[cranky] "useless dependent"

I am the useless 23 year old dependent. I cannot find a job, and I'm not looking hard enough. Sometimes when the primary breadwinner loses their job, the child steps up and becomes the primary bread winner. Why hasn't that happened?

Why can't I be more dedicated to filing out dozens of online applications, and even more walk-in local applications? Why am I so disheartened by my lack of application response that I don't want to keep filling out applications? I can count on one hand the number of times I've received a response from a potential employer letting me know they're no longer interested and have found their person. I feel like I'm screaming out into a vast wasteland, and my voice has become hoarse. No one wants me to serve their burgers or stock their shelves. No one wants me to be their administrative assistant. Despite over seven years of employee and volunteer management, no one wants me to oversee a single person or task.

Every time I think we've made up, and I just start to get comfortable again with my father, this comes up. I'm not pulling my weight, I'm only getting more depressed. I'm able to pay my car insurance and student loan payments but not my phone or my medical bills and prescriptions.

I do something wrong, and then my sister or mother does something royally mean and evil-hearted to him, and his only outlet for anger is me.

Yes, I have applied for a job today. No, only one job. I've done more job research, but that doesn't really count.

I want to wait tables for drunk sloppy gross men for $2.13 an hour; I want to mop floors and take out trash for $7.25 an hour; I want to pay all of my bills and pay rent. I don't know what to do. I just can't keep doing this.

[feminist] brief history

There are three "waves" of feminism in the United States:

1st wave: abolition movement, suffrage
1848 Seneca Falls Convention
1869 National Women's Suffrage Association (NWSA) founded
1878 "Anthony Amendment" (women's suffrage) introduced to Congress
1890 National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)-- today the League of Women Voters
1920 the 19th amendment was ratified, giving women the vote
important names: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Sarah M. and Angelina Grimke, Henry Blackwell, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman

2nd wave: 60's  and 70's (academic) push for women's studies in academia
coining of the term: "the personal is political"
1963 Equal Pay Act
1964 Title VII in the Civil Rights Act-- forbidding workplace discrimination
1967 Affirmative Action extended to women
early 1970's creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
1970 first women's studies department was founded at San Diego State University
1972 Title IX of the Education Amendments Act-- equal education, forbid gender discrimination in schools (especially in sports-- this was why I was able to participate in my high school wrestling team)

3rd wave: "contemporary" feminism
today we can define two core principles of feminism, despite the definition of feminism varying from person to person
-- concerns equality and justice for all women; seeks to eliminate systems of inequality and injustice in all aspects of women's lives
-- inclusive, affirming; celebrates women's achievements and struggles; works to provide a positive and affirming view towards women and womanhood

Feminism is personal perspective, political theory, and social movement

[cranky] roadtrippin' to sanity

Confession: at the last minute in May I found out that I wasn't graduating, by one class-- my senior research. This set off a genuine mental and emotional spiral, my father came up and packed me and my things into my car and took us home for me to lay in bed in total shock for two weeks. My therapist and I have been trying a new med, with no improvements on my ability to get out of bed before 5p, and the aching joints and muscles which made it easier to validate laying down all day despite the fact that that was the problem. Three months later, waiting for my school district arts program to get funding so I could return to work, I realized that I had no choice but to attempt a 180-- applying for a waitress job, joining a gym, contacting school, and finally just throwing my things into the car and driving up. I made the drive in record time-- afraid that if I stopped I would turn around. The registrar, provost, student support, etc were overwhelmingly supportive and kind in a way that I never saw for the last two years that I've been working with them. I'll be taking a long distance course so I don't have to be on campus. I saw my old fling for the two evenings, reminding myself what it feels like to be a very satisfied woman. Last night I drove to Louisville to stay with my best girlfriend from elementary school for a few days before I head home, and then to the DNC. Its the clearest I've thought in nearly a year, and I'm happy and satisfied. How wonderful :)

[cranky] UNITE WOMEN

 

click here to go to the Unite Women on Facebook page, find other advocates of women's rights around the country, and join the organizational page for the state you're from and/or the state you're living in to find the rally on April 28 that you can attend.

I've managed to become the state leader of one of these groups and an admin on another. I'm not sure how I did this to myself as a 21 year old college kid, but the apathy of the people the same age as me is disgusting in the face of the war on women. I'm so glad to be a part of this movement, this march for social justice, women's rights, reproductive health care, for raising awareness and giving voice to people so frequently tossed aside. No matter which of my two states I march in, I will be bringing a car full of college-age people and I will be proud of every single person standing with me that day. Clearly, obviously, there is a war on women in America. I'm not going to sit down and listen to a man tell me how my uterus works-- I'm going to stand up and make sure that everything women have fought for in the past remains solidly in place for myself, for my god children, and for all women in America.

[feminist] Miss Representation Film

I just got back from watching "Miss Representation" which was absolutely incredible. Sometimes it takes being slapped in the face before we realize what we're absorbing into our minds, both consciously and subconsciously. I've attached the Trailer.

"Miss Representation brings together some of America's most influential women in politics, news and entertainment, including Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Cho, Rosario Dawson and Gloria Steinem to give audiences an inside look at the media's message and depiction of women. The film explores women's under-representation in positions of power by challenging their limited and often disparaging portrayals in the media. Miss Representation takes the stand that the media is portraying women's primary values as their youth, beauty and sexuality - rather than their capacity as leaders."

When was the last time you watched a movie where the star was a woman?
And she wasn't hunting down a man to marry?
Or Laura Croft, taking charge of the world as a badass go-get-um woman wearing not enough clothes?
You're not sure, are you?

[cranky] why is twiggy the ultimate (midwest) american beauty?

My midwest university is obsessed with the double zero, zero, and size 2. It seems as if the only way to be attractive to men and even other women is to be skin-and-bone skinny to the point where we might be afraid you'll pass out at any moment. Entering campus freshman year as a solid size 8 (Marilyn's size, right?) I already felt out of place, and too large to fit in.

Since when did men find it so appealing to fantasize and sleep with twiggy? Why are plump breasts and real hips going out of style faster than disposable water bottles? I feel like if I were a man I would be afraid to sleep with a woman as skinny as Nicole or Kirsten, I might accidentally break them in half. But I guess if you can watch a seemingly anorexic girl in a porno, then why can't you have that in your own life, right?

And I bet that seemingly anorexic girl in the porno doesn't have just a neatly trimmed bikini, she's got it completely shaven bald. So she already looks like she has the body of a pre-pubescent middle schooler, but now she has the vagina to match. Secretly, unbeknownst to men, are they all carrying around pedophile tendencies if they're only attracted to women with bodies of ten year old girls?