Memories can be sweet, and sad.
Music can be pretty, and sad.
Travelling can be exciting, prosperous, and sad.
Family life can be fulfilling, and sad.
Truth can be worthy, beautiful, and free, but sad.
All things have their share of sadness inherent in them. Especially since nothing can last forever.
Forever - the saddest, most deceptive word in our language, created under false pretences.
But in making what we can out of life, by fulfilling it by our own honest means, then the sadness lessens, and can even become a blessing sometimes, when forever ends.
Kids can handle all sorts of things. They can - and learn to - deal with the inevitable facts of life that are hard and scary to face, like death and betrayal. They are born with tougher skins and more sense than we give them perchance to demonstrate. I know, for I was one of them.
I'm sure that when I end up stabbing myself with my pens, it is a subconscious punishment to myself.
Monday, 8 February 2016
Sunday, 7 February 2016
Scribble #7
Teachers can be prophets as well.
Aunts are fairy godmothers.
I am negligent. Often lazy. In the dark, I keep creating so many ideas but I don't do anything with them; they don't manifest outwardly. I'm sure in reality I'm ready - ready to leave fantasy and book land. I will write everyday. I will sort out and trim my ideas, judging which work and which don't.
Aunts are fairy godmothers.
I am negligent. Often lazy. In the dark, I keep creating so many ideas but I don't do anything with them; they don't manifest outwardly. I'm sure in reality I'm ready - ready to leave fantasy and book land. I will write everyday. I will sort out and trim my ideas, judging which work and which don't.
Saturday, 6 February 2016
Non-Fiction Book Review - 'Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman' by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
We are all filled with a longing for the wild. There are few culturally sanctioned antidotes for this yearning. We were taught to feel shame for such a desire. We grew our hair long and used it to hide our feelings. But the shadow of Wild Woman still lurks behind us during our days and in our nights. No matter where we are, the shadow that trots behind us is definitely four-footed. - Foreword by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.
To even attempt to review such a tome as this feels like a sacrilege; a great disrespect to something sacred, omnipotent. For no words - no written language - can begin to convey the wholesome power that weaves within.
'Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman' is my favourite non-fiction book of all time. It is in my heart as well as my bookshelf; it is my spirit guide; it is a big part of my book lover's life.
Normally I don't read texts that have to do with spirituality and psychology, and this one doesn't exactly call itself feminist (though there are undeniable elements told), but all good scrolls possess inner beauty; in that not only do they keep giving profound knowledge unto their readers (about the world - and themselves), but each reread is a new experience. It is a continuous cycle - stories about unburied treasures, new discoveries of the human mind. These kinds of texts trust readers to think for themselves, and to build upon and reach their own divine journeys.
'Women Who Run With The Wolves' is this kind of experience. It is like ambrosia encased and bound in literature form. It is magical, it is mysticism, it is imagination, it is healing, it is transcendence, and it is transformation. It is an oracle, a mother, a shaman, a forest path into lands unknown. It is a phenomena waiting to be thirsted upon by everyone.
And when that first brilliant nourishment is finished, you realise that life isn't over, it only just begun when you first picked the book up. Never again should you feel compelled to be "normal" and confined in a society which shuns individuality. In any backdrop or province, never feel ashamed to be creative, to be different and an outsider. To be a woman.
To be wild and free. There's no pejorative language here. Let us shake off the various forms of toxic, oppressive shackles, and feel pure as a newborn pup again, in body and soul.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés' masterpiece is about freedom in the human psyche. And about the medicine in stories.
I won't say it will change your life, which would be a lie. It tells you your life is already changing, all the time: It is set to change for your own good, for the wellbeing of your wild, ungrounded soul (which itself never changes). You just need to recognise, by unrepentant intuition, that such power within you has always existed. It wants to be free; and it may tell you so in the ways communicated in dreams.
'Women Who Run With The Wolves' warmly teaches you how to make contact with and set your "Wild Woman" archetype running, fighting and howling. It teaches you to never give up on creativity, to preserve it, to never break down and give in to procrastination and the mundane; and feel self-confident and overflowing with love through and through.
It could help women dealing with depression and anxiety. It could help them to wake up and save themselves, to not live as prey, and be their true selves.
This wonderful codex also contains everything I love: Stories. Analysing obscure fairy tales and fables and their symbols. Animal symbolism. Digging into human psychology, and how the mortal mind works in layers. Exploring the unconscious. Female positivity. Healthy family and friendship positivity. Analysing and feeding the soul and its latent characteristics. Analysing people's relationships with each other, and with life and death.
It is about women and their potential - in a world wishing to cage them like animals.
But all animals, and their instincts, deserve to be free. Such confinement and stigmatisation is not natural.
Even if you are not religious, or don't believe in anything to do with spirituality, read 'Women Who Run With The Wolves'. I may sound preposterous for saying this, but it is impossible for this book not to have a soulful effect - an impact - on people.
Really it deserves no review or criticism. It is an experience.
For that reason, I have decided not to give 'Women Who Run With The Wolves' a score. I firmly, tearfully, heartily believe such things are rendered irrelevant when it comes to this beauty. It is to be held lovingly in hands, arms and paws. It is a teacher whose lessons shall be followed, print by print, sprint by sprint, forever.
While I’m not perfect, and have a lot to learn, and starve still, I feel comfortable in calling myself a wild woman. Hear me howl in the night.
To even attempt to review such a tome as this feels like a sacrilege; a great disrespect to something sacred, omnipotent. For no words - no written language - can begin to convey the wholesome power that weaves within.
'Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman' is my favourite non-fiction book of all time. It is in my heart as well as my bookshelf; it is my spirit guide; it is a big part of my book lover's life.
Normally I don't read texts that have to do with spirituality and psychology, and this one doesn't exactly call itself feminist (though there are undeniable elements told), but all good scrolls possess inner beauty; in that not only do they keep giving profound knowledge unto their readers (about the world - and themselves), but each reread is a new experience. It is a continuous cycle - stories about unburied treasures, new discoveries of the human mind. These kinds of texts trust readers to think for themselves, and to build upon and reach their own divine journeys.
'Women Who Run With The Wolves' is this kind of experience. It is like ambrosia encased and bound in literature form. It is magical, it is mysticism, it is imagination, it is healing, it is transcendence, and it is transformation. It is an oracle, a mother, a shaman, a forest path into lands unknown. It is a phenomena waiting to be thirsted upon by everyone.
And when that first brilliant nourishment is finished, you realise that life isn't over, it only just begun when you first picked the book up. Never again should you feel compelled to be "normal" and confined in a society which shuns individuality. In any backdrop or province, never feel ashamed to be creative, to be different and an outsider. To be a woman.
To be wild and free. There's no pejorative language here. Let us shake off the various forms of toxic, oppressive shackles, and feel pure as a newborn pup again, in body and soul.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés' masterpiece is about freedom in the human psyche. And about the medicine in stories.
I won't say it will change your life, which would be a lie. It tells you your life is already changing, all the time: It is set to change for your own good, for the wellbeing of your wild, ungrounded soul (which itself never changes). You just need to recognise, by unrepentant intuition, that such power within you has always existed. It wants to be free; and it may tell you so in the ways communicated in dreams.
'Women Who Run With The Wolves' warmly teaches you how to make contact with and set your "Wild Woman" archetype running, fighting and howling. It teaches you to never give up on creativity, to preserve it, to never break down and give in to procrastination and the mundane; and feel self-confident and overflowing with love through and through.
It could help women dealing with depression and anxiety. It could help them to wake up and save themselves, to not live as prey, and be their true selves.
This wonderful codex also contains everything I love: Stories. Analysing obscure fairy tales and fables and their symbols. Animal symbolism. Digging into human psychology, and how the mortal mind works in layers. Exploring the unconscious. Female positivity. Healthy family and friendship positivity. Analysing and feeding the soul and its latent characteristics. Analysing people's relationships with each other, and with life and death.
It is about women and their potential - in a world wishing to cage them like animals.
But all animals, and their instincts, deserve to be free. Such confinement and stigmatisation is not natural.
Even if you are not religious, or don't believe in anything to do with spirituality, read 'Women Who Run With The Wolves'. I may sound preposterous for saying this, but it is impossible for this book not to have a soulful effect - an impact - on people.
Really it deserves no review or criticism. It is an experience.
For that reason, I have decided not to give 'Women Who Run With The Wolves' a score. I firmly, tearfully, heartily believe such things are rendered irrelevant when it comes to this beauty. It is to be held lovingly in hands, arms and paws. It is a teacher whose lessons shall be followed, print by print, sprint by sprint, forever.
While I’m not perfect, and have a lot to learn, and starve still, I feel comfortable in calling myself a wild woman. Hear me howl in the night.
Friday, 5 February 2016
Scribble #6
Keep moving. A burst of freedom - run forward; towards, not away. For even in the darkness, you are the unhidden light.
I will not feel embarrassed to daydream in public again. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Dreaming of all kinds shows us we are human.
Gosh, that new, fresh pillow smell...
I will not feel embarrassed to daydream in public again. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Dreaming of all kinds shows us we are human.
Gosh, that new, fresh pillow smell...
Non-Fiction Book Review - 'Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism's Work Is Done' by Susan J. Douglas
Feminist text published in 2010.
This book can change your life.
'Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism's Work Is Done' is a nonfiction textbook so powerful, containing analyses so universal and all-encompassing, that it would take an eternity to list every important issue and factor the author touches on in our media-obsessed culture. It is still relevant, and its subjects ought to bear discussion today.
Susan J. Douglas single-handedly hits home and dislodges the myth that sexism no longer exists, so that pesky old-wave/fad called feminism is outdated, no longer needed, belongs in history books (yet ironically is almost never taught in schools, because a curriculum allowing people to think critically about and discuss gender issues and equality? Oooh! Unthinkable! Too scary).
Just look at all the butt-kicking, smart, independent "strong female characters" (urgh) popularising TV and movies from the 80s to the 21st century - on the surface, fiction loves women, therefore there's absolutely nothing more to be done when it comes to reality.
Look at all the attention women are getting in magazines! Those never-satisfied feminists should be grateful: Their demands are met, so they ought to bugger off now and leave us alone, to die like the dodo.
At least, that's what the white supremacist, fragile, threatened, pretend-it-doesn't-exist system called the patriarchy wants us to think. In fact, this system is responsible for making sexism more pervasive, more acceptable and normalised, more hostile and hateful to women than ever before. But by using the subtle language of "enlightened sexism" - the illusion that women "have it all" and are "equal" compared to when they obviously weren't in the past, so feminism can take a hike, right? - it makes sexism and misogyny exceedingly difficult to talk about, much less object to.
Disrespect towards women - expecting them to choose marriage and children over careers and true independence - is obvious everywhere, if we choose to really pay attention. Bullying, harassing, and even threatening the very existence of the female population (half the human race, remember); moulding us all into an ideal picture of the perfect, young, pure, thin, mostly white (everyone else is either made invisible or stereotyped negatively by the media), sexualized, fetishized, submissive, and caring, magical baby maker...
Woman = object of the male gaze (made straight by default). This is normalised still.
Thanks to the power of the popular, influential, fearmongering media in our lives, we are being conditioned to think feminism's job is done, to even see it as a taboo swear word worse than the other F-word. To hate it - in the most extreme cases blindly compare it to terrorism. After all, it's all about hairy, bra-burning, man-hating, baby-eating, and totally unfeminine lesbians, right? How could such widespread ignorance have happened, when we look at everything feminism has accomplished, and how much it has helped us as a growing, progressive society?
Patriarchy is slowly but surely undoing feminism's hard work of the past. It undermines women's fight for gender equality (women who are assertive and on top? gasp! Burn her! Mock her! Because...men are better at everything, for the penis is gospel, as we all know! Not because sexism benefits straight white men in any way! No unresolved issues with women here!). It ignores them, and favours and protects the welfare of men; bringing greater attention to their accomplishments while simultaneously overlooking or downplaying their faults (men are only human, after all, while women...are less human, somehow?). It strips women of their right to hold any sort of power for themselves, and to be taken seriously. It does so by highlighting their perceived flaws ad nauseam.
Patriarchy reduces women to bodies - commodities to be used and abused - and has their appearances and relationships with men under scrutiny 24/7, Big Brother-style. Anything real, living, breathing women do and say and achieve? Rendered unimportant; nothing is brought up to make them look good, or productive, at least without the benefit/favour of the other, more dominant gender. It is the exact opposite of what generally happens to successful (and unsuccessful) men.
In truth, behind the scenes, we haven't achieved equality; not in the long run. Overall, it is still viewed that a woman's job is to make men happy.
Read 'Enlightened Sexism' and uncover the patriarchy’s retrograde reassurances to keep white men in power - no matter the cost - and discover the power of words.
In the last chapter, the incredibly observant and intelligent Susan J. Douglas gives us a detailed description of a brighter future; one which benefits everyone. A fair, hopeful vision must come to life in this century, and stay that way.
Final Score: 5/5
This book can change your life.
'Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism's Work Is Done' is a nonfiction textbook so powerful, containing analyses so universal and all-encompassing, that it would take an eternity to list every important issue and factor the author touches on in our media-obsessed culture. It is still relevant, and its subjects ought to bear discussion today.
Susan J. Douglas single-handedly hits home and dislodges the myth that sexism no longer exists, so that pesky old-wave/fad called feminism is outdated, no longer needed, belongs in history books (yet ironically is almost never taught in schools, because a curriculum allowing people to think critically about and discuss gender issues and equality? Oooh! Unthinkable! Too scary).
Just look at all the butt-kicking, smart, independent "strong female characters" (urgh) popularising TV and movies from the 80s to the 21st century - on the surface, fiction loves women, therefore there's absolutely nothing more to be done when it comes to reality.
Look at all the attention women are getting in magazines! Those never-satisfied feminists should be grateful: Their demands are met, so they ought to bugger off now and leave us alone, to die like the dodo.
At least, that's what the white supremacist, fragile, threatened, pretend-it-doesn't-exist system called the patriarchy wants us to think. In fact, this system is responsible for making sexism more pervasive, more acceptable and normalised, more hostile and hateful to women than ever before. But by using the subtle language of "enlightened sexism" - the illusion that women "have it all" and are "equal" compared to when they obviously weren't in the past, so feminism can take a hike, right? - it makes sexism and misogyny exceedingly difficult to talk about, much less object to.
Disrespect towards women - expecting them to choose marriage and children over careers and true independence - is obvious everywhere, if we choose to really pay attention. Bullying, harassing, and even threatening the very existence of the female population (half the human race, remember); moulding us all into an ideal picture of the perfect, young, pure, thin, mostly white (everyone else is either made invisible or stereotyped negatively by the media), sexualized, fetishized, submissive, and caring, magical baby maker...
Woman = object of the male gaze (made straight by default). This is normalised still.
Thanks to the power of the popular, influential, fearmongering media in our lives, we are being conditioned to think feminism's job is done, to even see it as a taboo swear word worse than the other F-word. To hate it - in the most extreme cases blindly compare it to terrorism. After all, it's all about hairy, bra-burning, man-hating, baby-eating, and totally unfeminine lesbians, right? How could such widespread ignorance have happened, when we look at everything feminism has accomplished, and how much it has helped us as a growing, progressive society?
Patriarchy is slowly but surely undoing feminism's hard work of the past. It undermines women's fight for gender equality (women who are assertive and on top? gasp! Burn her! Mock her! Because...men are better at everything, for the penis is gospel, as we all know! Not because sexism benefits straight white men in any way! No unresolved issues with women here!). It ignores them, and favours and protects the welfare of men; bringing greater attention to their accomplishments while simultaneously overlooking or downplaying their faults (men are only human, after all, while women...are less human, somehow?). It strips women of their right to hold any sort of power for themselves, and to be taken seriously. It does so by highlighting their perceived flaws ad nauseam.
Patriarchy reduces women to bodies - commodities to be used and abused - and has their appearances and relationships with men under scrutiny 24/7, Big Brother-style. Anything real, living, breathing women do and say and achieve? Rendered unimportant; nothing is brought up to make them look good, or productive, at least without the benefit/favour of the other, more dominant gender. It is the exact opposite of what generally happens to successful (and unsuccessful) men.
In truth, behind the scenes, we haven't achieved equality; not in the long run. Overall, it is still viewed that a woman's job is to make men happy.
Read 'Enlightened Sexism' and uncover the patriarchy’s retrograde reassurances to keep white men in power - no matter the cost - and discover the power of words.
In the last chapter, the incredibly observant and intelligent Susan J. Douglas gives us a detailed description of a brighter future; one which benefits everyone. A fair, hopeful vision must come to life in this century, and stay that way.
Final Score: 5/5
Thursday, 4 February 2016
Scribble #5
Money means nothing. Just what is it worth, in of itself? It makes the world go round. Okay. But if we are to measure someone's whole character and worth based on how much money is on their person, I advise we look at some of the richest people in the rotating world. They have more than they are worth - in character. In fact, they are the poor. They are worth f&^%*ck all.
Sunday, 31 January 2016
Non-Fiction Book Review - 'The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women' by Jessica Valenti
"Purity"
"Abstinence"
"Chastity"
"Value" (equals no sex)
"Virginity"
For those who are utterly sick of these made-up words filled with made-up meanings conceived by men in order to control and shame women, 'The Purity Myth' is for you.
All the above words have the same fundamental purpose: To keep women young and caged. To keep their "chastity" - perceived cleanliness - fetishized, their value as a person to lie in their "pureness", their morality to depend on how much sex they have. Women as inexperienced, childlike, feminine, unsullied, not "dirty", and as submissive commodities.
Or keep women like un-sucked lollipops, un-plucked flowers, un-popped cherries (urgh! WHY?), and keep men like natural sex predators who need to have sex early with the "pure" girls (see the nonsensical contradiction and double standard already?).
It's just to keep women from doing anything at all, really, so they'll stay at home as ideal, silent wives and mothers, available for men to do as they please to them.
The US epidemic, the "virginity-movement", as the author describes it, and abstinence-only education - which is proven again and again never to work but is prioritised over actual, effective and safe sex education regardless, that's how entrenched our male-dominated society is in controlling women's sexuality - these really feel like a widespread cult. It's a system aiming to reinforce old sexist ideas to "protect" women, and empower men as the "keys" to open clean "locks" or passive "gatekeepers" (this rhetoric makes no sense whatsoever, but that's misogynistic double standards for you). It's another method of treating women like property to be owned and passed down from man to man - from father to husband. Women are continuously discouraged from having a choice in how they express their sexuality and live out their sexual lives - or even from thinking about it, except as a dirty thing only dirty, "impure" girls do. They aren't given the information they need for a healthy sex life, because the idea of a woman even having a sex life (especially if it isn't to please men) is viewed as immoral, unnatural.
It is natural. It is the idea of virginity and purity which is the dangerous lie.
Jessica Valenti writes like a kind, reassuring and savvy friend. She sources the facts, sites real stories relating to how the obsession with women's sex and virginity - how it is they who are made to be responsible for men's actions towards them - is endangering them. She analyses this issue and takes into account all its widespread, complicated angles (What is virginity, exactly? It doesn't physically, biologically exist, so how is it meant to work? Where did the notion come from? etc...)
There is America's disturbingly common tradition of the creepy "purity balls", filled with incestuous undertones and overtones (it's all about ownership; suddenly "daddy's little girl" takes on a much darker subtext). Abstinence pledges (which boys don't have to take, or aren't pressured to be as serious about it, because their sex lives are not made a huge part of who they are by society's standards, and they are not shamed because "Boys will be boys"). The culture of men and macho "manliness" applying to dominance and remaining above women in human rights.
There's the continuously-controversial debate on the rights to abortion - where the decisions are made, dictated and controlled by the men in the US and other governments. Their approaches to this include prioritising the humanity of the foetus over the pregnant woman (even hiring lawyers for the foetus, I wish I was joking), treating women like clueless idiots, and using scare and shame tactics to try to discourage them from having abortions. Even today, available US abortion health clinics are at risk - it is all about taking away women's right to make choices for herself, with or without a man's permission (I am pro-choice).
There's “femiphobia”, the patriarchy-created-and-controlled Madonna/Whore complex, the illogical fallacy of victim-blaming - which stems from misogyny, rape-apologists and the media's and law's desperate attempts to shift responsibility from the rapists, and how the "virginity-movement" completely erases the existence of the queer community and the experiences of anyone who isn't white, skinny, English-speaking, and of traditional, attractive and "safe" Christian values.
It's all ludicrous and insidious. When it comes to sex and women, it's all about dehumanising women - distrusting them, confining them, taking away their liberties, shaming them into traditional gender norms of marriage and sex only for procreation. Remember, sex for any other reason is immoral in a female; once she's seen as a slut or a whore, she is no longer worthy of human status as far as the patriarchy/virginity-movement is concerned (not that she had been respected much as a person before).
She is seen as less than nothing, because lord forbid that women enjoy sex.
This needs to stop now.
I love 'The Purity Myth' - an absolute must-read feminist book. So shocking, so utterly unbelievable, yet the stories included really are wretchedly happening. So reassuring - the end chapter gives the reader information about existing sex-positive, feminist factions that are honest and aspire to shatter purity myths in our ever-changing culture.
Mainly about America, but whose problems are present in other countries as well, here is a collection of important facts about the awful, over-funded epidemic of abstinence-only education, and the obsession with women's non-existent virginity status above everything else about her as a valued human being.
For girls, being good means sex after marriage, for marriage and babies is all the virginity-movement expects from them. Through communication, let us change that!
Final Score: 5/5
"Abstinence"
"Chastity"
"Value" (equals no sex)
"Virginity"
For those who are utterly sick of these made-up words filled with made-up meanings conceived by men in order to control and shame women, 'The Purity Myth' is for you.
All the above words have the same fundamental purpose: To keep women young and caged. To keep their "chastity" - perceived cleanliness - fetishized, their value as a person to lie in their "pureness", their morality to depend on how much sex they have. Women as inexperienced, childlike, feminine, unsullied, not "dirty", and as submissive commodities.
Or keep women like un-sucked lollipops, un-plucked flowers, un-popped cherries (urgh! WHY?), and keep men like natural sex predators who need to have sex early with the "pure" girls (see the nonsensical contradiction and double standard already?).
It's just to keep women from doing anything at all, really, so they'll stay at home as ideal, silent wives and mothers, available for men to do as they please to them.
The US epidemic, the "virginity-movement", as the author describes it, and abstinence-only education - which is proven again and again never to work but is prioritised over actual, effective and safe sex education regardless, that's how entrenched our male-dominated society is in controlling women's sexuality - these really feel like a widespread cult. It's a system aiming to reinforce old sexist ideas to "protect" women, and empower men as the "keys" to open clean "locks" or passive "gatekeepers" (this rhetoric makes no sense whatsoever, but that's misogynistic double standards for you). It's another method of treating women like property to be owned and passed down from man to man - from father to husband. Women are continuously discouraged from having a choice in how they express their sexuality and live out their sexual lives - or even from thinking about it, except as a dirty thing only dirty, "impure" girls do. They aren't given the information they need for a healthy sex life, because the idea of a woman even having a sex life (especially if it isn't to please men) is viewed as immoral, unnatural.
It is natural. It is the idea of virginity and purity which is the dangerous lie.
Jessica Valenti writes like a kind, reassuring and savvy friend. She sources the facts, sites real stories relating to how the obsession with women's sex and virginity - how it is they who are made to be responsible for men's actions towards them - is endangering them. She analyses this issue and takes into account all its widespread, complicated angles (What is virginity, exactly? It doesn't physically, biologically exist, so how is it meant to work? Where did the notion come from? etc...)
There is America's disturbingly common tradition of the creepy "purity balls", filled with incestuous undertones and overtones (it's all about ownership; suddenly "daddy's little girl" takes on a much darker subtext). Abstinence pledges (which boys don't have to take, or aren't pressured to be as serious about it, because their sex lives are not made a huge part of who they are by society's standards, and they are not shamed because "Boys will be boys"). The culture of men and macho "manliness" applying to dominance and remaining above women in human rights.
There's the continuously-controversial debate on the rights to abortion - where the decisions are made, dictated and controlled by the men in the US and other governments. Their approaches to this include prioritising the humanity of the foetus over the pregnant woman (even hiring lawyers for the foetus, I wish I was joking), treating women like clueless idiots, and using scare and shame tactics to try to discourage them from having abortions. Even today, available US abortion health clinics are at risk - it is all about taking away women's right to make choices for herself, with or without a man's permission (I am pro-choice).
There's “femiphobia”, the patriarchy-created-and-controlled Madonna/Whore complex, the illogical fallacy of victim-blaming - which stems from misogyny, rape-apologists and the media's and law's desperate attempts to shift responsibility from the rapists, and how the "virginity-movement" completely erases the existence of the queer community and the experiences of anyone who isn't white, skinny, English-speaking, and of traditional, attractive and "safe" Christian values.
It's all ludicrous and insidious. When it comes to sex and women, it's all about dehumanising women - distrusting them, confining them, taking away their liberties, shaming them into traditional gender norms of marriage and sex only for procreation. Remember, sex for any other reason is immoral in a female; once she's seen as a slut or a whore, she is no longer worthy of human status as far as the patriarchy/virginity-movement is concerned (not that she had been respected much as a person before).
She is seen as less than nothing, because lord forbid that women enjoy sex.
This needs to stop now.
I love 'The Purity Myth' - an absolute must-read feminist book. So shocking, so utterly unbelievable, yet the stories included really are wretchedly happening. So reassuring - the end chapter gives the reader information about existing sex-positive, feminist factions that are honest and aspire to shatter purity myths in our ever-changing culture.
Mainly about America, but whose problems are present in other countries as well, here is a collection of important facts about the awful, over-funded epidemic of abstinence-only education, and the obsession with women's non-existent virginity status above everything else about her as a valued human being.
For girls, being good means sex after marriage, for marriage and babies is all the virginity-movement expects from them. Through communication, let us change that!
Final Score: 5/5
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