I'm coming clean because I think it just feels right to be honest now.
I have back fat. Yes, back fat.
No matter how thin or thick I am, the back fat is always there. Earlier this year, I posted a picture on Facebook, one showing me with my back turned to the camera, and I was appreciating the landscape.
I photo-shopped my own back fat out of the picture, then proudly posted it.
Why should I be ashamed of my own fucking back and how it naturally looks? So, to the world, I give you these two pictures: The photo-shopped and the original.
Hmm, this feels kind of liberating. Everyone should try it!
"Despite the clear public health and safety problems presented by pedestrians being hit by cars, pedestrian safety is still neglected in the United States. Little federal spending goes to protect the most vulnerable road users. Most traffic safety programs are aimed at ensuring the safety of motorists, and too often pedestrians are considered at fault in accidents." (http://www.transact.org/report.asp?id=156)
Why not turn International Walk To School Day into a lifestyle? The line of SUVs in front of our local elementary drop off/pickup is usually about a half mile long (and I'm not even counting the SUVs that try to cut in line by doing crazy maneuvers). For the most part, these families live within a mile radius of the school. What gives? Here are some interesting statistics directly from AmericaWalks.org. I am shocked at the decline of moving legs.
Less than 6% of Americans’ trips are on foot, yet 13% of all traffic deaths involve pedestrians.
Each year 6,000 pedestrians are killed and 90,000 are injured. One in five is a child.
Parents driving children to school comprise 20-30% of morning traffic congestion in urban areas.
You are 36 times more likely to be killed walking than driving a car.
Almost 60% of pedestrian deaths occur in places where no crosswalk is available.
Being hit and killed by a car is now the second leading cause of fatal injury and the fourth leading cause of hospitalized injury for California children aged 5-12.
I was hit by a minivan when I was 19 years old. I crossed in a crosswalk. The person admitted he wasn't looking and only saw people crossing when it was too late to brake. For those of you who don't what that feels like: it's scary, your life flashes before your eyes, you're pretty sure you are going to die (especially the part where you go flying through the air), and it also fucking hurts. The driver's lack of respect for his vehicle's power and lack of attention to pedestrians crossing the street probably has stayed with him a little, but I am reminded of it every fucking second of my existence. Some days my arthritis and fibromyalgia are so bad that I can't do much at all, let alone walk.
If you are healthy and able, you should skip the car as often as you can and walk on your two legs. I guarantee you will miss being able to walk when your body tells you that you aren't allowed to walk anymore. Perhaps people's respect toward pedestrians would also improve if erratic drivers had the experience of "trying not to die" each time they set foot onto concrete.
Vehicles are killing machines. It's time to take them a little more seriously.
Follow your passion! I started school because I was so driven to study linguistics and anthropology after having found myself at a glass ceiling in banking just before the crash – around 2005 – someone doing five jobs in one and deserved to be paid much, much more. I had so much experience in the administrative and project world, but I completely adored the thought of college and I loved the fact that I could tie culture into the evolution of language…eventually I found myself immediately enrolled in vocal music courses in addition to anthropology. I was so excited to be joining choir again after so many years. After a semester or two, I figured out that music was calling me directly by name. I had joined choir, immediately joined the honor choir, and was selected via auditions for special conventions and was a leading student in the music department.
I knew by 2010 that music was my mission. I began my trek as a vocal major and enrolled in every music course possible, including private lessons with an incredibly gifted vocal coach. Also, by early 2013 I had so much music theory training that I was writing so much music. I found that I couldn't stop writing music. I wanted to experience various time periods, various moods, various instruments...and WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
I am constantly driven by the memory that I started at a place where music in my head would remain just there: in my head, and I was bound to be eternally depressed and oppressed! I never thought that I would ever live in a world where I understood what that bass guitarist was thinking, just with his eyes, or how much I enjoyed the playful banter with my accompanist, where she points at me and says I'm singing the wrong note. I'll especially remember those experiences sitting near major choral composers who admitted what they were thinking (by candlelight in isolated cabins) when they composed their major works, or reading the advice of more contemporary composers such as Ken Ueno or Laura Shigihara. I love the challenge of getting it right. I love the challenge of trying to understand what the previous generations of composers were trying to say - through the rules and the deviations. In May 2013, I began writing a comprehensive piece, the first of its kind, for me. I have written other pieces and discovered that my true passion was making music and not just singing it. Why go into a field that isn't specific to what you really want to do? Someone has yet to explain that to me who is completely happy and following his or her passion. Learn what you love and learn it well.
Special thanks to friend Stel Pavlou for changing my life path. Check out his site at http://www.stelpavlou.com/
The White House recently met with key officials in Detroit to discuss measure to "clean up" the city, whistling to the tune of around $300 million. The money would be used to demolish old buildings and to hire more employees in public transit as well as firefighters. None of this money will go to lowering the debt which has brought Detroit to its knees. But is the government really responsible? In some ways, yes, as the vitality of this country depends on the health of each muscle, valve, organ, and artery. More importantly is the obligation the auto industry has on its Detroit constituents. The government's role in assisting Detroit is only a bandage for the greater problem which is massive job loss in Detroit. Corporations should have accountability because they were bailed out but left the cities we hold dear in ruins - many in poverty and without work. The repercussions of the auto industry abandoning its golden child, Motor City, is truly jarring. Further, it disgusts me to think that people are still willing to dish out thousands of dollars to allow auto companies to thrive while the people who made it possible for the auto executives are left in hunger, and with no way out.
Oh my god, I said it! I'd be in denial if I said this was not a scarily redefining moment for me.
I am done calling myself an egalitarian. Sure, feminism and egalitarianism are kind of the same thing, right? That's like saying penne rigate and fettuccine are the same. Um, no. They each have different textures and hold flavors differently but, yes, essentially, their ingredients are the same. I have a secret sauce recipe and there is no way I am going to let it get anywhere near a bowl of steaming capellini. It's disrespectful to the sauce and to me.
What I imagine will happen if you try to mix capellini or spaghetti with my potentially award-winning sauce. Not good.
Anyway, feminism...
I want to finally remove the stigma I long attached to what defines feminism. I don't burn bras. I don't hate men. Feminism isn't about either of those things. It's not about hating or punishing men. At its core, feminism is the search for balance and equality in a patriarchal society. Merriam-Webster, I'd be happy to accept that high-paying position you just offered me to write definitions all day.
Thank you for all the practice, Balderdash.
There needs to be balance in the workplace. I worked as a telephone concierge for a hotel before I was 21. Unfortunately, I was forced to wear a uniform: a skirt, pantyhose, a white blouse and a disgusting blazer. My "office" was a broom closet in the kitchen of the top-floor hotel restaurant. What I didn't expect was Mr. Grabby-Hands Cook, who took every opportunity to smack me in the ass, grab my crotch, or try to stick his hand up my skirt. A minute alone and he would try everything. I laughed it off most of the time, but I didn't really know how to handle it. I just wasn't armed with assertive techniques at the time...and unprepared, confused about that type of attention.
Well, I managed to get out of that situation, thank goodness, when I turned 21. This nightmare happens all over the world. I know I'm not alone. Some women are way worse off after they try to speak up. Anita Hill probably had better things to do than deal with a barrage of media interrogators and a public testimony against her harasser, the dishonorable Clarence Thomas. Anita Hill sparked an awareness that hadn't really been discussed in great length before: workplace gender inequality. And what is even more jarring for me is that there is so much doubt when a woman speaks out and demands a safer and healthier workplace AND equal pay. Whoa, that's too way much to handle. How dare we demand equality!
Also in doubt is a woman's innate ability to choose what is best for her own body. There is so much ignorance on Capitol Hill; I feel so UNrepresented. Millions of dollars are being spent on ridiculous anti-women legislation (are we in the Middle Ages?) and millions of women are not getting proper care due to lack of access to low-cost reproductive health programs. In South Dakota, "The law requires the doctor performing [an] abortion to personally meet with the patient at least three days before her appointment. Despite the lip-smacking claims from backers of the law that this is about making sure women are making “informed” choices, it’s obvious the real aim of the bill is to multiply the number of times the doctors have to fly into the state."
Florida requires mandatory ultrasounds because choosing to get an abortion is not a difficult choice already. They really want to stick you with the guilt pole before you decide for sure-for sure. What purpose does that serve? Faith-based policies do not represent me nor do they represent women's health. Women need better representation from our elected officials. Far too much money is being invested in all the wrong areas, and things won't change when there is so much ignorant behavior from the people who are supposed to be on our side. The New York Times reported that Tea-Party conservative Todd Akin said, “It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Mr. Akin said of pregnancies from rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Todd Akin, who are these doctors you are talking to? Botanists? You are so stupid and you obviously hate women and shame on you for perpetuating myths about the elusive and mysterious female body.
Anti-choice and anti-woman legislation continues all over the country. Viagra is covered under insurance, but women are always positioned to feel "lucky" when or if we get any reproductive-related costs insured, like birth control. Every time I go to the store I dread having to pay for those annoying and costly tampons and pads. Worse, there aren't that many options. The last time I visited the market, there was only one compact tampon option among the boxes of sparkly, "quieter" tampon wrappers in colourful containers so people won't know you are menstruating.
Forcing women to buy costly feminine protection is an exploitation of a biological function. When will we see the day where communities care for their women instead of punish and shame them for their biology? A woman's body should not be used for profit. Go ahead and call me a socialist. I yearn for a day when supplies are available for all women, not just women who have money because in the long run, if you take care of women, you take care of half your community. You're taking care of your mother, your sister, your daughter, your wife.
We should learn from rural Indian inventor Arunachalam Muruganantham. He saw his wife sneaking off to clean some dirty towels one day only to discover that she didn't buy feminine protection in order to afford milk for the family. In many parts of India, women have little access to sanitary protection, forcing them to use alternatives such as dried leaves, ashes, or sand. Obviously, there are health risks.
This guy sported a fake uterus filled with goat's blood and wore women's underwear for a week to test his low-cost alternative sanitary napkin.
Feminism exists because every time a woman says she was raped, the immediate and general response is 'what did she do to deserve it'. It's time to start educating boys for a change in "how not to rape" and what are proper social boundaries rather than remaining in this old school world of "how not to get raped" and leaving the burden all on women to protect themselves. Read more about rape apologist culture.
I'm a feminist because I live in a country where the elected officials who defend the rapist outweigh elected officials who defend the victim.
I'm a feminist because I live in a country that punishes its own women and girls who were forced into sex trafficking, a country that does not address the real issue fairly: men who pay to do whatever they choose with a female sex slaves who don't have a choice.
