I had an epiphany today. Lately I've been really thinking on the whole reproductive rights/war on women thing and I've come to the conclusion that, yes, there is a war on women. Men don't have to deal with cramping/bloating/bleeding every month. Men don't have to deal with their moods being blamed on said cramping/bloating/bleeding. Men are never hobbled by pregnancy. Never put on bed rest so that they can deliver a healthy child into the world. Men are not taught to not have sex so they won't get pregnant. Hell, they're not even taught to not have sex so their partners won't get pregnant.
And that leads to the epiphany. Sex education benefits women and girls. STD prevention is a minor piece in the whole puzzle and while inconvenient, most STDs are curable or manageable and invisible. Pregnancy, however, is extremely visible. By not teaching our daughters/nieces/females/ future mothers how to protect themselves from pregnancy (and disease that can make them infertile in later years) we are allowing people (Men, Fundamentalists and dreamers) to literally retard the potential of millions of teenage girls. Everyone knows that lack of sex ed and abstinence only ed do not prevent teenagers from having sex. What they prevent is an easy way for WOMEN to get reliable information about not becoming a statistic.
There are better ways to put this but that's it. The war on women has been going on longer than I thought. And that is evidenced by the fact that we don't teach our girl children how to avoid having their lives at least severely derailed by unintended pregnancy. And the boys get off scott free. Women need to see this and unite. It's getting ridiculous.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
DWTS
Been in a funk lately. Hormones gone wild. But, at least there's decent TV on Mondays now that DWTS is back.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Life without Facebook
Yesterday I was tired of everyone I know and how much they suck and I dumped Facebook. Now it's an exercise in control for me but, damn, there's so much less to check on the interwebs if you're not always checking in on Facebook. What to do when I need 30 seconds of downtime?
Monday, March 12, 2012
Friendless
I realized today that I have no friends. The catalyst for this epiphany is stupid, really. I entered a t-shirt design contest and made the finals. The final t-shirt design will be chosen by a popular vote. I know how these things work, the person who reaches the most other people will win the contest, regardless of whether or not they have the best design. I have - had, really - 200+ facebook friends, so I figured I'd put out a call for votes in my status update and I'd probably get between 1/8 and 1/4 of my friends to vote. I wasn't expecting to win, I was expecting to lose but I wasn't expecting to lose because I only have 6 votes - two of which are from people I've never heard of and 2 of which are me and my husband, which leaves 2 that are actually people known to me. That's less than 1% - of people who are constantly asking me for things.
It hurt. I'm not a crier and I cried. I cried a lot. I've now disabled facebook and signed out of twitter and pinterest. I have no interest in people who can't spend 6 seconds to do me a rather small but not insignificant favor. It was free, it was juried (which means it's not like I submitted something with a bazillion other people and we're all clamoring blindly for votes), it had a prize that has a lot of value to me. And no one could be bothered.
I now feel like I have a much better grasp on how alone I am in the world. Maybe I'll use all my facebook wittiness on this blog now.
It hurt. I'm not a crier and I cried. I cried a lot. I've now disabled facebook and signed out of twitter and pinterest. I have no interest in people who can't spend 6 seconds to do me a rather small but not insignificant favor. It was free, it was juried (which means it's not like I submitted something with a bazillion other people and we're all clamoring blindly for votes), it had a prize that has a lot of value to me. And no one could be bothered.
I now feel like I have a much better grasp on how alone I am in the world. Maybe I'll use all my facebook wittiness on this blog now.
Friday, December 31, 2010
New Year's Eve, 2010
Because it's not New Year's Eve in 2011, despite the fact that everyone seems to think it is. It's also not a full-on holiday in itself. Like, when people wish you a Happy New Years, WHAT are they saying?? Happy New Year's Eve? What about the other 364 days? Bugs me.
Anywho. I've been awesome keeping this blog up, I know. In my defense, I did have a baby and finish a Master's in Education so I've been busy. I keep meaning to keep notes of advice to my daughter and I keep thinking of that advice in places where it is impossible to take notes. Like driving down the highway in traffic with blinding sun glare, not the ideal moment to catalog pearls of wisdom, unless that pearl is always have sun glasses and wiper fluid in your car.
Right, so New Year's resolutions, which I also kept meaning to write down when I thought of them so I could hold myself accountable. We can guess how well that turned out. I'm going to make an attempt to list what I remember, however, and maybe occasionally document progress or lack thereof throughout the year.
1) Lose the damn baby weight and the extra 20lbs that crept on before the baby.
1a) exercise 5 times per week
1b) think before eating crap and stop mindlessly stuffing it in my face, when I do
eat crap, savor it so I can eat less of it.
2) STOP BEING SO JUDGEY AND WANTY:
2a) accept that husband is NOT going to change how he does things so I need to change
how I react to them
2b) I have what millions of mothers would kill for (probably until they have it) - I stay at
home with my child (for the time being) and I need to stop thinking it's drudgery and
see it as a privilege
It's almost time for dinner. I'll work on more later, but I think those two are the big ones. Also: Glass half full, glass half-full....repeat.
Anywho. I've been awesome keeping this blog up, I know. In my defense, I did have a baby and finish a Master's in Education so I've been busy. I keep meaning to keep notes of advice to my daughter and I keep thinking of that advice in places where it is impossible to take notes. Like driving down the highway in traffic with blinding sun glare, not the ideal moment to catalog pearls of wisdom, unless that pearl is always have sun glasses and wiper fluid in your car.
Right, so New Year's resolutions, which I also kept meaning to write down when I thought of them so I could hold myself accountable. We can guess how well that turned out. I'm going to make an attempt to list what I remember, however, and maybe occasionally document progress or lack thereof throughout the year.
1) Lose the damn baby weight and the extra 20lbs that crept on before the baby.
1a) exercise 5 times per week
1b) think before eating crap and stop mindlessly stuffing it in my face, when I do
eat crap, savor it so I can eat less of it.
2) STOP BEING SO JUDGEY AND WANTY:
2a) accept that husband is NOT going to change how he does things so I need to change
how I react to them
2b) I have what millions of mothers would kill for (probably until they have it) - I stay at
home with my child (for the time being) and I need to stop thinking it's drudgery and
see it as a privilege
It's almost time for dinner. I'll work on more later, but I think those two are the big ones. Also: Glass half full, glass half-full....repeat.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Everyone else is doing it!
Apparently not so ambivalent about the parenting after all. Also a convenient excuse for not posting in 18 months (the baby is only 7 months old, but add in pregnancy and the fact that I never posted regularly to begin with and BAM. 18 months.
I'm starting a series of advice to my infant daughter -because I keep thinking of these pearls of wisdom (cliche and otherwise) and I tell her what they are but, she's only 7 months old, so I KNOW it's not sinking in and I don't want to forget them when she's older and will understand.
Today's one is:
Just because everyone else is doing it DOES NOT mean that you should. AKA: If everyone else jumped off of a bridge, would you?
To which the obvious answer (snarkily used by me when my mom would say the aforementioned) is, "depends on the bridge, duh." But removing yourself a little bit from the obvious and it's a great piece of advice. Be yourself, don't let peer pressure make you anything less than yourselves. Advertisers, friends, foes, most of the world works tirelessly to get you to go with the flow and not rock the boat (woohoo water metaphors). Sometimes they are entirely appropriate actions. However, many times they are not. Bridge jumping if you don't want to, no matter the bridge, is not a good idea. Drinking/doing drugs/having sex/getting some sort of body modification from tattoos to plastic surgery to piercings just because all your friends have done so is NOT A VALID REASON. Exploring magic mushrooms to more deeply investigate the spiritual possibilities is a far more valid reason for tripping your ass of than is, "well, Danny was doing it so I did too." Know why you're doing what you're doing (from eating the food you eat to buying a car to taking route A over route B) is invaluable.
Which is a perfect segue to the next piece of advice: Be mindful. To be explored next time. Hopefully sooner than 18 months from now.
I'm starting a series of advice to my infant daughter -because I keep thinking of these pearls of wisdom (cliche and otherwise) and I tell her what they are but, she's only 7 months old, so I KNOW it's not sinking in and I don't want to forget them when she's older and will understand.
Today's one is:
Just because everyone else is doing it DOES NOT mean that you should. AKA: If everyone else jumped off of a bridge, would you?
To which the obvious answer (snarkily used by me when my mom would say the aforementioned) is, "depends on the bridge, duh." But removing yourself a little bit from the obvious and it's a great piece of advice. Be yourself, don't let peer pressure make you anything less than yourselves. Advertisers, friends, foes, most of the world works tirelessly to get you to go with the flow and not rock the boat (woohoo water metaphors). Sometimes they are entirely appropriate actions. However, many times they are not. Bridge jumping if you don't want to, no matter the bridge, is not a good idea. Drinking/doing drugs/having sex/getting some sort of body modification from tattoos to plastic surgery to piercings just because all your friends have done so is NOT A VALID REASON. Exploring magic mushrooms to more deeply investigate the spiritual possibilities is a far more valid reason for tripping your ass of than is, "well, Danny was doing it so I did too." Know why you're doing what you're doing (from eating the food you eat to buying a car to taking route A over route B) is invaluable.
Which is a perfect segue to the next piece of advice: Be mindful. To be explored next time. Hopefully sooner than 18 months from now.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Men don't have these problems
I'm going to post comments that I make on other websites that I think are good.
This one is from boston brahmina in response to people being all judgemental on the woman-folk, in particular M.I.A. performing at the Grammys in all her pregnant glory (something I did not see and really don't have an opinion about - but apparently loads of people do).
This one is from boston brahmina in response to people being all judgemental on the woman-folk, in particular M.I.A. performing at the Grammys in all her pregnant glory (something I did not see and really don't have an opinion about - but apparently loads of people do).
Ya know, we’re just damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
Women who don’t have or don’t want children are given a hard time for missing out on the one thing their bodies were designed for. Woman who do have children can be called selfish for bringing yet another human into this over crowded world when there are already tons of humans who need some love. Women who have abortions are cruel and don’t believe in the sanctity of life. Women who destroy froze totsicles are baby killers. Women who use all said totsicles are discussed AD NAUSEUM by every Tom, Dick, Harry, Mary and Ann. Breastfeeding in public - no way! Use a bottle - don’t you know breastmilk is best??? And the dirt issue, the pre-pre-pre-pre school issue, the work or stay home issue. This could take days. I’m stopping now.
What’s a girl to do?
And, bet your ass if men were the ones having babies, NONE of this would ever be an issue. (Provided that men as procreaters (sp?) wouldn’t just flip the balance of power to women, thereby essentially making women men and men women.)
Also, I would not be against hearing your take on the aforementioned case of the utilization of all your totsicles (which are embryos in the freezer).
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