ABSTINENCE-ONLY DRIVER'S ED - very funny!

BY SUZANNE KLEID

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Thanks for making it out on a rainy Saturday, kids. Slippery out there, huh? Let's get started. We're gonna have some fun today!
Car accidents are a leading cause of death for teenagers. The school board and your elected representatives want to make sure that you and your families are spared from such a tragedy, which is why the money for driver's ed was eliminated from the budget. Whereas last year I was teaching your older siblings how to shift and brake and three-point-turn during a six-week course, it has since been decreed that I actually need just one afternoon to tell you the only piece of safety information I'm permitted by law to share:
The ONLY 100 percent effective method for avoiding car accidents is to ABSTAIN from driving until marriage.
Yes, yes, I know you've been bombarded with messages from popular culture about how much fun it would be to get behind the wheel of a red convertible, find an unbroken stretch of country road, and, with the wind in your hair, see what she can do. I know that up until now you had the mistaken belief that getting a driver's license was a cherished milestone of your young, sweet, innocent lives. It isn't. It's a milestone, all right: a milestone indicating terrible pain, degradation, and certain death.
"What about seat belts?" you might be saying to yourself. "Don't seat belts GUARANTEE that I CAN'T POSSIBLY die in a car?" Bzzzt! Wrongo. Every single day in this country, seat belts FAIL. In fact, I know of a study that proves—CONCLUSIVELY proves, people—that seat belts will fail 75 percent of the time.
Who did the study? Government workers.
Well, OK, East German government workers. At a single bribe- and patronage-ridden Trabant factory in 1967.
Moving on.
Along with unbridled premarital driving, we have a group of people who threaten to undermine everything America stands for, and that is your parents. Parents who seem to think it's a good idea to teach their children how to drive a car, to put their precious gifts from the Almighty into the cold twisted-metal hands of certain destruction. "My mom takes me to the church parking lot and lets me practice three-point turns!" you might say. "We only went 5 miles an hour!"
Kids, please direct your attention to the poster above the blackboard here: FASTER THAN PARKED IS FAST ENOUGH TO KILL.
If Grandpa offers to take you out to the cornfield for stick-shift practice, or to an empty suburban street so you can practice your parallel-parking, YOU ARE STILL DRIVING, AND DRIVING IS WHAT I'M TELLING YOU NOT TO DO. Got it? One day you're shifting with Gramps and two weeks later the thrill will have worn off and you'll have to up the ante. You'll have to move on to highway driving. Then, standing up, with your head sticking out the sunroof, you cruise through the big city at night. Then you'll be doing doughnuts. Drag racing. Sideshowing. Ghostriding the whip. Tokyo drifting.
Oh sure, ghostriding the whip LOOKS incredibly cool and badass. But when your parents are in the hospital waiting room trying to decide whether or not to donate your corneas to science—because you're BRAIN-DEAD—maybe THEN you'll regret those parallel-parking lessons, hm?
Please note the other poster, above the door there:DON'T WANT TO DIE? DON'T TRY TO DRIVE. It's just that simple.
Fear not, kids: there's a time in your life when driving a car will cease to be an evil and disgusting shame-riddled experience. That happens after you're married. My husband got me a Corvette for our anniversary. How sweet is that? And take it from ME: NO premarital driving could ever have felt as good as the driving my husband and I do together.
Remember this handy little slogan: "No ring on your finger, no hand on the shifter."
Maybe it made more sense in Australia, sure. But the sentiment still holds!
Now some of you may wonder if it's OK to drive when you're a legal adult yet still unmarried. Sure, it's "not illegal" to drive when you're 18. It's also "not illegal" to drive a car at 17, 16, or even 15 if you are so unlucky as to have some of those horrifically overpermissive parents. But that doesn't make it morally right.
Imagine the beautiful gift you'll give your future spouse if you curb your instincts and ABSTAIN from zipping all over town with any boy who sticks a thumb out at you. Think about THAT one.
And for those of you wondering if it's OK for you to learn to drive because you're gay and can't get legally married, well, don't worry your troubled minds about that, because there's no driving where YOU'RE headed. Everyone in Greenwich Village takes the subway.
This is all very serious, guys. The incidence of car crashes in this town has quintupled, just since the beginning of Abstinence-Only Driver's Ed six months ago. QUINTUPLED. Do you know how much that is? Me neither, but it proves you need to do exactly what I say. Class dismissed.
Oh and hey: whichever one of you owns the gray Taurus, you left your lights on.

As long as we put a monetary value to housework, people notice...

Londa Schiebinger’s study shows academic scientists spend about 19 hours a week on basic household chores. If universities offered a benefit to pay someone else to do that work, scientists would have more time to spend on the jobs they’re trained for, she says.

Cooking. Cleaning. Laundry. Not only are they chores most people would rather avoid, they’re also enormous time drains.

Whether you realize it or not, all that nagging housework can be eating into your job productivity and getting in the way of you getting ahead in your career – especially if you’re a woman, says Londa Schiebinger, director of Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research.

So here’s her answer to that problem: Employers should offer benefits to help pay for someone to do your housework. Less time dusting and ironing means more time devoted to the job you’re actually paid for.

Full article HERE

One of the best articles on the word "SLUT" from Feministing.com

In Today's Alternative Advice Column, What Lies Behind "Slut"

A while back, Chloe wrote a terrific piece about the gap between increased awareness about unhealthy beauty standards in the media, and the unhealthy messages they're actually internalizing. I think a similar gap exists regarding sexuality; many of us are able to articulate pride in our sexuality or pontificate about sex positivity, but we're still internalizing harmful messages about sexuality and what these messages says about us and our value. We still buy into the Madonna/whore complex. We still believe purity and goodness reside with virginity, and dirtiness and badness reside with sex. We still feel shame about our desires, and feel less and less proud of ourselves as our "number" climbs higher and higher (and I'm not talking about age). Yes, there is a cognitive social gap between our knowledge of our sexuality and our experience of it.
That's nowhere more clear than in this Frisky advice column, entitled "Dear Wendy: Everyone Thinks I'm A Slut." A 21-year-old girl writes in with a relatively common problem for young women to have these days--she's being called a slut.
What insight did our neighborhood advice columnist Wendy have for her? Why, of course, it's her fault for talking about her sexual partners so damn much:

"What I don't understand is why so many people are thinking it's standard practice to share the number of sexual partners they've had with anyone they go out with a few times...I do have to wonder if, under your expressed bravado, you feel a tinge of guilt about some of the choices you've made. It may explain the incessant need you have to share your number with people despite the stigma you feel attached to it."

Ok, I got it. It's not a question of whether or not she's a big ole' slut, but who knows about it. So what does she recommend her advice-seeker do? She really needs to quit her braggin'!

"Quit making a big deal of it -- quit sharing your number with people; quit making your private life public; and quit choosing partners who have big mouths if that's what you're doing -- and you'll find that no one else really cares about your sex life as much as you do."

Hmm. So...it's her fault for not keeping all that sluttiness to herself? I'm not sure I'm buying it. Here's what I would have said:

Dear Sexually Active in Vermont,
Slut. What a word. It simultaneously describes and dominates, classifies and corrodes its subject. Its most basic use is to describe someone who is sexually promiscuous, but it has come to entail so much more these days--worthlessness, dirtiness, even the very state of being a woman.
Who is it used by? It's used by men to justify their insecurity about the power they see in women's sexuality. It's used by women to establish their own superiority over other women. It's used by rich people to hold onto and exercise their privilege. It's used by poor people to grasp at having value in a society that often makes them feel invisible. In other words, it's used by people with an agenda. A self-serving agenda. You know, that thing they're accusing you of having by being such a slutty slut? In the real world, the "dirtiest", "easiest" thing anyone can do is degrade another person by feeding into the social and cultural oppression that already exists against them.
So their intentions aren't exactly "pure", but...are they right? Let me set the record straight, right here, right now, for good: People who call other people "sluts" are always, inherently, insufferably wrong. No matter the sexual history of the person they are addressing. Because people who buy into the concept of a slut- that someone who has more sex is worse than someone who has less sex- are fundamentally, logically, morally, spiritually erroneous. Having sex doesn't make you a bad person. Having sex doesn't make you a bad person. Having sex doesn't make you a bad person. (Yes, I'm going for a Good Will Hunting moment here!) Having sex doesn't make you anything other than a person who has sex. The end. I promise!
In reality, purity is a myth. You are not weaker, or stupider, or less important, for each time you choose to have sex with someone. That's not to say there aren't universal social truths about good and bad behavior that you should be accountable to- there are. But these "positives" and "negatives" don't correspond with numbers of sexual partners- that would be ridiculous and meaningless. They revolve around things like kindness, intelligence, compassion, and wellness. These things matter inside and outside the bedroom. Having sex does not define who you are or what you do in any arena other than your sex life! There is no simple dichotomy where more sex equals bad and less sex equals good. There is only you. Your state of mind, your experiences, your health and well being, your contribution to this world. It is a more complicated, more nuanced, more evolved system of valuing people. Which should tell you right there it is probably right.
But that voice. That voice inside and outside your head is saying "I know what you're saying is right, but deep down inside I don't believe you. Why would the whole world keep telling me I'm worth less because of my sexual history if it weren't even a little bit true?
That is a good question. Why do people call other people sluts? In my experience, I have found that it is because they are scared. They are scared that they won't be able to find a partner that they love who will love them back, and they would like to be able to have someone else to shoulder that terrifying responsibility. They are scared of their own sexual desires, and what those desires say about their true selves. They are scared of living a life based on a value system that will be proven by time to be false, cruel, and unjust, so they work even harder and more ferociously to justify and reinforce it, to prove to themselves that they, their parents, their grandparents, are on the right side of history (they are not). They are scared of women who are free, because it reminds them of the ways that they themselves are not. And of course, they are scared of their own mortality, and so they grasp at anything that could guarantee them immunity, moral superiority, or holy benevolence in the face of the ultimate terror- death.
This fear drives them to great extremes. Fear is powerful, and many people's lives are completely dominated by it. Women, in particular, are an easy target for people who are very scared, because there are already social checks in place to make women less threatening, less powerful, less scary. So they latch onto this, and contribute to it, and perpetuate it. They actively degrade women. They take satisfaction from putting them in their place, and from taking away their power. They remind them over and over that their bodies, their sexuality, their autonomy, their choices, and their power, are not their own. They exert control- over their own lives, and over the behavior of others, as well as they know how- by perpetuating fear and pain.
I have been called a slut many times in my life, along with many women, but never by someone who I suspected was genuinely interested in my well being, nor by anyone who was very brave, or who loved themselves very much.
Ok, you are saying, even if I am convinced of this myself, it still hurts to operate in a world in which not everyone is on the same page as this. Being viewed as a slut by others still hurts, and still has real negative ramifications for me in this world. How can one find comfort, truth, and transcendence in such an unjust system?
Love yourself, love others, find feminism. In that order!
Thank you for writing.

The Movie Steel Magnolias

This is a paper I wrote on the film Steel Magnolias:

Steel Magnolias: Cultural Discourses of Femininity

            Steel Magnolias promotes motherhood, beauty attainment, and self-sacrifice as the cultural discourse of femininity. This is film that chronicles five southern women’s relationships, and through their friendship, they find the support and love needed that they lack elsewhere in their lives. The film also suggests the ulitmate route to happiness for a woman is through motherhood. While Steel Magnolias emphasizes the relationships and interconnectedness that only women can share, it provides a limited view of women as it situates femininity in the reproductive ability of women’s bodies, the constant quest for beauty, and the “natural” selflessness and nurturing capacity women possess.

First, it is vital for the film to be set in the south as it adds a level of nuance that further designates the importance of limited appeal of tradition. Southerners are known to revel in the fact they celebrate and maintain elements of high culture. As Steel Magnolias shows with the quick-witted character Truvy (Dolly Parton), the southern female experience is to have straightforwardly phrased tidbits of knowledge that decent down-home southerners, “real” women, can relate. This constructs a southern female as a character who represents women’s subjective experience as a form of knowledge. Truvy seems to be the omniscient narrator through which her experience of being a beautician serves others’ emotional needs. Her beauty salon serves as a site of initiation into womanhood through the telling and listening of stories of female experience. However, she nullifies her professional status of a woman possessing “specialized knowledge” by overcompensating the emotional part of the consumer’s experience. As Grimlin suggests in “The Hair Salon,” the beauticians are “more susceptible to the ‘beauty myth’ than the clients” (47).  Truvy repeatedly uses language to create a professional reality. At one moment she reminds Annelle (Darryl Hannah) she is no “beautician” but rather a “glamour technician.” She must “stay abreast of trends” in order to serve as the pinnacle of the beauty hierarchy. Overall, she reminds viewers femininity is constructed through the interpersonal experience of listening and offering suggestions and harsh realities of attaining beauty through cosmetic services.

Moreover, the film begins and ends with a mother’s prospective. M’Lynn (Sally Field) offers up a constant worriful and self-sacrificing image of the mother as natural and celebratory. It is through her character that femininity is also constructed. The film offers the mother-child relationship as a redeeming motif to the lack of fulfillment provided by marriage. As the film ascertains, motherhood, especially between a mother and daughter, provides a level of contentment for women. This story illustrates the familiar cultural discourse of femininity as a woman proceeds through limited highlights of her life: marriage and children. M’Lynn, however, provides duality to that image. She has lived experienced marriage and children, but it is only through protection of her daughter that she finds security in her role.  Thus, her portrayal restricts womanhood to the self-sacrificing mother to her children. M’Lynn is provided immense amounts of attention for caring for her sick daughter.

Furthermore, we see that beauty is an ongoing quest for women. Truvy’s hair salon provides a site of female engagement. The female characters in the film constantly talk about how certain styles relate certain identity elements. For example, Shelby (wants a style that represents she is more of a mother instead of a woman seeking a husband, so she asks Truvy to cut her hair short. Shelby is exercising her belief of “reflected appraisals” (Marshall 166). She exhibits internalizing social feedback, that is “our imagination of our appearances, our imagination of others’ judgments or appraisals of our appearance, and the emergence of self-feeling” (Marshall 166). The character of Shelby illustrates femininity is in constant flux but always aware or external judgment. In fact, a woman’s identity encompasses such external influences as “the way things are.” Women are judged by hair, as the film illustrates. Hair plays a vital role in film. It is portrayed as a crucial element of identity formation for women. For example, when M’Lynn is reading to Shelby in the hospital, she reads, “we know where you can get a top of the line hairstyle” out of a magazine as a suggestion to reinvent one’s female identity. Furthermore, the film highlights Shelby’s death as she is a “guardian angel…where she’ll always be young, always be beautiful.” Shelby seems to be immortalized as a thing of beauty everlasting.

In the end, the film frames motherhood as an image of beauty as well. For it begins with M’Lynn reluctantly “giving” her daughter away to the realities of marriage and ending with images of fields of children at an Easter egg hunt. Motherhood is a discourse offered to make sense of something horrible, from the perspective of a mother experiencing a child’s death. Within this discourse of motherhood, contexts of beauty and self-sacrifice are woven. But it is only through this narrative of motherhood that a woman can redeem her social status as well as her internal sense of importance as motherhood is given most cultural significance. However, these women in the film also provide a narrative of relationships between women that highlight is it also the nurturing and self-sacrificing relationship offered to other women that place a value on being female.

All in all, it seems appearance management is the motivating factor in being feminine, be it appearing as a loving mother, daughter, or friend. However, the narrative cleverly disguises the means of being self-sacrificing, for it ends with little Jackson running to M’Lynn after being scared. It is with this final image that seals the validity of motherhood. She gets to serve as mother again thereby stipulating motherhood is the only constant to a woman’s identity. Steel Magnolias also illustrates how beauty and outside appearance plays an integral role in the construction of femininity. The inclusion of a beauty parlor as the setting of most of the story relegates how image is closely knit to womanhood. Likewise, how M’Lynn’s motherhood role included the immense selflessness of body, even to the extent of giving her daughter a kidney, further constructs femininity on axis of generosity. Upon viewing Steel Magnolias viewers have the opportunity to ”interact with” and “compare themselves to the people whose lives enter their living rooms,” thus providing “an opportunity for viewers to increase their own sense of self-worth, by leading them to realize how fortunate they are” (Marshall 561).

Works Cited

“The Hair Salon,” in Debra Gimland, Body Work.

“Female Kin: Functions of the Meta-Identification of Womanhood,” by Judith B. Rosenberger in The Mother –Daughter Relationship edited by Gerd H. Fenchel.

“Pregnancy and the Professional, Woman: The Psychological Transition,” by Amy A Tyson and ”Constructing a Feminine Identity without Motherhood,” by Mardy S. Ireland in Dilemmas of a Double Life by Nancy B. Kaltreider.

 “Our Bodies, Ourselves: Why We Should Add Old fashioned Empirical Phenomenology to the New Theories of the Body,”  by Helen Marshall in Feminist Th

He's Just Not That Into You - movie and book

He's Just Not That Into You (HJNTIY) written by former Sex and the City writer Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo is said to debunk many of the myths that women create about men and dating. The book gained momentum from celebrities as Oprah, and now has developed into a high-profile celebrity movie soon to be released. 

Overall, this book tells women to not sit around and wait for the man's call because, ladies – don't take it personally – he's just not that into you. It suggests that men are the active "doers" in relationship and women are simply the passive "waiters" - once again creating an expected gender standard. 

Even writers on WebMD praise it: "The book is implicitly teaching women to have good psychological boundaries, meaning that if he's just not that into you, it's not your problem, it's his and you need to deal with the fact that for whatever the reason this guy is not interested in a relationship with you."



I have mixed feelings about their thesis. The problem is that it actually helps to CREATE gender myths and add to the confusion in dating. While I appreciate the book trying to explicate a common concern about dating, it only addresses that the problem is that of women, not men, who suffer because they have yet to figure out how to decode "male behavior." Therefore, it really causes confusion because it tells women that they are ultimately the "doers" – i.e. the gender that must work at changing the unfulfilling dating situation. 

I am scared this book limits how women should behave. While both genders are consistently told to develop agency in all areas of their life (from car insurance commercials to voting: "Just one call could save you hundreds" – "You and you only hold the power to change your life"), this book, in fact, promotes passive womanly behavior. 

And that is sad. How many times do we have those moments where we agonize that we should have just said this or done things differently or where we recognize, "Wow, I'm glad I said that or did that"? Reflection is a vital part of maturation, but obsessive compulsion is not.

Again, HJNTIY is confusing. While this book suggests women should not obsess about men's dating actions because there is only one simple determining standard. On the other hand, it suggests obsessing about decoding men's behavior by reading relationship books is accepted and will bring women peace. So dwelling on dating and relationships becomes both encouraged and discouraged for women, and it is reinforced that it is highly unlikely for men. But isn't human nature to find ways to use analysis and introspection to piece puzzles together, even if it takes time? Although the writers somewhat admit generalities in their view: "Men, for the most part, like to pursue women," the idea of a collaborative effort in opposite sex interpersonal relationships goes unnoted. What about the men who are tired of the competitive "game" and wish women would acknowledge taking part in the constant negotiation involved in ANY type of relationship? 

            
Overall, HJNTIY is a clever way to reinvest in the unequal "division of labor" conversation essentially defining women's duty additional work. It reminds me of women's liberation and the sexual revolution, especially of Hugh Heffner's claim that he is a feminist in so much as meaning he is ok with women using contraceptives because it allows more of what he wants – freedom for men from the responsibilities of the consequences of sex. And with the success of this book, we are ultimately applauding this view in our society. HJNTIY is really saying dating can be less stressful as long as women recognize it is only their job to decipher men's behavior just like it is the women's responsibility to take birth control pills. This book shifts the accountability to women and off of men, which allows men a lack of involvement in the dating process - exactly what most women lament as the source of the women's complaints. It again situates men as the maypole center around which women must circle. 



While I appreciate direct and powerful language and agree with the old adage "Actions speak louder than words," over-simplified, dubbed "straightforward", these types of directives provide effortless ways to solve problems. But, if one never challenges her own assumptions or thinks on her own, how will any other outcomes come into play? (Hey women! Don't think – don't expect change because it will never happen.) 

What about the joys that this way of thinking takes away from men? Men miss out on ego boosts and the reinforcement that they too are chosen about all others if women called to ask them out on a date. 

I do understand it is part of human nature to chase something illusive, and playing hard to get is not a new strategy for women. From my experience, I distinctly remember the dynamic that worked well for my husband and me when dating. Sometimes I gave him attention, sometimes I held back. As did he. Holding back offers opportunities for the other party to prove interest. Showing interest should not be a gendered opportunity. 


Think about the interviewing process for a job. Once one meets with a prospective employer, most suggest following up with a phone call that expresses interest in the job. In the dating arena, why is this expression only afforded to men? 


Isn't the message of HJNTITY empowered women must accept passivity? 

In the end, however, I do like the idea that there should be a cut off time to quit waiting because I too agree that if someone likes you, he/she will make it a point to let you know. Or in case of the job situation, if they didn't call, move on to the next job interview without making excuses. This, likewise, should not be gendered advice. 






The Real Hot 100~

This site celebrates young women making a change in our world without exploiting their hot factor!

HOT

Sexual Harassment in School Hallways

What is a young girl to do? This article perfectly articulates what most young women mentally experience as they question sexual harassment in their life.

"On the radio, there is song after song referring to women as 'bitches' and 'whores' and magazine covers constantly degrade women," she said. "The ubiquity of these examples definitely takes its toll, as our society makes little or no distinction between what's on the newsstand and what you see every day with how people regard women."

Click Here for full article