I just finished a course on cultural relativism, and how anthropologists need to practice methodological relativism, meaning setting aside personal values to study a culture as open-mindedly as possible. While I agree with this, it’s impossible for me to view these images and descriptions with an open mind, but I have no idea how to help this situation without disrespecting cultural boundaries. Female equality is innately a Western concept - while we hold it to be innate and inseparable, other cultures do not view it as an existing idea. I have come to accept that the very concept of personal choice as a woman is simply a privilege granted by being raised under western ideals, and I have also come to accept through both studies and personal conversations that women in other areas of the world believe differently. How then, am I supposed to handle domestic violence of this magnitude? Perhaps the most fundamental right is the right to life without harm, so violence and abuse of this level transcends any notion of equality, in which case, no matter a woman’s standing (or lack of) in their society or religion, this sort of action is completely unacceptable. Besides, I dare you to look at these images without becoming enraged or crying. Above all else, I am more appreciative of the freedom from this sort of violence in my own life, but I feel helpless in that I have no idea how to help others. And these practices continue every day while I sit comfortably in my college life, studying dreamily as others lead broken lives. These women are younger than I am, but they are so much older, and they have strength that I will never know. My admiration, and my profound heartbreak goes out to them.
/rant
Anorexia, bulimia, and various other eating disorders are going to be the reason that 50% of the women of my generation are going to die by 60 years old. Because this entire world doesn’t understand that image projection is harming girls starting in middle school and enforcing thought processes that never go away.
Because in college, looking good is more important than being healthy. So while we’re all starving ourselves to get some hot guy in bed, our hearts are feeling the strain of an undernourished, starved body…and it’s going to bite us in the ass in a few decades.
Fuck you, fashion. Fuck you, magazines. Fuck you, men, who think Christina Hendricks and Catherine Zeta-Jones are fat. Fuck you, world, for labeling healthy as “plus-size.”
Yeah, okay, I’m not saying we should be promoting obesity either. I’m just saying, being 5’6” and wearing a size 8 IS NOT FAT.
Fuck you world, for making girls hate themselves. Get over yourself, and recognize true beauty isn’t found in one’s waist or thighs.
But heaven help me if I write this anywhere the public will read it. Instantly I’ll get typecast as the “fat ugly bitch who’s just jealous.”
Sure, okay. Let me go throw up now, just to please you. I’m sure you want an unhealthy girlfriend who dies young on you because of cardiac complications. I’m sure you want someone you can never kiss because her teeth are rotten from stomach acid. You don’t care. All you want is a size 0 waist with no folds and airbrushed hair so that you can bring her around on your arm and gain the respect from douches on the street that you don’t even know.
You have all made my friends hate themselves. They can’t see the beauty in themselves when I look at them and I see the most incredible faces in the world. When I see them, I see rare, precious beauty, and skinny, skinny women - but all they see is fat that makes them ugly. They aren’t ugly. THEY ARE NOT FUCKING UGLY!!
Fuck you, fuck you so much for making them feel ugly and taking away their beauty.
/end rant
until I am once again digging.
While I am in the process of being kind-of cranky and verbose, let me say that I am concerned about the insistence that being gay is not a choice. Every time I hear it, I feel a little crestfallen. I’m worried it’s going to become a problem for gay rights activists down the road in the way that the idea of “choice” has hampered the reproductive rights debate. I’m not saying that people are not born gay. But this rhetoric is too limiting to be useful in the long run. As an argument, it seems to lend legitimacy to the idea that being gay is an undesirable state, like “hey, we’d be straight if we could and we have tried as hard as we can but we just can’t do it because we are biologically incapable! So that’s why you should stop being such a small-minded dick.”
Do gay people only deserve rights if they’re born gay? What if I choose to take another woman as a lover and partner when I feel I just as easily could have taken a man—does that mean I don’t? Wouldn’t it be better to unapologetically claim that we (all of us who support gay rights or are queer/bi/poly/etc.) want the freedom to make choices about our sexual life without the state telling us we forfeit our rights by those choices? I mean, that is at the core of what we want, right? The opportunity to live our personal lives as we see fit without having to publicly justify how our attractions and impulses have arisen?
robot-heart-politics:equalitopia: A quote from the editorial “Myth of the ‘gay lifestyle’ justifies bias” by LZ Granderson
i think my quote of the night (so far) is:
they’re like WOAH I’M A HIPPO
and I’m like YEAH YOU ARE!
(in reference to how awesome hippos are, unless you meet in IRL*)
*in real life.
“Beside the wagon we can see a Philistine lad, who holds on to the woman’s upper ann with his right hand. He will be of little help to her, since an attacking spearman is about to run him through.”
-Sweeney and Asaf-Landau
Today is one of those days where I want to grab a pair of scissors and cut off all my hair; not because I don’t usually like my hair, but simply because it’s IN THE WAY. Rawr.
