Guess the Century!

Time for a new game here in Hell in which I give you a quote and you guess which century this quote was written in. It'll be fun!

Here's the quote (no cheating, click after if you want to verify):

So why do I want a clean home?
Well like I said above to be able to practice hospitality, and also so that I am able to show appreciation to my husband for providing me with a roof above my head. I want to show him how much I appreciate him by taking care of my home so that he doesn't have to dread walking through the door and seeing clutter, and dust everywhere! I want a clean home for our children, and a safe environment for them to grow up in. I want to be able to practice what I preach, and glorify the Lord with the home that He has provided for us using it to serve Him.

Hmmm. . . in English, references a time when women did not equally own marital property so . . . 18th Century? 17th Century?

Nope. That was written yesterday. That's right, kids, 2011!

Look, Amber, darling, that house, it's also your house! I know, it's totally amazing. And your husband, should he truly approach dust and clutter with dread, is perfectly capable of using his hands (I'm assuming he has hands) to pick things up and run a duster over things. It is totally within his capabilities. Contrary to your promotion of a book about cleaning (not making this up), cleaning is not actually rocket science. I'm not saying cleaning isn't work. I'm not saying cleaning isn't time consuming. I'm not saying cleaning isn't a pain in my ass. Your husband can totally handle it.

And please stop thanking your husband for the home you both live in. That's what marriage is. Sharing things. It's both of your houses. It's both of your children. It's both of your responsibilities.

Sigh.

How to Tell You Are Not a Feminist

I've seen 1,000 word explanations of feminism, but as the Princess of Pithy, I can boil that down for you into one sentence: Feminism is the belief that men and women are equal.

That's simple, right? Men and women, we are equal. Anything else associated with feminism- control over fertility, criticism of media treatment, concerns about representation in power structures- flows from that simple, defining belief.

Determining whether or not you are a feminist or whether an organization is inherently feminist, is equally simple. Do you promote actions or ideas that treat women and men equally? Does the organization act in a way that results in women and men being treated equally?

If not, neither you nor the organization are feminist. You may wish to be a feminist, but if you don't hold to that belief, you are not. Go find another word. This is not to say that feminism is a monolith and that all feminists believe all the same things. I've heard equally good arguments for and against pornography and sex work from feminists I admire equally. I've heard some fairly silly arguments regarding subjects like wearing colours and skirts* from feminists I otherwise admire. However, even those arguments are within the framework of equality for all sexes**.

For example, is the Catholic Church feminist? The short answer is "no, what the hell is wrong with you?", but you probably didn't stop by for the short answer, and I'm stumped on what happens next in my book, so I'll ramble on a bit.

If you're not familiar with the Catholic Church (hereinafter "RCC"), even a cursory examination of the structure and teachings of the RCC is enough to show it is inherently misogynistic. Men rule the RCC. From priest to cardinal to bishop to pope, the entire power structure is exclusively male. Only men can lead worship services, only men can make policy decisions, only men speak for God. Women have two roles, and both those roles are in service to men: wife/mother and nun.

This is not feminism.

The policies of the RCC flow directly from this misogyny. Women are not allowed control over their bodies, and are fully expected to die in difficult pregnancies and to bear the child of their rapist, even if that rapist is their father, even if they are 9 years old. Women are fully expected to give up any possibility of a career and to bear one child after another until they no longer can. That is the role of women in the RCC and it will never change, because the policy makers will never be women.

This is not feminism.

Having established that, is it possible for a Catholic to be feminist, or for a feminist to be Catholic in good standing holding to the accepted teachings of the RCC? No. Logically, one could not embrace the above and be a feminist, simply because the beliefs of the RCC and feminism are mutually exclusive.

Now here's the thing about feminism: feminism does not promise you a rose garden. Even if feminism overcame all misogyny tomorrow, that doesn't mean every individual woman's life would automatically be perfect. Feminism seeks to remove artificial societal barriers keeping women lesser than men. Feminism does not require that each woman become a doctor or limit herself to two children or abort her rapist's baby. Feminism merely seeks to make those choices available to you. You are more than welcome to choose to be a stay at home mother, to have eleven children and to continue any pregnancy you wish, even if that means risking your own life in the process. I would not make those choices, personally, but I'm not you and I will support your right to make choices, even if I might personally find them bizarre or ill advised.

Basically, in the linked article above (and here, why make you scroll?) Simcha Fisher argues that because she takes advantage of certain advances earned by feminists, she is a feminist. Just soak that in for a minute.

What if I had to argue with the auto parts clerk to buy a headlight bulb, even though I was the one replacing it? What if the bank required me to get my husband’s permission for this and that? And what if I wore skirts because I’d be shunned if I didn’t, and not because I felt like wearing them?

Yeah, that would totally suck, right? That's the world many feminists lived in and worked so hard to improve. When my mother was in college, that was the world. Married women couldn't get credit in their own name, so she didn't. Female college students couldn't attend classes in pants. If you showed up to class in pants, you would be escorted out of the building. My mother is not 1,000 years old. This is very recent history.

So here's Simcha, aware of that history, grateful it is history and is simultaneously patting herself on the back for supporting an organization that is deeply misogynistic.

So what makes me a feminist? Some would say that all faithful Catholics are feminists, because the Church is the most pro-woman organization around: The Church honors and values the particular gifts of women, and demands that men treat women with dignity and even a little bit of fear. John Paul II famously called himself a “feminist pope”; and in practical terms, the Church has probably done more for the physical well-being of women around the world than any other charitable organization.

Catholics who are feminists recognize that, while so many true wrongs have been righted in the last 50 years, the poor treatment of women in America has just been displaced, not eradicated. So now, instead of corsets and disenfranchisement, we have widespread pornography, abortion, and abandonment of every kind. We have gained some necessary ground, but lost so much else that is valuable in the process. Most of my Catholic friends see the world this way.

Yes, pornography and abortion didn't exist until 1964, Simcha. JPII could have called himself a pink unicorn if he had wanted to, that wouldn't make it true. And you know what? I don't care what the RCC has done for women worldwide (health care missionaries? I'm not sure), as long as women are not allowed in the halls of power simply because they are women, the RCC is not feminist, and neither are you.

Find another word. "Feminist" is already taken.

*Admittedly, I wear skirts almost exclusively because I find them to be significantly more comfortable than pants, so maybe I just don't want to hear a feminist argument against skirts. Then again, I'm in favor of men having the option of wearing skirts (you'd think, given the, um, dangly nature of male genitals, that skirts would be the automatic male preference) as well, so I think I'm still falling within the equality test.

**We need to have a discussion about how limiting and exclusionary it is to discuss sex as if it is only male and female. There are those who fall outside the XX/XY paradigm, and it's hurtful to them to be constantly excluded from, quite literally, everything.

Inside a Man's Mind: Modesty, Part I

(sigh. I already wrote this post and then blogger killed it, so, you know.) A man's view of modesty:

I wanted to rehearse for you how I first became acquainted with the principle of modesty, how it radically altered my perspective concerning women in general, and how it has continued to shape my interaction with them.

"Rehearse"?

To be brief, my first exposure to modesty (not sure those two words are comfortable in the same sentence)

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.

was upon seeing my future wife and her sister sitting across the room at a scripture study at college. I was 20 years old and I believe I can honestly say that the issue of modesty had never crossed my mind - ever. I hadn't, up to that moment, paused to consider if there was a right and a wrong when it came to dress, much less the behavior which endues our appearance with a particular spirit.

Really? You never considered if there were a right and a wrong when it came to dress? Not ever? So you felt perfectly free to wear saran wrap to a wedding, huh? C'mon now.

So, there they were, meekly

Get used to that word, "meek(ly)". He likes it. A lot.

seated across the room from me, completely separate in their attire from every other young lady in the room, very nearly glowing in their probity, and I had the thought come to me, "Those girls are just plain WEIRD."

". . . glowing in their probity"? You know, I have a permanent crick in my neck from looking sideways at this sort of writing, as if it might help to view them from a 45 degree angle. It doesn't.

Perhaps not the epiphany you were expecting. Something significant, though, had happened to me, something which set the stage for the cluster of revelations which were to come regarding this issue - I had actually seen modesty, and everything it implies, with my own eyes.

Dude, it's a woman in a jumper, not the Ark of the Covenant. Calm down.

Strange as it was to my carnal mind at the time, it was undeniable in its distinctiveness - that is, there were definite, purposeful motivations driving the young ladies to dress as they did, and in the nearly abandoned, certainly neglected center of my heart, I knew it.

Or they have no sense of style. Pick one.

It would take me another year or so to acknowledge this and summon the courage to ask at least one of the young ladies - WHY?

WHY ARE YOU SUCH A FREAK?!*

If I shared all of what transpired on this little journey of my mine, it would make for lengthy reading.

Considering the length of the two posts he wrote on the subject, I can only imagine what he considers length- long. Long is a fine word. I never met an adverb I didn't like and you're pissing me off.

Suffice it to say that only God could have arranged matters in such a way that a year later, I found myself the head of a small group study with a certain young lady assigned as one of my "students."

Yes, because in a small city with a limited number of people meeting your definition of Christianity it is absurd that you would run into her again. The odds were like, what, 95% that you would? Had to be god. Also, the sarcastiquotes around student make me uncomfortable. "Oh, yeah, she was quite a student, yes she was."

I expect it is rare when a teacher learns more from his student than she from him, but such was my experience over the course of the next few months.

No, this is a fairly common sentiment among teachers.

I am not ashamed to admit this, but I sat at my future wife's feet that semester and was schooled in the ways purity.

Is there any part of this story that isn't going to sound like poorly written BDSM erotica?

She never would have done this had I not been so inquisitive. By this time, the thought in my heart concerning her appearance had greatly matured from "strange" to "I absolutely must know why this lovely young lady dresses, no, more than dresses, IS the way she is! What scriptural exegetic is she tapping that drives her to live thus?!" I was transfixed by her "way of life" and I absolutely had to get to the "why" and "what for" behind it. Her answer came with a gentle and quiet confidence, "It's really quite simple..."

And it is, and always will be.

Look, I'm not going to question what attracts one person to another. You may look at a square-jawed, clean shaven GQ sort with neatly cut hair and think "Hot!" while I'm salivating over the guy with the stubble and the unkempt hair and the dirty jeans and that's okay. There's no right or wrong to it.

So I don't care that jumpers turn this guy on. More power to you, buddy. What does bother me, among other things, is this apparent assertion that his turn on is a commandment from god we should all be following.

You see, as I scheduled a curious number of group "discussions" that semester,

Was it 7? I've always thought that 7 was a particularly curious number.

I took the opportunity to probe Caroline

LOL!

concerning the decisions she had made concerning her walk with God. Nearly all of her decisions could be viewed as accessory to her decision for modesty.

So I guess she wasn't helping the poor or comforting the sick, huh?

In other words, her decision for modesty governed her decisions in many other areas of Christian import. Having said that, modesty itself is an appendage to femininity and femininity to godliness.

Hee! I'm so feminine, I'm lucky I haven't transmogrified into Barbie and I'm an immodest atheist. But thanks for the diesel dyke reference there.

Caroline never came right out and said this, (would never have even thought it) but what I kept hearing throughout our discussions was, "I am a woman, made in the image of God, and if you were a true man of God, you would treat me, with all dignity and honor, according to the rights and privileges afforded to me by my Creator."

The right to wear ugly clothes and the privilege to be submissive to men.

This was completely new to me. I just thought that, well, I'm not sure what I thought about women. With a few notable exceptions (my mother, grandmother, precious few church women) seeing women aspire to and attain unto every role men traditionally displaced was all that I had ever known.

Fucking bitches, thinking they can be doctors and lawyers and mow the lawn and fix the leaky toilet! How dare they? I have a penis, damnit, and I should get to be superior to half the population just by an accident of birth. Why should I have try at things and earn people's respect and praise? Whores!

Even most of the dwindling number of housewives in my experience looked and acted like feminine men with slightly longer hair.

Given that men and women are both human, what exactly is the difference other than that, really? I mean, what do you want? Oh, right, jumpers. Submission. Meek.

Yet here I was was talking with a woman who hadn't the slightest desire to look, act, or compete with, me. And bless God, it affected her appearance (for the better I might say ; ).

Hur! Ugly feminist lesbos, hur!

Side note: remove "or compete" and what he said was "look or act with me". Okay then. I can see why you wouldn't want me in the game with you. I'd trounce you in the first five seconds and spend the rest of the time making fun of your shirt.

That's really what it is, what all this boils down to, isn't it? He knows he's not the smartest person around, not the most accomplished, probably a bit lazy, and it just grates on him, all those women outshining him effortlessly. Don't they know he's better than they are? Don't they know that having a penis is supposed to be an automatic win? Sluts.

Now, hear me, I have no desire to disparage any of the other young ladies that I attended the scripture study with for I believed, and still believe them to be sincere in their devotion to Christ and they blessed me in many ways.

But they are ugly and probably lesbians.

When I think of my wife, however, in chastity, virtue, and yes, modesty, my heart can only borrow the words of King Lemuel's mother, "...but thou excellest them all." It was on account of these undeniable qualities which my eventual wife exhibited that completely captivated my heart, and I, with much trembling, resolved to win her.

It proved only to be the beginning.

Read that last line in movie guy voice. It's awesome.

Wait until I snift? no. fist? no. oh, fisk, that's right. Part two. Most of it is a bizarrely ignorant rant about Muslims and the Amish. Yes, the Amish.

*Sorry, I'm eating falafel in a pita as I type this, which apparently makes me a bit shouty. OM NOM NOM NOM.

Women Can't Learn, but We'll Take Your Money Anyway

I have the Maxwell's blog in my reader. They're . . . odd. They're a roving band of fundamentalist musicians. The men dress normally, in khakis and golf shirts and the women wear these hideous jumpers and long sleeved, high necked shirts. It is tragic. They do things like travel through Idaho into Canada in the beginning of April*, and then get all surprised when they run into every different description of trouble with the weather and their old tour bus, delightfully named Uriah- including sinking into the pavement in a small town in Canada.

Recently, one of the Maxwell boys has launched a new venture, ITonRamp.com. It didn't come up in my reader capitalized like that, so I read it as iTronramp** and thought, "Is there nothing Apple can't do?" (Imagine my disappointment.) What exactly ITonRamp is, I couldn't tell you.

I guess it has something to do with this:

Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.

Proverbs 4:26

hmmm.

Well, how about this:

IT (computer-related) work has been a great blessing to our sons, giving them vocations that have allowed them the means to purchase their homes debt free. We are excited that ITonRamp will give other young people these same opportunities without having to leave home for their education.

Steve and Teri Maxwell
Titus2.com

Well, I guessed it was IT work, computer-related doncha know, but "without having to leave home" is very fundilicious. See, lots of secular training programs like to advertise "from the comfort of your own home!", so perhaps this strikes you as normal. No, no, no, This is a dog whistle and a half. This means "without having to go to a college and meet people with different beliefs and become a gay atheist prostitute muslim!"

So, they teach you computer stuff. Lots of people do that. What makes this specia- wow, look at that!

What makes ITonRamp unique? Instead of using just "instructors," we employ mentors. A mentor is someone with a verified skill-set in the area they are teaching. In addition, they have lives founded on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Instructors? Fuck your instructors! Ivy League white tower socialfasciislamoatheists, they are! And elite, they are elite! We have mentors. Mentors are just like instructors without any kind of certification and they love Jesus! Jeeeesus!

Because that's what's important when I want to learn computer stuff.

Actually, it's very important as demonstrated by the faq:

To teach computer skills, foundational and beyond

To equip for immediate income generation

To develop life skills

To prepare for service

To accomplish this in a Christ-centered learning environment without having to ingest humanistic, ungodly information in pursuit of a career or diploma.

• Humanistic ungodly facts, yo! Don't ingest them!
• And how will they prevent this ingestion of humanistic ungodly comestibles?

By furnishing carefully chosen curriculum that is consistent with Christian ideals and is conducive to learning. If that means tearing pages out of a textbook or writing new curriculum, we have and will do it.

This is an IT course, mind you. It's been a while since I took any computer courses, but I don't recall, well, anything that would require removal by a fundy. Are del tags an abomination before the lord? Honestly, purely in the field of IT, can anyone think of anything that would be offensive enough to a fundy that they would have to remove it from a textbook entirely?

What about the wimmenz? Can they learn computer stuff? Well, sorta.

Young women will also find ITonRamp courses useful. It can be a struggle to productively stay busy as young women wait on the Lord for a marriage partner. It is not our goal to provide a career as such for young women, but to help them be productive with their time as the Lord Jesus directs. IT work can give excellent opportunities to earn significant self-employed income in a safe, non-corporate environment and have skills that will facilitate a future marriage, especially if the future husband is self-employed.

Only in the sense that it might help you get married, honey. We wouldn't want you out there in the dangerous corporate world wearing pants or something.

How much does this cost? $200 for the Home Track course for the wimmenz and $1,000 for the A+ Track.

And for that you get . . . mentors. and ripped up books. and mentors. but wait!

Whoa, so some guy is going to be spending time on the phone with my twenty-one-year-old daughter “mentoring” her? I don't like the sound of that!

At this point we anticipate the mentors to be men. To enable propriety and no possibility of defrauding, direct phone conversations will be from a person of the same gender. Therefore, if there are ladies in a track, the phone call to them will be via a female mentor assistant. The mentor assistant will not have the technical experience that the mentor has, but she will provide the one-on-one personal encouragement that the mentor would have provided.

So, if you're a guy, you get a phone call from someone who actually (he says anyway) has the knowledge to help you. If you are a woman, you'll get a phone call from a woman who has no idea about computery stuff, but she is encouraging. Because why ask for knowledge when you can get "Jesus loves you!"? Is there some reason the mentor assistant can't ask an actual mentor the question and then relay the answer to the woman in question?

The question itself is, of course, amazing. So, my adult daughter will be ON THE PHONE with being "mentored"? Men can't even control themselves on the phone now? She can't hang up the phone if gets fresh? She can't enjoy him being fresh?

le sigh.

*For Idaho and Canada, April is still solidly winter.

**I finally saw the new Tron and loved it. LUH. I know it was panned, but the visual spectacle was outstanding, and what else are you expecting from Tron?

Hey, Baby, Wanna Blow Me?

Filed under "Dispatches from the Rape Culture", I give you two unrelated but related vignettes:

The weather's been trending upwards lately and I've been taking the opportunity to walk around at lunch. Outside, away from my desk, in public. I know, I totally deserved what happened yesterday. Being out in public while female. What was I thinking?

I'm waiting at the corner for the light to change and a blue Jeep with the top down (it hasn't been that warm out) full of guys careens around a left hand turn, taking the opportunity to ask if I'd like to engage in sexual activity with them. Actually, one of them yelled, "Hey, Baby, wanna blow me?" as they barreled past me at a high rate of speed. I guess they weren't exactly prepared for a positive reply.

Welcome to the Rape Culture, "baby", where sexually transgressing against passers-by is good clean fun.

*******************************************************************

The CEO of the local hospital we represent is a woman. I talk to her all the time, and while she is always perfectly polite, she is not in any way friendly or happy. She is business. A coworker of mine was complaining about it, "Oh, the bank vice presidents are always so funny and she's just mean!"

She's not mean. She's business. And those bank vice presidents are all men. And they are jovial fellows for the most part. Always with a joke and a smile. Whatever you call a woman like that- it's not "jovial"- you don't call her CEO of a hospital. Men have a little breathing room to be funny, women are too busy working twice as hard and convincing everyone they do not like pink. Or flowers. Or fluffy kittens. A man in a suit is business until proven otherwise, a woman in a suit will have to convince you. And then apologize for being "mean".

I Always Forget I'm Just a Vagina on Legs, Like All the Other Vaginas on Legs

This latest from Salon's "We're liberal, but not in that way ladies" department infuriated me. I was left sputtering with a rage so profound, I couldn't even figure out exactly what was setting me off.

Not a day goes by when we don't hear about the incredible accomplishments of today's kick-butt young women. They outnumber men in college and they are out-earning their male peers when they first enter the work world -- to such a degree that many consider it evidence of a "boy crisis." But the authors of a new book, "Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate and Think About Marrying," say all this success has come at a great cost to women's sexual bargaining power. When it comes to relationships, they say men are calling all the shots -- which means less commitment and more sex.

Because women want wedding rings and men want a place to stick their dicks, hurhur! And it's all your fault, girls, for insisting upon educations and job opportunity. If you'd just stay in the kitchen where you belong, you'd . . . actually, even this article admits that college-educated women are the most likely to get married and stay married, but why let facts get in the way of slut shaming?

I measure the price of sex in a couple of different ways. I didn't write this theory personally, but social psychologists claim that men's sex has no value per se. In the world of prostitution you never see women paying men for sex. Men pay women for sex, men will pay men for sex, but women don't pay men for sex. You get a sense that she has something of value that he wants.

Any discussion of this sort of thing without acknowledging the patriarchy we live, as well as gender roles and the perceived duality of female desire (the whole Madonna/whore thing), as well as the inherent fear of female desire in our society is just missing the point. Or misogyny.

Beyond that, it's absurd to state that men pay prostitutes for sex because they can't get sex any other way. Seriously, Charlie Sheen hired a hooker because Charlie Sheen can't get laid? Really? I'm just not buying that. Some men might pay for sex because they can't get it for free, but the real appeal of bought sex is that you get exactly what you want, when you want it, and then you leave.

Anyway, I can't possibly review everything that is wrong with this article, because there's just so much and I'm only one vagina with legs, so let's cut to the money shot:

That's a terrible environment to try to get men to commit. The women wind up competing with each other -- not necessarily to marry because they're not interested in marriage at that point -- but they compete with each other to attract men. How do you compete with other women to attract men? Well, sex is the way to get his attention. It's the opposite of a cartel effect where women would say, "All right, we need to band together and artificially restrict the price of sex and get it high, even if we don't want to, in order to extract things from men." It used to be women would shame each other for selling low.

. . .

I think it's a bad idea for women collectively to compete with each other for men and to just sort of say I'll do whatever it takes to be in a relationship with men. Women need to somehow reacquire control over the direction of relationships. They feel like they don't have control. They feel like he calls the shots. That is most unfortunate. Part of that, I think, involves -- and this is what some women don't want to hear -- the artificial restriction of sex until later in the relationship. You might not feel like doing that but it's for a greater future goal. Men who have sex early in a relationship feel little impulse to make strong commitments. Women desperately want that to not be true, but it is. Men and women make relationship commitments very differently. It doesn't sound modern and it doesn't sound natural, but I don't care what it sounds like, I'm telling you how things work. Giving it away early gives a great deal of power to him.

Because men don't care about women, just about the vaginas we're attached to. And if he can't get access to my vagina as quickly as he can get access to another vagina, he'll go find that other vagina. The fact that he might like me as a person, might find me interesting, nice, funny, smart and great to hang out with is irrelevant as long as that other vagina is easy to access.

Never forget, ladies, that we're interchangeable. Men have no interest in anything going on above our waists, other than the boobies!- so you're just like any other vagina out there. And if you allow access to your vagina easily, you're ruining it for every other vagina-carrier out there. Which is so rude! We need to form vagina cartels! (He actually says this, btw.)

Yeah, That's Pretty Much What Being a Woman Is Like

Yup. That's pretty much it.

And Privilege Denying Dude will no doubt show up to tell me how wrong I am about that in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

Stories Seep In

A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a male friend and the subject turned to girls and science. We talked about why it is so damaging that the default attitude is that girls are good at language and nurturing and boys are good at math and science. He just couldn't understand why girls and women don't just shrug that off and do what they want to do. I couldn't really think of a way to explain it at the time, or until last night, in fact.

When I was growing up, I was the smart one. Learn to read before the age of 2, and people regard you as a brain with legs. They don't really think anything else about you. I was never encouraged to participate in sports or physical activities- I was a thinker. Thinkers think, they don't make layups or hit home runs.

This was the story that was told about me and it became the story I told myself. "I'm bad at sports." I know this because everyone told me this. "I can't dance, I'm not good at that sort of thing." That's what everyone says. It's true, you know. "I don't even want to, don't worry about it."

But really, I did. I wanted to dance more than anything. I wanted to hit home runs and make free throws. Unfortunately, I was chained to my books by the stories that had settled into my bones. I made those stories true and they made me less.

Anyway, my joints have been stiffening lately, more than usual, so I finally followed my doctor's advice and tried Tai Chi*. I always wanted to try Tai Chi. It's so beautiful, flowy and graceful. But I am not graceful. I'm bookish, you see. I'm not good at that sort of thing.

It turns out I am good at that sort of thing. My balance sucks and I'm stiff as hell, but I have no trouble at all mimicking the moves as far as I am able. Turns out, I only need to see something done once to be able to do it myself. I actually have a talent for this.

Which makes me super pissed off because I could have gone clubbing back before I got sick and had a fabulous time if I hadn't let the stories people told about me become the stories I told myself.

That's the crime of the patriarchy. We tell girls they aren't good at math and science, boys are better. We tell them this enough and they tell themselves this and then it becomes true. It settles into your mind back where deeply held understanding goes- where we keep "don't pee in your pants" and other such almost unbreakable codes. Then you never think about it again. It's just there. "I am a thinker, not an athlete." "I am a girl, I am better suited to things that aren't all mathy and scientific."

In the end, we rob everyone with these stories. The world wouldn't be the same if Madame Curie had never picked up a beaker. The world isn't what it could be because of all the other Curies who never did break free of their stories.

*Tai Chi is short for Tai Chi Chuan, which means Supreme Ultimate Fist. The Chinese should name everything.

Man Up. Now, How Would I Do That

Man up.

Cowboy up.

Do you have balls for that?

If you have any doubt our culture is a patriarchy, you have 5 seconds (that's how long it took me to come up with those phrases) to type 3 phrases with the exact same meaning in common use that articulate the female in the exact same way.

I'll save you some time. You couldn't do that if I gave you 5 days. There are none.

Think about that for a second. It's women who regularly push something the size of a watermelon through a hole the size of a lemon, but you need testicles to be brave.

It's women who raise the majority of children after divorce or breakup, by themselves, often with little or no help, but acting like an adult is masculine.

Women still, after all this time, make less than men and do more housework and shoulder more of the child rearing responsibilities, but we need to "cowboy up" not "mommy up".

Throw like a girl.

Scream like a girl.

Cry like a bitch.

It only took me 3 seconds to come up with those. Go ahead, you have eternity to come up with three phrases in common usage to express the exact same level of deliberate contempt, only using the masculine as the shaming device.

Go ahead, get back to me when you give up.

It's okay, I'm just a feminist with no sense of humor. It's not that you're not funny. And the patriarchy, it's fucking delicious.

I Clicked On It Again

Twitter is apparently my drug. I know better, I really do, but I just can't help clicking on a trending topic. Today's click o' rage is #thingswomendontdoanymore. Just look at that. You know what it's going to be.

date men of quality 2 many date 4 quantity;what he drives, where he works, how big his house is

And we're back to "women are golddiggers". You know, because the guy with no job living in his parents' basement is just such a catch!

give their man head randomly to surprise him.

Did women ever do this? I'm confused. Sounds a little like sexual assault, if you ask me.

what a fucking stupid hashtag.

Mark Shadbolt, I have no idea who you are, but I love you.

wear matching bra and panties to bed...(they only do on special occasions wink wink)

Um, who wears a bra to bed? That kind of constriction around your chest while sleeping, so not comfortable.

or even kno how to cook..

You want home cooked meals? Cook 'em your damn self.

wear short skirts in winter

When was this common behavior? hello, frostbitten thighs!

love theyre man for his heart and not his possession!

Materialistic whores! won't let me borrow her car after I got into an accident with her last one . . .

Sit wit their legs to d side on Okada

What?

try and have more brains than beauty.

Stupid materialistic whores!

have a home cooked meal on the table every nite

Must. Control. Feminist. Fist. of. Death. oh, and you had plenty of characters left, it's spelled "NIGHT"!

get disgusted by raping jokes

Come over here and try it. I'll show you disgust.

have sex with men...

What the hell was I having sex with the other night, then?

Rely on men for sex. They rely on dildos, other woman, or there fingers.

"Their" and that's just you.

and just to end this on a positive note:

Tiger Woods.

Sorry, "Stroppy" Is Not an Excuse for "Slut"

(h/t to boganette)

Apparently, you just can't say it enough: calling someone a slut is not okay. I really would not have thought that I would have to say that a school administrator calling a 14 year old a slut is not okay, but there it is.

I hadn’t intended to deal with the story about 14 year old Newlands College student, Amethyst Staladi, being told by dean Angela King to pull her skirt down because she ‘looked like a slut’. That was until I saw her mother, Kahira Marshall, onOne News last night telling the country that she considered Mrs King’s verbal apology a couple of days ago ‘doesn’t go far enough’ and that what she wanted was ‘a letter of apology to go on both Amethyst’s and the dean’s personal file’. At that point my blood began to boil.

Wow, my blood boils, too, though not for the same reason the writer's does.

Think about this incident for more than two seconds. Not only do we have slutshaming of a 14 year old girl, which is just totally out of bounds, but we have a serious power imbalance as well. The slutshamer is an adult and a school administrator. The shamee is 14 and a student at the school.

Suppose I stopped by the school to drop off a forgotten lunch for a neighbor's child and Ms. King told me I looked like a slut. As an adult unrelated to the school, I have options. Using that language in front of children is still unacceptable, but I can leave or read her the riot act. What can a 14 year old do? She can't leave. She can't retort. She is shamed, as Ms. King clearly intended, in front of her peers with no recourse.

I have no problem with her mother demanding a written apology. If I were her mother, I'd be demanding Ms. King's dismissal. Ms. King is a slutshamer, a power abuser and I am very uncomfortable with her remaining in charge of children. A written apology is the least she could do.

But no, sluts deserve slutshaming. Victims deserve blame.

Well, let’s look at the players in this mini-drama: a stroppy 14-year-old girl with behavioural, discipline and attendance issues who’s received previous warnings about breaching the school’s dress code; a highly professional teacher with an impeccable record, supportive of and popular with students, described by her colleagues as someone ‘who helps everyone really’. (The staff had sent her flowers because she was upset.)

I see. So it's totally okay to slutshame a 14 year old girl (cannot be said enough) as long as you are nice and popular and the girl in question is "stroppy". Oh, and I am crying a fucking ocean over Ms. King, Ms. King!, being upset over the incident. Fucking seriously? She called a 14 year old girl a "slut" and she's the one who gets flowers? You know what, I want a written apology from the entire staff after reading that.

So who needs to be taking a good look at themselves here – Mrs King or Amethyst’s parents? Which would be more appropriate – teaching Amethyst a little respect for her teachers and for the rules of the school, or encouraging her to be a smart-arsed little bush lawyer, trumpeting her 14-year-old rights on television.

You know who needs a lesson here? You, you ignorant asshat. Ms. King abused her authority and abused a 14 year old girl. There are few things worse in the world of a 14 year old girl than being called a slut and the one throwing that word around does not deserve my sympathy. Absolutely this 14 year old girl has a right not to be slutshamed by a school administrator and I don't care how "stroppy" or "little bush"* she is.

You know what, Brian Edwards? Fuck you. Seriously, go die in a fire. But don't get upset about that, okay? You totally deserved it, so I'm sure you'll be okay with me telling you to shut your twatting** mouth, you ignorant asshole. ($5 says he's more okay with 14 year old girls accepting abuse than himself accepting abuse.)

*Is it just me, or does all New Zealand slang sound a little sexual?

**I bet that's the wrong use of that word, but it felt right. Oh so right.

Does It Jiggle? Be Ashamed!

My breasts defy your rules!

I am quite thin. As in jutting collar bones and clearly discernible hipbones thin. Yet I am still a woman and when I move, things jiggle and bounce. My breasts bounce, my rear wiggles, my thighs jiggle a bit. It's part and parcel of being a woman- your body gets jiggy whether you do or not.

So when I read this (below) about body parts jiggling and strapping them down with extreme prejudice, I had to both laugh and fume. Laugh because I don't care how much duct tape you use, jiggling will occur, and fume because the female body is what is and I'm sick to death of being told all the ways I should be ashamed of it, and all the effort I should put into hiding it. If someone's not mocking my hair, some other asshat is advising multiple bras to keep my breasts from being breasts. Hello! They're fat and glands held in by nothing but skin, what do think is going to happen when I move? Oh, and nipples? Yeah, they happen. Get over it.

The congregation I attend has congregational dancing on Shabbat These are the guidelines for modesty while dancing. :D As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, So is a lovely woman who lacks discretion (modesty) Proverbs 11:22

Or has breasts and dares to leave them untaped!

(I'm just hitting the highlights of this ridiculous list. It's much longer than what appears here.)

Shirts/Blouses/Dress Tops Must not cling to reveal or accentuate the roundness of your breasts, or the curvature of your figure.

How on earth, where on earth, do I find a top that doesn't "cling", "reveal" or "accentuate" what is sticking out from my ribcage? Think about that for a second. During the winter, I frequently wrap a pashmina* around myself, and even with a big swathe of fabric loosely draped around my shoulders, you can still see my breasts exist, and I'm hardly busty. This would be impossible for a woman with even average size breasts.

Well, I suppose I could buy a burqa.

Skirts/Dresses & Pant suits a. Must not cling to the hips, thighs or buttocks to reveal or accentuate the curvature of roundness of them.

Again, hips and bottoms stick out. This is just, I dunno, anatomy, physics, three dimensionality. Again, the burqa is the only logical solution.

And here's the money commandment:

c. Proper Support should be worn. Applicable body parts should be anchored at all times while dancing. (May require sports bras, additional bras, control top pantyhose, etc.) General Rule of Thumb: If it jiggles or bounces, even slightly strap it down. To ensure modesty, a bra that is fiber lined will prevent unwanted protrusions from being visible under blouses.

As I mentioned above, even I jiggle and bounce. A woman of healthy weight much more so. This is a direct command to be uncomfortable, unhealthy and ashamed. Seriously, "additional bras"? I'm not even sure how one wears more than one bra at a time unless they are suggesting a sports bra on top of a regular bra, and then I don't see how anyone is breathing. Control top pantyhose? Ever worn those**? Again, no breathing. "Unwanted protusions"? Oh, right, erect nipples.

I have a solution. The burqa. It's clearly where you are going, just stop tormenting your female congregants with control tops and multiple bras and go with the burqa.

Really, who wrote this out? And how much fapping interrupted this screed?

Who may ascend into the hill of the L-rd? Or who may stand in His Holy Place? He (she) who has clean hands and a pure heart. Psalms 24:4

And duct tape around their breasts.

*My boss' wife picks out the nicest Christmas gifts!

** I have no idea why anyone makes control top pantyhose in my size, but they almost all are control top.

Whatever You Do, Do Not Click On That

I have got to stop clicking on trending topics on twitter. Seriously. I already know how stupid people can get in 140 characters or less, I don't need another object lesson. So of course I clicked on #whatdowomenwant.

First off, in case you can't figure out what women want, we're not a fucking alien species. We're people. We want what people want. Just remove anything you want concerning your penis and you know what women want. It's not like trying to figure out what a stingray wants.

Here are a long list of things women do not want, as brought to you by people for whom 140 characters are just too dangerous:

A mirror n perfect position so she can watch herself get pipe'd dwn

I honestly don't know what that means, and I'm okay with that.

well if they like me...another fine ass woman lol!

Um, okay then. Really, I'm totally past this LEZBOS R HAWT!!1!! (but those gay guys need to die) thing.

what they can't have

Women say they want nice guys and then they dump me for someone else! It's almost like I'm not nearly as nice and sane as I think I am. No, it's totally the women. The crazy, crazy women.

Love & Effection . lmao sike! more like Money & Purses

Yes, we're gold-digging whores! All of us! We want money and things to put money in! HAHAHAHAHA.

Although, upon reflection, I certainly don't want "effection", whatever that is.

every GYATDAUM thing....sheit!!!!

Dude, how about spelling? If you're going to be a misogynistic asshole, at least spell properly. (And please, do not tell me what "GYATDAUM" means.)

a wedding

Here's a fire. Die in it.

to make ppl believe they don't suck guys off

What? When did oral sex become unacceptable behavior for women? Did I not get the memo? Not that I want to give this guy any.

what every other woman has :)

We're greedy. Greedy, gold-digging whores. Who lie about oral sex. And like weddings.

Kitchen gloves and a iron board.

Whatever would one do with an iron board? Now, an ironing board, sure.

To be like Kim Kardashian. Not work n date celebrities.

I now officially hate humanity.

Why Does Building Up Men Inevitably Mean Tearing Down Women

I am highly suspicious of anything that calls itself a "men's movement", probably because this [trigger warning: rape] calls itself a "men's movement", as well. Yet again, I am right to be suspicious.

The Christian Men’s Network will be putting on a conference designed to serve as “a radical revolution calling men to a higher standard of masculinity.”

Men from around the world will converge in Dallas, Texas, next week to learn how to be “a real man.”

Oh, yes, "real men". You know that's just going to be horrible. I have promoted my concept of femininity here before, but in case you're new, I believe that anything a woman does is feminine. So a woman playing hockey is as inherently feminine as a woman baking a cake while wearing a pink dress. Whatever floats your boat. I feel the exact same way about masculinity. Anything a man does in inherently masculine. A man baking a cake while wearing a pink dress is as masculine as a man playing hockey. Men are, by definition, manly.

Ergo, we don't really need to teach men to be manly and that's not what they're talking about, anyway. What they're really talking about is teaching adults to act like adults, i.e., fulfill obligations responsibly. Is there some reason we can't say that without invoking adulthood as masculine and femininity as lesser?

Apparently not.

Cole says he bases this movement on Timothy 2:2.

“Paul commanded Tim , find faithful men and teach them and they’ll be able to teach others. What God is looking for is what every woman is looking for – not a man of great power, but a man who will be faithful. When we develop faithful men, we develop mature men,” he said.

Are men not looking for faithful women? Are women looking for nothing else in men? Is faithfulness really the end all and be all of maturity, and if so, why is not the end all and be all of maturity for all adults, women and men alike?

All I can conclude is that women aren't ever really mature, no matter how old they are. Women are children forever.

The younger Cole explained that there is a need for teaching leadership and maturity in culture. In dealing with various cultures around the world, he finds that maturity in men is lacking across the board.

Women are either not a part of culture, or not in need of possessing leadership and maturity.

“The issue in our culture today is the immaturity in our men,” he noted. “To be a real man is to be more like Christ. Jesus was a strong man; he wasn‘t a wimp man, he wasn‘t a feminine man, yet he was highly compassionate. The stronger a man is at the core of his character, the more compassionate he can be in the outreach of his hands.”

*sigh* The "wimp man". The "feminine man". Because strength and maturity are the traits of men and femininity is weak and to be despised. Immaturity is bad in men, and to be expected in women.

Every damn day. Every damn day girls in our society are exposed to this message, that strength is for boys, leadership is for boys and "girly" is an insult.

Every damn day.Every damn day boys in our society are exposed to this message, that strength is for boys, leadership is for boys and "girly" is an insult.

It's just as bad for the boys as it is for the girls, and it's just as bad for the adults they grow up to be. I'm all for adults acting responsibly and fulfilling obligations. I'm all for fathers fulfilling their parental duties. I just don't think it needs to be accomplished by means of degrading women and forcing a particular gendered ideal upon us all.

pic link