Who are the female role models in your life who have inspired you the most?