More Like "Puke" Presents

So, there's this new trend called "push presents" that I learned about via Jezebel. Basically, a man gives his baby-mama an expensive piece of jewelry for birthing "his" child.

Gag me with a spoon.

I understand that the idea behind this is that the father doesn't have to go through nine months of weight gain, bodily distortion, stomach problems, incontinence, swollen hands and feet, mood swings, blah blah blah, so he shows his appreciation by throwing an expensive bauble into the mix. First off, women who don't want to bear children shouldn't be doing it, and second, isn't it a little stupid to spend money on jewelry when you're going to have expensive medical bills followed by the huge expense of raising a child?

Here's my idea of an awesome "push present" (and really, who thought up that godawful term?): how about the baby-daddy support you during pregnancy by not drinking, eating healthy, taking up some slack around the house while you're miserable. And then after the baby comes, take an equal share in childcare? That would be so much better than a damn ring.

Enjoy the Silence? Please?

I'm really late getting to this Salon post, but I've been out of town and I'm just now getting caught up on my blog reading. Having a cold allows you to catch up on your reading. The article came at a very appropriate time of year: the holiday season. The article is about a movement in Britain, called No Music Day. As the graphic will show you, for one day no music is played, and we forget how pervasive background music has become in our everyday lives.

I am a music lover. I've played piano, cello, violin. I've been a classical ballet dancer, which requires a certain musical ear and appreciation. I love all types of music, and can even appreciate the art in tunes I don't particularly like. I am a music lover. But at this time of year the music that fills out everyday lives starts to make me a little stabby.

I used to love Christmas music, even though I'm not a religious person. To me, they used to symbolize an exciting time of year filled with friends, family, homecomings, good food, and gift-giving. The first time I'd hear a holiday tune in a store or on the radio, my heart jumped a bit at the anticipation of the holidays, that it was finally here. Then one Christmas after college I worked part time in retail to make some extra money. And I now have a strong aversion to holiday music. Working eight hour days listening to the same hour-long loop of Christmas music started making me a bit delirious. At night, while trying to fall asleep, I couldn't get the music out of my head. As I approached the shop for my shifts, I could hear the music wafting out of the front doors, and I would fill with dread.

Now, everywhere I go, I hear that dreadful noise, and it just puts me in a bad mood. I realize that this is a personal issue, but I've also noticed that just about everyone I know feels the same. Christmas music is no longer special or exciting, it's almost a hassle you must put up with for the last two (3? 4? Do I hear 6?) months of the year. I guess I'm just a scrooge. But this is something that needs to be examined more closely. In the name of consumerism, we have cheapened one of humanity's greatest artforms: music.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Pathetic

Via Jessica, this New York Times story was not fit to read over lunch, but I did anyway. Big mistake. *burp*

Summary: Really wealthy people with powerful careers hire a woman to plan their lifestyles. Clothes, social activities, living quarters, even friends. All of her clients are men, she's had only one female client, and it sounds like she only got help finding a place to live. Quite honestly, getting help finding a place to live is not such a bad idea, especially if you're new in town. And double especially if it's New York City, but I digress.

Most of Ms. Storr’s clients are single and too preoccupied with work to organize their personal lives, she says.

Isn't your personal life a pretty important part of the rest of your life? Aren't you missing out on a lot when you have someone else plan it for you? Are these people just so socially inept that they can't deal with social stuff and have to hire someone to make it a little easier?

Not really. Money quote:

He calls her an outsourced wife. “The nice thing is that when I ask her to do something, she gets it done and there’s no negative feelings."

Barf.

In other words, he'd love to be able to boss around his wife, but that uppity bitch gets in his face, so now he pays someone to let him boss her around. Got it. I once dated a guy who used to bitch about all the things he had to do for himself (pick up drycleaning, grocery shopping, post office, regular daily stuff) and say that he needed a wife. When I corrected him and told him that what he really wanted was a personal assistant, he came right back and said he'd rather have a wife. Because they're basically free, and you can fuck them after a long day of bossing them around. I dumped him a few days later. I can't believe it took me so long.

At the end of the piece, we see that one of her clients is still lost:

Mr. Peik looked pleased but slightly out of his element, as if observing a diorama of his New York life and trying to figure out where he fit in. “It’s been a really fun night,” he said. “It didn’t feel forced and didn’t seem like we were the reason for Allison having a party.”

Really? Did he say that with a straight face? Here comes my chicken salad on rye . . .

Xmas comes earlier every year, doesn't it?

In honor of the War on Christmas, take a listen to Zuzu's adaptation of The Twelve Days of Christmas.

And speaking of the War on Christmas, according to Wonkette, WorldNutDaily claims it has already begun. Fine. So be it.

I have a theory on why there are so many suicides around the holidays. It's because people get sick and tired of Xmas! Seriously, folks, there are commercials on the radio and decorations in the stores already, and it isn't even Halloween yet. I know that I start to get a little antsy after a couple of months of carols and Santa. Oy.

"Freedom isn't free"

I've seen this plastered upon car bumpers before, and I've seen it on conservative t-shirts, and I've heard conservatives bleat it out when they realize they don't have a chance in an argument. Most notably, when the Patriot Act (the first one) was being hammered out and bandied about the political discourse, lots of righties were using this phrase to justify the dismantling of civil liberties in order to be free. I always thought that was a bit of a circular argument, but I also realized that you just can't reason with some of these folks.

But, after my previous post, I'd like to present this phrase in a different way. No, freedom isn't free. In order to be free, you have to accept that some people are going to take advantage of the system. For example, soldiers coming home from Iraq missing limbs or with serious mental injuries will be (ideally, but not always) qualified for disability benefits. This is because someone thought it would be a good idea to not be an asshole and to help out the people who protect our country and might just boost morale and lessen some of the burden a soldier had to face. It's just doing the right thing. But at some point, someone is going to take advantage of that system. Maybe several someones will take advantage of that system. Conservatives would like to claim, as they do when arguing against national healthcare, that because someone will be able to take advantage of the system that the system should not exist.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have the system in place and have my taxes go toward helping a lot of truly needy people, in addition to a handful of leeches, than dismantle the whole system so that everybody suffers.

So, yeah, freedom really ISN'T free. But not in the way you think.

I'm not patriotic

I've never felt the rush of patriotism on the Fourth of July like others profess to feel. To me, it's a day off from work, a good time to cook out with family and friends, maybe go to the beach, and watch some fireworks. If anything, it's more of a celebration of summer.

This year, I'm feeling decidedly unpatriotic. There have been too many atrocities committed throughout the world in the name of freedom that it makes me nauseous. I love my country, but like an unruly child, I expect more of her. Shame.

As I enjoy my day off from work and some yummy summer food and fireworks, I leave you with this quote by Garth Ennis:

I like this country, Jesse. I like baseball and whiskey and Mom's apple pie-- not my mom's apple pie, but you know what I mean-- and the Stars and Stripes, and John Wayne, and fireworks on the Fourth of July.

And I like the myth of the place. The myth of America: that simple, honest men, born of her great plains and woods and skies have made a nation of her, and will prove worthy of her when the time is right.

Under harsh light it is false. But a good myth to live up to, all the same.

Yeah. I get it.

Review: The Assault on Reason by Al Gore

What did I do during my summer vacation? Well, lots of stuff, but one thing I did was read Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason. I’m such a dork, in fact, that I pre-ordered it from Amazon. It was a very interesting read, although, like An Inconvenient Truth, it was nothing I hadn’t heard before. Gore does a huge service to Americans who are not as interested in the nitty gritty of policy as I am, and sums it up in simple and accessible terms. Not to say that average Americans need to have these things dumbed down, but that most people are too busy to familiarize themselves with the nuts and bolts of the constitution, policy, history and science.

The main thesis of Assault is that our democracy is in a steep decline because as a society, we have lost our ability to engage in a public discussion about the direction our country is taking. The main culprit is television, according to Gore, which I completely agree with. Television is a very passive medium from which to gain information about the world. It is also the main source of news information for Americans, with its ubiquity and ease of use. There are no special skills necessary for watching television; in fact, children are taught from birth how to “use” the television for person enrichment and entertainment. Gore states that, because watching television is a passive activity and one which the watcher cannot easily debate with (with an audience, at least) that our democracy is suffering. People are no longer engaging in political debate, and the days of town hall meetings and letters to the editor are considered quaint by those shaping policy. Gore considers the high point of democracy to be the rise of cheap printing; namely newspapers, leaflets and pamphlets. As printed material became more widely available and cheap, more average citizens began to read and participate in the political discourse. Newspaper sales are lagging now, which means that when a person writes an editorial or a letter to the editor of the newspaper, fewer and fewer people are responding to it. And, much like television, newspapers are owned by huge conglomerates that are hard to infiltrate with a dissenting opinion.

As I stated before, I agree with this, but I also think that Gore could have gone a bit deeper. His main thesis that atrocious things are happening in Washington because people don’t debate anymore is a strong one, but I don’t think that the media are the only culprit. In fact, it may be just a symptom. Why else could our society be so disengaged from the policymaking that often affects daily life? One thing that I’ve noticed in the past decade or so is the American ideal of “rugged individualism” run amok. In the early days of the republic, and during Western expansion, individualism was a proud feature of our culture. The idea that Americans are so tough and can pull themselves up by the bootstraps is a romantic visualization of the past, promoted by history books and movies. To some extent, this is true, but nobody ever considers how unbelievably hard life used to be, and how many people didn’t make it. So, we carry that individualism into our modern day lives. The nuclear family is the epitome of family life in this culture. We all live in our cookie cutter houses with a white picket fence, spouse (opposite sex, of course), 2.5 kids, a dog and a cat. (I realize that this isn’t the case for most of America, but I’m dealing with the generalization that Americans like to put forth.) We are so pressured to leave our families behind in order to create families of our own, and then we are shamed into ever asking friends, family, society for help when trouble comes. We drive to work in our cars alone, work in an office or cubicle alone, and use the self-checkout line at the supermarket. Instead of going to the bank teller, we withdraw cash at the ATM. Instead of talking to a colleague or friend, we send email, text, or instant messages. In sum, we are very detached from our fellow human beings. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with the actions I just outlined; I often take advantage of ATMs and self-checkout lines myself. What I am saying is that we, as a society, are forgetting how to speak to each other about important matters.

The result of this is that the large media outlets (television, radio, and newspapers) usually only focus on extreme opinions because they are sexier. We hear a lot about anti-choice groups and their shenanigans, but we rarely hear from folks who are more mainstream. We hear a lot about the anti-capitalist “freegans” but rarely hear from people trying to live a realistic but sustainable life. We are left with the impression that our neighbors hold extreme opinions because of the bumper stickers on their car.

An interesting phenomenon has been in the works with blogging, though. People are finding ways to become active again by connecting with others around the country and creating real movements. Disregarding my lack of enthusiasm for the nuclear family (anyone who knows me knows that I hate living so far away from my family and that I’m making progress to get back to them) I think that virtual relationships are our salvation for this political crisis. Gore mentions this only in passing in Assault, but I think as relationships evolve, we should pay more attention.

UPDATE: Amanda has chosen Assault for the next Pandagon Book Club selection. You can also buy the book there.

Denying abortion as a means of controlling women

Via Jessica at Feministing, I read this article at Marie Claire. I know, barf. The only real "magazines" I read are Bitch and Southern Living. My coffee table is quite the conversation piece, but I digress.

The article is a personal account of one woman's experience with the abortion pill, Mifeprex. While this is a very safe drug to induce miscarriage, this particular woman had a horrible experience with infection and hormonal imbalance for months after taking the pill. Mifeprex almost always causes very uncomfortable cramping, bleeding, and some other side effects. But in my opinion, I would rather deal with these discomforts than have a surgical abortion, if only because I would rather be at home, with people I care about and trust.

As I was reading the article, I thought about how it would bring out the anti-choice zealots in full force to shame this woman for her "choices". (For a little background, the woman was about to be married, but had been a cocaine user during conception and for most of the month or so that she was pregnant, and made the admirable choice of not bringing an addicted and possibly severely disabled child into this cruel world.) After scrolling to the comments, I was proven correct. The first comment made my stomach turn. The commenter had chosen a medical abortion a few years ago, and still regrets it to this day. No mention of how it might be the pregnancy that she regretted, or the lack of support she received from her friends and family, or the fact that our society shames women who abort and induce horrendous guilt. In addition, she claims that "the idea of inserting it vaginally itself was the hardest thing". Really? Putting your fingers into your own vagina was really the hardest part of your abortion? Wow. I put my fingers in my vagina every time I menstruate in order to insert a tampon. Has this woman ever masturbated? Likely, no. Get thee a rabbit, and fast! But now I'm getting off topic.

The next comment gets into the writer's coke addiction. So predictable.

I do not think using an author who had a raging coke habit (at an age when she should have known better nonetheless!) was a wise choice.

At an age when she should have known better? Basically, what this commenter is saying is that s/he can understand if the author was a teenager, when they probably can't afford coke anyway. Not to mention that addiction is a bitch. How many meth/heroine/coke addicts out there are really enjoying their addiction? Not many, I can guarantee that. And we certainly don't encourage pregnant women to seek help for drug and alcohol addiction. In fact, we incarcerate them.

But then we hit the real nerve, abortion as birth control, in the fourth comment. There are some folks on the fence about abortion, who say it shouldn't be used as birth control. Guess what? Abortion IS birth control! Women aren't getting abortions for fun, despite what some of the more unhinged anti-choicers would like you to believe. When you get an abortion, you are deciding whether you want to give birth or not. Birth. Control. That means that proponents of "Natural Family Planning" (since what the rest of us participate in is so UNnatural) are also using a form of birth control. Even abstinence and non-penis-in-vagina sex is considered birth control.

In my opinion, there isn't a human being on this earth of reproductive age that doesn't (wish to*) participate in some form of birth control. What baffles me is why people think that abortion is so abhorrent a form of birth control. I get that it's icky, but so is every type of surgery. Is there really a myth out there that women have unprotected sex thinking, "Well, I'll have sex sans condom, and if I get pregnant I'll just get an abortion on my way to work one day"? Abortion is the last birth control resort for women, save the victims of rape.

Next on my list is the hypocrisy of the "rape exception" of most proposed abortion bans. This has become so common in the political discourse that it hardly stirs a reaction. However, it has always bothered me. By banning abortion, sexually active women are punished. By making an exception for rape victims, legislators are rubbing salt into the wound of the rest of women by basically saying that the reason they can't have an abortion is because they CHOSE to have sex, and weren't forced into it.

This is the proof that anti-choice policies are not really concerned with saving fetuses, but with controlling women. And this is what it's all about. Privileged men, so afraid of losing their power, feel the need to control women who dare to act independently. (See, street harassment, rape, domestic violence.) Scary.

* When I say "wish to" I am implying consensual sex. Rape and incest victims cannot choose birth control, unless they are using regular hormonal contraception. We cannot forget these victims whenever we talk about a right to birth control.

Working for "The Man"

I work for "The Man."

Of course, as an academic librarian, I'm not working to make some godlike CEO a profit, since academic institutions are nonprofit. But I still feel like I am part of that culture of profit, slaving away at a job while giving little thought to my actual life. I talked with my mother the other day about this, about how we spend most of our waking hours at a job that we may or may not like. I admire self-employed folks who use their talents to support themselves. An artist has an opportunity to do what s/he loves and make a wage for it. Granted, these folks usually have to take a vow of poverty, but why is it that we are so afraid of simpler lives and automatically shudder at the thought of living on less?

With all of the talk about Linda Hirschman's latest New York Times article, encouraging women to go back to work after having children, I have been wondering if this is "the" answer to female equality. Some of the talk on feminist blogs has centered around how arrogant Hirschman's manifesto is, that many women do not enjoy their work and would rather stay home with the kid for a couple of years. Or that many women do not make high enough wages in the first place to justify a regular babysitter, so they are actually saving money by staying home with the kid for a couple of years. Or that many women really don't even have an option to stay home with the kid for a couple of years, because they are a single mother, or because they need the health insurance, or because dad doesn't make enough to support the whole family because minimum wage in this country does not equal a living wage. Is our current work model broken?

Considering someone like my brother, I think it is. At times, it seems to me that my brother is nothing more than a wage slave to his family. He has three small children, with his wife staying home to take care of them. She could go to work, but with the three kids, they would likely lose money in the process, and they see no point in working for the sake of working. That's a respectable choice. Nobody should be a wage slave. Not in this country, and not in 2007. But we all are.

I work in academia, and plan to do so after my radical life change. I am lucky, because college campuses tend to be more progressive, and are more flexible with family emergencies. It is not uncommon to see a professor's children running up and down the halls of an academic building or quietly read at a table in the library, something which can brighten up my day in an instant. But you would not see that at a for-profit workplace. There is a strict divide between work life and family life. Family matters do not belong in the workplace, yet we have no problems bringing work matters into our family lives. Blackberry, anyone?

Being a woman who wants to have kids someday fairly soon, this is something that is at the forefront of my mind, because the idea of this either-or choice scares me. I am lucky in that I will most likely have a family friendly workplace at that time, and will be able to combine a comfortable professional life with a thriving family life. But I think of the other women and men who are not as fortunate. Where is their safety net when the kid comes down with the flu and needs a parent to stay home and make sure s/he doesn't dehydrate? Currently, we don't have one, and the Hirschmans of the world don't really care. Because we should be striving for that cushy lifestyle that we see advertised endlessly on TV while neglecting time with family, or working our collective asses to the bone to outsource our childcare, for what I'm not exactly sure.

The work structure in this country needs to change. Don't force dads into the wage slave role, which in turn disengages them from family matters, simply because they are the traditional breadwinners. (Pay equity would be a good start.) Don't just give women the false "choice"* between a) staying at home and being castigated by feminists for "opting out" of the workforce or b) working and being castigated by fellow mothers for neglecting the children. Part of the solution is to drive society toward a less materialistic lifestyle of power-hungry over-consumption and to place more value on relationships with our families, friends, neighbors, pets. Make the public and private spheres less divided, and start to allow real life circumstances to be considered in the workplace. Not only will this make people happier and possibly cut down on anxiety and depression, but it will also make our way of life more environmentally sustainable. In the end, women will have a real choice about what to do with their lives. There are a whole myriad of other problems to sort out in the meantime, such as health care, living wage, and pay equity, to name a few. But change starts in the grass, folks, which is why I wrote this post.

* I don't think women really do have a choice, because cultural and financial pressures usually force women to make these "choices".

"Partial-Birth" Abortion Ban Upheld by SCOTUS, Slippery Slope Predicted

This is just really fucking scary. From what I understand, through all the medical and legal jargon, is that this procedure actually doesn't exist. The anti-choicers have mangled the language of late-term abortion to appeal to those who romanticize the fetus, and the ban was written vaguely enough to create that slippery slope into a full overturn of Roe.

I was just talking to a friend the other day about how I think all anti-choicers are basically assholes. While he agrees with me and my stance on reproductive rights, he argued that some anti-choicers are good people. He was specifically talking about a woman he knows who had an abortion as a teenager, and when her family found out, they called her a murderer because they believe abortion is murder. (For the record, he is very close friends with the woman's brother, and grew up with his family and says they're otherwise good people. I've only met the brother.) My response was that, setting aside the argument about reproductive rights and when life begins, they were assholes for not being supportive of her. She made a legal decision. I'd like to stress that: LEGAL.

The anti-choice culture is not about protecting life, it's about controlling women. Rather than seeing this woman as a human being with what is possibly the most difficult choice a person makes, they simply shamed her for her "mistake". And they are assholes for it. I have an impossible time wrapping my brain around the idea that a person can deny science and not see the hypocrisy in the anti-choice rhetoric. If a blastocyst is a potential life that is morally wrong to terminate, then why aren't the morality police punishing women for flushing ova out of the womb by menstruating? After all, an ovum is a potential life, an even more solid fact considering scientists can now create sperm from bone marrow. What about women who cannot conceive because of a uterine condition? A blastocyst could form through natural fertilization and not implant because of a medical issue, and then just exit the body with the menstrual flow without a woman even knowing. By the anti-choice logic, these women should be punished for this. If you take anti-choice logic to it's conclusion, it means that non-procreative sex should be illegal. That would include the following: fellatio, cunnilingus, anal sex, sex with barrier/hormonal birth control, sex during infertile times (this means you, natural family planning gurus), sex in sterile couples, sex with a post-menopausal woman, and of course, homosexual sex. (Although the anti-choicers probably wouldn't have a problem making that illegal, either.) This sort of attitude may also mean that it will be difficult for a woman to have a tubal ligation, or for a woman to have a hysterectomy during her fertile years due to an illness. (Remember, the new ban does not make an exception for a woman's health.)

It is absolutely crucial for women (and men) to retain the fullest of reproductive rights, and not feel shamed for doing what is right for them at certain life stages. This ban has more repercussions than most realize. We must fight this!

Virginia Tech Shootings: The Misogynist Angle

There's been a lot of talk about gun control in light of the VT shootings this week. That's highly understandable, and it's a necessary discussion to have. I do not want to address that because I am terrified of guns. As a girl, spending the night at a friend's house, I had a gun pointed at me by an intruder that forced his way into the bedroom while we were sleeping. That pretty much turned me off from guns, considering there was no way to defend myself. So I am not going to address that issue here. (Others are doing a very fine job.)

I do want to address how misogynist this act was and how our society rarely acknowledges the danger stalkers present to their victims. Lifetime movies and romance novels will describe stalking as a form of flattery, often with the woman either giving in to pressure or ending up maimed/dead before anyone pays attention. Unfortunately, this reflects real society as well.

Part of what triggered the VT shooter was rejection from a female love interest. I have no doubt that it played a major part in his rage, acting as a tipping point in a life filled with disappointment, confusion, and despair. But these feelings do not form in a vacuum. Obsessive thoughts/feelings are a product of enculturation, or, rather, what you obsess over is determined by your culture. Our patriarchy sends a rather clear message to men that they deserve the affection and attention of the women of their choosing. Just read any MRA or Nice Guy's blog post or comment. Now that I'm reading reports* that the other victim in the dorm (aka "Stack") may have been the love interest's SO, I can't help but think that a hefty sense of entitlement was at play.

I'm quite certain that other factors triggered this rampage. Could the shooter have "snapped" in the same way if the situation with the love interest had ended differently? I'm sure he could have. But we have just seen, not only through the rampage itself, but through the violent writing and stalking behavior of the shooter, just how much he valued female life. That would be not at all.

Another point I'd like to make is that the campus and Blacksburg police did not deem a "domestic shooting" urgent enough to lock down campus. That sends a very clear message to victims of domestic violence, or, females**, that when a partner physically harms them it isn't as serious as if a stranger had harmed them. Some have argued that in a domestic dispute, the perpetrator rarely targets anyone outside the relationship. That may be true. But if the police had locked down campus, they would have had a better chance of catching the shooter because he would have had a much harder time escaping. What all of this tells me is that the police simply were not that concerned about someone DYING because it was the result of a domestic situation. He only killed his love interest, and apparently that doesn't count as a real murder. Because we all know the pain of unrequited love, right? RIGHT?

Sisters, we have a long way to go.

* I'm very reluctant to believe much about the personal histories of the victims, especially the dorm victims, at this time. Our media are too quick to get the story on the wire to really check facts, thus creating a vicious rumor mill.

** Before you send me a nasty message arguing this point, YES, I realize that men can be victims of domestic violence. However, the overwhelming majority of victims are female, and I am working with generalizations here.

Smile, dammit!

There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle in the feminist blogosphere again, this time with regards to those men, wreaking of entitlement issues, who will stop a strange woman on the street and order her to smile. Most of the discussion revolved around the entitlement complex that many men have, and how they act like royalty by demanding their servants (in this case, strange women) to perform for them. Which is certainly a great summation of the entire issue, and one I would not argue with one bit.

But I’d like to go a step further. In our culture, the smiling face is considered the most beautiful and the most welcoming. When someone is happy, we know it by their smile. When someone smiles at us, we take that as a sign that we made them happy. Therefore, when someone is smiling, it really can “spread joy” and makes those nearby happier.* When someone smiles at you, there is a feeling that something you did made that person happy, whether it’s the way you look, how you walk, what you said, how you smell, you get the idea. Most people agree that smiles are a good thing.**

There are large groups of men who still consider women part of the scenery. Any man who goes to a strip club, Hooters, or catcalls women on the street is one of these men. (Which is why I don’t date men who do this.) I’d like to add “men who view pornography,” but that would most definitely put all men in the category, and I’d like to leave my thoughts on porn for another post. When women are expected to wear makeup, do their hair, dress in patriarchy-approved clothing, shave legs at a minimum to be considered part of mainstream society, and men can walk around in sweat stained t-shirts and pants with holes in the crotch as part of normal society, there is a problem.

So, we women still have not gained the status of human being yet, we are still relegated to the company of the sofa, drapes, and ficus. Which brings me back to the “smile, dammit” bit. My thoughts on these fuckers? That they assume they have the right to visual pleasure at any time, and who better to give them visual pleasure than the sex objects they see all day? (I use the term “objects” consciously, because these men don’t see women as anything more than fuckdolls.) I think these assbags get a kick out of demanding a strange woman to smile and seeing her succumb because it shows that he has the power in that exchange.

Most of us women succumb out of fear, or out of outright dumbfoundedness. “Did he really just tell me to smile?” As a woman who has heard this her entire life, it is a great way to ruin a woman’s day. Before my feminist days, I thought there was something wrong with me, and that I was ugly in some way. It made me so insecure. And then I realized something: What if something was really wrong? So the next time it happened, I told the shithead, “My dog just died today, so leave me the fuck alone.”*** The guy was pretty speechless, and I doubt he ever ordered a woman to smile again. I did this a couple of times, in a few different situations. (For example, during a time when I was incredibly thin due to severe depression, people (mostly women) would comment on how thin I was, as if I had no idea. They actually asked me if I ate! Duh! So I started telling people I was on chemotherapy, just to jar them. It worked!) After dealing with these intrusive situations, I realized that the men were not concerned about me and my emotional state, as some “smile demander apologists” would say. If they were truly concerned about my emotional state, and I indeed looked upset, they would ask me if I was okay, or offer some help.

Until men as a gender get the message that women are human, with human emotions and human experiences, I’m afraid we are stuck with teaching them individually that women do not exist for decorative purposes, but as active members of the human species. I’d like to think that, every time I came back with a snarky response to a “smile demander apologist” that an angel got its wings and a misogynist had the epiphany that women are human. Is this a little thing? Sure. But it’s the little things that pile up and up and up until our shoulders break, and women everywhere start to feel beaten down by the patriarchy, ready to give up. All of these little things are related to how we are viewed by men, which is the essence of the patriarchy. If we didn’t correct the men who insist that the female secretary get his coffee, or the men who catcall the woman going to her first day at a new job, or the ever-present ass-pincher, we’d be stuck in a world that women don’t feel comfortable in. A world that would push women back into the private sphere and out of harm and aggravation’s way. I don’t want that. I’ll take my tiny revolutions.

*Except for those weirdoes who keep a permagrin, like my neighbor. In that case, it’s just creepy. People who are happy all the time worry me, as they seem like they could snap at any moment and end up shooting up a roomful of people.

**Disregarding folks from East Asian and other cultures, in which smiling can be a sign of confrontation, a rude display of familiarity, etc.

***My dog was, in fact, peacefully napping at home at the time.

Womens' Work

I work at a university. (I'm working on a post that describes what I do and why I remain anonymous.) We get a lot of support from work scholars, who are lifesavers most of the time. Every year, we do a student worker appreciation lunch toward the end of the year.

It's actually a really nice event, and the students are given lots of attention and really appreciate the effort. Besides, what college student doesn't just love free food? Anyway, we get most of it catered by a local chicken joint and campus dining services. But the professional staff are asked to bring in extra side dishes and the dessert, to add a personal touch.

I'm all for potluck events, and think they're way more fun than catered events, and I really do enjoy putting something together and sharing it with friends. But one thing I've noticed is that only the women bring dishes in. I've never seen any of the men bring in a dish. I think that this sort of thing is just completely off the radar for them, because they almost never have to worry about cooking or feeding other people.

This year, I'm going to refuse to bring anything in. Not because I don't care about the students. But as a statement that I will not bend to archaic gender roles that dictate that, even though a woman is a successful professional (or, hell, a worker of any kind), she is still expected to play the wife-mother role at work. This is something that I've tried to be conscious about, and let me tell you, it's hard when your first reaction is to say "Yes!" and be a nurturer when you really just don't feel like it.

Some will think that my Bell's Palsy is the reason for my not contributing to the potluck, and if they don't ask, that's fine. But for those who do ask, I'll tell the truth, that I refuse to be viewed in the patriarchal conscription of wife-mother. Maybe it'll spark a little conversation and thought. And maybe some of my male coworkers will go home, do the dishes, and give their wives a break.

Didn't you know that your womb is state property?

Two stories have really caught my attention this week. The first story comes out of Tampa, Florida -- my hometown. A 21 year old woman attended Gasparilla with some friends last weekend, and decided at about 1:30 p.m. to head back to her car and go home. On her way home, she was brutally raped. In broad daylight. When she finally made it back to her car, she called the police, who then took her to get medical help. While she was being examined, the police discovered she had an outstanding warrant and arrested her. The victim went to jail for two nights and was denied the second dose of her emergency contraception, because the jail nurse had a religious conflict.

The second story is out of Kansas City, Missouri, where a pregnant woman was arrested while having a miscarriage. She had stolen a car, and in the process of whatever it was that she was doing, she started to miscarry. The police disregarded the fact that she was having a miscarriage and hauled her off to jail anyway. The female officer asked, "How is that my problem?" The woman gave birth, and the baby died shortly after.

These two stories have been around the feminist blogosphere a lot, and they have a lot of obvious facts in common that I won't get into here. One thing that I haven't seen discussed is that there is a strong culture in this country of seeing women as hysterical and freakish children. In the case of the rape victim, the officers apparently didn't know what the big deal was. In the case of the miscarriage, the officers apparently thought she was having her period.

Why aren't women given more agency in this culture? Why are we not believed even when there are obvious signs of something wrong?

I think it's simply because women are still unconciously (or maybe consciously by state officials) classified as the sex class, as sub-human. The lack of sex education in this country is also contributing to a lack of understanding of how the human body works. If a woman says she's been raped, take care of the medical needs and evidence first, then worry about her criminal history. Being raped requires medical attention, and a violent rape can cause serious damage to a victim's internal organs, not to mention her psyche. If a woman is bleeding vaginally, or bleeding from anywhere but a paper cut, when you arrest her, investigate it before you get blamed for it. Duh!

This reminds me of a recent story where a man in Australia was arrested for vaginally and anally raping his wife with foreign objects. I talked to a man I know about this case, and he didn't understand what the big deal was. When I suggested that he be anally raped by his wife in his sleep, he cringed. "That's different," he said. How is it different? Most men just don't acknowledge the invasive nature the sex act for a female. So it's okay to shove something up my ass, but not up yours? M-kay.

But that's a topic for another post.

When your wit just makes you look like a twit

Via Sheezlebub, I heard about this lovely column from the Statesman Journal. Yeah, yeah, it's supposed to be "humorous" but, come on, what a dickhead!

I have a pretty good sense of humor, but this bile just trots out all the tired old jokes.
One.
More.
Time.

Just because Purcell's column is "opinion" and "humor" doesn't mean that you can't find offense in it.

The product of Purcell's ego masturbation is a call for everyone to get married. (Funny, I'm sure he didn't mean everyone, because surely gays and lesbians don't count.) Yup, ladies, you need a man to take care of! And someone else's mess to clean up! Because, without you, men will die:

"Look, ladies, deciding not to marry for your own well-being is one thing, but it is we you're not marrying in the process. Your decision is killing single men — literally."

Wah. He then goes on a bender of berating men in general, although I don't think this was his intent, because they basically can't take care of themselves and will drink themselves into oblivion until a woman comes and saves 'em. I have to tell this guy, right after I got married my now ex-husband started drinking more, not less; of course, so did I. (Comments on this from members of the He-Man Woman Haters Club will be deleted promptly.)

And he wasn't any sort of protection:

"And when you hear a prowler rattling the door knob in the middle of the night, whom do you send to investigate? Your cat?"

Right. When ex-hubby and I were living together before the wedding (the horrors!) I woke up at 2 a.m. to some backyard noises. I nudged the lug awake, and in military fashion he reached for his handgun and played James Bond to the backyard. He returned to bed silently. When I asked what it was, he replied, "I almost shot a racoon."

There are lots of great reasons to get married. But there are a lot more reasons not to get married, all of which are outlined in this column. So, ladies, if you want to know who not to marry, read Purcell's drivel. It makes me appreciate that Miles is the only man in my life!

And sorry, Purcell, but my cat can kick your ass any day!

I (heart) Seattle

I just returned from a conference in the beautifully rainy city of Seattle. I'm a big city girl who is temporarily living in a (painfully) small town, so whenever I get to go to a city it's a huge treat.

Why do I love Seattle? Because after freezing my ass off in Virginia, a balmy day of 42 degrees and buildings with more than four stories was quite refreshing. And I want to go back. Let me tell you, there are some good eats in Seattle, including the most excellent seafood outside of my homestate of Florida. (Sorry, I'll always be a Floridian!)

You often hear people bitching about the rain in Seattle, but I thought it was somewhat calming. Rather than a torrential downpour, the Pacific northwest offers a light mist to a drizzle. Just enough to cleanse the air, but not enough to soak your clothes.

I really miss living in the city. In Seattle, within a few blocks of my hotel, I could find a grocery/drugstore, cafe, restaurants, public transportation, and (of course) a Starbucks. In my dinky little town, you really need a car to get anywhere unless you live downtown like me. And Wal-Mart (or, Mall Wart, as I prefer) has pretty much beaten out the specialty stores.

Big cities, please bear with my lack of inattention while I spend a couple of years focusing on my career. This is really important, and I promise to come back to you!

Compulsion

Sometimes when I'm going through my daily routines, the most bizarre things happen, and I feel like I just have to share these stories with the world. If I didn't laugh at my life, I'd probably be in a nut house, so I feel compelled to write it all down.

I have no agenda here, although my politics will surely come through at some point. Sit back and enjoy the show.