What Not To Wear

When I was living at my parents' house, we didn't have any TV, so I've never heard of this show before, and, frankly, I could have lived a thousand happy lifetimes without having seen it. But ever since I moved in with my grandparents, my pop culture knowledge has expanded significantly.
Now I kinda want to hide in a cave somewhere....you normal people are fucking NUTS.
Anyways, I'm bored as fuck, and I figure my grandparents probably don't want to hear me ranting about this, so, y'all are stuck with it. All six of you who read this.

So, WNTW starts out with this chick hanging out with her friends at an ice skating rink, when suddenly an extremely gay guy and this woman trying desperately to look sophisticated and friendly at the same time turn up and are like, LOL EVERYTHING YOU WEAR SUCKS SURPRISE!!!! And everyone cheers and says, YAAAAAAYY THROW OUT ALL HER CLOTHES AND MAKE HER FEEL LIKE CRAP! And then everyone smiles and laughs, because of COURSE this is what friendly people do, they're just trying to help!!!
Cue guilt trip and belittling.
"You have a six-year-old kid? Don't you ever spend time on yourself?"
"Shopping for trendy clothes is soooo much more important than your kid!'

-She just mentioned that when they're going out, her six-year-old (possibly five? it keeps changing) makes fun of her clothes and tells her to change. It's so cute when even your small children make fun of you! How precious!

-(Returning from a commercial break) "Her clothes range from boob-showing and hip-hugging to 'sloppy mom on the go'." ...She's wearing sweats. To go to the park. With her five/six-year-old. Who the hell dresses in couture for that??

-They're getting a "professional" to get her bra size...seriously, they have those? Weird...

-And now the gay guy and the "trying desperately" girl (I think they're the hosts?) are watching her through the mirror, commenting on her new bra. Hang on, five seconds ago, they were saying she was showing too much cleavage, now they're getting her bras to "give her more lift"? News flash for the flamboyant man, that makes them MORE visible.

-Annnd we're back to blaming her for spending too much time and energy on her kids and not enough buying clothes for herself.

-"Oh, honey, no, we LOVE your body, your body is fine!" To the cameras, later: "If she just took care of herself a little, you know, maybe in a couple years she'll look good". *facepalm*

-To make it even better, she just came out of the dressing room, and the first thing the Desperately Trying Woman said was "Ohhh, honey, this looks great, it gives you this cute tiny waist!" ...

Yeahhh...I'm gonna steal the remote when my grandma falls asleep again and watch NCIS.

"Men are Just Smarter, That's All"

Good news, ladies! "Science" has proven that guys are just smarter than we are!
...Seriously?
Seriously?

"For example, women are not great at math. We women can get by-in a world of mediocre performances. But in the world of hotshot math, women are outclassed."

Well, that tears it. I guess I'll just give up now. Poor little me, with my "mediocre" brain, will just go sit in the corner and let the boys run the show. 'Cause I'm just simply "outclassed". Thank God I found out about this before I tried to pursue a career in math! I'm so relieved to know that it's not my fault if I'm bad at math, it's simply "natural".
Seriously??

A Man? No. You are a boy.

"Hey, Daddy, is this shirt too provocative?"
"Daddy, look at this skirt. Does it create sinful, lustful thoughts in your mind?
...
*shudders* Too creeepy. Sounds like the script for a bad porn movie, am I right? But, no...that's what an unidentified Christian college student suggests women do. This guy tells us that just getting from class to class every day is a "battle" and that he has to listen to worship music and pray and recite scripture to resist the "temptation" of provocatively dressed women on campus. If it's that bloody difficult not to stare down girl's shirts, you really need therapy. Give your gender a little credit here, man. They've already got it cut out for them, trying to prove that sex isn't all they think about. Anyone can appreciate a nice-looking body without wanting to put their hands all over it, dude. If all you can think about when you see a girl in butt-hugging jeans or a V-neck shirt is how much you want to grab her boobs, then you definitely do not belong in college. Maybe seventh grade, with all the other horny little preteens.
Oh, and my favorite part? (Direct quote, I swear): "I am thankful that God has created me to be attracted to women". Translation: "Thank God I'm not gay."
"There are girls everywhere." Horror! Shock! GIRLS?? Oh, noes!!!

So now I really wanna buy some itty-bitty skirts and super-low cut shirts, just out of scientific curiosity. Think his head would explode? or would he fall to his knees and cry out to the Holy Spirit for mercy? It'd be interesting, don't you think?
"Consider this a message on behalf of men." Um, no. Because men, grown, mature men, are not that desperate. Twelve-year-old middle school boys are.
Believe me, I know guys think about sex a lot. Possibly constantly, in some cases. (coughex-boyfriendcough) But, jeez, tarring them all with the same brush seems a little harsh.
If your thoughts, when you look at an attractive woman, are first and foremost about sex, then you consider women sex objects. Don't try to pin this one on us, sugar. You can't keep your head out of the gutter, but you're gonna blame it on me in a V-neck shirt? Blaming women for being "tempting" is just a church-approved way of avoiding responsibility.
One last fun quote:
"Have your dad screen your wardrobe. He's a guy. He knows more than you do on the issue."
Scary, am I right?

I went to the website of Pastor C.J. Mahaney, the cited maker of this sermon video. I couldn't find the video, so I'm not sure if he's to blame for this, but on the "modesty" section of his blog, I found some invaluable advice on modesty (for women only, mind you. Cause, you know, guys are flawless. Chicks are vile temptresses).
It's all very carefully worded, very gentle admonishments. Kudos to Pr. Mahaney for giving us the benefit of the doubt- maybe we just don't REALIZE that we're tempting men down the path of evil to burn in hell for eternity. I've arranged his comments and advice into helpful, sarcastic bullet points.

-Women should always ask for men's advice on clothing. A girl should ask her father if her clothes are too skanky (never mind that every mom I know is way more concerned about that than the dads), and a woman should ask her husband or another trusted friend. ("Honey, is skirt too short?" "Not short enough! I mean...no...")
-Women should reflect "the transforming power of the gospels". How the hell does a wardrobe reflect a gospel? Should my panties have a picture of a cross on them, so when people see them under my miniskirt, they think of Jesus and not sex?
-Women should not draw attention to their bodies. Women should not be proud. It's a sin. And it makes guys horny.
-You and some man in your life (father, husband, sassy gay friend, whatever) should pray over your wardrobe. Seriously.
-
-Women should not make decisions by themselves. Because that never ends well.

THE WORLD MAKES NO SENSE!!!

Besides being hilarious, this is a pretty damned good way of handling the discovery that your daughter kisses girls. It really should be just this simple.

Update: It should go to the right link now...

New Candidate for the Darwin Award

This tidbit from everyone's favorite comedian: Ann Coulter, with her brilliant essay on why Japanese people getting radiation poisoning is good for them! Aren't you glad we've got brilliant scientific minds like her watching out for us, and making sure the liberal media doesn't corrupt our minds?

"With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have devastated Japan, the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer. This only seems counterintuitive because of media hysteria for the past 20 years trying to convince Americans that radiation at any dose is bad. There is, however, burgeoning evidence that excess radiation operates as a sort of cancer vaccine."

This ingenious hypothesis of hers comes from the fact that some scientists theorize- theorize, mind you!- that...

"...these doses protect against cancer by activating cells' natural defense mechanisms."

"Breaking news! Some scientists suggest drinking arsenic in your morning coffee is probably a bad idea!"
"No, it's not! It's liberal media scare tactics! (Insert obscure university, preferrably in a foreign country) did a study that (pick one: proved, suggests, strongly suggests) that arsenic can (pick one: increase your life span by 4.3 months, prevent breast cancer, leap tall buildings in a single bound)."

Course, radiation issues don't really have much to do with feminism...but Ann Coulter is an embarassment to all those with a vagina. And all those with a brain. Actually...most of humankind. How can you not make fun of her? She makes it so easy...

And I don't like her. So there.

Ghetto School SUCKS

So. 100th International Women's Day, y'all! ...and nobody at my school's heard of it. Actually, most of them weren't even aware March is America's Women's History Month. You will not believe how many of my friends have told me they don't really care about Women's History Months because "Well, I'm not really a feminist, so it doesn't matter to me..."
...Right.
This is going to take some work

Female 'Computers'

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/02/08/women.rosies.math/index.html?hpt=C2
Just something interesting- happy Women's History Month, everyone!

Vagina Monologues

February 21st, 2004 (7 years ago today): Eve Ensler and Jane Fonda produce the first all-transgender production of the Vagina Monologues. Eighteen trans women performed the readings, and a new monologue for trans women was added.

Verdict: FRUSTRATION

So...posts will be even fewer and further between for a while, probably, because my computer is committing slow suicide.

I NEED HAPPY SHIT

There's a long and funny story about why I'm pissed right now (hint: it involves my ex-boyfriend, his depression issues and the fact that most of his friends blame me for them, and his recent arrest), and when I saw it's a long story, I mean it's a LONG FUCKING STORY.
So I'm going to think about happy shit, to distract myself.
Like the fact that for once, I don't hate the music on the radio. Not all of it, anyways. I still can't stand lots of it. I mean, seriously, Rihanna, we all know your fucking name. Stop asking us.
But I digress. Ever since all the teen suicides last year (no, I'm not going to post a fucking link. Why? Because I'm lazy. And if you've already forgotten about that, then I probably don't like you.), it's become "cool" to be gay, or bi (sadly, most people still seem to forget about the trannies.) Everyone wore purple to school, to work, to show their support for the LGBTs, "it gets better" is the top result on Google if you just type in "it"- seriously, go try it- and half the music on the radio is about tolerance, acceptance, loving people even if they're not like you. The music videos feature fat chicks going "screw everyone, Imma eat if I want, gay men kissing- Even TV's getting in on it,or so I'm told. We don't actually have TV at my house, so I watch maybe five or six shows on my computer. But out of the, let's see, five TV shows I watch, four feature, or have featured, LGB (sorry, trannies, they forgot you again. Grr!) as main characters. Gayness is "cool". It's "trendy".
And, OK, part of me wants to be pissed because so many people are just jumping on the bandwagon of the new trend. But you know what? It's a damned good bandwagon to be jumping on, and we're making a helluva fuss about it. LGBTs and their allies can't be ignored anymore. So I will not complain. Much.

My evidence:
Katy Perry- Firework You've got your gay guys kissing, in the middle of a crowded club, not caring what anyone says, while Katy tells us not to be afraid of what anyone else says. Because if you are, then fireworks will not explode out of your boobies. No, wait, sorry, that's the ADD talking. The point is you shouldn't let anyone keep you down because of who you are. And that you should keep doves under your trenchoat, so when you are mugged, you can distract them.
(Side note: How the hell are the doves freaking these muggers out more than the fact that there are FIREWORKS coming out of this guy's chest?)

P!nk- Raise Your Glass P!nk performs at the wedding of two gay men. Fat chick smacks the skinny girl in the face. She addresses all the "dirty little freaks", sticking up for the blacks, the Hispanics, the chicks (she makes Rosie the Riveter look even awesomer), the gays, the nerds, the skaters, hell, even the animals, and says we're never gonna shut up, we're never gonna back down, good fucking luck trying to stop us.
(This video also features a baby waving around a sippy cup like it's drunk or something, a baby cow, and   P!nk sleeping with nuns, then showing up at a high school dance with a major sunburn going on. Now you're gonna go watch it just out of curiosity. Ha!)

Also from P!nk is Fuckin' Perfect...There aren't really any words I can say that will do it justice, without making me sound like a bad Disney movie. Just go watch it.

And now from Lady Gaga is Born This Way. The link is to a lyrics site, by the way, because I don't think there is a video yet. This song's a little heavy on God for my tastes, but so's most of the debate about homosexuality in the first place, so I suppose it's appropriate.

Tolerance is trendy? Celebs are supporting gayness? Acceptance and love is taking over the airwaves? Whod'a fucking thunk it?

P.S. Pro-life view on abortion is still coming, I swear. As soon as I find it. You can stop bugging me now, Daniela.

A Quick Link

From NARAL's website comes the scary discovery that abortion-wise, my state SUCKS.

Find out how much your state does/doesn't suck here.

P.S. Sam's post on why she is pro-life is coming, I promise.

Reasons I am Pro-Choice

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.” - Alice Walker


1). Back-alley abortions.
Yes, it's a trite, overused expression. No, I don't give a fuck. It's a legit term for a legit worry. I'll be the first to admit that people turn to abortions way too readily, but I'll also be the first to tell you that the trule desperate women will go to any means necessary, and that includes unsanitary, unprofessional abortions that killed and maimed thousands of women before it was legalized, and they all were forced to act like criminals. No good, y'all. How the hell can we call ourselves the greatest country in the world if we don't even allow access to safe, clean medical care? Seriously, folks. This is kinda a no-brainer.
2). Big government.
Excuse me, but aren't the Republicans for SMALL government? LESS governement interference? They're already telling us government helathcare is "socialism" (and if you think I'm getting into that, you're nuts). And yet they want the government to be allowed to have control over the bodies and healthcare of literally half the American population- the women. Excuse you? You can't get much more invasive than having Uncle Sam telling you what you can and can't do with your uterus.
3). Women's rights.
You wouldn't think this would need explanation, but it does. My body. MINE. Not yours. That's as simple as I can make it.
What is a fetus? At a few weeks? It's a mass of cells. Admittedly, it's a mass of cells with a potential to become so much more than just that. But so is a tumor. No one's marching in the streets of the capitol for tumors' rights. No one's trying to pass personhood amendments for your lung cancer. I mean, I can't even write that with a straight face.
Think back to your ninth-grade health class. Remember what happened? This little thing that looked weirdly like the pictures of worms they have on the posters at the vet's office stuck itself to a blob that looked like a golf ball.
Seriously. You're gonna tell me that's a person? It's two cells. (Although my brother, who is much more a science nerd than I am, informs me that they're tehnically each half of a cell, called haploid cells? Or possibly diploid cells, I wasn't really lsitening.) If you take those two cells out of a woman's body, what are they? Nothing. They're an egg, and a sperm. Nobody's doing protest marches for the rights of all the poor little sperms who die every time a teenage boy jacks off. Nobody's screaming that I'm killing a person every time I have my period. But it's eggs and sperms dying! Cells with the potential to become a human life are being destroyed!
...Right.
Take those cells out of the body, and no one gives a fuck about them. They're two cells. But in a woman's body, they're precious! You can't get rid of them! You have to keep them, no matter what the cost!
Sure is convenient that saving human life means someone else gets to control what happens to my body, dontcha think?
4). The irony is just too much to handle otherwise
"Land of the free! We're the best in the world! Liberty! Awesomeness! Et cetera! Oh, except you're not free to make choices considering your own body. But we're still Number One, right?"
Too much irony.
Anti-choice laws are not compatible with free society. Ever. (This is another one of those "Shouldn't need explanation, but apparently does")
5). Outlawing abortion is forcing women to have children
Um, what the fuck? Seriously, what the fuck? The day a government forces women to bear children against their will is the day women have become nothing more than slaves. Outlawing abortion again is as much as telling women that they're only good for making babies. If I can't decide what to do with my own body, then essentially, I'm being told that I don't matter, at all, except as a little baby factory. Thanks, guys. That's sweet.
6). Health
Women with certain medical conditions (cancers, heart disease, blood disorders) can be endangered by a pregnancy. Delivering a child could kill them. If abortions were made illegal, women would die when it could have been preventable, because the government would force them to have children. A woman's options would be illegal abortion (risking her own death) or childbirth (risking her own death).
Fuck that.
7). America is still not a theocratic government.
"America's founders were Christian, though!" Yeah, and my Mom's friend believes in the Moon Goddess. What does any of that have to do with anything?
America's CHRISTIAN founders wanted people to have a place where they felt safe, where thye felt they had a voice in the ruling of their home country, where they could feel they were not simply ignored. America's founders gave us a country with FREEDOM OF RELIGION. You're free to practice your religion. I'm free to not have one. Stop putting your religion's laws in my country's laws. Seriously. It's rude. Not to mention destructive, ineffective, and wrong.
8). A woman is more than just a body
If fetuses are granted "personhood", then that means they become more important than I am. Their rights come before mine. They have equal rights, too- more equal, in fact than mine.
What the fucking fuck???
9). Women can and should make decisions on their own.
Thank you, America, for trying to make my decisions out of my hands. Thank you, America, for telling me that I am incapable of making the right decision. You trust me enough to have and raise a baby, but not enough to deicde if I want it? Well, that clears that right up. OBVIOUSLY, being but a poor, pitiful woman, I can't possibly make my own decisions. That would be crazy! Where would society be if you let me think for myself? Chaos.
10). WE CAN'T ALL AFFORD ANY FUCKING BABIES
Hell-O??? I'm seventeen. I'm unemployed. How the fuck am I supposed to raise a kid?
What about the single moms working fourteen and sixteen and eighteen hours a day to afford electricity? Yeah, I'll bet they really want a kid right now. Raising a baby is totally in their budget. *sarcasm hand raised We should just leave them in the lurch, right? Because all life is sacred to God, after all. (But only as long as it's a cute li'l baby, we don't actually care so much once they grow up. They can fend for themselves. *sarcams shoulder popping from raising sarcasm hand so high)
11). Overpopulation.
Seriously? There aren't enough starving and dying and unwanted children out there? There aren't enough mommies in Africa dying in childbirth, while their kids die of starvation and disease and lack of fresh water? You don't see enough kids in the streets, running drugs for money? Not enough child prostitues earning money for food?
If every life is sacred, buy some fucking condoms, and adopt. Don't just talk about the world's fucking problems and then ignore them the rest of the time.
12). Women are not just mothers
Without a kid, or several kids, there are so many more options for me. Right now, I'm set to go off to the Navy in August. If I have a kid, that's not happening. Babies are wonderful and awesome and miraculous- when they're planned for, or if you have the means of taking care of them, or if you want one. For someone who doesn't like kids, who's trying to finish school, who wants to be able to get and keep a job, who doesn't want her life interrupted for something she never wanted in the first place? That's not a miracle, folks, that's a damned pain in the ass (literally and figuratively)
Telling me I have to have a kid is telling me I'm not good for being anything except a mother. Forcing a woman to have a child devaules her. All the political and economic and social gains women have made aren't going to be worth much if we aren't even allowed control over our bodies.
13). Teen pregnancies
Yeah, I really want to scew up my entire teenage life by having a baby at the age of, oh, fourteen, or fifteen, or hell, THIRTEEN, for Christ's sake...what's that you say? I should have used protection? Well, maybe instead of forcing abstinence-only sex ed on me you should have GIVEN ME SOMETHING USEFUL TO WORK WITH HERE before you also force me to HAVE A BABY!
Seriously, right-wingers. What the fuck? Don't teach kids how to avoid pregnancies, then don't let them out of it when-shocker!!!-they get pregnant anyways...
Yeah, that's a great idea.
*sarcasm hand raised really high so everyone can see me flipping them the bird
14) Child abuse
Yeah, child abuse. Child abuse sucks. And it ends when parents actually want their kids, when they treat them the way they should-like something precious, and miraculous, and wonderful. When parents love thir kids, child abuse ends.
When parents look at their kids and think, "I never wanted you. I dropped out of high school because of you. Dad disowned me when he found out about you. I can't afford you. I lost my job over you. You're just a burden to me," that's where child abuse starts.
And you're going to tell me that you're "pro-life" because you believe every life is sacred?

Whew, longest post ever. And you know the worst part? That's nowhere near everything I could've said.

Next up: My friend Sam's pro-life perspective.

You Had To See This Coming

Roe v. Wade:
Argued December 13, 1973
Reargued October 11, 1972
Decided January 22, 1973

Seriously, you had to know I wasn't going to leave this alone.

First things first: I will probably never have an abortion. I don't believe for a second that a fetus is a person from the word go (i.e, sperm meets egg), but on the other hand, I have no idea when it DOES count as a person. My youth group leader is pregnant right now (due to give birth any day now, actually) and for the past 37 weeks, she's been putting up pics on Facebook of the baby bump; her statuses have been all about how she saw the baby's heartbeat on the ultrasound, et cetera. It's really quite sweet. (I keep telling her she should name it after me. Except it's a boy. But I still think she could give him my name, and maybe just call him by his first name instead? What do you think?) And at some point, you have to realize it IS another person. You can't fairly call it "a mass of tissue" at, say, nineteen weeks. I mean, by then, it not only looks like a person, it's moving around, its brain is starting to do fancy stuff that I just looked up and forgot- it's a bit iffier at, like, four weeks or something. Rather than make the call, I would probably have the baby, and then put it up for adoption (No way I'm keeping it. Ick. I really don't like kids.)
But the thing is, I've made a CHOICE here. I have a choice. How wonderful is that? Forty years ago, if I got pregnant, I was fucked (metaphorically. Well, literally, too, I suppose). I'd be stuck with it. And I'd probably hate that kid every bloody day of my life. I can hold a grudge for a really long time. My family would be stuck with the burden of another kid (seriously, we've got enough issues just affording the six of us already in this family) that no one wants, I'd be jobless in a heartbeat, I wouldn't have been able to join the Navy, I'd have to take time out of school, probaly wind up repeating a year- to which I say HELL NAW. SO not worth it.
There's a lot to be said on this subject, and rather than making this post even longer than it already is (I'm going to change the format so that it makes it look like a shorter post, jsut to satisfy my OCD), I'm going to split everything (most) of what I have to say on it into several posts over the course of this coming week.
'Cause, seriously, if you thought I was gonna leave this one alone, you're NUTS.
UPDATE: am fully aware this post is going up the day after the anniversary. Mom confiscated my computer yesterday before I could get this posted. Long story there, but I'm still close enough, right?

Bedtime Stories for the Little Kiddies

Once upon a time, there was happy Republican family. There was a happy Republican mommy. She was the president of the PTA at her 2.5 children's school, she wore business suits and skirts to her thriving law practice, and she personally checked the immigration papers of her children's Hispanic nanny before hiring her. There was a happy Republican daddy. He owned his wife's thriving law practice, and always wore an American flag pin on his business suit's lapels.
Every night when she tucked them into bed, the happy Republican mommy would tell her children a bedtime story.
"Tell us a scary story, Mommy!" they begged. So she told them a story about the most horrible scary monsters she could think of.
She told them all about the hippie, communist liberals, the Muslim, morally bankrupt president, and the baby-killing, corrupting feminists. The little kiddies listened with wide eyes and blankets clutched to their chins as she described in great detail their evil schemes. The liberals wanted to destroy America! The crazy left-wingers were allowing the breakdown of everything good in the world, by letting Mexicans take American jobs and American money. The feminists didn't want mommies and daddies to get married. In fact, if they had their way, mommies would only be allowed to marry mommies, and daddies could only marry daddies! And they would kill sweet little children like them! And worst of all, they would take Mommy and Daddy's money and give it to- poor people! People who had never done an honest day's work in their lives!
"This is a scary story, Mommy," they whimpered.
"But there's a happy ending," their mommy told them. She told them all about how now there was a Republican majority in the government, so little kiddies could be safe from all the Mexiacans, and the Muslims, and the communists, and the baby-killers. They would never have to worry about learning about sex in school, until the happy Republican daughter got pregnant, anyways, and they would never have to worry about the gay kids at school staring at them in the locker room like filthy perverts.
"Mommy, will you check under the bed before you turn out the lights?" her 2.5 children asked her, when she finished her story. She smiled indulgently and asked, "For what?"
"For-" They looked scared to say the word. "-Liberals," they whispered.
So the happy Republican mommy checked under the bed for the scary monsters, and there weren't any Democrats or gay people or atheists under the bed, and they all lived happily ever after and weren't eaten by monsters in their sleep.
The End.