Inequality--Blog Action Day 2014

http://www.blogactionday.org

From time to time I go off the rails. I mean, I get serious and stop posting fun snippets from my books or talking about attending sci-fi cons and actually write an opinion piece. This is one of those times. You can leave now if you wish. You've been warned.



 

If you're still reading, welcome to Blog Action Day 2014. This year's topic is inequality. Bloggers around the world are posting pieces about inequality today. The above Facebook meme really speaks to me about inequality because it directly affects me as a woman. Just because I was born with two X chromosomes this somehow it means I need my life choices regulated by a bunch of old farts in the statehouse or Washington, D.C. That thought really raises my blood pressure.

What is it with these men (mostly men--I realize there are some "good ol' gals" among these politicians who toe the party line) that they feel women are incapable of making decisions about their own bodies? Are we an inferior species? If that's the case, then why did the Creator give us the ability to bear children and nurse them? Seems to me women are far from inferior creatures! It could even be argued women are both physically and psychologically superior to men since God thinks we're the gender with the best attributes to carry and nurture babies. But apparently women are mentally and morally deficient--and the government has to step in and tell us how to think and act for our own good.

Could these myriad of U.S. regulations aimed at controling women's bodies be an attempt to keep us in our place? Think about it. If women are free to do as they like, we might do things that men (especially old farts) don't like. We might decide that they don't want to stay at home in the kitchen all day long, barefoot and pregnant. Women might use their minds to study and hone their skills and have--gasp!--actual careers! Women might even aspire to position of powers over men... The horror!

Insecure males can't have females competing against them for jobs and positions. It's just not done! Here's a telling quote from an article about a recent remark made by Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella saying that it’s “good karma” for women not to ask for a pay raise, but to “trust the system” to eventually reward them: 

Nadella’s words have struck a sensitive chord with the public, as the discrepancy in salaries women and men get is notable. US women received 78 percent of what equally qualified men received in 2013, according to research by the American Association of University Women, cited by Reuters.(Full article at http://rt.com/news/194740-karma-women-microsoft-criticism/   Another good article about women and how they are perceived in the workplace: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/opinion/sunday/learning-to-love-criticism.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1 )

Women throughout history have been forced into second class citizen roles to keep us in our place. Less pay, less chance for advancement, less reward for our hard work... What better way to shut women up permanently and keep us at odds with each other than to attack us at our most vulnerable spot--the very control of our bodies?

We've all heard the old adages "good girls don't" but that "boys will be boys." By legislating a double standard we impose a twenty-first century equivalent of slavery on the female gender. If forcing women into sexual and economic slavery doesn't count as inequality, what does?

We're unequal before the law. A woman can't even make an intimate decision about her reproductive health with her doctor without some buttinski politician forcing his opinion into the mix. The decisions women are forced to make are sometimes terrible, agreed, but I do believe no woman takes these types of decisions lightly or believes she has a better option at the time. Let's trust that women who need to make these decisions aren't moral or mental defectives. Let's trust them to make their own decisions about their bodies and health. Let's leave them in peace and give them the privacy to do so.

By making access to birth control more difficult through legislation which actively prevents medical coverage for it, the double standard shines brighter than ever. Viagra is covered under many health insurance plans, but the Pill isn't? Why would any sane person in the year 2014 think that making birth control methods harder to obtain is going to stop women from have sex? After all, a male can forcefully use a female's body for his own sick pleasure, but she is stuck with the damning labels of "adulteress" and "murderer" if she chooses to terminate the pregnancy his vile actions caused? Why are the victim's rights and mental/emotional/physical health not as important as her rapist's?

I think Jesus said it best: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Inequality is sin. Women are God's creation, too. God made us capable of making our own decisions. Old farts--leave our bodies and our decisions alone!

Look for these hashtags to find more Blog Action Day posts on the topic of inequality: #BAD2014, #Inequality, #BlogAction, #OCT16, and #BlogAction14

When I Grow Up...

Editor's Note: This blast from the past somehow seems appropriate as we start a new year, and I start a new life as a single person.

"When I grow up, I want to be a lawyer, a veterinarian, a singer and a mommy," my seven year old proudly announced one morning at breakfast.

"A lawyer?" I said, puzzled at such an out-of-the-blue notion at seven-thirty in the morning. I am one of those few parents who actually discourages their children from becoming a part of that jaded profession. "That's a new one, Baby. But won't it clash with your future "Spice Girl" image? And what about vet school? It takes a few years to be an animal doctor. I'm not sure you'd want to go to law school on top of that."

"Yeah, but lawyers make lots of money. I'll need lots of money to be all the things I want to be when I grow up," she replied with a big smile.

Good point. Who says a seven year old's logic isn't as persuasive as an adult's? But a lawyer for pity sakes? How did she ever come up with that idea? The nightly news? Nah, it couldn't be . . . She only watches PBS, Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel--is it their fault?

My almost twelve year old has never given me this kind of worry before. From age four on she has said she wanted to grow up to be pretty much the same thing: "A dinosaur person". At first, I thought she meant she wanted to dress up like a dinosaur--as this was around the time Barney premiered on TV--but she made it clear from early on that wasn't the case.

"I want to dig up dinosaur bones and look at them, Mom," she informed me at age five, using perfect pronunciation and complete sentences as was her wont. "I can work in a big museum."

"Oh, I see," I replied, trying desperately to remember what you called a person who dug up dinosaur bones for study. "You want to be a scientist. That's great. When I was a little, girls weren't encouraged to pursue an interest in the sciences. I'm proud of you."

"Paleontologist" was the word for dinosaur person we soon discovered. Amanda isn't much of a speller, but there's one word she can spell: paleontology. Her bookshelves are lined with books on the science of digging up bones and putting them back together--simple picture books from Pre-K on up to fully illustrated reference manuals filled with lots of funny Latin terms. Recently, she has expressed an interest in astronomy as well. Her math and science grades reflect her enthusiasm on those topics.

"My daughter the scientist." Doesn't that have a nice ring to it?

But my daughter the lawyer? I don't know. Aimee is a compassionate child--very sensitive to the feelings and needs of others. While her sister talks about spending most of her young adult life in school receiving advanced degrees without the distraction of a boyfriend or spouse, Aimee has always advocated the philosophy of being a "homebody". She even has names picked out for my grandbabies already. (And yes, she has said she would be married first before having children--whew! That's a relief.)

Aimee genuinely loves animals and enjoys taking care of them, too. While I would love to say, "Let me introduce you to my daughter the DVM," I guess I would be supportive of her career path no matter which one she winds up taking. There's no rush about choosing college programs yet, however. She's only seven years old.

What did you want to be when you were seven--a firefighter, a race car driver, a police officer, a doctor, a nurse? How many people can honestly say they became the professional star athlete they wanted to become in grade school? And if we all became the fire fighters or doctors we hoped to be, there wouldn't be enough fire stations to house us all and all disease would have been wiped off the face of the planet by now. Seven year olds are entitled to change their minds.

A deja vu experience happened to me this past week. It got me thinking along these lines of, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I was being interviewed over the phone for an article on being a cyber columnist by an AP wire service reporter from Dallas, and I was asked what I considered myself to be--a "stay at home mom" or a "writer". This is a stumper of a question to me. However, as anyone who's ever met me will attest, I would rather die before letting on that I am at a lost for words. So, I babbled on as usual and told her that I considered myself a mom who stays at home who happens to be a freelance writer as well.

It was an odd feeling admitting to a total stranger why I considered myself to be anything other than the mother of two girls and just me essentially. When I was seven, I'm sure the only thing I wanted to be when I grew up was a mother like my mother. Sure, even back then there were some inklings that I might become a writer. When I was about five years old, my mother took dictation from me on a self-illustrated story about talking vegetables and salt and pepper shakers which came to life every night and partied on the dining room table after the family went to sleep. In seventh grade, much to my surprise, I won a statewide poetry contest. And, miracle of all miracles, I took an advance placement test in the twelfth grade and was given eight hours of English credit, essentially exempting myself from taking any further composition courses in college. ("You can write a complete sentence, stick it in a paragraph and string several paragraphs together in a coherent fashion," I was told bluntly. It seems this was a rare ability for graduating seniors of my generation.)

Still, I had only vague notions of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I knew I didn't want to go into any field dealing with mathematics or blood and guts. (The irony is, of course, returning to college in recent years, I was obligated to take both Statistics and Anatomy and Physiology to obtain my psychology degree. Never say never.) When forced to pick a college major at age eighteen, I chose a field void of numbers or specimens--film studies. Two years later, I happily received my "Mrs." degree and dropped out of school. A lot of people were disappointed, but I always felt creative people needed to "live" life--not just sit in classrooms discussing how Fellini's films demonstrated Italian society's need to re-establish a unique identity in the post-war world. (Which they did.)

While it appears that my daughters possess firm goals of what they want to be when they grow up, I openly admit that I haven't. I'll let you know what I decide to be in a few years. I may be all "grown up" by then, but--knowing me--I wouldn't count on it.

Copyright © 1998 by Cindy Appel, all rights reserved.