Becoming a woman one pair of shoes at a time

Trying to be a woman is tough when you are an overweight middle school girl. For me, shoes were the gateway to womanhood. Shoes always fit, shoes aren't designed for size 2 ladies. Shoes have moods and flare and a personality all their own. I remember buying shoes for my dad's second wedding. I did not want to go to this wedding and I felt awkward and out of place, but putting on a pair of low kitten heels made me feel a little powerful and a little grown up and able to handle the bullshit that was my dad getting remarried only days after his divorce was final to my mom.

I thought of shoes as comfort and as empowering for a long time. I never had a dream body that I could wrap in a tiny black dress or skin-tight tank tops but I could rock a cute wedge, a two-toned stilleto and so badass Vans. 

Shoes are camaflouge and shoes are prompts. I wore lots of different kinds of shoes to begin to play all the parts I needed to play as I was growing up - student, date, church goer, college girl, club attendee, etc. 

On a side note I had a $200 wedding dress but felt I needed to buy two pairs of shoes for the backyard wedding. One was a peep toe heel for style and one was a golden, sparkly Cinderella-esque ballet flat for comfort.

Shoes are a cliche of womanhood for a reason - at least in my case.

What Butler teaches us about girlhood

Reading Judith Butler always makes my happy. I always feel like I've done something hard but good for me (like exercise for the brain). Re-reading it for class today made me think that maybe, despite the rocky political times, our society has come a long way from the 1990s moment that produced "Bodies That Matter." It made me think we really are doing at least a little better at making room for more bodies to matter.

As for girlhood, I want to leave our YWLP gals with a few lessons I think Judith Butler might approve of:
-They are not defined by their bodies, but are defined by society.
-Being defined by society does not take away one's ability to choose or to resist, but it that resistance has consequences.
-There is no one/best way to be a girl.
-Gender is a moving target - one that changes for society and for us as individuals enacting it.

My caboodle - my love

The most desired Christmas gift when I was 11 was a Caboodle. Part tackle box, part makeup carry-all, I was desperate to get one. This is the exact model that I had. I used it every day for like four years and it held all my treasures - LipSmackers, Wet and Wild mascara, Love's Baby Soft "perfume", a variety of scrunchies and plastic slides we stuck one corner of our t-shirts into. It was a box of girliness. As a kid I was always really heavy and I think I loved the Caboodle because makeup fit everyone and it didn't make me feel overweight or different. It depicts middle class, aspirational girlhood and I drug it to every slumber party I attended.

I am so excited about starting the Young Women’s Leadership Program this semester! This is my second year working in Thomas Harrison and with Big Brothers Big Sisters. I’ve bee working with camps and afterschool programs for girls for almost 10 years. I am really interested in ways girls use technology and also hope programs I am part of empower young women to love themselves, be kind to others and do good work in the world.

I have been a professor at James Madison University and I teach classes in writing, feminism and rhetoric and graduate studies. When I’m not teaching, I like traveling, taking photos and hanging out with my family and my three cats Gidget, Cupcake and Maggie.