The Return of the Blog

So it's been a long time since I have written, ranted, verbally vomited, chronicled, argued or just typed on this page. A lot has happened in my life (as hopefully is the case for everyone as time passes), but I am drawn back to this forum because of an adventure I am going to undertake. I recently read "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk. As expected, I had mixed feelings about both the book and the author. I knew this would be the case going into reading that book, but I figured I couldn't speak badly about it until I actually subjected myself to it. However, I think what struck me most was how desensitized I became by the culmination of the story. Throughout the book women are degraded, demeaned, disregarded, etc. They are treated as empty characters put in the book solely to give the main character someone to misuse. But by the end of the book, I wasn't even remotely shocked by his treatment of female characters. I had become accustomed to it.

This disgusted me. I was disgusted with myself. But at the same time, I was amazed. If by the end of this one 250 "novel" I had become so desensitized to blatant and disgusting sexism, how affected am I by it every day? While trying to answer this question, I remembered something I had read in an Inga Muscio book once (not positive if it was "Cunt" or "Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil). Inga experimented on herself. Now, the details are fuzzy because it's been years since I read this, but I remember that she removed male voices from her life (not in all aspects, but she only read books by women, listened to music by women, read news articles written by women, etc). I am going at attempt to do the same.

In no way am I ambitious enough to embark on a year-long journey. So, I am going to start with a week and see where it takes me. Now, I am not naive. I know that there will be some times that it will be impossible to do this. There are times I will have to read things for work written by men. I have no control over the music we listen to at work. When in the presence of a large group of friends, I will explain what I am doing, but that doesn't necessarily mean they will accept and respect. I will document those situations. I also want to chronicle the other bumps along the road: How hard will it be to get my daily news? Is it fair to not read the works of feminist men? Will the way I perceive the world change? Will I feel empowered? Strengthened? Incomplete? How will this entire process affect me?

Let's see how it goes!

The rush down the aisle

Recently I feel as though everyone around me (especially from my hometown) has been not only walking down the aisle but rushing to it. I am trying to figure out this phenomenon. Don't get me wrong, I understand the concept of marriage. I think that it has a lot of importance in a lot of peoples' lives. I especially understand if the couple is religious. However, if that is not the case, I just can't seem to understand the concept of getting married at such a young age. I just turned 24 a month ago. I have been in multiple long-term relationships and have been in love my fair share of times. I used to think that I would get married too. However, recently I have really done a lot of thinking about the institution of marriage.

First and foremost, marriage is obviously a patriarchal institution. It is legislatively set up and continues to thrive on a system in which the woman is subordinate to the man.

Second, as someone who is a supporter of the LGBT community, I can't justify taking part in an institution that actively discriminates against a large portion of the population.

Thirdly, let's be honest with ourselves. I know your love is "a love unlike any other," and all that jazz, but what is it? 50% of all marriages in the states end in divorce? Now I fully understand that relationships come and go, and if you find yourself in a situation in which you are unhappy, I am a full supporter of divorce. However, why do we put ourselves through the emotional havoc of "filing for divorce" when breaking up with someone? Why does the state even have to be involved?

Ok, so there is a small portion of my laundry list of reasons why I am not a fan of marriage, but I am still trying to figure out why everyone is running down the aisle. Like I stated before, I do think that religion is a large portion of it. "god" says that you can't have sex until you are married. Ok, I get that people want to have sex, so maybe marriage justifies that for some people. But what I have found is that the vast majority of these couples have already had sex (don't worry, they are good christians so despite the fact that they are breaking one of their god's rules, they won't go to hell because they go to church every sunday. But you damn sodomites, you're headed straight to hell regardless.). So why the rush?

Honestly it confuses me. I'm determined that it is not the professing of love to the world, because you don't need a marriage certificate to do that. I get the $ thing - sometimes it makes more sense to be legally married. But, honestly, at times I think it has a lot to do with just getting all your friends together. Now, I know that this is going to piss people off, but it's one of the possible reasons that makes sense. If you have "true, lasting" love, then it's not going anywhere.....

Thinking about marriage and the reasons for it have also made me think a lot about having children recently. Just the other day I went and saw the must-see musical Spring Awakening. First off, I wish everyone could see it. It si basically about the effects of parents not talking to their children about sex.

I was incredibly lucky in this situation. My parents were very open (sometimes too open) about sex from a very young age. I think that this definitely led me to be more educated and cautious when exploring my sexuality. I always took this for granted. After seeing this though and constantly reevaluating how I want to eventually raise my children, I can't stress the importance of treating your children as little PEOPLE! I think that the more we hide from our children and the more we shelter him, the more harm it does in the long run. Now i know I don't have kids yet and I will still have a lot of learning and evaluating to do, but, damn people, talk to your children like the free-thinking, autonomous individuals that they are.

Really? Helen Keller Jokes Pervading our Music?

Ok, so I am home for the weekend. While in the city, I vary rarily listen to the radio. Which can be both a positive and negative thing. I fear that I limit myself to certain genres of music at times. However, I came upon this wonderful jem of a song that made me incredibly happy that I tend to avoid the radio and the sexist/anti-humanist shit that is put on it.

"Don't Trust Me" by 3Oh!3

I wish I were making this up. Here are some of the lyrics.

"Shush girl, shut your lips.
Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips."

Seriously. No joke. This is what I hear blaring on the radio this morning while having a cup of coffee with my sister. How fucking sick is that? There are so many different things to unpack with this one. First and foremost is the obvious Helen Keller joke. Seriously? "Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips"? That's appropriate? How does such a disgusting line ever get put into a song? And if it is in a song, how does that song get picked up by a label? And how does it ever get played on the radio? And how are people not up in arms about it?

I am so tired of shit like this being ok to say. Words have power. That's all there is to it. And people who walk around saying shit like this like it is acceptable are disgusting. I don't know how humanity got to the point to not give a fuck about who is hurt. I mean thinking about it. It is all connected.

Why does someone say something like this?

I think it is mainly because people have become far too desensitized. We have removed ourselves from the pain that other people feel. It is sick. I am not a religious person (proud atheist), but I do believe that we are all connected. We are all connected because we are all in this together. I truly believe that I am connected to every other person on this planet because we are all dealing with this shit together. But we have all become so isolated in our own little worlds that we fail to see how our actions affect others.

I mean, we have our core group of friends and family members that we would never want to offend. And we would get pissed if someone made a comment around them that upset them.

Well, it shouldn't matter if that person is your best friend or someone you don't know at all. Everyone feels pain. Everyone cries. Everyone carries burdens with them.

So all this fucked up "desensitized" shit is all connected. Whether it is a musician saying hateful shit like that song or institutionalized prejudice against homosexuals or mass genocide - it is all connected. It is all happening because we have removed ourselves from the bigger picture.

But the reality is that we are all connected. And what hurts someone else, hurts me. And this song is just at the top of my list of things that pissed me off today. I mean really. Come on people. We are all better than this.

Random Thoughts

Ok, so I work at a coffeeshop. As weird as this may sound, I really enjoy my job. I love interacting with people, and I am a morning person; so it just seems to fit. However, I just want to bitch for a second about asshole people. I am so fucking tired of dealing with complete jerks coming into the store and treating me like a moron. Just because someone is serving you in one way or another Mr. High-Up Bank Dude does not mean that he or she is stupid. There is no need to be condescending or demeaning. As a matter of fact, I would speak to someone in my position much nicer than I would a lot of other people because WE ARE SERVING YOU SOMETHING YOU ARE GOING TO INGEST. Plus, I have control over your caffeine level, so don't piss me off. Ha :)

I am currently in the middle of an amazing book. Everyone should check out The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I know I am only half way through it, but I am loving it. As sad as it is, I kind of want to finish it because I have like 10 other amazing books stacked in my "to read" pile and they are driving me crazy.

I don't know if I have talked about this on here, but everyone should read the book Red Tent: especially any woman. It will completely change the way you feel as a woman and how you connect with other women. I can't wait to have daughters and re-read this book with them.

Speaking of daughters, I had this interesting conversation the other day. I was talking to the amazing Sarah, and I said something about how I hope I have boys when I have kids because I don't think I will be good raising girls. Well, Sarah called my ass out (thankfully). The more I thought about her comments, the more correct I realized she was. I am actually quite disgusted with myself for ever saying that. There is no doubt that I have reservations about having daughters. I know the shit that is ready in this world to greet them. However, as Sarah pointed out, I am someone who should be having daughters. I know that I am capable of raising intelligent, worldly, kick-ass feminist daughters. I know I will also raise kick-ass feminist sons that are gender sensitive, but I should never hope to not have daughters. Ugh....I grossed myself out even thinking like that.

Finally, an uplifting note, spring is finally on its fucking way. Woo.

Easter

So...as ridiculous as this is, this blog is in response to a lot of thinking I have done recently about my facebook status. Beings that the Christian community just recently celebrated Easter, I have been giving even more thought to my atheist ways. I have always been bugged by people saying "God Bless" to me despite people telling me that I am over-reacting and whatnot. I am not saying that I get pissed off when someone is just wishing me well, I just get annoyed. Easter has brought this level of annoyance to an increased level.

In trying to figure out what it is that annoys me about all of this, here is what I have come up with:

I think something that bothers me in general are assumptions based on normativity. Maybe this is weird, but I get annoyed when people assume that I am straight. Now, it is true that I do date men, but I think it's just this assumption that pisses me off. There is a large portion of our population that lives always having to fight this stereotype and assumption. Well, I guess I try to fight this normativity as well as a type of unification. And I think that is what pisses me off about wishing me a happy easter. Now I know that sounds ridiculous, but think about it for a second.

In this country there is such an extreme christian-normativity. Well I am not a christian. Some people say that I shouldn't say anything and should just like take the well-wishing. Which, I do to a certain extent. However, it just pisses me off that people assume such a personal thing like religion.

Maybe that's all part of it to. These so-called "religious" holidays are so far removed from religion and spirituality and instead are all about consumerism that it makes me sick. People say happy easter to anyone and everyone without even taking a second to think about the religious connotations of what they are saying. I mean easter is apparently the day the christ rose from the grave all zombie-like, right? Well, I don't believe that happened. So, I don't celebrate easter. So don't assume I do.

I guess it can very easily be thought that I am definitely over-reacting to all this. But honestly, the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. I mean, I could be jewish, muslim, hindu, christian, agnostic, anything. I know a LOT of christians who would be pissed if when we were hanging out and talking about something good happening in their lives I just responded with "praise be to allah" instead of "thank god." And these are the people that tell me that I shouldn't get upset about someone telling me happy easter. Well, maybe they don't even realize how religious that comment really is. It's just so ridiculous. Now I am all for all religions being able to do whatever makes them happy. They can pray, sing praise, worship in anyway they want. That's the whole point. But there shouldn't be this assumption regarding religion. So maybe I am over-reacting, but I have a voice and I am bound and determined to put that voice to good use. In this case, I am speaking up against the christian-normativity in this country. Don't assume that someone is christian. Ask. Start a dialogue. Understand a culture different than yours. If someone were to just ask me if I celebrate easter before sending me an empty "happy easter" sentiment, maybe we would get a little closer to understanding one another.

Where to begin?

So last night I wanted Bill Maher's Religulous. Overall, great movie with great points. A couple of things I did not like about it: 1) it was obviously clipped together in a way that made the interviewees look uneducated and dumb. If Maher's point was really "doubt" and that nobody knows the truth, he should not have set out to make religious people look as ridiculous as he did. It went against his proposed point. 2) I did not like his portrayal of Islam. He very much attempted to show it as being an incredibly violent religion. I don't think he did justice to the faith, and I also don't believe he drew as many parallels between Christianity and Islam.

I was a big fan of the movie overall. Despite my critiques of it, I do believe that it had quite a few good points.

One of which was similar to the one I made in a conversation I recently had with an old friend. We were discussing religion, and the current state of the environment came up. I have a large problem with religions predicting the end of the world because it seems as though a lot of religious people are saying that the current environmental problems could be the beginning of the end of the world as predicted by their religions. HOWEVER, with this comes a lack of responsibility for each of our roles in the degredation of our world around us. That's one of my biggest problems with religion. A complete lack of responsibility for actions.

I mean let's take Christianity. God knows that we are all sinners. That's why she let her son die: for our sins. So as sinners, it is ok to sin as long as we repent and still believe that Jesus is the son of god. Well, you know...I take major issue with this. It is SO easy to say that we are all going to sin. No one is perfect. The only perfect person was jesus. That allows us to sleep at night. We don't have to be responsible for our actions. Now don't get me wrong, I have fucked up my fair share of times and did things I should not have done, but I have to deal with what I did. I don't trun to some go to ask for forgiveness. I deal with it within myself.

I am learning that there is a lot of power in my atheism, and I do need to be more vocal about it than I have been in the past because it is something that I feel quite strongly about.

So today, I was incredibly excited because I don't have to be at work until noon, so that means I get to watch the View! However, I turned on the tv to see that the cast of the View was at Disneyland, and Cinderella was right there with them. Now I did not even watch the entire show because I was so frustrated. Cinderella was standing behind the other girls, and she did not say a single word (except Thank you as she walked off). That's my EXACT problem with Fairy Tales. Any woman that I have respect for has a VOICE! She has an opinion on something. She speaks.

And this goes beyond stupid fairy tales (which I have TONS of problems with), I have realized that I enjoy surrounding myself with people that stand up for themselves and have a voice. I spent a lot of my life trying to be everything for everyone else, and for all intents and purposes, I had no voice. However, I have worked REALLY hard over the past few years to develop and explore my voice. And I enjoy people who have done the same. I don't care if a person's opinions are the complete opposite of mine, I just respect people who have some sort of an opinion and voice.

Gender Relationships

The mind is not asleep just yet...

So I was reading this article on Feministing.com, and I came across this way of looking at the gender roles within a relationship that was new to me. Well a little background is that there is a woman who is dating a man who enjoys cross-dressing. The woman wants to be alright with it, but it is causing problems in her, the relationship, (ugh damn oxford commas! I don't know if I need one there or not!) and their sex life. So, the woman wrote into another woman, and here is an excerpt from her response.

"Gender matters in relationships. I don't mean gender as in sex. I mean gender as the percentage we want our partners to be masculine and feminine. You found someone whose percentage worked for you - both sexually and in a relationship - now that percentage has changed. What does this mean for your own percentage?"

Now I admit that I am going to work this out on here. I haven't given much thought to this yet, so some of my comments may be ignorant at first. Hopefully they will work their way into some intelligent synthesis.

I am thinking about the proportions of the different genders (masculine and feminine) within relationships in my life. The typical ones are the least interesting (no offense). I mean I have one friend who is uber-girly (in a wonderful way), so obviously the guy that she is dating is super masculine. They seem to fit together in a predictable yin-yang kind of way.

But what about other relationships that aren't as cut and dry? If you have a masculine, straight woman, is she going to be attracted to a more feminine man? Or, is it just each person has his or her own comfort level and desired level of each gender within the relationship?

I am trying to sort out my feelings regarding this gendered outlook on relationships. In a way it makes sense. But on another level, I think it kind of perpetuates the socialized definitions of "masculine" and "feminine." I also think that it can easily be used to perpetuate these standardized roles within relationships. It is just odd to think of someone as a percentage feminine and a percentage masculine. I can't put my finger on what bothers me about it exactly, but I know something does. I think just the usage of the words bothers me for some weird reason.

I think the woman was basically saying that because the girl now knows that her boyfriend cross-dresses, his masculine to feminine ratio has been altered. He is now more feminine. But does cross-dressing necessarily make a man feminine? I am trying to think of real-life examples. Let's take Ellen Degeneres for an example. I think she partakes in cross-dressing (at a VERY socially-acceptable level). She wears stereotypically "male" clothing. I think that people do deem her to be more masculine.

BUT, what I find interesting is the sex appeal of a woman wearing men's clothing as well. There's that rock band commercial (or guitar hero...don't know) in which they are re-enacting the infamous scene from Risky Business. I think most men would agree that when Heidi Klum is wearing the underware and man's white collared shirt, there is nothing "masculine" about it.

So, maybe that's where I have the problem. It is not that the usage of the concept of a masculine-feminine percentage of a person, it is the leap from a man cross-dressing to him obviously being more feminine.

Hmmm....still can't wrap my head around it right now. Something to think about though....