Family party this afternoon, so of course I forgot to schedule this . . . what’s new?
Needs no words.
Yep, that’s me.
Want this so much. Words cannot do justice to my craving for such a superb taste treat . . .
San Fermin, Running of the Bulls in New Orleans, July 12
Enough fluff . . .
Big Things
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Bigger Things
and finally, in the “I had to read it to believe it” category:
I know that I am late to the game in discussing the following, but hey, in this case, better late than never truly cannot be understated:
People actually complained that the character of Rue in The Hunger Games trilogy was black. I have to admit that I am completely stymied by such a reaction. I just don’t get it. I mean, what gives, people? The color of a character’s skin determines your level of compassion? A character who you assumed was Caucasian actually wasn’t, and that means you have a reason to complain? Who are you? But more importantly, how do you manage to survive with such a small, small brain?
For more information, I am offering this link to a March 2012 article in The New Yorker: “White Until Proven Black: Imagining Race in Hunger Games,” as well as this link to a related blog article: “‘Why is Rue a Little Black Girl?’ – The Problem of Innocence in the Dark Fantastic.” Both articles reference these:
and these:
and then these:
All of this is about a character that author Suzanne Collins described on page 45 as follows:
“And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that’s she’s very like Prim in size and demeanor”
“#notallmen practice violence against women but #YesAllWomen live with the threat of male violence. Every. Single. Day. All over the world.” ~ Soraya Chemaly, Twitter post
Thursday afternoon. Cloudy and much cooler, 65 degrees.
I know that I’m on a bit of a tear lately, but I make no apologies.
I read a post yesterday about a young woman who was being harassed in school because of the size of her breasts. When she confronted the group of boys, she was groped. When she lashed out verbally, the boys escalated in their behavior. Ultimately, the school officials told here that “boys will be boys” and that she should just not pay attention . . . School officials took no action against the boys, told the girl she was lucky she wasn’t being suspended, and made no report. Only once the student confided in a teacher who then went to security and didn’t back down was something done.
And this really made me pause. Why should females bear the brunt of not paying attention, of ignoring unwanted advances and/or catcalls? Why is the excuse “boys will be boys” such an ingrained part of our culture? I don’t know exactly when it entered my brain that I would not rise to any catcalls, that I would simply keep walking, but at some point it did, and that is how I have always reacted. It’s a socialized female response. But you know what? It pisses me off that this has to be our response. But the truly frightening part is how ignoring such unwanted verbal attention can now morph into acts of violence. I find this horrendous.
Want to know something else I find horrendous, the incredible male backlash regarding women speaking out. Here’s an example: “@Cocaine_Suicide: I’d like to see more women walking around with cigarette burns on their faces.”
I didn’t just make that up.
This, right here, is exactly why we need to continue to have this discussion.
“Women are people and you can’t own ANY people. Also, she owes you nothing. And you are not bigger for demeaning her.” ~ Imram Siddiquee, Twitter post
The clipped image above from a Twitter feed is a prime example of everything that is wrong in this discussion. I made the mistake of tracking down this guy’s feed, mostly to try to determine if his assholiness is isolated to the #yesallwomen feed, but it’s not. His feed is just filled with deliberate baiting, like his pondering of whether or not rapeable has an e, or his discussions of all of the things he wants to do to someone’s *hole. He even jokes (using the term way too loosely) that you can send him rape stories so that he can jerk off, and declares that he’ll “rip through this like some vagina.”
Look, this guy would probably rely on that age-old fallback justification—that he’s just joking, just being irreverent, that women should loosen up and not take everything so seriously. But I would bet my house that if a woman he knew were ever raped, he would go ballistic. But that incense wouldn’t come from her pain; it would come from his sense of power being taken. What men like this don’t understand is that some subjects aren’t joke-worthy. All of his male posturing is just so much bullshit.
Consider this: When was the last time you heard of a man being told to text his friends to make sure he made it home without being raped and/or abducted? How many men do you know who carry pepper spray with them just in case some strange woman tries to drag them behind a dumpster? Do any of the men in your family walk with their keys between their fingers because they were told that keys could be used as weapons?
Will we ever reach a point at which men no longer feel that they can call out sexual advances to total strangers? Will we ever reach a point at which these men realize that unwanted catcalls are not flattering, and that ignoring them is not an excuse to escalate behavior? I doubt we’ll ever reach a point at which subhumans such as the poorexcuse guy will not find it hilarious to make fun of subjects that aren’t even remotely funny.
“Each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women.” ~Maya Angelou
I don’t know that I will see the end of this behavior any time soon, not in my lifetime, and perhaps not in my children’s lifetimes, mostly because so much of this behavior is ingrained in our society—it’s in our faces 24/7, in movies, television, magazines, advertising, billboards, songs, even on our clothing. The female body is an object, and even though that object happens to belong to a person, that person is secondary to her sex.
Her breasts are there for people to ogle. Her derriere is there for people to rub against. God forbid she might be clad in something form-fitting, something short, something tight. Doesn’t she know that by doing so, she’s putting herself out there to be objectified. You know, like a pork chop? Doesn’t she know it’s her responsibility not to cause sexual arousal in total strangers?
Think about this: Maybe she lost 50 pounds and wants to show off her new form. Maybe spaghetti straps are cooler in the summer. Maybe yoga pants are easy to throw on for errands. Just because a woman is wearing a thong, and you can see that thong line, it doesn’t mean that she wants you to comment on her underwear. It doesn’t mean that she wants you to come up and rub her butt. ‘Tis no matter. It’s her responsibility to make sure the males out there don’t get any hard ons. It certainly not the responsibility of those red-blooded males. I mean, no one ever told them that their penises weren’t the end all and be all of their identity.
Please.
We have to do better. All of us. We need to educate our children and our grandchildren, and our nieces and our nephews: it’s not okay to place another person—male or female—in a context that reduces that person to their sex.
We all have to do better.
“Dear #NotAllMen, you deserve zero praise for not being a rapist. Aim higher. The best thing you can do is listen and support #YesAllWomen” ~ Jay Wood, Twitter post
Consider this story by Soroya Chemaly, which appeared in the Huffington Post last September:
A man in a car pulled up next to a 14-year old girl on a street in Florida and offered to pay her $200 to have sex with him. Some people would say that’s a compliment. It’s part of being out in society, learning to deal with people, navigating relationships between men and women. Or, at least that what many commenters on articles I write about street harassment think. That or maybe they’re thinking, ‘She must have looked like a prostitute,’ and well, you know.
The girl said no. So what does this guy do? He reaches out, drags her, by her hair, into his car, chokes her until she blacks out, tosses her out of the car and then, not done yet, he runs her over several times . . . What was the Deadly Weapon referred to in the charge I wonder? Given our normatively male understanding interpretation of what is threatening, does a man pulling up to a girl like this and talking to her in this way constitute imminent harm?
This was an incident of street harassment taken to extremes.
You’re thinking, “He’s crazy! You can’t possibly put what he did in the same category as street harassment!” Yes, I can.
OK. No big deal I’ve been told. But, he went further, as is often the case. When she said no, he just took her. He crossed a red line that seriously needs to be moved. “Taking someone” should not be the “red line” for public incivility and safe access to public space.
When you ask why I’m angry . . .
We hear about cases like this with dulling regularity and, undoubtedly, we don’t hear about even more. Just a smattering of examples:
In San Francisco last year, a man stabbed a woman in the face and arm after she didn’t respond positively to his sexually harassing her on the street.
In Bradenton, Fla., a man shot a high school senior to death after she and her friends refused to perform oral sex at his request. I
In Chicago, a scared 15-year-old was hit by a car and died after she tried escaping from harassers on a bus.
Again, in Chicago, a man grabbed a 19-year-old walking on a public thoroughfare, pulled her onto a gangway and assaulted her.
Last week, a runner in California — a woman — was stopped and asked, by a strange man in a car, if she wanted a ride. When she declined he ran her over twice.
“#NotAllMen are violent against women, but if we are just passive bystanders then we’re still part of the problem. #YesAllWomen” ~ Kenny Miracle, Twitter post
I just started following a new tumblr called When Women Refuse, in which contributors share stories of women who have been murdered, raped, beaten, run over, and brutalized in countless other ways simply because they said no, because they said they didn’t want to get in the car, because they didn’t outwardly respond to some lewd comment, because they didn’t want to have sex, because they didn’t want to continue the relationship.
Each of these stories is mind-numbing individually, but collectively, they make a statement that is hard to turn away from: Women/girls who have the audacity to say no, are continually punished for doing so, and in many cases, their reactions/actions are dismissed by authorities.
Here are some of the stories that have been posted on When Women Refuse just in the past few days:
A New Jersey man was convicted this week of strapping his child into a car seat and throwing her into the creek to get revenge on his ex-girlfriend. He kissed the girl and told her he loved her before flinging her to her death. Unable to resist one last dig at the little girls mother and family, Morgan winked and smiled broadly in the courtroom after he found he had been convicted of murder. http://latest.com/2014/04/sicko-dad-strapped-baby-into-car-seat-threw-her-in-creek-to-get-revenge
She was leaving an abusive man, had a TRO. He found her through the babysitter and rammed her car when she tried to flee with her children. He dragged her onto the street and beat her with a rifle butt, until she was dead. A good samaritan tried to intervene, and was sent to the hospital.http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2008/Jan/23/ln/hawaii801230407.html
She tried to end their relationship, so when she came to pick up her then 12 year old daughter from the school bus stop, he came out and shot her, her 20 year old daughter, and a family friend. http://m.wsfa.com/#!/newsDetail/11502126
Federal officials say Prabhainjana Dwivedi, a Miami-Dade cop, routinely stopped women drivers for no reason so he could have “sexually suggestive conversations” — including asking to see the scars on one woman’s surgically enhanced breasts — and then let the women go without issuing any citations, reports The Miami Herald.
David A. Kappheim, 60, who is “obsessed with Fox News and the Republican party” is in the slammer after he allegedly said that he felt he was going to have to kill his girlfriend because she was a “liberal,” reports The Palm Beach Post.
Aaron Morris, of North Lauderdale, is accused of grabbing a woman’s butt while at a North Lauderdale Walmart, according to a Broward Sheriff’s Office report, reports the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Aaron, 18, allegedly told the arresting deputy that he touched the woman’s rear end because “Her booty looked so good, I just couldn’t resist touching it.”
I think I have to stop now. I have a pit in the bottom of my stomach. Look, I have no answers, only suggestions. I only know that in a world in which so very many things are wrong, in which so very many things are heinous, that indifference to the very real problem of how women are treated is preventable in so many ways. No, we cannot cure rapists, but we can work on the essence of rape culture. No, we cannot eradicate misogyny, but we can do better in educating our sons and daughters.
We have to try, don’t we?
I mean, we just have to.
More later. Peace.
Music by Arctic Monkeys, “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”
Rape Poem
There is no difference between being raped
and being pushed down a flight of cement steps
except that the wounds also bleed inside.
There is no difference between being raped
and being run over by a truck
except that afterward men ask if you enjoyed it.
There is no difference between being raped
and being bit on the ankle by a rattlesnake
except that people ask if your skirt was short
and why you were out alone anyhow.
There is no difference between being raped
and going head first through a windshield
except that afterward you are afraid
not of cars
but half the human race.
The rapist is your boyfriend’s brother.
He sits beside you in the movies eating popcorn.
Rape fattens on the fantasies of the normal male
like a maggot in garbage.
Fear of rape is a cold wind blowing
all of the time on a woman’s hunched back.
Never to stroll alone on a sand road through pine woods,
never to climb a trail across a bald
without that aluminum in the mouth
when I see a man climbing toward me.
Never to open the door to a knock
without that razor just grazing the throat.
The fear of the dark side of hedges
the back seat of the car, the empty house
rattling keys like a snake’s warning.
The fear of the smiling man
in whose pocket is a knife.
The fear of the serious man
in whose fist is locked hatred.
All it takes to cast a rapist to be able to see your body
as jackhammer, as blowtorch, as adding-machine-gun.
All it takes is hating that body
your own, your self, your muscle that softens to flab.
All it takes is to push what you hate,
what you fear onto the soft alien flesh.
To bucket out invincible as a tank
armored with treads without senses
to possess and punish in one act,
to rip up pleasure, to murder those who dare
live in the leafy flesh open to love.
Craigslist is menagerie of oddities both gorgeous and grotesque. You can find anything on there: fan fiction about your favorite band, a record store, organs, a baby, certain death, even love.
This posting appeared Tuesday in the New York City Missed Connections section, sandwiched between R Train, bet 5:30-6:00 pm – m4w (“You’re beautiful, and deserve better.”) and to L.S. – m4w – 23 (go to f*ing hell) (“you f*ing whore, u lost out on the best thing that has ever happened to you.”).
On Twitter, where the posting has been making rounds, it’s invoked comparisons to Kafka and Garcia Marquez—but so far, the author has remained anonymous.
MYSTERY SOLVED: Who Is the Author Behind the Most Beautiful Craigslist Missed Connection of All Time?
Well, that didn’t take long. An anonymous tipster pointed us to a few tweets that suggest the author is one Raphael Bob-Waksberg.
Missed Connection – m4w
I saw you on the Manhattan-bound Brooklyn Q train.I was wearing a blue-striped t-shirt and a pair of maroon pants. You were wearing a vintage red skirt and a smart white blouse. We both wore glasses. I guess we still do.You got on at DeKalb and sat across from me and we made eye contact, briefly. I fell in love with you a little bit, in that stupid way where you completely make up a fictional version of the person you’re looking at and fall in love with that person. But still I think there was something there.Several times we looked at each other and then looked away. I tried to think of something to say to you — maybe pretend I didn’t know where I was going and ask you for directions or say something nice about your boot-shaped earrings, or just say, “Hot day.” It all seemed so stupid.At one point, I caught you staring at me and you immediately averted your eyes. You pulled a book out of your bag and started reading it — a biography of Lyndon Johnson — but I noticed you never once turned a page.
My stop was Union Square, but at Union Square I decided to stay on, rationalizing that I could just as easily transfer to the 7 at 42nd Street, but then I didn’t get off at 42nd Street either. You must have missed your stop as well, because when we got all the way to the end of the line at Ditmars, we both just sat there in the car, waiting.
I cocked my head at you inquisitively. You shrugged and held up your book as if that was the reason.
Still I said nothing.
We took the train all the way back down — down through Astoria, across the East River, weaving through midtown, from Times Square to Herald Square to Union Square, under SoHo and Chinatown, up across the bridge back into Brooklyn, past Barclays and Prospect Park, past Flatbush and Midwood and Sheepshead Bay, all the way to Coney Island. And when we got to Coney Island, I knew I had to say something.
Still I said nothing.
And so we went back up.
Up and down the Q line, over and over. We caught the rush hour crowds and then saw them thin out again. We watched the sun set over Manhattan as we crossed the East River. I gave myself deadlines: I’ll talk to her before Newkirk; I’ll talk to her before Canal. Still I remained silent.
For months we sat on the train saying nothing to each other. We survived on bags of skittles sold to us by kids raising money for their basketball teams. We must have heard a million mariachi bands, had our faces nearly kicked in by a hundred thousand break dancers. I gave money to the beggars until I ran out of singles. When the train went above ground I’d get text messages and voicemails (“Where are you? What happened? Are you okay?”) until my phone ran out of battery.
I’ll talk to her before daybreak; I’ll talk to her before Tuesday. The longer I waited, the harder it got. What could I possibly say to you now, now that we’ve passed this same station for the hundredth time? Maybe if I could go back to the first time the Q switched over to the local R line for the weekend, I could have said, “Well, this is inconvenient,” but I couldn’t very well say it now, could I? I would kick myself for days after every time you sneezed — why hadn’t I said “Bless You”? That tiny gesture could have been enough to pivot us into a conversation, but here in stupid silence still we sat.
There were nights when we were the only two souls in the car, perhaps even on the whole train, and even then I felt self-conscious about bothering you. She’s reading her book, I thought, she doesn’t want to talk to me. Still, there were moments when I felt a connection. Someone would shout something crazy about Jesus and we’d immediately look at each other to register our reactions. A couple of teenagers would exit, holding hands, and we’d both think: Young Love.
For sixty years, we sat in that car, just barely pretending not to notice each other. I got to know you so well, if only peripherally. I memorized the folds of your body, the contours of your face, the patterns of your breath. I saw you cry once after you’d glanced at a neighbor’s newspaper. I wondered if you were crying about something specific, or just the general passage of time, so unnoticeable until suddenly noticeable. I wanted to comfort you, wrap my arms around you, assure you I knew everything would be fine, but it felt too familiar; I stayed glued to my seat.
One day, in the middle of the afternoon, you stood up as the train pulled into Queensboro Plaza. It was difficult for you, this simple task of standing up, you hadn’t done it in sixty years. Holding onto the rails, you managed to get yourself to the door. You hesitated briefly there, perhaps waiting for me to say something, giving me one last chance to stop you, but rather than spit out a lifetime of suppressed almost-conversations I said nothing, and I watched you slip out between the closing sliding doors.
It took me a few more stops before I realized you were really gone. I kept waiting for you to reenter the subway car, sit down next to me, rest your head on my shoulder. Nothing would be said. Nothing would need to be said.
When the train returned to Queensboro Plaza, I craned my neck as we entered the station. Perhaps you were there, on the platform, still waiting. Perhaps I would see you, smiling and bright, your long gray hair waving in the wind from the oncoming train.
But no, you were gone. And I realized most likely I would never see you again. And I thought about how amazing it is that you can know somebody for sixty years and yet still not really know that person at all.
I stayed on the train until it got to Union Square, at which point I got off and transferred to the L.
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 