It’s my pleasure to introduce a guest blogger today: Natalie Wilson.

Natalie Wilson is a literature and women’s studies scholar, blogger, and author. She teaches at Cal State San Marcos and specializes the areas of gender studies, feminism, feminist theory, girl studies, militarism, body studies, boy culture and masculinity, contemporary literature, and popular culture. She is founder of the blogs Professor, What If…? and Seduced by Twilight. She is currently working on Seduced by Twilight, a book examining the Twilight cultural phenomenon from a feminist perspective.

The Mommy Myth That Will Not Die: Bella Swan and Global Motherhood

Living inside our media-saturated US bubble, one might view motherhood as a competitive sport (ala Kate and her eight), as a fashion statement (think Katie Holmes and her impeccably dressed little Suri), as a way to prove one’s enduring hotness (such as Heidi Klum’s post-partum walk down the runway), or even as a testament that one cares about the world (in Madonna or Angelina Jolie adoption-style).

If these media representations of motherhood are to be trusted, what Susan Douglas named “the mommy myth,” where women are supposed to be perfect, gorgeous, dedicated super-moms, still dominates the cultural imagination.

Twilight, via the character of Bella Swan, breathes immortal life into this myth. In Breaking Dawn, the fourth book of the series, Bella transforms from reluctant wife into exultant expectant mom all in the blink of one headboard-busting sexual encounter.

The celebration of maternal martyrdom and mothering as the be-all and end-all of female existence that the final book of Stephenie Meyer’s saga enacts is hard to stomach, even for me–a mother of two that loves being a mom.

The problem is that Bella is a modern June Cleaver–too perfect, too submissive, and too ready to defer to her Mr. Cleaver (embodied by uber-dad, Edward Cullen). Once she is a vampire mommy, college plans are set aside, vampire adventures delayed, and instead, she becomes that monster we all love to hate: perfect mom.

Bella could not be more privileged; she is white, heterosexual, has endless wealth, super-powers, and a bevy of around the clock vampire and werewolf babysitters at her beck and call. She will never have to worry about stretching her budget, not being able to afford healthcare for her daughter, not having access to clean water.

While Bella and her similarly perfect vampire mother-in-law Esmee convey that motherhood is nothing but a joy and women who don’t desire babies are cuckoo, the text silences non-white, non-first-world mothers. Why does Native American mother Sue Clearwater have no voice in the story? Why are South-American women represented as fierce, untrustworthy animals? And why is Leah, the one lone female werewolf, called a “genetic dead end” due to her infertility? (This strand of the narrative would have been an opportunity to explore the historical sterilization of indigenous women. No such luck, though. Instead, we only learn she is a complaining bitch, an annoyance to the male alpha wolves who hate having to deal with a female in their testosterone fueled midsts.)

Globally, for many women, getting pregnant is one of the most dangerous things you can do. It makes you more susceptible to procuring diseases, to enduring poverty, to dying. Around the world, one female dies from pregnancy or labor every minute. That’s 1,440 females a day. Most of these women are not located in the first world nor can they choose, like Bella, to become vampires.

Twilight, loved by many mothers around the world, fails to give voice to the realities of global motherhood. To do so may be asking too much of this lightweight vampire tale; but could not the billions in profit the series is generating be used in some way to curtail maternal mortality rates? Seeing as the series suggests all women’s lives are made better by motherhood, perhaps it should put its money where its mouth is, giving more women more access to prenatal care and reproductive justice.

Now, that’s a dream I could sink my teeth into.

A friend of mine recently introduced me to the website pinkstinks.co.uk: a “campaign and social enterprise that challenges the culture of pink which invades every aspect of girls’ lives.” Founded by two “thirty-something” British twin sisters, pinkstinks aims to spark public discussion and influence the media to promote positive gender roles to girls worldwide. Website co-founder Abi Moore, a London-based documentary filmmaker and mother of two sons, grew disgusted by the vapid 24/7 media coverage of Paris Hilton and other celebrities while the achievements of brilliant female scientists and other talented women go virtually unrecognized. Determined to provide more substantive female role models for girls today, Abi teamed up with her sister Emma Moore—a publishing executive and parent of two girls—to start the online venture.

Their appealing website creatively challenges the “culture of pink” and its reductive, restrictive gender stereotyping. On one level, pink is just a color—and if you’re a mother struggling with whether to buy a rose-hued wardrobe for your princess-obsessed daughter, rest assured that a few pink shirts or dresses won’t keep your five-year-old out of the Ivy League down the road. On the other hand, though, “pink” is more than a color: it’s a ubiquitous cultural symbol for a set of prevailing values and messages about what it means to be feminine, for what girls are supposed to care about: beauty, appearance, domesticity, and (before you know it) heterosexual allure.

According to the website, for example, more than 60% of British girls aged 7 to 10 wear lipstick and / or perfume, while over 40% wear eye shadow or eyeliner. Among British girls aged 15-17, 73% say that when they feel bad about themselves, it’s related to their looks or their weight, rather than school work or other abilities. In contrast, pinkstinks motivates girls to develop more meaningful ambitions and privilege brains over beauty.

If you visit the website, be sure to click the box labeled “voices,” which links you to a video of two Swedish pre-teens who took on Toys-R-Us for its “very gendered and sexist Christmas Catalogue.” According to the young investigators, only 14 out of 54 pages of the catalogue portray boys and girls playing with the same toys. Their report is an inspiring example of children’s feminist activism on a global scale—and it may prompt your own kids to question, or at least be aware of, the hidden politics of pink. You can also purchase some alternative merchandise, including a bib or t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “I’m no Princess.” Just think of how adorable your little one might look in that!  And by all means feel to comment with your thoughts below:  does pink stink?

I’m a day late in posting this month’s Mama w/Pen column because, well, this mama has gone back to work. With huge passion for the venture and a pang of guilt in my heart (froze my first packet of breast milk last night in preparation for spending feeding time away), I join the legions of working parents who work at paid employment and at raising kids. Canned words like “juggle,” “balance” (which, from what I’ve seen and heard, is nonexistent) and “prioritize” (clumsy, inhuman term) allegedly now take on meaning. In truth, it’s always been a juggle—far before parenthood set in.

And yet. As my brain works to adapt to new realities, the imperative to multitask feels more intense–and actually absurd. This morning, when my partner Kamy Wicoff came over for a kick-off meeting with me, I actually found myself thinking “Will you take this breast and feed Teo for a sec while I write that email?” As if the parts were interchangeable—a milk-producing breast and a keyboard being merely two comparable peripherals to accomplish what I needed to do. It’s the same impulse that’s made me want to hit control “s” when I’ve had a thought I haven’t wanted to forget, but no pen in hand. Funny, how the brain plays tricks on you. My desire to be hyper-effective is that grand.

That desire isn’t new, only newly inflected. Now that Anya and Teo are here, the thousand and one things my brain focuses on in any given day here in this hyperstimulating city of New York become a thousand and two—or rather, a thousand and three, a thousand and ninety-four (there are two babies, after all!). The beloved new additions occupy not just bandwidth, of course, but a supersized chunk of my heart. They say your heart grows extra chambers when love is this big, and I’ve definitely felt those chambers expand. The trick, now, is how to put body, mind, and heart in service of the multiple jobs that must be done. I’m going to need a word far better than “juggle” to accomplish that trade.  I’m open to suggestion. Any takers?

(PS. Today is my mom’s birthday. Happy Birthday, new Grandma Renee!)

“The future will be gorgeous and reckless, and words, those luminous charms, will set us free again.”  This dazzling quote by Carole Maso serves as the epigraph to Powder: Writing by Women in the Ranks, from Vietnam to Iraq, and reflects one of the book’s central intentions — the power of using words to cast light on often dark subjects.  The phrase is also a motto of sorts for Kore Press, a literary press in Tucson, AZ deeply committed to publishing and promoting women authors.  At a time when lack of attention to female authors is a justifiably hot topic this book and Kore’s mission is as vital as ever.

The word “powder” evokes a range of nuances — face powder, baby powder, gun powder, the powdery sand of the desert, the rubbled powder left by a blast. As the editors point out, the word “POW” also lurks within.  This moving and deeply original collection is shadowed by the thought that any powder’s fine particles indicate disintegration. The contributors have sifted through the remains of their experiences to find the precious grains within. Powder offers rare insight into the lives of women in the military, acutely highlighting the tensions between speaking and silence, being female in a heavily masculinized realm, the fraught desire to serve one’s country while often marginalized by the very institution to which these women want to be loyal.

Admirably far-ranging in locations, time frames, and wars represented, the book’s rawest power comes from hearing the women’s voices in concert. Unusual within the genre of anthology, instead of a brief bio at the book’s end, each contributor receives a full page with a photo and a paragraph explaining her motivation for joining the military, what she gained or lost, and answers if she would serve again.  In correspondence with her creative work, these mini-autobiographies highlight the contrast between civilian and solider selves, revealing a compellingly reflective aftermath. Some recount horrors experienced, some moments of unexpected tenderness, some furor at the injustice they saw.  Dr. Donna Dean writes of enlisting before Vietnam when the only jobs open to women seemed “killingly boring” and her now unrelenting PTSD.  Some express motivation to use writing for therapeutic purposes and several have impressive MFA degrees.

The writing is viscerally felt, and has been receiving great attention, as contributors describe wartime horrors, both large and small, often what it is like to feel powerful then powerless in quick succession as they reveal the stringencies and rigor of the military, its entrenched sexism and often disdain for woman within its system. The book’s glossary decodes that “WM” stands for Women Marines, but more than one story reveals this is popularly defined as “Whatta Mistake” or “Wasted Money.” The tension between the obedience the military demands and the need to give voice to personal witness is strong.

In the brief chapter “Enemy in the Ranks” Christy L. Clothier gives a harrowing account of attempted rape, along with subsequent trial and the anguishing resistance to prosecution she encounters.  Her piece ends with her poignant recollection of her second day of basic training and how empowering it felt to scream, particularly after surviving domestic abuse as a military wife when she had learned “never to yell.” She writes, “it was the first time I had heard my voice sound strong.”  Her story is followed by the poem “Yes, Sir!” in which Elizabeth Keough McDonald writes about the uncomfortable feeling of being the only woman in a group enduring a sexual joke and consequent abuses of power.

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This month The Man Files welcomes Sam Bullock writing his first guest post for Girl With Pen. In this personal account, Sam explains what happened when his Mormon religion collided with feminist politics.

My professor assured us there was no reason to fear The F-Word.

I was taking Intro to Ethics at a community college where we were assigned to read An Invitation to Feminist Ethics by Hilde Lindemann. It was my first experience with feminist theory.

The book is a basic overview about sexism, gender roles, homophobia, neo-liberal globalization, and stories about gas lighting and rape. Unlike other books, I couldn’t dismiss this one as “just another philosophy.” I couldn’t toss this book aside as I went about my daily life. It was consciousness-raising. Life-changing.

From reading this book I realized I wanted the freedom to choose what made me happy. I didn’t want to be constrained by psychological factors that may have been the product of early—and intense—gender socialization. And I knew that women deserved the same freedom.

Unfortunately, these feminist arguments clashed with my worldview: I was raised Mormon. For Mormons, gender roles are divinely instituted (for the most part) and homosexuality is always a moral evil.

In the Mormon Church, only men are allowed to have the priesthood. Women are effectively barred from positions of authority. No women bishops, no women apostles, no women prophets. Women can fill positions of leadership that are in line with traditional gender roles like young-women leaders, children’s group leaders, and relief society leaders (an exclusively female group).

I was told that priesthood, the power to act in God’s name, depends on individual worthiness. Every man can have it. The traditional Mormon rejoinder to any sort of criticism of this unjust stratification is that “women can bear children.” So … women can’t become priests because babies gestate inside of them? This argument is sheer nonsense.

The sexism of the Mormon Church became more and more apparent. In one discussion about parenthood, I dared to suggest that I was willing to be a stay-at-home dad. I was instantly assaulted by thoroughly archaic views about women. I was told that women were more virtuous than men and this virtue would be lost in the cut-throat business world. Working women were destroying the fabric of society (I actually heard this more than once). Needless to say, I was horrified.

At a different meeting, the discussion topic was female modesty and appearance. The bishop leading the group suggested that women needed to dress modestly because men couldn’t control themselves—or something to that effect. Really? Huh.

The bishop continued, saying that women should wear make-up because even an old barn could use a paint-job. The huge double standard leaped out at me. Male “barns” were not expected to paint themselves, so why should female “barns?”

As the sexism became crystal-clear, I attempted to reconcile my two conflicting worldviews. I tried to rationalize away the sexism, making arguments like, “the Church isn’t ready for gender-equality yet“ or “this sexist doctrine is not of God.” I looked for support online and found it at various feminist Mormon blogs including Feminist Mormon Housewives and The Exponent.

Enter California’s Proposition 8. Here, the second of the big offenders came into focus: homosexuality. In the Mormon Church, homosexuality is a sin. One can be an openly gay, but must remain celibate or enter a heterosexual marriage. Neither is a particularly happy option.

When Proposition 8 (opposing gay marriage) was on the California ballot, Mormon Church leadership endorsed it, and encouraged members to aid in its passing. This led to call centers, special meetings, and Photoshopped pictures of Book of Mormon prophets holding “Yes on Prop 8” signs. Most disturbing was the rhetoric. We were told that homosexuals were like drug-users. Homosexuals were destroying society. They were corrupting our children, our freedom of religion, and our schools. Homosexual-equality was Satan’s idea, an attempt to lure people down the path of destruction.

I am ashamed to admit that in high school I believed this nonsense. I distinctly remember telling a friend that I voted for Bush because he was against gay-marriage. I even wrote a letter to Bush celebrating his wise choice.

But fast-forward and feminism allowed me to see the Church rhetoric for what it was: homophobic, fear-mongering attempts to maintain a cultural hegemony. I still rationalized away the homophobia as yet another doctrine “not of God.” That is, until I read about Stuart Matis, a gay Mormon who committed suicide because of homophobic Mormon doctrine.

I could see the suffering so clearly. I could no longer rationalize away the Church homophobia. A crack had formed in the edifice of my beliefs. Mormons were not inspired by God to pass Prop 8. There was no Satan, no tempter out there trying to trick me into believing evil things. This was merely the ultimate fear-mongering device, a tool designed to silence dissent.

Into this small crack rushed my entire philosophical training, all of my religion classes, my ethics classes, and my critical thinking classes. I no longer saw any reason to believe that Joseph Smith saw God when he founded the Mormon Church. I no longer believed that Jesus was the son of God, or that God even existed at all. My beliefs were gone. I was an Atheist.

I guess the message of this story is that feminism is undeniably powerful. It can alter consciousness. It can foster equality. It can even dismantle an entire worldview. And I would say these changes are for the better.

Sam Bullock aspires to be an attorney with hip jazz-piano chops, and is a self-proclaimed feminist atheist.

So many end-of-year appeals, so many worthy causes to support!  I wanted to share one from an organization that is particularly close to my heart: Girls Write Now.

The amazing girls and women of GWN set out to raise $50,000 at the end of the year, and they are only $7,000 short.  Here’s a little about them, below.  To join me in helping them meet their goal, please click here.

About Girls Write Now Girls Write Now is the first and only East Coast non-profit organization to combine mentoring and writing training within the context of all-girl programming, matching professional women writers one-to-one with underserved girls from public high schools across New York City. While almost half of NYC’s youth fail to complete high school on time, 100% of Girls Write Now seniors graduate and go on to college. Girls Write Now has been featured on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and in The New York Times, and honored by First Lady Michelle Obama and The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities as one of the top 15 after-school arts and humanities-based programs in the nation.

You may have seen this: a little story about a girl-with-pen who was able to make a lot more money as men with pens. “James Chartrand” is the pen name for a woman blogger who reports she earned two or three times more under a man’s name than a woman’s.

In the year of the Shriver Report–you know, women hold up half the economy, make up half the work force, oh and also make up nearly half of union membership–we’re still struggling to get a host of humane work policies (uh, health care and “good jobs” with benefits) that isn’t just about material benefits.

The tougher part is the social psychological (and hard to measure) aspect of how “men’s work” and “women’s work” are still remarkably differentiated. As I’ve written here before, gender inequality is sneaky!

So is a lot of other inequality. James Chartrand isn’t just a man’s name. It is a white man’s name. The New York Times reminded us last month that “In Job Hunt, College Degree Doesn’t Close Racial Gap.” At 8.4 percent, the unemployment rate in 2009 for black college graduates has been nearly twice that of white college graduates (4.4 percent). An American Economics Review article highlighted how this works in their paper “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” In a field study, job applicants with “white sounding” names got twice as many call-backs as those with “black sounding” names. So, James Chartrand probably had more than just the advantage of gender.

An even newer American Sociological Review study makes the case even more clearly. In “Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment,” Devah Pager, Bruce Western, and Bart Bonikowski report on sending out matched sets of job applicants–white, black, and Latino men, similarly well-spoken, well-dressed, and credentialed–for low wage jobs in the New York area.

The results? Whites received positive responses 31 percent of the time–twice as many as blacks (at 15.2 percent). Latinos, with a 25.1 percent call-back rate, did worse than whites but better than blacks.

The descriptions of the job applicants’ encounters that are enumerated in the article highlight what we keep hearing: there were few if any episodes of overt racism or bias. The job applicants in the study, for example, didn’t sense a pattern themselves as they went through the application process.

A lot of inequality is sneaky. And where there is gender inequality, I’m going to keep checking for other forms of inequality that are sneaked in along with it–especially class and race–because I don’t think we’re going to do much about any of it until we do something about all of it.

-Virginia Rutter

Recently, I had the pleasure of corresponding with sociologists Chloe Bird and Pat Rieker about their book Gender and Health: Constrained Choices and Social Policies (Cambridge University Press, 2008), credited as the “first book to examine how men’s and women’s lives and their physiology contribute to differences in their health.” I was curious how the authors see their research relating to some of the health topics that have made headlines in recent months.

Nack: Starting off with the topic of mental, health, you’ve written about sex-based differences.  Reflecting on recent articles, like NYT’s In Anxious Times, Medical Help for the Mind as Well as the Body, how does your book add to our understanding of and concern for policies like the Mental Health Parity Act?

Rieker:  Our book provides concrete data for why the Mental Health Parity Act is such a strategic and critical addition to general health care policy.  We focus on gender differences in mental health, particularly depression and substance abuse disorders.  Although the overall rates of mental illness are similar between men and women, if you look at it by specific disease, then you see large gender differences.  Women’s depression and anxiety rates are double that of men’s; while men’s rates of substance abuse and impulse control disorders are double that of women’s. Available research shows that individuals with serious mental health problems also have more physical health issues, including a lower life span. Both social and medical interventions are needed to prevent and treat these socially and financially costly conditions which create enormous health burdens on individuals, who may become unable to perform work and other social roles, and their families, Employers and society, as a whole, bear additional costs. 

Bird:  Also, differences in men’s and women’s lives can affect their utilization of mental health care and the effectiveness of specific interventions. We need systematic assessments of the effectiveness of treatments/approaches for both men and women, which can ultimately lead to better physical and mental health outcomes. The US has fallen behind Canada and other countries which require this approach in federally-funded research. 

Nack: How are the differences between men’s and women’s mental health problems particularly relevant as we consider the impact of the economic downturn, in general, and, with regard to healthcare coverage, the rising numbers of uninsured and underinsured Americans?

Rieker:  In the current poor economic climate, many men and women are experiencing increased stress/anxiety when losing jobs which may have provided dependable incomes and health insurance. Constant worry, itself, leads to ill health and exacerbates existing underlying conditions (e.g., cardiovascular and respiratory conditions).  Our framework of constrained choice illustrates how social and economic policy can reduce or enhance the options and opportunities for individuals to engage in healthy behaviors such as not smoking, not drinking to excess, eating well, and exercising.  While some individuals respond to economic downturns by temporarily limiting costly habits of smoking or drinking, we argue that more could be done at different policy levels to encourage positive health behaviors and coping strategies that improve physical and mental health. more...

Sending the GWP community my very best — Happy Belated Hannukah, Merry Xmas, Joyous Kwanzaa, and happy everything else! May the season find you warm and loved, healthy, joyful, hopeful, and jazzed.

I am so pleased to bring another important and insightful post to Girl With Pen from our regular guest blogger, Shawna Kenney.

The world hears much about women in the Middle East from Western media. Most stories are told from a human rights perspective, about women; rarely do we hear from the subjects themselves. Yet there are fierce young women working from within media structures in countries not especially known for their equal rights policies. As a journalist and educator, I have been blessed to encounter many lately. These brief profiles-in-courage are just a sampling of the work being done behind cameras, within newsrooms, from boardrooms, and in day-to-day life.

Mai Yacoub Kaloti has been a reporter with Al–Quds newspaper for almost a year. The 25-year-old Palestinian says she chose her field “to open up minds and reveal the truth about what’s happening” in her part of the world. Kaloti chose the print journalism field despite her father’s wish for her to be an accountant. Now she proudly signs her “full name” to every story and says that he is just as proud of her bylines. When people tell her women shouldn’t work in war zones, she says it’s her job and that she intends to do it right. “Women in the Middle East are just like all women on earth: they deserve respect, love, and care. They work in different fields, defend their country with pen and weapon, raise children with a sense of responsibility and good manners.”

30-year old Mozn Hassan is the Founder and a member of the Board of Directors for Nazra for Feminist Studies in Cairo, Egypt. While most of her time is spent partnering with local and international organizations in promoting women’s rights, she also answers “nonstop questions from neighbors, colleagues and even the guard of [her] building” about why she is unmarried, why she travels abroad alone, and why she chooses to live in an apartment with her sister rather than her parents. “As an Egyptian feminist I see customs and culture here which govern the mentality of Egyptians. The hardest obstacle we face is that most Egyptian men are occupied by patriarchal ideas.” Still, she fights on. “I think this field is one of the most sensitive and important issues that must be tackled openly and critically in my country. The issues of women’s rights opens lots of discussion on all of society’s problems, and in my opinion it is impossible to reform our society without tackling gender issues.”

Muna Samawi is a 25-year-old Program Officer working for the Freedom House organization in Amman, Jordan. After earning a Bachelor’s degree at St. Lawrence University, Samawi dedicated herself to working in the field of human rights. “I was fortunate to live, study and work in a foreign country for 6 years where I was able to express myself without hesitation, and practice my freedom of expression.” She has since worked with at-risk youth and organized exchange programs focused on including journalists, lawyers, bloggers, and human right defenders from the Middle East. Her activism is not always encouraged. “Political and societal pressures are placed on any activity in the Middle East that is sponsored from foreign agencies, so some eyebrow raising occurs from time to time,” she shares. “As a young woman working in development, I do not always get the recognition or support needed, but my family’s support is sufficient to sustain and push my personal goals to higher levels.” She stresses that advocacy for women’s rights and feminism are “growing movements” in the Middle East—more than most people know.

Marianne Nagui Hanna is a producer at a large news support corporation in Egypt. The 29-year-old describes herself as a “news junkie” who works 14 hours a day in this field she loves. She says her work environment is multicultural and multinational, but that managers tend to assign field missions to men, and has been told “it wouldn’t be cost-effective sending one woman with a team of men, being that she’d need a room to herself instead of sharing.” She takes it in stride and says she wishes the world knew that women in the Middle East “can actually achieve things. We are not all backward housewives from the Middle Ages. We do live in the Middle East in very tough circumstances, in a culture that doesn’t hold much respect to women and considers them second-class citizens, yet we are able to successfully work and gain respect. We don’t ride camels, we don’t live in tents .. and for sure, the harem is no more.” In her bit of spare time, Hanna maintains her blog http://resstlesswaves.blogspot.com/

22-year Hana Al-Khamri is a Yemeni woman from Saudi Arabia living in Denmark to study journalism. Her passion has pushed her to study in another country, due to laws and social pressure. “It is illegal for women to study journalism,” she says of her choice to leave Saudi Arabia. “Second there is a huge social pressure to marry and quit working. Third, I often faced hostility (writing for the ‘women’s section’ of the paper there), especially from older conservative men. I have been refused entry to press conferences only because of my gender. Fourth, I am dependent on men for transportation since I am not allowed to drive a car. And finally, media in Saudi Arabia is under strict government control and censorship, and when you are as open-minded and openmouthed as I am, you are bound to get in trouble.” In her opinion, it is tradition, not religion, that oppresses women in the Middle East, and though her career choice is one not supported by her government, she calls her path in line with God’s will. “My faith is a liberator, not oppressor. I can change my community through my pen,” she says.

Shawna Kenney is an author, freelance journalist and creative writing instructor. Her essays appear in numerous anthologies while her articles and photography have been featured in the Florida Review, Juxtapoz, Swindle Magazine, Veg News, the Indy Star, Transworld Skateboarding, and Alternative Press, among others. She also serves as the Language Editor of Crossing Borders Magazine. You can read more about her work at http://shawnakenney.com/.