A woman from Barcelona posts that now there are all sorts of nightlife bars in major Spanish cities where women routinely and unknowingly have rape drugs added to their drinks. This is a deplorable extreme.
No man has an unfettered right to use a woman's body. Not even a husband.
Nuff said.
I keep hearing the phrase in the title from a lot of people. The phrase is usually followed by an explanation that all politicians, or some prominent ones, are corrupt. The people who say this are well-meaning, but they don't realize how dangerous their stance is.
In the context of countries with an electoral system, a citizenry full of people who "don't like politics" is precisely what the most corrupt and craven politicians want. They want an electorate where no one but their followers will bother to go vote. Or vote, but without any real information.
Let me provide an example that will show how this is already working in most countries with an electoral system. In those countries, people with the smallest incomes either do not vote or often vote for whom they are bribed to vote (this is real; it's been captured on film).
The result is that there are few countries whose governments, run by elected officials, are serious about tackling poverty. So, don't care, don't bother to learn how your government works. That's a recipe to guarantee that government will worsen.
Now granted, roughly from 1945 to 1968, when a majority of the people in the world had experienced dislocation and near-poverty as a result of the Great Depression, the Second World War, or some remaining form of colonialism, most governments responded to majority needs.
In western Europe, Canada and Australia, governments approved national health systems, vast income supplements, housing assistance and unemployment compensation — this was the famous "Welfare State." Even doggedly capitalist USA, got old age social security and unemployment insurance.
Have you noticed that ever since waves of conservative governments have trimmed the sails of these general welfare programs? Reagan, Thatcher and their successors: today Johnson in the UK, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Modi in India and the very strange coalition in power in Spain.
Their opposite numbers are weak and barely have enough support to stop them. Biden won as "anybody but Trump" but not for the reasonable agenda he has always espoused.
What happened? The children of the generation that lived through the Depression and war took the gains their parents got for granted. Even when youth was most "radicalized" (in the 1960s, 70s, 90s and 2000s) the youth vote continued to be very low given the numbers.
Politicians serving their own interests, or those of the people who finance campaigns, took notice and began to trim public benefits so they could cut taxes on the wealthiest. We are drifting toward plutocracy or societies governed by the very rich for the very rich.
So, go ahead, don't care. By the time you realize what is happening to electoral democracy, imperfect though it may be, it will be too late.
One eloquent answer to the question in the title was provided by a woman friend: "If society, and men in particular, valued women more in terms of intelligence, kindness, abilities, and talents, obsessive selfie-posting would vanish."
I understand her point, although absent a change in how women are valued, the vanishing has yet to be proven. Responses tend not to be quite as automatic and uniform as my friend thinks.
Now, I understand perfectly well that our society puts a premium on a particular set of fashionable female looks. These have varied from age to age, from Rubenesque to Twiggy. There isn't one objective standard of female beauty, or of beauty in general.
When a woman's body fits the recipe of the day, it results in male attention (wanted and unwanted), sometimes jobs, and other benefits. The "uglies" are shunted aside.
None of this is new to me. I was first exposed to feminism in 1972 by a very good woman I was dating,, who inspired me to read most of the feminist canon of the day.
The result was that I felt quite guilty. My girlfriend Doreen was, to me, akin to Russian revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai calling to my attention that I had been trained to be a Tsarist officer, in other words, a man trained to be a male chauvinist, even if I didn't realize it. It's not something you just shuck off easily.
Over the years, however, the childhood "womenist" stance I adopted when my father abandoned my mother and me, flourished with Doreen and further experiences into a well-founded ingrained intellectual attitude that I would describe as "feminist" from a somewhat reformed man. Certainly, I recognize the importance of abortion rights and equal pay as public planks that must be a prominent part of any progressive agenda. Also, I recognize that certain customs concerning women, including especially body over brain, need to change.
This is precisely why I find the obsessive selfies appalling! It's a step backward.
A young woman may be unable to change human history, but she can change her own life. As a Hispanic of Argentine origin, who has lived in both the USA and Argentina, I know perfectly well about being told to be someone that society wants and choosing my own path.
The desire to be beautiful as society wants is a skewed idea. Just as the desire to be successful the way society wants. What is beauty and success other than a social convention? At a defined point in adolescence and youth, each of us has the challenge of deciding for ourselves. This is a reasonable challenge, it's about becoming truly your own person.
A young woman may be unable to change customs that come down from millennia, but she can change her own life.
There is a lot to be changed in society and I think feminism is doing a good job of identifying some of the things that most concern women. There's a conservative and regressive pull right now that must be fought by all. It's not just a war against women, it's a war against the 99%. We have to hold fast on these issues.
The idea of getting validation, or social acceptance, is a foolhardy goal. In my more devoutly religious days, I thought God was the only one whose acceptance I needed. The Quakers have a less religious view in seeing the spirit of God and Her wondrous love in the hearts of each one of us, regardless of creed.
Let women, young and older, seek their own heart's acceptance above all. Toss out the cosmetics (even the antiperspirants)! Dress for yourself, without regard to fashion. In the same vein, men need to cultivate their inner selves by crying when needed, by accepting vulnerability, by declining to be money machines. No more fake stoicism, going to war and brawls and running the rat race.
Woke, Antifa, Feminists, are a few of the labels coined in recent years for people who believe that humans should be equal before the law and treated with respect by all their fellow humans, regardless of traits, especially those that don't harm anyone and are largely involuntary.
Do you really want a society that pretends to be about equality but is not?
Do you really want to be ruled by someone whose mere whims are more powerful than reason?
Do you really want women to be barefoot and pregnant servants of men?
I didn't think so.
Let's try to be more respectful of feminists, small-d democrats who are willing to stop creeping authoritarianism, and folks who insist on being aware of ethnic prejudice in our society.
You've probably experienced it: the browser gets syrupy, the OS hangs, your body makes a new demand you hadn't experienced before, no one understands you. Just because they're after you doesn't mean you're not paranoid.
So what is it and what do you? I wish I knew.
OK, yes, you just stop. You go play a computer game that works.
Here's a secret trick for praying: pray to Our Mother in Heaven. No, not the BVM that Catholics may recall from childhood, the real God just anthropomorphized as a woman, a caring mother.
Most of us know a caring mother. We know a mother who gave us life in a co-creative experience. We know a mother who laid down the law and spanked us or sent us to our room, a corner, or whatever. We know of a mother who accepted and forgave everything, without for a second forgetting. We know of a mother who was ready to give her life for ours, one who indeed did give her life, by devoting much of hers to us.
This is much better than the usual experience with fathers. Many fathers leave, uncaring for anyone but themselves. Many others are distracted by their workplace, their own ambitions, their wants. Fathers can teach, can love in a more tough-love way. Fathers can seem all-powerful. But they can't God-like no matter how they try.
God the Father is a human image. God does not have a penis. Yes, God the Mother does not have a vagina, either. God could be an It. More likely than not, God's being is so unique it is closer to an It than a Him or a Her.
God might as well be dog spelled backward, for all we know. God might bound over and lick us when we come home.
For now, I'll stick with anthropomorphizing, A human-like God is more accessible. It's only an image, a persona, if you will. No one has seen God (for the Bible-minded, see Exodus 33:20-23, 1 Corinthians 1:21, John 1:18, 1 John 4:12).
So, why not imagine Her as the beautiful Mother in the sky, among the twinkling stars!
Nothing tells you how utterly unimportant you are more than leaving a job or a social medium. Suddenly, you realize that when you die there will be nothing remotely like the JFK cortege to Arlington for you.
When I retired as an editor and publisher of a specialized publication three years ago, I wrote a farewell letter from the publisher. I was selling to an employee.
Number of calls, letter, and emails I got after 33 years? 0, zip, nada. I might as well have never existed in that admittedly obscure little world.
At least, less than a week before cancelling (being hounded out and gaslighted by a well-known social media outlet) I have received two emails. Also, quality beats quantity, no?
Still, the world has not come to a halt without me at the helm of my former publication or me at the SMO.
Sigh!
