I can’t imagine sexualizing either of my daughters like this. Disgusting indeed.
An open letter to Victoria’s Secret regarding their choice to make an underwear line aimed at young teenagers. (Read about it here)
Dear Victoria’s Secret,
I am a father of a three year old girl. She loves princesses, Dora the Explorer, Doc McStuffins and drawing pictures for people. Her favorite foods are peanut butter and jelly, cheese and pistachios.
Even though she is only three, as a parent I have had those thoughts of my daughter growing up and not being the little girl she is now. It is true what they say about kids, they grow up fast. No matter how hard I try I know that she will not be the little ball of energy she is now; one day she will be a rebellious teenager that will more than likely think her dad is a total goof ball and would want to distance herself from my…
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I want to be on the stand and say to them: What did she do? What did she do wrong? She chose the wrong men, and for this you want to punish her, as our society punishes women who let men abuse them, as if it was a choice. We forgive the wrongdoer and attack the victim, because we hate victims, even as we are victims. You should have known better! You should have made a better choice! Your choice was wrong, and we as judges, juries, and executioners know this! You should not have made these mistakes and for this, we judge you. For this, we sentence you and punish you for your sins, for your flaws. You were a good mother, but that is not good enough because you never would have been a mother if you had not chosen men who would abuse you. Of course, this line of reasoning falls apart because she could very well have been a mother if she had not chosen these men. But of course she would not have these children. These children will be harmed because of her choices. These children will be harmed too because of their abusive fathers, but we don’t hold the fathers accountable, only the mothers. These abusive men didn’t know any better, but she did. She knew and she chose wrong and for this, she shall pay with their loss. Their pains are her pains. She will suffer for her sins and so will they.
This society is so fucking fucked and fucked up. I can hardly bear it. We are so punitive, so judgmental, so holier-than-thou, such critics. Critics. We all sit and judge. Our whole culture. We love to annihilate victims for having been victims. In doing so we can ignore the victims in ourselves. We get to be the rescuer in our judiciousness. I will save you from your victimhood, you fool.
It all just makes me want to scream.
If there are no extra pieces in the universe, there must be a place for me somewhere. I just haven’t found it yet. Maybe I never will. My optimism is flagging. I feel isolated and friendless. Oh, I have several people whom I consider friends, people I can call now and then, or with whom I can go to lunch or coffee, but I have no friends who really get me and want me. Except for one, I lack any true, deep, honest friendships. My one friend is often so buried in her own dismay at the state of the world that I feel unwilling to burden her with my own clouds.
I’m immersed in a cloud. I’ve always been the sort of person who loves learning. I loved school. I was energized by it. Today I was looking through the Coursera offerings and could not find even one class out of thousands that interested me. None of it. There is a little cloud surrounding me that depletes my interest in anything.
I hate the business of my work. If all I had to do was serve my clients, I wouldn’t mind it so much. I like helping them. But I have to bring in business and think about and worry about and concern myself with all those little parts of getting business, and the thought of it makes me physically ill. I can’t sleep with it. I’ll lose this cloud in the sunlight of my daughter’s smile or the actual sun shining in the sky, and the cloud will catch me again, unaware. Oh, it says. You stopped thinking about marketing and now you suddenly did! And the feeling of nausea overwhelms me. The cloud descends. My stomach tightens. I feel trapped. I can’t escape it. It is misery and I have worn myself thin trying to come up with alternatives and cannot do it. There are no alternatives except perhaps homelessness, which is no alternative when one has children. I have to bring in money to pay for food and a roof over our heads. No one will hire me. I’ve tried and tried and tried until I’m blue in the face to find alternate employment to no avail. No wonder the long-term jobless feel flattened. It is demoralizing to try and try and try and never succeed. You start to wonder what is the point and this wondering leaks over into everything else you do, including enjoying learning, enjoying anything.
Plod, plod, plod. This is what my life is. It is what it has been for so long, I can no longer envision an alternative. Every attempt at an alternative has been a failure. I no longer even want to try. This is my cloud.
I have figured something out about blow driers. You know how when you go to the hairdresser and they blow out your hair and it has this amazing texture? I figured out today that it is the blow drier. Blow driers have these nets that catch the dust from the air circulating through them. The dustier they get, the worse the blowing. Apparently, the worse the blowing, the worse the texture of your hair too, because mine was looking and feeling seriously shabby. Today I couldn’t stand that it was taking me twice as long as it should to blow dry, and I got the clue that I hadn’t cleaned the dust thing in months and months, so I cleaned it. Voila! Not only did my hair dry quickly again, but my hair had that texture I get at the hairdresser, a texture I have been only intermittently able to achieve at home. Well, duh. It’s the blow drier. Now I know and if you’re reading this, so do you. Clean the lint trap on your blow drier, experience a new level of great hair texture at home.
I have for most of my life had the unerring sense that things in this world would turn out all right. There would be moments when certain events would not be okay, but generally overall I did not view this as the way of things.
Then today I realized that I quite the contrary, that the opposite is true, that in my heart I do not believe that things are not going to turn out fine. The rich are winning. People who cause harm continue to cause harm and are not stopped. Patriarchy is winning. The world over, men and women and children and the planet suffers.
I do not know how to regain my optimism. It all feels so overwhelming.
I have a crush on my acupuncture doctor. From the moment I met him, I felt an instant liking of the man. He placed his hands on the small of my back and urged me to relax the muscles there. I breathed out and ahhh, I felt them give way, I felt the warmth of his hands.
He isn’t the sort of man I’m usually attracted to, physically anyway. He is barely taller than I am, and I like men taller than me. I even had impure thoughts, wondering if his, um…parts were smaller too. This is a terrible thing to think, I know, but the thought was there.
I dreamed about him. Actually I have dreamed about him a couple of times. Not impure thoughts dreams, but vivid nonetheless. In one, he was not an acupuncture doctor, but was working doing something else. Now I don’t remember what. We were just there together in the dream. In another, he was standing and talking to me, wearing his white lab coat, his name embroidered over his heart. These dreams are always in color.
Last night I dreamed that first, Jeff Goldblum, the actor, was interested in me. He reminded me that we had gone to see the movie The Fly together. I was attracted to him in the dream. In real life, I am not attracted to him. I also did not like the movie The Fly. Later, Josh Duhamel was interested in me. Well, it wasn’t actually Josh Duhamel in the dream, but the body was Josh Duhamel’s. I was extremely attracted to him, but we could not get away from other people. There were a group of women who were interested in him. One was practically climbing up his front. He stood there, ignoring her, and just looking at me, his brown eyes focused completely on me. I would glance away, embarrassed, but when I looked back, he was still looking at me. I woke up during this part.
I could start my own lonely-hearts club. It’s pitiful. My ex has had 3 girlfriends since we split up 3 years ago. I have had no boyfriends. I have had about 7 dates. Well, I’ve dated 6 men once each, and went on 3 dates with another man. Obviously, none went anywhere. Admittedly, I’m picky. I refuse to make the same mistakes I have made before, and rushing in has been one of those mistakes. But I’m not even meeting anyone to rush in with. I fear I will end up dying and my ex will be the last person I slept with, which I find pathetic. I do not want him to have been the last person I slept with. That said, I do not want to go sleep with someone just for the hell of it. I am not capable of casual sex. I get attached, even when I don’t want too.
I like the doctor. He’s got good energy. He has kind and warm hands. I guess for now I will just have to resort to dreaming.
I went in my closet to find some longjohns to put under my overalls so I can work outside on the yard. I bent down to grab them from under a pile of work clothes (you know, the stuff you don’t care if it gets paint or caulk on it) and a pair of summer shoes caught my eye. They are these gorgeous navy heels with white piping trim. There are two leather straps that start up near the toes, criss-cross and curve back. Another strap goes around the ankle and buckles.
Oh I long for warm enough weather to wear those sexy ass shoes. I love those shoes. I love having pretty toenails peeking out from the criss-crossing straps. I love how they make my legs look long and thin. I love the way the weather has to be to wear those shoes. Makes me long for sun. Makes me long for wispy skirts and tank tops. Mmmmmmm….yummy!
I’m sitting here in a heavy sweater, my paint-splattered overalls lumpy with the longjohns underneath, and while it’s difficult to imagine, I am going to San Diego in 3 weeks and all I can hope is that there will be one day warm enough to wear those shoes. Maybe I need to schedule a manicure…
This story is simply horrifying. We have got to rebalance the imbalance between the masculine and feminine in this world.
See this story here.
By Olivia Lang
BBC News
A 15-year-old rape victim has been sentenced to 100 lashes for engaging in premarital sex, court officials said.
The charges against the girl were brought against her last year after police investigated accusations that her stepfather had raped her and killed their baby. He is still to face trial.
Prosecutors said her conviction did not relate to the rape case.
Amnesty International condemned the punishment as “cruel, degrading and inhumane”.
The government said it did not agree with the punishment and that it would look into changing the law.
Baby death
Zaima Nasheed, a spokesperson for the juvenile court, said the girl was also ordered to remain under house arrest at a children’s home for eight months.
She defended the punishment, saying the girl had willingly committed an act outside of the law.
Officials said she would receive the punishment when she turns 18, unless she requested it earlier.
The case was sent for prosecution after police were called to investigate a dead baby buried on the island of Feydhoo in Shaviyani Atoll, in the north of the country.
Her stepfather was accused of raping her and impregnating her before killing the baby. The girl’s mother also faces charges for failing to report the abuse to the authorities.
The legal system of the Maldives, an Islamic archipelago with a population of some 400,000, has elements of Islamic law (Sharia) as well as English common law.
Ahmed Faiz, a researcher with Amnesty International, said flogging was “cruel, degrading and inhumane” and urged the authorities to abolish it.
“We are very surprised that the government is not doing anything to stop this punishment – to remove it altogether from the statute books.”
“This is not the only case. It is happening frequently – only last month there was another girl who was sexually abused and sentenced to lashes.”
He said he did not know when the punishment was last carried out as people were not willing to discuss it openly.
My daughter plays an instrument in our city orchestra. There are essentially four main levels. She is in the second to the bottom level. This group played with the top level. In the program was a girl who won a competition in the orchestra. She plays the piano and the cello. She speaks four languages. She is in the same grade as my daughter.
In spite of myself, I felt disappointment in my own child. Her motivation to play waxes and wanes. When she is wanting to play and is practicing, as should be expected, she improves considerably. But the times between when she isn’t so interested are frequent. I thought I had let go of any ego related to this, yet in my envy of this other child, and disappointment in my own, I realize that I have most certainly not let go of ego related to this.
On the one hand I feel almost sorry for these dog and pony show children, like those of that Tiger Mom woman. Gag. We push our children toward our cultural versions of success so early. What do they gain? Do we really buy them security? Do we hand them happiness? I can’t say for sure, only in my heart I doubt it. I have purposefully tried to guide my older daughter without pushing, but she generally lacks motivation to do much except infrequently. The best descriptor of my daughter is that she is Ferdinand the Bull. She would be happiest sitting in a field chewing clover flowers and sniffing the wind. She is not Type A. She is not much motivated. She would like to knit and sing and play horse games on her phone. She is like a little fairy. She is not an engine striving striving striving for the top awards, playing two instruments while learning multiple languages. She has never been that child; she will never be that person. And I’m cool with it. I love how she is. I love who she is. Yes, she drives me batty sometimes when she is languishing about when things really do have to be done, but I believe in the long run she will be the happier person.
So why is it that I felt that twinge of disappointment? Has my culture seeped so far into my bones that even when I can say without equivocation that the western Type A version of success is not what I want for anyone in my family, I would still be disappointed in my little Ferdinand?
I don’t know the answer to this. I have no clue. It just is what it is, I guess.
I don’t love beets. I love most vegetables, including many that others don’t generally like, but not beets. It is because of this that I have not eaten many beets in my life and I did not know that eating beets could turn one’s urine pink or red. I had no clue. Last Friday, when my 3 year old went potty and her poop and pee was red, I assumed she had blood in her stool, freaked, and called her doctor. The advice nurse asked a bunch of questions, but not whether she had eaten beets, and then said I should take her to urgent care the next morning (this was because it was after hours on Friday).
Four hours later, my daughter went potty again. This time she only peed and it was red. Further freaking, as this meant the redness came from pee and not poop, and could thus be related to kidneys and whatnot. Again a call. This time, advice nurse advised we go to urgent care that night. As it was 9:30, the only urgent care in our network was a half hour drive away. Yowza.
We all bundled into the car (we all being me, Milla, and Isabel) and headed out to the middle of nowhere to sit in a waiting room. We were finally escorted back and Isabel was urged to pee. She could not. They gave her apple juice. She peed. They tested it. No more pink and no issues. They could not find anything. Finally, someone asked if she had eaten beets. Well, I did not know. She had been to preschool earlier in the day. Although they were not normally on the Friday, perhaps she had eaten beets. The doctor sent us home with 2 prescriptions for bottom cream and a directive to go to our primary doctor as soon as possible during the regular week.
The next morning I called her preschool and left a message asking if she had eaten beets. We were not able to get into the doctor until Wednesday. In the meantime, no more pink pee and preschool did not return my call (she told me later while apologizing for not calling back that she rarely checks her home line messages–oops!). On Wednesday, while waiting for our dear doctor, I decided to call preschool again, this time the owner’s mobile phone. Lo and behold, it turned out that my darling daughter had indeed eaten beets.
In case you didn’t know it, eating beets turns one’s pee and poop pink or red. This is my public service announcement for the day (or maybe it is a pubic service announcement, but that is a really bad pun).
Random Thoughts on Everything and Nothing 