Combat boots and fishnets

Forgive the lack of spaces, it was seperated out to paragraphs, but thats what you get when you cut and paste I guess:
Women. From the beginnings of what most scholars agree is civilization, women have been put down and put upon by men and other women alike. For reasons I will only begin to explore in my lifetime women have been held down and more importantly thought to hold themselves down for reasons I can't seem to explain, even utilizing current feminist theory. Is there aggression that is innate in mankind and if so is it this aggression that has created in men the need to subjugate groups of less physical strength? Is it somehow believed to be so beneficial to society that women are kept under leading to the entirety of society striving to make that a reality? Have sexism and the beliefs inherent in it become so pervasive and normalized that the extraction of them from today's society would be nearly impossible? What would society be like were the removal of sexism and subjugation were possible? It's a frightening prospect that I cannot even picture such a system. Slowly but surely we are seeing our current situation turn backwards toward the oppression of women. We are systematically removing rights that were just coming into their own and we are doing so at a time when the nation is in the grips of enormous fear. We are beginning now to see a push towards the "good old days" and all that that encompasses, and unfortunately for women, it includes the idea that we do not have the right to our own bodies. It includes the concept that if we merely rely on God and trust in the Divine Plan things will work out well for us and all Americans will somehow end up in heaven. It also, however, includes the concept that women are property, but not enough of us will consider that a real problem until we once again find ourselves with back alley doctors manipulating coat hangers, and homes for unwed mothers run by those good servants of the Lord- the nuns. And the more frightening part is that those days are neither far behind us, nor difficult to imagine in front of us. Society has yet to succeed in genuinely changing towards more equality between the sexes. It has resisted continuously the idea that women ought to be treated with the same attention to their personal details and desires as men have been, and due to this resistance it has left our girls with emotional scarring that has become accepted and innate and therefore expected and normalized. This emotional scarring presents itself still, within today's society of adolescent girls and women and has yet to cease making its mark on the minds, behaviors, beliefs and actions of young men and women coming up the line. To suggest a way to change this would be an enormous undertaking that I alone would not be capable of, but to open the discourse in yet another place, to speak to it from my point of view and to put out some of those questions that are so much in need of answering, is at least a small step. The thing of it is that sexism and the situations it prods women into can be seen across cultural barriers and can be recognized from every day behaviors through behaviors driven by neuroses and anxiety. While it can certainly be argued that not every woman grows up with the experience of a hostile and sexist world, it can be said at the very least that those women who have not will inevitably be in contact with someone who was raised under sexism, and as such will be exposed to it. It's my belief then, that whether raised in a more feminist household or not, the everyday interactions with those raised in the sexist environment are eventually enough to cause that persons outlook to be flavored by their socialization. At the very least the interactions cause those of feminist thought to recognize the existence of the hierarchy and to learn how to operate over, under and around it. The impact of sexism then, is still terrifically far reaching. Anecdotal evidence of the various acceptable roles society has for women can be found in the school aged experiences of any young girl. Many are the young women who take up those roles, play them out to the furthest degree and perpetuate the likelihood that some day their own daughters will take up the roles and their own sons will pressure more women into fitting the mold. These roles can take the form of the stereotypical occupations society states are suited to women, or they can move into the area of the behaviors women exhibit towards one another when in competition for that coveted husband. But anecdotal evidence has never been enough for society. It becomes too easy to dismiss or explain away, or to counter with anecdotal evidence from the other end of the spectrum. Yet those that actually research these topics are also dismissed and demeaned. The name Feminist is nearly thrown in their faces as if it were the equivalent of being a Republican in Massachusetts: they exist, but nobody around them really listens to them, and many people just pretend they aren't there. So the question that continues to pop up for me still is 'why?' What is it that's unsafe about letting go of the old boy's network? Or forget the old boy's network, why is it seemingly open minded women will even balk at a discussion of feminism? I challenge anyone of you to bring it up at a polite dinner party and see what reception you receive. There are only a few that can genuinely say anywhere they bring up the topic, or with any group of friends, the following discussion will be warmly received by the host or hostess. Now maybe you think I'm being over the top, maybe you don't. Maybe you think the issues of women having fewer rights than men are a moot point and everybody knows how bad women have it. But maybe if more women spoke about it, even if it's been beaten like a dead horse, it would make a difference somewhere to someone. Maybe I just think that the questions should be asked until they become irrelevant or untruthful. Maybe I think any discussion can't be over until the problem no longer exists.

Piecing Things Together

Sometimes, like today, I walk through a street fair and its beautiful out. I mean the sky is blue, the air is just warm enough, and you can smell the roasting sweet corn, the shwarma, the incense, and the african shea soap cooking all up and down the street. There are children, and men and women, and every possible combination that could make up a household. There are singular people, couples, groups of teenagers. And one minute you are taking it all in and you can't wipe the smile off your face and the next moment you are filled with this incredible longing. A lust for life it might be called, but your right there in it, being it, so why are you lusting after it? Perhaps then lust for life is not quite the right phrase. What is it about group and community that makes us long to lose ourselves in it? That must be what it is right? I mean look at any grouping, even ones you dont want to belong to, and inevitably they emit this power, this promise of fulfillment that assures all members that they are part of a whole, that for one brief moment they make something other than themselves a tiny bit more complete. Perhaps this is why so many of us are so easily drawn into group mentality and mob thinking- we long for the wholeness we feel from being one of many, we don't feel so alone in the universe. Human beings after all have been said to be innately social creatures. They study monkeys and other mammal groupings and come to this conclusion that we need support systems, we need to belong, and I dont know if this is the truth or if this is what society tells we ought to believe, but it seems to me if society tells us this is how we are supposed to experience things and we are required to be part of society to obtain the things we desire from life, then that distinction is pretty irrelevent. And yet at the same time we are all these seemingly different individuals, whose thoughts and ideas can never fully be identical, and can never be traced back to exactly the same source. So which is it then, are we independent individuals who are not only capable of functioning solo but inevitably must always function solo due to our enormous differences, or are we merely pieces of the whole? Or is it possible that its both? How can we be both part of the group and totally different from the group at the same time?

You're not in Kansas anymore, or Park Slope for that matter

This morning I was walking to the bank, up this slight incline in the main street running perpendicular to my own. Its funny how there are things about our experiences we forget until some unrelated event brings them back to us in full color. So Im walking, and the sun is really starting to beat down, nothing like the last few weeks but its getting there, and then this convertible pulls up into my line of peripheral vision, and I hardly notice at first, my mind being elsewhere, until all of a sudden this muffled sound that seems like a high pitched chant, starts coming from somewhere, and its sounding as if the speakers its beating out of are really poor quality because its mixed with a whole bunch of static and the words are hard to make out. I look around and its coming from the convertible I mentioned before. And maybe because of the poor quality of sound, maybe because of the heat mixed with this, but prayer time popped into my head. Briefly, I'm again sitting in a tiny overpacked and windowless bus, listening as the call to prayer gets pumped over public speakers along the red dirt roads of Dakar in order that those not near a Mosque can put out their blankets and pray along with all the rest, facing towards Mecca. Now the thing of this thats probably also assisting this momentary loss of time and place is that my oversized sunglasses are this brownish red, lending the quality of that red African dirt I mentioned to the pavement, the buildings,and the cars. Funny, I know. I feel like I should be back in my makeshift head cover and sea blue wrappa that I was always being told I knotted wrong. I haven't thought of Senegal like this in a couple years, despite my continued contact with a favorite acquiantance of mine from over there, and I think the oddest part of this little memory is that it made me nostalgic for the place. Africa was something that got under my skin and burned for a very long time, something that changed me in both subtle and obvious ways, that I hated and loved and cried over for countless reasons. And strange though it seemed to me at the time that the scene rushed back into my head; I missed the place, and smiled at the thought of it. Now perhaps you've seen one of the pictures I have up here, or perhaps I have it elsewhere, but its a black and white of a broken down bus in a back yard with trees and trash and walls surrounding it; well that was my backyard when I was living in Senegal. The doors to the room I shared let out onto a tiny little balcony that overlooked that, and every day when I came back from my research or some other venture, I sat overlooking that mess, listening to my music on my walkman, and I thought of all the things wrong with this world that could let that happen, of all the things wrong with my being there in the way that I was, my doing what I was doing. I hated myself for wanting to run, and beat myself up over doing, but not being able to do enough. Anyway, I guess it takes some years for experiences like the one I had to fully work their way into the mind and find a way to be interpreted that doesn't inspire more than a quick smile to sum it all up, but there is was, and it colored my day in a strange and familiar way, and so it made me smile.

What are you conserving?

So, what are we afraid of that we believe being conservative and religious can cure or fix or save us from? This is what comes into my head as I read about Bush's new nominee for the supreme court. See the thing Ive noticed, and this isnt just because Im a tad left of center, is that this country, while it has been more or less conservative straight through its history, is clinging desperately to its past now more than ever. By this I mean we are trying to undo the years of success and movement we have had toward truly equal rights. Sounds like a big statement, I know: let me finish. When I look at conservative views of abortion, birth control, womens rights, minority rights, the rights of the poor, rights of the homosexual community,welfare, medicaid, and a whole slew of other areas pertaining to the previously ignored groups in this country and ignored relations with other countries, I am completely saddened and very disheartened. And yet we move more and more towards conservativism with this president, with this cabinet and with this supreme court. So I ask myself, why is it when we have made so much headway in terms of actual, geniune equal standing that we as a people would try so hard to lean so far right and try to revoke those rights and turn around decisions and defund programs and force ourselves on other countries in " the same old ways"? The conclusion I came to is that we are scared. And who wouldn't be if you were in our position? I mean genuinely you see the hatred metered out to our troups in occupation of Iraq, you know we've been bombed by terrorists with something against us and our allies, I think we are right to be scared. But the thing that we are neglecting is that conservatism, racism, and type casting of certain religions all had a hand in bringing us to each situation we find ourselves in currently as a country . We made piece of this mess and as such we have to deal with it. So with this accurate fear in mind, people seem to believe that if we just go back to "then" and practice isolationism and keep people "in line" by giving the government more power over our rights and our movements then we will be safe. But safety is an illusion isnt it? Its an illusion we pay for in many small ways in our own individual lives and its an illusion we believe we can pay for and recieve guaranteed from our government. But its still an illusion to a degree. I mean dont get me wrong, there are safer choices and there are more reckless choices, my point is not that danger is lurking around every corner, my point is only that with this in mind, which seems like the more realistic view: dealing with problems in a way that is different from how we've handled things in the past and therefore maybe more innovative and up to date, or relying on the old ways that have brought us to where we are now, and have in many cases shown themselves not to work?Yes, they say history just keeps repeating itself, but then they also say that the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over but expecting different results. But this is all just my opinion and who am I but some left of center, tree hugging, peace loving, neo hippy...right?

Rooftops and ice shavings

(To those of you who read both here and friendster, yes many are just repeated in both, but there is enough of a difference in the people on here to warrant it being posted both places sometimes, so thats how Im doing it)-
I was sitting on my orange and green striped couch in my top story brownstone apartment in Brooklyn, four floors up and I was reading this book about world war II. This being Brooklyn most noise no longer catches my ear long enough to make me put things down and find its source. But then I noticed the untrained saxaphone belting out over the street and thought to myself ' this is not someone's cd or record recording' because it wasnt bad, just untrained and hesitant. So I got up. We have three windows in the front of our apartment overlooking the street below and since we are four floors up and the building across the way is only three, we've got this kind of view. Anyway, I looked into my neighbors windows and looked downward to find the saxaphone player but couldn't from the central window so I moved to the left one thinking if I could place the sound better I could look in the right direction. And then it struck me. Look on the rooftops. And one street over directly in fron of me is this white apartment building with a ladder reaching to the roof from the fire escape in front. It stands maybe five or six stories, hard to say since below it is blocked by other apartment buildings closer to where I am, and there on the rooftop, glinting in the setting sun, is the saxaphonist. turning and moving slowly as if he's pacing out his next notes, trying to find his way to a rythm. And when he finds one he sticks with it for a few rifs, repeating it over and over, then moving to the next. Like I said, he is untrained. And then the strangest thing happens. I am sitting in my windowsill at this point listening to him. It is just wide enough to sit and long enough to bend me knees just slightly to get my whole self in. My white flowered couch is directly below me leaving me a way to climb down. Anyway from down the street comes a small hispanic man and his smaller daughter, with her long hair in a ponytail, and they are pushing this aqua blue metal cart with a wide blue and yellow umbrella attached to it, with palm trees gracing each triangle making up the umbrella. In the center of the cart is a bin of ice for shaving and around the ice are these glass (i can hear the way they clink against one another) containers holding the various flavors. and they are walking down the center of the street and a man stops them, and asks for an ice. He is in a panama hat and sandals. Its around 8pm and the subway station down the street is letting out workers in small clusters every ten minutes. A older woman in scrubs wither her voluminous braids pinned in a greying swirl at the top of her head, shuffles along- tired in her orthopedic white shoes. Two men in shorts and baseball caps pause for a conversation out front on of their gates, and mothers with babies and strollers and a purpose move along the sidewalk. A girl with a navy blue bandana on her head like a kerchief and her jeans cuffed at the bottom slowly rides on her bicycle down the other side towards somewhere else. And while my initial thought is to laugh and think this all very cliche, part of me realizes its actually happening and something in me warms in the cooling evening air and the word home surfaces for just a brief moment before I catch myself being too idealistic and sentimental and turn back to my book, after all my own home has never been like this and I cannot lay claim to some greater feeling of familiarity and belonging here. Only the saxaphonist has not stopped and while the italian ice vendor has gone on his way I can't help but think, 'yes, now this is a neighborhood' and even if I am only a part of it in some infinitely small way and for a terribly brief millisecond in the grand timing of things, I am grateful I have had the opportunity to be a witness to what all those brilliant authors and painters and photographers invoke so much more eloquently than I even could.

Now where did I put that damn bandana?

So I picked up this book on anarchy which has gotten me thinking alot about politics, more so than usual I suppose, and has me wondering exactly what kind of benefits each system has.By each system I mean capitalism vs. socialism, vs. libertarianism, vs. anarchy. Some of you may stop here and say " but wait, anarchy isnt a system, its the absence of all systems" and while you'd mostly be right its not just about getting rid of the government to leave us to function on our own in the same way we functioned before. Its more about an entire change in the social structure of things. Its a change in the views towards community, governing forces, labor, workers, the force of the middle class, the force of the aristocracy, and all those things in society that place any group or individual above the rest. Its about operating on a smaller, far more individualistic scale only without power being afforded to any one individual. Now I havent read much about it before and I am not finished reading the book Im currently reading, so I dont have the fullest understanding I could of anarchy, but Im getting there. Am I an anarchist? Probably not. Am I going to be breaking out my old black hoodie and donning a bandana around my mouth to protest the protests? Not likely any time soon. But the thing thats getting me lately, which caused me to pick up the book I did is that society as I see it is just totally loosing sight of reality. Its stuck in corporate propoganda, reality television, any quick fix it can find, and it seems as if its also stuck in the search for what things were like in "the good old days" and how to get back to that through conservative policy and patriotism. And the thing is; thats bullshit. The good old days are this myth utilized as an excuse for not thinking and not changing. There was nothing good about the good old days. Women were stuck in roles that men saw fit for them, blacks and other minorities were stuck in roles that whites saw fit for them, people died from things as basic as the flu( some still do), the cold war was on, the red scare was at a fever pitch, the government was (and is still) using flimsy excuses to invade countries that were operating against their designs and sex education or lack thereof was leaving poor women pregnant, abandoned, confused, and sometimes sterile ( thanks to anti abortion laws). Now admittedly not all that happened at once, but if you use anything more than 20 years ago to fill the definition for "the good old days" you can easily see how troubled those days were. Now of course some of you may say "but mary, if your for progress, how come you have something against corporations?, after all they are just the progress of a businesses into success" and in a way you'd be right. Technically I am against large corporations and conglomorations, but the key is the manner in which they are handled, not the fact that they are sucessful businesses. It bothers me that they have enough power to run small businesses out of town, it bothers me that many of them (not all) have policies that are more about making a cheap saleable product than making sure their workers have health insurance, it bothers me that if they are large enough they can be legally registered as individuals ( much like human beings) and therefore not be held to the same taxation, audit styles, and reviews as other smaller organizations, it bothers me that they can get away with many of the things they do, and while Im not disagreeable to them "making it in their industry" Im disagreeable to the way they seem to take precedence in some of the highest ranking decisions that are made in and for this country.Anyway, thats only the half of it, and while I could go on forever I wont. Dont expect me to be disrupting any random protests with chants of "AN-AR-CHY" and dont expect to find me with bottles of spray paint ready to draw my A's askew from my circles, but the concept of anarchy is food for thought just the same.

Be very Careful, you may be staring at Van Gogh's Ear...

Yesterday I went with a couple of people to see this Basquiat exhibit and film(Downtown 81) at the Brooklyn Museum. Basquiat is one of my favorite artists so I was pretty excited. Then one of the people in the audience during the question and answer period asked why Basquiat was treated as some sort of child genuis or childlike sauvant, considering how intellectual he actually was and how much of what was going on at the time he incorporated into his paintings, not to mention past history and tounge in cheek commentary on money and property and coprorate greed. At first I didnt think too much about it. It was a legitimate question certainly, I just didn't think about it. Then one of the people I went with brought it up again at dinner. And he had a point in what he said. He was annoyed at the way the question got answered because every on that stage new what a genuis Basquiat was and couldn't explain why he was protrayed as childlike. It bugged him because so many black artist get down played as some sort of strange phenomena, something out of the norm or some undefinable genuis as though genuis was just granted to them out of the blue. History portrays people like Andy Warhol as these intelligent, together, eccentrics who have all this knowledge and eduction and experience that they utilize to add to and create better art. But Basquiat came from a wealthy haitian family. He had means and education, and the space to choose. Yes eventually he did live on the streets, but that was initially a choice and a rejection of his background. Now this is not meant in any way to diminish his brilliance, he was truly an incredible artist. But why is his learning and education played down? Why is his wealth played down? Is it easier to dismiss someone and their abilities by calling them a fluke? Is it right to ignore all that his education did for him when it could be usitlized as an example of what funding can do for people with talent and how we ought to disperse funding more widely in order that it reaches every talent out there? Anyway, I guess I can see how it can be overlooked, I overlooked that aspect of it myself when the comment was first made. I guess the thing is though, now that I realized I overlooked that, how do we fix it?