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?