Category Archives: This is a Woman

Ranting and Raving, Social Justice, This is a Woman

My rage is a day late cause misogyny makes me tired.

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person person meh

Yesterday I was stricken with some mysterious fatigue. Probably it was my body’s intuition that the SCOTUS had done another horrible fuckass thing and I should just make a point to stay in bed and not try to join in the human race yesterday. But tiredness isn’t a clear enough language so I got up anyway, read the news, and then decided to go back to bed.

So that’s basically why I didn’t post yesterday.

But here are some thoughts I have after having read and maybe participated in discussions/debates on the topic on various friend’s Facebook pages. (Sorry, various friends. I really tried to limit myself as much as possible.)

1. People kept saying, “But people can CHOOSE not to work for these corporations!”
I think the people who said this are probably simply innocent and merely lacking the facts here. Obviously they have slept through the last 15 or so years and entirely missed the economic news. We should speak quietly and get them some coffee. Once they catch up, they’ll understand that people can’t just pick and choose which jobs they want. This isn’t the 1950’s anymore. Shit’s fucked, you guys. People stay unemployed for months and months or even years and then when they finally get a job they are gonna take it and not even care if birth control is covered because at that point the fact that they will be able to buy frivolous items such as “food” will take precedence. Anyone who says people should just work for those corporations that hold their own personal views (and by “personal views” I mean “provides basic human rights such as health care”) simply have no clue what the world actually is like. And good for them, I guess. Either they slept for the last decade and a half or they live in their own little protective bubble (or they don’t, but they hold views that go against their own personal lifestyle), but they just have no clue. Here’s a tip: grow some empathy. Think outside of your own brain for a moment and try to imagine how it is for people less privileged than you are.

2. People kept saying, “The government can’t just step in and tell a private corporation what to do!”
Except. That last I checked, the government enforces rules about making a job safe and possible for people with disabilities. And the government has rules set in place which don’t allow private companies to discriminate against people of other races, genders, or sexual orientations. So, dudes? The government does, in fact, butt in when it comes to protecting those who need it. You know. Except women.

3. People kept saying, “Birth control isn’t a basic human right!”
Well, aside from the whole Catch-22 attitude wherein women are forced to not have birth control, not have abortions, not have health care to support them through their pregnancies, and not have financial help for a child they weren’t ready for. I don’t know if that kind of birth control is a basic human right, but I’m willing to argue that sex is.

The bottom line here is that their science is bad. At BEST they grossly misunderstand how these contraceptives work. Preventing an ovary from releasing an egg is not, in fact, the same thing as abortion by any means. The fact that the Supreme Court backed up this pseudoscience bullshit is, at the very minimum, absolutely terrifying.

3a. Someone even said, “Health care is a privilege, not a right! People should make the choice to find a job that provides them health care!”
This is the part of the day where I just zoomed right off the plane, way out into outer space. Because if health care is a privilege you are LITERALLY saying that only rich people should be able to be healthy. You are, IN ACTUALITY, saying that poor people should just all die. I mean. You didn’t even bother to pretend very hard that you don’t feel that way. You very clearly feel that way. And you know who very clearly did not feel that way? JESUS.

3b. People kept saying, “But Hobby Lobby is still providing most birth control, just not these ones they don’t believe in!”
But you know what? That doesn’t mean they aren’t blocking birth control. Cause they are. It may not be every kind of birth control, but some women need specific kinds which may be one of those banned. What it comes down to is that a woman and her DOCTOR, not her EMPLOYER, should be the ones to decide what contraceptive a woman needs.

4. People kept saying, “But these forms of birth control cause abortions!”
OK. Let’s talk about the morning after pill. That form of birth control does NOT end a pregnancy. It inhibits ovulation just like regular birth control pills do. Without ovulation, there is no pregnancy. It ONLY works if the woman takes it before she’s ovulated, otherwise it’s useless. The pill RU486 is the pill you are probably confusing the morning after pill with. RU486 is a pill that causes an abortion. But it is called a medical abortion, not a birth control pill.

Doctors have created a distinction between abortifacients and contraceptives. Contraceptives do not end a pregnancy – they prevent one. There is a distinction. And it’s a distinction that seems to be grossly misunderstood by the majority of people who claim to support Hobby Lobby, and in this case, the SCOTUS upheld this bad science which is fucking terrifying.

So. You made Jesus cry. And you made the rest of us turn into rocket ships in our rage. Hope you’re happy.

(I was going to draw you a picture of me, as a rocket, leaving the planet, but I’m bad at drawing and all my rockets just looked like dicks which, I think, is against the spirit of this post. Next time I leave the planet I’m leaving in a vulva-shaped ship.)

But here are the facts: This law doesn’t protect corporations from having to provide other medical care that they feel is against their religion. Companies run by Jehovah’s Witnesses are still forced to provide blood transfusions, Christian Scientists are still required to provide for vaccinations. If this was actually about protecting religion, this would cover all medical-related things that all religions avoid. But it doesn’t. Because it’s not about religion.

This law also continues to provide for such medically unnecessary things such as Viagra or a penis pump. It is literally only the things that apply to women that are included in this. Go ahead. Tell me how we don’t need feminism. Tell me how this isn’t misogynistic. Go ahead and tell me how women receive equal rights. Say it. I dare you. This is nothing but means to control women. Why the hell else would someone ever care what I do with my own body?

This is a Woman

Flames. Flames on the sides of my face.

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So I am not writing about this myself right now. Partly because I’m basically like Mrs. White in that one scene from Clue on this subject this week. Instead I’ve been sharing my favorite things that come across my various feeds on TIAW’s Facebook page, and on TIAW’s Tumblr. In an unrelated (except that it involves the patriarchy and sexism) issue I wrote this in my journal last night:

I am SO VERY STABBY about the patriarchy that I sort of want to grab a torch and just walk screaming and chanting down the street as more and more pissed-off women join with their torches until we become an angry mob marching all the way to actual Washing DC where Michelle Obama and her girls will grab torches and join us. And people actually have to listen to us because we are, in fact, more than half of the population and I guarantee you that when we all join forces we will be one big flaming mass of reckoning. And then we will drop all of our torches and will physically dismantle the patriarchy with our bare hands while screaming obscenities at the misogynists, cowering in fear in their rightful place in the corner.

Like. I want to LOSE MY ACTUAL SHIT over the patriarchy right now, I am so mad. And it makes me more mad to think that people will just write it off as feminazi shit, or “chicks are crazy, man.”

So I saw this article. And it’s a good one. But the title. The title. I am going to make myself a shirt that says “Furious Feminist” and wear it proudly and any time someone tries to brush off my rightful anger as “crazy” I’ll be all HELL YES I’M CRAZY WITH MOTHERFUCKING ANGER, YOU MISOGYNIST PIG. And any time someone tries to brush off my rightful anger by saying I’m “just an angry feminist” I’ll be all HELL NO YOU GOT IT WRONG, ASSMASK, I’M MOTHERFUCKING FURIOUS.

The Zebra, This is a Woman

I don’t want to jinx anything, but here’s the first introspective psycho-spiritual growth post I’ve been able to write in a long time.

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This is the cute side of my head today.

Lately I’ve been introspective, reframing some thoughts I have about my self-proclaimed faults. I have long worked to balanced the good and bad of all things – to find the positive aspects of a troublesome trait or situation and vice versa. So I sometimes try to find the good facets of my faults (although admittedly not always).

One thing that has always been glaringly obvious to me is my need to please everyone around me to the extent that I sometimes sacrifice myself or my needs just to not make people even slightly annoyed with me. They teach you all through school not to give in to peer pressure and this sometimes manifests in that way so I feel like I should have learned this lesson a long time ago. And yet, I still struggle. Sometimes this means I’m really insecure about my tastes in music (which… why music? I’m not insecure in my tastes in books or television or fashion. huh). But, if I am being totally honest, sometimes this means that I listen with two widely open ears to the thoughts and feelings of other people. And so my openness, my need to please people, has actually made me more empathetic and careful and thoughtful.

Of course, just for fun, mix that in with my social anxiety and I become a tightly wind ball of awkward afraid to say any words in any order in the fear that I might inadvertently hurt someone. Thank god I’m cute.

My son is a good reader, but he does not (yet?) enjoy it very much. Once he told me it’s because he can’t see the pictures in his head. I know he’s got a mind that is very different from me. He’s a born engineer, and I suspect he’s got ADHD. So what if his brain is wired in a way that makes reading less enjoyable to him than watching a movie? I feel so strongly that books are important (and they ARE), but I wonder if maybe it’s okay to not like reading sometimes. Maybe it’s okay to have a differently wired brain, one that doesn’t like reading as much as some. It doesn’t make him any less smart, and it sure as hell doesn’t make him any less valuable.

So I started thinking about my faults – about this desperate need to please people – and about how those things mean both good and bad things for me. And I started to wonder if maybe it’s okay to just BE who I am. Maybe needing to please people isn’t something I need to fix about me. Maybe it’s just a part of me that gives me a gift in exchange for being challenged in other ways.

This week I went to a therapy appointment (because I do that now) and talked about my issues with self-hate. Because confession: Even after all the work I’ve done in myself and in the world, I still have this little ball of self-hatred underneath all the self-love and all the goodness that just won’t.go.away. I’ve tried everything. But that hard little core of loathing is just there. So I asked my therapist why and how I can make that stop and she said, “Maybe you don’t. Maybe you just learn to live with it.” And that was really not what I was expecting. But she has recently been doing work with balancing the light and the darkness of the psyche (my words, not hers) and I think she has a point. And I think this is all related to my recent musings. Maybe my little bit of self-hate is just a part of who I am. Of how I am wired (for some reason – maybe genetic, maybe a result of past abuses). Maybe if I just let her be, and accept that she’s always going to be there, maybe she won’t have as much power over me.

And honestly, it’s only been two days, but I feel like I might be on to something.

So here’s my radical experiment: Love my self-hate. Accept and acknowledge that little ball of self-hate. Talk about her when needed, casually, even. Don’t try to erase her, don’t try to hide her, don’t try to fight her. Just love her. Loving my self-hate. When Jesus said to love our enemies, maybe he also meant ourselves.

This is a Woman

Tips for Dads: Don’t Marry Your Daughters

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photo-020

PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY: Sometimes I forget that the internet is a vast place comprised of many people. I wrote this post yesterday quickly and only after having discussed it with people who pick apart the various levels of society’s collective psyche in the same way that I do. So to clarify, keep in mind the following as you read.
1. I am in NO WAY AT ALL unsympathetic to this family’s struggle and grief. I feel strongly for them. I guess that aspect of the story is so obvious to me that I did not specifically mention it in this piece I’ve written. My sympathy for them is very real and not at all related to how I feel about this particular action.
2. I do not believe that they consciously intended this to be possibly psychologically damaging for their child. This is something I actually did state in the article, but apparently it needs to be clarified up here at the top. I believe they were aiming for something beautiful. What I am picking apart here is not the family’s intentions, but the fact that such a thing isn’t considered problematic in our society at all. I am not writing this to attack anyone. I am writing this to try to expose a societal problem that we need to all be conscious of. The more we become conscious of things like this the sooner we will reach true gender equality.
3. This is written with my own personal brand of insightful snark. If you have a hard time with snark, don’t bother reading this.

Okay. Now you may begin.

So there’s this story in the news today about a father, dying of cancer, who wants to walk his daughter down the aisle before he dies. It sounds lovely until you get to the part about how his daughter is only 11 years old, was never asked about this (it was a birthday surprise), and that they modeled this after an actual wedding complete with rings and a lacy wedding dress.

It’s reminiscent of those purity balls (heh. balls), where a father signs a pledge to act as his daughter’s protector “in the area of purity”. (The creator of this pledge swears it’s not about his daughter’s vagina, but I’m betting it’s not NOT about his daughter’s vagina, you know. Like. I’m willing to bet that her being pure of intent but sexually liberal is probably not okay. Therefore? TOTALLY ABOUT HIS DAUGHTER’S VAGINA.) In the instance of purity balls, it’s a disturbing trend not only because it’s disturbing, but because it encompasses an entire community. Yet that community is relatively separate from the rest of our society, at least in this habit. Those who are not of this ultra-conservative mindset look on these people as kinda wacky, to be honest. The majority of the world tends to see it for as fucked-up as it is.

And perhaps the father of this 11 year old was really entirely innocent in his own desires here. I can believe it. Sometimes we’re merely products of the fucked world we live in. It depends on how deeply you want to dig into the psyche of what’s really going on here. And, I assure you that I always want to dig as deeply into the psyche of shit as I can. And, frankly, this should be everyone’s goal – how else can we solve societal problems if we don’t try to understand their many layers?

On the surface of this situation, we want to believe the father is honestly just trying to share a beautiful moment with his daughter. And that’s a lovely sentiment that I can get behind. I think, perhaps, a letter written to her to be shared at her future wedding or other life-event might have been vastly more appropriate, though.

It’s irrelevant, though. No matter how sincere the intent, the world we live in is fucked up and even if he doesn’t realize it, what he is actually saying is not only that his daughter MUST marry (he’s not really giving her the option of how she will choose to live her adult life) but also that women are the property of the men around them and, in absence of a husband, a father will be the owner. If you check out the clip linked in this Jezebel article on purity balls (haha. balls), you’ll see the creator explain that the point of the purity ball is to teach daughters “how they should expect to be treated by men.” So, in this case, a literal child is told she’s going to pretend-marry her father without any consent on her part (it’s all planned ahead of time – even if she LOVED the idea, I argue that it’s without her consent). Is that how he wants a future man to treat his child? I’m guessing no. Probably because he considers her his property and doesn’t want another man controlling his property. But that’s just my guess.

Quite the opposite of how the majority of the world sees purity balls, in this story, this one incident involving the 11 year old, anyone questioning the appropriateness of the ceremony is considered to be the pervert. Just read the comments on the Facebook page where I originally found the article. This disturbs me because not only are we doing this thing to girls, but now society is not only supporting it, but we are also condemning anyone who questions it. Ew.

Further, this wasn’t about creating a lasting memory for HER, this was about what HE wanted. While I do think it’s important to do things for parents in the sense of creating memories and supporting them as people and in their parenting roles, the very point of being a parent is to raise people. We don’t have children for our benefit. That’s why we get pets. If you want a dog, get a dog. If you want to create a new person in the hopes of leaving this world in the hands of a competent and amazing new generation of people, have a child. This “wedding” isn’t just a nice, sentimental thing for her, this is his selfish desires warping her psyche. Even with the VERY BEST of intentions. As the creator of the purity ball says about 607 times in the above linked clip, “this is about fathers.”

Dads? Dont marry your daughters, okay? Instead consider treating them as though they are humans capable of intelligent thought and real feelings. And with that plan I bet you’ll get a pure-of-intent adult daughter and you’ll never have to pretend not to laugh when you hear the phrase “purity balls.” It’s basically win-win.

Lady Links, This is a Woman

Lady Links 3.6

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The clouds stop here.
this photo came out extra hipster so pretend it’s really, really motivational

I’m not gonna make excuses for why I haven’t posted one of these in like 100 years. I’m not gonna make excuses for why I haven’t posted one of these in like 100 years. I’m not gonna make excuses for why I haven’t posted one of these in like 100 years. I’m not gonna make excuses for why I haven’t posted one of these in like 100 years.

~TIAW on Pinterest and Tumblr.

The Bullshit:
~Get your barf bag ready because WHAT THE FUCK, MASSACHUSETTS? Update: Not everyone in MA is living in the dark ages.
~The story of one abusive relationship.

The Awesome:
~This guy basically let his life nearly completely fall apart in order to improve the lives of Indian women.
~Nicki Minaj being basically gorgeous, even straight out of the shower without any makeup.
~Buzzfeed asked Kevin Spacey the same questions women usually get asked and he is baffled.
~At some point Cracked became the new educational source online and Buzzfeed seems to be the new feminist one. I’m not sure what’s happening to the world, but I might be okay with it. Five things more likely to happen to you than being falsely accused of rape.

Lady Links, This is a Woman

Lady Links 2.10

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Um. So. This is late. Because last week I maybe kinda forgot a little? *cough* thank god I’m cute.

I feel like this isn’t timely since this is what everyone was talking about last week and not so much now. But it’s not like these issues have gone away.

So this little thing with Woody Allen happened and polarized the world, basically. His daughter, Dylan, came forth after his appreciation at the Golden Globes and reminded everyone about that time he was accused of molesting her when she was a child. Then this guy who sort of knew Woody Allen professionally made a reply to Dylan’s accusations and I won’t even link to it because it’s disgusting. The author very carefully used words and phrases and reasoning that people ALWAYS use to silence victims. Girls are lying liars who lie! Dare not question the Artist! He’s the victim here! (I paraphrase for the snark.) But good things have been written in Dylan’s defense as well. This is an excellent piece which I would quote for you but all the best parts are the entire thing and I think that might just be plagiarism. And there’s this one: Are Children Supposed to Document Their Abuse? Because. I mean. Really. The title speaks volumes. But it goes on to point out that, if indeed, people in America are considered innocent until proven guilty, and if indeed, we will never know what really happened – why are we demonizing the child here and making the potential abuser out to be a saint. If we truly cannot prove who is lying then lay the fuck off Dylan. Because when you disregard her abuse, you simultaneously disregard the abuse of every other victim in the world, too. When you demonize her, you simultaneously demonize every other victim in the world, too. So don’t do that. Just don’t.

And then there’s Phillip Seymour Hoffman. And I know he’s not a woman. But it’s not like addiction doesn’t ever strike women. And what it is about is changing the way we think about things which is one of the fundamental aspects of the Lady Links. So we’re talking about this today. We heard this news while visiting a tiny mountain town to celebrate my birthday. To be honest I’m still kind of in denial about it. But then Jared Padalecki tweeted out that Hoffman’s death wasn’t a tragedy and we discussed this. And I don’t know why, maybe it was the wine, or the sugar high combined with the higher altitude, or maybe I just really like the sound of my own voice more than being reasonable and compassionate (I do tend to process things slowly in my mind, but my mouth never gets the message to hold off), but at the time it seemed like a good thing to agree with, although I felt like it was a shitty way to have put it. But as I was driving home that night – even before I’d read the opinions about this on Tumblr – I realized how stupid that is. And as much as I tried to make excuses for my own stupid agreement with the comment, I just could not figure out how addiction isn’t a tragedy. Lord knows I’ve seen it enough in my life. And some people can recover, but they struggle every single day with it. Russell Brand once wrote a really great piece about this. But some people don’t ever conquer addiction. My grandma had lung cancer twice and wasn’t ever able to put the cigarettes down. And I don’t honestly know if that even compares to hard drugs – I just know that it’s a fucking tragedy when addiction rules your life. And it’s a fucking tragedy when the entire world blames a person for their own struggles. Because the thing is that no one sets out to lose control of their life. No one consciously chooses to struggle with addiction every single day for the rest of their lives. Whatever led them to that point is a tragedy and it is heartless and inconsiderate and unacceptable to not try to understand that. Again, Brand speaks up and poses this question, “Would Hoffman have died … if we weren’t invited to believe that people who suffer from addiction deserve to suffer?”

Lady Links, This is a Woman

Lady Links 1.24

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field o' daisies
an unrelated picture of flowers for you

~TIAW on Tumblr and Pinterest.
~”But this also hints that as much as self-proclaimed progressives wantto exist in a world where looks don’t matter to the point where they can be ignored, they still matter.”
~If you haven’t seen this yet, you really need to see this.
~Here’s a thought – let’s stop picking other women’s choices apart and just support everyone. LOVE.
~This is a beautifully done music video which shows that people on screen are not always what they seem.
~Speaking of retouching photos and video, you absolutely need to click on this link. Just make sure you aren’t drinking anything while you read through it because the hilarity will make you spit your drink all over you computer

Lady Links, This is a Woman

Lady Links 1.17

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Is "I'm sorry professor but god wouldn't let me study because sunset" a good excuse? #nofilter
Pretend this amazing sunset is particularly feminist in some way.

OH LOOK. A LADY LINKS POST. WHAT.

~TIAW on Tumblr and Pinterest.
~One of the things that comes up from time to time on SOAM is that women tend to stress about what their bellies look like when they are on all fours. I remember when my second baby was a newborn and I had mastitis and was given the prescription of nursing him on the floor while leaning over him to let gravity help clear out the blocked duct. And I noticed that my boobs looked really weird from that angle. Because here’s the thing: BODIES ARE REALLY WEIRD. They are smelly and gross and do things that are wholly inappropriate. But we cover and hide all of that part of humanity so we are only regularly exposed to one aspect of human beauty. I love this link because it compares bodies in a flattering pose right next to one in an unflattering pose so you can see exactly how weird the bay actually is, and to help you remember how arbitrary it is that we decided only one of those poses is a flattering one. In either case the body is equally as disgusting and amazing if you really stop and think about it.
~A very SOAM-relevant post.
~Geena Davis solves Hollywood sexism for you.
~Mormon women pose nude FOR FEMINISM!

Review, This is a Woman

Frozen is possibly the best princess movie ever.

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(This was supposed to be some Lady Links but I uh, ran out of time. Um. Sorry about that. Go see Frozen.)

frozen_poster

So I’m way late to the Frozen party. I don’t know why. I just assumed it was Yet Another Disney Princess Movie and I felt really meh about that. Cause we’ve seen that story and I’m over it. It wasn’t until my friend Summer took her nephew to see it and came back and told me that it had similar themes to those in Brave that I realized it was something I should spend my time and money on.

AND IT WAS.

I wrote a whole review of Brave when it came out and it’s really kind of late to do that for Frozen so I’ll just say one thing about it. After a warning about spoilers. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read the next paragraph!

SPOILERS:
Romantic love is definitely an important kind of love, but it’s not the only important kind of love. Unfortunately our culture devotes an unbalanced amount of time to romantic love over every other kind of love – especially in princess movies. So when this movie started going on and on about an Act of True Love, I saw forward and crossed my fingers that it would turn out to be a different kind of love. AND IT WAS. In this movie there was a romance and a choice between two men. There was love at first sight and there was the kind of love that develops by working together with a friend. But the love that saved the day – the True Love – was a sister’s love. And I jumped up, tears streaming down my face, cheering and clapping and wanting desperately to hug all the people who wrote this movie. Well. Most of that I did internally. But there may or may not have been copious amounts of tears involved.
/SPOILERS.

So basically. GO SEE IT. Take every child you can find to go see it. Just grab random children on your way in* and tell their parents you’re teaching them important life lessons. I’m sure they won’t mind.

So if you’ve been wary of seeing this because Princess Movies, let it go (OH YES I DID JUST DO THAT) and go see it. You won’t be sorry.

*The views expressed by the blogger are not endorsed by the owner of this blog or your local police authorities.