Death & Taxes

Live, Live, Live

2012-05-10T09:28:00.003-07:00

Live, Live, live! "Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" - Auntie Mame

The above quote was written by Patrick Dennis, and it is one of my most favorite quotes, while the movie is one of my favorite movies (right up there with my all time favorite flick: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory [the original]).

My other favorite quote is:

Live, Love, Laugh

I have no idea where this quote came from originally, but it has always struck me as a strong motto for the short time we have here on earth.

Amazing People I know:

I am contemplating these quotes because some amazingly strong and inspiring people I know received some equally amazing bad news. One friend has to endure treatment for breast cancer, and the prospect of a full mastectomy. Another newly acquired friend is dealing with the death of her best friend and three, now inherited, teenagers to raise after this friend shot herself. I also watched a strong skater and amazing kind woman fall and break her ankle last night. She broke both bones around the shin area, but her resolve and strength while the medics removed her skate was heroic - even if she let go with some choice words in the process. I also have a male friend who is fighting cancer and has been undergoing stem-cell treatments. He has an amazing partner and friend who makes sure he sings Karaoke whenever he can.

Over the past few years, I have had friends lose their homes, and become nomadic in order to financially survive. I have seen friends actively squat in their homes after losing their job, not able to find a new job, waiting for the bank to take it all away (banks that refuses to work with them - "Oh that paper work got lost, you will have to fill it out again").

I have seen a kindred spirit almost give up on her life entirely, only to re-embrace life and living once more - rising above it all. I have family members who have had to deal with the company they work for being sold and then sold again ... hanging on to their job by a thread and a prayer, knowing that without that job, and the health insurance it provides, taking care of a special needs son will be more than simply difficult.

What strikes me about these folks and many more amazing people in my life, is that despite it all, regardless of it all, including their own down moments and hitting a few brick walls, these people embody the two quotes above, even in the midst of heart wrenching, life attacking news. We would all be wise to take their lead and emulate them.

As Dennis observed, most of us are starving to death in life. We work for big houses, shinny toys, or to get a head and plan for that illusive, but promised, retirement. We work for the day we will have time to savor life. What a mistake. What a pack of lies we all have been spoon fed and for why? For what? Often, simply to help others live the high life that we will never gain. And even if we could gain that high life, would it be worth the life we sacrifice in order to get it "all," the so-called "American dream"? For me, that price is just too high.

The meaning of life:

42. Yep, Douglas Adams was right because it was about around the age of 42 that I started to realized that life was about living, experiencing, loving, laughing, and learning. If we live to make money, to buy things, we are doing none of the above. Although it is spouted as a virtue, the puritan work ethic has failed most of us. Work is important, but somehow in the U.S. (I can only speak for my experience in this culture), working replaces living. We even give up or work thorough our vacations. I know my husband and I did this for years -- what idiots we were!

Fools! Live, live, live!

Don't Worry, Be Happy .....

... is a stupid phrase, but a fun song. Life won't be about moments of perfection without worry everyday, and it certainly is not about escaping worry. Learning always comes at a price and the cost is rarely cheap, although the payoff can be glorious. Go a head and worry, but do not let that worry displace or replace happiness and the chance for happiness. In the midst of worry, find excuses to laugh, find excuses to make bad jokes or make light of a horrible situation. Learn the Ukulele, learn Roller Derby, make your friend teach you how to draw or paint, sing karaoke and go play a rousing round of butt darts. Those are my vices and you will have to find yours. But find them! Our ability to laugh and to not take life too seriously is one of our gifts, one of those national medicines given to us in this world, and it is squashed/wasted far too much.

As I write this, I realize I am the queen (or a queen) of melodrama, dwelling, and workaholic tendencies. But I have actively worked against these qualities for a while now and I must say, letting go of that control is really quite a lovely gift and a relief.

To my friends and family struggling right now, I thank you for your gift of friendship, for your example of grace and fart jokes under fire, your lessons about living, and your presence in my life.

Now, the next time we get together, we should play some butt darts ... Butt Darts on Roller Skates ... just because.

A Mental Pause Jammer Moment

2012-05-04T08:43:00.001-07:00

I had my first Roller Derby Bout last Sunday, and I had a ball. Since I banged up my knee really bad at the beginning of the year, I was worried about its ability to perform well. Although still sore today, the knee did rather well.

I skated with my home league's (Toxic 253 Roller Derby Project) sister league (One World Roller Derby), using Old School Roller Derby Rules (OSDA). The rule set was not too difficult to adapt to since they are very close to the USARS rules for roller derby, rules that make an interesting intersection between OSDA and WFTDA rules. Anyway, I love being able to skate for both leagues, as the women on these leagues are amazing, supportive, and strong. That is partly what women's Roller Derby promotes, a place of power for females of all ages.

Anyway, here is my first real Jam as a Jammer. I kicked some butt, made 20 points, and over took the other teams Jammer. Not bad for a Roller Derby Skater over 40!

2012-04-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

Demonstration against French nuclear tests in 1995 in Paris. Wikipedia Commons.

This week I have been contemplating the line between personal and professional since my CMST 275 class online communication class is discussing the project of Total Recall, and the process of digitalizing all the memories and moments in one’s life. Although the authors of the text Your Life Uploaded, Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell both promote life-logging, the private act of storing digital memories for one's own consumption and enjoyment, our society is leaning toward life-blogging, a public presentation of our digital memories and life moments. If you are interested in the discussion regarding life–logging VS life–blogging, feel free to listen to the short podcast I made for my students on this topic, below.

This distinction between what is personal and what is professional is profound, and it is a timely discussion as well. For example, just last week many of us were reading about how some employers were asking for employee’s passwords to their social media accounts, in order to… Spy? Eavesdrop? Although the outcry was loud, and laws are now being passed against this intrusion of privacy, it does appear as if the assumed line between the personal and the professional is being actively renegotiated. Indeed, last year there was a great deal concern about a budding new practice where employers were asking potential employees for their credit report.

To control the lives of one's employees is not a new thing. Consider the great capitalist Henry Ford. Ford was ruthless in how he worked to control his workers personal, professional, and spiritual lives. Indeed, there is always been an attempt by many employers to control their employees fully, to make one's personal life fall in line with the expectations of one's professional life. If you can control an employee, then you can better control how your company is "branded" out in the real world. After all, society doesn't want their K-12 teachers also moonlighting in strip joints. It just looks bad. Businesses don't like to look bad.

But we have to decide how much power we, as employees, will give over to businesses and corporations. This is not a one-sided negotiation, but very much a two-sided discussion. The recent issue regarding whether or not businesses can decide who can get what medications through Insurance, is another huge topic on the table. The issue? Birth control. Besides being a religious debate, as many businesses are claiming the issue of morality within their decision-making, this debate has the potential to affect and encourage selective medical decision-making regarding what medication is good for whom. It is bad enough that insurance companies make these medical decisions, individuals who have no medical degree, to right to "doctor," but we certainly do not need our employers making this decision as well. I'm not suggesting that denying birth control becomes an absolute slippery slope, but the door is open to then start denying other forms of medical care .... should this company or that person deem the care immoral. Since employees pay a good portion of their medical insurance coverage at most companies, it seems to me that this issue should remain private (between the patient and his or her doctor), not public (between the patient, the doctor, and the patient's employer).

Many of these issues come down to how we view public vs private spheres of living and life. As technology starts to erode many of our assumed moments of privacy, and private spaces, this situation also creates problems regarding private versus professional life and living. In your opinion, where should this line between the personal and the professional be drawn? How much control should a company be allotted over its employees? I would be interested in your thoughts on this.

Birth Control and the Gates Foundation

2012-04-17T14:35:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia Commons

In my book, Writing the Diaphragm Blues, I discuss the need for a male version of the birth control pill. I also discuss how research and technology is available and ready to offer the world a male version of birth control pill, but unfortunately the world is not all that interested in it. How can we tell? Funding. Just as funding is available by the truckload for new “Viagra” like medications, there are few trucks loaded and ready with finances to test new methods of birth control for men. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the few organizations substantially backing this effort.

But there is reluctance for this direction in birth control research. Indeed, many men object to the idea of subjecting their body to hormonal forces that impact their body negatively. Ironic enough, many of these same men do not seem to worry about asking their female partners to subject their body to hormonal drugs, but the line is drawn once the tables are turned. Yet I would argue that it is not unreasonable to object to putting medications into your body that would cause you some kind of harm. It is actually a very reasonable objection. That is why research is now attempting to find a solution to the male birth control conundrum, which does not include doses of hormones – but this research is just in its infancy. Regardless, until a solution can be found, birth control continues to be an issue that impacts women more directly, mostly remaining a non-issue for men.

In this past election cycle, the issue of birth control has shown its ugly little head again (pun intended). It really should be a non-issue, and indeed it has been a non-issue for centuries. It is quite ridiculous to suggest that the use of birth control, and the need for birth control, is a rather new and modern debate. The pill … yes, but birth control has existed for centuries, from the use of natural herbs, to the intestines of animals that were used as a type of a condom. Why is birth control an issue now? It is an issue because people feel birth control is a form of population control, and a simple abortant. It is also an issue because it gives people the ability to control the social roles played by the different genders in society. However, I have commented on the second point a great deal in this blog, let me reflect a little on the first point.

As Melinda Gates suggests below, the argument and the fear regarding the widespread use of birth control is fear regarding purposeful population control. This population point it's not so much of a side issue as Melinda Gates suggests in her discussion, but Gates is correct when she states that the bottom line regarding birth control is this: people should have a right to decide whether or not they are ready to bring a child into this world, and whether they can care for that child. Birth control is indeed a personal, egoist concept and "I," and "my needs" are prominent in this formula. However, the utilitarian position, or the "we" position is also dominate. So yes, population control is at issue as well. This doesn't mean I want or that I suggest we need to adopt a policy, such as is seen in China, limiting how many children we bring into this world. However, there is something to be said about famine, a lack of resources, and our inability to care for children that we bring into this world. It is simple irresponsible to suggest through rhetoric or practice that humans have the right to bring children into this world, but we don't necessarily have to take responsibility for caring for those children/people throughout their lives. The philosopher Peter Singer brought up this discussion in '72 with his well argued article "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" in Philosophy and Public Affairs (1:1). Although dated, I cannot help but feel we should all revisit this discussion again.

Regardless, I would agree that creating a general rule for the good of the majority is not always a sound idea - frankly, it can be disastrous. Mandatory use of birth control is as bad as an idea as is limited the amount of children a couple can have in a society where the male child is valued over the female - China has a mess on their hands because of this. Although I am a utilitarian at heart, I'm also a pragmatist. I like to look at situations as they, individually, occur and then weigh the consequences of potential reactions to that situation before I act. It’s a process and I am a huge supporter of focusing on the process rather than a particular, singular, outcome. People and situations are unique, and they must be approached uniquely. It is this approach toward birth control that is needed globally.

What does this mean in the end? It means that we must have open access to birth control throughout the world. It also means that men must have more open access to different forms of birth control as well, and they must be encouraged to make it part of their personal regiment, just as women do. It also means we must educate the world on the use of birth control, and the responsibility that comes with the use of birth control. We must teach people about sex, the consequences of sex, the consequences of sexual assault, and… yes… the consequences of overpopulation. The problem is that most talking heads are making this issue in either or issue rather than looking at the consequences, the wide affecting consequences, of a world without birth control. Enough.

Melinda Gates TED talk on Birth Control.

Bad Romance: Women's Suffrage

2012-04-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

Moveon.org is promoting this Lady GaGa Parody Video on women's suffrage that is brilliant (read about the video and Soomopublishing). They are also asking people to sign a petition designed to stop violence against women. It is worth your time signing and worth your time watching!

Gender Pay Inequality is Alive & Well Ladies

2012-04-10T13:00:00.000-07:00

I got an e-mail today from the AAUW (American Association of University Women) regarding equal pay in the US. This email reminded me of a recent conversation I had with a dear friend, someone who is about my age, regarding the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Like many women I have met throughout my lifetime, my friend assumed that the ERA had passed years ago. Indeed, she was shocked and dismayed to learn that it had still not passed, this reasonable amendment that was first introduced to the public in 1923.
I have even spoke to some women who feel that passing the ERA is not all that pertinent in today's society. The argument runs along these lines:

Women can work the same jobs as men today.
If a woman wants to have dildo, hell she can go out and buy one.
Women are really not discriminated against in our modern society.
Heck, I know some men who stay home with the kids, while the woman goes out and works!

But the truth is simple; there is no true quality between the sexes in the US. We may be closer, but closer is not destroying the so called "glass ceiling." Women continue to be treated as second-class citizens (you are a slut if you use birth control is just one in a long string of examples I could bring to the table), and women's rights as a full and equal citizen in the United States continues to be challenged. This can be seen through many facets of life, but especially through an economic lens.

The AAUA's forum "The Simple Truth about the Pay Gap" presents compelling information regarding both race and gender pay gap inequality realities in the United States. Since we are a country that treasures profit, and equates success with one's financial bottom line, the findings regarding pay inequality is staggering. It is important to note these pay gap statistics take into consideration job performance. That is to say, the job comparison ratio assumes that both parties, male and female, perform the same job equally well. What was found was that women earn approximately 77% of what her male counterpart makes for performing the same job. If you happen to be a woman of color, such as a black woman (70% of a man's paycheck) or a Hispanic woman (61% of a man's pay check), you will struggle more seriously in our society, demonstrating that genderism and racism are alive and well and kicking our collective female asses.

Please take a moment to read this information regarding state-by-state wages, this is a chart that compares gender pay (Note: this is a PDF File, and the information was gathered by the US Census Bureau, 2010 American Community Survey Data). Here are some highlights regarding gender pay inequality, 2010 numbers:

Gender equality in the realm of pay does not exist in any state in the United States.
Washington, D.C. offers the best earnings ratio, with women earning 91% of a males' paycheck for the same job (Men: $ 61,381 VS Women: $56, 127).
I was personally surprised to find that the rather conservative state of Arizona (82%) does a better job with pay quality than the overall liberal state of Washington, which falls into the 77% category.
Wyoming has the biggest problem with offering paid quality to the female gender, coming in at 64%. Wyoming was closely followed by Louisiana and Utah, both in the 60 percentile.

To add fuel to this fire, Bloomberg found that the best way for a woman to make equal or better money then her male counterpart was to open a shoe shinning business, since all other business in and around wall street paid women substantially less, and could justify this reality logically:

The six jobs with the largest gender gap in pay and at least 10,000 men and 10,000 women were in the Wall Street-heavy financial sector: insurance agents, managers, clerks, securities sales agents, personal advisers and other specialists. Advanced- degree professions proved no better predictors of equality. Female doctors made 63 cents for every $1 earned by male physicians and surgeons, the data show. Female chief executives earned 74 cents for every $1 made by male counterparts.

Friday Funny: Abstinence

2012-04-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

Dyslexia Answers

2012-04-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

It is the start the new term, which means I take the time to explain to many of my composition students that I am dyslexic. I used to avoid having this conversation, simply because it felt too difficult. However, I have found that if I deal with this reality head-on, life becomes a little easier for me. The stigma really has been simple, I was not diagnosed as a young person, most people my age were not, and it took a long time to realize that my eccentric use of words, and my creative writing issues, were a result of dyslexia.

Generally, I simply felt stupid. I could not understand why no matter how many times I was told that this word was incorrect, and now word was being used incorrectly, or that I shouldn't randomly capitalize a word in the middle of my sentence, that I just could not remember these things. And I tried. The problem was not that I could not remember, the problem was that I didn't see the mistakes on the page. And I'm an editor! I come from a long line of editors, and I always read and reread my writing - but to no avail. For a long time I was able to joke away the problem, until I became a composition instructor, and I embraced social networking. Social networking is a quick form a composition, where you don't spend a great deal of time editing. It is a space of reaction. A space of conversation. As such, my writing problems related to dyslexia started to show itself terribly.

Also, students will not forgive you, especially if you're part of the English department, if you show any mistakes. It is natural for students to find each and every mistake, and to point the mistake out in triumphant form. This used to frustrate me a great deal, because no matter how much I would try to avoid making mistakes, I could not. I did not see many of my mistakes (from vs form for example). Now, rather than get upset, I encourage my students to find my mistakes, to constructively point them out to me, so that I can make the correction. This allows my students an opportunity to see the reality of dyslexia, and possibly identify similar problems in their own writing habits. Further, I can offer a strong example of how to graciously accept well formed criticism, and how to approach making any adjustments that may be needed.

This term, as I was explaining to my online class about my dyslexia, and resulting diction and malapropisms that they will undoubtedly encounter while in my class, I took some time and reacquaint myself with a wonderful pamphlet that helped me identify my problems. I thought I would take some time to present the information from this pamphlet, which is downloadable, for my readers. Who knows, it may help someone out there.

Dyslexia Tooolkit: A resource for students and their tutors is by Vicki Goodwin and Bonita Thomson. This pdf publication was created for the Open University Centre for Educational Guidance and Student Support.

As all good composition, academic or otherwise, publications should do, Goodwin and Thomson starts off by defining dyslexia. And the news is not all bad!:

Recent investigations into how the brain works show that the dyslexic brain processes some information in a different way than other brains. The difference gives clear advantages in some cognitive and creative areas, though it also creates difficulties. The dyslexic brain can tackle some tasks better because the right hemisphere, the side of the brain that is responsible for creativity, appears to be more developed in many dyslexics than the left side, which is mainly responsible for acquiring language. p. 6

When most people think about dyslexia, they think about writing letters and numbers upside down or in reverse. This image to the right kind of betrays that actuality of representation. However, only a very small section or group of people with dyslexia actually experience this drastic form of dyslexia. Most people will experience a variety of different symptoms, but not all the symptoms, listed below. The following is quoted from the dyslexia Toolkit. For the fun of it, I have highlighted those areas which affect me personally:

Reading, which is likely to be slow
Concentration, which tends to fluctuate
Spelling and grammar, which can be unorthodox
Physical coordination and handwriting
Remembering information
Organizing and planning- space and time confuses the hell out of me, but I have become a good organizer now.
Working within time limits
Thinking and working in sequences
Visual difficulties such as blurring and distortion of print - for me this is true when I get tired.

Characteristics of handwriting that may suggest dyslexia:

Use of UPPER-CASE exclusively or randomly.
Letters back to front.
Irregular size or awkward shape of writing, poor spacing.
Now that so many people use word-processors, examples of handwriting may be hard to come by. But written work can still show dyslexic characteristics even when word-processed or typed:

Random or non-existent punctuation.
Missing letters or words.
Spelling errors: the same word spelt in different ways, letters in the wrong order, phonic approximations, omission of syllables, errors in suffixes.
Use of similar but wrong words – malapropisms.- I do this in both writing and speaking - which, by the way, has cause some interesting moments in my life! LOL
Non-standard sentence structure, an impression of
inexperience in writing.
Misinterpretation of questions.

Other indications of dyslexia can include:

Difficulties in remembering and following instructions (directions, for example).
Variable sense of timing and time management.
Problems with organizing materials.
Other short-term memory problems such as
dealing with sequences.
Good days and bad days.- well hell, don't we all??? LOL don't we all??

If you have dyslexia or if you work with someone who does, this article might be helpful, and I highly recommend it!

The Ethics of Birth Control

2012-04-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

Justice Should be Blind, Not Stupid

Erin Solaro over at the Seattle PI's Civic Feminism blog wrote a delightful post about the Politics of Contraception. I left a comment there, thanking her for her fantastic post and also posing this question:

Why are these people (those who want to take birth control away from woman) only concerned with the moment, the act of potential procreation and not the consequences resulting from that moment?

What worries me terribly is the simple fact that these men (and they are almost all men) working to deny women access to birth control never bother to look at the potential consequences of what happens when we deny women access to birth control (Yes women, men have historically been given clear access to birth control, but women denied). All these politicians and pundits are concerned with is the act of potential procreation. This is the ethics of short-term egoism that refuses to look at long-term consequences of this action: Birth control denial. This short-term ethic set is downright irresponsible of lawmakers, and certainly an example of why many citizens no longer trust of hold hope in their political representatives (consider this, recession is simply a result of short term rationale of fast profit that had devastating consequences for the US and globally as well). This is a huge problem not only with politics, but with our society today: short-term satisfaction and, ironic enough, birth control is not about short term satisfaction, no matter how much Rush Limbaugh and others like him wish to frame the issue with such misguided rhetoric: give a woman birth control and she will screw anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Here are some long-term consequential considerations we must consider before denying women birth control:

What happens to women that have been raped?
What happens to women who need birth control for general health reasons related to hormonal imbalances?
What happens to a market place devoid of cheap female labor (the more children a woman has, the more likely she will have to leave the market place)?
What happens to a home’s economics when it loses ½ of its income making members once she leaves the market places and becomes a homemaker.

(I am not putting down the life of the homemaker. However, many homes need both adults working to survive. If we have no birth control, the average family could have up to 4-5 children, making it important for one parent to stay home to care for the children. If history has demonstrated anything, it will likely be the woman who stays home. where will the money come in this world today to feed and care for a such a family well?)

What happens to all the unwanted children in this world? The “disposable” children abandoned, lost, and not cared for?
What happens to women’s rights generally and how society views women?
What happens when the death rate of women skyrocket as more births occur and as more women die during child birth?
What about over population in relation to famine and a frightfully shrinking natural resource pool in this earth?

These few consequential considerations are only the tip of the iceberg regarding potential problems and dramatic socialist structural changes as a result of such a drastic act as denying easy access to birth control. To make things more clear, let’s take a case study: Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries. As I wrote in my comment on the PI:

Taken in an Irish Laundry: Location Unknown

In Ireland (and globally but Ireland becomes the case study par excellence), hundreds of thousands of women were placed in Laundries and forced to become nothing more than slave labor for the state and church of Ireland. Major targets? Single mothers and any woman deemed amoral as compared to her society's spiritual temperament. These women had no choice, as law regarding their bodies were clear: A woman's body was not their own. Their body was their fathers, their brothers, their husband, the church or the state, but there was no true anonymity. And the children, ripped from these Magdalene Laundresses? Either they were shipped out of Ireland, adopted to foreign Catholic parents, or placed in workhouses; horrific state run institutions of abuse (Read the Commission to Inquire into child abuse).

Birth control plays a huge role in this travesty, because here was a society that denied birth control to women and, at the same time, did not consider any of the consequences of this so called moral action. We are headed there if we do not stop this nonsense now. Denying women birth control is wide raging consequences, consequences that must be addressed and seriously debated. Otherwise, we are simply caving to egoistic, short sighted, and misguided proclamations that will harm all of our society, not simply the women it’s trying to control.

Beauty

2012-03-30T09:35:00.001-07:00

I am starting a new series on the blog called the Friday Funny. This is in the spirit of this series, but I will start the series officially next week. Regardless, a friend posted this on Facebook the other day, and I thought it was an ideal image to leave my readers for the coming weekend. Stay happy and stay beautiful.

Adrienne Rich

2012-03-28T18:35:00.001-07:00

Image linked to from the Poetry Foundation: Adrienne Rich.

"The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming forces on this planet." (Adrienne Rich, 1929 to 2012)

I have just received the news that Adrienne Rich has died, and my heart is broken. I took a few minutes to read a few articles about her life; I set down and remembered the first time I read her work; I got up and I lit a candle, and then I cried. My sadness is for me. I cannot think of a world without Adrienne Rich in it, without Adrienne Rich being there to help remind us about all about our follies when it comes to gender relationships, love, and ethical, kind interaction among us all. And although I am saddened today by her leaving us, I am also so grateful that she was here for the amount of time she was.

Truly, I cannot imagine a world that did not have Adrienne Rich in it. How much she gave us all. How much she potentially changed in our world with each word she wrote, each poem she compose, and each time she bared her soul for our benefit.

Just yesterday I was adding a quote from Adrienne Rich to a chapter in Writing the Diaphragm Blues regarding women's rights and birth control. I sought out her book because I remembered there was an interesting passage regarding the death at the midwife, and the rise of the doctor in Western civilization. She has been a go to resource of mine for much of my life.

For me personally, Adrienne Rich encouraged my voice as a feminist. She encouraged me to go out and write about those things that most of us keep behind closed doors. She showed me how it was okay to be uncomfortable by my confessions, by my feelings, and with my anger. She encouraged me with her words and her actions, to share my own subjective experiences about being a woman, about sexuality in order to share and reach out to a larger imagined community. I shudder to think of a world without Adrienne Rich in it. But possibly, my hope is this: that she encouraged other women to follow in her footsteps, to expose their souls for the world's benefit.

Goodbye Adrienne Rich. You will be missed by many, including myself.

Voyeurism is Allowed Public Spaces?

2012-03-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

In Washington state, there has been several news articles about men who have elaborate camera set ups using shoes and iPhones, to look up women's dresses. The most recently publicized case involves Jenifer DeMarre who was at the Seattle Home Show in Feb of 2012 with her husband when a man tried to film up her skirt. DeMarre's husband caught the man and the voyeur was quickly arrested. However, it is taken almost a month for DeMarre to get an anti-harassment order against this man. Why?

The story I have been following was written by Denise Whitaker for Komo news in Seattle. Now, I follow Komo on Facebook and I was a bit horrified to read on comment thread one man who wrote:

shes blowing this up so much omg

Unfortunately, the questionable comment above is not a rare opinion regarding these types of events, and other events like. What's the big deal? After all, she was wearing a skirt, right? Easy access. She's basically asking for it.

The idea privacy is changing drastically in our society. Social networks, Facebook, GPS and digital surveillance have all come together to redefine what is often called the public sphere. Some of the problems regarding this redefinition the murky, gray waters of what can be considered public access as compared to what is considered private acts. And this includes issues of voyeurism, and fashion.

Shoe Cameras

In a way, DeMarre was lucky that the incident occurred in a private Facility rather than a public space. Indeed, as I wrote on Facebook when replying to this news story, if this act of voyeurism had occurred in a public space, DeMarre might not have gotten any legal help whatsoever, because wearing a skirt in public doesn't give you a reasonable expectation to privacy.

How do I know this? First, it is clearly written in the Washington state voyeurism law; the laws pasted towards the end of this post. But more importantly, I saw this happen myself during Seattle SLUT walk 2011.

For those who do not know, SLUT Walk is an activist movement comprised of people who have been sexually assaulted and raped, and then blamed for that assault because of what he or she was wearing - this is slut-shaming and victim blaming. I was taking part in the protest, when a man was seen taking photographs of women's underwear, and up women's skirts. Keep in mind, this was a group of women, and men, most of who had been raped and/or sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Regardless, this man was repeatedly reported to the police who happened to be present at the protest. What did the police do? Nothing. They asked him to stop doing it, but they did not run him off, they did not arrest him, they only offered a firm word and then let him loose, to start filming all over again.

Many of the women were horrified and, rightfully so, angry. The question was this: why on earth did the police not arrest him from voyeurism? Well, because none of us at that protest had reasonable expectation of privacy. We were in a public location, Westlake Square, and having a public protest. As a result, our public space did not allow us to have private expectations.

The irony is this: we now have laws that allow a form of "slut-shaming" for women evening wearing the most tasteful of dress or skirt. It doesn't matter if the woman is wearing fishnet stockings and a miniskirt, or if she is wearing a full-length skirt that covers all the way down to the ankles–if she is out in public, any guy with the camera on his foot can likely get away with filming her, and there will be little that she can do about. Even though a skirt that covers a person's intimate areas, and legs, suggests a desire for privacy, just being in a public place can counteract that gesture.

I write about this today only to make people aware of the conflict in law, social mores, and everyday life. One of the women who wrote on the Facebook post by Komo said: this is one of the reasons I never wear a skirt in public. It is terribly sad that we live in a world that suggests that people deserve to be taken advantage of just because of the close they wear. Just fodder to think about.

Washington State:RCW 9A.44.115 Voyeurism.

(1) As used in this section:

     (a) "Intimate areas" means any portion of a person's body or undergarments that is covered by clothing and intended to be protected from public view;

     (b) "Photographs" or "films" means the making of a photograph, motion picture film, videotape, digital image, or any other recording or transmission of the image of a person;

     (c) "Place where he or she would have a reasonable expectation of privacy" means:

     (i) A place where a reasonable person would believe that he or she could disrobe in privacy, without being concerned that his or her undressing was being photographed or filmed by another; or

     (ii) A place where one may reasonably expect to be safe from casual or hostile intrusion or surveillance;

     (d) "Surveillance" means secret observation of the activities of another person for the purpose of spying upon and invading the privacy of the person;

     (e) "Views" means the intentional looking upon of another person for more than a brief period of time, in other than a casual or cursory manner, with the unaided eye or with a device designed or intended to improve visual acuity.

     (2) A person commits the crime of voyeurism if, for the purpose of arousing or gratifying the sexual desire of any person, he or she knowingly views, photographs, or films:

     (a) Another person without that person's knowledge and consent while the person being viewed, photographed, or filmed is in a place where he or she would have a reasonable expectation of privacy; or

     (b) The intimate areas of another person without that person's knowledge and consent and under circumstances where the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, whether in a public or private place.
Read the full law here.

What do you think about the changing reality of pubic vs private spaces? What do you think about slut blaming?

Where Do Babies Come From: A Roller Derby Story

2012-03-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

Chapter one in Writing the Diaphragm Blues and Other Sexual Cacophony's, looks at the question: where do babies come from? When I was a kid, before my mom had the opportunity to give me the birds and the bees talk, I was told by a very reliable kindergartner that babies come from pumpkin seeds. This information created quite an incident in my house, the day I walked in on my mother baking pumpkin seeds, a little bit before Halloween. Horror!

Eating may cause an unexpected pregnancy

Upon researching my book, I found that this was a rather common story. Another common story (preformationism) was that fully formed humans babies reside in the male penis (homunculus), the sperm and are squirted into the woman who then functions as a high tech, biological, incubator. I was rather surprised that this myth still exists - a discussion for a different blog posts perhaps?

Preformationism illustration

Well, it occurred to me that we humans tell the baby origin story differently, depending upon our backgrounds, resources, and general knowledge. We also love to tell this story using metaphors. For example, the birds and bees are a metaphor for sex and procreation. While walking down the street the other day, I was reminded of someone who tried to use roller derby as a metaphor for doing business; and it occurred to me, roller derby is really is a great metaphor for everything, including the story of where babies come from ... And ... Birth control.

Where Babies Come From: a Roller Derby Tale

The rules of roller derby are easy. Each team has five skaters on the floor. Four of the skaters are blockers, and they make up a pack. One of the blockers is a pivot, or the lead blocker who can also score points if she has to take over for the jammer. The jammer is the only one who can score points, and she will score a point for each time she passes, legally, an opposing teammate. The blockers try to stop the jammer from earning any points, while helping their jammer pass through the opposing pack.

Now let's talk nature.

Scene: Roller Derby Bout somewhere in WA state. A mother and a child, both derby girls, are sitting down watching a bout.