a bit of a katie girl.

i am going to tell you a story, but in order to understand the context, i need to first share with you a few key pieces of information:

(1) i am an expatriate minnesotan currently residing in the district of columbia as part of a volunteer corps program
(2) i like to make lists. i have many of them. my lists include “goals for this week” “goals for the next six months” “goals for this year” and a “bucket list” of things i want to do before i die.
(3) on my “bucket list” (besides going to africa and taking at least one clandestine lover) is to ride the tram that goes from underneath the house and senate office buildings to the u.s. capitol.
(4) i am a katie girl.

my story begins sometime last month when a certain d.c. roommate who shall remain nameless signed us up to attend a weekly constituent breakfast with a certain minnesota senator who shall also remain nameless (hint: rhymes with robochar). the breakfast basically consists of doughnuts and coffee in the senator’s office…followed by a few pictures. we were scheduled to go today, so said roommate and i woke up at the crack of dawn to be down to the hart senate office building by 8:30 a.m. for our breakfast with other minnesota constituents. we arrived right on time at the senator’s office, only to see that it was being gutted completely. there were a dozen men (and a few women) in suits waiting to meet the senator outside the office, where a perky intern immediately informed us we would be going over to the capitol building to meet the senator there. with all the men in suits.

now i am never under dressed. i pride myself on never being under dressed. and even though my gut feeling had told me to dress up a bit more…i had opted to wear a khaki skirt and my chaco sandals. i also went by what j. (nameless roommate) was wearing…jeans and a t-shirt. although j. isn’t exactly a style maven, she had gone on the website and seen pictures of the (very casually dressed) constituents who normally participate in this event. we had even giggled as we imagined our white-legged brethren wearing shorts because they were so thrilled about the warm d.c. weather. and maybe even one of those fbi t-shirts. well, let me tell you that there was nary an fbi t-shirt nor a white leg in sight. except for mine.

so the senator’s chief of staff (!) comes to escort us via tram to the u.s. capitol building. insert squeal here. i was actually achieving one of my life goals. something that was on my bucket list. and do you know what i was thinking about? my freaking outfit. and the truth is, i didn’t stop thinking about it for the next hour and a half. and i’m still thinking about it. i’m also thinking about whether a guy would have felt the same way if he had showed up under dressed. would it have mattered nearly as much?

the fact of the matter is, j. and i had an incredible experience this morning. we met a senator. we stood inside the u.s. capitol building. we rode the tram. and i’m still focused on what i was wearing. and how i felt in it. i know they say that clothes make the (wo)man, but what i’m really tired of is how they always seem to unmake me. i am so focused on pants sizes and making sure i carry my kate spade purse label side out that i miss what is really happening around me. a once in a lifetime experience. i am so obsessed with reading about everyone else’s sense of style in fashion magazines, what they weigh, what they eat…that i miss the goodness in my own life. my own style.

the fashion industry makes billions each year exploiting women (and men) by telling them that they have to dress a certain way to be a certain way. that some clothes don’t look good on you unless you weigh 115 pounds. i open up glamour every month and each page becomes a new wish. to be thinner, better dressed, more chic…and while i do believe in the power of a little black dress and kitten heels…what i don’t want, what i’ve never wanted, is for what i wear and how i look to define who i am.

so what i’ve decided is i’m going to have to figure out a way to get back onto that tram. and this time i’m not going to think about what i’m wearing. i’ll be thinking about the sheer awesomeness of democracy (insert audience groan here). or maybe about how surprisingly quickly those bad boys move (and they really do)…or maybe just about the beauty of having an experience you’ve always wanted to have. chacos and all.

xoxo.
ellie

i’m going to start with a disclaimer. i majored in women’s studies in college, so i tend to see everything through a feminist critical lens. that being said, i have several thoughts about the spitzer scandal.

first, some thoughts on the “high priced call girl”. it is impossible to ignore the media’s quest for information about ashley alexandra dupre, aka “kristin”. over the past few days, t.v. shows have interviewed her friends, excavated her myspace profile, and stalked her family at their home. anybody with internet access now knows ashley dupre is an aspiring singer who has struggled with drugs. a woman who left a broken home at age seventeen to “make it in the big city”. someone who knows what its like to “wake up one day and have the people you care most about gone”. a young girl (and i can say that because we are the same age) who saves restaurant leftovers for the homeless and who desperately wants to be a star. who encourages others on her myspace page not to let anyone hold them back. a woman who is, by the very definition of this project, a katie girl.

we’ve all made mistakes. we all have a past. a history that includes things we are embarrassed about. those of us who are lucky share that history with the people who love us. we are known. what is ironic about “kristin”, about ashley, is that if governor spitzer hadn’t been caught he wouldn’t have known any of this about her. ever. and neither would we. he wouldn’t have known her real name, her checkered past, her mistakes, her aspirations. to him she was just another call girl. a high-priced good time. she was her sexuality and nothing more. we live in a society where men can pay to eliminate the complications of a relationship. where they can purchase false intimacy. people can point fingers all they want to, talk about her “seductive eyes” or her choice to be a prostitute. but the truth of the matter is, that if we lived in a truly egalitarian society, men wouldn’t be able to purchase sex. we wouldn’t be able to reduce females to their sexuality, to determine the worth of a woman based on her cup size or the way she performs in the bedroom. we wouldn’t set unrealistic standards, that even when met, don’t guarantee happiness.

take silda spitzer for example.

even pat buchanan would have a tough time finding fault here. brilliant, beautiful, harvard-educated lawyer gives up a promising career to raise three daughters and support her husband’s political ambitions. she stays thin, attractive and in shape. she is a good mother and even (for good measure) starts a nonprofit to educate privileged children in manhattan about poverty. heck, she even changed her name! while she was known in her professional life as “silda wall”, for the sake of her husband’s career she was silda spitzer. possessed yet supportive. the woman who would stand up next to her husband as he proclaimed to the world that he was either arrogant or stupid enough to pay for sex. silda spitzer is a katie girl, too. she is a katie girl because she has to function in a society that tells her to “stand by her man.” because she has to figure out a way to reclaim a personal identity as she accompanies her husband into political exile. because love makes us do complicated things.

so before we judge either of these women, let’s remember that they are each functioning in a society that is still telling them, as adrienne rich so eloquently puts it, that women should “be nice, play safe, have low professional expectations, drown in love and forget about work, live through others, and stay in the places assigned to us.”

we don’t live in a post-feminist world, contrary to what we all want to believe. the united states still suppresses women, not by laws, but by the implicit expectations we have to meet lest our identity and choices be questioned and criticized. it is not enough to be thin, beautiful and smart…you also have to get married young and be willing to give up everything to raise your children. and even if you do all that, your husband might still pay for sex with a woman half his age.

i am tired of hearing “always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” i am exhausted of hearing my choice to prioritize myself and my career questioned. i don’t want to see my friends open up lingerie and kitchenware at their wedding showers because i hate what that implies about a woman’s role in marriage. i don’t want anyone to tell me that i can’t do it all. i’m not sure if i want kids. i’m choosing not to marry young…and that doesn’t mean that i haven’t ever been asked. that i haven’t ever been in love. that i haven’t ever given up a relationship because i realized it was holding me back from the woman i’m meant to become. i hate that i live in a world where i have to see women like ashley dupre and silda spitzer suffer as a result of what can only be classified as gender violence.

simply stated, i want more than this.

for me, for my mom, for my grandma, for my friends. for the daughter i might have someday. power is still based on gender, on race, on socio-economic class and until that structure changes we will still see women like ashley dupre being victimized and women like silda spitzer standing by the men who do it. their silence indicating complacency in a system that they didn’t help create but are forced to participate in for their very survival. something has to change.

xoxo.

ellie