Isn't it lovely to live in a sexist culture where women aren't considered real humans?
I've been meaning to post a link to this for a while now. cereta made a post that has spawned lots of thought and discussion that I think is important.
( Cut for possibly triggering stuff in the excerpts and comments, for those of you who are interested; links below if you'd rather just that )
( Cut for possibly triggering stuff in the excerpts and comments, for those of you who are interested; links below if you'd rather just that )
1) Talking about rape. I have been in therapy for a year, nearly a decade after the fact, and still say "that thing that happened." I am able to forgive him and find excuses for his behavior. I still struggle with granting myself that same courtesy.
2. Talking about abortion. And here's why: I'm actually kind of pro-life. This came about for three reasons: the low self esteem that gave me the idea that my life actually has no worth aside from being able to bear children, my beliefs in nonviolence of any kind, and also that, as a teenager, my father told me he would force me to have an abortion if I got pregnant (so in my head, having an abortion = doing something to my body that I don't want to do because someone else wants me to, which is totally backwards ( ... )
Reply
Oh, honey, the way that our experiences have fucked up our thinking!
You are NOT part of the problem. You are thinking and considering and re-considering. You are calling "that thing that happened to you" by the name you CAN while still being functional. You are LIVING, and that is what matters. If you can't, this week or next year, say, "I was raped," then, well, we can still figure out that "that thing that happened" to you was rape and we can count our lucky stars that you're around to be our friend and wonder WTF was up in the ashram that they didn't GET THIS and DO SOMETHING sooner--NOT, btw that YOU didn't "do something" sooner: it was the job of the adults...and, particularly, the rapist NOT to rape you--so that you would have an easier go of it now.
And, with your dad's edict, and your experiences re: brood mare and threatened and actual forced action toward YOUR BODY...I think your hesitancy and position makes perfect sense. Also, as I said to someone in another journal in another thread, the fact that you ( ... )
Reply
*applauds*
You can be pro-choice AND pro-life.
THIS. I really hate that the anti-choice people stole that phrase. Its an excellent example of the power of words.
Reply
And *hugs* you. You don't have to be anon, sweetie, but I understand why you'd choose that and am okay with it.
Reply
Reply
You are wise and wonderful, as always! *hugs*
we can count our lucky stars that you're around to be our friend and wonder WTF was up in the ashram that they didn't GET THIS and DO SOMETHING sooner
By the by, the "thing that happened to me" I was referring to happened in college. :) I won't deny that what happened / may have happened / almost happened / ETC in the ashram was wrong and strange and should have been addressed, but I'm much less clear on actually what happened... so in that case, if I say, "that thing that happened" it's really because I don't know. Which is different.
I think I'm much more pro-choice now than I was, too. For a while, fortunately before I could vote, I was pretty determined to vote against it too. I understand more about the world now, and how that could cause so many problems. I worked with a woman when I was in high school who had had twelve abortions in her life (and then could not have children when she wanted to, though I don't know if there's a connection), and the casual way she ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Reply
Oh, honey. I know how that is and it SUCKS and...*hugs*
and my immune system completely collapsed, and mono of doom! cfids! badness occurred.
*hugs* again... Yeah. I know that LOTS of ED and CFIDS folks (way more in that first camp...like...nearly 100%, I think) have abuse in their backgrounds and your comments made me curious since I knew that the CFIDS-onset started in college.
I think it's wrong that large families are stigmatizedI have issue with large families in a number of ways. I think that kids get less attention in large families and I think that there is a strong tendency to deputize the older kids to take care of the younger ones. One of the things I've read about large (over 6 or 8 kids) families is that the older half of the kids tend NOT to want large families (they got lots of WORK and frustration out of it) and the younger kids (who didn't have as much responsibility but were taken care of by everyone) often WANT large families. That says a lot ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Indeed.
careful with referring to Mormoms as Christians
I consider them Christians because they consider themselves Christians. They have an additional prophet they believe in, but their primary theology of salvation and the like are Biblical in basis: they believe Jesus died for mankind's sins, that one must be baptized for redemption of sins, etc. I have a couple of friends who grew up Mormon (and RAN) and they are really UPSET by people who insist that Mormons aren't Christians, even after leaving.
And my Catholic friends are sort of horrified that the fundamentlist Christian group of my childhood considers Catholicism to be idolatrous because of the iconography...
As for the Christians who take issue with condoms...
because there was a strong need, both from a practical standpoint and for God's plan, for the Jewish nation to grow in populationCourse, the primary Christians (other than the QuiverFull folks) who forbid condoms are also the Catholics...whose anti-birth control ( ... )
Reply
Yes, because children always take after their parents, and never, ever rebel or want to live a different lifestyle.
And even if every single one of your litter decides they're going to be good li'l environmentalists, unless they're all living "off the grid," they're still going to be using many, many more resources apiece than their counterparts in very poor countries.
If you want to breed like a freakin' cockroach at a time in history when we have more than enough warm bodies on this rock, nobody's stopping you. Just don't lie to yourself or anyone else that you're doing the rest of us a favor.
Reply
You are NOT backwards. Forcing someone to have an abortion against their will is murder. The necessity of an abortion is tragic, and to take the choice away from the woman in question is wrong regardless of how it's done, but a man telling his daughter that he'd force an abortion upon her -- the very idea turns my stomach.
And why would anyone, much less someone as sweet as amilyn, ever think to defriend you for expressing your feelings? There's so much wisdom in your words that I think I might just have to friend you for them. Also, being pro-life as you've expressed it is not the same as being Pro-Life in the way people who harass women outside of health clinics represent it.
*hugs*
Reply
But you are anonymouse so I will not know who you are!
I agree so very much with what you are saying. I did explain to my father once I was older why his stance was way inappropriate, and he gets it now, and we're totally good. I am one of the lucky ones. In Oregon, where I live, there was a proposal on the table in a recent election about "mandatory notification" of parents when their mature teen child (over 16) had an abortion, and that was just awful. Parents, boyfriends, husbands -- all of them might think that they have a "right" to decide weigh in because they have a vested interest (financially, at the very least) in the woman's decision. But the woman is the one who actually has to live with it, no matter which way she decides. I guess that's only tangentially related, but thank goodness that bill didn't pass (it failed largely due to a last-minute campaign ad showing an abusive father receiving the notification letter in the mail and coming after his teen daughter -- scare tactic, but a very real possibility ( ... )
Reply
Reply
I hear you. I am always afraid to say what you've said above because ... well, I've lost friends over it. And I don't want that to happen again. And I don't want to be lumped in with the hateful, unthinking people who are the public face of what it means to be "pro-life". But, yeah. I don't like this idea that *either* you care about women *or* you care about unborn life, and you can't do both.
Reply
Leave a comment