what happens to me happens to you: guest blogger taylor jacoby

guest blogger taylor jacoby

i've known taylor jacoby for a long time and then some, in a whole bunch of contexts.  the baby of my friend, my niece's playmate in daycare, my daughters' friend, my student, and now, a totally grown up lady about to graduate from college in a high-powered d.c. internship.  taylor works to change the world, and she has a soft heart, plus she's a great writer, as you will soon see.  she spent the summer of '11 in uganda researching trauma healing for victims of sexual violence. taylor's one of the young people who gives me a lot of hope for the future.  i hope you enjoy learning about one of my favorite people, miss taylor jacoby.

Alena Stern and members of the Grassroots Women Association for Development, Gulu Uganda.

Pamela, my favorite translator, is 20 years old. She is very soft-spoken, reserved. She wore the same outfit every time we worked together: pink satin blouse, black polyester skirt, black plastic flats—one with a ripped back so she had to hobble slightly. Her bare legs, hands, and face are covered with scars, mostly small and circular, but plenty of long gashes too. I imagine they form a map of northern villages and the roads connecting them. We’ve learned that Ugandans don’t use maps, yet the drivers never fail to get us where we need to go. No matter how nondescript the village is, no matter how unyielding the surrounding sea of bush.

I never asked Pamela about her scars, or anything about her past, and she never explained. All I know is that Pamela graduated from the Zion Project, a faith-based rehabilitation center for girls who were former “wives” in the Lord’s Resistance Army or who have escaped other forms of sexual exploitation. I only know this because one day Pamela took me to the compound of huts outside town where she lived. With palpable excitement, she showed me the certificate confirming she was trained in jewelry making and catering.

As my translator, Pamela was let off the hook in telling me her story. Instead, she helped me find others who would. Pamela had an extensive social network, which, when coupled with her inexhaustible work ethic, allowed me to interview far more women than I initially thought possible.

I went to Uganda to try and understand the impact of the widespread sexual and other gender-based violence that women had lived through during the country’s long civil war and continued to experience during “peace time.” I believed, with considerable fervor, that such trauma alters those who experience it. I believed that critical mental health needs were being ignored and at the cost of huge individual and societal consequences. Basically, my thesis was that if you use violence to destroy social networks, you also destroy the society’s ability to recover from it.

I came up with this formulation about the long-lasting impact of sexual violence in a preliminary paper I wrote before going to go Uganda, and I was very pleased with myself:

The recurrent, cyclical nature of violence is mirrored in PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder]: violence begets PTSD, which begets violence, which begets PTSD. Is it possible that PTSD symptoms formed from previous abuse was what led these perpetrators to abuse others? Could PTSD not be considered a sexually transmitted disease?

To me, the problem was as orderly as it was grave.  And I was no scientist; I could not respect objectivity. I carried my assumptions around with me as I set up my research; they were the red dirt that caked my feet and hair so I had to scrub a part of me off to be rid of them. But soon enough, I did get rid of them. I started meeting Ugandan women, and I failed to produce a satisfying definition of “disabling” psychosocial impact. The day I left, Pamela was on her way to the neighboring district where she had been invited to a youth leadership conference. This kind of behavior didn’t fit my beliefs about survivors of sexual violence, but then again, maybe that was because she had received counseling with the Zion Project.

At the end of the summer, I had met all kinds of women. There were others like Pamela, who I met primarily through NGOs working for women’s health and economic empowerment. I also had the chance to meet the venerable Judy Dushku, who runs such an organization in northern Uganda. Dushku’s stories of women rising up in resilience and healing matched much of what I had seen.  I admired and envied the opportunity she had to watch these women cobble back together their lives and communities over the long-term.    

But there were other women I interviewed who could not make eye contact. Who wrung their hands and jumped whenever there was a sudden movement or sound around them. There were women who listlessly carried babies that didn’t belong to them—babies that they inherited when the mother had been killed; babies that were forced into their wombs by men in uniform and the guns they carried. I completed survey after survey, but I could neither confirm nor deny my prior assumptions.

A few days ago, a BYU reporter called to ask me about the research I did in Uganda because the paper I turned it into recently won a major award. The research turned out to be more academically fruitful than I could ever have envisioned. And I am always excited when the project is recognized in one way or another because I feel like I have succeeded in drawing attention to violence against women. I set off to frame the issue using social science methodology—random sampling and statistical analysis—in order to have it taken seriously. And, to my great surprise, it has been. But I have always felt that the cost of the paper’s success was an oversimplification of the women’s diversity. Statistics cannot tell this story, but I often worry that I cannot either. One of the reporter’s questions was something like, “what was your impression of the women?” And I gave some trite answer, no doubt. The problem of the paper and the interview and my memories remains the same: I don’t have a good enough answer for what happens to the Ugandan women.

Here is all I know: It is the only interview that remains purely distinct. She is seventeen, orphaned, eight-and-a-half months pregnant, HIV positive, and wearing a red parka, despite the heat. She is mostly somber, but she finds the hypothetical scenarios section hilarious. “Would you use the childcare service at this public event if the police were in charge of it? Ha! Them mens wouldn’t last five minutes with the children!” She is still chuckling several minutes later, “Police watching the babies…” At the end of the surveys, she looks up from her lap, directly into my eyes. “We are sisters. Did you know? We are connected. What happens to me, happens to you also. When you write, you tell them this.”  

1) are you in a tight place, and if so, what are you doing about it?

A tight place? I would have to say, yes. I’m currently in Washington DC doing a Brigham Young University internship program. We get an amazing deal on housing, but it means I’m living in restrictive dorm facilities perched on top of the LDS institute building and the LDS Church’s DC Public Relations offices. Basically, I’m spending my last semester of college feeling simultaneously like a freshman and a graduate already in the workforce.  It is a strange limbo indeed.  Yet, getting out of this tight place means going out in the city more.  I’m naturally a home-body, so an uncomfortable living situation here may actually be a good thing. 

I’ve also gotten myself in a tight spot by being pretty unprepared for my internship. I am working at the Department of the Treasury in the East Asia office, despite previously having zero knowledge of East Asia and precious little about financial and macroeconomics. Sometimes when I’m sitting in meetings or listening to the description of a project I’ll need to finish, things are so tight I can practically feel my shoulders scraping against the mounting expectations. At first, my emotional energy was primarily devoted to being frustrated with how useless my degree in economics was and desperately avoiding being “found out” by the others in the office. But lately, I have been realizing that if I devote that energy instead to just working with deliberation and optimism, I can learn some really cool things. Last week, my office sent me to take notes at a conference on China’s upcoming leadership transition, and I found that I already knew almost everything the speakers had to say on China’s economy. I was nodding my head like, “yeah, yeah, investment-led growth is a problem.  Old news. Tell me what it means for the steel industry! State Owned Enterprises!  Give me something I can work with!” And then I had to leave during the Q&A and buy some Diet Dr. Pepper so I could remember who I was and what I stood for.  

can't get enough art deco!

2) what inspires you?

Architecture. On my walk to work I pass all these famous and powerful institutions—The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, various embassies, The Renwick Gallery (i.e. the national arts and crafts museum, definitely an inspiration in and of itself), The White House—and that was all very exciting for the first day or so. Now during the walk my brain is going “those late 19^th century row houses would probably look so cool juxtaposed with an ultra-modern renovation on the interior” Or “my goodness those are fabulous art deco tiles.” I can’t get enough of art deco. This summer, I was running in London’s Hyde Park and stopped in the middle to use the bathrooms at the Serpentine Gallery. The museum shop had this enormous beautiful book on sale, American Masterworks: Houses of the 20^th and 21^st Centuries. I had to buy it, right there on my run, even though it meant throwing away many other things to keep my suitcase under the weight limit for the flight home.

I’m also inspired by excellent but non-pretentious cooking, beautiful but precise writing, long-lasting but progressing relationships (be they romantic, familial, or friendships). The more people I meet, the more I realize how rare and wonderful these things are.    

3) what do you hope to accomplish before the end of the year?

I just hope to transition somewhat gracefully into “the real world.” I hope to narrow down my interests and ambitions into something that would be satisfying and feasible to do as employment (and then find someone to hire me for it). I hope to figure out how to balance a job with creative outlets and exercise and taking care of myself. I want to spend this year remembering how to write creatively, practicing photography on my boyfriend’s fancy camera, cooking new things, learning to run, doing more yoga. But mostly, I hope to emulate just a fraction of the productivity I have seen from the women in my life (and men too). When I get home from an 8 hour work day, I just want to order pizza and go to bed.  I can’t believe all that my mother, grandmothers, aunts, Lara, and so many other women that I admire get done in a day.

taylor's tights, spicing up the d.c. workplace!

4) what is your favorite legwear.

Thus far, it has been too hot to even consider legwear. I’ve got some good tights picked out for the fall/winter though, and I can’t wait to use them to spice up my work clothes. Even when I’m dressing as professionally and conservatively as I can, I still tend to feel like people are looking at me like they looked at Elle Woods when she first shows up at Harvard Law.

the kairotic moment, or, the preface to the preface

i've been teaching my students about "the kairotic moment"  (and based on the quizzes i just graded, almost half didn't get it. my bad.) this is the moment of kairos--something like the opportune moment-- that a person senses is the right time to act.

as i said in yesterday's post, reading the judith dusku interview was my kairotic moment.  i was compelled to act on something i had thought about doing for a while, but hadn't yet found the courage or the right moment to speak.

i'm slow to act, usually.

this is the quote that compelled, or maybe propelled, me to act:  "as a feminist, i'm telling other people:  don't be afraid to tell your story."  so i started, just barely, to tell mine.  though i left out a lot of the why's and wheretofore's in yesterday's post.  & my kairotic moment came at bad time, practically speaking, when i had such a small window of writing time that i had to keep it brief.

(maybe that was lucky for you!)

the other thing i've been doing at school lately is reading wordsworth's "preface to the lyrical ballads" as well as his "essay supplementary to the preface to the lyrical ballads."  dear wordsworth.  i can so well understand his desire and frustration!  to be heard! to be loved! to be popular!  to be understood! to continue prefacing and supplementing! so many explanations of his poems, and why they are great, and should live forever in our hearts!

and can't we all understand dear wordsworth, at least a little?

so here is my preface.  in response to some questions and thoughts from readers on my mitt romney post.

& if necessary,

maybe another day,

an essay supplementary as well.

1) do i speak for mormons or for myself?  for myself.  i was careful to use the pronouns "my" and "i" when making a claim of belief.

2) do i believe that what i said was merely my own subjective interpretation of mormon scripture and teachings?  yes and no.  i recognize that my stances are not mainstream within the mormon church, but i also know that i am not alone in believing many of the statements i made on my blog yesterday.  i also believe, as text interpretation is what i am trained to do, and what i spend most of my work life doing, i have strong textual evidence from all of the bodies of mormon scripture as well as teachings from the mormon temple for the beliefs i espouse.  this is where i have taken my understandings from. perhaps another day we can talk specifics.

3) am i judging romney for being a bad mormon?  i am not judging romney, or anyone, for being a bad mormon.  by anyone's standard, i myself am probably a "bad" mormon.  by the standards i set out in the "my kind of mormon" statements, i am not even my own "my kind of mormon."  my ideals are high.  mormon ideals are high, and exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to fully live up to (a whole other post!)

i think one thing almost all mormons feel right now is the excitement about getting to "set the record straight".  (dear mormons!  we want so desperately to set the record straight!   to be loved!  to be popular!  to be successful!)  so i'm only adding my own version of "setting the record straight." i just want to put it out there, to add my voice to a few others, that not all mormons are super thrilled with capitalism, trickle down economics, anti-feminist rhetoric, rhetoric that maligns or blames the poor for their circumstances, or public policy that does not put the well-being of the weakest and meekest of society first and foremost.

i know the economic theories that explain why capitalism, trickle-down economics, and laissez-faire policies are ultimately, some day, better for poor people (yes, i took honors american heritage at byu with noel reynolds!) i don't believe these theories, though i have studied them fairly extensively (thank you, noel reynolds!), and i have never seen evidence that convinces me of their validity.  i know there are sincere believers who think the poor are better off under this type of regime.  i don't judge these sincere believers.  many of them are my mormon brothers and sisters, my family members, and people i know to be of good heart and sincere intent.  i don't hate these people or think they are immoral, or bad mormons.  i simply think they are wrong.

4) speaking of feminists, why do i think that feminism has a place in mormonism, and why do i think mormon women, in particular, need a stronger voice in the lds church? this is a bit of a roundabout answer.  it starts with an idea that i learned from political scientist valerie hudson, that when women are not at the table, the entire world suffers drastically.  hudson is a professor at texas a&m,  and was recently one of people magazine's 100 most influential people.  she is moderate, even maybe a little conservative, politically.  she is a mormon, a mother, a feminist, and a was a byu professor for 24 years, and she has gathered a large amount of empirical data backing up her premise that the amount of freedom, education, liberty, and power women have in a society are proportional to the well-being of that society in terms of economics, national security, health, etc.

i do not know how far hudson would take this premise in first world scenarios (much of her work is in the third world), but i do know, in a presentation i attended with her on this very topic, that she feels strongly that women's voices are needed at the highest levels of decision making in the most powerful institutions in the world.

what does this have to do with mormonism and romney?  in terms of mormonism, i belive, like dushku, that mormonism can be a powerful force for good in the world.  how much more powerful if women were encouraged greater and more equal participation in the organization?  i'm pretty confident that we're going to find that out in my lifetime.  in terms of romney, i believe he has discouraged women from full participation, perhaps unwittingly, as a pastoral figure in the church, and politically, he does not espouse progressive policies for american women.  this has been damaging to the mormon church and will, i believe, also be damaging to the american public if he is elected.

again, i know mormon women who feel strongly that mothers should be mostly at home when they have small children.  i don't think these women are dumb, wrong, or doing unimportant work, but i do hope that all women will expand their voices to wider spheres, whether or not they have children.  this will be good for all of us.

5) do i believe that a presidential candidate's religion is relevant? i do not.  i know many people from various faith traditions, and from humanistic and aetheistic traditions, who share my vision of a moral society.  i believe that only the morality and efficacy of the policies a president will enact are relevant, and that's how i decide who to vote for.  i bring up mitt's mormonism more as a comment on how i arrived at my particular vision of a moral society than as a condemnation of the way he practices mormonism.  that is not relevant to my voting choice.

but, since mormonism was so central to the development of my values, i think it's interesting that two people who grew up listening to the same sermons, reading the same scriptures, going to services each and every week, raising families in a traditional nuclear family structure, and engaging in so many of the same cultural, social and religious activities could arrive at such radically different positions politically, could have such polarized world views.

i think that i was trying to explore this curiosity in my post, though that was not my explicitly stated purpose.  and again, to distance myself from a version of mormonism that i find distasteful and not representative of my beliefs.

thanks for your comments and feedback, readers, and thanks for listening to my long-winded explanations.  i hope i've done the job this time, and won't have to start in on my "essay supplementary".

why mitt is "not my kind of mormon"

oh, boy.

i've debated for a week about this post, and i perhaps should have given it another week, but today i read  joanna brooks' interview with judith dushku, one of my sheroes.  dushku says almost everything i wanted to say, and better than i could, and with first hand experience to back it up, so i decided to add a few of my own thoughts, to bring out my favorite of dushku's points, and then to direct you to this interview.  it's a must-read.

here are my three favorite quotes from dushku:

1)  "I just love Mormons so much I hate to see us all represented by Mitt Romney. It reflects so badly on a religion that stands for better things."

2) "I don’t like it that we have come to be represented by a man who has no interest in a social safety net and blames those in need for being in poverty or without work. Mormons don’t believe that. He is not us."

3) "I would like for the Mormon Church not to be associated with the “war on women” because my experience is that some of the strongest and most powerful women in my circle of many friends are well-informed, active Mormon women: lawyers, writers, poets. The idea that Mitt has come to represent Mormonism makes it sound like the church has no progressive women, and I would like that misrepresentation taken away. "

and to those of you who support mitt, i'd love to hear your respectful disagreement.

in response to dushku's claim that mitt told her she was "not my kind of mormon", i'd like to share what "my kind of mormon" is, and thereby show that most of my criteria appear to be the antithesis of mitt romney:

*my kind of mormon cares about women, encourages them to speak, listens to them, attempts to understand them, and, most of all, acts affirmatively on the behalf of women to create more opportunity and equality in their lives.

*my kind of mormon is not complacent in his belief--is actively troubled and seeking greater truth and inspiration at all times.  this hearkens back to my first point, that of listening carefully to all perspectives.

*my kind of mormon stands up for what he believes in regardless of personal cost or losing a chance at political gain.  my kind of mormon is not swayed by public opinion and does not seek approbation purchased with a lack of integrity.  my kind of mormon is comfortable with being a peculiar person of peculiar faith.

*my kind of mormon does not seek or condone the seeking of wealth.

*my kind of mormon is radical in his commitment to living a life that will even out the injustices of this world.  my kind of mormon seeks to live in "zion"--mormon shorthand for a place where all things are held equally in contemporary life, and ultimately, the place where we will all live when true order is restored to the earth.

*my kind of mormon realizes that caring for the poor, the sick, and the afflicted are the most important acts a person can participate in on this earth.  my kind of mormon will enact private and public policies that ensure that as many poor, sick, and afflicted are cared for as possible.

*my kind of mormon is comfortable with the extremely radical and uncomfortable roots of mormonism--meaning that he will speak out against the mainstream when it contradicts his belief, and he will make huge sacrifices for his beliefs and for the comfort and safety of others, and he will build up a place of equality and justice under seemingly impossible circumstances.

i know.  that this is an idealistic list.  but i do know many mormon men who live up to it--probably more than i do mormon men who are like mitt.  although for the purposes of this post, i am more concerned with how he represents mormons & what kind of public policy he will enact than about his personal character.

i know.  that i myself do not live up to these ideals.  though i do strive to, and hope i can some day.

i know.  that my views do not reflect those of all or most mormons.  but this is how i interpret the original visions and scriptures put forth by joseph smith, and how i hope to see contemporary mormonism lived.