I know sleeping your way to the top is supposed to be a “woman’s” issue. We’re the ones that are supposed to fight to be rewarded for our minds and not our bodies but over the weekend I found that it’s not a “woman’s” issues. It’s a people issue.
I live in L.A and work in entertainment so I hear a lot of “casting couch” stories. Mostly young girls and old casting guys and there are always the “star-f***ers” as they are so affectionately referred to. But this weekend while having drinks at a bar two men and I were chatting about the “industry”.
We all had a “huge male celebrity” story. Mine was nothing like theirs…because their story was about how this “huge male celebrity” wanted to sleep with them. That’s right. A widely known, widely respected, hugely popular, hugely in the closet actor had tried to get both of these men to hook up. He used his name to try and get in their pants.
Doesn’t this story sound familiar? The only difference was these guys said, “I’m not gay—and even though it’s “huge male celebrity” I just can’t do it”. They declined an offer from someone with huge success, huge resources, and the opportunity to get them somewhere.
We can argue that it’s because they wouldn’t engage in homosexual activity…but that’s just a sexual activity they don’t want to partake in. I highly doubt all the girls that sleep their way to the top like the men they are doing it with or like the things the men ask them to do. I’m also pretty sure these men ask for the nasty things they can think of because they know these girls won’t say no.
It got me thinking—it’s not a can’t say no—they just won’t. So what is it about men that they can say no to sex they don’t want to have but women feel like they shouldn’t?

I’m not Germany’s biggest fan. I have nothing against wanting to conquer the world—that’s been my dream since preschool. I do take issue with the Holocaust. I know that it’s been a while and that the vast majority of the people who were behind that horrible genocidal brutality are dead, but some stains take a while to fade, you know? The fact that their language sounds like a combination of angry Klingon and the Black Speech of Mordor doesn’t gain them any bonus points.

As I understand, Germany has beautiful weather (cold and gray—honestly I don’t understand why the tropics even have humans in them I can’t even stand temperatures of seventy degrees). Germany also has beautiful forests. Oddly enough, in more recent times, Germany has some very sensible policies.

One of them is that homeschooling is illegal. Germany is not alone in this, but it was nice to see and honestly kind of shifted my opinion of Germany.

Kind of like how sometimes you have an acquaintance about whom you have basically no positive opinions, and then you find out that he or she watches the same show that you do and suddenly you’re talking all of the time.

I am strongly opposed to homeschooling.

It’s not just that many states have very few requirements for homeschooling. It’s not just that homeschooling is a tool of choice for child-abusers to avoid being caught—your child’s teacher won’t report injuries or alarming changes in behavior if your child’s “teacher” is the parent who is causing them.

And it’s not just the social awkwardness—not all homeschooled children end up socially awkward as children or adults. Some do, absolutely, but I’ve had homeschooled friends whom I would never have guessed were homeschooled if they had not told me.

All children have the right to a real education. They have a right to socialize with their peers—not just children from families with whom their parents choose to associate. Children are not property—they deserve the opportunities to meet other people and make their own friends and to learn about the world through a filter beyond their families. Happening to have the functional reproductive organs that brought a child into existence does not make you qualified to control everything to which your child is or is not exposed.

Just because Germany’s laws are sensible enough to ban homeschooling does not mean that all of Germany’s citizens agree with that—in every country, there are more or less always going to be a small group of people who just suck. Some families have left Germany (and other European nations with similar laws protecting the welfare of children) and sought asylum in the United States and elsewhere, in places where they can homeschool their children.

If you move to a different county to live in a better school district, that’s great. But I cannot imagine being so terrified of my child living in the world that I would switch continents just to micromanage every face that my child sees, but there are crazy people who will do just that.

If you feel that public school education is lacking, you are always welcome to supplement your child’s education at home. But to keep them out of a real school just so that you can teach them that gravity is a lie or that dinosaur bones are a trick by the Devil, you’re doing very real and lasting harm. And it’s not just scary fringe-right people who homeschool—some families on the opposite end of the political spectrum homeschool their children to keep them from being “indoctrinated by the corporate oligarchy.” Some people leave controlling homeschool environment and become independent thinkers, successful artists, and social success stories. Others don’t. But parents don’t have the right to take that gamble with their child’s life, whether their intentions are pure or they’re afraid that their children might make friends who are gay or minorities.

So, well done, Germany. I doubt that I’ll ever not think of Nazis when I think of Germany, but the more good that Germany does, the smaller the Third Reich’s piece of the German association pie chart will become.

This would be a precious story if it had not begun with a violent and vicious attack upon a twelve-year-old girl. She was abducted by seven men and she was then beaten because they wanted her to marry one of them.

While hitting a child is unacceptable under all circumstances, this is a particularly brutal story. And apparently, in Ethiopia (where this occurred), it is not uncommon for young girls to be abducted, raped, and tortured to get them to agree to marriages.

Kidnapping young girls has long been part of the marriage custom in Ethiopia. The United Nations estimates that more than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction, practiced in rural areas where most of the country’s 71 million people live.

Absolutely sickening.

In this particular case, the story has a happier ending than most. And please remember that, in the US, child-abductions are usually carried out by someone acting alone or perhaps by a couple—in either case, a lone good Samaritan (particularly a looming giant like myself) would be enough to frighten off some abductors. That would not be the case with a seven-man kidnapping.

However, there is something that does frighten seven grown men, and that’s lions. Specifically, three lions. The article did not specify anything beyond that they were Ethiopian lions (pretty standard, since they were in Ethiopia), but given that they were working together, I would assume that these were three female* lions.

The girl, who was crying out in pain, was clearly in distress. The three female lions came running up . . . I’d say “like a bat out of hell,” but, honestly, “like three angry lions” sounds way, way scarier. The seven awful attackers ran away (tragically, none of them were mauled or killed). The lions did not attack the girl. They also did not leave. Instead, the three lions guarded the injured child for about half a day, until authorities showed up, at which point the lions stopped guarding and just walked away.

In the words of one of the men who found her, Sgt. Wondimu: “They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest.”

I wish that there were a few lions waiting nearby to spring into action for every act of violence—particularly those against women and children, who are so frequently the victims.

Whether the lions just responded to the general dickishness of a bunch of adults attacking a child or whether they somehow “confused” the cries of distress that the girl made with cries from a lion cub (which I don’t entirely buy—sentient mammals who aren’t psychopaths tend to have an instinctive desire to care for the young, even of enemy species), this is a great story.

Also, I now know enough more about Ethiopia and want to put it higher on my list of “countries that I want to conquer to rescue their people from each other.”

*Among lions, the males grow their big manes and have penises, but the females are the super awesome badass lions. They do the hunting and guard their territory—male lions mostly just contend with rival male lions. And while it sounds like the male gets to lay back while the females do all of the work, remember that the female lions may become fed up and kill the male lion if he is weak or otherwise displeases them. You can find pictures online of male lions in captivity crouching in corners while a female lion growls or roars at the male. Lady lions are badasses.

There has been a steady rise in non-affiliated religious people across the past twenty years. This is perhaps due to the “inverse relationship between modernization and religion” and growing acceptance of science. However, religion still plays a part in what many people consider being right versus wrong, and therefore can change a person’s actions.

In a nutshell, we seem to hate on religion around here. Whether you believe or not, religion still has it’s perks.

Considering the Torah, a woman is supposed to maintain peace in the household, or Shalom Bayit. Obviously, peace in the household is the desired state, but is it acceptable for a man to harm a woman for not maintaining the peace? Others use the Qur’an to justify abuse, and some Christians cite Ephesians 5:21-33 (the Bible) in the concept that wives are supposed to fully submit to husbands.

All three holy books consider divorce to be a sin. Therefore, if a woman is to leave an abusive situation and become divorced, she may have to sever ties to her religious community. Many religious leaders give bad advice or attempt to cover up abusive situations, due to their lack of training in the subject matter.

The above concepts from the holy books may help justify abuse or prevent a victim from leaving an abusive situation.

Individuals are using institutionalized, spiritual belief systems as backup for their harming others. In our American society, religion is often cited by the unreligious as a concept to keep the people from doing horrible actions to others. Religion serves as deterrent besides for the concept of jail. Legal issues ensue when an individual is caught doing something illegal.

However, religious issues of guilt and punishment are plausibly always happening, as a deity sees all and knows all. In the next life, heaven, etc, an individual will pay for their sins as decided by the greater power. All of these ideas are positive in nature, since they are designed to prevent a person from sinning/ harming someone else.

Religion is rarely applied in the opposite direction: how a religious belief may justify abuse.

Perhaps Jesus should have written an 11th Commandment: “Don’t hurt others.” Oh, wait, that would be “love thy neighbor as thyself”!

The term “stay at home Dad” still has some stigma around it. I bet your ears perked up. It’s still uncommon with only four percent of stay at home parents being men. Now, that’s an official number but actual stay at home dad’s say that number is much higher.

Stay at home dad’s talk a lot about how they seem to be a novelty. People in grocery stores stop and stare at a man with a baby strapped to him grocery shopping during the day. Thinking it’s probably his day off—not his daily routine.  People smile and point at the dad at the park but pay no mind to the mom’s around him. That’s the mom’s role, right?

The story of one stay at home dad in particular is all too common. They didn’t start out this way—dad lost his job and to save money on childcare he stayed home. That’s when they noticed that their son was less tense, happier, listened better, less fighting and yelling in the home—clearly this was a winning formula. This particular stay at home dad also said he was stopped one day while walking with his boys. A car pulled up and rolled down it’s window to reveal a college kid. He smiled and said, “You know, I wish my dad played with me as much as you play with your kids.”

Dad’s always seem to be this untouchable, authoritative figure.  “Wait till your father hears about this!” That phrase strikes fear in the hearts of millions. Dad is the disciplinary—the worker, the guy that gets the big piece of chicken—he doesn’t make the chicken…until now

Kids benefit from having a parent home. This we know. I wonder if it makes a difference that the one that’s home is the one that is the rough and tumble one? They think, you can always pull one over on mom—just bat your eyes at her and she’ll swoon on your charms. I remember my nephew throwing a fit over some snack he wanted that my mother had refused him. You would’ve thought that this kid was being tortured at Gitmo the way he screamed.  She gave in and as he walked past me he very calmly stated “works every time”.

My nephew doesn’t pull that stunt with me—mainly because I’m one of the father figures in his world.  He grew up with my parents and me. My dad and I are the only masculine figures my nephew knows. Whenever he draws his family I am the only girl in pants and I always stand with my dad while his mother and my mother are in pinks and oranges in pretty dresses to the left. My dad and I are in blues and greens to the right. That’s fine, I’m more of a guy’s girl anyway—but it got me thinking—how different my nephew would behave if I was his stay at home parent.

The four percent figure I stated earlier is double what it was a decade ago. This trend is growing and all I can say is: “GROW BABY GROW!” We need more dad’s at home. We need more families to see that it doesn’t matter who “brings home the bacon”. People are people and families are families no matter the dynamic.

The story begins with a historical perspective on how female African American slaves were treated in America’s past. The basic gist is that these women were slaves first, and then women/ mothers/ wives second. All slaves worked, regardless of their gender.

What could bring them back to their gender in a slave owner’s eyes would be the owner’s sexual onslaught onto the woman. This rape was yet another despicable form of control. Pregnant slaves, as well as those who had recently given birth, were to constantly work in the fields at the same level as any man.

While a slave woman was valued as a reproductive machine, that capability still did not give her preferential treatment. The black female slave was at the very bottom of society. Even her gender was another way to lower her already abysmal place in life.

Even today, being black or being a woman makes a person less likely to succeed. The preferential odds are against individuals who are not white or male.

There is now a classic psychological experiment: who is most employable? When a job is posted and many people apply, white men are the most likely to be hired, then Asian men, then Hispanic men, and then black men.  A white woman is on the same ranking employability level as a Hispanic or black man. Lastly comes the black woman, below all the rest. Having a vagina has always been a handicap.

This is no surprise, considering that black men gained the right to vote with the 15^th Amendment- while women of every race waited until the 19^th Amendment.

Truly, historically women in America were generally considered lesser beings from every angle. We are still today assessing the female’s place in our society. Hopefully, there will eventually be some consensus on a woman being equal in rights to a man. Or those who aren’t of Caucasian, European descent being employable. Or gay people being equal to straight people. Or not having to use any label to determine your life’s course.

If the American dream is to use hard work and determination in order to climb and succeed, then the dream would be much more plausible without weighted labels. As Gaga says, we were born this way, so make like musical Glee and reach for the stars.

Or something less cheesy sounding.

I feel as if all of my posts have supremely obvious titles. Don’t Hit Women. Abercrombie Sucks. PornPornPorn. Sometimes, the world needs to be the point blank, black and white, throw it in your face kind of obvious.

Thursday, May 9th hosted the newest Grey’s Anatomy episode. Tonight will be the season finale. Last Thursday’s episode Readiness is All was emotional, dramatic, and fantastic. All are to be expected from a hit tv show that has stood up over nine seasons and has always been in the top 5 dramas currently on television.

Grey’s Anatomy has touched on many heart-wrenching and controversial issues over the years. It also plays host to a myriad of brilliant and admirable female character’s, including the woman that the show is named for, Dr. Meredith Grey. These women save lives and kick ass. They have fantastic, formidable careers and love passionately. They also sometimes make minor mistakes, make mistakes that can’t be condoned such as affairs, and deal with very real emotional issues.

They may be dramatic television characters that deal with horrific problems, but sometimes I wish that I was a Cardiothoracic surgeon surrounded by equally admirable, brilliant, studly men.

As the women of Grey’s would say, that sounds McDreamy. McSomething, I suppose.

Last week’s episode focused on a domestic violence situation between one doctor (Jo) and her doctor boyfriend (Jason). They had hit each other. She left the incident with facial bruising, and he left with brain trauma that nearly killed him. When he awoke, another doctor (Alex) blackmails Jason into not pressing charges. Alex tells Jason that is never acceptable to hit a girl. Jason protests, saying that Jo hit him as well. Alex responds with “don’t hit a girl; take it or walk away.”

I don’t agree. This type of situation isn’t to be excused. Take it? He should just take the violence? No, he should have walked away. I don’t think we should just excuse domestic violence when it is at the hands of a woman. Neither of them should be acting upon violent thoughts.

Instead of saying “don’t hit a girl,” we should be saying “don’t hit.” If we want equal treatment, we need to give it back to the men as well. I know that this common phrase, “don’t hit a woman,” is part gentlemanly ideals, part encouraging self restraint in men. This implys that men have lessened control over their violent thoughts; that they should restrain their self when these thoughts are towards women, but perhaps it is more ok for a man to hit a man. Men being manly, right? No. Just stop.

Men, don’t hit men. Women, don’t hit men. Men, don’t hit women. Women, don’t hit women! Don’t hurt each other! Walk away!

Don’t take it, and don’t give it back unless you really do have to defend yourself. If you really think that you will get hurt if you don’t fight back, and there is no way to leave the situation, then by any means possible, defend yourself. Defend yourself until you are able to leave the situation.

I worked at a suicide hotline for a notable duration, and I was amazed by what terrible situations people’s lives truly could be in. These calls were not from third world nations or slums, but from my backyard.

People face violence everywhere. Violence happens in every pay scale. Don’t be a part of it. Stand up for yourself without breaking someone’s face.

America is not so forward thinking as we would hope. Sure, occasionally gay people gain a few rights, and now we can reference those times we elected a half black President. This does not mean that America is any where near reaching the equality mark for any area of discrimination.

People don’t want to hear that we live in a discriminatory patriarchal world anymore, but the numbers don’t lie. Paternal leave is rarely offered in America. Women are in fact still penalized for maternity leave- after her fourth maternity leave, the CEO of Crest White Strips was asked to step down. Instead, she took her case to court.

In Sweden, the men are very much pushed into accepting their equal rights to a leave from work after a child is born. In 1995, Sweden introduced “daddy leave”. It had an immediate impact. No father was forced to stay home, but the family lost one month of subsidies if he did not. Soon more than 80% of men accepted paternal leave. Obviously, men could not as readily validate staying at work whilst losing money.

Money is a great motivator, but pride works even better. The pride that keeps these men at work when they have the paid option at to be at home with their lovely offspring is the same pride that makes them now accept parental leaves. Since the better option has now been normalized, men are capable of accepting their newfound equality.

This is not merely a fight for equal rights for women in the workplace, but also for equal rights for men in the home. The right to stay home with your child is not one afforded to most American men, and we are supposedly a superpower country.

Gender roles are so deeply, socially ingrained from birth that it seems we can do nothing to fight Sweden’s fight. Luckily, other countries are following suit: Germany, Portugal, and Iceland.

I take at this legislation as something that America is not good at: preventative measures. While this law has helped lower the divorce rate, raise women’s pay by seven percent, fight gender inequality, and probably more often raises strongly attached children, America can’t be interested in it because it is not a quick fix.

This isn’t just about parental leave, but gender equality in general. Only twelve of the five hundred CEOS of Fortune 500 companies are women. I know that national pride is important, but it is hard to be proud of my supposed super power homeland when they are not capable of doing so many things that a tiny, peaceful country of Sweden can do.

When Disney released “Brave” in 2012 I was so excited. First: she’s a red head, second: she’s sassy, third: she’s Scottish, fourth: she doesn’t need a man, fifth: she’s beautiful without being package. She didn’t look like the normal Disney princess.

HuffPost blogger Kristen Howerton put it best when she wrote, “‘Brave’ may be considered by many to be the first feminist princess movie. Merida does not pine for a prince to come to her rescue, and solves her own problems without the aid of a suitor.”

She was a healthy role model for girls. Her hair was frizzy, her body was more athletic than Barbie’s 34-18-32, she was tough and smart—she was perfect. When Disney announced they were formally making her the 11^th princesses feminists of the world rejoiced!

But with her new role came a new look—her hair is smoother and the curls are more defined, she’s thinner with a more defined waist and hips, her eyes are more almond and cat like, her lips are fuller and she no longer has  that open smile it’s now merely a smirk.

In short they ruined her. They turned her into every other Disney princess. Her looks are more important than her mind or personality.  A Mighty Girl, a female empowerment website, has taken to Change.org to try and convince Disney to leave Merida alone.

The letter on Change.org reads, in part:

The redesign of Merida in advance of her official induction to the Disney Princess collection does a tremendous disservice to the millions of children for whom Merida is an empowering role model who speaks to girls’ capacity to be change agents in the world rather than just trophies to be admired. Moreover, by making her skinnier, sexier and more mature in appearance, you are sending a message to girls that the original, realistic, teenage-appearing version of Merida is inferior; that for girls and women to have value — to be recognized as true princesses — they must conform to a narrow definition of beauty.

The author of Cinderalla Ate My Daughter, Peggy Orenstein, wrote on her personal blog about Merida’s makeover: “In the end, it wasn’t about being brave after all. It was about being pretty.” I couldn’t agree more, I also think Sarah Gray of The Frisky also hit the nail on the head when she said: “If anything Disney should be looking to Merida’s example, and mold the other Princesses in her image: confident, strong and Brave.”