My rant for the week.

First of all, I would like to apologize for not speaking up more on this blog. Like the rest of you, I'm sure, I have been incredibly busy and put "blogging" on the back burner. It doesn't mean that I haven't been thinking about the issues. In fact, because I haven't had a place to channel my thoughts, I think that they've been building up...

Now for the rant on the disrespectful behavior of a couple men that I've encountered in the past week.

So I was at the Hennepin County Government Center last week to try to contest a ticket (long story short, I was supposed to have known not to park somewhere because they had put up temporary "no parking signs"--disregard the fact that they were invisible signs! Seriously! Not a single sign in sight! But that is besides the fact.) and I was passing this man who had just stepped on the escalator. As he stepped on, I could tell that he was looking at me--he had jerked his head suddenly to watch me walk by--and I did my best to ignore him. But it was as he continued to travel up the escalator, and I continued to walk away, I could hear him. It was literally like he was having sex with me not only with his eyes, but with his voice.

"Ooooo yeah," he muttered rather loudly. "That's real nice." And he continued to breath in sharply, hissing softly while repeating these pornographic words. "Ooooo, yeah. I want some of that." Softly, mind you, but still loudly enough that I could hear him from many feet away. As I realized that what he was saying and doing was about me, I walked faster and faster until I couldn't hear him any more. I was scared.

I've been cat-called before--I mean, in our culture it's hard not to be cat-called at least one time in your life. But this felt different. I am confident that though I did end up hearing what this man was saying about me, I was not meant to. The words that I heard were his words--meant only for him. Private words. At least with a cat-call, it is a form of communication. A man whistles loudly, says, "Hey, hot stuff!" And she turns and smiles and tosses her hair as she prances down the sidewalk. In reality, cat-calling makes me incredibly grumpy and I hate it, but at least the message is "Hey, I think you're hot, and I wanted to let you know!" And the woman has a chance to respond. With this man, I had no chance to respond. My response was not his goal. His goal was to disrespect me. See me as purely a sex object with no say in the matter. Absolutely disgusting!

I wrote sex object in the paragraph above and laughed aloud, and had you seen my outfit that day, you would have laughed as well. I hadn't showered, I was wearing a sweatshirt and a jacket. I was by no means "sexy." But if wearing a sweatshirt and jeans still caused this disrespectful speech, I can't even imagine what would have happened if I had been wearing something less "baggy and boyish." Because I truly believe that if you can have such awful and uninhibited speech in a public space, I don't even want to know what you would do to me in private.

Anyway, the other man was not nearly as creepy, but he definitely ogled this girl who was walking down the street. She WAS wearing a tight dress that may have been a bit shorter, but this man seriously turned his head sideways to look at her ass as she walked by. It made me immediately laugh out loud as I saw this, but then I wanted to vomit. I know that people get checked out all of the time. I check people out, too. But I feel like there is a respectful and disrespectful way.

Ok, I guess that is done for my actual ranting. Posted below is an additional article that one of my friends found. Though there is not a direct correlation between my rant and this article, I think that you may find a few shared themes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/23/ukcrime?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

Protecting our Servicewomen

In 2003, the Defense Department funded a survey. It found that almost a third of all servicewomen were the victims of rape or attempted rape while serving in the Armed Services. Almost ONE THIRD. But military bases are not required to stock their supplies with emergency contraception (i.e., EC or the morning after pill). Let's protect the women that protect us.

Here's the N.O.W. website with more information.

Please get involved. We're doing such a great job discussing these issues--let's take action!!!

On a positive note, we've made some progress...

Check out this empowering game for girls, circa 1966:

http://www.bradleysalmanac.com/2005/08/exciting-game-of-career-girls.htm

What if...the ERA had been passed?

Is this a coincidence? You tell me.

So today we talked about the history of feminism, the first and second wave...and the failure of the ERA...and then Kate mentions that Japan's constitution was drafted by our government and it includes EQUAL RIGHTS for both men and women.

And then this was on the front page of CNN.com. We wondered how life would be different if men and women were equal BY LAW in this country. Maybe we can take a hint from Japan. I am tongue in cheek, of course...I think. It is an interesting twist, nonetheless.

The Influence of Whiskey and Women

Here's a comical account of how women gained equality in traditional Hawaiian society. This is Mark Twain's interpretation of it, anyway.

"Old Kamehameha I was dead, and his son, Liholiho, the new King was a free liver, a roystering, dissolute fellow, and hated the restraints of the ancient tabu. His assistant in the Government, Kaahumanu, the Queen dowager, was proud and high-spirited, and hated the tabu because it restricted the priviledges of her sex and degraded all women very nearly to the level of brutes. So the case stood. Liholiho had half a mind to put his foot down, Kaahumanu had a whole mind to badger him into doing it, and whiskey did the rest. It was probably the rest. It was probably the first time whiskey ever prominently figured as an aid to civilization. Liholiho came up to Kailua as drunk as a piper, and attended a great feast; the determined Queen spurred his drunken courage up to a reckless pitch, and then, while all the multitude stared in blank dismay, he moved deliberately forward and sat down with the women! They saw him eat from the same vessel with them, and were appalled! Terrible moments drifted slowly by, and still the King ate, still he lived, still the lightnings of insulted gods were withheld! Then conviction came like a revelation--the superstitions of a hundred generations passed from before the people like a cloud, and a shout went up, "The tabu is broken! The tabu is broken!"

Moral of the story: the ERA could have used a little more whiskey.