So…during my 30th birthday celebration this happened.

For the first time in my life I am not looking forward to my birthday.

If you know me well, you know I love birthdays -- not just my birthday but everybody's! I consider a birthday a perfect reason to have a party. But in about two weeks I'll be turning 33 and this year I don't feel like celebrating.

It's like I'm having the blues most folks get when they're turning 30, but three years later.

As my 33rd birthday approaches I've been sitting around thinking of all the things I had hoped to accomplish by now that I haven't.

I realize this makes me an ungrateful brat.

I realize that instead of dwelling on dreams that haven't come to fruition I should be thanking God for the ones that have. Instead of focusing on the things I don't have in my life, I should be counting my blessings.

I have lived all over the country and traveled to Puerto Rico, Nicaragua and Canada.

I have a master's degree from one of the best public institutions in the country -- UC Berkeley.

I have interviewed celebrities like Jamie Foxx and Ani DiFranco.

I have seen my byline in the Chicago Sun Times, The Seattle Times, USA Today and a number of national magazines.

I married my best friend.

I have the privilege of teaching smart, funny, kind, and unbelievably talented teens every single day.

I am thankful for parents who hugged me every day and told me they loved me every night.

I am grateful for my love for the written word.

I am thankful for the people who read this little blog of mine.

I am grateful for my body and its ability to walk, run, and dance.

I am thankful for the wonderful women I've met through See Jane Write.

I am grateful that I live in a country and in an era that afford me the opportunity to look at my life and reshape into exactly what I want it to be.

Image by the USDA via Flickr/Creative Commons

Last Friday Michelle Obama celebrated her 50th birthday. Many people -- from journalists to politicians to everyday citizens -- sent the First Lady well wishes via social media. 

Alabama-based writer Cassie Fambro, however, felt that many of these good intentions missed the mark. Most people seemed more focused on Mrs. Obama's sculpted triceps and trendy frocks than on the work she's done over the past several years, Fambro laments in her article "Twitter wishes Michelle Obama a happy birthday, but makes it about style over substance."

Fambro writes:

Instead of linking to the efforts Michelle Obama has made to promote healthy eating and exercise with "Let's Move," mainstream media was guilty of linking to which dresses they liked best that the first lady wore.

Boston.com, for example, shared 15 style lessons from the First Lady.  CNN focused on "How Michelle Obama used style to move a nation." 

Fambro says at least Bill Clinton got it right. He tweeted: 

Happy 50th to @FLOTUS Michelle Obama. Thanks for the great work you do with @LetsMove to help our kids get healthy.

Fambro's article, made an excellent point but also made me wonder if it will ever be possible for a woman to be celebrated for both style and substance. I certainly admire the FLOTUS for both. I applaud her efforts to end childhood obesity, the successful career she had before becoming First Lady, and the moving speeches she has given while on the campaign trail for her husband. But I also love that she bucks the typical First Lady attire and rocks a style all her own. And, yes, when I'm working out in my living room to Jillian Michaels DVDs I am usually thinking about how I really want some Michelle Obama guns. 

But, again, is it possible for women to be generally recognized for both substance and style? 

I'm a girl who loves fashion. Though I don't claim to be a style maven yet, I do put thought and careful consideration into what I wear - striving to assemble outfits that are both fashionable and functional. So, yes, I walk a little taller when someone compliments what I'm wearing. But to be clear, I don't wear what I wear simply because I'm fishing for compliments. I wear what I wear simply because I want to. Wearing cute clothes is fun and makes me happy. The compliments are just an added perk. And I love Mrs. Obama's style because she seems to be the kind of lady who wears what she wants, also.

And while compliments on my clothes are great, I want even more accolades for my writing and my teaching. My point is I want to be sharp in every sense of the word -- a sharply dressed lady with a sharp mind.

But women who take pride in their appearance are often considered self-centered or vain or less intelligent. 

Even some of my fellow feminists claim that women who bother to paint their nails or pick out pretty pencil skirts are wasting precious time that should be used on writing, organizing and smashing the patriarchy.

So often women are told that we must avoid trendy attire, clothes that accentuate our femininity and colors like pink in order to be taken seriously. 

In her TED talk on feminism, that's now famous after being featured on Beyonce's new album, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie admits that even she has struggled with this: 

The first time I taught a writing class in graduate school, I was worried. I wasn't worried about the material I would teach because I was well prepared and I was going to teach what I enjoyed teaching. Instead I was worried about what to wear. I wanted to be taken seriously. I knew that because I was female I would automatically have to prove my worth and I was worried that if I looked too feminine I would not be taken seriously. I really wanted to wear my shiny lip gloss and my girly skirt, but I decided not to. Instead I wore a very serious, very manly, and very ugly suit because the sad truth is when it comes to appearance we start off with men as the standard, as the norm.

Adichie goes on to point out the fact that when a man is getting ready for a business meeting he never has to worry about looking "too masculine." 

If Adichie could go back in time, she'd wear her shiny lip gloss and girly skirt. 

She says:

I wish I had not worn that ugly suit that day. Had I then had the confidence I have now to be myself my students would have benefited even more from my teaching because I would have been more comfortable and more fully and more truly myself. I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and for my femininity. I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be. 

And so I want my writing and my wardrobe to look good. I don't think I should have to choose between one or the other. 

Mrs. Bowser in her classroom

I came to a frightening revelation the other day -- I am a role model.

I never set out to be, but if you are a teacher you are a role model, whether you like it or not.

Chances are, you're a role model too -- whether it's to your colleagues, your children, or even your neighbors.

Instead of shirking this responsibility as so many celebrities attempt to do, I have decided to embrace it -- even though the thought of doing so is terrifying.

This weekend I spent some time thinking about how to be a better role model to my students in hopes of offering suggestions of how you can be a better role model to the people in your sphere of influence too.

Don't pretend to be perfect. I am vulnerable with my students and while some may consider this a weakness, I do not. I admit when I mess up. I ask my students for help (especially when some piece of technology in the classroom is, once again, not working). And I don't pretend to have all the answers. If I don't know something, I say so. Being a role model doesn't mean having it all figured it out. No one has it all figured out. My students need to see that it's possible to be confident and successful without being perfect. The people you're influencing need to see that too.

Listen. In my class I do not stand up and lecture every day or even most days. Instead, my English classes involve a lot of discussion of the literature that we study. I sit down with my students and we talk about the literature -- the symbolism, the implied stories, the historical context, and the relevance to current culture. I listen to what my students think about the works we're studying and I respect their opinions even if they have some really wacky theories about what really happened at the end of The Turn of the Screw. Listen to the ideas of others. You'll help them feel empowered and you'll probably learn something too.

Listening and being vulnerable are two things I believe I do well. But there is always room for improvement. There are some things at which I need to be better.

Keep reaching out. It's natural for a teacher to be closer to some students than others. Some students only talk to me about literature and essay writing while others cry on my shoulder after breaking up with a boyfriend or having a fight with their parents. I never let such relationships influence my grading, but I do need to get better about striving to build meaningful relationships with the students who are all business too. I need to have more conversations with them between classes about the books they love to read, their favorite subjects in school, and their plans for college. I need to make sure they know they're important to me. Likewise, keep reaching out to the people around you -- even the people with whom you don't feel you have much in common. Make sure everyone around you knows you respect and honor them for who they are. I believe that will encourage them to respect and honor others too.

End negative self talk. The student population at my school is predominantly female, so I am a especially mindful of the kind of example I'm setting for the girls in my classes. I need to be sure that I never say negative things about my weight or my looks in front of them. I would never want the young women in my classes to take negative things I say about myself and repeat those phrases to the mirror. So please make sure you're promoting positive self talk around the girls in your life too.

What tips do you have to offer on being a positive role model? 

When I wrote about five things that made me a happy feminist last week, I didn't intend to make this a regular feature of the blog. But things keep bringing joy to my feminist heart. So here we go…

1. Gabby gets the  last laugh. 

When some Twitter trolls had some not-so-nice things to say about Gabourey Sidibe as she walked the red carpet at the Golden Globes on Sunday, Gabby's response via Twitter was perfect: 

"To people making mean comments about my GG pics, I mos def cried about it on that private jet on my way to my dream job last night. #JK," 

Love it!

Haters gon' hate. 

2. Beyonce wrote an essay. And since I too write essays I decided this must mean I am Beyonce. (Just let me roll with this.) 




3. A colleague of mine asked me to come to his class give a guest lecture… on Beyonce! 

4. On the same day I wrote a post on why I believe Christian men should want a feminist wife, Sarah Bessey, a.k.a. Jesus Feminist, wrote an acute post in response to Candace Cameron's comments on submission and "biblical marriage." Bessey and I both believe marriage is about mutual submission. As Bessey states in her post: 

My husband and I submit to one another as we both submit to Christ. We learned that from our Bibles.

5. An acquaintance of mine sent me a Facebook message that read: 

"I did not know I was a feminist until I met you…you have rocked my world."

And with that she most certainly made my week. 


What made you happy this week? 

Beyonce and I have yet another thing in common. Not only are we both 32-year-old married black feminists with unique names and a love for Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk  “We Should All Be Feminists,” but now we both write essays! (This is all leading to the day we become BFFs. I can feel it.) 

Mrs. Knowles-Carter penned an essay titled "Gender Equality Is a Myth" for The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink. The complete report can be downloaded for free through today.  I plan to read and write about the full report soon. 

In her essay, Beyonce states that "We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn't a reality yet. Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes." 

She goes on to say that in order for gender equality to be achieved one day, men must take a stand on the issue too:

"Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters earn more—commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender," she writes. 

Beyonce believes gender equality starts with how we raise our children: "We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible."

Bey's contribution is short, sweet, and to the point and as The Hairpin noted, "Bey is as completely right as she is obvious."

The ideas she puts forth are simple. Quite frankly, they're common sense. But sadly I fear there folks out there who would still disagree. There are people who still see gender equality as some radical notion from us "crazy liberals" and not the simple notion that women are people too.  

As Beyonce states in the piece, "Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal?" 

At the launch party for my online magazine -- with my man by my side

"Can you be a feminist wife?"

Apparently this is a question some people were discussing one night last week on Twitter. I believe this conversation was taking place in the wee hours of the morning, but I'm a 30-something English teacher which means I am in the bed (not on Twitter) in the wee hours of the morning. But I awoke Wednesday to find that a male friend of mine (who knows I'm a feminist and a wife) had tweeted me about this topic, wanting me to comment.

My response was simple. It had to be. This is Twitter we're talking about. I simply replied: "Yes, you can be a feminist wife. Anyone who says you can't doesn't understand what feminism really is."

But here's what I would have said if I had had more than 140 characters with which to respond…

Yes, a woman can be a feminist and a wife and, quite frankly, husbands should want their wives to be feminists.

Just so we're all on the same page, feminism is not a movement about hating men, marriage, motherhood and makeup. Feminism is the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. Period. Now, things get complicated when we start discussing how women (and men) go about living out feminism in their everyday lives. But if we always come back to that notion of equality, we feminists can always find common ground.

According to feminism a woman is equal to her husband. I realize some men may have a problem with this notion but, fortunately, I didn't marry a man with such issues. I married a man who doesn't want me to shrink myself down so he can puff himself up. We build up each other.

In my marriage, my husband and I are partners. We make decisions and plans together. We respect each others' gifts and goals.  We support one another always. And our marriage and our lives are better for it. I could not be the strong and supportive partner that my husband needs, wants, and deserves if I didn't view myself as his equal, if I didn't view myself as a full and complete person worthy of freedom of love.

As British suffragist and journalist Rebecca West famously said, "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people."

As a Christian, I know that the implication that we women are not, in fact, people -- the implication that the wife is somehow beneath the husband --  is loudest, unfortunately, in the church. Men and women alike love to trot out Bible verses about women being submissive to their husbands and the need for women to basically sit down and shut up. People who use (abuse?) these verses tend to ignore the cultural context of these verses and, in some cases, even ignore the other verses that follow.

Yes, Ephesians 5:22 says "wives submit to your husbands," but just a few lines down in verse 25 the Scripture reads, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." When you put these verses together they do not produce an image of a tyrannical husband lording over his weak doormat of a wife. These verses paint a beautiful picture of two people -- both created in the image of God -- living a life of love and mutual submission.

I put my husband's needs before my own. My husband puts my needs before his. And God is the spiritual head of our household. Our relationship isn't perfect. Sometimes we get selfish, mess up, and step on each other's toes. And then we forgive, forget, and keep dancing through life, hand in hand.

When reading Sarah Bessey's book Jesus Feminist I was brought to tears as she described her feelings for her husband because her words perfectly described my feelings for the magnificent man in my life:

I trust my husband completely -- with every bit of our life and with myself. My trust is not because I must, not because I believe God commands me to submit without question to his leadership because I am easily deceived or weak. I submit because I am walking in the Way of Jesus. As a man of God, [my husband] serves me, too. 

Men, don't you want your wives writing words of such beauty and grace about you? Or do you want your woman to simply shrug her shoulders and say, "Well, I just let the man be the man."

My hope is that one day conversations about feminism and marriage would not focus on who's in charge and instead shift to a discussion of how a husband and wife can uplift each other and use their talents and strengths for the benefit of their relationship, their family and the world around them.

Bessey, of course, explains this best when she writes:

If a woman is held back, minimized, pushed down, or downplayed, she is not walking in the fullness God intended for her as his image bearer… If we minimize our gifts, hush our voice, and stay small in a misguided attempt to fit a weak and culturally conditioned standard of femininity, we cannot give our brothers the partner they require in God's mission for the world. 

What are your thoughts on feminism and marriage? 

1. On Monday, it was announced that Saturday Night Live has FINALLY hired another black woman. Sasheer Zamata will be the show's first black female cast member in five years. I later learned the show has also brought on two black female writers -- LaKendra Tookes and Leslie Jones. 

2. On Tuesday, Google recognized the 123rd birthday of Zora Neale Hurston by honoring her with a Google doodle. Hurston, the Harlem Renaissance author best known for the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, was arguably the most widely published female writer of her era and is one of the women who inspired me to write.

3. On Wednesday I cried like a little punk while watching an inspiring video of Lakeisha Shurn, who recorded a video diary every day for 100 days of her efforts to boost her self-esteem and discover self-love through daily exercise.

4. On Thursday, my blog post on learning to love my name was featured on BlogHer.com.

5. Also, on Thursday I found a list of 15 awesome Golden Girls items that I'm now adding to my birthday wish list. Here's a sample:

Available via the Pick Me Cups Etsy shop

Available via the Toastertees Etsy shop

What made you happy this week?