The One Where Men Aren't the Devil

I'm not dead, and I haven't forgotten that I blog here sometimes.  I have a new blog, though, a food one, and I'm doing my damnedest to keep up with it even though you can see from this blog here at. . .consistency isn't my blogging strong suit.  However, I have a METHOD for my other blog, so the chances are good that I'll be keeping up with it the way I should.

The chances are good, but not definite.  I'm on week 2 and keeping up, so we'll see.

Along with this blog, and my oft-neglected but recently picked back up site She Likes to Bake, I've started a new project called Sarah Cooks the Books.  It will eventually just be SarahCookstheBooks.com, but for right now, it's still on blogspot.  So there you go.  Check 'em out, and I just ordered this book, so I promise they'll both be better-looking, and soon.

My on-topic point today is men.

Not these men.

I fully understand that sexism is alive and well.  I fully understand that women don't get paid as much as men in most jobs and that a woman's more likely than a man to be raped and that men have pretty much run things since the beginning of time.

But what I don't understand is when, exactly, feminism turned from "Let us vote, dammit!" to "Men are evil bastards who need to die a long, slow, painful death for the crime of having a penis."

The very, very feminist website I referenced wanting to quit before but haven't quite been able to bring myself to leave had this story the other day about how money tore apart this woman's marriage.  That's not really here nor there, but it was this little gem that made me take notice:

 

Truly, there are few things in life that irritate me as much as the use of "Mr. Mom." (saying that a dad is "babysitting" his kids when the mom's not there is another one.)  Why Mr. Mom?  Why not. . .I don't know. . .Dad?

 

So, knowing I was throwing myself directly into the jaws of the angry shark (does. . .that metaphor work?) I said:



To the credit of many on that site, I, at the present moment, have 35 upvotes.  But those aren't the ones I'm interested in.  (Mostly because, in this case?  I KNOW I'm right.)  It's the downvotes I'm looking at.  At least 7 people feel that Mr. Mom is an OK terminology to use.  Why?  I don't know specifically, and I can't ask, because downvoting is anonymous, but I'm going to go ahead and guess that it's because I dared suggest that a man could do a good parenting job and not be referred to as any version of "Mom."

There was another time I got into this same scuffle, regarding an article of women who've been raped.  I brought up instances of women who claim they've been raped, but have in fact, not.  (Because truthfully, those women should be punished just as hard as the men who rape.)  I said something about men who are falsely accused having to go through hellish things (wrecking of reputation, alienation of friends, loss of potential dates, sometimes court proceedings. . .) just because a woman either didn't get when she wanted and then lied about it or got what she wanted, but then decided she didn't actually want it, so she calls rape.  (Those were the examples I used.)

This was the response I got from one person:

So, to recap, it doesn't matter what I think of people who lie about being raped and ruin lives in the process.  The important takeaway from this is that MEN DON'T NEED PEOPLE TO CARE ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS.

(For those of you who don't know, "cis" is another one of those words created because we as a society have the inherent need to label EVERYTHING.  Short for "cisgender," it is "the opposite of transgender, a cisgender person’s gender identity matches their body and the gender they were assigned at birth, as well as the traditional roles and behaviors associated with that gender."

In other words, heterosexual people who don't think they should be the opposite sex.  This "word" is thrown around A LOT on this website.

So my purpose in life, since I'm a woman and all, is to be sympathetic to women and to not care about men at all costs.  If a woman lies about being raped?  That's OK, because she's more likely to be the victim of a sexual assault than a man is.  If a man is accused of rape and he didn't do it?  I shouldn't care, because he's a man, and as a man, he's more likely to be the perpetrator of a sexual assault, so it's like a pre-emptive strike, and he probably had it coming anyway.  Right?

I call bullshit.

I'd like to say it for the record here, for anyone to read, men, women, women who frequent that website, whatever.

I like men.

I like men a lot.  Most of my best friends in life have been men. 

Hell, I married a man!  I married a man that doesn't sexually assault people and who I'd never call "Mr. Mom" when his daughter is here.  I married a man that is a much better person than a lot of the women I've known in my life.

So no, I'm not going to take your side just because we have the same indoor plumbing.  If you're a jerk, I'll ignore you.  Same if you're a man.  If you're a jerk, I'll ignore you.  If you're not a jerk. . .well, apparently, you're just a figment of my imagination then.  Because men who deserve kindness and compassion and for their lives to not be ruined by false accusations of rape don't exist.

(Note: My spellcheck doesn't recognize "cis" or "cisgender" as words, so there's that.)

The One with the Questionable Campaign

So, I have a Morally Ambiguous Situation™ here, and I wonder the general opinion of my. . .2 readers.

This happened.  The gist of it is that this pastor said that all gays (and lesbians!) should be rounded up and locked electric fence-style, men seperate from women, so that the gay gene would die out.

Never mind this doesn't make any sense, as I believe (but don't quote me on this) that most gay people are spawned from hetero parents.  I believe that the pastor in question is a horrible representation of Christianity, and is one of the worst kinds of people.

But. . .I don't know if the article's suggestion of retribution is the best way to go.  He suggests that everyone send a donation to some gay-friendly organization in the pastor's name so the pastor will be innundated with thank you letters from the organizations.  The author provided the pastor's address, phone number, and e-mail with which to do the signing up.

Now. . .at last count, I saw 190 people who had said they were doing this, sending some donation to a group in the pastor's name.

This is where it gets a little sketchy for me.  Is this pastor dead wrong?  Absolutely.  Does he need to be prevented from speaking in public ever again?  Yes.  Yes he does.  Is he the reason so many people hate Christianity?  For sure.

But this seems. . .over-reaching to me.  I don't know.  I can't reconcile it in my head.  What, exactly, are these people hoping to accomplish?  It's awesome that all these organizations are getting donations, but. . .why does it have to be done this way?  I can't decide if someone as douchey as this pastor is also giving up his right to privacy and not wanting to receive literature from these organizations by being douchey.

And then there were a couple of comments left on this article that REALLY bothered me.

One lady ". . .did this for a 'Pro-Life' neighbor, made a donation to Planned Parenthood in his honor. They sent him a letter of acknowledgement. I never heard another word from him about the sinful pro-choice people;-)."

Like. . .it's the guy's right to be anti-abortion, and he's being sort of harassed about it.  What if the guy had sent pro-life literature to this lady?  Would that have been OK, too?  Granted, I don't know if he made a big deal about it or if he was a jerk or whatever, but I don't. . .think it should matter.

Then. . .

"This is an idea I did 30+ years ago to a preacher at a liberal arts college I was going to. Being Southern Baptist and feeling I needed to experience his god...got a postcard from the LDS church out of a magazine and filled in his information. Four years later...he was still wondering why he was getting twice yearly visits from LDS missionaries in the dorm. Last I heard...he had at least two copies of the Book of Mormon and one of the gigantic tome with all the writings in it."

This seems invasive, too.

But it was this one that really raised my hackles:

"I had a similar neighbor and he had a pro-choice bumper sticker on his car. I went over one veeery early morning and overlaid it with a pro-choice bumper sticker. It was weeks before he discovered it."

I feel like this one, if you want to be dramatic, borders on tresspassing and destruction of someone else's property.  At the very least, it made her even more douchey than the pro-life neighbor.  Why do people feel (on both sides of the fence) that if someone disagrees with them, they have the right to mess with the other person?

So what do you think?  Is it good to harass people through the mail?  Are you in the right?  Is the only opinion that matters yours?

This whole thing really bugged me, so I want to know what other people think.

The One With North Carolina's New Law

Anyone who caught my math error yesterday can now give a giant sigh of relief -- I actually DO know the difference between 80 and 90, but I do not

According to the Raleigh News & Observer, the North Carolina Senate has overturned the governor's veto of an abortion law.

North Carolina being, of course, in the Bible Belt of America, stuff like this and The Gays and. . .pretty much anything not having to do with the parts of the Bible that're usually in the spotlight are SERIOUS BUSINESS, YOU GUYS! I can't say I'm altogether surprised with this decision, but that doesn't mean I agree with it.

The new law states that women seeking abortions have to get ultrasounded, get state-mandated counseling, and wait 24 hours before actually getting one.

So, basically what's going on here, is that abortion isn't illegal, because the people voting don't want it to be, but what is instead going to happen is that anyone seeking to get a legal abortion is going to be guilted counseled, have to look at the ultrasound, and then wait anyway, so they can then ruminate on everything they've been told.

I think it's garbage.

The pro-law people are arguing that women "should have all the information available to them."

Yes, absolutely. They should. They should know exactly what it is they're doing, and should be offered all the information they need/want/whatever.

They should be offered all the information.

They should not have the information forced upon them.

What is the point of an ultrasound? The only thing this could possibly be for is to wave it in the woman's face and say, "SEE? It's a BABY!" There's no medical need to do that.

Counseling. . .that one's a little harder, but again, I think it's something that should be OFFERED, not FORCED. I would love to know what these "state-mandated" counseling sessions are going to look like.

Doctor: I see you're wanting an abortion.
Patient: Yes.
Doctor: Don't you know that's evil? Don't you know it's murder?
Patient: But I was raped by my brother and have always known that if I give birth, it'll kill me.
Doctor: But it's your BABY. You're going to KILL your BABY!

I think that, yeah, counseling should be OFFERED, both before and after the procedure, but that forcing someone into it is just making an already bad situation worse.

The 24-hour waiting period is. . .actually, I can sort of get behind that. Someone comes in, you offer (but don't force) the information on them, offer them counseling, and they can make an appointment to come in the next day. That could work, I guess. So we'll keep the 24-hour waiting period, but I think the rest is crap.

So what do you think? And I promise, if you disagree, I'm not going to be like, "RAWR!" I'd like to have someone that can logically and reasonably explain to me (without the use of morals and religion) why this is a good idea. Because last time I checked, government wasn't supposed to do things because of religion. And they certainly don't care about morality.

The One Where I'm Angry and a Little Political

I don't generally discuss politics here, first of all, because I don't pay attention to it and therefore don't want to sound ignorant, talking about things I know nothing about. Secondly, because a lot of times, it's just unpleasant.

But here's the thing.

Our government here is doing such a bang-up job of screwing everyone over, I feel compelled to talk about it.

The first thing on the list: Old, fat, white men screwing with women's reproductive system.

In Georgia, Rep. Bobby Franklin has (re!) introduced a bill to make it a felony to have a miscarriage if the mother can't prove that there was no "human involvement." The miscarriage would be re-defined as "pre-natal murder" unless the woman can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that no outside source had anything to do with it.

OK, Rep. Franklin you pretentious bastard. Are you aware that between 10 and 15 percent of pregnancies can end in a miscarriage? Are you aware that there are many, many more than even that that take place before a woman is even pregnant? Oftentimes (not always, but often), the body miscarries a pregnancy because there is something terribly wrong with the fetus. The baby wouldn't have made it anyway, so it's nature's way of taking care of those types of things.

What if an unsuspectingly pregnant woman is, say, 3 weeks pregnant. Let's say she goes out and has a glass of wine. Say she then, a week later, miscarries the pregnancy she didn't know she had. She feels weird, so she goes to the doctor, and then doctor's like, "Oh, BTW. You were pregnant."

Is that her fault? Would Rep. Douchebag Franklin's bill say that because she had that glass of wine, and it COULD HAVE caused a miscarriage, she's to blame? What if it would have terminated itself anyway? How could you possibly know?

What infuriates me about this is that it's a man proposing this bill. A man that will never, not even once in his life, know what it's like to lose a pregnancy, a child you were waiting for and hoping for that, for whatever reason, just wasn't meant to carry to term. You could argue that maybe his wife could experience that (except I don't think he's married. . .I couldn't find that anywhere) but he himself will never have to go through that.

For even suggesting this should be a thing, for even putting it out there for people to have to look at and think about, Rep. Assface Franklin should be kicked out of politics and never allowed to return.

Admittedly, yes. There are people who do really, really dumb stuff when they're pregnant. People who go through with the pregnancy, but go out and knock back a few at the bar every night, people who do hard drugs, people who continue to smoke through their pregnancy. THOSE are the people that need going after. The people who don't? Those people who just go about their day and, for whatever reason, have their bodies turn against them.

Next: The potential cutting of of funding for Planned Parenthood.

I'm sure this subject has been all over the blog world, and all over everywhere, but I have been avoiding it. I've been avoiding it because I find it so hard to accept that people are just so damn ignorant.

It's the anti-abortion people who are all up into this bill. (Note: I don't have a real, honest-to-God opinion on the subject. Not like Justin Bieber, who feels abortion is wrong, even in cases of rape, because "everything happens for a reason." I think that, if you don't want kids, you need to do everything in your power to avoid conceiving them, but that in some cases, yeah, abortion is the option you might need to take. Doesn't mean I'd run out and get one myself, but I (unlike the Biebs) know that I can't have a legit opinion on something I don't have any experience with. (Another note: He does say at the end of that interview that he doesn't know about it, so he can't really talk about it, but that was after he made his ridiculous comments. If he knows he doesn't know anything about it, he should probably, you know, not say anything about it. But I digress.)

Anyway, the fact is, only about 3% of what PP does is abortion-related, and none of that (by law) is funded by government money. So you're not actually cutting down on any abortions paid for by the government at all if you get rid of PP. You're getting rid of pap smears, mammograms ,STD testing, birth control options, cancer screenings. . .basically a lot of the things that low-income people need to keep themselves reproductively and breastily healthy.

They're basically voting to get rid of all of the pregnancy prevention options PP offers. So that will account for more unwanted pregnancies which will lead to. . .yeah. MORE abortions. And probably unsafe ones. Because if these women have nowhere to go, and they're desperate, my guess is that they're going to do whatever they have to to stop the pregnancy. So then you're just going to have a lot of ill women and some really messed up kids running around. And a lot of them will, most likely, need government funding anyway because they weren't ready to have a kid, especially not a kid with special needs (due to the ill-fated pregnancy termination attempts) and. . .do you see where I'm going with this?

We do not live in a Christian nation. This is a fact. Our Founding Fathers were not all God-fearing Christians as we often portray them. We're allowing the fundamentalism of a religion, not a national religion, but just a big one, make laws. Doesn't seem fair to me. Also doesn't seem fair to me that all of the pregnancies that could have been avoided if people had proper care that resulted in unwanted children will result in. . .children who are unwanted, and treated as such.

I'm getting ranty and stabby right now, so I'm going to stop.

What I would like to do is to ask the gentlemen (and ladies!) in Washington and the people in Georgia to please keep their agendas and hands off of my ovaries.

Thank you.

The One With the Florists

I got another anonymous comment the other day. On the entry about My First Flamer, Mr. or Ms. (my money's on Ms.) Anonymous eloquently said, "This is so dumb."

I'm not sure if the entry was considered dumb or the comment I was writing about was dumb. Either way, I thought to myself, "Self, why put up with it? Why give anonymous jerks the opportunity to be anonymous jerks?" So I took the anonymous comment option off.

Moving on.

I have a story after which I'll ask a question. A question about loyalty. I'd be interested to know other people's opinions.

D and I have a friend, who I'll call Dave. Dave owns a flower shop in a small town. Dave was in a car accident a couple years ago, leaving him paralyzed from (I believe) the neck down. He worked his way toward being completely self-reliant, being able to walk, and still being able to run his shop. He's a friend, but he's also one of D's clients, for whom D has done some signage and some business cards.

Apparently, about a year ago, Dave had a woman working with him (we'll call her Fran) who approached him about selling outdoor plants. Dave doesn't sell outdoor plants, and doesn't know anything about selling outdoor plants, so he let her set up shop outside his shop, sell her plants, and keep all the money from it. He also taught her everything he knows about indoor flowers: making bouquets, the care and keeping of flowers, arrangements, stuff like that.

After she stopped working for him, a few months passed, and she came back, asking if she could rent Dave's shop. Dave's response was, basically, "Um. . .NO!?" So then she tells him that she's renting a shop of her own. . .directly across the street. This woman opened a florist shop across the street from the florist shop that had taught her how to BE a florist.

Pretty bitchy, right?

So here comes the morally sketchy part of it. At least, the morally sketchy part of it that has something to do with me.

I was in the neighborhood of Dave's shop earlier today (having just had a nannying interview) (stop laughing), and so I stopped by to see if the signs D had done for him pre-Valentine's Day had helped generate any business. Dave wasn't there because he was out doing a delivery, so I told the girl behind the counter to tell him I'd stopped by.

As I'm driving away, I look at the new florist across the street and decide (because I'm by myself and bored) to do some reconnaissance. I walk into the shop (which is pretty bare, but cheerful-looking enough) and Fran's there. She and I are the only ones in the shop.

She asks if she can help me, and I do not lie. I tell her I'm getting married at some point and was stopping by florists today. (This is true. I'm getting married. . .some day, and I HAD stopped by a florist prior to stopping by HER florist shop, so no lies here.)

She immediately starts telling me that she hasn't done MANY weddings, but that she has done a few, and gives me some ideas. She asks me questions like how many people, how many family members, what colors, and so on.

And I find myself. . .really liking her. To the point where, when she admitted she didn't have a Web site, I almost told her my fiance does sites and she should give him a call. But then I thought, maybe not the best idea, since he does a lot of work for Dave.

Also, this trip had the added effect of making me really, really want a real wedding. Not a big one, but a wedding nonetheless. But I know that if we wait to get married until we can afford a real wedding, it'll be ANOTHER year, maybe more, that we'll stay in Engaged Limbo, and I'll risk becoming like Pam Beesly on "The Office." So that's frustrating. Wanting that day, but not being able to afford it in the least.

But my question is this: How crappy would it be, knowing the story and knowing what happened, to do business with her, either by buying flowers for my fictional wedding or by recommending her to D? What she did was pretty underhanded, but she seems to like doing what she's doing.

I don't know, but I'm feeling morally ambiguous.