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Posts Tagged ‘Feminism’

Silent No More

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on May 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »

On our walk to the Farmer’s Market this weekend, I asked the Bug if she knew what a group of giraffes is called? You already know that I’m a collector of fascinating words and phrases, and I particularly love the terms for groups of animals – the collective nouns. Like a “murder” of crows, or a “flamboyance” of flamingoes. But did you know our family has a thing for giraffes?

I’m not sure why, is it because they have the longest necks or the biggest hearts of all land mammals?

When I was a child, my foster sister took me to the circus. I was too young to remember much, but I would look at that fading black and white picture of me, in my ‘circus’ ie fancy shoes, all the time. I looked so happy. Maybe that was the first time I ever saw a real giraffe. I made sure to take my children to the Big Apple Circus every single year. And now I head straight for the giraffes when we accompany our Grands to the Nashville Zoo. My fantasy safari trip is to the Giraffe Manor, where I could feed a giraffe from my breakfast table!

Then there was this book: “Tall Blondes” https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/tall-blondes-introduction/2253/

And I was hooked. Because I thought my daughter was a tall blonde who seemed to float on her field hockey team. She had such long legs as a pre-teen, very similar to the Bug, and she would always take the balcony view of things. Mature beyond her age. And because she had volunteered with Planned Parenthood during high school, in her days at Duke she became the unofficial reproductive health dorm advisor. The Bride is a feminist raised by a feminist whose motto was “Our Bodies Ourselves.”

Also having a sex therapist for a grandmother didn’t hurt.

Speaking of sex, or rape actually, I’ve been keeping a watchful eye on the E Jean Carroll rape trial against our twice impeached insurrectionist ex-president. She was a relationship columnist in NY at about the same time I was writing a column for a newspaper in NJ. We are approximately the same age, in our 70s. The Bride was mid-teens in the mid-90s. And this morning I read that Carroll called herself a member of the “silent generation.”

“I am a member of the silent generation … Women like me were taught and trained to keep our chins up and to not complain.” Carroll testified last week that Trump’s attack caused a decades-long trauma in her life. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/05/01/e-jean-carroll-trump-trial/

And she’s right. We were taught to make jokes. to smile, to shrug off a man’s advances. If you complained about workplace harassment you would lose your job. This is why I believed Anita Hill. When the new car salesman came on to me in my early 20s, I just looked at his wedding ring and said frankly NO, but thanks anyway. After all, it was just us all alone taking a test ride in a car he wanted to sell and I wanted to buy; I knew enough not to make him mad. Otherwise, I might have become a Dateline statistic.

I didn’t report his advances to the car dealership.

This silent generation of women was a group of humans I didn’t think I was a part of, after all I attended consciousness raising groups. I started a new moon women’s group at temple and invented my own menopause ritual. But back then, when Trump raped Carroll, we women thought we had to be as tough as the guys. There was no crying at work, or in baseball. And I can certainly imagine a rape taking place at Bergdorfs, in a very fancy dressing room, and the woman not wanting to call attention to her assault at the time. Especially if it was a powerful man, wielding his power with his (insert appropriate appendage). Because we were also told it’s his recollection against ours – and his always wins.

Mr T’s lawyers didn’t count on the fact that Carroll DID tell some of her friends. She even kept the dress. So she wasn’t so silent after all. Oh how I wish I could be a fly on that court room wall today.

And just in case you thought giraffes were silent creatures, you’d be wrong. They seem silent to our human ears, but they communicate via a low infrasound. How else could they hide their babies while they forage for leaves? How could they move towards a watering hole en masse without communicating? And although some like to call a group of them a herd…

I prefer a TOWER of giraffes! Here I am in my happy place.

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Home for a Handmaid

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on October 18, 2021| 3 Comments »

Happy Monday! This morning I was browsing the news online when I came across this article: “A Home Built for the Next Pandemic,” by Tressie Cottom. Future homes will be built differently, like Tomorrow Land.

The overriding consensus is that the pandemic has revealed that many consumers view the pandemic not as a one-off, but as a harbinger: They will need to work from home in the future. Not all workers have the luxury of working from home, of course. But for knowledge workers, the ability to participate in the economy will be conditioned upon their ability to be productive while working from their own houses. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/opinion/covid-home-concept.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur

Cue single mom working from home while trying to manage home schooling for her children.

In a nutshell, Cottom points out that these new Covid Concept builders are harkening back to the early paternalistic Twentieth Century, and handing out the task of cooking and childrearing and schooling in these post-feminist years to guess who – the WOMEN. A kitchen sits right in the middle of the home with her office adjacent, there’s a remote learning room for homeschoolers. And all I ever wanted was a Mud Room!

Grandma Ada had an office right outside her kitchen. She even had a greenhouse next to the garage! But remember that was the 1960s.

Today Bob and I are still in this ridiculous real estate market, and every night I’m watching Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood’s prescient dystopian nightmare about a society that slowly slips into a religious autocracy. Sometimes I wonder why I’m tuned into Gilead, a fictional Christian American country, NOW? The book has always been a top 5 for me, but a film is no longer escapist fantasy when it flirts with real life.

In Texas, women have lost their human rights, and I’m sure most southern states will follow. SCOTUS is at a tipping point.

June aka “Offred” is the Handmaid, and it is her duty to bear a child for the commander of the household. Therefore she lives a vivid inner life with lots of close-ups, and once a month she is raped in a ritualized way. I know, it’s more, much more than that with plenty of sub-plots, and snow. Women collectively named “Martha” man each kitchen, apparently men are not chefs in this world; the Marthas trade spices like nuclear secrets.

Speaking of secrets, I love how Zillow democratized real estate, still in Nashville it helps to have an agent. What should an empty nest house look like, how big a kitchen do we really need? Do I still need a room of my own? Bob thinks my notifications are driving me bonkers and he might be right!

Atwood’s feminist masterpiece is keeping me up nights. She named the commander’s wife Serena Joy! Shakespeare couldn’t have done it better. Serena is the head of the household; she is smart, too smart. We see her working on seedlings in a greenhouse, while June stays in her spartan bedroom. But then, she and June begin working together, drafting better policies for the women of Gilead. When the commander returns home after a prolonged hospital stay, Serena appears in his huge wood-paneled office to welcome him home. He beckons her to him with his outstretched hand,…

… and leads Serena Joy right out the door of his office, shutting her forever outside his power and influence.

It’s against my better nature to think negatively, to believe that our post-pandemic life will seem smaller, diminished. Ada would have told me, “We’re all in transition.” The reality is we’re not getting any younger. The “sell by” date on our knees is the same. But I’m determined to have a bigger office!

Ada teaching me to make matzoh balls in my SLUTS tee
“Southern Ladies Under Tremendous Stress”

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What Day is This?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on October 11, 2021| 4 Comments »

Is it International Mental Health Day or International Coming Out Day? Am I supposed to put my favorite picture of my son or my daughter on Instagram? Wait, Melinda Gates posted her Kindergarten picture with hashtag, #thislittlegirlisme on Twitter because it’s the International Day of the Girl. Can I even find my Kindergarten picture?

Phew, I just remembered it’s Columbus Day! When I was a young camper at Camp St Joseph for Girls, we would occasionally have sing-offs in the dining hall. We didn’t call them “sing-offs” then, it was just a part of our competitive culture – the Irish would belt out a Celtic ballad, and then the Italians would respond with something Romanesque, like “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore!”

Today, statues of Christopher Columbus have started toppling over almost as often as Confederate generals.

If I were of Italian descent would I be OK with this happening? I wonder if it might be akin to stripping away all public notions of St Patrick or John F Kennedy. Hindsight is never kind to conquerors; and so the Italian sailor who spotted the Bahamas at least half a millennium after Leif Eriksson first landed in North America is suffering from historical and moral context.

Out of 170 Columbus monuments scattered across our country, only 40 have been taken down so far. We still have a big parade today in NYC. But did the great explorer “discover” or “invade” North America? We never learned about his treatment of Native Americans in school.

“For Mahtowin Munro, an Indigenous rights activist, these symbols represent historical violence. “Celebrating Columbus is intended to erase us and ultimately is celebrating our genocide,” said Munro, who co-leads the United American Indians of New England. ”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2021/christopher-columbus-monuments-america-map/?itid=hp-top-table-main

Now I don’t want to sound conservative at all, but after reading that the Charlottesville, VA City Council ordered the removal of the Lewis and Clark statue in a roundabout, I was pissed. I loved that statue, and not just because it had one of the only public renderings of a Native woman. I always knew I was close to the historic downtown mall when I saw it, also that’s when Bob told me that all statues in the South have their backs to the North.

But because the Meriwether Lewis and William Clark guide Sacagawea was depicted in a crouching position at the feet of the two men, Native people said they felt she looked “cowering.” Historians have said her position signified “tracking,” since she was hired along with her husband, carrying her baby, as a guide and translator for the westward expedition. And YES to giving Sacagawea her very own statue!

It just depends on what perspectacles you happen to be wearing. Should we take down every statue of a president who owned slaves? Should we the people demolish someone’s good work because maybe they had a mistress? Would FDR have liked seeing himself depicted in a wheelchair, probably not. Does your religious iconography need to be all over our money?

The answer is sometimes we can go too far.

Pizza of the week with Bob’s eggplant and pablano peppers

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Oh Andrew, My Andrew

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on March 5, 2021| 1 Comment »

The Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, apologized for his perceived behavior on Wednesday with a few of his aides. But once bitten, I’m finding it hard to give up on him.

I would ask Great Grandma Ada almost every day, “Did you watch President Cuomo?” With our past-serial-predator Mr T’s disastrous mismanagement of the coronavirus, we liked to pretend that Cuomo was our real president as he faithfully kept New Yorkers up-to-date through one of the biggest public health pandemics in the century. He took on epic proportions, he was handsome and down to earth. I knew very little about his personal life, but then we found out he was single, eureka! Ever the marriage counselor Ada and I had fun fantasizing about the next Mrs Cuomo.

So the feminist in me wants to believe the young women who have lodged sexual harassment allegations against the Governor. But I can’t help feeling like he’s been misunderstood.

First of all, he’s Italian. Bob tells me it’s similar to being Jewish – big extended families, lots of hugging and food all the time. So we have a cultural difference. Would I be happy if an older guy cupped my face and asked for a kiss? That would depend… we all know that guy who could hug just a little too tight and too long. Was this my boss, or my uncle or a friend of Ada’s perhaps? But asking for a kiss in a public place like a wedding does not seem malicious at all. I might turn my cheek for a kiss, or slip right by the face and offer a hug instead. If I felt repelled or cajoled, I’d push him away with a smart remark.

That cupped face picture at the wedding is reminiscent of the 11 year old picture of Al Franken on his comedy USO tour almost cupping (ie not actually touching) a woman’s breasts in her flak jacket for a laugh as she was sleeping. He was caught in the midst of the #MeToo movement and forcibly asked to resign in order to fill his Democratic seat in the Senate. There was NO due process and NO ethics investigation. Don’t forget, his previous job was Comedian! A Progressive pillar was sacrificed, to what end? This is part of his farewell speech to the Senate.

“I have earned a reputation as someone who respects the women I work alongside every day,” he said, soon after a former Democratic Senate aide accused him of trying to kiss her after his radio show in 2006. “I know there has been a very different picture of me painted over the last few weeks, but I know who I really am.”

https://www.vox.com/2018/5/21/17352230/al-franken-accusations-resignation-democrats-leann-tweeden-kirsten-gillibrand

Maybe seeing is NOT believing. We are being asked to believe what Cuomo’s intentions were… If there’s one piece of Ada’s marriage advice I’ve clung to over the years, it’s that a man doesn’t really know what you’re thinking unless you tell him! We may want him to intuit that we really need a neck rub, but if we don’t actually say this it won’t happen magically. In fact, the clinical term for this is magical thinking. So in the same respect, did Cuomo’s aide just think he wanted a relationship? And is it a crime?

Think back to Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas. I was dumbstruck by that investigation; a judge had been talking about porn and asking his clerk for dates constantly. She didn’t need to intuit what he wanted, he was constantly telling her exactly what he wanted sexually. If only Hill, in 1991, had a smart phone in her pocket to record his harassment. That man is now a judge on the Supreme Court. I had debilitating deja vu when the Kavanaugh committee hearings started. And this is where the trouble lies, at the intersection of youth and gender with political power. It’s the age vs time difference.

Thirty years ago things were different. There was no worldwide pandemic for one, and the Bride was twelve years old. She was learning about HIV in health class, and I was trying to empower her fierce, feminist side. She actually wrote a letter to then Senator Biden, asking him to run for President! Biden has a reputation for being “handsy” himself, but in a good way. Let’s not go overboard with our #MeToo sensitivity. We wanted empathy and compassion back in the White House, and we’ve got it. Should we pillory a highly competent, progressive Governor who thought a little flirting with a staffer was innocent? After all, over the years I’ve known a few married couples with big age differences, one friend married her law professor. The NY Governor was lonely, and if these women felt threatened, they should have told him to knock it off. Then go to HR if it continued.

After all, where else would a guy with a pandemic on his plate even meet a woman in lockdown? Let’s not let the GOP or the Pro-T Patriot Party incite another culture war to their advantage. Let the process play out, take a rest.

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Pup Pilates or The Problem with Marjorie

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on January 30, 2021| Leave a Comment »

We’ve been doing a bit of grandpuppy sitting lately. And today I forgot we had a scheduled Pilates class when the Bride’s Frenchie, Watson, showed up for some stretching too. He’s learning his polite dog skills and usually scratches the door for a potty break. Poor Ms Bean has learned to give up her dog bed and reluctantly give in to playtime. But she still doesn’t understand why Watson gets to eat lunch and she doesn’t!

I only had to get up twice to let the dogs out, so I missed out on our “stomach series.” And my tummy thanks them. Then the feminist in me was triggered when I read a text about another interloper – only this one wore heels and red lipstick. A Tweet wondered why White feminist writers were not calling out the latest Republican NRA devotee to Congress.

Elected this Fall, the freshman House member from Georgia is a known QAnon conspiracy theorist, and full blown pro-Trump insurrectionist. Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t wear face paint or Viking furs, she strolls through the Capitol with impunity carrying her concealed weapon around the metal detectors. She has verbally assaulted her colleague, Democrat Cori Bush, causing Bush (who is Black btw) to move her office further away from Greene in the interest of her staff’s safety. What other disrespectful and incendiary things can one congresswoman do?

“Ms. Greene suggested in 2018 that a devastating wildfire that ravaged California was started by “a laser” beamed from space and controlled by a prominent Jewish banking family with connections to powerful Democrats. She endorsed executing Democratic lawmakers, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She served as a prolific writer for a now-defunct conspiracy blog called “American Truth Seekers,” writing posts with headlines including “MUST READ — Democratic Party Involved With Child Sex, Satanism, and The Occult.” And she argued that the 2018 midterm elections — in which the first two Muslim women were elected to the House — were part of “an Islamic invasion of our government.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/us/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-republicans.html

Imagine my surprise on Holocaust Remembrance Day to see “Jewish space laser” trending on Twitter.

But the feminist in me wasn’t surprised. Sarah Palin wrote the playbook for conservative Christian women running for office. The largely male, White Republican party thought oh great, we need the new blood, we need women, let’s just see how far they can go. The old GOP didn’t count on the public electing delusional and destructive Breakers. And yet, here we are. Let’s not forget another gun-toting-loving woman Rep from Colorado, Lauren Boebert.

Boebert also vowed to carry her Glock all around the US Capitol and in the streets of Washington, DC. So far she hasn’t assaulted other members of Congress or said that the murder of schoolchildren in Parkland was a hoax.

Sometimes you can think something abnormal is a “one off,” but after January 6th, we would be deluding ourselves to think the enemy is not already within the gates of power; and Marjorie Taylor Greene is flush with power. Does it make it better if it’s women flaunting the rules, brandishing guns, instead of men?

“… (Greene) issued what amounted to a threat to top Republicans who might be contemplating punishing her, warning that they would pay steep consequences.

“’If Republicans cower to the mob, and let the Democrats and the fake news media take me out,’” Ms. Greene said, “’they’re opening the door to come after every single Republican until there’s none left.’”

Greene’s choice of words here is instructive – letting fake news “take me out,” sounds ominous enough, and then her facile reference to a Holocaust prayer by Pastor Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

From space lasers to paranoid thinking about Democrats opening every door to punish Republicans who only want to overturn an election. Seditionists. Using anti-Semitic tropes while looking totally rational is a skill set we’ve seen before.

If Republicans can’t clean their own house, well maybe they need to watch Watson as we crate train him? Amirite Ms Bean?

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Crybabies

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged on January 13, 2021| 2 Comments »

Taking care of babies is my jam. Human babies, animal babies and puppies in particular. I love it when the Love Bug’s four month old French Bulldog starts to wind down, big eyes drooping and legs wobbling. He fights naps so hard! But once you hear that distinctive snore – part purr, part outboard motor – you can cuddle him up, no problem. And later, because Bob and I are just the occasional granddog sitters, we get to give him back.

Human babies, otoh, take a bit more work. Bob always had a way to soothe our crying babies. With the baby Bride, he would bundle her in the car seat for a ride and turn on Beethoven. The Baby Rocker required a different approach, Bob would blast Led Zepplin!

“Don’t be a crybaby” is buried deep in my amygdala. It must be a primal holdover, after all if you’re fleeing a predator you don’t want a baby to signal your whereabouts. The tribe depended on your ability to keep your baby healthy and happy! There is no sound more distressing to me than a crying baby; unless it’s a whining, crying adult.

I just finished my morning coffee with an article in the Washington Post titled “Trumpist masculinity reaches its high water mark with the riot,” by Monica Hesse. It caught my eye because its subject was the Nashville bartender who was recently arrested for jumping over a balustrade like a ninja with zip ties, aka the Zip Tie Guy. He’s a handsome, white, ex-honky tonk employee, a 30 year old who was seen in previous footage with his mother! They were caught leaving their hotel with coffee last Wednesday, before storming the Capitol that afternoon.

“A whole taxonomy of Trumpist right-wing manhood could be developed from the Internet investigations, wanted posters and arrest affidavits now trickling out in the wake of last week’s riot at the Capitol. En masse, the photos show a conglomeration of weird beards, ammo and camo, and a very specific brand of looks-like-somebody-got-a-Bass-Pro-gift-card-for-Christmas raging White masculinity.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/capitol-riot-zip-tie-guy-men-trump-masculinity/2021/01/12/486a516e-5447-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html

It seems the Cville khakis and white shirts have been replaced by strange costumes. Between Viking chic and lumberjack plaid, toxic masculinity was on full display. Like any good feminist, I taught my son that it’s alright to cry, even though every other cultural interaction he ever had told him the opposite. And likewise, I told my daughter NOT to cry in public. Not very gender neutral, I know.

But the GOP has become a party of crybabies.

When Mr T told his followers last week not to show “weakness” it hit me. He was a high school cadet playing dress-up at a military academy before the Vietnam War. Mr T developed “bone spurs” then and today he watches TV or plays golf; never getting his hands dirty. What we are witnessing this morning is incredulous. Enraged Republican legislators bemoaning the installation of metal detectors at the Capitol. Why should they have their bags searched and not be able to carry their sidearm into chambers? The audacity of Congress to want to protect legislators of both parties!

And why should they be fined for refusing to wear masks while hunkered down during the insurrection last week? Isn’t it their God-given, natural right to infect anybody they so please?

The sheer cloying white selfishness, entitlement, and privilege is appalling.

And they called us snowflakes! But hark! A second impeachment is about to happen, just as we are being told that these home-grown terrorists are planning another seditious attempt at insurrection. Closing down their absurd conspiracy websites and banning Mr T from his social platforms is just the first step. Weeding white supremacists out of the police and military is essential. In just one week we shall have a new President; a Scranton guy who has the capacity for empathy and compassion.

I just hope Biden has the determination of a bulldog!

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7 Ways to Not Apologize

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, religion, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 24, 2020| Leave a Comment »

“The fact still remains, I am not going to apologize for something I didn’t say.”

Okay, Lying about what you said is never a good way to start an apology. Tea Party member, veterinarian and righteously dishonest Republican from (where else) FLORIDA, Ted Yoho, has given us all a lesson on the non-apology apology. Unfortunately for him, he accosted AOC on the steps of Congress in front of a reporter.

Generalizing, or not saying the name of the person you offended, is cowardly. “I’m sorry if my words offended someone?!?!” Just like turning away from the person you are calling a “fucking bitch,” but saying it just loud enough for her to hear it.

Contingency – Don’t make your apology contingent by using a conjunction. Slightly different from the last non-apology because at least it is directed towards someone, but just as heinous. “I’m sorry IF my words offended you”

Deflecting, don’t even try to apply a reason for your hateful speech, our couch it with your better angel. Don’t couple an apology with something else, like your “passion.” That’s the old “I beat her because I love her so much.”

Making up an excuse. Offering an excuse is just plain pathetic. Never offer an excuse for your bad behavior: “I was having a bad day” or “I drank too much,” or especially, “You made me do it!” Children make up excuses for their bad behavior.

No quid pro quo – Hmm, where have we heard that before? This implies that the person you’ve just insulted or accosted, in some way deserved it. Well you were yelling at me! You think I’m deplorable, so I can call you whatever I want. Pretty sure Yoho can’t read minds though.

Don’t make your apology a bid for sympathy – so what if you have a mother, most of us do! OH, wait you’re a Christian? That’s great! I was taught to turn the other cheek in Catholic school, what kind of Tea Bag Christian are you?

Here is this morning’s view from my desk. I’d wager a bet that most women have heard some or all of the above during our lifetimes. Don’t forget to vote by mail if you can!

IMG_7968

 

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WFH

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I’m beginning to feel my age. Texting has changed our language, no longer can we write a complete sentence, we can barely complete a word. That baby isn’t adorable, he’s “adorb!” But what trips me up from time to time is the abundance of new acronyms! OTOH = on the other hand; IDK = I don’t know; YOLO = you only live once; WTF = what the ….heck?” It’s almost as if young people are creating their own cryptograms as a get-around for our generation.

Recently, I had to look up one of these – WFH! Short for “Working from home,” a very popular post these days! It is usually accompanied by a smiley face emoji with a wink. I immediately laughed at this particular acronym because as a woman of a certain age, I’ve always worked from home. Even when I was driving to a job as a pre-school teacher, I would come home to cooking, cleaning and the usual things it takes to run a household.

When I settled into writing for a newspaper, I always wrote in a corner of my dining room. When I was done, I’d email my copy in and walk into the kitchen and start dinner. Even Great Grandma Ada had her counseling office right next to her kitchen!

But today, our generation has raised some strong, post-feminist women who believe in an EQUAL partnership with their spouse. They make flow charts about who changes the sheets and does the laundry, who cooks and who cleans up the kitchen, who makes the list and shops. And all the quiet work of scheduling doctor’s appointments for the kids, or tracking their currently non-existent playdates and sports events.

In Nashville today, we have nearly 5,000 confirmed cases of Covid19,  – “IOW” – in other words, lots and lots of people are WFH.

Working from home means we see cats crawling across keyboards, dogs still bark at the mailman, one guy accidentally picks up his knee and we get to see his boxer shorts, we hear babies crying! During our virtual will planning session with our lawyer, her baby was inconsolable and I wondered, “Where’s your husband?”

So if you were wondering how the division of home labor stacks up, gender-wise, during our Corona Crisis, I’ve got just the podcast for you! NPR’s Terri Gross interviewed the author of “Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time,” Brigid Schulte. She tells us that even today, women, enlightened, smart, woke women are bearing the brunt of the housework. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/21/860091230/pandemic-makes-evident-grotesque-gender-inequality-in-household-work

“We’ve got this grand mythology (breadwinner vs homemaker model) that that’s really what a family should be,” she says. “We still think that one person should go out to work and be responsible for all of the work and earning and supporting the family. … And there should be … somebody always available at home to do the care and carework.”

But Schulte says that families aren’t monolithic and shouldn’t be treated as such. She says the pandemic has created an opportunity to start a dialogue about the distribution of household tasks.”

Schulte says that she had been carrying alot of radioactive anger around, feeling overwhelmed in her marriage. But she brought up the Notorious RBG, who once had a call from school to pick up her child, and she told the school secretary to call her husband, it was his turn! She said to treat your marriage and family almost like a business, you wouldn’t want your business to fail, right?

I saw a funny YouTube of a woman pleading to God NOT to make her teach math. I remember when the Bride first started homeschooling, I told her her husband is a natural teacher. In higher education it’s called being an “academic.” In fact, he gets awards for his research and teaching skills. Harmony prevailed when they figured out he could do some home-schooling when he wasn’t in the hospital, and she continues to enjoy cooking and baking bread. Sourdough bread.

When she’s not saving lives in her ER. Or teaching a Yoga Zoom class.

I have a feeling since our pandemic quarantine, lots of men around the world are waking up to the tireless domestic work it takes to run a household. The patience it takes to teach and nurture a child. Our L’il Pumpkin learned how to ride a two-wheeler during our lockdown. The Love Bug built a diorama of a fox for her last day of Zoom class.

Now’s the time to have that critical conversation with your loved one. Don’t keep picking up their socks and putting them in the hamper. Don’t hold grudges. If you’re both WFH, pick a day to do housework – Bob always vacuums, I always cook. He weeds the garden and has started doing the laundry, I do the bathrooms. We both sew masks. Don’t let underlying resentment eat away at your marriage.

OTOH we’ve started doing Pilates together, two mats on the floor and a Zoom class every Tuesday and Saturday. And it’s a wonderful thing.

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Ride or Die

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, criminal justice, Public Policy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »

A “ride or die” friend is someone you would pledge your undying loyalty to until the bitter end. Like Thelma and Louise, you’d go over a cliff with them if that’s what it takes. From the Urban Dictionary:

“Ride or Die was originally a biker term meaning if you couldn’t ride you’d rather die. It has now changed to mean anyone (wife, boyfriend, best friend), that you will “ride” ANY problems out with them or “die” trying. The “ride” doesn’t always have to be a negative either. “

This is the rubric our president has been using lately in appointing cabinet members.

While all eyes were focusing on Nevada, and the mainstream media is still trying to figure out Bernie Sanders, our Dictator-in-Chief has unleashed his vindictive wrath on anyone who appears to have not pledged their loyalty to him. The Senate gave him a pass and he is NOT chastened; in fact, Mr T loves firing people so much – staffers he deems Never Trumpers, or competent people who tell him the truth like acting Intelligence Director Joe Maguire, or anyone who so much as looks at him fish-eyed – that he has supposedly compiled a Hit List!

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE???

I myself never made a Hit List, but some kids do this kind of thing in middle school. They are usually kids who have been bullied or marginalized in some way. In the worst case scenarios, their parents own guns. Also, dictators make lists of their enemies.

When I woke up to hear that Mr T said, in India, that two women of the SCOTUS, the Notorious RBG and Sonia Sotomayor, should recuse themselves from future cases that may involve HIM, I nearly died. And just like any good toddler, or psychopath, he turned the tables, blaming Sotomayor for her statements about government interference. Please picture Trump, or any late night comedian, saying this in their most whiny, pitiful voice:

“I just thought it was so inappropriate, such a terrible statement for a Supreme Court justice,” he (Trump) said. “She’s trying to shame people with perhaps a different view into voting her way, and that’s so inappropriate . . . I’ve seen papers on it — people cannot believe that she said it.”  

I cannot believe that he said THAT! Also, I can’t actually believe anything he says. There is that.

I remember when Rumson Boro Councillors would get up and walk out of a meeting because they held some stock in a company that was being discussed, or maybe they had a son who was working for that company, they would rightly RECUSE themselves. Not because they held a different point of view. Not because they belonged to a different political party…

Somehow we’ve been trying to normalize Trump’s behavior, but we must stop. He is not only trying to surround himself with a ride or die White House of blind loyalists, he’s got the wife of one SCOTUS actively helping him with his list of disloyal staffers… that bears repeating, Justice Clarence Thomas’ lobbyist wife:

“These lists, created by a network of conservative activists called Groundswell that include Republican Senate staffer Barbara Ledeen and Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, have made their way to Trump and shaped his views re: who he can trust and who should be canned. For instance, a memo on Liu, reportedly reviewed by Trump shortly before her nomination was withdrawn, laid out 14 reasons why she was unfit for the Treasury job Steven Mnuchin had selected her for and included the fact that she: hadn’t acted on criminal referrals of some of Brett Kavanaugh’s accusers…”  https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/donald-trump-government-hit-list

Yesterday I had to look up “Rape in the 3rd Degree.” https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/130.25

Is our justice system blind? When the wife of a sexual harasser (remember Anita Hill), is helping the man who’s been accused of sexual abuse or misconduct or RAPE by at least 25 women, (I’m talking about Trump not Harvey Weinstein) well maybe our country is suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. Here’s a LIST for you: https://www.businessinsider.com/women-accused-trump-sexual-misconduct-list-2017-12

Our country is at a tipping point. If we don’t #VoteBlueNoMatterWho we’ll be the ones going off that cliff. We’ll be playing a dulcimer on the deck of the Titanic.

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Second Chances

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on November 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

I’m all for second chances. You need to warmup your arm before you serve a tennis ball. Or try making that cake again when the first one won’t come out of the pan. But we need to have a talk with Ohio; a fertilized egg that has jumped the gun and implanted itself in a fallopian tube is a done deal. It can kill its host and cause all sorts of problems. So let’s be perfectly clear, there is NO such procedure known to medicine as “re-implanting an ectopic pregnancy.” NONE.

“Ohio lawmakers have introduced legislation that would jail doctors for “abortion murder” unless they reimplant ectopic pregnancies in the uterus. Unfortunately, there no such procedure in medical science. Ectopic pregnancies, where the embryo is implanted in the fallopian tube, can be fatal for mothers. Legislators have been told in the past that this fantasy operation cannot be done. Ohio obstetrician and gynecologist Dr David Hackney wrote on Twitter: “I don’t believe I’m typing this again but, that’s impossible. We’ll all be going to jail.” The bill proposes punishing women and girls as young as 13 with “abortion murder” if they have an abortion, and creates a new law called “aggravated abortion murder” which would be enforced with the death penalty.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/ohio-bill-says-doctors-must-reimplant-ectopic-pregnancy-or-be-jailed-for-abortion-murder?

There have been times when I’ve felt like we’re approaching the Handmaid’s Tale, but seeing this pop up on Twitter made me question if we’re not already there – living in a dystopian future where extreme religious right legislation has codified a woman’s body.

Once legislators decide a fertilized egg is a “Person” – which it is NOT btw – well, then the government gets to decide your future. You’re a 16 year old girl and your step father raped you? Too bad, you either go to prison for trying to get on with your life, for wanting a second chance, or you have a baby and give it up for adoption.

Or maybe worse yet, you end up giving the baby to your mom and step dad to raise. Of course today, you could always keep the baby and live with a friend or relative, finish high school, get a job…. But let’s not forget our government cares less about child care for working families and single moms than it does about a cluster of cells.

Not everyone has an Aunt Bee child care story like Elizabeth Warren, and she was a law professor with a husband at the time.

The language politicians use around women is prescient, so listen very carefully. Mr T talks about women in a very gendered, “marked” way. He calls Nancy Pelosi “nervous Nancy” and added to his crude comments on a bus with Billy Bush, he specifically calls out their sex, usually followed by saying how much he “loves” women, implying they need his protection.

“Justifying his decision to oust her (Marie Yavanovitch), the president told Fox & Friends last Friday he heard “bad things” about “the ambassador, the woman… This was not an angel, this woman, okay? And there were a lot of things that she did that I didn’t like.”

Mr Trump added that his staff felt they had to be kind because “she’s a woman – we have to be nice.” Professor Marianne LaFrance, a psychologist at Yale University, says this remark is a prime example of gendered language.

“That referencing says she’s not an individual, she’s not a professional, she’s first and foremost a woman,” Prof LaFrance says.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50563106

You have to be “nice” because she’s a woman? Mr T wasn’t happy with Ms Yavanovitch because she was actually doing her job for the American people, fighting corruption in Ukraine, making Rudy’s shady political dealing difficult. That portrait thing was just another lie.

Stop calling our candidates a “woman politician,” do we call men that “man politician?” Stop making up medical procedures for women that do not exist.                                     Stop calling for “personhood bills.” Stop the nonsense.

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