the feminismo herself

I want to write down a few excerpts from The Feminine Mystique, the Betty Friedan classic. This is mostly so I don't forget them. Sometimes you dog-ear books and then forget all about them. Hopefully this won't happen to me. Anyways, here are some of the best parts (according to me) -

pg 95
When Susan B Anthony & her women captains collected 6,000 signatures [in favor of women's suffrage] in 10 weeks, the New York State Assembly received them with roars of laughter.

pg 123
[The Freudian theme] provided a convenient escape from the atom bomb, McCarthy, all the disconcerting problems that might spoil the taste of steaks, and cars and color television and backyard swimming pools.

pg 164
A girl may learn certain surface skills and activities of the feminine role, but she will be thought ungraceful and unfeminine if her efforts toward femininity are too clearly conscious.

pg 192
...the state or quality of being mature; ripeness, full development...independence of thought and action - the quality of being fully human. Which is not quite the same as femininity.

pg. 227
(in an interview with an American advertiser in the 1960s)
Friedan - Why doesn't the pie-mix ad tell the woman she could us the time saved [from making the pie from scratch] to be an astronomer?
Advertiser - It wouldn't be too difficult...but no. The client would be too frightened. He wants to sell pie mix. The woman has to want to stay in the kitchen- and we show him how to do it the right way.

Quiver lip, quiver

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Alright, not all of my posts have to be angry & "bitchy."

Here is the proof: I had a lovely weekend.

I enjoyed the hell out of the movie Blade on Friday night. This was the first time I saw this famous Wesley Snipes gem. Yes I do realize it came out 11 years ago, I'm not the biggest movie buff. I think I spent too much of my childhood/adolescence staring into the distance and having really awful haircuts. That leaves no time for movies.

Saturday was super-productive, switched to winter clothes now & packed away my summer stuff, or at least a lot of it (dork). I don't want to have to go through too much when it's time to start packing for South America in <2 months.

Saturday evening I went to my first swing dancing lesson. Awesome. I danced with so many characters - mostly awkward older men. I'll give you a few shining examples.

Rick Moranis -
This guy was an inch or two shorter than me with glasses and a nice blue dress shirt. I guess he was around 40? I'm bad at guessing age.

I commented on how the music was slower than I thought when we started dancing. He didn't respond, not even with an "uh-huh" for reassurance. So I repeated it in a different word order. Still nothing. I thought to myself, am I talking out loud? I decided after careful though, yes, yes I did speak out loud. A few seconds later he commented on how much slower the music was, slower than he had expected.

He had two moves - we move forward, back, forward, step out, he spins me, I spin back, repeat. Next move is a little more complicated - we end up side by side with our arms somehow interlocked, I lean into him and then he pushes back and spins me out and I spin back. He told me that was his special move, so that when people ask me how he was as a dancer I could say "wow! he was fun!"

I spent most of the night averting my eyes from his whenever he was in my immediate perimeter which seemed to be pretty often.

Stinks -
This guy was sweet. He was probably around 50 or so. He had on a loose fitting button up shirt like he was dressing up on vacation. He taught me the Charleston. His BO was so pungent and sour it almost seemed like it would make a good cooking smell. You know how some things smell so terrible and taste so good? Unfortunately for this guy, the taste was probably as bad as the smell and god knows I wasn't going to find that out for sure. Bottom line - sweet but sour.

Asian Wonder -
This guy was on fire. His dancing was really fluid, everyone thought he was an instructor, his dance card was full the whole night. I was dared into dancing with him, which I took up. He spun me like crazy. It turns out he is not an instructor, he just loves to dance & he's good at it. He's also an improviser and said that as long as we were both moving at the same time it worked. I didn't know if that would work in my case, but either way he lead extremely well and I didn't end up on my face at any point so it was great.

Victor -
Oh geez. Little Asian man, age 60(?) and the top of his head came up to my eyes. He found me on the side and asked me to dance, I said yes. We proceed to "jerk" about, his hands holding mine and moving in a punching motion. I was just hoping he wouldn't make me hit myself in the face like a cruel sibling joke (stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself).

His eyes darted all around, looking at me every 8th or 9th glance.

He asked my name and when I told him Jenna he was like "what name that?" Your mom's invention?"

I could not decipher this the first time, so I replied "my mom's name is Janet!"

"NO, no! Your mom invention."

I told him it did exist before she named me Jenna, it was Arabic.

He said that I don't look Arabic, I agreed, we go on jerking arms.

He said he came there every weekend as his exercise for the week. I'm assuming he didn't actually take the classes that went on prior to the free-dance we were enjoying. I used context clues such as him spinning me like people spin the Wheel of Fortune. He grabbed my hand, moved it quickly to the left and let go, letting me do the rest of the work. All the while his eyes continued to dart, to the other couples, to the band playing, to his next victim, to Rick Moranis?

Saturday night - we got back home & I stayed up with Dusty laughing about the possibilities of Newman's Own dressing, like African American Newman's Own & even Zombie's Own - tastes like brains.

"Haven't you seen me on the bottle with a sprig of mint behind my ear & a toga for Newman's Caesar and Caesar light dressing?"

Sunday was also very productive. Most of my lesson plan is done for the week & I'm ready to collect some serious Dine Out $$$ this week.

:D

UK Douche

The vice chancellor of Buckingham University, Terence Kealey, spoke recently about the "perks" of being a professor in an article in the UK Times Higher Education.

Normal girls - more interested in abs than in labs, more interested in pecs than specs, more interested in triceps than tripos - will abjure their lecturers for the company of their peers, but nonetheless, most male lecturers know that, most years, there will be a girl in class who flashes her admiration and who asks for advice on her essays. What to do?
Enjoy her! She's a perk. She doesn't yet know that you are only Casaubon to her Dorothea, Howard Kirk to her Felicity Phee, and she will flaunt you her curves. Which you should admire daily to spice up your sex, nightly, with the wife.

When women became upset with his comments, he responded that this article was actually (surprise) a joke!

I guess I just didn't get it. But that's probably because I'm too busy trying to get a dick in my mouth than pay close attention to anything that has to do with using my mind.

where do i begin?

Every so often, when the subject of feminism, or women's rights comes up among my friends and I, there is some cringing. Most of my male friends are aware of my stance on women's rights, and, though they may not say it out loud, (all the time), I believe they think I'm full of a lot of hot air. Women have it way better now, I don't know what the big deal is. You can't hate all men (because that's what feminism is about, right?). I'd like to direct your attention to the movie in the picture. Though it pains me to have to promote this movie in an effort to get my point across, fuck it, it'll feel good to ream the hell out of this misogynistic bag of SHIT.

The opening sequence of the trailer begins with a girl, in a bar, kneeling in front of a turtle's tank (what this is doing in a bar, I'm not totally sure). The lead male character, Tucker Max, walks up beside her and kneels, too, asking her something along the lines of "what are you doing?" And she responds, smiling, "talking to the turtle." To which he says "is he telling you to kill that fat chick behind us, cause that's what he's telling me." The camera then pans over to an overweight girl sitting at the bar. The turtle girl stands up and walks away in agitation as Tucker calls to her "what?! Fat girls aren't real people!"

The movie is a cornucopia of slams against strippers, whores, ugly girls, pretty girls, fat girls, virgins, sluts. Basically, if you have a vagina, you are a target. I am not even mentioning, and haven't the time to detail all of the racist remarks regarding black people and Mexicans.

Protesters have popped up across the country against this movie. Women, men and everyone in between seem to have issues with the themes in this movie. But, in a Q&A session of the screening of the movie in Raleigh, NC, Max pleads an excellent case when he is asked to address the issue of rape culture:

“Fucking rape sucks, dude,” Max said. “It’s, like, not a joke, and I feel like [the protesters'] hearts are probably in the right place, to be honest. But I fell like they’re fucking it up, man, because what they’re doing is really kind of devaluing the seriousness of an actual crime. . . . Dude, I mean, the discussion about where consent lies and doesn’t lie is an important one, and should be had, but this is not the fucking forum. And, uh, and that’s never been an issue for me, so, I don’t know man, I feel like if that’s an issue to you, that’s great, and you should pursue it, but pursue it with the people who it needs to be pursued with. And not with me.”

It is nearly impossible to separate this man's beliefs with his actions. He may state in these conferences, his aversion to the mistreatment of women, but the quotes in his movie, (which is based on his autobiographical sexual accounts), do not seem to mirror this: “Get away from me or I’m going to carve a fuck hole in your torso.”

This is the type of ammunition many unstable, (and "stable"), young men are looking for right now. Not only is this movie being released and promoted in this country, this is an arena for men, (and women?), to not only watch the mistreatment of women, based on a true story, but also to openly laugh at these downright terrifying words against women.

The worst part is that this guy is not the only one out there, he was just fortunate enough to be able to write a successful blog, book, and now a movie and make a ridiculous amount of money off of being a dick to every woman he meets.

right direction

I had a moment last night on the metro, a good one.

I was standing & reading & I looked up at Woodley Park/Adams Morgan and got this strange sensation that I was exactly where I was supposed to be at that moment. I don't know that I've ever gotten this before, but it was very comforting.

Life may be nuts right now, but hopefully this might mean it's on the right track.

1960 parenting

I was reading an old parenting book from 1960 yesterday. Not sure if my mom or grandmother read this at any point in their lives, they may have. Lucky for me my mom & grandmother are tough bitches. Nevertheless, I knew this book would be full of gems...

On the topic of masturbation it says that this is an unfortunate thing that adolescents do that they should feel ashamed of. However, it should clear itself up as they get older. Apparently masturbating is something you "get over" as an adult... I wish I had read this book sooner. Now I know there's definitely something wrong with me.

Of course the book addresses the difficulties associated with boys being called "sissies." It discourages one boy who enjoys playing mostly with his older sisters over the boys in his neighborhood. In order to keep up appearances and ensure that he is a proper and normal boy, it's preferable for him to play with the boys and develop a more combative relationship with his sisters than to maintain his current friendly relationship with them. We wouldn't want people getting the wrong idea that a boy would prefer to play with boys rather than girls. [It's a damn shame we can't just let kids do whatever the fuck they want.]

I haven't even mentioned the fact that the entire book avoids any attempt at gender neutrality. Every child is addressed as "him."
In order for him to develop interests and measure his ability, you must allow him to be creative. As for the girls, one section offers advice to a young girl who is angry with the position of her gender, and takes this anger out on men. It implores this girl to keep her thoughts to herself, if she shows a disagreeable nature she will never be popular which is very important. She is better off than her grandmother ever was, so what is she complaining about?

I don't know about you, but my problems are solved. I'd much rather be popular than concern myself with equality. It's never gonna happen, so why not just keep my mouth shut?