A Question of Safety

In regard to Elaine's comment in Dru's protest blog about children being safer even 15 or 20 years ago, do you folks think that alert systems such as the Amber Alert and the media coverage of certain missing children cases make parents more paranoid and fearful for our children?

In our family's case, it certainly has gotten to my husband. We have a chain link fence around the perimeter of our property and normally I allow our 3 year old to go out and play after I've gone out and used the clasp of an old dog leash to lock off the gate. He's not allowed in the back of the property unless I'm with him, but he can play in the front yard where he's in full view through the front door and bay window. I did this the other day and hubby nearly went through the roof. Granted there had just been 2 kidnappings in our area (So. Calif.) in recent days, but the boy needed some fresh air and sunshine and to be out of my hair while I got some housework done.

Hubby grew up here in a far more dangerous area than the one we live in now. He talks about how he rode his bike everywhere he wanted to go from the time he was about 10, and that his mom would leave him alone in their apartment from the age of about 6. He says he was one of the original latchkey kids. Just this year though, did he give permission to our soon to be 14 year old to ride the mile to the local high school so he could take swim lessons.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere, where our nearest neighbor was over 3 miles away. I played outside and wandered all over our property, rarely seeing another human being outside our family unit. My parents didn't allow me to play near the road, as they said, "just anybody could come along and pick you up and we'd not know about it for hours!" Sensible warning for a 7 year old, but that was the most danger I ever knew of as a child. I know I always thought my parents were being way overprotective of me, but now I'm not so sure.

Are we doing our children a disservice by being more overprotective than our parents were?

Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women

The illustrious Michael Moore's upstart "Office of Homeland Security" has a good alert on the CEDAW treaty. Go Michael Moore!

I knew there was a reason I liked that guy. Not to mention he has a solid track record for fighting corporate crime.

Today is Women's Equality Day.

In the U.S. it was a seventy-two year struggle from a tea party to the ratification of the right to vote. There are other pages about this on the web but I liked this one because of the songs.

And.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development is happening in Johannesburg. Gender Equality will be a topic of discussion.

What's in a word?
Babe
I believe if we are going to monitor other's words for sexism, we should monitor(aka:censor) them for grammatical and linguistic purity. Why do some people opt to use profanity, when a little creativity would get the message across just as easily? Why do some choose to use what can be called either colloquilism or "street language" instead of what others might call proper language? Once we start censoring each other we start an avalanche. When I was a child, I was often told, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," which meant that we should treat each other fairly and equally. I believe that if any woman is or was offended by Doc or any other man's use of the term "Babe" she should go directly to the source and tell him. As Tom Hanks often repeated in his movie, "Forrest Gump", that's all I got to say about that.

Weddings, Marriage Ceremonies, and Breast Feeding
These are all personal decisions. And each decision is made for a variety of personal reasons. Feminism and Feminist and being Feminine are likewise personal decisions. So is blogging. I often feel defeated when I open Blog Sisters, and read everyone's personal opinions of each other's personal choices. I thought this was a forum for intelligent women, but I find myself thinking, instead that it is simply a new version of a "bitch session", with a welcome mat out for any woman with an ISP. I may change my mind in time, but I doubt I'll be back.

moving to a post

I put these comments in response to the discussion around Shelley's post below. I thought, afterward, I should post them as a post. And add to what I said. So I did:

Ah. If the world were a place where we all lived up to our own high standards, and the standards of others, all the time. Sometimes we paint a portrait of individuals (and their words) as one way or another, as x or y, as sexist or not sexist, because that bolosters OUR OWN self esteem. In pegging them--we can control them. Unfortunately, it ain't that simple. In my humble opinion.

One thing I've learned in some recent soul searching and countless hours of counseling is that our words and actions aren't always aligned. I would bring this into the blogging realm by saying our posts aren't always aligned with our hearts. That's why blogging is an art and craft and also why it's therapeutic. We are spinning our own stories outward, and then back inward--the good, bad, ugly.

The journey is important. And unless someone's berating you, stalking you, attacking you, being downright mean to you, I suggest you let them take their own journey without trying to shut them down or make them self-conscious. It's counter to the spirit of what we're trying to do here, with blogging. Be concerned with your own journey.

P.S. This "isn't blogsisters sexist" suggestion pisses me off. Men CAN join in the discussion here. Anyone can comment. Can discuss. Posting priviliges are for women, which gives us a platform--much like a woman's magazine--to share our ideas and opionions with anyone who wants to read them.

The tagline is cute. That's all. I'm in the PR biz. I spin taglines all day. It's a funny, good tagline and I'm still proud of it.

Actually, damn proud of it.

Escaping Poverty
There are never easy answers to poverty. I find myself in a just over broke situation. The energy and effort it takes to do more, to do that which I need to do to escape poverty wears me down. Resumes become a major task. Yes there is institutionalized oppressive against feminine participation in the riches of our patriarchal society. No, we don't have to take it lying down. Pun intended.

I suggest a cure for welfare limitations may be for women and children to live cooperatively and focus their advancement and education on specific goals. Margaret Wheatley wrote a book called A Simpler Way. Reading that book and being in touch with the people at Berkana Institute lead me to another book The New Pioneers. I got one in a library and the other used and cheap. Reading Cat Sullivan's "Going To A Demonstration" I felt gut wrenching fear about how I am only a small step above that even after going in debt $30,000 to get college/university degrees. Between sending out resumes and paying the debt, I am most likely economically even with a lower paid job. So I don't see the value in the degree yet. What works for me is living where I am living and with whom I am living. Three of us poor women share a house. We are not yet to the collective mindset of balancing higher paid with lower paid in terms of social economics here. But still sharing is making it easier.

So I began to have the idea of solving the welfare problem ourselves, by cooperative living. An abused woman living alone can be a target for the abuser, but living with others offers greater protection. Everyone has to have shelter, why not gather women and rent the whole tenement? I am seeing the past some. I am seeing the seventies and communes. Sure, most of them didn't work, and I think mostly because sexism and authoritarianism was ruling. What better place to have day care than in your own home? Our idea of an autonomy of family is destroying our world. Do we really need a refridgerator for each person? I know my children had no problem with the community idea when they were growing up. What I called the "roving hoard" would roam from kitchen to kitchen cleaning out the refridgerators. And they didn't do the dishes after either. The only thing more detrimental to a food budget is husbands and football viewing buddies.

Welfare destruction is not about solving the problem. It is about power politics. Somebody out there convinced more legislators that the way to get you and me into the meritocracy of mediocracy was to create incentive by taking away support. I know when I was feeding my children on welfare and Wisconsin aide to children, there was no other choice, no matter how I looked and searched, my old car kept me prisoner to a certain radius. The leaking gas tank ate away the surplus needed to fix the gas tank. Escape came eventually, but death would have come to one or more of us without the support. I learned gratitude. I can only speculate that had I not had the assistance at the time, I would have learned criminal ways. I believe I would have robbed what I needed.

And I was carrying bath and drinking water in 25 degree below zero weather from a spring half a mile up the valley.

For a few years now I have been studying stuff called "Science of Mind." I can see that my limitations come from within. I can see that the Universe is an abundant and limitless place. I can also see the Iron Grip those who I now call "The Boys From Enron" have on the trickle down of money. What's more they have created messages to reinforce the limitations in our minds. We have power. We need to take it back. Two nights ago I watched a program on the Discovery channel (living in a group home makes cable eaiser to pay for). The content was about a common Eve. We are all sisters, rich and poor, black and white, red and yellow, all brown to the core. If you have wealth and privilege and are ignoring your sisters who lack that, you are part of the problem. If you are poor and continually wake up with determination to make it today, grab the hand of another sister and let's find a way to make it better for the collective. To hell with Marx, he was a man. Study the Longhouse of the Iroquois. Glean the fields, pick the rubble piles, sell it on EBay to the rich. Can you imagine if the women of Afganistan were the ones with the guns? There wouldn't be any stonings then, I'll bet.

Hey, I'm getting angry and it feels good. I have to go to work.

Robin Marie Ward

labium, grammar and rock journalism

Several cheers to Australian music site undercover for consistently providing Quality music news on an unfashionable black background. All very worthy and scrupulously researched, I'm sure.
HOWEVER the Michelle Branch i/v scores minus points for stinky oldfashioned sexism. Apparently "[Michelle Branch] slots alongside credible acts like Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow instead of the Britney's and Christina's." (sic that ain't my punctuation!)
I will try to erase the fact that we're arguing about a mediocre talent like MB, and ask why it couldn't have read "[Michelle Branch] slots alongside credible acts like Bruce Cockburn and Rufus Wainwright instead of the Justins and Joeys."Oh, silly me. She has a VAGINA. Of course. VAGINA. And she's a SENSIBLE LADY. Who covers herself up - unlike those teen strumpet WITCHES who TORTURE unsteady male journalists with glimpses of cleavage to the point that they find themselves unable to use an apostrophe properly.
Heavens, sisters and comrades. Have we not yet propelled ourselves OUT of the primordial ooze wherein women may only be reasonably compared to other women? Handicapped by our GAPING VAGINAS, apparently, we must be relegated to only paternalistic criticism and BAD PUNCTUATION.

Bumpersticker of the Day

Saw this while walking to work this morning:

A WELL-BEHAVED WOMAN
RARELY MAKES HISTORY

Had to giggle as I read it. Of course, I think this is literally true for men as well, but maybe not in the same spirit or meaning. ;-)

Clarification
I want to clarify something I said a few days ago. I had posted a blog that some thought sounded as if I was complaining about my upcoming wedding. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am very excited about doing a Star Wars wedding in Vegas. Curtis and I were at a traditional Southern Wedding last summer. Oh it was traditional, for sure! The bride wore white and her attendants wore pastels. All the men wore tuxedoes. The wedding was held in a church and there were candles and flowers everywhere. The reception was a buffet style dinner at a local Country Club with a delightful view of the city. The Couple had a DJ and a band! Their dances were well coreographed, and I was sure some people had been taking lessons. After the married couple's first dance, then the first dance with parents, then in-laws, and then the bridal party was invited to dance . . . I was growing tired. I wanted to be one of the ones out there dancing, not just watching someone else do it. I whispered to Curtis, "When I get married again, I want to just go to Vegas and do it. We can party later!" He was thrilled with the idea, and in the months since then, we have been lazily planning our wedding.

I agree with Christina that there was a time when the only time a woman had for her own was her wedding day. I believe that is one reason young women dreamed and schemed much of their time planning their "Ideal" wedding. Times have changed. So have we.

The more we work on our wedding, the more I like the idea. Others have had a Star Wars Wedding before us. We are not being innovative, but we are being ourselves. There are a lot of details to consider, but these details will make our special day memorable. I like the fact that Christina was able to change gears and move her wedding plans forward, that she was not so caught up in the ceremony - the symbols. She and Doug understood that their love and their relationship was the important issue, not some gown or cake or fancy ceremony.

My point, earlier, was that I had assumed that almost all men really wanted to just elope - to get the ceremony out of the way, and that men did not care one way or another about the symbolism of weddings and ceremonies. I was trying to convey my surprise and pleasure at finding a man who not only cares about his wedding, but is taking an active role in planning it. Together, we are going to make some more special memories. I am grateful for this man, and for all of you.

The World Up Close
"Woman loses stoning death appeal" reported by CNN. This is what we talking/writing/questioning on the Tuesday Too today.

I Thought All Men Preferred to Elope

Leave it to me to fall in love with a man who wants a Theme Wedding! Curtis and I are enormous Sci-Fi fans. In fact, we are struggling between the option of visiting my son or going to Dragon Con here in Atlanta at the end of the month. Decisions! Decisions!

Having been married before, I would be so content to just run off to Vegas and get married this weekend...blue jeans and hologram shirts would suit me fine. No flowers, no wedding cake, no big deal, but I do want to be married to this man. I am ready to make a committment and to tell the world how happy he makes me. He likes the Vegas idea, but he wants a wedding with a Star Wars Theme, family and friends, the whole She-Bang!

I had no idea how much work would be involved in organizing a wedding like this - but this is a lot more fun than the frou frou wedding I had to old--wat-ziz-name. This will be challenging...

Dismissing The System

Margaret Heffernan has a good article in the August edition of Fast Company: The Female CEO ca. 2002. A taste:

The Legally Blond generation is not interested in compromise or assimilation. It wears its femininity with pride and seeks success on its own terms. If that success can't be found within traditional businesses or business schools, then these young women simply won't go there. "If I don't fit into GE or Ford or IBM," one bright young woman told me, "that's not my problem. That's their problem." Rather than fight the system, this next generation of women simply dismisses the system. Instead, these women seek places to work that value individuals -- whether as customers or as employees. They seek places that are transparent and collaborative, that respect relationships as the bedrock of all good businesses. What women want are companies that look a lot more like a network than a pyramid, companies where fairness is a given, companies that value what's ethical above what's expedient. [Para.] At the same time, this next generation of women is too practical, pragmatic, and tough-minded to be dismissed as ideologues. If they can't find these kinds of companies, then they'll simply build them.

Words have power, and other cliches

Several years ago, on the eve of a much desired promotion, I had a meeting with my then-boss, and a late colleague to talk about the logistics. Aside from going over money, space, and the responsibilities of the position, we also discussed the title. I insisted on being called "Director" rather than "Coordinator."

Later, my colleague, a very dear, honest, open-minded man, wondered: why would I be so inflexible on such a minor detail? Besides, what was wrong with the lovely word "coordinator," anyway? Yes, visualizing "coordinator" does summon some positive images, including relationships to wonderful concepts such as "cooperation," and "agility," while "director" could bring to mind the top-to-bottom barking of orders.

Well, I told him, during the process of this negotiation, I have considered our academic bureaucracy; I have reviewed the other similar jobs at the organization, and my little survey led me to a startling conclusion. When the incumbent was a man, generally the position carried the director label. And when it was held by a woman, it was more often called a coordinator.

I became a director. Nit-picking? Perhaps, but important nonetheless. So, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me," or is "the pen mightier than the sword?" I say, there's power in words.

Finally writing again

"Were you a tomboy? I was. Still am, really."

This post is for all you girls who were up at bat in a game of softball, and all the boys moved in from the outfield, just waiting for your wimpy little hit.

Halogen

Was that Hello Again or Halogen?

A few nights back I left a small halogen bulb light on next to my computer. When I was in the other room getting sucked in to a television show, the light decided to break for whatever reason. It fell down and landed on my computer mouse.

When I found it, the heat had melted a pit into the back of the mouse and the whole conglomeration was quite hot. I think it was within seconds of bursting into flames.

I have noticed that my monitor won't hold a "white" tone, It kind of shifts in and out of bluish to whitish.

My car needs new motor mounts and tires, and I have no idea where the money is going to come from to fix my link to the outside world.

Sunday I spent in a glum mood, perhaps from concern over these material things or perhaps from hormone fluctuations. I watched some of Dr. Wayne Dyer's presentation in support of Public Television. In one part he said we all should follow our heart no matter what anyone else said or thought about us, because how true we lived to ourselves was going to be the most important aspect of our lives as we grew more toward the end of it. It seems right now that I have never been more unsure of what following my heart, following my bliss means to me. But then, he is a white male and gets his privilege served to him on a golden plate of hegemony.

I go to work at one job in a concrete closet, isolated from any human contact. My other work is linked to the past in a way that raises the question; if all I am to do is return to that which injured my body for the money to survive and pay my debts, then the debt and expense of college was yet another worthless ploy to transfer my wealth and privilege to someone else.

Yet, even in the face of isolation on many levels, I doggedly mail out prospecting material, maintain an attitude that good must prevail in the end, and forcefully drag myself to things, like the concrete closet job, which are having serious psychological consequences that appear to be growing beyond my control.

4:44 this morning I awake with the "fears" charging the horses of the chariot. My life is not in my control. I can't see the driver. What can I do? I pray of course, and hope.

The halogen lamp sits propped up against my shelf illuminating my keyboard. It is a disabled bird, a crumpled newspaper, we can see its form but its not whole.

Robin Marie

yucky yaccs

In response to Caryn's concern below: Sometimes our Comments capability provider goes beserk and Comments disappears for a while. I've always found them to come back, eventually. We just have to ride out the disruption in our thought processes. Sorry.

Just wanted to say hi: despite being a longish time blogger, I'm feeling a little nervous about group-blogging. This is my first time with a group.

Christina's Nagging Question

What exactly is in a name? Shakespeare said "A rose by any other name still smells as sweet." I know a woman who kept her family name because she thought it was unique, and the man she married had a name like Jones, Smith, or Wilson. Her children bore their father's name. It was their choice. I know another woman, who did not change her name when she married, because she said she was too lazy to bother with all the paperwork involved. I know at least three women who chose to keep their maiden name, "just in case we get divorced." They did not want the hassle of changing names on documents. I do not know if any of them have had any children. My neice married a man from Mexico. He wanted her to keep her maiden name, and when their children were born, he wanted the children to bear both names, as is the Spanish tradition. Spaniards (and many whose cultures spawed from that region) name their children with the mother's name as the final name. There is no hypen, but the father's family name is the next to the last name. Mt neice told him that since they are living in the United States of America, she wanted to do thing the "American" way, so she and her children bear her husband's family name (which is his mother's family name). Russians keep the father's last name, until marriage, then the women assume the husband's name; however, daughers and wives must add "ova" to their name, which indicates "daughter of" or "wife of". There is a way to denote "son of", but it slips my mind. My boss, who is Chinese, and her husband (also Chinese) have different last names. I do not yet know if this is due to a cultural or a professional reason. I know several professional women who will not "take" their husband's name because it causes corporate communication problems. Email addresses , business cards, voice mails all have to be changed. I have been told that some clients become uncomfortable when women executives have "revolving door" name changes.

I was married for more than a quarter of a century to a psychologically abusive man. I can relate to why Christina's mother would remain with an abusive man. We sometimes do not think we have options, or we think our options are less desirable. I was often told, "The devil you know may be better than the angel you don't know." When I got the strength and courage to leave him, I had little strength or courage for much else. I had two nearly grown sons who were doing their best to deal with our divorce. Out of respect for my sons, I kept the name that I married. Within six months, I regretted keeping his name. I have already assumed Curtis' family name. This is a name that I will be honored to share, because every person that I have met who has that name has shown me nothing but unconditional love ana complete acceptance. This is my choice, and it is a choice that pleases Curtis, but it is ultimately my choice. I had considered changing my name to Mary Pumpkins, for completely sentimental reasons, but decided that Pumpkins might not be the best name for a respected writer. But, Hey! What do I know?

My oldest son has a unique middle name, taken from his father's maternal family name: Bastian. My mother thought it looked and sounded too much like Bastard, and she hated it - but she loved the child. My youngest son's first name, Aron is taken from his father's name which is spelled exactly the same way. For some reason his father's family had a tradition of leaving out the second "a" and we continued the tradition. We have gotten our share of strange questions too. I am 47 years old, last year, I needed a certified copy of my birth certificate, so I requested one from vital statistics, giving the information that I've had stored in my head for most of my life. I received a letter stating that there were no records of anyone with that name born on my birth date. I called my mother. She said, "Yes, your name is indeed Mary Ann Catherine. Remember? I told you that I wanted to name you Mary Ann, and your father wanted to name you Mary Catherine. When you were born, I told the nurse to write down Mary Ann, and your father made her add Catherine. It's ON your birth certificate." Well, I hated to disappoint my mother, but when I did finally get the official record, my name is only Mary Ann. My baptismal certificate shows the Catherine. My first communion certificate and my confirmation document show the Catherine, but only in the church documents does the second name appear. I once dated a guy who would only call me Catherine, because nobody else did. My ex used to call me that to get me upset...and it's not even my name! They might as well have been calling me Gladys or Hariett. Learning that Catherine is not really my name did not change me. I am still the same old stink weed that I was before. My oldest sister mourned the fact that our maiden name is Worden, and not something like Taylor, or Chase. She desperately wanted to incorporate our family name in her sons' names, but did not know how to do it...of course this was long before people began to hyphenate names on a regular basis.

As for Christina's nagging question: if people have the audacity to ask you why your name is different from your husbands, or why your son's name is a combination, you can find your own way to answer them. One that usually stops people dead in their tracks is to ask, "Why do you want to know?" Now, you can also tell them that just as your son shares DNA from both of you, he also shares both your names. If you don't want to justify why you and your sons names are different from your husband's you should not feel that you need to. You can simply tell people, "This is the 21st century." Make them wonder what in the world that means. There are all sorts of celebrities with only one name. Do you think anyone makes them justify why they don't have more? I doubt it. You could also tell them,"Where I'm from, this is traditional." They will start to think of you as some exotic person. You could learn the naming conventions from different countries and recite them. "In Spain they - - - in Russia, they - - , in Tanzania - -- but where I'm from, we honor our mother's courage by keeping the name she fought to provide for us!

Florida Takes Away Choice

Got this pointer from b!X, who notes:
So, in Florida, if you're a woman who wants to give up your baby for adoption, you have to publish in the newspaper your name, address, and list of the people you've had sex with in the twelve months prior to the baby's birth. First off, why 12 months? Last time I checked, human gestation was nine months. Did this get changed by the Florida legislature at some point?

Breast Feeding
I'd like to comment on Christina's post regarding breast-feeding. I agree with you completely. How you choose to birth, feed, and raise your child is your business, and no one else's. I breast fed my sons more than 20 years ago, when it wasn't in vogue, so I was the one who was often shunned, and told to go hide in another room at family functions. My family did not trust me to be discreet, and they thought my sons were going to starve since it was my choice not to supplement their mother's milk with solids for as long as possible.

What I don't understand is these same people who frown on mother's choices for feeding, don't frown if these women choose to clothe their infants in cloth or disposable diapers; they don't scrutinize choices of car seats or vehicles in which these children will be transported; they don't complain or criticize when mothers make choices about what kinds of toys to present to these children. A mother is the best one to choose how and why to feed her child. There are a lot of choices regarding formulas, and there are many reasons for these choices. I learned the hard way that even though I was breast feeding, I did not always do what was best for my infants. My youngest, especially, made me adjust my diet in a very strict sense. He was very sensitive to many of the foods that I ate, and the only way to determine this was by an elimination diet. We both suffered until I found the diet that suited him best. Not all mothers make the best decisions, but I think most mothers make the best decisions they can, based on what information is available to them. I must have done pretty well with my eating. That same child is now a young man of 21 and he is 6' 8 " tall!

Managing the Blog Sisters Explosion

I am so pleased to report that we've had a steady influx of new sistahs. We obviously are getting very well known around the net. And that's because we are an open, accepting, tolerant, choice-committed group, right?

We don't have a mission statement as such -- but I want to state here what I tend to tell potential members who email me to ask about what we are about. This is what I say: Blog Sisters is pretty much whatever the members want it to be. Conversations range from parenting to abortion to politics to relationships. Our members range from high school girls to "older and wiser" women, from stay-at-home moms to full-time high-level professionals and unemployed techies. What we have in common is our commitment to personal choice and a general irreverence toward partriarchies.

In light of the post below from our very newest member, I felt I should see if we really do have consensus about where Blog Sisters is coming from and where it stands. I think that we all have strong convictions -- including religious, political, dietary, fiscal, gender, etc. etc. And I would like to think that the two things that we have in common are our belief that we all have the right to make our own choices about how we live our lives and our commtiment to supporting each other in that right.

Am I wrong?

Choose Life license plates

This is my first post at Blog Sisters and I just want to say thanks for having me!!!!! And now, on to my post:

Those damn Bush boys. In Florida, you can buy a personalized license plate that says "Choose Life" and the money for said plate will go for anti-choice groups. While Florida is the only state currently using these plates, other states (CA, IA, IL, KS, KY, MI, MN, MS, NC, OH, OK, PA, SC, and WV) are thinking about setting up similar plans.

You can read more about this here at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

More on nature v. nuture (etc.), this time in the classroom

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that a new anthology, The Jossey-Bass Reader on Gender in Education, has been published. It offers 34 articles on the question: is biology destiny in the classroom? According to the Chronicle's review, the focus is elementary through college education, and the anthology includes discussion of the nature-versus-nurture debate, analysis of classroom obstacles encountered by both males and females, and an examination of gender-equity in the curriculum. It also addresses violence and sexual harassment, challenges the idea that all students respond alike to specific educational approaches, and finally, it includes a discussion of single-sex and coeducational schools. Could be worth a look.

Annie Mason, Great Letter

Reviewing the last twenty five posts I believe Annie's letters say what needs to be said. There is the one about the survey from 7/26 and the newest one from 8/2. All of you are saying important things. Everyone's voice is beauty in the chorus of breathe (electrons on a screen, too).

My father always said the squeaky wheel gets the grease and would verbally abuse mom (and me) when she became squeaky. Hello, corporate America, women are on the rise. Your men have been dipping too deep in the money holding cookie jar. Is this a leftover from the folklore that a man would steal the household money out of the cookie jar to go get drunk on? Let's see men feed the machine of exploitation, especially of children and women, with new bodies without mothers.

Brain "sex" is interesting too. A good friend of mine pointed out that there are brain cell structure parts ( I don't know much brain cell stuff) in transsexual men which are identical to genetically born women. That stuff only gets that way because of DNA. So then my friend says even women discriminate against transsexuals ( and white women discriminate against black women). DNA, brain sex, or any other difference given by the Great Goddess, does not mean any of us are free from someone else's idea of hierarchy and blessings of privilege. Unjust discrimination is a form of keeping unearned privilege for the benefit of the few that fit toward a stereotypical idealization (blonde hair blue eyes, Victoria's Secret look, as an example).

When I was 19 my maternal grandfather told me that my great-grandmother, a full blood Mohawk woman, allowed her husband to register my grandfather's birth as "white" so he wouldn't have to face the hatred in the late 1800's. Great-Grandmother was of more fair complexion and facial structures so she could "pass." In my college days, being known as Indian would have excluded me from the education I received. It wasn't until the American Indian Movement people began fighting for rights that American Indians stopped being involuntarily sterilized by the United States Government. My two sons might never have been here.

Remembering the past is important, and remembering that all of us live by the privilege passed on to us from our ancestors is very important. Depending on our place in the spectrum of privilege we all owe gratitude to the slaves who died making America. We owe gratitude to the American Indian mothers who often had to escape calvary charges carrying their babies in sub-zero weather. My grandmother on my father's side didn't talk much about how the Henesseys, Kennedys, and Spilaines, got here from Ireland. They were hungry when they arrived. We owe gratitude to those who came as indentured servants and rejects from their homelands which weren't secure from state sponsored terrorism. So I carry my awareness forward and sincerely do my best to think about the seventh generation to come as I am told my Mohawk heritage people do. The way most men in this world dismiss and treat women and children, I don't think we humans are going to survive until the seventh generation to come. We all owe deep and total gratitude to our Great Mother Earth for giving to us. I pray that as women become more involved in the halls of business that feminist principles and especially Eco-feminist principles begin to reverse the rape that masculinity has perpetuated on women, children, and the Earth. That we have to write Senators to support equal rights for women is a very sad state of our collective existence for all humans and all sentient beings.

Women's Treaty Update
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's vote was 12 to 7 in favor of sending CEDAW to the full Senate. For more information go to the Human Rights Watch. You can view the hearing by clicking on the "Take Action Now" graphic on the left.

So, did anyone else watch "Brain Sex" last night?
The gist of the program was that, according to studies that used MRI technology to track energy surges in the brains of males and females exposed to the same stimuli, the brains of each gender function differently. The result is that we respond to our world-based experiences differently. However, we can learn to find greater common ground. That's where nurturing, teaching, and modeling come in. I think that we all agree that we can learn to minimize the innate differences between genders so that we can work together to build better relationships and a better world in general; the problem, as many here have verbalized, is getting the guys to figure out how to neutralize some of that aggression-triggering testosterone. (And it's not that women are not also affected by their own testosterone levels. However women tend to have much lower levels than men.) Again, biology dictates where we begin; but the rest of our brains, in concert with our hearts and souls, can chart a much more positively connected course for our shared lives.

anti-sister in da house

What does Celine smell of? My guess was that the noisome noise-stress reeked of dead babies, toilet candy and Pure Evil. Apparently, I was foolishly misguided and it's all Woody Base Notes with Sonatas of Oriental Lily or some shite. In any case, her Dion-ship joins the horde of chantoozies with a signature whiff and unveils plans to bring us something that will not be called Celine, as a rival designer has already trade-marked that lyrical appellation. Nor will it be called Irritating Canadian Bint. Which is a shame.