feminist blogs

I have decided to move my family drama topics over to a new blog that I have created. If you are interested in wacko, dysfunctional families, then you might be interested in reading my new blog.

I've been down with the flu lately, and will be blogging here as soon as I build my energy up again!

xoxo

I think that I am having an identity crisis. Or something of the sort. Whatever it is, it is inspired by twitter, the blogosphere and other internet meeting places. Or maybe today it is inspired by PMS. Who the hell knows??

My identity crisis has to do with language, ethnicity and feminism.

As a child I grew up in a neighborhood mixed with immigrants and native born Latina/os. I always felt like I was on the outside looking in at everyone. I was raised by a single mother and everyone else mainly had a father around, at least when we were younger. I think that was the first time that I started noticing that I was different than the other families, and that they treated our family differently.

As a child I never really fit into the groups of kids who hung out with one another. I never really fit into the group with the first generation immigrant kids who mainly spoke Spanish, and I didn't fit into the group of native born kids who didn't speak Spanish either.

Growing up I always got too many mixed messages from my family and the community. "Maintain your Spanish and culture" would be the message one day and "English is more important" would be the message the next day. "Wow, you have an accent when you speak English" was often pointed out to me by English speakers, and "Wow, you have an accent in Spanish and butcher the language" was told to me by native Spanish speaking recent immigrants.

I never felt like I fit in anywhere. I didn't fit in with the white kids, I didn't fit in with the second and third generation latinos, and I didn't fit in with the recent immigrants. I have never fit in with many other Latinas, because in my experience far too many of them have been oppressed by the Catholic church or their families. The handful of latina feminists that I have come to know well over the years is a very small group, and they are mainly English speaking second and third generation latinas.

Over the past couple of months, I have been chatting on twitter with my buddy Marga Britto who writes a blog called Madres Insumisas. She is bilingual and through my interactions with her I am beginning to realize that I have lost a lot of my Spanish. I can obviously communicate in Spanish, but I have a laziness that exists in many bilingual communities, where we can just revert back to English when the going gets tough.

From following Marga, I am starting to also follow many other latina feminists in Mexico who tweet and write primarily in Spanish. One part of me feels such a relief to see Mexican feminists. It's like I have been looking for them all of my life and I have found them. It fills a void that I have walked around feeling all of my life. But then comes the language issue, and the frustration that I can't communicate to the same extent in Spanish as I do in English.

And there's always that nagging sense of the conflict that sometimes exists between native born Mexicans and those of us who were born in the United States. You know, that conflict of not fully understanding one another's life experiences, languages, and cultural practices.

Language is an interesting thing, tied intricately to our identity and ability to have intimacy with other people. I just hope that I can move past this temporary issue with strengthening my Spanish that I have begun to lose over the years. The realization that I have lost my Spanish to the extent that it makes me feel as if I can't communicate as effectively with people who I have been waiting for all my life to appear...well, that makes me very sad, indeed.

Tonight I watched a documentary called P-Star Rising, about a young female rapper. I'm not into rap, so I have no idea if this little girl is well known or not, but I fell in love with her from the moment that she declared herself as a seven year old "feminist phenomenon". She literally called herself a feminist phenomenon in one of her presentations at a club to a room of adults. After watching the documentary, I am so in love with this little girl.

Priscilla was born to a mother who was addicted to drugs and was placed in foster care when her father spent time in prison for drug charges. She later lived with her father after he cleaned up his act and at the age of six she told her father that she wanted to be a rapper. It was at the age of six that this little bad ass became "P-Star", the youngest female rapper and self-proclaimed feminist phenomenon.

During the documentary, it was unclear whether her mother was infected with HIV. Priscilla, her father and sister discussed AIDS frequently and talked about whether or not their mother was alive or was taking care of herself. At one point they hunt down the mother and see her, and it's pretty clear that the mom is still on drugs.

As I watched the documentary, I was in shock so many times because as a ten year old girl she seemed so much like an adult. Not only did she have to face adult issues, such as when her mother showed her heroin tracks and talked about "shooting up", but she also sometimes had to set her dad straight when it came to business decisions.

I am positive that this young girl is going to be someone someday. Check out more about her here:

I figured I'd give you a quick and dirty update to the situation that I have at work that I blogged about a couple of posts ago. You know, the post where I mentioned that I have a female employee who is royally fucking up? Well, here's an update:

She got progressively worse all week long. I finally called her into my office on Friday and basically had a come to Jesus talk with her. I told her that she was losing control of herself, and that she needed to decide if she could handle the position or whether she should go back to the classroom as a teacher where she might have less pressure.

She cried, she apologized, and the whole lot. I honestly thought that the issue was resolved.

Then, on Monday I just happened to pop into the office early because I had a strange feeling that something bad was going to happen. She was leading a meeting that started at 8:30 and she honestly did not walk in the door until 9:05. The meeting had started without her, even though she was supposed to be the lead. Oh, and by the way, when she entered the room, she walked in with a large, hotly steaming cup of coffee that she had picked up from across the street.

I had to go to another meeting, but I sent her a message that I wanted to see her in my office the next day. She told me, "Okay, I thought you would write me up and I agree with it. I am out of control".

Honestly, I was pretty perplexed all day about her basically begging to be written up. If I didn't know her so well, I would have thought that she was asking for a reprimand so that she had a reason to go out on sick leave for months on end. But I know her better than that. Although, I have my ideas as to why she is asking to be punished, I am still perplexed.

On Monday, I spoke with my male boss about the situation and he said, "You are too close to her. When you get too close to your employees, this is the type of stuff that happens".

I said, "With all due respect, you are a man and I am a woman. You will never understand the dilemma that I face as a woman when I am trying to work with another woman who has been diagnosed with postpartum depression. How can I honestly not try to help her, as a woman?"

I feel confused because I feel like I am walking a fine line. I know that I can't be too lenient, because then I can become an enabler yet I also feel that I am obligated to try to get someone in her situation back on the right track. I am confused.

So, yesterday I called her in and had a "come to jesus" talk with her. I told her that although I wasn't starting the formal write up process, that I would start to create written documentation of our conversations and my directives to her.

She cried her eyes out for an hour straight. She told me that she feels that she wants to divorce her husband, that he "holds her back" and makes her feel oppressed because he won't help her.

I wanted to tell her so badly to divorce his sorry ass, but I am her boss and I just couldn't get myself to say it. I know that she looks up to me and I wouldn't want my authority to distort her judgment, nor would I ever want anyone to accuse me of meddling in their personal life as a boss. All I could say was that she has to do whatever is in her best interest, and that no matter what happens that she will be okay because she is an educated woman with a lot of potential. I also told her that I hope that she wouldn't ruin her career over a husband who isn't helping her.

The talk that she had with me seemed to help her a bit, and for the past two days she has arrived at work on time and she even looks more rested and has once again been wearing make up. I know that I need to continue to monitor her, because I suspect that she feels that her life is out of control and she wants someone to lay down the law with a firm hand.

All I can hope is that things will get better. But, if not, at least I will be able to say that I tried to help her get back on track. I know that many men might think that my style of handling this issue might be considered "weak", but fuck them because until they walk a mile in a female boss's shoes as she deals with a case of postpartum depression then they don't know what they would do.

But I do have to ask myself-would I act the same way if a male were having depression issues? Would I give him as many warnings as I have given a female with postpartum depression? Or would I have written him up much sooner? Have I let it get too far without having formally documented it, as my boss suggested?

Who knows. I somehow think that I might have written a male up sooner. And honestly, I don't even know what to think about that fact.

Years ago when I was an undergraduate at the university, I remember the Jewel album "Pieces of You" came out. At the time I can remember hearing the song "Daddy" for the first time, and it was so liberating because it was one of the first times that I had publicly heard someone give a big "fuck you" to one of their parents. If you read my previous post about my mother, then you know what I'm talking about.

I just found the song on youtube and it has Spanish subtitles:




I love how she calls out her big ole hypocrite dad. Now that I am a little older, I just realized that it reminds me of one of my very favorite poems by the bad ass poet Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath pretty much socks it to her dad also. I wonder if this poem influenced Jewel's song:



Purchase the Daddy song by Jewel

On Friday a teacher made an appointment with me and asked if I would sponsor her as her mentor in her college program to get her administrative credential because she wants to be a school principal. I said that of course I would.

During our conversation, she began to cry and stated that she has asked her principal and vice principal if they would give her leadership positions at the school because she wants to develop her leadership capacity. They just blew her off. The principal said that he would support her, but delegated it to a female vice principal.

Apparently it's been months and the vice principal has refused to give her any leadership assignments. This teacher is one of our best teachers, which the principal has told me on numerous occasions and I have witnessed with my very own eyes. Yet the vice principal talks down to her, puts her down, tells her that she doesn't have certain skills to complete an assignment and so on.

Two years ago this same teacher came to me in the same type of situation at another school. When she came into the district I was the one who hired her because I recognized that she is extremely talented. I can't fully explain all of her qualifications because she was actually the first person in the state of California to attain two certain degrees. She has to be about 26 years old or so, yet she has multiple certificates from programs that she has completed, and she also has two masters degrees and is finishing up her school counseling degree and administrative credential.

I just can't explain enough what a kick ass teacher this young lady is.

Five years ago I hired her, and she became the target of a nasty clique of teachers. They harassed her, made fun of her, spread rumors about her, told the principal that she didn't understand things, etc. This almost devastated the teacher because she is very sensitive and a couple of times the teachers made her cry. As a result, they nicknamed her "la llorona" after the mythical woman (Mexican myth) who roamed the countryside at night crying and looking for her children.

The teacher finally made an appointment with me and explained the situation. I was quite aware of the viciousness of these teachers, because I had faced similar attacks by them years ago when I was teaching. One of them is still hot after me, trying to make me look bad as much as she can.

I told the young teacher, "Suck it up and NEVER let them see you cry. They are just jealous of you because they can sense that you have a lot of potential. Don't allow them to tear you down".

You see, at the time she was beginning to believe that there was something wrong with her. However, she sucked it up and carried on.

For a couple of years her principal constantly underestimated her, believing all the rumors about her incompetence. Her principal also didn't include her in leadership positions in the same manner that is happening to her at this moment.

I eventually intervened and worked with the teacher to get her transferred to what we thought would be a better setting. And it was a great setting for the first year-until the bitch vice principal came and started to block the teacher from developing to her full capacity. Now this vice principal is trying to tear her down, put her down and break her self esteem much in the same way that the nasty clique of teachers did to her two years ago.

So we've come full circle again, and on Friday she was sitting in my office crying again. I allowed her to cry and cry and then I said, "I'm just going to be blunt. You better just get used to this crap and in time you will grow thick skin. People are always going to do this to you because you are young, you are a woman, you are a Latina, and you are extremely talented. People will always try to block you from developing to your true potential, will always try to convince you that you can't do something, yet you need to just believe in your own capabilities. If people don't mentor you or give you leadership opportunities, just trust in yourself and keep searching for other people who will. There is always going to be something about you that threatens other people, and they will try to bump you down to their level to make themselves feel better".

I hope that I am not brainwashing this young lady into being cynical or jaded, but it's the only advice that I know how to give. Well, I could tell her how to chop off heads, but I suppose she's not yet ready for that.

I give this advice because it's all I know, having been in the same type of situation as her my entire life. As a teacher I always watched the lame asses and butt kissers get the leadership positions. To this day people try to talk down to me, make me look bad, and sabotage something that I am working on. When I applied for a management position, all the naysayers told me that I was too young. In fact, my boss refused to write a letter of recommendation for me when I applied for this position because of all the rumors that he heard about me. He has since apologized and claims that everyone seriously underestimates my potential to this day.

Years ago, I instinctively felt that I needed to accrue a mountain of degrees, credentials and certificates in much the same way as this young teacher has done. I did this because I had the instinct that a naysayer or jealous person might be sitting on an interview panel if I applied for a job. In my case, this is exactly what happened to me, and my boss later told me that a few people were trying to block me from the position yet I was more qualified than the other candidates.

As a young girl my aunt once told me, "You are a Latina and a girl. You need to make sure that you look better on paper than many other people because if not you will be blocked from many things that you want to do in life. You need to be more qualified than most white men".

I've always carried that thought with me, and it has served me well. I have had to claw my way into positions of leadership that might not have been available if I had not stacked up the credentials on my resume. I have forged ahead when people have told me to not do something because I believe in myself and my abilities. I can only hope that this young teacher sucks it up and continues to believe in herself and excel. I hope that I am not making her jaded and that she will learn how to swim with sharks and not get bitten.

What are your opinions? Has anything like this ever happened to you? What would you have told this young teacher?

Next Question: Does this kind of crap happen to MEN on this type of scale? Male perspectives always welcome! 


Beat Them At Their Game: 
Ambition is Not a Dirty Word: A Woman's Guide to Earning Her Worth and Achieving Her Dream
The Corporate Dominatrix: Six Roles to Play to Get Your Way at Work
The 48 Laws of Power

I feel compelled to make a confession, and I am sure that my brutal honesty just might make someone wiggle or be appalled by what I have to say. But I'll say it anyway because it's just something that I have to do to come to terms with some issues that have been hanging over my head.

I think that I hate my mother. Well, my father too, but that's another case entirely.

I know that this is supposed to be something really taboo to say, right? But I just can't help thinking it every time that I speak with her. The hatred has been growing and building up as each year goes by. I keep waiting for the magical time when I am going to have patience, or forgive her, or all that crap that people tell you will happen when you get older. Yet as I get older I tend to dislike her even more.

I've got such complicated feelings about my mother. Sometimes I admire her for all that she had to overcome in her life because she has survived many tragedies. Sometimes I feel sorry for her, because even though she is not alone, she has managed to alienate herself from everyone around her. On other occasions I try to excuse her behavior, because I really think that she is mentally ill. But most of the time I just hate her guts.

Maybe it's not hate so much as the fact that I wish that she would just disappear and stay the hell out of my life.

I once told a counselor many years ago that I would feel relieved if she were to die, because I wouldn't have to continue to deal with her abusive behavior and her ability to make everyone fucking miserable. I was so ashamed to admit it at the time, but my counselor told me that many people have told her something similar over the years.

I later confessed this to my boyfriend, and he said that I "didn't really feel that way" and that I was just acting out because I was angry. He told me that if she were to pass away that I would feel so guilt ridden that I wouldn't be able to live with myself. He told me that I would always beat myself up for not having spent quality time with her.

I think that the only thing that I will mourn when she is dead and gone is something that I never had-a functional, loving mother.

It's easy for him to tell me that I am just acting out, and that I "don't really mean" what I am saying. Yet he never had a mother who pulled out his hair until his head bled because of something trivial, like not having vacuumed in a straight line. His mother might nag at him, but he can at least sometimes have decent conversations with her that don't always resort to name calling, cursing, criticizing and put downs. Oh, I can go on and on, but why even bother?

All I know is that my life is wonderful when I manage to avoid her for months on end.

My mother left home when she was about fifteen years old and she never talked with her mother again until she was forty years old after her mother had a stroke. She never allowed us to visit her mother and wouldn't talk about her mother at all. All these years I have brainwashed myself that my mother was just repeating what had happened to her and it wasn't her fault. The older that I get, however, and the more that I see that she is able to function like a normal human being at work without smacking the shit out of an employee, I refuse to accept that she has no control over her behavior.

I am able to break convention in so many ways and I never give a shit what anyone thinks about me, but for some strange reason I have not completely been able to break away from her and cut off all contact because I have been so brainwashed by society that I am supposed to forgive her because she is my mother and she sacrificed for me in many ways.

Perhaps me blogging about this taboo subject is a small step that I am making towards just closing up my heart and trying to cut off all contact with her.

I bring this topic up because on Thursday she contacted me and told me that she had a lump in her armpit near the lymph nodes and that she will be having an operation on Monday. Someone else might be upset about this news in regard to their mother, but I felt nothing and carried on with my life. She has been calling me with a worried sound in her voice all weekend and leaving messages (because of course I have been avoiding her).

Due to that nagging little voice in my head that has been imposed on me by society, I thought that it would be respectful to call her tonight and chat with her for a couple of minutes since she will be having surgery tomorrow morning. She does have heart problems after all and being put under anesthesia might cause problems. Within the first five minutes she managed to bitch, moan, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch about anything and everything about me. I finally said, "Ok, bye, have a great fucking surgery" and I hung up. It seems like the past two years all I fucking do is hang up on her after speaking with her for more than five minutes.

I suppose that not much more can really be said about this topic, other than what I've already said. I suddenly feel light and free, as if I am moving towards finally being able to close the door on my relationship with her.

This Friday makes the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

That's all I have to say! May we continue to have reproductive rights over our body for years to come.

xoxoxo

Sometimes being a manager or leader sucks. Many of us come up through the ranks and along the way we find people who we work very well with. Before we are in positions of power, we might collaborate with people who hold a similar philosophical perspective. In fact, many of us work so well with certain people that we begin to see them as part of our team. There's nothing really wrong with that, but it might become a problem when one of the team becomes a manager.

I've had two colleagues who over the years I have grown to view as my partners. We all taught together in the same schools, became academic coaches and co-trainers together, and had each other's back when the going was tough. We stood together when we protested something that we were in disagreement with. We got our masters degree together, studied together, and mentored one another. Every step of the way in my career they have always been there.

When I became a manager over two and a half years ago, I was dragged through the mud and had to fight an uphill battle against numerous co-workers, including some people who had previously been my mentors and colleagues. My two partners, however, cheered me on throughout the assassinations on my character and deliberate acts committed by others in order to derail any progress that I was making. When one of my employees stripped the computers and files of all important documents, powerpoints, etc before she went out on an extended sick leave, my three partners helped me "save face" by coming in to work on a Saturday in order to try to salvage what had been erased. They spent hours and hours of their free time by helping me recreate the documents when they could not be recovered.

The other day I told my boyfriend, "You really know who your friends are when you become successful".

He said, "No, it's the opposite. You really know who your friends are when they stick by you when you are down and out. Everybody wants to become your friend and kiss your ass when you are successful".

I see his point, but I think that mine is equally as valid. Sure, it's a true test of friendship when people stand by you when the going gets tough, but it is also takes a secure friend to stand by you when you achieve success because many people are jealous and try to tear you down when you achieve success. If a friend stands by you when you are down and out, as well as when you are at the height of success-that's the mark of a loyal friendship.

As leaders we are often told that we need to get the "right people on the bus" and make sure that we have people on our team who are consistent with our goals and objectives. So it makes sense that as a new manager I would logically hire two of my previous partners as my employees when they applied for the job.

I didn't hire them because of my friendship with me. I don't necessarily consider them to be friends in the conventional sense of the word, because our relationship was more based on being colleagues than anything personal. I hired them because at the time they were honestly the only two people who understood my goals and vision and would be able to carry it out. They were far more qualified than anyone who applied for the job.

Over the past two and a half years, everything has been going well. They have handled it quite well that while I was once their equal, I am now their boss. I can't say the same for my previous employee who stripped me of all the necessary information-we used to be equals and she could not handle that I was suddenly her superior. My two partners (and now employees) have always showed respect for my position and have never expected any special treatment or favors. This is why I value them so much.

But now I have a dilemma and I don't know how to deal with it.

About a year ago, one of my employees had a baby. I knew as soon as she came back that she was suffering from postpartum depression and urged her to get help, but she refused to listen. Six months ago she finally went on medication, but it seems that she is getting progressively worse and spiraling out of control.

Over the past couple of months, she has continuously called in sick, arrives late at work, doesn't finish assignments, and loses her temper with other employees. She has started to fight with my other male employee, putting him down and raising her voice at him in front of other people and his subordinates.

I have talked with her a couple of times about her behavior and she has cried and said that she is trying to get better. I have listened to her and tried to work around her schedule because she has made comments that maybe she should just go back to the classroom and teach again because she can't handle the stress of the job.

Over the years she has stood beside me as we have climbed the ladder and tried to smash the glass ceiling to pieces. She has taken bullets from some of my political enemies, being targeted by a few people only because she was my partner and they had issues with me. She has worked overtime to make me look good, and move forward the agenda that the three of us have together.

Maybe I have been to soft on her by trying to accommodate her schedule and work around her family issues. Maybe I have made excuses for her for a bit too long. My male boss tells me that I need to call her in, lay down the law, and write her up. But it's hard to take his advice seriously, because he is a male manager. As a female I just can't get the idea out of my mind that she is suffering from depression and having a hard time with having a second child.

Today she didn't come in to work and didn't contact me until 3:30 p.m. to tell me that her son was sick. No one noticed that she was out and had just assumed that she was out and about somewhere. Yet the writing is clearly on the wall that she is starting to lose control of herself.

I know now that I need to call her in and have a serious discussion with her. I just don't know what to say that hasn't already been said. What do you say to someone with depression? What do you say to someone who feels that they can't handle their second child and are not getting any help from their husband?

All I know is that her problems are now starting to affect other people and their job performance, including myself. So this is where I have to draw the line.

Today I found an interesting documentary on the biography channel about "Calamity Jane", wild woman legend of the west. All I have to say is that the documentary was so very, very delightful.

Calamity Jane earned the reputation for out-smoking, out-drinking and out-shooting any man at the time in the west. Sounds like my kind of lady! Biographers have a hard time sorting out the truth versus the myth of who really Calamity Jane was because so many over-exaggerated myths swirl around her. Was she really dangerous? Was she a prostitute? Was she a wild alcoholic? Was she a mean, wild, crazy bitch? Who was she really??

I have actually never even heard of Calamity Jane until today. I don't have much experience with the "wild west" days and honestly it hasn't really interested me much. Apparently Calamity Jane is a character in the "Deadwood" HBO special, which I have never seen, but I sure might be watching now!

You can find the biography by clicking here. You will need to click on "historical figures" and her biography will be located there. I had some issues while watching the video, because the media player would often not open, but I just exited out of my browser and reopened it again. The video is broken into several sections and will automatically switch to the next section when done with one section. If the video freezes while switching from one part to the next, just click on the video and it should go to the next section. There were a few technical issues, but I think it was definitely worth it.

Believe me, I'll be revisiting the myth of Calamity Jane at another time, as soon as I find out more information on her!

I don't know how long the video will be up on the biography channel website, but if you are interested in purchasing your own video of Calamity Jane's biography, you can purchase it by clicking here.
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