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Saturday, 12 December 2009
Not you, too...
Well, something exciting must have happened to make me want to blog again since Aug 30th... It did. I saw 'Aliens in the Attic' - not bad - but the distracting thing was that Ashley Tisdale's face looked different - not how I remembered her in the High School Musicals. Afterwards a quick google search produced the before and after shots of her nose job. Why, Ashley, why? Did young, female actresses learn nothing from poor Jennifer Grey? Star with normal nose, self-doubt and lobbying agents, nose job, then career plummets... What a ridiculous waste of money, risking her health and a terrible example for other young people looking at her to be a role model. Tsk tsk.
Sunday, 30 August 2009
But the bitch bites back...
Having resolved the two-hour 1am-3am disagreement - I decided not to email my response - but to post it here instead!
I'm glad you are interested in these subjects, but I never expected you to want to be - I assumed you'd accept my interest and get on with your own things. Perhaps if I had anticipated you wanting to become better acquainted with what I think about these issues, I would be better prepared to answer your questions about what I believe and why I believe it. I don't know. It still seems weird to me that you might want to get to the kernel of what I think and feel about certain matters. It isn't something to which I am used; I don't have friends who debate - it has always seemed a bit improper to demand explanation from someone for their opinions - maybe I'm too English in my upbringing - it seems impolite to ask someone to justify their position - it seems 'nicer' to say you aren't sure if you agree, or that you don't understand, but that it isn't important and move on to talking about something else. Maybe it was a failing for me to be taught that being super-polite is more important that challenging opinions and engaging in debate - but it is shocking to me that someone might ask you to defend your statements; I'm used to someone just saying "that's nice/interesting" or "I don't know much about that" or "hmm, I'm not sure, let's agree to disagree". Being asked to explain yourself feels like you are being called to account, that what you have said is immediately obvious as different from what is accepted/the norm/reasonable, rather than simply being an enquiry into one's logic about deciding to believe that particular statement, in the hope that shared understanding might be achieved. I don't think I talk much with anyone who wants to come to a middle-ground opinion about certain matters - we all just agree that we all have our own opinions and leave it at that. It's rare that I actually ask someone what they think about something I believe - I'm not that interested in how my thoughts are received by others, unless I am seeking clarification of my own thoughts, or think they might be a bit weird so I test them out - in general I am happy with what I have decided is true and I leave it at that.
I think you're more interested in and more used to learning by developing ideas through talking with others; I prefer to read and cogitate alone. That's probably strange to you, just as your way is strange to me.
So let's just agree to disagree.
I'm glad you are interested in these subjects, but I never expected you to want to be - I assumed you'd accept my interest and get on with your own things. Perhaps if I had anticipated you wanting to become better acquainted with what I think about these issues, I would be better prepared to answer your questions about what I believe and why I believe it. I don't know. It still seems weird to me that you might want to get to the kernel of what I think and feel about certain matters. It isn't something to which I am used; I don't have friends who debate - it has always seemed a bit improper to demand explanation from someone for their opinions - maybe I'm too English in my upbringing - it seems impolite to ask someone to justify their position - it seems 'nicer' to say you aren't sure if you agree, or that you don't understand, but that it isn't important and move on to talking about something else. Maybe it was a failing for me to be taught that being super-polite is more important that challenging opinions and engaging in debate - but it is shocking to me that someone might ask you to defend your statements; I'm used to someone just saying "that's nice/interesting" or "I don't know much about that" or "hmm, I'm not sure, let's agree to disagree". Being asked to explain yourself feels like you are being called to account, that what you have said is immediately obvious as different from what is accepted/the norm/reasonable, rather than simply being an enquiry into one's logic about deciding to believe that particular statement, in the hope that shared understanding might be achieved. I don't think I talk much with anyone who wants to come to a middle-ground opinion about certain matters - we all just agree that we all have our own opinions and leave it at that. It's rare that I actually ask someone what they think about something I believe - I'm not that interested in how my thoughts are received by others, unless I am seeking clarification of my own thoughts, or think they might be a bit weird so I test them out - in general I am happy with what I have decided is true and I leave it at that.
I think you're more interested in and more used to learning by developing ideas through talking with others; I prefer to read and cogitate alone. That's probably strange to you, just as your way is strange to me.
So let's just agree to disagree.
Rhetoric can be a bitch
http://www.feministing.com/archives/017484.html
This moves a little way to looking at the importance of identity, both personal identity conception (internal) and other parties' identity acceptance (external), through the experience of a MTF person's genitalia; the same ideas might apply to a bisexual person who wants better coincidence between how they themselves and the rest of society views their identity (both the part of which is internally determined and the part which is governed by the manner in which one is seen by one's lover/family/community/country - or whichever arena matters most to the person - not therefore including the consequences of this recognition or seeing-act, e.g. being granted rights, equality. etc.).
A person might feel pansexual inside, but be read as straight or gay, which is distressing when one has worked so hard to be able to own one's pansexual element of their identity, especially if their sexuality is a major part of their identity in their opinion, as mine is for me. I feel that it diminishes the validity of my identity when my pansexual status is called into question - either by someone reading me incorrectly, declaring to my face that there is no such thing as bisexuality/pansexuality, ignoring bisexual needs during discussion/advertisements that concern queer matters. My identity is diminished because there is doubt that what I am believing/thinking/feeling/saying is true - this doubt might be in the eyes of one person, or they might represent a whole cadre of doubters - if so many people are disagreeing with what I think, am I right? The vehemence with which they propose their ideas (that bisexuality does not exist, is wrong and/or is unimportant) might outweigh the strength with which I promote my pansexuality - if their conviction seems greater/louder/better argued than mine, am I wrong? If there is a declaration from one person that there is no recognition of bisexuality, that might not be an issue, but what if it becomes ten people, ten thousand, ten million, am I still so sure that my identity has not been miscategorised, that I have made a mistake? For the moment of confrontation with something that suggests bisexuality is invalid or worthy of being ignored, my identity is shaken. I have to momentarily reappraise how I see myself, because the information I have about the world (that bisexuality exists and is okay with some people) must now either include the new fact (e.g. that the film clip only mentioned gays and lesbians, not bisexuals who choose to marry same-gender persons) or ignore them because they do not fit in with what I already understand about the world. If I choose to ignore it, I can merrily continue to think of myself as a pansexual (accepted by some, not by others); if I choose to give it weight/value and include it in my collection of knowledge, then I might need to rethink - "this is the twentieth clip I've seen that fails to mention bisexuals when I thought they should - I thought bisexuality was okay/given - maybe things aren't that certain, maybe I shouldn't be that certain."
Denying bisexuality within 'discourse' by which I mean the combination of all word output (written/spoken) - either by literally denying it exists or limiting its prominence/voice by not giving it column inches/airtime, might make some, and it sure does make me, less willing to own and represent the identity of bisexuality. It isn't seen as an option and/or it isn't seen as important - so I should either quieten down my desire to be known as a bisexual or I should reassess whether I really am one. In communities where no-one has heard of homosexuality, no-one is going to think of themselves as a gay person - they may have feelings/urges but they cannot name them as being part of an identity. When there is finally a gay newsletter or tv show, the person can begin to form the identity of a gay person, they can now comprehend their feelings within a context where an explanation (homosexuality) is given, they can know themselves as a gay person, now that they know what gay is and have words to describe themselves. Having the language, label and place in discourse is essential for being able to have the identity of the minority - if there is no naming, then the minority are just a (confused/unhappy) subset of the population, rather than having a distinct element to their identity.
If someone wanted to leap off a bridge attached to something secure and feel themselves bounce up and down, they would find these urges strange and be unable to identify that part of their identity until they were introduced to bungee-jumping and the term became part of the vocabulary, was seen in newspapers, was used on tv, etc. They would then be bungee-jumping enthusiasts.
Space in the discourse gives an individual the permission and space to identify themselves in the manner they choose, if their choice is to identify with something which is not the norm (those that think that they fit in with everyone else don't need specific space, the rest of the discourse would fit them). If this space was removed/halted/minimised, the person would feel that their long-sought-after identity is being dismantled - that it wasn't being permitted or recognised and thus maybe was no longer valid. The validity of this element of one's identity might be based on permission to name or talk about it, or the majority of society's acceptance of it, or just the acceptance of key people (parents, lovers, etc.) - it's probably different for different people. For me, having advocacy groups and LGBT commentators fail to recognise that bisexuals should be mentioned in marriage equality advertisements is distressing. It is also annoying that there is no better word to describe marriage/partnership between two women than 'lesbian' and between two men as 'gay', because those adjectives are meant to describe the union of two same-gendered persons, yet they also connote that those involved would identify as gay or lesbian, which is clearly false in the case of two bisexual women happening to end up together. The description of the gender expressions of the two involved should not also be taken as a description of their sexual orientation, but that seems to be what is happening.
If one were to say Jim and Jill are in a relationship - you would know that those two people are in a relationship, that one is probably male-identifying (Jim) and one female-identifying (Jill) and the majority would assume that they are heterosexuals.
Simple assumptions. What if the names were not gender obvious/suggestive? How might a commentator describe that scenario?
If one were to say Jean and Jean are in a relationship - you would know that two people sharing the name Jean were in a relationship - I would wager that a (smaller) majority would assume that they were of two genders and thus heterosexual. If one were to say Jean and Jean are in a lesbian relationship - you would know that two people sharing the name Jean were in a relationship where both partners self-identify as female, yet an (even smaller) majority would assume that they were lesbians. The speaker may only want to convey the gender of the couple, not their orientation, yet there is a paucity in the language to allow us to describe one and not the other.
What if they were both bisexuals? Saying that Jean and Jean are in a bisexual relationship tells you that they are what exactly? Together but open to other gender-options, without stating what gender the protagonists express... Or perhaps it suggests something confusing about the participants' gender expression - perhaps one plays both male and female roles during the relationship... Or perhaps that they are polyamorous/swingers... I hate to say it (as I believe in strict monogamy) but the terrible misunderstanding about pansexuals is that they are willing to participate in threesomes/open relationships - I'm not sure when 'not minding about the packaging, especially in the primary/secondary sexual characteristics, it's all about the person inside' became 'I'm interested with having relationships/sexual-romantic experiences with multiple people of multiple gender-expressions contiguously'.
So to describe a lesbian relationship is to primarily categorise the participants mostly by their gender expression and probably to a large extent their sexuality orientation, too...
and
to describe a bisexual relationship is to say nothing about the participants' gender expression but to suggest something unusual/unsavoury (in my straight-laced opinion) about their sexual orientation, desires and practices.
I wish we could hurry up and develop language that delivered the exact message we want - either describing gender expression, sexual orientation, both or neither! Maybe we could say Jean and Jean are in a successful relationship and we'd all just cheer for them!
This moves a little way to looking at the importance of identity, both personal identity conception (internal) and other parties' identity acceptance (external), through the experience of a MTF person's genitalia; the same ideas might apply to a bisexual person who wants better coincidence between how they themselves and the rest of society views their identity (both the part of which is internally determined and the part which is governed by the manner in which one is seen by one's lover/family/community/country - or whichever arena matters most to the person - not therefore including the consequences of this recognition or seeing-act, e.g. being granted rights, equality. etc.).
A person might feel pansexual inside, but be read as straight or gay, which is distressing when one has worked so hard to be able to own one's pansexual element of their identity, especially if their sexuality is a major part of their identity in their opinion, as mine is for me. I feel that it diminishes the validity of my identity when my pansexual status is called into question - either by someone reading me incorrectly, declaring to my face that there is no such thing as bisexuality/pansexuality, ignoring bisexual needs during discussion/advertisements that concern queer matters. My identity is diminished because there is doubt that what I am believing/thinking/feeling/
Denying bisexuality within 'discourse' by which I mean the combination of all word output (written/spoken) - either by literally denying it exists or limiting its prominence/voice by not giving it column inches/airtime, might make some, and it sure does make me, less willing to own and represent the identity of bisexuality. It isn't seen as an option and/or it isn't seen as important - so I should either quieten down my desire to be known as a bisexual or I should reassess whether I really am one. In communities where no-one has heard of homosexuality, no-one is going to think of themselves as a gay person - they may have feelings/urges but they cannot name them as being part of an identity. When there is finally a gay newsletter or tv show, the person can begin to form the identity of a gay person, they can now comprehend their feelings within a context where an explanation (homosexuality) is given, they can know themselves as a gay person, now that they know what gay is and have words to describe themselves. Having the language, label and place in discourse is essential for being able to have the identity of the minority - if there is no naming, then the minority are just a (confused/unhappy) subset of the population, rather than having a distinct element to their identity.
If someone wanted to leap off a bridge attached to something secure and feel themselves bounce up and down, they would find these urges strange and be unable to identify that part of their identity until they were introduced to bungee-jumping and the term became part of the vocabulary, was seen in newspapers, was used on tv, etc. They would then be bungee-jumping enthusiasts.
Space in the discourse gives an individual the permission and space to identify themselves in the manner they choose, if their choice is to identify with something which is not the norm (those that think that they fit in with everyone else don't need specific space, the rest of the discourse would fit them). If this space was removed/halted/minimised, the person would feel that their long-sought-after identity is being dismantled - that it wasn't being permitted or recognised and thus maybe was no longer valid. The validity of this element of one's identity might be based on permission to name or talk about it, or the majority of society's acceptance of it, or just the acceptance of key people (parents, lovers, etc.) - it's probably different for different people. For me, having advocacy groups and LGBT commentators fail to recognise that bisexuals should be mentioned in marriage equality advertisements is distressing. It is also annoying that there is no better word to describe marriage/partnership between two women than 'lesbian' and between two men as 'gay', because those adjectives are meant to describe the union of two same-gendered persons, yet they also connote that those involved would identify as gay or lesbian, which is clearly false in the case of two bisexual women happening to end up together. The description of the gender expressions of the two involved should not also be taken as a description of their sexual orientation, but that seems to be what is happening.
If one were to say Jim and Jill are in a relationship - you would know that those two people are in a relationship, that one is probably male-identifying (Jim) and one female-identifying (Jill) and the majority would assume that they are heterosexuals.
Simple assumptions. What if the names were not gender obvious/suggestive? How might a commentator describe that scenario?
If one were to say Jean and Jean are in a relationship - you would know that two people sharing the name Jean were in a relationship - I would wager that a (smaller) majority would assume that they were of two genders and thus heterosexual. If one were to say Jean and Jean are in a lesbian relationship - you would know that two people sharing the name Jean were in a relationship where both partners self-identify as female, yet an (even smaller) majority would assume that they were lesbians. The speaker may only want to convey the gender of the couple, not their orientation, yet there is a paucity in the language to allow us to describe one and not the other.
What if they were both bisexuals? Saying that Jean and Jean are in a bisexual relationship tells you that they are what exactly? Together but open to other gender-options, without stating what gender the protagonists express... Or perhaps it suggests something confusing about the participants' gender expression - perhaps one plays both male and female roles during the relationship... Or perhaps that they are polyamorous/swingers... I hate to say it (as I believe in strict monogamy) but the terrible misunderstanding about pansexuals is that they are willing to participate in threesomes/open relationships - I'm not sure when 'not minding about the packaging, especially in the primary/secondary sexual characteristics, it's all about the person inside' became 'I'm interested with having relationships/sexual-romantic experiences with multiple people of multiple gender-expressions contiguously'.
So to describe a lesbian relationship is to primarily categorise the participants mostly by their gender expression and probably to a large extent their sexuality orientation, too...
and
to describe a bisexual relationship is to say nothing about the participants' gender expression but to suggest something unusual/unsavoury (in my straight-laced opinion) about their sexual orientation, desires and practices.
I wish we could hurry up and develop language that delivered the exact message we want - either describing gender expression, sexual orientation, both or neither! Maybe we could say Jean and Jean are in a successful relationship and we'd all just cheer for them!
Saturday, 29 August 2009
Bi-Invisibility
Looking at the panoply of DOMA & NO8 articles from USA, plus other marriage equality pieces internationally, I cannot help but notice the continual disregarding of bisexuals from the discourse.
The advertisements and their spoofs, be they informative, incendiary, or both, regularly (I'd like to say always but I think I'd be proved wrong) ignore the fact that bisexuals are interested in marriage equality, not just because they are allies to the cause, but because they are directly invested in the outcome. Many bisexuals (pansexuals, etc.) go on to marry persons of the same gender identity/expression which would constitute them being in a partnership which would necessarily be impossible to acknowledge, celebrate and concretise in some parts of the world, either through civil partnership (or similar, local binding) or marriage (or similar, local binding).
Are these couples therefore in a gay or lesbian partnership that seeks permanency through marriage? What if one of the couple is a lesbian and the other a pansexual woman - is their relationship necessarily a 'lesbian' one because they are both women attracted to women? (The same applies if a gay man and a bisexual man were to couple up). I would not want to lose my identity as a pansexual woman during a relationship with another woman. I would not want nomenclature to describe my sexuality, when it is really trying to describe the gender of the relationship participants.
..............
I mentioned this above argument and my beau chipped in - apparently my definition of identity is faulty... two hours of argument about rhetoric, logic, etc. later and I am still being told that I'm wrong... who'd date a philosopher, eh?
The advertisements and their spoofs, be they informative, incendiary, or both, regularly (I'd like to say always but I think I'd be proved wrong) ignore the fact that bisexuals are interested in marriage equality, not just because they are allies to the cause, but because they are directly invested in the outcome. Many bisexuals (pansexuals, etc.) go on to marry persons of the same gender identity/expression which would constitute them being in a partnership which would necessarily be impossible to acknowledge, celebrate and concretise in some parts of the world, either through civil partnership (or similar, local binding) or marriage (or similar, local binding).
Are these couples therefore in a gay or lesbian partnership that seeks permanency through marriage? What if one of the couple is a lesbian and the other a pansexual woman - is their relationship necessarily a 'lesbian' one because they are both women attracted to women? (The same applies if a gay man and a bisexual man were to couple up). I would not want to lose my identity as a pansexual woman during a relationship with another woman. I would not want nomenclature to describe my sexuality, when it is really trying to describe the gender of the relationship participants.
..............
I mentioned this above argument and my beau chipped in - apparently my definition of identity is faulty... two hours of argument about rhetoric, logic, etc. later and I am still being told that I'm wrong... who'd date a philosopher, eh?
Monday, 17 August 2009
The little Dutch boy...
Having been disgustingly unproductive academically for two months, but having managed to find the love of my life and move him in, I feel the romantic productivity has sky-rocketed.
Still, no excuse for not blogging.
PhD demands more time that I care to give... c'est la vie!
Hoping that the next wee whiley improves my efficiency - but somehow I feel the slothful creep again.
Talking of sloths, here's a FU,P link to brighten the post.
Laters.
Still, no excuse for not blogging.
PhD demands more time that I care to give... c'est la vie!
Hoping that the next wee whiley improves my efficiency - but somehow I feel the slothful creep again.
Talking of sloths, here's a FU,P link to brighten the post.
Laters.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
"Millions Like Us" 1943
Free DVD from the newspaper - looked interesting - it turned out to be AMAZING.
Clever shots progressing the narrative without wasting screen-time/script-space with filler conversation
Links with Hitchcock - continues The Lady Vanishes (1938), apparently...
Series of movies by same director and writer
Smart script that has some gems: "everything except the kitchen stove" - when did that become the 'kitchen sink'?
Also saw Meg Jenkins (I forget where I have seen her before, but her face is SO familiar).
Then there was the star - a woman - Patricia Roc.
Reminiscent of anyone modern?I think there is an uncanny resemblance to Katherine Heigl - but I might be wrong.
This movie covered so many themes:
Film as propaganda - good women help out in whatever capacity necessary;
Women going into the war effort, abandoning 'father' back home;
Father being unable to cope alone - dirty dishes, no fire in the grate, surviving on fish&chips and stout;
Women having flights of fancy (day-dream sequences) - but these are either deemed reasonable for emotional woman and the essence of femininity, or are another demonstration of weak women needing man to set them right;
Heartbreak after widowhood is temporary and good girls get back to work and to love ASAP for the benefit of Britain (final scene of the protagonist, Celia, staring to smile again and joining in with moral boosting song whilst images of RAF planes are superimposed on the shot);
Losing one's virginity is a nerve-wracking and important thing - newly weds not wanting people to know on the bus, in the boarding house, but passion over-took these concerns and Celia declares she doesn't care who knows;
Being coy about the wedding night and the honeymoon is kind of expected but not approved - get on with making babies and keeping Britain working - keeping the men happy;
Would Celia's newly used vagina be tempting to another man? Would she remain a spinster? Would she be able to tempt another man?
Documentary detail of life in a factory working for the war effort - not barracks for accommodation, even educated, University women went - Gwen, and dolly-birds -Jennifer;
Jennifer did not get her marriage proposal as she was flighty and not useful in the factory, and the sturdy foreman needed someone who could cook, sew, knit;
Celia did get her proposal from an unassuming Scot - ginger with bad skin, because she was meek and quiet - self-described as ordinary. A few dates and a falling out (sorted out because he was brave to go to Germany) led to the marriage;
Silly girls panic over what might have happened (Fred never comes to the theatre at 7pm)- over-reacted to scant news - rewarded for forgiving brave man with a proposal;
"It was made in 1943 as part entertainment/part propaganda following guidelines suggested by the Ministry of Information" [http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=106000]
There are more: I'll note them next time I watch and update this post.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Better late than never...
Yahoo v. Google in Gay Pride Showdown from Queerty
Florida 'family campaigners' sought hour long 'infomercial' about the dangerous homosexual agenda
Bob Dylan fans will want to see this trailer for a film about AJ Weberman and Garbology.
ENCOUNTERS Film festival in Bristol, UK: you definitely want to learn more about this...
Little White Lies - awesome magazine about film and truth - do check it out!
McKinsey article: Centered leadership: How talented women thrive A new approach to leadership can help women become more self-confident and effective business leaders.
Florida 'family campaigners' sought hour long 'infomercial' about the dangerous homosexual agenda
Bob Dylan fans will want to see this trailer for a film about AJ Weberman and Garbology.
ENCOUNTERS Film festival in Bristol, UK: you definitely want to learn more about this...
Little White Lies - awesome magazine about film and truth - do check it out!
McKinsey article: Centered leadership: How talented women thrive A new approach to leadership can help women become more self-confident and effective business leaders.
Getting close to the bone...
G20 WAGs - Jan Moir got it spot on: where were the husbands of Argentinean and German ladychiefs? Why was JKRowling (and other nobodies) invited to Sarah’s Soiree? As for describing this novelist as "looking like a half-shut umbrella as usual" - I roared with laughter - (@Daily Mail)
New Fame movie - SO excited.
Want to verify that the celebrity you are stalking/following on social media networking sites such as twitter, facebook, etc. are actually them and not some crazed imposter? Then Valebrity is for you!
Businessman is a model Sikh: Sonny Caberwal has modelled for Kenneth Cole and GQ - check out the photographs (@Telegraph)
Agony aunt aged 7: Mercia FM now provides advice for adult listeners from a wise child, Elaina Smith.
Her sensible suggestions to fix heartache have included a mug of milk, bowling with pals, High School Musical and changing your door locks! (@DailyMail)
Israel trying to protect feminine modesty by blanking out images of two polticians in cabinet line-up photograph. (@BBCNews)...Points for promoting female visibility: minus 5.
Controversial thought for today: men are just a step on the evolutionary ladder to a place where women rule and are the sole gender on the planet. New biological developments might be moving this along faster than expected.
Slowly but surely...
Men evolving out of use: part of the plan is to allow them to develop technologies that slowly turn them into apathetic vegetables - success nears as UK men find video games more alluring than sex with their better halves!
Until their use for genetic material stops, then we had better make sure that traditional access to their baby batter is hygienic and disease free, which is why it is a relief to finally read that scientists are advocating that young boys receive the HPV vaccine as well, to protect any women they might sleep with in the future. Now there are a lot of suppositions here: boys will be sexually active (not a monk, celibate), they would be willing to risk their own health (through potential adverse reaction to the vaccine) to protect some women they may possibly have unprotected sexual encounters with later on (after having had unprotected sexual encounter with someone who already has HPV and caught it off them), that they wont be entirely homosexual (with no female contact - men may carry HPV but don't -- as far as we know - develop cancerous disease from it - but the men with whom they do have sex may in turn pass it on to other women, but let's assume the responsibility stops with those with who you directly have consensual sexual contact). This is only the natural extension of my previous argument that girls are being vaccinated in the assumption that they wont be virgins until they engage in sexual contact with someone else who has remained a virgin, and whilst avoiding affairs and embracing monogamy they may never get a disease (STD, HPV, etc.)
Enough seriousness...
Sue Pollard - wacky dresser, feminist icon: these photographs brighten my day!
Hannah Betts - childless by choice vs. SI - Secondary Infertility - where one is not enough
Waiting for further sex after childbirth? - Helena Frith Powell compares France to UK - where the former provides medical care specifically to revive the mother's vajayjay so that she can hop on the good foot and do the bad thing...
My week as a Mad Men wife: Olivia Lichtenstein's return to the good old days acting as a proper housewife.
Now, I'm not normally a fan of La Knightley (eyes are too close together) but she has bravely starred in a new advertisement for Women' Aid to raise awareness of the very real danger of domestic violence.
Finally, UK government sanction to permit workers to have leave to care for (elderly) dependents, not just if you are a breeder and have progeny to care for. I was also always SO cross when told that career breaks, days off, etc. would not be extended to those who had other caring commitments (siblings, parents, other family, neighbours, etc. and those who do not have a directly caring role but who work/volunteer for a charity rather than those who produce their own children requiring their time away from their main job.) (@Daily Mail)
Until their use for genetic material stops, then we had better make sure that traditional access to their baby batter is hygienic and disease free, which is why it is a relief to finally read that scientists are advocating that young boys receive the HPV vaccine as well, to protect any women they might sleep with in the future. Now there are a lot of suppositions here: boys will be sexually active (not a monk, celibate), they would be willing to risk their own health (through potential adverse reaction to the vaccine) to protect some women they may possibly have unprotected sexual encounters with later on (after having had unprotected sexual encounter with someone who already has HPV and caught it off them), that they wont be entirely homosexual (with no female contact - men may carry HPV but don't -- as far as we know - develop cancerous disease from it - but the men with whom they do have sex may in turn pass it on to other women, but let's assume the responsibility stops with those with who you directly have consensual sexual contact). This is only the natural extension of my previous argument that girls are being vaccinated in the assumption that they wont be virgins until they engage in sexual contact with someone else who has remained a virgin, and whilst avoiding affairs and embracing monogamy they may never get a disease (STD, HPV, etc.)
Enough seriousness...
Sue Pollard - wacky dresser, feminist icon: these photographs brighten my day!
Hannah Betts - childless by choice vs. SI - Secondary Infertility - where one is not enough
Waiting for further sex after childbirth? - Helena Frith Powell compares France to UK - where the former provides medical care specifically to revive the mother's vajayjay so that she can hop on the good foot and do the bad thing...
My week as a Mad Men wife: Olivia Lichtenstein's return to the good old days acting as a proper housewife.
Now, I'm not normally a fan of La Knightley (eyes are too close together) but she has bravely starred in a new advertisement for Women' Aid to raise awareness of the very real danger of domestic violence.
Finally, UK government sanction to permit workers to have leave to care for (elderly) dependents, not just if you are a breeder and have progeny to care for. I was also always SO cross when told that career breaks, days off, etc. would not be extended to those who had other caring commitments (siblings, parents, other family, neighbours, etc. and those who do not have a directly caring role but who work/volunteer for a charity rather than those who produce their own children requiring their time away from their main job.) (@Daily Mail)
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