FF1: Food, Feminism, and Fun

A few weeks ago, I met with my senior thesis advisor to discuss essay topics. I wanted to talk through some ideas in the hopes of starting my research this summer. I’ll get to who I am and what my thesis has to do with fwordsonly a few paragraphs down and over the course of this blog journey, but I want to start with a question my advisor asked me during our meeting that I’ve been reflecting on since.

How do you define empowerment?

Considering I use “empowerment” in my personal and academic life perhaps more than any other word, I thought that this would be an easy question to answer. As I started to form the thoughts in my head into a sentence out loud, I realized how personal a definition it is and how it’s nearly impossible for me to dissociate myself from the definition. I stumbled over my words to answer and realized I could only really answer this question:

How do you define empowerment?

I know the blank definition according to my handy friend, Merriam-Webster, who says empowerment is “the power, right, or authority to do something.” But there is no way to untangle who I am as a person from my definition of empowerment. My power or right to do something may change day to day. One day I might find something empowering but the next day find it marginalizing. Someone else might experience the reverse. It’s hard to define and even harder to manifest. No wonder it’s my favorite word.

Above all else, I am empowered by being a woman. I’m proud of the “bossy” little girl I used to be and the strong woman I aspire to become. Young me didn’t give a f*ck about any of the gendered social norms that rendered bossy a criticism rather than a compliment. I still hold that five-year self in my head and close to my heart. I may be a few feet taller and a little more calculated, but I still live by the idea: girl’s rule. In any class I’ve taken at Yale that confronts a global problem (which is just about every class) female empowerment always tops the list of solutions. Gender equality is such a powerful tool for necessary social, environmental, political, cultural, and economic change, but the patriarchy is so enragingly pervasive. I don’t know what sparked that kindergarten girl power spirit, but wow. It’s relevant.

I am fortunate to be empowered by the agency I do have in my life, and I’m empowered by the challenge to harness those opportunities in an effort to fill the gap in agency I and other’s don’t have. I try to do something to destruct the patriarchy every day. I don’t mean that to sound groundbreaking or noble; I just mean that small daily actions are empowering and can be impactful. Even changing an everyday, seemingly meaningless, norm like the way my family sits at the dinner table. A few years ago, I started to enforce a two facing two arrangement at our table for meals. My sister and I sit across from our parents, and there is no longer a “head of the table.” That may sound extraneous or dramatic to some. But not to me; it’s empowerment.

Collective female empowerment is an untapped force, but every women’s empowerment is different – in capacity and context, so there is no one size fit’s all solution to empowerment. We do what we can, to the fullest we can.

Cooking, creating recipes, taking pictures of food, and connecting with like minds on Instagram isn’t my full answer, but it’s where this one starts. One year ago, on June 7th, 2018, I created @fwordsonly. I toyed with the idea of a food Instagram for a long time, but two things always stopped me. First, I could never come up with the right name for it. And second, I didn’t want the account to just be me posting pictures of food. Don’t get me wrong, I almost exclusively post food pictures, but when I came up with the name, fwordsonly, it afforded me the opportunity to present and encompass much more.

Here on fwordsonly.com, we are concerned with all things food, feminism, and fun. Food is clearly my most represented fword on my Instagram, and I weave in feminism as much as I can. It’s not enough to destruct the patriarchy, but I’m working on it. So we have food and we have feminism, but what about fitness, farms, friends, family, and all the other fwords I can think of? That’s what fun is for.

To please the type-A person I am, I’ve made a schedule. Here’s the plan: Friday Features. Every Friday I will write a post relating to food, feminism, or fun. I want my posts to be entertaining yet practical, inspiring but charged, heavy and light-hearted. Today, it’s some thoughts on empowerment and an introduction. Maybe next week it will be a recipe, a book list, a spotlight on a friend or favorite feminist icon – anything goes. The moment writing a post becomes a cause for added stress, I’ve defeated the purpose. It’s an outlet for me, but I’m always happy to find some friends and followers along the way.

Over the course of my FFs (Friday Features – and yes, get used to me abbreviating just about everything) my story will weave in and out. For the sake of empowerment, who I am won’t really be able to escape what I write, so who am I and why am I fwordsonly? Let’s find out.

My name is Natasha Feshbach. I was born on a sunny Christmas Eve in Santa Barbara, California (where I am currently visiting, sitting outside, drinking iced coffee, and writing this!). I am going into my senior year at Yale University. I am Environmental Studies major, concentrating in food and agriculture. Yes, I figured out a way major in food at Yale (perhaps a future FF can chronicle my journey from having absolutely no idea what to study as a first-year to writing a senior thesis on how environmental sustainability intersects with food and female empowerment).

I’ll never pass up an opportunity to go to Saturday morning farmer’s market in Santa Barbara with my Mom or in New Haven at Wooster Square with friends. I love grocery shopping – I can spend hours wandering the aisles looking at every product or piece of produce, or I can be in and out in 15 minutes with everything on my list to last me two weeks. I prioritize time to cook, bake (often procrastibake), and enjoy food with friends and family because it brings me joy.

Sports have always been a part of my life, and I love to work out. Some of my most formative moments and discoveries as a woman are because of athletics and leadership roles in the Yale Women’s Athletic Council and the Yale Women’s Track and Field Team. As a varsity track athlete, my event is the multis – indoor pentathlon and outdoor heptathlon – either picking one event was too hard, I’m not good enough to specialize but just average enough for them all, or I can’t help but make life a little harder than it needs to be (probably all three reasons). My experience with collegiate sports has shaped me in some ways for the best and others not so much, but most importantly, it has provided me a community of fierce woman that I wouldn’t be here without.

I can’t say I wear my heart on my sleeve, but I do wear who I am on my chest. It keeps life fun and makes me, Natasha, fwordsonly. My collection of feminist t-shirts is overflowing and my feminist mugs and pillows scatter my apartment. I unapologetically do things like fashion a recycled Trader Joe’s bag into a shirt to dress as a “trader hoe” for Halloween and sit on my stove to rule over my queendom (the kitchen – aka where I smash the patriarchy best).

That’s all for FF1.

With empowerment, Natasha