Hey, Little Girl, Comb Your Hair, Fix Your Make Up

[High School Students Petition to Ban Songs w/ Sexist & Degrading Lyrics from Prom] Overall, I’d say these high school students get a huge thumbs up for their activism against sexism.Any sort of banishment of a media form is censorship,though…and I am wholeheartedly against censorship. But overall? Good job,kids.

My personal listening choices might not reflect my approval, nor might the music I let my own children listen to,but  I’ve also raised my kids with a foundation that fosters respect and combats inequality in all forms. I’m sure it sounds hypocritical and maybe it is but I guess what I’m saying is, even my 12 year old daughter can pick a misogynistic lyric from a song and remark, “Whoa…someone has some serious issues with women!”, and carry on, not internalizing it. My oldest son loves certain songs about drug use but he is adamantly against drugs (yeah,yeah…..I know what you’re thinking: All parents THINK their kids aren’t into drugs but trust me – the kid that won awards from the DARE program and endured lots of ridiculous petty picking on in school  because he wouldn’t take drugs offered at a party? yeah…not a drug user.)  Just saying…media can be valuable and enjoyed for the sake of the art form, even if the subject matter doesn’t pertain to something socially redeeming. Kids who have solid values & ethics instilled at home are a lot less likely to be influenced by lyrics or film images that go against the grain of socio-positive values. In our house, if one of my kids hears or sees something that they find disturbing or alarming , that,folks, is what we call a “teachable moment” . There’s two kinds of parents: The kind that steers their child past the homeless man on the street and ignores their child’s questions about said homeless man…and there’s the kind of parents who allows a Q & A session to be opened, despite the unpleasantness and social shame of the situation. I’m the latter type of parent.  Unfortunately, not all parents are as hands on as I believe they should be and songs that encorage any sort of -ism can definitely influence and foster acceptance of certain mindsets.

One of the high school students was quoted as saying:“Some of the songs call women `bitches’ and `hos,’ or refer to them as objects and treat them like animals,” Conrique said. “We find that offensive.” The problem though, is not just that it’s offensive to young women ….it tells young men that this stance is perfectly acceptable when it most definitely is not, and that’s  who needs to be shielded from the influence most. Let’s face it…. these kids are going to listen to these songs in their daily, non-Prom life. The problem is, the right person and perspective isn’t always going to be present to help see the light in the teachable moment. What these high school kids did was to bring attention to issues that some may not have thought twice about but should have.

On a side note, I hate the PMRC and MPAA.  Just saying.

And speaking of misogony in music…..

[Girls, if your husband fucks his secretary it's your fault.] This 5-second synopsis should have told me I really didn’t want to go listen to “Wives & Lovers” by Jack Jones, but OF COURSE, that didn’t stop me from click-clickety-clicking away on the link. If I had a dime for every time I clicked on a link that I just knew was going to piss me off, I’d be rich. I am a true  masochist. Oh,yeah…I love the taste of suffering.

“It’s misogynitastic!”, says one You Tube commenter. My spellcheck doesn’t agree but I give you points for work make-upage,friendo.

Sad part? My Mom had this album and she liked it. I think she even had Dionne Warwick’s version. Yes, Burt Bacharach, who penned the song,  included women in on his chauvinist-fest.

The lesson here, girls…or the teachable moment, if you will… is NOT that you need to be at your prettiest and sparkliest at all times to keep your man satisfied. The message here is to NOT end up partnered with a sexist and shallow ass who believes a woman exists on earth to be pretty and offer unconditional servitude.

And why can’t I stop listening to this song???  What sort of anti-feminist crack did they put in that track?? Help. I think I feel the urge to buy something pink and lacy. Ew. I loathe pink and lace is just itchy. Black & spandex. That’s the ticket. Now,where’s my whip?

[blog title from "Wives and Lovers" by Jack Jones]

What if God was one of us ….Just a slob like one of us

Links I Saved Because I Didn’t Have Time To Read Them Until Now

[Burger King's Square Booty Call] I don’t have TV ,so I miss the lunacy of bad commercials. That’s what the internet is for. “Is the ad offensive, goofy, or just really effing bizarre?” I’m going to go with ,”Effing bizarre”.

[From Pro-Life Feminist to Pro-Choice ] Cate Nelson shares how her views as a Pro-Life feminist who shifted her views to the Pro-Choice angle. Sensible,articulate and much appreciated by myself, a feminist who values and respects life but holds choice as a sacred right.

[The Feminist Summer Reading List] If nothing else, I will make a point to read Mrs Dalloway this summer. I have 3 copies of the book,taunting me,unread. My intention was to read that and then The Hours by Michael Cunnngham. We’ll see what happens.

[Modern Hooker comics] online comic about..well, duh…a Modern Hooker.

[Fuck Yeah Cilantro] “IF YOU DON’T LOVE CILANTRO WITH ALL YOUR HEART I WILL FIGHT YOU.NO JOKE” . I’m down with that.  My apologies to Cilantro Haters who get that soapy taste in their mouth whenever they eat this rather swell herb. Maybe if you didn’t have such a dirty fucking mouth, Mother Nature wouldn’t feel the need to punish you.Ever think of that?

[Rainn Wilson bongos with Rivers Cuomo] covering Joan Osbourne’s “What if God Was One of Us”

[The Printz Project] I swore off  reading challenges but I’m  joining  this one. It’s a perpetual challenge so no time constraints…and they’re  books I’d probably want to read anyway. Meh,why not?

["My Mother's Garden"] Interview & video clip with documentary filmmaker Cynthia Lester about her new documentary about her mother’s hoarding disorder and mental illness. SO heart-wrenching & mind-boggling.

[blog title from "One of Us", Joan Osbourne]

and you, you knew the hands of the devil and you, kept us awake with wolf teeths sharing different heartbeats in one night

I have the plague or something. I don’t know. Go check Web MD and see what comes up for symptoms: throat feels like shards of glass embedded in it, dragging-ass tired all the fucking time and  feels  like being  hit by a Mack truck.

I hope I feel better by this weekend. It sucks to be sick on one’s birthday. Also, my oldest spawn leaves on his epic bicycling-across-the-country-trip on Monday. Sunday is his birthday….with a Bon Voyage/Birthday party. I’m still running around gathering contact info for people he can get in touch with on the road in case he needs something.I apparently don’t know a single person in Arizona.

Anywhore.

I’ll spread link-love since I’m here.

→ Margaret Cho says she’s in an open relationship,too…and refreshingly states on the matter of her bisexuality, “I’m not curious- I know”.

→ If you are a self-proclaimed feminist who also watches  porn, go take this survey.

→“No God,no boss,no husband” – An account of the first anarchist-feminist group in Argentina in the 1890s.

Free the love

[blog title from "Heartbeats" by Jose Gonzales...cuz that's what is playing this very second]

“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

Not all people got the warm & fuzzies from my last blog post. An email I received said this:

“If you’re so intelligent, why don’t you get that having children is never beneficial to a woman & only enslaves them? Having children only ever benefits the man and makes the woman subservient to him”

This wasn’t a singular sentiment. I received 2 other similarly worded emails over the weekend, the intent seemingly meant to enlighten me, a poor,enslaved Breeder.  I am still trying to imagine the message that accompanied the mass-emailed link-sending spree that brought multiple hits to that one entry.  “Can you believe how stupid this woman is? Imagine a woman subjecting herself to such patriarchy in this day and age!”.

Coincidentally (maybe even ironically), I have been immersed recently in the life of Emma Goldman and her writings. I love Emma Goldman to bits and pieces.I’m sure I could find a more high brow and intellectual way to express my admiration for Goldman but sometimes the ordinary way of saying things  gets the point across so much more efficiently.

At the time that she was spreading her message about anarchy, feminism,free love and social change, birth control was illegal. Like Margaret Sanger (who I have professed my love before here on this blog), Emma was passionate about women having control of their own reproductive health. Like Margaret Sanger, Emma  worked closely as a midwife with women who threw themselves down flights of stairs to end an unwanted pregnancy and tended to worn-out,exhausted mothers who were defeated by multitudes of children and poverty. Like Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman was arrested for distributing birth control and information for women to gain control of their own body and access reproductive freedom.

Emma suffered from “womens troubles” and instead of having surgery that could correct her problems, she chose to do nothing and became infertile. She had a mission in life  and saw children as being something that would hold her back and keep her from achieving this mission.

In contrast, another woman of that era, raised 7 children while publishing a newspaper that outraged many and  fighting  to change laws that equalized women and men, including the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a mother of a large brood and never let it impede her goals and vision for the society she wanted her children and grandchildren to inherit. Her husband became her partner in this effort, taking equal responsibility for all tasks involved in raising a family, from changing diapers to doing dishes. If she wanted men & women to be equal, equality had to start at home. Mr. Stanton should be prized as a pioneering Male Feminist.

Each woman  chose what they felt they could handle, determined to see a change in this world that went far beyond gender and reproductive status. Emma Goldman, the supreme goddess of feminism, said, “A woman MUST be free to decide the number of children she is to bring into the world!”.

5 was a good number for me. That’s what I chose. If I chose to have one child or none, I’m sure I’d have the respect of militant women who call themselves feminist but I really don’t care. To quote Emma Goldman, “True liberation begins in a woman’s soul”.

I am liberated. I wonder about women who scream so loudly and try so hard to get me to listen to and adhere to their vision of feminism. Did they grow up watching an oppressed mother give birth to child after child she didn’t love for the sake of religion? Were they made to feel they were less than a woman for not longing for maternal bliss? I don’t know what their issues are but I cannot see that they have found liberation within themselves. If you have internal liberation, you are more likely to be satisfied with your own state of being and have less concern for others. To condemn the choice of motherhood so adamantly almost seems like perhaps someone might not feel too terribly secure about themselves…or maybe their own ability to find the balance between  being  a mother and a person.

I don’t like to use labels to identify myself but feminism is one I have used from time to time. I don’t fit this picture in some minds, obviously but my view of feminism is  perhaps different. It means that I just want to have the same opportunities as a women that men are provided. I don’t necessarily WANT to take advantage of all those opportunities – I just want to make sure they are there. If not for me, than for my daughters. I want to be treated the same as a man. I want social stereotypes and gender roles  disbanded. Yeah, i’m choosing to live in a pretty stereotypical “woman’s role” but so what? That’s what I choose.Isn’t that what this “battle” is all about…making sure women have the right to choose.

Essentially, what I am saying to all those women out there who dare to judge and criticize a woman for being proud of her “Crotch Trophies” and the institution of Motherhood- kindly just please fuck off. Worry about what’s going on in your own womb.  Mine is pretty content.

Love is a weapon, love is a lesson

Sunday Stray Thoughts

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I saw this morning that Summer’s latest blog post answers Blue Milk’s questions about “Feminism & Motherhood” . They are great questions, ones I answered for myself a long time ago and recognized to myself that Feminism & Motherhood are synonomous, regardless of what some may think or feel on the issue.

The questions I ask myself lately about feminism are regarding my own sexuality & behaviors.  I need a symposium on  “Feminism and S & M” . Can a woman who declares herself & lives her life with feminist values still be called a feminist when she loves being slapped around and being called a dirty little whore once she’s in the bedroom? Or are all bets on  gender & lifestyle labeling  completely off once the “This is What A Feminist Looks Like” T-shirt is thrown off and wadding into a ball on the bedroom floor and replaced by finely knotted bondage ropes and welts?

yeah, these are the feminist related questions I ask myself.

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I hate the “greenwashing” trends I see, not JUST commercially & corporate but even on Etsy and other  sites selling handmade goods. I’m sorry but taking a burlap bag your rice came in and sewing sad little handles onto it doesn’t deserve a pricetag of $48.00, just because you tagged it with “recycled” “upcycled” “eco-friendly” “reusable” “green” or any other enviro-catchphrase.

If you REALLY care about the environment, you’ll make your upcycled & recycled products affordable so they are more accessible to the average American who does not have $50.00 to spend on a shopping bag.

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I scored bridal magazines on Freecycle this week. I have learned from perusing them that non-caucasian women and women  bigger than size 7 just do not get married. They’re the mythical unicorns in the bridal magazine world.

I do not understand the advertising in bridal magazines at all. Fully dressed brides surrounded by naked men.  Bridesmaids lounging with a disheveled “Just Been Fucked” look that suggests that the wedding reception doubled as an orgy. Brides in crash helmets and knee pads. Brides that look like they just threw up every last bit of their lunch before 6th period geometry class.

Nice ephemera for collaging though.

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"eve & eve"

[blog title from: "Plan to Marry", Lucinda Williams]