Something a friend posted today: I found a lot of truth in this, for me...
"I am not a "disgrace to women" because I don't support the women's march. I do not feel I am a "second class citizen" because I am a woman. I do not feel my voice is "not heard" because I am a woman. I do not feel I am not provided opportunities in this life or in America because I am a woman. I do not feel that I "don't have control of my body or choices" because I am a woman. I do not feel like I am " not respected or undermined" because I am a woman.
I AM a woman.
If you say so. I won't even ask for a genetics test or note from your childhood pediatrician before allowing you to use the same public bathroom I use.
I can make my own choices.
Of course you can! We all make choices every single day. Some of us have more choices than others. Some of us chose to comply with what our husbands and fathers tell us to do. Some of us chose to embrace the current power structure.
Some of us chose to work to extend the same choices and privileges we have always enjoyed to others. Some of us chose to work for equality and justice for all, not merely for those born into white suburban middle class.
I can speak and be heard.
Uh huh. But sweetie, you're kidding yourself if you believe that man of yours hears anything you have to say besides "Yes, dear" and "Dinner's on the table."
Good for you! Do you know
why you can vote?
You can vote because millions of women before you did exactly what millions of women did on Saturday January 21, 2017: They took to the streets and marched. They protested, they spoke out. They demanded the right to vote. Men didn't just nicely decide that they'd throw the girls a bone and let them have the vote.
Well, good for you! So nice of your husband not to object. Do you still get to make dinner every night and see to the children and the laundry? Have you considered whether your hubby is being so nice to let you work because it will make it easier for him to leave you and take his money with him if he decides to trade you in for a newer model? Because it will. But it will also make your life easier if that happens. I truly hope it doesn't. I truly wish you continued happiness. I just also wish the same for other women, children and yes, men, who don't have the same choices available to them as you seem to believe that you have.
My mother and grandmothers and their mothers and grandmothers before them and theirs before them worked, too! Women have always worked! It's nice thought, I won't lie, to be able to have many more choices than my mother had about what sort of work to do. And to be fairly--and equally compensated for it (some of us--not all of us. Not yet.).
Please. No you don't. If you could control your body, you would not be aging right now, as I type this. You would be able to control whether and when to get pregnant and give birth with 100% certainty. Periods would not be uncomfortable or painful or messy. Pregnancy would not be uncomfortable, never life threatening or health threatening and would not involve swollen ankles or stretch marks, leaky bladders or sleepless nights. Childbirth would not involve 24 hrs. of labor, episiotomies, or emergency c-sections. You would not get cancer or diabetes or heart disease or Alzheimer's or any other dementia. Your waist would not thicken or your hips broaden, your hair would not gray or get thinner or coarser. Your ass would remain high and firm and so would your boobs. Without any surgery or filler or injections. You would not get any wrinkles or presbyopia. No widow's hump. No osteoarthritis or osteoporosis.
You can't control your body.
At best, you have access to safe, affordable, accessible and effective birth control (I assume that's what you are talking about, right?) and you don't have to ask your husband's permission to obtain birth control, or beg a doctor.
Do you know why you have that? Because millions of women did exactly what millions of women (world wide, btw, not just in Washington DC or in in the US but WORLDWIDE! Women were fucking protesting IN ANTARCTICA!!!! And Europe and Asia and in South America and in Africa! In Australia! (Thank you WORLD!) did on January 17, 2017:
They took to the streets! They protested! They stood up for themselves, for women, children and men, for the queer and trangendered, for ALL people EVERYWHERE.
Why weren't you there?
I can defend myself.
I can defend my family.
There have always been women warriors, defending themselves, defending those who could not defend themselves. Your interest seems to stop at yourself, your own needs and wants, though.
It's great that your hubby allows you, maybe even encourages you to take self defense classes. But more likely, firearms safety classes. That way you can defend his property --which includes you, btw--against invading black men and bad hombres while he's at the country club. Or cowering under the bed to paralyzed to dial 911.
There is nothing stopping me to do anything in this world but MYSELF.
Congratulations. Then you have zero excuse not to get out there and help those who could use a hand up, or a pat on the shoulder.
Quit thinking about only your self and your self-satisfied existence and go out there and do what the Bible commands that you do: help those who need your help. Because there's a whole world out there who isn't white, middle to upper middle class, or married to a white man with a good, upwardly mobile, stable income and position that commands respect from the world. Who work hard, struggle harder, but whose spouse or partner deserted them or just got terribly sick with some very expensive disease and lost their job and health care or died, leaving her alone to struggle with bills, work, kids, caring for the sick spouse and wondering how it all ended up that way. Don't tell me that doesn't happen. I know people that has happened to, women who work 2 or 3 part time jobs, none with any benefits, to try to keep up with the rent payments, utilities and keep food on the table without having to go to the food shelf. Who pray that their oldest is really old enough to watch the little ones after school when she's at work. Or on weekends and nights at the second and third jobs. Who are deeply, profoundly ashamed to be so grateful for the cut rate frozen turkey that one of her jobs offers at Christmas time, instead of a bonus.
That's not you? Good for you. Would it be you if your husband died? Got really sick with something prolonged, expensive? Lost his job? Lost his insurance? Lost his life?
Because if this truly could never happen to you, thank God for that, and then go out and help someone else. I don't care if it's not your week: go out and do it now. Do it again and again and again, because whether you are aware or not, millions of women before you have done just that so you can sit on your computer and whine about how independent you are in your nice suburban mini-mansion.
I do not blame my circumstances or problems on anything other than my own choices or even that sometimes in life, we don't always get what we want. I take responsibility for myself.
Nobody believes that. For one thing, you are complaining mightily about being distressed by the fact that millions--and there were millions!--of women were out there carrying their weight AND yours on January 21, 2017, and many, many marches, protests and actions before that. While you sit on your sweet white ass in front of a nice computer screen, safely ensconced in the mini mansion that YOU picked out, along along with your stuff from Ikea or Pottery Barn.
I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister, a friend. I am not held back in life but only by the walls I choose to not go over which is a personal choice.
What walls are those that you
choose not to climb over? Why are there walls for anyone? Why not give someone a boost over that wall that you are so loathe to venture to climb yourself? Jealous of their gumption? Of their nerve? Of the fact that they've found something they care about enough to work for. That they don't care who they make uncomfortable? Because trust me: I know exactly how much your little world depends on not making anyone, especially not your husband, uncomfortable.
Doesn't he need a(nother) drink about now? How could you be so neglectful!
You're the only one doing that, and frankly, what you are complaining about is that other people make you think too hard and make you a little bit uncomfortable for a minute or two. Oops: your wine glass is empty. Better have another.
You first. If YOU are uncomfortable by other's actions for justice, maybe you are the problem. Because what I see is millions of women (and their friends) taking responsibility for themselves, for their lives, for demanding justice for ALL of us, not just white men and their (current)wives and children.
If you want to speak, do so.
Nobody needs your permission and nobody asked for it. Quit deluding yourself.
But do not expect for me, a woman, to take you seriously wearing a pink va-jay-jay hat on your head and screaming profanities and bashing men.
No. Stop. Stop it. You did not just write va-jay-jay. Honey, I know you think it's all cool and hip to say because that's what Oprah called it 20 years ago on network TV but no matter what you think, Oprah is not your friend. She's good at making you feel like she is, but honey, she's not.
What you really need to do right now is to learn the correct name for the various parts of your anatomy:
Vagina.
Pudendum
Labia major
Labia minor
Clitoris
Here's a link:
https://www.anatomylibrary.us/anato...nal-female-genitalia-human-anatomy-diagram-2/
Now, right this minute, go lock yourself in that master bedroom of yours and get out a nice big mirror. Lay down on that king sized bed of yours, drop those panties, and look, really look at your self. Yes: down THERE. Identify all of the parts I listed. Use your laptop and that internet link to find the right structures since you seem so unfamiliar with your own anatomy that you cannot even tell that the women were wearing pink hats with cat ears on them, a play on Your Lord and Savior's description of how easy it is to grab women's pussies if you are a rich enough man.
If you have beliefs, and speak to me in a kind matter, I will listen
Clearly, the millions of women marching have very strong beliefs and clearly you have no interest in listening. Oh, you are pretending to be all offended because some have used crude language to express their beliefs, but frankly that's hipocrisy on your part. Your beloved Savior uses far worse language to describe women he doesn't like. Frequently. On video. Well documented. So don't pretend to be all shocked and prudish. You chose it. Live with it.
. But do not expect for me to change my beliefs to suit yours.
FFS, nobody cares what you believe. Nobody believes you even know what you believe since you aren't really interested in thinking very hard about much of anything except how aggrieved you are that someone challenges your pretty little suburban lifestyle. Because that ain't no life, lady.
You first.
How about you start by affording women who are actually willing to work for what they want and need, and for their rights and the rights of others a bit of respect. They're carrying your weight, too. And will keep doing so. At least you could do is actually....learn something. Even if it is only to correctly name your own body parts, your own genitalia.
If you want to impress me,
Nobody gives a shit about impressing you.
especially in regards to women, then speak on the real injustices and tragedies that affect women in foreign countries that do not have the opportunity or means to have their voices heard.
Saudi Arabia, women can't drive, no rights and must always be covered.
China and India, infanticide of baby girls.
Afghanistan, unequal education rights.
Democratic Republic of Congo, where rapes are brutal and women are left to die, or HIV infected and left to care for children alone.
Mali, where women can not escape the torture of genital mutilation.
Pakistan, in tribal areas where women are gang raped to pay for men's crime.
Guatemala, the impoverished female underclass of Guatemala faces domestic violence, rape and the second-highest rate of HIV/AIDS after sub-Saharan Africa. An epidemic of gruesome unsolved murders has left hundreds of women dead, some of their bodies left with hate messages.
And that's just a few examples.
So when women get together in AMERICA and whine they don't have equal rights and they're marching in their clean clothes after eating a hearty breakfast, I have to shake my head. If you want to protest, and as long as it's peaceful have at it; I will not be there."
I do not even know whether to laugh or to cry at this. I will just have to shake my head in wonder and disgust at such a self satisfied, uninformed, sanctimonious statement coming from someone who would break neither a nail nor sweat to come to the aid of a woman.
Maybe a cat. Maybe.
