Back in the day, marriage was all a woman should hope and dream for. By not marrying, a woman was not living up to her biological and societal destiny, and these unfortunate women were marked with terms like spinster and old maid. While life as a bachelorette is much more acceptable nowadays, the enjoyment of the bouquet toss has swung in the opposite direction. Tiny high heels suddenly become immovable weights and the ladies begrudgingly bring themselves into the singles spotlight.

On the dance floor, the gathered women represent a perfect blend of the mixed messages we receive about relationships and self-confidence. Women are trained to envy the bride, to desire the ring on her finger. The bouquet is just a superstition promising the one who catches it an express lane to the altar, leaving the remainder of the group still single and branded the “losers.” The bouquet reinforces the idea that singlehood is undesirable, and that marriage will allow a woman to feel complete.

There are those, however, who feign interest in catching the bouquet when they, in truth, do not want to be ‘next in line.’ Then why get up to catch it? It’s hard to say no when Great Aunt Ida forces you to go because she wants great, great nieces and nephews, but there’s still an inherent pressure imbued in the event itself to act like a relationship is the ultimate personal goal or to downplay your enjoyment of voluntary singlehood.  At a wedding on Sex and the City, the ladies watched the bouquet fall to their feet, made no effort to catch it and simply walked away. This may not be practical in real life at the risk of offending the bride on her special day, but nonetheless, it was a powerful statement to the change in times and the freedom for women to set their own destiny.

The wedding rulebook appears to be final and official, yet what people seem to misunderstand is that they can play wedding games however they wish. Toss the bouquet if you want, but make sure it celebrates something that doesn’t awkwardly isolate guests or reinforce repressive ideals of the past. The traditional bouquet toss no longer represents current lifestyles and relationship ideas. Forego it all together or consider modernizing it by celebrate being a woman – married, dating and single, reinforcing the idea that a woman should be strong and independent regardless of her status. The modern version of the toss should make these qualities known. Play the game according to your own rules, and make it something women would be proud to be a part of.

The Violence Against Women Act was signed by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994.  This act was drafted by the office of Senator Joe Biden who now serves as the Vice President of the United States. George W. Bush signed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) into law in 2006, and it will be up for re-authorization in 2011. Acts of violence, both physical and sexual, have been perpetuated against women throughout history. As noted by the National Organization on Women, the VAWA was the “the greatest breakthrough in civil rights for women in two decades.” The VAWA provided $1.6 billion to enhance investigation and prosecution of cases involving violence against women. The VAWA also increases pre-trial detention of offenders, imposed mandatory and automatic restitution to victims and created other civil redress reform programs. This Act has surely endeavored to help protect women in a world that can be a dangerous and cruel place.

The Office of Violence Against Women is an office in the United States Department of Justice dedicated to the cause of the VAWA. On March 8, the Department of Justice launched a unique program to tour college campuses around the United States to educate students on acts of violence against women. As a recent college graduate, I think that this program is necessary and will impact students who may not be able to fully identify sexually violent acts. Most young people conceive of sexual violence as only being an act of rape. However, sexual violence also takes place in situations where the perpetrator is coercing the victim into participating in sexual acts. Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli “kicked off” this college tour to educate young college students about the severity of sexual crimes but more importantly, how to report these criminal acts.

The fact that the Department of Justice is launching such a program indicates that there is something seriously off kilter on our college campuses. A 2005 study by the Department of Justice found that most colleges are dealing with federal regulation in regards to sexual violence differently. Most victims may perhaps be afraid to come forward with reporting such acts because of a fear of retaliation or ostracism from one’s peers. The study by the Department of Justice also found that anonymous reporting was only available as an option at less than half of U.S. universities and colleges.

According to the Department of Justice, 60% of sexually violent acts against women often take place in the residence of the victim. That tells us that the perpetrators may have a friendly relationship with the victim or her suite mates and roommates. Perhaps, the cavalier atmosphere of just being friendly with everyone may lead to the perpetrators having access to the victims room to begin with. Statistics of this study also show that  31% of sexually violent acts took place in some sort of living quarters. This means that more than a quarter of victims of sexual assault were victimized in a living space. College dorms are not as safe as they may be perceived to be. The percentage of rapes that took place at a fraternity house was 10.3%.

In the movie Higher Learning featuring Ice Cube, Tyra Banks, and a whole cast of great characters, portrays the truth of violence, reckless abandon, and chaos that accompanies the freedom of college life. College can be liberating in some respects but it can be dangerous in other regards. This step on behalf of ending Violence Against Women is phenomenal. Young college women are being protected by this program and will hopefully curb sexual violence. At the very least, young women with the benefit of attending this program will learn how to protect themselves and how to report such a heinous crime as sexual assault.

Below is a schedule of this college campus tour. If you’re in one of these towns, please check it out:

March 8, 2010
Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli at Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.)

March 9, 2010
Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli at Brown University (Providence, R.I.)

March 10, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Tony West at Stanford University (Palo Alto, Calif.)

March 11, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Tony West at Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, Wash.)

March 12, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division Ignacia S. Moreno at University of Illinois at Chicago (Chicago)

March 15, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer at University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)

March 23, 2010
Acting Director of the Office on Violence Against Women Catherine Pierce at East Central University (Ada, Okla.)

March 23, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Tony West at Norfolk State University (Norfolk, Va.)

March 29, 2010
Director of the Community Oriented Police Services Program Bernard K. Melekian at University of Southern California (Los Angeles)

March 29, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs Ronald Weich at University of New Hampshire (Durham, N.H.)

March 31, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs Laurie O. Robinson at University of Minnesota (Minneapolis)

March 31, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division Ignacia S. Moreno at University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Mich.)

Please stay involved in our Herstory Month Series!

Hawaii’s Queen

The Herstory of Somaly Mam

What it takes to make a modern woman

The Bonnie Behind Clyde

The Herstory of the Taj Mahal

The Herstory of Madame Mao

Is it still a man’s job to approach a woman?

Women complimenting other women

My life was so boring til’ I started whoring-NA

Rewriting Madams back into Herstory

Other Posts by Eryn:

Human Trafficking Domestic and Abroad

Black History’s Leading Literary Lady

Making a Madam

Burning Black Wall Street

The Black Panther Party For Self Defense

In the name of Science…

Intelligence of Interference? COINTELPRO and the Black Panther Party

“How they sold Marcus Garvey for rice”-LH

Trippin on X

Yes you’re a woman…just a different kind

Justin Bua and Urban Realism

And then there was hip hop

Vote to Discontinue Black History Month

So Soulful

Black and Gay? No Way!

Colored People’s Time

Where’s my Forty Acres and a Mule

Too black to be white, too white to be black

I don’t date outside my species!

Caging the Khosian Woman

Branding the Black Woman

Savagely Celebrating the Negro National Anthem

Awakening A’Lelia Walker

I think married people should be treated fairly. They should not be stereotyped, stigmatized, discriminated against, or ignored. They deserve every bit as much respect as single people do.

I can imagine a world in which married people were not treated appropriately, and if that world ever materialized, I would protest. Here are a few examples of what I would find offensive:

• When you tell people you are married, they tilt their heads and say things like “aaaawww” or “don’t worry honey, your turn to divorce will come.”
• When you browse the bookstores, you see shelves bursting with titles such as If I’m So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Married and How to Ditch Your Husband After Age 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School.
• Every time you get married, you feel obligated to give expensive presents to single people.
• When you travel with your spouse, you each have to pay more than when you travel alone.
• At work, the single people just assume that you can cover the holidays and all of the other inconvenient assignments; they figure that as a married person, you don’t have anything better to do.
• Single employees can add another adult to their health care plan; you can’t.
• When your single co-workers die, they can leave their Social Security benefits to the person who is most important to them; you are not allowed to leave yours to anyone – they just go back into the system.
• Candidates for public office boast about how much they value single people. Some even propose spending more than a billion dollars in federal funding to convince people to stay single, or to get divorced if they already made the mistake of marrying.
• Moreover, no one thinks there is anything wrong with any of this.

Married people do not have any of these experiences, of course, but single people do. People who do not have a serious coupled relationship (my definition – for now – of single people) are stereotyped, discriminated against, and treated dismissively. This stigmatizing of people who are single – whether divorced, widowed, or ever-single — is the 21st century problem that has no name. I’ll call it singlism.

What you just read was the opening section of my book, Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After. I’ve been studying singlism, matrimania (the over-the-top hyping of marriage and weddings and coupling), and single life for more than a decade. I’m a social scientist and when I see claims about getting married in the media, I want to know whether they are true. To find out, I go straight to the journals and read the original research reports. Get married and live happily ever after? Not according to the studies that meet the highest standards. Get married and become lastingly healthier? Not true either.

I was stunned when I first discovered that the widely-disseminated claims about the implications of getting married were not actually true. Before I started doing research on the topic (previously, I used to focus primarily on the psychology of lying), I just assumed that the conventional wisdom was accurate. But it’s not, as I explain in Singled Out. Of course, since that book was published, the studies just keep coming. So I check out each new headline, to see whether the latest study really does show that marriage transforms poor miserable single people into blissfully happy and healthy couples. Still hasn’t happened.

When I mention singlism to someone for the first time, I often get a dismissive response. I can understand why. There is a level of viciousness to some of the other isms such as racism or heterosexism that does not characterize singlism. But look again at the list of hypotheticals above. If married people really were treated in those ways, how long do you think it would take before the protests would begin?

Singlism is not just a matter of condescension toward singles, though there is that. Singles, for example, have less access to health care than married people do. They can’t be covered on another person’s plan, as married people can. They cannot take time off to care for a sibling or a close friend under the Family and Medical Leave Act, and neither siblings nor close friends can take time off to care for them. In your own generation, only a spouse qualifies. I think that counts as discrimination, and it’s all legal.

In addition to studying single life, I’m a practitioner. I’m 56 years old and I’ve always been single. Except for all of the singlism and matrimania, I love being single. I’ve been talking about singles in contemporary society in Singled Out, Single with Attitude: Not Your Typical Take on Health and Happiness, Love and Money, Marriage and Friendship, my Living Single blog at Psychology Today, and my contributions to the Huffington Post. I look forward to sharing more stories and observations about single life, calling out others for their singlism, staking my claims about the way things should be, and contributing to many other conversations here at Conducive Chronicle. Your comments and questions are always welcome.

As I’ve discussed in previous posts, a widely held misconception is that men are responsible for holding women against their will in brothels. However, I have found that women are also  in fact running the brothels that are sexploitating so many helpless victims around the world. When I thought about this, I was so perplexed. “What sort of woman could do that to a fellow woman or child?” I asked myself. And so I went on a small venture to study famous madams across history who have made a living by selling sex. Some of these women have fascinating stories. Although their “success”  is in a profession that some may conceive as reproachable, madams are an important part of women’s herstory. These women have established businesses for themselves and generated revenues for other women at times when women were restricted to jobs as house servants, washerwomen, and seamstresses. As I have investigated some of history’s most fascinating madams, I must admit that even if achieved under scrupulous circumstance, these madams were strong and very powerful women.

As we embark on a small voyage to discover what it means to be a madam, it is only fitting to begin our quest in the Crescent City otherwise known as New Orleans. New Orleans was a city that was built on the backs of “loose lady” citizens and wayward sailor denizens. In the 19th century, red-light districts were founds in most cities of the United States. As our forefathers were discovering the West, ladies of the evening headed in the same direction to earn their keep in brothels, shacks, and other houses for “ill-reputed women.” But as author Al Rose tells us in the book Storyville, New Orleans, the Big Easy was home to the only legalized red-light district in the U.S. Rose’s book continues to uncover the truth that King Louis XIV and Louis XV were actually the ones responsible for shipping women of ill-repute to marry colonists of New Orleans. From the beginnings of its settlement, prostitution was a ubiquitous vice of the city.

Law-makers were unable and perhaps unwillingly to quell the rancor of New Orleans red light district. Sidney Story was the politician who wrote the legislation to delegate a section of the city where prostitutes could live and work. Al Rose’s book goes on to explain that the legislation by the City Council did not “legalize” prostitution per say. But, it did allow for the section of the city around Basin Street to be a contained center of lascivious practice. Outside of the parameters set by legislation, prostitution was not allowed. Probably to his dismay, the red light district of New Orleans would be called Storyville after Sidney Story. Storyville is the first and only example of a legally sanctioned section of a city in the United States that was permitted for such activities to take place within it’s boundaries. Storyville would see the rise and fall of successful madame’s such as Hattie Hamilton, Kate Townsend, Minnie HaHa, Josie Arlington, and Emma Johnson. Rose’s book credits Kate Townsend with adding the element of luxury to sporting houses in Storyville.

Of course, wherever there are illicit activities, crime and danger will surely follow. Storyville was perhaps one of the most dangerous places in U.S. history. 800 murders took place on Basin Street from 1820-1850. Human trafficking even took place in New Orleans most notably by Spanish Agnes at 98 Burgundy Street during the earlier days of prostitution in the Big Easy. In Al Rose’s book, he speaks of a Mary Thompson who used her cigar store to ”procure” young virgins. The women who ran these bordellos, whorehouses, and brothels had to be incredibly adept and well connected in order to not be consumed by the mire of Storyville life. What characteristics and survival mechanisms did these women posses to stay afloat during such tumultuous and reckless times?

To answer this question I turn to Karon Abbot’s book Sin in the Second City. Her book is a historical account of two of the U.S.’s most acclaimed madams, the Scarlet Sisters Everleigh. Minna and Ada Everleigh were the women wonders who conquered Chicago’s Levee District with their world renown Everleigh Club. The appeal of having a high class madam such as these was attracting the clientele the wealthy to the Everleigh brothel. If you’re going to be a lady of the evening, why not be a classy one? A quote in Abbot’s book from one of the sisters commenting on choosing the life of a madam reads something like: “It’s better to create the fantasy of someone else than living in one…” As Kate Townsend of New Orleans, the Everleigh sisters encouraged their high-class clientele to establish credit accounts. Their system of checking credit was as efficient as the modern day credit bureau although calculated by illegitimate means writes Al Rose.

The Everleigh sisters attracted clientele such as the King of Prussia who began the fad of drinking champagne from a woman’s shoe. Everleigh girls were schooled in the works of Balzac, proper grooming, presentation, and all other aspects of being “a lady”. Girls were banging down the door to work for the Everleigh sisters. There was no real competition with other madams although underhanded antics by the likes of a Madame Vic Shaw would annoy the sisters. Using prowess, shrewdness, and sheer genius, women like Minna and Ada Everleigh and their contemporary madams survived the culture of whoring.

They boasted famed bordellos with exquisite decor and all the girls dressed impeccably. It was an honor to be considered an Everleigh girl. The security of working for a high-end madam was the safety from street life, abusive madams and sketchy clients. The appeal of madams such as Minna and Ada were their efforts to refine their ladies. In a profession considered so vile, they endeavored to esteem it to its highest regard. With connections to underworld bosses and city politicians, the sisters operated for several years and won world-wide acclaim. Their legacy still lives in our culture today. The term getting “laid” can be drawn back to the common phraseology of their clientele. Visitors of Chicago with superior social standing would proclaim: “I’m getting Everleigh-ed tonight”. That eventually was shortened as people now saying: “I’m getting laid tonight.” Abbot’s book explains how New York City became known as the Big Apple. Apparently, a prestigious madam by the name of Eve attracted her clientele by advertising the “apple bottoms” of her girls. Hence, people would traverse to New York for a bite of one of Eve’s “big apples”.

I find the work of these women to be incredibly fascinating. On the one hand, I feel that madams subjected women horribly. However, on the other hand I realize that prostitution was and remains a tangible reality. These women were strong enough to shelter girls, refine them, and offer them a glimpse at a lifestyle that would have been unthinkable otherwise. Most girls could never dream of learning to read and write, never mind quoting Balzac and maintaining intelligent conversation.

Madams like the ones mentioned economically empowered themselves albeit by illegal means. Even if their practice was immoral in several respects, should we still credit these madams for protecting their girls from the evils outside of their bordello and brothel walls? Are madams completely evil and should they be stricken from Women’s Herstory as they mostly have been? Or should we attempt to study the past of these women (many were prostitutes) to discover why they would perpetuate the cycle of what most would identify as sexual violence? Knowing what the life of a whore brought, why would they encourage, coerce, and maintain women and young girls in keeping the same sort of lifestyle?

Please stay involved in our Herstory Month Series!

Hawaii’s Queen

The Herstory of Somaly Mam

What it takes to make a modern woman

The Bonnie Behind Clyde

The Herstory of the Taj Mahal

The Herstory of Madame Mao

Is it still a man’s job to approach a woman?

Women complimenting other women

My life was so boring til’ I started whoring-NA

Other Posts by Eryn:

Human Trafficking Domestic and Abroad

Black History’s Leading Literary Lady

Making a Madam

Burning Black Wall Street

The Black Panther Party For Self Defense

In the name of Science…

Intelligence of Interference? COINTELPRO and the Black Panther Party

“How they sold Marcus Garvey for rice”-LH

Trippin on X

Yes you’re a woman…just a different kind

Justin Bua and Urban Realism

And then there was hip hop

Vote to Discontinue Black History Month

So Soulful

Black and Gay? No Way!

Colored People’s Time

Where’s my Forty Acres and a Mule

Too black to be white, too white to be black

I don’t date outside my species!

Caging the Khosian Woman

Branding the Black Woman

Savagely Celebrating the Negro National Anthem

Awakening A’Lelia Walker

And what does the Farm Sanctuary have to do with minimizing clutter and manifesting abundance you ask?  Quite a bit actually.  For starters, I took time off over the weekend to decompress.  Haven’t done that in a long while.  I could feel myself breathing again.  Simply stepping away from my computer for 48 hours helped me minimize the noisy clutter inside my head so that I could maximize some space in my soul.  And it worked!  Hanging out with rescued farm animals has a ginormous healing effect on the spirit.  I will be writing more about those lovely beings in my next Souljourn, 21 Days for World Hunger, starting on March 20, 2010.

And then during the final day of this Souljourn, I dedicated a few hours to rounding up all the collected clutter and dispersing of it accordingly.

I started with Freecycle.  Let me state for the record that I love Freecycle.  If you haven’t tried it yet, you are in for a treat.  Anything you need or anything you need to get rid of – the Freecycle network is your source.  Free, by the way, means there is no exchange of money.  Two years ago my best friend was visiting and needed a portable playpen for her baby.  Instead of our purchasing one or instead of her lugging one on an airplane, I checked out Freecycle and a complete stranger lent me one for eight days.  Just like that.  I see all kinds of things on Freecycle like Two Cinder Blocks – taken, or worm bins, or thermal undies.  Seriously, check it out!  My husband and I gave several things through Freecycle including an old vanity and mirror…I mean old.

So, I have an unusually large collection of stickers for an adult woman (still holding onto my 30 year old Mad Magazine stickers…just can’t seem to let those babies go).  I used to put stickers in scrapbooks and always had some on hand for the little ones in my life.  I decided it was time to clear them out.  I posted on Freecycle suggesting how they could best be used by a teacher.  Within one hour I started getting responses.  Turns out there are a lot of teachers who could use supplies, but that’s probably not a surprise to many of you.  I divided up the stickers for two different teachers.  I removed the Offer on Freecycle but not before several more emails came through.  One read something to the effect of:

My grandmother has Alzheimer’s Disease, and I send her cards and letters with tons of stickers.  She really enjoys the animals and flowers and anything a child would admire if you still have any stickers.

Another woman asked if she could take the stickers to her daughter’s kindergarten teacher who buys his own supplies.  She added:

The teachers are expected to do great things for the children but there’s no budget for the supplies. Teachers don’t get paid enough as it is and I think it’s really unfair.

With each email, my heart was hurting.  How is it possible that we live in a society where underpaid teachers have to purchase their own supplies?  I ended up spending more time sifting through my art supplies.  As a former art therapist and a current fine artist, I have loads of supplies.  Even some of the adult leadership development sessions I facilitate in the business world involve using art media for various team building projects.  I landed with three large boxes of supplies and more stickers for the gal who has a grandma with Alzheimer’s.  In addition to the stickers, I gave away a big bag of candles (old and new) and party blowers on Freecycle.  Everything was picked up or dropped off within 24 hours of the first post.  Freecycle…Yes!

I love Craigslist too, but I find Freecycle to be much faster if you’re giving things away.  Craigslist is especially useful if you want to monetize your stuff.  I have sold and purchased many items over the years with my bud Craig.

I also plan to use Ebay for the first time.  I have an engagement ring from a former life.  It’s a special ring – one of a kind – from France.  My ex was French and his uncle owned a jewelry store in Paris in which most of the rings were individually designed.  Anyone interested?

I’ll be donating a few office supply items to Natural Bridges State Beach.  As some may know, California Parks have taken a huge hit with the budget crisis, so they can use all the help one can give.

I have one broken electronic item that I will take to a local place called Grey Bears.  Along with many household items, they accept anything with a cord to recycle or reuse.

While many second hand stores will not take bedding items, your local shelter may.  Be sure to check this out before putting any textiles in your garbage.  In 2007, Americans put 7 million tons of clothing and footwear into landfills.  Let me repeat, 7 million tons.  That’s 14,000,000,000 pounds.  That’s like a billion gazillion. And outside of organic cotton, hemp and bamboo fibers, clothing and shoes take a long time (more than a hundred years for some articles) to breakdown and/or adds toxins to the earth.  But most importantly (opinion alert), there’s no reason to put something in the earth if someone on the earth has a use for it.

I came across a bottle of old prescription medication and some expired cough syrup while clearing out a cabinet.  They will be deposited at a local pharmacy.  Please don’t put your expired meds down the sink.  I really don’t want to be drinking a glass of serotonin re-uptake inhibitor water.  I like my serotonin levels just as they are.

Just before leaving to deposit the bulk of my items at Goodwill, I found myself making one last ditch effort running wildly around the house, grabbing items (ya know, the stuff I was on the fence about) and impulsively throwing them in a bag.  I was making these split-moment decisions and feeling lighter and lighter.  Someone is going to score some great stuff.  At the beginning of this Souljourn, I committed to giving away 21 items that I’ve been holding onto.  Sooooo…there was one bump in the process.  My husband, who is not one to hold onto things, actually had me pull out those two glass candle holders with the suns (see photo).  It didn’t take much to convince me they had to be pulled from the donation pile.  And still, I gave away about 100 items (not including thousands of stickers) overall.

A sample of my de-cluttering

Reuseful Options for Your Old Clothes

• Besides the Goodwill and Salvation Army, there are plenty of options for clothes and shoes de-cluttering.  Ever try a Clothes Swap?  Clothes Swaps are chickalicious!  I’ve participated in a few.  In exchange for letting go of old clothes, you can pick up some new (to you) stuff too.
• Check out some of the other second hand stores in your area.  Ever been to a Buffalo Exchange?  Fun.  Very cool vintage clothing, but they are picky about what they take.  The good news is you get paid on the spot.
• Many towns have consignment stores.  They pay you a percentage (about 30-50% of sales) after they have sold your items.
• Check out Earth911’s Eight Ways to Reuse Your T-shirt
• GreenYour shows a list of links for recycling various types of clothing and shoes including formal dresses for underprivileged girls and maternity/baby clothes.  The organizations they list are mostly charities and are doing good things in the world.

But What About those Really Tattered Clothes?

 I am one of those people who will wear my clothes until they are so stretched, holey or stained that they become an embarrassment – to themselves of course.  I don’t mind at all.  I have found other ways of reusing these items after they have lived a full life.  Sure, we all know about cutting old t-shirts and using old socks for cleaning.  I don’t think I’ll ever be at a loss for rags.  But there are other ways to reuse as well:  stuffing for pillows, bedding for puppies, homemade stuffed animals, putting old t-shirts over car seats, rags for painting, polishing, and making art.  Give your kids some old clothes and watch the magic emerge.  Add some fabric paint to the mix and let their creativity soar.  Kids can make all kinds of amazing creations with your old stuff.  I remember entertaining myself for an entire summer with one refrigerator box.  I was thirty-seven.

If you recall from just a few paragraphs ago that several gazillion pounds of clothing and shoes end up in US landfills annually.  I think it’s important that Americans realize the environmental impact of the clothing industry and the contribution we can make to minimize the damage.  EHP (Environmental Health Perspectives) has an article entitled Waste Couture.

In brief summary, the article Waste Couture makes some of the following points:

• Each step of the clothing production process carries the potential for an environmental impact.  Conventionally grown cotton, one of the most popular clothing fibers, is also one of the most water and pesticide-dependent crops (a view disputed by Cotton Incorporated, a U.S. cotton growers’ group).
• According to the EPA Office of Solid Waste, Americans throw away more than 68 pounds of clothing and textiles per person per year (that changes the original number to 21,000,000,000 pounds).
• Before the 1920’s most clothing was repaired, mended, or tailored to fit other family members, or recycled within the home as rags or quilts. During WWI, The government’s conservation campaign used slogans such as “Make economy fashionable lest it become obligatory” and resulted in an approximate 10% reduction in the production of trash.
• During WWII, the production and consumption of many household goods, including clothing, grew by 10–15% and continues to expand to this day.
• The biggest impacts for increasing sustainability in the clothing industry rests with the consumer.  Using detergents that work well at lower temperatures and that don’t cause harm the environment extends the usable life of garments, purchasing fewer and more durable garments, and recycling these garments into the used clothing market or into other garment and non-garment products all would contribute to increasing sustainability.

Some Goodwill Stores and Salvation Army stores will take your tattered and battered clothing and resell those items to rag sorters such as Global Clothing Industry.  I highly recommend you first call to ensure the stores in your area do this.  The local Goodwill in my area does not.  As a result, any torn or unusable items donated to that store end up in the landfill – not good for the earth and not good for the Goodwill’s budget; it costs them beaucoup bucks to dispose of those things.  I have been working on a personal mission of not contributing to landfills, so it is worth every effort I can make to uphold that effort.

Other options for your torn, stained and unwearable clothing items:

• Contact your local animal shelters.  They may take certain items – especially old towels.
• Check out local quilting associations to see if they can make use of your textile goods.
• U’SAgain divides your used textile items into different categories and handles them accordingly.  Supposedly nothing ends up in landfills.  Those clothes that cannot be sent to second hand stores are turned into cloth for other purposes.  Some clothing items are sent to Guatemala, Chile, Africa or Mexico to be resold.  Check the website to see if there is a drop box near you.
• Planet Aid is another organization that can turn your rags into riches (for others).  Planet Aid is committed to helping poor and disadvantaged citizens of the Earth improve their lives and the lives of future generations. They support people and communities in the poorest regions of the world through projects addressing health, education, food production, and income generation.  See if there is a drop box near you.
• The article How to Recycle Virtually Anything offers loads of solutions for unloading your junk…err goods.  Granted, some of the solutions are specific to the south-bay area of San Francisco, yet many are nationwide.  I will offer some additional recycling ideas in a future Souljourn.
• Check out SMART (Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles) located in Bel Air, Maryland.  SMART’s vision is to reduce solid waste by reclaiming, converting, and recycling textiles and secondary materials.  As an international trade association, SMART strengthens the economic opportunities of their diverse membership by promoting the interdependence of their industry segments and providing a common forum for networking, education, and trade.  SMART’s homepage offers all sorts of useful information about recycling items that your local waste company may not take.

If you’re looking for a local company that recycles or reuses old clothes or other textiles, go to SMART’s homepage.  About midway down on this page, you will see a box containing a photo of a woman and child.  Click the first link in that box entitled Consumers and Green Advocates.

On the right side, there is a widget to find a recycling center near you, for all kinds of items!

Just for kicks, I tired several different entries including medicine, batteries, tires, oil, household cleaners, paints, needles, and carpet.  Each time I saw a list of stores in my area that take those things for recycling.  The widget did not accept puppy or husband.  I guess there is not yet a big enough demand to recycle those items.

A Souljourn in Review

I met most of my goals for this journey.  I essentially stuck to the plan outside of the following three hiccups in the process:  1) I did not start a will with my husband, yet we will likely do that by the end of March.  2) I did not tackle the garage…spring project for sure and 3) I only recycled enough paper to fill up half a bin instead of a full bin.  I’ve been in the process of making my office paperless for some time, and while I am making progress; it’s slow going.

But wait!  Abundance!  The good stuff keeps rolling in.  While one part of me is not surprised that I have been receiving and continue to manifest abundance (that is, after all, what I set out to do), another part of me remains in awe that this stuff really works!  I think humans are much more connected to the energy of the universe than for what we give ourselves credit.  One of my intentions was to create some internal space by removing external (and yes, internal) clutter, thus allowing myself room to receive.  And receive I did and still am!

Some of the abundance came in the form of financial comfort through work opportunities.  It also showed up as re-connections with old friends.  Some abundance manifested as surprise gifts or words of support.  On each day of this journey I received something – even if it was a simple message from the universe.  And I believe there are signs everyday when I allow myself to see them.  A few times during this journey I was struggling and asking the universe (or whoever…) for signs that I was making the best decision or taking the most effective action; and almost immediately upon asking, I received a sign.  Twice during a conflict of transformation and while asking for a sign, Monarch butterflies flew in my path.  Could there possibly be a better sign of transformation?  I think not.

Sure, there could be many confounding reasons for seeing butterflies, and sure, this could seem all fuzzy wuzzy metaphysical BS to some.  That’s okay by me.  These are my signs, and I’m receiving them because I’ve chosen to do so.  They have meaning because I’ve chosen to give them meaning.  You do whatever you need to do with your signs – ignore, receive, create, or share.  Whatever you need to do.  Needless to say, if you’re looking to manifest some abundance, you may want to first take note of all the beauty that exists in your life.  Because receiving that kind of abundance is the easiest of all.

I now publicly bring this Souljourn to a close, yet it has not ended.  I intend to turn this experience into my transformational standard of life – a way of being. I will remain on the path and continue my work towards minimizing clutter (both the internal and external rubbish) and toward a sustained connection with my intentions.  And you, too, can create a reality that brings joy and fulfillment.  Yes, you too, can take a Souljourn of Abundance Manifestation.  Imagine yourself so empowered that creating an abundant reality is yours for the receiving.  And then imagine the ripple effect this abundance will have on those around you.  Take that ripple effect and imagine a world transformed.

Personal transformation can and does have global effects.  As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.
- Marianne Williamson

The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it.
- Marcus Aurelius

If you’d like to follow this journey from the beginning, the links below will direct you to all the posts in this series.

Souljourn for the Mind, Spirit and Earth: 21 Day Missions

Souljourn for the Mind, Spirit and Earth: Day 1 of Minimizing Clutter and Manifesting Abundance

Souljourn for the Mind, Spirit and Earth: Days 2 – 5 of Minimizing Clutter and Manifesting Abundance

Souljourn for the Mind, Spirit and Earth: Days 6 – 9 of Minimizing Clutter and Manifesting Abundance

Souljourn for the Mind, Spirit and Earth: Days 10 –12 of Minimizing Clutter and Manifesting Abundance

Souljourn for Mind, Spirit and Earth: Day 13 Minimize Clutter Manifest Abundance

Souljourn for Mind, Spirit and Earth: Days 14 – 18 Minimize Clutter Manifest Abundance

Carol Leigh, better known as the “Scarlot Harlot” is an activist, film-maker, and prostitute. She has worked with the COYOTE organization and coined the phrase “sex work” in the late seventies during the sex workers equal rights movement. I learned about Carol’s work when I read the book Sex Work which is a collection of short stories, essays, and poems from women in the sex industry. The authors give their first-hand accounts doing sex work as exotic dancers, adult film entertainers, and some very “high-class whores”. Carol Leigh’s essay entitled Confession of a Priestitute has forever altered my view of sex work and what it means to go “whoring”.

In her essay Confession of a Priestitute, Carol provides the definition of prostitution as something like: “the selling of one’s goods for an unworthy cause.” There is no mention of an exchange of sex for money in this definition. I was very intrigued when I read this because I had always assumed that prostitution was nothing other than a hussy on the street corner turning tricks for some spare change. Carol’s article challenged everything that I “knew” about prostitution.

According to dictionary.com, the definition of prostitution is: “base or unworthy use, as of talent or ability.”  Carol said that prostitution is the exchange of one’s good for unworthy cause. This broad range of prostitution, as mentioned by Carol and dictionary.com, leaves many more women on the unfavorable side of “whoring”. Carol’s essay was so fascinating because she asserted that women working in companies that aren’t paying them enough for the great work that they provide, meet this definition of prostitution. How many of us get “pimped” by our bosses because we’re afraid we won’t be able to find work somewhere else? How many of us allow our dignity to be compromised by verbally abusive mangers because we’re trapped by our jobs? In other words, we have the service, they have the money. And according to the reasoning of Carol Leigh, folks like this are “prostituting” themselves.

At first, I wasn’t quite convinced by Carol’s argument. I felt like she was taking her definition of prostitution completely out of context. But as I read on, I slowly began to understand the argument that she was making. Carol challenged the idea that prostitution only happens in massage parlors and on street corners. The common scenario that most women find themselves is while out to dinner with a male suitor. On any date where a man pays for a woman’s meal and then spends the night with a woman, an unconventional form of prostitution has taken place suggests Carol. In many cases, the gentleman won’t go on a second or third date with the young lady, and she’ll be lucky if she gets a courtesy call the next day.

Though it goes against everything that every woman has learned in regards to dating or prostitution, there is some validity to Carol’s argument. An exchange is taking place and more specifically the exchange involves sex and dinner, drinks, and maybe some casual conversation. Carol further probes instances where women prostitute themselves for emotional connections or validation from their partners who they are “intimate” with. With dictionary.com’s definition of prostitution, these young women are partaking in an “unworthy use of their ability or talent”. Women who end dates where they were “treated” by the man who acted like a “gentleman” by paying, certainly were treated but not like the lady that they thought they were. For Carol, these women “are quite ready to start whoring”.

Throughout this Women’s Herstory Series, we have discussed sexploitation in depth. Sexploitation involves the coercion and forced participation of unwilling women, children, transgendered and other marginalized individuals in sex work. Some individuals involved in the debate about sex work may suggest that the efforts of women like Carol Leigh to decriminalize prostitution will actually work to eliminate a black market for buying sex.

I’m not sure if legalizing prostitution is the most suitable solution but decriminalizing prostitutes will give sex workers more protection under the law, access to services, and bring them out of the dark alleys and covert underworld of sex work. Grotesque sexploitation occurs under such dire conditions because of the laws that are in place to “protect” the good of the people. Who is being protected by these laws really? Prostitution is the oldest profession and will continue to exist whether it is found socially acceptable or not. Sex workers are set on the periphery of the socio-political agenda and yet their services are sought by people from all levels of the socio-economic strata. Even simply basing one’s opinion off of a fundamental public health concern may be substantial grounds to reanalyze conventional notions of sex work and workers.

In another essay of Sex Work, an essayist quotes a song that she was beginning to write. The lyric was: “My life was so boring til I started whoring.” As we see from Carol Leigh’s essay, “whoring” takes place under so many interesting circumstances. After considering the argument of Carol Leigh and reading the definition of prostitution provided by dictionary.com, do you recognize examples of “questionable” forms of prostitution around you?

Even if you aren’t exchanging your talent or ability for sex, are you exchanging them for love, affection, validation, or just to keep a “9-5″?

Has your view of prostitution changed?

On your next date, who will be paying for your meal regardless of if you go home together or not?

Please stay involved in our Herstory Month Series!

Hawaii’s Queen

The Herstory of Somaly Mam

What it takes to make a modern woman

The Bonnie Behind Clyde

The Herstory of the Taj Mahal

The Herstory of Madame Mao

Is it still a man’s job to approach a woman?

Women complimenting other women

Other Posts by Eryn:

Human Trafficking Domestic and Abroad

Black History’s Leading Literary Lady

Making a Madam

Burning Black Wall Street

The Black Panther Party For Self Defense

In the name of Science…

Intelligence of Interference? COINTELPRO and the Black Panther Party

“How they sold Marcus Garvey for rice”-LH

Trippin on X

Yes you’re a woman…just a different kind

Justin Bua and Urban Realism

And then there was hip hop

Vote to Discontinue Black History Month

So Soulful

Black and Gay? No Way!

Colored People’s Time

Where’s my Forty Acres and a Mule

Too black to be white, too white to be black

I don’t date outside my species!

Caging the Khosian Woman

Branding the Black Woman

Savagely Celebrating the Negro National Anthem

Awakening A’Lelia Walker

The U.S. census is coming up—the buzz is all over the media. Every time I turn on the TV I’m bombarded with commercials about the census being a “snapshot of America” and how important it is that I fill mine out.

On the radio this morning, I heard about a growing movement to check “Other” in the race category and write in “American”. Race shouldn’t matter, they say. The question itself is racist! Let the government know what you think by writing in “American”.

This is something that I would have agreed with without much thought five years ago. I am white, and I was raised by my mother who tried to teach me to not judge others on their appearance, to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and always to try put myself in another person’s shoes. Race wasn’t mentioned much in my family growing up; it was just an unspoken fact that everyone was accepted and equal. My sister’s best friend in school was black and my best friend for most of my life is Puerto Rican, and I never really put much thought that my best friend was a different race.   For most of my life, I thought that was the ideal way to raise a child. I considered myself “color-blind” and thought the world would soon be “post-racial” if it wasn’t already.

In the past couple of years, I’ve started educating myself about racism. From what I’ve learned, my paradigm has shifted completely. When I have kids, I want to teach them, like my mother did, to not judge others on appearance. But I also want to teach them about racism today. About subtle internalized racism, and about institutionalized racism. I don’t want my kids to be color-blind. I want them to see and appreciate all colors. I want them to know the history of the struggles of all people of color. I want them to be aware of their own privilege, to refuse to take advantage of it when they can, and to educate others about it.

Back to the census… It seems to me that the suggestion of filling in “American” for race is a very white suggestion. An attempt to be color-blind. It smacks of white privilege—of denial that racism still exists today. “Why ask for my race?” they say. “Race shouldn’t matter!” Try telling that to your black or Hispanic neighbor or coworker (if you haven’t surrounded yourself by whites). Go ahead. Walk up to them and say, “Your race doesn’t matter.” You are telling them that their identity doesn’t matter. That their struggles don’t matter. That their race doesn’t make any difference when they are applying for a job or an apartment.

Every person I found online arguing that you shouldn’t fill out your race on the census, or fill it out with “American”, is white. Do you think that’s a coincidence?

In the past, the information provided in the census has been used several times for evil purposes. In the 1940s, the names and addresses of Japanese-Americans were obtained from the census in order to displace them into concentration camps. When the census began, race was used to count black slaves as 3/5 of a person. These uses were truly evil. But (optimist that I am) I believe they are the exception. Your information is supposed to be kept confidential, and I believe it usually is.  However, your racial data is still used to create a picture of America and is basis for decision about how schools, towns, or groups of people will get federal funding.

Information is not inherently good or evil. Information is knowledge, it is power, and it can lead to wisdom and social change. The information compiled by the census tells us that the minority population is growing. It tells us that the percentage of multiracial Americans is growing. It tells us that more than one in four children under the age of 6 are being raised by at least one foreign-born parent.

When I receive my census form in the mail next week, I’m going to fill out my race. Because I’m not colorblind, and neither is the world. The U.S. is not post-racial yet, but the information provided by the census can help us get there.

Related Posts:

Cuban Contributions: Medics or Military?

Haiti & The Question of God

Haiti: Help is One Text Away: Updated

Haiti Needs Help

There are numerous misconceptions surrounding this new focus on human trafficking. Some of these misconceptions include that girls are only exploited by men for sex. But, brothel owners that are exploiting women are often owned and operated by women. The second misconception is that human trafficking is a foreign problem but it is something that takes place right in New York City and all over the U.S. Forced prostitution is not only imposed on women of Eastern Europe but on young girls and boys on every continent, in every country, in every city.

Carol Smolenski, the Executive Director of ECPAT, was the first of five panelists to speak at last night’s engagement. Her discussion focused primarily on American children who are trafficked and forced into sexual slavery. There are very few reliable sources of statistics on human trafficking, but she cited a study by UPENN that said 4,000 children in New York City are exploited by sex trafficking each year. Carol spoke about the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. This law is significant in the fight against human trafficking because it treats children forced into prostitution not as criminals, but as victims. Before this act, there was a widely held belief that young women on the street that were sold for sex were just “bad kids”. But, this new act ensures that these young women are entitled to services and treated as victims.

Carol also mentioned the ECPAT report entitled: Who is there to help us? This report discusses the fact that children are criminalized and punished when they are found prostituting themselves when in fact, they should be treated as victims. The road to prostitution of young girls is usually paved with some form of sexual abuse and neglect by the child’s family. There is also a “silence” around sexual abuse as mentioned by Carol. The abuse is unaddressed. Pimps prey on these young women and often use this line of reasoning: “You’ll give it up for free at home but you won’t accept money to get paid for it?” Pimps are mass manipulators and they pervert young children while preying off of their needs for love and affection. Carol referenced the wonderful organization G.E.M.S. based out of NYC and their film Very Young Girls as a source of information on domestic human trafficking and forced prostitution. Carol continued with mentioning the significance of the New York Safe Harbor for Exploited Children Act which was the first law of its kind to treat children under the age of 16 as victims and make them eligible for services.

The second panelist to speak was Jennifer Dreher from Safe Horizon. Jennifer’s contribution to the panel included an emphasis on victims of forced labor. Jennifer explained that New York City is one of the top three destinations for human trafficking in the U.S. There are 100,000 to 3 million people domestically trafficked each year. Reports show that up to 17,500 people are trafficked into the U.S. yearly. As mentioned by previous panelist Carol Smolenski, there are few accurate statistics on how many people are actually trafficked because of the clandestine nature of these operations.

Jennifer’s organization focuses on foreign born survivors trafficked in the U.S., explaining that human trafficking is so hard to identify and address because there are so many conflicting definitions of what human trafficking actually is. There is are various definitions under international law, a federal definition, individual state definitions– if parties can’t agree on what human trafficking actually is, how can they adequately address it? She continued to point out that the media “sensationalizes cases of human trafficking”. Most often, movies and documentaries may focus on one particular group of exploited people such as women from Eastern Europe who are held as sex slaves. Sex slavery is a a problem, but Jennifer estimates that as many as 60% of women who are trafficked into the U.S. as labor servants.But, these victims of forced labor are also subjected to sexual violence and physical torture on top of forced labor. Jennifer’s question to the attendees was: “How can you say if victims of sex trafficking have it worse than victims of labor trafficking if both groups are treated inhumanely?” Jennifer pointed out that service providers need to be focused in their outreach because human trafficking covers so many different issues, and organizations should be prepared to deal with each issue in a comprehensive manner. Also, Jennifer discussed the widely unaddressed issue of transgendered individuals in NYC who are forced to perform sex acts for survival.

Celhia de Lavarene, President of STOP, was the third panelist. Celhia is a French-born woman who worked in Bosnia as a political journalist. There she discovered two young girls tied to a bed with tape over their mouths. These two young girls had been missing from their parents for six months. Celhia gave a heart-felt speech about why human trafficking is such an important issue that requires a global response. Celhia explained that many children who are forced to work in brothels have been kidnapped by their parents. But, when men frequent the brothels, they just assume that these young children want to be there.

Celhia highlighted that human beings are mobile and victims are stationed in countries like Liberia only for a short time to be sent to places like the Philippines, Ukraine, and Egypt, going on to mention that human trafficking yields a 7 billion dollar profit annually in Bosnia. Because women can be sold over and over again, they are more profitable than guns and drugs, which can only be sold once. It is a more lucrative business than selling arms or other illicit substances. Shockingly, Celhia unveiled the reality that UN peacekeepers are sometimes clientele at these brothels that victimize young girls. UN peacekeepers have a certain level of immunity from the law. Hence, they go to brothels for sex with children and go unpunished for their actions. Her talk was ended with a sincere charge for all attendees to get involved in the fight of human trafficking in any way that they could.

Guy Jacobson was the fourth panelist in the evening’s discussion. He works very closely with Somaly Mam and has produced several documentaries, written books, and speaks with Somaly on panels across the world. Guy is currently a film maker but in his previous profession, he was an investment banker and attorney. While in Cambodia filming a documentary on child sex trafficking with Somaly Mam, Guy relieved phone calls from intelligence personnel warning him that there were death threats on his life from the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cambodian mafia. Making movies in Cambodia exposing their most lucrative business was not a wise move, Guy was warned. In order to continue with his documentary, Guy and Somaly had 40 armed body guards with machine guns.

Guy, like Somaly, emphasizes that because there is a demand for sex with children, there is a supply for this industry. Guy discussed his action in attacking the clientele of these brothels, who are sometimes prominent Western businessmen. Guy suggested making the industry of sex with children more expensive, making the punishments more severe for offenders who rape children, and he also suggested clarifying the law in regards to child trafficking.

As an attendee, the most moving part of Guys’ delivery was his use of the word “rape”. In most cases that I’ve witnessed in discussing child sexploitation, words such as trafficking and forced prostitution are used. When Guy used the word “rape”, it added a new bone-chilling element to what is happening across the world. Guy mentioned that if a child was a prisoner of war and was raped by military personal, it would be considered a violation of the Geneva Convention. Guy added that our governments would be taking serious action against these crimes. He stressed the need for the same reaction to be had when we learn that children in foreign countries are raped. Some of these children are raped 50 times in day..

After hearing all the panelists and eventually the words of Somaly Mam, I was evermore inspired to work with initiatives to stop this horrendous crime against humanity and these very young adults. Last to speak was Somaly Mam who has saved 6,000 children from brothels and has established the Somaly Mam Foundation. In the previous article on Somaly Mam, you can find the wise and life changing words of this woman. She encourages people everyone to get involved in the fight against human trafficking and to “empower victims” whenever we can.

Next month, the United Nations Association with be filming Guy Jacobsons’ documentary “Holly”. Tickets are $10.00 and you will need to R.S.V.P. on-line prior to the showing.

Other Posts by Eryn:

Hawaii’s Queen

The Herstory of Somaly Mam

What it takes to make a modern woman

The Bonnie Behind Clyde

The Herstory of the Taj Mahal

The Herstory of Madame Mao

Is it still a man’s job to approach a woman?

Black History’s Leading Literary Lady

Making a Madam

Burning Black Wall Street

The Black Panther Party For Self Defense

In the name of Science…

Intelligence of Interference? COINTELPRO and the Black Panther Party

“How they sold Marcus Garvey for rice”-LH

Trippin on X

Yes you’re a woman…just a different kind

Justin Bua and Urban Realism

And then there was hip hop

Vote to Discontinue Black History Month

So Soulful

Black and Gay? No Way!

Colored People’s Time

Where’s my Forty Acres and a Mule

Too black to be white, too white to be black

I don’t date outside my species!

Caging the Khosian Woman

Branding the Black Woman

Savagely Celebrating the Negro National Anthem

Awakening A’Lelia Walker

All women are beautiful in unique and undeniable ways. With the toxic level of  homophobia that still exists in our culture, it becomes uncomfortable when a woman wants to compliment another woman on her physical appearance. Unless two women are more than acquainted and have established a friendship, comments on attractiveness are often off-limits. This leaves women in a bind, because as we’re not acknowledging the beauty of another woman, we are not allowing others to acknowledge our beauty. It’s a vicious self-defeating cycle. But when does a friendly compliment cross the line? Is it okay for a woman to compliment another woman without being accused of hitting on her? 

As I discussed in my previous post about approachability, women leave the power in the hands of men to make them feel beautiful. If a woman is confronted by a male, she gets the message that she is desirable. However, a lot of women aren’t confronted by men for reasons absolutely unrelated to desirability. Most of these women are so desirable that it’s assumed they’re already taken. As human beings, we define ourselves in part by what other people think of us. But, if we’re not hearing from men that we’re beautiful, we need to hear it from other women.

As a woman, I find it hard not to notice the beauty in other women around me. I’ve always been friendly and outgoing. But as much as these characteristics have broken down many barriers, being friendly and outgoing has sometimes left me very misunderstood. Most of my close friends admire my ability to compliment their physique and physical attractiveness. One friend in particular has noted that it requires a sense of security in order to go out of one’s way to render a kind word to her fellow woman.

As noted in the article Is it still a man’s job to approach a woman?, there are still women who slowly self-destruct if they aren’t sought out for invites to dinner and “Can I get to know you?” conversations. How do we control for that? In a perfect world, a woman would have 100% self assurance no matter what affirmations or insults were thrown her way. However, we live in an imperfect world that floods us with unrealistic standards of beauty. So while the world is beating us down and telling us that every part of our face and body needs a little nip and tuck, we should be uplifting one another and recognizing the beauty that is not subject to a surgeon’s knife or an airbrush job.

Complimenting a woman can be very disappointing and very frustrating. Some women are bewildered by unsolicited comments on the appearance that they spent hours primping anyway. I have seen women walk right by men who are just saying that they look beautiful. I’ve been guilty of this myself. I have been on the receiving end of a woman looking at me like I have seven heads just because I said that I thought she was beautiful. I think that women who pass up these compliments are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Men will stop complimenting women if we just walk right by them or ignore the fact that someone is speaking to us. Meanwhile, women who compliment other women are afraid of false accusations of making sexual advances on those who they simply wanted to admire. Ultimately, we have created so many barriers to acknowledging something as fundamentally human as beauty, that we are in many ways bound not to declare beauty where it exists. Darkness is not a force in itself, it is simply an absence of light. Likewise, non-beauty is not a force in itself. It is simply the absence of someone bringing it to the surface. Whose job is it to bring this beauty to the surface? Instead of defacing or denying the exterior that we were born with, let’s embrace and not erase the beauty in our fellow women. My question to the readers are:

1.) If it’s important for a woman to hear that she’s beautiful and men aren’t saying it, why is it awkward for a woman to compliment another woman?

2.) Why does the question of sexual preference always creep in the back of a woman’s mind when another woman says she’s attractive?

3.) Have you ever complimented another woman that you’ve just seen in passing? Why or why not?

If you have any interesting answers to these questions, write something in the comments section.  I always read them.

Please stay involved in our Herstory Month Series!

Hawaii’s Queen

The Herstory of Somaly Mam

What it takes to make a modern woman

The Bonnie Behind Clyde

The Herstory of the Taj Mahal

The Herstory of Madame Mao

Is it still a man’s job to approach a woman?

Other Posts by Eryn:

Black History’s Leading Literary Lady

Making a Madam

Burning Black Wall Street

The Black Panther Party For Self Defense

In the name of Science…

Intelligence of Interference? COINTELPRO and the Black Panther Party

“How they sold Marcus Garvey for rice”-LH

Trippin on X

Yes you’re a woman…just a different kind

Justin Bua and Urban Realism

And then there was hip hop

Vote to Discontinue Black History Month

So Soulful

Black and Gay? No Way!

Colored People’s Time

Where’s my Forty Acres and a Mule

Too black to be white, too white to be black

I don’t date outside my species!

Caging the Khosian Woman

Branding the Black Woman

Savagely Celebrating the Negro National Anthem

Awakening A’Lelia Walker

We need to ease the load on the national power grid.

Some people did not regain power for two days later. Can you imagine what that experience must have been like for the millions of people who depend upon electricity to power a personal oxygen system or dialysis equipment? Personal wind power may not generate enough electricity in and of itself to power home medical equipment, but it can ease the load on the national grid system by powering our lights and appliances. However, is it feasible for a homeowner to invest the time, money and effort into installing a personal rooftop wind turbine?

Enter small wind.

Small wind is the term used to describe wind energy generated by individuals for their own residential, farm or small business use. Anyone owning at least an acre of real property in a rural or open suburban area has the space and, most likely, more governmental freedom to erect a standard 30 plus foot high wind turbine tower, but what about those of us who live in densely suburban or urban neighborhoods? Do we have an option? I’m going to go out on a limb here by stating that city officials would probably frown on large backyard wind turbine towers.

What can homeowners do?

Before doing anything, confirm with your local government whether municipal code allows personal wind turbines. Think about it: You’ll be pretty upset if you spend a considerable amount of time and money installing something you’ll have to dismantle later on. Who knows, you may also be pleasantly surprised with an energy conservation property tax exemption!

Let’s assume that you’ve finished jumping through all your town’s or city’s hoops for permission to install a residential wind turbine. Where do you find the right turbine for your property?

Some small wind enthusiasts suggest that a do-it-yourself wind generator project is the way to go. If that’s a bit too ambitious for your taste, search the Web for small wind dealers. You’ll find several different generator designs in varying price ranges to fit most budgets.

Check the Wind Map.

Although any amount of wind energy is better than no wind energy at all, certain regions of the country have more wind power potential than others. Review a national wind resource map to get a sense of your location’s potential. If you live in a region that has wind power to spare, you may even be able to sell any excess energy to your local utility company.

The takeaway.

As a society, we must take stock of how much stress we place on the national grid system, and reduce it. A reduction in demand for power will lead to a reduction in emissions from coal-fired plants, which will lead to good things for air quality. We should be harnessing clean, renewable resources like wind to power our lives, not ruining the Earth’s atmosphere for future generations with destructive toxic emissions!

Elizabeth’s Other Articles:

Composting in a Northern Climate

Do We Really Need to Put All Those Chemicals on our Lawns?

Good Morning, America: The Coffee Party Is Brewing