In the Name of Women

Bitch . Slut. Whore. Nag. Cunt.

These are the words carelessly aimed at a woman. Although many have disagreed with me on this point, I emphatically believe them to be gender specific.; Therefore, the obvious sign of a male-chauvinist, to say the least. I have become so used to this particular brand of abuse that I am seldom surprised or unprepared for this attack. That said the lack of response from anyone hearing it is forever appalling. Where are those men that understand a woman is to be respected? Where are their voices amongst the throng of men that know not what they do when throwing these grenades.

Let us examine the argument that these words can be directed at men as well. These are the terms that are meant to effeminate a man. It is the way to tell a man he is like a woman and less manly. Need I say more?

Everyone has a woman in their life. We are the mothers that birthed you. We are the sisters that looked up to you. We are the daughters seeking your guidance. No life is untouched by one. When this act is perpetuated…when this slang is slung, the offender disgraces every woman they know or will ever. As well, they have lowered the standards as to what is and is not acceptable. Furthering this act to go unnoticed, making everyone just a little less sensitive to this travesty.

Trust me these words sting but when these bullets come from those of another women…words fail me. I believe this ever-growing phenomenon began with the feminist movement of the 60s. I am by no means saying that that wasn’t an important step in the evolution of females. What I am saying is that too many women overcompensated and forgot what it was to be a woman in their goal to show men they could be, like them. In my humble opinion, the mistake was made that we believed the bullshit men spewed of our natures being negative: “women are weak, soft, emotional and irrational” In order to combat this we became men! They left their feminity aside in order to fight back. Now here we are today trying so hard to be equal to men, STILL, by disavowing our own gender. Besides all signs of softness lacking in themselves, the basic bond…pride of sisterhood is fading fast, if not gone.

The problem is I don’t know the solution. How can I, and those of my ilk, convince others that it is okay to be a woman. How can I assure a man that we pose no threat merely because we are different?  

Facebook Fail?

I only have _____ friends. I waited almost a whole month expecting for the Facebook Gods to smile upon me with random friends from days of yore—FAIL. I changed my status update fairly often as per the FB (aren’t I cool for knowing that acronym?) protocol with no, to very few comments—FAIL. Then it happened…the inevitable that had delayed me joining FB to begin with; my privacy was breached! The calm before the storm arrived in an email. It so innocently read, “You have been tagged”. I can’t express to you how my heart raced. I began scouring all my friends photos, hunting for this culprit. My results were more than I could bear. I found not only one person invading my protocol but two. 

My next plan of action was to completely privatize my profile. It turns out the only option is to control YOUR pictures on YOUR page, not others. Of course these “friends” received a message from me. It was very difficult to control my “DUH” response when advising them that my permission should be sought before pictures of ME were to be publicized.  I have yet to get a response from them.

Facebook opened: November 28, 2010

Facebook Closed:  December 15, 2010

PS, to throw salt on my already damaged soul, turns out you can’t actually delete FB, merely deactivate it. Evil, evil, evil incarnate…I’m just sayin’

The Recipe

Armastama- Estonian
AMOR - Spanish
AMOUR- French
LIEBE- German
LIEFDE-Dutch

Duram - Farsi

sarane ( korean )

cinta in Indonesian

Love. "Love makes the world go round" "All you need is love" "What the world needs now is love, sweet love"

These things exemplify love to some social plateau we should all aim for.  They spoon feed the stories of that elusive true love or finding “the one”.  What happens when you find that person that made your heart go pitter patter though? What then? When the music stops playing every time they enter the room, who prepares you for that reality?

It wasn’t until I was well into my twenties that I stopped believing in fairy tales.  That wasn’t the devastating part; it was when I was still chasing the rainbows that my heart hurt. I used to wait for my white knight to ride up on his stead and rescue me from a life of mere mediocrity. I looked for him everywhere too. Whenever my heart began beating out of its chest at the sight of some male looking at me just so, I thought,”Yep, he’s the one”.  If I craved a mans’ company I thought, “He is the one I am meant to spend forever with”.  You can well imagine none of those men made that journey. Inevitably, the looks he gave me began to wander to other women or become dulled by routine.  The craving was replaced by a feeling of suffocation. The shiny knight turned out to be another boy far away from knighthood, much less manhood and his stead was his mother's Buick he borrowed. PS, if you haven’t already put two and two together, these white knights were really just bad boys with smooth lines and shiny mirrors.

Now you may sense that I am bitter but it’s not quite.If you'd like to know why that isn't the case, read on. It was a shattering of childhood fantasies, sure, and that would be earth shaking had it not been replaced by something to grow on. I realized that that draw towards “those” men were my need for punishment that dwells within us all. Subconsciously, it is the level at which we think we deserve to be treated. Drama…that is what I craved to somehow make my life seem more exciting. Whether bad or worse that abuse fulfilled a need in me.

Maybe you’d like to know what that thing was that I learned (besides the fact that those boys were no happily ever after). It can all be found in this one statement: Love is NOT enough! I had believed that love was this rare happening that must be first snatched up upon feeling. Guess what…FAIL. Love is not the basis of a good relationship. Yes, I said it, let me repeat, Love is not the basis of a good relationship. Love is easy. Loving someone is a happy accumulation of moments. Love is a flighty fancy that comes and goes in moods. That said, love is important of course but it is not the foundation on which you should build your home. There are several components that should be contained in that concrete base in which you build your love upon. Trust, honesty, as in self-honesty to start with, a firm sense of companionship with plenty of things in common to build upon are just a few of the necessities of a balanced relationship. There must be similar morals/values, goals and ambitions. Here comes a doozy: there needs to be a deficit that the other person exceeds at. A tug of sorts will keep the interest in the maintenance involved. Bottom line once you find all these components it still isn’t smooth sailing…its work! Plain and simple you must remind yourself every freaking day that this is the person that you wish to build your life with no matter what changes or situations occur.