On Being Unapologetic by E. Amato

Could Cookie be the patron saint of our unapologetic posse?

Recently, I apologized to a friend for dropping out of an online comment thread in the middle, saying I was overwhelmed. He brought to my attention the fact that I’m “unapologetic” and didn’t need to say sorry. I replied that I did have to say sorry, because I did something wrong.

I can’t say where I first heard of the concept of unapologetic - it probably wasn't because of Rihanna, at least, not directly. I know that I'm influenced by The Body Is Not anApology, and Unapologetic Bitch has won a place in my fight song canon. Not that long ago, LossLit called me an “unapologetic feminist, dulcet-toned poet, activist, film-maker, editor of Zestyverse, ” which I wish I’d written myself, and my twitter handle is currently "Unapologetic B." 

Wherever it came from, I've embraced "unapologetic." But what is it?

Here are some things “unapologetic” means to me:

Unapologetic means not apologizing for being here. Not apologizing for having been born, taking up space, existing while woman or person of color, while plus size, trans, or disabled. It means no one has to apologize for being a human being in this body at this time on this planet. Ever.

Unapologetic means not apologizing for how you feel. Ever. Even if others’ around you do not feel that way.

Unapologetic means not apologizing for what you think, or how you think it.

Unapologetic means not apologizing for speaking or writing down your thoughts or feelings. This one is hard. I just read this great piece on famous quotes if women were trying to say them in a meeting. I so used to be that girl. “I’m sorry, if I could just….” “I was just thinking, maybe…” I don’t do that anymore. I try to use kind speech, but I don't caveat myself into a corner or apologize.  A guy I met after a gig emailed me asking me for a drink. But also after the gig, this guy made a very inappropriate comment, and knew it. It made me, and others there uncomfortable. I wasn’t going to go out with someone who’d made me that uncomfortable, but as I wrote back, I kept having to delete the “I’m sorry, but…” Each time I drafted my response, it would try to creep back in. Why was I apologizing for holding him accountable for his behavior?

Here are some things unapologetic does not mean to me:

Unapologetic does not mean you don’t apologize. Being unapologetic is a way of being accountable, taking up space, being present. In order to do this, it has to go both ways. This means when you speak in a hurtful way, when you take an action that has a bad consequence, when you harm yourself or someone else, when you don’t live up to your agreements, you apologize. Not for being wrong, but for doing wrong.

Unapologetic does not mean you get to go around and say everything that comes in your head. That is having no filter and no boundaries. Being unapologetic requires more mindfulness from me, not less. If I am going to be in integrity and authenticity, if I am going to be honest in the moment, I have to bring a very strong practice of mindfulness to bear on my unapologetic words and actions.

Unapologetic means not apologizing for your needs, wants, desires, dreams, life story, personal history, weaknesses, vulnerability, identity, economic status, state of wellbeing or illness.

Unapologetic does not mean we are right. In fact, it frees us from having to be so. When I first started writing for TBINAA, I was scared. I was going to be writing about things that were hard to even speak about with friends. What gave me courage was one sentence in the guidelines they sent to new writers: “We are not afraid to be wrong.” I highlighted that and came back to it a lot. This was the most liberating thing ever. I get to say what I want to say, without apologizing or backtracking or making excuses. And if I’m wrong, or if I’m not, that’s where the conversation starts. This is how we create dialogue, which is how we build community. It might seem like the opposite, but unapologetic communication is the first step in community building.

Being unapologetic isn’t for everyone. It means there will be an end to hiding, a heightening of accountability, and especially when dealing with online platforms, it can mean a lot of friction. For me, it’s meant all that. But it’s also meant that I’m often sharing in ways that creates empathy and connection between people. It’s meant that when I do apologize, it’s from a place of making amends, rather than making excuses; it gives “I’m sorry” its real power and meaning back.

It means that I don’t spend time wondering why I’m on the planet, and can spend more time on what I’m meant to do now that I’m here. It’s also meant a stripping away the filter between what I think and feel, and what I’m willing to witness and testify to, which feels a little dangerous and like an emperor’s new clothes kind of moment, but I think that’s how we go forward.

Maybe unapologetic is just having its moment, but I think it might be here to stay.

Quote of the Week - Sterling

"... if we don’t speak in the wise woman’s voice and find places to honor that softer/deeper woman’s voice, I feel like we’ll lose our opportunity to evolve, and that could have disastrous consequences. We don’t have to have 2,000 years of matriarchy now, but we have to stand up and allow ourselves to be clear that we are the voice of change. We have to do the work necessary to find the strength within ourselves to stand for something different. Yee-haw!" 

~ Suzanne Sterling

This is from a great two-part interview in Invoke Magazine. The articles address finding voice, activism and community, among other things. Sterling is a co-founder, with Hala Khouri and Seane Corn of Off the Mat - a great organization teaching and leading activism and bridging the gap between yoga culture and the activist community.

Quote of the Week - Bjork

"If you can make nature and technology friends, then you can make everyone friends; you can make everyone intact. That’s what women do a lot—they’re the glue between a lot of things. Not only artists, but whatever job they do: in the office, or homemakers. Biophilia was like my own personal slapstick joke, showing I had to reach so long—between solar systems—to connect everything. It’s like the end scene in Mary Poppins, when she’s made everyone friends, and the father realizes that kids are more important than money—and [then] she has to leave [crying]. It’s a strange moment. Women are the glue. It’s invisible, what women do. It’s not rewarded as much." 

~Bjork

This whole article/interview in Pitchfork by Jessica Hopper is more than worth a read. I can't wait for the whole version and can't wait to hear Bjork's new album - Vulnicura.

What I Learned from Downton Abbey

by E. Amato

As Downton Abbey enters season 5, I am thinking of all the reasons I love it. The lush production design and lavishly detailed authentic to period costumes. The clearly defined roles and rules that make life possibly dull, but never too dramatic. The ability of the Dowager to say absolutely anything that pops in her head no matter how ill-advised or delectably inappropriate.

And the fact that it empowers contemporary women.

Wait – what? A show about women who dress for dinner and have ladies’ maids and who aspire to throwing the perfect party is empowering for contemporary women?

Yes.

Lots of women I know have multiple degrees, careers, children, and homes. They have partners and sometimes pets. What they do not have are ladies’ maids, cooks, assistant cooks, groundskeepers, household managers, butlers and service staff. Some of them have nannies, part time, and maybe a cleaner every other week. There might be a gardenerfor upkeep, but no one to tend or nurture the plants.

Often these women work more than 40 hours a week, usually at high-pressure jobs. They get their kids up and dressed and fed before school. They make lunches. They shuttle children back and forth to school and activities. They clean their homes, food shop, prepare dinner, make doctors' appointments for the family, travel plans and play dates for children, drop off and pick up dry cleaning, take care of appliance repairs and schedule service people. It's an endless list, and they are rarely seen seated.

To be equitable, sometimes gender roles are reversed, and there are those rare true partnerships where work is shared well. Yet still, it seems impossible to run a household and family and career with only one or two people shouldering all the work without creating a huge amount of stress and an even bigger sleep deficit. People are exhausted, sleeping only about the same amount as the servants at Downton. No one imagines asking for help. 

I want them to watch Downton Abbey and dream of help. Dream it to the point of asking for it. Maybe not a staff of people living in your house, under and above ground toiling in obscurity for a pittance, but an online personal assistant to handle some of the administrative tasks, a cleaner who will do laundry, a shopping service to deliver the groceries.

Time is precious. Life energy is precious. I see people grinding themselves into the ground to maintain their lives, inviting anxiety and depression, and that feeling of never being good enough, when they are actually quite fantastic. 

Returning to the lifestyle of a rigid class structure is certainly not the answer. But learning from it is possible. Watching Downton it’s simple to see the incredible amount of work it takes to run a household and a family. Imagine Cora and Robert suddenly relocated to 2014, trying to run the house and grounds, take care of the children, grandchildren, and civic concerns without staff and it becomes obvious that we are doing too much, trying far too hard and not getting anywhere.  

Maybe it's time to learn to let go of this idea of perfect, get cosy with good enough and actually enjoy our days.

Zestyverse Editor/Publisher E. Amato has woven a creative life that moves fluidly between words, stages, film, and practical activism. She was a member of the 2011 Los Angeles Slam Team and has competed at Poetry Slam Nationals and WOWps. In 2010, Zesty Pubs released her first collection, Swimming Through Amber, her Kindle book 5 in 2012, and her second poetry collection, Will Travel, in 2013. In 2007 and 2008 Down Home traveled to the Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, garnering 5-star reviews consecutive years – a rare honour. She recently produced Homeless in H

Quote of the Week - Corkran

“If you make 77¢ on the dollar and you compound that over a lifetime, you end up with women having a lot less free cash flow.”

~ Jo Ann Corkran

This is from a great article about women investors fueling women-run businesses.

There are times - like right now - I get to wondering what it would be like to have that extra percentage accrued over a lifetime. Money is a decision-maker in society; automatically earning less is literally having your decision-making capabilities decreased for you.

I guess this week is about money. And Scotland.

Happy Monday!

Quote of the Week - Abzug

"They used to give us a day--it was called International Women's Day. In 1975 they gave us a year, the Year of the Woman. Then from 1975 to 1985 they gave us a decade, the Decade of the Woman. I said at the time, who knows, if we behave they may let us into the whole thing. Well, we didn't behave and here we are.” 

~ Bella Abzug

Well. Here we are. Again or still.

But hey - let's celebrate!  It's Women's History Month and we just had International Women's Day and we are celebrating all month on the Zestyverse with guest contributors on the Women You Should Know series. Last week's post from Siofra McSherry was on Olivia Robertson.  This week we'll have Melissa Hacker on Dorothy Arzner.

We could use more of Bella's feisty nature, political savvy and sense of humour - not to mention the hats!

Your prompt for the week >>>>> misbehave!  Why not? She would've!  Wear big hats, speak out, be your own damn self!

Happy Monday!

Suport Women (Artists) Harder!

I've been having an ongoing discussion with a new friend about women.  Women in art, women on stage, promoting women. She noticed the lack of women on poetry stages. As someone who both goes on stage and gives artists stages, I have been engaged with this issue for a long time.  My goal as a promoter is always to achieve 50/50 in my events.  If I do an all-women's event one month, then I generally do an all men's the next.

Women (artists) need our support more.  

Creating equity in my own shows doesn't actually help.  Many promoters ignore female acts all together.  Some put up one female in a line-up of 4-5 male acts and think they should get a special commendation.  My friends who are promoters hear it from me when they program like this consistently.  Female promoters do tend to program shows more equally, but again, we are not making up for the overall lack of opportunity for women at best we're getting a 75%/25% ratio.

Some female promoter friends and I have realized that this lack of opportunity actually creates a gap between the capabilities of men and women artists.  Women perform less, so they practice less, so they slowly become not as good as the male counterparts they started out with (the same is true for filmmaking, plastic arts - fewer deadlines and goals to meet means less actual time spent working toward presentation - skills do not get finely honed and women start to fall back).  This is not every woman.  Some women hustle and get gigs and practice and get there.  But in general, we have to do better in supporting women artists - as women, as promoters, as audience members and as fellow artists.

Women (artists) need our money more.

Forget the confidence issues when you keep putting yourself out there and no one seems to be picking anything up.  There is the real life issue of how to support yourself and your art.  When no one is waiting for your art, or paying for it, the time/money equation can become almost debilitating.

Asking for money is anathema to many women artists.  They might be able to do it on a personal level, but almost none of them are willing to negotiate decent deals for themselves, ask for payment for gigs, or get investment capital for a project.  Even when they go the extra length to crowdfund, they tend to be polite and quiet about it.  (Sure, there's a handful who err in the other direction, but that, too, is just an example of having no idea how to ask for what you need.)

Our money is more than just money.

Even if you are going to pledge a dollar or a pound, it isn't just the money!  Women, artists, women artists need financial support, but there is something else that comes into this process.  A boost of confidence, a spur onward when you feel like giving up, a feeling that your community wants you to succeed, an accountability to the people who are supporting you.  No amount is too little.  Every person who donates is sending a big YES to the project and the artists they are supporting!


Here are some projects I personally support by women whose work I support.  Most of them have given tirelessly to other artists and the community - as promoters, presenters, youth workers, facilitators.  In one case, the fundraising is not for a project, but for medical costs.  Lara's case brings it home to me more than any of them.  The fact is, we will exhaust ourselves for others, to the point of illness, and the point of a complete lack of personal safety and protection.  If you have a minute, please check out the campaigns below and give if you can, share and support if you're interested in the projects!

Jumoke Fashola's Debut CD!

Noni Limar and Stained!

Lara Lyon's Surgery!

Thea Monyee's first book - Murmurs of a MadWoman!

Saria Idana's Homeless in Homeland!

Women You Should Know - Vivian Maier by Ruthanna Barnett

I love taking photos -- at least I love the potential photos that I intend to take. I almost made a career of photography, but my impulsive whims took me elsewhere.

For some years I took pictures -- lots of them -- alone and with my partner.  We would load one camera with black & white film, the other with colour, and set out on the streets of Jerusalem or Tel-Aviv, the beaches, the deserts and the Sinai peninsula. We travelled to Egypt for a month, much of which was spent in a tiny oasis close to hot springs, the White Desert, the Black Desert, and Crystal Mountain; the simple but amazing beauty of these places reflected in their names. Crystal Mountain really was a huge mountain made entirely of crystals; the Black Desert contained volcanic rock and black sand.  Some of those pictures are probably amazing -- but I didn’t have enough money to develop the rolls of film.  At the end of the relationship, the other party kept those undeveloped rolls.  I had to move on and leave those imagined images behind, but my love for photography is life long.

Years later, I was living on a narrowboat on the Oxford Canal. One of my neighbours, Jeff Slade, was a keen and fantastic photographer. My partner sent him an article about an exhibition in Chicago. There were only a few pictures in the article, but we were all captivated by them. The composition of the photographs framed only one small part of a scene, landscape, or story, yet the pictures seemed to illustrate so much more. 

The photographer was Vivian Maier. Her story is soon to be widely known, which is well-deserved, but by all accounts she would have hated every minute of it. 

She was born on 1 February 1926 in New York City, to an Austrian father and French mother.  She moved to France with her mother, where she spent most of her childhood. In 1949, when she was 23, Vivian began taking photos with a Kodak Brownie box camera. She returned to New York by steamship in 1951 and started work as a nanny. She bought a Rolleiflex camera and continued taking pictures. In 1956, she moved to the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, again taking employment as a nanny, this time for a family with three boys. 

She started using colour film in about 1970, and began to photograph more objects as well as people. She travelled widely – to Canada, India, Egypt, Yemen, South America, Europe, and the Caribbean Islands. She appears to have had no further contact with her own family, and always travelled alone. The few people who did know her all describe her as eccentric, opinionated, intellectual, and private. She didn’t show her pictures to anyone. 

So how do we know anything about her?

After her nannying ended, Vivian could no longer afford to develop her photos, but continued taking them, collecting rolls of undeveloped film. Following a period in which she was probably homeless, the now grown-up boys helped to pay for an apartment, and she stored her photographs in lockers. In 2007, he contents of her storage lockers were auctioned off due to non-payment of rent. Inside the lockers were over 100,000 negatives, thousands of prints, and numerous undeveloped rolls of film. 

One of the buyers of the auction lots was John Maloof, who was researching for a book on the history of the NW side of Chicago. Amongst the photos he found a scrap of paper with Vivian’s name on it; a year later he decided to google her. He found her obituary, written the day before, following her death only two days previously. He started a blog to show her work, and word spread quickly. Gallery exhibitions were arranged, and now a book and documentary film, Finding Vivian Maier is in production, directed and produced by John Maloor and Charlie Siskel.

Her photographs are street photography at its best, encapsulating portrait, place and time. Leaving very little personal trace from her life, Vivian has left us all with thousands of stills from her gaze. 

Ruthanna Barnett is currently based in Santa Cruz, California. She is a part-time immigration lawyer, clinic defender, gardener, knitter, baker, and a full-time radical feminist and opinion-holder. She is a passionate advocate for human rights, in particular for women. She very much enjoys living on the Central California coast and watching hummingbirds.

Editor's Note:  Special thanks to Ruthanna for writing this - she's not someone who likes to write, but I knew she'd choose a fantastic subject!  I love that Vivian Maier is a kindred nomadic spirit!  Check out all the Women You Should Know series this Women's History Month. You can find the ones from March 2012 in the blog archive.  If you are interested in being a guest blogger on the Zestyverse, let me know!

Quote of the Week - Sandberg

“If current trends continue, 15 years from today about one-third of the women in this audience will be working full time, and almost all of you will be working for the guy you are sitting next to.” 

- Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In

This is a sobering truth.  Let's get busy.

Here's the book review of Sandberg's Lean In from Janet Maslin for The New York Times.

And - yeah - I'm thinking all the quotes this month should be from women.  I mean, it's Women's History Month.  What do you think?

Come back Wednesday for guest blogger Ruthanna Barnett's entry for the Women You Should Know series!  (I'm so excited.  I so love the guest bloggers!)