It’s too bad..

Even as I’m affirmed by reading this, I’m saddened that so many people just can’t perceive the world from the same lens. I know countless women who claim they are not effected by sexism, are utterly confused or amused when I mention it. I think the horrible advent of American Slavery is the propulsion of the issue of racism to the font of people’s consciousness, which keeps people working on racism as an important issue and keeps individuals reflecting on ways they can not discriminate against blacks. (That’s not to mention other races–particularly Arabs or Latinos these days–who I think are all but ignored in the racism conversation.) Seriously though:

It’s too bad that rape, especially in war and in the military even when there is no war, is not seen as the emotional genocide that it is, stripping the self-wealth and humanity out of women all over the world. It’s too bad this doesn’t shove women’s rights to the front alongside racism.

It’s too bad that American sex-centered entertainment, which strips all fair and natural imagery and definition of sexual identity and sexual behavior out of human identity and replaces it with very few archetypes (the good girl, the fem fatal, damsel in distress, etc), isn’t seen as a cunning machine that causes disorder and distress in women, especially adolescent girls, and increasingly deviant behavior in all sexes because even while we are sex-crazed, we are offered no legitimately respectable model of sex and sexual behavior.

It’s too bad that in the U.S., strippers are often seen as empowered women using “what they’ve got” to get back what they can’t get in any other field of work–namely, equal pay (in fact women make more money than men in the sex industry), instead of a field that NO woman deems as their career of choice, where a majority of women are their because they are out of money, out of family, out of education, and have children to support on their own, where even the young women who choose to strip just to push the envelope or to make some quick money to support a college education, were coerced into it to begin with–gotten drunk, often by the owners of the clubs, and given preferential treatment as a “newby” so they want to continue, where women are subject to smoke, bad and flashing lighting, loud music, and the emotional instability of being called sexy and a whore in the same breath–it’s too bad that this position for women is completely reinforcing the image that woman are only worth what men can get from them–their sex (and reproduction).

It’s too bad that girls and women are sold all over the third world into brothels and sexual slavery, and this is not seen as enough evidence that misogyny and women’s rights should be in the front alongside racism.

The Business of Being Born

If you haven’t already, go get this movie. If you have netflix and a PC on hand, you can catch it in your Watch Instantly listings too.

U.S. culture and our healthcare system has a death grip–literally–on the way women give birth here. We have the second highest infant mortality rate in all of the developed world; and The Business of Being Born explains how medical interventions during labor domino each other to turn birthing into something to be cured of instead of an experience to behold and causes more complications than should happen.

But the movie isn’t just about exposing the statistic that one in three births in the U.S. are by Cesarean section, many of them planned, or that women are being cattle-shot through maternity wards in order for their doctors to get dinner on time. In addition to these staggering details, this movie ends up being largely about women’s empowerment, ancient women’s knowledge and intuition, and

Ricki Lake’s produced the film and Abby Epstein directed. I think the film is more universally understandable because these two women and others were so honest about their own births–the fears they had, the lack of information Ricki had during her first birth, and that they disclosed their process for the film. It doesn’t seem like such a radical idea because all of the normal questions and concerns came up: What about clinical monitors? What about being transferred to a hospital in case of an emergency? What about pain? What about the fact that most women are filled with fear and anxiety about birthing and so they lack the confidence in their own bodies and minds to think of having a natural birth? All of it comes up, including a nasty history of hosptial birthing, which helps with some answers to Why are we like this?

I stayed up way too late watching this film, but it was well worth it.

God, Evolution, Equality

Apparently, in ancient Egypt, women and men were essentially equally autonomous as men and were free to pursue life. They believed the universe was ordered and rational in truth and balance, and the deity that maintained, indeed represented, this was a goddess called Maat. She was invoked whenever there was something to be judged, and she was the law that Pharaohs had to follow.

The ancient Egyptians were seen by neighboring countries as having their social order screwed up, since in Egyptian culture, men did not find the need to restrict women (other cultures did, in order to keep women focused on child-rearing), and women and men’s roles overlapped more–women in commerce and on ships and doing manual labor and fighting, while it wasn’t seen as odd for men to stay home and do child care while the women were out. Women were still seen as mothers and home-makers first, but they were not constricted by mandate to give birth to a ton of children ( they didn’t need more children for workers), so they had more freedom.

Then the Greeks came along and adopted the same idea but called it Logos.

Then the Christians, and they started out calling it Logos, but ended up with Jesus.

Somewhere along the way the idea that this Maat was the female balance of the universe lost its meaning, because somewhere in there SHE got changed to HE, therefor when Maat/Logos/Jesus is invoked in matters of judgement and rule, the female is not maintained, represented, protected, it’s not respected or valued. This is the world we live in today.

Natalie Angier’s essay “Biologically Correct” gives a great synopsis of what she thinks is wrong with evolutionary psychology today–the belief systems that credit men for being more energetic and ambitious, restless in their sexuality and in life, while women are seen as more sedentary, using their influence to try to trap men into commitments.

She postures that men and women share the same two innate desires: 1) access to resources like water, food, and clothing/shelter; and 2) control over their sex lives and reproduction. And since men cannot give birth, for men number two means control over women.

That women have been solely reliant on a men’s paychecks and support is very recent, she argues. Because, like other primates, human women have always developed powerful networks of community to help them raise their young, giving and receiving the resources needed for survival among their groups.

In these systems, men are not needed for much more than a sperm donation as far as I’m concerned–a good reason for men to restrict women to very confined areas of society, so that they are not able to access the resources and networks that are required for a more independent lifestyle. (Female humans are the only primates that cannot freely walk down the streets of their neighborhood without being harassed and attacked by their male counterparts…WTF?)

Keeping women pregnant is another way to keep women more dependent, which is what Christianity has forced on women since it’s inception. In fact, studies show that when women have control over their reproductive rights, birth rates fall and so does poverty. Obviously the ancient Egyptians did not need as many children as laborers, because women helped with the physical work, so the excuse that a farmer, for instance, needs more children, is bullshit. If the women weren’t pregnant and suckling so much, they’d be plowing and tilling.

I’m not arguing that women today should find ways to not need men–although I firmly believe that all women should be financially and emotionally stable enough (i.e. enough friends and family in their networks) to survive on their own at the drop of a hat. I’m arguing that we humans must have brains big enough to work out a deal that allows women autonomy, respect, and empowerment, while both men and women are happy with their reproductive roles.