Check out "10 Things I want my daughter to know before she turns 10" by Lindsey Mead Russell, which I was turned onto via feministing.
My favorites are #1, 7 and 9:
"1. It is not your job to keep the people you love happy. Not me, not Daddy, not your brother, not your friends. I promise, it's not. The hard truth is that you can't, anyway."
"7. You are not me. We are very alike, but you are your
own person, entirely, completely, fully. I know this, I promise, even
when I lose sight of it. I know that separation from me is one of the
fundamental tasks of your adolescence, which I can see glinting over the
horizon. I dread it like ice in my stomach, that space, that distance,
that essential cleaving, but I want you to know I know how vital it
is. I'm going to be here, no matter what, Grace. The red string that
ties us together will stretch. I know it will. And once the transition
is accomplished there will be a new, even better closeness. I know
that too.
9. There is no single person who can be your everything.
Be very careful about bestowing this power on any one person. I
suspect you are trying to fill a gnawing loneliness, and if you are you
inherited it from me. That feeling, Woolf's "emptiness about the heart
of life," is just part of the deal. Trying to fill that ache with other
people (or with anything else, like food, alcohol, numbing behaviors of
a zillion sorts you don't even know of yet) is a lost cause, and nobody
will be up to the task. You will feel let down, and, worse, that
loneliness will be there no matter what. I'm learning to embrace it, to
accept it as part of who I am. I hope to help you do the same.
but it's worth reading the whole thing.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
One Direction continues to send worst messages
I was pleasantly surprised when I heard some lyrics from the first few stanzas of One Direction's new single "Little Things" - about (obviously) all the little things that the teen heartthrob loves about his lady friend, even if she doesn't necessarily love them about herself. Her quirks are what make her special!
First, I was excited about:
You've never loved
Your stomach or your thighs,
The dimples in your back at the bottom of your spine
But I'll love them endlessly
(lyrics)
Hey, that's kind of body positive! Girls are allowed to have curves! He loves your body exactly as it is!
But then ....
You never want
To know how much you weigh
you still love/have to squeeze into your jeans
But you're perfect to me
Because it's somehow endearing for a girl not to know her own weight? Her weight anxiety is cute!
And then things really took a turn for the worse with this gem:
You'll never love yourself half as much as I love you
Well, that's right out of the abusive boyfriend handbook. They try to save themselves by saying:
If I let you know I'm here for you
Maybe you'll love yourself like I love you, oh.
but the damage is already done; the message is that the girl will always need her One Direction boy as the source of her self-esteem/self-worth. The message of this song is an excellent follow-up to One Direction's last hit, "your low self-esteem is attractive"
Pop songs sending shitty messages isn't anything new, but One Direction is notable in that their two big hits so far send these messages: 1) Ladies, it's attractive when you have low self-esteem, and 2) and because of your low self-esteem, you'll always need me. It's a double-win!
First, I was excited about:
You've never loved
Your stomach or your thighs,
The dimples in your back at the bottom of your spine
But I'll love them endlessly
(lyrics)
Hey, that's kind of body positive! Girls are allowed to have curves! He loves your body exactly as it is!
But then ....
You never want
To know how much you weigh
you still love/have to squeeze into your jeans
But you're perfect to me
Because it's somehow endearing for a girl not to know her own weight? Her weight anxiety is cute!
And then things really took a turn for the worse with this gem:
You'll never love yourself half as much as I love you
Well, that's right out of the abusive boyfriend handbook. They try to save themselves by saying:
If I let you know I'm here for you
Maybe you'll love yourself like I love you, oh.
but the damage is already done; the message is that the girl will always need her One Direction boy as the source of her self-esteem/self-worth. The message of this song is an excellent follow-up to One Direction's last hit, "your low self-esteem is attractive"
Pop songs sending shitty messages isn't anything new, but One Direction is notable in that their two big hits so far send these messages: 1) Ladies, it's attractive when you have low self-esteem, and 2) and because of your low self-esteem, you'll always need me. It's a double-win!
Friday, December 7, 2012
Big business: the real beneficiary of "government handouts"
In case you haven't been following, last week, many fast-food workers in NYC participated in a massive walk-out as part of "the biggest effort to unionize fast-food workers ever undertaken in the United States"
Fast food restaurants, like other big businesses, pay their workers insufficient wages and taxpayers are supposed to make up the difference. That isn't fair to the people who work hard at their (seemingly) awful jobs and still need government or non-profit help to make ends meet (something for which they will be shamed by most of society), and it isn't fair to regular taxpayers who, by footing the bill, are essentially lining the pockets of multi-millionaires.
Anyway, I just thought this video and the campaign is a great reminder that, despite all of the shaming that people receiving government support endure, the real beneficiaries of "government handouts" are big businesses. We, as taxpayers, should be demanding that they pay a living wage. Which is exactly what these workers are doing.
Sign the petition.
Fast food restaurants, like other big businesses, pay their workers insufficient wages and taxpayers are supposed to make up the difference. That isn't fair to the people who work hard at their (seemingly) awful jobs and still need government or non-profit help to make ends meet (something for which they will be shamed by most of society), and it isn't fair to regular taxpayers who, by footing the bill, are essentially lining the pockets of multi-millionaires.
Anyway, I just thought this video and the campaign is a great reminder that, despite all of the shaming that people receiving government support endure, the real beneficiaries of "government handouts" are big businesses. We, as taxpayers, should be demanding that they pay a living wage. Which is exactly what these workers are doing.
Sign the petition.
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