I recently returned from a very successful trip to London which made me wonder, “What makes me so darn amazing at going on and fully enjoying city trips?” I went over the things I do to prepare for a trip and the things I do once I’m at my destination and decided I might as well share them, because I know many people find holidays of any kind, but especially short getaways, stressful to plan and sometimes even hard to fully enjoy. (And if you’re not interested in general tips, I give some London-specific tips at the end of this post)
1. Define the goal(s) of your trip
Before you leave, ensure you know exactly what you want to get out of your trip and (this is key) be unapologetic about it. Too many times I’ve found myself running around a city like a headless chicken covered in fatigue and blisters just because I tried to see everything everyone told me I had to see. If you truly want to see all the landmarks a city has to offer: great! But if you want to go to, say, New York to eat your way through every food truck in Manhattan, own that! Don’t let other people or guidebooks dictate what you do. When your trip is over and you’re soaking your tired feet, you’re the one who needs to feel good.
If you want to explore every inch of a city on foot when your buddy is of the hop-on-hop-off tour persuasion, you will run into trouble that may very well result in resentment at best and explosive fights at worst. I really enjoy doing my own thing without having to worry about other people’s feelings while on holiday, so I’ve gone on many solo trips. Recently, however, I’ve found a travel buddy whose interests (FOOD!) mesh well with my own, but who also enjoys going off on her own adventures. So when we travel together we may spend an afternoon exploring those things we find interesting but the other person finds patently dull (or not interesting enough to see twice: I’m looking at you, Tate Modern). Naturally, compromises can always be made, but don’t put yourself in a situation where you end up compromising on everything. Holidays cost a lot of money and feeling like your expenses were wasted because they were not ones you wanted to make will not give you that happy post-trip glow.
3. Make plans, but be flexible
Before I go on any trip, I make a list of everything I would like to do or see. For my recent London trip, I made this list on Pinterest. I haven’t found much use for that site yet, but drawing up a London pinboard was both excellent holiday foreplay and a great way of visualizing what I wanted this trip to look like. It’s important to be realistic though, and to be aware that you probably won’t get around to doing everything you want to do. After listing everything you’d like your trip to be, make sure you set priorities and don’t have more than one or two priorities per day. That way, you’ll be able to hit up your own personal highlights and any goodness that’s added to that is just a fantastic bonus.
4. Be local
With the powers of the Internet, it’s easy to look up which events, festivals, and other temporary things are going on while you’re in town. When I was in London with my mother in 2003, we left our hotel one morning to go to Highgate Cemetery. We never got there, because before we reached the Tube we had run into a massive demonstration against the war in Iraq. Public transport in the city had all but shut down and there was no way we would be able to do any of the things we had planned. It ended up being a great experience (we joined the march and I still cheer, “When they say ‘warfare,’ we say ‘welfare’!” to myself from time to time), but running into an event like that when you really have somewhere you very much want to be (and perhaps being of a different political persuasion) can muck up your experience. Conversely, there are a lot of fantastic local events that go on in every city in the world that you may not get to experience without proper planning (because you need tickets in advance or because you didn’t know they were happening until after the fact). If you visit a city like London or New York, looking up which big name actors are currently doing (off) Broadway or West End stuff can result in you seeing Cate Blanchett, Imelda Staunton, or Eve Myles in real life (these are all actresses doing plays and musicals in London while I was there).
5. Book accommodation that fits with your trip goals
When traveling solo, I spent a lot of time in hostels because they’re cheap and they allow you to easily meet people to do stuff with when you feel like being social. Two years ago I stayed in a hostel in Boston for a week, where I met a group of fantastic guys with whom I spent a lot of time exploring the city, making snow angels, and going on extremely ill-advised late-night hikes through snow banks. If I’d been at a hotel, I highly doubt I’d have enjoyed being mostly snowed-in as much as I did. This past trip in London, we stayed at EasyHotel South Kensington, which is part of the same company as EasyJet. It was cheaper than booking two beds in a 6-person hostel dorm, but you get what you pay for (which is really nothing more than a bed and a private bathroom). If I’d been in town to relax rather than spend the entire night wandering around the city and meeting up with friends, this might have gotten on my nerves. So if you’re one of those people who needs to be able to relax in the evening with a movie and an overpriced minibar drink, don’t scrimp too much on your hotel costs. Which brings me to the next tip.
6. Have a realistic budget and know where you can be flexible about it
You’ll often pay for your accommodation in advance, but all your other costs won’t become fully clear until you’re actually out there doing stuff and they’ll almost always be higher than you anticipated. If the Tower of London is on your must-see list, you need to be aware entry will cost you around $30. Access to temporary exhibitions at London’s free museums can be similarly costly. It’s best to be prepared for these things, so you don’t suddenly find yourself spending 80% of your daily allowance on one landmark or event (not leaving much room for food or transportation). But again, flexibility is key. When I was in London, I suddenly found myself queuing for the new hit musical Matilda (music and lyrics by Tim Minchin). I told my travel buddy I would absolutely not pay more than 40 pounds for a ticket, but when we got to the ticket booth we were told the only two seats left were 52 pounds each. The difference was about what we anticipated paying for dinner that night (sans drinks), so we decided to not have a real dinner to have a great theater experience instead. If you forgo your morning Starbucks and stick to hotel/hostel-provided instant coffee instead, you may suddenly be able to do something you hadn’t originally budgeted for.
7. Be in the moment
You’re in a different city! Doing things a lot of people may never have a chance to do! Having experiences that no other person will ever have in quite the same way! How cool is that? So yes, you may be lamenting your decision not to bring flat shoes and yes, you may not have seen one of the things on your must-see list and yes, you may not have had the money to go to that Cate Blanchett play. But the great thing about cities is that you get to stroll around them completely free of charge and there’s always something to see, if you just know where to look. I once popped into a church to shelter from a sudden summer shower to find a young man quietly playing his guitar in a pew. I must have sat there listening to him while the rain was pouring outside for at least half an hour; it’s a memory I’ll always cherish. If you can delight in just being in a different place, you won’t have much trouble looking back on your trip fondly (even if half the trip consisted of crying in police stations because your everything got stolen, which happened to me in Madrid in 2007. Maybe I’ll tell you about that sometime). Read more…
How to be happy
This morning, I read a short post on another blog about how life would be so much easier if Google could just tell you how to be happy. As more people who were brought up on the Internet and search engines come of age, I expect we’ll start seeing an increasing amount of that sentiment. Last term, I had some of my students read a text from a reading strategies book on how the generation that is currently in college prefers the authority of online searches to that of lecturers and books. If these latter things say something they don’t like, don’t understand, or disagree with, they go off to Google. If Google says something other than the lecturer or book, they have a tendency to go with what the Internet claims – or so the article said. I think to a degree this is true – at least to the degree that we (because yes, I count myself among this particular generation) will Google before we ask. Perhaps with the rise of Siri this will change; maybe we’ll ask, but we’ll still be asking questions to software, to code.
If this is how our current under-30′s operate, then it seems only fair to give them an answer to that pressing question about how to be happy. I’ve often heard people say that being happy is a choice, and I think to a degree that’s true. If you don’t have any major problems in your life (money, family illness, depression, insecurity, body image issues, oppression, racism, dead-end jobs, abuse, I could keep going) and you still find yourself unable to be happy, a resolution to be happy – or at least content – may be in order. However, I believe people who live such blessedly problem-free lives are few and far between. I think all most of us can do is make a real attempt at being happy with what we got, trying to change the things we’re unhappy with, and living with the things we can’t (man, I just realized I pretty much plagiarized the Serenity Prayer. Whatever. It works).
So here it is, my guide to happiness: Read more…
Blunder into the unknown
To my left, there’s a plate of buttered crumpets and a TARDIS mug (sadly not bigger on the inside) filled to the brim with Earl Grey. The washing machine is taking care of the backpack that was drowned in latte when I tripped over my own feet in the middle of the St Pancras Costa Coffee yesterday. My head is filled with spectacular new memories of wandering around London, picnicking in the rain under an umbrella, cooing over all the pretty things in museums, tweeing about in Kew Gardens, cupcakes for breakfast and éclairs for lunch, and having more great food and drinks with friends I hadn’t seen in ages than I could list here. The stereo, meanwhile, is playing a soundtrack that’s been on repeat ever since I returned from London last night: Matilda.
On Saturday morning, my friend and I got up earlier than is decent for holidaymakers to try to score some front row tickets for Wicked. It’s no secret that my love for Wicked runs deep, so it should be no surprise that I wouldn’t mind seeing it a fifth time. Despite our ungodly early start, however, there was already quite a sizable queue in front of us, so we decided to wander over to the Cambridge theater, home of the relatively new Matilda (based on the book my Roald Dahl). Here the queue was even longer, but we took a leap of faith despite not knowing anything about the show other than that it won a record-breaking number of Olivier awards the previous week and that the songs and lyrics are by Tim Minchin. This last tidbit of information meant nothing to me but thoroughly confused my friend, who – like pretty much everyone else – mainly knows him for his in-your-face comedy and not entirely family-friendly songs. Matilda, meanwhile, is rated ages 6 and up, which seems quite a deviation from the rest of his oeuvre. Nothing is further from the truth, however, because Matilda has a lot of sass and naughty jokes and adult puns, if the grown-up knows where to look.
Minchin said that he wrote Matilda to appeal both to children and adults across the board, as something he would like to watch together with his own children, and he succeeded to achieve this in a spectacular way. When the box office opened at 10, most people were turned away disappointed with the message that there were “hardly any tickets left.” In a stroke of desperate brilliance, my friend and I still went up to the window and asked “are you sure there are no more tickets,” in reply to which we were told that no, there were two more – in a private box. The tickets exceeded our budget by 12 pounds, an excess which was easily balanced out by a cheap dinner, so we took the plunge and splurged on the box (from which part of the cast would sing one of the numbers).
From the opening number, in which a bunch of special snowflakes sang “my mummy says I’m a miracle, my daddy says I’m his special little guy,” we were entranced. We laughed at the clever lyrics that work for both children and adults, sat in awe when Trunchbull grabbed a little girl by her pigtails, swung her around on the stage, then threw her across the theater (not really, of course, but it looked plenty real for the theater), teared up during “When I Grow Up” and “My House,” cheered and whooped and hollered in response to the spectacular performances by both the adult and ridiculously talented child cast and left two perfectly enchanted and content ladies.
The show was true to that message that Dahl often incorporated in his books, namely that sometimes grown-ups are completely rotten human beings but that children not only have the right to revolt against their bad behavior, but that it is completely okay for kids to do so and to do so in their own, childish way. Before she pours her mother’s hair dye into her father’s bottle of hair tonic, Matilda sings about the show’s recurring theme:
‘Cause if you’re little, you can do a lot, you
Mustn’t let a little thing like ‘little’ stop you.
If you sit around and let them get on top, you
Won’t change a thing.
Just because you find that life’s not fair, it
Doesn’t mean that you just have to grin and bear it.
If you always take it on the chin and wear it,
You might as well be saying you think that it’s OK.
And that’s not right.
And if it’s not right, you have to put it right.But nobody else is gonna put it right for me.
Nobody but me is gonna change my story.
Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty.
But the number that will stick with me the most is probably the opening number of the second act: “When I Grow Up.” The children, who are now thoroughly cowed by their sadistic head mistress, sit on swings and sail across the stage and the first rows of the audience while fantasizing what their lives must be like when they’re adults. While watching it, you cannot help but recognize that the children in the audience must be in full agreement with these visions of the future, which include being big enough to climb every tree, eating sweets on the way to work, and staying up late before getting up at dawn to watch cartoons until your eyes go square – and that is how it should be. Meanwhile, as one of those fully-grown individuals the kids want to be, you also can’t help to go misty-eyed over those fantasies that have a double meaning:
When I grow up…
I will be strong enough to carry all
The heavy things you have to haul
Around with you when you’re a grown up.And
When I grow up…
I will be brave enough to fight the creatures
That you have to fight beneath the bed
Each night to be a grown up.
This song is reprised at the end of the show, when we’re left with the same bittersweet feeling that Dahl’s book leaves adult readers with: Matilda, after coming to a heartbreaking understanding with her abusive father in the form of a handshake, goes to live with Miss Honey, who is now head mistress. She managed to change her story, just like she’d hoped, but we know that this is the fantasy outcome to a horrible situation in which thousands of children live their daily lives. We also know that changing one’s story in general is not as easy as resolving to do so. That shouldn’t stop you from trying, though, and it is in that message where you can see some family resemblance between Matilda and her mother, who at one point sings “No one’s gonna listen if you don’t shout. No one’s gonna care if you don’t care.” Of course her solution to going unnoticed and without power is to “go and put some highlights in your hair,” which perhaps isn’t the most constructive idea, but she is also aware that sometimes you need to (metaphorically) punch your environment in the face.
And on that note, I will go and do just that.
Sunday Hymnal
I hardly ever go to church, not being a particularly religious person, but when I do, my favorite part is always the singing. I really only ever go to church for Christmas and Easter (and I even skipped that last one this year), but that does mean that the songs which are sung on those occasions are quite familiar to me. I sing along with them as loudly as I dare (my singing is generally on key, but not spectacular) and take great enjoyment in just being in that space with people and music and singing.
On Sunday mornings, I create my own little service with songs that get me off to a good start. Some of these are quite corny, others not very sing-alongish, and yet others quite, well, loud for a Sunday morning. But the one thing they have in common is that they manage to put a smile on my face on that least-favorite of weekend days – that day when work and school responsibilities start seeping back into my consciousness (not to mention that day on which my thesis planning laughs in my face). Today, I’d like to share part of my Sunday hymnal with you.
Cat Stevens – Morning has Broken
(Can any Sunday morning playlist ever be complete without this song? Answer: no).
Kristin Chenoweth and Ellen Greene – Birdhouse in your Soul
A cover of the They Might Be Giants song done for the (sadly cancelled – I am still not over this and I don’t think I ever will be) TV show Pushing Daisies.
Les Poppys – Non, Non, Rien a Changé
I only understand about half of this song, but I’ve been able to sing along since I was 5 years old despite not knowing any French. I was brought up with obscure 70′s pop music. Go with it.
Tori Amos – Silent All These Years
Also has nothing to do with Sunday mornings, but Tori Amos fits all occasions. You know when Emma Thompson’s character tells Alan Rickman’s “Joni Mitchell taught your cold British wife how to feel” in Love Actually? That’s how I feel about Tori Amos.
Pete Murray – Bail Me Out
Pete Murray reminds me of my time in Australia and Sundays on which I’d wander to the corner shop in the morning to buy a large bottle of iced coffee and a Cadbury Flake bar, float in the pool for a bit, then wander to the pie shop (next to the corner shop) to buy a steak and mushroom pie from the lady who called everyone “love” and who once came back from around her counter to give me a hug after she asked me if I felt homesick and I started to tear up.
Savage Garden – Truly, Madly, Deeply
So many of my hopes, dreams and fantasies as a 14-year old chunk of hormones are wrapped up in this song that I don’t think I’ll ever not love it. Perfect easy listening.
Dixie Chicks – Easy Silence
I should be honest: my house is an all-Dixie Chicks, all the time kind of place. It’s what I play most often in the kitchen. It’s what I default to when I don’t know what music to play. So just choosing one Dixie Chicks song for my Sunday hymnal seems a little dishonest. That said, this is the song that I’ve been feeling the most lately, so that’s why it made the cut when none of the others did.
Alanis Morissette – You Learn
The mix tape/playlist/hymnal put together by yours truly that does not include this song has yet to be invented. It’s absolute perfection for all occasions.
Astrud Gilberto – Aruanda
For the longest time, I had no idea who Astrud Gilberto is. Then I asked the Internet at large to recommend me some laid-back summertime music and BOOM there she was.
Jacques Brel – Valse a Mille Temps
Since my 21st, I’ve had a birthday tradition that hardly anyone knows about. On my birthday, after my guests have gone home, while the dishes are still soaking in the sink and the streamers still decorate my house, I put this song on and twirl to the pace of this song. Those of you who are familiar with it will know just how fast it goes toward the end. But I never stop. I keep twirling and spinning and spinning and twirling until the song is over, after which I fall back on my couch or bed, close my eyes, and mentally spin off.
This was a very brief insight into my Sunday hymnal. I truly believe that if you start your Sundays off with these songs, it can never be a bad day. Or if it is, you should at least be able to face it with a smile, as I will do now. Thesis, I am coming to get you!
Release your inner Manic Pixie Dream Girl
The Manic Pixie Dream Girl has many guises. She’s found in a variety of media, like films, literature, TV, and even real life. Zooey Deschanel is perhaps the most well-known real-life MPDG. She flounces about in flowered dresses, is photographed posing with cupcakes, and is oh-so-quirky! She (that is, the MPDG, not necessarily Zooey Deschanel) shouts her quirkiness off the rooftops. She’d rather drink beer than juice. She’d rather eat chocolate than diet. She’d rather follow her bliss than pay her bills. She’d rather die than use a port-a-potty. So. Darn. Quirky. I’m sure you know the type – and if you don’t, lucky you!
Still, despite the MPDG’s many negative qualities, it can be nice to – at very select times – engage in some flower-print flouncing. I did so several times over the course of last weekend, which was a weekend I’d been looking forward to for months. On Friday I went to see Greg Holden in Bitterzoet (Amsterdam) and on Sunday I was lucky enough to go to the sold-out Florence and the Machine gig in Paradiso (Amsterdam). Both were excellent in their own way and both gigs allowed me to get out of my teacher-lady grad student comfort zone and act a little Manic Pixie Hipster.
Greg Holden became famous in The Netherlands (which, granted, is a very limited kind of famous) pretty much overnight when his song “The Lost Boy” was played during a week-long radio fundraiser for the International Red Cross. I listened to some of his other songs, decided I liked them, and bought a couple of tickets for his Amsterdam gig in the spring. I’m not usually one to go for indie singer-songwriters because my taste is quite mainstream and I suffer from a dislike of the kind of crowd such bands and singers often draw (the “I’m only here because this person isn’t famous” crowd), but I took a leap of faith and I’m very happy I did, because Greg Holden turned out to be not just 100% adorable, but a great artist to see live as well. Most people at the concert didn’t know the lyrics to his songs, but that didn’t stop him from getting them to participate and sing along as much as possible. In-between songs, he chatted about the price of parking in Amsterdam, bicycles, and mainly how he’d been looking forward to that particular night so much and had thought of so many things he wanted to say which sadly he could no longer remember. He explained it was the biggest crowd he’d ever headlined for (about 400 people) and that when he was in Amsterdam last year, he played for 30 people. A big change indeed. Even though I, too, did not know most of his songs, I mumbled and hummed and swayed and clapped while stuck in the front-part of a mostly flannel-clad crowd. My friend and I felt distinctly out of place in our dress and skirt, but we didn’t have any less fun for it. After the show ended, we bought two albums which the artist himself then signed for us.
Florence Welch is no longer at that point in her career where she’ll sign albums and take pictures with fans for an hour after the show, but that didn’t stop us from worshiping at her altar. In our best flower-print dresses, we stood in awe for the first few songs, after which we did our best to keep up with the energy and excitement which was beaming off the stage. If anyone else would walk onto a stage wearing a black muumuu with bat-like sleeves and a sequin collar, I would probably win the world championship eye-rolling, but when it’s Florence, all bets are off. That woman knows how to put on a show. I had expected her to be a great vocalist and I was certainly not disappointed there, but what really floored me was how well she connected with the audience and how very commanding her stage presence was. The first thing may also be due to our proximity to the stage, but it really felt like she saw every single person in the audience. And as for her stage presence, I’m pretty certain I have never seen any performer more aware of his or her movements on the stage. Now, I know that all good performers are completely aware of where they are, how they move, and what they do on stage, but it’s been a while since I last saw a female performer be so entirely self-possessed, natural, graceful and – dare I say it – authentic. 
The music and vocals were spectacular (and one really shouldn’t forget the rest of the Machine here, who were straight-up amazing), but it was Florence Welch’s presence which was enthralling and kept all of us staring up in wonder (and those on the balcony staring down with looks of awe on their face). I’ve had my issues with Florence + the Machine and those have not disappeared, but since my flowered dress and I flailed about to “Rabbit Heart” and “Shake it Out” and gaped in awe at the crowd’s reverence during “Between Two Lungs” I feel just a little better. And when “No Light, No Light” turned out to be the last song of the evening, you can bet your ass I sang along as loudly as I could, for one night forgetting my teacherly, grad studenty woes and instead losing myself in a world of harps, sheer fabrics, ethereal singing, loud drums, theatrical poses, and fantastic flowered dresses.
(Apologies for the crummy Samsung Galaxy S pictures).
I’m not a runner
People who LOVE to run (you know the type: the really peppy, excited, super-supportive ones) say that as soon as you’re running, you’re a runner. I don’t think that’s true, at least not for me. I started running a year ago, after being inspired by both the elite and amateur runners at The Hague’s big half marathon, the City-Pier-City run. I started Couch to 5K (C25K for those of us in the know), signed up for a race, worked my butt off, ran my race in record time thanks to a very supportive race buddy and… promptly stopped running. It was a crummy summer, I was busy with either school or work every waking hour, my shins hurt, I was tired – the list of excuses went on and on. The fact of the matter is, though, that I just don’t love to run. Never have. I don’t get runner’s high. I don’t find it clears my mind. I don’t get into a zone of sorts. I pant and bitch and moan and ask myself why I thought this was a good idea to do in the first place every single step of the way.
But I still do it. It’s a cheap, quick way of getting some exercise in, of seeing something of my neighborhood, of spending a little time outside (and as someone who has to spend a lot of time in classrooms, offices, and libraries, that time is precious). I started running again a few months ago and this time I hope to stick with it, despite not believing I’ll ever truly LOVE it like those other people LOVE it.
Days like today help me stick to that resolution. After a productive day working on a conference paper in the library and spending my lunch and coffee breaks soaking up the tentative March warmth in the sun with friends, I decided to go for a run through the dunes and on the beach; the first time I’ve done so since I stopped running last year.
Watching the sun set while running through the dunes was lovely.
Looking out over the sea from the top of the dune before running down the stairs to the beach was better.
Running on the beach, waves crashing on my left, sun setting just behind me, the smell of sea and salt in my nose, was the absolute best.
I may not be a runner, but I can appreciate a beautiful day when it comes around. Today was an excellent one. It may have become a cliché by now, but Karen Blixen was on to something when she wrote
The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.
Sometimes, it’s nice to hit two out of three at the same time.
Generation WhY: teaching my own generation
What the heck is up with the youth of today? Older generations are just as fond of asking themselves this question as the countless generations that preceded them. Earlier this afternoon I attended a “theme meeting” or “inspiration session” (it went by several names) on “youth” (such a deliciously vague) topic which got me thinking (organizers are punching the air: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED) about the fine balance between accommodating the needs of students in this day and age versus catering to their every whim.
It’s no secret that the generation which is currently in undergrad or graduated in the last 10 years (also known as the Millennial generation, Generation Y, or Generation Next) is (or, in the case of the older segment of that generation, was) quite self-assured, mouthy, assertive, and grew up in relative wealth. They’re both “high-performance and high-maintenance.” Not all these things are considered positives by older generations. Sometimes people who are part of this generation, including recent undergraduates, can come across as entitled, rude, self-involved, lazy, unrealistic, flakey, and suffering from Special Snowflake Syndrome. Sometimes they are these things. But this generation, despite what Lady Gaga might say, wasn’t born this way, baby. They were made, by their parents, their teachers, their society, the media, and so on.
This is a fact that often appears to be overlooked by many older folks. But there is no biological difference between the generation born between 1980 and 2000 and everyone who came before them. The difference is the context in which they grew up. Whatever young adults are, we made them that way.
Before I continue, I think it’s only fair to note that I’m talking about “them” and “we” as though I’m part of the older generation. I’m not. I’m in the vanguard of the millennials and in our faculty discussion of “the youth of today,” I was the only person fitting that description. I very much felt like I did not belong to the faculty, but rather to the students and future students they were discussing. But I’m also on the side of the faculty when it comes to issues teachers and lecturers face today. In a way, I’m straddling both perspectives. I identify with problems my students face and have faced, but I cannot be – indeed, am not – the same as them.
Discussions of youth today can easily devolve into criticism of youth today and this criticism can be divided into valid or not valid (or problematic) criticism. This was the case in our inspiration session as in many other discussions I’ve had on the same topic. The criticisms are always the same: youth don’t know how to communicate in a polite manner, they don’t know how to choose/make decisions, they feel like they can have it all, they don’t know how to behave properly in society, and so on. Real-life examples for each of these points are always given and often these are contrasted with how things were different (and by implication better) in the past. I would like to take a minute to discuss some of these examples (though the ones I’ll use are fictional) and how valid these criticisms are. Yes, this is going to be a long post. Read more…
Men of The Netherlands, you need to stop.
(This post was written after I heard a column and read some tweets about international women’s day and its (ir)relevance to The Netherlands and the people who live there.)
Men of The Netherlands, you need to stop. You need to stop joking how women are the people who hold the real power in this country when they make 23% less for the same work and make up 37% of parliament.
Men of The Netherlands, you need to stop. You need to stop saying that women do not live in danger here when many of the first comments to an article about a 15-year old girl being murdered a few blocks from my house are along the lines of “she shouldn’t have been out alone at night.” When there is no indication that fewer women are victims of abuse and sexual assault than elsewhere in the western world. When women have to keep their personal safety at the forefront of their minds whenever they plan an activity that takes them out of their house (and in the case of women who live with domestic violence, even that keeps them inside).
Men of The Netherlands, you need to stop. You need to stop, sit down, and listen to your sisters, girlfriends, mothers, wives, friends, coworkers when* they tell you how they feel when men try to look up their skirt when they’re riding a bike while wearing a dress. When they tell you how they feel when men feel them up while walking through a crowded bar. When they tell you how they feel if it’s dark and they’re alone and an unknown man approaches them, even if it’s just to ask for directions. When they tell you how they feel when they’re told by strangers, often and unsolicited, to smile (lach eens, liefje! Het is zo erg niet!) as though their existence is mere decoration in the lives of men and their purpose is exclusively to look pleasing and pleased.
Men of The Netherlands, you need to stop. You need to stop complaining that education is being ruined by women because if you really cared, if you really wanted a more equal gender balance of teachers, you would become one rather than look down on the apparent femininity of the profession. You would also stop women caring for their children because teachers are one thing, but parents are with their children the most, aren’t they? If female teachers can do such terrible damage to their poor male student, just imagine what female parents must have been doing to them for years.
Men of The Netherlands, you need to stop. You need to stop acting like you’re so pussywhipped** and you take such an equal part in parenting when you use terms like “pappadag” (daddy day). Because when your parenting partner is not at work, she is not taking a “mammadag.” She’s being one of those lazy women who only work part-time and are probably throwing their education away. You are not a babysitter. You are a parent. Act like one and stop begging for compliments.
Men of The Netherlands, I need to stop. I have 40 papers and 20 resits to grade. If I don’t do that, I won’t be doing my part for the feminization of education and the nefarious secret plan of women everywhere – to take over the world with one special day per year in which we applaud the activities of inspirational women across the planet – will be severely compromised. I’m sure you understand. While you’re stewing and maybe thinking of a snippy comment to put me in my place, I recommend you look over the male privilege checklist and think long and hard if what you’re planning to say may in any way refer to the points mentioned in it. Because if it does, and you’re being a privileged [expletive], I will tear you a new one.
*I should say “if they tell you,” because with your attitude, chances are they hardly ever try to talk to you about these things.
** alsof je zo ontzettend onder de plak zit
Let’s hear it for Lent
Though I’m not technically Catholic, I was raised by a lapsed-Catholic-turned-atheist and a lapsed-Catholic-returned-to-church-but-doesn’t-always-agree-with-Rome-kinda person. We went to church on Christmas, sometimes on Easter too, and when my mother remarried, she and her husband had a church service (not a church wedding though) to supplement their civil ceremony. I attended a Catholic primary school until the age of 8 and a Catholic secondary school between ages 12 and 18. All of this is a very roundabout, lengthy way of saying that I am not Catholic (in that I wasn’t baptized or Confirmed and that I don’t believe in Jesus as a the son of God and, you know, transubstantiation) but I was raised Catholic.
I was never a stranger to Carnaval (also called carnival, fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, and so on), but I didn’t really learn about Lent until later in life, when a few of my sisters decided it’d be a good idea to give up sweet things for that period. I never joined them because delayed gratification is not my thing. Nevertheless, two years ago I gave up my own little thing for Lent: excuses.
I must admit, I was quite proud of myself both for having this idea and for sticking to it. It made me a fantastically productive person. What did “giving up excuses” entail? For example, that rain, everyday tiredness, and overall blahs were not a valid reason to avoid the gym. That nerves about how a professor would respond to a request or email did not mean I could avoid making the request or sending the email. That “but I already had a peach this morning” was not a reason to eat nothing but Baby Ruth bars for dinner. That “but I did 75% of what I’d planned to do today” was not a good enough reason to stop what I was doing and gorge on 5 West Wing episodes.
In short, I stopped letting myself get away with stuff. That doesn’t mean that I pushed myself to the extreme. Giving up excuses also meant being aware of what was an excuse and what was an actually valid reason for avoiding something. Because sometimes, especially if you’re an introvert, your brain needs some downtime and it needs those West Wing episodes or some silly (rather than academic) reading or a good lie-in instead of a trip to the gym at the break of dawn. I became both more productive and nicer to myself.
Why did I give up giving up excuses when Easter rolled around? I don’t really remember. Perhaps sticking to my rules 100% was a bit too much after all. But this year I’m giving it another go. I’m giving up excuses again. No more “I’ll return that student’s email after the weekend because my brain is too cluttered now” (*students cheer*), no more “I’ve been so busy at work, I just need one more duvet day before I work on my thesis,” but also no more beating myself up over having back pain that is keeping me away from the gym.
All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.
Unbreakable
This week, Project Unbreakable came to my attention. Grace Brown, a 19-year old woman from New York, started photographing survivors and victims of sexual abuse who are holding up signs with things their attackers said to them during said abuse. She began posting the pictures online and soon people asked if they could submit their own photos. Some submit pictures with quotes, others with statements about how they felt during or after their assault. The people in the photographs are of all genders, ages, backgrounds, and nationalities. Some were molested or raped as children (even babies), some as adults. Some were attacked once, others several times or systematically. The one thing they all share is that each picture is gut-wrenchingly sad.
For a class, Brown made a video in which she tells some of the stories behind the pictures she’s taken and cites the by now all-too-familiar-but-never-less-terrible statistics: 1 in 3 women and 1 in 5 men will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime. Over the shot of a New York street scene she asks, “are you a statistic?”
I remember all too well that moment a few years ago when I suddenly started applying the statistics to people milling about an urban train station during rush hour. I began counting the women I saw. “One, two, three. You? One, two, three. You? One, two, three. And you?” I became overwhelmed. I started hoping that maybe the statistics were different for The Netherlands. Maybe they were less bad. Maybe it wasn’t one in three, but one in six. I started counting again. “One, two, three, four, five, six. You? One, two, three, four, five, six. Maybe you?” It wasn’t any better. It didn’t, doesn’t, matter what the statistics are; every single victim of sexual abuse is one too many. I couldn’t even do this count for the men in the station. My head grew dizzy and I had to sit down.
When it comes to sexual abuse, assault, rape in our society, the silence is deafening. Though I believe the Internet has made a big difference for victims and survivors by giving them options to share their story publicly, privately, among a reasonably anonymous group, faceless, nameless, open, and unrelenting – whichever one they choose – and though society at large will shake its head and say mournfully that “yes, of course these are terrible, terrible things,” many are still silent out in the real world. How often do you really hear your acquaintances, friends, family, coworkers, teachers, students, bosses, fellow moms and dads waiting for their children at the school gates, neighbors, and so on, say that they were sexually abused or assaulted? If you think this is a strange question to ask, because it’s private or painful or embarrassing, maybe ask yourself if you would find the following a strange question: “How often do you really hear your [all of the above] say that they were mugged, had their home burglarized, had their bank account skimmed, were robbed while working in a store, had their mode of transportation stolen, were attacked by someone in the street, were the victim of some kind of crime or violence?” You probably wouldn’t find people talking about those things strange at all, right? Now, I’m not saying sexual assault/abuse is like those crimes, but it is a crime. It is the one crime we feel should be reported and punished, but after that is done, we don’t really want to hear about it. And if it is done, well, that’s a whole different ballgame. Because no victim of a crime is vetted, badgered, questioned as much as a victim of a sexual crime. And no victim of a crime is opened up to slander and further abuse as much. “Shit Everybody Says To Rape Victims” has a good sampling of the kind of stuff that’s thrown at victims and survivors. The following graphic is also helpful:
And if a victim or survivor for whatever reason won’t or can’t go to the police, then forget about it. They immediately lose any right to their feelings and own experiences. On top of that they are often given an unhelpful extra serving of guilt. “Well, if you don’t come forward, he/she might do it to someone else. Can you live with yourself knowing you could have stopped it?”
Grace Brown is hoping to take her project on tour, photographing survivors all over the world in order to bring their stories into the public sphere and allowing them to use their own attackers’ words against them in a reclamation of power. The story of this project has been picked up by major news outlets in England and The Netherlands already, so hopefully she’ll find some funding that will allow her to realize her dream. I wish her the best of luck, because I no longer have to count in a busy station and wonder if the statistics are true. I only have to think of everyone I know and have known to remember the late nights, the tearful confessions, the hugs, the confusion, the sadness, the anger, but also the love. When I remember, I know their names and see their faces. One in three.
