tights

I have small breasts. There's no hiding this, really. As a woman, most of the shirts I have to choose from (that are reasonably fashionable) are designed to accent and/or highlight this feature of my body.

To be honest it's okay, I don't need a huge chest, it seems a bit cumbersome to me, really. But I am reminded pretty regularly by society that I should be ashamed of something I don't have any control over. Why not try a padded bra? Or implants?

I'm never going to be in a T.I. video and I've learned over time to tell myself that's fine.

I have come up with a solution, though, to even out the discomfort so that men, too, can share in the pleasure of bodily exposure. Men's tights. First I need to make them au the rage and then the rest is cake.

Men might judge women for having misshapen bodies, but that's the pot calling the kettle black for sure. We just can't tell because they hide in those loose boxers and jeans. A small penis can look funny on a big guy but a big penis can look equally funny on a little guy, too. We should all be able to witness this and not be left to wonder.

Tights would eliminate the need for false confidence and Ford F-350s. Men would be brought to a female's level of constant questioning and need for reassurance -

Guy A - *walks out of bathroom* Hey...does my penis look big in these tights?
Guy B - Don't worry about it! You look hot and you've got an amazing ass anyway.
Guy A - Yeah but what about my balls? Does one look bigger than the other?
Guy B - Nobody's going to be looking at your balls, man, I promise.

Who wouldn't want to hear a conversation like this between two men?

Well...?

damned if we do

...she was struck by how often the nation’s most powerful females were stranded in cab lines and late for meetings because, in heels, walking any distance was out of the question. These were working, powerful, leading women, she writes. Why did they insist on wearing heels? Sure, some women just like heels (and still others probably know their bosses like them). But there is also the reality that however hard men have it—and, from an economic perspective, their “beauty premium” is higher, say economists—women will always face a double bind, expected to conform to the beauty standards of the day, yet simultaneously condemned for doing so...

Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor and author of The Beauty Bias from http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/19/the-beauty-advantage.htm

12 and Delaware

I'm watching an HBO documentary called 12 and Delaware about a crisis pregnancy center in Florida that sits across the street from an abortion clinic. It's very sad to see that so many people value the lives of unborn children over the lives of the women having these children.

Women are controlled in a number of ways. What is especially sad to me is how these centers are able to guilt women into making decisions they might not want to make in the first place. What is sad is that these women are being lied to and given incorrect facts like abortions give you breast cancer and condoms only work 85% of the time. Women aren't even given the courtesy of truth. It's apparently okay to lie to women in order to make sure they have a baby that maybe they can't afford or don't want or can't physically carry due to health reasons.

I'll be glad to see the day when women are allowed to make decisions on their own without constant ridicule and scrutiny from both men and women.

cereal serving sizes

Look, General Mills, you and your industry cereal-making friends need to level with us, here.

Who in the hell eats 1 & 1/2 cups of cereal and calls it a morning!? I think we all know the average serving size should be 2-3 bowlfuls. Yes, the calorie count will probably be upwards in the 400s, but at least we'd be real. No more of this 1.5 cups of rice krispies jibber-jabber. Just hardcore mother-fucking TRUTH. Pour some milk and eat a bowl of THAT.

strippers

On any given day we see a number of near-naked women in various sexy positions. This might be on TV, billboard, online, so on.

Take the Gucci example above. This is Gucci, so naturally it is seen as provocative, sexy & interesting, tastefully done. Never mind that the girl's head is cut off and only her body is seen and that she has a G branded into her pubic hair, this ad is fucking art.

But a woman in the flesh, performing the same actions seen in these ads, as a real-life stripper, is not seen the same way. A stripper is the embodiment of how women are portrayed every day. Women are supposed to be sexy, but the minute they cash in on this idea and make money from it, they've gone too far. That's where the shame comes in. Suddenly they're dirty. And not just dirty, I've heard a number of terrible adjectives and similes used to describe these women.

Dumpsters, sluts, nasty, disgusting.

What would it take to shake these beliefs about women taking command over their own sexuality?

men in haiti

Haiti has long been a place of unspeakable sadness and despair and the earthquake at the beginning of this year was like pouring gasoline onto a bonfire.

This article in the NY Times about a 22 year old woman who was kidnapped and raped was pretty horrific. And the worst part is this is not an isolated incident, but a commonplace one, especially after the earthquake. It seems that in these awful situations where people are not just uncertain about their future but clawing for dear life just to stay alive, to find food and a place to sleep, aggression is abundant. Women feel the brunt of the abuse.

Men are left to deal with the feeling and weight of hopelessness and with no power or patience to find a way out of the rubble. They are desperate, depressed and angry. They are not supposed to cry or feel in need of help. They are supposed to take care of their family and themselves. And that desperation is what leads them to the torture and abuse of women, to take out all the anger the world has thrust against them and redirect it at a less powerful group.

This is absolutely not right, it's still completely despicable and wrong. Women need help, but I think this shows that men need help, too. I don't want to excuse these men in any way, but I do think this should make us think critically about the expectations we have for men that appropriate this type of behavior. We have to treat the symptoms AND the disease itself, otherwise we'll just keep treating the symptoms over and over and over...

be careful

Be careful!
Take care of yourself!
Be safe!

I know these are all well-intentioned warnings and I hear them all the time when I go out for the night or for a trip from people I love and who I know care about me. But lately I've started to wonder if maybe these phrases of advice are traps for women. We often find ourselves in damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situations, maybe this is another one of those, albeit a subliminal one.

Maybe this seems extreme, but let me explain myself.

As a woman, there are many things to consider when you leave the house.

Where are you going? What are you wearing? Who will be there? Is the area safe?

We carry the burden of the expectation of knowing the answers to all of these questions and more when we leave our front door. So if we leave unprepared and something bad happens, it becomes our fault. The world is dangerous. Men are dangerous. This is understood. We should have known better. We shouldn't have worn that. We shouldn't have been out alone that late. We shouldn't have...

Let's look at 2 situations -
Situation 1 - A girl is going to a party where she doesn't really know anyone. She goes and ends up drinking a lot and passes out. She is raped. Is it her fault?

Situation 2 - A girl is going to a party where she doesn't really know anyone. She drinks one drink and starts talking to a guy at the party for a long time. They go upstairs to make out. They are naked and almost ready to have sex. She changes her mind and says "No! I can't do this." The guy ignores her protest thinking she is playing hard-to-get. She is raped. Is it her fault?

I would venture to say many people would say "yes," it is her fault in both situations.

Two situations, one in which a woman loses control of her own body through being unconscious, another in which a woman is in coherent control of her own body but is taken advantage of anyhow.

When we tell women to be careful, when we give them numerous ways of protecting themselves, the proper way to hold your keys when walking alone so as to attack anyone who threatens you, anti-rape condoms, all of these things.

Do they help women? Sure. But we are missing the point.

The responsibility of rape should not lie on the shoulders of women. By constantly warning women we are simultaneously excusing men. It allows people to ask when terrible things happen to women "why did she stay with him if he was abusing her?" "what was she wearing?" "why did she drink so much?" "why did she go alone?"
Instead of asking the most important fucking question of all, why did he do that to her?

We need to stop the issue of sexual violence at the source, not just treat the symptoms.

I'm not saying that women should drop their inhibitions at all times. Clearly we are not there yet and I doubt any society could ever be there, for men or women. But I do think we absolutely need to start giving these warnings and suggestions to men instead of just women.

Be careful of your actions towards women, don't take advantage of them.
Take care of yourself and the people around you.
Be safe and aware of how you treat other people.