ACTIVISM AND ADVOCACY FOR ALL

Dear Persons,

In honor of GraceLee Boggs.

Stop. If you only have three minutes, please read the above profile of an astounding and inspiring woman instead. Otherwise, read about her and then come back. Please and thank you.

I’d been writing this post on advocacy and activism (topics dear to the Full Spectrum heart) when I heard that Grace Lee Boggs had passed. A fellow Mawrtyr (graduate of Bryn Mawr College: Ms. Boggs was a Bryn Mawr Ph.D.), she was known for a lifelong commitment to justice and equality for ALL. In a time in which all of the following combinations were practically unimaginable, she was a *Chinese-American *female *scholar married to a *Black man. She was a lifelong feminist, worked hard for labor and the environment and her community, and advocated powerfully and effectively for universal civil rights –HUMAN RIGHTS.

My original post explored how we come to activism: how I’ve watched people with cancer (or loved ones with cancer) become cancer activists, people with sensory processing differences become SPD activists, autistic people and their families and loved ones become autism activists...

But my main point was and is that I believe and hope that people whose hearts and minds are opened up by the particular, personal injustices of the world are inclined to open those hearts and minds further to include the desire for justice, fairness, equality, and inclusion for ALL. Grace Lee Boggs represented this beautiful tendency.

She had the vision to see the humanity and worth in all people. Knowing what I know of that vision, I know implicitly that she would have embraced the concept that autistic and neurodiverse people are inherently worthy of equal rights and respect, and that families of mixed ethnicity are simply, and fully, families, and that people with sensory processing differences experience the world in completely valid ways, and...and...

Perhaps it’s this little word, “and,” that’s key. We choose “and” instead of “or:” because there are enough rights to go around. We don’t have to choose whether it’s race OR ability OR sexuality OR identity OR whatever particular “type” that “gets” to have rights.

We ALL do. 

Those with big, generous hearts remind us of the world's potential, sometimes-hidden bigness and generosity, even when it is hard for others to see. Those of us with growing hearts can look to people like Grace Lee Boggs and take hope. 

Figure I – When We Become Rainbows of Inclusion in a Sometimes Limited-Vision World

I’ve wondered why some people come to activism on their own, through a strong sense of more generalized compassion, or whether most come only through experiences of difference, discrimination, challenge...

I’ve also considered how – let’s face it – TIRING it can be to see injustice everywhere, never mind to combat it with all you’ve got. Grace Lee Boggs (okay, she didn’t have children; however she did care a great deal about them!) managed to truly live her commitment to justice for 100 years!

What is your cause? Particular, universal, or both...? And even when you don’t have the time or energy or opportunity to advocate, activate, etc., do you have a broader vision of who should be considered fully equal and human and why? I dare to hope so.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

Welcome to the Sensory Blog Hop — a monthly gathering of posts from sensory bloggers hosted by The Sensory Spectrum and The Jenny Evolution. Click on the links below to read stories from other bloggers about what it’s like to have Sensory Processing Disorder and to raise a sensory kiddo!

An InLinkz Link-up

THE F-WORD AND THE B-WORD

As anyone who deals closely with female children knows, young girls can be difficult. There isn’t a whole lot of “sisterhood” in upper elementary school, it’s more “survival of the fittest.” And Z is fit, oh yes, very fit.

Accordingly, that social piece is not a big fear for me, which is nice because for Spectrum Child Sr. it’s worrisome enough for two. But some of my major concerns about Z are nonetheless directly related to girlhood. I see her acting “cute” and using a demanding yet “girly” voice to get what she wants from lots of other people and it makes me uncomfortable. The undercurrent of my very visceral reactions to Z’s “bratty,” “manipulative,” “sneaky,” “spoiled” behavior always seemed to me to be apprehension about her Attachment Disorder and how it might affect her and make her act in these ways. But my darling friend Wise Ayi recognized a deeper source and schooled me on the root of these concerns.

I was telling Wise Ayi about a particular interaction of Z’s that I had observed and how it set me on edge and – I felt – reinforced Z’s unhealthy, Attachment-Disorder-related manipulative tendencies.

“Whoever that was with [Z] isn’t a feminist. That’s what was really getting to you,” Wise Ayi explained. Her words sank in with revelatory force, opening up a full-to-exploding can o’ worms.

I flashed on a big ol’ worm: the memory of being at a celebratory dinner when Z’s brother G got his Orange Belt in Tae Kwon Do. This was a huge occasion for G and I had invited my ex, who at the time was dating a very skinny woman with a 13-year old daughter who’d recently become alarmingly thin. We ordered scallion pancakes and my ex’s ex – in front of both of our daughters (and my son) – started going off about how they were “So fattening” and “all that saturated fat…” 

I was furious! All I was able to spit out at the time was “Some fats are good for you!” but I was steaming for days over the prospect of ex's ex “infecting” Z with that kind of body consciousness. It was my first intense encounter – I live in a very progressive community – with the idea that Z could be indoctrinated into such destructive aspects of “normal” girl culture as healthy girls seeing themselves as (and being seen as) “fat,” as diets and appearance taking center stage in girls’ lives.  

But here in the manipulative, “cutesy” behavior we were talking about demeanor, not exactly appearance – a more subtle thing, but another worm nonetheless.

Wise Ayi was right, as she often is...When Z is “sassy,” when she ends all her statements so they sound like questions, when she strikes a pose after speaking, she is implicitly buying into the construct that that is how girls get what they want. And it makes me cringe, -- partly because of the Attachment Disorder aspect, but much more, I now realize, because I am a feminist. Apparently, these affectations don’t make non-feminists cringe – but I think they should.

We all suffer when one half of the population is taught to be cute in order to get their way rather than owning their power.

Admittedly, in a way, this is a form of misogyny on my part, in that I don’t want Z to use “feminine wiles” to get what she wants. On the flip, non-mysogynistic side of this stance, I want her to succeed on her own formidable skills and merit.

I don’t want my daughter’s power to be gendered any more than it inherently will be by others – especially by her own actions.

“Feminist” should not be a dirty word or an insult, though it is taken as such by many. But “bitch” sure is. The voice of misogyny calls women in power “bitches.” Misogynous culture trains women with one insidious tentacle to be coy and “sassy” -- while with another it slaps them down for just such behavior.

Is it too idealistic or naive to hope that a straightforward, strong person of any gender might avoid the moniker “bitch”?

Perhaps.

Still, I want my daughter’s voice and actions to be as strong as her heart and mind. And I want her to CHOOSE her voice, even to subvert stereotypes -- not be trained by those around her to be “cute,” or celebrated and rewarded for being coquettish or cunning. And if she gets called the F-word or the B-word along the way, I want her to have the true meaning of the F-word – the knowledge (and the endeavor to disseminate this knowledge) that women are equal to men, and deserve to be treated as such – to fall back on… whatever she chooses to call herself.

Something funny happened on the way to this can of worms: I realized that “girly” behavior and Attachment-Disordered behavior have something extremely important in common:

The impulse to get what you need by any means necessary. In case you can’t. In case you don’t “deserve” it. 
So, along with a strong voice, I want for my daughter

the inner knowledge to take root and to animate her voice and heart

that she does deserve

that she can do

…anything and everything.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama