insight

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so, drinking a bit calms me down, and helps me think more clearly. at least the hangover part does. UGH. i'm still digesting alcohol in my stomach ... and my last drink was about seven hours ago ...

staggering back to WPS from a failed attempt to vomit outside of the near failure of a cafeteria McAllie, i watched a girl in shorts barely covering her

Comments

[newagelink]

i was being sardonic, actually. i have a tendency to mock myself without being clear to others that i'm not taking myself very seriously. (i went on to mention how what i had written was nothing more than florid crap.)

i am liberated from the masculine "heteronormative" man-belongs-on-battlefield woman-belongs-in-kitchen prison, though; that is not false. you are correct, though: i didn't say i was free from my own prison ... that arguably comes only from God. (you know, in Mere Christianity Lewis writes that the only way to truly be -- or find -- oneself is to 'lose' oneself in God.)

i guess i didn't successfully articulate the most striking thought of that post. my desire to "be a woman" does not come exclusively from an unhappiness with myself, but a combination of it and how i see our society. i've been told that men are treated better in the workplace, but i'm not there yet. where i am, here at MTSU, it seems that women are treated better than men. (again, this is an odd statement, because a woman was raped at a frat. house Thursday.) that is, guys are nicer to girls than they are to other guys, and i'm sick of people hitting me and yelling at me and making sex jokes with me and so on, none of which they would do if i were female. women have more freedom of self-expression than men. (another odd statement, since it seems every single one of them feels trapped into shaving their legs. likely a bad counterexample, though, since i've been told shaved legs feel better.) as far as being personal and social, and having relationships -- which are core elements of life, and as far as i'm concerned, almost the only important part of life -- women have it better than men.

it's paradoxical, though, because you're likely to come back with contradictions more valid than what i've written. i suppose it's stupid and i can't explain it. part of my problem, though, going back to the body, is that my self-image identifies more with women than men. i'm not hairy (yet), and i would prefer not to be hairy. every guy wears long disgusting plaid frat-boy shorts; i would rather wear the short shorts girls wear. every guy has messy hair; i would rather have long clean hair. guys are into big muscles; i would rather have small toned ones. and so on and so forth. yet my brother keeps telling me to "grow man balls" and also get a manly hair cut, my father tells me to "be the male lion" and also get a manly hair cut; i'm not allowed to paint my nails or wear jewelry or wear colorful or comfortable clothing; i hate american football but like talking about things; the list goes on. and all the time i'm made to feel that "something's wrong with me" because i don't like or do all these falsely-"masculine" things.

i don't feel this reply adequately addresses the issues you've raised, although it might, but i don't have any time now to discuss this and i'm getting tired of arguing: i feel like i can't defend myself.

[capnstamey]

I know men--besides Jeremy, even-- who have clean, well-kept hair and don't prefer large muscles. The anti-stereotype does exist, so much so that I'm pretty sure stereotypes only exist on TV/the media in general.

The girl cried "rape" at the frat house. She's done it a lot, according to my brother who knows what actually happened. She cries "rape" at a lot of the frat parties. Doesn't mean she was actually raped. Might've been, but it seems to be a boy-crying-wolf scenario.

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well, i'm glad to hear it. that's why my reaction to the Crime Alert email was initially negative: unlike assault (like the girl who had been cut) or theft, rape evidence isn't as clear cut. secondly, why do I need to know about this girl? they know who did it; it's not like I need to be "on the lookout" for this suspect (whom they didn't describe.) for this reason i feel the email was inappropriate -- did you get it or has your email been terminated?

[rubbertramp]

I'm interested in how some societal elements got started in the first place. Like men must wear baggy clothes and women must wear short shorts. in the seventies, men wore short shorts for athletics. My dad still wears them. He also likes tight jeans, and I'm a little weirded out when he wears some of my baggy jeans I outgrew (because I'm accustomed to his regular tighter pants). Or for that matter, why do women wear dresses? Men wear dress-like clothing in other parts of the world. Where did our standards come from?

I've always been jealous about the wide variety of women's clothing, and how in the work place women get away with wearing more comfortable things, like my managers. Though the female managers usually wear button down tops, they can mix in dresses or sweaters, while the men must always have a shirt and tie. Or at a formal party, on a hot summer night men have tuxes. The tuxes have different cuts, but they are still shirt-tie-jacket. Women can go from conservative long dresses with almost sleeves all the way to strapless or no backs or short skirts.