I still have to finish my article for 201, but tonight I concluded that the ideal personality for a man OR a woman involves the encapsulation of the positive traits associated with both the feminine and masculine, and does not include any of the negative traits stereotypically associated with either gender. Conclusion: Society can suck it.

Such positive traits include:
(Typically masculine) independent, active, logical, ambitious, self-confident, adventurous, leadership, making decisions easily, being direct, enjoying math and science
(Typically feminine) emotional, tactful, talkative, gentle, aware of others' feelings, neat, nurturing, enjoying art and literature, expressive


I'm not going to go into the negative traits because there are about three negative feminine traits for every negative masculine one, which kind of made me mad (and more of a man) haha.
But as one of my interviewees said, this stuff has nothing to do with sex appeal. If you're hot, you're hot, and both people having masculine and feminine personality traits would just make the sex better (more confident and expressive, for example) for both of them.

I've got a fever something awful! Hope I'm better before I go out for dollar pints tomorrow :)
Also, I just finished the last of my statistics assignments. All that's left = the final. YES!

There is an AMAZING article in the newest issue of Ms. Magazine that I found heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. It's about how up to 70% of college girls view their bodies as sex objects to be consumed by the male gaze. They live in a state of "double consciousness... a sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others."

"Women who self-objectify are desperate for outside validation of their appearance and present their bodies in ways that draw attention." Studies show that girls who "chronically monitor their physical appearance" are more prone to depression and low self-esteem and have less faith in their own capabilities, and general feelings of disgust and shame about their bodies. In the long-term, self-objectifiers have lower gpa's than non-objectifiers.

"Girls are taught to view their bodies as 'projects' that need work before they can attract others, whereas boys are likely to learn to view their bodies as tools to use to master the environment."

Then it moves on to talk about sex, and much of what it said curiously echoes a previous journal entry of mine.
"Nudity can cause great anxiety among self-objectifiers, who then become preoccupied with how their bodies look in sexual positions. As constant critics of their bodies, they can't focus on their own sexual pleasure."

"Many young women now engage in sex acts with men that priotitize the man's pleasure, with little or no expectation of reciprocity," says anti-sexist male activist and author Jackson Katz.

Then, about the fact that many women seem proud to wear t-shirts that say things like "Fuck Foreplay" (implying.. what? that men don't enjoy foreplay? let's get down to penetration?):
"The notion of objectification as empowering is illogical, since objects are acted upon, rather than taking action themselves. The real power in such arrangements lies with boys and men, who come to feel entitled to consume women as objects-- first in media, then in real life."

"Perhaps the most striking outcome of self-objectification is the difficulty women have in imagining identities and sexualities truly our own."


______________________________________
I love this magazine. Its staff is not afraid to say the truth. I put these quotes here because this article is largely about me, and actually illustrates much of my own struggle against myself. I have objectified myself since I was fourteen and have often spoke of feeling like I have a block between my true self and the way I act, my fear of being original, and my fear of being viewed as unattractive and therefore worthless. It's a handicap and it is an uphill struggle. That's why lately I have been making an effort to just have fun and focus on that instead of how I look to others, which so far has been slow progress but progress nonetheless. At least I'm over the sex part of it, thank goodness.
It's funny though how I have to make a conscious effort to just treat myself as someone who has internal value around other people. I am NOT my appearance.

Hear, hear.

You know, I was reading Desmond Morris' 1967 book The Naked Ape, but I think I'll stop after reading this article about his newest thesis.

Morris reminds us that much of what we consider the modern world could have come about only thanks to the talents of the male mind...For every great woman there have been 100 - even 1,000 - great men in the same field.

Right, Mr. Morris. Because men and women certainly have had all of the same opportunities, encouragements, and upbringings during the last millennium. It's the women that are just dumb, we're just not trying hard enough. Idiot.

While doing leg presses at the rec last night I was eyeing the magazines in the rack facing the machine, which I do from time to time to remind myself of why I need to go into journalism. I didn't actually pick any of them up but I couldn't help noticing a particularly enticing cover line on US Weekly: "Hillary Clinton: My Worst Outfits Ever!"

The headline stuck in my mind until I got home, when I decided to actually look up the article on the magazine's website. It includes a slideshow of pictures of Mrs. Clinton ranging from the late '60s to just recently wearing things like a long, frilly high-collared wedding dress; a thick, brightly colored coat; striped pants; and a plaid business suit.
Did I mention the subhead? "The Democratic presidential hopeful critiques her past style faux pas in Us Weekly's Fashion Police." Somehow the magazine's staff has duped the Democratic presidential candidate into insulting her own fashion choices, of all things. Hillary, don't you have something better to do, like... I dunno, campaign?


Okay. Let's back up.
According to US Weekly's website, this is a magazine which "delivers to a mass audience of young, affluent and educated adults compelled by breaking celebrity news, Hollywood style and the best in entertainment. This is a connection driven by an unmatched sense of anticipation, priority, engagement and loyalty."

Demographic statistics on the website show that 73% of its readers are women, 60% of whom are between the ages of 18 and 34 (median age: 31). Also according to the website, 1.9 million people read this magazine every week.

On the homepage of the media kit, a quote from Advertising Age gushes, "US has become a cultural reference point, if not an entire world view."

Magazines set agendas. This means that they tell people not necessarily what to think, but what to think about. This magazine is setting an agenda for young women that distracts them from the real matter at hand, whether it intends to or not. The sole reason Clinton is even mentioned in the magazine is that so people can gawk at the way she's dressed herself over the years.
I can't believe that the staff of this magazine has actually got the audacity to focus on something as trivial and purposeless as outfits when talking about a PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. This is politics; it is not a fashion contest. I can't believe Hillary insulted herself by actually agreeing to participate. She makes herself sound weak and sheepish by offering excuses for her outfits. For example, the caption following a charming photo of Clinton in a striped t-shirt dress:

"1992. While teeing off for mini-golf during husband Bill's presidential campaign, the former first lady shudders to think of her athletic attire: 'Now you know why I stick with pantsuits.'"

The young people reading this article (well, viewing it, as there is quite fittingly no actual text) are being told to focus on superficial things like appearance even when dealing with presidential candidates. That might fly with people like Paris Hilton, to whom there is nothing more, but when talking about a prominent presidential hopeful it goes too far. Way to hit the mark, US Weekly. Top notch. Real respectable.

I'm kind of curious as to who the male readers of US Weekly are, because men are usually discouraged from paying attention to such inconsequential banter. Gay? Thirteen? Midlife crisis? Pete Wentz?

I'll just stick to Bitch for now...

I've been on a Salt-n-Pepa kick for the last couple of days.

These ladies must have an incredible amount of charisma for the following reason:

They were able to be on the mainstream billboard charts for most of the 90s. They are an ALL GIRL GROUP, and they stand for feminism, diversity, tolerance, female sexuality, and partying in general, but not the competetive kind, just the fun kind. Their videos feature a variety of races and shapes and faces that fall way way outside of the standards of beauty in our society. They embrace the minority in a proud, nonviolent, positive way.

Such blatant feminism has never had a place on the mainstream charts, not since then.
I can't think of any other girl group that didn't rely solely on their sex appeal to stay famous, or that had such positive messages. Pussycat Dolls, eat your heart out.


The only question that I have is WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED, GIRLS? They must have gotten tired of being rebellious or something because they now have their own reality TV show on MTV or VH1 or wherever. I watched five minutes of it a couple of weeks ago and was a little grossed out by the cattiness and immaturity of it. I'm choosing to forget about it so I can continue to think of them as absolutely amazing.

Now I can bring home the bacon, fry it in the pan
Never let you forget that you're a man
'cause I'm a W-O-M-A-N
That's what I am, doin' all I can
The thing that makes me mad and crazy, upset
Got to break my neck just to get my respect
Go to work and get paid less than a man
When I'm doin' the same damn thing that he can
When I'm aggressive then I'm a bitch
When I got attitude you call me a witch
Treat me like a sex-object (That ain't smooth)
Underestimate the mind, oh yeah, you're a fool
Weaker sex, yeah right, that's the joke (ha!)
Have you ever been in labor? I don't think so, nope
I'm a genuine feminine female thang
Can you hang? Ain't nothin' but a she thang

In other news, VIOLENT FEMMES. THE JAM. THE CLASH.

This is ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING.
These are not "marriage tours." This is not romance. This is sexual exploitation of young women at best and sex slavery at worst. This is men paying money for a company to indtroduce them to third-world women who are willing to do anything to get out. This is disgusting. These men are not looking for romance. Unbelievable.

Dude.
That is disgusting. I hate the fucking Bible and all the fucking importance stupid Christians like these put on its million-times interpreted, out-of-context, taken-too-literally doctrine.

I'm reading Andy Warhol's philosophy book. He is great. The sixties and seventies were so...... observant.

Turbulent lifestyle.

I downloaded the complete Ed Banger compilation and it is blowing my mind.

Also amazing:
Death from Above 1979 (SEXY RESULTS) and John Mayer Trio. Oh yes.

I've been debating on whether or not to post this here because I don't know how it will be received, but to hell with it, I like it. I wrote it on the airplane home, quite randomly and quite unexpectedly.

-----------

The Midwestern women didn’t question the nagging cold feeling in the back of their minds which threatened to overwhelm them from time to time, which they quieted with salon highlights, designer shoes and reality TV shows, subconsciously aware of the fact that even acknowledging the dead blackness in the depths of their being would be unpleasant, irreversible, and counterproductive to the tightly wrapped-and-ribboned package that was their lives. It might displease their husbands if the perpetually smiling wives realized that the context in which they were living didn’t allow them to love themselves, not really, and the husbands’ displeasure was to be avoided at all costs. The wives didn’t want to realize that the happiness was all on the surface. They couldn’t stop smiling.

They might discover passions that would make their entire lives up to that point completely insignificant. No, no, no, everything was going too smoothly to start that; never mind that that sort of autonomous revolution might jolt them out of this nightmarish cookie-cutter existence, this happy obedience, once and for all. They stopped themselves before thinking too far.

She thought about the women on the West coast, the ones she’d grown up around. Mostly they were fantasies nowadays, fictitious characters created from fragments of childhood memories and the images of ideal feminine beauty she’d seen on TV in high school, images she had foolishly believed to be attainable.

The women in her childhood, from what she could pick out of the scattered freeze-frames of the early 90’s which danced in her mind, were professional, neurotic, and sexy—fresh new thirtysomethings recently back in the real world after surviving the substance-soaked 80’s. Always half-sarcastic, mildly bitter, trying fiercely to laugh off perverted morals and a loss of faith in mankind with a hard face, hiding the real shame and disgust within, sedating it with another screwdriver, please.

They were professionals, they were anorexic, they were forever sipping Diet Cokes through straws and feathering their hair. They attended step class three times weekly wearing bright clingy leotards and white Reeboks and sweatbands. They had two-year-old daughters whom they dressed in jumpsuits patterned with watermelons. They were her parents’ friends and colleagues, relocated to Los Angeles (land of Freedom) from Michigan and Tennessee and Seattle. This was the Land where Anything was Possible, and they were going to achieve the American Dream and would decidedly be happy, finally, when they made their first hundred thousand, lost those ten pounds, bought that Lexus. They swallowed the immense heavy dissatisfaction that spread like molasses through their chests, repeating to themselves: as soon as, as soon as…

She rarely saw any of them anymore. The smart ones had quit their nine-to-fives years ago to pursue a more sensible path, usually something modest, always something they’d had a passion for but had previously felt too embarrassed to consider carrying out. Big Dreams were what people had in Los Angeles, not bike shops.

But the women now, the ones who were her age who had all grown up in the city or the suburbs, the twenty-something offspring of the L.A. migrants, were a hugely different breed. They were lost, just as their parents had been upon realizing money wasn’t happiness, but these women didn’t know they were lost because they had never known stability.

Born into a whirlwind of cultures clashing, a tired war on drugs, budding generational bewilderment, violent backyard wrestling versus their parents’ traditional waspy values, high schools full of nasty delicious rumors about underage sex and elusive drugs and rich cheerleader sluts who for some reason everyone seemed to love; Mexican immigrants so hard-working they practically slept in the fields just to be able to feed their children, yet who were somehow judged and condemned by the rest of society for not having had the opportunity to learn English.

Bombarded with magazines and TV commercials all featuring thin, blonde, tanned, toned, smiling women advocating an endless train of products designed to "fix" the flaws the media told them they had while their parents and teachers assured them they were beautiful just as they were, and the boys their age scoffed or ignored them if they didn’t present themselves as sexual objects, something to perfect, a sort of commodified mannequin.

These women grew up ignorant of poverty, unaware that anything but a sprawling web of affluent big-city suburbs comprised the God-Motherfucking-Blessed United States of America. The twisted friendships they wrought with one another as MTV-crazed middle and high-school girls were pitifully shallow and overtly competitive. Each girl felt imprisoned and forlorn inside her own head, sensing something was deeply wrong with the way people interacted with each other, but that notion was shortly buried by the Race. Each girl eventually forgot that she was hiding her thoughts and feelings and passions and self-esteem away, painting over them with comparisons to other girls, to magazines, to the airbrushed chiseled starved masterpieces they saw on display in magazines like contorted porcelain dolls. In alcohol ads, in Prada ads, in how-to articles for girls with Bad Skin and Thunder Thighs. Soon they defined themselves by their appearances.

Their obsession with conforming to what the various media judged attractive— acceptable—desirable—soon became the most central facet of their lives. Some sort of invisible goal had been established in their minds, the goal of Happiness, of Contentment, a goal that would be reached as soon as they looked like the girls in the magazines. They stopped eating, or worse; they started throwing up food in their parents’ bathrooms after dinner. They obsessed over the latest fashions and grew jealous toward the spoiled girls whose parents bought them whatever they wanted. Fuck school, what does school matter? They competed with one another to see who ate least, who got attention from boys, who had the best hair. For them, that was joy, being That Girl. The friends competed silently. Silently, they hated one another, a smoldering hatred that rose from the knowledge that there would always be bonier, prettier, more perfect girls than themselves. It frustrated them, it confused them, and after high school none of them knew where to go, still desperately seeking a way to become Happy, unsure if it was really possible, their faith still rooted in the Race.

The blanket of self-loathing constantly present in their ungrounded souls could be numbed or deadened for certain lengths of time.

Some girls slept with anyone who would, feeding off of the validation the sex gave them. Because wasn’t that why they all wanted to be That Girl in the first place? To get That Guy? To get any guy? Wasn’t that the point of it all, to Be Attractive? But two words were always left out, the point was to be attractive to men. For men. As if the men decided their worth.

Some girls became addicts. They slowly committed suicide, three or four at a time, always a small cluster and always together, because that way at least they knew they belonged. They were Accepted, they were a Group, they were Enough. Their lives became a hectic mishmash of deals and cash and pills and needles, and they couldn’t think any longer about the loathing, the antagonism, the fact that they repulsed themselves, because they were living fast, from one high to the next.

Some girls escaped.

Some fled to places where life was simpler. A bleak existence.

Some entered institutions and eventually left labeled Recovered.

Some found solace in literature and quickly became wise, and it was excruciating.

Mostly, people called this emergence of women from their hellish adolescence Growing Up, although many of them hadn’t the slightest idea what that meant, and none of them felt adult at all. Instead they felt duped, cheated of precious time, sour toward the same magazines they’d worshiped, and far past due for a game of intellectual catch-up with their male counterparts.

They didn’t blame the men, no, they knew the men no longer had anything to do with the sick game that society played with young girls. They blinked with dazed eyes at the reality that had only just become apparent to them. They ached for the girls who remained a part of it.

If you hate the media, you must become the media.

Some young women may be confusing confidence with carnality.

...After a week of talking to people in various states of undress and intoxication, I can tell you this much: What's happening on spring break beaches isn't just boys being boys and girls going wild. It's young people, women especially, deciding that the way to measure their readiness for the adult world is not in terms of education or emotional maturity but sexual desirability.

The more women I talked to, the more it became clear that hotness was, for them, the largest factor in the equation of their self-worth. When they talked about what they wanted to do with their lives, they spoke not of jobs or grad school but of looking good, of having the right equipment and experience to ensure a place in the raunch-obsessed pop culture they'd come to see as the real world.

Today I've been surfing...
Jezebel - Hilarity and Common Sense for Women
One D At A Time - Slut Machine's Blog

This morning as I lay alone in bed listening to the couple in the apartment above me having sex, I realized that the ultimate symbol for the ubiquitous underlying male dominance of females is the fact that women my age rarely orgasm while fucking, and they don't expect to.
When did this happen?
I went through my high school years and my first year of college thinking I couldn't physically orgasm because I never had before, although I'd had plenty of sex. The joys of masturbation later cured me of those thoughts, thank goodness.
Some of the coolest girls I know have told me they never have orgasmed during sex, even with their boyfriends; they're either too worried or not horny enough or just don't have enough time. I think it's kind of a myth, that women can actually orgasm during sex, especially for younger girls. Their goal is to get the guy off and if they happen to have a little fun too, then great!
Why are they cheating themselves out of an orgasm? To make a man think it's okay to just ignore whether or not she comes? To allow a man to essentially take advantage of her body without even making it worthwhile? Wouldn't a woman who has sex without orgasming just feel fucked afterwards? From this side of the fence it certainly seems so. I know I would.
After last year I realized the truth, which is that most men just want to get off and are either too scared to ask a woman or don't care whether or not she comes. Even if they're great guys: smart, good-looking, funny.
And I think most women ignore the fact that they don't come because the act of sex itself feels good, of course, but more than that: it's great validation for their value to men and their attractiveness— not to mention a nice symbolic way to be put in their places as subservient if they don't even orgasm. Oops.
For a woman who doesn't need the male validation to feel attractive, it is incredibly difficult (especially in Iowa) to encounter attractive men who actually have respect for a woman's pleasure AND her opinions. I find that most men in Iowa are just scared of me because I'm pretty outspoken and I know what I want. Plus I'm tall. And I will not settle.
Yay for celibacy!

This is the blog of a Saudi Arabian man who moved to England because he couldn't stand the religious police.

A great entry.

New York Times- "Misogyny and Politics"

Abraham Lincoln, American president (1809-1865).
In 2000 Years of Disbelief by James A. Haught, Lincoln is mentioned on pages 125 through 127. From the material presented it would seem that Lincoln as a young man was an avid anti-christian and most likely an atheist. In his later years, he came to believe in God, but still was anti-religious in the sense that he rejected organized religion. Some selections from Haught:
John T. Stuart, Lincoln's first law partner: "He was an avowed and open infidel, and sometimes bordered on Atheism...He went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard."
Joseph Lewis quoting Lincoln in a 1924 speech in New York: "The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
Lincoln in a letter to Judge J.S. Wakefield, after the death of Willie Lincoln: "My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them."
As a young man Lincoln apparently wrote a manuscript that he planned to publish, which vehemently argued against the divine origin of the Bible and the Christian scheme of salvation. Samuel Hill, a friend and mentor, convinced him to drop it, considering the disastrous consequences it would have on his political career.
William H Herndon, a former law partner, wrote a biography on Lincoln titled: The True Story of a Great Life. In it Herndon discusses Lincoln's religious views extensively.
Gordon Leidner has collected some quotations from Lincoln's later years in which he invokes God, and he makes the argument that Lincoln became a sincere believer. It seems to me he did come to believe in God but never accepted organized Christianity.



What the fuck? How did we end up with BUSH? "Tell me when, Lord..."



It seems to me that most of the great minds in history were nontheist.



... why weren't they feminist?

yesssssssssss.

Equality Now Condemns Saudi Arabian Court Ruling Sentencing Rape Victim to 200 Lashes and 6 Months' Imprisonment

New York, November 19, 2007–A 19-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, was brutally attacked and gang raped by 7 men approximately 18 months ago, according to media reports. While seeking justice in her case, the woman was herself sentenced in October 2006 to 90 lashes for being in the company of an unrelated man at the time of the attack. She appealed this decision to a higher court, and the Qatif General Court announced on Wednesday November 14, 2007, that the victim’s sentence had been more than doubled to 200 lashes and 6 months in prison, a gross violation of human rights including the right to be free from discrimination and from torture and other cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment. Following this decision the rape victim’s lawyer had his license to practice revoked. While the courts have not clarified why the sentence was increased, media reports suggest that the harsher sentence for the rape victim and the confiscation of her lawyer’s license were directly related to their decision to speak with Saudi Arabian media about the injustice in this case. If true, this retaliation clearly violates the fundamental human right to freedom of expression.

Oh shit. Hope my Far Eastern husband ain't techno-savvy.



HA HA

Like his contemporaries, St. Thomas lacked good information on what constitutes the difference between men and women. According to the Greco-Roman view of procreation, a view that predominated until the 18th century, there exists only one sex, but in two forms. A female person is a watered down variant of the male. The act of generation is accompanied by ‘heat’, by the ‘vital spirit’, which is the element that causes the difference between men and women. Only men have enough heat to produce seed which they cast into their partner’s womb as seed is cast into the earth.

Foetuses develop their full potential, their maleness, if they amass a decisive surplus of ‘heat’ or ‘vital spirit’ in the early stages in the womb. Females are the result of insufficient heat being absorbed by the foetus. What could have been a full man, then turns out to be a woman. Thomas himself says: "A female is deficient and unintentionally caused. For the active power of the semen always seeks to produce a thing completely like itself, something male. So if a female is produced, this must be because the semen is weak or because the material [provided by the mother] is unsuitable, or because of the action of some external factor such as the winds from the south which make the atmosphere humid" (St. Th. I, q. 92, 1, 1). Thomas saw woman’s deficiency confirmed in her inferior intellectual powers. Living in a state of subjection to man, woman is not fully an image of God, as every man is.

That's St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. I live across from a church dedicated to him. This helped to form a lot of views about women that have definitely carried on throughout the centuries until today. DIS-GUS-TINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

check it out

especially the gallery of offenders. wooooowww.