“If owning a gun and knowing how to use it worked, the military would be the safest place for a woman. It’s not.
If women covering up their bodies worked, Afghanistan would have a lower rate of sexual assault than Polynesia. It doesn’t.
If not drinking alcohol worked, children would not be raped. They are.
If your advice to a woman to avoid rape is to be the most modestly dressed, soberest and first to go home, you may as well add “so the rapist will choose someone else”.
If your response to hearing a woman has been raped is “she didn’t have to go to that bar/nightclub/party” you are saying that you want bars, nightclubs and parties to have no women in them. Unless you want the women to show up, but wear kaftans and drink orange juice. Good luck selling either of those options to your friends.
Or you could just be honest and say that you don’t want less rape, you want (even) less prosecution of rapists.”
May 3rd, 1989 5:56am
I was due on April 15th, but I didn’t make my way into the world until May 3rd. Maybe I was too stubborn to come when I was expected (Taurus), but I suppose I was waiting for a good reason.
I’ve found that a lot of my life looks like that. I delay decisions Putting them off until I’ve had time to mull them over, to wrap my head around things. Teachers used to call me shy, but my mother insisted that I was careful. Wary of new people, wary of change, wary of surprises.
Even as an adult, I postpone most things. I hold off on enthusiasm for things uncertain. Lately, though, I’ve challenged myself to enjoy my life as I am living it, and it is so worth the effort. I have an amazing life. 23 was such an incredible year for me and for my little family. 24 seems to be shaping up to be even more incredible, and I can’t wait to see the fruits of my effort!
Here’s to growing and learning to be proud of myself.
245am:
coldwindandiron:
Remember when we first moved in together? The piano took up the living room.You’d play me boogie woogie, I played you love songs. You’d say we’re playing house, now you still say we are.
How do couples like this actually exist? I’m seriously asking. Is her Etsy store doing really well or something? Is his career as a self-taught graphic designer/musician who makes band posters for local bands really taking off lately?
*I don’t actually know if she has an Etsy store, or what he does for a living. But they kinda look like they do those things, right?
I don’t actually have an Etsy store, he’s a musician/woodworker and I am a social worker.
We are firm believers in working hard for the things you love. Good things happen to those who work for them. :)
My main squeeze is on tour this week.
I was prepared for the additional doggies duties, the quiet evenings, the pangs of loneliness that settled around me as I pull the covers to my chin.
I was not prepared for how comfortable I would be with the solitude.
I remember our first days. I was still in college and would come to visit for the weekend; Sundays were for packing up my car and heading back across the state line. I remember feeling so certainly that I would die without him. That somehow my longing would bring my existence to an end. I remember physically feeling that in my chest. We were so entwined with each other that it was difficult to remember where he stopped and I began. I remember that scaring me.
Life is better with him. But I am okay by myself.
(I think this is what feeling like a grown-up, independent woman feels like.)
Friday.
Cleaning. Airing out the apartment. Dinner out with two friends.
Saturday.
Dog park. Dog bath. Walks in the sun. Hand holding. Errands. Staying in.
Sunday.
Krohn Conservatory. Lunch in the sun. Shared plates. TV on the Internet.
.
rbateson:
In 2010, Lulu Miller was biking across the country, taking some time to clear her head for a new phase of life. And somewhere in Nevada, she ran into a guy named Jeff Viniard who was on a similar journey. They shared the road for two weeks, pedaling hundreds of miles together until Utah. Along the way, they got to be pretty close, and Jeff, a geologist by training, rekindled Lulu’s long-lost love of rocks. But it turns out the ground beneath his own feet was shifting that summer… and he found himself desperately searching for some rock-solid evidence to help him figure out his future. (via Rocked by Doubt - Radiolab)
Really cool Radio lab segment last week about a couple from Columbus, Ohio.
Holy shit. I went to high school with that guy (Jeff).
“
Abortion seems to be the only medical procedure that people want to deny you based on how you got in that situation.
Drove drunk, got in an accident and need an organ transplant? No problem.
Messing around with a gun, accidentally shoot yourself in the leg and need surgery? Of course.
Smoke tobacco for most of your life and need treatment for lung cancer? Yep.
Climb a tree, fall out and break your leg? We’ll fix that right up.
Have sex and get pregnant when you don’t want to be? YOU GOT YOURSELF INTO THIS SITUATION AND YOU DESERVE NO MEDICAL HELP OR COMPASSION! THIS IS YOUR FAULT AND YOU WILL DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES!
”
Worry About Your Own Uterus: (via veruca-assault)
“Worry about your own uterus” wise wise words.
(via triplash)
Or the fact that the GOP wants government out of every aspect of life except women’s health.
The financial sector? Out!
The healthcare system in general? Out!
My uterus? Oh, we’ll tell you what to do with that.
It’s baloney, I say.
(via redjeep)
He doesn’t put the lid back on the toothpaste. He often disrobes in the living room and leaves pants, shoes, socks, coats, shirts, belts, strewn across our furniture and floor. He never re-uses a glass, and a combination of nicotine patch and nicotine gum wrappers litter our floor.
He often leaves his towel hanging on the door in the bedroom, so when he gets out of the shower, the only available towel is mine. Which he then also leaves hanging on the door in the bedroom. There are flat picks, thumb picks, old guitar strings, and cables weaving a pattern across the hardwoods.
But coming home to him is my favorite part of the day. A year, two months, two weeks, and five days later, living with him is still a worthy adventure.
He is the best thing that’s ever been mine.
Today my thoughts are falling into two categories.
The first: the incredible array of powerful women in my life. There are so many different ways to be a woman, and I have been blessed to know as many as I do.
Octa. My mother: When I was young. Visits to grandma’s house. The whole family would come over for a meal. My mother and her sisters would stay up long after the kitchen was clean, telling stories of their childhood and their shared experiences. I remember barely being able to keep my eyes open, but being so enthralled with their cackling laughter and hushed “Well, I’ll be…” and “Bless her heart”s (always paired with a head shake, or a hand to the bosom.) This was one of the first times that I realized that people can have different perceptions of the same event. I don’t have a sister, so their interactions were foreign to me at the time, but I can now recognize as true sisterhood.
Carole. My girl scout troop leader from 4th grade to 12th grade.
Leslie. Blair. Heather. Linda. Valerie.
Kate. My favorite philosophy professor in college: She and her husband both worked in the same department. She was smarter than her husband. She was more educated than her husband. She had made an impressive career for herself. They also raised three kids, and live in an old farm house. They keep goats, chickens, and maintain an impressive garden. She serves as a constant reminder: There are no rules here. Do what you want and don’t apologize.
My team: Our company is made up of almost entirely women. Out of 60 employees, 3 are male; a standing tradition. Though it has its advantages and disadvantages, there is an unmistakable sense of solidarity. When problems arise, we have been accused of ‘circling the wagons’. No one in, no one out, until the problem is fixed. It may have been intended as an insult, but I took it as a compliment. I work with an incredible group of women who are making a difference in children’s lives on a daily basis. Working there has made me fierce and strong and proud.
________
Secondly, I think of my relationship with my mister. I think of how difficult the struggle has been to reconcile my feminist heart with my southern upbringing. How to balance my independent heart with my urges to take up all the housework. I am thankful for the feminists before me that explored these same issues, and deciding that you can do both. You can be a woman however you feel like being a woman, and it doesn’t matter if anyone likes it.
