:)

Belief without Question

It was not until recently that I was introduced to the song "Tony" by Patty Griffin. It is about a gay boy who kills himself because highschool was hell for him.



The most poignant line to me is "I guess you finally stopped believing/That hope would ever find you". Perhaps others would find this to be too personal, but for a long time in my life I was suicidal. I made some weak attempts that nobody ever found out about and would fantasize about dying most every day. I did not fantasize about what it would do to others, or about how everybody would be sad at my funeral. What I wanted was to get away from myself.

Isn't that what every one of these children who happen to be queer are doing? Society mocks them, says that the core of themselves are wrong. Something that is unchangeable and hard-wired into them is so wrong, something that does not hurt others. There is no harm in being queer. In fact, what if the situation were reversed? Think about it--if you are straight, why are you straight? Where might someone have gone wrong in raising you, what development went wrong to make you exactly as you are supposed to be? Straight people do not have to question themselves in these manners, they do not have scientists saying that there was some inefficiency in making them.

I have never actually been attacked for being who I am in my sexuality, but that may in part be because I have not had a sexual life. I can not imagine somebody coming up to me and saying that they hate me because I dare to love who I feel I need to love. To tell me that I am wrong for loving others as I am driven is like telling you that you are wrong for loving your cisgender S.O., or even your children. Who the fuck are you to tell me things like this?

Question the things people who have never questioned their teachings. The people who say this is so wrong are usually the people who will accept anything that they are told by someone in authority. So much of what went into the Bible or any text like that was so context-dependent that taking everything literally from it is an exercise in pointlessness. Ask yourself what you are asking of others, to change and deny so basic a part of themselves that they would commit suicide to escape themselves, and others. When you pass comment on someone, even online (or especially online, as things will not come off the same here), think about what you are saying. Why are you attacking them? Think about things logically, read stuff without judgment by those who write from experience. And for everybody's sake, quit trying to make someone be you.

School Time

School started a few months ago. I have a few blogs lined up but they're still in construction stages.

I started taking ASL classes and it has been a blast. Just tested today and I'm pretty sure I got 100% on it. The next step, really, is to be able to put things together in sentences, but that's always the hardest time in starting a new language (and I'm almost an authority, this will be my 3rd language).

Experimental Psych has been kicking my ass. I'm starting to line up my experiment (well, just check the name of the class) and have had to compile literature. The stack is probably over 4" high and I'm not even done. I also just did my first presentation in there. I figure I nailed it, and actually did it in the 10 minutes she wanted, but I really won't know until I get the grades back. What's wonderful while listening to all the other presentations they all run over the allotted time. As a student, sitting there and waiting to get out this is so not what I want.

My night class is interesting, but man does it wipe me out. 2 1/2 hours of sitting there, talking about how other societies collapsed. It's not a funny class, it's quite serious in fact, even though the teacher, who is awesome, tries to make it funnier.

I managed to get to talk with my adviser. He's running one of the seminars and I quite hope to get into it. The title is "The Psychology of Humor". We had bad time there for a bit, where only 1 seminar class was being offered, it only has 15 seats, and many more than that in students who needed to take it. Thankfully they finally figured it out.

I'm participating in NaNoWriMo again this year. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do when it comes down to it. I have 2 ideas for it--one being a collection of flash fiction and short stories, which are my forte and one being a past idea that surrounds 5 characters or so in dealing with the 10th anniversary of their friend's suicide.

Down Time

I've been so out of it lately. I haven't been reading as much as normal, or just plain doing anything worth anything. I've been in a funk that I basically can't stand but also can't escape. I actually can't wait for school to start again just to get back into being forced to do something.

I couldn't find a job this summer and then a list of things stopped me from looking for a time (i.e. my car broke down and I live in a part of town that neither gets public transportation and is too far from most places of business). Did I mention my car broke down? Hard to go out, and then having no money to do so on top of it...? I've been a real homebody.

I got sick a few days ago. Major sick, as in high fever sick. I was taking ibuprofen at a rate of 2 every 2 hours and still battling 101. Probably should've went to the hospital but didn't. My parents have never much believed in taking me there, although my sister loves the place and my father loves taking her. I'm not bitter at all.

Now it's back to school time. I bought textbooks, which is always depressing to me. Happily this year, after buying online, I managed to save about $250 off of all-used bookstore prices (this was after needing to buy some things new because used just wasn't an option--it was either a new edition that came out too soon to have used copies floating around or it was the same price, after shipping, to buy used and it just didn't make sense) and I know that I never would've been able to find all used at the bookstore.

One way or another I need to get back up on the horse. I'm going to start by reading some old favorites that always get me back to reading and crocheting my friend a surprise hat. I only need the cream color to lighten it up up a bit (I'm going to use dark grey, cream and dark purple and the purple can really blend into the grey) and that, thankfully, doesn't cost too much. Not much does, she's that good of a friend.

Wish me luck, I'll need it.

The Importance of Language

How we say things is important. This may seem obvious, but give me a few sentences to explain where I'm coming from. We get into fights over what someone else said, how they said it, the words they use. Language defines our interactions and our lives. Certain words, certain combinations, can change the entire meaning of a statement.

We'll take the difference between "good for you" and "bully for you" into account. When I say "good for you" (obviously depending on tone and body language but we'll hold those in constant for this example) it's congratulatory and I'm happy for whatever it is. "Bully for you" is a little different--"bully" is British slang for good, nice, happy but in a bit of a different manner. In that sentence it comes together to say "good for you", but it's a little less happy, a little more "well, that's nice now gtfo". It's a little more "well, thank you for that information about their/your achievement in the face of my failure". It's a little more "well...that's nice". The difference is a bit of an insult aimed at the other person.

Time and again I have been criticized for taking language in commercials, T.V. shows, blogs, books...etc., too seriously. When we accept the above argument that it is important (and has started many a fight between married couples) then we can't just say that, in the case of putting down fat people or feminism or racism (or any other -ism), it doesn't matter that much. This is generally what the dominant group wants you to think--that they can insult the subgroup subtly and they're supposed to take it. I'm going to take a recent commercial I saw as an example.

In this commercial a woman is talking about her weight loss through Nutrisystem. She talks about how, even if you're fat, there's still hope for you. So, that means if you are fat then there's no hope if you remain so. There is only hope through weight loss and Nutrisystem can offer you that.

We've known for a long time that media heavily influences our decisions as well as our opinions of ourselves. The lie we all tell ourselves is that it doesn't affect us, that we're immune to the effects. We're not. Ad companies spend millions upon billions of dollars. This money doesn't go to waste. The main effect is the "mere exposure effect" that has proven that just seeing something more than once increases liking over a novel effect/object. As the models have gotten skinnier on T.V. so too have the rates of anorexia and bulimia risen among young girls. We learn through words as well as pictures and our language can be quite subtle. We learn, through the syntax and semantics, especially when words have more than one meaning, what is expected of us--we learn it all too well.

The point is that breaking down the language is important, as well as what words are used and where they are put along with tone and body language. It matters because it tells us what we're supposed to know. It tells us what others think. It tells us what is expected of us to belong--which is what we want most in the world outside of air, water, food and safety (and if you can tell me the source of that I'll give you a cookie).

If you want to learn more about this, watch Killing Us Softly 3, which you can find in it's entirety online (either through Youtube or Google Videos) and/or read Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. In the end the best advice I can give you is to recognize the words that are being used and think about them. Usually the best way to counteract this effect is to critically think about things that you watch, hear or read. It's not fool-proof, but it's a start.

Being a Feminist in a Post-Feminist World

Currently reading: Enlightened Sexism by Susan G. Douglas

This is a tricky issue. Much of the time you hear the phrase "I'm not a feminist, but..." from women because in this day and age the belief is that feminism is over with. There's no need for it anymore because women are equal to men in all respects. There's also the fear of being labelled the ugly feminist, which was a concept that was created as part of the backlash against feminism. All of these are topics for another day.

This is a difficult world to admit being a feminist in. Men supposedly don't like this trait in women. I guess this would make sense. In an essay by Herbert Blumer ("Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Positiion") wrote a piece on how racism is driven by the percieved loss of status by the top group. This can be applied to sexism as well. Men are the dominant group, the top dogs. If women were to gain power then it would percieved that their relative position would lose power. Men would react against this by trying to halt the rise in power. At first, in the 70's there was a proliferation of porn that showed violence against women. It slowly went away until it had almost dissappeared, or at least went back down to the previous levels as men acclimated. As women kept demanding equality, though, there was a backlash against the movement, one that was far more effective than the underground porn movement. They all said that women who were feminists couldn't get men if they wanted to, that they were man-haters, ugly, hirsute, bald-headed, flannel-wearing near-women.

So not true.



She's a feminist.



She is not a feminist.

Both are actually quite good looking. Men can be feminists, ugly or handsome. Women can be feminists, ugly or handsome. Your beliefs are not based off of how you look, but by your past experiences and teachings. Truthfully, there's probably a strong, positive correlation between education and feminist beliefs (i.e. that the higher education you receive the more likely you are to have some or all feminist beliefs) just like with liberalism and education. In the end, though, it's about being true to what you see is fair, even in an unfair world. It's about trying to even the odds out, when they are already skewed so much in favor of W.A.S.P.s in the first place. It's about being true to your wife, daughter, mother, cousins, friends, etc. and telling them their work and time is worth just as much as yours. It's about staying true to your golden rule.

Frustrating

Complete crap. That's all I've been able to write of late. Which explains the huge gap in posting lately.