4k1zx C S I U T U S T S I H e

Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times
CONSTRUCTING KNOWLEDGE: CURRICULUM STUDIES IN ACTION
Volume 16
Series Editors
Brad Porfilio, Seattle University, USA

Julie Gorlewski, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA
David Gorlewski, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA
Editorial Board
Sue Books, State University of New York at New Paltz, USA

Ken Lindblom, Stony Brook University, New York, USA
Peter McLaren, Chapman University, Orange, USA
Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia, Canada
Christine Sleeter, California State University, Monterey, USA
Eve Tuck, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto,
Canada
Scope
“Curriculum” is an expansive term; it encompasses vast aspects of teaching and

learning. Curriculum can be defined as broadly as “the content of schooling in all its
forms” (English, Fenwick W., Deciding What to Teach & Test: Developing, Aligning,
and Leading the Curriculum. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2010, p. 4), and as narrowly
as a lesson plan. Complicating matters is the fact that curricula are often organized to
fit particular time frames. The incompatible and overlapping notions that curriculum
involves everything that is taught and learned in a particular setting and that this learning
occurs in a limited time frame reveal the nuanced complexities of curriculum studies.
Constructing Knowledge provides a forum for systematic reflection on the substance

(subject matter, courses, programs of study), purposes, and practices used for bringing
about learning in educational settings. Of concern are such fundamental issues as: What
should be studied? Why? By whom? In what ways? And in what settings? Reflection
upon such issues involves an inter-play among the major components of education:
subject matter, learning, teaching, and the larger social, political, and economic contexts,
as well as the immediate instructional situation. Historical and autobiographical analyses
are central in understanding the contemporary realties of schooling and envisioning how
to (re)shape schools to meet the intellectual and social needs of all societal members.
Curriculum is a social construction that results from a set of decisions; it is written and
enacted and both facets undergo constant change as contexts evolve.
This series aims to extend the professional conversation about curriculum in

contemporary educational settings. Curriculum is a designed experience intended to
promote learning. Because it is socially constructed, curriculum is subject to all the
pressures and complications of the diverse communities that comprise schools and
other social contexts in which citizens gain self-understanding.
Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times
Undergraduates Share Their Stories in Higher Education
Edited by
Nicholas D. Hartlep
Metropolitan State University, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
Brandon O. Hensley
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA
Carmella J. Braniger
Millikin University, Decatur, Illinois, USA
and
Michael E. Jennings
Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina, USA
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-94-6351-003-5 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-94-6351-004-2 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-94-6351-005-9 (e-book)
Published by: Sense Publishers,

P.O. Box 21858,
3001 AW Rotterdam,
The Netherlands
https://www.sensepublishers.com/
All chapters in this book have undergone peer review.
Cover design by Melissa A. Del Rio
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved © 2017 Sense Publishers
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the
exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and
executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
CRITICAL STORYTELLING IN UNCRITICAL TIMES
“In the cacophony of opinion fostered by an age of constant communication, it

has become ironically difficult for one’s voice to be heard. Often, attempts at self
expression feel akin to casting notes in bottles, the search for truth becoming less
a journey and more a slog. In defense of one’s own agency, the importance of the
individual story is paramount now more than ever. Offering students a platform to
propose questions few think to ask, and answers none wish to consider, Critical
Storytelling in Uncritical Times defends the unheard, affording its contributors the
breadth necessary to unfurl their experiences. Lovingly curated and holding an
expansive palette of topics, ranging from bullying to modern Paganism, the stories
contained within provoke and stimulate, elucidating the nuances by which we live,
breathe, bleed.”
– Victor Shaw, Student and Winner of the 2017 Global Crossroads Scholarship
Competition, Wayne State University
“Too often in academia, we get bogged down in precision and stripping the humanity
out of what we do. We break things down into numbers, into codes, and into false
profundity. Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times breaks down these walls
between the academy and the humanity behind it. This introspective collection
delves into the realities of what it means to step out of the Self and into the Other…
to investigate who we are and how we got there. Opening old wounds relating to
whiteness, privilege, bullying, sense of self, among a host of others, this collection
allows the reader to experience, first-hand, what it means to be human.”
– Andrew T. Kemp, Ed.D., Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction,
Augusta University
“Some will find echoes of their own stories here, but many more will discover
models of possibility, opportunities for connection, and portals leading to richer
understanding and a profound respect for other lives. As universities scramble to
stay human in an age of increasing focus on the instrumentality of education, this
volume of deeply personal stories lights the way.”
– Todd Petersen, Ph.D., Professor of English, Director of Project-Based
Learning, Southern Utah University
“At a time when the dominant narratives are far from critical, Nicholas Hartlep,
Brandon Hensley, Carmella Braniger, and Michael Jennings with their student
authors exemplify the need to tell critical stories as counternarratives. The best
teachers often talk about the need to know and care for students. Too often, however,
students—even at the college level—are not tapped for the stories they embody. How
can we know and care for students if we do not listen to their stories as a source of
their perspectives, ideas, possibilities, and movements? A remarkably insightful way
to listen is to provide space for students to publish their stories. Critical Storytelling
in Uncritical Times does precisely this. It provides a variety of vantage points for
seeing concerns, insights, and understandings of undergraduate students as they
draw from multiple disciplines and diverse realms of experience. It is an example of
inspiring critical storytelling by college students, using critical stories of students as
a basis for teaching, and acting on such stories to counter the tidal wave of uncritical
domination that besets us. Educators should read, ponder, and emulate this book.”
– William H. Schubert, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Curriculum and Instruction
and University Scholar, University of Illinois at Chicago
“Just what is ‘critical storytelling’? In Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times:

Undergraduates Share Their Stories in Higher Education, undergraduate essays on
topics ranging from pagan religion to growing up fatherless to ethnic identity to
depression and more, the writers address subjects from vantage points traditionally
silent, even absent, as the editors note in their introduction.
And yes: the undergraduate students who crafted these immensely interesting
essays are writers. Even if, more than 20 years ago, Linda Brodkey argued that
undergraduates could not be ‘real’ writers, at least in the eyes of the academy,
because they didn’t publish. She also noted that undergrads were sentenced to
writing passion-less pieces with little to no application to their lives outside the
university.
Critical Storytelling disproves the idea that today’s university students can’t
write. What the various stories demonstrate is that students not only write, but that
given topics that engage them? They can write well. And that what they write about
is important for us to read, as the editors remind us: ‘… reading the unadulterated
stories of undergraduates is important for those in higher education because theirs
are often the most neglected and unheard voices in the academy.’
Justin Hayes’ ‘Silent Judgments: How I Came to Terms with Depression,’ for
instance, paints a darkly nuanced picture of his battle with depression, as he struggled
to overcome his deeply ingrained image of depression as only affecting people ‘with
real problems.’ Not a successful college student. Anonymous’s (no name for this
still-struggling writer) ‘To Be Continued’ reminds us that not all personal crises
resolve neatly, or at all … While Daniel Searcy’s comic ‘First Day of School’ makes
poignant points about race and difference in his visual medium. And in her timely
piece on being an immigrant, Zuzana Sukova tackles the complicated tangle of
assimilation and respect for home culture.
Because the collection also includes pieces by the faculty editors, what readers
see is how secondary extensive writing experience is to the narratives’ power. Does
Zuzana write as well as Brandon? Does it matter? Both narratives—all the stories in
the collection—demand that we listen, pay attention. What better way to show new
writers just how much their stories and voices matter?”
– Britton Gildersleeve, Ph.D., Director Emerita, OSU Writing Project, Editorial
Board, Nimrod Journal, https://teaandbreath.com
“In this inspirational sequel volume of Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times:

Stories Disclosed in a Cultural Foundations of Education Course (Hartlep & Hensley,
2015), Nicholas D. Hartlep, Brandon O. Hensley, Carmella J. Braniger, and Michael
E. Jennings work with a group of courageous undergraduate students across
disciplines (i.e., Psychology, Communication Studies, English, Business, Sociology,
etc.) to manifest critical storytelling, liberative counternarrative, counteraccounts,
personal memoirs, and testimonios of their struggles against oppressive living
conditions in schools and societies. Their gripping stories and critical reflections
inspire us to understand, ‘to question, to think, [and] to act’ against all forms of
oppression and injustice. Their critical storytelling, as theories and methods, expose
unjust and dehumanizing ideas, policies, and practices, contextualize silenced and
unexamined narratives of their experiences and experiences of underrepresented or
disenfranchised individuals and groups, raise challenging questions, protest against
the supremacy and normality of meta or official narratives, and transgress orthodoxy
and dogma epistemologically and methodologically. This publication advances
the field by exemplifying critical storytelling to honor necessary voices which are
historically silenced or ignored, and to cultivate ‘critical and political consciousness’
that brings the light to darkness in contested and unjust times.”
– Ming Fang, Ph.D., Professor of Curriculum Studies, Georgia Southern
University
“Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times is an exploration of diverse voices that

can often times be marginalized in university spaces, whether intentionally or
unintentionally. This volume of Critical Storytelling confronts the reader with
alternative narratives to those typically considered traditional in the academy,
thus serving as a megaphone for students who are screaming to have their stories
told, considered, and appreciated. Critical Storytelling pulls back layers of what it
means to contemplate who we are and how we exist and negotiate our very being
in the academic spaces we inhabit. In the midst of ever-increasing challenges of
our country’s current socio-political climate, Critical Storytelling reminds us of
what is at the heart of our work in higher education and beyond; and, this story
compilation exhorts the reader to think more critically, feel more deeply, and act
more compassionately. This is a must-read for any college student who feels their
voice(s) have been muted, devalued, or silenced as well as any college or university
faculty, staff, and administration who want to better meet the affective needs of the
‘whole student.’”
– Ngozi Onuora, Ed.D., Associate Professor of Education, Millikin University
“Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times: Undergraduates Share Their Stories
in Higher Education is a timely book that explores the intersection of theory
and experience that positions students as the constructors of knowledge, through
an analysis of experience with critical frameworks that question race, gender,
inequality and our collective stories. This book will be a perfect complement for
any undergraduate or graduate course that wants to delve deeper into the common
threads that connects us to each other.”
– Abraham P. DeLeon, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Educational Leadership,
University of Texas at San Antonio
NDH
For my wife and children.

I love you very much!
BOH
To my loving wife, my supportive family, and the friends,
colleagues, and heroes who’ve inspired me.

And to all who hear the call of critical storytelling, let’s do this.
CJB
To my beautiful daughter, Hannah, and my sister, Chesna.

Critical storytelling empowers us all to make change.
MEJ
To my wife Qena, and my children: Ryan, Kaden and Addison.

Thanks for all of your love and support!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prefacexiii
Stories of Marginalization, Silencing, and Alienation
1. Pagan Religion in the 21st Century: Myths, Stereotypes, and Mass-Media

Misrepresentations of Multicultural Spirituality 3
Gregory Michael Brewer
2. Gender and the Media: Degradation of Women in Popular Culture 11

Allison Cummings and Amanda Glesing
3. Silent Judgments: How I Came to Terms with Depression 19

Justin Hayes
4. To Be Continued… 25
Anonymous 1
5. First Day of School 29

Daniel Searcy
6. Mom, I’m Gay 33

Jayce Sorrentino
Identity Politics, Sexism, Racism, and Relationships
7. Assimilation of an Alien 39
Zuzana Sulcova
8. “Brain Dead”: Words as Weapons in the Cultural Sanctioning of

Bullying Practices 43
Brandon O. Hensley
9. College Student, Future Educator, Not an “Anchor Baby” 53

Elizabeth Nunez
10. Growing up without a Father 59

Deisha Marshall
11. My Realization 61
Joey Dundovich
12. My Life with Trichotillomania 67

Chelsea Berg
xi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
13. A Letter to the Faceless 71

Anonymous 2
14. Angels of the Night 73

McKenzie Sauer
15. Family Ties 77

Natalie Kozelka
Mental Health, the Body, and Issues of Stigmatization
16. Who Am I? Struggling with My Identity 83

Amanda Reyes
17. Judging from the Outside 87

Kendall Keller
18. A Kind of My Own 91

LaQuinta Moy
19. “Hey, Sister”: Utterances, Sexualities, and Dialectical Tensions in

Sibling Relationships 93
Carmella Braniger
20. Mean Girls, Interrupted: The Complexities of Female Friendship 107

Alexa Duncan
21. My Personal Hell: Becoming a Hardened Machine at Hardee’s 117

Becky Falls
22. Coming up from the Depths: Dealing with Depression, Anxiety, and
Eating Disorders 129
Emma Hastings
About the Contributors 137
Index141
xii
PREFACE
Good writers craft every element of their work, down to the joints between
the words. During this meticulous process it’s nearly impossible to step back
and experience the text as a new reader would. While writing, one needs
that close-up understanding of words, adjacent ideas, characters’ motivations,
and the nuances of possible scenes. But to edit, one must come to the text
fresh, mimic the sensibility of a first-time reader, and make the parts work
together.
From Telling True Stories edited by Mark Kramer
and Wendy Call (2007) p. 197
You don’t have anything if you don’t have the stories.
From Ceremony written by Leslie Marmon Silko (1977) p. 2
INTRODUCTION
The use of personal narrative and reflection in academic and scholarly contexts
is a growing trend. Academics everywhere are crafting their critical stories. But
why narrative, why now? Pat Schneider (2003) writes in Writing Alone and With
Others that “[t]he act of writing is a tremendous adventure into the unknown,
always fraught with danger. But the deeper you go and the longer you work at
your art, the greater will be your treasure” (p. 5). Academics and non-academics
alike are turning to writing to reap the rewards inherent in uncovering and
unveiling truths about our lived experiences that reach deeper than what is—
to recognize the gaps and silences in dominant ways of knowing and seek to
illuminate counternarratives.
Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times: Undergraduates Share Their Stories in
Higher Education is an anthology of autoethnographies told by undergraduate students
across disciplines. As pre-service teachers or majors in Psychology, Communication
Studies, English, Business, Sociology (and more), they are our children’s future
educators. Frequently, the storytellers in academia are not undergraduates. While
Hartlep was the professor of a Cultural Foundations of Education course at Illinois
State University, he and Hensley edited a graduate student anthology, Critical
Storytelling in Uncritical Times: Stories Disclosed in a Cultural Foundations of
Education Course. This landmark volume sought to grapple with issues of white
privilege, racial microaggressions, bullying, cultural barriers, immigration, and
other forms of struggle in educational settings in personalized ways. In the book’s
preface Hartlep and Hensley (2015) write,
xiii
PREFACE
The idea for writing a book as a class was born in a doctoral-level Cultural
Foundations of Education course I taught during the summer of 2014.
Initially, uncertainty permeated the course, especially during the first day
when I informed the class that we would collaboratively write the syllabus
for the course. The class was composed of doctoral students with a wide
range of backgrounds, experiences, and professional interests. Second-year
students shared the space with those who were nearing their comprehensive
examinations. We had various disciplines represented as well, such as School
Psychology, Communication Studies, and Higher Education. Some students
had previously published book chapters and/or articles, while others had not
yet published anything. These dynamics caused students to be pulled outside
of their comfort zones. However, over time, our uncertainty and anxiety
dissipated and transformed individuals into a community of learners. One of
the course’s many strengths was the collaborative spirit that stitched it, and the
book that stands before the reader, together. (p. xvii)
The second volume in the series complements the first, as undergraduates
comprise the storytellers and the universities and courses from which the students
write their stories are numerous. Braniger and Jennings joined the editorial team
in order to participate in the editing of the chapters, but in actuality they have
been involved (in)directly for quite some time. Jennings authored a chapter entitled
“After the Love Is Gone: A Coda on the Importance of Critical Storytelling in
Uncritical Times,” which appeared in the first book. Acknowledging the work
of Bruner (1990), Jennings (2015) writes the following: “Telling stories shapes
our existence vis-à-vis the world around us, and helps us sort through all of the
complexities that it embodies” (p. 93).
Braniger is an Associate Professor of English and Global Studies Coordinator as
Millikin University, where Hensley worked until moving to Wayne State University,
where he currently serves as Basic Course Director and Lecturer in the Department of
Communication. Braniger and Hensley co-taught a hybrid course at Millikin entitled
“Critical Storytelling: Global Consciousness.” The course focused on reading and
analyzing personal narratives through the lens of global cultural and critical studies.
Performance-learning elements were integrated into the writing intensive component
of the course, with the goal of writing, revising, editing, and preparing student critical
stories for publication. Braniger and Hensley secured an internal grant through
Millikin’s Performance-Learning based initiative in order to support the work of
undergraduate publication. Their project was program- and curricular-based, and
extended beyond individual faculty efforts, emphasizing highly collaborative efforts
between faculty and students. The course they develop and co-taught focused on
reading and analyzing personal narratives through the lens of critical and cultural
studies and on developing personal critical narratives in order deliver on the ethic of
autoethnography, which is to write personal, critically reflective stories of cultural
involvement to work toward greater understanding and social justice. Teaching for
xiv
PREFACE
social change, they shared with students the power of stories to engage, transform, and
catalyze social action. In order to prepare for their collaboration, they both read and
discussed, as a part of their professional development, Carmon and Luschen’s (2014)
Crafting Critical Stories: Toward Pedagogies and Methodologies of Collaboration,
Inclusion, and Voice. Moreover, Braniger and Hensley participated in their own
critical storytelling in order to prepare for teaching students to access their critical
stories. They modeled for students the reflective process in which students were
asked to participate. Reading and writing critical stories allows students to reflect on
what it means to be democratic citizens in a global environment. These narratives also
promote student reflection on what it means to lead a life of meaning and value. The
final publication of student reflective and critical work and the process leading up to it
will prepare students for professional success, both as published writers and as critical
consumers of others’ work.
Hartlep’s students, all pre-service teachers at Illinois State University spent an
entire semester drafting, writing, re-writing, and peer-reviewing their classmates’
stories—in essence attempting to gain “writing tools” (Clark, 2006). The students
had a difficult time selecting a story to tell because telling critical stories was an
unnatural task for them. The students, the majority of whom are “No Child Left
Behind” kids born in the 1990s, experienced an education that relied on rote,
routinized, and emotionless regurgitation of “facts.” Neil Postman and Charles
Weingartner’s (1969) aphorism, in Teaching as a Subversive Activity, “Children
enter school as question marks and leave as periods” (p. 60) captures this sad reality.
Each of the editors of this project, all educators, would agree with the notion
that well-developed critical stories raise questions that provoke readers to dig deep
and think again, from a different perspective. Narrative can empower researchers,
readers, and the storyteller to question, to think, to act, and to question yet again
the social arrangements and cultural norms that constrict marginalized voices and
keep critical stories out of the spotlight. Our evolving conceptualization of “critical
storytelling” in our classrooms is difficult to pin down in terms of a singular method,
process, or form, and we would resist any such prescriptive definition that privileged
one storytelling practice or medium over another. We (the editors) do agree that the
students who each crafted a “critical story” for this volume grappled with the push-
and-pull of autoethnography—reflexively exploring key life events that have called
them to go inward, connecting the personal to the cultural. Autoethnography—and
by extension the critical storytelling exhibited in this anthology—makes use of
introspective critical reflection and qualitative research techniques including, but not
limited to participant observation, fieldnotes, and analysis which positions stories as
the raw data of life.
Although we’d like to document here that we are the ones to come up with the
term “critical storytelling,” if we are honest with one another and you the reader,
assuredly we have not created anything novel or new. Individuals for quite some
time have been arguably telling stories; and what exactly are “critical” stories? By
“critical storytelling” we are referring to both counternarratives and also narratives
xv
PREFACE
that have been absent and/or silenced. Critical storytelling, then, in many ways fights
what Paulo Freire refers to as “naïve consciousness,” instead raising critical and
political consciousness (Daily Struggles, 2017, para. 8).
We feel strongly that reading the personal stories of undergraduates is important
for those in higher education because theirs are often the most neglected and
unheard voices in the academy. While there are some publication spaces set aside
for undergraduate research and publication, faculty and administrators—for the
most part—dominate the literature on higher education issues, burying beneath
the institutional bureaucratic underpinnings students’ needs and lived experiences.
Rarely do you see undergraduate students publishing alongside graduate students
and faculty. However, we believe all students have a critical story to tell. And more
importantly, we believe they should be telling their stories to a wide audience. And
that we, faculty and administrators alike, should be listening to them. Students
have a great deal to teach us about the current state of educational environments
and about their engagements with, in, and even adjacent to those environments.
Our students are our greatest resource for understanding and shaping the future
of higher education. They are the stakeholders of the future, our future teachers,
judges, politicians, business people, etc. How the millennials and “No Child Left
Behind” children understand themselves, their cultures, and their experiences and
relationships within those cultures tell us much about how they will take charge and
move our country and world forward through new change. Teaching them not only
to tell their stories but that their stories are worthy to be told and heard goes a long
way toward shaping self-aware, reflective, citizens and leaders. More importantly,
listening closely to what they have to say now can only bring us all closer to the
change we want to see in our lives, our country, and our world.
The editorial team, along with the students, painstakingly drilled deep into the
stories—what Kramer and Call (2007) would describe as “down to the joints between
the words” (p. 197), during what can only be labeled a “meticulous process.” Most
likely, when we re-read this volume in its published form, we will not be able to
“experience the text as a new reader would,” but we hope you will. As Silko (1977)
reminds us in the epigraph above, “You don’t have anything if you don’t have the
stories” (p. 2).
REFERENCES
Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of meaning: Four lectures on mind and culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Carmona, J. F., & Luschen, K. V. (Eds.). (2014). Crafting critical stories: Toward pedagogies and
methodologies of collaboration, inclusion, and voice. New York: Peter Lang.
Clark, R. P. (2006). Writing tools: 50 essential strategies for every writer. New York: Little, Brown and
Company.
Daily Struggles. (2017). Paulo Freire and the role of critical pedagogy. Retrieved from
http://daily-struggles.tumblr.com/post/18785753110/paulo-freire-and-the-role-of-critical-pedagogy
Denzin, N. K., & Giardina, M. D. (Eds.). (2016). Qualitative inquiry through a critical lens. New York:
Routledge.
xvi
PREFACE
Hartlep, N. D., & Hensley, B. O. (Eds.). (2015). Critical storytelling in uncritical times: Stories disclosed
in a cultural foundations of education course. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Jennings, M. E. (2015). After the love is gone: A coda on the importance of critical storytelling in uncritical
times. In N. D. Hartlep & B. O. Hensley (Eds.), Critical storytelling in uncritical times: Stories
discloses in a cultural foundations of education course (pp. 93–97). Rotterdam, The Netherlands:
Sense Publishers.
Kramer, M., & Call, W. (Eds.). (2007). Telling true stories. New York: Plume.
Postman, N., & Weingartner, C. (1969). Teaching as a subversive activity. New York: Delacorte Press.
Schneider, P. (2003). Writing alone and with others. New York: Oxford University Press.
Silko, L. M. (1977). Ceremony. New York: Viking.
xvii
STORIES OF MARGINALIZATION, SILENCING,
AND ALIENATION
GREGORY MICHAEL BREWER
1. PAGAN RELIGION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Myths, Stereotypes, and Mass-Media Misrepresentations of
Multicultural Spirituality
INTRODUCTION
Come with me on a journey! It was the first day of May, the day of Beltane—an
ancient fire and fertility festival of pre-Christian Europe, more commonly known as
May Day. Over two dozen people in long, flowing robes of various colors gathered at
my home to celebrate the height of spring and the promise of life and rebirth. There
were flowers, smiling faces, and a pious ambiance of mystery and mirth. Flaming
torches decked the yard in the form of a circle, and upon a table in the north were
representations of earth, air, fire, and water and an offering of bread and juice to the
Divine. In my yard stood a tall wooden pole with thirty colored ribbons attached at
the top, freely stretching to the earth below.
Beltane is a celebration of fertility and of the divine union of the Goddess and
God, the archetypal masculine and feminine aspects of the universe. The pole
physically represents the masculine aspect and the wreath atop represents the divine
feminine. Each participant grabs a ribbon, and the dance of the maypole is the height
of the celebration. The weaving of the ribbons represents the act of procreation, and
the dance is one of life, gratitude, and merriment.
Before we began our celebration, several nearby neighbors decided to take on roles
as spectators. Some stood on an adjacent street corner, some watched from their yards,
and a couple passing pedestrians stopped to inquire and observe. A few children in the
neighborhood slowly inched their way over and approached us with questions. One
that I will never forget came from a boy, about ten years old, who asked us, “Why
do you hate Jesus?” His parents had seemingly told him this was the case. Of course
nothing could be further from the truth. Pagans, myself included, hate no one. Still, to
this day, folks in the neighborhood stop me and ask if we worship the “devil.” Once a
young girl whispered “Satan” as I walked past her. I put quotes around Satan and the
devil because we do not believe in or acknowledge the existence of any such entity.
STEREOTYPES OF PAGAN RELIGION
Within Pagan religion and culture there are many ethnic groups and minorities.
Much like other marginalized cultures and subcultures, Pagans regularly face
N. D. Hartlep et al. (Eds.), Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times, 3–9.

© 2017 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
g. m. brewer
stereotypes and are accused of worshipping false gods and idols, taking Harry Potter
too seriously, causing harm to others, living as heretics, desiring to perish in hell,
and so on. Pagans have literally been burned at the stake and have historically been
ridiculed for belief in witchcraft and possession of superpowers. While the term
Pagan is an umbrella term and includes a vast array of cultures and ethnic groups—
such as those who follow the ancient Celtic traditions, the Norse, Greek, and Roman
Pantheons, Native American beliefs, ancient Egyptian practices, Hinduism, Voodoo,
Santeria, Shamanism, Wicca, many Witchcraft traditions, and realistically too many
to name—we have to question why such false stereotypes are still alive today and
pulsing with venomous hatred and misunderstanding.
As a practicing Pagan of more than 23 years, I’ve not only personally seen
this discrimination at work in my own life, but I’ve heard multiple reports from
fellow Pagan parents that their children are bullied or made fun of in the school
environment. If the (in)famous European and Salem “Witch Trials” ended long ago,
where do these false stereotypes come from and why do future teachers and students
need to be aware of them? A grand portion of these myths are to this day perpetuated
by popular media. Movies, news, television shows and books have inoculated the
public with misconceptions manifesting in the mainstream collective conscious of
contemporary society.
I aim to present the actualities of Pagan religion and spirituality in the 21st century
and to debunk prevailing misguided myths with truthful sources, factual practices,
and firsthand experiences. I argue there is a need for teachers to be knowledgeable of
various cultures in any given classroom setting. Unfortunately, many Pagan children
are taught to be silent about their faith, or their parents choose not to raise them as
Pagans until the teenage years, because of the gross misunderstandings of teachers,
students, and parents. Likely you will have or have had in your classroom a student
who is Pagan or whose parents are Pagan. I believe it’s time to learn.
So, what is Pagan religion? According to Webster’s Student Dictionary, a Pagan
is a “person who does not believe in one of the established religions; a person who is
not Christian” (p. 328). In other words, Paganism can include any religion that is not
one of the three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity). However, there
are religions that fall outside of these and are not Pagan either, such as Satanism
and Scientology. This definition serves only to fuel the fire of misunderstanding
and misrepresentation of what constitutes a Pagan. We have a joke in the Pagan
community that if you ask 10 Pagans “What is Paganism?” you will get 100 different
answers. Paganism, according to my experiential knowledge and research, is defined
as a religion or spirituality that is polytheistic as opposed to monotheistic—that is,
Paganistic belief can be comprised of more than one god or deity. It’s an Earth-
based religion, and Pagan literally means country dweller; one who is apart from
the general society and in tune with the cycles and seasons of nature (“Paganism,”
2010, para. 1).
I have been greatly informed by extensive talks and interviews with Reverend
Selena Fox. Rev. Fox is Senior Minister of Circle Sanctuary, a rural church
4
Pagan religion in the 21ST century
headquartered near Barneveld, Wisconsin that has been serving Nature religion
practitioners worldwide since 1974. Fox received her M.S. in Counseling from the
University of Wisconsin at Madison, and she is a spiritual counselor. Fox’s writings
and photographs on nature, folkways, psychology, and spirituality have been widely
published in print and online. She travels internationally presenting workshops and
facilitating ceremonies. Active in interfaith work for over 50 years, Fox is a member
of the Madison Interfaith Dialogue Group and has been a speaker and organizer of
a variety of regional and global interfaith events, including Wisconsin’s Interfaith
Awareness Week and the Parliament of the World’s Religions. She is a consultant
on religious diversity and Pagan religion for the U.S. Department of Justice and
also the Religious Practices Advisory Committee of the Wisconsin Department of
Corrections (Fox, personal communication, March 5, 2017).
According to Fox (2015), “Pagan pertains to a Nature religion or a practitioner
of an ancient and/or contemporary Nature religion; it is also used to refer to a
Nature Spirituality, Earth-centered Spirituality, and/or Goddess Spirituality group
or practitioner.” Clearly it isn’t possible to present an entire history of Paganism;
thousands of books have been written on the subject. A mere introduction could
take hours. It’s therefore essential to examine a cornerstone of contemporary Pagan
practice.
A fundamental aspect of Pagan religion in the 21st century—now termed
Neo-Paganism to differentiate the modern Pagan movement from the antiquated
versions—concerns the eight major holidays commonly accepted and celebrated
today. By the year 2000, over 400,000 copies of the book Wicca: A Guide for
the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham (2000) had been sold worldwide.
Although this book is explicitly Wiccan and represents only one Pagan practice, the
greater Neo-Pagan community generally celebrates the eight holidays mentioned.
Since Pagan religion is a nature-based spirituality, it stands to reason that the eight
common holidays are also nature-based. These holidays represent the changing
seasons. Four of them mark the first day of spring, summer, fall, and winter, and the
other four are the halfway points between.
The eight holidays, in brief, are as follows:
1. Imbolc—February 2, now known as Groundhog Day or Candlemass—is a time
to celebrate the return of sunlight.
2. The spring equinox, generally falling on March 20 or 21, is called Ostara or
Eostre, known today as Easter, although the Easter date most are familiar with has
been changed to the first Sunday that follows the first full moon after the spring
equinox.
3. May 1 is Beltane, as previously mentioned.
4. June 20 or 21 is the summer solstice and represents the height of the sun.
5. Lughnasadh, also called Lamas or loaf mass, is celebrated on August 1 or the
night before and is the first of three harvest festivals—this is the time to celebrate
and give thanks for corn, bread, and grains.
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g. m. brewer
6. Mabon is the first day of fall and is generally considered Pagan Thanksgiving.
7. October 31 is called Samhain (pronounced Sow-en or Sow-een); it means
summer’s end and is the final Harvest celebration, the Celtic New Year’s Eve,
and a time to honor friends and family who have passed away. Although now
commonly known as Halloween, the Pagan celebration of Samhain is different.
8. The eighth Pagan holiday is called Yule and is celebrated on the winter solstice,
generally December 20 or 21.
The use of holly, ivy, mistletoe, the colors red and green, the Christmas tree, and
many other Christmas customs are of ancient Pagan origin. Yule, or winter solstice,
marks the point when the sun begins to rise a bit higher above the horizon each day
and therefore is the celebration of the birth or renewal of the sun. Since the sun was
seen as a symbol or representation of God, the Roman Catholic Church declared that
the birth of Jesus was to be celebrated at this time. As the song Deck the Halls goes,
“Join the ancient Yuletide carol fa la la la la…”
Why was it necessary for me to cover the eight common Pagan holidays? I
would argue that in order to debunk the myths, stereotypes, and misrepresentations
portrayed by the media, people need to have the facts.
Pagans use a vast array of symbols from many ancient and contemporary cultures
such as the Celtic cross, the Egyptian Ankh, the triquetra, the spiral, the hexagram or
“Star of David,” the World tree, the Yin and Yang, and the list goes on. Perhaps the
most common symbol is the pentagram—the five-pointed star. This symbol is often
seen surrounded by a circle called a pentacle, and has been portrayed in numerous
movies in its upside down position as a sign of devil worship.
The meaning of this symbol is crucial to understand. Ronald Hutton, Professor of
History at the University of Bristol who studies the ancient history of Great Britain,
writes about the pentagram in The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern
Pagan Witchcraft. Hutton (1999) states the five points of the pentagram represent
the elements of earth, air, fire, and water while the fifth point represents spirit. He
goes on to say that the five-pointed star has been found in ancient Egyptian, Greek,
and Roman art, and was also used by the Christian church in the early Middle Ages.
According to Hutton, the pentagram was used as a symbol of the microcosms, the
earthly reflection of the divine plan and divine image.
In actual Pagan practice, the pentagram represents earth, air, fire, water, and spirit.
The key is that the top point represents spirit and the bottom two points represent
earth and fire, symbolizing the triumph of spirit over flesh and desire. This is a
statement that spirit (or the Divine) keeps in check all things material, emotional,
and intellectual. Satanism employs the pentacle in reverse, much like an upside down
cross, and this symbolizes flesh and desire over spirit. In a nutshell, the five-pointed
star is and has been a sacred holy symbol for many, but also has been distorted to
mean something entirely different.
In addition, Wiccans live by a code of ethics known as the Wiccan Rede, which
has multiple versions, but the last line of each is the same: “And it harm none, do
6
what you will!” The emphasis is on love, acceptance, and never causing harm to a
living being. Now that a very basic understanding of what Paganism is has been
established, we can take a look at how the media has misrepresented Pagan religion
in the 21st century.
When I mention books, movies, and television programs such as The Craft,
American Horror Story: Coven, Bewitched, Supernatural, Sabrina the Teen Age
Witch, Merlin, Hocus Pocus, The Blair Witch Project, Charmed, Harry Potter,
Snow White, The Wizard of Oz, The Crucible, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, or even The
X-Files, think for a moment and ask yourself what images of a witch, wizard, or
Pagan come to mind? The media has portrayed images of fear, evil, and fantastical
impossibilities. Spells and curses, flying on broomsticks, magical wands that can
emit lightning bolts, and even devil worship are among the images spoon fed to
the masses. In February of 2013, Fox News aired a short “news” report about
Wiccan holidays on the campus of the University of Missouri. The report claimed
Wiccans have 20 holidays and that most Wiccans cannot name half of them. The
reporter goes on to state any religion whose favorite holiday is Halloween cannot
be taken seriously. The Fox News reporter also used the false term “Wiccanism,”
which doesn’t exist among Wiccans. As mentioned before, Wiccans have only eight
major holidays and these holidays are well known to them, so the news media has,
in the example of Fox News, demonstrated ignorance and willful distortion of the
facts.1
I remember when petitions circulated around the country demanding that
someone from News Corporation (the media conglomerate that owns Fox News)
apologize on air. Thousands of people signed, and Pagan groups and organizations
were in an uproar. Rev. Fox and The Lady Liberty League also wrote a formal letter
to Fox News asking for an apology. An anchor on Fox News indeed apologized on air
shortly after. Because of the persistent media misrepresentations in regard to Pagan
religion, it’s important for teachers—current and future—to be aware of the facts
in order to better understand Pagan children and to address possible bullying in the
school environment.
IMPLICATIONS
Unfortunately, discrimination, stereotyping, and misunderstandings of Wiccans

and Pagans don’t end with the media. Prior to 2007, over 30 religious symbols
were approved by the National Cemetery Administration (a division of the
U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs) to be inscribed on U.S. veterans’ memorial
headstones, except for the pentacle. In 1997, many Pagan and Wiccan organizations
and advocates, including Circle Sanctuary and Rev. Fox, began the 10-year fight to
win the right of the pentacle on the headstones of Pagan veterans, and the struggle
was successfully realized on April 23, 2007. One has to wonder why it took so long
and why a multicultural spirituality that’s loving, tolerant, and ecologically friendly
has been portrayed as evil and undesirable for so many centuries.
7
g. m. brewer
I don’t have ample time to account for the history of the last 2,000 years, but
Pagans were being oppressed and persecuted in the year 325 C.E. under the Roman
Emperor Constantine, who himself was a Pagan. For political control, he declared
Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, and in the proceeding
centuries over 50,000—and some reports claim up to 9 million—people were
tortured, burned alive, hung, or otherwise put to death for merely being accused of
following the older Pagan religions. It seems to me that the struggle between Pagan
and Abrahamic faiths has been one of political control, and for this reason all types
of Pagans have been and still are stereotyped as either evil or crazy.
Interestingly, Pagan religion is on the rise in the public’s general attention, and
since the late 1940s has had a substantial revival. In 1948, the well-known author
and poet Robert Graves published his book The White Goddess. This, in turn,
brought the ancient European version of Paganism back to the public eye. Today,
there are hundreds of Pagan festivals that occur in the United States alone, such
as Pagan Spirit Gathering, Pan Pagan, Pantheacon, Starwood, Beltania, Free
Spirit Gathering, Paganicon, Heartland Pagan Festival, Wisteria, Summer Solstice
Gathering, Circle Quest, Summerland Spirit Gathering, and the worldwide Pagan
Pride Days.
Pagan Pride Project Worldwide is a 501(c)(3) non-for-profit tax-exempt entity
that sponsors annual events throughout the United States, Canada, Central and
South America, Europe, and Australia. Regarding Central and South America alone,
there are 14 Pagan Pride Day events that occur in Brazil, 2 in Chile, 1 in Perú, 2 in
Columbia, 1 in México, and one in República Dominicana. As a board member of the
project, I can proudly state that our aim is to promote tolerance and understanding
between people of different faiths via education, activism, and charity. We seek to
educate the public and to debunk the numerous myths that Pagans encounter on a
regular basis. And guess what? There is no charge to attend a Pagan Pride Day, but
we do ask for donations of non-perishable food items and pet supplies that are in turn
given to local shelters and organizations to support those in need.
As a future teacher candidate, it is my humble opinion that all who seek to be
knowledge facilitators—or those who currently serve as educators—mustn’t only
be proficient and passionate about the field they teach or aim to teach, but they
should also be aware of all minorities, cultures, subcultures, faiths, religions, and
stereotypes in order to best promote knowledge, tolerance, and development.
If we are aware of the world around us, we can better protect humanity against
senseless bullying, discrimination, and intolerance. But we can only do that
if we are informed, knowledgeable, and accepting of each and every human
being.
NOTE
1
You can find the video called “Fox News Bashes Pagans and Wiccans” on YouTube if you’d like to
see the full version.
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REFERENCES
Cunningham, S. (2000). Wicca: A guide for the solitary practitioner. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn.
Fox, S. (2015). Guide to nature spirituality. Retrieved from https://www.circlesanctuary.org/index.php/
lady-liberty-league/success-in-thhe-veteran-pentacle-quest
Fox, S. (2007). Success in the veteran pentacle quest. Retrieved from https://www.circlesanctuary.org/
index.php/lady-liberty-league/success-in-the-veteran-pentacle-quest
Graves, R. (1948). The white goddess. New York: The Noonday Press.
Grimassi, R. (2001). The Wiccan mysteries: Ancient origins & teachings. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn.
Hutton, R. (1999). The triumph of the moon: A history of modern Pagan witchcraft. New York: Oxford
University Press.
OPCF YouTube Channel. (2013). Fox News bashes Pagans and Wiccans. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwJqUQzghhM
Pagan Pride Project Worldwide. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.paganpride.org/
Paganism. (2010). Secret societies. Retrieved from http://www.secretssocieties.com/paganism/paganism/
Tidmarsh, J. (2015, November). Deck the halls [song lyrics]. Retrieved from http://www.carols.org.uk/
deck_the_halls.htm
Webster’s Student Dictionary. (1999). New York: Barnes & Noble Books.
9
ALLISON CUMMINGS AND AMANDA GLESING
2. GENDER AND THE MEDIA

Degradation of Women in Popular Culture
INTRODUCTION
It’s fair to say that we live in a culture that is mediated by television, music, movies,
and other forms of popular media. The entertainment industry is one of the most
influential aspects of our society simply because of the rate at which people consume
popular media. Many citizens have access to media in the palm of their hands: smart-
phones. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the media (news, television, film,
advertisements, etc.) influences our daily lives deeply. Sometimes this influence can
be positive, for example, when it comes to staying informed about the world in
which we live; but in many cases the media is infiltrating our thought processes
in negative and even harmful ways (Herman & Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent,
1994). One glaring example of the media’s negative influence comes in the form of
sexism as a norm of American popular culture. Hollywood’s portrayal of women
is directly related to the self-esteem and personal value that ordinary women and
girls feel (Harper & Tiggerman, 2008). The glorification of unrealistic female body
types, as well as the continuous sexualization of the female figure, is prominent in
film, television, advertisements, and other forms of popular culture. Major media
outlets have a huge hand in shaping the attitudes of females in our society—which
can be associated with eating disorders, psychological issues, and overall levels of
confidence. It’s essential to be aware of these important issues if we hope to combat
them and positively represent gender equality in the media.
SEXISM IN FILM
As long as we have been alive, women have been an integral part of the film
industry. But, according to objectification theory, the way in which women have
been portrayed in movies over time has contributed to women’s’ self-objectification
and mental health risks (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Although some may say that
the film industry has come a long way in how they portray women, there is still an
alarming number of modern films that do not even pass the Bechdel Test, which
questions (1) whether a movie has at least two female characters who have names,

A. Cummings & A. Glesing
(2) if they talk to each other, and (3) if they talk to each other about anything other
than a man (“Bechdel Test Movie List,” para. 1).
There are a number of very successful movies from a range of genres that fail
to pass this test. Some of these movies include Mortdecai, The Spongebob Movie:
Sponge out of Water, 22 Jump Street, American Sniper, Dawn of the Planet of the
Apes, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, and many more. If so many
of these mainstream films cannot pass the simple Bechdel Test, there would seem to
be a lack of interesting, well-rounded, strong female characters in modern cinema.
According to statistics from The Representation Project, in 2011, only 11% of the
protagonists in movies were female. By relying heavily on male main characters, the
film industry implies to their audience that female characters are less significant, and
thus that the female gender is ultimately less significant.
Another way we see the film industry contributing to women’s self-objectification
is their common objectification and sexualization in all manner of movies. Sexual
objectification is when a woman’s body is separated from her as a person and she is
viewed as a sex object instead of a person. We see this repeatedly in the film industry.
Sometimes sexual objectification is blunt and even a part of the plot of a movie, as
in Superbad, American Pie, and Sex Drive, where the main characters are on a quest
to lose their virginity and value the female characters for their sexualized bodies.
In other movies, such as The Wolf of Wall Street, Swingers, The Social Network,
James Bond, and many more, the male character’s success is equated to how many
beautiful women he sleeps with. All of these movies treat female characters as sex
objects, and normalize sexual objectification.
Amanda and I are repeatedly reminded by the film industry that it is normal
for women to be treated this way, and that it is normal for women to objectify
themselves, think of themselves as trophies, and throw themselves at “successful”
men. By presenting audiences with the normalization of sexual objectification, the
film industry and other purveyors of media reinforce and legitimize the expectation
that men are supposed to possess the power and be the active subjects of their own
sexual pleasure while, on the other hand, women are supposed to be submissive and
serve as the objects of men’s desires (Ross, 2011).
Reinforcing these sexual norms in society can be rather problematic. Studies
have shown that instances of sexual objectification are frequent for many American
women. For example, Janet Kay Swim and her colleagues conducted studies that
revealed that 94% of undergraduate women in college experienced unwanted
comments that sexually objectified them at least one time each semester. They
also found that women reported being verbally sexually objectified more than men
(Swim, Cohen, & Hyers, 1998; Swim, Hyers, Cohen, & Ferguson, 2001). Sexual
objectification is not only common in movies; it’s common in real life. Since sexual
objectification can lead to issues with women’s health and self-esteem, normalizing
sexual objectification in film needs to be challenged with stories that disrupt the
hegemonic portrayal of women.
12
GENDER AND THE MEDIA
SEXISM IN TELEVISION
When glancing at a list of the most popular television shows, the lineup is
unsurprisingly male dominated. Dramas and sitcoms were among the most popular
television shows of 2014. The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, The
Walking Dead, and Sons of Anarchy were among the top-rated hits. The unfortunate
reality regarding these shows is that they represent the female population in an
extremely negative way. The way female characters are portrayed is representative
of the larger problem of sexism in our society.
One of the most popular characters on television in recent years was Barney
Stinson (played by Neil Patrick Harris) in How I Met Your Mother. Barney began the
series as a womanizer who occasionally objectifies women he sleeps with, making
one or two offensive comments while still having complex storylines involving
his career or his friendships. As the show progressed, Barney’s character became
increasingly misogynistic, partaking in behaviors that are downright cruel and
abusive. His character lost depth, becoming a sex-crazed “bro” whose one and only
goal was to sleep with as many women as possible.
We argue that the popularity of How I Met Your Mother (and shows like it)
reinforces sexism, which has become accepted as nomal in social situations. Men
and women are taught that it is okay to make jokes at the expense of women—
treating them merely as sexual objects—because Barney Stinson is “awesome” and
his character is one of the best-loved on television. But Barney Stinson isn’t the only
offender: think Charlie on Two and a Half-Men, Joey on Friends, Russell on Rules
of Engagement, or any other male character, who represents the “cool” ladies’ man,
who treats women with disrespect and prejudice.
With such prevalence of these harmful male characters, one would at least hope that
the representation of female characters would maintain a balance of some sort. Sadly,
according to “Boxed In: Employment of Behind-the-Scenes and On-Screen Women
in 2013–2014 Prime-Time Television” by Martha M. Lauzen (2013), only 37% of
primetime television characters are female. And along with such a huge disparity
between the number of female and male characters, the female characters that are
represented on popular television shows are largely shown in stereotypical roles that
don’t challenge society’s sexist norms in any way, but instead contribute to the myth
that women and girls are inferior to men and that women exist simply to satisfy men.
One example of a harmful female stereotype played out in television sitcoms is the
“dumb blonde” trope. Penny of The Big Bang Theory, Jenna and Cerie of 30 Rock,
Kelly Bundy of Married…With Children, Hanna of Pretty Little Liars, and many more
represent this character. Additionally, “dumb blonde” stereotypes such as these exist
in shows aimed at young girls, such as Emily Osment’s character Lilly in Hannah
Montana, or Heather Morris playing Brittany on Glee. The prominence of characters
like these in television can have an impact on the self-esteem of females. Women are
taught that they need to dumb themselves down in order to be liked, and that men
are only responsive to ditzy women whose only value is their looks. When we teach
13
women that their value comes solely from their external appearance, we significantly
devalue other personal qualities, such as intelligence or sense of humor. However, in
the face of these stereotypical representations of women in television, it’s important to
recognize the few programs that work at portraying women in a positive light.
We believe that the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation has two of the most
positive female characters on television. The hard-working, determined Leslie
Knope (Amy Poehler) will stop at nothing to achieve her goals, holds fast to her
values, and is unafraid to be herself. Another character who represents a challenge
to several stereotypes is Donna Meagle (Retta). She’s a black woman who is firmly
in charge of her own personhood. She rules her sexuality, and her positivity and
success come from her confident view of herself. Although television shows are
rarely perfect, these characters show the way that television could progress as our
society moves forward.
According to statistics from The Representation Project, women only own 5.8%
of the television stations and only 6% of radio stations. When we are faced with this
statistic it may become more obvious why women are significantly underrepresented
in our television programming. This disparity in ownership is one of the most striking
examples of the way in which television is a reflection of the problematic nature of
our sexist culture. Women watch on average 4 hours of television per day versus
men’s 3 hours (Nielsen, 2013). If women make up more television viewership, then
why are they not owners of these media companies?
Since women are commonly portrayed as sex objects in movies, it is important
to note how the ways in which women’s bodies are “made up” to look in film and
animation—including movies for children—commonly fit in with the American beauty
standard. That means that they’re typically thin, white, and have long voluminous hair,
large breasts, and full hips. The media often depicts a strict and nearly unattainable
standard of women’s physical beauty and links this standard with a woman’s sexiness
and worth (American Psychological Association, 2007). It’s common to see female
characters in animated movies with very small waists and large bust sizes. The
hourglass figure is often exaggerated in animated films, particularly Disney movies.
In The Lego Movie, the main female character, Wildstyle, has an hourglass figure
painted onto her rectangular body, while the male Lego characters do not.
The thin beauty standard is exaggerated in cartoon movies, but it exists in films
with an adult demographic as well. Women’s bodies draw attention from the camera
and viewer gaze in movies of almost any genre. In romantic movies, horror flicks,
dramatic films, and virtually any other popular film category, the female actresses
often seem to have bodies that fit an unrealistic beauty standard for most women.
It would benefit women and girls of all ages if the film industry hired actresses
with a variety of body types for main roles, because unrealistic beauty standards
in movies can lead to female self-objectification and decreased self-esteem
(American Psychological Association, 2007). According to Fredrickson and Roberts
(1997), women internalize the messages that media outlets send about the ways
they’re supposed to look and act. To us, this internalization can lead to unhealthy
14
thoughts—that we’re supposed to be judged by the way we look—and unhealthy

experiences of feeling like objects to be gazed upon.
These unhealthy thoughts and tendencies are what Fredrickson and Roberts
refer to as self-objectification, which can have many negative psychological
consequences. Self-objectification can lead to increased body shame, anxiety
about physical appearance, reduced flow and internal awareness, and anxiety about
personal safety. These things, over time, can lead to mental health issues such as
depression, addiction, and eating disorders.
SEXISM IN ADVERTISING
In reference to advertising strategies, everyone has probably heard the phrase “Sex
sells.” People see hundreds of advertisements every day, and many of them are
“sexy,” even if the product has no relation to sex. It is common to see sexy ads for
just about anything: clothing, shampoo, body wash, food, cars, energy drinks, beer,
soda, gum, and more. The problem with the “sex sells” strategy in advertising is
what kind of sex they are selling, and to what audience. There is a significant amount
of sexual objectification and exploitation of women in advertisements.
Some may say that men are presented as sexual objects in advertisements too,
which is true. However, it is fair to say that the exploitation between the two genders
is highly disproportionate. Women are objectified in advertisements vastly more
than men, and, typically, the “sexy” advertisements have a male demographic. If
sex sold equally to men and women, there would be the same number of men and
women objectified in advertisements, but that is not the case (Ross, 2011). Anyone
can go on to their mobile phones or devices right now and Google “sexy car ads,”
“sexy food ads,” or any ad imaginable with the word “sexy” in front of it, and most
of the images that show up on the search will be of women or women’s bodies.
Because the “sex sells” strategy primarily exploits female bodies, it is fair to say that
sexy advertisements and sexist advertisements live in the same space.
One example of sexist advertising in the media is the Hardee’s and Carl’s Junior
advertising campaign that features models and actresses such as Paris Hilton, Kate
Upton, and Charlotte McKinny, all of whom fit the typical American beauty standard.
They have flat stomachs, hourglass figures, and blonde hair. In the advertisements,
these women are shown seductively eating cheeseburgers while wearing little to
no clothing, often assuming sexually provocative poses. The models in these
commercials are treated as if they are sexual objects to accompany the food that
the company is trying to sell. Another example of sexism in advertisements is the
campaign for Axe brand products. Many of these ads feature an unhappy man before
he uses Axe products, and he is usually made to seem unsuccessful.
After the man uses the Axe products, thin, “beautiful” women are draped over
him, and he is made to look happy and successful because he now gets to fulfill his
sexual desire. Women in Axe advertisements usually never speak, and if they do,
they are saying something provocative or something that indicates their desire for
15
the man. They are treated as accessories for success and happiness, objects instead
of individual human beings. This sends the message that women are inferior and
exist only to please men. Hardee’s/Carl’s Junior and Axe are only a couple examples
of this issue that is so prevalent in the advertising world.
Advertisements that feature thin “beautiful” women are almost everywhere.
Women are fed images of unattainable body types in multiple forms of media,
especially ads. Because advertisements are directly linked to wants and desires, the
pressure to conform to beauty standards is very strong through this branch of the
media. Being a female consumer and seeing images of unrealistic beauty standards
can make it difficult to have body confidence.
According to statistics from The Representation Project, 53% of 13-year-old
girls are unhappy with their bodies, and 78% of 17-year-old girls are unhappy
with their bodies. 7 million out of the 8 million people who struggle with eating
disorders are women, and 65% of women in America have struggled with an eating
disorder at some point in their lives. Companies who advertise products to the
public can help prevent these issues by ceasing to degrade and objectify women in
their ads.
SEXISM IN OTHER MEDIA FORMS
As evidenced by our research (and our lived experience), sexism exists in many
places in our popular culture. Two other examples aside from network TV, films,
and advertising are the news media (“entertainment” news included) and the fashion
media, such as fashion magazines or red carpet fashion events. As in other forms of
popular culture, women are no less objectified in these often-overlooked forms of
popular culture. According to a study by the Women’s Media Center, 63% of bylines
in print news and on-camera appearances for many of the major news networks were
men, showing that women are grossly underrepresented in journalism.
Fox News is a controversial yet popular cable news network. They have long been
accused of having only classically attractive women as anchors, as well as few-to-
no older women. A recent survey of their on-air personalities shows that Fox News
employs mostly white male anchors, and the female anchors they do employ largely
represent the classic American beauty standard and are, again, mostly white. This
vast underrepresentation of minorities, especially minority women, is detrimental
to all women, and women of color in particular. Representation is extremely
important for consumers of media, and the lack of female representation in the news
media sends a message to women that information lies in the hands of the male
population.
Magazines are another culprit in the hyper-sexualization of women. Magazines
like Cosmopolitan infiltrate the minds of young women and girls with messages
across the cover: “How to drop 10 pounds fast and easy!” or “How to dress for
your body type” or even the glaringly sexist “How to please your man in bed! 10
Secrets from real guys!” All of these messages tell women that they are supposed
16
to be thin and sexy, and that getting your guy off is the most important sexual task.
In a world in which Cosmo and other fashion magazines plaster our grocery store
aisles, Facebook pages, and phone screens, the wrong message is being broadcast to
a willing and impressionable audience.
“Who are you wearing?” is the most common question asked to women at red
carpet events such as the Emmys, the Academy Awards, the Grammys, and other
formal affairs. TV cameras line the red carpet, as celebrities flaunt their elegant
gowns and smart suits. In recent years, however, the focus has increasingly fallen
upon the “looks” that the rich and famous sport to the affairs. In response to that
question, the actress can really only answer with the name of a designer (usually
male). This detracts from the reason that the actress is at the awards show in the
first place. Her fashion sense overshadows her accomplishments, and the stereotype
that Hollywood starlets are vapid, vain idiots is perpetuated. How are these women
to break that stereotype if they are only being asked about their outfit choices? The
Representation Project held the answer for this year’s red carpet award season. It
came in the form of a thought-provoking hashtag, #AskHerMore. This social media
campaign offered an opportunity for actresses and others to speak out against sexist
trends in the entertainment media.
CONCLUSION
In this piece, we’ve made the case that there are multiple ways that sexism is
perpetuated through different media outlets. New storylines need to emerge,
for women, by women, and in the aim of greater understanding so we can begin
challenging patriarchal narratives in the media and beyond.
Hollywood makes patriarchy a norm in popular culture, and this is reflected onto
civilization. The portrayal of women in film, television, advertisements, and other
forms of media not only reinforces the patriarchal system in our society, it also has
negative effects on women’s self-esteem and mental health. Although some may say
that Hollywood has made improvements with the way it depicts women, it still has
a long way to go.
REFERENCES
American Psychological Association. (2007a). Guidelines for psychological practice with girls and
women. American Psychologist, 62(9), 949–979. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.62.9.949
American Psychological Association. (2007b). Report of the APA task force on the sexualization of girls.
Washington, DC: APA.
Bechdel Test Movie List. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://bechdeltest.com/
Fredrickson, B. L., & Roberts, T. (1997). Objectification theory: Toward understanding women’s lived
experiences and mental health risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21(2), 173–206. doi:10.1111/
j.1471-6402.1997.tb00108.x
Gillen, J. (2014). Digital literacies. New York: Routledge.
Harper, B., & Tiggemann, M. (2008). The effect of thin ideal media images on women’s self-
objectification, mood, and body image. Sex Roles, 58(9), 649–657. doi:10.1007/s11199-007-9379-x
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Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. (1994). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass
media. London: Vintage.
Lauzen, M. M. (2013). Boxed in: Employment of behind-the-scenes and on-screen women. San Diego,
CA: Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, San Diego State University. Retrieved
from http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/research.html
Ross, S. (2011). Selling sex. In Images that injure pictorial stereotypes in the media (3rd ed., pp. 163–171).
Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Speight, S. L., & Vera, E. M. (2004). A social justice agenda: Ready or not? The Counseling Psychologist,
32(1), 109–118. doi:10.1177/0011000003260005
Swim, J. K., Cohen, L. L., & Hyers, L. L. (1998). Experiencing everyday prejudice and discrimination.
In J. K. Swim & C. Stangor (Eds.), Prejudice: The target’s perspective (pp. 37–60). San Diego, CA:
Academic Press.
Swim, J. K., Hyers, L. L., Cohen, L. L., & Ferguson, M. J. (2001). Everyday sexism: Evidence for its
incidence, nature, and psychological impact from three daily diary studies. Journal of Social Issues,
57(1), 31–53. doi:10.1111/0022-4537.00200
The Representation Project. (2015, January 1). Retrieved from http://therepresentationproject.org/
resources/statistics/
“The Office of Adolescent Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.” Office of Adolescent
Health. Retrieved from http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/news/e-updates/eupdate-nov-2013.html.
Wellmon, C. (2012). Why Google isn’t making us stupid…or smart. Hedgehog Review, 14(1), 66–80.
18
JUSTIN HAYES
3. SILENT JUDGMENTS
How I Came to Terms with Depression
“Happiness is a choice.”
“Every day it’s your decision to make that day a bad one or a good one.”
“Surround yourself with happy people and you will feel the same.”
“People are as happy as they allow themselves to be.”
I hear these phrases and phrases just like them from friends, family, and strangers
in daily conversation. People say these things with positive intentions and as words
of encouragement. I can personally recall countless times I have tried to make light
of situations with people in my life by telling them that happiness ultimately comes
down to a conscious choice. I believed this for myself, and I believed it to be true
for all people for a large portion of my life because I simply had no reason to think
otherwise. It was not until a few years ago that I started to notice I did not think or
feel the same way that those around me did. I started to constantly feel down and
was unable to snap out of it with positive thought. I was ultimately going to find out
that I am one of the 350 million people worldwide who suffers from some form of
depression.
Throughout my life I never considered myself to be an unhappy person. I had my
good days and bad days like anyone else, and I was a firm believer in the idea that
I had no “real” reason to ever feel down because I led a very privileged life. I was
doing pretty well in school, I had a great group of friends and an extremely loving
and supporting family, and I lived in a nice suburb. I was known by most people in
my life as someone with a calm demeanor and a great sense of humor.
I can recall the first time ever feeling symptoms of depression was around my
junior to senior years of high school. I quickly shrugged any of these feelings off
as just part of growing up. When I felt down, I would assure myself that nothing
could be wrong because nothing extreme in my life was going on to cause this. At
this point, I knew as much about depression as most people do who live without
it. I would have defined it then the same way someone could try and define it
now as a feeling of sadness or emptiness that does not go away. I believed that
individuals with depression felt this way because of some sort of loss or other
traumatic event in their life, and I thought this could be cured with positive
thinking brought on by therapy and perhaps some medication for those who really
need it.

J. HAYES
As someone who now lives with clinical depression, I find it important to think
back and reflect on my own beliefs before I began to recognize what it is and to live
with it. This is important because it reminds me not to ever become frustrated with
someone who has not lived with it but tries to offer what they believe to be words of
encouragement such as “Happiness is a choice.” This sadly reminds me that unlike
a lot of physical illnesses, the pain behind depression is mostly invisible, and I often
find explaining it to be nearly impossible. It would be very easy to label someone as
ignorant for not understanding what an individual with depression goes through on
a daily basis, but understanding usually begins with conversation. Conversation that
is oftentimes very difficult to have.
I ended up graduating high school and getting into the college of my choice
without ever fully acknowledging that anything could be wrong with me. Things
were going great for me, and I still felt that I had no reason to complain. It was not
until the second half of freshman year that I started to realize something was not right,
but depression never crossed my mind because I still believed that was something
that could only be triggered by having what I considered to be real problems. I
constantly felt fatigued, distant from those around me, and I stopped getting any
sense of enjoyment out of what I once considered to be very fun activities. My
grades were not what I knew they could be, and I had a very difficult time focusing
on classes and even on daily conversation.
I felt a lot of guilt for feeling this way because I knew so many people who were
facing serious problems in their daily lives and they seemed better able to deal with
them and keep smiles on their faces. I habitually questioned why I had the right
to feel so down, and I used this train of thought to keep shrugging off the fact that
something might be wrong. I assured myself that there had to be a valid reason why
I felt this way, and the one thing I was able to try and blame it on was a relationship I
had been in for a few years. I never considered myself to be a rash thinker, but
I quickly decided that the relationship just had to have something to do with it.
I ended the relationship thinking I had made a big and positive change for myself.
The symptoms worsened after the breakup, but I reassured myself that everyone
feels this way after getting out of a relationship and that it would pass within a month
or two. But it didn’t. It only got worse.
For months on end I felt what I can only really describe as emptiness. Before
those later months, I would pride myself on my ability to keep that feeling inside
and hidden from strangers and those closest to me. I had my same sense of humor
and still kept everyone around me laughing. Getting myself out of bed and all other
daily tasks, even the fun ones, felt like a huge chore, but I did my absolute best to
never reveal I was having difficulties. It was in the summer months, while back at
home that my closer friends started to notice I was not behaving like myself. The
breakup I was going through at the time in a strange way gave me something to
blame that on, which provided me with the chance to open up to my friends. I finally
had a reason in my head for almost justifying this feeling, and with the help of a
very close friend who told my parents how I had been doing, I made a decision to
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SILENT JUDGMENTS
get some help. No matter how open I am today about this, I still fear how much I
could have let myself go if it were not for this friend who made the choice to reach
out. With the help of my parents, I arranged to meet with a therapist near my home. I
was extremely uncomfortable with making this decision because I never could have
imagined myself being someone who would need to go to a therapist. I shamelessly
attached a stigma to individuals who seek help for themselves through counseling,
and I never wanted to see myself as one of “those people.”
Within one meeting with this therapist, I was able to describe everything I had
been feeling for the prior few years. In that same meeting, this therapist told me I
almost definitely had clinical depression. I instantly denied this until she explained
that depression can happen to anyone and it does not always need a triggering
event. I went home and researched clinical depression right away and read several
individual stories from people who have dealt with it. After reading all of the stories,
everything I had been feeling for the past few years suddenly made sense. I had felt
so isolated until I read all about the illness and discovered that no case of depression
is exactly the same. Being able to put a label on what I had been feeling for so long
was a massive relief.
Going back to school at the end of the summer, I was faced with the fact that I
would no longer be seeing the therapist I had seen and opened up to weekly for about
a month. I was able to seek out a free resource on my campus that I never knew
existed and get counseling. My school offers twenty free sessions with a therapist,
and I was able to meet with someone within a week of coming back to school.
I was told by this therapist that things oftentimes get a lot worse before they get
better when treating depression, and this was very true for me. I struggled my way
through the first semester of school and still did my best to hide this from those
around me. I still felt empty and fatigued through my day-to-day life and found it
almost impossible to just get myself out of bed and to classes. I was advised by this
therapist to exercise more often to combat the depression, which I did, and I found
that it helped temporarily relieve some of the symptoms. My appetite had almost
completely gone away, which was something I had never experienced. I was pretty
overweight throughout my life and ended up losing around sixty pounds over the
course of my second year of college, partially because I made myself exercise more
often, but mainly due to my inability to make myself eat. The weight loss felt like
something I should have been proud of, but at the time it was only a reflection of
how awful I was feeling.
It took me some time, but I ended up being very open with friends when I began
therapy. I am fortunate enough to have an amazing group of family and friends who
all did their absolute best to understand what I was going through and try to help.
Finally being able to process my feelings with those closest to me helped me more
than I think I will ever realize. All of these support systems such as a therapist and
an unbelievably supportive group of family and friends often came with a sense of
guilt about where I would be without those systems and where a scary amount of
individuals end up when they do not have similar resources. I was able to deal with
21
J. HAYES
that guilt and many other feelings through therapy. I have learned that I should not
feel so guilty about my own situation as long I am able to listen and understand the
stories of other people in worse situations and why they may be in those situations.
Eventually, in the first months of therapy, medicine was suggested. This was an
idea I had considered, but I’d also attached a stigma to individuals who took medicine
for mental illness in the same way I’d previously thought about those who need
therapy, and I really wanted to believe that no matter how bad I got, I would not be
one of those people who needed to take medicine for a mental illness. Therapy helped
me come to the realization that mental illness, like physical illness, often needs to be
treated with medication. Many people hold strong stances against this, but I believe
anyone who felt the way I felt would come around to at least giving it a shot.
I arranged to see an on-campus psychiatrist who was very understanding about
how unsure I was about medication. He thoroughly discussed the many different
medications that are out there and helped me weigh the pros and cons of all of them.
After we made a decision, he started me on a low dose for a few weeks to gradually
build me up to the regular dose. Within a few weeks, I was already feeling more like
myself. Day-to-day activities did not feel as mentally and physically draining as
they had before, and my outlook on life began to return to normal. The symptoms of
depression did not magically vanish with medication, but I found myself having an
easier time dealing with those symptoms.
I stuck with this medication for the remainder of my second year of school and
ran out of the free counseling sessions the university provided at what I felt to be
a good enough stopping point. I continued taking the medication through a month
or two of summer and decided with the psychiatrist that I was able to try weaning
myself off. Some of the fatigue associated with depression returned, but overall, I
felt a lot better. I am now over halfway through my third year in school, and I have
been dealing with a lot of recurring depression symptoms, which is all too common
for individuals with depression. Thanks to therapy, I am in a better place than last
year and have been able to recognize when these symptoms start to recur and am
now in the process of deciding to try a new medication. I know that depression is
not something that often goes away within a year, but I have fortunately been given
several opportunities to learn how to try and combat it.
I am not telling my story as a way to seek pity or attention, and I have come to feel
strongly that the fact that I feel the need to express this is problematic for individuals
who are in similar situations. Those who are open about their depression are often
criticized and labeled as attention seekers. This is a huge problem because I have
found that almost nothing has helped me to combat depression as much as simply
reaching out and talking about it. Despite my present openness with close friends
and family, I still find myself staying quiet, solely because I am scared of the silent
judgments people might make about my possible intentions for speaking out.
I still feel the need to express how grateful I am that I have such an amazing
support system and the privileges and opportunities I have been presented with
before I ever tell my story. I still continue to work on getting over the belief that
22
SILENT JUDGMENTS
certain people have more of a right to feel the way I do than I do. The point is,
although the support systems and opportunities to deal with it might, depression
itself does not discriminate. People may never get the help they need just because
they are fearful of being seen as self-seeking. I would like to live in a society where
mental illness is perceived with compassion and where people who need help are
able to comfortably reach out and get that help. I will do everything I can to advocate
for myself and those like myself to help create a world where every person is given
the same chances.
23
ANONYMOUS 1
4. TO BE CONTINUED…
It’s so strange how you can live 20 years on this Earth and only remember bits
and pieces of your time. I can remember hardly anything about my childhood and
adolescence. It’s all one big, messy blur. What I do remember isn’t the greatest.
I don’t remember fun birthday parties, or family vacations; I can only remember
how awful life was. I wanted nothing more than for everything to go away, year
after year. Death was the only option for me, the only way to make everything and
everyone go away. Killing myself was my only hope.
Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve felt the pressure to look a certain way. I didn’t
start to notice it until I was in third grade. I had always been bigger, if not the biggest,
of all of my girlfriends. I didn’t really care. I was a kid, and the last thing on my
mind was feeling the need to lose a few pounds. Unfortunately, that all changed.
I remember one day I was at my friend Kenzie’s house with two other friends. I had
left the computer room to use the bathroom, but before I walked back into the room
I heard my name being said. I’m not sure why, but I stopped and listened to what my
friends where saying. Anna started off saying something along the lines of, “Kenzie
you’re so skinny. You’re like a twig; Michaela is like a branch … and Cat is like the
tree trunk.” Then they all laughed and laughed like it was THE BEST JOKE EVER.
I turned back around and went into the bathroom. I looked myself in the mirror and
began to notice, for the first time, how I was significantly bigger than my other
friends.
Now that I knew this information, I didn’t like that about myself. I started to
see what they saw. I never told my friends that I heard them talking and that what
they said had truly hurt my feelings. I just went back into the room and joined in
on whatever they were doing on the computer. From then on I was very conscious
of how I looked compared to all other girls. I started to make detailed comparisons
between other girls and myself. I would pick at myself, say awful things about
myself, and really started to hate my body and who I was. This continued for years,
and only got worse.
When I was going into middle school, I was still unhappy with how I looked.
I started wearing makeup the year before. I had gotten some boobs, and I started
my period, became a woman blah blah blah. I did not like being a girl. In middle
school there were these girls who actually called themselves “The Plastics.” Bet you
guessed: Anna was one of them. Our friendship had faded away, and she was now a
cheerleader. For some reason I wanted to be her friend still. She was skinny, pretty,

ANONYMOUS 1
popular, had a lot of friends, not to mention she got attention from boys. I wanted to
be like her. Throughout my two years in middle school I went from a size 10–12 in
jeans to a 00. I had stopped eating. I would eat a few saltine crackers for breakfast
and had a bottle of water for lunch at school. I was never hungry. I never actually felt
hunger until I was in pain. My family rarely ate meals together, so no one noticed.
I had to make my own meals if I wanted to eat, which I didn’t. For the occasional
dinner we would eat together, I would say I didn’t feel good and only eat a few bites.
I also got into the habit of just sleeping through dinner. No one noticed.
At the time I didn’t realize how sick I really was, so I never noticed how much
it grew inside of me or how deeply rooted it had become. My depression led me to
sleep away every second of my free time, causing me to lose touch with most of
my friends. Even if I had wanted to spend more time with my friends and family,
my anxiety made that almost impossible. I was so anxious and worried all the time.
I was constantly thinking that everyone was looking at me, judging me, looking at
my stomach, talking about me. I would dream of the fat melting and peeling away.
Or that I could cut it off with a knife. I also remember sucking in my gut 24/7. I was
only 13. I never told a soul about what was going on inside my head.
I had become the master of acting like a different person to my family and peers.
No one said anything about how I was acting off or different when those rays of
darkness shown through my facade. I also have extreme difficulties expressing
what’s going on inside of me. It’s so hard to put things into words. I would just bury
everything deep down inside and completely forget about it, or at least try. This story
does not do any justice to the pain I went through and still continue to go through
every day of my life.
I had lost a bunch of weight, and even though I had that physical evidence, I still
thought in my head that I was the size of a whale. You’ve probably seen that picture
of the super-skinny girl looking at herself in the mirror, but seeing her reflection as
obese. That was literally me. Since I never reached out to anyone and no one reached
out to me, I soon spiraled into a deep black hole I thought I could never climb out of.
I felt so alone, like I had no one. No friends or family who would support me or even
acted like they cared. I grew to accept that I was never going to be capable of any sort
of happiness. At times I longed for death, for it seemed like the only answer. There’s
so much more I wish I could express as to why in late May of 2009, I tried to kill
myself before school. It started out when I had a mental breakdown over a fucking
zipper on a dress; the smallest things could trigger a meltdown. I just wanted to wear
that dress. It was so beautiful with pink and blue water-colored flowers. It made me
feel good. It made me feel pretty.
I had never let any of those emotions show in front of my parents, so they never
knew about the years of emotions bottled up inside of me. I guess they just thought
I was a moody teenager who liked to be alone and sleep. They never asked any
questions. Or maybe they didn’t know what to do. My mental breakdowns are not
quiet at all. I couldn’t control myself once I reached a certain point. Once I cracked
open, everything came pouring out of me. I had shattered my mother’s favorite
26
TO BE CONTINUED…
mirror and slit my wrists with a chunk of the glass. I had locked the door to my
room, and by the time my parents got the key to open it, I had swallowed pretty much
half of the bottle of my mom’s Excedrin. I was ready to die. I wanted to die. I finally
decided that there was no way I could go on living like that anymore.
A lot of what happened after that is blurry, but I had my stomach pumped and
was admitted into the Robert Young Mental Health Center. I stayed there for three
weeks. I ended up missing the rest of my freshman year of high school. Robert
Young sucked, and it didn’t help me at all. I’m not even sure how I was released. Due
to not getting any help there, I continued down a dangerous path. I often still thought
about death. And about how I couldn’t kill myself because I saw how it hurt my
family. I didn’t want to do that to them again, so I wanted to die on accident. I would
think about walking into traffic all the time. I preferred to be hit by a city bus. Or just
jumping out of the car while it’s moving. Which I attempted during one meltdown
one time. Dad had those dang child locks on! Since my parents knew what was up,
they kept an eye on me for a while. I tried three different counselors over the rest of
my high school career. I even tried some type of group therapy bullshit.
For four more years, I struggled with my body image and the battles that were
taking place within me every single day. It was a struggle to simply carry on. I put
on weight, but I was still a size 3 until sophomore year (I got a job at Dairy Queen…
Ice cream is my favorite food). As you could’ve guessed, I became obsessed with my
image. I dolled myself up to try and make me like something—anything—about my
reflection. Since I put up a show for just about everyone, I felt so empty and alone. I
was thin, and I did figure out that makeup made me feel slightly better about myself,
so guys started to take interest in me. I started to fill myself with the affection of
these guys. Looking back, it was like I was never satisfied. I could never be satisfied
no matter how many boys I could get to fall in love with me. Well, a fake version
of me.
By the end of my senior year, I was like a whole different person. I had found the
right therapist, the right medicine combination, and ways to cope with the depression
and anxiety. Looking back at my past and thinking about who I was compared to
who I am now, I am a different person down to my cells. Even though my past got
pretty bad, I’m glad it’s my past. I’ve learned so much about myself, and how to
love the skin I’m in. I still have my days where I wish I was thinner or prettier or
whatever, but deep down I know this is the most I’ve ever loved myself.
I would like to say I maintained some sort of happiness and hope for two years after
high school. College has changed me for the better, but the chemicals in my brain
aren’t how they’re supposed to be. I weened myself off of my medicine throughout
my freshman year in college and relied on my coping skills and meditation to keep
me balanced. All without my parents or doctor knowing. I was doing so well for that
year and in the first semester of my sophomore year. I am currently in my junior
year, and I’m sinking. And sinking fast. I wish I could express how I feel, but I truly
can’t talk about what’s going on or what I need. So, I’m not sure what I was thinking
when I decided to write this chapter.
27
ANONYMOUS 1
Every day is so difficult for me. It’s so hard to even wake up. Or to get out
of bed and stay awake, to get ready for class, to walk to class, then actually pay
attention and retain something. Then to apply that knowledge! It’s so hard for me to
focus sometimes. Especially on my numb/empty days. I can sit in a class and think
I was listening, but the second I leave I don’t remember a single word. I have such
horrible, racing thoughts at night. My insomnia is back. I’ve struggled with that my
entire life, but I refuse to take sleeping pills again. What is the hardest for me is the
numbness and the exhaustion I feel deep inside of me all of the time. Even if I don’t
feel completely numb, it’s still lingering between spurts of emotion.
I feel nothing a lot of the time, and once again I have no appetite ever. So far I’ve
lost roughly 30 pounds. To me it’s a good day if (1) I convince myself that I’m in
too much debt to miss any classes so I better attend, and (2) I remember to eat more
than once that day. I know I need help. I want to try and find someone to talk to and
to get back on medicine, but I’m so scared. I’m already up to my nose in stress from
school. If I were to try and find someone to help me that would mean I would have
to open up. I would have to relive everything and tell them everything so they could
understand and try to help. There is no possible way I could do that to myself AND
have hours upon hours of homework every night and weekend. It’s mental health or
education, it seems.
If I keep my mind busy with school and on my ultimate career goal, I’m hoping
I can suppress everything until I have time for myself to start to get help again.
Suppression may help temporarily, or it may make my life even more awful. No
matter what, I feel hopeless about a lot of aspects in my life, which isn’t okay. I know
for a fact that I do need help. So, my story is to be continued.
28
DANIEL SEARCY
5. FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
INTRODUCTION
Throughout my childhood and early adolescence, I attended a number of different

schools. In many of those schools I met some children who extended a hand towards
me and became my friends, but I also often met other children who were not as kind.
Some of the aspects of my comic “First Day of School” are loosely based on a few
of those experiences. However, the comic as a whole is meant to show some of the
things (both good and bad) an individual may encounter during their first semester/
term at a new school.

D. SEARCY
30
First day of school
31
D. SEARCY
32
JAYCE SORRENTINO
6. MOM, I’M GAY
INTRODUCTION
When we were children, our parents always told us as we were growing up to be

whoever we want to be, to do the things that we want to do, and to be truthful about
who we are. We were told that we didn’t have to fit in and that we were born to stand
out and express our individuality. The most common thing for them to say to us was
“Be who you are, not what everyone else wants you to be.” Being different was never
a bad thing when we were young; that’s how our parents made us feel better when
we felt as though we didn’t belong. But what happens when being different becomes
something other than what your parents expected? How are we to forget everything
we were ever taught when it comes to being the person we truly are?
COMING OUT TO MY MOM
I was seventeen years old, a senior in high school, when I “came out” to my mother,
telling her I was gay. To be honest, I didn’t think it was something that needed a huge
conversation or explanation. To me it was normal. I didn’t understand why some people
saw it as a “coming out” to their parents, because to me coming out means you are
trying to hide your sexual orientation. But I wasn’t trying to hide; I never saw a reason.
For many people, the coming out process is difficult because they fear rejection
from those who are supposed to love them unconditionally, such as siblings and
parents. In Narrating the Closet, Adams (2011) describes his experience coming out
to relatives, stating that one family member no longer allowed him in her house and
another refused to speak to him for months. I never saw it that way because I didn’t
think it would be a big deal to my family. I was not one of the many who were afraid.
I knew my mom would love and accept me for who I was.
I fully believed when I told her my sexual orientation that she would understand.
She’d see, surely, that my sexuality had always been part of my identity. I imagined
that once I told her, we’d be able to talk about everything without me being punished.
Because I was raised to be who I truly am, I felt I could be open with her, like I’d
always been.
The tragedy is that coming out to parents is never what you expected, at least
not in my case. Apparently, all those years of being told to stay true to myself and
hearing that being different is okay only counted when my identity fell into the
heteronormative category of what is considered “normal” in society.

J. SORRENTINO
I Thought It Would Be Different
My mother came into my room one night while I was getting ready to meet with
some friends for dinner. While we were casually chatting, she asked me if I was
dating anyone. I said to her, “Mom, I’m dating a girl, you know the one that has been
coming over all the time.” I think deep down she had an idea that I was dating girls
for some time, but did not know how to ask.
When my mother decided to speak again, the conversation started with, “You
disgust me,” and ended with “I can’t even look at you the same anymore.” Of
course, there was a lot of discussion in between that fell along the lines of typical
homophobic comments like “True love isn’t real with people of the same sex,” or
“I’m sure it’s just a ‘phase’—let’s keep this between us and forget it ever happened,”
or, one of my favorites, “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
The conversation stuck with me. The one person who was supposed to understand
and be on my side was no longer there for me. From that moment on, my views of
society shifted. There I was, in complete shock trying to fathom what just happened.
If the one closest to me didn’t accept me, no one would. What my mother said during
that conversation opened my eyes to what I would face in the world around me.
What I didn’t expect was the lasting impression it left on me.
It has been almost ten years since that first conversation about my sexual
orientation with my mother. Our conversation drastically shifted my perception
of how others view me. By “others,” I mean individuals who are not part of the
marginalized lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Isolated
is the first word that comes to mind. In class I’m the minority; when I’m at my
mother’s house, I feel that I have to conceal who I am; and when I’m with my
heterosexual friends, I feel outnumbered and out of place. This feeling of isolation
was never a problem for me until I felt rejected by my own flesh and blood, by the
woman who brought me into the world.
Scholarship on the dimensions of coming out for many individuals has confirmed
my experience. As Johnson and Amella (2014) note, LGBT people are at greater risk
for feeling social isolation from their families and friends after their coming out and
are at risk for increased mental health disparities. It’s one thing to feel out of place
in a single location, but for some in the LGBT community, it’s much more than that.
Johnson and Amella (2014) indicate that there is self-isolation, where individuals
socially isolate themselves from social systems, such as family, friends and school
because we put up a defense mechanism against future possible rejection. There’s
concealment of identity because of the pressures to be normal, again, individuals
isolate themselves from social interactions to conceal their identity.
It’s important to understand that every action has a reaction. In my personal
situation, the isolation comes from recognizing I am different from heteronormative
society. I detach myself from this society to reduce any further harm. My mother’s
negative reaction still compels me to reveal my true self only to those who are
similar, or those who don’t know me well enough to decipher my sexuality.
34
Mom, I’M Gay
How does one’s sexuality affect another individual? What does homophobic hate
do besides cause conflict and isolation? Why is sexual orientation reason to kill, as
we witnessed in the tragic June 12, 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting that left 49
killed and 53 others wounded? Why do I have to live in fear that I will continuously
be judged for something that is part of me?
It is hard for older generations, like my mother’s, to change what they have
always believed about homosexuality because that is how they were raised. My
mother came from a generation where homosexuality remained hidden, and was
completely unacceptable in her household. She was raised to be Catholic and follow
the traditional path of marriage by the church. By the time my mother had me, her
faith hadn’t changed but society had. The acceptance of homosexuality had become
more prominent, so when she raised me, she was either unaware that homosexuality
could exist in our home or she was so close-minded by the way she was raised that
she was blinded to the possibility. So when she told me growing up that it was okay
to be different, it really wasn’t, because it wasn’t okay for me to be gay.
The relationship I have with my mother is nothing like it was before she knew my
true sexual orientation. We are distant, we don’t talk much, and she still denies the
fact that her own daughter is a lesbian. There is no happy ending to my story (yet).
I am a gay individual who accepts the person I am, but I still shield it from others
for protective reasons. I feel different and less-than because heteronormative society
tells me that I am. I’m not “normal” because I am part of LGBT society, and the
dominant narrative in the United States is that this community is abnormal.
My belief that the world was accepting was crushed by the closest person to me;
this changed my entire view of life. Because of the distinct image of my mother’s
response, I isolate myself from others to protect my identity from being discriminated
against. Even though I shield who I am, I’m not afraid of who I’m revealing myself
to be to you, the reader. I hope my story will help and encourage others to share their
stories of their coming-out experiences.
In closing, I will practice what my parents told me in empty clichés when I was
young so that future generations will have it easier than I did. No longer will they
feel as though they are different because, in reality, we love the same way everyone
else does, just not in the ways society sanctions.
REFERENCES
Adams, T. E. (2011). Narrating the closet: An autoethnography of same-sex attraction. New York:
Routledge.
Johnson, M. J., & Amella, E. J. (2014). Isolation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth:
A dimensional concept analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 70(3), 523–532. doi:10.1111/jan.12212
35
IDENTITY POLITICS, SEXISM, RACISM, AND
RELATIONSHIPS
ZUZANA SULCOVA
7. ASSIMILATION OF AN ALIEN
INTRODUCTION
My name is Zuzana Sulcova, and I am an alien. This could be seen as a metaphorical

title, but according the U.S. government, that is my legal title. The following is my
story of how this title became one of the most important aspects of my life. This is a
story of perseverance, fitting in, and acceptance in a world where “different” is bad
and “cool” is being a part of the group.
ASSIMILATING
I was six years old when I gained the title “alien,” when my parents and I moved to
Illinois from the Czech Republic because my dad got a job in Chicago. This was a
huge deal for multiple reasons. First, my whole family lived in the same small town
in the Czech Republic, literally five minutes away from each other. My parents and
I went from seeing our family on a daily basis to once a year, if we were lucky.
Second, neither my mom nor I spoke English, and my dad spoke very little English.
Third, the money we had in the Czech Republic did not amount to much in the
United States, meaning that we were really poor. All of these factors played and still
play a huge role in my family’s new life in the United States.
Because I was so young, I don’t remember much of the actual move to the United
States. I remember being on the plane and being scared to put my feet on the floor
because I was scared that if I pushed them down too hard the plane would fall.
I remember my mom pulling out a map and showing me where our old home was
and where our new home was going to be. I remember when we got to the Chicago
O’Hare International Airport I was hungry so my parents bought me McDonald’s
(a fortuitous first meal in the United States). I remember not really understanding
what was happening, but I know I was never scared or nervous.
Maybe it was my age at the time. But, looking back and thinking about the move,
I’m so amazed at my parents’ level of confidence that moving would work out and
that the benefits would outweigh the costs. They took a huge risk coming here, and
they had to leave a lot of things behind, including our family and my mom’s job. My
dad took the job in Chicago in hopes that one day it would help provide a better life
for us, but there was no certainty of it. Because I don’t remember having any negative
emotions about the move, my parents must have done a great job of remaining calm
and confident around me so that I wouldn’t be nervous or scared.

Z. SULCOVA
The apartment we moved into was small and only had one bedroom. The furniture
that we had was either bought from Goodwill, salvaged from the alleyway, or given
to us by neighbors who no longer wanted it. We didn’t have a car, so we relied heavily
on public transportation and walking. To go get groceries, my mom and I would
walk 30 minutes to Aldi, and we could only buy enough food that we could carry. We
did not have much money, so we did not have many things in our apartment. Money
was so tight that even things from Goodwill were too expensive at times.
I started off first grade in the United States. I had to take the bus to a different local
school because the one closer to me didn’t offer an English as a Second Language
(ESL) program. I was placed into a general classroom, and I would get pulled out of
class for a few hours a day to go to ESL. In my ESL class, it was me and five other
students who spoke Spanish. The teacher also spoke Spanish, so it was easy for the
other students to communicate with her. I was left to figure things out for myself,
although I never remember really struggling to learn English.
I don’t remember much from first grade, but I do remember my first Halloween.
I was a witch, and because we didn’t have enough money for a costume, my mom
made me a homemade costume. Unfortunately, I forgot the word “witch” when I
went to school, so I told everyone that I was a “scary old lady.” I don’t remember
feeling embarrassed that I didn’t know, and I don’t think I was embarrassed about
my homemade costume either. I don’t think that was an emotion I had experienced
yet at that age, but I remember when that started changing.
When I got to second grade, I switched schools because I no longer needed ESL.
I spoke, wrote, and read in English just as well as my peers. But I started noticing
differences between myself and the other students. First, I dressed differently than
the other girls. I still wore clothes that we brought from the Czech Republic, so the
style was noticeably different. In the Czech Republic, it was common for girls to
wear pants that were essentially like leggings with different designs on them.
I remember one day at school, I was wearing those pants and a group of girls come
up to me and said, “Why are you wearing just tights? That’s so weird.” And then they
laughed and walked away. Unfortunately, my family couldn’t afford new clothes,
so I was stuck wearing “tights.” We also couldn’t afford new school supplies. I had
to use supplies from the previous years, so I didn’t have Lisa Frank folders and
notebooks like the other girls had. Because I often felt out of place, I was very quiet
and shy, and I had a hard time making friends.
Another thing that set me apart from my peers was my Czech heritage. My parents
did a really nice job of keeping traditional Czech customs for various holidays, but then
we also integrated American traditions as well. This made things really complicated
to explain to my peers. For example, Christmas in the Czech Republic is celebrated
on December 24th; baby Jesus brings the presents that night. This was really hard to
explain to my elementary-school-aged peers who strictly believed in Santa Claus.
Because I would often get a negative reaction when I talked about my family’s
cultural practices, I stopped mentioning them. I would pretend that my family
celebrated holidays “normally.” At this point, I was fluent in English; most people
40
ASSIMILATION OF AN ALIEN
wouldn’t be able to figure out I was “different,” and I liked to keep it that way. I did
everything I could to prevent people from knowing I was an immigrant because all I
wanted to do was fit in. One of the main ways people figured out that I was “different”
was when they met my parents and heard their heavy Czech accents. I actually had
one of my teachers ask my parents if I was adopted because they had an accent and
I didn’t. After people found out I was an immigrant, it would usually follow with:
“Can you say something in Czech?”
“Do you celebrate Thanksgiving?”
“Did you get here on a boat?”
“Are you illegal?”
“How do you know how to speak English?”
“Did you have electricity in the Czech Republic?”
“So you’re from Czechoslovakia?”
Answering these questions so many times started to annoy me, so I did everything
I could to avoid being asked.
In middle school, assimilation got a little easier because we had to wear uniforms,
so fitting in was simpler in the fashion aspect. The only hard part was “dress-down
days,” when we didn’t have to wear uniforms. At that point we still got most of our
clothes at Goodwill, so dress-down days were hard when all the girls would wear
name-brand clothes and I would have my washed-out Goodwill clothes. For my
birthday in seventh grade, my mom took me to Aéropostale (a brand that was really
popular at that time) and let me pick out two shirts. It was one of the best presents ever
because I finally had something I could wear that would help me fit in. For the rest
of the dress-down days in seventh and eighth grade, I would rotate those two shirts.
My parents and I would go back to the Czech Republic for a month or so every
summer until I was in high school. I always looked forward to going back to visit
because I got to see my family and friends. As I got older, going back got less
exciting because I was no longer an age where I could go play with my old friends. I
started to have a really hard time relating to them because their lives had become so
different from mine. Their conversations would be about people I didn’t know and
events I hadn’t been around for, and I couldn’t relate to a lot of their conversations.
When they would ask me about the U.S. and my life, they couldn’t really relate to
that either. When I would go visit my family, they would always ask me where I
preferred living. The correct answer was the Czech Republic (my mom told me to
say that), but it was a lie because I did prefer the U.S. since that was where I spent
most of my time.
For a long time, I felt like I lived in two separate worlds, but I had to pretend to be
somebody else in both those worlds. So, essentially, I didn’t belong anywhere. I felt
like I was caught in the middle between what my family wanted me to be and what
my peers in the United States wanted me to be. I had a really weird identity crisis,
and it took me a long time to figure out how to balance and mix the two worlds in my
life. Towards the end of high school, I became a lot more accepting of my culture,
41
Z. SULCOVA
and I became more comfortable with sharing it with others and educating them about
my customs and traditions. Today, it’s one of my fun facts that I always share with
people because I want people to know that this is a big part of my life.
ZUZANA TODAY
Looking back on my elementary- and middle-school experience, I wish I wouldn’t

have been so hesitant to share my heritage and so willing to deny it. But it was also
the time when I finally started to accept myself and where I am from. This was really
meaningful and played a huge part in my becoming the person that I am today.
Today, I am still an alien, but I also get the title of permanent resident and,
hopefully soon, dual citizen. I no longer have to hide behind a title that I used to
believe put me at a disadvantage. I am proud to be an alien, an immigrant, a resident
of two countries. I am proud to be unique.
I am proud to be Zuzana.
42
BRANDON O. HENSLEY
8. “BRAIN DEAD”
Words as Weapons in the Cultural Sanctioning of Bullying Practices
“BRAIN DEAD BRANDON”—RECALLING MY FIRST NICKNAME
[H]egemonic forms of masculinity are both engaged with and contested as

children grow up. Gender is made in schools and neighborhoods through
peer group structure, control of space… homophobic speech, and harassment.
(Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005, p. 839)
From about kindergarten until fifth grade, I spent my summers at Happy Time
Daycare Center. My parents both worked grueling jobs in social work (as full-time
counselors), so that meant eight-hour days for me at a place that was anything but
happy. I remember the mornings. Tired, I would trudge across the asphalt parking lot
to the smudged glass doors of the entrance, dreading each and every day, trying any
way I could to get out of Happy Time.
“Do I have to today? I don’t feel good.”
“What if I go to grandma and grandpa’s instead?”
“Please, just let me come with you to work.”
“I hate it here.”
None of these feeble pleas ever worked. My parents reminded me, “We’re paying
good money for you to go here. Just make a new friend and the days will fly by.” My
mom and dad were supportive, but they were always late to pick me up; consequently,
the days never flew by. To make matters worse, finding friends proved difficult at
Happy Time, namely because of a nickname I’d acquired: “Brain Dead.”
This moniker was generously granted to me by Tyler,1 a tall, older boy with a mullet
haircut who presided over Happy Time Daycare Center more than the employees.2
Tyler “misbehaved” loudly, violently, and without reprisal from Tammy, the middle-
aged woman in charge of the Big Bird Room (the room for 5-to-8-year-old children).
I don’t remember exactly when or how I was given the nickname, but I remember
Tyler saying it the most, so I suspect it was him who bestowed the nickname on me.
Regardless where it came from, once I had the nickname “Brain Dead,” it stuck.
***
I sit at my desk in my campus office, coffee flowing, mind working slow, trying
to stay focused while writing a recommendation letter for a student. After filling

B. O. HENSLEY
in contact information for the graduate program my student is applying for, a task
which requires some web searching, I succumb to my habit of getting sucked into the
Facebook rabbit hole—scrolling down the newsfeed of weddings, babies, and pretty
dishes I didn’t cook—without thinking.
As seems to happen in election years, one cannot escape the binary, us-versus-
them vitriol slung across social media and news outlets. However, when I think of
bullies in 2017, none looms larger than Donald Trump. Americans are in the midst of
an election cycle administration unlike any I’ve ever witnessed or read about.
Sprinting beyond the backdoor electioneering tactics seen in Bush v. Gore, or the
racist “Southern Strategy” Willie Horton appeals made by George Bush, Sr. against
Michael Dukakis (“How Bush Beat Dukakis,” 2013), Trump enters the national
political discourse with teeth bared and fists clenched: he spouts hateful attacks without
mercy (videos can be found on YouTube where Trump mocks a disabled reporter,
for instance); assigns and repeats toxic labels (nicknames) to candidates and entire
countries; and overtly sanctions verbal and physical violence through his Tweets,
speeches, and campaign rallies (see the Washington Post editorial “Donald Trump,
Bully in Chief,” 2016, among scores of other political commentaries on Trump’s
behavior).
Take, for example, Trump’s numerous verbal calls for violence, using imagery
of “punching out” the competition and even encouraging his supporters to beat up
protesters at campaign events. As I worked on this chapter, Trump was a candidate.
But he was elected the president of the “free world.” His presidency is dangerous
for many reasons. Under Trump, I fear the United States will become a world where
unbridled anger, misunderstanding, division, and aggression reign supreme.
SAD TIMES AT HAPPY TIME DAYCARE CENTER
My stomach growled as the smells of “lunch” wafted into Big Bird Room. Tuesday
was always grilled cheese day. I dreaded life less on this day, because it was the only
day of the week we got apple juice instead of room-temperature, sour-tasting milk
that I couldn’t stomach. Because of this milk, which I now realize was probably
spoiled, I developed a taste aversion to milk for many years.
Happy Time Daycare Center was comprised of several identical rooms connected
by a long fluorescent hallway; the only difference was the Sesame Street Character
painted on the door and interior walls of each room. The heavy metal doors that
opened out to the playground were each painted in corresponding colors: yellow for
the Big Bird room, red for Bert, orange for Ernie, and three other colors/characters
on the other side of the facility.
I don’t call these rooms “classrooms,” because I don’t remember many
classrooms with threadbare, urine-steeped carpet. No chalkboards, computers, or
any other means of delivering a lesson, only a TV that played continuously on the
same channel each afternoon in the final hours of the day. A row of cubby holes for
44
“BRAIN DEAD”
personal items lined one wall, but otherwise the rooms we Happy Timers occupied
were rooms for neglectful babysitting.
About 25 blue cots were always stacked vertically in the corner of the room,
many of them ripped from overuse and abuse, a constant reminder of “nap time,”
an hour-long period after lunch where we were forced to remain silent, lying on our
backs so as to be easily monitored.
For once, though, I was not dreading nap time, because we were doing one of the
few activities I liked to do at Happy Time before our lunch. This activity involved
us kids spraying shaving cream on the rectangular wooden tables where we ate, and
rubbing the shaving cream in circular motions until it disappeared from the table.
Something about this always mystified me, the tall ball of Barbasol sprayed into my
hands, eventually rubbed away to nothing, lost in the wood grain. When we did this
activity, I would often pretend I was disappearing too, with each circular drag of
hands across the surface.
However, as was customary at Happy Time Daycare Center, my fleeting hope
of a respite from hell was dashed. Tyler had managed to procure his own bottle of
shaving cream, and while Tammy was dispensing the shaving cream, he came up
behind me, jerked my crew-neck collar back, and sprayed a liberal amount down my
shirt. I could feel the cool touch of the shaving cream between my shoulder blades
as Tyler smacked me, sending the shaving cream across the rest of my back and
ensuring that my shirt would be a mess.
“What’s wrong, Brain Dead? Dont’cha know what to do?” After gleefully reciting
“Brain Dead, Brain Dead” in a sing-song tone, Tyler ended his chant with “He’s got
no brain!”
YES I DO! I screamed silently in my head. I had not brought a change of clothes,
so Tammy gave me a wrinkled shirt out of the lost and found cubbyhole, an XL even
though my size was a child’s small. It fit me like a dress, and I wore it the rest of the
day until my mom picked me up, late.
I was always one of the last to leave Happy Time. As we drove home, I thought
about Tyler, how I wished he would disappear, or at least realize that I did have a
brain. He received a “time out” that day, but it amounted to ten minutes of extra time
on the cot, something I know I’ll pay for the next day, when our daily routine would
involve being bused to the local pool in the Happy Time van. The pool was a fun
place for many, but was agonizing for me; it was a place where I was held underwater
or would hide from Tyler and the others until we were bused back to “Sad Time”
to watch TV, usually Full House for several hours while waiting to (finally) be
picked up.
***
I realize, after typing the above asterisks, that this is the first time I’ve ever written
about this experience. My summer-long sentences at Happy Time Day Care Center
only existed these past 25 years in the back alleys of my mind, held at bay by newer
memories, better memories, any other memories.
45
B. O. HENSLEY
As Kenneth Burke (1935) reminds me, a way of seeing the world is also a
way of not seeing the world; any particular vantage point or interpretation is
simultaneously a reflection of the world, a selection of lenses through which to
see it, and a deflection of the other possibilities of re-presenting the world through
the word. This notion keeps me cognizant of the doors that are always opening,
closing, or remaining cracked open in my interpretations of the world, as well as
my values, beliefs, and ways of being. To take Burke’s words seriously means, in
part, recognizing that the way I’ve (re)presented myself to the world has been a
performance of hiding and concealing the real feelings that gnaw at me just below
the surface, while I tirelessly reiterate how I am composed/with-it, educated-but-
still-salt-of-the-earth, and obedient to dominant masculine (hetero-patriarchal)
norms I perform in my day-to-day life. From nickname to degrading nickname,
I’ve learned a performance of detachment, nonverbal (non)immediacy, and
unemotional indifference.
I use “(hetero)norms” to mean heteronormativity, which Jackson (2006) defines
as “the numerous ways in which heterosexual privilege is woven into the fabric of
social life” (p. 108). Cuellar (2015) builds upon this definition by noting, “Every
instance in which heterosexual behaviors are given approval and every act that
contributes to such understandings reifies the premise that heterosexuality is normal”
(p. 283). Often, the suspicion of homosexuality is a catalyst for bullying, as are other
markers of marginalization and difference. R.W. Connell, a key figure in masculinity
studies, is apt in stating
[R]elations of alliance, dominance and subordination…are constructed
through practices that exclude and include, that intimidate, exploit, and so on.
There is a gender politics within masculinity. School studies show patterns of
hegemony vividly. (Connell, 2005, p. 37)
So then, the more vividly we can render experiences of bullying to outside
audiences—through vulnerable storytelling and uniting with other suffering
storytellers—the more, perhaps, we can dismantle bullying practices and the systems
(and people) that sanction them. I believe in the power of story to alter human living
for the better. The many autoethnographers and critical scholars who’ve pulled at my
heartstrings remind me that my story matters.
However, part of the ethnographic responsibility of critically investigating and
laying bare my interpretation of events is accepting the fact that there are other
vantage points and stories that can be told by other kids and employees at Happy
Time. Another large responsibility is shouldering the tough mind, body, and heart
work that is required when revisiting traumatic memories. Beyond that, I’ve
gotta admit when I’ve been papering over (or willfully ignoring) the true(r) story
(Goodall, 2000). A lot of the time, living the autoethnographic life necessitates
being just plain tough on yourself—asking if you’re being ethical, accurate, and
vulnerable with your narrative representation while remembering that it’s never
46
“BRAIN DEAD”
just one person’s story (cf. Ellis, Bochner, Denzin, Lincoln, Morse, Pelias, &
Richardson, 2008).
For example: I realize, as I type this, that I wasn’t being completely honest when
I brazenly stated, in an academic journal, that my story of being bullied from middle
school to high school was “the End of Amnesia. Amnesia regarding past, body, (in)
security, and postmodern (un)becoming” (Hensley, 2011, p. 58, original emphasis). I
was still choosing to ignore, or certainly avoid revisiting, prior experiences of being
bullied in neglectful environments.
Still am. This chapter originally had three different narratives of nicknames
that’ve been assigned to me before middle school, but now only one remains before
you.
If I’m really being honest about my prior published proclamation—asserted
with capital letter certainty—and performance since then, I’ve gotta call bullshit on
myself. In 2011, I tried to show the world I could take (therefore was done taking, no
need to revisit) the hard knocks of bullying and institutional cruelty perpetrated by
the U.S. schooling system. It’s all been an act.
***
An older version of myself arrives in Mt. Vernon, land of fast food and new—always
fucking new—gas stations and hotels, in June 2016. I stub out my “last” cigarette
in my car ashtray and pull off the Exit 95 ramp, greeted by the sight of familiar and
new structures; a taller Marriott blocking the seemingly just-built Hampton, the BP
still there, tucked between them. I promised everyone I’d quit smoking either when
I turned 30 or when I got my Ph.D.; both have happened, so the promise has been
deferred.
My reason for coming back to my hometown was to help my parents clean our
house, so it’d be ready to show to an interested family. I return here a few times a
year for holidays and during the summer, but I mostly make my visits short, a few
days at the most. I hate being in Mt. Vernon. Feeling like an outcast for most of your
life doesn’t breed nostalgia or much to reminisce about. Years later, I still reflect on
the time with bitterness and loathing.
Over the years, I’ve driven by the daycare center (it’s been renamed) to pick up
pizzas for my family—going by Happy Time happens to be the quickest route. I’ve
grown accustomed to blocking it out of my vision every time I drive to Papa John’s
in Mt. Vernon. My Happy Time “habitus” (Bourdieu, 1990) has been, until now, a
routine performance of deflected attention and willful amnesia. The shortcut route
I usually take to Papa John’s involves navigating a pothole-laden alley, barely big
enough for one car. Usually the alley requires enough attention that it’s hard to divert
one’s eyes from the road. Today though, as I drive past the brick facade of what used
to be Happy Time to turn into the alley—which runs the length of the chain-link
fence that kept us in—I feel compelled to slow the car to a complete stop halfway
down the alley.
47
B. O. HENSLEY
As the driver’s side window rolls down, I give the current incarnation of Happy
Time my full attention. It’s about 7:00 p.m., so the daycare center playground is a
ghost town. Where there isn’t asphalt or gravel, the grass grows tall. The doors on
the side facing the alley—once shiny, dark red, orange, and yellow—are now faded
beyond needing a new coat of paint. I survey the scene with a combined sense of
pity and sorrow that this shit-hole place is still here, damaging others’ chances of
experiencing a positive childhood. Perhaps it was never as bad for other people as it
was for me (I hope).
Eventually I roll the windows up and put the car in drive. I have lost track of how
long I’ve been parked in the alley staring at the building (and into unlocked memory
images) where I was abused day after day, summer after summer. I don’t really
remember finally rolling the windows up and continuing to my destination. I’m
disconnected from the present, lost in my mind but acting fine, when I enter Papa
John’s to get the pizza. Just phoning it in, just going through the motions. Happy
Time and its requisite memories have ensnared my attention and pulled memories
from somewhere I’d buried, cemented over, built over, and thought I was over (as in
past it), but now I know I’m not. End of Amnesia, my ass.
Suffice to say, I didn’t plan to drive by Happy Time during this particular stay
in Mt. Vernon. Then again, I didn’t think I’d ever revisit these—I say “these” like
they’re arranged—countable, tidy—in the palm of my hand, but really there are
more coming by the minute: unresolved memories. I don’t know why (yet) but I have
to write about this; the time must be now. In answering the inexplicable urge to write
about this period of my life, I’ve had to return—in mind and body—to Happy Time
Daycare Center.
***
When Dr. Braniger and I began typing our first blog entries for our Critical
Storytelling summer class, we prompted the students to write a story from their
lived experience on our newly created WordPress blogging accounts. Any story. The
first thing that came to mind.
As soon as I opened a blank WordPress screen myself, something in my
subconscious became dislodged and snapped into the now, the way a rubber band
slingshot will snap and reverberate when released from fingers holding it back at
maximum tension. That day, a jumbled mess of childhood memories—suppressed
for 26 years—shot up into unobscured view. Images of summers at Happy Time
surfaced so forcibly that my mind’s eye could not look away.
I began the blog with the first words attached to the unspooled, unbridled,
unchained force of memories I’d ignored for too long, because they hurt too much.
One name floats to the top: “Brain Dead.” When my colleague beckoned the students
and me back from our writing worlds, I’d written several paragraphs about a time
and place I thought I’d effectively rendered invisible, nonexistent.
48
“BRAIN DEAD”
WHAT NOW? COMBATING CULTURAL SANCTIONING OF BULLYING
I’m still asking myself: Why was this the story that called out to me; not just a call,
but a scream? I could have talked about the first summer I wasn’t shackled by a
Happy Time sentence, when I attended a Christian summer camp and was called
“monkey boy” mercilessly because my ears stuck out.
Do we ever wonder how these stories choose us, whether we’re really totally
ready to tell them or not? Autoethnographers surely ask themselves this sometimes, I
think. The call of critical storytelling, I suppose. A call that, as Spry (2011) poetically
suggests of autoethnography,
is body and verse. It is self and other and one and many…It is personal,
political, and palpable…It is messy, bloody, and unruly…It is danger, trouble,
and pain. It is critical, reflexive, performative, and often forgiving. (pp. 16–17)
Inspired as I am of others’ autoethnographic accounts of overcoming and later
forgiving their bullies (cf. Berry, 2016; Hartlep, 2015), I don’t know if I can ever
fully forgive the bully that nicknamed me “Brain Dead.” In rendering this account
real, I am in the process of healing. I’m hoping the strength comes to forgive, but not
forget (as I tried so hard to do).
It is abundantly clear—when watching documentaries such as Bully (2011),
reading Berry’s (2016) anthology Bullied: Tales of Torment, Identity, and Youth, and
witnessing the growth of anti-bullying advocacy movements (#Iamawitness)—that
bullying is indeed a global problem. It’s also evident, though, that people are standing
up to the practices that constitute bullying culture, standing beside the bullied,
and speaking out against practices that sanction bullying—such as nicknaming,
harassment, and physical violence. An author in Awake! observes,
Whether in the schoolyard or workplace, all bullying seems to have a
common trait—the use of power to hurt or humiliate another. Why, though, do
some people bully others? What are the effects? And what can be done about
it? (p. 3)
A call to action is in order in a Divided States of America, a call to unite against
bullying in its localized, individualized, and systemically sanctioned forms. If
a flagrantly hateful bully who preys upon those perceived to be “weak” (such as
women, minority groups, people with disabilities, and others dubbed “losers”) can
rise to the Republican nomination for president, citizens are living in a society where
bullying is condoned and even rewarded and glorified.
This kind of hate can be combated by love, a theme echoed numerous times in
speeches at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. From soaring calls for love
from First Lady Michelle Obama to Cory Booker’s impassioned address, where
he said, with conviction, “At our best, we stand up to bullies.” Whether you take
“our” to mean Americans or the polity writ large, Booker incites us to stand up to
49
B. O. HENSLEY
bullying, and I know one way that is difficult: critical, vulnerable storytelling—
heeding the imperative to make sense of lived experience of suffering. But, as Tim
O’Brien (2009) reminds me from The Things They Carried, “this too is true, stories
can save us” (p. 214). O’Brien’s words ring true, and in my experiences teaching
brave students who have to shoulder more than one soul should, I am called forth
when seeing voices of the suffering banding together and galvanizing to share their
experience being bullied, whether online, in school, or in the workplace. I call on
you, the reader, to keep the stories coming, using all forms of media to spread the
word that bullies are always overcome by love and compassion. I know there is
awesome power in life experience, and I still have more writing to do.
NOTES
1
Names of individuals have been changed for anonymity. Also, asterisks indicate shifts in time or
authorial voice.
2
I suppose that as “Monkey Boy” [a nickname I’d receive at a Bible Camp before sixth grade, the first
summer I was “old enough” to be somewhere other than Happy Time Daycare Center], my particular
permutation of masculinity was seen as less than, well, human. My beanpole body, “generic” clothes
that were too big, disheveled brown hair, and my “big ears” made me a target to the boys at camp.
When everyone was screaming the chant—“Monkey Boy, Monkey Boy”— I probably felt more like a
sub-human, caged, and enraged object of abuse than at any other point in my childhood. In the face of
a hegemonic masculinity passed down to American children in the Midwest— a set of rules and ideals
that often include willful participation in teasing/tormenting/bullying, physical appearance, material
status through brands (my mom would never buy me Tommy Hilfiger jeans or brand-name shoes)—
my brand of boyhood didn’t pass muster. My circle of friends from St. Mary’s abandoned me, and
while they didn’t join in the taunting or talk about it when we went back to Mt. Vernon, I still wonder
if they remember me standing alone, encircled by boys in a feeding frenzy. They may have called
me “Monkey Boy,” but they were animals too. Animals who sensed I was “different” in some way,
and animals who could pounce with words. I cannot agree more with Evans and Giroux (2015), who
write of the seduction of violence in the age of spectacle. Breakneck brutal hierarchical competition
becomes a vicious cycle promoted to boys from childhood on, the kind of culture that sanctions this
kind of abuse and feeds on the imagined superiority of hegemonic masculinity.
REFERENCES
Berry, K. (2016). Bullied: Tales of torment, identity, and youth. New York: Routledge.
Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Connell, R. W., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender
and Society, 16(9), 829–859. doi:10.1177/0891243205278639
Cuellar, M. (2015). The makings of a boyfriend: Doing sexuality through parasocial relationships. The
Popular Culture Studies Journal, 3(1/2), 270–298.
Editorial Board. (2016, May 31). Donald Trump, bully in chief. The Washington Post. Retrieved from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bully-in-chief/2016/05/31/8658640a-2762-11e6-ae4a-
3cdd5fe74204_story.html
Ellis, C., Bochner, A., Denzin, N., Lincoln, Y., Morse, J., Pelias, R., & Richardson, L. (2008).
Talking and thinking about qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 14(2), 254–284. doi:10.1177/
1077800407311959
Evans, B., & Giroux, H. A. (2015). Disposable futures: The seduction of violence in the age of spectacle.
San Francisco: City Lights Books.
Goodall, H. L. (2000). Writing the new ethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
50
“BRAIN DEAD”
Hartlep, N. D. (2015). Karma doesn’t have to be a bitch: Justice-oriented lessons I learned through
death and self-introspection. In N. Hartlep & B. Hensley (Eds.), Critical storytelling in uncritical
times: Stories disclosed in a cultural foundations of education course (pp. 7–20). Rotterdam,
The Netherlands: Sense Publishers
Hensley, B. (2011). Performing heteronormativity, hegemonic masculinity, and constructing a body from
bullying. The Florida Communication Journal, 39(1), 55–65.
Hirsch, L. (Director). (2011). Bully [Motion picture]. United States: Weinstein Company.
Jackson, S. (2006). Gender, sexuality, and homosexuality: The complexity (and limits) of
heteronormativity. Feminist Theory, 7(1), 105–121. doi:10.1177/1464700106061462
O’Brien, T. (2009). The things they carried. New York: Mariner Books.
Reuters. (2013, November 14). How Bush beat Dukakis. POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved from
http://www.politico.com/magazine/gallery/2013/11/how-bush-beat-dukakis-000005?slide=0
Spry, T. (2011). Body, paper, stage: Writing and performing autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left
Coast Press.
51
ELIZABETH NUNEZ
9. COLLEGE STUDENT, FUTURE EDUCATOR,

NOT AN “ANCHOR BABY”
INTRODUCTION
I am born to two undocumented immigrants. To answer a question many people ask

me: Yes, they did cross the border to get here, and that itself is something that I admire
about my parents. Today, there is a dominant notion that we should keep people like
my parents out, that all they do is take jobs and money, but many also believe that
their children should not be considered citizens. About 7% of K–12 students had at
least one unauthorized immigrant parent in 2012 (Krogstad & Passel, 2015), which
means it is likely that I, as a future educator who is going to be primarily in bilingual
classrooms, will have students who have grown up in a similar situation as I have.
This story is not entirely about me; it is about the two most important people in my
life who have sacrificed everything just for me.
MY MEXICAN LINEAGE
My mother is from Mexico. When she talks about growing up, she always mentions
that she came from a very poor town that was in the middle of nowhere. There
weren’t any luxuries like television, and living with seven other siblings was
difficult. I know that my mother helped a lot with her siblings and did not get much
schooling. My father on the other hand lived a very different lifestyle.
I’ve visited where he grew up, a populated town with all modern technology. He
only had two other siblings, and the stories I hear from my aunts and grandparents
suggest my father was fairly spoiled. Clearly there were differences in both of my
parents lives, yet they still made the decision of leaving it all behind and coming to
America. We all would like to think we know the answer to why people make their
way to the States (the “American Dream”), and I suppose this idea could be true
for my mother, but I have always wondered why my father left. All of his family
reside in that same town under one roof where my grandparents ran their own
business.
I haven’t had the courage to ask him because inside I feel somewhat guilty. The
reason is because my father decided to cross the border at the age of sixteen, and
by eighteen he had me. My father is very loving and I am the typical “daddy’s
girl,” but I can’t help but wonder if he ever just wants to go back. Do any of these
immigrants working day in and day out just want to go back to where they come

E. Nunez
from, where their families are, where they know a sense of belonging? I know the
answer. Yes.
How do you mentally prepare yourself when you find out that your mother will
be leaving the country and don’t know when she will return? This was my reality the
day my sister turned twenty-one. I am not too familiar with immigration reform and
the details behind what can be done with every particular situation, but I did know
that steps could have been taken when my sister turned of age. In my family there
is my older half-sister, my younger brother, and myself. I was sixteen at this point,
and my brother was only eleven, so we were kept out of the loop until everything
was finalized.
My family began preparing for my mother’s departure. We had expected that
the time she would be away would be a year maximum, but that wasn’t even close.
Thinking back to those times, it is evident I was oblivious to what was happening.
Who could ever anticipate no longer having a mother? My mom, the one who is
the best cook I know, the one who spends all her weekend cleaning up after my
family, the one who pushed me to be here today… She was the one who was the
disciplinarian, so of course there was a moment where I was thinking about all the
things I could possibly get away with while she was away, but this little ounce of joy
was gone in an instant. My father was going to be left with the financial burdens of
my family, of lawyers, and of sending remittances to my mother. This never entered
my mind until I saw the days where he looked helpless. These are the things people
have to go through every day even without the stereotypes and policies that alienate
my family.
In the United States today, families are being torn apart due to deportation,
and children are going to school knowing that they might possibly never see their
parent(s) again. I was lucky enough to know that, one way or another, I would be
able to see my mom; I just didn’t know when. The reality of my mother being away
did not hit me until a few months had passed. It was the thought that she wasn’t on
some vacation but off in another country that was no longer familiar to her that made
me wonder when I would have her back. My mother had not been in Mexico for over
twenty-one years.
I know that people may believe she must have been extremely happy, but this
was not the case because it was not the place she calls home. Telling people about
my situation was difficult. I tried to avoid the situation altogether because the less I
talked about it the less of a reality it was. None of my teachers knew what was going
on in my life, nor did I show it. My friends did not know what was happening either;
all I ever mentioned was that my mother was gone. Keeping it all inside of course
had a down side. I remember sitting in my room at times crying over not having my
mother at the most crucial points of my life.
When I was growing up, my love for reading and school was perceived by my
mother as the chance of going to college. I was going to be the one to make it all the
way, and she never stopped pushing me. Applying to colleges without the one person
I needed to be there the most was difficult, but the hardest part for me to overcome
54
COLLEGE STUDENT, FUTURE EDUCATOR, NOT AN “ANCHOR BABY”
was walking that stage during my high school graduation. Graduating summa cum
laude, knowing I was heading to Illinois State University, but looking out and not
seeing the person who led me there was heart breaking.
There is so much to say about how I felt during the three years my mother was
gone, but I truly was saddened whenever I thought about how the rest of my family
felt. My father is the best man I know and who I will admire forever. He was the
one who worked endlessly to provide for my whole family during this time, the one
who would not give up, and the one who took the role of my mother while she was
away. My brother, who was just in middle school when this was happening, was
most strongly attached to our mother, and it was clear he needed her. My sister, who
had children of her own, had to deal with legal work while also keeping up with our
brother, and she never let us down. Knowing my mother was away from her family
in a place she hardly knew was the thing that upset me the most.
Seeing her again after just one year was a great surprise. My brother and I
were fortunate to visit our mother in Mexico around a year after she had left. We
were going to the place where my father grew up because my mother was invited
to stay there during her time in Mexico. It was a surreal time, and it felt good
feeling like I had a mother once again, but if I had the chance to go back I would
have not gone on the trip. Being in that airport saying goodbye to my mom and
not knowing when I would ever see her again left my brother and me in tears. It
is one of those moments where it hurt, and I would never want someone feeling
that way. There were, of course, special moments in that trip that I look back at
and think about how much fun it was, but it was very difficult leaving my mother
alone once again.
After quite some time more action was being done to know when my mother was
coming home. There were always these comments in my house about how my mom
would be home in a month or the month after that, and soon it became this guessing
game in which I did not want to guess anymore because I did not want to get my
hopes up.
Holidays were the worst; the one person who would always bring the family
together and had the best cooking was missing. There were holidays where it would
be just my dad, my brother, and myself. I remember the Christmas when my brother
and I did not receive that one gift we asked for. My father’s face looked so upset, and
his words were “I promise next year,” and I could not bear it anymore.
The conversations with my mom over the phone weren’t always the best. I did
not want to update her on everything that was happening in my life just because I did
not want to cry to her. I felt that in some way me crying would result in her feeling
guilty about making the choice of leaving. I would never want to make my mother
feel guilty about a choice that would have put all of our lives in a better place. She
has sacrificed so much for my family; I would do the same for her any day.
Today, looking back, it all seems like such a blur. My mother is back home; yay,
right? No. Nothing was moving forward, so she decided she had been away from
her family long enough. My father invested a lot of money for her to come back the
55
E. Nunez
same way she did over twenty years ago, crossing the border. This is what makes
my mother so brave, not having to do it once but twice in her life. Going through
this journey where people get killed and are left dead, and for that I will be forever
grateful that she made it here safely.
Things are back to normal, and all I can think about that experience is how many
people have to live through that? I can’t be the only one. Why is this not something
people are more aware about? These types of situations should not be okay, and
change needs to happen. My parents are not criminals; they have not even had a
single driving ticket; they work so much and deserve better. I will make sure that if
my students are ever in this situation I will help as much as possible; it the reason
why I wanted to become an educator.
Coming to college has opened my eyes to the number of people who are so
uninformed; they don’t even know what children of undocumented immigrants go
through. I want to take my opportunity of being here to shed a little light into what
I have been through and what many others are going through. I want to take my
experience from a negative to a positive. I am a proud daughter of two undocumented
immigrants from Mexico to whom I owe the world. The following is the first piece I
ever wrote about my experience living in a world that classifies me as “illegal” and
“undocumented”:
MY TESTIMONIO
I grew up in the suburbs.

Daughter of two immigrants from Mexico,
They are some of the most hardworking people I know
Working six days a week just to give my family what we need.
They always told me I could achieve great things
And I wasn’t going to let them down.
Knowing my parents could not speak English and were constantly working
I knew my school experience is not like the other kids.
No help on homework,
Translations from me to them and from them to me,
And missing important school events.
I thought this would be the hardest it could get…

Until my mom went away.
Being a child of an immigrant can be complicated,
Being a child of an undocumented immigrant is hard.
Can we travel? No.
Can we drive without worries? No.
Can my parents sign for my loans? No.
This baggage becomes part of me,
56
COLLEGE STUDENT, FUTURE EDUCATOR, NOT AN “ANCHOR BABY”
Like a backpack that soon feels like it is not there

Until it is taken from you.
Bye mom I’ll see you soon…
The U.S. government said okay you could become documented

And to do so my mother had to go back to Mexico for some time.
How much time? I don’t know, no one knows.
It is my junior year of high school.
My family invested time and money.
I could say I was upset, but really I was upset for my parents.
My mother living in a country she no longer knew
And my father had large burdens, financially and emotionally.
Birthdays, my high school graduation, here I come ISU

All without my mom.
My family struggled, but I was sheltered from a lot.
I did not look for answers because I did not want to get my hopes up.
My conversations with my mom were short and simple,
Neither of us wanting to let the tears out.
I want to make you proud mom.
Why a teacher? A bilingual one at that.

I know some of their challenges, I can relate, and I want to help.
I know what it means growing up bilingual,
How great it can be.
When I work with children who grew up like I did,
I can’t help but see myself.
My mom liked this decision.
Three years later…

It is my sophomore year at ISU.
She came back home.
REFERENCE
Krogstad, J., & Passel, J. (2015, July 24). 5 facts about illegal immigration in the U.S. Pew Research
Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/24/5-facts-about-illegal-
immigration-in-the-u-s/
57
DEISHA MARSHALL
10. GROWING UP WITHOUT A FATHER
As a child, I never knew what it was like to have a father who took me to the park,
or called me his little princess. It never really crossed my mind that I was different
than the other little girls who had fathers.
I had a loving mother and a stepfather who cared enough for me, to the point that
I didn’t need my real father. I never understood why my father wasn’t in my life, and
when I asked my mom she simply said, “I’ll talk to you about it when you get older.”
From that day on, I chose never to bring him up, and life moved on until I finally
got to meet my father. It was my tenth birthday party at Odyssey Fun World. My
mom pulled me to the side and told me that my father wanted to meet me.
In my mind I would make up what he looked like, the kind of job he had, what
kind of car he drove, and what his house looked like. I was scared I would meet
someone who was nothing like I imagined. As I walked out the door to meet my
father for the first time, I noticed my mom crying hysterically. He reached out his
arms to give me a hug, and at that moment I felt complete.
At the age of twelve, I went to live with my father for seventh and eighth grade.
The plan was to live with him for those two years, then come back to live with my
mom for high school. School in dad’s district, visits to my mom’s on the weekend.
During those two years, I got to know my father and a new side of my family I never
knew about. I gained a grandmother, four aunts, two uncles, and a lot of cousins.
My father taught me about budgeting, how to cook breakfast, eating healthy,
how to drive a stick shift, and most importantly he taught me about love. I never
understood how important the love and protection from a father was, until I no
longer had it. I am now a junior in college and I haven’t seen my father since my
eighth grade graduation.
You may be wondering why a happy beginning came to such a sad ending. When
my mother was pregnant with me, my father stabbed her multiple times. It is a
blessing that both my mother and I are alive today. My father was sentenced to six
years in jail, and when he was released, he changed his life around and made a good
living for himself. My mother made the bold decision to let me live with my father
despite the things he’d done to her, so that I could get a chance to get to know him
and form a relationship.
Today, my father lives with his new wife and newborn son. I tried to keep in
contact with him and believe that I wasn’t being excluded from his life, but I learned
that he was doing just that. My father doesn’t know how beautiful I looked on prom,

D. MARSHALL
or that I graduated from high school fourth in my class with honors. He doesn’t know
how well I’m doing in college, nor does he know what college I attend. My growth
has been simply amazing, and I didn’t let not having my father in my life affect my
life in a negative way.
Instead, I use it as motivation, and it keeps me going. Even though my father
is not in my life, I surround myself with loving and caring people who remind me
every day that I can make it without him.
60
JOEY DUNDOVICH
11. MY REALIZATION
The time I ran into the bathroom and hid there for the remaining 90 minutes of
freshmen homecoming when my teammates brought the most popular cheerleader
over to dance with me, all because I was socially anxious and had never danced with
a girl before… The time I was shaking so much before a group presentation that
I volunteered to be the PowerPoint slide clicker, just so I didn’t have to stand up,
because I was socially anxious.
All the times I knew the answer to a question the teacher asked in class and didn’t
raise my hand out of fear that I would stutter the answer, talk too fast, or have my
voice crack, all because I was socially anxious… All the times when I planned out
what I would say as well as how I would say it in order to ask out the girl I had a
crush on, but all the planning was wasted because as soon the final bell rang I would
start sweating and chicken out, all because I was socially anxious.
All of these moments sent me to a boiling point the summer before my senior
year of high school. I had a desire to be a high school teacher and football coach, to
inspire young people and help them overcome their fears and weaknesses. But how
could I stand up in front of 25 teenagers and give them a lesson as well as be a role
model for them, when I couldn’t even attempt any of those actions previously listed?
Since the eighth grade, I had already been to four different psychologists to talk
about my Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), none of whom had made a dent in my
problems. I told my mother that if I was going to be able to live on my own and
accomplish my dreams of teaching, I had to get over these issues before the end of
senior year. She then scheduled an appointment with a new therapist, who, upon
meeting me and seeing my strong desire to improve, said it was in my interest to be
in an intensive daily program built around overcoming anxiety at a mental hospital
an hour away from my home.
I always felt (and still feel to this day) that educators and the media do not put
enough effort towards educating people on mental health, whether it’s about the
various types, their prevalence, how to seek help, where to seek help, or that you
CAN overcome it. The last time I can remember any real national attention being
given to mental health disorders was the week that Robin Williams committed
suicide from serious depression on August 11, 2014. I would question why the media
would only seem to talk about these issues when it’s “too late” to save another victim
of a mental health issue. After all, according to the National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) (2014b), 18.1% of all United States adults had at least one mental
illness featured in the DSM-IV.

J. Dundovich
Despite this, only 36.9% of those who currently have an anxiety disorder (like I
had) are treated each year, based on a study conducted by NIMH (2005). A large part
of why I wanted to conquer my mental illnesses was to serve as an inspiration and
educator about mental health to my future students.
I would have virtually no free time between football practice during the mornings,
the anxiety program during the afternoon, and attempting to be more sociable at
night. I felt hesitant due to the stigma of having to be “insane” to be in a mental
health facility. Sure, I knew that if this didn’t work out I could potentially be out
of options before the start of college. I didn’t care; the way the therapist praised
the success rate, coupled with the one-on-one therapy I had just started with him,
drew me in. I was all in, and ready to push myself. The facility was in the back of an
emergency care hospital, which made the first long walk to it all the more scary. The
people I would see on the way to my area had horrible physical issues; some were in
rehab after surgery; some were missing body parts and trying to adjust to life with
one less limb; some were preparing for their next cancer treatment while puking into
a bucket as a friend held their remaining hair back.
Yet, there I was, a (physically) healthy 17-year-old walking by all of them, feeling
like crap as I saw the optimism on their faces. “Look at how bad they have it,” I
said to myself. I had previously had the mindset of one day it’ll just click and I
will be able to talk to anyone in any situation. Like how one day my facial hair just
started growing. Like how one day I noticed my voice deepen. Like how one day
I seemingly grew two inches. The difference is I didn’t have to “practice” those
things; they just happened.
I met the young, overly happy, and excited pair of therapists assigned to my case.
They were fresh out of graduate school and shared the names of the hit television
show Friends’ couple Ross and Rachel, which made me think I was on an episode
of Punk’d, and Ashton Kutcher would pop out at any moment to further add to my
long list of humiliating moments in my life. They made me make a list of my top ten
most feared social situations, along with a few weekly goals based on helping me
get to the first of my feared social situations. It seemed like a simple process: they
quickly prepared activities to get at my thought process whenever my anxiety would
peak during a “exposure,” as they called it (an exposure is when you’re exposed to
a trigger for anxiety in order to practice how to act in that situation to reduce your
anxiety and overcome that fear). These exposures helped more than anything I’ve
ever talked about or been told by my previous therapists, but the other main portion
of each therapy session was what really pushed me to push myself.
Because the hospital was so large and covered virtually every mental disorder I’ve
ever heard of, there were many people who were in the program for anxiety just like
me. After my individual time, I anxiously, yet somewhat optimistically, walked into
the group room. I was told I wouldn’t be judged or laughed at for whatever struggles
I would share with the group and vice versa. However, as soon as I walked in my
whole concept of not being able to live a successful and happy life with anxiety
changed forever.
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MY REALIZATION
There were “adults” in the group. Sure, a majority of the group members were
only a few years older than me, but the fact that there were all employed, some
were married, and a few even had kids of their own blew my mind. Getting up
each morning when my alarm hit to prepare for a day at school was scary enough,
but these people had to be successful at their places of work to stay employed and
provide for their families. Yet they were in the same boat as me, anxious for whatever
reason to the point of being recommended for and admitted to the program! Some
had even been in the group for over six months, but, according to their therapists
and their own personal testimony, they had been making huge strides. I was so set
on getting all of my problems solved before I headed off to college in order to have
any chance at succeeding in life, but these people had already been doing that with
their own demons.
One man in particular, I’ll call him Ray, had a recent string of panic attacks while
driving. The most recent instance of this, which caused him to apply for the program,
happened after he had picked up his young daughter from elementary school. He
stated that he was always on edge while driving, but after seeing a deadly car crash
on the news about a year earlier, his anxiety had gone into overdrive. His optimism
about getting better while always providing funny jokes and stories to the group
inspired me. He even admitted that when he told his company he was taking a
sabbatical from work that some of his coworkers called him a coward and a pussy.
He stated that he didn’t care what anyone thought of him; he just wanted to get over
his fears so he could be there for his daughters, drive his group of friends to Chicago
Cubs’ games, and be able to peacefully drive during bumper-to-bumper rush hour
traffic.
Although Ray was the most memorable and inspiring group member I met, there
were other members whose dedication to overcoming their own fears helped me
realize that I really could accomplish my dreams despite my history of social anxiety.
Some of my peers were excessive “germaphobes” to the point of having to shower
five times a day. Some had fears of going to a college away from their parents, to the
point that they declined scholarships in order to spend two more years at home and
attend a community college. There were even a few who were anxious because they
had recently lost a close relative or friend or because they were expecting their first
child and had become overly anxious about being a parent.
We shared our weekly goals and how they went; sometimes they were great and
sometimes they were bad. We gave each other words of encouragement and advice
about how we dealt with the issues others were also struggling with. But most of
all, we gave each other a carefree community atmosphere where we could openly
share our innermost thoughts, secrets, and fears without fear of judgment. While
I’m sure there were some initial judgments by everyone in the group, including
myself, when we first found out why other members were there in the first place,
those judgments were quickly cast aside as we shared stories and the progress we
were making.
63
J. Dundovich
I’m positive that these group sessions, although an enjoyable experience, made
my effort and commitment to meeting my daily goals so great that I was able to
conquer every single one of my initial top ten most feared social situations in a
matter of eighteen days from my first day as a patient at the facility. It started off
small by ordering my own food at the cash register of a fast food restaurant, then it
escalated to saying “hi” to girls I found attractive at the mall when I was with my
friends; then it moved to giving presentations to summer school students about a
topic I wasn’t an expert in. The day I finally conquered my top two fears (asking a
girl out followed by going on a date with a girl), I couldn’t help but drive to an empty
parking lot and shed tears of joy as soon as I dropped off my date back home. I held
my head in my hands as I leaned down to cry for twenty minutes.
Once the tears stopped, I leaned back in my car seat as I laughed and punched my
car horn yelling out an ecstatic “Hell yeah!” When I turned in my final paperwork to
Ross and Rachel, they asked me what it was that made me work so hard and improve
so quickly. They said the average time for a patient to exit the program successfully
was four months, yet I had done it in under three weeks. I immediately told them
the following: “The realization that there are people living with anxiety much longer
than I have, and yet they are strong enough to seek out the help they need without
fear of what anyone thinks of them.”
I’ve now made great strides in my college education to become a future high
school English teacher. Beyond educating students about actual content, teachers
serve as role models for the youth they educate by offering stories about their
own experiences growing up, sharing what they’re passionate about, and instilling
compassion/respect for the adults of tomorrow.
Having overcome SAD and depression, I plan on sharing my “passion” about
mental health with all of my students, even if they aren’t showing any signs of having
a mental illness. The NIMH (2014a) states that teens between the ages of 13–18 have
a 25.1% chance of experiencing any anxiety disorder throughout their lifetime. In
addition, they also state that in 2014 (NIMH, 2014c), 11.4% of adolescents between
the ages of 12–17 in the United States had at least one period of major depression
in the last twelve months. Therefore, if I can potentially help a student seek out the
proper help they need, inspire them to push themselves to work on overcoming their
mental illness, or maybe even save someone’s life, I will have truly accomplished
something wonderful in my life.
REFERENCES
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). (2005). Any anxiety disorder among adults. National
Institute of Mental Health. Retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-
anxiety-disorder-among-adults.shtml
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). (2014a). Any anxiety disorder among children. National
Institute of Mental Health. Retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/
any-anxiety-disorder-among-children.shtml
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MY REALIZATION
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). (2014b). Any Mental Illness (AMI) among U.S. adults.
National Institute of Mental Health. Retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/
prevalence/any-mental-illness-ami-among-us-adults.shtml
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). (2014c). Major depression among adolescents. National
Institute of Mental Health. Retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/
major-depression-among-adolescents.shtml
65
CHELSEA BERG
12. MY LIFE WITH TRICHOTILLOMANIA
From the outside, I look like an average 21-year-old girl, but I also struggle with a
disorder called Trichotillomania (TTM). TTM is a disorder classified as an Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder. As stated in Trichotillomania: Identification and Treatment:
TTM is distinguished by repeated hair pulling to reduce anxiety. The DSM-IV-
TR requires five criteria for the diagnosis of TTM: (a) “recurrent pulling out
of one’s own hair that results in noticeable hair loss,” (b) “increasing sense of
tension immediately before pulling out the hair or when attempting to resist
the behavior,” (c) “pleasure gratification or relief when pulling out the hair,”
(d) “the diagnosis is not given if the hair pulling is better accounted for by
another mental disorder,” and (e) “the disturbance must cause significant
distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of
functioning.” (American Psychiatric Association, 2000, p. 677)
I was “diagnosed” with this disorder when I was about eleven or twelve years old.
At first it was very confusing for me, because I didn’t know why I was pulling
out my hair. I did it in secret, because I knew that people would find me different
if they knew what I was doing. My parents started noticing that I was missing
significant amounts of hair from my scalp, eyebrows, and eyelashes. They started
researching the topic and found out that I had TTM. According to research from
the TLC Foundation for Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors, “about 1 or 2 in 50
people experience Trichotillimania in their lifetime” (para. 2). TTM affects the lives
of many children and adults and is an under-recognized disorder.
My parents were divorced at the time, but they collaborated and found out how
to help me. The only therapist for this condition was about an hour away, so they
took turns taking me once a month. I talked about what I was going through with the
therapist, and she gave me strategies and techniques to stop pulling my hair.
Kids at school started to notice, and I became an easy target for bullying. They’d
ask if I had cancer or why I was missing my hair, but I would never tell. School
became a major stress in my life at this time. I would go home and pray that I would
never have to go back. I remember having very few friends. My family and a few of
my teachers were the only people who knew what I was going through.
I felt like I was hiding from the world, and I was so mad that I was one of the
people who had to deal with this disorder. It felt unfair and, as much as people
tried to understand, they weren’t in my shoes. I was shutting the world out one
person at a time. If it weren’t for my parents, I honestly don’t know if I would’ve

C. BERG
pulled through. They were the most supportive people in my life, but I treated them
horribly. I remember yelling at them when they tried to talk to me about my disorder,
even though I knew that they were on my side. They did everything they could to
help me, and I made it my ultimate goal to stop pulling—for them and for me. The
process was definitely a long and a hard road I had to travel.
Kids at school were horrible to me and singled me out every chance they had, making
my struggle harder. I slowly transitioned into a state of depression. I don’t remember
if my depression and anxiety symptoms were obvious to my family and friends, but
they are clear to me now. After I started going to a new therapist, I remember being
asked questions about depression and suicidal thoughts. They wanted to put me on
medication, but I knew that I wanted to battle TTM on my own. I lied to my family
and I lied to my therapist when they asked me if I had thought about suicide. I had. It
wasn’t to the point where I would’ve ever done it, but it still crossed my mind.
The new therapist helped me a great deal. I stopped pulling out the hair from
my scalp, and my eyebrows grew back in as well. This was about the time I was
getting ready to enter high school. I tried out for the Putnam County High School
cheerleading team and made it. I had moved past those horrible years of junior high.
I still struggled with the bullying and being singled out for my looks, but it was not
nearly as bad. However, I remember one specific person bullying me from fifth
grade until my senior year of high school. To this day, I still despise him. I would
try to avoid him, but in a school with only 350 kids, it was harder than you might
imagine.
Every morning I would wake up early to make sure that I had time to put on
my makeup. Because I still struggled with TTM, I had very thin eyebrows and no
eyelashes at all. I would cover this up so that it looked like I was just another face
in the crowd. I think that without makeup I would have been singled out in high
school. The bullying would’ve been just as bad as junior high. To this day, I find
it very hard to go anywhere or see anyone without putting makeup on to cover up
the missing hair I have. It’s even hard for me to see family or close friends without
covering up my true face. I don’t remember what it was like to have eyelashes or
normal eyebrows, because I have never fully overcome TTM.
Due to my struggles with Trichotillomania, self-image has always been a huge
factor in my life. I strive for the approval of others because of the self-image
problems that I held and still hold about myself. Over the years, I have realized that
it’s not as important to me to stop pulling completely. I know it takes a huge amount
of willpower to overcome and, at this point in my life, I don’t feel the need to change
myself. I am happy with the person I am.
Even though I use makeup to cover up the fact that I have a hair pulling disorder,
at least now, when people ask, I tell them. I’m not afraid of what they will think.
I realize that this struggle has made me a stronger person. I think that my story about
TTM can be relevant and useful to people struggling with self-image problems.
Kids and adults can be insensitive to others and point out what makes a person
different. It’s important for people struggling with self-image problems and bullying
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MY LIFE WITH TRICHOTILLOMANIA
to remember who they are; those who are important in their life will not care what
they look like.
To this day, I am still learning more about myself and the life I live with
Trichotillomania. I’ve discovered how it affects the way that I see others and the
world around me, the relationships that I have, and especially how I view myself.
I won’t let this disorder control my life, and I hope that anyone who has experienced
TTM or is experiencing it now can let go and realize you don’t have to let it control
you. I tell you this from the perspective of someone who has struggled with TTM for
years. Don’t let other people determine your past, your present, or future. You are in
control of how you view yourself and others.
REFERENCES
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders
(4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Atkinson, K. (2015, October 10). Raven-Symoné wouldn’t hire someone with a ‘black’ name. MSNBC.
Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/raven-symone-wouldnt-hire-someone-black-name
Foundation, T. T. (n.d.). What is Trichotillomania? Retrieved from https://www.bfrb.org/learn-about-
bfrbs/trichotillomania
Hancock, J. L. (Director). (2009). The Blind Side [Motion Picture]. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros.
McDonald, K. E. (2012). Trichotillonania: Identification and and treatment. Journal of Counseling and
Development, 90(4), 421–426. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6676.2012.00053.x
69
ANONYMOUS 2
13. A LETTER TO THE FACELESS
Sometimes I find my mind wandering through the “what ifs,” the “I wonders.” Other
times I hear a child’s laugh and I think to myself if I would have been able to make
you giggle on a cloudy day. I made a selfish decision, and even though you are not
present, I continue to live with you day in and day out.
I wonder how my parents would have reacted when I told them about you.
I wonder if you would have changed things between your dad and me. I wonder
what life would feel like from the inside. I wonder if you would have had my smile.
I wonder if your eyes would be as dark and empty as mine are when I ponder about
you. And then I wonder if it hurt you. Or would the pain of living with a mother who
regrets your very being be worse. I wonder what I would have named you. Would
you have had a nickname? A cheesy stamp of a nickname from your features, like
freckles, like mine, which we might have shared. I wonder if you would have been
athletic, intelligent, or funny.
I wonder how we would have celebrated your first birthday. And then I wonder if
I would even be mentally present. I wonder how a person can be so cold as to make
such a drastic decision and not think twice about it. I wonder if you would be afraid
of the dark or fear the monster under the bed. I wonder how long it would have taken
you to learn to walk, get your first tooth, and talk. By now you would be 4. Would
you know your ABCs? Could you count to 10? How many finger paintings and
ornaments would I already have saved of yours? Would I brag about everything you
touched or would nothing ever be good enough?
Did you know I would not even look at the ultrasound when the doctor wanted
to show me? I could not even muster up the gall to take a moment to acknowledge
a tiny life blossoming inside me. Did you know you would have been born to a
coward? How can a coward raise another human being? 5 years ago, almost to the
date, I made a decision I can never take back, and I owe you an apology. I apologize
to you for never giving you a chance; I am sorry for robbing you of your voice; I
apologize to my parents for taking away their grandchild, and I apologize to your
father who doesn’t even know you existed. I made a decision I can never take back.
To this day I wonder if I made the right decision.
You deserved an opportunity to inspire, encourage, and thrive. I know, deep
down, you would have concurred with it all. I took that all away from you in a hasty
decision. I keep a calm exterior to fool the public, but I hurt and live for you every
day. I made that decision; I ended your life, and sometimes I still wonder.
N. D. Hartlep et al. (Eds.), Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times, 71.

MCKENZIE SAUER
14. ANGELS OF THE NIGHT
INTRODUCTION
I have always lived in a world where the only time race was discussed was either
during history class—which was quite minimal—or during Black History Month,
when we celebrated how far people of color have come and also celebrated equality.
While school systems would like to implement a false sense of racial utopia into
the minds of its consumers, my heart and mind always longed to know the truth.
Dr. Brandon Hensley’s class Topics in Persuasion: Dismantling Racism was one of
those eye-opening, heart-wrenching, unhooking opportunities for me. This poem
began as an assignment in which we were supposed to speak our personal narrative
concerning race, and in the midst of everything I wanted to say, I retreated to what
my heart spoke—poetry. This poem has since turned into much more than a simple
assignment for myself. It is my vulnerability, my own removal of my blanket, words
that have begged to be spoken, and emotions that have needed to be felt. Nevermore
will I allow myself to be silent in the face of oppression, and this poem is only the
beginning.
As a child, mind new to the world

Ten thousand hands shaped, molded, unfurled.
A mind not constructed, truly unknowing
Of the dangers of actions and words overflowing.
Into the hearts of others, the souls of many
And how my people took any.
Chance they could find
To ambush my innocent mind.
With the dangers of black, the safety of white
All in the hopes that I might.
Not question their system because of my skin
But they forgot love starts from within.
With every image I was shown

Like a jury locked in a jail cell of their own.
Forced to judge a criminal by melanin not crime
Because apparently whites never do any time.
And of course black is the only color that breaks the blue line
But from where I see the blue line is colorblind.

M. SAUER
And the words that molested my ears

The “N word” as though on their grave it appears.
Screw the name they were given, that is all they are
And if you marry a black man, you’ll set the bar.
As the disgrace in our family, will never be accepted
To my young mind, these words were directed.
As my mind grew, my heart grew as well

And the disconnect was my personal hell.
For while society tried to fit me in a box
My heart was born knowing how to pick the locks.
Even at my birth, the ten thousand hands were too late
To teach me how to discriminate.
Notice how I used “teach,” because it’s learned

To judge a person by their skin has been burned.
Into the pages of the past, and the branding iron’s hot
Because racism is still alive, lest we forgot.
I cannot change the color of my skin

But the love I have for people comes from within.
And I still have so much to discover
As I lift the blanket of my whiteness and uncover.
That there is a world that needs to recover
From the hate my people have towards others.
Although the blue line can’t see the black, red, and green
The bloodshed of many must surely be seen.
Shut up with your “All Lives Matter” and sit down and listen
Close your mouth, Open your mind, let the truth christen.
Your selfish ways, your selfish cries
Take a moment and realize.
That white lives do matter, no one is saying they aren’t
But every day a black family’s life falls apart.
Because of the greed of our important lives
Now that is something I dare you to televise.
Enough of the excuses, understand your part

As white people, we’ve been given the opportunity to master the art.
Of power—now use it
Stop trying to abuse it.
Turn the pistol from the other and point it at the issue
Suddenly you’re looking at the mirror, and it scares you.
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ANGELS OF THE NIGHT
Doesn’t it? Looking down the barrel of a gun

Because of the color of your skin, at least you have time to run.
Because you are in control, what’s new?
The torture of many benefits a few.
And I am not putting all the blame on you
It’s on all of us white Americans, me too.
Let’s become those ten thousand hands and raise up our peers
Put down the guns, settle your irrational fears.
Put down the fists, silence your cries
And let the success of others be your lullaby.
Understand that you’re white, and that it is okay
But it’s not okay to look the other way.
Become one with the world, and never end the fight
It’s time for us to make things right.
Then, surely, we will honor the angels of the night.
75
NATALIE KOZELKA
15. FAMILY TIES
I created a video about different family units. I interviewed a few people to see if
there was normative family unit in this day and age. The video can be accessed at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXVgVy8DMps
This is Josh. He lives with his mom and her partner Karen.

N. KOZELKA
This is Olivia. She is one of four children and comes from a divorced family.
This is me. Before I went to college I lived with my sister and cousin.
This is my sister, Alyssa. She is a social worker and she talks about the different
families she encounters everyday.
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FAMILY TIES
This is my mother. She talks about how she was raised.
CONCLUSION
I found out through this project that every family is different, and there really is no
normative family unit. This is what makes life so interesting and why people are so
unique.
79
MENTAL HEALTH, THE BODY, AND ISSUES OF
STIGMATIZATION
AMANDA REYES
16. WHO AM I? STRUGGLING WITH MY IDENTITY
Am I white? Am I Hispanic? As far back as I can remember, I’ve struggled with who
I am. Some can identify themselves with one word like “German” or “Mexican,”
but what about those who are more than one ethnicity? I can say I am Puerto Rican,
Irish, and Native American. However, society still likes to fit people into one schema
at a time. This is what I have struggled with my whole life: being multiple ethnic
identities.
According to Khanna’s (2010) article “‘If You’re Half Black, You’re Just Black’:
Reflected Appraisals and the Persistence of the One-Drop Rule,” most people in
society view people who have “one drop” of another ethnicity as non-white. While
I am not black, I still feel like this applies to me because this rule is what has kept
me from being able to identify myself and has kept others from accepting me. I was
simply not white enough for some and too white for others.
I’ve always struggled with who I am in terms of how to identify ethnically. Since
I can first remember, my mother’s family, all 100% Puerto Rican, never considered
me Hispanic. Instead, they constantly teased me for my inability to “roll my R’s,”
saying I “sounded white” when I attempted Spanish. They would comment on my
fair skin compared to theirs. The whole family, including my mother, referred to me
simply as “the white girl,” which they would not only say in the comfort of our own
home, but in public as well.
I quickly learned to accept this name and to be okay being called “white.” After
all, I am 1/4 Irish. I took to being “white” and purposefully made fun of myself
speaking Spanish. In fact, I would make myself sound “white” in any attempts at
speaking Spanish. Eventually I gave up trying to learn Spanish and even referred to
myself as the “white girl.” However, my ability to identify with at least part of my
ethnic background quickly came to a halt as I entered middle school.
Throughout elementary school, I was the only “Hispanic” person in my whole
school, but, since I didn’t identify as Hispanic, no one really questioned me or
even cared. In middle school, I went to a slightly more diverse school where I no
longer fit in as “white.” In this school I no longer was grouped in with the white
students. Instead, they hardly approached me. But the Hispanics would, until they
found I couldn’t speak Spanish. I realized, in that moment, I had no one (or so I
thought).
I eventually found someone like me, and she forever changed my view of how
I saw myself and how others saw me. Her name was Erica, and her parents were

A. REYES
Irish and Mexican American. Like me, she didn’t speak Spanish, yet she didn’t have
features of a typical white person other than skin tone. One day, Erica asked me what
I was.
I proceeded to tell her “Puerto Rican, Irish, and Native American.”
I can still hear her response in my head to this day. “So you’re a mutt like me?”
I remember being so shocked and confused by this response. Was this how
everyone saw me? No better than the dogs that roam the streets?
I attended high school in a part of Florida that was predominantly white and
Puerto Rican—the ratio was nearly 50/50. Again, I found that I didn’t fit in with the
Hispanics, strictly based on the fact I didn’t speak their native language. According
to Howard’s (2010) research on the social psychology of identities, language is
something many people use as part of their identity. It is one of the basic ways to
group oneself. Was I a traitor to my ethnicity for never learning Spanish? Did I benefit
from the possible privileges of being ambiguous in terms of my racial identity?
One girl, who I still consider my best friend, grouped me as “white.” Maybe
it was just more convenient for her, or maybe she didn’t know I was Hispanic as
well as other ethnicities. Regardless, I found myself being treated as a fellow white
(Harrison-Kahan, 2005). I knew she was treating me as white when I observed she
was comfortable talking trash about Hispanics around me. Did she think she could
get away with saying “…but not you” after racist remarks?
I still find myself being grouped by other people. For example, while attending
a conference about multiculturalism at my university, a fellow student from my
clinical experience sat by me. Never had she talked to me before this, but she
decided—in that moment when she knew no one else there—I would be her
friend, her “white” friend. For some reason, she thought it was acceptable to
talk to me (a Hispanic, Native American, and first-generation college student),
about how there is no problem with the diversity here. She even had the audacity
to tell me “they just want to talk about minorities just to make us feel guilty;
they really need to stop letting them in from Chicago too. They’re making it
dangerous here.”
I was flabbergasted—I am a minority. I just kept silent, shrugged my shoulders,
and tried to move on with yet another slight. I regret not speaking up because she
was clearly in the wrong and needed to know right away that what she said was
unacceptable. I wish I knew how to be more than one ethnicity at a time and stand up
for who I am as a whole, whether people see me fully or not. Is there an instruction
manual I missed somewhere?
Here I am, still trying to figure out who I am, struggling to remain hopeful. A
truly inclusive society wouldn’t force its citizens to “check one” box on government
sheets, applications, etc. I am tired of hearing “I knew you weren’t Mexican, but I
couldn’t put my finger on it.” or “What else are you?” or even “You’re Hispanic,
but you don’t speak Spanish?” I know I can be more than one thing, but I’m waiting
for others to see me as more than one cultural category, to just see me as who I am.
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WHO AM I? STRUGGLING WITH MY IDENTITY
REFERENCES
Khanna, N. (2010). ‘If you’re half Black, you’re just Black’: Reflected appraisals and the persistence of
the one-drop rule. The Sociological Quarterly, 51(1), 96–121. doi:10.1111/j.1533-8525.2009.01162.x
Harrison-Kahan, L. (2005). Passing for White, passing for Jewish: Mixed race identity in Danzy Senna
and Rebecca Walker. Melus, 30(1), 19–48.
Howard, J. A. (2000). Social psychology of identities. Annual Review of Sociology, 26(1), 367–393.
doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.367
85
KENDALL KELLER
17. JUDGING FROM THE OUTSIDE
First appearances are worth a thousand words. It is a depiction of the character

that is instinctive. People judge others by this one strategy, unintentionally. First
appearances depict a person’s actions towards others and how they perceive or think
about the person. This has to make you wonder, what do people think when they see
me? My parents always expressed outer appearance to me. In the real world we only
go off of outer appearance to influence our actions. My mom believes that the way
you dress is the difference between getting arrested and getting a warning. The way
you dress is the difference between an A on an assignment or a C. Appearance is key.
In my life I am always told this, because for an African American male this is
fact. What people see is what they perceive. If I am dressed similar to the same
Black males getting arrested and getting in fights, then that is how I will be viewed.
If I dress more “sartorially,” then I will be categorized with the “Good Samaritan”
Blacks. Sometimes the way you dress is never enough. I am Black, so I cannot
change my skin as I do my clothes. A person’s perception of a Black male, whether
it be from prior experience or from what the media portrays, influences how people
look at me and treat me. I notice when people look at me with disgust. I hear when
members of the dominant group call me derogatory terms. I have been spit at due
to my skin color. All because of my appearance. I wonder, why do they hate me?
Is it because I am Black? Am I not human just like the people around me? I have a
record cleaner than the woman clinching her purse as I walk by in the elevator, but
you wouldn’t guess that from first glimpse.
Being a black man in college, I realized fast how my first appearance would either
carry me or sink me. Instructors, police, students, peers would all go off what they
first saw out of me. First appearances are also shaped by what we are a part of. I am
not only a Black male, but a member of a fraternity, a former Division I athlete, and
an employed collegiate citizen. These all are part of who I am and help people label
me. I have to hear members of the dominant group state that I’m fast because I’m
Black. My dad never wanted me to join the track team. He thought that if I joined the
track team then I’m just playing into the Black athlete stereotype and that I should
break the normative social identity of who Black males are. My freshman year of
high school I listened to him and played lacrosse. The culture change was different
for me; however, eventually I started loving the sport. I joined the varsity team near
the end of the season. This made me feel, somewhat, happy until halfway through
the season. We traveled to a rich and predominantly White and prestigious school,
because those were the schools that had lacrosse teams. Not many minorities joined

K. KELLER
a sport like lacrosse, so I stuck out like a sore thumb. I did not have the latest lacrosse
equipment, and my lacross stick was bent up and in bad shape. Numerous schools
stared at me and laughed, and some even made mumbled judgmental remarks from
afar while staring right at me.
One game I was making a fast break and splitting the defenders. I had an isolation
with just me and the goalie. As I prepared to shoot, I heard footsteps coming closer.
A gigantic defender approached from my blind spot and knocked me to the ground.
The play was dead, but as I lay there the defender circled me.
He screamed, “Sit down boy! Fucking monkey ass bitch.” The referee ran over
and ejected him from the game. I lay on my back, appalled by the amount of hatred
that was shouted at me by a complete stranger. I never will understand why he was
so racist.
My coach went to talk with me more about it; however, the injury from the hit
was his first priority. During the offseason, I tried out for the swimming team like my
father wanted. He wanted me to counter the stereotype that “Black men can’t swim.”
The only issue was that I wasn’t a strong swimmer. I was actually pretty terrible;
however, I am competitive so I tried out anyway.
As everyone was in Speedos, I came to tryouts wearing long swim trunks. Not
only was I the only Black guy trying out, it didn’t help that I was dressed like I was
going to the local community pool. After swim tryouts, I wanted to do anything
that did not have to do with water. I joined the track team and have loved it ever
since.
Students at my school thought that I got a track scholarship because I was Black
and that being Black gave me an advantage over White athletes. However, track
is built into my culture, and I worked hard every day to ensure I was in the top
fifteen in the state for all my events. My achievements were undermined, and people
thought I was given affirmative action opportunities when I succeeded; however,
they never gave a reason for when I was done wrong.
My academic story is interesting, to say the least. I am majoring in Education,
which is extremely underrepresented by people of color and Native Americans. This
is mainly due to the fact that dominant society practices equality but not equity.
I do not have the same opportunities as the White students in my major. I got in
trouble with the education department because I was unable to register for classes
in a timely manner, due to the amount of money I owe to the school. My counselor
explained that this is hindering me from graduating and getting into key classes,
which I understood. However, they were not the people paying thousands of dollars.
They always state that they’re glad that I’m in this major and state that they “need”
more Black males in this major. They don’t always act like it.
I attend a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) and every time I go to class, I’m
surrounded by a sea of white people. It looks like Black males are going endangered,
if you analyze a typical lecture hall. When I walk into a classroom and I am one of
the few Black males in the class, I like to be viewed as an intellectual. I don’t want
people to look at me and think that my grade won’t be high in the class. I want to
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JUDGING FROM THE OUTSIDE
represent my race in a respectful way and change people’s perspective of Blacks. My

actions will not be enough. I have to fit the image that will show that I am a good
student. Although I am one of the few Black males present in all my classes, that
does not stop teachers from mixing up me for the other Black student in class. Every
year I usually have a member of staff or a student assume that I live in a single family
household, live in Chicago, or that I want to be the spokesman for all Blacks when
something racial occurs.
The police mastered judging individuals. Police target Blacks. People never
understand why I have an extreme fear of the police. They have been harassing me
for years. I used to attend a university that was number one in law enforcement, so
the freshman cops got to go on route around the school to gain experience.
After a while I began to constantly fear the police. They harassed me and people
who look similar to me for years, and I fear them still to this day. It is a constant
reaction to seeing their uniform or their vehicle. I can be innocent and still get pulled
over. The media shows constant murders of people who look like me, who are shot
by police officers. I pray that I won’t be on the news. To avoid this, I make sure I
avoid trouble at all cost and have an appearance that makes me look like less of a
threat. I believe that when I dress a certain way that I am less inclined to getting
targeted, prosecuted, or convicted falsely. So I dress in a way that is less threatening
to the police and Whites.
First, appearance is key. I talk, dress, and act in ways to avoid being labeled
in negative ways. Because my skin is Black, I will always be viewed differently.
The closer I get to graduation, the more I begin to understand how difficult it is
for minorities. The more I succeed the less I see people who look like me. I am an
honor student, I am a former Division I athlete, I am a member of a fraternity, I am
a working citizen, I do not have divorced parents, I do not live in Chicago, and I am
Black.
I guess people do judge books by their covers.
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LAQUINTA MOY
18. A KIND OF MY OWN
Who is she, that girl over there?

That girl with the kinky, yet long beautiful dark hair.
She is a kind I have once never seen.
There is something about her look that is ever so keen.
I know she is a part of that particular kind,
The kind that have the wide noses and lips,
And whose women have the curvy wide hips.
The kind where watermelon and chicken are an essential diet.
When they find things are wrong they seem to only riot.
Of course, how could we have not known?

She has something else added to her mix.
She is a part of the kind that does not use forks, but instead chopsticks.
Her eyes swirl similar to that of an almond.
The only specific kind I can think to be common,
Are those who say “Ching-Chong,”
And don’t they all come from Hong Kong?
But her skin does not compare to those yellow folk,
They usually look like the pigment of an egg yolk.
Could we be wrong, or we can be right?

It’s weird, you would never see those two kinds together in sight.
She is too dark to be with the yellow kind,
And not “ghetto” enough to group with the darker kind.

L. MOY
So our curiosity is outreached.

We have to know what’s underneath.
What could she be? Who could she be?
And in response I say, I am simply just ME.

Throughout my 21 years of life, I have had to deal with those who judge.
It came to a point in time when my parents had to teach me not to
hold a grudge.
My parents also explained to me that some people may not understand,
That society has matured and evolved
Where no matter the race, we can all be hand in hand.
So yes, my father is Chinese American and my mother is African American.

And I have received criticism from both sides.
However, I do not let my race define who I am.
I am the only one who gets to judge who I am, and who I am going to be.
Because I am simply ME.
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CARMELLA BRANIGER
19. “HEY, SISTER”

Utterances, Sexualities, and Dialectical Tensions in Sibling Relationships
…when one writes, one reads what one writes, just as in saying something one
hears oneself saying it…
– Foucault (1994, p. 214)
It was a beautiful day at the end of the Spring semester, the day before final
commencement. My colleague Dr. Brandon Hensley and I had just finished our
presentation on harnessing students’ critical stories at the Twelfth International
Conference of Qualitative Inquiry at the University of Illinois, in Urbana-Champaign,
Illinois. We were debriefing our way down the dusky basement hall of the neglected,
1970s-style academic building, where our paper presentation was held. Brandon and
I decided we needed to relieve ourselves before going to the “free” (the conference
cost me $360 to attend) BBQ dinner and cash bar. Reading the not-so-well-marked
bathroom signs, Brandon took off to the left (men’s) and I took off to the right
(women’s). We didn’t think twice about which bathroom to use.
I finished first and sat out in the hall on a metal folding chair, while waiting on
my colleague, who was taking longer than I’d expected. As I shuffled through my
canvas conference bag to find my phone, two individuals approached, both dressed
in blue dress shirts, ties—one navy blue and white stripped and the other pale yellow
with navy polka dots—polished black dress shoes, and khaki pants. Both were
hefting weighty backpacks on their shoulders. I stood up and stretched my legs as
they approached and then crossed the hall to finish waiting on Brandon. As they
passed me, one of the two individuals darted into the women’s restroom, the other
lingering behind.
“Excuse me, did he just go in there?” I asked his traveling companion, the one
with the yellow tie, as his partner, with the striped tie, pushed through the women’s
restroom door. I was hoping that, together, we could save him the surprise and
embarrassment that might ensue from his “accident.”
“Oh, yes, he did. Don’t worry. It’s the right bathroom.” Gulp.
“Oh, ok,” I said, and turned around in my own embarrassment, as I met my
colleague coming out from the men’s restroom.
Outside in the bright sun of May, we stopped at the nearest bench to continue
our debriefing conversation. I couldn’t help but feel the urge to tell my colleague
about my faux pas. We had just presented (in a basement, no less) on the power of

C. BRANIGER
critical storytelling to unearth and analyze our assumptions about race, gender, and
class, among other things. I consider myself an open-minded individual with strong
connections to the LGBT community and a teacher who works to provide space in
the classroom for individuals of all identities. How could I have made such a mistake
in what seemed like such a routine conversational courtesy?
As I detail the incident to Brandon, he nods his head contemplatively. He seems
to know what happened, and he’s ready to analyze it with me.
“Sometimes we forget the vestiges of heteronormative privilege in our words and
reactions, especially under the guise of politeness, you know?” says Brandon.
“Yes, I know,” I agree. “I thought I was helping. I didn’t even think about the
recent civil rights issues being raised about transgender individuals and bathroom
choices.”
“Those signs weren’t very well marked,” Brandon offers, attempting to comfort
me. We change the subject to course planning and make our way to the white tents
of the conference dinner.
***
The expression of an utterance is constructed as much by the anticipated
listener as by the particular speaker. (Baxter, 2011, p. 31)
Every night, we would lie in our beds across from one another and review our day.
One night she said she had something important to talk about. I had suspected,
from earlier conversations, what she might have to say, but I remember lying in bed
looking at the ceiling, tracing the circled swirls of paint; open, still, and listening.
Anticipating. Ready to construct meaning with her.
“Mel, I think I might be gay,” said my sister, an eighth grader at the time.
“What makes you think that?” I asked, not wanting to judge, but curious to know
how she might have access to this knowledge about herself.
“I really want to kiss this girl on the basketball team,” she replied.
That seemed valid. I had never wanted to kiss a girl before. I’d had my share
of boyfriends by that point and plenty of opportunities to kiss, but never had this
particular feeling toward another female. I wanted to be close to females, emotionally,
perhaps closer than I wanted to be to males in that regard. But sexually, the thought of
engaging a woman hadn’t really crossed my mind. So I tried to put myself in her shoes.
“Who is the girl?” I asked.
“Heidi,” she replied.
How did I know? They had been getting close, spending lots of time together
before and after practice. Heidi was admittedly a beautiful girl. I could see the
attraction, but I still didn’t quite understand it.
“She’s pretty,” I said. “Do you think she feels the same about you?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she blushed. “But please don’t tell mom.”
I carried my sister’s secret for years before I would have to mediate the
conversation, first with my mother and then my father and grandparents. There were
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“HEY, SISTER”
a “polyphony of voices” (Baxter, 2011, p. 33) involved in creating both our family
narratives and each of our individual narratives of self. I spent a good portion of my
twenties being a springboard for my sister and her escapades.
Even then, we were constructing our identities through dialogue, “an ensemble in
which the simultaneous interplay of multiple different utterances produce meaning
at the moment” (Baxter, 2011, p. 32). She would eventually figure out she was
bisexual. Like me, she felt strong emotional connections to other women. Unlike
me, she wanted to make those emotional connections physically and sexually. We
were only beginning to explore the gaps of difference between us.
***
I grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in the Ohio Valley. In my
working-class family, we were used to living from paycheck to paycheck. I was the
first in my family to attend college, a first-generation college student. My grandfather
on my mother’s side was a hellfire-and-brimstone Baptist preacher.
My rural hometown was small; I graduated with 76 others in my class. Everyone
knew everyone else and their business. My sister’s coming out shook up the family
and the community at large. She suffered a great deal of agony in her high school
years, as horny teenage boys and even male high school teachers found her interest
in women evocative, while girls and women tended to shun her and tried to quiet her
presence. Not only did I mediate the family situation, but the community situation
as well. Because I loved my sister, I wanted to show her as much support for her
sexual orientation as I could. Whenever someone tried to make fun of her or even hit
on her inappropriately (especially males who liked the idea of watching two women
together), I intervened.
In college, I became an active supporter of gay rights and, with her permission,
openly shared my sister’s story with like-minded individuals. I often found myself
hanging out with gay or bisexual men and women and, though I was straight myself,
was always welcomed as a part of their community. My sister’s story was always
enough to make me a credible sympathizer. Though I never admitted how difficult it
was for me to understand how she actually felt. Clearly, I was an outsider with some
inside access. But I could never have complete insider knowledge, as I hovered on
the heteronormative cusp.
***
In the act of mutual authoring, selves become. (Baxter, 2011, p. 25)
The line buzzes three times before she answers.
“Hey sister! What’s up?” I hear her typing on the other end. She’s busy.
“Not much,” her reply. “Just working on a sociology paper.”
“What’s it about?” Though I’m excited to hear about her paper, I’m even more
excited to share with her my recent insight from reading Foucault.
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C. BRANIGER
“I’m looking at the genre of the coming out narrative,” she says, “and the socio-
historical conditions which have given rise to it.”
“I think I might have something that will help,” I say, excited to segue. “I’m
reading Foucault’s The History of Sexuality for a class on postmodern fiction. He
brings up the classic debate we’ve always had about sexuality, whether it’s biological
or socially constructed.”
“What’s Foucault say?” I can still hear her typing on the other end of the phone.
“Well, it’s complicated, of course.” I settle into the recliner and open a beer. “First,
he establishes that sexuality has been repressed since the enlightenment, carrying all
the way through the Victorian era, only to turn around and argue that we haven’t really
repressed sexuality at all. When people are repressed, they transgress. But there are
certain, sanctioned spaces where it’s deemed appropriate to talk about sexuality. It’s
a paradox—only through repression is a space created for transformative discourse
on sexuality. People are talking about sexuality more than ever. Hell, Foucault even
says there’s been more official discourse generated about sexuality in the last three
hundred years than all the centuries before.”
“So, we make sex taboo in order to transgress?” she asks.
“Exactly. Foucault (1978) says, ‘If sex is repressed, that is condemned, to
prohibition, nonexistence, and silence, then the mere fact that one is speaking about
it has the appearance of a deliberate transgression’” (p. 6).
“Where is the discourse located?” she asks. “Who is doing the talking?” She
doesn’t yet see an abundance of open discursive spaces for dialogue on transgressing
the socially engineered gender dichotomy.
“The church is the first point of attack in Foucault’s (1978) work. He charts the
way that the confessional space of religion was one of the original institutional places
where discussion of sexuality was allowed. Confession is a paradox, too, right? It
suggests secrecy but at the same time creates the space for discussion of the most
secret things. Foucault (1978) says the “scheme for transforming sex into discourse
has been devised long before in an ascetic and monastic setting”; however, “the
seventeenth century made it into a rule for everyone” (p. 20). But during the Victorian
era, talk moved from the sacred confessional to the secular fields of medicine and
law. Anyone who could objectify sex could talk about it. Subjective perspectives,
however, were to be kept to oneself, or shared only with one sanctioned for sharing
such material—the priest and the therapist.”
“Wow, Mel,” her voice grows with excitement, “In my paper, I was just talking
about the transgressive nature of the genre of the coming out stories. Sounds like
there’s a common confessional element here I might be able to tie back to the history
of sexuality, in general.”
Telling stories is a powerful ritual. I start to realize this for the first time when I
respond to my sister. “Yeah, there is a confessional quality to the genre of coming out
stories. And its focus on the development of an authentic narrative self relies on the
same transgressive qualities as those of the old-fashioned confessional. Both require
a listener. Someone to hear the other’s story—the priest, the therapist, the reader.
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“HEY, SISTER”
The listener of the confession creates a sanctioned space specifically for such uttered
transgressions. Seems to me the coming out narrative is the kind of space Foucault
is talking about. Foucault (1978) would definitely welcome a cacophony of diverse
and personal voices into the discourse on sexuality, and not just those sanctioned by
the church, the law, or medicine.”
After we talk, I type the following MLA reference into my 1990s word processor:
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: Volume 1, An Introduction. Trans.
Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage-Random House. 1978.
She would end up calling me later for the citation. She found a way to paraphrase
our discussion into her sociology paper. I wonder what her college professor thought
of her burgeoning autoethnography skills. This wouldn’t be the first time my own
reading would influence my sister’s scholarly path.
***
My sister’s question is one I still ask. Who’s doing the talking? Even now, with the
recent emergence of the transgender bathroom debate, our culture is not far removed
from the discourse practices on sexuality experienced by those “Other Victorians.”
The doctors, lawyers, and academics are still the sanctioned voices allowed to
discuss sexuality. A quick search in our university’s library databases was revealing.
I started this morning by looking for sources to help me define the term transgender.
What does “transgender” mean? I’d been listening to the news, about North
Carolina and then Mississippi, but very few anchors felt the need to clearly define
their terms. A more authoritative voice and one sanctioned by the medical field
is one Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Nursing Ian Peate. In his article
“Transgender Equality,” Peate (2016) defines transgender as “an umbrella term, in
what is a constantly changing area” (p. 239). He goes on to explain that in most
cultures, sex is assigned at birth based on physical characteristics. However, gender
identity and presentation may not always align with the sex assigned at birth. Those
individuals whose gender identity and/or presentation/performance do not align with
their biological sex are considered transgender.
In his call to action to nurses to provide equal care and concern to transgender
individuals, Peate makes clear the negative consequences of transgender discrimination
not only in the medical field, but in family homes, schools, and other peer groups, as
well. He is particularly concerned with the rate of suicide among trans adults and
youth. His call is not only to the practitioners in the medical field, but to organizations
like NHS to make and implement change. As I start to contemplate my sister’s gender
identity and presentation, I type the following citation into my Google Document:
Peate, Ian. “Transgender Equality.” British Journal of Nursing. 25.5 (2016): 239.
Print.
I remember one of the many identity mediation sessions with my mother. It was
time for my sister’s senior pictures.
“Mel, she can’t just wear flannels and ball caps and low riding jeans and work
boots all the time. She needs to look and dress like a lady for some of these,” my
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mother practically spit into the tense air between us. “You looked beautiful in that
black velvet and silk lace-collared dress you wore for senior pictures. Why can’t she
just be more like you?”
As a high schooler, my sister played with gender bending, especially with regard
to the way she liked to dress. Luckily, by the time the early ‘90s came and grunge
was in, she at least had fashion on her side as she sported her short, clipped hair
beneath the Eddie Bauer ball cap she wore along with her Dr. Martens work boots,
ripped jeans, t-shirt, and flannel top. Clothes that covered her sex and presented a
more masculine sexuality.
In a conversation about these senior pictures, and mom’s reaction to them, I
recently asked my sister about her more recent gender transformation.
“Why have you become more feminized since moving to Taiwan?” I had just
been to visit her and her girlfriend in Taipei. She’d been there long enough—five
years—for her short clipped hair to grow out down her back. She no longer wears
men’s shoes and flannels. Instead, she wears dresses and skirts. She accentuates her
breasts, waist, and hips. My mom loves it. I realized, even before I asked her, that
she has always been gender fluid.
“The butch/femme dichotomy here is more binary than in the states,” she
explained. “It’s more customary in female gay culture here to pick one or the other.
I was tired of the butch look, and I’m small framed anyway, so I decided to identify
more with femme.”
“That must have been a hard decision,” I tried, again, to sympathize. In this case,
I might have actually empathized a little too. As feminine as I might have been in
my senior pictures—which I conformed to on so many levels to make people besides
myself happy—I am known to show up to class these days in my yoga pants. I don’t
necessarily bend any gender clothing rules, but I sure don’t like anyone telling me
what to wear when nor how. I prefer comfort and flexibility over fashion, a fashion
statement in and of itself. So, I did understand Chesna’s need to explore identity
through fashion.
I am reminded of an article I read earlier today from a law journal. Again, the
juridical and medical fields, in their quest to objectify and categorize the world, are
allowed to talk freely about sexuality. Still, today, we are not fully aware of the ways
in which our culture represses to transgress. We continue to use sanctioned modes
of discourse to bring attention to what we are trying to rid from the forefront of our
minds. We have not come far since Foucault.
I type the following citation into my Google Doc:
Gilden, Andrew. “Toward a More Transformative Approach: The Limits of
Transgender Formal Equality.” Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice. 23
(2008): 83–144.
Gilden tackles a topic of global scope here—the limits of transgender equality. As
a part of his argument for the limits of transgender equality, Gilden’s (2008) article
includes a section on Native American gender variance and fluidity. Foucault left
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out the history of the Native American culture in his sweeping history of sexuality,
a history specifically confined to the West. Before efforts to assimilate Native
American culture to Western culture, around 113 Native American tribes recognized
gender-variant roles (Gilden, 2008, p. 121).
As in the West, gender was assigned to the individual at birth, based on genitalia,
but individuals did not adopt a culturally defined social gender role until adolescence.
Encouraged to explore a variety of identities, individuals had a choice as to what gender
identity they might adopt. Even then, individuals crossing gender norms might or might
not dress across gender binaries, making gender variance more fluid. Tribal culture
also highly regarded child autonomy, tribal collectivism, and gender egalitarianism
(Gilden, 2008, p. 125), all cultural values that respect variations to the norms.
The Native Americans present an example of a culture free of the repression
Foucault (1978) addresses in his treatise on the history of sexuality in the West.
My sister’s early transgressive behaviors would not have been a problem for the
Native Americans, because they would not have been considered transgressions, but
instead, variations on a theme. Conversely, as much as she might have resisted early
on, even Chesna has felt and responded to the domineering patriarchal expectations
and heteronormative gender roles that still dominate gay and straight culture in
Taiwan. To be limited to two types of gender presentations must feel stifling for my
sister, whose subtle yet striking gender fluidity seeps through whatever she wears.
***
Any concrete utterance is a link in the chain of speech communication of a
particular sphere. (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 91)
In the classroom now, a week removed from the ICQI conference incident, I type
notes—branches to focus on—for the chapter I’m crafting alongside my students
and Brandon.
Delve into the development of relationship of sistership difference through
dialogue. Bring in Leslie Baxter’s work on relational dialectics. Beyond binaries.
Difference vs. unity. The struggle to create meaning. Relational dialectics theory.
When did the dialogue become a monologue? What discourses are in competition,
struggling to gain dominance? Utterance, Bakhtin.
Then I take note of the way one scholar uses Baxter and Bakhtin to weave together
a summary of the four links in the Bakhtin’s utterance chain:
Pivotal to RDT is the utterance, or, what Bakhtin (1981) often termed “voice.”
The utterance is a space where multiple discourses are at play (Baxter, 2011) and
emerges in light of an anticipated or actual hearer (Baxter, 2011). In this regard,
an utterance serves as a link in what Bakhtin (1986) calls the utterance chain. If
conceptualized as a turn in talk or a link (Baxter, 2011), the utteranceresponds
to what has already been spoken and anticipates what has not yet been spoken
(i.e., a response or answerability; Bakhtin, 1986). This connection of response
and anticipation constitutes the utterance as intertextual. Specifically, Baxter
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(2011) identifies four links in the utterance chain: (1) distal already-spoken, (2)
proximal already-spoken, (3) distal not-yet-spoken, and (4) proximal not-yet-
spoken. (Scharpa & Thomas, 2016, p. 34, emphasis mine)
I take note of the citation for this reference:
Scharpa, Kristina M. and Lindsey J. Thomas. “Family “Bonds”: Making Meaning
of Parent–Child Relationships in Estrangement Narratives.” Journal of Family
Communication 16:1 (2016): 32–50. Print.
I finally turn back to the Baxter book Brandon loaned me, Voicing Relationships:
A Dialogic Perspective. In it, Leslie Baxter theorizes a relational dialogic perspective
that contends that meaning in relationships is made through difference, through the
dialogue or the interplay of competing discourses. “Put simply, dialogue is counterpoint
among multiple competing discourses, or systems of meaning” (Baxter, 2011, p. 32).
However, these discourses are not given voice with equal force—multiple discourses
compete for power. Through the exchange of power, the back and forth play of
correspondence between self and other, identity formation occurs. This formation
occurs, however, usually in relation to some identified problem.
In her later article, “Problematizing the Problem,” Baxter establishes that all
discourse struggles start with a problem. Baxter (2007) says about the vexing
problem that it “is generally understood as difference and the intellectual question
is how to contain difference in order to accomplish its opposite: unity” (p. 118).
However, her research problematizes the end goal: to find unity. Instead, her theory
seeks to find a way to embrace and live with the difference that arises.
Arguing from the perspective of Bakhtin’s dialogism, Baxter (2007) says, instead,
that “the vexing problem is an orientation toward unity and the intellectual problem
is how to embrace difference” (p. 118). Rather than constantly seeking unity among
diverse family members, Baxter’s dialogic perspective encourages dialogue and
interplay among diverse and competing discourses, which are struggling for power.
Through difference (not unity) arises meaning and the possibility for identity creation
and development. In other words, difference encourages growth.
I pause in my reading to reflect on my competing dialogue with my sister, one in
which my voice has always been dominate. I’m the older sister. I have always set
before her a path by which my sister might travel, a sample ethos. Examples: I got
her first job at McDonalds. She went to the same high school, college, and graduate
school as me. She is using Martin Heidegger in her Ph.D. dissertation on Eastern
Philosophy, which is the scholar I used to frame my own dissertation on poetics and
aesthetics for my Ph.D. in English. But, what may appear to be little sister following
around big sister is more complicated than that. Our relationship was symbiotic, at
best. Being the more aggressive, dominant sibling, I always guided her along. Being
the laid-back middle child, she found it easy to follow. There was an ebb and flow
to our relationship. But it was always a relationship based on difference. We were
not alike. Not just in our gender identities and presentations, but in our outlook on
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relationships, in general. We, perhaps, got along so well because we weren’t so much
alike. Most importantly, it worked because neither sought the unity about which
Baxter writes.
Early on, Chesna and I shared a keen sense of how to develop a relationship of
difference through dialogue. As we grew and changed through important formative
years together, we developed a unique discourse. Meaning, ideologies, and points
of views were developed collaboratively by us. Through our exchanges over the
years of utterances, through our intertextual play, emerged collaborative voices and
collaborative identities.
Both of our voices and identities were very much involved in the utterances that
we shared with one another. We were always there as listeners for one another,
linking our own lived experiences together in a chain. But now that I look back,
through Baxter’s lens, hers was certainly always competing with mine, and mine
with hers. For it was through my identity, shaped by hers (and hers shaped by mine),
that we often found defense for the choices that we made.
Recently, Chesna and I have broken the utterance chain to which we had become
accustomed. Family trauma often causes such breaks, but this one isn’t healing
as quickly as I thought it might. I got back to Scharpa’s and Thomas’ summary
of the utterance chain. I ponder. Is it because we cannot reconcile the already-
spoken nor can we any longer anticipate the not-yet-spoken, that we are no longer
listening to or making utterance or voice, therefore leaving us both in a monologic
trap?
***
Utterances do not merely repeat the past … An utterance also sits at the dialogic
boundary of the said and the unsaid. (Baxter, 2011, p. 30)
It all started this spring in North Carolina. The “bathroom bill” or the “bathroom
law” is the North Carolina law that prevents transgender individuals from using the
bathroom appropriate to their orientation. This law, which mandates that people use
restrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificate, has sparked a major
backlash from LGBT groups.
Throughout May, I followed along in the news, hoping this event might make
my sister pick up her phone and send an iMessage, or at least post something to
Facebook I could “Like.” I remember the historical day gay marriage was made legal
in the United States. Our dialogue that day had been rapid and full of excitement and
new possibility.
I text her.
Hey Sister, Did You Hear about the Supreme Court Decision?
Utterances are sites where a variety of kinds of discourses are at play.
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C. BRANIGER
She responds.
Hell, yeah! The most important civil rights case of our generation. I can
hardly believe it gained enough momentum in my lifetime to become a
reality!!
All those years of LGBT campaigning paid off! I’m really happy for you.
It’s been a long journey since Stonewall.
What Does All This Mean for You?
My questioning approach reveals my unwillingness to allow a previous conversation,

voice, or utterance to stand in for fixed knowledge going forward. As Baxter (2011)
says, “meanings are not fixed” (p. 31).
Well, if it had happened five years earlier, I might have married Heather and
stayed in the states.
Really?
Yeah, I loved her. You know that.
I knew she loved Heather, but not enough to marry her. That was new information.
But you left?
The push and pull of the series of texts, the questions and answers, reveals the
dynamics of our utterance chain and the various discourses at work on the surface
and below.
We’ve been over this. I needed to
know I could do things on my
own. You know. Like live without
a mother or a keeper.
And then the conversation, riddled with the already-said, or as Baxter (2007) puts
it, the “already-spoken” (p. 122) takes a new direction. But not before it bounces
forward into the not-yet-said, or “not-yet-spoken” (Baxter, 2007, p. 122). Prompted
by my call to attention of the now.
And now?
Bonnie and I are talking about
coming back to the states and
getting married.
Wow!! I’d love that. So would mom.
I know.
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“HEY, SISTER”
Every utterance in our Bakhtinian utterance chain is a rejoinder in some way to

previous utterances, and are transformed into new possibility as the present
continues to unfold from them. My sister and I need each other to balance the other
out. When she comes close to letting one utterance stand as a fixed, stable aspect
of our identities or our relationship, I always keep questioning. However, being my
opposite, her dialogue reminds me of the co-responsibility of the past and future
to determine the present moment of revelation of being. Together we both make
ourselves new as we bring the past forward into future possibility.
As Bakhtin (1986) observes, ‘‘an essential (constitutive) marker of the utterance
is its quality of being directed to someone, its addressivity” (p. 95). An addressee
can be distant, as well, someone who is not a fellow participant in the immediate
conversation, but who may respond to the utterance at some future point. This could
be a specific person or a generalized other. My sister’s and my utterances definitely
create a communication chain, but underneath the current of our rapid-fire excitement,
our utterances are also directed at our mother, something we both acknowledged
before the dialogue above took a new direction. But when I acknowledged, I stood
with my mom in agreement. I shifted my power.
As I reflect on the conversation, I notice the way Chesna’s reminders of the
already-said shed light on our own conflict now. She doesn’t want a mother or a
keeper. Even just last summer, I was coming too close to my mother’s position.
I wanted her home. And she wasn’t ready yet to come. She still isn’t. The
need to coach, to fulfill the role of nurturer, of “polite lady who only wants to
help” also caused me to make my social blunder at the conference in May. Just
thinking and writing about my sister makes me realize, though, what I did right
after I made my embarrassing politically incorrect assumption. I can almost hear
her saying it.
“You didn’t let your critical voice fall into silence, Mel,” she’d say. “You took up
the dialogue with Brandon. And you’re taking it up here.”
As I wait with patience for my phone to buzz, vibrate, or ring, I desire her
utterance. For her to utter anything.
***
My daughter is out of town with friends, and I’ve had a long day of teaching and
planning with Brandon, so I hop in the car and head across town to pick up some
sushi for dinner. The June sun beats down through my sunroof. NPR plays on the
stereo. I’m thinking about relational dialectics and my sister and the lack of dialogue
between us right now. The monologic pain is killing me.
A story comes on the radio about another transgender bathroom situation. Meredith
Russo (2016) published an op-ed story in the New York Times about her own lived
experiences of being transgender, exposing the discriminatory measures taken at her
place of work in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her words, which the announcer reads
from her story, echo in my head: “Some insisted that I was in the wrong place.”
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C. BRANIGER
I can’t help but think about my sister, in Taiwan, and the hours my ex-husband
and I spent helping her perfect the Fulbright application that landed her an academic
gig there in Taipei. My mom’s words come back to me: “She’s in the wrong place,
Mel.” Here I was again, negotiating my sister’s identify for her. Mom didn’t want
her going halfway around the world. And neither did I. But it wasn’t my decision.
Still isn’t. So this was the nature of our relationship with our mom. Chesna would do
the unthinkable, and I’d be right there to try and logically explain to everyone why
they should let her be who she is.
Our recent silence haunts me (even as I write these words). The fall into
monologue tells me she needs this space to (re)construct her own narrative. But in
doing so without me there in the dialogue, the space of difference widens. Without
the dialogue to mediate the distance, a facet of my own identity seems vacant,
abandoned of growth. And I think it must be the same for her also. And wonder how
she endures the pain. Even during our worst communication lapses there has never
been an insurmountable wall, like there is now. Our difference, which has always
kept us healthily at least arms-length, is no longer fluid, but rigid, impenetrable and
fixed.
Sometimes I wonder. Can I (re)learn to live with and love the difference, no
matter how wide?
***
As I sit here tonight and try to think of a way to conclude this critical story, I turn
again to my shelves; this time the literary correspondence rises to the surface. Van
Gogh’s letters. Theo kept them all, even the one they found on Vince’s person
when he died in that lonely French Inn of (self-inflicted?) ballistic trauma. The two
brothers couldn’t be more different. Hardly any of Theo’s letters survive. Van Gogh
was not fastidious about those things. Not the way Theo was. Right next to their
collected letters, another favorite: Toni Morrison’s (1982) Sula. Another story of
sisterly difference. I open the cover to find a note from my sister:
Carmella~
This novel is about sisterly love so I found it appropriate to give to you. This is one
of my favorite novels… [In it] you find strong, liberal, stubborn black women. We
share the years of our childhood like these two women, but we dug deeper and found
a love unbreakable, strong … I love you and wish you the best birthday ever.
Love,
Chesna
I am saddened that our relationship has fallen into betrayal and lies, or untruths, just
as the sisters’ relationship does in Morrison’s novel. What is to gain for either of us?
I try to untie the knot in my stomach when I remember Sula’s greatest betrayal of
Nel, how closely our stories match. Then I realize, it’s Chesna’s (and Sula’s) blatant
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“HEY, SISTER”
disregard of social conventions that justify and perhaps even call for their betrayal.
Is it betrayal then after all? Or one more aspect of difference left to overcome.
More important than the plot line though (and Chesna points this out in her
note) is the quality of Sula and Nel’s correspondence—the way they constructed
one another through their own utterance chain. Like my sister and I, the two sisters
developed a discourse, a collective voice. In the novel, the narrator describes it this
way for Nel: “Talking to Sula had always been a conversation with herself … Sula
… helped others define themselves.” (p. 95). This mirroring quality is gone now
between my sister and me.
The stunted growth I feel is the loss of the space Chesna provided for me to
converse with myself, to define myself. This loss, which causes a deconstruction of
identity, requires then a reconstruction or recreation of self. And a new establishment
of others on which to project oneself safely out into the world in order to see and
converse with that self.
My phone buzzes. It’s Brandon. I’m excited to tell him about the new section of
this essay. I might be almost done.
***
It’s mid-summer and the heat is rising. There’s a mama doe and her fawn living out
back. Neighborhood boys let off firecrackers in the distance. Lightning bugs buzz.
Orlando mourns its dead. For once, I don’t imagine getting a call from my sister. But
instead, I sit on the back porch taking it all in, waiting, anticipating, willing to forgo
desire for unity, ready to listen to the cicada’s song full of difference.
REFERENCES
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds.; V. McGee,
Trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Baxter, L. A. (2007). Problematizing the problem in communication: A dialogic perspective.
Communication Monographs, 74(1), 118–124. doi:10.1080/03637750701196847
Baxter, L. A. (2011). Voicing relationships: A dialogic perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality: Volume 1, an introduction (Trans. R. Hurley). New York:
Vintage-Random House.
Morrison, T. (1982). Sula. New York: Plume.
Peate, I. (2016). Transgender equality. British Journal of Nursing, 25(5), 239. doi:10.12968/bjon.2016.25.5.239
Russo, M. (2016, May). What it feels like to use the wrong bathroom. The New York Times. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/opinion/what-it-feels-like-to-use-the-wrong-bathroom.html?_
r=0
Scharpa, K. M., & Thomas, L. J. (2016). “Family bonds”: Making meaning of parent–child relationships
in estrangement narratives. Journal of Family Communication, 16(1), 32–50. doi:10.1080/
15267431.2015.1111215
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ALEXA DUNCAN
20. MEAN GIRLS, INTERRUPTED

The Complexities of Female Friendship
INTRODUCTION
From Valley of the Dolls to Heathers to Mean Girls, America’s young women have
been subjected to countless messages from popular culture about who they are and
who they should be. You have to be skinny; you have to be white; you have to be
popular; you have to be blonde. Existing outside these parameters is, to quote Mean
Girls, “social suicide.” Associating with the right people is a must as well. If said
people are girls, they will inevitably turn on you. Or, if they don’t turn on you, they’ll
harbor their hatred and always secretly resent you for being prettier, smarter, more
popular.
That is what too many young girls are taught to think in their interactions with
other girls. It has taken me years to get over this internalized hatred toward my
gender. Growing up primarily around boys, I had few female friends. One of them
was and still is markedly different than me. She is pretty, smart, and popular. Skinny,
blonde, and bubbly. Judging by outward appearances alone, we should not be friends.
Strangers pass us by on the street and no doubt wonder, how are these young women
friends? If Mean Girls is true and accurate, we shouldn’t be. Let alone for the fifteen
years we’ve known one another. Nevertheless, here we are, defying expectations.
Just because we defy social norms does not mean we are immune to problems.
Friendship is complicated. Friendship, while female, even more so. What follows
is a chronicle of my life with my best friend, my quasi-sister, my soul mate. It isn’t
always pretty. It isn’t always nice. But it’s honest. And it’s sometimes, painfully,
real.
BELLA SWAN GOES TO PACSUN
Dee sifts through rack after rack of shoddy t-shirts, their fronts embossed with
glossy logos so that anyone who wears one will automatically do time as a walking
advertisement for the store.
“There’s no way I’m paying twenty-five dollars for one shirt,” Dee mutters,
flinging another hanger aside as she looks.
I hang back, nervously fiddling with the hair-tie around my wrist. I hate places
like this. The pressure to be cool is overwhelming, omnipresent. It lingers in the

a. Duncan
peppy pop-punk music playing over the intercom, the artful tears in the seventy-
dollar jeans, the confident gaits of the well-dressed employees.
As I stand dutifully near Dee, anxiety roils in my stomach. I don’t fit in here. I’m
too awkward, too nervous, too sweaty. Coolness isn’t something I possess. Dee does.
Dee is what anyone wants her to be at any given time. Dee is blonde. Dee is bright-
eyed. Dee knows how to talk to people. She is the only reason why I ever leave my
house in the first place.
At fifteen, I pride myself on my supposed individuality. I don’t want to be an
advertisement. Dee doesn’t much care. Clothes are clothes. She buys what she wants
and she looks good in all of it.
I, however, liken myself to my childhood heroes: idols in black who would scoff
at me for daring to step foot in a PacSun store. Wednesday Addams wouldn’t go near
a PacSun. Too bright. Too much yellow. Neither would Emily the Strange. She’d
be down the way at the Hot Topic. Maybe she’d meet Wednesday at Off the Wall to
look at the various swords and axes mounted behind the cashier’s desk. Daria would
be there, too. The perfect group. My people, acerbic and dark and always ready with
something witty to say.
Instead, I’m with Dee. Alone with my insecurity, sweating it out while Dee scowls
at the shirts. She picks another. Hot pink. I hate it, personally, but I don’t tell her so.
I want to be a good friend.
I don’t want to hate her for being everything I’m not.
My thoughts drift absently to Bella Swan of Twilight fame. I read the first book a
couple of years ago, my thirteen-year-old brain voraciously gobbling up every word,
every sentence, every paragraph. In Bella, I saw myself. A brown eyed, brown haired
girl who tripped over everything. Someone who checked off “reading” as one of her
biggest hobbies, who never thought herself good enough for someone as radiant as
her otherworldly boyfriend.
Bella wore her low self-esteem like an old sweater she found in her grandma’s
attic. So did I. It itches. It’s too warm. I want to take it off. But I can’t. I can’t because
Dee is right beside me and one of the employees is looking at me and all I want to
do sink into the racks so that no one can ever look at me again.
But I don’t.
“This is cute,” Dee says of another shirt she’s picked out. She wrangles it from the
overcrowded rack and holds it up to her ample chest. Another area where we differ
in all too drastic ways. “I know you hate it because it’s yellow, but … I dunno, I like
the design.”
“It’d look good on you,” I offer, heart speeding up at the sight of one of the
employees heading toward us. He’s probably a couple years older than we are.
Floppy hair, artfully torn jeans, a shirt with the store’s logo on it. He’s what Dee
would call hot. He’s fine, I guess.
Despite my indifference toward his supposed hotness, I still find myself wanting
to be cool around him. I put my hand on my hip in an effort to appear casual, keeping
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my arms close to my body so he won’t see how much I’m sweating through my shirt.
Dee looks up from her perusing and immediately smiles her wide, inviting smile.
“How ya doing over here?” The employee asks, matching Dee’s smile.
“Great!” Dee chirps. She’s good at attracting the attention of men, whether she
means to or not. Some sort of superpower, I think. I don’t realize how troublesome
that could be until much later.
“Fine,” I mutter. I angle myself away from the guy, afraid he’ll be able to smell
me if he gets too close.
“Good,” the employee says. He’s looking at Dee. Of course he is.
Dee flips her platinum hair over her shoulder and asks the employee a question
about the shirts. I don’t hear what it is. I’m not paying attention, concentrating much
too hard on my shoes. My signature shoes. Scuffed Chuck Taylors, black. Emily the
Strange would definitely approve.
“Lex,” Dee’s voice cuts through my concentration.
I look up, blood rushing to my cheeks. You’re such an idiot, my anxiety whispers.
You’ve embarrassed yourself in front of this guy like you always do.
“What?” I manage to croak.
“Do you want to try anything on?” The employee asks. I shake my head, too
ashamed to speak. Dee comes to my rescue. Sort of.
“Don’t mind her,” she says, “Lex kind of hates everyone.”
I look down at my shoes again, stunned.
Dee and the employee share a good laugh at my expense.
A dark feeling cuts through my anxiety, claws raking my stomach. Suddenly, I
hate myself in this moment. I hate my frizzy hair. I hate my sweat, I hate my crooked
leg, my big teeth, my total lack of interest in makeup.
Most of all, I hate Dee.
FRIENDSHIP WHILE FEMALE
In the weeks that it has taken to write this piece, I’ve struggled to apply academia to
it. A creative writer by trade, I had no problem plucking memories from the bowels of
my brain committing them to type, but the critical part of critical storytelling evaded
me time and time again. How could I dissect my longest and most complicated
friendship into something fit for a scholarly book? How could I gut these memories
and fill them with citations, statistics, quotations? It didn’t seem right. It still doesn’t,
if I’m being honest, which is why I want to begin with something simple. What is
friendship?
Friendship, as defined by Merriam-Webster’s English Dictionary, is simply “The
state of being friends.” Using that definition alone, we now have to wonder what a
friend is. Merriam-Webster’s has the answer: “One attached to another by affection
or esteem.” Now, let’s put these definitions in the context of a movie like Heathers.
The main character, Veronica, is “friends” with a group of girls all named Heather.
Unlike Veronica, the Heathers are varying degrees of mean. They’re mean to other
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a. Duncan
girls; they’re mean to each other; they’re mean to Veronica. Their cruelty knows no
bounds, and they don’t appear to be “attached to one another by affection or esteem”
in any sense of the definition. The same could be said for the main characters in
Mean Girls. The only outlier is the character of Janice Ian, who befriends the main
character all the while being ostracized by the other girls for supposedly being a
lesbian.
Though these may be fictional examples of how Western society views female
friendship, they’re still indicative of certain stereotypes that pervade and poison
relationships between women. They’re nothing new. The “mean girl” is such a staple
in popular culture that she has become an expectation—not just in the movie theatre,
but outside it as well. What does that mean for the girls who watch these movies?
Admittedly, Heathers is one of my favorite films. The first time I watched it,
I strongly identified with Veronica and oftentimes felt that my friendship with
Dee veered dangerously into Heather territory. Veronica was so different from her
friends. She had dark hair, like me, as opposed to her friends’ blonde hair—like
Dee’s. Veronica’s wit was rooted in cleverness while the Heathers thrived on male
attention.
I am Veronica, I thought. Look at how different I am from other girls. I othered
myself deliberately. I forged a gulf between myself and Dee because I thought my
version of femaleness was somehow superior to hers. I am not like other girls,
I would say. Over and over again until I believed it. Movies like Heathers only
solidified my views and validated my need to feel like I was better than other girls
my age. I did not engage in traditionally feminine activities. I did not wear makeup
or dresses. I read books, not gossip magazines. I derided other girls who did not
present the way I wanted them to, and this is called “internalized misogyny,” or
“internalized sexism.” “Internalized misogyny,” according to Cultural Bridges to
Justice (2011) is “the involuntary belief by girls and women that the lies, stereotypes
and myths about girls and women that are delivered to everyone in a sexist society
are true” (para. 1).
I bought into these stereotypes and myths. I bought into Heathers, Mean Girls.
I bought into my own self-degradation and I dragged Dee along with me.
THE CRAZY EX
“His ex is a total bitch,” Dee says, turning up the dial on the air conditioner.
The car smells like stale french fries baked too long under a June sun.
I squint against the harsh light, sinking back in my seat. Boxes at my feet, scuffed by
the soles of my old shoes. Dee never cleans out her car. Passers-by probably think
she lives in it. “Have you ever met this girl?” I ask.
Dee makes a noise, a cross between a laugh and a disgusted scoff. “I don’t have
to,” she says. “I’ve seen the text messages.”
I feel myself sinking again, bogged down by the weighty discomfort in my gut,
the block of ice in my stomach. I’ve known Dee since the first grade. We don’t fight.
110
About anything. Not necessarily because we agree with one another about every
facet of our lives, but because my cowardice too often overpowers what I really feel.
With strangers, I can stand tall. Put my foot down and say, “No, you’re wrong.”
With Dee, all I feel is that ice. We’ve known each other since the first grade. I don’t
want to disagree. But I don’t want to condone her mindless hatred of a girl she’s
never met, either.
“Just because you’ve seen text messages doesn’t mean anything,” I say quietly,
so quiet that my words almost get lost underneath the country song crooning on the
radio. Being quiet is better than staying silent, right?
Right.
Dee doesn’t take her eyes off the road. Cornfields pass us by in flashes of rushing
green, the winding ribbon of asphalt stretching into the eons of Midwestern
livelihoods. Another summer day, another drive to nowhere. We drive. We talk. We
eat. We do not disagree.
“He told me she was a bitch,” Dee says, still insistent on defending her newest
boyfriend. She’s gone through a lot of them and none of them are ever good enough
for her. She never sees that until it’s too late. “Like, okay, she won’t let him see his
kid! She’s totally crazy.”
How many times have I heard this story? Different people, same plot line. Dee starts
dating a guy. His ex is always crazy, because of course she is, and maybe there’s a kid
involved. Crazy ex is crazy. That’s it. That’s what I’m supposed to take at face value.
Dee is my friend, after all. My best. The constant line between support and
disapproval is a contentious one, one that I must walk like a circus performer in
order to get to the other side.
The fact of the matter is that the ex probably isn’t crazy. There is only one story
being told, one narrative being weaved out of whatever this guy wants Dee to hear.
I tell her so, couching it in passive language so that she won’t think I’m attacking her.
“I don’t know, I don’t really like guys who are constantly trashing their exes,”
I say. I mumble it between country songs again. Quiet, not silent. It’s a start
I can feel Dee glance at me. She’s quiet, too. Silent. Maybe, I think, she’s
considering what I say. She does that. Sometimes. Always telling me I’m that voice
in the back of her head, telling her to do what’s right. What’s responsible.
Someone has to do it. Might as well be the boring one of the pair.
However, when Dee opens her mouth, I find that I’m once again disappointed.
“I still think she’s a bitch.”
I sigh, relenting to defeat. Like always. Sorry, I think to the ex I’ve never met, to
the girl who likely does not deserve a stranger’s scorn.
I tried. Just not hard enough.
FINDING FEMINISM
I discovered Margaret Atwood when I was fourteen, teetering precariously on the

cusp of adolescence. There was something in me, some spark that hungered to break
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out of the small town boundaries I was accustomed to. Where I came from, girls had
their first boyfriends by thirteen, their first marriage by nineteen, and their first kid
by twenty. We had a very strict schedule to adhere to and deviance was not favorably
looked upon. I didn’t want to kiss anyone, however. I didn’t want to get married.
I didn’t want kids.
I wanted to read The Handmaid’s Tale. It was the seminal text in my realizing that
I was a feminist. I read it cover to cover multiple times, equal parts horrified and
fascinated by Atwood’s dystopian future where women existed only to be incubators
for children. I was so horrified that I immediately pushed the book on Dee. Dee,
I said. You have to read this. She read it. And she was just as horrified as I was.
I felt some sense of accomplishment at getting her to read the book I loved so
much. From then on, I pushed feminist text after feminist text on her. bell hooks,
Sylvia Plath, Audre Lorde. Without realizing it, I was once again forcing my own
agenda on Dee. I was trying to mold her into the type of girl I thought was acceptable.
I was trying to make her conform to a rigid set of standards without her approval or
consent. I was still trapped in the bind of internalized misogyny. Any girl who did
not subscribe to my precocious brand of womanhood was just sadly ignorant and
not worth my time. I had forgotten bell hooks (2000), who wrote that “honesty and
openness is always the foundation of insightful dialogue” (p. 189).
Yet, in my earnestness to be honest and open about my newfound feminism,
I created another barrier between Dee and myself. I identified as a feminist. She did
not. After she failed to read Plath’s (1963) The Bell Jar like I wanted her to, I realized
that I couldn’t make Dee be me. I couldn’t define her, no matter how much I wanted
to. The push and pull that has defined our friendship from the very start only got harder
as we got older. Our physical, personal, and ideological differences grew that much
more pronounced, leading even more people to ask, “How are you friends? You’re
exact opposites!”
Our opposites, it seemed, were also our strengths. A dialogic complication that
just so happened to work in our favor. Leslie Baxter writes about such tensions in
her article “Problematizing the Problem: A Dialogic Perspective.” Baxter (2007)
writes that studies in communication often privilege unity over difference, and that
a more interpretive approach to communication leaves more room for difference,
“celebrating the unique ‘strangeness’ of particular communities and situations” (p.
120). Would my friendship with Dee perhaps be easier—mentally and socially—if
we were more similar, as communication theorists might suggest? Maybe. Do our
inherent differences cause us problems? Of course.
In the long run, do any of these problems actually matter?
It’s hard, even after fifteen years of friendship, to know.
SCENES FROM A FARMHOUSE
There are at least ten different deer heads staring at me from their hallowed places
on the wall. At first, I found them creepy. I’d cringe away from their false gazes
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and titter nervously to Dee about the possibility of reanimation. One deer looks
particularly pensive. He’s huge, neck thick as the trunk of an ancient tree. His eyes
gleam like coals in his head and his antlers are massive. Sixteen “points,” maybe.
I don’t know the terminology very well. What is the measure of a deer? It doesn’t
matter. They’re not why we’re here.
Dee shoves the movie in the DVD player. Boxy and silver, it sits in between
stacks of hunting videos. They’re busy gathering dust.
“Is this the one about the ghost hunters?” I ask, settling on the floor in front of the
TV. Dee has pushed the coffee table to the side of the room. We need ample movie-
watching space.
She nods, then retreats to the little kitchen to fetch the package of Oreos we
bought at the gas station. She brings a couple of mason jars, too. Milk sloshes at the
top. “Yeah. It looks really bad. It’s gonna be awesome.” I agree.
Dee passes down the Oreos and mason jars to me, needing free hands to wrap a
blanket around her shoulders. It has a deer on it. Of course. Properly cocooned, she
settles next to me. We press play on the DVD. Ten minutes later, we’re laughing at
the screen. “Did that guy seriously just shoot himself in the foot?” I wheeze through
my laughter. I nibble at yet another Oreo, our ritual snack. Every summer weekend,
here we are in front of this old boxed television, eating from a package of Oreos and
clutching our mason jars to our chest.
Dee shrieks into her jar, milk running down her chin. That just makes her laugh
even harder. I grin so hard that my face starts hurting. I like it when Dee laughs.
Really laughs, as opposed to the nervous giggling she usually utters. Only here, in this
farmhouse, does she ever truly let her guard down. There’s no one out here but her
dad, the corn, and the cows. No pretenses. No prying eyes. No expectations. We are
allowed to simply be. It’s a rare moment in time, a sort of Midwestern cryogenesis.
The movie plays on. Second-rate ghost hunters bumbling their way through low-
budget scenes. Roger Ebert wouldn’t have bothered lifting his thumb for this one.
And yet, by the time the credits roll, we are perfectly content. Dee shoves the last of
the Oreos at me. “Here,” she says through her own mouthful. Still wrapped in her
blanket, she pushes herself to her feet. The deer-shaped clock on the far wall reads
midnight. “I’m gonna go make some oatmeal.”
“What?” I ask, thinking I must have misheard her.
“Oatmeal,” she repeats with a laugh. “It sounds good!”
I get up and join her in the kitchen despite my misgivings about midnight oatmeal.
Her dad won’t be waking up to catch us any time soon. Bear sized with the same
general temperament, he sleeps so deeply that even a tornado wouldn’t rouse him.
A few clanging pots won’t matter.
Dee grabs one out of the sink. It’s one of exactly three pots her father owns. She
puts it on the coils of the gas stove, retrieves her oatmeal, and gets to work. I stand
there all the while, quietly giggling to myself about the absurdity of my current
existence. Here were are, in the middle of nowhere, making oatmeal at midnight just
because it “sounds good.”
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We sit in the long silence, listening to the crickets chirp from unseen corners.
It isn’t until Dee opens the silverware drawer that I’m roused from my trance.
A spoon comes just short of my feet, clattering to the floor. I stare at it. Then I
stare at Dee. “Did you just throw a spoon at me?” I ask.
She starts laughing again. Straight from her belly. As usual, I follow her lead. We
laugh so hard that, by the end, our stomachs hurt. Dee wipes tears from her eyes. Ten
different spoons litter the floor. I’ve gotten my exercise for the night.
“Woo,” Dee says. She takes a moment to catch her breath. She goes to the stove,
still chuckling to herself. Her oatmeal is done. A lumpy gray mass in a decades-old
pan. “You know,” she says. A pause. “I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”
“Oh my god,” I put my head in my hands. The laughter starts anew. My shoulders
shake. “You decide you want oatmeal, throw spoons at me, then decide you don’t
want your oatmeal anymore? Seriously?”
Dee shrugs. I mutter another half-hearted oh my god.
We return to the living room, our differences obscured by the dark. One o’clock in
the morning, a little farmhouse thrown out into mile after mile of farmland.
We aren’t blonde. We aren’t brunette.
We aren’t bubbly. We aren’t shy.
We aren’t extroverts. We aren’t introverts.
We exist, one farm weekend at a time. And that, for me, is enough.
The next morning, Dee’s dad wakes up.
“Why are there spoons all over the damn kitchen?!” He hollers.
Dee looks at me.
All we do is laugh.
A CONVERSATION WITH ADRIENNE RICH
“People probably think we’re lesbians or something,” Dee said when we were
younger. “Let’s just get married. I’m sick of guys.”
We laughed about it then. Neither of us thought about the implications hidden
behind those words. We didn’t think of how devalued our friendship was outside
of one another. We, like too many other young girls, had been exposed to images
of who we should have been, who we needed to be, but not who we wanted to
be. Because we did not operate in spheres of outright cattiness, we lingered on
the edges of honest friendship, unsure of whether or not we were being friends the
“right” way.
As I’ve said throughout this story, the popular media wants people to believe that
girls are not supposed to be best friends without caveat. We’re supposed to hate one
another. Any love that exists between two women must automatically be met with
suspicion. Surely they’re lesbians. Surely they really just hate one another.
You should be careful, people tell me. Usually in hushed tones, so no one else can
hear them gossip. Someone might think you two—me and Dee—are together. You
know, in a lesbian way.
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Poet and writer Adrienne Rich (1996) would argue that of course people think
Dee and I are lesbians. It’s only natural, and a good thing. In her essay, “Compulsory
Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Rich describes a sort of “lesbian continuum”
on which all women exist, and explains that not all love between women has to be
romantic, despite the Sapphic suggestion that lesbianism equals romance. It was a
radical idea at the time of its writing, but as I ruminate on the idea now, I can’t help
but think Rich was onto something.
Adrienne, I think. I really like your ideas on love between women, but I don’t
know where I stand on your “continuum.”
I love my friends. I love the camaraderie that comes with befriending other
women. It has taken me many years to get to this point, my love a hard-won prize
earned through a great deal of soul-searching and self-actualization. I love Dee in
a way you can’t help but love a person you’ve known for fifteen years. I still don’t
know where Rich would put me on her proposed “continuum,” but I’m glad to be
there regardless.
My feminism is larger now, thanks to women like Adrienne Rich. It is larger than
it was when I was fourteen, enraptured by Atwood’s (1986) The Handmaid’s Tale.
It is larger than Sylvia Plath, larger than the United States. It has enriched my life in
every possible way, allowing me to realize that it’s okay for Dee to be different than
me, and that it is perfectly acceptable for her to present the way she wants to present.
Our friendship would not exist without our differences, and for these differences, I
am grateful.
I don’t have to be Veronica. Dee doesn’t have to be Heather. We can be, in a
culture that rewards girls for hating one another; and that, perhaps, is our greatest
victory.
REFERENCES
Atwood, M. (1986). The handmaid’s tale. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Baxter, L. (2007). Problematizing the problem in communication: A dialogic perspective. Communication
Monographs, 74(1), 118–124. doi:10.1080/03637750701196847
Cultural Bridges to Justice. (2011). Internalized sexism / Internalized misogyny. Retrieved from
http://www.culturalbridgestojustice.org/programs/sexism/internalized-sexism/
hooks, b. (2000). All about love: New visions. New York: William Morrow.
Plath, S. (1963). The bell jar: A novel. New York: HarperCollins.
Rich, A. (1996). Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence. In S. Jackson & S. Scott (Eds.),
Feminism and sexuality: A reader (pp. 130–141). New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved
from http://www.weldd.org/sites/default/files/Compulsory%20Heterosexuality.pdf
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BECKY FALLS
21. MY PERSONAL HELL

Becoming a Hardened Machine at Hardee’s
INTRODUCTION
What follows is a snapshot of the living hell that I’ve been through as a dehumanized,
scorned, mistreated fast food employee at Hardee’s, a fast food corporation that
spends more money claiming good deeds to their employees and their community
than it actually does. My personal experience, mixed with statistics and stigmas
described in the literature, shows that fast food chains are mostly focused on profit,
putting their workers’ needs on the backburner of their hot money-making oven,
which feeds off of customers’ every desire but at the expense of the workforce of
underpaid, and brutalized servants.
ONE SUNDAY MORNING
6:00 a.m.
It was going to be a typical day at work, or so I thought. I walked my usual route

to Hardee’s, clocked in, and received a “warm” greeting from Melissa, who told
me I should be smiling; she was so happy to see me. This morning wasn’t different
than any other. There were pretty much the same customers, ordering the same
food, and even using about the same amount of money each time to pay for their
meal. All normal transactions, normal procedure. I can’t tell you how many times
I’ve asked customers if they want any ketchup or jelly, before telling them to have
a great day.
7:00 a.m.
Melissa left me alone to tend to the customers myself so she could count her drawer,
telling me to yell for her if I needed her. I looked around the store. The cooks snuck
out the back door, where they took a smoke break and talked for over ten minutes.
Overhearing them say I am slow and calling me “turtle,” I brushed it off, because I
knew I was working hard and at a good pace.
I was constantly moving: stocking, changing the sanitizer water, making shake
cups, and wiping down counters. When Melissa came up front to count the safe, she

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told me that I’m one of the sweetest people she knows, adding, “You don’t have to
do that for me, that’s my job.” I laughed and told her that it’s my pleasure to help her.
She is a great manager, makes excellent sweat tea, always calls people “Hun,” and is
just a pleasant person to be around.
8:00 a.m.
Two more team members showed up to work right as Melissa announced she was
going home to go to bed. This Sunday, those members were Amber and Shinka.
Amber, the assistant manager, has a way of letting everyone get away with doing
things that go against company policy. She lets us take or make food for ourselves
and not pay for it, goes out on several 10–20 minute “smoke breaks,” and allows
people to complain about customers and employees anytime they want. Talking
smack in private is one thing, but she takes it out of hand by arguing with customers
and instigating drama.
A back-line worker named “Freddie” arrived late, again, at 8:30 a.m. He went
into the manager’s office, sat down at the computer, and adjusted his hours so that it
seemed like he was there at the time he was supposed to come in, 7:00 a.m. This action
steals money from the company and is unethical, especially to his fellow workers,
whom he wasn’t there helping. Then he started making sandwiches, “dropping”
(frying) hash-rounds, and performing other normal back-line duties, but he always
likes to make his day interesting, most of the time at the expense of his coworkers.
That day he told me, “Don’t even call back for sandwiches.” I was a little put off,
especially since I needed to know if he was making the sandwich for drive through.
Freddie has a tendency to forget he needs 2–3 of a certain sandwich, so he only
makes one. Also, when I called back to see if he had more hash rounds down, he
scoffed and told me to go put them down myself. This unprofessional behavior takes
time away that I can use to help customers.
I ran to the back and was hit by the sickening smell of grease. I looked at the fryer,
filled with little tag-alongs that were left behind by cooking hash-rounds. I took a
strainer and scooped up the majority of the crusties, and threw them into the trash.
If I would not have done that, who would have? There were only three people on
back-line at the time, and none of them cared about that small detail that means a lot
to the quality of the food.
9:00 a.m.
I was put on biscuits. Jennifer is the normal biscuit maker, but today she was
busy making sandwiches, so Amber asked me to go make them. Just learning
how to make biscuits the other day, I was excited to show my stuff on the table.
I partially enjoyed being back there, mostly because I didn’t have to interact with
any grumpy morning customers. I got out the ingredients: biscuit mix, flour, and
buttermilk.
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Next, I mixed the biscuit ingredients with the milk, floured the table, plopped
a big handful on the table, pushed it, folded it, and pushed it again, then rolled the
dough out to be cut into biscuits, making sure to add a little flour at each stage so the
dough wouldn’t stick to the rolling pin or table.
After making about fifteen trays of biscuits, loading them in the oven, setting a
timer, taking them out, buttering them, and putting them in the appropriate station, I
was working up a sweat. Biscuit duty was not my job, but machines can’t complain.
10:30 a.m.
We were trying to get ready to change over to lunch. I was relieved; it was about
time for me to go, because I was tired (I was scheduled until 11:00 a.m.). I put the
rest of the trays into the cooler under the station, and as I was cleaning the table off,
I heard someone yelling.
“I told you to stop messing with me! You’re not going to make me lose my job!”
came from the front of the store. I looked up to see Shinka yelling at Freddie, who
was bent over laughing. He had thrown a hot fry, fresh out of the fryer, at her, and
after his constant harassment from earlier in the morning (saying hurtful and even
sexually inappropriate things about her), she flipped her lid. Next thing I knew,
Amber sent Shinka home, and Jennifer went to the front to help her with orders.
Jennifer said, out loud, that she wasn’t doing prep or dishes, her normal duties, and
that the biscuit maker had to do them. I, being the one who made biscuits for her,
was given that duty, even though I had never done either job, and I was supposed to
get off at 11:00 a.m.
So I took what I was dealt, but I told Amber I wasn’t doing dishes. There were
way too many dishes for me to do, and I was supposed to get off at 11:00 a.m., which
was not going to happen since I had to complete all of her prep-work. So Amber
went to the front and told Jennifer that I wasn’t going to wash the dishes, and she
scoffed and said that she wasn’t going to either.
After the task was tossed around the store, everyone in front and back-line
declining to clean the pile of breakfast dishes, Amber came back and screamed,
“NOBODY ON BACK-LINE IS LEAVING UNTIL THESE DISHES ARE DONE!”
I laughed to myself and kept doing prep work. I didn’t have time for the dishes when
they were asking for tomatoes and shredded lettuce on the table. I cut up tomatoes,
lettuce, and two kinds of onions, which made my eyes water and burn from the juice.
Jennifer finally gave in and came to the back where she did the dishes. I tried to help
her by cleaning the sink and putting some of the dishes away, but my help was met
with an icy stare.
2:30 p.m.
After coming to the front and restocking the drive-thru, I told Amber goodbye and
got out of there before she gave me more work to do. Because I was scheduled from
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6:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m., I wasn’t given a break, even though my work lasted from
6:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., so I ended up working 8.5 hours without a break. I’m sure
they will probably adjust my hours so it seems like I got a lunch break though, so
they avoid getting in trouble. Nobody would want that, right?
After work, I was drained. Nothing happened because nothing could happen. My
feet, swollen and in pain, were not able to carry me anywhere other than to my
bed. I couldn’t even stay awake to watch a movie, and I was in no mood to do the
homework waiting for me on my desk. I slept the rest of the day and most of the
night. I was an exhausted human being treated as an untiring, unfeeling machine.
JUST ANOTHER MANIC MONDAY
5:00 a.m.
I got up from my bed and had to drag myself into work, the sky still dark. I clocked
in and Melissa’s smiling face greeted me as she handed me the headset. I took it
willingly, because I knew she had it on all night and was most likely sick of the
“Bing” that it makes when someone pulls up, or the agonizing back-and-forth that
plays out when prying an order out of someone. I was relieved, knowing I wouldn’t
have to do biscuits, dishes, and prep, because the old horse who’d been there 20
years, Mrs. Von, always does those things on weekdays.
7:00 a.m.
After Melissa went to the back to count her drawer once again, I got rather busy
taking orders, filling them, and cashing people out for both the front line and drive-
thru. Mrs. Von came to the front to help me out. She is old, bitter, and gets away
with unethical deeds that she plays off as just doing her job right. I’ve seen her
ring someone up for a plain biscuit ($1), then give them a full meal with a drink, a
sandwich, and hash-rounds. I’ve had customers come in and either yell for Mrs. Von
or refuse to let me ring them up because they want the “deals” she gives them when
they come in to eat.
I wonder to myself how many times she’s done this kind of stealing from the
company over the 20 or so years she has worked here. It really benefits someone to
befriend Mrs. Von. She’ll ring them up for a three-piece and give them eight, give
them a free large hash round when they order a small, or even just blatantly give one
customer in particular a free burrito every time she comes in, claiming we owe her
a free one because her last one was “cold.” I’m sure the last four times the burrito
was cold too, right?
I’m not sure whether my distaste is for Mrs. Von as a person, or the work
environment that enables her to be this way. She seems like a well-rounded, Jesus-
loving woman, so how has she become bitter and stress-inducing? Is she like this at
home? How do other people see her? Working here twenty years can change a person,
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because the stressful environment of fast food labor can take a toll on anyone. Has
Hardee’s dehumanizing work environment turned her into the hardened, unethical,
uncaring woman she appears to be at work?
Almost every worker has let the stress get to them, has wanted to leave, has reached
their breaking point, or the point where they don’t care about anything anymore,
because Hardee’s has sucked the life out of them. I’ve seen so many workers go
against company policy. Comments like, “I’ve worked here long enough, I deserve
some free stuff, and so do my friends” is a common refrain among the workers,
possibly due to low pay and a lack of free meals during lunch break. Maybe they
think the prices are too high, or maybe they get satisfaction in making the company
lose money on a transaction. Maybe they want to try to get a one-up on the system
that has got us all down.
Mrs. Von’s idea of “helping” is different from mine. Instead of helping (by bagging
my orders while I cash the customer out and fill drinks), she bags the order and sets
it on the fry station for me to retrieve. If I don’t notice she put the drive-thru orders
there (it’s out of view from where I stand), she utters a backhanded comment about
how she put it there and that I need to come get it because I’m holding up the line.
8:00 a.m.
At this point, I was getting irritated because, just like every Monday, the same
lady came in and stood next to the counter, got a free hash round, and chatted
with Mrs. Von for over 45 minutes about church, work, and other mindless banter.
Sometimes I even hear Mrs. Von talking mad crap about the other workers to
customers, which isn’t very team-friendly, because if she is talking bad about a
worker, the customer will think it’s okay to talk smack about them and disrespect
them as well.
Another front line worker clocked in, then went in the back to talk about how she
was drunk the night before. While over by the window, ready to cash out the drive-
thru, I had the drink ready. I pushed the button, but Mrs. Von hadn’t sent the order
over, so I wasn’t able to even see the transaction; nothing out of the ordinary. It’s not
unusual for a worker to forget the last order in line on the screen, but it was definitely
regular procedure for Mrs. Von.
I asked her politely, “Can you please send over the order?” Nothing. She was
leaning on the counter, six inches from the register where she’d entered the order,
talking with her buddy, wasting the company’s time, being lazy, not stocking, not
cleaning (which, by the way, I have yet to see her do since I’ve been there), just
leaning on the counter blabbing on. “Can you PLEASE send down the order?”
By this time, I knew they could hear me and they were purposefully ignoring me.
There’s no way she can’t hear me. After asking three or four times, I just decided
to walk over to the register across the store and send it down to myself. I looked at
the witch and thought retire already old lady, but I swallowed my words due to my
respectful demeanor towards my coworkers and other people in general.
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Then, as I got to the register, she looked over and said, “Oh, you should have
just yelled at me to send the order down.” I rolled my eyes and thought I did, as she
handed me a bag with one sandwich in it, saying it still needed a hash round, but I
should give her a medium because “she doesn’t want that small bag” … then why
did you ring her up for a small?
By now, I was rather frustrated at the fact this woman was the person on front-line
with me, and how she hadn’t helped much, but rather talked to her friend. When I
was scooping the hash rounds, I must have raised my arm up too high, because one
second I was grabbing the scoop, the next I was grinding my teeth and dropping the
metal scoop with a clang. Tears filled my eyes as I drew my hand back to observe
two bloody burn scars on my wrist.
CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON MY JOURNAL SNAPSHOTS
The fast food industry demonstrates its dangerous lack of concern for the workers
it employs. After searching the Hardee’s website, liberally searching for something
on how they feel about their workers, I was able to locate a few lines about their
employees. What I found laced into the over-exaggerated lines about how they offer
great opportunities and respect for their employees (even though I know people
working there for years and only making 25 cents more than minimum wage)
was numerous advertising lines about how you’ll be involved in the commercial
buzz.
If you’ve ever seen a commercial from Hardee’s, it tends to be a little … crude.
Lewd, even. Actresses such as Heidi Klum, Nina Agdal, Paris Hilton, and playboy
model Sara Jean Underwood practically make out with big juicy-looking burgers,
letting bits fall onto their half-covered body and sucking the sauce off their fingers
like porn stars. I’m ashamed to have any association with a company that lets
such commercials air for families to see. To me, it’s obvious the fast food industry
executives spend more on marketing than on upholding policies that support or value
their employees.
My life is not as important to management as the work they want from me. They
desire to draw all my energy from me. To make me an empty carcass, only able to do
my job, go home, sleep, then come back to start my day again. Even with going to
school full-time, I am working full-time, so even on days that I have class, I usually
work before or after class. The hours have negatively impacted my schoolwork,
but at the same time, I had to pay $863 for rent per semester because that was what
financial aid wouldn’t cover. Even though I worked hard and long hours, 2/3 of my
paychecks would go towards rent alone.
I would cry every time we got paid, and you might too if, after working 30–40
hours a week, you were left with $50 for yourself. As if my schedule at school did
not matter. If I told the General Manager (GM), Glen, I was out of school at 2:00 p.m.
he’d schedule my shift to begin at 2:00 p.m. Am I able to teleport? Am I willing to
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leave class early so I can get to work on time? No. My education was more important
to me, but was seen as insignificant in comparison to the fast food sweatshop that
employed me.
Corporations assume their workhorses (the undervalued employees) will pick up
any slack and keep the smile on their face. Just like a phospholipid in a bi-layer,
the upper management suspects that if one worker is unable to work, other workers
will push harder to keep going like nothing happened or “fill in any gap.” This
happened twice in the situations recorded above: First, Freddie didn’t come in at his
scheduled time, so we had to all work harder so we could make up for his absence;
then, after Shinka was sent home, the team changed rolls, leaving me with work
that I had never done and forcing me to work after my scheduled time. During and
after this situation, I received no credit for my drudgery. I’ve never received credit
for my outstanding performance, probably because all the workers there like to take
credit for someone else’s work and talk smack about you behind your back. They’ve
laughed about my size, said I eat too much Hardees as it is, called me “turtle” and
other derogatory things, but little do they know I always keep busy, even when I see
other workers slacking off, chatting with their friends, or talking on the phone for
prolonged periods of time.
Two months after I started at Hardee’s, we received a trophy for Best Drive Time
in the region, and I believe I had something to do with it … but even after I leave
and the trophy disappears, they won’t put two-and-two together, or believe I was
worth anything, because I was just a low caste worker—gum on the bottom of the
corporation’s shoe. I’ve called the Hardee’s corporate office and complained about
the management and working conditions, but I haven’t gotten very far.
My hand now has permanent burns on it, and when I was burned there were no
Band-Aids or burn cream to sooth and protect my scars, so I had to put mustard on
them, covered them with a damp cloth, and went back to work. The company’s lack
of concern or preparedness brings up issues of ethics and the abuse of employees. As
Michel Foucault (1984) notes in The Body of the Condemned:
The body is also directly involved in a political field; power relations have an
immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to
carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs. This political investment
of the body is bound up, in accordance with complex reciprocal relations, with
its economic use; it is largely as a force of production that the body is invested
with relations of power and domination. (p. 173)
Especially at a jobsite, our bodies are put to the test to track our strengths and limits.
As workers, anyone who is in an entry level job, or is a part of a company that is more
quantity- and sale-oriented, employees are more likely to be seen as a tool rather
than a person. Workers are asked to stay up overnight, scoop and carry heavy ice
buckets, clean toilets, work in extreme heat as well as frigid temperatures, and we’re
expected to meet a quota. And we are reprimanded if we are not able to produce the
numbers in the time they are looking for.
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When my arm was burned, I was not sent home or to the doctor to heal, but instead
made to push through my injury and continue to work. Employees suffer from sleep
deprivation from working rotating shifts (what is known in the medical community
as shift work sleep disorder) (WebMd, n.d.), or are forced to work through personal,
mental, and other types of trauma and abuse. The customers seem oblivious or
unconcerned about the people who make their food or take their order. Just as the
corporation sees us as machines, so too do customers who think we should operate
flawlessly in our work. There are many things that can affect a laborer and possibly
make him/her mess up a detail about the job, but with that said, the GM never fires
anyone. Do you want to know why? Because he knows anyone fired will be able
to receive unemployment in a heartbeat, so he works them hard, puts them with
unbearable people, and cuts their hours so they end up quitting. Every single time.
There is a culture in this type of business, and many others that enable cruelty to
fester in the wounds of my arm, as well as the lives of any employee of a company
that does not care about its operators. I and a few other employees have brought up
the different problems that happen in the store, but the GM doesn’t pay it any mind.
He says if he is not there to catch it, or if they aren’t on camera doing the act, there’s
nothing he can do about it. Thing is, he will never catch them because they know
where the cameras are, and I’ve seen them stealing when he is right there. If he is not
vigilant enough to see the problems himself, the bad habits will never improve. One
employee tried to record the assistant manager smoking weed in her car and skipping
out on work when there were a lot of customers in the store. That employee’s hours
were cut drastically, and I didn’t see him there much longer. On his way out, he
attempted to alert the GM to what he was missing and notify him who the “real
problem workers” were, to no avail.
Online reviews, stories, and even personal encounters probably won’t change the
mindset of a big fast food management team, since they have already had numbers and
thoughts embedded in their brains since the first hamburger patty was dropped and
the first machine powered on. Government regulations have been the only deterrent
to the mistreatment of workers. According to The United States Department of
Labor (n.d.), employers must pay at least minimum wage, pay overtime for anyone
there over forty hours a week, and may not employ anyone under the age of fourteen
(some states may have higher age requirements). The Department of Labor (n.d.)
has specific mandates for employers, such as equal opportunity in selecting, testing,
and hiring qualified applicants; job accommodation for applicants and workers with
disabilities when such accommodations would not impose “undue hardship”; and
equal opportunity in promotion and benefits (para. 2).
As I’ve looked for a different job, I have found myself straying from the fast food
industry, mostly due to the average 150% turnover rate (Bebe, 2016) or the unethical
work environment a lot of workers are put through while still being told to smile and
take their borderline poverty-line paycheck. Having a decent amount of experience,
and working on my business management degree at Millikin University, I received a
good amount of attention from hiring managers. After starting at Hardee’s, I had to
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turn down three job offers. I had already settled because the job was within walking
distance from my school, and “good enough” to pay off what I owed for living
expenses that year. I knew it wasn’t permanent, but I didn’t have a car to get me
across town to other prospective jobs, like Aflac and/or Menards. Now, turning back
to the drawing board, I am applying for the same offers I had originally turned down.
All I can do is apply and pray my application is seen by a manager who thinks I
would be a good fit.
After applying for a grocery store in town three times, I finally got an interview.
I was excited; I was finally going to get away from Hardee’s. I went in early for the
interview, wore appropriate business attire, and answered the questions thoroughly
and promptly. I didn’t understand what went wrong when I received an e-mail, four
days later, saying they chose another applicant “who better meets the needs of our
company.” I’ve heard this line far too many times. Why were managers not hiring
me? I had all the qualifications, had ample availability, and was even open to work
in different departments of the store if needed. My close friend, who was about the
same size as me, mentioned that they may not hire me due to my size. He said that
companies that offer benefits like insurance would be more likely to decline my
application due to my size, because they see me as less healthy, and more of a risk to
hire. I was shocked, but sadly, this rang all too true to me.
IMPLICATIONS: DEFICIT DISCOURSE IN A WORKING WORLD
Even though I am just as likely to visit the doctor as the next person, if not less likely,
due to my size, hiring managers may see me as a potential hazard to hire. There
is stigma attached to being fat: assumptions follow that one is unable to control
oneself, sloppy, slow, and not as productive or caring as someone with a “healthy”
figure. Even though this is not the case, my appearance flags, for others, that I “may
not be as qualified” as a person who has a lower Body Mass Index (BMI).
I was appalled as I pursued research on the topic and discovered more
confirmations that weight discrimination happens in today’s society just as much
as other forms of discrimination. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive
and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) (n.d.) reports that more than two-thirds (68.8
percent) of adults are considered to be overweight, more than one-third (35.7
percent) of adults are considered to be obese, and more than 1 in 20 Americans
(6.3 percent) have extreme obesity. The Minnesota Department of Human Rights
(2013) reported on a recent study from Yale University that concluded plus-sized
applicant are less likely to be hired, and if they do get the job, are likely to earn
less money and are left out for promotions, because they are seen as “lazy” or
lacking in self-discipline (para. 1). A Forbes article (Dusen, 2008) reiterates that
size matters, saying that, on average, when a woman gains 64 pounds, she takes a
9% pay decrease (para. 6).
At Hardee’s, my weight is used as a joke by some of my workers, specifically
the ones who have been there the longest and think their job is secure. They freely
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B. falls
criticize and harass workers like me, who try their best to hold back remarks because
they’re decent people. Being the “bigger person” doesn’t require you to be plus
sized, but it takes a lot more work when you are big in size and you force yourself
to swallow a retort to their verbal attack, because you want to keep your job and
stay on good terms with the rest of the crew. There are several things worse than
being fat, and I would love nothing more than to call a certain bully a stinky-crotch
troll, but I’m not the kind of person who likes to fight, even though I hold a black
belt. In training, my martial arts sensei always taught self-discipline and respect.
I was to only use force when being attacked, and avoid fighting unless it was the
only option.
I think a lot of industries have unhealthy obsessions with body size: modeling,
coaching, sports, actors/actresses, theatre, real estate, and even waitressing. Bigger
people don’t want “an easy ride in life”; we just want to be considered for jobs that
we are capable of doing, without having the hiring manager take one look at us and
only see insurance prices and liability. Yes, I have become the size I am because of
a lifetime of “bad decisions” but that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve a good job or a
lower role, less pay, and less opportunity because of my weight.
Even though 68% of Americans are seen as overweight and 36% are obese,
there are no rules (except in the state of Michigan) that forbid firing or not hiring
someone based on weight. While some people claim that discriminatory attitudes
towards race, gender, sexuality, and other characteristics have improved over the
years, the discrimination against overweight people has gotten worse. From my
lived experience and research, it seems like in today’s society, the only people that
one can openly make fun of, and not seem like an asshole, are fat people. There is a
cruel deficit discourse being perpetuated regarding public perceptions of “normal”
weight and how to manage it. I know many people that think they can diagnose the
problems or fate of bigger people. Beard (2013) defines deficit discourse as a social
construction based on social and economic standing of individuals and groups in
society, which “allows the education system to predetermine the outcome of the
individual, in a social and economic sense” (para. 1).
Many argue that even having these discourses in the first place creates the very
problems that are thought to arise from these discourses. According to Nieto (2010),
“Assumptions, biases, and prejudices are often unexamined manifestations of
economic, political, and social power of people belonging to dominant or privileged
groups” (p. 36). In my research I’ve found many scholars who describe how people
assume all these things about a heavy-set person and automatically jump to a deficit
evaluation, especially if they are one of the people in “the upper-hand” because of
their lower BMI.
An empathetic consideration (what some call “political correctness”) is severely
lacking when it comes to bigger people because of the stigma that we did this to
ourselves—as if obesity is a personal and moral failure; because we can possibly
change our weight, we’re given scorn and ridicule. Managers usually hide their
biased opinion of overweight people, but most of the time they are seen as lazy,
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lacking self-discipline, and not as competent as their thin counterparts. As the

obesity epidemic increases our waistlines, the fight for size equality burns brighter,
but it is still socially acceptable to treat someone as an inferior based on their size.
I have had multiple phone interviews, which lead to in-person interviews, but
when it came to meeting face-to-face, I did not get a call back for the job, even if
I had more than all the qualifications and open availability. Employers put a harsh
price tag on obesity. According to a study conducted on more than 11,000 employee
health records at Duke University, bigger workers supposedly pursued twice the
number of workers’ compensation claims, had seven times the medical costs, and
had thirteen times the amount of work missed due to injury or illness, compared with
slimmer employees (Østbye, Dement, & Krause, 2007). Yet, if employees judge their
decision based solely on medical expenses, they may not take into account what that
person might bring to the company, such as experience or knowledge. They may hire
a thinner person who meets the needs of the current job but, like the grocery store did
with me, may not hire someone with managerial potential like I have.
The problems addressed here can only be solved with the decency of humankind.
As a child, I thought it was common sense to love one another as if they’re your
kin, or to treat others the way you would want to be treated; but some people put
themselves on a pedestal and forget about the feelings of others and what obstacles
they may be able to overcome or have already overcome. Some people have a hard
time seeing others’ points of view, and see the world with shuttered vision. There
may be ways that we, as bigger people, can fight this discriminatory behavior from
employers and the rest of the population. Regulations may change what employers
can legally do, but people will only change if they are raised to practice empathetic
ways of understanding and relating with people. That’s how we become less like
machines and more like human beings.
REFERENCES
Anonymous. (2015, January 18). Workplace fat-shaming has gotten way out of hand. Injustice Stories:
Stories of Social Injustice. Retrieved from http://injusticestories.com/workplace-fat-shaming-has-
gotten-way-out-of-hand/
Beard, H. R (2013, May). Deficit discourse. The Education Business Model. Retrieved from
http://education-business-model.weebly.com/deficit-discourse.html
Bebe, I. A. (2016). Employee turnover intention in the U.S. fast food industry (Doctoral dissertation).
Walden University, Minneapolis, MN. Retrieved from http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?article=3168&context=dissertations
Braude, L. (1963). Work: A theoretical clarification. Sociological Quarterly, 4(4), 343–348.
Dusen, A. V. (2008, May 21). Is your weight affecting your career? Forbes. Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/2008/05/21/health-weight-career-forbeslife-cx_avd_0521health.html
Foucault, M. (1984). The body of the condemned. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), The Foucault reader (pp. 170–178).
New York: Pantheon Books.
Minnesota Department of Human Rights. (2013). Weight bias: The next civil rights issue? Retrieved from
http://mn.gov/mdhr/education/articles/rs10_2weightbias.html
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National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. (2012, October). Overweight and
obesity statistics. Retrieved from https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/
Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. (n.d.). Overweight and obesity
statistics. Retrieved from https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-
obesity
Nieto, S. (2010). Language, culture, and teaching: Critical perspectives for a new century (2nd ed.).
New York: Routledge.
Østbye, T., Dement, J. M., Krause, K. M. (2007). Obesity and workers’ compensation: Results from the
duke health and safety surveillance system. Archives of Internal Medicine, 167, 766–773. Retrieved
from https://www.medpagetoday.com/upload/2007/4/24/766.pdf
United States Department of Labor. (n.d.). Employers’ responsibilities. Retrieved from
https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/disability/employersresponsibilities
WebMD. (n.d.). Shift work sleep disorder: Topic overview. WebMD. Retrieved from
http://www.avclub.com/review/eric-schlosser-ifast-food-nationi-5969
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EMMA HASTINGS
22. COMING UP FROM THE DEPTHS

Dealing with Depression, Anxiety, and Eating Disorders
Surrounded by water in all directions, I watch the bubbles trail up toward the distant
surface. Sinking down toward the unknown depths of the ocean, I feel my lungs
begin to burn, reaching for that distant light, struggling, silently screaming as my
only salvation slowly fades to nothing more than a speck of hope in the darkness
that encompasses me. I claw at the water, fighting to reach the surface in order to
take just one breath of the clean fresh air. I long to see the stars and fly away into the
distance. I visualize, tasting the sweet fragrance of opportunity, and open my mouth
to laugh, before reality plunges me back into the dark depths, leaving me choking on
the regrets and insecurities that keep me caged below the surface.
After what seems like forever, I drag myself to the surface, gasping for air, heart
leaping in my chest. I’m there; I reach the finish line and a dazzling smile breaks
out on my face. The waves are gentle, sweeping past as they travel across the ocean.
Feeling the breeze caress my face, I look up to see that the sky is not empty but filled
with birds, swooping across like gravity can’t hold them. I stare, longing and envy
shattering the ecstatic expression that had once graced my face, replacing it with
a twisting frown. A wrinkle forms in between my brows as they draw together in
confusion. Why do I want to be up there, soaring through the clouds when I am free
to swim and breathe the air that I longed for so greatly?
Suddenly a soft touch to the shoulder makes me flinch, and for the first time I
notice wings that have formed on my back. Hesitantly, I reach towards them as if the
smallest touch will cause them to crumble and leave me alone to watch the birds fly
out of reach forever. Reverently, I touch the delicate appendages, and suddenly I feel
a rush of determination to no longer be alone. Surging upward, frantically I flap my
wings. Pushing into the air, a grin blooming on my face before gravity takes hold and
I find myself crashing back into the water. Disoriented, I spin…
Lunging upward, I take a deep breath and open my eyes.
I find myself safe in my room, only the sound of my breath to fill the air. This
is not the first time I’ve had a dream like this. In fact, it has become a regularity. I
often find myself waking up screaming, hands clenching sheets, gasping frantically,
trying to reach the surface of water that is no longer there. My heart pounds as my
eyes fly back and forth, searching for a danger that is not there. Unable to sit still,
I drag myself up until my back presses against the backboard, and I desperately try
to calm down.

e. hastings
Anxiety attacks are not fun; in fact, they are downright terrifying, and I have been
having them for a long time. Slowly, I count my breaths down from ten, desperately
trying to stop the shake in my fingers. I tug the chain of my lamp, wanting to escape
the darkness. Once the room is no longer filled with the shadows of the night, I
finally allow my body to collapse back onto the mattress.
Minutes (or hours) later, when my heaving breaths become quieter and my death
grip on the sheets has lessened, I allow myself to think about the dream and what it
was about. Relapsing—it was about relapsing again. My greatest fear as a recovering
anorexic is going back to the place that I was admitted to last year. It terrifies me
when I look at how far I’ve come and realize that in one day, one meal, I could end
up back where I was or worse. This has kept me awake for nights on end, causing
dark circles under my eyes with frequency. It haunts my dreams.
After leaving the hospital, my greatest fear was no longer eating itself, but going
back to those empty halls and locked doors. Waiting for the visiting hours to see my
parents’ disappointed faces. There is a part of my mind that knows that they will
love me no matter what, even if I do have to go back, but that overwhelming doubt
remains. It’s irrational and it terrifies me.
I toss the sweaty blankets to the side and shakily stand and shuffle toward the
kitchen. Stumbling through the hallway, I edge towards the fridge. It’s almost
humorous how I can still end up colliding with some piece of furniture, despite
having lived here for years. I jolt back into myself as my knuckles graze the side of
the countertop, sending a zing of pain up my arm.
Pain is a centering feeling for me. Even before the ward, it was something that
could kick me out of my anxiety attacks and keep me in reality. It was not a healthy
habit; in fact, it was one of the worst I’ve ever had. At some point during those hazy
days, I realized that hurting myself was the only thing keeping me going. I never cut
myself with a knife, but the taste of blood had become normal, as I slowly but surely
gnawed my way through my lip.
The need for clarity became a curse, as it escalated from simply biting my lip, to
leaving bleeding crescents in the palms of my hands, whenever I felt disconnected
or afraid. I glance down at the dull edges of my nails. Keeping them dull and short
was the only way to stop the actual bleeding. Now, as I look at my hands, I see only
imprints of my nails left behind. Those same hands tremble as they reach for the
second drawer down next to the sink.
While many people turn to drugs or alcohol, my fix was tea. There is something
about a good cup of hot tea that can chase away any nightmare. This I had discovered
during my stay in the hospital, not for my normal nightmares but with the one I was
living. Sadly, hospitals don’t exactly offer fancy English Breakfast, Chai or Earl
Gray, and so I was introduced to the honestly awful Black tea bought in bulk at the
hospital, but promptly became addicted. Thankfully, once released, I found myself
back in the world of stores with rows upon rows of different teas to try, but sadly I
found myself reaching for the plain package that proclaimed simply Black tea. It was
a comfort that I found myself indulging in more and more on nights that I suffered
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night terrors. Nights like tonight, actually, I thought vaguely to myself as I drew the
small container out of its box and promptly popped it into the Keurig.
As the machine began to rumble, I found myself robotically reaching for a mug,
placing it at the spout and trudging to the refrigerator for some milk. The thought
crossed my mind that in the last few months I have become a creature of habit,
predictable. As I clumsily climbed up onto the countertop and waited for the tea to
appear in the glass, I stared blankly at the opposing wall, lost inside my own mind.
When it finally did, I shook my head to clear the fog, reflexively grabbed the mug,
dumped some milk in, hopped off the counter, shoved the gallon back in the fridge
and headed for the living room. Another routine stop on my nightly sojourn.
As soon as my back hits the couch, I become a puppet whose strings have been
cut. My body really relaxes, and for the first time all night my muscles aren’t pulled
taunt ready to launch me away at the first sign of danger. A burst of cool air hits
my sweaty body and goosebumps spring to life across my arms and legs. I shudder
as my damp clothes lose all their heat and cling to me like I had just completed a
marathon (or more realistically for me, a mile). Shivers run through me, and my
teeth begin to chatter, as I reach for the mug and bring it shakily to my mouth to
take a sip. The bitter liquid leaves a burning trail before it spreads and glorious heat
blossoms in my stomach, sending warmth racing through my veins. With this, my
whole being lets out a sigh of relief and my brain finally begins to come down from
its hypervigilance. Even now, I can tell that tomorrow is going to be rough. I’m
exhausted. Every ounce of adrenaline that circulated through my body has left and I
have become one with the couch.
A glance at the flashing numbers that decorate the microwave reveals the scant
hours I have before the sun comes knocking at the door, and I allow my head to
grace the pillow behind me with its presence. I am going to be a mess tomorrow.
This brings forth a brief burst of panic, and I shake my head to clear it of what will
happen then and focus on relaxing.
Breathe in, breathe out, in, out; count to ten and you will be all right, I tell myself.
Instead of zeroing in on my panic, I try and think of calming things as I complete the
breathing exercise. It was one that they had recommended in the hospital, and, when
I looked into it, I found that it was actually one of the most successful self-treatments
for hyperventilation and panic attacks. Breathe, breathe now, come on, in, out, in, out.
A flash of a memory passes behind my eye.
I’m sitting at a table with a nurse and a tray of food in front of me. The nurse
smiles and sets a timer in front of me as she says, “Now Emma you have forty-five
minutes to finish this food. If you don’t, you won’t be able to see your parents today.”
Breathe, in, out, in, out, a scream as four nurses carry a struggling six-year-old past
and towards the room with the white padded walls. In, out, in, out. As I continue, my
mind wanders to some of the lyrics of a song that I had played so many times in the
ward that I could hear it playing in my head…You’re in control. Rid the monsters
inside your head, Put all your faults to bed… I had first heard it in something the
hospital called “Musical Therapy,” basically an hour or so a day that they made
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all of us patients sit in a room and listen to “uplifting and inspiring works of art.”
While most of us took it as an opportunity for an afternoon nap, the day this song
was played I was so hyped up on adrenaline there was no chance of falling asleep,
and with nothing better to do I found myself actually doing the assigned exercise and
trying to see how the lyrics apply to me. As I listened I realized that I had actually
found a song that worked. The song lyrics to “King” by Lauren Aquilina (2012) put
into words everything I had been telling myself for years:
You don’t get what all this is about
You’re too wrapped up in your self-doubt
You’ve got that young blood, set it free. (Aquilina, 2012, para. 3)
I am not a hopeless mess no matter what I tell myself. People care about me.
I have friends and family that love me. This song reminds me, reassures me,
that “You’ve got it all/ You lost your mind in the sound/ There’s so much more”
(Aquilina, 2012, para. 2). A John Newton (2009) quote, one of my favorites, also
gets me through some of my dark times:
We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to
it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over
again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to
bear it. (p. 336)
I have so much to live for, so much to look forward to. The fact that I need a little
help getting there isn’t something to be ashamed of. But this realization doesn’t
always make things better in the here and now.
A small growl of frustration escapes my lips as my brain churns trying to
remember the tune and failing miserably. Grumbling, I haul myself up and off the
couch, proceed to dump my mug in the dishwasher and trudge back down the hall
and into my room. As soon as I have secured my position in the nest of blankets and
pillows that I prefer to sleep in, my eyes close ready to sleep, only to promptly open
them a minute later as the words of that song spin around in my mind like an itch
that can’t be reached. Bolting upright I reach for my Kindle and momentarily blind
myself. After a few minutes and a few non-repeatable exclamations, I successfully
find the elusive notes and drift off to sleep thinking about how true it is for me at
this time in my life.
It had been a rough morning, and at that point I could already tell that it was going
to be an even rougher day. It’s not like I wasn’t expecting it after last night, but you
can still hope. Breakfast had been awful; my Mom had made me an egg sandwich,
a personal favorite of mine, but when I sat down this morning all I could do was
smell the grease and egg, causing my throat to close up and my mouth to clamp shut.
Forcing my mouth open I take a bite and start to chew, but I can’t swallow; my jaw
is locked. Slowly I reach for a glass of water and gulp it down like I’m taking a pill.
I look down at the rest of my breakfast, only five more bites left. I can do this, I can
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do this, I can do this; I’m almost done; after this there is six hours till you have to
eat again.
Twenty minutes later, stomach gurgling and rolling as my car hits another pothole
on the old county road, I don’t care how long it’s going to be just how long it has
been. With only three hours of sleep under my belt, my head is buzzing and my eyes
strain to stay focused on the tarmac in front of me. I grumble over how much of a
hell-hole school is going to be today before with another lurch; my focus is back
to avoiding potholes if only for the sake of my stomach as my mind returns to the
hospital I had left behind. Suddenly, a flashback hits me.
I blink blearily out my window searching for any hint of dawn. Nope, the sky was
just as pitch black as it was yesterday morning. My door is pushed open, bringing
with it a stream of blinding light as the nurse’s cart rolls in pushed by one of the
kindest people that I had ever met, Ms. Claudia. She was one of the first shift nurses
in charge of taking blood pressure every morning. Despite the fact that she clearly
was every bit as unhappy as me to be up at the crack of dawn, she gave me a gentle
smile as she started to unwind the equipment. Resigned, I rolled up my sleeve to
give her better access to my upper arm to find out where my blood pressure was on
the health chart today. Once lying down, once sitting, and two times drowsily on my
feet, I continued to go through the routine asking what the weather was like today, if
anything exciting was going on in town, how was the puppy she had rescued feeling,
before the rip of Velcro signaled the next step in the day. The lock on the bathroom
door clicked open, and I trudged toward the toilet; bathroom trips were important to
the next step, weigh-ins. As I stepped on the scale I could hear Ms. Claudia walking
around the bathroom making sure I had done nothing but use the restroom; my face
flushed with mortification as she stepped out writing on her clipboard. After she
had recorded my weight, I was gestured to the bathroom and hurried into it quickly,
flushing the toilet and starting the shower. Ms. Claudia stuck her head in as I started
to undress. “Someone will be by in fifteen minutes to lock the door, breakfast should
be here by eight,” and with that statement she was gone off to the next room and the
next patient. See, that is why I like her so much; like all the nurses she is friendly,
but unlike some of the others she sees fit to keep my embarrassment to a minimum.
She had never told me that I need to drink more water or use the bathroom more. Of
course I wasn’t using the bathroom whenever I had to; it’s not exactly fun to have to
ask for the door to be unlocked or to have to use the restroom with someone standing
outside the door waiting for you to finish. Now, none of them mean anything by it;
it can just be embarrassing to have such little privacy. As I stepped under the hot
water, a particularly nasty memory of a male nurse, shower time, and forgetting the
time limit came to mind. I shut off the water and stepped out, hurriedly toweling
dry and rushing for the bed determined to use what little warmth was left in the
blanket to its fullest. As I curled in on myself, I spared a glance toward the clock and
burrowed deeper and closed my eyes when I realized that breakfast (the worst meal
of the day) was still an hour away.
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By the time I had made it into first period, I had stopped swallowing, and had
my arms wrapped protectively around my stomach like they were a barrier to stop
both physical and mental attacks. The thing is that even if I somehow got hit in the
stomach, nothing would happen because I had no food in there. It was a proven fact,
according to the doctors, that there was nothing wrong with my organs themselves
and that all the pain and discomfort came from a shrunken stomach and anything
else was all my imagination.
My mouth automatically quirks up into a smirk; well my imagination sure is
painful; I wonder if I could physically transfer the pain to Sam, the ass who sits in
front of me. The image of him shifting uncomfortably in his seat wondering what he
ate makes me choke on air and I bite my lip to stop from laughing. It’s never a good
thing to be seen laughing randomly when you’re not talking to anyone.
As the teacher walks into the classroom, and the class quiets down, the boy behind
me coughs and clears his throat making me unconsciously draw my arms around my
torso tighter and hunch over. As he continues to cough, a rush of adrenaline surges
through me. “What if he throws up?” The question echoes in my mind, bouncing
around drawing my full attention away from the teacher who had begun to drone
away at the front of the room. “He’s just coughing, he’s not sick,” I reassure myself,
attempting refocus on the lesson. One more particularly nasty cough, and I’m gone
off into a swirl of fear and distress.
I bet you’re wondering, “Why is an anorexic afraid of throwing up? I thought they
did that all the time on purpose?” That’s bulimia not anorexia, plus officially I have
Anorexia Nervosa, meaning my problems with eating are mostly that I make myself
sick when I eat, with just my emotions. Yeah, that’s possible; I would compare me
having to eat to a normal person eating while watching the bloodiest movie you can
find or watching a documentary on giving birth (whichever you find more disgusting).
Me and food are like a vegan and a rack of ribs or any sane person and liver
(yuck). The whole fear of throwing up stems from a horrible case of food poisoning
when I was in the fifth grade. After spending eight hours bent over a bucket every
five minutes and a trip to the hospital, I still turn green at the mention of Subway.
Eventually, that fear became a phobia, and five years later it’s pretty obvious that it
has gotten out of hand.
I spend my days trying to convince myself that no one, including myself, is going
to throw up, during school, in the store, and mostly at restaurants. Going out to eat
is torture. I spend every second of the meal jumping at the smallest sounds and
attempting to eat enough to make the plate look sufficiently empty. Usually, I can
handle it, but when I can’t, the only place you will find me is curled up by a toilet
having an anxiety attack.
The bell ringing jolts me out of my panic, and I blink and slowly come out of my
catatonic mind. A whole class period, and I hadn’t heard a word that the teacher had
said. A girl passing leans over to her friend and loudly complains about a test.
“Test, what test?” I blurt out.
134
She stares over at me and says, “The one that we’re getting over everything we
talked about in class today.” She shakes her head. “Geez Emma, how are you passing
any of your classes? You never pay any attention, plus you missed a whole month of
school at the beginning of the year.”
I want to tell her that I can’t help it, that I’m not lazy or anything.
“You had pneumonia or something, and got laid up in the hospital, right?” she
asks with mock concern.
My reply is a shrug of the shoulders as heat floods to my cheeks. I don’t want
to lie to her after she bothered to remember the excuse that I had given for my
long absence. I want to tell her that, in fact, the pneumonia had only kept me in
bed for a week; after that I was in the hospital for other reasons, mainly an eating
disorder.
But as I open my mouth, my mind produces an image of her staring at me in disgust,
asking, “Did you really think starving yourself would make all your problems go
away? That we would like you any more?” The phantom words echo in my mind and
my mouth halts before the words can make an appearance. As I flounder for words,
she gets tired of waiting for an answer and turns with a snort to her companion and
says “Whatever, it’s not worth it.” It’s not worth it. The words turn over and over in
my head until they gradually shift into “She’s not worth it” and I let the crowd drag
me away to my next class, “not worth it” repeating over and over as my heart shrinks
and then cracks. All while the world goes on around me unabated.
Why do they hate me? Am I so horrible that no one wants to spend time with me,
or am I impossible to befriend? The smirks, smothered laughter, and quick glances
make it obvious that I’m not simply forgotten by everyone. But they don’t approach
me; I’m an untouchable. I feel like bugs are visibly crawling on my skin. No, I don’t
feel disgusting; I am disgusting, my inner voice sneers. Why would any of them
want to be around me—all I could do was drag them down, deep into the depths of
solitude. After all, misery loves company and I am miserable.
“It’s my own fault I’m alone,” I often lament. When I first got sick and stopped
eating, I gave some of the other kids my lunch money. After everyone suddenly
wanted to be my friend, I realized that they were all using me for my money. But
I told myself I didn’t care, that they had a better use for it than me. I was the one
lying to my parents about eating in the first place. Who was I to judge them when I
couldn’t even appreciate the money my parents spent on me? Eventually, I couldn’t
stand to be around food at all, and I retreated to the library, where there were no
cafeteria smells and no one to question why I wasn’t eating (not that anyone noticed
anyway). So it was my fault for not reaching out to them, and I realize that now, but
at the time I hated them for it. “Why, why am I all alone, why am I always the last
one?” These thoughts recur, but make me stronger when I remember how strong I
am and how much I’ve been through.
I won’t let myself fall back down into that dark place I lost myself in for so long.
I am better than that, even if I have a hard time believing it sometimes. When my
135
e. hastings
outlook hardens, I recall the hard work of many people (including myself) to help
alleviate my anxiety. These collective efforts will not go to waste.
Glass half empty, glass half full
Well either way you won’t be going thirsty
Count your blessings, not your flaws. (Aquilina, 2012, para. 1)
Being a teenager is hard enough, without having to deal with all of these other
problems that keep popping up in my life. I’m not the only one: one in every four
teen girls suffers from some sort of eating disorder and one in ten boys. Twenty
percent of teens suffer from some sort of anxiety disorder, and according to the
teen help website “I Need a Lighthouse” (2008), between ten and fifteen percent of
teenagers have some symptoms of depression at any one time. Depression increases
a teen’s risk for attempting suicide by 12 times (para. 1).
These statistics are not acceptable. The chances of you knowing someone who is
suffering from one of these and many more ailments is so large that it’s a guarantee.
A study shows that half of all the Americans with major depression go untreated,
and only 21% of treatment is considered up to standards (Rettner, 2010). We as
parents, children, friends, and fellow human beings need to do something about all
the people who go untreated and remain alone in this world. Please, reader, if you
know someone who is suffering, extend a hand. That is all it can take. Reaching out,
if only to say “I’m here” can save someone’s life. If you yourself can relate to my
story, please remember that there are people who can and will help no matter how
much it may seem like you are alone.
My eyes close and I drift back into the depths. I find myself floating in the wide
open sea. As the waves gently rock me back and forth, I relax with the motion and
enjoy the feeling of the sun shining down on my face. I may never be able to get to
the point of soaring through the sky and that is a horrible thought, but for now, I
am content to simply drift along on the surface and see where the current takes me.
REFERENCES
Aquilina, L. (2012). King. Fools-EP. New York: Island Records, Universal Music Group. Retrieved from
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/laurenaquilina/king.html
Elements Behavioral Health. (2013, July 2). Teens are feeling more anxious than ever. Retrieved from
https://www.elementsbehavioralhealth.com/featured/teenagers-are-feeling-more-anxious-than-ever/
I Need a Lighthouse. (2008). Teen depression. Retrieved from https://www.ineedalighthouse.org/depression-
suicide/teen-depression/
Newton, J. (2009). The amazing works of John Newton. Alachua, FL: Bridge-Logos.
Rettner, R. (2010, January 4). Half of depressed Americans get no treatment. Live Science. Retrieved from
http://www.livescience.com/5997-depressed-americans-treatment.html
136
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
BOOK EDITORS
Nicholas D. Hartlep is currently an Assistant Professor of Urban Education at

Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Before moving to St. Paul, he
was at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. He was an Advanced Opportunity
Program Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, an “Urban 13”
University, where he earned a Ph.D. in the Social Foundations of Urban Education
and was named an “Outstanding Doctoral Student.” Dr. Hartlep also has a Master
of Science Degree in K–12 Education and Bachelor of Science Degree in Teaching,
both conferred from Winona State University. As a former public school teacher he
has taught in Rochester, Minnesota and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as well as abroad in
Quito, Ecuador. Dr. Hartlep’s research interests include urban in-service teachers’
dispositions, the impact neoliberalism is having on schools and society, the model
minority stereotype of Asians, and transracial adoption. His interest in transracial
adoption stems from the fact he was adopted from Seoul, South Korea when he
was approximately 16-months old. In 2011, Dr. Hartlep received a scholarship from
the Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link (GOA’L) that allowed him to return to Korea
to see where he was born. He received the University Research Initiative (URI)
Award in 2015 from Illinois State University. In 2015 Winona State University gave
him a Distinguished Young Alumni Award, which recognizes graduates who are 45
years old or younger and have distinguished themselves in their work or in their
community. In 2016 the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee presented him with a
Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD) Award for his prolific amount of writing. His
scholarly books include Going Public: Critical Race Theory & Issues of Social Justice
(2010), The Model Minority Stereotype: Demystifying Asian American Success
(2013), Unhooking from Whiteness: The Key to Dismantling Racism in the United
States (2013), and The Model Minority Stereotype Reader: Critical and Challenging
Readings for the 21st Century (2014), Killing the Model Minority Stereotype: Asian
American Counterstories and Complicity (2015), Modern Societal Impacts of the
Model Minority Stereotype (2015), and Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times:
Stories Disclosed in a Cultural Foundations of Education Course (2015). You can
follow his work on Twitter @nhartlep or at the “Model Minority Stereotype Project”
at www.nicholashartlep.com
Brandon O. Hensley is currently a Basic Course Director and Lecturer at Wayne

State University in the Department of Communication, where he oversees the
Public Speaking Course, teaches courses in Communication Studies, and continues
his research and writing. In Spring 2016, Hensley received his doctorate from
the Department of Educational Administration and Foundations at Illinois State
137
About the CONTRIBUTORS
University. Brandon received his B.A. and M.A. in Communication Studies from
Eastern Illinois University. His research interests include critical communication
pedagogy, media criticism, intersectionality of hegemonic social constructs such
as masculinity, whiteness, and heteronormativity, and the working conditions of
adjunct educators in U.S. colleges and universities. Hensley has authored several
book chapters and journal articles on the above topics, has presented dozens
of peer-reviewed papers at regional, national, and international conferences,
and currently serves on the Associate Council for the Mid-Western Educational
Research Association (MWERA). His recent work includes “How Far From
Income Equity are Faculty in Four-Year, Non-Doctoral Universities?” published
in Journal of Academic Administration in Higher Education and The Neoliberal
Agenda and the Student Debt Crisis in U.S. Higher Education (co-edited
with Nicholas Hartlep and Lucille Eckrich). You can find Brandon’s work at
https://wayne.academia.edu/BrandonHensley
Carmella J. Braniger is Associate Professor of English, Global Studies

Coordinator, and English Major Director at Millikin University, where she teaches
first-year writing, creative writing, literature, and classical rhetoric. Her poems have
appeared in Sycamore Review, Poems and Plays, The Dirty Napkin, MARGIE: The
American Journal of Poetry, Modern English Tanka, Magnapoets, Atlas Poetica,
and many others. Pudding House Publications published her chapbook, No One
May Follow, in 2009. Dr. Braniger co-published a book chapter entitled “Redefining
the Undergraduate English Writing Major: An Integrated Approach at a Small
Comprehensive University” in the collection What We Are Becoming: Developments
in Undergraduate Writing Majors, published by Utah State University Press. She
enjoys collaboratively writing and publishing poetry sequences and critical stories
with fellow faculty and students.
Michael E. Jennings currently serves as the inaugural Chief Diversity Officer

at Furman University. Dr. Jennings also serves as a tenured full Professor in the
Department of Education where his research focuses on cultural and racial diversity,
critical race theory, and narrative/autobiography. His graduate training was
completed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he received an
M.A. in Political Science (focusing on Political Theory) and a Ph.D. in the Social
Foundations of Education.
COMMISSIONED COVER ARTIST
Melissa A. Del Rio is a patient representative at a large hospital in Detroit, Michigan.

She attended Eureka College and Illinois Central College, obtaining an Associate’s
degree, in addition to studying abroad and volunteering at a hospital in Lesotho,
southern Africa.
138
CHAPTER AUTHORS
Anonymous 1 is a pre-service teacher at Illinois State University.
Anonymous 2 is a pre-service teacher at Illinois State University.
Chelsea Berg is an Early Childhood Education major at Illinois State University.

She is from a rural community in central Illinois and plans to teach in a community
close to her family when she is finished with her Bachelor’s degree.
Gregory Michael Brewer is the founder of the Circle of the Spirit Tree Wiccan
study group and serves as a board member of the Pagan Pride Project Worldwide. He
has given lectures and taught workshops at local universities, churches, and various
pagan gatherings. In addition, he has been published in a variety of newsletters and
magazines, has participated in an array of pagan podcasts and radio interviews, and
has himself conducted interviews with many prominent pagan authors around the
world.
Allison Cummings is currently a K–6 Art teacher at Campanelli Elementary School

in Schaumburg, Illinois. She graduated from Illinois State University in December
of 2015. She is passionate about what she is doing.
Alexa Duncan is a graduate of Millikin University. She majored in English with a

concentration in Creative Writing. She’s been featured in Millikin’s literary magazine
Collage and has published fiction novels of her own. When she isn’t writing or
reading, she’s watching old movies or researching trivial things on the Internet.
Joey Dundovich graduated from Illinois State University in 2017. He teaches

English at Westview High School in Avondale, Arizona.
Becky Falls is a Business Management student from Millikin University. Becky

strives to be the best she can in all her passions, including singing, theater, cooking,
swimming, and animals. She values her family, friends, and peers who have pushed
her and encouraged her to try her best and explore any interest that captures her heart.
Amanda Glesing is a pre-service teacher at Illinois State University.
Emma Hastings is a high school student taking college classes at Millikin University.
Emma spends her free time reading and drawing. She is an avid Lord of the Rings fan
and a true Trekkie at heart.
Justin Hayes is a senior at Illinois State University studying Special Education. He

would like to teach special education in a behavioral elementary school setting.
139
Kendall Keller is a senior at Illinois State University studying Middle Level

Education. He would like to teach Language Arts and Social Science in the Chicago
Public Schools.
Natalie Kozelka graduated December 2016 with a degree in Theater Education and
Acting from Illinois State University. Natalie is also an actor and had been in many
productions at ISU as a student.
Deisha Marshall is a senior at Illinois State University studying Family and

Consumer Sciences teacher education.
LaQuinta Moy is a junior at Illinois State University where she is majoring

in Elementary Education. She spends most of her time teaching children as an
assistant teacher at Little Jewels Learning Center. Her perspective on inequality and
discrimination are influenced by her biracial identity.
Elizabeth Nunez is a pre-service teacher at Illinois State University.
Amanda Reyes is majoring in Early Childhood Education at Illinois State University.

Her hope is that someday soon society will accept everyone as they are.
McKenzie Sauer is currently a senior Human Services and Communication major

at Millikin University. She is the President of the Student Senate, a member of
Alpha Chi Omega, and is a member of the Human Service Connection, among other
involvements. She has also attended two Race Summits and multiple leadership
conferences that have opened her heart and mind to inequality in this world, which
has ignited a fire to help be the change in society.
Daniel Searcy is a Junior at Illinois State University and a major in Communication

Education. He spends much of his time drawing or watching films, and is a big fan
of Japanese manga. He has also done artwork for various clubs on ISU’s campus and
plans to work in the field of educational media.
Jayce Sorrentino is a junior at Illinois State University studying Middle Level

Education focusing on Mathematics and Science. “Accepted or not, I love my Mom.”
Zuzanna Sulcova is a Biology and Chemistry Secondary Education major at Illinois

State University. She is working two jobs to support her dream of teaching in a
different state and traveling around the world.
140
INDEX
A Braniger, Carmella J., xiv–xv, 48,

Abortion, 71 93–105, 138
Addressivity, 103 as dominant voice, 100–101
Advertising, sexism in, 15–16, 122 as mediator, 94–95, 97
Amella, E. J., 34 sister’s coming out, 94–95
Anorexia Nervosa, 134 transgender bathroom faux pas,
Anxiety disorders, 61–65, 129–136 93–94
adults, 61 Brewer, Gregory, 3–8, 139
anxiety attacks, 129–130 Bruner, J. S., xiv
group sessions, 62–64 Bullied: Tales of Torment, Identity, and
relapsing, 130 Youth (Berry), 49
teens, 64, 136 Bully (documentary film), 49
therapy, 62 Bullying, 43–51, 67–69
Appearance, 87–89 anti-bullying advocacy movements,
Assimilation, 39–42 49–50
alien as legal title, 39 homosexuality and, 46
cultural practices and, 40–41 toxic labels, 43–45
English as a Second Language unresolved memories and, 45–48
(ESL), 40 vulnerable storytelling, 46
fitting in, 40–42 Burke, Kenneth, 46
permanent resident status, 42
Atwood, Margaret, 111–112, 115 C
Autoethnography, xiv, xv, 46, 48–49. Call, Wendy, xiii, xvi
See also critical storytelling Carmona, J. F., xv
Childhood
B daycare experiences, 43–51
Bakhtin, M. M., 99, 103 fatherless, 59–60
Baxter, Leslie A., 99–102, 112 new school experiences, 29–32
Beard, H. R., 126 “Compulsory Heterosexuality and
Bechdel Test, 11–12 Lesbian Experience” (Rich), 115
The Bell Jar (Plath), 112 Connell, R. W., 46
Berg, Chelsea, 67–69, 139 Crafting Critical Stories: Toward
The Body Condemned (Foucault), 123 Pedagogies and Methodologies
Body image, 14, 16, 25–27 of Collaboration, Inclusion, and
“Boxed In: Employment of Behind-the- Voice (Carmona and Luschen), xv
Scenes and On-Screen Women Critical storytelling, xiii–xvi. See also
in 2013-2014 Prime-Time autoethnography
Television” (Lauzen), 13 call of, 48–49
141
INDEX
course, xiv–xv E
defined, xv–xvi Eating disorders, 16, 26, 129–136
in higher education, xvi Empathetic consideration, 126–127
power of, 94–97 Ethnicity, 83–85, 87–89, 91–92
reflective process, xiv–xv
story choices, 49 F
Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Falls, Becky, 117–128, 139
Times: Stories Disclosed in “Family ‘Bonds’: Making Meaning
a Cultural Foundations of of Parent-Child Relationships
Education Course (Hartlep and in Estrangement Narratives”
Hensley), xiii (Scharpa and Thomas), 100
Cuellar, M., 46 Fashion media, sexism in, 16–17
Cummings, Allison, 11–18, 139 Fast food industry, 117–128
Cunningham, Scott, 5 government regulations, 124
typical employee day, 117–122
D undervaluing of employees, 122–125
Deficit discourse Female friendship, 107–115
body image, 25–26 deficit discourse, 109–110, 114–115
defined, 126 defined, 109–110
depression, 61–65 internalized hatred, 107
female friendship, 109–110, internalized misogyny, 110, 112
114–115 stereotypes, 109–110
homosexuality, 34, 35, 43 Feminism, 111–112, 115
pagan religion, 3–9 Film, sexism in, 11–12
race, 73–75, 87–89, 91–92 Foucault, Michel, 95–97, 123
weight discrimination, 125–127 Fox, Selena, 4–5
Del Rio, Melissa A., 138 Fox News, 7, 8, 16
Depression, 19–23, 25–28, 64, 68, Frederickson, B. L., 14–15
129–136 Freire, Paulo, xvi
adolescents, 64 Friendship, female. See female
beliefs about, 20 friendship
deficit discourse, 61–65
medication, 22, 27 G
need for expression, 22–23 Gender bending, 98
recurring symptoms, 22 Gender identity, 43, 97–99
silent judgments, 22 Gilden, Andrew, 98–99
suicide and, 25–27, 68, 136 Glesing, Amanda, 11–18, 139
support system, 21–22, 26 Graves, Robert, 8
therapy, 21, 27
untreated, 136 H
Dialogue, 95, 100–103 Habitus, 47
Duncan, Alexa, 107–115, 139 The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood), 112, 115
Dundovich, Joey, 61–65 Hartlep, Nicholas D., xiii, 137
142
INDEX
Hastings, Emma, 129–136, 139 Immigrants

Hayes, Justin, 19–23, 139 assimilation, 39–42
Heathers (film), 109–110 undocumented, 53–57
Hensley, Brandon O., xiii–xiv, 93–94
on bullying, 43–51 J
racism class, 73–75 Jackson, S., 46
Heteronormativity, 46, 94 Jennings, Michael E., xiv, 138
The History of Sexuality (Foucault), Johnson, M. J., 34
96–97
Homophobia, 34, 35, 43 K
Homosexuality. See also lesbian, gay, Keller, Kendall, 87–89
bisexual, transgender (LGBT) Khanna, N., 83
community; transgender Kozelka, Natalie, 139–140
bullying and, 46 Kramer, Mark, xiii, xvi
butch/femme dichotomy, 98
coming out, 33–35, 94–95 L
deficit discourse, 34, 35, 43 Language, identity and, 84
gender identity, 97–98 Lauzen, Martha M., 13
generational differences, 35 Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender
lesbian continuum, 115 (LGBT) community, 34, 35. See
self-isolation, 34–35 also homosexuality; transgender
hooks, bell, 112 Luschen, K. V., xv
How I Met Your Mother (television
series), 13 M
Howard, J. A., 84 Magazines, sexism in, 16–17
Hutton, Ronald, 6 Marshall, Deisha, 59–60
Mean Girls (film), 107
I Media. See also specific types
I Need a Lighthouse (website), 136 disparity in woman-owned, 14
Identity mental health education, 61
construction through dialogue, 95 Neo-Paganism misrepresented by, 4, 7
cultural, 41 patriarchy as norm, 17
ethnic, 83–85, 87–89, 91–92 sexism in, 11–17
gender, 97–99 Millennials, xvi
heteronormative, 33, 34, 35, 94, 95 Misogyny, internalized, 110, 112
language and, 84 Morrison, Toni, 104
normative social, 87–88 Moy, Laquinta, 91–92
sexuality as part of, 33–35 Mutual authoring, 95–97
“If You’re Half Black, You’re Just
Black: Reflected Appraisals and N
the Persistence of the One-Drop Naïve consciousness, xvi
Rule” (Khanna), 83 Narrating the Closet (Adams), 33
143
INDEX
Narrative, personal. See critical addressivity, 103

storytelling collective voice, 105
Native Americans, gender identity and, competing dialogue, 100–101
98–99 unity vs. embracing difference,
Neo-Paganism 100–101, 112
code of ethics, 6–7 utterance chain, 99–103
deficit discourse, 3–9 The Representation Project, 17
defined, 4–5 Reyes, Amanda, 83–85, 140
holidays, 5–6 Rich, Adrienne, 115
media representations, 4, 7 Roberts, T., 14–15
pentagram, 6, 7 Russo, Meredith, 103
revival, 8
stereotypes, 3–8 S
symbols, 6, 7 SAD. See Social Anxiety Disorder
News media, 7, 8, 16 (SAD)
Newton, John, 132 Sauer, McKenzie, 73–75, 140
Nieto, S., 126 Scharpa, Kristina M., 100, 101
No Child Left Behind, xvi Schneider, Pat, xiii
Normative family unit, 77–79 Searcy, Daniel, 29–32, 140
Nunez, Elizabeth, 53–57, 140 Self-esteem, 14, 108
Self-image, 68–69
O Self-isolation, 34, 35
O’Brien, Tim, 50 Sexism
advertising, 15–16, 122
P fashion media, 16–17
Pagan Pride Project Worldwide, 8 film, 11–12
Paganism. See Neo-Paganism magazines, 16–17
Parks and Recreation (television news media, 16
series), 14 television, 12–14
Peate, Ian, 97 Sexual objectification, 11–12,
Plath, Sylvia, 112, 115 14
Polyphony of voices, 95 Sexuality
Postman, Neil, xv classic debate, 96
Predominantly White Institution (PWI), confessional space and, 96–97
88 as part of identity, 33–35
“Problematizing the Problem” (Baxter), repressing to transgress, 96–98
100, 112 Shift work sleep disorder, 124
PWI. See Predominantly White Silko, Leslie Marmon, xiii, xvi
Institution (PWI) Sloma, Morgan, 140
Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD),
R 61–65
Racism, 73–75, 87–89, 91–92 Sorrentino, Jayce, 33–35, 140
Relational dialectics theory, 99–101 Spirituality, multicultural, 3–9
144
INDEX
Stereotypes The Triumph of the Moon: A History

“dumb blonde,” 13–14 of Modern Pagan Witchcraft
female friendships, 109–110 (Hutton), 6
mean girl, 109–110 Trump, Donald, 44
Neo-Paganism, 3–7
Sula (Morrison), 104–105 U
Sulcova, Zuzana, 39–42, 140 Utterance, 99, 101, 103
Swan, Bella (fictional character), addressivity, 103
108–109 chain, 99–103
Swim, Janet Kay, 12 expression of, 94–95
T V
Teaching as a Subversive Activity Van Gogh, Vincent, 104
(Postman and Weingartner), voice. See utterance
xv Voicing Relationships: A Dialogic
Television, representation of women, Perspective (Baxter), 100
13–14 Vulnerable storytelling, 46
The Things They Carried (O’Brien),
50 W
Thomas, Lindsey J., 100, 101 Weight discrimination, 125–127
Topics in Persuasion: Dismantling Weingartner, Charles, xv
Racism (course), 73 The White Goddess (Graves), 8
“Toward a More Transformative Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary
Approach: The Limits of Practitioner (Cunningham), 5
Transgender Formal Equality” Williams, Robin, 61
(Gilden), 98–99 Women
Ttransgender. See also homosexuality; degradation in popular culture, 11–17
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender as film protagonists, 12
(LGBT) community mean girl stereotype, 109–110
bathroom debate, 94, 97, 101 media ownership disparity, 14
defined, 97 as objectified in advertising, 15–16
discrimination, 97 self-objectification, 11–12, 14–15
equality, 97–99 television representation, 13–14
“Transgender Equality” (Peate), unrealistic beauty standards, 14–16
97 Writing Alone and With Others
Trichotillomania, 67–69 (Schneider), xiii
145

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Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times

CONSTRUCTING KNOWLEDGE: CURRICULUM STUDIES IN ACTION

Brad Porfilio, Seattle University, USA

Sue Books, State University of New York at New Paltz, USA

“Curriculum” is an expansive term; it encompasses vast aspects of teaching and

Constructing Knowledge provides a forum for systematic reflection on the substance

This series aims to extend the professional conversation about curriculum in

ISBN: 978-94-6351-003-5 (paperback)

Published by: Sense Publishers,

All chapters in this book have undergone peer review.

Cover design by Melissa A. Del Rio

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved © 2017 Sense Publishers

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

“In the cacophony of opinion fostered by an age of constant communication, it

“Just what is ‘critical storytelling’? In Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times:

“In this inspirational sequel volume of Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times:

“Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times is an exploration of diverse voices that

Stories of Marginalization, Silencing, and Alienation

1. Pagan Religion in the 21st Century: Myths, Stereotypes, and Mass-Media

2. Gender and the Media: Degradation of Women in Popular Culture 11

3. Silent Judgments: How I Came to Terms with Depression 19

5. First Day of School 29

6. Mom, I’m Gay 33

Identity Politics, Sexism, Racism, and Relationships

8. “Brain Dead”: Words as Weapons in the Cultural Sanctioning of

9. College Student, Future Educator, Not an “Anchor Baby” 53

10. Growing up without a Father 59

12. My Life with Trichotillomania 67

13. A Letter to the Faceless 71

14. Angels of the Night 73

15. Family Ties 77

Mental Health, the Body, and Issues of Stigmatization

16. Who Am I? Struggling with My Identity 83

17. Judging from the Outside 87

18. A Kind of My Own 91

19. “Hey, Sister”: Utterances, Sexualities, and Dialectical Tensions in

20. Mean Girls, Interrupted: The Complexities of Female Friendship 107

21. My Personal Hell: Becoming a Hardened Machine at Hardee’s 117

About the Contributors 137

1. PAGAN RELIGION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

STEREOTYPES OF PAGAN RELIGION

N. D. Hartlep et al. (Eds.), Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times, 3–9.

Unfortunately, discrimination, stereotyping, and misunderstandings of Wiccans

2. GENDER AND THE MEDIA

N. D. Hartlep et al. (Eds.), Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times, 11–18.

thoughts—that we’re supposed to be judged by the way we look—and unhealthy

SEXISM IN OTHER MEDIA FORMS

N. D. Hartlep et al. (Eds.), Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times, 19–23.

N. D. Hartlep et al. (Eds.), Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times, 25–28.

5. FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

Throughout my childhood and early adolescence, I attended a number of different

N. D. Hartlep et al. (Eds.), Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times, 29–32.

6. MOM, I’M GAY

When we were children, our parents always told us as we were growing up to be

COMING OUT TO MY MOM

N. D. Hartlep et al. (Eds.), Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times, 33–35.

I Thought It Would Be Different

My name is Zuzana Sulcova, and I am an alien. This could be seen as a metaphorical

2. Gender and the Media: Degradation of Women in Popular Culture 11

3. Silent Judgments: How I Came to Terms with Depression 19

5. First Day of School 29

6. Mom, I’m Gay 33

9. College Student, Future Educator, Not an “Anchor Baby” 53

10. Growing up without a Father 59

12. My Life with Trichotillomania 67

13. A Letter to the Faceless 71

14. Angels of the Night 73

15. Family Ties 77

16. Who Am I? Struggling with My Identity 83

17. Judging from the Outside 87

18. A Kind of My Own 91

20. Mean Girls, Interrupted: The Complexities of Female Friendship 107

21. My Personal Hell: Becoming a Hardened Machine at Hardee’s 117

About the Contributors 137