The Rules of Rape Culture: On Self-Help and Self-Blaming

The neglectful blogger returns!  So for the extremely small number of readers that have remained, I finished the MLIS and have now embarked upon the PhD in Library and Information Science.  Right now, I'm in a tiny limbo for another week or so until the PhD classes start.  Since I'm just taking Storytelling and International Children's Literature in the first part of the summer, I have been cramming all the extracurricular reading I can manage into the nooks and crannies.  My current read is Jessica Lamb-Shapiro's Promise Land:  My Journey Through America's Self-Help Culture, and chapter 2 horrified me.

A little confession:  I kind of hate self-help as a genre.  For the most part to me the books seem disingenuous and creepy.  I know that some people claim they worked for them, and I am genuinely glad that they were helped.  But I still hate the whole lot of it.  I particularly hate the "find-a-man," marriage section and their seeming need to time warp back to the 1950s to "help" people with relationships.  When I was in high school, a book called The Rules came out.  I never read it; I was then in the throes of my I'm-going-to-hell-because-I-like-girls thing.  The Rules was about as far from my interests as you could have gotten at that point.  I truthfully don't know if girls I went to school with read the thing, but I think I remember some talking about it my senior year.  Regardless of my memory, my age group would have at least known about and been cognizant of the book.

Like I said, I never read it.  In fact, I can say with certainty that until I started chapter 2 of Lamb-Shapiro's books, I knew next to zero about the content.  I knew it was gaggingly old-fashioned and led women to believe that they could control men and relationships with weird rules.  What I didn't know is that it is completely crazy and suggests crap straight out of a 1952 Ladies Home Journal.  In the book and seminars (which are still apparently a thing), women are counseled to play the ever-popular hard-to-get and manipulate the men they are dating at the same time.  Some advice from the book, quoted by Lamb-Shapiro:

• Don't sound cynical or depressed...act as if you were born happy.
• Be quiet...Sometimes men want to drive in silence...Don't ruin his concentration.
• Hide self-help books, Prozac, bathrobes, and apparently anything that might let him in on the secret that you aren't a Stepford girlfriend before he comes over.

They also tell women how many times a week the man should be allowed to see her (only once a week the first month and only a very little more as the relationship progresses).  He is supposed to be driven crazy by the lack of access to you.  Right now, some of you are saying, well, even though this advice seems a bit archaic and icky around the edges, it doesn't seem to deserve the blog title.  

I'm getting to that.

So, in Lamb-Shapiro's book, she is attending a Rules seminar, and a woman stands up to give her "success story."  You know, to be the after image.  She supposedly followed the book and purchased the private sessions with the authors for a makeover and consultation (which incidentally includes advice on plastic surgery), and BAM! she lands her a man.  She mentions that there are a few problems during the engagement, but she just kept throwing the Rules at him hoping to fix it.  They married, and she finds out he's a touch on the abusive and angry side.  The authors, who of course have written The Rules for Marriage, help her once again, and she once again throws Rules at him trying to fix the relationship.  Luckily, she got out of the marriage before it escalated, but her explanation is that she did not follow the Rules closely enough.

Pause.  Read that again.  This woman blamed her abusive marriage on the fact that she did not follow some arcane and ridiculous self-help book closely enough.  The book explicitly states, "Abuse doesn't happen in a Rules relationship because when you play hard to get and he works like hell to get you, he thinks you're the most beautiful, wonderful woman in the world, even if you're not.  He treats you like a precious jewel."  In another part of the book, they claim, "It's good when men get upset; it means they care about you.  If they're not angry, they're indifferent, and if they're indifferent, they've got one foot out the door."  Women are counseled to be sexually distant and not talking about "your needs" unless asked.  What we have here is a recipe for a dangerous relationship.

I am perfectly aware that the self-help genre in general thrives because it makes users believe that if what they're peddling doesn't work, it's because they didn't try hard enough.  That's bad enough when you're talking  How to Be More Positive, but when you're making people believe it is their supposed bad direction following that caused a spouse to abuse them?  The brakes need to be put on, folks.  

In a related vein, during the seminar one of the authors is discussing "allowing" the man to see you.  She says that she limited her now-husband to the recommended number of times in the book.  He wasn't "allowed" to talk to her more than five minutes a day, but now that they're married he can talk to her all he wants.  "But he gave me rings, he bought me a house; he owns me now, so it's okay."  

This, people, this sort of derivative drivel out of the stone ages is what's driving rape culture.  People are brought up hearing this sort of "advice" and believe it.  Women aren't supposed to make their sexual voices heard, so they don't.  They believe that being raped or in an abusive relationship is the end result of their own lack of ability to be a "proper woman" of some sort.  Can we please agree that this is not the way to create a functional society?

The Rules may not be relevant in itself anymore, but the advice it gives is still here.  The seminars they offer still get paid for and attended.  Yet more women are being set up as victims and told they cannot be the main character in their own lives.  This is not okay.

She has such pretty face...

A good friend of ours is expecting a daughter, and I was picking up a few more things for her baby shower gift in Wal-Mart today.  I came around the corner and found this:

This is a onesie starting in size 0-3 months.  ZERO TO THREE MONTHS!  On the other side of the rack was one intended for boys in gray that said "Don't call me chubby. This is all muscle."  

So what?  A lot of people (including the woman working the infants section) think this is cute.  It is not cute, and let me tell you why.  I've pretty much always been a big girl.  I started gaining weight in fourth grade, and it has fluctuated up and down my whole life.  As a kid, I dieted all the time.  I tried all the ones in the women's magazines laying around the house, and I even checked weight loss books out of the library aimed at kids.  People took it upon themselves to tell me "You have such a pretty face." and "You'd be so much prettier if you just lost a few pounds."  Bullies at school called me a variety of uninspired and cruel names.  I learned to hate my body, hate what it looked like, and it has only been in the last couple of years that I have finally come to a cease fire.  I'm 33.  So for 20+ years, I put tons of energy into hating and hating and hating the one and only body I have.  Yes, I am heavier than I would like.  I would  not be averse to dropping a few pounds in order to be able to buy some of the clothes I like that do not come in my current size.  However, no matter how big or small I am, it has nothing to do with who I actually am, but I was brought up in a society in which one's worth is believed to be tied to one's weight.  Is this really a tradition we want to continue?

No child, girl or boy, needs to grow up in an environment of shame and self-hatred.  There is nothing wrong with promoting healthy living, but there's a fine line between that and the area in which fat-shaming and the offensive onesie live.  The baby I was buying gifts for is not my own, and I do not plan on having any.  I do, however, have very fertile friends, and I want more than anything to promote a world in which our friends' daughters and sons are brought up to value their intelligence, kindness, and courage rather than the size of their jeans.  A world in which onesies like this are not a reality.  A world in which no one hears "But you have such a pretty face" anymore.  

Waxing Poetic the Fifth, Poetry Month Day 4: What Women Deserve

If you don't know that certain people are leading a war against women, you haven't been paying attention. Being a woman in this country right now is no easy thing, and minority women have it even worse. On the one hand, politicians don't want standard healthcare because that would be too much government control for their taste. On the other, they want to legislate women's health at every turn. You can't have it both ways.

With all this in mind, today's selection is the incomparable Sonya Renee with "What Women Deserve."

Adventures in Women's Studies: Purity-Mongers Strike Again

Earlier this week, I guest lectured in a Gender and Pop Culture class using the research I did for my honors thesis--the Duggars, Quiverfull, purity movements, and the like. It went quite well as usual, and we ended the class by watching the new 45 minute documentary of Jessica Valenti's The Purity Myth. She analyzes the obsession with a woman's purity and how this in fact sexualizes women and girls even more by placing their entire worth between their legs. Excellent watching. Find a way to view it.

In any case, it just so happens that Valenti was also just on Anderson Cooper debating with Randy Wilson, who is the male half of the couple that created the infamous Purity Balls, ample footage of which can be found on you tube. The usual arguments were made (brilliantly on Valenti's part, weak and insane on Wilson's in my humble opinion), and much merriment was had by all the feminists. Then they discussed a you tube vlog that went viral at the end of last year, posted by a 13-year-old Canadian girl about slut shaming.

Slut Shaming: the act of shaming a woman as a slut for her actual or perceived sexual activity based on rumor, attire, or knowledge of her personal life; most important to note is that it is solely aimed at women

She should be explaining this to a majority of the grown women I know. She breaks down how it contributes to sexism and rape culture and basically does the universe a service by putting this out there for her audience. The after-show "continued discussion" featured several audience members quietly losing their shit over how this 13-year-old was discussing sex and sluts. "She's so young." "She's advocating sex at 13." "She's too young to know anything about this." Okay, I usually have some issues with the current youth movement's insistence on supporting youth rights as extensively as they do. Don't get me wrong. I do think that young adults should be taken seriously, but they are still young adults, which means they do still need guidance and not all of them are as capable and mature as the movement would have you think. However, this girl is obviously quite knowledgeable, and the fact of the matter is that she never advocated sex for 13-year-olds. Not once. She never said she was having sex. Not once. She never even said that all her friends were having sex. Again, not once. What she advocated was well-informed, consensual, safe sex for those who are mentally and physically prepared to deal with the act and its possible consequences--an excellent thing to stump for as far as I can see. These women (and notice that it was only women) who basically attacked her mentally blocked everything she said except "have sex," instantaneously morphing a mature, well-thought-out, brilliant message that should be standard fare in any household into a blanket endorsement of child sex. In the process, they absolutely lost the message, one that they would have done well to absorb. There are kids having sex at 13 (and younger in some cases), and they have internalized the larger culture's ideals that a woman having sex at any age is a slut but a man is a stud. This is not new, but it is still a problem and needs to be addressed as such by women of all ages.

Valenti's main argument is that by focusing our attention completely on whether or not a girl or woman has had sex or not is painting her as nothing more than a sexual creature, which is exactly what the purity movements claim that larger society does and what they claim to be fighting by shoving the purity ideal down the throats of people at every turn. What they need to understand is that no one is attacking the idea of not having sex. That's fine. But they also need to understand that they need to stop attacking the idea of having it, which is also fine. A woman is not only the area between her legs, not just the number of times she's been intimate, and not solely the length of time she remains celibate; she is a complex creature with wants and needs every bit as important as her sexual activity or lack thereof. In short, can we please start telling our daughters and sons that the body is an amazing thing that houses the wonders of the mind and soul, which are truly the markers of a person's worth, and that there are better things to worry about than how many times the kid in the next row has or has not done the deed.

Scary Numbers, or What is Wrong with These People: A Brief Discussion of Rape Stats

While driving home today, I saw a billboard posted by a group called FSU Measure Up. In short, it's a "social norms initiative" which aims to "correct misconceptions about male students in regards to promiscuity and sexual violence" (from their "About" page). Anyway, the text read something like "FSU Men understand the importance of getting consent before sexual intimacy." First of all, let me say that I certainly support the idea that the men at FSU have figured out this apparently esoteric piece of knowledge, but...so I went and poked around the Measure Up website and found the following bits of info:

"88% of FSU men have gotten consent before sexual intimacy."

"97% of FSU men would do something to help a woman if they Saw her being mistreated."

"93% of FSU men would respect someone who intervened to prevent abuse or sexual assault."

Again, good, but...Since when did the notion that one needs consent before sex become such a revolutionary idea? And who are these 12% that did not get consent? Because, hello, that's rape and a crime, and my first inclination is expulsion. Except of course, these were, I assume, anonymous surveys, and so the people conducting them don't know which ones were the miscreants. Who are these 3% who would ignore the mistreatment, and why did so many of the 97% lie on this question? I'm sorry, but it's a valid question here. And the 7% who would not respect someone who intervened need their asses beaten. Here's one more thing to ponder: Why don't these numbers add up? These appear to be all from the same survey, so in theory, the men who got consent would have answered positively on other questions.

I'm just absolutely floored by the need for this campaign. As my friend Eric said, "What ought to be basic human decency is now award-winning behavior: 'Don't I get pie for not raping you?'"

Adventures in Women's Studies: *Facepalm* Ad Infinitum

What a way to start a morning...So, Summer's Eve has a new set of commercials promoting their wash and on-the-go wipes, and oh dear Goddess. What's the big deal?, you ask. Well, go check them out at Huffington Post. I'll wait...

Summer's Eve Hail to the V Commercials

Done? See what I mean? What in the world made them think these were a good idea? The Black woman goes to the club, the Latina is having kids, and the white woman is apparently the reason for the entire world. I would love to meet the person in advertising who created this mess. Between these and the Klondike bar fiasco (read my response to that here), I feel like I've fallen through some portal into the 1950's. What's next? Hoover commercials telling us that wives want a vacuum for Christmas or a woman caressing a shiny new refrigerator?

What has happened, people? I know that fads and time periods come and go; just look at fashion. But really? Fifties' style sexism? I could do without that one returning. The worst part of all this is that it isn't just advertising. Take a look at politics. Michele Bachmann has fully admitted that she follows old school biblical submission in her household, which of course, calls into question who exactly would be running the country should she be elected (Goddess forbid). Would her commitment to submission become a serious problem were she to be the most powerful person in the country? (And a question for another blog: how does being president even work with that ideal?) Regardless, it shows how prevalent these sexist ideals have become, and frankly, I am really worried. We are presenting the next generation of girls with these fragmented and outdated templates of how they are "supposed" to be. If this continues, no one should be surprised when teen pregnancy stays the same or increases (child bearing being an ideal job), when domestic abuse and rape become just another minor problem (more so than they already are seen as), and college stops being a means to a life of one's own and starts being just a way to get an Mrs. degree.

And yes, all this from poorly conceived advertising...

Adventures in Women's Studies: Klondike Drops the Bar

We don't have cable, so we watch all the shows we're obsessed with online--hulu, fox, etc. Despite the fact that they're online, there are a tone of ads, and the same ones play over and over during the Kitchen Nightmare seasons we've been watching: Axe and Klondike Bars. It should come as no surprise that Axe commercials are ridiculously misogynistic; they've always been that way. I still hate them, but at least I know what to expect from them. Klondike Bars, however, has started running one that I didn't see coming. They've been doing the "What would you do for a Klondike Bar?" thing for years and years, but the new one is the problem. The scene is a man and woman sitting on a couch; the man is watching tv, the woman is talking. It's titled "Mark vs. Actually Listening to His Wife." He listens to her talk for 5 seconds (literally) and is rewarded with a Klondike Bar, streamers, and two scantily clad blondes jumping around. I see this thing at least 10 or 15 times a day lately, and it never fails to piss me off. It's as if we've reverted to the '50's.

"To the moon, Alice!"

Advertising has never been feminist by any means, and it seems to be one of the last few remaining areas in which misogyny is perfectly acceptable. Take the Axe commercials: each one features a man who becomes an instant "chick magnet" by using the body wash, hair product, or whatever else they've started producing. The women are presented as being completely unable to control themselves or stop themselves from crawling all over the man. (That's all we need, more men who believe they're a gift to women.) The point is it's the year 2011, people. Are we really so pathetically uninteresting that we are still using these antiquated tropes? And are we really so pathetic that we like them or they work?

I went to Klondike's web site to complain and got back an initial form letter stating the following:

Unilever Ice Cream markets its various brands in ways that are meant to entertain and engage our target audience. The Klondike advertising appearing on AOL and other internet sites was developed to generate interest among our core users, adults 45+, for a “What Would You Do For A Klondike Bar?” contest recently launched by the brand. It was only intended to be humorous.

You may be interested to know that all of our commercials and advertisements are pre-tested and various techniques are used to evaluate consumer reactions. Based on the results of our pre-testing procedures, the presentations are chosen for their majority appeal. Please let us assure you that your comments are extremely important to us in evaluating the success of our commercials and advertisements.We have a long history of presenting "tasteful" advertising to the public. Our ads must be informative and truthful. The agencies creating our advertising adhere strictly to these guidelines.We certainly do not wish to offend anyone. In developing product messages, Unilever and its agencies may not always anticipate all possible implications of an advertisement or television commercial.

Pardon me, but truthful and tasteful? So every man in the U.S. needs to be bribed with ice cream in order to listen to his wife for a few seconds? I call shenanigans. Then they follow that with the old "we didn't want to offend." My standard reply to that is, well, then you shouldn't have said it.

Was your last job with IHS?: A Feminist Rages

A friend of ours recently had an ultrasound done and found out she has a cyst. She shuffled off to the gynecologist to follow up and the following ensued--reconstructed from what I was told. (It is salient to note that she is African-American and of a lower socio-economic status.)

Dr: Do you have children?

Friend: Two.
Dr: Where do you work?

Friend: (insert low paying job here)

Dr: Okay, we need to go ahead and take out both ovaries and tubes as soon as possible. (He meant next week, and keep in mind here that he has no blood work, no biospy, and the ultrasound people told her to just come back in 6 months.) You already have two kids, and you don't need to bring anymore "into this society."

WHAT? This doctor has no reason whatsoever to think that the cyst requires any further scrutiny, and yet he suggested fairly radical surgery and told her only after asking about her job that she didn't need to have anymore. And this was not some weird, ancient clinic doc. No, he's part of a well-known and (I thought) well-respected women's health care group here in town. My first thought was of the sterilization of poor women of color on reservations and elsewhere. If she had been white or had a better paying job, would he have suggested this? My guess is no, no he would not.

Regardless of my own personal beliefs about overpopulation, etc., this is ridiculous and unacceptable. Aside from the fact that he immediately suggested surgery for something that may not even need any intervention, he took it upon himself to decide that she shouldn't have more children apparently based on nothing more than her race and SES. 2011, and we're still at this point...

Adventures in Women's Studies: The Duggars Revisited

So, we all know how much I miss academia. I have been going out of my skull with no research, conjugations, or papers to do, and so when Genevieve, a fabulous grad student who teaches Women's Studies, emailed and asked me to give my Quiverfull presentation for her class, of course I said yes. Next Wednesday evening I get to put that look of "omg are you serious?" into the eyes of Women's Studies students. It's great. I love it. Anyway, the class is a new one called Mothering in the 21st Century, so I know I need to update the PowerPoint I use--not to mention it just needs updating. I decided to catch up on my Duggar surveillance. I backtracked and figured out I've missed 3 whole seasons (!) and what there is of season 7. Horrors! Being without cable, I went trolling YouTube, and lo and behold there they all are in pieces. Voila! Duggar-thon! (Thank you duggarhayesfan for uploading all of them!)

I don't really have a solid point for this blog post, but we'll see what new and fabulous insights arise from my mini research session...

As I was about to post this, Michelle mentioned that she was taking Jim Bob to her Weight Watchers meeting...and then she said Jana had been going for quite a while. Jana is the oldest daughter and has never once in all the years they've been on tv been even slightly chubby. She's beautiful (I will be woman enough to admit having a small crush...calm down--she's over 18.), and I just don't know what to do with this info yet. I get Michelle going: She uses WW to lose the baby weight after each kid and get back to her pre-pregnancy weight. Fine. Whatever floats her boat. But I just don't know what to think about encouraging Jana to do it. That just screams messed up body images to me...

Duggar Fun (If a Bit Scary) Fact: If all 19 kids had 19 kids each, there would be nearly 7,000 grand-Duggars. Oh, VIsion Forum would love that...

Fixing Samantha: Beauty, Imperfection, and Cowardice

Seven-year-old Samantha Shaw of South Dakota recently underwent cosmetic surgery to "fix" her ears, which stuck out a bit and one had a small fold. Her mother claims it was to prevent future bullying. There had apparently been comments made in front of the girl by kids and adults about her ears, and her mother decided it would be a good idea to alter the "problem." As cosmetic surgery is rather expensive, the Little Baby Face Foundation covered the cost, and the doctor who performed the surgery was quoted as saying Samantha's surgery was not cosmetic but necessary. (If you go to Little Baby Face, the "deformities" they usually cover are listed, things like cleft palettes, for instance. Not usually ears that stick out.)

Am I the only one who sees a serious problem with all this? Her mother has, by doing this, stated unequivocally to her child that anytime the outside world finds fault with her, she should alter herself in any way possible to "fix" it. This sort of belief system is the basis of eating disorders and women who stay in abusive relationships. The problem is not the girl or her ears. The problem is the bullies.

Why is it that we are so ready to alter the world to suit those who are in the wrong? Samantha Shaw should not be made to feel that she is somehow defective because others find her imperfect. The defect lies in the bullies and ignorance of the people who made her feel this way. Instead of seeking out the surgery, maybe her mother should simply have stood up for her daughter when these comments were made instead of taking the coward's way out. Catering to the ignorant will only make it easier for them to operate. She should have taken the opportunity to teach her that no one is perfect, but everyone is beautiful in some way--even the bullies.

Lucretia: Behind the Myth

Anyone who knows me well, knows I hate the story of Lucretia from Roman history. I had to read it for Women's Studies and in all 3 semesters of Latin so far, and I. Hate. It. It should NOT end with her committing suicide. She should have taken someone's sword and gone Xena on Sextus Tarquinius herself. There shouldn't have been anything left to banish. Had she been put to death for that act, I could stomach her fall, but the suicide to prevent shame? Please....

Anyway, I had to "interview" a mythological or historical figure for my article/essay class this weekend, and the following is what happened. It may not be the best thing I've ever come up with, but it also had to be 500 words, which I went over by 43...so, cut me a bit of slack...

Lucretia: Behind the Myth

Lucretia: a name, that for students of Women’s Studies and the Classics, brings up many emotions. For some, it is pity for her tragic end; for others, anger, at the way she was used in Roman literature. In either case, it is clear that Lucretia has a lasting place in academia and in history, but how much of the truth are we really getting from Livy? Hopefully, we will discover the answer today, as I had the fortune of interviewing Lucretia herself on the events that made her famous and the legacy they created.

D: For those unfamiliar with your story, would you mind giving a brief summary?

L: Not at all. Collatinus, my husband, was away at the siege of Ardea, and apparently they found time to have a party in the royal barracks. He and his cousins began boasting about how virtuous their wives were, and (egged on by too much wine, I’m sure) decided to test us. So they rode to Rome where all the royal daughters-in-law were at a banquet, quite enjoying themselves while the husbands were away on the battlefield. Hoping to find me in a similar situation, they rode to Collatia. Much to my husband’s delight (and his cousins’ dismay), they found me sitting with my maidservants wool-working. This pissed Sextus, the king’s son, off, and after all had returned to battle, he came to my house. As he is related, he was granted entry, and breaking into my bedchamber, he raped me. Long story short, the Tarquins were expelled, ending the kingship, and the Republic began.

D: Now, Livy states that you called Collatinus and your father the next day, and after you told them what happened, you committed suicide. There is some question of whether this is actually what happened. Some say your father killed you because of the shame. What really happened?

L: (sighs) That is the main reason I agreed to this interview. I am tired of being used as the poster girl for “Roman womanhood.” Yes, Sextus raped me. Yes, I told my husband and father who vowed to avenge me. Yes, it caused the downfall of the kingship and the beginning of the Republic. But, no, I was not killed by either my hand or the hand of my father.

D: But Livy?

L: Livy was a historian, but he liked to embellish a bit. Particularly in my case. Why should I have committed suicide? I had done nothing wrong! Sextus was a vile pig of a man who forced me at sword-point. Yes, I felt betrayed and violated, but I was mostly angry. How dare this man, kin of my husband, abuse his relationship so, and all because his own wife was being silly and frivolous at a banquet!

D: So, all this time, Women’s Studies students have been getting incensed for no reason?

L: Well, no…I mean, yes, but for the wrong reasons. The anger was at my feeling that I needed to kill myself to avoid the shame of being a “sullied woman,” when really it should have been at the establishment that felt it necessary to write the story that way. And from what I gather from your media, it hasn’t changed much…

Pretty

Awesome Spoken Word

Katie Makkai doing her poem "Pretty"...this ought to be required watching for kids...i know i could have used it as a kid...

Let's Talk About Sex: Abstinence and the Preachers of Doom

I've talked about my research on the Quiverfull movement on this blog before, but I haven't gone into one of the more tangential areas related to it--abstinence education. The reason this is on my mind today is a) I just finished a paper a few weeks ago on born again virginity, and b) I'm watching The Education of Shelby Knox on Netflix. Shelby Knox is a documentary about a high school girl in Lubbock, Texas who fought the school's abstinence only policy to try to lower the pregnancy and STD rates there, which were some of the highest in the country. The filmmakers interviewed Ed Ainsworth, a True Love Waits speaker and abstinence proponent; during the course of this interview, AInsworth commented that while he talked about STD's in detail in his presentations, he would never demonstrate how to put on a condom. Then he compared this to showing kids how to use guns.

Okay, first of all, let me say that I am well aware that the only 100% effective way to prevent STD's and pregnancy is abstinence; that is a no-brainer. However, it is incredibly naive to believe that all teenagers are going to save themselves for marriage, and let us not forget that since we in the LGBTQ community cannot, for the most part (depending on where we live), get married, this is effectively saying that we should live completely celibate lives. Neither is realistic. Yes, it would be a perfect world if all teenagers (and adults) for that matter were more careful with their sex lives. STD's, like AIDS, would not be as widespread, and there wouldn't be as many teen and unplanned pregnancies. BUT this is not going to happen. It simply isn't, but these "abstinence warriors" do not want to admit this.

I am not saying that kids should be told that as long as they use protection, it's free love for everyone. However, they should be taught the proper way to use protection, the risks involved in multiple partners, how their bodies function, what STD's are and what they do to you. Unfortunately, many kids don't know the first thing about any of this. Abstinence only proponents claim that if this sort of education were available, there would be more teen pregnancies and STD's, but the evidence shows otherwise. In schools, such as Lubbock, where abstinence is the only line, the rates are much higher than in schools with accurate sex education. Many say that it should be left up to the parents to teach kids these things. Maybe in a perfect world, yes, it should, but the sad fact is that many parents are either unwilling or unable (being products of the same close-mouthed systems as their kids) to provide the education that kids need. As I said in my Mr. Rogers post, kids are exposed to a lot of things, and parenting should be one of those. It is a sad fact that this is not the case, and yet these same parents who are neglecting to tell their kids anything are the ones screaming that parents should have the final line on sex ed at home. Make up your mind. Either parent or allow the school to do it for you, but don't leave these kids to their own devices with no information available. That is dangerous.

...And another generation begins...

As most of the television-watching world knows now, the Duggars now have their first grandchild--Mackynzie Renee Duggar--daughter of oldest son Josh and his relatively new wife Anna. According to the news reports, they couple welcomed their new baby in their home with a midwife and doula in attendance. While on some levels, I applaud this, I also wonder where it may lead.

In the Quiverfull movement is a smaller subset known as freebirthers. They begin having babies at home with a medically trained midwife and/or doula but then progress eventually to completely unassisted births with only the father "catching". Some people would say that this is fine, given that millions of women in other countries especially do this everyday. However, consider the recent case of Carri Chmielewski...she had an unassisted homebirth. She ignored all of the warning signs that it was a difficult pregnancy and looked to be a difficult birth by saying that God would protect her and the baby. The result was that the baby died and Carri ended up in the hospital in critical condition.

Freebirthing may not be an issue in many cases where the parents are well-prepared and knowledgeable and the birth is unproblematic. However, in cases such as the Chmielewskis, there are obvious issues.

Christian Psychotics, Episode 3: ...and they just keep coming:

The Duggars announce their 19th child!

Okay, most everyone knows that I am studying the Quiverfull people for my honors thesis. The Duggars on TLC, though they never use the word, are a perfect example of this movement: complete rejection of all birth control (so they say, but I'll get to that in a minute), strict gender roles, the whole nine yards...As of now, they have 18 kids, hence the name of their show (18 kids and counting), but Michelle and Jim Bob have just announced the impending arrival (doom?) of their 19th child. This one is due in March, just five months after their first grandchild is supposed to arrive. According to their book, while the Duggars eschew any conventional form of birth control, they do follow Hebrew Bible injunctions about abstinence after birth--40 days after the birth of a boy and 80 days after the birth of a girl. In the loosest of math, she could be pregnant even using their own system, but my question is SHOULD she be?

I am a card-carrying feminist and a firm believer in the power of choice, even if it is not a choice I would make for myself. However, it is worth wondering whether this is a true choice, especially for the girls raised (brainwashed?) in this movement...

Christian Psychotics, Episode 2: Extending Their Sentences

If you follow me at all, you know that I am studying Quiverfull and that general brand of nutcase. In the course of gathering resources, I got myself on the email list for Vision Forum, a group formed by one of the most-high weirdos himself, Doug Phillips. Today, I received an email promoting a new branch of their homeschool products: CollegePlus! (The exclamation point is theirs.) as a low-cost option for further education in the homeschool community. On the surface, this may be a good thing. One testimonial claimed to have received her bachelor's before the age of 18 and paid only a total of $6000 for it. I'm here to tell you that that is a STEAL! $6000 wouldn't pay for a semester for me here--no joke. Thank you Goddess for student loans! Anyway, as I manuevered around the information on the site, it dawned on me what the creeping discomfort I was feeling was coming from...

One of the major reasons that Quiverfull families homeschool is to remove secular influence from their kids' lives as much as possible and keep them in the home as long as possible (generally until they get married)--especially the girls. Very rarely do you see anything in Quiverfull literature promoting college education for their girls, or even their boys for that matter. The Duggars actually talked about this briefly on an episode. Jim Bob and the girls said that they wanted to be midwives (for which there is apparently a Christian school) or missionaries. Neither of which requires a secular college education. Even among the Duggar boys there wasn't really one who wanted to do anything involving college. Now, I'm not saying that every single person should go to college. There are a lot of people who don't want to and have perfectly wonderful jobs. That is not the issue.

Quiverfull girls are sheltered beyond anything I have ever seen. They are considered not just a daughter but their father's daughter until the day they get married and then they become not just a wife but their husband's wife. Then, usually as quickly as possible, they become not just a mother, but their children's mother. Homeschooling is the norm, and most don't appear to go to any university--religious or otherwise. By giving these parents a college homeschool option, they may be allowing the girls to have a further education, but what sort of education? Most of the homeschool curriculums are character-based, rather than actual subjects, though those do get taught incidentally. I haven't gotten all the info yet, but the college courses seem to be similar--an escape from the "secular immorality" of regular college. So, even though they appear to be getting the higher education many believe is necessary, I am not sure it is what one would call comprehensive. And what exactly are they going to do with it? Unless they break away from their family's beliefs, which many do not, they will have a BA from CollegePlus!, but it amounts to an "MRS degree".

More on this when I get the special info packet...

space cadet: tales of the post-medicated

Sometime last week:

me: i need to renew my prescription for zoloft.
dr: i'd like to look into a few things. i'll call you in something.
me: ok, but i have an extremely low tolerance for anything that makes you drowsy.

Two days later:

dr: i called you in a mild sedative. (which turned out to be .25 xanax)

Today:

me: i will not be taking that again. i took one friday night, was out cold in 30 minutes, had weird dreams, AND basically had a hangover all day saturday.
dr: well, we can at least say we tried. you must have a low tolerance for that kind of drug.

*********************
my kingdom for a doctor who actually LISTENS!!! is that too much to ask? what about the statement "i have an extremely low tolerance for things that make you drowsy. so low in fact that i once slept, like, 8 hours after taking half a goody powder. " makes you think effin XANAX in ANY dosage is a good idea?!?!?! i tell the doctor that i am constantly tired and unable to concentrate and think clearly. somehow this translates in her mind to "she needs to be given meds that make even most people with normal tolerance levels a space cadet." if you can figure it out, let me know.

Biblical Sex and the Fools Who Promote It, Episode 1

I am obsessed with Religion Dispatches, a fabulous site with tons and tons of articles about pop culture items, books, movements, etc. that are religiously inclined (or atheist as the case may be). Today I was reading an interview with Dagmar Herzog, author of Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics. The image they placed alongside the article featured a sparkly bra and panties set from the Christian covenant marriage site Marriage Vineyard. Of course, seeing as I am studying this particular sort of Christian psychotic, I went surfing over to check them out. In the process of checking out the sexy wares they are peddling,I came across a free pdf of a book What the Bible Says About Sex. Of course, I downloaded it. One chapter in particular has given me serious pause: "Sex Before Marriage, Prostitution, and STD's".

At the beginning of this chapter, they list the 6 items specifically forbidden in the Bible/Old Testament; number 6 is "rape of an engaged or married woman (Deuteronomy 22:23-24)". My first thought was "what are the implications of that statement for single women? Can they just be raped willy nilly?" A few sentences into the first paragraph, I got my answer:

Seduction of an unengaged virgin is addressed in Exodus 22:16,17 - the penalty is to pay the full bride price and generally marry the girl. Rape of an unengaged virgin requires marriage to take place and the full bride price to be paid. (Deuteronomy 22:28,29) and he may not divorce her ever. The man gets stuck with a hurt, angry woman for life. Thus the penalty for sex before marriage- is marriage.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? So, let me get this straight...if you rape an engaged or married woman is specifically dealth with as being forbidden. BUT if you rape an unengaged virgin, HIS punishment is to marry her. I have heard of women condemned to marry their rapists, but never from an American Christian source. The kicker is the fact that "the man gets stuck with a hurt, angry woman for life." Okay, what about the victim? They obviously aren't considering this a punishment for her, and do you want to know why? She is a non-person until married. Not an exaggeration, people. All of the literature I'm reading talks about women as pre-married and a furture bride. The woman is never a person until tethered to a man in marriage. She is her father's daughter, a burden to unload at a reasonable age onto some willing schmo, who may have been her rapist apparently...

yeah, gay people are bringing marriage way down with our committed voluntary relationships and crazy ideas about wanting to raise kids...more on this as the research unfolds

You can't catch poor, and an adult looks back at harriet the spy

For my Global Women's Issues class, we are reading Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy edited by the fabulous Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild. Ehrenreich's article mostly discussed the franchise maid industry (Merry Maids, The Maids--for which Anna worked for a while, etc.), and there's a lot about live-in nannies, mostly immigrant women. These articles caused so many things to run through my mind, but two appeared in particular.

Maids and cleaning services are apparently on the rise like crazy. The square-footage of people's houses is huge, almost normally at a point at which they can't handle the care themselves. Enter The Maids (or whoever). Sorry ass wages that do not count driving time and ending clean-up time and basic anonymity to the clients who pay a ton per hour, ostensibly assuming that the workers get this money. Wrong. Cleaning is considered one of the lowest occupations on the ladder, though it is necessary. People assume you are uneducated and somehow dirty and unworthy of any respect if you work in these jobs. Having briefly worked as a housekeeper in a hotel, I know all about this. You mention you cleaned hotel rooms (or anything) and a look of pity and/or horror creeps into the other person's face. It's like they think they can catch poor...

The second thought was about Harriet the Spy. This has been one of my very favorite books since I was like 10. The Nickelodeon movie was good, but anyway...what made me think of it is Golly, Harriet's nanny. As a kid, you just think "wow, Golly is super cool" (even if she isn't supposed to look like Rosie O'Donnell, who plays her in the flick), and her mom kinda sucks. Thinking back, you see the ridiculous way she was fired. (She had been with the family since Harriet was born, and they fired her based on one incident, which was way overblown in the first place.) Then you see her visiting her mother, who was apparently mentally incapacitated in some way (cut out of the movie completely), and Golly only got to see her once in a while because of her hours with the Welsch's. It seems almost idyllic to a kid. Parents kinda distant to the point that they leave you alone and an awesome nanny to give cool advice and such. As an adult, you see how Golly was exploited and the issues surrounding live-in nannies, even if Golly was white...

just some thoughts....

Roy Moore rises again, or why is it always Alabama?

For those who do not know, I am originally from Alabama. Despite its many problems, I love my home state. It has some of the most beautiful land ever, not to mention most of our family and friends. But there are times when I am almost ashamed to even acknowledge my place of birth...one of those is when Roy Moore appears in the news. Roy Moore, also known as the 10 commandments judge, is best known for placing (and fighting to keep up) the ten commandments in his courtroom in Gadsden and a mammoth stone version of the same in the AL Supreme Court rotunda. (He was eventually forced to remove them both, thank goodness.) He failed once to get the Republican nomination for governor, but he's at it again. (I do have to give some credit, though: even the Republicans realize that the man is a psycho. For Jeebus' sake, James Dobson supports the guy...) The next election is 2010, at which time I will hopefully have been accepted to UA and will be eligible to vote against him IF he manages to get the nomination this time. Who knows, they may try it simply in a conservative backlash against the present presidential administration. I only hope that they have the good sense to deny him a second time. I will be forced to transfer grad schools if he gets elected.

Any state in which he basically has supreme power is not a state safe for anyone in the LGBT community. For example, he once removed a child from the home of her biological mother and her partner to give her to the father that had been accused of molesting her. The whole lesbian thing was apparently a much worse environment than daddy having his way with her on the dl. I don't know of any concrete examples of his stance on women and women's rights, but I can't imagine that they would be very promising given his supporters and very vocal EXTREME right leanings. So, women beware as well....

I will be following this as closely as possible. Stay tuned for more dispatches from the Alabamian in exile...

Here's an article at Religion Dispatches: "By the Way, "Ten Commandments Judge" to Be Alabama's Next Gov?"