Me n’ my little cartoon buddy
October 28th, 2007NYTimes article on the etymology of the word “vajayjay.”
Key quote:“It sounds warm and familiar and it almost makes the vagina feel like a little cartoon character with eyes that walks around.â€
Sorry no comments for a bit
October 20th, 2007I had some weird hacker issues due, I think, to my using an old version of Word Press. I will have to wait for Mr. Nathan to go to sleep before I can work on it tonight.
Rescue me
October 18th, 2007I was over at Rixa’s blog and got into a discussion about how passive so many women are, going into birth. Here’s what I posted in the comments:
Passivity in healthcare doesn’t just exist in birth; women and perhaps men too are used to seeing doctors when we are in pain, or needing help from them, and thus not dealing from a position of strength. Doctors hold the power in most dr./patient interactions; they know what your test results say, they know what your symptoms mean, they know what needs to be done, and you don’t.
And unscrupulous doctors take advantage of that. Moving birth into the hospital had the side effect of making the laboring mom a patient, and thus, the less-powerful actor. I remember feeling that way, feeling afraid and needing to be rescued from the unknown, then after my c/section, slowly coming to understand that my dr. did not, in fact, know more than me in that area; that the medical profession in general is profoundly ignorant about what birth is, despite their bluster, and they use c/secs as a crutch rather than trying to overcome their ignorance. I think that’s what it’s taken for a lot of women; which is profoundly sad. But really, I just did NOT want to believe that the medical system was so useless to help me, and would even hurt me. That’s a hard thing to accept, when you’re used to relying on doctors as the good guys. We do rely, so very much, on doctors to be good people. We come to them at our very weakest and most vulnerable, even close to death, a position of no strength whatsoever. They hold all the power, when we need them. A lot of us take it so far as to not tell them truth if we think they’ll disapprove, and maybe also to retain some power in our interaction, withhold some knowledge from them. Which is not good for us, but there you go. Passivity is a particularly hard thing for women to overcome, because it’s expected of us so much; we have to be passive in the face of daily insults just to get through the day, and it creates bad habits. In birth, for me and I think for a lot of women, you can develop a “let’s get through this” mindset that leads you to ignore insults and impositions for the sake of speeding things up and cutting down on your already-present stress in the face of birth. And also, hateful as a hospital may be, it can feel like the safest option you have. I was afraid to homebirth. Also, I hated my apartment and didn’t want to birth there. Also, we had a roommate we would have had to kick out. Also, there were no licensed midwives who could legally attend homebirth. Etc. etc. etc. The hospital was my haven, but it was a bad one–so bad that I lost all fear of homebirth forever. Lost my passivity (at least around this issue) in the face of doctors. But also lost my equilibrium; it’s hard for me to see a doctor now, hard not to panic at a white coat. I have not had a well-woman exam since a month or so post-partum. I’ve had insurance, and opportunity. What I haven’t had is courage. The idea of being that vulnerable with an OB again makes me furious and tearful at the same time. I understand my responsibility for my own health, and I know I will go soon, but oh, I am angry, afraid, full of rage and bitterness. I am no longer passive, but I am still stuck in a world that expects me to be, and I’m having a hard time figuring out how to deal with these emotions, with my body-memories, with my desire to kick my foot out of the stirrups and into the doctor’s face (heh). I don’t trust any of them, anymore, but I still need them, dammit. And I don’t want to.
Don’t all little girls dream of doing laundry for their menfolk? (contains *^*%&$& cursing)
October 18th, 2007
Knowing how to tell when pasta is done is the first sign your boy is going gay.
I mean, jeez, people.
The playhouse — which can be filled with a sink, an oven, a laundry machine, a cradle — is aimed at little girls with the tag line, “Where dreams have room to grow.”
And it’s pink of course. Meaning, “Hey boys! You’ll never have to do any of this boring girl crap! Now go play with your violent robots or something!”
The deal is, there are plenty of playsets out there–like this one–that don’t gender-identify kitchens. It’s great for all kids to play at cooking, doing chores, and raising kids. Because unless you’re raising your little boy to be a sexist tool, he’s going to have to do some of those things to have a healthy relationship with his partner…or even just to be a clean, fed, well-dressed human being.
Dear Toy Industry: GIRLS ARE NOT SERVANTS-IN-TRAINING. SO SERIOUSLY, GO FUCK YOURSELF WITH A LARGE, SPLINTERY PINK BARBIE(tm) BROOM. THANK YOU.
Crackers, Please!
October 13th, 2007OK, so boys had Transformers, Thundercats, He-Man, GI Joe, etc. etc. All of which I watched, most of which had 1-2 women if at all.
Girls had Jem. Oh, and She-Ra. But mostly, just Jem.
Jem was typical Crapjanimation, stiff and improbably animated, and like all girl shows, way too goody-goody and pink. However, it was probably the only place a girl could see another girl with a guitar rock out; we had Jem, Chryssie Hynde, and…well, that was pretty much it.
But really, it was crap, and the songs were all about “be yourself! yay!” and friendship, and I don’t know, flowers and unicorns. BORING. And girls nowadays still don’t have it very much better in cartoon-land; it’s either be SluttyMcFashion Puppet, or else be PinkUnicornPrincessFairy from SparkleCastle, sold separately.
But in the wonderful age of YouTube, there have been a lot of Jem remixes, for those of us wishing we could travel back in time and make this show as cool as we really wanted it to be.
Hence, Jem covers (ha) Le Tigre’s Deceptacon. AWESOME.
(via Feministing)
Oh, oh, but wait. Here are three teenagers with their own awesome take on the same song. Involving a hapless mannnequin in drag and robot moves. Love the trick camera work. Love the utterly cool goofiness of teenage girls. Not a PinkUnicornPrincessFairy in sight.
“don’t come back till you lose that 50 pounds”
October 2nd, 2007I once had a doctor lecture me about my weight when I actually went in to see him about a cold. Because, you know, I don’t KNOW that I’m considered fat and unhealthy. Thanks, doc! Can, I um, have that prescription for my lung infection now that you’ve humiliated me?
Fat discrimination by the medical profession is not a myth. Sometimes, it even kills. At the very least, it’s irresponsible and unethical to refuse to treat a patient simply because they are overweight, as some of the commenters to that story relate.
One comment in particular brought tears to my eyes, about a woman who avoided doctors for 28 years because she was afraid of their treatment of her as a fat woman; when she finally did go, she cried because the doctor was “so kind.” Kindness should not be rare; compassion should not be the exception, for fat people or anyone. A person who’s overweight comes to their doctor already bearing the scars of how others see them and how they see themselves. The least their doctor can do is not add to them.