a much needed update

Posted on 4:57 AM, under , ,

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Shortly after finishing my last post, my body did something only my body would be able and willing to do: turn my Partner's cold into a full-fledged tonsillitus and pinkeye for me.

So I pretty much had to finish two essays and a research project proposal with my shiny ovary in one hand, and my bottle of 500mg-a-pill paracetamol. Fuck you, immune system.

Since the last post, I faced not drinking or travelling on St. Paddy's, physical and mental illness, leaking green goo out of my eyes and mouth, and distressing news. Oh and that thing called coursework. Yeah, real life kept me away from the computer for a while.

I'm not one to discuss private matters on the net (because who the fuck cares anyway?), but right now life looks good. Traded in my ovary and pills for a cup of my Fancy Tea (thaaaank youuu, sweetie!) and bits of a dark-chocolate Easter egg.

And since my main worry for the next two weeks is not letting bellybutton lint accumulate, I will now think and prepare the next post. This blog also needs, rather sorely, some new links and tweaks.

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privilege: not only for males. (or: father's rights, part 1.)

Posted on 1:50 PM, under ,

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I have a big, big, big issue with what pseudofeminists call male privilege. See, it goes like this: if you're male, Caucasian, middle-class or higher, you're privileged; if not, you can go join the pity parties at the echo rooms.

We often hear phrases like deadbeat dad and single mom - the first, obviously a target of scorn and the second, a pinnacle of female martyrdom.

We often hear about how women are oppressed and her duties limited to housework and child-rearing, and the wife that complains about how little her husband contributes to the household. A man cannot be a house-husband, or the sole breadwinner, and do enough. A woman cannot be a house-wife, or the sole breadwinner, without doing too much.

And it goes on and on like this, folks. But what about - amongst many other things - family law? It often takes a woman claiming abuse to make things like this happen.

I have heard many cases, from many good and hard-working men, who happen to fit the description for "privilege", that were up to their necks in child support and alimony payments. Who had not seen their children in several months or even worse, years. Fathers involved as much as they could, even if that was limited to the monthly checks and the rare phone call - if the ex so allowed.

Some of these men, in their time, were wrongly accused of sexually abusing their children. The ex-partners would convince their children to tell disgusting, false stories just to get the divorce, get the custody, and have the man out of their lives.

A man can cheat, but it doesn't make him a bad father. Unless there is an actual potential he could harm said child, there is no sensible reason why he should be cut off from his child's life.

A phrase that sums up what I'm trying to say can be found here:

Parental alienation is child abuse. The sole custody model is first stage parental alienation. Ipso facto, the sole custody model is child abuse.

The idea outrages me, demanding an ex-partner pay for the children he or she is not allowed to see.

If today's feminism was truly for an egalitarian society, this things would not be happening. How can you blame the patriarchy, if most of the times a man isn't even given the chance to be a father?

**

Attention, 2 Readers!: I have two essays due, 5000 words total, for this Wednesday. As it falls on St. Patrick's Day, aka Day I Use My Racial and Cultural Heritage to Get Faced, I will not post before then. To be safe, let me say: see you the 21st of March!

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random thoughts, part 2

Posted on 12:33 PM, under , , , , , ,

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  • On March 22, 2010: season 2 of United States of Tara starts. And, Holy Hell I cannot wait.

  • On the Oscars: I have no idea, I didn't watch them.

  • On what I'm currently reading: The God Delusion. No, sweetie, I have not finished it.

  • On the next posts: I'm planning on writing about men's rights and why men aren't as privileged as some would love you to think.

  • On infrequency of posts, starting tomorrow: not that anyone cares, other than my two readers (... is it sad that I wish I could say "hi, mum!"?). But seeing as my research-dissertation-wagamamathingie has me on a chokehold, I'll keep posting to a minimum for the next couple of weeks.

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on language: AH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. FREAKING JESUS CHRIST ON A FREAKING POGO STICK.

Posted on 6:00 PM, under , ,

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Into my many forays in the Internet, I stumbled into this little gem.

person 1: Maybe hate isn’t the right word for this particular billboard. How about “Billboard of Crazy”?

person 2: I beg your pardon, those of us with actual mental illness don’t appreciate being used as everyone’s metaphor for violent irrationality.

I am surprised that stupid people's use of the Internet has not given me a stupidity-induced aneurysm yet. But let's dissect this, shall we?

My friend Merriam-Webster has this to say about the meaning of crazy:

1 a : full of cracks or flaws 2 a : mad, insane
b (1) : impractical (2) : erratic
 c : being out of the ordinary : unusual 3 a : distracted with desire or excitement
b : absurdly fond : infatuated
c : passionately preoccupied : obsessed


Saying something is crazy doesn't, as you can see, automatically mean it's a synonym for mentally ill. It might not even be meant as something offensive. Likewise for ableist words like lame, idiot, insane, and ... seriously, it's going to come to a point where even walking and brain are going to become ableist words. Freaking pearl-clutchers.


Why be so knickers-in-a-bunch about language? Words are as offensive as the person that says them means them to be. Calling a kid retarded could very well mean acknowledging said kid's profound mental retardation, without the intention to insult. And calling that board crazy could very well mean calling it impractical, as opposite to comparing it to bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. It could be very, very far away from meaning to insult people with mental illnesses.


You'd be surprised by the amount of mentally ill people that do not give a crap when something's called crazy or insane. Just like many LGBTA aren't offended by fag, queer, homo, dyke, and the like. With chants like "we're queer, we're here", and movements like "mad pride", it's surprising to stumble into posts like the one above, or comments like this:


LAME? Cringe. Oh, my. I couldn't possibly let that one slide.


I've called cigarettes fags for as long as I can remember. And not once, not one single fucking time, have I been scolded by my gay friends. Because they're the sort that would rather campaign to have equal rights regarding marriage and adoption, that bitch about how much calling a cigarette a fag hurts them.


Social-justiceists, pick your fight: you can fight how people speak, or you can try and open people's minds and maybe change the way they think and thus make an actual difference. What's it going to be?


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Roman Polanski is a sex offender. makes kickass movies, also.

Posted on 4:27 PM, under ,

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This last weekend, Partner and I went to see a film. I will spare you the talk about just how boring watching the film was, or how I believe a relationship is officially in a Rut when your dates are mostly made up of televised images and meals.

I digress. Let's get to the point.

After watching the trailer for upcoming The Ghost Writer, I whispered to him "Roman Polanski? I am not going to watch that film. He's a sex offender." And really, I was feeling pretty smug and proud of myself for saying that.

Then I seriously gave it some thought. I remembered how I've always held up that there are many facets to everyone's personalities. How closely they're intertwined, or if they influence one another, depends greatly on the person.

Then, I had the most horrifying thought of my week: am I becoming a pearl-clutching Shaker!? And I slapped myself. Really hard.

Roman Polanski is a sex offender - but Bitter Moon and The Pianist are seriously kick-ass films. He also survived the Holocaust and the murder of his wife. He's also many things not everyone knows, because not everyone knows the guy. Are all these things affecting one another? Maybe, perhaps not.

If we start shunning off everyone by one part of who they are we're going to run out of people we like - Hell, people we stand - pretty fast. Vague examples would be ... say: you know this person and he's a kickass painter, but he also has a drug habit or is an alcoholic. Does it automatically nil his talent? Does it automatically nil the fact that you might like the art?

I am not saying what Polanski did can be excused or forgiven; nor should he not pay for what he did. He has to pay, and he has to redeem himself.

To be frank, as much as I dislike the guy for what he did to Samantha Geimer, it has nothing to do with the fact that he makes great films I enjoy. And the fact that I enjoy his films has nothing to do with my wanting him to pay for what he did to Samantha Geimer.

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this just in: sex with someone coerced into prostitution illegal ... in the future.

Posted on 7:05 AM, under ,

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While bit-torrenting, I noticed an interesting add (and no, I'm not talking about the 1 Rule to a Flat Stomach add). It led me to this site.

On 1 April 2010, it will become an offence to pay for sex with someone who has been forced, threatened, exploited or otherwise coerced or deceived into providing the sexual services by someone else, who has engaged in such conduct for gain. If convicted of the offence you could face a fine of up to £1,000, a court summons and a criminal record, and risk having your name mentioned in newspapers. It will be no defence for a person to say that they did not know the prostitute was being forced or threatened.
Shaming, seriously? Scarlet Letter much?

The key objectives of the strategy are to:

  • challenge the view that street prostitution is inevitable and here to stay
  • achieve an overall reduction in street prostitution
  • improve the safety and quality of life of those communities affected by prostitution
  • reduce all forms of commercial sexual exploitation

    (Source)
I would say prostitution, in any form, is inevitable and here to stay. Whatever the form.

But many street-walkers are exploited, and the relation of coerced prostitution and drug abuse and traffic is there. So by tackling the demand, I'd say yes, we can tackle one side of the problem.

What this fails to address is the safety and quality of life of the women it seeks to protect. A truly comprehensive programme would also include job alternatives for them, training, counseling. Access to shelters and day care, maybe. Or, simply, access to the alternatives other women have. Think about it.

You've cracked down on every pimp and drug dealer and thus "freed" these women. These women, that at the very least, had a roof over their heads while they were being pimped. I am fully aware that being forced into prostitution is nothing short of being a slave. But what would happen to a woman after her only way of earning a living is taken from them? If she knows nothing else, she will continue doing what she did. And there you go: you still have street-walkers.

In short: targeting the well-being of exploited women will be what reduces exploitation, combined with more stringent laws regarding coerced prostitution, abuse, and drug trafficking.

As many doubts as I might have about it, I don't want to miss the core: this is a step towards helping reduce coerced prostitution. Big or little, we won't know until the law comes into effect and results are presented. That's going to take a while, of course.

But what baffles me the most, however: why is this law coming into effect just now?

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random thoughts, part 1

Posted on 7:33 AM, under , , , , , ,

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  • On Twitter: seriously, if you use it to log every thing that happens in your life (and by every thing, I mean every-single-freaking thing)? Um, I'll assume you haven't left your room for like, a week. And that's kinda not good and certainly not positive in my Book.

  • On Desperate Housewives: for a long time, I thought, "hey, this needs a bit more lesbians". What surprised me, in the most pleasant way: Katherine's storyline.
    I've always believed sexuality is something more fluid than we dare to believe. So to see a woman in her middle-late fourties/early fifties having such a radical change in her sexuality and facing coming out ... a bit different than your usual storyline, don't you think?

  • On safe spaces, and discussion in said spaces: they cancel each other out, period. If you want a smart, well-rounded discussion, you have to look at both sides of the coin. And chances are, feathers will be ruffled and emotions triggered. So any "discussion" that takes place in a "safe space": pity-party or echo-room. Your call. But a discussion, it ain't.

  • On blogging: currently planning a post about the Roman Polanski sexual abuse case. Possibly discussing disablism/disabled activism in the near future.

  • On Conniving and Sinister: and also, this is valid for most sitcoms - if you have to include a laugh track, it's not as funny as you think.

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