Sexism & Racism: Care, Curiosity & Social Justice

The Good Girl part of me wishes I could tell you that I’ve been doing anti-racism and social justice work my whole life.

I haven’t.

Based on my education and experience, I thought of racism and white supremacy as historical, part of the past. As far as my own behavior goes, I figured if I wasn’t doing anything overtly harmful or racist and I had some Black friends and colleagues then I wasn’t racist.

Sadly, it took the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd in 2020 to wake me up to massive systemic inequities and persistent white supremacy. These travesties opened my eyes and got me doing the work.

I began by reading My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem with a community of folks on the same path. Since then, I’ve been reading, listening and processing in an effort to unlearn white supremacy.

Recently, I read Regina Jackson and Saira Rao’s White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How To Do Better.

White Women pulls no punches and speaks directly to the racism in white women – all of us. Not just torch-carrying Proud Boys. Not just skin headed Neo-Nazis. Not just conservative Republicans. All of us. Even NPR-listening progressive Democrats with Black Lives Matter signs in the front yard. All of us.

Me.

I could only read small sections of the book at a time. I felt defensive, confused, fearful of doing (or thinking or saying) something wrong or causing more harm. I felt called out, but for what I wasn’t entirely sure.

It will take time for me to process and understand this book. It’s going to take lots of unpacking and unlearning with other white women. I’m in no position to offer any insights now — or probably ever. But one thing the authors did has given me a toe-hold into how to approach that unpacking: the parallel between racism and sexism.

Reading and re-reading, unpacking, unlearning. (Photo: Rebecca George Photography)

I will never know what it feels like to suffer under deeply entrenched American racism, but I do know what it feels like to deal with age-old patriarchal sexism – at work, in sport, in relationships, in the general world. It’s exhausting and frustrating. Seeing the cancellation of female actors over 40, the gaping disparities in women’s athletics, the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, fills me with a rage that I don’t know what to do with.

Most men in my life don’t talk or act in sexist ways but I find it hard to talk to them about the inequities of being a woman in this culture. Men in my life often get defensive, confused, or fearful of doing (or thinking or saying) something wrong when talking about cultural oppression of women. And honestly, I didn’t know what I wanted from them.

Jackson and Rao draw connections between my experience of sexism and misogyny and their experiences of racism and white supremacy. Even in the context of the painful and difficult work of anti-racism, this parallel helps me find a way forward.

I see that what I want from men is simply for them to look at my lived experience tenderly, with curiosity and to be willing to use their social power to speak up. I want them to care enough to listen to women’s stories and their emotional toll, for them to believe me and for my experience to matter, for them to see both the benefits and harms they get from the patriarchy. And I want them to stand with me and speak up about what they know is sexist bullsh**t.

Of course different Black folks and POC may want different things from white people. But for now, as I continue to unlearn my own racism, I want to approach it with care and curiosity. Care and curiosity about experiences I haven’t lived, care and curiosity about how I benefit from the systems that are causing detrimental harm, care and curiosity about how I’m harmed by racism, too, and a willingness to both speak up and be corrected when I inevitably mess up.

Adding something familiar to an unfamiliar scenario can build connection, understanding and compassion. If you find yourself baffled by another’s experience, can you find your own parallel? Or can you relax enough to care and get curious.

Settle: 3 Ways to Build Capacity for Presence in Upsetting Times

As I sat down to write this post, news broke that Roe v. Wade fell. It was no surprise, and it is a shock. It is a shock to my body.

With excruciating clarity, the United States of America has made women second class citizens with fewer freedoms than those enjoyed by men. My body is more regulated than a gun. My beloved nieces have fewer rights than I did at their age. I feel this in my bones, my organs, my skin.

Swimming in a sick sea of grief and fear, I sit down to write. But it doesn’t work. I’m distracted and can’t focus. My brain feels like it’s floating above my body, my heart pounds, my body vibrates with adrenaline. I am unsettled.

In his book, My Grandmother’s Hands, Resmaa Menakem writes:

“Few skills are more essential than the ability to settle your body. If you can settle your body, you are more likely to be calm, alert, and fully present, no matter what is going on around you.”

Importantly, he makes a clear distinction between behaviors that override or bypass difficult feelings (he talks more about that here) and the skills that settle us. Bypassing or overriding can look like

• an unwillingness to be with difficult feelings,

• a tendency to turn away from painful situations

• or regularly turning to numbing behaviors that tune us out.

Settling is different. Settling gives us the capacity to be with whatever is unfolding in us and around us. Settling isn’t about reducing stress or calming down, but rather managing stress and staying centered even in chaos. Settling is an essential steppingstone to healing of every kind.

Dr. Menakem goes on to write,

“A settled body enables you to harmonize and connect with other bodies around you, while encouraging those bodies to settle as well. Gather together a large group of unsettled bodies - or assemble a group of bodies and then unsettle them - and you get a mob or a riot. But bring a large group of settled bodies together and you have a potential movement – and a potential force for tremendous good in the world. A settled body is the foundation for health, for healing, for helping others and for changing the world." (Chapter 11, pp 151-152)

There is nothing that we need more as individuals, communities, and nations than health and healing, helping each other and changing this broken world.

Dr. Menakem offers a variety of settling practices in My Grandmother’s Hands. Based on his teaching and my own somatic teaching experiences, these are three of my favorite ways to settle.

3 Simple Settling Practices

1. Deep Breaths with Horse Lips

Long slow deep belly breaths are one of the simplest and most powerful ways to settle an unsettled body. Do it right now: breathe as deeply as you can through your nose then slowly let it out through your nose. Do this at least three times in a row and as often as you remember. Take breath breaks throughout the day by connecting it to something you do anyway, like getting a drink, using the bathroom or stopping at a light

BONUS: For additional settling, let your long exhale release through relaxed lips and vibrate them like horse lips (some people call this “motorboat”). The vibration offers the added benefit of relaxing your mouth, jaw, and throat. Not everybody’s lips can do horse lips so if you’re one of them, humming or buzzing is a good alternative.

2. Move Your Joints

Stress and trauma can get “stuck” in our joints. This is especially the case if we tend to “freeze” when we get activated or triggered. Moving your joints, particularly in circles, and shaking is a great way to let go of held tension and settle yourself.

Here’s a practice you can do in just a minute or two: Circle your ankles and wrists while on the floor or in a chair, focusing on making the biggest circles you can with your feet and hands – 10 in one direction, then 10 in the other, then gently shake them out. Bend and straighten your knees and elbows as deeply as you comfortably can about 10 times then gently shake them.

In standing (or sitting on a physio ball) circle your hips in both directions, then wag your tailbone side to side. Roll your shoulders in both directions then shake them out.

From sitting or standing, twist your torso left and right as far as is comfortable to release the length of your spine.

After moving through your major joints, check in and see if you feel any tension and move that part again.

3. Hug & Rock

The front of the human body is tender and vulnerable. To settle, hug a safe person (always with permission and with both people’s feet grounded), a large pillow (standing, sitting or lying down) or wrap your arms around yourself for 20-30 seconds or until you take a spontaneous deep breath.

BONUS: Add a gentle rocking movement side-to-side, front-back or even in a circle, whatever feels good to you will enhance the settling effect.

The truth is, it’s taken me a few days of settling practice before I could write to you. The bigger the trigger, the longer settling can take AND the more we practice, the faster your body and nervous system can settle itself. Take all the time you need to settle yourself in the midst of whatever is happening.

I checked in with my sister, a senior VP at the Environmental Defense Fund, to see how she was faring. She said, “I am looking for good in the world. I am finding it.” This expanded perspective is so wise. In order or me to open my aperture and find the good, I first have to settle.