Monday, October 07, 2002

Voila!

The new design is in place. The most observant of you may notice that the archives are a bit funky. I'm blaming it on Blogger, because I can't think of anything I'm doing wrong to make the February link show March dates (though the more recent archives seem to be working just fine).

At any rate, I hope y'all like the new look. If you have any specific, pressing concerns (like that brownish color scheme I chose makes you succumb to epileptic fits, etc.), please do let me know. I have no intention of being the Tech Nazi. :-)

Friday, October 04, 2002

More activism.

Hi sisters! I'm still really new to the community, but I thought I'd throw this link out there (and hopefully it hasn't been discussed earlier). I caught about 10 minutes of Oprah today, and was really drawn to what was being discussed.

Its the story of a Nigerian woman, who is in danger of being stoned ... and we can help.

From Amnesty International USA's website:

AMINA LAWAL, a 30 year-old Muslim woman, was sentenced on Friday 22 March 2002 to stoning to death by a Shari'ah court at Bakori in Katsina State in northern Nigeria. Amina allegedly confessed to having had a child while divorced. Pregnancy outside of marriage constitutes sufficient evidence for a woman to be convicted of adultery according to the new Shari'ah-based penal code for Muslims, introduced in Katsina State. The man named as the father of her baby girl reportedly denied having sex with her and his confession was enough for the charges against him to be discontinued. Amina did not have a lawyer during her first trial, when the judgement was passed. But she has now filed an appeal against her sentence with the help of a lawyer hired by a pool of Nigerian human rights and women's rights organisations.

The hearing of the appeal by the Shari'ah Court of Appeal of Funtua, Katsina State, was set for May 27, 2002 but adjourned twice, after her lawyer argued for an early hearing to take place instead of having the hearing postponed until next year as previously proposed by the court. Amina Lawal is still weaning her baby. Such a long adjournment of the case would have not served any useful purpose and would have deepened the climate of uncertainty created by the whole process. The terms of the bail have also been reviewed. Under these new terms for bail agreed by the court, Amina Lawal will no longer be reporting fortnightly to them. The only condition, however, is that Amina Lawal had to have a 'surety'.

On 8 July 2002, Amina Lawal made the submission of her appeal before the Shari'ah Court or Appeal of Funtua. The hearing of her appeal resumed on 5 August 2002 and the prosecutor presented his case and urged the court to maintain the sentence, death by stoning, passed by the Shari'ah court of Bakori. On August 19, Amina’s appeal was denied. She now has thirty days to make another appeal to the Supreme court in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

Go to the site and send an email off to the Nigerian ambassador. In fact, sign up for the newsletter. There's so much we can do, if we just invest a couple minutes here and there.

Tuesday, October 01, 2002

Warning: Design Ahead

As the first major undertaking of my office of "Technical Blog Sister Support", and at the behest of Jeneane and Elaine, I've done a little markup revising to give Blog Sisters a new look and more compliance with web standards, etc. This means that I will be changing the Blog Sisters template, and it will be looking pretty different by the time I'm done.

The day of the change is coming soon (rough estimate at this point: by the end of the week). If you'd like to offer your two cents before that happens, feel free to email me (Andrea). Hopefully this redesign should accomplish two things: to give the Blog Sisters web site a more distinct and unique appearance, and to make sure that it's relatively readable and visually consistent in all different kinds of web browsers, on all different kinds of computers.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog. :-)

Wednesday, September 25, 2002

Throwing off the Veil of Oppression

Wow.

Not that I'm a condoner of violence, but that was a pretty brave, gutsy thing to do. I don't have much commentary to add to the article other than that.

Found via The Avocado Couch.

Sunday, September 22, 2002

Matchmaking the "Brightest People"

Now here's something for the single Sistahs to consider:
Psychoanalyst Frederick Levenson, who practices on Long Island and in Manhattan, has begun marketing TheraDate....... The concept is that "The people using psychotherapy to improve their lives are some of the brightest, most verbally adept and success-oriented people in America," Levenson said. They would be more likely to have successful relationships with others who recognize the value of self-reflection and are prone to talk about their feelings, he said. And who better to match them up than therapists, who do marriage counseling every day and whom Levenson calls "relationship experts"?

He's got a website at www.theradate.com, but I've yet to be able to get on it.

Friday, September 20, 2002

::blush:: Hehe

Hey! I was just quoted here ~~> Random Blog Quotes for my last blog entry!!

I'm so tickled I can't stop giggling!! ::grins hugely::

Just had to share that with my Sistahs!!!

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Good vs. Evil, Us vs. Them

I just posted this over on my blog and I'd love to hear what my Sistahs think about the subject. Basically, it's regarding a discussion my son and I had this evening while watching the new Twilight Zone that got me thinking, and I wanted to share :D

Thanks for any input/insights/wisdom you'd like to share!

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Blog Sisters News Alert!

1. We have had an influx of new Blog Sisters over the last month or so. At the moment, our official membership registration stands at 85, and there are about 20 invitations that have been sent out for which I’m still awaiting replies. Our voices are being heard, and our words are encouraging more and more women to exercise their own unique voices. Keep it up, Sistahs!
2. Because I’m the one who sends out the invitations to join, some of the new members might not realize that our Great Founding Sister is Jeneane Sessum, not me. Jeneane continues to be our inspiration and motivation for keeping this weblog a place where women can feel safe speaking their truths. (And sometimes we find that we have as many truths as there are Blog Sisters posting. And that’s just fine.)
3. We’re taking on an additional administrator to help with the technical aspects of the site. Andrea R. James, who is a consistent contributor to Blog Sisters and a talented techie, has agreed to be the person you can contact if you’re having technical difficulties. She’s also going to work on giving the look of this weblog a little creative massaging. You go, Andrea.
4. Because we’ve had such a constant flow of newcomers, I’m not sure that I have everyone listed in our blogroll the way I should. So, please check for your name over on the left and make sure that it links to your personal weblog. If there are any mistakes or you want anything changed, just let me know at kalilily@nycap.rr.com.

And now, back to our regular programming.

Saturday, September 14, 2002

A Way to Help Survivors of September 11 Victims

Hi, Blog Sisters. I'm Ginger, I'm a thirty-something technical writer who lives in Houston and this is my first post to Blog Sisters.

Several jobs ago, I worked as a paralegal for a lawyer who practiced immigration law, and I keep up with immigration issues even though I no longer work in the field. I found out something yesterday about the immigration status of foreign survivors of September 11 victims that really bothered me, and I would like to ask the sisters to help.

It turns out that the blanket authorization for survivors to stay in the US regardless of how long they were supposed to be allowed to stay otherwise expired on Wednesday, the anniversary of the attacks. Technically, many of these survivors have no basis to remain in the US once their spouses were dead. The Attorney General has authorization to help them on an individual basis on the PATRIOT Act, but that requires a lot of effort to bring individual cases to his attention.

Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey sponsored a bill in the Senate to help the survivors on a permanent basis, but it won't pass this year. Meanwhile, he has a bill in the Senate to extend the blanket stay for another year. If it passes both the Senate and the House before the end of the session (October 4), the President can sign it into law and the foreign survivors of September 11 victims will be able to remain in the United States legally.

It's particularly important that this bill be enacted into law now because of some provisions barring "overstayers" from reentering the United States. Under current immigration law, anyone who is in the United States without authorization, i.e., illegally, for six months is barred from reentering for three years. Anyone who is in the United States without authorization for a year is barred from reentering for ten years. That's without thinking about what might happen if they were deported instead of leaving voluntarily when the INS catches up with them.

I ask that anyone reading this talk to their senators about S.2845, which extends the legislative relief to which survivors of those killed last September are entitled under the PATRIOT Act for another year.

[If the link to the bill doesn't work, use the lookup from Senator Jon Corzine's homepage.]

S.2845 is currently sitting in committee, and the time for September 11 survivors is running out. If nothing is done for them, and that means retroactively fixing their status, they'll be deported. The status of those survivors who would have had to leave before now has already expired. While the world mourned their spouses and parents, they became illegal aliens.

If S.2845 is not enacted as a stopgap until the next Congress can offer all survivors of September 11 victims permanent legislative relief (as opposed to the discretionary relief they get under current law), these survivors may become illegal aliens. They may become subject to the three-year or ten-year reentry bar for overstaying. They may be deported.

If you think the survivors of those who died on September 11 deserve to stay in the United States, please write, email, or better, call your senators (find them here) and urge them to support S.2845. Contact your representative and ask him or her to sponsor and vote for a companion bill in the House. And spread the word.

Thanks for reading.

Thursday, September 12, 2002

I Heart My NY

Nobody posted anything on September 11th, and I thought it was appropriate for something to be said, even a day late.

When I first entered this world, the world I entered was New York. My first sense of place and space and home was shaped by the streets of Manhattan. New York is mine because when my school was under construction and the student body was homeless, the city was my classroom; my uniformed classmates and I traipsed all over New York with our teachers, learning from the city instead of simply within it. It's mine because I once spent four hours sitting on the steps of the public library people-watching. It's mine because I've been reading the real estate section of The New York Times since I was eleven to try to figure out which New York neighborhood will still be semi-affordable when I graduate. It's mine because I've left my mark there: I carved my name on a tree in Central Park, I scraped my knees on sidewalks, I once lost a tooth in my favorite playground on East End Avenue. It's mine because being there gives me comfort and not stress: when I felt suffocated by the monotony of New York suburbia, it was my escape, and the only escape I ever needed. It's mine because it has forever imbued in me open-mindedness, street smarts, common sense, confidence, a love of culture, and a rejection of ignorance. This is my New York.

New York was always mine, and I was always proud, even snobby about it. I clung to what New York was for me, and turned my nose on what it to many tourists: an urban Disneyland whose highlights included the Manhattan Mall, the Statue of Liberty, Time Square, F.A.O. Schwartz, and the Bronx Zoo. When I passed by obvious tourists -- camera-and-umbrella-toting, too-large-"I-heart-NY"-shirt-wearing, subway-map-squinting tourists -- I sighed. How could they love -- or even "heart" New York --when they didn't know it at all? I was more partial to shirts that read "Welcome to New York!" on the front and "Now get out" on the back. But when I showed people around, be it my clueless born and raised in suburbia friends or enthusiastic visitors from out of town, I showed them my New York, what was, to me, the real New York.

On September 11th, something suddenly changed. New York was not just mine; New York no longer belonged exclusively to New Yorkers. New York City suddenly was real for everybody, and truly belonged to everybody. It belonged to all the tourists whom I'd scoffed at, to all the people who'd never made it there, to everybody who had ever loved anybody or anything. I love New York with everything in me, and I have for as long as I can remember. But on September 11th, we all mourned together. We all loved New York together.

A year later, nobody has forgotten. Everybody I know still has a soft spot for New York that they hadn't had before. When I was in the wilderness of western Canada a month ago, a local asked me where I was from. I told her. She replied only: "Where were you when it happened?" One year has passed, but the memory of that day is so vivid and the pain so fresh, that it hardly seems possible. I'm no longer eager to claim New York as exclusively mine. Every citizen of the world has stock in what New York City and its people have come to represent. I only hope that the anniversary of September 11th is marked by genuine remembrance and reflection, not by blind patriotism and kitsch worthy of the Manhattan Mall. We shouldn't need plastic flags and TV specials to help us remember. As President Bush was quoted as saying on December 11th, "In time, perhaps, we will mark the memory of September 11 in stone and metal, something we can show children as yet unborn to help them understand what happened on this minute and on this day. But for those of us who lived through these events, the only marker we'll ever need is the tick of a clock at the 46th minute of the eighth hour of the 11th day."

originally posted by me at Fire & Ice

Tuesday, September 10, 2002

Men, depression, relationships, families, and two good books

I'm in the process of reading two excellent books by Dr. Terrence Real, a family therapist and author about whom Jeneane Sessum has been posting. And so I'm dedicating my next few posts on my own blog to sharing information from these books. Given what I've been reading here and in the personal blogs of some of our Blog Sisters, the information that Dr. Real is sharing is very relevant. If you don't have time to read the books, read my posts, so far here and here. Stay tuned for more.

Monday, September 09, 2002

let it flow.

I have something on my mind and I'm wondering where the Blog Sisters stand on the issue. I have been, for my past 4 or 5 menstrual cycles, using washable, rather than disposable products to collect the flow. I first became curious about washable menstrual pads through the many ads for them in 2 of my favorite magazines, Bitch and BUST. For years, I did nothing but wonder, who out there would have the time, to say nothing of the desire, to wash out blood-soaked rags throughout their cycle. Especially those women with heavy flow. We're talking washing out pads maybe 4 or 5 times a day, over the course of 3 to 7 days. Aren't disposable tampons and pads a revolution in themselves, liberating so many women from the endless drudgery of scrubbing that our foremothers endured? Isn't that the definition of "better living through chemistry?"

Then I started reading. I was alarmed, and then increasingly horrified to realize something that should have been obvious: that the dioxins and other chemical agents used to bleach paper products, substances that I know are harmful to the environment, are the same toxic chemicals used to bleach tampons and disposable pads that I would regularly wear close to the most delicate area of my body during my period. Further reading turned up evidence of links between tampon use and diseases such as endometriosis. The more I read, the more I thought, I need to get over my squeamishness and my wanting to avoid extra time with my handwashing. In addition, I thought about the sheer volume of menstrual trash that would be eliminated by my ceasing to use tampons and throwaway pads. For that reason alone, I thought, I should at least give washable menstrual pads a try.

Now that I've done it for several months, I know I'll never go back to my disposable ways. They're comfortable, they don't have that nasty plastic liner to deal with in your panties, they're safe and - the big bonus - they're incredibly cute! You can go to
Lunapads, the Rag Hag, or Urban Armor to see for yourself. My question is, do any of the Blog Sisters use these products, and how do you like them? I have brought up my newfound love of them to a few friends, progressive ladies all, and the responses have been mostly mild curiousity. I currently don't know anyone personally who also washes their pads (unless they just haven't told me yet!). I do have some links to purveyors of the pads displayed quietly on my blog under the heading "good for the planet."

I'd be interested to hear your responses. Also, if this topic has been raised in a previous discussion, then please point me in the direction of the archives and I'll read there happily.

This is my first time here, and I'm honored to be a new Sister. Thanks.

Tuesday, September 03, 2002

A comment from the father of my offspring

He left this poem he wrote as a comment on my weblog. I think it deserves repeating here.

FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS
Little girls are nice
but we do them wrong
fussing with their hair and dressing them up
like dolls --
teaching them from the start
they are playthings.
Better we should feed them
words and numbers and tools
to remind them
that before women, they are people.
Teach them love and caring and nurture, yes,
but not as the entirety of their being,
else those qualities become walls and prisons.
Give them, as well, wings
and teach them to fly --
in case later in life
someone builds walls around them.
Little girls are nice,
but daughters who are their soaring selves
are better.

Sunday, September 01, 2002

Interesting take on gender difference

I found this very relevant passage in a "trashy" novel I just finished reading that gave me a kind of "Aha!" Here's the condensed passage: (It's a novel written by a woman about a novel that's being written by a man.)

"Women readers aren't turned on by nice heroes any more than male readers lust after heroines who are too virtuous. There should be a hint, maybe at least a promise, of corruptibility."

"You don't have to worry about Roark in that regard. Women readers will love him.... He's very male. His responses are intinctually masculine. He looks at everying in a sexual context first, before expanding his viewpoint to include other factors, like morality...... He declined her invitation to have sex, demonstating that he knows where the lines of decency are drawn."

It seems to me that the same concept is often true in the non-fiction world. Men and women start out from different sexual/emotional places. And, if they're "evolved" enough, expand their viewpoints so that their attitudes can meet up somewhere in the middle. Whaddya' think?

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

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?

Tuesday, August 27, 2002

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.

Monday, August 26, 2002

Saturday, August 24, 2002

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.

Friday, August 23, 2002

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

Thursday, August 22, 2002

labium, grammar and rock journalism

Several cheers to Australian music site undercover for branch 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 la vagina"[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.

Wednesday, August 21, 2002

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.

Tuesday, August 20, 2002

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

Monday, August 19, 2002

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...

Thursday, August 15, 2002

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.

Wednesday, August 14, 2002

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.

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

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

Monday, August 12, 2002

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.

Sunday, August 11, 2002

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.

Friday, August 09, 2002

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?

Thursday, August 08, 2002

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?

Tuesday, August 06, 2002

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.

Sunday, August 04, 2002

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.

Friday, August 02, 2002

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.

Thursday, August 01, 2002

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.

Monday, July 29, 2002

So it's all in our heads?
Do male and female thought processes differ (beginning with human formation in the womb) and so there really are innate gender differences in terms of our skills and abilities? The Brain Game: What's Sex Got to Do With It airs on ABC-TV at 10 p.m. EST this Wednesday. Dr. Nancy Snyderman, Good Morning America contributor, surveys the latest scientific research, which seems to indicate that male and female brain powers differ because of biology. I, for one, am very curious to hear what the program does with this subject.

Sunday, July 28, 2002

Sometimes biology is destiny.
Relative to all of the discussions here, you might be interested in reading this.

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

Women in Refrigerators

Just when I thought I'd run out of things to post here, I stumbled across this site in my many meanderings. The author of the site attempts to examine the frequency with which female characters in comic books get offed especially messily or have some other form of extreme violence exacted upon them (e.g. rape). It's a cool little site, esp. since it includes a lot of responses from comics creators/ professionals. It's not a statistical examination, it just brings up an interesting concept for discussion. Worth a read, maybe even if comic books aren't totally your thing.

[edit]
Here's a quote from an article by John Bartol on the site:
"The point is this: our beloved heroes and heroines, the idols of our childhood and myths of our adult nostalgia, are not exactly all running plays from the same Campbellian playbook. Their fates are not the same, their lives are not the identical epics of archetypal meaning. Someone seems to be getting the shaft."

Trolling For A Blog Sisters Review

There's what sounds like a worthwhile movie out in the U.S., "Lovely And Amazing," starring Catherine Keener ("Being John Malkovich") and Brenda Blethyn ("Secrets & Lies"), and written and directed by Nicole Holofcener ("Walking and Talking"). The official Web site is here, and lots more is here (trailers and showtimes on both). It's a mom-and-daughters story that has gotten (mostly) excellent reviews; here's an informative one from Stephanie Zacharek on Salon. Anyone seen/would recommend it?

Monday, July 22, 2002

Carol Gilligan Strikes Again

From the latest New Republic:
Gilligan's famous contention is that girls and women are possessed of a distinctive morality more attuned to maintaining relationships and caring for others than to arguing for justice and equity. This generalization has often been taken as the product of stringent empirical research. So has Gilligan's idea that plucky and confident girls wilt into diffidence on the cusp of adolescence.

While there is certainly a shred of truth in some of Gilligan's assertions, it bothers me that they are presented so often as foregone conclusions instead of statistical curiosities. Not all girls wilt; not all women are good at relationships (lord knows). And arguing for justice and equality? Women are not good at that?

It was one thing for Gilligan to popularize the notion that patriarchal systems tend to quash and undervalue the feminine in places like schools (boys are called on more than girls etc.) This was pointing out differences in how women were treated.

Presenting women as morally superior, outside of the context of various social systems, is interesting and we like to hear it, but it invites the other side of "difference feminism": if women are better than men at one thing, they are probably worse than them at something else. Like balancing checkbooks or parallel parking. Do we really want to get into thse kinds of bogus equations?

Saturday, July 20, 2002

Attention!
Steve Outing, senior editor, Poynter.org refers to Blogsisters as an example of a group webblog in this article:
    Blog Sisters - More than 80 women contribute to this blog on women's issues. It's a diverse group, though lots of the contributors are writers and all publish their own weblogs.
:)

(PS: Sorry, Elaine. Just noticed that you beat me to it :)

Men, please take note!

According to this very interesting report, while women are beginning to outnumber men on college campuses, some demographers say that "American men are becoming less literate, less ambitious, less responsible, and less employable than women".

Quoting from the article:

-- "Men are less mature today than they were 20 years ago." [Is this really true? On what basis is this maturity or immaturity measured and what is the evidence that the article talks about but does not explain]

-- "Traditionally, men have been more likely to marry women with less earning potential and professional stature, although that trend is shifting." [Is it really shifting? I suspect, most men still feel the same!]

-- "It is predicted that finding a successful husband (read, someone who earns more) will become increasingly difficult. This also means that the choice for younger women will be more constrained than it was 20 years ago.

An American study which does throw forward some interesting statements. Except, I'm sure how factual or correct they really are. I doubt one study is enough to reveal the true statistics and give us a more correct picture about this one.

Nostalgia: the last refuge of the copywriter.

Gina- it’s certainly not the past which I disdain. This era of corporate feudalism, Nsync AND McHappy Meals certainly needs its fundament looked at by a Professional.
Tis nostalgia which I abhor. Hence, the (rather purple, I concede!) parody of an objectionable meme that keeps re-infecting my inbox called ‘Remember When’.
Nostalgia, and its fraternal twin ‘retro’, seems to me to be the temporal equivalent of patriotism. Zeal for the customs, constructs, language of a place, or time, just ends in friction and broken bodies, if you ask me. Or, at the very least, syrup-y correspondences and VILE ad campaigns.
It is not the past, but the fetishisation of the past – nostalgia, which is, perhaps, the penultimate refuge of the scoundrel.

Friday, July 19, 2002

A new Blog Sisters fan?"
I noticed a brand new male-person's comment on Helen Razer's post and so went to check him out. His post on Jim Throws Gasoline on the Fire, (you have to scroll down to get to it because his permalink takes you somewhere else), which gives his take on motherhood, is very very much well worth reading. I don't know how fertile_jim found us, but he's my kind of guy.

And, speaking of motherhood -- MY GRANDSON IS ON THE WAY. My daughter is in labor. Send good vibes to Boston, everyone!

Thursday, July 18, 2002

Blog Sisters highlighted in article on group weblogs
Our reputation is spreading. We are one of four group weblogs cited in an article by Steve Outing at Poynter.org. My thanks to b!X for emailing me about it.

Accoring to the main page of the weblog article, Poynter's Steve Outing also is a columnist for Editor & Publisher Online. Recently, he wrote a column suggesting that newspapers give weblogs to all editorial staff (read the column here), which generated considerable discussion and controversy.

Past and present space/time and our belief

Time has a different meaning to me today than it has just a few short years ago. When I was nineteen my Maternal Grandfather told me I was one eighth Mohawk and that some people would hate me if they found out. He felt compelled to tell me since Mom died in a car crash when I was 16. He wanted me to know his heritage and that my great grandmother was a full blood. He wanted me to know that things are not always what they seem. Time is like that. It plays tricks on our minds with our beliefs. Today I had to explain to someone that once upon a time my empiracle mindset which believed only that which could be physically proven to me was totally shattered by a series of subjective events well beyond the pale of believability. I was converted and confirmed to Spirit and to a place of timelessness. Who was I to believe that the world, our Earth, was held in some saucer track of perfection rotating around the sun. Our Earth is never in the same place twice, ever, any millisecond of time, yet space itself is said to be folding back upon itself all the time. I have admitted that I have felt time speed up, slow down, stop, and go backwords. On my side of the family I am the oldest one now, but I know there is an extension of this reality. Perhaps it came from one of those silly jackpots I lived through but was unconscious for some part of time.
I am glad to see others have read the news from Pakistan. Witness is a very strong way we can connect. Our sisters in the world need our compassion and our activism. Yet we can trust that Spirit will make it alright. Let us not forget that our mothers and grandmothers wore veils to weddings and to church.

L Chandler, my sons were diagnosed ADHD and IDD. IDD means Inattention Deficit Disorder. He may be cautious but he has a genius IQ score. They both do. I knew once they were diagnosed that I had something similar myself. I have learned it is not a disorder nor is it deficit. It is simply a different form of cognition that is a very special gift. If you teach your ADHD's etc. that they have a special gift and feed it novelty, their minds will eat it up and soar. People with this gift can visualize the universe holographically, but then, who wants to listen to a Mohawk-Irish upstart woman with two kids who are deficit disordered.

The Great Mother does, of that I am sure. Do American women owe the world's women a helping hand? Do they want it?

In defense of the past

I debated whether to rain on this parade, and decided someone had to take the unpopular job of speaking up for times long ago. They mean something more profound than stereotypes.

You might say I dearly love the past. Let me admit my bias: a fun day for me involves going to the State library to look at microfilmed census records from 150 years ago, or perhaps visiting a tiny, long-forgotten, overgrown cemetery in the woods to record the names on the weathered stones. It was my first academic interest, discovered second semester of freshman year, sneakily replacing pre-law, and so I have an undergraduate degree in U.S. History and began a career as an educator. Plus, I volunteer for a town museum, a private house museum, a cemetery board and a town historical society. The book which induced me to take a risk and waltz out of the world of educational administration to the world of freelance is a memoir about my grandmother, Mimmie, that I have been working on since 1996.

I'm not suggesting it was somehow "better" then, and I don't hate the times we are in now. I'm optimistic, but not romantic. I take the long view, and think of it all as "life," all worth celebrating. If that's nostalgia, so be it. Mimmie's nearly 89 years on this planet were sometimes hard, but they were also often happy. She left actualized. She taught me some simple things, and some profound. I'm the first to admit to have been a big beneficiary of the increased opportunities available to women. I have kept my own name, I have a "modern" husband, and I am childfree (and by 40 people have stopped asking questions about it for a few years). I haven't had to struggle with my family over these things. Mimmie finished at the one-room school at eighth grade and that was all she wrote in the formal education arena. (But then so did my grandfather.)

Of course I enjoy many modern conveniences (electricity, computers, refrigerators), but there are a few that I choose not to embrace (convenience foods; chemical pesticides and fertilizers; instant messenger, driving). And I certainly don't like those silly email messages (on any subject) that beg to be forwarded. Years and years and years ago - heavens! It must have been the real early ‘90s -- did we have indoor plumbing then? -- when email was new to me, I dutifully opened every one, and scanned them for the two or three quips that brought a brief smile to my face. All of my email buddies got wise to it back in the golden oldie days of Windows ‘95, so I rarely get a forwarded spam now.

I wrote that I discovered history as a college freshman, but the reality is that I've always been charmed by it. In my small hometown there is a large reservoir, that supplies water to New York City. It was built starting in 1909. Several hamlets in two towns were relocated, and the valley flooded. From the dividing weir that crosses the Reservoir, it is impossible to look down at the water, at the panorama framed by the Catskill Mountains, and not to think about the rural people who lived in those lost villages, and not to wonder about the merits and demerits of technology's advance through that valley to bring water to thirsty urban residents 100 miles to the south. Those folks mattered. They persevered. Sometimes they even laughed.


Recently I have had the privilege of helping to sort through an ordinary family's collection from several lifetimes. Yes, people died because of the lack of antibiotics. Yes, aren't those drugs a marvel? But the truth is, death is a reality, a very sad part of life, even for those of us in modern society.

Judging from the bottles we found, they were obsessed with a product called Nujol for constipation (my guess is that without it they would avoid making trips to the outhouse at all costs). Sure, there were illiterate people; but in my census research I've been surprised to discover it was less than my expectation. In education we have some literacy issues of a different sort now - two are innumeracy and differential access to computer technology.

Plain, everyday, uneducated, working class people also read books and actually played music themselves (and they weren't even professional musicians!) - they wrote letters and talked and told stories to each other. They lived real lives, instead of watching people on television live artificial ones.

Now, no question the Internet has advanced communication. I have read somewhere that email has resurrected the lost art of letter writing -- for that alone it is a good thing. The voices of the past tell me so.

Tuesday, July 16, 2002

ladies, i am gleefully unemployed and returned. and angry!

If anyone forwards me a variation of this ultraright apologetic sappy shit one more time, I will vom. Argh.
Do you remember??
Close your mind and go back in time. Before Penicillin and dental hygiene.
Before general anaesthesia, double-entry accounting and civil rights.
Before feminism and domestic plumbing. Way back
I’m talking about segregation at the park. DDT, Asbestos.
Driftnet Fishing, church sanctioned child abuse, all-Polyester Leisure Suits, Cold War.
Smoking cigarettes and sun baking. Dalkon Shield.
The smell of lead based paint. The fear of Italian kids about to have the shit beaten out of them for daring to bring salami sandwiches to school.
Cowboys and Indians, Zorro!! More vapid racial stereotypes than you could poke a pointy hat at.
The worst embarrassment was to be picked last for a team. That is if you didn’t count the daily humiliations of being disabled, queer or from a non-English speaking background.
When nearly everyone’s mother was at home when you got back from school. When nearly everyone’s mother had a benzodiazepine dependency, chronic anxiety disorder and bile born of boredom.
Didn’t that feel good? Just think back and say, yeah I remember all that.
If you can remember these snippets or even some of them, then you are currently undergoing intensive cognitive behaviour therapy!!! Or, you are on Zoloft!!
If you wish to remain a tolerable human, do not make a fetish of the past or long for a ‘golden era’ that never really existed. Do not drown dumbly in nostalgia. Do not pass this, nor any other cookie cutter correspondence, on. Write your own damn emails.
GO ON I DOUBLE-DARE YA!!!

About pulling hair...

Annie -- I came here Sunday to share words of support and to bitch about my 13 yr. old son with you, but we had a power outage and my whole rant was lost. Oh well, it gave me time to think anyway.

We are mothers because we chose to be (thank the Great Mother we STILL have that right!). There was something inside us at conception that said, "Now's the time, and this child will bring me something I need and experiences I've never had before. Can I get a Hallelujah from the choir? This child, my 13 year old, has posed more challenges to me than I've ever had in any other aspect of my life. This was from the very beginning. We knew at 5 he was beginning to show signs of LD, and at 8 the teachers were screaming ADHD (he's not, not really, and we're only now beginning to find that out :P) so our family physician put him on Ritalin, requested a referal to a neurologist, which was denied by the HMO (don't even get me started...) and he was on that until we changed HMO's last year and he actually got to see a specialist.

He's always seemed slow and awkward after the age of about 8. He didn't actually read at grade level until 5th grade (Goddess bless Harry Potter and JKR) His hand writing is still illegible and his speech, while highly literate, is s l o w, so I tend to try to finish his sentences for him. That's led to some amazing fights, or to him withdrawing and not talking to me for a day or so. That's when I want to cry, and usually do.

Now we know that he has something called Sensory Integration Disorder, and that it's auditory and visual in nature. He hears and sees fine, but loud noises are horrible for him (has to cover his ears at ball games and movies because it's too loud.) He sees, but his vision is impaired because the muscles of his right eye failed to develop properly, so his left eye does nearly ALL the work, and we are just now finding all this out. So I cry in frustration for him some more and do everything in my power to help him catch up or learn to cope.. Add the hormones in there (his and mine!) and life in my house is interesting to say the least right now!

He was given to me and my husband to raise for a reason. His challenges are something my family needs to learn from in this life so that hopefully we will grow and become what we were meant to be. If we couldn't do it, really do it well, he wouldn't have come to us and brought us these life lessons to learn, right? I know I love this child with my last breath. And when this trial has passed away and we've moved on, there will be joy on the other side. I know it was that way with my mom and me. Even after I screamed in her face that she was a bitch and swore I'd hate her forever when I was 13 and she knocked me across the room for it, we were best friends by the time I was 17. When I was 16 I'd have told you it'd never happen, but in spite of everything it did anyway.

I hope this helps you, and all the other moms out there. When life throws you Llamas, make llama-ade, as a young lady of my acquaintance likes to tell me, and if it's lemons, that's even better ;-D

With joy and light, my Sistahs...

Friday, July 12, 2002

I'm trying really hard not to tear my hair out :( My blog is broken and it looks like I'm going to have to tear it down and rebuild it. I'm frustrated as I'd finally gotten a chance to blog about something Elaine got me thinking about during an email exchange we had while I was resting per doctor's orders. Technology is responsible for my high blood pressure today, I guess. So I'm going to let it go for a day or two. BUT I did want to share what I did for Marek which is stuck in blog limbo...

This is what I said:

Okay, first things first, as a recently ordained ::tongue in cheek:: SistahBlogger, I am climbing on the band wagon to blog for Marek. I don't know him, but I think I can understand how he feels. Lying in a hospital bed, condition indeterminant, and annoyingly curious doctors hawking about like vultures just for the challenge you have become. "Who's going to diagnose this patient's condition first?" they wonder. They poke and prod in places you weren't even aware existed until that moment. And you cry (or scream depending on your preference at the time)...not just because of fear, but more from frustration. Haven't these damn doctors "practiced" their professions enough to find out what the hell is wrong?

I'm sorry this is happening to you, Marek. I don't know you. You don't know me, but my good thoughts are now being moved from Elaine to you. And I know from experience that human compassion is always welcome in whatever form it comes to us. And Elaine, I'm glad you are doing well! ::turns attention to Marek and concentrates good thoughts his way::

ugh oh

Today's blog sisters alert: Hide your underwear! You know, as a collective, we're every man's dream. That and a buck fifty will get us a cup of coffee.

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

An eloquent example of other choices
Well, I've read about her before on other blogs, but I didn't seem to be able to connect with her dedication to strange technologies that I know nothing about. (I get excited when I type in the code correctly to make a link in a Comment box!) But her interview with Frank Paynter is a portrait in choices, and she restores my hope that all of that anguish some of us feminsts went through in the 70s was not all for naught. All of you who are caught in the web of societal and family expectations -- GO MEET DOROTHEA SALO. Her choices might not be yours -- and they wouldn't have been mine either -- but she shows you the range of what's possible for women of passion, courage, and (very importantly) self-awareness and honesty.

And, btw, if any of you have been trying to get to my weblog, my server/son has been having network problems and updates, so it's been off-line. Try again, later, please??

Carve your own future


That made a lot of sense, Elaine.

In a way, we have always looked at the women of the 'West' because you seem much more advanced and liberated.

And yet from the many posts that I have read here, the underlying problems seem to be the same.

The expectations from women and their supposed role - whether as a daughter, a mother and a wife - are more or less the same. Wherever we are in the world.

I agree when you say that it is therefore upto us to bring about the change. Not get mad and try and change our parents, or change the world but instead to try and bring up the next generation with a greater a sense of equality. If we bring up our sons and daughters as equals, we will definitely be sowing the seeds for change.

I think a lot of us commit the same mistakes and start 'acting' like our parents, becoming what they were like, sometimes not even realising the fact. It is perhaps true when they say that we are mirrors of our parents. That's why probably we will have to work harder to change ourselves first and then make sure our children learn the right lessons.

There are still some things we are in control of and those are the things we have to try and change.

Elaine, you put it beautifully as usual and I have to agree completely: "Have the courage to make your own waves and ride them into the future that you want for yourself."

Tuesday, July 09, 2002

Is This the Neverending Story?
It's very discouraging to read the posts here of today's young women who are still struggling with the same issues about self-determination that I struggled with more than 40 years ago. If we are still, as Rohinee says, in an "exerimental stage," how many generations is it going to take for the experiment to have results? Yes, we need to bring up our sons and daughters in an envrionment of equality. (But be prepared for them still to be different; mine are anyway.) Yes, we need to try to change society's systems that foster inequality. But guess what, girls. It's you who have to make your own life what you want it to be. Don't wait for the world to change. Change your own immediate world. Set your boundaries. Make your desires known. Do it as kindly as you can, but be prepared for consequences when you start being assertive. Be prepared not to have everything at once. Be prepared for the possibility that the men in your life will put up obstacles. Be prepared for your mother to cry and moan about what did she do wrong. If this is still an experiment, then that's all part of the process. If you don't do it individually, it won't happen globally. I repeat: get mad and then get the courage you need to make your life what you want it to be. Don't wait for some sea change. Have the courage to make your own waves and ride them into the future that you want for yourself.
First Get Mad, then Get Courage
Over on several other sites for the past week or so, there has been an ongoing conversation about "anger." And I suggest that the recent posts here on Blog Sisters are dancing around the fact that there still are some of us who are angry about finding ourselves in situations that we didn't really choose. I'm going to link you to a new blogger's perspectives on anger. (His permalinks are not working right, so it's the post on Wisdom Prayer) I really like the things he has to say and they way he says them.

In his post, he makes two pivotal statements:
Anger itself is not kinetic.
Learned helplessness is a malady of the mind as well as the spirit.


As I said in my comment to his post:
Sometimes women are maneuvered into roles and values that they never really chose, and then the anger begins to build. Anger at husbands, if they are married; anger at their mothers if they are not; anger at themselves for allowing themselves to be manipulated. The challenge they face is to turn that anger into the courage they need to non-destructively assert their own "Selves."

OK. So how does one begin doing that? (My own blog is down because of a netowork problems with my server, or I'd post about this there.)

And if you want to read a lot of other perspectives on anger, take a look at the post and comments at burningbird's here and here.
I am inclined to agree with Deborah's thoughts that women are pretty much in an experimental stage ( ideological evolution.. maybe ?) ; and not really knowing our definite role in todays dynamics of the world.
I have been thinking for a while on this..and do correct me if I am wrong.
More often than not we are compartmentalising individuals as men and women. When we do that we begin to define roles, priorities etc. and in an endeavour to do so get caught in a vicious circle of whats if and what not's of womanhood and manhood.
Why was there so much of distinction earlier and why does it still prevail in subtle ways today?
Men and Women are equal in ways ..they intrinsically have the same inspirations , same aspirations..
and according to me ( philosophically speaking ) a part of a whole..
I believe, apart from the physical aspects and related issues.., the growing up and nurturing of both should have been and should be
on an equal level.
However..we are bread differently, and thats how the strory really begins..
Imagine a prisioner or a bonded slave or even someone who has been denied. You could also compare the state of a school kid
having to follow rules and regulations.. and then imagine some one set free..
The first bit is the sense of freedom.. the joy..and slowly as you grow accustomed to the new found lifestyle.. you encounter issues related to it..how to deal with it.
Like hey now.. i can do this, i can do that..i can even do this but then i also have this to do, and then that..
Its about handling all what you want to do..with all that "have" to do... and what i would like to know is who defines that.. who defines what a woman must do? I dont believe any of us were born with life's little book of rules..but there is something instilled in the social psyche thats inhibiting..thats leading to stress, confusion.
I think if we accept that we all are equal.. that men and women both have equal responsibilities of bringing the bacon home, raising kids..devloping themselves, accepting that either one can be better at one role ..say..a woman can make more money than a man, a man can be a great parent than a woman..etc.will we able to really settle down.
When..How..well,thats anyones guess.

Friday, July 05, 2002

being an independent woman is a great thing. and its not about freedom. its about responsibility, about living life as an individual. person. and i am greatful for that. i love the idea of working for my living, payng my bills, managing money, being able to do what my heart desires with the rider of responsibilty towards my actions. what really excites me is the fact as a woman there really is a lot of adventure in all of this. sometimes there is a sense of discovery, a sense of thrill, excitement. i look at all the thing women do now days..work ( and i really mean slog) , cook, clean, take care of the house, the kids, participate in investment decisions. wow. and what about men? hmm slowly women are in a differently league all together.. u have them drinking hard after a hard days work..partying hard.. after all of that get home to start "work" there...burnout rate i bet is high. now you have a whole breed of newgeneration women with hypertention, alchoholic problems, early menopause, gout and a whole plethora of "new gen" health problems.. all arising out of extreme stress. you now have more divorces, more relationship issues..women with a lot of desires and aspirations..and men not really understanding any of it. you really cant blame the man.. he cant understand why women are so hyper now days.. and you really cant blame the woman she she is only being equal and is still learning to handle the new found "independence" where are we headed? where are we going? what is happening? i love the feeling.. i love the life..but dont want to lose control.

Unbelievable...

"A Pakistani tribal council ordered an 18-year-old girl to be gang-raped in order to punish her family after her brother was seen walking with a girl from a higher class tribe."

It's hard to believe that as we enjoy our freedom and sometimes even take it for granted, this is what's happening to women, in some parts of the world.
Dear All..
I would like say thanks for giving me place to speak my mind. Sometimes connecting lets you grow and develop. by voicing ideas and thoughts.. you are on a continuous learning mode. Not only are you expressing yourself but also the door to newer ideas is opened and you probably get a deeper understanding to yours as well.

Wednesday, July 03, 2002

Iranian Bloggers Follow-up

In case you hadn't noticed way down there in the comments, we got a couple of interesting responses on my post about the BBCNews article on Iranian women bloggers. One is from nwa who thinks Blogsisters is cool, and another from Mahdiyar, who kindly offered to be an ambassador for us to other Iranian femme bloggers. Thanks to both of you for responding!

A postscript: Even though my posts have been focused on Iranian bloggers, I hope it's obvious that my main interest here is in promoting women from all over the world to join blog sisters. I've always been interested in different cultures and what they have to offer, especially cultures I don't know much about, and the more here, the merrier.

P.P.S. Mahdiyar, your English is much better than my Persian, so don't apologize!

Another freebie from the Chronicle of Higher Ed

In a fascinating and very readable literature review entitled, "Are Girls Really as Mean as Books Say They Are?," Carol Tavris takes a look at The Birth of Pleasure, by Carol Gilligan (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut, by Emily White (Scribner, 2002), Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, by Rachel Simmons (Harcourt, 2002), Queen Bees and Wannabes: A Parent's Guide to Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence, by Rosalind Wiseman (Crown, 2002), The Secret Lives of Girls: Sex, Play, Aggression, and Their Guilt, by Sharon Lamb (Free Press, 2002), The Tending Instinct: How Nurturing Is Essential for Who We Are and How We Live, by Shelley E. Taylor (Times Books, 2002), and Woman's Inhumanity to Woman, by Phyllis Chesler (Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2001).

Tuesday, July 02, 2002

Finally some action here!
Well, it's about time some Sisters surfaced. If you haven't checked the website (including bio) of our newest and most venerable Blog Sister Lorraine, do so. Very interesting lady here. And our never-venal Andrea can always be counted on as well.

As for me, here's something my very pregnant (due next week) daughter emailed me.

Subject: Women who read

A couple go on vacation to a fishing resort in northern Minnesota. The husband likes to fish at the crack of dawn. The wife likes to read. One morning the husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and continues to read her book.

Along comes a forest policeman in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, ‘Good morning Ma'am. What are you doing?’

‘Reading a book,’ she replies, (thinking ‘isn't that obvious?’)

‘You're in a restricted fishing area,’ he informs her.

‘I'm sorry officer, but I'm not fishing, I'm reading.’

‘Yes, but you have all the equipment. I'll have to take you in and write you up.’

‘If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault,’ says the woman.

‘But I haven't even touched you,’ says the policeman.

‘That's true, but you have all the equipment.’

MORAL: Never argue with a woman who reads. It's likely she can also think.

Because sometimes Bad Girls are Fun

Train at home to become an Evil Empress today! You know you want to.

Highlights:
While seduction has its place in my vast arsenal, I realize that "evil" and "skanky" are not mutually inclusive. Royal Dressmakers unable to realize this fact will be flayed alive in the presence of their replacements.

If I require my Hag or Crone to poison someone, I will require the poison be quick and deadly rather than a mere sleep aid.

My Amazon Hordes will wear full body armor, rather than three small triangles of chain mail, which are reserved for dress occasions.

I will neither repress my Beautiful but Wicked Daughter nor smother my Handsome but Evil Son. It's hard enough raising a ruling family these days without extra dysfunctional baggage. No one wants disgruntled offspring suddenly "seeing the light" and turning Good simply because mother dearest gave them an unhappy childhood.

The appearance of weakness can be as useful as the appearance of strength. I will exploit the double standard for all its worth.

My poison-fanged or -clawed beast minions will not be spiders, snakes and ravens, but kittens, goldfish, and canaries.

What to do with teenagers when roller skating gets old? SkyZone!

As the mother of a teenage daughter, figuring out activities that give ME a break, are nearby, don't involve computers and cell phones...