Nancy Botwin: The Future of Feminism?

I've recently been watching the show "Weeds" and I find solace in the leading lady: Nancy Botwin. (played by the actress Mary Louise Parker)

This character is not admirable, but Nancy is nothing less than a woman. Her mother skills are unbearable to watch: she did not even know her youngest son had turtles as pets for a year and her oldest son was stealing signs and cameras right in front of her. Sometimes I wonder if she even loves her sons, as she is always leaving them out to dry and flounder around like a fish out of water.

The lovers she chooses are scary. And unpredictable. Nancy married the DEA agent to protect her family. She chooses guys that are not good role models to her young sons and rather than choose the guy she actually has chemistry with: Nancy chooses the boring ones, the perverted ones and the drug lords.

But besides all her flaws as a mother and as a lover, Nancy holds her ground. She learns how to deal with the baddest of gangsters and the Mexican mafia. A housewife turned drug dealer, the viewers wonder what her lifestyle was before her husband past away. She seems too good at being bad ass and not letting people push her around too much. Nancy is constantly learning to how to be more successful and make more money. She can wrap her opponents around her finger and get them to do anything for her.

Womanhood is not about being the perfect mother or wife. It's about making things work for you. Although Nancy Botwin is selfish, she the kind of woman I want to be. A strong one.

Let's Talk

There are just some things we don't talk about.

I am crude. I like to make people uncomfortable. I search for those awkward, disgusting things and talk about them over the dinner table.

The sad thing is: this things sometimes are not so disgusting. They are just made that way.

For example, I talk about sex. A lot. Sex should be a natural part of people's lives. Don't hush me for talking about how I enjoy it. If you do, I will promise I will get louder.

Now auditions for the Vagina Monologues are coming up on my campus. It's my last year here. I am going to it. I am going to try out to perform, on stage, and talk about one of my favorite things....

Let's sit down and talk. Let's make a deal to not silence each other's stories, no matter how gross they may seem. Let's talk about sex, and what's healthy. Let's talk about our experiences, our life, our struggles. Let's gush over who we are dating, and complain about not having a love life. Let's stop making topics untouchable, unspeakable, unfamiliar.

And let's stop over joking over things that need to be taking seriously and start talking about those experiences:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/over-it_b_1089013.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

like OMG you DO have a PENIS

Men, Let's talk.

This is a note to the men who think that they have to remind everyone that they are a man.You all know that kind of guy. The guy that needs to point out that what he is doing is 'what men do.' "I don't care about your feelings because I am a man!!!" Yeah, right. Some of these men walk like this:

Okay, lets get real. You're kind of gross. Not wearing pink because it is a girl color is not showing your masculinity; it's showing your immaturity.

I was making out with a guy once, and if you know who I am, I'm kind of silly. So I licked his nipples. It's not like I licked his ass or anything. But he got sooo offended and told me he wasn't a girl and to never lick his nipples again. Now, I am a Women's Studies major and if you tell me to not do something because you aren't a certain gender...I'm gonna get a little peeved.

Men are not born to be strong, to not like their nipples licked, and to not wear pink. They are socialized that way.

And this goes both ways, I mean girls can do anything guys can and vice versa. I'm just so sick of guys being told to do stuff because it makes them more manly. "You're a man if you pick up the check." "You're a man if you send her flowers." "You're a man if..."

Let's do what we want to do, okay? Be human, not a man. The only thing that makes you a man is what's in your pants, not what you do!

Oh by the way, here's to the men and women that made it possible for me to blog about penises and cool feminism! Happy Veteran's Day!

Does LIFE get better?

For real. I mean, come on if it is not your best friend leaving you because he thinks you are too depressed to hang out, it's everyone is making fun of you because you are blonde and blue eyed and fat and with that, a big fricking lesbian. (Both true stories).

The 'It Gets Better Project' is not denying that life has it's shitty moments, nor is it saying that you should ignore the feelings you are having about your life.

It's trying to say to young people everywhere that they are not alone in the struggle to be themselves, that it happens to everyone. Even someone who seems to have it all together and maybe they do. It doesn't mean that they don't have bad feelings, or feel lost, or haven't ever felt like you did.

It's saying that you are going to get through it, and although the situations may change, if you do not have hope, or positivism in your life, your life is not going to look any better through your eyes.

So let's not lie to the public. Shit happens. We can get through it together. Smile, ask for help. laugh at anything you can laugh at, and cry if you need to. Then do it the next day. But if we do not laugh through our pain, how do we expect to enjoy life...

In Hopes that someone that needs this will read this

For one of my jobs at my university, I am planning with the Pride Community an "It Gets Better" video for our school. I am uberly excited for this experience as I know it will be a great one and get many people involved. But I also have a personal experience with this kind of tragedy.

This tragedy is one that affect GLBT youth at a much larger rate. It is suicide. Dan Savage created the "It Gets Better" project after a series of suicides of GLBT youth that thought after the harassment they received in schools that they did not have a life worth living.

Depression is something you do not understand until you have it. Until you go through it on a deep level. It's something you can not smile through. It is something that plagues you, haunts you on a daily, hourly, minutely basis. It's something I have struggled with ever since I can remember.

I never knew I would be this successful in college. I always thought I would have to become someone else. Someone popular or pretty or better. Someone with better self-esteem or a boyfriend or a girlfriend or someone that has lettered in every single thing they have tried (Which coincidentally is everything. You know the person I am talking about, every school has one of those people. ) I thought I had to become someone else in order to be happy.

I was harassed for my sexuality when I was younger. And it is something I tear up to this day about. It is something that I will never get over. And it is something I wish someone had stopped earlier. I wish the teacher that witnessed it, everyday, would have said something. I wish that more of my classmates asked me if I was okay with them calling me a "bra stuffing lesbian". More often, I wish that adults didn't tell me "they are just teasing you because they are jealous."

No, they weren't teasing me because they were jealous. They were teasing me, because they saw someone who was alone. Who was vulnerable. My personality, my looks, my breast size had nothing to do with why they teased me. They teased me because they thought it was fun and it was easy. Yes, there is probably more to why they teased me. But they chose to tease me because I was vulnerable, alone and no one stood up for me, including myself.

I don't ever remember asking them to stop. I don't ever remember myself telling the teacher to ask them to stop. This is something that I need to stress to the people who are feeling harassed, teased, bullied whatever. It is a horrible experience to go through. But you need to stand up to these people and tell them to stop. You need to be a self-advocate. Your best advocate is YOU. (side note: This shouldn't be so, others should stand up for you too. But people won't, they are scared, find courage and stand up for yourself. And others will stand behind you. I promise.)

My life didn't start getting better, once I got a boyfriend. It didn't start getting better once I lettered in everything I did. It didn't get better once I got friends. It didn't get better when I lost weight, when I got the job I wanted...It got better when I started taking care of myself and respecting myself enough for others to respect me.

It is gonna get better. A whole hell of a lot better. But be yourself and do what you want to do, and if that doesn't make you happy, do something else that does. This is your life. And it is not gonna get any better until you are happy with yourself, not your surroundings.

So please, figure out what makes you happy and try not to care what other people around you thinks or says. Because the only persons opinion that really matters is yours. Your opinion of yourself matters, and if you respect yourself and love yourself, the people around you that you want to hang out with will see that and respect you too.

It's not easy. It is going to be very hard. I'm not saying that you're not gonna struggle for a few weeks, months, or years. But don't worry, it's worth it.

Questioning the point of it all.

Yesterday I was trying to relax after a stressful day by watching one of my favorite shows on Netflix. I had a pretty off day and I was really tightly wound up so I thought a 45 minute Psych episode would do me some good.

There was a point in the show where there were talking to a witness (it's a detective show) and they thought that the person was lying. They confronted her and got her to talk about the real story.

Gus: How did you guys know she was lying?

Shaun: Psychic...

Retired Male Detective: She's a Woman!

And I laughed at this. Me, a women's studies major, me, a woman that is always preaching how woman should be accepted as intellectual human beings. I gasped at the sexism and then I gasped again at my laughter. After I got through the initial shock, I felt sooo bad so I updated my status.

Then I closed that window and went about my business for the rest of the night. When I finally went about my business of checking my Facebook today, I found the comments on this status was very, well, mindshattering. Take a look.

Now usually I expect jokes about, "getting back to the kitchen" and "woman, stop bitching and make me a sandwich" but violence! I believe in free speech, which is why I did not delete their comments off my facebook page. They can leave it up there if they wish, but I did respond to them to tell them that it unacceptable. I'm surprised that someone didn't call them out on it earlier. In fact, I'm disappointed at my friends who saw these comments and didn't say a thing.

Violence is a serious issue. Violence against women is not acceptable to me. To make a joke about it is saying that you do not take that issue seriously, that it is justified. If you laughed at those jokes above (The first two) you should realign your morals and say that "you support men who beat their wives/partners". You are justifying that sick act of violence against another human being.

Can I seriously be living in a world where it is acceptable to make jokes about the pain of others? Can I seriously be living in a world where people think it is acceptable to beat their wives for "not listening"?

This is the world I live in and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of trying to make change when no one, no one listens. I'm tired... and I'm slowly burning out. Where can I find the motivation I had a year ago? six months ago? This comments used to make me want to do something and now they make me want to quit.

Maybe it's time to accept the world has too many problems that I will never be able to begin to solve. Should I give in to society because that is what everyone else seems to be doing? Should I stop getting angry at the sexist, racist remarks I see because that is what everyone else is doing?

I know I won't give up. But I have to admit, it would be easier to give up right now. I would live a different (easier) life if I gave in. But I would be bitter. And I would hate myself. And that's why I keep trying and I don't give up.

Let's start with the girls!

We are know girls are socialized to be more vulnerable than boys.

I as a girl was bullied for my gender, my sexuality and anything else those bullies could find. And I was called a girl for crying about it.

I was ashamed of being a girl and grew up to become ashamed of being a woman. It took many abusive relationships to realize that I didn't need to be a man and didn't need a man to be a productive member of society, to help others. It will just take some time for me to make as much difference as a male in this world. But I hope that someday this isn't so.

Today and the rest of this week Tara Sophia Mohr wants us to blog about The Girl Effect. However, I blogged about this issue in March, so please read:

http://hannahkdeefindsfeminism.blogspot.com/2011/03/starting-with-girls.html

Finally, let's help someone who has low self esteem every day, so we can have healthy productive members of society of both male and female!