I posted this on a message board, some people thought it was an interesting question.
Is it weird that I hate the concepts of families now and consider the "family" to be a primitive biological prison, that I hope humans evolve beyond? My husband to play devil's advocate talks about "brave new world" and Utopian commune solutions that failed when I bring this subject up. I think the tribes probably had the best system where one was not limited to nuclear families but had others, but many tribes and native cultures did not develop the numbers of psychopaths like we have in this one, or had ways to deal with them.
Also one thing I have noticed is the family seems to be the crucible of so much pain in our society ranging from child abuse to other violence, alcoholism, cut-throat competition, extreme authoritarianism coupled with religious programming and just plain misery. For most people who are related to their families, does DNA determine any true camaraderie? Imagine a world where a child could leave a family perhaps knowing there may be another they 'fit into" better. I know these are just some strange thoughts off the top of my head.
Saturday, November 3, 2018
What's On Your Refrigerator?
Have you ever seen one of those refrigerators plastered in magnets? I have. I had a grandmother who had a "magnet" collection on her refrigerator, the entire refrigerator was covered. The magnets were of roosters, places she's been, Disney characters, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, plastic fruit ones, alphabet letters and even magnets that could hold photos. When I was a kid, I would go and rearrange all those magnets. She didn't like that always but sometimes when she was in a good mood, she would let me "re-arrange" the fridge magnets.
I've seen other refrigerators that were much different. Some were covered in papers, mostly events and things that were happening while others served as their children's art gallery. The drawings plastering the whole fridge were of young hands making turkeys and crayon stick figures of Mom and Dad. One friend's refrigerator years ago was plastered in cut out comic-strips, they liked Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side, oddly they had plastered the downstairs bathroom with comics too, taped to the wall almost like an extension of the fridge. Still another friend, had a giant wall calendar stuck to the front of the fridge they were an organized person. She also kept an organized list of what foods she had run out of. I've also known people with blank refrigerators, with nothing on them.
Years ago I read a book called Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About Your Life by Sam Gosling a psychologist from the University of Texas. This book was very interesting to me. He wrote that that people who were more open, had more books, CDs and DVDS and more eclectic collections then less open people. Artists were more adventurous by far in their surroundings and were taste definers while others stayed with the mainstream.
Years ago I got in a discussion with a friend, and said, you know you can tell a lot about a person from what their house or apartments looks like, do they have books, is it messy, is it clean? Is the place decorated or do you have white walls staring you down with nothing to look at? Just like one can read handwriting, where bubbly letters point to extroversion and slanted left writing can speak of anger, one can read surroundings to figure people out. One can read everything from social class to hobbies to personality. The same also goes for the refrigerator, it is a micro-cosm of looking at the entire home.
A short-hand way to get a quick look at what someone is all about. It's interesting to see everyone's refrigerator door, you can learn a lot about a person about what's on their fridge, are they a sports nut? Do they keep shopping lists? Do they have a busy schedule or a more laid back one? Are they politically active? Refrigerators are to adults like folders are to kids in school. We drew all over our folders and put stickers on them. It was a personal statement.
The refrigerator being where the food and cold drinks are held, is the center of many homes. It is the first stage bulletin board. Before smart phones, it sometimes served as a message center for various families and a place to leave notes. Years ago I even had a marker board attached to the fridge, but it wore out and broke. I wouldn't mind another. I could write myself reminders on there. I'm a list maker and lists often cover my refrigerator. "Get the car oiled changed" is on a list I left on there.
Here is a poster I made, all this stuff has hung on my fridge at one time and most of it I took it off the other day. Included are a cartoon I drew--I kept journals for years in comic form and this is my character sitting on the beach and here's another one I drew. I have a lot of medical junk on my fridge, I threw up acouple of those on here, but the phone numbers and other things I have to remember is a lot. There's a few magnets, political and otherwise. This brochure is of a new store they opened, they were suppose to sell antiques, I haven't gotten over there yet. This one is of a local comic con, I went to. So my refrigerator shows a lot of my interests. Sometimes we clear off our fridge completely. I wonder what that represents where I just decide to wipe it clean, but then I am usually shoving all the needed pictures, information and paper left overs into folders, or other boxes. Maybe that's a period of transition, wipe the refrigerator clean and then start over.
Did you know there's a website called Check Their Fridge? Look up checktheirfridge.com Pictures of people's refrigerators are shown and analyzed to see if they would make good dates. Is the new wannabe boyfriend a nice guy? They look inside the fridges at what food they have and how messy they are. Sometimes they do look at the pictures and magnets on the fridge. It's interesting to see what they say about people's refrigerators both inside and out. I find myself thinking some of their predictions are accurate.
[this was done as a reading at my local UU church, it did make me think a lot about what I saw on the front of my own refrigerator and that of others]
Nancy Grows Up
I've gotten into Nancy comics from the 1940s, some of them are pretty insightful. Of course Nancy didn't know of :"Big is Beautiful" back then!
Nancy is Happy Tumblr
Monday, October 8, 2018
They Do Want to Subjugate Women
The Kavenaugh debacle was rough on me and many others. The Republicans gave a big middle finger to women nationally putting a wannabe rapist on the Supreme Court. Remember they could have chosen a man or woman who was not a would be rapist or sex abuser and didn't have all that baggage, but they wanted Mr. Patriot Act and defender of extreme presidential pardons put into that office. You know years ago moderate Republicans used to have an idea of treating women with some respect but these present day extremists and monsters don't care. So if you are a Republican woman, this article is to warn you too. They do want to subjugate women.
It's time to wake up and smell the coffee. I woke up and realized I had been led to false ideas about feminism when I wrote the old article Not a Fan of Feminism. I realized it wasn't the feminists bringing the economic oppression but other forces in society. Here too, is where my own religious indoctrination influenced me in a negative way. I now have returned to feminist ideals.
Since Trump brought the racists out of the closet with their pointy hoods in Charlottesville, I suspect now sexism is going to increase and sexual violence is going to grow. Rapey sociopathic frat boys and red pill woman-hating incels will now cheer! The good ole boy club doesn't care, you are just an object to them. Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor, and while Reagan had major faults bringing us false trickle down economics, at least back then conservative men at least wanted to make an appearance of respecting woman. Now that's gone with "Grab them by the Pussy" Trump leading the charge. They don't care, and they aren't pretending anymore, the gloves are off.
One thing, let's keep in mind that now the Republican and evangelical/conservative Christian world is joined at the hip. Many don't pay attention to these religious roots, but they have grown stronger ever since the Tea Party came into vogue and the Republican party moved further to the right.
The blatant disrespect of women is not by accident. Trump is their front bad boy to play cover, while they work on bringing us hardcore Dominionism and Theocracy. Few realize Kavenaugh even came out against birth control. Think about that as most focus on the possible demise of Roe Vs. Wade. I never could under pro-lifers who wanted to do away with all the birth control, but that's about oppression too. Activists are dressing in red robes and white bonnets, knowing that The Handmaid's Tale could be made into reality.
handmaid tale protesters
Many people don't know this, but in the evangelical world, biblical partriarchy is being advanced. It is a movement of it's own. I warn people how bad it is, but I am not sure many believe me. It's march was first hand to me. It's messages were preached to me from many pulpits and at Christian conferences and bible studies. The Duggars support it and the homeschooling world but I noticed a change in all the churches I had attended and visited. This included mainstream evangelical and mainline churches, all of them were teaching that women should obey men. These ideas aren't just in the fundamentalist world. To refuse to submit as a wife definitely made you a sinner. Radical feminists were the devil's daughters.
In the IFB they had me read Fascinating Womanhood a book that said women had to submit to keep their marriages happy. I got in trouble at one women's bible study at my old IFB, saying I thought the book was nonsense and no woman could survive being a blind follower to men. Maybe they should have done me a favor and thrown me out of the church but I remember mutterings about me having an unsaved husband and "not understanding" because I was then a "babe in Christ".
These issues also came up later at a book club in a mainline Lutheran church, we read a book called Redeeming Love. I told the other book club members, this historical fiction book taught women to submit to controlling and abusive men, and they disagreed with me. One pointed out, "we are supposed to obey men". I noticed this message in mainstream evangelical churches too, including in one conference, where they told the women there, men were to have leadership in the home and they were not to misled by feminism.
The big word was "Complementarianism" in Christian circles and it meant women were to stay within their role and obey their husbands.
Here is the Nashville Statement in favor of Complementarianism. The Nashville Statement was signed by thousands of top evangelical leaders. Notice the key word SUBMISSIVE is used within this document.
Have you ever wondered why these evangelicals focus so much on commanding everyone's bedrooms and now their personal at home lives? It's about power. They want the women to submit and not question. Power is easier to obtain when you have shamed half of the population into meek subservience and thinking that God Himself ordered it. This is why the white old boy's club--even the ones who are now into their 80s, can treat women like trash and get away with it. Some have equated God's will with the subjugation of women.
The evangelicals love power, while they claim these things are about religion and restoring the order and goodness of society, it is all about power. This is Dominator vs. Persuader Society stuff. Someone always has to be in charge and vying for power in Dominator Societies. The religion itself is about power. Thousands of Christian and religious leaders signed a document that calls directly for women to submit. This document was called The Nashville Statement. At the link you can see who signed it. It was written by a group called The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. They are one of the groups who are the biggest promoters of biblical patriarchy and Dominionism. Lest you think this is just some "small" group of a few extremists, realize it's connections to top Republican politicians. Michele Bachmann supports it's endeavors. There are members of the Family Research Council in this group including Tony Perkins.
James Dobson as well as many other notables signed it. Some of these men are advisors to Trump and on his evangelical council. So don't dismiss this stuff as just a few religious nuts trying to lord over women in their churches, they want women lorded over nation wide. They do have the reigns of power now. This is one reason the blue wave is important and you must go vote. The evangelical Dominionists do have Catholic allies for their pursuit of religious and political power, and Kavenaugh is definitely among that number.
I left Christianity because I believe it is an authoritarian religion at it's root, but I know there are Christians who are not authoritarian in outlook, problem is these are, and they have millions supporting them who want women, and other minorities too be subjugated. The racism goes with the hatred for women.
Kavenaugh's placement in the Supreme Court, was a dismissal of all women nation wide. A man of any integrity even if innocent would have withdrawn and not presented himself as angry and belligerent talking about "liking beer". He didn't look innocent at all to me. His facial expressions took me right back to "I am always right!" narcissistic rages. He didn't have the look of a man falsely accused either begging to get his name cleared but the arrogance of someone who plans to get their way no matter what and is used to getting it too. The gaslighting stunk up the whole nation especially when he and his friends claimed Devil's Triangle was a drinking game instead of a threesome. Anyone who has been a victim of abuse and has any degree of being "woke" to them, knew that guy was lying out his teeth.
I grew up in the upper middle class Catholic culture. Ironically some of those years were in the Washington DC area, with government worker parents. I grew up being taught too in the Catholic church that men were in charge, after all women couldn't be priests. I've seen Kavenaugh's type among many legions of drunk dead-eyed frat boys, including one who in college tried to sleep with me because I was a fat girl for a fraternity contest. That smaller guy didn't try to jump or rape me unlike others but the disrespect was there. He left after I rejected his advances.
I was brought up with the idea men were worth far more then girls. While I drove the old family station wagon later as a teen in fly-over country, my year older brother drove a new gold Trans-Am. After all I was told he was going to be continuing the family name. I was told as a girl my main job was to be pretty, and to have babies. Because I failed on normative standards of beauty, I was treated like a boy but without all the privileges of being male because I was female. Femininity in my family was equated to being second class, and lower status. Boys were far more higher status.
When there is no appreciation or love of women in a family, abuse for women is a given. I watched my father excuse the domestic violence against his own sister. He treated me with disrespect and abuse as well. Do you want this for an entire nation? Well these sad excuses for leaders are bringing it unless people start standing up.
Boys will be boys ethos was all around me. Because I was not a pretty thin girl and was the scapegoat, I was treated like Meg in Family Guy, where I was smacked around like a dude and had to fight. It occurred to me, even how when my brother told me to F off, when I am 50 year old disabled woman, that really spoke more of one man fighting another man then how a brother should ever talk to a sister, fight or no fight. My brother once stopped traffic on a major highway to impress a girl. He drove his car side by side with hers, and blocked miles of traffic for a long period of time. A poorer black or even poor white kid would have seen the inside of the juvenile home, but he never did. It was a slap on the wrist and nothing else. He was never told by my parents to protect me as a brother or to treat me with any respect. He wasn't the golden child, but because he was male, his status was far higher.
Disrespect for women was paramount in my family so what I saw on the national stage was nothing new. Women's ideas were discounted. Basic respect thrown out the window. For many of us it was reliving abusive moments in our lives like when I got grabbed in the breasts at one job surrounded by male laughter about my weight, and I jammed the guy hard with my elbows ready to start punching and because I fought back, they then left me alone. And what of us who have faced sexual assault attempted or completed and other sexual abuse? This last week, with an abusive man in our faces imposed upon the nation as a JUDGE, was triggering. Narcissists don't care what people think. They don't try to resolve anything either. They just lie.
It was reliving basic disrespect, dismissal and being devalued by men for many women. There's a point in a nation where evil is reigning and we are at that time now. If you are a woman, realize these men want to subjugate women. Many of them are using religion to do it. Many of them are getting you to vote and support malignant narcissists and sociopaths. If your religion is telling you to support these men, maybe you need to rethink what you are being told.
#Ididntreport
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