Take This Pink Ribbon Off My Eyes, Then Burn It

Currently Listening To No Doubt’s Just A Girl

Rosie The Riveter 21st Century

I’ve been asked many times how I could consider myself a feminist when I am me.  And I every time I’m asked this, I want to know what the basis of this statement is because no one person seems to have the same answer.  Here are some of the highlights:

• You hate other women.  Let’s get one thing straight, my hate/dislike/indifference/love/affection has nothing to do with your gender, orientation, political choices, hockey team, preference of finger to pick your nose.  If I don’t like a particular person, it’s because I don’t like that person.  My friends are women.  My friends are men.  The people I avoid, yeah sure, some of them are women, but that is not their defining characteristic!  If a man disagrees with a man, does he hate all men?  No.  If my one dog picks a fight with the other dog, does it hate all other dogs?  No.  Don’t be mean to me or my friends and there’s a pretty good chance I won’t dislike you.
• You wear dresses, high heels, and makeup.  They are all patriarchal symbols!  I wear dresses because I hate the low-cut thing going on with pants.  There’s nothing sexy about showing the world your butt crack or having the waist of your pants squish your muffin top up and out!  I’m sorry.  And high cut pants seem to give me weird camel toe issues.  I don’t want the world seeing me like that!  Call me crazy but people should be spared those images.  As for the high heels?  Well, yeah I enjoy them.  I also own Chucks, cowboy boots, sandals, and sneakers.  Sorry you happened to catch me on days when I’m in heels.  You’re never going to catch me in Birkenstocks, I can’t walk in them.  Flats make me look like I’m waddling.  Good news, though!  When there’s one pair of size 11 perfect brown Birkenstocks sitting on the shelf, I won’t wrestle you to the ground to have them.  They are all yours.  And the makeup?  It’s adult finger painting!  I’ve never met a man who sees me smear red lipstick on and go “ufn! I wanna kiss you so I too can wear your red lipstick”
• You cry. I’m sorry?  When did expressing the full range of human emotion become bad?  I think if I wasn’t supposed to cry, the tear ducts would have evolved out of the human body at some point in time.  Call me crazy, but some days a good cry in your car or your bed is as therapeutic as laughing your ass off.
• Your choice in movies/books are all girly or man hero based (ie James Bond): I spend all day kicking butt and taking names.  When I go home, I look for an escape.  The last thing I want to do is be motivated to go do more to better myself.  So yeah, the damsels in distress movies and books appeal to me.  It would be nice to take a day off from saving myself, but at the same time, I know I’m never going to allow that to happen.  Much like I know I’ll never pilot the Millenium Falcon.  It’s okay.  And things are changing.  Who know’s what my favorite movie or book will be next week.

Now I’m not the biggest Zooey Deschanel fan, I’m sure she’s a very lovely lady, but she’s never been in anything that I’ve enjoyed watching.  But I have to agree with her in her interview with Glamour magazine last winter:

“I’m just being myself. There is not an ounce of me that believes any of that crap that they say. We can’t be feminine and be feminists and be successful? I want to be a fucking feminist and wear a fucking Peter Pan collar. So fucking what?”

My point exactly.

There are tons of forms of feminists out there and we aren’t all going to agree with each other.  It happens when there’s a large group of people, consensus is hard to reach!

My final thoughts on feminism.  You can define it by the dictionary, the local women’s lib group, by going in and doing the opposite of future generations, or whatever, but I think the common idea of people (not just women) wanting to move the status quo to a place of female betterment is what we all need to remember.  You’re never going to have everyone agree on the details, but if the larger picture is still intact, well hell, I think whatever you’re doing in the name of feminism is pretty damn good.

I’m Your Late Night Head Rush

Currently listening to Josie And The Pussycats’ Three Small Words

May 2013 is a month I cannot wait to end.  I’ve never been more upset, more exhausted, more scared in my life.  But I’ve never learned more about myself than I have this month.

You Wanna Feel How It Feels?

Now Listening To Placebo’s cover of Running Up That Hill

#BellLetsTalk is today.  And while I’ve seen so many people rejoicing at the opportunity to open up about mental health issues, to fundraise for such a great cause with such a large national company like Bell Canada, I’ve seen so much criticism about the day.  As an American, seeing the word “Bell” attached to this promotion means nothing, I can’t be a Bell customer, I can’t go to their rival, Rogers, and I can’t slam the company for their efforts.

Headed For The Open Door Tell Me What You’re Waiting For

Currently Listening to We Come Running by Youngblood Hawke

It’s funny, people get the strangest images of me.  I guess because I wear a lot of dresses, talk frequently about makeup, and prefer romance novels I paint the picture of a lady who prefers a more refined night on the town.

But did you know I worked on a pig farm for a bit?

It Just Comes As No Surprise She’s Gonna Break

Listening to She’s Gonna Break Soon by Less Than Jake

If you don’t want to get to know me, I suggest you stop reading now.  I’ll have something hockey related up on one of my other accounts soon enough. 

I’ve anxiety.  It is triggered by many factors. This is one.

People make me anxious.  To the point where I can’t breathe.  It keeps me from getting close to people.

Throwing Out Your Frown And Just Smiling At The Sound

Now Listening To: Friday I’m In Love by The Cure

I got caught staring.  I feel awful.  But I can’t help but people watch.  And normally I don’t care but this time they made a face!  I couldn’t believe it!

Look boys, I was staring at you not because I was shocked by your relationship, really two men kissing is nothing shocking, but rather your relationship itself.  I had literally just put my magazine down in shock because I read an article about how monogamy is on the down swing and how we should expect to see an even greater rise in cheating.  I sat back after reading that started thinking about all the people I knew.  How cheating had wrecked some relationships, but for the most part my friends have proved this article wrong.

Santa’s Back Up In The Hood

Currently listening to the Die Hard Score.

Blame the season of giving, magic, and child-like wonderment if you wish, but I believe in miracles.  Whether it’s a miracle of religion, science, mankind, or just strange luck, I fully believe in it.  And yeah, I know a miracle is directly related to a grand event caused by a divine intervention but I think there’s all sorts of miracles.

But I’m okay with that.

It lets me do what I’m doing now.  And what am I doing now?  Baking a birthday cake.

So Scratch That Little Niggle Have A Little Wiggle

Currently listening to: Moulin Rouge!’s Can Can

The other day a coworker asked me why I wore cowboy boots to work nearly every day.

 

And I Bought Us Two Tickets On That Coast City Bus

Now listening to Bruce Springsteen’s Atlantic City 

If you were to ask me to take you on a tour of my childhood, I’d be able to show you the schools where I learned to read, the park where I got stung in the knee by a bee, and I can take you to where all my friends have lived.  We could spend weeks looking around and still not cover everything.

After this weekend, my mother isn’t so lucky.  She’s a South Jersey girl, born on the bay and raised in the sands, she’s just spent the last few days watching Hurricane Sandy wash away all of that.

The Things That We’re Afraid Of Are Gonna Show Us What We’re Made Of In The End

Currently listening to: Hey Leonardo by Blessid Union of Souls

I am so very guilty of reading fashion magazines, watching E! News, and other fluffy trash that I shouldn’t be spending my money on.  And all of them have the common theme of how to dress for your body.  Asking me questions like “are you pear shaped like Kim K?” or “does your cup runneth over like Christina H?” I wish I could say something cute like “golly gee all that does is make me crave pears and something to drink” but all it does is make me isolate individual body parts.

And it’s hellish.