Genderful Summer?

At the end of last semester, I auditioned to be in a directing project one-act play. I did theater throughout high school, and after working in the Macalester Theater and Dance department all year, I decided it was time for me to actually get involved in a performance. So, I tried out, and got in. Despite my high hopes to make it into an absurd play entitled “Soap Opera,” I was cast in the melodramatic and slow “Night, Mother.” There were only two parts in the play – a mother and daughter – and the entire play takes place on a Saturday evening when the daughter decides to commit suicide. The play is pretty much carried entirely on dialogue, as the mother, Thelma, tries to convince her child, Jessie, not to go through with her plan. Intimidating role, right? I had done only one lead in high school, and never been in a play this dramatic. There were a million concerns on my mind about conveying this character correctly when I showed up to the first rehearsal, but one element I had not even considered was ironically the first thing on the director’s agenda.

He opened our practice by stating that he understood the “gender and power dynamic” taking place with this project, and that there was something to be noted about one male director asking two female actresses to be incredibly vulnerable on stage. Admittedly, I hadn’t even given it any thought, and the speech sounded so token private liberal arts college. The only thought that ran through my head was, “yup, I’m at Macalester.” I’m not sure I really bought it. In fact, it made me a little uncomfortable.

As did reading this article in the New York Times a couple weeks ago:

...uhh.....

So, as is expected, I was a little apprehensive about the Anti Oppression discussion we had last Thursday for Summer of Solutions. The theme was gender and sexuality. I’m going to go ahead and make a blog-style confession: I consider myself an ardent feminist, but these conversations make me uneasy. I’m fine with yelling about female power, seeing the Vagina Monologues, or talking about gender in politics for a class, but when I’m asked to admit that I, as a woman, am inherently in a position of less priviledge, less entitlement, and institutionalized oppression, makes me nauseous. I guess the same thing can be said about me being an ethnic minority, but I often regard being a Pakistani American Muslim as a transitioning identity – sometimes I’m on the receiving end of racism, sometimes I’m surrounded by people who consider me to be “white.”

In any case, while I wanted to hear these issues being discussed, I hesitate to be labeled as a “have-not” which is inherent in the activity we were about to do. We began by creating “gender boxes” which described all the framework of conduct, appearance, and demeanor within which contemporary societal values have placed each of the genders. So, for men, “appropriate” characteristics are being aggressive, having a tremendous sex drive, and being hairy. For women, we listed things like being attractive, timid, and a follower.

We went on to examine specific instances during the summer where we’ve felt very “aware of our gender.” I suppose this is where the conversation got the most intense.

I have a fear, a real and consistent fear, that I will be demeaned or harassed because of my gender when I’m communicating with partners or community members we’re working with. And I’ve never really admitted it. But this conversation kind of forced me to confess that it was there, because other girls in the room were willing to admit the same thing. Honestly, it was really difficult. What was worse is that I didn’t leave the conversation feeling like I had discovered a solution to the problem, but more like I reached a dead end because this is simply the way things are. I didn’t really have any revelations about what I can do to solve this, except to recognize that it exists and to negate those thoughts when they come into my head.

I did leave this anti oppression session thinking about the list of potential solutions for a “wonderful, genderful summer!” that myself and my fellow Summer of Solutions participants came up with. The one most applicable to me? Recognizing that fear when it comes in my head, because if I don’t negate it the moment it approaches, nobody else will.

Heavy business to think about! And I just wanted to volunteer for a summer! I'm still glad that SoS is forcing me to think about these things – I’ve found that this kind of insight doesn’t come from meditating on my own about these issues. That’s what the core of anti-oppression means: conversation.

MidSummer Slump?!

My sincerest apologies for not posting for a couple days; the SoS folks have been really busy during this first month as our projects have gotten under way. I spent all of last Wednesday working on community gardens with the Harrison Neighborhood Association, one of our community partners in North Minneapolis. A couple other SoS volunteers and myself worked on "beautifying" the gardens by planting flowers around the beds. At one point, though, I found myself questioning the allocation of funds towards flowers when the main concern in this part of Minneapolis is food security. It didn't really make sense to me that the HNA would be spending their money on aesthetics when there are people to be fed. In my past research and work on Urban Agriculture, I considered this to be the primarily goal of community gardening, so I was a little dismayed at this effort.
After a couple hours of early morning work, the plants were all in the soil, and the garden we were working on looked infinitely different. AND THAT'S WHERE I HAD AN EPIPHANY.

Not really. Part of my understanding of this effort is that we need to prioritize our goals, and I will always consider food security to be a primary goal. However, I did come to a realization about the targets we set, and I may be looking at things the wrong way. Certainly, it's easy to arrange them in a list: task 1, task 2, task 3. But, something I've noticed about community development is that it's integrative. A beautified garden - in this case, HNA's Gramercy "Perennial Peace Garden" - is communicating something about the community wide values that go hand in hand with goals like food security and job creation. The work that we did on the garden was in order to create a useful, beautiful, valuable green space for the residents of a community that is considered a "food desert" because of the lack of fresh produce available. In this case, I guess I came to the realization that the goals that seem less "concrete" than food security are just as important because they nourish the community values (pun intended!) necessary for development on a wider scale.

Here's a photo!

This is the HNA's Logan Garden in North Minneapolis. We spent a lot of time putting compost on the beds and staking up tomatoes and beans on Wednesday.



Most of the rest of last week, I was working on research for the ARISE coalition, our partner for Green Industry. At this point in the summer, it's pretty easy to drown under the workload and focus on specific tasks rather than the overall vision that brought me here. This week especially, I found myself stressing about making specific contacts and completing mini projects. I had a moment on Wednesday night where I was looking online for information about year round farming techniques on industrial sites, and began to panic that this work was futile and never would be realistically implemented.
For ARISE, we're trying to compile a template that can be used for re developing industrial sites into multiple use green manufacturing centers. The sites will include residential space, commercial space, food production, industrial buildings, transportation, and a slew of other really awesome things. The only glitch is, this tremendous undertaking can be a little intimidating at times. I suppose I was starting to feel that my rudimentary Google search of "green roof job creation" wasn't going to take us anywhere. Which is a legitimate concern, I think.
It wasn't until Thursday morning's meeting when we reanalyzed our goals that I felt a little more stable about this effort. I suppose one of my main concerns is getting bogged down in the semantics of each project, and losing sight of the ultimate goal. ARISE has our eyes on a few sites throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul, and we've made contacts in relation to each one. We've been speaking to city council members and other political entities. Everyone has completed a ton of research up until this point. In short, we are making amazing progress for a project that was allocated only 2 months of our time.

So, moral of the story: the Midsummer Slump has probably been hitting SoS volunteers all over the place, but I think handling it is just a matter of considering the integrative effort we're laying down while we're here. And, of course, the long term goal of changing the world. Probably something to be excited about.