No Money is No Excuse for No Protection! September 30, 2007

I am increasingly sick of hearing and reading about women who are having baby after baby, or are contracting sexually transmitted disease after disease because they cannot afford proper birth control or sexual protection. When I was a senior in high school, I wasn’t even 18 years old, and I was able to find FREE birth control methods. Where, you may ask? Planned Parenthood. These services are available for little to no cost to women of all ages, all races, all socio-economic statuses. All a woman has to do is GO. When I was 17, I was in a sexual relationship for the first time in my life. Even though I knew it was against my parents’ will, I did it anyway. But I did remember the most important thing my parents tried to teach me. It’s not that sex is bad, but it can be dangerous. Dangerous in the sense that I could become a teenage mother, or worse, that I could contract any number of diseases, including HIV. So, did I just go ahead and have unprotected sex because I couldn’t afford to go buy condoms? Did I allow my boyfriend to penetrate me knowing that lack of protection could lead to babies or sickness? No! I did what any rational female should do. I took myself to the local planned parenthood, where I received FREE, CONFIDENTIAL services. I was able to get condoms, oral contraceptives, loads of information, and support from medical professionals. But, the best part was that I was not allowed to receive anything until I submitted to a physical examination. So, women out there who blame their unplanned pregnancies or their unwanted sexually transmitted diseases on lack of funds to attain proper protection, I say WAKE UP! There are ways to get help so that you can enjoy a HEALTHY sex life. There are ways to be a normal sexual being and still protect yourself. And if you really can’t afford a condom, you just may be able to get one for FREE! For more information, please visit: http://www.plannedparenthood.org

Last, but not least, I leave you with this:  If you still think you cannot get yourself to your local planned parenthood for free sexual assistance, then please do us all a favor and just don’t have sex!

Am I the only one annoyed with this? September 23, 2007

The more I read through the text book, the more I am really annoyed with the way feminism is interpreted these days.  Many of the (ahem, WOMEN) writers in this book seem, to me, to be a large reason women are so unhappy being women.  Each time I finish one of the assigned readings, I become more and more angry with the way “feminist” women act and think (or at least the ones in the text).  It seems to me that these women (and by “these women,” I mean the writers and contributors in the text) believe that feminism is about denouncing everything that women do to feel more womanly.  Be it dieting, fashion, make-up, career, faith, love, motherhood or even (oh no, don’t say it) labiaplasty, I feel like these women are trying to convince me that having anything to do with how our society sees women is wrong, and makes me less of a woman.  How can that be?  Isn’t dieting, fashion, makeup, career, faith, love, motherhood or even labiaplasty a choice (in most cases) that modernized and socialized women make?  Or am I to believe these women that every choice that I make for myself is not really what I want or desire, but that I am really just a product of what our male-dominated society wants or desires?  Why is it that if I decide to get a boob job, or be a stripper, or shave my legs, or have more skirts than pants in my wardrobe, I am oppressed and ruled by what the men in my life want?  When did the fun stuff about being a woman turn into tabboo?  How about I wear makeup because I like it.  Because wearing mascara is what I think is pretty for me.  And if I don’t wear mascara one day, it is because I chose to simply not.  It’ s not because I am trying to prove something to all the men out there who also happen to think mascara is pretty.  Why, if I dress up one day, it’s deep down only because that’s what I think I am “supposed” to wear?  When did my choices about the woman I want to be stop being my choice?  Why is it that if I choose to do something that is a very cliche woman thing, I am looked at by feminist women as a traitor of some sort?  Isn’t feminism supposed to be about embracing who we are as women?  Isn’t it supposed to be about learning about all of the choices we have and then choosing for ourselves what we want to do with the options?  Why, if I decide I really do want to be a teacher, is it only because that’s what my male-dominated society wants me to do?  Or, because I think there’s nothing else I can do, because I am an oppressed woman?  When did all things feminine in whatever sense you want to make  it become the target of distruction by so-called feminists?

 I say, those women are the ones who are really oppressed.  Those women are so worried that by acting like a traditional woman she is somehow losing her womanhood.  When these women dwell on all of the female things that they think imprison them, they become more and more trapped, and less and less free.  These women are so ultra-sensitive to what this action or that action might say about her right to choose for herself, that they have a disdainful view of the fun of being a woman. 

 So I end by saying this:  Quit worrying that doing girly things will make you less of a person.  Quit belittling the fun part of womanhood.  Quit belly-aching about how unfair it is to be a woman.  Quit trying to convince me that if I stay at home to take care of my children instead of competing in the corporate world, that I am somehow a victim of the male society.  Quit trying to make me the woman YOU want me to be, and just let me be me.  The woman I am is MY CHOICE!  Not the choice of those who run the media.  Not the choice of my father or my boyfriend.  Not the choice of my guy friends or my sons.  By finding something wrong with EVERYTHING feminine, these women are not asserting my feminine power, they are taking away my power to choose the kind of woman I WANT TO BE!

Upon reading about American history since the end of the civil war September 9, 2007

The rising cost of living in America today is one prominent condition that could suggest a possible second coming of The Great Depression.  Especially since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, lower- and middle-class Americans are going broke.  Even the cost of essential survival needs these days – energy, gasoline, food, etc. – is so high that other affluent businesses that don’t sell these products and services are going under.  Financial institutions, education systems, service industries, and more will not cut prices below their operating costs so that consumers are willing to buy from them.  When the people can’t afford these products and services, and can barely afford the cost to stay alive, the future doesn’t look so bright.

  

Some of the reasons child labor was so prominent during this time include cost of living vs. wages, industrial exploitations of families’ vulnerabilities, and lack of support for the cause.  Women’s suffrage helped fuel support for reformation of such working conditions as minimum age and wage requirements; safety – physical, mental, and emotional – regulations; the eight-hour work day and the 40-hour work week.  The improvement of conditions helped to stamp out child labor abuse.

  

I remember my dad talking about the red scare when I was a kid.  He said they watched films in school about the threat and the bad, evil people involved.  Today, the media exploits the racial tension and hostility between Americans and anyone from the post-Mesopotamia region of the world.  Regard for any Middle-Eastern, even by association or by heritage, is mere disdain and skepticism; or at least that’s how the media tells us it is.  My dad was taught by one institution as a child to distrust anyone that may be related, however so distant, to the red scare; children today are given the same lesson by the media about 9/11.

  

The after-effects of the Progressive Era and another World War engaged women in the workforce during the 1940s.  These freshman workers were middle- to pre-retirement-aged women, many of whom had husbands off fighting the war and children to support at home.  Women finally held the jobs that men would be doing were they not at war – and usually they only lasted the duration of the war.  The permanent change was acceptance of women in traditionally male dominated fields of work.  But it seems to me that men would still rather see the women in more traditional roles.  I think men have just given up the social resistance of women because they know once women’s roles started to change, there was no stopping it.  And besides, like the old saying goes, “if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”