You know, during the last month I've been doing a lot of thinking... or rather, a lot of doing and less thinking about that doing, and then thinking about not thinking about doing and how nice it is.
In other words, my serotonin levels have stabilized themselves in slightly larger quantities than they had before I did my little lifestyle flip-up. And I'm happier, and I'm having to adjust to the apparent changes in my thought processes that result from a dose of the good old healthy living. Like, the severe reduction of social anxiety, and the boundless energy I seem to possess. Things like that.
Anyway, this is my feminist blog, so I feel the need to post something about feminism. And I've been having some interesting new thoughts about feminism recently that do not necessarily contradict anything I've said before; rather, they take a different approach to identifying and dealing with the problems that this society of ours likes to hand out to people who aren't born on top.
In my law class this summer one of the more thought-provoking tidbits of info I learned came in the form of the Supreme Court's general attitude toward prior restraint, AKA censorship. Congress cannot legally make a law to abridge any sort of speech, so it doesn't, and that decision is upheld time after time by the Supreme Court's decisions. Hate speech is protected. The idea, but not execution of, child pornography is protected. The only kind of speech not protected is that which the Supreme Court deems obscene, basically something with zero value whatsoever, which when you take into account the "artistic value" or "political value" excuse, means that just about any speech you can think of is protected under the First Amendment.
So. The basic principle behind protecting speech is the "Marketplace of Ideas" theory, originally authored by John Milton in 1644. He implored the English government to stop censoring literature and other documents in hopes that Truth and Falsehood could grapple and Truth would come out on top by default, yadda yadda yadda. He proposed that bad ideas will burn out on their own, so there is no harm in letting people be exposed to them and learn from them rather than keeping them under wraps.
I'm not about to make some preachy argument defending anyone's speech. I see that the Marketplace of Ideas metaphor has done plenty of good, but I also think that John Milton and the Founding Fathers of this country could never have envisioned what America would become in the twenty-first century, right down to the mass-culture-flooded, technology-obsessed Supreme Arrogant Self-Appointed Leader of the ever-shrinking world that it is today. That it has led to a literal marketplace of ideas where sex in the form of exploited women always wins out as the "best" idea to sell a product or attract consumers tends to irk me. A lot. Appealing to humanity's basest instincts (and I say "humanity" meaning men and women, although the advertising industry probably has a different view on that) is not conducive to furthering the intellectual and social progress of society.
In any case, the point I was getting to really doesn't have to do with my complaining about capitalism. It has more to do with the remedy the Supreme Court offered for the people's concern with the legality of hate speech and obscenity, which was basically to give people a venue to argue back, and encourage that venue. The Supreme Court says that enriching speech rather than abridging it is the best way out of this mess. Twice as much speech is better than no speech at all.
Do you see where I'm going with this? Let those fuckers hate women, let pop culture spread its misogynistic sewage-grade filth around the country, let those people figure shit out for themselves. It's okay that anti-woman speech exists as long as pro-woman speech can coincide with it. And the best we feminists can do is make people aware of pro-woman sentiment. The best form of pro-woman speech is pro-feminist action, and what better way to act than to become an example of the truth of your words?
So, my dear friends, that is what I'm going to do: stay away from media and people that make me feel uncomfortable, call it out when I see it in daily life (but in a calm and helpful manner), and basically be my strong, beautiful feminist self without apology or hesitation. If people respect me as a strong, happy, intelligent and productive person, then I've done my job by proving to them that feminism works and disproving the stereotypes surrounding feminists. And hopefully I will serve as an example to the girls around me that freedom from endless self-criticism and submission is indeed possible, and definitely worth fighting for.
I just haven't had the heart to be negative lately, so I'm being subversive by example, and I find it much less jarring than constant vigilance.
In other words, my serotonin levels have stabilized themselves in slightly larger quantities than they had before I did my little lifestyle flip-up. And I'm happier, and I'm having to adjust to the apparent changes in my thought processes that result from a dose of the good old healthy living. Like, the severe reduction of social anxiety, and the boundless energy I seem to possess. Things like that.
Anyway, this is my feminist blog, so I feel the need to post something about feminism. And I've been having some interesting new thoughts about feminism recently that do not necessarily contradict anything I've said before; rather, they take a different approach to identifying and dealing with the problems that this society of ours likes to hand out to people who aren't born on top.
In my law class this summer one of the more thought-provoking tidbits of info I learned came in the form of the Supreme Court's general attitude toward prior restraint, AKA censorship. Congress cannot legally make a law to abridge any sort of speech, so it doesn't, and that decision is upheld time after time by the Supreme Court's decisions. Hate speech is protected. The idea, but not execution of, child pornography is protected. The only kind of speech not protected is that which the Supreme Court deems obscene, basically something with zero value whatsoever, which when you take into account the "artistic value" or "political value" excuse, means that just about any speech you can think of is protected under the First Amendment.
So. The basic principle behind protecting speech is the "Marketplace of Ideas" theory, originally authored by John Milton in 1644. He implored the English government to stop censoring literature and other documents in hopes that Truth and Falsehood could grapple and Truth would come out on top by default, yadda yadda yadda. He proposed that bad ideas will burn out on their own, so there is no harm in letting people be exposed to them and learn from them rather than keeping them under wraps.
I'm not about to make some preachy argument defending anyone's speech. I see that the Marketplace of Ideas metaphor has done plenty of good, but I also think that John Milton and the Founding Fathers of this country could never have envisioned what America would become in the twenty-first century, right down to the mass-culture-flooded, technology-obsessed Supreme Arrogant Self-Appointed Leader of the ever-shrinking world that it is today. That it has led to a literal marketplace of ideas where sex in the form of exploited women always wins out as the "best" idea to sell a product or attract consumers tends to irk me. A lot. Appealing to humanity's basest instincts (and I say "humanity" meaning men and women, although the advertising industry probably has a different view on that) is not conducive to furthering the intellectual and social progress of society.
In any case, the point I was getting to really doesn't have to do with my complaining about capitalism. It has more to do with the remedy the Supreme Court offered for the people's concern with the legality of hate speech and obscenity, which was basically to give people a venue to argue back, and encourage that venue. The Supreme Court says that enriching speech rather than abridging it is the best way out of this mess. Twice as much speech is better than no speech at all.
Do you see where I'm going with this? Let those fuckers hate women, let pop culture spread its misogynistic sewage-grade filth around the country, let those people figure shit out for themselves. It's okay that anti-woman speech exists as long as pro-woman speech can coincide with it. And the best we feminists can do is make people aware of pro-woman sentiment. The best form of pro-woman speech is pro-feminist action, and what better way to act than to become an example of the truth of your words?
So, my dear friends, that is what I'm going to do: stay away from media and people that make me feel uncomfortable, call it out when I see it in daily life (but in a calm and helpful manner), and basically be my strong, beautiful feminist self without apology or hesitation. If people respect me as a strong, happy, intelligent and productive person, then I've done my job by proving to them that feminism works and disproving the stereotypes surrounding feminists. And hopefully I will serve as an example to the girls around me that freedom from endless self-criticism and submission is indeed possible, and definitely worth fighting for.
I just haven't had the heart to be negative lately, so I'm being subversive by example, and I find it much less jarring than constant vigilance.
- Location:my bed
- Mood:
happy
I have certain qualms about being healthy. Over the last couple of years I've come to realize this. Having to eat like a Chinese farmer and exercise almost daily to maintain a stable mental condition doesn't exactly scream "Secure Woman.” In fact, it’s kind of embarrassing. One of the things I'm uneasy about is telling people about my lifestyle, then telling them that I am a recovered bulimic, and a feminist. I figure people will make a connection and think, Oh, gee, she still hates her body, she just found a better way to get around it and is a total hypocrite for calling herself a feminist.
In a way I suppose that's true. I am still terrified of my own fat, but I have learned that the fear is centered more on people seeing it than on merely having it (and this is a reasonable fear, since I'm still recovering from the stage of life where my entire wardrobe was skintight). It's a matter of showing people what type of person I am, because as they say, you decide who someone is in the first fourteen seconds or so. And I want people to know that I am a person who desperately values physical health.
Without ever having to affirm it aloud, I know my body is a temple, thanks to my past. When I gain weight or stop working out there is a feeling of wrong: Someone who is doing what she knows she must to keep her body and mind healthy doesn't gain weight or stop working out without a good reason. And I have never been very forgiving of myself when it comes to food: first, for aesthetic reasons, and now more than anything for my mental health. I strive to live up to the high standards I set for myself because I know it's best for me.
I used to disrespect my body. I used to eat way more than I should have of foods that would hurt my body more than help it. Then I would further that disrespect by upchucking my dinner and doing it all over again. And again. I was quite a dedicated bulimic, and I didn't give a shit what terrible effects my behavior had on my body. I wanted instant gratification: instant weight loss, and later, instant emotional relief. I hated my body and its unwillingness to be less, so I mistreated it and deprived it until it was less. I never did feel good about how I looked, though, even after losing thirty pounds.
Fast forward to nearly seven years later, and my thoughts on my body lie in the other extreme: I respect it in the utmost. I'm adult enough now to realize the influence a hurt, malnourished body has on the mind. As a teenager I saw no connection between the two: what relation do thoughts have to actual flesh? And as I experimented with various lifestyles after rehab (low-carbing it, different degrees of exercise, drinking alcohol, smoking pot, using caffeine...the list goes on) I learned that each time I changed the way I ate or whether I exercised or what foreign substances I put into my body, my ways of thinking also invariably changed. My ways of thinking about everything changed. My whole view of the world changed.
Chemical reactions and vitamins and endorphins slow down and accelerate and affect you differently according to what you put in, and get out of, your body. And for whatever reason, my chemical reactions and brain-thingies are a little more sensitive to that kind of thing than most people’s are.
Treating my body right, and strictly so, isn't some sort of vain endeavor I undertook to become compatible with Beauty2K (as seen on TV). Rather, it's necessary for me to maintain a level of brain function that is most conducive to a fulfilling, energetic and productive lifestyle. The being more attractive (according to our cultural standards) part— and who doesn't want to look good?— is really just a fringe benefit.
Right now I'm experimenting with my diet and exercise to see if I can eradicate my premenstrual mood swings without taking hormones. I stopped eating red meat and started eating more beans and legumes and vegetables. Less sugar and caffeine and dairy and more decaf green tea. I started running three miles a day. And voila! So far I've lost weight, and even better, I’ve been in a great mood for a couple weeks. I'm full quickly, I don't eat when I'm bored, I don't feel cravings for sugar— those health nuts are on to something— but best of all, I don’t ever feel guilty for eating or being full, because I know I’m doing it right. I don’t hate myself or how I look because there’s no reason to when I’m treating my body as it deserves to be treated!
For me, being able to eat as much as I want whenever I feel like it and not losing control is a sure sign that I'm on the right track as far as my diet's substance. If the subject matter were pizza, for example, I wouldn't be able to have a healthy attitude toward it still. I couldn't as a teenager, and I can't now.
I think it's a kind of blessing that the threshold for the attention I have to pay to my body in order to feel all right is so tiny. Most people go through life on mediocre diets, lucky to get any exercise at all, and never think twice that changing those simple things might cure their unhappiness, lack of energy, moodiness, etc., because they've never been forced to in order to stay functional. Our culture treats healthy food and exercise like torture—why would anyone willingly do those things for any reason other than to lose weight?—and our culture also happens to be based on making money. The diet industry can't make money if it promotes natural, healthy eating and exercise, so it demonizes them. And people believe the hype because they don't know any better.
Maybe I did have to find out the hard way (it seems I learn the most important lessons that way) what with the bulimia and the rehab and all, but I'm sure glad it happened, or I'd probably be one of the stock college girls with a fake tan and an empty stomach, trying to look like Paris Hilton and ever dissatisfied with my body, no matter how much weight I lost.
I still feel guilty for enjoying the benefit of looking good, though, because I shouldn't care about my appearance that much... but then I remember that lately my thoughts aren't on my actual shape so much as they are the signs of health: energy, mood, muscles. And I suppose the main reward isn’t physical so much as it is mental: I no longer have thoughts of disgust toward my body, or judge myself, or compare myself to other women, because I know I’m doing it for the right reasons.
In any case, I deserve it. FUCK YOU, diet industry.
In a way I suppose that's true. I am still terrified of my own fat, but I have learned that the fear is centered more on people seeing it than on merely having it (and this is a reasonable fear, since I'm still recovering from the stage of life where my entire wardrobe was skintight). It's a matter of showing people what type of person I am, because as they say, you decide who someone is in the first fourteen seconds or so. And I want people to know that I am a person who desperately values physical health.
Without ever having to affirm it aloud, I know my body is a temple, thanks to my past. When I gain weight or stop working out there is a feeling of wrong: Someone who is doing what she knows she must to keep her body and mind healthy doesn't gain weight or stop working out without a good reason. And I have never been very forgiving of myself when it comes to food: first, for aesthetic reasons, and now more than anything for my mental health. I strive to live up to the high standards I set for myself because I know it's best for me.
I used to disrespect my body. I used to eat way more than I should have of foods that would hurt my body more than help it. Then I would further that disrespect by upchucking my dinner and doing it all over again. And again. I was quite a dedicated bulimic, and I didn't give a shit what terrible effects my behavior had on my body. I wanted instant gratification: instant weight loss, and later, instant emotional relief. I hated my body and its unwillingness to be less, so I mistreated it and deprived it until it was less. I never did feel good about how I looked, though, even after losing thirty pounds.
Fast forward to nearly seven years later, and my thoughts on my body lie in the other extreme: I respect it in the utmost. I'm adult enough now to realize the influence a hurt, malnourished body has on the mind. As a teenager I saw no connection between the two: what relation do thoughts have to actual flesh? And as I experimented with various lifestyles after rehab (low-carbing it, different degrees of exercise, drinking alcohol, smoking pot, using caffeine...the list goes on) I learned that each time I changed the way I ate or whether I exercised or what foreign substances I put into my body, my ways of thinking also invariably changed. My ways of thinking about everything changed. My whole view of the world changed.
Chemical reactions and vitamins and endorphins slow down and accelerate and affect you differently according to what you put in, and get out of, your body. And for whatever reason, my chemical reactions and brain-thingies are a little more sensitive to that kind of thing than most people’s are.
Treating my body right, and strictly so, isn't some sort of vain endeavor I undertook to become compatible with Beauty2K (as seen on TV). Rather, it's necessary for me to maintain a level of brain function that is most conducive to a fulfilling, energetic and productive lifestyle. The being more attractive (according to our cultural standards) part— and who doesn't want to look good?— is really just a fringe benefit.
Right now I'm experimenting with my diet and exercise to see if I can eradicate my premenstrual mood swings without taking hormones. I stopped eating red meat and started eating more beans and legumes and vegetables. Less sugar and caffeine and dairy and more decaf green tea. I started running three miles a day. And voila! So far I've lost weight, and even better, I’ve been in a great mood for a couple weeks. I'm full quickly, I don't eat when I'm bored, I don't feel cravings for sugar— those health nuts are on to something— but best of all, I don’t ever feel guilty for eating or being full, because I know I’m doing it right. I don’t hate myself or how I look because there’s no reason to when I’m treating my body as it deserves to be treated!
For me, being able to eat as much as I want whenever I feel like it and not losing control is a sure sign that I'm on the right track as far as my diet's substance. If the subject matter were pizza, for example, I wouldn't be able to have a healthy attitude toward it still. I couldn't as a teenager, and I can't now.
I think it's a kind of blessing that the threshold for the attention I have to pay to my body in order to feel all right is so tiny. Most people go through life on mediocre diets, lucky to get any exercise at all, and never think twice that changing those simple things might cure their unhappiness, lack of energy, moodiness, etc., because they've never been forced to in order to stay functional. Our culture treats healthy food and exercise like torture—why would anyone willingly do those things for any reason other than to lose weight?—and our culture also happens to be based on making money. The diet industry can't make money if it promotes natural, healthy eating and exercise, so it demonizes them. And people believe the hype because they don't know any better.
Maybe I did have to find out the hard way (it seems I learn the most important lessons that way) what with the bulimia and the rehab and all, but I'm sure glad it happened, or I'd probably be one of the stock college girls with a fake tan and an empty stomach, trying to look like Paris Hilton and ever dissatisfied with my body, no matter how much weight I lost.
I still feel guilty for enjoying the benefit of looking good, though, because I shouldn't care about my appearance that much... but then I remember that lately my thoughts aren't on my actual shape so much as they are the signs of health: energy, mood, muscles. And I suppose the main reward isn’t physical so much as it is mental: I no longer have thoughts of disgust toward my body, or judge myself, or compare myself to other women, because I know I’m doing it for the right reasons.
In any case, I deserve it. FUCK YOU, diet industry.
- Location:Hamilton Hall 50013
Welp, I made those big changes to my life and now I'm reaping the benefits, but life still has that crazy transitory feeling where anything can happen and I'm particularly vulnerable to new ways of thinking. And I'm back to trying to anchor myself in something like I've never really had the chance to do, because I've always been with someone. So this should be a really interesting and hopefully eye-opening stage of my life. Occurring at the appropriate time --- graduating soon, moving soon, soon to be responsible for paying my own way through life --- it's time to figure out what I want.
So I've been exercising a LOT, eating better, getting off birth control (youngagain.com, I downloaded this book called No More Horse Estrogen, quite enlightening stuff), meeting new people, and waking up at the crack of eleven every day instead of 3 or 4 p.m. like I did last summer. And I've been reading a ton of books, and playing my flute (getting good on the Gigues) and rediscovering some old music (The Shins will never die). Only thing I'm worried about now is staying on track, because I know this momentum will not last very long. And I have resisted insecurity thus far; in fact, I've felt at peace with my decisions and little to no tension between Troy and I, which is perfect, because it doesn't need tension. We just grew apart, you know? Became different people. I don't want to hold myself or anyone else back because my expectations changed. It was stifling and unhealthy, and I love him too much to maintain something that was deteriorating our respect for each other little by little. I'd much rather stay friends our whole lives.
I do love Ames but the whole cycle of college-- people showing up, people leaving, people coming back then leaving again, graduation parties and Halloween parties and New Years' parties over and over-- is tiring and the fact that I'm still here, the same, only different, is starting to wear on me. Roxanne too. It's weird to feel old in Ames, and I'm not even old, but I feel as though I'm overstaying my welcome I guess. It's no fun when there is so little to inspire. I know I should be writing all the time, I have so many ideas, but a salad bowl of insecurities and doubt and a so what sort of voice in my mind make it seem like too tedious a task to even try. This is the first thing I've written in probably a month.
Maybe I'm just in the absorbent stage of creativity, where a person absorbs knowledge and ideas and scenarios (not to mention the crazy stuff I've been dreaming about) and then builds it up to eventually spit it out in a more interesting form during a routine nervous breakdown.
Characters. I need characters. People need characters. Am I a character?
I woke up this morning feeling literally beaten. My knees hurt, I have huge bruises on my calves and my quadriceps were burning. I was blackout drunk most of the night last night. Autopilot actually. I'd thought I lost my phone but this morning I found it in my wallet. I read for an hour then went to Stomping Grounds, and I'm still dizzy even after some caffeine. Still on autopilot maybe.
In any case I think I'm going to start writing soon since I'm settled into my summer routine: wake up, class, food, nap, gym, whatever till bed. Inspiration acquired from the books I've been reading and little place else.
So I've been exercising a LOT, eating better, getting off birth control (youngagain.com, I downloaded this book called No More Horse Estrogen, quite enlightening stuff), meeting new people, and waking up at the crack of eleven every day instead of 3 or 4 p.m. like I did last summer. And I've been reading a ton of books, and playing my flute (getting good on the Gigues) and rediscovering some old music (The Shins will never die). Only thing I'm worried about now is staying on track, because I know this momentum will not last very long. And I have resisted insecurity thus far; in fact, I've felt at peace with my decisions and little to no tension between Troy and I, which is perfect, because it doesn't need tension. We just grew apart, you know? Became different people. I don't want to hold myself or anyone else back because my expectations changed. It was stifling and unhealthy, and I love him too much to maintain something that was deteriorating our respect for each other little by little. I'd much rather stay friends our whole lives.
I do love Ames but the whole cycle of college-- people showing up, people leaving, people coming back then leaving again, graduation parties and Halloween parties and New Years' parties over and over-- is tiring and the fact that I'm still here, the same, only different, is starting to wear on me. Roxanne too. It's weird to feel old in Ames, and I'm not even old, but I feel as though I'm overstaying my welcome I guess. It's no fun when there is so little to inspire. I know I should be writing all the time, I have so many ideas, but a salad bowl of insecurities and doubt and a so what sort of voice in my mind make it seem like too tedious a task to even try. This is the first thing I've written in probably a month.
Maybe I'm just in the absorbent stage of creativity, where a person absorbs knowledge and ideas and scenarios (not to mention the crazy stuff I've been dreaming about) and then builds it up to eventually spit it out in a more interesting form during a routine nervous breakdown.
Characters. I need characters. People need characters. Am I a character?
I woke up this morning feeling literally beaten. My knees hurt, I have huge bruises on my calves and my quadriceps were burning. I was blackout drunk most of the night last night. Autopilot actually. I'd thought I lost my phone but this morning I found it in my wallet. I read for an hour then went to Stomping Grounds, and I'm still dizzy even after some caffeine. Still on autopilot maybe.
In any case I think I'm going to start writing soon since I'm settled into my summer routine: wake up, class, food, nap, gym, whatever till bed. Inspiration acquired from the books I've been reading and little place else.
- Location:Stomping Grounds 50014
this one i wrote in rehab. so, 2003.
he gave me a diamond ring
how much did you pay? I asked
the mirrored white faces and
charming rose band
coupled with his showy love
'priceless'
he said
Laundry Day
I found the folded bill
in his closet
'RETURN IN 30 DAYS' stamped there
and below it, in small typed
print
read the price.
My bath towels
cost more than that
so I heaved his lie
against the wall
and it broke.
Now an impassive set of eyes
fixed on my unadorned finger
I smile like his diamond.
Bare skin unglues and
he sits up
inquiring eyebrows
and still my smile
A tear is not enough to crush a
newly hardened heart
mine wouldn't even crack
his did.
And I didn't even have to raise my voice.
I strangled him with my little dimple
========
y de repente el tos me cubre con sus returmbas del dolor y yo me acuerdo de mi vida
and sometimes i worry
that i am truly living
in a world of false emotions
and tanned ribbons soaring
through a tormented black hole
a vaccuum so absolute that i couldn't even leave if i wanted to
the real existing people i
pretend to know
fail to show faces glimmering
of deception and laughter
of hatred and smoke
of intentions undermined
sit motionless and dead
no longer living
without life
sin animo
faded reality sings
far beyond my reach
i am confused, so terrified
without direction and
without pride
my mind whirls, confounded
and shrilly resound my doubts
where is the truth
can i have the coordinates?
who is God here
will the answers then surround me like a butterfly
when will these beautiful questions cease to flow and then will i be empty or fulfilled?
it really is a silent scream
these impressions stick to me like
that scotch tape holding together a shallow greeting
you gave me yesterday
I think it's time you began to
let me know how you feel
slowly and carefully
but please don't be gentle
you know what you feel
solo hay que mostrarme
bueno, que vas a hacer?
por que no empiezas hablar todavia?
ya sabes que lo deseo eso
es que te da miedo?
no me considero amenazadora.
dime, como soy yo? como podria influirte a ser tu mismo, tu verdadero mismo?
hahahah my tenth grade spanish rocked.
he gave me a diamond ring
how much did you pay? I asked
the mirrored white faces and
charming rose band
coupled with his showy love
'priceless'
he said
Laundry Day
I found the folded bill
in his closet
'RETURN IN 30 DAYS' stamped there
and below it, in small typed
read the price.
My bath towels
cost more than that
so I heaved his lie
against the wall
and it broke.
Now an impassive set of eyes
fixed on my unadorned finger
I smile like his diamond.
Bare skin unglues and
he sits up
inquiring eyebrows
and still my smile
A tear is not enough to crush a
newly hardened heart
mine wouldn't even crack
his did.
And I didn't even have to raise my voice.
I strangled him with my little dimple
========
y de repente el tos me cubre con sus returmbas del dolor y yo me acuerdo de mi vida
and sometimes i worry
that i am truly living
in a world of false emotions
and tanned ribbons soaring
through a tormented black hole
a vaccuum so absolute that i couldn't even leave if i wanted to
the real existing people i
pretend to know
fail to show faces glimmering
of deception and laughter
of hatred and smoke
of intentions undermined
sit motionless and dead
no longer living
without life
sin animo
faded reality sings
far beyond my reach
i am confused, so terrified
without direction and
without pride
my mind whirls, confounded
and shrilly resound my doubts
where is the truth
can i have the coordinates?
who is God here
will the answers then surround me like a butterfly
when will these beautiful questions cease to flow and then will i be empty or fulfilled?
it really is a silent scream
these impressions stick to me like
that scotch tape holding together a shallow greeting
you gave me yesterday
I think it's time you began to
let me know how you feel
slowly and carefully
but please don't be gentle
you know what you feel
solo hay que mostrarme
bueno, que vas a hacer?
por que no empiezas hablar todavia?
ya sabes que lo deseo eso
es que te da miedo?
no me considero amenazadora.
dime, como soy yo? como podria influirte a ser tu mismo, tu verdadero mismo?
hahahah my tenth grade spanish rocked.
My real gripe, however, is the general presumption, which is widely held, even by some of the most feminist people I know, that women who suffer cyclical irritability with their menstrual cycles get "irrational" and/or express anger about things that don't really bother them; it's just that they're being "sensitive" because of the whole period thing. The problem is that I've seen people using that erroneous presumption as an excuse to not deal with the issue about which anger is being expressed, including women themselves, who have been told over and over that their periods do make them irrational and sensitive and thusly feel inclined to exhort partners to "just ignore" them—a request often obliged with no small amount of self-congratulation.
Let's put this shit to bed right now: Women don't lose their minds when they have period-related irritability. It doesn't lower their ability to reason; it lowers their patience and, hence, tolerance for bullshit. If an issue comes up a lot during "that time of the month," that doesn't mean she only cares about it once a month; it means she's bothered by it all the time and lacks the capacity, once a month, to shove it down and bury it beneath six gulps of willful silence. Those are the things most worth paying attention to. (By both people involved.)
Thanks Shakesville.
When you were young, were you told that you were pretty? Cute? Beautiful? How did that make you feel? Do you think being labeled "pretty girl" had an effect on the way you viewed yourself and on your intellectual and emotional development during adolescence?
Many girls—in fact, I would venture to say most girls— are told time and again throughout their young lives by parents, relatives, teachers and classmates that they are pretty. By the time a girl reaches adolescence, around age 12 or 13, it's more than likely that she has seen enough TV and movies to figure out that being pretty makes a woman more noticeable and, arguably, a better person (ugly stepsisters, anyone?). She will probably also have noticed that the prettier a woman is, the more attention she gets, and the "best" women are the prettiest and thinnest ones. That said, when she reaches the brink of womanhood, she's going to want to become as pretty as she can be. And how does she do that? She weans herself off National Geographic for Kids and starts on Cosmopolitan. She devours Seventeen with the hope that by the time she is, she'll be at her prettiest. And so it happens: the descent into the fiery pits of beauty culture that awaits unsuspecting "pretty girls" at the gates of womanhood.
Most girls are at least reasonably attractive by cultural standards, or can be "made" into such with the use of various grooming techniques and beauty products. Most girls, then, are at risk of contracting Pretty Girl Syndrome from society. PGS is an illness characterized by its onset during the adolescence of young females. Its symptoms include:
In most cases, the disease becomes less visible after a few years, but the psyche is damaged beyond immediate repair. Some common long-term effects of the disease include:
The results of these after-effects when present over a long period of time? Social isolation. Allowing the male gaze to determine exclusively one's self-worth. Extremely competitive attitudes toward other women. Assimilation to the sometimes (or often) misogynistic attitudes of young male friends. Low self-esteem. Loneliness. Social anxiety. Attributing unhappiness and unsatisfaction to inherent personality flaws. Using material products to try to manufacture satisfaction or self-worth. Unwillingness to question the attitudes of mass culture.
Women of some degree of conventional attractiveness are more likely to be victims of Pretty Girl Syndrome. Of course, other factors do play into this, like the involvement of parents or institutions in girls' lives (as far as body image goes, I've noticed that girls who are involved with the church or school sports have a much easier time), girls' prior exposure to pro-woman media and matters of race and class.
I am a victim of PGS, so I created the disease with the hope that others can realize that they are not alone. These behaviors and thought patterns are caused by uncontested exposure to the mass media. They are not inherent in women.
The most reliable and effective cure for PGS starts with a diagnosis. Identification of the problem should lead to a thorough examination of the pillars of one's development and, eventually, the necessary redefinition of one's identity. Feminism cured, or continues to cure, my PGS by giving me the tools to analyze the culture I grew up in and to connect the messages I received from the media with the behaviors and thought patterns I developed during adolescence, and the courage to continue moving against the general current in pursuit of complete contentment.
In the case of adolescent girls and the media, ignorance is not bliss: it is death. Intellectual, emotional, spiritual death.
Many girls—in fact, I would venture to say most girls— are told time and again throughout their young lives by parents, relatives, teachers and classmates that they are pretty. By the time a girl reaches adolescence, around age 12 or 13, it's more than likely that she has seen enough TV and movies to figure out that being pretty makes a woman more noticeable and, arguably, a better person (ugly stepsisters, anyone?). She will probably also have noticed that the prettier a woman is, the more attention she gets, and the "best" women are the prettiest and thinnest ones. That said, when she reaches the brink of womanhood, she's going to want to become as pretty as she can be. And how does she do that? She weans herself off National Geographic for Kids and starts on Cosmopolitan. She devours Seventeen with the hope that by the time she is, she'll be at her prettiest. And so it happens: the descent into the fiery pits of beauty culture that awaits unsuspecting "pretty girls" at the gates of womanhood.
Most girls are at least reasonably attractive by cultural standards, or can be "made" into such with the use of various grooming techniques and beauty products. Most girls, then, are at risk of contracting Pretty Girl Syndrome from society. PGS is an illness characterized by its onset during the adolescence of young females. Its symptoms include:
(1) lack of interest toward (or abandonment of) activities that don't involve beauty, fashion, thinness or social status. Activities abandoned may include sports, poetry, artistic endeavors or Nancy Drew novels;
(2) chronic low self-esteem, feelings of disgust toward the developing female body;
(3) impulsive and ongoing purchase of beauty or diet products;
(4) regular consumption and acceptance of available mass media (i.e. TV, movies, magazines);
(5) absolute deference to male peers for one's worth as a female; and
(6) total disregard for and unwillingness to consider the advice or input of elders
In most cases, the disease becomes less visible after a few years, but the psyche is damaged beyond immediate repair. Some common long-term effects of the disease include:
(1) a warped view of the workings of the world with regard to gender roles;
(2) serious self-devaluation and/or denial of intellectual potential or ability to contribute to society;
(3) a tendency to put one's relationships with men before friendships with other women;
(4) inability to consider rewarding friendships with other women possible at all;
(4) extreme sensitivity to images of "ideal" females in magazines or on TV;
(5) ongoing bouts of depression due to poor self-worth
The results of these after-effects when present over a long period of time? Social isolation. Allowing the male gaze to determine exclusively one's self-worth. Extremely competitive attitudes toward other women. Assimilation to the sometimes (or often) misogynistic attitudes of young male friends. Low self-esteem. Loneliness. Social anxiety. Attributing unhappiness and unsatisfaction to inherent personality flaws. Using material products to try to manufacture satisfaction or self-worth. Unwillingness to question the attitudes of mass culture.
Women of some degree of conventional attractiveness are more likely to be victims of Pretty Girl Syndrome. Of course, other factors do play into this, like the involvement of parents or institutions in girls' lives (as far as body image goes, I've noticed that girls who are involved with the church or school sports have a much easier time), girls' prior exposure to pro-woman media and matters of race and class.
I am a victim of PGS, so I created the disease with the hope that others can realize that they are not alone. These behaviors and thought patterns are caused by uncontested exposure to the mass media. They are not inherent in women.
The most reliable and effective cure for PGS starts with a diagnosis. Identification of the problem should lead to a thorough examination of the pillars of one's development and, eventually, the necessary redefinition of one's identity. Feminism cured, or continues to cure, my PGS by giving me the tools to analyze the culture I grew up in and to connect the messages I received from the media with the behaviors and thought patterns I developed during adolescence, and the courage to continue moving against the general current in pursuit of complete contentment.
In the case of adolescent girls and the media, ignorance is not bliss: it is death. Intellectual, emotional, spiritual death.
- Location:Stomping Grounds 50014
- Mood:awesome
I had an intensely busy and enjoyable spring break at home in L.A. and now I'm having trouble getting back into schoolwork. Who wouldn't?
I now want to move to a city with someone I know and love to have the kind of experiences we did over break. I've never been in L.A. with someone who has the same interests as me. It helped to give me a more realistic view of the city.
I also spent something like $700 between booze and parking and food and hotels, and I need to not do that anymore.
I skipped all my classes and my radio show today: LAME.
I now want to move to a city with someone I know and love to have the kind of experiences we did over break. I've never been in L.A. with someone who has the same interests as me. It helped to give me a more realistic view of the city.
I also spent something like $700 between booze and parking and food and hotels, and I need to not do that anymore.
I skipped all my classes and my radio show today: LAME.
- Mood:
sad
- Location:Panera 50014
We had to watch this movie for my Spanish seminar... it's my new absolute favorite. ¡Qué overdose! Fabio McNamara is a brilliant character (he's the one on the right in the opening scene. Pedro Almodóvar, the director and a character in his own movie, is on the left). Below you will find the trailer with English subtitles.
I freakin love this video.
So, what about our egos? What about us females who know empirically that we're intelligent and thoughtful and all manner of amazing desirable things but who do not get recognition or appreciation of it from men? Who have to constantly struggle to remind ourselves that despite the lack of social visibility of people like us, we are desirable people?
I'm talking about the kind of everyday exchanges we have say, out at the bar. I've come to notice that most men expect us to talk about them. They expect us to ask questions about themselves, to be interested, to talk about their plans for the future. It's very rare for me to run into someone who asks me about myself in a way that rings genuine, but let me tell you, it feels fucking great when it happens, and I remember that person. Someone who is genuinely interested in me is also more likely to get my interest in return. I was thinking today that most of my boyfriend's roommates know nothing about me, but I know a lot about all of them. Obviously by having conversations with them about themselves I was inviting them to ask me about myself, but they never bothered because it never occurred to them that I might have a valid, objective, justifiable opinion about something.
Which brings me to the "male opinion as objective opinion" clause. When people of color or other minorities or women talk about being a person of color or a minority or a woman, the privileged group takes it with a grain of salt because these people are perceived to have skewed views of the world— not the objective opinion that comes from being male (or white, etc).
I think this reluctance to take the "other" seriously has to do with the fear of giving up social power. White people don't want to hear that they're unconsciously racist because that means they're guilty. It means they will have to travel a long distance outside of their comfort zones to examine their thought processes and make some changes, and it can be painful to realize your default way of thinking is harmful to other people (and yourself).
Women don't want to hear that they've been taught not to want social power. Men don't want to find out that they're missing out on genuine relationships because they've been taught to discount women's opinions and feelings, and they don't want to give up their friendships with other guys which are based largely on hating the feminine (except when "the feminine" means a hot chick who wants to blow them). That would mean re-examining a lot of their basic assumptions about what it means to be male or female, their religions, what friendship means, the content of the media they consume. Voluntarily making oneself vulnerable is not easy or desirable for a man in society, and unless he looks very closely, the benefits of doing such a thing seem to amount to little or none. Usually coming to a realization like this causes change, and people don't like change. It's hard.
I think part of the reason I was able to re-examine my life is because I didn't have a lot of friends, not close ones anyway, and the media I consumed already made me feel like shit about myself. I was ready for a change, and discovering feminism was what I'd been looking for, my key to understanding myself and the world, for what seemed like my whole life.
I just hope one day people will be taught about media literacy in elementary school, taught about tolerance and privilege and equality early enough that they will be able to identify when something isn't right. They'll be able to identify what makes them feel bad about themselves and why. I hope it's soon. In fact, I think that's something I really want to do with my life, educate people at a young age about all this stuff. Change the fabric of society, you know.
I'm talking about the kind of everyday exchanges we have say, out at the bar. I've come to notice that most men expect us to talk about them. They expect us to ask questions about themselves, to be interested, to talk about their plans for the future. It's very rare for me to run into someone who asks me about myself in a way that rings genuine, but let me tell you, it feels fucking great when it happens, and I remember that person. Someone who is genuinely interested in me is also more likely to get my interest in return. I was thinking today that most of my boyfriend's roommates know nothing about me, but I know a lot about all of them. Obviously by having conversations with them about themselves I was inviting them to ask me about myself, but they never bothered because it never occurred to them that I might have a valid, objective, justifiable opinion about something.
Which brings me to the "male opinion as objective opinion" clause. When people of color or other minorities or women talk about being a person of color or a minority or a woman, the privileged group takes it with a grain of salt because these people are perceived to have skewed views of the world— not the objective opinion that comes from being male (or white, etc).
I think this reluctance to take the "other" seriously has to do with the fear of giving up social power. White people don't want to hear that they're unconsciously racist because that means they're guilty. It means they will have to travel a long distance outside of their comfort zones to examine their thought processes and make some changes, and it can be painful to realize your default way of thinking is harmful to other people (and yourself).
Women don't want to hear that they've been taught not to want social power. Men don't want to find out that they're missing out on genuine relationships because they've been taught to discount women's opinions and feelings, and they don't want to give up their friendships with other guys which are based largely on hating the feminine (except when "the feminine" means a hot chick who wants to blow them). That would mean re-examining a lot of their basic assumptions about what it means to be male or female, their religions, what friendship means, the content of the media they consume. Voluntarily making oneself vulnerable is not easy or desirable for a man in society, and unless he looks very closely, the benefits of doing such a thing seem to amount to little or none. Usually coming to a realization like this causes change, and people don't like change. It's hard.
I think part of the reason I was able to re-examine my life is because I didn't have a lot of friends, not close ones anyway, and the media I consumed already made me feel like shit about myself. I was ready for a change, and discovering feminism was what I'd been looking for, my key to understanding myself and the world, for what seemed like my whole life.
I just hope one day people will be taught about media literacy in elementary school, taught about tolerance and privilege and equality early enough that they will be able to identify when something isn't right. They'll be able to identify what makes them feel bad about themselves and why. I hope it's soon. In fact, I think that's something I really want to do with my life, educate people at a young age about all this stuff. Change the fabric of society, you know.
I've been thinking a lot lately about white privilege and male privilege: two things that are invisible to everyone who's not carrying the consequences of others' privilege around on their back. Peggy McIntosh, associate director for the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, made a brilliant list of factors (.doc file) proving her own white privilege in society. I read them sometime last year then again just now, and I really want to make something like that regarding male privilege-- but since I'm not a man, I'm not sure how legitimate my observations would come off.
I think this quote in particular could also be accurately applied to male privilege:
In any case, I've become more and more hostile toward the libertarian political ideology since I started actually listening to what able-bodied white men, usually Christians, have to say about race, class and gender. It's becoming more and more apparent to me (in listening to people like Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh speak, and they're not even libertarians) that white men have no right to make judgments about the actions of people who didn't grow up as able-bodied white men in America. They simply do not know what they're talking about, and they've made a whole political ideology out of not hearing what anyone else has to say. Privilege used in this way is dangerous.
My best friend Roxy and I have named male privilege a few times in our conversations without knowing exactly how to pinpoint what we were talking about. We called it their "sense of entitlement." I think we were lamenting the fact that a certain man seemed to think that just letting a woman be in his presence entitled him to a certain amount of power over her. He's giving her the gift of his company and in turn he expects her full, undivided attention and intense interest in whatever he may have to say, be it stupid or not. We talked about how we felt the need to constantly entertain, laugh and be generally pleasant in the presence of men, even men whom we didn't really like. The sense of entitlement is infuriating, especially when I realize that Roxy and I are smarter, funnier and more creative than most of the men who expected us, as women, to be completely vapid and really only act as ego-boosters. Good women, you know.
That was at least a year ago. Nowadays we're quick to throw out a loud "NEXT!" when a boring guy decides to grace us with his presence. The looks on some of their faces are really, really gratifying. For example, about a month ago I was sitting in the bar with a group of my good friends when a guy comes up to me and tells me I'm cute. He tells me he's just moved here from Tallahassee, Florida and he wants to meet some people. He's dressed to the T as a douchebag: white polo, baby blue baseball cap over his eyes, diamond stud in one earlobe. He changed his opinion on his own clothing at least twice during our conversation to try to stay on my good side. He kept telling me I was "cute."
I was incredibly rude to him after the first minute or so, when he introduced me and Roxy to his friend, an overweight guy with a crew cut sporting a shirt reading something like, "Chad's BBQ: Huge Racks!" You know the type. I told him flat-out that I was not going to fuck him and that he was wasting his time. I said, "Dude, we have nothing in common" about four times. I insulted what he was wearing. He gave me some great surprised/offended looks but continued hitting on me. I even heard him tell his lame friend that "these girls are horrible" after I turned my back on them (Roxy stood by looking as bored as she possibly could). So then, uncannily, the fire alarm in the building goes off and as we're putting on our coats to leave, he leans in real close and whispers, "I'm gonna call you sometime."
This guy assumes that I was PLAYING HARD TO GET by being insanely rude to him. Know why? Because in his mind, no woman would willingly give up the offered company of a man. Or maybe it's just because he's a narcissist. But that type of experience kills me. I know I was being an asshole (one of my main drunk sources of entertainment) but damn it, why did he shrug off what I was saying as a joke? A straight face and a lot of rude words aren't enough to merit being taken seriously? I'm still thinking about it.
Hello, GOP.
I think this quote in particular could also be accurately applied to male privilege:
I was given cultural permission not to hear voices of people of other races or a tepid cultural tolerance for hearing or acting on such voices. I was also raised not to suffer seriously from anything that darker-skinned people might say about my group, “protected,” though perhaps I should more accurately say prohibited, through the habits of my economic class and social group, from living in racially mixed groups or being reflective about interactions between people of differing races.
In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit in turn upon people of color.
In any case, I've become more and more hostile toward the libertarian political ideology since I started actually listening to what able-bodied white men, usually Christians, have to say about race, class and gender. It's becoming more and more apparent to me (in listening to people like Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh speak, and they're not even libertarians) that white men have no right to make judgments about the actions of people who didn't grow up as able-bodied white men in America. They simply do not know what they're talking about, and they've made a whole political ideology out of not hearing what anyone else has to say. Privilege used in this way is dangerous.
My best friend Roxy and I have named male privilege a few times in our conversations without knowing exactly how to pinpoint what we were talking about. We called it their "sense of entitlement." I think we were lamenting the fact that a certain man seemed to think that just letting a woman be in his presence entitled him to a certain amount of power over her. He's giving her the gift of his company and in turn he expects her full, undivided attention and intense interest in whatever he may have to say, be it stupid or not. We talked about how we felt the need to constantly entertain, laugh and be generally pleasant in the presence of men, even men whom we didn't really like. The sense of entitlement is infuriating, especially when I realize that Roxy and I are smarter, funnier and more creative than most of the men who expected us, as women, to be completely vapid and really only act as ego-boosters. Good women, you know.
That was at least a year ago. Nowadays we're quick to throw out a loud "NEXT!" when a boring guy decides to grace us with his presence. The looks on some of their faces are really, really gratifying. For example, about a month ago I was sitting in the bar with a group of my good friends when a guy comes up to me and tells me I'm cute. He tells me he's just moved here from Tallahassee, Florida and he wants to meet some people. He's dressed to the T as a douchebag: white polo, baby blue baseball cap over his eyes, diamond stud in one earlobe. He changed his opinion on his own clothing at least twice during our conversation to try to stay on my good side. He kept telling me I was "cute."
I was incredibly rude to him after the first minute or so, when he introduced me and Roxy to his friend, an overweight guy with a crew cut sporting a shirt reading something like, "Chad's BBQ: Huge Racks!" You know the type. I told him flat-out that I was not going to fuck him and that he was wasting his time. I said, "Dude, we have nothing in common" about four times. I insulted what he was wearing. He gave me some great surprised/offended looks but continued hitting on me. I even heard him tell his lame friend that "these girls are horrible" after I turned my back on them (Roxy stood by looking as bored as she possibly could). So then, uncannily, the fire alarm in the building goes off and as we're putting on our coats to leave, he leans in real close and whispers, "I'm gonna call you sometime."
This guy assumes that I was PLAYING HARD TO GET by being insanely rude to him. Know why? Because in his mind, no woman would willingly give up the offered company of a man. Or maybe it's just because he's a narcissist. But that type of experience kills me. I know I was being an asshole (one of my main drunk sources of entertainment) but damn it, why did he shrug off what I was saying as a joke? A straight face and a lot of rude words aren't enough to merit being taken seriously? I'm still thinking about it.
Moreover, though “privilege” may confer power, it does not confer moral strength. Those who do not depend on conferred dominance have traits and qualities that may never develop in those who do. Just as Women’s Studies courses indicate that women survive their political circumstances to lead lives that hold the human race together, so “underprivileged” people of color who are the world’s majority have survived their oppression and lived survivors’ lives from which the white global minority can and must learn. In some groups, those dominated have actually become strong through not having all of these unearned advantages, and this gives them a great deal to teach the others. Members of so-called privileged groups can seem foolish, ridiculous, infantile, or dangerous by contrast.
Hello, GOP.
- Location:Stomping Grounds 50014
He's a Men's Rights Activist.
He views women as nothing more than sex objects.
He sees no capacity for mutual understanding between the sexes.
He's so caught up in his disgusting porn-saturated world that he can't see outside of his small, small box.
Now, I'm not saying he's a terrible person through and through, but it completely bewilders me how someone can have such liberal views yet still hate women so much. Every time he mentioned sex or women in his documentary I felt like throwing up. I can't imagine what his television show must be like. His stand-up comedy is some of the most horrible MRA shit I've ever heard. Your logic is flawed, Bill Maher, because believe it or not, some men and women are able to get along without "drowning their sorrows in football and pornography." Fuck you.
If you have any further concerns, read this blog post.
Caused by watching his recent documentary "Religulous."
He views women as nothing more than sex objects.
He sees no capacity for mutual understanding between the sexes.
He's so caught up in his disgusting porn-saturated world that he can't see outside of his small, small box.
Now, I'm not saying he's a terrible person through and through, but it completely bewilders me how someone can have such liberal views yet still hate women so much. Every time he mentioned sex or women in his documentary I felt like throwing up. I can't imagine what his television show must be like. His stand-up comedy is some of the most horrible MRA shit I've ever heard. Your logic is flawed, Bill Maher, because believe it or not, some men and women are able to get along without "drowning their sorrows in football and pornography." Fuck you.
If you have any further concerns, read this blog post.
Caused by watching his recent documentary "Religulous."
I know the whole Chris Brown-Rihanna thing has blown over since the story first surfaced, but I've been appalled by some of the analyses I've read of Brown's actions.
First of all, I read last week that Kanye West and Terrence Howard both initially sided with Brown, but that was only until a picture of bruised-and-swollen Rihanna's face leaked to the media. Even afterward, T.I. still forgives Brown, saying, "We're all human."
This guy is 19 years old. Rihanna is 21. A lot of people seem to think that she must have done something terrible to merit his physical attack on her, since he's just the totally innocent teen R&B idol who sings "With You" and is SO CUTE OMGZ. And she is the scantily clad, J.T.-seducing "love" addict in her music videos who just can't get enough of her man.
I could spend an hour telling you guys what's wrong with that music video, but this post is about something else.
So, I went to CB's official Web site and read his biography. And just from that, I can tell you that the only reason Chris Brown isn't a full-blown in-your-face misogynist Man's Man is because of his age, and the fact that he's currently a role model for kids... oh, probably all the way down to about kindergarten. I bet that if this incident hadn't happened (Or maybe it's a good launch point for his new badass image? Nothing like glamorizing violence!) it would have taken about two years for him to come out with his first explicit rap album complete with blingtastic videos featuring big-booty hoes. Really. He's already touring with Lil Wayne, doesn't that say enough? (P.S. Lil Wayne: DITCH THE VOCODER.)
After reading his biography, it's obvious Brown has several publicists telling him exactly what to say and do to maintain that good-boy image, whatever his real person may look like. Whatever the case may be, he is still deeply submerged in hip-hop culture, and he has been accepted into the circle of his rapper friends. He's learned all their music's messages since he was a boy (I highly doubt he grew up on Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson alone, so forgive my assumption) and he's absorbed them all.
Chris Brown knows what it means to be a man, and that means being powerful and independent, and treating women like sex objects. Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks, yo. So how did anyone come to the conclusion that his relationship with Rihanna, who herself plays the submissive, needy sex object in her videos, would operate on any other dynamic? He got mad and he hit her, bit her, then choked her until she passed out because he knows there's no manlier way to deal with anger than to abuse a woman. And she took it, and she's considering getting back with him because she's ADDICTED TO LOVE BABY. Ain't no more womanly thing to do than forgive your abusive boyfriend AND completely undermine your own self-respect at the same time!
Well, maybe the anger-management classes will help young Chris. What's he going to choose, dealing with his problems in a responsible way or Manhood? GUESS.
On another note, is the fourth photo really necessary? Jeez, guys. Poor Rachael.
First of all, I read last week that Kanye West and Terrence Howard both initially sided with Brown, but that was only until a picture of bruised-and-swollen Rihanna's face leaked to the media. Even afterward, T.I. still forgives Brown, saying, "We're all human."
This guy is 19 years old. Rihanna is 21. A lot of people seem to think that she must have done something terrible to merit his physical attack on her, since he's just the totally innocent teen R&B idol who sings "With You" and is SO CUTE OMGZ. And she is the scantily clad, J.T.-seducing "love" addict in her music videos who just can't get enough of her man.
I could spend an hour telling you guys what's wrong with that music video, but this post is about something else.
So, I went to CB's official Web site and read his biography. And just from that, I can tell you that the only reason Chris Brown isn't a full-blown in-your-face misogynist Man's Man is because of his age, and the fact that he's currently a role model for kids... oh, probably all the way down to about kindergarten. I bet that if this incident hadn't happened (Or maybe it's a good launch point for his new badass image? Nothing like glamorizing violence!) it would have taken about two years for him to come out with his first explicit rap album complete with blingtastic videos featuring big-booty hoes. Really. He's already touring with Lil Wayne, doesn't that say enough? (P.S. Lil Wayne: DITCH THE VOCODER.)
After reading his biography, it's obvious Brown has several publicists telling him exactly what to say and do to maintain that good-boy image, whatever his real person may look like. Whatever the case may be, he is still deeply submerged in hip-hop culture, and he has been accepted into the circle of his rapper friends. He's learned all their music's messages since he was a boy (I highly doubt he grew up on Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson alone, so forgive my assumption) and he's absorbed them all.
Chris Brown knows what it means to be a man, and that means being powerful and independent, and treating women like sex objects. Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks, yo. So how did anyone come to the conclusion that his relationship with Rihanna, who herself plays the submissive, needy sex object in her videos, would operate on any other dynamic? He got mad and he hit her, bit her, then choked her until she passed out because he knows there's no manlier way to deal with anger than to abuse a woman. And she took it, and she's considering getting back with him because she's ADDICTED TO LOVE BABY. Ain't no more womanly thing to do than forgive your abusive boyfriend AND completely undermine your own self-respect at the same time!
Well, maybe the anger-management classes will help young Chris. What's he going to choose, dealing with his problems in a responsible way or Manhood? GUESS.
On another note, is the fourth photo really necessary? Jeez, guys. Poor Rachael.
- Mood:
anxious
48 Laws of Power
Dov Charney, founder of American Apparel, actually abides by these laws. He takes them seriously. I just read a lengthy interview with him in which he said women have created a "victim culture" by making a big deal out of domestic violence and that feminism won't work because it's not in the mainstream. He later cited a couple of the 48 Laws of Power to justify his marketing methods.
"After-taste of social justice," my ass. This is what is wrong with our system. These kinds of values are prized. I'm going to puke.
Y'all should go here.
Dov Charney, founder of American Apparel, actually abides by these laws. He takes them seriously. I just read a lengthy interview with him in which he said women have created a "victim culture" by making a big deal out of domestic violence and that feminism won't work because it's not in the mainstream. He later cited a couple of the 48 Laws of Power to justify his marketing methods.
"After-taste of social justice," my ass. This is what is wrong with our system. These kinds of values are prized. I'm going to puke.
Y'all should go here.
So during the last few days I've seen at least two advertisements hyping some tired diet product under a new "extreme" name claiming it to be "built for a man." One of the Superbowl commercials (thanks THL) advertised Diet Pepsi MAX, and I just saw a bunch of Facebook ads for Weight Watchers MEN (Built for a Man).
Um, sick. When did wanting to be healthy become un-manly? When did something like caring about one's health become faggy? When did it become something feminine, and therefore weak? Why does our society insist on assigning this extreme polarity between gender-appropriate attitudes? Why do these companies need to tell men that it's okay to care about their health? Why are men letting something as stupid as a brand name decide who they are, what is okay and not okay to do, for them?
Why is it undesirable (according to pop culture) for women to eat what they want? I've overheard some of the guys at work saying "girls don't eat pizza." I've eaten pizza in front of them, and they've made jokes about it, implying that I'm some sort of slob. Where is the middle ground? What's acceptable then, if I'm stupid and weak for not eating pizza but a slob for enjoying food? Why does our society pretend it's okay for men to have ridiculous eating contests (wings, beer, pizza, you name it) and for women to have unspoken competitions for thinness with one another? WHY IS THERE A WHOLE CULTURE BASED ON THOSE SELF-HATRED GENERATING COMPETITIONS? (See VH1. Twenty-four hours a day.)
Caught in a double-standard. It's sick, especially since I even find myself a little turned off if a guy talks about going on a diet. We're all fucking unconscious victims of this shit. You go, guy, lose weight and do it without fucking Weight Watchers, while drinking some Women's Diet Pepsi. Pretty soon Diet Pepsi cans are going to be bright pink, and the Pepsi MAX ones are going to resemble penises.
Um, sick. When did wanting to be healthy become un-manly? When did something like caring about one's health become faggy? When did it become something feminine, and therefore weak? Why does our society insist on assigning this extreme polarity between gender-appropriate attitudes? Why do these companies need to tell men that it's okay to care about their health? Why are men letting something as stupid as a brand name decide who they are, what is okay and not okay to do, for them?
Why is it undesirable (according to pop culture) for women to eat what they want? I've overheard some of the guys at work saying "girls don't eat pizza." I've eaten pizza in front of them, and they've made jokes about it, implying that I'm some sort of slob. Where is the middle ground? What's acceptable then, if I'm stupid and weak for not eating pizza but a slob for enjoying food? Why does our society pretend it's okay for men to have ridiculous eating contests (wings, beer, pizza, you name it) and for women to have unspoken competitions for thinness with one another? WHY IS THERE A WHOLE CULTURE BASED ON THOSE SELF-HATRED GENERATING COMPETITIONS? (See VH1. Twenty-four hours a day.)
Caught in a double-standard. It's sick, especially since I even find myself a little turned off if a guy talks about going on a diet. We're all fucking unconscious victims of this shit. You go, guy, lose weight and do it without fucking Weight Watchers, while drinking some Women's Diet Pepsi. Pretty soon Diet Pepsi cans are going to be bright pink, and the Pepsi MAX ones are going to resemble penises.
- Mood:
grossed out
This is great, a real-time study of how malnutrition leads to obsession with food (but not eating) and totally undermines every other aspect of women's lives, effectively keeping them in their place suboordinate to men.
Mentally, malnourishment is a very, very powerful weapon, as I quoted from The Beauty Myth in August.
I need to see the documentary (Super Skinny Me). Two normal-weight female journalists go on extreme diets for eight weeks to try to get to size 0 and document the effects of not eating on their health, self-esteem and social lives.
It's true, too; women begin to judge each other harshly as soon as they adopt the obsession with thinness-- this keeps them unable to form new friendships or even attempt to relate to other women, not to mention that it keeps them dependent on men for validation of their supposed success.
This makes me want to eat a lot. Right now. I'm going to.
Mentally, malnourishment is a very, very powerful weapon, as I quoted from The Beauty Myth in August.
I need to see the documentary (Super Skinny Me). Two normal-weight female journalists go on extreme diets for eight weeks to try to get to size 0 and document the effects of not eating on their health, self-esteem and social lives.
It's true, too; women begin to judge each other harshly as soon as they adopt the obsession with thinness-- this keeps them unable to form new friendships or even attempt to relate to other women, not to mention that it keeps them dependent on men for validation of their supposed success.
This makes me want to eat a lot. Right now. I'm going to.
- Location:KURE studio 50010
- Music:dire straits, industrial disease
 |
| Ames CAN be cool after all! A shot from the DJ section of the stage during a BADASS, sold-out, 25-people-outside-the-door Bootytronic. |
I noticed how long my entries are getting. Sorry if I'm clogging up anyone's friends page (although I only have a few active friends)...
Anyway, I just finished a horribly long piece for the on-campus magazine here about a locally owned screenprinting shop. Here it is.
( I went to the Iowa State Fair and all I got was Type-2 Diabetes )
Anyway, I just finished a horribly long piece for the on-campus magazine here about a locally owned screenprinting shop. Here it is.
( I went to the Iowa State Fair and all I got was Type-2 Diabetes )
I wrote this for the Ames Progressive.
---------------------------------
The auction for 22-year-old Natalie Dylan's virginity has been open for almost five months now.
Dylan (not her real name) hails from San Diego. She already holds a bachelor's degree in women's studies from Sacramento State but doesn't have the money for grad school, so she has decided to prostitute herself in. According to Dylan, selling one’s virginity is an “empowering” act about “being pro-choice with your body.”
Dylan appeared on Howard Stern's radio show in September and the Tyra Banks Show in November. Her endeavor has received attention from CNN, Fox News and other television news stations. According to CBS news, Penthouse magazine offered to feature her in a photo spread. Dylan has 1,352 friends on MySpace, where she advises those with "business inquiries" to e-mail her.
She claims that so far she’s received over 10,000 offers, the highest for $3.7 million. The auction is being conducted online through a Nevada brothel, where Dylan's sister, another feminist prostitute, works. Dennis Hof, the brothel's obese pimp, is overseeing the ordeal.
"I think it's a tremendous idea. Why lose it to some guy in the backseat of a Toyota when you can pay for your education?" Hof told the New York Times.
Why, indeed?
At first glance, Dylan’s actions may seem feminist. She has control over the final sale and says that she won’t necessarily be choosing the highest bidder: “It all depends on the chemistry.”
On the Tyra Banks Show, she explained, “We’re doing premature research for our thesis project, and we wanted to study the dichotomous nature between virginity and prostitution.”
“We've studied women and the psycho-social implementation in public for four years,” said Dylan’s sister during the same interview. Avia’s actual credentials were not mentioned.
Dylan doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into. The venture started as an embarrassingly ignorant attempt to rebrand prostitution as “empowering,” although she and her sister Avia (who appears with Dylan in several interviews) remain extremely vague on the details of their thought process. They also fail to address most of the criticism they have received, which is possibly for the best, as the two women apparently lack any sort of reason.
Before any more news stations forgo the problems around the world to further inflate this hideous zit on the face of feminism, let me clarify a few things.
Dylan is obviously not a feminist. She’s the kind of woman who manages to pass four or five women’s studies courses at a university without reading anything then, despite the fact that she’s absorbed nothing of the meaning of feminism, decides she can get away with commodifying her body by flashing her women’s studies degree. Dylan is a “sex-positive” feminist.
Sex-postivism isn’t, as it sounds, pro-sex for women. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. When it comes to sex, our culture puts an overwhelming importance on men’s pleasure and almost none on women’s. Sex-positivism essentially seeks to justify this hierarchy by saying that women’s ability to sexually excite men is the kind of power they’ve been seeking since the 1970s. This sort of “feminism” is fairly digestible to most people, especially women who read Cosmo and the men who date them. This phenomenon has become so deeply woven into our social fabric that even women have begun to see themselves as objects. Case in point: Natalie Dylan and her wrapped-and-ribboned virginity.
When a woman’s sexuality is reduced to her ability to please a man rather than her own sensuality and capacity for orgasm, it becomes easier for her to rationalize selling it. Natalie Dylan thinks about her first time and doesn’t consider her own experience or pleasure. She doesn’t expect to enjoy it. She will be performing the service of pleasing a man, not acting on any actual arousal. Our pornified culture has taught us to forget that sex involves two people and two orgasms.
The outrage lies in the fact that Dylan doesn’t realize that she is a victim of pop culture’s misogyny. It is absurd to even attempt to equate real sex with prostitution, yet Dylan doesn’t hesitate to appear on national television wearing her women’s studies degree like a badge and telling everyone that prostitution is feminism.
“When I was younger I wanted to be 100 percent about the romance, possibly even wait for marriage, but as I grew up reality kind of hit. I think this is a capitalistic society, and I want to capitalize on [my virginity],” said Dylan in a news interview.
The reality that hit her when she “grew up” is the reality that the romance she so coveted as a child is at best capitalism in disguise. Baldly put, the concept of romance has been MTV-ed down into a simple “pay for her dinner and later you’ll get laid.” Pop culture’s romance is directly linked to capitalism, an investment in dinner and roses for the profit of sex.
Natalie Dylan would make an excellent businesswoman. She knows how to take something of personal value and turn it into a product that can be exchanged for money. Dylan is buying right into the system by removing the middleman of romance and overtly labeling her body a commodity. If it really were possible to simplify human sexuality into a simple business equation, Dylan’s decision to sell her virginity would be a brilliant move.
She might have actually gotten away with it, too, if she hadn't made the mistake of requiring "chemistry" as part of the deal. How do you measure an emotional connection with someone else? Her humanity shows through the cut-and-dry deal in her reluctance to completely objectify her first time.
And that's just it. It's a lack of humanity that enables people to attempt to sell their own experiences and bodies for profit. This isn't feminism, it's a woman's attempt at appropriating an insensitive, calculating and manipulative patriarchal system for her own ends, and it's not working. A person's virginity is not a product to be sold, and there is a lot to be said about a market system that treats such an abomination as an everyday exchange.
---------------------------------
The auction for 22-year-old Natalie Dylan's virginity has been open for almost five months now.
Dylan (not her real name) hails from San Diego. She already holds a bachelor's degree in women's studies from Sacramento State but doesn't have the money for grad school, so she has decided to prostitute herself in. According to Dylan, selling one’s virginity is an “empowering” act about “being pro-choice with your body.”
Dylan appeared on Howard Stern's radio show in September and the Tyra Banks Show in November. Her endeavor has received attention from CNN, Fox News and other television news stations. According to CBS news, Penthouse magazine offered to feature her in a photo spread. Dylan has 1,352 friends on MySpace, where she advises those with "business inquiries" to e-mail her.
She claims that so far she’s received over 10,000 offers, the highest for $3.7 million. The auction is being conducted online through a Nevada brothel, where Dylan's sister, another feminist prostitute, works. Dennis Hof, the brothel's obese pimp, is overseeing the ordeal.
"I think it's a tremendous idea. Why lose it to some guy in the backseat of a Toyota when you can pay for your education?" Hof told the New York Times.
Why, indeed?
At first glance, Dylan’s actions may seem feminist. She has control over the final sale and says that she won’t necessarily be choosing the highest bidder: “It all depends on the chemistry.”
On the Tyra Banks Show, she explained, “We’re doing premature research for our thesis project, and we wanted to study the dichotomous nature between virginity and prostitution.”
“We've studied women and the psycho-social implementation in public for four years,” said Dylan’s sister during the same interview. Avia’s actual credentials were not mentioned.
Dylan doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into. The venture started as an embarrassingly ignorant attempt to rebrand prostitution as “empowering,” although she and her sister Avia (who appears with Dylan in several interviews) remain extremely vague on the details of their thought process. They also fail to address most of the criticism they have received, which is possibly for the best, as the two women apparently lack any sort of reason.
Before any more news stations forgo the problems around the world to further inflate this hideous zit on the face of feminism, let me clarify a few things.
Dylan is obviously not a feminist. She’s the kind of woman who manages to pass four or five women’s studies courses at a university without reading anything then, despite the fact that she’s absorbed nothing of the meaning of feminism, decides she can get away with commodifying her body by flashing her women’s studies degree. Dylan is a “sex-positive” feminist.
Sex-postivism isn’t, as it sounds, pro-sex for women. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. When it comes to sex, our culture puts an overwhelming importance on men’s pleasure and almost none on women’s. Sex-positivism essentially seeks to justify this hierarchy by saying that women’s ability to sexually excite men is the kind of power they’ve been seeking since the 1970s. This sort of “feminism” is fairly digestible to most people, especially women who read Cosmo and the men who date them. This phenomenon has become so deeply woven into our social fabric that even women have begun to see themselves as objects. Case in point: Natalie Dylan and her wrapped-and-ribboned virginity.
When a woman’s sexuality is reduced to her ability to please a man rather than her own sensuality and capacity for orgasm, it becomes easier for her to rationalize selling it. Natalie Dylan thinks about her first time and doesn’t consider her own experience or pleasure. She doesn’t expect to enjoy it. She will be performing the service of pleasing a man, not acting on any actual arousal. Our pornified culture has taught us to forget that sex involves two people and two orgasms.
The outrage lies in the fact that Dylan doesn’t realize that she is a victim of pop culture’s misogyny. It is absurd to even attempt to equate real sex with prostitution, yet Dylan doesn’t hesitate to appear on national television wearing her women’s studies degree like a badge and telling everyone that prostitution is feminism.
“When I was younger I wanted to be 100 percent about the romance, possibly even wait for marriage, but as I grew up reality kind of hit. I think this is a capitalistic society, and I want to capitalize on [my virginity],” said Dylan in a news interview.
The reality that hit her when she “grew up” is the reality that the romance she so coveted as a child is at best capitalism in disguise. Baldly put, the concept of romance has been MTV-ed down into a simple “pay for her dinner and later you’ll get laid.” Pop culture’s romance is directly linked to capitalism, an investment in dinner and roses for the profit of sex.
Natalie Dylan would make an excellent businesswoman. She knows how to take something of personal value and turn it into a product that can be exchanged for money. Dylan is buying right into the system by removing the middleman of romance and overtly labeling her body a commodity. If it really were possible to simplify human sexuality into a simple business equation, Dylan’s decision to sell her virginity would be a brilliant move.
She might have actually gotten away with it, too, if she hadn't made the mistake of requiring "chemistry" as part of the deal. How do you measure an emotional connection with someone else? Her humanity shows through the cut-and-dry deal in her reluctance to completely objectify her first time.
And that's just it. It's a lack of humanity that enables people to attempt to sell their own experiences and bodies for profit. This isn't feminism, it's a woman's attempt at appropriating an insensitive, calculating and manipulative patriarchal system for her own ends, and it's not working. A person's virginity is not a product to be sold, and there is a lot to be said about a market system that treats such an abomination as an everyday exchange.
- Music:party downstairs
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