It is hard to imagine that religion, the word of god, would ever mislead anyone to believe that men and women are not created equal. But that’s how the story goes. The bible gives us many examples of how women are inferior to men. The first is the story of creation. The first book of the bible, genesis. Eve is created after Adam. She came later because she was meant to serve him and to be his inferior. One writer also believes that woman’s secondary status is do to Eve’s role of temtress in the fall of humanity. (Oh yeah, I’m sure you already knew that. But, isn’t it Eve’s, aka. women’s, fault that we do not live for eternity?) Women can not “celebrate Eucharist, pray in pblic, dance sacred dances, hear confesion, make sacrifices, baptize, enter the holy of holies, read sacred scriptures aloud in public, preach, or teach men.” (Shaw 667)
A famliy member of a family member (don’t you love how these stories go) believed all of this. Women were supposed to be submissive to their husbands because the bible said so. She was the victim of forced sex and verbal abuse. She believe this was acceptable because the bible said that is what she was around for. She cleaned the house and did the laundry. She was so stressed out for the first 15 years of their marriage that if she did get pregnant, it ended in a miscarriage. She left him once. He said he would change. She went back. Things didn’t change at first. Eventually she did get pregnant and they now have a beautiful baby boy. Things have changed and their marriage is on the mends. Some how a baby changed the world for them and helped her husband realize what his wife’s purpose was. It was so many things but not to be his toy at his beck and call.
This is probably like the 3rd or 4th time I have seen Crash. I love this movie!!!! Everytime I watch this movie I am reminded of all of the awful things of this world! The violence and hate that surrounds us everyday. The prejudices that we have against each other, spoken and unspoken. We all have been guilty of one of the things portrayed in this movie. While watching this movie, every one of my emotions is awakened. For those of you who have never seen this movie, Watch it!!!
“Power creates a sense of entitlement.Males are valued more over females and males have first claim on jobs.Power creates invulnerability, leading to a flaunting of society’s standards.People in power are surrounded by others whose job they control and who tell them how clever, smart and right they are.They are increasingly insulated from the sanctions that ordinary people are subject to when they misbehave.”
This is a quote from my post for this week. The topic of discussion was interest in and made me think of something that has been going on here recently. (Now take into mind that I am a celebrity gossip junkie!) There are many celebrities that have been in the news here recently who believed they were above the law and that the law did not apply to them. Paris Hilton drive drunk and thinks she is going to be let off easy. Instead the judge places her in jail and tell her she has to serve her sentence. So she thinks she can get out of it because she is a celebrity and does not belong in jail. She gets herself released for “medical reasons” and goes home. Unfortunately for Paris, the judge finds out that she broke the conditions of her sentence and he send her back to the pokie!!! Sorry Paris, the laws apply to everyone including you!
Another perfect instance of this is Ms. Lindsey Lohan. After one DUI arrest, you would think she would lay low and keep off the streets, especially if she was in an altered state. But no! She gets high and drunk. She steals a car and kidnaps the people in it. She then drives across town and chases her ex-assistants mother around town in the stolen car. While all of this is happening, she tells the gentleman in the car that no one can do anything to her. She is a celebrity! Poor Lindsey…she gets arrested again. Then she dissappears to rehab.
But the sad part is…she was right! All of her felonies were dropped and replaced with a few misdemeanor offenses. She spends one day in jail and does some community service! Man…it’s good to be Lindsey Lohan!!!
Even after reading just a few sentences of Riverbend’s blog, I was amazed at how strong and wonderful this woman is. She posts things and says things that many are scared to say. American families take so much for granted and lead such blind lives. The only worry we have is whether or not we are going to have a bad hair day. These families have to worry whether or not they will all wake up alive. They have to face the facts that women around them are being treated in ways that, to us, seem so inhumane and they have to live in fear that they may be next.
I’m sure everyone this week wrote about Breast Cancer Awareness…so I will too. My paternal grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 5 years old. I vaguely remember seeing her after her mastectomy while she was getting chemotherapy. I remember her hair not looking quite right and she just looked like she didn’t feel well at all. But after what seem like just a short time, she was back to her normal self. She ran the MHMR (Mental Health and Mental Retardation) Center for the county. She held summer camp for all of her grandchildren, all 14 of us. We stayed with her for a week during the summer doing arts and crafts, visiting the zoo, having sleep overs and other fun things. But then when I was about 9 years old, she got real sick again. I didn’t understand what was happening but the cancer was back. She was in and out of the hospital. The cancer had progressed to far to do anything so we all just waited. We slowly watched her lose weight, lose her appetite, lose her energy…lose everything thing that was truly her. I felt so bad for my father and his brothers. My dad’s father died when he was just 16 years old from lung cancer. Now they were having to watch their beloved mother go through the same pain as their father.
We still visit my grandmother when we drive through town. We drop off fresh flowers and talk for a little while. It is not very often we get up there because none of our family lives there anymore. But sometimes we go out of the way just to say “Hello”. She is buried next to her first husband, my dad’s father. It is such a pieceful place.
I really didn’t think there would be such a strong reaction this week on labiaplasty. I think too many people think that these women are only having the surgery to please their men. I’m sure there are many women out there that are having plastic surgery to please their men. One prime example is a friend of my mother’s. She is probably in her late 40s and just remarried. The man that she married goes on and on about how he loves her body and what great shape she is in….but her boobs are just too small. He thinks she should get breast implants. WHAT?!?! So she is seriously considering getting it done. That is something that I don’t understand. So I can understand a woman being pressured into having labiaplasty. Her partner wants her to look like the girls do in porn movies or magazines. These people, I think we can all agree, are doing this for the wrong reason.
On the other hand there are people who have labiaplasty performed for, what I would consider, valid reasons. They might have pain when they have sex. Or maybe they are personally embarrassed to have labias as large as they do. For these women, I don’t think its about looking like a porn star but being more comfortable and more self confident. Imagine being in a swimming suit and feeling like your swimming suit looks funny because your labias are so big.
I have read quite a few post from other people in my class. It really shocks me how many straight laced conservative people are around. I am in no way saying that it is a bad thing because variety is the spice of life. It is just hard for me to figure out why people can’t see things the way I do. (Just like it is hard for me to see things the way they do !)
There seem to some people in this class that are extremely religious and really stick to their guns. I too was once pretty religious. My mom and dad made me go to Sunday school and church every Sunday. I had to go to the youth group meetings every Sunday night. We did bible study on some Wednesday nights. For them it was peer pressure to go to church. We lived in a small town in west Texas, where everybody knew everybody. If you were missing from church, the next time someone saw you, you were expected to give an explanation as to why you weren’t there.
That is not to say that my parents weren’t both religious. They both were and still are. But as I was growing up, I decided that I thought it should be my choice what religion, if any, I wanted to be. I wasn’t sure that I believed everything that I was saying at church. I was reciting words from a book but I questioned those words. So I understand the christian religion but there are somethings that just don’t fit for me.
Some say that homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender, etc is not what god made and that it is not natural. So if we go back and see that god created the earth and everything in his likeness. He created nature and everything around us. Maybe some people believe that everything happens for a reason. For example, when the body rejects an embryo because genetically there are defects, that is god’s natural selection process. He is weeding out the bad and keeping the good.
So if god creates everything…I’m not too sure how to tie this in to the point I’m trying to make, so bear with me as I try to explain. God is nature and nature is god. Babies are gods babies and they are born heterosexual. (If we go off of the christian religion.) Homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgendered people CHOOSE to be that way. They are not born that way…then how does religion explain intersexed people.
Intersexed people are born with some form of both sexes. Some have enlarges clitoris’ that look like small penis’. Some begin to develop breasts at puberty but have been named a male. Some people are born intersexed because of genetics and some are that way because of hormones. When these children are born, parents panic and doctors respond. “Pick a sex! What ever you want it to be, we can make it into that! With a little nip and tuck, you can have a boy or a girl!” And they choose the sex of the baby! Just like that. But what if they choose the wrong sex? What happens if they were wrong and made the wrong changes? That’s what happens a lot unless a parent or doctor says, “Wait!”. Let’s figure this out. Lets see what develops.
So when religious people say that being transgendered is a choice, they are also saying that intersexed people are making a choice. (Kind of…) Feeling like you are in the wrong body is a serious thing and is not a choice. It is a feeling. It is sometimes genetic or hormonal. It’s not just about not liking the sex that they are so they want to change.
So Oprah had a show last week about intersexed people and she goes on to defend the LGBT community. So with that said (and no point really made)…you should watch this clip.
So everyone is going on and on about women wanting to play men in football and how a man can always beat a woman..well duh!!! These men are bred to play football. Boys are raised to play football. They have pee-wee football to start athletic development specific to football.
There are a few women’s leauges for football but women can not join until they are out of high school. They miss out on 18 years of practice and training. But these women can hit!!!
I am a huge fan of the Dallas Diamonds. www.dallasdiamondsfootball.com They are the WPFL team for Dallas. The play teams from all over the United States to qualify for playoffs and ultimately the Superbowl. My best friend used to play and now coaches for the Dallas Diamonds. These women play for the love of the game, not for the money. They actually have to raise money/sponsorship in order to play. And must hold full time jobs, outside of football, in order to survive. There are no press conferences, no million dollar contracts, no fame…just football.
I admire these girls because they put their heart and soul into football. They take time away from their families to practice and play a sport that they are passionate about. Many of them suffer from chronic injuries resulting from the hard hitting…the same injuries that the NFL boys suffer from. Many of them end up having knee surgery or rotator cuff surgery. They suffer from concussions and head injuries.
So when someone says girls can’t play football, especially a man, I challenge them to go up against one of these girls! Then we’ll see who is laughing!!
I was very surprised by some of the postings concerning homosexuality and homophobia. I amazed me that people are so close minded and ignorant. I’m sure they would say that I too am ignorant for thinking the way I do. This is the 21st century and we all still hold prejudices against one another.
Everyone brings up religion when they are talking about homosexuality and they reference the bible. But considering the bible is not even close to the original text, as it has been rewritten so many times, who know what it really says about anything. For me the bible is just another story book the people believe as the rule book how to live their lives. I like to think of Scientology and how crazy everyone who is not a Scientologist thinks they are for believing what they believe. Don’t you think they think christians are crazy too.
Back to my original thought, homosexuals are not trying to get married so that they can be like all the straight people in the world. Believe me, they don’t want to be straight or take anything away from straight people. They want to be afforded the same rights as straight people. They want to have children together. They want to named them as their spousal benefactor. They want to be able to see them in the ICU if something happens to them. They want to be able to share health benefits through employers just as straight people do. Homosexuals are not trying to be straight or take anything away from straight people. They just want things to be fair and equal.
Having someone very close to me be gay has turned me into a huge Gay Rights Activists. I could go on and on about Gay Rights and where we need to go and where we need to be. I take things personally that people say which is one reason I try not to get involved in these gay/straight debates. Then when I take things personal, I attack people on a personal level. And I know that is not right. So just sit back and read and remember that arguing on the Internet is pointless.
But don’t tempt me because I will say something…:)
