[newsbreak] Good news! Larry Summer is no longer up for Treasury Sec. If you didn't know, he's the ex-ivyleague-pres who said women were inheantly inferior at math and science. He even set up a home ec class for women so they didn't need to worry their little heads with all sorts of numbers. [end newsbreak]
So, Saturday was the Anti-passing of all the no gay marriage acts/props/ammendments. Morgan and I made up posters (seen below), and he met me at the museum at 2.30PM with the plan to head right over to World's Fair Park.
Well... I head over to the museum, where I had 1PM a program to give, at 12.15. I pull into the lot and am told that I need to pay, there's a basketball game. I explain to the attendant that I am going to work at the museum and, not only that, I have 20 young girl scouts with parents coming at 1. They tell me that they will need to find parking. I respond that this is not acceptable, they were told where they could park before this, and the museum lot is to remain open for museum visitors. Well, apparently there are only 5 spots left, and goodness knows how we'll do this. So they call the head guy, who is very not pleased to see me. The museum and the parking people have been at odds for as long as I've worked there. The museum needs weekend visitors. When the museum advertises free admission and free parking, people expect that. If they need to suddenly pay $5 to go do something free, they'll just as soon go home. The museum loses visitors, and no one buys anything cool in the museum shop.
So he and I argue that parking a few cars in the free lot with everyone else having to pay is not acceptable. I threaten to call people, like the museum's director, in order to give my girls a good experience. At this point one of the original attendents comes running up and tells us that most of the cars in the lot are high school students here for visitation, and their program is supposed to be over at 12.30. How about we just close the lot down for everyone except Girl Scouts (and other visitors, I pipe in). That, I tell them, will work, assuming enough people leave. What if we don't have enough spots still? The attendants point out a bunch of open space, normally used by the daily attendant's kiosk, and say they'll park them in there. We should be guarenteed 15 spaces between what's already open, what will open, and the informal spots. So they change the sign to "Lot Full" and I head in hoping that the girl scouts are carpooling, like good environmentally concious individuals should.
I have 15 minutes to run upstairs, downstairs, middlestairs in order to get my 45 minute program, my 15 minute tool demonstrations, my 20 minute clay-based craft, and my 5 minute story set up. I'm not ready on time, but that's ok, because the "Lot Full" sign confused some parents looking for the museum so they're on their way. We get started about 15-20 minutes late. Gargh!
We do the program, take a little longer on the initial program because they ask so many gosh durned questions, do the tools, take a quick break for me to move around the set up for the craft, make our darned clay pots, Morgan shows up, wash our hands, tell the story, and I clean up in record time. I tell the guard the few things he needs to do (re-set some alarms, re-lock a few doors) since I don't have codes or keys.
3.20PM Morgan and I rush out of campus and over to Worlds Fair Park. Everyone is gone!
Noooo!
So now I have two virgin signs for the next protest rally.
I'm annoyed. Stupid parking.
Come to find out, about 120 people were at the rally, and the only counter protest was
LINK TO ARTICLE ABOUT RALLY IN KTOWN! I really like this article. Especially that it is written with a lean toward supporting same sex marriage and even includes religious leaders' comments supporting the equality of the right.
In other marriage-equality news: December 5 is "No Gay for A Day" day, where the LGBT community and their supporters stay home from work. Where I work, at the museum, we all feel that marriage should count. The people I serve, children, would be the ones effected. While children may repeat what parents say, they are still impressionable. I'm conflicted whether my staying home would help.
My good dear friend Kazen, who is leaving for Japan in a few months (awesome) turned me on to Delicious. I know it's been around for a while, I just never tried it. It's pretty fun to work with. So we've been trading links back and forth for the last few weeks, and I have a tag of "blogable" articles and stuff that I think would be interesting to write about. I've had a similar bookmark folder in Firefox.
But some of these have lost their fire. And yet at the same time I saved them because I thought others would find them interesting. So here's a dump. Some are frivolous, most aren't.
link to full article
excerpt
You know we have a rough Spring season ahead of us when "no pants" is cited as a trend from the Fall fashion weeks.
The trouble starts when you find yourself staring at a model and you can't decide whether the designer meant for her clothing to be a bathing suit or lingerie ...
Plus, this look spells trouble for the real woman. Most of us don't have legs that go on for miles or thighs that don't touch at the top. Without both of these things, these ... should never be worn.
a scene from my book club meeting on wednesday october 16 2008 from 6-8.30 pm.
we held the meeting early because we wanted to watch the debate.
which i watched. and watched mccain promptly put "health of the mother" in irreverent air quotes, as a phrase touted too much by the extreme pro abortion women's health sector (but not touted as much as sarah palin touts the word "maverick"... that's a touting toutable.
evidence, as i heart primary sources.
add this to a "I won't use RvW as a litmus test, but I will."
increase the rage by saying Palin is a women's role model. (I want to be a woman who refuses to allow my fellow sex/gender buddies to exercise control over their bodies... fsck it, it's just "women's health" anyways. You know, the women special interest group. Who needs them. special interest is a PC term for "disenfranchised" anyways.)
raise it to boiling by bringing up both ACORN and Ayers, then when Obama explains the situations (rather beneficial for some of us who only managed to look up the basic facts of what the hell was being discussed) rather simply (not simplistically, keep in mind)and then interrupting it with "no, that's not true"
and top it off by whining that Obama has launched "attack ads" criticizing a proposed health care plan and equating it to the rather heated lies/epithets shouted about Obama (the whole radical muslim/terrorist/communist/socialist (make up yout damn minds))... that's SO not arguing the issues,Obama ::cry cry::
(example of this point which had previously been posted on San Fransisco Republican website)
I'm proud of her...And I can't tell how proud I am of her and her family.Her husband's a pretty tough guy, by the way, too.
... continuing this at an ungodly early hour as i can't seem to sleep. Yay for bad dreams and general anxiety. Last night I had to get one of the waiters to leave us alone at the taco, he kept harassing the females at the table. Somewhere between there and here I left my purse. I think I left it at Morgan's place when his mom and I had some wine and discussed stuff/ i sobered up and calmed down over a glass of wine. i'm really really hoping i left it there. in the general annoyance of the taco i may have not noticed that i didn't have my purse, but i think that i did have it over my shoulder when we walked h and d to their car. h was the target of the waiter most of the night.
we're going elsewhere next monday. we don't need this.
now i have low battery. you know what. screw it. i'm taking a shower.
so i did it. finally. i made my very own myspace picture. i don't like pix of me, so i go ahead and rip off other sites. my latest picture stated that my marxist feminist dialectic would bring all the boys to my yard. the newest newest one is to the left. thank online translators for the translation. hopefully i have it right!
maybe not all, but i do have one at the moment. i don't know if it was the MFD that did it or simply the fact that i could actually speak intelligently after multiple beers on random uber-esoteric,paradigmatic-shifting, rhetoric challenging, possibly-important topics.
woot.
i also, this afternoon erased all email correspondance with people i don't like. err.... a person i no longer like. i didn't realize quite what had piled up, but when i saw something with his name on it, i dug a bit and realized "damn, don't need this mucking up the inbozzle". Hitting the "trash" choice surely isn't as cathartic as burning things, but who needs catarsis when you've moved on.
and no, me stating that i've moved on is not denial that i haven't.
speaking of moving on, back to the MFD/Beer incident... YAY!
that's all. if you haven't met him, you obviously haven't seen me in the last 2 weeks, as we seem to do many things together. i'm home alone now for the first time in a while. i should be doing laundry....
hit the disc exchange today. picked up tickets for brewers jam. not missing it for anything. there's a crew of boucoup zwanzig joining me: eric, morgan, shannon, shannon, kimberly, heather, paula, jim, and more. yay.
also grabbed a PJ Harvey CD. i blame my DE dude for hooking me on her last last summer. damn him and his lucious prematurely entirely gray hair coupled with being a band teacher and a husband and father (i think he said he had kids) with awesome tastes in knowing what i want.... in music. DAMN HIM!
ask me about my recipe for curry. and remember that the farmers market has awesome summer squash this week. it goes well with curry.
and to the Ktowners who read this excuse for a blog... i'll be at GreekFest sometime after 3. I have some brownies that need my attention until then.
I'm typing this in the front lobby at the Crowne Plaza in Center City Philadelphia. After spending another week in the backcountry dealing with bears and generators and stinky boys (not to be sexist, but those six dudes were RANCID on some days), my coworker and I are living the high life. Valet parking, luggage delivery - all that fancy stuff. Today, we plan to visit INDE (Independence National Historic Site) and the King Tut exhibit at the Franklin. We'll take the decidedly tourist transit system, it's only $4 for the day and runs a fixed route around all the tourist stuff, so we can get from one place to the next without much difficulty. Then we get to hunker down and do the professional stuff for this conference.
After this weekend, I head back to visit the parents because its my little brother's graduation this weekend.
I hope to get some pictures from this trip too.
Check out the other two posts below this one.
Take Back the Blog: "in support of the rights of women to participate fully in all aspects of our society, including specifically online in the world of blogging but indeed everywhere and at all times, day and night, without fear of harassment, intimidation, sexual harassment, online stalking and slander, predation or violence of any sort."
Stagehand: You know, you're awfully cute?
Me: You know, that's quite a coincidence. You know why? Because every morning I wake up, look in the mirror, and say "God DAMN! Why do I have to be so damn cute?"
Stagehand: So - You like George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers. You know - Bad to the Bone?
Me: Oh please, he has hell of a lot better songs than that overplayed trite. Plus, is he going to destroy anything while he's here That would be cool.
Stagehand: Well, he destroyed Delaware.
Me: Dude, seriously. Delaware is like, Delaware. You can destroy Delaware, swing down to Rhode Island, have a long lunch, swing by the store for some milk on the way home, and still be able to mow your lawn before the kids get home from school. Is he going to destroy anything while he's here? If he's not, I don't want to talk to you.
Dude: Hey - I think I know you.
Me: Probibly not, man.
Dude: No - I know your grandmother. It's Bettie Page.
Me: Dude - seriously. While that's one of the better lines I've heard all night, you still need some practice on the delivery. Go - elsewhere.
I'm always a few days behind these things.
I would blog about it. But I'm still trying to sort it all out.
Huh...
I don't advocate the oppression, suppression, or repression of anyone for any reason - why am I doing it to myself.
Finally - an update.
I'm not going to continue the past post's train of thought. Too much time has elapsed and I lost it all. Instead, I'm going to do a tardy "Blog Against Sexism Day 2007" post. Why? because I feel like posting, and it seems like a viable topic for this new, thoughtful blog. (Of course, I would attack it in my old blog, but this just seems like a much more viable venue.)
I'm not my mother's feminist
Granted, no one is *my* mother's feminist as she was never one for such "silly" things, and maybe that's why I feel strongly about these race/class/gender issues that tend to weasel their nuances into my work. And feminism and genderism has changed greatly over the years: "the women are people, too" school of thought of the 60s and 70s, the masculanized woman of the 1980s, the man-hating reclamation of feminine virtue of the 90s, and the gender rights "humanism" of the 'aughts.
The one point which always attacks me is the gender-based victimization of individuals. Of course, a good harasser will learn the sensitive points of the victim, but when these points are gender based - a slew of traits which cannot be changed - the victim no longer feels bothered/irritated, but instead feels vulnerable and ashamed. In the same way, many women (me included) have been raised so their "instinctual" action is the polite, "ladylike" one of pleasethankyoudemureglancedown. Yes, the readers laugh, but they have so rarely seen me so far out of my comfort zone that I retreat to these behaviors, which I never realized I was doing and then was reprimanded for being stupid and making bad choices.
Why is this *my* soapbox issue on my late/partial credit BASD Post? Because it is one that has directly effected me. It has influenced my decisions, it even carries over into my behaviors, my worries, and my paranoias. This is why I move my car to just outside my office before dark. Personal genderist attacks have shaped my political and social views, including my feelings on gun control. This is why I, an "independent woman" always tend to seek out some companion (preferably male) if I'm going out in an unfamiliar city. Or, for example, when I interned in the warehouse district of a city, as soon as I got off the bus, I hunched over and pulled a guy's hat down to my ears. Wearing my bulky coat, which protected me from gendered detection as well as the frigid Upstate NY winters, I would rapidly navigate the alleys to my building, passing by the lower echelon of legal and illegal activities. This practice, of course, was not adopted until after I handled a mild incident, but a soothsayer I was and am not and hind site is a great learning tool.
This, in a long hard retrospective look, is also probably why I stayed in that relationship for so long - because this way I had "the devil I knew" in the male next to me. Sure he treated me emotionally like crap, but like he told me, "[I]should be happy, [He] never hit [me]." I could just ignore his comments, but I did not want to ever be hit again. And definitely, being "girl" or even worse, "l'girl," and not a woman, or even Elizabeth (read more about fullness of person-hood later on) has influenced my relationship (or lack thereof) with my parents.
Instead, the bf was there to escort me out of threatening places, even if he was just on the phone. The thought of maleness embodies being a full person, and who in their right mind would ever attack a full person.
Those who are not this sought after "full person" [in this post we focus on gender (not on race or class - sorry, there much be blog days for those topics too)] are those who are not the man's man. Because we are not whole, we do not have a full defense against these genderists. This includes, but is not limited to: women/wimmen/womyn, girls/grrrls, members of the LGBTTQQ community, and even "effeminate" men.
So, what are individuals doing to reclaim the harasser's ammunition? Pet store feminists are reclaiming Bitch and Pussy? The Vagina Monologues, in exposing that word from it's hideyhole of kiddy-speak and slang (peepee, gash, cunt, slit) has placed the word in public parlance again. Perhaps when the Penis Monologues come out, the "PENIS!" game will also lose it's shock value. Cities have their "gayborhoods" (today's new word for me), and some have sex and gender based facilities to protect against such harassers.
I know that inequality is the only constant in social dynamics, but...
Do I view myself as being inferior because my observers see me as such? Or do my observers see me a sub, and open for harassment because I allow them?
(all who are reading, cut the "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" ERoosevelt crap)
The point of this ramble is not to make obvious the need to protect against gender-based harassment, but instead to make obvious the want to remove this gender-based harassment and uneasiness. It is an inherent right for me to walk down the street and feel safe. Yet I have also been raised being told that dealing with such actions, picking myself up afterwards, cleaning up and continuing on with my life is inherent with being female. I am sick of it.
Although an idealist at heart, I am not here to offer a solution, unless re-exposing the topic for maximum observation is a solution. But I refuse to allow it to be forgotten. I'm sure I could pull out some of the many Symbolists sitting in my bookshelf to "support" my point, but this is a blog - not a term paper. Thank you blogger, for giving me a canvas to air my thoughts as a verbal Pollack painting.
edit on 3/16/2007 to tie some points together
I was going to do a blog about the "Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It" article written by CCSU student John Petroski and published as an Op/Ed at his school newspaper. I was going to outline the nuances between the
