catholicism, buddha, and a rabbi

One thing that has always irritated me is when people use religion as a crutch to justify or give strength to an argument, especially involving abortion.  THere is no universal religion or philosophy so it is counter productive to always fall back on an idea of a universal religious God or law.  However, there are a few things that the majority of the populus fail to realize when they use religion as their motive for a defensive against pro-choice arguements. For example technically the Roman Catholic Church’s theology doesnt not recognize that the fetus has a status of a person until about the fifth month, when “quickening” occurs which is basically when you can feel the baby kick or move in the womb.  Before about 1870 many catholics believed in “jus prius” which translates into the philosophy that a woman has prior right over the life of the fetus.  Around 1870 though Pope Pius IX came along and said there was no distinction between developed and undeveloped fetuses. Similarly to catholicism, Judaism doesnt believe the fetus has a “soul” until about the fifth month but even then the Talmud gives recipes and instructions for birth control and abortifacients.  There’s a quote by Rabbi Moshe Sofer which I really love and it is     ” No woman is required to build the world by destroying herself.” basically stating that it is not the woman’s responsibility to populate the earth, it is what she has the potential to do with her particular biological funcition but it is not her involuntary duty.  Buddhism also celebrates sexuality and doesnt condemn nonprocreative sex.  HInduism believes in darma, and when dealing with abortion believes that whatever supports the highest good should be done. If a mother cannot support the child then the highest good would be to have an abortion etc…

I am infuriated by people who use religion as an auto-defense against the pro-choice movement, maybe they should examine more carefully the true views and concepts that are often condoned by their religion.

ps- catholic women in the us are just as likely as women in the general population to have an abortion, and 29% more likely than protestant women.  I wonder if the pope knows about that.

Betty Friedan+Cosmo+mysister

While writing the magazine advertisement paper it occurred to me that perhaps, just perhaps today’s women’s magazines seek to revive the Feminine Mystique. Ya, that same Feminine Mystique that Betty Friedan wrote about. The one that pretty much blinded the majority of women before the second wave of the feminist movement. I strongly suggest reading The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan if you haven’t, it’s pretty much the catalyst for new-wave feminism. But if you haven’t here’s a little recap so basically The Feminine Mystique, discusses “ the problem that has no name”. Friedan states the cause of the “ problem with no name” as the Feminine Mystique. Friedan accuses society of encouraging women to give up career aspirations and dreams (which they definitely did), to conform to the mold of the Feminine Mystique. “The problem that has no name-which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities — is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease,” says Friedan.

A denying of identity was one side effect of the Feminine Mystique as college graduates gave up on their diplomas for cooking aprons and child rearing!@#%&*(()&%$#%# Friedan also talks about how the Feminine Mystique turned out to be a failed social experiment brought on by WW II and the Cold War which created post war effects, like the baby boom.

The Feminine Mystique was a detriment to the social and mental development of women. No Doubt.

And while just flipping through the book these two quotes reminded me directly of Cosmopolitan, in the ideas they push and the effects of them.

“ Confined to the home, a child among her children, passive, no part of her existence under her control, a woman could only exist by pleasing a man. She was wholly dependent on his protection in a world that she had no share in making: Man’s World. She could never grow up to ask the simple human question, “ Who am I? What do I want?” (Friedan 74)

So basically:

Cripple a person until the only thing they have is what we (government or even bullshit women’s mags) allow them to have, experience or dream

Or how about

“ She did not love him, but she thought if she gave herself to him “completely” she might find the feeling that she knew now was the “only important thing in life.” (Friedan 247)

As a side note: I went home this weekend ( : / ) and I walk into my 13 year old sisters room to find a pile of about a dozen magazines. CosmoGirl, TeenVogue, Seventeen, Teen etc…all of them. When I asked her about them trying to convey some reassurance that the articles and ads in the magazines were complete exaggerations she became defensive in turn reassuring me that it was just harmless good advice meant to help her. *Great* I’m sure she has read them religiously from cover to cover, all of them.

While writing the magazine advertisement paper it occurred to me that perhaps, just perhaps today’s women’s magazines seek to revive the Feminine Mystique. Ya, that same Feminine Mystique that Betty Friedan wrote about. The one that pretty much blinded the majority of women before the second wave of the feminist movement. I strongly suggest reading The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan if you haven’t, it’s pretty much the catalyst for new-wave feminism. But if you haven’t here’s a little recap so basically The Feminine Mystique, discusses “ the problem that has no name”. Friedan states the cause of the “ problem with no name” as the Feminine Mystique. Friedan accuses society of encouraging women to give up career aspirations and dreams (which they definitely did), to conform to the mold of the Feminine Mystique. “The problem that has no name-which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities — is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease,” says Friedan.

A denying of identity was one side effect of the Feminine Mystique as college graduates gave up on their diplomas for cooking aprons and child rearing!@#%&*(()&%$#%# Friedan also talks about how the Feminine Mystique turned out to be a failed social experiment brought on by WW II and the Cold War which created post war effects, like the baby boom.

The Feminine Mystique was a detriment to the social and mental development of women. No Doubt.

And while just flipping through the book these two quotes reminded me directly of Cosmopolitan, in the ideas they push and the effects of them.

“ Confined to the home, a child among her children, passive, no part of her existence under her control, a woman could only exist by pleasing a man. She was wholly dependent on his protection in a world that she had no share in making: Man’s World. She could never grow up to ask the simple human question, “ Who am I? What do I want?” (Friedan 74)

So basically:

Cripple a person until the only thing they have is what we (government or even bullshit women’s mags) allow them to have, experience or dream

Or how about

“ She did not love him, but she thought if she gave herself to him “completely” she might find the feeling that she knew now was the “only important thing in life.” (Friedan 247)

As a side note: I went home this weekend ( : / ) and I walk into my 13 year old sisters room to find a pile of about a dozen magazines. CosmoGirl, TeenVogue, Seventeen, Teen etc…all of them. When I asked her about them trying to convey some reassurance that the articles and ads in the magazines were complete exaggerations she became defensive in turn reassuring me that it was just harmless good advice meant to help her. *Great* I’m sure she has read them religiously from cover to cover, all of them.

Rwanda

 I am reading a book called The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zombardo and basically the whole premise of the book is to examine the psychological and physiological abuse by American soliders at the Abu-Ghraib Prison in 2004, i think 2004. Not sure. I’m sure people remember all the pictures that surfaced and how our fucking government officials said that it was definitely an isolated incident and it was just a few bad seeds.  Well anyways the book examines the transformation of character from good to evil and within the book Zombardo vividly retells the process of dehumanization that occured with Rwanda in 1994 and Nanking, China.  So I’m reading these articles and I got really frustrated because I was sitting around in class absolutely livid that Clinique and Covergirl were trying to alter my perception of beauty.  I guess I just got in one of those “wtf who cares about advertising we should be focusing on the systematic rape and murder of entire cultures across our world” moods after reading these few articles.  Okay so in the spring of 1994 a national minister of Butare named Pauline Nyiramasuhuko ordered to the mass rape of over 200,000 Tutsi women.

” Pauline gave the order that before you kill the women, you need to rape them.  She ordered another group of these [Hutu] thungs to burn alive a group of seventy women and girls they were guarding and provided them with gasoline from her car to do so.  Again she invited the men to rape their victims before killing them.  ONe of the young men told a translator  that they couldn’t rape all of them because they had been killing all day and were tired.  THey just put gasoline in bottles and scattered it among the women, then started burning.” (Zombardo 12)

orrrrrr….

“Some women were penetrated with spears, gun barrels, bottles or the stamens of banana trees. Sexual organs were mutlilated with machetes, boiling water and acid; women’s breasts were cut off.” (Zombardo 14)

or this

” A 45-year old Rwandan woman was raped by her 12-year old son, while her five other children were forced to hold open her thighs.” (Zombardo 14)

And why would anyone incite this kind of violence?  Traditionally the Tusti women were taller and had lighter skin and looked more Caucasian( and it comes full circle! Thank you advertising!). This and Pauline N. wanting the Hutu murderers to experience social bonding lead to the mass destruction of the Tutsi women.  Soon after the spread of AIDS among living victims swept across Rwanda. It’s no wonder we can’t try to get a handle on the disease spreading when this shit goes down without hesitation.

Same thing goes with Nanking, China in 1937

” Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, and nail them to walls alive.” ( Zombardo 16)

the underlying manipulative tactics of advertising agents seem rather trivial compared to the fact that these things happened, they are still happening.

I feel horribly selfish and ignorant for getting caught up in the ethnocentric ideals in advertising.  Women are dying, children are being taught to murder, AIDS is stilllllllll stealing the lives of millions, and I’m upset because Maybelline thinks I have shit skin and they want me to buy their junk.
:/

Sylvia Plath+Cinderella+Feminism=love.

Cinderella

The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,
Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan
Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels
Begin on tilted violins to span

The whole revolving tall glass palace hall
Where guests slide gliding into light like wine;
Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall
Reflecting in a million flagons’ shine,

And glided couples all in whirling trance
Follow holiday revel begun long since,
Until near twelve the strange girl all at once
Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince

As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk
She hears the caustic ticking of the clock.

Sylvia Plath’s poignant poem not only recounts the classic fairy tale of Cinderella but accurately illustrates the flaws that lie within the plot itself.

To begin: Within this story Cinderella is a slave to time constraints and the responsibilities pushed upon her by other women.  She is illustrated as  frail and inferior only capable of true self-actualization through a patriarchal figure(the prince) To be chosen by a man with a higher social standing than her would allow true acceptance, not of herself, but by others. It is through the acceptance of others that Cinderella believes she will find happiness. (bullshit) And here is why:

I find it slightly pathetic that when the fairy godmother comes to visit Cinderella, what does Cinderella ask for/get?  A stinkin’ dress and freaking glass slippers. Not only are these gifts impractical but also in no way free Cinderella from her stepmother’s slavery.  All I’m saying is that if i had a fairy godmother and found myself in Cinderella’s unfortunate peasant shoes I WOULD NOT BE ASKING TO GO TO A BALL. I would ask for a one-way ticket to Canada and fully paid tuition to a university.  But alas, this is not how the story goes…because if it did, not many people would find it intriguing.   After all, what’s interesting about a woman gaining independence and self-validation through her own goals and accomplishments?!?!?

The story of Cinderella indoctrinates the idea that the only way out of a bad situation is through male acceptance  This unrealistic pretense is spoon-fed to young American women at an alarming rate.  It also implies that they themselves can never reach self-acceptance and self-efficacy without a dominant male figure. Plath writes so that readers can become aware of the pressures in which women exist.  Time constraints, male acceptance, and a constant urge for altering physical appearance in order to change fate.

call me an existentialist, but fate is stressed at an incredibly disgusting rate, personal choices change one’s future, not a series of “boy meets girl after changing herself for him” events.

who knows maybe if Cinderella didn’t tolerate an unjust amount of abuse in an attempt to pacify her family she wouldn’t have to rely on an ephemeral being aka fairy godmother.  maybe she could just wake up and make a change for herself, without the interference of others.

WSblog#2~ Bell Hook’s Romance: Sweet love.

So more often than not I spend the majority of Political Science reading our textbook.  One of my favorites thus far ( not sure if we’ve been assigned it or not) is definitely “Romance: Sweet Love” by bell hooks.  The article basically discusses sexuality, attraction, and the whole convoluted concept of love(pretty hard to do in one article!)  Alright to begin:

Hooks states, “We fear that evaluating our needs and then carefully choosing partners will reveal that there is no one for us to love.  Most of us prefer to have a partner who is lacking than no partner at all.  What becomes apparent is that we may be more interested in finding a partner than in knowing love.”

As a young woman, I am sure as many others often long, year, pine, occasionally obsess over the idea of romance and I can’t help but get completely infuriated that our society puts an unnecessary amount of emphasis on unrealistic romance and passion rather than true compatible lifelong enduring love.  I agree with Toni Morrison who said that romantic love is one “of the most destructive ideas in the history of human though.”

By the age of thirteen media-based pressure bombards youth, especially young girls into a false illusion of what it means to be loved, and how to be loved by others.

It is an almost inescapable manipulation that women face.  I am not saying that romance is bad and that we should stick with slow, methodical, safe love.  I am merely stating that there is a difference between experiencing infatuation or passion for someone and loving them with intention. 

Romance in movies, the media, books, you name it, most of the time exhibits the archetypal romance.  Guy approaches girl, girl swoons, guy is manly, girl is bashful etc… Give me a break.

If woman accept that and settle and wait around for that type of thing to happen we would never make any spiritual or emotional progress as a gender.

As women are lured into the beauty and idealness of  a mass-produced romance, men are STILL simultaneously instructed to remain strong and not sway or give way to love.

This whole idea of romance is a completely contradictive and I truly believe that adolescents need to be informed of the definitive difference between real human connection and the kind ADVERTISED in Seventeen magazine. Or Cosmo? -_- That magazine more than anything makes me feel as if I am the most inadequate woman alive, then I realize that I’m more than confident and comfortable with myself then to refer back to page 32 of the magazine so  I can truly “ Keep [my]  Man Satisfied” when trying to cultivate relationships.

Women’s Studies Post#1

This week in class there was a lot of discussion/disagreement on the rights of homosexuals.

Here’s the thing:  I strongly believe that when people bash homosexuality it is because they merely deduce homosexuality to a “foul and unnatural” act of pleasure.  Lesbians and gays are often judged for their private intimate lives and not as human beings.  Not to oversimplify but honestly who cares who people are having sex with?

If a person is that involved in the sex lives of others then there is something perversely wrong with that person.  I cannot honestly say I’ve sat around at home thinking about all the straight people having sex and all the gay people having sex and getting so worked up and angry that I decide I need to stop lovers’ passions.

In this country we have a right to privacy, and a right to live a life as we choose, therefore it is a violation of unalienable human rights for the government to impose its OPINION upon the lives of others, which in turn affects their happiness.

Aren’t we all given the right to “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

Can our Senators, and President, can our government in general not distinguish that happiness and love are synonymous in most cases.

The ways in which people have sex are not a direct link to the trueness of their love.  IT IS ABSOLUTELY UNCALLED FOR WHEN THE GOVERNMENT AND OUR SOCIETY SEEKS TO FORCE OTHERS TO VALIDATE THEIR LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER. There is not a “right” way to make or express love. Love is perception in every way.  It CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT be classified or detained.

 

PS- Many politicians are probably so concerned with  the destruction of the nuclear family through homosexuality because without young republican offspring (supplied by many Republican nuclear families) who can further fuel our country’s continuing discrimination and hatred of others with differing lifestyles in the future through votes? Exactly, Republicans infuriate me.