living in a nervous condition.

OVERLOAD

2010-02-19T01:33:00.002-05:00

sent trades to michael, southpaw, jess, vanessa, jessica, angel, sophie, ivana, greenlight and brandy two days ago. gotta send ones out to tiara, coco, ocean, brianna and amber tomorrow! then 12 or so more packages go to scotland, england, ohio, pennsylvania, texas, australia and other places! sending disto materials to marching stars and things you say as soon as i can figure out media mail shit. also sending preview copies to the alchemist's closet, stranger danger, grrrl germs, take care, sweet candy, and miss valerie park. sheesh!

currently reading: disposable camera, greenlight #6 and six ripped-up pictures from 1990 (my box-outside-the-door trade with chelsea is going strong!).

hoax #2 sneak peak

2010-02-04T03:19:00.000-05:00

ITS GOING TO BE 48 PAGES! SHEEEEEET

purgatory!

2010-01-13T23:21:00.004-05:00

am i excited to go back to school? am i wanting more time with my family? did i accomplish anything over winter break? do i still need to get shit done before the 24th? everything is crazy!

good news:
- erin from things you say distro e-mailed me about potentially carrying you've got a friend in pennsylvania!
- received violet and histamine from adreanne and they are lovely!

bad news:
- i have no copies of ygafip left and only 2 of hoax.!
- i have to wait until the 24th to print more issues out & send the trades i owe!

wow!

2010-01-07T00:42:00.004-05:00

lots has happened since november! i completed my first 24 hour zine, called spicy delight. it is 8 pgs // 1/4 size and an open letter to a man named hasan in my life. i've also started creating 1/4 size notebooks made out of scrap paper, cardstock and string. right now hoax. #2, you've got a friend in pennsylvania #2 and a to-be-titled 1/4 size 6-week journal zine are in the works.

my contributions to hoax.:
- conversation with my perpetrator (potentially triggering)
- remembering my rat dis, who passed away on january 1st
- reflections on my home state of pennsylvania
- piece on illegal immigration
- how my mom feels about my status as a feminist

things that will be in ygafip:
- slovenija diaries part II
- letter to a friend
- 20 things to do in 2010 // 10 things not to do in 2010
- piece on illegal immigration
- meanings of my name
- story about a racist friend
- free-writing about the word "fat"
- remembering dis
- do cool shit with dis (i'm keeping it in there, damnit)

i guess there's some overlap between what will be in #2 for each issue because i think a few of the pieces i've written apply to both zines. they should both be formatted & ready to go by mid-february if everything goes smoothly!

PS. i almost forgot! ten songs, a collaborative zine with my friend asa will have its premier issue out around the same time as well! in each issue, we each pick 10 songs and write whatever we feel about them. i have all of my pieces done, i'm just waiting on asa to finish his so we can format the thing! :)

PERZINE FINISHED

2009-11-09T03:32:00.002-05:00

and finally, its finished! #1 of you've got a friend in pennsylvania is printed and going fast! issue #1 features part 1 of my diary entries from a trip to slovenia, a final letter to an ex-girlfriend, and writings about queer (in)visibility, menstruation in theory and praxis, a talk with my mom, a memory, a story from a friend and DIY tips. 24 pages and text-heavy. asking $2 or trade. [youvegotafriendinpa@gmail.com] or leave a comment :)

ISSUE #1 OF HOAX NOW ONLINE

2009-11-04T04:46:00.002-05:00

finally, i figured out how to make hoax into a pdf file and put it on the infamous zinelibrary! from there you can download it for free. at least give yer feedback if you choose that route! ISSUE #1

<3

MY RADIO SHOW!

2009-10-27T17:36:00.003-04:00

tune in on iTunes: Radio > College / University > Goucher Student Radio or stream it online: http://www.goucher-radio.net/
EVERY TUESDAY @ 6PM EST!

perzine exerpt

2009-10-12T09:18:00.006-04:00

9.15.09

i make the first of my bi-weekly calls to my mom. she’s at work, even after everyone else in her office has left. she works for a non-profit organization for the blind and visually impaired. i ask about her day, how she’s been, what the update is with the new h1n1 sanitizers she’s been hearing about at work. she skimps on details, being that she’s distracted by her never-ending work load and her moderate case of adult ADD. she changes the subject, onto what we believe are more important things; updates on our family. she begins to tell a story.

oh my gosh, sari. did i tell you about grammy? aunt julie and i would have been rollin! grammy met one of her new neighbors, the one that lives above her in richard’s old apartment, remember? she told me, “i met the woman, she’s a CNA.” “yeah”, i replied, “that’s a certified nursing assistant.” “well, i asked her to cut my toenails.” grammy met this woman and asks her, “will you cut my toenails if i pay you?” who does that? isn’t that weird? i guess she asked her cause they do gross stuff. ew! maybe she works in a nursing home and wouldn’t have a problem with it.

after she gives me mini updates on my step-father, younger sister and two dogs, she switches to her other favorite topic: god.

when moses lead the israelites out of the promised land, they wandered in the desert for four years and when they were in one desert, they were bitten by poisonous snakes and started to die. eventually, god said to erect an image of a serpent on a stick and when those that were bitten looked at it, they would be healed. i was reading something that said that god was saying they needed to look at what wounded them in order to be healed; like getting over your fears during therapy. i told this to joann and she said i should expound on it, write about it and i could teach it in church! i really am excited. did you know that the symbol for someone in the medical profession is a snake on a stick? that’s where it comes from.

my mother knows i do not believe in god but chooses to talk of the subject every time we are on the phone. when speaking of my sister and my childhood, she will say that her one regret was that she didn’t keep us in church. i think deep down she knows it wouldn’t have changed anything in me. but maybe it would have kept her from the heavy weight of guilt that has laid upon her since then.

praises for hoax.

2009-09-20T23:54:00.001-04:00

just got this message from someone i mailed hoax. to:

"i just got your zine last night... i love it! anything you can send me, i'd love to read it... i really want to read more. and the thing you wrote about marriage... i've been saying that for a while, too, im just not good at articulating my words, and i never knew that it was created to trade women for things, so i learned something, too. now i have more knowledge in my arsenal to better prove our point. thank you, and please send more."

- carl

the word is out!

2009-09-18T05:16:00.003-04:00

i've been on the wonderful site we make zines connecting with people and setting up trades over the past month that i've been back at school and have gotten some mind-blowing work. i'm currently busy with working on pieces for you've got a friend in pennsylvania because it seems that many people are interested in what i would like to put in the first issue. i'm looking at trading with people as far away as the uk, canada, australia, hawai'i and tasmania!

i got an e-mail tonight asking to consign a certain number of copies of hoax. to be featured/sold through the alchemist's closet, a distro run out of bangor, maine that features works "which explore feminist, trans, queer, leftist, anarchist/anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, occult, punk and DIY subcultures." pretty fucking cool, eh?

if you're interested in a zine or two, feel free to e-mail me : hoaxzine@gmail.com

perzine update

2009-08-19T01:15:00.006-04:00

i've decided to reprint my personal journal entries from my trip to slovenija in three parts (the first three issues of my perzine). in issue #1, i also plan on including pieces about body image, menstrual products, being queer and stories as told by family members. still don't have a name for it. in the interest of keeping the discussion alive, i'm including an excerpt from a journal entry that will be published in #1.

edit: the perzine is called you've got a friend in pennsylvania.

__________________________________________________________________________________

once we got back to celica, a few people ordered beers and decided to throw in the towel for the night. i wanted to check out metelkova and went around with emily. eventually we were approached by a guy named baker, or so he said his friends called him. he was 20, tall and lanky, lived 17km away from ljubljana and worked in archives of a major phone company. just goes to show how necessary it is to be bilingual here. he was drinking shitty wine out of a 2 liter bottle and had crooked teeth but some fucking impressive charm about him. he asked emily and i if we knew who naomi klein, a canadian political analyst, was and tried to explain what she writes about. he brought up the indonesian tsunami and farmers being pushed out of their land to clear it for building hotels and other upscale establishments. i mentioned that things like that happen in amerika and that i was “used to it”. he replied, “well, i don’t blame you for it”. that was the first time that i had to deal with a somewhat amerikan generalization and i wasn’t really too offended. i did find it odd because he insinuated that i would be in some kind of political standing to change that and i figured that since we were both punks that we would see me on the same level in terms of power or influence. after that, he asked me to dance with him. emily and i turned into klub gromka and a steadily more intoxicated baker stumbled after us. it was dark, smoky and flooded with large puddles of beer in random spots on the concrete floor. the music was some kind of killer european techno and i was impressed with the dj. baker stepped outside for a bit and a short older man probably in his late 40s wearing a plaid shirt came over to us with a huge grin on his face and attempted to semi-grind on emily. she started yelling and we decided it was time to take a breather and sit outside. we ended up talking for over an hour about the trip, school and whatever else came to mind. i didn’t really know emily before the trip and only came in contact with her through hanging out with mutual friends. she looks like she time warped from the 1950s due to her affinity for classy dresses, solid headbands and cute chin-length bob haircut. i really enjoyed talking to her and eventually realized that it was 04.00. we promptly went back to the hostel and fell into bed fully clothed, smelling like cigarettes and goofy off of baker’s shared wine.
____________________________________________________________________________________

free-writing about the "fat" issue

2009-08-13T04:25:00.003-04:00

my sister lost a lot of weight recently. she works at a gym and worked out a lot i guess. either way, she obtained an hourglass figure that she and my mother gush over constantly. when sharing pictures of us, my mom gets comments about a_____ ranging from “she looks just like you!” to “oh my god, she’s so beautiful!” mine are more like “do you mind that her hair is that color?” to “well, she does go to a liberal arts school”. i don’t really care that i’m not complemented the same way (or at all) but its an interesting contrast.

i heard once that a mother’s relationship with body image, food and eating habits will be passed onto her female-born children whether they intend to or not. while i see how this “fact” can be used as justification for girls’ insecurity about themselves (everything is always the female parent’s fault, etc.) i do think its true in my case. after my parents divorced when i was nine my mom dated a lot. she was always worrying about looking good for dates/her boyfriends and always asked my sister and i if she looked okay before going out. she was super thin, face all jaunty and bony, and still thought she could “look better” or be in “better shape”, even then. i didn’t know how that was even possible: she was really active, loved to go hiking and just being outdoors, and didn’t really eat sugar. we never had soda or candy in the house when i was growing up anyway.

now, my mom is curvier than she was when i was younger and it really bothers her. she’s constantly buying weight-loss books and magazines and cookbooks and watching tv shows like “cook yourself thin”. all she’s really doing is surrounding herself with more propaganda to make her feel inferior, like she somehow failed as a woman somewhere down the line. that’s what all of that bullshit is about in the media. she also made a posterboard with pictures of emaciated women in bathing suits or jogging outfits pasted next to words like “willpower” and “skinny” and “i lost 30 pounds in 14 weeks!” i understand that my mom wants “motivation” or whatever but i don’t think it’s the proper way to go about it.

all the women on my mom’s side of the family have always been naturally curvy or heavy-set. its fucking genetic and we all know it. my grandmother is obese and has extremely detrimental health problems because of it. i think my mother fears that she will end up like her someday. because of these facts, i have been instilled with ideals of fat phobia. to be fat means being sloppy, poor, unhealthy, unattractive, etc. every time my mom says things like “if only i lost x pounds” or “when i lose x pounds then i’ll be attractive again”, it seems like weight is a black and white issue: fat or thin. there is no in-between for my family. this is affirmed by whether or not my mom says something about my physique whenever i visit on school breaks or weekends. if i look “thin”, she says “oh my god, you look so great/beautiful/pretty, i’m jealous!” or “i wish i could wear that size”. if i look “fat”, she’s more prone to just ask questions about school and how my classes are going. i’ve learned to be extremely conscious about my appearance whenever i visit her because i subconsciously connect my worth to it. yes, even though i am a feminist, i still have these hang ups. i am jealous of the fact that my sister is thinner (read: inherently more attractive and worthy in that aspect) than i am. i am angry that my mother gives her more compliments than she does me. realizing all of this can only lead to overcoming the issues i have and reiterating the fact that thin does not mean healthy, good, beautiful or whatever else.

i’m still really confused about the whole fat being unhealthy issue. yeah, for people like my grandmother, it is really unhealthy. but for a lot of people it isn’t. i see genetic predispositions as affecting health in this regard. naturally thin people are not always healthy and genetically fat people are not always unhealthy. my latest ex-boyfriend equated thinness with health and was unashamed about it. he constantly commented that he didn’t want to get fat and saw it as some kind of death sentence. he had severe body image issues in high school and i don’t think he ever got over them. after bringing up the fact that fat does not equal unhealthy, he retorted “well, it usually does”. here i was, coming from an entire family of heavy-set or fat women and men who for the most part lived long, fulfilling lives and he was telling me that fat mostly means heath problems. he totally projected negative stereotypes on fat people, which made me wonder why he was dating me. i’m not stick thin, but not obese, so where the fuck did i fit in that? and where did he start with the “fat” label anyway? apparently i was just under that line and henceforth in the “healthy” category along side of him. good to know i was on the valued/not stereotyped team.

fat is not a bad word. fat is not a bad thing. everyone has different notions of what weight classifies one as “fat” anyway. to many, i am in between fat and thin. to me, the lines aren’t so distinctively drawn. i have to keep realizing that only my own perception of myself matters. who gives a fuck about body mass, seriously?

hoax #1 done

2009-08-10T04:16:00.003-04:00

for all intensive purposes, issue #1 of hoax is totally done. i edited the shit out of it and its about as good as its gonna get, seriously. soon i will be transferring the file to pdf so it can be downloaded for free at zinelibrary.info and such. i'm also up fer trades! rachel and i have been discussing topics for issue #2 and we're considering the theory/practice debate but we'd have a lot of things to discuss before we can adequately say it would be a full, successful issue.

i think for my perzine i'm going to have issue #1 be my journal entries from the trip to slovenia. i'll see how i feel about it. its taking a backseat to the other two at the moment.

new zines in the works!

2009-07-28T02:21:00.005-04:00

yes, i know i still have hoax to finish (one more article formatted!) and i've been on a zine high for the last month or so but i have decided to do two other zines.

i will be doing a perzine about my life. i'm not really sure what it'll be all about (maybe like doris if i'm that fucking awesome) but i do know that i'd like to do something like this. it'll be super easy to do, won't take much time and will help me to get some shit out on paper. i think it'll be called craig but i'm not sure.

i've also recently signed up to do a to-be-titled zine with asa. we will each pick 10 random songs and write reflections about each one. it is meant to be a way to make a concrete connection between audio and visual communication as well as the different responses that arise with each individual's relationship to music. i think this will be successful since asa and i talk a lot about music (he's a big nerd) and we're both really into writing. he's brought up the idea of including a CD-R with each zine and that's a big step for me. i think it will also be relatively simple to put together since it'll be pretty dense material.

expect hoax. to be printed in the beginning of august. i'll be in canada//new england for a week or two starting aug 2nd. see you after!

hoax: issue #1 sneak peek

2009-07-21T03:26:00.010-04:00

here are the articles that have already been formatted for issue #1:

what the hell is a poly?
this is NOT "reverse sexism": a rebuttal
till death do ya part? analyzing the marriage (industrial) complex
money & power as zero sum game in hetero relationships
i'm not a feminist, but...
the original myspace: some notes i jotted down (on womyn's only spaces)
i heart feminists
tales of a feminist, straight, respectful male: they ain't just in fiction, promise
trust me, i'm a doctor: douche bags and jerks
the accidental polyamorist: a narrative essay
ghost world
pussies and balls: a drunken rant
krzyzstof's kitchen
unsug feminist hero: bicycles!

i will be finishing up two or three other pieces to throw in as well as suggested readings and such. please leave your contact information if you would like to be notified when the zine is finished!

the cover for #1:

in the mean time, READ SOME FUCKING ZINES!
zinelibrary.info

okay, actual progress!

2009-07-06T14:26:00.001-04:00

i've finally had the time to work on the new zine! there are a handful of people who have signed up to submit things and hopefully everything will go through. the first issue's theme is relationships and the deadline is july 18th. i hope to get the issue done by the end of july! even if it is done by then i'm not sure when issue #2 will be out, since i'm tryin to do some traveling the 2nd half of august.

stay tuned!

stream of conciousness.

2009-06-23T17:47:00.001-04:00

i had to do an exercise for a study abroad reflection that was just writing whatever came to mind. thought i'd share it.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Communication is supposedly the key to keeping a good relationship. I didn’t think it would be related to a new friendship or to someone I had just met. Half the time in Slovenia I was so happy that I did not speak the language because I have always wanted to know what it would be like to be in a culture that I was unfamiliar with. I wanted to be the alien, the outsider, the silently hated. I was excited to walk around Ljubljana and not understand signs, shops and people. Despite my yearning for misunderstandings I met a few men that had an innate drive to get me. I was learning that men, no matter where they are from, are imbibed with a sense of entitlement when it comes to women. Even though I was a naïve college student from America they assumed that I was interested in talking to them. A lot of assumptions come about when meeting new people and studying abroad. You assume that you’ll have the time of your life, meet wonderful people and love what you’re doing. For men, you assume women will want to talk to you. For women, you assume that foreign men will get the hint. Being foreign meant I was even more vulnerable than I was in the states. I didn’t know how to act around people. I didn’t know what things we had in common. Would she/he get my joke? Would she/he understand the word I was using? All the colors at metelkova were blinding me even at night. Not a square inch of the place was uncovered with graffiti, art and poor excuses for some kind of visual aesthetics. The smells there were cleaner and dirtier at the same time. Great quality air mixed with the stench of beer cans, rotting cigarette butts and smelly kids. Every day I woke up in anticipation of returning there; to explore, to visit mor at the second hand shop, to hopefully taste the ice cold pivo that night, to try and work up the courage to talk to someone new. By the end of the trip I was sick of waiting to meet others and started initiating conversations on my own. I finally talked to mile and discovered that he was a very bland guy. At one point he said “that’s because you are a punk, just like me”, assuming that we had more commonalities than differences. And I think he was right. Being a punk transcends boundaries of countries or language or ethnicity or upbringing. We all have instincts about how to take care of ourselves, carry ourselves, react to injustices and treat others. Sure, some of us are assholes. Like baker, who outwardly admitted to bugging us because he wanted to “fuck foreigners, like a tourist sport”. Yeah, assholes are everywhere. Just like saints, right? I don’t regret anything on that trip. If anything, not being crazy enough. My first time in Europe, chillin with people I knew from the fucking states instead of being outgoing and interesting and funny and entertaining and attracting people to me with my personality with a gravitational pull of its own. I loved sitting with Emily until 4am and talking about the changes in our lives and how we saw ourselves when we get home but did I miss out on anything else? Do new friendships with goucher students matter more than striking up a friendship with someone that I was fairly sure I would never see again? I love the friends that I made and am so glad that 3 of them have wanted to keep in contact with me. I’m also thinking about how people think they’re going to mesh with others and choose to talk to someone. Being a sociology major, I am interested in why people act a certain way. Like why I never wore sun screen in the hot fucking weather walking around all day long baking under the yellow sun. when they said it was like Baltimore I laughed, calling bullshit. But when I got there the only thing I was saying was “oh shit”. Packing light was the greatest thing I could have done and I really surprised myself at the discovery of how little I would need and how much I could fit in my suitcase for the journey home. I even brought back my prized possessions, my new Orleans shoes that I totally expected to throw in a river or toss onto a roof or hang from a tree in Ljubljana, sending them to their death. If they were going to die, they were going to see Europe. I was actually relieved that I could bring them home.

i'm back!

2009-06-18T19:31:00.002-04:00

check out my deviantart for some pictures: saeri

i've been reading a lot lately and have been inspired by some stuff. i hope to write it down soon. in other news, i should be working on the zine by next week. :)

ps. i got a tumblr, whatever the fuck that is. i got 2 wicked mix cd's from a friend in slovenija and hope to put some awesome tracks up. slovenian crust & hardcore punk! check it

slovenija!

2009-06-03T10:47:00.002-04:00

i'm in slovenija and have been here for 2 weeks now. i've been doing tons of stuff with my fellow students and we are working towards making a website for METELKOVA, a cultural center here in ljubljana. please check out our communal blog about or experiences!

gouchermetelkova.blogspot.com

ill post something angry later, i swear!

busy!

2009-05-17T02:42:00.004-04:00

so i'm a slacker. i just finished with school yesterday and am preparing to go to slovenia on tuesday! i'll be there for 3 weeks and its gonna be awesome. i have a travel blog (lame, i know) that i will be updating as much as possible. when i get back, i will hopefully be able to post some papers that i wrote this semester as well as musings i come up with on the way.

travel blog link

to make up for the loss, here are some pictures of our newest family addition: emerson!

seeing what isn't there.

2009-04-25T21:49:00.003-04:00

i've realized that when i talk about misogyny and point out men's unfair behavior, they tend to act like i'm haley joel osment in the sixth sense; i can see proverbial 'ghosts' of accepted sexist actions and expectations but they can't, so i am told that i "nitpick" and "read too far into things". since most men don't have a built-in receptor for these things they see them as obsolete. white heterosexual men are the unmarked bodies of american culture and see themselves as the inherent norm to judge any kind of deviant characteristics off of.

its like a horror movie when the audience sees a killer/evil force/bad thing going after completely oblivious main character(s)/victim(s). you get anxious, want to warn them, possibly yell at the screen, but it happens anyway. that's what i feel like. i'm trying to point out destructive behavior that hurts all types of people and i am ignored. or waived off as too politically correct.

quick update.

2009-04-07T22:15:00.006-04:00

when talking to my friends about how they're doing in school, they always seem to say, "well, you're really involved in extra-curriculars, aren't you?"

i work 2 days a week plus just got a 2nd job that will end up being a summer job as well. i now volunteer at house of ruth once a week. i just got finished co-directing the vagina monologues. i'm helping organize my campus' take back the night. i'm a moderator for humans vs zombies (which was started at my school). i'm the treasurer of the feminist majority leadership alliance on campus. "hoax" is still in the works and has only layout setbacks. i'm working on a group project on women and the environment. i'm doing research on scientific bias in PMS.

so yeah, i'm busy as shit, and i didn't really realize it until now.
please excuse my lack of posts.

breaking news:
i just got asked to be the senior writer for the women's studies department's newsletter. goddamn it.

great news!

2009-03-23T05:09:00.002-04:00

my friend rachel and i have decided to collaborate on a purely feminist-centered zine called hoax. we have most of our material written but are clueless in the area of layout (as punk as cut-n-paste is, we want to save as many trees as possible). hopefully we will have the first issue out in a few weeks and will be selling it for a buck or two at local record shops. i'm so excited!

adbusting.

2009-03-16T01:12:00.004-04:00

last week, the feminist club on my campus that i am a part of sponsored an adbust on campus! adbusting is a process of taking a print ad and "busting" it by pointing out flaws, taking it literally or adding humorous commentary to it. in general, the point is to expose blatant elements of sexism, racism, homophobia, classism and so forth. i'll post some that i thought were especially funny.

women as heads of household.

2009-03-02T15:55:00.009-05:00

so, i stumbled across this article on cnn.com which talks about how the american economic recession has led to thousands of men losing their jobs and will lead to women being more visible in the working force by default (as if women aren't the last ones hired and first ones fired). other than showing how men are so hurt by this, it goes on to give 6 examples of how women being in the superior financial position is hurting their relationships! the horror!

woman #1 is upset that her live-in boyfriend is now "needy". how terrible! aren't men supposed to be strong and supportive and assertive and independent and all those other things related to masculinity? god forbid the guy is depressed, looking for support and is exerting some "typical" female characteristics. i wouldn't be surprised if this woman eventually tells him to 'stop acting like a girl' at some point.

woman #2 talks about a heartbreaking situation in which her boyfriend had to move to boston, his hometown, to find work. maybe the problem isn't that he had to move to the other side of the country, but that he looked for work there. did he try anywhere in the greater california area? either way, he shouldn't be blamed for moving; i think the issue they're trying to portray is that the female didn't relocate with him.

woman #3 describes all of the "new" responsibilities that her husband must take on since he is now the person who is home the most; essentially doing all the chores and other shit work around the house that greater society believes should be undertaken by women. why the hell is it so bad that he is "now responsible" for these things? are you jealous that you have help around the house now?

woman #4 comes home from her full-time job to find that her fiance hasn't done anything around the house and opted to play video games all day instead. um, actually, the problem is with your fiance being a lazy bastard, not with you having a stable job! if he can't get off his ass and do work at home, its obvious that he thinks its a woman's job and he's too good for it which also says a lot about how he views women in general.

woman #5 is pregnant and dealing with a newly-unemployed husband as well as the fact that she only has four weeks of paid maternity leave. real issue: women not getting longer maternity leave! if she was able to get a few months off, like all parents of both sex should, her husband's situation wouldn't be as much of a burden on either of them. why isn't maternity leave brought up as the main factor in this equation?

woman #6 explains her conflicting role between being a good little wife and supporting her man or being "like an overbearing mom" and "nagging" him about getting a job. i see nothing wrong with casually asking to help with finding him a job. if he is unable to find something on his own it may help to have another person looking; that's twice as much attention paid to openings. they should take something that is difficult in their relationship and turn it into something they can work together on. if they're in a household that requires two people to work outside of the home then they both need to pull their own weight. she should put herself in his position and think about how she would like him to act.

hopefully after skimming the article and reading my little breakdowns you get the gist of how gender roles are still rigily placed upon the labor market. notice how fear of emasculation is a main factor. how come we only see editorial pieces about how much staying at home and being unemployed sucks when men are the ones experiencing it? also, see how this is meant to scare women back into the inferior financial role. this is essentially saying if a woman is head of house, then her intimate sexual relationship will suffer. this plays off of the stereotype that women put men first and men put work first. its 2009. women work outside of the home. sometimes men get laid off and women still work. deal with it. should women have to quit their jobs too to make men feel better about themselves?

grrrls, there is nothing wrong with making more money than your partner. the only problem lies in what other people think your relationship should constitute. get out there and get that paper!

good news!

2009-02-23T19:46:00.004-05:00

on friday, senate bill 195 was opposed in maryland! here's some information from NARAL pro-choice maryland:

Anti-choice Senators Bryan Simonaire and Janet Greenip introduced a dangerous bill affecting abortion provision in Maryland. SB-195 would have created a scripted protocol for abortion providers using ultrasound, inserting politics into dialogue between a woman and her health care provider. Fortunately, this bill quickly failed in the Senate Finance Committee by a vote of 9-2!

SB-195 wrongly implied that Maryland women are not making informed decisions about abortion. Maryland abortion providers provide compassionate care to the women they serve without political interference. The supporters of SB-195 misleadingly claimed that the measure would reduce abortion; however, SB-195 was in fact a thinly veiled attempt to chip away at a woman’s right to choose in Maryland.

- This legislation created medically unjustified legislation interfering with how doctors care for their patients.

- SB-195 targeted abortion providers for additional requirements that are not imposed on any other medical procedure or specialty.

- Maryland policy makers need to focus on the real problem of unplanned pregnancy in Maryland instead of politicizing private health care decisions.

this was just a ploy to try to get women to realize their "mistake" of getting an abortion by being forced to see the leeching mass inside of their uterus before going through the procedure. that's like forcing meat eaters to look at a picture of the animal they desire to eat before they consume it. leave people the fuck alone with their personal decisions; if they want to do something badly enough, its going to happen.

givin props where props is due.

2009-02-15T14:03:00.002-05:00

for a long-ass time now, i've been downloading off of some blogs that have some premium crust, grind, etc. music and its about time that i pass on the knowledge. i love these sites and dl off them regularly. please visit and support them accordingly:

Crustmas
Crustcracker
7inchcrust
Cephalochromoscope
Finnish Obscurity
anthems from the alleyways
Punk Not Profit

bitch vs. nigger.

2009-01-24T19:57:00.011-05:00

this blog was originally started as an open forum for publishing and getting feed back on little articles and so-called essays that i have written over the years in order to get myself organized for compiling them into a zine. if you check the older entries, i put out one issue. since then, i've been too busy to write much other than what is needed for classes and my entries eventually came to a halt. i can't promise this won't happen again in the near future but i will make the effort to at least use this public blog to discuss my current situation.
now, back to controversial topics!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

last night, my friend johnny and i were talking when our friend j's roommate nameless came in the room to use the computer. he had been drinking steadily throughout the night and apparently wasn't in the best of spirits. he had started scoping out his ex's myspace page and looking at her friends list, eventually coming to her best friend. "this is the person i hate most in the entire world", he commented, as he pointed to her picture. johnny and i inquired as to why this was so, to which he told us about her involvement in supposedly getting his last girlfriend to break up with him because "she told her to". we mumbled our obligated apologies, thinking that in his drunken state he would soon go back to minding his own business. then, out of nowhere, this happened:

nameless: "you know, she's a fucking nigger. she's black."
johnny and i: "what fucking right do you have to say that?"
nameless: ""nigger" means a person who is annoying, intolerable and dispicable [paraphrased]. she's a bitch."
crg: "why do you have to say nigger, then? why can't you just say she's a bitch?"

johnny and i went on to dually scold him on his mindset while half-threatening to beat his racist tendencies out of him (i interviewed johnny about his status as an immigrant from spain who now has citizenship and his experiences with racism; it can be found here). nameless eventually left the house to get something to eat, thus neutralizing the situation.

in hidsight, my reaction surprised me. i have always made concious efforts to confront ignorant white people about their fucking idiotic beliefs. i have never, however, told a man that he should use the word bitch. in my eyes, a man calling a woman a bitch is just as offensive as a white person calling a black person a nigger. both words mean specific things and refer to a specific minority group. on television, bitch is extremely acceptable to say, defined one of two ways: 1. a man who acts like a woman (frail, pusillanimous (the basis for the word "pussy"), weak, whiny, etc.) or 2. a woman who acts like a man (headstrong, determined, unapologetic, assertive, etc.). i couldn't give a shit less that popular culture finds this word to be so all-encompassing. the original connotation is fucking insulting. being female, i think this word should be used exclusively between women, much the same as nigger is between black people.

i also believe that americans need to start questioning why it is deemed acceptable for a man to call a woman a bitch but it is severely ignorant and racist for a white person to call a black person a nigger. most white people i know would never dream of doing such a thing, but just about all of my dude friends have called girls bitches before. i have considered this dichotomy and i think i know why this is. whites fear blacks will respond with physical violence, while men expect women to not respond in any way; possibly only "bitching" about it, thus proving their point. each insult and belief about acceptability is a representation of fear and discrimination, whether it be fear of something you are unfamiliar with and have prejudice about or refrain from using a word out of fear of bodily harm.

i suppose that i reacted in the way that i did because i would have rather heard a white man call a black girl a bitch than a nigger, no matter how against my beliefs using either word is. in my head i probably quickly rationalized this in an attempt to get him off the subject and make him reconsider his beliefs. in retrospect, i should have scolded him for using either word. neither of them should have came out of his mouth. i'm now experiencing the cliche "won the battle but lost the war" feeling. i may have shut him up about racism, but i failed in the area of sexism, something a feminist like myself tends to go after first.

the whole situation was fucked up but every time something like this happens, it only strengthens my reactions for the next time i am in a similar situation and helps me to ask more questions about racist and sexist ideologies. women need to stand up for themselves to prove to sexist men that we will not be stepped on. non-white persons need to stand up to prove to racist persons that they will not be stepped on. white allies and male allies are needed to help expose these prejudices as well. fear should not dictate how we respond to things.

it goes fast.

2009-01-24T00:57:00.007-05:00

i'm planning on taking 6 classes this semester!:

Science & Gender
Psych Lab
Contemporary Feminisms
Seminar on Gender Identity in the US 1849-1965
Law and Society
Wellness

i'm proud of my class list because they say something about who i am. i know i get a lot of shit from my friends in the punk scene for going to college (apparently wanting an education just isn't cool or something). i know that i'm gonna be in debt for the rest of my natural life but i see going to college as a necessity. i'm the first person in my family to go to college and last semester i busted my ass and earned 4 a's and 1 b; i think that's something to be proud of.
this semester, in addition to 6 classes, i'll be working a couple nights a week, doing the radio show, starting up kickball again and have begun considering going out for the ultimate team. either way, i'm going to be busy as hell straight up until i leave for slovenia & croatia in mid-may. i hate boredom.

anyway, i went to my friend jordan's place tonight. he called around 2am and i wasn't going to go, but i decided that i should see my friends while i am at home. i'm glad i went. i got to see my great friend johnny, whom i talked with for most of my time there and is always good to have intellectual, deep conversations with. it was nice to talk to someone that i've known for a long time as well as someone that could relate to me in areas such as traveling and moving around a lot. speaking of traveling, i'm gonna post some more pictures. :)

max enjoying some open fields

our friends nat and calvin's house, which is yet to be deemed liveable

i saw many of these signs around town

max at an art collective

free standing art piece called ladder and window

aline waiting for work

home.

2009-01-23T03:05:00.014-05:00

i am finally grounded, back to where i have called home for most of my life. i was in new orleans for almost a month and as cliche as it is to say, it changed me. giving my time selflessly by volunteering made me realize how fortunate and privileged i am. it has helped me to put things into perspective and get my priorities straightened out. i've wanted to write an all-encompassing entry about my experience , but its proving to be much harder than i thought. i was there for over 3 weeks and seemed to pack so much living into such a short amount of time, even though "time" sort-of stood still for me while i was there.

i want to let people know what it feels like to walk through the lower 9th and see where the levee broke, right there, in your fucking face, and think about what absolute terror feels like, but i know i can't. i'd like to re-tell the stories that i heard from local residents about how their lifelong friends died, but its too gruesome. i wish i could put into words what it meant to me to be able to selflessly help people (and animals) for three long weeks straight, but i'm at a loss. i don't know if its my belief that no one wants to listen or that i'm bad with getting it out there.

enjoy the photos instead.

bridge dividing lower and upper 9th wards

lake pontchartrain

tree by the bayou

bench in the night lights of the french quarter

in a haunted condemned courthouse/school

port of st. bernard smokestack

tag in french quarter

old tracks on st. claude street

french quarter at night

live oaks

typical destroyed business

lonely little guy in an animal shelter

i'm so free.

On The Road Again

2008-12-10T03:26:00.003-05:00

Well, its almost quittin' time here at college. I've got a paper and a final to do next week and then I'm finished for the semester! Luckily, I will be avoiding the endless void that is contemplation of how to get through winter break unscathed by complaints of my lack of activities. I made plans instead!

On December 21st, I will be driving down to New Orleans with two friends from school on a sponsored trip in order to help out with an organization called Hands On New Orleans. We will be staying in housing for volunteers and working closely with members of the community on rebuilding efforts until our tentative date of return, which is January 17th at this point. This is a big deal, considering my spring semester starts 10 days later!

I am very thankful for the opportunity to take part in the trip and hope that it will be a positive experience.

Rape-Acceptance in College-Aged Men

2008-11-18T11:47:00.008-05:00

Alright, since I'd like to start using this damn thing more often, this is an issue many people don't want to talk about, and I'm also pretty proud of this, I'm going to post a paper that I recently wrote for an English class.
______________________________________________________________________

“Over the course of a college career, one fifth to one quarter of women may experience a completed or attempted rape” (O’Donohue et al. 513). Being that the offenders in this statistic are predominantly male, there have been several research efforts aimed at figuring out why certain college-aged men have a propensity to commit acts of sexual violence. A combined effort of recognizing external influences, analyzing internalized beliefs and utilizing proper preventative techniques could bring about a solution to this issue.

One belief held by sociologists is that individual sexual offenders are heavily influenced by with whom they associate. Martin notes that in several rape cases, external persuasions tend to be a larger motivator than one’s personal attributes (457). Our families, peers, learning institutions and the media are all agents of socialization that help mold our personal beliefs and values. In particular, peer groups and close friends act as sources of affirmation and reinforcement of individual actions for college-aged men.

Fraternities have a strong presence on most college campuses nationwide. Men pledge annually to hundreds of these organizations in hopes of becoming a member and benefiting in several ways: obtaining brotherhood, life-long friendships, community activities, a sense of identity, dedication and other appealing ends. Most go through hazing rituals and other embarrassing rush activities aimed at forcing hopefuls to prove their allegiance. Unfortunately, this allegiance can also have a very dark side in regards to sexual violence.

“Over 90 percent of gang rapes that take place on college campuses involve fraternity members” (Martin 458). Because this figure is so large, studies have been conducted in order to view fraternities as social contexts in which college men learn deviant behavior. In a study conducted by Martin et al., it was found that fraternities are concerned with masculinity above all else; brothers strive to only allow athletic, handsome, affluent and strictly heterosexual men. Feminine qualities are intensely denounced (Martin 460). There is also a large influence on men to be caustic towards women, view them strictly as mediums of sexual activity and props to be used to entice new members to join. “Practices associated with fraternity brotherhood that contribute to the sexual coercion of women include a preoccupation with loyalty, group protection and secrecy, use of alcohol as a weapon, involvement in violence and physical force, and an emphasis on competition and superiority” (Martin 463). These values, as discussed earlier, act as a double-edged sword for many fraternity men and can lead to sexual violence.

In order to escape responsibility for their actions, college-age men who commit rape often use different means to deflect blame from themselves. One popular way of doing so is to find solace in rape myths: stereotypical and prejudicial beliefs about rape and related situations (Burgess 974). If a young adult is already under the impression that forced sexual contact is appropriate behavior, it is expected that he will have a higher propensity to engage in sexual violence. Men who actively adhere to these rape myths hold a higher likelihood to be sexually deviant, approve of sexual assault and repeat offences if unlikely to face charges (O’Donohue 516).

Another way perpetrators of sexual violence deflect personal responsibility is through blaming the victim. This stance suggests that “college men felt victimized, under the control of women’s sexual provocations, and that not enough responsibility was attributed to women’s seductive actions or appearance in situations of sexual assault” (Burgess 988). This is a way in which men may try to come off as innocent parties subject to whatever whims women may wish on them.

To properly combat these beliefs and excuses, much can be done. The first thing that should be investigated is masculinity in American society; one must question why it stresses misogyny and violence against women. Americans should also examine why some men seem to blindly accept all ends of it without questioning the means as well as why the general meaning of “manhood” is so restricted. Next, methods of intervention should be implemented for these actions, like counseling or assault prevention education. These “should teach men a broader view of potential sexual (and/or relating to women) activity, which has respect as an integral part” (Burgess 991). This counseling should also inform men on how to properly interpret signs given by women, how alcohol is indeed used as a weapon and how to utilize different means of seduction and courtship (Burgess 991). In the past, the majority of rape preventive measures have been directed at women (O’Donohue et al 529) which seems to place more responsibility on them for an action that is undesirable and not done by their own wishes. Comprehensive education for both genders is vital to de-socializing men from such offensive and destructive behaviors and beliefs.

Sources

Burgess, Gerald H. “Assessment of Rape-Supportive Attitudes and Beliefs in College Men: Development, Reliability, and Validity of the Rape Attitudes and Beliefs Scale.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 22.973 (2007): 973-993.

Martin, Patricia Yancey and Robert A. Hummer. “Fraternities and Rape on Campus.” Gender and Society 3.4 (1989): 457-473.

O’Donohue, William, Elizabeth A. Yeater and Matthew Fanetti. “Rape Prevention With College Males: The Roles of Rape Myth Acceptance, Victim Empathy, and Outcome Expectancies.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 18.813 (2003): 513- 531.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Expect more papers to come!

That Takes Ovaries!

2008-11-03T21:06:00.008-05:00

On a high from a kickass book I just finished entitled "That Takes Ovaries!" [a collection of real tales from girls in which they acted out, made a difference or stood up for themselves], I have decided to include a story about something that happened to me a few months ago.

I was in a section of Baltimore for a little festival with 5 other girls from my college. We had a great time visiting open-air cafes, digging through random items laid out by street vendors and listening to some interesting live bands. At one point, the 6 of us were sitting on a small half-wall in front of a 7-Eleven in anticipation of the next musical act. I happened to look down the block and see a white man around his mid- to late-20s approaching us with a huge, American History X-esque swastika tattoo on his upper left chest. Being that our group comprised of a few Jewish girls and an Asian, I knew I had to say something to this man. As he passed me, I craned my neck out to grab his attention. As our eyes met, I said "Nice tattoo, asshole" to which he started rambling things in very messy Ebonics. He continued to say unintelligible things down the remainder of the block as I repeated "What? I can't fucking understand you!" At this point we had begun to draw an audience and in an attempt to come out on top, he up walked half a block back to me to keep repeating himself. Finally, he said "Whatever, bitch." I responded with "That's right, I am a fucking bitch, and you're white trash so go the fuck home." Seeing that he wasn't going to get the victory he thought he deserved, he sulked up the remainder of the block and disappeared. About 2 minutes later a couple of cops showed up and surveyed the scene probably because of what had gone on between us.

Upon returning to school I told this story to a table full of people I was sitting with, all but one whom showed pride at my action. The odd man out commented that what I had done was a "total waste of time" because no matter what I said I "never could have changed his mind". He also went on to ask why I didn't "ask him to have a civilized conversation instead". Fuming at what I had seen earlier as well as what I had just heard, I was about to go apeshit on the guy. Luckily, a friend jumped in and commented that he was doing the exact same thing by telling me that I was wrong and that he would never be able to sway my opinion either!

At the end of the day, I think what I did was right. I did not simply ask him to chat because people who believe in racial superiority in the first place tend to disregard any kind of scientific research or facts anyway. My intention was to let him know that he was not welcome around me in a quick, cutting remark which worked. I refused to let this man pass by me unscathed; we were in fucking Baltimore, a predominantly black city! Appalled by the thought that no one had called him out before me, I jumped at the chance. I recommend that anyone in any kind of similar situation do the same!

Remember: silence = acceptance. You have vocal cords, so put them to good use!

Holy Shit, I Hate Sarah Palin

2008-09-24T11:24:00.011-04:00

It's true. I know this may be confusing. For some reason, I've consistently been questioned by why I do not like her. She has a vulva, so we must have things in common, right? Actually, not much more than that 2nd X chromosome. Here are a few things that I know about Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin:

- Elected as Governor in 2006 and previous political history includes being mayor of her hometown of about 6,700 people (Wasilla)
- Youngest person and first female to become Governor of Alaska
- Strongly opposes abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and when the woman's life is in danger
- Has a lifelong membership with the NRA
- Enjoys slaughtering animals for sport and helped Alaska to sue over polar bears being declared endangered because it would "cripple offshore oil and gas development"
- Supported Alaskan legislature that would allow wolves to be hunted from airplanes
- Believes marriage to be solely between one man and one woman
- Free market capitalist
- Part of the Alaskan Independence Party, who would like to secede from the United States
- Chief achievement in any office was 2006 award from the National Arbor Day Foundation
- Currently under investigation by state lawmakers over the dismissal of a public safety commissioner, who allegedly did not fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper who is currently in a custody battle with her younger sister
- Married to a BP oil field production operator
- Claims to be unaware of Wasilla policy on treating rape victims that would charge them up to $1200 to be able to obtain a DNA evidence kit in order to put their attacker to justice
- Lies about Alaska supplying 20% of U.S. energy
- "When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."" [Source]

Palin's gender has nothing to do with her political background. I thought Obama's rep was meager until I heard about this woman. She is wholly inexperienced and has never dealt with big issues such as foreign policy. There is no doubt that she will attempt to work with McCain in order to achieve his dream of overturning Roe v. Wade as well as making sure that gay rights are not synonymous with civil rights. She is an animal killer who is married to a fucking oil field producer; think the situation about renewable energy will get any better? She openly admits to not knowing anything about what the VP even does! Have we ever elected a male as president who has done the same?

It is blatantly obvious that she was chosen as a running mate to give McCain one last headliner over Obama as well as attempt to win over Hillary supporters. His choice of Palin was purely positive discrimination. McCain was surrounded by plenty of experienced politicians and yet, he picked the girl just to give his ticket some good ol' diversity as well. McCain is not progressive or a political "maverick". His campaign is sexist and just struggling to adapt to the standards that Obama's nomination has set. Even the National Organization for Women is endorsing Obama!

Its well known that I am a hardcore feminist but I rue the day that this woman steps foot into the White House.

Other helpful sources:

***Women Against Sarah Palin.org***
FactCheck.org
Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention
Palin's Biography
Women Against Sarah Palin Blog
Examining Palin's Record on Violence Against Women
'Sarah Palin Feminism'? More Like Sarah Palin Sexism
Sarah Palin's History of Indifference to Sexual Assault

On Being a Man

2008-08-20T00:13:00.009-04:00

Luckily, the students at my college are open-minded. When I considered participating in the school’s annual Drag Ball, no one laughed at the thought, no one questioned my orientation. Even though it is more acceptable for a female to dress within the male image, it was not even stigmatized for guys to dress like girls at the event. Upon learning that my fellow students were so tolerant, accepting and lax, I knew I had to join in on the fun.

I spent most of the time prior to the big evening passing out feminine beauty tips like free mini-sausage samples in a grocery store to very hungry men who needed pointers on corresponding tops to bottoms, purses to shoes and eyeliners to mascaras. Since most of my friends are guys I was not surprised in the slightest that I instantaneously became the style expert, being the token chick and all. It was nice to be asked for my genuine opinion as well as trusted with my answers. I enjoyed taking time to help out my friends with something that they had absolutely no prior experience with. Unfortunately for them, I already knew damn well what I was in for.

My partner Krzyzstof and I decided to dress as one another in order to add a role-reversal aspect to the experience. While he donned fishnet stockings, a leopard print skirt and bright purple eyeshadow, I played down my female characteristics by wearing oversized Carhardt slacks, a black t-shirt (free boobin’, mind you) and a scrawled-on brown marker beard. I also stuffed my hair under one of his old ratty hats to ensure my pink and black Chelsea wouldn’t give me away. “Unisex” band t-shirts constitute most of my wardrobe so I still felt in my physical element but at the same time I had never dressed so typically masculine before. And I really didn’t like it.

For the guys, wearing feminine getup was fun. It allowed them to participate in good old-fashioned dress up time that they had always been denied. It opened their eyes to what females regularly go through in order to get prepared for going out. They were lavished with compliments all night long and felt the pressure to look better than one another. The contest at the end of the night to determine the ball’s ‘Drag Queen’ was seriously about who made the prettiest girl. My friends were all vying for the title and picked their own favorites for who should walk away with the tiara and flowers. They had a great time and recounted the experience for weeks past.

I cannot say the same for myself. It took me a whole 3 minutes to put on the clothes and another 2 to scribble on my “beard”. There was nothing glorified about the process, no one offering to help me with any aspect of my attire. The title of ‘Drag King’ was given to a girl clad in a plaid shirt, aviator sunglasses, a furry snow hat and a fake moustache. In real life, is that an ideal image? Not exactly. For us girls, it was more about who could look the most ridiculous and get more laughs. In the end, more attention was paid to the guys. I didn’t realize it at the time but it actually really bugged me.

As a female, I am used to constant attention and the immense pressure to look beautiful to some degree. In theory this irks me. I feel that women should not have such rigid and elevated standards to conform to and more emphasis should be placed on inner beauty. Being out of the limelight was a very eye-opening experience for me; I felt downright ugly. I felt pangs of strange jealousy towards my friends because they were obtaining such copious amounts of praise and focus. I felt practically invisible.

In retrospect, I suppose I disliked this experience because it made me deal with the fact that I have come to accept my place as a visual object to be contrasted against American beauty ideals. I never realized it until afterwards but I enjoy the feeling of people paying attention to my physical being. Even though I am very far from the decimated, white, blonde, plastic look that seems to permeate every aspect of the media, I still have to factor this in when preening in the morning and I am okay with that. I love being a woman even with all its ups and downs and I would not change it for anything. It allows me to be especially creative with my style and toughens my skin against the harsh reality that I do not fit a cookie cutter mold (what a drag! (no pun intended)). I think the guys realized this fact as well as obtained a higher appreciation of what females go through to become visually appealing. I think they would relive the experience again, but all the time? I’m sure they’d reply: too much work!

myself and Krzyzstof

THIS IS AN EMERGENCY

2008-08-19T20:11:00.006-04:00

Do you ever feel like you're so angry that your insides are burning up? I'm experiencing that wonderful sensation right now for the following reason. Secretary Mike Leavitt of the US Department of Health and Human Services has been preparing legislation that would SEVERELY impede on women's reproductive freedom by classifying contraceptive methods as abortion!:

[ The draft regulation, prepared by the Bush Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and currently circulating among anti-women officials, redefines abortion as, "any of the various procedures -- including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action -- that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation." Taking a page from the extremist right, they are deliberately blurring the lines between contraception and abortion, providing an extraordinarily broad definition of abortion that could be interpreted to cover various forms of birth control, including oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUD's), and emergency contraception.

This draft regulation requires entities and individuals that receive family planning funding to certify that they will not discriminate against people who object to abortion or to dispensing birth control on the basis of "religious beliefs or moral convictions." Under the guise of passing anti-discrimination laws to protect health care providers participating in federal programs, the proposed regulation would effectively undermine a health care provider's ability to offer the very services for which they are funded, as well as a patient's ability to access those services. All health care providers must be able to appropriately screen and hire individuals capable and willing to perform the core services that they provide.

The regulation puts laws and policies that protect women's access to birth control in serious jeopardy, including state laws that require hospitals to provide sexual-assault survivors with access to emergency contraception. The draft rule limiting Title X funding will create a direct conflict between Title X (America's Family Planning Program) and the Maternal Child Health and Medicaid programs, which requires that grantees provide a broad range of contraceptive services and supplies to their patients.

Currently, there are "crisis pregnancy centers" in communities across the country that look like health care centers, but deliver woefully incomplete care and only provide the reproductive health care options that fit their agenda: NO birth control, NO abortion -- and NO choice for women and families who need it! If Bush's proposed regulation takes effect, these "crisis pregnancy centers" are likely to receive a massive influx of our tax dollars.

At a time when 17 million women are in need of publicly-supported reproductive health care services, this regulation disparately impacts the low-income, uninsured and under-insured women who rely on these programs for their health information and services! ]
[taken from the below website]

THIS IS INSANE. TELL THIS ASSHOLE THAT YOU CANNOT KILL SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT EXIST! SIGN THE PETITION!:
http://www. capwiz. com/now/issues/alert/?alertid=11824286#action

The Emperess Strikes Back II

2008-08-19T03:07:00.004-04:00

[Check the original Emperess Strikes Back post for more info]
Alright, just for my fun and your education of how not to talk to me (or any females, for that matter), here's a back-and-forth conversation with someone on a punk rock site!

"phillypunk": how u doiin
me: I'm good, how are you?
"phillypunk": good u have a nice body
me: Thank you, my boyfriend thinks so as well.
"phillypunk": well what he say best part your body is
me: My mind.
"phillypunk": ture and prob nice ass jk
me: What the fuck is a "ture"?
"phillypunk": no clue man no fuckin clue im just a perv
me: With bad grammar, no doubt. Did your mother teach you to treat women like that?
"phillypunk": dude nvm
me: If you plan on further conversation, you're really going to have to start using actual words.

no response.

Let this be a lesson: If you want to treat me like I'm only the body that I occupy, I will use the brain inside of it and destroy you.

Not so fucking smart when I talk back, are you?

10 Great Reasons Not To Shop At Wal-Mart

2008-08-12T00:07:00.006-04:00

1. Wal-Mart leaves packages of chemicals proven to cause birth defects in California out in the back of their stores and when it rains, the runoff clears into sewers that drain into rivers that local drinking water is extracted from.

2. Many employees of Wal-Mart have reported incidents of discrimination against non-whites and nothing is done about it. One black female employee asked her male manager for a promotion, which he denied. When she asked him, "Is it because I'm black or a woman?", he replied, "2 out of 2 isn't bad".

3. Women are seen as less valuable than men (in one woman's case, since she was continuously the only woman in her department during her shift, she had to clean the bathrooms....apparently it is a woman's place to clean). They are paid and promoted at significantly lower rates than their male co-workers. One woman approached her boss and asked why she had witnessed men being promoted that worked there for a shorter amount of time than her and his reasoning was, "God made Adam first".

4. Thousands of employees are deprived of overtime pay. One former manager said he witnessed a payroll employee deleting 2 hours of an employee's 42 hour work week to keep them from receiving overtime wages.

5. Over half of all Wal-Mart's employees are left without medical coverage because their insurance policies are so outrageous. They expect the State to take care of them instead. A lot of the workers must seek help through WIC, CHIP or MedicAid.

6. Wal-Mart factory workers in China and Bangladesh are taught to lie about working conditions before they are evaluated. Conditions include 12-14 hour workdays for pay around 17 to 20 cents an hour. In China, the workers are given dorm-like spaces to live in. Even if the workers choose not to live in these areas, they are still charged for rent of the space. Workers are threatened to be 'punished' or even fired if they do not comply.

7. Managers are constantly encouraged to follow lower ranking employees around and intimidate them. They have installed security cameras in and around the buildings primarily to catch employees who they see as suspicious; ones who may want to start a union. And if the person in question talks privately with another employee, they are seen as conspiring and most likely both fired.

8. 80% of crimes that occur at Wal-Mart happen in the parking lot because the surveillance cameras set up around the perimeter are not checked. There have been several muggings, shootings, knifings, gropings and rapes reported that have happened in these unpatrolled parking lots.

9. Wal-Mart leaves behind a big mess of unused space. Because of the size and capacity of the supercenters that are custom built for the chain store, local or hopeful businesses literally cannot fill the void that Wal-Mart creates. Currently there is over 26,000,000 square feet of abandoned, unused space which could have gone to building parks, community recreational facilities or classrooms (the area could accommodate up to 556,000 children).

10. And last but not least, THEY FORCE LOCAL STORES OUT OF BUSINESS. Even companies that have been operating for over 50 years have had to shut their doors because of the impact Wal-Mart has in their towns.

All of the previous information was taken from the film "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price"

Also check out wal-mart watch

ISSUE #1

2008-07-17T01:04:00.025-04:00

CLICK THE PICTURES FOR FULL-SIZED IMAGES

No, I Don't Know Kung-Fu

2008-07-08T20:42:00.011-04:00

This is the second interview in a series that I am currently working on to get points of view from non-white and/or mixed race (PC term?) kids in the punk scene and how they feel about their surroundings. Race is typically an undiscussed topic in the punk scene, which is generally assumed to be extremely tolerant of peoples of all walks of life. It is my belief that if race and racism is talked about and elaborated on from alternative points of view and the typical victims of discrimination come forth about their experiences, then it will become a desensitized issue. Moving racism from the realm of taboo into the forefront of our consciousness allows people of all ethnic backgrounds and subcultures to take a more subjective look at it and find flaws within their own thinking. If we don't ask, we'll never know.
Mr. Felix is a long-time friend and was a very enthusiastic and pleasant participant, and I am grateful for his input. I also decided to sneak in a few questions about feminism since he's (sadly) one of the only guys I know who take an active interest in the subject.

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(taken 3-16-08 in NYC)

Name and location?

Felix Cat, NYC – SF.

What is your ethnic background?
Chinese by blood, Indonesian by culture.

Do people often ask what your background is? Are you often mistaken for something different?
Yes, either Korean or Japanese, and just about every other Asian race that’s not Chinese. It's fuckin annoying.

Do you think that your views on politics, society, etc. would change if you were of a different race?
No, because who I am does not come from what I look like. To say that is biased.

Do you think you get stereotyped more by whites than any other ethnic group?
Yes. I get stereotyped by whites usually, blacks second.

Are most of your friends white? If so, how do you feel about this?
Yes, it’s to be expected; I live in the U.S.

Do you wish there were more Asians in the punk scene?
Yes. I counted how many Asians there were out of the crowd of 5000 at Holidays in the Sun 2001. 5 Asians... and about 5-7 Nazis. We got outnumbered by Nazis.

Have you ever wished that you could change your heritage?
No. Though I find whites continually try to change others to be more like them.

How do you feel about dating outside of your ethnic group? Have you ever received negative feedback for doing so?
I've always had to; most Asian chicks date white guys, on top of that never found an Asian girl into the same things I'm into. So it's kind of a messed up situation. I don't care what race I date, as long as they are attractive to me, and we can talk. That’s all that really matters.

Do you feel that Asian issues are not dealt with properly in American society?
Of course there are always a couple of assholes in society that think because I'm Asian I have to have SARS, or I have to know kung-fu, or I have to have a small dick. It's fucking bullshit that people can be so god damn stupid.

Do you think English should be the official language in the United States?
Yes, we stole the country from the American Indians fair and square. Manifest Destiny? Because god said so, ha! Of course I say that with much, much sarcasm. Funny how so many people think this country is a white country and yet, it has been colonized years ago by...EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS.

If you had to describe your heritage in one word, what would it be?
Chinese.

How do you feel about being an Asian in the punk scene?
I'd feel very alone, in a room full of white devils. Haha. Judged and unable to mingle with the way things go. Good people are hard to come by. I remember being at a show and asked by some punker to come hang out with him, I asked him what he was going to do; he said he was going to go bash skins. Why? Cause they are all racist. That was retarded. Anyone who associates skins with Nazis is a freakin dumbass who doesn't know their history. Mob mentality really pisses me off, as well as ignorance and idiocy.

Do you wish that young Asians had more role models and positive representation in the media?
When I was younger I would have, though now I choose to be my own god damn role model. You can't sit there and compare yourself to the achievements of others. Everyone is an individual to that extent.

Who are your personal influences and/or heroes?
Milo Auckerman, Saul Williams, my Mom, David Wilcock, Tsunetomo Yamamoto and Henry Rollins.

Do you feel more affected by Asian or punk stereotypes?
I feel very affected by Asian stereotypes; it's been a source of ridicule to me by many, many people. The punk stuff not so much, but it still gets to me.

What is something that you wish more people around the world knew about Asians?
I wish more people knew that certain haircuts and clothing styles were banned in San Francisco to the first Chinese Immigrants. All because people were too scared of having their children “shang hai'd” so to speak. It's ridiculous, and it's that kind of Western thinking that really gets to me.
The basis for Anglo-Saxon ideology is, do whatever it takes at whatever the cost. So I can imagine the kinds of horrible things done to the Chinese back in the day. The effects of negative disinformation still linger today, not just for the Chinese, but for all races and religions.

How do you think feminism and punk ties together?
Feminism is by definition, equality between the sexes, at least until you find more primitive intelligences who say it's about men bashing, or women worshipping. So it is a human rights movement. Punk rock was a human rights movement, at least until it became mainstay to get drunk or break shit because it's cool. I'm sure at some point it tied together, with the way things have been going, it's mostly all unlikely the punk movement will ever achieve anything, especially with this level of ignorance throughout the country.
The last time I hung out with punk rockers, they sat around watching skate videos, and told their girlfriends to shut up so they could keep watching. The men & women were too busy snorting coke to give a shit. Isn't that a Paris Hilton cool trendy drug to do? The women? Barbaric Neanderthals who choose to go with their gut instinct, and "mate" with the alpha males who seem to be leaders so they can pass on their genes. Must explain the high rate of single mothers in the punk scene, and dumb ass couples who treat each other like shit. Because of this I do not hang out with others in the scene any more than I like to forgive Bush Jr.

Do you think feminism adequately deals with race?
No, I think there needs to be a movement that strives for equality between every living and conscious intelligent entity. No I'm not talking about cows and dogs and animals. I'm talking about all people, all races, both sexes, and all religion.

Do you ever get shit for being a male feminist/riot boy?
For that reason I do not label myself as such. It's the very labels that get us into specific pros, as well as specific cons. Most of these are automatic assumptions by socialite knowledge, like the assumption of being a man hater, or what have you. It's all very ridiculous.

For the record, I don't get shit, I give shit. Especially to dumb limited fucks, I have an allergy to stupidity.

Is there anything else you would like to add?
We don't have small dicks, most punk rockers snort coke, my name isn't Jet Li, and it's especially not Jackie Chan.
If you look at AIDS, and SARS under a microscope, the genetic structure is that of sacred geometry. SARS is a human generated bioweapon to kill only Asians. Why have you not heard of anyone American, who is white, black, or Latin reported to have even gotten the virus?
Why only kill asians?
56.6 percent of the world population is asian.
Europe? 12 percent
North America? 5 percent
Africa? 14.3 percent
People have been saying blacks were the original race of Earth. Even with a law in China permitting only 1 child, the majority of the world population is Asian. Why is that number never taught in schools? Obviously the numbers alone show who is the original race of this planet. The Nazi agenda is alive and strong. The very founders of NASA were Nazi German scientists, smuggled to the US after World War 2. If you want more proof look at the list of attendees to Bilderberg Group and tell me there isn't some White Elitist corporate consortium. Do your research, and all you will find is answers.
Lastly, if you ever eat at an Asian restaurant, and don't know how to use chopsticks, don't fuckin try to use ‘em just because you're at an Asian cuisine place. It's that kind of stupid racially ignorant mentality that just annoys me. Try coming off your god damn white royal pedestal, and having a taste of humility. Ask for a damn fork. We'll probably just laugh at you for being really retarded with chopsticks. I know I will. Haha.

In Celebration of a Life

2008-06-26T17:36:00.004-04:00

Today, my dwarf hamster of over 2 years, had to be put to sleep.
Pineapple (later re-named Genghis Khan) was originally purchased by my sister. Because of a busy schedule and general disregard, she gave Pineapple to me. When I moved away to school last semester and had my own apartment, Pineapple came along for the ride. At first I was impartial about it, seeing as how I didn't exactly ask for her. As time progressed, she became a tiny, furry embodiment of my own heart.
Unfortunately, a few months ago, a strange growth formed on her belly, by her back right leg. Her diet was changed in attempt to resolve the problem, but to no avail. It grew larger as another similar red bump formed on her back. The second bump opened up and scabbed over; a sign that something must be done. I held her for the final time last night and she felt lighter and less interested. In fact, I think she had begun to lose her little mind. She wasn't exactly suffering but there was obvious discomfort. So, my mother, sister and I made the conscious decision to have her put to sleep to assure that suffering would not be experienced in her current life. Only thing is; I was under the impression that she wouldn't be euthanised for a few days. I got a voicemail which informed me that she was already taken in and put to sleep. I was caught off-guard by it and wished I could have given her a proper goodbye but I know that that would be equally if not more difficult than it presently is.
She was forever curious and loved attention. Her favorite foods were sunflower seeds and corn. She always knew exactly what to do to get my attention, and would lick at my fingers when I would offer to let her out (a sentiment she offered for no one else). She would respond to my voice. She knew I loved her. And she loved me back.

'Till Death Do You Part

2008-06-16T03:36:00.012-04:00

I've been plagued by the thought of marriage lately. It seems at every possibility someone in my family brings up the prospect of me entering into nuptial confines and then reproducing and wondering out loud when such a time will come. I've said it for years and I say it now: I am not getting married nor having children.

Mostly I've been dwelling on the subject because a young woman very close to me has decided that she would like to marry a man that she has met while visiting another country. They have known each other but a scant half a year and are supposedly in love with one another. She has only dated a couple of guys over the past few years and neither were serious. Now she plans to marry a man almost a decade her senior, live with him in a foreign country, leave everyone she knows behind, bear children and become a housewife as soon as possible. I know that it is blatantly obvious at this point that I am a devoted feminist, but I wholeheartedly commend women who decide to let their primary concerns rest within their own households and children. It is a very difficult decision to make and I applaud women that make it. I've met women who have told me that having and raising children has been a lifelong desire and they could not be happier having the ability to do so. They've obtained their dream jobs, so who am I to judge their work?

I am, however, at odds with such a young woman leaving all she knows behind for someone she barely knows. Going through numerous bad relationships, I have learned that when its good, its good and when its bad, its fucking horrible. I would never claim to be more worldly in love than another, but I do know that statistically the younger women and men marry, the more likely they are to divorce. I'm concerned for her well-being and it would break my heart to see her unhappy and in some kind of situation that she would not easily be able to get out of. I understand that she has always wanted to get married and have children and that her dream job is indeed mother and homekeeper. I just wonder if she could possibly slow down the process!

I don't understand why people want to rush into things at top speed. If you are in love with someone and honestly want to spend the rest of your life with that person, then why make such slapdash decisions? What is so appealing about marriage, honestly? Why can't a couple live together under an understood bond that should not be broken? Why do people feel that the only way to express their utmost love for someone is a state-sanctioned relationship? I have a few ideas.

Why people get married:

Pressures from family and friends.
Societal expectations and the fear of being ostracized.
Proving their love for one another.
Tax benefits.

1. I think I'm affected by this one the most. My family has a history of ugly, torn marriages and ruptured living situations, but somehow the issue of getting married has still been pushed upon me. After 20 years of such subjugation, I have finally found that the only minuscule desire I ever had to get married was because I was imbibed and socialized to believe that marriage is the only way to have a legitimate adult relationship with a partner. If you're raised to believe something to such a degree, it can be very difficult to shy away from such a thing. Especially if it is endorsed by society at large, which bleeds into the next reason. Also, one may feel more pressured to couple up with another if all of their close friends are doing so. I have not had the joy of feeling like all of my friends are getting married off so that I should as well, but I know many people have felt very uncomfortable by being surrounded with (seemingly) perfect, content couples.

2. Many people believe (because of morals, values, religious beliefs, etc.) that living and/or procreating with someone out of wedlock is fundamentally unacceptable, and by entering into marriage, their action is somehow justified and their consciences are cleared of any wrongdoings. They may be concerned that others may see them in a bad light because of the 'unofficial' status of their partnership. Let's not forget the massive wedding industry, which rakes in $70 billion annually from happy couples wishing to get hitched in an elaborate, flashy array of table linens, fresh flowers and horrendously colored bridesmaid dresses. There is no doubt about it; the idea of a wedding is almost exclusively catered to women. A wedding day represents one in which a woman can feel pampered, like the star of the show, and have everything her way. Wedding planners are hired to ease this process as well as serve as confirmatory opinion that the service will indeed be spectacular. All the magazines, movies, and television shows are targeted towards making a personal statement of love into a commercial process to be made money off of. As a related story, it has been noted that recognizing gay marriages would also add an additional $16.8 billion to the industry: story

3. We all know the stereotype of women fawning over the idea of being swept off of her feet by a prince charming and being married to him. We are also aware of the stereotype of the eternal male bachelor, dreading the idea of marriage and hating it even more after continuing to do so. Does this mean that women pressure men into getting married? Do men feel obligated to marry their female counterparts? Maybe. At a point, a couple may feel like they have no where else to go but take it to the next level and enter into the binds of marriage. Shit or get off the pot, you know? I am still iffy about this reason and see it as being a front for one of the other 3 stated reasons.

4. I mean, really. It sounds like a humorous joke but I'm sure some people go for it. I know a couple who has actually refrained from marriage because they receive a higher amount of welfare for their 3 children. They have other reasons but this is a major benefit for them. I think it could go the other way, then. In the film 'I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry' the back story is that Kevin James and Adam Sandler pretend to be in a domestic partnership in order for James' pension to be switched over to his children since his wife has passed a few years prior. This may be an uncommon situation but in a time of a ravaged economic status in the US, people may go to great lengths to stay afloat.

Personally, I feel no pressure from any of the aforementioned reasons to get married. If I find someone that I would like to spend the rest of my life with, I will do so without having to pay the state for a piece of paper noting our status. I dislike marriage because it is withheld from same-sex couples and even if I did want to marry, I would not do so unless this supposed civil right applies to all persons regardless of orientation. I dislike marriage because it goes along with the belief that humans are naturally monogamous and all persons have soul mates. I dislike marriage because I have had difficult enough breakups and never want to know what a crushing divorce would be like. I dislike marriage because it brings with it the ideal that people will be less likely to cheat on their spouses. I dislike marriage because I would henceforth be expected to have kids after becoming wed and I refuse to voluntarily enter into a whole nother slew of societal and familial pressures.

Marriage isn't for me. I want to have my own career and travel the entire globe. If someone would love me to the point that they would want to spend copious amounts of time with me, then they will come with me. Don't even get me started on kids, either. If I would have them, I'd pull an Angelina Jolie and adopt. 4,000 children die per hour just from starvation. Why would I choose to bring a separate life into this world instead of saving one already existing?

"Marriage is a wonderful institution... but who wants to live in an institution?"
- Groucho Marx

Ovaries, Curly Hair and Steel-Toed Boots: Growing Up Latina in the Punk Scene

2008-06-06T03:38:00.011-04:00

It was conducted sometime in the fall of 2006 when Yvy and I both worked at a shitty sandwich shop and she was still into the punk scene. Sadly, she's lost her interest in it since then.

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Initially, this wasn't meant to be an interview. I was curious as to what Yvy, a long-time friend and all-around kick ass chick, would say when asked if her ethnicity or gender played a bigger role in her life. I proposed the idea of her writing a narrative article about the subject but then I decided I could have an excuse to sit her down for a while and just interview her instead. We've had many similar conversations before so I figured it would turn out okay. Even though she’s half Hispanic, I wanted her to focus on and answer questions based on that half of her heritage and her experiences in the punk scene in general.

crusty riot grrl: What is your ethnic background?
Yvy: I am Puerto Rican, Uruguayan, Samoan, German and French.

crg: Do you think your views on politics, equality, society, etc., would change if you were of a different race?
Yvy: No, not at all. Race doesn't determine thoughts, for the most part. I'd still be the person I am.

crg: What's the best part about having a multi-ethnic background?
Yvy: The food! {laughter} I could eat rice and beans one day and meatloaf, stuffing and mashed potatoes the next. It’s great! Honestly, I think when you have multiple ethnicities and you are around people from different backgrounds all your life, you have a different outlook on things. Not actually being the race but being around people of different cultures, you definitely have a different outlook because you're [seeing] it from different angles, you're not only looking at it from one perspective. You know how other people live, what their culture is like, the music... Especially being in a white town, you really notice it and how different it is.
crg: So you think a bigger difference is you coming into contact with more ethnic people than you being more ethnic yourself?
Yvy: Exactly. You could be white and if you've been surrounded by collard greens and grits all your life you're gonna have a certain outlook on things.

crg: Do you feel more affected by Hispanic or Caucasian stereotypes?
Yvy: Hispanic, because people have this idea in their head that if you're Puerto Rican you have curly long black hair, you dress ghetto... You don't see very many Puerto Rican girls walking around with piercings, dyed hair and the studs and everything. But it’s funny because [Hispanics] take to it better than white people. The prejudice isn't from the Hispanic side; it's from the white side. It’s them thinking that I should look a certain way, I should look the race that they aren't even.

crg: Do you think you get stereotyped more by whites than any other race?
Yvy: For being Hispanic, yeah.
crg: What about blacks, Asians, Native Americans...?
Yvy: I don't know. Around here, I know you've noticed it, you'll go into Lancaster and there'll be black guys and Hispanic guys and they don't care what you [dress] like, they'll hit on you. They'll be like, "Ahh, your hair is awesome, I love that color, how do you get it to stick up like that, that’s so cool!” [White] people around here aren't like that. They stare, they give you dirty looks. You can tell they don't like what they see. I think that other races are open to it. Asians I can't really speak for. How many Asians live around here? I haven't had too much contact, the only contact I had with Asians were Filipino kids and that’s when I lived in Jersey when I was young. Looks and stuff weren't really a factor when you're a kid. Now, if you want to talk city, more minorities...
crg: So you're more focused on Latinos, blacks and whites?
Yvy: That’s what I'm thinking 'cause that’s who I've had the most contact with, that’s who I can speak [about] from experience with.

crg: Has your race or gender played a bigger role in your life?
Yvy: Ooooh… {pauses} That’s deep. I don't know. {long pause} I've been given more shit for being Hispanic, probably. And that goes back to the whole stereotype thing of what certain people think Hispanic or Latina girls should look like. So I get shit for that. I don't think I've gotten as much shit for my gender as I have for being Hispanic. It goes back to stereotypes. What you think I should look like to what I want to look like. I've never been called a slur for being a female but I have been called a spic before, so I'd definitely have to say being Hispanic is harder. Plus, when you're Hispanic...there's not as much of a generalization. You have female or male. But you don't have Hispanic or White. You have Hispanic, black, Asian, white, Russian...
crg: It’s not either-or.
Yvy: Exactly. It’s easier for people to hate on a smaller group than a huge group.

crg: Do you relate more to your Hispanic or white background?
Yvy: Why the fuck do you have to ask such hard questions? {Laughter} I think I relate more to my Spanish background. That’s who I feel more connected with. I love my Caucasian family, I love them to death, but my personality, just being loud and crazy and having fun fits more in with my Hispanic side. Being very argumentative, debating all the time about things, getting loud with people. I've noticed on my White side that if I do that with them, they think I'm angry or I'm mad. In a Hispanic house, you're yelling at each other one minute about politics and the next minute you're laughing. It’s not a big deal, they get it. So I guess [Hispanic] just because of my personality, but I don't think that would go for everybody, just specifically me.

crg: I'm gonna ask the big question now.
Yvy: Uh oh.
crg: Why are Hispanic women so sexy?
Yvy: I don't know. It's in our blood! It’s funny because if you watch Univision, the daily 5 o'clock news and you watch ABC's 5 o'clock news... ABC, they're wearing suits, women...
crg: They dress like their male counterparts.
Yvy: Yeah, exactly. Except in pink, they wear a pink blazer and they'll have a really ugly pin and a corny little bob haircut, they're like Barbara Walters; 92 years old. If you watch the Spanish news channel, those women are amazing. They have low-cut shirts on, their cleavage is pushed up to their chin and they have bone-straight hair...they're gorgeous. These women aren't past 25. I think it has to do with what society accepts. In America, we don't accept sexuality the same way they do in Spanish countries and I think it’s as simple as that. We think sex is a bad thing. When we think sex, we think intercourse. We don't think of sex as a way of being, a way of presenting ourselves and not in a negative, sleazy way. We just have a really weird perception of what sex is and isn't. Spanish people just don't have that. I guess it’s just the way they're raised; they're more sexual in nature because they don't look at it as some horrible thing.
crg: So, Hispanic women don't try, it just kinda happens?
Yvy: Yeah, you're born with it. You either have it or you don't, and for some reason Latinas happen to have it. {laughter}

crg: If you could, would you change your heritage?
Yvy: Nope... It’s who I am. Why would I change it, I don't have anything wrong with it. Don't want to fix something that’s not broken. I have no problem [with] being Hispanic, I have no problem being half White, I have no problem with it. I'm happy with what I am.

crg: Have you ever received negative feedback for dating an all-white person?
Yvy: {laughs} No and yes. At first, from my grandmother who was not happy because my mother is White and my dad’s Puerto Rican. This is my dad's mom... My aunt just married a Mexican so she feels like the Puerto Rican bloodline is dying out. Before you know it...if I have children with a White guy and they have children with [white people], it’s gonna get down to such a little [percentage]. People see me and [a white guy] out together and like I said, I get shit for not looking like the typical Puerto Rican, so people don't really think... If I was like your typical Puerto Rican girl, clearly Puerto Rican and I was with a white guy than I might get more shit, but people often look at me and don't know what the fuck I am. They look at me and they're like, "I know you're something, I know you're not white..."
crg: A few people ask if you're Chinese!
Yvy: I'm not fucking Chinese! And its only ignorant white people, no offense to them, who have only been around other white people that think I'm Chinese. If you're around someone who's been around anyone but white people, they know I'm not Chinese. They usually know I'm somewhat Hispanic. If you look at Hispanic countries in South America, those women look white. They have blonde hair, blue eyes... This whole idea; people drive in the ghetto and think they know what Hispanic people look like. If you live in an area that has a lot of Hispanic people, you look at Colombia, Dominican Republic, you go down there and you'll see women that are [white-skinned], blond hair, blue eyes and you'll see women that look straight up black; African American, kinky hair, everything. It’s really diverse… Honestly, the media has a lot to do with it. This whole, 'Latin Explosion'; Marc Anthony, J Lo, like all Hispanic people look like that.
crg: Ricky Martin.
Yvy: He was actually good because he looked like a White boy on crack.
crg: That's probably why he was so accepted in the media.
Yvy: Only for a short amount of time, though. Then I guess he went back to Menudo. {laughter} I have no idea what happened to him.

crg: Do you feel that Latino issues are not dealt with properly? Do you think the role of Spanish//Latino people in high school textbooks is under emphasized?
Yvy: First off, we're barely in the [American] history books. And there’s a reason for that. The only thing you really hear too much about [as in] Hispanics is in Mexico. Like the Aztecs, Spanish Inquisition, those kind of things. Those all took place in Mexico. They didn't take place in South America. That’s in part because South America and the United States had very little to do with each other. They weren't really concerned with each other in part because they're not attached. Why did they have such problems with the Mexicans? Because of land. They wanted their land.
crg: Yeah, they took Texas.
Yvy: Right. And then you guys took California and New Mexico. Did you take Arizona, too?
crg: Probably. White people are evil.
Yvy: Yeah, but that’s not even the point. {laughter} The point is that we're not really represented because we didn't have much to do with... We didn't have much to do with the US. Only recently are you hearing media representation of Hispanics and even that’s partly Mexican because of the whole immigration thing going on now.

crg: Do you think English should be the official language of the US?
Yvy: Nope. We haven't had an official language [for] this long, so why one now? And not enough people speak English.
{Our co-worker Joe has been listening and decides to rudely interrupt}
Joe: I thought it's always been the official language?
crg: No, we never had one; it was just an 'understood' thing.
Yvy: We all speak English anyway, what does it matter if it’s official? I think it’s funny that in Germany they have 5 language options [at ATMs] and I bet you they don't have as many minorities living in Germany as we do in the US.

crg: If you had to describe your heritage in one word, what would it be?
Yvy: Craaaaazy. Look at Brazil, they speak Portuguese and they're still considered Latinos//Latinas because they're in South America...regardless of the language they speak. They have Carnivale every year and they get all dressed up. I'm sure they have them everywhere in the world, or around the country at least; Puerto Rican Day Parade...
crg: October is Spanish Heritage Month.
Yvy: Oh, is it? That’s so cool! It’s also Hip Hop Month! {laughter}
Joe: I wonder how many people who listen to hip hop know that it’s Hip Hop Month.
Yvy: Probably none of them. {laughter}
Joe: You mean that there’s some white college professor who has his hair funky and has a class on Hip Hop and he’s like, "Today is Hip Hop Day...yo."
crg: Yeah, add 'yo' at the end for emphasis, right? {laughter}

crg: Do you ever get sick of people inquiring about your heritage?
Yvy: No, not really. It’s actually something I'm kinda fascinated by. When it comes down to it, not a lot of people will ask. Hispanics make up such a huge population in this country that it’s not out of the ordinary anymore... The Chinese thing, yeah, but that’s not part of my heritage.
crg: Is that the biggest thing you get?
Yvy: The next thing they ask...they either don't ask or they ask me if I'm Latina. But the number one thing I get is, "I know you're something, but I just can't tell what. I know you're not white, what are you?” And when I say Hispanic they're like, "Yeah, that’s what I thought, you just have a different look". I don't look like a typical Puerto Rican. I don't look Mexican. Then I get asked if I'm Hispanic and after that I get, "Are you Chinese?"... Joe's the only person that asked if I was Samoan.
crg: Are you angry? Are you an Angry Samoan?
Yvy: Yes, I am.

crg: How do you feel about being a Latina in the punk scene?
Yvy: OH GOD. {laughter} Oh, man...
crg: I'm sorry, I have to ask.
Yvy: It's weird because most of the kids are white and now more than ever you're getting these white, extremely upper-class kids, rich kids. Not middle class, not like you, you guys are still considered middle class... I'm realizing now that you're getting some of these kids that are extremely high class. Their parents bought them everything, which is bullshit.

[We start talking about an example of Yvy's ostracism]
Yvy: So we go to see Anti-Flag, Casualties, Unseen, AKAs, Smoke or Fire in Philly… [I was the] Hispanic one of the group, everyone else is white… Jorge, the lead singer, is Hispanic and after a couple of songs they were just talking, stopped playing and Jorge says, "Are there any Latino punks in the crowd?", and I swear to you, this is not an exaggeration; there were a whole 3 cheers out of about 600 people. {laughter}
crg: Two of them were you and me yelling and pointing to you.
Yvy: Yeah, you're pointing to me, there was a kid next to me yelling and then there was probably one kid on the whole other side, up front. You could count the arms in the air for that one. And Jorge just is like, "Uh oh, not so good for the Latino punks!" {laughter} I remember thinking, how many kids are in this room…? A lot of kids are gonna come out to see these bands and since they're not playing anywhere else in PA, all these kids from all these different areas come to Philly to see them. The room was packed and there was a whole three Hispanic kids in the entire crowd, that’s it? [The Casualties] also put out a whole CD in Spanish and on every English CD there’s at least one Spanish song. That was so upsetting for me. My uncle was a punk back in the 80s and he’s 100% Puerto Rican… He's got Exploited tattoos and toured with Agnostic Front. I've seen pictures and all his friends were White back then, too. The point is, it’s weird because there aren’t a lot of Hispanic people. My family doesn't take too well to the fact that I like punk rock and they way I dress, they don't understand it. I guess I just wish there were more Hispanic kids. There used to be a lot more. If you go into the major cities there are a lot… I think there’s a bit of a disconnection.

crg: Do you think it’s weird that most of your friends are white?
Yvy: I don't really notice it too much. When it comes down to it, everyone for the most part is becoming one big mutt. Whether you're a Caucasian mutt, Hispanic mutt, or just a mutt, everyone’s mixing. I'm a high believer in that one day there will be no race.
crg: We'll all just be gray.
Yvy: Pretty much. But there are a lot of people who are psychos, like neo-Nazis and [Boneheads] who believe in preserving the race and shit like that. But it’s impossible at this point. It’s hard to say with this whole interview being like, Hispanic, but I don't notice race that much. The only time I ever really noticed it was when I was in high school and we got a new black kid. That was like, "Uh, holy shit, there’s another color walking down the hall!” {laughter} But it was cool. And now that I'm getting older I notice it more. When I was little I didn't know any different.

crg: Do you wish young Latinas had more role models?
Yvy: You know what? No. The only Latina role models I've seen so far are a crock of shit. Who wants to look up to Jennifer Lopez? She's been married like 8 bazillion times. She insured her ass. Who wants to look up to someone who has insurance on their ass? {laughter} Seriously, how degrading is that…? Back to gender and race, I wish women in general had better role models. What the media presents: Britney Spears. These skinny, upper-class girls who make money off of exploiting their sexuality and bodies. I wish women had better role models, regardless of race. I feel bad for Asians, actually. They have like, nobody.
crg: I think something like over 90% of women in ads in Japan are white.
Joe: They've got, like, Bruce Lee.
Yvy: He’s dead!
Joe: He’s still a role model.
crg: Name an Asian role model that doesn't do kung fu!
{All 3 talking over each other, Joe can't come up with one}
Yvy: It’s funny because they've got the largest population in the world. I just saw a documentary on China; their billboards for perfume and make up, they're American models, European models. There are non-Asian models plastered all over the walls. There’s nothing.

crg: What does being a feminist mean to you?
Yvy: By definition, a feminist is [someone who] believes that women should have the same rights as men.
crg: But why call it 'feminism' if you want men and women to be equal? Why not call it 'equalistism'?
Yvy: Why call yourself a separatist...cause you don't want whites and blacks to be equal? If you don't want equality why not just say you don't want equality? It’s specifically for believing that women should be equal to men. That’s the definition and I like to define it that way simply because feminism has become a curse word. You say 'feminism' and people are like, "Ohhhh!” You're like the antichrist or something. It's just become this horrible word and that’s all it actually means, just saying I'm a feminist means I want equal rights to what a man has. Being a woman, that’s what I want and I deserve that. People are afraid of that word. Most people believe, even men, that women should be equal. But they would never call themselves feminists. It really has become a four letter word because it’s associated with this whole, feminazi, psycho, dominant women, man haters. Pretty much people think of feminists as really butch women fucking each other and kicking men’s' heads in.
Joe: Well, feminists...
Yvy: Joe! We didn't ask you!
crg: You have a penis; we don't care about what you think.
Yvy: She's trying to do an interview here about my opinion, she'll do one next time about Joe's mind and how fucked up it is. {laughter}

crg: How closely linked is your ethnic background to your beliefs?
Yvy: Beliefs on what?
crg: Do you hold certain beliefs because of your heritage?
Yvy: I don't really think so. I think a lot of people do but I specifically don't because I really tried to...I was never like that. My family didn't raise me like that; I was never raised to believe a certain thing. I was always raised to think for myself, so I think that contributes to it but I do think that a lot of people do... With the whole immigration thing, I feel more for those people just because I am Hispanic. I think that’s the only thing I associate myself with because most Hispanics are liberal thinkers. But I don't know if that’s a direct link. I don't know if because I'm Hispanic if that necessarily contributes to it. So, that’s kind of a hard one, I don't think so.

crg: Who are your personal influences and heroes?
Yvy: Personal heroes? My mom is my hero. I really love her and you know what? I can still be a hard-ass punk and say that. I'm not embarrassed to say that I love my mom. I never really idolized someone.
crg: There's a difference between a hero and someone you look up to.
Yvy: That’s true. I think I have to somewhat credit Anti-Flag because as far as punk rock, they really brought me into a political spectrum. I don't know if I can directly call them heroes because I don't know them. But the things they've said; they're a big influence. I don't hang on to every word they say but their music got me thinking. I just want to credit that. Well, kinda like a hero, I love Wattie from The Exploited. {laughter} I'm such a dork! It’s so cliché.

crg: Do you wish I would have asked you questions about other than being a Latina punk?
Yvy: What else is there? {laughter} You pretty much covered the overall.
crg: You're not offended that I picked those things out about you?
Yvy: No, I'm used to it. I'm an easy target. No, I'm kidding. I don't care.

Jane Addams

2008-06-05T03:40:00.012-04:00

Alright, this lady is totally kick-ass! This was a paper I wrote for a US History class in 2007.

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Jane Addams is well-known for her establishment of the Hull House, one of the most significant social reform movements in America, in 1889. Originally spawing out of a purchase of an old mansion-like estate in Chicago, over the years of operation it expanded over time. It also encorporated a coffeehouse, gymnasium, childrens' building, an addition to the original building, house for the Jane Club (cooperative boarding club for working girls"), the Hull House apartments, a woman's club, a boy's club and a nursery.

Other than the Hull House, Addams was very interested and active in pursuing politics. She campaigned for the abolition of child labor, for factory laws, for the reform of the courts, for temperance, and for women's suffrage. She also indulged in writing personal accounts of her life and ideals. During the first 20 years at the Hull House she produced her finest writings: Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909) and Twenty Years at the Hull House (1910). In 1904, as a result of her work against the flagrant abuses of child labor, she was appointed to the board of trustees of the National Child Labor Committee.

In 1909, she became the first female president of the National Conference of Social Work and played a vital role in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples. One year later she was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Yale. She also became one of the founding members of the American Civil Liberties Union. She was swept into the Progressive Party in 1912 and seconded the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt. In 1915, she simultaneously founded the Women's Peace Party and became the head of the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom. The latter was organized in Hague in response to the beginning of World War I (Stroup, 27). One of her greatest lifetime achievements was winning the Nobel Peace prize, which she was awarded with President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University in 1931.

Addams was born September 6, 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois to parents John and Sarah. She was the youngest of eight children and was not as always as strong as she would eventually grow up to become. "She was small, frail and pigeon-toed, and had a slight curvature of the back, which caused her to hold her head slightly on a slant. She was an avid reader and devoured many of the classics of Western intellectual tradition at an early age. This was most likely endorsed by her father, who thought that she should always be well-educated regardless of her gender. Not much else has been uncovered or mentioned about her life before she was of college-age.

When Addams did attend college, she chose to attend nearby Rockford Seminary, later renamed Rockford College. Her decision to attend Rockford was apparently weighed heavily by her father; he wanted her to start there for basic college training and then take advanced study abroad. It is believed that he also wished her to stay close to home. In college she had a reputation as a debater and was sent to Jacksonville to represent her college at the Interstate Oratorical Contest in 1881. Even though she came out in the middle, Addams and a friend saved enough time during their stay to visit state institutions for the blind as well as the deaf and dumb. She also became connected with the school's student publication, Rockford Seminary Magazine. She contributed articles for almost her whole stay at the college and became editor-in-chief her senior year. She graduated with 17 others in 1881 and Addams herself was named valedictorian of the class.

The same year she set out to study medicine at the Women's Medical College in Philadelphia despite efforts from her teachers to pursue missionary work. Unfortunately, she was forced to withdrawal from her medical studies in the winter of 1881 because of her congenial and chronic spinal condition. She later made a trip to Europe with her step-mother and by the time she returned home her father had passed away. She seemed to take this especially hard since she considered him one of the most important influences in her life. She seemed somewhat misguided and lost after he had passed and took several years to attempt to find out what to do with her life. She noted that "It required eight years - from the time I left Rockford in the summer of 1881 until Hull House was opened in the autumn of 1889 - to formulate my convictions even in the least satisfactory manner, much less to reduce them to a plan of action". Also during this time, she found herself in a struggle with Democratic machine head John Powers of Chicago when she was still a young woman. One male Powers supporter wrote to her directly of her increasing influence in Chicago, spewing obscenities about her gender. He mentioned to her that "no man can love a woman who takes her place among men as you do" and commented that unless she acquired a set of male genitalia then she would never measure up to Powers. Her turning point seemed to come in 1887 while she was visiting Europe for a second time. It was during this trip that her mounting disgust with a life of cultured ease crystallized into a plan of action. When she returned, she bought an old mansion, once a solitary estate, now an island of earlier affluence in a sea of slums, and plunged into the seething life of industrial Chicago.

With the founding of the Hull House, Addam's remarkable energies, so long unused, exploded in simultaneous and seemingly incompatible lines of activity. She had finally found her calling and was able to channel her immense drive to help others into an outlet that would bring her happiness and an eventually stable career at the same time. She wrote an essay entitled "The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements", where she argued that it was precisely the futility of the pursuit of culture for its own sake that had driven young women like herself into the settlement movement. She may have been more open and enthusiastic about joining the movement because she had always been very disinterested in any sort of "typical" female role, including marriage or having children. I think she also saw the people that took advantage of her services as the benefactors of her care taking. She did not conceive of social work as a form of charity. Her passion and genuine interest in the well being of the lower class people of Chicago really set her apart from anyone else in the social settlement arena.

Specifically, the Hull House had many facets for helping such a wide array of people and most of these were mentioned earlier. On occasion, women who had been deserted by their husbands came for information and support, and the House guided them to the existing welfare and court facilities in the city that could help them. Aside from being a place where people could seek shelter and food, the Hull House acted as a social connection for most of the people there. Classes were offered - for small children in the morning, older ones in the afternoon, adults in the evening. They tried to find jobs for men who needed work. In one case, a burglar broke into the house at night; Addams told him to come back at 9 the next morning, and she found him a job.

Classes offered people the opportunity to increase their worldly knowledge or just make the stresses of everyday more bearable. The kindergarten program met the needs of families who otherwise would have been unable to care adequately for their children. Individual gender-specific clubs taught a degree of tolerance to its members and brought to the realization of most that the problems with which they dealt were not capable of easy solution. No attempt was made to limit the kinds of social remedies that could be offered at these meetings. The classes offered gave the so-called students a better understanding of their situations and the control they had in their own lives. She also took a keen concern about participants of worldly ethnic descent. Writer Herbert Stroup notes that, "Addams became interested in the nationality groups that made up the neighborhood around Hull House... [She] did not believe that persons with foreign backgrounds should strive to lose their special heritage, but she also believed that, in some instances, the culture of the parents harmed their children". She also learned about different ethnic groups' skills and founded the Labor Museum, which had its beginning in one of the rooms of the Hull House.

For her dedicated involvement in the Hull House, in 1931 a jury of men named her first among "the twelve greatest living women of America. "One of the committee," she said, "formerly regarded me as a traitor, and I am quite sure that two at least of the others had never heard of me before this 'contest'." The mere weight of Addams' accomplishments demanded attention from people who she had seen as inherently against her; her works could not go unnoticed. She also had a positive influence on America in general. By 1900, almost one hundred settlement houses like Hull House were spread across the country, most of them founded by women. It seemed as if Addams had such a pull with people that she was positively affecting women as a group as well.

Apparently not, argues historian Jill Conway. "Conway has suggested that [Addams] did little to change the weak position of women in [her] day. [She] never publicly challenged the conventional view of femininity or demanded non-traditional roles for women". As valid as this argument may be, I think it is applied much too harshly to Addams. She did not set out with the goal of changing the way women were viewed in general American society. Addams started the Hull House out of her desire to assist others selflessly and help rise up the people of lower class in Chicago. She never made her gender an issue; others did. She knew that she was acting out of her "place" and didn't need to publicly acknowledge this fact.

But despite some negative feed back about her work, Addams has generally been praised over the years. Leonard W. Levy, author and Humanities professor has commented that "to the poor and exploited, [Addams] was not merely a kindly benefactor, a champion or a missionary; she was a warm, understanding friend. Even ward bosses, trade unionists, and business leaders grudgingly acknowledged her ability". "Her greatness, as Emily Balch called it, lay precisely in her capacity to ask the kind of questions most people prefer to ignore". Daniel Levine, author of Jane Addams and the Liberal Tradition, wrote of her saying that "people listened to her - not only because her words seemed right, but also because she had put her words into action at the Hull House. She knew what she was talking about".

Her strengths, as mentioned above, greatly aided her in becoming such an influential figure in American society. Addams was also a strikingly effective speaker. The oratorical flair that she had in college was developed through years of experience... [she] was also a writer of considerable power. She had always felt that research and writing were a part of the settlement house idea. But despite all of her inherent positive characteristics, she also had a very evident weakness; her father. After her father died, "she found herself abruptly cast adrift with no support except her own somewhat overdeveloped conscience, the demands of which, she now discovered, she could not possibly meet", comments author Christopher Lasch. This is the only major flaw I have stumbled across that Addams had and it is a simple human reaction to losing a loved one.

Addams and the Hull House still have an effect on America today. The settlement house movement originally spread like wildfire across the nation. Today, there are more than eight hundred settlements, neighborhood houses, and community centers located throughout the US. They are coordinated through the National Federation of Settlements, which was founded in 1911 by Addams and other pioneer leaders. Another organization, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, continues its historic purposes. They are active in such areas as maintaining international summer schools, conducting special missions all over the world and publishing a quarterly on the subject of its activities and goal of peace.

Resources

Social Thought of Jane Addams by Christopher Lasch

To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done For America - A History by Lillie Faderman

Jane Addams 1860-1935: Critical Essay by Herbert Stroup

Christopher Columbus Was An Asshole

2008-06-04T21:45:00.008-04:00

After reading the book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen a few years back, I compiled a list of reasons that he should in no way have any positive connotations related to him whatsoever.

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CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS WAS AN ASSHOLE.

- His purpose was conquest and exploitation and used religion as a rationale for it (sound familiar?).

- He introduced 2 phenomena that revolutionized race relations and transformed the modern world: taking land, wealth and labor from indigenous peoples, leading to their near extinction and the transatlantic slave trade which created a racial underclass.

- On his first voyage he kidnapped 10-25 Native Americans to take to Spain.

- In 1495 sent 500 Arawaks to Spain, kept 500 slaves at the island of Haiti as well.

- In 1499 Columbus made major gold strikes on Haiti and forced hundreds of thousands of Indians to mine for him.

- Spaniards hunted Native Americans for sport and murdered them for dog food.

- Haiti population before Columbus - 8 million. Indian adults - between 1 and 3 million. In 1516 - 12,000 // In 1542 - fewer than 200 // By 1555 - all gone.

- This death rate led to Spanish importing tens of thousands more slaves from the Bahamas as well as starting a slave trade in Africa, initiated by Columbus' son.

HE DID NOT "DISCOVER" AMERICA.

- A Norse colony, in as early as 900 CE, on Greenland sent expeditions to various parts of North America: Baffin Land, Newfoundland, Labrador and possibly New England.

- Afro-Phoenicians launched from Egypt and are said to have reached Atlantic coast of Mexico in about 750 BCE.

- Organic material associated with colossal heads of basalt on Eastern Coast of Mexico (Olmec heads - where they got the name for the dude on Legends of the Hidden Temple, duh) are dated to about 750 BCE. They are thought to be realistic portraits of West Africans.

- He is also erroneously associated with 'discovering' that the world is round and corrected faulty geography. It was the popular belief at the time and he did not right this wrong.

THANKSGIVING IS THE WHITE MAN'S HOLIDAY.

- The first non-native settlers were African slaves left in South Carolina in 1526 by Spaniards who abandoned a settlement attempt

- British in Virginia took Native American prisoners and forced them to teach the colonists how to farm.

- Squanto, that dude who taught white folk how to farm corn with dead fish, traveled across the Atlantic AT LEAST 6 times. He was part of an early slave trade and was taken to places such as Holland and Africa... how the fuck do you think he just 'knew' English if he never saw a white man before?!

- Early Virginians engaged in bickering, sloth or even cannibalism; they dug random holes in search for gold and were soon starting to dig up putrid Native American corpses to eat or rented themselves out to Native American families as servants.

- All foods mentioned in the original thanksgiving feast are exclusively indigenous to the Americas and had been provided by the local tribe (probably against their will, as well).

- Eastern Indians had observed Autumnal Harvest celebrations for centuries. Washington set aside days for a national thanksgiving but our modern traditions date back only to 1863. Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday during the Civil War. Pilgrims were not included in the tradition until the 1890s and no one used the term 'pilgrims' until the 1870s.

The Padaung Peoples

2008-06-03T15:38:00.008-04:00

Being that I am an Anthropology major, I sometimes have to study other cultures. The following piece was a paper that I wrote for a class last year, including the bibliography in case anyone is interested in taking a more detailed look at these fascinating people.

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Also known as the Kayan, Ka-Kaung, Kariang, Yang or Long Necks, The Padaung is a group of indigenous peoples who reside in the Kayah State of Burma close to its border with Thailand. They are a sub-group of the Karen who are indigenous to Burma as well as Thailand. They speak Karenic from the language group Tibeto-Burman and make up 7 percent of Burma’s total population. The history of Burma as a state itself has been one soaked with controversy, war and political instability because of its military junta and history of colonialism from England in the 19^th century and this has most definitely affected the Padaung peoples.

There have been several disagreements between peoples in Burma about when the Karen peoples as a whole appeared there and

according to the Karen version, their people arrived in Burma, a region which at that time was virtually unpopulated jungle, approximately 2,500 years ago (the current year 2000 is 2739 on the Karen calendar) after a migration in several stages from the region of what is now Mongolia, and settled in what is now the Irrawaddy and Sittaung basin of central Burma (khrg.org, par. 3).

Their descendancy from Mongolians has caused disagreement about their status as an “indigenous” group although they have lived in the area for thousands of years. Burma’s past was characterized with numerous warring clans for several hundred years up until the British arrived to conquer the area in the 19^th century.

Burma was included as a territory of British India in 1886 thanks to British colonialism. Several changes were made to local governing bodies and apparently these were not completely negative. “For peoples such as the Karen, Karenni and Kachin, British colonialism was partly liberation from the repression of the Burmans, and it gave them their first access to education and some forms of development” (khrg.org, par. 4). This also included an increasing number of missionaries visiting the area and converting many Karen peoples to Christianity. Today, over 30 percent of Karen peoples are of Christian faith and the other 70 percent follow either Buddhism or Animism (Karen.org, par. 1).

The most major reaction that the Padaung have undergone in response to outsiders has been the way they preserve their culture. Their most famous staple, brass neck rings, are still worn by young girls today. Around the age of 5 or 6 a girl will get her first coil placed around her neck and will continue to wear a coil for the rest of her natural life. This is actually a single piece of brass that has been contoured to her neck that holds the appearance of being several rings. Contrary to popular belief, this actually does not stretch out one’s neck. As the female is growing, the rings put pressure on the collarbones, force them downwards and give them the illusion of having an elongated neck. As she gets older, the coil will be replaced by longer pieces of brass to further this process.

There are several theories on why this practice was implemented in the first place. Two popular ideas are that “it is done to prevent tigers from biting them… [or] it is done to make the women unattractive so they are less likely to be captured by slave traders” (peoplesoftheworld.org, par. 2). The first explanation is derived from the Padaung’s mythology and the second is more of an outsider’s opinion. Another explanation derived from mythology is that “a beautiful dragon with a long neck was impregnated by the wind to produce the first Padaung people” (Gray, par. 4). Even a fourth popular reason is that it symbolizes wealth and high status. When asked why they wear the neck rings, more often then not a response will be that they are following tradition or standards. One elderly woman commented that “'the longer [the neck] is, the more beautiful it is” and “my mother had a long neck, so I have a long neck” (Mydans, par. 27). The tradition has survived for many years because of young girls’ desires to live up to beauty standards passed down from their mothers.

Another reason why mothers have been passing this tradition on to their daughters is due to their status as a minority group. More recently, they have decided to turn their appearance into a medium through which profit can be made. One mother who has imposed the neck rings on her daughter comments that “if there are no long-necked women, nobody will come to see us and we will have no money” (Mydans, par. 7). There is also an issue with the men in the village because they apparently do not work. “With no economic role to play, they spend their days swinging in their hammocks, smoking cheroots and sipping rice wine” (Mydans, par. 16). This may coincide with the fact that the Kayans are a matrilineal culture. The Padaung women are very aware of their status as a group and in response, have used their unique presentation in order to obtain economic stability.

This way of responding to their situation has also carried over to those who have fled Burma as refugees to live in neighboring Thailand. “Forced re-settlement and labor, incarceration, denial of political representation and citizenship status rights among other human rights violations have led thousands of Karen to move into Thailand” (peoplesoftheworld.org, par. 8). “Although the Padaung have migrated to Thailand in only the last ten years (other Karen groups first settled there about a hundred and fifty years ago), they have become the most popular "attraction" for hill-tribe trekking tourists” (peoplesoftheworld.org, par. 3). “Most of the Padaung are in three border camps in the northwestern province of Mae Hong Son. An estimated 10,000 Thais and foreigners visit those camps each year, paying an entrance fee that allows them to photograph and mingle with the smiling, colorfully attired long-necked women and girls” (Gray, par. 5) The issue of attracting tourists can be very controversial. For example, there have been numerous reports of “human zoos” where women are forced into living in areas where a businessman of sorts will detain them and charge money for photographs.

Some of these cases are in fact voluntary but there are negative aspects of living in such conditions. A portion of the women could possibly be undocumented in Thailand, children may be forced into such work at young ages and the supposed “natural” conditions that tourists observe are little more than fixed shopping stalls (chiangdao.com, par. 9). Some positive characteristics of living in arranged areas could be making more than an average day’s pay with a lot less work, getting help regardless of being refugees or economic migrants and guaranteed tourism because of inherent fascination from those of other cultures (chiangdao.com, par. 10).

If their decision to relocate in Thailand is by their own will, then their reaction to the majority culture has been to flee the country. Documents have surfaced about the living conditions in Burma for the Padaung in which they have been victims to genocide and forced evacuations. In the Human Rights Watch World Report for 2002, it was documented that "villagers continued to be forcibly relocated, and those suspected of aiding guerrillas were tortured and sometimes killed. In January, government soldiers extra judicially executed three ethnic minority Padaung men in Ho Ha village in Shan State after a search for weapons turned up an old carbine rifle that villagers used for hunting” (peoplesoftheworld.org, par. 9). A big factor in targeting the Padaung peoples is suspicion of their involvement in anti-governmental groups. "In January, the [Burmese] army reportedly displaced some 30,000 villagers in Karen State when it burned villages in its dry season offensive against the insurgent Karen National Union” (peoplesoftheworld.org. par. 9). The Padaung peoples are often treated like terrorists in their own country without reason. Their only option seems to be to flee the country and hope for finding economic stability in Thailand.

Thankfully, through all of their hardships, the Kayan have kept their identity alive and well because “the Padaung at Mae Hong Son are better off -- thanks to their elongated necks -- than tens of thousands of other people who have fled Burma” (Gray, par. 19). Since they decided to simply relocate after facing discrimination from the majority culture they are now able to actively pursue better lifestyles in a country that seems to be more responsive and supportive of them. It is a tragedy that their only option is to leave the country that they have called home for hundreds of years but they seem to be aptly adapting to their environment and carrying on their backgrounds.

In conclusion, the Padaung peoples of Burma have been affected by their majority culture because of forced displacement and converting to religions other than Animism and Buddhism. In response to their status as a minority, they have not only actively preserved their culture but also created a way to bring in economic profit from it as well. In the face of adversity they have prevailed and became renowned worldwide for their perseverance and unique beauty standards.

Bibliography

chiangdao.com. 2007. Karen Long Neck Hilltribe Padaung. Par 9 and 10. 28 Nov 2007.

Gray, Dennis D. “Padaung ‘giraffe women’”. Seattlepi.com. 9 April 1998. Par. 2, 4 and 19. 27 Nov 2007.

KHRG.org. 2000. Background on Burma. Par. 3 and 4. 28 Nov 2007.

Karen.org. 2000. Main Page. Par. 1. 28 Nov 2007.

Mydans, Seth. “New Thai Tourist Sight: Burmese ‘Giraffe Women’”. Nytimes.com. 19 Oct 1996. Par. 7, 16 and 27. 27 Nov 2007.

Waddington, Ray. 2002. The Karen. The Peoples of the World Foundation. Par. 2, 3, 8 and 9. 27 Nov 2007.

Does This Sign Make Me Look Radical?

2008-06-02T19:44:00.005-04:00

I wrote this around the 4 year anniversary of the war in Iraq.

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I have realized lately how almost trendy it’s become to 'fuck the system' by going out to some 2 hour stand still so-called protest and hold propagandist anti-war posters. Don't get me wrong, I think peaceful action and picketing in well-viewed public areas is totally bitchin. Especially for the fact that Americans today have so many limited means of not only expressing their viewpoints, but feeling as if they have a say in things. And protests and other related activities are great. If you're well-educated about what the hell is going on (which most Americans are not).

The whole point of this is to speak of my disdain for people who go out holding such leftist signs and spewing leftist retort while bashing all things right-wing and republican. Guess what kids? BOTH sides of the political spectrum are fucked up! Most kids, especially in conservative-as-fuck Lancaster County, PA are more than eager to attach themselves to the Democratic Party simply because it goes against what their parents and the mainstream media have to say. Well I'll gladly put myself out there to be a martyr and be the first punker to say that being leftist does not make you fucking punk. It makes you another mindless drone, going along with what the rest of the herd is doing.

Now, if you associate with the Democratic Party because its stated values and ideals are the closest set to your own actual beliefs, I wholeheartedly applaud you. But not because of your party choice. Just for the fact that you made a partisan allegiance based on what you believe in, not what you are expected to embrace. But all I ask is that you review what you yourself believe to be true and get educated about what the fuck you pride yourself on. There are more than just 2 political parties out there!

My other concern (or pet peeve) is the fact that all protests now are geared towards the Iraq War. Rightfully so, it is one of the most polarizing and most conversed about topic in current affairs. I do not condone war whatsoever. I'm in the same boat as you, thinking the war must come to an end, and soon. But have you questioned by what means this can be achieved? Do you really believe that if America pulled out of Iraq right now that there would be no consequences, for Americans and Iraqis alike? HELL NO. There have been so many problems with the way that both the American and Iraqi militaries have handled rebuilding the tattered country that if we left right now, it would be worse. Our military has focused more on fighting guerillas and terrorists (or patriots, whatever you prefer calling them) than restructuring internal regulatory administrations like the government and the police force to keep stability and order in the country. They got themselves into the damn mess and they have to get themselves out of it. Pulling out of Iraq right now would just fuck things up worse. We need a gradual withdrawal by putting supportive forces in place of American soldiers by means of help from other countries, not just America. Do you want another country to be indirectly controlled, grief-stricken and poverty-ridden because of American hegemony? I sure as hell don't.

There are TONS of different pressing issues of today that we should all be aware of and readily assess. I think most kids just get behind the anti-war movement because it’s easy. War is never a good thing. In some shape or form everyone can agree on that, so it’s not much of a decisive issue. We, as the future, need to get more involved and educated about other issues unreported in mainstream media. How come there are virtually no rallies about AIDS, the diamond mining industry of Africa, economic policies (tariffs, trade barriers, inflation, minimum wage), damaging multi-national corporations, domestic and foreign cotton subsidies, nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific, our corrosive prison system, the bullshit War on Drugs or even the education system? Is it because we care less about these issues or that we don't know about them?

In retrospect, I just want you to question what you think should be done with foreign policy. There's never just one solution and the issues are always changing. Always ask questions. Always think of what you would do in a certain situation. This is the absolute best way to train yourself how to think, not what to think. Question your beliefs. Question your ideals. Question what the fuck your little poster or chanted slogan means.

Interview With An Immigrant

2008-06-01T16:27:00.009-04:00

This was an interview conducted with a friend, Johnny, who grew up in Spain. This conversation was originally taped and then transcribed into print format. The interview was conducted in the summer of 2006 the night before he was to return to his military base and, after a few weeks of further intense basic training, serve a 9-month stint in Iraq. I have not had the opportunity to talk at length with him since he has been back but I plan to as soon as we both have the time.

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I'm really hoping to turn this topic into a series. I wanted to get a "foreign" perspective of the increasing number of illegal immigrants in America and what it is like to live in a country that you were not born in. This first interview is with Johnny Vasquez, who was born in El Salvador and socialized in Spain. I was especially excited to talk to Johnny because he is a member of the United States Marine Corps. I found it very fascinating to speak with someone fighting in a foreign military and my conversations with Johnny, taped or not, inspired me to look even further at American issues from the viewpoint of an 'immigrant'... Well, at least currently. Remember, we are all immigrants on foreign soil (if you are not of Native American descent, anyway); this land was originally inhabited by Native Americans and over 90 million were enslaved and//or slaughtered to ensure the white man's American dream was achieved. But before I get too carried away on my disdain for the white man...

crusty riot grrl: Name, age and current location?
Johnny Vasquez: Jonathan Edison Vasquez, 21, Columbia, PA.

crg: Where were you born?
Johnny: Santana, El Salvador. That's in Latin America.

crg: When did you move to America?
Johnny: When I was 16.

crg: Why did you come to America?
Johnny: Because I was a coke head.
crg: For real?
Johnny: Yeah, that's for real.

crg: How hard was it for you to learn English?
Johnny: My mother is American, so growing up I learned Spanish and English at the same time. But I spoke more Spanish than English growing up.

crg: What were your first thoughts about moving to America?
Johnny: I was scared because my impression of America was that people get drunk all the time in their houses and I thought that was really lame. [Laughter] That's honestly the truth. Not only that, but that Americans made movies about Americans saving the world, being the cure to every disease in life. I thought Americans were very selfish and conceited and I was afraid to become a part of that, and to be brainwashed like they were. I was afraid of being a part of a society that thought they were the cure to life.

crg: Do you consider yourself an "immigrant"?
Johnny: I consider myself a human being who had to travel to a distant land in order to become liberated... It's different than the definition of immigrant because I was not unhappy with the country that I was living in. Immigrants move because they’re not content with the current situation with their own country therefore they move to find a better spectacle of hope. I wasn't looking for hope when I moved here. They were looking for hope for me; I already had [it]. I came here because I was forced to by my parents and I was willing to be obedient to them to make things easier. I was ready for an adventure.

crg: Do you have dual citizenship?
Johnny: Yes, I do. Spaniard, American, Guatemalan, and El Salvadoran. So I guess that's quadruple citizenship! [Laughter]

crg: Have you ever had a bad experience with being foreign?
Johnny: Yes. It's hard to talk about because I am one who knows that my friends…can make fun of me for being from Spain and it doesn't bother me. But when I get people who don't even know me, all they know is that I'm from Spain and they call me a spic, a foreigner. That pisses me off because, how dare you call me that and you don't even know me? I would rather you get to know me, what I stand for and then joke around about that. I'm cool with that. But just because I'm from a different place and you think I fit a certain stereotype…I hate stereotypes, fuck stereotypes. But even I'm guilty of judging others by [them] at the same time. It doesn't mean that I will accept people stereotyping me.

crg: How do you feel about the current immigration situation in Mexico?
Johnny: I think that [everyone] should have the right to come to America. Why? Because this land was based and founded on freedom. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech. So why the fuck are we going to deprive somebody [citizenship] who can't speak the same language that we do but is willing to work harder than we are? Why are we going to say no to that? Not to take advantage of them but the fact that they are willing to work their asses off to give money to their families back in Mexico. These guys are such hard workers, why are we going to deprive them of something they want to do? Back when this country was first founded, Europeans were coming over here and their mindset was [on] legends that when you go to America, candy rains out of the sky. That's the image that America had a couple hundred years ago.
crg: What do you think has changed since then?
Johnny: I think everything has changed. I think right now, it is still the land of opportunity but yet at the same time it's so much harder to attain that dream. You want that dream, you have to go through shit, you have to go through hell. You have to fight for so much more than you ever thought you would. Mexicans come here thinking they're fighting for their rights to work. They're coming here for the right to fucking live.

crg: Should English be the official language of America?
Johnny: No. I'm biased, I think Spanish should be. Because Spaniards have earned the rights to be American citizens. People who speak English as their first language have not.
crg: I was born and raised here. What do you think I need to do to prove that I am eligible to be an official American citizen?
Johnny: You should encourage the right to live a free life despite your language, despite your nationality. Fuck nationality, ignore that completely. You want to come here? Let them earn it. Help them fight for it. Show them that this truly is the land of the brave. What is bravery and courage to me? It's fighting for the weak. Fighting against the majority. [Show] that you're willing to give whatever it takes so they can have it.

crg: Why did you join the American military?
Johnny: At that time in my life I was going through a very conservative Christian school. My circle of friends composed of people who wanted to be pastors and missionaries. My parents were missionaries but at the same time, those are not people that I want to develop very deep relationships with. At that time I felt like I had nothing to lose. I wanted to experience something to get out. This is what the military said to me: "We'll pay for your college, we'll give you something to get out of the dull life that you're living". So I said, okay, sign me up for 4 years. Then they said, "Okay, good, you want to sign up for 4 years? But if you want us to pay [full] for your college, sign up for 6”. Due to the fact that I was in my third semester in college, I said okay. If I knew that I would have what I have right now, at this point in time...I would have never signed the dotted line.

crg: Have you talked to other Marines who say the same thing?
Johnny: 4. Just 4 Marines. Everyone else is either afraid to talk or are like, fuck it, I signed the dotted line and that's my fate. I don't care if I sign a dotted line; the only people that choose my fate are God and myself.

crg: What are your thoughts about fighting for a foreign Marine Corps?
Johnny: When I decided to join the Marine Corps of America...there are at least a dozen Marine Corps in the world, but the most infamous one was America's... I don't care if it would have been America or China; if it would have been China, I would have joined the Marine Corps of China. But it was this country that is worth fighting and dying for - that was my mentality. I grew up in Europe, a liberal country. A country that hated war, focused and emphasized on the individuality of the human being so that they may enhance their lives. I come here... Their lives are threatened in America, or so they say. Their freedom is jeopardized and I think how beautiful this country is because of all the shit it's been through. You have to admit, this country is very unique. I thought, damnit, that's worth losing my left nut for. So I said what the fuck, what do I have to lose?... It was the dream that this nation had, that has been lost and corrupted, that made me join it.

crg: Is there anything you miss about Spanish culture?
Johnny: I miss waking up every morning and knowing that I didn't have to have a certain level or degree to live by. In Spain, I would get up and be like, "I'm gonna get drunk in the park today and I know I'm not gonna get arrested, so I'm not worried about it". It's so much more laid back there. It is true freedom to the point that you don't have to be paranoid or worried about anything.

crg: Are there any major changes you would like to see in America?
Johnny: I would like to see a country that embraces love instead of lust. America embraces itself on who has the bigger boobs, the better lips, the better body. Fuck that. Where's that gonna get us? In the top 10 of Playboy. Fuck Playboy, fuck Penthouse, fuck Hustler. I want to see a nation that embraces the heart of the human being. I want to see somebody fighting for individuality and the right to think for their own selves. We've lost that in this nation - and look what we have. American Idol. I'm expected to fight for that? I'm not going to fight for it. American Idol can suck my cock. [Laughter]

crg: Would you consider moving back to Spain?
Johnny: I consider moving back to Spain every single day.
crg: And what keeps you from doing it?
Johnny: People that I love here. Because I know they need me. So I'm here. I'll be here long enough to convince you all to come with me. [Laughter] You don't believe it now, but you will!

crg: Anything else you'd like to say about being Johnny Vasquez?
Johnny: Well, I want to live for myself, focusing on my needs but yet I realize that they are nothing compared to the needs of those I love. Therefore I'm willing to give whatever it takes for them to have it… Things will be better. Right now is the true test of the human heart in America.

The Emperess Strikes Back

2008-05-30T15:26:00.007-04:00

Alright, this one isn't exactly something that I wrote with intention of publishing in the zine, but it's still fun. I have a personal profile on a website where I regularly get random messages from boys saying quite ridiculous things. When I received the following message, I guess I just didn't feel like dealing with bullshit in general but also wanted to take it to a humorous level, although it was probably more than needed. I know this particular guy might not have done anything too horrible to unleash my fiery feminist fury, but just hear me out.
Throughout my life, I've been expected to "talk respectfully" and told to constantly "be polite" with everyone I come in contact with, which was especially enforced by my parents. Women have been imbibed with feeling like they must constantly censor themselves for fear of stepping outside of the "nice girl" boundaries. If a man does something that I don't like, how am I supposed to respond? By internalizing the issue and rationalizing it to the point where I believe that his actions were somehow my fault, thus absolving him of any blame? I believe most women have a habit of doing this and I make a conscious effort not to go down that path.
Even when I get accosted in real life, I have no way of rationalizing the completely uncalled-for things that have been said to me in the past. The most common thing people think of to justify a man's actions? The way a female presents herself. I don't dress provocatively and anyone who knows me personally can vouch for that, so you can toss that out the window with me. Even when I share these experiences with my amazing boyfriend, he often asks, "Did you beat the shit out of him?" or "What did you say?" He understands that I don't bring these encounters upon myself, and I assume he feels disrespected in an indirect way because of the way I've been treated.
All too often I've had the pleasure of encountering men that believe they have the right to whistle at, touch, be blatantly sexual to or tell me his honest opinion of me. And all too often these same men have walked away stunned after I tell them what I think; because they never expected me to do anything about it. Anyway, the point is that if a man wants to make comments to me, in real life or cyber space, he better be prepared for the backlash.

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"Whatup? You're are so fucking hot girl! I loved yer profile. You're lucky, I think Baltimore is a really cool city to live in. I hang out up there from time to time... Write me back, beautiful... it would make my day."

What, motherfucker, just because you think I look good, you think that I'm gonna write your sad ass back? What if I'm a total and complete dick as well as ugly in real life? [I AM!] Why the fuck should I be nice to you just because you gave me a goddamn compliment?! I mean, its cute of you to go out of your way and tell me I'm nice-looking, but don't try to pass it off like you're actually interested in who I am as a person. If you were, you'd bring up something about my personality first before saying anything about me being attractive. I'm sure you pulled the Baltimore thing out of your nasty ass just to add some actual substance to that message. Or to subtly hint at the fact that you live close enough for us to hang out and/or fuck.

I'm sick of guys expecting me to be nice when I know for goddamn sure that I'm only being talked to in the first place for what I look like. Don't, for one fucking second, think that I'm going to reciprocate your so-called kindness. Want to compliment me? Tell me I'm intelligent, strong and independent. Tell me I'm the queen bitch and you aren't even worthy of my time. Tell me you have respect for me as well as all women. Tell me you are never again going to message (or approach) a total stranger solely for the fact of giving them a so-called compliment.

I'll write you back and make your day. As long as you let me crush your testicles under my women's size 11 steel-toed boots and make mine.

< /rant >

The C Word

2008-05-29T00:48:00.009-04:00

Throughout history, people have created a set of slang words and terminology to be used as aspersions. When we were younger, we used insults such as 'butthole' and 'dork'. As we matured, so did our put-downs: they increased in vulgarity as well as severity. We now throw around general ignominies like 'jackass', 'bastard', 'shithead' or 'asshole'. They're all relatively the same insults as when we were younger but with a little bit more zing to them. But another layer of demeaning language has been added in our maturation that is more focused on the specifics of people, such as race, sexual orientation and gender. Most of us could compile a pretty damn long list of inappropriate nicknames to call anyone that is non-white or queer. As for gender, we all know which sex gets the short end of the fucking stick. There are at least a dozen terms set aside solely for the purpose of putting down a female. Insults for men are few and far between: 'dick' and 'prick' are probably the most male-specific put-downs, which aren't exactly the most hard-hitting things I can think to call someone. You're pretty much calling them their genitalia. Which leads me to question why we use the word 'cunt' to insult women.

Once upon a time, I checked my phone and saw that I had a new voice mail message. As it turns out, some jerk off had anonymously called my phone to say that he was discussing with his friend how much of a cunt I was. My first reaction? I was pissed beyond belief, of course! My carnal instinct of rage kicked in as I called the fucker back to question his identity, which he did not reveal, being a scared little shit and all. As I calmed down and thought about the situation, I realized that I was overreacting. The true reason for my anger was that he didn't voice his opinion to my face, not the exact term he referred to me as. Getting called a cunt? No big deal! Pfft, what a great fuckin insult, pretty much calling me a vulva. Haha. Real demeaning.

If you would have thrown that word at me a few years ago, I would have stopped at nothing to smash your face in. But I've actually rationalized its use since then. After doing some quick research, I found out the word cunt came into circulation in the Middle English period around 1325. The use of cunt as an abusive term towards women didn't really start until the late 1920's. I also discovered that 'cunt' is the last genuinely unprintable and unsayable expletive in the mainstream media of America, less acceptable than 'fuck'! Well, what's the big goddamn deal people? It really seems as if the US is the most cuntfearing society these days. Even in the UK the people most offended by this word are men. They use it for one another to express that they are being obnoxious or malicious. This just goes to show that the worst thing you can call a guy is a girl and the worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. In this case, women are being called their own body part... and taking it as an insult. How ridiculous is that?!

I think it's time females take back the word for themselves. It could be just like guys calling one another 'dude' or 'man'. They have their reserved nicknames and why should women be left out of all the fun? It should no longer be treated as a hugely offensive and abrasive derogatory term towards females. But don't take it personally if it comes from someone with a Y chromosome. Man calls you a cunt? Say thanks! Tell them you're proud to be as well as have such a lovely little package of wonder and mystery. Make sure to spread the love to other cunts! See a woman on the street and greet her by saying "Good afternoon, cunt!” Female friend make a big accomplishment? Applaud her by stating "Congratulations, my fellow cunt!" Sure, this might not catch on for a couple of decades or so, but it's a start. I wholeheartedly believe that becoming desensitized to the word will make people more aware of what it emulates and will take the bite out of it. Women need to embrace such a powerful word and use it as a mode of empowerment instead of letting it be turned against us.

Remember grrls, if we can bleed for 6 days and not die, we can withstand anything. Including a menial four letter word.

PS. KK, no hard feelings. You're a dick.